precipitation on flora and bristles on felines

I could write you a couple of pages on how to navigate our new contact software (and yet another one on how to send five blank emails to six key clients of one of the major billing partners in the firm) (and still another on the best way to call him up, confess and profusely apologize), but instead, I'll save my brainpower for my job.

Here, then, for your enjoyment, entertainment and general procrastination are some of my favorite words today. (I never commit to having a favorite for more than one day. The other words might get jealous.) I like them mostly for the way they sound, feel or look, and disregard what they mean. Although some of their meanings are pretty good, too. (I am not meaningist.)

spatula (of course)
anthropomorphism
lugubrious
laconic
sidewalk
fuck
monstrosity
pernicious
depot
polka
moose
cud
iconoclastic
barf
yam-tastic (technically not a word)
derringdo
nepotism
and
keening

Contributions?

cat show 2007!

Remember last year, when I went to the cat show? Well, I went again this year! And, while I'd like to say it was even bigger and better than last year, it was actually pretty much the same. Lots and LOTS of cute kitties, and lots and LOTS of weird freaks who owned and ogled them. (ourselves included)

I went with my friend Larissa:

and we let Toonses drive us there:

(I don't know if the picture is big enough, but in my copy at home, you can see something that looks oddly like a snaggle tooth hanging out the left side of my mouth. It is, in fact, my gum. But I like the idea that the cat's driving was so bad it made my teeth fall out!)

Unlike last year, when we saw no Feats of Agility (as we were promised by the program), this year, we saw some attempts at feats of agility. (These are not circus cats and don't seem to be interested in winning prizes for said feats of agility, which included jumping over bars and running through tunnels.) This guy was giving it a good go, but just got kind of bored and sat down in the middle of it:

Then, later, after the Agility Inducer had given up and put the bell/feather-on-a-stick contraption down, this cat showed it who's the boss:

(That was just about the most agile thing this guy did, anyway. That, and lose his tail somewhere...)

There were several big bins like this one in the joint:

Unsurprisingly, Madison Square Garden smelled a bit like cat pee. (And when I say "a bit" I really mean "a lot.")

The guy with the best job? This guy:

I think he might not have spoken English. I got in the picture and asked him "how's it going in there?" and all I got in response was a thumbs up. I said, "At least it's not too hot out." Again with the thumbs up. "Are you not supposed to speak?" A little dance that involved thumbs up and moving around.

Better that than being groped by a guy in a kitty suit...

Some exclusively kitty pics (separated for those of you who hate this kind of thing...)

So, remember the Secret of Nimh? (One of my all time favorite cartoons of childhood, even though it's totally disturbing, and populated with rats.) The cat in that movie is named Dragon, and at one point, the mice (and/or rats, I forget) are walking around the kitchen, right past the sleeping cat. And all of a sudden, the cat's one eye starts to open, but his head's all upside down... anyway, it's a freaky moment in the film if you're rooting for the mice/rats. (and you are, if you're human). Long story short: This is the actual Dragon:

And this is the cat who reminded me of him at the Cat Show:

Adorable Pumpkiny Kitten:

Beautiful Sleeping Fluffball:

There are more. If you'd like, I can email them to you. Cat Show is a weird, weird experience, but just chock full of cute.

I can't help it. I just love the cats.

i’m looking for a stand up guy

You know the joke about the guy who walks into the bar and sees another guy sitting there with a genie's lamp and a statuette of Mozart, quietly weeping into his beer? And the guy who walked in sits down next to him and says, "Hey man, why so down?"

"Well," say the other, "I've got this magic lamp."

"That seems like a reason to celebrate rather than mope!"

"You think so? You can have it!" And he shoves the lamp over to the other guy.

"Really?" he asks, and starts rubbing the lamp. "Genie genie in the lamp... I want a million bucks!"

About thirty seconds of silence pass, while both men sit anxiously at the bar. And then, from down the street, they hear this rumbling, quacking sound, and a million ducks go tromping past.

"A million ducks??!?" shouts the guy unhappily. "I didn't ask for a million ducks! I asked for a million bucks! This thing is broken!"

"That's what I told you!" said the other. "What, do you think I asked for a ten inch pianist?"

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I think I must have rubbed that lamp. Because instead of finding myself a stand up guy, I found myself a guy who stood me up.

Rude.

To be honest (and fair to the Power That Provides Us What We Want), I didn't really want to go on this date in the first place, but I wouldn't have minded not wasting my Friday night.

And, if we have to be stood up in our lives (as bad things will happen as inevitably as good ones will), I'd rather it be by someone who didn't really matter to me (like this guy) than by someone who did. It totally could have been worse.

I only wonder what I would have gotten if I had asked for a guy with a ten inch pianist...

my weekend (a pictorial journey)

I would just like to start by saying that I put in fourteen hours of overtime this weekend. It looked like this:
Actually, multiply that by two, because I took this picture on Saturday night (and did more work on Sunday).

That said, my brain is a little fried, and I may rely more heavily on photos than words for this post.

Friday night I went with my friend Ryan to see our comedy group perform their Parents' Weekend show at Yale. They were great, but the group was very different from when we were in it. Less musical, more questions, less physicality and just a generally different approach to improvisation. Which, I think, is the nature of a beast that does a complete overhaul every five years.
Ryan:

(sorry boys and girls, he's married)

The current Purple Crayon of Yale:
Luckily, I look surprised for this picture, but I wasn't. I happened to just be talking to Ryan. (Although by the look on his face, I must have been saying something startling.)

The one cool thing (besides seeing Ryan and feeling like college was a hundred million billion years ago) was that way, way back in the day (i.e., when I was in the group) we had a meeting on the night we were picking our new members, and someone had brought grapes and Nilla wafers, as the debate over new members often went late into the night. I was getting bored (I guess) and decided it would be really tasty to make a Nilla wafer/grape sandwich. (It wasn't.) Ten years later, though, eating them is a tradition and not just a semi-happy accident.

(It's not disgusting, by the way. It's just not something you'd come up with unless you were trapped in a room with ten other people whose ideas were very different from your own and you had exhausted any urge within yourself to argue with them. Surrender food.)

An odd room at Yale:
Saturday night (after working six ZILLION hours -- at time and a half, not double time as I was counting on!), I went with Andrea to the encampment, an art installation on Roosevelt Island. It was a really neat, site-specific piece, with thirty or so illuminated canvas tents set up on a strip of land, bordered by river on both sides. A view of Manhattan to the right and Queens to the left, a perfect breeze on a very warm evening, and these glowing tents made the night awesome. (Andrea and I both agreed that the "art" on the inside of the tents, which was supposed to tell the story of an inhabitant of Roosevelt Island in the days of the workhouse/madhouse/prison/orphanage, reminded us of fourth grade science projects.)

Here's Andrea in a tent full of portraits of crazy ladies:
(Boy, she sure is kee-razy!)

And here're the remains of the old sanitarium:
And here's some frowny faced mustard. It was part of the "art." (Apparently the inmates said their food was as palatable as mustard and vinegar.)
Sunday morning, before heading back to work, I had brunch with my friend Alex from Buffalo, and we headed off to BAM to see if he wanted to catch any of the movies playing there while I was at work. He didn't, but there was this really cool sculpture made out of records:
It's called "Sound Wave." I heart it.

And, before walking over the Manhattan bridge (which is NOT romantic, but that's ok, since Alex has a girlfriend -- I'm just telling you all for future notice) we caught sight of this guy:
Isn't it cool what you can capture when you accidentally carry your camera with you?

vacation vacation vacation (like marsha marsha marsha)

From Vienna we traveled to Salzburg, via some accidental backroads navigated by yours truly. (The only fit I really pitched on vacation sounded something like this:

Me: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

Mom: What's wrong?

Me: I hate this fucking map! We are SO lost! I am NOT navigating anymore.

Mom: What do you want to do?

Me: Not Navigate.

Polly: Ok, ok, I'll navigate. Don't worry. It'll be ok.

Mom: Do you want an apple?

Me: No.

Mom: A piece of cheese we pilfered from breakfast?

Me: No!

Mom: A Fiber One bar?

Me: NO!! I JUST DON'T WANT TO NAVIGATE ANYMORE!

And I didn't have to solo-navigate again until we got to Padua (where I almost had to pitch another fit, but didn't).

Our route to Salzburg took us through Mathausen, a small Austrian village, which, if you are actually trying to find, is completely hidden. Why hide a village? Well, there's just one of those annoying old concentration camps in it, that the Austrians don't really want people just stumbling across. (Our trek there required yet another feat of excellent navigating.)

I'll be honest, the camp was less moving than I wanted it to be, although I had moments of utter despair, wondering how human beings can be so inhumane. Most of the exhibits were in German, so there was a lot of information that passed us by, but one of the things we could glean was that Mathausen, while it had its share of Jews, was predominantly used for political prisoners and other non-conformists. Walking the grounds and seeing the scads and scads of memorials was an interesting experience, but it felt rushed (we were late, thanks to my navigating) and would have probably been better with a tour guide.

From there we headed off to Salzburg, which, I'll be honest, was kind of a dud, too. It was super touristy and everything felt Disneyfied.

However, there were TONS of Mom & Mozart opportunities:

High atop a hill near Salzburg (which is the setting for the Sound of Music, for you crazy people out there who like stuff like that) is the Hohensalzburg fortress. It was your typical old castle, with some old furniture, guns, cannons, wells, the works. It also had a puppet museum, where I got some excellent shots:

Creepy Puppet:

And Puppet Butt:
In the room housing all the implements of torture, I found these awesome masks that, apparently, guilty parties would have to wear as they sat in the stocks. What you wore, of course, depended on what you were in trouble for.

Gluttony, we think:
And... lying?
In general, I wouldn't recommend Salzburg, unless you're dying to know how to solve a problem like Maria. We had crappy weather, too, which doesn't help, and there was a bit of an incident where I got my family off the bus about 20 mintues before we should have gotten off. They waited in a gift shop for my dad (who never got their message and didn't show up) and then took a cab home. I told them I was going to walk. Yeah... except, I didn't know the way home. So I walked for 40 minutes and realized I was not at all near my hotel (let alone my town) and decided to turn around and wait for the bus I had just gotten off. With the flash of a smile (and a card bearing the name of my hotel) I managed to pidgin german my way back to the hotel...

Lesson learned? In the future, just ask. Someone sprechen zie inglish.

a brief vacation from the vacation

I was on the subway yesterday when my bag tipped over and my lunch fell out. I felt like a sexy, lunch-bringing grandma when my banana carelessly plopped itself on the floor, but chasing down my hard boiled egg as it rolled away from me on a not-entirely-empty train? Made me feel like a porn star with a walker.
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I baked some delicious cupcakes the other day.
I left them on my kitchen table.
Hard to con people to visit you when you can't bribe them with chocolate.
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Yesterday was a particularly humid day, and a great deal of fluffy hair ensued. I was chatting about this with the receptionist (who was unfairly NOT suffering from Fluffy Head Syndrome) when my new absolute favorite client emphatcially told me, when I said my hair was going in every single direction possible, that I looked "spectacular!" I have no idea who he is. But I heart him.
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On Tuesday I started my new job, which means I've moved into my office (yippee!) which is on a different floor. This means I have to use a new coffeemaker. Which wouldn't be a problem, if I weren't me.

I drink decaf. Only decaf. Lots of decaf, but no caffeine. (Yes, I know I'm getting a trace amount this way, but shut up, you're ruining the story.) So my first morning on the job, I walk into the coffee room, open the drawer where the decaf used to be, and just as I'm popping it into the machine to brew, I notice that, in fact, it's Super High Caffeine French Vanilla. Part of me is powerless to stop the coffee-making machine I've put into motion. The hand keeps moving. The cup heads toward the spout. I. Almost. Drink. Caffeinated. Coffee. (Again.)

But then I didn't.

The end.
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The new word for the day (and I don't get these all that often, what with my preternatural vocabulary) is NACREOUS. ("Can you say 'nacreous,' kids?") It comes to you care of Kurt Vonnegut Jr., who wrote it into his book Slaughterhouse Five, which I just finished and enjoyed. It means "mother-of-pearl-ish, lustrous, ooh... shiny."

Thank you,
The Management

p.s. if anyone has a financial planner that they would recommend, I'd be grateful for an email with that info.

european vacation part deux

Part two: Vienna, or Why I Secretly Want to be Austrian

We drove across the Hungarian countryside (seeing formerly communist tractors, which made me chuckle since the Tuvan Throat Singers from earlier this summer had a song about them) and reached Vienna as the sun was setting. Navigating was a treat, as my father has Mapquested the route to the hotel, but didn't have the alternative route once you had made your one fatal mistake. Luckily, I had an honest to goodness map. And eyesight.

Highlights:

1. The Spanish Riding School, where they have dancing horses! (No, seriously.) The Lippizaner Stallions (which one website describes as "horse of battle, horse of ballet!") were pretty awesome, as they pranced around in their showroom, doing moves we called the "flick & kick" or the "standy-uppy-in-a-circle." One horse was particularly badly behaved and we called him the Naughty Grey Pony. (Note: they're not ponies. We just like to call them that.) For the rest of the day, my sister, Scott and I did the flick & kick and then acted naughty.

2. Mom and Mozart. That guy's all over the place!

(and this one, staged to look like it was meant especially for Aaron, who loves pictures of people taking picutres of people)
3. People asked me for directions. And I gave them to them. I think they were mostly right!

4. The incident (recreated here, as if this were Vienna's Most Wanted).
That's right, my father's wallet got lifted on the subway! Within ten minutes, though, all of his credit cards and ATM card were cancelled. The woman we pegged as the perp must have been pretty pissed to find out that all my dad's cash was in his front pocket. She walked away with a measley $10 Canadian! (don't ask why he even had that, I have no logical answer.)

5. Schonbrunn Palace, built to rival Versailles.
My family. Built to rival the Marx Brothers.

6. The food. Oh god, don't get me started. Strudel and spaetzel and goulash and wine and cheese and Sacher tort and knodel and wurst and schnitzel (which I didn't actually care for). We could have eaten for days.

Wait. We did.

7. And my favorite... Kunsthaus Wien. Designed by Hundertwasser (my new favorite architect), this building was created to house his artwork, essentially, and boasts not having a straight line in its creation. I think it's just lovely.

More info here, if you're interested.

8. There's way too much more, but here are some pics, just for fun:
This is a shop near our hotel. I have absolutely no idea what they sell, and it's not clear from looking in their windows, either.
This was our shower. Apparently you could have a jellyfish, a boat, or a jellyfish on a stick. I opted repeatedly for the jellyfish.

Stay tuned, more adventures to come!

p.s. I FINALLY started my new job today. I am LOVING IT!