Locked out, and a slippery fall…

I worked from home today. Randy brought up a recent notification from Marilyn that PM is on the 21 CFR 11 radar screen, and wanted to know why the project hadn’t been scheduled for an audit this year. Not a good sign. I’ll have to deal with that tomorrow — talk to him and Charlie about it.

At 3:30, I ran over to Wyrick, Robbins… and left my marked up Will for Bill. On the way out, in the parking lot, I was looking at the license plates of the cars as I passed them walking back to my car. One of them had a month sticker of Sep and a year sticker of 1994. I went to my car, wrote on a napkin, “Your license plate is expiring tomorrow,” and went back to put it under their windshield wiper. When I got to the car, I noticed a bumper sticker that said, “Not Fonda Kerry,” then in smaller letters under it, “Vote Bush.” I hesitated and weighed being politically petty against being a nice human being, and went with the latter. I started to sign it with aRAoK, but thought the person probably wouldn’t know what that was, so didn’t sign it all. As I placed the note, I wondered if they had security cameras in the parking area.

Back home, I realized that I had given Courtney my house key for the day, and was now locked out. I walked around to the shed, opened the combination lock, got the key, step out of the shed, and while doing so the boards that I have on the ground because of the mud there, slipped out from under me. I twisted trying to grab something going down, my cell phone went flying, my left arm banged into the corner of one step there leaving a gash in my arm, and my arm twisted in such a way that now, moving it in certain ways, hurts.

I cussed my procrastination in putting in some cement pavers there, which I looked at, at Lowe’s, a couple of months ago. I also started to think about aging — how in just a few years from now, a fall like that could be really significant. I spent a little of the next half hour “in the pit,” but then shook it off. It’s really so un-fun and unproductive down there.

I got my stuff together to participate in The First Annual RTP Electronics Recycling Day. I ended up packing into my car: two computers, one monitor, one keyboard, four mice, 3 internal modems, one external modem, and one printer. Nice to get that stuff out of the house in an environmental friendly way.

Class tonight was pretty much spent talking entirely about Susan’s dissertation. This discussion was prompted by a chapter we read in Research in Technical Communications, which was about the study she did as the basis of her dissertation. It was an ethnographic study of two organizations looking at how new writers who join an organization learn how to write in that organization — in terms of the style, standards, templates, learning the ropes, etc. It was pretty interesting, and for the most part, people asked decent questions.

I got to dancing shortly after 9:00, and there was a huge cake on the pool table that said, “Happy Birthday, Robb.” I said, “Who the hell is Robb?”

“That’s exactly what I asked,” I think Mike (of Mike and Andy) said. “It’s Robb the bartender.” I never did have a piece of that cake, though it looked good. Our dancing was only briefly interrupted by the event, and that was to sing Happy Birthday to him.

I was a little “out of it” tonight, in terms of dancing. My arm hurt a little bit from my fall, as did my back, actually, probably from lifting that heavy-assed 19-inch monitor into my trunk.

It was quite crowded there, with a lot of extra people being there for Robb’s birthday, I believe. The lesson was pitiful, only Steven and Rob got up to learn the Barn Dance. Robert and I took the lesson even though we already know the dance, but it gave Robert an opportunity to learn the lead’s part. It can’t but help, in terms of same sex partner dancing, to know both the lead and follow parts. It doubles your chances of dancing. Sort of like being bisexual in the dating realm, I suppose.

During the night Shawn but me a drink — a bourbon and watter instead of a bourbon and diet. He’s so sweet to me. Such a teddy bear he is. The bourbon and water was much better than I anticipated, but I’d drink the bourbon straight before I’d ever add water to it myself. I prefer it with diet coke.

Robert and I said our good-nights shortly after 11:00. Courtney had remembered to leave the front door unlocked for me, and she was asleep when I got home. I finished the last half of a crossword puzzle I had started a few days ago. Coma machine on. Lights out. Sleep came in an instant.

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