The Comfort of a Rainy Day

Today it has been a very rainy day. The pups and I went to bed last night to the sound of pouring rain and…woke up to the sound of pouring rain. Somewhere in between there, I dreamed again about zombies- (note to self: STOP watching “The Walking Dead” before bed!) and got up to let the dogs out in the night.

The problem with it being rainy is that it’s also muddy. This means that when the dogs come in from outside, they’re wet and either must be dried with a towel or go back to bed muddy.

We’re having a lot of rain in these parts lately. All of the rivers are swollen and nearing flood stage. My garden is a bit of a bog. There’s usually one area that floods when it rains but the ground is so saturated, it’s looking rather like wetlands out there.

I actually don’t mind the rain though. I find it soothing, particularly when it comes down heavily. It’s just that it seems a little unbalanced that we have so much rain at this time of year but, come August, we’re having a drought and praying for rain to satiate the parched garden.

Yet for now, the rain is nice. I like to see it splashing down outside. Perhaps it’s growing up on the rainy isle of Britain but whenever it’s murky outside and the windows are covered with raindrops, part of me just sighs with contentment that this is the way it should be at times. I like being driven inside by the wetness and I really like it at night when you can see the rain in the headlights of cars as they sloshily drive along the streets .

The rain appeals to my ‘inside girl’ nature. While working outside in the garden is lovely as is taking a long walk outside on a nice day, as I’ve said many a time, I am not an outdoorsy sort. My favourite activities have always been quiet, indoor activities. Even when the weather is nice, I find that I simply go outside to do the indoor activities such as reading and writing.

I’m actually looking forward to the weather being nice enough to sit outside and read. Last year, I found one of my very favourite things to do was sit outside after I’d mown the lawn in the evening with a cool glass of wine, a good book and the puppies chasing each other nearby.

Still, I’m not looking to the future because I’m not happy with the present. The rainy night means I can hibernate inside, pull the curtains early and spend the evening curled up with the pups even though it means we won’t get to take our evening walk. I’m finding that not only is the walking good to exercise Sookie and Rory but it’s also a good way for me to get exercise. I finally mapped out our normal route and discovered we walk over a mile each night. This is not bad going for a stroll around the neighbourhoods.

On these strolls, I’ve become a very nosy neighbour. I love to look at people’s gardens and houses and to get ideas for how I can landscape my own garden or add some detail to my house. We’ve walked so much that certain houses become landmarks- there’s the one that belongs to someone who is clearly a hippie or identifies with them as the house not only always has a VW bug parked outside but also a sign on the door that says “Hippies go around back.” There’s the house with the cute little statue of puppies underneath a garden bench. There’s the house with the good landscaping, tidy mulch and painstakingly-cared for garden.

Then there are the squirrel houses. These are the places where we almost inevitably find squirrels on our walk. The girls and I have decided that squirrels are dirty rotten cheaters. They come down from their trees, sit on the street as if daring my twin dachshunds to ‘come and get them’ and then they run. We chase them and the girls get excited. Then the squirrel goes up a tree and…game over because my dogs can’t climb the trees. We are of the firm belief that if a squirrel wants to taunt, it shouldn’t be allowed an easy out. However, squirrels appear to have their own rules including not being eaten.

Our evening walks are a great way to relax. This time of year, we don’t see too many neighbours. It’s usually just me, the girls and whatever dog barks at us from behind their fences.
It’s nice to live in a neighbourhood where it’s not only safe to walk but we have a nice route as well. Even though it’s not nice enough to walk every night- particularly nights like tonight when it’s rainy- it’s a lovely feeling to know that as the days get longer and the nights shorter, there will be more and more chances to get out, discover new things about the area and meet new neighbours.

For now, however, I’m just going to enjoy the rain.

Happy Thursday!

The Limit of Zombies and Other Musings...

Today, it is Tuesday. This is significant because it means it is NOT Monday. Also, Tuesdays are always much kinder than Mondays.

My Tuesday began with a dream about zombies. It was a rather alarming dream in which I discovered that not only was there a zombie apocalypse out there but, also, I had been volunteered to join the fighters who were going to take them on. This lead to a rather alarming reunion with virtually every human being who’s played a role in my life that turned into a dance party. This, of course, was penetrated by the zombies and when I escaped to safety with all of the people I knew, it turned out we were actually already dead and we were to walk into the light together.

I blame this dream on a) my catching up on AMC’s “The Walking Dead” TV show. It has sat on my DVR for months. I’m finally watching it. It’s true zombie glory. If you like zombies. I do. I also blame it on b) the TV show “Lost” because at the end of “Lost”, the cast finds out they’re all dead and walks into the light.

I probably should have done the courteous ***SPOILER ALERT*** on the above paragraph just in case you haven’t seen “Lost” in its entirety yet and I’ve just ruined it. Yet, mean as it sounds, if you haven’t and still don’t want to be spoiled almost a YEAR after it aired, that’s not my problem. Also, it’s nothing that won’t have been spoiled by every entertainment magazine/website/blog out there.

Besides, I was talking about my dream which was an amalgamation of two TV shows as well as my own bizarrely twisted imagination. If you throw in the fact that the character of Bailey from “Grey’s Anatomy” was also in my dream and she joined us in the afterworld because she was killed by zombies while performing surgery, it’s an amalgamation of THREE TV shows. This goes to show a few things- a) How impressed you are that I used the word amalgamation without having to reach for a thesaurus to do so, (Ok, fine, I thought not), b) I let TV seep a little too much into my subconscious and c) even when you’re dreaming, thinking you and everyone you love is dead is a little scary.

By the way, I refuse to acknowledge that perhaps it also means I watch too much TV. I’d like to think I have a nice healthy balance of TV shows. On a week with no reruns, it’s probably six hours a week. Maybe seven if I watch the “Graham Norton Show” on BBC America on a Saturday evening. Given that each show has adverts and runs at approximately 42 minutes per show, even with Graham Norton, this means I really only watch 4.9 hours of TV. Really, in the grand scheme of things, that isn’t really very much when you consider how much I could be watching. Yes, I’m defensive. Also, I love TV, so there.

One more thing, Food Network doesn’t count as TV time. Now, if Bobby Flay had been one of the zombies in my dream or Mario Batali had his brain eating by a pack of zombies then you might argue that my TV time should be curtailed a little.

I digress. The fact is, I dreamed I was dead this morning. Being dead in a dream is fascinating because one part of you knows it’s a dream and the other is slightly freaked out when you wake up that you might actually be dead. Even when you awaken to the weight of a small dachshund sitting on your head and waiting to start licking your nose as soon as your eyes open, there’s still a slight moment of disorientation as to whether you’re still in the dream or not and are, in fact, still dead in the dream.

I’m glad I wasn’t really dead. Also, I’m glad that all my friends/family/acquaintances who moved on into the light with me in my dream are also not dead. That would be weird. Also, it would mean I was on a first name basis with Bailey from “Grey’s Anatomy” and considering she’s a fictional character, that would be rather peculiar and unrealistic.

Then there are the zombies. I’ve had a lot of dreams about zombies lately. This is actually what triggered me to actually watch “The Walking Dead” because I had a dream about zombies.

I like zombies. I like “The Walking Dead”. I think, however, it’s time to move onto another horror-creature that’s a little…less limited.

The thing with zombies is they really don’t do much but lurch and shuffle, look disgusting and eat brains, flesh or body parts. Sometimes, they grunt “BRAINS” a lot. Sometimes, they’re created by a virus. Sometimes they’re created by a supernatural occurrence. Sometimes, they’re just…created with no explanation given. Yet, really, there’s not much you can do with a zombie. They try to kill the non-zombie-still-humans. The non-zombie-still-humans form little groups to try to destroy the zombies. Yet, ultimately, when the world has experienced a zombie apocalypse, what’s the end result going to be, really? It’s the population of the world as zombies against a rag-tag bunch of survivors. Procreation can only do so much.

At least with werewolves and vampires, there’s still a human tie. They can think and feel and thus, have personalities. Granted, this is not always the case (see: Twilight) but the potential is there. Not so much with a zombie. If a zombie did have a personality, he probably wouldn’t be a zombie, would he? Because if zombies become reasoning, thinking things that live in a somewhat civilized manner, we’d call them a vampire. We already have a genre for that.

You might wonder why I’ve just spent 15 minutes randomly musing about dreams and zombies. The fact is…I have absolutely no idea. It’s Fat/Shrove Tuesday today (aka: Mardi Gras); I probably should have written about that or something else more meaningful.

Still, for today, you get one of my more random blogs. Feel free to chime in on your own thoughts about zombies. I’m happy to entertain the possibility that I’m wrong and they’re not nearly as limited as I think.

Besides, it might even mean another dream about zombies which you’ll get to hear about. Aren’t you lucky?

Thanks, as always for reading!

Happy Fat/Shrove Tuesday, happy Mardi Gras and watch out for those zombies (although it might be hard if you’re going to a true Mardi Gras celebration!)

Monday, Monday....

I think I have a psychological aversion to Mondays. Every week, I bemoan them and complain about them because they always end up being very Mondaylike.

This week, I decided to not be so negative about Monday and, instead, approach it like any other day. I’d had a long weekend so there was no reason that my Monday should have to be, well, a Monday.

Unfortunately, it seems that even when I try, Monday wins. It’s not like anything bad happened or I have any reason to not be happy today but something about the day tends to make everything just seem….blah.

I woke up from a very comfortable sleep. I had a puppy cuddled under one arm, teddy-bear style and the other snuggled up beside me on top of the covers. I was actually surprised to discover that Rory was my teddy-bear because normally, that’s Sookie’s position. This might have explained why when I finally opened my eyes, I saw Sookie staring at me with betrayal in her eyes. She doesn’t like it when Rory gets cuddled and she doesn’t and Rory’s side of the bed was NOT the side that Rory was sleeping on this morning. It didn’t help that Rory, who tends to be rather a vocal dog, did her best Moaning Myrtle this morning. Moaning Myrtle is what I call her when she starts grumbling. She has a habit of making a groaning noise in her throat whenever she’s perturbed. Based on the rather loud, rather frequent grumblings this morning, she was quite perturbed to get up.

Needless to say, beginning the day with one grumbling, perturbed dog and another that’s sulky because she wasn’t getting her normal cuddle d was not a good sign.

Still, I tried to be positive when I got to work. I reminded myself that not only do I like my job but I also like my boss and my coworkers and those are good things indeed.

Yet, somehow, even though the day was busier than it has been in a while, the Mondays still managed to seep in. No matter how much I tried to fight it, I just felt….blah.

The blahs are no fun. They’re different from the ‘crabbies’ because I’m not crotchety or cranky. Instead, I just feel…quiet. I don’t feel like chatting to people and I don’t feel like doing very much of anything. I just feel like staying in my own world and doing my own thing.

They generally happen on a Monday. The weekend has passed and the workweek lies ahead. I don’t have any plans for the evenings or the weekend. I just feel, well…blah.

I’m sure there are cures for the blahs but I find that if I just wait, they pass quite easily on their own. Sometimes the blahs stick around and these are generally when I feel rather lonely and that my life is pretty boring. My life isn’t exactly a thrill-a-minute. It probably could be but I’ve found that I’m not a terribly thrilling person.

Most of the time, I don’t mind that my life is quiet. The loneliness is usually helped by having two dogs around. It’s amazing how much company two canines can be. I do wish that occasionally they could carry on a conversation with me but, at the same time, we have the most comfortable silences ever.

There are times when I do feel lonely and that I probably should do something about it. I’m not even talking about male companionship though sometimes that might be nice. More than anything, I’d like to find some more friends.

The thing is, that’s quite hard when you’re an adult. Through the school/college years, you’re surrounded by a group of peers that you see often. Thus, it’s natural and easy to make friends. As an adult when you spend most of your time at work, it gets harder. Certainly, there’s nothing wrong with being friends with coworkers. Some of my closest friends are former coworkers. However, it would be nice to be able to make other friends who I don’t see every single day at the office.

I know there are ways. I could join…something- a book group, a gym, a class…something. Yet it’s hard to break into an inner circle. I’ve never known how you find a book club. I’m not terribly good at going to the gym regularly. I could take a class in something but, well, I don’t particularly want too much of an academic commitment when I’m trying to start a new novel. I could try a church group but, as an outsider, it’s intimidating to try to find a church and immediately belong. Also, I’m not particularly good at being a regular churchgoer so I’d feel a bit hypocritical. It sounds weird but it’s the truth.

I have excuses for everything, I know. And it’s not like I don’t have friends. It’s just my friends are…not here in Cincinnati. They’re all over the place but not within the distance where I could say, “Hey, want to come over and have a “Gilmore Girls” marathon with me?” or invite over for dinner because I’m making extra.

I think it might be easier for parents. They have children who make friends. Thus, the parents generally start to get to know one another and friendships are born or they have activities that their children share. Singlefolk like me have a harder time.

I just don’t know how to go out to make friends anymore. I think I’ve lost the knack. Whatever I do will probably mean going outside my comfort zone but where to start is always the biggest question. If anyone has any suggestions, I’d love to hear from you.

Still, it’s not like I’m hurting for friends, as I said. I’m lucky enough to have several very good friends with whom I can discuss everything from sex, fitness and nutrition and the benefits of owning a fish spatula. If I had no friends, I’d be worried that I was a pariah but I know this is not the case. I’m just feeling a little clueless and fish-out-of-water-y at the moment. It’s probably just the blahs from which I’m suffering and for which I’m blaming the very presence of Monday.

I’m quite sure that the blahs will drift away as soon as the week begins to move forward towards the weekend. When even your dogs seem to know it’s a Monday, that doesn’t bode well to begin with, even when you intend to approach the day with positivity.

Still, there’s always tomorrow. Let positivity abound!

Happy Tuesday!

Home Improvement Freedom

It's another Sunday evening after a fun weekend and, as always, I'm wishing I had an extra day off.

I even had a long weekend this time around. I took Friday off to just have a day off. I ended up spending a large portion of it at the car dealership getting my car serviced and also finding out that I desperately needed new tires but, even so, it was nice to have the day off.

The pups and I headed up to my parents for the weekend after the car dealership finally released me. We hadn't been up to Indiana for a while and I thought it'd be nice to have a low-key weekend with my parents. It turned out to be a fun weekend. We went to the Home and Garden Show which I thought was fun. It was a little crowded but it was the first time I've been to a show like that since I've owned a house. It's fun to realize that if I wanted new windows, I could get them someday or if I wanted to re-landscape my garden, I have the freedom to do that.

It was an interesting exposition. I didn't buy much although I did snag some Blue Spruce trees for a very good price. My dad purchased two rubber brooms which he likes to use to clean the snow off his and my mother's car in the winter. He gave one to me to carry around the show so I felt much like that man in the American Gothic painting who's standing next to his wife holding the rake. I held the broom like the rake in that picture. My dad and I got a lot of comments about our broom. Apparently, not everyone carries rubber brooms around an entire Home and Garden show. To make matters more amusing, my mother bought one of those microfiber broom/mop things so by the time we were finished, all three of us had a broom of some sort. I feel like we should have done some type of Mary Poppins "Chim Chimeree" dance or something.

After the show, I had the luxury of spending the evening with my sister. We decided to have a girls night out, something we literally haven't done in years. We've gone to dinner a couple of times but never really out to do more than that. We decided to do dinner and a movie. We saw "Just Go With It"- the Adam Sandler/Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy. It turned out to be much more amusing and sweet than I thought.

It's nice to get to hang out with my sister. She recently graduated from nursing school and she has a four-year-old daughter so she hasn't had a lot of time to be social. Thus, it was nice to be able to liberate her for the evening.

All in all, it was a nice, relaxing, family-filled weekend. The dogs, of course, had the greatest time at their 'grandparents'. Sookie and Rory adore their garden- it's huge and there's a ton of nooks and crannies to explore. They're also very fond of my parents so it's nice to be able to reunite dog and human once in a while.

It was also a productive weekend. I've decided exactly how to redecorate my hideous 1970's style family room in Tuscan Villa style and, in addition, I had a rather productive trip to Lowe's with my dad who helped me figure out the mysteries of bathroom remodeling. I think if I do it slowly, I can get my bathroom looking just how I like.

It's so nice to be able to have the freedom to redecorate and remodel. I dwelt in apartments long enough to feel the frustration of not being able to change the minor little annoyance and the big ones. My last apartment in L.A. had an absolutely terrible water leakage problem when it rained. Most of the time in L.A., it doesn't rain so it wasn't too much of a problem for a while. Then, when the rainy season hit and we had torrential rain, I began to notice my bedroom carpet was getting rather wet. It turned out that the water was seeping up through the ground and by the time it was done, my closet and bedroom became very mildewed, smelly and disgusting. Our landlord's solution was to throw a few sandbags in front of the leak and put some Killz mildew killer on the walls.

Also, in the same apartment, the ceiling above my roommate's shower ended up caving in, The landlord never did finish patching it up. We were glad it didn't happen while my roommate was in the shower.

The same apartment had terrible ant infestations when it got hot. You can see why it got annoying. We fixed as many of the small things that went wrong as we could but unfortunately, we had to rely on the landlord for many repairs.

So, having my own home seems like quite a lovely thing. Granted, it means I'm financially responsible for everything that goes wrong/needs to be replaced/needs an upgrade but it also means it's mine to fix/replace/upgrade. I like that feeling. I like to be able to paint the walls, get rid of the mustard yellow carpet and change the faucets.

I also like being able to simply wander around Home and Garden Shows and Lowes and know that I have the complete freedom to do what I like to my home if I have the finances and resources.

I love that feeling and much as I love weekends and the nice thing is that even if the weekend is over, that feeling will stay.

Maybe that will help fight of the Mondays a little. We'll see.

Happy Monday!

Virtual Time Travel

It’s funny how some things can take you and throw you back in time as though you’ve entered a time warp. I’ve written before about how I think smells and sounds can do that but sometimes, it’s as simple as an email.

I had an email through Facebook from a friend I made when I was six years old in my very first year of Infant School (what we call Elementary School in the UK). It was in the days where I learned to read, using books from “The Village With Three Corners.” This was a series of books that they used to teach and encourage reading skills as well as other basic skills. The characters in the books were Roger Red Hat, Billy Blue Hat and Jemima Yellow Hat.

I remember the books. Once a child mastered basic reading skills, the books moved up to become a little more complicated with bigger words. I was a voracious reader. To this day, I remember my frustration of being in play school (Pre School to my American readers), holding a PB Bear book and wanting SO badly to know why PB was in bandages. The pictures told me that he was skiing and he fell but other characters were worried and trying to get him to eat something. I wanted to know more. I wasn’t satisfied with pictures. I wanted words.

So, when I did learn to read and those mysterious squiggles became meaningful words, I couldn’t be stopped. I moved quickly beyond The Village of Three Corners into the “Green Spark” series of books. I was the first in my class to do so. I’m not bragging. I don’t think I ever thought of that as an accomplishment. I always wanted to be reading my next book instead of worrying about why my classmates weren’t reading at the same pace as me. I was a junkie and books were my drug.

Yet I don’t just remember the books. I remember my classroom and sitting next to my friends. I remember the Christmas play and how our class was disappointed because Mrs. Herris’ class ALWAYS got to be the angels in the Nativity and got to sing “Away in a Manager” and just had to stand around in our normal clothes with a homemade hat and sing boring songs like “Once in Royal David’s City.”

I remember the exciting days of writing with pencil and having trouble with that pesky letter “Q”. I could do it, I just took my pencil off the paper in the wrong place and my teacher said it was wrong. We’d line up at the pencil sharpener in the mornings to make sure our writing implements were ready.

Then came the day when they let us get to use pens in class for the first time. We used Beryl pens. They were blue ink. They bled through the paper if you pressed too hard. The pen was red. The caps had a knob on top that we’d chew off absentmindedly. Some of the boys chewed it off on purpose just to get a new, unmarred pen.

They were the days where we collected erasers and swapped them. (We called the ‘rubbers’- it was before the U.S. translation of the word ‘rubber’ was even so much as a blip on my radar.). We had milk from little glass bottles that was room temperature. School lunches smelled like bread, spam and gravy. We didn’t actually eat bread, spam and gravy but to a young child, that’s how it smelled.

There are so many memories from those early years of my academic development that came rushing back when I got the email on Facebook. The email came from a friend named JoAnne. She was in most of my classes from the first year of infant school until my last year of school in the U.K. when I’d moved up to senior school. She wasn’t my best friend but she was a friend who was one of those rare people who are so familiar and part of your life that they feel like they’re supposed to be there. As a child, you take those for granted.

I went to her birthday parties. I remember her little brother. I remember her parents.
Yet because she wasn’t my best friend and, by the time I left England, we both moved in different circles, I lost touch with her after I moved. She became part of the landscape of my childhood without standing out as a significant part of it.

Yet, clearly she was. When I got her email, I was so excited and overjoyed because with the email came that string of memories. For a few brief moments, I was back in the classroom of Mrs. Simpkins. I sat at a desk that opened up to let me put my books and pens and pencils inside. It had an old inkwell that we no longer used since our ink was already in the pen but we used the inkwells to hold our mini pencil sharpeners and sometimes, we sharpened our pencils into the well. Thus, if you stuck your finger inside, it emerged black with the lead from many a sharpened pencil.

This memory as well as so many others rose again in my mind. The memories have been there, dormant for a while. They surfaced individually as something triggered them but never as a flood that became an almost time-travel experience.

I was back, for a time, in the territories of my youth. It is a fun and nostalgic place that I should visit more often. It was before the days where boys became more than smelly, spitty things to girls and getting to stay up late meant staying up to 9 p.m. on a Friday or Saturday. Those were uncomplicated days and in many a way, I miss them.

It’s nice that such a simple email from a long lost friend can be an experience. Not only does she bring back memories but she also brings forward the chance to reconnect with someone who’ve I thought of over the years but thought was lost to the passing of time.

I’m a firm believer that time travel does exist. It’s not physical and we can’t change anything but with a simple reconnection, we can be thrust back into the life we’ve lived before.

And I, for one, think that’s a magical thing.

Happy Friday and have a great weekend!

Temperature Differences

There is a constant battle in our office regarding the temperature of our surroundings. Fortunately, the office is divided into halves- the front half is controlled by one thermostat, the back half another.

This hemispherical split is a good thing. Our branch administrator who sits at the front desk is one of those people who is always warm or even hot. She doesn’t wear a winter coat, she keeps her car temperature down around 50 in the winter and in the office, it’s a little like the North Pole in her region most days.

Since the rest of us don’t tend to run hot, this means we can control the temperature in our half without affecting her.

Most days, this isn’t such a hard thing. In the winter, those of us in this half of the office are a bunch of wimps and we like to be warm. I’m guessing in the summer, we’ll all like to be pleasantly cool.

It just seems that the in-between seasons might be a problem. I’m a firm believer in the fact that when it is hot outside, the heat should not be on in an office and when it is cool outside, we do not need the air conditioning on.

This philosophy is not terribly well regarded by some of the other members of staff. We have one staff member who comes in on some days wearing a short sleeved shirt and nothing else. Sometimes this is ok because he has a sweatshirt to put on if he gets cold. More often than not, however, he forgets his sweatshirt and starts complaining that he’s cold.

Thus begins the battle of the thermostat. He sneaks out of his office and turns the temperature up. He’s an extremist. He doesn’t believe in middles. Thus, if he’s cold, he’ll crank the thermostat up to 80 degrees to warm up quickly.

Meanwhile, the rest of us who are slightly more sensible, listened to the weather and dressed accordingly suddenly get very warm because we’re wearing sweaters because it’s cold outside. The heat kicks on and it becomes stifling. This leads to one of our account managers staking her claim in the thermostat and she comes out and turns it back down. Instead of stopping at a reasonable range of 72-74 degrees, she turns it down to 68 because it’s so warm.

This, of course, leads to the air conditioning coming on to compensate for the heat that was on before. It gets cold again.

Somewhere in there, I try to sneak out of my office and put the thermostat somewhere in the middle that will not allow the heat NOR the air conditioning to come on.

Today, it was a nice mild day outside. Thus, most of us in the back office space came in wearing lighter sweaters and shirts than we’ve been wearing because we knew it would be warm.

Not our weather-confused staff member, however. Instead of a short sleeved shirt, he comes in with a thick sweater AND shirt on.

Naturally, halfway through the day, he got very warm. Thus, he came out, set the thermostat to 65 degrees and then went back into his office.

This of course meant I was suddenly quite cold. I don’t like to be cold at work. It’s hard to focus. I try to drink coffee to warm me up but there comes a point where the chill from the air conditioner becomes too much and I have to do something about it.

Today, this meant I gave the coworker a nice polite suggestion that perhaps he take off his sweater rather than turn on the air conditioning. He’s our youngest staff member and I find that he has a tendency to act like the bratty little brother you love to bicker with. I’m not the only one who feels this way and on any given day, someone is teasing him, lecturing him or generally teaching him something.

He takes it very well and dishes it right back. Thus, my nice polite suggestion that he take off his sweater turned into a discussion that went something like this:

Me: Hey, X…did you turn the air conditioning on? X: Yes. I was hot.
Me: The rest of us our ocld.
X: I don’t care.
Me: Don’t you think it might be smarter if you took your sweater off before you turned on the air.
X: No. I was hot.
Me: You wouldn’t be hot if you took off your sweater.
X: I don’t want to.
Me: Why?
X: Too much effort.

At this point, my fellow recruiter, we’ll call him K, comes out of his office.

K: X! It’s cold in here.
X: So?
K: Did you crank up the air?
X: No, [captain monkeypants] did.
Me: Don’t tell fibs! I did NOT!
K: X, you did it. I’m turning the thermostat up.
X: I didn’t do it! It’ll get hot in here.
K: Then take off your sweater.

On and on it goes. At some point, the branch administrator will come back and banish X to his office because he’s acting like a brat. Then K will adjust the thermostat. Then someone else will decide they’re hot or cold.

Our office is actually like a family. Our boss is the authority and the rest of us are the bickering siblings who get along well when we’re being professional but when we’re relaxing, we bicker, snipe and snark at each other. It’s all done with fondness of course.

This is the kind of thing that make days at work fun, even slow days. It’s nice that we all get along, even if we do pretend otherwise. It makes for interesting discussion ranging from Charlie Sheen and his recent insanity which led to a discussion of the difference between crack and cocaine to discussions about British slang, animal husbandry and what flavor of lollipops everyone likes. It’s things like this that mark the difference between a job you do to get paid and one you enjoy because it’s fun and you feel like you belong.

Of course, things would be better if we could be in agreement about the thermostat but, well, honestly, squabbling over it is just a daily tradition and where would we be without those?

Happy Thursday!

Generational Continuity

For all my complaining yesterday about gloom and Mondays and tornado sirens, Tuesday came along and made amends for the dour day we had yesterday.

It’s beautiful out there. We started with a cold morning and a thick frost but by lunchtime, the temperature had climbed up to 50 degrees, the sun was shining and the first crocuses were blooming in my garden.

There’s something definite about seeing the first flower of spring bloom. It’s just like the first snowfall of winter- you know it’s welcoming you into the season and there will be much more to come. The daffodils will follow the crocuses and the tulips won’t be far behind and, from then on, it’ll be flower after flower as spring unfolds and gives way to summer.

If you haven’t noticed, I’m huge on the changing of the seasons. I find it fantastic how there are four such different parts of the year. When the season change approaches, I grow impatient. The only exception to this is spring moving into summer. I’d be much more content if late spring just stuck around and went straight into autumn. I’m not a creature of summer. It’s not a season of beaches and swimming pools to me, of family cookouts and long days. To me, it’s a season of mosquitoes, humidity and searing heat.

It’s funny. When I read that, I realize that I sound just like my mother. Except her negativity is towards winter, not summer. She’d take searing heat, humidity and mosquitoes any day over snow and ice, cold and wind. I find that slightly fascinating. We’re very much alike but also different.

It’s actually funny how we grow up and become more like our parents than we ever imagined. It’s something we fight in our younger days. As teenagers when we have vicious fights with our parents, we swear we’ll NEVER be like them.

Then, as time passes, life happens and we realize that not only are we more like them than we’d like to admit but, also, we’re pretty proud of that fact.

There are times when I’m not always happy that I’m like my dad in some ways. Sometimes, it’s not necessarily a good thing. While we inherit the good qualities of my parents, we also inherit the bad. I think the trick is knowing that and being aware of when you’re channeling your mum and dad and NOT in a good way.

It’s definitely a generational thing. I can see my grandparents in both of my parents. My mum acts quite a lot like her mum some days and that’s just plain amusing. It’s funny to see her get snippy when I suggest it even though she knows I’m right. My dad acts like his mother a lot too but he doesn’t always have quite the same humour about it.

Either way, it’s refreshing to know that into each generation, a little bit of the generation before exists. I like that notion. It’s like a chance to improve on what’s already good and work on the stuff that needs to be improved. We can fight it but there will always be a little bit of our parents and ancestors in us.

It’s actually a lot like I said the other day in my blog about my dogs. They’ve been raised in suburbia and spoiled rotten and yet their instincts to hunt, disappear down rabbit holes and try to capture prey in just part of them. From the dachshunds that were bred to hunt, generations later, my girls still have that need in them even though they were never taught or even raised in an environment that cultivated that.

For me, it just means I have to block a lot of holes such as underneath the tool shed and the propane tank. I also have to deal with a lot of holes being dug in the garden. As spring moves in with full force, I intend to use those holes to plant trees in my garden. It’s nice of the girls to help even if that wasn’t their intention. I can’t change their nature just like I can’t pretend I’m not a product of both my parents.

Although neither of them is terribly fond of snow so I’m not sure where that came from.

That must be all me. Maybe that will be what gets passed to the next generation. Who knows?

Happy first day of March and Have a great Wednesday!