A motley collection here

It's light before 6 a.m. these days, light almost up until 6 p.m. Got an interesting juxtaposition this morning as I grabbed the paper from my porch (yes, I still subscribe to a paper ... it was on the cutting block when I left my job, but I simply haven't been able to give it up, but the day may come): sky growing light, but still a deep midnight blue, across the street, still-bare branches silhouetted against the sky, with a crescent moon shining behind them. I had to take a second look, wondering if I'd conjured one of the items. But no.

And, an update from last night: yep, it was a textbook. On operations management. I'm so, so, so glad I never took a course on operations management. And, oh. Tables. Textboxes. And worst of all: figures. Figures. Damn them to a fiery hell. Like, I'm looking at the thing, and I don't know what the hell it is, let alone how to describe it. There was much swearing. Much sighing. But OK, more swearing. I told the staff that they should record all booth noises, including when we're not recording because it would be so entertaining. I think it's time to be resigned that being useful there (as I am) means recording what they need (you think?) and that there will generally be boring textboooks ... and figures. Curses to figures. I think part of it is that even being able to see the things, I look at some of these figures and their clarity, use and value is completely opaque to me. Tables are actually pretty straightforward, though I still bet confusing to only hear read aloud. But I was very grateful to only be reading the textbook out loud -- even boring stuff is entertaining to read out loud -- and not be studying it (some of those student exercises I read ... I had shudders of sympathy).

OK, then, then there was the moment today when I quite abruptly turned into a pregnant woman, apparently, craving things green and highly flavored: wasabi peas, frozen salty edamame, cute crunchy little pickles, sage-infused cheddar ... sudden onset, very strange (Stace, am I channeling you??)....

And then tonight, I was busted as a Californian by a funny Trader Joe's employee. He said something, and I was like, "Totally!" And he was like, "Totally? Are you from California?"

And now, now it's the time when I should be asleep. So there you go. Happy Toozday.