Oh How I Love Thee Halloween

Halloween and I have a BEAUTIFUL relationship. Pure bliss.

It’s my favorite holiday. FAV.OR.ITE.

What was your costume this year? Leading up to Halloween, I was worried about having a good one. I was dreaming about it even.

Thankfully, though, Halloween stores pop up in random strip malls around here and my friend Emily stepped in as well.

I came up with three costumes. One for work, one for the Friday night party and one for the Saturday night party. Try and guess which one was my favorite.

ETHNIC ZOMBIE of course!*

All the stars aligned this year to provide me with a suitable costume for the party at the Nook Friday night.

Mom lent me capris, I found makeup at a Halloween store, and Pib’s Exchange provided the beret and striped shirt with art print and spider-web nylons for the remainder of my getup. I was pleasantly surprised by how well the makeup turned out. And by pleasant, I mean, eerily surprised by my ghoulish features.

Now I’m just waiting for friends to post pictures from the party on Facebook. So far only Leigh has, but you can only see my face.

So I’m waiting.

*The grey wig for work conjured up plenty of comments and the hippie costume afforded me the opportunity to wear fake eyelashes so 2^nd and 3^rd place were still fabulous costumes.

Episode 52: Too Quiet at the Office

I’m chomping on Saltines right now.

Apparently, I want to make myself thirsty. Or reminisce about eating lots of these as a child and downing them with 7up on sick days. Yummy diet!

I’m not eating them today because I’m sick.

I’m eating them because they are there.

It’s 4:42 pm on a Friday. I just finished one of my tasks and don’t want to start up a new one this close to the start of a beautiful, holiday weekend.

So I’m trying to keep myself occupied. And I begin to eat Saltines.

I’m so hungry. They aren’t very filling. Why don’t I have a cheeseburger lying on the desk waiting to be consumed instead?

I can’t hear a THING over the crunching of my crackers.

Except for every time I hit the space bar. I have the LOUDEST space bar. Ask all my cube neighbors.

They aren’t making much noise right now, though.

Do you know what a quiet office means?

WHY ARE YOU STILL AT WORK WHEN IT’S SO QUIET?

Nobody else is here.

Go home already.

Who cares if it’s not 5:00 pm yet?

You’re salaried. You got your work done today.

Go home.

 

Okay. I’m going home.

I need to get my costume ready for tonight.

I LOVE HALLOWEEN!!!

Oh Joy! Columbus Day

Today is Columbus Day. Did you even realize when you woke up this morning that it was a holiday?

I have so many wonderful memories of Columbus Days from my past.

Oh wait. No. I only have one.

I remember one of my elementary school teachers using chalk (I believe) to outline the sizes of the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria in the courtyard outside and then having all of the classes walk outside and stand inside “the boats.”

They were tiny.

A few people got seasick.

It was memorable.

What a nifty holiday that honors an Italian, sailing under the Spanish flag who thought he was sailing to India, but instead landed in the Bahamas.

Wow. What a holiday.

I almost forgot we even had one today. I’m counting down to HALLOWEEN, thank you very much.

Episode 53: Larrie’s New Workplace Diet

Okay so swimsuit season is officially over with the passing of Labor Day and the closing of pools around the valley. One pool they didn’t have to close though was my pool. Why? Because the city condemned my pool therefore, it never opened. Thank you health department for pointing out all of our tripping hazards, the ladder that’s not attached to the pool, and the ducks living in the deep end.

With the end of swimsuit season, it’s also time to stop swimsuit dieting. Hooray!

I came into work yesterday morning with this realization. So now the swimsuit diet is replaced with the Halloween costume diet.

I LOVE THE HALLOWEEN COSTUME DIET!

It required me to go to the store the other night and I purchased things like precooked bacon, shredded mild cheddar cheese, pomegranate and a bag of fun-size Snickers. I left the bacon and cheese in my fridge at home (after making a delicious grilled cheese that also included a little mustard and a pinch of paprika), but I brought the pomegranate to work along with the Snickers of course.

Here’s how a typical day of the new Halloween Costume Diet went yesterday:

1. Eat two Snickers fun-size candy bars in the car on the way to work.
2. Drink the G2 at your desk.
3. Have another Snickers for a snack.
4. Eat/drink lunch: SlimFast, peach, pear and an apple.
5. Eat two more Snickers as a dessert.
6. Eat four or five Hershey Kisses filled with caramel for a snack.
7. Eat two Reeses’ PB Cups at the developer’s desk while pointing out bugs in the application.
8. Spend 15 minutes looking online for HOW to eat a pomegranate, then spend 20 minutes soaking it in water and 26 minutes getting all the little seeds into a bowl; eat three or four of those precious little seeds and realize that they don’t taste as good as Snickers.
9. Grab one more Snickers to eat as you walk out to your car.
10. Get home and eat some sugar cookie dough from the freezer.
11. Pour a large bowl of Trix and eat it with healthy, skim milk.
12. For dessert, get frozen custard with brownie bits mixed in from Nielsen’s Frozen Custard.

The end.

Good diet.

Thank you.

I’m off to a great start so far and I feel just great! Superb, really, while sitting here in my office chair, burning away the calories I’ve eaten so far (which include more Snickers and two hostess cupcakes).

I think I’ll eat a Hershey’s Kiss with caramel in the middle.

Attack of the Deer

I was attacked… at Maren’s rockin’ Halloween party. Luckily, the deer (James) doesn’t bite TOO hard.

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Political Link of the Day: “The Treatment of Bush Has Been a Disgrace“

Episode 24: Happy Halloween! Bring on the Chocolate

MZ left her computer unlocked yesterday and it didn’t take long before an email was sent out with her name in the “From”:

Subject: I need chocolate

I’m having a rough day around here, kids… please bring me chocolate and I will heart you forever.

-mz

See what happens when you leave your computer unattended where I work?

Apparently, the chocolate gods smile on this behavior. So can somebody please tell me why I continue to lock my computer so that nobody has access to sending emails out “from me”? If I started leaving it open to the world, perhaps I would get some chocolate, too.

The last time I left my computer in such a vulnerable state, I was working in a different department. The chocolate gods didn’t care about the goings-on in that department… at least not enough to bestow gifts of their cocoa goodness on us. Instead, an email was sent out inviting people to a barbecue at my place.

I did get a response from a coworker saying they were so bummed they’d be out of town and couldn’t make it.

It’s okay, friend. Just bring me some chocolate as part of your RSVP.

P.S. I won again today! We had a drawing in our on-site gym to celebrate Halloween and I won one of the gift cards. Guess where I get to go spend free money? BARNES & NOBLE! HIP HIP POORAY!

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Political Link(s) of the Day: “Obama alone is willing to discuss the economy,” and “McCain’s plan to lower taxes is America’s express lane back to prosperity.” (Two economists present two opposing opinions about who would be better for the economy; which article is more convincing? Notice I asked which article, not which candidate…)

Bonus Halloween Post

For those of you using an RSS Reader, you’re missing out on the festive header on my blog. Stop in, check it out. I spend HOURS creating it. Seriously. HOURS.