Assembly Instructions for Life, Other Things

Anna's home! I've missed her awfully. She has been in San Antonio with her daddy; only for two days, but two days is a long time not to have a waist-high person come up and tackle-hug you, then demand to be fed lunchmeat straight from the fridge. I bet you wish you had someone like that! Unless of course you're the parent of a small child, in which case you already do.


This is how we look at work, around 9:30am and 2:30pm, when break time draws near. Sara came by my cube this afternoon and made exactly this face. Who could say no? Though oddly, you know, we spend very little of our break time actually hugging.

Lately I have been cultivating an appreciation for iconic, non-language-dependent instructional art. I bought two citronella candles for the backyard from IKEA yesterday. They have a few hieroglyphic instructions printed on the side, which I would interpret as follows:
1. On our planet, we have 60-hour days.
2. If you sit in a rocking chair, your candle will exist. If you don't... not so much.
3. Children should not bury their faces in your candle, nor should dogs bark at it, especially spaniels.
4. Place candles 7cm apart. (Silly IKEA! Who speaks metric?!)
5. Candles and tastefully coordinated window dressings don't mix.
6. Never place a blowing book near your candle in the wind, my friend.
7. If you run a space heater on a sunny day, your candle will bend over and get all noodly.
8. Light the wick, not the wax part. You dumbass!
9. Never allow a pair of scissors to get anywhere closer than 1cm (that's 3/8", for you non-metric-speaking troglodytes) to your candle, or your wick will fly off.
10. If you yawn next to your candle, it will immediately be snuffed out. I didn't know the IKEA people had met Slappy White!

Gotta go; it's time to go feed Anna again, or at least give her a hug.