Inspired by the episode of The Office called “Casual Fridays” I took careful note of the casual Friday in my office today. And I have to ask if “casual” is a synonym for “frumpy”? I saw many similarities to my office and The Office. Inappropriate sayings on t-shirts, clothing way too tight, clothing way too loose, clothing un-matching.

Does casual mean you don’t have to try and match your clothing anymore? Sure people let loose on the weekend, but it’s still Friday, let’s save something for Sunday-there’s a reason we don’t live together.

Does it mean it doesn’t have to fit you? (over sized or undersized-I’ve seen both and enjoyed neither). I don’t really want to see the people I work with “letting it all hang out”-there’s a reason we tuck in. I mean sure it lets you express your individuality, but I can’t take an individual seriously when their shirt isn’t meeting their pants-that goes for the pregnant women too. I don’t mind the men in their favorite sports jerseys-that’s the kind of fully covered individuality I can get behind. Or the t-shirt your friend made supporting nachos ny (guilty!)

But maybe I have a different idea of causal Friday. I’m just trying to show how well I can put together an outfit involving jeans. Though I apparently am not allowed to show how well I can put an outfit together involving knee-length work shorts. Chest tattoos that proclaim “SEXY” on women and undershirts with baggy khakis for men are cool, but shorts longer than skirts I’ve seen-could I be so bold? And flip flops are a no as well. I get it, they’re casual wear, but isn’t it casual Friday? I run every day just in the hopes that my calves are arguably more subtly pleasing to behold than a bold “sexy” tattoo. But maybe I should get that on my leg and then I’d be in the clear?

In an effort to experience some more local touristy sites this weekend I checked out Celtic Fest in Bethlehem, PA. I saw the most talented musician I have ever seen in my life: I saw a man smoking a cigarette while playing the flute. We used to laugh about a fellow orchestra member who was a heavy smoker and a bassoonist. We could never figure out how/why he was destroying his lungs while being so dedicated to a wind instrument. But this was on a whole new level-and underneath a “NO SMOKING” sign. I mean how did he get this skill? Which came first? The smoking or the flute?

Did he just realize one day that he couldn’t take the time off from smoking to play with the band: “Should I quit the band? or quit smoking? If only I could think of a solution…eureka! I will learn to smoke while playing the flute.”

Or maybe he auditioned for the band while smoking and playing the flute. “You know our band could use another member, what could fill this hole? Why a smoking flautist! It’s genius!”

It was not a metal flute, but a wooden one, more like a recorder. But that means it was made of wood-which increases the fire risk! I mean just think, every deep breath he took he inhaled smoke! I didn’t see smoke rings coming out of the flute, but I wish I had. With that kind of lung power, just think what he could do! I was hoping play the bag pipe, but maybe he’s still working up to it.

Oh yeah, he was also wearing a kilt.

I’ve mentioned that shout wipes are a must when packing-both in my purse and extras in my suitcase. I’m fairly clumsy to begin with. Add traveling to that which means you don’t always know when you will have a chance to wash your clothes and you get a mess-or at least I get a mess. I’m always impressed on TV shows were people get off planes and buses looking fabulous. I get off looking rumpled with as many bags under my eyes as I have checked at baggage claim.

On the flight to Italy when I studied abroad I was sitting away from the rest of the group and I was proud of myself for remaining calm with no one’s hand to squeeze for take off. I imagined I looked quite calm and relaxed. Then the food tray came around and when I popped the top off the yogurt it exploded all over me including my glasses. Just great-another 7+ hours to go in these clothes and I’m now covered in crusted strawberries.

But dried strawberries are nothing to the disaster I created on my clothing on the orchestra tour to South Africa. One night a bunch of us were hanging out in our hotel room. I was laying across one of the beds on my back, chatting for a few hours. When I got up, I found something nasty underneath me. It was chocolate. One of those little chocolate mints that nice hotels place on your pillow had become chocolate fondu under my lower back and rump. Yes, I know what it looked like. It looked like a mess. I feel sorry for the hotel cleaning staff when they found that the next day… Of course the story spread around the orchestra. Notably songs about my mess were created to the tune of “O Fortuna” which was one of the pieces we were playing. Even the orchestra conductor got in on the fun by getting someone to get me off the tour bus so he could stick a chocolate candy aptly named “chocolate log”  that he found at a rest stop on my seat.

Look before you sit.

A friend of mine from high school recently posted this picture from her trip to Japan. Not only is it a classic sign but it is aptly appropriate for me…who once was confused about what a tsunami was. It was either 7th or 8th grade English and we were all writing research papers. It was one of those classes where the teacher had the bright idea that we all exchange papers and do edits on the papers of our classmates. (Not only did we have to write a boring paper, now we had to read someone else’s) So I read this on kid’s entire paper on tsunami’s and when I got to the end I was skeptical to say the least. In the first sentence I had managed to read “A tsunami is a large whale” which offset the entire essay. I’m sure the kid wrote “wave” multiple times throughout the essay, but I kept reading whale. How could a whale get that far on shore? How could it cause people to drown? How could it get that high? I mean I knew whales grew to be big, and I knew sometimes they got beached, but this was ludicrous! Of course instead of rereading the paper I asked one of my friend’s how this was possible so the story got quite famous. As late as senior year kids from that English class would ask me what a tsunami was. As my friend pointed out on this picture-that could kind of look like a whale tail, right?

This past week I went to the beach with my parents. I love the beach and most beach activities.  My parents have been taking my family on beach trips for a number of years now, and it’s always a little puzzling to me why that is. My parents are both sunscreen crusaders. They bring SPF 100 (which I theorize when uncapped is either a poncho-in-a-bottle  or a note that says to go back inside) for themselves and enough 45 for my sisters and I to re-apply ever hour-which they make sure we do. I even realized this trip that I don’t ever have to wonder when it’s time to reapply since my mom is constantly handing me sunscreen and moving an umbrella over me while I’m laying on a blanket. Not that I want skin cancer or wrinkles, but my parents court the kind of sunscreen and sun cover up that make you mistake them for ghosts. Additionally they both quote statistics on how little sun it takes for damage to occur. But for some reason we still go and they still come down to the beach where they set up their full battle station of sun protection.

On this particular trip my sister and I returned from a dip in the ocean to our fort where Mom told us about 3 “hot young men” who had borrowed her sunscreen while we were out swimming. She was puzzled though. She didn’t understand “how he knew I was the only person on the beach who wouldn’t turn him down sunscreen?”

To which I replied: “Really? Really Mom? It couldn’t be perhaps because you are sitting under 3 umbrellas wearing special SPF proof clothing from head to toe, a hat, sunglasses and your skin is so white that you’re getting the people on the next blanket tan when the light rays bounce off of you? Right…I’m not sure why the boys picked you…”

I like to think I’m a fan of public transportation. It cuts down on traffic and it’s better for the environment. And yet every time I’m waiting for a train, bus or subway I’m always wishing I had a gas guzzling car, or even better a chauffeur. I’ve had late trains while French conductors took their coffee breaks. I’ve had smelly metros where arm pits were in my face in Rome. I’ve had metros so crowded in China I was too scared to get back on them. And I’ve had confusing bus rides in Germany where I’ve had to wait until the end of the day long trip to find out if I was on the correct bus. But this past weekend was the first time I saw a taxi masquerading as a train-and this was in Connecticut!

When looking on the train schedule online it had sporadic train times interspersed with certain train times stating “bus”. Why a bus would be running between train stops is beyond me. Not particularly convenient since they cannot take the direct route that a train would use. But the train I picked said it was actually going to be a train-or maybe a bus. But when we get to the station there was a sign that said  “the 4:00 train will be represented by a taxi”. ???? Clearly they didn’t expect it to be a crowded ride, but there were actually 3 of us. The driver did say that if there were more than four he would call another taxi. But I guess that would pretty much guarantee not getting there on time. And then I’m not sure how you would pick who went first. Rock paper scissors? I wasn’t in a particular hurry, though one of the women with me was trying to catch a connecting train. She immediately started quibbling with the taxi driver that he was two minutes late. He argued just one, she argued two. I’m guessing she doesn’t ride too many trains since 1 or 2 minutes late is pretty standard. Unfortunately we did hit traffic which there really isn’t any way around in a taxi…

He didn’t charge us for the ride, whether that was planned because the trip was a surprise taxi or because he thought connecting-train-lady would flip out again-I don’t know. But he moved too fast for me to even tip him.

My ride home was less eventful though equally free. The conductor asked if I needed to buy a ticket on the train, and when I said yes he said he would be back and never came back before my stop. So in conclusion, when it comes to public transportation expect the unexpected. Trains can be quite cheap if you don’t mind sometimes taking a taxi and waiting in traffic instead.

These signs were sent to me by my sister from Paris:

Things you shouldn’t do while speaking to a customer service rep on the phone (this list probably will be ongoing):

1 Extrapolate on NJ governor Corzine’s need for hair plugs

2 Scream at your husband and tell him he’d better get down on his knees and pray

3 Flush the toilet

4 Say “I’m just getting into the tub” and then splash around for a bit

5 Allow to your oven fire to “burn it self out”

I can do unbelievably stupid things in the U.S. too. (Though is Jersey in the U.S.)? I missed my first alarm this morning which should have been my first clue of how the day would go. I’ve never turned off an alarm in my sleep in my life, but some how I did today.

So today I got to work just as a downpour hit. A torrential downpour. I gathered my stuff up: checked I had my key, put my dress shoes in a plastic bag and got my umbrella ready. But then suddenly I heard a dripping noise and turned to see water flooding into the passenger seat from the sunroof. So I shoved the key in the ignition and hit the button to close it. I couldn’t see anything move, but the flood stopped so it must have been open just a hairline crack. So I was patting on myself that I had sat in the car an extra second and prevented a major flood.

So then I re-gathered my stuff ready to make a mad dash to the building. I opened the door and hit the lock key on the door and then sprinted to the building. The parking lot was a flood and my pants were completely soaked by the time I got in. I went to my desk to sit down and then did my habitual check to make sure I had everything and realized I was missing my car keys. I couldn’t believe it! I pride myself on how I spastically check for my keys and never locked myself out of my dorm during college and here somehow I’d done it. I was too wet to go outside so I described my keys to the security guard in case I had dropped them and phoned my aunt to bring the spare key. I planned to check at lunch if by chance the door was not locked, but I remember distinctly hitting the lock so I didn’t have hope.

4 hours later a mass email went out to the office that a certain car in the parking lot was still running. Running! Pretty soon I was running too. I told my friend where I was going and I ran out to the car. And there it was, running but not locked. I had left my car  unlocked and running for FOUR hours.  Fortuitously the car was smart enough not to let me lock it with the key running in it. Yet it probably meant to also tell me not to leave the car running for four hours. You may think I should have heard noticed the radio on when I got out. But the other car I’ve been driving leaves the radio on even when the key is pulled out and only goes off when the door opens and when the door opened it was thundering so I didn’t hear it. Of course the whole office knew since there was the mass email. My manager asked me if I’d had my coffee… not enough sir, not enough.