Thank God It's the 6th Day*

Whew! It's been a whirlwind of a week. I'm glad it's Friday evening and that I have a chance to kick back, have a cocktail, organize my jewelry supplies and go to bed early.

The week started out with my birthday on Monday, and Rico and I had a lovely, quiet celebration. He gave me a chandelier as a gift, which means that he knows me excedingly well. It is a bit of an antique, probably from the 1950's if the design tells me anything, and is a robin's egg blue with a bit of gold painting and 12 candelabra-style arms. It's perfect in my office, as it gives me the blast of light I've been craving for my jewelry work. After surprising me with the chandelier, Rico and I went out to dinner at Micasa, where we had steaks and a delicious bottle of Vergelegen (if I remember the name correctly), perhaps my new favorite South African red wine.

The rest of the week was spent preparing a report at work for an Avian Influenza Contingency Support program that our organization is implementing together with a few departments from the Ministry of Agriculture. It was a real challenge to pull together the report, for reasons that I won't and shouldn't get into here on the blog, but suffice to say I had a "prova de fogo", as they say in Portuguese, to kick off my new job. I managed to finish the report last night at 1am, and turned it in for review by headquarters. In a nutshell, they freaked out a bit. I can tell I'm coming from the private sector and that I'm used to writing bottom-line focused business plans. The feedback I got was that my report was way too harsh, and that it portrayed the organization in a bit of a negative light... The morning was spent "correcting" the language, which amused me to no end. I suppose I need to brush off my euphemisms and flowery writing skills again. You know, "recession" vs. "period of economic uncertainty", or "discrepancy" vs. "slight differences in figures". That type of thing. I realize that although I love to write, I am much more of a tell-it-like-it-is girl in the workplace.

To celebrate the end of the week, I had my nails done today thanks to a gift certificate from my friend Lindsey. I had my hands painted in a super-metallic, intense silver, and my toes done in what looked in the bottle to be a light gray with bluish undertones. I like my hands, but they aren't my favorite color ever with my skintone. A bit too intense, I think. My toes, however, were the big surprise of the day. The color I chose looked in the bottle to have the potential to turn my toes a cold, morgue-like hue of pale gray. But once painted on and juxtaposed with my olive skin, I realized I'd found the perfect neutral. The nice pink-y, beige-y colors that tend to be marketed as neutrals usually look awful on me. They wash me out and turn way too warm. But this is perfect. For the record, it's Essie's Great Expectations. My other all-time favorites are Wicked and this cocoa shade with copper glitter that I can't seem to find on the site.

So. While speaking of all things fashion and feminine, I have 4 people coming to see me tomorrow because they want custom jewelry designs! One woman is getting married and wants rings and a necklace, another wants a set with Ilha de Moçambique beads, another wants some chandelier earrings, and another wants a nose ring! Tomorrow will be a busy day, but at least I'll be spending it doing something I love!

* Portuguese, unlike other romance languages, names the weekdays after numbers. Monday is segunda-feira, literally "second fair (market day) of the week". Friday is the sixth. So TGIF, Portuguese style!