Zareena seems to be doing fine. The latest event in her life of misery is the recent addition of a �Time Out Kid� in the house. This is a 3 foot high faceless doll that stands in the corner, appearing to have a time out (because you want the appearance of a poorly behaved child being eternally punished in your house). Zareena is apparently scared shitless of this doll (I don�t blame her). I once saw one of these riding on the foot rest of some lady�s wheel chair at a flea market in Kentucky. This must have been the most frightening use of the most frightening country home decoration product in the most frightening setting - ever. I can just imagine the horror of the child that turns the doll around, expecting to find a similarly sized playmate, only to stare into the void where their friend�s face should have been. It reminds me of the ending of the movie The Black Hole. Anyway, Zareena the AIDS cat is not adjusting to the new household addition. In case you were wondering, Zareena seems to be doing well medically. Of course, I have never inquired about Zareena�s health, so everything I know about her comes to me by overhearing the frequent cat-centric conversations of the lady in the cube next to me.

It�s almost time to start my annual search for a work calendar that says �Go Away�. The cat leady, of course, has a basket of kittens calendar. My partner has a puppies calendar, which I think is a little out of character for her. Two years ago, my mom bought me a calendar that had crazy European ads in it for me. My favorite was a paper cut-out of a drooling feral bulldog with a spiked collar. I wish I could have a full year of that: �12 Months of Feral Bulldogs�. But they just don�t sell calendars like that. Right now I have a pansy-assed Frank Lloyd Wright calendar which doesn�t say �go away� but it also doesn�t say �come into my cube and share a mindless conversation� either. The only other cube decoration I have is a picture of Whiplash, the cowboy monkey. He needs a calendar.

It�s supposed to be a nice weekend (it may even hit the high 60�s tomorrow). So, where will Leo and I be? In a pre-marriage class all weekend, of course. It�s true; the last nice weekend of the year and we will be discussing our relationship from 8 am tomorrow until Sunday night. If I am dreading it�what must Leo be feeling? He hates this stuff even more than I do. I guess it will feel good to get it out of the way. It just seems like a whole lot of time to take to discuss things. They�re allotting one quarter of the program to the subject of children. We both want children. We both know and have agreed upon how many children we want. We�ve decided what we�ll do if we cannot have that many children. We were asked, in the pre-marital quiz, how we would discipline our children. To be honest, I think it depends on the child (speaking from no experience, of course). So what else can we decide now when children are still in the far off, murky future? I guess I�ll find out.

BTW, one of my favorite things about auditing is using my �Colombo move�. I like to question people about set system values, edit checks, documentation, etc. Then, just when they think they are done and their guard is down, I�ll say �oh, um, one more thing�� and I�ll cut right to the heart of the matter.

It�s taking pleasure in the small things that keeps me going to work.