The New England Society for Tea Fetishism

I had a great Thanksgiving - slept late, read a lot, ate until I almost died then ate some more, spent a day with the delightful Ms. Tracy, saw Harry Potter, and generally had a lovely time not dealing with phone calls and purchase orders and SKU numbers and all things work related. Although I did get a call from my supervisor on Tuesday morning asking if I ever filled out a vacation request form, which I did exactly two months before Thanksgiving day.

As I neglegted to mention before, earlier this month I went to the Long Island Nurseryman and Landscapers Association's Man of the Year party for the owner of the company where I work. Lots of free booze and good food and I even got to buy a new outfit and be all pretty. When they finally gave him the award my boss got up and told this story about a very old great hall on the campus of Oxford University (I think it was Oxford - by the time he got up to give his speech it was late and I had three cosmopolitans in me) that still had its original rafters. They were huge and hundreds of years old and they were so bug- and mold-eaten that they finally had to be replaced. The people in charge really wanted to keep the character of the hall and not use modern, chemically treated timber, so they contacted the Forestry Service (or whatever they have in England) and they said,"Hey, we've been waiting for you guys to contact us." And the Forestry people took the Oxford people to this stand of tall, straight oak trees and told them that they had been planted when the hall was first built so that when the rafters needed to be replaced, they'd be ready. I just thought that was really neat.

At the party one of the women I work with introduced me to her son, who is my boss's personal trainer. I'd talked to him a hundred times on the phone before because he calls a few times a week. I maybe talked to him for a minute at the party, then proceeded to go to the bar and start my slow slide into nice, comfortable buzz. After that night, every time he called we'd chat for a bit, then I'd connect him to my boss's assistant. So, last Saturday I got sucked into working the gallery opening (My boss's son runs a gallery in what used to be a barn where I work) and he called and said he was going and would I like to get a bite to eat afterward? I said yes, then proceeded to freak the hell out, as Tracy will attest. When I saw him come in the gallery I panicked a little more because he was a lot cuter than I remembered. We went to a little sushi place, had a nice conversation and he took me home. It was really good night. He emailed me yesterday. Maybe we'll have another.

But I just can't sit idly by while misinformation like this is perpetuated, so I'm using my little corner of the Internet as a soapbox to try to help stop this madness.

Here it is people:

New York is not part of New England. Seriously, dude. Check it out. I'm not joshin' ya.

And, to beat a favorite dead horse of mine, no one was burned at the stake in Salem.

In my daily life I come into contact with a lot of the same people on a regular basis - the people on the bus, the man who hangs out on a bench at the shopping center every morning, the checkout people in the supermarket. I have no idea what their names are or where they live or what they look like when they're not in their work clothes. Sometimes I notice things like "Hey, Young Checkout Guy got a haircut" or "Old Couple Who Reads the Paper Together have a copy of The Post instead of Newsday today." But basically, in my head, they don't have any kind of existence outside of where I see them every day. They're like fixtures in the landscape - they're always there and they never go anywhere else. So it's kind of freaky when you find out that you are someone else's fixture. The other day I was buying a sweater in Ann Taylor and the woman who helped me remarked that she saw me in the King Kullen bakery that morning. I'm always sitting in the snack bar at the bakery in the mornings, reading a book or a newspaper. And then the next day the kid at the checkout counter, who I could almost swear I've never seen before in my life, asked me if I was reading a new book. And then I realized that I am That Girl Who Sits and Reads in the Snack Bar Every Morning.

We have the fattest sparrows around here. They wait by the poultry cage and swoop down when the corn is put out for feeding time. I saw a little butterball of a sparrow over by King Kullen yesterday and thought, "Indeed, he is one of ours."

I'm going home tomorrow. All I have to say about that is "FOOD!" Oh, and also the company of good friends and relatives. The green line is going to be murder, I know it. Anyone want to take bets on how many packed trains pass by before I can squeeze myself onto one? I'm guessing two, with a tight fit on the third. I hate the subway.

I don't know if it's a sadder comment on my current social life or my past that I miss getting drunk and watching "Half Baked." Oh, how I miss the heiffers with cheese, Julio. Nobody likes you, nobody likes heiffers with cheeeeese. You just sitcho-ass-cuff! Yeah, I said it.

Oh, dear, I miss college a lot sometimes. Right now I especially miss the part where I didn't have a thesis that I was barely writing. You think I could just publish my blog? Maybe if I were Norbizness, or the peeps over at Demagogue, or Dooce. Nobody would pay money for Thirty-Two Squares of Pain! and The Coffee Cow and The Christ Cod. Well, maybe Amy. But for entirely different reasons.

I now have two days off in a row. I didn't know what to do with myself, so I went for two very long walks down East Tiana and Ponquogue Road, and spent most of the rest of my time off laying around as if I'd run a marathon or something - hence the lack of bloggage. But, dude, I left my house at 1pm and didn't get back until 2:30. This from the girl who's been an 8 1/2 hour a day desk jockey for the better part of the past two months. I was not prepared. Neither was the nail on my left pinky toe. I think the friction might have jiggled it loose.

Anywho, I'm going home in less than two weeks for a much deserved little Thanksgiving vacation. I should start fasting now because I'm probably going to eat nonstop for five days.