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Four reasons I dislike Finter*

15 Dec

I like fall. And I like winter. I do NOT like the unnamed season between the two, which is where we are right now. I’m choosing to call it Finter. Here are my chief complaints:

  1. It feels like it’s always cold and rainy. Not cold enough for snow, but somehow cold enough to ensure your feet turn into ice cubes that require a long soak in the tub to thaw.
  2. The leaves that fell and haven’t been picked up by the city are disintegrating into massive piles of pulp. In addition to being ugly, they’re super slippery – I’ve almost wiped out WEARING SNEAKERS a half dozen times in the last week. And regardless of how well you wipe your feet, you WILL track this leaf confetti into your home.
  3. The other issue with the leaves: they’re blocking storm drains, so whenever it rains (see bullet #1: always), water backs up until it’s about 3-4 feet away from the curb, ensuring that whenever you leave the sidewalk, you WILL step into at least an inch of standing water.
  4. It’s dark out at 4pm. Tonight I was sitting here reading my Kindle in the dark and I thought, “Well, I guess I’ll brush my teeth and call it a night…” then I looked at the clock and realized it was only 5pm. It felt like midnight.

SIDE NOTE: I just went to find an image for this post and I googled “pile of leaves.” This was on the first page of image results, and honestly, Google, I think you’re kind of an asshole:

Screen Shot 2019-12-15 at 6.57.47 PM

Please, help me: what is redeeming about this non-season? Anything?

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It’s like origami with clothes.

3 Dec

Look, I have no idea how to create and insert a poll on here, but if I did, it would ask the following:

  • When you encounter an inside-out shirt, do you turn it right-side out before donning it, or do you use the act of putting it on to turn it right-side out?
  • Follow-up: how would you categorize your gender identity?

I ask because I’m working on a theory, based on Alan’s look of confusion when I started to put on an inside-out shirt last week and reversed it during the act of pulling it over my head.

“Wait!” he cried. “Did you just put that shirt on inside-out?!”

I looked down at it. “No. It’s right-side out now.”

He shook his head, looking baffled. I shrugged and moved on.

But in the days since,  I’ve hatched a theory, which is this: Because most women learn to put a bra on upside down and backwards, we have hyper-developed spatial logic skills, making it easy to take a reversed piece of clothing and use the act of putting it on to set it correct.

What do you think? Am I onto something here, or was Alan just sleepy? Or am I stretching too much in my celebration of #girlpower?

Now seriously, please respond to my poll.

Also: someone actually made a how-to video, though I think most ladies will agree with me that his skill-level is pretty basic. Anyone worth her salt knows that if you lead with your arms, the effect is more magical and the head-hole follows automatically. No awkward fumbling to put the arms on later like he does. Check it out:

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Go on, sniff my hair – it’s delicious!

10 Nov
Screen Shot 2019-11-10 at 2.29.38 PM

From the LUSH website.

When I travel, I take a bar of LUSH shampoo with me. That way I don’t need to use the hotel shampoo, which keeps one piece of single use plastic out of a landfill or – just as likely – the ocean. The added bonus is that LUSH products smell delicious and lather up like a beast. The only (potential) problem? The shampoo bar I like has all kinds of seeds and fibers imbedded in it. I’m not sure exactly what purpose they serve, but…

…When I rinse my hair it often looks as if I’ve just used my hands to toss a quinoa bowl, which isn’t exactly what you’re looking for out of a shower. Kitchen? Yes. Shower? No.

…I fear that if I don’t rinse my hair well, I’ll become a walking bird feeder, doomed to a fate similar to Tippi Hedren’s. I imagine having to windmill my arms to fend off a flock of hungry sparrows.

…I wonder if I’m clogging up the plumbing by sending these seeds down the drain. And for the seeds that end up in the bottom of the shower and don’t go down the drain – what does the housekeeping staff think?

…On the positive side, in a survival scenario, I’m 80% confident I could eat my shampoo for the nutrients.

Are you sold?

 

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It’s not a logic class, dude.

30 Nov

Image Source: https://yoga.com/media/cache/7c/3d/7c3d9c452c8811e8e438fbf84430c76a.jpg

I finished Thanksgiving weekend with a yoga nidra workshop. Here’s the conversation Alan and I had when I told him I was going:

“Yoga nidra? What kind of yoga is that?”

“Yogic sleep,” I told him.

“So you just go there and take a nap?”

“Kind of. Except you’re really not supposed to fall asleep. If you do it right, you get super-relaxed but don’t actually fall asleep. But some people do.”

“Hmmm.”

“They even snore sometimes.”

“Hmmm.”

“It allegedly provides the same benefits as eight hours of sleep.”

“Hmmm – wait. How is that even possible?”

“I don’t know.”

“I mean, isn’t the PRIMARY benefit of sleep, rest? So how would 90 minutes of yoga nidra provide you with eight hours of rest? It’s mathematically impossible.”

“It’s not a math class. And besides, I said ‘allegedly.'”

“I’m not buying it.”

“Who cares? It’s very relaxing.”

“Why do they offer it in the evening?”

“So you can relax more.”

“But then how do you go to sleep when you get home?”

“You’re just so relaxed, it’s easy to fall asleep.”

“But you’ve just allegedly gotten the equivalent of EIGHT HOURS OF SLEEP, right? Therefore it stands to reason that it should be hard to fall asleep.”

“Nope.”

“What do you mean, nope? This makes NO SENSE.”

“Namaste.”

“Gah!!!”

 

 

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Lunch Break Overload

16 Nov

I usually eat lunch at my desk, hunched over my keyboard. Bad habit, I know, but my days often don’t even hold time for bathroom breaks, so the idea of having 30 minutes of solitude to dine seems rather far-fetched. (Maybe there’s a new year’s resolution in there?) 

Friday, however, I was forced to venture outside my building to pick up food because I hadn’t brought anything from home. I was in a hurry (ten minutes between calls) so the best option was Pret-A-Manger, since they are located right below my building and have pre-made soups/sandwiches that allow me to just grab and go.

While my break to pick up food was only ten minutes, it still provided enough space to switch gears, make some observations and think about something other than work for a brief spell. Here’s where my head went…

As I walked through our building’s lobby, I saw that our concierge, Frank, had a vase of flowers bearing a sign that said, “Happy World Kindness Day, Cecil!” I stopped briefly to compliment them on the flowers. “Those are beautiful, Frank. But why do they say Cecil?”

Frank – who seems to be eternally cheerful, despite his chronic limp that makes me imagine he was mangled in an industrial accident of some sort before moving to the US – smiled and said, “Cecil is my name.”

“Then why do we call you Frank?” I asked, puzzled.

“That I do not know. Frank is my last name,” he told me.

Hmmm. For almost three years, we’ve been greeting him by his last name? And he’s cheerfully wished us – “his cherished tenants” – a wonderful day anyway? Yeesh. “I’m sorry, Cecil! From here on out, we’ll use your first name, OK?”

“That does sound like a splendid plan,” he answered, smiling.

I was still scratching my head as I walked out and saw a homeless man rattling his cup for change. I looked around and noticed that most people walked past wearing earbuds, not even hearing the coins he shook. I found myself wondering how iPhones and earbuds have changed pandhandling.

And because I’d been working on sales training at work, my mind jumped to the increasing challenge salespeople face in connecting with buyers via the phone. “Interesting,” I thought. “As technology becomes more advanced, it’s harder for both salespeople and beggars to reach their prospects. Hmmmm…”

Before leaping to the conclusion that many salespeople could be classified as salaried beggars, I found myself in Pret-A-Manger, where I grabbed a small tomato-feta soup and was out the door two minutes later. This prompted me to create a quick list of what I love about Pret-A-Manger:

  • The packaging (it’s minimal and recyclable)
  • The efficiency of the purchase (just grab and go)
  • The convenience of the location near my office
  • The fact that they control the napkin distribution and don’t offer them automatically (which I assume significantly reduces waste since most people grab fistfuls of napkins that they subsequently throw away, unused, when left to their own devices)

Do you notice what’s missing from that list of what I love about Pret-A-Manger? Um, yeah – the FOOD. Whoever determines their menu has a love affair with mayonnaise, thus ruining everything but the tomato-feta soup for me.

I momentarily got excited last year when they introduced bacon mac and cheese – until I tried it and realized it contained cauliflower lumps. WHAT? I’m not a pre-schooler who hates vegetables – please don’t sneak them into my food, screwing with the texture and ruining my go-to comfort food.

Actually, on second thought, maybe their menu planner is a mom from Ohio. I’ll keep my eyes out for new casserole options that feature CheezWhiz and condensed cream of mushroom soup as ingredients.

Without realizing it, I was back at my desk, hunched over my tomato soup, answering the phone for my next call, and amazed by how much ground my mind covered in such a short walk. Maybe there’s something to be said for stepping away from your desk…

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