OMG! I saw a $179 HAT!

[nolawitch58]

Some of my older underwear reached the end of their usefulness this week so after work today, I went to Marshalls to buy new undies. Naturally, as long as I have to be in a clothing store, I'll gravitate to any hats they might have. There were a bunch of really elaborate, frou-frou, wide-brimmed bonnets perhaps left over from Easter. If you read the comic strip Curtis, you will recognize the type when he comments on the ostentatious displays by the women at his church. The ones I saw had scads of ribbon and feathers and would have been an instant cat magnet if I would have bought any. The one I liked the most had a price tag of $179. I have never paid over $50 for a hat in my life. I would have thought that sort of price would be for a high quality felt hat from Meyer the Hatter on St. Charles, not some remaindered thing in Marshalls. Yeesh.

My shopping trip was as rapid as possible considering that PetSmart has decreased its stock of the kind of cat food I buy. They also intermingled the regular cat food with the Special Diet stuff I feed the kitties to keep them from pissing blood. The Big Lots was fairly painless except for the fact that every shopper there seemed to be a zombie and one HUGE broad yakking on a cell phone blocked the aisles I wanted to investigate. I got all my shopping done and was home an hour and a half after I left the office.

Honest to crap, my head is pounding from staring at all that data. It would be helpful if my boss had a clue what he wanted from the get go instead of changing things on the fly. I've got subtotals, totals by row and a grand total at the bottom all referencing the individual weekly sheets. I double checked all the forumlas. Numbers that looked hinky got highlighted in lemon yellow. It's a really swell batch of spreadsheets. The headers and footers are perfect. The page formatting is decent, with a reasonably sized, sans serif font. I'm proud of them and I never want to see them again after I hand the mess over to my boss.

hmc_lavadogs and I are supposed to watch some movies and drink some alcohol tonight. If we can't find anything good on cable, we've got DVDs. I think I saw where "Capote" is showing On Demand. I'd like to see that or "Goodnight and Good Luck" because I admire the good journalists of yesteryear (being that there are so few good ones currently). Last Sunday, I watched Stephen Colbert's performance at the White House Correspondents dinner. For a brief moment, "Dizzy" Izzy Stone stopped spinning in his grave at the speed of a pulsar black hole. The assembled mass of media were lambasted the way they have been desperately needing for decades. Sadly, news anchors used to be selected for their journalistic chops and not for their blow-dried good looks.

Digression. Does it irritate the shit ouf of anyone else that Katie Couric is the CBS anchor? Why the fuck is a grown goddamned woman still calling herself Katie anyway? Back in the '60s, we didn't have Wally Cronkite giving us the news, nor did we have Danny Rather. Women already get stuck with icky names, but to ickify them even worse with cutesy diminuitives is stupid. If you want to piss me off, call me Sue or Susie. That nomenclature is for kiddies. I'm an adult. It may be a crazy prejudice, but I don't take women seriously if they retain that childish nickname thing into adulthood.

This is the best update you'll get out of me until the drum line in my head quiets down.

Comments

[ms-issicran.livejournal.com]

"Honest to crap, ...I never want to see them again after I hand the mess over to my boss."

Buwahahahahaha...thanks for that belly laugh. That paragraph probably has my face with it somewhere in the big book of "Bosses: Don't You Just Want To Choke The Shit Out've Em"! ;]

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

I should trust the Force, Luke. I knew going into it that he didn't know what he wanted. I should have decided to do it the right way or at least the way I knew had a good chance of being easily altered later. He's a swell guy, but my boss has ADD or ADHD or some other acronym that prevents him from focusing on anything for more than two minutes. Details drive him insane. If you want to get anywhere with you, you've got to boil it down to sound bites and give it to him fast, sorta like Rosalind Russel in "His Girl Friday".

Free Hat!

[lab-rattus.livejournal.com]

"In your Easter Bonnet (http://www.lisamorphy.net/images/susan_bonnet.jpg) with all the frills upon it, you'll be the grandest lady in the Easter parade"!!!



*runs away*

Re: Free Hat!

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

Oh bloody fucking hell! You're a menace with PhotoShop; do you know that?

Re: Free Hat!

[lab-rattus.livejournal.com]

True, but I was very nice. I did not make a white eyelet bonnet with pink ribbons cascading down. Mostly because I don't have a death wish. At least not right now.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! `

[voxwoman.livejournal.com]

You owe me a new keyboard. Now I have to post the picture of me in my Cirque du Solei hat. Stay tuned.

Re: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! `

[lab-rattus.livejournal.com]

Did ya see the hats the ladies were wearing at the Kentucky Derby? Me thinks nolawitch owes me big time for showing restraint....

Re: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! `

[voxwoman.livejournal.com]

No, I managed to miss that. I used to never miss any of the triple crown, but I seem to have become bored with all flavors of sporting events.

What if you were saddled with a name that ended in an eee sound?

[voxwoman.livejournal.com]

"Wendy" wasn't shortened from anything. I'm irritated about Katie Couric for completely other reasons. Well I guess it's better than having "Talia Winters" as the CBS anchor. It's weird enough seeing her as a talking head on CNN or whatever channel she wound up on.

I have yet to see either of those movies (and I'd like to see them both - Murrow is someone who I've vaguely followed. My mom was hooked into the literary/writer crowd in NY during the 50's. We heard a lot of stories about blacklisting and stuff at the table growing up.). I just finished "Memoirs of a Geisha" (reading the novel) and I think that one's next on my list.

*sends calming, meditative and cleansing thoughts*

Re: What if you were saddled with a name that ended in an eee sound?

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

That's a horse of a different color (appropos of the Kentucky Derby by way of Oz in keeping with the metaphor). Don't get me started on female anchors. Every time I see Daryn Kagan, I want to puke thinking of her fucking Rush Limburger.

What torques my gears is that boys called Johnny grow into men called John, but girls called Katie don't grow into women called Kate or Katharine. Why women are content to retain their childhood names while men are not is completely baffling to me. Girls don't usually get cool nicknames either. Down here, everybody who is a character has a nickname. The characters are usually men. Ruthie the Duck Lady is an exception. She used to be known as Ruthie the Duck Girl back in her salad days, but she's still Ruthie instead of Ruth.

I'll let you know how whichever of those movies we watch is. I'm sure either would be great since they both garnered a couple of Academy Awards.

Re: What if you were saddled with a name that ended in an eee sound?

[voxwoman.livejournal.com]

It honestly depends on how assertive you are when you reach adulthood with your childhood friends/family. I still call my cousing "Ricky" - but now it's even MORE fun, because he's a real doctor, so I call him "Doctor Ricky".

People stopped calling my spouse "Little Dick" (He's Richard, Jr.) about the time he could start hitting back, at about 12 years old, I think.

I'll actually answer to the "nickname" my ex gave me (during the divorce)- it's the "Painted Whore of Babylon"... and I do love my husband's purposefully pretentious "Pagan" name: Big Dick Fire Eagle.

And since one of my close, older woman friends is "Sue" - I think Sue belongs to a woman in her 60's. We did a very informal poll, and found that the most common names for Pagans were Susan and David. Weird, huh?

Gah. I realized that my coven name also ends in a long "e" sound: Ayumi. I'm almost embarrased to say I got it from one of those online name generators - but it did say that Ayumi means "Walks her own way" and I thought that pretty much covered who I am.

[mysticknyght.livejournal.com]

Honest to crap, my head is pounding from staring at all that data.

see, that is EXACTLY why I teach.

Every time I see Daryn Kagan, I want to puke thinking of her fucking Rush Limburger.

I see her and think about ball gags and rough anal sex...but the Vulgar Pigboy is so freaky that she might really like that...

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

I don't exactly have a pleasant instructional personality. You, on the other hand, exude that calm, avuncular didactism needed to be a good teacher. How do you do it? You're one of the few Scorpios I know who can dive into group dynamics and not rip others apart with rampant snark.

[mysticknyght.livejournal.com]

it's all instinct. i also know how to behave in front of female students, and a lot of computer guys don't.

OI!

[saminz.livejournal.com]

Sue is NOT a diminutive!! Au contraire. It's the shortest and most practical *real* name you can get out of Susanne. I'm going to piss you off royally, I can see that. S'gonna be fun :-D!

And yeah, that spreadsheet-paragraph should get you a prize. Geez. If *ever* you feel like teaching, make it "high energy writing", or "combat-writing", or something. You certainly rule at that!

So: Sure, you deserve a new hat, methinks :-P.

"Suzi", however,

[lionsphil.livejournal.com]

is a word you can practically see the pink sparkles falling off of.

Re: "Suzi", however,

[saminz.livejournal.com]

Definitely. My family still calls me Susi, by the way. You should have seen the guys in my pub when little sis started to turn up there and called this (almost) 6 feet monster "Susi" :-D!

Of course it stuck immediately, much to my chagrin...

[fakiiri.livejournal.com]

You're sooo Susan Sto Helit ;-). If only you'd have the horrendous hair that tangles all by itself, you'd be a perfect match. The name and attitude matches, however.