that's the way my love is

Apologies for not blogging last night. I have been quite busy with baking - I made twenty dozen cookies again last night, bringing up my grand total to forty dozen cookies in two days. I've gotten it down to a science - I was able to churn out two trays of chocolate chip chewies, a batch of sugar cookies (eight dozen), and a double batch of jam thumbprints (seven dozen) last night in three and a half hours. I could have been even faster if I had more room to spread out the cookies to cool; instead, I had to cover my desk in parchment paper and use that, since I've forsaken a kitchen table and turned my dining alcove into an office. Unfortunately, in my baking mania I managed to give myself a three-inch burn on my upper left arm. I was rearranging trays within the oven, and ran one into my arm; it hurt quite a bit last night, but it's really not that awful, and I should be fine soon.

Today was quite a lovely day. It's my mother's birthday (happy birthday, Mom!), so I talked to her and Dad briefly this evening. I'm leaving for home in forty-eight hours, which is v. exciting. I love Christmas, and I'm quite eager for it this year; it will just be nice to relax at home and see the family (and hopefully Katie, the queen of my heart).

Today is also Vidya's birthday (happy birthday, Vidius Chandicus!). I actually skipped my team's offsite to go up to the city and see her - that's rather unlike me, to prioritize friends over work, but I feel that birthdays are important. Also, one of the pivotal scenes in 'The Devil Wears Prada' is where the girl skips her boyfriend's birthday because of a last-minute work function, and since I'm making an active attempt not to turn into that girl, I feel that I should start now. However, the city was a bit of a jhoke, as usual. It took an hour and a half to get there due to molasses traffic. Because of the traffic, we missed the seven p.m. showing of the movie we wanted to watch, so we decided to get crepes. We sat at the crepe place for ten minutes, but the guy who makes the crepes had disappeared and never came back, and the cashier was too untalented to take his place, so we left without getting crepes. By the time we got to the movie theater, the movie was sold out, and since we didn't get tickets, we couldn't validate our parking, so we had to pay $2 for the ten minutes we were at the theatre.

However, the night was redeemed when Vidya took me to a nice Italian restaurant (where I forgot to take my wallet in from the car, which means I pulled the classy move of making the birthday girl pay for dinner). It was actually probably better than seeing a movie, since it gave us the chance to catch up, and it was quite lovely to hang out. It's probably sad for Vidya that she had to spend her birthday alone with the likes of me, but I had fun regardless! After dinner, I dropped her off at Julie's boyfriend's apartment, and Julie came outside and spent fifteen minutes talking to us while I was illegally parked on the side of the street. I just got home fifteen minutes ago, and I should really sleep - I had thought that I could go in late tomorrow, but I found out at the end of the day that I have to present to the managers' meeting at 9am tomorrow (for only seven minutes - what a waste!), so I should get some rest.

One last thing - I had a call with Lauren this afternoon (my old manager, now located in Boston). She said something really nice, but kind of bittersweet - apparently she was talking to a new manager in that office about my upcoming leave, and the woman was basically asking why I was leaving, since my job is such a great opportunity. And Lauren said that it was too bad about the job, but that she was glad I was taking time off because her impression was that I used to have such a rich life outside of work (since she heard about such ridiculous tings as the opium lounge club/'shrimp or feet' game, the various mafia ski trips, and all sorts of random exploits with a wide variety of friends), but that because of the series of crushing deadlines I've had for the past six months, I haven't had time for any of it. And that's really true - while the main goal of my break is to finish my novel, I hope that it also gives me time to reconnect with all the friends whom I'm in danger of losing, even if it has to be over IM from the wilderness of Middle America. I want to get back to the point where I have more frequent adventures, even if an adventure is just eating the foot of some random animal drenched in mystery sauce.

Adventures will have to wait another month - but my last official day is February 1. Then, I'm going to go on my company's trip to Disneyland on February 4-6, and just not come back from Disneyland. Doesn't that sound like a good plan?