Pickles & Dimes

Today I had a work seminar. It was not, thankfully, the Speed Networking one I mentioned a while ago, because that trainwreck would’ve ended with 1) my resignation, 2) someone getting punched in the nostril or 3) both of the above. This one was about proposals (studio audience: booooo!) and while I do not wish to spend any of my time away from work talking about the thing I do all the time at work, it was the result of a vague compromise to my boss, who wanted me to attend four work seminars in 5 days. (Me, plotting: What can I do to make this not happen?)

So, after an internal adjustment of my Attitude Meter (formerly set at “Bad, Very Bad”), I vowed to be all outgoing and chirpy and passionate about my work at this seminar. And it was nice. I met people I knew previously from only a series of flurried emails from past last-minute proposal collaborations. I was talkative and outgoing and I left feeling excited about my job.

A few weeks ago, J. and I had dinner with a friend who mentioned that his employer had a few openings in my area of expertise. When I looked at the qualifications and realized I had everything but some highly specific marketing software experience, I was enthusiastic about learning those programs and expanding my knowledge base. And then our friend told me that the starting salary of those openings was anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000 a year more than what I make. And my enthusiasm quadrupled.

So I’m volunteering to learn new software and programs and marketing initiatives, and become more involved in things (including work seminars). If it looks great on my résumé and leads to something elsewhere, fantastic. And if it leads to better things with my current employer, that’s fine too.

In the meantime, I’ve regained some perspective, and the fact that I haven’t had any proposals due in an entire week (which has never happened before) has also helped. Immensely. Intensely. (Add another word starting with an “I” and ending in “ly” here.)

It’s like when you’re absolutely sick of your hair, and it starts looking nice the moment you make an appointment for a haircut, or your car starts driving smoothly again after you finally make an appointment to see what that ungodly knocking noise is. Just knowing that I have options makes everything seem so much better instead of struggling with that unsettling feeling of dissatisfaction I’ve had for months. You know the one? The one of being trapped by rabid wolverines that are armed with staplers and org charts and InDesign files?

You sometimes have that feeling too, right?

A few months ago, Jason came home and let Shorty out of his kennel. A few minutes later, Shorty hopped up onto our bed to stare out the window for his afternoon routine of monitoring the insolence level of the squirrels (typically, Very High). A few minutes after that, Jason came upstairs to discover a crime scene. Naturally, he left it untouched until I came home an hour later, so that when I walked into the bedroom, I saw that the blankets had been pulled down and appeared to have been part of an energetic wrestling match, my pillows were askew and my tube of lip balm – which had sat in the exact same place on my headboard for two and a half years – was on the comforter, chewed to bits. Next to the punctured plastic tube was a solitary kleenex, gently pulled from its box and shredded strategically, a red herring to deter us from the real crime.

After keeping a close eye on the dog for the rest of the evening in case there were any, um, laxative effects, we bemoaned the fact that this was our last tube of Parade Lip Balm. We had gotten it from a neighborhood parade we stumbled across the summer we moved into our house – nearly six years earlier. As we watched children climb over each other in the streets for bits and pieces of candy, one float threw something that they totally ignored. Once Jason and I saw what it was, we practically shoved the kids aside to shovel handfuls of glorious lip balm into our pockets. I don’t know what made this particular lip balm so awesome (it was unscented and unflavored), but it made your lips feel great. While I love Burt’s Bees and Chapstick, these plain silver sticks advertising “Orthodontics Ltd” were our favorite.

And Shorty just ate our last one.

Flash forward to a week ago, when I found a surprise tube of parade lip balm in one of our drawers. It was like Christmas! As a surprise to Jason, I put it on his side of the headboard. The very next day, Jason came home, let Shorty out and checked on him after he was suspiciously quiet. He found Shorty on the bed next to the chewed-up tube (which Jason wasn’t even aware existed), and a giant, waxy, oily stain polluting the tranquility of our blue comforter.

When I got home, Jason grimly reported the crime. It took two washings to get the stains out. The dog stared guiltily. Our tubes of lesser lip balm were banished to a dresser, away from canine snouts.

Barely two days later, Jason left a new lip balm on his headboard thinking it would be safe since it was a totally different brand and smelled like apples. (Jason doesn’t normally use apple-scented lip balm, just so you know. The Man Factor increases because it was a giveaway from Fox Sports Net and is emblazoned with the Minnesota Twins logo.)

When I got home, I saw that Jason was downstairs running on our treadmill. I went upstairs and found Shorty trying to nose the decimated lip balm cap under the bed. Once again, there were stain spots all over our comforter, which was about to be washed for the third time in less than 10 days. It’s never been so clean.

So now no lip balm is safe in our house, and if I wake up at three in the morning needing some (which happens very often), I can’t get any without getting out of bed and waking everyone up, all thanks to this guy:

What? I like moisturized lips.

I really love the muted, earth-tone colors of this image. Besides my unexplainable, abiding love for the color turquoise (seriously, I own about 11 shirts in the same hue), I’m usually drawn to earthy tones (my bridesmaid dresses were brown and the flowers were orange). When I went to Pantone’s site, I realized that all of the colors I liked the most were from the 1970s. So…let’s just blame that on a deep nostalgia for the era I grew up in, OK?

What colors are you drawn to?