Wrap-up from the long Thanksgiving weekend:

  • Had two other couples over for Thanksgiving. At the last minute got a call from a friend: her husband wanted to bring a friend who was alone that day. He called my friend's husband Thanksgiving morning to ask, "Hey, what are you doing today?" I said a flat no and was pissed at being put in the position. "The poor guy's all alone today!" Yes, but he counted on that: on no one being able to say no at the last minute.

  • We are moving next weekend, so spent most of the weekend packing. Ugh.

  • Because the house we're living in is being sold, the well has to be tested. The real estate agent said, "They'll put some chlorine in the water - you can still shower, but don't drink it." So yesterday (Sunday), in the morning someone is knocking on the door. It was the man-who-tests-the-water. He was about to cut our water supply when something told him to ask us if we were okay with that.

    He said that he was going to put a lot of chlorine: "You can't shower in that; it would burn your eyes and turn your hair green. And it's really dangerous for your daughter." referring to my three-year-old. He was quite nice; said he'd come back tomorrow so we could do laundry and bathe and other niceties and be ready for a day without water. The SO had a nice talk with the real estate agent, who protested her ignorance.

  • Little Georgie Bush preserved his fragile victory; doesn't know how to tie his own shoes, but he'll be our next president. Dick Cheney has a heart attack trying to explain the concept of counting to our fearless leader.

  • Read Wired article about the engineers from The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder. I have a friend (the poet/stockbroker) who loves the book - I will have to ask him why. When I read it, I was quite disappointed to find that Tracy was not a woman. After I read it, my only reaction was, I guess I'm not the only one who's had shitty jobs.