The Sore Throat From Hell continues to improve, although I have to say that I’m sort of enjoying the side effects of not being able to swallow anything substantial (wakka chicka wakka chicka). I’ve moved from broths and tea to pancakes, eggs, and other soft foods, but again, nothing spicy or tangy or strongly flavored. I cannot recommend enough the Tylenol Sore Throat liquid stuff. It’s the Clark Kent of non-prescription remedies.
I made it through my week of working alone, by virtue of unlimited Dasanis and complete apathy. Although, for the most part, it was so perfectly quiet in my corner of the cube farm that I sort of wished that I could be alone all the time. However, I went from geographically being on the fringes of my department to being the epicenter and thus naturally, the logical place to bring shared snacks is the unused desk behind me. People come over and talk at me with food in their mouths on a regular basis. We’re all hurting from this outsourcing, just in different ways. Although, I think I keep imagining that my eighteen coworkers are on holiday vacation, because December is usually a skeleton crew anyway. In January, it will probably sink in.
Annoying Coworker, who is supposed to be on vacation all week, did stop in for some reason, helped herself to our snacks, and asked if I was working on Monday. I said I was, and she chastised ‘Well, you’d better be here, because you’re going to be the only one here.’ Why did she ask me if she already knew the answer? And couldn’t let a week go by without bugging the hell out of me? It is so time to look for another job. Thus, I was relieved when I escaped work on Thursday evening, knowing that I didn’t have to be back until Monday.
I went home, drank tea and watched The OC on DVD and then The OC in real time (which is the first regularly aired episode I’ve watched. I was trying to watch all of the first season before starting the second, but then I decided, aw, screw it, it’s not like it’s a complicated plot or anything. Julie Cooper is still Julie Cooper, Ryan still looks like Russell Crowe, and Sandy’s eyebrows still lung at each other like rabid caterpillars) and then went to bed very early. Esteban was at a friend’s house playing network first person shooting games, as he is devoted to spending his off week (apparently, some companies give their employees this entire week off’ I so need a different job) in pursuit of frolic and merriment to reward himself for the intense 14 hour work days he’s powered through for the last three months, so he came home at 3 am, woke me up to tell me that he was home and then wanted to have pillow talk (‘So, what did you do tonight, honey?’ ‘Mmmrrrhph.’) which I was quick to discourage, mostly because I was being chased by Christopher Walken and there were these kids hatching out of boiled duck egg things and the whole affair needed to be sorted out in my brain because it was just too unnerving.
In the morning, I woke up pretty early and wandered around, tidied the house (whoo, doesn’t that make me sound like I should be wearing an apron and be eighty years old?), made tea, and watched morning television (which is appallingly awful and I can’t imagine who watches that crap, and also, I want MTV to start showing videos all the time again, like when we were kids. I mean, it was something that you could count on, the videos on MTV. It’s why I can go into great detail about the overtones in Thriller, but couldn’t tell you what any of the Blink 182 videos look like) and then woke Esteban to let him know that his guy friends would be going to lunch at the local Mom and Pop and if he got up right then, we could join them.
After lunch, Esteban was in a very codependent mood and kept asking what I wanted to do, reassuring me that he was the driver of my coach, fair princess, and my word was his command. Yes, he really does talk like that some days. If he wasn’t so charming, I’d probably vomit. What I REALLY wanted to do was drive to a decent shopping district (I was in the mood for Chicago, but I would have been happy with Milwaukee) and fulfill my shopping angst that has been building for two months, but by that point, it was one and given that it was New Year’s Eve, most likely the stores wouldn’t be open much past 5, so it would be a futile attempt. Instead, I looked toward the evening, which we already had agreed would be spent sitting on the sofa watching DVDs. I suggested that we run out to the good meat place and pick up a whole tenderloin to roast in the oven, so that’s what we did. And a lucky thing, too, as when we got there, they were going to close in twenty minutes. And here I had thought that I was being so proactive.
After a healthy chunk of red meat was stowed in our trunk, Esteban wondered what we’d make with it. He was interested in baked potatoes, but I wanted to avoid the big stores, figuring that they’d be filled with crazy people fighting for cheap bottles of pink champagne. Since we were on the opposite side of the county already, I suggested that we hop over to the little Piggly Wiggly where they supposedly have his bray (but never actually seem to have it). He was game, so off we went. I was correct in that the store wasn’t very busy at all. Esteban sent five employees off on a wild bray hunt (each of which insisting that it was in the case and then searching, one after another, until it became humorous, because my GOD, didn’t you just watch your coworker do the same thing?) and I found a new fruit to try (a Grapple, which is supposedly an apple that tastes like a grape. I don’t know, but I’m always up for new fruits). I also scored some really lovely scallops, which I consider a real treat, but really shouldn’t, as they cost less per pound than the tenderloin did.
We came home and I was sitting in the computer room, writing my New Year’s Eve entry, when I heard him invite someone over for dinner and the movie. Which gave me pause, because we only bought two baking potatoes, and also, this would prevent me from putting on my pajamas and falling asleep on the couch if I couldn’t last through the four and a half hours of the extended Return of the King. And fulfilling the punchline to a million letters to Dear Abby, he had invited his mother over. But actually, since I like my mother in law, it was fine. He apologized, unprompted, for inviting someone without asking me first, but really, she was in the pool of guests who don’t stress me out, so I didn’t care.
There was one odd moment when she loaded up her plate with dinner and then wandered into the dining room, which contains a dismantled dining table, and then said ‘Oh. Where do we eat?’ We had to direct her back to the living room and the little tv tables, underlining the fact that we still haven’t entirely grown up and don’t really miss our dining room table and we think nothing of eating in the living room every day like heathens. But other than that, it was a nice evening, and it gave me an excuse to put out a bunch of snacks and also make a vegetable that was eaten by someone other than me.
Despite my eyes going crossed and fuzzy and almost falling asleep somewhere before the big battle, I made it through the movie and we were finished by 11 pm. She rushed home because she’s terrified of drunk drivers, and we headed to bed around midnight, which was sort of an ‘Oh, happy new year, sweetie.’ ‘Oh, it’s 12:04, yeah, I guess we forgot. Happy new year to you too’ kind of thing. I guess we’re just getting old.
