I woke up this past Sunday with a respectable number of household chores to accomplish, such as:

Swiffer kitchen floor and wood floors in living room, hallway, and den.

Clean bathrooms.

Unpack various boxes of miscellaneous stuff.

etc.

Instead, I found myself spending hours on my hands and knees in the living room scrubbing and cursing at what appeared to be many years' worth of sticky shoe filth.

It began innocently enough, with a quick swiffering. The more I swiffed, the stickier the floor seemed to get. So I tested a corner of the floor with some Old English (which made me feel very much like a sexy young maid cleaning the floor of some rich elderly gentleman named Chesterfield who leered at me from the hallway while puffing lasciviously at his pipe.). I soon discovered that the mellow dusky brown of the wood was NOT in fact the wood's actual color. I scolded Chesterfield for smoking in the house and spend the rest of the afternoon unleashing a brilliant, gleaming, golden shine from the floorboards.

I'm thankful that we have no furniture in our living room yet. As it is, I not only have unhindered access to obsessive polishing stints, but also a perpetual blank slate of a room on which to project various Surprise by Design and Trading Spaces fantasies. (I believe that Fluid Pudding and I are the perfect candidates for Trading Spaces. New home owners, recent babies, tight mates living within scant miles of each other? Make my day.)

Did you ever move into a new house as a young kid and wander through the empty rooms planning what you would do with each one? I remember being bitterly disappointed when my parents cluttered my lovely mirrored dress-up room (dining room) with tables and chairs. This time I don't have to give it up right away. There are so many things you can do with a living room that grown-ups never consider.

Library. (Credit to husband for the idea) We'll line the walls with tall bookcases and dark leather chairs. I have to admit, the only downside I see here is that bookcases and leather furnitures is 'spensive.

Dance studio. I'd just need to install a bar (or is it barre? )and a wall-sized mirror (mirrorre?)… well, and also hope that with anorexia comes coordination and grace.

Art gallery. Perhaps we'll set up exhibit tables and hang paintings with little white plaques that tell you the name of the piece and the artist and the medium. During times of slow production, I'll invite all of my hypothetical artist friends to have showings. And charge admission.

Musical auditorium. Me. A piano. And a microphone. Live! Oh, and of course we'd have to build a stage and install stadium seating. I don't see a problem with that.

To: All St. Louis Employees
Subject: Ice Machine

Good morning all,
 
In case you were not aware.  The ice machine in the cafeteria has been fully sanitized due to the squirrel that was caught in the machine last week.
 
Thank you
--------------------------------------------

Let us have a moment of silence for the poor damn squirrel who unwittingly found its way into the Ice Pool of Grinding Death, and for the poor fools who thought it safe to dispense a tall glass full of Frozen Fur.

Holy hell.

May that squirrel haunt this building for all the rest of its fuzzy little eternity.

First of all, I'd like to apologize for my web absence (the opposite of a web presence). It was unavoidable. As I foolishly ignored the squeaking of the weasel, part of the weasel actually corroded and fell off. (Poor fella.) It was tragic, but I think appropriate repairs have been made.

As you may or may not be aware, my wonderful husband and I have purchased a house. In the short term, the transition has robbed him of Internet access and the ability to remain connected to both business and blog. In the long term, it will provide our growing family with a large back yard of grass in which to roll and trees in which to climb, space in which to store household essentials, separate rooms in which the children can sleep, and more!

Oh yes, there's more.

Behind the garage is a secret room. Not exactly in the Lion/Witch/Wardrobe sense… in fact, the room is actually an addition to the garage which, until we took possession, was the workshop of an amateur auto mechanic-slash-car restoration guy. It held a stinky, dirty old car and oodles of tool-like things. Scary tools that spewed flame and spark, and hissed when strangers walked by. All I know is that it's gone now, and the above-mentioned wonderful husband has promised this room to ME.

You see, when first we walked through this house and discovered the workshop, husband looked at me and I looked at him. "This is your art studio," he said to me. "I love you," I replied. Faeries danced, roses bloomed, music swelled, and I was home. On our way out, I placed my palm against the cool, smooth, dirty wood paneling of that room and I whispered, "I will unburden you of this axel-greased, exhaust-fumed existence. I will return, and when I do, I will bring linen curtains, wood shelving, and proper drywall coated with cheerful paint! I will scrape tire tread from your floor and lay down soft, pile carpeting. Wait for me, and do not abandon hope!"

When we moved in, the room served as a staging area for unpacked boxes, but within a week husband was at work in the room – an entire Saturday devoted to stacking, storing, moving, and piling things out of my way. He carefully lined boxes of my art supplies along one of the walls. When he was done, I nearly wept with glee. "You see!" I whispered to the room. "You were meant to hold easels and acrylics. This is your true calling."

The room smiled.

I'm home.

This is a cross-section of my morning.

I'm standing at the counter grinding coffee, the grinder is buzzing loudly, oldest daughter is standing next to me saying, "Mom! Mom! Mom!" repeatedly over the grinding. Youngest daughter is pulling something heavy down off the shelves. Husband is saying something to me from the other room that I really wish I had been able to hear.

And it occurred to me that if a single person were plucked out of his or her quiet morning routine and dumped into the middle of my life, I imagine he or she would have much the same reaction as a cat suddenly meeting a vacuum cleaner. Claws out, ears back, scurry for cover under the nearest piece of furniture.

But when you ease into it day by day, and you balance it against being surrounded by the people you love, the noise is kind of comforting. Like the sound of life - breathing, heart beating, muscles working. It's the sound of being alive.

For some reason, Loobylu is making me jealous. It's not that I want another baby just yet, but reading about all the newborn things reminds me in a weird sort of way that my newborn is nearly a year old. It's a strange, conflicted feeling. I remember being so miserable when the baby was tiny because I could never figure out why she was crying, and we couldn't quite get the hang of nursing right away. It was so much worry. But now that's all gone. There's a new kind of worry and wonderment.

As I was leaving her at daycare this morning, she grinned her little gap-toothed grin and tossed me a half-wave. Everything about her still astounds me.

What does it mean to have a baby who's turning one? You find yourself reminiscing about where you were one year ago and how things have changed. You look at toys she plays with now that would have confounded her just a few months ago. Instead of gazing at your tiny newborn just marveling at the fact that she exists, you marvel at the skills she's perfecting and the speed with which she's learning.

She's leaving the special, protected state of babyhood and finding that she much prefers a new physical challenge (such as the hall staircase) to being secured in a soft, fuzzy blanket. She'll take a sippy cup on the go over a bottle in mom's arms.

But to watch her realize that she's a separate person with ideas of her own, that's something. Once she struggled for ten minutes to fit a block through a hole, and then suddenly discovered – "Oh, if I turn it this way…" and she laughed out loud with joy at the accomplishment. The other night, I put a few pieces of chicken on her tray, which she immediately stuffed into her mouth. "Is that good?" I asked. Her little head bobbed up and down in a nod.

In true mom form, I'm quite certain that no other babies are as beautiful and talented as my own. You'll just have to humor me.

Okay, I'm going to have to buy a space heater for my office. The fact that it's a constant 62 degrees in here is killing me. Maybe it's fine for the bulky men in suits, but I'm wearing two sweaters just to break even, and trying to type with cold, numb fingers is deterimental to my word processing. I wonder if studies have been done on the correlation between unreasonably low thermostat settings and the number of typos per document.

That's all I have to say about that. I'm also considering giving up blogging. It's depressing when all I have to talk about is how cold I am. I hate people like that, and I have no desire to be one of them. There are many more interesting blogs than mine out there. Go out and see for yourself. Go on! Shoo. I promise not to be witty and clever while you're gone.

Near the entrance to our building is a sad little table and chair reserved for job applicants. When some poor soul comes in, hat in hand, seeking employment, he's sent over to the table to fill out an application. Then everyone else, those lucky folks who have jobs in this economy, can walk by and peer over his shoulder, wondering at the turn of affairs that landed him here in such a sorry state.

This morning, the job applicant was particularly heartbreaking. Stocky, middle-aged, balding. Not attractive, but respectable-looking. Married (gold ring on his finger). He reminded me of my dad.

If his resume were an ad for a used car, it might have read: "Clean, dependable transportation. Good gas mileage. Some wear on body & interior, otherwise in good shape. Best offer."

Because my dad has had a comb-over for as long as I can remember, I have a sort of familiar affection for other men who do. I get defensive when people make fun of them and wonder why he doesn't just shave his head. My dad would joke about how little hair he had as if it didn't matter to him, and then painstakingly arrange those few hairs as if he were bargaining for just a little more time with each one of them.

And so it seemed to be with this man. He had a certain look of earnestness as he penciled in the addresses of former employers. The lines around his eyes reminded me of the periods when my dad was out of work and spent long, tedious hours scouring the want-ads, visiting potential employers only to return home tired and defeated. I wanted to go with my dad on those visits, to stand next to him holding onto his hand and enthusiastically explain to the bosses how wonderful my dad was, how hard he worked to care for us, and how smart, how dedicated, how kind he was.

I wondered if this man had kids at home who would have gladly stood beside him at the lonely applicant table, met my curious gaze defiantly and announced, "This is my dad. Anyone should be glad to hire him."

Thanks to all who voted in the poll, the business has a name! We are now...

Disenchanted Princess Cards & Gifts

Look for items soon in a trendy retail store near you!

Here ends the shameless self-promotion. At least until the website is up and running. Giggle.

My friend Fluid and I are starting a business! We'll be making edgy, unique, artistic greeting cards for edgy, unique, artistic people.

Because edgy, unique, artistic things make the world go 'round.

Help us name it, and I promise you'll instantly feel more in touch with your inner artist!

Cars and sex. Apparently there's more similarity between the two that I had thought.

For example, did you know that your local car dealer is looking for more than just a one night stand? It's true. This morning on the radio, I heard Mike Schmidt of Mike Schmidt Toyota tell me, "At Mike Schmidt Toyota, you're not just a number or a sale. We want to establish a relationship with you."

How flattering, I thought. But that's mighty presumptuous of you, Mike Schmidt. After all, we haven't even had dinner yet.

And maybe I'm not ready for a relationship with my car dealer at this stage of my life. There's something to be said for the quick and easy transaction, the no-strings-attached, no-questions-asked purchase. I know that someday I'll want that stability of one car dealer in my life, but for now I just want to see what's out there. Have fun shopping around. Experience what other car dealerships have to offer.

Forgive my lack of subtlety, Mike Schmidt. But at this point, it's not you I want. It's your Toyota.

On my morning route to daycare with the kids, I always pass a certain old man who walks up the subdivision hills like clockwork. I shouldn't say "walk." He strides. His pace is better than any walker I've seen. And the best part is, he waves at every passing car. His whole arm shoots up in the air and he grins a mile wide, never breaking his relentless stride.

His other arm is attached to a leash, on the end of which a beautiful golden retriever keeps pace with him up those hills, pink tongue lolling out of its mouth, eyes bright and enthusiastic.

The first time he waved to me, I was caught off guard. People don't wave to strangers. I ignored him. I thought he was a nut. The next day, I gave in and smiled at him. Then I started smiling and lifting two fingers from my steering wheel. Before I knew it, I was grinning and waving wildly at the man as if he were an old friend I hadn't seen in twenty years.

He went on smiling and waving through the seasons, every single morning, whether it was 100 degrees or the roads were frozen over with ice. He and his dog made their trek no matter what.

Until one day when he simply wasn't there.

It took me a few days to notice. Then suddenly I realized I hadn't seen him for a week or longer. Maybe he had walked earlier. Or later. But it didn't make sense that he would change the routine that he'd kept for over 2 years. I assumed the worst, and I hoped that this physically active, friendly little old man wasn't stooped over in a nursing home from a stroke or heart attack where no one would smile and wave to him in the mornings.

About six months later, I finally saw him again, back on his usual route, keeping his vigorous pace, waving at the passing cars.

I saw why he must have been gone.

His beautiful dog was no longer with him.

To the left is the Squeaky Weasel, official mascot of The Squeaky Weasel Gets the Grease.

Today I'm chatting with Squeaky. That's right, the very weasel of website fame and influence. He's a little brown and whiskery fellow, and when I figure out how to upload a photo, he'll be making a regular appearance on this page. (He's already up at stlbloggers.com if you're anxious to put a face to the name.) For now, he's agreed to an off-camera interview so you can get to know him as intimately as I do.

Interviewer: So, you're a weasel then?
Squeaky Weasel: That's right.

I: Is this something you'd always wanted to be, or did the decision come to you later in life?
SW: Well, I never felt like I had much choice in the matter. Ever since I was a pup I've been around weasels. My father was one, and well, my mother was too for a while, until she had us kids. Then I think she kind of gave it up and became something of a stoat. But me, I've had a lot of positive weasel influences and you might say that pushed me in a certain direction. I certainly don't have any regrets.

I: Squeaky isn't your given name, is it?
SW: (Laughs) Now, how did that get out? Actually, you're right. My real name is Mustela Frenata, which I believe is Latin for "long-tailed weasel." Only my mother calls me that. Squeaky is a nickname I picked up with some of the boys from Long Island, and I felt like it suited me.

I: What's a typical day like in the life of a weasel?
SW: I can't speak for every weasel, because I do have my quirks. But me, I'm definitely a night person. I'll sleep most of the day in my burrow, then stalk and kill a small mouse or a bird. I come in to the office at least once a day to check my email and follow up on phone calls. Other than that, you know, I keep to myself. I hang out. Occasionally mate.

I: Is there someone special?
SW: I have a few females who are very special to me, but I still haven't met that special weasel. The girls I meet are mainly raccoons, marmosets. One of my closest friends is a squirrel named Bushie. We go way back. But we both know it could never work between us because we want different things out of life. Her whole world is trees. Now, I like to climb a tree occasionally, but I also swim, dig, and kill things. She doesn't want any part of that.

I: I'm sensing some sadness there, am I right?
SW: I suppose so. (Pause.) There's a part of me that wonders what life would be like with Bushie. She's a real family squirrel, real nurturing. She's going to be a great mom someday. That's something I haven't thought much about yet for myself.

I: That was going to be my next question. Where do you see yourself in five years?
SW: I try not to think about that. My great-grandfather lived to be 11, but toward the end he didn't have much quality of life. Most weasels in my family give it up around age 6. I think I'll retire to a quiet lumber pile outside of a subdivision in a few years.

I: Squeaky, thank you so much for meeting with us this morning.
SW: It's been my pleasure!

With apologies to husband for using his blog as a springboard for free associative thought...

it occurs to me that once you've been burned on making a reservation, the next reservation you make will be made with reservation.

You might further assume that the act of "making a reservation" is not referring to the act of actually placing the desired item on reserve, of picking up the phone and reserving that item for your exclusive use, so much as it is about creating in your own mind a reservation, a concern that the item you desire might not be available at the specific time you are requesting.

In fact, one might say that in phoning to request a reservation at all, you are tipping off those karmic forces that work to thwart you, and you might have been better off keeping quiet about the whole thing, showing up at the place at an unspecified time, and crossing your fingers for availability.

Absolute secrecy is required. All parties involved should be kept informed on a strict need-to-know basis.

It's a gloomy and overcast day outside, and as such it is the perfect day for a brilliant compilation of Radiohead that a certain person was good enough to compile for me. There's an art form to burning a CD, and it's an art that I'm not ashamed to admit I have never mastered. My husband is one who, if you mentioned a passing interest in a certain band or genre of music, would create an epic audiatory experience such that you begin to feel as if you not only grew up with each of the band members, you'd also like very much to bear their children.

My husband is a musical missionary. He seeks out the nonbelievers and takes them under his wing, i.e. those who think Brian Wilson wrote nothing of interest beyond Help Me Rhonda, or who feel that Elvis Costello's music is boring. These people become his projects, his converts, and I am among them. He taught me that music can therapy, spirituality, escapism, expression, and personal connection.

Sometimes it's hard to see the line between the man and his passions. Then again, I don't think there is a line. You are what you love.

Sales meeting: A time of unspeakable psychological horrors.

Sales meeting is a gathering of marketing managers and sales representatives to unveil new titles, discuss strategy, and outline objectives. In the weeks leading up to the sales meeting, marketing comes to advertising with requests for nine hundred brochures, eighty flyers, and six thousand little one-page "product guides" to use in their presentations to the sales force.

Sales meeting projects are like gnats. Small, unassuming, and easy to handle -- until they all come at you at once, swarming and biting and crawling into the corners of your eyes until you are finally driven mad, pleading for death upon your knees.

In years past, I've always taken a certain amount of pride in being able to produce whatever marketing needed, because they seemed so desperate. "For the love of Christ!" they'd plead, "Please! Can I get this in time for the sales meeting? We NEED this for the sales meeting!"

And so I imagined my brochure in a spotlight at the front of an auditorium, glowing with impeccable writing, being held aloft by a marketing manager for all the eager reps to see. "The textbook itself is not as well written as this brochure!" he'd cry, the end of his sentence drowned out by thunderous applause and cheers.

Last year, sales meeting was held in town, so the creatives were able to attend. I brought along an extra pen in case I was asked to autograph any of the brochures I'd written, and I kept my sunglasses with me in case I was mobbed by admiring reps and needed to make a quick, anonymous exit.

So I picked up my name tag at the front desk of the hotel, Hi, my name is... Squeaky Weasel, Copywriter, and proudly fastened it to my sweater. As I turned around, I nearly bumped into a tall, skinny, designer-suit-wearing girl who nudged past me and announced her name to the front desk clerk, who handed her a name tag. As she was pinning it, she glance up at me and smiled broadly. "Isn't this fun! I don't think I saw you at the bar last night. I'm Shana, west-central region. What's--" At that moment, her eye fell on my tag and her entire demeanor seemed to step up onto an invisible pedestal so she could conveniently look down her nose at me. Her smile turned to plastic. "Oh, you're with marketing?" she patronized, and then turned on her heel and Prada-ed off toward the meeting rooms.

I soon learned that it was even worse that she'd assumed. In the sales meeting pecking order, I was even lower than marketing. I was advertising, barely worthy of more acknowledgement than the hardening edges of the cheddar cheese cubes on the veggie platters in the lobby.

But the final blow came during the strategy sessions, where I'd been told my brochures would illustrate all the features of the new textbooks. I took my place in one of the chairs lining the wall (my "place" -- out of the way) in a room where marketing and sales gathered around a long conference room table. The marketing manager flipped through some notebooks, talked about numbers, then finally -- finally -- I saw her reach into a binder and withdraw what I recognized as my beautifully written brochure. She tossed it down on the table in front of her and continued to talk. No one so much as glanced at it. No one opened it, no one read it, no one used it. It laid forgotten on the table until the end of the meeting, when the marketing manager said, "Okay, that's it! I have a brochure you can look at if anyone's interested. Otherwise... thanks, people!" The brochure was summarily tucked back into her binder and everyone crowded out toward the exits.

Later, I caught up with my fellow creatives, all huddled in a tight circle in one of the hallways passing around copies of each other's work and trading kudos. "I got copies from marketing of everything we did!" said my boss, as if that made our presence there worthwhile. She handed me one of mine. "This one was a real hit!"

By "hit" I assumed she meant that no one had actually thrown hardened cheddar cheese cubes at it. I took it and held it up in front of me, trying to see whether it looked more impressive in a hotel setting than it had in my office the day before. I imagined a spotlight on it, applause, congratulatory pats and handshakes. It was still just a brochure. I opened it and read through the familiar copy.

Good copy should be invisible. Its job is to create a picture in the reader's head without the reader even being aware of the words that put it there. If that's the case, my invisible brochures do their job, and I just have to slip on my sunglasses every now and then to the roar of imagined applause.

I am taking some time off from blogging until such time as "work day" no longer means 12 hours of mindless, pointless, grueling, thankless writing for the publisher's catalog. Although my boss did come into my office this morning and present me with a plastic tiara that made me feel like Becky Queen of Carpet on a somewhat less grand scale.

But don't worry! The archives aren't going anywhere.

And I fixed my email link. For those of you who may have been traumatized by a 404 upon clicking it in the past. Fear no more, my little friends. Fear no more.

I think I'm on hiatus. To return when the workload stabilizes. Ugh.

An email landed in my in-box. Subject line: Dress Code

My jeans looked up at me in alarm. My tennis shoes started to whimper. I told everyone to calm down, this happens every year. It's the summer crack-down on our rampant abuse of the term "business casual."

Our company has a strange relationship with image. We run the spectrum from tailored suits, to sweat pants, to those like me who get dressed in the dark by feeling around in a drawer and praying to god that there are clean clothes in there that fit. Jeans and a t-shirt are "business casual" to me because, well, I'm casual and I work at a business.

I understand that they have to at least make an attempt. If they didn't send a reminder every now and then that maybe tube tops aren't appropriate office attire, someone would wear them. And it wouldn't be the cute, skinny girls with big booyas wearing them, either. It would be the 300-pound, cellulite-riddled woman whose arms you never wanted to see outside of a tapioca pudding cup.

But that doesn't mean I want to give up my half-assed corporate stylings. I don't have to! The good folks in the fashion industry have provided us with a ready arsenal of terms to be used in our defense.

"You," I reassured my grey tank top, "are what we call a sleeveless shell." The tank sighed with relief.

"Don't worry, shoes," I told them. "You're nothing as crass as tennis shoes. You are leather-enhanced athletic footwear."

"And you," I said to my well-worn, comfortable blue denim jeans, "certainly don't have holes. Those are wear-imprinted fashion accents. The frayed hems are what's known as distressed edging. And denim? Bah! You consist of blue multi-toned, micro-woven cotton fabric."

My clothing sat up a little straighter, trying on their new, expensive identities, and I clicked the offending email right into the trash.

Hmm, seems that my bout with food poisoning must have actually been the work of a virus, the downside of this being that my husband is now in the clutches of the black death. And yet the kids have escaped unharmed, so far. I hope their immunities hold out. The older one will probably get it just so that her drama will have an outlet. It's tough keeping so much drama potential pent up for so long. It gets to the point where every sneeze deserves its own stage and spotlight.

"MOM!" Gasp! Cough! SNEEZE! "Ahhhhhhhhh! Mom! I need a kleeeeeeenex!!!! Mom, HELP!" Collapse on carpet, reaching out pathetically toward the box of kleenex on the table, a mere four feet from her outstretched fingertips.

The child has allergies, which means this scene is repeated throughout the afternoon a minimum of six times. Apparently at school she's able to simply get up and sneeze into a tissue all on her own, without the Academy's eyes upon her.