The most incredible thing just happened as I was leaving work. Being on the 29th floor of the office building, we can see pretty far. At happy hour, we can see to the south and west, also known as the direction of home. It was a beautiful day until about 6pm, and then I suddenly noticed a huge black cloud out over the sunset. "I don't like the looks of that cloud," I said to my coworkers, and grabbed my bag and fleece. It was getting a bit chilly and as I left the bridge and stood on the street corner, the first fat drops hit my face. By the time the light changed, I was huddled gratefully under another girl's umbrella. By the time we made it to the other side and the shelter of an overpass, my pants were soaked and the street had turned into a river. Rain was coming down in sheets and at an angle so the fifteen of us who were stranded were huddled together in the middle. Eventually it let up just a little and I decided that I just wanted to get home so I just kept walking through it. It had stopped raining by the time I got to my house and I could even see stars. I peeled my clothes off and hopped straight into my pjs!
Moving on... last night we were watching tv and happened across "Out of the Question," a tv show very similar to NPR's radio show "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" - a panel of comedians answers questions about the day's or week's news. The tv show made me a little homesick for Wait Wait which my sister and I used to listen to while lazing around on Saturday mornings, so I logged on to npr.org to see what I could see, and was able to listen to about half of last week's broadcast online (before bedtime). It was absolutely hilarious, just as good as I remember. Alex, meanwhile, had moved on to Lost and I was sitting on the other end of the couch, just shaking with silent laughter as Paula Poundstone and Peter Sagal buzzed through my earphones. I'm going to have to make those kids listen to Wait Wait with me some day!
I was getting a ribbing in vocabulary from our receptionist the other day - she likes to tease me about American things such as sweaters, jelly, sloppy joes, and other nonsense (jumpers, jam, and, uh, nonexistent, respectively). It absolutely floors me that even though we speak the same language, we sometimes don't even have a word for a concept that the other culture has. I have come across this in Spanish, of course, but that is usually explained away by the language barrier - though it has nothing to do with the language at all, really, it's all cultural! Amazing.
Moving on... last night we were watching tv and happened across "Out of the Question," a tv show very similar to NPR's radio show "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" - a panel of comedians answers questions about the day's or week's news. The tv show made me a little homesick for Wait Wait which my sister and I used to listen to while lazing around on Saturday mornings, so I logged on to npr.org to see what I could see, and was able to listen to about half of last week's broadcast online (before bedtime). It was absolutely hilarious, just as good as I remember. Alex, meanwhile, had moved on to Lost and I was sitting on the other end of the couch, just shaking with silent laughter as Paula Poundstone and Peter Sagal buzzed through my earphones. I'm going to have to make those kids listen to Wait Wait with me some day!
I was getting a ribbing in vocabulary from our receptionist the other day - she likes to tease me about American things such as sweaters, jelly, sloppy joes, and other nonsense (jumpers, jam, and, uh, nonexistent, respectively). It absolutely floors me that even though we speak the same language, we sometimes don't even have a word for a concept that the other culture has. I have come across this in Spanish, of course, but that is usually explained away by the language barrier - though it has nothing to do with the language at all, really, it's all cultural! Amazing.
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