Sunday, July 19, 2020

I hear a burst of singing behind me. It’s the boss’s birthday. Much of the team is standing just outside his office. Inside it, a half dozen balloons bounce around. A platter on his desk holds a mound of ice cream sandwiches and cones, each individually wrapped. Someone’s phone plays a lugubrious cover of “When I’m 64.” Someone else takes pictures. Someone sneezes. A woman's voice calls out in response “Corona corona corona!” A support person wanders down the aisle between the cubes, singing “Symantec v’MazelTech v’MazelTech v’Symantec.” I laugh, but I realize that you’d probably have to be a Jewish computer geek to get the layers of the joke: there’s another software company called Symantec, and there’s a song sung at celebrations that goes ”Siman tov v’mazel tov v’mazel tov v’siman tov,” and it would help to remember what “siman” means, which, at the moment, I don’t, and all that probably doesn’t help much unless you actually hear it. Later, as workmen run some sort of cables through the ceiling, I stand outside the kitchen with our company's guitarist, talking about Kansas and Keith Jarrett. When I get back to my cube, I see that two balloons, one yellow and one pink, have wandered into it and huddled under my chair. I gently kick them out into the aisle and sit down to get back to work.