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shadowkatJust had the oddest experience on the way back from the pharmacy and fruit & vegetable market. I'd walked to the pharmacy and fruit and vegetable market after work - to pick up a few things. It's about 100 degrees outside, so was wearing some lavender pink sandals that I'd bought from Ryka.
On the way back, carrying three shopping bags and my purse across my chest - half way into my building, almost to the foyer - this kid pulled up beside me walking his bike. The bike was dirty, with wide tire treads, and red.
He was short - came to about my shoulder, dark-skinned, and spoke with an accent. My guess, Bengali or Pakistani. In his twenties, maybe younger.
Just as I'm opening the door of my building he pulls up next to me.
Kid: Excuse me, can you tell me where the subway is?
Me: Well it's not in this direction. It's the opposite direction, around the block and next to the Wallgreens.
I open the door and proceed into the foyer of the building - this is where all the door buzzers are.
Kid: Excuse me, I really like your shoes.
Me: Uhm, thank you.
Kid: Where'd you get them?
ME: Ryka - it's online.
Kid: Would you mind if I took a picture?
(I've begun to open the second pair of heavy glass doors and am halfway through, looking at him. He's pulled up on the opposite side of me, near the wall. I am three twice his size - in height and weight. Bengali and Pakistani men in my area are tiny. Actually most of the men in my area are tiny. To be this in perspective? I am 6 feet tall, over 200 pounds, some of that muscle, big boned, and this guy was 5'6, and maybe 100 pounds.)
Me: You want to take a picture of my shoes?
Kid: Yeah.
Me: Okay. (I stick my feet out, and he tries with his phone, which looks like a scanner.)
Kid: Would you mind maybe taking them off?
Me: You want me to take off my shoes?
Kid: Yes to get a picture of them?
Me: I'm not taking my shoes off for you. (I am carrying three bags, one is heavy with a pickle jar, and drinks in it. Plus my satchel/purse, and holding the door open.)
Kid: Oh, sorry, sorry, of course. Could I see the bottom?
Me: You know you can just google it online. Also these are women's shoes.
(I show him the bottom.)
Kid: I know, I want to buy a pair for a friend of mine. What size are they?
ME: 11.
Kid: Can I measure them? (He takes out a tape measure.)
Me: Uhm, no - this is getting a bit personal here. I'm not letting you measure my shoes - if you want them, google them on Ryka (R Y K A) and look it up yourself. Goodbye.
I go through the door, and make sure it shuts behind me. He didn't follow me through. And turn back to look at him. Others pass by him. He looks at the names on the wall with the buzzers then leaves the building while I get my mail, slightly unnerved.
I call mother and tell her the story.
Me: So, I think the kid was trying to steal my shoes off my feet. It was weird, and kind of unnerving.
Mother:He expected you to hand them to him to look at - and then he'd just ride off with them? That's the weirdest conversation. You should write that down somewhere.
Me: Oh I definitely will.
Mother: For later reference. Kind of a New York Story.
I'm not dumb enough to take my shoes off. The kid wasn't wearing a mask. And I realized halfway through that he was probably playing me. Although its hard to know for certain. NY is like that. He might have been planning on grabbing the shoes and riding off with them - although good luck with that - we were in a small confined space and I had the advantage.
Crime has risen across the city since the pandemic hit. Wallgreens is locking up more and more items - making it harder and harder to shop there - without constantly hunting down a store clerk to unlock stuff for you.
***
Crazy workplace felt the need to reassure us that nothing had changed since the Governor resigned. Except, it does mean that his so-called "cabal" is leaving, and he's not going to be micro-managing us any longer. The Lt. Governor is more moderate and less into micromanaging. The focus of the agency may shift from big shiny politically driven projects to maintenance and ridership. We'll see.
I was working remotely today. Which was a good thing with all the teams meetings. I do them on my phone now - not the computer - because they can often crash the computer and if I do it on my phone, I can do both at the same time. Almost didn't get into the staff meeting. Both meetings annoyed me for different reasons. I'd put stuff on the G drive, set up a file folder, etc. But BYT told me that it needed to be protected, because someone could hack into it and get financial records. Except I'd already put everything up there a long time ago - when they first told me to copy all my stuff onto the G drive.
I told this to mother.
Mother: So they asked you to put stuff on the G drive then told you to take it off?
Me: No, they said put it on, and that we should be working off of the G drive only, then much later said no, wait, don't do that, it's not protected, but wait don't take it off either. Frigging make up their minds.
Mother: Kind of late to shut the barn door now. The horses have already left.
Me: I have particular management who can't make up their bleeding minds.
Mother: You feel like you are trying to throw jello at a wall to get it to stick?
ME: No, it's worse than that - I feel like I'm banging my head against a wall and not getting anywhere.
Meanwhile BYT Manager keeps coming up with ways to remove my work - granted it's work assignments I do not want. And as long as she replaces them with ones that I do want, we should be fine. I have a feeling I'm going to inherit other people's work and be doing lots of change orders.
By the end of two meetings with managers, I told mother that I wanted to throw the lot of them off the proverbial cliff. They come up these ideas and procedures - then about a month later change their minds, then change them again. An insurance guy I was talking to today vented that our insurance department had changes their procedures twenty times. (I told him it was actually more than that, and they'd been doing it at least twice a year since I started.)
I don't know why government agencies appear to attract indecisive egotists, but they do. Cubical mate opined the other day that he'd never seen an organization that had more people who got full of themselves just because they had a title.
**
Father is doing better, or okay. But they asked mother today if she wanted a psychiatrist to evaluate him. Mother and I agreed there's no real point. He has Alzheimers - which is a degenerative brain disease, not biochemical or a mental illness. There's no cure or anything you can really do about it or fix it. You can't throw drugs at it - if anything that makes it worse.
**
Folks are wearing masks more in the neighborhood. Most likely due to the Delta Variant, also saw a bunch of people waiting at the pharmacy for a COVID vaccine.
I checked the COVID MAP OF DOOM, which has been updated again. Now it shows the number of cases in the last 28 days. Also, oh lord, Indonesia.
Here's the top ones:
Cases | Deaths by Country/Region/Sovereignty
US
28-Day: 2,139,617 (cases) | 10,456 (deaths)
Totals: 36,166,524( cases) | 618,807 (deaths)
Indonesia
28-Day: 1,103,292 (cases) | 42,400 (deaths)
Totals: 3,749,446 | 112,198
India
28-Day: 1,090,364 (cases) | 17,773 (deaths)
Totals: 32,036,511 | 429,179
Brazil
28-Day: 1,060,649 (cases) | 28,935 (deaths)
Totals: 20,245,085 | 565,748
United Kingdom
28-Day: 936,170 (cases) | 2,066 (deaths)
Totals: 6,175,919 | 130,917
Well, that's depressing.
**
Britain’s low death toll is a lesson about the benefits of extraordinarily high vaccination coverage in older and more vulnerable people. Britain didn’t wait for those people to show up at vaccine sites. It mobilized an army of primary care doctors to make sure they all came in for their shots — and almost all of them did. Britain also tested its way extremely aggressively through this crisis. To this day, anyone can order packages of free, at-home rapid tests. They’ve become part of people’s routines and helped them catch cases before any symptoms appeared.
Per NY Times briefing.
Yet another thunderstorm. No wonder I've been irritable these last few nights. My body and thunderstorms are unmixy things. Good news? At least I don't have the headaches any longer. Also, there was a small brown garden spider in my bathroom that I'd been watching. Last night it hid behind the a scrap of paint hanging down from the ceiling. Tonight, it has disappeared.
The thunderstorm has become intense, with intense down pours, I can almost smell the warm rain blasting the windows, and see the tree branches whipping about outside, with flashes of lightening. It's pattering on the A/C, and on the window panes. Half expect it to find its way inside.
On the way back, carrying three shopping bags and my purse across my chest - half way into my building, almost to the foyer - this kid pulled up beside me walking his bike. The bike was dirty, with wide tire treads, and red.
He was short - came to about my shoulder, dark-skinned, and spoke with an accent. My guess, Bengali or Pakistani. In his twenties, maybe younger.
Just as I'm opening the door of my building he pulls up next to me.
Kid: Excuse me, can you tell me where the subway is?
Me: Well it's not in this direction. It's the opposite direction, around the block and next to the Wallgreens.
I open the door and proceed into the foyer of the building - this is where all the door buzzers are.
Kid: Excuse me, I really like your shoes.
Me: Uhm, thank you.
Kid: Where'd you get them?
ME: Ryka - it's online.
Kid: Would you mind if I took a picture?
(I've begun to open the second pair of heavy glass doors and am halfway through, looking at him. He's pulled up on the opposite side of me, near the wall. I am three twice his size - in height and weight. Bengali and Pakistani men in my area are tiny. Actually most of the men in my area are tiny. To be this in perspective? I am 6 feet tall, over 200 pounds, some of that muscle, big boned, and this guy was 5'6, and maybe 100 pounds.)
Me: You want to take a picture of my shoes?
Kid: Yeah.
Me: Okay. (I stick my feet out, and he tries with his phone, which looks like a scanner.)
Kid: Would you mind maybe taking them off?
Me: You want me to take off my shoes?
Kid: Yes to get a picture of them?
Me: I'm not taking my shoes off for you. (I am carrying three bags, one is heavy with a pickle jar, and drinks in it. Plus my satchel/purse, and holding the door open.)
Kid: Oh, sorry, sorry, of course. Could I see the bottom?
Me: You know you can just google it online. Also these are women's shoes.
(I show him the bottom.)
Kid: I know, I want to buy a pair for a friend of mine. What size are they?
ME: 11.
Kid: Can I measure them? (He takes out a tape measure.)
Me: Uhm, no - this is getting a bit personal here. I'm not letting you measure my shoes - if you want them, google them on Ryka (R Y K A) and look it up yourself. Goodbye.
I go through the door, and make sure it shuts behind me. He didn't follow me through. And turn back to look at him. Others pass by him. He looks at the names on the wall with the buzzers then leaves the building while I get my mail, slightly unnerved.
I call mother and tell her the story.
Me: So, I think the kid was trying to steal my shoes off my feet. It was weird, and kind of unnerving.
Mother:He expected you to hand them to him to look at - and then he'd just ride off with them? That's the weirdest conversation. You should write that down somewhere.
Me: Oh I definitely will.
Mother: For later reference. Kind of a New York Story.
I'm not dumb enough to take my shoes off. The kid wasn't wearing a mask. And I realized halfway through that he was probably playing me. Although its hard to know for certain. NY is like that. He might have been planning on grabbing the shoes and riding off with them - although good luck with that - we were in a small confined space and I had the advantage.
Crime has risen across the city since the pandemic hit. Wallgreens is locking up more and more items - making it harder and harder to shop there - without constantly hunting down a store clerk to unlock stuff for you.
***
Crazy workplace felt the need to reassure us that nothing had changed since the Governor resigned. Except, it does mean that his so-called "cabal" is leaving, and he's not going to be micro-managing us any longer. The Lt. Governor is more moderate and less into micromanaging. The focus of the agency may shift from big shiny politically driven projects to maintenance and ridership. We'll see.
I was working remotely today. Which was a good thing with all the teams meetings. I do them on my phone now - not the computer - because they can often crash the computer and if I do it on my phone, I can do both at the same time. Almost didn't get into the staff meeting. Both meetings annoyed me for different reasons. I'd put stuff on the G drive, set up a file folder, etc. But BYT told me that it needed to be protected, because someone could hack into it and get financial records. Except I'd already put everything up there a long time ago - when they first told me to copy all my stuff onto the G drive.
I told this to mother.
Mother: So they asked you to put stuff on the G drive then told you to take it off?
Me: No, they said put it on, and that we should be working off of the G drive only, then much later said no, wait, don't do that, it's not protected, but wait don't take it off either. Frigging make up their minds.
Mother: Kind of late to shut the barn door now. The horses have already left.
Me: I have particular management who can't make up their bleeding minds.
Mother: You feel like you are trying to throw jello at a wall to get it to stick?
ME: No, it's worse than that - I feel like I'm banging my head against a wall and not getting anywhere.
Meanwhile BYT Manager keeps coming up with ways to remove my work - granted it's work assignments I do not want. And as long as she replaces them with ones that I do want, we should be fine. I have a feeling I'm going to inherit other people's work and be doing lots of change orders.
By the end of two meetings with managers, I told mother that I wanted to throw the lot of them off the proverbial cliff. They come up these ideas and procedures - then about a month later change their minds, then change them again. An insurance guy I was talking to today vented that our insurance department had changes their procedures twenty times. (I told him it was actually more than that, and they'd been doing it at least twice a year since I started.)
I don't know why government agencies appear to attract indecisive egotists, but they do. Cubical mate opined the other day that he'd never seen an organization that had more people who got full of themselves just because they had a title.
**
Father is doing better, or okay. But they asked mother today if she wanted a psychiatrist to evaluate him. Mother and I agreed there's no real point. He has Alzheimers - which is a degenerative brain disease, not biochemical or a mental illness. There's no cure or anything you can really do about it or fix it. You can't throw drugs at it - if anything that makes it worse.
**
Folks are wearing masks more in the neighborhood. Most likely due to the Delta Variant, also saw a bunch of people waiting at the pharmacy for a COVID vaccine.
I checked the COVID MAP OF DOOM, which has been updated again. Now it shows the number of cases in the last 28 days. Also, oh lord, Indonesia.
Here's the top ones:
Cases | Deaths by Country/Region/Sovereignty
US
28-Day: 2,139,617 (cases) | 10,456 (deaths)
Totals: 36,166,524( cases) | 618,807 (deaths)
Indonesia
28-Day: 1,103,292 (cases) | 42,400 (deaths)
Totals: 3,749,446 | 112,198
India
28-Day: 1,090,364 (cases) | 17,773 (deaths)
Totals: 32,036,511 | 429,179
Brazil
28-Day: 1,060,649 (cases) | 28,935 (deaths)
Totals: 20,245,085 | 565,748
United Kingdom
28-Day: 936,170 (cases) | 2,066 (deaths)
Totals: 6,175,919 | 130,917
Well, that's depressing.
**
Britain’s low death toll is a lesson about the benefits of extraordinarily high vaccination coverage in older and more vulnerable people. Britain didn’t wait for those people to show up at vaccine sites. It mobilized an army of primary care doctors to make sure they all came in for their shots — and almost all of them did. Britain also tested its way extremely aggressively through this crisis. To this day, anyone can order packages of free, at-home rapid tests. They’ve become part of people’s routines and helped them catch cases before any symptoms appeared.
Per NY Times briefing.
Yet another thunderstorm. No wonder I've been irritable these last few nights. My body and thunderstorms are unmixy things. Good news? At least I don't have the headaches any longer. Also, there was a small brown garden spider in my bathroom that I'd been watching. Last night it hid behind the a scrap of paint hanging down from the ceiling. Tonight, it has disappeared.
The thunderstorm has become intense, with intense down pours, I can almost smell the warm rain blasting the windows, and see the tree branches whipping about outside, with flashes of lightening. It's pattering on the A/C, and on the window panes. Half expect it to find its way inside.
no subject
Date: 2021-08-12 09:13 pm (UTC)But weird story about India. That's a lot of work - to take photos of random strangers and do photo shop with naked photos. What's the intent? Blackmail?
no subject
Date: 2021-08-13 07:51 am (UTC)