Saturday, 14 January 2012

Well, this morning, I found myself at Lowe’s again.

If you read THIS BLOG POST, you’ll see my first experience with Lowe’s was less than stellar. But if you read THIS BLOG POST, you’ll see that things kind of worked out okay.

It turns out, Lowe’s hosts these “Build and Grow” events on one or two Saturday mornings a month. I learned about them when I read THIS BLOG.

Owen and I had a fun time. We showed up with our completed entry form and the employees gave Owen an apron, a pair of safety goggles, and a kit. We then sat down on overturned buckets (I loved that!) and ripped open the kit.

While Owen created a little castle out of wood (complete with drawbridge), I watched him and helped out when he asked. Mostly, he couldn’t get the nails started unless I was holding the wood in place for him, but otherwise he managed on his own. I pointed out that he installed the door backwards, but that turned out for the better because then the Lowe’s insignia is hidden. He also put the window stickers on differently than the instructions showed. I didn’t even notice this until Owen showed me, but then I told him he was free to put windows where ever he desired.

Some of the other parents were total helicopters. One dad even sat behind his daughter and held her hand in his as he hammered in the nails. He must have said, “Here, let me do that,” about five times. Another parent walked up to the front and requested a replacement kit because their kid had nailed one of the walls to the floor in a kittywampus fashion. And yet another parent meticulously applied the window and brick stickers just right.

I’m not sure why these parents were creating more work for themselves. I mean, who cares how the castle turns out? For one thing, it’s just a toy. If Owen was, say, helping me install a new bathroom cabinet, I would be a little more insistent that he did the tasks “right,” but a toy? Come on. For another thing, it’s free. Free people. Jeez.

Anyway, I don’t mean to whine. All in all, we had an excellent experience. The Lowe’s employees presented Owen with a certificate and a patch to put on his apron (yeah, he got to keep the apron and the goggles). During the drive home, Owen reiterated his happiness with the event and he expressed a desire to go there again tomorrow, only this time with a friend.

Look! Owen and the castle have the same expression!

Here’s the website for signing up for the Build and Grow sessions. If you have an elementary school child, I encourage you to take them. It was fun, free, and lasted about an hour. Maybe I’ll see you there…

Friday, 13 January 2012

I officiated a wedding ceremony today.

It was absolutely gorgeous – the ceremony was held at the Walker Art Center’s Sculpture Garden. We were in a greenhouse; and it was amazing to see the cold snow falling outside while were were warm surrounded by tropical plants. The music was fun (Cindy Lauper provided the prelude), the guests sat on park benches, and the bride wore these striking velvet red shoes that really matched the uniqueness of choosing to be married on a Friday the 13th.

Here’s how my day started, however…

I showed up at work at 6:00AM in my full suit. Yep, jacket, tie, dress shoes – everything.

I used to live my life like that: stupidly dressing in a suit while working at Lenscrapters all day (company policy – it was completely asinine and sexist, but I’ll save that for another post), then wearing the suit in the evening when I went to the Kingdom Hall. On the days I had off of work, or worked in the evening, I went out door-to-door where, again, I dressed in a suit. I didn’t want to, but that was the rules.

I really hated wearing those clothes. Itchy socks, a restrictive collar with a phallic noose around my neck that gave me mild claustrophobia all day, hard shoes, and uncomfortable pants. I couldn’t wait to rip those stupid clothes off every night. In fact, there were many times I’d come home from work, change into jeans and a t-short, only to have to get dressed back into those horrid clothes a mere 45 minutes later. My wife thought I was silly for doing that but, goddammit, that was my time.

Anyhow, I think I’ve been away from working in retail and being in a cult long enough that wearing a suit doesn’t bother me so much. Today, therefore, I decided to have some fun with it.

Everyone had to comment on my unusual apparel.

One co-worker, after learning I was mere hours away from performing a ceremony, asked it I went to church often. I said no, and before I could add any more, this other co-worker laughed and said, “He doesn’t need to go to church – he’s already a man of the cloth!”

Later, another co-worker gave the sign of the cross as we passed in the hallway (purely in jest).

Another male co-worker waved his eyebrows at me as we passed, as if to say, “Don’t you look nice today.”

One lady asked why I was dressed up, and I told her and then, later, she saw me again, and this time she was walking with a recently-engaged co-worker. She said, “Did you know James is going to perform a wedding this afternoon? You should have him do your wedding.” The other lady quickly and curtly said, “Um, no,” as if the very idea was repulsive.

Later, another co-worker laughed at me and said he couldn’t get used to seeing me all dressed up; he kept thinking I was some new manager. I told him to get back to work. Later, he came into my cube and asked me absolve him of his sins. I told him sins aren’t real and that he needs to get back to work.

Then another co-worker said, “James, you look good today.” And another female co-worker complimented me on my apparel, which I considered high praise as she, on occasion, has shown up for work in fancy attire. Another co-worker thought my “story” of performing a wedding was merely a cover for what I was really going to do. Still another co-worker, when learning that I was hours away from performing a wedding, asked if I was very religious. I assured him that, to the contrary, I was quite sane.

Oh – and about five people asked me if I was going on a job interview. Ha ha. Very funny. No, really, it is funny. But if I was going on an interview, no one would know. I would covertly change into my suit in the side bathroom than slink out the side door.

May peace be upon you all.

Tuesday, 10 January 2012

Here is the list of my “Word of the Year” words for every year since I started having a word of the year in 1999:

I’ve decided that my word of the year for 2011 is DUNNAGE.

It’s an appropriate word, for one thing. I had never heard of the word until 2011. Basically, it’s the junk that gets inserted into a box so that the important stuff doesn’t slosh around during shipping.

It’s probably the least glamorous word I’ve ever selected, but, like I said, it’s appropriate for 2011. Since April, I have been working in the packaging department at my job and, soon after starting in that new position, I began hearing the word and seeing stickers that read DUNNAGE slapped on the side of boxes. I didn’t pay much attention to it for a while, but then, one day, I figured it must have meant all that paper we shoved into the sides so that the product did not become damaged. I looked it up on an online dictionary just to be sure. But, yeah, that’s basically it.

So…a word I’d never heard before, and one that represents a major transition I made during the year. What more could you ask for in a word?

Wednesday, 11 January 2012

I found a dime today.

This brings the total amount of money I’ve found so far this year up to $5.18.

“Whoa!” you say. “How did you find that much money in less than two weeks?”

Yeah, I know, it’s crazy. It took me months to reach the five dollar mark in 2011.

But last week, I found a five dollar bill on the ground. I brought it up to the Lost and Found. I wasn’t sure if this was a good thing to do, or a weird thing to do. See, five dollars seems like enough money to where someone would notice that they lost it, but it’s also a low enough amount to where that same person might just shrug their shoulders and figure it’s lost.

Anyway, I handed it to the lady and she said, “You can keep that. No one ever comes up here looking for a five dollar bill.”

So I did.

So that, plus a nickel, some random pennies, and today’s dime brings the total up to the aforementioned $5.18.

I think it’s gonna be a great year.

Thursday, 12 January 2012

With great trepidation, I tuned into NPR today. After about 20 interesting seconds of news, they segued into the Republican Primaries for the duotrigintillionth time (yes, it’s a real number), so I switched channels. About fifteen minutes later, I tried again. Once more, there was some bit on Mitt Romney’s favorite breed of horse, or some such shit that I can’t believe anyone really cares about. So I switched channels.

During my lunchbreak, however, I inadvertently switched over to NPR again and, in what surely must have been the only five consecutive minutes all calendar year, they were not talking about Newt Gingrich’s planters warts. Instead, they were discussing the number of planets in the universe.

Okay, if you’re like me, you’ve just always assumed there were boatloads of planets out there. But it’s never been proven. But now there’s new evidence, thanks to the Kepler Space Observatory, that planets outnumber stars.

READ THIS ARTICLE (I promise you, the link won’t take you to NPR).

This only makes sense, I think. I mean, as the spinning disks gather accretion that eventually becomes a star, it stands to reason that the new star does not capture 100% of the dust. This remaining dust gathers separately as planets.

For the past five years, we’ve claimed to have only eight planets orbiting our star and, I suppose, by definition that is true. But the real number of objects that orbits the sun is way, way higher, including some objects that are larger than the planet Mercury.

These are indeed exciting times in the field of astronomy. Let’s hope some of these planets have life on them. And let’s hope at least one of those lives runs for office.

Sunday, 08 January 2012

Today, after laying on his stomach on the living floor for about 15 minutes and writing and drawing random sketches on his little white board, Owen presented me with his picture of – as he called it – puffy math symbols. He explained that he first drew the images like normal, then traced around them so they were “puffy” and then deleted any ink that remained on the inside. He quizzed me on if I could correctly identify all of the symbols (I got one incorrect, otherwise I was spot-on), and then returned to the floor to doodle some more. That’s when I grabbed the camera and took a picture of his work.

Here it is:

Ignoring the blacked-out doodles in the lower-right corner (which he added after quizzing me), the images are (clockwise from top-left): plus, minus, times, division, a lemniscate, pi, phi, and square root. Those are all math symbols, by the way.

He asked if he forgot any symbols. I told him there were others, but I couldn’t recall how to draw them correctly. I was thinking of the summation symbol when I said that. Of course, there are also e and i and parentheses, but since those are more closely associated with writing, I didn’t know if Owen would find them very interesting from a mathematical perspective.

Maybe I was wrong.

Monday, 09 January 2012

Today, about three miles into my drive to work, I pulled off my stocking cap and began itching my scalp vigorously in one specific spot. I quickly realized that I had a thick, solid clump of something in my hair. I couldn’t get it out – not without sudden acute trichotillomania, anyway.

What was that thing?

Was it shampoo? I wondered. No, shampoo doesn’t clump like that.

Was it soap? Hm. Maybe. But my bar soap never meets up with my scalp and, even if it did, I’m sure I would have remembered cleaving off a piece of the soap and grinding it into my head until it stuck to my hair.

After playing with the clump for a few more seconds (yes, I realize that’s an unfortunate choice of words), I smelled my fingers. They smelled like sap. Tree sap.

Then the memories came flooding back. You know, those long lost memories from ten minutes earlier. Turns out, this morning, I had hoisted up our Holiday Tree and carried it from the living room, around into the dining room, through the kitchen, and out Door Beta (yeah, we need names for our doors). At some point, the live tree, which brushed along my left side as I carried it out to the deck, must’ve decided to bequeath upon me a lovely parting gift.

I washed the affected hair upon arriving at work. The sinks at work are all motion-sensitive, so I had to keep waving my hands around while I cleansed the offending area.

I was a little disappointed that none of my co-workers commented that I had a wonderful, rugged, outdoorsy scent about me.

Friday, 06 January 2012

We live on a street with no restrictions on parking. Unlike nearly every other street in the city, there are no annoying signs like “No Parking Tuesdays 2:30-6:15” or “20 Minute Parking on School Days” or “10 Minute Parking for Domestic Vehicles on Even-Numbered Days and 7.4 Minute Parking for Handicapped on All Days Except the Third Friday in May.” No sir, not on our street. Just go ahead and park along the edge of my property any time you want, day or night.

I think we have the only two parking spaces left in the city.

Anyway, I was rocking Isla to sleep tonight and, perched up on the second floor, I was looking out the window. A Subaru pulled up, slowed down, and then – despite there being twice the needed space – the driver decided to parallel park. She did a rather lousy job, too (was at least a foot from the curb).

After parking, four people exited the car: the woman driver, a man in the passenger side, and another man and woman in the backseat. The man in the front passenger seat got out, took a swig of some Rock Star beverage he was drinking, and then tossed the can right onto my lawn.

What a weasel-necked asswipe!

I mean, it’s too bad there weren’t any cup-holders in the car, or even a floor in the car where he could have tossed his can. And it’s too bad that loser couldn’t be bothered to carry that heavy, heavy can the three or blocks to his destination, or even just drop it in one of the many recycle bins scattered between here and the end of the block.

See? Here are three recycle bins between my home and the end of the block. (And that doesn’t even count the other side of the street.)

A few minutes later, I walked outside and picked up the can – it was still about 1/3 full. So that Neanderthal seemed to think it was okay if his concoction of chemicals just spilled out onto my lawn and killed my grass. I was going to bring the can inside, but then I figured I’d give the dick-brain one more chance. I gently set the can on the car’s roof, near the passenger door, hoping that when the sub-adequate knuckle-dragger returned to the car, he would think, “Whoa, there’s my Rock Star drink. I must’ve foolishly tossed it aside earlier. That was careless and insensitive of me. I guess I’ll bring it with me into the car now and dispose of it properly now that some benevolent soul has afforded me a second chance.”

The can, sitting on the car.

My wife tells me I let him off easily. She says I should have left a note. Man, she can be so heartless sometimes.

Saturday, 07 January 2012

When I went outside this morning, guess what I found sitting on the side of the road, near the curb?

If you guessed anything besides the above-mentioned can, then you’re too dumb to keep reading.

What kind of sad excuse for a homo sapien is this? If I went out somewhere with my friends, and I just threw some litter on the ground, they’d all look at me like I was some sort of smarmy ignoramus. I would think that this salamander brain would have been especially wary of impressing his friends, since they were all riding in an Impreza.

Yeah, that’s the kind of car it was. An Impreza. How pretentious is that? I, on the other hand, drive a Cavalier – a car name that is so self-effacing, you can’t help feel sorry for it.

Here’s the “Impreza’s” license plate, by the way:

…so please contact the owner if you happened to know who they are. I have a mostly-empty can of Rock Star they can come pick up.

I’m not sure if this fuckwit thought he was impressing his friends by carelessly tossing garbage onto the grass, but I think his friends should consider hanging out with less self-centered troglodytes.