http://www.shirahcashriel.net/blog/2008/07/19/i/

I was watching Friends earlier today.  There is little I miss about the States, but they were eating big, floppy, NY pizza.  I pine for real pizza.  It’s really not that difficult; I don’t know why the ‘za here sucks.  I yearn…

I'm here in the old apartment, I'm supposed to be cleaning it out. Instead, I spread a blanket on the floor and turned on the choral anthems. Terrible, ain't it? Maybe I just need to time to relax a little, no school, no crazy church ppl.

I've made it through almost three weeks at the new job. It's a church -- with old people -- time consuming doesn't even begin to describe it. :) They're slowly getting used to me. Responses range from "Are we ever going to have percussion again?" to "I'm so glad to hear the organ again!" The old ppl wear me out a little, I can't lie. One week, the choir people are telling how nice it is to hear the organ, and the next week they're asking "will we ever hear the piano again?" I explained that my fingers recoil on keys attached to hammers, kind of like how the Wicked Witch of the East's feet rolled up when Dorothy took the ruby slippers and ran. I offered to start fundraising for a clavichord -- they probably think it's some sort of synthesizer.

My attempts at organizing a cantoring schedule have met some obstacles. Some ppl gone for the summer, others left when the old director left. This weekend I'm hiring-out Cathy for the Vigil and and got an older gentleman parishioner for 8am, whose top half of his head is jet black, and the bottom somewhere btwn. creme brulee and marshmallow fluff. I introduced a Mass setting the congregation was not familiar with. You would have thought I grabbed a ciborium full of hosts and scattered them in the air, singing, "Feed the birds, toppins a bag..." I tried to improve the situation by creating laminated sheets with the Mass parts on them. The church manager and I started the machine, 15 copies flew in and out, seemed like a breeze. Then we ran out of film. "How hard can it be?", said I, wrestling rolls of films from the clutches of the machine I now call "Diabolux." A roll up? I'll just use some scissors and get it out. Melted adhesive all over the rollers? "Surely we can wipe it off..." The moments that followed evoked Ethel and Lucy at the chocolate factory, the manager and I frantically pulling sheets of laminate from the machine...

Later, I found out only two people in the parish were allowed to change the film. Who knew? The repair cost $200. Diabolux is now "operable." I stay away from that part of the building. Some days, I think I can smell burning plastic, and hear the sound of rollers, suffocating the same sheet of paper, over and over again...

Judy, who's officially my assistant, but really runs the bulk of the liturgy dept, is a great old lady. I admit we're not the most productive ppl ever, but we have a sense of humor -- an essential in a church. I had to go to the "don't molest the altar boys" I mean, Called to Protect seminar. Even creepier than the videos of interviews with perpetrators was the table of priests and seminarians, gesturing in their French cuffs in the corner of the un-airconditioned room. I'm not sure a 3 hour seminar is enough to help them. But forget about them! They're nothing compared to "Carrie." She came up to me after the first Mass I played.

40-year old woman with wild hair and dark socks pulled up to her yellow shorts:
"Hi. I'm Carrie."
"Well, hello, Carrie! Nice to meet you."
"My mom thinks I have bi-polar, but I think she's crazy."
Backing away, slowly, "Oh, really -- how interesing."
"I really want to talk with you. Can I make an appointment?"
"Um...sure...we'll schedule a time later this week---Oh! Look at the time, Got to run greattalkingGAHBYE!"

The next morning, on my message machine:
*beep* 9:30 PM:
"Hi Skye. This is Carrie. You have a lovely voice. I hope we can talk sometime tomorrow. Ok. then. Good bye. This is Carrie, by the way. Ok. Thanks. Call me back. Ok. Bye. It's 9pm. ok. bye"
*beep* 1:30am:
"Hi Skye. It's Carrie again. It's 1:30 in the morning. I was just wondering if we can talk. I'll come by tomorrow at 9am. Ok. I'll see you at 9 o'clock. Bye. Thanks. Ok. This is Carrie. Bye. Tomorrow at 9. Ok. I'll be waiting. ok. bye.
*beep*

I do have some sweeties, however, like the old ladies in accounting. One of them thought to honor me by taking a candid shot of me while playing the postlude, then leaving proof in my box. It's perhaps the most astonishing likeness of me yet. A cute little British lady told me how much I reminded her of her Cathedral choir days, and a few other old choir ladies warned me that they'll have to pinch my cheeks whenever they see me cause I'm "too cute." "So whaddarya? Fourteen?" I wash my face with cold water in the bathroom to keep it from cracking. *smiling grimace* "I might just be a little older than you think!" "Do ya play kazoo?" "Oh, I pull it for special occasions, you know, old people's funerals. Stuff like that." "Whadda guy! He's a keeper!"

Even as the sun sets over Phoenix, I sit here and wonder. I notice they replaced the light bulbs on the hotel across the street. Maybe things really are progressing. Now that I think of it, the bus stop was cleaner, Van Buren St. was a little softer. As I open the car door and see the remains of my sanity scatter across the upholstery, I laugh to myself. I'm bigger than a 12 oz. can --- I'm a 32 oz. cherry red slushie. Me and my bright red lips walk off under the deepening night sky. The stars are out. It's a good night in Phoenix.

Current Location: van buren
Current Music: Paul Manz, in concert

Before we went on our trip, I sent away for something to help us save money and shrink our carbon footprint a little. It arrived shortly after we got home. Today I installed it, and then used it.





I ordered it from a website called The Clothesline Shop:

(http://www.clotheslineshop.com)

The clothesline was super-easy to set up and even easier to use. While I ran an errand to the store, Sweetie ran a load of laundry, which I hung out to dry when I got home.





The website that sells these things in a multiplicity of sizes and configurations also offers a complete line of laundry accessories, including clothespins and other things.

In addition, the website offers links to organizations that advocate for folks who want to have clotheslines in their yards but can't because they made the "mistake" of moving into a subdivision with a Neighborhood Association or into [ugh] a Gated Community. These entities tend to frown upon outdoor clotheslines, claiming that they're eyesores that bring down property values. The term they'd love to use, but don't dare say in public, is more likely something like "low-rent" or even -- gasp! -- "white trash". So they code their classism in the language of property values, but the meaning is still clear. What they don't seem to get is that drying clothes on an outdoor line will save you money on your electric bill and shrink your carbon footprint -- both important considerations in this time of growing energy scarcity and conservation awareness.

Thankfully, Sweetie and I live in the city, in a neighborhood that is decidedly NOT ruled by a Neighborhood Association. So we are free to hang our clothes outside if we wish. of course, we're also mindful of the neighbors' sensibilities, so I elected to install the clothesline in the most logical place -- right next to the back door, behind the shed and out of sight from the street. But even if there was no shed blocking the view I'd still put it where I did.

I'm told by those with a functioning olfactory sense that another benefit of drying clothes outside is that the sun makes them smell nice when they're dry.

My "internship" slash "training program" slash summer pastime at the hospital is sort of coming to an end. I'm flying out to India next Friday so I thought I'd spent the last week with my chums, Abhishek and Yousuf.

I was supposed to have been rotated between different departments in the hospital. When I started out, I was saying to myself, "Omigod, this is gonna be so much fun, working at a hospital, just like they do in Grey's Anatomy" and other such comforting nicenesses. Towards the end of the first week itself, I was utterly disappointed by the lack of excitement.
The disappointment never completely passed, just came and went. There were some days that were really awesome, some that were mellow and some when I wanted to throw the patients off their beds just so I could have a place to nap.

But looking back, I think I had a great time. At least I had a much better time than I would have had sitting at home. Dude, I got to see real actual medical and surgical cases! I made friends with the staff there.. doctors, nurses, nursing aid, admin guys and even the guy who does the laundry (yes, all of it) in the basement. I made some enemies too, I suppose. I mean, I'm sure I left impressions of myself in people's minds.

I want to bore you (yes YOU) with the details of what I saw. But I can't be arsed to write it out again, having written most of it down in a huge, used notebook of mine from the 9th grade. What was the most memorable thing I saw? There were many things.

---

We went out for my brother's birthday last night. First we went to Applebee's on Sheikh Zayed Road for dinner - yes, we have Applebee's here, canyoubelieveit??! Sadly I'd already had dinner, moong dal pulao and tomato soup, so I wasn't in the mood for hogging on redneck food. I had a drink, though, some strawberry-lime thing.

After that, we went to the Crowne Plaza Hotel to try to get into Kandy Club. Didn't work because, as our spy Abeer found out, some chick was throwing up and they weren't letting anyone in. So we left and went to the Grand Hyatt Hotel on Sheikh Rashid Road to try to get into the Mix. But entry was limited and expensive (AED 150, whaddafuck), so we turned our faces to the Cooz bar in the same hotel. Bhai, his mates and Abeer had random drinks and I almost fell asleep. Fun night, wallah.





The girls



It was a sexually satisfying dessert.



I own this place.
Erm, not really. It's the foyer of the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Dubai where we went for drinks after dinner.



We can at least pretend to be piss drunk, even if we can't actually get drunk (for lack of funds).

On the way back home from the Grand Hyatt, my friend Anil rang me, quite drunk. After verbally chastising me for not ringing him earlier, he declared me a sweetheart. And then told me he loved me. Abeer, who was sitting beside me in Tariq's car, was smiling ear to ear when I casually told Anil I loved him too. Obviously, he doesn't remember (or pretends not to) any of this today.

Tags: birthday, dubai, family, friends, fun, love, work
Current Location: Dubai, UAE
Current Mood: hyper
Current Music: Models - Mehendi ki Raat

http://www.shirahcashriel.net/blog/2008/07/18/classy-times/

Last night Joel and I went to a wine tasting at the Jerusalem Museum’s Sculpture Garden.  It.Was.Beautiful.  It was a lovely evening, with a cool breeze that laps at your skin.   There was soft jazz music in the background.  You could see all of Jerusalem from the edge of the garden; it was lit up like a thousand diamonds.  It was the first time I realized that I will really miss Jerusalem.  It has a majestic splendor that is missing from most other cities.  It had a perfect atmosphere.  The wine was splendid.

It was a perfect evening.

A few years ago I discovered a credit card associated with my bank account. I did not apply for this credit card. I had never received this credit card.

I thought about canceling the card, but in the end reported it lost (I'd never received it and had no idea who had it, though it had never been used) and requested a replacement.

I've been using it for a variety of reasons: hotel and rental car reservations seem to go better with a credit rather than debit card, and I've bridged some shortfalls to payday from time to time.

All this has accumulated points in the inevitable reward tally credit cards have these days. This one is an NFL credit card, so I've been earning NFL Store points.

I'm not an NFL fan. I do not wish to purchase NFL memorabilia and stuff.

I'd much prefer to have the money.

If anyone around here would like NFL memorabilia and stuff, I can get you about $75 of NFL store vouchers, at a slight discount, of course. I expect by the end of August that number is going to go up significantly since I tend to use my credit card rather than debit card when traveling.

Let me know. We can work something out.

Tags: football, shopping

I have a pile of books near NS's changing table to distract him from rolling over, crawling or standing up. Plus it tends to give me enough time to clean him up before he starts doing every boys' favorite pastime.. playing with himself.

Usually I take the book back when we're done but this morning he started crying when I did. I handed it to him and he grabbed for it. Since we had to go to the grocery store, I set him in his carriage with the book, put his hat on him and off we went.

At one point as he's sitting there turning pages, he starts babbling away. I think he was telling me the story.

( More photos )