I am rude - silly things you can do if you're single - an unexpected call

I was rude to our attorney today. I rationalized my way into it. Every year he sends out bottles of Dom Perignon champagne to his clients, but I'm not a huge champagne fan. I was rather surprised one year when talking to my wine store guy. I was confessing to him that I must have a bourgeois palate, because I just didn't care for Dom Perignon. He proceeded to tell me that Dom was really no longer the fantastic champagne it used to be, and was mainly doing trade on the name at this point. He told me he knew of several champagnes that were both better and cheaper. If he was just saying that to make me feel better, it worked. Anyway, I just usually wrap my bottle of Dom and give it to my dad and Eve for them to use for New Year's Eve. Eve is very brand conscious, and I figured she'd get a kick out of having the bottle to show off as much as anything. That worked out well until this year, when Dad told me that he didn't want me spending my money to get them a bottle of Dom this year. I couldn't very well confess to the re-gifting without losing face. Instead, I asked the attorney (if he was sending wine out anyway) to send me a bottle of that Wither Hills Pinot Noir we had the other night with dinner. I tracked it down online and it's an Australian wine. There doesn't appear to be a commercial distributor in South Carolina. Not one I can find anyway. I rationalized that a) he may as well get me something I like if he's going to send it anyway, and b) it's a heckuva lot cheaper than Dom. This stuff runs $30-35 per bottle. Still a treat for me, and more than I usually spend for wine, but still a bargain for him. If he thought I was a picky bitch, he had the good grace not to mention it.

Work was a lot more quiet today than it has been for the last couple of weeks - thank God. My boss was all into a new slide he wants done monthly, and spent a good part of the day tweaking it. I prepared three different versions before I got it the way he wanted it. He will send me a one sentence description of what he wants, and I'm supposed to call Dionne's psychic friends or something to magically intuit the details. It makes me nuts, but that seems to be the way the process works for him. It's a habit he picked up from our old boss that I wish he hadn't. Between that new slide and basically re-imagining the long form presentation I was in and out of his office all day.

I exchanged emails with Kay today. I had asked her for a link to her online journal, and sent her a link to the blog. She is such a sweetheart.

I went by Wal-Mart on the way home to take back that stupid dish drainer that didn't fit the sink, just because I have a death wish or something. But I rationalized that it wasn't going to get any more sane before the first of the year, figured that Monday night would be more quiet, and I paid $10 for the damn thing. It wasn't nearly as bad as I feared, and I got out of there in about a half hour.

When I got home, I conducted an experiment. On the show Friends they had a whole episode about a turkey sandwich that Monica makes for Ross. It's a sandwich she makes only at Thanksgiving out of leftover turkey and it has a special middle layer of gravy-soaked bread called a "moist-maker" that keeps the turkey from being too dry. (The episode revolves around the sandwich being taken.) Well I had enough furkey left for one sandwich, and since I made gravy Sunday I have gravy to burn, so I made a moist-maker sandwich tonight for dinner. It was good. Messy, but good. I would probably do it again. But I wouldn't eat it in front of anyone but family.

I also got a call out of the blue tonight from Marvin, the little Hispanic (he is Columbian, I believe) guy I know through Lee and Clayton. I think he's cute, and we've been sniffing around each other for years. He likes bears and I like little guys, but he has this impossible life. He works full time and goes to school. In addition, he got custody of his younger brother and sister to bring them into the country, and he's acting (along with his mother) as a de facto parent to them as well. Add into that the fact that he lives in Charlotte, and it's just pretty much a no-go between us. But he's going to Atlanta on business this week, and wants to have dinner with me on the way through town. So of course I said sure. One of my reps from Atlanta is coming up through town on Wednesday as well, so he's buying me lunch that day. So I'm just going to be wined and dined on Wednesday.

I watched the Charlie Brown Christmas special tonight. They have an old one, and a newer one I hadn't seen before. I hadn't watched the old one in years, and was really surprised about how it was written on two levels - and mostly on an angst-ridden adult level. Aside from the silly Snoopy stuff (which could actually be interpreted as "ignorance is bliss" symbolism about the perils of over-analyzing life), it really does speak directly to adult depression and self-esteem issues. Interesting.

I really need to work on Christmas cards, but I rationalized that going to Wal-Mart in December entitled me to a bit of R&R, and since it is Monday anyway, I gave myself the night off.