What Was Is Not

The cubicles that came with the new office.

The cubicles that came with the new office were old, broken, and worn out. We are getting new cubicles, so we had to get the old cubicles out. No one wanted to take and reuse them, so demolition was in order. I could not figure out how to take them apart, so our office manager’s brother sent a person who installs cubicles to the office to check them out, and I made a deal with him to have a couple of his staff come in and take the cubicle apart for us. He asked who made them, and when I told him he had never heard of the manufacturer. The manufacturer had gone out of business years ago. Even though the building is only 15 years old, we figure the cubicles were at least 30 years old. Two young men came by yesterday and took them apart. I would have never figured it out, and, although the two young me were fast, it was a lot of work for them to take down the partitions. The two didn’t want to haul them to the dump because they would be charged to dump them. We had them leave the partitions and we spent most of today stripping off the fabric, removing the insulation, and separating the metal and plastic from 72 partitions. Dolores took two loads of metal to Acme Metal and got some cash for it. She will take a couple more loads to Acme tomorrow and we’ll be rid of the old cubicles without simply taking them to the dump.

Uppers, a box of brackets, and a few partitions stripped to the metal remain to be taken to Acme tomorrow. The piles of fabric and insulation are in the center and some tack boards await me to take the mounting hardware off of them.

Intermission: My new La Llorona approved aqua-turquoise blue Nostalgia Retrowave microwave I got for my office. It’s a long way to the kitchen in the new building.

Daddy Owl holding on tight in the high winds that were trying to blow him out of the tree.

Ear Tufts in silhouette

Bloody Binding Queen

After a long week starting to moving into our new office building, WordPress giving all kinds of trouble again, and getting my second vaccine against covid cooties this morning, I’m feeling like how this poor frost-bitten tulip looks.

Bloody Binding Queen

Timothy Price. Music by Abba

I can’t think of anything better for a Friday night at the end of a long week than a bloody awful parody about our Bloody Binding Queen. At the end of last month, Erma was compiling thousands of pages of final reports for facility condition assessments, punching and assembling them into a whole bunch of binders. She kept getting paper cuts and used up all the bandaids we had in the office. I told her she was a “Bloody Binding Queen!” The light went on. After I got home that night, I found the music for “Dancing Queen” by Abba, wrote the parody lyrics (see the lyrics at the end of the post), learned the song, recorded the parody, and sent it to Erma. She was pleased because that was the first song ever done for her.

Since we have had hard frosts the last few nights our tulips are looking like bloody binding queens all frost-bitten and shriveled up. I finally got the IT Department’s office in order, and I got various cuts and bled in the process. We also got Internet, a new alarm system and new tile in the kitchen, copier room and workroom in the new building. So we’ve made a lot of progress.

Looking into the IT office from the door to the office.

Another sad tulip

Bruce’s desk

A Vulture heard there was a bloody binding queen and started circling overhead.

My desk

Dale’s Peach Tree is blooming

Dede’s desk

Daddy owl watching

Looking out into the open work area where multiple workstations will go from my desk.

Mama Owl peeking

Bloody Binding Queen
Lyrics by Timothy Price
Music by ABBA

Ooh, you can bind, in the grind
Compiling the papers you find
Ooh, see the girl, with the punch machine
Bleeding the binding queen

Friday night and it’s time to go
Look at the papers not that low
Where they are piled high in the binders rings
Although a vegan might go to a Burger King

Look at the clock and you sigh
It’s getting old paper piled high
With a final push, you can meet the deadline
You’re in the mood to dance
But there’s not a chance

You’re a binding queen
A paper cut from page seventeen
Bloody binding queen
Hear the grind of pages shredding
Oh, crap

You can bind, in the grind
Compiling the pages you find
Ooh, see the girl, with the punch machine
Bleeding the binding queen

You’re a wheezer, from paper spawn
The cuts are burning the bleeding goes on
Looking for another plaster anyone will do
You’re in the mood to dance

Look at the clock and you sigh
It’s getting old paper piled high
With a final push, you can meet the deadline
You’re in the mood to dance
But there’s not a chance

You’re a binding queen
A paper cut from page seventeen
Bloody binding queen
Hear the grind of pages shredding
Oh, crap

You can bind, in the grind
Compiling the pages you find
Ooh, see the girl, with the punch machine
Bleeding the binding queen

Bleeding the binding queen