Hang in there with what you are doing, get the pension then get the hell out which is what I did.  Remember that old saying about how the grass is supposed to be greener and we all discovered long ago it ain't! 

01/31/2017

 The mood is elevated.

 This is surprising considering I seem to be leaving this world one pound at a time.

 I'm feeling hunger. I don't mean the “I skipped breakfast” or “When's dinner?” kinda hungry. I'm talking about a gnawing pain that colors everything in your day to day life. I've had to get creative. Converting everything I ingest into a liquid helps some. I guess a liquid is absorbed faster than a solid so I'm at least getting some calories.

 Mostly I feel very strange. Like I'm outside of myself. Everything has a kind of abstract quality. My thoughts tend to move in equally abstract manner.

 By abstract, I mean there's a tunnel that leads to the top of the wall and Humpty is on guard duty alone. Just pop up there and push him off.

 That kind of abstract.

 I'm getting by and even keeping up with my work...for now. I know well enough that what's happening is not a good thing.

 One of the people I've known the longest time at work is retiring. We were partners in crime from the get-go. Supervision learned early on that it's not a good idea to put us withing speaking distance of each-other.

 We get along well...too well apparently. There was always a lot of chatter and bizarre practical jokes. Mostly what we did was annoy everyone around us...or at least I did and she kept feeding me. Couldn't say a single word around either of us without one or the other going off on a tangent.

 She's a good friend. She's the only one who stood by me when I lost my familiar, my parents, then my mind. I was lost and alone and she never turned her back on me even when I truly deserved it.

 I don't know about everyone else out there but this sort of friendship is rare.

 I'm fortunate in that I've managed to make the same sort of friends, The Wendy's.

 So we had a birthday party today and Sharon got a gigantic inflatable duck. York PA has a fund-raiser every year in which people purchase small, plastic ducks then they put them all in the Codorus Creek for a duck-race.

 She's been collecting these ducks for decades. There must have been twenty or so. Some are now quite valuable as collector's items. Once, when she was on leave, one of her other friends swiped her entire duck collection the left a ransom note made with letters cut from magazines and papers.

 We spent the day sending out office wide e-mails with variants on the “This was a fowl crime indeed” statement. Some were really funny.

 One of the things I like most about my current job is we can have birthday parties with a duck that's larger than some people's cars and, instead of shutting us down, the management are huddling up to get in the pictures.

 Nice work if you can get it.

 I'm so tired.

 Thanks for listening

That's just DUCKY! 

Conspiracy Theory wrote:

Didn't realize.  The New Exchange is now two years old.

Happy birthday everyone!

This is something to quack about!

Does anyone know if they use irradiation for food preservation in this country?