And now she has brought up that waitress thing again.

We have to wait a month, why is she getting us all stirred up already?

Jeeezus mary and joseph...that fucking link. Rachel, warn me next time! Here I was going "oh me and my buddies play this on the bar video thing all the time this should be so easy. Criminy.

(Of course, at the bar, we play the "adult" version with the girls just so we can yell "tits" and "bush". Yes, we are a mixed gender group, and yes, we're all 12.)

So, on a completely different subject, who else got a month's worth of Stomper fix from the Men's All-Around Finals last night?

o/` Sweet dreams are made of this... o/`

Oh, yes. Stompers. Mmmmmm......

And I thought I had insomnia before? I'm so not getting any sleep tonight. You have officially gotten me back for making all those crank calls to your job, Rachel. We're even.

I love the sapphire rings, ladies. My close friend has one as her center stone and I think it's lovely.

I always thought that when it came to that type of thing that I'd be all about frugality and go with something, well, fake. You know, it would look pretty but no one would know otherwise but us.

Then bf asked me what kind of rings I like. And I got all girly and started doing research on the 719 C's and stuff that I used to think was what you called French bread.

Again with the hypocrisy, I know. Ugh.

Weds, I love that you keep having these fun-sounding parties. I wish I could come to Colombia for the weekend. How much longer are you there again?

karatekate, your boss so deserves a beat-down with a side of FU.

I'm also one who doesn't have a traditional ring. I told Papa Tiger I didn't want a diamond because I can't wear a ring with a stone that sticks out at all -- so he found me this simply gorgeous ring with an overal emerald, set flat, and tiny diamonds inset on the sides, with a swirly pattern in the gold as well. I get compliments on it all the time because it's so unusual. But I love it.

It also gives me a good excuse to find matching emerald jewelry. :-)

My wedding ring is set with a small amethyst flanked by two lapis cabs; Mr Rabrab's is a lapis flanked by two tiny amethysts. Other than the stones, they're identical (and Mr Rabrab designed them.) Of course, we didn't have them for the actual wedding. Mine refused to be made. The first cast had a flaw in it and exploded, showering the man who was making them with molten silver. Then the amethyst shattered when he was burnishing down the bezel, and he had to get another one.

He also designed my engagement ring, which I got a couple years after we got married. We just will not do things the normal way.

Me too, Rabrab -- Papa Tiger gave me the emerald ring for our first anniversary. Before that, we just both had simple gold bands. I actually just wear the emerald ring these days, since it's not designed to go with another ring; kind of a combo engagement/wedding band.

Papa Tiger managed to actually lose his gold band a few years ago and replaced it with, of all things, a titanium band -- about 1/4 the weight of gold and twice as strong, and a very odd silvery-gray color besides. He likes it, so I won't argue, but it sure doesn't do much for me!

Rachel RSL, Damn you. To the place where that terrifying face of evilness belongs. A warning please, next time! (I'm a person who had nightmares after watching Jurassic Park, for crying out loud. Those velociraptors chased me around repeatedly...Now they'll have evil hellish screaming voices as well...!) I'm going to read Anne of Green Gables now, to cleanse my mind.

And ...

[shallow]Men's gymnastics = great stompers...but I like men's swimming for the whole package effect...[/shallow]

By the way, I was listening to a friend play jazz at a bar in NY last night...and realized it was a gay bar-- I've never seen so many men into men's gymnastics before!

Damn, Rachel! I'm at work, getting caught up on the overnight posts, and you had to put that link up. Fortunately, no one else is in the office yet. Well, hey, it woke me up anyway.

Yeah. We're just about to take off for a cottage weekend. Last night, I was trying to quickly catch up and also do some more NYC room booking investigation while Mr delta was outside watering plants.

He ran back into the house and said, "Are you okay? I thought I heard some screaming."

Damn you, Rachel. The worst of it is that someone at work sent around a variant of that last year. I cannot believe I did that twice.

karatekate, what they are doing to you sound quite suspicious, and you could have ground for a lawsuit. My company tried to 'manage' me out of my job whilst I was pregnant. I consulted a lawyer, who told me that basically, pretty much any company is insane to try any job-related shenanigans on a pregnant woman, b/c the lawsuit potential is so huge. Document everything. Talk to a lawyer if you have to; I'm a little suspicious of HR folks myself, because really, they are not on your side. They're there to toe the management line.
Engagement ring: I have a vintage ring--a 1920s cocktail ring with a flat setting. it has a sapphire in the middle flanked by two diamonds, and all sorts of filigree work around it. I love it but it needs to be resized, so I seldom wear it at present. I do love the flat setting, however. Don't like the sticky-outy diamonds that get caught in sleeves, gloves, etc.

Edited totone down stridency b/c really, Miss Alli is absolutely right. I'm not a lawyer, and I don't even play one on TV.

I just want to caution those of you who aren't lawyers to be careful about giving people legal advice. Not only am I a lawyer, but I do employment law, and I still wouldn't throw out advice about what people should do in different situations without having a high level of detail. Sometimes, what people do or don't do affects their rights later, so please be cautious about saying anything other than "talk to a lawyer," because advice like "Never tell them whether you're coming back after a maternity leave" could potentially bite people later. I don't have any idea whether that's good advice or not, but if you're not an attorney, you're not really qualified to give it, and you would feel really bad later if it turned out that the person followed it and screwed herself.

That said, I agree with "document eveything," and it sounds like your boss and your HR department aren't talking to each other. It might be as simple as getting HR to tell your boss that she can't make you work more than 40 hours a week, and to quit it before she gets the company sued.

karatekate, that sucks. At least it sounds like you have good HR people to talk to, unlike some people who had to jump through 417 separate hoops to get an acceptable employment letter for their adoption file (that did finally work out, btw, for those of you who were concerned.) Anyway, best of luck with that.

Rachel, holy crap, I'm never gonna get the stains out of my computer chair. Eeeeeevil. Or, as Mirna would say, people who would do that to their friends are disGUSTing. Hee.

My husband is in a wedding tomorrow, that of his former roommate, which means my entire weekend is taken up with the rehearsal and wedding preparations of people that, frankly, I don't particularly like all that much. Bleah. Just needed to vent that. It also means that after work I have to go shopping for nasty constricting foundation garments so I can fit into the fancy dress I borrowed from my sister.

Then come visit me in Colombia! You can get an excellent quality pair of emerald studs for $100. And, Suga Wuga, if you ever want to party, come on down. We'll rent a Chivas bus. (It's a brightly colored bus with open sides, with a mariachi band playing in the back. You're supposed to dance, do shots, and stay upright in a moving vehicle all at once, while getting a tour of the city. I file it under Activities Which Would Never Be Legal at Home).

I base all posts on shopping: I like Colombia because of emeralds, coffee, and furniture. Bosnia has silversmiths and rugs, so I should do fine there as well.



I know how you feel. I hate it when clothes don't fit right and I have to reorganize my body. I'm in my sister-in-law's wedding next month, and she picked out a dress that no one can fill out up top. So my mother-in-law is going to stuff our bras. Seriously. She used to own a bridal shop and still has lots of padding.

Those are the kind I like too, Hildy. I even printed out an example and showed it to the boyfriend because he had no idea what I was talking about. It might not have been the best move possible, since he was a bit freaked out even though I told him I wasn't expecting anything in the immediate future. I had been complimenting a recently engaged friend on her ring in his presence and wanted him to know that although I did like her ring, it wasn't the kind I'd choose for myself.

Ah, it does my evil heart good to know that my link scared the crap out of so many people! I sat here giggling as I posted it.

"Hee hee hee!! I'm gonna get 'em all! Hee hee hee hee!"

Since I don't want to get all repetative, check here for my latest annoying saga. If you like, of course.

M. Darcy, did you see the second post from me on that page?

Congrats to your brother I guess. I hope it goes well (meaning that he doesn't get hurt and embarrased). And, if he makes it, I'll vote for him. Assuming you want me to of course :-)

Suga Wuga, that's sad. I'm assuming you otherwise like your brother?

My brother actually made a living as a stand-up comedian for a few years, and my mom was afraid to see him perform because she was afraid people were laughing at him for the wrong reasons and she'd be crushed. I finally got a video of my brother and sent it to her, at which point she understood that he did have some talent. So she finally went to see him the next time she was on the East Coast. And shortly after that, he quit.

First off, Susikins, your ring is gorgeous.

Thanks for all of the support, guys. I'm generally one of those "let me vent and then I get over it" sort of people, so I really appreciate just being able to vent. I do think I'll take the oft repeated and Miss Alli endorsed path of greater documentation. I haven't thrown away an email in 3 years (well, maybe a few, but nothing remotely important), but I'm not so good at documenting encounters. And, MrKate's best work buddy went to law school and passed the bar before deciding he liked donuts to much to not be a cop. So MrKate asked him if I could ask him about work stuff over a delicious chicken dinner (I hate being a person that always goes to their doctor friend for free medical advise and such, so at least I'm going to feed this single man that lives on Hot Pockets!).


So, do you mean the total effect of a lean, athletic, glistening body... or the other way that my 12 year old mind read it? And I will totally agree with you on Men's Gymnastics. I'm an arms and back kinda gal, and the rings just make me drool [/shallow]

Hee. Both, I guess. Yes, I'm 12 too.

Rachel, I've been hit by that sort of link before. Yours got me again, even though I was half expecting it.

I salute your evilness, and I'm planning on passing it along. Cheers!

When I got married the woman who did my alterations said she did more boob jobs than a Hollywood plastic surgeon. And they looked better too.

I'm proud to say that that link did not get me! Ha! I'm too smart for it!

Caution accepted. I worried over what I wrote, but looking back, I'll stand by it and say it's just workplace advice: document. Look after your own health. And document. And look after the baby's health. And document.

As a people manager for years I can tell you: some folks do more productive work in a straight 8-hour day than people who work 60+ hour weeks (and spend so much of that time talking about how many hours they put in).

I worked in a place that would fire anyone that didn't work a certain number of weekends -- your time in and out was logged -- so folks would come in and sit and read novels, or balance their checkbooks, or whatever. It was assinine. I've been in situations where the party line was "work life balance" but god help you if you weren't available for the 2:30am conf call with Tokyo with the 7:00am breakfast meeting the next day.

Good luck. (And document.)

And when I got married? No stuffing. Let's just say I tend to float high in the water.

I'd rather be stuffing then binding, WesAddams, which is what I'll need to do to look like I'm not trying to channel Dolly Parton in this dress. Sigh. Hexele, let's just say I feel your pain.

On the men's gymnastic Stompers, I'm with you, KarateKate. At one point they showed a guy beating on Dragulescu's arms, I'm guessing to loosen him up or whatever, and I'm all "ooh, how do I get that job?" My husband, needless to say, has become a champion eye-roller. Don't even get me started on the Hamms. Stomper Twins!

(edited 72 times to fix tags. And to refer to the correct person getting stuffed.)

Heh. I'm not looking forward to being stuffed. I can't see why on God's green Earth why my sister-in-law picked out that particular dress when her entire bridal party is the Itty Bitty Titty Committee.

All this wedding talk has reminded me of my biggest pet peeve....people who do not write thank you notes. Maybe it's just this year in particular because we've been to 3 weddings since May, missed one that was out of state but still sent a gift, and had 3 graduations (one high school, two college). Of those 7 events, only 2 have written thank you notes. And one of the two might as well been thanking us for a pencil rather than the $250 cash we sent! That one was Mr PrincessLola's niece who graduated from high school. They live clear across the country from us and her graduation was Memorial Day weekend....it was impossible for us to make it, but we thought we'd surprise her with a big wad of cash. I was blown away when I read the thank you note....it said (and I'm not making this up) Thank you for the gift, love (name). Wha??? But at least she sent a thank you because it's been very frustrating to go to wedding after wedding this summer and not get thank you notes.

Sigh....sorry for the rant....I'm feeling particularly grumpy today I guess.

It's Friday and I've been typing in wedding and engagement announcements for the Sunday paper, so I'd like to take this opportunity to give a little announcement advice to all of you who are planning your wedding. (I never get to tell anyone this beforehand. I only get to complain when someone does it wrong and I have to call and get more info.)

There is a difference between an engagement announcement and a wedding announcement. The engagement announcement tells the world you are getting married. The wedding announcement tells the world you got married. You'd think people would know this (and I'm sure all of you do), but I get wedding forms filled out for engagement announcements all the time.

When you fill out your wedding announcement form for your local paper, be sure to give your maiden name under "Bride's Name." You'd think this would also be obvious, but you'd be surprised at the number of people who apparently don't know any better and hand in forms that have John Bracegirdle Boisdragon marrying Sue Bracegirdle Boisdragon.

If there is a mistake in the announcement (and there might be -- the people who type them in are only human), be nice about it. We always reprint those, but we don't hate the people who ask nicely. Also call the next day to ask for a reprint before the editor kills the photo and text file out of the computer. Retyping the whole thing means a greater chance for a different mistake.

Always, always pay attention to the deadline. If you can't make it, call and ask what you can do. Also, don't wait until the week before you get married to send in an engagement announcement. If you're in a small town, people will talk about you. Even if you aren't the newspaper people won't like you. Most newspapers have times they run these things. They might run yours at a special time, but they might not. I always want to ask those people, "How long have you known about this?" (Yes, my mother was a teacher.)

I'm sure you guys would never do these things. Really, I just wanted to rant about people.

Hee. I finally took a break from this thread to cool down, and here is it again. Olymporn cannot be stopped!

I don't have (or ever expect to have) an engagement ring, but I've always thought non-diamond rings were so much prettier than diamond. I just like color more than flat-out sparkle. That said, a friend of mine had an entrancing ring with three sizable (not huge, but each plenty distinguishable) that would sparkle all the time. Not just in certain light, like most diamonds I've seen. It'd be practically dark and there it was -- sparkle, sparkle! I was like a cat and a light pen with that thing.

I have a very non-traditional wedding ring and I get comments/compliments on it all the time. I'm not a big diamond fan, so my engagement ring was an oval blue topaz. We worked with our local jeweler to design a wrap to go around the ring. We ended up with 3 rings in total....the engagement ring, and then a band that had 3 diamonds in a point at the top and a band that copied the design on the bottom....all three rings were fused together to form the most incredible ring. It totally suits my personality and it's a one-of-a-kind ring.

My Oh My. This opens up a whole new world.

Hexele, I’m too lazy to look it up now, but I believe that there is research backing you up now. People, in general, just stop functioning after eight hours. I don’t get how companies can’t just look around and see that productivity goes down.

Heh. Reminds me of my sister’s chagrin over her four redheaded bridesmaids who refused to wear burgundy.

P.S. That thread is crack.

But in the short term if people are still producing something, even at a lower rate per hour (productivity), that's still valuable to a company -- especially if the people are salaried so their costs are largely fixed. I can imagine that pushing people too hard over the long term would result in a lower total production as the effects accumulate. (I'm using "productivity" to mean the rate of output over time and "production" to mean the quantity of output.)

Yeah, I should have mentioned that. I'm such a pusher.

I recently was moved (as a report, nothing else changed, I'm a blue fish in a pond of red fish, they move my reporting structure around a lot because I don't fit in anywhere) to a department that has had 50% turnover so far this year, 2 resignations and 4 firings out of what should be 12 (but really was only 12 for two weeks) people. Talk about hurting productivity. How does the boss keep the job? And 2 of the fired had been there 17 years (he started the day after me) and 25 years. Fired? For being too experienced? Too expensive? Too unwilling to lick boots? (Ah, that's it.)

Fortunately, this department's head doesn't last more than 2-3 years at a time. And the boss is in that range now.

And as a cautionary tale, two folks in other departments were fired the other day for email violations. Apparently what was to them innocent fun was offensive to the person who picked up a copy of an email that the woman had printed and forgotten to pick up before going out for a smoke. The guy who sent it was not protected by the fact that he is a HUGE revenue producer.

On the swimming front. I love that tapered swimmer's bod. And the South African sprinter who was favored to win the 50 is gorgeous. But it struck me the other day that swimmer are so clean. No stinky man coming home from the gym. And I think that may be a bit sick of me....

Crack and an opium den combined. Have you seen the fish picture yet? Oh. My. Heck.

Man, spend the day training my replacement (yeeeehah!) and unable to get online and goof off, and what happens? Way too many pages to catch up on!

WedsAddams:



Substitute a Dixieland jazz band for the mariachi, and I have only one thing to say: You've never been to New Orleans, have you, WedsAddams?

Thank God! And thanks for posting that link.

Which then led to this link. Yum.

( Every time any of us post a link from now on, thanks to Rachel at least half of us will be terrified to click on it. So just some reassurance that there are no scary-ass faces jumping at you there, just extremely nice Stompers galore.)

JenEx, you're right. And thank you for the disclaimer.

Hee! Actually, I have, but I mostly did cemetery tours. Chivas buses are crazy fun, emphasis on the crazy. Bogota has some of the worst traffic in the world, and the bus will literally nudge other cars off the road, then careen through cobblestone streets, followed up by a stop in the middle of nowhere, where there are men waiting to sell you beer. You also have to wave to other cars and dance for passersby when you're stopped at a light. It's fun, except for the time our bus driver dropped us off to admire a view - then drove off for half an hour to get something to eat. Nothing like 20 gringos in the middle of nowhere, muttering, "Dude, where's my Chivas?"

That doesn't sound like the kind of commercial Chivas Regal would want to have. Hee!

I really want to go on a Chivas bus now. How about TARCON 6 in Bogota?

In news of the wonderful, MrKate and I determined last night that, if he doesn't eat ribs every single time we ever go out to eat, I don't have to go back to work after BabyKate is born! Yay!

Truthfully, I love the work I do (not where I work, not my boss, not my job... the work I do), but my career aspirations always had "Mother" at the top of the list. How 1950s of me, I know. But I'm happy.

It's like an early birthday present for me. And Christmas present. And whatever else we want to bundle in.

Ooh, WedsAddams, and is the preferred drink on the Chiva Aguardiente
Cristal in tiny cups? (Delightful drink, that, kind of like a welder's flame flavored with sugarcane and aniseed). I lived in Barranquilla for fifteen years. Colombia's really cool.

Ah, Aguardiente. It's cheaper than Kool-Aid and tastes like licorice-flavored paint thinner. Chivas workers give out little shot glasses you can hang around your neck. Practical! You can also buy it in cute little portable juice boxes.

I haven't been to Barranquilla. I want to go, but since we go back to the US in January I don't think there will be time. We went to San Andres in May, next weekend we're going to a coffee ranch in Pereira, October is Cartagena (a colonial city), and November is Leticia (to see the Amazon).

Heh, TWOPcon Bogota. Travel warnings be damned! (It's actually not too scary here, you just have to not stand out or do anything stupid).

ETA: As for Aguardiente brands, screamin, I've always been partial to Nectar Azul. What were you doing in Barranquilla?

Living there, for high school and college (Mom's Colombian.) Unfortunately, I didn't do all the fun tourist things you did, because of trying to be a proper native. But I never could fit in completely (never did learn to dance salsa properly, and never quite rolled my r's correctly - once a gringa, always a gringa) so looking back, I realize I could've had a lot more fun if i'd just embraced my essential inner ex-pat.
Oh, have fun in Cartagena - I DID do all the tourist things at the fortress and the walled city - it's wonderful. I do wonder why TAR doesn't go there sometime and stage some event there, preferably including horseback rides through the colonial city in fifteenth century Spanish garb...

I've got a bottle of aguardiente I brought back from Columbia and never found anybody who'd drink it. Have fun in Cartagena - it's beautiful.

Hee, PButtercup. I took some juice boxes of Aguardiente to my sister's birthday in July in LA. Most people thought it was nasty, but a few people said, "Yummy! Just like licorice!" Not surprisingly, those were the really drunk ones at the end of the night.

Worst part: a friend and I had to go to another apartment (2 blocks) to pick up more cups. We're cold sober. We pour ourselves a GLASS of Aguardiente and start walking, passing the glass back and forth. By the time we'd traveled the two blocks, we'd finished the glass. We returned to the party, completely tanked, and fell down on our asses. Sigh.

KarateKate, I stayed home with both my kids, and when I did go back to work I worked out of my house for most of the time they were growing up. I've never regretted it for one instant. We didn't have nearly as much $$, but the kids got something so many kids didn't: my time. I was there. Even though I worked, I could take all the time I needed to be the PTA mom, the Girl Scout leader mom, the drive-the-kid-to-swim-practice-every-day mom, etc. My kids turned out pretty darned good, too, if I do say so myself. So good on you for wanting to be a mom more than anything else -- I still think it's the most important job we can do! (At least till they go off to college!)