Of paper airplanes and romanesco

Eight days on the job, three office parties...I think I can handle this pace quite well. My boss has already taught me where to find the best launch site for paper airplanes (a bank of windows overlooking 45th); the proper lunch-break etiquette (leave the building, stay gone at least 45 minutes, don't answer your phone); and his philosophy on authority ('tis easier to ask forgiveness than permission).

Meanwhile, I took my enforced lunch break today and wandered up to 47th, where I'd been told the tree-lined plaza deserved a stroll. As it turns out, Wednesdays bring a produce market to the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza - and even better, the produce market brought romanesco, which I'm taking home for dinner tonight. Delighted with my find, I returned to the office and showed it to the paper-airplane-thrower-in-chief. After I introduced it as a fractal-vegetable, he paused a moment and replied, "You know fractals and you recognized one - you're nerdier than I thought." Coming from this man, I can imagine no higher praise.

Finally, there are two other Americans in this section. As they welcomed me to the minority, one asked where I was from. I replied that Missouri was home, and he burst out: "How the HELL did you get here?!" The other new girl is from Burma - no one batted an eye (though the East Asia desk officer did ask her about her family back home and the current political situation). Here, and only here, Missouri is a stranger place to call home than Myanmar. Go figure.

I love my job.