Enter the new...

It seems I can't start a new year without change and drama.  Last year I uprooted and moved across country for a new job in a new town, with a new and quieter routine surrounded by friends old and new.  I burrowed into my new surroundings with a fervor, reveled in my new nest and neighborhood.  I loved it.  Then 2012 came, and decided a change was warranted.

I've lived in DC and Boston, where rents are high, and rent increases an annual occurrence.  I was not prepared for the bay area, however, where rents are higher, and rent increases only regulated in the amount of time required for notification.  I'll spare you the extended version and give you the punchline:  I'm moving two doors down from my lovely nest, into a one-bedroom apartment with smaller kitchen, balcony, and a linen closet the size of a tea towel.  Yes, there were tears.  I have no idea where my lovely craft closet will fit in the new place, nor any of the items currently in the outside storage closet, which is lacking in the new place.

To focus on the positive, I do love this neighborhood, where I can walk to my wee city's downtown restaurants and festivals.  I will still have a washer/dryer, which I consider a must.  I'll get direct sunlight in the mornings, so my plans for tomatoes and herbs will proceed apace this spring.  They painted the wall in the living room this week, so I still have my lush green, non-white decor.  I'll reward my storage creativity with a trip to the Container Store after the move - I may be losing the craft closet, but we all know I love a chance to organize and use the label maker.

Stay tuned, you know there will be stories of catastrophe and recovery to come.

Lessons in Food

There was a farmers' market in Boston - it was an hour's T ride away, and many of the vendors expected bulk purchases.  One girl does not need 5 lbs. of potatoes.  And oh, the number of potatoes, carrots, onions, and apples.

In my last year in DC a farmers' market opened in my neighborhood - it started at 9:30am, which in DC during August means you're already facing 80 degrees or more.  I did, however, discover garlic scapes:

They grow above the garlic bulb, can be used like tangy green onions, and then there are the blossoms:

If they're dried they last for ages, and you can use the seeds in your cooking, too.  I was very impressed with these discoveries - and after the Garlic Festival here in Gilroy, I have plans for growing my own garlic plant, complete with scapes and blooms!

In California, the farmers' market is a year-round affair.  Annie and I meet each Sunday in the wee hours, bribe her young son into the car, and head over to grab breakfast at a cafe on the same street as the market.  We take turns chasing the 2-year-old around as we make our way down the street.  And each week there's something new to try:

Lemon cucumbers!

Watermelon radishes!

English peas!

Squash blossoms!

The squash blossoms were my experiment in recreation - a favorite restaurant in DC had these on the menu, stuffed with goat cheese, battered and fried.  Annie dared me to recreate it, so I took a deep breath, picked out three promising blossoms, and returned to the Cowgirl Creamery booth for a creamy cheese to stuff inside those orange blooms.

I got home, and did a quick sweep online for suggestions, and that's where I learned that the blossoms I bought were male plants - the female plants are fertilized in order to grow the squash, which, ironically, leaves them with the appearance of male genitalia:

Female squash blossom

I have to say, I think I bested the DC restaurant.  I used a milder cheese that didn't over-power the squash blossoms, and made a beer batter with an English cider from Yorkshire's oldest brewery.

Cheesy Squash Blossoms

1 Tbsp. flour
1/2 Tbsp. corn starch
salt
black pepper w/ lavender (I keep these together in a second pepper mill)

Mix the above together well.  Whisk in cider until batter is both smooth and of the consistency you want (I made mine a little runnier than I probably would next time - it's a learning process).

Gently cram some Cowgirl Creamery Inverness cheese into the squash blossoms, roll them in the batter, and drop them in a hot pan with olive oil.  Cook until batter is golden.  Enjoy with the rest of the cider you didn't need to make the batter.  It's was wonderful.

Served with quinoa, rainbow greens tossed in a mustard vinaigrette, and spaghetti squash.

That's how I roll.

Is there a doctor in the house?

Growing up, I didn't know that mac'n'cheese even came in a box.  Momola wouldn't say that she made the cheesy goodness from scratch; there are some people who can do rue, and they make gravy - others, not so much.  Momola would start with a can of cheddar cheese soup and throw in shredded cheese, spices, hamburger or ham or veggies to suit her mood.  Mac'n'cheese was never the same twice, but it was always delicious.

I confess that in grad school I learned to appreciate the pure speed of mac'n'cheese in a box, though after the very first time, I never made it according to the instructions.  Instead, I stole a page from Momola's book, and let whimsy guide my doctoring spirit.  I make Annie's mac'n'cheese with greek yogurt, sour cream, freshly shredded cheese, and additions.  Tonight it was left-over sauteed onions and spicy peppers from last night's fish tacos - an excellent call, if I do say so myself.

So while the rue-bility may have skipped Momola and landed on me (come to my house on Thanksgiving for my gravy skills), I appreciate the lessons my Momola taught me, and on a weeknight in my kitchen, there's a doctor in the house.

A spectator for the destruction.

Today was the first day in a two-day construction project in my house.  They came to poke holes in my walls, through which they could tighten springs attached to metal rods in there, and that this metal rod/spring combo will increase the resilience of the building in case of an earthquake.  So this project is something to welcome.  Except for the hassle.


Thank goodness I don't have any furniture in the front room yet!  I spent the weekend emptying out what had become a catch-all storage closet, moving living room furniture, and convincing that cat that we were moving again.  She was not impressed.  This morning, having transferred all her needs to my bathroom, I shut the door to my bedroom, relieved that at least she could have the run of some familiar territory.  Imagine my surprise when one of the guys on the crew started to open the door to my room - after a quick shout, he explained that they'd mislabeled the floor plan, and that they needed to get in there after all.  I shut the fur in my bathroom, and opened the door to my closet for them - my closet where all my clothes were and nothing had been moved.  A scurried half hour spent shuttling clothes out of the closet, and we were back on track.  I sat down at the dining room table to work, and a little later and turned around to see this:

They weren't kidding about those six-inch holes...

We're going to be able to match that green, right?

Up close - wowsers...

They did patch up all the holes - painting commences tomorrow morning.  And the crew chief had to visit the local hardware store for another can of that paint - good thing I still had the name buried in my email.

Seriously, though, they moved fast, and there's only one layer of plastic on the floor tonight.  The biggest problem today (other than the closet), was that while I was moving clothes, they wrapped the kitchen in plastic and pulled the washer/dryer out to block the fridge.  I hadn't gotten breakfast before they came, and other than snatching my cheddar bunnies out of a cupboard when they went on their coffee break, and snagging a spoonful of peanut butter between phone calls later in the day, I didn't have anything to eat until they left at the end of the day - you've never seen a girl race to the fridge faster than I did when the door closed!

I don't see why you don't keep your clothes here every day.

Picture Me

Picture me sitting on my balcony, with a rum drink on the table next to me, with my knitting bag on the floor beside me, and the not-so-quiet sound of a train passing by.  That's how I spend my time immediately after coming home on a stressful day.  I can do this, because even if the temperature gets into the 80s during the day, it's not humid here, so the balcony isn't too hot to enjoy.  On the flipside, if I want to sit on the balcony in the morning, socks and a wool sweater are involved, but since I've resumed my knitting career, both of those are going to be replenishing resources.

Why is this peaceful spot so clutch?  I thought this week would be downright quiet when I went to organize myself Monday morning.  Note to self, the Universe likes to laugh at people who think they have things under control.  Let's all try to keep that in mind for the future, shall we?

When the milk runs out…

The government shut down last week for four days, and Friday it was a late start day – I (wisely) opted to stay home that day, as well. The snow two-fer succeeded in shutting down the city, making a mess of the roads, and shutting down supplies – grocery stores ran out of everything from milk and bread to condoms (no joke), and even my local pub had to stop serving food one afternoon.

Luckily, having been out of town for the three weeks prior and coming home to bare cupboards, I had stocked up – I had treats from Trader Joe’s, plenty of coffee and milk, and a cabinet full of red wine. Not to mention a five pound bag of potatoes, a bag of onions, and another full of oranges – proof that I should not be allowed in a grocery store without a list. In case you were wondering, it is possible to eat potatoes two ways in the same meal.

But what turned out to be the best thing on hand was something I’d gotten a month or more ago, and had been sitting in my fridge all along. Because after a tramp outside in the snow, or mid-afternoon when webmail has kicked you off again or yet another call gets dropped due to blizzard winds outside, nothing warms up a cuppa like a healthy dose of Irish crème.

So when the milk runs out, my coffee won’t have to go without.

the words in my head.

Today's been a rough day. After the week of the fastest sick ever, spending Wednesday at home sleeping, Thursday in meetings, and Friday driving around suburban Virginia in a trek to the biggest waste of time since, I'm gonna say, August, I celebrated the end of the week with dinner at the pub with Momola and a co-worker. We laughed about stupid people (see Early Morning Wake-up Call) and other folks who get on our nerves. It was a good way to end the week, but there was a lot of talking yesterday, and towards the end of the day my throat was a little scratchy.

Twelve hours later, when I woke up, my throat was still sore. Not a big deal, I made a pot of tea, and sat down with the computer and my DVR remote. My morning's are quiet, so it took a while for the blogs to make me laugh and the squawk of my throat to alert me to today's health development. I'd lost my voice. And not just kind of, in a 'let me clear my throat' kind of way. We're not even talking about the voice-loss that goes away at the end of the morning, leaving you thinking you just needed a warm-up. I haven't been able to talk all day. At all. Everything comes out as a whisper, and a sentence leaves me coughing - which is almost funny, because I'm not coughing otherwise.

It's occured to me today just how much I talk in a given day. Even on the weekend days I don't leave the house. I call Meredith and chat with the Dumpster, I call the folks to tell them random things, and I call to bug Christopher about getting together for Sunday brunch. Today it was me, the tv, and the computer - I couldn't even talk the that cat. Talk about stir crazy - if you can call it stir crazy when you're trapped inside your head.

Side note: I didn't do anything useful like catch up on e-mail, or sort through yesterday's mail. But I did join Twitter - that's right, I now tweet. Snarky one-liners all the day long. Sounds like fun, but if I can't talk tomorrow there's going to be some violence.

Oh yeah, and happy Valentine's day, or something. It didn't really occur to me that that's what today was, until my sick and sorry ass fixated on pudding and I wanted someone to run to the market for me. Yup, the only time I really regret the lack of a man in my life is when I want to pout and make someone else go by me some ice cream.

asleep on the couch.

That's a pretty accurate description of me this week. It's been a series of meetings at work, so no time to organize my notes from last week's meeting in California, and no time to follow up on conversations from last week, either. So each night I've come home just looking to unwind, and perhaps cranking the computer back up later to send out some of those emails on my list. Instead, as Keith Obermann railed against Blago and examined the passing of the new stimulus bill, I would start with the long blinks and pass into the land of nod. Waking up with a crick in my neck, I'd hobble off to bed and find myself reading far into the night - evening naps aren't usually a good idea for the sleep schedule. So the week has been a wash, for the most part, and I'll be glad when it's over. I need to do a thorough house-cleaning, a grocery run, and oh yeah, take down my Christmas tree. So here's hoping that I find a hidden energy reserve this weekend. Or at least find the ability to put the smack-down on myself.

Rockin' around the Christmas tree.

This is my beautiful Christmas tree, and this evening, while throwing virtual snowballs on Facebook, I looked up to find this:

a little kittay under the Christmas tree! She even stayed there while I plugged in the lights for optimal effect. And yes, those are dancing penguins on the floor, I have a feeling we went through this last year. Anyway, this year the artificial tree is new(er) and bigger, so the string of penguin lights gets a little lost, which is unfortunate; I may have to think of a new approach next year. But the ornaments are either penguins, glass balls, or glass eggs. I'm still in love with those penguin lights, though:
I mean, really, how great is that? My aunt found them for me a couple of years ago.

So yeah, that cat has claimed a spot under the tree, and I'm not going to put any presents there, because I'm a big sucker like that, and it's cute.

Those headlights are giggle-worthy, as well.

Sleeping sickness.

I was sick as a dog last week, coughed my way to a lone seat on the train coming back from New York, and it only got worse from there. I even stayed home sick one day - without having to use any sick time, which peeves me - but by the end of the day Thursday I was dragging. I made arrangements with my client to be available from home on Friday, but come Friday morning, even that wasn't an option. In addition to the cold that had exploded in my system, nose stopped up, throat raw, and coughing continuously, suddenly Friday morning I found mucus coming out of my eyeball. I know, it's gross, reading about it can't be worse than seeing it, particularly when you're seeing it come out of your own eyeball. A quick google search found conjunctivitis as the most likely cause, especially as preceeded by a sinus condition, such as a cold.

That's right, I had pink eye.

It was 6 o'clock in the morning when I woke up to this mess, and I couldn't call my doctor until after 9am. It was a miserable three hours spent carefully wiping my eye with cotton balls, washing my hands, and calling Momola to yell at her for giving me the grossness. (Note: that's not actually confirmed, but it turns out two people in her office floor were contaminated, and she saw them more than I, and the day before I had noted her red eyes. Also, I didn't actually yell, I merely guilted her into packing up and heading for the doctor herself.) I finally got in touch with my doctor's office and made an appointment, which required I rol into sweatpants, and a hat (bed head only affects me when I want to leave the house without showering) and head for the bus - I'm sure the folks on the bus were pumped to see me, coughing and blowing my nose, with one eye red, puffy, and half-closed.

My doctor is a taciturn man, whose occasional attempts at humor are those you'd expect from a doctor, "oh, you work for the government, you could tell me, but then you'd have to kill me, eh?" Except imagine that in a toneless deadpan. He seems generally unimpressed with any attempts for the patient to demonstrate knowledge - as he told me how to care for my eyes as if I were a small child I stepped in and told him I had been doing just as he said, and he just looked at me for a moment before continuing as if I hadn't interrupted. Don't get me wrong, he's a nice guy, just a little short on the people skills. It actually freaks me out less than the doctors who are overly cheerful. I walked away with a prescription for eye drops and an admonition that I was highly contagious for 5 days and told to stay away from the general population. I got back on the bus and headed to Target, where I was told that they didn't have my eye drops in stock. Thinking that if I had to get back on the bus and go to the hospital pharmacy I'd be really annoyed (and already annoyed that I was going to be housebound for 5 days) I headed to the worst CVS ever. They had the eye drops... and every crying baby for a mile around. Here I am feeling awful for standing within six feet of any small person and risking passing the pink eye around, and these mothers keep crowding closer to me in line, cause it's a good idea to stand closer to someone whose eye is slowly closing. While the prescription was being filled, I headed back to Target to stock up on amusement for the next five days.
I acquired:

• new holiday pajamas (complete with holly berries)
• a penguin t-shirt
• a new wrap sweater that I never did get to wear, because they've turned the heat on in my apartment, oh, but it's wonderful
• penguin underpants (they came in a trio with holiday ornament underpants!)
• Arrested Development Season 2
• cold drugs (because when I cave, I cave absolutely)
• enough food to tide me over until the next day's Peapod delivery

And so I've spent the past five days at home, and until today, sleeping. We're talking all but six hours of the day sleeping, and they weren't consecutive. Even yesterday I was afraid that going back to work on Wednesday would be rough, but today I have been awake all day, nap-free! I put up and decorated my Christmas tree (penguins!) , wrapped some presents, did some online Christmas shopping, and even did some laundry - yay, me! I'm sure a full day tomorrow is going to wreck me, but I'm really excited about leaving the house tomorrow!

Oh yeah, and there are pictures of the tree - I'll post them later.

Saturday night's alright.

Another Saturday and I'm watchin' the Red Sox
I got some food, cuz I just went to the sto'

OK, maybe not my best made up song, but I'm calling my day productive: dry cleaning dropped off, check, mani-pedi, check, market, check. And now I've got a fridge full of treats and meals planned for the week ahead, the Red Sox on tv (GO SOX!), and pants with elastic for a waist on. A couple of years ago I'd've been disappointed, but today, I am more than satisfied with my evening plan. I'm enough over the food poisoning to have a beer at hand and pretzel chips with cheesy dip sitting next to me - OK, I'm as belchy as my brother-in-law, but there's no one here to be offended. He can't say that. I'm giving myself the lazy Saturday I haven't had in a while, particularly because I've brought work home for tomorrow and Monday (a government holiday, so nominally a day of rest). In my three full days of work this week I've managed to work enough to take back some of my sick time from Monday and Tuesday. Sounds good in theory, but unless you use your sick time what good is it? You only get to build up so much and then you stop accumulating it, so I want to at the very least get to use it when I'm actually sick. I feel gypped. Oh well, what can you do?

I'm not writing the post about what happened to my housefund in the stock market this year. I know, rationally, that things will turn around, but getting that "earnings" statement still hurts. It just makes me want to take my big raise (October paycheck, I can't wait!) and either spend it on a Burmuda weekend or stuff it in a mattress. Except I love my mattress just the way it is. Burmuda would be a good way to turn thirty...

Meeting the neighbors...

Tonight I'm a little tipsy from wine and James Bond, but who wouldn't be affected by that combination??

Last night there was a tenants association meeting in my apartment building. My Very Attractive Neighbor was not there. I had been hopeful. I only see him occasionally, though we live on the same hall. I run into him sometimes as he walks his dog.

If I lived in a smaller building maybe I'd know more of my neighbors. There'd be a little old lady with a little nose and a big heart in everybody's business. One day she'd stop me and my Very Attractive Neighbor in the hall with "do you two dears know each other?" There'd be a gleam in her eye. And then we'd chat, and Very Attractive Neighbor would find me very charming. Kittay would learn to love his giant dog and we'd all live happily every after.

I need to move to a smaller building with a nosy little old lady...

archives...

This picture is titled, "what happens when I'm not around," but it works as an illustration of my Sunday, as well. Because I read, napped, and cuddled with Kittay all day long. She followed me to every new spot - nestled under my shoulder as I sprawled on my stomach on the bed, climbed onto my belly when I was curled on the loveseat with my feet in the air, and camped out on my lap while I read in a chair. It's been a pretty great Sunday, if only those boys had called back - a quick run for milk and I'd have made breakfast as usual, but one's notorious for not calling back.

I found a new blog to read - I sort of stumbled upon it in a random bout of internet surfing, and when a new blog is discovered I find myself going back, back through the archives, reading a history online, getting to know someone I don't know at all. This girl with a cat lived in Boston when I did, and lives in cities and dates boys, and tells stories about it all. I loved reading about how our lives overlapped.

It made me think about my own online history. I recently took down my archives on the old site that stopped working (see googlestinks). There was quite a bit on the old pages about the "awful situation", and on the off chance the wrong someone stumbled upon it, I took it down. Part of this comes from a desire to spread the word a little more about this site, without causing a rehash of all of the bad that I (truly) find myself not angry about anymore. I'd taken down the old pages, with all of the Boston, Janemyjane, and boy stories that I love, and a big chunk of personal growth through not-so-anonymous sharing. Of course, with the change from one venue to another, I don't know how much traffic those pages would get, or if it just makes a difference to me to know that those stories are still out there. It's not like I'm big in the blogosphere, so there aren't many random visitors who stop to read through my archives, hoping to get to know me without every having to meet me. Having gotten into the habit of blogging, however, my archives feel like a piece of me.

Happy Home Dance

I'm working from home today, for the second time this week. As I almost called in sick yesterday, it was a near thing to spending more time at home than the office. A near thing. I wasn't truly sick; I got a nosebleed yesterday morning in the shower. The last time this happened was in Boston, where I actually got them not frequently, but not infrequently, either. They were usually accompanied by dizzy spells, one so bad I couldn't get out of bed for hours. I went to the doctor (read, stupid college health clinic where they treat grad students and 18 year olds alike - as in the same). They took my blood pressure, and while on the low side, it wasn't dangerously low, so I was told that all was well. They sent me home. Now I have a real job and real, grown-up insurance, and yet, I have not been to any doctor in over a year. So I've made a list of doctors and priorities, and today I'm calling to make an appointment.

But working from home has advantages beyond the fact that I am wearing gym shorts and not wearing a bra. I'm also listening to music out loud - loud! And more than just dancing on my chair (which is now a ball in the office - dancing is both easier and more dangerous) I can get up and shake it like a Polaroid! I decided this morning that it's time to reinstate the Happy Home Dance. In Boston, when I first moved into my very own tiny studio I would come home from work, kick off my shoes, pick a song, push play, and spend my first five minutes jumping, shimmying, swaying, and occasionally, flailing. It wasn't that I didn't love my roommate, but it was so great to know that I was in a domain that was totally mine, and no one would intrude, laugh, or be shocked at anything I did. And so I danced with abandon.

When I moved here I spent time after work either suffering from heat exhaustion (a/c didn't join me in this apartment until this summer, and last September was HHHOT!) or unpacking and organizing. Not to mention the fact that I now have to get out of work clothes before the sweat from the walk home has rendered them unwearable for another day. Somehow the Happy Home Dance slipped from my routine. As I rediscovered an old favorite cd and song this morning (Starlight in Daden by Ekova on the Traveler '00 album) I found myself jumping. And shimmying. And flailing. And the Happy Home Dance has been reinstated.

projects.

Friday night I was invited to a picnic at the zoo - they threw a bash with which to appreciate their volunteers. It was quite the event and a very good time, even if it was humid and sticky out. I like my fellow volunteers, and we don't see each other when we're actually on the job, so these things are always fun. There's a meeting on Tuesday of this week, which involves a short lecture on an animal-related topic, so I'm excited.

After a lovely brunch with the boys - I am quite the little homemaker! - Momola came into the city to help me hand the pictures that have been in boxes for the last... ten months. I'm down to a small pile of boxes in the office that remain to be unpacked - it's books for which I have no bookcase and papers for which I have no file cabinet. I'm making a prioritized list of things I need:

1. vacuum cleaner
2. file cabinet
3. headboard for bed
4. bookshelves (at least two required for books I own, without consideration for books I've yet to buy)
5. nightstands
6. dresser

The order of those last two is negotiable, and all of this waits for two things: my impending Block Island trip with Neeners and Janemyjane that ends with half a week in Boston (hello Washington Square Tavern and Liquid Hair Salon!), and... a vacation with Momola to Martha's Vineyard!!

That's right, two amazing things happened at work this week. First, a proposal I submitted to do some extra work (!) resulted in extra work, but comes with a bonus, so is hard to argue with! Second, Lady and I gave a monetary donation to a girl who's about to spend the next year and so living out of a van (down by the river? not quite) traveling and volunteering - she had a raffle for thsoe who donated, and we won a place to stay on Martha's Vineyard! What's even better, Momola's initial reaction was, "I can't take vacation, you go..." but I talked her out of it and we're headed off for some mother-daughter bonding time, with the possible addition of her best friend (she of "blue sparkling hell" fame) and maybe Janemyjane and Neeners?? The details are far from even being fuzzy, but Lady has agreed to go, and I'm so excited!

Anyway, I'm planning a work-at-home day for Tuesday, and have a plan to take some pictures of the newly decorated place, that way you guys can see my lovely, almost-furnished home!

nothing special.

I’ve mentally written a couple of posts in the past week, but never sat down and actually typed them in. This kind of defeats the purpose of the blog, and is a useless exercise, but there you go. Nothing very interesting, just some random thoughts I had about recent articles written about bloggers and their lives. It may turn into a post down the line - you might find you'd rather I'd sat down and written that instead of this - my week has been pretty quiet, which makes for boring reading.

I wasn’t on the computer much over the weekend, because my little machine gets quite warm as it chugs along, and it was too hot to hold a warm computer in my lap. And I had the a/c going, too, but even at top speed those machines could only get my apartment down to about 82 degrees – better than the 100+ it felt like outside, but too warm for me, anyway. It wasn’t a very exciting weekend, and the heat was a big reason for that. I managed to explore the new Harris Teeter in my neighborhood (yay!) and make it home in one sweaty piece, and did a lot of house cleaning. I was in post-housecleaning grossness and eating a salad when Jared and Claudia called to see if I wanted to go see Indiana Jones in an air-conditioned theater. The only problem with that plan is that it involved going outside to get to the air conditioning. But the kicker was that I had resorted to short-hair pigtails as I cleaned, with all of the bobby pins and elastics that were required. There wasn’t time to shower and bring my hair back into an outside, real-world sort of presentability – and I’m never very presentable in the first place. So I shamefully stayed home with the a/c and cold beer. Next time, guys! Christopher made me leave the house again for breakfast on Sunday morning. What. A. Jerk. By the time I made it home I was so hot and exhausted (yes, just from walking – it was 3 miles in the heat!). So the rest of my weekend was a whole lot of nothing. But the good news is that I got some housework done, found a better grocery store (& it’s closer, too), and created a wind tunnel of cool air in the apartment. So a good weekend all around, in a homebody, productive and restful sort of way.

And yes, I spent some time on the online boy hunt, but nothing truly blog-worthy yet. I shot an email to Mr. Eyes over the weekend, and heard back from him early this week – he’s been busy, will be busy with work, and out of town, and so on, but wants to keep me on the line, apparently. So fine, there are some other boys coming on deck, but I think I'll wait to write about any until we meet up.