Ten-Finger Exercises

Recap of the office, etc.

"Gertie" didn't show up for Monday morning report, but word has it that she is "taking a week off." I suspect that they either said, "Cool off, come back in a week," or she's taking a paid vacation week to hunt for another job. Her desk still has all its neat red things on it: a miniature coke machine, an English double decker bus, a Beefeater, and a red hat with a purple scarf around it. My cubicle is undecorated except for a couple pictures pinned randomly on the upholstered wall. I should work out some real decorations for it. It's not my forte, but it might not be beyond me.

Which reminds me of a comment I got, oh, twenty years ago, that I acted as if some activity was "beneath" me. Can't remember the situation at all, nor the people involved, only that what I really thought was that it was "beyond" me.

Had our last of the series of ten grief group meetings tonight, where people brought food that their loved one had liked. We had a great supper. Curry and rice, beans, corn bread, milk, orange salad, fresh mangoes and Texas sheet cake. Couldn't have planned it better if we had actually planned it, as far as variety goes. And all delicious. Several Adventists were in the group, so we had no meat dishes, but did have soy meat in the curry.

I baked the cake, and discovered as I was making the frosting, 15 minutes before i intended to leave, that I was almost out of powdered sugar. How could that be! I was sure I had seen a sack or even two. Oops, no, they were coconut. So I used what I had, just poured the sugar and the coconut into the boiling cocoa mix, and it turned out pretty tasty. Not as smooth as usual, but with extra coconut and walnuts, who knew but me?

Also dropped a new jar of pickle relish off the top shelf while hunting for the sugar. What a mess that made!

I was supposed to take the music and a player from the office and had forgotten, so had to call Bill and have him give me instructions for downloading onto the iPod. He bought it for me for Christmas a couple years ago and proceeded to download all his music into it. Granted, there's plenty of room. But I didn't really like the feel of the ear plugs, and never turn on music anyway, so it's sat there mostly unused. He was happy I had a reason tonight. And so was I. I hated to disappoint him about it. When I'm trying to do something else, like writing, music is annoying. When it gets turned off, I sigh with relief.