Smooth.

Today I went to a luncheon to accept an award, and in the span of the five minutes in which I was presented the award, I did the following:

1. Carried MY KEYS up to the stage with me (why?!) and then dropped them when handed the award.

2. Addressed the president of the company by the wrong name. The really wrong name, as in not even close.

3. Forgot to say THANK YOU. In my defense, I gave all the credit to someone else.

4. Said "wow" when some thunder roared outside during my speech.

5. Whacked a guest seated in the front row in the head with my award when walking back to my seat.

Hello!

I am writing these here words in order to kill some time, as I was JUST NOW getting on the horn to make several work related phone calls when HELLO my gardeners decided right this second would be a good time to roll up (an hour early!) and turn on every single landscaping device known to man, thus making me sound like I'm calling from inside a huge field. Also, my dog is having a complete tissy that they are here, even though they've been showing up every week for my dog's entire TEN AND A HALF YEAR LIFE, so get over yourself, DOG.

I should not be surprised, as this is how my entire day has been going.

First thing to go? COFFEE POT shattered to a billion pieces as I gently set it in the sink this morning. Such is the treat of fishing for glass in the garbage disposal.

I raced around for an early morning appointment here, only to finally be set up when she called to say she's coming THIS AFTERNOON instead.

I met with someone else today who informed me she was just starting to get a cold, and then decided to prove it by SNEEZING on my ARM.

I managed to re-arrange my entire office over the weekend, because the work flow/ability to reach things and spread out was off, and yet I'm camped out in my dining room to work instead. Fickle, much?

I'm awaiting a ray of sunshine. Anything.

I did have a funny moment last night. A couple of us tried a new steakhouse to the area, and I was unnaturally attracted to the buckets of peanuts they put on the tables, and the concept of shelling and eating the peanuts at your table and then dropping the shells onto the floor. Ohhh, rustic!

However, I was shy on making a mess, and instead was building a little shell pile next to my place setting. I was told to be bold! Push them to the floor! Everyone's doing it! Them! Look! Those old people just did it! That prissy looking lady just did it! DO IT!

I finally mustered the courage to do it, and with one grand swoop I slid my hand over my entire side of the table, the peanut shells flying off the table...up into the air...and landing on the dinner plate of another guest who's waiter was bringing them their food! And possibly hitting the waiter in the eye. So freeing!

Mint smells good.

Something is in the air that is causing people to be downright weird, and I for one am loving it. Here are some recent goodies:

I was grocery shopping, and the checker girl was ringing up a bag of fresh cilantro. She commented on how much she just loves the fragrance of the herb, and I agreed, but it went on and on as I was then treated to the many uses of the great and almighty cilantro. There was a young guy bagging my groceries, completely silent the entire time, just solemnly bagging my purchases. As he was escorting my cart out to the parking lot, I found it interesting that he was so quiet, and so I tried to make chit chat, but to no avail. I only received a polite nod or two. But when he was finished loading my car, and just as he slammed the back closed, he turned to me and asked, "You know what else smells good? Mint." Yes. Yes it does! And then I had to laugh as I got into my car, at the very thought that this was what his brain was working on the entire time!

After a whirlwhind weekend of fancy meals at fancy restaurants, I went out again Tuesday night with friends to another la-dee-da dinner. It was kind an older establishment, quite fancy and dark, and you could tell the waiters had come with the building - they were all older and well skilled with the menu and wine selections. Our waiter was particularly interesting because he was so...fast. He'd rattle off suggestions for the next course, and before you could ask a question, he was gone. This was generating a lot of laughter at our table, as we were actually writing down our questions so that we could be prepared for his next brief appearance. We also had to hold our ten foot high menus on our laps while we ate our appetizers because he had them on the table and split before we could even order our entrees. Awkward, but funny. At one point, I directed a little joke his way about what an entertaining waiter he was...and that's when the floodgates opened. Everytime he returned to our table afterward, he was performing....directly to me. All attendees at the table marveled at this, and wondered what he'd do next. For me, it was completely awkward, and actually felt like WORK as I had to stop enjoying my champagne and crab cakes and TAKE IN his performance and acknowledge it with praise. At the end of the evening, my friends felt he should have tipped ME.

This morning I was wrapping up a call with a client, and mentioned how quickly our spring-like weather had turned to pretty-damn-cold. He resonded with, "What we need you to do is, go outside and warm it up with your...(wait for it)...smile." Did he read that on MSN or something? "Impress the ladies with these weather-related witty comments. And possibly score!"

Today I won't be getting out of the office to interact with people until the afternoon, but I can't WAIT to see what happens next.

T'was not to be.

It was a career opportunity, that would have been huge, but people need to THINK ABOUT IT and WILL GET BACK TO ME, and this is the part where I cry.

I shouldn't have even written that post this morning, but I had to do something because I was all jittery and nervousy and sitting alone in an office with no one to yell "Holy crap I'm nervous!" to and it was starting to get to me.

So, there will be lots more champagne and a little less chocolate, because even the best chocolate can't get me out of my funk right now. I was hoping to toast to this opportunity, but I will try to remain classy and not a Bitter Betty (yet I'm totally thinking Bitter Betty thoughts towards the person making the final decision - example, I hope they are denied champagne and chocolate this evening!).

After all, I've only known about this possibility for less than a week, and I was doing okay before then, so I will pretend it didn't rear it's unattainable head and be on my way.

Gah and GRRR and whatever additional tsk tsk noise.

I love when she's vague.

I'm on the brink of something either terribly exciting, or terribly frightening...won't really know which until WAY late in the afternoon.

The good thing is, whichever it is, I'm prepared to handle both. And besides, by frightening, I don't mean scary...I mean challenging.

Valentine's Day! Let the chocolate and champagne indulging commence!

This one's for T-Dawggie

It's Miss T's anniversary of the day she was born.

For the past 8 years we've had an awesome friendship that has given me some of the best memories of my life. And also some of the craziest.

If I could give her anything, I'd give her the following (and this is going to be entertaining only to her):

KJ wine, a strict no-making-out-with-random-pizza-delivery-BOYS policy (at least not when I'm around, thank you), an alarm clock that shouts ("get out of bed, UGLY!"), the game I NEVER which lead to many discoveries we NEVER wanted to know, night's at your Pop Pop's cabin that always seem to go on forever, the dice cup with the fart in it, one more for the road, the memory of THE night in Hawaii in 2001 (you know what I'm talking about), Prince's booty, a giant spoon to be used to fling Rocky Road ice cream off the balcony onto that prick's head, a little tenderness, the glass I ripped off from El Torito for you but then never actually gave you, that dude Crank's phone number, jello shots that do not taste like toothpaste, the ability to locate the lantern BEFORE we lose power for two days at PP's cabin - not the day we leave ("Oh, it was right here. Huh."), opera voice messages on your answering machine, hold the tomatoes, a killer rack, 1.5 minute abs, non-hippy music, drives out into the "country" with our "moonshine", batteries ("why does it take SIX batteries to get me going?!"), those weird crepes you like so much, and...a lot more good times.

I'm probably going to think of a ton more things later, but I wanted to get this up before you got to work. I'll have a drink for you, since you cannot. I'm that good of a friend. I'll wait until at least 10 a.m. though. I'm responsible and shit.

Craptacular.

Yesterday afternoon I dashed out to my car, which was in my driveway, to head out to a very important meeting. I rounded the corner of my car to the driver's side to find a big pile of CRAP splashed all the way down the car window. Dried. (I'm taking another gag reflex JUST FOR YOU to share with you how glamourous my life is).

I was completely late for my meeting, so I surveyed the damage and I actually had to laugh. There was CRAP on my window. It was too big to be from a bird. It seriously looked like someone had FLUNG it at my window, which only made me laugh harder. I'm sure I looked like a loon standing there laughing at poo on my window. Now all my friends will get the idea that I would find it FUN to find dog shit burning on my front porch. For the record: I would not.

I finally figured it was probably from a cat, a cat of which I do not own. Said cat was probably crossing over my car to the neighbor's house, using my car as a fun obstacle course rather than, I don't know, just walking around my car. It was probably just at the top of the car when it heard my ferocious dog bark from the side yard and then in mid-air down from the car had the crap scared out of him, literally.

As I said, I was late, so I had to DRIVE to my meeting like this. You know how you can sense something out of your peripheral vision? Every time I came to a stop sign/light, I thought I felt something looking at me, but it was only the poop.

Even though I knew the people I was meeting with wouldn't actually see me get in or out of my car (I could have hopped off a boxcar for all they knew), I still parked a mile away and walked immediately away from the car as if there was NO WAY I just stepped out of a vehicle with crap on the window. In my head I heard someone sing, "Just a goood 'ole girl...never meanin' no harm...".

The meeting went well, and the people were so nice. One woman was telling me how horrible her day had been going, when for a second I thought I'd share my hilarious story, but somehow intelligence intervened and I decided not to.

But then I didn't even HAVE to.

A friend of mine, who had referred me to said company, came into the meeting about a half hour late, and when he sat down at the table he looked over to me and asked, "Did you know there's some sort of...crap?...on your car?"

Lesson learned: Even if you're in a suit and very late for a meeting, always hose the crap off your car. ALWAYS.

Added, but does not have anything to do with this entry, I just had to share the Shock and the Horror - I have to agree with Kitty on this one.