My plan to wake up early and catch the early train was totally foiled. Insomnia prevented me from getting up early enough to catch the early train. Utter stupidity on the part of my family caused me to miss my normal train entirely (the parking situation in the driveway was beyond ridiculous and everyone who could help alleviate the situation was either in the shower or in a state of slumber so deep, my attempts to wake them resulted in pointless conversations composed of non-sequiturs) and I ended up driving into work and missing the first 20 minutes of the meeting I was rushing in to attend in the first place.

Luckily, it wasn’t anything majorly earth-shattering and there were handouts that caught me up on what I’d missed.

Then I left work with a few folks in my group and we went over to the hotel at which they were hosting a company dinner. Seating was arranged so that people wouldn’t be sitting with their buddies; however, I got a table where half of the people DID know each other and chatted with each other to the exclusion of everyone else and where the other half were so busy talking about themselves, they never bothered to ask the other people around, “…and what do you do?” I learned about one woman’s nephew and his experiences in the army, and her brother who lives in the Middle East and another brother who lives in the Northeast and what his house looks like and what her husband thinks of people from New England and far more than I needed to know. Then another girl seemed to be trying to talk about religion since she brought up the fact that America is a country without values and that our society is dictated by our television programming and video games… and the first lady picked up on this and started in on, “Well I go to church every Sunday and I’m very involved in my church community, but I still watch TV. I don’t think TV is our society; it’s just that parents don’t teach their kids values anymore. They just let them do what they want to do…”

I had to agree with the latter portion of that, mostly, but I do think that our TV programming, etc., is a reflection of our society. If the things that we have on TV and on movie screens weren’t resonating with people on some level, there wouldn’t be as many reality TV shows and Jerry Springer-like talk shows and other crap that’s around on TV. Supply and demand.

However, I didn’t get involved in that conversation. I just used my facial expressions and occasional nods and “mmm-hmmms” to indicate my active interest IN the conversation while not becoming a part of it, for fear of getting into an inflammatory debate with people at work who have been there longer, are more connected and just generally senior to me.

The most stimulating part of the conversation was discussing vegetables with two of the gentlemen sitting to my right. We started with a discussion of the green beans served alongside our meals (I had the filet mignon, they had the fish - which we were trying to identify) and this moved into a forum about which green vegetables we all enjoyed or didn’t enjoyed. I was alone in my enjoyment of beets (not a green veggie, I know… but I didn’t bring it up… I just defended it) but not alone in liking lima beans and collard greens and spinach and sugar snap peas and chard and kale. So that was a good feeling… a vegetable community.

I left dinner around 8:15 and got back to my car around 8:40, then drove home… got here around 9:15 and promptly got ready for bed. So here I am, and tonight I am taking the sleeping pills so I am certain to sleep through the night and be able to wake up in the morning so I can get dressed up and whatever else.

There’s another business dinner tomorrow night, but it’s going to be the folks in my department only, so I will know everyone I might happen to sit with. We’re going to craftbar, and I checked out the menu a few minutes ago. Here’s what caught my eye (though the menu varies by season and I might be out of luck):

Appetizer: Warm Pecorino Fondue with Acacia Honey, Hazelnuts and Pepperoncini
Entree: Roasted Striped Bass with Fennel and Artichoke à la Grecque

Normally, I eschew fish. I don’t do it. But I’ve eaten bass before and it’s mild enough to keep me from feeling gross… and I actually really like fennel and artichoke. So it could work. If I change my mind and want to avoid the fish, my secondary entree selection is a pasta dish:

Orecchiette with Braised Chicken, Swiss Chard and Parmesan Broth Mmmm. I like orecchiette. They have a great little shape; the name means “little ears.” I don’t know about that connection (judge for yourself using the picture at left), but I like them.

I need to find some interesting new sites and update the music and movies pages on this site. Those have nothing to do with one another; they just came rumbling into my brain one right after the other.

Thoughts do that sometimes.