The short week at work before Thanksgiving was, as I predicted, both hectic and boring. Amidst all of the budget swirlex I was working, I missed an important celebrity death. Cy Coleman was one of the greatest of the second tier of Broadway composers. City of Angels is a particularly memorable score. In another era, one song from that ("With Every Breath I Take") would have become a standard. Other works, such as Sweet Charity, Barnum, and Little Me are certainly notable and, while I don't particularly care for it myself, Will Rogers Follies was a big hit.
Even the day before Thanksgiving, traditionally a slow day where people get out of work early, was insane. We had a non-turkey luncheon, provided by our division chief. Unfortunately, it was accompanied by a bit of moderately offensive preaching on the part of one of the secretaries. That was followed by having people say what they were thankful for and, despite being tempted to say something along the lines of being thankful for religious freedom, I held my tongue.
I should also mention that I had my performance review, which was extremely positive. We chatted some about future directions for my career and my boss essentially said that he would like to try to get me a promotion. He also encouraged me to remain within his organization, versus looking for other opportunities. So, no, I didn't bring out the "oh, by the way, I'd really like to disappear for several months" speech.
I did, however, disappear for several days. I'd planned this excursion about a month or so ago, on the grounds that I ought to use up U.S. Air miles before the airline folds. So on Thanksgiving Day, I braved National Airport and a 45 minute or so security line to fly to San Juan, Puerto Rico. I'll do a real trip report eventually, but here are a few quick notes on that enchanted island.
The most obvious tourist attraction is the El Yunque Rain Forest and it was, indeed, worth a visit. It was lush and foresty and rainy. The more nerdy tourist attraction is the Arecibo Observatory, which has the largest radio telescope in the world. It was a big thrill for me (and for a fellow nerd on the tour), but normal people seemed less impressed. That excursion also included a visit to the Rio Camuy Caves, which provided pretty much your standard tourist cave experience. I also did a certain amount of wandering around San Juan on my own. The old city is reasonably pleasant, though a bit confusing and somewhat marred by having a lot of the same sorts of shops we have at home. I did have one day that I spent mostly between the beach, pool, and casino, leading me to have a brief "help, I'm turning into my mother" moment, until I remembered that my mother has never actually been seen in the water and certainly has no clue as to what to do with a snorkel. I also was reminded that the probabiity of my remembering how to work the underwater camera at the exact moment that I'm seeing a fish is remarkably low. You will have to take my word for it that I saw several damselfish. I also saw a black sea urchin, which got me to swim fairly quickly to another part of the beach.
I came home Tuesday night, unpacked, and packed immediately for a business trip to L.A.. Our Wednesday meeting was fairly lively. On Thursday I accompanied Mark on his familiarization trip to one of our contractors. So we got to kick the tires on part of the satellite, so to speak. (We did get to go into one of the areas where you have to do the shoe cleaner and smock thing, but not the full bunny-suit experience.) It was a reasonably productive trip, but tiring. So the weekend has been spent doing various household catching up and so on.
One of those errands was grocery shopping, by the way. Whole Foods had something called a "Buddha's Hand" in the produce aisle. I bought it based on a mix of its weirdness and beauty. Alas, I looked it up in one of my various culinary references when I got home and discovered that I spent nine bucks on what is, essentially, a lemon. Oh, well, it is the most beautiful lemon I've ever seen, which is saying a lot since lemons have high aesthetic value to start with.
Copyright 2004 Miriam H. Nadel