Heating, or Reason #348 why Dave would not want to live in a Pre-War House, Pre-Revolutionary, that is.

Once again, we have heating problems. This time its no heat in the family room. And right after we've gotten a TiVo for the family room. Want to watch the Apprentice? Get a space heater and a fur coat.

Now we have the boiler that has no water pressure, ask the heating people to come and fix it and we get a note, tacked to our door saying "no water pressure, valve must be shut off somewhere."

Thanks for the insight. Perhaps we could have a bit more information, such as, What valve? Who turned it off? Where is it? What does it do? Can't you find it and turn it back on or am I just paying for stellar conversation? This all accompanied by a i) broken (?) well pump and ii) the mysterious sound of running water, which may have been water leaving the heating system. Maybe it went on vacation, after all, winter is coming.

McGraw Tower

This Halloween we should all sit back and think about the Great Pumpkin atop McGraw Tower.

11:55

Why is it that during the week I am driven to stay up until 12 or 1 or later, but on Friday night I am ready for lights out at 11?

It was the Cat.

Rain storm, hear loud noise (something clearly hitting the house). Husband has on earplugs listening to a lecture on ancient roman history (whole other story entirely). He asks-- "was that the cat?" (evidence that hearing must be muffled if he thought the sound of something gigantic hitting the side of our home was a noise made by the cat.) I say, no, something hit the house. He gets up and looks out the window-- sees nothing and then he says. "I think it came from over there." What is that supposed to mean?? I'm sitting here, I could hear where it came from, you had on headphones, how would you know where it came from, you thought it was the cat???

Wegmans.

Why is it that the cashier always wants to put your 8 pack of Evian 1/2 liter bottles on top of your fresh loaf of bread?

Everything that can go wrong...

So. Friday started off with a bang, on the way in we got word that there was a subway fire, shutting down the 6th avenue line. We get to Penn Station and decide to take the A/C/E, figuring if they've shut down the 6th avenue line, perhaps the 8th avenue line is not affected. Logical thinking does not prevail. Get to the A/C/E station and it is pandemonium, pandemonium with loudspeakers all saying that the service on the A/C/E has been shut down.

Go to work. Enough said.

After work, have plans to see "Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang". In Manhattan it is always a fight to get a decent seat at the movie theater, especially on opening night and especially for any film which may (or for that matter may not) develop a cult following. Tried to leave work early, doesn't happen. Fight off other pedestrians for a cab- manage to snag one, things must be looking up.

Until, we get the only english speaking cab driver in New York. You would think this would be a plus, right up until he asks us where we're going (movie theater) and what we're seeing--
"who's in that" he asks, and we reply, "Robert Downey, Jr."

Then comes the stories-- about how he's on the "stuff" and then this morphs into some tale about a cab driver, a casino and a lottery ticket. All of this and we're still at 49th and 7th. Then we get hit by another cab.

Fine, just a scrape, no big deal, Mr. Talkative gets back in our Crown V and we start back up town. Everything seems to be fine until he has to count out our change-- 14 dollars in singles. Slowly, twice to make sure he didn't make a mistake, fold, unfold, etc., etc.

By some shocking grace of God we're at the theater in time. We've fandango'ed in advance so we even have our own printed tickets. Time saving? Of course not. The fandango print out must be scanned and regular tickets issued-- and why would the ticket scanner work on a Friday night? Eventually we made it to our movie, we even got Nachos. Of course the screen was smaller than our tv at home and the movie left a bit to be desired, at least we got a story out of it.

Don't even ask about the train ride home.

Expectations

Apparently, I have created expectations. I was told this today. I have entered the blogosphere and must do better than "the best thing about Wednesday". How will I ever expect to become a blog-u-lebrity if I don't do better, push harder, am more creative and fulfill my audience's expectations?

When asking pointed questions to my appraiser, I was informed that while he might create a blog, he "wouldn't tell anybody about it". Now that I have told people, I must do better. So, here's to Thursday, where the best thing about Thursday is trying harder.

At least my socks match.

The Best Thing About Wednesday

The best thing about Wednesday is once you go home and go to sleep, you'll wake up and its Thursday.

Reason #347 Why Dave Would Not Want to Live in a Pre-War Apartment

I went to sleep at 1am and thought "why is Robert taking a shower?" because that's what it sounded like in our bedroom-- like someone was in our bathroom on the other side of our wall showering-- then Robert comes to bed but the noise is still there but I'm totally passed out-- all of my dreams-- someone is still showering-- finally at 4am we both wake up and realize that it sounds like a freight train is coming through our bedroom wall *and* steam is coming out of our floor right next to our bed!

I have visions of this pipe bursting and flooding our bedroom/scalding us in our sleep! So we get the doorman and he comes and takes a look and doesn't want to wake the super because "he'll get mad" we ask him to turn the heat off-- because otherwise the pipe will burst and he says: "no, no, nothing will happen" finally-- he calls the super and the heat gets shut off until 8am. This morning a repair man comes and the first thing he says is: "pipe is bursting, turn off heat!" THANK YOU!!!!!! The man then proceeded to cut a giant mouse-hole shaped hole in our wall, humming "the boatmen of the volga" all the while pulling twisted metal out of the floor. Yeah. so happy to be living in a "pre-war" building-- my question at this point is-- which war!?! 1812???

A Shoe Story

Yesterday I was wearing these cute little Lilly Pulitzer heels-- first day wearing them. I was
avoiding walking over all subway grates until I tried to go into the Banana Republic where the wave of after-work crowds forced me over onto the grate. One of my shoes got kind of stuck but I pulled it out and I looked down quick before going into the store and it looked okay. Later on, as I'm shopping a few blocks away I kept sliding on the store's floor-- but I figured it was just their super-waxed surfaces.... little did I know until I went home that the bottom part of my heel had come off! SO... today on my way to work I happened by the grate by the Banana and my heel part was right there-- wedged in the grate! So I pulled it out and am happy that I can fix my shoe! :) Don't worry-- when I got to work I washed my hands and the shoe piece-- who knows what it was exposed to all by itself overnight in a subway grate.