Ravings of a Textual Deviant

Photo/caption credits to S.A.

via email

Me: Could you please send [X] a link to the file location?

A: There isn’t a LAN site for this, I resent the electronic file.

Me: Resenting the electronic document will only breed more bad feeling.

shortly thereafter

A: [File] was uploathed to the folder.

Coworker: Can you be the “scribe” for any comments or changes for any of these documents? Please, please, pretty please with lots of cherries and whipped cream on top?????

Me: I will scribe the meeting so long as it’s real whipped cream, not the scary, fake, spray-can stuff. Preferable organic whipped cream. Lightly sweetened with organic powdered sugar, and just a hint of genuine Bourbon vanilla.

Coworker: Organic?? You’re a sick gal!

Me: Inorganic food makes me ill.

Fiancé went to the gym last night for our first TurboKick class.

The instructor totally Turbokicked our butts. She was very bouncy, and kept throwing extra jumps into what is already a very fast-paced, high-energy class.

That said, it is a very good workout, and I am content to be bad at it for a while as I learn the moves.

If I survive.

This story is for everyone who has ever had a bad Thanksgiving, but especially for H. A.

Grandma isn’t a bad cook. It’s that she’s been cooking to please Grandpa for forty-three years…and his mother was a terrible cook. She’s been cooking badly on purpose all this time, and she’s good at it.

I steeled myself for another year of oven-dried turkey, scorched stuffing, and white lies. I had a plane ticket and Pepto-Bismol. I was as ready as I’d ever be.

The shooting pains started when I was over Ohio.

I have never been so grateful for my appendix as I was that day. I’m told food poisoning is just as painful, and a lot messier.

Next year, I am going to stay home and cook.

The good news is that we didn’t have any of the sort of trouble I’d expected. Travel went very smoothly, and I am ever so glad that we didn’t try to fly on either the Wednesday before Thanksgiving or the Sunday afterwards. The airports were pretty slow on Thursday and Saturday. We had no trouble at all with the rental car, and only minimal navigational difficulties. All of my aunt’s cooking experiments came out well, and the trip to the storage unit was not just uneventful, but anticlimactic.

On the other hand…

My aunt—the one who did all the hosting, cooking, and organizing—developed appendicitis on Thursday night and spent all day Friday waiting to find out whether her appendix had to come out (it did), whether it could be done laprascopically (it could), and then waiting to have the operation.

Later that night—technically Saturday morning, about a quarter to four—the fire alarm went off at the retirement community where my grandmother lives. We were staying in one of the guest rooms, and as far as I know, we were the only ones who actually evacuated. The firemen were in no hurry at all when they arrived; it turns out that there was an electrical fault in the system.

Did I mention that it was darned cold in upstate New York that morning?

Anyway, I digress. My aunt then spent most of Saturday trying to find a doctor who could release her. Apparently, this took several hours; probably longer than the surgery itself. During which time, one of the toilets at her house overflowed. (As her 4-year-old grandson told us “there’s water all over the bathroom floor—it’s so cool!”)

I’m so glad we didn’t stick around to see what happened on Sunday.

And apparently it isn’t just my family that did not have the best Thanksgiving ever. One of my coworkers was almost shot by someone hunting illegally on his land (his hat was hit); two friends lost family members that week, and another coworker was in Paris on business during the transit strike and had a truly miserable time of trying to get to the hospital there.

Later today–perhaps even as you are reading this–I will be getting on a plane for upstate New York to visit my grandmother.

I will be wearing my red velvet, hooded winter coat.

I have been baking all kinds of goodies to take with me.

Therefore, I need a basket that fits under the seat in front of me.

Think about it.

He-Who-Does-Not-Wish-To-Be-Named: I need to get these pants lengthened. Or adjust the suspenders; I’m not sure which.

Me: Adjusting the suspenders is the cheaper option.

HWDNWTBN: I’m not sure how short they’re supposed to be.

Me: If you feel cut in half, they’re too short.

HWDNWTBN: Yes, but the real questions is, “Does ‘lift and separate’ only apply to bustiers?”

Fiancé: Bullsh!t.

Me: Oh, what an articulate argument.

Fiancé: When I need an articulate argument, I’ll use one. Until then—bullsh!t.

Coworker: So, how are the wedding plans going?

Me: I have the two things I really need—an officiant and a fiancé. Everything else is just details.

Fortunately, the details are coming along quite nicely. We have a culinary student who will be a newly-minted chef in a few weeks for the cake and hors d’oeuvres; his family also owns a huge tent that they are willing to rent us (complete with set-up and tear-down) at an extremely reasonable rate. One of my coworkers does wedding photography, so we’re going to get some portraits done as a test drive early next month.

Next on the list is rings, and as neither of us wants anything fancy, I expect that will go smoothly as well.