Odd Schedule

After the bank holiday weekend, the Tuesday is always a little confusing and so hard to fit into the schedule. You suspect that it's not really a work day, or are still in the weekend mode even though it is by now well into the week.

This evening after a not-particularly busy or hectic day at work, I sat or lay on the couch and rested early on, idly reading some of the news on my phone. I think there needs to be a new portmanteau to indicate half sitting, half laying. Litting? Slaying? Perhaps not. Lounging is the closest to fitting the bill but implies some vague insouciance of cool, as if when using this word your hair should also be tousled - everything about you being a deliberately unkempt version of chaos theory to demonstrate your edginess and comforming nonconformity.

Besides this, I fell asleep for a while. Insouciant loungers do not fall asleep. This pattern repeated itself throughout the evening as I dozed, woke up and thought 'was I sleeping?' before resuming my slumbering position. I then awoke at somewhere close to 11:30 realising that I was if not fully awake, then not quite as sleepy as I had been.

This does not bode well for the sleep to come tonight, of course. I anticipate a long game of watching the ceiling in a staring contest that I can never win. It's warmer too, which won't encourage me to doze off. Hopefully I can still get up early enough without feeling too tired!

Reaction

It was odd that despite being American, the only people she knew in the Boston area Chrissi knew through me. There were two people who I used to work with who are there now - one who lives there now with her husband, the other who is visiting his girlfriend this week. My thoughts first turned to them after hearing of the explosions at the marathon today.

There was some of that awkward etiquette that can only come from being British. Should you like the status of someone who says they and their family are okay? While it's something I want to acknowledge my relief of, I didn't want to 'like' it. You shouldn't have to like something such as that, it shouldn't happen for you to have to like that people are okay in the aftermath of such an event. "Hurrah you're okay!" seems - to me - a hint inappropriate when you know there are people who are not; it's a matter of relief not cheer.

Equally, do you message people you haven't heard from - and if so, to say what? "I hope you're okay" - as if they were to get this and not be okay, what would they do? "If you get this I hope you're okay" feels even more ridiculous. In the end you settle for something awkward and muddled.

Anyway, everyone I know over there is safe and well, if not undoubtedly a little shook up as a result.

Important Music Question

At what point does a 'good song' become a 'tune'? Sorry, a tuuuuuuuuune. The ridiculous amount of emphasis on the u is important.

As I listen to the radio a lot more now, simply because I have it on in the car both on the way to and from work, I hear a lot more music. My station of choice, which I won't satisfy by giving a mention, plays a lot of random music and a lot of cracking songs (or, if you prefer, tuuuuunes) from various eras without real distinction. This evening I have gotten into my head as a result of my drive home both They Might Be Giants' Birdhouse in your Soul and the curiously named Smash Mouth's All Star.

Nothing wrong with that.

Not to Mention the Pie ...

In addition to yesterday's discussed feast of unhealthy items at work today, there was also another event that I had overlooked - today being Pi Day. This is because the date format (if you are North American at least) is 3/14 and hence March 14th is logically Pi Day.

To celebrate this I of course decided to buy pies for the building - so two flavours (apple pie and blackcurrant pie) were purchased, and advertised to the building as well as the reason. My only regret is that I sent the email nine minutes too early, sending this at 1:50 instead of the much neater 1:59 (i.e. 3/14 1:59 which is a much better visual if less correct representation of pi itself).

Background Noise

All evening there's been a gas van parked at the top of the road, making a non-stop noise. It's likely the sound of some drilling or some other similarly irritating noise - the end result being that as opposed to a peaceful night this has been nagging away in the background, the metaphorical fingernails down the blackboard if you will. It's more annoying as it generates the same sounds (albeit louder) as my computer does - I have this nagging feeling that it's my computer playing up every time I pay attention to it.

This evening Chrissi and I attempted to play a new game we'd bought but after an hour during which we only got confused at the large number of pieces and the huge rulebook we decided that we'd call this evening's game "getting the pieces out of the packaging" and return to this another time.

I was nearly due to be dispatched to Gaydon tomorrow, but fortunately a last minute meeting cancellation meant that I didn't have to get up earlier and spend most of my day travelling there and back - something which I'm most grateful for. Particularly as it would have meant I'd have missed out on pizza, which was being provided for us at work originally as bribery for attending a business update and now that the business update isn't happening as a 'well done for working hard recently' reward.

To complete the healthy day, tomorrow evening I head on to poker where I will eat similarly healthily.

Two Starts

There were two potential starts to the day, as I had it planned. A meeting in London this morning at 10:30 meant that I was starting from home, as opposed to heading out to Godalming and then back in to London, a rather pointless journey.

The first would have me rising at normal time, a little after 6am, and to head to my car where I would drive to the local leisure centre. Taking advantage of the early start, I could have a good swim for an hour, perhaps even a little more depending on my dedication, and then return home, shower, get prepared for the day ahead and leave in a timely manner having had a refreshing start.

The second would instead allow me to take advantage of the closer proximity to my starting point for the day, and enjoy a little more time in bed. As opposed to rising between 6am-6:30, I could instead sleep in bed until a couple of hours later, and still have time to leisurely get up, dressed, shower (not in that order) and get ready for work.

I decided last night to take the wise course of action and let my snooze button decide - I would simply see how I reacted when I woke up. Sometimes I feel fresh and awake and willing to get on with the day; others I'm quite happy to stay curled under the covers for as long as possible. Fighting tiredness by getting up early made no sense; taking advantage of an early start did.

I'll leave you to take an educated guess as to which one of these two scenarios actually played out ...

Morning Surprise

So this week is mostly car-themed events, because that's the main new thing going on at the moment and also where most of the amusing stories are coming from.

This morning I had an odd predicament - my car wouldn't start. Or rather, I couldn't start my car, the distinction being important. There was no issue with the vehicle itself - the battery, engine, etc were all fine. I simply couldn't turn the key in the ignition. I had not had this problem the previous evening, or yesterday morning. Chrissi then came to have a look, as she was leaving a little after me, and was met with similar lack of success.

In the end, I found the result by browsing through the manual - that I needed to do so in order to start my car seemed a little strange. The issue was that as I was parked facing uphill on a moderate incline, it wanted you to have the clutch partially down before it would accept the key being turned in the ignition. This can be understood, but at the same time is absurdly strange.

I started the car and the journey to work passed without incident. Tomorrow there'll be a break from car-related stories as I'm working from home (morning and afternoon) and attending a meeting in central London inbetween. I'm sure something there will inspire a tale.

Essential Purchase

So today I made the essential purchase of an ice scraper at lunch, simply to spare myself a repeat of the ridiculous journey that I made this morning. Consider:

I leave house and walk down the road to Chrissi's car; opening car I then retrieve ice scraper from Chrissi's car, locking it behind me and continuing on my way.

Walk down road to my car; open car, heat it while I do the essential ice scraping of the frost from the windows.

Switch off and lock car, return up road to Chrissi's car. Open her car, return ice scraper for when she leaves, lock car.

Return to my car.

It was at this point that I remembered that I hadn't put the recycling out, but at that point I'd done too many journeys back and forth up and down the road that I thought the recycling would do just fine on its own inside for a week and left it at that.