Aug 102010
 

It was an awkward encounter at the beer distributor he owned; I had stopped there to grab some beer for an upcoming game night and there he was, behind the counter, waiting to check my ID. Of course he wouldn’t recognize me; it wasn’t like we had regular visits.

That was the last time I saw my Grandpa Kelly.

He’s my dad’s dad, and that in itself is awkward, because my dad is really my step-dad, and actually he’s not even that anymore because my mom divorced him something like ten years ago. But my biological dad died when I was three, and a few years after my mom married Kelly, he legally adopted me.

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Since fourth grade, he’s been “daddy.” But we had a volatile relationship, I’ll go as far as to say we hated each other for much of my teenage years, so I always opted out when my family would go to his parent’s house for holidays or visits.

When I would go, Grandpa Kelly didn’t often come out from his room. He was a germ-phobe, had OCD, and oftentimes was pretty uncomfortable to be around. While I always really liked my Grandma Kelly, I didn’t have much of a relationship with her husband. I don’t think my younger brothers did, either. One of the last times I was over there, it was probably in 2002, my dad met me on the front porch, waiting to give me a refresher.

“Don’t mention you have cats. Don’t mention you smoke! Oh god, don’t mention that. Just, you know what? Just don’t talk.”

Because every little thing freaked Grandpa Kelly out. If he knew I had cats, he’d go into cardiac just imagining the trail of feline nastiness I was tracking into his house. This is a man who couldn’t eat from the same peanut jar as his wife.

My dad and I have gotten along fine ever since I’ve lived on my own. When I was 18, he even swallowed his pride and apologized for the nasty things he’d done to me. And I apologized too, because it’s not like I sat around taking that shit. We fought violently at times. Slung some really razor-sharp words at each other. I nearly caused the demise of my parents marriage on more than one occasion. (That would come later, and it was long over due.)

My dad was the only one who didn’t shut me out during my pregnancy. He’s never made me feel  unwelcome in his home. His name is on my birth certificate. He’s the only father I ever really had.

So I felt it was only right to go to the funeral home on Sunday, where my Grandpa Kelly was laid out.

I met my brother Corey in the parking lot.

“I’m probably only going to stay for a half hour or so,” I said, figuring that would be enough time for the black sheep. Aside from my dad, I hadn’t seen any of his family in almost ten years. In fact, his younger brother has three children that I know nothing about. The youngest I’ve never even met. And he’s like, fifteen.

The director of Debor’s directed Corey and I to the Rose Room, where we saw our dad immediately. He came over and hugged me, but we were completely out of sync without each. It became a dance of him lifting one arm and me leaning the wrong direction until we finally shot the routine like a lame horse after I smacked my chin off his right shoulder.

I come from a long-line of uncoordinated huggers.

My dad looked tired. His eyes were red-rimmed. But his voice was strong and his stance was sturdy.

“I cried every day he was in the hospital,” he started in his standard matter-of-act way of speech. “At this point, I’m just relieved he’s not in pain anymore.”

Meanwhile, I felt eyes boring through me as people began to wonder who I was. I could read my Aunt Joyce’s lips as she murmured, “I think that’s Erin?”

I felt confident that I would be OK being there. Though I didn’t have a relationship with this man, I was still very sorry that he passed, that the rest of the family lost their patriach. But I was sure I wouldn’t cry. I was just there for moral support for Corey, and out of respect for my dad. I was going to be fine.

And then I saw my Grandma Kelly and I fucking lost it. I didn’t downright sob, but my eyes filled up before I had a chance to fight it. And that was before I even had to talk to her.

“Why don’t you guys go say a prayer?

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” my dad suggested, gesturing to the two mauve-velveted pews next to the casket.

I knew he was going to do that. Goddammit.

So I reluctantly knelt next to Corey, fumbled my way through the sign of the cross with a heavy hand, and then squinted my eyes shut.

Then I would feel a presence near me, so my eyes would flutter open. I would force them shut again so it would appear I was genuinely praying.

Things that went through my mind:

“How do you pray?”

“The flowers smell nice.”

“I’m supposed to keep my eyes shut, right?”

“Hi God.”

“Is Corey still doing this prayer thing?” as I’d sneak a sideways glance

“I kind of want a Zebra Cake.”

“This sucks.”

“I hope no one’s watching me.”

“It would suck if my period started right now.”

“OK, I’m done with this now.”

I waited a few seconds after I sensed Corey leave before rising myself. I turned around and found myself face-t0-face with my Grandma Kelly.

In her sweet, sing-song voice, she cried out, “Oh Erin honey! You came!” She looked the same to me. Tiny, energetic. The only thing that was different was the sadness tugging on her eyes. She kept three of my fingers clasped inside her small little hand while she turned her attention on some priest who came to pay his respect. I stood there awkwardly, in this painful limbo right smack in front of the coffin, feeling so uncomfortable with this lingering affection yet not wanting to wrench my hand away either. Finally, someone for her to hug approached and she released my sweaty hand in favor of wrapping her arms around someone’s neck.

“That’s my mom’s biological sister,” my dad pointed to a nun standing across the room.

“What do you mean by that?” Corey asked, but I knew damn well if he had just said, “That’s my mom’s sister,” we all probably would have assumed he was calling a nun a nun.

Having familial obligations to fulfill, my dad left us to go and greet some new arrivals. Corey and I sat in two white padded folding chairs along the wall. Of course we would choose the ones closest to the coffin, because we’re idiots. I kept finding my eyes drawn to it, to the waxy Rosary-wrapped hands; to the pasty nose,  slightly rouged cheeks, and pale parted lips. I could not stop staring. I’d try to fixate on the yellow roses strewn about his body, but my eyes unfailingly went back to his face.

It made me think about my Pappap, how I avoided looking at him in the casket until that last moment of the viewing, when the funeral home director was trying to shoo us all out for the night and I was pulled into the small room that held his body, everyone around me saying it was time to say goodbye, and I remember dragging my feet, shaking my head, until there I was, standing over that fucking coffin at my Pappap’s lifeless body and I don’t know what I thought. That if I didn’t look, it wasn’t real? But I looked, and I wish I could rewind time and go back that night in late February of ’96, stand behind myself and place a hand over my eyes.

It was so hard for me that I can’t allow myself to remember what I saw when I looked down that night.

To my left, I heard sobbing. I looked over and saw our cousin Katie, Kevin and Joyce’s 18-year-old daughter. And then I started crying, as I sat there guiltily watching her bury her face in a Kleenex, and I hated so bad that she had to lose her Pappap. These grandparents are probably to her what my mom’s parents were to me; I would not wish that heart-shattering pain on anyone.

“It must have been tough finding the best Hawaiian shirt to wear today,” Corey said, nodding in the direction of a total Captain Casual who, along with his wife and two young daughters,  was talking to our dad. The older of the two girls was crying into her mom’s dress. We figured they were cousins we didn’t know about, until they eventually made their way over to Corey and me. Since we were sitting right near the casket, I guess we looked like people needing sympathy, so a lot of visitors swung by us with apologies before hitting the casket.

The man in the Hawaiian shirt ended up being some guy who worked at the beer distributor for years. His whole family seemed distraught.

“Me and your dad had some wild nights down there,” he joked, and it was nice to have a reason to laugh. I liked that guy, Hawaiian shirt and all.

Corey was summoned by someone and no sooner than 2 seconds after his ass left the seat, some older man sat down next to me. Just as I was going to make a break for the door.

I didn’t catch his name, but I think I heard somewhere that he’s my Grandma Kelly’s neighbor. I’m not into small talk in any setting, let alone  a funeral parlor. What more is there really to say other than, “This really sucks.” No one feels good being there. No one’s going to wake up the next day and remember talking to Ed Kelly’s sorta-kinda granddaughter about what college she went to. I just don’t have the energy for that bullshit, especially when I’m surrounded by sniffling, sobbing, and a choral round of “I’m so sorry”s. Let’s just sit in peace.

Corey came back and sat next to the neighbor, who eventually rose in a bumbling manner and scanned the room for a more worthy parlor pal.

“What the fuck?” Corey mouthed to me, and I just shook my head in defeat. There went my half hour.

“Don’t leave me again!” I whispered.

More huddles of black-garbed respect-payers. More drafts of ice cold air from the vent. More inhalations of opulent funerary bouquets. More subconscious attempts to cloak the forearm tattoo from the more pious types.

I leaned in to Corey and said, “I even left my phone in the car so I wouldn’t feel the urge to tweet.”

Corey tried to suppress a laugh. “First rule of Twitter: never tweet with a dead relative in the room.”

One of the last viewings I went to was senior year of high school. Lisa’s grandfather had died, and while I didn’t even know him, I started crying uncontrollably as soon as I walked into the funeral home. And then I saw Lisa and her parents and the tears began flowing at a fire hydrant’s speed;  my friends Brian and Angie had to actually take me out of there because I was upsetting people. It was her grandfather. People around me just can’t go about losing grandfathers and expect me to be cool with that. Brian took me to Olive Garden and bought me raspberry cheesecake.

Now I associate raspberry cheesecake with death. It’s a good thing I’m morbid.

“Those are the flowers from Mom,” Corey pointed to the head of the casket, where a large arrangement of red and white flowers sat on the floor. The story is that my mom, whom I knew wouldn’t come even though I thought she should have, decided to send flowers in her name, Sharon’s, and their younger sister, Susie’s. Apparently, the florist forgot to put Susie’s name on it and Sharon, whom after spending the last twenty years (if not longer) of her life wishing murder upon Susie, is now suddenly a HUGE Susie advocate, freaked the fuck out on my mom. Then my mom in turn got angry at Susie, because she should have been the one buying the flowers in the first place, since she’s the only employed one of the three.

This was what I was able to decipher from the hysterical phone call from my mom, anyway.

Sharon wanted one of us to write Susie’s name on the card at the funeral home. She’s out of her goddamn mind if she thinks I’m going to mosey up to the casket, whip out a Sharpie and go to town on the card from a squatting position. Considering my sordid history with my dad, I can only imagine what his family would think when they saw me crouched down next to the casket. “She’s lighting candles for Satan!”

So no, I wasn’t about to write Susie’s name on the card. Go to fucking Hell with that shit.

I was going to try and leave again, but my dad walked over with his old friend Darrell. It was a total blast from the past. Darrell and his wife Brenda used to bring their son Clayton over all the time when my brother Ryan was in elementary school. Clayton wasn’t allowed to watch anything “violent,” like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, so that was always interesting watching my brother play with him.

Darrell sat with Corey and me while my dad wandered off to meet an old couple I didn’t recognize. Darrell got Corey and I up to date with the college careers of his kids and when he asked me what I’m doing, I had the awesome answer of, “Well, I have a kid now. So I guess I’m doing that.” In the distance, we could hear Grandma Kelly crying again, and Darrell asked us about her.

“Sadly, this is the first time I’ve seen her in years. I feel really guilty about that,” I admitted, eyes welling up again.

“Well,” Darrell started that expressionless way he has of speaking, “maybe now’s the time to change that.”

Maybe it is time. Being the asshole black sheep of the family, all families, every family, is starting to get old. Maybe it is time to change that.

Darrell rejoined my dad after a few minutes and Corey and I talked about how awkward that was. Everything is awkward with Corey and me. We do awkward right.

Grandma Kelly wove her way back to us and sat down next to Corey. “Honey girl,” she said to me, she’s always called me that, “I heard you have a baby now!”

Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

It’s weird talking about stuff like that with a woman whose dead husband is sprawled out three feet from me.

“Would you like to meet him?” I asked.

“Oh yes! Would I!” she exclaimed. And I felt a little better about being there.

I was going to use that as my out, since I had her right there and could easily say goodbye, but a Deacon strode briskly across the room and chose that exact moment to stand in front of the coffin and call for everyone’s attention. Meanwhile, old women were passing out prayer books. Oh motherfuck. I was sitting right there in the front of the room, against the wall, where EVERYONE could see me, so I was stuck. Members of the bereavement group led us through page after page of prayers, and there were parts where the rest of us had to say things out like “Praise be to God” and remember, I haven’t been in church in many, many years, so it was chilling to me. One of the women in the bereavement group sounded like Blanche Deveroux. So that was a high point.

Grandma Kelly, who was still sitting with Corey and me, had sobbed her way through the prayer session. This made Corey cry, which in turn made me cry. Crying is fucking contagious.

“Hey, on a lighter note,” I said to Corey afterward, “I somehow remembered all the words to the Our Father.” And he laughed a little through his tears, so I was glad.

By the time all that praying was done, I had been there for over an hour. I might as well just stay for the home stretch at this point, I thought.

Our cousin Kristen came over. I hadn’t seen her since she was probably 3 or 4, and she’s at least 22 now. Just graduated college. Looks like a complete bitch. My Grandma Kelly clearly favored her when we were all younger. Every time my dad would take us to her house, it was always, “Baby Kristen this” and “Baby Kristen that.” It became a joke for my family.

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Even now, when my dad mentions her, he twists up his mouth and says, “You know, Baby Kristen,” in the old-womanly voice of Grandma Kelly.

“So, where do you live?” Kristen asked me in exactly the type of snobby voice I expected to come out of that tight-lipped mouth. She was standing above me, making it slightly intimidating. “I like, know nothing about you.” The way she said it? I interpreted it to mean, “What are you even doing here?”

I told her where I live, smiled and said, “I haven’t seen you since you were really young.”

“Yeah, I like, have no memory of you.” And she gave me a quick, tight-lipped smile. The kind that doesn’t make it up to the eyes. I really don’t like her. Apparently, Corey doesn’t either.

Her boyfriend seemed nice though.

Finally, the director of the funeral home came over to my Grandma Kelly and advised everyone to leave now, to take advantage of the break before the 6:00-8:00 viewing.

As my Grandma Kelly hugged me goodbye, she said, “Tell your mom I said hello!” Then, with a hand shielding the side of her mouth so my dad wouldn’t see, she added, “I love her! He doesn’t know that, but I love her!” My dad just smirked and rolled his eyes.

This time, my dad’s hug wasn’t as awkward, and he thanked me again for coming. It made me feel bad that he felt the need to thank me at all.

“Well, so much for only staying a half an hour,” I laughed to Corey as we left at the same time as the rest of the immediate family. I got home and was telling Henry about it all, and said, “I didn’t think it would hurt so much being there, but it did. I feel really terrible. Really depressed.” For the rest of the night, I kept, against my will, playing back those images of my Grandma Kelly and Katie crying, of my dad’s tired eyes, of Corey getting emotional when asked to be a pall bearer. It was just too much.

I was telling Barb about it yesterday at work, and she goes, “Oh, you didn’t take Riley?”

“Oh God no!” I laughed. “Can you imagine? ‘Mommy, is he a zombie now?’ as he’s poking my Grandpa’s face with rose stems.”

Last night, as I was tossing the black shirt I wore to the funeral home into the laundry basket, I caught a whiff of my Grandma Kelly’s perfume and my heart fell a little.

Apr 292008
 

 

 My crazy aunt Sharon offered up my grandma’s porch for Chooch’s birthday party. Of course, she was in charge of the guest list, which she was adamant about keeping short and sweet. I was afraid to invite Henry’s kids for fear of suffering her impatient huffs and sighs. In fact, I was afraid to even invite MYSELF. But I kept my cool because the whole point of having it there was so my grandma could attend.

However, Henry was so turned off by the whole thing that he just had his mom and sister come over our house Friday night for cupcakes. (And also because we segregate our families. Completely not normal.)

In the end, I demanded that Janna and Christina at least be able to come. They’re my best friends and it would have been weird without them.

 And of course, at the last minute, Sharon called me to see if Henry’s kids were coming.

"No, I didn’t think I was allowed to invite them," I said, slightly snottily. Christina was sitting next to me and her eyes kind of widened. She told me later that she was afraid I was about to ignite some sort of family warfare, moments before the start of Chooch’s party.

"Of course they’re invited!" Sharon said sweetly. "You guys will only be here for an hour, what do I care who comes?"

Oh did I mention that? The party was only allowed to be an hour long. I joked on the way there that probably we’d pull into the driveway and Sharon would hand us cake slices in to-go bags and send us on our way. But I wasn’t really joking.

 

 

In typical Sharon fashion, she gifted him with a bunch of stuff that no kid would ever want for his birthday: A cars wastebasket and shower curtain complete with cars shower rod hangers, and a bath mat with…blue daisies on it.

Oh.

"Does he like flowers?" she asked.

Don’t all two-year-old boys like flowers? Like any other kid, he demands no less than five Lalique vases in his room, filled with the most pungent bouquet of daffodils. In fact, we just had him at the hospital last week, having a bunch of lilacs extracted from his nose.

We all kind of glanced around the table at each other, slinging "WTF?" expressions every time Sharon would turn her back. I mean, for a two-year-old? Home decor?

My grandma ended up having a bad headache (or so Sharon says; I think she’s holding her hostage), so she was unable to leave her bedroom. Chooch went in to visit her, and I gave him a dandelion from the yard to give to her, which Sharon took credit for. Then after meeting her socialization quota for the month, my mom wandered off into the den  to watch the Pens game. (Yay, Pens, btw.)

 

In the end, all that mattered was that Chooch had fun, Sharon was actually personable and didn’t kick us out after one hour exactly, and there was good cake, of which I ate plenty (with the Pennsylvania Vanilla ice cream I bought all by myself and with my own money!)

 

 

Dec 202007
 

So, Secret Santa — sorry, Holiday Gift Bag, how un-PC of me — festivities have been underway all week. I don’t know who picked me, but they’ve been doing a bang up job. On Monday, in a little red box with glittered snowflakes, sat a bejeweled beetle pin and let me just tell you that it’s practically hemorraging with awesome. I was really excited and yelled, "It has my name written all over it!" hoping my secret gift giver was within earshot. I immediately pinned it to my shirt (after sticking my flesh with it first).

Tuesday, I got a black candle burner with a fierce red dragon emblazoned on the front, the kind of angry dragon that perhaps a fan of Godsmack might have tattooed on their chest. I’m not a big fan of dragons (or Godsmack) normally, but I was pleased that they took note of the fact that I did not want anything with flowers or meat on it. I guess the opposite of flowers would be a dragon, to some people.

Yesterday, I got a really fancy-looking hot cocoa kit — a bottle filled with cocoa powder, a bottle filled with marshmallows, a whisk and a measuring spoon, and two big brown mugs. Unfortunately, it didn’t come with directions, which is a bad, bad thing for someone like me. I tried to wing it last night, but it tasted crappy so I sulked for awhile. Bob said it was probably bought at the dollar store and at first I was offended that he would make such biting accusations against my secret gift giver, but then I thought, "Who am I kidding? Bob’s probably right." Even Kim said, "That doesn’t even smell like it would be good." Still, I’m sure if it was made properly, and with milk instead of water, it would have tasted quite indulgent, like the kind of rich beverage a Queen would sip while watching thieving peasants get beheaded. The mugs are really nice, though.

I left a note on my desk before I left last night, thanking my secret gift giver. Today, there was a reply, in large typed font, in place of my note. I kind of felt a surge of excitement because it reminded me of the time I wrote a note to Santa when I was little and the next day he wrote back. On my own purple notebook paper, even! And I didn’t even find it suspicious a few days later when I watched my step-dad sign his name on a check. "Hey, you and Santa write your ‘D’s the same! Neat."

Today, I came in and found a large rectangular object all wrapped up in shiny red paper. Gum Cracker ran over and said, "Hurry up and open that! We’re all dying to know what it is!" (She thinks I’m her secret gift giver, which I was initially before I traded with Kim, so she’s been talking sweetly to me all week.)

It’s a sparkling gold fabric memo board. I was going to take it home, but then I decided it would be put to better use here. I pulled out some older photos of Chooch that I have in my desk and slid them underneath the ribbon.

"Please don’t put your serial killer friend in there—Oh, Erin, no!" Kim begged.

It was too late.

Dec 192007
 

What has:

  • pole-dancing,
  • spiked egg nog,
  • exotic cheeses,
  • Santa with a hard-on,
  • shiny door prizes like panini presses and a magic wand for can-opening ease,
  • a chocolate fountain centered around an array of fresh fruit and lady fingers in scandelous poses?

Not our department holiday party.

No, we got cold cuts drowning in a mucous-like moat, cheese slices that needed the aid of Freddy Krueger’s nails to be surgically removed from each other, a bowl of frozen fruit slices, and a giant sheet cake that had nauseating pink flowers piped precariously around the perimeter. (I deduced at once that it was going to be an offensive supermarket bakery cake, so I walked past it with my nose in the air.) We got scratch off tickets and Tina’s hair collar and a platter of bland cookies that were at least moist and not stale like I had initially suspected.

The cheese lasagna was a real treat, though.

1. A dayshifter who sits next to me. I rue the days she works late because she laughs like an engorged elephant cock is lodged in her throat and she’s trying to summon her inner Vesuvius to phlegm it back up. She handles a runny nose like your typical Teamster: loud, wet and crackly, like a bowl of exploding Rice Krispies is draining down her throat. She’s nice though.

2. Hey Tina, ever since you switched to the day shift, something really confusing and alarming has arrested me: I think I like you. Not in a ‘Hey, let’s go French in a bathroom stall’ kind of way, but in a ‘You’re over here talking to me yet I have no urge to inflict any bodily damage.’ But no, I’m not sad that I wasn’t sitting at your table. And while I imagine playing games with a bullyishly dominate personality such as your own is a dream come true for some (like perhaps a tribe of indigents who have never played games before) I’m not jealous that your table was playing  Taboo, as rousing and scintillating as it sounded.

3. Big Bob. He stole Collin’s Hot Pockets and made him cry.

4. Non-Big Bob’s plate of meat goods were a little too close to me. I felt violated and kept imagining someone gagging me with that slab of ham.

I was happy to be seated at a table of socially capable people — Lindsay, Bill, Brandie, and (Non-Big) Bob. However, we were joined by Stanley. I am fortunate to not have to deal with him because he works during the day and sits over by Bill and Lindsay. He has no filter, kind of like a child, and random strings of rudeness spray from his mouth in fairly consistent intervals. When we were walking up to the Mezzanine, one of the more heavy and elderly employees was up ahead, taking each step with deliberate slowness. Stanley yelled up, “Hey, Donna, we need to get you an escalator.” Someone behind him called him on his rudeness, only making him justify himself. “What? It’s true! Donna needs an escalator!” If I had to deal with that brand of idiocy for eight hours a day, one of us would have lost our job by now.

Stanley spent a good fifteen minutes diligently rubbing off five scratch off tickets, and even after inspecting them closely above his head, he still found reasonable cause to have Lindsay double-check. I took a picture of his crotch from under the table. Sadly, no boners arose from the rub-off frenzy.

And Bob, poor Bob; he stared off into the distance most of the time, mourning his other half’s absence. (Collin called off.) He seemed lost in thought, and I wondered if he was thinking about all the nights he and Collin spent playing their little celebrity chain game to pass the time while braiding daisy chain crowns for each other’s heads.

One of the games everyone (and by everyone I mean the Daytime Clique) was playing consisted of taping the name of a celebrity to each player’s back, and then everyone had to take turns asking a question to find out who they were. I told Bob it would be a good game for him and Collin to play and he lit up. “You’re right! I didn’t even make that connection!” Then he smiled to himself for awhile, probably rewinding the Collin-montage in his head.

Bill spoke of foreign-sounding things for awhile before I realized he was speaking in baking-tongue, while Lindsay smiled at me like an adoring fan and laughed at all of my antics, like when I took a picture of this guy who I have never seen before in my life, but supposedly he’s part of our department and works upstairs (if you want to take Bill’s word for it) and then ten minutes later I blurted out, “Oh shit, I think I made myself have a crush on that guy!” Lindsay giggled. In my head, I dubbed her my new work BFF. I’m not sure who the old one was. Bill perhaps, even though working opposing shifts has really driven a wrench in our rapport.

He doesn’t even bring me brownies anymore. I bet he brings some for Tina, in tiny baskets lined with rich Italian linen. Well, they can have each other.

Kim approached our table and asked why we weren’t playing games. Maybe it was just me, but I thought it was pretty obvious that our table was way too cool for parlor games, at least the ones that didn’t involve heavy betting and liquor. “We’re playing our own game,” I said. “It’s where everyone tells me how cool I am.” I smirked appropriately and Kim acted like she was about to be sick.

Since I pitched in a devastating twenty dollars to this elitist shindig, I gave myself a goal of “eat more than you paid for,” but the party started at 11AM and I just really wasn’t hungry. So in the end, I probably only ate $5 worth, which jacks me right off. (However, later on that evening, I had a piece of leftover lasagna for dinner. This is how it was made possible:  “Tina, you know how you’re always looking for a reason to leave your desk?” Tina looks at me, slightly frightened, before cautiously saying, “……yes?” I jump in for the kill. “Will you get me lasagna?” What? I didn’t want to lift that big pan-y thing out of the fridge! So Tina did. And it was decent.)

Then it was time to go back to work. Most people offered to help clean up, but I just got up and left.

Dec 172007
 

The Secret Santa gift exchange at work is this Friday and I’m proud to say that I’m 100% ready.

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Since yesterday. Five whole days early. This is unlike me.

The girl I shopped for is 18 and cool like me; she likes music that I like, and nautical things and her favorite colors are red, yellow, orange, and brown. I bought her a bunch of little things, and then I decided to try and be an ultra-sweetheart with a center of pure delight and honeyed raindrops. So I painted her a picture of an anchor garden.

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Lookie, the flowers are all blooming in her FAVORITE COLORS.

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See how I did that, combined two things on her list? See that?

I’m a bit intimidated though, because she’s a real artist (according to my boss) and not a fake poseur ass ho-bitch artist like me.

Dying to know who got me. Sneaking suspicion says Tina.