The Challenge of Mondays...

I always think the hardest part about Mondays is actually getting out of bed. Once you tell yourself it really and truly is time to get up and your feet finally hit your bedroom floor after being roused from a comfortable slumber, it's all slightly more downhill. Once you're up, you're up. The rest of the day passes, maybe in a bit of a fog, but it passes. When you're done, you're left with the triumph of knowing you got through another Monday.

But it's that getting out of bed that's the hardest. This morning, my bed was a warm cocoon around me. I had stayed up too late reading and all I wanted to do was snuggle into my down comforter and ignore the fact that my alarm was blaring and that it was time to put on Mr. Weatherman and Company to find out what was going on in the Cincinnati area.

I did make it today. It was hard. I keep my house cool at night- partially because it means I don't have to pay quite so much for heat and partially because I sort of like being cold until I climb under the covers and make my little nest. This morning, it felt cold without me needing to stick more than my nose out into my room. Getting up was painful. I wanted to bash my radio alarm with a hammer so that I could pretend it never went off.

Yet, as usual, I succumbed to the necessity of the workday and got up. After that, the day got easier.

It wasn't a bad day today. I'm in a busy phase at work. My days tend to rush by rather quickly. I had the added bonus of going to a birthday lunch today which was extra nice. My brownies seemed to be a hit. I went to put them away at the end of the day, back into their Tupperware, only to discover there was one, lone brownie left. Also, I didn't get pelted with my baked goods so thus, I think it was definitely a success.

Yet my favourite part of Mondays is the end of the day: Coming home. I like Monday evenings. To me, they're a reward after a hard, labourious day in the office. I rarely schedule anything for Monday evenings because I know I'm going to be useless. All I really want to do on a Monday night is come home, take off my shoes and relax. The rest of the week never seems to be quite as hard, it's really just Mondays.

That's not to say I don't like Mondays. They have their place. Everything must begin, just as everything must end. I appreciate Mondays because they make me appreciate Friday afternoons. Monday mornings are the polar opposite to a Friday afternoon. Monday mornings are, typically, sluggish blurs of time in which you tend to grunt at your coworkers in what you think is a friendly tone to ask about their weekend when, in actuality, you're still half-asleep and won't remember a few hours from when you asked. In contrast, ask a coworker what he/she has planned for the weekend and it's usually likely you might still remember on Monday. It's peculiar. Mondays are full of darkness, Friday's full of light. Naturally, this is only applicable to the employees, like me, who work a regular Monday to Friday week though I'm sure it's the same no matter when your workweek begins and ends.

My Monday evening is almost over. I didn't make quite as much of it as I wanted to though I did make a tasty dinner- Tuscan bean soup with spinach and garlic with parmesan crisps as an accompaniment. I also managed to make a shopping list based on recipes I want to try from my cookbooks. I managed to talk to a friend and to submit a query to another agent because I recieved a rejection yesterday from one of the five I queried last week. My current strategy is to submit one query for every rejection I receive. This way, in theory, I should always have five query letters out there in rotation, even when I get rejected. Hopefully, I can keep up with that.

Tomorrow night, I'd like to pretend I'm going to do what I always say I'm going to do: Come home, flop on the settee and do nothing but watch the television. However, even when I intend to do that, something ends up distracting me. Tomorrow, for example, I plan on a trip to Jungle Jim's. My recipes require ingredients and where better to find my ingredients that the best grocery store I've ever been to? I just hope they have cardoons. They generally do. I have two or three recipes which require them. The last time I was there, I bought them on a whim and ended up making an amazingly tasty Baked Cardoons- Roman Style recipe from Mr. Batali. Fabulous, if I do say so myself.

I'm rambling. However, since it's a Monday, I think I have a pass. Mondays are rambly type of days. I don't really know what my excuse is the other five days of the week but I bet you I could probably find a way to blog about it.

For now, however, this has been a Monday- for better or for worse. The way I look at it is that I managed to get out of bed and make it to work on time. It's not much but, for a Monday, it's half the battle. The rest of the week should be a breeze.

Happy Monday...

An Appreciation for Birthdays...

Somehow it's already managed to be Sunday night again and it seems like the weekend was just beginning. That's one of those mysteries to me: How can time during the workday move so slowly and yet the minute you're free, it whizzes by?

Nevertheless, no matter how quickly it went by, I managed to have a lovely weekend. Fortunately, the weather did not prevent my original plans of going to my parent's to celebrate my birthday. I'm glad: Had I not gone, I would have spent the day alone. That's not to say I don't like being alone but somehow, it would seem more lonely on my birthday.

It was a wonderful birthday in the end. It was nice to spend the day with my family, receive some amazingly thoughtful gifts and enjoy reading all the nice and thoughtful comments of Facebook. That's what I like about Facebook- even if it's a simple comment, it's nice to see that your friends know it's your birthday. It's a nice way of knowing people care enough to take the time to write something.

My birthday's almost over. I did my baking tonight when I got home from my parent's. My plan was to make a chocolate amaretti cake, some brownies and maybe some cranberry walnut cookies. Well, I ended up not making the cranberry cookies because I lacked walnuts. Also, I lacked the desire to make them. The chocolate amaretti cake became chocolate amaretti brownie bites. This is because the stupid cake stuck to the pan even after it was cool and even after I used non-stick spray. On the plus side, it tasted nice. On the downside, I had to cut squares out of my cake which had fallen to pieces. My brownies turned out ok...I think. I didn't try those. I figure if they get eaten,they were edible. Then again, I've seen people in office try to eat week-old-formerly-Awkard-bagels so perhaps being edible isn't too much of a requirement.

Aside from that, I spent the evening on the phone with a couple of my good friends. It's always nice to chat and catch up. I have some pretty cool friends. The fact that they all let me drone on about my adoration of Mario Batali speaks volumes about their tolerance of me. I'm still annoyed that he and Emeril Lagasse were defeated in the Iron Chef America "Super Chef" battle against Bobby Flay and the White House Executive Chef, Cristeta Comerford. For one thing, the judges were awful. They had Nigella Lawson who actually can cook and knows about food but then they had Jane Seymore and some Olympian athlete. Let's just say with the exception of Nigella, the judges were useless. In the end, while Bobby and Chef Comerford did ok, to me, it was obvious that Mario and Emeril did the best but because the secret ingredient was the White House's vegetable garden, I think it was pretty much skewered towards Comerford and Flay from the beginning. All I can say is I want to try that sweet potato raviolo that Mario Batali made. Yum.

Anyway, I digress. I was talking about my lovely birthday and my l0vely family and friends. It was a nice day. I wish it didn't have to end. I especially wish it didn't have to end with the thought of going to work tomorrow. However, I have treats ready to go, a birthday lunch with the girls from work planned and a pile of work waiting for me. Things could definitely be far worse. It's nice to say that, especially about a workday.

Happy Monday.

Snow, Glorious Snow....

Well, as predicted, today was slighly off-kilter because of the snow. The snow definitely came down. I'm not sure how much we've had but it hasn't stopped snowing since about 8 a.m. I'd say there were at least 5 inches out there, possibly more.

We did not get to leave the office early. Nor did most of us get to work from home. I could spend time complaining about my boss who is rather spineless and refuses to make a decision in our company president's absence even though he is the vice-president but I've had a lovely evening and I refuse to be bitter. Bitterness is catching; I've realized this and I don't want to be infectious so I'm trying to nip it in the bud right now. Work is what it is, this is my mantra. I cannot change it. I know that I'd much rather be the Assistant Cheese Shop Manager at Jungle Jim's but I have a feeling that either my salary request was too high or I lack the experience with cheese that I need. It's also hard to sound sincere when talking about cheese, particularly with a British accent. Somehow, it always sounds sarcastic, even though I don't mean to sound sarcastic. In case you were wondering, my favourite cheese is probably either a really, really sharp white cheddar or a piece of Quemby Hall Stilton. I also like stinky cheeses and soft cheeses. There really isn't a cheese I don't like. Except maybe head cheese which actually isn't a cheese but, rather, pieces of meat from the head of a pig or calf and stuffed with vinegars, salt and seasonings. Apparently this is also called brawn. Ironically, when I was a child in England and we'd go get meat from the deli counter, I'd see brawn and think it was brains. It was jellylike and pink. Now I know it actually is brains, in a way, it makes much more sense. But it's still not cheese, even if it's called head cheese. Apparently, it can also be made of intestines. Just so you know.

I apologize profusely to my sister for the above paragraph. She has recently turned full vegetarian and prefers not to know rather unsavory meaty things such as the definition of head cheese. But for the record, she was the one who asked about cheese made from intestines. So, for future reference...if you don't want to know, you probably shouldn't ask Captain Monkeypants. I do like to research.

So, I digressed....Where was I...oh, yes, Work is Work. That's pretty much all I plan on saying about my job at the moment. That's really all I have to say about my job for the day. At least I didn't wear a horrible gold shiny shirt again. I don't know what I was thinking there.

All in all though, despite the tedium of the day, the evening has been good. I can't say why, exactly; it's just been...good. I had to shovel when I got home from work. My driveway was invisible under the layer of snow. I have to confess, as odd as it sounds, I rather like shoveling the snow. It allows me to go out and let the snowflakes swirl around me. When you shovel, it's not cold because you're moving all the time. It's good, physical labour and it lets me spend time with snow which, if you do any search on my blog topics, you'll know snow is one of my favourite things on earth. People have told me the novelty of shovelling will wear off. I'm not so sure. Unlike lawnmowing which I didn't like from day one, shovelling is therapeutic and somewhat...mediatative. That sounds odd but it's true.

When I had shovelled and salted, I came in and rewarded myself with a mug of William's Sonoma Peppermint Hot Chocolate which is one of the truly great treats of winter. Then I made gumbo which turned out rather tasty if I do say so myself. I spent the rest of the evening working on my synopsis, my query letter and editing the first few chapters of my novel, The Reluctant Demon, for submission. Unlike last night, everything went well tonight. I managed to submit to five agents who seem to be a good target for my manuscript. Having been through this process several times, I'm not going to expect a miracle but if I can just get one to be intrigued enough to want to read more, that's something. If not...well...I'll keep trying. It feels good to be trying again.

All in all, it's been a nice, relaxing, lovely evening. As strange as it sounds, I think the snow outside has relaxed me somehow. It's made me feel calm and happy. I know it's an inconvenience to drive in but there's something about a coat of heavy snow on the ground to even out the world around us just a little. Everything is hidden, everything looks the same. It's beautiful and mystifying.

You can tell I'm happy because I'm waxing poetic about snow...again. I wondered if it'd wear off from last year but, apparently, it hasn't. I'm glad about that. I know for most people, it's a pain, it's cold, it's inconvenient but, to me...it feels right. Somehow the thing that made the day seem off-kilter has righted me after all. I'm back on balance. Hopefully tomorrow will follow suit.

Happy Friday...and have a good and safe weekend.

Off-Kilter Days...

There are just some days where, no matter how much you force them, things just don't happen the way you plan them. Something feels off-kilter, not quite right and even though you try to continue, it just doesn't go quite right.

At the moment, I'm trying to send out a query letter to agents. I sat down to do this a while ago. I have a good query letter, I just wanted to find some agents to whom I could send it. It seemed like a great idea in theory. In practice, it turned out that perhaps tonight was not the right night for it.

It started with my computer. I have a Dell Mini and a desktop. As much as I love my Dell Mini, it seriously lacks memory and I'm currently limited as to what I can do with it. I really need to get a new memory chip for it but at the moment, there are bills to pay. My desktop is a nice machine. I've had it for a while. The trouble is that it's running really slowly. There are some days when I open up some windows and the whole thing just freezes and churns for about five minutes while it unfreezes itself.

Somedays, I can just walk away and let it sort itself out. Other days, I really need to use the computer and I get very frustrated. Simply opening a Microsoft Word document causes my computer to panic and I have to wait until it's ready to show it to me. Tonight, it did that during every stage of my attempt to get my query letter out. Then, it turns out that though it used to be that agents only wanted a query letter, they now want at least a synopsis and usually the first three to five chapters. This is all well and good but it takes a lot of time. Also, I haven't got a synopsis for my novel yet. I just have to write one. So I thought, "hey, I'll do that!". No such luck. My computer froze again. Then when it let me type, it was lagging so badly that I had typed a sentence and had to wait for a while before the sentence appeared.

So, I thought I'd edit my first three chapters and get them ready to send out. Same thing. It took a while to open the file.

I think the only way to deal with it is not to deal with it tonight. I had a goal to get ten letters out tonight but, alas, I think I'm going to have to be patient and make sure I get everything right. If I do it in a hurry, I'll end up screwing something up. I just have this sense of incompletion because I had mentally told myself I'd get it done tonight.

This week has felt a little off-kilter in general. I don't know if it's because it's the first week after the holidays but things just seem a little off. It's all silly little stuff. For example, yesterday, I thought I'd dress nice again so I pulled out this gold blouse that I've had for a while. I had a matching hairband so I thought I'd match the two to look coordinated. Then, when I got to work, I realized that instead of looking sophisticated and smart, I looked like a giant, shiny gold blob. My blouse was not flattering in the light of the bathroom mirror and my hairband did not match as well as I thought. Sometimes all it takes is a bad wardrobe day to make you feel off-kilter. For me, that was yesterday.

Today, things were thrown off-kilter by an impromptu staff meeting. Every time we get an invitation on our calendar to an impromptu meeting, my heart races a little. I consider it Post-Traumatic-Impromptu Meeting disorder. My entire first six months at our company were filled with impromptu meetings where we found out that our being sold was not going well and, most likely, we'd all be unemployed. As I've said many times, fortunately things worked out. Yet, the impromptu meetings always left us frustrated, stressed, angry and worried. Even though things are better now, the old fear comes back when we're told we have to be at a staff meeting.

Today's, fortunately, was not too serious. Well, it probably was to people who, uh, care a bit more than me. It was a meeting to discuss the financial state of our company. Basically, long story short, we need to make a lot of money. That was pretty much the entire summation of the hour and a half that the meeting took. There were a lot of numbers in there, spreadsheets on the overhead projector, that sort of thing. I sort of listened but I'm not really a numbers type of girl. I tried to listen but there was a period in the meeting where I realized I had completely zoned out for a full five minutes. I'm not talking daydreaming type of zoning where you can still hear the drone of our president's voice. No, I'm talking about that scary 'not-in-that-room' anymore type of zoning that almost felt as if I'd been asleep. I know I wasn't asleep because I spent the time writing a query letter in my head and figuring out how to go about finding agents who might be interested in my novel. It was quite a productive five minutes. Just not so much in terms of the actually meeting. By the end, we were all told at the end that we need to work hard and we're all responsible for the company's success.

I think I'm helping the company in my own way. After all, as one of the lowest paid employees, I'm not taking a huge chunk of the budget, so that's a good thing. Also, I didn't cost them a new computer so another bonus point to me! Also, now that I'm not allowed to do anything but work, I no longer waste frivoulous time enjoying my job by having a quick surf on the Web every now and again. I think I'm actually doing my part to help the company.

All sarcasm aside, it was a bit of a weird meeting. Tomorrow is going to be, likely, another weird day. We did get an updated Bad Weather Policy from our HR manager. Basically, it boils down to the fact that we can only work from home if we're physically unable to make it to work or there is a level 3 snow emergency. We have to ask our supervisor first though. Since my supervisor told me two days ago that he didn't like his employees working from home, I know we can only ask sparingly. Of course, it didn't stop my boss from leaving early and working from home tonight though. I suppose that's why he's the boss.

Nevertheless, tomorrow should be interesting. It's supposed to start snowing after we get to work. I'm not that worried anymore. If that's the case, if it gets bad enough that people are leaving, I can monitor the conditions and see if I should leave or not. I do feel sorry for the commuters though- if driving is going to be as horrendous as the weather forecast states, I would NOT want to drive home on roads like that. Hopefully, they can get a break and do what's safest for them.

I suppose the week began on an off-kilter note with the Awkward Bagel meeting. Then the next day was the Giant Gold Blob of a Monkeypants. Today was Impromptu Money Meeting and tomorrow is going to be Big Snowstorm Day. I'm not sure what Friday will hold but given the way the week's going, I'm sure there will be something.

I'll just have to remember not to wear that shirt again.

Happy Thursday!

Snow Day Protocols and Other Stories...

It 's a cold snowy day out there today. Normally, it'd be a day on which I'd have to scrape or brush off my car but, fortunately, I have a garage and so I managed to crawl to work without that added step, at least.

It's a snowy night out there. It's the sporadic kind of snow that falls reluctantly but constantly, a slow, steady shower of frozen snowflakes that, over time, makes the world white. The next couple of days are supposed to hold much more snow. I believe we're supposed to have up to six inches.

I'd like to state, for the record, that I did NOT do the snow dance. I did not grab my dachshund's paws, Sausage's paws, and say, "Snow, Sausage, snow!" I am certain that, if I had, he would have growled at me and retreated to his pet bed and covered himself with my dad's old sweater.

No, I did not say the 'magic' words, though I confess I thought them. I got a new necklace for Christmas, a snowflake, cast in silver ,that I consider to be my unofficial talisman. I've worn it a few times already and, though I hate to admit it, no day upon which I've worn it has been without snow.

I know, without a doubt, that it is a coincidence. I am not able to conjure snow with the wave of my new Harry Potter Replica Wand (courtesy of my lovely brother for Chrismas) and say "Accio, Snow" or any such spell. I just, merely, love snow.

It seems to know that. It has fallen steadily, constantly for two days now. It's supposed to increase in heaviness over the next few days. I'd say I'm sad about this but, in all honesty, I'd like to see it. Even though it means I'd be confined here, forced to spend my birthday pitifully alone, I'd like to be snowed in. I'm not sure what that would mean in terms of work but I'd like to see it happen.

Though, in terms of work, I got fed up of wondering how heavy snow might affect our happy, independant little company. Every day, I hear people muttering under their breath about how they don't want to have to commute if it snows, how it's 'not fair' if they have to drive their long distance to get to work while the snow is heavy on the roads. Thus, I decided to just ask my boss. Sometimes, direct action is the only way.

After much deliberation between the managers, I was told that my request for a company policy was, in fact, being answered. Our beloved HR manager was going to draft an amendment to the employee handbook as to the "Inclement Weather" policy. Given that I tend to think of our HR manager as I do of Sausage- sweet but really dumb- I was relieved that my boss pre-defined the policy for me: If bad weather occurs, it's ok to ask permission to work from home. However, we should NOT assume permission is granted.

This is...helpful. I had originally asked if working from home was even an option and, if it was, for whom it WOULD be an option. I'm spoiled: I live 1.5 miles away from my office. Nevertheless, when it snows, I still have to dig my driveway out from under the snow and I still have to skid the 1.5 miles to work. I am/was a little worried that there would be a distance limit on the snow emergency- i.e, those of use living within 2.0 miles were required to report for work as normal.

Here's the thing: If they'd have stated that, I would have understood it. I wouldn't have liked it but I'd have understood it. Personally speaking, I think if the roads are bad, it doesn't matter if you're 30 miles or 1 mile from your destination: Accidents happen. Nevertheless, I know I'm going to feel bad if I don't go into the office after a radical snowfall. They haven't said how far you have to live in order to be exempt from the 'work at home' possibility. Yet, I'm close to the office. I could make it in. Perhaps, if I were in love with my job, I wouldn't care. However, the truth is that I feel like I have to force myself to get out of my warm cocoon of a bed each day. If there's a snow emergency out there, am I going to feel like going into the office more than someone who is (un)fortunate enough to live much further away? I don't think so.

I'm lucky- I live very close to my workplace. I don't deny this fortunate fact. It is nice. I like being able to leave 15 minutes before I'm due in the office and still arrive five minutes early. Yet, if it snows, is it still better with the distance? I now have to take 30 minutes to shovel my driveway to get my car out from the garage to the street. I still have to add an extra 10 minutes to the commute through my residential neighbourhood to make sure I don't slide through the stop signs. I still have to drive, on edge, to the office. I know it's a lot less distance than many others but, truthfully, is it any less dangerous?

I don't know. I never recieved a proper answer to my question, you see. Thus, if it does snow on Thursday and we're handicapped by the frozen white substance, does this mean I have to gently and worridly maneuver my little car to the office? Do I have to shovel my driveway to get my car out so I can drive slowly to the office.

I tried to answer confusion by asking a direct question. I'm still holding out hope that my question will be answered, that I will be told if it actually is permissible for me to request a chance to work from home, even if I am a lot closer than some of my colleagues. For me, it's not about distance, it's about traction. If there's 25 miles of no traction vs. 1 mile of no traction, I still think it's a close match.

More than anything, it's about my attempt to avoid passive-aggressive gossiping by asking an actual, direct, question. I know, based on experience, that it's likely to be recieved by much eye-rolling and muttering about 'gossips' and 'spoiled brats'. I've overheard way too much in my tenure at my company to expect anything else.

However, the truth is, up until a few months ago, we worked for a university that did have a clear-cut policy about weather. Since we no longer have a policy, I figured it was the right thing to ask, even if it made me the outsider. I've made one of my New Year's resolutions to be more direct about asking for information and not waiting around passive-aggressively to be told without asking. If you want an answer to a question, you have to ask the question, no matter how awkward, how cruel, how direct. I've learned from this approach that whether good or bad, you usually get a response.

In my case, you get a nice, vague, non-committal response. We may or may not be allowed to work from home. I'm not sure how this applies to me but since it was so vague, I think it means that it can apply to me. Thus, if it's snowing out there and digging out my driveway seems impossible, I'm going to contemplate calling in. All my boss can do is say no, right? And, if he does...I forsee another blog in my future.

I'm accuentuating the positive. That's what 2010 is about. Happy Wednesday!

Small Changes and More Awkward Bagels

The strange thing about a new year is that even, as I said, it's just a date, it's a time when, for me, at least, there's a little expectation that things are going to change immediately. In a way, I can't complain- today at work, two things changed. One, I got my chair back. If you remember the Saga of Captain Monkeypant's Chair, you'll remember that it got broken in the move from our old building to our new, I got accused of breaking it myself and then our HR manager took it to glue it.

Well, the gluing didn't go so well. Apparently, my HR manager had trouble getting the glue to dry. She discovered that the chair was under warranty and so requested a replacement back to repair it. In the meantime, I was relegated to the Most Uncomfortable Office Chairs in the World. At one point I did inquire as to my old chair and our HR manager offered it back to me with the warning that 'it's still broken and it's worse than ever." Well, given that it was pretty bad before, I politely told our HR manager that I'd hate to have to file a worker's comp suit if my chair did cause me to take a nasty spill. Yes, there is irony in the fact that I had to remind our HR manager of things like that. Today, when I got my chair back, I was happy. My coworkers mocked my enthusiasm but, let me tell you, until you lose a really good chair with back support to a crappy one with no wheels and no give, you don't know how much you're going to miss.

The second thing that happened was that my boss finally wanted to talk to me about the issues I brought up over a month ago. These were issues where I told him that I wasn't feeling like I was being utilized in the best way and that I needed to do other work as well as my regular duties because I was bored. Well, one meeting later and....well, the nice thing about having no expectations is that you're not disappointed. Essentially, I was told to continue just as I was doing. So...yeah...that happened. There's nothing like a meeting where you walk out wondering what the point was.

However, as I said, I no longer have any expectations. My current mission is to do my job well, let the irritating stuff roll of my back and enjoy the fact that I can escape from my office at the end of my day.

It was, however, a promising start to the year. At least my boss remembered I wanted to talk to him. Ok, so he did, as usual, invite my coworker to join us in the meeting which took away from the fact that I'd talked to him personally about my responsibilities but, well, he tried, right? It was progress, at least.

It is a decent start to the year. The bad part is that one of my coworkers, someone I actually like a lot, lost her sister on Christmas Eve. It was a similar situation for her family as one I went through with some good friends almost two years ago. It's hard to know what to say to a person who is grieving as hurting as much as my coworker. There's a desire in me to be that person who knows the right thing to say or not say, to give a perfect combination of words that shows wisdom, friendship and caring. Unfortunately, there are no perfect words, no perfect gesture. It's just a matter of letting her know that we're there for her, that there's nothing to fix the badness of the situation except time and even then, it doesn't get fixed, just merely distanced just a little. It made the air feel a little more somber than usual, no one knows what to say because it's impossible to know. She's someone who is usually the life of the party, the person who can always come up with a joke. Seeing her try but not have her heart in it was a slightly heartbreaking thing to witness.

It was even more awkward because the day started with an Awkward Bagel Situation. We have another new employee. This one is a receptionist. She seems nice. Her boss is our HR manager. I already feel sorry for the receptionist. Our HR manager did bring in bagels to our Awkward Bagel Meeting. Unfortunately, we weren't actually allowed to eat them during the meet and greet because we might have got crumbs on the table so we had to meet, greet and then go grab bagels before we went to our desks. I find this ironic and slightly amusing. At least when we have bagels, we can make conversation about the bagels. Today everyone shuffled into the conference room, half the staff had to stand up because there weren't enough chairs. Then our HR manager barked out the order for our new receptionist to tell us about her. Then we had to go around the room and say our name, just like any awful first-day-of-class. The thing with situations like that are that, well, they're awkward. The poor newbie knows he or she will NEVER remember anyone's name until they interact with them and even then, she'll still get confused about which one is Bob or Chris or Alan or whoever for at least a couple of months. There was the mandatory joke about whether she'd have to take a pop quiz later or not. She laughed. We laughed. That's what we do, you see.

Then we were immediately dismissed to get bagels. Personally, I think it might have been a wee bit smarter to take her around and introduce her to us at our desks. That way she can at least have some idea of where we might belong at least by where we sit.

Still, there were Awkward Bagels and that made it worthwhile which is probably the point.

All in all, it was a rather strange yet interesting start to 2010 in the office. There were some changes but I know the big ones are going to be down to me. I'll keep looking forward. Maybe there will be more bagels in the future. At least next week, there will be cookies or cake. It's my birthday, you see, and I'm encouraged to bring treats to share. I plan on baking. I say plan because sometimes plans because waylaid by lack of time, lack of ingredients and, most commonly, lack of desire. Still, right now, my intentions are good.

I think I might just leave the cake in the kitchen and tell people to help themselves. I think an Awkward Cookie/Cake Day would be rather worse than bagels because what if they don't like the baked goods? I always have this fear that when I bake, I'll be pelted with the leftover cookies that people don't eat because they take one bite and decide it's the worst thing ever.

On second thoughts, maybe buying cookies might be a better idea.

Happy Tuesday!

It's 2010!

I suppose this is my first official blog of 2010 although, to be honest, it really doesn't feel any different from 2009. Since, technically, it's really only three days into the year, that's not really a surprise.

It's been a busy three days. It's amazing how busy vacations turn out to be, even when they're relaxing. I managed to see two good friends, hang out with my family, celebrate New Year's with my sister and brother-in-law by unintentionally renting a movie with a talking penis, see "Sherlock Holmes" and, naturally, eat too much.

Some of that needs no explanation, other parts do. Take New Year's Eve, for example. My sister invited me over to hang out and watch movies she's rented. My sister, who I adore, has inherited my father's ability to view an entire shelf of well known movies and still manage to pick the ones that were never released in the theatre because, well, frankly...they're not good. Sometimes, the movies have been released but lasted perhaps a week or two at most in the theatre. I actually think this is quite a talent. I can tease my sister though because I know, unlike me, she actually has a life and doesn't spend way too much time reading Entertainment Weekly online or watching TV and seeing trailers for movies like, say...me.

Sometimes, though, this ability to pick bad movies is a bit unfortunate. For example, on New Year's Eve, she rented a movie called "Deadline" which starred Brittany Murphy and Thora Birch and made barely any sense at all. When the movie finished my sister, my brother-in-law and I actually had to collaborate to try to figure out what it was actually about. We never reakkt did come up with a conclusive answer.

Then we put in the second movie which was "Bruno."

Now, I'm not a Sasha Baron-Cohen fan. I think he was funny in "Talladega Nights" and he made a funny penguin in "Madagascar," but I was one of those people who thought "Borat" was stupid, didn't get it and wanted to smack him quite hard. So, I wasn't excited about "Bruno" to begin with. Five minutes into the movie our mouths were hanging open with a combination of horror and shock. Let's just say that Bruno, a German celebrity in his own mind, had a pigmy boyfriend and viewers were (un)fortunate enough to see how they pleasured one another. Somehow, we kept watching, hoping it'd get better. By the time Bruno had moved to L.A. and done a pilot of his celebrity interview show, complete with his penis doing a rather alarming dance and talking to the camera, we had enough. That was enough Bruno for us.

My sister was a little embarrassed. She believed that the Redbox movie rental machine would not have such things in it. Now we know better. Bruno was not our cup of tea. She said she wished she'd rented "The Hangover," instead. I wish she had too but, at the same time, being that she's my little sister, this does give me some rather delicious ammunition to tease her with for a while.

All in all, bad movies aside, I had a lot of fun spending New Year's Eve with my sister and brother-in-law and still made it home in time to ring in the New Year with my parents. We didn't do much to celebrate though we had some rather nasty cheap champagne that I thought seemed like a good idea but, like so many others, was better in theory than in practice. We also pulled Christmas Crackers which is one of our traditions- nothing like wearing a silly paper crown at midnight as the New Year is rung in.

I know, I know...it doesn't sound very glamourous. I'm sure there were clubs I could have gone to, places to have celebrated but, truth be told, it was a pretty perfect way to ring in the new year and I wouldn't have changed it for anything.

As for the rest of the weekend, much of it was filled with food. My mother fell and broke her shoulder bone last week and, being it was her right arm, she's a little handicapped at the moment. Thus, my father has taken the opportunity to demonstrate that he can cook. For several years now, my father has been an enthusiastic cook, provided he's in the mood. He does cook well, for the most part. He even enlisted me as his soux chef for one meal- roasted flounder in a lemon-lime white sauce with saffron rice and roasted red peppers. Sadly, it was not my favourite of my dad's meals. Sometimes, he tries a little too hard and in this case, it was a bit heavy on flavours that didn't mix. However, his roast beef that we had the next day more than made up for it. Now that is one fine meal.

In addition to my dad's cooking, I also got to spend time with my parent's at the movies. My parent's and I all had wanted to see "Sherlock Holmes" because it looked very funny from the previews and, for me, it had Robert Downey Jr. in it whom I have loved for many years. Unfortunately, after viewing the film, I have to confess, the previews were the best part of the movie. While Robert Downey Jr. was very good and Jude Law a pleasant sidekick as Dr. Watson, overall, the movie was just kind of...boring. There were too many fight scenes, too much action and not enough of the clever humour the previews had promised. I admit, I'm not a Guy Richie fan to begin with; I find his annoying quick-cut/fast-talking action scenes in his other movies like "RocknRolla" and "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" slightly tedious. I'd hoped with "Sherlock Holmes" he might have calmed down but, alas, there were quite a lot of explosions, quite a few fight scenes and not enough comedy between two fantastic literary characters. What humour there was was actually hard to detect as it was mumbled in that British way where if you don't strain to hear it, you miss it.

So, my first movie of 2010 was a bit disappointing especially as I'd wanted to see it quite badly. I'm not too worried though. I mean, my last movie of 2009, technically, was "Bruno" so anything would have been an improvement.

The entire year lies ahead. Part of me loves this new beginning, part of me is worried that things will change. I'm a creature of habit as I've demonstrated time and time again in my blog. I like things the way they are. However, there are things in life that need a change: Jobs, for example. I dislike my job and would like to find something that reminds me that it can be fun to earn a paycheck, even if I'm not necessarily changing the world.

I'm also planning on writing more, being more assertive in trying to get published and avoiding the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest like the plague. I was invited to enter. I knew I wouldn't yet I clicked on the site anyway. It was like Post Traumatic Writer's Disorder. Needless to say, the minute I saw the same awful clique hogging the forums and when I read the rules, I knew I couldn't do it. I actually want to get something published that people want to read. As far as I know, the ABNA past winners are more like folk heroes. I can't even find the first winner's book in a bookstore. I'm not saying it's not a valid contest but after my horrible experience last year that I blame for over six months of writer's block, I'm not going to do it again. I'd rather expend the energy editing and writing and enjoying myself, not obsessively reading forum posts to see if anybody has actually read my entry or if there's a problem with the contest...again.

No matter what happens, 2010 is a new year. Depending how we look at it, it's really just a date. However, it's also a representation, as every New Year is, of a place to begin anew and start over with the things in life we want to change. Yet, it's also a time to appreciate what we have. I may dislike my job, I may still be single and I may still be unpublished but perhaps, in the next 362 days, I can find a way to change that.

And, if not, I'll try again the next year.

Happy New Year and...happy Monday.