My new favorite chore: handwashing sweaters.

Have you ever had something so good or so bad happen to you that you don't want to put it in writing, not even in a private journal? It's a rare feeling for me, since writing is what I typically use to cope. But some things I just don't want to relive, and others I just don't want to reduce to sentences. My version of speechlessness.

Water bottle

I left my water bottle at the coffee shop yesterday. I shouldn't have even brought it to the meeting but I was forced to take it inside since I was running late. I set the shiny green metal bottle with the black plastic top to my left side. I listened a lot, asked a few questions, laughed when appropriate, took a few notes. Then I left. I dropped the paper cup that had held my coffee into the trash, walked back to my car.

It was on the drive home that I realized I didn't have it. If I had it it would have been dumped on the passenger seat. At the stoplight I reached for it but didn't feel the cold metal. I even dipped my hand down to the floor of the car in front of the seat. Nope. Darn it, darn it, darn it, I am such an idiot.

I got home and I was dead tired but I forced myself to Google the number to the coffee shop. I told the guy where I was sitting, he went back to check but said he didn't find anything. *sighs*

It's just a water bottle, right, not like I lost my purse or wallet....but my mom gave the water bottle to me. It was an unexpected gift, she returned from Walmart one day and said, 'Which one do you like better, the green or the blue?' just like when I was a kid. A week earlier we had been talking about not using so many plastic water bottles during the week, and here she was being thoughtful. I knew these water bottles were not cheap. How could I be so stupid? I could only hope that one of the people in the meeting had picked it up and was possibly going to return it to me later.

And then today, well, that was exactly what happened. My co-worker strolls in, says I bet you didn't think you'd see this again. Aww, I could have hugged him. My faith in humanity (other than Mom, of course) is restored. Sometimes we mess up, and sometimes it turns out OK anyway. There is goodness in this life.

This is something I've often wondered about: Why are siblings' personalities so different? Here's an interesting theory I heard via NPR:

The second theory has a slightly confusing name; it's called the non-shared environment theory, and it essentially argues that though from the outside it appears that we are growing up in the same family as our siblings, in very important ways we really aren't. We are not experiencing the same thing.

"Children grow up in different families because most siblings differ in age, and so the timing with which you go through your family's [major events] is different," says Susan McHale, a researcher at Pennsylvania State University. "You know, a parent loses a job, parents get divorced. If you are three or five years behind your sibling, the experience of a 5-year-old whose parents get divorced is very different from the experience of a 9-year-old or a 10-year-old."

My lasagna is in the oven. Or should I say my attempt at making lasagna. I ran out of filling by the third layer. Oops. And who knew it would take so long to prepare? I started at 3:00 and got it in the oven at 4:30. Plus one hour of baking time. Which is why you'll never see lasagna on 30-Minute Meals.

Update: Lasagna turned out good but not exceptional. I think a Stouffer's ready-to-bake lasagna is about as good.

I ordered a fake gingerbread latte at Starbucks today: decaf with soy milk. Coffee without the buzz, it's not quite right...

Wow, so it *is* that time of year. Again. My blog friend Stu introduces Review 2010.

I'm alive, not dead.

I'm excited: In Treatment is back. Gabriel Byrne talks about why he hasn't gone to therapy himself: " 'This is the thing I have a problem with. Can you pay for true empathy? True intimacy, true empathy, true compassion. I have a problem saying, "Can I pay for that?" Should I pay for that? Shouldn’t I be finding those things in my life with people I know? Maybe that’s why I haven’t gone to therapy.' "

I finally bought a new black sweater today. My old sweater was getting pretty faded and had two buttons missing since last year when I started bringing it to work almost every day. Yes, every day, even in the summer, since the office is so cold all the time. I think it's time for my co-workers to see me in something new. Good-bye, sweater, you served me well.