She Likes Me, She Really Likes Me! - Wednesday 4/8/2009

You know how I can tell? Because she finally busted loose with some strawberry jam for my English muffin.

It's been nothing but mixed fruit from the Surly One at Andrew's NoHo for the past year. This indicates a serious step up in my status. She even complained to me about the new cook!

I'm so in.



When's the last time you had to wait for a train? It was a lovely day for it.

I was in Palmdale, picking up yet more prescriptions. Besides the Prednizone and Codeine cough syrup for bronchitis, I am now on antibiotics and ibuprofen because a quarter of one of my molars broke off this morning (not on the muffin), prompting a fabulous root canal this afternoon.

The pharmacist assures me that there is still room for actual blood in my veins along with the chemicals.

It all makes me long for a nice glass of Shiraz, which is of course out of the question.

If you are having respiratory problems this spring, check them out with the doctor! We have one friend with walking pneumonia and another who is hospitalized on a ventilator due to a Legionaire's-style lung infection!

The Anti-Bacterial Question - Wednesday 1/7/2009

Last night, Kitty and I talked about the over use of anti-bacterial products these days. I think she was relieved to hear that although I do have a bit of a mania about clearing and wiping off my kitchen counters before bed, I don't routinely swab them with microbe-annihilating potions.

But then I had to admit to her that I use them at work. The hand- and dish-soaps are provided by the office, and I recently added the Purell to my desk.

This is due to the nasty habit we have in this office of passing around colds. Yesterday, 4 of my 7 coworkers were either working sick or out sick.

To avoid the thrill of this particular merry-go-round, I started using my own glass, bowl, plate, cups and silverware rather than share the communal stock a couple of years ago.

When I started here, I was kind of excited at the thought of an all-female office. I just assumed that would mean that everyone would do her own dishes, wipe her own exploded soup off the insides of the microwave, scrape her own burnt cheese off the bottom of the toaster oven.

Not so, my friends.

But at least I was made aware of and made to release that sexist little nugget.

I started using my own private utensils because I was fed up with always carting other people's clean dishes back to the little kitchen area. And if they want to leave a bowl soaking until smelly creatures colonize it's surface, it's not my problem.

The water we have to wash dishes in doesn't get very hot, so I want to just limit myself to my own personal germies, thank you very much. I even have my own (nice clean) dishtowel so I don't have to leave my dishes in the drain rack (which is in the same room as the toilet...don't get me started on what The Today Show would say about that!)

Every year at some point a cold (or two) gets shuffled around the office, bolstering my separatist inclinations. When one person is out sick, it's almost a given that I or another coworker will have to go to her desk and work on her computer or get her USB drive to work from. I unabashedly wipe everything at her desk down with those Kirkland anti-bacterial wipes.

I'll admit that it's doing a number on my hands, drying them out a bit more than usual even for this time of year.



Other than that, I think I'm handling the situation quite rationally.

Carafe d'Eau - Saturday 6/2/2007

In which our heroine engages the carafe she bought in Paris in the effort to get a lot of fluids...