general

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Working from Santa’s Sleigh

It was proposed that we decorate our pods at work. I don’t sit in a pod so thought I was off the hook, then the people on the five loose desks near mine called a meeting to discuss ideas. Nobody had any, so I mentioned my hair-brained, elaborate plan of having one desk as a sleigh, pulled by the other desks. This was declared a great idea and with that it was on.
I now have this as my desk for the next two weeks. Will we win??

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December has Arrived

You would be forgiven for thinking, if you live in Dunedin New Zealand, that you had teleported to a town in the Northern hemisphere and were in for a winter Christmas. We have had weeks of rain, wind and hail.
Today was supposed to be the start of summer, instead I packed a scarf for work this morning. However, as it was also the start of December we had the start of the festivities at work to warm our hearts.
Christmas bake-off brought out the creativity (and the laziness of people like me who chose to sample instead).

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Pan[ic]cake

Somehow it fell to me to arrange cakes for five work sites in three towns this week. They were to recognize White Ribbon Day (anti violence against women). A special email had gone out advising everyone of the cakes’ impending arrival.
Not a problem you say, just go to a cake shop and get them to make you some. Well let me tell you something you big city, decent infrastructure folks, in Dunedin we don’t have a lot of affordable options. I could have bought frozen slab cakes but then someone would need to decorate them, and it wasn’t going to be me.
One thing in life that causes me anxiety is being in charge of people’s food (see also people’s fun).
Anyway, I found online that a chain of supermarkets would custom decorate two certain types of cake. I carefully wrote out what I wanted, even drew a handy picture and attached a copy of a white ribbon incase the shop had no idea what I meant. I put in the order, paid and trotted off to organize the orders from the other two towns.
Then I got a phone call “We don’t customize cakes”, Noooooo! “But it said so on your website”. “You’ll have to come and see the manager.”
I hastily printed out the page and trotted over waiting to be told it was back to the drawing board. The bakery man informed me they could customize the cake but it would mean the existing design of hearts and nuts would have to go. Well, obviously.
I then had to phone a town forty minutes away to book a cake, explaining over the phone what it was I wanted “Like a breast cancer ribbon but white” (very important, I then fretted they would just write down “breast cancer ribbon”). After work I drove to visit a supermarket just out of the city for another cake – “I can’t draw but I’ll do my best”.
I then spent an anxious few days fretting that all seven cakes would turn out looking ridiculous and it would be all my fault. (I have big worries in my life as you can see.)
Well, they not only turned out exactly as I asked but one shop even made little white chocolate ribbons for added decoration. Don’t worry me like that!