the procrastinating girl

Spacial Relations

In case you haven't noticed, or especially if you have, I've been on a self-imposed hiatus of late.  Actually, exile is more to the point.  With Zoe's school last year a healthy driving distance from our house, which, to be fair, isn't close to anything, I spent most of 2010 criss-crossing the county.  Unable to make it back home during the day, every morning I had to pack as if I were moving to Japan.  With that much rubber to burn and environmentalists to piss off (my brother and father are at the top of the list), one would hope some positive self-reflection would emerge as I bopped my head to the great existentialist Katy Perry and inadvertently tailgated cop cars.  As tank after tank emptied, I realized how much I missed my home, particularly my office.  My space is far more cluttered than the rest of my house and with some items that are decidedly un-office-like.  I don't typically don a blue polka dot toddler-sized raincoat to write.  But I do enjoy my gifted AMY O paperweight.  I guess it's the raincoat and the paperweight combined that make this room so quintessentially me.  Not to rest on that, the raincoat and its brethren are due to exit the premises.  I will get to it.  And I will get back to this. 

Who Dat Girl

It seems like for every humdrum Federer-esque type of championship lately, we are treated to one that is a mark of pure redemption.  The Red Sox had the nerve to win the World Series, beating back decades of shame and forever changing the Earth's rotation on its axis, only to do so again a couple of years later.  And just last night we had the New Orleans Saints wiping away over 40 years of do-nothingness in a single evening.  Does procrastination produce the sweeter victory?  Well, I wouldn't want to be on clean-up in the Ninth Ward this afternoon.  Especially since the party probably just started getting good.  I've actually never been to New Orleans.  I curse myself for not having visited my brother when he lived there, but I was skeptical about what I'd find (not in the city, in his living room).  Now, years later, I am among the millions who call ourselves Saints fans just because we believe a fantastic sports story may lift up the one city that needs it the most.  The Red Sox can bite me.

Decade Deux

Happy new year and more.  I just went to log in to TypePad and not only did I need to re-enter my password, but the entire blogging software system has been updated in my absence.  I'm lucky they will still have me.  We did leave the time zone, and by that I mean the county, for a few days.  The day after Christmas we drove down to Washington DC, really to see my 90-year-old grandmother, but also do some sightseeing.  It was flat-out arctic.  The reflecting pool had completely iced over.  A full-day inside option was needed.  We had done the American History Museum with the First Ladies' gowns the day prior. The Air & Space Museum didn't give me enough air and space.  And an art museum?  We live in New York people.  The answer was clear.  Other kids vacation at DisneyWorld.  Ours go to the Newseum.  We billed it as journalism history!  The first amendment!  Cotton candy!  Or, rather, cafe desserts from Wolfgang Puck!  So was I surprised when Zoe wasn't as ecstatic as I was to see the actual door the Watergate burglars taped open at the DNC headquarters?  Hardly.  But she could have faked it.  I mean, we were in Washington. 

Gross Positioning System

I am definitely an Oringel.  And it's not just because I kept my name.  Many of my qualities point to my father's side.  One of our hallmarks is that we have zero sense of direction.  My grandfather, who lived to be a very coherent 87, famously drove around Long Island in a twelve-foot Cadillac with a compass adhered to the dashboard.  I don't think he could even find the compass inside that ginormous boat.  Of course now there's more advanced instrumentation to help those of us further down the Oringel foodchain.  I selected the GPS package for my car, in part because it included the back-up camera.  My husband and rear bumper would agree this was a non-negotiable.  But life with a GPS?  I could see!  I could hear!  I could make it to New Jersey without paying tolls!  The problem is, my GPS sucks.  Actually, it majorly sucks.  Like yesterday, we got in the car to drive to the nearby Berkshire mountains.  According to the GPS, we had almost 400 miles and seven hours ahead of us.  A fair assessment.  If we felt like skiing in Quebec.  Frustrated yet again, we ignored the GPS and followed our, yikes, instincts.  And also, in a way, took a lesson from my grandfather.  He would sit way back on that wide leather bench of a seat and arrive whenever he happened to find his destination.  That's what we did.  Just two hours after we left home.

Down to the Wire

There are specific times when I am surprisingly diligent about research.  Certain people get excited that I am effective and conscientious, and then I forget to buy stamps for like a year and all is right with the world.  Amazingly, I don't always focus on things in which I have a vested interest.  I don't remember showing an early fascination with interior waterproofing systems.  But, yes, that's more the exception.  Travel is the one area where I am a real planner.  I can spend hours pouring over how to perfectly map out a morning, noon or night spent anywhere.  But lately I have been slacking.  Last week we visited Boston.  And the Hilton sisters will sleep easily knowing our girls considered it "a very fancy hotel."  The overnight's success aside, I was disappointed not to have paid with our bagazillion untouched air miles.  Two days before our departure, I had called the American Advantage labyrinthian phone system and, upon human contact, was told that in order to use miles I had to book the hotel 72 hours in advance.  I waited a day too long.  TPG at its finest.  So Boston came out of our own pocket and we had a great time.  This weekend, we have a family function in New York City for which a hotel room would make our lives much easier.  Will we make the same mistake again?  Or, rather, seeing as it's past the 72-hour deadline, have we already?

G'day

I'm actually quite fond of many things Australian.  Eucalyptus.  Russell Crowe.  The entire marsupial family.  And of course my daughter Sydney, although her namesake, my grandfather Sidney, had never visited that city nor its magnificent Opera House.  Right now I am fixated on yet another icon from down under.  One that is quite flat and of slender shape.  No, not Nicole Kidman.  It's the boomerang.  In an unprecedented TPG move, I received in the mail today a set of papers that I had already signed, had notarized and sent in to their proper destination for approval.  It was unprecedented in that I had actually completed this monumental task in getting the paperwork out to begin with, and, there it was again.  Back.  The new task on the old forms is to complete one very small question that I had inadvertently overlooked the first time around, then I need to put the forms in the already-addressed envelope and get myself to the post office.  For the second time.  Any bets on how long that will take me?

Dale

It took me a really long time to accept my middle name.  I know.  Everyone hates their middle name for some silly reason.  In my case, it felt too boy-ish.  Well, let's see.  I was named for my great-grandfather David and our family friend who is like 6' 7" and has a very major mustache (yes, it's a guy).  But when I reached my 20's, Dale started to grow on me.  Now, I actively like it.  So I'm up in Vermont this week enjoying the scenery, which incidentally looks pretty much like the scenery in my own backyard, but always nice to get away.  My parents and I took the girls to the Vermont Institute of Natural Sciences, where they rehabilitate injured birds of prey.  They've got walking trails and demos of flying falcons.  Now that's entertainment.  My parents signed in at the front desk (they're frequent fliers themselves) and took the kids down to see the bald eagles, while I stayed and tried desperately to pay for a Snapple Nectarine White Tea.  I. can't. live. without. it.  I waited impatiently as a gray-haired man wearing a red and black buffalo-plaid flannel shirt (it was pushing 90 degrees), a high-sitting trucker hat and crisp dark jeans purchased a year-long membership.  As I finally approached to pay, I looked down at his application.  There in blue ballpoint ink was the truth.  Dale.  Exactly.

So Close

I woke up this morning with every intention of buying the last few doorknobs we need for the upstairs of the house.  I mean it!  We had nothing else to do.  Nowhere to go.  No one to see.  Obviously calling down to make sure my three locking Baldwin Fillmore satin nickel crystal knobs were in stock would be smart.  So I did.  I waited on hold for an eternity (actual time: about eight minutes) impressed with myself for how rationally I was handling this process.  Finally, Pat somebody answered.  The knobs are in-house and being held for me.  Great Pat, I'll be right down.  My name?  Yes, that's N-G-E-L.  Rhymes with?  Nothing.  As I went to grab my keys, the sky turned black.  Jet.  It was as if the earth was ending.  Then the actual storm came.  It rained, hailed and monsooned as I imagine it does in the Phillippines.  We lost a tree and the power flickered.  My plans of leaving the house were clearly washed out.  So I didn't officially get the job done, but now there are three doorknobs sitting on Pat's desk at Home Depot Expo in New Rochelle with my name on them.  Literally.  I know, a lot of good that does me.

Off-roading

So there are a few on-topic anecdotes I could share today.  I could talk about my Ferris Bueller's moment last week when I took my dad's hot German sportscar out for a spin to complete a bunch of must-do errands.  Of course, unlike Cameron, I had my dad's permission and, yes, I returned the car intact.  I could also tell how a friend yelled "Stop procrastinating!" after she found me, not on the treadmill, but in full conversation near the lockers at the gym.  As I had been by the hairdryers.  And the front desk.  I could always talk about the doorknobs.  But I have to dedicate this post to something unrelated.  Today I passed what had to be the ugliest car I've ever seen.  I found out it is Ford's new crossover wagon, the Flex.  Granted, I saw it in black, but this thing looked exactly like a hearse.  And it made me think of my brother (wait, I'll explain).  From a ridiculously early age, he had a thing about Ford Tauruses (Tauri?).  He hated them.  Actively.  At like, age nine.  To me, this was yet another piece of evidence that Ethan was not a conventional guy.  And guess what?  Twenty-five years later, he's not.  He lives in Ithaca, a decidedly unconventional town, and spends his time championing decidedly left-wing causes like sustainability and renewable energy.  His blog is called Green Brooklyn.  And when he drives, yeah, it's a Prius.  Duh.

Ithaca is Gorges

Tomorrow morning I'm going home.  It's my 15-year college reunion and though I spent just four at Cornell, they were among the most meaningful of my life.  Of course, things have changed.  For starters, I am now a foursome, although I did my job and married within the faith (my husband is also class of '93).  College, for many of us, is a time of total self-absorption and, yes, procrastination.  But it was here that I really elevated it to an artform.  This produced some interesting moments.  One of my favorites, aside from my stacks of mail addressed to "Dear Junior without a declared major," was the call from the sociology department saying that my advisor 's signature on my course form must have been forged as, unbeknownst to me, he was away on sabbatical in Sweden (Hi mom! Hi dad!).  I had missed the deadline by, um, a lot, and panicked.  Ah, the days of our youth.  Anyway, I can't wait to visit my little nooks of slack on campus.  The third floor at 124 Catherine Street.  The first table at the Ivy Room (will anyone be doing the crossword puzzle?).  The smoker at Pi Phi (full disclosure: I am a non-smoking sorority girl).  Will report back as TPG goes on location...