I really ought to run things more often, especially since our average meeting time is more like 3 hours. Of course, we were missing three people today, two of whom tend to be. . . Less focused, shall we say. I, on the other hand, am focused. I have better things to do with my day, and even if I don't, wouldn't you rather we all went out for a nice lunch? So when I run a meeting, I tend to be firm, whilst trying like hell not to veer into actual bitchiness.

Also, I prepared the agenda. It was a pain in the ass, but worth it, of course, in the end. Good agenda = good meeting. Providing, of course, that you stick to the damn agenda. If you don't it's worthless.

I spent the extra time saved grocery shopping at Jumbo. Not much fun, but it needed to be done, so there it is. I especially needed a new concealed hinge for one of our kitchen cupboards. Currently, the cupboard in question is being held closed (and in place) with masking tape. Very soon the remaining hinge will give up the ghost and the heavy wooden door will come crashing down, probably on my head. Well, I'm a bit tall for that, but it'll take out my shoulder no problem, so the hinge is definitely a priority.

Except, I got the new hinges home (they come in packets of two), and it fits fine but the screw-holes are not the same distance apart as the old hinge, and I now realize that there is no way I am going to be able to replace it myself. Maybe if it was a hinge on a lower cabinet, but it's an overhead one that needs replacing.

Oh well. I'll work something out. I usually do.

I didn't mention it, but Elvis' birthday party went well. There was a good turnout, and the cake tasted fine, and a good time was had by all. There weren't forty candles on the cake, since it would have been a fire hazard. (Haha! Just kidding.) No, what they do here is give you two small white candles-- standard birthday cake candle size, so you could, conceivably, have fit forty of them on the cake, if you wanted. Each candle has a slender wire number affixed to it, so it said 40, but you really had to look at it to tell. Very discreet.

Not that everybody didn't know how old Elvis was anyway, but still.

He still loving his new watch. It talks to him. "My new watch says it's time for lunch!" "My new watch says it's time for bed!" "My new watch says if I don't move my ass, I'll miss my train and be late for work!"

Pretty perceptive, that new watch.

I locked Calliope out on the balcony last night. I didn't realize it, until I was getting undressed in the bedroom. I could hear her, but couldn't figure out where she was, until I saw her outlined against the window. She'd jumped up on the (very narrow) window ledge and worked her way halfway around the building to get us to let her in. I imagine she was down on the terrace below, spying on our neighbors, and when she came back up she found the balcony door closed and the lights in the living room turned out. Poor thing, her paws were all cold. She didn't seem any worse for the wear, though, or angry with us. Just jumped into the bedroom when I opened the window, plopped down in the middle of the bed, and proceeded to give herself a bath.

Then again, she did try to escape into the hall when I got home with all the groceries this afternoon, so I suppose she might be nursing a grudge. I doubt it, though. She likes taking off down the hall when I'm struggling with half a ton of groceries. One, she wants to see what's out there. Two, it pisses me off.

In Milan, we lived at the very end of a fairly long, L-shaped hall. One day I didn't even try to chase her, just let her run for it. She went racing down the hall, around the corner--

And came face to face with one of the jewelers' ginormous dog.

It was a nice dog, really, although it was monstrously hairy, monstrously huge, and looked just plain monstrous. (The jeweler in question, on the other hand, was slender, shaved his head and was only marginally taller than his dog.) He had just been leaving to get a quick cup of espresso or take his monster dog for a walk or something when I passed by in the hall, and was still locking the door when Calliope rounded the corner.

I've never seen her run so fast in her life. She even did the cartoon panic-run-in-place maneuver while cornering. Marble floors don't provide much traction. She was much less inclined to run down the hall after that incident.

For a while, anyway.

It's been windy all day. Bringing home the dry cleaning was more like sailing than walking, and there were whitecaps in the ornamental pond in front of our building.

Right now, the sky is a lurid, sunset pink, and the trees are nothing but black silhouettes, swaying deeply; back and forth, back and forth. It looks unreal, like a cartoon, and in a way, it's sort of pretty.

If it were colder outside, I'd build a fire.