Luckybwaygirl

Needy.

I have a very quirky cat.  He tries behavior out for a few weeks and then (usually) abandons it for something new.  For example, last month he'd do this:

He'd jump up on the big bed in the middle of the night and sleep next to me. This warmed my heart because he is a feral cat that we adopted off the mean streets and have never managed to fully tame. Any cuddles that I get are welcome, since they don't happen often.

EXCEPT.

Lately, he has taken to crying at precisely 5:45am every morning.  When I get up to check on him. he races ahead of me to the kitchen all, "Oh good.  You're up.  Follow me."  Once I get into the kitchen, he circles my legs and starts purring (he rarely purrs).  I check all the water bowls - he has fresh water.  I check his food bowl -- he a has a little kibble, so he can't be asking for food.  I check the litter pans - they're clean.  What could he want from me?  All his needs are met!

Well, except that all he seems to want is for me to sit down on the kitchen floor and pet him for 5 minutes.  Once he's had enough, he trots off to the living room to hunker down on a pillow and finish sleeping.  

Adorable, yes?  Not for the human left sitting on the kitchen floor at 5:50am.  I much preferred the "snuggling next to my human" in bed phase that he went thru last month!

We'll be getting our Christmas tree next week....sooooooooo.

Sad little lip liner

Y'all.

My "Berry Berry" lip liner.

I don't think I can getting one more sharpening out of it. 

If I stick it in a sharpener, I think it will get stuck because there's no more pencil left for me to turn it on the outside!

I am so sad!

It was THE BEST lip liner and I can't get an exact replacement.

You see, I bought this lip liner at Bath & Body Works in the last week of July 2001. And I bought it on my lunch hour on the last day of a temping gig.  And I was all excited because on July 30, I was headed to Pennsylvania to play my first lead role in a regional production of "Can-Can"...

...and I was temping at the World trade Center.  I bought this lip liner in the Bath & Body Works in the mall underneath the building.

After all these years, I am still a little weepy about the WTC tragedy.  I feel very sad and very weird that I was doing the happy-happy can-can show in PA and that I was not at HOME.  I am so sad about all the loss.  I really don't like it when extended family members or tourists (or whatever) ask me to talk about it. 

But I am really having feelings about this stubby little lip pencil.   I used as I played Claudine in "Can-Can" and was asked to sing "God Bless America" at every curtain call.  I am loathe to part with it, since it has lived in my make-up bag ever since.

The goal is to not get sick.

This week is very special because Freddie and I are both taking the ENTIRE week off.

I have been looking forward to resting this week for MONTHS.  Naturally, of course, we both started fighting minor sneezes and somewhat foreboding ever-so-slightly sore throats toward the end of last week.  I suppose it's because our bodies sense that we are coming down to the end of a very productive yet incredibly stressful amount of time and that we will, in fact, have this whole week to relax. 

Isn't that the best time to get SICK?

Dude.  On my honeymoon?  SO SICK.

I could not afford a wedding planner, so I pretty much produced and starred in my own "NYC production"....aaaand the minute we landed in Rio de Janeiro for our honeymoon, I got SO SICK.  A painful sore throat, aches, running nose and terrible fatigue and oh-my-god-do-not-make-me-go-outside-and-do-anything-and-don't-touch-me-don't-even-talk-to-me SICK.  I was SO SEXY.

We have one goal this week -- Do. Not. Get. Sick.

If you know me, you'll laugh at this post.

I have a reputation for being pretty put-together.

Actually, it's crucial to my survival job.  I work as a front desk receptionist at a private bank and have been instructed to conduct myself as a direct representative of our Major Big Deal CEO.  As such, I am paid well so that I can keep my appearance to the liking of the higher ups at the company.  I am glad they recognize that I am the very first impression of the company for guests and that I am compensated well for that role, but...

The thing is -- I must be rather conservative in my wardrobe selections.  I like fashion, but I can't wear trendy styles in my workplace.  Like, not even close.  The fashion vibe for the reception team in my office is: "You are taking your grandma to church...ready, GO!"  This means wearing hosiery and proper foundations, hair/nails/make-up/jewelry done up tight, no skirts above the knee, no bare shoulders, no sandals, no 4-inch heels, and DEFINITELY no cleavage -- just say no to (boob)crack.

Now, I am in the habit of always saying YES to invites from work colleagues.  I think it is good to bond outside the office and support your work friends in their hobbies and endeavors outside of the office.

Yesterday, one of our administrators sent me an invite to attend the insider party for her fashion line Hunter Dixon.  I said yes, not knowing very much about her line except that SHE isn't sitting at the front desk, so SHE gets to be cute and trendy (rather than erring on the side of caution and dressing like she's spending the afternoon with senior citizens) and I assume she wears her own line frequently and since she always looks edgy and great, I rsvp'd a YES. 

But then, I went snooping around online to get a better look at what she has to offer.  WHICH IS TOTALLY OUT OF MY PRICE RANGE.  Whilst I wouldn't mind splurging to help a friend...she doesn't really need help.  She's established.  She's kind of...arrived.  I was studying her look book and thinking, "When would I ever have the chance to ever wear any of these beautiful designs?"  I go to work and I go to church.  Maybe I could wear one of her dresses to an opening night event for my theater company, but I don't have one of those until May 2010. (Note to self -- hit her up in the Spring for sick discount on an opening night dress in return for an ad in our program?  yes.)

So then I was all....crap.  This is out of my league.  Maybe I should cancel.

Except, just as I was about to send her a "I'm sorry" message, a message from her popped up on my work email all:

"Oh!  I am so excited that you can come!  Thank you so much!"

Ooooo-kay.

So here's where I ran into a little problem.

Major Big Deal CEO has a wine label and is doing an Holiday after-hours wine tasting in one of our conference rooms this evening. Weeks ago, I was asked to please stay late and "work" the event, directing guests to the room.

"Sure!  OOO!  I'll wear my red vest!  Festive!"

This was the outfit I had planned to wear today:

That's a full skirt that hits below the knee.

Cute and appropriate for working at a party?  Yes.

Cute and appropriate as a guest at a NYC fashion event?  Uh....

So.

I had exactly 45 minutes to shop yesterday evening and I bought this:

Boucle knit turtle neck, wool tulip-shaped mini-skirt (which is awesome!) and textured tights.

To all this, I added my awesome glass necklace that my mom bought for me at the art fair near the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (a good conversation piece) and my platform peeptoe pumps that have a cute ruffle detail.

TA-DA!  I put that together in 45 min.  I RULE.

True, I am kinda pushing the envelope of the dress code today with the short skirt and high heels, but I am hoping my superiors will look askance because - hello! - Wine Event.  It's fancy like that.

Also....? 

I spent $80 to go to a fashion event in which I cannot afford to buy anything.

(aaaaand.....scene.)

(fakes one of those "Who, Me?" humility devices that actresses use at awards shows...then takes a bow, blows kisses and flits off stage)

UPDATE:

Okay - I didn't even get to GO to the fashion event because the wine event was terribly successful and I had to stay late and work there all night.  :(  But.  I have a cute new outfit.  I'll just wear it to a holiday party next month.

Hefty bag is a verb

I watch "Supernanny" because I work with children (REAL children at fun job #3 and bankers at my "money" job....which, yeah...children) and I have all these questions about discipline.

For example - spanking.

This was a perfectly acceptable form of discipline when I was a kid.  I got spanked.  In fact, I got spanked by adults that weren't even my parents!  That was fine back in the 70s.  A neighbor's mom could TOTALLY spank you if you disobeyed in her house or on her watch.  Naturally, I did not LIKE getting spanked.  And guess what?  I didn't not require spanking past the age of 6.  I wanted to behave well because I understood the consequences of misbehaving and I didn't want to bring said consequences upon myself.

Another example -- grounding (or time out).

I never experienced grounding or time out when I was a kid.  My mom didn't like it.  She struggled with a few subjects in school when she was young and her father grounded her "until her grades improved" only they didn't improve -- because she's a people-person and not a great test-taker.  Thus, she went into her own child-rearing thinking that grounding a kid is dumb and doesn't solve anything.

So how did she keep me in line in my pre-teen years?

HEFTY BAG.

It's a verb, y'all.

Anytime I teetered dangerously close to pissing her off, I'd get:

"ERIN!  You'd better obey RIGHT NOW or I'M getting the HEFTY BAG."

The hefty bag, of course, was a merciless cleansing of my room.  She'd just filled up that bag with anything that was out of place and send it to the Salvation Army.  Because careless kids do not deserve nice things.

Truth be told, it kept me in line better than any other form of punishment.  The mere THREAT of a hefty-bagging would send me scurrying off to my room to put my things away.

I wish I could hefty-bag my apartment right now.  With all sorts of plans on the horizon:  a new bed in the bedroom, another possible deployment, and talk of starting a family (and the need to move in order to do that), we have SO MUCH CRAP.  And it's...mostly Freddie's crap.  He's far more sentimental than I.  He likes to keep ticket stubs and logo tee shirts from events and paperwork-OH-MY-GOD-the-paperwork.

So much PAPER.

Dude.  I am >thisclose< to hefty-bagging it all.  But I can't without his consent (...because YOU KNOW the minute I throw something out he'll go searching for it and I'll find out that it was Actually Quite Important and I shouldn't have done that.  Oh yeah, I've been there.  More than once.)

My little mommy:

 

DO NOT be fooled by her cuteness. 

That woman has a hefty bag and she's not afraid to use it.