things that are making me angry today...

1) Interns who do not stop talking...I don't care about his uncle's stint in the war, or that he lost 60 pounds...or even that there is a big party for him this weekend, including about 150 guests, but they have a big backyard so it won't be too crowded (see i know way more about this than i should!)

2) People who stop on yellow lights, it is YELLOW, not red, no need to slam on the breaks when the light turns yellow.....causing a brake slamming chain reaction exiting the grocery store!

3) Co-workers talking about the World Cup games...I have more than enough times expressed that each game is being tivoed for my enjoyment later on in the evening where I can sit at home on my couch in striped pjs, drinking a cold beer with grande and the cats...but do they listen, no, they still continue to talk about the games, loudly, and then have the nerve to complain when they need me and I can't hear because of the headphones and loud music!

4) Being ignored at work...big bosses brother was getting ready to leave for lunch (or for the day, please, please, please let him be gone for the day!) when he asked if anyone would be working on Monday, well since I hate wasting vacation days on odd holidays, I didn't take off on Monday, however the rest of my department did...it is going to be blissfully quiet in here...I may actually get some work done...so being nice, I responded to him, he ignored me and started talking to someone else and then walked out the door...yikes!

5) Being told to RELAX! Oh my god, my co-worker just put on some sports thing for the game and it had sound, I had mistakenly taken my headphones out...and when I asked if they were listening to the game, I was told to "RELAX" What the fuck!? Seriously, I hate this place some days...why can't people be respectful and nice...arugh!

6) Having to work on such a pretty day...after all the rain and bad weather we have been having recently, today is finally nice...and I am stuck in here......guess there are worse places I could be...

question of the day...?

When you stay overnight somewhere, whether a hotel or the house of someone you know, do you unpack your bag, putting your clothes into the dresser or closet in the room?

never a dull moment...

right now i am sitting at work, trying as hard as i have ever tried not to bust out laughing...in that hysterical way where they are buckling your crazy laughing arse into a straight jacket and wheeling you away, kind of way...

boss's brother is on the phone with a spa somewhere in the harrisburg area, making an appointment for he and the other 'girlfriends' to get manicures, pedicures and facials...

there is just something about the way a flaming gay man says 'we would all love manis and pedis...oh right and facials, that would be so wonderful!' that just makes me lose all of those at work filters, you know the ones that are there so you don't get fired! ;-)

and still there is more...SLIGHT RISK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS LATER TODAY...

Well it looks like we are still in store for bad weather...yeah (a very unenthusiastic yeah...)!

I talked to my mom today and apparently, my brother's neighborhood was evacuated last night due to a gas leak caused by flooding...the poor guy had to hang around his neighborhood with the fire department from 3:00 in the morning until 4:30 when they were finally told to leave, well because of all the flooding, my bro's truck was parked at my parents house (last night my mom was telling me that the parking lot at his apartment was completely under water and it was at that time almost up to the front porch of his building, which is about 2-3 feet high!), so anyway, my brother had to walk to my parents house at 4:30 in the morning!! It isn't far, but it is up hill!!

At my house in Harrisburg we have some water emergency issued, we are not to use our water for anything basically...so my dishes are pilling up and I have been giving my already spoiled kitties bottled water to drink. As of last night we were to limit our water usage...yeah like that has happened. Although I can say, for all the other times we have been in a water emergency, this time I actually buy it, most of the other times the water looked and smelled fine. This time, our water is cloudy and kind of brownish in color, and it smells strange...kind of like a dirty swimming pool...fun stuff!

Well I wasn't able to find any good emergency warnings today...but I will keep looking...

um...does any one have a spare ark laying around...

...FORECAST FLOODING INCREASED FROM MODERATE TO MAJOR SEVERITY...
THE FLOOD WARNING CONTINUES FOR THE SWATARA CREEK NEAR HERSHEY * UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. * AT 11 AM WEDNESDAY THE STAGE WAS...11.0 FEET. * MODERATE FLOODING IS OCCURRING AND MAJOR FLOODING IS FORECAST. * FLOOD STAGE IS 7.0 FEET. * THE RIVER WILL CONTINUE RISING TO NEAR 15.3 FEET BY THIS EVENING THEN BEGIN FALLING. * AT 12.0 FEET...HIGH WATER AFFECTS SEVERAL HOMES UPSTREAM OF THE ROUTE 39 BRIDGE.

The above is another excerpt from the national weather serivce. The reason this one is more important than the trillion other alerts they have posted today is because this creek runs near my brothers apartment and yep he is 'upstream' from the creek! ;-) Thankfully his apartment is on the second floor of the house he lives in...and my parents (they know live on the same street as Tim, just up much further) are uphill, a lot from the creek...so they are safe as well. Oh and the good news is...it has finally stopped raining, for now at least!

And for everyone's enjoyment here is another fun warning about flooding...enjoy! :-)

DO NOT DRIVE YOUR VEHICLE INTO AREAS WHERE THE WATER COVERS THE ROADWAY. MOST FLOODING DEATHS OCCUR IN AUTOMOBILES. TURN AROUND DON'T DROWN!

TURN AROUND...DON'T DROWN!

The title of today’s blog is part of the warning issued by the national weather service for our area today! It has been raining here since Thursday (maybe Wednesday...but definitely Thursday), living so close to the major river that runs through PA leads to lots and lots of flooding when the weather goes crazy. Back in 1972 during a hurricane most of the central PA area was under water, a lot of water.

The grossest part of all of this rain and flooding is that our water has been affected. It smells very earthy...and it looks even worse. I showered in the nasty waster today and it made me skin feel dirty...I don't even want to imagine what it did to my hair! ;-)

Anyway, it is raining again now, as I type...no surprise there. It is to continue raining until tomorrow sometime.
So in the words of the national weather service, 'turn around...don't drown', which by the way I don't understand!? I can only guess they are saying not to go into deep water...but who knows?!

wind chimes...part II

it happened again this morning...bosses brother turned on the damn windchimes at 9 something this morning...i loudly protested to it immediately. now normally i don't speak at work, i keep to myself and do my work, quietly, while listening to music to drown out the sounds of the idiots around me. but today, i couldn't take it anymore...and i protested...to no avail...

so...i worked up all the courage i could have at 9 something in the morning after only one cup of coffee and i walked into bosses brother's office and proceeded to tell him how distracting the wind chimes were, while closing his door. he freaked out on me, not in a mean scary way, but a childish way, he got pouty about it and kind of moody about it, almost like i hurt his feelings?! oh my god! he is 42 years old, grow the fuck up!

it was at this time i realized how freakishly immature this man is, not that i am surprised by this, but he truly needs some kind of psychological help...memories of past conversations flooded my mind of times where he didn't get his way and he would pout and pout and almost throw a temper tantrum until he got his way, and this was in front of clients!

in addition to this wildly immature behavior, he loves to point the finger of blame onto anyone in the nearest vicinity...right now i am listening to him blame a co-worker in my department about an issue that happened the other day, best part is, the poor girl isn't here to defend herself...it is days like this that i know i need to find a new job...

if the impression wasn't clear before...i hate my job!

my bosses fat gay brother, the loud, obnoxious one that sits in the big office right by my cube, got a new toy today...now before you go thinking pervy thoughts, it is not that kind of toy! he got some kind of stupid ass electrical windchime thing, which he set it up right inside the door to his office...and every so often it goes off!

at first i wasn't sure what it was, so i went on a walk to explore this new sound, and that was when i saw this contraption set up on a shelf in his office. every 1-2 minutes it goes off, chiming away merrily, slowly driving me fucking insane! after enough time had passed that my blood pressure started going up, i finally said something about it. i was rudely told that if it bothered me so much i could shut my ears?! shut my ears?! are you fucking kidding me?! nice...real nice. i am so angry right now i can't even begin to express my feelings appropriately. i had to take a walk away from my desk before i went into his office, pulled the damn thing out of the wall and threw it out the fucking window!

thankfully during my momentary absence the grammatically challenged co-worker, who is bff's with bosses brother, went into his office and unplugged it. she is out all next week, and i am serious if that damn thing starts chiming, things could get really ugly here...

cats are too damn picky!

so my experiment to feed the cats more failed miserably yesterday. in the morning before leaving for work, i put one pouch of food into each bowl for the cats, and they both went crazy, they ate the entire time i was getting ready to leave for work and were still eating when i walked out the door. last night when i got home, i ran over to the bowls, anxious to see if they were empty, only to find that they were half full...

in protest i waited until almost 9 last night to feed them again, by this time of course they were 'starving'...my cats beg for food as if they haven't eaten in days! so again i gave them one pouch each per bowl, this time it was tuna flavored food, their favorite! this morning i get up and there is over half of the food left in the bowls, both cats are acting as though i haven't fed them in years, while looking at the crusty dry food in the bowls and then looking back up at me...

this morning they only got one pouch of food, i will have none of this wasting from them! and really it wouldn't be so bad if they weren't still begging for food!
meow, meow, meow...all the time...and it isn't even a fun meow or the pissed off cat meow, it is that high pitched whiney give me food meow...
cats are too damn picky!!

Nicole Richie eats more in a day than my cats!!

Last night, Grande made a startling discovery...I have been under feeding the cats for the past two weeks! Both of my cats are fat, and I don't mean they are just a bit over weight, no my cats are huge, larger than small dogs huge. The last time I took Pookie to the vets they kept calling her a 'big girl' and she is the smaller of the two...

So after some consideration I decided to put the cats on a diet. Up until two weeks ago they were both getting unlimited dry food, I would give them both a big bowl of food in the morning and it would sit out all day for them to eat. At first I decided that I would only feed them twice a day and limit the food by taking it away after 15 minutes...yeah that didn't work...they didn't care that the food was there, they only cared when it was gone, and after about two days they got kind of mean about it...so I revised this plan, and decided that since they love wet food, at least Pookie does, Spicy sits and stares at it for about a minute or so before eating it...not sure what that is about, but whatever she eventually eats! So the new plan with the wet food was to give them one pouch per day, per cat. Okay, so in the morning I gave them each half of a pouch and then in the evening I would give them each half of another pouch, making up one pouch per day, per cat. This seemed fine, and it really seemed to be working...sure they were still begging for food in that annoying cat way, by constantly being under foot, but they ate all the food in one feeding and seemed to be doing well with the change.

Well last night this plan took a turn for the worst, now in my defense I am not sure where I read that each cat should get one pouch of food a day, but I know I didn't just make this up! Anyway, last night, Grande read the feeding directions and realized that we have been under feeding the cats by a lot...they are supposed to get 1 - 1 1/2 pouches a day per every 4 lbs of body weight! Opps! So really the cats should be getting 4 pouches a day, not 1! Big difference...and no wonder they were so annoying... ;-)

Today, I modified the feeding...they are getting one pouch each in the morning and one pouch each at night, it is still half of what they should be eating, but they are really fat cats...and I worry about their health!

Of course, feeding them this much wet food is going to cost me around 112.00 a month...so there may still be future modifications!

I before E except after C...

okay not that any further proof is needed of my co-workers having the intelligence level of dodo birds...but i couldn't pass this one up...

the grammatically challenged co-worker had never heard of the phrase (i think that is what you call it) "I before E except after C"!

and thank you to Wikipedia for giving me more information, about this 'mneumonic' (not phrase as i had said!)...and that is a good word! one which i am sure my co-workers would not know...

anyway i don't remember at what age i learned about, "I before E except after C", but i know it was a long, long time ago...some time in early elementary school...so really if any further proof was needed, this should be a classic example of what i deal with every day!

karma strikes back

okay so i think i have mentioned before that my boss and her brother cannot spell my first name...not even my real first name, but my much easier to spell nickname...it drives me nuts. i know it is dumb, really trival, but it is my name...my identity...well my good karma has finally kicked in. today while browsing our intranet site, i came across the employee anniversary listing...and you are not going to believe my very good fortune!? my boss's name was wrong...but not just spelled wrong, it was completely the wrong name. i did a quick people search to verify that it wasn't just another person with the same last name, the search returned no such name!! you know what that means!? my company totally screwed up my bosses name on her anniversary listing on the company intranet pages!! yes i know it is so petty to be excited about this, but i can't help it, it makes me smile! :-)

silly

sorry but i had to share this, my Odwalla Berries GoMEGA drink has a little write up on the side about its nutritional values, as many of the all natural drinks do...

this drink contains a ton (not literally, or it would be a really heavy drink...i would probably need a straw), but anyway, it contains a lot of ground flaxseed....yum!

the point of this post, is that at the bottom is says to, "Drink up, YOU FLAXY THANG"!! lol...that is the funniest thing...sorry, it has been a long week... ;-)
every time i read it, it makes me laugh!

it's the end of the world as we know it...

oh no! yesterday i found out that a co-worker is an atheist...
okay let me give a back story to this...the majority of my co-workers are conservative republicans, not that there is anything other than the obvious wrong with that...but another co-worker of mine happens to be a liberal hippy...okay i am sure you can see where this is going!

so yesterday, the liberal hippy co-worker sneezed, i said, 'bless you', now i am not even a tiny bit religious at all, but i am polite at least so when someone sneezes i am okay with saying, 'bless you'. liberal hippy co-worker didn't reply to me at all, no thank you, nothing. which is fine, most of the time she keeps to herself and doesn't pay attention to anyone else around her, so really i didn't care. but one of the conservative republican co-workers quickly emails me saying, 'she didn't say thank you to you, she is an atheist...'

now of course i do know the liberal hippy co-worker is in fact an atheist, but that scary part is that the other co-workers hold that and her liberalism against her...they call her a lumberjack behind her back! sure she wears big flannel shirts and hippy sandals, but come on, she is married (not a lesbian) and she shaves! but now to be calling her mean things and saying she is evil cause she is 'godless' is just plain stupid, maybe they have read too much ann coulter or something, but really come on, give the girl a break, (i only say this cause it is only a matter of time before they catch on to my views as well...) she is entitled to her own views, and since when did the office become a place of discrimination?!

i on the other hand have managed to escape their liberal atheist radar so far...today in central PA (and maybe other places as well) is wear red to support the war and the troops day, of course they are all wearing red, i however am not wearing red, and not cause i don't support the troops, i am okay with that, but i am not okay with the war, so why the heck would i wear red (besides i think wear 'x' color days are weird...i don't even wear green on st. pats day -- and i am irish!!) . but anyway, i think that they are catching on to me...so i am probably going to be ostracized from the group very soon, and they will probably come up with some stupid name for me as well, hopefully it is cool and not as horrible as 'lumberjack'... ;-)

one more reason to shop at walmart! ;-)

did you know that you can get manicures and pedicures at walmart?! i had no idea until earlier today...some of my co-workers were talking about giving gift certificates for manicures/pedicures at walmart, huh?!

really i had no idea that walmart was in the business of beauty...maybe this is their way of coming back after that nasty press about how they weren't paying/promoting/compensating their female employees as much as their male employees...i can see the marketing meeting now, "you know women have nails and toenails, most of them paint them, hey, lets start doing manicures and pedicures...women love those!! how could they not want to shop here?!" right...cause that makes up for everything, some pretty paint and cheap plastic nails...yep, makes me want to rush right out to my nearest walmart!

so anyway, thanks to my co-workers i now know that if i am in the need for a manicure/pedicure there is no need to go to one of those clean, reputable salon/spa places, i can just head down to my nearest walmart...really it is one stop shopping, pretty nails, some cheap clothes made by small Guatemalan children for 5 cents a day, and groceries...what else do i need?! ;-)

boys beware!

so today at lunch i went to the local grocery story and i was shocked to discover that my brand of tampons has been discontinued?! how does a tampon brand get discountinued? the worst part it is the entire brand, not just one type...the entire brand! no more platex...how is that possible??? i haven't gone on-line yet to find out more about this discountinuation...i plan to do that this afternoon.

so if any girls out there reading this have some advice about what else to use, i would really appreciate it...i have never used anything other than playtex...this sucks... :-(

arugh...this always happens to me...most of my favorite lipsticks over the years have been discountinued, some of my favorite nail polish too......bah...

stay tuned...

my bf this year for my b-day got me my own domain...woo-hoo! anyway, i may be transferring my blog over to it once it is up and running...i haven't decided yet.
anyway, the url is actually my first and last name...go grande!! :-) he did real good!!
it isn't up and running yet, but as soon as it is i will post some information.

motorcycles and sidecars...

this morning driving into work there was a motorcycle with a sidecar keeping pace with me...it got me to thinking, who owns a motorcycle with a side-car?! yeah sure they look neat, fun and kind of remind me of "Indian Jones and the Last Crusade" and nazis or more recently "Garden State", but they just aren't really cool. aren't motorcycles supposed to be cool, edgy and manly? a sidecar doesn't really project the image of hard ass biker...

however i do think it would be fun to ride in a sidecar. i have only ever been on a motorcycle once, it was last summer, this week actually, my friend Stacy from Florida was up for the week visiting with her now husband, Josh, he rented a motorcycle for the week they were up here so he could go out riding with some friends. so one night while we were hanging out he took me out for a ride, i was terrified, i couldn't even open my eyes at first. it was the strangest feeling being so exposed...but after i got used to the noise, the wind and the precariousness of sitting on the back of the motorcycle, i was able to enjoy it. it was very liberating...we never went very fast or anything, i was way to chicken for that, we did hit about 45ish at one point...that was more than fast enough for me...so, right back to riding in a side-car, i think it would be cool, with all the same exposed feelings of riding a motorcycle, but with out the feeling of falling off the back...

so sure riding in a sidecar would be cool, but owning the motorcycle with the sidecar really doesn't have the same coolness factor.

happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me...and the intern...

so it is my birthday...29...one more year until the big 3-0! i don't feel 29, not sure what age i feel, but it is definitely not 29!
i still get carded for things...so obviously i don't look 29 either. i see other people my age and sometimes they really look to be in their late 20's or early 30's...then i look at myself...i can't figure out if they look old or if i look young!? maybe i am over thinking all of this...who knows?!

so anyway it is my birthday, it looks like my good for nothing except when it comes to food, co-workers want to go to lunch for my birthday, or it is for the intern and they just invited me along to be nice...whatever, it should at least be entertaining...and i am going for sushi tonight with my bf and my family...yeah!
yummy sushi... :-)

so it is my birthday, happy birthday to me!

pack your own damn lunch...and other stories

so yesterday at the office, no real surprise there...the girls i work with (including the grammatically challenged co-worker) were talking about their husbands. i am the only non-married girl in my department...so i usually skip out of these conversations, it is so much more fun to sit back and listen. right, so they were talking about how much their husbands work and how hard their jobs are and how stressed out they are...and how they pack their lunches for them!? wait, what?!

did i hear that right...they pack their lunches for them? how old are they, 7?! do they put them in their Dukes of Hazard lunch boxes too!?

okay it is very nice of them to pack their husbands lunch, alright i am going to get kind of mean here for a minute, seriously would you want to be married to someone who didn't know how to feed themselves? really that is one of the reasons they pack their lunches, cause it is hard for them to make a sandwich...is it really that hard to make a sandwich...it is two pieces of bread with a filler...i didn't realize that was challenging...maybe for a 3 year old...but for 30 year old men?! that is hard?! i am sorry, but i can't handle that level of incapability in a man...there is a certain sexy quality in a guy who can put together a sandwich! ;-)

it was really hard for me not to jump into this conversation, i wanted to ask inappropriate questions, like, "do you tie their shoes as well", or "do you have to wipe their bums"...there were some others but i will keep those to myself. i stopped myself from commenting only when they started talking about having dinner on the table for their husbands when they come home from work?! oh my god! are you serious? dinner on the table?! do these girls have any idea how far back they are taking women’s rights? and besides that, they are giving these men the idea that their dinners will be ready when they get home. so what happens the time they dinner isn't on the table when they get home.....well that has happened before, and each time it has resulted in a fight...surprise! i just don't get it...

on to another quick topic, the new intern at work has my birthday! arugh...not happy about that...i am a bit too selfish to share my birthday. and i am older, it was my day first...i am trying not to be annoyed about it...oh and he turns 21! yeah for him! so he is going to completely over-shadow my birthday in the office...but it might be a good excuse to go out to lunch!! ;-)

the smiling face of stupidity

wow...each day my job brings forth a new awareness of how truly stupid people are...
since i do work for a large company we often employ interns, one of which started today in my group. they have given the grammatically challenged co-worker the task of showing around the intern and giving him the overview of what it is we do here. okay now just to refresh everyone's memory on how dumb this co-worker is, she once got lost coming into work....oh yeah, she is that dumb! that said, i have been sitting here for 20 minutes or so listening to her bumble her way through some sort of half-assed explanation of the work we do...none of it makes sense at all, and i have been here 6 years!! yeah sure she is nice, but she is dumb...dumb, dumb, dumb! whatever...i give up...someone just said my name, so i should go back to pretending to do real work. wish me luck, i have a feeling it is going to be a very long day...