Expectations

After work on Friday, we helped move Drew out of his apartment. He was semi-packed and it took five of us about 3 hours to load the truck and completely clean his apartment. Start to finish. Very different from the 'moving day marathons' involving Dave Herman (or myself for that matter). Luckily for us, Drew threw out all of his past issues of maxims before we got there, rather than making us move them from storage area to storage area a la our beloved Dave. But I digress.

Finished around 6 and had an hour and a half to kill before the Ruth Reichl talk. We went with Laird (another guy from my lab) to a bar on the waterfront for some drinks and food. I had an awesome hot coffee drink (coffee, tuaca, baileys & topped with whipped cream... very good; taryn we'll have to make them when you come up) and got a thai-peanut-linguine dish. Laird's wife showed up and decided to go to the talk with me rather than watch the boys watch baseball on the bar TV. And so we left.

The church was beautiful and the place was packed. I was nervous which is ridiculous. We picked our seats and waited. Based on her voice and writing, I expected a woman with short, straight black hair. That she would be very gentle and elegant in her presence, yet still command respect. I was surpised to see that she had long wavy black hair and acted like any of us. It just didn't fit with how I envisioned her. Her talk was great -- very funny yet informative. And even though I left with my book signed "For Lisa, Ruth Reichl", I left a bit disappointed.

I haven't brought myself to read the book yet, I'm still sucked into the one I stole from Ken about sprawl (which is awesome). I think I'm also a little nervous to read the book because of my expectations of it.

I should know better by now.