Take My Money, Please

Hubby and I are going away to Spain and Portugal in October. Bored at work, I was researching how safe the cities we will be visiting are. I came across a site dedicated to scams used on tourists to rob them, solely in Barcelona. We are not going to Barcelona, but I am sure these tactics are fairly universal to any major tourist city. I found some of them to be amusing, and clever, but also can understand how devastating it must be to fall victim to such a crime.

Some of the scenes involve getting squirt with any substance, and then the person who points it out seems to want to help you clean yourself off, only to walk away with your wallet. Or they'll slash your tires, point it out and offer assistance only to have an accomplice make off with your bags. Typical distraction techniques... waving things in front of you, like maps, asking for directions, even stooping so low as to flash their breasts while a friend steals the money from the gape-jawed man. Stopping short in front of you on an escalator to pick up something they dropped while their friend who happens to be behind you gets your wallet. Things like that. Not exactly dangerous, but definitely will put a damper on ones vacation when you are missing your credit cards and a bit of cash.

I've come close to being a victim twice (once on the subway, a person kept bumping into my backpack, a kind man told me to watch my bag, so I took it off of my back only to find the zipper had been opened, but nothing stolen; the next time in an empty bar, a couple came and stood very close to me (there was plenty of room!), discussing the menu loudly, and kept knocking my stool with my bag - when I finally figured something was up and moved my bag to my lap, the failed thieves yelled at me, calling me a racist b/c I moved my purse and they were black. The bartender said he's seen them before and he called the cops) but have never actually been robbed and have lived in NYC for 10+ years. But I don't think that this city would be so lenient on bands of gypsies running amok, robbing every tourist that crosses their path. Giuliani would have had them shipped out of town along with the prostitutes on 42nd street and the homeless. I have never seen groups of petty criminals like the ones I have read about, and wonder if other parts of America do have the same sort of thievery that seems to abound in major European tourist cities. If not, maybe that is why we fall so easily into the traps that are set. Or maybe it is just because Americans stand out so blatantly with their fanny packs, shorts and sneakers.

Regardless, I always bring my NY attitude and learn how to say "GET AWAY YOU DIRTY RAT!" in the language of the country I am visiting. (So, if you are reading this and happen to speak fluent Spanish or Portuguese, helpful, local, colorful phrases would be most welcome.)

Word Games

I love word games. I play a game called GHOST with a friend of mine every time I see him. We'll be huddled in the corner of a bar, playing a quick round. "5 letters, you start." The object is to NOT spell a word, but go in the direction of spelling a legitimate word. You get the other person by forcing them to be the one to spell a word, with the minimum required amount of letters. Sounds confusing, but it's not and it's fun.

I love crossword puzzles... I live for the Sunday Times so I can grab the magazine and start my quest of completing it. Forget world news, gimme word games instead. When I was small, word sleuths and jumbles ruled my world. Scrabble played with my mom night after night was another way to get my fix. When not playing a word game, I'd be reading a book. Words, words, more words.

Now I've stumbled across a game and I am totally addicted. Fortunately the site is down currently, or else I may get fired over it! It's called Funny Farm and it can be found on www.jayisgames.com. The board begins with a category in the center, with boxes branching off of the category, each box has dashes depicted the number of letters in the word contained in that box. The connected boxes are part of the same "thought", if you will (for example, hen would be connected to egg), but some boxes branch out to connect to a new category. The object is to fill in all the boxes. It is a huge grid and so far I've only gotten ALMOST through one square and branched into two others, barely. So for example, the category is THINGS ON A FARM. So you start typing in your guesses and feel pretty dumb for a while until you get another one right. It's challenging and fun and right up my alley. (God, I wish you could lose weight when you work out your mind!!!)

Greetings

Do you ever experience awkward hellos or goodbyes? I do all the time! I inevitably will go in for the kiss, only to have somebody diss me with a straight hug. Or I'll give a kiss and a hug and the person will be pulling away after the kiss, expecting that the greeting was finished. So we will then awkwardly hug for a moment (how long do you then hold the hug?) before avoiding eye contact and skedaddling.

My cousin used to date a man who obviously was uncomfortable with the greeting system, so when I would give him a kiss on the cheek he would end up kissing me in a weird spot, like my ear, or my shoulder. I dreaded seeing him. Last night I went to give a friendly hello and pat on the head to a young lad and he surprised me with a kiss instead. AWKWARD. Do you shake hands, pull in for the hug, seal it with a kiss? What is the appropriate greeting for friends, people you barely know, relatives? And then, what kills me, what if you meet up with somebody out of the blue, greet hello and then 2 minutes later when you move on, do you have to do it all over again to say good-bye? I mean, we JUST kissed hello; do we really now have to kiss good-bye? It seems a bit much!

My family is pretty easy. Kiss and hug. I can do that. But it's the undefined relationships that confuse me. I need to come up with a system, and not veer from it for anybody. If you are somebody I barely know, I will extend my hand and give a kiss on the cheek. But if I just met you, I will not hug or kiss you. We can shake hands or just a quick wave as my back-up. If you are somebody I know well, I will give a hug. Oh, I don't even know if that is the socially acceptable solution! I need guidance... a greetings coach, if you will.

I'm just glad I'm not a guy... how the hell do they know when to just bump shoulders, or go in for the manly hug with just so many pats on the back? Do guys kiss hello to other guys, too, or is it just women? And then they have to deal with the whole how to end a first date dilemma... (now is it any wonder that I would avoid social situations at any cost if I could???)

Music for the Ages

My hubby is in a guitarist is in band. A true musician... he writes songs, lyrics, sings occasionally and can really impress people when he starts to play his guitar. He went to music school and has been playing since he was young. And he loves it, more than anything (me, included) in the world. So he plays gigs whenever he can. Last night they played at a Jewish Center in Brooklyn for a commemorative event organized by SeptemberConcerts.org which hosts concerts all over the world on 9/11.

Needless to say, the median age of the crowd was 85, I'd say. One lady tripped and fell and had to be taken out by stretcher, but the bands played on. Most of the acts were unusual and played quiet, soothing-type music. Or sang in other languages, opera-style. The boys were going on last... the only rock and roll band on the bill. I was worried their band would be too loud. They would be ending with the theme song of the evening - The Beatles "All You Need is Love" - but first they'd play an original.

I have to hand it to the old folk. I thought they would get up and start streaming out immediately, hands clasped over their ears... "TOO LOUD!!!!". But the majority of them stuck around. One lady videotaped the whole thing. Another got out her cell phone and started snapping pictures. Some of them (obviously the hippest of the bunch) actually bobbed their heads or tapped their toes. Then the finale... the Center's choir came up to join the band and the place went wild. Everyone was singing along. I actually got choked up because they were having such fun. Except that old lady who got taken out on the stretcher. She'll just have to catch them next year. The whole thing ended 10 minutes early, just before 9:PM. That's my kind of night. Home in time for my shows.

Remembering

I can't let it go without commenting. Another blue-skied, cloudless day. Five years ago today, the worst day I'd even known in Manhattan, and just as bad for the rest of America, and devastating for other parts of the world, too. How it can actually be 5 years ago, is beyond me. Will this date ever not be significant? Vivid, heartbreaking, still fresh in our minds, the pictures on the television only making it fresher. My thoughts are with all of the families who lost loved ones, who are dealing with today in their own way. Hopefully time will heal this, too.

I was walking to work, to 42nd Street. The sky was big and blue and it was a gorgeous day. It was before 9:AM. A low-flying plane roared overhead. I looked and thought "what the fuck!" It was unusual. I got to work and got a call from a colleague (my now brother-in-law) who was still at home. He told me that something crazy was going on, that a plane hit the World Trade Center. Immediately I logged onto CNN.com and started to put together the pieces. There was no phone access at this point so luckily I was by my computer and could let my family, who doesn't know the layout of the city, know that I was okay and not near downtown. My BIL knew where I could find a live feed to turn on the television and listen to the coverage, but there was a meeting in that conference room. I went to our highest floor and looked out the huge windows facing south and saw the building(s) on fire, clear as day. That was a moment of pure disbelief. I feel like I saw them collapse, but I don't know if that was a true experience or just one that I have seen so many times. After it was clear this was terrorism, we were evacuated. We worked right across from Grand Central Terminal, another potential target. I lived south of 42nd Street, but still not downtown. I was able to walk back home and my friend from work came with me as there was no way for her to get out of the city at this point. As we walked south, people, zombies, covered in dust, haunted, were walking north - - they had seen something horrible, they were white with the dust of the buildings, and it was weirdly quiet and calm. We were salmon swimming against the stream. I lived directly across from a firehouse. The trucks would come back, hose off all the white dust that covered them completely and go out again. They lost men that day. My roommate and I went to see what we could offer, and they asked for visine. Their eyes were burning from the dust. We went to donate blood but there were no patients needing blood. It was eerily quiet by the hospital. We went to the west side highway to cheer on all the workers in their trucks going to and from the site. We went to the armory where people were frantically posting photos of their lost loved ones, hoping beyond hope that they survived. There were faces of people pasted to every square inch of that building. It hurt to look at. I would scour the Internet and TV hoping to hear about people who made it out alive. That was probably the most heart-wrenching moment and my old roommate and I comment on how it feels to be back by that armory now, 5 years later. That and visiting the fire department afterwards and seeing the photos of the men who didn't make it back. The smell of the city was bad and got caught in your throat. Sometimes you would see charred bits flying around through the air. We couldn't get out, and then when we could, we didn't want to. This was OUR city. These people who died were just like us. They went to work and became part of an unfathomable event. My sister lives outside of DC. Her husband was in the airport, the same airport that one of the ill-fated flights departed from, that morning. He breathed the same air as those terrorists and I think about that a lot. We are all affected somehow. Eric's cousin and aunt both lost their husbands that day. Good people died and good people are left to mourn for them. It's really weird how 5 years doesn't feel like much.

Sweet and Salty

Usually stupid human behavior is something that really irks me. I find it very interesting how people will react similarly in certain situations, yet I guess it's the typical-ness of those behaviors that irritates me. But here is a human behavioral thing that I actually find quite endearing and cute: I love it when people on boats wave, so happily, at the people on shore.

I don't know why they (we) do it, but I know I have been known to do the same. It's like "I see you. Do you see me? Out here on this boat? Hi." It's not conceited, like "look at me on my giant yacht" but more genuinely happy, like "I'm having a really good time and wish you were out here with us!" Maybe it is because my father was a seafaring man (in the Navy during his young adult life and a boat-owner later on) but mostly it is the sweetness of the gesture. And the desire in myself to wave back when in the past, with other such displays, I would not feel so inclined. Perhaps it reminds me of being a kid, driving down the highway, looking out for truckers to make that up-and-down hand motion to until they honked their big, loud, foghorn-sounding horns. And when they did (not all of them would), me and the other kids in the car with me would look at each other and smile, perhaps even high-five: SUCCESS! What a great feeling.

In and Out

If you sublet an apartment in Manhattan, get ready for a slew of freaks and weirdo's calling you at all hours of the day, ready and willing (and hopefully able) to write you a check and call your place "home" the second you hit OK to post your ad on Craig's List.

You'll get the pretty girl with a stripper's body, prepared to move in until she tells you that her ex-football-player husband has not yet come to terms with the divorce and has violent tendencies. No thanks. You'll get the people who want to remove things that are permanently attached to the apartment (for example, the cast-iron window guards that are unremovable). You'll get responses like this, from a Germany transplant reading "I do not drink. I do not smoke. I am silent."

You'll also get the people who seem perfectly respectable, people who gush over the place and give you a good vibe only to move in and then without warning move out one month later, claiming the apartment made them physically sick. People who will tell you the check is in the mail (a lie!) and then 5 days later, send you an email to let you know that they have exited the apartment, effective immediately. These nice people with whom you have been perfectly accommodating and civil, will now use an accusatory tone, suggesting that you knew that the building was "toxic" (it isn't) and seemingly complain about having to move so quickly after having shelled out money to us for a month's rent and security (sorry, not our problem - we have to pay the rent!). In summary, they will totally ruin your initial opinion of them, and make you question your own instincts about people.

So just be forewarned... people are totally nuts. But where there is one willing occupant, there will be another. And they will provide me with plenty of fodder for this blog, I am sure.

Nervous Wreck

I used to work in a very fast-paced environment that required super-long hours. I would work on new business pitches for the ad agency I still work for today, but that job entailed waiting around all day for someone to get you their presentation and then working non-stop throughout the night in order to have everything ready for a 8:30AM meeting. Things got pretty hectic sometimes and going on no sleep was not easy. But I was younger, and the overtime made it worthwhile to me. Now I make less money, but I am happy, working 9 to 5, doing something that I like.

So anyway, during my days of pitches, a new woman was hired as President, and she was a real tyrant. She made an already time-consuming process even more so. During her reign, one would have to have superhuman powers, and be able to make a printer print faster in order to get everything done on time. I didn't like her, and my first meeting of her resulted in a face-to-face confrontation in which she belittled me in front of a group of people. If you know me, you know face-to-face anything just rattles me. Long story short, it was a Friday, around 4:PM and I had worked the previous weekend and late nights (when I say late, I mean didn't go home late) all through the week when she decided to revise something that was due to the client by Monday. Revise in such a way that it had to be completely redesigned and worked on over the weekend. I just wanted to go home, she saw it in my face and called me out and embarrassed me and threatened to fire me. I had been at the company for 8 years and she was there for just a week (just for the record, she didn't stay longer than a year). Going to work after that was complete hell.

Also during this time, my sister (with whom I am extremely close) was very pregnant and about to give birth. I told her that as soon as I knew she was in labor, I would be on a plane or in a car on my way down to Virginia. So, of course when she is ready to have the baby, I am up to my eyeballs in presentations and couldn't just leave work. And to top it off, once I was able to go, I got incredibly sick. I had been working on no sleep and in incredibly high-stress conditions for too long and my body was rebelling. I don't normally get sick, and this time was a doozie. So I had to postpone my trip down to see her and my new nephew, but now I had the added stress of wanting to be better so I could get down there to see her. When I finally did recover (or was on antibiotics so that I wasn't contagious) and made it down to see them, I was so worried that I would get the baby sick, and then completely unrelated, he did get sick (turns out he has a rare condition in which he can't process milk or other products containing the sugar found in lactose - - he's fine now, but on a monitored diet) and I felt incredible guilt that somehow it was all my fault. Oh, and I was just recently engaged as well.

SOOOOO - the point of my story is this... during that time of my life, I developed anxiety. Looking back, it's not surprising to me at all. But having never experienced anything like that in my life, it was pretty awful. And incredibly scary. If you've never had anxiety (I'm not talking about the occasional panic attack), consider yourself lucky. It is frightening. Not wanting to acquire a drug habit (FYI, Xanax feels really, really good!) I got through the roughest time and even through my wedding day by just telling myself that it would all pass eventually... that nothing is permanent. So, feeling better for the most part, but then once in a while, the anxiety will rear its ugly head. That's the worst part of this whole ordeal... once you know what it feels like, and it's such a scary feeling, you kind of live in fear that it is coming back again. One restless night and the "what ifs" start... what if I'm going crazy, what if I lose my job, what if... then I realize I am okay and can go back on my way. But my way will never be quite as merry as it was before, and that's what truly stinks.

Show Yourself!

In today's day and age, it is very easy to be an e-stalker. Just type the name of someone you know into Google and stalk away. Nobody will be any the wiser, and you can fulfill your own sick need to find out how many 5ks your ex has run over the past few years or whether your next door neighbor is a pedophile. But it's the people that aren't part of the Google encyclopedia that make me the most curious.

How have they managed to stay off of the web? Now that everything is documented in an online version, the chances of slipping through the cracks are getting smaller and smaller. Is it a deliberate choice or just plain luck? I mean, many companies have employee lists available. There are alumni rosters from high schools and colleges. My Space pages, magazine articles... it's all right there, in front of us, virtually. How has the web not managed to entangle those few sneaky peers of ours?

A sucker for a good story, I can only imagine that they are part of the witness protection program, or have changed their name to profit from a huge identity theft ring. It's just better than thinking that they have done nothing of interest over the past years since I knew them last that would be worthy of documentation on the world wide web.