Laughs at Work

I was throwing pens away right and left as I copied down my schedule from what we at the Press Herald call "the wailing wall" because none of the pens seemed to have any ink in them.

"Jeezum," I'd snap in disgust. "This one doesn't work either!" Toss into wastebasket.

 Then my boss said, "Stop throwing away pens. They don't work because you're writing up against a wall."

He added, unhelpfully, "It's called gravity!"

That made my night. God knows I need good laughs!

Then I read a story about how all Maine's candidates for U.S. Senate are "from away," as we say of non-Maine-born people. In the final paragraphs, we get an anecdote about Angus King, who was our governor for awhile and is now seeking the Senate seat.

King was talking to some old-timer, saying how good he felt that even though he's not a native Mainer, all his kids were born in Maine and so THEY are native Mainers!

The old-timer remarked, "Well, not so fast there, Angus. Just because a cat has her kittens in the oven it don't make them biscuits."

What a great night I was having! Two fabulous laughs!

Tonight as I drove home, I was thinking what a great spoof could be made out of pretending that the leaders of the world are all visiting each other's Facebook pages and leaving comments. And that's how the big decisions are made, and how international relations are defined.

They've all friended each other and on their home page, they can all read what they've written to everyone else. And most of it has to be really shallow, Facebook-y kind of stupid stuff, like pictures of grandkids and updating status (as if anyone cares!) and sharing silly pictures they've taken of themselves with their phones!

Must send this idea on to Neil, my columnist friend at the NYT.

Survival of the Fattest

It's been awhile, and though I have thoughts and opinions that amuse me every single day - nay, every single minute - I just can't stand sitting down any longer than I already do (playing Lexulous, of course) to write them here.

Today, on a whim, I visited my blog and was reminded of how much I like this other blog which I follow. It's Cheryl Somebody-or-other's "Free Range Living" at http://freerangeliving.blogspot.com/2011/10/full-circle.html

So, anyway, at work last night, I was fascinated by a couple of stories we put in the newspaper.

The first was about two women in Sweden who received transplants of their own mothers' uteruses. One of the women had lost her own uterus because of cancer, and the other had been born without a uterus.

Hooray for them, and good luck. However, something I've always ruminated about is, if natural selection is the way the human race improves itself, are we doing ourselves any favors by inducing reproduction in people unable to reproduce on their own? Both women will now undergo in vitro fertilization with their own harvested eggs. If the one carries a predisposition for cancer, and the other carries some flaw causing a uterus to not develop, won't they just be passing it on to future generations? I'm not advocating denying anyone the joy of having their own child. After all, I challenged nature myself, by getting pregnant again after two miscarriages. (What's that, Nature? You don't think I should reproduce? You think I should take the hint? Well, we'll just see about that!) Just wondering where the human race is heading and whether we're lacking a basic respect for said nature.

The other story was about rampant adult obesity in the U.S. (I'm now down to merely overweight, thanks to a recent bout with Weight Watchers). By the year 2030, a new report says, nearly 50 percent of adults in most states will be obese. Now. To relate this to the previous story. If these people are too fat to fornicate, should they be allowed to reproduce via other means? Won't that just be setting us up for 100 percent obesity by, say, 2080? And then won't the U.S., with all that extra weight tramping around on it, be in danger of actually sinking into the seas, and everyone will die?

These threads deserve expansion, but I'm so blown away by all the ethical implications, I can't oblige right now.

Pennywhistles: Together At Last

My twin nephews, Duncan and Kyle, probably will never appreciate what a wonderful thing they did for me last evening. It was like a Make-A-Wish dream come true.

They and their roommate, Maria, came over and we played my four-part pennywhistle arrangements of "Hello, Dolly," "Piano Favorites," "William Tell Overture" and "Battle Hymn of the Republic."

It is such a joy to play with people for whom musical instruments are like natural appendages. These guys don't play pennywhistle every day, but they gamely picked them up, quickly grasped the essentials and even transposed while sight-reading.

Granted, four pennywhistles playing in harmony can get old really quickly. But the "funny factor" is so worth it. Poor Dunc had one part where he had the same four-note figure over and over and over again; for this he earned a music performance degree at SUNY Purchase?

The boys and Maria were such good sports to humor me. I hope they had fun, too. I hope they will come play with me again!

They'd better, actually, so we can make a recording and I can post it here!

The Exciting World of Etc.

I love craigslist SO MUCH! My deepest regret is that it didn't exist back when I abandoned the conventional life to travel the U.S. and have adventures.

My favorite category, at least at this jobless point in my life, is the ETC under
Jobs. I don't know why I've wasted time looking under Nonprofit Sector and Office/Administrative or even Writing/Editing when the excitement of ETC was there all along.

This job just appeared today: Balloon Twister.

Yes! And training is provided! I want to be a balloon twister!

Sadly, I'm no longer qualified for some of the jobs, such as gestational surrogate and sleep research study lab rat (the cut-off age is 55. :-( ) And of course, figure model and tumbling instructor are out of the question! At least until I lose the last, stubborn 46 pounds to reach my Weight Watchers goal.

But you never know what will turn up! Careers you never knew could exist!

The copy chief at the Press Herald called me a couple of nights ago to say it's safe for me to come back now that the company has changed hands. I told him I'm interested in working on a "limited basis," because who knows? Maybe I'll be twisting balloons on weekends this summer!

My Friend Phil

There was a reason I signed in here. I had something I wanted to say. Unfortunately it has completely escaped me.

I am about to embark on a week with Phil the famous pig of Portland. This pig was kind of the mascot of one of Portland's First Friday Art Walks, which was titled, "Phil, Pig in the City."

I'm looking forward to spending time with Phil, because I want him to be my friend. So far, the two times I've met him, he's been quite hostile and seems to want me OUT of HIS TERRITORY. The first time, he just ran at me and looked mad. Today, our encounter was like something out of a horror movie. He was actually sneaking up behind me and then attacking my leg. It made me laugh. Which only enraged him further.

By this time next week, I hope I am reporting that Phil -- all 80 pounds of him -- is climbing onto my lap to watch NCIS with me. Or better yet, Red Sox games!

Of Puzzles, Bureaucracy and At Least One Stooge

I'm falling down on the job here. Not only is this blog not daily, it's not even weekly. It's barely monthly.

Blame it on Lexulous. I sit down to play one game, and then I find myself hitting "Rematch" after every contest. The way I justify it: I'm honing my skills as a cruciverbalist.

Speaking of which, I am going to try to post the crossword puzzles I am learning to build. Feel free to print them out and attempt to solve them. Feedback would be nice, but it's not required.

SOMETHING WEIRD

As you may or may not know, I was laid off from MaineToday Media in November and I am collecting unemployment as I look for a new job. Yesterday I got a letter from the state Department of Labor that said, "We have been notified by MaineToday Media that you became employed there as of Feb. 29, 2012. You have claimed unemployment benefits since them, and now, GIVE THEM BACK!"

This came as a bit of a shock to me, since I had no idea that MaineMedia had re-employed me! You'd think they'd let ME know.

So now I have to call the unemployment office and find out what the heck is going on. Like I'll be able to get through! Mondays, I'm sure the phones are ringing off the hook up there in Augusta.

A CLOSE CALL

The sign on the Weight Watchers door said, "We will be closed Sunday for Easter, and will also close Saturday at noon."

I saw this on Friday, and thought, "Oh my God, Easter is this Sunday?"

So I told Rex to make sure the Easter Bunny was well supplied and ready to deliver, and Kayti was looking forward to chocolate (and the celebration of the Resurrection, too, of course. Not.). She was bummed that I would not be at home Sunday morning as I am pet-sitting 20 miles away. I soothed her by promising to drive over Sunday morning before she even woke up. A couple of times she asked, "Are you sure tomorrow is Easter?" because really, there'd been no other indication except that note on the WW door.

Finally I remembered to look it up online, and discovered what all you, dear readers, already know. Easter is two weeks away!

I called Rex and pulled him off Easter Bunny detail. He wasn't happy that he'd made a completely unnecessary trip to the grocery store. But he was happy that it wasn't too late to not observe Easter TWICE!

Plus we would have felt incredibly stupid after hunting for eggs and having our ham dinner and enjoying our Easter baskets, only to find out everyone else in the world was just going about their normal Sunday activities!

The Parade Passes By

It's frightening how many writing and editing jobs are out there, but what's more frightening is how ill qualified I am for many of them.

I've been editing copy and designing pages for decades, but today's newspaper employers are looking for Web skills that I would have to brush up on, if not outright acquire. One of my rules in choosing what jobs to apply for is: If you don't know what the job is, don't apply. Content producer, for example. Exactly what is a content producer? Is it just someone who can write diatribes on any subject to fill the available space (which I would, of course, be very good at), or is it someone who has to know how to write diatribes that are cleverly loaded with keywords that will land said diatribes on Google's Page One? Maybe a content producer doesn't even write! I don't know!

Still, I may have to rethink that rule if I really want to get a job.

Then there are the employers who want people who have social media marketing savvy, which I don't, although I'm somewhat willing to learn.

Adding insult to injury, the temporary agency I signed up with last week pretty much told me no one would want me for my office skills, which were last relevant in the early '90s.

I told Kayti recently, "I finally figured out a career I would enjoy. And it's really surprising, because it's not something I ever would have associated with myself."

Kayti said, "Cosmetology?"

Which made me laugh, because that's even more outlandish than accounting, which is the one I came up with.

Party, or Really Party? That is the Question

I've invited bunches of people to my house this coming Sunday to play music and share potluck food. Three days ago I was informed that this Sunday is Super Bowl Sunday, and I might want to reschedule my get-together.

Should I waste my breath railing against a society that values a televised football game that is basically an excuse to eat junk food, drink beer, and exercise vicariously above a few hours of live, musical fellowship and revelry?

Nah. That part of my holy crusade against culture is over. Go ahead. Watch the stupid game. If it were the Red Sox in the World Series, I'd probably do the same thing.

A Novel Approach

As I drive hither and thither on my daily errands, I ponder the plot for my true-crime novel, which has no name as yet. Actually, it has no plot yet, either, but there are several sub-plots trying to surface, and I do know what the prologue -- the crime -- will be.

I haven't sat down to write the prologue, and this morning I realized something rather disturbing: I am actually procrastinating about it because it is going to be SO DELICIOUS! The victim is going to be one of my old boyfriends, and I am going to so enjoy rubbing him out! It is really fun to ride around thinking up ways of executing him and experimenting with dialogue.

OK. I know you think I'm sick. Even I think this is a little sick. But it's funny!

Did You Miss Me?

Wow, it has been FOREVER since I wrote on this blog.

I just read through a few posts, and was once again pleasantly surprised in hindsight at how lucid, and, dammit, just plain lovable I am!

Here's a funny update:

I opened the freezer door a couple days ago, thinking to maybe clear some space for new, exciting frozen treats to come, and pulled a grocery bag from the very back.

"Hmmmmm, wonder what's in this?" I said to myself.

There was a tag on the bag. It said: "Athena."

I immediately thought, "Guinea pig food?" Because, as you know, dear reader, since you have diligently digested all my previous posts, Athena was one of our guinea pigs.

Then, a split second later I realized the frozen lump in the bag WAS Athena.

That poor, dead guinea pig has been in our freezer for over a year, waiting for burial.

Makes you wonder what else is in there, doesn't it?

By the way -- and this has nothing to do with what's in my freezer, despite the juxtaposition -- you're all invited to my house for music and potluck Feb. 5.