QOTD: "In reality, killing time is only the name for another of the multifarious ways by which Time kills us." - Sir Osbert Sitwell
Reading: Jonathan Kellerman, Doctor Death
Listening to: Eric Bogle, Endangered Species
Decluttering accomplishments: shredded lots of old financial stuff, mailed off three more afghans
This was an insanely busy week at work, which was not entirely unexpected since people are catching up from the holidays and that inevitably means them giving us work to do. It wasn't horribly stressful, except for one phone conversation with a person I've disliked and mistrusted almost from the moment I met him. Even that I handled well, refusing to get drawn into arguments with him. For anybody else who might have reason to know this, don't tell me that a policy has been changed when I have a signed letter in front of me from a high level official stating that the policy applies to any program that hasn't had it waived. Said letter listed exactly which three programs had the waivers and ours wasn't one of them. Later in the conversation, it was even more apparent how out of touch this guy is. When he finally thought to ask about why I was interested in the subject, he found out what my current job is. (Other big hint: you should ask this stuff up front or at least pull up the relevant information from our corporate internal web site.) Then he asked me what happened to the person who used to have it. Except the person he named hasn't been in this job in over five years and there were two other people between him and me.
Anyway, I have a few followups from the past couple of entries. First of all, I sort of had it wrong about Washington, D.C. street names. There are no one-syllable names, except for the letter names themselves. And they only go up to three syllables. Arlington, however, starts their naming with one-syllable words and then adds syllables, getting up to four. The alphabet still makes a handy mnemonic for figuring out if you're going in the right direction in a somewhat unfamiliar neighborhood. In fact, the only other halfway useful street name mnemonic I know is for downtown Seattle. "Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Protest." I know there are two streets for each letter, the "P"s are "Pike" and "Pine" and one of the "U"s is "University".
Would that Fairfax County had any sort of rational street naming plan. Or any halfway rational plan for anything involving finding your way around. I mention this because Jan Yarnot reacted strongly to my statement that I barely know where my local library is. Actually, I know perfectly well where it is, but I get lost every time I try to get there. It's on a major road and I can drive past it just fine, but I have yet to figure out how to actually get into the parking lot. I think you have to turn left on the street before the library, which would be fine if that street had an actual street sign. As it is, you're halfway past the library before you can see the library sign. And it isn't as if the library looks any different than any other brick building in that area. There's something aesthetically pleasing about architectural uniformity, but it makes it hard to identify buildings from a distance. Despite my deficiencies, I will point out that Jan read only 118 books last year, while I read 119.
I also had another note on the Malawi vampire story. It seems that the rumor is not just that the government is in league with vampires, but that they're specifically selling the blood to international aid organizations. This makes the story even more intriguing, as it conjures up an image of a vampiric Robin Hood.
Which brings me to another news story about Africa. This one is just horrifying. Namely, there is some evidence that troops in the Congo are engaging in cannibalism. Specifically, the soldiers employ Pygmies to hunt for them. Those who aren't successful enough in hunting are eaten.
On a cheerier note, I ran across the suggestion of an excellent word for one aspect of the current world situation. "Iraqnophobia" is a great description of why some people think Saddam should be squashed like a spider.
I also wanted to note two advertisements. One was for a house that has a 560 square foot garage. I suspect that if you averaged living space per family around the world, you'd come up with something smaller than that. And what to fill all that space with? You might want to stock up on a product that I predict will be short-lived. I realize that Palmolive is just following a trend, but I can't understand why anybody would buy Aromatherapy dishwashing liquid. Maybe that's just because washing dishes is one household chore that I don't really mind. As long as you do it whenever there's stuff to be washed, it doesn't take very long. I know that not everybody does the "wash as you go along" method of cleaning up from cooking, but they should! And the people who leave it all to the end don't strike me as the sort of people who'd get de-stressed by aromatherapy oils faster than they'd get stressed over their filthy kitchens.
I don't actually spend all of my time reading odds and ends in search of news stories and ads to make fun of. My busy week at work was followed by a hectic weekend. I'd vaguely planned to go to the Virginia Storytelling Alliance meeting and concert at the Centreville Library, but just had too many errands to run yesterday. In the course of errand running, I learned something useful. Namely, the Dunn Loring post office is open until midnight on weekdays and until eight on Saturday. This will make it much easier the next time I have packages to ship.
I rewarded myself for errand running by using up two more of my free movie coupons. (I have two more that expire this month, so be warned.) I thought About Schmidt was well-written and well-acted, but it was horribly depressing. The trailer had made it look like a comedy, but the laughs are really there mostly to keep the entire audience from dying of despair before the movie is halfway over. Maid in Manhattan was more upbeat, but less original. It was just okay (i.e. worth watching for free). The best point was that somebody figured out how to make Ralph Fiennes attractive. Maybe it's just me, but I'd always thought he was destined to be a character actor, not a romantic lead. And, even better, in the one scene where he is shirtless, they have him covered up with a sheet. If he's chest hair deficient, I didn't have to see.
I also went to a story swap in Crystal City last night, which was a lot of fun. In the chit chat that followed, I even got a recommendation of a good place to buy coffee. (I am an unrepentant coffee snob. The most important aspect of a coffee shop is roasting their own beans. Well, that and not burning them to Starbucks uniformity. What's the point of buying a nice Celebes if you're going to char it so badly that it might as well be a wimpy Colombian?)
The person who hears my coffee rants most often is my colleague, Alex. He's had a particularly bad week in that sense, as he was given a bag of Colombian beans, which has been sitting on his desk since he doesn't have a coffee grinder. This prompts me to comment every now and then that the right way to grind them would be to take his car and run over them, as motor oil could only improve the flavor. Fortunately, he has a good sense of humor. In fact, his latest theory is that everybody over a certain rank should be entitled to a bard to sing their praises. He's taken to singing some examples of how this would work. For now, he mostly sings his own praises and I can only hope it stays that way.
Copyright 2003 Miriam H. Nadel