Don’t you hate phone chains?
Please press 1, please press 2. After a while I tone out, and usually have to go through the phone tree all over again.
And what about when you’re calling a place and an answering machine tells you their working hours, and you happen to be calling during those working hours, yet no one answers after repeated calls.
Frustration!
What irks you about phone trees and answering machines?
Ok, so I told you about the new REI location that recently opened in Soho. I didn’t tell you what I bought because I know you probably just don’t care.
But I have to share one purchase. Do you know what I did buy? It wasn’t on my shopping list but it was just too irresistable to pass up…
Sidenote: the boyfriend LOVES bananas. LOVES.
I was wandering around the store and came across the wall, yes the wall – an entire wall, that was dedicated to hiker food.
Hiker food: the kind where you mix in cold or hot water and let it sit to create a meal. The meals are in similar packaging that astronaut food comes in. When you squeeze the package it feels like flakes inside.
There were so many options…beef chili or black beans with rice or a Mexican omelette. And then there were desserts.
I found one called Banana Cream Pie.
Just add water! Of course now my curiousity was piqued, and it was only $5 so of course I had to buy it.
I showed it to the boyfriend later that night and he was hardly as amused as I was. We haven’t tried it yet. Personally I’m not as big of a fan of banana, or banana cream pie or adding water to make an instant meal – but challenge accepted.
Stay tuned for a post about it when we do open and ‘cook’ it.
It’s about time. An REI in my backyard!
It’s taken over the historic Puck Building which has angered some people, that big business has taken over. But, what’s better – an empty gorgeous building, or a retailer that doesn’t exist anywhere else on the island?
No more traveling to East Hanover, New Jersey or Tempe or Tucson, Arizona to wander around one of my favorite stores.
I stopped by the store a few days after the grand opening and the store was gorgeous. The loft space was incredible. The staff was helpful. And there was so. much. stuff!
It was about an hour before I checked the time and realized that I had been wandering for nearly an hour! I had stopped by with the intention of picking up just a few things but the sheer space (it’s three floors!) kept me looking at everything, and then some!
Do you know there are portable toilets for sale? Like fold it up and stuff it in a bag when you are done kind of portable toilets. (Was not, and will never be on my to buy list).
Can’t wait to go back to check out their classes and outdoor activities planned for the local area.
Have you been? Are you going to go? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below.
During our recent trip to DC, I realized it was easy.
Easy being able to visit memorials and being able to read the plaques without the help of a translator – as well as having a complete understanding of the history – because it’s my country’s history.
Going into a museum and understanding what I was reading as it was in my native English, was exciting! I knew what I was seeing, reading and had probably learned about it in school.
The boyfriend hadn’t been to DC since he was a kid. He remembered there was a huge whale in the Museum of American History. When we saw it, he said he remembered it to be much bigger. I guess when you are much smaller everything seems so much bigger.
Another example of the awe of young kids was when we passed several groups of school kids peering into a huge (huge doesn’t even seem big enough) fish tank in the Museum of American History. I smiled when I heard one of the kids say ‘how beautiful.’
It made me reflect and wonder how much of ‘that’ I miss when visiting museums and other memorials in other countries. There have been countless times I’ve been in a museum and it’s only in the native language of the country – there isn’t an English translation so you have to guess or revert to pictures and diagrams to understand what’s going on or hope for a stranger’s kindness and a small understanding of English to understand.
In those situations, I become that kid again because that’s almost my level of understanding, if that, in those foreign museums and memorials.
On the flip side, as an adult, I can continue to read, and learn, about that history, in order to gain a better perspective about the world around me than I could have done at six or ten years old.
Boy did I goof. Like I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the boyfriend and I went to DC for a weekend trip back in October. And boy did I mess up. I overpacked. The horror!
I broke several of my packing cardinal rules.
Problem 1: packing the night before
Problem 2: packing after dinner (and wine) with girlfriends
Which led to problems 3 and 4…
Problem 3: Not packing outfits that worked with the shoes
Problem 4: Not packing for the right weather
Not only did I overpack, but I packed for frigid weather. That weekend we were there, the weather was gorgeous.
I also packed non-practical outfits. Yes, on our departure day I wore my tall boots so I did not have to pack them, but I had not taken into consideration that the jeans I packed – did not work with those boots. Which means, the boots could only go with limited outfits. Thankfully, I had packed my trusty Converse to go with the jeans. While the boots paired with my leggings, I only packed one thing that actually looked normal with leggings, being leggings. The rest of what I packed made the leggings look like pants. Big no no.
On top of that, this was the boyfriend’s first trip to DC since he was a kid. Did I remember the camera? Of course not. Do either of us have smartphones? Nope.
So at the Lincoln Memorial, we did what any tourist who comes to a place unprepared, we bought, oh yes we did, a disposable camera. Stop laughing.
Let it be known I only was recently weened off of disposable cameras in the past few years, so I had no shame. Though it was hilarious looking around us – not one single person had a disposable camera. People had smartphone cameras, small digital cameras and high-tech cameras. Not us. We had the very desirable Fuji QuickSnap.
Hey, it did the job. Well, we don’t know yet because I just finished the roll and mailed it to be processed.
The boyfriend and I went to DC for a weekend trip back in October to visit old friends.
We took Amtrak down and we were pleasantly surprised when we accidentally found ourselves seated in the only quiet car on the train down.
Hallelujah!
I had a book to read and plenty of magazines to catch up on and I was excited for the silence in which to read. there were several people who needed to be continuously reminded that this was the quiet car.
Because the train was full the boyfriend and I were not seated next to each other. I had been behind on checking my voicemail, and later received a few calls during the ride, so I simply wanted to listen to them.
As I dialed, I felt like his eyes were boring holes into my head as he must have been fearful that I was going to <gasp> make a call. If only the poor guy knew we were on the same quiet loving team. In fact, he was so keen on his quiet that when the conductor came around collecting tickets, I could see my seat partner exchange a look with the conductor and then nod his head to me.
Just to piss him off, I checked my voicemail twice, during the two hours I spent sitting next to him. I was never going to make a call, but with plenty of reading material in front of me, I wouldn’t have wanted to!
Why must people keep their umbrellas raised when walking under scaffolding? WHY? You aren’t even getting wet and there’s so little room for the width of the umbrellas!
Same goes for people who keep their umbrella raised as they walk down the steps into the subway.
And I saw a woman going from an office into a waiting car — with a guy holding an umbrella over her head for the walk from the building to the curb. I thought for a second, maybe she just had her hair done, but the office she was leaving was a doctor’s office according to the nameplate on the door.
I want to tell these people that they won’t melt if they get a little wet. They can’t be exposed for ten seconds to the elements?
Today is day two. I loved yesterday’s giveaway and I am excited to see what the next ten days of giving brings.
Continuing my downsizing streak, I have made heaps of progress. One of my places of progress was the junk drawer. While it’s not totally ‘junk’ I was able to eliminate a little bit. Including pens.
For some reason the boyfriend and I have a ridiculous number of pens. So I went through and downsized. I must have downsized once before because most of the pens were organized in a little bag. Of course there were still pens in other drawers, or loose even in the junk drawer.
So I took a stand. I was going to eliminate pens. I don’t like black ink, so I got rid of those. I got rid of pens that don’t write, and I got rid of pens that I don’t like their shape.
For someone so particular about her pens, we have a lot. I gave the boyfriend a chance to ‘save’ any pens that he felt were near and dear, so he rescued a few. I found the whole situation kind of funny. Pens don’t take up a lot of space, but I was hell bent on eliminating them.
I wouldn’t want to start counting pens, nor would I want to ask anyone else to do such a thing, so I am leaving the unofficial focus group to shoes, and shoes alone.
The other night I was on a downsizing rampage and scrutinizing the number of pairs of shoes I own.
I felt like my number was too high so I texted 10 friends asking how many they have. As the results began to come in, I was more and more curious, and continued to add members to my unofficial focus group. I added another ten friends, and another ten friends.
Here’s the original text I sent to 30 female friends.
How many pairs of shoes do you have? All in. Flops sneaks heels sandals boots everything…
I got some confused texts back and here is the follow-up text I sent clarifying why I was asking:
I’m getting rid of stuff. Down to shoes I can’t get rid of and I’m just under 50. That is insane. I wear the same 2 pairs each season. That should be 8. 10 tops.
22 have since responded with a number. Several friends responded with ‘not too many’ or ‘a lot’ and since there was not a number attached I am only including the 22 who provided me with an actual number – be it ballpark, or exact.
What can I tell you about the ladies who gave me an actual number?
They live in New York, Chicago and Atlanta. They live in suburbs in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. They are single, married and they co-habitate. They are teachers, salespeople, marketers, bankers, editors, executive assistants, recruiters, personal shoppers, accountants and stay-at-home moms. They are 29 – 37 years old. They are my friends.
Out of 23 replies, including myself, here are my observations from my extremely unscientific poll:
What’s interesting is that I found no correlation with the number of shoes owned and whether you live in the city or the burbs. I found no correlation with married women versus single women, nor ladies with children.
If I take away the highest and lowest numbers which are 75 and 15, the average number for 21 people is 34.4 pairs of shoes. If I put the 75 and 15 pairs back in, and include those two friends for a 23 respondents, the average number rises to 35.3 pairs of shoes. This still puts me about 15 pairs more than average in my unscientific poll.
Note: I am no mathematician but I’m sure there are other ways to sort these numbers if you find math fun. I just wanted to know if I had too many shoes, and after seeing these results, I think yes. I am also comforted by my friends who own more pairs than me.
What’s your number? Does it make you want to donate a few pairs of shoes, or go shopping for a few more?
simply three cents 