Want to buy a trashcan?

Yesterday afternoon, I needed to review some documents. So I printed them out, stacked up the 5 trashcans currently occupying all the foot-space under the side area of my desk, and got to work.

This morning, I needed to review some reports. So I printed them out, stacked up the 7 trashcans currently occupying all the footspace under the side area of my desk and spilling out into the floorspace in the middle of my cubicle, and got to work.

Just for reference, I currently occupy a three person cube. That's right, three. And today we've got 7 trashcans, even though yesterday we had 5. My cubemates and I on average throw out .25 trashcans' worth of stuff every day (today we might be up to .32, if you include the bonanza of destroyed doggy chew-toy recently contributed by my boss's black Lab).

Corporate life is sometimes very, very weird.

Frost

Last night I officially went from two homes to one - finally! After 3 car trips with final batches of stuff from Cupertino to Palo Alto, hours of vacuuming by yours truly, and more hours of shower-scrubbing by my guy, we finally closed the two garage doors of our original townhouse and drove away.

This morning when we woke up, my guy went outside and found our cars and the front yard covered by fallen red leaves, their edges covered in webs of frost. He brought in a leaf to show me, but of course the ice melted as he walked past the heater. So we both headed outside, heavy coats on - our feet crunched through the frozen grass. Yes, there is such a thing as winter in California!

Ahhhh. . . .

Downtown

"Ooooh, what an attractive man!" says the woman behind the counter at Caffe del Doge. She has a heavy Italian accent and fluffy blond hair. I turn to look for the attractive man (who wouldn't?) Behind me in line: one middle aged, average-looking guy in a yellow windbreaker and those silly stretchy biking shorts. The man grins hugely.

"Most attractive man all day so far!" agrees the other woman behind the counter. And to me: "Latte macchiato, piccolo, right?"

"Right," I say, and turn again to see what I'm missing in shiny-blue-bike-shorts guy.

The two women behind the counter laugh, not the basic flirty giggle you usually get around here, but a real laugh. Both women both seem incredibly awake for 8:30 am. I mean, they can flirt. "He's my husband," the first woman says to me, pointing at bike-short guy with her chin. "We don't really rate all the men."

I lean forward, keeping my voice low as if this were some kind of conspiracy. The oh-so-Italian guy with the neatly-folded newspaper standing next to me, elbows on the counter, doesn't move. "Would it be so bad if you did?" I ask.

She grins. "Well, we do, but we don't tell everyone."

Bike-short guy steps forward. "Cappuccino," he says, and I can see that both he and the woman behind the register think this is incredibly funny.

"Cappuccino again," says the woman, shaking her head: she doesn't believe it. I bet this happens every morning.

Latte macchiato, piccolo, in hand, I head back onto the street and start walking home.