happy birthday to blog

I past the one year anniversary of stating this blog this month, and while this is not exactly a momentous event, I thought I'd mark it by posting all my quotes of the week (er, week to 2 weeks)from the past year. And no one will understand them all but me, but that's what this is all about isn't it? Me?
I started this thing a year ago partly out of peer pressure, and partly as an outlet to write about work (and some other stuff) and partly just as a distraction for the time. Oh, and partly because I had SO MUCH time at work where I had nothing to do. And now I have an employer who not only expects me to be working for them at all times, but makes it impossible for me to do otherwise. Boo, internet blocking. Boo.
So until I figure out a magical way around that, or a way to balance my time better, or just give up entirely, the posting will suffer. Like with me posting things I already have before. Like these quotes. Enjoy!

…My dessert stomach is empty…
-AP

My car usually smells like sweaty farts.
-heard within 5 minutes of a first date

Oh, you heard about that? I was going to tell you about my fiancé when we go out.

Money, money, money. Kids cost money. And I hate spending money.
-Cheap Man

I just discovered a “Britain’s Next Top Model” marathon on VH1 and I feel like how Columbus must have felt when he discovered the new world.
-AP

Mommy has my butt paste.
-Oliver, older son of LOB

I have to hand it to you, Jennifer, you’re smart. You find the easiest way to do every drill.”
-youth soccer coach, to me.

LOB, you’ve lost your shape.
-Max, the otherwise silent Russian soccer player

None of my friends can believe how old you are!
-AP, to me

I used to hope someone would like me for my personality, and now they have to.
-Mona

We’re like Sex and the City! Without the sex… and less successful… and unfortunately I think you’re Charlotte and I’m probably Miranda.
-Mona, on our Spanish vacation

I think there’s a part of every girl that would like to think she’s beautiful enough to be a model. That’s why I love seeing them all shot down.
-AP, on America’s Next Top Model

…I was just trying to think of what animal you resemble…
-boy’s explanation as to why he had just referred to me as “the moose”.

What would Catherine Zeta Jones do?
-Mona


“We have another lawyer.”
“Oh yeah?
“Yeah. His name is Jesus.”
-client to my friend, their attorney

Let’s here it for the class of 2007!!
-my friend Kat, on stage at her 10 year high school reunion

I’d rather spend the rest of my life with Beth Holland’s dogs.
-Mona, on the couples on the e-harmony commercials

The women in Spain are feminine, Jennifer.
-Mona, upon seeing what I was packing

Can you tell that these shoes are from 9th grade?
-Veronica, during a Friday night out on the town

Whatever. Men with all their hanging out everywhere – disgusting!
-Gorilla

What does it say about us that we only trust strippers to tell us what parts of our bodies look good? I guess it just means we give all professionals their due respect.
-Blay

As your friend and roommate, I cannot let you see this man of molten lust. And as your friend and roommate, I will go in your place. Because that’s the kind of good friend I am.
-AP

But the best part is, it’s not even butter – it’s cheese!
-Jay, after putting squeeze butter on his hotdog at dinner, his egg, bacon, and bbq sandwich at breakfast, and who knows what else, before hearing someone say, “pass the butter.”

I’m not sure this one will work since your boobs are so soft.
-bra saleslady to a friend, post breast-feeding

My husband is turning 32 – he’s practically 40, Jenn!!
-Splann, 2 months before my 32nd birthday

I just hit 88mph and traveled back in time.
-Foster, while crossing the Georgia/Alabama state line

Unless God tells you to, you should not commute to Norcross. There were no hot men in Norcross last time I checked.
-Mona

OOOHEEE! You know, sometimes it be STANKY in here!
-Bathroom Lady, armed with can of Lysol

If Gilbert Blythe were to show up right now and propose, I might have to divorce (my husband.) But don’t tell him I said that.
-Dolly

I can’t be married to a man with a horseshoe ring – it goes against everything I stand for! He already wears a wedding ring – he can’t be bejeweled!
-Dolly

You wish you were a kid so you could stay longer on the earth.
-my cousin’s 6-year-old daughter, to me

I see 'em, and I'm just like, "nah", cuz, Alabama women? They are red neck.
-chatty man sitting next to me on the plane, on why internet dating isn't working out for him. Instead of me trying to describe him, just try to picture the most ironic situation possible.

Romeo went home with some woman with pink shoes. The shoes were seen outside his door.
-Mona, who really needs to write a book on the adventures of living in a tiny town

Wait, who is that looking at me from your arm??

What do you do when you find out someone you're dating has a tattoo of a giant Jesus head covering their upper arm? (Uh, hypothetically speaking, of course...)
I mean, sure, at first you react like this: stare. stare. blink. stare. "uh... that's a really big Jesus head there..." (awkward silence) "Wait... is his mouth open?"
And then he says, "Yeah, he's laughing."

But then after that part, what do you do?

Do you:
a) Learn to love the giant Jesus head tattoo
b) Pretend like the giant Jesus head tattoo doesn't exist. After all, you're well practiced in the art of denial.
c) Run away. Which maybe you have already partially done a couple of times already, because you are all messed up like that.
d) shake your head and mumble, "How do they find me?" and cringe and bare it.
or e) (my personal favorite) When your friend Dolly says, "that only makes me like him more!" you persuade Dolly's husband to get the exact same tattoo, which maybe he is actually open to. And sure, that doesn't actually fix the original tattoo, but you sure do feel better.

any thoughts?

Does this mean I'm not having a "pretty day"?

You know how some people get offended when someone makes this comment to them: "You look tired today."?

Well, what about this instead...

I returned to my desk a little while ago to find a post-it on my computer with this on it:

"Are you feeling ok?  Do you need to go home?"

 

It seems I have reached a new level in the "you look tired" office-place talk.

 

I think maybe I shouldn't try my luck with a night out on the town tonight.

Backstreet's Back

All Right.

I just got back from my first Backstreet Boys concert. And let me tell you, one good thing about getting old is that I find that I am no longer to cool for boy bands. I will even admit that they were a lot of fun. Almost as much so as the people watching. However, there was a price to pay for the utter coolness of my youth. I learned the hard way that no, A.J. McLean was not in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", and because a friend requested a photo of Brian Littrell, I took about five thousand photos of Nick Carter. (Trying to get one that wasn't blurry - that guy really likes to hop around.) Can I interest anyone in a little Nick?


The night opened with a warm-up act from Girlicious. Have you heard of Girlicious? This was my first acquaintance myself... apparently they emerged from a reality t.v. show. I think they can be summed up like this:



To get the crowd going, they did a lot of this, "When I say girl, you say licious, "GIRL!"...." At first I tried to be a good sport, but after a few times of saying the (non)word "licious" out loud, I started to lose respect for myself. It would be easy to attribute this to my grumpy old age, but I was happy to see that the table of 13 year olds behind us were staring at them with a mixture of boredom and confusion. Good for you, future women.
But lest we start to feel sorry for these ladies, I'd like to point out that they had at least one super fan there. A gentelman who never sat down. Who knew all the dance moves to every song. And whom often reached out towards the stage, as if he were trying to stretch his body far enough to touch them just for a moment.

(that's not the stretching, this is the stretching:)


And then the boys came out. They may be old for boys, but they maintained their youthfulness. And best of all, they still appeal to the youth. I didn't really expect to see anyone too far under the age of 30 year, but these junior high girls sitting behind us? They loved themselves some Backstreet Boys. And honestly, I kind of wished I could be 13 again so I could join them. Maybe make some plans to drive by a house later. Make a note of the light that's on in a certain room and think, "OHMYGOSH HEMIGHTBEINTHERERIGHTNOW!!!! AAHH!" Those were some good times.




Come on, don't you wish you could be them, too? Just for a night. I don't think I need to live all of junior high over again.

And fellas, you may not think this applies to you, so let me say that I hope you take another lesson from this. All that time we were growing up when you made so much fun of these boy bands, how did you not see the brilliance? Sing a song about how you'd never break her heart, and then put on a hat and sit at a poker table and sing about how lonely you are - you don't even have to learn to dance for that one! And the ladies swoon. It's brilliant, I tell you. Why do we fall for this? We don't know. We can't answer that. It doesn't make sense. But we don't have to make sense! At one time or another in our lives, we our put under a magical spell by singing, dancing boys. Goodness help us.

Even the (just a little bit slightly) older and wise of us could relapse at any time! You know when you did that really cheesy thing by telling us that "If I had the time, I'd come off the stage and give each one of you ladies a kiss" and they all screamed for you? (See how easy that was, guys?) Well, sometimes even the best of us may get carried away, and fan ourselves, Gone With the Wind style, at the thought of an otherwise unnatractive man's with way too much guyliner's kiss.



Why? I don't know. Because we want it that way?

my forgotten bads

After I wrote the last post, I remembered a couple of the (SO VERY IMPORTANT) bad things that were going to go in my list (that I thought about when I was supposed to be learning how to do my job, remember?)

1. I had one day of work before I was shipped off to headquarters to learn stuff, and on this day, I realized that there will be no more lunches out with friends during the day. In fact, there will be no leaving the building at all. Lunch was brought in, and I realized it was expected that we would eat while working. But this wasn't what was as bad as what was to follow: My boxed lunch came with a big chocolate chip cookie, which I happened to know was going to be very good (because maybe I have sampled the chocolate chip cookie from that place before), and I saw that cookie, and I saw that it was good, and I rejoiced. And then I did something crazy - I saved it for later! And I went on working, thinking about how soon I would eat that cookie. And when finally I was ready to ruin my health further reward myself with deliciousness, I discovered that there was a PICKLE sitting on top of that cookie! A hiding pickle! And the cookie was all wet and pickley! And I had to throw it away. And that was a tragedy.
(And yes that did happen over a week ago. And I'm writing about it now - as if it were really important then. What can I say, I like cookies.)

2. Also on my first day, I needed to get all this information they had emailed me, because as I may have complained about mentioned earlier, they kept bothering me before I was actually working for them. So I go into the mail account that they felt free to send work to, and do you know what I found??? Big red letters saying "PROHIBITED!" People, I am working for a company that has completely blocked out email sites!! And the cookie was suddenly no longer the tragedy of my day. This may surprise you, but sometimes, while I was at work, I liked to write emails to my friends. And even to read emails I received. In fact, it may have crossed my mine once or twice, that I didn't understand how people could have gone to work day in and day out for years on end before there was the internet. Perhaps I had thought before that if I had to do this, I would end up one day taking a bat to my computer, and then running out the door screaming, becoming a feral woman in the near-by office place shrubbery.
So, yeah, I am not happy about this. At all.
Here's the temptation: The loud "prohibited" screen I got to said that personal mail sites like yahoo mail and hotmail are prohibited by company policy, but I checked gmail, and it worked. I have a gmail account that I don't use... do I start? Or do I play it safe and never see the sunshine or have contact with the outside world? Advice? I am a spoiled, spoiled, former lab worker. It's amazing I've made it this long without attempting any email.

I do think I'm going to restrict myself from writing about my new coworkers, just to be safe. Which is why I'm not going to talk about the man that talks all day long on his speaker phone in his super loud voice, and the woman in one of our other locations that he always calls. And the horrible conversations they have that I have to hear every word of. Or the horrible nicknames they use. See how well I'm doing? Much self control I have. (Which is what got me into trouble with the cookie.)

cigarettes & popcorn

Cigarettes and popcorn... how does that sound to you? I don't know, maybe you find it an enticing combination. But I am not liking it so much. You see, I have left the happy world of fantasy camp (i.e. temporary unemployment)and am back in the working world with a new job. And for my first full week I have been sent to headquarters to train with the pros (oldtimers), and today and tomorrow, I am working exclusively with a person who smells of cigarettes and popcorn. Or maybe it's just her office that smells like cigarettes and popcorn - I couldn't figure it out. But it wasn't from lack of trying. Basically, I have 2 days to learn what this woman does - and I have been told I really need 2 weeks. This business has an entire language that I'm unfamiliar with, so I really should be listening carefully, but it seems I have an extreme case of ADD. I don't understand it... I never had this problem in school as a kid. In fact, adults that new me told me I was oddly strong in the focusing and listening in following directions area. So what has happened to me now?? I mean, next week, I'm going to be back home, and all these people are going to expect me to know what I'm doing, and this is my chance to learn, but instead, it's like this:
her: blah, blah, blah
me: nodding, but thinking something about the most unimportant thing possible. such as any of the following:
"I wonder what I'm going to eat tonight... hmmm..."
"Man, that guy I worked with 8 years ago was crazy. Remember that time he said that thing? Crazy!"
or: "What the hell is going on with the cigarettes and the popcorn? I mean, the cigarettes are easy enough to figure out - she smokes. But popcorn? I haven't seen her eat any popcorn... where is it coming from? (and leaning in for a closer look) My gosh this popcorn scent only gets stronger!! Does she have popcorn perfume? What is going on here?!"
Meanwhile, I am staring blankly at her and at the computer/papers and nothing is going into my head. That is probably not good. But I got 3 hours of sleep last night and had to rent a car and drive from one strange city to another this morning, and anyone who knows me can attest that not getting lost uses up all of my brain power for one day. So... maybe tomorrow will be better?

here are some other good and bad things from my week - just so I talk about something else:

Good:
The nice lady here drove me around during lunch and showed me where my hotel was and where all the good shopping is.
Bad:
She did this while smoking in the car with the windows rolled up, which not only makes me a little sick, but due to a tobacco allergy, I now cannot breath through my nose. And nobody likes a mouth breather.

Bad:
I was still up at 2 last night, and had to get up at 5 this morning, fly, drive, and work a full day.
Good:
My hotel has a happy hour! With free food and beers and boxed wine and cokes! And even though I didn't drink the boxed wine or the cokes, it made me insanely happy that they were there. I did have a Texas beer, which reminded me of Texas friends, which also made me happy.
Bad:
I also made a dinner from the snacks, mostly of tortilla chips and some kind of mysterious chili-like substance that was all greasy and floating around in a warming pot, and now my stomach feels like it has knives stabbing in it from all directions.

Good:
In describing an awkward social situation I recently had to my friend, Dolly, I actually made her utter a high-pitched squeal of discomfort with my tale of singleness and date good-byes.
Bad:
I'm the one that was actually there for it. But still, totally worth it to make Dolly squirm.

Good:
I have schooled my young 2 year old niece in the art of ABBA, and she can now sing lines from "Dancing Queen" whilst incorporating appropriate dance moves.
Bad:
Only resorted to playing itunes for niece because we were without power for 24 hours, and geez, that is a long time to entertain a 2 year old in the dark. Also, there was much heat.

Bad:
In my kickball game this weekend, I injured myself in my first time up at bat, making myself feel really old. Also, since when did a pulled muscle hurt so much?? Since I got so old, apparently.
Good:
Young man on my alumni kickball team, upon hearing the year I graduated said, "What?! So you were a child genius?? You can't be older than 25!" Bless you my son. Bless you.

There was more (that I thought of while I was supposed to be learning my new trade) but my mind is tiring now... I was going to go out in search of allergy meds, but the chili knives in my stomach are demanding bed, instead. Later!