Taking a break

I’m taking a break from working on my final presentation and my deliverables for my summer internship. The presentation, given to the CEO, the domestic and international COOs and other senior management is on Wednesday (Ay-Caramba!). Hopefully everything will be OK. Needless to say, I’m working all weekend, though I wish I had better self-discipline. I noticed I tend to take an awful lot of breaks, some longer than they should be.

Other than that I don’t have anything particularly interesting to say. Uri is doing fine. He and my cousin spent two days now at an all-inclusive resort in Cancun. I think that’s probably the best thing he could’ve done on a vacation that he’s taking without me, since I would have gone CRAZY there.

OK – the truth is there is something I’ve been thinking about writing for a while. It’s a bit weird, so those of you who want to keep having a positive perception of me, and not really know how bizarre I am, please stop reading. This is something that I would never talk about with anyone, but I think about at least once a day, so this is another one of those cases where I’m really using the blog as an outlet.

Here it is – In the place that I work the women’s restroom is the very standard looking stall bathroom, it’s a little drab, but nothing too bad. There are 3 regular stall and one handicapped stall that’s both wider and deeper. The stall doors are those metallic looking blue-green color that is really reminiscing of a hospital. I think it was in my first week that I noticed that between the first stall and the wall there is a really big gap that when you walk out the door you can completely see what’s inside. Moreover, since the handicapped stall is longer than the rest of the stalls, and the paint on the stalls is that metallic blue green, if you stand and wash your hands, and look into the mirror, you can completely see everything that’s happening inside the third stall (the one next to the handicapped stall) reflecting in the wall that joint to that third stall and the handicapped stall. No need to say that ever since then I do indeed have a stall preference.

That’s all from me (for now). Back to work I go.

Silly things on TV

So quick update on our lives:

The weekend in California was super great.

I apologize to anyone out there with small children but my niece is the cutest two year old in the world.

The last week at work has been very hectic. As I come closer to the end of my internship (2 weeks now). So it’s really good that Uri is in Mexico. You can check out how he’s doing on Facebook, He has 2 albums there – one from Mexico City, and the other from the Aztec pyramids (I think it’s Aztec). A couple of days ago the left Mexico City for Puerto Escondido and last I heard, they were in San Cristobal.

This weekend, my first one completely alone, I went up to Boston and had really good dim sum in Boston’s Chinatown. I wasn’t expecting this, but the dims sum at China Pearl was better than any dim sum I’ve had in New York, both in terms of taste, and in the variety. I also went to the harbor to see the tall ships that are showing there now. Unfortunately, none of them were sailing, so it wasn’t that impressive – oh well.

Another change in my life is that the room I’m staying in at the B&B is slowly being fixed up. When I got back from California the “living room” had a desk and a TV in it. So – confections of a TV-holic here, the TV is open most of the time. What can I say, it’s not that I necessarily watch TV all the time, but I like having the voices in the background. Would I be more productive if it wasn’t on? Probably. I would defiantly read more books – but it’s only the first week, so give me a break! But since it is constantly on, I’ve managed to catch, either through “coming soon” commercials or in actuality, some really strange TV shows.

One is “Dance Your Ass Off” – a reality TV competition that combines “So you thing you can dance?” with “The biggest loser”.

The second is “Drop Dead Diva” – a show about a model that dies and comes back as a workaholic, overweight lawyer.

It’s right up there with a show that Uri caught a while back while flipping through channels named “My big fat red-neck wedding”, a reality show hosted by Tom Arnold, that follows red neck couples as they put together their hideous weddings.

Things to do in California when you're bored

I'm not really in a writing mood, but frankly I don't really have anything better to do. I was about to write “... but truthfully...” but I've been making an effort not to use the phrase “truthfully” or “to tell you the truth” because then it raises the question – is everything else I've been saying not the truth?

Uri and I said our goodbyes yesterday. I flew off to California to visit my brother and his family including my mom who is visiting them from Israel.

Uri when down to Mexico. He's meeting my cousin in Mexico City, and they'll travel around for the next few weeks. I would really like to tell you how he's doing, but I haven't heard from him. (Small complaint there, not too bitchy – right?)

Here in California it's nice and sunny. I know it's lame that I'm talking about the weather, but just like when it was snowing and the weather became became such a large part of our lives, the fact that it's constantly raining in Cranberry Land, despite the fact that it's July has became a huge part of my life. It's really depressing, like I'm not getting any photosynthesis or something. Though I guess I shouldn't complain, I did miss winter in Israel, so now I'm getting the Israeli winter in Cranberry Land.

OK, writing with no muse is really annoying, so I'm stopping now.

After many days

Written on a bus, June 21st 2009, typed on an airplane July 3rd, 2009

This week we decided to forgo one of us making the 6.5 hour car drive between Ithaca and Cranberry Land, and opt for both of us making a 4-5 bus ride to meet in NYC.

We stayed at Wolly & Marc's who have been featured on this blog this before. However since that time the two seriously upgraded their host-ability, moving from a cute yet small apartment to a 2 bedroom castle in the sky. Well, it's a 2 bedroom apartment on the 3rd floor above an Italian restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, but it could not be cooler.

I love New York. I think that even had I spent the entire weekend inside, I would still be happy just knowing that the city was out there.

Needless to say, we didn't stay inside the whole weekend. We went to a cool Asian-fusion place that was nice though over priced (the prices seemed reasonable, but the dishes were super small). Of course, we also went for dim-sum because I can't be in the city without eating a steamed pork bun. We also went food shopping and cooked a really nice meal for ourselves and for our hosts . Pictures to come when I get them from Marc.

Sunday there was an event in Central Park called Tel-Aviv Beach comes to NYC (or something like that). Having finished dim sum with Wolly, Marc and Dani & Gil and with nothing better to do before saying goodbye, we all decided to check it out. It was quite a walk from the park entrance to where it was, and on the way we saw a group of people in a pro-Palestinian march (More on this later). Between the walk, the march, and the humidity we started developing some sense of anticipation. BUT when we got there, it was a little ridiculous sand box. We stayed all of 5 minutes and then turned around and walked back to the apartment.

A note on the pro-Palestinian march, as promised: A strange little thing – about 10 people, mostly white American women, and maybe 2 people who looked like they might be of actual Palestinian decent. They were walking around the park, a distinct scent of pot following them shouting “Free Palestine” and “Long Live Palestine”. A bit simplistic, but you really can't blame them for that. My main “beef' with them was the lack of creativity. I would be very surprised to find out that they actually made the news somewhere. And I say – if your trigger is a Tel Aviv beach party, why not counter with a Gaza Beach scene featuring corpses and a few homeless people?Someone, I won't say who, suggested that they also could have dug a tunnel from that beach to the edge of the park.

Now I'm on the bus back to Boston. I'm on the infamous “China Bus” that goes between the China-towns of the two cities. This bus ride has given me a few tidbits to write about too. The first was the throwback to the rabid capitalism of China that I had right from the first minute I stepped in China-town. First, a China Bus woman standing close to where I got off the cab made me pay for my ticket to Boston in order to get an explanation as to where the Boston bus station is. Then, on the bus, the driver made a woman pay the full ticket price for her baby, because the baby was taking up a seat. Then, finally, on the way to Boston, the driver stopped at a Burger King that the bus company had cut a deal with. Since most of the people on the bus did actually order something the pit-stop took longer than planned. This made the driver mad, and he proceeded to threaten to leave, making one BK employee ran out to make sure that the bus does not leave before everyone gets their flood.

Another little bus inspired story has to do with bus etiquette. Across the isle from me is the only foursome sit on the bus (the kind with a table in the middle). Lucky enough, they are all friendly type people and so they keep talking. And the thing is, that I'm having a very hard time not listening in. So I know that 2 of them are french, one grew up in Israel and then the 4th guy just sort of seems like a dush . He keeps asking annoying questions, and making stupid remarks to try to up play the fact that he lived in Paris. One example is that he said something along the lines of “Let me see if I remember this” and then proceeded to recite all the lines of t RER with their letters and destination stations What's really annoying is that I keep having the urge to butt into the conversation. Initially I held myself back, misanthropically not wanting to talk to 4 random people that I won't ever meet again (especially not the dush). The thing is that beyond the Israeli thing, they kept talking about food! And the french people keep getting stuck on words, which then becomes a guessing game – but I know exactly what she wants to say! Things like she kept saying “sous vide” trying to explain that something is in vacuum or she couldn't remember the name “Grand Mariner” when the Israeli girl referred to a crepe she ate that was lit up.

I finally broke when the dush was trying to remember the name of a very sweet bread he liked. After a few rounds of them trying to guess, I just said “brioche, he means brioche!”