One of these things does not belong here

Here you have a (slightly blurry) picture of the reception and kitchen area of my new office.

30 points for anyone who can identify the item that is out of place.

It's a short walk

On my way to work today, I saw:

A homeless man poetry-slamming the Pledge of Allegiance.

A German restaurant's "Specials" placard featuring Pig knuckles*.

The most adorable blonde family. Like from a genetics catalog, if there were such a thing for people.

Two people not talking on cell phones while walking down the street.

A pigeon free-for-all over a cranberry muffin on the sidewalk. It was the most unsettling combination of glee and viciousness I have seen anywhere other than at MBA Singles happy hours.


*I'm probably being naive here but, um, pigs have knuckles? In their hooves?

Still good for a laugh

I lost one of my closest friends this week. We spent almost every day together over the last three years and it is hard to imagine life without him. He knows everything about me, we had a really strong connection, and on more than one occasion he gave me all the energy he had until he just couldn't give any more. I will miss him.

I'm talking, of course, about my work laptop. I handed it in on Tuesday evening before leaving behind my old job, my old office, and a lifetime supply of peanut M&Ms.

So now while I wait for my new laptop I am working from the laptop that I bought in 2003. It is definitely past its prime but we are getting along nicely so far today so I'm not going to complain.

In fact, its dusty old hard drive offers a whole new world of procrastination from actual work: looking through old files to see what sorts of fun and interesting things have lain dormant here lo these past three years.

This morning I unearthed a gem. Many of you know that I performed a standup comedy routine back in business school and despite frequent requests for a revival, I've been smart enough to know when the idea of something is better than the reality. That said, I've come across my notes and can't help but post an excerpt from them here because I still think they are funny. You may not agree. I'm prepared for that.

Enjoy.

[setting: comedy club filled with MBA students drinking heavily]
So second years, we’re all looking forward to moving again, right? A new apartment, new furniture. I got a lot of my current furniture at Ikea: bad idea.
I bought a desk and I got a construction project. It even came with its own mini tool set complete with an allen wrench.
And I ordered a rug online and they delivered a sheep and a loom (and an allen wrench).
And have you ever noticed that the printed directions don’t have any words? Just pictures of the little desk assembling itself – all the pieces flying together into just the right place, each peg in the right hole. For me, it’s like doing Kamasutra. You look at the picture and say, “I see how this piece goes here, but how did that get there???
But I like what you’re doing with that allen wrench!”

The chef recommends

For a lot of reasons (none of them interesting), we seem to have gotten behind in our grocery* shopping lately. This has led to some extremely, um, entrepreneurial meals that I might someday fashion into a cautionary tale to frighten small children. For now, I give you this:

Selections from The Billy Goat Recommends, A Cookbook

Reduced-fat wheat thins with low-fat cottage cheese and Pace triple pepper salsa

Popcorn with a bowl of warm pasta sauce

Fuji apple slices with cream cheese and raw walnuts

One small container of hummus eaten with a fork

Fancy blue cheese from the farmers market spread on dried pear slices that technically belong to the guy you are sub-letting from but he probably won't notice, right?

Whipped cream stirred into coffee in place of milk

And on your last day in the office of your now-former employer, I suggest eating nothing but handful after handful of peanut M&Ms all day.


*Pronounced "gro-shree"

Hours and hours of by-yourself-enjoyment

I went to Jeffrey's Toys last week to buy Jamaica "Cranium" for her birthday and remembered something I had apparently forgotten: I love toy stores!

And I love toys. And games. Toys and games! Hooray!

So, in addition to getting Jamaica a game, I got a few other things as well...

I got a Magic Pen book - remember these?
I told Eric I got it for him and he immediately saw right through me ("This isn't for me, it's for you!" Dammit, he's right.)

I also got some pony stickers that are very serious about being pony stickers: they have each pony's name and what type of pony it is. Sort of like this but PONIES, not HORSES!And, I got some shark temporary tatoos. My friend Joanna came over for dinner last night and was a really good sport about letting me put one on her arm (the small blue one second from the top on the right) even though she was going to a serious professional conference today. And then I physically removed myself from the toy store.

(Yay toys and games!)

Idiots take flight

Eric and I flew to Portland, OR this weekend for my friend Elizabeth's wedding. We went up Saturday morning and wanted to take advantage of the time before the 3:30pm wedding to see a little bit of Portland, so we got dressed for the wedding and went out to have a wander around.

On the bridge driving across the river to get to downtown we noticed what appeared to be 80,000 people in the waterfront park. We soon learned that there was a Red Bull-sponsored event underway called Flugtag, in which teams of people with just the right mix of creativity, lack of engineering knowledge and alcohol construct "flying" machines that they - with great fanfare - run off a platform into the river.

It was all good, clean, taurine-induced fun except when Team "Pink Viking" did a gutteral ritualistic-sounding chant that made me wonder if I had just inadvertently worshipped the devil.

My main takeaway: street festivals really should be attended in formal attire.

Bluegrass Thursdays

Thursdays they have live bluegrass music at Atlas Cafe. I love bluegrass music. It makes me happy and sad at the same time.

Last night was an open jam session and at one point they had 16 people up there playing their hearts out. I'm not kidding. There were three banjoists, at least three mandolin players, two fiddlers (one of them quite wild-eyed), a slew of guitarists, a spectacular standup bass dude who kinda looked like Santa, a most unlikely character playing the spoons (seriously), a fellow on a washboard setup that included a bicycle bell and clown horn, a guy playing kazoo and even a jug player! It was some good clean fun.

This picture is of the warmup when they only had about eight people up there. It is a terrible picture - probably only worth about 350 words - but it's all I've got to share. Next time video, I promise!