May 17, 2012

Feeling It In a Big Way

Okay, I have never admitted this before because it makes me a bad pirate. But... I don't really drink. I mean, I'll have a glass of wine with dinner if it's a special ocassion, but I don't pound a bottle of rum and stagger around the beach going, "But why is the rum gone?" I don't even ever have more than one glass of wine. Per month.

There are several reasons for this, each more boring than the last. I've known too many drunks in my life; I don't like the feeling of being drunk; and most importantly -- the world isn't ready for Wenchie with even fewer inhibitions than I normally have.

So when I say that I came home from work last night and had half a glass of wine, you KNOW it had been a crazy day. No, make that a crazy week. A crazy month. So crazy that my boss -- who, although very kind, is usually unemotive about my job performance -- actually went on for over a minute about how "anyone else would have run out of here crying." Hee! So true. Partly because I am awesome, and partly because I am surrounded by incompetant boobs.

Anyway. Wine. Half a glass. Around 4:30 p.m. By 5:00, I was feeling it in a BIG way. Still, I was a trooper about it and started a load of laundry [spoiler alert: I have yet to take it out of the dryer], did some general cleaning up and opening-up of mail.

Husband walks in the door every evening at 6:28, so I started chopping veggies for a salad at 6:00. We all know how I feel about chopping veggies -- hate it even more than cleaning the toilets -- so I gave myself plenty of time, knowing I would dawdle and whine to the dogs and stare out the window fantasizing about the neighbor's hot son chopping veggies for me...

Suddenly, my vegetable slicer mistook my thumb for a vine-ripened, beefsteak tomato, and there was blood on the cutting board. On the slicer. On the mini orange and yellow peppers. On the paper towels. It was a bloodbath, I tell you! And a flap of my thumb was hanging open like one of those flip-top caps on a tube of toothpaste.

My first choice as far as courses of action was to faint. But as I was home alone, I decided to put on my big-girl pants and tend to my wound myself. Neosporin, way-too-big band-aid wrapped awkwardly over the top of my thumb, done. Back to preparing dinner. Just like a pioneer woman who gets bit by dinner before she skins it, I was back in the kitchen, fulfilling my wifely duty. God, Husband is SO lucky to have me.

Now you know as well as I do that that damn half of a glass of wine was responsible for my hand injury. People, I don't GET hand injuries. Because I am freakishly careful about my hands. Because I am freakishly abhorent of hand injuries. After forty-two years on this planet, I only have one teeny, tiny, can't-hardly-see it scar on my hands. My hands are IMMACULATE.

Until now. One drink from the Devil's flask, and I have a piece of flesh hanging off my thumb like a bit of stale lunchmeat. It's disgusting. I was hoping that, since I washed it and closed the flap and got a band-aid on it, that the flap would close and heal like nothing had happened, but we all know that was a pipedream. It's going to dangle and get crustier and crustier until it falls off by itself, or I accidentally rip it off while folding laundry or something.

And so, my list of reasons for not drinking grows:

1. Know too many drunks.

2. Don't like feeling drunk.

3. Already have no inhibitions.

4. Hand injuries likely.

5. Going to bed at 7:45 p.m. is lame.

And I did go to bed at 7:45 that night, lest, in my drunken stupor, I get a paper cut across the knuckle where it will never, ever heal.

Posted by Pirate Wench at 07:20 PM | Comments (0)

May 09, 2012

So. Miami.

What can I say about Miami that isn't tinged with the bitter disappointment that I wasted four Xanax taking a flight to somewhere I could have gone my whole life without visiting? Yes, it was free. Yes, I ate $35 breakfasts. Yes, I'm ungrateful.

That was the point. There is no However at the end of that paragraph, so let's just proceed to the recap.

No, I did not see Bruce Campbell. I guess "Burn Notice" isn't currently filming, but I'm not emotionally ready to talk about that.

One Day Prior
I got a lovely pedi. And God bless that adorable girl who didn't even flinch at my winter-feet. She was an adorable little pixie with a crew cut and tat-sleeves. Sounds butch, I know, but she wasn't! She had the cutest little anime face! Okay, I'll stop just short of gushing. As for the lovely pedi, no one has seen it since we've been back to Chicago, so it basically cost me $8 per day of viewing.

Day One
I should get an Oscar for my performance as The Poised & At-Ease Flyer. I read and snacked on my Famous Amos cookies. All the while, my soul was shrieking in terror and lamenting the unfairness of the early and certain death that I was facing at every moment. My father taught me well, with his silent disdain, that drama would not be tolerated. Years of fighting back hormonal tears at the dinner table taught me that a stoic demeaner is not merely for sea captains and Eric Bana. It has served me well on this and many other ocassions.

Day Two
You know what a five-star hotel smells like? Incense. You know what a five-star hotel looks like? Sunrise over the ocean as seen from a twelfe story balcony. You know what a five-star hotel feels like? Like water pressure that can rinse the shampoo out of your hair in one and a half seconds! Ye gods, but it was marvelous! Oh, yeah, and I went to some garden and mansion and took a bunch of pictures. And then napped. And then had dinner where all the desserts came in tiny portions in delicate, square, white dishes. So I had eight.

Day Three
Saw some more gardens. Napped again. Beat my previous hair-rinsing record time. We dined on the beach, reminding me of how much I hate sand. They might as well have made me stand in a cat box. But the classical guitar player was heavenly, and there was an old woman from Honduras in a tent rolling cigars for us. Right there. Rolling cigars. To my dismay, she was not rolling them between her thighs, but still, pretty cool. So where does one find a Honduran cigar-roller? Do you just Google that? ... Okay, I just Googled Honduran cigar-roller, and the results were surprisingly less-porno than I'd expected. Did you know that Honduras is in Central America? Neither did I.

Day Four
I'm unsure of what I did between watching the sunrise and lying down for my by-now-customary nap. Probably went on Facebook for a while. Because, you know, that's what one does when one is in a so-called tropical paradise. Dinner was on a yacht. They kind of set themselves up for failure, trying to impress Chicagoans with their paltry Miami skyline, but I nodded and smiled indulgently anyway, to be polite. After all, the wine was free. And as we were boarding the yacht, Husband's boss had even paid for there to be dolphins frolicking just off the... stern? prow? hull?... of the boat. A very classy touch, I must say.

Day Five
After our last $35 breakfast -- yes, that's per person -- we switched hotels because we were, alas, no longer on the company dime, moving from a swanky five-star to paltry 4.99999-star hotel. It was almost cruel. That day, we visited another garden, and Husband took me on a driving tour of The Days When Husband Lived & Worked In Miami. He broke a lot of traffic laws, took lots of photos of palm trees, and ended the tour by saying, "Well, now I remember why I was so happy to leave Miami." A ringing endorsement, indeed.

Day Six
By our last full day, I was pining for the midwest in ways that could only be expressed in a short novella with a blurry picture of the Chicago skyline on the cover and a title that includes the words Girl, Vexed and Corn. We went to Miami Beach, where all the Art Deco architecture is. And sand. We stayed away from the sand. The art deco stuff was neato, as long as you kept your eyes focused upwards and didn't look at the ground level of any of the buildings. What an armpit that place is. And not a smooth, exfoliated, hairless armpit bathed in Tom's all-natural deodorant like mine. No, like the armpit of a French sea-farer with eczema and scabies.

Last Day
Know what's better than a Xanax? Two Xanax! I experienced much less inner-turmoil on the flight home, due at least in part to the doubling of my Xanax comsumption. But probably also owing to the fact that we were, at last, flying back to fly-over country. It was good to be home. And I took yet another Xanax when I realized that I had over a week's worth of laundry to do.

In summary, aside from the dolphins, all my good memories from the trip have nothing to do with the location and everything to do with eating obscene amounts of gourmet food, sleeping in a king-sized bed, and spending at least two hours every day reading.

You know, it's basically only my ability to read that keeps me from being classified as canine.

Posted by Pirate Wench at 08:22 PM | Comments (0)

May 01, 2012

Singing my Praises

Because I work for a religious organization, I hope to someday write a book chronicling my experiences there and call it Holy Crap. But because I work for a religious organization, I will have to wait until everyone involved is dead before I can publish it, so don't start scouring the bookstores now.

Or... scouring your Kindle. Which is probably what people do now, rather than having to drive to a remote location and actually touch tangible objects made of paper and ink.

But here is a story that I can share now because it doesn't involve an actual employee of said religious organization. Unless you count me, and I do not because I am unlikely to sue myself for slander.

Because we have gotten some bomb threats -- and what worker for the Lord hasn't -- we have keycards that we use to get into the parking garage and onto each floor of the building. On this rare occasion, I forgot my key in my car, so when I got to the top floor, Phil the Receptionist had to beep me into the office.

Yes, our receptionist is named Phil. Also? I am his supervisor. I, Wenchie, supervise Phil the Receptionist. It makes me giggle every time. Phil the Receptionist. Hee!

Well, I didn't want to have to bug Phil the Receptionist every time I needed to go to another floor -- which is kind of a lie because I LOVE to bug Phil the Receptionist, and I try to annoy him every time I walk by -- but having to borrow his keycard all day would eventually become too much of an inconvenience for me to bear, even with the added reward of irritating Phil the Receptionist, so I finally just gave up and walked back to the parking garage to get my damn key from my car.

Holy shit. That entire paragraph was one sentence. That is so Dickens-esque. I'm appalled.

When I went out the front door, intending to cross the courtyard to the parking garage, I walked by a black Cadillac Escalade parked in front. In the No Parking Zone.

I was stopped by a quiet, "Pardon me, miss?"

A thousand-year old man wearing a white shirt, black dickie, and priest's collar asked me if I work in the building.

Upon my affirmative, he asked, "Is there any way to get from the parking garage to the building without walking? A golf cart perhaps? My days of getting around easily are long gone."

And indeed, the man was having a hard time remaining upright while putting on his black suit jacket and huge, gold cross. So I felt bad when I had to tell him no.

But I knew who was on the meeting roster for the day, so I took a stab in the dark, "Are you with the Catholics meeting here today?"

Of course, he was. And he was either a bishop or a cardinal because only they get to wear the big, gold crosses. Your run-of-the-mill parish priest does not wear bling of that magnitude. So I explained to him who I am and Who I Work For, knowing that anyone wearing a Madonna-circa-1985 crucifix is on a first-name basis with The Top Dog of my particular religious organization.

"Would you like me to park your car for you?" I offered.

And I swear, you'd have thought I just offered to blow him, the way he looked at me. It was kind of adorable. So he got his cane and his books of potions and spells, and I drove his Cadillac to the third floor of the parking garage, where I parked it.

After retrieving my keycard from my car, I brought Father Escalade his keys and made plans with him to get his car for him at the close of his meeting. Because that's how I roll, people. I am a servant of God.

Later that afternoon, I left in the middle of a meeting to go get that priest his car. In the elevator, he kept talking about what an angel I am, and how it was divine providence that I happened to be walking by him when I was that morning.

And this is not a guy who takes angels and divine providence lightly. This is a guy who lives those things. All the decisions he makes are grounded in the firm belief that there is a God and we are His children. He was completely, 100% non-sarcastic when he called me an angel.

So I gave it some thought, and yeah, really -- what are the odds that I'd forget my keycard on that particular day and be exiting the building at that particular time? I'm quite sure I'm no angel, but I can't say for certain that I wasn't part of God's plan to cut that particular priest a break that day. Who knows? Could happen.

When I pulled up to the curb, there he stood, with a dozen other Catholic priests/bishops/cardinals who were waiting for a shuttle to their hotel. And he said clearly, and right in front of all of them...

And he used my real name...

And I am quoting this verbatim because you KNOW I cannot make this stuff up...

"Wenchie, I will sing your praises when I stand before the throne of God."

Ho. Lee. Crap. If ever a heavenly chorus of angels burst through the clouds singing alleluias, it would be at that moment. Because, seriously, when are those words ever going to be uttered again?

Wenchie, I will sing your praises when I stand before the throne of God.

So I've got that going for me. Valet parking for Jeebus! Hopefully, that will off-set at least most of my teen years. I wonder where I can find a blind rabbi because I've got to get to work on redeeming my early twenties.

Posted by Pirate Wench at 08:44 PM | Comments (4)