We have threads for annoyances and what made us cheerful, but then there's those weird things that happen.....

My workplace is particularly fertile ground for the surreal. 2 current examples:

• At a health & safety meeting this morning the security manager reported that a chef had head-butted a first aid box in the kitchen
• Earlier in the week a committee gave permission for dodgems on the cricket field for a bar mitzvah in October

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Another:

Last Friday evening, cutting across Leicester Square from Chinatown to get to Waterloo, I think to myself: 'no Londoner would ever be in this godforsaken place of a Friday evening', look up, and there are Johnboy and David standing side by side, jaws slack in true tourist-style, staring at the chiming clock thingamybob on the former Swiss Centre.

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How's this... today at the office (fairly large site of a majorly HUGE computer software/hardware/services company) a co-worker complained that her lunch has been stolen from the common refrigerator every day for the past week.

She is on a strict diet and cannot just go down to the crappy cafeteria like the rest of us to get a crappy salad or crappy sandwich.

She is so upset that she was thinking of *poisoning* her lunch tomorrow. I kid you not. I mean, I would be mad if someone took my lunch, sure, but poison the poor sod?

I suggested she keep her lunch in her office until the "thief" gets over it. She looked at me like I'm nuts. I mean, she's right I am nuts, but poisoning a colleague?

were her lunches any good?

Delicious!

Don't get me started...

Well you did.... might as well carry on....

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Wild-looking guy comes into the office (we're in a storefront, so all manner of strange folk just walk in), asks for DeNiro , then for Drew. I tell him neither is available. Guy sits down, tells me he just recovered from open-heart surgery, needs to catch his breath. I run next door to get him some water.

Once he recovers, he asks if he can leave something for Drew. Sure, I say. The guy pulls out a sheaf of grubby paper, asks for a staple remover, then asks me to copy about 50 pages. I request a summary instead. He launches into a long rambling story, "to give me the context," the upshot of which is he's trying to start some kind of limo company and has endorsements from (get this) Colin Powell and Condi Rice. Boy, did he wander into the wrong place. I keep interrupting, politely OC OC, to ask what the fuck he wants from us, knowing full well he wants money. Did I mention that I'm all alone with this nut case?

Finally, he winds up by saying all he needs is a few million bucks to get going until a) Bush is elected, and good ol' Condi will send him a big fat check or b) Bush loses, in which case he'll get a big fat grant.

I manage to get rid of him once he realizes that I don't work for DeNiro.

Oh my. Don't you have a buzzer or something for the door?

I got caught up at the part of the story when he first asks for DiNiro...I'm thinking to myself, Cathy also works for DiNiro? How lucky can one girl get? . And then I read the rest of the story. Me (the worrier) hopes you do not get approached by any more nuts, especially when alone.

Oh, this is one in a series of space cadet visitors. There is a buzzer, but it's not well-wired and only works half the time. Fortunately (or not), there are usually a number of loud burly men in the office as well.

Thanks for the concern, Leslie dear. And I am SO glad I don't work for DeNiro...

You talkin' to me?

Or a generous dusting of cayenne?

My incorrigible boss who presents me with a very large cucumber this morning.

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Did he smirk as he did so, V?

He sort of thrust it at me (with suitable male audience) saying he thought I was in need of it.

It's an annual joke of his when he grows too many cucumbers in his garden.

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GG Mora's avatar is causing me serious confusion

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3 nights in a row of no alcohol consumption. I am surreally energetic, vibrant, and alert. I'd hate to feel this good all the time.

Awful feeling, isn't it? All giggly and sparky.

No it's the avatar - generally associated with another member here.

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There's a big pink neon sign up in the British Library that reads "Has anyone seen Mike Hunt?"

Adjacent to one another on the 47th Street promenade: a protest against the regime in Myanmar, and a guy playing polkas on an electric keyboard.

As I was walking to the subway this AM, I was greeted by the sight of a large and beautiful horse. Now, horses are not unheard of in my nabe---I live close by the police stables. But this horse was standing placidly smack in the middle of the sidewalk, tethered to the support poles of the scaffolding surrounding a large apartment building. It was right in front of D'Agostino's. Perhaps the officer had popped in for some oats.

My building......wrapped in white cheesecloth....all 20 stories. Looking out the window makes the world seem.....uh.......other-worldly (whatever that means). I have to live this way until APRIL 2005! CT here I come.

Yesterday I had lunch with the mother of my stepdaughter's best friend. Total Earth Mother...spends her days taxiing kids to 3 different schools, soccer/piano/ballet practice, all in her VW bus. The whole family is vegetarian, except when Dad brings home fresh-killed venison. Mom breast-fed the youngest until she was three. Delicate, wispy Irish features with a spray of pale freckles. But the heavy Queens accent always threw me.

Imagine my surprise when, in explaining how they came to live in Vermont, she gave me the whole story of her former life as an NYC subway cop. Why she's retired (with disability) from the force: she got into a tangle with a pregnant crack-head who was in the middle of a full scale freakout down in the 'bway. Bitch bit a monster hole in my friend's arm before tossing her down the stairs, ruining one knee and dadly damaging the other.

My favorite line from the exchange (when I asked how she freed herself from crack whore's bite):

"I broke her fuckin' nose. With my fist."

The woman who thought it was appropriate to wear a tight t-shirt to the office emblazoned with the words "Silicon Free."

We have a dress code here, but it's pretty loosey-goosey. Especially in the summer. But there are a couple of gals here who routinely show up looking surprisingly like hookers. An exposed navel piercing and extraordinarily short skirt were I believe the catalysts for the implementation of a dress code in the first place in the summer of 2003.

Walking to the office this morning I encountered: On the SE corner of 45th and 3rd, someone in an 8-foot yellow chicken costume dancing the, er, chicken dance, promoting the soon-to-open Texas Rotisserie outlet.

Then, across the street, on the NE corner of 45th and 3rd, and the SE corners of both 46th and 3rd and 47th and 3rd, small groups of Wachovia bank promoters holding giant placards and SINGING. The group at 47th and 3rd was singing "Yesterday"...like THAT'S going to inspire me or anyone else to open an account.

In my street at around 8.45am every morning: grown women zooming along the pavement crouched on children's scooters. There are a number of primary schools hereabouts; they accompany the blighters on their scooters; then use them as transport home.

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