Entries Tagged 'Family' ↓

I work in a building with 14 floors. It is a very old hotel building (renovated into offices), and one of the charming old features is the mail drop, which is just one big chute through the center of the building. Drop your mail in, down it goes to a big bucket in the lobby for pickup. The fronts are glass so every now and then you can even watch letters go by.

I work on the 9th floor. Last Friday I noticed that some mail had gotten stuck. The first thing that strikes one is "How?" Well, it looks like somebody folded a postcard or some other heavy piece of mail, which then sprung back open once it got in the chute. Given that it did that I'm thinking perhaps the culprit is in fact on my floor, but that's not part of my story. The point is, the mail is now stuck from floors 9-14.

The engineer in me goes to work. "All we need to do," I say, "Is go up to the top floor, fill an envelope with something thing and heavy, like coins, and drop it. The velocity should cause enough force to jar it loose. And you know what? Even if it didn't work on the first try, I bet it will eventually!"

Within just a few hours, though, there is a note on the mail slot that says "Chute jammed, do not put mail in." Oh well, somebody must have called the building to report the problem.

Well it's Monday now, and not only is the note still there, the mail appears to be piling up. I go downstairs and ask the security guards if anyone has mentioned the problem. He says, "Yes, they know about it. There've been three people from the post office out here. They need to find out who has the key."

Oh. I should perhaps mention that on each floor, the entire glass from has a bar across it, and a lock. I suppose that if the mail ever gets jammed (you know, hypothetically), you just open up the glass and take care of it. Unless, that is, nobody can find the key. It's probably been lost for years!

I ride the elevator all the way up to 14. There is no note on the mail slot. I go down to 13. Also, no note. Think about that for a second. On the floor where you can actually see the jammed mail through the glass door, somebody has put a note saying "Mail chute jammed." But nobody has done so for the other floors that have no possible way of knowing the situation.

These are basically hotel landing areas, not actual reception areas, so it's not like each floor has a receptionist who I can tell. I debate whether to add a note to every floor's mail slot on my own, and decide that I have more important work to do.

My idea with the weighted envelope solution is looking better and better, though!

With acknowledgement to Salt Hill Pub of Lebanon, NH, which prompted the idea:

1. Start with a wrap. It's important to make it a wrap.
2. Add 1-2 slices of roast beef.
3. Ready for secret number one? A couple of slices of salami. (Salt Hill used pepperoni).
4. No cheese.
5. Ready for secret #2? Instead of mustard or mayo or horseradish, try spinach and artichoke hummus.
6. Wrap tight.
7. Eat.

   It is surprisingly delicious. I'm leaving out the cheese because that tends to make it too thick and dry in the middle and it doesn't wrap as well. The whole sandwich came about as a quick lunch to take to work, which implies small and portable. A nice wrap, wrapped in aluminum foil, transports quite nicely.

   Try it, it's quite good.

Going through the mail today I find a blank white envelope. Opening it I quickly see "Customized Mortgage Quote…" and rip it up.

But wait. Something caught my eye. I put the pieces back together and looked again:

Customized Mortgage Quote for the Morin's

In case you're not seeing it, there shouldn't be an apostrophe s there. It's Morins, plural. The way it's phrased, that should read "for the Morin's mortgage" or some other possessive.

Yeah, I trust my mortgage with companies that make mistakes like that. Good job, Nancy Johnson of Wholesale Home Lenders. I'm not going to bother listing their URL.

You're missing out on a large part of life if you don't take the time to walk among other people with your eyes and your ears open. Now that the nice weather is here, I tend to wander around Boston Common, sometimes working my way up to Downtown Crossing. And I'm learning things. I'm learning, for example, how words change over time.

Last night I was at a production of Shakespeare's King Lear. There is a line, delivered by the senile king, where he says "Let me not be mad." As I heard it, in context, I realized that it could have two meanings – since he is about to visit one of his daughters he could be calming himself down, literally telling himself that being angry with her will get him nowhere. Or, more profoundly, he could be realizing that he's starting to lose his mind, and praying that it holds off awhile – Let me not be senile.

Today while walking back to work over lunch I heard someone say, "I be spending mad dough today, yo!"

Once before I heard a similar sentiment where one man confided in his friend, "I've had mad jobs, I just keep gettin fired."

Shakespeare would be proud.

Today we had two birthday parties for the kids' friends, and then guests coming over. So while I'm shuttling them between parties in the minivan I ask, "So Sarah and Brian are coming over tonight, is anybody excited?"

"Yeah!" I hear behind me, followed by "Sarah and Brian are who now?"

So last week I'm sent to do the food shopping by myself, which is a treat because it's quite an easy chore when you're given a list, and no kids in tow. I notice that Kerry has written "hand soap" on the list, which is odd because we use one of those pumps attached to the kitchen sink that uses refillable jugs of the stuff and I know we're not out. I wonder if she means dish soap, but I see that she has written dish soap on the list as well. So, I pick up hand soap and dish soap.

When I go home and we're unpacking the groceries I ask, "Why did you say we need hand soap?"

"I didn't," she says, "We need dish soap."

"Well you wrote that down too, you wrote down both."

"No I didn't."

Right about here I'm sure that I have this victory well in hand. I mean, I have the list! I even tell her this in an attempt to let her save herself. "How can you disagree with me?" I ask, "I have the list in my pocket. Don't make me show you."

"Let me see it."

I show her the list containing both hand soap and dish soap, and wait for the concession. "I only needed dish soap," she says.

"So you acknowledge that you did, in fact, write down hand soap?"

"All I needed was dish soap."

She walks away and I'm left doing my impersonation of a motor boat. "But but but but….."

Lots of news coverage about the Norwegian study that says firstborn children are smarter than their siblings, by a few IQ points. I'm not sure if this is just political correctness gone wild or people just don't read stories anymore, but the study focused exclusively on boys, and what it reported is that the first born *boy* (or is it "boys who are the first born" which is not the same thing) is the smartest. I wonder if the people writing the headlines are afraid to write that for fear of being tagged sexist?

Since the study focused entirely on men, it is essentially useless as far as I can tell. My eldest son is actually my youngest child. So what does that mean? Does it mean that he'll supposedly be the smartest? Or that, since this study did not include girls, that my two older girls are just as likely to be smarter than him? Is it safe to say "Boys and girls are the same, so everything they said for boys really applies to both genders"? It would be sadly shortsighted to think so.

This morning Kerry and I are in one bedroom at the far end of the hall, making the bed. Just then the 3yr old walks in with no prompting and announces, "I'm just in the other room, watching Dora. So goodbye." And walks away.

Ok then. Nice she keeps us up to date.

Or was it Ptolemy? Anyway. Yesterday we're in the car and she asks me whether the sun moves. I explain to her that this is a very smart question that confused many people for a long long time, but actually the sun stays right where it is and we move. She says she doesn't get it, so I promise to show her at home.

This morning (since we were very busy last night) she reminds me that I haven't shown her yet. So I borrow E, who is watching Dora, and say "Stand right here." Next I pick up K and stand her so that E is right in front of her. "See? She's right in front of you, that's daytime." I then picked K up and began walking her around E, clockwise. "Now she's over there, and it's getting to be night time. Woops, now she's behind you, that means it's night time and the other side of the world is having daytime. Oh, wait, here she comes up on the other side, morning again. Get it now?"

Of course it would have been funny at this point to report that my sun walked away, thus disproving Galilean astronomy, but she stayed put.

Later on that day (yes I realize I'm jumping backwards in the story) we were discussing "night time on the other side of the world." "Like where Uncle Derek lives?" she asks.

"Oh, no, farther away than that," I say. "Let me see if I can think of somewhere it's night time…" trying to figure out some foreign country that she would know.

"How about Egypt?"

"…Well, yes. Daddy didn't know you knew what Egypt was."

"Or China?"

"Right again, it's night time in China too."

"And Disney World!"

"Well, no, Disney World is over in the daytime section with us."

"But Daddy, you have to take a plane to China, and we took a plane to Florida. I don't understand."

I love explaining this stuff.

The "rider" is a document often associated with musicians that dictates what sort of amenities they demand backstage. Some classics include things like "a big bowl of M&Ms with no yellow ones".

The Dalai Lama's requests are a little more humble.

• He prefers flowers in happy colours and in particular green. Although unlike Smarties – he doesn't like red ones.
  That is a weirdly constructed sentence – does that mean that he specifically requests Smarties candy in his rider? Is it red Smarties or red flowers that he does not like?

• His luxurious room at Brisbane's Sofitel was to be magazine-free, there were to be no incoming calls and all alcohol removed from the mini bar – that's for religious reasons, not because of how expensive they are.Makes sense, except I don't understand the magazine thing. Calls could interrupt meditation, and alcohol is a temptation, but magazines? Does he have a thing for Paris Hilton stories where he just can't help himself?
• No alcohol was to be consumed in his presence at functions and as for his meals, he also doesn't eat after 1pm.I actually knew this from an earlier story. Apparently he's quite the big eater when he does eat, which would make sense if he has to go the next 16 hours without any additional food.
• The Dalai Lama is a vegetarian and does not eat eggs, he likes to eat solo and and his preferred choice of beverage is still mineral water.I do not think that he is a vegtarian. I have heard other reports that he eats veal, and has claimed that doctor's tell him meat is good for him, something having to do with a liver condition. I've also read reports that call him to the carpet for hypocrisy on that point.
• His favourite dish is momos, which are Tibetan dumplings (recipe not supplied). Recipe easily searched.