we now end our intermission

Today is my sister's and brother-in-law's 2-year anniversary. Happy day to them!

Yes, I'm still around, thanks for asking. Now that the degree is done and the thesis is approved, bound, and sitting on a shelf in the university library, the girl needed a major break from responsibility and deadlines and anything else she bloody well didn't feel like doing. Well, at least outside of the day job, that is. Hence, the lack of bloggery.

Said break involved a lot of knitting (project pictures will be posted in the next week or two), reading (Dorothy Wordsworth's journals, Franklin Habit's little book, and I'm about to start Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which is perfectly appropriate seeing as I usually read P&P in the spring every year anyway), sushi meals with my sister (Sushi King's explosion roll is my new favorite), a long overdue manicure, and several instances of stumbling upon fun movies (The Hudsucker Proxy, which I'd not seen in awhile and watched while Em did my manicure, and On Approval, the black-and-white version; and I've just found out there's an updated version with Jeremy Brett and Penelope Keith, so I need to look out for that). I've gotten a hell of a lot of spring cleaning done too. I've got a load of stuff to put up on freecycle as a result of it - Karen-the-acupuncturist did her bit with the needles again.

The dust has now more or less settled since the company I work for had a recent spell of musical offices. We now occupy the entire floor, and we can now walk the entire perimeter of the floor without setting foot into the bathroom/elevator hallway. While I'm in a smaller space, which is missing a wall (hopefully only a temporary issue), it does have a window. We'll see how my SAD does this winter.

One thing I like about having a window office again is being able to observe what goes on outside. For instance, a large part of my view is of a parking lot, which is mostly empty. However, a police car appears in late morning, parks in the same spot, and disappears in the early afternoon. Is the police person waiting to pounce on parking lot speeders, or perhaps having a little nap, or maybe working on his or her novel?

Joe-the-office-roomie, who, in a probable fit of insanity, agreed to keep sharing an office with me, is rather fond of the glass pyramids on the roof of the mall opposite our office building. They remind me of I.M. Pei's glass pyramids outside the Louvre. No idea if one was the inspiration for the other.

We also have quite a view of the rainstorms rolling in and out during the day, this being April after all. It reminds me of my first visit to Australia. One afternoon, my mom took me to a Chinese restaurant that was on the 12th floor of an office building. She and Steve were regulars there, so the owner took charge of our care and feeding. We watched the storms traveling across the city while we ate and talked. Sadly, the restaurant isn't there anymore.

I managed to get out for an afternoon stroll between rainstorms today. All the greens are juicy looking thanks to the weather. The gardeners planted bright red tulips this year all around the space between the office buildings in this complex. The tulips look fab, as do the pinky-purplely flowers whose name I don't know, and the cherry blossoms were extra pretty earlier this month. However, the latter didn't last long as we had several windy days that caused petal showers all over the sidewalk.

I know my break needs to end soon because I'm ready to start a new writing project, I'm ready to send my novel/thesis out into the world, I'm ready for cello lessons, and I'm looking forward to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival next weekend - Jane and Gwen are going with!