I think that's a good call, Consuela. You have to take care of your own mental health, too.

One of my co-workers is totally asking for my mentoring today. It's kind of, well no--it is flattering. And then he got chewed out by our boss, so I welcomed him to the club, and asked if he'd had one particular objection yet.

Amusingly (well, to me), he hadn't, but he got called back in and chewed out again, and then he did get that line too. Apparently it's harder keeping a straight face when you've seen the impersonation beforehand.

Still, the scope of his responsibilities are broadening, I guess, to be more like mine, although I totally think of him as equivalent to me. Then I realise he's prepping for his first presentation to the CIO, and oh, yeah. I guess maybe it's more different than I'd imagined.

Consuela, vibing hugely for you, and your whole family. I can't believe how wretched it's been and how your mom's distress and anger are continuing to keep it wretched. Shielding yourself and conserving what energy you've got sounds like a very wise plan (even if you end up eggplanting under your desk -- anything it takes).

I want to be an eggplant under my desk. If I can have my Palm and my Nook with me. But I'm afraid my knees would not thank me for it.

I'm tempted about the desk thing. I had to explain the t table tag to a co-worker, and why 13 deep was bad design (you should see the 3D rendering of this page in Firefox's debug tool...), and then I had to tell a developer how to deploy the script in question. Yes, my manager had been getting mixed messages--my right one, and everyone else.

And she might think our boss is easy going, but I don't remotely.

OMG, I might be a genius. So far, for my aunts for Christmas presents I have the Oatmeal book How to Tell if Your Cat is Trying to Kill You, and then I just got them a groupon to a pizza place I think they like. But that's a totally random pair of things. BUT! I'm pretty sure that I saw a cat toy shaped like a piece of pizza yesterday. That would be perfect to tie it all together!

They're making us do equations. I think I want to join people in hiding under desks and being an eggplant.

Crossposting from Literary, because I think more people check in here than there:

Random bookish(ish) question - does anyone have access to the London Times Literary Supplement? Or even a stack of the last few months' copies sitting in a TBR pile somewhere nearby? My wonderful uni library, which has subscriptions and online access to practically every periodical you can think of, has finally failed me. All I need is one lousy article, but I can't get to it without paying a preposterous subscription fee.

I have received no texts or phone calls from my parents or the senior community in 45 minutes. I consider that a win (for now).

Don't take the Sydney - Dallas flight ever in your lives unless you are forced to. Oh. My. Goodness. I had watched five movies and there were still six hours left in the flight.

My layover was an absolute fiasco which included the phrase "these engine parts don't always fail, but when they do, they fail spectacularly" from the pilot.

I then got home and proceeded to sleep for sixteen hours. (I can't sleep on planes no matter how hard I try)

But now, I am HOME and on VACATION and the internet connection at my house is so fast it is making me nervous. I am so used to the painful slowness of satellite internet on the ocean that this broadband feels like dark magic.