Sunglasses Adventure

Yesterday I forgot my Famous Hat and sunglasses in Travalon's car, so this morning when I went to grab them, they were gone. I had been planning to take the bus to work, or at least take the first bus and then walk from the closest stop, since I wasn't sure of the schedule of the bus that goes down the street where I now work. (An excellent bonus of working on Monroe Street: you get 10% off at restaurants on the street.) I had already driven and biked to see how long those options take and was curious about the bus option, which was the one I used most often when heading to my former job. I didn't want to walk all the way down Monroe Street without my Famous Hat and sunglasses, so what I ended up doing was taking my bike on the bus and then biking down Monroe Street to minimize my time out in the bright sun. That is actually an excellent option, and I may be utilizing it often. However, I still need to get home using some combination of biking and riding the bus, so I went in search of sunglasses. Why not have a backup pair, right? (I do have a pair in my car, but since I park under a different building than the one I live in, it would have taken too long to get those this morning.) The first place I went to seemed promising, but they only had $50 sunglasses. The man assured me that these sunglasses would cost $100 in a department store. Knowing how frequently I lose or break sunglasses, I was more in the market for a cheap pair, and luckily further down Monroe Street there is a pharmacy that had just what I was looking for. So now I can ride home knowing my eyeballs will not be scorched by the sun's rays.

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Email Oops

So here’s what I meant to do: select all the emails in my Sent folder and delete them. Here’s what I did instead: select all the emails in my Inbox and delete them. Then I immediately emptied the trash before realizing my mistake, so there’s no getting those messages back. OOPS!! Hopefully there was nothing too important in my inbox. I have a funny feeling a lot of it was not important, and everything I can think of was actually saved in another folder for posterity, so maybe it really was all a bunch of junk. Light Bright has come to my house a couple of times to help me get rid of paper mail, and I seem to have the same problem with email, so this was the electronic equivalent of taking all my mail and burning it. Anyway, if you were expecting a reply from me about something and don’t get it, this may be the reason.

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New Job

It's hard to say how my new job is going to go. You know how it is at the start: everything seems overwhelming. Also, the person who is going to train me was out today, so other people were showing me things. I did enjoy running across the street for a lunch of steamed mussels - beats eating lunch at the cafeteria! I am most intrigued by an article published in one of the Press's journals. It uses the word "epistemology" constantly and discusses how "hued" and "hewed" sound the same. The piece of literature being critiqued is an 80-page poem that seems to exist solely for the purpose of being analyzed. Silly me, I thought poetry was supposed to be language that sounded beautiful. Of course it should have deeper meaning as well, but I always took issue with those poems that had to have footnotes every other word just to explain all the allusions. Maybe I am not truly a poet at heart but a lyricist; I want to say what I mean in the most beautiful language possible, not make obscure references.

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Last Day on the Job

This is it – my last day at this job! I have been here five years, since before I started this blog, so it’s going to feel very strange going somewhere else on Monday morning. I will miss my office mate Light Bright, my window, the coffee place here, and some of the people I work with. People have been giving me things all day: a beautiful bouquet (see photo below), rhubarb crisp, gift certificates for a bookstore and a clothing store. It finally seems real that I am leaving. My new job is in publishing, and I get my own FREE parking space – everyone here is so jealous! It will be so tempting to drive every day, but I will try to bike and/or bus it whenever possible. (Now my bus trip involves a transfer.) Most significant for you, my readers, is that I do not know how often I will get a chance to blog now, since I may be very busy. I will try to check in at least once a week.

Here is the lovely purple bouquet a coworker brought me from her garden. It smells as wonderful as it looks!

Light Bright will be OK, she has a student hourly to help her out until they hire my replacement.

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Farewell Loot

At least a couple of people are sorry to see me go. Someone gave me wooden roses as a going away present.

And someone else gave me live plants. They know me too well here!

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Short Story: She Put Down the Book

A story for you today:

She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door.  It hadn’t been a very good book, she reflected as she walked out into the sunlight.  Romances put her in an odd mood, since she had always been so unlucky in love in her own life.  Why did she want to read about someone else’s good fortune in love, no matter how different her circumstances?

Because she was so lost in her gloomy thoughts, she almost tripped over the rabbit sitting on the sidewalk.  At the last minute she realized there was a foreign object in her path and adroitly sidestepped it.  Then she looked down in surprise.  Why was the rabbit not moving?  She would have expected it to flee long before she got close enough to nearly step on it.  She bent down to examine it, but it did not appear to be injured.  It hopped forward slowly, stopped, and looked back at her.  It repeated this maneuver several times, and she had the impression it wanted her to follow it.  Curious, she indicated her willingness to follow, and the rabbit took off in the direction of the railroad tracks with her in hot pursuit.  She enjoyed running after the rabbit, as if she were playing a game of tag, but the creature was in deadly earnest. 

It led her to where another rabbit was curled up in a ball of pain in the shadows of a honeysuckle bush, and she saw one of its back legs was caught in a trap. Who would have done such a thing, she wondered angrily as she worked to free the trapped rabbit.  Its mate stood beside her, watching avidly as she pried the jaws of the trap open.  Once the rabbit was freed, she inspected its wounded leg, took some salve out of her pocket, and liberally applied it to the wound.  The rabbit stood tentatively on its sore leg, then it kissed her hand gratefully and hopped off into the woods, and its mate did the same.  She continued on her way, pondering the book she had read and the scene she had just witnessed.  Strange to think that humans could write such tender words about romance and then invent such terrible ways to torture their fellow creatures. 

It was a gorgeous early summer day.  The birds were singing in the trees, and she pulled out a camera and took photos of the birds, the trees, and the wildflowers growing along her path.  She recorded the birdsong and marveled at the variety of life in the forest.  She found a shady tree to sit beneath and pulled a journal and writing implement from her pocket.  The book had been a diversion and not part of her original mission, but she supposed she should mention it.  Her boss wanted to know about these humans, and she had certainly gleaned some information about them from their primitive literature.  She wrote about the humans’ house, the book she had read, and her observations about the rabbits.  Then she wrote her conclusion:

“While there are life forms on this planet capable of advanced communication, they do not seem to have much respect for the other life forms around them.  I therefore respectfully submit my recommendation that we do not pursue contact with them.”  She closed the journal and sighed; off to another planet.  Well, it beat a desk job.

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Bunny Birthday Bash

Sorry for my long silence. I have been very busy preparing to leave my current position.

Friday night Travalon and I went to Captain Bill’s, and we ended up getting our appetizers, drinks, and dessert for free! We also went to Le Tigre Lounge, where the bartender told us all about how this has been a great year for morel mushrooms. He has two chickens named Axl and Slash who lay a lot of eggs, so he has been having plenty of morel omelets. Saturday Travalon and I went to Scottish Fest, where I had a haggis pasty and a Scottish candy bar, which was basically sugar and butter. Sugar overload! We watched pipe and drum bands, and I was excited to find Clan Hat represented there. Our goal: stay at the Hat Family Castle! Then we went to an Irish Pub called The Pub for dinner.

Saturday Charlie my boy rabbit turned nine, so Sunday afternoon I had a little party for him with carrot cake and carrot juice. (Yes, he got to eat some carrot cake.) Richard Bonomo, Kathbert, Jilly Moose, Luxuli, and her husband came, while Catzookz was hiking, Travalon was working, and A-Joz the Bunny Sitter was busy. Charlie loved being the center of attention and ran around to everyone asking for snuggles, but Cashmere was more antisocial after an unfortunate incident earlier that afternoon when Hardingfele and I were cutting her nails, and I accidentally pulled one out. I had no bunny games planned, but the topic of bad church music came up, so that led to a dramatic reading of my story “Polyhymnia.” Travalon texted that I should pet the birthday bunny for him, and later he texted to ask how “Bunny Bash 2013” had gone. I’d say it was a success!

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