At the water cooler

21 May 2009

I work in a real office. In fact, as I pledged the furniture in the directors office (oh, the high and mighty work of the revered intern), I noticed that if I sat in the chair next to the interior window, it would look like one of those close up interview shots from The Office. Exactly like The Office. We don't quite have the caricatures that JB Novak dreamed up, but, from where I sit, there does seem to be an endless supply of the ridiculousness here.

The director of IT walked past my desk the other day, "Did you know I have gills. I do. That's why I wear collared shirts."
I wonder what he felt about the Lox wraps they served in the board room for lunch.

Suzie and David swapped music pirating sites over lunch, and when I rolled my eyes David offered, "We'd be more than happy to share the joys of piracy with you if you are ready to welcome them into your heart."
Seriously. Those were his exact words.

Also, David has recently coined the term "The Mallory Effect" in which I rub off on other people and they start spewing non-sequiturs at passing coworkers.

Apparently my propensity for office ADD is manifest in a running commentary, but at least my comments make sense most of the time.

Today Brian walked in carrying a slightly frosty desktop hard drive.
"Found it! Forgot I stuck this thing in the freezer last month."

Out to lunch

05 May 2009

I sat next to Roy R. Romer today at lunch. He looks much older now than in his Wikipedia picture, but that didn't stop all the important people in the Capital Hilton Congress Room from coming up to say hello. He didn't actually introduce himself to me, he only asked what I did and, no doubt trying to be genuinely conversational, asked this and that about TPR. But I knew who he was because Checker (who's real name is Chester E. Finn Jr.) gave a shout-out from the podium to his old friend Roy, and someone stopped by to congratulated him on his son's becoming another Senator Romer.

Roy R. Romer, by the way, was a congressman, a senator, the 39th governor of Colorado, the superintendent of Los Angeles' Schools, he has a school named after him in the San Fernando valley, and now he serves as the chairman and lead spokesman for Strong American Schools, currently funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Eli and Edythe Broad foundation, which is an initiative aimed at encouraging politicians to include education reform in their platforms.

But really, sitting next to Roy was nothing, I was in fact sitting in front of Checker the whole time, who was formerly the United States Assistant Secretary of Education and currently the president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, who provided the luncheon.

I was there just to take notes on the speakers, but since the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation had been so kind as to provide the delicious and expensive box lunches, I helped my self to a grilled vegetable on tomato focaccia sandwich.

NOTE: Roy R. Romer eats his chocolate brownie with a fork, which is a much more sophisticated way of doing it, especially at a luncheon full of DC's leading lights in the field of education reform. I felt foolish for trying to eat it with my bare hands.

The intern

04 May 2009

(in all her glory)

I stopped on my way out of the office to switch from business pumps to my favorite tennis shoes. Leaning against the water fountain I noticed a sign on the door opposite: "Stairwell." Stairs! Why have I been riding the elevator every day! I slipped through the heavy door and heard it clunck shut as I skipped down the five flights to the ground floor, which is where I found a very nasty-looking metal grate of a door with "Fire Exit Only" painted in large and unfriendly letters. An addendum was stamped beneath: "Alarm will Sound."

Hm.

I ran back up a level to floor 2 and rattled the door knob. Locked.

So was the next door and the next and the next.

Back on the fifth floor, I considered sitting down to think or maybe cry. Then, as I so often do when I'm in need of a bit of cheer, I thought What would Vernon do? and I saw him in my mind's eye doubled over, piddling-- yes, in fact piddling-- at the hilarity of my situation: It was my first week of work and I was locked in the stairwell of 1150 17th Street in Washington, DC.

I swallowed what little pride I had still intact (after a week of interning) and called the office. (Thank heavens I had cell phone reception in that concrete pit.)

"Philanthropy Roundtable, this is Lindsay."

"Hi. This is the intern. I'm locked in the stairwell, could you come let me out."

Bless Lindsay for not laughing while I was still on the line, "Sure, where's the stairwell?"

"Just outside our office, next to the drinking fountain."

"I'll be right there."

She didn't even crack a smile as she pulled the heavy door open, "I think this happens in a lot of DC office buildings-- the doors only open if the fire alarm goes off. I think Lacey locked herself in here too her first week. She's the sort of girl who would try to take the stairs."

I mumbled something about avoiding a fire drill, tried to chuckle and ran for the elevator.

Well, as my boss Stephanie has been reminding me all week-- I am an intern; I can only go up from here.

From my shrinking world

29 April 2009

I walked into my first staff meeting Tuesday, and sat across from a pretty blond, "Hi, I'm Lacey!"
Lacey?
"From Missouri?"
"Ahm. yes."
"Lacey. Hm. We were 8th grade locker partners."
"Woah. Wow. Yeah, we were! How are you?"
We're having lunch tomorrow to catch up on the six years since we shared a tiny upper locker in Jeff. Jr. High.

What to do with the baby?

26 April 2009

I don't know how I feel about those cutesy books full of babies sitting in giant flower pots, or dressed like fuzzy snails, or just sitting, naked , sleeping with giant hyacinths on their heads. But I do know these pictures seem but a minor offense when compared with the names found in Anne Geddes' book Baby Names. These are just a few of my favorites:

Girls
Albina (white)
Bryony (twining vine)
Clover (from name of plant) you're kidding me
Drusilla (dewy-eyed)
Eugenia (well-born) hope she's blonde and blue-eyed...
Flavia (yellow)
Germaine (brother)
Hippolyta (Queen of the Amazon)
Iolanthe (violet)
Jael (wild goat) "It's like Jail, only with an E"
Kezia (Cassa tree)
Lettice (mid-evil)
Mignon (darling) bet she'll grow up vegetarian. Friends with Lettice.
Nerys (lord)
Oonagh (one) seriously, who will ever spell that one correctly?
Prue (provident)
Quinella (5th)
Rasheeda (wise)
Sigrid (victory)
Tryphena (delicate) sounds like a dietary supplement
Uta (diminutive form of Ottalie) better Uta than Ottalie
Valmai (mayflower)
Wilhelmina (protect)
Xaviera (new house)
Yseult (midevil)
Zephyrine (west wind) I think that's the name of my allergy medicine...

... and a few good ones from the
Boys
Auberon (elf power)
Easter (from the Christian Holiday)
Granville (high place)
Kain (var. of Cain) seriously? Cain?
Marmaduke (servant of Maedoc)
Urien (privileged birth)and no one will make fun of that one at scout camp
Zilcomo (thank you) another allergy medication?

Fido the pachyderm

24 April 2009

The elephant sat between us on the front porch like some lazy family dog. I leaned against your deck chair to block him from view, but he just watched us dolefully, and you and I sat, as usual, in silence. I was too busy taking my own pulse to ask if you minded the intrusion- after all, I had first named him and invited him to follow us about.

When our usual contemplative and lonely silence became too uncomfortable, you commented, in passing, on his pachydermine proportions, and I could think of no reply but, "Why? Don't you see--things could have been so different."

Instead, I said "How true."

And we each returned to our busy solitude-- I, blankly staring at the empty browser window, you, intently watching the screen of your i-pod.

"I could go for a burger or two."

"Bacon cheese burger?"

"Done"

There wasn't room for him in your little car, but that's the way I prefer it. All our best conversations happen in the Wendy's drive-thru.

A eulogy

17 April 2009

I learned this week that Thomas O. Lambdin is dead. My classmates chuckled when the Harvard grad, who was lecturing on the Blessed BDB, told us that this man, the source of all suffering and tribulation in our lives over the past two semesters, had in fact moved on to the other side.

I was shocked. For a moment, I was afraid I might start crying because somehow, somewhere between stewing over his lists of vocabulary and grumbling over his complex translation homework, I became very attached to the author of my text book: Introduction to Biblical Hebrew.

Thomas O Lambdin is a man of mystery. His Wikipedia article is two lines long-- brevity that perhaps nods to the famous brevity of his Hebrew Grammar. He taught at Harvard University, but besides a few papers and my shabby green textbook, paperback cover peeling away from wrinkled and well thumbed pages, there is little left behind to remind the world of this brilliant Hebrew Scholar.

So this is my tribute to the man who was my Virgil through Hebrew Grammar (is it a sin to cross dead language metaphors thus?): my guide through the forms and tenses of Biblical Writ.

Dr. Lambdin, you will be dearly missed.