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Everything Is Wrong In The World Blossom Festival is what it should have been called.

Cheese and I went over to our beloved Brooklyn Botanical Gardens (BBG) yesterday for their annual Cherry Blossom Festival, and to sum it up, ICK!

Once inside it the BBG it was clear that our little island of peace and serenity inside of Brooklyn that we go to on a regular basis and are even members of, had somehow morphed into a bizzaro world consisting of all the things wrong with the world.  Since I’m a Cancer sign, and I’m a cranky person at times, I have a long list of complaints about it.  Here they are:

• Too crowded.  The usually barren and or only mildly populated BBG was swamped with people; I’m talking Central Park on a summer day crowd.  The types that walk all over each path without the understanding that other people want to walk on a path too.  The types that make you want to just move away to the country and never look back.
• Way too many kids.  It was as though all of Park Slope had emptied out yesterday to see this festival.  There were thousands of little kids running around screaming, crying, and generally being the kind of kids that make me never want to have kids.  I’m sure a leisurely walk down 7^th Avenue in the Slope would have been a better idea for yesterday.
• There was a huge white tent set up for the entire length of the cherry field.  This tent took away from the beauty of the tree blossoms that were happening, and only gave the thousands of people on the field (that can usually only handle a couple of hundred people) justice for their existence in being there.  I was hoping to hear someone ask “Can you take a picture of me with this cherry tree, and can you make sure to get the tent too?”
• Asian people were living up to their stereotypes.  Everywhere I turned there was another group of Asian people, each with a camera in their hands taking pictures of everything in sight.  If you want to take a picture, cool, go for it, but when your “hobby” consists of photographing each pebble that you’ve walked on for posterity, you need to get help.  Put down that camera of yours, take a deep breathe, and just live in the moment – let the plants be engrained n your memory, by seeing them with your eyes, and nose - just live.
• Every entrance to the park was open.  Usually only three entrances are open to the public for access, yesterday all of the small side entrances were open, with long lines at each of them.  Here’s a secret for all of you waiting on those lines: THE CHERRIES WILL BE IN BLOOM FOR WEEKS!!! & IF YOU WANT TO HEAR DRUMS GO TO SEE A CONCERT!*  Congrats!  You people just wasted a little bit more of your lives yesterday, and in the process gave me so much grief that I need to write it all down to get it all out of me.
• “Master Gardeners” were out in force.  This is a real title that some people love to gloat about with, and in the NYC area most of the people that go around gloating this title tend to be the elderly ladies.  OMG, can’t you just walk and talk?  There are tens of thousands of different species of plants in the garden, you don’t need to point out each and every one, butcher the Latin name for it, and then fix your sun visor.  If you really must do such things, go there on a Tuesday - it’s not like you had a job Monday through Friday and you’re trying to relax from on one of your downtime days.
• Too much automobile noise was audible in the garden.  Normally you might hear one or two cars or trucks zipping by on the outside of the garden.  Yesterday it was nonstop car horns blowing.  Did you honestly believe that you were the only one that was going to drive?  Did you think that there was honestly going to be a spot for you within three blocks of the BBG?  All of these misconceptions only led to dozens of car horns being honked out of frustration.  Next time just take your “Precious Little Stevie” and bring him in on the subway.  It’s 2007, and it’s pretty darn quick, and safe.
• People were breaking garden rules left and right.  I’m a stickler for rules, and I apparently love to complain (obviously).  I think in part it is the German heritage that I have, having been very close to my off the boat (yes, they came on boats) grandparents growing up.  I’m all about rules, and can’t stand it when people are breaking them.  People were climbing trees, taking down ropes to get into areas that they shouldn’t be in, and tormenting me in the process.  When a “security” guy would pass the people doing illegal things, they would miraculously find something incredibly interesting in the clouds.  I’d like to just get over this, but when someone is 40 feet up in a hallowed out tree that has a crutch holding it up, it’s quite annoying, and unsafe to everyone underneath the tree. 
• The three ducks were completely stressed out.  Usually you’ll find them relaxing on the side of the water pools near the conservatory, but yesterday they couldn’t deal with the kids, and the people “lookin’ for the fried dough stands” so they were forced to keep swimming in the center of each pool. 
• The volunteers assumed that you want the info that they were giving out.  They were worse than people handing out flyers in Midtown.  Here’s hint number two for you: I don’t care much about the Far East’s Painted Lady Face Dances.
• The coy pond in the Japanese Garden was four and five people thick.  In order to get a glimpse of the coy, you’d have to wait roughly ten minutes for a half decent spot to open up, and then have to deal with little kids and their parents asking, “Can my child look?”  All of you people really need to get out to the aquarium to look at fish, get the whole “WOW A REAL LIVE FISH” thought out of your brain, and then go back to the Japanese Garden some other day, and just relax.

By the time Cheese and I reached the Japanese Garden, we were done.  Way too many people walking everywhere, with too much noise all around us, we had to go.  I napped on her couch, and then it was off to my backyard for some actual relaxing.

I’m now done complaining for the day – I hope. 

 *As I was writing this, I went to go taste a sip of my water, and as I brought the cup to my mouth I sort of swung it there, and now the entire left side of my shirt is drenched…ugh…

So today I got the chance to sleep in late, and that lasted all of until 7:14AM when the phone rang, and there was a hang up on the other end, figures.  Now I’m left with hours of time that I hadn’t expected on having,  before my nose doctor follow ups. 

So far I’ve watched way too much Vh1, MTV’s, and E! type of channels, while surfing the net.  So far I’ve learned that the females that I eat unch with at work tend to be bigtime haters when it comes to celebrity women.  I have no idea where they get these thoughts of Fergi, Nikki Cox, and Posh Spice being ugly all of a sudden. 

Sure all of them appear to have either lost a little too much weight, or maybe had some cosmetics somewhere, but they still look the same sort of good for the most part, and all of that hasn’t taken away from their looks to the point that I could actually consider them ugly.  I’d still bone each of them if I were single, and if they were banging down my door - I wouldn’t chase these types, I’d save that for the amateurs.

Then there’s the Eva Longoria / Tony Parker thing.  Apparently the lunchtime females can’t stand the fact that Longoria is marrying Parker because as they put it, she is too old for him.  What?  Since when?  At least they think that Longoria is still an attractive woman,  but I’m not sure if I would be able to bone the Longoria if I was single, even if she was banging down my door to get at my crotch. 

The thing is that whenever I see her, I keep thinking of her as JC Chasez sloppy seconds, and wonder just how stupid this gal is to have been with the N’Sync’er for that long.  It’s just that I think of Chasez as being the cheesiest of all of the boy band members from the late 90s, and I get the feeling from him that he actually thinks of N’Sync as being a band that meant alot to so many people, and that the bands music is something that was important, deep, and is something that is timeless.  It wasn’t, and it’s not.

Anyways, that’s my take on things, and I’m getting major de ja voo in that when I go to work later today that I’m going to walk into some type of firestorm.  Meh…

There are times in life when one comes across people that are outwardly mobile socially awkward conversationalists.  When you speak with one for a first time, you will make the mental note for future reference to spot that person from a mile away, and then attempt to avoid that person at all costs for the rest of your life.

On Friday evening I was at the Orchid Show plant sale area in Rockefeller Plaza, lingering about with the Cheese.  We had been chatting privately amongst ourselves, having our usual great laughing time, when we walked upon the “Asian Long Horn Beetle” public awareness table.

The awareness table was all by itself, not a sole had cared to stop and look at all the information about the bug that could easily destroy much of the North American tree population within a relatively short amount of time, but Cheese and I stopped.

I had wanted to verify from pictures that a bug that I saw two years ago in Long Island City was indeed that little no good lousy beetle.  As the Cheese and I goofed off while I recanted my story of “I was walking, then I saw the bug fly at eye level right past me, and into a glass door.”

Out of nowhere some type of Park Service Officer swarmed us, yes, there was only one of him, but his mouth, along with his nonstop eye contact (he was able to keep eye contact with the both of us at the same time), and his nonstop verbal interest in what I had just told the Cheese made us feel as though we were backed into a corner.

This guy was all about Asian Longhorned Beetles, and asked more about my sighting of one.  He then went on further to pick up a tree branch that was riddled with beetle holes, and thoroughly explained the process of how the beetle lays its eggs, and then the treatment on how to eradicate the beetle infestation.

I did my best to not giggle as he went on his longwinded conversation that I was barely able to keep up with.  I felt as though I was up against an Agassi serve, with me barely touching my racket to it, allowing Agassi to hit more serves harder and harder at me.

Normally I would nudge the Cheese for help, she’s usually much better than I am at keeping up face during weird conversations than I am, but this guy had her in a loop.  She was doe eyed, and appeared to be full of liquid thorozine.

There was only one way out of this conversation, and it was for the guy to talk himself out of all pertinent information, and then get a compliment.

This is exactly what I chose to do.  I had no idea how long he would go on for, and as I worried that the Cheese would just slip away into a coma of bore, I was stuck in this 90/10 conversation.

Then, I heard the guy say, “And that’s how we prevent further infestation.”

To which I replied, “Thank you, keep up the good work.”

Having felt his presence was justified in the world the weird Park Service Officer informed me to take as much literature on the subject as I wished, and then made his Batman style exit – in a pouf, he was gone as fast as he had arrived.

Cheese and I walked away, and I said, “Oh thank God, I thought that guy would never stop talking!”

We later spotted Park Service Officer lying in wait on the far end of the sales tables, and when he spotted someone near his info booth, he lunged like a tiger on a zebra and killed that proverbial elderly zebra with his ramblings about the infestation.

It was a great situation to watch, and awful one to be in.

Then this morning, one of the outwardly mobile socially awkward conversationalists of my floor walked passed my cube, only a mere second before I got up to get a cup of water.  She turned around, smiled, said “Hello Beehive…” In the most frightening of manners, which got me all flustered in the sense that I thought that I was going to be trapped in her presence, and all that I could say back was “Heeeey, Robe.”  As in, “Hold on a sec, she answered the door at 4AM in nothing but her robe?  That’s hot!”

Yes, yes I did call her Robe, but she overpowered my brain with confusion, thankfully my calling her “Robe” appeared to confuse her as well, as she just quietly turned her head around and kept walking.

The room was dark, with my bamboo blinds pulled all the way down, the curtains were drawn completely across, and the door was at a crack, thereby leaving only the smallest traces of any light entering my bedroom, and yet I had awful sleep last night as I kept tossing and turning.  

I kept having dreams about the phone ringing which involved my getting up to answer it, only to hear another phone ringing in another room, only to hear another and another and another, which was a never ending cycle of phone calls.

I woke up exhausted, knowing full well what this stems from – my not being happy with the job market, and unreal expectations of workplace grandeur.

Between late last week and yesterday morning I went through nearly every single job listing on two of the major job websites.  Most of the jobs listed were flat out awful sounding to have as an actual job for anything more than a day, especially on a day like yesterday when it was absolutely gorgeous here in NYC. 

Days like yesterday tend to make me feel as though I have just wasted my life yet again by being in an office, away from windows, behind a computer screen, and surrounded by the ugliest of green cubicle walls circa 1982.

Anyways, after looking through some 10,000 plus job listings I ended up only applying to two of them.  When submitting my resume and completing the questionnaires, I was doubting that I would ever hear back from either employer, due to my experience not being in either of those two fields, but just like the lotto, “hey, you never know.”

I only applied to two postings due to my new rule of thumb of not applying to anything that I know for a fact will be a working environment that I would not want to be in – we’ll see how long this rule of thumb lasts.

Both times that I applied, I began checking my cell phone for missed calls after only a few moments of my applying, as if there was someone at the other end of the job posting anxiously drooling in front of an empty email box while waiting for some buffoon like myself to apply for the posted job position, thereby allowing them to immediately call up said buffoon (me) and take about how great I am, throwing respectable amounts of money my way in the form of a job offer.

Unfortunately, the world isn’t set up like this, which means that they didn’t call right away, but I wanted them to, so my brain allowed it to happen while I slept.

On a side note, I will most likely end up being relegated to applying to jobs that I am either highly qualified for, or just about qualified for, and get calls immediately for such jobs that I find to be nauseating.

“Welcome to the working week….”