You are REALLY pale.....

When you wear your flesh/beige/tan colored bra under a white shirt and it looks like you’re really wearing a black bra.

I have got to sit in the sun this weekend.

Yes, we can ALL hear you now

So does anyone out there have any great suggestions on how I can nicely say to the VP who has the office a couple of doors down from mine that taking a conference call on speaker phone with your door open and then talking at the TOP OF YOUR LUNGS to ensure that everyone in a 12 block radius can hear you is considered bad office etiquette? Because if you guys don’t have any suggestions it’s gonna get ugly.

It's almost as bad, but not quite, as the guy who comes and eats his lunch in the open office next to mine. Not so bad to use an empty office to eat in but it is when the reason you eat there and not at your own desk is because you insist upon eating the equivalent of a truckload of onions. Yes, even though there is a wall and a door that smell does indeed permeate. And no, even though you think you're being nice by not offending your direct "neighbors" you're really not because you and your onions are offending the hell out of me.

Yeesh, forget the Ethics "class" we need to take every year at my company, we need to take an Office Etiquette class.

Is there a cure?

Ever since Spring sprang and I’ve been spending more and more time with my hands in dirt, I’ve been thinking a lot about all the changes that have gone on in my life in the past few years. Actually, most of the changes happened to me when I bought my house.

Back in July of 2004 I moved out of the home in Cin-City I shared with my boyfriend of almost three years, moved back to Philly with the dogs in tow and moved into my new home as a single woman.

Before I moved to Cin-City I lived in downtown Philly and never thought of myself as a suburban girl. My money (and my credit card company’s money) was spent on shoes, clothes, alcohol, restaurants, cabs and the occasional plane ticket to visit my sister. Ahhh, yes, life was good and uncomplicated. My best friend lived a couple of blocks away, I had other friends who lived in the same building as me or at least in a five block radius, I walked to work and went out with my friends at night. I never would have imagined in a million years that I would, one day, be living in my own home with 2 dogs and a huge yard. (Correction, the bank really owns the house. I own the bathroom on the first floor, I think.)

E from 3 years ago could tell the difference between the 20 pairs of black heels in her closet. Now I can tell the difference between the 20 perennials in my front flower bed. Three years ago I would have been thrilled at the idea of a cashmere sweater as a gift, now the Weed Wacker or the cordless power drill are the perfect gifts.

So this afternoon I took a stroll out to the local Ann Taylor and Gap. I saw a great sweater at Ann Taylor that I was about to go purchase when I realized I should really put it back. This weekend I blew a bunch of money on three ornamental pear trees, a flowering cherry and a flowering plum tree.

What has happened to me?! Maybe I should have bought the sweater, as therapy.

Did I mention I'm the Queen of England?

As I finished my short jaunt around the block to inhale some unfiltered, pure, city, smog-filled air, I passed a couple of women smoking (outside Children’s Hospital nonetheless). One woman’s coughing sounded like her lung was about to extricate itself from her chest cavity and go flying across the sidewalk to land in the gutter 5 feet away. She suddenly stopped and said to the women with her, “I must have a cold or something. I can’t stop this coughing.”

Riiiiiiiiight….. it’s definitely a cold and certainly has nothing to do with the Marlboro Reds you’re sucking on.