Today, Monday, I returned to work. It wasn’t really all that traumatic though. The boss was on travel, everyone seemed to want to hear about my vacation and before I left on vacation I had finished up a major project, so I was a little bit in-between jobs, but that was soon remedied. By the end of the day, I had successfully rejoined the workforce as a productive member thereof. Anne however had Monday off. She did call the sub-scheduler last night and was given some days, just not today. Oh well, what’s one more day of vacation?

Someone “broke-in” while we were gone. These people, left the sink full of dirty dishes, the cans full of trash, and the living room full of stuff, but they also left beer in the fridge, so I decided not to call the cops on them. One of these unnamed individuals broke our quite venerable coffee grinder. This came as a rude surprise Monday morning, but in retrospect, was clearly foreshadowed by the scattering of whole beans found strewed across the countertop. At least there were no cherry fingerprints to be found on the cabinetry that would have made me really grumpy. While the absence of coffee at home was an inconvenience for me, it proved more influential on Anne. I could and did easily drive to the nearby Starbucks store where whether because of my tell-tale tan, or maybe they really did miss me, like they exclaimed, the Latté Ladies quickly purveyed hot, frothy caffeine. I eventually came to Anne’s rescue, when I bought her lunch, with coffee.

The picture with this post is of an iron mailbox that can be found at Ox-Bow. The triple entendres of male/mail and the periodic symbol for iron/female made this one of my favorite permanently installed artworks in Saugatuck, when we visited Dan there. The utilitarian nature of this art piece is somewhat dispelled by the cobwebs in the box. Maybe they just use email now?

On the way to work, in between Starbucks and home, I had an awkward, but still interesting male/female encounter. I had stopped at the local Mobil station first to gas up, but to also add a quart of oil to the Prizm. It burns oil and the oil light was starting to flicker on and off. After pumping my gas via credit card, I entered the kiosk sized convenience store to buy oil.  Inside this tiny space the following tableau unfolded. Scene, for three men and one woman: starring the store’s clerk, weighing in at easily four bills, the other guy and me, but featuring a nattily attired and quite attractive young woman. She checked-out with her purchase of a shot can of Starbucks, while three pairs of eyes kept watch. All of this attention must have been too much, because she fumbled picking up the can. After she left the clerk rang up my quart of oil. The other guy exclaimed “$4.50” in surprise at the price and the previous tension was dispelled. I eventually made it to work at my boys club.