And such is the Tuesday of it all

It's official: rafaela's choo-choo has gone around the bend. This morning (after some of the more cracked conversations I've had with her), I asked her a simple question, which, for no reason given, she decided to answer in a Liverpool accent. Apparently, Liverpudlian is rather tenacious, because she stuck with it for several minutes, until the accent gradually drifted north to Scotland and lodged there like a prune pit. This gave her the opportunity to get in some choice Trainspotting quotes, which is always good for perking up an otherwise tedious morning, after which I talked her into doing her impression of Emily Watson in Breaking the Waves ("It's so huuuuge..."), which I have to confess was totally hot. Last I saw her, her voice was still somewhere near the suburbs of Glasgow, with no sign of letting up. She'll have some 'splainin' to do.

In other news, I had my annual anxiety attack employee evaluation over the weekend, which turned out to be—pardon the hyperbole—the Best Annual Evaluation Evar. Firstly, I scored a Meets Requirements in every single category, with not one Needs Improvement, which almost never happens. (I have the feeling I may have just squeaked by on a few, but there's no "Just Squeaked By" check box on the form, so that hardly matters.) Then, after Judy the Manager had gone through all the items, she told me it was time to decide on an "action plan" for the year, i.e. a goal to be met. Not easy when your job consists of taking calls at a rate of one every 21 seconds.

We batted a few things around, but in general I was stumped for ideas. She reminded me that last year's action plan involved me preparing some materials for the holidays, just for fun, including a crossword for St. Patrick's Day that four people looked at and no one solved. (Apparently, I need to skew my difficulty level down a notch for work-related activities.) At this point, I mentioned in passing that I was trying to put together a proposal for a weekly puzzle for the local newspaper. "It's been in the works for a while," I said. "I just need to get my butt in gear and finish it."

"Well," said Judy, "why don't we make that your action plan?"

So, yeah. It's officially on file in my annual report now: I need to get my puzzle proposal to the Post Star done by May. My job depends on it. Sweet.