Posts without pictures get boring, so here's one with a picture of a city I used to live in.

Don't be deluded though, it has nothing to do with what I'm going to write. Just something to look at.

Work is still frustrating. Actually, thinking about it has been consuming me lately. I'm beginning to lose faith in the organization I work for. Having read some reports about its effectiveness, I'm not quite as gung ho. I'm definitely thinking carefully about it all.

Also, the Midwest is still very nice. In fact, at the grocery store tonight there was a note next to the bananas, apologizing for the price sign, which was .78 a pound. I know that's more than double what they usually are, but does your grocery store write a note about it? This was a 3-4 line note, explaining something about the shortage of bananas in Ecuador, and how it would be probably 3 weeks or so before the price goes back down, and thank you for waiting. What nice people.

Tomorrow night I'm going to a church dinner. My "first friend," a double hand holding greeter, invited me to her house along with some other people from church. There's even a name, it's called a "Dinner for Six" because you invite six people and it starts at six. Clever, no? I'm bringing a cake, seeing as how there was mucho frosting left over after my mom's birthday, due to the fact that I didn't realize I bought a 32 ounce bag of powdered sugar, instead of 16. This does give me a place to use it.

Lately I've been watching the PBS "House" series, it's like The Real World for the NPR crowd. My latest, and probably favorite, was Manor House. They put a family, and a whole slew of people acting as servants, in this giant manor house, and watch them interact. The father is a hate-able villain, insisting that the social order works and that he is kind to the servants. His wife seems pretty much oblivious, and the servants their asses off day and night to serve the family. It's definitely a great series. I've also recently seen 1900s House, 1940s House, and Frontier House, all of which were good in their own special ways.