Frog and Goat

It was the city I had known before;
The ancient, leprous town where mongrel throngs
Chant to strange gods, and beat unhallowed gongs
In crypts beneath foul alleys near the shore.
The rotting, fish-eyed houses leered at me
From where they leaned, drunk and half-animate,
As edging through the filth I passed the gate
To the black courtyard where the man would be….
The dark walls closed me in, and loud I cursed
That ever I had come to such a den,
When suddenly a score of windows burst
Into wild light, and swarmed with dancing men:
Mad, soundless revels of the dragging dead-
And not a corpse had either hands or head!

(first pub. Weird Tales, 16, No. 3 (September 1930), 322.)

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This came in an email from the better-half’s friend. The subject line of the email was “A sinister aperitif for Halloween‏”.

Working from home today:

I don’t want to sound like I avoid all sick people because I don’t. Yesterday I saw someone in a car with a mask on…seriously, people. Allow me to mock.

But, there’s someone at work today who is coming down with a cold or some other funk. She openly admits it and I just called her Sneezy. Stay the frack home. Just because it isn’t the dreaded H1N1 doesn’t mean the rest of us want to catch your freaking cold.

We have a liberal leave policy and telecommuting is an option. Come in, get your work and get the hell out of here.

The first year we lived here we got very excited about Halloween and we decorated in anticipation–lights on the front porch, spooky lights in the upstairs windows, scary music at the door and a big bag of assorted candies–the good stuff, not that ratty crap that always sinks to the bottom of the stash. I think we had 2 kids stop by. Our neighborhood is lame. Now we don’t even bother. Usually we head over to the better-half’s friend’s house in Ashland where kids still trick or treat and the folks in town make a big deal.

I pulled the lights out of the attic the other day and now they are haunting our kitchen window:

Really quite scary:

Perhaps I’ve mentioned that I don’t like to shop. It’s true. It’s something I do because I have to eat or have clothes or sit on something. Today I went with two co-workers to a monthly sale that a local assisted living facility hosts (every fourth Friday). The money collected goes into a fund that directly helps residents.

Even though we’re not exactly in the holiday season yet, today’s sale was the Holiday Baked Goods and Other Awesome Stuff Sale. They traditionally have this sale in October because the fourth Friday in the following months gets wonky with actual holidays in the way.

I spent $8 on a silver plate item that came from an estate sale where it was originally marked $28. I assume the sale hosts got it for free because it didn’t sell at the estate sale. The tag was really clever with a big ? in dark black and then $8 written below it. When I went to pay for it, a couple of volunteer workers asked me if I knew what it was. I laughed and said, “No. That’s why I’m buying it.” We collectively guessed it was either for sugar or after dinner mints. There’s a little serving shovel like you’d see in the bulk bin at the grocery store and the whole container sort of looks like one of those shovels but with handles and a foot. I’ll see about posting a picture when I get home.

One of the co-workers who went with me is someone I don’t really care for and as it turns out I found out she has horrible taste (this sentence practically wrote itself). It’s really hard for me to get excited over cutesy stuff and that really seems to drive her. I had to keep making noises about how something was cute which tore at my soul a little. Because unless you are a small child, a puppy or a kitten I’m not going to call you cute. I’m certainly not interested in calling bowls, jewelry and other trinkets cute.

Here’s the sugar bowl:

So, is it just my lucky day or has Microsoft Word 2007 completely lost its damn mind?

So, yeah, we went to New York for the weekend. We’ve talked about doing it for years and I’ve always been the one who was reluctant. Something about watching too many TV shows that showed how gritty the city was…did anyone else watch Fame in the mid-80s? That’s the picture I had in my head. Obviously, I knew things had changed, but TV rots your brain.

The better-half had been before with a girlfriend back in his wild and crazy single days. They stayed close to Times Square and traveled by train to the city, I think. I know they went to the Algonquin for drinks or maybe they stayed there. I’m sure the circle wasn’t so vicious, but that’s his story to tell.

We flew into LaGuardia and for the hour plane ride a woman ripped up her mail. Let me tell you the sound of ripping paper gets old rather quickly. I suppose she could have been ripping her mail while breastfeeding a squalling infant so I shrugged it off. Also, LaGuardia might as well be in the Arctic Circle. We had to sit in the airport for a weather delay on the way back and I sat with my coat on, hood pulled over my head and with the better-half’s coat across my lap. Others were seen wearing gloves, hats, scarves and winter coats.

We stayed in Chelsea at the Hotel Chelsea. It has a storied past and lots of art in the hallways. It was also in a great spot for what we wanted to see while we were in the city. It’s also not far from Chelsea Ristorante-a great Italian place that you should try if you are ever in the city. I know we’ll go back because they really care about the food and about making sure you enjoy yourself. Nice people and tasty food make me very happy.

We ate lunch on Friday at Katz’s Deli. I didn’t realize that it was where When Harry Met Sally was filmed until we were scrambling for a seat and I saw the sign. The sandwiches were huge, the pickles delightful and the fries were nearly perfect. Spending $40 for lunch was shocking. We didn’t have that problem again. And, I was pleasantly surprised by how affordable our meals were and how delicious they were. I also don’t understand how the Olive Garden, Outback and Applebees can show their faces in NYC. Why would anyone pick a chain when nearly every corner holds a restaurant or deli?

In no particular order, the things/places we visited:
The lions at the main public library
The observatory at the Empire State building
Strand books
Heidelberg Restaurant (like being in Germany)
Central Park (still green and lush)
Grand Central Station (the green market was cool)
Times Square (meh)
Ray’s pizza (sausage, pepperoni)
Waldy’s wood-fired pizza (classic Margherita)
Metropolitan Museum of Art
We watched Zombieland and were entertained
I spotted one of these (had read about them years ago)

I’m sure there were other things we saw, but didn’t specifically stop to gawk. The weather was cold, windy and rainy and sometimes all three at once. We didn’t take many pictures because we’re pretty bad about that but pulling out the camera in the rain wasn’t convenient.

We did use the Google Maps apps on our phones to get around. GPS and route indicators are awesome tools. Thank the maker for technology.

As we flew into the airport last night and there wasn’t another plane in my line of sight, I leaned over to the better-half and said something about the one horse town rolling up the rug and going to bed. It was before 8:30.

We went here this weekend:

I had never been to New York City, imagine that. I can’t wait to go back.

I seriously felt like a weight had been dropped on my head today by the time I got home. I’ve been updating a training database non-stop at work for the last two days…why aren’t the trainers responsible for this? Who knows. I did call-out their supervisor in public and dressed her down. Her employees who witnessed it vaguely backed me up and then went back to their own conversations. Probably not the best move on my part, but I can’t be fired short of bringing a firearm to work. There are perks at being good at what you do in a very narrow field.

The better-half emailed me the link to the video below and it made me feel much better. We’ve seen Gillian Welch and David Rawlings in concert. Now I want to see Old Crow Medicine Show. Actually, I’d like to transport myself through space and time to see this show:

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Update: The trainers gave me a thank you gift card to Starbucks for all the work I did on their database this week. It was a very nice thing for them to do. The better-half suggested that perhaps some of that was for the smackdown to their boss. That made me laugh.

A couple of years ago the better-half swapped out the pipes that feed our outdoor faucets so that water wouldn’t go through the water filter. Why filter water that we dump on plants? We had the leftover copper pipes hanging around and in our effort to start throwing away crap/organizing/moving crap into the sheds we came across those old pipes.

I drew up a very rough sketch of a trellis and the better-half figured out how many elbow joints we’d have to buy in order to put together the trellis. Yesterday we soldered together the trellis. It is supporting a jasmine plant we’ve had in a pot for two years and that plant needed to get in the ground.

It makes us smile: