Adventures in ZB Land

/ happy, work

Oh man. Fridays at ZB are sure interesting.

Not only did the Rollo Fairy leave me a Rollo this morning, but s/he left me a little Nestle Crunch bar as well! 🙂

A few people set up a mini beach retreat for all of us. They took one of the conference rooms, added a beach chair, some beach towels, beach scents and sounds (Jimmy Buffet CD & Homedics noise machine set to “ocean”). The kicker was that one of those REALLY BRIGHT sun lamps was added, and people could sign up for ten-minute sessions. It was AWESOME. In addition, they made smoothies for us (but I drank plain pineapple juice, because honestly, I don’t like lumpy drinks, and even though they’re called SMOOTHIES, let’s be honest. They should be called LUMPIES.)

So, there was the mini beach retreat. We’re all rallying to make it a permanent thing.

Then, there was a mini reception for the mini art gallery. Some of the art and design (A&D) people got together and made this little gallery, and the installation changes every 2-3 weeks. This week, there is a domino exhibit up. Last time, it was an actual “Art” gallery. Meaning, it was a gallery full of pictures of guys named Art. Anyway, there was a reception for that at noon.

THEN, I was copy editing some ancillaries, and came across this lovely sentence:

Ronnie was passing so fast and so hard that Xander couldn’t catch his balls.

After laughing for five minutes, and discussing it briefly with some other copy editors, we decided that the sentence NEEDED to be changed. NEEDED. I wanted to check, because I know I have kind of a dirty mind. But everyone was thinking what I was thinking, and if WE were thinking that, then who KNEW what a 5th grader would think, so yeah. Red pen, commence. It was fun.

I changed it to:

Ronnie was passing the basketballs so fast and so hard that Xander couldn’t catch them.

Better, yes?

Now that I think of it, I should have changed it to:

Ronnie was passing the basketballs so hard and so quickly that Xander couldn’t catch them.

Poop. Oh well.

One more mistake I noticed this week: A story about a female lion. The problem? The picture of the lion had a mane. So um… yeah. FEMALE LIONS DON’T HAVE MANES! I changed the text, rather than change the art. Much cheaper. Plus, the art is super cute.

Someone’s cell phone played a lively tune which caused all the people in her pod to either dance, or say “I didn’t do it!”

Yesterday, after the staff meeting, I came upstairs, wrinkled my nose and kept it wrinkled til I got to my desk. Then I yelled out “WHY DOES IT SMELL LIKE A BIG POOP BACK THERE?” Heather thought that was really funny.

Tonight, a bunch of them are going bowling, but I have other plans. Good times.

I like my job.

See ya!

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/ ronni, sad

I don’t like myself very much today.

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I WAS Falling Asleep, But…

/ grrr!, life

The first one or two times one hears the neighbors going at it are funny. The next few times are annoying. Now it’s just getting OLD. I’m going to tell the rental office to tell them that I can hear EVERYTHING that goes on in their bedroom and if they don’t want to be embarrassed, they need to quiet down.

Granted, I hate to squelch people when they’re making love. But they have to realize that they don’t live in a house, they live in a complex with other people and therefore need to be respectful. I’m just glad Aidan was asleep. Any time he hears a strange sound, he asks “What was that noise?” It’s only a matter of time before he hears them and asks what those noises are.

And I wouldn’t be so annoyed by it if they didn’t WAKE ME UP with their sounds of passion. I sleep with a volcano on and a noise machine, and I can hear them over that.

So now, they’re sleeping in their post-coital bliss, and I am wide awake on a Sunday night.

THAT is maddening.

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Potluck Like Whoa! :) (Video)

/ aidan, books, life, videos

First of all, you can send me Virtual Valentines using this nifty little guy:

My Valentinr - lilrongal
Get your own valentinr

I won’t see anything until Valentine’s Day, but I will know how many I’ve received. Neat, huh?

Second of all, it’s SATURDAY and Aidan slept until 10am. Unfortunately, he tends to wet the bed when he sleeps that late. Boo. “Don’t see it,” he commands, trying to cover the evidence. Sigh.

Last night, before we went to sleep, Aidan made a really loud fart sound with his mouth and yelled “MOMMY! YOU FARTED”! I’m sure the neighbors had a field day with that. For fifteen minutes, we made fart noises and yelled out “_____, YOU FARTED!” It was great.

I finally emptied my memory cards! One had 850 photos on it, the other had about 150 plus videos. Now they’re clean, and all the pictures and videos have been moved to CDs. YAY. I feel accomplished. Kind of. Plus, Time Warner came and got the old cable modem. All my bills are paid or accounted for, and I don’t have to go anywhere until Monday. I was getting collection calls, and I finally called the number back to see what the banana they were calling me for, and it turned out they were for the person who had the phone number before me. So now, I don’t get collection calls anymore. 🙂

I like having loose ends tied up.

Yesterday at work, we got called into an impromptu staff meeting at 1:30pm. There was no meeting–there was ice cream, cherries, chocolate sauce and other fixings so we could build our own sundaes! Plus, Cheryl & Co. delivered Valentine cookies. YAY for sweets! YAY for thwarting the 2:30pm slumps. Last Friday, there were two cakes and fruit. The cakes said “TGIF” on them.

Just now, Aidan was starting to get really fussy and kind of mean, and it finally dawned on me that the child needed lunch. Now he’s happily eating a chicken pot pie and watching Cars.

I got an email from an old college roommate whom I hadn’t heard from in YEARS. I also heard from one on MySpace not too long ago. It’s amazing when people come back, you know. Exciting, too.

It’s gonna get REALLY COLD here in a few days. Highs in the single digits. I’m getting the deep freeze I wanted, but it’s not fun while going through it. Looks like only a few days, though, so that’s good. Hopefully just enough to kill those mega-mosquitoes that were probably trying to breed when it was unseasonably warm last month.

I finished The Last Days by Scott Westerfeld yesterday during lunch. It was really good. A definite page-turner. I started on Sloth by Robin Wasserman, but I’m having a hard time getting into it. I also had a hard time with Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. Just renewed the Playlist one, will try it again a bit later.

Hmmm. What else? Oh yeah. Here is a link to the list of books I’ve read in 2007. It’ll be updated every time I finish a new book, so check back there often: [2007 Books]

And finally, a video demonstrationg Aidan’s smarts again.

more Check it out!

See ya!

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