Phillip took the day off today, and bought, and delivered, pizza for everyone in my office. He told me about his plan yesterday, but I waited until this morning to tell my coworkers. I wanted to heighten the surprise. This was the first time any of my coworkers had met him. He is now very popular with my coworkers.

Yoga class was especially crowded this evening. I got a spot in the back corner of the room. As I meditated before class began, I had an interesting experience - not quite a vision, but an effect. I focused on an electrical outlet on the far side of the room. After a while, a yellow light appeared around the outlet, like a halo. The same yellow halo appeared around my classmates seated within my field of vision. Those seated classmates were floating a few inches above their mats.

It was a little frustrating this evening that my back is not as flexible as my arms and legs. That's not a new realization, of course, but it struck me a little hard that I can't achieve the back bends without modifications, while I can twist my foot well above the opposite knee with ease. I don't know why that bothered me this evening.

I earned an "Excellent, Paul!" from Lisa while I was holding the boat pose (Paripurna Navasana). I started the asana, as the rest of the class did, with my hands holding the backs of my legs. Then I moved my arms away from my body, and did so without changing my balance at all.

When I walked out of yoga class, and to our car, there was a note under the windshield wiper. "I accidently backed into your car..." the note began. The writer of the note left his first name and a couple of phone numbers. There is a small dent in the back fender, some chipped paint, and scuff marks on the side of the back bumper. It's all minor, cosmetic damage. I admire the writer's honesty and courage. There are plenty of people out there who would attack the fellow for damaging their possession. I'm not really upset about it. I feel like I should phone him, but I haven't decided what to do about the situation beyond that.

For some reason, I started thinking about Pogo Possum this afternoon. It's interesting, the things that pop into my head. I found this article on Wikipedia, one of my favorite web sites.

I used to enjoy Pogo, the comic strip, when I was a kid. I'm sure I was too young to catch the politial satire, and possibly even the word play. What I remember is the visual playfulness. For instance, I remember when Albert Alligator was talking, but not saying anything. That was illustrated by an empty speech balloon above his head. The baby (whose name I forgot) climbed up and went to sleep in the empty speech balloon. That presented Albert with a frustrating situation: If he stopped talking, the balloon would disappear and the baby would fall and get hurt. If he started actually saying something, the words would fill the balloon and the baby would be squeezed and get hurt.

My upstairs boss phoned me this morning to tell me that Kymm had come in with her husband, and had asked about me. Dang! If I had thought that Kymm would be there for her husband's appointment, I would have gone up to the clinic.

My upstairs boss used to work at the University Medical Center. She recognized me when I came in last summer for my interview here. She knew Kymm, too, before I knew Kymm - before Kymm worked on the research project.

I miss working in the clinic. I miss it a lot. Down here in the office, it's nothing but paperwork and phone calls all day long.

I almost forgot to mention that while we were waiting in line for our free food last night, a Chipotle employee handed out free chips and guacamole.

The bus stop where I wait in the morning is in front of Hot Topic (clothes). A little to the south is QFC, and inside the QFC is a Starbucks. A little to the north is Extaz Espresso. Across the street is another Starbucks. I don't hate Starbucks as much as it's fashionable to hate Starbucks, but it makes me happy that the vast majority of latte cups I see in fellow bus riders' hands have Extaz logos on them.

Now that I no longer work on campus, I miss picking up The Daily - The University of Washington student newspaper. Phillip doesn't work on campus, either, but he works close enough to get deliveries of the paper to his office.

Phillip called me at work yesterday morning to tell me that on the front page of The Daily was an ad from Chipotle - the Mexican fast food chain restaurant we both like. The ad, Phillip told me, promised to give a free burrito and soft drink to anyone with a Husky Card™ - the identification card carried by all UW students, faculty, and staff. (That's a lot of people.) It was a one day offer.

After we fed Gladden last night, Phillip and I drove to the U District and stood in line with hundreds of UW students, many of whom, we overheard, were there for the second time. We started out two doors down, in front of Radio Shack. The line moved quickly, though, we got our free food to go, and were back home in about 45 minutes.

Amazing.

(There is a rumor that Chipotle is owned by McDonalds. I did some research back when Chipotle moved in to the former Denny's location on The Ave. I learned that the rumor is not true. Chipotle started out as a local place in Denver. When it wanted to expand nationwide, it sold stocks to finance the expansion. McDonalds bought Chipotle stock, but not the company, and is a minority stockholder.)

Two Minute Mystery of the day (so far):

A flyer arrived in our office mail this morning. The flyer announced that the next WAMI conference is scheduled in April, at the Red Lion Inn, in Seattle. There was blurry photo that looked like a person carrying something, and not much information about the conference. My coworker, who picked up the mail, asked me if I knew what WAMI is. I didn't know, so I did a Google search.

One WAMI I found was the Western Australian Music Industry. That didn't seem like something Harborview Medical Center would be involved with. (I have, however, read that Seattle has the greatest concentration of didgeridoos outside of Australia.)

The next WAMI I found was the Wisconsin Area Music Industry. That seemed even less likely that Harborview would be involved in that.

I'd found something called Wireless and Microwave Information Systems when our boss walked in and got involved in the mystery. It was our boss who remembered that Harborview is the main trauma center in the WAMI (Washington, Alaska, Montana, Idaho) region.

When Phillip and I went out to lunch Saturday afternoon, we saw snow north of Shoreline - none of it on the roads, though. When we woke up Sunday morning, there was snow outside of out our windows - not much, though, and it melted away after a couple of hours.

I don't see any snow this morning.

One of the medicines that I give to Gladden is a powder that is sprinkled on his food. He doesn't seem to mind that at all. The other medicine is a liquid that involves me holding him belly up and squirting the medicine into his mouth with a plastic syringe. Gladden doesn't like being held belly up, and he doesn't like being poked in the face with a syringe. I can understand that.

I have a lot of experience with the syringe technique. I gave medicine to both of Craig's rats who stayed with us. Later, I gave medicine to Gladys Night. The three of them didn't like it any better than Gladden does. Gladden is less trouble, however. The two rats and Gladys would clench their jaws shut and I'd have to wait a long time for a moment to come when they'd get tired or distracted and their mouths would unclench just enough for me to move the tip of the syringe in and push the plunger. Gladden starts out with his jaw clenched shut, too, but it doesn't take him long to realize that he's not getting out of it, and he'll open his mouth wide - as wide as he can. He's learned in a short time that once he gets that squirt of medicine, I'll let him go.

This morning, Phillip and I agreed to disagree on the word "handfuls." Phillip says the word is wrong - the plural of "handful" is "handsful." I understand his point. I really do. He says it's the amount that can be held in more than one hand, therefore it's the "hand" that should be plural, not the "ful." Still, I disagree. The fact that our dictionary (Webster's) backs me up is a minor point in my argument. "Handful" is a word with a suffix, not a compound word, and therefore it's made plural by adding the "s" to the end of word, not the middle. "Handful" is a unit of measurement, just like a nanosecond or a foot-pound. It's the amount of something that can be held in a hand. If you have two of those amounts, you have two units, not a single, bigger unit.