November 11, 2002

And now, the news.

According to my hits counter, I'm very nearly at 30,000 visitors. How cool is that? Tell ya what - if you are visitor number 30,000, e-mail me a screen shot of the counter (at the bottom of the index page), along with your snail-mail address, and I'll send you a present. If you don't happen to be *exactly* number 30,000, the person who e-mails me with the closest number wins. G'wan! It'll be fun. (Oh, hey, and don't cheat and refresh a bunch of times until you get to 30,000. That's just mean.)

Well, dammit. I was hoping by this time that I'd be able to tell y'all whether or not I got that job. I was supposed to have a meeting with my manager today at 11:00, during which the subject would surely be brought up. But she sped by my desk at 10:30 and said she had to cancel. Crap.

So, the weekend is what I have to talk about. Actually, starting Thursday. A tradition among AcronymCo employees is to "trash" the office of folks returning from their Sabbatical. (Long time readers will recall that a Sabbatical is a two-month paid vacation, given every seven years to every employee.) A really fun guy in our group is returning tomorrow. He goes to Africa yearly in order to kill creatures and stuff them, because when he's not at AcronymCo he's a taxidermist. Interesting mix of vocations, no? So we took a bunch of stuffed animals and hung them by their feet or their necks from garlands strung from the ceiling. We papered his walls with rubber duckie wrapping paper. We plotted out Wanted posters with an image of him standing over a dead antelope, with mock rewards provided by PETA. We created images of cute little bunnies with semi-automatic rifles holding him hostage. And when he comes in on Tuesday, we'll be scarfing his truck keys from his wife (who also works at AcronymCo) and we'll fill his seats with packing peanuts. He'll think it's over when he sees his cubicle, but he'll get whammed again when he gets in his truck to leave for the day.

With each "trashing" that we do, we get more inventive. In the past we've completely boxed in the openings and filled the entire cubicle with paper, balloons, and confetti. We've put up extra panels so that it looks like there's no cube there. We've completely emptied it of the person's possessions, then sent him on a treasure hunt to find them all again. We've built shanties out of cardboard, giving the cubicle a roof and a door, and decorated it tiki-style with little torches and masks.

It's enough to make a girl not want to go on Sabbatical. Mine's in June of 2003. I'm doing my best to be so nice and sweet to everyone that no one will have the heart to be mean to me.

Anyway, we did that for a couple of hours on Thursday afternoon. Then I had to go to a medieval torture session with the dentist. The dentist, himself, is a very nice person. The pain he inflicts on my mouth is *not* nice. Six shots of novocaine, people. SIX. I apparently have a tolerance never before seen by this guy. I had three cavities to fill - one on an upper tooth which was eeny and so I was butch and didn't even need numbing. Two on the lower teeth which were massive gaping caverns of rotting toothy badness. Well, probably not really. I didn't even know they were there and couldn't see them. But anything that took SIX SHOTS to numb must've been some badass cavities.

As a result, my mouth hurts like a mutha. I haven't been able to eat, at least not well, since Thursday. I'm still a mess and thinking of investing in Advil's stock. The dentist tore my mouth to SHREDS, people, SHREDS. I'm not afraid of the dentist, per say, just pain in general. I mean, he gave me two shots and started in. I jumped because I could FEEL it, so he gave me two more. Deep into the depths of my cheek and gums. The needle was long and pointy and unfriendly, and it just kept going in and in and IN. Gah, I'm giving myself the heebies just thinking about it. He started in again. I jumped *again* when he started to drill. He looked at me, incredulous, and popped two MORE shots into my poor mouth. He absented himself for a minute to give the novocaine time to work. I sat there and tried not to cry. I'm not kidding, I actually got worked up and emotional. The hygienist chickie felt so bad for me she tried to distract me by telling me about her honeymoon to Hawaii. All that did was make me upset about my mouth *and* about the fact that I've never been to Hawaii and probably won't go for a loooong time (damn AcronymCo stock, anyway).

By the time the dentist got back, got in there and got his shit done, I was so over the whole experience. When he wrapped up, I bolted out of the chair so fast I think I still had cotton stuck in my mouth. I don't think I even said goodbye. I *know* I didn't thank him. I mean, really. "Oh, gee, thanks for making me bleed and making me cry and making me wish I had false teeth. Thanks for making me a bad role model for having to tell Marie that yes, the dentist sucks, and no, you don't have to go because I'm not a mean, mean stepmother."

Shee-it.

Calvin and I had a less-than-wonderful night that night. Something about me leaving the bathroom door open, which allowed the cat to get in, claim Calvin's toothbrush as his own, and suck on it like a Dreamscicle. That escalated into his complaint that I, apparently, never listen to him. And to be sure, I don't recall him asking me to keep the cat out of our bedroom and bathroom. I blame it on the novocaine. I mean, I was numb on the right side of my head from eye socket to up over my right ear, down along my jaw, around my whole chin and 3/4 of my lips, and back up along side the right side of my nose. I'm not shocked that I missed that detail.

Anyway, no big deal. Calvin, Marie, and I stayed home on Friday. I'd intended on working a half day on Friday morning, but my cheek was swollen to the approximate size of a pumpkin, so I stayed home. I took Marie and her friend to see "8 Mile" in the afternoon, and I have to say that it didn't make my eyeballs bleed the way I figured it would. Apart from one trashy, lame, and obviously gratuitous sex scene, (during which I covered Marie's eyes while she squirmed) the movie wasn't half bad. I probably wouldn't buy it on DVD just so I could watch it over and over and over again, but I survived. Calvin would have HATED to go, since it seems that a lot of other children skipped school on Friday to see "8 Mile" on opening day. Lots of hooty types, much cat-calling, and a lot of belligerence. I just sat and tolerated it. Calvin would have started a fight.

We had a friend over for drinks on Friday night and made it a fairly mellow evening. Saturday rolled around, and Calvin and I expected his youngest sister "M" to call us so we could go over and help paint her house - she recently moved into a new home. We're pretty curious to see it, since to hear her describe it, it sounds fabulous. We'd spoken the weekend before and she told us she'd call mid-week to confirm the arrangements. She never did buzz us, so we assumed she must have done it herself. A communication mix-up, I guess. Sometimes family-oriented events are complicated things.

At any rate! We spent Saturday cleaning out the garage, relaxing in the hot tub, and just hanging out. Another friend stopped by on Saturday night for drinks, one we haven't seen for about six years. So we spent some time ogling his motorcycle and looking at his vacation pictures of Maui (more Hawaii longing - yeesh). We did the taxi thing for Marie, and that pretty much sums up Saturday.

Sunday I spent all afternoon putting together the menu for our Thanksgiving dinner. We're going to take Calvin's grandparents out for dinner the night before Thanksgiving to spend some time with them, since we're planning on having Thanksgiving at home with just a few friends (Heather (Glee! She has the Peanuts Thanksgiving show on tape!), and we're hoping AB and her daughter) and not attending any family festivities this year. Even so, I'm cooking enough for an ARMY. Spinach artichoke dip. Stuffed mushrooms. Bruchetta. Marsala basted turkey, stuffed with apples and pears. Cornbread stuffing. Mashed potatoes. Giblet gravy. Green salad (which Heather is bringing). Veggie and cheese casserole. Four bean salad. Potato rolls. Black bottom cupcakes. Apple pie. Chocolate cream pie.

Anybody else wanna come to our house for turkey day this year? It's the first time I've ever cooked a turkey, so it may end up being a Taco Bell night. Though, well, God, there's enough other food besides turkey that even if it rots, no one will starve. We shall see. Calvin's sister "K" seems to have faith in my abilities, but she'll be out of town over Thanksgiving, so she won't have to eat the result of my inexperience. She did offer to leave me her phone number in case I get in a jam. I tend to side with Calvin, though, "It's just a big chicken! You've cooked chicken before, right?" We'll make it. Looks like I won't have to cook meals for the next four nights after Thanksgiving, too. Poundage, here I come.

You think my productivity on Sunday stopped there? Wrong you are! Not only did I plan out Thanksgiving, but I got all the laundry done, and planned out our dinner menu for the next week, AND I got a TON of Christmas shopping done! I bought gifts for all of Calvin's sisters' kids (three girls and four boys), a few things for Calvin, Marie, and Michael, something for my boss, something for a girlfriend at work, something for Heather, something for AB, and something for AB's daughter. The only things left to do is send a check to my sister for her kids, beef out the purchases for Marie and Michael, and buy one more thing for Calvin.

I don't even need to explain to you how much I rock. Or, to be truthful, how much Amazon rocks. Free shipping. Yeah baby.

As you can tell, I'm in full-tilt anticipation of the holidays. I have full intentions of decorating the house to the hilt the day after Thanksgiving. My girlfriend from work and I are planning on going out during some lunchtime to buy holiday decorations. Heather and I are planning a Christmas Special Viewing Marathon (she has all of *those* on tape, too) and a Cookie Baking Extravaganza. Calvin, Marie and I are going to a Def Leppard concert on December 10th (not holiday-ish, but fun nonetheless). I'm also dragging Marie to a Nutcracker performance sometime in December. Michael is coming home around December 13th through the 28th, and his permanent duty station will now be in San Diego (which means he'll be home visiting most weekends. Woo!). I have December 20th through January 2nd off from work. That fact alone is enough to make me giddy about the holidays.

Now if we can just manage to keep the cat from destroying the tree. He could single-pawedly derail the holiday mood.

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©Laura Charon 2000 - 2002.