Changes Keep Coming

As of last night a cold has joined me, so I need to get to bed soon. But first, just wanted to get out a few things. Here are the gifts I got from work:

1. A dark red wine-colored throw, which I exchanged for a light blue/gray/silver one instead. It is so much better having this on my bed as a second blanket instead of my shower towel!
2. $50 from one of our sub-tenants. You might ask, "What do you do for them?" Here's what: I put all their mail aside for their guy to come pick up, I reserve conference rooms whenever they need one, I receive their clients whenever they show up and sometimes help them.
   
3. 2 really funny drinking glasses from one of my favorite stores from the hot gay sub-tenant with a cute note.
4. A bonus from the Turkey that's more than one paycheck but less than two. He must have used some sort of formula to decide how much of a bonus to give, but I can't crack the code for the life of me.
   
5. A small box of chocolates from the sweatpants-wearing corpulent guy who (apparently) still has a crush on me.
   

Talk about making out like a bandit! This is the first year in ages where I've gotten a bonus, and it's an awesome feeling.

Our office manager is still sorely missed, but the billing guy has taken over most of what she used to do, and seems to be doing a great job. He's super-easy to work with, very straight-forward, no mindfucks of any sort, which is fabulous and exactly what we need.

Turkey and Personal Assistant are in some sort of awful power struggle. I will have to blog some back-story for you on her, but I think she'll wind up fired soon. Which will suck since all the random shit she does will get passed to me.

Next week a new baby lawyer starts. Which is weird, since there's barely enough work for our WASP. It's also weird because she hasn't taken the CA bar yet, so she'll work for us for a month, then leave to study for the bar for a month or two, then come back. What is that? I don't see this working out well. My prediction is that she'll work for a month and then while she's out studying the Turkey will tell her not to come back. Next week will be interesting. Baby Lawyer is super professional, and I anticipate her going into shock at Turkey's shenanigans.

It's Not Only Jews Who Get Lonely

A couple of years ago, a local bookstore was going out of business. This is before Borders died, and they couldn't slash prices low enough. I wandered through the store, picking books up and putting them down, trying to figure out how I could incorporate an 18-foot rolling ladder into my shoebox of an apartment. After a while I stumbled across a slew of stationery and cards, and as I dug through, found a bunch of Hanukah stuff. A boxed set of cards, a group of gift cards, and I haggled the price down and then bought it all up.

I think of sending out holiday cards as something families do, not single people. What would I do, send a card with a photo montage of me all over it? Write a little blurb about how I vacationed above the Castro a few times, and in Spring took a trip out to the Mission?

But I'm sitting on these Hanukah cards. What am I supposed to do with them? Take them out of the drawer, admire them, then put them back until the next time? Except I don't live in New York anymore, Land of All People Jewish. I live in a world full of people who celebrate Christmas now. Is it rude or disrespectful to send a Hanukah card to someone you know for a fact doesn't celebrate it?

So today I was deliberating buying some less ... denominational cards, more winter-themed, for the non-Jews. The WASP and I were chatting about cards. Obviously, she's not a MOT. She told me something surprising - that she has a few Jewish friends (that's not the surprising part), but they never send her Hanukah cards, and she'd love to get some. Her whole face lit up telling me this. ORLY?! Well, it won't be a miracle on 34th Street, but it will be a miracle near 3rd and 4th Streets and that counts, right?

She's got a couple of little kids, so I am thinking some Hanukah gelt taped to her Hanukah card might be the way to go. It truly never occurred to me that the Christmases might want to receive Hanukah cards. Is the WASP the only one who feels this way? If you're a Christmas, please let me know what your feelings are on this.