#65 - Is This Meeting Important?

I am required to do my work calendar for the entire year in June, so that my dates can be put on the parish calendar first, as Religious Education takes priority over other meetings and events. I have on average 2 meetings a week throughout the year, one evening and sometimes a Saturday or Sunday.  I advertise important dates ahead of time, so parents can mark their calendars and adjust their schedules accordingly. So, in my opinion, you get dates, you mark your calendars and you attend meeting.  You do not call the RE office with the following question: is this meeting important? 

Because this is a list of the responses you may get from me:

1. Oh no, no, not at all. I like scheduling meetings in the evening or on the weekend to accomodate your schedules, even though it would be much more convenient for me to do the meeting during the usual workday hours of 9-5, especially when it really is not an important meeting. 

2. I like being away from my home and my husband to do unimportant things. 

3. There is nothing important that you need to know as a parent about the sacrament of Penance & Eucharist.

4. I just like to hear myself talk.

I wish people would think before they open their mouth.

                                                               

#64 - More weather schizophrenia

Yes, I know I said I like the 4 seasons. I know I said I still like winter and the cold and the snow. But I like the 4 seasons separate and distinct and 3 months apart. Not 3 out of 4 in a 2 week period! We have had heat and humidity, then brisk fall-like days and today SNOW. On October 29th in northern VA! Really????

                                                         

                                                  

#63 - Forecast of Snow = Run on Stores

When I think back to my youth and growing up in NY, I remember winter fondly.  Now that may be because I was a child and the only things associated with snow and winter weather were:

1) Day off from school (very infrequently though in NYC; unlike Northern VA, where school is closed at the mere mention of 1-2" of snow acculumation!)

2) Building snow forts around fire hydrants, as that was the only place on a city block where it was clear of parked cars and afforded you the ability to fire snow balls across the street at your opponents.

3) Going into apartment building lobbies and taking off your hats, gloves and scarves and putting them on the steaming hot hallway radiators to dry before venturing back out into the winter wonderland.

4) Ice skating down an ice covered 35th Street at 11pm at night, helping my brother deliver his newspapers on a sled.

So, the mention of the 1st snow of the season still brings an excitement with it, even though I have to clean snow off my car and drive to work in it.  However, in this area, the hint of snow by meteorologists results in a run on the stores.  Similar in nature to a run on the banks during the depression, a run on stores creates pandemonium, and the media does not always help the situation by showing consumers at the local grocery store staring at empty bread & milk shelves.  Jeez, you would think we live in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of miles away from the nearest town and supplies, like in Little House on the Prairie days and the long winter! 

 

            

#62 - Out of Your Control

I have already touched upon Chico Negativo in my peeves, but now I am broadening the negative spectrum to include people in general - polar opposite reactions to occurences. I am talking about the kind of people that seem to go out of their way to either disagree with you or discount something you said, just because YOU said it.  But this does not just include verbal negativity.  It also includes physical negativity.  You know what I mean.

1. You close a door into a room because a person is getting ready to start a presentation and they come over and reopen it. Why? Because they want the entire hallway to listen to the pearls of wisdom that will flow from their mouth? No. Because you closed the door.

2. You move things around in the office that have not been touched in a year.  And suddenly the things you moved (for what you thought was the most efficient placement) are moved back. Why? Because someone liked the original placement better? Or because it was more efficient in the original placement? No, because you moved it.

3. You choose a date for a workshop or a class that requires someone else's presence (i.e. priest for a sacramental celebration or a presenter), and that date is no good.  Why? Because the presenter really has something else scheduled that day. Maybe, but not likely.  The presenter feels an illness coming on that will probably be in full bloom a month from now?  No, because you were assertive and took the initiative and chose the date.

4. You comment how the earthquake shook the whole building and the response is it wasn't that big a deal. Because it really wasn't a big deal in the greater scheme of earthquakes throughout recorded history? No, because you said so.

So, the only conclusion I can come to, is that when you are on the receiving end of this treatment, you must be very intimidating to those who have the polar opposite reaction to you, your words or your actions and they need to take control of the situation!

                                                                             

#61 - Weathering Vacation

You work hard. In the corporate world there is no such thing as a 40 hour work week.  Hasn't been for years now.  Gone are the days of  Leave-It-To-Beaver and his dad coming home (sometimes walking!)when it is still daylight outside and sitting down in his suit and tie with the fam for a nice dinner.  So, because you work hard all year long, you also want to vacation well.  Vacation.  That period of time (usually a stinkin' 1-2 weeks) that you wait for all year.  You save for it.  You spend hours looking for the best deals in plane tickets for it.  You watch for sales on suntan lotion and sunblock with an spf of 500 for the kids.  You start packing suitcases weeks ahead of time because you can only do a little at a time, as you are still putting in those non leave-it-to-beaver hours at your job. All you can find for plane tickets is a stopover flight. Well, that's not so bad, after all, who really cares, you will be on vacation, and vacation time seems to be different than work time.  Doesn't matter if people are rude when you are on vacation, you just smile (what you are thinking is another story).  Doesn't matter if your flight is delayed (you just have a few more drinks while waiting).  Nothing carries the same weight when you are on vacation.  Life is good.  You get to your destination: the warm, sunny beaches of Mexico; the never-ending flow of Miami Vices (if you've never had one, you are in for a treat); the friendly smiling resort workers at your beck and call.  Enter into this idyllic scene: a hurricane!  And suddenly, you're thinking of those throw away ponchos they were selling at Target for $3.99! Doesn't seem fair, does it? But then again, who said this life would be?!?!

                                                                        

                                                                        

#60 - Super Intelligent Field Mice

Growing up in the city meant you had water bugs or roaches in your apartment, but not crickets or grasshoppers or field mice.  Living in the burbs is an entirely different world to the once-upon-a-time city dweller. I have learned the names of some plants (notice I said some).  I have learned the names of some flowers and trees (some again).  And I have learned I do not like field mice.  Oh, they are very cute when they are on Cinderella singing their little Gus Gus hearts out.  But in the house - I don't think so.  I do not like anything that crawls that I cannot squash with my foot.  I can squash spiders and crickets and ants and roly poly bugs and then just pick them up with a tissue and throw them in the garbage (sorry all you pro-lifers who may be appalled at this image).  I cannot squash a mouse or a snake with my shoe (well, I probably could, but the thought of squashing something that big with my shoe is revolting to me).  So, the problem of some field mice in the laundry room is really getting to me.  We have no idea how they are getting in, but they are.  And these are not just normal field mice.  Oh, no! They are super smart ass field mice.  They get the food out of the trap and do not spring the trap!  And Bob the Mouse Killer really jams the food into the trap, so how they are getting it out without either getting their necks snapped or even springing the trap is beyond me.  An image of a tag team approach comes to my mind - ok, you hold onto my tail and I will sneak up on the food from the side; if you see any movement of that wooden thing whatsoever, pull me back quickly! So, Bob the Mouse Killer went back to our local home improvement store and bought the good old fashioned wood and metal spring traps (the Houdini ones have this plastic cheese looking thing on the wooden base that is supposed to resemble cheese, I guess).  Snap! Snap! Snap! Three dead mice!!!! Hopefully that was it, but the Mouse Killer is getting a few more traps to make sure, so I can once again enter my laundry room in a normal fashion and not have to bang my feet and cough loudly as I put all the lights on to scare off those Mighty Mouse wannabes!

GOOD TRAP!

NO GOOD TRAP!!!

                                                       

#59 - False Advertising

So, you are in charge of the main dish at tailgating.  You decide to have shrimp.  You go to the local fish place whose shrimp is 13.99 a lb.  Then you see the weekly sale paper for the local supermarket that has the same jumbo shrimp for 6.99 a lb.  No brainer, right?! Wrong! You wait until 6pm on Friday (hey, it was  a beautiful dog-and-man-in-the-park day) to go to the store and buy the sale shrimp.  You wait and wait at the seafood counter (only one person working and someone buying a seafood platter - the nerve!).  You go to the front of the store to pick up the sale paper that has the ad for the shrimp on sale. You go back to the counter. Platter man is finally done. Finally, you hear, "may I help you?" Yes, I would like 6 lbs of the jumbo peel-and-eat-shrimp you have on sale.  We don't have any jumbo shrimp on sale.  Yes, yes, you do, and you point out the ad. Oh, THAT shrimp. Well, I am defrosting it.  Can I see it, you ask, ever so kindly.  Yes, of course.  Whoa, that's not JUMBO shrimp.  Well, this is the sale shrimp, is the answer.  Now for someone who didn't know there was even a sale on shrimp 4 minutes before, to suddenly know those were the sale shrimp was a bit disconcerting to the frugal shrimp buyer. Disconcerting is probably not a good word.  PISSED OFF was more like it.  So, the shrimp was bought, but not at the above grocery store, but at another store, and in the end cost MORE than the shrimp from the original seafood place (in both per lb price and gas driving around town!).  The moral of this story - don't believe every thing you see in the paper or go with your gut and don't waste time looking for something better!