Maybe things are looking up after all. Yesterday a printer I work with surprised me with a restaurant gift certificate. And today's mail brought a $10 AMC Theatre gift certificate as a reward for completing a readership survey. At least I'll be able to afford entertainment for the next week or two....

I'm wearing a new pair of boots today. They make me feel really sassy.

When it rains, it pours...
It was pouring when I drove home last night, and my car stalled a few blocks from my house. I left it parked on a residential street overnight, and found out this morning that someone had backed into my car during the night and dented one of the wheel wells.

Great - I hope I don't become one of those people who has a hard luck story to bore people with at every turn. The Pollyanna in me wishes to point out that at least I had an umbrella with me when my car stalled. And the person who hit my car had the decency to call the police and report the accident.

I can’t say I exactly survived the Valentine’s Day Massacre at work. Though I wasn’t among the 45 who were laid off two weeks ago, I was told my hours would be cut to 24 per week beginning April 1. Now there’s talk that I, along with most of my department, may be laid off altogether. The hospital I work for is in financial crisis, and there doesn’t seem to be much hope for a quick turn-around. I’ve always known that public relations is one of the first departments to suffer cutbacks in times of financial difficulty, and I'm seeing evidence of that now.

So my after-work hours have been spent putting together a resume, scouring for job leads, and trying to spruce up my house in case I’m forced to put it on the market. The day after I received the news about my job, my car broke down and I was forced to rent another one to see me through the next few days. And last Friday all the electricity in my house went out as I was getting ready for work. Fortunately, it was a fairly simple problem, but extra expenses for home and car repairs are hard to swallow when I’m trying to tighten up my budget as much as possible. I’m hoping things start looking up soon....

There must be a particular difficulty in translating Asian languages into English. Dave Barry Does Japan points to the peculiarity of Japanese baseball fans who sit in the stands yelling, “Loudly make it fly!” Today, one of my friends is puzzling over a sign he just saw in Panda Express: “Happy Firecracker Beef.”

Is there a new holiday they haven’t told us about, or is this an odd Eastern version of the Happy Meal?

We’ve been living with the threat of layoffs at work for the past six weeks. We were told to expect an announcement in mid-February, so there’s a gloomy feeling in the air this week. And though we’ve been assured the announcement will not come on Friday, the impending layoffs have been dubbed the Valentine’s Day Massacre. One co-worker suggested they probably won’t do the necessary deed on Thursday, either, pointing out that “it’s sort of a holiday” (though I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone celebrating Valentine’s Eve). At this point, most people just want the news - good or bad - so they can either breathe a sigh of relief or move on to the next thing.

The cafeteria at work posts its menu a week ahead of time, but the only thing listed for Friday is “Special Valentine’s Day Menu.” I’m trying to figure out what, beyond chocolate, qualifies as Valentine cuisine. Artichoke hearts? Red meat? Dates?

My grammar reference of choice is Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English. It's a great tool that even manages to be funny, as evidenced by chapter names such as Plurals Before Swine and Verbal Abuse. Garrison Keillor offered this endorsement:

You forget so much about English as you go along being profound in it, like who a gerund is and where adverbs go, until one day you stand up to receive your honorary LL.D. and children snicker at your grammatical errors. Woe Is I can save you from that. I mean, this is, like, a cool book.

I have friends from Boise, Idaho, and have visited several times. I’ve teased my friends that Idahoans seem to be obsessed with the shape of their state - the silhouette appears on signs everywhere. In response, my friend Kim (raised in Idaho, and now a reluctant Phoenician) brings me some Idaho-shaped product after every visit home. So far, I’ve received cookies, chocolate and soap. When my office moved, I noticed an Idaho-shaped discoloration on one of the keys of my new phone. Kim claims to have nothing to do with it, but can anyone blame me for being suspicious? I think it’s just plain freaky.