OMG, I can't believe How the Grinch Stole Christmas is actually on tomorrow night. For the past umpteen years I've made it a tradition to watch the Grinch on my birthday, ever since I gave up trying to catch it "live" on TV. I asked for it on tape one year and have kept the tradition ever since. Wow, I might actually get to tap into the Grinch collective unconscious in real time this year. I don't know when was the last time that happened.

Brenda and Kathy usually have me over for dinner and then we watch it. Last year (or the year before?) Kathy also ordered the Jim Carrey remake from Netflix for that night. At first I thanked her for thinking of it but said I really didn't want to watch the remake. I didn't want anything to mess up my imprinted impression of the "real" one. I know it sounds crazy, but why take a chance? Anyway, through the course of dinner and drinks I lightened up and decided to go ahead and watch the new one too. It was fine.

When no one's around to cook for me or drag me out somewhere my habit is to curl up on the sofa and watch it with a big vat of cheese fondue. Why oh why is it only half an hour long? That's not long enough. I still get chills when the Whos start singing their song on Christmas morning.

I've always had a soft spot for the Grinch, but I'd have to say Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a close second. It was many years before my brother and sister and I could make it through the whole show without one or more of us having to physically leave the room whenever the Abominable Snowmonster came on.

Hello,

I am contacting your on behalf of Angela Y. at PeopleSoft. PrO Unlimited
partners with PeopleSoft to payroll their contract workers. So, I will be
working with you to complete your new hire paperwork and get you started at
PeopleSoft.

Please note that Angela has requested that you begin work on Tuesday,
12/14. In order to do this, I will need you to attend an 8:30am orientation
on that date, before beginning work.

In order to get you started on your new job assignment please visit our PrO
Employee Information Center to enroll with PrO Unlimited and preview the
benefits we offer to our employees. The PrO Employee Information Center is
a website designed to provide you with easy access to online enrollment and
benefits information.

Go to enroll.pro-unlimited.com
User Name: xoxoxo
Password: xoxoxoxoxo

Once you have entered the web site, clicks on the enrollment button located
on the right hand side and then click on forms. Please print, complete &
return all enrollment documents below including the attached client
specific documents:

· Employee Data Sheet (online)
· W-4 Form (online)
· I-9 Form (online)
· Notary Letter to Verify I9 (only for out of CA workers)
· Direct Deposit Form(online)
· Employee Handbook Acknowledgment (online)
· Background Screening Form (attached)

(See attached file: Background check.doc)

Completed documents should be brought with you to your orientation.

• Remember to bring identification for your I-9 Form and a voided check for

direct deposit to the orientation. We are located at:
PrO Unlimited at PeopleSoft
4500 PeopleSoft Pkwy (Building G)
Pleasanton, CA 94588

When you arrive to Building G, ask the receptionist to give PrO Unlimnited
a call at 925-694-1665. Benefits and services available to you through PrO
include a pre-tax group medical with a significant PrO contribution, 401(k)
plan with immediate eligibility, Dental, Vision, and much more. To view
PrO Unlimited’s benefits, please visit our PrO Employee Information Center
website.

PrO Unlimited will be contacting you to complete enrollment, orientation
and to explain the payment process. Please note that PrO pays employees on
a weekly basis with payroll week endings on Sunday.

If you have any questions regarding benefits, please contact the PrO
Unlimited Benefits Hotline at (800) 813-7946. If you have any other
questions, please contact (925) 694-8400. We look forward to providing
you with Professional Payrolling Services.


Sincerely,

etc.

My neighbors go a little nuts at Christmas. No wonder we had a freakin' power outage.



I used this for my holiday cards last year. I didn't actually send any out, but I had fun making them.

Got the "official" Halloween pix from my sister so I can get going on next year's family calendar.


My sister with her brood in the pumpkin patch. Yeah, this one's going on the calendar for sure.


This is here because of the volcano costume. Hey, it made him happy. I also made the black sheep costume my youngest nephew is wearing in this picture.

Sure 'nuff, you can spot[inlink]ajay,205[/inlink]the beach house, looking sadly abandoned.



This is the house "immortalized" in my Postcard from the beach [inlink]twisted,8[/inlink] post. That's the only time we splurged on a rental on the ritzy end of the beach, nestled between the ocean and the lagoon (for Brenda and Kathy's anniversary party). They won't be seeing the likes of us again soon unless one of us wins the lottery.

The house we usually rent is down the shoreline a piece with the other beach shacks. We love it. B&K (and their dog Maggie) take the guest annex building to the right off the deck. The main house has a ladder up to a sleeping loft in the peak of the roof. That's where I sleep.



Damn! I want to go to the beach now.

p.s. - can't see much without electronic binoculars, but as NoCal promoter I would be remiss not to include links to the clothing-optional sections of the beach. Hey, whatever it takes to get you people out here.

You have no idea how happy I was to find these today. I've been trying to replace this color for a long time.

Seems like everybody's moving, changing jobs or both. I just got back from an interview at PeopleSoft. I did some contract web production work for them about a year and a half ago. It would be so awesome if they hired me for more ongoing contract work. They say they'll decide by Wednesday and have the new person in for training by the end of the week.

My friend Brenda works there, which is how I heard about the job. She says the only reason I want to work there is because I'm so excited about their lunchroom. That is only partially true. Mostly I'm excited about the paycheck. But the lunchroom is a close second. There are many things I've become jaded about, but food is not one of them.


The place is freakin' huge. This is just one of their buildings.


The "Diablo Cafe" salad, sandwich, sushi and soup bars


Main entree du jour and pasta stations


Individual-size pizzas from the brick oven (glowing in the background)


I decided to go for the "Road to Romain" salad with balsamic chicken, carmelized walnuts, blue cheese and mandarine oranges blue plate special.

Going back to work fulll-time in a corporate environment would be shock to my system, but I think the Diablo Cafe could get me through it.


Update 12/08 19:45

PeopleSoft just called. I got the job! Yay!

I had a great time with my sister the past 4 days. I can't believe she left her husband, three kids and home business behind to come out and see me. It would have been a helluva lot easier for me to go there.


My sister arriving at San Francisco airport, looking very happy to be kid-free.


We had to pick up a shipment of wine for Dad. It would have been rude not to buy a few bottles for ourselves, and accept the gracious offer of a free reserve wine tasting while we were there.

It was so funny to go shopping with my sister. We tried out a bunch of toys for her kids and she cracked up at every one, which made me crack up. She bought this puzzle for her youngest kid that makes the animal's sound when you put the right piece in. It kept going off in the back of the car. We took all the puzzle pieces out of it, but it still went off whenever I banked hard to the left. (Many of my passengers have complained of feeling like crash test dummies.) Mostly we ignored it, but every once in a while it seemed to punctuate the conversation at a particularly apt time.

I've been thinking about this lately, and I guess I don't need an excuse to work it into the conversation, since this is my journal and I can write whatever I want whenever I want. How liberating is that?

So my ex-ex-ex? roommate and I decided to take that trip to France[inlink]twisted,90[/inlink] inspired soley on seeing the movie Betty Blue . No shit. (Or I should say, pas de merde.) Did you ever see a movie that inspired you to move beyond the imagined confines of your perceived world? Ok, that sounded way more pretentious than I meant it. Anyway, crazy as it might sound, we walked out of the movie theatre vowing to go to France, and we did.

Which gives me the opportunity (even though I don't really need it -- my journal and all) to say I'm sorry I didn't chime in, (e:Soyeon), when you first brought up Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I thought that was a great movie too, and based on what I know of you, I thought you'd want to see it. I'm glad you liked it.

Back to my ex-ex-ex? roommate, Emily, and her boyfriend, Rob, who made the Skinny Puppy tape. When we lived together, Emily and I were into The Cure and Rob was into The Smiths. For some reason at that time, we all felt the two were mutually exclusive. I was trying to explain this to my new music bud Aaron (Morrissey no-show concert and Meat Is Murder dance club night) and he just couldn't believe it. I almost can't believe it now either, but at the time Emily and I thought The Smiths were too pop/mainstream for Cure fans like us. I guess distinctions like that don't always stand the test of time. Or maybe I'm not explaining it right. But that's the best I can do right now. It's weird.

When an old roommate and I went to France, her then-boyfriend (now husband) made her two tapes to get us through the two weeks traveling. One was Skinny Puppy [inlink]drchlorine,66[/inlink] (I'm guessing it was "Mind: The Perpetual Intercourse" - the tape had no cover art except the hand-written instructions 'PLAY LOUD!!!'), and the other was Hunters & Collectors, "Human Frailty/Living Daylight." Unfortunately the Peugeot Jr. we rented did not have a tape player, so we had to take turns taking hits off her walkman. That was fun though.

For me Skinny Puppy falls into the category of music I think I must have, but I actually don't (except some MP3s I scavanged from a shared music volume at work). Kind of like all the other music ex-roommates, ex-boyfriends, and ex-roommate's boyfriends had that was communal at the time. Keep thinking I should make a music DB so I know what I really do have, what I only have on vinyl, etc. I've bought two PDA software packages for that purpose alone (one for the Newton and one for the Palm), but I haven't done it yet. I keep hoping it will just become an extension of my iTunes library, which it probably already is if I just bothered to find a way to export it.

(e:Drchlorine) - have you checked out any of the Rough Trade collections? I picked up their 25 year boxed set just before my music budget got slashed due to being laid off. Been wanting to pick up some of their other collections ever since. My 'seek list' for used record stores keeps growing. Oh well, you appreciate it more when you work harder for it.

Sounds like a fun time at Allen Street Hardware last night. I hear the sausage was mighty tasty.