Happy, happy

Happy Birthday to the Shallow Man!

Love you, honey!

Okay...

I feel a bit better about this whole thing now.

This statement was released by Disney's Seven Dwarves today in response to Pluto's demotion:

"Although we think it's Dopey that Pluto has been downgraded to a dwarf planet, which has made some people Grumpy and others just Sleepy, we are not Bashful in saying we would be Happy if Disney's Pluto would join us as an eighth dwarf. We think this is just what the Doc ordered and is nothing to Sneeze at."

At least someone is sticking up for the underdog.

I was rooting for you, Pluto!

Astronomers, man. Weird people.

Always doing crazy things, those astronomers are. When they're not moving in and trying to steal each others' observatories and fending each other off with microscopes, they're messing with the solar system.

I mean, for heaven's sake. My very energetic mother just served us nine? Don't leave us hanging like that! I mean, it was bad enough when we were potentially talking about how my very energetic mother couldn't just slice up nine pizzas, comely xenophobe. Of course, we weren't even sure that would work because nobody could make a definite decision on whether the series would end in "X" for "Xena" or "U" for "2003 UB313." (Huh. Speaking of dumb planet names...)

So the crazy astronomers took the lazy way out. Rather than persevere until an answer to the X/U debate could be found, they just cut corners... and cut Pluto.

Why couldn't they just leave my very energetic mother and her pizzas alone? All we wanted to do was have dinner as a family. Who cares if maybe you have two or three friends over now and then? Just because you don't want to let Ceres, Charon and...whatshisname live in the house doesn't mean you have to kick out little brother Pluto. There were nine in the system and the astronomers said, "Roll over, roll over!" So they all rolled over and Pluto fell out...

I mean, we haven't even known about Pluto for a full day of Pluto time. I suppose this means Pluto's fifteen Pluto minutes of fame are over. Just goes to show you how fleeting celebrity is these days. Poor little guy.

Apparently, for crazy astronomers at least, size does matter.

YOU'RE NEXT, MARS!


RIP Pluto: 1930-2006

Crying while thinking of Margo

So it's grovelling season on PBS. This makes watching TV (the PBS variety, that is) rather tiresome and trying because they keep interrupting it every five or six minutes, trying to make me buy a CD for $60.00. I don't know how dumb they think I am, but I'm still pretty sure that CD's don't cost that much. So, like the spamalope, I remain calm but wary, and try not to be too distracted.

Because I just can't help watching PBS during the Grovel-a-thon, because that's when they trot out the fun stuff. You know, the stuff you'll sit through the CD spiels for.

Victor Borge just seatbelted himself to the piano bench after telling the audience about his deal with the soprano: "She doesn't touch my piano; I keep my hands off her coloratura." Which makes me, in a roundabout way, think of my amazing friend and roommate Margo. (No, not the coloratura part.)

Margo and I could have used a seatbelt for that one chopsticks duet she patiently tried to teach me. I like to think I faked my way through it well enough to not embarrass myself too badly. (My piano skeelz are adequate but definitely pale next to those of My Margot.) Of course, that would have made switching places mid-scale kind of hard, but I like to think we could've worked our way through that one, too, if it came to that. It made me even more excited to do the duet thingy five the talent show twonce I saw that it was dedicnined three Victor Borge.

Few things make me laugh as hard as I do at Borge's inflationary language (see above; and you thought it was only gas prices that were going up!), unless it's his phonetic punctuation, which really can't be done on a blog.

Of course, I doubt I could even really type it anyway, since I'm now laughing so hard that I'm crying and can't really see the keyboard. The tears are streaming down my face and I only wish Margo were here with me, so she could laugh and cry, too.


Margo - it's coming up on four years that we've known each other, and I can't believe it's only been that long. Love you always and miss you bunches, and hope we find a good excuse to be in the same state at the same time before too many more years go by.

Ahhhhh....

This afternoon I had a chance to relax a bit after a very stressful day at work (and my boss is on vacation, even...) and unwind with three of the greatest inventions known to man (or woman, as the case may is):

1. Thunderstorms
2. Cherry Chocolate Cake
3. Spongebob Squarepants Michael Buble

The only* things that can top that are Jane and a foot massage.

(Shallow Man, are you taking notes?)


*Assuming that snuggles with the hubby are not on the menu

Updatin'

First off, I need to get something off my chest.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!! Not Allison! You were the most consistently talented girl there! Why, why, why?

Okay, now that I've just revealed my deep, dark, secret (yes, I watch a reality talent TV show, but only because they've got some darn good dancin'), let's get on to real business:

AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!

Yeah, I'm still really annoyed with my new boss. I wasn't so annoyed for a while, but then he came back from vacation and started having team meetings and all of my newly-formed positive resolutions kind of evaporated. It's going to be a long several months. (I still have no idea why he was hired over my uber-qualified and awesome co-worker Kate. But I won't go into that here.)

Aw, man. I'm watching local news as I write this and they're showing Allison's friends and family react to the news, and now her little sisters have nearly got me crying. This is depressing.

In other news, I am going slightly crazy, craving the Greek sandwiches from the Resto Beauborg. Have been for three days now. The problem: the Resto Beauborg is located in Paris. France, not Texas. Need to find a cheap substitute... does anybody know of any good Greek places in the Salt Lake Valley? I'd never really eaten Greek before we went to Paris, so I have no idea where to get any around here. I welcome your suggestions!

I am also craving some thunderstorms here. Last night we had an el-huge-o windstorm with Hat Island (the little tiny island nobody knows about in the Great Salt Lake) getting hurricane-force winds for about half an hour. Now, we don't live on Hat Island (as far as I know, nobody does, not even really bison...) but I did have worries that some of the trees around the parking lot would fall on Sonya, forcing us to get another new bumper. I don't know if I mentioned Sonya's new bumper. It's green. (Sonya is blue. Fortunately it's a non-clashy, rather flashy, green, so she looks two-toned rather than stupid. I'll have to post pics sometime.) None of the parking lot trees fell over, although some along the street in back did lose their tops. But no thunder at all. I miss thunderstorms. And by extension, my Margot.

Over the weekend we nearly died when Shallow Man found an even-huger-than-el-huge-o desk at the good ol' D. of I. Seriously, this thing is massive (36" deep by 72" wide, about 200 pounds), and he didn't believe me when I told him it was too big. I was able to persuade him that at the very least we would never fit it into Sonya, so we called up my daddy and he brought the minivan over to help us take it home. He ended up having to tie the back doors shut with ultra-strength DI twine and I still hurt from struggling up the stairs with it.

As a side note, my dad is the best ever. I seriously don't know what we'd do without him - from helping us move to fixing the car to paying for the wedding reception to lending us movies, my dad is the best. My mom, too. I hope you're reading this and I hope you enjoyed the ice cream and we really don't thank you enough. Love you, Mom and Dad!

We also finally have a dresser. The only problem is that it took so long to put together that we were too exhausted to unpack the suitcases full of underwear into it, so it's still empty. But it looks good.

Well, the Simpsons are on so I need to go cuddle and giggle with my husband. (Who forgot to mention, by the way, that he didn't actually decide to ask me out - I had to prompt him heavily. I'm pretty sure if we were relying only on his agency in that situation, we'd still be waiting.)

In closing, tha moon is very useful everyone. And I am waaaaayyy too easily amused.

AAAAARRRRRGGGHHH!!!!

Don't mind me. That loud noise you just heard was only the sound of Ultimate Suffering.

I was going to post something more cheerful, but I'm just too upset right now.

No, no deaths here. But you have to wonder what on earth is wrong with the world when they hire a practically illiterate (brags that he's never finished a book in his life, excluding scripture), has no ability to write a well-crafted sentence, probably wouldn't notice an even adequately-crafted sentence if it danced a polka on his nose, has limited social skills and absolutely no respect for personal boundaries or privacy, quit college to work two jobs full time (one in a call center and the other at Home Depot) person to manage a team of college graduates, all with English degrees (some with graduate degrees in English), whose job is to write letters all day long. Oh, and did I mention he also has no idea how to even begin to do the job he's supposed to be managing?

What really stings is that there was a perfectly-qualified applicant from the team who has a degree, who writes extremely well, who knows the job inside and out, who's been managing the team ever since the old manager left while still doing her own job and excelling at both, holding everything together seamlessly, and who has the respect of all the team members besides? (No, it's not me.)

I don't know if this is due to male chauvinism (hiring the unqualified male over the qualified female), total ignorance of the actual qualifications needed to do the job (the person doing the hiring really doesn't know what the job requires; so why is he doing the hiring anyway? Just one more unanswered question among many...), or just sheer stupidity (the pointy-haired boss system of management, hiring and promotions), but whatever it is, it stinks.

Please cover your ears for a moment while I mutter angry things under my breath. On second thought, you may just want to leave altogether so I can get back to screaming and tearing my hair out...