Saturday, December 27, 2008

Happy Belated Boxing Day

Well, Christmas is past and onward to the New Year. Yesterday, Boxing Day, I took the day off work to spend time with my best friend & her family for an adult traditon. They go to the Museum of Fine Arts , here in Boston. My friend's husband and sister belong to the museum. I had a ticket for the Assyrian show which ends on January 4 .The ticket gets me into the whole museum. There were 6 of us. We were an art themed gang.
They had to buy timed tickets for the Assyrians, my ticket would get me any time. For you curious types, I got the ticket from work over a month ago. Essentially, so I could go see the show and make recommendations. So .. . I can make recommendations for another week. They also had a Karsh photograph exhibit and another photographic exhibit. It was great to see the photographs of Hemingway and Churchill, among other luminaries of the last 100 years.I separated from the group to look for the Mummies . I seemed to remember there were more mummies. I only found one. I also wandered through the Winslow Homer room.
The Assyrian exhibit was interesting. It's really amazing that these artifacts were thousands of years old. A lot of pictoraphs of the King going out of the castle to hunt animals. I thought it was interesting that modern kings have other people do their hunting. Whereas, in ancient times, you earned your reputation to be a king by actually protecting your people on the battle field.
I 'm almost ashamed to admit that my favorite art was in a room of German stuff-paintings , furniture and curios. There was a lucite box filled with silver and gold little statues and clocks. There were all about 500-600 years old. There was a little silver statue of the goddess Diana astride a Stag with full horns pulling a cart. It was amazing craftsmanship. Then I read the decription and it was a wind-up like toy . It would be wound up and it would ride around the table and wherever it stopped , the person it stopped in front of , would have to remove the stag's head and take a drink. It was an elaborate instrument for a plain old drinking game. Those wacky Germans !
And that's how I celebrated Boxing Day.

Friday, December 19, 2008

It's Still Snowing !

Here in Beantown , it's snowing. It's been snowing since noon. It's just 11 PM now. It's lovely to look at but I'm already tired of shoveling the stuff. It's not too bitterly cold and the white stuff is pretty fluffy. It's but a crimp in my planned appointed shopping rounds. I hope the stuff I wanted to get tonight will still be available tomorrow when I get out of work. .. . providing I can GET to work ! I worked at the drug store today instead of the place in Andover. I think it's probably better that I wasn't trying to negotiate the northern roads.
I bought a new shovel today , because there was a crack in the other one I've been using for about 7 years now. We have an ice breaker at my house and I know where it is in case I have to use it. I have unattractive, but very practical, waterproof boots which helps a lot.
Well, that's what I'm thinking about . Nothing terribly descriptive or exciting. I just keep on , keepin' on . . . .

Monday, December 15, 2008

Faking It til I be "Makin' It"


Aahhhhh. . the Christmas season is upon us and I am having a hard time rustling up the spirit.When I was younger, I would so look forward to the parties and the gifts -both buying and receiving. I would regularly start my shopping in August and be almost completed by October. That lost its allure for me . I would get so torqued up about the gifts I was giving that no one could possibly respond with nearly enough enthusiasm. I finally figured out I was setting myself up for a fall. SO, now I really don't start until after Thanksgiving.

On Saturday, I put the Christmas window up at the record store. I know it's kind of late but I really couldn't get myself to do it before then. I had planned on doing it the rpevious Saturday , but it was so busy, I was just too exhausted to stick around at the end of the day to do it. So , I went in about an hour early and started decorating the window. I got about half of it done before we opened and finished the rest of it in fits and starts throughout the day. It came out pretty good ! I will try and take a picutre with my phone and post it here (but don't get your hopes up !). My friend , Angelynn, who is a graphic designer, said she thought it was a good use of the merchandise. I made little vignettes in the wooden boxes we have for sale that are in the window. I arranged the display around the product. My boss said it was good . He said there was a lot of stuff to look at . Essentially, if people stop to look at all the little arrangements, they will linger a while, and perhaps enter the store to make a purchase. Support your local business ! I felt good that it was finally done.

I went to a Christmas party of a co-worker on Saturday night. I made my famous dip. It was a lovely place. However, one room contained all his co-workers from where we work together and the other room contained all the people from his other work and then there were a couple of people who didn't work with the host sort of floating between the rooms. Though I had a nice time, I didn't really make any new aquaintances.

I wore what I had worn to work that day. In an effort to get my "Christmas" up, I wore a green sweater, a geen t-shirt with Santa on it and my kitty-cat Santa earrings . Sometimes getting dressed in a festive mood helps me. I also put some mardi gras beads in my hair. I may have looked a little creepy. Oh well. .

Tonight is the record store party. We all look forward to it.It's nothing fancy, just everybody who doesn't work together regularly- gets to see each other. I've been there for over 25 years now. It's turned into quite a tradition for us. I have yet to make the dip and I have some gifts I still have to wrap. I look forward to it. I will go over after work tonight.

Maybe I just need to listen to some festive music ? Boy, my heart just ain't in it. .. . .


Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Moving Forward

Well, I'm fully dressed. I need lipstick and to make my lunch. I am a little behind my hoped for schedule for the day .However, no one is expecting me anywhere at a specific time. I have to run a couple of errands before I head up to the rockpike in Andover. I am armed with a sufficient amount of quarters for the meters. I am a half pound lighter than I was at this time yesterday. Don't know how that happened, but I'm glad it did. Makes my shirt feel like it fits better.
It snowed Sunday but it didn't acculmulate too much around here. It's been really cold. I have a hand-me -down down jacket that's been keeping me fairly warm.
I am working at a different location than my usual job tomorrow. I will be working in a fancy office and won't have to wear a uniform. That always makes me feel like a grown-up . However, there are no windows and thus no natural light during the working hours. I will be answering phones. I have to attend a work-related dinner after work and I am looking forward to that.
Okay, that's about all I got . I'm trying to post here. My life is pretty boring. I am not complaining. I am greatful to have work.

Friday, December 05, 2008

High School Hangover

Hmmmm, I'm still thinking about my reunion from last week. Today , I was remembering how many conversations I was privy to about their kids hockey games. I am a Hockey Mom Generation person. I don't have any kids. I wonder if I should have talked to the people I had no interest in talking with ? I am still thinking about one guy that took me most of the night to remember who he was. He realy looked like crap at the 5 & 10 but he looked pretty good last week. He was a real cutie in high school. Me, nope, I looked better at the 10th.
Of course, these thoughts inevitably lead to my current situation and whether or not I went "wrong" or "right". My life has been what it is and I've pretty much enjoyed most of it. I worked with a good friend yesterday . He's married and has a house and a dog. He and his partner have a a great life. We were both kind of lamenting our lack of performing. Me, because I am pretty much only interested in doing original stuff and he because he really likes being in his house. I got a great idea for a story 2 weeks ago. I think about it every day. However, I haven't written anything more than the idea down. These days, my greatest , and most satisfying , accomplishment is doing laundry and paying bills without getting overdrawn. No mean fete, frankly.
I am trying to resist panicking about the economic woes of this country. The good thing about being this low on the economic totem pole is, I don't have anything to lose. I got nothing.
Okay. I've written a couple of paragraphs. I think that's pretty good.