"G" Day

Positive vibes. I'm picking up my glasses at 11:00 o'clock this morning.

Groovy

One of my lovely and tender-hearted colleagues is married to a great guy.

When he was born, his parents named him Alistair, after some long-dead relative. Pretty stuffy name for a little chap. Not exactly the sort of thing you want to advertise on key rings or little plaques over your bedroom door.

When Alistair started school, his friends took matters into their own hands. They immediately re-christened him "Groovy".

The name has stuck.

His friends call him Groovy. His new wife calls him Groovy. Now even his parents call him Grovvy.

I love this story.

It's worth remembering that no matter what you're dealt, changing how you look at it can make a real difference.

Have a groovy day.

Ferosh is the new Fierce

My BFF, who is my barometer of all things cool, tells me that "Ferosh" is the new "Fierce".

Picture this at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Announcer: Ferosh

Speller: Could you repeat the word please?

Announcer: Fe-rosh

Speller: Can you use it in a sentence?

Announcer: You look ferosh in those D & G pants.

Speller: May I please have the definition?

Announcer: Meaning: an abbreviation of ferocious. A look or event so completely extraordinary that it takes on an intensity of its own.

Student: Origin?

Announcer: First articulated by Christian, the winner of Project Runway.

Anyway, hope you have a ferosh day.

***

Thank you, dear responders, to my rant of yesterday. I would happily walk away EXCEPT I have already left a sizable deposit. Not willing to give that up...yet.

Oooh oooh, oooh oooh oooh...you got a bad attitude

The silicone chip inside my head has switched to overload.

I'm feeling nasty and venomous toward the people where I bought my new eyeglasses.

You may recall my post of more than a month ago. I was really excited to pick up my new glasses.

I turned up for the fitting and it turned out that they'd done the measurement incorrectly.

When I picked up the plasticized sheet to read it, it looked like the left side of the paper was much longer than the right. This happens some time -- apparently -- when someone has an astigmitism. I have two...because I'm special.

Anyway, I went through two dispensing opticians that day until I landed on the owner who assured me that he would put a rush on a replacement set of lenses.

About a week and a half later I get a call.

The lenses have arrived. They are scratched! They are going to re-order the lenses. They are going to put a rush on these, too.

Ahhhhhh!

So, a week passes and I call again. The lenses have not arrived. The woman I speak to says she can insert the scratched lenses into my frames for me if I like. I say no thanks.

So I call again yesterday. It is nearly a week later. The glasses are still not ready. I am assured they will be ready this week. Because of problems the first go-round, the owner has asked me to ensure that he do the fitting.

You guessed it, owner will be away for most of this week. Woman says, "Someone else can do the fitting." I say, I would prefer the owner because, in my head, I'm imagining everything that CAN go wrong because of everything that has gone wrong.

Negative thinking, watch me spin.

Anyway....

I tell the woman I am speaking to -- turns out that she is the co-owner -- that this has been an unpleasant experience. She clearly does not know the whole situation, nor does she subscribe to the theory that the customer is always right. She infers that the change in my prescription is what has caused this gong show.

This last part hit the cap c button on crazy for me.

Now I'm livid. Livid and short-sighted...in so many ways!

My re-re-appointment is on Saturday morning.

Strength. Perspective. Serenity.

3 persons, living or dead

We're in the midst of the annual kitten-herding exercise known as intern interviewers.

A course requirement of graduation with a post-doc certificate in copywriting from a local college, is a period of unpaid work placement.

Agencies love unpaid work placements. It makes them feel all powerful and gooey inside.

This year, the best part of our unpaid work placement is that we've actually budgeted to keep the successful candidate on once the unpaid term ends. So we're not just interviewing for a freebie, we're looking for a kitten we can keep.

We met two candidates yesterday. Both talented in their own way.

Then we came to the part of the interview where I ask my hypothetical questions. This is always my favourite part of the process. Often the only genuine moment of true personality in the whole structured and stressful process.

If you could invite 3 persons to dinner -- living or dead -- who would they be?

Interestingly, both candidates included Sigmund Freud as one of their three people.

Freud!

Weird.

I've gone years with everyone from Mama Theresa to Tiffany Amber Thiessen and I get 2 Freuds in a day!

In case you're wondering, my three are:

JD Salinger
Siddhartha
A true toss up between Spalding Gray and David Sedaris (for neurotic levity)

Anyway, wondering who you, dear readers, would choose as your three persons of choice? I will not hold you to these choices should the opportunity to resurrect your dead dinner companions come to pass.

Biting the Big Apple

I'm feeling a little discombobulated from my late arrival from New York last night, but wanted to share a few things.

1) Fly Porter Airlines. From the free cappucino bar and treats in the departure line, to the boxed breakfast on board the aircraft, to the beautifully designed uniforms sported by the flight attendants, every aspect of travel with Porter was top notch. They've managed to recapture the glory days of air travel. I would definitely fly them again -- and we KNOW how much I love my Aeroplan Points.

2) Eat at 'inoteca. This Lower East Side Italian restaurant serves tapas style portions that are perfect for sharing, even though you'll want to hoard them all to yourself. The location, on Rivington Street, is a great spot for people watching.

3) Eat at 44 & X. We stumbled on this Hell's Kitchen restaurant for Sunday brunch. It only employs phenomenally good looking men who are, of course, only hot for each other. We were hot for a spectacular breakfast extravaganza. They're famous for a fresh take on comfort food. Bring your heart meds and try the macaroni and cheese. It looks incredible.

4) Take a tour of the Tenament Museum. These fascinating tours fill up early. You can book a time online before you go. This was my second time visiting the museum, but I'll probably go again the next time I'm in New York.

5) Buy Christian Loubtoutin shoes. If you don't know Christian Louboutin, you probably don't care that the Sex in the City movie is coming out this weekend. One of my friends paid over $700 for a pair of these shoes. Not what I'd spend my money on, but I really had to admire the toe cleavage. They're gorgeous, and they have a characteristic red sole.

Unwired

I'll be unwired for a few days.

Tomorrow I'm at an all-day Creative Fusion session, where they bring in numerous creative teams, give us all the same brief, and send us off to brainstorm and come up with ideas within a strict time limit.

The best (and only) Fusion I've ever participated in was with my great friend and best-partner-ever, Barb.

It took place off the coast of the Netherlands, on the tiny and picturesque island of Texel. In a shootout with teams from around the world, we actually won. Not only Gold...but Gold and Silver.

We were floored.

They made a video of the process, and Barb and I have the shocked look of having just returned from Alien base camp.

It was one of my proudest and happiest moments. The fact that we were able to produce work at all -- given that this Creative Fusion took place little more than a week after my Dad died -- is testament to some Providential guidance.

But winning wasn't even the best thing to come out of that exercise. It was seeing what the other teams came up with. It was watching how individual personalities interpreted the same brief.

We so rarely get the opportunity to see that, in this business.

It's usually one team, as many ideas as they generate, and go. Creative Fusion is a real exercise in relativity. If you're used to thinking that everyone should and does think like you, Creative Fusion will knock you on your ass.

The Creative Fusion session runs from 8:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. -- a real killer.

Then, the next morning, I'm off to NYC for some fun and frivolity with friends.