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time-release surprise
October 14, 2015
They gave me a surprise party at work today. Decorated desk, card, goodies, lots of happy birthdays. My first words:
"What's all this crap?"
Yeah, I don't like people fussing about my birthday at work. Birthdays are for friends, maybe some family, or even spent (if you are extremely lucky) in complete and blissful solitude. Work days are for work and for co-workers. And never should the twain meet.
I mean--I haven't worked on my birthday in 30 years--shouldn't that give people a clue as to how I feel about mixing the two?
At least the co-worker who is closest to what you'd call a friend brought me my favorite donut (coconut) from my favorite donut shop (CJs).
But after my initial response, I marshalled my resources and tried to be as gracious as possible. Most of the people telling me happy birthday didn't know I wouldn't like it. But the people reponsible for making a thing of it were completely aware of my very strong, long-standing feelings on the subject, and they went ahead and did it anyway, which is kind of shitty. Shows what kind of people I've been reduced to working with. Passive agressive @#&*.
And Spouse, who has a long history of screwing up my birthday, made me very suspicious by not doing that this year. I thought it was because he went ahead and made the decision about the trip without consulting me, so he was satisfied. But since I put my foot down and insisted on going through Appleton and blowing some money on myself at the pen store, he must have thought that I'd wrested control from him. He showed it a little bit on the trip--some light whining, and only allowing just so many meals. I shut down the whining by reminding him that I actually use my pens every single day--while he has hundreds of dollars of model trains and airplanes that just sit and collect dust.
But now he's laying on the guilt. First, he tried to convince me--and himself--that he had another DVT. But it turned out to be just sore muscles. Now, the Ford "suddenly" has a transmission problem. (HINT: It had one back when I was driving it, and you didn't think it was a big deal!) And of course, it's an expense, and of course, if I hadn't spent all that money at the pen store, we'd be in a better place financially...
Yeah, well...if you hadn't spent the last 30 years blowing one job opportunity after another, we could say the same. Grr. Glass houses, Mister.
General things to take note of: B's paw is doing better, my Pa bought himself a Chevy Equinox in Phoenix, so now he has wheels, Nephew and Niece-in-law celebrated their first wedding anniversary by getting a puppy, Myniece found out her due date is three weeks sooner than they originally thought, Stephen Fry isn't doing any more seasons of QI, and the C-ugh-bs are actually headed to the second leg of the playoffs, so I'm scanning the skies for airborne pork.
READING:
Still on "A Summer in a Cañon" (1914), by Kate Douglas Wiggin. Not much happens so far, actually. Fancy camping, and casual racism (Mexican and Chinese), and this one little spoiled kid who seems to be the spawn of Satan, and gets into one mess after another. One character, a lovely young lady, is an invalid--the kind where you don't know what's wrong with her--is she recovering from something like typhoid? Suffering from TB? Or is it just a case of "HD" (heroine's disease)? She's generally weak and pale and sweet and frail and bedridden, so it's most probably the latter.
LISTENING:
Jann Arden, Tom Lehrer, Meatloaf, and the Avenue Q OCR. Having most of my music on a single thumb drive means my listening habits are pretty random.
INKED UP:
Sticking with the Delta and the X750, plus my usual two workhorses; Conklin with Pelikan Brilliant Brown, and my Waterman, with Serenity Blue. I need to empty a couple of the others with ink in them though, because I want to work on the nibs. Still have too many inked. I'd like to keep it at no more than four, but I always end up with at least six.
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