meatless headcold
Under normal circumstances I would have stayed home sick today. I'm not super sick, anyway; I just have a cold -- today in particular with a pretty heavy head filled with congestion and sinus headaches. I've taken Sudafed twice so far today. Anyway, from a work perspective, it's a good thing I did come in. I had been thinking that if push came to shove, I could take today off and get back tomorrow and catch up, but that would have been a serious challenge.
I need to finish up the January ads, and any other month it would be no big deal for me to get this done as late as Monday next week, but next week is Thanksgiving and both Noah and Scott will be working at stores every day before the holiday. Noah was really hoping I could have the ads ready for him to create order guides from by tomorrow, and I totally get how helpful that would be. His having to run the order guides from one of the stores next week would complicate things for him a great deal.
Also, while at work this morning, I realized that if I had taken today off, there was something else with a crucial deadline of today that would not have gotten done. And that would have fucked things up for both myself and at least two other people here at the office.
In other words, from a big-picture perspective, it's good that I came in to work today.
And this was after going to my semiannual cleaning and checkup at the dentist, an appointment I was not keen on postponing. Now it's done. I'm a little annoyed by their constant reminders that I need to get a skin graft on my gums, because of my receding gums due to pressing too hard when brushing. I finally actually switched from manual to electric toothbrush since my last appointment, and guess what? Apparently because I've been so careful with my gum lines, now I had a lot of plaque buildup there. Jesus Christ! Well, at least I didn't have any cavities. I've got a "watch" on like three different teeth -- two of them with fillings nearing the end of their lives, apparently, and one with a crack -- so at some point I'll have to come back to get those things fixed. But still, not just yet. I did mention as far as the skin graft is concerned that I just don’t have it in my budget to pay for what my insurance won't cover (which is like half of the cost). I got the sense that the dentist kind of got the hint when I told her that, but then, she probably won't have remembered that hint when I come back again in six months.
The left side of my ear buds crapped out on my way to the dentist this morning, but at least I was easily able to stop by the AT&T Store on my way to work from there afterward and buy a replacement pair. That was an unexpected $31 expense, but I can't go around without working headphones. One of these days I'll actually buy those far more expensive wireless ones. I won't ever have to worry about bending wires with those.
I also might have just rested all evening last night as well, but Shobhit and I had reservations for the 19th Annual Vegetarians of Washington Thanksgiving Feast, part of their monthly dining event at which members get a $4 discount. Shobhit and I both signed up to become members at this year's VegFest in the spring, and had been thinking we would not renew. Shobhit was so happy with this dinner, though, I wonder if he might be reconsidering that now.
Honestly I was surprised by how happy he was with it. I mean, I suppose it is a good value -- for about $14 with tax, we got all we could eat. But, I was relatively unimpressed with the foods. I did rather like the spinach salad, with fresh oranges and candied nuts in a cherry vinaigrette. I even had seconds of that. Ditto the mini loaves of olive bread. But pretty much all the other sides -- roasted vegetables, fire-roasted corn -- to be a bit bland. I even found the main dish somewhat bland: holiday [veggie] sausage and roasted potatoes en croute. It had a bit of a kick to it though, which must be why Shobhit loved it so much. He got seconds and thirds of that particular dish. He was so happy with it, in fact, he declared we should come back for the December meal as well.
The event apparently happens every month in this second-floor dining hall barely fitting about 90 people seated at about 10 round tables. I actually took several photos -- this should help pad this year's "Thanksgiving" photo album on Flickr -- but I never had time to upload them just yet. I found myself wondering how old the building was when I used the restroom, with its white tiled walls, wooden toilet stalls, exposed piping, and rather old-school style urinal. I half expected to hear from Moaning Myrtle in there.
The dessert was a particular disappointment, "Cranberry Apple Cobbler," emphasis on the cranberry, which I don't like. It's fitting and makes sense for other people, although even Shobhit didn't like it much. He usually compliments a dessert that is not too sweet, but this thing was insanely tart. Neither of us finished our plate, and it was a rather small helping to begin with.
We chatted a little with people at our table, but not a whole lot. Shobhit did get into conversation with the lady to his right, who happened to be from the UK. There was a host speaker giving what we had earlier been told would be "no more than five minutes," and I guarantee you it was no less than double that. I was engaged by her anyway, as she gave all the pretty sound reasonings behind how adopting a vegetarian diet actually works toward solving world hunger (mostly because a ridiculous amount of the world's crops go to feeding livestock and farm animals, as opposed to directly to humans, which is backward and stupid, but that's humanity for you).
After that dinner, which was in Greenwood all of half a block away from the place we also went earlier this year for the local SAG-AFTRA viewing of the SAG Awards, we drove back to Capitol Hill and stopped at QFC to make use of several member coupons Shobhit had to redeem there. Once we finally got home, I was all about getting into bed as soon as possible.
[posted 12:13 pm]