2004-05-28

It�s my last day as a public servant! I celebrated the occasion by showing up spectacularly late, and am now proving with singular panache that �at work� and �working� are by no means synonymous concepts. I�m even being extra geeky today, wearing the �Mind the Gap� T-shirt I bought in London last year: I�ve got to get some use out of it, since there�s no way it�s making the trip with me. You really can�t wear a �Mind the Gap� shirt in England, can you? Not unless you want people to read �Mind the Gap� as �I�m a Twat�.*

Yesterday was my goodbye lunch: the Final Indignity. I�d requested a local Thai restaurant that offers a great selection of vegetarian curries, and even a vegan coconut rice pudding for dessert. Alas, it was completely booked for lunch, so our admin randomly selected another Thai restaurant � they�re all the same, right? Ha. This place had plastic tablecloths and nary a chopstick in sight; and for some odd reason �Pad Thai with chicken� was listed on the menu under �Seafood�. I guess in Thailand the phrase �chicken of the sea� is taken literally. Anyway, I chose one of the three (3) vegetable curries and tried to enjoy the company, hindered only slightly by the sight of my co-worker across the table picking fussily at her noodle dish, which was WAY too �weird� for her unadventurous palate. You�d think she�d just been served a plate of saut�ed mealworms. (I wish she had been.)

I�ll try to squeeze in another post or two before my grand departure � tomorrow I�ll be buying a laptop, and my not-so-blissful ignorance of all things technological and inevitable financial victimization by slick salesmen should be good for a larf. Anything to entertain!

*When in Rome, etc: I�m officially switching over to British-style punctuation. From here on in, it�s punctuation outside quoted fragments! And single quotation marks, rather than double, for non-dialogue! I�ve gone native!