Short anecdote that I didn't get to tell at the lunch: a while ago our department went to a presentation given by one of the IT managers about a new information system they're building. (Aside: This project amuses me in part because I lived through the horror of developing the system that it will, among other things, replace -- although I have much more confidence in our in-house staff than in the contractor they used last time.) Anyway:

You can never see this guy's eyes when he's talking. He'll be pointing at something on the PowerPoint slide projection or whatnot, speaking normally, but whenever he faces his audience his eyes are closed. It's very disconcerting, watching him monologue to the inside of his eyelids.

WALKING WITH G back to my office afterwards along Washington Street, we were stymied by two women walking ahead of us in the dead center of the sidewalk, at ... a ... very ... slow ... pace. Eventually the pavement opened up enough that we went around them, I to the left and G to the right, accelerating to put some distance between us and them before coming together again.

"She had just gotten some raspberries, and it seemed that she had never before experienced a raspberry. Or at least that's how it looked to me." I hadn't noticed that as I passed.

"You would think, in such a situation, one would move aside in order to experience the momentous occasion in peace."

"You would think."

"Or maybe she was in a hurry to savor her raspberry."

"I don't know if she was so much savoring it as looking at it going, 'Oh God what have I gotten myself into.'"