Anything for a Laugh

Did you know Ryan will do literally anything for a laugh? It's true.

The thing vying for his time most (besides me) is Cougarboard. [Just to clarify, it's a BYU sports message board, not a message board for those older female cougars. I guess I should be grateful to be competing with football, not older women looking for younger men.]

I digress. The point is that Ryan announced today that he is banned temporarily. Again. No, it's not the first time and probably won't be the last. Basically he's on suspension for posting something inappropriate. "But it was funny!" he protested to me. "And the other Cougars get banned all of the time too!" Really, he's quite proud of his joke and isn't really phased by the punishment. Today.

The problem is that the pride won't last. See, he'll wake up tomorrow deeply bemoaning the fact that he can't post anything for three whole days! His world will be dark and empty! He just can't make it that long! And I'll be expected to give him sympathy.

A few months down the road, he'll forget how painful it was to be banned. He'll think of something funny (although inappropriate!) to say. So he will post it, unconcerned for the consequences. Thus goes the circle of life.

Friday's Police Entertainment

After weeks of a blogging writer's block, I was finally provided material by the lovely residents across the street from work. Please keep in mind the office is NOT in a good part of town. Still, I admit I was pretty excited to hear my cubicle neighbor say he heard there was police activity across the street, so I ran upstairs to watch the drama from the 2nd floor window.

"Police activity" would probably be the understatement of the century. They blocked off the street and even our parking lot. There were no less than 50 police and off-duty police cars including two vans full of more than a dozen SWAT people. SWAT had full on helmets, AK-whatever huge guns, those shields, and some other weapon like things I couldn't identify but guessed were used to bust into places. I have NEVER seen so much law enforcement in once place and so well equipped with weaponry.

The odd thing was that everyone seemed a little . . . well . . . nonchalant. On the one hand, they had big guns but on the other hand, nobody seemed in a big hurry. One family with kids was hanging out watching from the stairwell for a good fifteen minutes before they were asked to leave. SWAT entered (easily, it seemed) an apartment and then just stayed in there for a good thirty minutes or more.

We could NOT figure out what was happening, but we certainly made up some good stories while watching. Someone suggested the there must be a dead body because they busted out the police tape and blue latex gloves. I said that they probably wouldn't need those kind of guns if the body inside were dead. My friend countered that it could be a zombie and I couldn't really argue with that.

At any rate, we were all captivated and waiting for something really great. Then SWAT finally came out of the apartment. With an older, larger woman. In a purple mumu. "What?!" We all said in disgust. They needed THAT kind of circus for a crazy mumu lady? I found a short blurb later explaining that a mentally unstable woman was taken into custody after allegedly stabbing her boyfriend. As the boyfriend is stable (in the physical sense, I make no assessment on his mental state) the most the lady can be charged with is aggravated assault.

Either the police expected much more out of this woman (a bomb? a hostage?) or else they had nothing to do yesterday and took advantage of the cool weather to do SWAT drill in direct view of our office. My coworker suggested our CEO hired SWAT for our Friday entertainment. I guess I like that idea better than thinking our PD felt the need for almost 100 government employees to take down a lady in a mumu.

Speechless

I think of all these great things to blog about during the day and then go to type realizing I've either forgotten or it isn't as great written down as I'd thought. How do you talented folks come up with such clever and dear things to say? I'll be it starts with avoiding the word "folks."

Lessons from the Past Week

1. Posting a question on facebook about the ethics of cooking with wine leads to some very passionate responses.
2. Wolf spiders not only can be the size of my palm, but they also apparently live in my backyard.
3. Being an auditor sometimes means finding serious financial discrepancies and bearing news of said discrepancies. Let's all hope they don't kill the messenger.
4. They call them potstickers because they stick to the pot.

5. Ryan is very patient with his emotional wife when she ruins dinner and he has to get carry out to stop her silly crying.
6. I can roast a chicken! And it wasn't even that hard. Especially compared to the potstickers.
7. Noon church may just save my sinning soul. Another week of 8am church and either Ryan or I would have cracked (most likely me; Ryan's the stable one).

Sometimes People Anger Me

An alternative but more accurate title to this is "Always People Anger Me on Facebook." I haven't been on as much as usual, but got on for a few this morning. Whenever I peruse the statuses, somebody angers or annoys me. Whether it be too politically charged or annoyingly Polly-Anna-like or just outright mean. So I will now spend the rest of my morning contemplating why I shouldn't just delete my facebook account.

I should also try to keep in mind that falling asleep during my morning prayers is probably a sign that I'm too tired to make a decision like that. Especially since it's also a sign that I'm cranky because I'm tired, not because of facebook.

Backhanded Compliments

I've noticed that I've been getting a lot of backhanded compliments lately, usually in reference to my clothes. Now, I don't pretend to be a fashionista or even able to coordinate a reasonable outfit, but I would think most people wouldn't point it out to me. Here are some examples:

"That's a REALLY bright shirt."

"You sure are wearing a lot of colors today."

"That's a very equestrian look." [Equestrian? Really?]

"No, really. That's a VERY bright shirt."

And today was, "Wow. That's sure an orange shirt."

Come to think of it, I'm not sure those are even backhanded compliments. Seeing them in writing makes me think they were outright insults. Well. I guess I have fewer office Christmas gifts this year.