In happier news, it would seem my Lord and Lady Stompington may have moved out! Building gossip suggests it, and the unnatural quiet we’ve been enjoying seconds the idea, but it has not been positively confirmed yet. Fingers crossed, all. Good fortune and goodbye!
Also, Sav and her husband CK may be moving into our building. Which would be lovely! When Venice basely abandons me, it would be nice to have someone I know and like in easy cup-of-sugar borrowing distance.
“Electricity is really just organized lightening.”
– George Carlin
Small Dog is positively charged.
We have card swipes on the doors to the secure areas of the department. Today while sliding my card through the reader, I got a jolt of power through my arm. Much like the time I unscrewed the bulb from a night light when I was seven (old enough to know better) and stuck my finger in the gap to see what it felt like. Don’t recommend it.
Later in the room where I take peoples’ fingerprints, the light wasn’t turning on. I flipped it a couple of times with no result until suddenly the lights buzzed into life…while the switch was in the “Off” position.
I’ve also been on the receiving end of two static shocks today.
“Hear now a sorry tale of mortal man…”
– Aeschylus
The story of Prometheus is well known, but to recap… He was a titan who apparently sided with the Olympians when they wandered into Greece, looked around, and said, “We’ll take it.” Even though Zeus declares himself supreme-overlord-of-all-and-if-you-challenge-me-you-will-get-struck-by-bloody-lightning-I-am-not-kidding!, Prometheus demonstrates over and over again that he is far more clever than the majority of the pantheon. While Zeus is sneaking around behind his wife’s back, preening in a mirror, and trying (unsuccessfully) to keep his growing horde of illegitimate children quiet, Prometheus decides that he feels like creating humans and developing agriculture, writing, and the other civilizing arts.
"That'll learn you, thinking you're smarter than me..." "Wow. You're a huge jerk. Ow ow OW!"
But when he decided to steal fire (usually symbolizing technology in general) for mankind and smuggled it off Mount Olympus, Zeus finally lost it. Fed up with his tricks, overwhelming cleverness, and making him (Zeus) look bad, he chained Prometheus to a mountain and sent an eagle to eat his liver everyday, which miraculously regrew each night so he could be tortured in the same way daily, ad infinitum. One of the pesky downsides to being immortal.
The modern retelling of this myth is currently taking place on our front counter.
In an effort to help transition patrons to the new parking system, an unnamed officer bought two tiny laptops that our employees could use to walk individuals through the online process of registering their cars. Trouble was that for months the system was hovering in a state of semi-productivity limbo, even on a good day the internet connection on the laptops is shoddy at best, and the computers are almost never used. Not money well spent, in my opinion.
Not aesthetically pleasing, I feel.
However, one of the more obvious problems with this idea has been the method devised for keeping them in place (as it would be embarrassing for computers to get stolen from a police department); to wit, a tangled mass of wires, power strips, and chains wrapped around one another, the computers themselves, and drawer handles. Looking both ghetto and ridiculous.
Moral of the story: trying to bring enlightenment and ease to the populace will probably make you an object of aggravation, fit only to be tied up and left to rot.
“For the record, I hate it when people do things to celebrate ‘future mothers’ on Mothers’ Day, like giving out flowers in church, so I don’t want to do anything with the holiday until we actually have kids. However, if I’m pregnant on Mothers’ Day, I will expect you to do something, in the name of the fetus.”
“Duly noted.”
– C. and J.
While kids are a long ways off for us, we do have fun thinking about, arguing over, and speculating on our future family. “You know you can’t swear in front of the kids, right?”, “They will learn proper grammar, so help me!”, and “Piano lessons and a language are mandatory, ok?” He looks forward to wrestling with them on the floor and playing catch, I look forward to answering questions and watching them discover the world. And forcing them to read (though with us as parents, I don’t foresee too great a struggle in that vein). I like to tease him about how, by marrying a petite woman like me, he’s forfeited his chance at a child playing basketball, and he counters that he’s switched his plans to baseball. He takes a great deal of pleasure in shooting down all my potential baby names, and I smugly let him think what he wants because after nine months toting the little parasite around, gaining weight, going mental, being violently ill, and forcibly expelling it through a grueling multi-hour ordeal, I think I’ll manage to get the final say.
However, we are firmly on the same page regarding one thing about children: slave labor. Oh, yes. They will have chores. Starting young. It’s going to be fun to make them pull weeds, mow the lawn, and dust the house. Mummy loves you, darlings!
“‘Tis pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures; And all are to be sold, if you consider Their passions, and are dext’rous; some by features Are brought up, others by a warlike leader; Some by a place–as tend their years or natures; The most by ready cash–but all have prices, From crowns to kicks, according to their vices.”
– Lord Byron, Don Juan canto V, st. 27
Holidays are fun, regardless of nationality. Take today: Cindo de Mayo. Some people celebrate with chips and salsa, some with a fiesta, some with mariachi bands. And some with bribery.
A certain student is banned from driving on campus. This is due in large part to him accumulating up to four tickets in one day, parking in service/handicapped stalls, trying to fight our student officers, and claiming that he never received information that three people all told him (at the same time, in the same room together). He was informed he had the ability to appeal the ban but would not be able to bring his car onto campus until a final decision had been made. He said he understood and left.
Pictured: the filthy tool of corruption!
Today he came into our office, and asked for Red.
“You know about Cinco de Mayo, right?” he asked. “It’s today. So I brought you this.”
He held out a small packaged piece of tres leches cake with a meaningful expression.
“K, bye” he said quickly and hurried out.
Five minutes later we found his car in a non-student parking lot.
The real mystery here is, if he were trying to circumvent parking rules, why did he draw attention to himself by 1) attempted bribery and, 2) (and this is more perplexing) leaving his emergency lights flashing merrily away for over an hour?
How do you celebrate Cinco de Mayo? Or any holiday for that matter?
Round about finals, we all get a little loopy. J.’s schedule affects me just as much as it does him because we only have one car so where one goes, the other must follow. Meaning, that because J.’s exams start at 7am, guess who also gets to come into work an hour early?
The disruption to our sleep schedule means that C. becomes a walking zombie of ludicrousness.
Pictured: J.'s friends Tim and Heidi. As seen by C. at 10pm.
But I knew I’d reached critical mass last night when driving home from my sister-in-law’s (Milly) bridal shower (her fiance spent his evening with the future-brothers-in-law and assorted children), J. was talking about his friends, “Tim and Heidi,” and I furrowed my brow in tired confusion.
“Wait? Tim and Heidi? As in Gunn and Klum?”
Sidenote: do they not (his friends, I mean) have the potentially most awesome Halloween costume?
“There is a peculiar burning odor in the room, like explosives. The kitchen fills with smoke and the hot, sweet, ashy smell of scorched cookies. The war has begun.”
– Allison Lurie
The end of a semester is always a bit sad, largely because we often have a turnover in student employees. Today is Daae’s last day and Sport’s second to last day.
In honor…actually, in mourning…of the day, Wise and I decided that we wanted to do something for them and I said I would make a bunch of cookies for the office. Unfortunately I had my creative writing final which lasted until 8pm (which was a surprising amount of fun, but that’s another post) and then I had to spend half an hour Harley (yes, I named it), so I didn’t open my cupboards until 9:30 which is when I discovered we had no butter – or milk, or bread, but who’s keeping tabs?
(Side note: We go through butter at an alarming rate. Perhaps I should up my Harley time to an hour?)
So, off to the store. While I went in with the best of frugal intentions, I came out with butter, milk, bread, apples, oranges, carrots, dried fruit, yogurt, English muffins, granola bars, vegetables, chocolate chips, and evaporated milk. Oops.
Now, I'm no culinary wonder, but I do know my chocolate chip cookies!
Then I got to work whipping up a double batch of chocolate chip cookies and thanking Mum and Dad for the foresight of getting me an industrial sized Kitchen Aid for a wedding present. It was all going swimmingly until I pulled the first pan out of the oven.
Something had gone terribly wrong. They didn’t look like cookies at all, they looked like scones. But they didn’t taste like scones, they tasted like incredibly dry biscuits. But they didn’t feel like biscuits, the felt like hockey pucks. You can imagine my confusion.
“The worst part about this sort of guy is that they marry girls exactly like themselves.”
“Yeah. Then, they breed. And there’s more of them.”
– Hennessy and C.
I’m thinking of starting a semi-regular piece: things she and I see around campus. I think I’ll call it, Double Takes With Hennessy and C.
Here’s our first offering, found on the doors of Humanities building (photo by H., by the way):
People who refer to themselves as "THE" anything should be shunned by polite society, and possibly forbidden to breed.
“I am the only person I know who can miss the ground with both feet. While walking!”
– C.
At 4:32:05, yesterday afternoon, I tripped while carrying the laundry bags to the car to drop them off at the cleaners.
At 4:32:05:02, suddenly the earth dropped away. That’s the only explanation. I was walking merrily along, and then somehow neither of my feet managed to touch bottom.
At 4:32:05:22, the inexorable tug of gravity made its presence known.
At 4:32:05:46, due to the many years of experience I’ve had with this sort of thing, my only working thought was, “Oh, bother.”
At 4:32:05:59, also due to experience, I tried to twist my body such that I would land squarely on my knees without skidding (not that they mind. As far as I can tell, my knees are used to this sort of abuse).
At 4:32:05:87, with impact approaching, I suddenly realized I was wearing my best trousers.
At 4:32:05:96, thunk!
At 4:32:06:63, I managed to scramble up, assure various passing persons that the only thing damaged is my dignity, and brush myself off when…
At 4:32:06:94, it became very clear that the right knee of my trousers had been shredded.
Small Dog Syndrome 