The FreshDirect delivery truck has just been and only dropped off one box of groceries. Not good. He says he couldn’t find the other two, but will be back later. How later is later? Of course the sole survivor of my huge order isn’t the meat or the vegetables so I could have at least start cooking, but the dairy and two packets of dried apricots. I now only have one ingredient for the Tunisian meatball and veggie stew, but I do have a fridge full of soy and yoghurt products…..
I was mulling over posting something related to the phenomena of my being the last of the renters amongst my British contemporaries. I am not in the position, nor do I have the inclination to commit to bricks and mortar – too grown up and sensible for my liking. That being said, I have just spent the best part of four hours on a Friday night cleaning the flat to within an inch of its life. I have found myself committing hideous crimes: dusting, using furniture polish, bleaching work surfaces, cleaning the swingy part of the bin. I could go on but it is far too depressing.
Why, this hive of activity? We’ve company coming for New Years Eve. For some reason I turn into an Alan Bennett character at the prospect of people, whom I am not related to, invading my cluttered domicile. If I had a front step, I’d be down on my knees until it sparkled. But, front steps are hard to come by on the third floor, so I am resigned to making sure the swingy part of the bin sparkles. Why am I so obsessed with the swingy lid part of the bin? Because when I am in other people’s home and I see a bin lid that is not up to muster I think to myself, “They might have made the effort, they knew we were coming”, it is the same with kitchen floors.
Alex came home two hours into Operation Early Spring Clean, and has wisely stayed out of the way. Well he had to, after I asked what time company was expected and the answer I received was four hours earlier than I planned. I’ve tried to bait him into asking “If there was anything he could do” by taking long drinks of water in his eye line. But, it hasn’t worked. So I am forced to bench my “You’ve done quite enough already” stare for another time.
So, it looks like I’ll be up at six to study whilst waiting for the groceries to arrive. Once they get here I get to start making a zillion little aromatic meatballs and the stew they go in.
I am starving, truly ravenous and could eat a real or metaphorical horse. I am off to the doctors this morning for a blood test (cholesterol levels), and you need to fast for 12 hrs before hand. Nothing to worry about, just part and parcel of the yearly medical that my wonderful health insurance provide. So, I am currently hungry AND my hamstrings still ache from Wednesday’s yoga class. Can anyone explain why after spending 90 minutes stretching out said muscle group do I wake up to feel like someone has shorn a couple of inches of them?
Any how, hopefully the office will close early and I can finish up a mini paper (on the second Athenian confederacy, if you are interested) that I need to post for peer review. In theory peer review is great, it is just that the peeps on my history course are a little on the mute side. But, that is not an excuse to ignore these written exercises and my main motivation behind tackling them is that fear. The exams in May are hanging over my head like the sword of Damocles.
I plan on reading all of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels not because I want to, but because Gil Grissom has.
I can feel my brain melting and trickling down the side of my face through over use. I must escape stale musty flat and seek out fresh air. First Ugg boots need to be surgically removed from feet, so I can roam the city in non-furry foot wear. Then must venture out as excuse to use my blackberry in the wild, rather than as lazy device to check email and assess if worth getting out of bed and turning on my mac…..
Prometheus Bound and other plays by Aeschylus
Oresteian Trilogy by Aeschylus
The Wasps, the Poet and the Women, The Frogs by Aristophanes
Lysistrata and Other Plays by Aristophanes
Theogony and Works and Days by Hesiod
Theban Plays by Sophocles
The Homeric Hymns
Greek Lyric Poetry
In a werewolf like manner I am a changing.
I am now one of those people who knocks back h2o all day long. I am apparently trying to re-hydrate myself into the tenth circle of hell (that would be the one where you are forced to make endless trips to the bathroom).
I took a yoga class on Christmas Eve. That confession even shocked my mother, though I later reprieved myself. In my typically charmingly conceited manner I informed her that I intended to wake up at 6am on Christmas morn, study for three hours before opening my pressies. I swear I could hear her rolling her eyes on the other end of the phone. What actually happened was that slept in till half seven, got up and tried to study for twenty minutes before the temptation of presents under the tree was too much….
Okay, so yesterday I was ever so slightly over-wrought and grumpy. Thankfully I am much better today. Not sure if it is the bumper batch of white chocolate, pecan and cranberry cookies I am baking or the fact that in just over five hours it will be my birthday. Oooh and that little matter of walking to work might be resolved, though Alex refuses to believe it until he hears the low rumble of subway trains underfoot.
One of the weird, but useful,things about living state-side is that in the run up to Christmas/New Year the tv networks only show repeats of the current on-air shows. At first I found this very alien, annoying and completely contrary to the UK. Now I embrace it. Not, only do I stand more of a chance of catching up with school work but we can work our way through our towering pile of DVDs. Currently we are re-watching, for the umpteenth time, Band of Brothers (but, it is so bloody good) and Hustle.
I am tired after the 70 block round trip commute I had the joy of participating in today. The shiny feeling of being one with my fellow pedestrians has worn off. I am tired of trying to do something nice and have it back fire. In the run up to my Christmas baking/cooking extravaganza I decide to set the oven to “self-clean” so things will all be peachy for the weekend. For some reason this setting sets of the smoke alarm. I turn off the oven only to discover that I can’t open the oven door… Fingers crossed when it has cooled I will have access again.
Not a huge surprise to wake up to another day of walking to work in freezing temperatures. I am grateful that it only takes me the length of James Blunt’s Back to Bedlam, inclusive of a detour to get coffee, to make it to the office and of course all this cardio so close to the coach potato festival that is Christmas must be a good thing!