Tree update

Well, my tree's been repotted (it took three days to thaw the soil), staked, and is now draped with lights, a few iridescent ornaments, one mistletoad, and hoards of those silver icicles that other people had when I was a kid but I suspect my parents were too intelligent to use. :) So far, no major incidents have happened. When you have pets, the holidays can be interesting. I haven't found evidence that the cats are attacking the tinsel, for example. [One of my fellow librarians said she'd never really been concerned with hers; if they ate them, they'd just hack up--and this is a direct quote--"festive furballs".] Those of you without cats may not relate to this too well. I did find an ornament on the couch this evening, unbroken, and I'm still not sure how it got there. I don't see how Cerys could have brought it over without breaking the glass, but maybe she has talents I just don't appreciate fully. I will say, though, that the icicles really make the tree--the reflected light just shimmers as the tinsel sways.

Also, I'm kind of amused that at work I'm becoming known as the person to go to for assertiveness training. I was a doormat for most of my life, after all. But, I guess as I've gotten better, I've learned some ways to cope with people. One of my friends from work has a tendency to try to be polite, and it gets her into all sorts of problems. But she's kind of like I used to be--you push her so far and she finally pipes up, especially if someone says something about someone other than herself whom she cares about. She's being driven crazy by another coworker whom we've nicknamed "MLB"--"Manipulative Little Bitch". You know the type. She's not particularly bright and is downright willfully ignorant. She doesn't have much imagination--her husband chooses all her clothes for her, for example--and is kind of bored with life. So she goes around either making catty remarks about other people--"can you believe ___ likes this ___", or tries to ferret information to be used to cause dissent in her department, playing those types of games popular in teen flicks. An example, "do you realise you were the only one in the department who didn't come in when it snowed? Such and such was really upset." When, of course, such and such wasn't, everyone else had four-wheel drive, the person worked from home, her boss had no trouble with this, and if they'd wanted her in badly, they could have come and gotten her. I wrote down the following mantra for my friend: "I am not at high school. I am at work, and I do not have time to play games." Apparently it's working, along with just telling the person to get out of her face. My favourite though, was when a coworker from Thailand was eating (a bagel and cream cheese, mind you), and the girl came in and started this big production of how the food smelled like feet. She has to ridicule anything she doesn't understand, and unfortunately, that's a lot. Fortunately, I'm sure she'll get her comeuppance. No one in her department likes her, most are aware of how she's tried to play them off of each other, and I think she just needs to mess up a little to find herself fired or at the very least shut out from any interaction that isn't directly work-related. I might add that this does not normally happen where I work. I know just about everyone on day shift (we have 220 employees total), and we all get along pretty well--it's like a big not-too-dysfunctional family. It's been interesting, as an outsider, to watch, but I wish she'd just decide to be a bored housewife and leave my friends alone.

Well, that's enough for tonight. Have a happy Friday the 13th!