A Friday Night

Some little bits of status for you:
1) Isaac looks quite on track to be moving directly from the "army crawl" to walking: He's pulling up on everything, standing in his crib, creeping along furniture, and squealing with delight at his cleverness. This is definitely taking precedence over his attempts to coordinate knee-hand crawling: He's back on the belly dragging himself along between vertical objects.

2) At the "old" workplace, I had been given something of an albatross: The largest cube on the floor - almost office sized... but with poor lighting and surrounded by large walls and with the worst cell reception in the area. In addition, the setup forced me to have my back to the door/hall at all times, so every single person who came to speak to me had to clear their throat or say "knock knock" to avoid startling me. But the cube, it was big.

Well, they moved me today to a smaller cube in a less "desirable" row of cubes... but it's near a window, I get great reception, and I face the right way to greet visitors. So don't cry for me argentina - I'm quite happy. But co-workers seem intent in thinking it's a demotion... Which speaks to a strange thing they do there: People move cubes quite often, and the arrangement of the cubes favors seniority: Employees who have been there the longest are closest the the coffee maker, I think. Consultants are clustered in the back room... and will often be shuffled further around in that room if an employee joins - so that the employee can sit in a cube closer to the coffee makers.

It's only my theory: I haven't figured out any other rhyme or reason to this shuffling... I think that Coffee proximity may be it. Oh, I'll survive this madness. It's only for a few months yet. Then I move to my remote windowless office next to the dialysis department at the new client. WHOOOOO!!!!

3) Poor Pamela got a stomach bug yesterday, pulling me home to take care of Isaac (Bella was belle of the ball and had playdates stacked up through the afternoon). I was still trying to get "work" done in the afternoon, with mixed degrees of success. That Isaac is so busy, but then he realizes he's just a baby and is maybe a little scared of all this independence, and needs a cuddle.... So an afternoon watching him is basically play-cry-cuddle-play-cry-feed-lollygag-play-play-play-cry-cuddle... with each phase being between 8 seconds and 3 minutes.

It is a wonder Pamela gets ANYTHING done at all. Much respect going out.

4) Watched a movie tonight: The Illusionist. It came out around the same time as "The Prestige" - I'll never know why studios can go for decades without a turn-of-the-century magician movie, then two come out in the same year and everyone confuses them. Anyway, this is the romantic one, and it was excellent.

It was written by Steven Millhauser, who wrote one of the most surreal books I've ever read "Martin Dressler - Tale of an American Dreamer", which chronicles the rise, rise, rise, and fall of a fictional department store. By the peak, the goods on display in this store defy imagination. By comparison, in the Illusionist, the tricks that Edward Norton's character does are similarly fantastic: A full orange tree blossoming from an empty basket, phantom children, etc...

Twas cool.

5) Final update: I brought Chuck from work out to get Pho today. As you may recall from previous updates, Chuck has some unique restaurant mojo, and often times having him along will cause an unexpected dining experience. I'm pleased to report that today's meal was uneventful AND delicious.

Of course, we HAD tried to go last week, and the place was closed. So perhaps that event had cleared the mojo curse on that particular restaurant.

That's enough. Good night!