Nice flowers

I woke up to a really dreary day this morning. It hardly seemed as though the sun had come up. Grey, dark, almost chilly, you get the idea. It would have seemed a bit more discouraging except I had some new plants I wanted to get in the ground and this is ideal planting weather.

So, there was I, trotting out of the house at 6:00 a.m., carrying a flat of flowering goodness, heading for the garden.

As I walked out, a couple of biker bears were across the street getting ready to go off to some pre-pride event. Or something. I'm making assumptions here. Anyway, they were in their own way, pretty tasty, so I was blatantly checking them out. They in return were giving me the once over. The taller of the two yells over to me, "Nice flowers!", in a friendly way. I smiled at them and called back, "Nice bike!". He then said something that sounded like "Wanna take a ride!", but I was on a mission and just smiled at them and kept moving.

There was a certain amount of rubber necking and as they started the bike, I craned my neck around, tall biker had climbed up behind his bear buddy and shouted as they pulled out, "Hey, nice ass!"

I smiled all the way to the garden.

Fer the birds

A couple of days ago, a sparrow got into one of the faculty offices. It seems that part of my job includes evicting unwanted wildlife from senior faculty office space. (note to self, anyone untenured can just take care of themselves)

We actually got the little guy out with a minimum of fuss by opening the window and shooing it out.

Working in academia is like living in a small town and word gets around. One of the senior academic administrators heard about this incident and was asking the Prof. and me about it.

Me: Once I found a baseball bat, things went a little better.

Prof: Yes, though in retrospect the hammer wasn't such a good idea. I think it was the way the wings kept flapping that got to me.

Me: I know what you mean.

Prof: Once we tipped the bookcase over onto it though that really seemed to stop all movement.

Me: Yeah, though we are going to have to get custodial services to come up and clean the rest of it out of the rug.

It was worth it, just to see the look on her face.

Disclaimer: No actual sparrows were hurt during this blog entry.

Have a cookie!

Last night Monkey and I were walking to the T together. We've both been having a tough week at work and I was bitching at length about dealing with various people pestering me with stupid bull%@#% while I was trying to get work done

Monkey: "We should have a bowl of cookies at our desks"

Me: Huh?

Monkey: "Yeah, when someone is being an asshole, we can say, 'Here, have a cookie'. We could even put little assholes on them in pink icing, they'd think they were stars."

I thought about this for a second.

Me: "We could put a raisin in the middle. And we should get some of those really bad cookies that are made mostly out of cardboard and taste mostly of nothing."

Monkey: "That's disgusting. I like it! And I don't even like raisins."

Me: "Yeah, but the cookies are for assholes."

Have I ever mentioned how much I love working with this guy.

Update: Last night when he got home, Monkey told Dabunny about our plan. Dabunny said something to the effect that none of the people we gave cookies to would get it. Some people just don't understand the beauty of a well laid plan.

I stopped at the garden on the way home last night. Much to my surprise, my neighbor Mike was in his garden. He works in his garden during the week between classes, so I rarely see him around that late in the day.



I took a picture of Mike, which for reasons unknown, didn't come out, so I am including a photo from the Ganome archives. Cute, huh?








As you can see, his garden isn't too shabby either. We yacked about things in general, and nothing in particular. As much as I needle Mike on this blog, he is a very nice guy and is always ready to provide a certain amount of silly conversation. This was particularly welcome after a rather trying day at work. Mike also keeps almost as interested an eye on my garden as I do, and suggested that I put pictures of my own peonies on my blog.






I have even thrown in a picture of my poppies for good measure. Other than that nothing much to say, except that given my druthers, I'd druther be in my garden today than working.

Monday

It is turning into Monday with a vengeance! I got up in good time this morning after a fairly good nights sleep and simply wanted to go back to bed. Instead, I dragged myself out of the house, on time mind you, and headed off to the gym. I even remembered to bring my phone and all the other accoutrement that we seem to require in order to make it through any given day in the modern age.

Once at the gym, I had a really tough time making it through my Monday routine. My gym mojo was definitely MIA. Still, I made it through. I got the train to work in a timely fashion, and I somehow managed not to get soaked in spite of the unseasonably cold and drizzly weather.

I then tried to log onto my computer. Tried being the operative word here. Ol' Bessy, which isn't even that old, seems to be having some sort of major nervous breakdown. Happily, I had my laptop with me and I have all the certificates on my computer so that when push comes to shove I can work from home. IT Billy was responsible for this as one of his last acts before heading off to the more verdant fields offered by Google.

All in all it is just turning into one of those days. Nothing spectacularly awful is going on, just lots of small irritations. Our new IT contractor took it's time to get here and fix the computer. People have been locking themselves out of offices and desks. Commencement is in a few days and lots of last minute crap seems to keep popping up, and I am just not in the mood.

It is far from the end of the world, but whatever happened to the childhood dream of doing whatever you wanted once you were an adult. Maybe that's it. At 52, I still don't feel like a grown up.