Apparently, I'm a Jackie

I took one of those personality quizzes. There was only two questions, so take from it what you will. It's kind of like reading your horoscope - which is so all encompassing it captures the majority of any person of any sign. But...it was an interesting lunchtime game.

You are a Jackie. "I do everything the right way."

Jackies are realistic, conscientious, and principled. They strive to live up to their high ideals.

How to Get Along with Me

* Take your share of the responsibility so I don't end up with all the work.

* Acknowledge my achievements.

* I'm hard on myself. Reassure me that I'm fine the way I am. (TOO TRUE!)

* Tell me that you value my advice.

* Be fair and considerate, as I am.

* Apologize if you have been unthoughtful. It will help me to forgive.

* Gently encourage me to lighten up and to laugh at myself when I get uptight, but hear my worries first. (AMEN!)

What I Like About Being a Jackie

* Being self-disciplined and able to accomplish a great deal

* Working hard to make the world a better place

* Having high standards and ethics; not compromising myself

* Being reasonable, responsible, and dedicated in everything I do

* Being able to put facts together, coming to good understandings, and figuring out wise solutions

* Being the best I can be and bringing out the best in other people

What's Hard About Being a Jackie

* Being disappointed with myself or others when my expectations are not met (TOO TRUE!)

* Feeling burdened by too much responsibility

* Thinking that what I do is never good enough (TOO TRUE!)

* Not being appreciated for what I do for people

* Being upset because others aren't trying as hard as I am

* Obsessing about what I did or what I should do (TOO TRUE!)

* Being tense, anxious, and taking things too seriously (Hello - have you seen the title of my blog?!)

Take Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz at HelloQuizzy

Word of the Day

dis·in·gen·u·ous /dis-in-jen-yoo-uhs/ adjective: lacking in frankness, candor, or sincerity; falsely or hypocritically ingenuous; insincere

Her comments were rather disingenuous.

Me.

Today.

Ugh.

1-2-3 My Name is Sarah Palin...

Can I get a What-What from the Senior Section?

P.S. on Tunafish & Tissues

Thanks to Juicy Judy...I've managed to come down with a humdinger of a cold, which put a small damper on our weekend with Lula...but I've been zincing and vitamin c-ing and nyquiling, and dayquiling, and I see the end of the tunnel already.

But this just reinforces my feelings about those boundaries...damn cubicles...and now here I am at meet and greet central - a conference with 20,000 attendees. Germs for everyone.

You Get What You Pay For...Chicago Edition

DISCLAIMER: This is a totally boring post, but I'm just getting out a little aggravation about budget travel...read at your own risk...

Hello from the Windy City. I'm looking out of my hotel room right now at the grand majesty of Lake Michigan. I can see a portion of it between other buildings and construction sites, and past a major highway.

I grew up on a Great Lake (Ontario) so I'm used to lake being too big to be able to see the other side. When I moved downstate to Rockland County, their lakes were pretty, but they were what we called ponds. Seriously, Long Pond was bigger than the lakes in my new hometown.

Anyway - now that you have the context that I'm traveling, let me tell you about rental car agencies here. When you find a rate on expedia that is HALF all other going rates, be suspicious. And if you've never heard of the agency before, be even more suspicious. But in today's economy, we're all trying to save a little dough, right? So when I saw most agencies wanted $200 for a weekend car rental and one wanted only $73.75...I jumped on it.

To be fair, the car was fine - clean, well maintained, low mileage, hyundai. Finding the car was another matter. We stood on the sidewalk outside the airport for 20 minutes and watched the rental car shuttles go by, Avis, Budget, Thrifty, Hertz, Enterprise, National, then Avis, Budget, Thrifty, Hertz, Enterprise, National again...then Avis, Budget, Thrifty, Hertz..."Excuse Me...," I finally asked, "is this where Advantage picks up as well?"

"Well...yes...eventually...but you may have to flag him down."

Um. Ok.

Avis, Budget, Thrifty, Hertz.....

I get on the phone and get Advantage Rentals on the line..."oh yeah, look for the Fast Trak blue and yellow shuttle, that's ours." (how the hell was I supposed to know that??)

Finally we spot the blue and yellow shuttle barrelling by and not even dreaming of looking for a stranded rental client on the sidewalk. We wave madly and the cop feels sorry enough for us to stop traffic and allow us to get on the shuttle in an illegal loading zone.

Once on, we meet other customers who had been waiting for over an hour...so I guess 25-30 minutes wasn't so bad.

Filled to the brim, the shuttle lumbers into a dark parking lot with "Avi-Star" signs. I spot a tiny blue placard for Advantage rentals in the corner. We head into the building passing a bunch of lounging strange looking young men, under a blinking (think Joe Vs. Volcano) fluorescent lights, and up to the line at to the counter where two very nice but fairly slow people are handing out keys to cars...fast forward 45 minutes and we finally have our vehicle.

Returning the car wasn't much better - and once again the shuttle bus was the big sticking point. After taking about 35 minutes to return the car (which consists of handing in keys and having them check gas guage and mileage - should take about 3 minutes flat) we then walked out of the dingy little shack to see the shuttle pulling away...

We had to wait another 15 minutes for the next shuttle bus to arrive and although we had been left in the dust, this next driver seemed determined to wait for every possible person who was just pulling in to get checked out and get on the bus. Hubby and I were plenty early for our connection, so we weren't too bad off, but I thought the woman in the Chanel knockoff sunglasses was going to have a full out hissy fit at one point while her husband made snide remarks about this aggravation not being worth th $100 they saved not going with Avis. (He took the words out of my mouth.) While we waited, we dug out $2 for a tip for the driver for hauling our suitcases...but by the time we left a new driver had taken his place.

After the driver missed the United stop off (until screaming bus passengers made him pull over) we diligently reminded him of our Continental stop. Hubby, who is always quieter in his complaints, mumbled as we disembarked, "I'm keeping my 2 dollars."

I left Hubby at airport for him to fly on home, while I stayed on in Chicago for my conference. My taxi to the hotel cost $40 but the door to door service was totally worth it. Of course, the company is paying for this part, so it is easier to let the dollars flow.

I'm now ensconced in my room with a view, chomping on pretzel and diet pepsi from the Mini-bar - yeah - that should run me another $20...but you get what you pay for, right?

Tunafish and Tissues

My cubicle neighbor has an issue with boundaries.

By that I mean, she has none - I have many.

At a lunch meeting yesterday, she managed somehow to drop tunafish down the front of her shirt and into her bra. She announced at the table, "Oh shit - I just dropped tunafish in my bra." and then proceeded to try and extract it there at the table. She shook her shirt out, she reached into under the collar, she reached up from the waist, she pulled at the bra, etc. Finally, she left the table and headed to the ladies room.

Today she arrived with a full blown cold and she has been blowing her nose like a trumpet all day and sneezing really juicy sneezes all over her space. She has a pile of tissues on her desk that looks like it needs a ritual burning to rid us of the germs. She picked up the phone to call someone and then sneezed and blew her nose in the middle of leaving a voice mail. Really! She said, "Hi X, this is Judy (sneeze, blow) I'm calling to tell you I'll bring cake (blow) to the meeting tonight."

This same woman has a phone that looks like toxic waste, an ant problem that looks like an ant farm on her carpet, and enough crumbs in her keyboard to build a whole new baked good.

There are days I really really really wish I had walls and a door. That foam/fabric wall is just not enough boundary for me.

#@$#*&#!!! Traffic

One of my earliest posts on this blog was about road rage. Today had to be one of the all time blood pressure raising, road raging days of my commuting life. It took me nearly 3 hours to get to work this morning. AND I didn't have my cell phone with me. So here I was, stuck in never ending traffic, no way to reach anyone, knowing there were several deadlines waiting on my desk.

I tried CDs - I removed all my favorites from the car when I was loading up my laptop itunes.

I tried Book on CD - all I had were CDs I'd already finished.

I tried the radio - no good - annoying AM DJs, and highly stressful financial reports.

I tried watching the other people - that just made me more frustrated as all of THEM were on their phones!

In the end, there was nothing I could do. For TEN MILES. I went about 5 miles/hour. But it was more like 7 miles per hour. STOP. 5 miles per hour. STOP. 3 miles per hour. STOP.

ARGHHHH!

And for the last hour at work, I've had 3 phone calls from friends telling me how backed up the highway is going home.

Given the state of Wall Street and its fallen heroes, think I can pick up a helicopter on the cheap?

Dizzy Gillespie No More

I'm happy to report that my dizzy husband is not so dizzy anymore. At least, no more than usual. In as strange and mysterious of a way as it entered, the Vertigo exited. Within the space of one hour, he was complaining of pain and rushing in his ear and was so frustrated that he was still suffering (this was now Monday night and he'd been out of commission and stuck in the house since Friday AM) and then boom...he suddenly was fine.

Really, boom.

Just that quick.

So he stayed home one more day to be sure, but within an hour after I left he was already out driving and running errands and pushing limits to see how things went.

They went fine.

He was fine.

He is fine.



And can I just say, it's damn fine to have him back.

Too funny not to share

I am NOT a fan of email chain letters, forwards, or other spam of this type. However, I got one yesterday that is too good not to share. Hope everyone can read this flow diagram of Sarah Palin's debate strategy.

Round and Round it Goes

So this morning I awoke to find hubby slumped and seated at side of the bed.

"Something wrong Babe?"

"Yeah, I can't stand up."

"WHAT???"

"I can't stand up. Every time I do I feel like I'm gonna fall over - I'm so dizzy and nauseous."

"OK, lay back down. What can I do? Should we go to the Doctor?"

(laying down) "mmmmmmm"

"Babe?"

"mmmmm"..."Get me my laptop and blackberry - I need to check into work and cancel some stuff."

(10 minutes later - all work notices done)

"Babe?"

"mmmmm"

"I'm gonna take a shower...ok?"

"mmmmmm"

(10 minutes later)

"Babe?"

"mmmmm"

"I want to take you to the Doctor or ER - you pick"

"mmm"..."I just want to lay here"..."you can take me tonight if I don't feel better"

"Um, no, we should go now."

"mumble mumble mumble" (I believe I heard bitch in there somewhere)

"What would you do if it were me?"

"grumble grumble - I would do what YOU want to do. I ALWAYS do what YOU want to do."

pause

"So I guess we're going huh?"

"Yes."

End result.
Diagnosis: Peripheral vertigo from fluid in the ear.
Treatment: travel sickness meds and antihistamines
Direction: NO DRIVING. STAY STILL.
Followup: See a neurologist and they will recommend exercises.
Current Status: Patient is drugged and dozing on couch while I rock out on i-tunes and work on the computer.

Sidenote: Patient is happy to have A's Mom's favorite companion - Maggie Dog - visiting and sleeping at his feet (I think this is winning him over to getting another pet). Nothing like the comfort of a sweet and fuzzy animal when you don't feel well.

VP Beat Down

We gathered last night in our living room, me, hubby, my sister Jude, her hubby, and her youngest son (28) to watch the VP debate. I don't remember this ever being an event for us before. In fact, I remember skipping to a cable movie channel in the past to avoid the coverage. But this year it seemed so important, so relevant, the VP is not an empty position anymore. Especially with the current VP showing every day how influential that position can be.

Mrs. G's post capture the easy way to mock the Governor of Alaska so well, I won't attempt to top it. So instead, I'll talk about the top 3 moments I groaned and covered my face.

Moment 1: When Governor Palin entered and while shaking Senator Bidon's hand asked, with the microphone clearly picking up her "charming" twang, "Mind if I call ya Joe?" She asked that purely so she could use that hackneyed "Say it ain't so Joe" later on.

Crazy bitch.

Moment 2: When Governor Palin actually acknowledged she wouldn't answer questions the way that the moderator or her opponent would like. Really? And I thought this was a debate? Aren't the rules of the debate to, like, um, debate the issue posed? My mistake.

Crazy bitch.

Moment 3: The last 3 times she talked...which made no sense (like a wind up doll winding down). It was like she was skipping words: "Maverick...American People...middle class...god bless...patriot..maverick...maverick...maverick."

Crazy bitch.

To be truthful - I think she's kind of funny, kind of pretty, kind of entertaining.

To be truthful - the idea of her holding high executive office scares the be-jesus out of me.

To be truthful - I might very well have to move to Canada if she is our VP.

Maverick my ass.

The Next Great Depression?

Normally I live my life with the understanding that the media loves a good drama and to take everything they offer with a grain of salt. But the economic news the last couple of weeks has been truly alarming. (See my blog title...like I need more things to worry about!)

What happens to a family who works very hard, ties up their assets in things like a house and property and retirement investment accounts, if the bottom of everything they trust falls out?

Maybe this...(I apologize for the embedded ad, but the news item was powerful)

Dieting Sucks

There is Nothing Like A Dame

Went into NYC this weekend with family and saw South Pacific. Even though we sat in the last row of the Loge, the Vivian Beaumont Theater has great views from every seat, so it was still great.

I do have many many many issues with ticket brokers nowadays who have the gall to charge $230/ticket on a ticket with a face value of $75. Talk about economic stress! Don't you think making 100% profit (charging $150) would be enough? Believe me, if there was any other way to get 6 tickets to this Tony-award winning show, I'd be on it. But when people are traveling in to see it, you have to get them in advance.

Anyway, there IS nothing like a dame...especially when there are a bunch of good-looking, funny, talented sailors singing about her on stage.

And this guy? Matthew Morrison? He is Hot, Hot, Hot. I didn't even mind when his voice broke on a high note. It is cold season after all....

Bali Hai....will call you...where the sky meets the sea....

And there is no doubt in my mind that the right leading man won the Tony...Paulo Szot was wonderful from start to finish. I've been singing "Some Enchanted Evening" since we left the theatre 4 days ago.

Officer, I Saw the Whole Thing

Yesterday at about 7:45AM I was standing in my bedroom and heard the strangest noise - it was like a long twanging rubber band. The sound went on and on and got more and more ominous and I realized it was coming from the wires attached to my house from the pole across the street. I looked out the window and saw some brainiac in a yellow moving truck had caught the wires on the top of the truck and was still driving, pulling two poles into a leaning position and straining the wires attached to my house!

I yelled out the window - but there was no way he could hear me over the truck engine and just when I thought the truck might be flung backward like Wiley Coyote launching off a cliff, the wires finally let go and the truck kept right on trucking!

Even though my lights remained on, I ran downstairs and grabbed my phone book to report the incident to the utility company and after finally getting through all the steps you need to go through to get to a real person and report this, I noticed a police car had pulled up across the street. I walked out and realized there were wires down everywhere. The wires had not juts come unhooked, they had been pulled until they snapped!

After taking my name and number the police officer told me that it was actually the phone wires that had been pulled down (I figured since they weren't sparking everywhere) and asked if I would be able to identfy the yellow truck if I saw it again. Yeah, that wasn't likely. It was a yellow moving truck - there have to be hundreds of them.

When I came home from work, there were 7 trucks with flashing lights still outside my house working on the mess - and still there when I went to bed - and still there when I woke up at 3AM.

I don't have an elegant end or morale to this story - feel free to suggest one - I just thought it was an amazing thing to see this idiot destroy the local phone operations without a second glance.

Fly on the Wall

Everyone always wants to be a fly on the wall to hear what exactly is said when they are not actually in the room. Obviously our mere presence can change the chemistry of the event and what happens...and then if you are like me and always have to say something...it changes even more.

Today, I got my first chance ever to be a fly on the wall. My team (as I've mentioned before - they are a high maintenance bunch) meets almost weekly with a local group and a dial-in for off-site team members to discuss workload, tips/tricks, problem-solving, etc. I silently joined the conference call without announcing myself because I felt the need to better understand their team dynamics when I'm not in the room.

It was a most interesting exercise. I counted my name being mentioned 16 times. Luckily I never had to feel guilty about listening in because it was always in relation to someone consulting me for direction on an idea or a project. There were so many times, however, that the conversation seemed to be spinning out of control and I know if I was actually participating in the call and not sneaking around I would have jumped in and made a decision, stopped a non-productive conversation, or countered an opinion. Hearing how some of them reacted to one another was also interesting. I could see where there were evident personality conflicts as when one person was speaking, one other person consistently took an opposing view - and after a while it felt like purposeless arguing. Disinterest was also evident with the silence of some team members that became embarrassing moments when they were asked to respond to a question and were completely lost - or had put the call on hold/mute and had not mentioned they were dropping off for a moment. Another strange occurrence was noting that two team members who sit next to one another do not join the call together from a conference room, but choose to dial in separately. Very odd.

So now, my followup begins. I will use a skill taught to me by one of my very first bosses - she instructed me to "Play dumb blonde and call Joe pretending you don't know all about the stuff I've told you and see what you can find out." So I'm sending emails to different team members with suggestions, tweaks, project assignments etc. to see if I can mold some things secretly.

I won't do this often - it did feel like spying - but I may join the meetings more and stay silent to see how that goes over. They tend to defer to me when I'm on the call and I want them to think and act for themselves with minor corrections from me.

If only I could play fly on the wall more often in life - it would definitely be an enlightening experience.

Three Hours at the Salon

I started with this

I brought in this picture

I ended with this

I'm pretty happy.

Laws of Economics

With all this turmoil on Wall Street right now, I was remembering an editorial I cut out of the Wall Street Journal in June -

Vanishing Act: The Law of Household Economics
For every financial windfall, and equal, unexpected cost;
Tax Rebate = Appliance Repair
by Karen Blumenthal

"...Just as we prepare to get ahead, some undbudgeted expense explodes in front of us and we have to deal with it. The Law of Household Economics isn't so much about rotten luck as it is about the endless challenge of keeping our financial house in order. Staying on top of the budget, keeping the credit cards in check, and building those savings adn retirement accounts takes real discipline and hard work. Windfalls won't get us there. Instead we have to sweat the spending details, worry about investment returns and, in times like these, cut back or even scrimp....I clearly remember our last rebate. We had high hopes for our expected $500. But a week before it arrived, the air conditioning went out. The bill to repair it? $500."

I can't help thinking this same law of economics is coming home to Wall Street.
And those financial wizards never saw it coming.

A Must See?

I was flipping through a magazine recently and stopped on the movie synoposis page - I'm always looking for a good recommendation. This one stopped me in my tracks.

Army of Darkness: A time-warped supermarket worker fights in medieval England with a chainsaw and a '73 oldsmobile.

And...you ever wonder what happened to Bridget Fonda? Yup. She was in this film.

Hmmmmm.

Comment Conversations

I've discovered that I'm a faithful reader, and I'm a pretty good commenter (that's probably not a word, but you know what I mean), but I'm definitely no good at the comment conversations that take place on many blogs.

I was recently over at Deadpan and let me tell you, that Wanda and her faithful friends are truly committed to conversation. I just don't have the stamina.

When I first started commenting I would check the box to receive follow-up comments, but my inbox was inundated with stuff I really couldn't care less about reading or responding to, so I stopped that practice.

Then, I started trying to respond to my own commenters, but it never picked up any speed, so I quit that too.

So now, essentially, I am out there on my blog and others saying what I want to say, but not entertaining any kind of two-way conversations. Sometimes I even comment on a random blog I stumble upon that I can never locate again. That's what I call a drive-by commenting.

I know it's a little limiting in building a relationship with my blogger friends - so forgive me my shortcomings. In the meantime, I do read all your comments, so if you want a response - be sure to say that...or email me at wenderina at gmail dot com.

In fact, if you are a lurker, de-lurk now and tell me what you think, ask me a question, or just say hey. I could use some comment-love.