WHAT MADE YOU GRIMACE & GRIT YOUR TEETH TODAY?

we found out the hard way last night that our favorite chinese restaurant -- chef chang's in brookline -- has closed for good.
downright devastating...

A low blow. I can relate. Hey Mr. Chang. Open back up.

Sigh. Businesses are closing right and left. I mean that literally. I walk down the street and there are closed signs to the right of me and to the left of me.

The unfettered corruption of the N Y state legislators

Not so much gritting & grimacing, just feeling pretty embarrassed.

I tried to give a donation to a "beggar" when he wasn't one at all!

I was rushing around Sydney Road a while ago, doing a bit of late Sunday afternoon shopping. In between the greengrocer's & the supermarket is the spot where the beggar usually are. As you pass, you rummage in your purse & grab all the loose coins you can find & hand them over ... which is what I was in the process of doing today, except this very crumpled looking soul was standing (not sitting on the footpath) which is the usual thing. I also noticed that he didn't have the usual cap or hat for donations on the ground, so I just tried to hand to money to him.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" he asked.

" um ... whatever you like" says I, feeling a wee bit flustered.

At which point we both got it: mistaken identity.
At least he had the grace to laugh!
Me, I just felt like a complete idiot.

You may smile, Deb.

I'm still recovering from the "incident"!

Best to laugh sweetie. The fella did.

I did something WORSE!!! I was walking to work one morning through the parklands. There is often a big aboriginal camp somewhere near where I walk, and lots of begging.

An aboriginal woman was approaching me coming the other way....I nodded at her as we passed, and she grabbed my hand and asked me something. I didn't quite hear her, but assumed it was the usual. I didn't have any change on me, so I said "I am very sorry, but no."

She repeated the question. She wanted to know the time.

I wanted to die and be buried beneath large mounds of dirt to hide my intense shame.

Yeah, I know ....

These things happen ... to the nicest of people!

But doesn't make you feel great at the time, though, does it?

I'm seeing the funny side of my little episode now.

It makes you feel so small that it's like you could sit on the edge of a cigarette paper and dangle your legs.

Or smack yourself in the head!

Oh if we could only dig ourselves rapidly into the ground and disappear like echidnas!

Or, or ......

Well, you know!

Faint at will?

Die at will?

Become invisible at will?

Turn back time and do it better?

Worry less about incidents that, in the great cosmic joke of existence, and given the total sum of suffering lo these billions of years and how it is all become dust and that dust become a squillion other life-forms, and they, too turned to dust...and all shall be dust, or an almighty big squish up followed by an enormous bang, or all the stars just turn to cinders, and all life with them and all?

Just a thought.

Yes?

See our inept president on TV again

WHY did my idiotic strata company authorise the roofing people to begin putting a new roof on the building just before Easter?

The result? A hot four day holiday with no access to air-conditioning since the roofers have turned it off.

May I add that said roofing company demanded, with no warning, immediate access to every apartment to disconnect said air-conditioning.

I, for instance, was in the remote outback, with only intermittent access to the outside world by satellite phone. You can imagine the horror with which I received a message that my boss needed to speak to me urgently about my apartment at a time when I was hours drive away even from the sat. phone!

What are the odds, out of 52 apartments, that a number of owners will be inaccessible, given the size of the continent, and the tendency of its inhabitants to fly around it, and, at every opportunity, overseas?

When I relayed the message that they needed to get the goddam master key, the message relayed back was "Where from?"

The goddam STRATA COMPANY THAT EMPLOYED YOU AND GAVE YOU MY GODDAM WORK PHONE NUMBER< YOU NUMBATS!!!

Urgh -- that sucks, deb! I don't know what to do except give you a cyber-hug, and to wish that you'll have a happy-ish bunny-day nevertheless. Don't stress yourself out too much laying all those eggs in the Outback.

Sadly, we totalled the easter bunny on one of our long night drives. I have NO idea who is handing out the choccies this year.


I now have a sinus infection!

Oh no.

Now that's all you need, Deb!

How did the outback trip go? Apart from this: