Our previously scheduled programming

Alas, for the days of wine and roses! The hours of ribbons and twigs! Which is another way of saying that the life of the holiday season temp must change at last, and when the way ahead is dim and cold, one can beat a hasty retreat from the door marked Employee Exit. Which in turn is another way of saying, money makes the mare go... elsewhere.

For all I enjoyed my bumped-and-bruised excursion in the Land of the Physical (as opposed to the Land of the Mind where I usually dwell, where the greatest threat is RSI and spilt tea), it's not been so rapturous an experience that I'd sacrifice fiscal well-being to hang around another couple of months. (Pay that suffices when nothing else is coming in won't do when one can make more dosh scribbling away for fewer hours: journalism does occasionally pay better than digging ditches.) Also, how many more hours of Nine Inch Nails could I listen to without going barking mad myself?

But there were two things I especially liked about the place. One was my dear sweet boss, a prince among some extremely tough and ornery co-workers, possessed of both creativity and determination. I don't envy him the management of our highly individualistic colleague, nor the endless cheeseparing that he does to produce grand effects, but I will miss sharing an asiago cheese bagel with him in the sunny fountained court outside our store.

The other thing I'm going to miss is walking past the six-foot-tall, three-tiered, translucent shell chandelier that adorned the ladies' dresses department. It hung within inches of the floor, and the tiniest breeze -- merely walking past it briskly -- produced a whispery tinkle of shell against shell. It was like being transported to another, more delicate, world in the matter of moments.

And so we return to our previously scheduled programming, in which the pen is mightier than the power drill. And we're on the road again...