Areas of Unrest

3 December 2000 - Home Is Where the Errands Are

QOTD: "Before, I had no mental picture of Australia; now I understand it is much like a bowling alley in New Jersey, but bigger and with kangaroos." - Sandra Tsing Loh

Reading: Jonathan Gash, A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair

Listening to: Paris Combo

First of all, I finally finished writing my Manitoba travelogue, complete with polar bear pictures. The digital camera was definitely a worthwhile purchase. I got the two rolls of film I also shot developed and the only picture from those that I might ever bother to scan in is the one of me dressed in a lot of layers. Friends who've seen it pointed out that it could be pretty much anybody inside all those clothes. And I wasn't even wearing the balaclava. It did let me joke that after showing off bear photos, I should show at least one clothed photo.

I was in Boulder for a couple of days, for a design checkpoint that went very well. The weather was okay - cold, but clear. Still, with the risk of winter storms, I prefer staying in Boulder itself if I can. Which means not having breakfast included in the hotel price, allowing for an excursion to Le Peep for one of their breakfast skillets and some thickly cut whole wheat toast. And then there was lunch at Serrano (a taco salad) and dinner at the Boulder Dushanbe Tea House. The latter has changed their menu again and I tried plov, the national dish of Tajikistan, while Mary Joan had their Thai curry. The cannoli I had for dessert didn't fit the Central Asian theme so well, but was good enough considering it wasn't New York.

This coming week features a trip to Washington, D.C. for a conference, followed by yet another trip to Boulder for yet another design checkpoint. So the few days that I'm home are filled with errands. In addition to the photo developing, I bought a calendar for next year and a box of Christmas cards. I balanced the checkbook, sorted through credit card receipts, threw out old catalogs, filed papers and worked on filing away index cards. I write down titles of books to buy and names of restaurants to try and other assorted odds and ends on index cards and then promptly ignore the stacks of cards. Filing them is the first step towards making them usable. It's also a tedious and tiring chore, though.

I still have to finish putting away clothing, clipping coupons, sorting out and discarding expired coupons, filing more index cards, opening some non-urgent mail, washing pantyhose, checking boarding passes against frequent flyer statements, writing checks for charitable donations and a million other items of general household paperwork. I'm really looking forward to Christmas this year, because I'll have a couple of weeks without travel to get caught up at home. I might even get around to dealing with the backlog of email.

On the plus side, all of the business travel this year has meant saving lots of money. My meals are paid for by the company and I'm not using utilities or my car. And when I'm home, I'm too exhausted to go out and spend money! Despite which, I made it to the With Our Words concert last night, which was particularly good. In particular, Kathleen told the best personal story I've ever heard her tell. Speaking of which, I've got to spend time developing one of the stories I want to tell at the Malibu concert in February. I did have a moment of inspiration regarding it, but it still needs a lot of work. I missed Bards since I got home too late on Thursday night, but I'll meet with Penny next weekend to work on our stories.