Wednesday, March 21, 2007

I was browsing through some other blogs and came across one that was, frankly, really boring. This guy writes a new post every day, simply describing exactly what he does each day. I thought I would emulate him to see if a typical day for me is any more exciting. Probably not. Here goes: My alarm went off at 6 a.m. and I promptly turned it off and went back to sleep. Felix the annoying black cat began to meow incessantly at around 6:30 a.m. I ignored her and covered by head with a pillow as to drown out her cries. It never works. I finally dragged myself out of bed at 6:51 a.m. As always, I began my day with a shower. I am always pissed at the cats for waking me up, so I make them wait until after I shower to eat. I fed the cats and briefly considered cleaning out the litter boxes, but decided that could wait until later. I selected an outfit and got ready for work. I ate breakfast: green tea, apple cinnamon instant oatmeal, strawberries and mango. I've had the same thing for breakfast every day this week, in an effort to at least start out the day being healthy. This plan usually fails by mid-day when I get cravings for sweets, but at least I have good intentions. I left for work at about 8 a.m. I drove today - I don't always drive, sometimes I ride my bike and occasionally I take light rail. I arrived at my office by 8:20 a.m., something I was proud of, because I'm trying to come in earlier and leave earlier. I checked my e-mail and voice mail and made a phone call. I did some research for an event I'm organzing next month and then got ready for a phone meeting I had scheduled. That took about 45 minutes. A guy I met at a conference last week wanted to provide me with a demo of his company's web-based social networking platform. It was interesting to learn about. After that meeting, I had about 15 minutes to check e-mail and get some coffee before the monthly staff meeting. I usually dread these but today's was relatively informative. The rest of the morning, until about 12:30 p.m., was spent working. Oh, I did talk on the phone with Carolyn for about 20 minutes, but I considered that part of my lunch break. I brought my lunch from home and ate in our breakroom at the office, while chatting with some colleagues. I had split pea soup, baby carrots with hummus, and a whole wheat tortilla. I washed it down with a flavored sparkling water from Safeway - my favorite alternative to soda. Yum! However, my healthy lunch was ruined by 2 pieces of cinnamon pound cake that I ate immediately afterward. Darn it. They were sitting right in front of me, calling my name. Total pieces of cake eaten today: 3 (the first one was at the staff meeting). Total pieces of Ferrerro Rocher hazelnut chocolates eaten: 2. After lunch I headed back to my desk, where I made a variety of phone calls, typed up a bunch of letters, and sent tons of e-mails all afternoon. I also put up a new laminated world map that I bought at Borders. It looks great. I got all excited a short while ago because I've been obsessively checking my personal e-mail to see if Derek, the hottie from SF, wrote back to me, and he did. Yay! Now I'm getting ready to log off and head a few blocks away to Morton's, where I'm having dinner with some diplomats from Taiwan and six politicians. I don't eat steak but I'm sure they will have some veggie alternatives. I'm ready for people to ask me about my diet habits and why I don't eat meat, etc. That's kind of annoying, because I don't go around asking people why they choose to eat cow flesh. That just wouldn't be polite! Update: the dinner was nice. I had never been to Morton's and it was much as I expected: dark, with dark wood paneling. Very masculine. The highlight of the evening was a hot waiter. He was setting down coffee cups and saucers and dropped a couple of saucers. The older Taiwanese man sitting next to me made a joke that everyone could hear - he said to the waiter that he dropped the saucers probably because he was looking at me! I turned bright red and wished that were true! Otherwise, I had to sit around and listen to a bunch of elected officials talk about their upcoming junket to Taiwan. Stupidest comment of the evening: one of them (not to be named, of course) said that while they were in Taiwan, they should meet up with some colleagues in Tokyo one evening. Taipei is about 1,300 miles across the East China Sea from Japan. Riiight. Oh well, it's his first trip outside of the U.S., other than to Mexico. Oh, and he chairs a committee on international trade. What I ate at Morton's: bread, caesar salad (not very good), huge shrimp in a wine butter sauce with rice, raspberry sorbet, red wine. Who I sat next to: two Taiwanese doctors - one urologist and one pediatrician; a chief of staff to one of the electeds, and a diplomat from Taiwan who had previously been posted in Paraguay and Brazil. What everyone got as a gift: a wooden box filled with premium Taiwanese tea. All in all, not a bad evening. I may have to go back just to flirt with the cute waiter sometime.