| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
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Maybe I'll just tell her I have to work. "I have to do more of that computer stuff. Really, the software industry doesn't recognize Thanksgiving." |
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way better than my idea of telling them you have important sexual issues to work out over that weeknd. |
All of a sudden,your computer activities,will take on a much more important status,in their eyes,and maybe they won't pester you so much about it. Should you be questioned by them,just nod,knowingly,and simply state,"we're not allowed to talk about it,for security reasons." And then maybe ask them to save you a plate! |
But a "prior engagement" sounds good. Don't go if you don't want to. You could just say that. |
Spew verbiage at them. Tell them that your ENIAC rebuild is very close to completion, but before you can finally launch your new SCSI Ram Load eliminator, you have to hunt down some bugs in the elemental IDE combine. that, and your tertiary redux zero-divide needs a thorough once-over or it won't be able to cope with the traffic you're expecting from the Cray that's serving your website. Yeah. that one always works. |
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i'd love to spend TG with my family. instead i'm stuck in this fucking hell hole of a third world country. for chrissakes. |
thats all we've done for four years. "orphan" thanksgivings. and they have been the most fun. this year we are going to Goleta with moondoggie and his wife and kids to have turkey (or maybe tofu turkey???) with russell...to old hippie and his family. |
While I'm buttering Tom Turkeys balls,I'll be thinking of you,in far off distant places. But I'm not eating any of that giblet shit. |
I'm having my first family-free thanksgiving in america this year. my brother's on the east coast, and my extended family's in europe, and my parents will be in india. I'm taking my first trip to portland since july, and I'm going to have a very good time. |
is it for your job? how long are you going to be there? |
Although that may have something to do with the fact we work for a company that launders money for the VietCong. (The company is owned and run by the vietnamese. North vietnames to be exact.) TBone, shot in the dark here. Tell them that your working on something for CAD (Because as only you and I know RMS isn't really that crucial to the runnings of a police department.) Tell them that your fixing some issue with Humbolt and you don't think you can make it home. LIVES ARE AT STAKE MAN, get it fixed now other wise when someone makes a 911 call there won't be any way to get a fire truck out to them. As a side note for everyone else here, we work for a company that produces RMS and CAD software in other words Record Management System (Criminal Database software.) and Computer Aided Dispatch software (911 dispatch software.) The way I figure it Tbone if you tell them your fixing somethign with 911 issues then they'll think its important, and will leave you alone. However knowing what little I do of your family.... You might go with the orphan story. |
You may just have to pull the sick thing. Tell them you are just not up to a drive to wherever they are, and then get your KFC and enjoy your holiday. |
I like the orphans thing. Maybe I'll find a way to mix that with something involved with work. If I don't stay in Missoula, Fire departments won't be able to save the burning orphans. |
you're an adult now and would like into seeing about traditions of your own. |
#10:"Each employee using the Internet facilities of the company shall identify himself or herself honestly, accurately and completely, including one's company affiliation and function where requested when participating in chats, or newsgroups, or when setting up accounts on outside computer systems." Ok so here you go Shaw Weaver Datatrak RMS Tester Logistic Systems http://www.logistic-systems.com Missoula, MT 59802 And that is the only thing that I can find in the policy that describes what information I have given forth here... Anything else they can check the website for. |
Thanksgiving, since it is the first one I can't make it back for. I guess they are bringing it to me. So, when i get home from work on wednesday afternoon, i have to clean the hell out of my apt., which i haven't really even been at for the last three weeks. It' s cold and rainy so we are out of the field. Bleah. I didn't really do anything today that was tiring but I feel like a nap. However, I have to pay some bills and I think I am going to go out and pick up some handwarmers and check out this restaurant I found in the yellow pages, so I can try to maybe sneak in a date (I'll start a new thread for that story) |
The nondisclosure isn't going to be on the website. Not that I care. The thought just occured to me while reading your post and amused me. Good point, Patrick. I knew I'd get that from someone. I could tell her I don't want to, but that would require confronting a lot of issues I'd just rather avoid at this point. |
girlfriend's family's place? hmmm? |
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Chapter Five: "Sinking to New Lows" - a novel excerpt "Hello?" "Hi babe, it's me." "Hey, what are you doing?" She lies. "Well, I just got home. I've been invited to meet up with Susan at a coffee shop. It's late. I'll probably have tea." "I thought tonight was the night I was supposed to come down and stay with you..." he says, sounding half annoyed, half forlorn. "Mondays? Did we say Mondays? I thought it was Tuesdays." "Yesterday was Sunday, today is Monday." "No, I mean, I thought we agreed you'd stay on Tuesdays, but that's right," she pretends to just remember, "Tuesday nights are the nights you talk to Kathy." His therapist. "I forgot. I'm sorry." "It's all right, go ahead," he said. She can hear him trying really hard not to sound upset, angry, and disappointed. She knows he knows he needs to let her have some space. Plus, he had just blown-up at her the night before about something else, something they both know to be entirely petty and inconsequential. His emotional rubberband is over-reactive and stretched out tight, and she knows he knows she can't take much more angst. "Thanks honey." She hangs up and grabs some money and her ID. Half a minute later the phone rings and she knows it's him and she doesn't answer. He doesn't leave a message and he calls back again right away. She doesn't check her voice mail this time. She just leaves. In a desperate second attempt to make friends in a town where she knows almost nobody and has only intermittent contact with one or two new acquaintences with whom she pathetically and desperately wishes to spend more time, she arrives two hours late to one of her so far favorite hang-outs. Not a coffee shop. It's a bar. It calls itself a lounge, but there's nothing lounge-y about it. The floor is badly scruffed up old high-school hallways tiling. The backstock is kept in boxes in plain view, stacked up behind an unusued auxillary bar and along the walls. There are small, abused pool tables, electronic darts, a jukebox in each of the two adjacent rooms. She likes it there. It's just a small, easy, unkempt, south-side hole-in-the-wall bar and she's there because she's been invited to be there and she needs to try a little harder to get a life, even if getting a life means hoping to have awkward conversations and share word-counts and writing tips and play pool and drink beer in a dingy little bar on a Monday night with strangers who, like her, have stories. she arrives and briefly scours the place. mostly there are males. there is a very tall, too skinny blonde boy with waist-length dreadlocks bent over a pool table, with a too skinny girl smoking Nat Shermans. there are some college kids with their baseball caps on backward drinking beer in front of the biggest screen in the first room. there's not a face she recognizes, nor is she recognized. there are plenty of seats up at the bar, so she swings onto a stool just for something to do for a few moments. the bartender walks over and doesn't say a word, but rather simply points to her. "May I just get an ice water?" she asks sheepishly. it is served to her in a cheap cut glass dwarfed bar goblet with a straw. she sips and decides to wait around for no reason at all and watches Monday night football while Metallica plays on the jukebox. that's what she gets for being two hours late. back home, she thinks to herself, they call that right on time. at half-time she leaves the bar unapproached. she thinks the vikings are ahead by three but she's not sure. it's freezing cold and drizzling. she drives down the road to the supermarket to pick up a few things. the grocery store is jammed with families shopping for turkeys and cranberries and Cool Whip and bulk walnuts. she buys 15 cans of tuna, some frozen vegetables, a 99-cent bag of texas grapefruit, and a bottle of wine. on the way home from the market she contemplates the two 20-lb turkeys in her freezer and allows herself to be disappointed. she loves to cook. in fact, she a regular martha fucking stewart. she has all these recipes clipped and arranged on her kitchen counter. the original plan was to have a big thanksgiving blow-out. turkey, corn bread stuffing, roasted vegetables, waldorf salad, stewed cranberries, sweet potato and pumpkin pie. everything made from scratch - even the apple cider. football. scrabble or yahtzee or charades. and a bottle of Booker's to finish off a perfect meal and perfect day. but plans have changed. the wine she bought is to bring with her to Texarkana on Thrusday, where she is supposed to be spending the holiday with the recently windowed elderly aunt of a boyfriend who almost every day becomes more and more of a stranger to her. there is too much yelling and anger and anxiety about things she doesn't understand and she can never see it coming. he's so hard on her all the time. she finds herself a subject of constant emotional tyrrany. she goes home and it occurs to her that if it was a more typical dating situation, if they had lived in the same town and started dating and it had become this bad this quickly, it would become clear to both of them that it wasn't working. not that it couldn't work, because there are moments, too few, when there is light and love and laughing. it could work, but it isn't. so maybe it's foolishness or maybe it's lonliness, but she remains, for now, attached to a different version of this person; a friend she knew for several years who was, from afar, always kind to her, funny, smart, and attentive. she hopes the person she loves in him will come back some day. it's a six hour drive to Texarkana. the wine, she knows, will make what will be a stiff and polite holiday a little gentler. |
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Have a good Thanksgiving, Sarah. Everyone left for their Thanksgivings today. Jess didn't have a chance to say goodbye for the weekend, I guess. I managed to catch my roomie on his way out the door. Q next door left some cookies and a nice note. I emailed my lame excuse a little while ago. Should have gone with the orphans. |
Sarah,I think Nate went abroad to apply for a palace guard position.I once heard him mention that he thought he'd look great wearing a tall,fuzzy,black and red hat. I think he will make a wonderful guard. |
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I'd love some raspberry pie. I used the generic work excuse. |
down and my mom cooked dinner in her hotel suite (as my apartment lacks surfaces for more than one person to eat of off). WE saw Harry Potter, Monsters Inc. and The Man Who Wasn't There (fucking excellent). WE bought my brother a Sony Vaio system for his combo birthday/graduation/xmas present. My brother gave me a belated birthday present of the Sid Vicious bio. Um, that's it. |
One reason we went to Manhattan was that my mom had an interview with the pastor of a Methodist church on John street, three blocks from the WTC. I dropped her off there, and driving down Broadway was just surreal. The intersection of Broadway and John was packed with tourists, and has a clear view of the wreckage. We only passed by, slowly because of the heavy traffic, and I couldn't help but look. The image of the remainder of the WTC seemed more in focus than everything else around, even though I only glanced at it for a moment. Later in the day, while Opie and I were driving, we almost drove by it again. I hadn't intended to go there, especially with Opie in the car, (He was in the WTC on 9/11) but I didn't realize how far south we'd gone on Broadway and all of a sudden we were south of Canal. He hadn't been there since the attack and I asked him if he wanted to drive by. He said I should decide. I turned around at City Hall. |
I calkled my friends in Brooklyn and gloated..."I have the Pacific on my left and Angeles Mtns on my right. Life is good. Stones on my CD player, wife polishing her nails and a vat of green beans stinking up the car wonderfully. I think I saw the most beautiful sunset over the ocean I have ever seen in my entire life. We sat on a grassy knoll about 200ft above the ocean, with turkey bellies and cranberry smiles and watched the sun drop in what seemed to be about 30seconds. |