Well, that was eventful

Got back to work & found that my stuff had been moved from the conference room to my new desk. Which is my old desk, except not next to the window any more. Instead, I'm right outside my boss's office with a view all the way down the hall. Much hustle & bustle & discovering a lot of the jacks don't work & shifting stuff around.

Go through my email and find out cousin C has cancer. Well, that sucks.

The rest of the day was filled more hustle, more bustle, and a lot more well, damn, that sucks.


Today's earrings: leaves, other leaves

Bedtime reading: Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman

Sick again

Colds suck.

Called in sick

no earrings today

Bedtime reading: Sky Island, L. Frank Baum

Never just one

"Beware of monocausal theories."
- Buchanan Sharp

He was talking about the historiography of the English Revolution at the time, but I have found it good advice in general.


Today's earrings: strawberries, chocolate molecules

Bedtime reading: Sky Island, L. Frank Baum

Perspective

Viewed from the distance of the moon, the astonishing thing about the Earth, catching the breath, is that it is alive. Photographs show the dry, pounded surface of the moon in the foreground, dead as an old bone. Aloft, floating free beneath the moist, gleaming membrane of bright blue sky, is the rising earth, the only exuberant thing in this part of the cosmos. If you could look long enough, you would see the swirling of the great drifts of white cloud, covering and uncovering the half-hidden masses of land. And if you had been looking for a very long, geologic time, you would have seen the continents themselves in motion, drifting apart on their crustal plates, held afloat by the fire beneath. It has the organized, self-contained look of a live creature, full of information, marvelously skilled in handling the sun.

- - Lewis Thomas

Today's earrings: flora, swirly blue-green beads

Bedtime reading: Sky Island, L. Frank Baum

Petting zoo postponed

Finished Making Money. (It doesn't quite have the same plot as Going Postal... well, maybe it does.) Late leaving the house.

Tilden was surrounded by detour signs and policemen repelling traffic. We finally found a chink in their armor and slipped through to an unoccupied picnic table by Anza Lake. Threw sticks in the lake with the daughter of friends of friends. Nice girl.

Someone taught D to say, "Acorns are the future," and he brought this out at the table, to great effect. Somewhat later, when most of the assembled had wandered off to throw more sticks in the lake, I looked up and said, "dragonfly." (There was this dragonfly, you see.) At that moment an acorn fell out of the tree we were sitting under and smacked the table right in front of me. The omens are clear: my future is dragonfly.

On the carousel, M was admonished for riding paparazzi-style. Then we went to have a lovely dinner with T&S and A&S.


There are a lot of Ss in this story. Time I came up with better names for you all. A has called Confused Ground Cricket. Who wants to be the the Fainting Goat? Any takers on Grace Darling or Darling Lily?


Today's earrings: llamas, buffalo

Bedtime reading: Sky Island, L. Frank Baum

Harmonics

The bubble table was up in the Exploratorium.
People were walking around on top of the south tower of the GG bridge.
We looked at pictures of ceremonies and houses while D napped.
I had "ricotta lemon" gelato for dessert. They were kidding with the name - it was really lemon chiffon.


Today's earrings: elephants, ebony teardrops

Bedtime reading: Making Money, Terry Pratchett

Good tunes

Kashmir & Old Time Rock and Roll
Misirlou & Pipeline
Good Morning & Super Heroes...

And crawling on the planets face

Some insects called the human race

Lost in time

And lost in space

And meaning (me-ea-ning)

A pointed out all D's songs end in *beep*beep*beep* - which is by Louis Prima.

Still like that old time rock and roll

Today's earrings: flies, blue-and-green globes

Bedtime reading: Making Money, Terry Pratchett

Company picnic

The weather suddenly got all seasonal, so a bunch of us picnicked in somebody's office. Then we walked over the SFMOMA to look at art.

Best thing is a running electric fan head hanging pendulum-style in the atrium, just above head height. It blows itself to wider and smaller swings, depending on which way the fan twists as it goes. Loved it!

The ring-of-poodles installation wasn't out, and the third floor was closed to hang a show... but that fan was worth the trip.


Today's earrings: ants, basketweave spoons

Bedtime reading: Making Money, Terry Pratchett

It's not an expense, it's an *investment*

This evening in Green Apple, a small child attempted to trifle with my stack o' selections. I told him that the book in his hand was intended for my nephew, and wouldn't he prefer the random book I was holding out to him?
"No," he said.
"Hey! My nephew's a Contrarian, too!" I said.
His mother thought that was cute. More important, her trifling son put D's books down.


Today's acquisitions:
1 tube Grace Fibro-Smile Toothpaste with baking soda, xylitol & flouride Original (No Flavor) For Sensetive Teeth [sic]
Sky Island, L. Frank Baum, Books of Wonder nd (reprint)
Making Money, Terry Pratchett, Harper 2007
Case Study Houses, Elizabeth A. T. Smith, Taschen 2007
Hawaiian Legends of Volcanoes, William D. Westervelt, Charles E. Tuttle Company 1964
Rather a lot of children's books
1 complimentary canvas bag with a bright green apple on the side


Today's earrings: diamonds, dice

Bedtime reading: Making Money, Terry Pratchett

Free hand

Today's highlight was discussing my former boss's wedding present with my current boss. I proposed shopping from the registry. She preferred the gift of protein, in mail-order barbecue format. The more we talked, the more adamant she became. I acquiesced, then suggested adding a bottle of champagne for celebratory tone. When we parted, we each had our super-secret spy assignments. She is to find out his first choice of mail-order rib-joints, and I am to take up the collection.


Today's earrings: hands, liberty dimes

Bedtime reading: Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman

A reason to visit LA

I want to see the horned ant exhibit. And get the t-shirt.


Today's earrings: ants, rhinoceroses

Bedtime reading: "Hollywood Chickens," Terry Pratchett

Next week in the conference room

Today we cleared out of our usual workspace... and half the space we were supposed to be temporarily shifting in to wasn't ready. Much doubling up of offices and setting up of tables in hallways. I got one end of the conference room table - looks like there will be five or six of us in there. Not looking forward to it...


Today's earrings: Turtles, other turtles

Bedtime reading: Moving Pictures, Terry Pratchett

Here, lizard, lizard, lizard

Today's earrings: lizards, green eggs

Bedtime reading: The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove, Christopher Moore

Concentration

...not something I'm having much luck with today. Odd, since I had a high concentration of dopamine molecules about my person. Might help if I could get some sleep.


Today's earrings: elephants, dopamine molecules

Bedtime reading: The Cunning Man, Robertson Davies

Reorientation

Spent the day vaguely working and desultorily packing up my desk. The place looks rather different with everyone's detritus in boxes rather than scattered about.

A few other familiar things seen from a novel angle:
http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/2007/09/hover-kitteh.html
http://quislibet.livejournal.com/164084.html
http://theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/


Today's earrings: owls, typewriter keys

Bedtime reading: The Cunning Man, Robertson Davies

The Pied Pepper

This evening I filled Pepper Bunny with mixed peppercorns: black, white, pink, and green. He's the Pied Pepper Bunny. Gerard Manley Hopkins would swoon...


Today's earrings: turquoise, groovy swirly blue & green glass rounds

Bedtime reading: The Cunning Man, Robertson Davies

Piling blocks

While channel-flipping tonight, I ran across a bit of docu about Dale Chihuly's installation in Jerusalem. I was enjoying the Dude! Excellent glass! feeling when they got to the good part. He brought in these massive - looked like about 6'x4'x4' - blocks of ice from Alaska and built a wall of them. Then he got them backlit and let them melt. It took three days.

I am just bowled over. It looked amazing, and there are so many symbolic layers to the thing. I <3 art.


Today's earrings: hands, rocks

Bedtime reading: Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman

Particulates

When I left the house this morning, I was a little bemused that there was fog in the east instead of in the west. It wasn't until this evening until I realized that wasn't fog but a cloud of smoke.

Hope everyone's breathing easily.


Today's earrings: swords, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman

Order the cheese tray

Got dinner at my local Fancy Restaurant. Excellent food, which made me all cheerful-like. The headwaiter guy has found his truelove and is beaming happiness in all directions. awwww

Later, Howie was (finally!) eliminated. Good evening all around.


Today's earrings: compasses

Bedtime reading: Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman

WooHoo!

My business cards came in! I'm official!

Just like a real live girl.
["I was going to put "Real Live Girl" under your title, but HR talked me out of it."
- - Guy who ordered the business cards for me]


Today's earrings: fish, aquamarines

Bedtime reading: Fluke, Christopher Moore

Millbrae Art & Wine Fest

Today's earring purchases:
Glass beads (kinda turquoise/river rock looking)
Glass dice
Porcelain jack o'lanterns
Wee paper cranes


Today's earrings: flowers, leaves

Bedtime reading: Risk, Dick Francis