anyresemblance

Moonless

Does it feel like there’s nothing but special moons every fortnight? Anyway, clouds over Manhattan tonight so here’s a city scape instead.

I did the trek to the burbs today for a long but productive working session.   You can't book a flipping meeting room there so one of my team got there at 7.30am to stake our claim.  We armed ourselves with post it notes and sharpies and had a jolly time working out what was wrong with our working situation.  Solving it is a whole other question.

There was an accident on the Henry Hudson on the way home so it was slow going.  I was driving solo so got to listen to what I wanted.

Not my workplace

But I do pass it on the bus.  I like NYC so much more travelling by bus.  The kids eating their toast on their way to school, the tired old ladies with their bags of groceries on the way home.

It was snowing this morning (all gone by tonight) and everything looked hopeful.  I am trying to take heart from that.

Hoarse

I have a sore throat from talking too much.  If I am sick of the sound of my own voice, imagine how the people I work with feel?  I would like a day without telephone meetings.  Also, what is the point of traipsing to an office when all you do is talk to people who are in different cities (and countries) to you.  I miss working from home.

Taxing

I tried and failed to do my tax today.  This first required me first to make my bed as I was in the middle of changing my sheets and needed a flat clear surface on which to pile the paperwork.  In turn, I was required to finish the ironing as I wanted to put a particular set of bed linen on.  And to do a wholesale clean out of my paperwork and rearrange dozens of bits of paper.  I assembled all the required documents on the bed and got ready to start entering stuff into a spreadsheet (my normal approach is a spreadsheet my ex-husband set up when he was still married to me and which I have religiously used for the past 15 years) but now, as a foreign assignee, I have to use a large accounting firm to do my tax and they require me to use their on line portal.  I then discovered that my password had expired for my Australian email and I can't renew it unless I am in the office.  So not much productive was actually achieved but the bedroom is very tidy.  It's a pain in the arse having psyched myself up to not procrastinate any longer.

Other than that, it is grey and a bit rainy but mild.  We ate empenadas for lunch (so good) and coconut cake for afternoon tea( acceptable but nothing special) and chicken curry for dinner (v good). I wish there were another day of weekend.

Home and away

We had breakfast with a person we know from home who was traveling through the city and bringing us a gift from a close friend.  It turned out to be a bottle of Clonakilla Shiraz so I was glad to receive it.

Tonight I watched a food program with Neil Perry, Ben Schiwy and Peter Gilmore and I felt a sharp homesickness hearing those voices rise interrogatively at the end of a sentence and everything being described as beautiful "we have these beautiful marron which we'll pair with this beautiful home grown wasabi and beautiful cultured butter" except it's actually bewdiful.

I saw this picture on someone's Instagram yesterday though I could not find a credit to the photographer.  

On the buses

I took the bus to and from work this morning. I just couldn’t bear all the subway people. It takes way longer but it’s decompression time and much more interesting looking out of the window rather than reading the same subway ads over and over.  The route home was a bit slow given Friday night traffic but I wasn't really in a hurry.

My extended team went to lunch today. I bought everyone clip on koalas and caramel koalas in recognition of Australia Day (even though I am fully in favour of change the date). We ate Thai food, two courses for $13 including tip.  Everyone used venmo to pay me.  Things sure have changed.

Tonight we went to see Paddington 2.  It was utterly charming.  Gentle, funny and kind.  Hugh Grant is outstanding as a self absorbed villain but all the character parts are wonderful and the set design is like a less wacky Wes Anderson.  A++

Sorry, I can not hear you, I'm kinda busy

My good friend, Elle, posted a link to this on twitter today.   It's a bit of a long read but stick with it, especially when you get to the bit where the guy says he wants his kids to have access to the phone in case a shooter turns up at school.  What the actual fuck? Is it so normalised?  

I am weaning myself off my phone.  I have definitely had better sleep by not having the phone alarm on - I leave it charging in the kitchen overnight.

 

 

 

By the numbers

 

• Time out of the house: 6.30am
• Time home: 8pm
• Passengers transported to Westchester County: 2
• Meetings attended: 9
• Disappointing phone calls: 1
• Messages exchanged with kid in Sydney: 14
• Number of those which concerned dogs either owned or observed on the internet: 8
• Passengers returned to Manhattan: 4
• Dating apps discussed: 4

*It's 3 years since I attended the wedding of this horse's owner

Children’s literature

Tonight, at dinner, the consultant from the company we are engaging asked me if I had heard of Philip Pullman. Please, am I not the person who already listened to the Book of Dust?  Still, I wasn’t irked as it’s nice to hear of parents who read challenging books to their kids and value reading.

It was a good day with mentally stimulating people and lamb chops and pavlova for dinner at a smart restaurant. They paid but as I commented to my boss that means we paid as it ends up in our bill somehow. 

Best laid plans

You know that thing when everyone swears this year will be different and we're going to plan and because we have a plan we won't get blindsided by urgent unplanned stuff? That? Yes, well that got exploded today with a giant request which means all the work this week gets thrown aside for this urgent thing (which isn't really urgent but no one can say "if you give me a week, I'll have finished this work and you can have a thoughtful response instead of a half arsed one")

Anyway, that happened today and the whole week if shot.  Thank god, I brought back a supply of strong tea.

I had a salad from sweetgreen for lunch.  Sweet Jesus, it cost $13 for lettuce, one half an avocado, handful of cherry tomatoes, some red onion and roast chicken.  Albeit it tasted fine but it was way overpriced and nothing special.  I don't get why people love it so.  Don't even get me started on "bowls".  I finished the Tim tams in my desk and drank lots of water today so was feeling extremely virtuous.

I took a cab home tonight as I had to do a call and did not feel like staying in the office till 6.30 to finish it so instead I spoke from the cab which then got home super quick so I had to stand round in the lobby as the line would drop if I got in the elevator.  It is quite interesting observing everyone arrive home after work laden with shopping or cares or happy to be home.  I was happy to be home and watch Jaen the Virgin and eat a beef casserole, bake potato and roast asparagus.