Get ready – here come the Halloweeners
For the past 5 Halloweens, Deeps and I have lived across the street from The Home (our term) – a fine, in-patient facility for people who appear to be.... let’s say a bit out of touch with reality. No one seemed dangerous or menacing. There were a lot of colorful outfits and language. Sometimes there was spitting – I was concerned for a couple of days and then I just kinda forgot about it.
The Home made our neighborhood a little different from the other posher parts of Evanston. The rents stayed lower for a lot longer, you could usually find street parking, and there weren’t tons of kids running around all the time. And no kids meant there were no trick-or-treaters on Oct. 31.
Those days are over
All that’s changed since we moved to MA. Apparently we live in what I can only think of as the Bermuda Triangle of fertility. People are inexplicably drawn here to nest and breed. And they don’t just have a small passel of children – they have lots of children simultaneously. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many twin and triplet strollers in a place with such narrow sidewalks. They’re everywhere.
So, now that we live in kid-friendly neighborhood (without The Home to discourage them) – we will have Halloweeners this year. I thought we were okay – I’d pick up a few bags of candy from CVS. I am completely out of my league.
The people down the street have their yard tricked out (how punny!) with lights, animatronic thingeys, ghosts, goblins, witches and hundreds of electronic and real jack-o-lanterns. I have a partially illuminating porch light.
I know I need candy. I chatted with some office colleagues – one on each coast actually, and was advised I should get at least 2 bags by my friend in California. When I asked my colleague from a nearby neighborhood he advised I get at least half a metric ton of nougat and chocolate to appease the hordes that will head my way.
This may be more complicated than I thought.
Luckily, I think most of the kids will come to our house early – which is a bummer because I don’t get home before dark. Plus, my husband can look kinda menacing – okay, he can look surly... okay, he can look annoyed – at a whim, so maybe that will deter the kids.
Either way, my 2 crappy bags of no-name candy from CVS won’t cut the mustard. I will need to be more cunning to appease the sugar-driven needs of a 6-year-old.
I’m spending way too much time thinking about this, so I’ve started bothering my husband.
This is an approximation of a conversation we had tonight..
Me: “So, should we get candy?”
Deeps: “Uhm. I guess. Won’t they come too early? We probably won’t be home.”
Me: “Maybe we can team up with our neighbors.”
Deeps: “The kids are going to hit us and the neighbors.”
Me: “Right.”
Deeps: “Just get some candy. You don’t have to go overboard.”
Me: “I have to buy a lot – the kids don’t like it when you give them like one fun-size Snickers. They want a whole handful of stuff.”
Deeps: “You’re over-thinking this. They’re not going to go all
‘Night of the Living Dead’ on us.”
Me: “Won’t they? Won’t they?”
Labels: 2002
By: Alyssa | Thursday, October 24, 2002 at Thursday, October 24, 2002 | |
I call her fat Nokia
My mobile phone died. I feel bad about it – it took her slowly, the draining of batteries and the nightly requirement that she be re-charged. I haven’t even had her for a year! I guess that’s what happens when you’re a piece of technology. You get outdated; out get old; you get replaced.
Still, I wasn’t expecting to shell out extra cash on the fly, Friday afternoon. Luckily, I kinda knew this was coming. The phone wasn’t holding a charge for very long. My talk time had significantly decreased and the phone was dying pretty regularly. Still...
There are about 800 kinds of sexy mobiles to choose from. I saw several very small, very sleek little numbers with color display, digital cameras, audio recording, video recording, text messaging, songs, dances, little masseuses and a guy who’ll dye my hair. They were so tiny, I kept thinking of the ridiculously small phone that was the running gag in Zoolander. Yes, I did just make a Zoolander reference. I’m aware that I have a problem, don’t send email.
I settled for fat Nokia (3390). She’s not the newest model, sexiest or sleekest model. But she was cheap and pretty easy to use. Up until let’s say, the last phone, I was shelling out top-dollar for high-end mobile phones. I’m something of a gadget whore. I know - it’s a problem.
Anyway, I made what I consider to be a frugal and sensible decision when purchasing from the lower-end of the tech food chain. Basically, I just use my phone for calling people. Oddly enough, that’s what like 99% of people in the US who use their phone uses it for. (That’s my internal, gut guesstimate. That figure is, in no way, based on fact.) I’m not using it to do text messaging. I don’t organize my schedule or whatever with it. I don’t care if it has games or a calculator or can hold 98,000 personalized rings. I just call the pizza guy and my friends and my family.
Right, so I’m not the high-end user that I used to pretend to be. And now, for me, it’s fat Nokia. Seriously, it’s a fat (okay fatter) Nokia. It’s not so sleek or small. It’s probably more appealing to men (although, they’ll never admit it) because it’s not so freakin’ microscopic that they’ll constantly be searching for it. Plus it’s got a bit of heft (a whopping 4 oz) that makes it seem more like a real phone (I’m looking at you Ericsson T200).
And I caved and personalized my phone – I hated the default crappy plastic blue cover that comes with fat Nokia. She used to have a sleek goldish color cover that made her look a little more sophisticated. The blue thing looks like I just spent $100 on a toy phone. Anyway, I ordered her a sassy pink cover. Come on! Pink! Isn’t that fun! Doesn’t that make me fun! God, I’m so sad....
And the fun keeps on coming
In addition to replacing my phone in the past few days, I had to buy a new PDA just a few weeks ago. My Handspring pooped out (she didn’t want to sync anymore, ever!) and thanks to their crappy customer service ($20 for a call please) – I opted to abandon them and return to the Palm fold. Now, Palm has caught on with the whole USB syncing thing (yaay!) and the expansion card thing. They’ve also dropped prices and created a sleeker machine.
I bought my Palm M125 the day before Palm debuted the new Zire. I might have considered the Zire, except that it doesn’t have quite as much memory as I prefer. Otherwise, it’s simple and stripped down interface makes it really appealing. Again, I thought about merging my Mobile phone with my PDA – it’s just that the solutions are kinda clunky.
Sadly, my electronics-buying spree isn’t over. The multi-function machine we bought in April got damaged in the move – by whom is up for discussion – but it’s not working on 2 of it’s 3 functions and so we’ll be spending some quality time (and coin) to buy a replacement. My spending knows no ends. Luckily, that newly formed joint account will come in handy....
Labels: 2002
By: Alyssa | Sunday, October 20, 2002 at Sunday, October 20, 2002 | |
The smellening
Yes. I do know that
smellening is not a word. Anyway.
There's a stinky sandwich eater in my office. She or he must sit near me or, possibly, close to a big vent which quickly distributes the horrible whiff of the day to me.
About two weeks ago the big stink started. The woman who sat next to me cracked out a smelly meat (I'm guessing baloney or possibly pimento loaf) sandwich around 11:30 am. She quietly shoveled it into her mouth in about 10 minutes and proceeded to work for the rest of the day.
I must have some hypersensitive olfactory nerve because I can't make it for the 10 minutes required for her to consume the smelliest sandwich ever made. Frequently, I go hide in the bathroom (another stinky place) or in the hall or wander over by the fax machine or something. Sometimes I'm trapped on the phone during a conference call and just put my head down on my desk and try to think of Christmas.
Back to the stinkmaster - she (of great stinky, baloney sandwiches) doesn't sit at the desk next to me anymore. I'm not sure where she is. I haven't detected the stink for about a week.
The stink strikes back
Today that changed. The smell hit me hard and fast - I actually gasped (loudly) when it hit me. It's like old baloney, rotty egg salad and moldy onions combined with some weird bread. My nose, it suffers so.
I’m not sure what to do, but I know I’m going to have to move forward in some way or switch careers. Apparently I’m well on my way to being able to work with rotting corpses on small children with very nasty diapers.
Labels: 2002
By: Alyssa | Thursday, October 17, 2002 at Thursday, October 17, 2002 | |
I ride the bus
It’s a scary new development. Since I’m giving up my car and my very short commute to work (just under 1 mile) – I’m forced to take the bus to a train, transfer to another train, and then hoof the last couple of blocks. It’s not really that bad – but the “schedule” of the MBTA leaves something to be desired. Basically, there is no schedule. Stuff just kinda shows up. If you go to the MBTA Web site you can see a schedule. But, like the driving laws in MA – they’re really more myth than reality.
To prove this point – the bus shows up when it’s damn well good and ready. Tonight, for example, I waited for about 45 minutes for a bus to show up at the Harvard Square station. I’m not sure why I waited so long – but I did along with lots of other people. According to the alleged schedule three buses should have come during that span. I have no idea what happened, but this one bus #73 just kept coming around and around and around.
Like from European vacation, “Look kids – Parliament! Big Ben!”
Labels: 2002
By: Alyssa | Thursday, October 10, 2002 at Thursday, October 10, 2002 | |
No - I'm not dead. Thanks for asking.
Seriously. I'm not. I just moved - for a really long time. I packed my computer and Internet and stuff. I couldn't do anything. For like. A really. Long time. I only go the Internet back 2 weeks ago. Sorry. I'm bad. Sorry.
The move
It was relatively uneventful. We blew across the eastern part of the US with hard drive, suitcases, fire extinguisher, cat (with cat Valium), pillows, and a bag of hangers in tow (do not ask). We spent night one in Buffalo and night two in beautiful Burlington, MA. I think we ate a Chilis. It's kind of a blur.
The driving was pretty painless - we literally didn't hit traffic until I turned onto the Mass Pike sometime late one Sunday afternoon. I got stressed out and paranoid after 10 hours of driving - as I usually do - and I drove for 10 hours because my husband and I are morons. We were like, yeah, let's split up the drive. So we don't do it in shifts so that I drive for a couple of hours then he drives for a couple of hours. We drive in days. It was stupid. Don't be stupid like us.
We got to our place about 4 days ahead of the movers. That was hard, but we did spend lots of quality time figuring out where to put our furniture when it arrived and which bedroom we should sleep in and which would function as the office/guest room. Our stuff finally came - and despite a few casualties (our printer/fax/copier no longer works and the movers split my dresser in two) - we unpacked in 3 days.
The horror
The place is no longer a complete disaster. The kitchen is still a little sketchy, as is the office. I figure another Saturday of sorting and storing should take care of it.
I'm still living out of my suitcase since the place where I store clothes - my large, maple dresser is shrink-wrapped in the front hallway to keep it from coming apart. Yeah, it's full of my clothes. The moving company hasn't responded to us about the claim yet - so I'm hopeful we'll get some kind of cash settlement to cover the cost of replacing the broken items. But, I'm not holding my breath.
The unholy trinity
We had 4 (nearly 5) days to do stuff around town that didn't involve our stuff (since it hadn't arrived yet). We chose to spend this time, together, getting our cars registered, going to the RMV to get new licenses and opening bank accounts.
In Chicago, the people are unpleasant at the DMV, but I found the fine folks at the Watertown RMV (next to the Old Country Buffet) to be really friendly despite the fact that the databases went down just as we tried to get our licenses. We had to go back 2x before we got our licenses.
What do they call Mass drivers again?
I didn't have to take a test - which made me really happy. At the time, I thought I didn't have to take a test because I'm a good driver and my record reflects that. In the 2 weeks since I got my license, I've changed my mind about the test thing. I believe they don't administer tests because there's nothing to test - there are no laws or rules of the road here in MA. It's every frickin' person for herself.
I really should have been more suspicious when the tow-truck driver who delivered my car (seriously, we weren't going to drive 2 cars across America) told me to just always keep moving when I'm in the car.
"If you're in those rotaries, you just keep going - never stop. And remember, the people moving have the right of way."
Sure, it's good advice. And I was struck by the driver's advice mostly because we had just chatted about how we just came from Chicago. People drive in Chicago - I regularly drove in Chicago. It's got the 3rd worst traffic in the US. But this dude from Boston thought I just fell off the turnip truck.
I have encountered this behavior regularly. Apparently, Boston is the 2nd largest city in America - only in the minds of Bostonians.
Labels: 2002
By: Alyssa | Monday, October 07, 2002 at Monday, October 07, 2002 | |
