Good Night, Flip

You will live in our hearts forever.

I Am Ready for Thanksgiving

Mostly, I’m very ready to eat pumpkin pie. So ready that I bought one yesterday morning and a quarter of it is gone already. Pumpkin pie has never spoken much to me, but this year I turned some corner and got hit by a huge craving. I won’t be doing much for Thanksgiving, though. I’m staying home and hope to catch up on a lot of reading. I did get invited to friends, but the hassle of public transportation on holidays (one bus per hour, more exactly) and the fact that I’d have to spend the night over at their place takes all the fun out of it, unfortunately. Plus, I’m in a very solitary mood and just want to stay home. I’ll be doing the same for Christmas with much gusto. Good news for kitty, since he’ll get a lot of attention. He’s upset because I’m not bigger so that he can sit in my lap confurtably. On his wish list for Santa: me, 5 inches taller and with one extra hand :).

Demanding Kitty

Well, the honeymoon is over :). Now we’re at the I-want-your-attention-all-the-time stage. Apart from the fact that I do have a life of my own, which does not involve petting a kitty 24/7, I don’t want to take an anti-allergic every hour either. I really like it when kitty lies next to me in the dish chair, but once the hair starts flying around my nose starts running. I hate allergies.

And then, every loud meow before the crack of dawn means an extra sip of coffee I’ll need later in the day. Tonight I’m closing the door so at least it won’t be that loud; it will still wake me up, I’m sure. I had a good laugh, though, when I got up from the dish chair suddenly: kitty rolled over its back without the support he was counting on and gave me an outraged meow.

Kitty Pics

Favorite sleeping spot

Not roaring; just yawning.

Cat Stories. I Haz Dem

Visiting kitty is with me again for two weeks. What I omitted from my previous story is that I hadn’t realized the kitty-food supply was insufficient when I went to bed. So, in addition to waking up at midnight courtesy of Verizon, I also woke up several times during the night courtesy of hungry kitty. All that before a very busy and long day.

I came in late last night and kitty was quite upset, meow-meow, where have I been. I sat down in my dish chair to check my email on the laptop and kitty lined up firmly by my side, purring and making sure I pet him, to compensate for my utter and complete neglect. Went to bed feeling much better. Then I got my de rigueur meows at 4:30 a.m., which happen regardless of the food supply. But, this being the fifth time kitty is with me, I’ve gotten better at going right back to sleep.

See? I haz cat stories nao, too.

Thank you for calling Verizon. Sleep tight!

A friend has generously lent me a laptop he’s not using before I have to decide what I need to buy, depending on where I’m going in a year or so. It’s a huge help for which I cannot be grateful enough. Now I can read and work without having to sit at a desk just like I do at the office, which is killing my legs. Before that though, I needed to set up the Internet connection so I called my provider, Verizon, to have them change some setting in their system. Judging by the tech’s accent, it was pretty clear the call center was somewhere in India. It’s happened before with credit card customer service and it always blows my mind. Someone half the world over is helping me set up something in my living room. You read about outsourcing but don’t quite have a concept of it until you talk to these people. So I get my connection, I’m happy, I go to bed.

Except Verizon’s customer service folks got carried away a little too far and woke me up at midnight to ask if my problem was solved 🙂 I must have been dreaming because I remember how in my dream there was a reason why I had to get up and then I discovered the phone was ringing. I couldn’t believe it when the guy at the end of the line wanted to confirm what my problem was and if I was happy with the service I got. I’m like, dude, it’s midnight here :). He must have thought I was on California time. But he was too polite and I was too confused to articulate my disbelief at what was happening.

A colleague told me that he did small talk with a tech support guy who turned out to be in New Delhi. They started chatting about the weather and then the guy emailed him pics. Globalization is a funny thing.

The New Yorker’s Covers

Witty, symbolic, and understated. For those who follow American politics from afar and not necessarily too closely, the Nov. 10 cover shows the Democratic light at the end of the Republican tunnel. In a wicked twist of fate, Republicans are the reds here, once the color of their nemesis, the communists. (You gotta love that.) TV networks made that choice a while ago when discussing electoral maps and now this distinction is part of the everyday political vocabulary: blue states, red states.

Nov. 10 issue

On the Nov. 17 cover, symbolic is not only the O, but, more importantly, the choice of the Lincoln Memorial. Lincoln abolished slavery through the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862.

Nov. 17 issue

Bonus: this week all articles are free. I’ll go finish “Obama Wins,” by Hendrik Hertzberg.

Enjoy the great writing!