Coming up: Unfurl the disclaimers and lock the doors: mom-boss fearless leader has left the building? Will the abandoned orphans of Englettlaw survive the erumpent exigencies? Will the metaphorical kegger be tapped or merely dinted? Frick and fork on farmland friendships. Will roosters suffer psitticosis or merely psittacistic cycling confabs? And track season takes its first token toe... will our heroine hobble on through balances and busted toesies? Will her whirlwind tryst with endless humors end well or in heartbreak. Will she survive the phantom cut-cord pains and will there be lindt balls at the end of all her toils? Time whinnies, whinges, and rears. A sacrifice of time to rescue the daylight princess! Will distemporitis finally be cured? Will schedules re-align or continue spinning into the hands of mad minor families and chimerical weather-days?
These answers and more wait in chambers for your onerous oiellades beyond the sockery beneath...
The Mom-Boss is Outta Town! Kegger at Englettlaw* (*Subject to disclaimer* below)
*DISCLAIMER - In re the above quoted "kegger" at location, Englettlaw, said comment was delivered in the manner of frolic and banter and should not be interpreted as evidence of objective or subjective intent for (a) formation of an offer of unilateral contract, nor any offer for bi- tri- or quadrilateral agreements including but not limited to (i) pacts, (ii) treaties, (iii) detentes, (iv) commercial trade agreements, (v) train-made verbal agreements re the killing of spouses by the unknown but slightly unhinged strangers met there; (b) invitational license for entry onto the premises known as Englettlaw, (c) a statement condoning the consumption of large quantities of fermented malt beverages during working hours, (d) as extension of the "parents gone = party at their 'home' " formulation, to imply or condone underage drinking, or the potential vandalism concurrent with such drinking, (e) to condone or solicit violation of relevant fire and building codes for the aforementioned commercial space, (f) any association between the aforementioned business and approval of aforementioned non-intents, (g) solicitation of a crime including but not limited to public drinking, carousing, trespassing, arson, mail fraud, smoking pot in the stairwells (as somebody sure had to have been doing around the fourth floor yesterday judging by the overwhelming stench in the mid-morning at that locale), reckless endangerment with a speedboat, mail fraud, conspiracy, tax evasion, the unlawful discharge of a laser, littering, or black market organ dealing. The aforementioned kegger is an allusory one only... THE KEG IS A LIE!! And, given the level of cautious introversion dominating the office in our fearless leader's absence, the party is pretty much fictive as well. Enter at your own peril! **
It's the time of year in which Englettlaw gets on its madly tentative quietude in the absence of our head attorney and highly effective figurehead. My mom-boss is off to visit "the other daughter" and her beloved brood back in Jersey for several decades. Her absence has an ambivalent effect on the office: On the one hand, this absence (and our clients'/other attorneys' knowledge of her absence) often results in a momentary chilling of the routine ructions requiring her personal attention.On the other hand, when some erumpent emergency demands handling (as it always will), it's a bit of a madhouse. We at home-base make several wild and educated guesses as what Fearless Leader might want us to do, while waiting for a harried Gramma Pam to endue Attorney-Englett, put a finger in her ear and review the complicated drafts before attempting to give feedback over Falconer World War Wii Fivebazillion-and-Twenty.
I become increasingly casual about things, while Leslie becomes increasingly nervous. When asked what we should do on something I'll shrug my shoulders and say "I don't see why not..." which is a formulation she finds unconvincing. When she then asks if she should wait until we hear from Pam, I shrug again and say "eh, I don't think we really need to, but there's no hurry." This is kind of cruel of me, as I know it will eventually cause her head to implode. I don't do it on purpose. It's just my saturnine stress reaction when I'm only sort of in control. As it turns out, I'm usually spot on with what I've implied and pawed at. But I don't suppose I exude the reassuring mama-hen confidence particularly.
An uneasy stillness precedes and subsumes these moments of decapitated poultry promenaderie. So expect an alert but restless flurry of non-posts for the next spell. It should be noted that I have plenty of work to do in her absence, so any fates that are feeling frisky could kindly pass me over if they'd be so inclined. I have a list of people with whom the fates could have waaaay more mordant merriment! I'm willing to deal!
But it's early yet and in the lindt-ball 2014 spirit, I've turned off email notifications on my phone. So ignorance remains blissful for a few more minutes.I update my first lindt ball internet experience. Yesterday I turned off 4G for two hours during lunch and associated away-from-computer times. I also turned off the phone over dinner. In between, I discovered that muting hangout notifications does not actually impair my ability to have a conversation with somebody via that medium. Instead, it allows me to set my own times for these, assuming that anything urgent will merit a less casual communique. As I use chrome a lot, I often fall to having several tabs competing for my attention (three email accounts, a court website, my music streamer, and additional research tabs). I'm experimenting with pulling the window that I am actually using out separately until I am done with my task for that window. So far, it's been helpful.
We'll see how things fall out in day three of Home Alone 7: Office-Style (in which Macaulay Culkin finds himself, the sole temp at a large credit database firm, attempting to fend off data hacks while throwing parties and singing about pizza)... until then. Merrily we maunder into independent office management territory! Wonder what happens when I spin the steering wheel THIS WAY! WHEEEEEEE!
Happy Frickin' Friday - Oh Frick, indeed!
Back in my Majestic days (early in my ballroom life), I had an acquaintance fresh from the farm (literally, as he hailed from a dairy farm up north). One of two identical twins, he was of sturdy build, belabored & bumbling geniality, and a modest height. The height certainly grounded him for heavy lifting, but also led to some very interesting knee-in-crotch issues whenever he and I were paired for smooth dancing (a style with technique that keeps it halitosis-frigid up top and party-in-my-pants down beneath).
A gosh-golly kinda fella - before a slip and slide through the alcoholic anomie of early twenties took a dimmer to the twinkling in his eyes and milkiness of complexion - he was averse to unvarnished imprecation. Amusing, as he spent much time with my little clique of colloquially colorful cretins, to whose obscenities he would form an earnest and stern pout, chuckle at our eventually eternal damnation, and continue on with a smile. Abstemious as he was with the formally recognized opprobrium, he certainly caught the spirit of lalochezia with his own euphemistic gusto. Between the heated gosh gollies and shoots, his go-to intensive was frick.
Our generally foul-mouthed cadre of dance kids found this wildly entertaining, shy on our "fun words" scale only of the phrase "fork you," which was funny exclusively for the you-had-to-be-there origin story, in which one girl repeatedly poked a particularly harrassable guy with her fork several times and finally answered his whine of wtf with a maniacally drawled: "fork you"! (but which was possibly related to the joke about cutlery liking to spoon after forking...)
There's something soothingly bathetic about frick! While frickin' sounds like several other intensifying variants (friggin', freakin', fallopian' ... ok, maybe not that last one, but I bet that would have some emphatic qualities to it: gosh darnit that fallopian kid left the legos out last night again!"), FRICK has a certain fricative fanfare. Although generally said with more than a glint of the eye in our non-farm-boy group, the word took on its own power that far exceeded the dysphemism it replaced for the rest of us.
Anyways, best I can tell, frick actually mixes two competing copulatory vulgarities rather nicely. Frig, I believe, predates fuck (or at least is contemporaneous in murky origin). From the Middle English term frygen, which means wiggle. Fuck's origin stories are all over the map, and many of them are quite likely saucy viragos' lore. Since it stuck around, it has a lot more flexibility than the antiquated "frig," an intransitive verb often used as a meaningless intensive. I'd like to say there's some tie-in between "frig" (my suspected origin of frick) and Frigg, but that pretty little bow sits exclusively atop my brain. Enough to remember my waltzing farm boy and his rubicund ramblings.
Whatever modifier mollies the madness, it is FRIDAY! Surreal as that might seem. I'm keeping up my lindt ball pledge a few days in. Turned the phone off entirely for an hour and a half last night, and have continued muting and/or killing notifications on my phone and computer. It's a little easier at the moment for a few reasons: (1) I'm having a mad love affair with a book. When I start reading a book, it often feels like I'm sneaking around with it and cheating on reality. The same sort of disengagement and bifurcation of mental realities tends to entrench the further into a story I tread. And the break-ups are just as bad. I suspect this is why I'm far more hostile about books that have disappointed me than movies or tv, and can tolerate some absolute visual tripe but will hold onto literary grudges for years when an author lets me down; as well as why I can moon like a twitterpated twelve year old on my old literary flames; (2) my mom is buried in a pile of young boys and running interference for their desperate mother. We may work in the same office, but we often chat/text through the day as a quick means of communication and coordination. One doesn't really have time to check in when visiting the Falconers, so our chat time goes fairly quiet around now.
Whatever the weekend may bring, I wish you luck, pluck, and a frick of a great time!
Big Toes Don't Cry - TWT turns a trick with tumid toesies, and other hazards of stairwells
Track season is wads of weeks away, but training begins early. My approach to track-widowry-training is what you could call "in base" at the moment (nothing free about my base, nor do I slide into it head first). After one track widow training session a few months ago, it is time to increase reps and do another set (fire up the maundering soliloquy and break out the funny accents!) Last night, Andrew headed into the bowels of Seattle to crow with the roosters! The Blue Roosters, that is. Andrew's cycling team. It was their try-on party. Sounds more exciting than it is. Or not. Actually "try-on" sounds fairly prosaic unless you have my exquisitely deranged imagination and have conjured up a wild bacchanal of feathered-bespandexed cycling denizens piling a room high with all of their various closets, and then playing drunken dress-up for a solid evening with wine and cookadoodling optional. Or if you're a thirteen year old boy, in which case it doesn't matter what was said, it's "exciting" in a snickery uncomfortable way.
A try-on party, is a chance for every one to try on (hence the name) the year's new uniform to make sure that they have ordered the proper size of superhero costume and that the cape doesn't clash with one's leg warmers. I've gone once, when Andrew was a wee pullet. That time the event happened in a high end wine basement near Fremont and/or Ballard and/or all those other parts of Seattle I don't really believe to exist. The venue was long, narrow and choked with cyclists swilling reds and whites, but nary a blue to swill in sight. My strongest memories are of the tables (wine corks under a glass finish), the crushing claustrophobia, and the zing bars (promotional sponsor nonsense - although I enjoy the name, they were not stand out energy bars for me) of which I stole several samples. It was a strange and loud event. They've since moved it to a more appropriately capacious venue, Recycled Cycles.
While Andrew tried on his kit and got revved about pumping his high cadence tush around an eensy track with other boys in tights, I tried on a quiet single-lady night at home. I mostly accomplished just this: reading in various rooms and on various chairs throughout the evening with breaks for eating and that leviathon physical therapy routine (ball-on-nose balancing optional but recommended).
Most of this, again, did not interrupt or tempt my Lindt Ball challenge to melt in hand or mouth. When you're caught up in a book and have the evening entirely to yourself, the whole internet access thing becomes irrelevant. The mien is intentionally internal and the internet is Out There. So, I barely noticed that I'd left my phone off for most of the evening; and my computer was only up to play the Fall Out 3 Soundtrack (all 30's and 40's ditties that admittedly have kind of a cool creepy post-apocalyptic vibe)
But I may have pulled a slight training injury. Reading while walking down stairs in the dark is an advanced move, one not to be attempted in slippery socks until at least the second month of the actual track season. Swollen with contumely and riveted by a book's unanticipatedly erumpent plot, I might have broken that rule. In doing so, I flubbed a step and landed weirdly with my right toe curled underneath me. It was not a huge fan of this action and grumbled throughout the evening. The structural damage seems minimal and limited to a few contusions and some sloughed skin, but the confidence level has returned to cautious in regards to those pesky stairs.
Still, at the end of the day, I mounted the stairs once more to make it to the bed, and Andrew followed a few hours afterwards. Or so I assume. I remember waking up briefly in the night and knowing he was there. And he's there in bed at this moment. It looks like he remains intact so I call it a win on all counts.
Happy Saturday. May it be a seasonably sanguine one with sunny smiles and safe stairwells!
An Hour Saved is an Hour Spurned Where's that Daylight I supposedly rescued??
Perhaps now time will settle down and stop spewing in starts and stutters all over every one's nice little schedule. After thoroughly reviewing the informed consent video/document/comic-book explanations/FAQs/etc. (and ok nobody actually understands of reviews any of that, but we thumbed through the one with pictures and laughed at the cartoon bunny) and signing the forms and authorizations, we as a nation have agreed to the surgical procedure necessary to save daylight.
You're welcome, world. My loss of an hour is for your continued daylight. Or something. I'm told that doing this whole "let's pretend it's an hour later than it really is" thing does have measurable correlation to a decrease in traffic accidents and energy use, but an increased correlation to cardiac strain. Monday, the first day that our new schedule becomes truly tangible may as well be called Myopathy Monday from all I can tell. Apparently our circadian rhythms are not hip to the jive of this abrupt 2 a.m. bound.
As I say, I hope this little schedule jig placates an ornery and obstreperous time-beast that has been perpetually frisky with my 2014 schedule. If not, perhaps it's time to start sacrificing chickens. Or, being a vegetarian perhaps I can get a waiver to sacrifice Morningstar Chick'n patties.
Coming time shift ahead, Andrew prepared in advance by getting horrible sleep on Friday night. This actually worked to our advantage, allowing him to be just tired enough not to fight the "ok, well I'm calling it bedtime now even if the sun still is setting" sweeping clock reset and earlier retreat. This was even after the nap that he was going to take whether he chose to or not. In between, we had a Chinese themed afternoon with Shaolin Soccer and a follow up "well, it may be 5:30 on your timeline, but I'm calling it 6:30" dinner at Panda Palace.
Since my toe was still swollen, we switched gym days to today, making tomorrow just that bit more disorienting as Andrew did many of his Sunday activities yesterday. Now we'll have to wait until noon (erst-while 11:00 a.m. before 2:00 a.m. this morning when 2:00 a.m. refused to stick around and skipped forward like a broken record) to get our glow on. I'm still on the fence about trammeling my ever-beleaguered foot with its bruised big-piggy on top of the tender arch. I swear I'm waiting on that new foot from my engineer-boyfrianceband.
But whatever time brings (hopefully eventually the sunrise again), I am ready to take it as it comes and do that little tai qi gong fu shaolin thingy to spin it right back towards the other goal. Or to stay home and read. There's always that option.
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