2 July 2002

Before we went to see Minority Report on Sunday, we met the Brandts at the new Bruster's ice cream place near the comic store.

Emma was in a good mood, and she almost always likes showing off for the camera, so I took a bunch of utterly adorable pictures.

She's growing up fast, though... She skipped crawling (she only does it when absolutely necessary) and can't stand not to be standing. She walked all the way around our table, holding on to the benches for support. Kris said she actually took a few unassisted steps the other day. And her baby-babble is beginning to be formed of actual syllables instead of simple grunts.

Not even ten months old... But she's already come so far...

I'm still fidgeting with how it looks, and I don't have a cute title for it yet, but I've got a sort of blog-like thing. I'm not sure how often it'll get used, but there it is. Go. Read. Comment.

Back in, oh, February or so, I was on a project with another company. Let's call them ABC, so I don't have to explain.

Actually, it's a bit of an overstatement to say I was on a project with them. What I was doing was writing up a proposal to do a project with them.

Yesterday, my phone rang. I answered it - company name, my name, "How can I help you?"

"Hi, Liz. This is John Doe from ABC."

I haven't worked on that for months! "Hi, John, what can I do for you?"

"Well, Jane and I made it to town..."

"...Okay?"

"I thought we might want to figure out when we're meeting."

HOLD THE PHONE! Meeting? WHAT meeting? "Um... Are we having a meeting? Someone must have forgotten to tell me. Who else is at this meeting?"

John sounded just the tiniest bit irritable, and I don't really blame him. Had he come all this way (ABC's headquarters is in Minnesota) for a meeting that didn't exist? "I don't remember..."

The guy I worked for on that project back in February just left us. Wondering if he'd forgotten to cancel a meeting before he left, I suggested his name to John.

"No, no... Another woman. But I don't remember her name."

"Hmm. Well, um, could you find out and call me back? Because someone really forgot to give me a memo or something. I haven't heard anything about a meeting."

He agreed, and we hung up. Ten minutes later he called back to tell me the name of the woman - a name I recognized, but I've never met her - and to tell me he'd been given my contact information by mistake - that the meeting wasn't in Williamsburg, it was in Fort Belvoir, and I wasn't expected to attend or even know about it.

Gods, I love corporate culture. No, really.

--Liz