Not enough caffeine?

I've often heard it said that it's healthy to laugh at yourself. Makes you take yourself not so seriously.

Well, I had good reason to laugh at myself yesterday morning, and I'm wondering if it had anything to do with the fact I'd had just one cup of coffee before diving into work. I dutifully filled out some forms to pay a couple of freelancers, stuffed them in an interoffice mail envelope, and addressed it to ... George Rede.

D'oh!

Fortunately, I caught my mistake before putting the envelope in an "out" basket. Still, a co-worker and I wondered how long it would have taken for me to receive my own mail. Two days, tops, he said with a smile.

The day before, at the garden party I wrote about yesterday, I was making idle conversation with a couple of women while Lori was inside baking something for the party.

"So," I said casually to the 40-ish woman with tattoos on both arms and calves, "was it pure coincidence you both wound up living in McMinnville?"

"Well," the older woman said, raising an eyebrow, "she is my daughter."

D'oh!

Spring cleaning

We all got an email at the end of last week from the newsroom office manager, scolding us for piles of paper that have accumulated in places they shouldn't, according to the fire marshal. If you work in an office, you know how it can pile up on top of shelves, against window sills, under desks, etc.

Well, for some of us anyway...

Mondays are my lightest day at work, so I'll spend some time cleaning up my area. Don't know about the rest of you, but I tend to be a pack rat. While that's good in some respects -- you never know when something you've saved will come in handy -- it's also obviously inefficient.

A long time ago I figured why I do it. I'm one of those who remembers things -- where something is, what's on it, how important it is -- if they are in plain sight. If it's in a file in a drawer, I'm more likely to forget it's there. Hardly a good thing if you're into a pristine work area. I'm not.

Not that I'm aiming to win the messiest desk award. I can recall former co-workers who've built haystacks of paper on their desks, including one person who, when she retired, discovered a fuzzy blue-green sphere that earlier in its life was an apple or an orange. I'm not that bad. Or, at least, I don't think so. Guess I'd better run a fruit and vegetable check while I'm tossing unneeded paper into the recycling bins today...