Unexpected Encounter

Topiary was in far-flung meadows this week, attending a seminar.

On the first day, a guy came in late. There was something about him...his intelligent comments. His joking with the people at his table. His smile. The fact that, when introducing himself to the class, he didn't mention a wife or kids. The lack of a wedding ring.

Yup, Cow was smitten. Smitten!

Needless to say, on Day 2 Cow's attire, hair and makeup suddenly improved. From slobby-class clothes, to stylish Topiary Trim.

Topiary and Cute Guy chatted a few times, passing in the hall during breaks. Oooh. Smitten-ville! Ha!

Day 3, Topiary and classmates were walking to a downtown eatery for lunch. Topiary hoping Cute Guy would join them, but alas, he hung back and stayed with a guy from his table.

So, Topiary pretty much writing him off...No sense liking a guy if he can't make a mooove.

Day 4, afternoon break. Topiary consoling herself with a candy bar from the machine, turns around, and there he is. They chat. He's divorced. Topiary volunteered her own, divorced status, living alone. They chatted some more. He asked for her phone number!

Well!

This was an interesting development! Of course she wrote it down for him, and he gave Topiary his business card, writing his cell phone number on the back.

At the end of class, they walked together to the parking lot. Even more information was disclosed, such as that he broke up with his girlfriend a month ago, is staying with friends and looking for a place to live. Hmmm, mentioned Topiary..."I'm kind of looking for a roomate."

Cute guy asked about the location of the Topiary Neighborhood, seemed interested, disclosed that he had custody of a son every other weekend. "I'll call you!" he said cheerily.

Now, Cow wondering if it was too forward, too fast, to even discuss a roomate thing. Did it seem too eager?

Since he hasn't called.

Guy time. See, if Topiary were going to call somebody, she'd do it right away. It's now been a day since he got her phone number.... Cow writes guys off if they wait too long to call. Like, if their life is too busy for them to call there's no point.

The cool thing, the ego-saving thing, is, when guys give you THEIR phone number, it becomes YOU who isn't calling THEM. Whew. Now Cow feels better (putting away the cookies and ice cream).

Here raccoons! Goodies bought to salve a bruised ego, yet living on to become your evening banquet!

Moo!

The Raccoon of Dorian Grey

Cow's secret diet strategy: buy whatever junk food she feels like eating. Cookies? Ice Cream? Yes please, into the shopping cart.

Then, at home, when she's had enough, she immediately puts all the leftovers out for the raccoons.

Cow's theory being, it's okay to eat these things once. It's the seconds, and the thirds, that do you in.

How is this working, attentive readers may ask?

Raccoons looking very plump. Actually, may win prizes for glossiest raccoonage, roundest belly, most ponderous, nay, thunderous, gait. Thus the American diet.

Moo!

Weekend Moovie

Charming. Quirky. Occasionally hilarious. A cross-cultural experience.

Yes, Slumdog Millionaire was good. It took a plot and transformed it into an original experience through great acting, interesting way of telling the story, and action which kept you glued to the screen.

A moovie which deserves a big Moo!

Office Sneak, part 2

Has Cow described the Office Sneak, who, regular readers will remember, sneaks into Cow's files and bad-mouths Cow to her co-workers and boss, in an attempt to claim Cow's superior salary, office space, and funding source for her own self?

The Office Sneak is hugely obese, over 350 pounds. Ughgly, loud-mouthed, and is never, EVER wrong. Knows everything in the universe. Is the picture of sweetness to everyone else in the office, (since she doesn't want their low-paid jobs). So Cow is made to look as if COW is the one with a problem....after all, Office Sneak is SO NICE to everybody else. Why does Cow have a problem with her, is the refrain should Cow protest the Office Sneak's latest assault.

Aside from sneaking and prying, Sneak's latest tactics include shouting all day to other co-workers (who are impervious to the noise since all they do is cruise the web all day), trying to break Cow's locking cabinet (Cow can't prove it but it's very suspicious that just after starting to lock it, it is all of a sudden scratched and bent).

Office Sneak actually CURSED at poor Topiary Cow for moving a file. Said file was incorrectly positioned on a drive for which Topiary has responsibility to organize, so as to avoid chaos.

Yes, Office Sneak said in her fat and ughly way "I don't have to listen to this S**t!" right in front of the boss, as Cow, passing by the boss's office, heard the complaint and answered it.

Luckily, Cow's co-worker heard it. So now it is a little note, in Cow's file, to add to all the rest of the documentation.

Which, is cold comfort, unfortunately.

Cow thinking she needs a MAD magazine just about now.

Moo!

Never Buying a CD Again

Weekend reading: "Kill Your Friends" and "Storms: My Life with Lindsey Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac."

"Storms" was the girlfriend's account of life with Fleetwood Mac. To sum up this book: drugs, sex, drugs, more and different drugs. Even more drugs, seizures, physical attacks, and drugs.

There. I've saved you a few hours reading it. That being said, it was actually better written and more introspective than George Harrison's wife (and later Eric Clapton's wife) Patti Boyd's book.

As for "Kill Your Friends" this was a book by a music company representative, who traded on his years of signing bands to write a fictionalized account, which goes as follows: sleazebag, drugs, sex, drugs, kill everybody in your way, drugs, negativity, and more drugs.

Pretty sure "Kill Your Friends" was the worst book ever read in the Land of Topiary. Book beside which the awfulness of inept plotting and prose pale. Book so horrible, so filled with sickness and venom you vow to NEVER contribute to the music industry again.

Hope everybody else had better Weekend Reading than this.

Moo!

Complicated Construction Project

Inspired by the youtube video Build your own HDTV antenna with coathangers, Cow waded into the murky waters of do-it-yourselfville.

And it works! 8 coathangers, some old left-over speaker wire, and a $3.00 part from the hardware store, Topiary is now receiving High Definition TV for FREE over the air.

No, you don't get all the fancy cable stations. But you also don't get the fancy cable bill, nor do you have to deal with their service going down all the time and being on hold for 3 hours trying to get an appointment.

Labels

Loyal reader Watercolor has been dating online, and it hasn't been easy.

Topiary thinks that dating sites should allow feedback, like eBay, where transactions between users are rated positively or negatively, and the ratings appear for all to see. A few negatives could be excused, but when the number reaches the stratosphere...and actually, just showing a stratospheric number of feedbacks would indicate something, too. Long time on the site?

By dating outside a network of acquaintances or friends, the element of feedback is lost. The rating system would restore it.

As for the trillion-dollar economic rescue plan, Topiary doubts her $400 will encourage her to buy consumer goods to rescue the country. And wonders whether the debate about whether the rescue would work could have been avoided had they just handed all that money directly to the taxpayers. Instead of $400. At the very least, we would have been spared the endless news reports of bankers blowing the bail-out funds buying themselves jets.

Moo!

Sad

Very sad today, glad that koalas were rescued in the arsonist-set fire in Australia but sad thinking of all the wildlife hurt.


Sad moo and best wishes to Linda in Australia...

Food Reverence

The South reveres many things. Religion, family, home ownership. But most of all, food.

Topiary hasn't seen this level of obsession anywhere else in the land. Difficult to describe, it's a reverence, a respect given, and the more fattening the item, the better. Conversations about cooking and food, discussions of where to get the best food, descriptions of meals eaten.
The South revolves around food.

Should you wish to instantly enter a group and be accorded status disproportionate to your abilities, just bring something tasty. Even if you didn't cook it yourself.

In Cow's case, ESPECIALLY if you didn't cook it yourself. Much better that way!

Moo!

Weekend Moovie

"He's Just Not That Into You" had a lot of funny moments. The man on the street interviews were hilarious. A light-hearted comedy, which accomplishes what it intends (make you laugh).

Only flaw: far too much Jennifer Aniston and Jennifer Connolly, and not nearly enough charming and funny Drew Barrymore or gorgeous Scarlett Johannsen.

At over two hours long at least you feel you got your money's worth, though.

Cow gives it three Moos.

Even More Readings

Cow's been reading...and reading...and not posting.

Cow would have liked the Tehran book more had they eschewed sensationalism and used "Huckleberry Finn" in the title. And Cow not much of a Nabokov fan.

As for Mr. Chahal's book, he is a smart man, having made $400 million from selling the number of clicks on a website ad. Remember when the web was new and you hated hated hated those banner ads? Yup, that was him. And that sound you heard was the chink of his millions racking up with every click.

Unfortunately his book shows the same narrow, boring concentration on self and making money which Cow has noticed in most students in Business classes. And fails to spare us his forays into self-pity as he describes of how hard his life was, how mean everyone in America was to him while he was making his millions, and how unfair all the lawsuits against him are.

Funnily enough, he has the same whine Ted Turner did. In that, he sold out his business as soon as he could, then felt "slighted" when nobody seemed to listen to him anymore, now that he no longer owned the company. Duh!

Single-minded people, Chahal and Turner, are usually very good at their only interest, which in this case, is making money. Unfortunately neither of them are very good at anything else, including writing interesting books.

Moo!