Saturday, December 10, 2005

Things I'm smiling about

Just finished close week work (more or less, knock wood, the documents went out yesterday, now we wait for the response). This is always a rough week & that's why I did only the most perfunctory of posts on Wednesday (although wasn't that dog story funny? I was so glad M. got the whole sequence - I forgot to mention that she's actually more of a photographer than I am - she's also an actress & has the best smile of anyone, she's pretty awesome) and nothing after that. There was just too much work to do.

However I did have a few things to smile about in the midst of close madness (in no particular order):

1. I can't remember if I mentioned this here or not, but there's a new business manager on the finance team at the Really Big Children's Publishing House. She is very, very new - but she picking things up quickly & between her & our also relatively new senior finance analyst, who's also really good, close week felt a lot less intimidating. And I'm not at work today, which was a possibility!
2. Kokatat has now had my drysuit for about a week & they haven't called me so I'm hoping that they'll be able to resuscitate it...Gore-Tex socks oh boy oh boy!
3. Kayak Boy posted to our kayak group that our favorite paddling Medieval Lit professor and her husband and their adorable baby son made it to Illinois, where she's gotten a university job (ok, that's actually a sad sort of smile, I'm going to miss them - but things have all worked out so nicely for them this year I'm also really happy for them).
4. I got invited to teach up at Sarah Lawrence again and the sessions are set to start in January. YAY!
5. I also got invited to teach at the Hudson Valley Symposium again. DOUBLE YAY!
6. Well...we finished the close package. yay.
7. Having a cold during close week may have sucked but it gave me a graceful non-Scroogey excuse to get out of the company holiday party. I would actually like this event if they didn't turn up the music so loud at these parties that you cannot sit and carry on anything more than the most rudimentary conversation, but they do. Great fun if you want to dance - otherwise...well, I wasn't too sad to miss it.
8. I'm going sailing on the Rosemary Ruth tomorrow, it's going to be a nice day (although it's going to be a challenge to really dress warmly enough), and there's going to be another little schooner, the Lazy Jack, out - the 2 owners decided to coordinate a trip for the purpose of getting pictures of their boats under sail. I hope to get a few pix too!
9. And after that, tomorrow night is the night of one of my favorite Christmas parties. A couple of friends of mine throw this every year - they have this amazing tiny apartment that they fitted out with a loft built of carefully measured & cut peeled logs - they've turned what would otherwise have been one of these bizarre cramped higher-than-it-is-wide apartments into this positively cozy little abode that feels like a cross between a cabin in the woods and a New Mexican adobe (ha ha, an adobe abode!)...and they throw these great little parties. She's an adventure travel agent (the place is full of interesting things they've found on the travels that that entails), and he does computer stuff for a living, and they're both very outgoing, open people, so there's always a really interesting group & fun conversation. Their Christmas party is lovely - she's Danish & if this party is any indication, I think I like the Danish style of celebrating Christmas more than the commercial onslaught that Christmas brings here.
10. Well, I smiled every time I looked at my galleries. I've gotten a little down on myself because I didn't do anything in the way of formal instruction for myself this year - and I just feel like I was always so stressed out by how short-handed we were this year - but "Rosiewolf" left a comment on one of my BVI's pictures saying "What wonderful trips you get to go on!"...and yeah, looking them over, I really do get to do some really neat stuff.

Anyways, tomorrow is play day, but today I do have some stuff I want to do. Or at least should do. So enough procrastinating, time to get going.

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