Friday, June 29, 2007

insectual harassment.

for the past two days a giant fly has been buzzing around my office. if i worked in the zoo, i would find this tolerable. but i don't, and so i really don't know what its doing in here. i also don't know why this fly is so large - about the size of a fully-popped piece of popcorn, which i think is a bit too large for your general nyc fly - although i'm thinking it must be the air in this building that creates mutant bugs. (see: elevator ride from hell)

anyways, i suppose you're wondering why i'm complaining about a fly buzzing around my head, simply doing his little fly thing near the window looking for an exit, as flies usually do. well, this fly isn't doing that. this fly is randomly dive-bombing me as i try to do my work. this fly hangs out on my sudoku puzzle daily calendar watching me type. he'll occasionally fly over to the window, or out my office door, but shortly returns and is again buzzing right over my shoulder. he's shown up on the chair next to me and perching on my mousepad.

i know i should have managed to kill this thing by now, but for some reason i can't get it together and swat him in time. i think its a combination of his size - daunting for a novice bug-killer like myself - and his buzzing, which is excessively loud when he's so close to me and throws me off to the point where instead of grabbing a notepad and swatting him i'm instead doing an indoor-voice girly shriek (translation: an eek-like noise low enough that only the person in the office next door would think something is amiss. blessfully, he has been on vacation.) and jumping out of my chair away from him. its pathetic. and rather distracting - not just the swerving out of his way but also the constant worrying that he might nest in my hair, given its current state of "big + curly". i would hope i could feel him on my scalp if he attempted such a move. - and if he ever emerges from his current lair in my blinds i will have to buck up and destroy him. let's see if i can manage that.

but the good news is, even if i can't handle it, i'm leaving for a week-long vacation later today and having checked out the lifespan of a fly -- which for your average male is 10 days (i'm assuming he's a male due to his size and aggressive nature) -- i'm expecting him to perish naturally and be gone by the time i return.

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so yes, loveandcyanide is heading off on a little vacay for the 4th, so we won't be around for a bit. where are we going? Long Beach Island. go ahead, snicker and make your little jersey shore comments...but LBI is actually a rather nice and quiet little island off the coast of the j.shore and isn't very j.shore-like at all, as the fist-pumping fools that flock to the j.shore have not found their way there yet.

hopefully, my fly won't either.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

road rage: 2-wheeler edition.

while waiting for a friend after work yesterday i witnessed a near-miss between a woman crossing the street and a delivery man on his bicycle. as the man screamed angrily at her as he whizzed past, i couldn't help but have a flashback to my own harrowing experience with an irate cyclist.

i had been in the midst of doing a walk to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis, crossing over the Brooklyn Bridge during the midway point of the walk. now i'll admit that i might have stepped from the pedestrian lane into the bike lane as i was walking, but the pedestrian lane is of a decent width, and it was only missy striding next to me, so at most i was maybe a hip's-worth into the bike path. not very much.

i suddenly felt something closing in behind me, and i heard a shout - "watch it!" as the biker flew past i sort of stumbled in to missy to move out of his way. and as he passed me he turned and screamed "rot in hell!"

rot. in. hell. was that really necessary? we were completely taken aback. i don't think anyone - exes, enemies, shouting homeless bums, anyone - ever told me to rot in hell. and to think, crazy cyclist even yelled this at me while i was wearing a pinny stating that i was there, only so slightly in his way, for a charitable cause. hmmph!

suffice to say i became a little wary of people on bikes after that. sure, i still am friends with people who bike (actually, two of the sweetest girls i know are avid cyclists) and i even attended the bicycle film festival (to see pee-wee's big adventure, of course), however i've seen one too many wrathful cyclist/pedestrian interactions to truly feel comfortable near anyone pedaling around on two wheels.



Monday, June 25, 2007

and so it goes.

i know. where have we been???

unfortunately, we didn't go anywhere. even more unfortunate, loveandcyanide took the break to mourn the death of our beloved little cat tigger, who after 17 years of ruling our roost, succumbed to throat cancer and diabetes (it makes me ridiculously sad when animals have human diseases). its been rather difficult - having never lost a pet before, i had no idea how hard the grieving process would be. i've probably cried more the past two weeks than i ever did for any relative that passed away, which i suppose is slightly disturbing and/or mean, but i've also never lost anyone who slept at the foot of my bed for 10 years. so in that respect i think all my carrying on is fitting. even when i was weepy in the produce aisle of shoprite and you made me wear my sunglasses, missy.

as is typical of my family, we've managed to turn tragedy into comedy to help cope, so currently there is much ado over what to do with the cat's ashes - father wants them to remain in the house, mother wants them buried in the yard in the hole father started digging weeks ago when he made a coffin (yes, coffin) for the cat. last i heard there were threats of father putting mother in the coffin and moving off to tahiti with the little urn. and here you thought i was exaggerating when i said that our cat was the most important member of the household.

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last week i also endured my first experience with layoffs. although there turned out to be only one - one very deserved one, if you ask me - there were office rumours afoot for days that there would be multiple ones, so we all sat in terror that we would be cut as well. not like being jobless in the summer would be the worst thing in the world...but thankfully things have returned to normal this week, and i can sit here writing instead of having to comfort tearful junior members of our staff in my office all day long.

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but things haven't been completely gloom+doom over here. there's been birthday parties (including an 'explosive' family one featuring a bbq grill fire), the acquisition of an awesome set of vinyl warrior bears, the nerve-wracking-yet-exciting start of a hunt for a new apartment, impending vacations, a new favorite snack (Tings), and a new addition to my list of favorite movies (stranger than fiction).

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

touching on the elements (sans fire).

i just finished reading a lengthy article in the NY Times real estate section that featured someone i graduated college with, which was a little bizarre to see. more bizarre is that the guy was a degenerate in school and is now about to become a father. most bizarre is that this is actually the second lengthy Times piece i've recently read that featured one of my classmates.

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the roosevelt island tram absolutely fascinates me. it always has - taking a ride on it has been on my daytrip to-do list forever - but now even more so as i have a great view of it from my office. so i get to stare at it all day long. which is nice, because watching a little tram float by every few minutes makes me feel like i'm in disneyworld as opposed to an office.

but notice how i said every few minutes. seriously, the tram must be the quickest mode of transportation in the city because its like the minute one arrives, the next one is already on its way in. we're in the midst of a seriously major downpour right now, and i just spotted one gliding across the sky. i guarantee the subway is screwed up due to this rain (or at the very least the N train is, since a mere snowflake sets that one off-schedule), and yet the city's sky transport is still going strong. amazing.

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speaking of amazing, we finally got around to watching the squid and the whale last night. SUCH a good movie. despite the rampant literary pretension - you would think working in publishing i'd be accepting of it. NO! it bothers me more than most other sorts of pretension - it was incredibly well-acted and just a really good story. and at less than 1.5 hours, it never dragged. then as the credits rolled we discovered that one of the leads was played by kevin kline's son. <3! we love kevin kline...

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and speaking of sea life, tomorrow is missy + bear's big day. (don't bother wishing them birthday greetings here since they won't see it. although i suppose you could wish me greetings for them, as our family used to buy both of us gifts on each other's birthday's so the non-birthday sister wouldn't feel left out...) what does that have to do with the ocean? a good third of missy's gift this year is related to the aquatic. why? as a tyke she went through a phase where she carried a dried seahorse around with her in her pocket at all times, and i just love taunting her about her peculiar little marine phase.




Wednesday, June 06, 2007

vacation, revisited.

the past few days have been rather overwhelming, due to a giant book expo and a 5-year college reunion. one of those events involved hoards of middle-aged women wielding giant tote bags, the other copious amounts of alcohol and a dorm sleepover. i'll let you guess which was which, and at which i had the most fun.

having finally recuperated, i'm ready to reveal, as promised last week, the reasons why i'd like to move to good ol' texas upon having visited it. (have no fear, i'm not actually going there unless something major necessitated it. my bangs could never handle the humidity and i'm not into driving trucks.)

1. THE BBQ - seriously, amazing. i literally wanted to snuggle in and take a nap in this batch of pulled pork i ate.

2. SONIC - the establishment taunts new york (or maybe just loveandcyanide) as its commercials play all the time here while the nearest one is in virginia. hours away! you cannot show us a banana creme pie shake featuring nilla wafers tha
t we can't have. thankfully, texas had one about every 20 ft.

3. $850 RENT - not per person. per apartment. per gorgeous apartment my friends lived in that featured a fireplace, 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, and a community pool that looked like it was pulled from the caribbean. and what do i pay for my 750 sq. ft. box?

4. THEY SELL BACON BY THE STRIP! - oh, you don't believe me? behold the photographic evi
dence:


its a little fuzzy, but that whataburger sign states "bacon per slice - 0.35". we wound up at that drive-thru at about 1:30am, so you know the insane amount of willpower it took me to just snap photos and not pull away with a $2 handful of bacon.



Tuesday, June 05, 2007

chrissy: preschool style icon/remorseful commuter.

while flipping through a magazine today, i spotted a photo of maddox (jolie-pitt), in which he is wearing a tshirt that i have. have. not had, when i was five, you know, like he is.

do you have to retire your clothes when the kindergarten set starts turning up in the them?

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i hate to admit it, but i think i was a little overzealous in all the excitement over my new bus stop. similar to when i purchase shoes, it appears i might have valued aesthetics over sensibility.

as the sun bore down through the clear glass roofing the other day, i couldn't help but remember, wistfully, that i never used to sweat at the bus stop, as the old shelter provided shade. and as it poured yesterday morning and i got soaked stepping on the bus, i recalled the good old days when the bus shelter covering used to extend to the curb, so one could step dryly on to the bus.

damn you, pretty-but-useless phenomenon.