Pathetic excuse for a holiday...

Thursday morning nine o'clock meeting, I get a text message:

Not sure what your plans are this weekend, but...

Finally! An invitation to... something. I've been planning my costume for two weeks.

...could you assist me in cleaning out my hard drive? Noticed last night I have multiple photos of the same thing in different folders.

Fuck. Thanks Larry.

What do I have to console me? The rest of the meeting. Then my ten o'clock, then my eleven o'clock. But then lunch.

~~~

In the eleven o'clock meeting waiting for offshore to join the conference bridge, we start talking about Halloween. Since the majority of my department is Indian, I'm curious as to their take of the holiday. Of course, everyone has lots of fun plans.

~~~

At lunch I was wondering if they still bob for apples at Halloween parties. Because, you know, my costume idea invokes makeup. I remember doing that at Halloween parties when I was a kid. The apples tasted like ear medicine.

~~~

After work I see I have a message on Scruff. It's my Mississippi bear bud! Says he's sewing pockets on his partner's pharaoh costume before they head to New Orleans for the weekend. I make a joke about why doesn't he just use his mummy's purse. Haha, yeah, I'm busy too gotta run, have a great time Cleopatra.

~~~

Been growing out my hair and beard for my costume. Sadly, this is as scruffy as I can get in ten days. (I'm such a bear wanna-be.) Say goodbye to the hair and "beard", they'll both be gone Monday. It was a silly idea anyway.

New idea if I go to a costume party next year: Sell ads on
 that massive forehead and go as "Facebook".  Or paint myself
yellow and go as Grandpa Simpson. LOL

The JB will be working and Eddie's in New England visiting family. Mike will be in Memphis. Eric's going to NOLA too? And I have zero plans for Halloween weekend... well, except helping Larry with his MacBook. It's probably for the best, I'm not feeling 100% anyway. Damn... I haven't had an earache since I was a kid.

~~~

Epilogue: This sounds way more pathetic than necessary. I'm feeling much more optimistic this morning and the earache is gone! Columbus Day, now that's a pathetic excuse for a holiday.

Have a fun and safe Halloween!

~

Silver Linings

Just like much of the country, we've been experiencing weird, stormy weather. The mornings this week have been strangely warm with a heavy and ominous feeling. At first I attributed this feeling to the mild depression that always seems to come with goodbyes.

What made it worse was that the Monday afternoon lunch and send-off I planned with my sister and cousin had to be cancelled as the worsening weather made it prudent to put them on an earlier flight home. Stuck at the office, I said goodbye over the phone.

How's that for punctuation? Forget the answer...
What's the question, I wonder?

But there have been moments this week where the wet, windy dreariness was punctuated by something beautiful. Memories of love and laughter. Expectations of fun and mischief. Reminders of preparations that need to be made and celebrations to plan. Bonds to strengthen, old and new. Transitions.

What's a storm front anyway, but a transition? A turbulent boundary between natural differentials. Crossing it isn't a choice. Experiencing it is. I understand this a little better this week.

A friend took this photo this week from her office. She's an amazing
photographer with ANY camera, and she took this one with her
iPhone. I'm in one of those office buildings to the far left.

Alien Working Girl

I enjoy watching old movies from time to time. Every week I read the TV Guide from cover to cover and circle the movies I haven't seen or would enjoy watching again. (By this, of course, I mean I program my TiVo.) But as I get older I'm noticing it's getting harder to watch classic movies without getting distracted by certain details, details completely irrelevant to the original plot.

Life in a Peachtree dish

I've been fighting a cold with bronchitis for over a month. It started six weeks ago when a coworker returned from a three-week visit home with a mild case of nasal dysentery. Eager to resume his duties and loath to appear weak by calling in "sick", he did the only reasonable thing and contaminated every door handle, stair rail and elevator button in the office.

Pac's family weekend

One of the perks of being a flight attendant, or in my case being married to one, is the travel passes. But the dark side of these "buddy passes" is that, depending on the circumstances, the buddy you cursed with the joys of dirt-cheap standby travel may never speak to you again.

Paleontology 101

The other night I went out for a few drinks and decided to wear my awesome new Tricerabottom shirt. I was encouraged when the hot new bartender laughed and said he liked my shirt. I was discouraged to hear he thought it read "twice-a-bottom".

"I see... It's a gay dinosaur and it's a bottom," he said when I explained it to him. I still don't think he gets it, but I was re-encouraged when he laughed anyway and didn't let me pay for my drink.

Tricerabottom is well on his way to paying for himself!

Poor Ivy

This is why I would never, ever, ever volunteer to serve on our homeowners' association board. After much soul-searching (and editing) I decided to share with the world what matters to Pac enough as a home owner that would prompt him into engaging our community leaders. (Pay no attention to his iPhone clock. I'm sure it's wildly inaccurate.)

L5P Halloween Parade

I hope I don't offend anyone by saying so, but Halloween is just better in the South. I grew up in Upper Michigan, and I remember trying to trick-or-treat in the snow. And that's if I was lucky and it wasn't just ice-cold rain. Most costumes don't hold up very well in rain. Which is why most of the time mine consisted of some variation of a Hefty bag theme, with bread bags between my socks and boots. Sadly the bread bags weren't part of my costume... they were standard wet weather survival gear in my house. Happily, my house had plenty of bread.

Eagles and Chickens

I'm fortunate to live near Piedmont Park, metro Atlanta's largest green space. Unless there's a large event being held there, in which case the blessing is mixed at best depending how big a crowd it attracts and how interested I am in walking across the street to attend.

It used to be the traffic and parking hassles which were the greatest inconvenience when the throngs invaded. That changed when I switched my mobile phone provider to AT&T, which evidently has zero surge capacity. Suddenly a cell tower connection becomes a limited and precious resource. The plague of swarming iPhones begins to block the life-giving rays of digital cellshine, casting an Amish-like shadow and inducing a painful Scruff deficiency.

I wanna be friend 1,190

Happy Birthday Julie's Dad!

On Fridays Julie and I communicate in Haiku, with random Facebook friends joining in.

It's my dad's birthday.
Keep getting busy signal
Too late to send card.


to whom do you speak?
ever hear of call-waiting?
happy birthday dad


Most dads have new phones
My dad has a rotary
or tin cups and string.


a rotary phone?
how nineteen seventy-two.
have you tried pidgin?


then can i assume
sending him a birthday txt
is not an option?


What I really think
the busy signal means that
his bitches callin.


Don't give up on it
Those b*tches will hang up soon
It's almost happy hour


almost happy hour?
you remind me of my thirst!
momentum is lost


don't worry julie
there is always tomorrow
wait... how old is he?

Bonding the last gap

Off to the dentist this morning and I'm excited. That's not a morning sarcasm flare-up either.

Fourty months ago a talented but troubled new artist emerged on the music scene and convinced me to finally do something about my disorganized smile. I figured I'd get some of those Invisalign things and fix my teeth while I sleep. Turns out I was being an idiot.

Fast forward through three years of braces, four tooth extractions, dental surgery, a ton of cash and more embarrassing anecdotes than I care to recount. Now look at me... I'm Retainer Boy!

Ooo, and there's my hairbrush!

A family in Buffalo just realized they've had a priceless Michelangelo painting stashed behind their couch for years.

An unfinished painting of Jesus and Mary that sat behind a family's sofa near Buffalo for almost 30 years might be a lost Michelangelo worth a fortune...

Sent to America in 1883 by a family member, the painting had hung in the Kobers' living room for years until being knocked down by a tennis ball sometime in the mid-1970s. It then went into storage — wrapped up and stuck behind the sofa.

Damn, I hate to think of all the Caravaggios my brothers and I sent to the curb with our indoor ultimate frisbee, wrestling matches and spaghetti ball fights.

A lost masterpiece worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Behind the sofa....

Gets up. Pulls out couch...

Cat sick.

Sighs. Pushes couch back.

This story does make me further appreciate the coffee mug Jules gave me for my birthday...

Fall Back

Almost 7:30am and it's still dark out. I never used to look forward to setting the clocks back but now that I'm a morning person, I'd rather get the light at the start of the day. I remember one year one of my New Years resolutions was to enjoy more sunrises. It took several years, but I finally made one I was able to keep.