Wednesday, February 28, 2007

we must be getting old

13th tale (onemorehandbag) Whether it was due to S2's return or K's super-rich dessert - on Sunday, the book club actually talked about the book of the month for a good 30 minutes. If not longer. Well, hardly surprising for a book club, you might say. Very surprising for a bunch of women who in recent meetings "covered" the book in question in brief conversations like "Well, I liked it." "Mine still hasn't arrived from Amazon." "I've only got as far as page 20." "Your edition looks much cooler than mine."

First, we couldn't really engage in an in-depth-discussion (ahem) as S1 hadn't finished it and didn't want any spoilers. As soon as she'd left, S2 began raving about the book, waving her hardcover copy with sticky notes marking her favourite passages. The rest of the members present (Amica, K. and yours truly) maintained that they found the novel a tad too trivial and predictable for their liking and almost lynched S2 (never mind threatening to tell her colleagues at the English Department) when she said she didn't find it any more trivial than Wuthering Heights. Gasp!
In a nutshell, I said I wouldn't actually recommend the book to anyone. So I won't.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

false friend indeed

Coma HQ was offline for the greater part of the day so I could neither read what you've all been up to nor post myself. Ah, well. For tonight I'm just going to share a brilliant example of "But! But that's what it says in the dictionary!"
A colleage was reading through application forms for an exchange project filled in in English by Austrian high-school students when she came across a blank field with the handwritten explanatory note "please see side dish". Both annex/enclosure and side dish (the culinary kind) mean "Beilage" in German...

Monday, February 26, 2007

last, but not least

cool gifts (onemorehandbag)
I got the last batch of this year's birthday offerings last weekend. Two cool Mandarina Duck cosmetics bags from Snow White and a t-shirt saying "The Government instructed me to save the world. Captain Kirk"from K (of the Book Club, more about the Girls and an ACTUAL LITERARY DISCUSSION- gasp! tomorrow). I can't wait until it gets warmer and I can wear this and also FCN's shirt. So spoilt, me.

Friday, February 23, 2007

selective theft

I have a so called "day-subscription" for the Standard, i.e. I only get the newspaper on one day of the week. I deliberately chose Friday as this is the day when you get their free RONDO magazine. When I leave for work on Friday morning, I find the newspaper waiting for me on my doormat. So far, so theory. On the last few Fridays, however, that meant the paper minus the RONDO supplement. I suspect one of the owners of the 4 penthouses as I never had this problem before the roof was adapted for posh duplex apartments. Not wanting to get up at 5 a.m. and peek through the peephole until the RONDO-thief does his dirty deed I've contemplated writing a sarcastic poster for the notice-board. Or could it be a new advertising coup of the Standard people themselves, deliberately pissing off subscribers with a brainwave along the lines of "our supplements are so good they get stolen before YOU get the chance to lay your hands on them". Who knows.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

time warp

This morning I was painfully reminded that a group of people in their thirties, fourties and fifties who see each other five days a week are no better than a group of kindergarten kids in terms of sulking, grassing on someone and changing their "best friends" on a daily basis. Much worse, actually.

I'm not sure if it's a bad case of (seasonally or hormonally triggered?) regression or if all parties involved simply neglected to hone their soft skills since the days when playing in the sandpit was their favourite occupation. Myself, I'm obviously just as childish and prone to wreak havoc the minute I open my trap so have decided to perfect smalltalk about the weather into an art form from now on.

Nice and sunny today, with north westerly winds.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

diminuitive

crappy (onemorehandbag) The poster trying to motivate dog-owners to take a plastic bag out of a dispenser reads Nimm ein Sackerl für mein Gackerl which is Austrian dialect and would translate to something like take a baggie for my crappie in English. In Vienna, we sure like our diminuitives.

I have to say I actually like the slogan and even voted for it in an online-contest for the catchiest phrase to advertise the so-called "dog-campaign" with.


The campaign was initiated by a frustrated mother (a child-owner, so to speak) who was tired of navigating prams around dog turds in parks and playgrounds. She set up a website and got like-minded people to sign a petition trying to lobby city hall into doing something against this curse which definitely not only affects young Mums. It's too early for statistics to determine the benefit of this campaign but the availability of bags certainly puts dog-owners to shame who "forget" to carry their own bags when walking their little darlings. For those stubborn individuals who don't even see the necessity to get the excrements off the pavement one of these alternative texts might work:

Steck dein Kopfi ins Topfi (Put your little head into the potty)
or, equally cute and catchy in German at least: Nimm ein Beissi vom Scheissi (Take a little bite of the shit)


Tuesday, February 20, 2007

top league

My new boss lets me read his copy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine and Neue Zürcher Zeitung newspapers when he's finished with them. This morning, I found the weekend batch on my desk and was idly leafing through them when the NZZ's "Rendez-vous" page caught my eye with black-and-white photos of winsome ladies aged 40+ with pearly teeth, Dynasty-style hairdos and tatooed eyeliner. A whole page of this (otherwise quality) broadsheet is devoted to ads by agencies and individuals offering nothing but rich, educated, gorgeous-looking, successful people who claim to excell in horse-riding, golf and sailing. The language is rife with allusions to the realm of banking and real-estate.

Even if I don't usually read such ads in other pages I'm not naive enough to assume that understatement is what you want to advertise your assets, but those Swiss do seem to pile it on somewhat. I couldn't help but wonder why all those filthy rich and successful gods and goddesses are single. Take "affectionate widow, 59"'

(...) mit herrl. Anwesen an der deutsch-schweiz. Grenze des Bodensees, dunkler Typ. Das ehemal. Mannequin lässt sich nicht verbergen, sie ist heute noch laufstegtauglich...und wünscht sich, um ihre Millionen zu zweit zu genießen/verwalten, einen Herrn, der auch Lust auf Golfen, Ski, Reisen und ein gemütliches Zuhause hat. Gerne bis 75. Der "Blue-Chip" Deines Lebens ist kennenzulernen über:XXXX"

which translates to
(...)with stately home at the German-Swiss banks of Lake Constance, dark type. The fact that she used to model cannot be denied, she is still fit for the catwalk...in order to to enjoy/manage her millions she is looking for a gentleman who should like golf, skiing, travelling and a comfortable home. Up to 75 no problem. Meet the "blue-chip" of your life at:XXXXXX"

Geez, I'm sure some elderly Swiss widower will take pity on the catwalk-queen with her lonely millions. She would only have to look a little further down on the page where she's being advertised to find "Marc" or "Ralf" who'd fit exactly into her target group. Oh. Hold on, they're not looking for women her or even their age. Bummer.

Monday, February 19, 2007

treat

So on Friday, Chiquita and I tried to "sell" ourselves in Hamburg. It was fun, actually, as instead of nervously leafing through company profiles and picking our brains about potential questions, we went shopping, feasted on waffles that almost made us sick and enjoyed the illusion of being serious business women who are, like, SO blasé about flying abroad in the morning and returning the same night.

In a strange role-reversal Chiquita (ten years younger than me), who's an experienced job-interview-attendee gave me tips on what psycho-questions to expect. Some of those were actually asked.

No matter what will come of our respective interviews, we decided to treat ourselves in the Duty Free shop anyway, each buying something we'd been covetting for years. Me, a special edition eye-shadow and lipstick combo (see pic), she the Narciso Rodriguez Eau de Toilette.
technicolor (onemorehandbag)

Thursday, February 15, 2007

pleasure in little installments

birthday festival (onemorehandbag) Unlike some people, I don't mind if I get birthday gifts with a delay. On the contrary, I quite like getting presents when I've almost forgotten that I'm another year older. Like yesterday, when I met Chiquita for lunch and she gave me Jo Malone's divine Pomegranate Noir scent and I had a dinner date with the Tyorolean who'd got me the cool "Shop Design" book. I also like putting all my cards on display on the living room door.

Speaking of Jo Malone, I won an EBay auction for her equally devine Lime Basil and Mandarin cologne which should be on the way to me from England. Yay!

And speaking of Chiquita...by sheer coincidence, the two of us are on the same flight to and from Hamburg tomorrow and both have job-interviews at 2 p.m. at different companies. Wish us luck!


Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Valentine's Day Crisis Prevention Action Plan

that's the way we like it...(onemorehandbag) implemented by one-woman task force Amica. Thanks, honey!

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

a blessing in disguise?

A comatose work environment does have its advantages when you've got "homework" to do for an upcoming job-interview and nobody disturbes you as you're poring over a pile of printed out pages with a highlighter pen...

Monday, February 12, 2007

Bump!

The Pampered Princess is overdue to deliver the Pampered Offspring. When I visited her in her new KLU residence the weekend before last, I cracked down laughing when the sight below greeted me as I climbed up the stairs. I instructed her to stay put so I could immortalise the moment for posterity:

now THAT'S what I call a bump (onemorehandbag)

Friday, February 09, 2007

Skate Date

skating (onemorehandbag) For months, one of Coma HQ's cleaning ladies, called the Blonde Beast by FCN (trust her to come up with apt nicknames. Incidentally, they all seem to begin with a "b" as she -even more aptly- christened another common acquaintance "Bog Breath") has been trying to fix me up with one of the security guys, hinting that he has been secretly pining for me for ages. Being me, I immediatly reported everything she told me back to him verbatim, which promted him to wind her up some more. She allegedly recommended him to smile more and pay me more compliments even though I'd told her right at the beginning she was wasting her energy on this little "project" of hers.

It was good fun while it lasted and we *are* rather starved for entertainment here, you must now.

Somewhere along the line I started to suspect he might in fact not be entirely impartial to the idea or, in other words, desperate enough to seriously consider me for the vacancy in his private life. He surprised me with a bunch of flowers for my birthday which I found very sweet indeed. I might have thanked him a tad too profusely as two days later he asked me if I'd go ice-skating with him. As I hadn't been skating at all this season, I thought I might as well. After all, it was hardly as "intimate" a setting as a cinema. Right?
Skating we went this Wednesday and it was nice but there he was, looking at me, puppy-eyed, saying "Not in a million years did I think you'd actually say "yes". Oh-oh. When I got home, I got the obligatory text thanking me for a nice evening saying he was looking forward to repeating the experience. Cue, blunt and slightly brutal message in order not to raise his hopes.
He's on vacation this week and I've toyed with the idea of mentioning the flowers and the skate date to the Blonde Beast to put her into wedding planner overdrive. Something held me back, though.
I'm obviously loosing my bitch mojo.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Still Life

Yesterday I could not be trusted to stick to my New Year's resolution to whinge less, hence no post...Deeply hormonal and already pissed off with my nitpicking boss on day 3, I wallowed in self-pity and spent the afternoon reading up on clinical depression on Wikipedia. Just in case.
In between, I drew a still life of the fruit basket on my desk:
fruit basket (onemorehandbag)

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Braving the Elements

On Saturday, Mum and I went skiing on Gerlitzen. Geez, I thought when we stepped out of the cable car, I'm wearing far too many layers and will be sweating like a pig all day. Courtesy of several "snow cannons"(see top picture below) , there was plenty of snow and the sun was shining. Nice.
Gerlitzen (onemorehandbag) After we had stopped for a snack, I was glad I was wearing all those layers after all. A veritable snowstorm had gathered and adverse winds meant we felt glued to the spot and the valley station of the ski lift beckoned like an unachievable goal.
snowstorm (onemorehandbag) Still. What with this eternal spring we've been having lately I feel privileged to have been skiing twice this winter at all.



Monday, February 05, 2007

Birthday Bag

I was in KLU for the weekend to recharge my batteries for my new super-demanding post. Or something. The main mission, however, was to rake my remaining birthday presents from the family, including gadgets from Dad (scanner, DVD player as those things left my flat when TD did) and a very nice bag from granny which Mum chose:
birthday bag (onemorehandbag) More pics from the weekend coming up.

Friday, February 02, 2007

movin' on up

Today's my last day in my old department @ Coma HQ. As I am taking the afternoon off, I have already been surprised first thing in the morning with cake and a touching poster saying "If you leave us now, you'll take away the very heart of us", signed by all my colleagues. The switchboard operator and AFOS gave me flowers. Hey, how did you guess that the blue ones are from AFOS?
bunches (onemorehandbag) The security officer who has been spoiling me with pastries from the baker's 3 times a week for years gave me a heart. Aaaaah.
haerty (onemorehandbag) One could think I'm leaving for good when I've only been "exiled" to a room 3 floors up.

Dunno if I will have to keep a low profile for the first few days but according to FCN whose post I'll take over I shouldn't worry about a lack of bloggortunities up there.

On this note, don't think you're getting rid of me this easily...stay tuned.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Irony or Ignorance?

Sale Viennese style (onemorehandbag)
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