Market: Slightly Bullish
Friday, Feb. 02, 2007 at 8:45 a.m.
On this day in 1998, actor Daniel Baldwin is discovered by police in his Plaza Hotel room totally naked and disoriented, with a porno movie playing at high volume. He was checked into a New York hospital in critical condition, apparently coming down from a cocaine binge. It is not clear why any Baldwin would be unable to handle his cocaine.
One has to wonder who Daniel�s connection was? The cocaine might have come from the Plaza maid staff, in which case it may have very well been Ajax�, which would make anybody run around naked trying to stomp out the hordes of trebuchect-laden Smurfs� and deranged, naked Funky Winkerbeans�. The volume of the porn movie, was, of course, to disorient the lavender giraffe in the bathtub. It�s obvious!
I have nothing much to report, other than the fact that I did have my �performance review� and it was basically the debacle of banality and insipidness that I thought it would be. Boss-lady has no clue how to write a review, much less give a one-on-one. She talked a lot about how I need to �embrace the philosophy� of our job but wouldn�t give me concrete examples of how I need to accomplish this. She was trying to go Zen, I want to know how to treat the customer more attentively. We also went round and round about one statement in my review, which originally stated �although it doesn�t seem to affect her job, Valkyrie works on a lot of personal projects during the work day.�
Um. I wait for the phone to ring. I have no other projects or tasks except those few busy work things that Boss doesn�t want to bother herself with. So, instead of staring off into space, I write, knit, watch movies . . . and pick up the phone as soon as it rings. No, my knitting doesn�t affect my job. But she wanted to put in my permanent work record something to that effect. Bah. I finally got her to at least rewrite it so that it specifically says that �because of the nature of Valkyrie�s job description (which I still don�t have) there is a lot of down time which Valkyrie fills with personal projects, which does not affect her job performance�. Marginally better at best, yes.
Boss also mentioned how I have an �attendance problem� because I burned all of my sick time last year. I asked �What was my alternative?� Boss replied that I couldn�t help that I was sick. I responded, �Then how does that affect my job performance?� She replied that it�s not good that I burn a lot of sick days because then �they have to scramble� to fill the slot. I asked, �How is lack of personnel my problem?�
In other words, phhhhfffffftt.
Anyway, I met a co-worker for drinks after work (she now works from home because there�s no enough space in the new location for everybody to have a desk, and I find this to be a shame, because we would carpool.) and dished about my review and what a bitch Boss is and generally gossiped about everyone at work. That was fun, to be uber-catty with a girl buddy, drinking Hurricanes and eating boneless wings. Yum!
Hubster is still crunching numbers on the possible �financial restructuring� that we�re looking at doing, and he�s been on the phone with the dude quite a bit. And the Hubster has some valid points, and he�s the money guy, so I go along with what he says. His parents are my financial heroes. I have no idea how they managed to save so much for their retirement on one teacher�s salary after raising 6 kids. The FIL made some very good stock choices, and MIL would stretch a dollar until it screamed for mercy, but they still managed to have enough and have fun. I�m just glad that Hubster learned so much from them. I�m a lucky girl, ne?
Just to remind you, it is 19 days to my 36th birthday. As I spent my birthday last year in a recliner, drugged up beyond belief after being sliced open and having diseased body parts snared out, you better believe I will have some fun this year. vina-aspara�s (locked diary) birthday is also in February, and I share a birthday with the lovely willowfox, so I expect some partying down all over the world for us Water-sign creatures! I also share a birthday with Erma Bombeck and Anais Nin, isn�t that cool?
So I�m working this weekend again (definitely not cool) but it allows the Hubster to play with his chainsaws some more. Here are some snaps of our front yard from the Great Tree Massacree, 2007:
Oh, great and non-native, water-sucking, monster-root ash tree, we knew ye and hated ye for all your stupid leaves. But we love you for the amount of ash firewood you will provide by the end of the year:
And now our front yard looks like this:
So the other tree will soon meet its demise, but I still am concerned about those front windows. I know the Hubster is an engineer and has a great command of physics, but that don�t mean he knows how to cut down a damn big tree without breaking something. Or someone.