Alpha

Less than one week in my new "home," I've already observed some pretty cool (and sometimes weird) stuff. First, the bumper stickers here are diametrically opposite to the bumper stickers in Oklahoma. Yesterday's on the way to work read, "What exactly are conservatives conserving?" One of my work colleagues has on her bulletin board a bumper sticker that reads, "I miss Bill." That one certainly needs no explanation.

This morning, as I was trying to back out to go to work, two gorgeous blue-green headed (mallard?) ducks were sitting right in the middle of the road behind the parking places. They were there to stay. One car backed up and went another way so as not to disturb them. One car went past, inch-by-inch, with the ducks barely giving the car a glance. I kept view of them through my side mirrors and avoided them as well. Three cars, all avoiding ducks who were sitting in the right-of-way. No one went for a shotgun; the ducks, rather like the pedestrians here in Boulder, apparently have a tacit right-of-way of their own.

My office looks great; these folks have given me darn near anything I ask for, and the people here -- I feel like I've known them forever. Some of them, actually, I have, indeed known through my travels to conferences and through common grant work and such.

My boss is a scream and he's just as big picture as I am, which is a little scary. But I've got one staff member who epitomizes the word anal and it's not the annoying kind of anal, it's actually cute. Another one of my staff is a pretty laid-back data guy who's as guileless and friendly as they come.

All week, though, I've merely driven the short drive to work, then returned "home," which for now is a residence hotel. I've found myself too tired to do much more than that, although the Safeway that contains a Starbucks and wireless within it, close to where I'm living, gets a daily visit from me on the way to my little living space.

I thought I might venture out this weekend, but we'll see -- snow in the forecast, but I might get out anyway, as they say it won't be a big snow (which probably means less than 6 inches).

I wake up and go to my car each morning, though, and look up and see the flatirons and the snowy ski areas towering above them and marvel that, at last, I am finally near the mountains that have "talked" to me for so many years. What a lovely place.