Christmas in Pictures

My Christmas weekend in pictures.

In an effort to fill the gaping void left since the crazy house in Downers Grove is apparently no longer being excessively decorated, I went in search of some good Christmas lights. This is the best I could find:


My kitty took over my bed and my cozy down comforter


Cute kid


My white elephant gift in the dumpster


My cousin and her husband tend to get really unusual (crappy) gifts from his parents, so this year they gathered them all, threw them in a big bag and gave them as their white elephant gift. Everyone was curious about it, but nobody was picking it so when my turn came around I took one for the team and chose it. In it were a number of random items. There was a brand new knife set and some cookie cutters that I kept. Among the dumpster items where some barbeque flavored peanuts that may or may not be 5 years old or more, a taco tray, a number of ugly candles, and a basket of fruit. I ate one banana and dumped the rest.

Christmas at CTI

It's been a magical Christmas at work. I decorated my cube:


I put up some nice lights and the fabulous pink Christmas tree that Emily gave me. My Wizard of Oz people are decorating it.

Then some unexpected visitors showed up in our Nativity scene on the filing cabinet:


Yep, the dinosaur is eating the lamb and the monkey is smoking a cigarette. They're courtesy of Todd. A couple days ago, a few of us just moved around the regular Nativity pieces ... Mary turning her back on the baby Jesus, Joseph running away, etc. Some ladies came by and saw it and were appalled. They put everything back, so we decided to step it up with the addition of a dinosaur. Then a monkey. Then something most disturbing happened. A coworker walked by and noticed the dinosaur and proceeded to explain to someone else that whoever did it was copying Mr. Bean. NOOOOO I was screaming to myself in my cube while listening to his grossly mistaken explanation!! I hate Mr. Bean!! I'm terrified that something I've been involved in is now being compared to Mr. Bean's idiotic antics. To make matters worse, this same coworker sent the following email to others sitting in our area:

Some folks are wondering why there's a T-Rex with the Nativity scene on the filing cabinets by the CT copier.

Mr. Bean fans already know the answer. But for the initiated, here's the (very funny) explanation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z42AxgFMb8k&mode=related&search

No, no, no, we are NOT copying Mr. Bean. Todd just had the dinosaur and we thought it would be funny! I desperately want to tell them the truth, that it was us that did it and it's not because of stupid Mr. Bean, but I won't.

By far the best part of Christmas at CTI for me, personally, is the acquisition of my own office. Temporarily. I've had an office mate for quite some time, but she moved on to another job and now I have the place to myself. What's more, the office is still divided with our cubes so there's a big cube wall blocking the doorway. I'm completely hidden. No one even knows I'm there. This makes it ideal for napping and breaking out into dance whenever I feel like it. And I do feel like it. Regularly. And for the next two weeks, we get to wear jeans every day. My job is the best!

Stupid Writers

These dang writers on strike are driving me nuts. I've been trying to ignore the whole issue, but now it's gotten out of control. We all know they're making substantial amounts of money, living in their fancy California homes, going to their fancy Hollywood parties. I don't feel bad for them. Plus, there hasn't been a new episode of The Office in forever and I'm getting cranky!

The only way this could be a good thing is if it goes on forever and Hollywood implodes. That would be cool. But until then, I'm just going to be bitter. Or maybe this is my chance to finally break into the comedy writing business.

Theater Weekend

This weekend was basically amazing.

Friday night I saw Meet Me in St. Louis on stage at Drury Lane for my company Christmas party. I was a little nervous that it would be a huge disappointment, seeing as it's one of my favorite movies, but it wasn't bad. Of course the girl that played Esther was no Judy Garland, but still, I enjoyed it.

Saturday I saw The Phantom of the Opera at the Cadillac Palace Theater. It was amazing. More amazing than I thought it would be. I'd seen the movie and I have the soundtrack, but this is the first time I saw it on stage. Way better than the movie. I also came to realize that basically everyone in this musical has severe mental problems. Except maybe Raoul. But really, the fact that he keeps hanging out with crazy Christine says something about his own mental state, I think. The Phantom is insane for obvious reasons (not that I'm not a little bit in love with him at times). Christine thinks that her father sent her an Angel of Music that she's never seen, but has taught her to sing. And she thinks this is perfectly normal. Does her deceased father have any idea how crazy he made her? They're all nuts. I actually feel a little nuts for enjoying it so much, but I can't help it. It makes for an entertaining show, and the music is great.

To top it all off, on Sunday I had the pleasure of viewing Meet Me in St. Louis on the big screen at the Tivoli. That's right, two Meet Me in St. Louises in one weekend. Doesn't get much better than that!

Santa

As promised, here is a picture of Santa as seen at Wynonna: Tribute on Ice.


It's a little dark, but you get the idea. He definitely saw us taking pictures of him, but I say if you have white hair, a long white beard, and wear a red sweater, you must expect people to take pictures of you!

Here's a picture of the ice skaters, just for fun.

Sick!

Tuesday before Thanksgiving:

I went into work feeling a little funny. As the day went on I started feeling downright crappy and, seeing as all my work was done, I went home. I don't get sick often and I'm just not used to it, so I decided to stop at Walgreens on the way home to pick up something to make me feel better. I perused the drug aisle with no idea what to buy, so I just went with some Cold/Flu stuff. I wasn't sure exactly what I was coming down with, but I figured that would cover everything.

I got home, took my Cold/Flu medicine and tried to desperately to nap because that evening I had tickets for Wynonna: Tribute on Ice. I did not want to miss that.

A couple hours later, I got up and felt pretty nauseous. I prayed (I really did) that I wouldn't feel nauseous anymore. I really wanted to go to Wynonna. I thought maybe a shower would help, so I got in. And then God answered my prayer. There's really no way to say this delicately ... I puked. In the shower. 3 times. Everything that was inside of me which, incidentally, was mostly stuffing that was left over from our church's Young Adult Thanksgiving dinner.

The problem is, I never throw up, so it's rather disturbing to me when I do. I'm still not really over it. On the bright side, I didn't feel nauseous anymore. I did feel weak and shaky and I couldn't decide if I should go to Wynonna, but finally my mother convinced me to go. I know what you're thinking, shouldn't my mom have convinced me to stay home and rest? No, not my mom. She knows what's best for me.

And she was right. Wynonna was amazing. Also, Santa was there (pictures coming soon). I would have been devastated if I had missed it.

Unfortunately, this all led to me not being able to eat dinner on Thanksgiving. And I may never eat stuffing again.

Computer Paranoia

My computer at work has severe paranoia.

What happened was, my work computer broke on Tuesday. Well, it got some virus that wasn't detrimental, but should be removed. So Computer Services told me it was going to take an entire day to fix and asked if I had any vacation days coming up. I didn't, so I just decided to take yesterday off. I have a million vacation days to use up anyway.

So I come into work this morning and I have a brand spankin' new computer. Brand new for our company anyway, which means it's probably a few years old. I was very pleased nevertheless, considering my original computer was about a million years old and still had Windows 2000. I always knew the only way to get a new computer around this joint is to break the one you have, but I'm not computer savvy enough to break my computer without it looking intentional. Luckily, I managed to break it unintentionally ... or so they think.

My new computer is great. It's fast and it has Windows XP which is slightly less ugly than Windows 2000. But still ugly. Anyway, it has only one issue: Extreme Paranoia. This thing won't do anything without my consent. For example: I went to open an Access file from our company network. A little window popped up asking me if it was OK to open this file, seeing as whoever I got it from could be attempting to destroy my computer with their shady Access files. Of course it's OK to open it! I clicked through all the folders, found the specific file, and double clicked on it! What kind of idiot does this thing think I am?

Then I made the mistake of trying to use Outlook. I can't make a move in Outlook without it questioning me. Am I sure I want to open this email? Do I know that this email has an attachment that may ruin my computer beyond repair? Am I sure I want to view the images in this email? Do I know who this email is from? Am I sure I even want to receive emails? It might just be safer to use the phone.

Perhaps I can understand where it's coming from if it's aware of the plight of its predecessor. But I'm to the point where I don't even read the stupid warnings, I just click through them, thereby defeating the purpose. It's like the boy who cried wolf. It's just going to keep asking me about the most ridiculous things and I'm going to keep dismissing it until one day when there is an actual threat and I ignore it and my computer explodes. And I get a new computer.