There's Always A Relevant xkcd

This is what I do for a living, only without the dogs:

You All Know What Day This Is

Thanks right. Happy Doctor Who day!



Oh, and, yeah, happy turkey day to my fellow turkey-eating Americans, as well!

November Currentlies

Might as well do this while I'm thinking about it, even if I feel slightly guilty about typing this instead of working on catching up on my e-mail.

Current clothes: Dark blue jeans. White socks. A white long-sleeve t-shirt that says, "Too many books? I think what you mean is not enough bookshelves." Although, really, my bookshelf space is adequate at the moment. I may be getting close to reaching the limit of what I can fit in my house, but I'm not there yet.

Current mood: Kind of tired and out of it. I really don't want to go back into work tonight, although I suppose one always has to eventually. I'm not thrilled about the fact that I'm going back to a 64-hour week of night shifts, though. And I slept pretty badly today, and not really as late as I would have liked.

Current music: Nothing in particular.

Current annoyance: Aforementioned circadian woes. Seriously, I'll be lucky if my relief doesn't come in in the morning to find me face-down on my keyboard, snoring.

Current thing: Still trying to get back into the swing of things after my vacation. Although maybe not trying very hard.

Current desktop picture: Yep, still the Twelfth Doctor.

Current book: Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman.

Current song in head: "Ride Like the Wind" by Christopher Cross. Although I actually had no idea who sings it until I looked it up just now. I think I randomly heard it on a radio somewhere in my travels, and bits of it have been stuck in my brain ever since.

Current refreshment: Nothing, but I'm kind of thirsty.

Current DVD in player: Just re-watched the Doctor Who episode "The Husbands of River Song," which was just as delightful this time.

Current happy thing: Delightful Doctor Who, I suppose.

Current thought: Speaking of catching up on e-mail, I am really not looking forward to the very full inbox of work e-mail I'm going to have to wade through tonight.

Circadian Woes

You know what's really fun? When you've just traveled a couple of time zones westward after a trip on which everybody went to bed stupidly early, you now have to switch yourself over to night shifts, and Daylight Saving Time is ending.

My life really is a ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff, and it's making me very, very sleepy.

[ETA: Apparently I initially typo'd "night shifts" as "night shits." I was almost tempted to leave it.]

And I Am Back!

Actually, I was back Thursday night, but I've been busy catching up on things since then. That's the problem with vacations. Your whole life seems to pile up while you're gone, and everything wants your attention when you get home. Especially the cat.

Anyway. The surprise party for my grandmother went really well. My aunt put out a heck of a spread, a truly impressive number of people showed up, and Grandmom was genuinely surprised and apparently quite moved. And, no, she did not keel over from a heart attack at the surprise, the way everybody I told that we were having a surprise party for a 90-year-old woman worried she might.

As well as catching up with family, we went some interesting places while I was there, including the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, where my scientific curiosity fought a pitched battle with my natural squeamishness, with variable results. I do recommend it, though, for those whose squeamishness doesn't always win out.

We also took a tour of the Herr's potato chip factory, which was oddly delightful. Man, I miss Herr's chips. At least I got to have some of those on this trip, as well as other Delaware Valley delicacies, including Tastykakes, soft pretzels, a Philly cheesesteak (emphatically not to be confused with anything you might have seen labeled as a "Philly beef sandwich" or some other ridiculous, inaccurate thing), and a Wawa hoagie. Mmm-mmm.

And because this blog never really does have enough pictures for modern sensibilities, some photos of me:

Here's an embarrassing one of me trying on my aunt's Halloween costume.



And here I am having a staring contest with a monitor lizard at the Delaware Natural History Museum. Which was tiny, but pleasant, and looked like a great place to bring kids. The museum, that is, not the lizard. The lizard looked like it might want to eat your kids.




(Hopefully people can see these pictures. I still haven't quite figured out how Google Photos handles permissions.)