You have been decorated

Hullo, my worthy readers. I keep having blog ideas; generally at work, where blogging is strictly forbidden. And then I forget them all by the time I get home.

This week at work, we've chiefly been decorating. There's a Christmas decoration contest, and the first day was Monday. So Monday I trot along with $5 worth of garland from Target, and a couple packages of clear and red ornaments, and a string of lights, and a cookie jar full of cookies. I'd been meaning to bring cookies for a while, particularly for John the Conference-Goer, John my supervisor, and Steven, because I gave John the Conference-Goer an almond one the other day and he got all happy. I think they're all single guys and don't get cookies very much. "COOKIE COOKIE COOKIE!"

Anyway, my cube turned out very pretty and classy, and the cookies made me a lot of friends. Bethany, whom I helped train, turned one down because of her diet, but Beverlie from by the elevator was so excited she kept coming back for more, and her seatmate Chad came to try one and find out what all the fuss was about. Dawn was so enthusiastic about the cookie jar, she came back later that week with a cookie for me, and said I'd inspired her, though not too much--this was just a slice 'n bake cookie. She can't make real cookies. The homemade chocolate chip ones she attempted burned. I thought Dawn's slice 'n' bake cookie was pretty good and sympathized with her about the chocolate chip wreckage. Anyway, the cookie jar was duly emptied, and I brought it home again.

The section immediately to my right decorated themselves as the reindeer stable, complete with antler headbands, felt buckets full of "feed," "wooden doors," and a clever sign about "No flash photography" and "Unattended children will be hired as elves." Everybody's nametag got revamped: Matt, whose wedding is in about three weeks, got dubbed "Cupid." Christie over across the way covered her cube walls with brown paper and candy and icicle light "frosting" as a Gingerbread Cube, and shared the candy. (She became popular too.)

Well, this was a competition. On Tuesday the next section over got themselves up as a Christmas village with little doormats for each cubicle. Things escalated. A quadrant over to my left became "Paradise," palm trees, leis, and all. Another section decided to be Candyland. Somebody put up a Grinch theme that plays the "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" song occasionally. Someone else labeled the support column by the printer "The North Pole." Another section, spearheaded by Dawn of the cookies, had a ginormous Santa banner.

And even Ben, in the cube next to mine, became Santa's Workshop. Two little elves by his right elbow have tools, and a "conveyor belt" carries matchbox cars, GI Joes, tiny rubber duckies, and itty-bitty Play-Doh containers up the cube wall, around the edge, and up to his shelf to the "Gift-Wrap-O-Matic", whence a string of tiny packages trails down and into Santa's big black bag. He has a funny sign about "Remember, There's No I In Elf."

On Friday, Julie my new team leader, draggled in late. She commented on the state of affairs with a certain amount of disgust. "Even the tech guys decorated their area. I didn't think they had it in them." Their area was a snow-filled masterpiece with black accents, and little squishy-ball computers on the corners.

I spent my morning break scoping out the other floors' decorations--I wanted to find out about the competition, you see. There really wasn't much--a knickknack here, a lit-up coatrack there. The third floor was positively dark, but then it usually is. I think it's because the extraneous boxes of legal documents get piled there like a young pyramid of doom, but that's neither here nor there.

Well, about this time, there wasn't a whole lot left to decorate on our floor. Rebecca, immediately to my left, and my friend Greer the guitarist, cati-corner from me, were wrapping-paper-ing their cube walls. Greer and I get to talking, and note that Jim who sits just past Greer is gone to New York and didn't decorate his cube before he left.

Gasp. Well, this is obviously not acceptable. So we decorated for him. She had a white sheet and a string of silver balls left over, and Rebecca had some gaudy sparkly blue and red paper left from her cube. I showed Greer and her seatmate Sara how to cut a six-sided snowflake and we had a lovely time. Won't Jim be excited to come back and see how festive his cube is? :-)

Parking woes

Olwen and I had a new experience this morning. I couldn't get out of the car.

You see, we have a rather cramped little parking lot, and the blue sparkly convertible I generally park next to was over its line. I park normally: "I can do it!" But I couldn't, of course. I opened the door, thought skinny thoughts, and tried. One foot made it out. I thought skinnier thoughts! I squeezed! I made a serious and determined effort not to get white paint on the blue sparkliness next door! And I was definitely not able to get out.

Ah, well. I moved Olwen over--rather to the bemusement of the parking lot guard--and got myself out and up and to work. The moral of the story is that sparkly blue convertibles ought to stay in their own parking spaces.

Cross-reference rainbow

In honor of the first Sunday in Advent, I post this graph of the interconnectedness of Scripture. It's beautiful. My thanks to The Point.

Through long ages of the past
Prophets have foretold His coming.
Through long ages of the past--
Now the time is come at last...

We didn't mean to go to Leesburg

No, seriously. We didn't. We meant to come straight-ish back from New Jersey, where we'd been having Thanksgiving with Jonathan's family. We were on the Beltway, looking for the Route 7/Tyson's corner exit. But instead we were deceived by signage into taking the "straight road to Dulles Airport" exit, from which there are no exits until the airport itself, except for toll roads which we were just not motivated to take. I had not been aware there was a straight road from the Beltway to Dulles; but so there is. We'd been making really good time on the trip and had hoped to be home by two.

The Straight Road to Dulles was rather insult to injury, as it happens. It was the second time that trip we got stuck on roads with no exit for miles. Grr. The first time, we were nearing Jonathan's parents' house. We could almost reach it. Yours truly, Navigatrix, thoughtlessly told the Driver we wanted Exit 3 and settled down with an Anne book, when in fact we wanted Exit 2. The Driver actually believed the Navigatrix, which is sort of scary. We pass Exit 2 -- "We didn't want the Swedesboro exit, did we?" "Yes. OH NO!" --and call up his mother for directions home, as neither of us had the foggiest notion where the next exit might land us. Sigh. Fortunately it spat us out close to his old church, but still.

So there we were, at an entirely unnecessary airport. We figured, while we were so close, we might as well call up my sister and have lunch. So we met her and Danae and had a glorious time. We also tried to call Kay, but couldn't get a hold of her. But all good times must end, even barbecue, so we steeled ourselves for the three-hour jaunt south across Virginia.

It was all right. 15 and 17 were actually decent regarding traffic, and we had fudge sundaes around 3:30. But then we got onto 95 south. Whimper. I prayed for a spot to merge into, and it's a good thing, because the traffic was bumper-to-bumper. It cleared out a bit after Fredericksburg, enough that we could go the speed limit, but the traffic coming north was much worse. We had a solid ribbon of taillights going 65, and they had a solid ribbon of headlights going about zero.

We got home around five, and discovered a certain lack of milk and eggs and bread in the house. We seriously debated having Chinese leftovers for breakfast, but dismally concluded we ought to get groceries. So off we go. Again. They were nice to us at Ukrops, and we came away with the eggs and b.

And I checked my phone, to discover we'd missed a call from Ben and Lisa. They were driving up through town today from the Deep South and wondered if we were interested in company. We'd missed them by about half an hour. Argh! And I had another message from Kay calling back. She hadn't gotten my call because she spent today flying home from Italy.

Isn't this an amazing life we live? We can, literally, get from almost anywhere to anywhere in a day, and know people who do.

But some days the road seems really, really long....

Our own Dr. Mitchell on the economy

Thanks to my excellent husband for forwarding me this article by our own Dr. Mitchell. I like the bit about dusting off the old-fashioned virtues of thrift and humility. And yes, you caught me blogging about the economic crisis. Enjoy it: it will be rare. :-)

A world where there are Octobers

"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn't it? Look at these maple branches. Don't they give you a thrill--several thrills?"

Anne of Green Gables, chapter XVI: "Diana Is Invited to Tea with Tragic Results"

Nearly the half of October gone

Hullo, all,

I beg your pardon for the delay in posting. It's been an active couple of weeks. I went up to PHC for Homecoming, had a birthday, interviewed to help with Sunday School at the new church, and started a new job. I'm doing a "long-term temp" assignment, which should mean about six months, and I'm reviewing claims for a law firm, medical details and all. I am now a fifth-floor cubicle minion.

Olwen doesn't care for Broad Street traffic on the way home, but we both rather like Cary Street going out in the morning. It's green and tree-lined and there are nifty shops and old houses. Unfortunately it's one way, so we can't take it coming back. In other news, I bought a new plant for my cubicle. It's a schefflera, much smaller than Bertie Woozle, and answers to the name Nellie. Bertie didn't get to go because he's grown too much, and in any case he's comfortably esconced in the upstairs bathroom.

Merry still scampers around her cage, but her eye isn't any better. Poor mousie.

Jonathan still likes law school. He spent today writing an assignment and will probably spend all day tomorrow studying for his midterm on Friday. And now, if you'll excuse me, we're just about off to small group. :-)

Why I married Jonathan

Me: "That napkin ring couldn't be worse with that napkin. In the clash of color, the green loses. Here, hand me that green napkin ring and put the amber one on. Thank you."

Jonathan replaces the green one with an amber one, which sure enough does match the red-and-blue batik napkins somewhat better. He then puts the green one on his knife and his implements start to talk to one another.

'Duel, villain! Shwobo!'
'Die with honor!'
'Hey, no fair! Ancestors avenge me! I die with honor.'
Jonathan: "An arms race soon developed." The spoon now joined the conversation.

I married him because he's the only man on earth to combine napkin rings and anime. So there. :-)

These jigging fools

I just finished re-reading Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and noticed something. There are two poets in the play, both introduced after Caesar's assassination, and both get ill-treated because of the civil war.

Both are short scenes. The first is III.3, when Cinna the Poet is mysteriously wandering around ("I have no will to wander forth of doors, /Yet something leads me forth"). Some of the plebeians roused by Antony's speech find him, confuse him with Cinna the Conspirator, and then, when they find out he's another Cinna, they kill him for his bad verses.

The second scene is just a short segment of IV.3. An unnamed poet noticed now-generals Brutus and Cassius arguing and insisted on seeing them to try and make peace. Their guards try to stop the poet, but he bursts in and urges them to be friends, in rhyme (which was unfortunate). They malign his rhyming and chuck him out.

Caesar is about demagoguery and violence, of course. But why should the victims specifically be poets? Is poetry perhaps a tool for a more civilized age, like a lightsaber? When the murderous plebs roved about, they'd have found an excuse to kill nearly anyone. But the one they did kill was ill-equipped to fight them on their own sharp pokey terms. He used his skills, answering them with a certain amount of wit and humor, but they didn't bother to refute him. You don't bring a wit to a knife-fight, and the yelling and sword-waving won.

The poet in the camp has determination, I'll give him that. The "Nothing but death shall stay me" to the guards is an indicator. Presumably he saw Cassius and Brutus arguing outside the tent, before Brutus' "Pas devant les infants" moment, when he pulled Cassius inside. But actually the generals had already more or less solved their differences and pledged everlasting friendship when the poet burst in.

Brutus threw a fit. Cassius asked him to "bear with him," just as he had asked Brutus to bear with himself a moment earlier. Brutus answered, "I'll know his humour when he knows his time: / What should the wars do with these jigging fools? / Companion, hence!" And Cassius, apparently convinced, joined him in kicking the poet out.

I think that line of Brutus' is a big part of it. The poet came too late, and in any case he thinks poets don't belong at war. But there seems to be more. It's not just the brute-like plebeians who disdain poetry, now: the very cultured ones who sneered at the plebeians aren't doing any better. If anyone, anyone had respected poets, you would expect it to be Brutus: the only conspirator who acted high-mindedly, out of love for Rome, and not from sordid ambition. But Brutus is the first to toss the poet out.

Or should the Romans have listened to the poets, now when their world is wobbling all over? Every time poets turn up, their verses get maligned. Cinna seemed to be out wandering because the gods sent him a dream and then compelled him to go out. Did the gods themselves conspire against them? Were the poets inadequate, or is Poetry inadequate, or was the rhetoric in the air addling them all?

What was Shakespeare doing with those two poets?

Proverbs for bloggers

Behold here a pile of international proverbs: some funnier than others in connection with blogging. :-)

"Never argue with someone who buys ink by the barrel."