In which I am covered in salad dressing and despair

As Anonymous so aptly noted in the comments of my last post, I've been gone for a while now. I've been in a bit of a rough patch, I'm hanging on by a seemingly invisible thread at work and it's just sapping my energy to do much else that requires higher brain function.

Since we last spoke I:

• did get an iPod, it's cute and green
• almost finished a very large, oddly colored afghan
• made a Clapotis for my Mom's birthday
• went to Florida to visit my parents and see the new house they bought there
• helped with one day-long conference with a speaker that was determined not to exist (kids and drugs and no one want to speak about it? Seriously?)
• was a major player in a day-long conference that no one wanted to sponsor (hospitals saying they're sorry for f'ing up apparently strikes fear in the heart of drug companies and lawyers)
• ate $40 crab cakes (on someone else's dime)
• inhaled a metric crapload of mohair fiber
• watched a lot of dvr'd tv
• committed myself to spend a weekend sticking mailing labels on 8,000 brochures for yet another day-long conference for which I am almost solely responsible
• took approximately 3 billion pictures of manatees
• did some serious research into non-pharmaceutical treatments for depression and came to no firm conclusion on validity and safety
• invited Mel to come visit and go to Maryland Sheep and Wool with me (p.s. She accepted!)
• had my right eye swell shut for 24-hours due to a medication reaction (and, yes, it was a workday and, yes, I did go to work. For I am a goofus)
• spent too much time feeling sorry for myself about workload, lack of energy and assorted life obstacles
• went to the Homespun Yarn Party with Eva and bought pretty yarn
• avoided turning on my home computer with a zeal matched only by my desire to eat my weight in Tastykakes

and, most notably:

• managed to cover myself from bangs to belt in Italian dressing, thanks to an exploding squeeze bottle at the weekly Grand Rounds I run. In front of my boss. And others.

So, that's what I've been up to. That and reading.

12. The End of the Alphabet - CS Richardson. Arizona book club.
13. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctor and the Collision of Two Cultures - Anne Fadiman. Hospital book club.
14. Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen. Still an excellent book.
15. Serenity Found: more unauthorized essays on Joss Whedon's Firefly Universe - edited by Jane Espenson. Such a good TV show I'm forced to read about it.
16. The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield. Hospital book club.
17. The Dark Tower: The Dark Tower VII - Stephen King.
18. Off Ramp: Adventures and Heartache in the American Elsewhere - Hank Stuever. Highly recommended, especially for suburb dwellers like me.
19. Back on Blossom Street - Debbie Macomber.
20. Deja Dead - Kathy Reichs. Arizona book club. Didn't really care for it. Neither did the book club.
21. Death du jour - Kathy Reichs. But that didn't stop me from reading her second book. However the second book has stopped me from reading her third.

Pictures when my brain starts up again.