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Thursday, July 29, 2010 ( 11:16 PM ) teahouse Dilemmas! Yes, I've been missing for a while. That's what having out of town guests will do to you! Some good friends came to visit last week, and we had fun taking them around the City. Over the weekend we drove them upstate to enjoy some mountains and trees and other lovely things that are hard to find in the concrete jungle. Heading home, we encountered a dilemma: the car was almost out of gas, and we had to pick which gas station to stop at. This turned out to be a huge dilemma! We couldn't go to BP because, of course, they caused that horrendous oil spill on the Gulf Coast. We couldn't go to Exxon because I swore I'd never give them my money again, after that time two years ago I put diesel gas into my tank based on a badly-marked gas pump, and had to have my entire catalytic converter replaced at great cost. We couldn't go to Shell because the last time I went there, the attendant left the gas pump stuck in my car but told me I was good to go, and I drove off not realizing it, and the gas pump flew out and dented my car. We couldn't go to Lukoil because we have sworn off supporting a corrupt Russian oligarchy. We couldn't go to Texaco because the last time I went there, the stupid teenager who took my credit card thought it would be cute to balance it on my windshield, and it fell down between the glass and the door, so now I have a credit card permanently buried inside my car door, with no way of getting it out without dismantling the door entirely. We couldn't go to Citgo because we don't want to add to the coffers of Hugo Chavez, the very scary and dangerous president of Venezuela. Yeah, it was a Hobson's Choice. # 8 comments Friday, July 16, 2010 ( 12:06 AM ) teahouse Let's Take it Slow Sorry I've been missing in action for a couple of weeks. Where does the time go? Speaking of time, the Husband and I have been invited to a wedding this weekend. This will be the first wedding we will attend since our own, over two years ago! We're friends of the groom, and the funny thing is, two years ago he came to our wedding with his serious girlfriend. We really thought they were on the verge of getting engaged. We kept waiting for the announcement. We liked her more than the girlfriend he'd had before her - whom he'd actually proposed to, and had been engaged to for several months before she broke it off. Anyway, the girl he's marrying this weekend is yet a third girl. We haven't met her yet. We're not sure if any of his close friends have, actually. So to recap - he was engaged to girl #1 about 3 years ago. Then she broke it off, he met girl #2 and became serious with her, and brought her as his date to our wedding. Then about a year after our wedding (last summer) things ended with girl #2 and in that time, he met girl #3, proposed to her, and planned a wedding. I'm frankly enormously impressed at their ability to meet, court, get engaged and get a wedding planned in under a year! We're really hoping the third time is the charm. # 5 comments Wednesday, July 07, 2010 ( 12:53 AM ) teahouse Heat Wave! Burning in my Heart So this week we celebrated Independence Day in the United States. I got some projects finished at work, and I relaxed as much as I could over the weekend. But now all of us in the Northeast have been hit with a record-breaking heat wave. For the last couple of days, the highs in New York City have been close to 100 degrees F. The Mayor has warned of blackouts due to pressure on the energy grid. Everyone is encouraged to stay indoors, turn off unnecessary lights, drink lots of water and make use of local cooling centers. Having grown up in the Deep South, I can't help but feel a little strange about all of these newsworthy warnings. Yes, I understand we all need to take precautions, but seriously, I don't remember a single heat wave from my childhood. Is it because every single day from May to September of every year was a constant heat wave? So that elevated temperatures were nothing out of the ordinary? I remember lounging on porches, not doing much but drinking lemonade and fanning myself for hours on end. I remember lazily watching flies amble by, while crickets chirped as the sunset brought blessed relief from the heat. I remember reading Harper Lee's line in To Kill a Mockingbird about a childhood spent in the South: "Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum powder." And thinking that was the world's most perfect line of prose, for capturing it all so beautifully. # 7 comments |
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