baronessekat | Core Dump

Ok, this is me finally sitting down and writing out the thoughts I’ve had for the last week. Won’t be as good as if I had been writing them down as they came along but oh well.

HALLOWEEN

Things I have learned from the experiment of temporary hair coloring:
1. black highlights actually just turn my hair kinda brownish.
2. Asthmatics should never use the “hair spray” type of temporary hair colorings
3. Condition, Condition, Condition
4. Upon washing the temporary hair colorants out… strawberry blonde hair turns into my natural hair color. To the great joy of

dicea
5. It’s not worth doing the hairspray stuff as it gets all over EVERYTHING.

I had a lot of fun dressing up in my pirate gear. I had even more fun interacting with the kids that came by trick-or-treating at Dicea’s house. I never seem to get the trick or treaters and it let us be social. Lots of great costumes. And making the kids scream “Trick or Treat!” so that they could warn the Indians two doors down to get ready to scare the bejeezus out of them was a lot of fun. See dicea’s post on Halloween about Pixie cat joining us for a bit.

I was only one of a couple people at work who dressed up. But so what? I like the way I feel in the clothes. Not to mention, other than the doo-rag and hat (ok maybe the sword too) my outfit was completely dress code compliant. But what got me about dressing up leads me into my next rant…

ANNOYING PEOPLE.

Lately the ones that annoy me most are the ones that work in the same office as I do. One of the collectors made the perfect observation. Save for a handful of honest to god “grown ups”, it’s just like being back in high school again. Petty, whiney pricks who think they are cute and funny. I lost count of how many times on Halloween I got asked “Say ‘Yar’” or “Avast” or “Shiver me timbers”. It got old really really quickly.

Also… folks. Please. In the real world, my name is TINA. For those who may be unfamiliar with the name, it’s pronounced tee-NAH. Not Ty-na. Not barren-ess. Not baroness. Not Teen. For those who find Tina to be too hard of a name to actually say, I do respond to T. I’ve been known to go by and respond to my given name of Kristina. But when not at events or with people from the SCA who only know my scadian name, I actually prefer to go by my “real” name. And my middle name is LYNNE. I am not, never have been, nor ever plan to be Tina Marie. Do I look like Ginger from Gilligan’s Island? Don’t answer that.

I even confess that Ekat is not the name I chose for myself. It was what was given to me as a nickname for my SCAdian name. The diminutive of Ekaterina should be Katja. But I understand and accept that there was another Katja in the group I joined when I joined it so for the sake of keeping the confussion at a minimum, I ended up accepting Ekat. But when at work… with my mundane family, etc… my name is Tina.

I know that those who call me the other names at work think they are being cute or funny. But it does get a bit old and grating. And I honestly can’t think of a way to politely say that it bothers the daylights out of me when people can’t use my name right. I don’t have much in this world. My name is one of the few things that is really and truly mine.

The other thing that has been bugging the daylights out of me and only continuing to prove the lack of maturity with some of my co-workers has to do with one VERY small aspect of my job. I keep track of how much the yobs bring in daily. When they bring in a certain amount they are eligible to participate in an end of month drawing. We have a board with 100 squares on it. When the collector is eligible for the drawing they get to put their name on the board in one of the squares. This is called “Squares” in the office. Yeah, real original. Anywhoo… I will be walking into the main office to retrieve something from the printer or talk to one of the supervisors and someone (usually one of three someones) will cry out “Squares!” at the top of their lungs as if this will remind me that I need to have them come pick what square they want their name in. Also, incidentally these people rarely have been getting squares. I’ve even gone so far as to look at certain individuals and say flat out “I do not technically have to make sure you fill in squares until just before the drawing. Every time you ask when I’m going to be doing squares, I put off doing it for at least two more days.”

Childish? Yes. Petty? Yes. Do I give a rat’s left earlobe? Nope.

OK. That finishes that set of thoughts and observations and rants. My next post, I promise, will be about the great conspiracy of the Fast Food Industry to kill me.