for lunch i made plans to meet dan at the empire chinese restaurant on cambridge street at 12:30pm. seeing elias online, i aimed him to see what was going on. apparently he was back in the office, gathering up his stuff, that awkward post-layoff cleaning. he told me that he actually came in for an interview today and would be working for a few weeks as a designer on the same project that rob's working on. well that didn't take long! get laid off one day, find a job the next day, and start working the day after that. i told him he could join us at empire if he wanted, but he and rob had already made lunch plans. plans change though, he we all ended up at empire together.

on the way over to the restaurant, i spotted a dollar bill all crumbled on the ground covered in snow and sand. i picked it up but it was all soggy and tattered, so i wanted to put it back down on the ground. rob saw what i was about to do and became all outraged that i would just throw away money like that. i then thought to myself, "hmmm, have i become that kind of person who can afford to throw away money?" cause that's what i was doing. true, it was only a dollar bill, and a very dirty and tattered one at that, but it's the principle of the matter. besides, you can do a lot with a dollar, like make long distance phone calls. i ended up giving the dollar to rob (who later added it to our restaurant tip).

we had the whole spectrum of work experience represented at our table. there was dan, still working at the old place. elias, who just recently got laid off from there. rob, who quit that place, and is now freelancing at my company. and me, one of the recipients of the very first job cutting over a year ago, now gainfully employed elsewhere. can you guess what we were all talking about? i had the least to contribute to the discussion. any sort of animosity or bitterness or criticism of that company i've long since gotten out of my system. i'm no longer tsh tony, i'm srm tony now. besides, the old company, as it stands now, is almost unrecognizeable.

my fortune cookie said, "a pleasant surprise is in store for you." i don't believe in fortunes, but when i got back to the office, my mannequin dvd had finally arrived! so the fortune came true!

after work rebecca gave rob and me a ride to the davis square area. i got out of the car, took the train back down to harvard square, before catching my bus. it was sort of a roundabout way of getting back home, but variety is the spice of life.