leafing through

There’s a lady in my office building. Probably in her late 60s, early 70s.

Here’s her bathroom ritual:

1. Enter stall
2. Flush and shut stall door
3. Flush
4. Flush
5. Flush
6. Exit

I don’t know what she’s doing in there and why it requires so many flushes in the course of no more than a minute. Shooting up? Changing her Depends? Playing with the toilet? Your guess is as good as mine. What a waste of water though. All the more reason why toilets should probably run on gray water. At the very least, the public ones.

Two weeks ago, my remaining sane teammate left the team. Granted we were all more or less dissatisfied with our jobs, and sure, we’d have our usual therapy/griping-sessions, but neither of us really actively sought out new employment. Then about three months ago, she got into a pretty heated argument with the boss wherein he said if she was dissatisfied with his treatment of her, she could go find another job. I know he said it in anger but that’s the sort of thing that he does which bristles people. It’s unkind. At about the same time, a lady on another team (who knew of our predicament because she had worked with our boss before) sent my colleague a job opening in her team. Lo and behold, at the suggestion of my boss and the timing of the new opportunity, she applied for that position in the other office.  What had been a team of 7, is now down to 4. Happy for her, totally bummed for me.

As the tuner was doing his thing, I picked his brain a bit about pianos.

• As far as digital vs. acoustic pianos, he has a digital keyboard because he lives in a small townhome, otherwise he’d prefer a vertical.
• Learning on heavier feeling keys and transitioning to a lighter keyed piano is easier than the other way around. So when you’re picking a piano, keep that in mind. That, and of course, price.
• Spinets – the smallest size of the upright pianos – are terrible. Avoid them.
• You should get your piano serviced once a year. I think we hadn’t had ours tuned for over 15 years. Oops.
• If you want a grand piano, the cheapest decent one might run upwards of $50k. But you can get one for under $10k from China. He’s not sure how long they last though because he doesn’t know if the wood is properly aged and whatnot. Yowza! That’s a pricey little toy.
• If he were to recommend a piano he’d pick a Boston. Although for him, Yamaha’s are easy to tune.

Then he picked my brain about Chinese because he’s trying to teach himself the language. Must be a lot of Chinese households with pianos.

The piano sounds so much better now! Maybe it’ll make me want to play it more now. Imagine, I, who can’t tell one note from another, could hear the flatness of the piano. It was pretty bad. He said he’d seen worse though. A whole note off.

I need a new job.  It’s been 2 years and I’ve proven my point.  What was my point?  Oh right.  That I’m not completely flighty.  I am able to stay at a job for more than 8 to 10 months at a time.  Pat on the back.  Ok, time to go.  So I started writing those blasted job applications again.  What a terrible time I’m having!  After taking a two year hiatus on it, I am rusty.  I’ve spent a good two days writing one application.  My brain is so juiced out from all the writing.  Here’s where sense kicks in and I write on my blog to take a break from writing.  I’m chock full of good ideas like that.  And I have three short papers to write for school by tomorrow.  I am so screwed.  Oh well, nothing a good happy hour can’t cure tonight.       

1. It’s hot n’ humid outside and freezing cold in the office.
2. Sales!!
3. Manageable traffic during rush hour. Yay for vacations, even if I’m not the one taking one.
4. Lush gardens.
5. Random stop and go thunderstorms.
6. BBQs
7. Mosquito bites – count them, seven red welts. Lovely.
8. They itch horribly.
9. Especially the one on my lower calf.

A few weeks ago, Europe reported an annual inflation rate of 4% on the Euro. They raised their rates to control for that and the US dollar lost value to the Euro again. For comparison, the U.S. inflation rate reported this past May was 4.2%. It’s now 5%. Our Federal Reserve Chairman has kept interest rates low though, because he’s afraid of a recession (which I already think we’re in). [Heard something funny the other day on differentiating recessions and depressions. A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose your job.] The low interest rates aren’t helping the economy though. People are wary. Banks with their worthless asset backed securities are teetering. All I’m seeing everyday are more layoffs and foreclosures and news of bear markets. I think it’s time to raise the federal funds rate dood. Fix the inflation problem first. So I can go to Europe without having to pay $8 $10 for a cuppa joe.

A friend just moved into a condo downtown two months ago, so I spent the weekend at her place to see the fireworks from her building.

Our overly ambitious plans:

• Go to Chinatown for dinner
• Head to the bars for drinks afterwards
• Play pool at her condo
• Learn belly dancing
• Watch a movie
• Get mani/pedi-cures
• Go shopping
• See the fireworks

In reality we…

• Went to Chinatown for dinner
• Went back to her place, turned on the tv and channel flipped. Got to see some practice fireworks for a while.
• She fell asleep while I went to shower
• I fell asleep while she got ready for bed. It was around midnight.
• Made waffles for breakfast
• Went to the outlets and shopped for 8 hours!! EIGHT HOURS! I was shopped out. Thank goodness the malls closed early for the holiday. While I called it a day, and sat around waiting, she was still at it. Some poor guy who was sitting by me looked so worn. I asked if his wife was in Ann Taylor because that’s where we were sitting near. He nodded. I told him that was a good ‘un, he’s gonna have to wait a while. Ha! I had first hand experience. Then, I went to track my friend down at Banana, and wound up getting 3 more shirts while she was still at some shoe store. Somebody stop me.
• Came back to do a bit of furniture rearranging because she bought a rug and 2 pillows. She’s way domestic and a leeetle bit obsessed with home decorating. Think HGTV.
• We watched the fireworks off her balcony starting at 8:30.
• Drank some bubbly, had leftover Chinese food, and wooooh-ed with the neighborhood people while watching an amazing display. It was actually multiple shows. Just when we were watching one go off, another side would launch another. It was everywhere.
• Watched the belly dancing dvd.
• Fell asleep by midnight. The fireworks were still going.

Best Fourth of July ever!

Seems I blog about every haircut I get don’t I? Minor obsession. Anyway. My hair was getting a bit raggedy and frayed, seeing as how the last time I got a cut was October of last year. Originally planned to wait another month because I didn’t think it was at the length I wanted it to be yet. Then I changed my mind because seriously, when no amount of product can make your hair look healthy, it’s time for a cut. I went to a different lady this time. She did a decent job length-wise. And I liked that she used scissors rather than a blade.

Pardon the frizzy look. I’m starting to think I have straw for hair no matter how often it’s trimmed.

Unrelated: I had no idea what a chocolate babka was, but I just had a mouthful of it and it’s so yummy, I want to eat the rest of the loaf sitting in our kitchen area. It’s like a chocolate cinnamon roll with more chocolate than roll. Oh delectable goodness. A nap right now would be icing.

It’s no wonder the American car industry is melting down. They were late to jump on the small car/hybrid bandwagon and it’s showing now.

• GM is contemplating discontinuing their Hummer line. They’ve already discontinued their H1 line.
• Car dealers are refusing vans/large trucks for trade-ins because used car sales lots can’t get rid of them.

Let’s play a game and try to guess which tank is next. Escalade, Suburban, Navigator, Tahoe, Armada, Land Cruiser, Sequoia? Which brings me to another question: why do Hummer owners get so much more guff than these other vehicle owners? Those tanks get about the same fuel mileage, and some even less than Hummers. Actually, I have no idea. I can’t seem to find the fuel economy for Expeditions, Hummers, and Escalades on their websites. Embarrassed? To be generous, I’m just going to figure they’re similar to the Armada, Land Cruiser, and Sequoia – about 12 to 18 miles a gallon, brand new off the dealer’s lot. It’d cost me $14 to get to work and home in a new tank. Give it a few years and the mileage will only worsen.

When the rest of the developed world was signing the Kyoto Accord, we snubbed our noses. When the rest of the automakers were making rinky dink cars, we scoffed and bought bigger and bigger tanks. When Europe and Asia were building high speed rails, we were paving and repaving roads. What am I talking about, we’re still paving.  And we even went to war for the almighty barrel. Pay back.