Alone

This past Wednesday my wife flew to Florida to be with her daughter. Even though the girl was here a little while ago my wife thought it would be nice to be with her on her birthday. So, what does a good husband says at a time like this?

Go darling, have a good time! But really only meaning the first half of the sentence and not the second. Anyway, she went. And has been there ever since.

I could not go with her because there is no way to take Abigail out from school every time we want to go Florida and this time it would have been three days. So now I'm mom and pop to the little girl.

In short it ain't easy! But I am trying my best to fulfill her expectations of me.

My wife and I are both miserable being alone and apart from each other but thankfully tomorrow she is coming home. I can't wait to see her again and have her here next to me. When one loves somebody a lot you just don't want to let go no matter for how short a time.

I don't cook and that means that Abigail and I eat whatever we like. It was Popeye one night, lasagna from the Italian place the last night and today I think we are having ravioli. Tomorrow night we will have normal food again.

This is not a vacation. It is not easy to be alone and at the same time be responsible for another human being. But I gladly do it because this what a family is all about.

If I don't write tomorrow it must be understandable. I am looking forward to a long and sweet reunion!

Thursday

Today is Thursday and by all indications it should have been a nice quiet day. Give credit where credit is due it did start as a nice ordinary day.

Got up at 6:30, got ready and around 7:30 took Abigail to school. So far so good.

Went to the bank to do some banking but it turned out that this bank did not open until nine am and I did need teller service. So not to waste my time I went a nearby Staple's and bought some necessary cartridges. After that I "dropped" in at my cable company's office because one of our TV had a problem and a very knowledgeable lady on the technical help line (probably in Mumbai) told me to replace one of the cables. I did and time will tell if it works.

Back to the bank and finish my business and heading home for a little am rest.

Just as I turned around the corner to the house my lovely wife calls wit a great suggestion. Why don't I drive out to Manhattan Beach and pick up her son and bring him over to our hose because we just bought a new router and it needs to be set up. Now, why didn't I think of this before?

I naturally did as it was suggested and at the end also drove him home.

I am such a nice guy. Exhausted but nice.

Tues/Wednesday

I keep falling into this pattern of delinquency by not writing as I should, meaning every night. It is not laziness, it is not that I have nothing to write about its just that I run out of time and by the time I get to writing it is so darn late that I rather go to bed than sit here and write.

My wife and I have a routine that we do almost every night (nothing dirty, mind you!). Around midnight we go to the computer and do Hungarian crossword puzzles. There is a daily edition that we try to solve and mostly we succeed. It takes about twenty minutes to a half an hour. But the problem is that after we finish it we start to watch some Hungarian videos on YouTube and before we realize it is almost two am.

Now, at that time I am really not capable to write anything not even my name. So, this is my excuse.

Right now, life is quietly flowing by. Thankfully nothing exciting is happening. And that is good because when something does happen it is usually unexpected and unpleasant. Who needs such an event.

Somebody might say that we are living a boring life. What is boring and what is not boring?

Things constantly happening do not make it an exciting existence. However nothing happening will certainly not make it a boring life. Maybe somebody young needs something happening at all the times. But, over middle age nothing happening is sometimes a relief.

My wife and I have theater tickets, we made arrangements for a few vacations, we go out to restaurants and we also meet friends. There is nothing boring about this. Yes, we also do laundry and clean house on a regular basis.

And we love our life just the way it is now!

Old Stuff

It is very interesting and at the same time it is sad that things we remember from our earlier lives are now becoming antiques. Items that used to be in those days "high tech" are now nothing more than just plain relics relegated to be nothing more than just something to place on a shelf or on a desk.

What made me write this?

I'm sitting at my new desk and thinking about what to write when I noticed a very nice looking small typewriter sitting at the corner of the desk. It is beige color and is in perfect condition. It used to belong to my wife and she placed it on the desk for decoration. I don't see that we will ever use it but it is still nice to have it. I have another portable typewriter in the trunk of my car I just never got to bring it upstairs.

The one in my car I got as a present from my cousin when I came to the country and I used it lots of times. I wrote letter, resumes and other things on it but now there is no use for any of them.

The interesting thing is that I probably know how to use them while today's youngsters wouldn't know what to do with such a thing. I bet some would look at these and would not know what they were.

My mother used to use coal burning iron to press clothes. Recently I saw some used as flower pot. Then there is the rotary dialed telephone. If somebody would have to use one probably wouldn't know what to do with it. We still use the word dial but dialing is not what we do. We press the numbers on the number pad.

When we moved I was forced to revisit all the things I stored away and found things that even amazed myself. I have a Super 8 movie projector and millions of feet Super 8 films. I also have a Super 8 movie camera that I used to make the films. Now these are really ancient. But I also have a video camera that I used to make video tapes. This last one is "only" 16 years old but I'm sure already a relic.

Why do I have them? I don't know. I think because I am a hoarder and also because I like to keep old technical gadgets. I didn't even mention the various old cameras I have in the house. These I bought throughout the years and just didn't feel like throwing them out. I don't know why I keep them, one can not buy film any longer.

Tuxedo Madness

My friend who is on this around South America, three month long cruise keeps sending photographs from their stops and more interesting events. I think the pictures are only published when the ship is in port because he told me the Wi-Fi was very poor, unreliable and costly on their previous cruises.

I admit the pictures are very good, they look great and the food they take pictures of look appetizing, but...

So far he sent about six pictures where they were dressed to the nines. Him in tuxedo (a different one each time) and his wife in some kind of fancy evening dress. To me this is not a vacation where one is required to dress formal so many times and they are not even half way through their voyage.

To me this is an absolute nuisance. A vacation I my definition is where a person can be casual where a person is not required to carry much formal clothing and can spend most of the time in shorts and tee shirts. If it is a coronation I can see taking five or six tuxedos but on a cruise it is absolutely ridiculous. As I understand there are eight formal nights during this three month long cruise. Now if that is not stupid then I really don't know what is.

I am sure someone from the ship keeps a tab on what people are wearing to these fancy events and if necessary let the interested party know what was worn the previous times in order to avoid any fashion faux pas like wearing the same getup more than once.

I wouldn't even know how to pack all that clothing like six or seven tuxedos and all the other clothes on such a long trip and making it sure nothing gets wrinkled beyond repair.

Now here is my dilemma. The trip is almost three months long. There are at least three good meals a day on the ship plus in between snacks. What about if one puts one some extra weight and by the time the last fancy gala comes around nothing fits?

Snow Saturday

The snow came, the snow is here and in a few days the snow will be gone. We have so far about 2 feet of snow. That's about 61cm for those who have no idea how much two feet might be. Not two feet on a body but two feet in length.

So what is the big deal? the big deal? I tell you what the big deal is. The city is in total panic. The buses stopped running early afternoon. All Outside subway lines as well as the commuter trains stopped running. The airports are all shut down. And from 4 pm cars could not be on the roads and that means that the only remaining transportation was walking.

This means now some people will have a good chance to find out why they don't like to be with their families.

I would be very curious to find out if nine months from now the birthrate in the city will increase or not!

My wife and I were out around noon for a few hours and I tell you honestly I really loved it. The roads were empty and my four wheel safely took us anywhere we wanted to go.

Later in the afternoon we took a family stroll around or block which was a lot of fun for the three of us even though Abigail is not much of a fan of snow. She says it is too cold and wet. I explained to her that there was no such a thing as warm and dry snow. At least not yet.

I don't know what tomorrow will bring if we would be able to leave the house or not. If they lift the driving restriction we might go out for a little drive. But staying home for my wife and I is not the worst thing in the world.

Friday

I mentioned it before that there is nothing else in the news but the impending snowstorm/blizzard. The City is making all kinds of preparations, the airlines are making all kinds of preparations and the reporters are out in droves asking people how they plan to deal with that.

The funniest thing I saw was that they reported from a Burlington Coat Factory that people were buying up the warm winter clothings including the big and warm boots.

That made think (I do that sometimes!). This is the middle of Winter. What were these people wearing until now? What were these people were wearing last year during winter and the big snowstorm we had? Were they going about in shorts or bathing suits that they have nothing to wear? It is so peculiar that every time there is a major weather thing coming people start to buy things like it is the first time they have to face such a condition. I would just love to ask them, hey what did you do last year?

I am writing this around 5:30 in the afternoon and there is nothing but darkness outside but the ones in the know say it is coming. They are so serious and ominous about it like the end of the world would be coming.

I would be laughing very hard if tomorrow morning it would have turned out the storm decided to go somewhere else.