Slight Humor, and Side-Eyeing Chloe

There's bad news and good news.  Actually, lots of good news and bad news.

Bad news: Haven't blogged in weeks.
Good news: No one reads the blog in April, I've noticed.  I probably could have gone till May till someone said something to me.

Bad news: Baltimore is self-destructing.
Good news: Lots of time with Smidgen.

Good news: My sister is coming to visit this summer!
Bad news: So much to do to my house before she and her wife come.  I finally talked to her today and found myself saying, "Listen, you're just going to have to deal with the fact that I have a toilet that occasionally rocks!! I can't afford a new toilet right now, okay!?"  

Sooooo if you wanted to come over and help me paint or do yard work, I would not object.

Good news: my colleagues are really used to my shenanigans.  

I was mad at one of my colleagues, but it wasn't for a few days after whatever initially upset me that I actually saw him again, and by then, I couldn't remember why I was mad, just that I was supposed to be mad.  This is my attempt at holding a grudge.

So something was wrong in one of our systems, so I went to call in my folks to help, when...

From: Scotty

To:  Veronica

Subject: All fixed...

From: Veronica 

To: Scotty

Subject: RE: All fixed...

Oh.  Okay I’ll call off the troops.  Thanks and sorry a little.

From: Scotty

To: Veronica

Subject: RE: All fixed...

Just a little?

From: Veronica 

To: Scotty

Subject: RE: All fixed...

Yes because I was mad at you but this might have cancelled it out just now.  Maybe.

From: Scotty

To: Veronica

Subject: RE: All fixed...

You can't even remember why you were mad?

From: Veronica 

To: Scotty

Subject: RE: All fixed...

Not really but it’s one of those things like women and childbirth – you block out the really painful part, but you know that you still mad, bro

From: Scotty

To: Veronica

Subject: RE: All fixed...

I love how you mentioned women and childbirth but still finished strong with “bro”

It's good.

I love other people telling me about funny things I've done, because I can never remember them.  I'm even chuckling at that email convo I had, and I'm glad I remembered to write about it.  

The other day, Sara came up to me asking me to elaborate a Post-It note I had written.  I had given her a mug, because I take my tea very seriously, and she doesn't keep a real mug at work.  How am I supposed to share my passion for tea with someone who is ill-prepared? Seriously, check out my tea department: 

All sorts of teas, loose and bagged and in sachets.  Herbal, fruit, black, British, you name it.

Then there is my honey collection, which is not pictured.

So I got her a birdy mug like she likes, and apparently wrote this post it note:

She came over and said, "Excuse me - could you please elaborate which feelings, exactly, were implied here?"  I thought it was very funny.  I had totally forgotten about the entire thing, so it really cracked me up.  

I spend about 2 hours of each day just laughing, and about 80% of that is at myself, or things I forgot that I did.   Or my Timehops.

The other day, a meeting reminder went off on my computer.  When I opened it, it said that the (actually important) meeting was taking place on the 16th floor, and then below, in the appointment, I wrote to everyone, "Unless you are afraid of heights, in which case we'll just meet in John's office."  

That may seem not funny to you right now, but when I'm  really focused, and in work-mode, things like that just totally throw me off and make me laugh.

Side-Eyeing Chloe

If I have not held an entire conversation with you via meme, then you do not hang out with me enough.  Anyone who actually knows me knows that most of my day-to-day life can be illustrated via a series of memes.  Kake and I will hold entire wordless conversation with just memes.

Side-Eyeing Chloe is one of my spirit animals.  Click here to get the full story.  

I use Chloe for so many situations.  Just this evening, I received a text message telling me that I was being impatient (because I did not receive an immediate response to my question) and that I was "just going to have to wait," which received a big Chloe in response.

The funny thing is, two out of three people who don't know Chloe actually think that it is a picture of me as a kid.  That's how similar we look.  

It cracks me up when people call out Chloe, either by giving me a good one, or calling me out on one.  When Sue was telling me that Larry is planning a road trip to Oklahoma, apparently I gave her a perfect Chloe.

This whole week's Baltimore situation has just been one big Side-Eyeing Chloe. 

Scene It - Real Life

In the movie, “You’ve Got Mail” (a.k.a. one of the best movies of ALL TIME) Meg Ryan’s character says, “So much of my life reminds me of a book, when, shouldn’t it be the other way around?”

I feel like a lot of things that happen in my life remind me of a TV or movie quote (such as the very first sentence of this entry.) 

Example: This is definitely t.m.i., but I am sharing it with you because no reason:  I drink a lot of tea and coffee every day + really long meetings = so when I finally get a potty break, I am often very self-conscious that other people in the bathroom will be reminded of this scene: 

Another example:  recently in one of these very long meetings, I had a Seinfeld/Tweety Pez Dispenser episode moment.  You know this episode:

Well, I am just sitting there in a meeting minding my business as someone is walking through a presentation, when my colleague, with a very serious look on his face, calmly reached over and, seeming like he had a very important note for me, drew a single dot on my copy which ruined me for the rest of the meeting.  I had to leave the room.  Do you see what he did?

I was finished.

If you know me at all,  you know that Friends is more than a show to me (and to some of my best friends)... it's more of a religion.  I could have Friends on Season 1 Episode 1 and watch it clear through the entire series without getting bored or annoyed.  Sometimes, my ex-roommate and I would communicate only via Friends quotes and memes, and we still do, to this day!

Including the fact that my spirit animal is someplace between Chandler and Phoebe.

Friends taught us how to deal with all sorts of emotions and situations.

Recently, after a day at the archery range, a bunch of us went to get lunch.  We had a couple of new folks joining us, including a new member who just moved here from Brighton, England.  He's only been here in America for four months.  

After suffering through a few moments of my interrogations, I asked him, "So what's the biggest difference to you between here and there?"  And he said, without me even having to tell him to say this: 

"Well, Americans are so funny.  The British don't really show emotion.  But the Americans, you laugh loud, you are very expressive.  It's like you are all on the show Friends.  Do you know that show?  When we watch it in England, we think that it couldn't possibly be like that; that people couldn't be like that all of the time.  But now that I am here, it's so funny - I can't tell if Friends was written about you, or if you are all acting out Friends."

I swear to God, I was so proud, I almost shed a tear.

And lastly, there's the city togetherness you see on TV.  One thing I love about working in the city is randomly seeing people whom I know in the streets.  I remember I used to watch shows like Seinfeld, and the characters would see each other in the streets, and I would think, “Oh come on... of all of the millions of people roaming the streets of NYC, these people just HAPPEN to bump into each other all the time?  I don’t think so.”

But actually, it happens to me quite frequently.  I see colleagues from my previous job, or folks I knew from school, or people I've met just from other friends.  Just the other day I was walking in a cross walk, and an ex-colleague I haven’t seen in over a year (she now works at Under Armor, across the harbor) honked and yelled at me as she drove me.  I love it. 

I could go on and on about real-life references from The Golden Girls, Will & Grace, and basically every early-2000's sitcom, but I think you get the picture.  There is basically a reference running through my head at any given point in time.

That's all for now.  Keep it together, if you can.