Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Abandoned at the "Beach"

Joe glanced up at me. He corners of his mouth twitched as he tried not to laugh.
"Hey."
I glared at him as I regained my footing. "Hey."
"So, how's it going over here?"
"Shut up." I reached out again to secure the corner of the net. "This is ridiculous."
"I'm not going to disagree with you." Joe folded his arms. "So, you're having a great day then?"
I climbed down. "I'm glad you find this so amusing."
This time he really did start laughing. "You've got to admit this is funny."
"Not so much." I plopped onto the floor. "I see no humor in this freaking situation! I'm not getting paid to sit here and blow up freaking beach balls."
"Well, I'm sure you'll get a nice bonus." Joe said. "Anyway, I was just passing by and wanted to say hi."
"Do you want to stay and help me finish?" I asked in a small voice. "Please? I'll love you forever and ever."
"You already do." Joe looked at his watch. "And I have a conference call at nine. Sorry babe." He bopped me on the head with his portfolio and left.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Beach Bash Fun!

I am sitting in a ballroom, surrounded by beach balls. Yes, beach balls. I am actually blowing up the beach balls. The Annual Sara and Jonathan Fellers Foundation for Children's Education End of Summer Party (yes, that is the actual name of the event) was tonight. And of course, as Moxie was the event planner for the party, and the party had a beach theme, naturally we were decorating with beach balls. Yeah. I know.

Ross was out and stressed about the event, calling hourly to check in. Joe was busy with a corporate conference, Lainie was training a new associate, and I had the Fellers party. Lucky me. If you thought the Carrington Ball was tough...Sara Fellers wanted sand on the tables. Tropical cocktails. Waiters and waitresses in grass skirts. She had originally wanted a luau but somehow I talked her out of it. So a beach theme. Striped umbrellas, sand, and lounge chairs were everywhere. And there I was, sitting in the middle of it all, with the beach balls. Aside from big buckets of sand with shovels and sand castles for centerpieces, which I still had to finish, I also had to attach the balls to a huge screen that we were going to hang from the ceiling of the ballroom. And of course, I also had to field the forwarded calls from my office and deal with the endless problems that kept cropping up.

Attaching beach balls to a screen--not so easy. Using a stapler, glue gun, and floss I finally figured out how to make it work (after an hour). Then I spent another hour and half affixing the beach balls to the screen, and then it was time to suspend the screen from the ceiling. I wearily picked up the two radio the conference center had given me. "Martin, it's me, I'm ready.."
No answer.
"Martin?"
"Martin goes home," a chipper voice said. I swore. How was I going to get the $#@^ thing up?
I sighed and climbed up on the ladder to secure one corner of the screen. As I reached up to hoof the wire over the hook I had thankfully had Martin put up earlier, my phone vibrated in my pocket, the radio beeped, and my shoe fell off and landed on Joe's shoulder as he strode into the ballroom. And I grabbed on to the hook for dear life.