life lessons :: part 2

ahh, the distraction power of cute baby animals....

how to be småligt:

1. hold a secret meeting.
2. don't send out an agenda beforehand, which would remind people who somehow didn't get it saved in their calendars of the existence of the meeting.
3. don't send out any minutes of the meeting for at least ten days afterwards.
4. get mad at someone who sends a set of suggestions to the whole group because they didn't know anything about decisions made at the secret meeting (or even that there was a secret meeting).
5. hold another meeting (admittedly not secret) with a small minority of the members. make a bunch of decisions without including the contribution submitted in good time before the meeting. 
6. choose a badly-designed, weirdly colored logo for your brand new beautiful house (which belongs to the whole community and not only the small group) without considering other suggestions or even opening it up to the public to contribute and/or choose. (e.g. get the community involved so they feel ownership. heaven forbid.)
7. and odin forbid that any of those clumsy logo suggestions be sent out to all members of the group before the meeting attended by the minority so that everyone can offer a carefully considered opinion.
8. be a control freak for no reason.
9. exclude members of the group for no reason.
10. have a chosen group within the group that makes all of the decisions. preferably in secret, behind everyone's back.
11. especially that girl with the accent.
12. be petty.
13. think small.
14. always try to exclude someone.
15. preferably the person who came up with the idea in the first place, so you can steal all the credit.
16. be a xenophobe whenever possible.
17. don't acknowledge the enormous volunteer contributions made by the various people you're bullying.
18. appear as a character in my novel. and wish to hell you'd been nicer.

*småligt - adj. if petty were on steroids and wearing both underwear and shoes that are too tight. not worldly. with a very limited horizon. non-inclusive. one of those words that's just better in danish.

life lessons

how to be a bitch:

1. float into the room, wafting expensive perfume and dramatically flounce down your easel and art supplies.
2. immediately pounce sarcastically on a small grammar mistake (the equivalent of a/an) made by a non-native speaker of your minor language.
3. hold onto that grammar mistake like a nasty little growling drop-kick dog with an organic designer artisan dog biscuit, pointedly bringing it up again half an hour later.
4. when the person who made the mistake (and who is tired from being up half the night watching the lunar eclipse and on top of it, in the throes of PMS) doesn't laugh, sarcastically ask if she's "too delicate to take a little teasing."
5. ask as well, "do you have trouble with the full moon?" in some knowing way that just seems weird.
6. refer to your husband as your consort (as if you're the queen). 
7. disparage the large, successful international company that has put your podunk little nothing town on the map, complaining about the tourists they attract and how the town is filled with their offices, theme park, school and museums and worst of all their foreigners (gasp!). (not to mention their airport, and the public sculpture they've provided...)
8. don't be able to take it when the absurdity of complaining about that is pointed out with a genuine out loud laugh.
9. deny that you said anything disparaging about said company and fluff up your feathers, preening about how your consort was instrumental in it all, including the airport.
10. launch into some insider story about the airport using a bunch of obscure acronyms and referring to your consort's private plane.
11. get in one last snide shot at the grammar while also disparaging the non-native speaker's husband (who is clearly helpless if he hasn't managed to eat dinner by himself) and whom you have never met. 
12. appear as a character in my novel. and wish to hell you'd been nicer.

* the g&t photo is because i needed one after that encounter.

an encounter with madness

people should come with warning signs

do you think it's possible to tell whether someone is mentally ill just by talking to them on the telephone? i wouldn't have said so before today. but i experienced a telephone call with someone who was completely unbalanced - like in serious need of meds unbalanced. it became readily apparent rather quickly, but was like a big, flashing light of mentalness after she hung up on me when i asked to speak to her boss and then called me back 15 minutes later and calmly (and apparently seriously) accused me of hanging up on her and then proceeded to go mental on me again in all her glory. i mean like the kind of spouting incomprehensible statements in a shouty voice mental.

it's actually a really unnerving experience. i have to admit i was very shaken by it. and am still in a kind of state of shock hours later. i actually think she is dangerously, clinically psychotic. i'm actually grateful the conversation took place on the telephone and not in person. even on the telephone, i think i ended up a little bit scared.  even now, just writing about it, i get a shiver down my spine.

it was the kind of conversation that made me go out and check the bunnies when i got home, just to be sure she hadn't come by and pulled a glenn close. it was that bad. and i am more than a little afraid she knows where i live.

i think that somewhere at the base of us, our very instincts sense and fear someone who is truly off balance. i'm not sure i've experienced it so strongly before. and i can tell you that i hope never to experience it again.