Indecent Exposure

I was out last night with Miss P., my awesomely awesome friend from Ecuador. Miss P. is one of those unassuming people who have had an amazing life: she’s lived throughout the United States, she worked for five years on the Galapagos Islands and has a Masters degree from Westminster University in London. On the Galapagos Islands, she met Kofi Anan, Hollywood A-listers and heads of state. The closest I’ve come to a brush with a celebrity is seeing someone who slightly resembled Paris Hilton when I was in New York last summer.

So, off we went to the movies last night to see The Taxi Thief; a Spanish film set in Barcelona. European movies fall into one of two categories: socialist propaganda or pornography and this was most definitely the former.

The indie cinema showing the movie was in my city’s party precinct, fabled for its food, and Miss P. and I went out to a Japanese restaurant for dinner. We took a table next to the wrought-iron railing dividing our sushi palace from the sidewalk and the (slightly drunk) revelers passing by. We were engaging in a conversation of intellect and sparkling wit over our raw seafood dinner when a shocked look on Miss P’s faced brought things to a screeching halt. In her gorgeous accent, she whispered, “Look behind you, I think that man is going to take out his pee-pee.” And sure enough, there was a man standing at the wrought iron railing fiddling down there. On our table was a soup spoon which I picked up and gave the guy a look which could only say, “If you continue with what you’re doing, I will remove your nob with this spoon.”

Our almost-flasher departed, but left behind a large suitcase; one of those suitcases on wheels…the kind you’d take on an international flight. We wondered if it contained some kind of explosive. Semtex, maybe? There was no ticking noise, so we weren’t THAT worried. A minute later, he came back to pick up his suitcase (how he could forget it, I don’t know) and wandered off, without going down there. And two minutes later, he was back, being dragged along by three burly cops and thrown into the back of a police cruiser. We didn’t see what he’d done, but we had a pretty good idea. And by the way the cruiser was rocking backwards and forwards, we think he was up to the same thing in the police car.

Genetic traits

I was doing grocery shopping yesterday and I needed apples. Not a problem, right? Wrong. Wrong because of my family's genetic malfunction which sees us tearing down delicate food displays. Back in the old country, I remember my Nan (God rest her soul) picking out a tin of tomato soup from the middle of the stack and the whole thing collapsing like one of those tower blocks on a Discovery Channel demolition show. Of course, the most memorable thing was Nan looking around like she was looking for the vandal who'd pulled down the stack of Heinz soup.

So, I think you can see how this went down. There I was, picking out apples and then it happened...I picked out the most strategically placed apple in the whole stack. The apples tumbled to the floor in a shiny green avalanche I was powerless to stop. I crouched to the floor to pick up the now slightly bruised fruit, returning them to the wood display box (let this be a lesson to you: always was your apples) and kicked a few of the deceased under the box...see, not THAT many fell on the floor, kindly shopkeeper.

I went to the gym around lunchtime and when I left, there was a message from Mum on my cell phone. "Your father's not feeling well. Can you take me to the mall?" I don't know why Dad keeps up the "I'm not well" charade on a Saturday afternoon - we all know he just fancies a kip on the sofa. Anyways, when I take Mum to the mall, I do get a free cup of coffee...albeit crappy mall coffee. But it's caffeine, which makes it good. And it's free which makes it pretty damn great.

Off to the mall we went. As we walked along, my tiny Mum gave me a sharp elbow to the ribs (a pretty good way to get my attention when I am otherwise distracted) and pointed at a woman. A woman dressed like a refugee from a 1960s sci-fi show. Think Lost in Space. Think all that velour on ONE person. Red velour. But what got me the most was the red shoes. I turned to Mum and said, "We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto!" Sadly, it was then a second genetic malfunction kicked: I had placed my size 13 into my mouth. See, I said my rather witty pop-culture-comment a bit too loud (add to that my unmistakable accent) and Ms. Lost in Space gave me an icy, icy cold stare. Like one of those super-power stares that can kill people at 20 yards. Seriously, folks, if looks could kill, I'd be dead.

I think there should be a dress code at shopping malls - it would stop incidents like this happening. Have some burly ex-linebacker with a dodgy knee at the automatic sliding doors, turning away people who have obviously NOT looked in the mirror before leaving the house. It would be better all around.

There are currently zero (0) boiled bunnies on my doorstep

I received an envelope on Friday from the ex-girl of the moment. I did three things:
1. Listened for ticking.
2. Bent it. I was wondering if she was sending back the day spa gift voucher I bought her for her birthday. Fortunately, she was not.
3. Looked for a postmark. Yup, it was there so she had NOT been by the house.

Then I opened it – it was a letter. A three page letter! It was touching. She confessed her love for me, that she thought I was the one and said all these wonderful things about me. It was also scary; in a Fatal Attraction kind of way. She said she though of camping on my door step until I said yes (wrong for more reasons than I can count), but that I should NOT come back into her life unless I was carrying an engagement ring because she’d only have me back if it was forever.

There was a lot said in the three pages. Apparently I’m “so totally amazing” (uhh, OK), I’m the best kisser she’s ever had (that’s more like it) and it was the best sex of her life (and don’t you forget it). A bit more on the lovin, and I’d appreciate feedback. See, I banged her on Saturday night even though I knew I was going to break up with her. On a cad scale from 1 – 10, I believe that behaviour sits here:

|----------|-----X----|
Gentleman     Manly       Man whore

Anyone disagree?

I will write back to her – that’s a job for tonight. She put a lot of effort in and poured her heart out and the least I can do is acknowledge the letter and firmly and gently tell her it’s over. I also don’t want to ignore her and be bombarded with letters, texts, e-mails and deceased animals.

So, what brought it to an end? I’d been a bit so-so on her for the five-ish weeks we’d been dating. She was intelligent, had a sense of humour and there was a certain style and class about her. But…she was 25 and a part time student with no part time job, no real direction in life, no real goals or ambitions and she was the most UN-punctual person I’d ever met (she was 55 minutes late to the break-up coffee). Oh, I should also mention she STILL wore the engagement ring from her most recent relationship.

Being so-so, I introduced her to Mr A. & his wife, Mrs. L. to get some feedback. Their point: she doesn’t seem quite all there (how prophetic). So I took her around to my parents’ one Saturday night for dinner. She was HALF AN HOUR LATE and offered NO APOLOGY. That did not impress my parents. After dinner, she asked to look through photos albums (she did not have a normal childhood – her parents took no photos of her). While browsing through photos, she pulled out one of me with a friend: Miss R. She pointed at the photo: WHO’S THIS? She pulled it out of the album and turned it over looking for a date on the back. The odd thing is, in the letter she said I was very classy because I didn’t mention ex-girlfriends. Well, after the reaction to the photo of me with a friend, I was too fucking SCARED to mention ex-girlfriends.

The next night I saw Mum. I asked her, “Sooooo…what did you think?” She said, in her wonderfully honest way, “I think you can do better.” It was sealed.

Yesterday afternoon, I sent Miss K a text telling of the letter. And.She.Called.Me. Oh joy!! She’d ditched the guy she’d been seeing for a few weeks – he had a nasty habit of scratching himself:
Miss K: He scratched himself all the time.
Me: Scratched? Where?
Miss K: Where do you THINK?!!
Me: Uhh…that’s a sign of a venereal disease. And if he’s engaging in that kind of behaviour in front of you, where do you think those hands are going when you’re NOT around?
Miss K: Exactly. After I saw him scratching down there for 20 seconds, I never let him touch me again.

We talked for almost an hour. No denying, there’s a spark there. We’re having lunch on Wednesday. When I got off the phone, I had that feeling: the I’ve-been-plugged-into-a-socket-and-someone-had-thrown-the-switch feeling. The very feeling I had not felt with Miss L. Bring on Wednesday!

Forever for her (is over for me)

I did it last night. I added another ex-girlfriend to the list. This one wasn't easy...it never is. I'd talked it over with one of my closest friends on Tuesday. Miss K was out of town yesterday and this was the e-mail which greeted her this morning...it gave us a starting point for our morning coffee:

I feel awful, K. Absolutely awful (but better than yesterday evening). I now know what a person's face looks like when their heart is ripped from their chest. When I got to Café 130, Miss L had just arrived and ordered - she remembered what I drink! As I walked in, she turned around, said, "Hey baby," and gave me this huge smile, like this was THE highlight of her week…she put her arm around me and kissed me. She was wearing a really cute white sweater and impeccable make-up…she'd put a lot of effort in...K, at that moment I wanted to die. Here she was, totally looking forward to seeing me, put time into getting herself ready and, maybe she was thinking after coffee, we'd maybe have dinner, maybe the whole evening together. And here I was about to drive a knife into her chest.

She had no idea it was coming. Absolutely none. We talked for a bit, then I summoned all the courage I had and asked, "How do you thinking things are going?" She thought they were going wonderfully well. Then I said, "I don't think this is the right relationship for me." Utter shock and disbelief from her. Utter.Shock.And.Disbelief. The reaction I'd expect if I'd told her someone had run over her cat.

We talked. She told me she loved me, that she thought I was THE ONE, that she was in shock and that she never saw it coming. She confessed she hadn't "put her best foot forward" after all the things she went through last year and she was getting better (this would only make sense later on).

I think it was the shock that meant she kept things together much better than I…honestly, I was a bit of a mess. We held hands the entire time. She told me she didn't want to let go of my hand because that would mean it would be real. She told me I was [supposedly] wonderful, how great I [supposedly] am. I certainly didn't feel like that. I walked her to her car. It was one of those beautiful autumn evenings and the cafe strip was alive and buzzing; bathed in a wonderful mix of twilight and incandescent light. We hugged. There were tears. We hugged some more. We kissed one last time and she told me, "You still have my number if you change your mind." And I left.

When I got home from karate, there was a text from her, "Did you see the medication in my bag?" I hadn't, but I'm guessing she was on anti-depressants given her comment earlier in the evening. I told her I hadn't seen them - which was true, I had not. Not that I would have judged her on it - definitely not.

Over the hour, I was honest, open, caring and respectful. So why do I feel like cr*p?

Sigh. It's going to be a long day. And if you're wondering, the title of this post is a White Stripes song.

A dramatic return

OK, it’s time to get this thing back up and running. I can’t possibly relate all that has happened in the last, uhh, month or so in one post, so the next few will be recaps. I think the first thing to recap is the triathlon. You know, the craziness of a swim, followed by a bike ride followed by a run. My actual writing of this post means that, despite the best efforts of the try-athletes I was competing with, I survived. I did not drown. I did not ride my bike into a parked car. I did not get a heart attack while running. I crossed the line in one piece, keeping down breakfast along with various vital internal organs.

The morning started at 5am, which was a revelation to me because I didn’t know 5am existed on a Sunday morning. I’d loaded my bike into the back of the car the night before, so all I had to do was eat and go. So I ate and went. And I got to the end of my street and turned around because I’d left behind my bike helmet: they were MANDATORY, hence my about-face. I arrived a bit later than the time agreed with my team – The Oracle and her partner, Mr. M. – and we headed down to the transition area to rack our bikes. I also needed to get my number written on my arm and there were kindly old ladies to do the task. “What is your number?” “Uhhhhhhh…uhhhh…ummmm…one one four…?” And “114” was written in magic marker on my right bicep.

A bit before 7am, we went down to the ocean’s edge for the pre-race briefing and to start the swim. We were given yellow swimming caps and let me tell you – absolutely no one looks good in a yellow swimming cap and spandex bike shorts. At least I’m not middle-aged, hairy and carrying a paunch. Despite it being a cold morning, the water was warm and it was a relief to get in the water. Not only to get out of the cold, but I also needed to pee. Hey, whales do it in the ocean, so why shouldn’t I?!

The swim was painful. I was smacked in the face by someone trying to swim. I had to swim around a guy swimming survival stroke. I was hit in the mouth again while taking a breath and ended up with every internal cavity filled with salt water. I was trying to get the taste of sea water out of my mouth for the rest of the race. Into the transition area, the first thing I did was check the race number of the front of my cycling jersey – 114!!

The bike ride was uneventful. A nice, flat ride with a hairpin turn at each end. My over riding memory of the bike and run legs was passing a lot of people. I ride & run a lot better than I swim!

In reality, my (drowning) concerns were unfounded. And the best bit? Going out for breakfast on a sunny morning with my friends. We went to breakfast after the worst bit: hearing an ex-girlfriend was around somewhere. On the subject of ex-girls, another one is going to join the list at 4pm tomorrow.

Why family is a four letter word

I’ve been rather ill the last few days, which is always a bit unfortunate. To keep me at work, I got these wonderful drugs for my cold which contain codeine. Codeine has a wonderful effect on me and I can see how people get hooked. About 20 minutes after I take the tablets, my I feel a bit disembodied and my arms & legs feel heavy & light at the same time. Then I feel like I'm floating and my body goes all warm & I feel really, really relaxed and really happy. Then everything goes a bit grey and then next thing I know, it's six hours later. I should point out that I only take them at night or before a very long meeting.

A while ago, my aunt & uncle visited from England and it coincided with my birthday. We'd planned to go out to breakfast, but the place I wanted to go to had closed down, which we only found out when we got there. Curses. My aunt, for some reason, made things worse by laughing for the next five minutes. She found it very funny for some odd reason. But I'll get on to my aunt's insidious personality traits a bit later. Anyway, there was another place nearby, so we went there. I recommend the omelette with gruyere cheese & asparagus. We then did a bit of sight seeing for my aunt & uncle's benefit before heading home & hitting my birthday cake. It’s never birthday unless cake is involved.

My aunt has several disabling personality flaws:
1. She has a terrible laugh. It's not a laugh, it's a cackle and it's one of those irritating cackles that gets deep inside of you and makes you want to slap the person.
2. She laughs at the most inappropriate things. Like when the restaurant we went to for breakfast was closed. Or when she passes wind. Or when she makes a mess at the dinner table (see point 6).
3. She wears her bathrobe for most of the day. Family or no family, I don't want to go round to the olds' house at 11am on a Saturday morning and see my aunt getting round in a bathrobe and hair curlers. It's wrong for so very many reasons.
4. She's a tight wad. If it's free she will take it. She takes home those sugar sachets you get with your coffee at a café. When the crumblies & my aunt & uncle went away to the near-by wine region for three days, she cleaned their villa out of those little bottles of shampoo, as well as those little sachets of tea, coffee & sugar they provide you with. Mum also saw her stuffing her handbag with paper towels from the ladies’ bathroom.
5. She uses the word "toilet" in pleasant company. I know it's an American thing I've picked up, but please, call it a bathroom or a restroom, especially when I'm eating dinner.
6. She's a messy eater. Take smaller mouthfuls, slow down your eating, watch what you're doing, I don't care. I just don't want to be seated at a table where someone older than a toddler is using their napkin as a bib.

I was going to make a point 7. But you can combine points 2 & 6: she passes wind at the dinner table and then laughs.

I wanted to go to the airport just to make sure she got on the plane.

All of this reminiscing has reminded me: around the time of this visit, one of the trainers at my gym was dismissed for breach of conduct. I'm yet to find out what happened, but to me, "breach of conduct" is either (a) verbally abusing a client; or (b) riding an exercise bike with the seat removed for pleasure.

Living by the maxims of life

There are three maxims in life
1. Play hard
2. Party hardy
3. Die young

I engaged in all three this weekend. It was a weekend with the highest of highs and lowest of lows. It all started normally enough with me working till 11:30pm on Friday night. Those e-mails don’t reply themselves. I am coming very close to automatically sending all my e-mails to the recycle bin.

As I have mentioned before, I am training for a triathlon. Saturday I ran, I went the gym and I swam. I wanted to go for a ride, but I NEEDED a snooze before I went out in the evening…
Saturday night brought The Oracle - my wisest of friends – her [insert number here]th birthday. It was a get-together, as opposed to any sort of shin dig or box social: seven of us were there and the stage was set for an awesome night: red meat, roast vegetable salad, champagne and cake. It’s just not a birthday without cake. What made it so awesome was the humour: seven people with a sense of humour as dry as a Texas summer. I got home at 1am, very tired and very happy. Excellent.

If Saturday was the high, Sunday was definitely the low. An acquaintance – not a friend, an acquaintance, you understand – had set me up on a blind date. Yes, I broke the first rule of dating: I went out for coffee with someone I did not know. I’d seen a picture. But, ya know how people gain something like 5 lbs a year…well…on meeting this blind date I can only surmise her picture had been taken somewhere around 1875. Anyway, not being one to judge a book by its cover (or a ship by its hull), I pressed on. I’d been told she was a bit of a fashion guru, but I think her fashion magic had run out that day because what she was wearing made her look like a beach ball. I don’t like empire-wasted dresses on slim women, let alone ones the size of a small planet, but my date was wearing one with vertical stripes. Note: vertical stripes only make you look taller when you’re not as wide as you are tall.

I did have a cunning plan to get out of this – which, given my job, shouldn’t surprise you (at work, we call it an "exit strategy"). The date was set for 3pm. I "had" to leave at 5pm to go catch up with my folks for dinner. Get out time couldn’t come quickly enough (ooo-err). I tried to drop some subtle hints about my predisposition towards her – limited eye contact in the main – without wanting to appear like a psychopath.

The limited eye contact was a useful ploy because I tired very quickly of her tendency to throw her head back when she laughed, revealing the long black hair up her nostrils. Oh, yes, this lady (and I use the term loosely), puts the ass in class.

It appears, unfortunately, that my lack of eye contact and my “gotta go – dinner time” has been less than successful. She thinks I’m adorably shy and she’s enamoured by how close I am to my family. And she's got my cell phone number. Fuck. I should have gone with the borderline psycho plan. She's off to the east coast next week for 10 days. I have 10 days to figure out how to draw her a scenic map to Dumpsville.

To top it off, I worked till 11:45pm last night and I have picked up a cold. Probably from being in her gravitational field. God knows what else she’s home to. On the plus side, I spent my three hours of work on Sunday night listening to Beth Orton…bliss.

So, this weekend I have played hard. I have partied hardy. How did I meet the third maxim? - I showed up to work at 8:30am this morning. The little Egyptian man was unimpressed.

Death drives a stick

Mr Scott is one of my longest and closest friends. We met as undergraduate engineering students back in 1993 when we both realized we were from not only the same country, but we were born in the same city. What are the chances of that in a campus of 20,000? But that’s not where the coincidences stop. No! After graduation, Mr Scott went away to work in a town 4 hours’ drive away, only to take up work with my company 18 months later. We’re also both young, single, make far too much money and, hence, we both love our toys. Mr Scott takes delivery of his new toy in August. This is when he returns from 11 weeks holiday in South America, including Costa Rica and Mexico. I don’t think he’s going to Cancún. He has too much class.

Mr Scott and I are both from England. It means we were born with two driving skills unique to our small island: from birth we’ve been able to parallel park and drive a stick shift. Neither of us have ever owned an automatic. We feel there’s something ungodly, not to mention uncoordinated, in not being able to use a manual gear shift. It’s really not-that-hard: clutch in, slam into the next gear, bring clutch up while mashing the accelerator to the floor. Easy! Mr Scott and I tend to treat speed limits as guidelines. The more remote the highway, the more hazy the guidelines.

As much as I like his new toy, and as much as I’m hanging out to take it for a spin (literally), I look at the Red Shark, parked in my garage, and I can’t part with my joy. It brings a smile to my face every time I jump into the heavily bolstered driver’s seat. And there’s NOTHING on earth like the scream from the engine as it hits 8.500 rpm…I never knew it was possible to have that much fun in the front seat of a car.

Sundaze

Yesterday was Sunday and, true to form I slept in. I dragged my sorry ass outta bed at 8:30am, which is very late by my standards. I went for a run, lounged around on the sofa for a while and went to the gym. Then I did the only thing I could possibly do with a fine, sunny Sunday afternoon: I knocked out some zeds.

The evening brought the obligatory visit to the folks for Sunday dinner. It’s one of those ex-patriot British things we brought with us. As opposed the polite-Christian-sit-round-the-table-and-say-grace things. There’s no politeness (my family’s honesty can be disarming sometimes) and there’s even less saying of grace. The Sunday dinner involves roast meat, vegetables, gravy and a moderately priced bottle of wine. And dessert. This is the one meal of a week where I have dessert and I make damn sure it involves chocolate. My dessert last night was chocolate brownie cheesecake, with chocolate fudge ice cream. Well, I had run 12 miles and spent two hours in the gym!

There was a minor incident with the ice cream. The old geezers’ freezer seems to be set to “Green Bay in mid-winter” and the ice cream appeared to be chocolaty-fudgy-brown concrete. So, as I dived in with the scoop, the tub of ice cream fired out behind me, skidded across the tiled floor, coming to rest under the table some five yards behind me. Oops. But it did stop right-side up! I managed to dig out a few cubic inches of ice cream and put the somewhat mangled container back in the freezer.

It was finished with coffee and, you guessed it, more chocolate. Excellent.

I fear my previous post on my quiet street was read by some hooligans: I was woken at 1:30am this morning by the sound of someone peeing on my front lawn. Still, it was quite funny seeing the guy waddling quickly down the street trying to pee AND pull his pants up after a fairly sharp yell on my part from the bedroom window.

Celts did a beat-down on T-wolves yesterday (OK, OK, it was only 7 points, but in Celtic-world, that counts as a "beat-down"). That’s now four on the bounce for the Green and five in their last 27. Do I hear the faint sounds of a snowball fight in Hell?

These foolish games

For some reason – probably that I can’t say no to my friends – I allowed myself to be signed up for a triathlon. For the uninitiated, a triathlon is a three legged event (no, not a three legged race, a triathlon is far more ridiculous than that), consisting of a run leg, a bike leg and…a swim leg. Aaaaand, that’s where the problem lies for me. See, I haven’t been swimming in, well, over a decade and a half. I hate swimming. Despise it. When I was in elementary school, we had compulsory swimming lessons. When I was in elementary school, I was gangly and very uncoordinated and, hence, shoving me in the water wasn’t dissimilar to dropping an anvil into a swimming pool. I am also sure the swimming teachers were all ex-East German swimming coaches. “NO, not like THAT, like THIS.” “Go over there and practice on your own until you get it right.” You know, the kind of stuff that’s soul destroying for a 10 year old.

The main issue I have with swimming is: it involves putting my head underwater. That’s a pretty big stumbling block when it comes to being able to move my body through the water at any kind of reasonable pace. So, that’s why I’d avoided swimming for these many years.

But, I had to learn how to swim because I had given my word to The Oracle that I would join her team. I think I should point out here that the triathlon is 25 March. I’d given myself three weeks to (a) learn to not drown; and (b) not drown while moving forward for 250 metres.

As luck would have it, The Admiral is a damn fine swimmer. He learned to swim in the Navy and he’s kept swimming, what, almost 50 years. So, we hit the pool for my first swimming lesson since the 80s. Believe me people, there are very few things in this world more HUMILIATING than a 63 year old man gliding effortlessly past you while you’re doing an impression of fish writhing about on a boat deck (I wonder, do fish have an expression, “writhing like a human in water”?). If anyone had any detergent, they could have thrown it in next to me, along with their dirty laundry.

I will confess that The Admiral was a wonderful coach. I had my apprehensions about his teaching style, but he was patient, gave good advice and didn’t let me give up. By the end, I swam the entire length of an Olympic pool (50 metres) without drowning, taking on a stomach full of water or feeling too out of breath. We’re going swimming again on Monday morning.

I think I’ll be ready for 25 March. Oh, the bike is 6.2 miles and the run 1.6 miles. Hardly worth getting out of bed for.

I also saw Mum during the week. She told me of The Admiral’s new found enemy in the exhaust fan in the kitchen. And she gave me this week’s edition of the International Express. It’s the weekly "summary" of that tour de force of British tabloid trash; the Daily Express. It's my bit of banality for the week. I like to read the headlines and see how a mundane piece of news becomes a call-to-arms through the use of emotionally charged adjectives. I also like their use of all noun headlines and to see how far I have to go into the paper before I find a mention of Princess Diana. I was very disappointed to see the late princess relegated to page 14 this week. It's only been, what, 10 years? In fact, she was beaten out by Margaret Thatcher, who was on page 6.

Feel the love

I got some lovin yesterday. Now, I’m not one to turn down a bit of affection, but I did feel a bit uncomfortable about the source: ET. Yes, ET was spreading the love. The miniature Egyptian man I work with gave me a hug. I’d found a way to save $150,000 in the project target cost, so I was deserving of a squeeze. It left me feeling a bit, uhh, weird. Here was a man who gets what he wants by yelling at people, giving me a bit o’lovin. I doubt anyone could feel ANYTHING but a bit stunned.

Miss K thought it was all quite funny when I told her. She said it shows he’s human (as opposed to the alien I maintain he is). But she doesn’t have to worry about the consequences if I find a way to save a million.

Karate was interesting (to say the least) on Monday night. A guy who hasn’t been training in over a year has returned. The only thing notable about this guy is his ego. He walked in announcing to all and sundry that he wanted to fight anyone and everyone. Those just aren’t words to be used in a dojo. Of course, he did not get the reception he wanted: no one took any notice of him! He didn’t show last night and the sensei asked my training partner & I if we’d scared him off. Definitely not a good sign when the sensei is making fun of you!

Celtics dropped the Knicks last night. Time for me to buy a lottery ticket.

Home Depot

My nearest Home Depot is 3.7 miles away and there are six sets of traffic lights in those 3.7 miles. How do I know? Because I spent this delightfully sunny Sunday afternoon repairing my watering system. Thing is, I hadn’t planned on spending my Sunday afternoon up to my elbows in dirt and water. No, I had not…

Sundays are for sleeping in, going the gym when I feel like it and spending the afternoon with my closest. This Sunday I had arranged to squire the delightfully wicked Miss K to a movie at a certain independent cinema. She had plans prior (but expected to be finished by 4pm) – playing tour guide to the boyfriend of a friend she worked with for four months, two years ago in a state several thousand miles away. He was in our fairly fair city on business and e-mailed the lovely Miss K a sob story of loneliness. So it was that, when it became clear to Miss K that 4pm was no longer viable, we swapped voice mail messages to move our rendezvous to next weekend. Miss K was now free to chauffeur this unexpected guest around town. In the spirit of sharing pain with my friends, I decided to fix my garden watering system.

My watering system had sprung a slight leak and it needed repairing. This would involve me getting my hands dirty, so if I was going to get grimy, I was taking someone down with me. That’s why I called The Admiral. He’s very useful in home repair matters and it’s always good to have at least one wise head around when things aren’t quite going to plan. So, he arrived and the leak was identified – it was coming from the automatic valve. We agreed very quickly to get rid of the automatic valve and go with a manual one.

So, off to Home Depot. With it being Sunday, the place was a hive of activity. ‘twas packed with amateur home improvement people – many with the scars of previous home improvement attempts – and loaded to the gunwales with home improvement stuff. Some of it looked useful. Some of it looked lethal. We found what we were looking for and, $3.25 later, we returned home. We fitted the valve. Turned on the water. And there was a leak. A section of the pipe screw in part of the pipe had split: we had NOT been as gentle as we thought.

Off to Home Depot. We picked up a new threaded section of pipe, a reducer (don’t ask) and a cap. The cap was the back-up plan. Should all go to pot, the line could be capped off while we thought of another angle of attack over, say, the next week-ish. The girl at Home Depot only charged us for two items – I got the cap for free. $2.75 lighter, back home. The threaded section was the wrong size.

Back to Home Depot for the third time. Swapped the wrong size for the right size and headed home. This time…S-U-C-C-E-S-S! After some minor adjustment, all leaks were gone. Sprinklers work. I’m a happy boy

Post script: a phone call Sunday evening from Miss K. Her day went much better than expected and she sounded very happy. The gentleman was engaging and bought her lunch. She also announced to me she was on the third day of her new-found vegetarianism (REAL veggie, too – no fish!) and that she felt very healthy and clean. Yes, well, overdosing on fibre does that to a person. No, all kidding aside, I’m not far off vego myself. Only one meal out of the five I eat each day contains meat. But I’m not willing to give up my daily dose of dead animal just yet. Vegetarianism really isn’t that bad: chocolate is vegetarian.

A successful Sunday all round, I’d say.

Welcome to the neighbourhood

My house is affectionately known as The Gnome Home. It’s a townhouse in a street of townhouses next to a golf course. Real white bread stuff: cobblestone street, manicured lawns, you know the type. I bought here about five and a half years ago because it was conveniently located and with a small lawn, easy to maintain. It was also quiet. But not for long. About six months after I moved in, a bachelor in his 50s moved in next door. Which was fine…then his son moved in; 17 or 18 I’m guessing and as I would soon discover, he was mentally disadvantaged - a lunatic, if you will (is it still OK to use the "L" word?).

I was first introduced to the boy one Friday evening when I heard a loud knock on my neighbour’s front door, accompanied by a hushed conversation and the young man in question yelling, “Well [expletive] you, I’m only here to see Ralph.” Who was this mysterious “Ralph”, I wondered. A mysterious twin brother, kept chained in the attic and fed fish heads? Unfortunately, nothing that bizarre. Ralph was a dirty white poodle – with a bath he’d probably be a clean white poodle.

A few weeks after the father had settled in, the son moved in and property values in my street sank like a Mafia informant in the East River. The relationship between the father and son was, well, strained to say the least. There was yelling. Yelling. Yelling, always with the yelling. Here are some of the more memorable statements I heard yelled from the house next door…
[young female voice] “Ow! Ow! Stop it, you’re hurting me!”
[older female voice, possible his mother] “For God’s sake Mark, get it together!” [breaking glass] “God, what did you do THAT for?”
[father's voice] “If you’re going to live here, you’re going to treat me with respect!”
[son's voice] “Go [expletive] yourself!” (many times)
[son's voice] “I hate you!” (many times)
And, my personal favourite: [father's voice] “If you try to hit me again, I’ll get a gun and shoot you!”
Ahh, happy families.

So, our hero Mark. What did he look like? Well, he was your garden variety mentally derranged 17 year old. Average height, dirty blond hair, medium build. And he DID-NOT-LIKE-ME. I have to give him some points for being perceptive. If he was outside and I was to step out, he would disappear inside. When the burglaries were going down, my house was left alone. He knew if I even remotely suspected him of some malfeasance, he would discover how much pain can be inflicted with a rubber hose, a bag of oranges and a bicycle pump. Often I would see him on the balcony next door sighing, then he would start laughing, then sigh again. He would play music loudly, then turn it off. I would see him wearing pyjamas at 1pm in the afternoon while taking Ralph for a walk. And if the pyjamas weren’t ridiculous enough, he’d complete the ensemble with a deer-stalker cap. I saw him once in said get up at a nearby park, sitting on a blanket and playing a guitar (either than or torturing cats - I wouldn't put that beyond him). Totally. Completely. Unhinged.

Apart from the burglaries, some other weird stuff happened. Like stuff catching on fire. Stuff like a nearby shrub-covered embankment. Stuff like number 51’s car (at 4am, New Year’s Day).

Eventually, Mark’s run of burglary and arson came to an end when he went one step too far. R-A-P-E. He stole a golf cart from the golf club one night, piloted it to the next suburb and obtained carnal knowledge of a 17 year old. I remember the day. I was up for my morning run and saw my criminal neighbour asleep on the balcony, his car parked on the lawn even more haphazardly than normal. I remember thinking, “something BAD has happened.

He is, presently, someone’s bitch and will be for the next 10 years.

A Steaming Pile of Failure

I was in a filthy mood all day today. It all started at 7:10am, which, may I remind you, is not a good time to start a filthy mood. Then things got progressively worse and by the time I arrived at work, I would have rated my mood "tempestuous", and declining fast. Why? Well, here's why:

• There was a crash on the highway, causing a 15 mile tail back. I missed the traffic report warning me of some stupid people's inability to stay in one lane because I was listening to CDs (White Stripes this morning). I have a great dislike for breakfast radio.
• When I finally arrived at work, all the coffee mugs were in the dishwasher. I HATE starting work under-caffeinated. This was despite my usual pint and a half of coffee before leaving the house.
• There was an irate message from the miniature Egyptian man I work with (more on him later). Where was I? Who was I with? What was I doing? Get down here IMMEDIATELY! Lord, if I wanted that sort of abuse, I'd get married.

OK, this project I'm on. I inherited it five weeks ago after the previous incumbent was "moved" to another project when everyone realised it was an absolute catastraf#%k. It's eight weeks behind (after 6 months!) and the budget has blown out from $125 million to $170 million - this ain't monopoly money. So I was installed as project manager, along with a hit squad. A hit squad of one man: the afore-mentioned miniature Egyptian man. Let's call him the ET: The Extraterrestrial (what can I say, that's what he looks like). Our job: get it back on the rails.

Right now, I feel I should point out ET has been in construction engineering for longer than I've been alive. He also wears stone wash denim (get back to the 80s!) and he barely comes up to my sternum. His attitude to getting a project back on track, slashing costs and yelling at people. A LOT. Me included! He'll be gone in five weeks, thankfully. That's if I don't strangle him first and bury him in a shoe box somewhere outside El Paso.

To close my day, I had a late meeting which I almost fell asleep in. I stayed awake by sending text messages to a friend. And when I finally got home, I cut my thumb on a tin of tuna. Not a red letter day, people.

"Food?"

I guess it could be called food, if you take the broadest sense of the word. You know what I’m on about; Oscar Mayer Fast Franks (pre-prepared hot dogs in a bun). And its brethren – generally anything you can buy in the frozen food aisle. Snap frozen cheeseburgers. Snap frozen chicken subs. It’s food in the same way that having a job with the government can be called working. No one works for the Government, they “work?” for the Government. Ham & pork flavoured knob (seen in my local supermarket’s meat aisle on Saturday morning) is “food?” not food.

I’m not on much of a foodie crusade here. But (work with me here), I fail to see how anyone can come up with some of the “food?” concepts I have seen. Let’s take my favourite, Jimmy Dean’s Pancake & Sausage on a Stick with choc-chip. Who, in their right mind came up with such a gastronomic travesty?
Hmm…sausages are boring. I know, I’ll wrap it in pancake batter.
But it’s lacking something. I know, choc-chips!
But, hmm, how can I eat this without cutlery? A STICK! EUREKA!! And, I’ll be able to eat this tasty piece of Frankenstein food with my left hand and, in my right hand, hold this stick of butter wrapped in a Belgian waffle!
Good grief, what’s next; nuts & gum in a can?

I have some rules when it comes to food. I tend to keep odd hours and with my activity levels, I need food that’s quick and nutritious. Notice how “tasty” isn’t one of my requirements. My needs are as follows:
1. High protein, medium carb, low fat.
2. Three or less ingredients.
3. Cook in one pan or less.
4. In less than five minutes.
5. Able to be eaten off a medium sized plate or bowl.
6. In less than five minutes.
7. Requires eating with a fork or a spoon, but not both. And never a knife.
8. Of a consistency such that, if my plate/bowl tilts, there won’t be a great mess to clean up. It’s why my oatmeal is the consistency of gap filler.

All that being said, it’s not surprising I live off scrambled egg whites, fat free dairy products, protein shakes and bananas. The last two have the additional bonus of being able to be eaten in a car without leaving a mess.

An Introduction (of sorts)

I guess I should do something in the way of an introduction. It’s the right thing to do. Actually, I’ll start by telling you what I’m not going to tell you. I’m not going to tell you irrelevant things such as my name or my age or who I work for. That's classified information. I will say I work as a project manager in a relatively large company. That’s important because, from time to time, I will use the clueless morons I am ashamed to call co-workers as fodder for my posts.

What else you need to know about me:
1. I keep fit. I run, I ride, I go the gym, I train martial arts.
2. I have a dry, sardonic sense of humour.
3.I like lists.

And that’s all you need to know about me.

I will point out, too, that I’m not a health freak. No, my caffeine addiction sees to that. My Muse introduced me to the joys of drinking coffee out of a beer stein, as opposed to a regular coffee mug. Beer steins hold more, she said. She was right. I now down one-and-a-half steins of coffee before I head off to work. And have a regular mug when I finally drag my sorry butt into the office. People wonder why I’m so peppy of a morning.

Speaking of my office, right now I am split between two offices – my regular office in my firm’s main building, and my current project has a project office in town. When I’m in the project office, I’ll occasionally take public transport. I must confess, I don’t like public transport. In fact, I don’t like public anything, especially car parks & lavatories. I despise them because they both rely upon other people to act with courtesy, aim straight and not hit me. And as history has taught me, people cannot be relied upon to carry out those three simple niceties of life.

Back to my story. Generally, I despise public transport because, well, Le Comte has fairly high standards of personal grooming. Much higher, it would seem, than your average public transport patron. Take Thursday evening as case in point. I’d manage to finish early and caught the 17:19 from town. It was packed. People were fighting for space like a bunch of refugees from Weight Watchers fighting over the last fudge brownie. It was brutal to say the least. The end game was the good Comte sharing far too much skin time with a man (I assume it was…I think my next blog will be about androgynous people) who was unfamiliar with the concept of soap or water. Deodorant, it would seem, is optional with some people these days.

I wonder why people find their poor personal hygiene so acceptable? Does no one say anything? Can they not smell themselves, because, Lord knows I can. Is there a book out there: Hygiene: The French Way?

Anyway, if you’re the guy whose armpit I got stuck in, leave me a comment. As a memory jogger, I was the guy in the white shirt struggling to breathe for 22 minutes who stood on your foot on leaving the train and didn’t apologise, despite your yelp of pain.

p.s. I will post some photos soon. I have them somewhere. On my laptop at work. In one of the offices I frequent. I'm not quite sure. Is this how schizophrenia starts?