I just launched a major clean-out effort. Two closets were the source of my attention yesterday afternoon.
I feel much better. I now have three large bags of clothes to take to the Goodwill. I was nice enough to fold everything and put "like" items together. I even put outfits together in the bag so that it would be easier to merchandise these items. Suits, jeans, sweaters and dresses from a bygone era, mostly my life when I worked in an office. I really had a lot of clothes back then. Someone will get some nice things, which is great.
Next comes the dresser and closet drawers. It will feel good to make room for new things.
I think that most people have a tendency to hoard or purge. I am more of a hoarder, Terry is definitely a purger. Some of the things in the bags that are earmarked for the Goodwill are probably 10 years old. I have no use for them but I kept them in a remote closet, "just in case". There are some old things in this closet that I take out once a year, these items are staying. They include a red t-shirt with a discreet white heart that I wear on Valentine's Day and two fun Christmas sweaters.
Shamefully, I've found and discarded several things with the price tags still hanging from them.
As I went through the closet, I reminisced. In addition to the "just in case" scenario, the memories evoked by certain things are too great. I fear I'll lose that memory if I give the item away. But, out they go! Even a hoarder has to clean out and I see the necessity of it as well as the catharsis.
As you can imagine, I don't really understand purgers. My husband has been known to throw things away prematurely. Then, we have an all-out APB for the item and never find it. He purges things one at a time, throwing them in the trash can. It's not worth a trip to the Goodwill. Luckily, our cleaning lady usually finds these things and I'm sure either her husband or son are enjoying them and giving them a second life.
Hoarder or purger? While I want to reform, I doubt that it's possible.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Friday, July 27, 2012
Paparazzi
I'm from Los Angeles; I have lived here all my life (except the French interludes).
Until today, I've never seen paparazzi in action. I've seen them on the news, chasing someone famous. I know that Princess Diana's car was being hounded by some very persistent paparazzi when her driver hit the wall in the tunnel in Paris.
To be chased by paparazzi you have to be famous, new, hip. I doubt that the paparazzi chase Regis Philbin around town, but you never know.
I was walking up the street this afternoon in Beverly Hills. A bit early for an appointment, I was strolling, window-shopping, enjoying the warm, sunny day. I first noticed that there were several guys standing on the sidewalk in front of me with very large lenses on cameras. I shrugged it off at first, thinking they were over-equipped tourists.
In a whoosh, about five cars pulled up on the street, double-parked, people jumped out. All of them had large, expensive-looking cameras with long lenses. Then it dawned on me -- paparazzi! Someone famous must be in the neighborhood.
Even though I was dressed and coiffed nicely, there was no mistake. I was not the target. I easily walked by all of them, the cameras remained at their owners' sides. I kept walking even though I wanted to ask them who they were tracking.
I never found out who it was. I went about my business and perhaps even passed the person without recognizing him or her. I'm not very current on these things and often movie stars and personalities don't look quite as good as on the screen.
I did notice a couple of interesting things. The paparazzi have spotters. These are people in the street with nothing more than a phone. They look innocent (no camera) so the star won't notice them as they walk by. There were two of these spotters on the street. They had obviously called their partners. I also found out that if the star is in a building, they cover every entrance and exit, just to be sure they don't miss their target. They don't seem to get parking tickets for double-parking on a busy street in the middle of the day in Beverly Hills. Maybe they get a ticket once in awhile, but not today. I guess the fine is just part of the cost of doing business.
I wonder how much money a paparazzi makes for a good photo? It must be enough to keep them all running.
Until today, I've never seen paparazzi in action. I've seen them on the news, chasing someone famous. I know that Princess Diana's car was being hounded by some very persistent paparazzi when her driver hit the wall in the tunnel in Paris.
To be chased by paparazzi you have to be famous, new, hip. I doubt that the paparazzi chase Regis Philbin around town, but you never know.
I was walking up the street this afternoon in Beverly Hills. A bit early for an appointment, I was strolling, window-shopping, enjoying the warm, sunny day. I first noticed that there were several guys standing on the sidewalk in front of me with very large lenses on cameras. I shrugged it off at first, thinking they were over-equipped tourists.
In a whoosh, about five cars pulled up on the street, double-parked, people jumped out. All of them had large, expensive-looking cameras with long lenses. Then it dawned on me -- paparazzi! Someone famous must be in the neighborhood.
Even though I was dressed and coiffed nicely, there was no mistake. I was not the target. I easily walked by all of them, the cameras remained at their owners' sides. I kept walking even though I wanted to ask them who they were tracking.
I never found out who it was. I went about my business and perhaps even passed the person without recognizing him or her. I'm not very current on these things and often movie stars and personalities don't look quite as good as on the screen.
I did notice a couple of interesting things. The paparazzi have spotters. These are people in the street with nothing more than a phone. They look innocent (no camera) so the star won't notice them as they walk by. There were two of these spotters on the street. They had obviously called their partners. I also found out that if the star is in a building, they cover every entrance and exit, just to be sure they don't miss their target. They don't seem to get parking tickets for double-parking on a busy street in the middle of the day in Beverly Hills. Maybe they get a ticket once in awhile, but not today. I guess the fine is just part of the cost of doing business.
I wonder how much money a paparazzi makes for a good photo? It must be enough to keep them all running.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
An Earthquake Inspires New Vigilance
A 3.8 earthquake hit this morning about 3 AM. It sounded like someone hit the house with a truck, it shook for a second and it was over. I braced for another, bigger one, but that was the extent of our seismic activity for now.
This is a small reminder to tie everything down. My china and crystal have been used recently so I need to package it all back up securely because the next quake might not be so benign.
It's kind of a chore to have to keep everything packaged up in bubble wrap but it's good protection. One small earthquake shook every one of our champagne glasses to the front of the cupboard and the next time we opened it, we had a rain of glass from above. Hopefully we've learned our lesson.
I also use this stuff called "Quake Hold" that is like museum putty, it keeps objects like vases and even pictures from moving during an earthquake. The main danger during an earthquake is not that the item falls over it's that it goes to the edge of something (shelf, table, etc) and then falls to the ground and breaking.
This is a small reminder to tie everything down. My china and crystal have been used recently so I need to package it all back up securely because the next quake might not be so benign.
It's kind of a chore to have to keep everything packaged up in bubble wrap but it's good protection. One small earthquake shook every one of our champagne glasses to the front of the cupboard and the next time we opened it, we had a rain of glass from above. Hopefully we've learned our lesson.
I also use this stuff called "Quake Hold" that is like museum putty, it keeps objects like vases and even pictures from moving during an earthquake. The main danger during an earthquake is not that the item falls over it's that it goes to the edge of something (shelf, table, etc) and then falls to the ground and breaking.
Don't Share Your Music With Me...
Our nearest neighbor, Sean, has a keyboard and maybe a drum set in a room that is quite close to our house. When all the windows are open in the Summer, we can hear him break into song at whim. This happens day and night. Luckily for us it doesn't last long. Today, it's the blues. Usually it's more rock 'n roll. In either case, he sings off tune, turns up the base on the speakers and generally annoys me.
The equivalent to this in Paris is the child who is taking up the violin and practices those scratchy notes over and over again. Or the opera lover who opens the windows early on Sunday morning to share the aria with the entire neighborhood.
I don't like clutter and in my mind noise pollution is clutter that I can't recycle. I want to be able to hear what I want to hear, when I want to hear it. Aren't there headphones for this?
We've tried calling and emailing him and the noise stops for awhile and then, after a week or so, it comes back. Does he think we forgot that we hate to hear him singing off key, "Love you in the morning, babe, love you every day, love you on the weekend..." Not a compelling lyric or a true note in our enforced daily concerts.
The equivalent to this in Paris is the child who is taking up the violin and practices those scratchy notes over and over again. Or the opera lover who opens the windows early on Sunday morning to share the aria with the entire neighborhood.
I don't like clutter and in my mind noise pollution is clutter that I can't recycle. I want to be able to hear what I want to hear, when I want to hear it. Aren't there headphones for this?
We've tried calling and emailing him and the noise stops for awhile and then, after a week or so, it comes back. Does he think we forgot that we hate to hear him singing off key, "Love you in the morning, babe, love you every day, love you on the weekend..." Not a compelling lyric or a true note in our enforced daily concerts.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Aller Simple, A Foreign Concept
Aller simple means a one-way ticket.
Quite a frightening concept for me. It can mean many things, most literally travel.
It can also mean selling a house, quitting a job, giving something up. It means you don't plan to go back.
Most things can be reversed or changed, most places can be revisited even if it's not the same the second time.
Normally we buy our airline tickets aller retour, a round trip. We're considering booking a one-way ticket for future travel. It's gotten a bit complicated.
The airlines haven't made it easy for us to travel in style. We hoard our frequent flyer miles, trying every possible way to use them to our advantage. The frequent flyer programs, like the health insurance companies change the ground rules all the time, always to our disadvantage.
The alternative is grim; a coach or premium coach seat for 11+ hours, sharing a bathroom with 50+ people who all want to use it at the same time, terrible food with small portions, tiny seats with enormous next-seat neighbors.
We thought we finally had enough miles to buy Business Class seats round trip. Yeah! Champagne and movies for 11 hours. We'd maximized our miles using a credit card that added miles to our program in addition to the miles earned for travel. We have one credit card in Euros and one in US Dollars. We've worked it as hard as we can, we organize, negotiate, research, save.
We negotiated between each other for weeks, juggling our obligations and interests to select the best travel dates. We researched the internet to find the best flights so that when we called we wouldn't be pushed into an itinerary with stops in cities we don't want to ever visit.
I might add that even though Air France and Delta Airlines now share planes and code-share, they don't share frequent flyer programs and even though Delta uses Air France planes to go to Paris, they won't book flights as far in advance as Air France will for the same flight. Unless you specify otherwise, if you fly to France on either Delta or Air France, they will try to award the miles on Delta. If you call from France, you get Air France not Delta. If you call from the US, you can't speak with someone from Air France, only Delta. How did they ever figure out this complicated and silly system? I'm sure a lot of highly paid people spent a lot of time on this.
We called Air France Flying Blue program. A nice man informed us that we can't share our miles or gift them to each other so we only have enough miles for two one-way tickets, which he'd be happy to book. We booked them but haven't bought them yet. Our idea was that we could call Delta and use our Sky Miles for the other half of the ticket. Au Contraire. On Air France using Flying Blue miles, the cost of a one-way ticket is 50% of a round trip ticket. Makes sense.
Delta's rules are completely different for the same flight, same seats, same plane. On Delta, a one-way ticket using miles is the same price as a round trip ticket. If we had enough miles to fly round trip, we would have called them first.
So, now we have a lot of miles that we can't use and a one-way ticket to France. We'll get back to the US somehow.
Quite a frightening concept for me. It can mean many things, most literally travel.
It can also mean selling a house, quitting a job, giving something up. It means you don't plan to go back.
Most things can be reversed or changed, most places can be revisited even if it's not the same the second time.
Normally we buy our airline tickets aller retour, a round trip. We're considering booking a one-way ticket for future travel. It's gotten a bit complicated.
The airlines haven't made it easy for us to travel in style. We hoard our frequent flyer miles, trying every possible way to use them to our advantage. The frequent flyer programs, like the health insurance companies change the ground rules all the time, always to our disadvantage.
The alternative is grim; a coach or premium coach seat for 11+ hours, sharing a bathroom with 50+ people who all want to use it at the same time, terrible food with small portions, tiny seats with enormous next-seat neighbors.
We thought we finally had enough miles to buy Business Class seats round trip. Yeah! Champagne and movies for 11 hours. We'd maximized our miles using a credit card that added miles to our program in addition to the miles earned for travel. We have one credit card in Euros and one in US Dollars. We've worked it as hard as we can, we organize, negotiate, research, save.
We negotiated between each other for weeks, juggling our obligations and interests to select the best travel dates. We researched the internet to find the best flights so that when we called we wouldn't be pushed into an itinerary with stops in cities we don't want to ever visit.
I might add that even though Air France and Delta Airlines now share planes and code-share, they don't share frequent flyer programs and even though Delta uses Air France planes to go to Paris, they won't book flights as far in advance as Air France will for the same flight. Unless you specify otherwise, if you fly to France on either Delta or Air France, they will try to award the miles on Delta. If you call from France, you get Air France not Delta. If you call from the US, you can't speak with someone from Air France, only Delta. How did they ever figure out this complicated and silly system? I'm sure a lot of highly paid people spent a lot of time on this.
We called Air France Flying Blue program. A nice man informed us that we can't share our miles or gift them to each other so we only have enough miles for two one-way tickets, which he'd be happy to book. We booked them but haven't bought them yet. Our idea was that we could call Delta and use our Sky Miles for the other half of the ticket. Au Contraire. On Air France using Flying Blue miles, the cost of a one-way ticket is 50% of a round trip ticket. Makes sense.
Delta's rules are completely different for the same flight, same seats, same plane. On Delta, a one-way ticket using miles is the same price as a round trip ticket. If we had enough miles to fly round trip, we would have called them first.
So, now we have a lot of miles that we can't use and a one-way ticket to France. We'll get back to the US somehow.
Friday, July 20, 2012
On Line Shopping
I prefer to roam the stores, looking, feeling, touching, comparing.
But my plantar fascitis has roared back, this time on my left foot, making it almost impossible to walk, let alone roam the stores. I've been shopping on line this Summer, with great success. My fingers have done the walking for me.
I just "hit" the Nordstrom sale. I got a pair of boots and a pair of jeans. Can't wait until it's cool enough to wear them. I've also ordered from Talbot's and J. Jill recently. I've been so successful that I had to go out and buy more hangers. As soon as I can stand up for an extended period of time, I'll have to "weed" the closet and make room for all my loot.
I'm also looking at a great North Face down jacket which comes in black, navy and white. The white isn't practical but it is beautiful.
But my plantar fascitis has roared back, this time on my left foot, making it almost impossible to walk, let alone roam the stores. I've been shopping on line this Summer, with great success. My fingers have done the walking for me.
I just "hit" the Nordstrom sale. I got a pair of boots and a pair of jeans. Can't wait until it's cool enough to wear them. I've also ordered from Talbot's and J. Jill recently. I've been so successful that I had to go out and buy more hangers. As soon as I can stand up for an extended period of time, I'll have to "weed" the closet and make room for all my loot.
I'm also looking at a great North Face down jacket which comes in black, navy and white. The white isn't practical but it is beautiful.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
No Hablo Espagnol
My sister and I decided, independently of one another, to study Spanish this Summer. She bought some tapes, I bought some books, we've shared.
It's already gotten a bit competitive and she's in the lead. She started speaking Spanish to me on the phone and I didn't understand and was frozen, zombie-like, unable to answer in Spanish. Deja vu, franciais. No comprendo Espagnol!
Today, I decided to apply myself to this long-term task. Earphones and iPHONE in hand, I listened and repeated Spanish phrases for 45 minutes and some of it stuck.
The pronunciation is really hard for me. I've had to compare the pronunciation with French in order to remember. For example, in French, "pardon" is the same as Spanish, "pardon" (not sure of the Spanish spelling since it was on a tape). In French, it's pronounced, "pahr-don". In Spanish, it's "perrr-dohn". I can't roll the r's either. In order to remember the pronunciation, I have to compare it to the French.
There's a problem with this method. Speed. We're now learning and putting together short sentences. Because I've been comparing the words to French, I have to translate the English into French (remembering the pronunciation) and then translate the French into Spanish. I don't know why I'm doing it this way, I'll have to try to stop.
In a real-life situation, people don't ask me a question and count to 100 while I do a double-translation, check the pronunciation, smile and blather out some semi-coherent response.
I thought learning another language would be fairly easy for me. Au contraire!
It's already gotten a bit competitive and she's in the lead. She started speaking Spanish to me on the phone and I didn't understand and was frozen, zombie-like, unable to answer in Spanish. Deja vu, franciais. No comprendo Espagnol!
Today, I decided to apply myself to this long-term task. Earphones and iPHONE in hand, I listened and repeated Spanish phrases for 45 minutes and some of it stuck.
The pronunciation is really hard for me. I've had to compare the pronunciation with French in order to remember. For example, in French, "pardon" is the same as Spanish, "pardon" (not sure of the Spanish spelling since it was on a tape). In French, it's pronounced, "pahr-don". In Spanish, it's "perrr-dohn". I can't roll the r's either. In order to remember the pronunciation, I have to compare it to the French.
There's a problem with this method. Speed. We're now learning and putting together short sentences. Because I've been comparing the words to French, I have to translate the English into French (remembering the pronunciation) and then translate the French into Spanish. I don't know why I'm doing it this way, I'll have to try to stop.
In a real-life situation, people don't ask me a question and count to 100 while I do a double-translation, check the pronunciation, smile and blather out some semi-coherent response.
I thought learning another language would be fairly easy for me. Au contraire!
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