Author Archives: plumpdumpling

I Will Never Again Go to a Wedding Without a Cookie Bar

Posted by plumpdumpling on September 24, 2010 – 2:30 pm
Filed under creepy boyfriend obsession, everyone's married but katie, travels
Tagged as , , ,

Our whole reason for going to California, despite what you may think, was not to remind me how ugly and dirty NYC is compared to the rest of the country. It was mostly for that, but it was also in part to see Kamran’s long-time friend Diana get married to her long-time boyfriend, Phil, who she already did freakily-adult things with like buy a house.

The ceremony was outdoors at the University Club of the University of California Irvine. There were little trellises and gazebos everywhere, Diana was possibly the most beautiful bride in history (oh, um, except for my best friend, Tracey, of course . . . oh, and my sister . . . any other loved ones I’m forgetting?), and her dad was about the cutest dad ever (I can say that since mine doesn’t read my blog):

All of my pictures of the ceremony itself have various members of Diana’s family blocking her and Phil because they were all so excited to take pictures of their own and kept popping out of their seats, but here’s a shot of them walking away as man and wife with Diana grabbing Phil’s butt:

And here’s a closeup of the lady in the background running to get out of their way that cracks me up:

Here’s Kamran and Diana inside the University Club library, and neither of them is drunk at this point, despite Kamran’s too-relaxed eyes:

When we got bored of making fun of Diana’s other guests and just wanted to get at our plated dinners, we went outside to take advantage of our dress-up clothes:

And then we made nice with a table full of strangers–one of whom, to my delight, took photos of her food to post on Facebook–while eating juicy steaks, sipping huge Long Island Iced Teas in honor of the land we’d left behind, and watching this video slideshow of the most embarrassing photos from Diana’s giant-glasses phase. As we left, we made a stop at the cookie bar and loaded up a sack for our drive back to Laguna.

But not before snapping a photo of this photo display of themselves in the lobby of the University Club, because I swear that picture on the top right looks like underwear.

I’m right, right?

Attacked by the Bubble Man

Posted by plumpdumpling on September 21, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Filed under living in new york sucks so hard
Tagged as , ,

There are these gypsy vendors near the Bowling Green subway station every night who sell ties for $5, earrings for $2, perfume for $10, candy for $1, and so on. Most of them are harmless, and indeed, I almost enjoy hearing the guy with the huge dreadlocks boom, “Everything a dollar!” and seeing the candy lady sitting at her cart and reading in between customers every day. I like to think about how many books she finishes in a week.

But every now and then, there’s a guy selling bubble guns. He’s really aggressive with people he has no chance of selling to, like young women in impressive suits and bachelors with popped collars. He repeats, “Get your bubbles; take a LOOK!” and shoots bubbles at the people who ignore him.

Last night, he was directing his bubbles right into the face of a little Japanese kid in a stroller while the parents just smiled, and I passed by without looking at him. He said, “Get your bubbles; take a LOOK!” right into my ear, and I ignored him, so he stalked after me and shot bubbles at me halfway down the stairs to the subway.

Can I file harassment charges?

It’s Not My Fault You Hate Your Job (and Your Life)

Posted by plumpdumpling on September 20, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Filed under jobby jobby job job, my uber-confrontational personality
Tagged as , ,

On Friday afternoon, I got an e-mail from my manager, who works in our Chicago office, saying that “someone” in my office complained to HR that I’m late to work “all of the time”.

This shouldn’t have affected me. The peon-y nature of my job shields me from a lot of the corporate bullcrap that other people have to deal with. On the other hand, because my job is so peon-y, if someone makes a complaint about me, you know he or she had to dig reeeeeeally deep to find something to complain about. This is obviously the sort of person who sues McDonald’s for not printing “Caution: contents hot” on their coffee cups. Or takes his next-door neighbors to court because their dog bit him in the butt after he shot it repeatedly with a pellet gun.

I don’t want to be the waitress who accuses her table of being cheapskates when their poor tip is based entirely on her terrible service, so I’ll admit that I’m often not in the office right at 9 a.m. Because I take public transportation, I can arrive anywhere between 9 and 9:15. But everyone in my office takes the same public transportation, so everyone‘s arriving between 9 and 9:15, and in fact, many people are arriving between 9:15 and 9:30.

What really bothers me is that I have a personal relationship with every single person in my office. We’re a huge software company with thousands of employees worldwide, but my office only has 20 employees, and every single one of them knows the details of my life outside of work, and I know theirs, too. So the idea of someone not only complaining about me but going behind my back to complain to HR seems pretty unbelievable.

And really, I don’t so much mind being complained about. If the worst thing someone can think to say about me is that I’m not always at work at 9 a.m., then I figure I’m doing pretty well. The problem for me is that because I don’t know who did it, I’m going to be deprived of the joy I’d get out of ruining this person’s life in small ways. “Accidentally” forgetting to order his lunch on Fridays when the company buys for all of us, making sure we always happen to be out of whatever coffee he enjoys drinking, not ordering cakes when I know it’s his birthday. Fun, right?

I had two people pegged as possible suspects on Friday, but every time I asked one of my co-workers if they thought it could be one of those guys, they all said no way. And unfortunately, they all offered up the alternative of this group of visiting employees from another of our offices. In particular, they were blaming this guy who had come to my desk shortly after I arrived, and I had tried to make nice with him by asking him polite questions I didn’t at all care about the answers to, but he couldn’t have acted less interested in talking to me. Likely because he felt guilty about having just reported me to HR in our Canadian office.

Since those guys only come to our office once every couple of months, I’m going to have a really hard time properly punishing him for his transgression. About the most I can do is “forget” to add his name to the security list so he has to wait in the lobby until I decide to call down to tell the guards to let him up. I know you have to discipline a dog within moments of its wrongdoing for it to properly learn its lesson, but at least I’ll feel better about myself.

The Subway Makes Me Want My Mommy, Too

Posted by plumpdumpling on September 17, 2010 – 3:30 pm
Filed under fun times on the subway, living in new york sucks so hard
Tagged as , ,

Just before I manhandled some poor old lady on the R train on Tuesday, I was relaxing with the first book of the Sookie Stackhouse series on my Kindle on my way home from work. Bill kept saying Sookie’s name, and I kept thinking about the way he draws it out all low and slow like some emo 15-year-old in “True Blood”, the TV adaptation of the books, and I was enjoying the thought.

There were exactly 4 people in my train car, because it was still before rush hour. I was sitting at the end of a three-seater, and there was a girl on the other end of it, one seat away from me. Two guys were sitting together farther down the car, and every single other seat was empty.

At City Hall, the doors opened, and in my peripheral vision, I saw what I can only describe as an ogre barreling onto the train. I didn’t look up, because I try not to stare at obviously-crazy people, but from over my Kindle, all I could see were these giant–I mean GIANT–feet leading the way. It wasn’t just that they were longer than I’ve ever seen; they were super-thick, too, as if he was wearing black platform moonboots. He took these enormously wide steps, too, like he had been straddling a horse for months and had lost the ability to unbend his knees.

Read the rest here.

Also, it’s been a super-busy week on UNBREADED, donuts4dinner, and even Lost and Lonely Leftovers. I must have been bored.

Wait Your Turn, Grandma

Posted by plumpdumpling on September 16, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Filed under fun times on the subway, living in new york sucks so hard, my uber-confrontational personality
Tagged as , , ,

I met a friend for dinner Tuesday night and told her I was so glad to be seeing her just so I could get this story off of my chest and never have to publicly admit to it, but of course I have to publicly admit to it. It’s not that I think I was in the wrong, because I know I was in the right, but I still can’t help feeling guilty about physically intimidating an old lady in the train. Yes. You read that right.

I was on the R coming uptown from work. As the train neared Union Square, I turned off my Kindle and casually headed for the door. I don’t like to rush right over and potentially block someone who might be in a bigger hurry than I am, but I also need to make it clear that I’m getting off so I don’t get trapped inside the car by all the crazy people coming in. Because they are always crazy.

So by the time the train came to a stop, I was firmly in front of the doors and ready to plow through the group outside on the platform who were inching closer and closer like classic horror-movie zombies in a feeding frenzy. I could see that there was this wiry white-shirted person right in front of one of the windows, but I didn’t make eye contact, because it’s easier to make people think I might cut them if I don’t show them my innocent, doe-like eyes.

Read the rest here.