He Said She Said - Snippets

   

They were driving to meet friends for brunch.

"Maybe we should try that place sometime," he said, as they passed a restaurant.

"I don't know," she said. "I'm not sure it looks that great. There's a sign that says eight dollar steak night. For that price, it's probably tough, stringy meat. What's worse than that?"

"Five dollar steak night."

The dogs were lying on the floor next to them, growling over a bone.

"Can you hear it?" he asked. "What?" "It's the soundtrack of our lives, in Grrr minor."

For more He Said She Said, click here.

Dear Diary - Vent time

 

Dear Diary

The last 9 hours of my life have pretty much sucked.

The day started with me arriving at the hotel where my team was hosting a training course.  We didn't book the venue - the training company did.  But we're hosting the training and it reflects on us.  

This place was half a step above being a highway side motel.  As one attendee said "I thought I was going to pass a crack deal on my way up to the conference room."  

I did, in fact, pass a kid with no front teeth when I left the hotel to get coffee, but I guess he was a bit too young for it to be from crystal meth.

Then... the trainer.

Oh, the trainer.

I will sum him up with a visual.

He is one of those trainers, dear Diary, who takes a chair, pulls it out in front of the presentation screen, puts his back leg up on it and effectively displays his penis to the audience.  No, I don't mean literally!  But that is basically what he is doing.

He stands like that and talks about his accomplishments, the books he's written, the consulting engagements where he helped a team of 3000 IT engineers, the fact that he disagrees with Deming's summation of what Lean actually is.  He spends the first half hour talking about his background - starting with the first program he wrote in college in 1972 - progressing to all the other courses he teaches, just in case we feel like paying him more money to display his family jewels at us.

I have come across more than one of these kinds of trainers.  They are older men who have seen it all, done it all, and now they want to tell you how to do it.  That's not to say they don't have something to share, I just don't want them to be a Big Swinging Dick about it.

It takes us to lunch to get through the introductory section of the course.  We haven't even got to a definition of what it is that we are here to study. 

Again, dear Diary, this course is being hosted by my team.  This guy's performance reflects on me.  And there are some very senior people in the room.

Finally, lunch comes.  I heave a sigh of relief.  A break, and maybe he'll get on track afterwards.

Like the venue, his company had arranged the lunch.

Oh.  My.  God.

Oily, bony bits of chicken with herbs on the skin, mashed potatoes, sloppy roasted vegetables and a salad. 

We told them that there were vegetarians on the course.  As per usual, they are a catering afterthought.  

Lunch completely reinforced the hotel's tacky factor.

Then I get a call from my husband to say that our cleaner is sick.  I forgot to tell you that my in-laws were, as this was happening, on a plane winging their way towards us.  I don't want to be mean to my cleaner.  She's lovely and she works miracles.  She had a migraine - that can't be helped.  But... today?  Really?

So now I have to try to scrounge a ride home from someone because Fluffy Bear has the car at the airport and I was going to just take the bus but now I have to get home as soon as possible to get the house cleaned of all the dog-hair-tumbleweeds.

I get a ride with a lovely colleague and I rush back to the house.  

First, I burn myself.  Yes, dear Diary, burn myself.  

Our tumble dryer is depressed.  Well, if you were that old and stuck in a basement and the that seventies mustard color, you would be too.  It intermittently has suicide attempts.  It overheats the clothes and tries to set itself on fire.

So, when I pulled the comforter out of it, I burnt my right hand.

I grabbed the underwear and socks that were in there too and, having a total IQ lapse, stuck my hand in to move press one of the metal bits to get the drum to turn so I could get to any socks stuck on the side.  

And burnt my left hand.

Some colorful language and stomping upstairs later, I had the guest room bed made up.

Then I went to put the underwear away.  We have those little wire three tier drawer units in our closets. You know the ones.  They are made out of wire mesh with holes big enough to catch your finger and crush your fingernail.  I chose today to prove that last point.

I don't tend to pray, dear Diary, but at that moment I felt the need to reconnect with God and tell him exactly what I thought of him.

Next, I went to find out why Puppy Girl has been standing in the dining room crying for the last ten minutes.  I asked her what was wrong, she looked out the window.  I asked again, she looked out the window.  I leant out of the open window and there was her special green chewy ball down in the yard below.  And she started crying again.

So I went out the front door, round the house, slipped on the grass on the bank and kissed the dirt.  

Yes, seriously.  I'm not even vaguely kidding.

I stood up, dusted myself off, retrieved the ball and threw it back in the dining room window - possibly with more force that was necessary - and limped back into the house.

Back inside, I was straightening out the kitchen when Puppy Girl came trotting in and tossed the ball towards me.  She does that when she wants you to throw the ball for her to retrieve it.  Unfortunately her aim was a bit off.  The ball sailed past me and slapped into the dogs' water ball, splooshing water all over the kitchen floor.

By this stage I was beyond being angry.  I just sighed and moved on.  I wiped the floor, changed my jeans and plonked down on the couch.

Fluffy Bear arrived with his sister and her husband and they walked in - thank God! - champagne in hand.

After the greeting hugs, they asked if we should open it right away.

They may have been a little shocked at the vehemence of my reply, in the affirmative, and expressed at deafening volume.

For more Dear Diary, click here. 

Dear Diary - Flash Mob

 

Dear Diary

Today I was part of a Flash Mob that danced in front of 70,000 people at an American Football game.

This is one of those situations where only an American phrase can capture the moment:

IT WAS AWESOME!

It was kinda like my wedding day.  There's a lot of preparation, rehearsal, coordination and then you finally get there and you wait and wait for it to begin and then it's all over in -- well, a flash.

There were over a thousand of us who danced a six minute routine to 10 songs.

Flash Mobs are a strange phenomenon.  

Basically, someone chooses to coordinate them and you find out by word of mouth or by signing up to a Facebook group or by keeping an eye on the right website.  Normal, average people turn up and rehearse, getting to know each other along the way.

We had two 8 year olds, a bunch of teenagers and I saw at least 5 people who were in their 60s or 70s.

Many kids were dancing with one or both of their parents. 

I met teachers, engineers, data warehouse managers, professional dancers.

I go because it's fun, and I essentially get free dance classes.

I didn't make all the rehearsals, but I spent at least 10 hours practicing.  

And then I got to dance in front of a stadium full of people.

I spent most of the dance thinking about the steps and frantically watching whoever was in front of me so I could copy them, but I did have a few moments where I was confident about the moves and was able to look at up at the crowds, smile at the little dots that were the people up in the nosebleed seats and just be in the moment, be dancing, be joyful, be revelling in it.

As adults, we get so few opportunities to really have fun, dear Diary.

When I find them, I grab them with both hands, and jump in with both feet.  

AWESOME!

For more Dear Diary, click here. 

Puppy Talk - Crazy Mommy

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Puppy Girl:  Mama is really annoying me!

 

Puppy Dog:  What's wrong?

 

Puppy Girl:  She keeps singing this annoying song to me.

 

Puppy Dog:  Singing is nice.  What's your problem?

 

Puppy Girl:  Singing is nice, but the same song all the time gets a bit old.

 

Puppy Dog:  What does she sing?

 

Puppy Girl:  I don't know what it is.  Something about sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset and sweeping go the years. 

 

Puppy Dog:  What?  That doesn't even make any sense!

 

Puppy Girl:  I know!  Then she gets a really high voice and sings where is the little pup she carried and where is the little pup at play and how she doesn't remember getting older day by day.  

 

Puppy Dog:  Yeah, that sounds pretty stupid.

 

Puppy Girl:  Yup.  Then she gets all weird and starts telling me that she bought a puppy, not a big girl.

 

Puppy Dog:  That's ridiculous.  You're tall, you're thin, you're fit, you're looking great.  Womanhood suits you.

 

Puppy Girl:  I know, right?  If I was a hairless ape, I could totally rock those skinny jeans they keep going on about.  I mean, it's not my fault I'm growing up!  And besides, I like growing up!  I can reach the chickens Dada leaves on the kitchen counter now!

 

Puppy Dog:  Yeah, that was awesome.  Thanks for sharing.

 

Puppy Girl:  Uh, it's not like I had much choice. You just got in there.  You ate that nice white meat part before I could even get a taste of it!

 

Puppy Dog:  Listen, Kid.  I'm above you in the pack, no matter how damn big you get, AND DON'T YOU FORGET IT!

 

Puppy Girl:  OK!  OK!  Shesesh.  Just do me a favor...

 

Puppy Dog:  What?

 

Puppy Girl:  Just don't sing me a damn song about it!

 

'

For more Puppy Talk, click here. 

That's Life - A box of chocolates

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So... life is like a box of chocolates?

 

Well, let's see.

 

What happens when I eat a box of chocolates...

 

I start by looking for the little bit of paper that tells you what's in the chocolates.  And, of course, I can't find it.  

 

OK, never mind.  I'm brave.  I take risks.

 

So I bite into the first chocolate, and it's something disgusting like that weird crunchy stuff that's looks like transparent dirty water.  So I throw the other half out.

 

I try another one, and it's just plain chocolate, and it's slightly white on the edges, because it's a bit old.

 

Third time lucky?

 

It's toffee.  And it's too sweet and too hard and gets lodged in one of molars at the back of my mouth and I have to dig out a hard lump of the filling from my tooth with my fingernail.  

 

And so it goes, until, finally, about two thirds of the way through the box, I find one I like.  

 

It's sweet, but not too sweet.  Soft but not too soft.  The outer coating of chocolate is fresh and hard, but not too hard.

 

So I look for another chocolate that's the same shape, the same kind.

 

And there's only one.

 

See?  I finally find what I like in life, and there isn't enough of it.

 

Forrest Gump's bitch of a mother was right.

 

 

To read more in the That's Life series, click here.