I work at night, in midtown Manhattan. Consequently, engineer -- who works days in New Jersey & commutes by car, thus having more shopping options -- agreed to buy flashlights, batteries, & if possible a battery-operated lantern yesterday, since a massive hurricane is en route. A nice manly sort of errand, I thought, & one I couldn't run, my office building having plenty of law firms but no hardware stores at all, let alone any open all night.
Why should I be surprised to find out that engineer failed to do so? "I went to Home Depot. They were sold out." Well, what about the hardware store? The Army-Navy store? "Oh. No." You went to one store? "Yes. And they were sold out." So you didn't go anywhere else to get emergency lighting? And then the wail, "But I triiiiiied ... ."
I recall hearing in some past life -- pre-engineer, anyhow, or I'd never have believed it -- that men by nature persist, they problem-solve, they act. This proves what I've suspected for ages: World of Warcrap & similar video fantasies make testicles atrophy. (Yes, of course he had time & energy enough last night for a few hours of gaming.)
While I suppose I shall have to grow a pair (no wonder I had a horrid nightmare in which I looked down to find that I'd developed chest hair) & go in search of flashlights during the day (after working the equivalent of six days in four, with about 12 or 13 hours sleep total since Monday, I did have other plans), this household owns exactly one working flashlight, mine: the small LED miner's light that I use to read at night, or when the compact fluorescent crudbulbs don't provide enough light. I laid in a stock of batteries for it a couple of months back, too.
So if the New Masculinity (the sort that causes engineers to believe women should get all moist & grateful because, you know, they triiiiiied) means mission not accomplished ... surely the New Femininity means I don't have to share. How very tempting.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Festina lente
The poodle is sixteen. She is fading out too fast now; every day something more disappears: hearing, strength, eyesight, awareness, & even her fur on her sides & lower back (due to Cushing's, which an idiot vet assured me two years ago that she didn't have -- surprise, another vet this year finally recognized it as an atypical type that the standard blood test didn't catch, & wasn't it too bad they hadn't treated it back then when she was stronger: yes, now tell your partner in the practice, not me). She gets an array of pills every day, like any other old lady; & like any other old lady, half of them deal with the side effects of the others, & none of them can be stopped, & still they are not enough.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Real simplemindedness
From Real Simple's advice on at-home vacations:
"Make staying hydrated a beautiful thing. Take a cue from Rancho La Puerta, in Tecate, Mexico: Fill your prettiest pitchers with ice water and slices of lemon, orange, or cucumber. Place them (each with a glass) at various strategic points around the house and in a shady spot outside. Then, as you go about your day, stop often to take a long, cool, flavorful pull."
Let's see how that plays out:
"Make staying hydrated a beautiful thing. Take a cue from Rancho La Puerta, in Tecate, Mexico: Fill your prettiest pitchers with ice water and slices of lemon, orange, or cucumber. Place them (each with a glass) at various strategic points around the house and in a shady spot outside. Then, as you go about your day, stop often to take a long, cool, flavorful pull."
Let's see how that plays out:
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Click
The part of a relationship -- with a person, a city, a job, whatever -- that no one admits to longing for is the beginning of the end: the moment when the whole contraption shifts & re-forms itself into something that is mildly annoying, at best, & certainly no longer important. Listen carefully & you can hear the pieces slide into their new places, & the clicking gets faster & more satisfying, like the end of a puzzle.
Of course some relationships never come to this. I have never stopped loving any dog, for example, or a few human beings, or certain buildings, or the smell of kerosene. The click comes with the bad ones, the ones that were a mistake to start with & have become parasitic.
Of course some relationships never come to this. I have never stopped loving any dog, for example, or a few human beings, or certain buildings, or the smell of kerosene. The click comes with the bad ones, the ones that were a mistake to start with & have become parasitic.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
All I was promised & more
Last night, a co-worker gave me three dried bhut jolokia (ghost) peppers, claimed to be the hottest in the world.
I cooked a karela (bitter melon) & tore the tip off one pepper (they are rather leathery) & added it to the pan. The piece was about the size of my little fingernail; the pepper is hottest up toward the stem, so this should have been (relatively) mild.
That was an hour ago. I ate the karela strips & the piece of pepper, too. Delicious. I've had to put the portable air conditioner on, of course, & if I turn the lights out the combination of internal glow & the hideous grin on my face should make for a sort of jack o' lantern effect.
One little matter, though: note the initials of the bhut jolokia. Don't. Not for hours, possibly days. A kiss on the cheek might be safe after a few hours, but I wouldn't chance it.
I cooked a karela (bitter melon) & tore the tip off one pepper (they are rather leathery) & added it to the pan. The piece was about the size of my little fingernail; the pepper is hottest up toward the stem, so this should have been (relatively) mild.
That was an hour ago. I ate the karela strips & the piece of pepper, too. Delicious. I've had to put the portable air conditioner on, of course, & if I turn the lights out the combination of internal glow & the hideous grin on my face should make for a sort of jack o' lantern effect.
One little matter, though: note the initials of the bhut jolokia. Don't. Not for hours, possibly days. A kiss on the cheek might be safe after a few hours, but I wouldn't chance it.
Crossplay
On the top of the bookshelves in this room is a volume entitled "Jews in the Japanese Mind"; when I caught sight of it just now, however, I read it as "Jesus as a Japanese Maid."
That should boost church attendance nicely.
That should boost church attendance nicely.
Monday, July 11, 2011
That synching feeling
In the space of an hour, my fellow chilehead at work has given me a packet of ghost peppers (said to be the hottest on earth) & another co-worker has brought me a box of chipotle tortilla chips. Mood greatly improved in anticipation.
Tree of death
Nothing like a beautiful but somewhat confusing meditation on one's favorite Issues -- death, families, what a dinosaur Cain & Abel would look like -- on a Sunday night on top of way too little sleep to bring on the black dog. (Unfair, b/c I like dogs, but if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me.) Pounding a green papaya salad to mix it helps; so do chiles in large enough amounts to get the endorphins flowing. ("Step away from the ledge." "No." "Sabzi mirch? Scotch bonnets?" "Oh. OK then.")
But no cure yet for waking up bright-eyed & bushy-tailed some four hours after falling asleep. No book is boring enough. Presently all of one's sorrows, fears, past screw-ups & their likely successors come calling, or the (slightly senile) poodle gets up & starts to roam the living room, or someone has forgotten his CPAP hookup & begins snoring loudly enough to knock pictures off the walls.
Night workers have sleep fantasies the way day shift people have (so I'm told) sex fantasies. In Penthouse Sleep Forum, the corner of the library, desert island or hotel room hasn't got another occupant, & size really doesn't matter, though distance & decibels do.
But no cure yet for waking up bright-eyed & bushy-tailed some four hours after falling asleep. No book is boring enough. Presently all of one's sorrows, fears, past screw-ups & their likely successors come calling, or the (slightly senile) poodle gets up & starts to roam the living room, or someone has forgotten his CPAP hookup & begins snoring loudly enough to knock pictures off the walls.
Night workers have sleep fantasies the way day shift people have (so I'm told) sex fantasies. In Penthouse Sleep Forum, the corner of the library, desert island or hotel room hasn't got another occupant, & size really doesn't matter, though distance & decibels do.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Tick, tick, tick
Last week, the engineer got up at 4 a.m. to whiz & then wandered in, stark naked, as I sat staring at the computer, trying to bore myself to sleep. "What is that on your leg?" I squawked -- & then took a closer look & saw what looked like tiny blisters coming up on several large red patches.
"Oh, that's been there for a couple of days, & on my back too. I guess it'll go away."
Engineer is quite capable of believing that an invading army, if ignored long enough, will go away (granted, that might be true). I said, "Does it itch?"
"Well, no, it sort of hurts, actually."
OH NO.
"Oh, that's been there for a couple of days, & on my back too. I guess it'll go away."
Engineer is quite capable of believing that an invading army, if ignored long enough, will go away (granted, that might be true). I said, "Does it itch?"
"Well, no, it sort of hurts, actually."
OH NO.
Confidentially ...
I have no idea why people confide in me. Granted, I live in a city where everyone boasts, especially of their faults & sins, but even here I'm the lucky soul who gets to hear the Real Ghastly Truth That No One Else Knows. Just ducky.
Exactly what makes anyone think I am a worthy recipient of these sad secrets (I am short & can't run away fast enough, perhaps), I don't know, or I'd change it. There's remarkably little variety, & unlike my friends in the 1980s who had sex lives of spectacular & hilarious complexity, no one these days comes up with amusing confessions. And if I've even halfway paid attention, I've figured it out beforehand (& might prefer not to have my suspicions confirmed).
In NY, the natives & many of the more recent arrivals do take great pride in their flaws. I was raised to offer sympathy when someone moaned on about being an asshole, for example, or better yet to deny it ("be fair to yourself, what else could you have done?"), & even after all these years the kindly denial machine kicks in. Not safe here: tell New Yorkers that they are not assholes & they will set out to prove to you beyond a doubt that they are.
The same great blessing follows here as back home, however: hear The Truth once from someone & get radio silence for weeks, months or even always. Peaceful, yes, but rather depressing. I'm not sure whether it's shame, embarrassment, or (most likely) the joyful lightness of having dropped a load onto someone else.
Some varieties of car wax supposedly protect the finish against bird shit. To hell with Chicken Soup for the Soul, I need Turtle Wax for the Psyche.
Exactly what makes anyone think I am a worthy recipient of these sad secrets (I am short & can't run away fast enough, perhaps), I don't know, or I'd change it. There's remarkably little variety, & unlike my friends in the 1980s who had sex lives of spectacular & hilarious complexity, no one these days comes up with amusing confessions. And if I've even halfway paid attention, I've figured it out beforehand (& might prefer not to have my suspicions confirmed).
In NY, the natives & many of the more recent arrivals do take great pride in their flaws. I was raised to offer sympathy when someone moaned on about being an asshole, for example, or better yet to deny it ("be fair to yourself, what else could you have done?"), & even after all these years the kindly denial machine kicks in. Not safe here: tell New Yorkers that they are not assholes & they will set out to prove to you beyond a doubt that they are.
The same great blessing follows here as back home, however: hear The Truth once from someone & get radio silence for weeks, months or even always. Peaceful, yes, but rather depressing. I'm not sure whether it's shame, embarrassment, or (most likely) the joyful lightness of having dropped a load onto someone else.
Some varieties of car wax supposedly protect the finish against bird shit. To hell with Chicken Soup for the Soul, I need Turtle Wax for the Psyche.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Eavesdropping
Around 10:30 pm last Sunday, after a shopping run, we stopped by the closest thing this neighborhood has to a hip coffee shop (as opposed to the Starbucks that opened a block away & the many Colombian coffee shops that have weird pastries, a cheerful vibe & surprisingly vile coffee). The coffee shop has a Bengali owner & some of the employees are from Bangladesh as well. They serve wine & beer (bottled, small breweries) as well as coffee, plus European sodas, organic cookies, & snacks -- about what you'd expect, chosen half for the flavor & half for the affectation. It's a pleasant enough place, provided one doesn't show up at family-friendly hours (yes, a child must be allowed to express his creativity by running around the room screeching, but the temptation to stick a foot out as he passes by for the third time howling at 120 decibels is very hard to resist, & those parents sue), & the coffee isn't bad.
This night, it was quiet; the coffee shop is right near the main South Asian shopping strip & there were a few young desis having coffee & faffing about with their iPads, & the owner -- from Bangladesh, remember -- was behind the counter.
This night, it was quiet; the coffee shop is right near the main South Asian shopping strip & there were a few young desis having coffee & faffing about with their iPads, & the owner -- from Bangladesh, remember -- was behind the counter.
Reason #1,147 why I'm going to hell
Despite having grown up south of the Mason-Dixon Line, as a rule, I don't drink Coke (HFCS, fang rot, etc.), & the engineer prefers Pepsi. Occasionally in the summer I will stagger out on a really hot day to one of the Mexican groceries & buy a small imported Coke (in one of those old heavy bottles, no less), because Mexican Coke is usually made with sugar, not HFCS.
There is, of course, the yearly exception: Passover. To be kosher for Passover, Coke must be made with sugar; it tastes exactly like what I remember from childhood, & is available only briefly: self-limited indulgence. We buy one or two bottles & that's it until next year, aside from any summertime forays.
This year during spring cleaning, which happened to coincide with the run-up to Passover, I discovered a large bottle of last year's Passover Coke. Of course it had gone rather flat, & this year's was available, but why waste it?
So I used it.
To cook a Coca-Cola ham for the engineer.
Granted, we are goyim & I don't even eat meat at all, but still ... .
I do so hope that the downstairs neighbors, an elderly rabbi & his wife, did not hear the engineer laughing hysterically & repeating, "You used Passover Coke to cook a ham?"
Then he ate it on sourdough bread all this past week, cackling every time.
There is, of course, the yearly exception: Passover. To be kosher for Passover, Coke must be made with sugar; it tastes exactly like what I remember from childhood, & is available only briefly: self-limited indulgence. We buy one or two bottles & that's it until next year, aside from any summertime forays.
This year during spring cleaning, which happened to coincide with the run-up to Passover, I discovered a large bottle of last year's Passover Coke. Of course it had gone rather flat, & this year's was available, but why waste it?
So I used it.
To cook a Coca-Cola ham for the engineer.
Granted, we are goyim & I don't even eat meat at all, but still ... .
I do so hope that the downstairs neighbors, an elderly rabbi & his wife, did not hear the engineer laughing hysterically & repeating, "You used Passover Coke to cook a ham?"
Then he ate it on sourdough bread all this past week, cackling every time.
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