Kooky Kathy gets a kooky friend

Happy Holidays from Wisconsin!

Snowflakes are falling and blissful holiday cheer is all around. I have only been back in the office for one day, and somewhere between last night’s trip to the gym and my morning cup of coffee, I have somehow developed a blaringly obvious twitch in my right eye.

3 out of the 3 people I have talked to about my new ocular dilemma have attributed the twitch to stress; and, having spent the past 5 days with my family, I am apt to agree with this diagnosis.

Despite this new ailment, the holidays are winding down, and I feel it is important to get back to my routine. Trust me though, after eating little besides the readily available chocolate desserts my grandma made, sitting in front of the TV for hours on end, and participating in around-the-clock light saber/Nerf gun duels with my brothers (don’t ask), the last thing I wanted to do last night was work out. However, with swimsuit season in mind, I dragged myself there anyway, all the while hoping I could work off the holiday cookie damage in just one visit.

Everything went as usual…that was until I retired to the stretching room to, well, stretch, and to put in some unavoidable quality time with Kooky Kathy.

Most nights it is just Kathy and I bonding over ‘Wheel of Fortune’ (bonding sessions usually involve me during my crunches while Kathy shares her perspective on word search puzzles, and her pro-WWE Wrestling stance on television programming); however, on the few blessed occasions that other people do come into the room, Kathy likes to be an inclusive kookster, and incorporate them into her streams of conversational wizardry.

Last night, Kathy was accompanied by a 20-something woman named Mary, who seemed to be in the process of rummaging through a small suit case filled with workout clothing. Before I even came into the room, I knew this would be interesting, because Kathy was gesturing wildly and bobbing her head in a way that, to me, meant (kooky) business.

I tried not to distract them, and quietly pulled out a mat and began stretching- all the while their conversation traversed themes ranging from the seemingly absurd to the consistently inappropriate.

But far be it from me to exclude you (my seven loyal readers) from what I heard. So, for your reading pleasure, the following are (very) real outtakes from Mary and Kathy’s conversation:

Mary and Kathy on religion

Kathy: I know a Jewish girl who works out here.

Mary: I don’t understand why Jewish people don’t believe in Jesus…

Kathy: I don’t mind Jews, I know some and I talk to them like there’s not anything wrong.

Mary: Oh yeah, me too. I love me some Jews.

Mary and Kathy on holiday food

Mary: I got done loosing 60 pounds last year, and I think I put 20 back over this holiday.

Kathy: Yeah I do Weight Watchers, and I figure, its ok to cheat during the holidays because I can just go back on program in January.

Mary: One year I had a BAD case of irritable bowel syndrome, and I couldn’t keep nothin’ down. Now, I’ll spare you the details, but I sure didn’t put no weight on that Christmas….

Before Mary could extrapolate on any of her other medical woes, I quickly wrapped up my stretches and fled the room. Merry Christmas, and here’s hoping that pesky eye twitch goes away before the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve.

Ho, Ho, Ho, Pimp!

Hello all, many apologies for my ridiculous lack of updates. Frankly, I have been too busy and uninspired to write-which is a reality I attribute to all of the additional crap I have had to deal with at the office (and when I say crap, what I am really referring to is yesterday’s departmental holiday potluck, which I got tricked into organizing.)

I guess it wasn’t all bad, after all, I did get to leave the office to go pick up the pizzas (no grilled chicken on my watch); and, it probably would not have been so stressful had I just gone to the Pizza Hut where I had placed the pickup order in the first place. However, I suppose that would have been too easy.

The words “horrified” and “panic stricken” would not begin to describe the emotions shooting through my brain as the pink/blue/purple-haired, middle-aged woman behind the counter told me she knew nothing about an order for 15 pizzas and suggested we try the Pizza Hut down the road (you see, in Wisconsin, there is a Pizza Hut on every corner). As she tugged thoughtlessly at the Live Strong bracelet around her wrist, I knew she meant business, so I grabbed my office helpers and we high-tailed it south for another 10 minutes, before arriving at the right Pizza Hut. After making my helpers promise to never speak of the incident again-I unlocked the doors and allowed them to run back into the office.

But that was yesterday, and this is today-and clearly, I am over it.

Having spent the past ten minutes staring at a picture of a deer that I cut out of a magazine and hung up in my cubicell, I am beginning to wonder if anyone would notice if I just left now.

Either way, happy holidays to my seven readers; and, as always, thanks for sticking with me through this creative slump. Hopefully there will plenty to talk about after Hope Valentine’s company holiday party on the 7th where the free booze will be flowin’ and I will be standing in as her (heterosexual friend) date.

If Augustus Gloop was a pop star....

Jazzy A sent me this link, and frankly it is hard to watch-but might as well turn up the volume!

Check it out!

Gone in 30 seconds

When you work in a fledgling company, like I do-there are always going to be positives and negatives to that environment. The positives include opportunities for leadership at earlier junctures and the abilities to distinguish your skills, and advance at a faster rate than someone buried in a huge corporation. But, as gravity has always shown us, what goes up must come down; and I just came face to face with that reality in one of the day's meetings.

I wouldn't say that I am a slow learner, per say- because frankly, Company X is not a big believer in "official training," so I am more than a little inexperienced. In an effort to make up for(cough, hide) my professional failings at the company, I always try to dress the part of someone that knows what they are doing. Like an actor playing a character, I hold my face in expressions that scream "knowledgeable" and "inquisitive" and I wear outfits I think a business person would wear. My hope is that these superficial posings will make up for the fact that more often then not, I have no clue what people are talking about.

Today, as I casually scanned my e-mails I realized that I was scheduled to attend a meeting with a bunch of company executives-and, that the meeting was slated to begin in exactly five minutes. So I ran, desperately trying not to make eye contact with the (very) judgmental data-entry people in my department, all the while thinking, "this is my shot to show the bosses I am a valuable asset to this company."

Once in the meeting, I listened intently-peppering my "thoughtful pose" with occasional nodding and knowing smiles. Then, after an hour of listening, one of the people at the meeting began asking questions, one of which I thought I could answer. So, in an effort to display my worth in the meeting and prove I actually worked at the company, I opened my mouth to speak (and there in lies my fatal mistake).

10 seconds into my reply, "Vice President 1" cut in and asked me to follow up with the person later on. She then explained that when someone in the meeting asks a question, "we" needed to keep our answers down to 30 seconds. 30 SECONDS! I can't even tie my shoes in that time frame-let along construct a thought-provoking and intelligent answer. Regardless of the absurdity, as she silenced me, the world around my chair slowed to a halt, and all I could think of was how lovely life would have been if I was born as a puddle. That way, rather than face the embarrassment firing squad which now lay before me, I could simply melt out of the room-never to be slipped on again.

I can't be sure what happened next, because I was too busy looking at my shoes-but I would imagine the data-entry people were laughing at me, and that the executives were shaking their heads in utter disappointment.

Sigh. So much for excellence.

Tragedy of hand made proportions

Once again, it is time for the holidays-and like all the years before this one, I am faced with an important decision that demands the utmost in decisive thinking and cohesive planning.

The decision being: do I want to step up to the metaphorical creative plate and send out hand made holidays cards or should I just take the easy way out and hop on board the good ship "store bought"?

For most people, store bought is the only way to go; and, if I had any sense at all, I would go with them; however, at some point during my formative years I got it into my head that I was indeed, a creative genius. And, it was from this gross misassessment that I began to feel like it was my duty to share my gifts with the rest of the world (or at least with the people whose addresses I had scribbled into my Hello Kitty address book).

Unfortunately, the completely unsubstantiated high regard through which I view my creative abilities has never actually developed into any kind of real talent (although in my defense, it is hard to come up with spectacular greetings cards with a budget that limits you to a hybrid medium of glitter, glue and construction paper), so the card I ultimately come up with, never matches the one I had imagined in my mind.

Truly, it is a disappointing cycle; however, being the glutton for punishment that I have always been, I have decided to go the handmade route yet again this year. This leads me to the next step in the hand made efforts which boils down to the concepts of "design." In an effort to avoid the glitter clean-up of last year's "Jack Handy Valentine's Day" cards; I desperately turned to my mother's Home Journal magazines in hopes of finding inspiration (or better yet, step-by-step instructions for a card idea which I could easily duplicate and then take all the credit for). After paging through a seemingly endless sea of menopause ads and articles on breast feeding, I managed to find a card concept that hypothetically would allow me make lovely designs in paper with some colorful yarn and a big needle.

I thought I had stuck gold.

However, after having spent the past 7 nights in a sewing frenzy-with nothing to show for my efforts but three crappy cards that look like the arts and crafts equivalent of something Santa's Special Olympic elves would create; frankly, I am an embarrassment to my cause and well, store bought it is.

Gusterrific

I just spent the past 10 minutes surfing the website of one of my favorite bands; and, I was very disappointed to learn that they are not touring right now. The last time I saw Guster, was during the summer of 2003, when they played Milwaukee’s famed annual music festival, Summerfest- and frankly, I am itching for an encore.

I remember the show like it was yesterday ~~~ Guster was slated to play on one of the Summerfest free stages at 10 PM, and after a few rounds of manipulative coercion, I somehow managed to convince good friends Hope Valentine and Beaker Callahan to go with me right after work (a good 5 hours early) in an effort to get the best possible seats.

For weeks before the show, I quietly obsessed about sitting front row center and about the t-shirt I was making to wear which would read “Wisconsin is for Lovers,” (a clever play on a shirt the band sold on their website which read “Guster is for Lovers”). I even went so far as to think about how one of the band members would see the shirt and invite me back stage, where a romance would most certainly bloom, and at that point they would invite me to join them on the tour.

Indeed, good seats were essential to the success of my plan.

By the time 5 PM rolled around on the day of the show, I was a ticking time bomb of excitement just waiting to go off. As I sprinted to my car, and drove towards the Brown Deer park and ride (our designated meeting spot), all I could think about was my favorite Guster songs and strategize about how I would communicate song requests to the band backstage (Beaker would have to flash a bouncer). Indeed, I was ready for any possible scenario.

What I didn’t plan for, was all of the unemployed teenagers who also love Guster-but were not hampered by tedious commitments like “putting in a full work day” or “the necessity of holding down a job in order to pay the bills”-which were the very things that kept me from heading down to Summerfest when the park opened at 9AM (which would have put me at the stage a full 13 hours before Guster was slated to go on).

So, even through we got to the Guster stage 5 hours early-the closest seats available were in row 10. Not bad for normal people; however, when you have a competitive edge as sharp and elaborate as mine-10th row is just not good enough.

As you can probably tell at this point, the band did not invite me backstage or to join their tour; however, somehow my #1 song request, “Demons” was the first thing they played-(which was a true relief, because Beaker made it pretty clear early on that she was not going to flash her boobs to a bouncer).

What a great band.

Ashton hater.

Does anyone REALLY care about Ashton Kutcher?

I certainly don't.

PotSuck is more like it.

Every year, Company X rewards its hardworking employees by throwing a holiday potluck; and this year, (due to significant budget cuts) the company has volunteered to provide only the entree, leaving the departments with the responsibility of bringing appetizers, desserts, and drinks.

In the few years that I have worked here, holiday potlucks have ranged from pizzas to Subway sandwiches-all which were very well received and popular among potluck attendees; and more importantly, popular to my tummy.

But times are changing here at Company X, and for the past six months, management has been enthusiastically pushing a "Get Healthy" initiative, encouraging employees to walk, eat healthy and receive routine check-ups with our doctors. This I don't mind, because frankly there are people in this company who can hardly climb a flight of stairs, and who need to start taking some responsibility for their health. However, as firm of a believer in healthy living as I am, I do not think that this "good health" kick should extend into our holiday potlucks.

It's the holidays for God's sake, and if I want a frosted cookie in the shape of a snowflake, well dammit I think the company should have that for us. That being said, do you want to know what the company is providing for us as an this year's holiday potluck entree?

Grilled Chicken.

That's right, grilled chicken-and nothing else.

What a rip off!

Beating the Snow Storm Blues

My last boyfriend was covered in tattoos and played the drums in a really crappy metal band. Since our break-up over a year ago, I have dated a series of guys-some whom I think on fondly and others who I have desperately tried to forget.

As you may know, over the past few weeks I have entertained some new crushes-and some are panning out wonderfully (while others have left me confused and annoyed); however, before anything new starts, I must report that I am happily single-and moving headfirst into the holiday season.

I am always a little sad to hear about the lonely hearts out there who dread this time of year, and whine about what they don’t have; because really, when you are single in the city, there are so many fun and exciting things to do and see-(no, I am not talking about visiting porn shops) that there is really no reason anyone has to sit around and mope.

In an effort to beat the seemingly endless “Snow Storm Blues” of Wisconsin, good friend “Hope Valentine” and I have devised a fun game in an effort to do and see as much of this great city as we can. The plan goes like this: each girl will write down a list of things they want to do/see in Milwaukee on individual pieces of paper; then, we will throw those papers into a bag and if ever we are searching for new things to do Hope or I will reach into the bag and pick out an activity. Milwaukee here we come!

For those of you who might be in the neighborhood, here are some things you should check out:
(courtesy of Onmilwaukee.com-some of these won't work for the winter)

1. Fun in the City 1 and 2

2. Take one of our MANY Brewery Tours

3. It might be worth the gamble…

4. And if you HAVE to leave the city...

Sundance 2006

In a bid to spot some A-List celebrities and get a shout out on this blog, Jazzy A has suggested that we head out west to Park City, Utah and try our hand at being volunteers at this year's Sundance Film Festival...

What exactly does one have to DO to be a volunteer to one of these things?

If the answer is "make out with Brad Pitt" well then, what can you say really except maybe, "Sign me up dammit!"

Who doesn't love Fridays?!

Peppermint Patty is visiting me tonight from Chicago! I can’t wait to see her-not only because she is truly the most reasonable of all my friends, but also because she lets me talk endlessly to her about my latest crushes.

Oh Peppermint Patty, I am so lucky to have a friend like you!

On a completly unrelated note, I have also learned that last minute morning dreams that involve high-profile movie stars like Brad Pitt and Jamie Foxx wanting to become your drinking buddies (and maybe more), has been proven to cause people to ignor their alarm clocks and subsequently be very late to work.


Did I mention I was almost an hour late to work today?

Good looking AND funny...no I am not talking about me.

Keep an eye on this guy, and dammit, somebody let me know when he is in Milwaukee!

I am a schmuck.

Somehow I have been put in charge of organizing this year’s holiday potluck for my department.

Despite what you might be thinking, I did not volunteer for the position, nor do I remember agreeing to do it. So I guess the other day, when I asked “Supervisor M” if we had it in the budget for a “holiday” pizza lunch, what M heard me say was, “I am anxious to be the person in charge of a potluck this year-please let me know when I can start planning.”

I think there is a lesson to be learned here boys and girls, that being: do not let your desire for free pizza distract you from your equally important desire to avoid extra work-ESPECIALLY when said work centers around the premise of coworker bonding.

Little girl lost

Office gossip is an evil thing-and really, nothing good can come from it.

That being said, I just heard an absolutely delicious item about “Coworker D” (from one of her closest friends in the department); and, having no feelings of loyalty to the fashionable frumpet, I feel happily obliged to share it with you!

You may, or may not remember past postings on the many wardrobe disasters of one “Miss D(isaster)” who has long since transferred to another, far away department; however, her hasty departure could not put a stop to THIS shape-edged tidbit which has somehow made its way to my ears.

Known through the company as a fiercely devout Catholic, 30-something divorcé D was SO desperate for a child, that she duped her unwitting at-the-time boyfriend to impregnate her! That’s right, D is preggers.

This is all very shocking indeed, and I think I need to sit down.