I rarely shop without proper preparation. I need at least a shopping list and some price comparisons. Today I just couldn’t help myself. I saw an advert for a special offer on a coffee maker (pink, but I’ll tolerate it for good cause), with an added Milk frother, coffee and even a contribution to Breast Cancer Research, and I just couldn’t help myself!

It should be here in a couple of weeks.

Who’s coming over for coffee?

Sometimes the ghosts of the past can come back to haunt you in the most bizarre occasions. It’s like a distant memory being brought back in a session of hypnotherapy, with a side effect of fears and pain that have long ago been repressed.

OK, I’m exaggerating. The latest ghost to resurface wasn’t traumatic. Actually, I didn’t even care that much, despite a painful memory of its involvement in my life. It was just very strange and unexpected, despite, in a way, not yet materializing.

It all started a couple of months ago. I was sitting at a meeting, and the door was open. At some point I looked out to see a familiar face, which I couldn’t quite attribute to a place or time. A few thought processes later I had a guess, later to be confirmed by a browse through the company’s address book. As you might have guessed, it was an old boyfriend. Actually, a very old boyfriend, going back 16 years. At the age of 16, he was the first boy that ever had that title, and the first one for many other experiences, including the first ever hurt of being dumped. I can’t be blamed for repressing that memory, really.

However, my memory must have been even better than his, because we have run into each other in the hallway a few times since, and he has reacted as if he has no recollection at all (which he probably doesn’t). I don’t know if I should be happy or sad. I guess I just can’t be bothered. I would rather just put it behind me and not bring up any embarrassing incidences. It’s all just too weird.

Happy List

1. The New Pornographers
2. My Latest Novel
3. Diet breaking chocolate fudge brownies
4. Going to the gym for the first time in a couple of weeks
5. JPod
6. Catching up with some more old friends

Sad List

1. Long working days
2. Not seeing E. all week
3. Shorter Eastenders episode summaries

Undecided List

1. Strange encounters (details to come)

Back in the early days of this blog I wrote this, and received many hearty comments of agreement from other veggies, both on the comments here and by mail.

Today I read this on Ynet (link may not be available outside of Israel), and it brought back a few memories… Maybe I should try those recipes.

Recently Kables from A Bunch of Us (a brilliant communal blog, go read it!) started posting The Crush List in which he lists the things he can’t stop crushing/gushing about that week. This inspired me to a spin-off – The Happy/Sad List. Here I will try to list weekly ten of the good and bad things that occupied my thoughts every week (a good test of my commitment). The idea is to always have a list of ten, and try as much as I can to balance it to five happy items and five sad items. The balance might sometimes be disturbed, which will be an indication of my week’s quality. What’s your Happy/Sad List?

Happy List

1. Little Miss Sunshine

 

2. Re-connecting with old friends

 

3. Two new knitted vests

 

4. Funny comments about a local gas leak

 

5. Guillemots

Sad List

1. Hot water finishing in the middle of the morning shower

 

2. Trying to get hold of my ISP’s tech support

 

3. Blogger Beta new features not suitable for an evolutional blog

 

4. Sick mint plant had to be chopped off

 

5. I’ll need to sell my car in a few months

Despite my recent lack of posting, I have been dealing with some technical issues relating to this blog. Here are a few, to keep you updated:

1. Despite disabling the subscription option a few months ago, someone managed to find a way to plant some nasty data into my database. Unfortunately, this means that even the little notification feature that was left will now have to be scrapped. I even deleted all the related file and the database table to make sure no email address will be abused by any evil spam lords. My apologies to the five loyal readers that will no longer receive the anticipated update notifications. I hope you will find a suitable replacement in the ATOM feed.
2. For some reason I have been having severe performance problem when accessing the administration sections for the site’s hosting. The nice people at 34sp have been trying very hard to help me, but couldn’t do much. I still need to contact my ISP and see if the problem originates in their settings. Obviously, this has no effect on the site itself, but it pisses me off every time I need to update anything (e.g. deleting a table in the database – see above). I hope this will be sorted out soon, though I must admit I don’t have much time to deal with it.
3. I joined the new Blogger beta. I am not sure what it means just yet, but I’m trying to use labels, and maybe I’ll try some other new features.

Twice in the past week I had to pull myself out of bed as early as 5 in the morning. I didn’t even know such an hour exists. The first time was on Tuesday, when I had to take the car to the garage very early, so I will have enough time to get to work using public transport and the company’s transportation arrangement mini-bus. (Surprisingly, this went quite well, and I managed to arrive to work in less then 40 minutes). The second time was on Wednesday, when I had to use similar means to get to the garage early and pick up my car (while spending half its value on repairs in the process).

It sounds like a nightmare. That’s not far from the truth, but there were some advantages:

1. On Wednesday morning, on the way to the bus depot, I got to witness a beautiful sunrise. I guess this is also an advantage of living in the east-most side of the city. Did you know the sun sometimes appear in the east?
2. As I arrived too early to the garage, I got to spend sometime in a near-by café, enjoying a cup of coffee and a light breakfast. The only form of entertainment was to pick up a newspaper. Going through the headlines (something I haven’t done in ages), I found out that there are only bad news, confirming the reason I have been avoiding newspapers in years.
3. <Deviant Brainwave political message>The major reason I stopped following the news, is that it kept pissing me off. Reading the news this week didn’t fail in that domain either. It angers me to know that there are people so full of hate and violence stopping other people from showing their love! </Deviant Brainwave political message>

E. has been very sick this week. Being the good woman that I am, I went over to make him some soup.

There have been a lot of sick people at work this week.

At the gym’s changing room, a woman came in declaring: “There is no way I’ll go to work while I’m sick, but I’ll never miss a spinning lesson”.

Stay away from me, germs!

Welcome to winter…