An -ous Week

Notorious -- Last Wednesday, I had just gotten home from the gym when I got a call from a former employee who asked if I wanted to do a presentation. "About what?" and "When?" were, naturally, my first questions. The program was to start in an hour. No problem, I just had to shower, eat dinner, come up with something relevant to say, and find my way to the building with directions no more explicit than the street name. Who couldn't do that? Actually, it was kind of fun. The city's new water conservation officer is presenting a series of lectures on xeriscaping. The guy was looking for an expert on xeriscape planning and design. Somehow, he got a hold of my former employee, who phoned me. Gee, now I'm an expert! (Not like I'm dismissing my journal article nor my NMSU tree guide. Ahem.) I was struck again by how much easier it is to teach someone who is there voluntarily. When I was in grad. school, I co-taught an introductory horticulture lab. Most of the students were there because they had to be, not because they were hort. majors. I had better (and more enjoyable) things to do than be ignored. Last Wed., not only did every one look at me, but they actually asked relevant, nteresting questions! It was so much more satisfying.

Momentous -- Last Tuesday, my blinds were installed. Yay! Now I can be secretive and anti-social (not that I'm not already). Although I do appreciate the polite and prompt service, I do have some things wrong with them. The French door blinds, for example, have cords that dangle and can be stepped on or caught in a closing door. I had asked for continuous cords to avoid this. That must be changed. The arch blinds are attractive, but what good are they, considering that three of the four have gaps around the sides large enough to see through? If I had wanted that, I would have done without, thank you. They must be changed, too. (I have been playing phone tag with the service employee tasked with the follow-up phone calls. Here's a hint: have someone with a different work schedule than mine call me, so I can be home when s/he does.) The material color is slightly different than my existing blinds -- different enough to make you wonder if it's different, but not different enough to convince you for sure. Then again, maybe I notice only because 1) I'm sort of picky and 2) I've been looking at the blinds nearly every day for the last (yikes!) ten months (already?).

Loquacious -- The following is a verbatim conversation I had with one of my gym’s employees on Monday.
- Me: "Is that guy [gesturing] a new member?"
- He: "No. Was he naked?"
- Me: "Not this time."
The man in question has a foreign dialect (perhaps eastern European or Russian), is extremely talkative, and has absolutely no modesty. The first time I encountered him (about two weeks previous), he walked out of the shower, engaged me in conversation ("How tall are you?"), and proceeded to dry off, all while keeping himself on display, as it were. This time, he was clothed, but I could see that the poor man he was talking to was hurriedly lacing his sneakers, so he could get out of the locker room quickly. According to the employee, they have had "several complaints" about this man already. I believe most of it could be chalked up to a difference in cultural upbringing. In the U.S., we are less open, even in locker rooms. (With my modesty, you can imagine me banging off the walls, trying to get out of there the first time.)

Obnoxious -- I have a coworker who is extremely talkative, as well. He doesn’t realize it, either. Even when he is told to shut up (in more polite terms), he won’t. Shortly after he was hired, he wanted me to go with him in his truck "just for five minutes". We didn’t get back to the office for an hour. (I’ve never made that mistake again.) Yesterday, I absolutely had to ask him a question when he stopped by the office; there was no other way to get the information. It turned into an hour and fifteen minute monologue. (Come to think of it, I had a professor like that, too.) There are a lot of other factors that contribute to him being obnoxious rather than loquacious #2, but I’ll save those for another time.

Fallacious -- My boss told a coworker and me to pick up some plants from a vendor I don’t like to use. (Long story short: poor quality, high prices, bad attitude, and speaks nicely to only my boss.) My boss said we were getting them in different colors. On the way, my coworker decides that we should take the gold ones first, because he has thought of places to plant them. We pull up to the business and see a row of plants with pink flowers out front. "Those aren’t ours, are they?" I ask. We go in and find out that they are indeed. My coworker asks if we can take the gold ones first. "What gold ones?" the vendor asks. It turns out that all the plants we are getting are pink. The vendor told my boss they were "a different color", not "different colors", and by that he meant "pink". Any normal human being would have said "pink". Add this to the list of why we shouldn’t buy from this vendor.