"Wintry Mix:" May Contain Raccoons

In Syracuse, where my parents live, they get snow. They get a fair amount of snow. When they are done getting snow, they get some more snow. Then the weather rolls up its sleeves, flexes its elbows, and gets down to some serious snowing. Upstate New York is like that.

Here in Texas, we get something called "wintry mix." It's kind of like trail mix, only not as tasty. It's made of fairly unpleasant ingredients, like snow, freezing rain, sleet, and bewildered Texas drivers.*

Adverse weather events mean emergency operations and extra hours in the office, unfortunately, though it would be much more pleasant to stay home, huddle under the covers, and warm myself with cats and possibly the odd raccoon (though Dave hasn't come banging on the locked cat door for many a night now). So, because I have committed to a car-free lifestyle, my boyfriend will come and pick up Anna and me in his Jeep Liberty and drive us to school and work.

It's easy to commit to a car-free lifestyle when you have someone who will drive you anywhere you want.

Like happy hour, for which it will hopefully be warm enough on Friday. We should go to Deep Eddy Cabaret, because it may be our last chance. Deep Eddy Cabaret is one of those grand Austin traditions of which I don't have much experience - I think I've even been to the Poodle Dog Lounge more often. Trophy's was another; I went two, or maybe three times with my sister Margie, when she had a friend working the bar who would give us free Lone Stars. Even though it's just about half a mile from my house, I hadn't seen Trophy's since they started working it over, so was a little shocked to see it looking lit up and shiny a couple of nights ago, with red and white striped awnings. Awnings! It makes me sad to think of all the displaced cockroaches - probably hanging out with Dave behind the dumpster, licking a scant sustenance out of discarded Lone Star bottles.

Deep Eddy, though, is the last place I ever got carded. It was a few years ago - I might even have been on the right side of 40 - but still, being asked for ID was enough to get me all tingly. I handed the bartender my license. He squinted at it in the low light of the bar.

"Hold on, let me get my glasses," he said. "I can't see for shit."

An experience like that is well worth braving a little wintry mix.


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*From California

Let's Get this Party Started

What better way could there possibly be to kick off the 40th birthday festivities, than with a 2:45 afternoon break of epic proportions?

I remember Billy perched on the picnic table in our pavilion, talking dreamily to Robbie and me about a forensics class he'd once taken. None of us were in any hurry to leave: no one watching us and nothing to do. I don't know how long we'd been out before Billy remarked languidly, "You know, we've been out here a really long time."

And yet, you know, I don't think it was much over an hour, hour and a half, tops.

Do you remember the walks to Stevie? Sometimes we'd take them after we'd already been sitting outside a good half hour.

Or some days we'd merely stay in the break spot, relaxing in the shade, talking about everything and nothing, laughing, happy, relaxed; as a group, not particularly conscious of the time, although one or two people might get a little anxious and start talking about going in. The rest of us would mock them. Do you remember? Sometimes we'd mock them so harshly that they'd just go inside, and probably feel fairly silly when the rest of us eventually showed back up 45 minutes later.

Conversation could go anywhere, nowhere, everywhere, and everything was funny. Eventually the "second shift" would show up, a group from Traffic Analysis who generally came out around 3:45 or so. We always knew it was time to go in, though they were friendly, and generally invited us to stay. No: this was the changing of the guard; and we acknowledged the second shift break group as the only other rightful inhabitant of that spot. We were on good terms with them, of course! But it was not our fate to sit and break with them. Their arrival meant it was our time to go back to our desks and work the sudoku puzzle or look at the weather forecast until it was time to go home. Such is the natural order of things.

So, as an early birthday present to me today, Ernest rounded up the people who'd be 3MBG members if the 3MBG had not finally and tragically disbanded: himself, of course; and Jennifer B.; and Jason - poor dear Jason, the only one of our old set who hasn't escaped! - and Butch, who is kind of like the 3MBG's kindly, indulgent uncle; and sweet thoughtful Esther; and Carlos, a new guy. And we went on break. And we took that break. We took a good break. I stayed, and laughed, and talked, and listened, and had a wonderful time, and whenever that little nagging voice inside whispered that perhaps I should think about going back in now, I told it to shut the F up, beeyotch!

The second shift never arrived. I'm pretty sure they still break there; perhaps they sensed something rare and magical taking place, and didn't want to ruin it for us. When at last Jennifer and Esther yielded to the urgings of their ticking consciences, leading the rest of the group reluctantly away in their wake, I was satisfied that it was time: the first real break I've taken since starting my "new" job a year ago February. I got back to my desk today to find no notes on my chair, no papers waiting for me, no emails, no phone messages; and I'd been gone for a full, lovely, wonderful hour.

Tomorrow, we do more or less the same thing, only with more people, alcohol, and no time limit. Then this weekend, Robbie and I are off to Corpus - Dumas and Magda, on our own, since unfortunately our older brother Edwin was swallowed by a whale earlier this week. I'll be curious to see how he gets out of that one.

This is going to be the best birthday ever.

Tripping the Plastic Fantastic

As I was logging into Blogger just now, I spotted "Erectile Dysfunction Treatments" on the scrolling list of just-updated blogs. It seems odd, to me. I can't imagine having a whole blog dedicated to just that one topic. I mean, the subject comes up now and again (just never when you want it to!) on mine, but if it were all you ever wrote about, it seems like you'd run out of material fairly quickly.

Or you'd damn well wish you had.

There's medical treatment for it. There's medical treatment for everything! At happy hour last night, my friend Kevin and I, admiring a ridiculously tiny purse-dog sported by a woman a couple of tables down, suddenly had our attention called to what happens when medical treatment for being hit by an ugly stick (or perhaps just a middle-aged stick) goes horribly wrong: the woman turned in our direction, and her lips were unnaturally huge and bloated and bright pink, and her eyes had a strange, tight look to them. She also had big, fake - um, fingernails.

We wondered why someone would do this. I mean, sure, you couldn't really have guessed her age by looking at her. But if an observer is also left with some question as to your actual species, you've gone a bit too far.

Food is just as bad. I don't insist on all organic foods, but have you ever noticed how many things on the market bear little to no resemblance to actual comestibles? Yet people willingly consume these things - Wonder Bread, Cool Whip, Velveeta, marshmallows, Spam, non-dairy creamer.

Let the record state that I've just officially invented the S'Less. You all better not forget it.

It just seems like the more fluff and vanity you add to life, the more you take it all for granted as a basic necessity. Not that I'm any less guilty of this than anyone else. But at least, by God, my fingernails are real.

Short and Sweet

Short version of my third favorite joke:

A penguin's car is acting up, so he takes it to a mechanic to have it looked at. "You blew a seal," says the mechanic.

"Look, just fix the car," says the penguin. "My personal life is none of your business!"

(Thanks Heather!)

Today was, I hope, my very last staff meeting at the job I'm leaving. It was short, if not sweet; the panicmonger opened - as she has opened every single meeting for the year and a half, plus, that she's been working there - by reiterating the particular format in which she wants her people to request time off. Not an email, and not a calendar appointment, but a reminder note. Your name in the subject line. The particular time, if it isn't the whole day, that you will be out. The type of time (vacation, sick, miscellaneous) you want to take. Explanations go in the body of the note.

And, as God as my witness, because (I can only guess) she finally got pretty much everybody doing it this way, pretty much all the time, there's more! Now, the names Elizabeth and Jennifer are too long. So if it's one of us, the whole subject line doesn't show up when she mouses over it on her calendar. So now we two need to abbreviate, or use our initials.

I suggested it would be easier if we just put someone else's, shorter, name, instead of our own. But she didn't seem very enthusiastic.

One of the stranger things about my leaving is that pretty much everyone there has expressed (in addition to very kind congratulations and well-wishes) envy. Everyone. Up to and including the director and deputy director of my division. Certainly the panicmonger suggested, in our staff meeting today, that she wished she could come with me.

We all laughed politely.

Her performance review, it turns out, is tomorrow; so though she normally leaves at 4, she was still in her office when I left at a quarter past five today. I'm afraid it's not likely to be as favorable as mine was, and really I am sorry. But could this be taken as some sort of moral lesson on the perils of ambition? We value the quality of being a go-getter very highly, but have only contempt for a go-getter who goes and gets a job s/he can't handle.

Speaking of that, the other thing I learned from my friend Heather at lunch today is that you might not want to hire Italians for major construction projects, but I don't know if this is a particularly useful lesson in your day-to-day life, so instead I'll leave you with another of the jokes she told me over a turkey and avocado sandwich at Thundercloud's.

How do you make a woman sound like a dolphin?

You'll have to come to my going away happy hour and buy me a drink if you want the punchline.

Decisions, Decisions

This afternoon at about 4:40, my desk phone rang. It was the woman I interviewed with last Friday. She was calling to offer me the job. So we talked for a few minutes, and I told her that, while I was pretty sure I'd accept, I'd like to think about it over the weekend. I am still not completely certain it's the right thing to do. Well, who better to ask for advice than the interwebz?

So here are some good reasons and bad reasons, to stay and to go.

Good reasons to go:
I'm being offered a 6% pay increase. Shazayam!

The work appears, on the face of it, to be a better match for my background and overall career goals, inasmuch as I have any.

My current work group is permanently bogged down in one pointless, fruitless project after another, and as far as I can tell, this is largely just because the panicmonger's boss dislikes her so much.

No more panicmonger, no more hourly and daily and weekly and monthly status reports, no more documenting the documentation, no more Scotland Yard... at least, not as far as I know. I have to admit I didn't ask that in the interview. ("Would I be expected to show up on time at this job?")

I'd get to travel a lot more!

Jobs don't seem to open up very often in the new division, which would kind of tend to indicate that people aren't leaving. And I do take it as a positive sign that they move so quickly.

Bad reasons to go:
Practically everybody else has, and I really want a happy hour.

I beat the newbies! Ha ha! In your face, newbies!

Robbie wants me to make the PM cry.

The building has better lighting. And it's closer to home!

The prospective new boss seemed really, really happy and excited when she called to make the offer. (I don't know if that's really a bad reason, but I'm putting it under the emotional reasons vs. rational reasons column, anyway.)

I wouldn't have to share a ladies' room with those stuck-up girls from Bridge anymore.

Good reasons to stay:
In the new job, I would be the third person in line to answer phones to the general public in case of an emergency such as Hurricane Rita. That sounds so not fun.

The job overall is entirely administrative - "soft" work, whereas what I'm doing now is partly technical - "hard" work. I'm probably better suited to "soft" but the "hard" work makes me feel smarter. And overall this would put me back on the "softer" career path.

I enjoy a significant portion of my current work, and those particular job duties excuse me from the bulk of the hopeless, endless, pointless projects mentioned above.

I'm on the short track to promotion and am generally treated extremely well, including being exempt from a lot of the tracking and checking up that many of my coworkers - and for that matter the PM - are subject to.

I like the people I work with, particularly Robert, with whom I work very closely, who recruited me to the agency two years ago, thus rescuing me from Corpus and from underpaid marketing hell, and who will be seriously left in the lurch by my leaving.

Bad reasons to stay:
The great unknown. What if I don't like it? Is there an "undo" button?

Guilt. Agh! The walloping, horrible, awful guilt.

Though it's closer to home, the building is further from the break spot as well as Dominican Joe. And will I still be able to take three-martini breaks? This is another important question I didn't ask during the interview.

I'd still be with the agency, so I couldn't spend 43 seconds on LeatherDreams.com on my last day.

What if the new division doesn't have people who snore all day or walk around with antennas sticking out of their heads?!? I'll be seriously short on blog fodder.

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And on a superstitious note: If you want to be sure you're offered a position, call in sick with the runs when you go to your interview. So far, this tactic has a 100% success rate.

Saying Goodbye

How could you leave and not take me?

At least I have the weekend to build myself up to what will be a bit of a rough Monday. We had a fun happy hour - or two, or three, or four, or five or six - last night - what I remember of it, anyway. When I woke up in the morning I had a few questions, such as: who was that guy? What are these odd marks on my neck? Where did I get this bracelet? Why doesn't everyone always eat leftover manicotti for breakfast? And where the hell is my car?

No, just kidding: my car was parked on Nueces next to Little Woodrow's, where I put it before the drinking commenced, because Tony was kind enough to take me home. And I got to visit with my fun friend Kevin, whom I haven't gotten to see since Eeyore's! And spending time with Robbie is always a blast. And I would have had an even better time if it weren't for the fact that I am (apparently) not as young as I think I am, so drinking too much just makes me want to go home and get some sleep; not, as Robbie had planned, go to that new dance club that has an aquarium dance floor with sharks in it, so just to be on the safe side I didn't wear stiletto heels. Well, maybe next weekend. Edwin will be in town, so we're all going to see 30 Days of Night, as it's set in our hometown of Barrow, and we're pretty sure Nyuk-Nyuk has a minor role.

But who was that guy?

That's the least of my worries. According to today's mail, it looks like Chadwick's is calling it quits on my sorry ass:

Elizabeth,

Is this really goodbye?
...you were once ranked among our best customers but, unfortunately, we'll have to say goodbye if you don't order from us soon.

Oh no, not The Talk.

We've done all we can to bring you the best offers, continuously updating our classics for a more modern appeal while keeping the price right for you. But I still have not heard from you and I'm afraid THIS COULD BE YOUR VERY LAST CATALOG.

Oh God. It's true. How could I have been such a selfish pig? They've done everything for me, everything, and what have I ever given them in return?

In fact, have I ever placed an order with them?? I don't think I have. I'm such an ungrateful bitch.

Let's start over!
To encourage you to give us another try, we've made an exclusive final offer just for you.

It's more than I deserve, I know.

Remember, this may be your LAST CATALOG if I do not hear from you.
...
(P.S.: We don't want to bother you with unwanted catalogs... by ordering today and taking advantage of this great 40% off coupon, we'll know you want to keep receiving our mailings.)

They know me so well. Here they've been providing me with months upon years of window-shopping enjoyment, sending me catalogs full of pictures of clothes I am occasionally mildly interested in the possibility of purchasing, and what have I ever done for them? Nothing! Oh, Chadwick's. How could I treat you like this?

Wait just a minute. What the hell kind of way is this for them to talk to a valued customer? Threats and guilt trips and self-righteous ultimatums? I'm special, goddammit. I'm smart and funny, pretty and loving and sweet. They should be begging to keep me. They should be on their knees. Why do I have to put up with this shit?

Ah, who am I kidding? I'll probably be on the phone Monday, placing an order. Robbie won't be there to talk me out of it.

Things You Didn't Know

... Or did you?

Today I learned that those concrete median barrier things they put up on highways when they're doing construction - you know, those tallish skinnyish things that are just about the right height to scrape your side mirrors clean off, if you drift out of the center of your lane even the tiniest bit? I always get white-knuckled when I'm driving next to those. Anyway, today I found out that they weigh 639 pounds per linear foot.

So much for the idea of hopping out of the car and scootching them surreptitiously a little onto the other side of the road.

A few other things of which you may or may not be aware:

- Middle school orchestra concerts are really not that enjoyable, no matter how closely related you are to some of the participants.
- Shopping at IKEA is an excellent way to make religious observances on Good Friday, April 6th, and I think I might feel a bit of a sore throat coming on.
- The Bitching Smoker quit smoking. She also knowingly refrained from running over a couple of jaywalking coworkers as she pulled into the parking lot this morning. I'm kind of worried she might start dressing in orange robes and handing out flowers.
- Dominican Joe's, at the corner of South Congress and Riverside, has such excellent coffee that I expect them at any minute to be sued by the bereaved families of employees at the neighboring state agency, who have been run over and killed while jaywalking.
- Biking to and from work every day feels really good. I'm even getting used to the hills! But my hiney is sore.
- Happy hour at Gingerman tomorrow!