Thursday, December 24, 2009

Yes, Santa Claus, there is a Macy's

I walked into the store through the door I'm used to; so I can find my way out and also locate the mall entrance.  These commercial ventures can be rather confusing.  To the left are the coats; to the right hang the weird, hippy-ish, trashy fashions that junior teens love.  Straight ahead, in front of the escalator, are the black, white and beaded evening separates.  Walking to the escalator I noticed two massage chairs oddly placed among the dressy clothes.  A twenty-something woman, casually up-scale and very slim, was attempting to figure out how to start one of the chairs.  As I started to the next level, the customer was settling into the chair with audible sighs. After some grazing, I found a scarf and sox that I had come for, went to a cashier (now called a service center) who had been there a minute ago.  Peering over the top of the counter, I saw the girl sitting on the floor, arms around her knees.  "Are you on break?" I asked.  I thought that was politic.  "No.  I can help you," she said with disgruntlement.  So I dealt the Macy's cards I'd been receiving in the mail several times a week for several weeks.  "What can I use?"
The salesgirl calculated the cost, looked over my cards, chose the one that worked.  The amount was 2/3 less than the ticket price after the reduced sales price.  Delighted, I thanked her and walked off with my happy parcel, glancing back to watch her slip down the wall to the hidden position I'd disturbed.  
The store was extremely busy.  Well, it was December 23rd.  But the customers appeared blithely occupied.  Not sure what my next purchase should be, I sprayed myself with Chanel Number Five and walked out into the mall.  I visited several stores: strolling through, looking at various articles, pausing, trying to decide.  In one store I was followed around (stalking?).  In another, the salesperson told me she'd be right with me.  I left ten minutes later.  She hadn't shown up.  All the shops boasted sales, but none as good as Macy's.  So back I went.  I'm not cheap, just unemployed for almost eight months. Anyway, I only had two more items to buy.  I found both of them; each at fifty percent off.  I laid all my cards on the counter of a more diligent saleslady.  "What I can I use?"   She did the calculations, looked over my hand, and offered a better percentage from the most recent advertisement.  I used my Macy's card, signed the little signing machine, and gathered up my cards.  As the lady handed me my package she said, "You saved $35."  I backed away looking over the receipt.  A two percent further reduction and Macy's would owe me money.  As I rode the escalator down to ground level, it occurred to me that it must cost like ten cents to make most of the articles sold here. I turned toward the exit as the twenty-something customer was just standing up and turning off the massage chair.  I looked at my watch.  Two hours had passed.  How hospitable of Macy's to permit the young woman a spa treatment.  
I can joyfully report that Macy's is more than a parade.  It is a pathway to a jolly red suit.  Happy Christmas!

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Who the Hell is Murphy?

A few weeks ago I woke up, stretched in my bed, smiled at the ceiling, and saw a line of what looked like leakage. The upstairs resident's kitchen is over my bedroom.  I know; a very weird apartment.  Very nice but difficult to live in.  Anyway. I stood up on my bed and touched the line in the ceiling.  It wasn't damp at all.  But it was definitely a stain.  I sent an email to the upstairs resident and she confirmed that her garbage disposal had leaked and was being replaced and she was very sorry, etc.etc.etc.  So I phoned Bob L., the remarkable "handy man" who is a true gift to a single woman.  (Stop it!!  That's NOT what we're talking about.  Besides, he prefers 30-something women which I most definitely am not.)  Bob came over later that day, told me he could repair the damage without having to paint the entire ceiling.  Not right away at any rate.  He'd let me know when he could come to do the work.  Okay.  The next day the kitchen faucet began to drip; a definite kind of WW II torture.  I started my list.  The bathtub began to drain verrrry slowly.  A variety of small annoyances.  Until today.
Today.  While my five year old granddaughter lulled in the bathtub, and my daughter (who had spent the evening before in the emergency room monitoring very high blood pressure) washed at the sink, water poured out from under the toilet.  The seal had broken.  Scooted the ladies out of the room; turned off the water at the source; flushed the last of it away; employed every towel I owned to mop it up.  And phoned Bob L.  He came over, checked it out (causing a second flood in his investigation) and called his plumber-buddy.  It being Saturday (the Saturday before Christmas no less) nothing could be done before Monday.  Okay.  I gratefully have a powder room upstairs.  Bob left and I mopped the water up again.  Now every towel I own was in the bathtub.  We had someplace to be so the gals got ready and I put a few of the towels in the washing machine (laundry room off the stricken bathroom) and we left.  I returned a few hours later and visited the bathroom expecting to put the towels into the dryer.  Well, for some reason yet to be discovered, the water that drained from the washer came out through the same broken area under the commode.  ???  Except it was so much water this time that it ran into the hallway and the room adjacent soaking the wall-to-wall carpeting.  Nothing to be done until Monday.  I mopped again; put two dehumidifiers in place to hopefully alleviate some of the carpet moisture; loaded all the wet towels still in the tub into big plastic bags and spent the evening at the local Laundromat.  
My landlord, who is my son, lives in California.  We spoke on the phone.  He understood the problem and all the worst possible scenarios.  Nothing to be done until Monday.  Fortunately the upstairs washroom isn't adding to the downstairs problem.  Today we are having a blizzard.  The real thing.  Christmas is Friday.  Saturday I'm to fly to San Jose to visit my west coast family.  I don't know this plumber or his phone number or if he'll even show up.  I am trying to stay in the moment since there is really no where else to stay.  But I do wonder who the hell Murphy was and why his law still more than occasionally prevails.  Not that it would change anything.  Nothing to be done until Monday.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Now is the Winter....

It is a contradiction, I know, to love the changing seasons and yet despair the winter cold.  But I do that; always have.  In the past ten years, the approach of the cold has filled me with foreboding.  Yet here I am still living in the North East, dreaming of Barbados or -- at the very least -- a working fireplace.  It is, with my economy, not a simple matter to relocate.
This winter, its chill preceding its official date, is complicated by chilling events.  I lost my job last May, and have not been able to find something since.  "Admins" I'm told are not in great demand.  My daughter, recovering from mitral valve replacement surgery, is back in hospital with pancreatitis.  Almost two weeks now.  This is her third hospitalization since July, and her little five year old is confused and bereft.  It has been very difficult for us all.  Christmas is something of a blur.  And while I am so looking forward to a trip to California the day after Christmas to visit with my oldest son and his lovely family, I approach it with trepidation.  Will my daughter be okay?  So many cancellations since July.  It's hard to proceed with optimisim.  
I am kvetching; that wasn't my intention.  My thought this morning was all the different kinds of winter one deals with -- Macbeth's not the least of these -- the winter of our discontent.  It is best I think to huddle -- not quite like "once upon a time..." at the general store pot-bellied stove or four to a bed.  But to have a society; to get together with family and friends and surround oneself with the warmth of affection and good conversation.  Barring that, there is the apology for the lack of the latter:  a good book and a comfy afghan.  A glass of brandy doesn't hurt either.  
The shortest day approaches; from then on minute by minute the days lengthen and it will be Spring.  Ever hopeful. 
I wish whatever readers of this there may be the warmth of love in this season.