25 posts tagged “flamingo files”

I have brilliant insights into life, love and the cosmos as I go about my daily chaos, but unless I scratch some cryptic, no not cryptic, very obvious message to myself I forget what it was that I was going to dazzle you all with and have a zilch memory for blogging time.

No death defying stunts this morning – thank you to all those people who expressed gratitude for my continuing survival. Very much appreciated. I have a small suspicion though that it all makes you feel better about your own lives when you read that my life is in fact the basis for the formation of the chaos theory and maybe even an argument for eugenics. Loved the fact that my demise could have been brought about by a Flamingo Flattener as so named  by gcgal . I had this vision of little pink flamingo legs sticking out beneath the carnage of me. I laugh in the face of adversity…that’s a lie. I usually perform an adversity dance something akin to a Polish Polka for at least two days. My children can confirm. Mr FD can’t as he is usually 45 polka steps ahead of me and not looking behind only onwards to more global disaster…

Crazy season at work is drawing to a close, earlier than usual. I would like to think it is because my little department is such a well oiled machine, but I think it is really just God given luck. Either way, gratefully accepted. Next crazy season Feb next year…as regular as clock work. Lots of time to plot revenge and sabotage.

Today's Basement of Discontent issue however was that at 3pm MegaMegaBoss sent out a mass email to all permanent employees calling them to a meeting in the Boadroom on Tuesday morning....mass hysteria. MegaBoss was nowhere to be seen and Boss was off site, so I had people coming to me, as next inline, asking me if they were all getting the sack and should start stockpiling one minute noodles. I was not 100% in the loop about this meeting, but have gut feeling it is about the takeover of the related work section and an overhaul of it into a new format as was told to me last week, but I couldn't say anything. It may not be that either - I may need to ask you all to mail me one minute noodles shortly. I can't help but think it was so cruel to send out a short, noninformative email on a Friday afternoon and worry people all weekend. I know it was probably due to the fact that they wanted to ensure everyone was there, but MegaBossBitch the self-proclaimed HR expert should have looked at the wording and made sure it didn't send people into a spin. Stupid people.

Midnight epiphany last night was that I started to become worried that my mother’s old photograph album, which must be about 60 years old, might have book worm. Her housekeeping, never a major strength, has slipped a tad or two in the last 20 years. Daughter 2 thought she spied some tiny weeny creepy crawly. As we have a large home library and I had not cared over the past 5 nights I decided Thursday night was my night to be concerned. So at 3 am I went downstairs and found the album and sealed it in a zip lock bag until further examination. I walked back twice to make sure the zip lock was really zip locked…and am not 100 % sure now but have to accept for now.  I was going to put it in two zip lock bags, but we only had one. I think I may have even “borrowed” it from work, as you do.

Daughter 1 off on a lunch date with her new elove friend Saturday . When they speak on the phone all I hear is lots of laughter from behind her closed door (yes you still have to speak to boys behind closed doors if you are 29 and live at home)  I think the shared sense of humor is a big plus, something missing in her other relationships. One of his first questions was whether she wanted to have children, and she does, very much, so that cleared the air on that one too. So, for the very early stages,  a couple of positives there. Mothers must just wait and see… I wont say what else we are capable of, but I hazard a guess you all know anyway! I have 3 children and I would like to play mother of the bride/groom at least once. I can be hysterical with the best of them.

Daughter 2 is very against my decision to return my hair to its grey beauty. Well, not that it has ever really been grey before, but it is now. She told me in no uncertain turns that I was not going to and if I had to dye it weekly I would. Her expression was akin, and speaking to Australians here, Aunty Jack promising to Rip Yur Bloody Arms Off!  I am at the stage of letting it fade a little with a lovely grey stripe down the part area which I try to camouflage each day with some artistic fluffing of the hair and very specific application of hair spray.  My BIL asked me the other day if I had been in a wind storm – I thought I was looking good! My sister said don’t speak to a woman like that and BIL replied That’s not a woman that’s FD. BIL’s give you no respect if they have known you since you were 13 and watched you grown up….he is 67 in October so I may have mentioned that he might need the wheel chair before dear old Mother. End of conversation. Sister, who though 8 years older, is not as grey as I, and having spent $160 on a dye job last week, which 1. she cannot afford, and 2. still looks like a bad home job, is considering following my lead. I can sense a ground swell of boomers forsaking the bottle. Come on ladies, and gentlemen too, let’s get off the bottle and face the rest of our life au natural. Hair, on head, only of course. Not the body au natural. That would lead to a major lobby group calling for euthanasia, I feel.

I am thinking now of a Springsteen song in which he described making love to a red haired woman. He made it very clear and went into some depth at the concert making sure we understood that it 1. was his wife he was singing about and 2. that it wasn’t the hair on her head he was referring too. We wont go there, shall we?

I am going to sleep for 37 hours tomorrow and not rise until lunch time ... just in time to wave off Daughter 1 on her e-date. Then I may go back to bed again. Mr FD arrived home tonight - said hello and settled down to watch Friday night football.  Isn't marriage grand?   I know he is just waiting for me to fall alseep and then he will come up all full of chatter and wake me up with some crazy remark about tiger penis soup or something. It is how he gets HIS big jollies.

Another day, another $1.50.

I had a near, near death experience this morning driving to work. A semi trailer truck loaded with a small earth mover and other construction equipment entered the round about just ahead of me and started to turn right up the hill, the same way I was going. I heard the truck make an odd noise and so I stopped my car on the roundabout. The truck shuddered and then started to slide back a little, obviously unable to gain traction in the wet. It was coming my way so I slammed the car into reverse and started to reverse as much as I could, which wasn’t far, thanks to the idiot behind me who could have moved back but didn’t. I don’t now if they were slow to react, or a  #$%^$#%#* pig,  but they sat there while my life looked as though it was being potentially drastically shortened.

Thanks to the good driving skills of the truck driver his vehicle missed the front of mine by a sand grain. No exaggeration or being over emotional here, it was what it was.  For a second I thought my fifteen minutes of fame had arrived “READ ALL ABOUT IT! WOMAN FLATTENED BENEATH EARTH MOVER”.  Shaken and stirred.

MegaBoss was required to do a financial transaction yesterday. It is a transaction that she is responsible for 3 times a year. She has done it since 2005 so should have a pretty good grip on how, what, why etc. From her emailed questions yesterday it became very obvious that she had totally lost the plot and couldn’t remember a single thing about the process. I kept very quiet. Her emails went to a wider circle showing her total lack of knowledge and as she asked more questions she looked sillier and sillier. Finally, today, for the sake of others, I quietly reminded her of the tasks she had to do and how the process worked. What goes around comes around and revenge is sweet. I may rot in hell but I have had a moment. Is it mean to hope for more?

Daughter 2 is being given an all expenses paid weekend away for two by her firm for a job well done thank you. She is taking her sister and she chose Melbourne, because her sister has never been there. They are getting air fares,  theatre tickets, dinner at Neil Perry’s Rockpool restaurant, and staying at a very expensive inner city hotel. Daughter 2 is grateful but she has paid for it in toil and trouble. Daughter 1 is over the moon because she gets the goodies for being nothing more than her sister’s complaining post when she is tired and over worked. I am just happy for both of them. They go weekend after next, if firm doesn’t work Daughter 2 into the ground before then… a 13 hour day is a short day. Lucky I didn't get squashed it would have spoiled their weekend...maybe not....

Think I may be inheriting Daughter 1's cold. Even Brisbane has been cold the last couple of days, though I suspect Mr Snowy may be closer to experiencing his name at the moment in his cold city. Rain and cold doesn't usually bother me but today I have been feeling icy all day and I suspect it is part of getting ill. Bah humbug. Hope I am wrong.

Mr FD is back tomorrow - last night of bed freedom. Though if the cold weather keeps up a bed warmer might be handy! A man does have some uses! (That's a joke, gentlemen). Has anyone else noticed how it is ok for women to crack a joke about men, but men have a very fine line about the jokes they can make about women? Gender issues....I don't think we have got the balance right yet, and maybe never will. Got to keep trying though.

                                                                                                    Goodnight.

I passed a hooded monk walking by the side of the road this morning. Very Da Vinci Code. I didn’t know whether to wind my car window down and tell him that he was in the wrong city for the Pope as I was unsure if he was a real monk or just going home from the party the night before….maybe both.

Overhead a department manager this morning mumbling to himself. “I just need a bag of beans, just one bean really, a bean to plant and then up, up and away….” Jack and the Bean Stalk stress fantasy I assume.

Outside our office a woman was standing in the gutter looking up at the tree in the front garden. She just stood their looking up, still and silent. I had to walk in front of her to reach the office. I wanted to look up and see what she was looking at, but felt that was rude in some way, so I just kept walking. Now I keep wandering what she was looking at….what if I missed a clear view of a flying Loch Ness monster or something? I could have had my 15 minutes of fame narrating the commentary on YouTube or the nightly news!  

The Pope’s BOATACADE on Sydney Harbour today has 13 vessels. Has no one told the organizers that there were 13 at the last supper? I notice the Pope was uncomfortable when they wanted him to get up close and personal with a snake yesterday…once again did the organizers not think snake=devil? Are these people heathens!

Yes, I do work, occasionally

Rainy, showery, I felt damp all day. I like the rain. I wanted to go home and nestle into my bed and maybe after I had slept 12 years I might have read a book or 3, while small servants I don’t possess brought me tea and cake. I was trapped, damp and mouldy in the Basement of Discontent though, making my list of people to hit with a stick on my last day, longer and longer. Some friends are on the list now…they will have to do much to get off it. I am upsizing the stick too. Now I will have to use two hands to swing it.  Seafood and corn chowder cup-a-soup didn’t really ease the itch to run out the door, screaming, like Mr Rochester’s discarded and inconvenient wife.

How many books about humans and their relationship with their dogs does the world need? Marley and Me has a lot to answer for. You know what everyone needs? A back fence and a good neighbour. Remember the old days when your mother stood at the fence gossiping to the woman on the other side? That is what everyone is missing. A gossip pal! Hence why we spend time reading books about dogs and buying birkin bags,  and gasp, horror, blogging…our neat little isolation has brought us low. Except in the case of blogging, because lets face it, if I am doing it, it must be a superior art form. Comment closed.

Boss is back. He actually came back on Tuesday, his scheduled day which threw all the pundits off. We were betting on Thursday at the earliest. He separated from his wife earlier in the year, but thinks none of us know. Hunney, you don’t have lease papers going through the office fax if you want to keep things private. Anyway he talks freely to “outsiders” about it, but not to his office buddies. How can this be? Does he think we are gossips or something?  When he speaks to people he talks in a very loud voice, well actually, his voice is pretty boomer most of the time. If he is having a private conversation he sometimes shuts his door. It makes no difference as we can hear his voice through the closed door, and of course the closed door just makes everyone curious and listen harder…. Wife decided motherhood and particularly wifedom was asking too much of her so she asked him to leave. Being married to Boss would be like being married to a hyperactive 10 year old so I can sort of understand her position.   As he was the parent who appeared to be the primary care provider for the 2 children, little bit sad for them that Dad is no longer resident. Mum wanted to find herself and make jewelry from kitchen articles and she got 15  minutes of fame because she made jewelry from kitchen articles, not so much because she made jewelry, but it was enough to swell the ego….and you would already know all this if you stood at my back fence.  

When I was a little baby boomer we had a neighbor who would make morning tea for my mother and hand it to her over the fence on a tray with a tray mat and all, on the days my mother did the laundry. In those days mothers did laundry (washing, it was then) on a Monday and as they all had either coppers to boil it in, or wringer machines, it took them all day. Neighbor was also the lady who introduced me to the library, so my mother and I have a lot to thank her for.

Daughter 2 sent me a cryptic email mid afternoon : “so far today I have worn 4 different pairs of shoes, and that's not counting my slippers”.  Glad she is keeping in touch. The multishoes are a mystery yet to be solved though.

                                                                                   THE END 

Where are my 15 minutes of fame? Nothing in my life, so far, could be considered 15 minutes of fame, so I would like mine, soon. It had better not be related to pain, suffering or my demise though, or I will be really annoyed. No headlines that read “Postmaternal woman impaled on Parliament House spire after albatross swoops down and carries her off !” No if it bleeds it leads headlines thanks. I do not count our wedding photograph appearing in the local community newspaper either – that would not have equaled 15 minutes of fame before they wrapped the garbage in it. Real fame, 15 minutes. Thank you, thank you Flamingo Dancer has left the building.

Daughter 1 went on school camp this week. Her father drove her to school. I was a wreck and near to tears as my girl packed up. Would she remember everything she needed for the week? I kept double checking the list as they loaded everything into the car. “Have you got your food? A pillow? How about your towel? Do you think you should take an umbrella ( I made her take mine)?”  Daughter turned to me and said “Mum, I am the teacher. People entrust their children to me. I can cope. Calm down.”  Her statement did nothing to comfort me….not sure if I would entrust my child to her…. Once a mother, always a mother.

Apology to anyone suffering mortgage stress, but the people that named Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be shot – not just for bad management. Those names doomed those institutions from the start! They sound like apple pie makers.  Bad, bad, bad. Guess they wont be getting those big bonuses this year – or will they? Bringing a company to its knees appears to still bring some execs mega bonuses it seems. Sad world.

I love the fact that I can buy cherries just about year round now. They may cost a small fortune at times, but if I have a serious craving, then most weeks, I can buy a few lovely little cherries at the supermarket. No matter the price, I always tell myself that they are better value than buying chocolate. Except I buy chocolate too…

Role reversal. Mr FD took some fish and chips over to his parents at the weekend. We figure that at 90 and 85 if they want fatty unhealthy food, let them. What joy can you have at 90? Very little it seems. The calamari rings halted both of them. Teeth problems, or rather lack of teeth was the problem. Mr FD had to cut the calamari up into tiny pieces for them to gum down. LOOK AFTER YOU TEETH or you too will be gumming mush. Remember we are all living to be 102!

Catholic World Youth Day kicks off in Sydney today. Pictures of the Pope everywhere, even flashed onto one of the pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge at night. Do you think he ever gets up in the morning and says “What outfit will I go with this morning? The white frock or the white frock? White skull cap or scarlet? I feel wild today, let’s go scarlet.”  A world youth day with an 81 year old headliner….hmmmm

I saw a book today How to deal with Email Overload . If I haven't got time to read my emails how the heck am I going to find time to read a whole book. I didn't open the book, it probably just has a picture of the Delete button!

Its been a tough week. For a lot of it I felt like I was living in a German Opera and I wouldn't have been surprised if the valkyries had stormed through the door at any moment. Good news is that we managed to take over a part of the department being downsized and saved a few people's job. And can modernise things as well, thus making one part of my job less stressful.

Downside was that the superior bridge builder is not taking our calls, either because he does not want to work with us, or he has moved onto other bridges....so I am stuck with Dumbo IT who want to reinvent retreads for me when I need the whole vehicle...

....and if you understand all that code, you are a mental genius, because I am living the teledrama and I am not even sure what it is all about.

Expecting more of the same next week....

another week in paradise

Isn’t it funny how some people can tell you that you laugh like a hyena and that they would rather be friends with Charles Manson than break bread with you, and you take not the slightest bit of offence. On the other hand, some people cannot drop so much as an eyelash in your direction and you want to parboil them before having their body torn apart by four wild horses.

Or is that just me?

Flamingo pair

The Flamingo Dancer phone rang at 1.30 this morning. Of course the first word out of my mouth was"oh shit" being the optimistic little lass that I am not. My mind flew to Mr FD's father who at 90 is at the top of the "God's waiting room" list. Not this time. It was the security firm informing Mr FD that an alarm had gone off in the warehouse. It was just one alarm so it was decided that if another alarm went off they would call back. Yep they did. So Mr FD drove over to the complex at 2 am to check things out. I hate him going over there solo, but solo he did. I worried about him and almost jumped out of my skin when the phone rang a 3 rd time - the security firm telling me multiple alarms were going off now. GREAT.

By this time the brave Mr FD was fighting a huge RAT. A large rat was having the time of its life in a warehouse full of seed and as it merrily tripped from bag to bag it was setting off alarms all over the place. Mr FD grabbed a shovel and started chasing the rat about the warehouse and managed to hit it but then the rat took revenge and raced back at  MR FD. Mr FD was man enough to admit that he may have uttered a girlie scream. To cut a long crime scene short, Mr FD won the battle and arrived home triumphant about 3am.

I was really thrilled when my alarm went off at 5.30. Twice while driving to work I had to really fight not to blink off to sleep. I had a coffee right up as my day unravelled.

MegaBoss likes to play with the boys and prove that she has more balls than they do. Hence she burns a lot of bridges behind her. Today one of the bridges happened to be the very one that I need to cross and is perhaps the most critical element required by the organisation to function. Not functioning and the usual bridge fixer is now alienated and so I am forced to call in a lesser bridge fixer who makes lots of noise and twirls in really lovely circles but never actually accomplishes anything. I sent Boss and MegaBoss a memo that said I need this fixed and if it isn't I will just go and lie in traffic for awhile. A flurry of emails went to inferior bridge fixer and fingers crossed also to superior bridge fixer who will be called in tomorrow. The whole thing happened because someone, MegaBoss, has an ego the size of a small planet, and because my department is low maintenance and just gets the job done, they forget we actually have procedures and need tools and made some very stupid decisions that erased the very tools critical to the business.

Remember the Peter Principle - the theory that everyone rises to the level of their incompetence? Alive and well at the "Basement of Our Discontent" [workplace].

I came home and fell asleep about 4 minutes into the 6pm television news. In old lady territory tonight. Tired and emotional.

Sigh...and tomorrow is another day.

Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban have named their daughter, Sunday. The office wits have been joking all day that when Sunday misbehaves Nicole and Keith will be able to scream, “Sunday, Bloody Sunday!” (someone should apologize to U2).

I inverted the world last night. I had cold feet so I wore a pair of old Christmas socks to bed. No Australian is going to wear Christmas socks in the middle of our summer heat (though I know Cat http://cat573.vox.com/ likes to flash them with thongs [flip flops] )!  Maybe why they are old and barely worn! The tinsel thread was quite exciting… a sleep on the wild side. Before I was a married Flamingo Dancer and I had cold feet I would wear an old pair of my brother’s army socks to bed. He was in the cadets at high school and so I scored a couple pairs of his socks and a cloth army hat which I thought was so cool I wore it EVERYWHERE for a few months….as you do when you are 14 and trying to establish your identity. Many years later my eldest daughter found it and she wore if for a few months also. I suspect it is still in the back of her cupboard. More a comment on our closets, than any real sentiment for the hat.

MegaBoss reversed a very insignificant decision I had made today. MY decision, people! I let him off lightly and only imagined him spontaneously combusting and his ashes being swept up by a street sweeper. I could have vexed him with boils, incarceration with his crazy mama, and loss of his manhood first, but restrained myself. I will reserve that for an important infraction of my command position.

Is it true that spontaneous combustion, as much as we fear it and wish it upon MegaBosses, may in fact be a myth? It has served me long and well as a method of final annihilation. I will be sad if it is a myth. Perhaps it is best if I labor in mismythperception.  I think I threw out my voodoo doll.

I have worked in a number of libraries and I have found that on the whole they are peopled by strange and bizarre peoples. I perhaps included by some! Most of them not patrons, I beg your pardon, clients. As a workplace libraries are looked upon as a quiet place of refuge for the work torn individual, many of whom are fleeing workplace conflict and world weary seek to hide in libraries as a release from their torment.  It does not take long for the individual’s new workmates to realize that many of the issues that the newbie has encountered in the big world may in fact be due to the newbie his/her self. An HR person once told me that studies have been done that report that libraries are some of the most conflict torn workplaces there are. In other words before you flee your work issues for paradise, make sure you aren’t bringing muddy boots into that paradise. Don’t mess up the carpet.

I watched the Andrew Denton interview with White House Correspondent Helen Thomas last night. I want to have coffee, lunch and dinner with that woman. I googled her and found that she was born in 1920. I hope I am so rampant when I am 88! Mr FD and I cheered when Denton asked her which Presidents she thought had been corrupted by power and she answered “the present one”. Go Helen!  Classy chick.

Mr FD drove 90 minutes across town this morning for a meeting that in fact is scheduled for Friday. Not the first time. No doubt by Friday he will be too busy to go and cancel. I would laugh if I wasn’t married to him…hell I laugh at him anyway (mainly in private and at length, after shaking my head disdainfully). A friend, upon meeting Mr FD for the first time, commented that he looked nothing like she had expected. I said that he had changed since we married…he was taller back then. I may have cut him down to size.

Mr FD is off on a road trip next week and Daughter 1 is assigned to help supervise a school camp so it will just be Son and I at home. As Son and I have a grunt and feed relationship it is akin to being home alone. I am so excited. I am at heart, and everywhere else, an introvert, so alone time is very precious to me. Love my family, but my ultimate fantasy is not Mr FD and I dressed as a wookie and a naughty nun but it is me blissfully alone. Not talking alone all the time. I think even from my writing it is rather self evident that I am prone to the odd conversation, emphasis perhaps too heavily on the odd, or two. Just five days, or a week. This will be 5 days and as close as I am going to get to being alone for a very long time. I am a happy little Flamingo Dancer. I may take flight. Or not.

A client from the Arab Emirates rang Mr FD’s office yesterday. Twice. Someone hung up on them twice thinking that they were telemarketers. Expecting a fatwah, or jihad shortly.

For Australia, today the sun set six more minutes above the horizon than it did on June 21. I blew the extra daylight. I should have been out dancing in the setting rays of sunshine but instead I sat reading a magazine waiting for my hairdresser to finish with the customer before me, who arrived late and therefore made me late. I have made the decision to stop dying my hair and let the grey show. Hairdresser looked at my very obvious grey roots and declared that I would have the "really nice" grey hair so was enthusiastic about me "doing it". I will try and not dye the regrowth between now and next hair cut and then have some highlights to help meld it all together. Highlights for a month or three and as my hair grows so quickly I should be able to do shampoo ads for grey hair by Christmas. Tired of all the hair dye and retouching. I need more freedom less stress so going au natural. If it is too much of a shock I can always take to the bottle again!

Tomorrow is Wednesday - Hump Day. Week is almost over. Happy Dance.

Headache

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staff meeting

                                                                              equals

my inner child is struggling