Swamped.

That's what I am right now.

Have fun things to post...just don't have the time. Soon, kids. Very soon!
(Pic from Google Images)

Fridge poetry II

I've mentioned before that the fridge in our break room is often a forum for some amazing poetry. These two take the cake right now and are the perfect segue into a long awaited weekend. (Sidenote: In writing this post I found out that "segue" is not spelled "segway." Good to know...)

I feel like this one could be straight out of a personal ad...

And this one just makes me giggle, even if I don't exactly know how to use all of the words properly.

If you can't read the tiny magnets it says, "You're naughty, honey, but my erstaz pride is wired in there like a feckless juggernaut."

Oh and BTW, I totally saw Spiderman's grandmother and Dwight Schrute at the Loring Pasta Bar last night. It was pretty intense.

Hold my hand when you cross the street!

Look both ways!
Don't jaywalk!
Wait for the light!
Use the crosswalk!

Sounds simple, right? It should be, except for when the street/sidewalk line painters can't make up their minds. Every time I walk on this stretch of road, which is several times a day, I mentally shake my head. Get it together, people!


Just to be safe, I walk on the part where the two intersect. Can't be too careful...

Bubble tea

At lunch with a colleague today I was exposed to something entirely new, slightly scary, but generally entertaining: bubble tea. Where to begin? First, you have to select a regular tea-ish item off the menu. There are shakes and lattes and chai shakes and the list goes on and on. After that, you pick a flavor. Each different type of tea drink has about 20+ flavors to go with it: almond, vanilla almond, papaya, taro, mint. So, pick a drink, pick a flavor, add bubbles. The bubbles are the crazy part. Half gummy, half goey, with a touch of slippery...factor in that they are black and it's all a little overwhelming. One cool thing is that they put a plastic sealed top on as a lid so you have to use the giant straw to poke through the saran wrap like top to get to your drink. That part, was fun. The first bubble made my eyes get big and I definitely squeaked, kind of like I did when the cow licked me, but from there on out it was a little weird. Once I started I felt the need to follow through but I just couldn't quite eat all of my bubbles. Emily did the tea justice so at least one of us finished what we started. Overall, a fun experience on a hot summer day...evey if the bubbles feel a little odd in my belly now.
(Picture from Google images)

Hapbee Thursday

This is what was left on my desk this morning! Bee graham crackers. Mmm. Pretty sure I have some of the best co-workers ever.

Fridge Poetry

Our office has fridge poetry magnets in it. I don't think we are unique in having this but we also have a fairly large staff of writers. This makes for some pretty darn good fridge poetry, at least I enjoy it. Here are a few of the interesting ones:

I am being Run and you're a crabby stone.
build spin tips in the dorm
A vapid geek is in my frazzled hair and has no cunning!
Baby you're a scary grumpy social hack
In our dogtired community we surf to steaming naughty intellectual music
Tawdry U of M dream team and stadium squirrel.
my great onyx can languish about austere amalgam

and my current favorite:
laugh so pretty some will...

Maybe I'll steal the line and write a full poem from it. Hard to say, but I just think it is sweet.

Battles lost: Sprinkler and Mouse

Sprinkler
Last night, despite the dewpoint of 70, I decided my lawn was past due for a trim. Out came my Toro mower, Toro electric trimmer, and Toro electric blower. After finishing up with all of those toys I decided to tackle the Toro sprinkler timer on front hose. (Sidenote: I am quite pleased with my free hose. It was left behind by the former owners along with crusty grape jelly in the fridge, 1950's shoe polish under the kitchen sink, and a broken yellowed washing machine in the garage. Oh well, free is free, right?) Part of the grass on the slope down to the front sidewalk wasn't getting any water so I had to adjust nobs, settings, and levels to compensate. Twenty minutes later, soaked from head to toe and with bloody knuckles, I decided the score was sprinkler: 1 me: 0.
Mouse
Today I told Dan that I got a new mouse for my computer and he was impressed that all you have to say to IT here is, "I need a new mouse. Cordless." and they give it to you. I also told him you don't even have to tell them that the reason you don't like your mouse is because your stilletos keep getting caught in the cord when you spin around too fast to say hi to someone which results in you almost falling off of your chair about...20 times a day.

Laughing at work

Sometimes I laugh so much at work I'm positive someone is going to come see why I am finding a feasibility study for the School of Dentistry so funny. Then, they might find that I can't stop laughing because people keep sending me quotes from www.overheardinminneapolis.com or e-cards from www.someecards.com (which I have already linked to but is worth mentioning again).
Here are some that had me in tears clutching my stomach during that late afternoon lull...
They’re Not So BadSmall Child (in shopping cart, pointing at shelf): Oh look, Mommy, yummy marshmallows!
Mom: No, Henry, those are dishwasher tablets.

Middle-aged balding man to friend as fireworks begin: Dude, I just love the plate tectonics of these fireworks.
Friend: You mean pyrotechnics?? Are you stupid?

I Left Mine In My Other Purse
Older woman shouting: Somebody on this bus got a skunk! Who’s got a skunk in their purse?!


Appropriate after going shooting at a random quarry up north this weekend...

And finally, in honor of big sister's one year wedding anniversary!

Bless ME

When someone sneezes I say, "Bless you," without even thinking about it. To not say it would take a conscious effort but here at the office, I seem to be in the minority. No one has ever said it to me when I've sneezed here and it makes me feel lonely in a way. During my travels I noticed that many other countries say nothing when someone sneezes (Spain for example) but this is Minnesota for cripes sake! People are supposed to be nice here. So, since it is so automatic for me to say something when I hear an ACHOO and no one says it for me I have taken to saying, "Bless me" in the silence that follows my sneezes. Its not quite the same, so maybe if you ever randomly think of it during the day you could send me a mental "Bless you!" just to make sure I'm covered. That would be great. Thank you in advance.

60 days and counting

Recently I sat down with Boss for my 60-day review. I rocked it. Actually, I rocked the first 60 days which is why the review went so well. He said I am fearless, which is a way no one has ever described me before. When I told Mom she thought it was super cool, but at first not because it was a compliment to be called fearless. No, she thought it was cool because there used to be a pheasant that lived in our backyard that my sister fed with corn and named Fearless. Awesome. Thanks for that, Mom.

Anyway, thats not the exciting part. Here is the exciting part. On my way downstairs to meet Boss at the D'Amico Cafe for my review, I stopped in the 5th floor bathroom so I wouldn't have to go halfway through the review, to make sure there i didn't have anything in my teeth and that my hair wasn't completely ruined by the humidity. Turning on the faucet I reached for the soap dispenser pump, pressed down, and squirted soap into my hand. I froze and stared at the pink circle of soap spreading into a puddle in my palm. "No freakin way," I thought, "No freakin way." See, since the day I started, there had not been soap in the far right dispenser at the sink closest to the door. My whole first week I kept trying to use it. By the end of my first month I was shocked no one had refilled it. At my last job, things like that got taken care of over night, like magic. (Actually it wasn't magic, the cleaning staff had a checklist on the back of the door and someone had to sign it after every shift to verify everything had been done, including refilling the soap). It got to be habit that I would always try that empty dispenser, just to see if someone had filled it. By the time my 60-day rolled around I had all but given up and so when the moment came that the dispenser actually worked I stared so long I was almost late for my review.

I think its a sign. Of what? I do not know. But it is definitely a sign.

Mason jars = nalgene bottles?

In the past few weeks, I have noticed almost half a dozen people drinking water from mason jars. Are they the new Nalgene bottle? If so, no one told me. To fit in, I am now drinking out of a recycled glass salad dressing jar. Actually, I just got tired of the tiny little glasses they have in the kitchen at work so I decided to use the container I had brought soup in one day for lunch as a drinking glass. Maybe that is how everyone else ended up with their mason jars. Hard to say...

Another new development--I just found out that pudding is really really good. It used to gross me out. Now, I may or may not be slightly addicted to vanilla fat free snack packs. They are even better with fresh raspberries. YUM.

1/2 an hour to go

The last hour of work never goes by quickly. NEVER. Well, unless I'm trapped in Boss' office pretending I don't care that it is 45 minutes after when I was supposed to leave because I'm still new enough that I just want to please. Anyway, here are some of my techniques for making the last half hour go by a little faster:
1) Get a glass of water. Preferably, from the water source farthest from your desk. That way, you kill some time walking over, filling the glass, and walking back. Plus, its like having a bottle of water on car trips to make the time go by faster---not sure why it works, but it just does.
2) Eye drop application. By the end of the day, my eyes are always dry and bloodshot from 8 hours of staring at my computer. Goldie the Gopher and Jesse the Owl, who sit under my computer screen, get even more glassy-eyed than is usual for stuffed animals just watching me squint at the screen. I don't even walk to the bathroom to do this. I mean, c'mon, who is going to tell you to get back to work when you're clearly involved in a self-health procedure.
3) Printer check. Inevitably, I print things throughout the day with the intention of picking them up later but later just never seems to come. So, I do a loop and check all of the printers for any of my random documents that might be laying about.
4) Write tomorrow's to-do list. Now clearly this will only work if you are a to-do lister in the first place (or maybe you should start just to help pass that last half hour), but not only is it a good way to kill time, it also makes me feel prepared for the next day. It also forces me to go over the to-do list from the day before and really, how good does it feel to grab a big black Sharpie and cross off the things you accomplished that day? SO good.
5)Check in with Boss. Now, this can be a dangerous one because if Boss has something he wants you to do by the end of the day, you have just suckered yourself into staying way more than the already close to fatal half an hour. One option is to pull the, "I was just wrapping up for the day and was wondering if you had anything that needed to be a priority for tomorrow." This should make it clear that you need to leave soon but still shows you want to help tomorrow. Gets you closer to 5:00 while scoring points with Boss man.
6) The classic bathroom break. If you walk as far as I do to your parking garage, you know that needing to "go" halfway there can be a killer. Too far to turn back to the office, but there isn't a bathroom in the ramp. Bummer.
7) Snack. Another dangerous one, but in a different way than Boss check in. With this one, it is just a question of if you're willing to acknowledge that a snack could put your jeans in danger of not buttoning next time you wash them.
8) Call Mom. You know she'll love to hear from you. Mine feels important when I call from the office. Actually, this could take up the entire half an hour right there.
9) Change shoes. Only relevant if you have walking shoes to get to your car versus office shoes to wear during the day like I do.
10) Blog.

More than just a job...

So tomorrow I start a new job. Not just "a" new job...THE new job. It feels like I'm starting my career and its more than a little intimidating. No more using the "I'm just an intern" excuse when it comes to things getting screwed up or not remembering someones name or any other number of things I did wrong in the past year at Toro. Now I'm a real, full blow, employee.
Official title: Associate Development Officer, Special Programs, University of Minnesota Foundation
Thats almost as much of a mouthful as when I had to memorize the heart condition they diagnosed me with in the 4th grade. "Supraventricular tachycardia" is not easy to say at 10 years old with a mouth full of braces.
Here I go. A real big kid job. A real title. Real responsibilities. And, of course, real benefits too :)