friday

i am never, never, never going shopping again.

my mom dragged me to target the day after thanksgiving at 630 in the morning. i can only quote kurtz with, "the horror, the horror."

from now on, despite my principles of wanting to support human being jobs (poverty wages tho they may be) i just cannot fathom stepping into a store like that again. it is sooooo much easier to just order online. go to amazon, pick, click, ship.

remember when that idea used to be the scary one and people were all afraid that the internet would create this world of people who never leave their homes and have no human contact and just get everything off the net.

well, just call me sandra, because that sounds perfectly fine.

i was, however, able to get all of my mom's christmas presents, and my mom, in turn, was able to finish her shopping by getting stuff for me. i mean, she only started last january (okay, maybe march) so she should be able to be done. me? i'm just getting started. friday was the gunshot at the start of the race. not that i buy very much. but then yesterday i ordered a few things online (oh that magic word). and the real toughy will be a father present. it always is. sigh. i don't know why i bother--he won't like whatever it is. although he'll pretend to. but he will get really pissed off if he doesn't get anything.

and speaking of my mom, i didn't get to meet her new boyfriend friday because i was just too exhausted. she did, however, ceaselessly talk about him the two days i was home.

and saturday i nearly sliced my thumbtip off chopping some spinach. but at least today i get to wear a cute Dora, the explorer bandaid. yesterday, it was clifford the big red dog.

and just think folks: only one month till christmas.

oh, but i did get to volunteer yesterday and it was fabulous. normally we serve cafeteria style but we did a sit down dinner with traditional thanksgiving fare so make it special and i think folks really enjoyed it. and it's so funny to me when the volunteers thank me (i coordinate the meal) at the end of the shift--they're the ones doing all the work. and it's not a trivial amount of work here either. i'm usually sweaty and food covered by the end (yesterday being no exception after having a cup of orange drink spilled down my pants). but it's always great. and i feel exhausted and refreshed by the end of it.

and finally: this article is a little frightening considering our heavy reliance on foreign labor in labs across the country. oh, and my aversion to racism is a little piqued by it too.

(hopefully, that is a not a sign-em-up only article. let me know if it is.)

here's a highlight tho:

"The U.S. Department of Defense is proposing a similar plan that would force foreign-born researchers to wear color-coded badges that would restrict access to labs based on their country of origin. Foreign-born researchers and American-born researchers would also be segregated in labs.

Both plans focus on country of birth - not country of citizenship - which means American students who were born overseas would be subject to the new restrictions. These plans require universities to apply for special licenses before foreign-born faculty members and students are allowed to set foot in research facilities."

and of course these countries include such terrorist havens as china and india.

and the best part of coming back to boston (home) was coming back to the pooka.