Man they were blowin' like a hurricane

So Hurricane Katrina is barreling down on "N'orlans". The hurricane hunters from the NHC are comparing her intensity to Hurricane Camille in 1969--only larger. (For those of you who aren't weather nerds, Hurricane Camille is considered the worst hurricane to hit the US mainland with winds over 200 mph and a storm surge of over 20 feet). As all the major news sources are reporting, the fact that New Orleans all that surrounds it are actually below sea level means that any rise in sea level would put the city itself underwater.

Am I the only one who finds this incredibly exciting?

No doubt, there will be lives lost. If I were down there, I definitely would not stick around. But I think if you buy a house along the Gulf Coast the maxim holds true: caveat emptor. And I personally have always wanted to evacuate. Two of the highways out of New Orleans have been completely north-bound to help with evacuation. Where would you go, what would you do? The city is also planning on opening up the Super Dome for residents who cannot leave the area. And Jim Cantore, my hero at the Weather Channel, keeps telling people to hunker down.

I love hurricane season.

Lucky duck

So remember when we were little and we learned about the environment and they told us we were supposed to cut up plastic six-pack rings because ducks and other aquatic type birds would try to eat them and then get caught? How come we don't hear about that anymore? Are we still supposed to do it? Or did the ducks get smarter so it is no longer a problem?

The deskman.

So there is this guy who sits in the lobby at work. His name is George and he looks like a cross between Mickey Rourke and Don Johnson in Miami Vice, and he sounds like someone doing a bad impression of a drunk Jimmy Stewart. (Actually, Jimmy sounds like he is doing a drunk impression of himself in The Philadelphia Story). It's actually a really cool set up-- you walk in a set of glass doors and there is a big open lobby and his circular desk is right in the middle. Well, normally it is a cool set-up. It is not, however, conducive to sneaking in late after a night of drinking (or a morning of sleeping on the steering wheel). There is no place to hide; it is just a big empty room with him right in the middle. Yet every morning after I attempt to make myself as un-obvious as possible. Right. So last Friday morning after Oola's Ladies Eighties Night at Fuel, I come stumbling in closer to 9 than to 8 o'clock. I glanced through the glass doors, squinting in the morning sunlight. George has his back to the doors, he was on the phone. Taking my chance, I quietly but quickly open the double doors and try to tip-toe on the marble floors to the elevator. However, I was wearing slip-on heels, and like flip-flops, when you take a step forward, the heel portion of the shoe normally makes a FLOPping sound. This noise becomes much worse when you add the extra resistance from the tip-toe position. All this adds up to two or three resounding FLOP FLOP FLOPs as I scuttled across the marble floor. Panicked by the extra noise my shoes were making, a resorted to shuffling. And with my eyes only on George, I missed the mop bucket and wet floor sign right in front of the elevators. When my shuffling feet hit the wet marble, they shot out from under me and I found myself in the same position as the guy on the yellow sign, like a dead bug. The commotion grabbed George's attention, and he swiveld around in his chair and got up to help me. He missed the bright yellow sign as well and he went down like an inebriated turtle. As we both flailed about, I managed to hit the elevator button. When the silver doors opened, I crawled to the carpet and finally found my footing and helped George up. He dusted himself off, straightened his tie, looked at me, and shook his head. He was still shaking his head when the elevator doors shut.

I am definitely going to try harder to get to work on time. Or buy quieter footwear.

Hi-ya!

So sometimes when I wear a skirt, I get an overwhelming urge to do martial arts.

When you care enough to send crap, crap, crap

So I hate Hallmark. Every time I go there, I leave feeling like Mr. Rochester's first wife with a great desire to run about setting things on fire.

I had three tasks today: a birthday card for my mum, an anniversary card for my parents, and thank-you notes with martinis on them. First dilemma: I don't like sentimental cards with a bunch of flowery language. If I need to evoke some emotion, I will write it myself. Plus, you know when you receive a card with a bunch of words inside you don't read them, unless it is a funny card and it has a punchline in there somewhere (which is probably not funny anyway, see Second dilemma, below). So that eliminates approximately 94% of the cards in Hallmark. I usually don't buy sentimental cards anyway (unless its for a funeral, even then I try to find a card with the least amount of writing in it, which is not necessarily the most appropriate card: I once sent a Jewish-themed card to a Catholic friend of my mother's...).

Second dilemma: there were like five "humorous" anniversary cards. I put humorous in quotations because the powers that be in the Hallmark corporation (the same people who gave Dave Coulier a career, no doubt) think these cards are funny. They are not funny. They are not even close to funny. The new commercial for Shoebox (a tiny little unfunny division of Hallmark) has various women really yukking it up over a card (one of them honks, but it's not quite good enough). While reading through the cards, not only did I not laugh, I didn't even crack a smile. For some of them, I even cried a little bit at the awful unfunniness of the card. I ended up buying a card that was supposed to be for a wedding that I will make corrections to. (My parents understand my greeting card grouchiness, so they will not be surprised)

Third dilemma: no martini thank-you notes. No wine glass thank-you notes. Nothing remotely resembling alcohol in a three-by-five format. Everything had flowers, or bugs, or bunnies. There was one that had two cats sitting in a large coffee mug. What kind of message does that convey? Thanks for having me over, your coffee tastes like two cats sat in it for awhile. I left without thank-you notes.

I approached the lady at the counter (who looks a bit like me if I still wore glasses and gave up my law school career to make T-shirts with puffy paint) about 45 minutes after I entered the store.
"Did you find everything you need?"
Through clenched teeth: "Yes."
"If you buy one more completely unfunny card or some sentimental bullshit, possibly with Snoopy or Garfield on it, you can be eligible to pay more money to buy all this crap behind me." (I may have paraphrased what she said a bit.)
"No, I don't think I could possibly buy one more card."

As I left, I looked about the room....all those paper cards would go up in flames faster than you can say "Welcome to Hallmark".

Third update on the Wookiee

So my boss has been out of the office recently. And the Wookiee has decided that his office is a great place for him to have his private cell phone conversations. Today, he actually shut the door because I was having a conversation with an engineer that was disturbing his sycophantic conversation. Thank God, the Wookiee is leaving for greener pastures (he transferred law schools so he is leaving his job that he only worked at for a month and a half).


OOOO! My boss just came in and found his door shut (he never shuts his door unless he's on a secret conference call). I'm typing this as it happens, so I will do my best to transcribe:
"What the hell...Jessica, who's in my office?"
(Scrambling to put something in front of the Blogger homepage on my desktop) "I believe it is [Wookiee]..."
"[Wookiee] who?"
"The new guy, from IP."
"What's he doing in my office?"
"I dunno, but I think he's on his cell phone."
"Who does he think he is?"
(Resist the urge to call him a Wookiee) Shrug.
Boss drops his bag and stands in the window, waiting for the Wookiee to turn around and acknowledge his presence. As the seconds turn to minutes, the back of Boss' head turns a deeper shade of red.
Finally, Boss reaches over and softly turns the knob on the door.
(from inside the office) "....well, like I said I really appreciate the opportunity you've given me, Professor C[name withheld to protect the bullcrap], I....oh, Mr. [Boss]."
Silence while Boss enters the office and puts down his bag.
"I was just making a phone call, Jessica said you wouldn't be in today."
"No I didn't, that was yesterday." I said from my cube. Moron. No way you are bringing me down with you.
"I didn't think you would mind me using your office."
"No? Why couldn't you make the phone calls from your desk?"
"Oh, well they weren't work related so...."
"So you've been on the phone for--Jessica, how long has he been in here?"
Trying not to sound like I've been keeping track "Half hour?" (36.5 minutes)
"You've been on the phone for half an hour when it is not work related?"
"Yes, sir, I was trying to coordinate with my new boss...."
"Your new boss?"
"Yes, sir, my last day is Wednesday."
"Thank God, now we can stop paying you for using my office to make personal phone calls."

I tried to keep the smug glee off my face as the Wookiee slunk back to his cube with his tail between his legs. (Do Wookiees have tails? I don't think they do....)