and the winner is...

I was driving through Arlington on Saturday afternoon when I was stopped at a traffic signal and noticed this law firm on a corner of Washington Blvd. I might be crazy but I figure it would be best to just change the name to Paulson Law – as it is now, it seems a bit over the top, “Hey, which Paulson are you?”

Here’s an interesting conundrum for you to ponder. If you’re at work and there’s been a slow down in chores to be done, do you go to your supervisor and throw your name in the hat for additional tasks or do you just wait it out? Would it matter to you if the economy was a bit sluggish? How high do want to raise your hand in that class?

Here’s another: according to Virginia State Law I can work the polls for elections (which I’ve been doing for nearly three years) and don’t have to take leave or vacation time from work. I happened to stumble across this nugget whilst renewing my annual appointment letter; in the past I’ve been taking either vacation time or making up the hours before/after the election. Our polling hours are 6a-7p plus an additional three hours for pre-/post-election duties – it’s a long day.

One more fact – I’m nothing if not facts today. I’ve heard recently that about 12% of the employed population in America works in the non-profit sector. As the non-profits struggle for both monetary support and sponsorship it could be a heavy hit against employment as those sources dry up and jobs disappear. As a comparison, that 12% number is greater than the numbers employed by either the auto or financial service industry.

A number of weeks ago we were playing a bastardized combination of Charades and Cadoo!. The thought behind creating this strange stew was driven by some clay gone bad in the Cadoo! game and the boys’ desire to simply act out all the game’s clues. I, as a trained thespian, always feel that when acting out words or ideas in a game scenario, one should build and tell a story; don’t just hop up and act like a chicken in order to get people to scream out “chicken!”. If the answer is skiing then I’ll spend some time “getting my boots on”, “sitting on the chairlift”, and “adjusting my goggles” before “hitting the slopes”. It’s always entertaining to hear kids and adults alike yelling out things like “tying your shoes!”, “sitting on the couch!”, or “combing your hair” before you finally swoosh away and they all scream “SKIING!!!” at the top of their freakish little lungs. I consider myself the Robert Downey Jr. of Cadoo! This may seem like a long back story, and it is, but it’ll now turn to a mea culpa of tropical fruit knowledge. Aha!, a quick turn of the mystery. I was given a card that required me to write my screenplay to support the acting goal: pineapple. Not an easy task if you think about it. As I was trying to create a scene in my mind I decided that I’d need to create some “sunshine”, maybe an “ocean”, a “beach”, and eventually a “tree”. (As expected, these led to many false stars, “moon!”, “water!”, “tree!”, etc.) My hook had been set as I reached up into the “tree”, picked a “pineapple”, pulled it down, and began to peel and core it. Well, some joker in the crowd shouts out “coconut” which is just silly because who’d peel and core a coconut? Do they not recognize my acting skills? Clearly, it’s nothing that I’m doing wrong. I reenact the scene – with more feeling – and the crazies are sort of thinking, but mostly just screaming mindless answers, before X finally cocks her head to one side like a confused puppy and says, in a quizzical way, “pineapple?” Yes! I stroll to the podium to accept my Oscar© for Best Actor in a Leading Role when I’m suddenly tripped up by some crazy comment from the front row: “Pineapples don’t grow in trees, they grow on low bushes on the ground! (chuckle chuckle chuckle)” What? How to get around this little issue? What would Marisa Tomei do? It took only seconds for me to sort out my riposte to this heresy: “You did say ‘pineapple’, correct? Then I rest my case. That, my friends, it Actors’ Studio acting.”

Oh, here’s Marisa Tomei, in case you’re wondering. She’s long ago been invited to my new famous people dinner party that X decided she should have input on. Here’s the original list of folk – maybe it’s time for an update.


Hello out theeeeerrrrreeeeeee.....

T