Thursday, October 17 2019

Dear Journal,

Good morning, everyone! Another chilly morning, and the sun is starting to come up a lot later. Waking up during the colder months feels so different, like I'm wandering around in a cave. This morning I'm drinking "Black Cat Espresso" by Intelligentsia. Do with that as you will.

Sip. I had an extra five minutes before it was time to start writing, so while I took my first few sips of coffee I watched a random Strong bad email. It was #204, or "dictionary", where somebody asks Strongbad if he makes his own dictionary for all his made up words. I'd recommend it, it's a good one.

Yesterday was pretty all over the place. It was a pretty chaotic day at work, hiding away to write more reviews, then scouring our project for things I forgot to do before moving the project to staging. In the afternoon, our team had a presentation for some company executives that were in town visiting, then we had a work happy hour. We met at some place near the square. I was thinking about skipping it because I've had a crazy week and I was feeling pretty shy, but I decided to go, and I'm glad I did. It was a good time mingling with coworkers, getting some drinks in, and eating off of a very pretentious charcuterie plate. We all stood around trying to figure out what kind of pickled vegetables we were eating. I ate something that tasted like an onion, but was bright neon pink, like a high lighter or pepto bismol.

Around six, I jumped on a bus. I don't know the later busses as well, and I accidentally jumped on the 4 as it was heading west. I quickly jumped off around State street. I was grateful I didn't have to walk by the restaurant again where everyone was working, I'd have a difficult time playing that off. Eventually I jumped on the six and texted Marissa. My long time next door neighbor got on the bus right next to me, and because of the dim lights there was a good four or five seconds where we were studying each other and realizing the coincidence. We chatted about how nice it is to live so close to a bus line, which is one of my favorite topics in the realm of bus smalltalk.

When I walked in the house, I was greeted by the wonderful smell of Marissa's cooking. I was surprised it was something other than buffalo chicken casserole. She decided to try chicken tikka masala served with rice and warm naan bread, and from where I was sitting she hit it out of the park. "I feel so useless just walking in the door after happy hour and sitting down at the table expecting food," I joked. It's the truth - there's no easy transition out of a mid week happy hour. It's like going from Friday night to Monday morning with absolutely no buffer in between. One moment, you're drinking beer with work friends, and within the hour there's dinner, dishes, laundry, and bedtime. The tikka masala, if anything, was my buffer. As we caught up around the dinner table, I could feel the spices in sauce take over my metabolism, making me sleepy, and it felt so good and comforting. Don't you love the way Indian food makes you feel right after you eat it?

Marissa gave Rodney a bath and I put him to bed. Having not seen him all day, we dragged bedtime out for another twenty minutes or so. I let Rodney try reading the book to me, then to throw him off I climbed into his bed and dismissed him like he had just put me to bed.

Afterwards, I went to the kitchen. Marissa had already taken care of the dishes from dinner, but I had more Wednesday chores to do, and the kitchen knives were due for sharpening. I popped in and out of the dining room while Marissa worked at the table trimming frames.

We reconvened sometime around 11 to continue watching The Great Dictator. Didn't quite finish it - just a measly fifteen minutes to go before we called it quits. It's only Wednesday night after all.

This morning, I'm slowing waking up with coffee, sitting here in a comfortable hoodie grateful to reach the end of a busy week. I have a day off tomorrow. Tonight should be pretty sweet, being my early Friday. I have Kids Code after work, then Marissa and I will put Rod to bed and watch Hot Ones. Paul Rudd is going to be on this week, I would check it out if I were you. I'm a big Paul Rudd loyalist these days. If you talk to me about a movie, chance are that I'll argue it would have been a better movie if he was given the lead instead. Like We Bought A Zoo. Paul Rudd would have killed it, let's be honest.

Hope you have a great Thursday today. Go get 'em.