Random Esquire

1.  Have you ever seen this?  A woman has a big smile on her face but then, in order to remove said smile, she sort of has to pull her top lip down over her top teeth, thereby – for a brief moment – making an odd monkey face?  I find this slightly off-putting.

2.  I see a dude on my way to work often and his head is just too small for his body.  I think I’ve even written about this before.  It isn’t vastly too small; it’s just slightly too small for his body.  Just enough for me to notice from the corner of my vision.  As if this weren’t enough, the guy wears those Transition lenses and so his glasses are that odd tinted color on very sunny days.  I mean, that all just makes for an odd package, right?

3.  I got into a minor confrontation on Sunday.  I was standing along the street in Chinatown with Besos and another friend waiting for Sitcom and her boyfriend when we were approached by an apparently homeless man who said something about helping him get a bowl of soup.

Now, if you know me at all, you know that I actually have a bit of a soft spot when it comes to this – at times.  This, however, was not one of those times.

I said, “No.”  He stood there and said something like, “Hey…I’m just asking for…” with a slight asshole tone.

And I said, “NO. Keep moving.”

He got a little aggressive and said, “YOU keep moving.”

I said, “I was standing here. You were moving. So I can’t keep moving.”

It went on a little longer after that.  Then at some point, you realize that you’re having a perfectly ridiculous conversation with a crazy person.  I’m not sure which one of us realized this first.  But he moved on.

4.  I’m over watching Hoarders. Every episode is the same.  And now, even with intervention, some part of cheers when the addicted person is like, “Hell no, I’m not going.”  And then doesn’t go to treatment!  Balls out.  I realize that is all kinds of wrong.  But there you have it.

5.  Speaking of balls out, Instigator is all kinds of balls out at work lately.  She has no problem saying to the powers that be, “You suck!”  Churro and I decided she has the biggest balls in the office.  She bought me lunch yesterday.  She made a point to suggest I mention this because I have previously mentioned taking her to lunch and she did not appreciate sounding like a kept woman.  I could have reassured her by noting that no one would be under that impression simply due to the tracks she was leaving behind her… from her balls dragging on the ground.

But I didn’t.

My 8 year old daughter’s buddy – lets call him ‘Matt’ – was over the other day.

Matt is 9 and a neighbor and my daughter’s best friend (not that she would admit this in a million years, he is a boy after all). Daughter and Matt were goofing around and decided to play ‘dog‘. By that I mean that Matt pretended to be a dog and Daughter pretended to be his owner.

I was in an adjacent room, paying very little attention because that is the kind of attentive parent I am. Then, I hear Daughter speaking with an English accent – quite a decent one at that.

She is saying stuff like ‘Now you be a good doggy or I shall have to become more strict‘ and ‘You are being a very, very bad boy‘ and ‘If you keep being naughty, I shall have to punish you.  BAD doggy‘ and he is making sad puppy noises.

I decided to take a closer look (what with being supermom and all) and there is Daughter, holding the end of a piece of twine as a leash, with the other end forming a ‘collar’ around Matt’s neck.  Matt is on all fours, seemingly content with his role in this little drama. It was reminiscent of – well things I felt I shouldn’t be thinking of.  Later, I was recounting the story to my husband, telling him how Daughter was pretending to be a British dog owner.

Daughter overheard and jumped in to correct me: “Mom – I wasn’t a dog OWNER.  I was a dog TRAINER.  Because Matt was a very, very bad dog and needed a lot of training.”

Well that really put any doubts to rest.

My little one is practicing to be a dominatrix.

And a rather good one too – the next day she played over at Matt’s house and came home sporting a shiny new pedicure.

She proudly told me Matt had polished her toes.

I walked into Instigator’s office today and when she looked up from her computer at me, I paused.

She was wearing lipstick.

See, Instigator usually puts on lipstick after I walk into the office.  She puts on lipstick for me.  What’s the point of having a work girlfriend who doesn’t wear lipstick for you?   I recalled seeing a large group of people in one of our conference room and quickly deduced that they were her people and that she was wearing lipstick for them.

I said, “Those your people?”  She nodded.  I made a circular motion with a hand indicating her face and said, “I just want you to know that I know this wasn’t for me.”

She ignored me.

Churro joined the conversation with me and Instigator.  The three of us were discussing something when Fresh Express wandered in.

I am ashamed to say that it was…. how shall I say this,…  it was pointedly obvious that Fresh Express was not wearing a bra.  I attempted to go cross-eyed rather than endure.

Afer she left the room, I sighed and said, “Could she please wear a bra?!”

Instigator looked at me and said, “Could she please wear some shoes!”

I gaped. I hadn’t noticed that she hadn’t been wearing shoes, for God’s sake.  I’m pretty sure that if  Denny’s would refuse you service based upon your level of dress or undress, then certainly it is not appropriate for the office, no?

Churro chimed in that yes, in fact, Fresh Express was walking around in a pair of socks that were “fucking filthy”.  Sure enough, I noticed them later.  They were purple Donny Osmond socks, my friends.  And they were black on the bottom.

I’ve mentioned that Fresh Express once washed her socks in an office coffee pot, right?

See, this is why you don’t drink office coffee.  It could just as likely be Fresh Express Sock Dirt colored water.

Unacceptable.

I worked last last night and my workload was lightened a fair bit by my most recent work wife.  She’s a new work wife.  I’m a polygamist in the office.  Work wife and I have a work-deal to discuss so I sent her an e-mail asking if I could take her to lunch and we could sit down with the contract in question to discuss.  She accepted.  Simple, right?

Except, see, last week, I read my work girlfriend – Instigator – the riot act when I found out that she had brought her lunch to the office.  Because, really, folks, what’s the point of a work girlfriend if you aren’t running off at lunch time?

There.  Does that set the scene?  Can you see how this is going to go?

I walked into Instigator’s office this morning and prompted peered at her eyeball and exclaimed, “You have green eyes!  That will make a good picture!”  She ignored me.  Then she said, “Are we going to lunch today?  I purposely did not bring something to eat!”

I opened my mouth and said, “Oooooooeeeeeeeewwwww…, about that….” and then  Instigator’s brows furrowed and her lips curled and when I explained the situation, she said, “WHAT?!”  I cringed.  And then I told her who my new work wife is and that we had lunch plans.  And then she picked up some paper from her desk, wadded it up and I instantly ducked down behind her desk to avoid the flying paper ball.

She said, “Look, first, I wasn’t invited to your Lady Date.  Then, you didn’t take advantage of the fact that my husband was out of town last week. NOW we aren’t going to lunch?”

So I am eating two lunches today.

The past two months, I have been working on a project of sorts at work.  We have important deadline tomorrow and so nearly every morning for the past three weeks, I get on a call with about 15 co-workers to discuss how things are progressing.  As the deadline looms closer, the calls have become a little more tense.

Our team is led by a woman from Georgia with a sweet southern accent who cracks the whip behind everyone.  On an afternoon call yesterday, she informed us all that she would not be able to run the call in the evening because she’d be having dinner with her family… because her mother was going to have open heart surgery the next morning.  It was a little like hearing that your Sherpa had to turn around and go home when you were nearly to the summit.

This morning, our leader returned to run our morning call.  At one point she stopped mid-sentence and said, “I have take this call… it’s my father from the hospital. My mother’s in surgery right now.”

Everyone froze while she switched calls.  A few minutes later, we knew she returned because we heard her sigh and then she said, “Guys, I’m having a rough morning.”

Someone said, “How’s your mom?”

She said her father called and said that a blockage has been found in her mother’s heart and a stint was being placed.  She sounded distraught.

Someone else said, “My father had open heart surgery… he has a pig valve in his heart.”

She said, “really?”

And then we talked for about 15 minutes and forgot our project and everyone seemed to take a deep breath and a collective exhale.

And then we got back to work.

It’s actually not so bad.

1.  Sometimes I say something and then have no idea why it came out of my mouth.   I was getting a birthday card for my sister and I decided to get a Thanksgiving Day card for my niece and nephew.  Then I saw these turkey stickers and got those to stick in the envelope.  The sticker package was too long so I had to cut off the top to get them into the envelope.

Except, I don’t have scissors.  Ahhh, but the nice young woman in the corner cubicle by Fresh Express has scissors!

So I knocked lightly on her wall and peeked over. She looked up and smiled.  I said, “Hi, [perfectly nice co-worker]. May I borrow your scissors?”

She said, “Sure!” and picked them up out of a pen cup on her desk to hand them to me and as she did so, I suddenly said one of those stupid things that I think will be funny but oftentimes is not.

I said, “… to cut my toenails.”

She looked up at me looking at her.

And then I grinned broadly.

I made myself grin so she’d know I was kidding.  The thing is, I have a really dry sense of humor and I’ve been told before that people don’t know when I’m joking or when to take me seriously.  But have you ever seen someone grin on purpose?  They just look stupid.

The good news? She laughed.  The even better news?  She said, “You can keep them when you’re done.”

Random FTW!

2.  I’m going to spare you all this story in detail but suffice to say that Fresh Express misunderstood a situation today and briefly believed that I’d had a baby with a co-worker.  A married co-worker.  I admit… the baby may have looked a little like me.  (Basically, Fresh Express rounded a corner and saw me standing next to my co-worker and the baby and she did this slow look from me… to my co-worker…then to the baby…then back to me….  In an instant, we all knew what she was thinking)  *sigh*

But that baby?  Not mine.

This story delighted Instigator to no end who proceeded to tease me mercilessly.

3.  All right, I’m off to head back downtown to see The Addams Family.  Someone please play with the monster.

1.  Yesterday, on my way home from work, I was in a train car with a positively stunning woman.  She was blonde, wearing a skirt and heels and had great legs.  She had very blue eyes.  She looked about 45 or so.  Perhaps closer to 50.  Partly what made her look so stunning was that she was so elegant looking.  We got off at the same stop.  I live near a dance studio and I was unsurprised to see her walk into the front door.  Ahhh, a dancer.  Well, that explains the legs.  Anyway, I remembered the incident because in my head, I thought to myself, “Ah, now she is a woman.”

2.  Yes, everybody, peanut butter goes bad.  Besos had managed to find a jar of peanut butter from the back of some cupboard that had gone untouched since my break-up with Boss.  How do I know this?  Because Boss likes creamy peanut butter and I like chunky.  Besos had found some old jar of creamy peanut butter.

Only spoiled kids get creamy peanut butter.  Down to earth kids get chunky.  We have to make that shit creamy.  In our mouths.

3.  Kennedy came into my office yesterday and I tossed him one of the apples I had brought in with me.  We sat there with our feet on my desk and ate apples.  And talked about apples.  And we both decided that honey crisp apples are great.  Any mushy apples suck it.  And we wondered who was eating mushy apples?  And then I remembered this entry in which I told this story:

“Speaking of Boss, the other day, we were in the grocery store buying apples. Actually, we were buying many different things because we have bulk buying issues. However, at this point, we were in front of the apples. There were quite a few varieties to choose from. She said she likes softer apples. I said I like crisp apples. She said she doesn’t like it when a big piece breaks off when she takes a bite. I said I love it! And we stood there and stared at each other as if we’d never met. No one thinks to ask these important questions until it’s too late and you fall in love and then you’re stuck buying two different kinds of apples for eternity.”

4.  You know, in retrospect, I’d have chosen a different nickname for Besos on my blog.  Perhaps a name that was more than one letter away from the nickname of my Ex.  I’m pretty sure that one day I will screw up and and swap Besos for Boss or Boss for Besos and then I will have at least one woman angry with me.

And I’m pretty sure that woman will be a Latina sporting some Mexitude.

And if you’ve got any goddamn sense at all… you know… you know never to screw with a Mexitude-fueled Latina.

Of course, the problem is that I have so little sense at all.

1.  It’s like some sort of Murphy’s Law.  At least one out of the three Jeopardy contestants must be just a little bit jacked up in some way.  Either a weird name, weird outfit or just weird looking.  Today, both male contestants have pork chop sideburns down to their neck.  WTH.

2.  Besos came over last night.  We took Little Filthy for a walk.  I ordered take out from a restaurant nearby and we strolled over in the warm air and picked up a half herb roasted chicken.  Back to my place where Little Filthy stretched out on the couch and I made some vegetables.  We had a nice dinner together.

I’m domesticated!

3.  Tonight, I didn’t feel like cooking so I dug around in the fridge and found a bag of broccoli that I could steam in the microwave.

I ate half of it for dinner.

So maybe not so much domesticated as trainable.

4.  Instigator is funny.  While I am not exactly what you might call reserved,… in the office, I tend to default to unfailingly polite. To the point of ridiculousness, really.  So today, when the lawyers in the office joined a conference call to discuss some matters and it was clear that someone on the call had their telephone near their keyboard while they pounded away… my response was to more or less roll my eyes at his or her poor conference call etiquette  and leave it at that.   As the typer continued to bang away furiously, I sent an instant message to Instigator:

RE:  “It’s like some sort of rule that someone be typing furiously and loudly on every call.”

And I am not kidding when I say that within a second of hitting the return key, I heard Instigator’s voice on the call:

“Whoever that is typing, put your phone on mute…

*pause*

…Please.”

I coughed on my coffee and started laughing in my office.  What I loved most about it was the complete throw-away ‘Please‘ she added at the end her request.

Naturally, I had to take her to lunch after that.  Besides, what’s the point of a work girlfriend if you don’t get to take her to lunch?

I started this morning by putting Egg Beaters in my coffee.  It registered as I brought the cup to my lips.  I still took a sip.  Which should tell you that my judgment at 6 a.m. is questionable.

When I got to the office, I stuck my head in Instigator’s office and said, “Coffee?”  She was neck deep in something so I told her I’d run to get it.  Have I mentioned that Instigator is my work girlfriend?  This is why I know that she drinks a grande iced Americano with extra ice.  I went to Starbucks and picked up coffee and breakfast for her.  I walked into her office and reached out to hand her coffee…

…and she looked different.

I paused as she was talking and tried to figure it out.  She looked nice, which is usual – but something was different.  She looked Extra Nice.

I said, “You look nice.  Did you get your hair done?”

She looked at me, touched her hair and said, “No…this is the I just rolled out of bed look.”

I opened my mouth to say something and shut it quickly.  And then she burst out laughing while I turned red realizing that I’d more or less said she’d look good rolling out of bed.

This is how my day began, folks. (more…)

I got on the elevator today at work and immediately recognized the woman who was already inside.  And…for some reason, I felt instantly awkward.  I couldn’t put my finger on it.

And then I remembered.  It was this woman from my entry two years ago:

Just Bloody Brilliant.

Something is wrong with me.

The other day, I entered my office building and stepped into an elevator in which a woman was waiting. I recognized her from some volunteer work we’d both done at an elementary school recently. She had clearly lost some weight and done her hair, which curled at her shoulders very nicely. I smiled and she said, “Hello!” I could not recall her name and I wished to be polite so I said (thinking that to comment on her weight would be inappropriate), “Your hair looks very nice.” I smiled. She beamed and said, “Thank you!”

I began to think about work and glanced up at the elevator monitor, which showed the weather report. Chicago had been enjoying incredible weather the last few weeks – staying at a nice 78-82 range. I said, absently, “It’s been beautiful the last few days.”

I looked over at her and she had a bit of a stunned look on her face. Then I realized…

She thought I was still talking about her hair.  That I had just said to her, “Your hair has been beautiful the last few days.” Like a complete weirdo.

I said, “Oh! I’m talking about the weather!”

She blushed and said, “Ohhh,” realizing her mistake and then laughed.

And then I stammered, “But, I’m sure your hair has been beautiful the last few days.”

I mean, what the hell is wrong with me.

*****

So, yeah, walked on the elevator and there she was.  You know what I did?  I turned around, faced the doors and STFU.

Random +1.