Dana Tries her Hand at Office Work (dedicated to BT)

Seven useful and interesting things I have learned working in an office:

1. Working in an office is not so bad after all, except that it makes me fart really really really badly.

2. If people in this particular office are anotomically average, and I have no reason to believe otherwise, I am pretty sure I use the bathroom approximately 4 times more often than the average American.

3. If they so choose, people can tune each other out very effectively.

4. If they so choose, people can eavesdrop on each other very effectively.

5. Corny humor is alive and well in the world.

6. It is quite normal for people to email each other from the same small office.

7. When doing totally uncreative and repetitive tasks such as stuffing 200 binders, one can be compelled to reveal bizarre tidbits about oneself to people who would never be privvy to that information otherwise. Examples: "I used to want to swim the English Channel," and " I've always secretly wanted to be Catholic."

The Life and Death of One Light Rock Cake

Light rock cakes can be used for a number of occasions, as long as you can be inspired for the perfect lyrics to match the situation. When SM had a monumnetal birthday in January, I knew that it was extra- crucial to find the perfect light rock song for her. I did something I have never in my light rock cake career done before; I selected a non-light rock song for the light rock cake. I decided that as the inventor of light rock cakes, I had the authority to use creative license in this way. The song I selected was a SM original, which was actually composed to mock Phish. I figured that in a perfect world, this song would reach the top 20 in 2008, and then in 15 or 20 years would retire into a classic light rock status. Here is a photo documentary of the life and death of SM's light rock cake.

LANG-C

Whoever guesses the meaning of this wins a prize...

TCOB Prime (belated report)

My beloved readers (all 2 of them) have requested more from this site. I love them. For Bud and Meg, this is for you. TCOB Prime, in case you don't know, is Taking Care of Business- Prime. The Taking Care of Business part can refer to doing anything that needs to be done. The Prime part refers to the fact that you are doing something that REALLY needs to be done- something that is not done day to day- something of an epic nature. TCOB Prime is the stuff legends are made of (if you will). In October, a TCOB Prime excursion was undertaken by myself and 2 trusted affiliates- SM and JL. Our mission was a pilgrimage across Troublesome Gap from the Spring Creek side to the Big Pine side. We went at the end of October. These are the uniforms we wore. We also changed our names.

Cheese Ball Walk

As I sometimes do, I visited the Marshall Depot last Friday evening for a dose of old fashioned good clean fun. As usual, they did several cake walks. I participated but did not win. Then someone announced they were going to do a "cheese ball walk," and a lady proceeded to march to the front with the biggest cannister of cheese balls I have ever seen or imagined. SM reeeeeeaaalllly wanted to win the cheeseballs. She wanted them so bad she forgot to pay her dollar for the walk. Well, she didn't win, but she won the next cake walk (which she did remember to pay for). She marched right over to the man who had won the cheese balls and struck a deal- her coconut cake for his cheese balls. She strutted back to our back corner and proudly hugged her cannister of cheese balls for the rest of the evening. It was a beautiful sight- so cozy with the music (Don't Go Ridin on that Long Black Train, Rocky Top and such) and the steady flow of elderly people back and forth to the dance floor to clog or 2 step to the secular numbers...

A pleasant late summer day

Yesterday I went on a steamy late summer excursion down to a waterfall located somewhere on Route 9, about 30 minutes from Black Mountain. (Warren Wilson affiliates will remember this place as "the route 9 property.") I always hesitate to go all the way out there because is it so dang far. But it was worth the trip yesterday. On the trail down to the river, I ran into a group of friends who I know from different places. We chatted about plants and such, and Wylie taught me the plant "mandarin" which was growing next to where we stood. Later on in the walk I also saw black cohosh, American cohosh (cimicifuga americana), boneset just starting to bloom, yellowroot, and I thought I saw goldenseal but it was something else. MMC5th and I did some boulder hopping and swam in the pool at the bottom of the waterfall. The water temp was absolutely perfect. We found a place to sit so the waterfall would splash on us pleasantly. Then we walked back downstream and swam again in a really long pool of water that was really really nice. It was a very worthwhile way to spend a hot Saturday afternoon in early August. Our trip was topped off by a visit to the Swannanoa Amazing Savings, where I was able to thoroughly satisfy my hoarding craving by buying 6 fair trade chocolate bars and 4 jars of organic concord grape juice! Oh yeah, that's about all I have to say about that.

Yellow Rose

I'm starting to get in to trying to propogate roses with cuttings. Today I got a bunch of cuttings from some of my own rose bushes, and then I went and got one from Jenna's neighbor. He doesn't know the name of the rose, so I am forced to name it myself. I have chosen: Frisbee Street Single Wide Yellow.