good luck meal

Heather had me over for a new years eve good luck feast.

"Take the picture in front of the festive bounty".  I appreciate that Heather has once again saved the day, helping me achieve my "one a day" record for posts each month.  When I think about the past 12 months, and everything that has happened, I can't think of a better way to round out the year.

Some recent events at work made me realize that even though I sometimes get sucked in to the feeling that I'm still new here and don't really know anyone, the reality is that I've made some really good friends here in as little of a time that I've been here.  And for that, I am thankful.

That being said, I am looking forward to a 2013 where I stay out of trouble.

Starting with tonight.  I am completely content with spending the night doing what I'm doing right now, brushing my hair.  I have to enjoy it while I can, the chop job is coming up.

New hair for the new year.  Except I'm waiting for my birthday, so I guess it's more like new hair for the new age.

I'm going to be sad to let it go.  It's been a fun accessory, but as I learned in 2012, all good things must come to an end.

So I'm ready for 2012 to end, and for whatever 2013 has in store.

it snuck up on me

As usual I am totally unprepared for the new year.  I was thinking about it in the shower just now and remembered that I have to pay rent.  That's how much I am resisting the passage of time.

At least I have a busy day planned for today, work this week, and then JONATHAN to look forward to for my birthday weekend.

Hopefully I will get my 31st post in tonight before midnight too.  Perhaps something about Beyonce...

a special visitor

Things have remained crazy at work, much to my dismay.  The only thing that made today bearable was getting to meet this fancy lady.

She was so funny, it was as if she didn't see anybody or anything else besides her owner.  Her owner kept trying to make her pose for my picture but she wanted nothing to do with it.  She just kept looking up at her owner and smiling and being nice.

More customers like this please.

is it over yet?

I am hoping to return to work today and find that things are getting back to normal.  When I last left there was still a hint of crazy in the air, but it's almost January.  People have to move on, they can't be still looking for the elusive after Christmas deal.

Think of me as I head to the trenches.

Some nice pictures

Yesterday as I was getting ready for work I went in to brush my teeth and discovered this handsome guy just relaxing in the sink.

He's like, "please, please don't take my picture"

I ended up brushing my teeth at the kitchen sink, so as not to disturb him any further than I obviously already had.

Then last night went to check on Heather's two precious angels and they even posed for a few pictures.

She's so nice : (

When she realized I was taking her picture she went to hide in the shadows, so the rest I got of her are a bit dark.

haha.  I love her.

Mia was a little harder to wrangle but once she calmed down I got a few nice shots of her

It's hard to picture her as a tiny kitten, she's so large and in charge now.

They have been very well behaved and nice, but they are anxious for Heather to come back.

And on a related note, this post has made me realize just how desperately I need a new phone.  Mine no longer transfers pictures to my computer so I had to individually email myself each of those pictures, just to share them with all of you.  I started doing it last night when I got home from work and am just finishing and posting them now.

So yeah, I guess a new phone is what I'm getting myself for my birthday.

worse than black friday

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I decided to google the number one thing I heard today at work, and find an image I liked to post for today.  I was not disappointed.

While not first on the list, it didn't take much scrolling for me to come across this gem when I searched for, "discount?".

Incidentally, that's the exact expression/gesture I made to my coworkers which meant, "I am going to need a drink after this".

It was seriously crazy, in an often terrifying way.  Mostly just crazy bargain hunters though, with no regard for the merchandise they were looking at.

There were a few familiar faces though, like the two women who come (no joke) at least 5 days a week and try on the exact same things, always in a size too small, and then leave empty handed.  I was telling Jon about them and he came up with, "well maybe they're getting gastric by-pass surgery and trying on your clothes is their way of gauging their progress".

So now I feel bad and they are kind of endearing to me, as long as I go along with Jon's theory, which he followed up with, "or maybe they have that thing from 50 first dates."

After a day like today, I'd say anything is possible.

The good news is that I made it out unscathed and even took care of some important life chores this evening.  And tomorrow I work a mid-shift so it should be easy breezy beautiful.

Keep your fingers crossed for me.

what day is it?!

Hard to believe it's Christmas when you ride your bike to the beach to lay out.

I enjoyed my day off, I hope you all did as well.  If you had to work today, thank you.

and to all a good night

Gala bought us leopard print santa hats to wear today at work and I must say, it helped make the LONG day go by a little bit faster.  I felt like this all day:




I even suggested we could choreograph this at one point when we were desperate for something to do as there were hardly any customers all day today.  Nobody else seemed to be interested though.

But still we got a lot of compliments from people, especially when they saw us all together.  We even took a nice Christmas card photo of the whole work family.

Now I'm finally home and I'm just looking forward to going to sleep, where hopefully visions of sugar plums will dance in my head.  Or visions of love.

Ooh, maybe I'll watch Glitter tonight, as an ode to my secret santa.  It sounds like the start of a new, fantastic, Christmas Eve tradition.

and I thought it was cold here

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I love the sound it makes!!  

And I no longer feel grumpy about the temperature here dropping in to the 50s.  

this is more accurate

Jon sent this to me saying it was me and the Detective.

I agree.

I think that Christmas card was more of what I imagine us to be like, but the reality is way closer to this.  When I got home tonight he was screaming at me but when I picked him up and tried to give him cuddles he just pressed all four paws against me and pushed me away with all his might.

We love each other.

thank you Jonathan!!

I love my beautiful Christmas card!!!

I guess they figured they could avoid me suing them for copyright infringement by changing the cat to white, since that is otherwise an obvious artists rendition of me and the detective.

I guess in the spirit of the holiday season I will let it slide and just display it proudly on the fridge.

a Christmas miracle

THANK YOU DERVON, YOU'RE THE BEST SECRET SANTA EVER!!!

Ugggghhhh, everyone said they've never seen me as excited as I was when I received my secret santa gift.  The beautiful wrapping was just really above and beyond.

I'm going to use this bag for every gift I give in the future, and then demand it back after they've gotten whatever I've put inside.  It's all about the presentation.

Waking up this morning at 5:30 was totally worth it.  That being said, I am going to pass out now.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

now THESE are Christmas cards

About a week ago Daniel and I had plans to take one of the dogs to the mall.  The morning of he texted me and said, "Wear a green shirt, we're going to take a picture with Santa".

Today we finally got to take the second one.

Haha, those pictures make me happy.

secret santa

The secret is that he's angry.

I am EXTREMELY excited for secret santa at work, especially since I finally got my gift for my person.  Now that the pressure is off I can relax until it's time to give my gift, but I'm pretty certain it will be well received.  Just like I'm pretty certain the gift I'm going to get is going to be amazing.

I just have a feeling.

Just like I had a feeling I could get a better picture of him with my secret santa gift, but I was definitely off base with that feeling.

First I was trying to do it cold, but I knew he wouldn't show up in the darkness.  And as usual, the flash just made him in to evil santa clause:

I decided I would be able to get a great shot, I just needed to do some preparation.  Step one was feeding the detective, to hopefully help produce a less cantankerous santa clause.  While he was stuffing his gut I moved on to step two; lighting.

And yet, I really didn't end up with anything worthy of a Christmas card.  I got several nearly identical shots of dead behind the eyes santa:

it didn't get long for him to tire of the light, or the present.  I tried in vain to maintain his attention, but when I crossed the line to actually touching him is when he just straight up started biting me and kicking me.

The final pictures were of him glaring at me from behind the present, moments before he ran away altogether:

haha he says, "MERRY CHRISTMAS.  I'M ANGRY!"

my break friends

If I'm not stuffing my face for my entire break I usually walk around the mall and say hi to all my friends at their various stores.  Sadly today I had nobody to visit, so I spent my break hanging out with these guys.

They are so big and nice!  I like how they just swim laps around their pond, smiling at people and being friends.

I wonder if I would get in trouble for bringing them food...

Jonathan's for now Christmas gift

So I got something VERY nice today for an EXTREMELY GOOD VALUE through my work.  I thought I was going to be able to get two and give one to JONATHAN for Christmas but I was only able to get one.  

IT'S VERY NICE AND I WANT IT FOR MYSELF VERY BADLY.  But, I feel bad taking it for myself, when I was so excited to give Jon one as well.  

So I am going to wait, and if I can't find another more amazing gift for Jonathan, I will give it to him.  Because I know he will like it, everyone likes it.  Especially me.

This gives me incentive to come up with something even better to give to him, so I can keep this for myself.  

I still have time. In the meantime the box will sit on my counter and taunt me.  Did I mention that it's VERY nice?   

I would write this

I had to fill out a personality quiz for a contest that Elliot MADE me participate in at my old job and one of the questions was, "What is your favorite genre of music".  I answered Mariah Carey, and I stand by that.

Somehow I did not win the contest though.

Anyways, thank you Jonathan for sending me that picture, and yes, those are also my career goals.

for Rachel

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The trip down memory lane I took in order to find the original post about my Beyonce new years resolution led me to this post which has a comment from Rachel about the Books of Adam blog.

I don't know if I ever went to it back in January, but it is amazing.

http://www.booksofadam.com/

she's single!

Saw this on my way out of work.  Initially I read it as Ms. Doom, then thought it was Ms. Boom.  Upon closer inspection I realized it was just an orange leaf that made the d look like a b and that it was in fact, "Ms. Doom".

I like it.  She either was married to Dr. Doom and divorced him, or she's his daughter.  No matter which, she's obviously well connected.  I'm going to keep my eye out for her now whenever I'm at work.

What do you think she looks like?  I asked google and it mysteriously came up with this:

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which, while not really relating, does help me with my new years resolution from last January that I kind of forgot all about.  If you're interested the post is here about how I was making it my resolution to post more about Beyonce.  I feel like I've let everyone down.  I've posted hardly anything Beyonce all year.  What's weird is that I just told Noriko the story of Dan paying the DJ to play nothing but beyonce for my birthday.  Clearly it's a sign for me to make good on my new years resolution while I still have time.

So you can expect a Beyonce heavy next couple of weeks.

if you're from africa, why are you white?

This is what my car's GPS said this morning.

I was trying to use it to navigate  but it was giving me all kinds of attitude so I finally gave up and just used my phone.  It wasn't until I was on my home that I glanced at it and saw that it had me somewhere off the coast of Africa.

I wish!  Well maybe not in the actual ocean but it would still be cool to be on the other side of the Atlantic.  Sadly I am not, my car is apparently just a little confused, and I am going to have to accept it.

Or move to Africa, you know so I can use the map.

Either way, the lesson I learned today is that you can't just ask people why they're white.

classy

I had to drop off my car for its official service since I've had it and I unexpectedly was given a loaner car for the day.

It had to be white!  And because it's newer than mine it has the fancy LED fog lights, as well as a feature inside that I never figured out.

In between 10mph and park was a little picture of a coffee cup.  At first I thought maybe it had cup holder warmers so I kept sticking my hands in the cup holders and trying to decide if they felt warmer or if I just really wanted them to feel warmer.  After to and from work I decided the cup holders weren't heated.  Now that I'm home and can use the magic of google I find that I am not the only one baffled by the coffee cup icon.  Apparently it's to inform you that the "Attention Assist" is on which monitors your driving and alerts you if it thinks you are falling asleep at the wheel.  I still don't really get the coffee icon but it's an interesting feature.

Mostly I just couldn't get over the color.  White mercedes make me think of this:

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and make me regret not getting my car in white.  But then when I really think about it I've never been a Samantha anyways, and I've always thought my color was more of a Blanche Devereaux, to whom I think I relate much better.

So even though it was fun to ride in style in the sedan I was still happy to see my car at the end of the night.

at work today

This was written on the bathroom door lock and it made me laugh.

I feel like that is something Jonathan would do.

apparently the rhythm gets everyone eventually

Meghan, thank you so much for sending this to me.  Really, you truly understand me so well.

: (

Why is he doing that?!

: ( : (

I love her!

Now if our meetings with corporate to learn about product were more like this, I think I would understand fashion a lot better.

Thank you Kim for sending this to me.  She makes me happy.

tamara brought us marshmallows

Tamara is definitely my favorite customer at my new job, and not JUST because she brought us pink peppermint marshmallows today.  THEY ARE SO GOOD!!!

Apparently we were waiting for a scarf to come in that she wanted and when Dervon called her to tell her it had arrived she said she'd be in to pick it up, and she was going to bring marshmallows.  Boy did she deliver too!

She kind of reminds me of Mary from the juice bar, who would always come in after work.  Thinking about her just now took me on a trip down memory lane to some of the interesting regulars we had at that place.  Like the lady who would always come in with her coat hanging off her shoulders and her sunglasses balanced on the brink of her nose, always in a crazy flurry.  She would always look at the desserts and then complain that they all had so much agave, which she pronounced "Aguave".  Allie would always have to turn her head away because she couldn't stop laughing.

There was a really eccentric regular who, upon finding out that I had gone to school for writing, would always insist that I should write a tv show about all the cooky characters that came in there.  While I'm glad I never wasted any of my life on that venture, I am always disappointed when I think of all the missed opportunities for blog posts if only I had started this back when I worked there.  I would even have documented my meeting the Detective, and subsequently agreeing to tolerate living with him.  I sadly don't even have pictures from back then, and when I looked back on facebook the oldest pictures I found were terrible.  Well actually, they are kind of hilarious, and pretty accurately reflect the kind of cat he was and still is:

This is the most frequent way I see him, back turned to me, semi lifeless on the floor.  Lately he has taken to resting his head on any elevated surface, but otherwise this sums it up.  Otherwise, the other pictures of him from the same night are these:

Hahaha, it was a Christmas miracle indeed.  Awww, this makes me miss living with Ariel, that's one thing that's definitely not still the same.  I liked when the detective smelled like Chanel after their cuddles.

Now I'm all nostalgic and missing having roommates to give Christmas presents too.  And I don't even have peppermint marshmallows to drown my sorrows in, I left them at work!

But at least I have the detective.

for Jonathan, and all of you

So good!  All of the kids have the exact facial expressions I would have if I got to do what they're doing.  And I love how in to it Jimmy Fallon is.

I'm watching this as many times as possible before I have to go to work.

two nice guys

About a week ago I was out visiting Brendan at work which is when I met Daniel and Doc.  Doc is the nice guy under my right arm in that picture, the other handsome guy is Gunner.

I actually didn't even notice Doc at first, but when I did I admit I was one of those terrible people that had to pet him and give him attention even though he was wearing his service dog vest.  I couldn't resist!  I hope that Daniel has forgiven me by now because since meeting him and finding out what he was doing I have actually started volunteering with him.

You should check it out here, there's lots of good information about the organization, and pictures!  For any of you who know about my history you'll understand why this is a weirdly perfect fit for me.

So yeah, I'm looking forward to updating you guys on how those handsome guys are doing, and hopefully posting about more new recruits to come.  In the meantime, here's my favorite picture of them I found on their facebook page:

I love all of them

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Ugh it was so hard to pick a favorite.  That first one is really good too.

Thank you Jeanne for sending me the link.

more of these please

So good!  If you're like me you'll want to watch them side by side so I'll do you a favor and just add this in here:




Thank you Jonathan for sending this to me.  I am just going to throw a suggestion out for his next video.  Crybaby.  Look, there's even already a lego Snoop!

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how I feel on the inside

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The other day Gala and I were having a conversation at work and she commented that my real personality doesn't match the way I look on the outside.  I wholeheartedly agreed with her and said I have never really felt like my outside appearance felt right for the person I am inside.  At this point she said, "you sound transgendered".

It's not that extreme.  I quite enjoy being a guy and really have no interest in being a girl, but I do feel like people always expect me to be someone that I am not at all.  I explained this to Gala so she followed up with, "well who do you feel like your personality would look like?"

What immediately came out of my mouth was something along the lines of, "Oh you know, I guess Carrot Top".  I've been thinking about this a lot lately and honestly have yet to come up with a better person to take his place.  I was intending to do this post about all the other better people I've come up with as I've thought about this over the past couple days but really nobody comes to mind.  I feel like I should look like Carrot Top.  Not so much current Carrot Top as vintage Carrot Top.  The one that was always making corny jokes that you hated to laugh at.

The more I stare at that picture the more I think, "I should really set up an appointment with Toni to get my hair cut"

rabbit rabbit rabbit

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I was so caught off guard by the changing of the months that I didn't even pay my rent until this morning.  I realized as soon as I woke so I wrote a really bleary eyed check with a signature that doesn't even look like mine.  I hope the bank accepts it.

And just like that, here we find ourselves beginning the final month of the year.  Oh and the world is supposed to end halfway through too!  Lots to look forward to.

I for one look forward to the new year.  It's going to be an interesting one for me, lots of new years resolutions to work on.  All in all though I'm amazed (as usual) in the difference a year makes.  When I think of what was going on for me a year ago compared to now I can really only be thankful.

Speaking of thankful, I would also be thankful to anybody that wants to get me a new calendar for the new year.  I've not seen Barbie 2013 so I'm thinking maybe I'll have to move on to a new theme, I'm open to suggestions.  In the meantime, enjoy your final Barbie for 2012, I know I am: