the perfect gift

the other day, as i was doing research on my newest story, the internet brought me the perfect gift:

this is from my (onetime) hometown newspaper, the coquille valley sentinel. in case you're wondering, that's pronounced Ko-Keel (internets gave me that, too). other highlights from this page include "Family Goes North" and "Cookie Press Used" and a disney ad for the movie Castaways. good times!

and yes yes, i uploaded these but copyright to all the peoples said inside the master image above.

faith will play a huge role in the story. though i may not have given my religious past a lot of lip service, believe you me -- it is there in spades. as such, i've got a new picture for ya:

and as further proof, yesterday i put this song in my head, reminiscing about rocking out in the car. told you i used to roll for the big kahuna.

3 weeks without a post

thanks to work and its unholy love of eye-numbing, scope-creeped css projects. so yeah, i'm alive, and i love you, but it'll probably be another week before i start being able to breathe. i had a whole day without the little monster (yesterday) but now it's back. thanks, yo.

i want to hear from you lurkers. what are you doing? why aren't i hearing about it on your blogs? if *i* can post at least once a month, so can you. consider yourself on notice!

in other news, all this work is distorting my passion for writing. any of you writers out there -- have you ever gotten wonderful feedback+praise on a piece, only to feel completely pessimistic about continuing work on said piece? that's exactly what happened to me saturday afternoon, a few hours after my writer's group. my 1st thought was, wtf? i haven't had time for many 2nd thoughts because i haven't had time to fictionalize much (see above). i am sure it's just some of that legendary neurotic writer business but still -- annoying.

finally, i want to thank longbottom for creating an iced german chocolate mocha. it is second only to the butterfingery mocha goodness in cambria and no, i don't yearn for that on a regular basis.

put ham on 5 and hold the...

Mayonnaise

You tend to be a very quiet, introverted person. You're happy to sit back and let stronger personalities shine. You value loyalty and harmony. You try to bring people together. Your taste in food leans toward simple comfort foods. You love holiday meals as well as old school favorites like mac and cheese. You get along with mustard and ketchup personalities. You have an unlikely alliance with hot sauce personalities.

What Condiment Are You?

yes it's been a very, very long time since i've posted a quiz, and in belated honor of one of our more picnic-happy holidays (you know, the red-white-and-blue one last friday), i thought this condiment quiz was appropriate. i saw some of the options ahead of time, and for some reason, i knew i would be mayo...

speaking of red, i showed my patriotism sunday by turning my left hand (and part of my stomach) extraordinarily rosy when i poured boiling water over them. for any non-american readers, no, this is not a traditional celebration. i was trying to make tea, and in a freak tupperware accident, well, you can guess the rest. i promptly got it under cold water (and several times), so actually it's just mildly sensitive/pink today. only my pinkie finger is crabby to type, but thankfully there's little cause for q and z.

p.s. anyone who gets the movie quote in this post: i love you to infinity

on being nice

yesterday i was in a meeting that traditionally begins by asking if anyone in the group has "opens" or open issues they need to discuss. naturally these opens are usually a problem of some sort.

p.s. i hate the term opens.

anyway, a coworker of mine says yes, she has one, and proceeds to praise me for the next 90 seconds or so. there was a huge, mind-numbing project that got split between 4 teammates and, long story short, i ended up doing approximately 80% of the project instead of my original 25%. i volunteered for that, because as i've mentioned before, my nemesis is boredom. and being me, i did that work very, very quickly. to be honest i don't really think much of that--that's just how i roll.

but because my friend a) made her declaration during a time normally tasked to problems and b) is very genuine AND effusive, this rubbed some of the 15-odd attendees the wrong way. over the next hour, several folks made snark. if person A mentioned that person B helped them with something, person C would go, 'hey, i want to hear more about how person B helped you. can you talk more about that?'

and so on. i also got called out 2 more times for various work-related proficiency by different people, and at the end of the meeting, when there are "closing opens", i was greeted with "yes, i would like to point out that heather has a really cool tshirt".

haha. after having to explain the shirt (...), i said, ok, no one gets to talk about me for a month.

because i knew that all this attention meant i was going to get teased, and not necessarily in a nice way. it's happened three times already, and each time there's this undercurrent of:

- who the hell are you anyway?
- you're so quiet--you *can't* be working as hard as *i* am
- why is nobody praising to me?

i don't mind recognition -- i am a leo, mind you -- but this left a bad taste in my mouth. and to be honest, i feel worse for my coworker. she has a sort of irrepressible but levelheaded enthusiasm that is refreshing in the workplace (perhaps i'll nickname her Sprite, or Long Island Iced Tea). she's also a little older and hopefully in this case, wise enough to withstand some mockery.

of course the saddest part is the people who felt they had to make fun of a very nice person. insecurity issues, anyone?