The construction march goes on.
At least we get to mark one thing off the list.
After a non-stop weekend of painting, cleaning, plumbing, more painting, and the way complicated installation of one blind (What is the sound of one blind installing?), our downstairs unit is finished.
Well, almostâ€â€there’s a couple more blinds left.
But how glorious it is!
Can you say “Hotel Suite”?
When The New Yorker gets nasty, this is what to expect.
My subscription ended in March, and I probably received two or three requests for payments from the magazine. They were polite enough. “Your subscription is ending”, or “Please send us your payment”.
I ignored them.
Still, the magazines kept coming.
I told Jay, “I think they’re trying to guilt me into paying for another year of subscription.”
I kept putting it off. Then this came.
It was The New Yorker’s genteel way of a shake-down. No more Mr. Nice Guy. It was as threatening a note as it could get without actual threats.
“If we don’t receive your payment, we must suspend service of your issues…Without it, chances are your life (and you) wouldn’t be quite as interesting anymore. But that’s up to you, D. Ho.”
But that’s up to you, D. Ho.
I wrote a check immediately.
This picture succinctly explains the state of America today: Overconsumption, overconsumption, overconsumption.
Think Big Gulp, All You Can Eat Buffet, Supersized meal.
The flat box came in the big box, surrounded by copious bubblewrap. Red Envelope could have easily mailed the flat box on its own. Take my word for it, no one ordered any Austrian crystal. It was a canvas bag. A can-vas bag. Canvas.
I shudder to think how porcelain or glass is packed. Twice the amount of bubblewrap? A car-sized box?
And did I say canvas?
Okay, so everyone just had an early 90s flashback.
Sorry.
Don’t deny the mullet. You know you grooved to Achy Breaky Heart.
I use Billy Ray for a point. And I’m getting to it.
You ever get settled into your couch, turn on the TV thinking it was the right channel, but when the show started, it was all wrong and the remote was too far away, and you were too tired, lazy, unmotivatedâ€â€or all of the aboveâ€â€to do anything about it so you just watched the bad show anyway?
I had such a moment today.
Jay had connected the radio on top of the fridge in the downstairs unit, so I had to climb a ladder to tune it to what I thought was the NPR channel. And we all know how much I love ladders. I went to the bathroom to start painting the trim. It took me a full minute to realize someone was singing: Country music singing.
I had paint on my hands, there was nowhere to rest the brush, the ladder was put away, and the radio was on top of the fridge.
I was not going to re-tune the radio.
For more than two hours, I listened to country music while painting the trim. I couldn’t decide which was more work.
And that is why Billy Ray was on my mind today.
A curious phenomenon is happening in Singapore. The not-really-every-four-year General Election is about to occur on May 6. But I didn’t just say that.
I’m not actually talking about the election (or the fact that I’m 32 and have never voted in my life because I grew up in an area that rhymes with Anjong Agar), but about this limited edition Ty Beanie Baby called Maju the Bear plastered withâ€â€you guessed itâ€â€our very own Majulah Singapura flag. Buy it on eBay and bring it to your voting booth on Saturday!
Despite the gag order of no overt political posts, it is still a pleasure to read Singaporean bloggers.
I enjoy Mr Brown’s excellent posts that are not about the elections and his latest article in Today newspaper that is also not about the elections.
Everyone I know is talking about the elections by not talking about the elections. So if I am blogging about Mr Brown blogging about not blogging about the elections, does that mean we are blogging about the elections?
A double negative is a positive.
And I have a headache.
Aside from its inspired rhyming and model casting, we couldn’t figure out what kind of plumbing customers they were trying to attract. Some of you may notice she is wearing a pearl necklace. That leads your eyes down to…
Go ahead, put your hand on that newly painted siding. You know you want to feel its perfectness. Plus, it’s a scratch and sniff.
Jay the I-Fear-No-Heights Dokken is the outside paint man. Dot the I-Can’t-Get-Past-The-First-Rung Ho shamelessly takes all credit for the inside trim.
Trash run in the Subaruâ€â€this timeâ€â€includes a mortal fight with prickly plants intent on smothering and digesting front seat passenger a la Feed me, Seymour, feed me. Later at the dump, we stop for a moment of silence at the Place Where Refrigerators Go To Die.
We spot a truck with a dog house in the back. There is a dog in the dog house, in the back of the truck, on wheels that are moving. It was very “Musicians of Bremen”.
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