Finally, an Occasion to Use “Mustachioed” in a Sentence!

Last summer, I had lunch with some friends I used to work with. We all happen to be sillyheads, which is why we get on so well. We always have rip-roaring fun when we get together (except for that one time with the snails.) I often bring along a goofy toy for us to fiddle with, as we’re simpletons who are easily entertained by trinkets and do-dads. Last time, I brought these self-adhesive mustaches. Please don’t try to understand why an adult would even think of such a thing, just know that hilarity ensued. Here are my favorite snaps from our lunch:

Eventually the adhesive wore off and we went our separate ways to wreak havoc at our respective workplaces. I was left with one lone mustache, which I soon lost.

Fast forward to last week when while working one afternoon, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. To my horror, it was a big ol’ spider crawling along the wall with a haughty air. I immediately e-mailed someone I work with, insisting she come remove the foul beast from my working quarters. She rushed to my office and thoughtfully eyed the innocent spider before doing a double-take, pointing at something in the corner, and saying, “WHAT IS THAT???” I was sitting on the other side of my desk and afraid to look, thought she’d found a teeming nest or the headquarters of Al Qaeda. She explained that there was something brown and furry in the corner and after poking it with her foot, bent over to examine it more closely. I couldn’t imagine what on earth it was and feared the worst when she carefully picked up the object and dangled it in front of my face. I’m sure by now you’ve correctly guessed that it was that blasted left-over mustache. And imagine, if you will, me trying to explain why I have a cheesy, porn star self-adhesive mustache in my office. “Oh you know, sometimes I wear one to channel Magnum P.I. It helps me think!” I mentally added the event to my growing list of mortifications and realized the best recourse was to giggle and try to redirect our attention to the spider. Needless to say, my friend hasn’t come to visit me in my office since.

“Helloooooo! I’m mustachioed! La la la!”

P.S. A friend is coming into town this weekend and I am totally making mustaches on a stick for us to play with. I’ll be sure to take pictures.

May or May Not Have

I may or may not have done any of the following this weekend. You decide:

1. Spent nearly two hours in a Jo-Ann Superstore.
2. Despite being a lifelong loather of Diet Coke, grudgingly admitted that the bullshitty-sounding Diet Coke Plus is actually quite good.
3. Dyed Abby’s tail purple.
4. Found a gray hair and plucked it out with a mighty tug and a fierce growl.
5. Spilled queso on my shirt.
6. Vociferously dismissed a new acquaintance because I thought he drove a Hummer.
7. Gone commando because I was too lazy to do laundry.
8. Briefly considering sewing a Halloween costume for Abby.
9. Inadvertently interrupted a drug deal.
10. Decided to cease vacuuming my apartment until year’s end when my carpet will be replaced.

In other news, don’t hate me, but I just won with Blingo again! This time I could choose between $50 or a $50 amazon.com gift certif. When I told Mr. Keester he said, “You have been having too much good luck, better watch out, something bad is about to happen. Like Abby is going to poop on your pillow.” Hmm…

Avast Me Hardys

Today is Talk Like a Pirate Day, which means I get to say things like “poop deck” and “bunghole” without shame…well, with less shame than any 31-year-old with a parrot on her shoulder would normally feel. At my old job, we got really into this beloved holiday. Mr. Keester even got all of us pirate flags to proudly display in our cubes. Sometimes we swashbuckled in the copy room too. If that’s not the life of a pirate, I don’t know what is!

Last night I taught a Photoshop class. Everything went very smoothly except one of the participants had a complete and total meltdown right after class started. It was B-A-N-A-N-A-S! He was shouting and freaking out. (Maybe it was the pizza delivery guy?) I’ve never experienced anything like it. My heart was pounding – I was worried he might get physical. It was very nerve wracking. My immediate instinct was to get him out of the classroom ASAP so I said, “Why don’t you chat with the assistant out in the hall.” Once everything was sorted out, I thought about making a joke to smooth things over – something like, “I guess he thought this was a pottery class” but he had come with a woman and she was still in class. I figured they might be related so I just smiled and marched onward, acting like nothing happened. After he left it was smooth sailing. It’s a difficult class to teach because Photoshop is so vast and overwhelming in all it can do. Fortunately that also means the class is full of lots of “Oooo!” and “Ahhh!” moments when the participants see what Photoshop is capable of. It’s really cool to watch them learn and hear them tut over features, my favorites of which involve slimming my tummy and erasing blemishes in photos.

P.S. Just so you know, my pirate name is Captain Bess Rackham. RESPECT

oilPhone

Last Friday, Mr. Keester and I had a deep discussion about the iPhone…and a possible new competitor. Be amazed:

• Mr. Keester: Are you going to rush out and get an iPhone?
• Mr. Keester: My phone already has more crap on it than I can ever use. I don’t need one that advanced.
• Me: Agreed. In fact, I still have the mobile phone I got when I first moved to Indy in 2003. It doesn’t have any features or color or anything but it works just fine.
• Me: I heard on NPR that they’re estimating more women than men will be buying the iPhone.
• Me: Ladies want a floofy interface. Men want one that shoots out scalding hot oil.
• Me: iPhone vs the oilPhone
• Mr. Keester: If the scalding oil is shot out with enough force and in a tight enough stream you would be able to cut and cook meat with it at the same time. Or you could amputate appendages while cauterizing the wound simultaneously. Neat!
• Me: WOW! That is advanced functionality!
• Me: Doctors and chefs would definitely want oilPhones.
• Me: It would also be fun to squirt oil behind your car as you’re driving and then set it on fire, in case you’re a secret agent on the run or something.
• Me: Nothing deters criminals like a stream of burning oil.
• Mr. Keester: You could also use it to cook individual french fries.
• Me: That would be great for picnics.
• Mr. Keester: “The oilPhone helped me prepare this gourmet picnic, and enabled me to kill a bear that was trying to get my food…THANKS OILPHONE!”
• Me: I’m thinking the oilPhone sales will blow the iPhone out of the water.
• Me: Or out of the frying pan, as it were, waka waka!!
• Mr. Keester: If not, the oilPhone people will wage war with Apple and shoot them all in the eye with scalding oil (using the sniper scope attachments.) Then they will say something clever like “How is your eye now iPhone? What, you don’t have an eye any longer? Well then I guess that means you are just a Phone! Muwahahahahahaah!”

Bu-Bye

I’ve been slackin’ on the bloggin’ the last few days but fear not – I plan to make it up to you with posts o’ plenty complete with pics and even photocopies of forged permission slips. Last Friday, I hit up good ol’ Milano Inn with my former coworkers including Ms. Bad (AZ if yer nasty), who sadly is moving to Chicago. Since I know you’re really wondering how her move will affect me, I’ll ease your mind by noting that we can all be happy because it simply means I have one more place to stay when I visit the city by the lake (as Mr. Corgan liked to call it.)

Let the record show that it was not I but the boys who are obsessed with eating at the Milano Inn due to its overflowing, stomach-stretchin’ buffet. Despite the sweet, sweet beck of sinfully-simple carbs drenched in cream-based sauces, I managed to keep my lunch under 2500 calories – a record!

Unfortunately Friday morning Mr. Keester was all “Oh, I’m Mr. Keester! I tore a hole in my panties last night so I can’t go to lunch!” Still sounds dodgy to me, but I know he can be rough on even the most sturdy canvas britches. Despite missing an important member of our dysfunctional family, we managed to dredge up lots of fun memories from days of old, including:

• The construction and untimely demise of our super-clever, PVC-piped, inter-office communication system, better know as “the bong”
• The beloved Guinea Pig Way
• That one time when a coworker had a nervous breakdown induced by our vicious taunting, resulting in us being reprimanded and swiftly chained to our desks to think about what we’d done wrong
• Four words: You sunk my battleship! (but NEVER during “work hours”)
• Moose cow!
• Pretty much the illest Hong Kong-born, New Zealand-based, Broadway-hit-coverin’ diva I know
• “It’s a bowel movement!“
• Instant-message brilliance, such as:
  • On sacrifice:
    • The Bumpster: Well, Mr. Keester and I are on the “Fish & chips (or at least something fishy) for Lent” kick again
    • Me: Cool. Did you give up something for Lent?
    • The Bumpster: My dignity.
  • On politics and health care:
    • AZBad: Read this headline [coworker] showed me.
    • AZBad: Absolutely hilarious. As he said, once was bad but twice?!!!
    • Me: Ah, the misplaced modifier. A journalist’s nemesis.
    • The Bumpster: Wouldn’t that be “Man shot by Cheney while leaving hospital”?
    • Me: Or “Man Leaving Hospital Shot by Cheney”
    • The Bumpster: Or “Man Shot by Cheney Eaten by Wolves While Leaving Hospital”
    • Me: or “Man Eating Young Goes #2 in Garbage Bag”
    • Mr. Keester: “Cheney Leaves Wolves in Hospital to Get Shots by Man”
  • Eavesdropping on someone whose office was near ours (he talked on the phone really loudly so we called him “Outside Voice”):
    • Me: Oh my!! Outside Voice just said, “There were 3 people and a ferret.” He must have had a party last weekend.
    • The Bumpster: That’s dirty.
    • Me: Poor Outside Voice. His only friend is a nasty ferret.
    • The Bumpster: We shall now refer to him as the POV.
    • Me: Haha.
    • Me: He’s also talking about someone named Mr. Wingin’.
    • Me: He had a party with 3 people, a ferret, and Mr. Wingin’.
    • The Bumpster: Actually I think Mr. Wingin is his pet name from his ferret.
    • Me: Oh my!
    • Me: Mr. Wingin is stuck in his booty.
    • Me: He said he got service!!!!
    • Me: on ferret and wingin’.
    • Me: He’s a dirty porn call maker.
    • The Bumpster: When it comes to partyin’, POV parties with Mr. Wingin.
    • Me: “Oh I’m POV. I got service from Mr. Wingin’. I like to talk to the dirty ferret.”
  • On a balanced diet:
    • Me: Keester, you’ll like these.
    • The Bumpster: Fancy steaks.
    • Mr. Keester: Have you had those before?
    • Mr. Keester: They are yummers.
    • Me: They’re what [Keester] and [his wife] are feeding [their spawn]. 
    • Mr. Keester: Indirectly.
    • Mr. Keester: You put the bacon on the filet, because it is so lean. So you are basically adding fat to a lean peice of meat.
    • Mr. Keester: Cool huh?
    • Me: Umm hmmm.
    • Me: We love anything that adds fat.
    • Mr. Keester: I like steak, I like bacon … why not put them together?
    • Mr. Keester: We should do that with more things.
    • Me: Buns & cupcakes!
    • Mr. Keester: Cheese & cotton candy
    • Me: Canoing and napping

Well maybe you had to be there but all told we had a great time and bid a teary farewell to one of our favorite musketeers. Peace out, yo!

P.S. Hammy Toe’s almost perfected his jazz hands!

I Got Blingoed

I heard about Blingo on Zoot’s blog last year. In case you don’t know, it’s a search engine powered by Google, but every time you use it you can win prizes! There’s a handy Blingo toolbar you can download and use in place of the Google toolbar or if you’re using IE7, you can use a little utility to make Blingo the default search engine in the Search box in the toolbar. Easy! The best part is, if I refer users and they sign up and win, then I win too. The same is true if you refer users who sign up and win. I hadn’t won anything until yesterday. Someone Zoot referred won $5000, so she did too, which inspired me to refer a bunch of friends. One of them, Mr. Keester, signed up and on his fifth search he won a $25 amazon.com gift certif. You know what that means – since I referred him, I won a $25 amazon.com gift certif too – hooray! Click the button below or the button on my side bar and sign up. You can also leave a comment and I’ll send you a referral e-mail. Win with me baby!

P.S. I told B to get it in gear and sign up, to which he replied, “You just want my social security & credit card info. You got to get [up] REAL early to get honeycomb from the B-hive, mmkay?!”

Coloring Makes It All Better

Lean’s boyfriend, E, came into town last weekend. He’s recently accepted a job in Puerto Rico. He asked Lean to move there, but she doesn’t want to be so far away from her friends and family, especially since they’ve never lived together. E thought they should break up then, because it would be too hard to maintain a relationship from so far away. This was of course devastating for Lean, so she was very, very upset yesterday. After work, Moxy and I descended upon her hive to comfort her. I brought Tootsie Pops and Moxy brought crayons, coloring pencils, and a fun coloring book. We all colored and chatted about boys, being single, and dating. It was all terribly cathartic and Lean felt much better afterwards. *coo*

My weekend was pretty lame. I hadn’t worked on my freelance project for several weeks, so I had to devote the entire weekend to it. Friday night, I went to bed early to top off my energy reserves. Saturday morning, I assisted a boring class and then stayed in the classroom to work. The instructor station in our classroom is hooked up to a giant projector and speakers. I brought some CDs so I popped one into the instructor station CPU. I opened Windows Media Player, but it didn’t recognize the CD. I opened the disc drive and my disc was gone. What the hell, yo?! Regular readers will recall that THE EXACT SAME THING HAPPENED TO ME LAST WEEK ON A DIFFERENT COMPUTER WITH A DIFFERENT CD. Both times, I gently placed the CD in the tray and popped it onto the round bit in the center of the tray. This was exceedingly worse because I broke someone else’s property. I tried to jiggle the tray, hoping to shake the CD loose. The CPU sits in a shelf so I pulled it out a little to get a better look at the CD tray. Unfortunately, I pulled the CPU too much, and the keyboard cord came unplugged. The setup of the instructor station is such that you cannot see the back of the CPU, so it was nearly impossible to replug in the keyboard cord. I tried for 15 minutes and plugged it into every socket but the correct one. Stricken, I finally gave up and sent a mortified message to my bosses explaining my debacle and apologizing. I had to let them know so they could resolve the problem before the first workshop on Monday. I also wanted my damn CD back.

After all that nonsense, I worked for a few hours but had to leave to attend a shower for Hammy Toe and his wife, who is preggers. Their baby is due November 5th. When I found out, I breathily chanted “Remember remember the fifth of November!” and suggested they name their baby girl ‘Guy Fawkes.’ For some reason, they didn’t like that idea. 😉

The shower turned out to be a ball. We didn’t play any dorky games and there was beer. It was so awesome to see Mr. Keester, AZBad, and the Bumpster. We laughed and laughed and talked about the good ol’ days. Since we all worked downtown together, we recounted all our ideas for launching people into the canal. Some scenarios even included a monkey wearing a Kevlar® vest.

Mr. Keester and his wife have two chittlin’s, one of whom is about 7 months old – he is SUCH a honey and has the sweetest blue eyes. (Let’s not forget that babies poop in their pants though.) The Keesters also have a neat fish tank, but one of their fish has a tummy tumah. I hope the other fish don’t make fun of him. Their home is so warm and cozy. They have family pics all over, which I love.

I woke up early on Sunday and got a bagel and a cafe mocha at Panera to motivate me to work. After I had my bagel and bev, I went back to bed and slept until 12:30 p.m. Reach for the stars! Fortunately by late afternoon, I’d accomplished enough to hopefully assuage my client.

I’ve got too many plates spinning right now. Lean and I were talking about this last night. I lost my job at the magazine more than three years ago but ever since then, I’ve lived in fear of losing my job again. That’s why I have all these back-burner jobs (although I love teaching and the experience is great). I had NO idea I was going to lose my job when I did. It caught me off guard completely. That happens sometimes when you take risks and then you realize how unpredictable life can be. But I can’t live in survival mode forever. I’ve got to let go, even though I’m scerred. Maybe it would help if I break another computer.

Time For An Irish Jig

I just got information about my volunteer shifts for the Indy Irish Festival. I’ve volunteered for a few years now and always have a great time. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the music. A band called Danú performed one year and they were so awesome and fun. The members are easy on the peepers too, which made their performance even more enjoyable. Don Kramer and I hung around after the show, planning to talk to them, but we lost our nerve. It’s OK – the lock of hair I mailed them will ensure they never forget me! 😉

I also love watching the dancers – they’re incredible and I dig the bouncy, curly wigs the girls wear. Not that it’s exactly the same thing, but growing up, I took tap for five years and had a ball. Lean and I talked about signing up for a tap class. It would be great exercise and fun to relearn. I do remember some steps. When I worked at the state, Mr. Keester and I occasionally broke into the time step when we wanted to spice up a moment.

Volunteering, I’ve found that people often ask if I have Irish in my blood. One woman said she asked because of my auburn-ish hair and frecklies. (Do I look like a leprechaun?) I think I’ve heard my parents say my family has Irish heritage. I should find out more about it. 

In the past, I’ve met some really nice people at the Irish Festival. Maybe this year I’ll encounter some cute, single boys – Mmmm, delicious Irish boys bearing gifts of sterling claddagh rings and coddle. *drool*

The Anatomy of a Lunch with Weirdos

What do you get when you mix five old friends with a giant buffet, lousy with delicious vittles? You get a bunch of overly-full nutbars, that’s what! A few weeks ago, I met my peeps at The Milano Inn for lunch. It’s an Italian restaurant downtown sporting an ENORMOUS buffet that tricks you into thinking, “I’m not even CLOSE to full. I can eat six or seven more plates!” After we went the first time, I didn’t want to think about, discuss, smell, taste, hear (?), or see food for 40 days and 40 nights. (Exaggeration is such a fun literary technique.) My general feeling on the buffet equation is:

Buffet = amplification of my inability to control myself, fueled by absurd justifications like:

• “I only had an omelet, bacon, two muffins, and hot cocoa for breakfast so I’m splurgin’ at lunch.”
• “Did y’all try those potatoes? I’m getting more so I can figure out what’s in them.”
• “They have a whole dessert table too?”
• “I’ve never tried that particular variation of apple pie.”

Despite this pitfall, The Milano Inn is a bit of a stomping ground, so we returned, armed with notions of portion control and hyper vigilance…all except for Mr. Keester that is. He came wearing his elastic-waist eatin’ pants. 😉

I don’t think I’ve properly introduced the gang so let’s begin there:

Here’s the story:

Once upon a time, there was a noble state agency where a silly fella called ‘The Bumpster’ worked. For years, the agency had allowed undiscriminating FrontPage fans to maintain its Web site. Soon it grew into a hideous, hellacious mess, riddled with evil, proprietary code. The agency wisely decided to create a powerful, centralized Web team, boasting the state’s most-brilliant Web developers and designers.

About that same time, The Bumpster happened to be attending some IT training workshops at IU, where I teach. We were introduced by another teacher and soon after, he revealed his knowledge of the new Web positions. I was looking for a full-time gig and so, elated, applied immediately. At the state’s typically glacial pace, four crazies were eventually hired, thus creating a terrific Web team. This team consisted of Mr. Keester, The Bumpster, Hammy Toe, and me. We happily worked shoulder-to-shoulder in the trenches for more than a year. Then Hammy left to pursue other endeavors. Enter AZBad, who was hired to replace Hammy. Once again, we were a happy foursome, though we missed Hammy terribly. After two years, I was ready to spread my wings and found a new job. Around that same time, it happened that Hammy was again available. When I left, he took my position, again closing the circle.

Never have I had the pleasure of working with such an fun, odd, yet well-matched bunch. Our respective levels of insanity seem perfectly calibrated to one another. We all think it’s funny to ponder what a monkey with a gun might do or make plans for launching innocent passersby into the canal. Granted, the boys are a tad more fixated on meat products than I am, but it synchs well with my own oddities, and I’m able to laugh. I’m grateful for my new job, but every day am confronted with the reality that it’s an actual adult job with adult responsibilities. Never again will I experience the leisure and ignorant bliss I enjoyed with my peeps at the state agency. *head tilt followed by melancholy expression of nostalgia*

So there we were, five Web dorks lookin’ for some grub at The Milano Inn. Drinks were served and I opened the conversation by asking Hammy what he thinks of Nelly Furtado’s latest chart topper, Promiscuous. His response:

Thumbs up baby! Our chatter was soon interrupted by a scream from Mr. Keester, “Uh oh! I think I’m gonna pass a stone!” The Bumpster stared thoughtfully into space as Keester endeavored to force the crystalline mass through his body:

After the stone debacle, we were all quite riled up. Hammy suggested we do a bit of yoga to calm down. We happened upon a lovely meadow, where Hammy struck a tantric pose and insisted we follow:

It wasn’t long before an evil troll who lived in a cottage in the meadow saw our contortions and claimed we were possessed by Satan. He forced us to take a time out in the naughty chairs and think about what we’d done wrong:

He finally let us go, and off we skipped to a nearby park. There we found a very stoic fellow, who seemed engrossed in his newspaper:

AZBad got distracted by a cutie paper boy and insisted on tipping him before we left:

As the day drew to a close, The Bumpster remembered he needed to gas up his hoopty, so we hit the petrol station. Unfortunately, the nozzle confused Hammy and he shot gas in AZBad’s eye-yowch!

After helping AZBad clean up, the droll bunch drove off into the thick gray haze of downtown Indianapolis. So long! Smooches from AZBad:

And “Peace out!” from Mr. Keester:

P.S. “My friend likes you!”

What?

Poor Mr. Keester. I’m working on a project at work and have had a million Javascript questions for him.

Him: “Duh?! You can’t use document.write inside a string that you are setting as the value of a variable.”

Me: “But I have the Internet on a disk!“