Posted By hiromi on September 29, 2012 in Food, Thoughts on life |
So I spent a long weekend in New York. Hubby currently has a job there so it was a quick visit to see him. Of course we have been married forever and in typical unromantic form, he failed to take any days off. So I had a couple of days on my own to fill and somehow that was not a problem. The weather was just beautiful and it was great to walk around in flip flops and complain of being hot.
I did some serious damage at my two favourite shops and saw lots of friends old and new. Saturday night, one of my friends from college organised a dinner and a bunch of us got together. We all went to school together and some I’ve known for 35 years. My that makes me feel old. But the upside to all this ageing is having history with people. We don’t keep up on a regular basis although thanks to Facebook, I keep up with some better than others but every time we see each other, we just fall into a very easy dialogue. It’s just great that I have these friends and great that we still get together after all these years. The funny thing is, there have been gaps of years with some of them, I guess these things happen when you know each other over 30 years but then we just pick up again.
So on the one hand, there was much catching up and on the other, I met someone I was introduced to on Facebook through a mutual friend. It really didn’t feel like we had never met, we sat and chatted for 2 hours in Starbucks and didn’t run out of things to say. The truly astounding thing is, her best friend lived on my floor freshman year. How is that for a coincidence? We did not go to the same school and are no where near each other in age and yet… This year has been filled with so many people coincidences that I am no longer surprised. The world seems vast but in fact it is one global village.
I kept meaning to take photos of all the delicious food I had but I’d forget and eat it. I could never be a food blogger. I would say the highlights of my food trip were the two meals I had at Candle Cafe, a vegan restaurant around the corner from where hubby lives. I’m not vegan but I am dairy free and he is veggie so it was a good compromise. I had a wheat free brownie sundae with coconut ice cream. How great does that sound? On the opposite end of the spectrum, I had a 1 pound lobster for lunch at Chelsea Market. That and a couple of American size martinis made my weekend.
Now I’m back home and dealing with the mountains of things I have to do. But the sun is shining and I can’t complain. Life is good.
Posted By hiromi on August 7, 2012 in Thoughts on life |
It’s been so long, I’d nearly forgotten that I have a blog that I used to write pretty regularly. Life has been extremely busy and I haven’t had any time for introspection let alone writing anything down. I think that’s one of the hazards of having a blog that you write when you feel like it. Maybe it should be themed, I’ll have to think about that.
Anyway, for a quick recap on what’s been happening since my last post, I’m still juggling my cooking and nut business and have signed up to do my first trade show. I did a show last year with my distributor, but this time it’s all on me. I signed up for it without thinking that much about it as usual and have discovered that there are a million details to keep track of, many e mails to read through, forms to fill out etc. I want a minion but only if he looks like this. 
But I digress. I went away on my annual summer holiday with the family. It was a nice holiday but also a bit of a reality check to discover how old and frail my dad is getting. He never recovered from his heart surgery 18 months ago and the doctors think he had a stroke during surgery. It is so sad to see him struggle with everyday tasks and for him to be bewildered and confused. This was a man who was up until the time of surgery, as sharp as a tack and still travelling domestically by himself. I’m trying hard to see the positive in this and failing. It’s not fair and it sucks.
On a happier note, my kids really pitched in and helped out during the holiday, I don’t think I could have done it if without them. My 80 year old mother, who can barely use a mobile and had absolutely no interest in the computer has gotten herself an iPad. My sister and I each have one and she discovered that she could do things with them. So she went out and got one and we installed Skype on it. I wish I had taped her introduction to Skype, it was a classic. She couldn’t believe she could see me (I was in a different room skyping her) and talk to me. She woke my dad up who was napping on the couch to show him what she could do. I just hope she remembers when she gets home. She’s had no trouble accessing the games we downloaded for her, but the internet remains a bit of a mystery. I think you should be able to relabel the icons so instead of Safari, I could just label it internet, what does she know from Safari?
Where was the hubby in all of this? He has been in New York on a consulting gig. He did a whirlwind visit on our holiday but really I haven’t seen him since he went away at the end of May. As this is likely to continue for some time I am planning a visit out to see him. It’s been a wonderful experience for him, catching up with friends and living again in the city that he loves.
Now that I’ve written it down, it doesn’t sound like I’ve done much, but I swear I’ve been really busy. I must get back to it now, I have more arrangements to make for the show and I need to place orders to get my Christmas products in place.
I’ll try not to let another 3 months go by, talk soon.
Posted By hiromi on July 8, 2011 in Thoughts on life |
June 1 2010 was the day I posted on my blog about being ripped off on Craigslist. It is now over a year later and I am still getting comments. Mostly from people who googled Jane Synovec before they sent her money and found my post. I know this isn’t an isolated incident, apparently many websites are full of rip offs and scam artists looking to make your holiday unhappy. So I’m glad I could do my little bit to warn people before they parted with their hard earned cash.
Readers have written in with more information about these scams so I thought I would share a few things I learned from the comments.
Apparently the IP address originates out of Nigeria/Kenya, so not anywhere in the States as she claims to be.
Carter Nancy and Sandra Owens are two other names readers shared in addition to Jane Synovec who are running similar scams on Craigslist. Who knows, they could be all the same person/people.
Here’s a site that one reader wrote in http://www.joseandterrirentals.com/, they list all the things you should watch out for as well as examples of some of the photos the scammers send of their flats. Lo and behold, the flat I almost “rented” was amongst the photos listed.
Thank you everyone for sharing information. Hope your holidays are scam free.
Posted By hiromi on June 10, 2011 in Thoughts on life |
Well here it is, almost the next weekend so I’d better talk about last weekend before it’s too late to bother. I went to NY for 5 days last week to attend my 30th college reunion. It is the first time I have gone to a reunion on campus, the last one was my 5th and we didn’t go to the official one, just a party held off campus which pretty much put me off going to any future ones.
I am still friends with my freshman year room mate and together with another friend we signed up for the same events so we were guaranteed to know people. The first event was a joint cocktail party with our counterparts across the street. They have since gone co-ed but back in the day, our college was all women, theirs, all male. I recognized some people but in a vague, “oh you look familiar” kind of way. Then I saw someone that I genuinely liked but hadn’t seen in 30 years. It was great catching up with her and seeing that she was still the very nice person I remembered. And that’s the thing about reunions. People are still fundamentally who they are 30 years later. So chances are, if you didn’t like them in college, you’re not going to all of a sudden find you have so much in common that you’ll become besties.
The next night was our class dinner, kind of the same deal, we each stuck with the friends we knew from college and it was lovely to see people whom I genuinely liked. But it was going to an event the next day which made me realize why I love my old school. The talk was on the school’s ongoing effort to be more global and while listening to current students present, I reconfirmed that I went to a great school that continues to do great things. The young women were so articulate and passionate about their experiences, that I was proud to be associated with them and happy to be involved with the school.
This weekend was also my reunion with NYC. I can’t remember the last time I was alone in the city. I saw many friends outside of the reunion but I stayed in a hotel by myself. It was the world’s smallest hotel room so there wasn’t a huge incentive to stay in the room itself when I wasn’t sleeping. So I spent the time I wasn’t seeing friends walking around the city. Well specifically the Upper West Side since I only made it downtown once. It is remarkable how little the demographic has changed since I last lived there in the 80′s. It continues to be multi generational with a heavy emphasis on families. Although I don’t remember quite as many strollers in my day but I do remember hordes of toddlers.
Okay this is turning into a rambling account so I’ll stop here. But since I’m in the midst of so much change and newness, this weekend gave me the perfect opportunity to stop and look back on the person I used to be 30 years ago. I don’t know that myself 30 years ago would recognize the me today. I think even back then, I thought things would happen, it just took 30 years for the time to be right. Hey some of us are slower than others. But then, it’s all about the journey, isn’t it?
