March 6 09

fine. i’ll admit it. i’m one of those snooze button people. for the past almost 8 years (holy crap, my baby is turning 8 on sunday. EIGHT!) i haven’t had the need for an alarm clock. hoo boy, no sir. there was always someone awake in the wee hours of morn….as in the 0500s…yes, what’s the o stand for…ohmigod, it’s early. not my joke, sadly, it belongs to one Robin Williams, you know, back when he was funny and NOT creepy. there was a small window for this. and anyone who has seen him in that movie where he wears the clown nose knows…CREEPY. ps. have you seen this?

robin

(thanks for the nightmares, worth1000.com, thanks.)

(i’m sorry, Metalia, i know he creeps you out too. OF COURSE HE DOES)

anyhoo. back to the snooze. i’m usually and three-peat snoozer. my clock is set to 6:05. i hit it again at 6:14 and then again at 6:23…and make my way into the shower at 6:32. why not just set the clock for 6:30 you may ask…but seriously, there’s NOTHING better than those stolen minutes of morning sleep. when no one is jumping next to your face in bed begging to watch some princess movie or yo gabba gabba or asking for breakfast or chocolate milk or help with their hair. BLISS. my showers, however, usually involve a little girl standing outside saying random things like “mommy, you know what? my clock and your clock say the same thing!” or “mommy, you know what? i can jump the highest on Jill’s trampoline!” or “mommy, you know what? i really like elephants” or “mommy, i can see your pagina!” (um, duh, i’m in the shower. a place i should be allowed to be nude in PEACE) so, in other words, not blissful.

my baby brother arrives today to help me wrangle the twelve girls who will be sleeping on my family room floor tomorrow night join us in Emily’s birthday weekend. i probably should stop using the term baby, since, um, dude is 23. but speaking of babies…i got to see my baby niece on skype, which isn’t the same thing, but hoo boy, i was almost in tears at how ridiculously cute my nieces are and how excited i am to be only a three-hour-drive away next year (what’s that? you have heard enough about my move to atlanta?)

just look at this face.

audrey

(that should help getting past the scary, scary Robin Williams image)

i have an random office-related question. how does your office handle birthdays? i mean, do you have a Dunder Mifflinesque Jim-and-Dwightish party planning committee?

kelly-bday

(sorry…still laughing at the balloons from Kelly’s party)

(hahha)

in my office we send around a birthday card (in a file folder. this fact is significant) for everyone to sign. we used to do the whole awkward pretend it’s a surprise but it’s never really a surprise and everyone gets together in a room to say happy birthday festivities…but we gave that the AX. then we used to get together once a month for cake (mmm…cake) but all the cake haters gave that the AX too. so, now it’s just the card.

my desk is the place the card goes to die.

always. there’s always an email my poor friend Tamara (who somehow got roped into the annoying job of card keeper) has to send around looking for the missing card. and guess where it always is?? ON MY DESK. because you all, it’s a file folder (see? i told you significant). you know how many file folders i have on my desk? 847. it tends to blend. so now i have to go and return the file folder.

sheesh.

couldn’t we just bring back the cake?

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  1. We used to do NOTHING, then we grew a bit as an organization to something that included non-male, non-engineering types, and they insisted on doing shit like casual Friday (fuck I wear jeans every day) and a monthly birthday celebration (with cake) for all birthdays in the month… a fine plan, except that we WORK together, we’re not friends, so basically it’s just an awkward 10 minutes where everyone (except me) tries to be nice (I just get my cake and eat it at my desk… that’s how I roll).

    Comment by SciFi Dad on March 6, 2009
  2. Good luck this weekend, are you crazy–12 girls for a sleep over! Good luck! Hope you get 5 minutes of sleep 🙂

    Comment by Multi-Tasking Mommy on March 6, 2009
  3. We do the once a month cake thing. Except this month when the social committee decided it should be doughnuts instead of cake (HELLO LOVED IT). But the one person who’s birthday it was, who actually attended, was all upset he didn’t get a cake. Too bad dude, we love doughnuts!

    Comment by Chantal on March 6, 2009
  4. Happy birthday to your 8 year old. Whoa… 8!

    847 files on your desk. 12 girls sleeping over. Geesh woman now wonder you hit the snooze button. LOL.

    Have a great weekend.

    Comment by OHmommy on March 6, 2009
  5. In what kind of backwards world do you live where there are people who don’t want cake?! The only reason I want my kids to get older is because there’s cake involved in the proceedings!

    (and happy birthday to your baby girl!)

    (and what Robin William’s movie is that from?! Late last year, my husband actually sat and watched Bicentennial Man on cable (Robin Williams as a robot…yawn…) even as I made fun of him for watching it. Oh, and he TAPED IT, so it took forever to watch, what with the pausing and the giving me the evil eye for talking!)

    fadkogs last blog post..olive juice, my lovelies. olive juice…

    Comment by fadkog on March 6, 2009
  6. Two things: 1: my desk is also the place the card goes to die. I work from home 3 to 4 days a week. Really people? Just skip me. I don’t mind.

    2: Robin Williams doesn’t creep me out too much. But yo gabba gabba? That stuff is the thing nightmares are made of. I won’t even let the kids turn it on. Bring princesses any day!

    Stacies last blog post..Stupid people at stupid work

    Comment by Stacie on March 6, 2009
  7. We do the “card in a folder” thing here too. Well, we did when I worked here 4 years ago. Maybe it got the AX along with the monthly birthday cake? I’ll keep you posted 🙂

    (SEE? I CAN’T HELP SMILEY FACES)

    Angellas last blog post..Mad At Dad?

    Comment by Angella on March 6, 2009
  8. clowns scare the bejeebus out of me…thanks for the creepy pic.wow Ali thats a lot of file folders on your desk.and 12 little girls sleeping over now thats scary! hahaha.happy birthday emily!

    Comment by LAVENDULA on March 6, 2009
  9. We don’t do anything for birthdays here. We don’t even say happy birthday. It’s kind of a bummer.

    Comment by Lottifish on March 6, 2009
  10. Good luck with all those little girls! Yay for sleepovers!

    Comment by Kaleigha on March 6, 2009
  11. Wait let me get this right. Pagina = hoo-ha AND lasagna?

    Comment by Lyndsey on March 6, 2009
  12. That’s a scary-ass picture of Robin Williams. yikes.

    Comment by Nenette on March 6, 2009
  13. We used to do the cake for bdays, having about 12 employees it was easy. We’re still a small company with 16 people but it got too hard to keep up. Then we forgot someone’s bday, or that person would be away so we stopped all together. I’m the boss with a lot of other things to do & no one else wanted to be in charge. So screw it…

    Comment by Maria on March 6, 2009
  14. A few years ago we agreed to forgo the lame office birthday crap and we instead just do a quarterly bday lunch. Its just an excuse to have the firm pay for lunch, and all we do is write the bday people’s names on the board, but its a nice break where we all sit around and shmooze, and that’s all anyone really wants anyway.

    Colleen – Mommy Alwas last blog post..Top ten reasons you should never paint after midnight

    Comment by Colleen - Mommy Alwa on March 6, 2009
  15. Cake haters are almost as scary as clowns – almost. WHO HATES CAKE?

    Comment by katie ~ motherbumper on March 6, 2009
  16. So where I work we have something called 15, which means you gain 15 pounds when you work here. Because every birthday every anniversary of employment the person brings in treats for everyone! That usually means bagels and cream cheese, but it could be cakes, cookies, donuts, you name it. Some weeks it get to be too much. But hey when there’s a slow week the free icecream in the freezer will keep you on track to gaining that weight!

    Comment by cleo on March 6, 2009
  17. It’s like this. The patient says, “It’s my birthday.”

    I go, “Uh, oh. I never remember these things. Happy birthday.”

    Then the patient complains about something birthday related, so it’s a party, sort of.

    Comment by therapydoc on March 6, 2009
  18. My son had his first sleep over last night, they both fell asleep watching Star Wars and eating popcorn in the living room. it was awesome!
    We had a marketing gal who would create 2×3′ happy birthday posters for everyone in the office then people would walk by and sign them, those were pretty cool. But she got laid off about the time we quite doing once-a-month cake parties. cake and fruit, I enjoyed it, a little awkward but OK too.
    But not anymore.

    monstergirlees last blog post..Images from a Christmas Tree

    Comment by monstergirlee on March 7, 2009
  19. J and I STILL laugh about the “IT IS YOUR BIRTHDAY.” sign for Kelly’s birthday. I told him I want one just like it next year.

    (And–WHY?! WHY would you creep me out with that picture? He shall now haunt my dreams. So, thanks.)

    Comment by metalia on March 7, 2009
  20. back before I was employed by my evil daughter, my office was like yours. “Surprise” card, “surprise” cake, etc. I didn’t even get Jim and Dwight balloons! Those fucking bastards.

    Comment by heather... on March 8, 2009
  21. Baby is BEAUTIFUL! Hope the party went well and that you are OK! And, oh, how I remember those Scholastic birthdays……..! I used to dread the “gathering.” it was always so awkward. I think everyone dreaded it!

    Comment by Haley-O on March 8, 2009
  22. We did the file folder thing at my last job. Now we do nothing.

    Kristabellas last blog post..Flying the Friendly Skies

    Comment by Kristabella on March 9, 2009
  23. I hate the folder thing. Like I don’t know you are all going around signing a card.
    My office put the axe to the cake too, while I was working in another city for 2 years. Bastards. Something about being healthy.
    So now we either do the crappy card, but most of the time we don’t remember because no one is assigned as the birthday rememberer and we are all pretty apathetic.
    Good times.

    Comment by Canadian Lawyerista on March 15, 2009
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