“I do not believe they’ve run out of surprises.”
– Larry Niven
Whilst this has been going on, Red has been dealing with a bad employee who has been showing up late, being rude to co-workers and patrons, and refused to learn her responsibilities. Last Thursday, Red took her aside and cautioned her that her behavior would have to change and she stormed out. Today she simply didn’t come in and fired off an email to Red two hours after she was due to start work saying that she couldn’t work in the “volatile situation” that we had put her in.
“Volatile!” exclaimed Luthor incredulously. “We get ice cream here!”
Well said, Luthor. Well said.
Small Dog forgot entirely to take ice cream into account!
“By Thursday morning we’d gotten over the worst of it.”
– William Scranton
None of us have quite managed "Cool" today.
So, Wise is pregnant (congratulations!) and a bit under the weather, Susie and I have both injured our knees (with absolutely no clue as to how), and Hennessy managed to stab herself in the nose with her fingernail in her sleep last night.
“The oracle says Spain over Germany. Discuss.”
“I’m sorry but I have to say German over Spain. Spaniards eat a lot of octopus…the animal is afraid of saying they will lose, as it might end up on a barbecue.”
“True. I had not sufficiently taken into account culinary pressures.”
– C. and Francois, Facebook conversation
The Romans used to slash creatures open and observe their livers and kidneys to tell the future. By comparison, Paul the Oracle Octopus is less gruesome. I’m sort of hoping Spain trounces Germany just so his status as a prophetic cephalopod is confirmed.
Unfortunately for the tentacled sucker in question, I have an everlasting hatred of the name Paul. On a train ride from Holyhead, Wales to London, AbFab, Elizabeth, Kiri, Marie and I were seated with an odd couple. They smoked like chimneys, drank like fish, and swore like sailors. They both had saggy skin covered in tattoos while she had mad, frizzled hair and he was horrifically bald. Apparently she was married to another person but the man with her, named Paul, was her lover. There’s no accounting some people’s taste.
When we changed trains at Crewe the girls and I were happily esconced in our new car when Paul passed us coming down the corridor. Suddenly something landed in my lap. I looked down and saw a twisted up piece of paper and thought he’d dropped it, but he moved on before I could hand it back. Unfortunately when I unfurled it, it was his name and number.
Commenced five women gagging enthusiastically and shuddering all the way to London. They teased me to no end.
“Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends.”
– Virginia Woolf
Happy independence to me…from Venice. She and Val are on their way East (though if Facebook updates are anything to go off of, they are already having a horrid time of it). Since her departure, I’ve been going through the most frightful emotional rollercoaster, best illustrated by the following series.
I'm fine. I'm fine.
I'm not fine! I'm not fine!
Minor meltdown/The Crazies
Successfully avoiding.
Unsuccessfully avoiding.
Denial.
Bargaining.
Acceptance. Sort of.
So. Here’s to absent friends. Whenever any of you may be.
“I collect antique fountain pens, I’m quite adept at Japanese flower arranging- Ikibana- oh, and I was also the starting offensive tackle at Illinois…..Surprise!”
– Cameron, Modern Family
Though I find it mildly weird that both J. and Margot mentioned this to me on the same day…I can’t help but wonder how many problems in this world could have been avoided if we all had one of these:
“I had to scrap and entire post about my future library because you beat me to the punch.”
“That just means you have good taste too!”
– C. and Vodka
The term “Someday House” entered my vocabulary at a very young age. My family has had many houses as we’ve flitted from country to country and continent to continent, but my mother and father would often (usually in the middle of a Great Purge) get a far-off look in their eyes and say, “In our Someday House, we’ll have…”
The insides change, but for some reason, my SH's exterior is invariably Georgian. This particular house with a yard for dogs, kids, and croquet please!
A Someday House is more than a Dream House. The latter you just wish for, the former you actively plan for and will absolutely achieve one day.
The first time I used the phrase, “In our Someday House-” to J. he was completely baffled. These days I can smugly note that it’s part of the Small Dog Family common vernacular. We are slowly building our Someday House in our head together (awww…) and it’s shaping up to be a rather nice one, though I say so myself.
I was talking with Sav and Vodka the other day about future homes, and let the phrase “Someday House” slip. I felt a bit silly saying it to Outsiders, but it turns out they both loved it! We then had a long in depth conversation about our Someday Houses, and I was planning on blogging about my desire for a library…when Vodka did it first!
Go check it out, she said everything I was thinking, only better!
“To keep your balance you must keep moving.”
– Albert Einstein
Small Dog is not coping well.
Venice, leaving in just a week (cue fits of rage and denial), is in the process of packing up and getting rid of things. It’s stressful. I have personally benefited in the form of several pairs of pants which she wanted to get rid of…which does nothing to lessen the approaching pain.
My family, hopping the world as we did, got really good at moving. The formula is very simple: keep the necessities and get rid of half of your personal belongings each time you pack up. To explain: books stay, your old T-shirts acquired from work, community events, and concerts must go.
The funny bit about moving is when you are going through your things and sorting your treasures from the expendables. You will inevitably come to the realization that half of the clothes in your closet haven’t been worn in months, a third of your shoes have ragged heels, give you blisters, or are too ludicrously high/colored/pinching to be kept, and you have a wealth of old garbage (shopping bags, boxes, receipts, hair pins, loose change) taking up an inexplicable amount of space.
And thus, The Great Purge. You sit down in the piles of the stuff you had utterly forgotten you owned and have a candid talk with yourself (which can border on the schizophrenic to outside observers). The end result of which is that several large garbage bags are stuffed with the things you don’t use, don’t want, or can admit you don’t need. These items are either claimed by friends, donated, or unceremoniously chucked. The remaining items are lovingly horded because, after all, you have carefully and considerately come to the conclusion that you absolutely need them.
"What do you mean, Kyrgyzstan? I said Kazakhstan, you fool!"
And a few years later when NATO, the UN, James Bond’s M., etc. tell you that you’re off to Zanzibar, Tokyo, or Belgium, you go through the same harrowing, soul wracking process all over again. And invariably, all of the things you saved previously will be looked over with disdain (“Why on earth did I keep this?”), and end up in a garbage bag by the front door.
And, depending on the country you’re off to, a good portion of your household belongings will have to go as well. All of your electronics, for example, because for some reason the world cannot get it together on matching plugs to outlets, much less voltages. In our area of Suffolk, the building codes demand four houses per quarter acre, an unthinkable thing for the US, which meant that when Dad left NATO and Brussels, a good portion of the house went into storage in Switzerland, or something.
Soon the things we’ve left in small hordes all over the world will converge on our new US doorstep. Mum, already thinking of decorating, will have boxes, bins, and whole trucks of tables, chairs, bookshelves, books, antiques, artwork, and knick knacks to contend with. I’m willing to bet the entire family will be surprised to see what turns up. I certainly don’t remember half of it.
People don’t need nearly as much as they think they do.
Well, J. took the GMAT today and scored a 720 (way to go, love!), Venice is going to be interviewed by the local paper tomorrow for a petition she’s started, Lexie is engaged, Hennessy is getting married any second now, my brother Gio got an impressive scholarship to virtually any school in the US and he’ll be making a final decision about where to go by the end of the week, my father retired and has decided to move…to the States! Which makes little sense to me, I’d have picked Tuscany, personally. My mother, her Classics degree from Cambridge fresh under her belt, is in the US already going through an intense Latin program that should make her a nice candidate to teach Classical Studies Stateside.
Our family is already dreading moving. Apparently, one of the highest accolades that the kids’ school gave itself this past year was getting in fewer fights than the year before. And they chief form of entertainment was lighting fires in the school and then calling the bomb squad. Interesting. “We’re going to be the weirdos now. Don’t tell them where you’re from, where you’ve lived, or what you’ve done,” is my father’s advice, “LIE.” You know that when your pretty spectacular family, though I say so myself, is planning very hard to be inconspicuous that life is about get odd.
My whole family and I are going to be on the same continent for the first time in six years. Permanently. Bizarre!
“Who can hope to be safe? Who sufficiently cautious?
Guard himself as he may, every moment is an ambush.”
-Horace
Small Dog struggles.
For the past almost-two years that I’ve worked here, there has been a large plastic mat residing beneath my chair and the corners of various desks and cabinets. This mat is clear, studded on the bottom, a quarter of and inch thick, sharp edged, and slippery. As you may imagine, this mat has been a sore trial for many office staff, but myself in particular as I am A) a sadklutz, and B) the person who practically lives on top of this thing.
We, meaning mostly I, have slipped, tripped, slid, glided, skidded, twisted ankles, and face planted because of this contraption without complaint or word until today.
Hennessy and I were walking back from the Administration Building when a perfect storm of un-coordination happened. First her heel caught the edge of the mat. Then she started to fall forward which both lifted the mat and tore her shoe off. Then behind her I stuttered my step trying not to collide with my flailing friend. And THEN the sharp corner of the plastic peril bit into my foot. When we managed to right ourselves and glance down to survey damages, I was bleeding.
That was it! We grabbed Susie, one of the officers to move heavy furniture, and dragged the whole thing back to the custodians closet (it weighed about as much as Brazil, was filthy underneath, and smelled horrid to boot). Good riddance.
“A man’s growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
And if ever this becomes necessary, I've got a crack team on speedial.
I have one friend going to study in Korea for the next few months. His wife is staying here, working, and currently performing in The King and I. Another friend is officially back from her world travels and has found a lovely house to move into in the city. Yet another friend is recovering from morphine withdrawals.* And finally yet another dear friend received and turned down the offer to be a man’s mistress.
I know SUCH fabulous people!
* Post surgery, which doesn’t sound nearly as intriguing.
Small Dog Syndrome 