Death by wild animal

Buried here:

Ficali McPipe

(1980 - 2006)

Beloved

Killed by suicidal giraffe

A few weeks ago, as I was walking to work, I suddenly felt something falling towards me from aloft. Something large and unwieldy (like a body, the thought flashed morbidly through me), creating a descending shadow of hurtling mass. I caught the flicker of movement from the corner of my eye, and instinctively did a mental flinch. I say mental flinch because although my mind thought 'duck!!!', my body, lulled by urban life into forgetting natural survival instincts, failed to react in any way whatsoever.

Did you ever hear the story, as a child, of the squirrel that had an acorn fall on its head and thought the sky had cracked open and fallen down?

In that moment, I was the squirrel. (there is no dignity in this story).

For a moment, I thought I was dead. Then it occurred to me that if I was actually thinking about death, then I had to be alive. Then it occurred to me that I wasn't even hurt. So I took a moment to glance around. And there, lying beside me on the ground, was an ENORMOUS (almost me-sized), stuffed giraffe. Which had fallen on my head from the third floor window.

What the...?!! Who gets assaulted by a falling giraffe?! It was surreal to the point of inane hilarity.

Turns out, there's a Toys'R'Us warehouse on that street. I found this out a couple of days later when I was walking to work again (yes, despite my near death experience, I continue to follow the same path. Let it never be doubted that I'm a creature of habit), and I saw a Toys'R'Us truck in front of the very building. Unloading large things that looked suspiciously like my animalian assailant.

So then I started thinking, suppose I had died, what would my obituary read like?
Ficali McPipe, pint-sized HR bod with the most cluttered office ever seen. Regular hoarder of dried fruit, nuts and porridge from the kitchen supplies. Fanatic of summer dresses and winter hats. Killed by suicidal foam giraffe.

There's just much coolness in it all, is there? I really am the Napolean Dynamite of this world.

The secret of winning and losing

I sulked and moped at the thought of going outside. It was stormy, billowy, skirt-raising, jeans-wetting kind of weather, but I had to go out to get the bank checks done by the end of the day. That's what you get for leaving things to the last day, I suppose.

I stopped to gaze with renewed horror at the sheeted continuum of downpour, then took a deep breath and plunged into the rain, little umbrella held aloft like a rapier. It took all of thirty seconds for the umbrella to invert and prove itself a fickle ally. Typical. Now I regret laughing at the double layered golf umbrella Bobbis and Doobie use.

So there was I, left alone against the infernal elements of nature. The classic battle - man against nature - that man is just set up to lose.

Not to be thwarted in the check-gaining objective, I persevered in my endeavours. Put on my brave face and battled against la pluie. And so I got soaked in a likely impersonation of a human sponge.

On the way back, I realised I couldn't quite continue in my office all day, with my jeans leaving puddles wherever I went, like a territorial dog. Conveniently, I came to the realization just outside a Banana Republic. So I bought myself a new pair of jeans. And socks, for they too had been victimised. And cashmere jumper, just for good measure.

Sometimes, ya just gotta lose a battle to win the war.

Appetizer Crawl

At the Restaurant Club, we decided it was time for an Appetizer Crawl. You know. Just like a bar crawl, but involving a series of restaurants insteaad. As soon as we struck upon the idea, there was a flurry of excited activity, with everyone throwing suggested venues with good apps. What restaurants had we heard were good, which ones had great ambience, what did Zagat have to say about them - the emails zipped excitedly back and forth across cyber-space. Needless to say, not too much real work was done during that planning phase.

"Hang on, hang on," Jenn had to call order to the commotion, "let's restrict it to an area, shall we? Say Soho?" And so, we finally got consensus on a group of restaurants we were all equally excited about. Jenn industriously even mapquested them all and emailed us little maps indicating all the locations.

And - what a lovely afternoon it was! Filled with gustatory indulgences and epicurious delights. The Bruno Bakery. The Casablanca Tea Room. Balthazar. The Cupping Room Cafe.

And now, tripping over ourselves in eager-beaver enthusiasm, we're planning another one - in Chelsea. Any suggestions?

The doorman conundrum

I was speaking to Macklaine earlier today:

Ficali: Macklaine! Macklaine! Guess what! Guess what!
Macklaine: what.
Ficali: We found a new apartment! And Guess WHAT! It's got elevators. And a doorman!
Macklaine: Hmm. A doorman? Have you thought that through? I mean, what are you going to give him for his Christmas bonus?
Ficali: Oh. Erm. $50?
Macklaine: $50 for each doorman? Isn't that a lot? Besides you're only moving in in December.
Ficali: Oh. Erm. $40?
Macklaine [winding Ficali up]: Well you dont' want to offend them straight away and get things off on the wrong foot?
Ficali: Oh. Erm, so that's a $50?
Macklaine: And are you going to learn their individual tastes and bring them back coffee each time you go out? Like Delta does?
Ficali: Eeks, I'd forgotten about that.
Macklaine: Wow you really need to think about this more seriously.

[Ficali is now in a bit of a kerfuffle about this. Somehow I'd thought our new apartment was an upgrade.]