Trip the light fantastic

I may have mentioned before that my office is in an out-of-the-way spot in the middle of a parking lot, surrounded by truck traffic and construction. I have purchased red and pink geraniums, and put up a window box at my office window and another at the top of the stairs leading in to my office in an attempt to brighten up the desert of asphalt. The net effect is that of planting sunflowers in a junkyard. The sunflowers are pretty, but it’s still a junkyard. Major wildlife sightings for me are wooly bear caterpillars that crawl out of deliveries left in the parking lot and baby goslings that wander in from the wastewater treatment plant a few hundred yards past my office. It’s so bleak outside my office that even the sparrows don’t hang out for long in the summer heat, preferring to hide under the cooler eaves and by the front door where sloppy employees drop crumbs of food as they hurry to and from their cars.

So you can imagine my delight this morning when a male goldfinch perched on the windowpane of my doorway, trying to peer into my office. He was a mere three feet from me, so close I could see the twinkle in his eye. His mouth was moving to chip, though the sound didn’t make it through the door. He lingered only a minute or two before realizing that the red and pink geraniums were just a ruse and that there was nothing else goldfinch-worthy in the area. It was still enough to make my day

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Soy’s menopause benefits doubted Take note that the results are inconclusive. But a supplement manufacturer backed the study, and the results failed to back their claims for the product, so I have some faith in the process used to derive the results.

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The Aspirus furor seems to be winding down a bit. I only had seven hits over the past two and a half days from search engines looking for Aspirus, with three of them good ol’ MarketProbe. The suspense is starting to kill me. If this keeps up much longer, I’m going to have to email MarketProbe and find out what the heck they’re up to. By far the most interesting Aspirus hit so far has come from Rent a Firetruck’s domain. Not only that, but Rent a Firetruck went through five whole pages of my diary (most “aspirus” hits only go to a page or two, and only stay briefly). Another of the seekers came from the The North Wisconsin District Lutheran Church’s domain, which is really giving me cause to wonder.

Aspirus. It’s not just for backstabbing overachievers any more.

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The Socialist and I had a great time in the finger lake districts of New York State. We drove along Lakes Seneca and Cayuga, drove far enough north to see Lake Ontario (The Socialist’s first first-hand experience with a Great Lake, and my first up-close-and-personal visit to Lake Ontario since 1967). It was there we stumbled across Chimney Bluffs. We also encountered multiple “no swimming” signs, that were accompanied by multiple swimmers ignoring the warnings. There were dead fish all along the pebbly shoreline, and I rather shuddered to think of what was growing in the water.

We also took the short hike out to Taughannock Falls, in Taughannock State Park. We passed up on the hike the first time we passed through because parking was $7.00, which I thought was a bit outrageous for a waterfall we could go up the road and clearly see for free from a vista above it. We later paid the $7.00 fee at another state park on Lake Cayuga, and discovered that the $7.00 fee was good for any state park parking that day. We returned, flashed our ticket at the parking attendant, and hiked back to the falls. I’m glad we did. The red-flowing raspberries were in full bloom, along with a host of other flowers that I’m going to have to look up once I download my pictures. The Socialist took off his socks and shoes and waded in the shallows by the falls while I sat and took pictures of him skipping stones in the still water below. Again there were “No Swimming” signs stationed everywhere, and again there were people dead set on swimming anyhow. *shrug*

We also took the short but (for me) strenuous hike down Watkins Glen. The gorge there is deep, with a fast flowing river that makes a series of dashes and dives. The trail leads directly under a waterfall at one point (a popular point for the Japanese tourists to pause and take group pictures). Going down into the gorge was easy, but I became far too easily tired when it came time to make the ascent back up to the parking lot, and I required frequent rest stops. The Socialist, who found the trail no challenge whatsoever, was an absolute gentleman about my frequent need to collapse, and did nothing to make me feel like the wimp I apparently have become. Looks like this girl needs more time at the gym.

We also went to see Shrek 2 again one of the evenings we were there. I caught a lot more jokes, laughed just as hard at the ones I remembered from before as I did the first time I heard them, and this time I stayed to sit through the credits. And now I’m really annoyed I didn’t stay the first time. The scene I missed before was hilarious, though I strongly suspect The Socialist will be glad when I finally stop chortling over it.

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My accident report made it to Personnel and to Occupational Health overnight. The staff in Oc Health were chortling over it when I stopped by to drop something off there this morning. They wanted to know if I was aware what my department head had written in on it:

Cause of accident: Employee has two left feet.
Injuries as a result of accident: Bruised ego and right temple
What steps were taken to prevent future occurrence: Employee was sufficiently embarrassed in front of witnesses to discourage repeat of accident.

I explained that I’d actually helped complete the accident report. I think that disappointed some people, who were hoping for a more indignant reaction.