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whappy happy nea land! |
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My own spot to rant about my day.
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wWednesday, November 28, 2001 |
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I've decided a day-by-day post of what was a rather uneventful trip would probably bore the 5 people (I'm more popular than dave!) who read this, but a lot of people have been asking me what the mood is in NY. Which makes sense to me--all of us were affected by 9/11, but people in NYC on a much stronger level.
Ground zero is still smoldering. Not just a little ash and an occasional whif of smoke. You can see the smoke from New Jersey. The area around ground zero still smells funny. As someone from LA, I know that the World Trade Center should be on the horizon, but I couldn't place it in the New York skyline if I tried. However, to Dave, his mother, and the other people I was with, there was this gaping hole. And, just to spite them, in place of the two tall buildings is this spire of black smoke.
People have gotten more friendly. Our taxi cab drivers both spoke english, used their turn signals, and only scared me once. This is a miracle. When we went to register at Macys (and yes I know they're going to be nice since we're in essence buying hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise) all the service people were friendly. It was easy to just turn and ask questions, since no one had that lame, sophmoric attitude you so often get in retail centers. I wasn't even pushed off the sidewalk during the whole trip! Very impressive stuff.
It is still a time of mourning in NY. Every firehouse has black and blue banners up, and the number of tributes and memorials in enormous. The train station, some subway stops, every government building, along the fence that separates off ground zero from the rest of the world . . . flowers, drawings, cards, and pictures. Intermixed there was usually color photos and descriptions of those who died or are presumed dead. I can understand how many, during this holiday season, are going to walk by those tributes and feel a moment of pain for those who are gone.
posted by
nea at 9:00 AM
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wSunday, November 25, 2001 |
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I'm back!
In case you've been oblivious to the past few weeks blogs, I was in NJ/NY all week for Thanksgiving. We stayed with Dave's mom in Woodbridge, but roamed all over the place. Went into the city twice, once to register for presents (hee hee scanner gun) and do random stuff, and once to have Thanksgiving dinner at Dave's cousin Greg's apartment in Manhattan. Let me mention now that Greg makes $36 million a year. I have no clue what he does with all this money, but 2.5 million went into a two-bedroom apartment in Gramercy Park, not far from Union Square. The place is not especially huge, but has a lot of awesome features in it. These include a large flat-screen TV mounted above the fireplace, an outdoor patio that had been landscaped, and a glass-wall kitchen with a Tuscan-style brick mosaic floor. I was impressed.
All in all, the week was good. It felt nice to be away from work, act as tourists, and hang with Dave. Oh yeah, and have the two most spoiled cats on earth sleep on me.
I know this is a brief and pathetic recounting of my week, I will try and get around to more tomorrow, since I have a feeling I didn't miss much at work.
posted by
nea at 9:00 PM
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wFriday, November 16, 2001 |
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I had a mildly depressing moment this morning.
I ran into the president of my company while waiting for the elevators in our parking structure this morning. We started having nice small talk: how we're both going on vacation next week, where I'm going, life in New York, etc. We get off the parking elevators and start walking down the hall of the building. My building has two towers, East and West, and I happen to work in the East Tower. So, when we reach the corner, he ends the conversation and walks ahead of me. I just think he's busy until he looks back and goes, "Oh, you're heading this way too?"
Me, "Yes."
Him, "Where do you work?"
Me, "Carat."
He looks at me TOTALLY embarrassed. I mean, here's the president of an office with less than 150 employees, and he doesn't even recognize me! He felt pretty bad, and asked how long I had worked there, hoping that I had not worked there long and he could cover himself. When I told him I had worked there six, seven months, he still felt pretty bad. I tried to make it better but there's not much you can do in that situation. So I'm debating on whether to think the whole thing is funny (I'm sure I will in a day or two) or to be depressed. I feel so unimportant! ARGH!!!!! On the other hand, I did introduce myself and made a good impression, so it's not all bad.
I'M GOING TO NEW YORK TOMORROW! YEAH!
posted by
nea at 9:52 AM
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wThursday, November 15, 2001 |
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I'm going to New York on Saturday!
Last night I started being excited. I've known for months I was going and yes, have kept the plane tickets we bought before September 11th. Dave and I are going because his whole family is out there, and neither of us have been back since we got engaged. And, oh yeah, it's Thanksgiving. Greg totally cracked me up last night since I keep forgetting Thanksgiving is next week too. The holiday seems like such a sidenote to the whole trip.
During this trip, I know I'm totally going to be the paraded-around fiance who will have to answer tough questions (I've been practicing) like "What do you do?" (my job is hard to explain) and "When are you two going to have children?" (at this point I explain one of the few plans in my life: marriage, house, then kids. Time period flexible, but order not.) We also get to go to Macy's in Harrold's Square and register for presents! Yeah bar code scanner gun! I wonder what Dave's forehead will come up as. haha We are probably also going to see a number of Dave's friends, and finally go to this mythical place called Redbank. About every four to six months, as we are discussing NJ and Dave's life before college, he asks, "Did I ever take you to Redbank?" or "Remember that cafe in Redbank?" to which I always answer "No." This needs to be fixed since Dave has been asking for almost five years now.
Last night was Chi chapter's 70th anniversary, so Ray and Greg came up to speak. It was an interesting meeting, since Greg was stuck in traffic and we had to keep stalling. So we did skits, had more people talk, drew out discussions of events, and finally got into a big circle and talked about memorable experiences this term. But luckily a lot of people didn't notice the stalling. And when Greg showed up, all was well. It's interesting to see your close friends get turned into legends. When I pledged, Greg was just this guy who happened to be part of the founding class and tried to help out and be a good active. After Greg graduated, he became a line in the history of Chi rather than an active that everyone knew. And now, when he comes out to stuff with us and meets new pledges, it's totally "Wow, it's Greg Barnes Founding President!" I used to think that was hella cool, but now I realize that it must be hard to connect with people when they're automatically putting you above them. Life is odd.
posted by
nea at 10:51 AM
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wTuesday, November 13, 2001 |
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It's nine a.m. and I need a nap.
posted by
nea at 8:56 AM
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wMonday, November 12, 2001 |
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A wedding
Yesterday we went to a very nice wedding. It's a little strange, going to weddings right now, cuz Dave and I get a lot of "You're next!" and "Are you guys looking around for ideas?" We do check out weddings to see if there's anything we'd like for our own, and yesterday there totally wasn't anything that called to us. For instance, people had been recommending to me to pick a fabric for the bridesmaids and have them make their own dresses. This is what Gayle, yesterday's bride, did. Skipping the fact that she picked a really ugly fabric, the dresses were yucky. Most of them were not made very well. You'd think that a custom made dress would fit, but two of the girls had dresses that did not fit them correctly at all. So we will be buying pre-made dresses, thank you. Also, the flowers and wedding style were totally not us, and the cake was kinda yucky tasting. For favors they did the bubble, CD, and customized choclate bar thing. Lots of stuff to take home. I kinda wished that our CD, which doubled as a place card, had my first name spelled correctly and Dave's last name on it. It's kinda cheesy to misspell a guest's name. However, the wedding was really pretty. It totally matched the tastes of the bride and groom, with tables named after football teams and pale colored roses everywhere. Everything was a pretty cream color (I'm more of a white person, but anyway) with a cream cake, cream roses, cream dress, cream tuxedo vests on the groom and ringbearer, etc.
Mini-rant: I understand that my cousin didn't have my address, or my name, written down. Fine. But it would have taken a whole one call to get it. Instead, Dave and I were put on my dad's invitiation, although I've never lived with my dad. My invite to the bridal shower was on my stepmother's invitation. Even the thank you card for the shower gift was sent to my dad's. How cheesy! Dave and I promised that when Gayle and Danny are invited to our wedding, we will not send the invitation to her mother's house.
Dave spent most of the wedding being sick. This was added to by my ridiculous cousin Bryna, who loves to share everything she can about her breasts and breast feeding. This was a no kids wedding, and Bryna refused to leave her 5-week-old baby with a babysister, but decided she had to come to the wedding. After some discussion, it was decided that Bryna and her husband, Jeff, could take turns watching the baby in the bridal suite of the adjoining hotel. I thought this was hella lame, but whatever. So Bryna pretty much makes her husband stay in the room, and also has her mother and sister running back and forth. Dave and I were so annoyed with her. Then, she's sitting next to Dave, and starts talking about her breasts. Such lovely topics as leaking, beast size, feeding times, etc. Now, the rest of the family is used to this, if a bit grossed out, from when Bryna had her first child four years ago. Dave had no clue. I felt so bad for him.
Best line of the day:
Jenny, the maid of honor, who is Gayle's sister and a friend of Danny's sister, was giving a toast and telling about her times with Gayle and Danny. "I remember this one really special moment, when I came out of Wendy's room, and there was Danny. He looked deep into my eyes and said "Hey." I said "What's up?" We had several of these moments over the years."
posted by
nea at 9:48 AM
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wFriday, November 09, 2001 |
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I am feeling MUCH better. Dave is now sick though, and is attempting to get through his final teaching session of the week up north before coming down here and collapsing. I think tomorrow I may have a dead Dave. Poor thing.
posted by
nea at 8:43 AM
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wThursday, November 08, 2001 |
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Blogger is insanely slow today. Must be server issues.
I'm realizing that I made a lot of good friends my first year in college. I talked to a number of them last night (just had a big old AIM party going on Dave's computer). It's nice to have interesting conversations with people. Especially Ted. Did I mention Ted is a walnut? Dave is a hazelnut, AKA a filbert. If anyone else would like to be posted with their nut, let me know.
posted by
nea at 9:08 AM
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wWednesday, November 07, 2001 |
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I have discovered that I am very infectious.
This morning, I was the only one coughing and blowing their nose in my area. This afternoon, my supervisor has gone home sick, another of the supervisors is also feeling sick, and everytime I cough I can hear the echo as someone else also hacks up mucus. It is just lovely in here. The good side, though, is that most people will be out sick while I am here getting better, which means I can chill and still be ahead of everyone.
Sidenote: You know that your job is too easy when you are gone for two days and it takes an hour to get through all the back up.
moose!
posted by
nea at 3:22 PM
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It has been a few days since I blogged. This is because my week has been mostly crap.
I am sick. Sunday, this was yucky sore throat. By the time I got out of bed Monday (notice that I do not say "woke up") my cold was full blown. Snot running everywhere, coughing, can't breathe, sore, nasty sick. Not puking sick, which was nice, for once. So I missed work Monday and Tuesday. I am here today, but taking it REAL easy cuz I don't feel good. And my right nostril is bleeding from being blown so much (probably due to going through a box of tissue in two days). Physically I am a mess.
My computer at home is dead. The hard drive is corrupted. Can't even reformat, though I posed the idea to Dave that he might be able to turn the thing into a Linux box. The one good thing is we were able to get the computer to boot in DOS, and slowly pull out, one 1.44 meg floppy disk at a time, almost 50 megs of pictures, word files, and internet favorites. It isn't like I lost everything. However, I now need to go through the process of convincing my dad to buy me a new computer as a Hannukah/Christmas/Birthday present. I hope I hope I hope I hope.
My pets at home are also having a bad week. One of our cats, Bear, got hit by a car Friday night. It looks like he's going to be okay, with just a nasty concussion and a broken tooth. We think he might have brain damage or something though, cuz he doesn't recognize his twin brother, Spike. This makes Spike sad. Also, my dog, a 12 year old mutt named Chip, has been at the vet since Saturday. I'm not going to go into all that happened to him, because it's gross and involves maggots, but he's not doing so good. Poor doggy!
And to make my life complete, Dave has left town for the rest of the week, leaving me with a messy apartment and a rotting chicken in the fridge. Yum!
posted by
nea at 9:26 AM
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wFriday, November 02, 2001 |
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I've realized I am not the only one, by far, that thinks being a biller isn't a very worthwhile job. One of the people in my group left the company Wednesday. Now, I can understand not completely cleaning out your cubicle when you leave a job, especially if the next person is going to pick up your accounts and such. But why do people leave their personal stuff? My ex-coworker left her silver letter opener, a bunch of outdated training materials she had used, phone lists of friends, metal gift boxes with her supplies in them . . it just doesn't make sense to me. Even though I don't really care, either, I would at least have the common decency to make my workspace a place the next person could come into without hours upon hours of sorting through crap. It shows more than just a lack of respect for the job (which I understand) but a lack of respect for our supervisor, who is going to have to clean up what she can, and the other employees who will have to sort through bits and pieces in order to get their job done.
posted by
nea at 1:08 PM
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wThursday, November 01, 2001 |
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After yesterday's craziness, I realize how boring my cubicle looks. White walls, grey postboard, white paper on grey postboard. I need color! Maybe I will ask our office manager to put up (we're not allowed to touch the walls with such horrible things as nails) a scarf on the wall behind my computer. I think I might also need another plant. One that likes to grow all over the place.
posted by
nea at 11:28 AM
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nea is disappointed with America
So yesterday was Halloween. A time that is normally about trick-or-treating and dressing up and getting a lot of candy. But this year September 11th paranoia seems to have taken away a lot from that. I was stunned by the overreactions I heard and read yesterday. About half of my coworkers refused to let their kids go trick-or-treating. I asked one why, and she replied that it wasn't safe to get candy anymore. Now, I may be missing something, but have candy factories been shutting down due to Anthrax? Has there been any reports of poisoned food? Possibly reports of huge groups of Afghanistans moving into my coworkers' neighborhoods? No. Was there are news reports telling people not to trick-or-treat? No. Maybe a few reminding of razors and such, but that's the usual for Halloween. I just think this is crazy. As a kid, the fun for me was going from house to house, getting candy and seeing other costumes. And now that fun seems to be taken away from a lot of kids.
Also, I just read something from Christina's blog that I think is almost as bad. Her mom refused to hand out candy or open the door last night. Now, unless there were midget terrorists going around in costume last night, which seems awful silly, I think this was overreacting. There have been no attacks on individual homes in the US.
On the other hand, I was glad that at least a few people realized the "don't go to the mall on Halloween" e-mail was a hoax. I saw a number of reports about trick-or-treating in malls. I'm glad that at least some kids (those who were allowed) were able to get their yearly candy fix in.
posted by
nea at 9:43 AM
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