My officemates surprised me with a cake right in the middle of a meeting today - really it was the only way they could have done it and still surprise me, since I've been here for 6 years and I know the sneaky cake drill (and it is always sneaky): set up an "emergency meeting" or tell everyone to "come to the conference room for a short meeting about next issue." yada yada. It was yummy cake, chocolate, with very fudge-like frosting, from La Fiorentina.

I just got word from P that T arrived home from her first day at the new school. She hated it; said the teachers suck and the students suck and then her eyes filled with tears. Junior High is one of the deepest levels of hell. I feel for her so much. She is changing schools at a terrible time in her life. Poor T!!! And she might not want to talk about it, about what happened, if anything did, because I know I never told my parents about the mean things people did and said to me. But I could actually give her advice. I know I got the worst advice in the world, about how to handle someone teasing you: ignore it. Which never works, ever. If you fight back, even a little, they start to respect you, and leave you alone. It took me a long time to learn that lesson.

Hopefully she just hates it because they're all uninteresting hicks, though.