In No Particular Order

I saw a sunset so beautiful last night that it made my heart ache – in a good way.

Yesterday my boss left her keys in the car’s ignition. She didn’t believe me when I looked in her car window and saw them hanging from the steering column. Fortunately, the door was unlocked, as she hadn’t been able to lock it since she didn’t have her keys with her. Even more fortunate – the car was in a covered parking garage for employees.

Monday night as I was headed out of the office, the elevator that I was on came to a jerking halt and stopped suddenly. The floor indicator thought we were at the second floor. Nothing happened for several seconds – which, when you’re in that situation, feels more like several minutes. I hesitantly inched over to the control panel to see if there was a way to contact the security guard station. My finger was poised, ready to hit the alarm button w hen suddenly the engine started up again and we (the elevator and I) descended ever so slowly and gently to the first floor. The doors tentatively opened, and I immediately told the security guard about what had just happened. He fearlessly stepped into it to investigate things for himself. I felt somewhat gratified that there was an “Out of Order” notice on the doors the next morning.

When I came into work Tuesday morning there was a page torn out from one of those daily calendar things and placed on my computer keyboard. It was a picture of a little girl, posed in a portrait studio, holding a skunk. The caption simply said, “Skunked.” It was … odd, to say the least. I figured out later that it was put there by the office dweller closest to my cube. He was having a bad day on Monday, which I commiserated with him about. He apparently thought it a fair gift in return to share with me this strange picture of the skunked girl. I asked him today if his week was getting any better and he said he was reminded of the great quote by Norm in “Cheers” when asked how it was going: “It’s a dog-eat-dog world and I’m wearing Milk Bone underwear.”

Someone posted on my last entry wanting to know why I referred to the reverse-garbage thief as a "he." I could be snarkily sarcastic and say it's because men are always the bad guys, but that's not really true. Or I could take the traditionalist view and say it's a man's job to take out the trash, but if that were the case, my garbage would never get taken out. Instead I will give you the real answer - I generally write in a gender-neutral tone. Until identified or more clues are provided, I will use "he," not because I assume it's a man, but because it's prettier than he/she, which I've seen used and is just awkward.


On a related note, no unwanted garbage was placed in our bin this week. Maybe my sign is working...?

I leave for Europe next week. Well, not the entire continent – just an itty bitty part of it, but no matter. I’M GOING TO EUROPE NEXT WEEK! Specifically, Paris. I’m flying to London, taking the train to Paris, there for three days (sad face) then fly back out of London and home. The girls are doing an extended version of it and get to be in London for four or five days before returning home. Remember how we wanted to go to Europe to celebrate Linda’s 50th birthday? This is that. We’re doing it now. Yay, us! Seriously. I’m very excited about this. C and I placed our funny-money order today at lunch. Passports are valid, travel tickets purchased and hotel rooms procured. All that’s left to do is travel and enjoy. And deal with some jet lag when I get back, but that’s just fine.

Other updates shortly forthcoming:

There are about 8 ½ weeks left until I run my half marathon. I know you’ve been dying for a progress report. I’ve been dying to give you one.

I registered for the Huntsman 140 yesterday. I will be riding with two of my sisters – one who did it last year and two of us who are riding to support her. Another sister will be part of the transportation and “ground support” team, as well as I imagine various nieces and nephews.