It's true, it's true.

I gave Kris a Homer gift this past Christmas.

Gift giving in our house is usually an escalation sorta thing. It started when we passed the shy circling of the dating mating rituals and moved into the "I think I know your tastes, so I'm going to risk rejection by buying you things!" stage. Kris did the most risking: he bought me jewelry (always risky, as I wear very little).

I bought him underwear.

Before very many birthdays and holidays had passed, we were in danger of spending small fortunes on each other. We called a truce on the escalation, and try very hard to keep it on the low come the holiday season.

I failed miserably this past year, with Kris receiving about fifteen gifts. One or two of them being Homer gifts, I'll admit.

There's a Simpsons episode where Homer goes Christmas shopping for Marge and purchased a bowling ball for her. He figures, she won't really like it, so he'll get to use it. Of course, she overlooks the custom holes and the "HOMER" engraved into the ball, and learns to bowl to spite him.

I wasn't nearly so bad, but the periodic table shower curtain I purchased really wasn't on Kris' high-priority, must-buy list.

But, hey, I wanted to memorize the table. And what better way than while sitting on the toliet, looking at the shower?

My plan was to memorize the elements a little bit at a time. I've been drawing out the table once every few days, which is fun. The progression should be interesing.

A couple problems, however, have surfaced, the first being the curtain is backwards when I'm in the shower. I've started memorizing it in reverse, and have to work on imagining the elements in the correct order.

The other major problem is that, well, I don't actually sit on the toliet long enough to derive any meaningful learning time. Everyone should be so blessed with highly functioning colons.

We'll see how far I get. Right now, with only five weeks of studying, I have about 50 of the 111 elements correctly memorized. Patterns abound in that table (like, well, d'uh, it is periodic, you know).

"Do you want to go to Seattle?"

Kris asked me over IM when I was still in Boston. He was heading up to Washington for work, and was going to have dinner with Ben and Lisa. Since the trip was for work, if I also went, we would need to pay for only my ticket. I asked if we could stay overnight, would work still pay for his ticket. When he said yes, I said yes, too.

The plan was to drop me off at the ferry on the drive from the airport to Redmond, and for Kris to continue on for work. I'd spend the day with Ben and Lisa and Jake, with Kris meeting us for dinner and the evening.

Well, our flight was thirty minutes late in departing, which was the buffer needed to divert from the airport to downtown to drop me off at the ferry. I ended up driving with Kris to Redmond so that he could make his meeting on time.

Me. Redmond.

As in Microsoft.

As in, the belly of the beast.

Everyone who knows me and my computer ways knows I hate Microsoft Windows. Mostly, I hate that I can't be productive keeping my fingers on the keyboard. With Windows, everything is mouse, click-based. Pretty much the only way to be semi-productive on a Windows box is to install Cygwin on it, which gives you, well, a Unix interface on a Windows box. There are other annoyances (rebooting to install software or change settings, the BSoD, crappy error reporting interfaces, hidden settings, case insensitive file systems, etc.). I recognize its dominance in the marketplace, but I completely disagree the best technology won that fight.

So, my going to Microsoft is sorta, well, wrong.

Kris mocked me for a while about my heading there, but it's not like I did more than ask the receptionist where the nearest Starbucks was.

"Next building over."

"Can I get wireless there?"

"Oh, we can assign you a wireless account right here."

"Um, I'm not actually in any meeting. I'm here with him. He's going into a meeting here."

"Oh... well... uh... I can't... wireless..."

"That's fine. Where's the second closest Starbucks?"

I spent a few hours in the next closest Starbucks, working, surfing, and relaxing. Although I've spent a lot alone as of late, this trip was more relaxing than I expected it to be.

Kris' meeting, of course, went much longer than expected, and we were late heading over to the ferry. We missed the 5:30 ferry by about 10 cars, having to wait until the 6:30 ferry. Ben and Lisa had food ready for us when we arrived around 7:15.

The evening was wonderful. I love Ben and Lisa and Jake. They're such amazing, wonderful people. It's been months since we've seen them, but the visit was as if no time had past. We had more stories to tell, but it was still as comfortable as if we were still neighbors over for dinner one night.

Ah, how much I still miss them.

Jake's a chubby little boy, terribly adorable.

The trip was much too short, with Kris and I leaving the next morning at 7:00 am to return home by noon to feed the dogs.

Kris and I went to Microsoft today.

Only Kris stayed.

The worst possible retail ploy to hit the bottom line of my bank account balances has to be Amazon's Prime service. First they lure you in with a free three month subscription to the service: sign up for free second day delivery for three months. After three months, there's no way you can't continue the sercice: you're addicted on the inexpensive prices for items you can afford to wait two days for.

Worse, if you order late at night, which actually is not only the only time I have during my frantic days as of late, but also the time of least resistance and possibly of worst judgement, Amazon will treat that day as one and your order can be your hands in less than 36 hours.

Yeah, if that's not one of the longest sentences on this page, I'd be shocked. Not technically a run-on sentence, but still one a high school English teacher might cite when deducting points.

Heck, I'd deduct points for that one.

Right after I deduct the next chunk of change and hand it over to Amazon.

If I had a job there, would they pay me in books?

People are funny when it comes to routines. We settle into them easily, and leave them often hesitantly. I'm not sure most people are aware of their routines, or why they feel displaced when the routine is interrupted, assuming they even realize their routines have been interrupted.

Take, for example, the uproar I caused last week when I sat at a different table at my Master Gardeners class.

In the Master Gardeners program, we have mentor groups: a small number of geographically close (residentially) fellow-students. We were introduced to these small groups before the classes started, in an effort to stop overwhelming new trainees. This is the first year the program has created these mentor groups, as, like most activities in the program, an experiment. Although it's nice to be able to walk into a room with a hundred people and recognized a smiling face, most of the class tend to stay with only these groups. Whose to blame these people? A familiar face, a brief history, a developing friendship: all well within a person's comfort zone.

Normally, where normal is what I've done for the last three weeks, I've sat at the third table back in the middle of the room with the two women I carpool with. This works out well because we arrive early to help set up the presentation equipment, and leave slightly late after taking everything down. Today, however, I wanted to meet new people, so I put my bag down at a different table during setup, and sat down at the full table when class began.

My carpool-mates were confused, and I suspect surprised and a little hurt. They had gathered a copy of the handouts for me. They had saved my seat for me. Why had this other woman thought it was okay to sit in my seat? The shock! The horror!

My new table companions seemed just as confused. Who is this woman? Why is she sitting here? She doesn't know us. We don't know her. When we tested our soil's pH values, several people at the table went twice, completely ignoring me and the fact I hadn't gone yet, give me that pH meter, dammit.

No, I didn't actually say anything. I waited patiently (wouldn't my mom be surprised), and tested my soil last. After, I'm convinced, the other people at the table ruined the meter by doing exactly what the instructions said not to do: don't submerge the end in water, don't rub it with steel wool or other abrasives, don't do this or that or whatever. Yeah.

My soil has a pH of exactly 7. I wonder how I managed to have the exact meter default.

So, you can probably imagine my humour today at class during the program announcements. The one of note went something like, "Now, I know you're all set in your ways, but please welcome other fellow Master Gardeners when they wish to sit with you at your table. Don't send them away saying, 'This is our table.'"

Right. Routines. This is our table, go away.