The End.

of my seven-year publishing career. It is over.

I realized on the drive home today that I get to keep the skills and knowledge I gained there, but the company loses a lot of institutional knowledge with my departure. Interesting, that.

We wait and watch. People ask if I'm excited, sad, happy, nervous...I suppose I am all and none of those at once. I don't really know how I feel, and I often feel that I don't know how I feel. I think it's because I'm a meditator: I can hold lots of feelings at once instead of painting them all one color, and I know not to get too attached to any of those feelings.

Most importantly: 30 Rock premiere tonight!

Last Week.

It's my last week at work. It's weird.

I was treated to drinks at the car of the local Mexican restaurant after work today. It was fun. I'll really miss everyone.

I won't miss the work, though, and I suppose that work is the point of work.

In which I cannot be trusted alone with popcorn.

I have created the caramel popcorn equivalent of a meth lab in my kitchen.

The plan was to reduce my consumption of the addictive, high-calorie dark choolate Moose Munch sent as vendor gifts by creating my own, healthy version at home. A little popcorn, a drizzle of homemade low-fat caramel, a few dark chocolate chips--you get the idea.

Instead, I found this caramel popcorn recipe, which was given 5 stars by 929 users. I had all the ingredients. I set to work. Five stars! Almost a thousand users!

I made supremely decadent, unhealthy caramel popcorn when I set out to do the very opposite. And just now, just now as I found you the above link to Moose Munch, yes, just now, I discovered that Harry & David make a light Moose Munch anyway!

Why? WHYYYYYYYYYYYY?

My popcorn is mighty tasty, though. I may make it in lieu of Christmas cookies this year.

What is WRONG with me?

I need to exercise. I need to do some yoga, in particular. But it's like I'm so stuck in my head from doing research that I've forgotten how, like I am physically incapable of moving from the computer, unless I am armed with a highlighter and ready to read my hardcopy.

I've become an online databasaholic. I think

What if I search the EBSCO with an AND instead of an OR, and the OR term has to be in the abstract, not just anywhere in the text, and then I might get one additional hit, and if the article only has an abstract available, I can look for full text on Google Scholar, and if it's not there, I'll use WorldCat and see if it's an B.U. and then ask G. to find it for me there? Maybe that would find me two more articles! I already have 14 and I only need 10 for next week, but I'm on a ROLL!

ARRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

This Week in Surprises

1. A small mermaid was frightened by my innocuous pirate hat at the office Halloween party.
2. The Microsoft Word menu seems to be slightly different between platforms.
3. The parts of NCLB I'm reading are surprisingly good.
   3A. Apparently most of the screw-ups are thanks to state interpretation and implementation.
4. Sometimes? When you RTFM? It really does answer your questions about how to use the online library.
5. Buying health insurance through the state website in MA is surprisingly like choosing a flight. Little comparison tables.
   
6. When you get more student loan than you need for tuition, the college sends you a big, fat check that makes you breathe a whole lot easier, and will handily cover health insurance costs.
   

Dislike and a Like

There is a woman at volleyball who resembles nothing so much as a terrier.


I dislike terriers. They are aggressive, yappy, noisy, pushy, uncouth, clueless things.

I relate well to cats.


It would be a foolish experiment to put a cat and a terrier in a room together. If one were to be supremely foolish and put a cat and a terrier together for 90 minutes every Tuesday, eventually blood would be drawn. This is not because the terrier is inherently bad; nor is the cat inherently bad. It is because terriers and cats are so fundamentally different as to be completely incompatible.

There is no room large enough for a cat and a terrier to cohabitate peacefully. The cat will attempt to get away from the terrier, but the oblivious terrier will chase the cat in order to yap at it more. This will not do. The cat can only take so much of the terrier before she strikes. The terrier will whimper and not understand what happened.

Terriers are dumb.

On a happier note, I freaking LOVE this stuff:

Signor Lorenzo

Today, we celebrated G's birthday with lunch at Lorenzo's, a venerable Italian restaurant and local landmark since 1950. (Normally I avoid naming specific locations on this blog in the interest of relative anonymity, but I want all who stumble across this humble page to visit Lorenzo's, eat lots and lots of delicious, reasonably priced food, wash it down with some house wine, and chase it with dessert. Go! Eat at Lorenzo's! Mangia! You look too thin! Mangia!)

Lorenzo's was a great location for our purposes, an hour's drive for us, an hour's drive for G's mom, an hour's drive for my brother, and half an hour for my parents. My sister was home for the weekend for a high school chum's wedding, so even she could join us. We were lucky. Everyone was in good spirits, and we had a convivial afternoon.

I ordered chicken livers in marsala sauce. It's a surefire way to prevent anyone from nabbing food from my plate, but in fact, I just really, really like liver, and G. hates it, so I eat it out when I can. My sister agreed to try it. She said, "I don't like it, but I respect you." Later, when my Dad teasingly asked her what she thought of the liver, she replied, "It's disgusting!" It is not. And someday, when everyone else is pale and fatigued with anemia, I shall be rosy-cheeked and whistling a happy tune. Except that I can't whistle. Sad, isn't it?

After we ate desserts and drank coffee, an older, fit man with a shock of thick, wavy white hair, came to our table. It was Lorenzo himself! I charmed him with my three or four words of Italian, and he rewarded me by sharing that he was originally from northern Italy. He told us that optimism was his secret in life, and that he would turn 87 years old in two months. Eighty-seven! He looked about 70 at tops. My dad shared that we were celebrating G's birthday, and Lorenzo asked if we had a cake. We said that no, we had canoli and tiramisu, and they were delicious. Lorenzo would not hear of it. He looked around the room. "Are you their waitress? Bring them a cake! It's his birthday!" No no, we insisted, we were fine. Lorenzo would not hear of it. "Bring them a cake! Bring them a cake!" While we waited for the cake, Lorenzo asked me in Italian if my brother was my husband. I set him straight. He chatted with us about his wife's after-church bingo habits and how his optimism got him through both colon cancer and prostate troubles, and soon a candle-topped cake with blue and white icing was carried glowing into the room. We all sang, including Lorenzo. We thanked him, me in Italian, and then he meandered to the next table to say hello.

Although we were already stuffed, we ate cake. It was good.

Grazie mille, Signor Lorenzo!