Office cubicles

Ten hours a week.  Five days a week. Staring at a computer screen.  However, I have three blessings not afforded or experienced in typical American corporations: freedom to come and go, meaning when I am caught up with my bills I can travel; no demanding texts or emails after work hours; and, chill, intelligent colleagues.

Still, it is impossible not to feel my precious life slipping away doing something I don't care about.  Trying to make my work space happier, I have flowers.  These I received Sunday for Mother's Day and since I wouldn't be home to see them, took them to work. At the end of the week, the dead ones pared out, they still brought color to my colorless world of imaged PDFs.


This orchid, a departing friend gave me as a gift two weeks ago.  Typically, it works the other way, but I guess she knew that with all of my assorted projects, I wouldn't get it together to give her more than a hug and good wishes.  Hope I can keep it alive!







Tuesday morning, getting out of my car I was alarmed to see a gaggle of geese trying to walk in front of the nearby busy four lane road as the cars were momentarily stopped for a light.  I successfully navigated two gaggles across, playing citizen traffic cop.  Concerned they might make a return trip attempt and wondering what was up, I made inquiries of the locals.  Turns out, for all those amazing stories of the homing instincts of birds, there are a few that aren't really cued in to the earth's magnetic field and just get lost in built-up suburban areas.  These geese became disoriented a couple years ago and now hang out in a nearby drainage ditch and over by the busy mall. Sort of how I feel when I am in this city.  It's a decent city, progressive artsy sections, and I enjoy swimming every evening, but it's not home.  This is the trail home on an early Friday evening in late Spring



after a week of heavy rains.  The earth smells of fishing worms and the air of pines.