My Camera is my Best Friend [Take 2]

By now you should have read Culture Shock's post about avid photographers and the comments posted about it, as well as my own counter post in images.

So here's the other point of view. The one that no one wants to hear, understand or sympathise with. And no, it is not going to be a humourous one, so don't expect any smiles or laughs from this post.

I was raised by an avid photographer. My father buys a new camera once a year. Going anywhere with my father meant, having a tremendous amount of patience as he would give instructions, "No, stand right there!... Smile....No, don't smile.... Look at me!" Each photo would take between a minute to five minutes of composition before the photo was taken.

I H-A-T-E-D this!!! I hated standing still and looking at the camera. I hated the non-spontaneous photos. I hated the compositions that always had me or my mother or brother at the forefront of the photo. I still hate it.

Unfortunately, I inherited 99% of my father's genes, including the camera-freak gene. But having grown up hating the style of photographs my father took, I rebelled and I now take the same amount of photos without people, without asking anyone to stand still, and within one or two seconds. No waiting time for me to click the button. In most of my photos - people are either talking to someone else, or doing something. I don't ask anyone to smile.

80% of my photos are of things and places. The other 20% is a result of being the only one with a camera at an event that needs someone to take pictures (Company events, charity events, volunteer efforts, school events, etc). I don't particularly enjoy the 20% aspect of taking photos, but I realise it has brought a lot of joy to others, and that is why I do it. I've been thanked so many times, that I cannot be convinced by a couple of bleeding hearts who say "oh dear, you've captured my soul." So what if I have??? Sue me!

But here's why I take pictures of people, and I'll try not to go into all the sad stories of my life and just give you one example. I take photos at every family-in-law event (e.g. holidays, weddings, etc). No one else in my family-in-law had a camera 'til very recently. They got used to seeing me with a camera. A very sad ending to Christmas one year has taken away a dearly loved aunt who was seriously ill for two years. I'm not good at consolations. I'm not good with words of comfort. I'm not good at showing empathy. But I'm good at taking a lot of photographs. I looked through all my past photographs of the deceased, and found several good photographs. I put them in an envelope and sent them to her husband with a card wishing him good and happy memories. He called me as soon as he got them and could not stop thanking me, because these were the only photos of his beloved wife in recent years. Two years later, he still gives me a hug every time he sees me and thanks me for that gesture. It was something so small for me to do, yet meant the world to him to be able to look at his wife's face captured with a smile in these photos.

I have photos in my closet, inside boxes, of friends who have since passed on. Photos that bring back fond memories of good people that I will never see again. Photos that mean the world to me.

Yes, I have thousands and thousands of photos. Friends I haven't seen in years. Friends I see every year. It's a great feeling to look through these photos once in five years when I clean my closet. Friends mean the world to me. Photographs of them bring me what my memory is not capable of providing. I can recall moments captured in a photo a lot better than a moment that was never captured in a photo. Maybe it's the visual side of me or the ability to "re-review" that moment again and again. Some people like watching reruns on TV. Some like re-reading books. Some like watching Sports replays. I'm no different.

So those of you who are upset at someone taking your photo, you ought to see it as a compliment more than anything. Someone wants to remember you. Someone thinks that one day in future seeing your photo is going to bring a smile and a good memory. We're not doing this to cause you harm. We're not doing this to upset you. We're not doing this with an evil mind. We're doing it because that's how we capture our memories.

You can believe me that I wouldn't waste my time and money on taking a photo of someone I dislike or someone I don't care to remember in future. Heck, it pains me to do so when I attend an event and there's this someone I really can't stand but courtesy dictates that I must indeed take a photo of that person, too. It annoys me to no end when this person just walked in front of the subject that I really wanted to get a photo of! So there goes photo 077 of two nicely composed men, because the blonde *%tch walked in front of my camera.

As you understood by now, I take photos of almost everything. No, I don't carry the camera with me daily. I only take it with me when there's a scheduled event. Otherwise it stays home. But I do go out of my way to get photos of particular weather phenomena or natural phenomena that amaze me in the U.S. (e.g. The Cicadas appearing on ground after 17 years - shown in the photo from my previous post), simply because I send these photos to my family back in Israel. In return I get CD's filled with hundreds of photos of my family from the past month or so. It's the only way I can see my nephews and niece growing. I cherish each and every photo! It's as if I saw them once a month face to face.

Yes, when I travel it means 600+ photos, and possibly twenty of the same bison. But out of those twenty I have one awesome photo to show off to friends and family who've never seen a Bison before.

And out of the ten photos of the grass growing, there's one where you can actually see the grizly bear looking for food.

I take a ton of photos in the hopes that at least one of them will be awesome enough to show my friends. So I suppose in a round-about way, I've just considered you all my friends.

Yeah, I admit to taking a lot of photos. Yeah I admit I'm a camera freak. And yes, I do indeed carry a lot of things with me at all times, so adding a camera is not a big deal. I couldn't care less what anyone else thinks about seeing me with a backpack on me at all times.

I look like a geek.

I look like a freak.

But I'm always prepared

with a camera this week.

Culture Shock, ball's in your court.

My Camera is my Best Friend

First, let me react to the "accusations" posted by Culture Shock:

"For example, they will take a picture of the road (the SAME road they already have 1423 pictures of) every single time they walk past it."

Yes, it is the same road. It's not 1423 photos, it's only 65. It's not even every year. Just when I happen to be in the office at the right time and season.

“Hey look! Dog over there taking a shit… SNAP!”

Taken August 2, 2002. Look at those leg muscles!

“OH look! man crossing the street … SNAP!”

And he's dressed like a fecking cow!

“Hey! There’s a blue car … SNAP!”

No, there's three of them!

"They want the ‘PROOF’, specific visual proof that they just witnessed whatever it was they witnessed."

Because I've never seen a Hurricane pass this town before, and we don't have those in Israel!

"I cherish the rarity in the one-time visual or occurrence"

So do I !

"But for fuck’s sake stop taking pictures of a dead bird on the sidewalk."

It's not a bird, it's a cat! [Courtesy of another unknown avid photographer]

"Oh look! …Happy Friday … take a picture of that. SNAP!"

[To Be Cont.]

Short post for now

I have a splitting headache, result of staying up late to save 300+ photos from a retirement party to my hard-drive and thumb-drive, so this post is going to be short for now.

But later tonight (if the stars are aligned just right), there will be a post to "react" to my friend's rant about people who take photographs of everything. And I won't even make it 1000 words, I'll enclose photos instead. What a bonus! Tune in for exciting photos to represent each and every example my friend has given, and then some. Are you as excited as I am?

Meanwhile, I just wanted to write about something that happened that night of the big storm (see previous post). Our neighbours 3 doors down from us, had a very large pot on their grass. The pot itself was about a foot and a half wide, very tall plant in it (my height). Well, after escaping a sure accident with the fallen tree, it was no surprise that we got to the house and noticed the pot was tipped over the pavement, with half the plant outside the pot. Two hours later, our neighbours pulled into the driveway, as I overheard my husband welcome them home outside our front door, "Your plant tried to escape, so I shot it!"


Toda la'el hayom yom shishi!

Lucky Juice

[No spoilers are sacrificed in this post.]

Harry Potter in the latest book learns about The Lucky Juice. You drink it and anything you try for the next 24 hours - you get lucky with. Yesterday I was planning on writing about my Lucky Juice. But as it turns out someone gave me a mixed drink instead.

As you've already heard, a week ago a coffee-addict ran into my car. Well, with some extraordinary stroke of luck, the woman is married to a car shop owner. NN, if you're going to be run into, then make sure it's someone married to a car shop owner, not just anybody off the street. This wasn't just any car shop, but Chrysler. So now you all understand why my Jeep loving husband was so eager to communicate directly with her husband. At this woman's request, rather than going through the insurance company, I just took my car to her husband's shop and he took care of everything (the rental car and the new bumper installation). Very nice man. I felt rather lucky to find this out. This was a much better experience than having to go through the process of getting an estimate, leaving my car to the Honda dealership, etc. This way everything was done quick and without too much of a hassle.

Slight problem I ran into, my rental car…on the hottest day of the year decides that I didn't really need air-conditioning or a radio in my car. I was p*ssed! I mean com'n, this is the hottest day of the year, and I can't listen to the damn news??? But I guess that's what I get for writing how much I love heat in my blog. I'm beginning to see a pattern here, because every time I plan on writing something in my blog, something happens to prove me wrong.

So yesterday I went to pick up my car from the shop. I spent two hours observing the fire truck across the street from the dealership dealing with a fuel leak on the road (fascinating!), and then spent some time making faces at my newly refurbished car which didn't look quite like what other Hondas look like. So I took the guy across his parking lot and showed him what a bumper should look like ("See, it's supposed to be flush with the body of the car, not jutting out by quarter of an inch on the side."). He kept trying to convince me there's nothing he can do, and I kept trying to convince him I'm not taking the car this way. So he took it back in, called the mechanic who worked on it, took the bumper off, showed me the clip-on mechanism and explained why it cannot go further in. I stood my ground. Now, typically, I'd give up, but when it comes to cars, I always think WWJD ("What would [my husband's name starts with a J] do?") . And since I know my husband very well, I knew he'd answer back with "it's up to you! Are you happy with this?" I answered myself back, "Heck, no!" …"Well, there you go!" After half an hour of tinkering around with the bumper, the guys figured it out, there's a two-click sound you have to aim for in order to embed the bumper firmly in the socket. Lo and behold it's nice and flush now! The owner of the shop was SO happy, he told me that he has this problem with every Honda and he's happy to have finally figured out why this is happening and how easily it's fixed. I told him he ought to pay me for the service of teaching him. "Check is in the mail."

Then I was off on my merry way to work at my main office (where we have a T1 cable and not a freaking dial-up) and where it's a bit easier to deal with a 26MB PDF file (those are a pain in the @ss!!! Why does the freaking thing have to open the internet each and every time to advertise the Adobe Acrobat. I got the message the first time, no need to keep on doing it for each file I open. But I guess you get what you pay for, especially if you haven't paid anything for it). Bunch of annoyances ensued, and I was about to hit the roof with my boss's comments on my final report. But fine, I'm not about to use the F word on him like I did a couple of days ago with another manager.

5pm came and I get a husband-check-up-call, "Ummm…are you coming home today?" I forgot to tell him I'd be late. So my penance was, "We're going out to dinner then." Alright, fine. Now, DH knew about the weather forecast because he's been home for a couple of hours, but he doesn't tell me about it and I had no reason to suspect with it being 104 degrees outside and sunny. This resulted in a $500+ dinner bill.

We got to the restaurant, started eating, when snow started falling outside. Oh wait, that wasn't snow, that's the flowers off the trees flying all over under the air pressure of tornado strength winds. My husband, of course, goes into his own M.O and says, "Ooooh, the dog isn't going to be happy with you!" And I look at him and say, "What are you talking about, it's just wind, nothing more." Sure enough, torrential downpour ensues, power goes out in the restaurant, and all the signs were there for us to leave the place and head back home. Risking getting soaked wet as we ran to the car, we made it. Driving through torrential downpour on a highway was quite amusing to say the least. Everyone was down to 20 mph. We got to the exit ramp towards our house, and I tell my husband, "Slow down!!! There's ALWAYS a fallen branch around the bend after this type of storm." My husband laughs, and I now insist that he slows down considerably. So he decides to amuse me and slows down to 2mph. When we get around the bend - sure enough, a huge tree was down covering the entire lane we were on. If we drove at the normal speed we typically drive around that bend, I'd be writing this from the hospital bed with several broken bones to write about. There's no way a car could have made it around that bend without going directly into the tree.

Lucky Juice felt really good at this point.

We got home (after doing another car shuffle), and sure enough power was out. I just wanna know, who the *#&@ spiked my juice? So what choice do I have? No blog last night. We went to bed. At midnight my dog is all upset and wanted to go out. I asked him where his dad was and no answer ("stupid dog!"). I took him out, he came back and stayed on that floor instead of coming back up or going down to the basement where his dad must have been (with no power, no air-condition, it's cooler to sleep down in the basement). I waited a few minutes upstairs, dog didn't show up but I heard him pacing mid-level. Stupid dog is afraid of the dark, I figured. So I take my flash light and show him the way to his dad. (Keep in mind, this is a Labrador retriever, not a poodle afraid of his shaddow, but apparently our dog doesn't know he's a lab dog and we have proof that he thinks he's a lap dog). I get downstairs and my husband says, "What's the matter?" So I explained to him his dog is afraid of the dark. My husband raises his voice and says, "I'm upset with him right now, he better not be around me!" I'm all in shock, "You're upset because he's afraid of the dark???" My husband turns on the emergency light and points to our sofa. New sofa. All torn to little tiny pieces. 8.5 year old dog, who still can't handle thunderstorms like an adult. I should have gotten that book on how to live with a Neurotic Dog instead of Harry Potter!

Lucky Juice loses its charm.

Cost of dinner $20, Cost of new sofa $480. Look on dog's face, priceless.

Home Owners Associations be Damned

Anyone who's lived in a townhouse development is familiar with the dreaded committee called Home Owners Association. We've had to suffer all kinds of stupid warning letters from ours during the first years in our townhouse. But then 9-11 happened and oddly enough they got off our case.

So here's the story, I'm Israeli, as I'm sure some of you have guessed it by now. This means that once a year the Israeli flag is placed outside our front door on Israel's Independence day. I figure - it's a free country, free speech, religious tolerance, I can do this just like I did for a few years at the rented apartment. That flag gets put out there in the evening, stays for 25 hours and I take it back in. Nothing outrageously huge, just a regular flag you put outside the house. Much like seasonal flags or the American flags we now see all around us.

This one year, about a month after Israel's independence day we got a letter from the HOA that said "Remove the flag from the front of your house." So we're sort of baffled, because when we got the letter there was no flag out there. Though, admittedly we did put up the American Flag on Memorial Day, a few days earlier. So we decided to attend the HOA's meetings and find out who's the moron that sent us this letter.

Then the head of the HOA at the time tells me someone complained about my Israeli flag. And I'm standing there confused because I know all my neighbours, and everyone loves Israel and no one has said a word to me about my flag being out there for 25 hours. So now I look suspiciously at all my neighbours wondering, who's the bleeding antisemite who doesn't understand the American constitution and what America stands for.

So I dismissed this incidence as an antisemite event, and for some calendar issues did not put up the flag for another year. But after Memorial day, comes 4 of July. Well, lo and behold, we get another letter telling us to remove the flag from the front of our house. This time with a quote that states nothing is allowed to be added to the front of the townhouse without explicit permission from the HOA. So now, I felt all better, and realise we're dealing not only with antisemites but unpatriotic HOA. A year later, I put out my flag again and yup, got another letter. So that 4th of July, my husband decided we are not going to comply with their *@&ing rules that require us to get permission to put anything on our front lawn. So he took the initiative to send them a message:

Yes, those are small American flags, commemorating 225 years to the Unites States of America.

Our neighbours loved this so much that they've been asking us to do this ever since.

Then we went on the offensive and got our beloved neighbours rallied up as we decided to start a petition, with the knowledge that if 75% of the homeowners sign it, it will be approved by the HOA. The petition requested permission to put a flag out by the front door. We took our time with this petition, we were in no rush (the next holiday was not for another ten months).

Then 9-11 happened. A week later, my husband approached the president of the HOA and with considerable restraint, said to him, "Look, you're going to become extremely unpopular if you make us go through this ridiculous petition, while the entire country is hanging out the American flag."

Well, the flags went up on every townhouse, and no one said a word to us or anyone else since. The president resigned within a couple of months. Hasn't shown his face in a meeting, since. The homeowners manual received an addendum within a few months allowing for flags to be put out. (Amazing what this country has to go through before some people realise how ridiculous their rules are).

So what had me talking about this? Yes, you guessed it, once again we got another letter. This time it wasn't personal. This time, the entire development got a letter, not from the HOA but from the management of this Development, may they rot in hell.

Six days ago a letter was attached to our door. To paraphrase this letter (which I threw to the trash upon receiving) - "Remove your car from the parking lot on Tuesday July 26 from 7am till the following day at 12pm, we are going to repave the road."

So you're thinking, "What's the big deal?" Well, here goes - our development is off the highway. We were already warned that if we park our cars on the highway, they'll be towed. The side street in this development which is scheduled for Wednesday's paving can contain 10 extra cars across the houses. 6 of which are already taken by people who have 3 cars per townhouse. Our street has seventy (70!) cars that will need to find a parking spot WHERE????????

God forbid they actually put some planning and scheduling into this fiasco and have this done in phases, or at least told us where we could park alternatively, particularly the handicapped among us! (Yes, I have a handicapped sticker, but because I always have a spot across my front door, I never use it).

Here's the personal problem - we have three cars (my husband's two gas guzzlers and my environmentally friendly Mybrid, which is in the shop as of this morning, so I have a rental). The additional problem - my mother-in-law is visiting till Wednesday, with her car. Solution: "The car shuffle" game. Husband drives one Jeep to shopping center half a mile away, I follow him, pick him up and bring him back. Then husband takes his mom's car, drives it to the shopping center, I follow him and pick him up.

Tomorrow's logistics will involve, us communicating at what time we plan to be home so one of us can park at the shopping center and the other will bring us both home. I suppose we can ask my poor mother-in-law who just had surgery to stand outside and keep a spot for us while we pick each other up.

I don't envy the family who's gone out on vacation for two weeks, and did not get this warning on time. Because the letter clearly stated "...or your car will be towed at your expense."

Funny thing - we found out our neighbour is now the vice president of the HOA, and HE didn't know about this letter going out. Gotta love a management company that doesn't communicate with the HOA. And then they wonder why no one ever volunteers to be active in these committees?!

Oh yeah, I sense some heavy shouting and screaming tomorrow out on our street. Wish I didn't have to go to work tomorrow. I'll have to ask my mother-in-law to sit by the window all day and give me hour-by-hour accounts of what's going on while I'm at work.

Summer's Heat

I love hot weather. And if it's hot & humid - all the better. I believe I must be the only person on earth to love hot and humid weather. Somehow it seems that every time I try and strike a conversation in the elevator about this beautiful weather, people begin to move to the furthest wall from me, as if I'm contagious.

I was never that child who said "I love the winter" when it was summer and "I love summer" when it was winter. I was always loyal to summer. I can't stand cold weather, wind, rain, and absolutely detest ice and snow. I get depressed when I know it's about to snow. But what I hate most of all about the winter is the dry weather, where I get static shocks all day long from touching people or anything metalic. There are days when I won't eat because I'm scared of the refrigerator. On occasions I've been known to schedule my bathroom breaks at work to coincide with someone else opening the door for me.

Now with cars - that's a whole new hate relationship in the winter. When I once told someone about the static shocks he didn't understand why that's such an issue. Then he walked me to my car (it was dark outside), and I had the key ready to put in the door, when this beautiful lightning came between the key and the car before I even touched it. He was in such a shock that he just stood there and kept asking, "What did you do???" Believe me, it was painful. And it's always painful.

So is it really a surprise that I love humidity?!

On my previous cars I resolved this problem with a nifty gadget that is very popular in Israel. It's a grounding strip you attach to the back of the car **. Only problem is that my car wasn't designed for this strip to be attached, so my husband had to go way under my car to stick somewhere there. For the next 8 years I drove with people honking at me and "warning" me that there's something hanging underneath my car ("yeah, I know, and did you notice the colourful reflectors on it?"). Once I told them it was a grounding strip they seemed rather amazed that there is such a thing.

And then I bought Mybrid. So I asked my husband to place my grounding strip underneath it, and found out there's no way it can be done. You see, the aerodynamics of the Hybrids means there's a flat metal panel underneath the car, all the way from front to back. So I'll have to suffer next winter. Or I may just stop driving during winters.

Why am I talking about the weather when there's so much else to talk about? Because there is one thing I don't particularly like about the summer. Actually, there are two. Mosquitoes and getting sunburnt.

And yes, sure enough after spending four hours at a company picnic, I got a "nice" sunburn (I really envy my dark skinned friends!). And no Aloe Vera in the world is bringing me relief right now. I just feel like crawling into bed, and sleeping this one out. But I can't - tomorrow is Mybrid's Fixin' Day.

Overall, this hasn't been the best of weeks. I could have done without this one.

** So I googled the words 'car grounding strip israel' and was baffled by all the top results speaking about ground assault on the gaza strip. Okay, that's NOT what I meant! One day, I'll have to dedicate a post to Google.

An Eagle's Shit and a Bucket of Water

So it's been 3 weeks since I started working in the trailer with WL, and I'm slowly getting used to his habits, sayings, rants, observations, and humour. Or at least I thought so, when this morning he invited me for a cup of coffee (I hate coffee drinkers!). As we head out the door he seems all cheerful and says, "The Eagle shits tonight!" Short on words, I exercised my right to use facial expressions in reaction. WL is rather observant and realises I'm baffled by his reference. This is when he goes into a 15 minute dissertation about the Eagle's shit and his bucket of water.

The Eagle shits every Thursday according to traditional Naval beliefs (check out the letter E for eagle). Money from the government goes into the bank. Or as WL explains, "The eagle metaphorically shits water into my bucket."

He continues, "So I have this bucket of water, and our company fills it about half way, then my other job fills it a bit further. But this bucket, you see - it has holes. And the water escapes from these holes. Some holes are fairly small, but sometimes when I'm really drunk - I wake up the following morning with a hangover and I realise that I had just used too large a drill when I made a hole in my bucket while I was drunk."

At this point, I'm trying to control my laughter because we're in a public cafeteria, but WL has no mercy on me and continues.

"So this bucket has holes, and water escapes, but sometimes, like when the police catch you for speeding - it's not a hole. They grab the water from the top ...with a ladle."

I am beginning to figure it all out and exclaim, "Oh! You make the holes, but if someone else takes out of it they use a ladle?!"

WL is proud of me at this point, "You got it! Now, I also have a couple of other buckets. One doesn't have any holes in it, but not much goes in it to begin with - that's my 401 bucket. Then the other one is my savings bucket, and every so often I drain it into my big bucket because my big bucket is running on empty."

"Now on Christmas nice people come and fill up my bucket and it's nice. But sometimes on some sad occasions someone passes on a bucket to me. I don't like it when that happens."

"I know that in future I'll be able to repair some of those holes in my bucket, like in a couple of years when my son turns 18 and I no longer owe child support, but then I'll have to make a bigger hole for his college."

When WL was done with his dissertation I was determined to bring a tape recorder to work from now on. There's a fountain of blogging in that man. I just need to get him enough coffee to get him going.

Here's to healthy and regular Eagles!

N.B. The eagle may shit on Thursdays, but there's a bird here that shits on WL's car every day! And WL is not the least happy about it.

Toda la'el hayom yom shishi!

The Eagle Shits Tonight

Details to follow.

Stay tuned.

It's one of Those Hondays

I should have never left the house this morning! My first clue was at 2am when I woke up in pain. But no, I wouldn't take the hint. Since today is the all-important non-progress meeting and because I had the dozen copies of the Meeting Minutes, I had no choice but tough it up and go to work. So I took a pain pill. It's my favourite brand - contains codeine and caffeine, awesome combination for me.

Dealing with pains early in the morning typically means my deadline for leaving the house is shot to hell. So I got in the car 30 minutes later than my self-given deadline. At this point I should have just gotten out of the car, stepped back in the house, and stayed there! Instead, I called WL and announced my impending lateness. And off I go on my merry way, or at least I wanted to believe that.

Two turns before my destination as I reach a red light and slow down, a coffee addict behind me decides this is a good time to take a sip and spill her coffee. So your assumption, NN, that coffee drinkers are harmless creatures has just been shot to hell. I've been rear ended by a coffee drinker who was so high on caffeine that she got out of her car and immediately admitted, "I'm so sorry, I just spilled my coffee."

So that's what had me shaken this morning. Mybrid took a hit in the back bumper, and then there was chain reaction of hitting the guy who was stopped at the light in front of me. Thankfully, that guy was really nice and admitted that the damage on his bumper was existent and he drove off. But my back bumper has adopted the colour of the coffee addict's car.

So here's my short rant about you coffee addicts - is that one sip really worth it on a 40mph road with street lights? Can you not wait till you reach a full stop to take a sip? That cup of coffee just cost you $200+. No drink can possibly be worth it, can it???

So yeah, admittedly the damage from this meeting of the Hondas isn't huge, and besides a slightly shaken self and a sore back for a couple of hours this morning, I'm fine. But the waste of time of going through phone calls between me, her, and the respective husbands, was just unnecessary.

Mybrid's husband: "I understand our wives ran into each other this morning, and not in a good way."

Coffee Addict's husband: "Seems that we both have issues with wives and accidents."

At this point, I should have done an about-face and headed back home, or to the ER, or any place besides work. But no, I don't take hints very well. I called WL and left him a message, "Been in an accident, bit shaken, but will be there shortly." I got there soon enough, got inside the trailer and borrowed WL's camera for evidence shots to email my husband. Well, here's the thing, emailing 3MB on a dial-up connection that keeps dropping me off is not my idea of a good time at 7am.

At 9am our non-progress meeting was scheduled to begin, but since our manager did not show up at 8:45am I was left behind to wait for him and sign him in when we enter the government facility, while WL went ahead to the meeting room. Our manager arrived at 8:55am ("Took a wrong turn"), so we quickly entered the back door to the building, only to be greeted by a former-friendly-now-not-so-friendly guard who says, "You can only sign visitors at the front of the building. Go around to the main entrance." We're not too happy, and start heading out and around the building when WL calls me and says, "I forgot the dozen copies of Meeting Minutes in the trailer, can you go get them?" So I head back down the hill, grab the folder, and proceed to lock the door. Key refuses to cooperate and decides to stay put. I start my battle with the key and the knob as our manager is observing this quite comical fight from the top of the hill wondering why I'm wasting time trying to make him laugh. Eventually I give in and leave the key in the door hoping no one will consider breaking and entring into our trailer. ("I should have never left my HOUSE!")

We got to the meeting 10 minutes late, and I started up my 4 year old laptop. The 4-year old begins to act like one. The cursor got stuck in right margin hell and would not budge. So I shut down and turn it back on, meanwhile trying to write down some of the points discussed. 4-year old thinks, "Oh wouldn't it be funny if I made her think the cursor is fine and five minutes into her typing I play with her and disable the mouse entirely?" So mid-meeting, I slam my laptop shut in frustration and recite to myself, "I should have NEVER left the house!"

Meeting is done, we get back to our trailer. I need some music to calm my nerves a bit. I plug in my 8 day-old MP3 player, turn it on, and hear an odd buzzing sound. I think to myself, "Ok, I don't recall recording any songs with bees in it, what's going on?" I look at the screen and it's stuck in the middle of a song. So I push the off button. Nothing happens. I soft reset. Soft reset. SOFT RESET! Nothing. Keeps coming back on to the same place in the same song. Can't turn the #(@*ing MP3 player off. I look at the screen again to read the song's name: "I'm the gutter type." (from Living Out Loud). This about sums up my feelings at that point.

WL recommended I call the company Customer Service, which is fine, except that our trailer is on a Dial-up connection and to find the Customer Service phone number through ten web pages was excruciating to say the least. [Note to self: Next blog topic - dial-up connection]

While I wait for the web page to come up I decide to take a Fanta break. Did I mention I should have stayed home today? Fanta takes a liking to the trailer floor without asking me first whether there are any paper towels in this stinking place.

It's almost 2pm and time to go home and I think in relief, what could possibly go wrong now, when my sister-in-law calls me and says, "Don't forget tomorrow is your parents' Anniversary." DOH!!!

I finished the conversation and my cellphone beeps at me - "Battery dead." What the #(@*! So when I got into my car, I had to plug my cellphone to the charger, which meant the GPS and PDA had to run without charging as I find my way to the Repair Shop. Everything is just fine at this point, until I am about to head back home and the GPS dies on me. But I can't charge the GPS and the cellphone. So I opt for the cellphone. Meanwhile I try to zoom out of the map on my PDA so I can find my way back home from a visual display of what was supposed to be my route back home, when my PDA dies, too. I should have NEVER LEFT THE HOUSE!

Oh yeah, and before I left the office, in a last effort to cheer myself up I opened my personal email, and there it is a 1MB email (don't forget the dial-up) from pw with the subject line: "Tough day at the office." [Elastic Band]

Coffee drinkers - harmless my @ss!

About coffee drinkers

This isn't going to be a long rant, but right now I hate coffee drinkers.

I'm still a little shaken from my encounter with a coffee drinker this morning, so I'll post after I recover. May take a day or two.

[Originally I was planning to write that I need a mental break from this blog for personal reasons, but then came the encounter, which will give me enough material for a blog or two].

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

I hate the stink of cigarette smoke! So if you're a smoker reading my blog, yes, this is a rant about your fellow smokers. I have an urge to lump all you smokers together in this rant, but I know that it'd be a huge generalization and would do injustice to some very considerate pleasant smokers.

I've been "blessed" with a very acute sense of smell (check out Sensory Integration Disorder), which means I smell some odors way before anyone else notices. I'm the canary bird of this stinking world. And believe me, it stinks! I get headaches when anyone uses cleaning detergents or sprays in the same room (may it be large as a football stadium). Some smells are easy to avoid and I've adjusted to life by simply not going into the ice cream parlor or other strong smelling places. But there's one thing I find difficult to tolerate - the #*@ing smokers who think that if there's no roof above them it means they're outside and are not emitting foul smells right at the entrance and exit from a building.

While there may not be a roof above you, that smell does not just go away - poof, gone! Those toxic particles remain in the air for a very long time after you're gone. And if more of you stand there at the entrance every single day, that smell never goes away. That stink you leave in the elevator when you leave is absolutely intolerable to some of us non-smokers. Not to mention, working next to you, is like putting on an ashtray for an oxygen mask. That stink clings to your clothes, your breath, your body. It does NOT go away just because you smoked outside.

How did this even come about? I work here in a trailer, outside the building, across the smoke-shack. The governmental smoke shack, where your tax dollars are at work. Believe me, if you sat here all day and saw what I see every day you'd begin to rethink this strategy of accommodating all smokers. There's this one lady, that I swear to dog, she must work a whopping 15 minutes inside the building, because the rest of it, she's right across our trailer with a cigarette in her hand. And I'll be darned if WL and I did not count 27 seconds and 31 seconds between each of her cigarettes. She's one of those seriously addicted, who is out there at 7am smoking on her own, without any company, or in blazing heat of 94 degrees farenheit smoking one after the other. She's a fixture in our backyard. She waves to each guard that drive in their cart around the building on a regular basis. They know her. Who doesn't?! What I want to know, she gets a government salary, a killer benefits package (including medical insurance) - our tax dollars - for working 40 hours a week, yet I see her out there 35 hours a week. Are we seriously paying her to smoke??? I find it difficult to believe that her bosses believe she does any valuable work when she's hardly ever in the office.

Now if she were the only one, this wouldn't be a worthy post. But she has friends. Many of them. Avid smokers who keep her company through the day. I think the only positive thing about this woman is that she's so obese that she has to sit down in the smoking shack. But there are others, that apparently cannot stand her hysterical laugh every five minutes, so they stand on the ramp to the back door to the building. And yes, that is the ramp that I must enter the building several times a day. And that is where that smoke smell annoys me to no end. One day I feel like taking a can of some nasty smelling detergent and spray it right there and see if anyone says anything to me. I dare them!

Then there's the subcontractor who works with us. Smokes right under our window, so we can't open it through the day (this was particularly intolerable when our air-conditioner broke). Then he puts out his cigarette (God forbid these smokers put it out in an ashtray provided in the smoking-shack ten feet away), and comes into our trailer emitting odors of stink all around him. As pleasant as he may be in person, I find that stink so off putting that I can't even smile to the man when he comes in.

There's a shopping mall in our town, where kids, and I'm talking 13 year olds and 15 year olds, smoke right at the entrance to the mall. I stopped entering from the front entrance. I can no longer tolerate entering the smoking tunnel to enter the food court. I lose my appetite not only from the smoke but seeing so many clueless kids light up. Where are their parents? Smoking, too? Where's the legal system that doesn't allow selling cigarettes to minors but does nothing to stop minors from smoking - especially in public!

So all the research out there has proven time and again that smoking is bad for you. What will it take for you to take this seriously and find an addiction program to join and get rid of this deadly habit? Your kids getting ill from second-hand smoking? Your father dying from lung cancer? Your loved one suffering in the hospital with a ventilator? (all of which I've witnessed) Do you honestly think only old age brings disease? Have you never seen young kids suffer from second-hand smoke afflicted diseases? Do you not realise that this addiction is labeling you as a Smoker, a weakling, and an inconsiderate selfish human being? Of course you realise it. And you're all angry at us non-smokers who judge you this way. Screw you! You're digging your own hole, it's not our #*@ing fault that YOU had chosen to live this way. Go ahead and ask every ex-smoker and they will outright tell you that they cannot for the life of them understand why they smoked for so many years and how they no longer can enter a bar filled with smoke. I know, I'm married to one (an ex-smoker, not a bar).

Your habit is annoying and making us angry passive smokers in this hostile environment. Why does the workplace accommodate you and give you those 15 minute smoke break, yet check their watch should a non-smoker leave their desk for 5 minutes? And how come no one ever checks how MANY 15 minutes smoke breaks you're taking through the day. Because we all know, that you, the addict, cannot possibly live on just one 15 minute smoke break in the morning and one in the afternoon. You abuse the system and have no qualms about it, because god forbid someone takes you up to task and you'll shout in innocence, "But I'm allowed 15 minute smoke break" - as if that's really all you take every day.

You know what, it's a useless post, because the seriously addicted will never see themselves in this post. They're in denial (and outside smoking right now). They don't look at their watches. They don't look at our disgusted faces when we pass them. They just don't care if they stink the elevator. All that matters in the world to them is that tobacco and the toxins they inhale. Heck, they don't even care about having their kids watch them die in pain from a smoke-related illness. They just don't care. And I hate people who don't care.

<. /End Rant>

Pottermania

It was a dark and stormy night. Thunderstorms and lightning. A night filled with magic in the air. Half moon in the skies. Friday could not have fallen at a better time.

For those of you who have been sheltered from the news, this is about book six in a series of seven books detailing the life of the Wizard Harry Potter.

I know some of you are rolling their eyes up and saying, "Oh no! Not another fanatic of that ridiculous popular mania." I can assure you that I'm not nearly as bad as what I saw on Friday at midnight.

I'm on p. 12, which is quite an achievement considering I woke up at 2pm on Saturday, had breakfast at 3pm, and spent Sunday morning watching Lance Armstrong and George Hincapie's historical stage win.

I bought my first Harry Potter book in 1998, when it first came out in the U.S., long before it became as popular as it is today. I bought it because my eyes got caught on the beautiful graphics on the cover. I've been meaning to email GrandPre since then to tell her what an awesome job she did in marketing that book to me. I didn't buy the book at first sight. I waited a couple of days. By strange coincidence I spoke that week to my friend, an author, and he asked me if I've read the book. He strongly encouraged that I get the book and read it. I've been thankful to him since, for introducing this wonderful series.

A couple of years later this book started making waves and more and more articles covered this new phenomenon, which I never quite understood. While I completely agree that this is an awesome series I honestly don't know how it became such a hit among kids and adults. Either Jim was telling everyone he knew about this book, or it wasn't just Jim.

So no, I'm not into dressing up as Harry Potter, or learning witchcraft. I just enjoy reading these very imaginative books. I'm totally amazed at the author's ability to use her imagination to such an extent. In a way I'm jealous. I recall a time when I had this imagination. I think it was 30 years ago when I was rather young. But like all children, I grew up, lost my imagination, and regret it ever since.

I think it was the publication of the fourth Harry Potter book when Barnes and Noble opened its doors at midnight on July 7, 2000. That day I decided to borrow my friend's daughter and grab my husband to the bookstore. Just because I thought it was neat that they'd open a bookstore at midnight to sell one book. I didn't do my research properly that time, and did not reserve any books. We got into the bookstore at 11pm and were astonished at the amount of people inside. We proceeded to go to the back of the store, where we thought the end of line would be. Walked all the way to the back, then realised the line was bending to the left. So we followed it to the left, only to find out it was winding back all the way to the right. So off we go to the right edge of the store, when we notice that this is not the end of the line yet. We continued to follow the line of people only to end up...yup, at the front doors! That experience alone was enough to bring me back three years later when the fifth book was published (we combined the event with my husband's birthday).

On Friday, nothing would stop me from repeating the tradition. It was well worth the 40 minute drive East to pick up my friend's two daughters, only to return back to our favourite bookstore in town (Barnes and Noble). I put on my special shirt for the event, which I bought a year ago during our trip from Montana to Maryland (via Yellowstone Park).

NN, now you understand the reference?

We got in the store at 11pm, glad to know we had two books reserved this time. That sticker you see on the shirt with the yellow circle and the number two is how we were "registered" to receive our books at midnight.

I don't think any of the newspaper articles I read fully described the atmosphere in a bookstore when everyone there is waiting to buy the same book. Besides the costumed kids and adults, the staff put on costumes and brought in support staff from all over. The store was divided into four colours: Red, Green, Yellow and White. When I asked about the meaning of these colours I was told that due to copyright issues they could not call it "House Colours" (after the four wizard houses in the Harry Potter books), so instead these are just "plain colours." The people with the red stickers were the first to arrive and register at the store (I'm thinking they were there since lunchtime at least!). The green were next, the yellow were last. That is "if you ordered the books ahead of time." Otherwise, if you walk off the street you're put in the shameful white line. In 2000 there was no separation to colours. You stood in line with everyone. If you ordered a book, you could feel relieved. If you didn't you'd pray that you're not far enough back to have reached the "books sold out" point. We got lucky that year. But all the people who stood 20 people back from us were not as fortunate. They had to go empty handed after waiting two hours in line.

But we're in 2005, and bookstores learned their lesson. Everyone had more than enough books on the shelves, and yesterday I saw enough of them all over town.

So what is it like to be in a store at 11pm with over 500 people waiting for midnight? Entertaining to say the least. My first visit to the bathroom set the tone for the rest of the evening, as two young ladies in their 20's stood in front of the mirror and discussed how to best apply the lightning bolt "tattoo." ["I am going to put it on my forehead"..."No, I prefer to put it on my wrist, but put it where people will see it!"]. As I got out of the bathroom I had to climb over a bunch of people who were seated down in the aisles. I mean, com'n, what else can you do while trying to keep your place in line, whether you're red, green, yellow or white. Many of them came together in groups. Family outings. The picnic baskets were the only thing missing. But many found other alternatives, ranging from reading, through playing games. What I can tell you for sure - Starbucks lost a lot of money that night by not staying open next door. Instead, a long line of trying-to-stay-awake-adults stood patiently waiting for their cup of coffee.

As I walked around trying to take in the atmosphere, I overheard a lady say, "I wish I brought my book so I could read it while waiting." And I'm thinking, "Lady, you're in a BOOKSTORE! Find that d@mn book here and read it!"

Half hour later the speakers announced "The people who have a black spider on their hat have won a prize." I watched amused as some of the adults in costumes checked their hats. Yes, it wasn't only kids dressed up as Harry Potter and Hermione, there were teenagers, parents, and just wierdos dressed up. The only thing I didn't see this time were the Klingons from Star Wars, who somehow always manage to find events to crash.

Next announcement came "The end of the white line is now marked with a white balloon." [Good luck finding that balloon with all the bookshelves in your way]. Then came the next exciting announcement, "Ten more minutes to Harry Potter!" This was rather nerve wrecking at this point as everyone began to get up from their places on the floor. Next we heard, "Five minutes to Harry Potter!"

Then came the announcement, "It's midnight!" 500+ people erupted in cheers. The geeks in the green line screamed "HAPPY NEW YEAR!" Us, in the yellow lines, we were all adult and subdued - "couldn't they stick us in a more interesting section of the store, instead of across the Biography and Religion stacks?!"

As our line proceeded to the front of the store I was jealous of the white line who was positioned right smack in the center of the life of any bookstore - Fiction, Mystery and Romance. While I had to miserably tolerate: History, Biography, Business, Marketing and Advertising, Sports, Health and Diseases. The highlight of my trip to the register was finding the book "How to Live with a Neurotic Dog." In hindsight I should have bought it **.

The lines then proceeded to the front of the store, as the very efficient booksellers had everything down to a science.

A piece of paper was stuck on the table in front of each register, where they'd scan it as many times as your sticker stated, while a young healthy person behind would grab the proper amount of books from the stacks of "highly explosive and secretive" boxes behind the registers and hand it over to the expectant customer.

As you were about to leave the store, a poster would be handed to you, a pair of Harry Potter glasses, and a bright neon green bracelet marking the historical date - July 16, 2005.

Within half hour we had our prized books in hand and happily left the bookstore.

Next momentous event - when the book is finally translated into Hebrew so my beloved nephews and niece can also read it!

** Our chocolate lab, aka Big Brown Fuzzy Chicken, did not quite like the "Dark and Stormy Night" and tore out our carpet in a violent reaction to us leaving him at midnight alone.

Recommended reading for those who are not familiar with the storyline of Harry Potter: http://www.mugglenet.com/books/index.shtml

Better yet, just buy the books and read them already!

Back to School

[A long post to "pay" for missing a couple of days this week]

I have mixed feelings now that my class is over and I can breathe again. I took this programming class because I figured I've been cheating by working in the field for 6.5 years without ever having gone through a proper 4 credits computer class in college.

I was really looking forward to taking this class and learning everything in the book. But then reality hit me. We're talking a class in a community college (the one I graduated from ten years ago before heading on to the University) and we're talking summer semester. Two major clues I should have taken to heart before spending every Tuesday and Thursday in class.

When I initially planned on taking a class I got a phone call a couple of days before it was scheduled to begin saying it was cancelled due to low enrollment. So I called the head of the department and asked for special permission to remove the prerequisite for the next class so I don't have to wait a full semester before I am able to proceed to the next level. I explained to the professor that I'm only taking this class for "fun" and I honestly don't need these 4 credits. I think he wanted to get back to his computer game and to get rid of me said, "I'll fax you the waiver."

First day in class was really exciting for me (brings back fond memories of other first day of classes). I left work early, found the new building at the college, got into class, and listened to the conversations among the other 10 young students as they shared experiences from other computer classes they took prior to this. That's when I began panicking as one girl (girl1) started throwing in all kinds of technical terms I had never heard before. I was really worried about my missing prerequisite class. But this worry was soon to be replaced by another worry.

After 30 minutes of waiting for the teacher to arrive, some of us began to get a bit annoyed and started speculating on how long do you give a delinquent professor before you leave the classroom. 31 minutes it was. We got up, went to the administration office and complained. So that was a "fun" first day of class.

The following class the teacher came with the lame excuse of "I didn't know that the class was scheduled to begin on Tuesday." So let me understand this, you didn't read the class schedule like all of us where it said black on white "TUESDAY"? And you didn't get any kind of paperwork from the college identifying our class time? This should have been my first warning about the teacher. But I was willing to give her a second chance.

By the time we got into the second week of class it was becoming clear to me that girl1 was spouting off technical terms out of sheer ignorance and not because she had any clue what those are. So I just shut myself out from paying attention to her every time she tried to show off how much she knows (or doesn't know).

Then there was Pollyanna. Pollyanna was a voluptuous young lady - dressed in shorts of one colour and a couple of tank tops three sizes too short and of complementary colours, plus other colourful accessories one on top of the other as if she was wearing her entire wardrobe every day. Her first day in class was in tune with our teacher's concept of class schedule. So she had no idea we already knew each other from Tuesday. Nor did she care. Every so often she'd pipe up with a question that made me want to bang my head against the table and exclaim, "Do we really have to deal with you for this entire semester???" I don't think I can describe it as low IQ or low intelligence, it's more along the lines of "I'm so $#@$ing cluless, but there's a 10% participation grade so maybe I ought to ask something now?"

By the second week I noticed Pollyanna wasn't showing up to class consistently, which made me assume she was about to drop the class. I wasn't alone in that assumption, and girl1 who used to sit next her, decided to move one chair over to Pollyanna's seat.

Third week - Pollyanna comes in, goes over to girl1 and says, "So you gonna move?" Girl1 turns around from her computer monitor and says, "Excuse me?" and Pollyanna proceeds to say, "You gonna move? You used to sit in the other chair. You're sitting now in mine." Girl1 shakes her head to a point where I fear it'd drop off, picks up her stuff and moves across the room to sit between the boys up front.

Sixth week - girl1 and the boys flanking her are discussing the homework program. Polyanna is already seated in class an hour before class, trying to catch up on homework from the past four weeks (in an 8 week semester). Girl1 has a somewhat annoying laugh, I admit, as it tends to make itself known once every ten minutes, but this one time she was talking to the boy next to her about the homework, when Pollyanna exclaims, "WILL YOU STOP LAUGHING! I'M TRYING TO CONCENTRATE HERE. YOU'RE SO FUCKING VULGAR! IT'S UNBELIEVABLE"

Ah, well, this is when all hell breaks loose and girl1 will have none of THAT. So girl1 shouts back, "OH NO, YOU DON'T! YOU DO NOT SPEAK TO ME THAT WAY, B*#&@!" I was so looking forward to a girl fight, but it died down rather quickly simply because Pollyanna was in her own world not realising she was just nicknamed.

At this point Pollyanna is working furiously at her computer and then gets up to ask a question from the two guys and girl1 related to what is due. So I'm thinking here, "Let me see if I understand this - you just crossed the lines to hostile environment to ask what is due and you expect them to help???" Amazingly enough, they were all nice and said, "Yes, that was due four weeks ago." Followed by girl1's hysterical laughter. [Keep in mind, we're downgraded one grade for every class our homework assignment is late, so Pollyanna is well into the F's by now].

Finally the teacher comes in (will miracles never cease), and begins class, as Pollyanna is printing, typing and doing everything but taking notes in class. My concentration was down to zero because the printer was right behind me and she kept getting up to get her printout, which meant she was walking in the middle of class right in front of the projector screen once every five minutes. It took quite a bit of effort for me not to tell her to sit the ^&^%* down! [I had a headache and any effort at talking would have made it worse].

Then mid-class out of nowhere, Pollyanna says to the teacher, "Can you please enable Quiz 1 on the computer so I can take it now?" [Quiz 1 was given on week 2]. While the teacher is being super nice and not even commenting on this outrageous request, I had an urgent question related to the program I was working on - so I got up to ask the teacher. While the teacher tries to help me, Pollyanna packs her stuff and leaves the class at 7pm (class is 'til 9pm). When I sit down, the entire class finally lets out the audible burst of laughter. The teacher looks puzzled at everyone and says, "WHAT?" And everyone starts telling her their version of what happened earlier that day (that in itself provided me good entertainment in listening to the various "she said, she said"). The teacher, still rather clueless, says, "Didn't she just ask me to turn on Quiz 1? I just did that for her." That's when we all respond, "Yes, she did. And she's just left for the day."

That's when we all began to speculate - at what point do you realise there's no chance for you to pass this class and you're wasting your parents' money and your own time???

She may have heard us. She never did come back. And according to the teacher she never dropped the class either...

I had never met someone on drugs, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if I found out this girl was seriously drugged every single day. I have no clue what made her think she could take a programming class, let alone pass one. I still have that question about girl1. But I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe in ten years when she's been through enough computer classes she will finally figure it out.

Now, the teacher is probably worthy of a whole new post, but I'll save you from it. In short - it's difficult for me to respect a teacher's knowledge, when I as a student keep correcting her and I don't even know "C"! Not to mention it's tough for me to respect someone who gives 100 on every exercise and homework regardless of the quality or the mistakes in it. I had submitted several unfinished assignments yet got the full grade. Feels like cheating. But like IN claims - I'm the teacher's pet, so therefore the grading on a curve puts me on top.

My husband asked me why I have to mess up the curve for all those poor unsuspecting young students. I told him they'll thank me in ten years. Meanwhile, I'll take my grade and place it in one of those compartments in my brain that says "An A today, keeps Alzheimers away."

Todah la'El hayom yom shishi!

N.B. I can't wait for midnight! Shirt photo and story to follow.

Mental Day Off

After submitting my pre-resignation warning red-flag, I now need a mental day off from work. I'm way overdue. Weekends are no longer enough to keep me sane. Nor are the holidays thrown in for good measure at the end of a weekend or prior to it once in three months.

I admit being a recovering workaholic. I think I'm cured now. But no guarantee. I'm the type who went to school whether I was sick or not. Never missed a day if I could help it. Same with work. Besides the mandatory vacations ("take it or you lose it") I never took days off without reason ("doctor appts").

Well, that's history now. I need time off. So I'm taking a sick day. And if someone doesn't like it that I'm faking sickness to take time off that should be signed off on vacation - tough! I'm sick of work, I'm sick of dealing with the thought of my career going nowhere. I'm sick of my dream job being shattered.

Yes, you guessed it, I don't like construction all that much. So today I'm taking my final exam in Programming (the computer language 'C'). Let me be more accurate - I like construction, but I love computers and programming. I'm also better at the programming, for the simple fact that this is one of the fields that doesn't require much memory. With construction you have to remember all the technical terms for each piece of material that goes up, and I'll be damned if I can communicate with a subcontractor while holding a dictionary. To me, everything is a "thing" followed by some adjectives, finger-pointing and when frustrated - expletives.

Anyway, I can't go to work today because our trailer has become unbearable to sit in. At 95 farenheit and 105% humidity (I kid you not!), with a frozen air-conditioner and a technician that's not due on site for another day - it only makes sense that I stay home. WL has his own fans, and I refuse to buy fans for one day. I hate fans. I hate wind in my face. I hate Jeeps.

Meanwhile, my role at the jobsite has been slightly expanded. I finally figured out what went wrong and why they put me in charge of the wall. They misunderstood my accent. I said I wanted to be in charge of the world!

So anyway, now I'm also in charge of a bus stop. There's a cute owl on top of it. WL had a good laugh when he revealed to me that it's not real and is just there to scare birds off. For those of you who are as clueless as I am about asphalt, I recommend you start checking the state of asphalt near bus stops. Apparently, the heat from the brakes of the bus, pushes the fluid form of the asphalt and causes cracks and all kinds of strange shapes. I'll take a picture one day and post it here to explain this. So we're replacing it with concrete.

I love concrete. When we first looked for a new house, my real estate agent who's also my best friend asked me what I was looking for in the front yard (bushes, trees, flowers). I told her, "Concrete! It should be paved all the way to the car. Nice patterns in good taste, but pure concrete!" I hate flowers, I hate bushes, I hate trees. They die. They look ugly. They're a nuisance to take care of. Concrete is constant. Never changing. And I never have to water it, cut it, or talk about it with neighbours.

For those of you wondering what the inside of my house looks like - there's nothing green in it. We tried. They died. It seems silly to me that people who like nature would want to kill it and bring it inside. A house is an artificial human made structure. Nature is outside. No reason to mix the two. Take pride in the individual existence of both and quit trying to mix them. If you want to enjoy nature, go outside. If you want to enjoy the beauty of human creation - stay inside. Surf the internet.
Oh, and yes, I have a clock embedded in concrete. It was my birthday present and I absolutely love it! This was a six month purchase. I saw it in the store and fell in love with it at first sight. The price was a bit high, so we left it. We checked on it every other week, until it was sold. But a month later a new one came in, and again the price was high. This went on for six months, before finally we got lucky and it was on sale. After six months of going to this strip mall only to check on the concrete clock, my husband figured it needs to come home with us.

Now that I think about it, we have quite a few artwork pieces that have a story behind them. There was this beautiful piece of metal artwork that we saw at a store and fell in love with. Same strip mall, too! We checked on it for three months, before I had gone to the store two days before Christmas and bought it for my husband as a surprise. It's quite large and after it was wrapped it hardly fit into the backseat of my car. When I came home I had to ask my husband to go take his Christmas present out of my car. He brought it in and while it was still wrapped started getting frustrated and kept on repeating, "But they told me they were sold out!" He knew what it was... He opened it up and you could see in his eyes that he was in love. Then he proceeded to tell me that he went to the store a week earlier because he wanted to get it for me for Channukah, but they had already sold it. Apparently, this was a second copy. Funny thing is that I asked the store owner, "So has this been hanging here all this time, or have you been selling it and bringing in a replacement every time?" And straight faced she said, "No, it's been hanging here. People looked at it and wanted to buy it, but they never come back." Well, I don't care if other people have this. It's cool anyway.

Somehow I managed to start this post about work and get to artwork. Amazing how my mind works on a mental day off. Or maybe that's why I needed one to begin with? It's time I get more serious about studying for my final exam. Maybe tomorrow I'll have something interesting to talk about. This class was definitely an interesting one to talk about. I'll have to tell you about Polyanna.

"Breaking News"

Between submitting my pre-resignation letter to my boss, going out of town this weekend, studying for a Final Exam tomorrow, and some major changes at work, I'm going to talk about….the weather.

I read in a Travel Book to Ireland that the Irish love talking about the weather. While I've witnessed it myself, I must say that it's no different than Americans. Between Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Fires, Snow Storms of the Century (how many centuries are there in a period of five years?), Torrential Rains and other weather calamities there's not a day that goes by that I don't hear talk about the weather.

I come from a country where a weather-person is as useless as an umbrella in a tornado [I welcome other suggestions of "useless as…" from readers]. One knows that between May and October it does not rain. And between November and March it will rain every other week (and always without fail - on Purim when kids like to dress in costumes and you don't want them getting wet). Between April and May it's Khamsin winds coming from our neighbouring Egypt. There's no need to wake up in the morning and ask "what's the weather like today?" You wake up, you look at the calendar, you make a mental note of the month and dress up as appropriate for that month. Short sleeves between April and October. Long sleeves and a rain coat between November and March. Summer means - no rain. Automn means - drizzle every day. Winter means - rain and cold (15-17 celsius). Spring means - rain stops, sun comes out, nature blooms.

In fact, the weatherman concept in my country started less than 15 years ago. Yes, it's one weatherman. Danny. He's good looking and gained popularity among the women who watched the weather forecast just because he was the main star. Because com'n who needs to watch the weather forecast when it's the same as yesterday and the day before and the month before?!

So coming to a country where there's an actual TV station dedicated solely to the weather, I find it amusing that American Travel Books to Ireland would mention the talk about weather. If that isn't the pot calling the kettle black… In fact, I've noticed that every time Americans who don't know each other are put together in a room, it takes a mere minute before someone starts talking about the weather. It's the comfort blankie of American socializing.

It doesn't cease to amaze me that the weather (hurricane Dennis) catches the headlines of local newspapers and news reports for over three days, when this hurricane is five states south of us. I don't mean to belittle the calamity that a hurricane brings with it, but headlines? For three days? One would want to assume it's been a slow news week, but there's bombings in London, an evacuation of 20,000 people from birmingham, the upcoming Space Shuttle Launch **, and of course the Jewish Olympics opening - these all have to be more important than a hurricane that's old news by now, no?

As I write this, WL had to step outside and drive off to Home Depot.

I had been planning to write this post for a couple of days, making fun of the silly weather forecasts and how useless they are. Then something happened this morning that changed my mind - I missed the turn because the heavy fog obscured my landmark for making the turn (tall pedestrian overpass). Then I got to work to find out that the air conditioner compressor has frozen overnight (got a fascinating explanation from WL on how that happens due to high humidity). And the saddest news of all - someone I knew from a company we work with has tragically died in Hurricane Dennis. Ed Timmons of Constructware. May he rest in peace.

So all this bit me right back. Now I say, bring on those weather reports. Feed it to me directly through my veins every morning. I will no longer consider it useless piece of information. I may even consider turning on the Weather channel in the morning, just to ward off the evil eye.

As a side note about the weather, I thought this was quite appropriate: Fining weather-people who give wrong information. Moscow's mayor doesn't like it when it rains on his parade.

WL is back from Home Depot with two fans. I've determined that Americans are a bunch of wimps. A little heat and humidity, and they can no longer remain productive.

** [With all the talk about the weather, WL did not know about this major news item, and when we've had some problems with our dial-up connection in the trailer and we received an answer from our IT guy, WL wrote back : "Ok. So what exactly does that mean. I’m connected through the VPN padlock icon and Outlook still pops at me. I’d like to have this resolved before we launch the next space shuttle." I had to respond back, "You're being unrealistic!" ]

The Other Track Mind

[27 May 2006: OK, I give up! If you opened this link as a result of searching for Kevin and Andrew Atherton's image, can you PLEASE leave me a comment here and explain how you came across MY post? I've tried removing the image and removing the link, but nothing seems to work and people are still directed here to a post that has nothing to do with these good looking twins. I feel bad for you guys being lured into this useless blog after searching for something much more worthwhile looking at.]

No, this isn't about what you think. And in fact I'm going to disappoint you and not discuss this topic at length. For a very simple reason - I don't care to talk about Sports as much as men do, and that's their "other track mind."

You get a man going about a sport event, and for the next 60 minutes, as your eyes glaze over, he will regurgitate every minute of the game. I find that as exciting as listening to someone tell me the full storyline scene-by-scene of a movie or a book - "there's a reason why you're not an author or movie director!"

Don't get me wrong, I love sports. I love participating. Can't stand watching. Well, I take that back, if we're talking men Olympic gymnastic events, that's a whole different ball game. But of course so is watching Kevin and Andrew Atherton at Cirque Du Soleil.

So yes, I can tolerate knowing that men watch sports. No big surprise there. But why, oh why, do we have to listen to them discuss every single boring pass of the ball to someone who's already seen it!

I'd rather listen to some technical terms thrown into a conversation that bears no relevance, than listen to "oh man, you should have seen that pass. He barely made it." And of course, they'll argue with you that every game is different and it's never the same. I suppose to someone with short term memory or advanced alzheimers it must be ("oh what honey, no, I don't recall you saying I need to take the trash out").

Okay, enough of this mini-rant. I said I wouldn't talk about it, didn't I?!

No, I was going to talk about a subject that I want to talk about, and yes, I will admit it was WL's suggestion that I bring this up. And this is definitely a better topic of discussion than sports.

The guy I work with pees into a bucket hanging on the wall. To throw a technical term in here, it's being referred to as a urinal. So you're thinking - oh man, this is what she's going to talk about? Well, yeah, because this is a very special urinal. We're talking 21st-century-advanced- Technologically-ahead-of-its-time (and possibly should have stayed there). We're talking a brilliant idea of a drunk guy on crack. So you're thinking, "Ok, it's a bucket, what could possibly be changed about that?!"

Well, it's a WATERLESS urinal! For you women out there, who like me, have never ventured into a men's public bathroom, let me explain that typically a urinal has a method of flushing the business with water (just like a normal bathroom). For a full technical description of how a urinal works, feel free to check out wikipedia. Now some designs go above and beyond functionality, such as the Kisses urinal, but that's probably worthy of a whole new post.

So back to our waterless urinal. First time WL encountered this "great invention" was on this jobsite (it's a government building I'll remind everyone). The problem - this is a retrofitted urinal, which means the previous location of the button to flush was covered by a plastic plate. It took several attempts at pressing a plastic plate to the wall, before WL figured this isn't going to work and no water will come out of that fixture. That's when he found the sign that clearly explains what he's dealing with and that we're talking pure gravity and no other chemical or mechanical flushing techniques. Needless to say he was preplexed enough to share this with me months later.

So I'm trying to rationalize this idea and I try to convince WL, "but it's probably made of some material that doesn't catch all the odors." WL looked incredulously at me and says, "Odor free, my ass!" Well, that cleared it up!

Then his eyes lit up and he proceeds to tell me, "Wait, this isn't the entire story! I found out that the guy at this government agency who came up with the idea has a little one..." as he holds his forefinger and thumb apart to demonstrate the size. This is where I could no longer hide my laugh. "WL, that's too much information!" But he was too enthusiastic to stop and think back to what he just said, and continued, "...in his cubicle!"

The story continues, "I once went up to this office, and saw a small model of this same urinal at this one cubicle. I knew right away this is the guy who must have been really proud to save the government some money by ordering this amazing fixture. I considered using that tiny urinal right there and then. And it sits on top of his computer monitor!"


Jewish men wake up every morning and say a prayer to thank God who didn't create them a woman. I strongly believe the Jewish men working at this government agency are re-evaluating their morning prayers. At the same time, I've added one to my bathroom ritual - "Thank God, some crazy man hasn't come up with a waterless bathroom for women."

Toda la'el hayom yom shishi!