Friday, August 15, 2008

Save the date.

I am accepting entries for botanically themed poems- whenever I try to write one, it comes out as a limerick.

I gots me a new job, working for the mothership from whence my botany concepts sprang. I've been polishing bits of the job description for cocktail parties instead of filling out required paperwork. I give you the top three explanations:
1.) Oh, just a little botany work- filling out comparison data for a much larger survey. The pay could be better but it should give me some good keying experience, and Señor C will be able to get a real job. (Friends, people who I want to think that I am modest, considerate, and kind)
2.) 401K, bitches! Full medical and dental! Vision! Overtime! Sick leave, paid vacation, and unemployment! Who's getting her teeth cleaned? Who's getting a physical? Oh yeah. (Coworkers, shambling along in their fifth or sixth or thirteenth season as temps in W-town, people who abandoned botany for real jobs.)
3.) Cough. Well, it's basically co-ordinating a statewide survey with multiple agencies, then hiring and leading a small crew in those surveys, then the associated data processing. I wouldn't worry about those state budget cuts though, it's financed through the NSF. (Inlaws. Outlaws. INLAWS.)

I'm real mature.

So apparently my sense of humor is dry. I never realized that some people weren't getting my jokes until some of those shambling co-workers started treating me like a prima donna. I AM a princess, of course, but I try very hard to hide that at work. I cornered the timber beast in the next office and blackmailed him into telling me what was up.*

So, a few weeks ago, I was talking to Tim in Timber (year 13 shambler, not timber beast). After the initial "Where are good places to eat in Weaverville, I heard you found a giant fucking tree" chit chat, he asked me about my upcoming wedding. I'm tired of assumptions that I will share details of far distant party planning at the drop of a hat, so I've been trying to see how over the top I can go. My wit ran long this time- and he believed me, the sap. He told everyone else, and now I'm a running joke on the compound. The only thing I can do is add the the legend, so if you are asked about it, complain about the cost or something. As a favor. Highlights follow.

-I'm totally into cruelty free products, and they usually boil those poor silkworms to make silk. I'm getting a dress made out of shed cocoons, but they chew their way out, chopping up the fibres, and so it's real delicate and must be hand spun. It's costing a fortune- all my fire money went to a down payment.

-Everything on our registry is solid silver, because it's all about commodities. I know they're expensive now, but think how expensive they'll be in a couple of years! People should be glad we opened it early....

-It's really important to us to get married on a date that can be represented in binary, so it's either 01-01-10, 01-10-10, etc... We're shooting for 10-01-10 because 38 is the sum of my lucky number (17) and his (21).

-Of course, I must have a spring wedding, so we're moving everyone to the southern hemisphere. But there's a flower I want in my bouquet, and it blooms only in the spring up here. Señor C has a third cousin with a couple of greenhouses down in Chile, but she's really being unreasonable about turning one of them over to growing fawn lilies.

-Do you know how hard it is to find a South American priest willing to co preform a ceremony with a Wiccan priestess? They just start rambling on about the one true God when you ask them. Jesus, can't they be just a little bit considerate of other peoples' cultures?

*My... high strung... work leader recently contributed five pounds of gourmet fresh roasted coffee to the local coffee fund. This resolved spiraling coffee debts she had accumulated. It is fragrant, sustainably grown, fair trade, and a dollar of each purchase price goes to help gorillas. The whole office claims it is the best coffee they have ever tasted, and that the ground gorilla really adds flavor. She looks at them darkly. Yesterday I caught our genial timber beast filling the coffee machine from a bag (Hidden, I shit you not, behind a wall panel in his office) of coffee so cheap that the manufacturers didn't spring for a scripted font. He swore me to secrecy, and I used this against him. Obviously.

1 comment:

El Cuervito Azul said...

Dare I ask what the actual brand of coffee is, or would that put the poor timber beast at risk of deep shame?
I must say that I like your wedding plans. You should throw in a Tibetan monk somewhere. Also, I don't see why you can't introduce fawn lilies to the wild down there; after all, there must be something to compete with the golden poppies. Oh, and don't forget the music for the reception...