An Impossible Dream

Yesterday Javert and I went to a coffeeshop around the corner from us while we waited for our laundry to dry. This particular place has been open for about a year but for some reason we'd never gone in till yesterday. It's so close to our apartment that we don't even need to cross a street to get there. It's tiny, and it's also a bar, both of which mean the annoying Starbucks set won't be tromping through disturbing me.

So probably a full third of the other patrons were working on Powerbooks (not ibooks, just Powerbooks). Javert and I were both reading, but the point is that everyone in the coffeeshop was working, presumably on school-related stuff. Except for Javert, who was reading The Bourne Supremacy.

When we first got there, I noticed that cappucinos cost $3, which seems a bit unreasonable, especially for someone who has a cappucino machine at home, which is only 30 seconds away. But I decided to splurge, since it was rainy out and since I was cold because I stupidly wore pants with holes in them. Javert chose regular coffee, because he "never has that anymore."* The cappucino was excellent; the coffee tasted like dirt slightly flavored with skim milk. (It contained neither of these items).

Anyway, usually I discover that in any coffeeshop, there's always one person who I want to murder. When I get so annoyed that I start fantasizing about torture methods, I leave. Yesterday was no exception.

The owner of the coffeeshop and his employee continually left to stand outside and smoke cigarettes. Which is fine with me, except that this meant that anytime anyone came into the shop, one or both would hurry back in to serve the customer, allowing billows of smoke to blow in the shop and around me. As I think that cigarette smoke is one of the most disgusting smells on the planet, I was less than pleased.

When they weren't smoking outside, the owner and the employee were talking loudly inside. At least 5 people came in to talk to them during the hour I was there. These people neither bought coffee (or anything) nor sat down, they simply stood around conversing LOUDLY with the owners. I know--I know coffee shops aren't libraries, although the fact that every single paying customer seemed to act that way maybe should maybe signal something. But I'm sure it must get boring to wait on people all day and I'd probably appreciate the interuption too.

But then they started talking to ME! As we know, I'm not a talkative person when strangers are involved. I happened to mention to Javert that the building across the street was creepy, and the owner heard me and proceeded to tell me everything I could ever need to know about said creepy building. When I was really thinking about how creepy the owner was in comparison, and how I would like to go back to reading about public policy. I was forced to participate in this ridiculous conversation in which I had very little interest (creepy building--alien abduction--scientology--scary Tom Cruise--sexy George Clooney).

The end point came when a friend of the owner came looking for a cellphone charger. Right away I knew this man would be a problem for me, because he appeard to have a Hitler mustache. He didn't, at least I don't think he really did. It seemed as if he just hadn't shaved that day or maybe was trying to grow a beard and the hair grows faster on that area of his lip, but still! Even an unintentional Hitler mustache is unacceptable for anyone, ever.

I have no idea why this person couldn't go home to charge his phone, or why he had to charge it RIGHT THEN, but after rummaging through their collection of chargers (who keeps a collection of cellphone chargers behind the counter of their coffeeshop??), the owner sent him to the cellphone store next door. But this store was closed, so the friend came back and proceeded to discuss his life story with the owner. I could have handled all this...except this man had the MOST ANNOYING LAUGH I'VE EVER HEARD, EVER! Almost anything anyone said elicited this series of short, loud barks that made me want to ram hot espresso grounds down his throat. Just thinking about it makes me angry and annoyed.

The laundry had finished by this point, so we left and I ranted about the annoying laugh for the short walk home. Of course mild-mannered Javert hadn't noticed the laugh or the mustache (how is this possible??) but allowed me to complain nevertheless.

The thing is, I'm sure I'll go back to this coffeeshop. And I feel really mean and petty even complaining about these things. The poor guy can't control how his facial hair grows or that he finds everything ever spoken to be hilarious. And the coffeeshop owners aren't horrible people, they're just bored and addicted to nicotine. Sure, they seemed crazy, but at least they weren't mean (like some other coffeeshop employees around here). And I need to try to be more accomodating of crazy people, seeing as I live in Crazy Capital, USA.

It's just that one time, I'd like to go to a coffeeshop and not have to fend off weirdos. I'd like to sit in peace, either privately conversing with my companion, reading, or knitting, without having to dodge celebrities or neighbors/servers, without being told to leave since I've finished eating (but not drinking (that's another story for another post)), without some guy trying to pick me up by asking me what I'm knitting, and without being interrupted by Hitler-look-alikes or paranoid alien-abduction victims.

Basically the only place I can accomplish this is right inside my own apartment, which makes me happy I have my own espresso machine but at the same time makes me extremely worried that I'll emerge in 20 years with a few cats in tow, wondering why people are giving me funny looks on the street.


*spoiled brat! Although who am I to complain, since I paid $3 for something I can get for free?

Nightly News

Good news everyone! Paxwell's biopsy came back negative for cancer. The lump was actually composed of FAT. I really wish I'd asked the vet to save it---how cool would it be to see a big ball of cat fat?

In other news...no, wait, I don't have any other news.

Instead: Here are some 'exciting' things that have happened to me this week:

1. My mom finally mailed me the bra I left at her house over Christmas. I'm very happy, because having it doubles my collection of wearable bras. Not that I don't wear the "unwearable" ones, because I do, but they start to inflict pain after a few days. I can't seem to find a way to make even the fancy ones last longer than a few months. And I just don't understand how such a basic item can be so expensive and also so crappily made. I've even gotten custom-made bras tailored just for me, and they STILL fall apart quickly.

2. Javert baked chocolate chip walnut cookies after I casually mentioned that he might want to consider doing so. He put in too many eggs by accident, so we doubled the batch and now have a cookie log in the freezer! Therefore I removed (permanently) the emergency reserve pilsbury cookie dough log from the fridge. I'll thank you never to speak of it again.*

3. A friend, Javert and I made the meatloaf recipe featured in this month's Cook's Illustrated. It was delicious. Honestly, I thought it was better than the cookies.

4. I bought a pair of poultry shears so I can butterfly chicken. I wonder what sort of scary fantasies I'll have about that?

I have nothing to report because classes started last week and I've been busy reading. The professor had apparently assigned reading for the first class, which of course no one did since we hadn't had the class yet (duh). So he just added it on to the assignment for this week. Last night I fell asleep reading on the sofa at 7:30.

*I know! Why was this even in the fridge? How did I come to ever own such a thing? We bought it at the beach in September, because we wanted some hot cookies and couldn't bring ourselves to buy all the ingredients that go into normal cookies just to have to leave them in a beach apartment for 6 months. Once we tasted it, we immediately realized our mistake, but kept the remains of the log just in case. Javert once made 1 cookie using it, late at night after he'd eaten every other sweet thing in the apartment except raisins.

A Disgusting Story

On Friday afternoon, my younger cat, Paxwell, underwent surgery to remove a lump on her back. She'd had two similar lumps removed last year; the vet thinks they were caused by vaccinations (which Paxwell no longer receives for this reason). We're still not sure about the contents of this particular mass--we'll know more soon, when the test results come back.

Anyway, Paxwell needs to wear a plastic head collar so she doesn't bite open her stitches. We found this out the hard way last year, when she tore open her stitches and required emergency surgery (on my birthday, no less). That was horrible, especially because it was my fault--I should have been watching her more carefully, and never should have trusted her alone without the helmet, no matter what the vet might have said about the wound being mostly healed.

We're still allowing her some time each day without the helmet, so she can eat and groom and relax. We just make sure to watch her every single second that she's uncollared, so that she can't make any fast moves. Which means she wears it most of the time, like when we're sleeping or at work.

Paxwell's a sick cat. She has other medical conditions besides this, and also vomits very frequently, mostly immediately after eating. So I shouldn't have been surprised at what happened last night/this morning.

In the middle of the night, Javert woke up and removed Paxwell from the bed, since she was making the "I'm going to vomit now" sound. I can imitate this quite well--it's a kind of coughing she does while backing up quickly. When she starts making this noise, you have about ten seconds to move her to a vomit-friendly location. I don't know how Javert managed to hear this, wake up, and move Paxwell off the bed, but he did. I half woke up and asked if she'd vomited. Javert said he didn't know as he got out of bed, and I went back to sleep.

This morning we woke up to an apartment filled with cat vomit. Javert had no recollection of Paxwell's or his own nocturnal activities. Paxwell's helmet and neck were crusted over with vomit. She must have thrown up into her hood and then trailed little vomit droplets everywhere as she wandered around the apartment for the next 6 hours. It was everywhere--on three carpets, the floor, the bed, a chair, etc.

The whole incident reminded me of one time when I was sick as a child and felt the urge to throw up in the middle of the night. For some reason, I was scared I'd get in trouble if I called for my mom, so instead I vomited a trail leading into my brother's room. When I got there I was done, and went back to my room to sleep. In the morning, my parents couldn't figure out which of us had done it, or why we'd feel the need to hide being sick. The finally found me out when they saw some crusty vomit on my blanket-sleeper.

So as not to end on that extremely disgusting note, I decided to include a picture of Zolie, who probably feels very left out due to all the fuss we're making over Paxwell. On Sunday night she decided to dress up at the Caped Cat Crusader: (I swear that this was not posed!)

Thwack! Pow! Bam!

This morning at the 96th Street subway station, Javert and I were waiting to change to the 2/3 express trains heading downtown. It was really crowded--about 3 people deep waiting, and I figured we wouldn't get on the first train.

I, however, did get on the train, next to two almost-middle-aged white men. We were all standing right at the train doors, where you have to kinda hold your body inward till the doors shut, at which point you can relax. Both men next to me wore business-casual type clothes, and one was bald while the other had lots of red hair and a beard.

Now, if you've never had to take the subway at rush hour you might not understand just how crowded it is and how people feel that they MUST get on the train NO MATTER WHAT. Everyone pushes and surges and forces themselves onto the train, but the people already on the train do a sort of defensive feet-planting, refusing to give up their spots and move further into the middle of the car, so a ton of people end up squeezed into the train areas near the doors while the middle of the train is crowded but still relatively roomy. This happens almost every morning and sometimes in the afternoons too.

I guess the bald guy thought he was the only one being crowded, and thought the bearded guy was the only one pushing, so he pushed right back. And he used both hands, forcing the guy off the train and halfway across the platform. Of course the bearded guy decided to push back, and so a subway train fight broke out right next to me. The fight was on my right, so I threw myself into the woman to my left, who kept saying "Oh My God" over and over, disgusted with the fight. Even though Javert was on the platform, I couldn't get off the train because I thought I'd get swept up into the fight and get knocked over. Luckily the train car happened to have a conductor box, so the conductor came out into the car and said Not on My Train a few times till the fight ended. At which point I left the train and Javert pulled me to him. Oddly enough, the bearded man, who kept getting pushed off the train, took my place right next to his enemy and the train left.

I've been on the train with lots of crazy people, like the guy who was standing up and vomiting near the doorways, or the drunk guy who refused to move away from the door even though there were actually seats available, or the other really big guy who refused to move away from the door, instructing the woman who needed to get off to "say excuse me, bitch." I've even seen a man take a running start to better force himself onto a packed train car. But this was my first close-up fight (well, more like altercation since there was no blood involved). Exciting. An insider's look at how people can get so angry that they do irrational things. Its just a subway, people!

And the next train came about 2 minutes later, maybe even sooner. This city gets crazy sometimes. I definitely get annoyed at other subway riders; sometimes I even imagine getting into arguments with pole-leaners or seat-hoggers. (I mean, how hard is it for men to sit with their legs together?) But I'd never actually push someone off a train! Maybe I haven't been here long enough. But I think that when that sort of thing happens, it's time to leave the city and start perfecting your road rage. You can do a lot more damage with a car than with your bare hands....

Someone Get Me a Band-Aid!

First off, apologies to vegetarian readers, this post talks about cooking meat. Sorry, but I crave it and like it and therefore I eat it.

Whenever I think about cutting up a chicken for soup (I make the pieces really small, like 2 inches, so that all the flavor comes out quickly), I get all paranoid that I'm going to also cut my hand or my fingers off. Yesterday I was walking to the post office and thinking about dinner, and actually clenched my hands into fists in my pockets as I thought about using the cleaver on the meat. What would I do if I cut off four fingertips with the cleaver? I get chills and my heart races just thinking about it. Sometimes I also think about making a mistake and cutting up the cats by accident. Like if I just grabbed Paxwell by the foot and....That's even scarier.*

I also get paranoid that the meat is bad, even though its not. Like last night, when I was making the soup, I started smelling the chicken really carefully, in case it was rotten. Because my friend The Car Seat Lady had told me a story about how she'd bought rotten chicken at a certain local, well respected 'organic' grocery store, and she figured out it was rotten because it smelled bad. What if my meat was bad too? Even though I'd bought it at a different store, and it was packed on the same day, it could still be spoiled. Why did those people at the meat section with me decide to buy beef instead? Could they smell something I couldn't? I decided to cook the chicken instead and find out the hard way if it was spoiled (sorry Javert). Turns out it was fine. Big surprise there!

You vegetarians (if you are still reading this) probably think these fears are just my body's way of trying to avoid eating meat. Maybe you're right. But until I lose a body part or fall prey to food poisioning, I'll probably keep doing it. Because it tastes GOOD.

*I get this way about knives a lot. I cut myself recently with the 10 inch chef's knife, while I was cleaning it, and now I get a little nervous every time I use it, which is every day. Especially when I'm cleaning it. The place where I cut myself tingles, even though its totally healed, and I get a little jittery.

What Else Happened on New Years Eve

About an hour before Javert and I were to go to his office for New Years Eve, we were watching tv and making dinner when the lights started to flicker. A lot. Like, we-are-in-a-horror-movie type of flickering.

Typical New Yorkers that we are (aspire to be?), we looked out the window and saw the apartment building next-door to us also had flickering lights. So Javert called Con-Ed. As you may have suspected, Con-Ed told us they hadn't gotten any other reports (impossible!) and promised to alert their "emergency" division, which means they promised to send someone out in the next year or so. As Javert was on the phone, we heard a lot of sirens, and after hanging up with Con-Ed he went down to see if they were coming from our block. I had to stay upstairs to finish dinner and also corral the cats into cages should it turn out to be an actual emergency.

Which, thank goodness, it wasn't. At least not for us. The building two doors down from us had been evacuated due to an electrical problem (Hello? Con-Ed??), and thats why our lights were flickering like crazy. There were at least 5 fire trucks outside (but no fire that we could tell) and an ambulance, and a big hole in the street with tons of steam pouring out, and the whole thing was very creepy (New Years Eve + Lights Flickering + Sirens = Apocalypse?) but the lights went back to normal before we left home.

As predicted, Con-Ed emergency called the next day, which means that if it had been a real emergency, we'd have been dead.