Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

The moment I leapt out of bed to discover I had an additional hour’s worth of work to do this morning that I hadn’t expected I knew it was going to be a rough day. I dashed around doing my normal chores—walking dogs, feeding dogs, medicating dogs, (since it’s Tuesday) posting the Carnival of the Liberated, and getting my carcass out the door. Sometime or other while I was doing this I made a number of phone calls and emails cancelling appointments, postponing some, and re-scheduling others.

All morning and into the afternoon I was playing catch-up. Somehow I managed to get everything that absolutely needed to be done done.

What better way to re-group, re-stoke, and generally re-fortify one’s self than meeting M. Takhallus of Sideways Mencken in the lounge at the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Chicago, viz.:

The experience was the one which has become familiar in meeting bloggers whose work I’ve read and admired for some time: more like a reunion with old friends than meeting someone for the first time.

M. Takhallus speaks much as he writes: there’s the same keen intellect and acerbic wit. But what doesn’t entirely come across in his writing is that he’s very, very charming. There’s a warmth in his tone and a twinkle in his eye that not so much mutes as mulls the occasionally sardonic way he has of expressing himself.

He drank coffee; I sipped Japanese green tea.  That may tell you something about the difference in our personalities.  We discussed blogging,  politics, and the general state of the world.

A fine end to a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

As my penance I’ll listen to the SotU.