Happy Halloween

Upon my arrival to our tiny office today, I promptly informed Boss Lady, "The Cock has arrived."  Please, get your mind out of the gutter, my mind is there enough for us all.  I was a peacock for Halloween.  I spent so much time making my costume.  Of course, I found the idea on Pinterest.  I made a giant tutu, made fake feathers out of fabrics and felt, and had blue, green, and purple makeup all over my face.  Meanwhile, Boss Lady dressed as the Prancercise lady, Joanna Rohrback.  If you have not seen the viral video, GO NOW.  We knew going into Halloween that not everyone has heard of Prancercise, so we had a laptop ready to go with the video.  Boss Lady did an amazing job, though, thank our lucky stars, she did not rock a camel toe.  That would have been a damaging vision.  Chaos gets an A+ for effort.  She isn't quite into Halloween the way I am but she tried and was a panda.  While at the tiny office, she did panda eye makeup and made ears for her headband.  Since last years Hunger Games themed dress up day was ruined by a nasty virus plaguing Bruiser the Ladies Man, I was happy that we had a good amount of participation this year.
In preparation for my costume, I finally went and listened to Katy Perry's Peacock song.  I really don't think it is about a Peacock at all.  Surprise surprise, and I know I am not the first person to have that thought.  The day ended up with cocking right and left.  I may never live it down and I am okay with that. 


Amazon has everything.  Boss Lady informed me that her parents got her and her husband a gift certificate to Amazon for their wedding anniversary.  It was suggested that they get something for their new house.  What does Boss Lady want to get?  A hose storage thing-a-ma-bob for their backyard.  Boring.  I suggested, given it is their wedding anniversary (eye brows raised), they should get something for them for their new house.  Boss Lady caught my drift, but remained just looking at me.  For the record, her look was an egging on sort of look.  My great idea, a sex swing.  She did not think Amazon would have it so I proved her wrong.
First, they are cheaper than I imagined they would be.  But perhaps the slogan "you get what you pay for" is applicable.
Second, I would 100% get injured using that thing.  I slip and fall in bathtub showers, constantly run into my bed frame, and slip, trip, and stumble on everything.
Third, searching "Sex Swing" on Amazon is not for prudes.  I know, I might have offended someone talking about them.  Like I have said, it's all in good fun.  Not only do you find sex swings, you find other interesting and kinky sex related items.  (Don't worry, you will get a Fifty Shades of Grey post out of me sooner than later.)  If you are curious, go do it on your own.  I try to be mature looking at the stuff, but I can't help but laugh.

 Happy Halloween!

(Yes, this is my pumpkin.  I didn't have a candle.  I got creative and rubber banded a whole box of birthday candles together.  I'd say it turned out amazingly awesome.)

Sugar Highs

Did you know that they do an ADHD test that lasts two hours?  I wonder if the irony is lost on them, or if the actual test is the reaction people have when they are told that they have to sit still for two hours and do testing.

Office candy is a curse.  You know who actually eats the candy, the staff, NOT the people that pass through the office.  For some reason, the candy was not actually put out until yesterday.  It was sitting, hidden from non-employee sight, in the back office in pumpkin buckets waiting to be put out.  I apparently missed the great candy hunt that happened last week.  Boss Lady and Chaos were looking everywhere possible for the candy, even in the office plants.  The Front Desk Chick finally pulled out the hidden candy for us to plow into.  Anyway, once the candy was found it was consumed by us all and more had to be purchased. 
The day care in the building takes kids around to trick-or-treat at lunch time.  There is no way we would get away with not giving those darling humans in costumes candy.  Down side, we now have so much more candy and will be eating it until Thanksgiving.  (That was a lie.  We will probably eat it for the next week then it will be gone.)
Note the photo.  Front Desk Chick separated out the candy we don't like to the top to hand out to the kiddos first.  This way, when we are stuck with ridiculous amounts of candy, it will be the crap we all want.  Personally, hand out what I do like so I am not tempted to eat candy for the next week.



Post-its are the greatest invention.
Flash back to Romy and Michele's High School Reunion. 
The zig-zag ones suck.  I realize that they are meant for a dispenser.  Unfortunately, we do not have dispensers and the office supply company sent us the zig-zag notes.  Grabbing one is a pain in the arse now.  It isn't worth the time or money sending them back to get the correct ones.  I feel like we are going through them faster now because, we end up pulling two or three off in an attempt to get one.


When you get up in the morning, please refrain from dumping the entire bottle of perfume on yourself.  You probably don't even know that you are doing it.  You are so used to the smell that you keep putting it on until you can smell a slight hint of it.  To the rest of the world, it is not a slight hint.  It is like you have bathed in it.
Yesterday, a lady walked into our tiny office and I could smell her the second the door opened.  Front Desk Chick was left trying to fan the smell away from her desk using files while we were laughing about it once she was gone.  Boss Lady informed me that I seem to have a sensitive nose because it was not as offensive to her as it was me.  Regardless, ladies and gentlemen, less is more with perfume.  Thank you (not) for the headache and the running nose.


Yesterday, it took a while for me to realize that there was something stuck in my pants.  In the past, I have washed clothes and ended up with a sock or pair of panties stuck in other pieces of clothing.  When I realized that there was something stuck right above my right knee, I instantly thought it was a thong or a sock.  Low and behold, it was a dryer sheet, which is much better and much less awkward than underpants.  It also beats the time I showed up with a dryer sheet hanging out of my jacket while in collage. 


I do not do the whole religion thing.  Our tiny office has a range of beliefs and no one preference.  We are open minded. We are PC, but we joke.  Everything is in good fun.  Out of everyone, I'm pretty sure I am the mouthiest and the most crass.  Again, all in good fun and I don't offend people.  Yesterday, though, I was on a roll and all over the place.  (This will carry over into the next post.)
Have you seen or heard of Veggie Tales?  They are actually great stories and help with the moral compass.  When your boss picks up her mail, that is chuck full of catalogs, on the way to the office, we end up spending our down time flipping through them all.  In a Sur La Table catalog, Boss Lady found a manatee tea infuser that you hang off the edge of your cup. It immediately reminded me of Veggie Tales and I insisted we listen to my favorite Veggie Tales song.  Barbara Manatee.  It was a nice change of pace to sing a silly song from Larry.

First Rainy Day

It's Halloween week!  I am so excited, I wish I could dress up everyday.  Had I been more prepared I would have literally dressed up everyday, but I just thought of it now.

I love the rain.  It reminds me of home and makes me want to be cozy with a blanket and a book or a movie.  Yesterday, it worked out great that our day was slow because I brought Coraline to watch with Boss Lady.  I've been telling her about this movie for a long time.  When my nephew watched it a year and a half ago (he was 9ish) it freaked him out.  He kept questioning my sister when she wasn't being fun and asking (seriously, from what I heard) if she was his "other mother."  How this movie is PG I have no clue.
For those of you who have not seen this movie, it is about a little girl that moves with her parents to an old house.  There the parents diligently work on a book and promptly ignore her, tell her to be quite, and other things.  Essentially, they don't spend time with her and want her to be out of their way.  She finds a door in the house that leads to another world.  Same house, except everything is warm and happy.  Her "other mother" and "other father" love her so much, obsess about her, make her amazing dinners, and even have a garden that is of her face.  Hitch in the giddy up, they have buttons for eyes.  Without giving the movie away, because I think you all should see it, it is dark and creepy and not for kids despite it being stop-motion animation, the other parents want Coraline to stay in their world and put buttons on for her eyes.  That is where more darkness enters and means you need to watch it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO3n67BQvh0  Watch the trailer.
When this movie came out, I had a short A-line bob hair cut, and my hair was so black it was blue.  Of course I was stoked.  I looked like Coraline.  My friends boyfriend told me it was fitting because I'm a dark person and since the whole movie was creepy-scary (not dirty old  man creepy) it complemented me.

 While watching this  movie with Boss Lady and Chaos (my coworker you haven't met yet) this tube Coraline crawls through traveling from the real world to the other world brought up some interesting ideas.  As this tube illuminated and grew away from the door, I said, "Vagina."  Initial reaction.  I imagine that is what it might look like to a child passing through the birth canal, if they could see, and it probably isn't blue and purple.  Boss Lady said, "Oh, I was thinking colon, but I can see what you mean."  Then I asked, "Do you think that this is what it looks like, internally, as a penis gets hard?"
To me, this tube is kind of the worst part about the movie.  I don't feel like it fits it in well with the feel of the movie, but at least it brought us entertainment and caused less than critical thinking.

During the movie, Boss Lady told me that there is no time like the present to get the last Halloween riddles up on the board, seeing we had three days to go.  So, for those of you who actually like the riddles, here they are.  The theme is Halloween Monsters.
I did not feel awake at all yesterday while coming up with these bad boys.  Maybe it was my busy hobby filled weekend, the Halloween party I went to, and the fact that it was cold and raining when I got up to go to work (much like today, might I add),  I barely felt creative enough to do them.  I also feel sad.  They are a symbol that my favorite holiday is here and about to be gone.

Santa, Cooking Shows, Cats, and Strip Clubs

Santa:
Children's brains are amazing.  Things that they say, their ideas, and how they develop trains of thought are extremely entertaining.  Now, I do not have children, nor do I see them in my future anytime soon.  Mostly I don't like children.  They always say that hating other peoples children is normal, but you will love your own.  I mostly agree with this.  One of my sisters has three children and I love them all.  If the way I love them is an ounce of how I will feel about my own children then I will be better at parenting that I anticipate.  Boss Lady has two awesome kids, Ducky (whom you have met) and Bruiser the Ladies Man (all the ladies love him, all the, all the ladies love him.)  Aside from my sister's kids, these are the kids that I am the closest with.  I babysit them, hangout with them when they are stuck coming into the office, and get excited to see them.
Bruiser the Ladies Man is just at that age where he is putting words into sentences, is playful, and trying to figure out the world.  Boss Lady has been scrambling and planning Ducky's birthday party for this weekend and Bruiser the Ladies Man gets to run errands with her.  Now, you can imagine the patients of a 3ish year old responding to shopping (though he is a total saint-badass), so Boss Lady picked up an interactive motorcycle toy for him to play with while running about the store.  If you anticipated this ending with heart break, you are correct.  He wanted that damn toy when it was time to leave, and Boss Lady was not caving.  She then told him, "If you really want this toy, you can ask Santa for it."
Bruiser the Ladies Man responded in a very serious, disappointed, bummed out, annoyed, tiny human voice, "I don't like those Santas."
Where he got this from, we have no idea.  He wasn't quite old enough to grasp the idea of Santa and Christmas last year.  As we all know though, children are more porous than Sponge Bob Square Pants.  They listen to everything, so it wouldn't be surprising if he picked it up in passing at home.  Maybe he thinks that those Santas are people that you have to get toy purchasing approval from, and they will accept or deny the request, which is why you don't get everything you want.  Or he was just upset and did not like Boss Lady telling him to ask Santa.


Cooking shows:
Cooking shows are skeptical.  Shows like The Voice, The Biggest Loser, Project Runway, etc., the viewers get to see the product and decide if they like what they are hearing or seeing.  Food shows: I can see if I like the presentation of the food and how the cook makes the food, but I cannot taste the dish.  I have to trust judges on the show eating the food and telling me what the food tastes like.  Too salty?  Umm, I'm sorry, for who?  I like salt.  Too sweet?  Maybe that judge has never experienced a monthly bill that women receive.  Make the shows better!  Have an audience and let them try the dish as well and give me more input to make my decisions since I can't hear the food sing or watch it lose weight.
It is hard enough being at work when I am starving and listening to Boss Lady talk about and Pinterest food.  I don't need people on TV eating and telling me that it is the best they have ever had.  How about I want that food now too, I will eat the whole thing instead of just a few bites, and I will be the judge on a full stomach.


Cats:
Story of the day.  A dog has been rather sick for the last two days, having accidents around the house.  Poor pup.  Some how this triggered a tale of a cat who ate a piece of ribbon.  Animals get into everything.  When you think they will get into one thing, it goes untouched, when you don't predict them getting into another, you arrive home to a mess, something destroyed and/or missing, or a gift (usually a dead gift).
This cat who ate a ribbon ended up not passing it all out in the first go.  Instead there was a small tale of ribbon sticking out of it's little cat butt hole.  Next thing the story teller saw was a dog stepping on said ribbon tale, tugging it while doing so, scaring the hell out of the cat who then ran off and out came several feet of ribbon, there in so "flossing the cats colon" to quote Boss Lady word for word. I don't know about you, but I feel sorry for the poor person that had to pick that ribbon up.


Strip Clubs:
Who goes to strip clubs?  In my head there are three kinds of crowds attracted to them, barely legal guys that are stoked that they are finally allowed to pay a chick to make them horny but not finish the deed, bachelor parties, and old decrepit men that are degenerates.  Boss Lady and I agreed that when we think of strip clubs we envision gross old men.  We then started painting verbal images about the out come: old gross man, leaves the club covered in glitter, and smelling like artificial strawberries.
All of this because I was trying to convince someone that left their money clip on a counter to tip me in $5.00 bills if I took my jacket off and my shoes off.  It was a no go.  Personally, I don't think I have what it takes to actually get paid by the decrepit men to get naked.  I'll stick with having amazing conversations in a small office space.

On Wednesdays, We Wear Pink

Mean Girls is just one of those movies everyone has seen.  If you have not seen it, get on the wagon.  Even guys that I know think the movie is funny.  In the case of Boss Lady, she had not seen in until about a year ago.

The turn over rate in some of the positions at our tiny office tends to be high.  People need work experience between college and grad school and we have great opportunities for them.  Gives the people we hire a chance to see if they like the field we work in as well as giving them time to actually do the time consuming grad school applications.
One of the young ladies we had working for us, now off at grad school in Texas, was a sorority girl.  Until she came along, the office hadn't seen tons of pink.  She loved pink.  We were polar opposites.  On so many things, though, we got along great; opposites attract, right?
In a conversation Pink (I have dubbed the sorority girl Pink), Boss Lady, and I were having, we discovered Boss Lady had never seen Mean Girls.  Okay, I get it, she is a working mother, when she isn't working and being an amazing mother to her two children, she logs some hours with her husband.  When he went out of town she asked us what movies she needed to see.  Mean Girls was at the top of that list.
Needless to say, ever since then, on Wednesdays we now wear pink.  It is a complete joke.  Now that Pink is gone, I slack way more because lets be honest I do not like pink at all, but we still keep it up.  I usually wear the minimum amount, be it a striped T-shirt with some orange-pink in it or the bracelet my niece made me (a hot pink shoelace with beads on it).  Boss Lady actually wears pink pants or a pink top.
The Mean Girl references don't stop there.  We like to say that everything is a carb, "Is this apple a carb?"  What can I say, we like to joke around to make the work atmosphere lighter when things get intense.

At least I don't have to participate in the Western Wednesday's that they were rocking.  Sweetly of them, they would wait until I left to put the country music on. 

It Can't be a Prophecy

Apparently, putting your own name, birth date, and today's date as day of death of is not acceptable.  I did it.  Boss Lady did not like it at all.

Halloween riddles continued.  This week I decided to go with Halloween themed words.  As you can see, if you are figuring my riddles out, one of them is Grave Yard.  I chose to do a headstone and a yard stick.  My riddles were, apparently, a bit difficult last week.  I was trying to make them a little easier.  On the head stone I put my name, birth date, and today's date 10-22-13.  As Boss Lady was looking under my arm (she is about seven inches shorter), she said it was morbid that I chose my, "name, birth date, and today's date for the headstone."  I thought it was funny; everyone that solves the riddles knows me, knows which ones I make, and it was a way for me to date the creativity.  She said I had to at least change the date to yesterday because using today's date felt like a prophecy.  I promptly changed it and laughed the whole time.  Fair enough.

Spelling is also rough for me.  Yes, I went to school.  Yes, I love writing and English.  Yes, I have a dictionary.  Personally, the English language is ridiculous and when I spell words wrong, I improve them.  The riddles, though, spelling sometimes is important.  For example, Costume for this week.  I drew a price tag indicating the cost of something and a plume (Boss Lady's idea, I take no credit other than the drawing).  Knowing that costume does not have a P in it, I added -P after the plume.  If you don't know what a plume is, you might be the one in need of a dictionary
.  It took Boss Lady "editing" my drawings to remind me that the correct spelling is C-O-S-T-U-M-E, not C-O-S-T-L-U-M-E.  She added the L, to my -P = -PL.
Problem solved.

It's a good thing she accepts me the way I am and doesn't like the idea of me dying today...or anytime soon.  Good boss for sure.

Free Hugs Don't Really Exist

Personal space.  Personally, I do not like being touched or touching other people.  If I know someone, I am okay with the hugs, arm pats, or other ridiculous things that would be popping my force field bubble.  This brought up a rather colorful conversation a while ago.  When do you hug someone?  If you go out to dinner with friends you don't see all that often, be it couples or individuals, do you hug?  What if you see them all the time at work, your hobbies, school, etc., and you decide to go out to dinner, do you hug?

We have found that there are huggers.  The people that are happy to see you so they hug you.  The people that are happy about something they have going on in their life, so they hug you.  They get back from a trip, you get a hug.  They are leaving for a trip, hug.  Then there are the huggers that feel like you are having a bad day so they hug you.  Now, I don't know about you all, but if I am having a bad day, if I am sad or upset, I do not want a hug from someone that doesn't know me well enough for me to even tell them why I am not at my best.  A lot of people think hugs should happen all the time.  But what about those of us who feel like the hugs make things awkward?  I don't want to be embraced in a hug then wreak of their perfume or body odor (oh yes, that has happened) all day.  I shower so I can smell clean and smell like my own perfume and not smell like b.o.
Hugs are not needed at the beginning of dinners or after dinners.  If you are going out with friends you see often, there is no need for a hug unless someone has just died or been dumped, and in those cases it is still a per person thing.  We are individuals for reasons.

My family cat had to be put down.  She had a beautiful life, and had been in my life for 17 years.  The poor girl was old and sickly and had stopped eating.  For quality of life reasons my dad stepped in.  He didn't want me to not know what was going on, so he called and told me.  Of course this upset me.  She and I had a love hate relationship my whole childhood.  Once I moved away, when I would come home she would put up with me and actually cuddle with me.  I felt sad.  A person that came into my office, that I had only met a handful of times, could tell my eyes were puffy and perhaps a bit tear stained.  She asked me if I was okay.  I informed her of my cat having to be put down.  Instantly, her response, "You need a hug."  Before I even had a chance to say no and run away, there she was embracing me.  The awkwardness oozing from my pores was palpable.  She then said, "I am a hugger.  I could just tell you needed one."  Little did she know I did not need a hug, especially not a hug from her.

Be warned, when you have discussions like this and tell people that you don't want to be touched, they get a kick out of invading your personal space.  I received more hugs around that period of time than I ever wanted.  You would think my sarcastic and "dark squichy" (as Boss Lady says) personality would deter people in general.  But no.  Not after this conversation topic resurfaced for about a week long period of time.

Riddles, Suggestive Images, and "This is Halloween"

The month of Halloween continues.  Yes, some tend to be a stretch.  When you think about words and drawings all of the time it gets boring doing the same things over and over.  Lower left corner, I was tired of doing "street" for ST, so I used the Saints logo.

At least I got new, fancy riddles up.  I have been on a roll of prettier, more detailed ones but am quickly feeling burnt out on creativity.  Which sucks because I am trying to make my Halloween costume at home and design tattoos.


Last weeks riddles have continued to leave Boss Lady singing and dancing to Thriller.  I have been doing the Time Warp everywhere; so much that a friend sent me this amazing photo detailing how to dance the Time Warp.  I realize that maybe two of the illustrations are rather suggestive, but isn't that whole movie.  When a pelvic thrust is involved, I'd say it is at least a little sexual.

The whole song theme last week had me wanting more Halloween in my life.  I created a Pandora Halloween station.  A lot of songs from The Nightmare Before Christmas play.  I'm sure everyone knows "This is Halloween" from the movie.  I get stuck on singing, "This is Halloween, This is Halloween, HalloweenHalloweenHalloweenHalloween..."  My version is sung in a grunt, rough, crazy sounding voice, and ends in a gibberish mishmash of sounds mimicking the music.  My first round of this was while sitting at my computer, Boss Lady was behind me at her computer.  When I realized what I had just done, I got extremely quiet and asked, "Did you just hear me?"
Boss Lady said, "Yes."
Not that it is the funniest thing that has ever happened in these walls, I am 100% certain that I sounded certifiably crazy and I am okay with that.

Princess Leia is Bipolar.

Some days, when we are busy bees in the tiny office, we have amazing topics that just spiral out of control.  Today a good stream hit and just kept hitting over and over.

One: Princess Leia is super bipolar.  Clearly I haven't read up on this topic, because if a topic isn't flashing across trashy magazines, VH1 (we watch it in the office in the morning), popping up on any news feeds, or my friends aren't talking about it, I never hear about it.  Not that I am a Star Wars person at all.  I have yet to see any of the movies.  Please, save your opinions about how I should view them.  I'm pretty sure Captain America (you might meet him later) wins this one.  Carrie Fisher is apparently so bipolar that she received shock therapy for it pretty regularly/frequently.  Don't quote me on this, it is all word of mouth.
Her father was apparently Elizabeth Taylor's third husband...  I have no interest in actually researching this topic further.  It makes sense that she is royally fu*ked in her head growing up in Hollywood  But it did trigger the Hollywood dating and love world compared to real life conversation.  Everyone dates everyone else, cheats, gets board, etc.  I always joke with Boss Lady that I want to date all of these hot actors, but in actuality I would be so unhappy.  It is incest in that world, just like in high school when everyone dates all of the same people.  While there are notable actors that don't seem to marry and divorce easily or plaster their unhappy details across the gossip feeds, the trashy actors out number them.
Taking me into...

Two: Miley Cyrus is a hot mess.  Her goal of getting noticed and publicity has been reached though.  Her song Wrecking Ball was on VH1.  It's hard to not stare at and wonder "What The Fu...?" through the entire thing.  Who wants to ride around naked on a wrecking ball and lick a demolition hammer.  Dirty.  While she was swinging around naked, a comment was made that triggered my singing of, "You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you..."  Carly Simon has giant teeth.  Then
I started actually working forgetting everything that had just happened.  Next thing I heard was, "That song is about Mick Jagger."
A peek into the inner workings of my mind.  I instantly had a disgusted reaction and looked up at the Wrecking Ball mess that was happening on the TV and said, "That is SO disgusting.  She is so young and he is so old and rather gross."  Low and behold, it was not the Miley song that was being referred to, it was the Carly Simon song I had just been singing.  Instantly it made sense to me; but after the fact I realized I wouldn't put it past Miley to jump into bed with Mick Jagger given her MTV music award performance with that Thicke fellow.
Can you imagine Carly Simon and Mick Jagger together?  All you would see are their giant mouths.  Then the question was posed, "Could you imagine if Mick Jagger was gay with that mouth?  The things he could fit..."

Three: I'm glad to know that it isn't only my mind that lives in the gutter.  Other people have inappropriate thoughts, and at least I can keep mine to myself or know my audience.  I'm pretty sure some ears that heard the Mick Jagger's giant mouth and how it would be a good gay mouth were offended.  I try my hardest to be PC at work, but now that I know all of my coworkers well enough, I kind of just let it fly sometimes.  Compared to me out on the streets, I am very well behaved in my professional settings, or as well as I can be.  Boss Lady and I can simply look at each other and she knows exactly where my mind is going and ends up in us cracking up or me getting a, "Behave!!" look from her.
Regardless, big mouths fit big things.  That's what she said.

Four: Given the Halloween riddles for the last week were Halloween (time) songs, Boss Lady and I spent a majority of the week singing Thriller.  Looking up from my computer, she was dancing around the corner into the office doing Thriller moves and singing it.  In a lull when we simply had nothing else to do, we decided to try and learn pieces of the Thriller dance.  We got as far as the twitching necks and making up our own moves.
I have been successfully doing the Time Warp from Rocky Horror Picture Show all week.  It's funny how many people know it, but had forgotten about it until I brought it back into their lives as a Halloween song.  Note to self, I need to watch that movie this weekend.
Also surprising to me, how many people don't know The Devil Went Down to Georgia.  I have heard it.  I strongly dislike that kind of music usually, but the fact that it is talking about the Devil and it is a dark song, of course I have heard of it.  I spent Thursday educating people about it and dancing to Time Warp.

Five, and possibly the best: It has been humid recently.  My hair has not been agreeing with it, especially because I forgot to put product in it after my shower.  It was, needless to say, ridiculously frizzy yesterday and made me feel totally disheveled.  A newbie to the office was standing close to me asking questions when suddenly, "Wow, your hair really is frizzy today."  Thank you Captain Obvious, for stating the obvious.  Then, I turned around to grab something and he poked the back of my neck, where I have dermal piercings.  A line of questions followed, then he noticed all of the piercings in my ears and my nose piercing.  Upon leaving the office, he referred to me as the Pin Cushion.  I give him many points for that.  I've been asked, "Who decorated you like a Christmas tree?" but never the Pin Cushion.  I appreciate that, my dad though, probably not so much.

Riddle Catch Up

We have a lot of traffic through this small office.  Sometimes we see people once and never again, while others we see a bit more frequently.  We are known by all to have riddles drawn up on our whiteboard.
This all started about two years ago.  Through the Holiday season Boss Lady produced a stack of index cards containing Christmas related picture riddles.  Two that I remember off the top of my head are "Santa Clause is Coming to Town" and "The Grinch."  These were rather simple drawings.
With time, people (the staff, interns, etc.) have become accustomed to seeing these riddles drawn up on the board.  Sometimes Boss Lady and I actually have a difficult time coming up with the riddles and puzzles.  It is very difficult to come up with different themes every week.  I do admit there have been weeks where we just have a blank board, which we will write up the random topics we talk about.  Our themes have ranged from holidays, cereal, candy, sodas, trip destinations our staff have gone on, movies, Dr. Seuss, boy bands, songs from artists, and many many more.
Some how I end up being the artist for them a large majority of the time, probably because Boss Lady does stick figures and asks me to fix drawings.
It is quite the process.  Coming up with a theme.  Picking words.  Breaking up the words and figuring out what images I can get from those words.  I stretch sometimes and the solvers need a little extra help, while other times they are Captain Obvious.  Once I drew an excellent pile of poop, unfortunately I do not have photo proof of this image.  We are also low on a few colors or lack specific colors, so I let the arty side of me surface and I blend and cross hatch and stipple my little heart out.  I'm not always ultra motivated to make amazing drawings, BUT when I am, my-oh-my they can come out awesome.
Which, by the way, I send photos of the riddles to the guy I am currently dating (my dating life and is soap opera like entertainment will be saved for another post...).  He is awesome and consistently gets them and has only needed a helpful hint once.  I send them to other employees that have graduated from our office too.
The riddles have seriously become an important piece of our office.

Does this one need any more detail?  Pretty sure this was the first non Holiday themed picture riddle board that I did.  We no longer give theme hints.

            Smart phone games.

Valentines Day.  I didn't get a photo of the whole board, sorry.  I didn't think I'd ever actually do anything with the photos other than send them to friends.
 

Did you know that September 19 is International Talk like a Pirate Day?  I went with the theme for a week.  Boss Lady helped me out.

Autumn Themed.  Apparently my middle drawing too hard.  No, the stick figure isn't singing, it's making an "ahh" sound.  Boss Lady also drew half of these.  I must give credit where it is due.
 

The current weeks riddles.  Halloween themed, of course, for the most part.  They are all songs that surface at Halloween at least.

Case of the Tuesdays

Upon waking up slightly late this morning, my roommate was in the shower.  Usually this wouldn't be a problem, but my master bathroom is in the middle of being remodeled leaving three girls to use one bathroom.  I got dressed, grabbed food, packed for the day, and did everything I could without the bathroom which contains my toothbrush, makeup, and obviously the toilet.  Alas, when I finished everything and she was still in the shower.  I scavenged through my room to find a travel toothbrush (which I hate! It's too soft) and toothpaste.  As soon as I got to work I headed to the bathroom to finish getting ready.  While I was squeezing my travel toothpaste onto my toothbrush, I started wondering if toothpaste goes bad.  The texture seemed a little different.  Oh well, I just used it; what was I supposed to do, have bad breath and fuzzy teeth throughout the day?  Thank goodness that my work has mouthwash on hand; weird right?  Here begins the oddities of my office.
Does toothpaste go bad?  While brushing my teeth I was looking at the little tube and there it was, the expiration date.  Lets just say, that sucker was a wee bit old.  Boss Lady promptly said it is just a ploy to get people to buy more the the product so the companies make money.  I went to the Google.  Google says that toothpaste does go bad.  It has a shelf life of two years specifically because of the fluoride and it's effectiveness as well as the viscosity.  As in, the fluoride no longer does it's job and the continents of the tube separate out, including the flavor, and then it all dries out.
So now, I'm at work with no make up on and apparently only half way clean teeth.  Good thing I have left over carne asada fries to eat for breakfast and just re-dirty my teeth up.  Maybe it's better that this all happened on a Tuesday.  Had it been on a Monday I would have felt like the whole week was doomed to bad breath, no makeup, and terror that I would have to hold my full bladder for hours everyday.
Did I tell you that once I got to work, I more or less had a false start?  Boss Lady told me that I really didn't need for our 7AM start, but since I had already arrived, it was no big deal.

The Stripper

It was a long night.  Probably a bad day leading up to this.  Stripper poles should have a warning, even for the professionals.  No matter how you slice it, it is a slick, small, pole that gets (I assume) rather dirty from all of the touching that happens.  This particular dancer apparently missed the memo that you need to hold on to the pole in order for it to work right.
A husband of an ER nurse brought this story to my tiny office.  The important bit of information: his wife works at a children's ER.  You can imagine her shock and confusion when a full grown woman walked into the ER demanding help.  Apparently, while preforming, she went upside down on the pole the proceeded to fall, slip, slide, lose grip (who knows, I wasn't at the show) from pole promptly landing on her head.  I do understand that this is scary and that she could have really hurt herself but she didn't.  Which makes me feel better about laughing my ass off.  Instead of going to a regular ER she ended up at a children's ER.  Maybe it was the blow to her head, a smart phone map-direction mishap, sheer stupidity, or fluster and worry that took her to a place for kids, but at least it brought me the story.  Once in the ER she was annoyed that they couldn't fully help her, though they did check her out and make sure she wasn't going to die.  But damn them for not having a neck brace big enough to fit her.
I wonder if she is back on that dangerous pole getting her groove on, or if she took it as a sign that perhaps instead of revolving about a silver pole that is 2 inches in circumference, she could revolve around the earth that is only 1,577,762,208 inches in circumference.

The Illusive Horcock

Pretty much one of the greatest stories that was ever told with in the walls of my office was about the great and illusive Horcock.
A young girl (5ish years old) came home from school with a creative homework assignment.  The students were asked to pick two animals, draw what these two animals put together looked like, and then name it.  I think this sounds like a spectacular assignment.  I was picking my head over trying to decide what animals I might choose, but her story continued.
Youngin excitedly picked a horse (what little girl doesn't love horses?) and a peacock and informed her  mother that the animal shall be called a Hor-Cock.  We all know this tiny human has no idea what she had just spoken.  Merging horse and peacock of course would lead to the spectacular name choice, in reality it sounds better than the other option(s).  Needless to say, the mother tried her hardest to keep her shit together and not crack up while telling Youngin that she needed to pick a different name.  How would she explain that Horcock is much too dirty?  Because a whore and a cock generally do go hand in hand, but in this mind of this 5ish year old, it wasn't a prostitute and a man, it was simply a horse and a peacock.
In the end, the new creature was deemed the name Peahorse...or Peaorse, regardless it was not nearly as cool as the first name.  Had I been that child's mother I would have let her creativity run away with her and let her take her Horcock to school.  Maybe that makes me a bad person, but no point in being uptight about the funny things in life.  Kids to say the darnedest things, don't they?

Months and months later, the Horcock story lives on.  I even took the liberty of drawing my own rendition of it.  It hangs right by the door, only staff can see it, and puts a smile on our faces everyday.  It much reminds me of Buckbeak from Harry Potter.

Greetings

The entertainment that my tiny office produces in one day entertains me for days on end.  My Boss (Boss Lady, from here out) is helping her daughter with the PTA fundraiser.  Funny enough, when elementary schools put on fundraisers, it's the parents that end up doing all of the work.  Back in my day, we would just go door to door trying to sell the over priced and crappy items.  Now the schools tell the children not to go door to door and tell the parents to sell to their coworkers.  I understand why people will just write donation checks to schools now.  Much less of a headache actually giving the school all of the money than worrying about actually selling crap.  Kids get incentive, like key chains or squirting fish, etc., to sell more of the over priced, useless things, and when they don't do as well as their friends the jealous monster sets in an a melt down, I'm sure, is inevitable.  By the way, Boss Lady is a SAINT and by far one of the best moms I know in the world.
I, of course, love Boss Lady and her daughter (Ducky) so it is an easy decision to help out.  After flipping through the magazines on end between working, I decided that the only thing that I needed was the cookie dough.  This was one day ago.  Today all I can think about is the damn tub of cookie dough that I don't need and why it has not yet gotten here.  If I remember right, the giant junk food beast will come as soon as I forget about it.  My days will be filled with disappointment until I forget...then BOOM it will feel like Christmas and I will be eating that sucker for lunch.  Don't judge.
As for everyone else in my office, I'm pretty sure all followed in suit and got cookie dough as well.  No one needs cat  magazines or wrapping paper.