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I had a (personal) record seven straight conference calls Friday, sandwiched between a staff meeting and an impromptu meeting in the department head’s office. Needless to say, I got little real work accomplished on Friday. I did manage to finish this:

When I left for work I was only about 60% done.

This is one hank of Malabrigo Merino in Sunset, knit entirely in a brioche stitch (CO 18st.). I finished up with a warm, soft scarf with great visual texture, about 4 in. wide and 4½ ft. long. I have a recipient in mind.

My laceweight arrived Friday, but I’ve had no time for it or for my sock.

I went to work yesterday (and today, for that matter). It was unavoidable. I had to check the results of the monthly processing. I haven’t quite caught up from my vacation and the office move to Manhattan, so I had work to do anyway. On arriving on my floor I found there were no lights and less a/c than usual. I worked by the light of my monitor and my desklamp for an hour or so then stumbled upon a maintenance worker who turned the lights on for me. I never really cooled off though.

When I left the office I went over to J&R to buy a cradle for my PDA and to look at telephone headsets. And I bought a vacuum cleaner.

I’ve been mulling this over in my head awhile; it wasn’t a total impulse purchase. Then again, it’s not like I use a vacuum that often myself, but the old one was getting old and it’s attachments had pretty much all run away from home. We both had visions of the housekeeper¹ cleaning the sofa with the floor attachment, the only viable attachment left.

This is the ultimate guy’s vacuum cleaner. It’s bright for one thing—it coordinates with the bedroom walls. It is very powerful. It is very complex. It’s an über-gadget. Lots and lots of buttons and removable parts. I just hope the housekeeper has the patience to learn how to use it.

[Insert boring story about the horrors of trying to get back to Brooklyn with a forty-pound vacuum in an unwieldy box and no train service to any useful part of Brooklyn because of weekend trackwork or equipment malfunctions and no cabs available because everyone who was on one of the five lines not running out of West 4^th was trying to hail one.]

¹ I’ve stated elsewhere that a biweekly housekeeper visit is a reasonable expense. We never fight about whose turn it is to clean what.

Not getting a bike ride in this weekend because of work and the dreary weather, I walked home over the Brooklyn Bridge, in under 45 min. It would have been less had I not been stopped by a traffic signal at Atlantic Ave. Geez, the tourists on the bridge.