Good news!

Last week, my staffing agent broke the news that I'd be seventy-three hours short of two thousand hours for the year, meaning I'd just miss accruing (and therefore cashing out for an extra week's pay during unemployment) my second week of vacation. Cue bitterness and feelings of imminent poverty. But she was wrong--turns out I was ( Read more... )

I think the State cafeteria is trying to kill us. Today was Thanksgiving lunch day, which basically serves to remind the entire State workforce that there will be turkey and assorted starches...but not until a full week from now, and not here, so go back to work, drones! THANKS, HILLARY. I don't see YOU eating the green beans amandine, Madam ( Read more... )

The entire agenda for my evening is as follows: 1) Acorn Squash with Chile-Lime Vinaigrette; 2) watch Glee; 3) knit; 4) pack for Rhiiinebeck! Which is tomooooorrow, sort of!

Anything else and I will just burst, or else collapse and not wake up until Thanksgiving. Which would be bad, because then I would miss all the knitting, and seeing carmen_sandiego(The sad ( Read more... )

True story: Meeting notes are deceptively hard. Especially when the meeting is between State and the Brits, and we say things like, "Your efforts at teaching English without cultural appropriation are cute, but WE seek to engage diplomatically and with a distinctly American viewpoint," and they THEY say things like, "Great, American douchebags. You ( Read more... )

Stuff I am into this morning:

- No bus: FAIL this morning! Correct route, no terrorists. YAY.

- National Book Festival tomorrow! Tentatively on the docket: hear Julia Alvarez, John Irving, Junot Diaz?, Judy Blume; see if Paula Deen brought any baked goods, or butter sculptures of baked goods ( Read more... )

I got stuck in my neighborhood this morning, mid-commute, and was almost almost three hours late to work because of a bomb scare at the big mosque on Mass Ave.: I spent half an hour going a half-mile on the bus, then got kicked off the bus, walked down the closed part of Mass Ave. and found that pedestrians weren't allowed to cross the bridge at ( Read more... )

Hello from Oregonnnnn! Lovely Oregonnnnnnn! It has been a good few years since I've spent any time in Oregon--having spent four years crossing from one of its border states to the other, I feel like I have some claim here, plus a couple of friends--and I somehow forgot how beautiful it is. It's like the picture from some organic food label: golden ( Read more... )

So, it is Monday morning, and yet today is also kind of a kickass day, for the following reasons ( Read more... )

Vacation continues apace, mostly in the form of extreme tourist activity, unwise dietary choices (Fuddrucker's twice this week, woo!, plus see below), and TV negotiations (Al suddenly watches cable news like twelve hours a day--she has insomnia and only works part-time--and I'm all, West Wing? FNL? STEP AWAY FROM THE MSNBC NOW). Wednesday, we drove ( Read more... )

Soooo, I think this is what happens when one lets somebody else plan one's vacation. Months ago, my college BFF, Al, said, "Hey, can I spend two weeks with you in July?" And I said, "Sure! Plan whatever you want!" And then I failed to pay attention at ALL, and now she is living on my couch and I'm taking the next eight days off to play, without any ( Read more... )