Over Afternoon Tea

Tea is not only a drink but a ritual over which people have been relaxing, talking, and catching up on each other's lives for centuries. This blog is intended to serve as a virtual cup of tea, helping me keep in touch with friends and family in my physical absence.

Fun with the Andronaches

"It's all right. I forgive you for my incompetency." - Magda

Me: Magda, you're delightful!
Magda: Because I meow in confusion?

Me: Virgil, that's a great confused face.
Virgil: I've been practicing.
Magda: I've been helping.

Highway 20 is a Boston classic. Winding, narrow, extended out of 'Main Street.' I try to avoid it as much as possible, but since it's the principal route between the place where I work and my favorite place to shop, I get stuck on it now and then.
Tonight I noticed how particularly odd it is that in order to avoid turn-only lanes on both sides you have to keep dodging back and forth between lanes. If you can call them that. When they paved the highway, some forward-minded citizen stepped up and said, "Now, let's not paint any LANES, per se. Better to leave it as is, so we can use it for whatever purpose seems best at the time." And they did, making it comfortably wide enough for two and a half lanes, which are sometimes used as parking and a lane, sometimes two lanes, and sometimes parking and two lanes, one of which is invariably either stopped trying to make a turn or swinging out into oncoming traffic trying to get around the other.
Then there are the signs. "Left turn only" is just as likely to be posted on the right side of the road as the left; more so, in fact. This fact requires acuity of eyesight and a mental readiness which must have done much in making Boston's citizens so famed in intellect and the arts. This particular evening, I was driving in the left lane, shooting desperate glances at the small sign on the right. I was fairly sure it meant one of the lanes was turn only, but I couldn't be sure which. In the dark, I was having trouble seeing. Finally I ascertained that it said left and swung over into the right. As I drew closer, I realized the cause of the trouble I was having. "Left lane must turn left" it proclaimed -- upside down. One of these days they should put this road system in a museum.

A quote, delivered slowly, abruptly, and with a stunned look, while shopping:

"Oh dear. We're going to have to move again in three years. We'll have to eat all the food we haven't been eating." -- Magda

You Might Be a Nerd If...
you've ever caught yourself saying something like "I don't really know when they started using punctuation. That would be a fascinating paper to read: 'The Rise of Punctuation'!"

I had a day from the land of frustration movies, that dubious genre apparently invented and solely sustained by Carey Grant. Or maybe it would be too 'out there' even for such a movie. It started with promise: running slightly late to work, back pain from an unknown source that's been getting slightly worse with each passing day, traffic on the roads, getting to work only just barely on time. The plot thickened with a slightly stressful day at work, since I'm learning to do a new (and terribly important) job at the office. This is entirely necessary and beneficial, even interesting, but it meant today that I was trying to juggle some of my own workload as well as the new project, which took twice as long as it should've since I'm new at it. In addition, I (being new to what I was learning) didn't realize I had to ask my boss about a few things ASAP, and then he went into a meeting, so I ended up not being able to start a major project until after lunch. Except that I didn't take lunch till a little past three, by which time I was freezing and slightly cranky.
Needless to say, I had to stay late, something I wouldn't ordinarily mind doing. But I had an appointment for coffee and had stayed late the past two nights. So I postponed my coffee date and finally left at a quarter to six, only to observe that the ever-temperamental interstate was moving at a crawl. So I thought to myself, "I shall avoid the traffic by calling my husband, telling him to tell Julie I'll be late, and then shopping for some wine at this wine-shop across the street." Our wine-stock was low, the shop looked interesting, and it was a good plan.
Except that as soon as I got out of the car, I realized I'd locked the keys into it. In the ignition, to be precise. So I called my husband back. He's got a gig he can't get out of. So he sends a friend. Great. I go shopping. The good part is, I find some nice wines and some delicious and very serious chocolate (high-cocoa dark chocolate with bits of cocoa beans in it--yummy!). Also, I find a warm, indoor place to wait. The bad part is, I tell Seraphim to go to exit 17 instead of exit 27, because I'm bad with numbers. So Seraphim drives 20 minutes the wrong way on the interstate before we figure out what I did.
So now I'm safely home, getting ready to go for coffee with Julie. I'm a little afraid to go out again, but I guess I'd better go. If I stay I'll probably burn down the dorm--or at least break the wine-bottles.