We went to Cirque du Soleil this afternoon, a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Have you ever been? It's the best modern circus in the world, and it's worth every penny of admission. The Chinese acrobats are unbelievably skilled, the costumes are inventive, and the stagework is astonishingly tricky. I even like the Cirque du Soleil clowns, and I really hate and fear clowns in general. There's a coffeeshop two blocks from my office which has pretty decent food, but I can't eat there because the walls are covered with dozens of clown paintings. They give me the creeps.
We bought the tickets to the show months ago, so I was disappointed that it precluded my participation in what was no doubt the most fabulous Tupperware party ever, hosted by Lynn Peril of Mystery Date fame and featuring Phranc as the Tupperware representative. I deeply regret being unable to attend. I could use some Tupperware, and who wouldn't want to check out Phranc's amazing flattop in person?
On Saturday John and I went to Allen and Donya's annual wisteria party. The wisteria was a thing of beauty, cloaking the arbor in their backyard with pendulous purple and white blossoms that smelled heavenly. Unfortunately, the party was small and the day was cold, so I didn't stay very long. I went home and changed into warmer clothes, packed desultorily, and then went off to Cafe Borrone to chat with Michael for a while. I'll really miss seeing him every week once we move. It's been fun to get out of the house for a couple of hours on the weekend just sitting in a cafe looking at comic books and chatting about life in Silicon Valley. But I know myself, and I won't drive 45 minutes on the spur of the moment very often, so I'm afraid I'll see him far less often once I'm a resident of San Mateo county.
I'm looking forward to the move, boy. Now that the packing is fully underway I am looking forward to unpacking and setting up house. I'm sick of Palo Alto and all the self-congratulatory SUV-driving share-ionnaires who have driven up housing costs and built monster homes in nice old neighborhoods, not that I'm bitter or anything. I do get tired of the Dot Com people and the local mentality sometimes. Stan Sinberg cracked me up last week: in one of his newspaper columns he posited that if changing jobs were like sexual promiscuity, then half of Silicon Valley would have the clap. Everyone changes jobs like mad, and no one feels much loyalty to the companies they work for. The person bagging your groceries will ask you for "Friends Shares" if they know your company is about to go public. I have yet to go to a party or a bar without hearing a conversation about real estate (and I'm guilty of it myself). The focus on money really gets me down. I don't see people sitting back and enjoying life. They're too busy grabbing for it. I realize that's a philosophical difference as much as a lifestyle difference. I'm simply looking forward to being on the outskirts rather than in the center of it all.
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