Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Starting a new decade

Today, we wish goodbye to not only a year, but also the decade. And a pretty crappy decade too, as decades go. Frankly - (and I guess I may be frank, it is my blog after all) - good riddance, I say. Stinky, crappy, lousy decade, get otta here already.

I wonder if people said that when the clock turned to 1920, after the first world war. Or 1930, after the wall street crash. Or 1940, after the great depression. Or 1950, after the second world war. I guess decades just don't come in shades of good.

I was feeling pretty glum as I started to write this blog (incase you missed that), but even as I continued, the snow started blustering down all over the city, blanketing my micro-world in a pristine white. So peaceful. So quiet. So scintillatingly beautiful. Just when everything seemed so pointeless, something so small can tug at your heartstrings and make you just happy to be right here, right now (even if the rest of the decade was shitty), and fill you with love for life anew.

And we must fight for hope, and change we can believe in, (so says that guy who's on tv all the time). So here's wishing for a much better bunch of years coming up (or, if the Mayans were right, then at least a much better remaining two years coming up).

And, of course, wishing you all the happiest new year.

Turning times

Tomorrow, Doobie, Ilajna and Bobbis move into a new apartment.

Of course I'm happy for them; they're upgrading to a far nicer apartment, complete with balcony, doorman and a smattering of posh. Although I have to admit I don't envy them having to move. Who likes moving? It's a pain in the hiney. On the other hand infinitely better, of course, since gawd invented movers.

Although of course I'm happy for them, their moving brings me a not-so-slight pang of nostalgia. After all, it was the apartment I lived in too, for a couple years. When we were all roommates. Even after I moved out, there was always the 'room that used to be mine'. Now their new apartment will be all their's, with nothing to connect me to it. Nothing to make me feel like it was a little bit mine too. I'll even have to ask the way to the bathroom the first time I visit.

Typical me, for personalising their move. Yes, it's all about me.

So woe be me, that the old apartment, my old home, will just become another address I write in my list of historical addresses. I see you blinking in disbelief that I keep a list of historical addresses. Yes. Ridiculous isn't it? I thought so too, I couldn't believe my own stupidity. And then the other day I completed my application for US citizenship, and they asked me to list all addresses going back fifteen years. Yes, fifteen years. Which is NOT easy, mind you, if you go back through your twenties and teens. And then, all of a sudden, I was immensely proud of my insightful forethought and meticulous keeping of ridiculous lists.

That was just luck though, that the address list came in handy. On balance, I'd still say that my stupidity outweighs my insight and forethought. But then again, balance is an overrated concept (unless you're a tightrope walker, in which case it's a rather fundamental basis of your existence).

Anyways, back to the apartment. Goodbye, ol' apartment. Thank you for all the memories. You've been such an integral part of my life in New York. So goodbye, and fare thee well.

Monday, December 28, 2009

Home again

We stared at the desk agent dumbfounded.

We'd come to spend Christmas with Delta's family in Rochester, and here we we were at Rochester airport, waiting to take our flight back home, and the desk agent had just told us "sorry, but there were no seats available." (At least he was sympathetic, because they're actually nice like that, outside the city.)

No seats available? So what if we had stupidly chosen to travel standby during Christmas weekend. So what if we were too cheap to actually pay for a ticket to visit the fam for Christmas.
I mean, so what. Didn't he realise that this is the new age of generation Y, the Age of Entitlement?

I couldn't believe our crap luck. With unhidden resentment, I watched as all fifty paying passengers boarded the flights and they closed the doors. Why should they get on and not us (I mean, other than the fact that they'd paid for their tickets)?! And for a moment, I felt a sinking feeling in the vortex of my stomach, sucking me in. As though we might just be held in Rochester forever. What a ruinous ending to such a perfect weekend.

But then Delta suddenly exclaimed, "I know! Let's just rent a car and drive down!".
I looked at him dubiously. It was already past 6. Starting the drive now would likely not bring us into the city until 1am. And I had a whole day of work staring me in the face on Monday.
"You think?" I asked, doubtfully.
"Of course. Let's go! No time to lose."

And with that, he was off, striding across the airport to the Avis counter, where the lovely desk agent gave us a Hyundai Elantra to speed us back to the city (much to my excitement, because just before, they'd given us a Chevy HHR for the week, and if you've ever been in an HHR, then you know exactly why I was so excited to be in a Hyundai.)

And so started our little road trip. Got in the car, kicked off our shoes, turned on the radio, and motored across New York state through the late hours of nightfall. Even grabbed a meal in Wendy's, something we hadn't done in more than ten years. Singing along to the radio, we whizzed past Syracuse and Binghamton and the Catskills and Harriman, and suddenly, rather faster than we'd expected, we were back in the city.

As it turned out, not bad at all. As it turned out, through no credit of our own, quite the perfect ending to our Christmas weekend.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

A winner week

Yikes, geez. The comments box suddenly got quite a-ruffle, while I was out frolicking. I wouldn't've thunk anything I wrote could have evoked strong emotions akin to love or hate. Maybe a mild giggle or an aversion, at the most. But hatred? Of seahorses? Isn't that like hating unicorns? Eh, it takes all types. In any case, definitely an enjoyable few minutes googling Schrodinger's cat, so all in all quite an educational set of inputs. So thank you *curtsy*.


The past week, Rohinton and Jeet dropped into town for a few days, much to our excitement. Delta and I were a bit nervous about the aerobed holding up, after we had to hold it together with a bike tire patch earlier this summer. But somehow, it pulled through, and I felt a rush of warm love for the faithful old thing. Even Queen Jaffa was on best behaviour, and refrained from trying to sharpen her talons on the inflatable.


The weekend that Rohinton and Jeet spent in town, a snowstorm blew into the city. Typical. A surprisingly warm run-up to winter, and then suddenly, 12" of snow. I would have felt terrible for them, except that they were on their way to that cruise in Antartica, and if you're willing to go to Antarctica, then you have to embrace all such trials and tribulations of weather as a training experience. So snow angels it was, then.


Also quite a constructive week in other manners. Delta and I finally summoned the inner motivation to haul our ever-growing collection of change (which had taken up a life of its own in recent weeks) over to the nearby coinstar and convert it into something usable. Each of us had a chance to hold it in our hands, and bet on a value based on the weight.


I was the first to pick up the bag of coins, and it very nearly dislocated my shoulder. Which doesnt say much of course, because frankly I could dislocate my shoulder with a 3lb weight. But still, this bag was a big'un.

"$87", I wagered.
Delta went next. "$91!" he said confidently.
Rohinton and Jeet each took their turns after that, and turned it into a 'Price is right' kind of deal. "Anything less than 87," they called.
Now that's what I would call risk averse. But you can't hold that against him, Rohinton's an insurance guy.


So with all our bets in place, we wandered down to the coinstar in TD Bank, where the cute little cartoon girl on the ATM screen told us she'd count our coins for us. For a couple minutes, as we poured coins through the slot, numbers whirred past the screen like a Vegas slot machine. And then suddenly, kerplunk!!, it stopped. $122!!!


We couldn't believe our luck. This was the highest we'd ever accumulated in coins. It felt like winning the jackpot. So after converting this to cash, Delta and I, buoyed by the optimism of our winnings, rushed into the camera store next door and bought the new D90 we'd been coveting for months.


Yes, you heard it right. We won $122 and spent $973, all in the span of a couple minutes, for a net earning of -$851. This, right here, is the story of our life.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Sorry, dear friend

"Hey, look," Delta pointed out the other day. "Someone's commented on your blog."
I peered over in curiosity. No one, but no one, comments on my blog. It's my little monologue into cyber-space. Me thinking about me, me writing about me. For no reason at all that I could fathom, except that I quite enjoy writing, and if I didn't have myself to write about, I'd be stumped at a loss for topics.

So you can imagine, I was a bit surprised to find a question posted on my blog.
"Do you twitter?" someone asked.

And I'd hate to disappoint my one lone commenter, but I don't twitter. I don't, I can't, I couldn't fathom being a-twitterized. My thoughts simply cannot synthesize themselves into little nugget-sized phrases. It doesn't sit well with me to to spell "great" as "gr8", or "later" as "l8r". It creates some queasiness in the cockles to drop all the conjunctions and prepositions. Come to think of it, even if I could wrap my head around those insurmountable challenges, the sad truth is, I have to concede, I don't actually have new thoughts often enough to uphold the mantle of a Tweetmeister.

In short, sorry, dear friend, but I have no twoots to tweet, no twots to twit.

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

The cause of the downtrodden

When you're walking with strangers for several hours a day, as we did when we were hiking in Peru, you end up ruminating over a lot of inane topics. And one such topic of much discussion was undervalued punctuation.
"The poor semi-colon," one chap had said, "no one ever seems to use it. No one ever even seems to know how to use it. It's the unloved step-child of punctuation."

And since then, since I heard someone put it like that, I've harboured a secret soft spot for the semi-colon.

So the other day, when I was drafting a long newsletter email for the company, I insidiously inserted a smattering of semi-colons. I mean, what's an HR bod to do in life if not to protect the downtrodden puncts, right?

Three semi-colons, nestled snugly in the email. If Richie Rich notices, I hope he doesn't mind (too much).

In any case, I suppose they should just be happy I hadn't taken up the cause of the colon or the ellipses.

Saturday, December 05, 2009

An encounter with (modern) gawd

It was a horrible rainy, grey and freezing day outside, which meant an indoors day for me. Move over, Queen Jaffa, and get used to my company for the day.

I pottered about all morning, constantly doing things, but the kind of little things that you have nothing to show for at the end of your time. Soon enough however, the doorbell rang - the delivery guys were here with the new bed. The new bed! I was beside myself with excitement.

Of course, QJ, lapped up all the petting the two delivery guys were willing to bestow upon her, but then decided she didn't actually like the bed. It didn't have the corner that she used to always scratch, and no amount of me explaining about the wood and colour and other fun features was improving the situation. She wasn't having any of it with this new bed. A bit ironic because she's the reason we bought the thing in the first place. But oh well, there's cats for you.

By afternoon, the steady rain had turned into snow. The yucky, sleety, psuedo-snow that instantly melts as soon as it touches anything. But snow all the same, and after all it was the first snow of the year, so I decided to emerge from my hibernation and give the world outside a peek. Strategically accoutered in all kinds of protective gear, I headed downstairs to take a tentative step outside the building (Derek the doorman looked at me like I was mad, and although he's too polite to say anything, his eyes popping out of his head said it all).

I walked around the neighbourhood for a bit, savouring the first snowfall of the year, and then dropped in to the supermarket on my way back. QJ was running low on catfood, so I needed to pick up a can or two. Ungrateful cat though she be, didn't seem reason enough to starve her.

I had just picked up the catfood when I heard a loud voice booming right behind me.
"WOULD YOU LIKE SOME ADVICE?"
I jumped out of my skin and almost dropped all the catfood on the floor (I'm the kind of person that doesn't take a basket because I think I'm only picking up one thing, but then one thing leads to another and before I know it my arms are precariously juggling cans and bottles and packets and vegetables of all sorts).

So when the voice startled me, I nearly dropped everything to the floor. I spun around in alarm, but there was nobody there. Looked up and down the aisle, but I was all alone. But the voice had been real. Very, disturbingly, real.

G-g-gawd?

I thought stammeringly, looking upwards.

But (as usual) it wasn't gawd. It was a hidden microphone with a motion sensor, that activated when I passed. Yet another triumph of modernisation. So I walked back to the spot where I'd been before I jumped out of my skin (there was my skin, still lying on the floor where it fell off. Felt pretty good to put it back on).

"WOULD YOU LIKE SOME ADVICE?" the voice boomed again. Curious, I listened on. Turned out to be an add for some drug or another (probably to cure depression or ED, if I'd stayed to listen).

Man, I'm ok (kind of) with advertising and all, but do we have to scare the bejeezus out of me?

Friday, December 04, 2009

My lot in life

Two months ago, Delta and I bought a new bed from the DoorStore. Our current full-size bed, while quite snuggly and comfy, just wasn't enough for Delta, me and Queen Jaffa. Especially when QJ started dominating the space.
"Look at that!" Delta used to exclaim. "QJ has half the bed and you and I are squashed in the other half. Why are you letting her push you around?!"
"She does it when I'm asleep," I was forced to explain sheepishly. "She waits till I'm at my most vulnerable, and then keeps prodding me so I keep moving over in my sleep. I can't help it!"

And so, because of QJ's dominating ways, we were forced upgrade our bed.

And when I say we bought a new bed, I mean we went into the store and paid for it, only to be told it would be delivered in three weeks.
But three weeks came and went with no bed. When we called the store to find out, we were glibly informed, "oh it's been delayed by a week, you'll have it next week."
But the next week came and went with no sign of any sleep support system.

And the same the next week. And the same the week after.

My tether is only yay-long, and very quickly, I was at the end of it. So last week, I marched into the store in a bit of a harrumph.
"Oy, mister, you sold us a bed and you haven't delivered it." That's me and my tough talk. No beating around the bush. No time for games.
But the fella behind the desk was so nice, and so apologetic, and promised me it would come this weekend, and ... so I relented and accepted his word.
"It better come next weekend," I told him, insinuating that I wielded warnings and threats which I couldn't quite articulate.

So imagine my absolute irritation when I woke up this morning and there was still no call from the delivery guys about the bed. A whole week later, nothing. The more I thought about it, the more irritated I got. This guy had given me his word. Didn't that mean anything anymore?

And I mulled over it more and more until I'd worked myself into a tizzy of boiling blood. Finally, having waited till past noon, I decided to head over to the store myself and give the sales guy a serious talking to. That's it. I had had enough of this nonsense and I would give him a piece of my mind. I'd share my thoughts on how badly we'd been treated. I'd demand recompense. I'd -

And just as I was about to enter the store, all riled up, my phone rang.
"Hello. It's the doorstore delivery team, we're calling to schedule your bed delivery for tomorrow."
The timing was just typical. I would normally have been elated, except I'd worked myself up into such a huff that this quite took the wind out of my sails. Suddenly there I was, a deflated balloon.
I wasn't built to switch gear so quickly. My emotional radar didn't quite know how to jump from irate to ecstatic, so it ended up somewhere in between in a heap of emotional confusion.

Slunk back home, and there was QJ curled up on the couch, demure as ever. Emotional as I was at the moment, I couldn't help myself, I rushed over to her and smothered her little head with kisses.

Roused from her sleep, she slowly roused her head. Looked me in the eye. And emitted a loud cat burp of emotional satisfaction.

Yes, folks, that's what I get for my effusive kisses. A catburp.

But one has to be appreciative of the hand life deals. And if my lot in life is a deflated balloon and a catburp, who am I to complain.