blah, blah, blah

[this post is coming at you from behind enemy lines. i am such a rebel. i know, right?]

so here i am, at work, on a sunday morning. dude, that's just not right. doing anything other than being lazy is just. not. right. but that's okay. i made my statement by being an hour late. and really, it wasn't even on purpose, i completely overslept and woke up at 7am on the nose. which was exactly when i was supposed to be at work.

whoops.

but i'm here and i'm getting shit done. which is more than i can say for half my team, because apparently it is the norm to not even show up for your weekend shifts. how do people keep from getting fired for that? not that i'm planning on not showing up for work or anything, i'm just curious. i have to admit, i kind of like my job. it's a good mix of being nice and being a total outright bitch. which, as was pointed out to me yesterday in the kindest way possible, i'm sort of good at. so it makes sense for me to like what i'm doing.

but the main reason that i like what i'm doing is because i really like the people i work with. they keep me awake, keep me from drooling on my keyboard, keep me entertained, keep me on my guard - because if you're not paying attention around here, it's likely that you'll get smacked in the face with a giant beach ball. and these bizzos are not playing games, they're playing for skins, chillens. oh yes. the beach ball game is vicious. and they all know by now that my reflexes are far from cat-like so i'm kind of picked on. a lot. but whatever. there are newbies joining us next week and then i'm not so new and i get to start picking on people, which we all know i'm really good at.

shut up and go get me some water.

that was a joke.

don't go. come back. i didn't mean it.

so anyway. what else?

the bee and i went to the horse races last night. um, does anyone here know how to bet on a horse race? yeah, me neither. we were both so completely confused we just said fuck it, we'll come back with someone with some knowledge and then make our millions. so we're going to go hit up the gambler's anonymous meetings this week and find our bookie.

kidding.

and then we drove to iowa city and had pizza. it was awesome. except we left the pizza in the car overnight and now the car smells like garlic and tomatoes, which is *not* awesome, even though i like garlic and i like tomatoes, i just don't like smelling like a big italian grandma holding 14 pounds of sausage. not my favorite thing to smell like in the morning. or anytime really, because smelling like an old italian lady holding sausage prolly doesn't bring the boys a running. or maybe it does, shit, i don't know.

don't listen to me, i have no idea what i'm talking about.

so yeah, the other night we drove by a 24/365 fitness. it was closed.

true story.

my dog is a jerk. we're bell training him, right? we've got a bell hung around the doorknob in the apartment. so when we first brought him home, we'd tap his paw to the bell, say, "outside!" and take him outside to do his business. (puppy business is the piddles, because piddles in the house are no fun. puppy business does not include any of the following: briefcases, associates, dark sunglasses, angeldust, goombas, cell phones or 9mms. i just thought i'd clear that up for you.) so now, after just a week, puppy has learned to ring the bell on his own, letting us know when he wants to go outside - its a modern version of pavlov's experiment, right? it's actually pretty cool. except freaking puppy is ringing the freaking bell every 43 seconds and if i had nuts, that would suck them in an extremely non-pleasurable fashion.

for real.

because you and i both know that i L.O.V.E. going up and down the stairs 57 times a day so puppy can bite my ankles while standing in the grass in the yard of the apartment complex. it's neat fun.

but i shouldn't be so negative. in all actuality, he's doing rather well. he seriously rings the bell when he wants to go outside and 75 percent of the time he does his business. although i tend to think that puppies can do business on command but the point is that he's learning how to let us know that he needs/wants to go outside and that's pretty cool for such a young puppy - he's not even 10 weeks old.

now as far as the bell training, let me tell you - it works on humans too. because there is a team that is ringing a bell everytime a payment is received here at work. and everytime that g.d. bell rings, i have to stop myself from jumping out of my chair to let puppy outside. yeah, no joke. i'm no better than a drooling, yipping, piddling puppy, trained to respond to a 3$ bell toy.

yup, i'm that easy.

today i'm going to learn how to make sweet tea. i'm now addicted to sweet tea. which is no better for me than soda but its cheaper so in my mind that makes all the difference. but you can't just say "sweet tea," you've got to southern-ize it and draw it out over like 6 minutes, "sweeeeeeet tee-eee-eee-eee-ea" like they do in the south, otherwise it just doesn't taste the same.

and with that, i'm out.

no more grazing on the cubicle farm

upon taking this job at giant corporate conglomate company, i was moderately shocked at the size of some of the people that work there. we're talking about some big people. now before you get your panties all wadded, understand that i'm no size 2 talking about size 8's here. i'm not going to tell you what size i am, but it's about average anymore, and we're talking about womba women (and men) that are rocking those cubicles on a daily basis.

no literally rocking them when they get up and sit down because they have to in order to get in and out. seriously. these are big people. big. large. big mc large huge.

and at first i wondered if they weren't spiking the water out there on the cubicle farm but as it turns out there is just a lot of free time for food. and they provide a lot of food. because generally food makes people happy. and free food makes people even happier. (myself included.) supervisors keep drawers of candies and chocolates and what-have-you's in preparation for the next breakdown or meltdown or shootdown or whatever happens next. and so when our mouths aren't moving from talking, they're moving from eating.

the point is in all of this is that i'm eating all the damn time now. and it's pissing me off. so i'm implementing a "no food" rule in my cubicle. (you have no idea how much i hate admitting that i have a cubicle, it's ganking with my chi in an uberly-uncool way. and why we're talking about cubicles, why are they all that boring shade of grey? who decided that grey was the one color that made people more productive and less homicidal, really? because it's giving me a g.d. headache after about 45 minutes every day. i'm making it my new goal to wallpaper my cubicle, which is from now on going to be referred to as my "domain" in my new super sticky (and also super expensive, but that's a topic for another day) neon post it notes because i would rather look at neon blue, orange, green and yellow than boring fucking neutral grey. hallelujah. holy shit. where's the tylenol?!) fuck. anyway. no food in the cubicle, er, domain. that's the new rule.

so if you read this and you work with me and you happen to see me eating while in ruling in my domain, come over and kick my ass in a corporate-ly correct way.

one thing that i think will help with this "too much food" problem i'm having currently is the acquisition of a new pet this week. (i'm so excited about this, you have no idea. unless, again, you happen to work with me and sit around me and then you know that i've been talking about nothing else since sunday.) this friday, the bee and i are picking up our new puppy.

woohoo!

this is not our puppy. i wasn't smart enough to think of taking pictures of our puppy when i had the chance. but our puppy looks like this. only way more cuter.

i can't even begin to tell you how excited i am for this. our puppy is a boxer and his name will be kingsley. and he is so adorable and sweet and has the cutest disposition - i'm in love with this dog, i tell you. we met the breeder last weekend and hung out for a while, playing with the pups and the parents and they are the coolest dogs in the entire world. they honestly think they're lap dogs but they weigh about 70 pounds. they're awesome. i can't wait to go pick him up. :)

so how does this help resolve my current food problem? well, for one, dogs eat a lot of food. so more for him, less for me. no, i'm kidding. the puppy will need to be walked and go outside which is something that i'm not currently doing a lot of, even though the weather is nice. so a puppy will help me achieve some of my goals too. plus puppies are just fun. i am so, so looking forward to this little guy coming home this weekend. :D

so other than the whole work sucks thing, the grey fucking domain thing, and the fact that some dutch asshole keyed my car last weekend during the holy event they call tulip time, life is good. well, i'm allergic to the new laundry soap we bought (and we bought like 7 gallons of it, so it's going to be around for awhile) so i get to slather on a layer of cortaid under my lotion in the morning. i think the two counteract each other because i still itch like a motherfucker all freaking day, no joke. that sort of sucks. but the laundry soap was on sale and that's all that matters, right?

it was supposed to rain last night and i was so looking forward to that because we have giant kamikaze birds living in the trees surrounding the apartment. these birds poop dinner plate size poops and they look so not awesome on my dark blue car, that's been fun lately. anyway, i thought it was going to rain so i avoided washing the car all week in anticipation of the mega-storm that was a-brewing. fucking weather channel. now i'll never take jim cantore's name in vain (sigh... )but i know they have the tools to provide accurate and responsible weather forecasts, the bastards. apparently now they're in cahoots with the carwash places (and the grocery stores, my mom says, because the weather channel gets kickbacks on all the toilet paper and milk and bread they sell in blizzards) and i'm still driving around with pizza-size bird shit on my car. awesome.

no plans tonight. i don't like to talk much anymore, since that's pretty much all i do at work. it's got the bee all freaked out, he always thinks i'm mad. but it makes him a little nicer sometimes and i'm all for that. so now i'm just quiet all the time and i find i get what i want with far less resistance. :D anyway. he's off at some union meeting and i'm going to go eat a box of cookies i would have eaten in my domain and finish a bottle of wine (that i wouldn't have finished in my domain but i'd sure like to try finishing while in my domain sometime. i honestly don't think anyone would notice. except maybe the bizzo in the domain across from mine and only then because i wouldn't be sharing and she'd be pissed.) and watch harold and maude.

it's good to be the janel.

where's my ukelele?

oh, blog! oh how i've missed you! and it's not like i haven't sat down, laptop in front of me with the intention to write. i have. but it seems like there's always some sort of distraction. like the bee. he can be a serious distraction. or food, because generally i come to panera and the food is extremely distracting. or the bathroom, because when i get online at the library i'm always interrupted by my own bladder, because every time i go to the library i always have to pee. seriously. every time, ever since i was a little kid, that i go to the library, i always have to go to the bathroom. it's like a subconscious thing. library = urinate. i have no idea what that means.

so how are things in your life? yeah? good. great.

okay. so yeah. still at the giant corporate conglomeration, chained to the desk for 8 hours a day. let me tell you, if i had nuts, this job would suck 'em and not in any sort of pleasurable fashion, my friends. this job sucks nuts bad. but i'm persevering. i'm conquering. one day i'm going to walk in there and lead the revolution and flip that place on its motherfucking head all che guevara style (only without the communism, because i don't dig communism on general principle) and show the stagecoach how it's done because that's how i roll.

or not. i may just stay a sheep for the next 330 days until i can put in for a transfer to a department that appreciates my creativity and intelligence and all the awesome things i do awesomely.

baa.

so i'm supposed to be in pella at the moment, dishing ice cream among the wooden-shoed (is that a word?) tulip klompers (i know that's not a word but they actually have an event called the klompen klassic. no, i'm serious. go look it up.) except actually klomping a tulip in the city of pella is a crime punishable by death, or at least public flogging like that dude in thailand a few years ago (remember him? wasn't he australian or something, dealing drugs or vandalizing or jaywalking in thailand and his punishment was a public flogging while wearing a clown suit or some similar shit, i don't remember the specifics. you have a computer, obviously. don't be lazy, google that shit, fool!) anyway, i'm talking here. harming a tulip during the almighty tulip festival is seriously punishable in the city of pella - and especially during tulip time. you are allowed to look at the tulips, admire the tulips, carefully smell the tulips - but attempt to touch the tulips and there are dutch costumed tulip bodyguards waiting to take your flower assaulting ass out man.

you think i'm kidding. come to pella. try to pick a tulip. i dare you.

anyway. i'm supposed to be there, serving ice cream with a smile. and i would be there, except i got the call that said, "don't bother, it's rainy and cold and nasty and people are leaving and we don't want you here." and i said "right on." because i don't want to drive that far anyway. because serving ice cream in a potential tornado is not a lot of fun. thunderstorms and lightning and tornadoes make the kiddies cry and crying kiddies don't enjoy ice cream.

do you rent movies? we rent a lot of movies. the bee and i are blockbuster regulars. they know us by name, especially since the manager (i think her name is tina) has to call me about once a week to tell me i'm a retard and returned an empty dvd case. ("hi janelle. this is tina from blockbuster on merle hay and you did it again..." yeah, for real. that's all she says.) but they know that we're a sucker for any new program they have. blockbuster rewards? got it. blockbuster movie pass? got it. can you use it together? not really. were either of them free? oh hell no. we spend an ungodly amount of money at blockbuster; those people definitely have our number. but it's cheaper than drinking and my head doesn't hurt in the morning so it can't be all bad. but the bee's taste in movies runs on the horror-slasher-cheeser genre and that hurts my head but whatever. it's opened me up to a whole new world of movie viewing, one where blood gushes from open wounds like water from a fire hose, true story. it's fascinating and horrific all at once.

and with that, i think i'm going to sign off and go investigate other online things i've been ignoring lately. i'm out of stuff to write about and my head sort of hurts from too much soda and chocolate. ugh. peace out ninjas.