[update #25]

Have I told you about where I work lately?! I’m not sure that I have . . . so – here is a nice and quick description – before I even get in to the particular particulars of what I really want to tell you – right at this second.

I work in a petting zoo for penguins – where we are forced to wear tuxedos in order to maintain the “classiness” of the joint. It is a ridiculous place where everyone takes themselves waaaaaaay too seriously. I mean – the other day – and I am absolutely not going to give out names (but you know exactly who you are) – this one guy – who happens to have one of the upper-echelon-top-shelf type of managerial jobs started taking his part in the whole pageant a bit too far . . . Oh – I got ahead of myself there – the managers wear polar bear costumes – and chase all of the rest of us around during the big closing show that goes on before each group is escorted back to their busses . . . back to their dismal suburbia – where there are no penguins to pet – and no polar bear managers chasing people around (the brute actually knocked me down and kept his paw on my head – in a puddle – the other day – ugh).

So that is where I work (currently).

Recently we moved the whole show into a new and exciting building – actually pretty close to the old building – and actually actually into a building that isn’t even quite finished . . . but that is neither here – nor – there. The point is that there are all of these odd automated systems that do things for you. The elevator has no buttons on the inside – only on the outside (so don’t even think of changing where you want to go mid-trip), the blinds on the windows open and close all by themselves, toilets flush by themselves and sinks come on by themselves (if they feel like acknowledging that you are there) and for the topper – there isn’t any drinking water. Basically how the whole thing has turned out is that I have penguins that are stuck on elevators – who aren’t washing their flippers after “skipping to the loo” – that are totally worshiping whatever magic penguin deity that they have decided is responsible for the blinds going up and down by themselves – and who I constantly have to make sure have bottles of water to quench their thirst little penguin thirst.It is a big jumble of yarn (not unlike most aspects of my current life) . . . and don’t even get me started on the polar bears . . .