This morning on the way to work a bird hit the top of the windshield with a sound like the end of the world. Gone, just like that. The sky looks like an unending field of dirty cotton batting. Everything looks wet, but not washed.
The meeting last night went well. I had sushi for dinner, by myself, which was actually kind of nice. We had a guest speaker, a man from India with blue eyes who told us all about the history and manufacture of persian rugs and treated us to a wonderful chicken curry. Did you know that the highest quality rugs can take up to 5 years to make and can have as many as 2000 knots per square inch?
Anders and I bought a rug in Istanbul when we were there on our honeymoon in 1996. A man came up to us outside the Blue Mosque and talked us into going with him to his cousin’s rug store. We know we were suckered, but we wanted a rug, and we love the rug we got even if we paid too much for it. They were really good at subtly forcing us to spend more money than we really wanted to. We saw a rug that we absolutely loved, a green floral design with beiges and reds. But it was too expensive, so we said no, but please show us ones that are similar. Every rug they showed us after that just didn’t match up, and we could tell it was done deliberately. We ended up buying the rug we fell in love with, and we still love it, so we don’t mind so much that we know we were taken for more than we should have paid. We were such typical suckers, it was kind of amusing. I’m sure to their eyes we might as well have had “fresh meat” stamped on our tourist-pale foreheads.
I just talked to my MIL and she apparently has the same stomach bug, only worse, that Karin had on Saturday. SO, I’m not sure what to do about going to the birthday dinner tonight. One of the organizers told me I can have the kids at her house with her babysitter (she has a 4 year old), but not sure 1) that’s fair to the babysitter, or 2) that I want to spend yet MORE money this evening to pay for a babysitter when I’m already spending quite a bit for dinner, gift, and gas. 🙁 I suppose I could take the kids with me, show up, say hi and happy birthday, and leave…
My brother and Simone sent me a whole box full of the chinese lantern orange seed pods for Halloween decorations! 🙂 happy!
I feel so behind on reading my LJ Friends and it’s adding to my stress level. I do read them when I get a chance, but don’t always have time to comment lately. I’ve already had to do some trimming on my Friends list to try and keep it manageable, and I’ve only been keeping this journal for 3 months! I wish they’d change the name to something else than Friends, which is such a loaded word, and causes people to assume all kinds of obligations that aren’t necessarily necessary (if you can say that). I’d change it to “Readers” or “Devoted Following” or “Peanut Gallery” (haha, just kidding).