I went into the office today; it felt both good and strange. As soon as I entered the building, I ran into a friend who gave me a hug in sympathy — this would be unremarkable except that she had two brand new summer hires trailing her. I wonder what they thought; most companies probably discourage hugging in the hallway.

I couldn’t quite clear my inbox before leaving for the day (well, I could have, but then the two items I was actively working on would have been out of sight), but I’m awfully close. Tomorrow for sure.

And unfortunately, Robert Scoble’s Mom is now in the hospital. Robert, if you read this, go back to this posting and then read forward — some of what we went through might be helpful to you.

We blew out the shiva candle this evening. I had thought about letting it burn for the full seven days, but tonight, it felt like time to move on.

I usually don’t do e-mail on the weekend, at least not before Sunday night, and that only to make sure there are no surprise Monday morning telecons. But today, I spent two cheerful hours dealing with the last week’s mail. I didn’t get through everything in my inbox, but I did get rid of 90% of what had arrived while I was out (of course, dealing with the other 10% will take at least as long). I think I’m actually looking forward to going into the office tomorrow.

We had a busy day in other respects, too; this morning, we helped out at the Shir Hadash/Most Holy Trinity Tzedakah Day/Health Fair — we were there from 10 to noon, and during that time, the volunteers outnumbered the “customers”. We left just before the 11am Mass ended, and I hope they were able to attract a lot of people from that group, as well as throughout the afternoons. I did pick up one good idea at the Health Fair — there was a free raffle, and one of the prizes was an earthquake preparedness kit, consisting of a 30-gallon locking garbage can, filled with food, water, and tools. We have food, water, and tools, but they’re scattered all over the house — I plan to buy a can and create a similar kit (though I might omit the coloring books and crayons).

And we spent this evening at the annual Kehillah gala dinner, this year honoring Bobby Lent, one of the founders of the school. It was a good evening, with decent wine and food, though the speeches went on a bit too long (so we left before the Birkat Hamazon). And this year, they only had a silent auction, which I thought was a great improvement (and so did Bobby, since he mentioned that in his speech). We bid on and won two items: a Shabbat dinner to be made at our house by the head of school, and a four-hour consultation with an organizer (“the Time Butler”). We have to plan how to get the most value out of the latter item — I suspect doing so will be valuable all by itself.