Yesterday was “Take Your Children to Work Day” and my work friend Kara and I were entrusted with four children - all girls - between the ages of 9 and 12. We had to keep them occupied for two hours whilst their parents were in meetings and otherwise doing their jobs… while trying to show their children where they work.

Anyway, I got them to finish assembling some presentation kits/folders for me, and then we put them to work picking out book covers according to some simple criteria… they did a pretty good job artistically. However, their grasp of world geography left much to be desired - but in a superbly cute and endearing way.

“Prague” rhymed with “Ragu” - like the tomato sauce.
“Kauai” rhymed with “Maui”. That I can understand.
“Budapest” was pronounced, “Buttapest.”
When I asked them to narrow down their choices to pictures of places in the United States, they picked up the Canada and London pictures and then said, “Well, they’re not REALLY in the United States, are they?”

The 9-year old asked where Canada is, and I said, “North of us.” They all looked at me quizzically… then I realized they were asking where the picture of Canada was, not the nation itself. I blushed.

Anyway - they had a lot of fun and it was really cool watching them work together and how they dealt with decision making and organizing things, while trying to maintain a fair consensus-style democracy while making their choices. It was a totally fascinating sociological experiment.

Later in the afternoon, the two oldest girls came by my cubicle to say hello and then stayed and chatted with me for a few minutes. Before they left, they ran up to me and gave me hugs. I hugged them back and told them it was lovely to meet them, and there were smiles all around. I was honestly quite moved… and it made me happy. This morning, one girl’s father brought me a note that she wrote last night and asked him to give me… it said, “Dear Eva - you were sooooo nice to us. You’re the best person ever. We love your cubicle and loved hanging out with you. Love, [their names] P.S. Kiss Izzy every day for us!”

I told them my iPod’s name was Izzy and they loved that. I think I may have started a trend. Anyway, that note is up on my filing cabinet.

I got a haircut last night and I think it compliments the new glasses nicely. It’s short again… not terribly short, but chin-length bob short. Which is good - this is my most comfortable length. Several people at work today just walked by and went, “CUTE haircut!” A good sign.

When I got up this morning, I was totally dizzy. This continued past the initial, “Oops, got up too quickly!” moment and had me feeling dizzy even when I was on the train. I had some orange juice and Cream of Wheat at work and felt a little better then, but I don’t think that the usual 8-12 hours of not eating overnight would cause me to be dizzy from hunger. Later in the day, the dizziness transformed itself into a nasty sinus headache. I just took some Motrin to battle that nonsense.

Tomorrow is going to be le Grande Cleaning Day. I have my Swiffer dusters, trash bags, and all other necessary products on-hand. I can put away my winter clothing and bring out the few spring-only pieces I own.

I ordered “Kingdom Hearts 2″ for my PS2 and it arrived today. I played for about 10 minutes, but the headache made it a little less than pleasant. However, I know that I have something good to play when I’ve got insomnia… this game, it seems, is much like the original. It’s the CRACK of video games. For me, anyway. It’s a good thing I don’t have a Disney-hatred thing. I am not a huge fan either, but I like most of the movies enough to enjoy the use in the video game. The fact that they used “Alice in Wonderland” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas” in the first one won me over. We’ll see what they do in this one…

So… yes. I have to be up early tomorrow to go to the bank and get some cash for the upcoming week. I also want to get a little extra so I can hit up a few stores and look for some travel clothes. I need some loose fitting cotton pants for Tunisia. I am not wearing artificial fibers in 100 degree + heat. I have plenty of cotton t-shirts, and I have to get a hat… but I don’t have any sort of loose cotton or linen pants I could wear when walking around. SO that’s something to search for before my departure. Worse case scenario: I can order by catalog. I have a travel catalog that sells this stuff made of crinkle cotton (so you can shove it in a suitcase and not have to worry about wrinkles) and those crazy packable straw hats. I’d have to order far enough in advance for the stuff to get to me… but if I order in the next week or so, I should be OK.

OK. Time for some water and then sleep. This headache is not quitting. I probably took the Motrin too far into the ache for it to help much.