BaddMinton

This morning, like many mornings, my boss sent an email announcing the presence of doughnuts in the office.  It is always hard to resist because I love doughnuts, but I also do not want to turn into a fatass, so I usually do. (resist, that is).

Well, this morning I was starving to death and had 3 or 4 doughnut holes (holes, mind you, not full-on doughnuts).  Later, a co-worker tried to pressure me into eating another doughnut, but let it be known: I refused to succumb and did not — did not eat another.

Well, it’s evening time and I started getting hungry again about an hour ago, so I went and heated up a delicious tamale.  I assumed the tamale would appease my hunger, making a day-old doughnut seem unnecessary. 

I assumed wrong.

So, a couple weeks ago I took a class at UCLA called "Web Design 101." I want to learn how to build my own kickass website with my own domain name so I can put my blog there. In class, we each created a simple site for learning purposes. Here’s mine: www.giraffeclub.netfirms.com. Pretty hi-tech, huh?  Oh, there are some surprise hidden links in there if you mouse over a couple of the cat food kernels.  Classy.

So anyway, I bought some web design software with my student discount (even though I only took one one-day class — sweet) and am sitting here trying to figure it out, and for the life of me, I cannot even remember the first thing we did to get started. I hope you like reading my blog on Friendster, because I have a feeling this is going to take a long time.

It went kind of like this:

We leave work at 3PM and get to the party at around 3:45.  Scan the room, see nothing on the horizon but potentially awkward conversations. Beeline to the open bar.

Quickly throw back a cocktail while making increasingly less and less awkward conversation with various people at the company.  The awkwardness is directly proportional to the amount of beverage left in our respective glasses.

Find a table and sit down. Finish cocktails.  Beeline to bar.  Throw back another.

Realize we haven’t eaten lunch.  Decide to get food.  Beeline to food spread.

Fill plates.  Head back toward table.  Stop midway and collectively admire our food plates.

"Wow, look how beautiful this food looks on my plate."

"Mine, too.  Look, everything’s perfectly arranged."

"I love how my asparagus falls gracefully over the squash."

"Oooh yes, that really is lovely."

"Look at how my bread is arranged in a perfect zig-zag pattern."

"Wow, that is really nice.  Look at how perfect and round this dollop of hummus is."

"Yes, it really is a perfect dollop."

…..

"What are we doing?  Are we drunk?"

"We must be. Let’s eat before we make fools of ourselves."

Later, a bunch of us took turns taking "prom pictures," and I took quite a few photos of the ladies’ room.  All in all, I’d say the party was a success.

A week or so ago, I wrote a post about my lovely beach-side lunch break.  I looked forward to many happy returns, but the joke’s on me, because now that beach is closed because of this.  Grosssss.  It’s only closed temporarily, but it will probably be a long time before I’ll feel OK about walking barefoot on the sand.

All together now:  EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!

Is it just me, or are y’all with me?  Weren’t we raised with the assumption that by the year 2000 we would all have personal robots?  The kind that walk around saying things like "I-am-a-robot," in robotic voices?  They would do our homework, clean our rooms, and go get us Cokes out of the fridge.  Right?  Well, it’s 2005 and I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell don’t have one, and I don’t know anybody who does.  I don’t have homework anymore, but I sure would appreciate my room getting cleaned or my dinner fixed.  The only robots I’ve heard about are in hospitals, doing precise surgery, and they don’t even look like people!  They just look like machines.  I mean sure, that’s great and all –  I’m all for precise surgery — but can’t they at least make the robots look like people and dress them up like little surgeons?  Where is the sense of fun in this world?  If we can’t have fun in surgery, where can we?!!!

Technology is far, far behind my expectations, and I’m pretty disappointed, I won’t pretend otherwise. 

Let me preface this by saying I am still buzzed off a very strong French martini I had at dinner. Now, on to business:

Tonight I went to the Cheescake Factory with Jeff, Eric and Mike. As we were paying our bill, we started talking about which presidents were on which bills. Mike, who is finishing his college degree after a stint in the army, recently took a Women’s Studies class and asked if we knew who the only woman on a piece of U.S. money was. Eric answered that it was Susan B. Anthony, and I said, “NO, Sacajewea, too!”

“Who’s Sacajewea?”

“She was an Indian woman!" said Jeff. "She helped Lewis & Clark!” said Eric. Not to be outdone, I piped in with my two cents (Abraham Lincoln is on the penny; there is no two-cent coin).

“She was a Saskwatch!” I exclaimed.

Confused silence.

“A Saskwatch??”

“Yeah! That’s what they called Indian women!”

“NO, a Squaw! They called them squaws.”

“Really? Well, what’s a Saskwatch?”

“BIGFOOT!”

Hello, and Happy 2006!  I wanted to write a post today that had something to do with the holidays, since we’ve just gone through T-giving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve without so much as a peep about it on this blog.

BUT, First I must regale you with the details of my fabulous lunch break today.  First, you must know that the temperature reached a sultry 84 degrees Farenheit today, after having been chilly, gray, and rainy for some time, and second, I accidentally went to the beach on my lunch break.  Accidentally because I was looking for Barnes & Noble so I could buy a couple calendars (one planning, one wall) with a gift certificate I got for Christmas.  When I clicked for directions on the B&N website, it told me to drive two minutes down Sepulveda and take a right on Rosecrans, when it should have said to take a left.  So I was driving down Rosecrans for only like one minute, and suddenly, gleaming before me, was the bluest, most beautiful Pacific Ocean ever, and I said to myself, "Self, Screw Barnes & Noble.  I’m going to the beach!"  And I did, and it was so warm and wonderful and the air was so fresh, my heart was filled with joy! I took some pictures for you on my crappy camera phone:

And UGH! I took some much better ones but now they are not on my phone.  Stupid crappy camera phone.  Anyway, I rolled up my jeans and went to get my feet wet, but the waves were huuuuuge, and came rushing up and got my jeans wet.  BUT, it felt fantastic.  Walking back up the hill to my car, I actually felt hot, which I haven’t felt in a long time because my body lacks the natural ability to heat itsef.  It felt so damn good.

On my way back to the office I stopped and got a smoothie at Robex, which until now was my un-favorite smoothie place — I was a JambaJuice snob — but I got the most delicious smoothie ever, called a "Pina Coolada."  Then I returned to work and suggested to my friend and co-worker Rebecca that we should go to Manhattan Beach every day on our lunch breaks and roller skate along the sidewalk.  She was so impressed by my suggestion that she made me this post-it badge and came and stuck it on me:

Now if that doesn’t make for a great lunch break, I don’t know what does!