Only One More Sleep till Gloucester

Well, it's arrived. My last night here in Watertown - the night before the dawn before the day of moving.

And while the net/net is definitely a wonderful, positive thing, I do have a few sweet, sad tears for leaving. After all, I've lived in or around Watertown for a grand total of nearly seven years. I know all the local haunts and I can drive around this town blindfolded.

I'm sure that I will get to that point in my new home town. And already I'm liking the people I meet and getting a feel for the local community. I know that belonging to a place - and having it belong to you - is more than just knowing how to get from A to Z or knowing the name of the guy at the convenience store around the corner.

Still, there are a lot of memories in this here apartment, in this here town. It's been pretty good to me, all things considered. I'll miss it.

Feed the Hungry a Word at a Time

Found a great way to while away the bored hours at new job. Go here to play a fun little game where every time you get the definition of a word right, corporations donate 10 grains of rice to the UN to feed the hungry. I had to stop at 500 because I actually have work to do. But, I grinned a lot when "ubiquitous" put me over the 470 mark.

Hackensack ... And Frog

I am still massively bored at work. Altho I had a great brainstorming session this a.m., that's pretty much it for today. I should be revelling in this, but the old Catholic guilt is kicking in.

I do really like the people here, though, and the high-schoolesque lunches in the cafeteria are quite fun. On Tuesday we played CSI Agency and tried to reason out this mystery regarding a woman in the North End of Boston who apparently fell? jumped? off the roof of the building one of my coworkers lives in. We came up with quite elaborate scenarios. I think I'm gonna script it and try to sell it to CBS. Royalties.

Yesterday, a conversation about Halloween somehow morphed into a discussion about Barbies and cheerleading which, of course led to my confessions. I subscribe to the Barbie Newsletter. I used to be a cheerleader. Needless to say, my new colleagues were surprised. Even more surprised to find out that I gew up in New Jersey. Apparently, they didn't peg this no-makeup, no-hairdo, jeans-and-clog wearing hippie as a former Big Hair Girl. As my co-worker pointed out, I don't look like the typical native of New Jersey, Home of the Hair Closest to God.

Which brings me to this YouTube gem. To give credit, I found it on Feministing linked in a terrific post about the oversexualization of young girls. Check it out for some thought-provoking discussion. But for funny, watch this. Ahhhhhh, the lilting accent of my youth...

More Random Thoughts

Someone reminded me (as if I needed to be reminded) that moving is right up there on the stress level with losing a loved one and public speaking. Moving does, in fact, suck out loud.

I'm in this weird place between feeling like my whole life is in boxes and feeling like I have nothing packed and there's no way I'm ready for the movers to show up on Saturday.

And while I know that it will all be OK and it will work out and every time I drive into my new hometown I am amazed and awed at the natural beauty surrounding me, I am still massively stressed.

To top it off, I am STILL BORED at work. How many hours of WebSudoku can I play? Everyone keeps telling me that it's par for the course. But I don't do bored well. I left the office 10 mins early today (not really, since I was there at 8:30, but no one know that since there was a Sox game last night and most folks rolled in around 9:30....) and my boss saw me. He was having an impromptu meeting in an office down the hall about a project I'm remotely involved with. No one had come in to court my opinion, so I can only assume my input wasn't needed. Still, I feel massively guilty about the early departure. Here's hopin he understands.

I almost blew off the gym, as I was a) exhausted b) sore from multiple moving trips yesterday and c) upset and stressed. But I know that exercise is a powerful medicine against depression and so I sucked it up and went. And really glad I did. It was an amazing spin class and I found myself grinning like an idiot halfway through. I even had enough presence of mind to practice some asana afterwards.

Wish me luck for the rest of the week.

FoodFoodieMcFood

For those of us interested in/obsessed with the food world, there's alot going on this week.

King Corn opens tomorrow. "King Corn is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation. In King Corn, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America’s most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat—and how we farm."

This disgusts me: Hardee's on Monday rolled out its new Country Breakfast Burrito -- two egg omelets filled with bacon, sausage, diced ham, cheddar cheese, hash browns and sausage gravy, all wrapped inside a flour tortilla. The burrito contains 920 calories and 60 grams of fat.

Boston Vegetarian Food Festival. This Saturday is the 12th Annual Boston VegFest. I don't have time to go. I have two closets and one HUGE room left to pack. Not to mention various and sundry other errands to run. But I know of other Veg Bloggers (including Jody from VegChic) who will be there. The chance to meet and mingle with fellow Veg Bloggers who will be sporting "Eat More Kale" t-shirts. How can I not go?

I shouldn't be spending time looking these things up and blogging about them. But you can only write email call-to-action copy about whole life insurance policies for so long....