And it's not belated.

Yay for different timezones!

I will keep celebrating until February 1st

Yay for celebrating!

I celebrate my birthday according to the Jewish calendar, which doesn't always fit the general one. So it's like we officially have a birth-several-days rather than a single birthday.

[Edited to: Cass! How wonderful to post with you! How are you doing?]

Good. I am settled mostly into living in Portland and the whole Pacific Northwest experience. There was snow! Craziness! It's good. Still getting used to it, but I like it.

I know some cool people in Portland. It seems like a pretty great place to live.

I got home in time to give juliana and Emily rides home. JZ socialized with them and ate Italian food and drank champagne and watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang but I got to be the taxi service.

Which is fine because they were both uhm...voluble.

Also they both saw the fuh-reaky present my sister got for Matilda and were appropriately aghast.

Hey Nilly!

Happy birthday, Laga.

Thanks DavidS. I had a great day.

It's lovely. I keep trying to tell people to visit but few do.

Social! Italian food! Champagne! Mockage!

It's the Buffistaist evening of them all.

I keep trying to tell people to visit but few do.

They must not know what they're missing. Have you been to Multnomah Falls?

Yes, it's gorgeous. I haven't hiked much past the bridge though. I should do that this summer.

And I've only been partially to the Gorge so I need to make that trek as well.

There is just so much that is amazing to see here. And the water. This much water all around is still very new to me.

Night shift, sorry for deserting you - had to proofread and print that (yeah, same) proposal. Now all is left is 8 copies of the proposal, 5 copies of relevant unpublished papers, binding the 8 copies, and delivering them to the appropriate bureaucracy people. Which I was not supposed to do, but probably will replace the person who is doing some it right now so that she can go pick her kids on time.

And then I have to teach today, as well. Oh, and a blind date this evening. And all I wanna do right now is go cuddle in my big blanket at home and have soup and a book I know by heart to read. Oh, well. There will always be chocolate.

[Edited a few hours later, because I couldn't begin a post with "cerial" when lacking both breakfast and lunch:

It's delivered and done. Did you know you have to be a good athlete in order to hand in a research grant application? I had to both run and carry heavy stuff all over the place. Which was a nice refreshment after the whole sitting-in-just-the-one-place-for-hours-on-end, but a bit unexpected.

As the (very nice) bureaucracy person said then he got the 17-thousand copies of stuff, when I asked him to look and make sure it's all OK: "You don't want me to look. If I find a mistake, it's too late for you to fix it anyway, right? So it's better if I just don't look". And he was totally right. It's like comparing answers after an exam is finished, which I don't wanna ever do either, no matter how stressed are the people around me to hear what I've got. It's out of my hands now. Literally, since it was quite heavy to carry around.

And now, the lesson. At least there's no heavy-lifting there. And, of course, chocolate. And an orange! It's not the best lunch, but at least it has some value other than it being chocolate.]