People, we have a government in CRISIS. It has come to my attention that a key cabinet position has gone unfulfilled. This position is of the utmost importance, and the weightiest of roles- to keep vermin out of the halls of power. Fourtunately, for those of us in the United States we are not effected by the egregious oversight. But our neighbors accross the pond, are IN CRSIS and need us in their time of need. I am going to tell you how I am going to help them in a moment, but, first more about this important government seat of power.
Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office.
Yes, you read that right. You may think I am making this up, but I don’t make stuff up. On Tuesdays. This exalted position was first held by a cat named Treasury Bill. Unfortunate moniker aside, he did his job so well, that he was replaced by Peter. And Peter was replaced by…well, you can look at the list yourself.
Sybil, the last cat left 10 Downing Street in 2009, reportedly to live out his retirement in the lap of luxury. But, now….NOW? There’s no one! How does this country function each and every day? I get that whole British ‘stiff upper lip’ thing and all, but this goes beyond the pale. And it is a situation that MUST be rectified.
In case you didn’t know, the Prime Minister is off cooing over his new baby. What kind of man goes off to celebrate the addition of his houseold when he knows his country is on the brink. Listen, Mr. Brown, even now as we speak the mice are planning and plotting. It could be ANY DAY NOW. I implore you to ACT NOW!
Rumor has it that the Queen is not pleased, but sources could not confirm that before press time.
My good readers, keep the UK and its shoddy, broken government in your thoughts. They need all the support they can get.
P.S. I have a killer cat that would be perfect for job, and she might even overlook your funny accents.
P.P.S. – I have outfitted a box for the cat with plenty of airholes (don’t need PETA after me, y’all) now, just tell where to send it to?
P.P.P.S- I’m a giver.
P.P.P.P.S.- Hurry up with the address, she’s biting through the box.
I know that all of us have worked with some real douche nozzles in our time- we could spend days trying to one up each other on the people who are paid to walk to halls of our company and spread their particular brand of asshat-i-ness. But we can take a moment to honor the person who has THE most onerous co-worker EVER. Hoda Kotb. For those that don’t know Hoda co-hosts the 4th hour of Today with Kathie Lee Gifford. Yes, that’s right Kathie. Lee. Gifford. Every time I see her I have to ask, “Is this woman EVER sober?”. And with a guest? Oh man, no guest can get a word edgewise with this woman. She’s a train wreck. I feel so sorry for Hoda every day,
so, so sorry that I had to post this tweet…
OK, it should have been ‘over’ not ‘off’, but you get the idea. So many people were like “I know!” that I had to make this (this is for you Hoda, just know that every day we go off to work we say to ourselves- “At least we don’t work with Kathie Lee”, way to take one for the team, Hoda.)
I’m back! And let’s start off with something sweet, it was kind of overcast and cloudy today. The days I love the best, and a harbinger that fall is in the air. I wanted to make something, but had no chocolate so I snagged a jar of peanut butter and made some
peanut butter cookies and
no bake cookies. Yum! No, I’m not sharing.
My kids are at camp for the week, and I’m taking the time to catch up at work. You know, the job that ACTUALLY pays the bills. So I am featuring two guest posts. The second (and last) is from Kelli (aka GuiltySquuid). She has become a close friend, and I’m lucky to have found her. She made me promise to publish this before I saw it, I swear I didn’t pay her to write it. And it may have touched my heart. Could have been indigestion, who knows. You can find her here. You can find Tuesday’s guest post from Bejewell here. These two women deserve to be read, a lot. Go do that. Not now, AFTER you read this post:
Last week, before Amy went to Blogher, she asked me to write a guest post for her. That night was insane. The same day she asked me I was coming off of two anxiety attacks in 24 hours, I was getting ready for my photoshoot for BBC2011, and I was packing to take my kids on a last minute vacation out of town.
In a nutshell? I was a mess. A hot mess. A horrible, barely held together mess who was likely to crack into a million pieces at any time.
For anyone else last week I would have said no, but this was Amy. Because Amy does a lot for everyone in her online network and she does it while asking very little in return. She will happily and cheerfully fix a broken blog while wielding snarky comments to keep you laughing and recognizing that the world has not ended and that yes, it can be fixed. She can be the glue that holds it all together.
So, after a late night of frantic packing, planning and downloading my Tom-Tom updates to install on my iPhone 4, I shut off the outside world and worked on a piece for Amy. I was actually pretty proud of it. It’s funny and full of pictures and basically the kind of post that makes me happy. Then I copied and pasted the code into a notepad file, attached it to an email and finally drug my tired ass to bed to wake up a few hours later to drive 100 miles to get my picture taken in a closet. (True story.)
I guess that in the updates on the phone and my exhaustion, I didn’t notice that the email came back as undeliverable.
And as we all know, Amy had a hard time at Blogher.
But she posted something else and I guess I just assumed that she didn’t like my post, or it didn’t fit her site, or something.
She assumed I hadn’t done it and blew her off.
Tonight we IMed about it all and all is well and I said I’d fire up the laptop and send her post off to her.
But instead? I have all of this rattling around in my head and I wanted to give y’all a little something different.
The Amys of the world are few and far between. Very few people give so generously of themselves and ask nothing in return. Amy has been really good to me since I came back and really started blogging to blog for real. She’s been a support system, a fantastic and selfless promoter of me, and she’s read every word I’ve written and commented on it. She’s included me in the amazingly awesome Blogger Body Calendar and given me an opportunity to do something for my daughter I would have never had the courage to do on my own. In short, she’s been a real friend.
The thing about me? Is that I think I’m probably a difficult friend to have, really. I am alternately needy and then so busy I don’t have time to talk for days. I get caught up in things and people have to practically YELL at me to get me to focus on something else for even a few minutes. Sometimes? I think I just imagine that my friends will be there to pick up where I left off and it all be okay.
I have a difficult time navigating the world of “girlfriends”, and that’s not easy for me to admit to you all.
I suspect it’s probably because my largest formative influences weren’t women at all. I’ve never been great at sustaining relationships with women and it’s likely due to the fact that a girl’s very fist real “girlfriend” is usually their mother and believe me when I tell you that I never had that kind of relationship with my mother.
So, I often miss the subtle context clues that other women pick up on with each other. I gravitate towards friendships with guys who don’t notice the awkwardness in me as much as women do. Or, if they do, they’ve never said. With guys, I can just hang. It’s all good and I don’t feel like I have to think about it as much. It’s a little different if it’s a guy I have real feelings for, because then? Like all relationships, it has the potential to get complicated and I don’t do well with complicated. I end up locked in a closet having an anxiety attack. That actually happens to me more than I care to admit.
Anyway, I’m getting off topic here. The point I’m trying to make is that I’m not good at the girlfriend type relationships. I have a few close girlfriends. I’ve made a few recently that I’m as comfortable with as I am with any guy. I’ve made one who is so perfect at just TELLING me what I’m missing and WHY that detail is important. But as far as I’ve come in this area (and believe me, it’s really come a long way) I’ve still got a long way to go.
I need to be better at noticing when a friend says something that is to point out that something is wrong. I need to be better at asking questions. I need to not feel (thank you all of my guy friends) that every problem a girlfriend has is one to be fixed. Sometimes, a girl has just gotta vent.
But mostly? I need to remember that friends like Amy are few and far between and sometimes. They need a little of what they give out to be given back to them. And I feel like lately I’ve failed her in that.
I hate that she didn’t have a great time at Blogher. Blogher, quite frankly, scares the holy hell out of me. It’s a social minefield that I’m not at all sure I’m prepared for navigating. But, I am sorry mostly that I couldn’t be there to say, “You know what? Let’s just go see the statue of liberty and talk.” or something that would have given her a good memory of her trip.
Basically, this whole new post is to say, Amy? Thank you.
And also? I’m sorry.
I know I’m an asshole, but thank you for being my friend in spite of that.
Diving back into blogging like I meant it has meant I’ve had to do a lot of things differently, and Amy has been there for me. To answer questions, to listen, to encourage or to just listen to me bitch. I’ve made more friends through the social networking involved that I could have possibly imagined.
Basically, I learning what’s so great about having a network of girlfriends and one of my biggest supporters has been Amy from the beginning.
Today I am appreciating Amy.
That is all.
P.S. This post may not seem like a typically Guilty Squid post, but that’s because I have DEPTH people. Layers, even. I’m a veritable seven layer did with two kinds of chips for sampling.
P.P.S. Unless some of the layers are fish and/or mushrooms.
P.P.P.S. There isn’t another one, I just liked the way the post scripts were flowing. I wasn’t ready to stop.
To the designer who said it was OK for women OF ANY AGE to go out in public in pants, shorts, whatever with words imprinted across their butt: You are the worst person ever.
Not even exaggerating.
Who tells these women “Of course, I take you seriously. No go outside and jog with Aeropostale on your ass” or “You have Susan across the back of you jeans. Does that mean you have a separate name for your ass or do you just REALLY like your own name and like to see it everywhere” or, my personal favorite “How adorable is my 7 year old with the word cutie across her butt? In two years we’ll move her up to the ones that say hottie, because we are awesome parents.”?
For the love of all that is holy, please don’t wear anything across you ass; at best you look like a bimbo, at worst you are calling attention to an area that maybe needs a little less of the spotlight.
