Hard Hat Area

I am working in a construction zone. It makes for an interesting change, but isn't super condusive to accomplishing anything. I'm temporarily housed in a conference room while my actual office is being built. It's freezing, but we're forbidden from using space heaters since they will short out our computers. I'm not too sure which bathroom I'm allowed to use and I don't have a garbage can (not that I'd use it in lieu of a bathroom, mind you, I'm just saying.)My boss is alone on another floor so having him sign letters has become a sort of field trip.

Mostly though, we are infurating the construction workers. They do not want us here. Really. We are significantly in their way. I just got an email about a mandatory safety meeting at which I imagine we'll be informed that we are required to wear hard hats and steel toed boots to work. Here's another idea. Why not close the building? I know. It's revolutionary, but since we're embracing a safety-first attitude, why not go the whole way? I guarantee that I'd be safer at home. I promise. It's so safe there that I don't even OWN a hard hat.

Funny or not funny? You be the judge.

Um...raise your hand if you think Laughing Sal is the creepiest thing you've ever seen. I know it's hard to tell from there, but my hand is definitely in the air. The only really good news about the restoration is that Sal is now quite a bit farther away from me than she used to be when she was at the Cliff House.

Miscellany

I am cleaning out my office (a loathesome task, I assure you, but we're moving and it can't be helped) and I keep coming across scraps of paper on which I've written overheard things students have said in the hall.

1. "If you're going to go to the trouble of saying 'alas' why would you spoil it by saying 'alack'? Why did they even invent 'alack'?"

2. "I'm not that into breathing, connecting to my soul, and standing on one foot. Pilates is more like breathe, connect with your soul, and do a lot of sit ups."

There goes the neighborhood

I am not an athlete. You know this. Everyone knows this. I announce it immediately--right after making clear my opinion of cats. This means that I don't ski or skate or bike. This means that I don't play anything that could remotely be considered a "sport," including lighthearted passtimes such as volleyball or, you know, catch.

Thanks to my dear friends Anne and Peter, though, I have found one exception. Bocce ball. I love bocce ball. I'm not even particularly good at it, but every so often the fates allign to make it seem like maybe I am. It's perfect. There's no running, no one throws anything at you, you don't have to catch, you don't have to hit a ball with a stick or anything remotely stick-like.

Imagine my shock then, to read that the proposed construction of bocce ball courts in Clayton has its residents up in arms. Who are these people? And why are they not terribly grateful and excited, one wonders? Instead, they're going around saying things like this:

 "You just worry about what that does to your neighborhood. It brings in a
lot of people that don't obviously live here," she said. But, she added,
"I have nothing against people playing bocce ball."

They're saying other things too.

But perhaps I'm being unjust. It is a slippery slope, after all. It starts with people who don't obviously live there playing a friendly game of bocce and next thing you know they're smoking crack in your garden and corrupting neighborhood youth. And from there, really, can shuffleboard be far behind?

Even your hands?

How is it that even after all this time I still haven't quite got the hang of sunscreen application? After a windy picnic in the park, I'm in good shape except for a bright red right ankle, three scarlet knuckles on my left hand, and a burning right wrist.

Oh. You mean you have to put it on all your skin?