Lunch Break

On a slightly more uplifting note, Target is carrying Tim-Tams again! Oh frabjous day! I can once more indulge my slightly pretentious and well-traveled sweet-tooth without the trouble of international shipping costs. (Or the plane ticket necessary if I wanted to go biscuit-shopping in Sydney.)

Now I just need to find a bakery that sells Lamingtons and my joy will be complete.

Argh.

What? No really. WHAT?

The guy espouses extremist views. He tries to convert his patients. His coworkers are concerned that, if sent overseas, he'll leak information to the enemy or commit fratricide.

And the first conclusion his coworkers and superiors reach is that he might possibly be mentally unstable and unfit to serve. Unfit to serve? To borrow a phrase from my uncle, no ****, Sherlock.

What really frightens me about this article is the underlying supposition that Islamic extremism is a mental disorder that needs to be treated gently. That argument could have disturbing implications. If it is mental illness that causes individuals to blow up buses on crowded streets or shoot their way through a room full of people, it could be argued that terrorists need to be treated instead of punished.

On second thought, I agree. There is an illness in play here and, although I'm not a doctor, I think I can diagnose it. It's called EVIL.

My mother met me outside the building after work this evening. We skittered on over to J.K. O'Donnell's --skittered because my mother did not think to wear her coat and the air was getting nippy as the sun set. Our plan was to do dinner before a 6:30 presentation and book-signing at the library. OF COURSE, beer was expected to be part of dinner. It's a pub (albeit a really nice one). Pub = beer.

Our waiter was so obliging as to choose our drinks for us from their vast menu of fancy-pants imported beers. It's a good thing he did, because I could have spent the entire evening trying to figure out what I wanted. For my mother, he picked Dragon's Milk, to go with her fish'n'chips. When told that I don't care for overly hoppy beers, he chose Belhaven Wee Heavy. It was seriously delicious. And strong. And it went really well with shepherd's pie.

Lunch break

It had been a while since I wore my long suede skirt, and I wasn't sure why. It's fabulous, yet it was at the back of the office closet with my prom dress and salwar kameez.

I took it out and wore it today, and now I remember why it was put away.

This skirt is the loudest piece of clothing I have ever worn. Not loud as in used-car lot salesman's plaid jacket, but loud like a jet engine. Loud like a stadium full of soccer hooligans. The lining of the skirt is the sort of super-slick polyester that makes swishing and screaming noises when it rubs against itself... which means, every time I move. I've been walking around our very quiet office all day sounding like I'm wearing a cheap track suit. Swish-swish swish-swish.

The rustle of silk is nice. So is the soft, crisp swish of a cotton skirt. Polyester just sounds embarrassing.

It's Wednesday, and I have this theory

I think that just as the length of the day, as measured by light, changes over the course of the year, the length of the day, as measured in hours, changes over the course of the week. Just as there is the most daylight at midsummer, Wednesday is definitely the longest day of the week. The hours seem to slow down and stretch out interminably. And, just as the midwinter days are the shortest, the 24 hours from noon Saturday to noon Sunday go SO much more quickly than any other time of the week. These were the thoughts going through my head this Wednesday morning, as I faced the length of the day.

I had one of those mornings.

Nothing looked good enough to eat for breakfast. My white blouse, which I had ironed the night before, was wrinkly again. When I put my shirt on, I found that it had been shrunk in its last trip through the laundry. My hair would not cooperate. I packed a healthy and tasty lunch, which was left on the kitchen counter when I ran out the door. Clearly EVERYTHING was out of whack and the day would be better spent in bed or curled up under a blanket reading something witty.

Things improved a little as I drove to work (except for the fact that I was driving to work and not sleeping or reading my Jeeves biography). It was a beautiful morning and traffic cooperated fairly well. I stopped at the downtown Starbucks for some fake (read: decaf) espresso and a cheese danish. The coffee was hot and the warm cup was exactly what my very cold fingers needed. The danish was--well--a danish, and therefore delicious.

Forgetting my lunch turned out to not be such a disaster. It meant that I had to leave the office and get some sunshine and fresh air in the middle of the day. That little bit of outdoor time woke my brain up and enabled me to face 4 1/2 more hours of work more cheerfully. My lunch from Loaf'n'Ladle came with a gigantic chocolate chip-pecan cookie, which also made everything a little brighter. I only ate a few bites of it (the gooey-oozy-melty chocolate chips represented a clear and present danger to my blouse) and stuck the rest of it back in my purse. . . . Come to think of it, that cookie is waiting for me as I type this.

Mmmm. Chocolate. Maybe Wednesdays aren't so bad after all.

A new career?

Last night, I dreamed I was filming a martial arts movie with Jackie Chan. The main action sequence involved throwing rolls of paper towels across the room--don't ask me why. I remember the director telling me that it didn't matter what moves I made as long as they 1) were unusual, 2) were funny, 3) allowed Mr. Chan to win the fight, and 4) showed off my muscles.

It was at that point that I realized I was dreaming. I don't really have discernible muscles.

Shoulda Known Better

The week before last I surrendered to boredom and ordered The Sims 3 from Amazon.com. It took about 9 days to get here from Lexington, KY, which would be impressive if the Post Office was still using horse-drawn wagons to transport the mail. I got around to installing it on Thursday evening after church.

Oh boy.

I'm doomed. I'll never accomplish anything ever again. Sims 2 was bad enough for wasting time, with entire weekends being eaten up by marathon Sims-sessions. I'm not bragging about this, mind you, but admitting that I have a problem.

So, Thursday evening I stayed up until 11:00 getting acquainted with the game. At first glance that doesn't seem so very late, but when you consider that I needed to get up at 7:00 the next morning, and I have a difficult time functioning on less than 8 hours of sleep. . . . Last night, I was awake until midnight playing with my Sim. I could have kept on going, but my (limited and computer addled) sense finally kicked in and I went to bed.

But please don't judge me for my geeky gamer tendencies. I spend all day being put-together and professional and it feels good to let my brain check-out for the evening.

I took my brothers, my father, and Emma to the Daughtry/Theory of a Deadman/Cavo concert last night. I had intended to post something about that, but my brother beat me to the punch. There doesn't seem to be any sense in repeating what he already said. If you want to know how it was, read what he wrote. I'll just say be succinct and say that the concert was AWESOME.

Ok, so the concert was awesome. Waking up the next morning after a scant 6 hours of sleep? Not so much. The good news is that I was probably not in the same sort of fix as the trampy chicks who sat in front of me.... Well, sat when they weren't running out to buy more beer. I'm sure they had a lovely day today. No hangover here, just one zombified girl who did not get quite enough sleep. "Quite enough" meaning 10 hours.