Does anyone have my red chair or a whole bottle of Percocet?

There is a massive remodel project taking over the Planning Department where I work. This project is happening, as all good Land Use projects should, in phases. Right now we are in the phase where we simulate the opening scene from Saving Private Ryan. The buildings may be cubicles and the noise may be more from hammers and drills than from guns and grenades but all in all it is a very convincing war zone around here right now.

This I can live with. I am reasonably sure I can pretend to do the same amount of work I usually pretend to AS LONG AS I CAN FIND MY DESK! Yesterday when I came into work my desk was there. It was in the same place it had always been. Long before I worked here and occupied that spot, the desk was there. Since it has been my desk an increasing number of “temporary walls” have been installed. These walls had two purposes. One was to see if county employees are better or worse than lab rats at getting through mazes. The second was to remind us that we could all lose a few of those post holiday pounds. The most direct route to my desk involved squeezing through a 1.5 ft opening between a temp wall and a cubicle. Many buttons were lost. Most people who had to get to the area went around the whole office (burning more calories) instead of embarrassing themselves by creating a situation where we have to call the fire department.
Fire Department: Tacoma Fire Department
County Employee: Hi, we have someone blocking a fire escape route.
Fire Department: Well have you asked them to move?
County Employee: Its just that. . . They are wedged IN it not just like standing there
Fire Department: Right. . .

But I digress, The temporary walls came down last weekend and suddenly my desk was a very crowded little island in a sea of new low quality carpet. Sure, fine, whatever. That worked until yesterday at around 9 when a young man whose job it is to brake down and put up cubicles informed me that ½ of my cubicle was needed and I was to put everything on one side. Sure, fine, whatever. Then he proceeded to take away ½ of my office and leave me SITTING IN A HALLWAY with no walls. Can we all say “Office Space”?
“If you could just move down to storage room B in the basement that would be great. Thanx”
Between 10 am and 4 pm I was told many tall tales including the one where I get a window. A real WINDOW people! Alas that was not to be the penthouse of cubes went to the engineers because they were willing to share. F-ing engineers. The only thing that was settled when I left yesterday was that I would be moved today. So I packed up all my things and files so I would be ready first thing in the morning but when I got here my desk was gone. My computer was gone. My files were gone. The dollar store glass rooster paperweight I won at the Christmas white elephant was gone. WTF! I mean this is the PLANNING department! Where is the planning people?
I am now sitting at a table with my things in boxes. The cube wall in front of me is falling over. The wall behind me is slated to be painted tonight so nothing can be done within 2 feet of it. There are wires hanging out of missing ceiling tiles to connect me to the network. The question is should I be happy or distraught that I have been told this in not my permanent place? This phase of the remodel is almost done. Lucky for me my new temporary place puts me right tin the middle of the next phase in which we recreate the scene in XXX where the entire drug farm burns down and Vin Diesel rides away on a dirt bike. Or maybe I mean that I try to drown out the crazies with all the wine from a whole wine farm (I know they are called vineyards but isn’t that just a fancy word for wine farm?) and end up burning down the whole office. And now we are back to Office Space. “Excuse me, I can’t find my stapler” or my monitor, or my Thomas Guide, or my sanity. . .

It is for your own good

This morning I realized that the “granola bar” I had for breakfast has about the same nutritional value as a doughnut. This “Nature Valley” product has a single redeeming quality in that it has ONE gram of fiber. Great, one gram that will help my digestive system about as much as a three year old with a broom will help you clean. About 5.3 seconds after finishing this healthy breakfast my blood sugar crashed in a big “fiery ball of death” style accident that left me whimpering and muttering at my desk. All of this pain and suffering for a ½ stale granola bar!?! You can rest assured that tomorrow I will rent a truck and hire an army of male midgets dressed as intimidating looking . . . um. . . . something’s to hurl the rest of this box of granola bars at innocent people on the street. I will do this as a public service because after you get hit in the head with a yogurt covered granola bar that was hurled at you by a small and disproportionate man you will not want to eat that granola bar.

Keeping it real is time consuming

I am sure that the millions of readers that wait with baited breath for me to post have all given themselves serious cases of exhaustion during my recent unexplained hiatus. Well I have news for you all, sometimes I have better things to do than post. Actually that might be a lie. It is not that I have BETTER things to do so much as I have more pressing things to do. Still, I do feel some slight pangs of remorse at my poor treatment of my ever dwindling audience so this post will serve as an update.
The ski obsession continues. I bought new ski boots because the pathetic relics that came with my season rental package were so lose in the heal my skis were running on a 2 second delay. Very annoying. The new boots had to be broken in and so I have spent more than a few evenings watching TV, Cooking, and just plain lounging around in my new boots. I discovered that the aggressive stance forced on me by these boots gives me a kick-ass gagsta walk that I have yet to duplicate without their help. I will keep you all updated on that project.
In training for the day I will have children, I have been cultivating a pattern of ignoring my dog and showering him with expensive gifts he will not appreciate or value as much as my time. Realizing that his recent efforts to cut the size of my underwear collection in half might have something to do with the lack of attention he receives, I have signed us up for an agility class. These are something like obstacle courses for your dog. I think he will be good at them and you can rest assured that there will be a flood of pictures of Taj in the near future. You will most likely be able to print them out and make a live action flip book of my dog jumping hurdles or some such thing every week because like all bad parents, I will be fully willing to take responsibility for his talent while blaming him for his habit of hiding behind me and whimper-growling when someone comes to the door.
My sister and I will soon have a new roommate. My last roommate is moving into our “guest” room. Therefore I will have to move all of my outdoor gear to the space under the basement stairs. On the plus side, I happen to know that this new addition to our little household will do the dishes and I hate to do the dishes. A reorganization of chores will be done soon and I love to reorganize. I probably spend more time planning and organizing than I spend doing and cleaning. Everything works better in theory than in real life. Because of my random “gypsy blood” syndrome, all this change makes me really want to move. Not in that I actually want to move because I know that I hate moving but I have begun to think that I would like to live on my own without family or boyfriends or roommates next time. Since both my sister and the new roommate are hoping to get into programs more than 100 miles away from the wondrous collection of crap and humanity I call tacompton, this might happen as soon as September. That will probably be too soon since we have discussed that I am not so good with the doing.
Well I hope that brings everyone up to date. And you, my IIFs, can expect the same level of renewed dedication I have promised to Taj. If I am lying I will send you each a handful of Milkbones.

Breakfast breakdown

Since the beginning of time (where “the beginning of time” is defined as long as I can personally remember) I have hated breakfast. First of all breakfast food is either dairy (which us lactose intolerant types should avoid), nasty (as in mainly made up of eggs) or sweet and my blood sugar will get in into all sorts of a jack-knifed-on-the-freeway-semi-truck-style crash if I so much as THINK about having nothing but a bowl of honey-nut-Cheerios or a scone for breakfast. Therefore the only breakfast food I DO like is made of potatoes or bacon (preferably make of potatoes AND bacon with enough cheese to burry modern day London under) and we all know that sensible people attempting to remain somewhat attractive for their incredibly deserving boyfriends should not consume such concoctions. Well, at least not on a regular basis. Therefore, for breakfast every morning I was growing up I had the same thing; a fight with my mother.
Usually I would argue that she did not eat breakfast so I should not have to. She argued that just because I did not see her eat breakfast did not mean she was not eating breakfast latter at work. I found this argument highly doubtful and completely unsatisfying but what can you do? One year in middle school I took to letting my cereal get soggy and nasty for 5 min and then throwing it away when my mother yelled that I would be late for school if I did not get walking. This resulted in me sitting in the back of the car while my mother drove me the 5 or 6 blocks to school choking down soggy cereal and drooling out milky spews of what looked like puke and went down just as easily. These fights dissipated as I grew older and found ways to trick her. I would get out a bowl and out some milk in it. Then I would take some cereal and grind it up leaving some on the table and some in the bowl. Then I would wait for her to tell me I had to clean up my dishes. This worked for a while but I was eventually caught and forced once again to suffer though generic raisin bran and Life cereal. Until my over crowded high school did the best thing ever; they split us into 3 lunches instead of 2.
This put first lunch at 10:30 in the morning and I suddenly had a leg to stand on. I convinced my mother that 10:30 was not at all an unreasonable time to eat breakfast for a member of a family who routinely ate dinner at 8. From then on I would eat my lunch for breakfast at 10:30, a meal sized snack after school around 3 and dinner at 8 thus eliminating breakfast food altogether. I vowed that along with eating entire cans of whipped topping or boxed of dry Fruit Loops as meals, I would cut out breakfast altogether once I was on my own.
College gave me may opportunities and among them was the opportunity to quit with the breakfast already! Unless by breakfast you mean a Bloody Mary with a side of bacon cheese hasbrowns at noon. Life was golden in the breakfast department until I realized that to loose weight one must eat breakfast. Something about “waking up” your metabolism. I do have to say though that I am much more productive when I eat breakfast. I get a lot done! I usually have toast and cottage cheese or yogurt with a large helping of Lactaid on the side which is survivable if you wash it down with some good tea. But this whole realization has made me feel a bit old. Next week’s topic: the many forms of fiber! (just kidding)