September 14

You know what’s a pain? When you’re too busy working at work to screw around with your blog. Really, what a nuisance. We know the odds aren’t good to win the lottery. In fact, you have a better chance of dying at the hands of a vending machine than winning the lottery. Actually, vending machines don’t have hands so that’s a stupid circumstance to worry about. If vending machines had hands we’d be in a lot more trouble than toiling away at work. None of that matters because we’re going to continue to buy lottery tickets. If we didn’t we’d just spend that two dollars on something stupid anyway so we might as well spend it on something that could potentially make us gazillionaires. If that happens, we’ll have all day to spend screwing around on our blog. These are the things that kept us amused this week.

1. Breve.  Ava has been on a crazy new diet.  No surprise there, right!!!  She can’t have any carbs so she has had to resort to using only cream or half and half in her coffee.  It’s painful to listen to her place her order at Starbucks.  “Hi, I’d like a café latte, decaf (no caffeine either on the diet), cream or H&H and no foam.”  Then she starts to babble about her diet and how the  cream is going to help her lose weight and not get really fat, blah, blah, blah.  Most of the employees just look at her like she’s nuts until one said “Breve.  When you want your drink made with cream, the term is Breve and lots of people order it that way so no need for the long-winded excuse, okay?” Well, okay then. Odds are that won’t stop her anyway.

2. Vanity Fair. We love this magazine. Where else can you read Scientology gossip then learn about all the crazy-ass things people way richer than you are doing to scandalize each other? There’s always fabulous Annie Leibovitz photographs. Until recently there had been fabulously sordid articles by Dominck Dunne and intelligent, thought-provoking columns by Christopher Hitchens. VF is one of those magazines you want to read from cover to cover and look at every single gorgeous color ad. Delicious.

3. Out of office events. We spent the day out of the office yesterday at a local trade event. It may have been boring, but it was a day out of the office and that’s a good thing. Also, it seemed that, between Ava and Amylynn, they knew 75% of the people there. We saw old friends and hid from others. We were sincerely delighted to see a friend who’d nearly died earlier this year – he looked great by the way. We also saw our sworn enemy. Indeed, the Sisters have a sworn enemy. We look for this person in the obituaries every single day and, damn it, he’s never there. Still, it was nine hours of reunions and hugging and laughing or glaring and spitting and snarling. Still better than being in the office.

4. Amazing Bosses. Howard Cooper of Michigan sold the auto company he’s owned for 47 years with the stipulation that all 89 of his employees be retained. That alone is a pretty sweet deal, especially in this financial climate. There are few things more distressing these days than fearing for your job. But Mr. Cooper wasn’t done there. The 83 year old employer then gave each one of his employees $1,000 for every year they’d worked for him. Nice, eh? Even nicer when you know that the bookkeeper was there 46 years and a mechanic for 26. Wow! It wasn’t disclosed exactly how much he gave away, but he was quoted as saying that he wanted to make a difference in their lives just as they had done for him. Talk about being appreciated. Need we remind you, Ava and Amylynn work for a place who won’t buy forks.

5. Zeus. We’re huge fans of huge dogs. Amylynn especially has an affinity for giant canines. We had been quite proud of the fact that, for years, the world’s tallest dog lived in our town. Giant George became quite a celebrity with a book and everything. But then along came Zeus. This great Dane stands 7′ 4″, one inch taller than Giant George. We’ll bet that even as big as he is, he still wants to sit on his owners lap. Speaking from experience, you’re going to need an enormous shovel for the back yard.