One of the nice things about dropping everything at work for a work emergency is that the everything looks so much more appealing when I come back to it. Hello, everything. The Assistant Director isn't looking over my shoulder while I deal with you. (I mean, she's perfectly nice, but still—AD.) Let me work on you in a calm, non-stressed manner.

Let me work on you in a calm, non-stressed manner.

This is how my whole office feels this week, I think, after the 5-year Campaign ended last weekend. Ahhhh. Nothing is urgent or high-stakes? Perfect. Let's see how long we can roll with this.

Also, even with not that many people here, the scones and cookies I left in the kitchen at 8:30 are totally gone without a trace. I mean, even the packaging is gone. I don't care, because getting rid of them was my goal, but what happened??

Hungry ghosts

We had double fireworks this year! Our town fireworks on the 3rd, and then we went up to Poughkeepsie to watch from the Walkway Over The Hudson pedestrian bridge. And I have to say - Ossining local fireworks were way better! Go small town!

Poughkeepsie wins for better weather, and an AMAZING view from the bridge though - we were basically at eye level with the explosions, and we could also see 4-5 other towns' fireworks over the treeline in the distance.

Oh cool! I keep saying I'll do that with the Martinez-Benicia bridge, walk out to the middle and watch the fireworks from there. Maybe next year.

And today's air is rated Unhealthy. No storms in at least the next week. Time to get breathing masks again.

I expect people to be thrown by the extra m in my last name, but it's astonishing how many hear Matt as "Mac" or "Mark." (The last doesn't even have the same vowel sound—do they only listen to the first letter for every word?)

The few times there have been too many other Matts around and I've gone by Bob, it was almost a relief.

I sit 2 desks away from a Tanya and there's a Tara upstairs. We are always getting called by each other's names and getting each other's emails. Kind of a bond at this point.

Today's air is apparently only Moderate, which is a nice surprise, and the County Fire is 70% contained which is a huge improvement. Still would rather be in bed with the covers pulled up over my head.

We're on allegedly the last day of the heat wave, thank god. All my errands are finished for the day, so I am praising the gods of central air and eating salad. (I've been wanting to make peanut butter cookies for days, but don't want to turn on the oven. Tomorrow, maybe.)

I have laundry in the washer, and it is so damn humid out that I don't think I'm going to hang the line-dry stuff outside. I seriously doubt that it would dry. It can just go in the climate-controlled bedroom.

I almost forgot that there is a very tall block woman named Denise at work and I am a very short white woman named Nadine and people are constantly calking us the wrong name. We could be more different in personality or appearance except we both have large chests and have an n and a d in our names. We have even accidentally called each other our own name!