I am the first person to admit, while I do well enough at English – I am a writer, poet and blogger after all – my skill in mathematics leaves MUCH to be desired. I never cared about my X and don’t you dare ask me about Y I’m that way. Surprisingly, geometry and I got along. Acute, obtuse, isosceles, squares, and pretty much any dang thing that suffixed in “-agon” were good buddies of mine because it was shapes – my artist brain understood those type of figures. Other than that? Fuhgettaboutit! I get confused looking at math problems in TV and movies. “Good Will Hunting” became a foreign language every time Matt Damon’s character, the eponymous Will, stepped to the black board. Hell, a depiction of high school Trigonometry would have been/still remains out of my depth of comprehension.
Suffice it to say when Sudoku became a ‘thing’, I saw numbers, heard you have to do math and promptly said “Uh… noPe.” To be fair, over the years I have looked at a game or two, tried to fathom it out, but the (il)logic behind them seemed as variable and numerous as, well, numbers. I am not a fan.
Thus, I am not quite sure how on earth THIS happened last night…
A messy win, is a win nonetheless.
A friend online mentioned sudoku and yesterday became one of those weird times where I thought to myself, Meh, why not? I googled “easy” sudoku games, hit a random link and printed one out. I assumed by easy it meant I could complete it in about 30 minutes. HAH! Did I say HAH! ? What I meant was *snort-chortle-snigger-HAH!*. That nonsense took nearly 90 minutes, and as you see from the various scratch outs and overlays; I did not have an easy time at all. However, unlike every other game I attempted in the past, for once I saw the pattern. I had more than half the game done within the first hour. It’s the most I had ever done and it made me determined to complete this miracle. The remainder was correcting my mistakes in order to figure out the rest of the game.
I did not find this fun or relaxing. I still do not understand the appeal. It will likely be a few more years before I am thus intrigued to try again. Still, I was so stunned that I had finally, Finally, FINALLY completed my first sudoku game I took a picture for prosperity. A memory I get to share now, with no plans to try it again in the immediate future.
It’s a Monday and it feels as though my energy reserves are all over the place today.
WHAT FUELED ME:
COFFEE and drinking it out an oversized mug shaped like a skull
Silliness with my best friend this morning
Able to get a series of work related items that were on the back burner, completed by noon
Muse giving me inspiration for a story
Knowing the official start of spring is just mere days away
WHAT DRAINED ME:
Realizing the day was passing quickly and I had yet to post
A couple of work related calls that were just *aarrghh-ravating*
Received incorrect package that took over an hour with customer service to resolve
Ol’ Man Winter reminding who’s still in charge with another massive drop in temps today
Knowing the feel of spring itself is still a couple of weeks away
WHAT I LEARNED:
I need to slow down take a moment and at least stand at the window to notice the day, I’m clearly down with winter’s chill and I am looking very forward to spring.
Remember yesterday when I turned into Domestic Goddess and lost my dang mind cleaning? Remember that I declared today would be a day of vegetation? Remember?
Yeah…about that…
To be fair I didn’t exactly lie. Some vegetation was done by me. Fine, let me start from the beginning. I woke up 7am and remembered we sprang forward into daylight savings. The only time telling devices that advance automatically are my computer, my TV and my phone. All other clocks and my watches are manual. Meh, I already lost an hour, what’s another one right? I lounged around in my bed reading until each time I glanced at the clock in my bedroom with its one-hour off time annoyed me enough to do something about it. So first job of the day around 10am was to go through the place and set everything that needs setting. That was fine until I reached the living room I saved for last because I was going to vegetate there for a bit. That’s where I once again encountered the three 16qt bags of soil I had purchased to repot my plants. The bags annoyed me yesterday as I had to pick up bags of dirt in order to clean under said bags and put the dirt back on the floor. The irony was not lost and now they blocked the way to the living room clock. Okay that’s it, this needs be handled, now.
See those five pots of plants below? There were only two this morning.
Because I knew this was going to be a mess I was prepared. I had enough sheets of plastic on the floor and nearby furnishings to make Dexter proud. If you don’t get the reference let’s just say I could dismember a body and not get a drop of blood on anything. Soil however is not as cooperative. It takes a surprising amount of time to take what was in two pots and split them into five. And in spite of my best efforts, some soil found the one chink in dirt blocking armor and took advantage of it that yes, I had to sweep and mop the floor again when done.
While cleaning I remembered I needed to go to the bank and after the bank was a few errands since I was already out there and when I came back I needed to make dinner and after dinner was made I played tech support over the phone to someone having a computer issue. [Let’s not talk about that – just no.] When I was done, the last thing I wanted to see was a computer, totally forgetting I need to slice. I ate my dinner, Italian sausage and peppers over linguini with a side salad for the curious, and then I remembered I wanted to start on an art project for my bestie. I swear I do know how to relax, I really do!
incomplete art project
I stopped when my 11pm alarm went off reminding me to get ready for bed, I have work in the morning. I also got peckish, so I went to the fridge and took out an orange. Want to guess what that orange reminded me to do?
On March 3rd, Sarah Everard, 33 of Clampham, south London, UK left the home of her friends to walk home. She never made it. Police confirmed that the remains found in a woodland area yesterday was hers.
“She was just walking home.”
I remember it was an early summer afternoon, a school day. I was on my way home from the public library; book bag slung over one shoulder, wearing dark jeans, sneakers, a white t-shirt under a red, white and blue plaid with tiny silver metallic threads shirt. I was standing at the curb, under the elevated train tracks, waiting for the traffic signal to change. I noted the car slowly creeping forward as some drivers do when impatiently waiting for a light to change. I was not in the way, I paid no attention to it when I heard a male voice. “You so pretty, bet you’d be even prettier naked. You should let me see.” This was from a man, not a peer – not some boy around my age being horrible, but a man. A grown man who in no way could have thought I was an adult. I had not developed boobs yet. There was something about him. Yes, it was broad daylight, but I was at the corner by myself. There nearest person was a half block away in the opposite direction. I remember worrying: Do I wait until he drives off?Is he going to follow me?Do I need to change directions?What if he gets out of that car?
It was the first time I felt danger from a man. I was twelve.
In my twenties I was married with two sons. I went to the laundry every Saturday morning. One Saturday a man entered and decided he wanted to chat. I decided I did not want to. He insisted in asking for my name. I insisted I was married and not interested, so knowing my name was not any of his – good-bye. He showed up again the following Saturday. Clearly this was my neighborhood. I was pissed-offed, but not entirely surprised he suddenly showed up in my local market. I informed my husband, but naturally my wannabe Lothario was no where about the next Saturday at the laundry. As it turned out within the following week, as I was heading toward my building, a friend spotted me and started yelling my name to get my attention. Naturally, I ignored him because I HATE that, worse – guess who I spotted within hearing distance? However, the damage was done as the friend had reached me and it was clear he was yelling for me. The only saving grace was that Bill was exiting the building as I was busy cursing-out the friend out for being an asshole and why. Bill came up from behind, putting his arms around me, and yelled at our friend “Why the fuck are you screaming out my wife’s name in the middle of the street like that? Have you lost your damn mind?” At that point Bill saw the guy. He looked me, he looked at guy, he looked at me and I tapped the arm that held me in our code we had for problems. He let go of me and headed in the guy’s direction. Suffice it to say the guy was already backing away at the confirmation that I had a husband and said husband was not an exactly a small guy. I never saw him again. While relieved, it pissed me off anew that the asshole did not accept my rejection. He had followed me. He had my address and because of my asshole friend, had my name. It took seeing my husband’s physical presence before he stopped. I had to wonder were I in fact a single woman how long before I may have been attacked. I wondered if he moved on to another woman who was not as fortunate.
When portable music players became a thing, CDs first, then MP3 players, I learned to keep headphones on my head when so I could pretend I did not hear the nonsense thrown at me when in the street. But I never, ever have music playing in case I needed to deal with someone more aggressive who would not take the hint of simply being ignored. But that does not always help.
In my thirties, I texted my husband to meet me at the train station late one evening after hanging out with friends because of the way a man kept staring at me on the train. I had never contacted my husband with such a request before in all the time we were married. The man had exited the train when I had. He was about to follow me down the stairs when Bill appeared at the foot of them and greeted me. I heard as the man turned and went back up the stairs. Neither of us saw him come down the other side, as far as we could tell, before the stairs were out of sight. But we knew, he was going to follow me.
Twice as a widow in my mid-forties I have gotten off the train and jumped in a cab to ride the four blocks to my home because of that feeling. I will say both times, when I explained the situation, both drivers refused to take my money. All in the name of safety.
Many girls learn from a young age to change their behavior in order to try to feel safe when walking alone, because there are going to be times we will be walking alone. That onus is not on boys as such. Personal safety is a constant self-awareness in our daily lives. One we modify constantly. All in the name of safety.
Do I wear a dress or slacks? Do I wear heels or flats? If I wear heels, do I need to switch to a bigger purse to carry my flats? Questions I must ask each time I go out, in case I have to run. All in the name of safety.
Now in my fifties I don’t go out alone if I think I won’t be home before midnight unless I have taxi money. That also curtails where I go because a late night taxi ride across the City can run me up to $70 on top of whatever expenditures incurred while hanging out. All in the name of safety.
Once, I was meeting my husband for dinner at a friend’s apartment after work. I exited the train and headed towards my destination when I heard whistling behind me. I ignored it and continued walking. It became clear that the whistling was directed at me, coming from someone in a car on the street. I refused to look, because that can be seen as an invitation. A car suddenly turned the corner in front of me and I realized it was my husband and he was pissed I had not responded to him. “Why didn’t you answer me when I whistled?” “Do you have ANY idea how often I am whistled at? I can’t afford to so much as look!” That took him aback. For even the men that love us, that care about us, that know us, just do not understand, because the constant harassment rarely happens in their presence.
Some men still do not realize we single women share our addresses – or the addresses of the bars/parks/date locations of where we’re going – with each other via text or WhatsApp, to keep ourselves safe. We set up calls with our friends. “If you haven’t heard from me by X time, call me. If I don’t answer, call the police.” It is every female’s right to not fear walking alone; it is not our reality. Being a woman is constant worry for our safety — walking with keys between our fingers, being on high alert always — it is fucking exhausting.
A tweet yesterday posed this question and response. Its UK based, but it is an question and response known by women globally.
When we hear/read of such attacks we each live with the susurrus that could have been me. So many women have lit up Twitter in the past few days on the many ways they have harassed and/or felt unsafe. And a constant theme throughout many of the tweets were the words “She was just walking home.”
“Not all men” attack but all women experience the fear of it. And we are so, SO DONE with being told we just need to avoid certain streets or areas, don’t be out certain at times or don’t dress a certain way. Sarah Everard was in bright colors, wearing clothes comfortable for walking the less than hour trek to her home. She was simply living her life. “She was just walking home.”
I’m sure Sarah Everard was aware #NotAllMen, also. She was on the phone talking to her boyfriend during part of her trek. She was not attacked by #NotAllMen. The only thing she did wrong was encounter #TheWrongMan. The one who could not respect one fact:
I am blaming this one squarely on you, my fellow blogger and slicer, Arjeha. Yes, you with your memory of bread, and then baking homemade biscotti.
Darn, and I don’t mean the thing one does with socks or sweaters, your hide.
Those who read my post yesterday know about the squirrels that distracted me from the work I planned on doing. I was minding my own business, being a good blogger by posting and responding to other random bloggers/slicers as is my wont, when someone, who shall not be named again(!), posted memories of the warm homey smell of baking, and then making homemade cinnamon biscotti. Why, oh, why did I then have a hankering for homemade biscuits? Unlike the gazpacho desire from a previous post, all the ingredients were readily available. I knew in the amount of time it would have taken me to get dressed go to the market, return and make them, I could have made them on my own, so to the kitchen I go.
Two things: 1- I have not made biscuits from scratch in over a decade because 2- I don’t know how to make small batches. I have been single for fifteen years now; yet I still cook somethings, like lasagna and biscuits, as though I’m feeding a horde. I was ever so grateful when Pillsbury started making the smaller containers for their ready to bake biscuits because the standard size one was too many for. But I wanted homemade cinnamon biscuits. Can’t get that prepackaged.
And yessiree Bob, (heh!) the aroma of cinnamon and butter wafting through the place was very delightful indeed! Fresh out of the oven, with melted butter, a spot of jam and tea – oh my! I could have been any age between 7 and my current 57 when those flavors hit my tongue. Still, what the devil am I to do with over twenty biscuits? (What? I said I don’t know how to make small batches.)
My best friend, and a few of my neighbors unknowing thank you, Arjeha. (Fine, so do I.)
And I did eventually get some work done on that project – whew!
I have been up since 7:30am with the intent to give some time to a writing project I’ve let slip by the wayside for a couple of days now. I changed my sheets, had breakfast and sat down around 8:15-ish to begin. But first took a phone call. Then shot off a couple of emails. Then got coffee. I’m ready now. It’s now after 11am and the only thing I’ve done is open the Word file to review where I left off in the work. To be semi-fair to myself I needed to reference information I had bookmarked. Unfortunately, I’ve tossed a lot of things into the bookmark folder for this project, and others, over time. It was a mess. Notice I say was.
If I were Sherlock Holmes, then Bookmarks are my mind palace. I can find any piece information stored in my bookmarks, provided, like any filing system, I have stored it properly first. Regrettably, I’ve been doing a lot of just stick it here for now. A. Lot. Speaking of Sherlock, for instance, I have no idea what I was thinking when I dropped a bookmark of the Mars rover named Sherloc, with an assistant aptly named Watson in the midst of bookmarks for medical and forensics, but there it was. [Don’t ask, I (like to?) imagine I’m one of those people on a government watch list for the things I research.] A link to a YouTube video on the Maned Wolf was mixed in a folder on fencing, which also had a link on Wari Tombs (I said don’t ask). Suffice it to say the reorganizing of one folder, turned into an overhaul of several before my mind palace of bookmarks is a cohesive system up to my standards again.
An excellent sense of accomplishment on one end, but not what I set out to accomplish on the other. And in the midst of it remember I need to slice today. So this is me, now looking at noon creeping up on the clock, posting in the hopes that, after lunch, I have no other distractions and can buckle down to – wait- what was I doing again?
When I posted yesterday I had nothing to slice about, and with no plans for the rest of the day, I honestly thought I wouldn’t have anything. So much for that…
Two hours later my best friend and I are on the road. “Come be my navigator to Jersey. We can ride out, pick up my package and ride back.” It’s a Friday afternoon, don’t have any plans, it’s a quick run, why not?
Did I mention I live in NYC, specifically The Bronx? Getting to New Jersey means getting to the George Washington Bridge which means getting on the Dantean worthy stretch of road legally, but jokingly named Cross Bronx Expressway. The expressway part of the name is a fallacy. Anyone familiar with the CBE is likely already cringing as they read this. Perhaps, at 3am, when there is no traffic, it would be an hour to our destination and back. But no, this is a Friday afternoon at the onset of rush hour, nonetheless.
Any notions for a quick run are dashed with our Waze GPS app politely informing us “There is a twenty-three minute delay on the Cross Bronx Expressway. You are on the fastest route.” I all but heard the sniggering of “Suckers!” from Fate, Karma and the Universe following that. There is going to be nothing express about it. We are looking at an hour just getting there. Okay, radio up, window down, let’s do this.
It’s a sunny late-afternoon in early March. The first hints of spring are in the air. My bestie and I are reminding each other not to quit our day jobs as we badly harmonize with the radio. We pick on New Jersey versus New York drivers. Even with the traffic it’s a smooth-ish drive to our destination. Then there is the return home.
Now we are near the height of rush where even going in the opposite direction is no help because of the George Washington Bridge traffic. At 4:23pm, Waze informs us we should be an home by 5:48pm. Riiiiiiiiiiight. At 6:12pm we have only just cleared the GWB itself to approach the dreaded CBE again. I don’t drive, trust me you do not want me behind the wheel of a two-ton battering ram with my temperament, but I spend a lot of time in cars, taxis, Ubers. If there is one thing I know, it is how to get home. I see the traffic c-r-a-w-l-i-ng ahead at the main East River crossing and nicely introduce my bestie to a work around where even Waze knocked ten minutes from our ETA once we’re over the Alexander Hamilton Bridge. [An aside: For the record I now know I will never be able to read or hear the name Alexander Hamilton and not hear it sung with passion and ending with an orchestral hit, a la the musical Hamilton, for the rest of my days. Thanks Lin Manuel Miranda.]
We are discussing dinner plans because we both have separate Zoom calls and this one hour run, now over two hours, has crunched into our time when we suddenly see rising black smoke ahead of us. Because of the curve of the expressway it takes a moment to realize the even slower snarl in traffic is on our side of the road. As three lanes become one, we see a man alone, backing several yards away from something on the far side of where we are forced to drive up on the shoulder to give clearance.
Then we see why.
Now, I have seen cars with their engines on fire in real life. I have seen vandalism that has badly torched a car. What I have never seen is a car fully engulfed in flames, including the sudden loud pop! as something gave, except in cinema. Until this:
We realize the man backing away must be the owner of said car. He clearly saw what was about to happen, pulled the car to the nearest shoulder and got the hell out. At least he is safe and we sincerely thank his forethought and courage to get the car to the side and as much out of the way as possible before escaping. I imagine the vehicle must have had a full tank of gas for that to happen. I don’t know what happened to the audio in this video, but I exclaim, “You can feel the heat. Yo! You can FEEL the heat!” with awe as we drive up on the raised shoulder, giving the burning vehicle a wide berth as we drove past. The heat being something else you cannot get a real sense of watching it from the comfort of a theater or a home. The driver had no choice but to get far away from it, yet still be in the vicinity as at least three fire trucks that we saw raced to the scene.
And speaking of scene: because I am a New Yorker, and such is a part of life here , I admit I did look to see if there were a movie film crew nearby before my dang sense kicked in and I took my own phone out to record the above. Because I’m honest, I could do nothing but agree when my bestie thanked the powers-that-be in gratitude that we had passed it all before FDNY arrived and closed off the road to handle it. And because I am an idiot, my next thought was and I thought I’d have nothing to slice about(!).
Today I find my mind thinking about past slices while perusing other blogs in search of inspiration for today. Because as of right now, it looks like a complete blank for something to slice about other than it’s Friday, yay!
This is a lovely that idea I saw on another blogger’s site and it’s one that I want to incorporate into mine: Flash Back Friday. With eleven years of blogging under my belt, I still find that incredible and I’m the dang blogger (!), there are a lot of earlier posts that may not have been seen by newer followers. Or perhaps I’ll find something to remind some of my long term followers of posts since forgotten. So, each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on that exact date in a previous year or the post closest to it if I missed that date.
What about you? Reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this day or on a Friday in a previous year? You can repost your Friday Flashback post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected to reminisce upon. If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 5th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.
As it turns out my very first post on this date (March 5th) was in 2012. It also has the distinction of being the very first Slice of Life Challenge I posted which made it a Tuesday. It’s a poignant one in the 20/20 of hindsight.
Him: You will never be as bad as you’d like people to think you are. Me: True, but I will never be as good as you’d like to think I can be.
Had to “Friend Zone” someone who truly did not want to be there. Worse, by putting him in that friend zone, I may I have lost him as exactly that.
I know far too well how it feels to be on his side of unrequited. Knowing that I’m doing the right thing, instead of the easy one, does not make being on this side of it any easier.
Unfortunately, as it eventually turned out, I was right; the friendship faded to the wayside never to rekindle now that he’s gone. It’s one of the few times I am not at all happy about being right.
Busy day of virtual trainings. + Combatant in a passive-aggressive email battle that pretty much went like THIS (I’m the one in bronze in that scenario).+ Set up more classes for next couple of weeks.+Resolving a kitchen sink that decided it wants to drain sssslllloooooooooooowwwwyyyy.+Working on an overdue, by my standards – plenty of time for theirs, assignment.+ A phone call with a friend who is going through some things. = A Raivenne who has subsisted on coffee and a bagel, both of which were consumed before 10am, and is a little beyond a bit peckish.
Nearly eleven hours later my stomach has made its displeasure at its treatment, or more precisely the lack thereof, quite known.
So, do I desire the pork tenderloins, spanish rice and broccoli? Nix. Or the italian sausage and pasta? Nein. Perhaps a not so simple crack monster (croque monsieur for those of you who insist on calling it by its proper name)? Nyet. All of which, and a few other tasty little options, are within easy access of my fridge, my microwave or my oven to satisfy me within sere minutes, but do I want any of it? Noooooooooooooooooo.These taste buds of mine get a hankering for gazpacho of all the blessed things.
Gazpacho? Really? I mean, why on earth should my taste buds be reasonable when I’m hungry? (And on National Pancake Day nonetheless!)
To be fair, the erstwhile spanish restaurant were we last enjoyed gazpacho came up in conversation, so I fully lay the blame there. Still, the idea was planted and that was that. So now what? We’re in the midst of COVID, yes restaurants are open to limited capacity, but everything is reservations only. Even were I willing to drag myself downtown, which I most certainly was not, the establishment in question no longer exists. So what’s a Raivenne to do? It’s gazpacho, not DNA encoding or rocket science, to the Google!
I admit it has been a couple of years since I’ve had gazpacho, but if there is one thing I know, it does not take nearly three hours to make. My brain, heedless of my belly went off on a tangent in a fruitless attempt to determine why something that’s not even Best or Authentic, would take so long. And I say fruitless because even with the 15-20 minute options, without moving from my computer, I realize I do not have the have key ingredients: tomatoes, let alone my preferred Romas, and fresh red onions. So, now my taste buds, my belly, and I myself are mad because we all know I am not dragging myself to the 24 hour supermarket because all the local ones are now closed.
I’ll tell you about it over the weekend, I had to begrudgingly force down that absolutely delicious the pork tenderloins, spanish rice and broccoli, washed down with a nice sauvignon blanc. Oh, the hardship (!)
Raivenne-lations 