So, what else is disturbing your tiny brain today, you ask?

Expense reports. I reported the food items I had receipts for from my trip to SF in May. This totaled a whopping $12.00.

Bernie, on the other hand, nicked the company for "per diem" of $64/day for two days (He only charged the client for 1-1/2 days. Weirdo.), so he made out like a bandit.

I've always filed expenses of my...well...expenses. Now I'm acutely aware that I could have grabbed $96.00 for my time and agro during that trip.

I can't decide whether to be annoyed about this or not. On the one hand, I didn't make a profit off the trip. On the other hand, I did get to spend three hours giving Bernie a large piece of my mind.

I hate when people insist, "let's have a drink and relax." I have no tolerance for alcohol any more. One drink (especially something like sake) and I say precisely what's on my mind. This is an issue when what's on my mind is so rarely polite.

I used to have a boss who insisted that I have a drink with her when we were traveling. She said that's the only way I'd tell her the truth. The problem is that "truth" isn't some fixed object - it's variable, and there are many facets to it. My inebriated "truth" tends to be the worst of all possible worlds. "Tact" is just so not my middle name, you know?

I have to admit, though, that even back when I did have a tolerance for alcohol, my mouth used to get me into trouble.

One time I gave the president of the company I worked for a piece of my mind about carrying on with his secretary, making a point out of saying that it was doubly rude to do it that night, at the company holiday party, when we were in his home. I have no actual memory of this event (champagne makes me black out) but I was filled in on some of the details by my immediate superior at a later date. (I did notice that he seemed surprised to see me show up for work the next Monday morning, but no one told me until two months later that I'd technically been fired that night. Whatever.)

The number of stories I could tell that reveal what a sloppy drunk I am.... But, enough of that. I'm not going to. I have a little pride.

Still. It's amazing where your brain wanders if you turn it loose, isn't it? I hadn't thought about some of that stuff in decades.

Bernie informed me this week that my presence will not be required in LA in September, which makes me happy. I don't like LA. (I suspect, although Bernie didn't say it, that he's not taking me because this is the Hollywood Crowd and I'm insufficiently young and perky for the image he wants to project. He's taking his 20 year-old daughter, instead.)

All else remaining equal, I will be in Sacramento (arriving Nov 8, leaving Nov 10), though. I don't mind Sacramento so much.

The trip I would have liked, Vegas in September, is also not on my agenda. I wasn't all that excited about Vegas, but this is one of the few clients I've enjoyed working with and I'd have liked to meet her face-to-face.

What else?

My niece will not be coming for a visit this summer, as planned, owing to my having lost my mind, and lost track of time, and not having realized that summer is nearly over already and I didn't get the trip scheduled.

I'm not pleased about this and I wish I could find someone to blame other than myself. Sigh. Between the chaos at work (the threat every month that Bernie might just throw up his hands and close us down, interspersed with intervals of multiple simultaneous deadlines) and preparing for the cruise, it seems that I just had very little brain left this summer.

In fact, I spent all spring and all summer planning where to take her, what to show her, and coming up with ideas for what we could do, but I never got around to actually doing anything concrete about it.

It's wrong to disappoint children. She was nice about it when I called her and she's going to find out when her winter breaks are in college this year so we can schedule the trip for later, but still.

I am such a waste of space sometimes.

I'm also wasting brain space on idle thoughts about going to the grocery store, about the book I was reading last night, about whether or not I should spend a hundred bucks to get the first new Doctor Who series on DVD, about what I'd do with the $28 million lottery if I had the brains to remember to buy and ticket and subsequently won, and about the truly bizarre-looking construction equipment at work a block away, equipment that just cries out to appear in some kind of post-apocalyptic science fiction story.