Successful dinner experiment: chorizo, potato, onion, red pepper, arugula, and apple. Yum.

Dana, that sounds delicious!

Maria, SO SO SO glad about the news.

Kathy, woah. yikes.

Perkins, are you going to be in the bay area on October 16? Wanna have dinner?

Your office sounds just awful.

Well, I can't say it's fabulous, but I've definitely worked in worse places. It's just that there seems to be no real commitment in the organization as a whole to manage staff as people rather than widgets.

I finally made a pitch in a meeting today to have a once-a-quarter teleconference of all the environmental staff, because otherwise nobody ever knows what anyone else is doing, and that can get really quite dangerous. Like, litigation-risk dangerous. Happily, my suggestion was agreed to immediately and if it isn't followed-up, I'm going to push it hard.

The sense I have of the organization is that, for all the reorganizations and everything, it's ossified. Oh, and ridiculously territorial. Everyone's more afraid of losing some of their power/position/people than they are committed to making the organization more successful. Which is just sad.

Consuela, I have run out of gobsmacked-ness at your workplace.

You should take it to a Honda dealer to see if you're still covered.

It is still under warranty, but they claim it's working properly because the battery charges. Never mind that it doesn't fully charge, that my mpg have dropped significantly, etc. My internet research is showing that both Honda and Toyota are being shitty about replacing the IMAs, and for the Hondas that the battery will not send out a "deterioration code" until the battery has 1/3 of its original capacity. Add in my car flooding and the streets shredding my mud guard (I have to borrow a jack from a neighbor this weekend to put pegs in the mud guard under my car b/c right now it's literally dragging on the ground) and my bumper having nearly been pulled off b/c my car sits so low... I don't think Darla's going to make it as long as I had hoped. And my next car may need to sit a bit higher up. But anyway...

Now to go back and see if I can spot the pit.

Best of all, he's approved, without blinking, two days a week working from home. HALLOO.

YAY!

And boo, Hec, that sucks.

Also, comic about the oxford comma: [link]

A good electrician can document that the battery is taking a charge, but not charging fully. In my small town (which is by no means the world's cheapest place) the diagnosis would run about 200. In a city where there is more competition, you might get the diagnosis cheaper. Don't know if a written diagnosis would be enough to pressure Honda to honor the warranty or not.

Catahoulas are pretty but apparently pretty difficult.

I say again, you just don't want a smart dog. Smart = high strung problem solvers who need way more stimulus than the average pooch. Catahoulas really are beautiful. I love the merle coat. It is all impressionistic and such. They also have gorgeous eyes. But yeah, herders with a high need to work.

And since this is kind of the "neighborhood likes carrots" thread, a couple of vignettes: last night while walking home from a "Renovator's Happy Hour" down the street, I stopped to chat with my neighbor and another neighbor I hadn't met yet, when here comes the local doggie escape artist. I grabbed her collar, guy I don't know offered his belt for a leash and walks around the corner with me to take her home (and retrieve his belt). I was glad to meet him - he rides around on a bike with his parrot. His real, live parrot. You better bet I did a double take the first time I saw them.

Tonight, a guy I know because he hangs out on J's porch gave me some screws to fix the mud guard in my wheel well, and tells me that M has a hydraulic jack I can use. Then J got home and there was good natured ribbing, as always, and then I took Frankie for a walk. Met an older gentleman who's lived in the neighborhood since he was a kid, has a wood shop across from his house (I wondered what that was!), and may buy some wood from my organization. We probably talked for about ten minutes. Reinforcing how crazy block-by-block this town is, he asked where I live and responded to my answer, "All the way down there?" (I live four blocks away towards the river). And then "How is it down there?" I told him it was great. He was complaining how the neighborhood had changed; people used to sit on there porches, kids used to play together... on my block they still sit on the porch, and walking home I passed two dozen kids of all ages at the park.

Good times. I do love this neighborhood.

And Nora cooked me a fab birthday dinner of shrimp and grits last night and we watched an episode of Leverage.

Perkins, are you going to be in the bay area on October 16? Wanna have dinner?

Normally I would be all over that with polka dots and a bag of chips, but on the 16th I will be eating tacos or sushi or both in Hawaii with shrift.

Also, I have that thing ready to send to you, but the mailing process defeated me this week. Monday!