For someone who is on leave, I spend a lot of time at the office. I went to HQ Thursday for the second time in as many months. Sounds crazy, but there is a reason: they want to know what to do with me when my maternity leave is up, and this takes some planning ahead. There were a few proposals out there to send me to Western Europe in the fall, but all of them would have brought me back to work sooner than I wanted, in order to get language training.
The goofy thing is that my mother is relieved that I'm not going to Western Europe. Mind you, an earthquake and tsunami just wiped out hundreds of thousands of people in Asia. But no, modern Europe would be a dangerous place. What doom awaits us there? Terrorism? Volcanic eruptions? White slavers carrying off my cherubic infant daughter? No, none of that. Mom was anxious about us going back to Europe because of an earthquake that happened over 200 years ago.
Good thing my company doesn't have an office in Atlantis.
The only thing that keeps me from being more sarky about this - aside from the fact that Mom is a regular reader - is the knowledge that as a mother, I could turn out to be just as much of a worrywart. But hey, I look forward to being anxious about the first time my daughter pilots a space shuttle beyond Mars.