Home earlier than usual. It was sanctioned, I put in the word that I would be out of the office from 1:30 this afternoon. I said I had an appointment to tend to. They didn’t ask any questions, but still I will explain it tomorrow somehow.

I made sure everything was taken care of and in any event, if they really needed me, I was just a phone call away. They’ve called me before when I was out of the office so today wouldn’t be any different.

Bill won a raffle last week at his office cafeteria, a lunch for him and his loved one. Not any lunch you see, something with metal utensils, cloth napkins, nice china and a bottle of wine to go with the rack of lamb, salmon and rice and veggies.

I walked out of my office building into a maelstrom, snow and rain flying in all directions. Still I persevered and made it to Bill’s building on time. He came down and met me and we rode the elevator to whatever floor the cafeteria was on.

Bill spoke to the woman who runs the cafeteria and she told us to sit anywhere we’d like. Bill found a prime position which allowed him to show me off to various co-workers. It was fun to meet them, most all of them mentioned that Bill was crazy. In a good way of course, since if he was crazy in a bad way I doubt if they would say things like that in front of him. They were a fun group.

The food was excellent, not your standard cafeteria fare. Rack of lamb, salmon, rice and veggies. I never had salmon before, I generally avoid eating fish, but it turns out salmon is good. I liked it. Can’t say I would go out of my way to order it, but if given the opportunity I would have it again.

Sadly there was no dessert. But who am I to complain after a nice lunch, as well as a couple of glasses with white wine? It was a lovely way to have lunch with my lovely man.

When I left the office at 1:30 I told Greg Stevens and Tom Chin I was heading out and they both said, ‘OK, see you tomorrow’. Since I was a block away from the bus terminal I decided to head on home. I got in the queue for the bus and settled into the last row and cracked open The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell. It’s due today and I would like to finish it on time.

Midway through the slaughter of the Pequot tribe the cellphone rang. It was Casey Chasm. He was apologetic though his voice belied stress. Homeboy is under the gun with studying for the NY Bar exam, and just was laid off, and on top of that, Mrs. Chasm expecting.

I told him it was perfectly understandable. He said how sorry he was to leave like that, he thought it was ok. He had read the blog from Monday you see. What’s done is done and I’m sure he will ace the Bar exam.

I heard from Pedro last night, he had some gruesome details about the chimpanzee attack in Connecticut that were initially reported according to him that weren’t reported since. That the chimp on a rampage bit off the poor woman’s hands, as well as her face.

He said he had heard it on a local Connecticut news station. It is a gruesome story in any event, and it’s happened before. If you Google chimp attacks you’ll see a page full of gross reports. I did look it up to see if what Pedro said was true but couldn’t find anything about that.

Sort of unrelated, but about 12 years ago I heard on the news of a medical study that stated 1 out of every 100 men are immune to HIV.

It was announced at the top of the news hour and reported on and then never mentioned again after that one time. A bit like hearing what Pedro heard about the chimp attack.

Totally unrelated, so far in the past 2 weeks there have been 3 small earthquakes in the Morristown area. I felt the first tremor a few weeks ago, and since then there have been 2 more, less than the original 3.0. It kind of makes me think, is another one, perhaps stronger coming down the way?