No, not the peanut butter!

I am not at all a religious person, but I do feel strongly about the Golden Rule--treating others kindly, even when they are not so nice to me.

Besides that, I’m pretty laid-back and I don’t usually let other people’s attitudes bother me too much. Life’s just too short for drama.

But.

About seven weeks ago, my company hired a middle-aged guy who I will henceforth refer to as Skippy. I actually do refer to him as Skippy when talking about him with my other coworkers.

Skippy is educated—he’s got a business degree and a law degree—and appears to be likeable enough. He was hired to do some forensic accounting here, and other odd jobs. One other thing: turns out that he’s the nephew of one of our clients. ‘Nuff said, right?

At work, I attempt to be amiable and charming and helpful, especially with recently-hired coworkers, since it’s never fun being the new guy. But after only four or so days of working closely with Skippy, it became evident that my congeniality would be tested mightily.

He’s fucking annoying. Seriously, people. He’s not dumb, and he’s not mean. He just annoys the ever-loving shit out of me.

First of all, as we all do here, he has his own private office, waaaaaay on the other side of our suite from my office. Unless he needs to specifically see someone on my end of the office, there’s no real reason for him to even be over here. Yet, from Week One of his tenure here, he began making rounds of the suite.

That, in and of itself, wouldn’t be so bad. Yes, I understand that occasionally you do need to give your eyes a break from your computer monitor and to stretch your legs.

What pisses me off is that he actually stops in the doorway of my office and cranes his neck, as if trying to determine what exactly I’m up to. That’s just plain nosy, and I detest nosiness. And he does it EVERY DAY, multiple times a day.

After about a week of enduring these ad-hoc check-ins, during which I stared, unflinching, at my computer screen, I tersely inquired, “Can I help you?” while he stood in my office doorway.

He shrugged and said in his goofy way, “Just taking a little walk around. You know, you gotta break every once in a while from that desk!”

“I wish I had the time for that,” I replied in an icy tone. The implication, of course, was that I was swamped and that he should take a hike.

But that leads to another reason that he pisses me off…the guy doesn’t know how to take a hint!

No matter how furiously I begin typing when I see him approaching my office as though I am completely engrossed in composing an important email message, no matter how quickly I pick up the receiver of my telephone and conduct a completely one-sided conversation with the dial tone in the hopes that he will leave me the hell alone...HE JUST STANDS THERE. Dumbly.

It makes me look bad! His timing is so impeccable; my boss just happens to catch him lollygagging in or near my office on a regular basis, and I’m afraid she thinks that I’m encouraging this behavior.

Finally, he’s one of those people who think he’s just so cute and funny. And he’s neither. He is constantly impressed with himself. He tries to joke around with me but I just allow myself a tight smile, not wanting to egg him on any further.

The thing that bothers me is how bothered I am by his presence and how UNLIKE me that is. I strongly disliked this guy from nearly Day One, and I usually get along with everyone. There’s just something about him that makes me want to vault over my desk and lunge for his throat whenever he stops by my office. If he were coming to me for genuine work-related issues, I totally wouldn’t have a problem with him. But I’m just way too freaking busy here to socialize. And truthfully, I only socialize with those whom I actually enjoy spending time.

And then I feel a bit guilty, because it’s not like the guy’s a genuine jerk or a child molester or anything. He’s just annoying as hell. I kind of berate myself for not trying harder to be nice to him. Although I actually tried that approach early on and learned that it doesn’t satisfy his need for attention (or whatever it is he’s looking for); it simply encourages him to continue being obnoxious and to seek more attention. Frankly, whenever I try to be nice to him, a little part of me dies inside.

The only thing that makes me feel a little better about all of this is that I am not the only one here who cannot tolerate him. If I were the only one who felt this way, then I could admit that the problem was likely within me and really had nothing to do with him personally. One of those “point your finger and three fingers point back at you” deals. But pretty much everyone here thinks he’s overbearing and aggravating. I almost pity him.

So for now, I just try to ignore him and keep our interactions to a minimum. I’m sure he thinks I’m a total bitch, but I can live with that. Small price to pay for my sanity.

Labels: bitching, opinions, sheer idiocy, sheer insanity, work

Or something like that.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the annual PA Renaissance Faire. It was like nothing I've ever seen before in my life. Quite overwhelming and, well, bizarre.

I went with my parents, and at one point during the car ride to the fairgrounds, I mentioned that I'd heard that the people who participate in and attend these types of affairs are a subculture unto themselves. I can tell you with absolute certainty now that it is 100% true. These people take this shit REALLY seriously, speaking Elizabethan English in faux British accents while garbed in apparently authentic apparel. Kind of like this guy:



When I feel inclined to download the pictures I took from it, I'll be sure to post a few here. The highlight of the afternoon was bonding with my dad while throwing knives at a target as my mother stood far, far out of harm's way.

Good tymes.

Labels: family, funny stuff, opinions, sheer insanity

...and all I got were these couple crappy pictures.


OMG OMG OMG OMG!!! It's Dave's tour bus!



...and there he goes, making a beeline for the entrance to the arena with nary a glance in my direction. So close, yet so far...



At least Taylor Hawkins was nice enough to stop, say hello, and smile for my camera!

Labels: bitching, Foo Fighters, music, pictures, sheer insanity, travel

Just got back from the penultimate show of this Foo tour.

Unfortunately, I got COLD BUSTED at the door with my Nikon (man, is ANYTHING going my way lately???). So I had to turn around and take it back to the car. Damn.

The show was okay but I think they're just tired! Their last show is tomorrow night at the Meadowlands. Dave's voice is sounding worn down.

I do have a teensy bit of good news, though: in true stalker form, I sat outside the stage door of the venue this afternoon for almost three hours, waiting for the guys to come to soundcheck. The Huz was with me almost the entire time (thanks honey! You're the BEST!).

At around 3:30 p.m., two tricked-out tour buses pull up right next to us. Dave and Chris pop out of the first one and go straight into the arena. Didn't even look in our direction--and there were only about seven fans standing around outside.

Nate, Pat Smear, Rami Jaffee, and Taylor hopped out of the second bus. I yelled hello to each of them, and they posed for a picture for me! Taylor was especially nice.

I also got a picture of me and Sean Cox, their guitar tech. Very cool guy!

Here's the sucky part: later in the afternoon, I accidentally deleted the GREAT picture of Pat and Rami. I am so pissed at myself!

I still have a nice shot of Taylor smiling for the camera, and two shots of Mr. Grumpy--er, Grohl--making a beeline for the stage door.

I'll post the shots in the next day or two when I get home. My inlaws claim to have high-speed internet here, but I suspect otherwise. Plus, their mouse is pretty much shot and that is seriously aggravating me now. I can't work under these conditions! /diva rant

Labels: bad news, concerts, family, Foo Fighters, good news, marriage, music, pictures, sheer idiocy, sheer insanity, travel

Perhaps my imagination is running wild, especially after doing all that recent reading about the haunted graveyards of the South.

Just for the hell of it, about fifteen minutes ago I started scrolling slowly through my pictures of the First Unitarian churchyard in Charleston again...the unedited, raw footage. I took about sixty pictures there. I got to the twenty-second or so photo and blew it up on my screen, and I SWEAR....I see a man's face in it.

I'm SO not joking.

After staring at this picture for about ten minutes now, I'm still trying to decide if my eyes are just playing tricks on me. But I can clearly make out a man's face in this picture. It's disembodied, which is the strange part...that is, if you don't consider the fact that there's an image of a person who wasn't actually THERE in my picture to begin with strange.

Anyway, I can clearly make out an almost full frontal view of his face. I see his hair and high forehead, his eyes, his right ear, a mustache and possibly a beard, and the fact that he appears to be smiling. But he's not looking at my camera.

I am one of the most cynical people you will ever meet...Cayman, you can vouch for me on that one. However, I seriously believe there is SOMETHING in this picture.

I'm posting the original, unretouched picture here. The only thing that I have changed in this picture is the color; I changed everything except where I see the "face" to black and white. I still don't think it's large enough to see well here, but click on the pic and tell me what you think. Remember, it's a disembodied head/face, and it kind of blends in with the tree trunk in the picture. Yet the facial features are still SO. DAMN. CLEAR. to me.

Am I nuts?

Labels: opinions, pictures, sheer insanity, travel

You've been forewarned. This is not going to be a well-organized or concise piece of prose here.

Tonight I completely tweaked. It was a long time coming, let me tell ya.

Tonight was just another night that has followed a disturbing and seemingly more frequent trend: I walked in the door from work after 7:30 p.m.

UNACCEPTABLE!!!!

I think I need to take up boxing, karate, or some other sport that encourages me to hit and/or break things on a regular basis, because in the past two weeks, my job has finally crossed the line from barely-managed chaos into absolute insanity. Folks, the business that my office does is currently held together with bubblegum and safety pins, and things are getting worse, not better. It just took me being out of the office in Arizona for five days for things to completely implode.

As a general rule, I hesitate to put anything too personal out here in cyberland most of the time. My normal M.O. is never to write anything that I wouldn't want my family, friends, or employer to see.

But guess what? I've had enough and the gloves are coming off now.

MY BOSS IS BATSHIT CRAZY. OK, maybe not crazy, but she is deluded, no doubt about it. She's also a bad manager with not very well-developed people skills. She's unprofessional. Unorganized to the extreme. And I also think she's a liar with questionable ethics. That last one I can't really get into here, but just take my word for it.

On a personal level, I suppose she's nice enough. She's also very bright and is a good resource for our industry.

But she has no place being a manager. She has no idea about, or appreciation of, how busy I am every single day. I am ONE person doing the work of at least two, and perhaps even three, people. My coworker was fired at the end of September 2007 and I was promised that the firm would be hiring another person to replace him within a month of that.

I sucked it up and took on a much heavier workload, thinking that if I could only keep it together for a little while, surely the position would be filled soon enough.

Haaaaa.

I've finally come to accept that I've taken over SO well that the company has just let me run with it.

Really, the thing that just kills me is the fact that she (the boss) is NEVER there. She wants to be a full-time stay-at-home mother and a full-time director of retirement plan services. Well guess what? You can't frickin' have it both ways. The management team at every other job I've ever worked at was in the office at least forty hours a week, minimum.

Conversely, she is more often absent than not, on mysterious "meetings" that we later learn are hair appointments, her kids' sporting events, and who the hell knows what else. She also coaches an intramural basketball team which means she leaves the office for long periods in the middle of the day. In January, we moved our office from one building to another, an undertaking that required a huge amount of preparation and work for us all. On moving day, she left us in the new office with the movers at 2 p.m. to go coach one of her damn games. Don't you think that the boss should be present during an event as major as an office relocation?

And it's beyond me how she's managed to retain any of her clients after all these years. She hardly ever returns phone calls. I've taken repeat messages for her in which the caller even asks me if she still works for the company! It's a disgrace and I am embarrassed.

I love what I do, but if someone I knew wanted to bring their business to us, I couldn't in good conscience recommend the services of this firm. There is no organization, no leadership, and morale is so low that it can't even be measured. Everyone I work with is constantly pissed off at the boss and yet NO ONE says anything to change the situation.

Welp, I finally spoke up today at our staff meeting. Finally.

She was explaining something to one of my coworkers and she looked over at me and referred to ME as the "daily val people."

I laughed out loud, which caused everyone to look over at me.

"'People'?" I repeated. "What 'daily val people'? As far as I knew, it's just me doing the work. Are there any plans to hire someone to help me?"

Hoo boy. If looks could kill, I wouldn't be laying in bed, typing this right now.

So we'll see what happens. Thank dog tomorrow's Friday.

Labels: bitching, sheer insanity, work

For this update, I think a picture will say much more than I can describe with words:



That is all.

Labels: fitness, goals, sheer insanity

Whew! It's all over.

The party was definitely a success!

My family got here around 4 p.m., hung out, ate, and did the whole gift-exchange thing. Children ran amok, the grown-ups circulated, chatting and laughing, and everyone was forced to watch the slideshow DVD I made of our Vegas and dude ranch photos. Hee.

The next wave of guests started streaming in the door at about 7 p.m. as planned. Did I mention that I sent two sets of invites, staggering the start times of the party? This worked well, I think. It may have created a little more work for me, making sure that the food supplies were refilled and hot or cold as necessary, but it also ensured that I got to actually spend time with everyone, and not be stuck behind the buffet line or at the oven. I actually had fun at my own party! What a rarity.

The majority of my family left around 8 p.m., just as all of our friends and neighbors arrived, so for about an hour things were absolute CHAOS...just the way I like it! Kids screeching, random spurts of uproarious laughter emanating from various groups of guests around the house, ambient holiday music playing from two different stereos, and the general hum of conversation. People mingling everywhere, in the family room, the living room, the basement, the kitchen...the smokers out on the deck (we also had great weather...on the warm side for late December and no rain!).

We got so many nice gifts from people, all kinds of wines and champagnes, flavored coffee, gift cards, candles, books...such generosity. Of course, as trite as it sounds, we really just enjoyed everyone's company. We are soooo lucky to have such great family and friends.

The last of our guests left around midnight. The Huz and I cleaned up for about an hour, and then spent some quiet time snuggling on the couch, rehashing some of the evening's events. We finally headed to bed at 1:30, but I was still so keyed up that I didn't fall asleep until almost 3 a.m.

Some pics:

Yes, I had to take a picture of our powder room with all the candles going. Atmosphere, people!

The second tree that we put up in the living room.

Dave and Steph.
Another quiet moment...most of the fam was opening gifts then.
Uncle, aunt, paternal unit, cousin...
The Huz and our neighbors
Cousin, dad, uncle, aunt
Christina, Colleen, PJ, Steph, Andrea
Shawn, The Huz, Joe
PJ holding up the tree, Colleen looking on...

Steph doing her Rihanna imitation!

Cousins

Dad, uncle, cousin
Cousin, aunts and uncle
Cousins!
More cousins, uncle, Mom
Jan and Mark
Deb and Chuck, our next-door neighbors

Labels: family, food, friends, holidays, pictures, sheer insanity

I bought the Nikon D40. It came with an 18-55 mm lens, but The Camera Shop was running a special bundled deal, so I also got the midrange telephoto lens (55-200 mm) for only $50, whereas it would cost $150 or more separately.

I nearly passed out when I forked over my credit card to pay for it. Other than a downpayment on our homes and cars, I've never spent so much money in one shot in my life.

To put it in perspective, this camera cost me more than my wedding gown, for pete's sake!!!!

Now, to figure out how in the hell to use it! Luckily, The Camera Shop gave me tickets for eighteen in-store photography classes, which are ordinarily $15 a pop. Pretty good deal, huh?

Here are two of my initial pics with this baby. Not very good at all. I have a LOT to learn, clearly. At this point, I don't even KNOW what I don't know. How's that for a braintwister? PS - Excuse the state of my home, please.

Labels: hobbies, pictures, sheer insanity, shopping