So, the new office building doth not have a cafeteria, neither doth it have any kind of food purveyor within a 10 minute walk. It does have a snack machine in a very creepy machine room near the elevators in the lobby. How creepy? I expect someone to smash through the door with an axe anytime I'm in there. That's how creepy.
So! I've been bringing food. I filled up a jar with snacky items and invited people to share. I've been bringing healthy lunches and leftovers and fruit.
Today it was leftover tempura and sushi from last night's dinner.
Yesterday it was wee baby artichokes and barbeque chicken.
This outfit, only with a different tank top (boat neck instead of v-neck) and different shoes (ones I can walk in comfortably for more than a stroll from car to desk and back again).
Muffin Man's school has a science fair every year, and it's mandatory for 4th and 5th graders to participate.
Last year, his question was "which do gerbils like better, sunflower seeds or corn?" (answer: sunflower seeds).
This year his question was "How fast does ice melt on different surfaces?"
Mr. Spock and he worked together to do the set up, which involved a camera doing time-lapse photography. Here's Muffin Man's description of the materials needed:
8 ice cubes, 1 wooden cutting board, 1 brick/rock, 1 cast iron griddle, 1 glass casserole, 16 pipe cleaneres, 1 tripod, 1 lamp, 1 timer, and two cameras.
And here's his description of the variables:
The surfaces must be the same temp. so I put all the surfaces in the same place for about 20 hours, the ice must be the same temp. so I did them all at the same time to ensure that the air temp. will always be the same, and the ice cubes must be the same size.
I won't tell you which melted first, but I will tell you that the first ice melted at 18 minutes, 19 seconds. The last ice melted at 3 HOURS, 7 minutes, and 33 seconds.
The time-lapse video is a little over 3 minutes long, and the first 20 seconds are really cool. Muffin Man brought it in as part of his presentation.
We were a little concerned that maybe we'd helped him a bit too much with this one, until we saw the other kids' projects at the fair. It was pretty obvious that we were actually quite hands-off, comparatively.
(original title, "Random bullets on a rainy Tuesday" and then I read it over, and realized that the phrase "random bullets" has only one meaning now, and it's not "items in an unordered list that have nothing to do with each other.)
Muffin Man won his classroom spelling bee last week. Which surprised me, not because he's not a good speller (he's a terrific speller), but because he'd told me a few weeks ago that he'd participated in a classroom bee and he'd done terribly. Turn out that other bee was geography. Okay then. His winning word was "necessary".
This means he's now going to compete in the school spelling bee on the 24th. Not much time to study. I printed out the study guide from Mirriam-Webster, and he's pegging away at it.
He's super excited, because if he wins the school spelling bee, he'll be joining his friend ReallyTheyCouldBeTwins* at the county-wide spelling bee, since she won her school's bee a couple of weeks ago. The county-wide bee will include middle-schoolers, too.
We brought banana cake to services this weekend. This time, I made a banana filling for it. Wow! Delicious.
Speaking of services, Rev. Anya came over to our house to have a confab and I made latkes using a different recipe. The one I used to use was from Kosher Gourmet, and don't get me wrong, it was good. But the one I used this time was from this past December's Bon Appetit, and it was phenomenal. Oh. My. GOD.
My left eye is itching. It's been two days now. What is UP with that?
Everyone in my office is wearing blue today. Including me. So far as I know, there wasn't a memo.
Even though the weather is gloomy, I'm kind of glad it's raining. It gave me an excuse to wear my silly rain boots and poncho.
*formerly known as "SheIsAlmostAsTallAsMe", which is an out-dated name. She's 5'4". Turning 11 next week
