Yay, Jesse! Glad to hear your father is (will be?) okay.

My ankles got attacked by misquitos. That is the update from here.

smishes Shir.

Jessica, I hope your dad heals quickly.

-t, I'm glad you are ok for the moment, and hope you can get that resolved quickly. I have to say, I like the feeling that I can afford to wait a bit without hardship for payroll goofs to get fixed. There was a time in my life that was not true.

What's going on in my life?

I surprised my new supervisor yesterday by saying "Dude, make sure you get me registered for the exercise challenge with our Wellness Program. When you posted the flyer you printed an exercise log to go with it, but not a sign-up sheet, so I printed that for you." No one else signs up for those things. And me being fat, well, some guy who does not know me yet would not really expect me to be the only one to go for it. But I want my darn t-shirt. They don't make 'em in my size, but I want it anyway. Plus if I do enough of these Wellness Challenges, come November I get a discount on my health insurance premium. Also I can say, "See? I do all the right things and still I don't get to be thin."

My dad tore his quadriceps tendon mowing the lawn yesterday, and was in surgery last night. Docs say he is allowed to go to Canada but basically won't be able to do anything that involves bending his right leg, which is a huge bummer. Probably no sailing or kayaking.

Yikes, that IS a huge bummer!

Eek, -t. I'm sure you will get paid eventually!

My ankles got attacked by misquitos.

I also have an itchy ankle!

Go you, WindSparrow. I liked when we had a walking challenge at work -- the teams got pretty competitive, which is a good time.

I'm working with four authors all surname Zhang, one with a chatty coauthor also surname Zhang. None of them remember to give me the manuscript number when they contact me.

Who was the Chinese emperor who mandated that everyone must have one of a handful of surnames? I'd like to go back in time and have a serious chat with that control freak.

Today I have a hair cut and a lunch interview, for which I don't feel very prepared. Need to look up these people on LinkedIn.

My father's dog, a cockapoo, has decided to bark at everyone walking past the house. It's very annoying, since he also thinks he's allowed to sit on the furniture. No dogs on the bed!

Oooh, I might have to get one of these. Connie Britton is selling a "What Would Tami Taylor Do?" t-shirt with "I stand with Texas Women" on the back: [link]

Profits go to Planned Parenthood.

That's a great idea, go Connie Britton!

i'm no worse of than I've been all year, using my savings to pay my mortgage, but it feels like more of a problem since I was supposed to not be doing that this month. Ah, well. I have sent e-mails to everyone I can think of who might be able to fix it, nothing else I can do right now.

Your poor dad, Jessica. Lawn mowing is dangerous! (seriously I know more than one person who has lost a limb to a mower).

So....what's new with you guys?

Still recovering from my college reunion/birthday trip. Took two days of travel to get home because of delayed flights/missed connections. But the trip itself was so incredibly good. I hadn't been back to Kenyon in 26 years and it was just gorgeous. And spent lots of quality time with lots of my closest friends.

And even more was the rush of making new friendships, which was my crack of choice in college. I forgot how much I get off on building new friendships. It's so hard to make that happen after you're older and more settled, or dealing with parenthood.