stacking the community building blocks

I received a paycheck for my new job, so it's official now.  I've been working at co-working offices for 3 weeks now (5 days in St Louis and 10 days in Champaign), so I'm an expert.  Some factoids for those not in the know:

* In Champaign, the ratio of women to men feels like 3 : 1.  In St Louis it feels closer to 1:1.  Median age in both places is probably 30.
* If you don't have a Mac laptop, why are you even there?
* The St Louis office space has touch screen driven hot drinks and loose tea freely available, including the best tea in the known world:  green dragon well.  In Champaign, I have to boil water in the provided kettle and bring my own tea from home [update:  Maghan emailed me to say that the cafe now has loose tea.  So things are looking up!].
* Meeting people in shared work spaces still feels awkward.  With so many different employers and customers, I have no sense of who is stressed and who has some time to chat.  In Champaign, I've been trying to meet one person per day.  So progress is slow, but there is progress.
* In St Louis, I took a mug from the shelf and drank cold water from the cold water dispenser.  I didn't immediately see where dirty mugs are placed, so I put it on a wire rack next to a lot of upside down mugs.  That was wrong.  I'm sorry.


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During our weekly dinners with the neighbors, a tradition is to go around the table asking each person 'what was the best part of your day?'.  We have had to ammend that question for Clara to include 'besides reading, ...'.

Janny has aced multiplication tables.  Every day at school the students take a 60 second, 25 question quiz on the times table.  Starting with 1*1 and moving towards 12s.  She and I worked hard on this, practicing written quizzes a few times per day.  Good work, Janny!

We dusted off our PS1 video game console this winter [have I mentioned the rough weather this season?  Ugh.  So many wet days with temps near 30.  Sometimes snow, sometimes rain.  Always wet. ]  We've been playing Need for Speed a driving game.  Clara and I are pretty even, albeit different styles.  I don't like to crash exotic cars so I take some turns slowly.  Clara is full-gas full-time.  I'd like to think that in the real world my strategy is better.

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I was filling up my rental car's gas tank after business trip to St Louis yesterday.  Young woman at pump next to me is talking on her phone.  Conversation [sorry for eavesdropping; she was talking pretty loudly]

    yw:  Did you hear that I got in an accident yesterday?

    other person:  ______

     yw:  Yeah, I got distracted by a text and I rear-ended this f*****g old lady.

Midwest community is pretty great, as expected.