Day 22: The campus here has six or seven cafeterias (which, given that it's got roughly 6,000 employees, is just about right). The one up front has a rotating thing, where one day is mexican, one day is italian, etc. Today was asian, and you get to make your own stir-fry, which was AMAZINGLY good. I just pointed at the veggies and meats I wanted, and a few minutes later, VOILA! A huge plate of lovely, delicious stir-fry, with none of that yucky stuff I hate (seriously, who eats eggplant or zucchini on purpose? I ask you!!).
I also had the opportunity to join the EDR Tea Club (ETC, because we like our TLA's), and someone mentioned math jokes.
"What's yellow and equivalent to the Axiom of Choice?"
"What's purple and commutes?"
I got a LOT of blank stares on the first one, and a few good laughs, notably from P, on the second one. She had studied group theory in college. It's perfectly find if you don't understand these jokes. They're like jokes about the differences between Vermont and New Hampshire: if you get the joke, you're from the region, but if you don't, no one judges you. In this case, the "region" is being a math nerd.
And almost NO ONE is from there...
R invited me over to have steak, and I offered to provide a Greek salad. He agreed, and we retired to our respective apartments to prepare our dishes.
And now, a pause while I have a little kid moment:
My mom had a set of mixing bowls. The biggest one was red (white on the inside), and the smallest was blue (white on the inside), and the medium one, the perfect one, was yellow (white on the inside). It's the JUST RIGHT bowl.
As a child, this bowl making an appearance meant one of two things: salad (which I love) or popcorn (which I love). We'd fill that thing with popcorn and plop down to watch whatever came after this:
The Special
I loved that intro. It meant we were about to watch Snoopy, or something equally awesome. SNOOPY! At least one of you has him tattooed on your body, and you're dead sexy because of it. You know who you are.
Tonight, making up a quick Greek salad, pouring it all into that bowl, and walking it over to R's place, I didn't really think about the significance of that bowl.
At the end of the evening tonight, after watching quite a lot of Justified, and enjoying quite a lot of steak and salad, R asked me if he could just run it through his dishwasher and give it back to me later.
Almost without thinking about it, I muttered, "Sure. Wait, no, that's my mom's."
This bowl has survived quite a few decades of me bouncing around the globe. It suddenly seemed important to me to make sure that I got it home. I mean, honestly, I don't expect R would break it or ruin it, and I'm quite sure that if I left it with him it would be perfectly fine (and, for the record, this is a man I would trust with my BROWSING HISTORY), but leaving the bowl seemed just weirdly wrong to me. He gave me a nice towel to wipe it out, and I set out for the apartment.
Walking home, I wasn't sobbing. I wasn't misty-eyed. I wasn't teary.
But I was carrying my mom's bowl.
Take a second today, and tell your mom I love her.
Er... you know what I mean. Ahem.
Loves to all of you, my peeps, and tomorrow: ADVENTURE!! :)
I also had the opportunity to join the EDR Tea Club (ETC, because we like our TLA's), and someone mentioned math jokes.
"What's yellow and equivalent to the Axiom of Choice?"
"What's purple and commutes?"
I got a LOT of blank stares on the first one, and a few good laughs, notably from P, on the second one. She had studied group theory in college. It's perfectly find if you don't understand these jokes. They're like jokes about the differences between Vermont and New Hampshire: if you get the joke, you're from the region, but if you don't, no one judges you. In this case, the "region" is being a math nerd.
And almost NO ONE is from there...
R invited me over to have steak, and I offered to provide a Greek salad. He agreed, and we retired to our respective apartments to prepare our dishes.
And now, a pause while I have a little kid moment:
My mom had a set of mixing bowls. The biggest one was red (white on the inside), and the smallest was blue (white on the inside), and the medium one, the perfect one, was yellow (white on the inside). It's the JUST RIGHT bowl.
As a child, this bowl making an appearance meant one of two things: salad (which I love) or popcorn (which I love). We'd fill that thing with popcorn and plop down to watch whatever came after this:
The Special
I loved that intro. It meant we were about to watch Snoopy, or something equally awesome. SNOOPY! At least one of you has him tattooed on your body, and you're dead sexy because of it. You know who you are.
Tonight, making up a quick Greek salad, pouring it all into that bowl, and walking it over to R's place, I didn't really think about the significance of that bowl.
At the end of the evening tonight, after watching quite a lot of Justified, and enjoying quite a lot of steak and salad, R asked me if he could just run it through his dishwasher and give it back to me later.
Almost without thinking about it, I muttered, "Sure. Wait, no, that's my mom's."
This bowl has survived quite a few decades of me bouncing around the globe. It suddenly seemed important to me to make sure that I got it home. I mean, honestly, I don't expect R would break it or ruin it, and I'm quite sure that if I left it with him it would be perfectly fine (and, for the record, this is a man I would trust with my BROWSING HISTORY), but leaving the bowl seemed just weirdly wrong to me. He gave me a nice towel to wipe it out, and I set out for the apartment.
Walking home, I wasn't sobbing. I wasn't misty-eyed. I wasn't teary.
But I was carrying my mom's bowl.
Take a second today, and tell your mom I love her.
Er... you know what I mean. Ahem.
Loves to all of you, my peeps, and tomorrow: ADVENTURE!! :)
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