Well, I guess it's MY job then.

I spent the morning running around the city doing someone else's job. I didn't want to spend all morning running around the city, but since the office whose job it is only does it on every other Thursday during the Moon Festival after the vernal equinox, I had to if I wanted to get it done. Which I did, so I did. I suppose it wasn't all bad because I did get to have a nice conversation/lecture with my cab driver about the ugliness of the new baseball stadium and why skyscrapers are not safe and he won't work in them and why it's important to remember 9/11. And since he was right on all counts and he had seen me trying to catch a cab in vain while he still had a fare and then swung back around to pick me up after he dropped them off because there are never cabs in that part of the city, I gave him a nice tip and it was a much more pleasant morning than it could have been. But still, my job had to wait because that other nameless office won't do theirs. And I am covering for two people who are on TDY (official travel) so I had an entire continent's worth or work waiting for me in the afternoon. So wish I could shunt that off on to another office, but then I am a responsible person, so you know I didn't.

Here is the stadium and you can see it's nothing special. Just glass and steel. It might as well be a mall.

My job today also entailed Back To School Night, or as I like to call it "Please let me dig out my eyeballs with a spoon instead because I hate this rushing around not really meeting the teachers and I would do anything to avoid that school parking lot night." The school pretends it's a way for you to get to know the teachers, but really it's just a whole plan to make the parents feel stupid and get lost wandering around looking for the classes and by the time you find them, the bell has rung and you need to wander around some more looking for the next class. I only missed the first class and made it to most of the rest by cheating and sitting near the door. Husband, on the other hand, miss three because he had to park in England. OK, not England but I swear we walked across three states to get to the car. The school has the worst parking lot ever and we had to climb hills and over gates to get to our car and then some idiot other kid's parent blocked the exit. But we made it through with inches to spare because our car has sonar. I did feel bad for the people lined up behind us who were too scared to try to dodge that humongous and badly-parked SUV and the pole on the other side.

This picture, which was taken by an Italian astronaut in the International Space Station, is better than a brownie and is completely the reason why I want to live on a small Pacific island.

This is Niau atoll and people actually get to live there and look at that gorgeous blue sea every day. I realize it's very small and lots of people say you would get bored living on a tiny island, but I would like the chance to try it. Just once I would like to be bored and warm and surrounded by beauty with no traffic. But who am I kidding? The Department only ever sends me to big Asian megalopolises. But seriously, one day, if I disappear and no one can find me, I just might be on an atoll in the South Pacific going by the name Stefania. I could pass for Italian in the South Pacific. If there are no Italians there. And they have no internet. And nobody has ever heard of Italy.