We borrowed Our Friend Jo's car on Saturday to run some holiday related errands (OK, really it was to pick up a new TV but it will come in handy over Christmas.) We stopped at our local Dominick's supermarket to buy big bags of cat food and liter. On our way out I beelined for the $5 bottles of wine that are generally stacked just outside the liquor section but stopped short.
There, set up at a folding table, right next to the cheapest wines in the store, was Alpana Singh doing a book signing or something.
I froze. I wanted to shake hands with her, but I also wanted a cheapo bottle of wine and I knew I couldn't conscientiously do both. Because really how do you walk up to sexy sommelier Alpana Singh and say "Hi, wow I'm a big fan of your TV show and your blog" with a bottle of Turning Leaf in your hand? You just can't.
So I didn't do either. I flashed Ms. Singh a confused smile and rushed my cart off, away from the discount wines. and into a check out line.
I felt bad though. There she was with her hair all curly, looking really nice, (she's hot dude.) But no one was asking her to sign anything or talking to her. I really think they should have put her someplace less intimidating because I would have made my The Husband twiddle his thumbs for at least 15 minutes so I could talk to her about wine. Just not that close to the Yellow Tail bottles.
Showing posts with label life and what's in it.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life and what's in it.. Show all posts
Monday, December 15, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
Slow Clap
Oh, good job Bank of America.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aswiJZGC2Ca8&refer=us
Let me see if I understand what happened over the last year:
You bought a bunch of other banks with other debts.
Then you went on a property buying spree, forcing local merchants to shutter, so you could have prime real estate in retail neighborhoods.
And now you can't afford your payroll so you're laying off 30-35 THOUSAND workers?
Nice.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aswiJZGC2Ca8&refer=us
Let me see if I understand what happened over the last year:
You bought a bunch of other banks with other debts.
Then you went on a property buying spree, forcing local merchants to shutter, so you could have prime real estate in retail neighborhoods.
And now you can't afford your payroll so you're laying off 30-35 THOUSAND workers?
Nice.
Monday, December 01, 2008
Monday, Monday
When I woke up this morning it was pitch black. I wake up early, but there’s usually a little bit of light bleeding in. This morning it was still night. I thought I might have dreamt the alarm going off so I rolled back over. But it went off again and I knew it was past time to get up. But why was it so dark?
During the night we had the first significant snow fall of the season and there was about a half inch of the white stuff covering the skylights in the bedroom. Down stairs wasn’t much better and it was much colder. I had hung our new, insulated curtains on Saturday afternoon and in addition to blocking the drafts they also do some significant light blockage. Good when you’re watching TV, not so good when you’re trying to get yourself going in the morning. My grogginess persisted well into the 8am hour.
It probably didn’t help that my morning cup of joe was actually a cup reheated from yesterday. I am mostly unmotivated on mornings like this and it just seemed easier, and you know, conserve-y, since there was still a cup in the bottom of the pot. Shrug. I don’t mind reheated coffee (occasionally.) It reminds me of the “American Style” coffee they served in Greece. I’m not sure if that’s a complement.
Our microwave is pretty slow these days, too. It took three minutes to reheat the coffee and then five minutes to get my oatmeal hot. And yes, I eat oatmeal, most of the time. OK, more like “occasionally.” It would be more often but someone accidentally bought me real oatmeal instead of instant oatmeal. This means I have to actually cook my oatmeal and I get tired of dirtying up pots every morning so sometimes it goes into the microwave. I like to jazz it up with fruit and nuts but I usually end up putting brown sugar or maple syrup in there too. By the end it is barely a healthful bowl of oatmeal. I haven’t resorted to chocolate chips yet but they are tempting, doubly so today with the chill in the air and flurries falling. By the time the coffee and oatmeal were cooked enough to actually ingest I was falling farther behind in my morning routine. Monday is a good day for falling behind though, my The Husband has the day off and I won’t be interrupted by his need to eat, ingest coffee or use the bathroom. So I tend to lollygag on Mondays anyway but I really pushed it this morning.
On top of the snooze button incident and the dying-microwave cooking time for breakfast I have found myself drawn into these goddamn vampire books that I have railed against. Stupid, teenybopper, vampire books. I hate them. I loathe them. They are stupidly full of stupid things and just plain stupid. I can’t stop reading them though. But, I’ll be forced to stop once I’m done with this second book because I REFUSE to buy any of them (these two are on loan from an enabling friend of mine.) And my friend doesn’t own the last two because she REFUSES to buy them in hard cover. We’re trying to stay ahead of this ridiculous addiction. By the time the last two in the series are in paperback we’ll hopefully have forgotten about these first two and just wont care. (Or maybe we’ll find them in a used bookstore.)
So anyway, the snooze button, the microwave, the (stupid) vampire book and the snow. It was a slow morning and I ended up leaving about 15 minutes later than usual. No big deal. Although I did miss two buses as they breezed past in an inconvenient cluster so I ended up taking the train. Which I hate, because it’s crowded and there are a lot of stairs and they make me sweaty when I'm in my winterwear.
But I made it to work. And I sat at my desk, and I did my job. And I didn't fall asleep so I guess it all worked out. I mean, it's Monday. You can't expect too much from a Monday, can you?
During the night we had the first significant snow fall of the season and there was about a half inch of the white stuff covering the skylights in the bedroom. Down stairs wasn’t much better and it was much colder. I had hung our new, insulated curtains on Saturday afternoon and in addition to blocking the drafts they also do some significant light blockage. Good when you’re watching TV, not so good when you’re trying to get yourself going in the morning. My grogginess persisted well into the 8am hour.
It probably didn’t help that my morning cup of joe was actually a cup reheated from yesterday. I am mostly unmotivated on mornings like this and it just seemed easier, and you know, conserve-y, since there was still a cup in the bottom of the pot. Shrug. I don’t mind reheated coffee (occasionally.) It reminds me of the “American Style” coffee they served in Greece. I’m not sure if that’s a complement.
Our microwave is pretty slow these days, too. It took three minutes to reheat the coffee and then five minutes to get my oatmeal hot. And yes, I eat oatmeal, most of the time. OK, more like “occasionally.” It would be more often but someone accidentally bought me real oatmeal instead of instant oatmeal. This means I have to actually cook my oatmeal and I get tired of dirtying up pots every morning so sometimes it goes into the microwave. I like to jazz it up with fruit and nuts but I usually end up putting brown sugar or maple syrup in there too. By the end it is barely a healthful bowl of oatmeal. I haven’t resorted to chocolate chips yet but they are tempting, doubly so today with the chill in the air and flurries falling. By the time the coffee and oatmeal were cooked enough to actually ingest I was falling farther behind in my morning routine. Monday is a good day for falling behind though, my The Husband has the day off and I won’t be interrupted by his need to eat, ingest coffee or use the bathroom. So I tend to lollygag on Mondays anyway but I really pushed it this morning.
On top of the snooze button incident and the dying-microwave cooking time for breakfast I have found myself drawn into these goddamn vampire books that I have railed against. Stupid, teenybopper, vampire books. I hate them. I loathe them. They are stupidly full of stupid things and just plain stupid. I can’t stop reading them though. But, I’ll be forced to stop once I’m done with this second book because I REFUSE to buy any of them (these two are on loan from an enabling friend of mine.) And my friend doesn’t own the last two because she REFUSES to buy them in hard cover. We’re trying to stay ahead of this ridiculous addiction. By the time the last two in the series are in paperback we’ll hopefully have forgotten about these first two and just wont care. (Or maybe we’ll find them in a used bookstore.)
So anyway, the snooze button, the microwave, the (stupid) vampire book and the snow. It was a slow morning and I ended up leaving about 15 minutes later than usual. No big deal. Although I did miss two buses as they breezed past in an inconvenient cluster so I ended up taking the train. Which I hate, because it’s crowded and there are a lot of stairs and they make me sweaty when I'm in my winterwear.
But I made it to work. And I sat at my desk, and I did my job. And I didn't fall asleep so I guess it all worked out. I mean, it's Monday. You can't expect too much from a Monday, can you?
Saturday, November 22, 2008
So That Was A Little Weird
When Barack Obama won the Democratic Party nomination earlier this year I made a promise to myself. Self, I said, if this guy gets elected to office you’re going to make some changes. He’s telling you to hope and change so listen up. And I did.
In an effort to heed the call to public service that Mr. President Elect has put upon us I signed up to be a mentor to a 6th grade girl on Wednesday evenings as part of an after-school program.
It doesn’t sound like a BIG change but hey, I haven’t voluntarily done anything since the theater company folded up its bag of tricks and that was like, five years ago. So there.
The program is affiliated with the Catholic Church, which is the first weird thing about it for me. I haven’t been affiliated with the Catholic Church for some time. The branch of the church that has its fingers in this pie is Opus Dei. Rationally I understand that Opus Dei is really all about finding ways in every day life to create a more personal relationship with God (at least that's what they tell me,) but all I can associate them with is the creepy albino dude from The DaVinci Code. So I was pretty surprised when the head of the program introduced the priest who runs the monthly Christian Fellowship seminar and hear confessions. He was young (ish, like not green out of seminary but not old and wrinkly either.) And he had a bit of sass mouth to him, which I always appreciate in my clergy. But, I think the biggest impression he left was how uncomfortable he was speaking in front of a room full of women. Which, you know, awww. But then that left me examining the women who are also part of the program.
For the most part the other mentors are all very familiar stereotypes. Mostly they seem to be former Catholic-school girls, like me. But, you know, the cool girls who never let you sit with them at lunch. Their hair is done, they wear slightly too much make up and are somehow still all wearing a uniform. Not the pleated skirt type, the social uniform. There were three women sitting in the back of the room all wearing different sweaters in the exact same shade of pink. They whispered to each other in that affected, nasal voice that always seems to indicate some form of privilege or entitlement issue and waved their fingers around when they spoke.
At least they were aware of their uniformity and sort of chuckled when someone tried to return a pen to one that had actually been borrowed from another. “It’s the OTHER girl in the pink sweater. But, you know, we know her so we’ll give it back for you.”
Standing around at the top of the stairs, waiting to meet our girls was a lot like standing around waiting to find out homeroom assignments. I was already nervous about meeting this girl. I really wanted her to like me, whoever she was. And, as the young girls came up the stairs to be paired up with their mentors that thought jumped to the forefront of my mind. There were a lot of girls and a lot of them looked really hip. Well, you know, still grade schoolers but "hip," wearing sharp jeans and puffy jackets. They had a lot of energy and were greeting their mentors with hugs and smiles. I knew I wasn't going to be getting the same treatment, just meeting my student tonight, but I didn't know what I was going to do if I was assigned one of these girls who was infinitely cooler than I ever was in grade school.
Turns out, that was not so much a problem. The girl to whom I was assigned seems very nice. She just turned twelve in September, she's in sixth grade and comes from a Polish-American home. Oh, and also, she's totally like I was at twelve, with the glasses and the awkward haircut. She needs help with math, reads two books at a time and, when reading, skips the words she doesn't know. If this isn't karma I really don't know what is.
She was all business and we dug into her math homework immediately. Luckily she's still only on identifying polygons so I was at least not stuck trying to relearn fractions like one of the other mentors. The time flew and at the end of the night she flew out the door with her father and not a single look back.
We don't meet again until after Thanksgiving but I'm hoping that when we return to the mentoring center I'm paired with the same girl for the rest of the school year. She seems nice, I'd like to get to know her, maybe help her out. Except with fractions. I'm just no good with fractions.
In an effort to heed the call to public service that Mr. President Elect has put upon us I signed up to be a mentor to a 6th grade girl on Wednesday evenings as part of an after-school program.
It doesn’t sound like a BIG change but hey, I haven’t voluntarily done anything since the theater company folded up its bag of tricks and that was like, five years ago. So there.
The program is affiliated with the Catholic Church, which is the first weird thing about it for me. I haven’t been affiliated with the Catholic Church for some time. The branch of the church that has its fingers in this pie is Opus Dei. Rationally I understand that Opus Dei is really all about finding ways in every day life to create a more personal relationship with God (at least that's what they tell me,) but all I can associate them with is the creepy albino dude from The DaVinci Code. So I was pretty surprised when the head of the program introduced the priest who runs the monthly Christian Fellowship seminar and hear confessions. He was young (ish, like not green out of seminary but not old and wrinkly either.) And he had a bit of sass mouth to him, which I always appreciate in my clergy. But, I think the biggest impression he left was how uncomfortable he was speaking in front of a room full of women. Which, you know, awww. But then that left me examining the women who are also part of the program.
For the most part the other mentors are all very familiar stereotypes. Mostly they seem to be former Catholic-school girls, like me. But, you know, the cool girls who never let you sit with them at lunch. Their hair is done, they wear slightly too much make up and are somehow still all wearing a uniform. Not the pleated skirt type, the social uniform. There were three women sitting in the back of the room all wearing different sweaters in the exact same shade of pink. They whispered to each other in that affected, nasal voice that always seems to indicate some form of privilege or entitlement issue and waved their fingers around when they spoke.
At least they were aware of their uniformity and sort of chuckled when someone tried to return a pen to one that had actually been borrowed from another. “It’s the OTHER girl in the pink sweater. But, you know, we know her so we’ll give it back for you.”
Standing around at the top of the stairs, waiting to meet our girls was a lot like standing around waiting to find out homeroom assignments. I was already nervous about meeting this girl. I really wanted her to like me, whoever she was. And, as the young girls came up the stairs to be paired up with their mentors that thought jumped to the forefront of my mind. There were a lot of girls and a lot of them looked really hip. Well, you know, still grade schoolers but "hip," wearing sharp jeans and puffy jackets. They had a lot of energy and were greeting their mentors with hugs and smiles. I knew I wasn't going to be getting the same treatment, just meeting my student tonight, but I didn't know what I was going to do if I was assigned one of these girls who was infinitely cooler than I ever was in grade school.
Turns out, that was not so much a problem. The girl to whom I was assigned seems very nice. She just turned twelve in September, she's in sixth grade and comes from a Polish-American home. Oh, and also, she's totally like I was at twelve, with the glasses and the awkward haircut. She needs help with math, reads two books at a time and, when reading, skips the words she doesn't know. If this isn't karma I really don't know what is.
She was all business and we dug into her math homework immediately. Luckily she's still only on identifying polygons so I was at least not stuck trying to relearn fractions like one of the other mentors. The time flew and at the end of the night she flew out the door with her father and not a single look back.
We don't meet again until after Thanksgiving but I'm hoping that when we return to the mentoring center I'm paired with the same girl for the rest of the school year. She seems nice, I'd like to get to know her, maybe help her out. Except with fractions. I'm just no good with fractions.
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