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you know it's time to move on when

2004-11-22 -

There�s talk at my job of a theme Christmas party this year. I was lucky enough to be standing by the front door when one of the IT employees walked past the owner and myself, with a plastic punch clown doll the size of a moped. The owner of the company was telling me how his dog was going in tonight for surgery on his privates (they were until now). Little guy has a tumor. I gave a few words of encouragement, but it only reminded me of when my little L.B. got his belly run over by a van when he was a puppy. I told the vet he absolutely had to save him, my Mother had died a month earlier and I didn�t think him dying was an option as well. The guy worked on him for four hours and he lived. Until the other thing that killed him a couple of years later.

So the other tip off to the Christmas party was four makeshift glass vases on the IT guy�s desk; he was bouncing a ball into them.

�You having a good time Jed?�

�This is for the shhhh.�

�For the what?�

�For the Christmas party, shhh.�

I thought and thought who I could tell that would care. Then I wondered who would care enough to not keep it a secret. Nope, no one.

�Ohh. We�re gonna play games?�

�Yeah, it�s gonna be Carnival Christmas theme, shhh.�

�Isn�t Christmas its own theme?�

�Yeah, but - this is � Carnival Christmas.�

I haven�t quite figured out why, but something about this carnival thing makes me want to fight. I plan to silently but sleuth(fully) discourage this idea. I see these clowns working around me for the bulk of the year, I�d rather not play carnie games with them too. Other things I�d prefer not to do with them:

Have sleepovers of any kind.

Go on a field trip together.

Touch them in any way aside from a quick holiday hug. (as we�re leaving the party)

See them in public, in other words, �off the set�

Watch them sing karaoke

Die around them

I got a letter from my grandmother asking me if I was mad at her, and if she did something wrong, to tell her. What in the hell can your Grandma do to make you mad at her?

Dear Grandma,

Remember when I was five and you said, what kind of ice cream do you want, I promise I�ll get it for you, and I said Vanilla but you confused me with Rory and gave me Pistachio, which I hate, and he ate all the Vanilla? Well I never liked Pistachio, and so I didn�t eat it, but he sure did. I want you to know that it was pretty much all your fault. I would like a rain check on that promise you made to me.

I would also like a new Grandmother,
Ohell

* Wrapping it up: I love my Grandmother, and even writing this I felt sad about her thinking I was mad at her, kind of like this weekend when I went to a party that had really cool people inside, and a man six times the size of me told me how he loved to eat really well and do yoga. He probably meant in a past life, but he was dead serious. It looked like it hurt him just to talk, huffing puffing baby tomato face. I can�t get the image of him out of my mind and how sad I felt after that. Anyway, maybe I�ll find him again and we�ll go to yoga together.

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