Tied to New York

I've had a pretty bad cold for the past week, so I haven't gone anywhere, done anything, or cooked anything of interest. I went to work a few times, went to the store a few times, and mostly lay on the couch blowing my nose and watching really awful daytime television.

I'm not kidding about how awful it was.

I watched a TV-edited version of "Burlesque".

I stared into the abyss, and it also stared back into me.

Today I was feeling marginally better, and I needed supplies from the store (in the last five days I have consumed three gallons of orange juice, a gallon of cranberry, and a half gallon of grape; I am full of vitamins, but feel like I'm on some kind of weird juice diet), so I decided to venture out to shop and get the mail. On Saturdays I usually do my rounds of the thrift shops, but today I just wasn't feeling it so I decided to hit the one close to the grocery store. They didn't have any Pyrex, not even the clear kind that I usually don't buy, but I did find an ugly tie that made my eyes glow and my heart sing. It wasn't just me, either. When I brought it to the register, the girl looked at it for a moment.

"Wow. That's... a tie."

"It sure is!"

While I was picking it out, I noticed this other tie:



and thought, "Hey, that's the city seal for Albany!"

I know what the Albany city seal looks like because I used to live there, and I saw a statue of the seal a number of times when I was downtown. Since I will be travelling to New York this week (Long Island, not Albany) I thought that finding this tie today might be an omen, and I was buying another tie already, so I brought this one home, too.

Where I discovered that it's not the seal of Albany.

Here's the tie:



and here's a picture of the statue downtown that I took several years ago:



You can see where I got confused. They're similar, but Albany has a ship above the shield, and the stuff on the shield definitely isn't what's represented on the tie. Even if you consider that the tie has a lower level of detail, what's going on in the center is definitely not a beaver above some sheaves of grain. It's... a propeller? Maybe? What would have a propeller in the 1600's?

Then my knowledge of my home state kicked in: New York was originally a Dutch colony.

That's a windmill.

I googled "New York founded in 1625" and discovered that I was close. The tie is a city seal: New York City.

Where I will be next Saturday.

Possibly wearing that tie.

Call Me Any, Any Time (but not tonight because I don't know how to use the phone yet)

Today I stopped at the Verizon store on my way home from work, because my phone is hard to text on, and the battery only holds about twenty minutes of charge. My phone is like that because until a few hours ago, this was my phone:



You're probably making a face like the lady at the Verizon store made when I held it out to her.

"Can I help you?"

"Yes. This is my phone."

"Really? Does it work?"

No, lady. I carry a dead phone around with me because I want people to think I'm cool enough to have a cell phone but I don't want to actually call anyone.

"I'd like a new phone. I think I might be eligible for an upgrade."

"I'm... sure you are. Let's look that up." Typing. Typing. Suppressing laughter and the urge to call other employees over to stare at the cellular dinosaur. Typing. "Oh! Look at that! You've been eligible for a free upgrade since 2008."

"What kind of phone can I get?"

"What kind of features do you want?"

"I want a phone that makes calls and receives calls. That's all that a phone needs to do. Also, I would like to add texting to my calling plan. So a phone that texts."

"All phones te... you know, let's go look at the simple flip phones. What about this one? It has a camera."

"I already own a camera."

"Yes, but... yes. OK. This one also flips, and doesn't have a camera. It's completely free with your upgrade."

"I don't know... I like the phone I have..."

"You know, we have another phone that we don't actually put out because people don't usually ask for it."

"CAN I SEE THAT PHONE??????"

And so, twenty minutes later:



I just spent half hour programming all my numbers into it, because they couldn't transfer them over from the old phone.

Why not, you might ask?

"We usually just Bluetooth them over, but Bluetooth wasn't invented yet when you got your phone."