True words

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. 
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I get up at 3 AM and....

I may have the longest commute in the world....but it is also one of the best!  On the way to work every day I see.....the colorful fall trees--blowing leaves around in the early hours, the Washington monument standing tall and proud, the Lincoln Memorial lit up against the black sky, the wide Potomac river curving against the highway, the dome of the White House in the distance, the Pentagon (where I catch the third leg of my travels), the silent...peaceful Arlington cemetery, the Jefferson memorial--bright in the darkness, and finally a glowing pink and orange sunrise.  (of course I see all of this only if I manage to stay awake during the 2 and a half hour trek)---

This is just wrong.

You know something is wrong in the universe when your bus to work passes the donut shop and it is still closed...and in fact, the lights aren't even on yet. It's a sad day when you are up before the guy who makes the donuts.

Next time it will be pretzels.

I am at work eating sunflower nuts right now (not the seeds....but the small, minuscule little bits inside the shells).  Have you ever tried to eat these tiny things? They taste great....but how the hell are they supposed to be eaten?  I have tried pouring a bit in my hand and then tossing them in my mouth.  This doesn't work so well--- most of them miss my mouth and instead I end up just throwing them at my face resulting in a stinging face pummel, with the nuts  showering my face and then bouncing off and ending up all over the floor.  I have also tried putting some in my hand and just eating them directly from my palm.  However, this is a difficult process.  I have to either use my lips to pick them up from my palm (thereby looking like some kind of a freaky fish eating fish food) or lick them with my tongue. It is somewhat embarrassing (and can severely detract from your professional credibility) when your boss walks by your cubicle just in time to see you lapping hungrily at the palm of your hand.  I have also tried pinching a few nuts with my fingers and placing them in my mouth.  This procedure is much more dignified...but it then takes 20 minutes just to get a mouthful since I can only pinch 4 or 5 nuts at a time.  The next technique I tried is to literally pour them into my mouth directly from the bag, which reminded me of the disgusting technique of gavage--- the force feeding of grain to geese in order to make their livers enlarged and fatty resulting in the delicacy-- foie gras.  I saw this done in Périgord France where 80% of the world's foie gras is produced, and I can tell you that I don't care how good it tastes...I can never eat something resulting from that kind of animal torture. But I am getting away from my story...  anyway this gavage-like technique of pouring the bulk of the nuts directly into my mouth works great... but again--a bit uncouth. I mean--not that I am the most dignified of eaters, but when you work in a cubicle and your snacking habits are visible to the world, you at least try to keep up the appearance of being somewhat civilized.  So I sit here thinking that perhaps I should just choose a different snack to bring to work----something that is easily consumed and does not require multiple test trials in order to figure out how to get it from the packaging to my stomach. (by the way, the area around my desk chair now resembles the bottom of a bird cage). 

Belgium....Belgium.....Belgium

How I miss my Belgium.....