The Catherinette Chronicles

The holiday season is upon us.  This means that many radio stations are starting to play Christmas tunes.  I usually like turning on that one locall station to listen to the Christmas music-it helps get me in the Christmas spirit.  There are some songs that I absolutely adore, some that I’m even ashamed to admit that I like.  Yeah, I like the standards as sung by Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, and Bing Crosby.  And yeah, I’ll even admit to loving a Mariah Carey Christmas classic AND Jessica Simpson’s cover of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” 

Go ahead, mock away, I don’t care.

David Caruso is quite possibly the biggest douche bag in the world, and I know douche bags. I never understood all of the hype surrounding him.  I remember when NYPD Blue premiered a hundred years ago.  I was barely out of womb (or in my early teens), and clearly recall that his ugly mug graced the covers of tons of magazine.  Even at that tender young age, I was mystified by his popularity.  He’s a red headed freak, he can’t act to save his life, and he’s not attractive.  How does a guy like him make it in Hollywood?  One of life’s little mysteries.

He decided to leave NYPD Blue to pursue a film career.  Bad move on his part.  That decision was akin to eating fast food everyday because you plan on losing weight.  His film career didn’t go as planned, which was a blessing to those of us that didn’t care for him in the first place.

Fast forward several years and suddenly he’s on CSI Miami.  What makes matters even worse is that the show took off and he’s popular again.  WHY??  Someone explain this to me!!  How can you take this show have fans?  I just don’t get it. 

But don’t take my word for it.  Go ahead and take a gander and then tell me what you think:

You know what today is?  It’s turkey day, people! That means it’s time to shovel as much turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie into your mouth as your body can possibly handle.  Then, 20 minutes later the Thanksgiving bloat will wash over you.

While you’re waiting for that physical discomfort to pass, here’s a very special Thanksgiving video for you to enjoy.

Oh, and hey, have an extra helping of turky and stuffing for me since I’m busy enjoying the day in London…

There’s a young man that works in my company that is fine. He dresses well, is hot, and has the personality of a mound of dirt. For someone as attractive as this J. Crewish young lad, you’d think he’d have some social skills. Not Wet Noodle. Talking to him is physically painful. While at first I was delighted to be in meetings with him-just because he was so pretty-I learned to dread the meetings like one does going to the DMV. It’s painful and a waste of time.

Several years ago, Wet Noodle married a woman who was 9 years his senior and not that much of a looker. When my friend, KK, first saw his wife, she just about fell over and died. I use one word to describe Mrs. Wet Noodle: Cankles. Seriously, she is not an attractive woman, and has ballooned in size since they first got together.

This afternoon, Disney called me over to his desk to show me something. He had found a very old picture of Cankles. I looked at it, then at him, and the following escaped my lips, “Jesus Christ. I think she ate herself.”

In addition to working with Jack Ass, I have the joy and pleasure of working with Debbie Downer. Have you ever met one of those people who just sucks the joy out of everything? She’s very much like this. Every time I talk to her it makes me want to wander back to my cubicle and search my desk drawers for razor blades so I can cut my wrists. The woman is as bitter as bitter can be.

Poor Debbie Downer has had the worst luck with family, and with men and is very forthcoming with tales of her unfortunate life. She seems to be someone that just never fits in and wanders from one sad relationship to the next. She doesn’t seem to have many friends-except for The Pooper (she’s called The Pooper because she poops at bathrooms in bars and then doesn’t wash her hands). The Pooper and Debbie Downer are like 2 little peas in the bitterest pod you ever have seen.

I often compare my life to Debbie Downer’s and hope that I don’t end up like her. She’s 10 years older than I am, and has never married. She has never had children. She doesn’t get along with her family. She lives with cats. She is annoying and we can’t stand talking to her for more than 5 minutes. If you ask her a question, she immediately turns it into a 20 minute conversation. And by “conversation” I mean that she talks about herself and how depressing and god awful her life is while you try to drown out the sound of her voice or wish that lightening would strike you dead. She used to sit in front of me at work, and sometimes I’d be forced into “conversation” with her. Another friend of mine would get up, find a phone, and call me. I’d pretend it was an important business call so I could stop talking to Debbie Downer.

Let me give you some examples of how uplifting “conversations” can be:

Example 1:
Me: How was your weekend?
DD: It sucked.
Me: Oh, that’s too bad.
DD: Yeah, my boyfriend dumped me and I found out I can’t have children.
Me: Oh, that does suck.

Example 2:
Pleasant Coworker: I’m pregnant.
Me: I’m so happy for you, congratulations!!
DD: You are the most fertile person that I know. I wish I was like that, but I’m going through early menopause and can’t have children now.

Example 3:
Pleasant Coworker: It’s great growing up with sisters. They really keep you in check and can call you out when you’re a bitch.
Me: Agreed. I can’t imagine having grown up without a sibling.
DD: I never had sisters. I just had a brother and we didn’t really get along. We were like 2 strangers living in the same house.

Is 10 years really all that separates us? Am I on the same track as she is? What a depressing thought. Where the hell are those razor blades. . . ?

Time to vote for me on Humor Blogs!

Here I am, off in the lovely English countryside.  Though the weather has been a little wet (shocker for England, I know), we’re enjoying the trip.  It’s easy to forget that my cubicle is back home waiting for me, and at this very second, someone is probably setting up an appointment for some stupid ass meeting.  The thought of having to go back and sit in endless, pointless meeting makes me want to run to the nearest loo, shatter the mirror, and cut my wrists with the shards of glass.

I get screwed over (hard) all the freaking time-and not in a good way. Seriously, someone should have told me to buy my own lube when I started my career in Corporate America. When the business says, “Bend over,” we say, “how far”-that should be our motto.

Working at Investments r Us must be like being a hooker with cheap clients. We don’t even get cab fare home. Not even a cigarette. We just get up, get dressed, and limp home.

Common phrases I hear in meeting from our business “partners”:

Stop crying.
Stop struggling, this is going to happen.
Stop fightng me, it only makes me want this more.

God I “love” my job.  Maybe I’ll throw my passport in the nearest river, and become a bar maid in the local pub.  At least I’d be able to choose who I grab my ankles for.

Time to vote for me on Humor Blogs!

Should I tell you about the time that I got so hammered in London that I ran around the city, by myself, without a coat or a purse until 7:00 am?  And how when I sobered up I had no recollection of where all my stuff was?  And how there was an explosion of orange stuff all over my pants?  And how I have vague memories of sitting in a cab crying?

You’d probably like to hear about that, wouldn’t you?  Oh, I know how you are.  You’d probably think it’s funny that I went out drinking with my cousin, and that we each had 4 pints of cider and 2 bottles of wine.  Then we played true confessions and I started crying in the bar.  Then I was so wasted that he told me I had to go stay with him in his dorm room.  Only I was too upset and told him I wanted to go back to my hotel-only I couldn’t remember where the hell it was.  When I started walking away, he grabbed my purse, and I let him have it.  Then I started running, and he grabbed my coat-which I shrugged out of.  Then he grabbed my sweater, and I did the same thing.  Then I took off running down the street and he couldn’t catch me.

Nothing like wandering around the streets of London at from 2-7 in the morning in JANUARY without a coat or any money.  I vaguely remember sitting on a bench in some office park, and walking for about an hour trying to figure out where my hotel was.  I even remember sitting outside St. Paul’s Cathedral at about 6 AM thinking that maybe I’ll just jump the stiles at the tube stop and take the tube back to my hotel (this is when I remembered where I was staying).  When I saw all the cops, I decided that was a bad plan.

I finally made it back to my hotel and passed out.  Let me tell you, that hangover I had when I woke up at 8 PM?  Not pretty.

Time to vote for me on Humor Blogs!

As promised, here’s a little excerpt from my travel journal…

Next time we go on vacation, mom’s getting a checklist which she must use prior to leaving the house. While her initial idea was to leave at 4pm (4.5 hours before we really needed to get to the airport-the flight left at 9:15), we weren’t on the road until 6pm.  This is the time that I had originally suggested.  First we had to drop the key off at her friend’s house, and then we had to turn the car around because mamacita had forgotten BOTH of her AMEX cards.

After 30 minutes of turning the house upside down and blaming my sister for the cards’ disappearance, we finally called the AMEX office and ordered replacements (which would be waiting for us in London).  Finally, at 6pm we were on our way to Dulles.

We ended up waiting at the checkout counter for half the time, then hiked to the gate for the remainder of our time.  That airport sucks.  Whoever had designed it should be shot, then drawn and quartered, then beaten with sticks.  Seriously now.  That place is an absolute disaster.  You need a map and compass to figure out where the hell to go.

Here’s my tip to you: never take a Benadryl on a plane.  While it helped my sister pass out, my mother and I ended up tired and totally uncomfortable.  All I could did was close my eyes and try to get comfortable. Something close to impossible when the person inf front of you as pushed his seat so far back that he’s practically sitting on your god damned lap.  Yeah, so comfy.

My sister is going to have British Airways cater her wedding.  Boy, did she love that “southwestern chicken.”  Mmm mmm good!  I believe the words she used to describe it were “nauseating” and “texture like wet dog food.”  So appetizing!!  She enjoyed the food so much that she decided to sleep right through breakfast.  I would have too, but the fact that I couldn’t sleep prevented me from doing that.  My mom says that I should have taken a higher dosage of Benadryl.  F that noise.  Id’ rather be awake and uncomfortable than dead tired and unable to sleep.

The arrival and taxi trip to our “apartment” was fairly uneventful. Once we got to the “apartment”, we quickly realized why it the place was so damn cheap. The room had yet to be cleaned, the toilet is in a closet without a sink or any ventilation, and the closet smells nastier than my feet have ever dared to smell. It’s as if something died and rotted in there, and then someone decided to throw some rotten meat in there because the smell wasn’t offensive enough. the second someone opens the door my eyes start to water and I get dizzy. My mom even tried to throw some of my foot powder in there, but that didn’t work at all.

Once we recovered from the smell of the nasty ass closet, we spent much of the day wandering around the area surrounding our “apartment”. We’re staying in Holburn, which is the legal district, so there are a bunch of business folks. Our initial escapade validated our suspiscions that we had chosen a poor location. Super. Stinky ass lodging in a boring part of town. Boo.

We had lunch in a little sandwich shop, and then went back for naps. At 5:30 we showered and then went back out on the town. This time, we headed out to Covent Garden. We alked around the market, and then ended up back by the “apartment”. On the way there, some complete psycho wrapped in an orange blanket came running up to me, screamed in face that he was carrying my child, and then kissed the air in front of my face. I was so scared that i nearly peed myself. Thankfully, he took off running down the street. Hope he doesn’t come find me and try to get me to pay child support. He was a freak and stuff.

For dinner, we had chips and corn nuts. An exciting meal for our first official night in London. Thankfully, my sister and I had snuck food back into our stinky room. Granted, the smell of the closet tainted the food an my pastry tasted like feet. It was pretty bad.

 Humor-Blogs.com

In the immortal words of John Denver, I’m leaving on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again.  Okay, so I actually do know when I’ll be back again, but it would jack up the song if I wrote that I was leaving on a jet plane and I know when I’ll be back again.  No one wants to hear that version.  It’s lame.

Tomorrow my mom and I are taking off for a one week trip to the UK.  That’s right.  We’ll be spending my birthday and Skanksgiving with the Brits.  I can’t freaking wait.  Deep down inside I believe I should have been born a Brit rather than a Mexican.  I love everything British, especially the hot men with their double windsor knots and their hotty hot accents.  So hot.  Perhaps I can have one as a birthday present.  Or maybe even two.

This will be my 6th trip to the UK.  Typically, I end up in London, but this time we’ll be traveling to the Cotswolds and to Manchester-in addition to London.  The first time I went to London was 10 years ago, on a trip with my mother.  It was supposed to be a family trip, but my sister ended up getting a terrible ear infection and had to stay home, my grandmother (God rest her little Mexican soul) stayed to take care of her.  The second we landed in London, my mom got really sick.  I would have stayed in the room to take care of her, but I had plans to see the city.  I left her sick ass in the room and explored London.  It was love at first sight.  Ever since then, the only place I want to go on vacation is London.  I can’t help myself!!

This afternoon as I was cleaning out a closet, I stumbled across a travel journal I wrote in 2000.  It was 2 years after my first trip.  This time, my mother, sister and I managed to go.  I nearly peed myself when I read what I wrote.  You know what?  I’m really hilarious sometimes.  No, really, I totally crack myself up.  Guess what?  In addition to being hilarious, and big busted, I also know all about sharing.  You’re in luck and tomorrow I’m going to post what I wrote in my journal.

You’re welcome.

Humor-Blogs.com

You want sad?  I’ll give you sad.  No, it’s not the death of a loved one.  It has nothing to do with the cancellation of your favorite TV program.  Sadness isn’t losing your favorite shoe to your teething puppy.  It’s not accidentally dropping your cherry red ipod into your coffee.  It’s not when your pet dies.  It’s not the end of The English Patient when he goes back to the cave to find her dead and carries her body away.  It’s not when your significant other leaves you for the mailman.  It’s not the end of Terms of Endearment when she dies leaving her 3 young children without a mother.

Oh, no.  Those things are nothing compared to what I’m about to share.

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