Each year Ellen spends a week in NYC attending a (the?) book festival, this year she left Tuesday morning and will return Saturday night.
This, obviously, gives me the opportunity to have a completely out-of-control week in her absence. I have noticed however that as the years have gone by my definition of out-of-control, which frankly was never very high has gotten more and more, well, mild. I mentioned a few years ago that my idea of inappropriate behavior when Ellen was absent was to go buy ice cream, then it became buying a liter of diet coke (or pepsi) – though I got lectured on doing this latter thing, now since I mostly drink home-made seltzer even that much is a bridge too far.
My first thought was to go see movies that Ellen would not like to also see, something normally limited to early Sunday morning when she is not going to book festivals. So Tuesday mid-day I went to see Godzilla in 3D IMAX (it was okay, lots of special effects and loud explosions and stuff, but not remarkable). Unfortunately there really are not any other movies out that I actually want to see that Ellen does not want to also see. I suppose I could see XMen twice (once with and once without), but I am not convinced that is a good use of time.
Tuesday night I went to the Nationals game rainout. Since I assumed it would rain and that there would be a delay, I actually got a parking pass so I could stay late even after the metro stopped. However they canceled the game by 7:30pm so that didn’t work out so well either.
Wednesday night I went to Clyde’s Tower Oaks with two friends I used to work with. Tonight I am attending the UMUC Scholarship appreciation dinner (I will be serving as the AFFIRM Educational Chair this coming year for Barry West, the incoming AFFIRM President, CIO Of PBGC, and a long-time friend). So that leaves Friday evening and Saturday daytime. I likely will not go to synagogue Saturday, sleeping in – showing once again the Ellen’s presence serves as a civilizing influence and whose absence removes that influence. As Ellen pointed out once that when I go to services without Ellen, the Rabbi gets worried that something awful happened; I am to call or email ahead of time when that is likely to occur.
On the positive side it looks like my panel at the AMARC hosted Big Data Summit June 19-20 is now complete with professors from Carnegie Mellon, Virginia Tech and Lincoln Labs, MIT.
Daytime is otherwise devoted to UMUC class work and AMARC emails and calls.