They're all here today. The Three Stooges, the Mad Doctor, Sassy, and Buehler. Mostly having meetings that I'm not invited to.

I was feeling paranoid about it (I get that way) until I mentioned it to Sassy and she told me they just don't want to "bother" me with a lot of these things. I sometimes forget that I was just 'loaned' to this company for a year when Alvin, my original employer, decided it would be more convenient not to have to pay my salary for the next twelve months.

As it is, I was told to clear my calendar today for a full day of meetings, so I did. So far I've been in one meeting for about an hour and then had lunch with the group for another hour, leaving me, so far, an unexpected six hours that I've regrettably not been spending doing much work.

I sometimes wonder what's going to happen at the end of that twelve months if Alvin decides he still can't afford to pay me? I mean, it's nice an all that he wanted to be able to keep me in reserve for when he could afford me. Very flattering. But what happens if he has no money? Will Buehler and the gang invite me to stay on here? (Okay, probably not if I keep spending hours blogging on company time, but aside from that, I'm a reasonably decent employee.)

Also, we have a new phone system. The Tweenybopper and I are supposed to be "power users" which means we have to sit though a two-hour meeting tomorrow for (if experience is any guide) training that could more efficiently have been handled with a cheatsheet of instructions and a ten-minute introduction session.

I've decided to look upon the occasion as time for me to bitch about all of the things that haven't been done the way I wanted them done.

To me, business training sessions are like grade school. Remember grade school, when you sat there screaming with boredom (inside) while the class plodded along reluctantly at the pace of the slowest student in the room? Remember how material that any sensible person could absorb in ten minutes was stre-e-e-tched out painfully for hours while you sat there and wished for an invisibility cloak or an escape hatch or a really big stick to hurt people with?

Don't get the wrong impression, though. I'm blogging mostly to tell y'all that I'm not cranky today. I thought you'd like to know, that's all.

So…lemme see…what's new?

I went to see Harry Potter last week. I was…underwhelmed.

I'm not sure why they felt the need to redesign Hogwarts, but I swear I spent the entire movie on the edge of my chair, waiting with breathless anticipation to see just which student was going to get decapitated by the inexplicable pendulum suddenly infesting the main hallway of the castle.

The Whomping Willow still doesn't look like the description in the book but that bothers me less than the question of why the director felt it necessary to flash upon occasional scenes of the tree murdering passing birds.

The books are full of material there's no time to show in a movie, so I'm puzzled about why extra book material was excised so that the director could add unneeded new scenes that in no way advanced the plot or character development.

Why was the us full of talkative shrunken heads? Did anyone but me find that completely unnecessary and kind of stupid?

What on earth was the point of the choir? Was the director intimidated by threats of the religious organizations denouncing the books? Or was the inclusion of frogs (or were they toads?) some kind of subtle insult that I failed to understand?

Why was Dumbledore standing at a podium and why was the podium decorated with a Ravensclaw eagle?

Why keep Hermione and Ron outside of the pub so that time had to be wasted for Harry to expound on what he heard? Were they afraid that at 2 hours plus, the movie might run a bit short if they didn't include some completely unnecessary exposition?

Why did the Dementors float around like milkweed pods caught in a high wind? Did anyone but me think of the Indiana Jones movies when they saw that particular special effect?

But I'm not in a bad mood. Not at all.

We went to the Renaissance Festival on Saturday. It was a gorgeous day for it. Mostly sunny with just enough clouds to keep the heat down.

(Now there's a mystery for you. How did they manage to build that site in such a way that no matter where you go, you're walking uphill? I swear the place was designed by Escher.)

I ate…not as much as I have in the past, but I ate a fair quantity of ridiculous things. I mostly go to the Renaissance Festival for the food. I love a buffet.*

This year, about fifteen minutes after we arrived I managed to drop an artichoke and pour about a cup of butter down the front of my shirt and my shorts, which put a bit of a damper on the rest of the morning, but whatever. I had Steak Onna Stake and Sausage Onna Stake and an artichoke with butter (they replaced my dropped one) and…I think that's all. I used to manage about three times that much. I think that stupid diet made my stomach shrink or something. (Not that I'm complaining. It made my butt shrink, too.)

And I had my tarot cards read. The lady took me for $25 to tell me there was a mature man wanting to make a commitment in my future. And that was after I told her I had no interest in marriage. She seemed sorry about it, though.

She predicted financial fortune three ways from Sunday. If there's a card that means fortune in the pack, I drew it. Apparently I'm going to be swimming in wealth some day soon.

She also said I work with a man who is a bit of a flake (Buehler, I'm looking at you) but that I should be nice to him because he's going to do something really good for me.

I had a good time, in spite of being all greased up.

* On a recent trip to San Francisco, I paid $50 for a buffet, purely on the strength of the view from the restaurant windows and the fact that both caviar and paté were featured on the menu. I figure I ate about a dollar's worth of each, and had about four dollars worth of "the view" from where I was sitting, but it's all experience, isn't it?

For instance, I learned that no matter where you walk in San Francisco, you have to make sure to stay near the trolley tracks because it's sure to be uphill on the way back to your hotel. Imagine walking up a playground slide. I did that for three, solid blocks at one point.

I also learned that if you ride the trolley early enough on a Sunday morning, the money-collector isn't always at work yet and sometimes you get a free ride. Mostly it costs $3, though.

I had a good time, which is unusual for me on a business trip.