Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2002 - 3:28 p.m.
Greetings,
I pinned two Halloween cards up on my wall today. No one sent them to me, I bought them a couple of years ago when the mall attached to my building still had a card shop. They are my work Halloween decorations.
I don’t go nuts in my cube like some people do. No blinking lights and stuffed animals and singing pumpkins, etc. Believe me it’s been done here before but not by me. Usually Xmas is a much bigger Cubicle Culprit than Halloween.
No, I save all my best stuff for Sinwood. I want people to think I have a life somewhere other than here.
Speaking of Halloween cards, my harvest is up to two now. Lish came through this year before November 1st. Everyone pause to cheer.
Of course it’s a joke card because humor is her favorite shield. It is pretty funny. It’s entitled “Monster That Never Made It” and one is a werewolf in a pair of men’s briefs entitled “The Underwear Wolf”. Then there’s an Egyptian sarcophagus with a pretty modern looking middle aged woman inside shaking a finger and yelling, “You be home in time for dinner!” She’s called “The Mommy” of course. I can’t remember the other two so take a wild guess at my favorites.
Kerry, she of the 4 year PT employment streak, sent me an e-card. It’s fast and it’s free, but I can’t display it on my entertainment center goddamnitall.
Ken, is of course, a lazy ass. He loved the card I sent him and wants to display it every year in all it’s retro Halloween glory, but will he spare the 10 minutes, $2.50, and a stamp to send one to me? Not likely. It’s depressing.
He won’t even purchase Halloween themed paper products to eat and drink off of for our annual Halloween Costume Caftan Nights! It isn’t the 6 bucks this investment would cost, but the time it would take to look for these things. I think he has the aisles of the grocery store he shops in scientifically planned out and he buys the same things weekly (or bi-weekly I think) and probably has a race against his own time trying to beat his record for shortest period spent in the store or something.
Maybe he thinks he needs to buy them at a Hallmark card store and that would be way out of his way. (Although in Connecticut, NOTHING is way out of the way – PLEASE!)
I’m sure you are all reading this and thinking to yourselves (as if you didn’t know me any better), “Mina, what does it matter if KEN has Halloween themed paper products when he’s in Connecticut and you’re in Louisiana and you have your own Halloween themed stuff to eat off of?”
That would be a very good question except for the fact that I have asked him (for three years now) to buy these things and he RESISTS me. The same way he resists letting me wear the frickin’ blue caftan.
It’s not that he won’t do these things, it’s the WAY that he won’t that drives me crazy.
For instance, when I say, “Sweetie, why don’t you buy some Halloween themed paper products to eat off of this year and it can be really a special, party Caftan Night?”
And he’ll say, “I have Halloween themed paper products. Bone white paper plates and bone white napkins.”
And no matter that I point out that these are the paper products he uses EVERY caftan night (every day if I know him since he hates doing dishes), he just glosses over it by saying “bone white”.
If he had a reason for not getting Halloween themed things I might understand. He offers no explanations. He never does.
I suspect he doesn’t like things “cluttering up” his pantry since Albert, his partner, is a “clutterer” and his mother was one of those Depression-era children who grew up thinking it would come back and so therefore saved every paper grocery bag they ever brought home from 1962 until 1998 when they died. He called his mother’s house “Mt. Trashmore” and told me horror stories about the towering piles of newspapers going back to the 70s and magazines going back to the 50s and Tupperware and the plastic grocery deli containers that were piled on the counters so deeply that there was no counter space left and hadn’t been since 1981.
So I suspect that he doesn’t want the leftover 7 plates, napkins and cups to clutter up his pantry. But JESUS CHRIST, if he’d invest in one set they could potentially last him for 7 years’ worth of annual Halloween costume caftan nights. 4 if he had a friend over. It’s not like it would take up an entire shelf or drawer. If he’s that damn anal, he could throw away the extra stuff and buy new every year.
But I’m speculating. That may not be the reason he resists.
I know. I have control issues. So does he. So we’re going to constantly butt heads.
Usually we maintain the gentle fiction that we’re *flexible* and that it “doesn’t matter” and so we deal with things that way. If we both decide to be enthusiastic over something, everything’s peachy. If we’re on opposite sides – look out!
So here I sit on a lovely autumn afternoon bitching about Ken again. What did I say above about having a life?
My friend Maid Marion here at work gave me a crushed velvet spandex stretchy black gown today. It laces up the back and is very plain and severe in the front. Long sleeves, ankle length skirt, scoop neck. I love it.
I can now invest in a corset for the wench costume without too many financial qualms since most of my outfit has turned out to be free. I have the jewelry save for the big tacky silver hoops I want to buy at Clarie’s for $1.99. I just have to figure out what to do with my hair. Maybe I get a curling iron or some soft rollers and go curly.
I could also wear this dress (with or without corset) and my crushed velvet long opera cape and my black leather bat mask and be the vampire bat I was so disparaging about in a previous entry. I could put my hair up for that one and wear my bat pendant and earrings and lots of bangle bracelets. We’ll see.
Vampire bat is a very Mina costume.
Pirate wench is not.
Part of me wants to do something new and challenging instead of just opting for the comfortable. Besides, I swore I wouldn’t go goth to this wedding because I want to be different. It’s tragic that goth has become just another damn fashion statement these days. Not everyone is like that, but I’ve overdosed on the goth shit since moving here.
But the dress is great. I have many uses for it besides this wedding. It’s a great Pylon dress for one thing.
Although we’re over the hump in Hump Day, time is still dragging for me since I cannot take a lunch break today. I can’t take lunch again until Monday because of the time I took off waiting for the plumber. But it was so worth it.
For one thing I got to spend a few hours reading a library book out on the balcony yesterday morning. I had two cups of English Breakfast tea and Meow sat out with me and life was strangely good for a Tuesday morning.
For another thing, the theme in Tommy’s bathroom is now “The Sound of Silence”. No more trickling gurgles and rushing to nowhere water sounds. It’s uncanny.
The leak under the sink is fixed too which means I don’t have to remember to empty a stinky pail of gunk water every morning before I make coffee and stumble off into the shower. Will wonders never cease!
Speaking of coffee, my new shipment of Barnies coffee arrived on Monday. Today is the first day I brewed some for our morning commute. Secret Dreams rocks! White chocolate with the hint of coconut. Fabulous!
I also got some Pumpkin Spice flavored coffee to grind up for special weekend brews. It’s a very autumnal scent to have fragrancing your kitchen.
I think I will make some on Halloween night, just for the scent. If I drink any, I will pop some amaretto into it. Or perhaps I’ll drink some before Caftan festivities kick off as a sort of caffeinated jump start into the weird wackiness of the evening.
I plan to take my lunch from 4:30 to 5:30 that day and Ali is feeding Morrison that night, so I can just rush right to Sinwood. It won’t be full dark, but it will be sundown and I’ll get to see all the Halloween decorated mansions on St. Charles on the drive home.
My arch nemesis, Daylight Savings Time, ends this Sunday at 2 a.m. So really it ends Saturday night on Bourbon Street. That’s where I plan on being drinking a whisky sour at Lafitte’s and enjoying the hell out of everything. I’ll be in my wench (or vampire bat) costume and hopefully my shoes won’t be killing me. (I think I must remember to bring my Wal-Mart sandals with me to wear after the wedding so I can walk without extreme pain.)
I want me a Hand Grenade and some Halloween bar hopping. I’ll be primed with free liquor from the wedding too which will be nice.
Sunday I’m having my friends Kim and Arnold from Houston over for a jazz breakfast at Sinwood. We can sit all day long on the balcony and talk and drink mimosas and enjoy the day.
Well, I think I’ll end this now and go drink some Fresca!
Until next time,
Olrun
