We're Moved!

Hey! We're moved!

Our nine-month stay in (insert air quotes) temporary (close air quotes) quarters ended yesterday when we moved back into our permanent offices. As I mentioned, this gave me a chance to weed out a cartload of papers, the likes of which would be enough to double the size of the Redwoods National Forest if we had the capability to make paper return to its native state. It was a good opportunity to pare down, throw away, clean the slate, make a fresh start.

Shown above, for example, is the corsage Helen Thomas wore as I shepherded her from place to place during her visit to campus in 1999. Oh, yes, I am serious. These are 12-year-old flowers, worn by someone to whom I'm not even related.

But it was HELEN THOMAS, the real-life Brenda Starr. And in case you were wondering, she was delightful. Charming and approachable and kind of like your much-more-famous grandmother, with the exception of the moment when Husband impishly asked her on the way back to the airport if she ever read Cal Thomas. For the record, she rather emphatically does not.

At that point in our lives the Boys were young whippersnappers and Boy#1 was absolutely smitten with the political process. We told the lovely Helen that we were thinking about visiting our nation's capital and she insisted on giving us this:

Yes! It's Helen Thomas's home and office telephone numbers, and her home address, written in her own handwriting, and only slightly the worse for wear for having hung on my office bulletin board for 14 years. (It's in slightly better shape than this indicates; I blurred the numbers because I was afraid some Helen Thomas groupie would see this blog and track her down at home. I didn't realize how truly horrendously this scan would reproduce online, and forgot that I am possibly the only living Helen Thomas groupie.)

Anyway, we're moved, and glad to be back. Would you like to see what I've been sharing my office with for, oh, who knows how many years? I'll scroll down a little, in case you'd rather not look.



Are you looking?



Okay, here it is:

I'm just glad I wasn't the one who pulled the cabinet away from the wall to discover the sticky trap. Helen Thomas might have heard my shriek and taken back her invitation.