We're not allowed to have drinks in the office anymore. There was An Incident.

But, we had clients in all day, and I raided the leftover food and came home with a big bag of artichokes, feta, and red onions, which I'm about to mix with some pasta.

There are periodic booze events at work, but people pretty much behave (only charge I can level is there are a couple of europeans who get lecherous looking, but they haven't done anything I am aware of.) I'm told that in the early years, they were really wild and people would be found sleeping on the floors in the morning.

We don't have alcohol at work either, per company policy, although ISTR we had some not so long ago, sort of under the radar.

Now I have jackhammers again. Clearly it's time to go home.

We drink up a storm at our quarterly staff conferences, though, and that's all on the company dime. It's the only way we get through them.

But our one conference room staff cocktail party ended with a person one would have thought highly unlikely making ethnic and (at my firm almost worse) educational-background slurs against, and to the face of, the VP hosting the damn thing.

To give him credit, since the man is bat shit crazy and that's usually when I end up mentioning him, BigBoss cancelled his client meetings and flew in on a red eye to hold an all staff meeting explaining why this up-and-comer was being summarily fired.

Oh, that's awful, Brenda, though good on BigBoss.

No booze on premises. Which was a bummer because when I took the project management class, my team's project was starting a brewery--a couple of the team members were brewers and offered to bring in home made ale. I don't like beer, but that's just nifty.

I am haltered.

Last week I saw a cardiologist, and they wanted to put me on a 24 hour heart monitor. Can I exercise with it on? Of course. But I can't shower, so that's a little rude. I'm about to schedule a day working from home so I can krav and be home all stinky. Then I think to ask: "Can I be punched in the chest with it on?" Her stare was admirably blank, but her answer disappointing.

So, although I have no krav to do with this stupid thing on, I do have to go in for a meeting, and it's totally huge and obvious and irritating, and I don't want to have to explain it once, much less ten million times.

That bites, ita. Can you make up fun stories about it so that you can tell different people different things, or is it obvious what it is?

I worry about people (read: people in charge) will read fragility into this. So there's no good way around it, unless I can find something bulky/shapeless to wear that doesn't roast me in the meanwhile.

Time for a trip to Mumus are us?

If I'd only known! My ebay binging could have been differently focussed.