London (part 1)

In London, it was 80 degrees and sunny the whole time I was there, so when I arrived back in New York last night, imagine my “delight” when I was met with this. By the time I got into my apartment, my shoes were filled with water and my bags and everything in them was damp. I suppose that part was my fault… I’d had to dig around in the bottom of my purse while I tried to remember where I’d put my keys so I wouldn’t lose them. It’s always some really obscure place that seems like a good idea at the time. You know, the main part of your purse, for example.

I opened the door to my apartment expecting a rush of paws, ears and fur only to be met with two very exasperated looking dogs. It was as if they were saying “do you realize how long we’ve been waiting here, young lady? We heard you outside, you know” only, obviously it would be in French because Bo, at least, doesn’t speak English. Obviously.

I stepped over the wall of precisely two dogs and left them judging the door instead. I could, of course, have stepped around them but I was trying to make a point… To, uh, a pair of small dogs. Oh.

In London, thankfully, there were no small dogs to judge me when I came home later than expected. I didn’t have to explain why, when I brought a number of bags of shopping home, none of them contained doggie treats either.

I feel like I should explain this whole running away to London. A few months ago, I was in need of some inspiration, for lack of a better word. Perhaps it was more reassurance that moving over there was the right decision but either way, I was doubting myself. Now, having just started a new job, the chance of being given the time off work was smaller than a nano flower so I tried to push it to the back of my mind. I figured that eventually, something would happen to help me decide one way or another.

So, weeks later, everyone was arguing over who got to work over easter. Apparently work means far more to a lot of people than a chance to sit back and relax, you know, doing something like bungee jumping or skydiving. My boss who, by now, was looking slightly… puffier than usual asked if I would mind taking that weekend off. I told him I didn’t have a problem with it at all but then remembered that it was a big deal and should probably seem slightly disappointed so I looked at my feet and, well, acted disappointed. I think he was gone by the time I’d figured out what disappointed looked like but at least I tried.

And that’s how and why I got to go to London. Now, it would have been easy just to go and spend some time shopping or enjoying some English candy, but it wouldn’t really tell me whether or not I wanted to work there. What if their medicine was backwards, upside down and boring? Eventually, after harassing many, many people quite gently over MSN, I was offered a few days following an English doctor, you know, just in case they have three heads over there. Or something.

When I met him, I discovered that he did not, in fact have three heads. I’ll admit I was a little disappointed but also fairly relieved he was normal enough that I didn’t have to worry about leaving alive. He did, however, have a funny accent although I have a feeling that just how English people speak.

One of the first patients was an 18 month old baby with an ear infection. It wasn’t anything I’d hadn’t seen before, but the baby’s sister/nanny seemed to be overly attached to him, as if she was his mother. After they left, the doctor (who will now be known as English Doctor or ED for short) asked how old I thought the girl was. She seemed too young to be his mom but not that young so I offered a guess at 19. He laughed and told me that “mom is 17.” And then my innocence bubble burst.

It’s not that I didn’t know there were 17 year old girls in the world with babies, its just I’ve never met one before. In fact, in the two days I was with ED I saw one pregnant 16 year old, two 17 year olds with babies and one 18 year old with a three year old. I was really surprised to meet so many young people with children. At 19, I don’t think I could cope with having one.

Another patient that sticks in my mind was a man in his 60’s who’d spent four weeks with bloody diarrhea. He explained that his wife had been sick and was very stressed about it so he’d been taking care of her. Instead of worrying her about something “that is probably nothing, anyway” he’d put it off until she went into hospital so that he wouldn’t have to tell her about it.

Despite the fact his clothes were hanging loosely around him, he insisted his appetite was fine and that he hadn’t lost weight. He could have been telling the truth and just liked his clothes that way but I doubt it. When ED told him it was “most likely something bad,” the man seemed far more concerned about who would take care of his wife.

It really bothers me that he felt that he couldn’t tell his wife that he was sick. I mean, sure it hurt her for a while but surely upsetting her and surviving would be better than not upsetting her and dropping dead a few months later.

When I asked ED why he never told the man he probably had cancer, he replied; “A patient only remembers 10% of what you tell them. If you use words like cancer, no matter what the context, it’s likely that cancer will be the only thing they remember. I don’t like my patients to worry until I’m sure they have something to worry about.” I think that’s possibly one of the most useful things I’ve learned in a loooooong time.

ED told me on Friday that the man had missed his appointments at the hospital and that he’d never called back about his test results. If it were me, I think I’d want to know so that there was an answer one way or another. I’d hate to leave something like that to a point it couldn’t be treated only to find that I would have survived if I’d gone back to the doctor. If it were you, what would you do?

Some things are best left to chance, others need ice

Every time I have something nice to say about humanity, a retard manages to change my mind. In order to “honor” this, I feel a retard of the week award is in order. Okay, well maybe retards of the week is slightly more appropriate.

The first retard award goes to the lady and her army of white trash who, as it suggests in the video “are the result of mating with vegetables.” After you watch the video, I think you’ll agree that there really is no need for further explanation. Direct your clickage here

The second award is also a joint award and goes to both my boyfriend and the guy who punched him in the face. There are some people who see my boyfriends job as a way to get themselves a ride in one of those nice, shiny, police cars. Asking for a ride or maybe buying him something pretty isn’t quite what these people had in mind. After all, their efforts may fail and then they’d really be screwed. What they want is a sure fire way to get the full experience. You know, the handcuffs, sirens, lights and maybe a gun or two pointed in their general direction. The simplest and most effective way to get this is to punch my boyfriend in the face and then again in the head - just in case…

Now, I’m not sure what kind of research has been done into stupidity but I’m reasonably certain it’s not contagious so I can’t blame the boy for what someone else did to him. What I can blame him for, is that, in an attempt to minimize any damage to his ego, he didn’t ice his face or do anything that might possibly help reduce the, uh, decline in aesthetic appeal of his face (to be nice)… Now he’s [temporarily] ugly (his cheek and eye are swollen and turning some interesting colors!), he expects loooooots of sympathy. Does [partly] self-inflicted unattractiveness really deserve it?

Finally, my last award goes to a lady I met at work. I walked past her in the hall, coughing (because of my asthma not cooties) and she stopped me to tell me that if I was sick, I shouldn’t be in the hospital. Absolute genius.

And now, because I don’t have time to post everything I wanted to, I leave with two things:

1. No one comments on my blog anymore - does that mean no one reads it?

2. I have a bunch of stuff to post about work, flying and my slightly insane family, all of which should be posted in the next couple of days. If it isn’t done by, uh, Friday, you’re invited to poke me with a very large “persuasion” stick.

My life is defective, where can I get a refund?

As always, this post is rife with cynicism.

I’ve been walking around for weeks mumbling about how much I hate people but I finally realized it’s not quite that simple. I’ve worked out that there are two kinds of people, at least for this theory to really work.

The first type of person is one who you encounter but never actually meet. These are the people you do something small for, like the extra minute you wait at a crossing so the lady with the three kids, the dog and the shopping can get across without having to wait for the next white man. They probably won’t give your action a second thought but it never hurts to do it. I mean, they didn’t ask you to do anything and you don’t expect anything in return… You do something nice and that’s it, you’re done.

The second type of person is one you have a relationship with, and not just a romantic one. These are the people you know and care about… These people are the ones I hate. It seems that whenever I try and do something nice for one of these people, it comes back and bites me in the ass. Apparently, if you want to be a good friend; never do anything nice, always remember to throw good deeds back in the givers face, make their life unnecessarily difficult and, wherever possible, screw your friend over by taking credit for their work.

Finally, there is a secret third type of person. These people are the people who really matter and the people who I feel safe and happy with. My parents (even if they are completely insane, especially that mother thing), my boyfriend who I plan on embarrassing later in this post and a somewhat small but special group of assorted relatives and friends are all in this “group.” For these people, I will do anything. For everyone else, there’s mastercard?

As a side note, I was going to put the following into a post of its own but as it somehow ties into what I’ve already written, I may as well just put it here. There’s that, and the fact I wouldn’t want to spoil anyone by making too many posts!

The person who the following rambling is directed at falls, or at least fell, in between the second and third groups… Now, though, I’m not quite sure where they fit it. To the person who knows who they are:

I’m posting this here because I know that at some point, you’ll read it. I noticed you’d been “checking up” on me today - if, by some small miracle, you happen to find your balls, maybe you could just email me and ask how things were going but until then, dig this:

I am sick of people who behave like you. People who walk around with their heads so far up their asses, they walk all over everyone else without a second thought. It would almost be forgivable if you didn’t take pleasure from it. I mean, you said it yourself “I’m doing it for my happiness” - It doesn’t really get much clearer than that, eh?

I don’t need to yell or kick or scream because I know that I have done nothing wrong. It’s all on you. It’s your guilt, your upset, your mistake… It’s your life and you can stomp on whoever you want but know that one day, when you need one of those people, they won’t be there to save you. You have no idea just how much that comforts me…

Owing to the fact I have dinner plans and am yet to even get as far as changing out of my pajamas, I’m happy to jump right into my pants. (I apologize for the poor choice of words - on all levels)

• The first, almost big thing that’s happened to me recently is that I have [yet another] new boytoy at my mercy. We met at work (which seems to be the place I meet a lot of people right now) and, after he tolerated many months of my knitting, we ended up together. [Anyone who has no idea what the knitting means should click here now.] It all just… sort of happened, in a good way of course. While I could write thousands of things about him, the risk of vomit inducing cliche is just far too high. Maybe, when I can afford a bucket for each person subjected to my boyfriend related ramblings, I’ll post more about him.
• That brings me neatly to my next almost big thing. I have a new job, finally. It means that I’ll be working in a nice environment (even if it does have that weird hospital smell), with nicer people, nicer hours and much nicer pay. I really can’t figure out why I didn’t try this sooner.
• Generally, in fact, things are all falling into place. For the most part, I think the fact I’m far less stressed helps enormously… I have a few weekends away planned for the next couple of months - just as soon as I get new passports (Yes, I have two), the arrangements for moving to England are almost finished and finally, I have a shot at making enough money to be able to pay for college [in London].
• None of that really matters if I can’t survive these next few months living in New York. In the last week, here are a few reasons why driving around here will result in death:
  1. Many drivers cannot “make out the shapes” well enough to be able to drive independently and so feel the need for the front of their car to be touching the back of the car in front. For the majority of these drivers, the vehicle of choice is an SUV - of course such a thing is essential to survival in the harsh environment that is Manhattan.2. When you can see the car in front of you stopping at a crossing, the unwritten rule seems to be hit the gas then the breaks as hard as possible, bringing you to a stop a mere 1/16″ away from the vehicle ahead of you.3. An emergency vehicle in the immediate area is an excuse to change lanes without checking your mirrors or even looking out the window. The crunching metal you can hear? The car you just crashed into. In these instances, it is standard procedure to hit the horn and blame the incident on the other driver. Giving the finger is also strongly suggested.4. Many drivers will approach an intersection and not think about slowing down, changing into the correct lane or even giving a turn signal. Instead they will race through the many lanes of traffic cutting across the paths of other cars and swerve erratically into a side street without warning. This is perfectly acceptable especially if you can knock down a couple of pedestrians too.

Normal blogging service shall now resume.

Melon Heart Along

It’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey here… If we’re lucky, it’ll snow in the next few days, meaning, it’s still cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey but it looks pretty outside, which is very important. Not even Switzerland was this cold. *shiver*

I promised I’d tell the story of my new roommate so here goes… Hannah and I met over a corpse a few months ago (all perfectly legal I’ll have you know!). Its not exactly the most common way of meeting friends but it seems to have worked for us. So after many mornings sat in dingy coffee shops around New York discussing the finer points of life, the universe and everything, we got onto the subject of shoes. So how do shoes lead to living together? Well, its perfectly simple, Hannah’s apartment was too small and so full of boys, her shoes were homeless. In my apartment, however, I didn’t have enough shoes to fill the space to maintain a healthy shoe-space balance. Obviously, the fact we were both in such serious and life threatening situations, the only possible cure would be for her to move in here.

Its a little strange living together but we’re getting the hang of it. We both work awkward hours, which usually result in one of us being asleep when the other one gets home. It’s not that difficult… I mean you just come in quietly and don’t bang the doors and such but its not really that simple. See, we’ve both developed this amazing inability to enter/leave the apartment without making the dogs bark and run around in little circles. Well, that or we just trip over things and yell the first four-letter word we can think of - it’s not particularly elegant but who said we have to be?

It’s not all bad though. She and I are both enormous geeks - we even have our own little computer room! Anyway, one night, she left the apartment saying that she’d be gone for “quite a while” and not to worry. At the time, I was somewhat involved with chasing the puppy who’d decided running around the apartment with one of my bras was a really great idea and didn’t think anything of it… -many hours later-
I’m happy pretending to be a giant ball of blankets and pillows when Hannah comes and starts poking me and yelling “I got a Wii, I got a Wii!” you know, as you do. It’s a really normal thing to tell someone at 3am, right? Well, not really. In fact, I didn’t really know what she was talking about and pointed at the bathroom telling her to go if she really needed to. The poking continues while she explains she’s just spent 10,000 hours in Times Square waiting to get a Wii and now she’s got one, she’s going to drag me out of bed so I can “try it out” with her.

EVERYONE NEEDS A WII FOR CHRISTMAS, KTHX.

Anyway, moving along… My family aren’t American and so we don’t really have any interest in Thanksgiving but a holiday is a holiday whether or not you believe in it. Given that only tourists and children hang around in the cold to see the parade and only stupid people brave black Friday, my mom and I decided Switzerland would be a nice place to hide from it - we’re just that cool. In general, things were pretty good although the food poisoning on the flight home was somewhat unneeded.

Shockingly, I think that was the worst “injury” the whole trip. For some reason Ralph and I figured we’d go onto the glacier with a bunch of people then ski as fast as possible while trying to grab each others hats. Yeah… it’s not as easy as it sounds. When you go shooting past someone, by the time you’ve got their hat, your body is miles away and it usually results in you *and* the person who’s hat is being grabbed ending up in a nice big heap. Still, it was fun.

So, moving on, in my pants today:

• It is 28F (-2.2C for Id and Craig) here right now and that’s just a teensy bit cold. Still not snowing though… This displeases Me.
• Hannah and I have decided that Hebrew sounds nicer than English for certain things so we use a mix of the two languages. I think the best thing about it is the confused looks we get off people… Or when they try and copy and get it horrifically wrongI’m not going to use names because it might embarrass Nick and I’m far too nice for that. One afternoon, Nick was feeling a little bit left out and so I agreed to teach him something really basic… I think for a minute and then say:

  “barukh attah adonai eloheinu melekh ha-olam borei peri hagafen”
  (It’s a blessing thingy… and the first thing I ever learned)

  “Hah, this is easy” Nick says and he starts… “Barukh attah adonai eloheinu melonheartalong borei peri hagafen”

  Well. I don’t think there’s a lot else to be said there. *ahem*

• As a joke, Bradley invited me to go play ice hockey with him and some of his friends thinking that I’d say no. You know how it is… Ice, sticks and skates are really very scary. Anyway, I said yes (because I’m cool like that) and now I think he thinks I’m a boy. Or something.
• I want snow, I want snow, I want snow. Where the hell is my snow?!
• At the moment, I feel the need to knit a very big sweater. For those of you who don’t watch anything worth watching on TV and don’t understand, click. That said, I’m hoping to be taking a sneaky little trip to visit a mystery guy… And I’m not going to say anything else about that.
• Oh, while we’re on the subject of trips, am I the only person in the world who *hates* English tourists? I was sitting eating breakfast in a non-tourist place (you know, places where it doesn’t cost 3,000 dollars for juice and the food is actually good) in a non-tourist area (well, as non tourist as you can get in Manhattan) when a group of English people walk in. I then spend the next half hour listening to them discussing the finer points of French Toast and how French Toast is something different there. Things moved along as their food arrived and they started commenting on how they get given so much food here, they’re not surprised American’s are fat. These were some enormous tourists who could give any “large” American a run for their money… And, after all that complaining, they ate everything put in front of them… Morons.Don’t even get me started on how rude they are. Walking along the street through a bunch of English people is more dangerous than the Pamplona bull run. I think the need to shove people is genetic or something.

  Not only that but who the hell wears a fanny pack?

Ah, its good to be back *and* bitter.

Someone give me a hug

A couple of days ago, some moronic teenager punched out my car window in an attempt to look cool, as you do… It’s not great when you want to go to work but it’s not the end of the world. Since the whole plastic taped over the window look isn’t exactly the kind of thing I was going for (and its far too cold to have the window open) I called the place I got it from and they said they’d come get it the next day, fix it and bring it back. Excellent, I thought as I hurried downstairs to remove the balled up Kleenex and empty coffee cups from my car… See what a kind and considerate person I am?

So, the next day, a man appears at my door, takes the key and steals my car for a little while. The morning he left, the car had 3/4 of a tank of gas… When it was returned this afternoon, there was barely 1/4 left. Not only that, they’d retuned my radio, covered the car in dust/dirty and someone had smoked in there (No one EVER smokes in my car, EVER). Oh, and finally, before I forget, these morons seem to have wiped their oily, greasy hands ALL OVER MY CREAM LEATHER SEATS.

As soon as I’m less inclined to inflict pain on the ape that inflicted such harm on my car, I’m going to call them and make a very very very big deal out of it. I even have photos and everything…

I AM SO MAD RIGHT NOW.

On another note, the searches leading people to my blog this month seem to be slightly more interesting. They are as follows:

“Eat the strawberries”

Penis drawings (of course, I had to get those penis drawings in there somewhere)

Cheerios

“Kid was so fat”

Penis gore - I think of all of them, I find this the most worrying.

Oh, and on a final note, the cold is making my ribs sore… I feel like a creaky old lady.

Lame.

Penis drawings, adult footise pyjamas and birthday surprizes for those unable to flirt

As I sit here and write this, my puppy is alternating between sitting on my shoulder and lying on my arms as she oversees my work. Okay, as she watches the cursor move across the screen. In dog world though, aren’t they the same thing?

There are some very strange people visiting my blog at the moment. In the time since my last post, I have had:

• Nine people searching for “Penis drawings”
• Three people searching for “Adult footsie pyjamas”
• One person looking for “Plans for birthday surprizes”
• One person searching “unable to flirt”

To those searching for penis drawings, may I recommend the New York Subway, the desks at my college or maybe even just take a little walk down a darkened alley. Be sure to take an adult with you to hold your hand though kids, there are some mean penis drawings out there..

For the three people who found my blog searching for adult footsie pyjamas, perhaps this is what you were looking for. I’m not sure they sell the ones with floppy bunny ears and a tail but I’m sure it’s worth a shot. If any of you are looking to impress someone special in those raunchy pyjamas of yours, they do them in leopard print too! Hell, why not even get them as a little birthday surprise for someone… Surprise…? yes. Good surprise…? maybe not.

Finally, for Mr lonely, I’m sure you can find a starting point to get to know one of the many people who have come here in the hope they’ll find a phallic drawing. Keep on hoping guys, you sure won’t find one here.

And now onto far more pressing matters. A little over a week ago, I was having one of those days (you know… the ones where you go to work) and my iPod decided it had finally had enough of being poked, prodded and filled with Linux so it decided to die on me. I tried to reset, update and restore but nothing worked. One day outside of the guarantee and he was gone.

I’m sure apple have some sort of remote “iPod crippling” device that kills them off so you have to buy a new one. I mean really, who can live without a little music on the way to and from work? So anyway, the next morning, I pootled off to the apple store and handed over my credit card (which at the time was screaming) in exchange for a shiny new ear friend. I am now the proud new owner of a remastered iPod Nano. The photos don’t really do it justice, they’re really rather cute.

A few thoughts on my new toy are as follows:

1. The new packaging is far better. No ugly silver foil envelopes you just can’t open without scissors, no 100 different sections to root through before you find what you want… Just plain, hot, beautiful packaging.
2. new headphones. I *still* think they look as though they have some kind of genetic disorder, however, the grey bits are now soft rubber and the sound is much better than the old ones. They’re more comfy too.
3. the new casing of the iPod its self. It looks much, much, much better “in person” than in photos as you can actually appreciate how tiny it really is. There’s none of that iPod mini clunkiness going on… Nope.

   On the downside though, the layout on the bottom of the nano is different so the previous headphones (the ones that you can hang around your neck) and such don’t quite fit which is slightly annoying. You choice of color is also limited by the size of the iPod you want to buy, for example, the 8GB nano only comes in black and the 2GB is only in silver.

4. the brighter screen. I’m really not sure what’s going on here. Its possible I’m just completely blind but I’m really not seeing the difference. Okay, well, I am but its so minute, its more likely to be due to the fact the screen on my old iPod is filthy.
5. Search! Finally! I cannot tell you how long I’ve waited for a search feature on an iPod. Its cute, well integrated and works brilliantly. Very, very fast too. No complaints here!
6. Letters when you’re scrolling. When you scroll through your song list reasonably fast, a grey, semi-transparent box appears showing the letter you’re browsing through… VEEEEEEEERY useful if you’re looking for something and keep missing songs starting with “m” etc… You get the idea.
7. The battery life… holy mother of God, I’ve been listening to my iPod for 6 or 7 hours now and the battery meter at the top isn’t even 1/4 of the way down. That ladies and gentlemen is impressive.

-fin-

Things in general, though, seem to be at a total standstill. I’m stuck trying to find entertainment to pass the time until I can leave New York and study abroad. I’m certain my current job is not something I really want to continue for the rest of my life although I can just about bear it until I leave next summer… Besides, money is money no matter which sin you stab in the butt to get it.

Money however, cannot buy you out of boredom or insomnia. Thankfully, for that there is Java and Ruby as well as physics and math - Did I mention I wear my pants up to my armpits, have milk bottle glasses and snort when I laugh? Okay, not quite but one day… One day, I will turn into a geekified version of my mother. (That blood-curdling scream you just heard? Yeah, that was me realizing my fate!)

In my very loose pants:

• I have finally learned about Male Restroom Etiquette thanks to this informative YouTube video. Go on, give it a try… Apparently peeing is somewhat complicated for the simple minded half of the species
• I swear to God, I’m not a man hater, just a man not interesteder. For now at least, until someone utterly incredible, gorgeous and rich (joke) comes along, I will have nothing to do with penis “graced” humans on any level above that of a friend. On second thoughts, maybe I’ll add penis “graced” dogs to my list as well… No one likes to go to a friends place and leave with sticky shoes.
• I’m really rather tempted to take part in NaNoWriMo. Who says writing a novel in a month isn’t possible? Uh… me. Besides, who would want to read 175 pages of my ramblings?
• My mother will never continue to amaze me. After spending a few (maybe 6+ a day) working when I really didn’t need to be, I feel a bit run down. My mom of course, is there to help me a little bit as she stands making helpful comments such as “Ana you look really bad, you should go to bed” but then watching me as I struggle to put the sheets on so I can in fact, get some sleep.
• Hopefully, I’ll have a new car by the weekend, which of course, is incredibly useful when I live in Manhattan and drive maybe once or twice a month. That won’t stop me though. Turning down the offer of a free car is insane and I therefore refuse to do so. My logic is, as ever, utterly flawless.

…and now to return to the joys of New York living. Take out sushi!

Two Jewish mothers

My new asthma meds are kicking my butt today so instead of running around saving the world (from what, I don’t know…) I’m sitting here writing a new blog post. On the bright side though, my inhaler is now purple and has a little counter so I can see how much is left… Its all pretty nifty…

It seems that ever since I came up with the “anyone with a penis will be shot” rule, the penis endowed folk of New York are determined to prove me right. I think most girls would agree with me in saying that men simply don’t “do” hints but what happens when they simply don’t “do” more obvious than being smacked in the face with a brick?

I cannot even begin to describe how fed up I am of a select group of people who just don’t get it. For starters, I explained to one person why I wasn’t interested in being anything more than friends eleven times and judging by the message I got this morning, I’d say he still doesn’t quite understand. I suppose its my fault though, the words, “I’m not interested in dating you” are obviously far too ambiguous. The same goes for the guy who sends me photos of himself at the gym to show how much he’s “working out for me…” because of course, sending me pictures of that pale jelly belly of yours is riddled with sex appeal. Just thinking about it makes me nauseous.

As a little side note, Stacey also made a post about the rule on her blog which makes for some pretty good reading. Click it, go on, I dare you (but not until you’re done with my blog).

…and now, onto a little bit about a boy I do like… but only really to embarrass him. A few days ago I was sitting “studying” (it usually means talking to people on MSN, reading a book or doing some serious photoshopping) and Danny calls me from the other room and says: “Uhh um er oh, Anaaaaaaa, Bojangles has your, um, you know…” At first, I really was totally innocent and asked him what she had only to be met with the reply “your… you know… things” which is as ever, very descriptive and helpful…until I realized he was just too embarrassed to say “tampon.” I’m a really nice person so I thought I’d make him say it for my own personal enjoyment. The conversation went a little like this:

Ana “everything in here is mine, Daniel, what are you on about”
Daniel “Your…. you know… THINGS”
Ana“DANNY WOULD YOU TELL ME WHAT THING THE DOG IS CHEWING”
Daniel “you know… those things you use sometimes”
Ana“I use lots of things sometimes”
Daniel “for you know… girl problems…”
Ana“Oh my chocolate? You should really take that off her, its not good for her”
Daniel “No, the other things…”
Ana“WHAT THINGS”
Daniel “Ana just come and look at it”
Ana“why don’t you take it off her if it bothers you so much”
Daniel “Its… a you know… girl thing”
Ana“My lip gloss? Eye liner? purse? MY WHAT DANIEL”
Daniel “Ana your…” *small voice* “tampon”

…if only it wasn’t so fun to do that to him. And now to share a little of what’s in my pants… as always:

• After months and months and months of learning how to fly, I finally have my pilots license. Yays! Now all I have to do is find somewhere to fly to.. Hmm
• Since my last post, I have had nine hits from people searching for “penis drawings” and three from people searching “giant penis.” If you’re wondering, they’re finding the post Penis Drawings and Giant Kangaroos each time.
• I ran half a mile, jumped one wall and three benches while wearing 2″ heels with pointy toes in order to regain control of my passport which, as everybody knows, contains the least flattering photograph of me, ever.
• I’m considering making some kind of “art” out of the many inhalers I seem to have lying around my apartment. The sooner I never ever have to see/use one ever again, the better. Plus… you know.. they give you funny budges when they’re in your pocket.
• My week has had a definite vomit/slime theme to it starting with the lovely person who barfed onto my shoes (where it then soaked onto the inside) which was then closely followed by slipping on some slime in the nastiest, dirtiest crack house on the planet and putting my ungloved hand in a nice little puddle of ice cold, semi digested carrot chunks. Finally, yesterday, things were topped off with some autopsy induced nausea although it was the n00bs, not mine… I’m getting pretty good at deducing what someone has been eating… I’m sure its useful… for something?
• I’ve been suffering hives all week… I’m itchy. Could someone pleeeeeeease scratch my back!
• I started reading Catch 22 this week and have fallen totally in love with it. Now all I need is someone to donate me a few hours to finish it… If you have any spare time you’re not going to use, feel free to mail it to me
• I’m started teaching some of my moms friends kids (and their friends) ASL this week. Their mom is almost the definition of a Jewish mother, just like mine. And because she’s both Jewish and like my mother, she kept trying to feed me cinnamon balls and honey cake (none of which I tried very hard to resist… We all know Jew food is the nicest thing ever!) while commenting “Oy, you’re so thin… you’re just skin and bones… doesn’t your bother ever feed you?”

I can seeeeeeee you

I was looking through the visitors on my blog earlier and this person, visits every day! If thats you, leave a comment ’cause I’m curious to know who my “fan” is!!!

Host Name 165.206.16.130
IP Address 165.206.16.130
ISP IOWA COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK
Domain IA.US
City DES MOINES
Region IOWA
Country UNITED STATES
Returning Visits 16

I’ve also found out, a lot of people are reaching my blog from googling the following:

1. penis drawings - I really hate to think what these people were expecting…
2. what does arribiata mean/
3. painter decorator
4. gavarilka
5. digging for severage
6. ashley peachy ass - I’m not even going to ask…

A little slice of my New York life…

It’s about time for another blog post, eh?

The Thursday before last I woke up to find my phone making obnoxious noises at some obscene time of day. It was so early in fact, the handful of people walking the streets must have been vampires - there simply is no other explanation for it. After untangling myself from the sheets Houdini style and much stumbling around in the darkness (and adding carrots to my shopping list) I found the evil little thing and managed to mash they keys until “Check CNN & call me” glowed on the screen.

By now I’m expecting to see my mother being dragged away in handcuffs or a straight jacket. Much to my disappointment, I flipped open my laptop and clicked onto CNN to find an article along the lines of “A plot to blow up planes in flight from the UK to the US and commit “mass murder on an unimaginable scale” has been disrupted.” Much drama ensued as my mom explained they’d cancelled her flight to NY etc etc… I’m sure you’re aware of events. If not you may click here and find out for yourself. Eventually, at the cost of an extra $2,600 and 3 days both her and my sister arrived safely at JFK to find the travel insurance doesn’t cover “acts of terrorism.” With terrorism related delays/inconveniences almost as common as delays due to poor weather conditions, surely it should be covered by even the most basic travel insurance… While I’m on the subject of terrorism, does anyone feel that it’s becoming so common they barely take notice of it anymore? That it’s just another part of life?

And now on to my day in the morgue. There was one case that got to me and I still feel as though it hanging over me. It was the case of a four year old that appeared to have drowned in six inches of water despite the fact her parents were only a few feet away. What gets me most is if her parents hadn’t consumed enough alcohol to intoxicate a whale, they would have seen her fall and saved her but they didn’t. That was strange enough but aside from the usual things you’d expect with a drowning victim, they also found she had a number of fractures at different stages of healing which suggests she was being abused - probably by the oh so wonderful parents. The fact she they were being forceful enough to break her bones and no one knew about it REALLY haunts me.

On Thursday I took a little trip to Greenwich in Connecticut (for all you weird foreign people, I don’t mean Greenwich village, NYC) for a work “thing”. I even have a little map of the journey from my apartment to the place up in Greenwich ’cause I’m good like that! To be honest, the only thing I really learned was how difficult it is to stay awake while someone patronises a group of you in a completely monotonous voice while you’re held captive in a warm room. It was utter torture! On the bright side, the long car journey gave me plenty of time for introspection which, when accompanied by really good music, makes for a rather enjoyable little trip. By the way, everyone should buy Evermores album “Real life” because, well, quite simply it’s awesome.

My boss decided that Friday would be dedicated to “team building.” with a little help from wikipedia I can now tell you that:

“Team building” (or “‘teambuilding’”) refers to the process of establishing and developing a greater sense of collaboration and trust between team members. Interactive exercises, team assessments, and group discussions enable groups to cultivate this greater sense of teamwork. Team building has many contexts, for example in sport clubs and work organizations.

This basically meant my boss planned a morning of, to quote Nick, “buggering around.” Anyway, the big boss man decided we were going to go paintballing (and there was no way to get out of it!). Given my “gun issues” and the fact I’m taking medication which makes me bruise more easily than a banana (I look like crack whore!), I wasn’t terribly excited BUT in the name of “team building” I was willing to give it a shot, so to speak.

After a minute or two of listening to the rules, Nick nudges me and says “I’ll take you to breakfast if you fake a panic attack” so I shoot him a confused look and he continues to explain he doesn’t like paintballing (’cause he’s a wimpy little girl :P) and if I had a panic attack about the guns, he’d obviously have to take me home… Panic attacks are really nasty and I felt like I was going to have one anyway so I figured it’d be easier just to fake a small one and go have breakfast instead of running around getting shot at and having a bigger one. …and so I do. We spent the morning shopping and eating before finding out that paintballing got a little too competitive and someone’s cracked a rib. Rather them than me I suppose!

I was on call in the afternoon and when I had a little time to think about what I did, I felt really guilty because, well, I was. I called my boss and came clean about the deal I had with Nick and he actually seemed to find it funny. I’m not sure Nick will ever be able to live down the fact he was too pussy to go paintballing but at least I have a clean conscience!

On Saturday I was on call again but ended up tangled in prank calls. It’s really irritating to be ready to do your job and get there to find the place you were sent doesn’t even exist! In this case, the street address was real but the house number was one above the final house on the street and it took us a minute to realize we’d been screwed over. While I was out dealing with that, there was a real call that I could have been going to which made me really mad. If I EVER find out who it was, I’ll personally cut their fingers off so they can’t call us again. I had some real calls in the evening (and had a kid barf on my shoes and it ran down inside them. Squelch, squelch, squelch…)

And that brings me to today… I’ll let you know when something actually happens!

Beware the planes, they house the crazies.

I went to Paris with a male friend last weekend but in all the excitement, I forgot a suitably trashy book to read on the plane. In the absence of said book, I was left watching my fellow passengers. Not terribly easy when you consider planes were built to carry as many people as possible, not facilitate my people watching tendencies but never the less, I just about managed it.

Before the plane even took off, I noticed the businessman sitting to my right. He was wearing an obviously expensive black suit, grey shirt and a pink tie while he sat quite happily talking on his cell phone until the flight attendant told him to turn it off. Even then, he carried on talking for good two or three minutes before ending the call - much to the flight attendants annoyance. Its a shame his behavior is something common in New Yorkers, especially business men. Is arrogance really a necessity to be successful in business?

On my left is my male friend (who doesn’t want to be involved in this post) and past him is another man with white iPod headphones poking out from under his messy hair and snaking down to his lap. He was sitting back in his seat with his eyes closed and sweating heavily as he gripped the seat hard enough to turn his knuckles white. Transatlantic flights are rarely smooth and this was no exception. Every time the plane would shake a little, he screwed his eyes closed as he made a conscious effort to calm his breathing. Poor guy could have used a few beers…

As soon as he was able to get out of his seat, Mr Business jumped up and rummaged about for a minute before pulling out an almost new MacBook Pro. Within seconds he’d unpacked a little office; custom designed notepads with the company logo watermarked on the pages, pens, highlighters, again, all with the company logo scrawled across them and most importantly, at least 18,000 pages of emails, letters and notes. I can’t decide if he was attempting to show off about his job or just stealing office supplies…

In front of Mr Business was a woman in a white dress complete with chrome stiletto heels, a matching purse and enough diamonds to fill a coffee cup, naturally. She spent a good ten minutes making sure her lips were dripping with deep red lip-gloss and admiring herself in a small mirror. An hour into the flight, the mirror hasn’t gone away for more than five minutes! Eventually she’s content with her appearance (despite the fact she’s wearing more makeup than a clown) and she picks up her Cosmo.

I suspected she was going to be wrapped up in tackling such a “challenging read” for a while and turned my attention back to Mr Business who, despite the wedding band on his hand, saw it appropriate to make a pass at the flight attendant as she walked past. Apparently unable to flirt with her or do something discreetly, he reached out and clumsily slapped her ass when she passed him before quickly settling back into his improvised office. Classy. Reaaaaal classy.

You get some really odd people on a plane.