Chickens and the Multi-Talented

Wow, it has been a long time, friends! Too long. And I'm afraid it will get worse before it gets better, as we have entered the beginning of our long busy season here in our little office.

First things first, the most important development is that Leigh's baby finally made HER appearance to the world on Friday, January 11th. Lovely Elizabeth was born a few days past due, weighing in at a terrific 9 lbs, 5 oz. Mom and Dad and little one are all doing well and we've all been to visit, of course! Leigh actually brought her by just this week, and she is already growing and strong. So exciting!

Well, back to today and our always lively discussions. As usual, things started off with discussions of entertainment, in this case, television. A certain faction of our group (myself included) were very excited that just one week from today our favorite show, LOST, comes back with new episodes! Earl and Claire, meanwhile, confessed that they had watched the new show "Moment of Truth," where contestants answer questions while strapped to a lie detector, all to win big money. We debated for a while as to the merits of watching such a show (sample quote from me: "Congratulations, you now have no soul.") and considered that perhaps the money contestants won could be put towards the lawsuits and divorce proceedings they would most likely have to go through on account of their "honesty."



This devolved into a discussion of how one could "fool" a polygraph - like the character in Ocean's 13 stepping on a tack. From there we moved to other types of tests - drug tests, breathalyzers - and how one might also fool these tests. Marie was eating something with poppyseeds, prompting a warning that they could actually cause a positive result on a drug test. (Ryan corroborated this fact by remarking that it had been proven true on "Mythbusters.")

Talking about drug tests caused half the crowd to dissolve into quoting lines from our other favorite show, "The Office." Shannon, who doesn't watch the show, said quietly while observing us, "It's like another language."


Somehow this led to Marie running off to her desk to print out a joke that W sent to her. We were a little alarmed when she came back with about 5 sheets of paper ("How long is this joke!?!") but soon were giggling at the various celebrity "answers" to the age-old question, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" We pondered how others at our table would answer the question: Earl would ask how much it was going to cost for the chicken to cross the road, Webster's answer would be full of long words we didn't understand, etc.


After the chicken banter died down, we switched gears and talked about the continuing sad news of actor Heath Ledger's death. Marie mentioned that she'd had Brokeback Mountain in her Netflix queue for a while, and that since his death, the wait list had grown even more.

This led to an open discussion of movies we had or hadn't seen recently. I mentioned that my husband had gone to see Cloverfield, and gave it a "meh" review. We digressed into monster and scary movies of other kinds. Marie polled the group as to whether Jurassic Park was too scary for her kids to see. The general consensus was probably so, especially since the younger one had recently been frightened at an outdoor showing of E.T. at a local theatre.

From there the conversation turned to where else one could see outdoor movies shown locally. Shannon piped up that she and her husband had gone to see a movie at a "lawnchair" theatre in a quaint little country hamlet located near our city. I teased that along with your movie you could probably get some good ole' moonshine, too. Jorge followed up with a joke about "those darn Duke boys."


...which prompted Marie to mention that that was another movie she never saw, The Dukes of Hazzard, which prompted Deasy to offer her opinion on which Duke boy was the cutest, which somehow prompted someone else to bring up another buddy-team television show from that era, "Starsky & Hutch." Jorge and Marie wracked their brains trying to remember the name of the hit song that Hutch (actor David Soul) had recorded.

And THAT, my friends, is how we segued into our final topic of the day, which was actors who have crossed over into singing careers (or the other way around). We covered the good, the bad, and the mediocre (most fell into the latter category).

At long last, W dropped in for a visit and immediately knew the answer to the song title in question... "Don't Give Up On Us." Of course!

And that is how a very long and VERY involved lunch club came to an end.

Until next time,

Liz

Does anyone need to make a movement??

Happy New Year Lunch Clubbers! It's Lynn here!

This new year at our office began with bittersweet feelings. Sadly, we had to say good-bye to our favorite Mommy-to-be, Leigh. Although we will miss her greatly, she is now taking the time to focus on preparing for the little one who will be joining us shortly. We are currently 2 days post-due date, so we will be meeting him or her any moment now! I'm not sure who is anticipating the new bundle of joy more, Leigh or the rest of our staff. It's a close one!!

That was the "bitter" part of our bittersweet new year, but the "sweet" part is just as exciting! We have now welcomed a new lunch clubber to the team, who is taking over for Leigh's position. Her name is Claire, and we are so pleased and excited to have her with us! Although Claire has only been with us for a few days, we already know that she will be an important asset to our staff. And she has been a great addition to our lunch club as well! We will have her posting the blog in no time! :-)

Today's lunch club was about as random as it could be. We began by talking about Grant, who has been a dear, dear friend of our staff for over 30 years. Grant is truly a "man of all trades," having done everything from being a janitor to a midwife! We were recalling countless memories we had with Grant doing everything he could to help us with random tasks, which caused us to notice several similarities between him and our very own Earl. Although Earl has a specific job at our organization, he also tends to take on various odd tasks and jobs in an effort to make our office cleaner, safer, and more efficiant. Earl and a few other clubbers told us a story about when he first started working here and there was a plumbing "situation." Earl called a plumber to come and clean out the pipes, and gave us a riveting impression of the plumber, who insisted on not only showing Earl the various unmentionables he had found in the sewer lines, but also describing, in great detail, what each item was and where it came from. That story reminded Earl of when he had first moved into his house with his family. Earl and his wife had chosen to upgrade their wood floors, so naturally Earl was very cautious and protective of this great investment. One morning, he came downstairs to find a small puddle of water seeping through the floor from the bathroom. Panic ridden, he immedietely called to have it taken care of. In order to determine the cause of the overflow, the plumbers watched the sewer opening in the culdesac intensely, trying to track the flow of, umm, substances, through the pipes. After watching for some time, one of the plumbers came to Earl's door, stood there with a very serious and intent expression on his face, with a large cigar hanging out of his mouth, and said, "Does anyone need to make a movement? We need something to track." Not sure how to respond, Earl calmly replied "No thanks, we're good." Needless to say, the plumbers were still able to fix the pipes, and Earl's new floor escaped with barely a hint of damage.

One last thing before we close for today. The day we have long anticipated has finally arrived. Tomorrow afternoon, in a small church located in a small town not far from our small office, our very own Ryan will finally be married to his lovely fiance, Danae. We are all so excited for them and cannot wait to be there to share in the joy of their wedding!

Until next time,

Lynn