Strix! I am so excited to be going to there! I would like to meet up with my other friends, maybe for dinner Friday or lunch Saturday, but I haven't heard back from them. The important is you! Your birthday party! And GettingTFO of NOLA, the town I love so much but just need a tiny wee break from.

I have got to do a domestic goose for Christmas this year since I won't be going home. Then I could have lots and lots of goose fat to cook with the rest of the year.

That is absolutely fine...I don't think I have anything planned for Friday, except cleaning and prepping vats o' sangria, so whatever you want to do.

Weather next weekend is supposed to be decent—high 80's/low 90's for the high, upper60's/low 70's at night— for which I am VERY grateful, as the Death Valley weather we've been having left me a little afraid for my party.

You can have the Guest Room, which looks suspiciously like a small boy's room, but the bed is very comfortable, and you will have your own TV/DVD player! And lots of stuffed animals! And...er, real ones, I am SO glad you are not allergic or else I would be shipping your fur-covered corpse back to NOLA.

I am going to be sending out my bday party invites tonight; it will not be huge, probably 15-20 people, but pretty mellow and geeky and drunken and adult and smoky, but I have indoors and outdoors and a house that's good for parties, so you can go introvert at any time and crash! So bring some geeky t-shirts and a short skirt or whatever and we will chill like mofos! YAY!

high 80's/low 90's for the high, upper60's/low 70's at night

And I'm guessing less than 75% humidity? I will need to bring layers! How exciting.

Sounds like a great party. And I'm happy to help with prep! I am a good cleaner, though you wouldn't know from my house, and I like to chop.

I like to chop

Excellent! I will put you down for Zombie Dismemberment Committee!

Unless you would prefer the Defenestration Brigade.

Unless you would prefer the Defenestration Brigade.

It would pain me (NPI) to break good windows, given my trade.

Hrm. Ok, machete it is!

And I'm guessing less than 75% humidity? I will need to bring layers! How exciting.

Being thrilled at humidity under 75% amuses me, says the woman currently thinking 15% is a touch muggy.

Annoying thing at work today. You may remember me, not long after starting this job, learning that my coworker L (another sub) told my boss that I never cleaned up after myself. My boss already knew that was BS. Well, the mess I was cleaning up was one he made. He came and worked with us for a few hours, and then left. Talk to my boss after work, find out L complained about having to pay for our labor, that we were too slow.

...

Hey asshole, maybe that's because you a) didn't clean half of the windows you scraped b) weren't doing the precarious balancing act that I was doing most of the time (one foot on a 12 ft ladder, one on top of the bottom sash of the window, legs a few feet apart in a lunge), and c) I had to go back AGAIN when cleaning the windows you had scraped and scrape more, because you didn't do the best job. Not to mention you didn't put cardboard down on the sill you stood on (which was brick freshly painted a flat white) and it's now dingy. And you just walked out without throwing away the drop cloth on the window you scraped and cleaned soooo quickly.

Fortunately, again, my boss knows the deal, and his response to L was, "If you did it faster it's probably because you weren't doing it right."

Also - if he hadn't screwed up the first time, we wouldn't have gotten yanked off our high-priority job to go clean windows! Oy.

Being thrilled at humidity under 75% amuses me, says the woman currently thinking 15% is a touch muggy.

9:15 pm, 81 degrees, 83% humidity. When I lived in Moldova, I complained about the dryness of the air, and my Coloradan colleague complained about the humidity.