Ain't it so?

Guinness Book, here I come! Day 15 or 16...I've lost count.

Icky picture, but doesn't it look like I could beat 3.75 inches? Hahahahaha! Glory is mine!

15th day for Mighty Morphin Power Rangerrrrrrrrs!

*Insert theme song to Power Rangers here*

C finally came in this week for this Friday's party, and today he rode his motocicleta in.  Along with it, he brought (and wore) a riding jacket, and this lovely creation you see before you. He glued on the mohawk, and in person it looks pretty neat.  However, I couldn't help myself...I had to hum the theme song to MMPR.  I thereby dubbed him  The White/Black Ranger. (I couldn't decide).

and on the 14th day, he puked.

So little Bizzou decided it was time to get sick :-( 

Sparing the details, I figure it'll suffice to say that his tummy hurt and he had to go get checked out.  I took this picture some kind of weird way by accident, but I think its iconography lends itself to describing the type of day it was.  Thanks, Bailey. LoL

Get better soon, Bizzou!!!!

day 13: My, how cultures differ...

I came across this at Jewel the other day.  According to some people I've asked, it's actually quite good, especially with custard. I don't know....maybe it's my immaturity, or maybe it's because I'm so Americanized in my thought processes, but I don't think I would eat anything called spotted dick. Especially not with custard. 

Day 11 on 12...the day the computer fried.

I was trying to come up with a good idea for a picture for day 11, and I figured this would be interesting at the very least. To me, it almost looks like a couple of pictures in one.  LoL I'd forgotten that my car had the outline of a horse on the windshield hahahaha

day 10 - a day without the red car

So yeah, I went to see another place the other day, and it was pretty freakin nice, buddy!  No Stedman, no odd smells, no Gottis... just a nice place to live. And it has a tree! lol

day 9, hungry and harried...

It's about freakin' time!!!

Maybe i'll be able to concentrate on a blog after I eat this delicious pizza. Bon apetit! 

Bugzie presents: Day 8!

Yesterday morning was quite nice.  On Saturday, I decided that I needed to spend more one-on-one time with the littles.  So, keeping true to my word, I took Bugzie upstairs with me to hang out.  This is a bit dangerous as he's not completely housebroken... but I decided to give him an opportunity to prove that he could hold it for a few hours.  He was great!

We played a little bit, wrestled an old sock from one another for a while, and then I put him in a downstay (where he has to lay down and not move until I tell him he can get up - it's a part of their training).  Well, aside from a couple of army crawls, he did what I told him to do.  In fact, he was so good, he fell asleep -- a good sign for a dog being forced to stay still.  After a while, I fell asleep, too.  Funniest thing - I had the Golden Girls playing on the DVD, and as soon as the episode ended (well, the one I slept through), Bugzie got up, licked my face to wake me up, and bolted for the door.  I opened the door and he raced downstairs to the back door and waited for me to open it.  He told me he had to go!! So exciting. :-D  It was a good day for Bugz.

btw.... It ain't a Gril. jajajajaja!

Do not adjust your television sets...this is day 7.

...this is the Sears Tower on drugs.  Any questions? 

So basically this is what happens when you take a picture with a camera phone that's attached to your hip.  I think it looks like what one might see after having two too many drinks during the day.  Oooooh but look out, world...I've now found out that I can take B&W and Sepia shots...so I'll be having a tad bit more fun with my rando pictures....bwa ha haaaaa :-D

And here's my contribution on the sixth day...

Ho un occhio eccezionale...

It seems like I see things in a very different way than other people.  I keep hearing people talk about what their kids have been up to, what their spouses have been up to, and how they all react to it.  I've come to realize that I've got a unique (or perhaps warped) view when it comes to life!  

Stedman!! Get off your fat butt and turn off that XBox! aka Dia cinque

See that car? That's the car of shame.

I went to see a townhouse on my lunch break, and the owner wasn't supposed to be at home.  Well, that ended up being true... but it didn't end up how Marva and I had expected it to be.  When I first saw the red car in the driveway, I got this vibe that something wasn't exactly kosher.  When we got to the door, instead of just using the key to get in, Marva rang the doorbell.  I just knew someone would answer, but little did we know the blue collar Stedman Graham would answer the door. Upon answering the door, he told us that his girlfriend was the one that owned the townhouse and that he was just getting in.  Apparently, Mr. Graham over there wasn't aware that people were going to be coming to view the house... so he cautioned us of the mess.  To keep the story really short (cuz the clock is tic-tic-tickin'), he'd just returned from a game of golf (at 1:30pm) and had apparently retired to the upstairs loft to watch a few "internet videos" a few minutes before we arrived.  While we toured the house, Mr. Graham sat downstairs playing what sounded like Halo II on the ol'  XBox or Playstation.  I saw underwear sitting on top of an unmade bed, denim overalls on the floor next to the bed, lovely magazines in the bathroom and computer loft (next to the "internet videos").  I couldn't get out of that place fast enough. 

Why is it ok for grown men to crash at their girlfriend's house, trash the place, hook up some good old internet porn, play golf, and lose repeatedly on Halo II while sitting of the floor of the living room (surrounded by papers, food, and random articles of clothing?

GAH.

Pretend that it's still 29 July until noon today....so this can be Day 4!

Have you ever, while in the midst of rushing from one place to another, just stopped and looked up?  And oh, wasn't it beautiful when you did?

That's pretty much what happened in the middle of my day of mad dashes yesterday. For some reason, it was meant for me to be on the run from 3:15 until lord knows when last night. Errands, obligations, bla bla bla. The important thing here is that at about 4:45, I stopped and looked up on my way back to the office.  

I don't know if many people react the way I do to things, so what I'm going to say may seem fairly odd.  When I stopped on the corner of Washington and Wacker, I looked at the sign for the Lyric Opera House and realized what a shame it is that people so often take their surroundings for granted.  Too often, people rush by on their way to work or on their way home and completely overlook the beauty in the world.  That's not to say that the Lyric Opera is drop dead gorgeous, but there's definitely some beauty in it.  In fact, the architecture in Chicago is amazingly beautiful in its detail and form! 

I also think that this could extend itself to be a metaphor for life in general.  If people speed by tangible beauty and splendor, it stands to reason that they also neglect to fully appreciate the inner beauty and splendor of the people they deal with each day.  I suppose that's the way life is sometimes. Yesterday served as a tiny wake up call for me -- I'm glad it struck me hard enough to make me stop and pay attention!

...it also hooked me up with a picture for day 4. Hot damn!

T-27, or day 3: These are the best times

Mes chiots sont adorable, non?

Today is a fabulous day.  Julian has gone to New York to visit a friend, so there's nobody to look after the littles during the day. I couldn't leave them outside in their puppy yard all alone all day, so I got clearance to work from home.  Aside from the house being insanely quiet, it's absolutely wonderful to be able to concentrate on what I need to do without being interrupted or distracted every few minutes.  Now I get to choose and schedule my own distractions!  Oh, and what kind of Portia would I be if I didn't choose the littles? 

This has been the best Monday I've had in a while! Every hour or so, I go outside and play with Bugz and Beez...and I feel so much more connected with them than I have in a long time.  Before I moved back out to Orland, the littles and I spent quite a lot of time together.  We would go on long walks, go to stores, meet new people (and new dogs), and bond all of the time.  Unfortunately, since I'm now so far away from them during the day, it seems like I barely get time to just sit and play with them.  That's been my only regret in moving out to the suburbs.

HA! But what a day! it feels like old times.  Now all I need is an ice cream cone, two more hires under my belt at work, and a winning lottery ticket (5-5-0) hahaha

More news at 5.

day 2 - The political correctness of Human Resources

Ok, so there are times at work when something comes along and just totally blows me away. Sometimes it's sad, sometimes it's good, and sometimes it's just so WTF that all I can do is point and laugh. Yesterday was one of those times where I pointed and laughed.

Toward the end of the day, I got a package from a person who we brought in to work for the company (mon boulot).   About a week earlier, I sent him a new hire packet, which contained his paperwork, all neatly placed in a black trifold folder with the company logo on it.  The folders are great for sending those types of things, but unfortunately they are easy to stain and tend to act like carbon paper -- if you lay a piece of paper on top of it and write something, 9 times out of 10 you'll be able to make out the imprint of the words on the folder.

I *almost* wish the new guy knew that.

When I opened the package, I found that he used same folder to keep his paperwork together.  I mindlessly looked at the folder before I opened it, and saw that some words had been etched into the front of the folder.  At first glance, all I saw was their return address and the company address.  That makes sense, as he probably filled out the mailing information after he put the folder in the mailing envelope.  However, upon further inspection, I saw a few other words...and couldn't stop myself from laughing!!

...this fool, without knowing that his words would transfer onto the folder (we assume), wrote what you can mostly make out in the picture above.  In my profession, we don't expect to see a lot of politically incorrect or off-color things in or on standard paperwork...so when I saw the phrase "nigga please" on the top of an official company new hire folder, I almost choked on a guffaw!

Come on.....nigga please?!?!?! PRICELESS!

What made it better was some of the other stuff written on there. Words like "dryer", "spray", "clothes", and "2day" were scattered amongst some other words I couldn't quite make out.  From that, I decided I knew what happened...and since I'm writing about it, I'll share it on the blogosphere:

Mr. New Hire sat down at the kitchen table one morning so that he could fill out his new hire paperwork.  He took the papers out of the folder and sat the folder aside.  In the middle of filling out his stuff, he got a phone call from one of his buddies...so now he's multitasking.  After a minute or so of being on the phone, his wife approached him and tried to talk to him while he was still on the phone and filling out paperwork.  Not being able to get him to pay attention to her, his wife pulled out a sheet of paper from somewhere, put it on the folder, and wrote a note to Mr. New Hire.  She asked him to wash the clothes, take the shirts out of the wash, spray them down, hang them, and then put the rest of the stuff in the dryer.  Amidst his frustration with trying to juggle his paperwork, a phone conversation, and his wife nagging him about some laundry when she *knows* he's busy doing stuff (and realizing that "get off my back, woman" is too dated of an expression), he grabbed the pen from her and wrote NIGGA PLEASE.  Of course, this annoyed his wife and she walked away. Finally, he was able to finish up the rest of his paperwork and talk to his buddy in peace...which, in turn, made this whole story possible.

Things like this make me smile :-D

Ah la la, il est trop mignonne, je l'adore!!

As this is an unexpected post, here is an unexpected picture.  I decided to spin in my chair, hold up the camera, and find a target for my random picture taking.  As you can see, we ended up with a picture of bonne sœur Joanna Kerns 

holding père Francis in her arms...next to a

description of what the spanish speaker does when

Paco is not around.

YUM.

Bonjour, mes enfants!