Sometimes there is a silver lining

I was having a bitch kitty of a bad day yesterday. I was in a classic foul mood, meaning I didn't talk to anyone if I could avoid it, I wasn't smiling and joking around, and from 9:45AM until about 2:00PM all I did was hunker down in my chair and listen to depressing ballads while BP&M'ing about how no one knew what the f*ck they were doing on the project I'm working on.

Around 2, I stood up, announced that I was going shopping and walked out armed only with $200 in gift certificates for The Container Store. No cell phone, no wallet, no company.

Usually, The Container Store has an energizing effect on me. I am, by nature, a nester, which translates into being kind of messy most of the time. On the other hand, I actually have a great desire to be organized. Few things in life look as good to me as those beautiful layouts in design magazines where everything is all pristine and the beds are made and everything has a place. And the omnipresent moth orchid makes me long for a green thumb and an apartment with more light.

Yesterday, however, I couldn’t even dig on being surrounded by the glass, chrome, plastic and canvas articles of the ultimate Temple of Orderliness. I found the sales force to be thoughtlessly rude, I couldn’t find anything I liked, nothing was where it should have been, and everybody was in my way.

I was a LOT of fun to be around yesterday.

$84 later, I felt a little better, but I still wasn’t fit for human consumption. I wandered back to the office with my bag o’stuff, tried to be polite to the doorman who wanted to have his usual pleasant banter with me, and headed straight for my desk where I fully intended to sulk for the rest of the day.

But then everything changed.

Sitting larger than life on my keyboard was my Super Monkey.

MY SUPER MONKEY HAD ARRIVED!!!

Suddenly, life had new meaning. My raison d’être had been revealed. The small, furry, monkey cum slingshot enrobed in a blue cape raised my spirits to a level heretofore unimagined.

Naturally, the Kitten and I had to go try them out ASAP.

Joined by two other guys in the office, we went down to the crowded streets of Manhattan and promptly set about flinging screaming howler monkeys into the air and dying of laughter.

Somehow we managed to keep from killing anyone or getting the monkeys caught on scaffolding or being run over (barely). We returned to work about 15 minutes later laughing our asses off.

That’s when the trouble really began.

Naturally, we couldn’t prevent ourselves from sharing our newfound toys with the rest of the office. But apparently only a few other people had the level of appreciation for them we did. The yellow monkey was even confiscated (to be returned at the EOD…just like in grade school). Not that this threat stopped us. We flung them at least four more times before we figured we had pushed our luck as far as we could without getting fired.

I took mine home last night, but the screeching terrified the cats, so I brought it back to perch on my desk, arms hugging the mini pumpkin I bought two weeks ago that is also gracing my overcrowded desk. I’m waiting for “everyone” to go home tonight so that I can shoot it down the beautifully long, unobstructed hallway between Production East and Still Graphics.

Two hours and counting…


This December will mark the third anniversary of my tenancy in my Big Apple apartment. During those three years, exactly two members of my nine member family have ever been inside it. Not for lack of invitation…more because of a lack of interest. This is not particularly surprising, as my family tends toward the narcissistic. Things must be convenient and fit within their schedule of wants and needs. This used to bother me a lot more than it does now, largely due to the fact that I have accepted that this is who they are and nothing I do will change that.

Nonetheless, I extended a formal invitation for Sunday dinner to my mother and stepfather. They had to think about it for two days, then I received a call RSVP’ing a yes. Two days. What the hell did they have to think about for two days???

Anyway, they did come…an hour late due to traffic and parking problems. I had already steeled myself for the complaints that would ensue from having to walk up three flights of stairs. My mother was in rare form. At the bottom of staircase #2, I told her she looked very nice. Her retort? “Shut up.”

Thanks, mom. Way to build my self-esteem.

It actually didn’t take them all that long to walk up, but from all the huffing and puffing and BP&M’ing they did when they finally got to the apartment and sat down, you would think they had walked the entire length of the island of Manhattan. Generally, I have figured out that when people have something in their mouth, they can’t talk, so I immediately broke out the beer, chips and Mike’s Hard Lemonade. That didn’t stop my mother who was not particularly happy that I hadn’t made her my World Famous Daiquiris. She also managed to insult my cleaning skills, my choice of pets, the portrait Pete had drawn of me, my handwriting (don’t even ask), and my choice of dinner menu. I was making my equally World Famous Honey Glazed Lemon Pepper Pork Chops. She wanted to know why I wasn’t making Shrimp Scampi.

Oh yeah. Now I remember why I can only tolerate my mother for three days at a time.

I refused to argue with her about anything, letting it all go with a small smile, a shrug and a “Whatever you say, Mom.” She kind of hates that because it’s difficult to argue with someone who won’t argue back.

For Christmas I’m going to embroider a pillow for her with the inscription, “How are we supposed to compromise if you won’t do what I say?”

The food turned out perfectly. I accompanied the pork chops with brown rice, stir fried vegetables, a side salad and pound cake for dessert. Healthy and delicious. Both of them dictated that I provide small amounts of salad, vegetables and rice. My father ate most of his dinner, but barely touched his salad. My mother nibbled at everything and left most of the food on her plate insisting that she wasn’t that hungry.

What???

How the hell do you come to someone's house for dinner and claim not to be hungry?! That's got to be a huge no-no in Emily Post's opinion. I know it certainly is in mine.

Nonetheless, we all managed to make it out alive, and when she got home, she actually called and left a breezy, happy message on my answering machine telling me what a lovely time they'd had and how good the food was and how nice it was for me to invite then and let them see my apartment.

Now I know where I get my multiple personality disorder from.