electricland

I learn to my displeasure that not only did I not get a house update today, but the Hooligans aren't working tomorrow and hardly anyone else is either.

Oh well. My parents and I will be there.

I only got about half what I wanted to get done this week done. Can't figure out if I was wildly overoptimistic or just inefficient. Probably a combination of both as usual. Oh well -- at least I've finished one job that's been hanging over me. And it is, after all, Friday.

On the downside, nobody has yet shown up to move my keyboard tray (it's bolted rather firmly to my desk and I suspect that drilling may be involved or I'd do it myself). Now that I've finally got my act together to complain that it's turning me into a pretzel, it seems rather hard that nothing's been done about it.

Things seem to be progressing... sort of. I need to check on whether my baseboard tiles have been laid. My aunt reports:

Today for lunch we had mussels and focaccia.

Stuart worked on the 3rd floor, but did not come for lunch.

Dan did clean-up and worked on greenboard in Jen's bathroom. John and Dan went to Rona and bought even more greenboard, screws and a sharp knife that John thinks is nifty.

Brian will be asked to put new hole in Jen's bathroom with very fancy saw that sets off the third floor fire alarm, which is an ionization thinggummy, which talks and, according to Dan, also juliennes, slices and dices.

John took two hours off this morning to accompany his lovely wife and Jane to the market, where we bought an ecstatic turkey.

Cheers all, Helen

I'm not sure how I feel about having a talking smoke alarm in my bedroom.

Met with one of the reviewers to decipher the remaining doctor-handwriting which had defeated me. We got most of it but even she couldn't figure it all out (she says she has learned to recognize certain patterns in the notes he sends her, but otherwise has just as hard a time with his writing as I do).

Met stilldeepwater for lunch. Bought a skinny crinkly purple scarf on the way back, because it's suddenly got cold out. This has helped.

The family has developed possibly the most complicated set of Thanksgiving travel plans ever. I suppose it's lucky we only have 2 cars available to us because otherwise it would be exponentially worse. But really.

Am having a hard time getting motivated for the Friday afternoon of a long weekend.

Today I am deciphering doctor-handwriting. Pray for me.

(Actually it's going surprisingly well so far. There's one comment that I can't make out for the life of me, however.)

Betwen the abdominal pregnancy story (strangely, a colleague had been giving me all the horrifying details about abdominal pregnancy only Friday -- that'll teach me to ask for clarification about ectopic pregnancy) and copy editing a chunk of the Pregnancy site that deals with pregnancy complications, it's been quite the curl-up-while-crossing-my-arms-over-my-lower-abdomen-and-making-the-horrified-face day.

Oh, and yelling "Aaaaaagh!" My officemates love me.

Ciao.

AAAA I AM DROWNING IN REFERENCES SEND HELP.

I have a draft. I have made my word count. It's pitiful, but it's extant. Once again I really wish I'd talked to someone who knows something -- anything -- about this area before wading in. Dumb.

So here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to go home now, and I'm going to accept that this thing probably isn't going to be published on schedule, and I'm going to massage it next week and talk to some of our injury prevention people, and the world is not going to end. There are many many people in the world who have it much worse than I do right now.

Just sent the following email to the writers:

Hi all!

Please note that as mentioned in our style guide (p. 27), we prefer the "e" spelling, rather than "oe", for words such as fetus, edema, and diarrhea. I would like to extend this to apnea, tachypnea, and any other "e/oe" decisions that may arise. (If you have a good reason for preferring "oe", though, I'm open to argument.)

We do prefer the "ae" spelling in most cases, although that's being eroded by anesthesia and anesthetic and hyperglycemia. It's all so complicated.

They fixed my computer!

Happy, happy day!

I would embrace it if, you know, that were easier.

If you ever want to drive me completely crackers, do the following:

1. Omit to do something that needs to be done.
2. Listen carefully while I ask you to do it and explain why, as a general rule, it needs to be done. Nod brightly and tell me you understand now.
3. Correct the problem.
4. The next time you work on the same task, omit the same damn thing.*
5. Go to step 2.

AAAAAGH!

*Double your pleasure, double your fun: do it right about 50% of the time, but randomly.

The ice-cream store did not burn down. It is one building away from the building that burnt, which is not looking so good, although a lot of the antiques actually look OK at a distance. Apparently a lot of other people were also worried, because the ice-cream store was packed. The girl who served my scoop of Bordeaux cherry chocolate in a sugar cone said the fire department didn't let them go into the building until 3 in the afternoon. The burnt-stuff stench is still pretty powerful.

I sat by the reflecting pool in front of City Hall to work on today's Sudoku, which I managed to screw up the first time (it was the 6s, not, as I had previously thought, the 3s and 7s, that did me in). A woman passing with a stroller said "I had to do today's over, too."

I spent most of yesterday helping our taxonomist (we have a taxonomist) create a card-sort test, and most of today working on our fall publication schedule, which has fallen to me. I confess that I am pleased about this, because I love to meddle and I never felt that the e-zine was being run entirely right, and people kept asking me about it anyway. Now it's mine, all mine!

I am unexpectedly going to a wedding in Ottawa, not this weekend but next. I will be going as proxy for my grandmother and parents, who are not going, but also because the bride and groom (another cousin -- told you I had a bunch) thought it was a pity they hadn't invited me. This has meant messing up the schedules of rather a lot of other people, but what the hell. I also need to call my Ottawa friends to see if they can get together and figure out what to wear. I'm at least moderately confident that, having bought three pairs in the last two weeks, I now have enough shoes for this operation.

My sinks and taps and things are ready. I forgot to call the guy back again today, although come to think of it he may still be there. I also called to see how the building permit was coming along, but haven't heard back yet.

I will not be moving this month, which gives me a golden opportunity to clean my apartment.

Veronica Mars is back on CTV Thursdays at 8 (and Sundays at 5), where she should be.

Life, she is pretty good.

BRAAIIIINNSSSSS!

Seriously. Picture a bunch of little tiny brains revolving around my head, all with a slightly different area highlighted.

Does anyone out there really care about the bilateral posterior superior parietal lobe? That's what I thought.