Happy Fat Tuesday!

Take heed, good friends and Laissez Le Bon Temps Roulee! Today is one of the best days of the year...Fat Tuesday is the day you get to eat all you want of whatever you want! (Of course, tomorrow Lent begins and you get to make up for all of it by fasting until Easter...no rides being free, and all that.) So Eat, Drink and Be Merry! (And throw me some beads!!!)

Free tastes better

Yesterday I committed a pint-sized scam with my younger sister. It involved people wanting to give me stuff for free. And free stuff is always a good thing.

For the past few weeks, Crate & Barrel has been having an event called "Sunday Morning Engagements" on (you guessed it) Sunday mornings. If you come in and register for your wedding, they ply you with free champagne (and/or Bellinis) and give you a pair of heart-shaped champagne glasses for your trouble.

Far be it from me to pass up free champagne and glasses.

Now, I have no plans to get married any time in the near future, nor does my sister...but that didn't stop us from creating fictitious fiancés and trotting around C&B with mini scanners that allowed us to electronically create our wedding registry. It was way cool. My life would run so much better if I had a mini scanner on my hip at all times. It would eliminate all those inconvenient times when you need to know the price of the economy size jar of pickles or that sexy red Lamborghini.



Of course, my life would run even smoother if everything had UPC codes. Maybe when we all get branded we’ll also get scanners. Then I could find out easily if the guy asking me out is married, has two kids and a mortgage of $750,000….or if he has a fictitious fiancée and is registered at Crate & Barrel.

In Remembrance of an Ordinary Hero

This is something I wrote a few years ago, but as the 13th anniversary of this date approaches, I felt like remembering again.

*****

My cousin, Warren, wasn’t a pro ball player. He wasn’t a rock star or an actor. He wasn’t a political leader or the discoverer of quantum physics. He wasn’t perfect. He wasn’t a saint. But he was a hero.

Since September 11, 2001, police and firefighters have once again resumed their rightful place in the minds of Americans as role models worthy of admiration and emulation. They didn’t become heroes on 9/11. Those souls who commit their lives to the service and protection of others – especially at great personal risk – have always been heroes. It’s just that somewhere along the way we lost our focus of what is truly important and allowed ourselves to believe that fame, fortune and attitude were to be admired above all else. It took an attack to our basic way of life to cause us to open our eyes and reprioritize.

Although Warren was a firefighter, he was not at the World Trade Center on 9/11. He had been killed 8 years before in the line of duty. Our family could not overlook the irony of the fact that he was not even supposed to be at that fire. He heard the call on his radio and immediately raced to the site to see if he could be of assistance. Understandably we were hurt and angry, but we weren’t surprised. Warren died a hero’s death, helping to rescue people from a burning building, but more importantly, he lived a hero’s life.

Warren was not only a hero in the classic sense of having given his life to save another, he was a father, a husband, a friend, a charmer, a philosopher, a man of principles and ideas. He was a dedicated public servant. He was a believer in making the world a better place. Even if you didn’t agree with him on some subject, you still liked him. It was difficult not to.

He wasn’t obsessed with making a lot of money. He didn’t need to drive an expensive car or wear designer suits. If he wasn’t on duty, he never missed being with his family for holidays and celebrations. He worked tirelessly to recruit more minorities into the fire department – serving as a role model and mentor for untold numbers of local students looking for positive options in their lives. He had goals, dreams and aspirations – as we all should – but he always remained grounded.

This past Saturday, February 22, 2003, I had the honor and privilege of attending the 10^th anniversary memorial for Warren. It is common in our culture to avoid speaking ill of the dead – thereby making people who were often viewed as brutish and nasty in their lives sound nearly saint-like in their eulogies. Warren was a singular exception to this. There was not one word uttered during the ceremony that caused me to shake my head and wonder “who on earth are they talking about?” Every praise recalled to mind the warm, wonderful man I knew, and sadly, will never know again.

The best and most lasting tribute my family, and every American, can give to Warren and all those “ordinary” heroes just like him is to live our lives they way they would. The simple pleasures in life really are the best…and many of them are fleeting. Don’t just live your life. ENJOY it. The next time you have to make a choice between working late or going home to see your children, go home. The next time a stranger asks you for a quarter, give it to him. The next time you pass a flower stall, stop and smell the roses. Better yet, bring a bunch home. For yourself. For your family. In remembrance and celebration of all the ordinary heroes.

Thought for the Day

"A bomb destroys everything but itself."

That's pretty deep. And yet fairly shallow at the same time. If you look at it clinically and literally, it's a very cold statement of fact (ask your nearest Bomb Squad if you don't believe me). On the other hand, if you look at it metaphysically, it takes on a whole other meaning.

Discuss.

Say WHAT???

So this friend of mine is on a business call, and the guy on the other end says he can't sign off on a document and that my friend needs to speak to his manager first.

 

Okay, what's your manager's name?

 

Guy On Other End gives a name.

 

My friend tries to spell the name she hears and writes down "Luber Cates."

 

That can't be right.  What kind of name is "Luber Cates"???

 

She asks Guy to spell the name and he gives her L-O-U-I-S B-R-I-C-A-T-E-S...which, if you shorten "Louis" to "Lou" (as he apparently does), becomes "lubricates."

 

What a moniker to get stuck with...we've been laughing for 10 years over that one!

Happy "holiday"!

Remember your first "real" job?

Remember when you got tired of it or got a better offer and decided to ditch? Remember how you either went into your boss' office and resigned in person and/or submitted a formal resignation letter?

Fuggetaboutit. Miss Manners is going to have to update her etiquette book.

The new 21st century way to walk away is to call in sick and then send this via your Sidekick:  

Walt Disney must be turning over in his grave

Remember 80's One Hit Wonder group DEVO? C'mon, we all loved "Whip It."

Well, Disney has seen fit to revive the group...but not with the original members...looks more like they used their kids...

If for some reason you are truly interested in finding out more about 80's revival cum 21st century sensation, DEVO 2.0 (or, cleverly logoed DEV2.0) check them out at DEV2.0

All I wanna do is zooma zoom zoom zoom and a boom boom!

So I used to have this boss at Unnamed Government Agency...

He was an absolute riot. Not intentionally, you understand...his comedic ability came from the fact that thinking wasn't on his list of Top Priorities coupled with a lack of that filter most people have that keeps inappropriate content from going straight from your brain to your mouth. McSorely, Dancer and I nicknamed him "Mr. Bill" after the old SNL Play-Doh character. (There was a corresponding "Sluggo", but that's another story.)

Two McSorely stories involving Mr. Bill:

1. Unnamed Government Agency has a one-year probation during which you can be fired for any or no reason whatsoever. As you might imagine, except for the most arrogant of us, we were all a little anxious until we got our first quarterly review. Well, long before McSorely's first quarterly review, he and Mr. Bill are walking down the hallway, having left a meeting with the higher echelons, and Mr. Bill turns to McSorely and says, "You must have really impressed the front office during your interview, because I saw your résumé, and I wouldn't have hired you."

Yikesy potato, Batman!

Fortunately, it was a Lack of Filter thing, and McSorely not only made it past his probationary period, but turned out to be one of Mr. Bill's favorite peons (nothing personal, McSorely...we were all peons.)

2. We were having a meeting of our group and somehow we get on the personal topic (Mr. Bill was fond of discussing personal topics involving his family) of Mr. Bill's family's watching or reading "Swiss Family Robinson" that past weekend. McSorely, Dancer and I were often instigators in these situations, but this time another person managed to ask how to spell "kayak," as Mr. Bill had mentioned it during the anecdotal retelling. He hesitated for a moment then said, "I don't know...C-A-J-A-C-K?" McSorely turned to him very seriously and responded, "I think you're spelling "carjack," but you left out the 'r'."

Then there were the instigator episodes where we took deliberate aim at Mr. Bill's delicate failure to understand when we were yanking his chain...such as the time we decided to request a Whack-A-Mole and a pasta bar in the Batcave (my office, no surprise). Instead of telling us we were complete idiots and to shut up, he looked at us completely nonplussed and asked us what a "Whack-A-Mole" was.

Heaven help me, I miss that man!

Run, Bambi, run!

I have managed to avoid working for the past 5 or 6 months, and in that time have developed an impressive repertoire of daytime TV intelligence NOT INCLUDING soap operas, court shows or Lifetime movies.

My favorite time of day is noon to one when A&E (usually) broadcasts "American Justice" (today's episode is about Lawrencia "Bambi" Bembenek).

On good days "City Confidential" comes on 11 to noon, and "Cold Case Files" comes on one to two. (It's a wonder I find time to go to the gym). I believe that I now know more about outdated cases than anyone in the NY Metro area. I'm comfortably certain that I know more than the people who pull the files at A&E. It's like a game of "Name that Tune"...give me a five second clip of any episode and I can tell you who it is about, who did it and whether or not they are currently serving prison time. But have they made a Trivial Pursuit version of Forensic TV? Noooo. It's just another way The Man is trying to keep me from droppin' knowledge on the people...or at least my fellow players at my dining room table. Typical.

Damn Republicans. Always trying to keep a girl down.

I have come up with my next job, though. I have discovered that I am imminently qualified to be a TV programming executive. I have an eerie (often very annoying) ability to order DVDs from Netflix that show up on television within a week (thus peeving me off to have wasted a rental opportunity). I figure that means I have my pulse on the American viewing public (or on the Hollywood showing monopoly). Either way, I obviously know what is going on and should therefore be paid millions of dollars to peruse Netflix's 900 million listings and choose what to show. That would be even sweeter than being Director of Public Relations for Video Professor!