Quote of the Day:

“Should we continue to look upwards? Is the light we can see in the sky one of those which will presently be extinguished? The ideal is terrifying to behold… brilliant but threatened on all sides by the dark forces that surround it: nevertheless, no more in danger than a star in the jaws of the clouds.”
- Victor Hugo, “Les Misérables”

I am SUPER tired, so this blog entry is going to be riddled with sentence fragments and other exemplars of bad grammar, but I just wanted to say that after the weeks from hell, things are finally starting to look up. Thus, I bring you the above quote, which has been a favorite of mine for decades (gulp) now, and the following bits of good news:

1. The work situation changed dramatically today. Dra. Matically. I know we are not completely out of the woods yet – in fact, now an entirely new set of challenges lies ahead – but as far as I’m concerned, things could not have gotten better without the recent strategic changes that have taken place. Sorry to be vague. There’s really no reason you need to know any details about this, especially now that things will be better, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention it at all, especially since work has been the cause of many a nightmare in recent months. Monday was a terrible day, and I drove home in silence. Today, I sang along to Switchfoot and even stopped to browse the farmer’s market in the rain. I’m still a little shaken up, but at least now I’m fairly confident that we’ll all come out of this alive.

2. We finally booked our trip to Japan for Thanksgiving. You have no idea how every force in the travel world was working against us on this one. I seriously had an entirely different itinerary planned that would’ve taken us to Tokyo and Fukuoka and even on the shinkansen with a rail pass, and I was right up to the point where I had entered my credit card number and clicked the Pay Now button, and right then, the fallout from the Japan Airlines bankruptcy hit us smack in the face for at least the second time. And we weren’t even going to fly JAL! And that’s not even all the drama. I was about ready to give up and just to go to NU Homecoming for our 10-year reunion instead (although, seriously, Noreen, how could I go without you?). But now I’ve got us booked roundtrip to Tokyo Narita, and we’re staying at the Hilton Tokyo Bay, right outside Tokyo Disney. If things continue to look up, the dollar-yen ratio will also improve now. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to pray for that.

3. “Les Misérables” the musical turns 25 this fall, and some really cool video has been added to the show’s website. Since “Les Mis” is no longer playing on Broadway, I had no idea that they had made some really neat changes to the show in celebration of the anniversary, until I saw the videos. Wow, super cool. “Les Mis” was my first stage love. I have a huge framed poster hanging on my office wall. Todd practically has it memorized because I listen to my cast albums (I have it in at least three foreign languages and like four versions in English) all the time. I am geeking out RIGHT NOW. While I am typing this. It is a bit ridic, I know, but you have no idea how geeked out I am. OK, well, this paragraph probably gives you a pretty good idea.

My office. No joke. And that “Les Mis” poster is super heavy.

4. The Cubs swept a series this week. Seriously. Talk about ridic. I miss Sweet Lou and Derrek Lee, but wow, three wins, that’s practically a record this season. Now if only they would hire Greg Maddux as the next club manager. Yes, I said Maddux. I know I have said bad things about Maddux in the past, but that was out of anger and frustration. And you cannot hold baseball season anger against me.

5. Kona next weekend for a work thing! Todd and I are staying an extra day. We’re (ha ha) I’m hoping we’ll get to see the lava flow. Not entirely optimistic about that one, but you know how crazy I am. I will try any means possible. If you have any suggestions, send them this way! I’m not sure whether they’ve re-opened the air space, so I have no idea whether helicopter is a possibility at this point.

6. I didn’t need to take a Relpax today! At work, May Rose jokingly referred to this as “drug-free Hawai‘i.” Not exactly, MR. Don’t be j just because I hoard my six pills a month.

I should probably get to bed before Todd wakes up and notices that (a) I am still up (he tried to get me to go to sleep a half-hour ago, and I told him that I was writing and that he should stop judging, whatever the heck I meant by that) and (b) I am still listening to “Les Mis.” Things are looking up, friends! And the weekend is near . . .