Today is my 48th birthday. I got lots of bakeware. We had Chinese-style pork with vegetables and rice for dinner. DH and The Kid baked me a chocolate fudge cake that is very, very tasty (what am I going to do with all this cake?)
I used my birthday money and my Christmas money from the parentals to buy a new Jansport Driver 8 wheeled backpack. It has a place for a laptop, so it’ll be my new laptop case. My daughter highly recommended Jansport products, and says this one is light and spacious (she sold luggage in a previous life). Yes, I bought the pink one. No, I did not donate to the Susan G. Komen fund.
My husband moved out of our shared home office into his very own. It will put him (and me) out in the public areas of the house more; that’s a really good thing.
Pretty much every year for the last four or five years, we have gone to the annual get-together of the Southeastern Louisiana Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Group, with the really cool acronym of “SLEEB.” They have dinner the last Friday of January at a Mittendorf’s Restaurant in Manchac, Louisiana. It’s about an hour away, on the western side of the lake next to Lake Pontchartrain (we are on the east side of the lake.) The weekend usually coincides with the Friday closest to my birthday, so it’s my birthday dinner.
I have always enjoyed it. The company is interesting and different. Another biologist’s wife says she calls it “the Biologist’s Ball.” The biologists tell biologist stories, and the non-biologists tell non-biologist stories, and we all laugh at each other.
This year, the restaurant was under new management. We had a limited menu to choose from, and I was disappointed not to be able to order fried shrimp. It was OK, but not as tasty or as much fun as last year.
Maybe for Valentine’s Day, we will go to a place I want to try called La Provence. If we do, we’ll have to save our money!
I saw a link on LifeHacker to a really cool Instructable on how to make your own roll-up keyboard. Based on the “roll up” keyword, I would suppose, there was a link on the page to a “How to Roll a Joint” instructable.
Boy, did that bring back memories. I learned how to roll really well when I was about 19, and when I say really well, I mean I was GOOD at it. Even circumference from one end to the other, smooth burning, no pesky seeds popping. Very little waste; just a thin column of smoke from the burning end. Whenever there was pot going around at a party, I was the roller.
This brought to mind a funny poem I read once back in those days, “The Ballad of Pearly Sweetcake.” The internet says it’s by Shel Silverstein, and while I somewhat believe it, I only believe it…somewhat. Google it; the whole text is out there on the “Cannibis Culture Forums.”
The Instructable instructions for how to roll a joint are very lame, by the way, so don’t bother looking except for your amusement.
I decided to stop blogging at the Mormon blog, The Cultural Hall. I had trouble getting motivated to post on a subject that I’ve been talking about for so long, in a venue that I don’t have much control over. I’m all about control.
Have I mentioned before how territorial I am? (Probably. I’ve been doing this for over four years, too.) Don’t mess with my stuff, don’t get in my space, and if it’s mine, leave it the hell alone. Don’t tread on me.
Anyhow, that doesn’t always play well in a group blog. And as I’ve said, I really don’t have much more to say about Mormon stuff. So I’ll have to find something else to write about, and I’ll have to write about it here. And if I do want to write about Mormony things, I’ll write about them here, too.
Man, I have been so TIRED today. I got plenty of sleep; I’m really not sure what the problem is.
Maybe I’m still adjusting to the miniscule time change. I didn’t get a full eight hours a single night last week.
Maybe I need to exercise. (OK, I definitely need to exercise). I’ll be getting back on the treadmill at lunch tomorrow. I hope that helps.
I finally got home about 1:00 a.m. Saturday morning. I slept really late, and didn’t get a whole lot done today, but I don’t feel guilty about it even one tiny bit.
I’m going to cut my husband’s hair now, then go to bed.
My flight is delayed a half-hour departing Columbus. I have 45 minutes to make my connection in Atlanta! I really, really want to make it home tonight, and if I miss my flight in Atlanta I’m going to be super, super annoyed.
On the other hand, it’s probably not so great to be stuck here either, since I checked my winter coat and I won’t be likely to get it back. And there had better be a jetway, vs. walking out to the plane and up the steps.
We just had our welcome message, so it looks like we’ll probably get out on time.
Today’s training was not as intense as the others. Still very busy, but lots of good conversation, too. Plus I skipped out a couple of times, which was very nice.
We’ve crossed over the hump, but even the meeting coordinator was exclaiming about how fried he was.
Olive Garden for lunch. They’ve catered lunch every day. Today I had Steak Gorgonzola Alfredo. Yum!
I think I’ve done a post with this title before.
I am in training this week. I’m learning a lot, and it’s really interesting stuff. I definitely got overloaded this afternoon, though. The billing support supervisor walked us through electronic medical and pharmacy claims setup and submission. It’s actually a really interesting process, but the detail level is enormous, and by about 4:00 I don’t think I was absorbing anything. After we were done (at 5:00) I made phone calls and followed up on some tasks. I didn’t get off until almost six.
Dad bought pizza from Morone’s (pronounced Ma RONEz, not Ma-RONE-ee’s). I always try to get pizza from Morone’s when I come here. They’ve been in business since I was about fourteen, I think. Good stuff! I cooked salisbury steaks for tomorrow night’s dinner, and I’m going to my brother and sister-in-law’s for dinner Thursday. I will have been here for a week and I don’t think I’ve paid for a single meal, because they are bring in lunch for the trainee’s.
Going to be early tonight.
It’s cold in Ohio in January. I remember this from my previous visits, so it’s not a surprise, but it’s worth commenting on if only because I’m really, really cold.
Brrr.
I went to a bar with my friends Vincent and Larry last night and sang karaoke for the first time. If you have never sung karaoke, do not start with an advanced blues piece like “Me and Bobby McGee.” I did much better on Mary-Chapin Carpenter’s “I Feel Lucky” and The Eurythmics “Thorn in My Side.” I had a LOT of fun. My friend Hope does it pretty regularly, and I always thought it would be something I enjoyed. Turns out I was right!
I go into a week of training tomorrow. I shudder to think what will happen to my To Do list.
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