Claire

90 minutes from reveal of the theme word to posting of story online. As with all my flash writings, I consider them rough, first drafts and not polished stories suitable (yet) for submission.

Ironically, my own wedding anniversary was the day before, January 9th. Happy 17th anniversary, Mr. G! and thanks for the marvelous dinner at the top of the Seattle Space Needle.

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Chelsea dressed with care–a slinky black dress cut to indecent depths in back, mile high pumps and jangly jewelry. She piled her hair on top of her head, leaving a few delicate tendrils to graze her neck, to suggest starting points of seduction. There would be a seduction too. She spritzed a light misting of her favorite perfume behind her ears, in her cleavage, behind her knees and in the small of her back. Her pulse quickened slightly, releasing and co-mingling the scent with her own essence, creating a fragrance uniquely her. Admiring her reflection in the mirror before settling down to do her makeup, she smiled.

“This is it,” she whispered. “I can’t believe it’s been a year.”

Tonight was a special night for her and her special man. She gazed at her reflection taking in the tiny frown lines around her mouth, the slight droop of her eyes. Time had dulled the ache but hadn’t erased it entirely. In contrast, her love burned as strongly as it had from the moment it had seized her in its greedy grasp. She could do this. Continue reading →

There are certain things at work that really aggravate me, I mean really, really aggravate me. I’m not yet fifty but sometimes I act and feel like I’m that mean old seventy year old who sits on her porch and yells at the kids to get off her lawn. Today, for example, we experienced extremely sluggish server issues. The main program that our revenue-generators use to track their time and that my staff use to make sure we get paid for that time went on the fritz. IT, in their wisdom sent regular status emails to all 200 employees. Regular also meant many.

The last email they sent was addressed to every single employee with the head honcho of the IT department cc’d for political reasons. Contained within the note were the usual IT-speak phrases–things like, recycling servers, slow response times, regression testing, all designed to make them feel smart and useful and us grateful. The final phrase of the email said, “Please let us know if you continue to experience slow response times.”

An hour later, one of our more aggravating rainmakers, we’ll call him John, responded with his own personal news bulletin that said, “I’ve been slow all day!” While this response in and of itself was enough to be annoying, the worst part was that he did a “reply all”. Everyone in the entire company was notified that John had experienced slow times all day and, dammit, we should all be aware of this! I deleted it after muttering an oath under my breath. Continue reading →