Last week's spare seconds were spent corralling the local cats secretly and surreptitiously, all into one place and on time for Saturday evening.
The results were astounding. Dave's face was a frescoe in shades of delighted red, as it slowly dawned on him that the roomful of people had all just shouted SURPRISE, and all of it for him. Every ounce of effort was worth that look.
Five days off in a row last week, the time all went to napping and lazing, some gardening (and marvelling at the size of the courgettes and sheer number of tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, cukes...) but mostly napping and giggling and some brainstorming and more giggling and then more napping.
I think I made up for 1997's sleep alone, this weekend. I'd venture to suggest 1998, but even I'm not that brave.
And in still other news, I'm approaching the name change thing more and more surreptitiously, I've got my name changed on my access card now, the company phone list, with accounts payables, the benefits plan and my pension, the only thing left is my email address, but that's the tricky one that requires too many sign-offs.
It's a little scary how easy it has gotten to "get stuff changed" in this place now that I'm not in charge of some of the security anymore -- or maybe I'm just using insider knowledge. I'd be more worried, but I've learned how it works -- enough papers have been signed along the chain of command between me and them, that my ass is as covered as a Montreal garage and I've got WAY bigger things to worry about.
The only thing missing between my newfound knowlege on How To Get An Accomplishmentarian to Shut Up and Sleep, and the progress at work and with friends (I'm making up for the antisocial secret trimester in droves) is --
a name. We have a book, we have a list of rejected names, laughable names, hilarious names, we have an understanding at one of the few differences in our cultures (I hate one-syllable names, he prefers them) but we have no name as yet! We have a possible girl name (Gabrielle), but I have an odd dream feeling that we might need a boy one... (and Scott, Sean, Sebastien is disliked by one of us, and Michael and John are way too fuckign xtian!)
Between websites, name books, the heroes of our favourite novels (I wonder how resilient a child named Lazarus would turn out), we've got about a billion possibilities and...
...only 183 days to left to sift through them all!
Oh, how the trials have changed, these last few years, and how glorious the days.