A "Thank You Card" Thanksgiving

On this here day of thanks I give you heretofore a sampling of my thankings. Thankings that should have arrived in the mail yesterday, to thankees I shall be seeing today. Calculated I assure you.



My Nana was disappointed that I donated her money to Mr. Obama's re-election campaign and expressed hope that I might not do the same with my birthday money. I followed her advice, in a manner of speaking.

No, Thank You.

Since I was a small child my mother required of my brothers and I that we write thank you notes whenever we were given a gift or a some of money. It would take weeks of constant nagging and threats to get us to write them, it was like pulling teeth. As a result of all those years of writing I have since come to the conclusion that if you are going to write a Thank You Note you might as well make it interesting and memorable. So here I present for your perusal a few notes I wrote in thanks to my family for cutting me a check that I promptly turned around and paid off some debt with. Enjoy.

It should be noted that my Nana is not a fan of President Obama and wrote of such fact in her card to me. Just some perspective.

A Very Scata Christmas

Sorry for the delay but here is Christmas as I have seen it.

Before I present to you my latest piece of work I would like to say that I told you so. As the poet (yes, yes I am) I chose a slightly unorthodox style of rhyming occasionally, and poorly at that.

Oh Sweet Christmas.

Oh Sweet Jesus!

What have we here?

Is it good cheer?

Or just too much beer?

But it can not be!

Drink she does not.

But she is getting quite hot!

The words are flying.

And look here at Jess crying!

And all because of some lying.

Boom!

And there goes an F shaped bomb!

And another!

The peanut gallery chimes in!

And with that Judy joins the fray.

More shouting

More pouting

Chairs overturn.

Doors slam.

Arguments splinter into more arguments.

Fighting between people who have no quarrel.

Opinions galore.

Oh what a bore.

I mean really it's her life,

Her strife.

She doesn't listen.

Why not just leave it.

Doors open.

Hushed talking.

Glaring.

Laughing?

What?

Sniffling.

Playful goading.

Smiling.

And it's just another Scata Christmas.

My favorite part of the whole day (that and my father shouting commentary on the whole thing from the living room) is when I was trying to entertain my little cousin while this was all going on and he suddenly looks right at me and says, "You know you don't have to play with me, you can go in the other room." As if he read my mind.

Attached are two goofy pictures of my cousins for your pleasure.

Good clean Coke loving fun!

From The Archive: The Boss

The Underling is furiously inputting payrolls that he has neglected for the past six months of his internship and because of that he has little time to post (maybe he should have worked more and posted less in the past month or so). In leu of his absence we shall be running a few posts from his EU internship that were originally posted at The Doyle Opinion. We apologize if you have already read this post and you can just disregard it if you didn't like it the first time. But like all the other reposts this one will come with commentary from the Underling himself. Enjoy!

As always this color delineates commentary.

Mr Pawel B. Piskorski is my boss, he hails from Warsaw Poland where he used to be the Mayor. I have met my boss a grand total of four times (I think this was the last time I didn't even get hte obligatory "You did a great job" on my last day), shook his hand three times and my longest conversation happened during this encounter:

I walk into the office
Weronika: Good-morning Kevin, how was your weekend? (picture a heavy Polish accent)
Me: It was fine, how was yours?
Weronika: Good.
And then she jerks her head in the direction of my bosses office. I continue the conversation, a little bit puzzled as to why Weronika had jerked her head, I settle for it being that my boss is in today unlike last week.
I sit down, boot up the computer, the phone rings, Weronika answers, normal morning. Then she hangs up and says in a hushed tone.
Weronika: Um, Kevin....you should probably go in and say hi to the boss.
I say that I will, and as I am getting up and making my 3.5 meter trip to my bosses desk I start to freak out and wonder what the hell did I do? I have a guilty conscious all the time, when ever the situation can remotely call for me to be reprimanded I think the worst and today was no different. I move through the doorway that brings me to the boss’s office thinking that I must have embarrassed Mr. P in some fashion, maybe my hair is to long, who knows.
Me: Good Morning sir.
Looking up with the smile he always seems to have when he speaks with me, which is not a good sample size to judge his mood because I have spoken so few times with the man, for all I know he could be incredibly angry....

This was probably the biggest difficulty I had with living and working in Belgium, I could never read some ones mood. Either their English was just not good enough for them to express themselves or the way they expressed their mood through non-verbal means (facial expressions, or body language) just did not translate. I never knew if Weronika was happy, sad, angry or annoyed, I always had to guess.

Boss: Good Morning, how are you doing?
Me: I’m fine sir, how about yourself?
Waiting for the other shoe to drop.......
Boss: I am well.
And then we had one of those moments where, just like when my mom grabs one of my brothers and makes them talk to me on the phone when they are unprepared, where you have nothing to say and then you suddenly realize it and you have no idea what to do (My dad loves to do that to me and I'm just glad that my brothers feel just as awkward about it and refuse the phone from him). So with that the boss smiled and looked back down at his work, and I kinda just shuffled back to my desk wondering what the hell just happened?

This one interaction with my boss is a microcosm of my internship as a whole. I did very little, was asked to do very little at that, and when I was asked to do something it was awkward, easy and pretty much pointless.

And We're Back with some Grumblings

Well after an action packed Christmas that made my Christmas post seem almost prophetic I am back to my blogging ways. The events of Christmas do need to be noted in some form but I do not know in what type of medium to bring it to you. All in good time though.

In other news Eric's birthday proved to be uneventful by Eric/Danny standards. Though I did have my first scorpion bowl which proved to be both tasty and dangerous. Because of work today I made an early exit to ensure I would not be hungover while serving the book loving populace.

Speaking of which today I get to work for 4 hours, that is down from 8. I kind of hope that is a mix up and not a permanent thing because if I am working 4 hour shifts once or twice a week that may prove to be a problem. Stay tuned.

I also attended the Nutcracker yesterday with Katy, which involved two bars and roughly 4 beers over a few hour span. Needless to say I enjoyed myself.

Lastly my Co-Op with the BRA will be ending this Wednesday (sad face) which means some awkward good byes and a shift in life priorities which means blogging will either skyrocket or cease because of a workload. I'm hoping for the former.

Normally this is where on most blogs people wish you a happy New Year and say that they have a whole bunch of fun things planned for their readers in 2009 (weird to think this decade is almost over already). Well I have nothing planned for you, I'm sorry. You will just have to trust that I will come up with things on the fly or make the old things that much more enjoyable to keep pace. Regardless I hope you continue to come back in 2009, I will still be here, I hope.

From The Archive: Happy Families are all Alike

The holidays are all about family, undoubtedly because of all the time spent amongst them. Families come from all over the country to see each other, eat food, give thanks, exchange gifts and inevitably bicker. some Uncle says something to some cousin who cries about it to their mom who happens to be the sister in law of said uncle. Things always get messy and that's why they only do it a couple times a year. The following poem, written in High School is a tribute to dysfunctional families and how they are in fact functional in a way "happy families" never could be. Anyway here is the poem, I have no clue as to what I wrote it for, the former title of the file gave me no clues. All we have is the result. Enjoy. Merry Christmas!

Happy families are all alike;
Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
But are the happy families truly happy?
They put on smiles, and sing and dance;
Making it seem that way.
But no quarrels or qualms they grow tired.
They begin to ask, “What is wrong?”
They start to second guess the love their family,
And wonder if it all just an act.
Is it a fake love or is it true love,
One can not love when smiles are all that can be found.
Because arguments have to happen,
Or something must be wrong.
That is why happy families are all alike.
They all do not know what makes them so “happy.”
Now an unhappy family is not unhappy all the time.
When they are happy they know it.
They take that moment, however small,
And cherish it until the next happy moment comes.
Happy moments they notice, unlike their “happy” counterparts.