The shop where once I bought my morning tea has closed down, suddenly and without warning.
When I'm walking along reading, my peripheral vision normally picks up the tea shop door - which is usually open and jutting out into the sidewalk. I detach myself from the person I'm shadowing* and go in. Today, I stopped just past the facade of the shop and did a double take.
Copies of Metro and flattened bagel boxes filled the windows, with one or two printed sheets; 'OUT OF BUSINESS' and 'TEA TIME IS CLOSED'.
I was standing in front of the shop when a girl walked up, took in the signs, the boxes, and the smeared whitewash on the inside of the glass. Then she tried to open the door anyway. Their tea really was that good.
As I slipped into the wake of a passing office worker and picked up my place on the page I resolved to make tea in the office. Sadly the lid of the office kettle has broken off and I can't get it to work.
RIP Tea Time.
Coffee it is.
* Reading when walking is a skill, especially in New York City. My preferred method is to simply walk behind someone else and let them do the work of parting the sea of foot traffic while I get on with my book. Apparently this is small beer to the tactics of some people, but I plead novicedom and hope that in time my technique improves.
And
512MB of RAM arrived on Friday, so the iMac G3 which was running, unloved and unused, on Mac OS 9.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2 (or similar) is now gleefully humming away on OS X...um...10.2 or 10.3 (or something).
It's great, regardless.
I'm technically minded, honest I am.
I know hexadecimal and everything.
Well...I can look up hexadecimal. I know it exists.
That's an important distinction.
And
The cast of A Midsummer Night's Dream descended on our apartment on Saturday night for a one-month-on cast party, and there was pizza and sangria and more sangria with sangria for afters. The specific sangria recipe whose ingredients I used, but whose specific proportions I ignored (1.5 oz of brandy per bottle of wine? I'm sorry, that couldn't have been right.) was from a book that Heather gave Krissa for her birthday. There are a lot more recipes where that one came from too, but I think we'll give our metabolic systems a bit of a breather after Saturday's party.
And
I finished reading David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas last night, borrowed from The Kate.
Sodding masterful.
After reading the brilliant The Time Traveller's Wife and then Cloud Atlas one after the other, there was always going to be a bit of difficulty in choosing a suitable follow-up. I settled on John Le Carre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
And
Stuff.
And Things.
we can practice on the weekends if you like.
I'm reading Birds Without Wings by Louis de B, and the second half seems to be pants so far. It might be worth reading the first half and not bothering with the second. I'll keep you posted.
No thanks, darling, I'll just let nature take its course.
Cheers Pete.
Sorry about Tea Time. Just last night I was going to get some dinner at a place I like called The Heaping Bowl and found the windows covered in brown paper and no indication of what happened to the place, whether it's closed temporarily or for good.
Alas, I've always wondered about people who read and walk, mostly with annoyance, because they're in my way. I will have to remember that I think well of at least one of you lot the next time I must wend my way around such a person. ;)
I guy I used to work with does the whole gamut. Walking, reading, and listening to his walkman. Never ever looks up, or indeed walks into anything - and doesn't use the following people technique either. It's most impressive.
I reckon he must have very good peripheral vision. Or eye-holes in his books.
Sodding masterful indeed. Cloud Atlas gets the Pockless stamp of approval, and heartily so. I'm now reading Death & The Penguin which was suggested to me in the light of my study on Obituaries. Also recommended, but in a more subdued fashion.