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i missed the first half of today's wednesday morning company meeting (i was upstairs burning cd's for the q&a department) but i did catch the second half, the part where we went over our new employee handbook. i never knew the company had so many rules! maybe i should hire a lawyer to look over these documents before i sign anything. the company obviously has some legal representation, i think it's only fair that i should have mine. i heard from those who caught the first half of the meeting that there were no announcement of rebecca's imminent departure from the company. why? if there's no official public announcement, did it then not happen? most everyone knows anyway, if they didn't hear it from the source then they heard it from somebody else. i remember in the past when people left, we'd have a little farewell party for them. things are different now though. now when people leave, nobody talks about it, sort of like in bewitched when one day they switched darren. it's not like we don't love alex and matthew and rebecca, so we're not going to have a party for them. i'd argue that they are probably more deserving of a dignified farewell than some of the other people we've sent off in the past. it's left to the employees themselves to organize a good bye event, but i think this creates an even bigger schism between management and the workers. i'm not really taking any sides here, but it's definitely a weird vibe. morales are low. no where is this more evident than the little displays of employee disgruntleness strewn throughout the office.

highlights of my day: i coaxed amanda to come take a short walk with me to au bon pain where i could grab a late lunch. i got a bowl of corn chowder, although i really wanted wild mushroom soup (they didn't have it today). that was my favorite soup when i worked at the boston design center, go downstairs, ladle me a bowl of wild mushroom soup, go back upstairs and enjoy. on a hot day with the air conditioning blowing with my soup in front of three compuer monitors. those were some sweet times. they must serve wild mushroom soup up in heaven i think. i then made another reappearance downstairs when the ice cream truck made a visit again. this is the life, hot spring day in the bright sun surrounded by a bevy of beautiful ladies eating ice cream. heaven must be full of beautiful ladies eating ice cream all day long. after work, i was invited at the last minute to go running with one ms.eliza jones. it's been six days since my last run with julie. that was before i went new york city and destroyed my feet. but it's been a few days since i've been back, had some time to heal, and i wasn't feeling the foot pain like i was earlier during the week. we got changed and ran, nice and easy, slow and steady. a great day to run, warm and breezy, a strong late afternoon sun casting boston in that can't-but-help-to-take-a-great-photo natural sunlight. what i learned today: eliza has had acl surgery before on her knee! that's a real athletic kind of injury, you hear about the acl tearing all the time in sports. i've been lucky to have never sustained an injury that needed surgery. never tore anything internal, never broken anything. well, maybe a toe or two, but once they heal crooked they're as good as new. walking back to the office we got stuck in the road during a light change into green, and both eliza and i instinctively jumped onto the island to avoid getting runned over. not too bad for a couple of 28 year olds! we saw danger with our peripheral vision and like ninjas we leapt into the air!

on the homefront: i was going with two mortgage companies, one's the cambrideport savings bank, the other a mortgage broker that my parents found in a chinese newspaper. from the start i thought the mortgage broker was kind of a con artist, quoting an obscenely low mortgage rate. my parents signed me up without asking me first, but since all the paperwork was done already, i figured it couldn't hurt to try out the broker, see what kind of rates he could come up with. turns out it's pretty much a scam, because as the closing day drew nearer, mysteriously the rate started to creep higher and higher until on the week that i wanted to lock in my interest rate (this week), the percentage has almost increased by 1 whole point. hey, look who's not going to get my business! so i've decided today to go with cambridgeport savings, they're more reputable, and the interest rate is already pretty low because the loan is through a government program for first time home buyers (that's me!). i'm making the calls tomorrow to tell all the necessary parties about my decision. home ownership in less than a month folks! i close june 19th.