Une Bonne Anniversaire a Moi!

Oui, it is that time again! The joyous occasion of my birth...YAY!!! Yeah, I know big deal ... everyone has them and I had very little to do with it - blame Joyce and Charlie!!!

So far the good people of this world have been very kind to me - I came in to my office to find a huge bouquet of fleurs and a plate full of homemade empanandas and hugs and many nice nice nice email wishes - to be followed by lunch courtesy of the Boss and then that will pretty much be it for now ... I'm really celebrating on Friday with The Texan Twosome but YAY! again and thanks to all who have been so sweet to me - I'm very grateful!!

I've had enough of the ruff stuff, baby*

*taken from one of my favorite Gomez songs about an "unhealthy" lifestyle - in their case drugs and smokes, in my case PeopleSoft and Oracle, late nights and weird sleep patterns.

In other words, to speak plainly and simply - because like Sarah Palin in last night's debate, I want to "speak straight" to Joe Six Pack and all the Soccer Moms - I'M TIRED.

And who the hell is Joe Six Pack anyway? In my HUMBLE opinion, this lady who tries to place herself as part of the middle class (who's hubby is a biggie in the oil industry and owns a fishing company and they are both classified as millionaires) is actually being pretty snarky and condescending by referring to the Middle Class this way. Does she see all middle class men as a bunch of white trash dudes with potbellies in wifebeaters who hang out in front of their trailers, guzzling beer while they work on their crappy pickups? Is she DARING to assume that all middle class women have no other ambitions than to be Soccer Moms, that some of us might be single and - gasp - have no kids at all? Is she really trying to lump us all in this little middle class stereotype and act as if she "understands", she "has been there"? REALLY? I can't stand this piece of crap excuse for a politician and I find it demeaning that the Republicans think that is the best they can do for a position that would be second in command - you want a lady in there, thinking you'll get all the Pro-Hillary Anti-Obama women swinging on over to McCain and this tarty, unintelligent, cheesy, CHICK is the best you could come up with? Seriously. I love Rachel Maddow's opinion of her debate performance by the way, calling her out on being so folksy she almost seemed to be a cartoon, not a real person - I fully expected her at some point to break out with a "OOH yah, yoo betcha, let me tell you about my Uncle Ole Oleson from Min-EE-sew-tah..." and yes I can make fun of the Minnesota accent because my family is from there - she's from freaking Alaska, where did the accent come from? I'll tell you - FAKE FOLKSINESS!

Uffdah!

My family is middle class - if she classifies us by what we inbibe, I'm going to start calling my dad Chuck Grand Marnier and my mom Joyce Seabreeze. And I'm Nicola Tequila. HA! More like Nicole Maca Supergreens lately...

So you can tell I'm grumpy, right? Eh, I'll be okay, I just need to sleep well over the weekend, get my hair done tomorrow so that I look pretty for Veronica and Larisa (look how pretty I am!) and have a glass of wine tonight. I'm actually feeling very good - HAPPY - just weary. I keep waking up at like 4am and I'll be wide awake and golly gee (another PALINISM!!) I need my sleep in order to function. Basically, I haven't had a day off in 2 weeks and and I've been working almost every night until 8pm so the wear and tear are unravelling me. Can I sing Weezer's Sweater Song now?

HEY! Um, weird...The Sweater Song just came on my radio!! How's that for some synchronicity!!!

BOO HOO!!!!!

I'm sad...because I'M AT FREAKING WORK AGAIN. STILL. DARN IT ALL TO HELL. I was here last night until after midnight because we had "issues" and the IT Dudes were worn out from being up for 48 hours straight and so we called it a day. Or a night. Whatever. They needed to rest. So I came back here at 1pm today and now it's creeping up on 7pm and I STILL HAVE ISSUES.

EEK. YIKES. SHIT. CRAP.

That's all the energy I have for venting. I'm done. I'm tired. The Mets lost but I think considering how soap operaish their year was and all the injuries, I'm just proud of them for sticking through it and fighting hard and almost, just so close, making the post-season. It's okay. Despite what some people say, it's not like last year. There was no collapse. They had to fight and claw their way through the season so now we all have to wait until next April for more baseball and I have to decide what team I will now be rooting for - hmmm NOT THE BREWERS. Maybe the Cubbies...

So I think we are all heading home now, I'm turning on my remote access and I'll finish this stuff from home and wait to hear from the IT Dudes on the 10pm conference call to see if I have any more work to do until tomorrow...sigh...don't you feel sorry for Poor Pitiful Pearl?

LOSER!!

WHO IN THE HELL GOES TO WORK AT 8PM ON A SATURDAY NIGHT??!!

Me, I guess. So I get a call at noon, IT guys are way ahead of schedule, so now it's looking more like I'm coming in at 11pm tonight but it's a possibility that we can just come in early tomorrow morning. Fine. At 2pm, I head out to Brooklyn for my Pete Seeger concert, have a GRAND OLE time with Pete and Grandson Tao - FABULOUSITY!!! But I get a text message from the Boss - come in time is now 9pm. So here I am, armed with a vanilla latte and a turkey sandwich and some supergreen juice - come on people, lets VALIDATE DATA AND RUN SOME QUERIES!!!!

Well it's a bit spooky here since the Boss can't get here until 10:30 and all the IT dudes are on the 11th and 17th floors - I'm all alone...creepy creepy, so I'm blasting my iPod to keep me company..

So that's all for now - just had to report:

*Working late late late

*The Mets are STILL ALIVE!!

* Pete and Tao Seeger are most awesomely awesome...and they sang This Little Light of Mine, which was a surprise and I love that song...and they got an encore and came back out and sang Guantanamera and Pete still has all the energy and enthusiasm he seemed to have in his youth and he made me smile - and he's a such a great storyteller and leader, who else could have gotten a tent full of New Yorkers to sing along to She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain, complete with sounds and gestures, This Land is Your Land, and Turn Turn Turn. I would have loved to have heard Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, but I guess that's a little too "political" for a family event. Oh. Well. Pete ROCKED and I got to be 4 rows of people away from him and that's all that matters.

The Return of The Office

YAY!! The Office returned last night and I got home in time to see it AND watch MY METS win and stay alive in the Hunt for October ... I'm sort of sad that this is the last weekend of regular season baseball - what will I look forward to watching every night? Well, hopefully, General Manuel can keep the boys going and I'll have at least another week of games (and then after that, I'm sort of rooting for the Dodgers to do well so that Joe Torre can flip the bird to the Stankees).

But - favorite moments of The Office last night - and I'm copying this from my email to Snow White, a fellow Office devotee:

When Phyllis was wondering what people liked most about her she said "probably my jugs"

Ryan coming back as the temp!! And then writing down Kevin and Jim as people who have wronged him - seems like something I might do....

Kevin getting mad at the new HR lady for thinking he's retarded: " Math is HARD!"

Michael and new HR lady in the warehouse rapping

Stanley at the end getting on the scale and putting his fist up doing the black power thing because he lost 7 pounds

Phyllis getting to be head of the Party Planning Committee because of what she SAW

Andy Bernard: "every little boy dreams of his fantasy wedding" LOL!! - he's so earnest sometimes, he cracks me up

And of course I thought Jim's proposal was very cute...I'm kind of glad they aren't overplaying their romance and not making it the big focus - I think it would get annoying - plus, they aren't the funniest characters, they are the ones who make you go "awww, aren't they sweet"?

So now it's onto the weekend where I have to stay close to a computer at all times - I didn't get my 3am wakeup call last night thankfully so that means all went "well" and so now we are just doing MAYJUH web testing and I'm still on call all day tomorrow and then Sunday, I'm working the graveyard shift - the time has now shifted to coming in at midnight to hopefully be done by 4am - then home to sleep for a few hours if I can. I might just nap on the floor here if I'm too keyed up and go home early.

CRAZYCRAZYCRAZYCRAZYCRAZEDLADY

that would be me ... this is the final week of our conversion to the new version of our database and software and I'm a mad mad woman but if you can keep your head about you while others are losing theirs ... eh, whatever, I'm just crazed but keeping my head above water and taking a little time out to blog and vent before
I head home to rest my weary bones. So it will all come to a conclusion this Thursday where I have to basically sleep with one eye open - so the Boss says -
all night and keep my remote access up on my laptop so that I can fix any system issues that pop up during the IT Dudes first night shift. Seriously, I have to set my alarm for 3:30 am so that I can wake up and "do something" because that's what it says on our task list. Then, weekend work for sure - I get a small break on Saturday evening when I will be stepping out to see Pete Seeger in Brooklyn, how freaking excited am I??!!! - but topped off by having to come in Sunday night at 1:30 am to work work work to validate and make sure every final thing is in place and working before officially going live on Monday morning. So the plan is, get a car service to get me here at 1am or so, then however long it takes me to do my piece, but hopefully I get to take that car right back home by 5 or 6am and then come back to work around noon. SHIT.

I'm trying to take it easy but still. SHIT.

But I'm still smiling and giggling and that's something - and I mustered enough strength to make cupcakes today for all the guys here (yes, I'm trying to win their love through their stomachs...wouldn't you?) and they were specifically Mets RallyCakes - which just means I frosted them in orange and blue. And yes, I was loved by all because of them. So yay for cupcakes and lets hope they can spur the Mets on to that coveted Wild Card (I think they are out of winning the division) - and before you ask, yes, cupcakes DO have the power to conjure wins in sporting events - just ask Michael Phelps what he ate before each of his races in Beijing. I'll bet Mommy Phelps was cooking with Betty Crocker, don't you? Perhaps even Duncan Hines? Come on, you know I'm on to something...

CUPCAKE POWER!!!!!!!!!!!

Funniest thing I heard on the phone last night:

"Fix me my dinner, wench!"

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA - I'm still giggling about that!!!!

You're a funny man DJ...a funny funny little man....

As seen on a tshirt today

SMILE DAMMIT!!!

Tom's Diner-Seinfeld-Wondering

Question for my fellow Columbia/Barnard graduates from the 90's: I thought of this while watching Seinfeld last night. Whenever they show an exterior shot of Tom's, do you look for yourself walking past or buying cd's from that guy that used to sell them on the corner? I realized I do it without thinking about it every time I watch! I used to buy cd's from that guy all the time, I had a friend that lived down that block so I was down that way quite a bit and as a special treat prior to or after exams/papers, we all might have enjoyed a cheeseburger and fries inside, yes? They must have been filming exteriors at some point while we were there so there's that chance you may see me (or you) circa 1995 enjoying a Broadway shake in the window. I haven't spied me yet, but its an unconscious habit...I also look for Cindy in her Little Red Riding Hood winter coat - complete with hood - because I figure that would stand out...

The Great Pumpkin Moon!

Yes, summer is truly over - how do I know? Well, last night, I spotted this season's first pumpkin moon rising overhead as I got off of the train and headed home - I LOVE ADORE big fat peachy pumpkin harvest moons. The most perfect thing is when they show up on Halloween - I remember one Halloween as a child and we were walking home from Trick or Treating and there was a the biggest, most orange moon I'd ever seen and it seemed so low to the street, I swear I could have walked to the end of San Bernardino Avenue and touched it. But I was slightly scared of it too and so I didn't try. But I get very excited when I spy them at this time of year because I fully expect to see one or more of the following:

1. a witch on a broomstick riding past

2. ET and Elliot on a bike

3. The Man in the Moon face from the French silent film Le Voyage de la Lune (or better known from the Smashing Pumpkins "tonight tonight" video

I have to add that the word "fat" + Smashing Pumpkins keeps making me smile as I type this because it makes me think of my college friend Eve and she and I would listen to SP (and Blur, and Velvet Underground, and and and..I could go on but I won't) a lot and hooking onto particular lines - in this case, our favorite was "fat with promise" and it became a thing we'd say to each other - i.e. she saw me in Hewitt (Spewitt - although why'd we call it that, the food wasn't that bad - how much lentil stew did I eat in my time there?!) dining room and I had a nice big bagel with cream cheese that looked appetizing and she started laughing and said "that bagel is fat with promise" - and it was. So I guess the Fat With Promise Pumpkin moon makes me believe it is a harbinger of things to come, things totally fat with promise.

So look up in the sky tonight, people...tell me, what do you see...?