Where the hell does my neighbor go?

Let's play a fun game. It's called: where the hell does my neighbor go?

There it is, in all its loud, obnoxious glory,
stuffed to the gills with useless crap.

He moved in next door 4 months ago, and took it upon himself to claim a space in OUR driveway for his '94 Toyota Corolla station wagon, which is filled to the brim with useless bags and other crap.

It wouldn't be a problem, except that his muffler is broken. So each morning, the ground rattles and windows shake in announcement of his departure. He is home all day except for intervals during which he does mystery activities that take approximately 14 minutes to accomplish.

6:17am: leaves.
6:29am: returns.
7:39am: leaves.
8:17am: returns.
10:34am: leaves.
10:52am: returns. And so on...

It goes on all day. Sometimes he's gone a few hours, sometimes a few minutes. What does this man do? He can't be working--the hours are too erratic. Buying drugs? Selling drugs? Buying booze? (Yes, every example I can come up with involves socially unacceptable and/or illegal behavior.)

One day, K and I followed him. We didn't MEAN to, but we happened to be pulling out of our driveway seconds after he did and ran into him at the gas station. There he was, leaning up against the sandwich stand, fervently scratching off lotto tickets.

Lotto tickets? I hope you win a million dollars so you can fix that GD muffler.

It's a mystery, folks. Now make like Colonel Mustard in the Library with the Candlestick. WHAT does this man DO?

My Cat Voice

My social skills have been severely eroded by working from home full time. In the past 2 years, I went from getting up every day and putting my work clothes on to being lucky if I change from stretchy pants to pajama pants at the end of the day.

Now don't get me wrong, there are lots of awesome things about it too. There's no commute. I don't have to drive in any kind of bad weather. I don't have to do my hair if I don't want to, which is awesome since it takes forEVER to dry this mop. (See post: Why I had a pixie cut in high school) It's also awesome because it allows me to feed my latest addiction: Gilmore Girls. I can watch it all day long if I want. And Maury. We'll save that closet addiction for a later post.

But I'll tell you what... it's pretty strange not having human contact all day. There's no water cooler antics, no guy from accounting bringing in doughnuts on Friday, nobody to chat with about the weekend's events. There's no cute work clothes, no birthday parties in the kitchen, no separation between work and home. My coworkers are cats. And frankly, I think I'm starting to forget how to talk to people.

See, I've got different voices.

1.) My Professional Voice. Used for speaking with coworkers (which I currently have none of), clients, and my boss. This includes using full sentences and proper grammar, no swear words or acronyms. Sarcasm is kept at a minimum to avoid confusion and/or judgment from my peers.
2.) My Friend Voice. Used for speaking with friends. Swear words, acronyms, heavy sarcasm...sometimes a friendly punch in the gut or a high five. Anything goes.
3.) My Cat Voice. Now this voice is secret, and used to and for the cats exclusively. Only the problem is, this voice has currently started leaking into instances in which only other voices are appropriate. I did my best to hide my cat voice from K for the first year or so of our relationship, saving my "WHO'S MOMMY'S BEEG BOY?" for Linus, only when we were alone. But now we all live together. And slowly, I have found my cat voice creeping in when K is around. I try not to scare him too much, but really it's inevitable, since this is the voice I use all day long when nobody else is here.

The cat voice creeps in sometimes when I'm on the phone with my boss, too. How do you sign off on the phone? I think I've forgotten how, since the last few times we've spoken, right before I hang up the phone, I go: "buh bye."

Buh bye? Reeeeal professional.

So I'm thinking I need some extra human contact STAT. Maybe going back to the gym will help. I can be that annoying girl on the treadmill, trying to chat up the lady next to me in my cat voice: "HAI STRANGER. WHOOOO'S MOMMY'S BEEG GIRL?"

Snowtastrophe

Our back deck, covered in snow

I remember sitting on the couch next to my sister, 6am, half ready for school (just in case), watching the scrollbar on the bottom of the news read off the names of the schools closed for snow. I'd clutch my bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, anxiously scooping the squares into my mouth so they wouldn't get mushy, eyes locked on the TV. When I saw Liv Public Schools pop up, (on the rare occasion it did; kids these days get snow days all the TIME it seems) I'd leap off the couch, smash my cereal bowl against the wall and cartwheel through the living room. (Okay, not so much with the bowl and the cartwheels, but you get my point.) And it turns out--snow days are just as exciting when you're a grown up.

I don't know where you live in the world, but if you're anywhere within a three-state radius of New York, you got pummeled with snow today. I woke up to a winter wonderland of epic proportions, snow falling at an amazing rate. Now I work from home, but I sat alongside my sister and boyfriend today watching those school closings with the same excitement I had back in middle school. (Minus the CTC--grown ups have to eat boring things like bran flakes and bananas. Yuck.) And when we saw the school district that my sister works in scroll up on the TV, we high fived like we had just won the lottery.

The snow has been falling all morning, and both my sister and K got snow days! And I don't know about you, but I just can't seem to fight the urge to put five hefty bags on over my clothes in lieu of a snowsuit and go roll around in the snow.

Water Cooler Wednesday

I work from home full-time, so the most interaction I have with living beings on any given day is with my cats. Go ahead and judge, it's okay. Now, you might think that working from home is the best gig in the world. And I'll be honest with you, it does have its positive sides: (i.e: not having to commute, not having to drive in bad weather, being able to do some laundry on my lunch break, and being able to watch both the 11am and 5pm episodes of Gilmore Girls every day), but I do miss humans.

I like to think of the cats as my coworkers, and today we gathered around the water cooler (yes, they do have one) for the most fascinating event that has happened all week: ice cubes in the water dish. Now, as I briefly mentioned before, we actually have 4 cats in the house as of late since my sister and her boyfriend are staying with us. So that has spiced things up quite a bit with more cat fights, biting, some inappropriate mounting, and strange noises that I'm not sure I've ever heard come out of a cat before.

Never have I seen such a gathering as I did this morning around that water cooler. As the water filled the dish with water and surrounded the ice cubes, the cats sat around it and stared like it was a nest full of birds. One by one, the cubes started to crack and each time it was like fireworks went off. The cats scattered around the room, taking shelter under chairs and any other surrounding furniture. When the dish was finally full and the cubes floated noiselessly atop the water, it was the Amazing Race for who could get water first. You would think we never give them something to drink.

Sometimes I think back to my days in a real office and remember when the topics discussed at the water cooler were mainly Gucci shoes and Fashion Week, and I wonder which I like the most. The thing is, working from home does have its advantages, but I really miss the social interaction that the office environment provides. Mainly, not having to use my Mom voice every time someone climbs on the counter. I miss hearing about people's weekends, happy hours, and even the cigarette breaks outside the back door, though I wouldn't even take those now since I've quit. But I think if I did work in an office again, I would miss the crazy kitty antics all day. Though I might re-learn not to baby talk every person I come in contact with.