BLAH BLAH BLUES
Hi everyone!
Sorry I haven't posted in a while but there's been no sewing activity because my sewing machine is on the fritz! It is so frustrating! I've already made 2 trips to the repair man (who is no where near me, by the way) only to take it home today and see that there is more wrong with it than before! Somebody hold me back because I'm ready to clock him over the head!
I hate posting without pictures, because I'm so visually oriented, as I imagine most of you are. So sorry, all I have are words for you, hence the name Blah Blah Blues.
So what would you do when you can't sew, but are dying to? OK, besides reading over your quilting magazines for the 30th time? I explored a little bit, because I keep hearing how in New York I have access to all these fabrics and specialty stores. Truth be told, I've still never been to the City Quilter, although I've driven by it once or twice - and even entered into their challenge 2 years ago! I didn't do anything that ambitious - those of you who've been reading this blog know I don't make it into Manhattan much. Ellen's been after me to try "Angel's" in Bay Ridge Brooklyn for some time. $3 per yard on even brand name quilting fabrics, home dec silks, knits, woolens, you name it! The place is small and packed - you can't see the fabrics that well, but if you know what you're looking for Angel can find it for you. It wasn't that easy to find - because it's not called Angel's, but J & A Fabrics or Trimmings or something. I'll get you the details, and even take some pics next time, OK?
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Bay Ridge, it's a funky neighborhood. It's a tough ethnic mix, historically Italian. As a matter of fact I think it's the setting for "Saturday Night Fever" with John Travolta. My neighborhood is very casual and beachy, friendly and relaxed. Bay Ridge is, well, just tough! It's not a poor neighborhood, the shopping's pretty good, and it's always busy.
I know you're thinking, what the heck is she talking about? I'll give you an example... My husband and I bought the laptop I'm working from on black Friday just after Thanksgiving at a Circuit City in Bay Ridge. It was one of those specials for just a few hours and yes, there we were on the street in the dark in the early morning hours waiting. It was the first and last time I've ever done that. Now, when you wait for any amount of time with a high concentration of New Yorkers congregating somewhere (the line went on for BLOCKS), things tend to get interesting. For one thing, I heard Polish, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Arabic, and oh yeah a little English being spoken. In the 2 hours it took to get into the store, the police drove up, ate their donuts, and left, just in time for a drunk Mafia hit man (well, he looked like one with his long coat and highly polished shoes and hair) to walk up and down the line yelling at us how we all had "issues" and should re-evaluate our lives. My husband could barely contain himself, laughing, "OH yeah, WE'VE got issues" under his breath but loud enough that I elbowed him. Then there's the lady at the front of the store, when we finally got there, one of many who tried to eek their way inside with some lame excuse. She approached the bouncers - you didn't think they'd just trust us to behave did you? - one big burly guy who clearly does this for a living, and one older tough guy who clearly is a cop or ex-cop, claiming to have someone inside that she was just joining. When that didn't work, she blurted, "I'm a cop." "Oh yeah," said the off-duty cop, "show me your badge and I'll give you the courtesy." Now, if this lady was a cop I'd be pretty surprised - maybe the mother of a cop, but not a cop. She whipped out a bunch of cards, "Nah, nah, c'mon," she was busted. Sigh, it's true, we New Yorkers - some of us - are quite pushy.
Finally in the store, we had the good fortune to get the right employees to tell us the right line to wait on, only to have a girl insist that she was in front of us. And I thought I was gonna get away without a fight! Oh no, chickadee, I SAW you get on line after me, and I'm right behind this guy, and you're not even on line, talking over there with the techie. Well, chickadee wasn't one to admit the error, and started the encroachment. We see your encroachment and raise you one squeeze. She proceeds to bad mouth us in Arabic to her parents, as if we don't understand (we don't) but it's sooooo obvious. My husband starts making fun of that to me in Hebrew, and well, middle east conflict comes to Brooklyn. We could tell her parents were telling her to calm down and leave it alone, and in the end they asked us for some advice on which computer to buy and the tension fizzled. Turns out her (very lovely) parents were just visiting from Egypt - the way she was carrying on she clearly lived in Brooklyn!
Well, there you are, more than you ever wanted to know about the birth of this computer. I ended up bringing back that one because of software issues, only to receive one with hardware issues, only to return that finally for this one. And now I just found out that my husband signed for the computer twice as the return was rung up incorrectly. I really hope I get the money back, but if not, this episode will go down in history as the single biggest thing my husband gets to rub in for the rest of my life!
Sorry I haven't posted in a while but there's been no sewing activity because my sewing machine is on the fritz! It is so frustrating! I've already made 2 trips to the repair man (who is no where near me, by the way) only to take it home today and see that there is more wrong with it than before! Somebody hold me back because I'm ready to clock him over the head!
I hate posting without pictures, because I'm so visually oriented, as I imagine most of you are. So sorry, all I have are words for you, hence the name Blah Blah Blues.
So what would you do when you can't sew, but are dying to? OK, besides reading over your quilting magazines for the 30th time? I explored a little bit, because I keep hearing how in New York I have access to all these fabrics and specialty stores. Truth be told, I've still never been to the City Quilter, although I've driven by it once or twice - and even entered into their challenge 2 years ago! I didn't do anything that ambitious - those of you who've been reading this blog know I don't make it into Manhattan much. Ellen's been after me to try "Angel's" in Bay Ridge Brooklyn for some time. $3 per yard on even brand name quilting fabrics, home dec silks, knits, woolens, you name it! The place is small and packed - you can't see the fabrics that well, but if you know what you're looking for Angel can find it for you. It wasn't that easy to find - because it's not called Angel's, but J & A Fabrics or Trimmings or something. I'll get you the details, and even take some pics next time, OK?
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Bay Ridge, it's a funky neighborhood. It's a tough ethnic mix, historically Italian. As a matter of fact I think it's the setting for "Saturday Night Fever" with John Travolta. My neighborhood is very casual and beachy, friendly and relaxed. Bay Ridge is, well, just tough! It's not a poor neighborhood, the shopping's pretty good, and it's always busy.
I know you're thinking, what the heck is she talking about? I'll give you an example... My husband and I bought the laptop I'm working from on black Friday just after Thanksgiving at a Circuit City in Bay Ridge. It was one of those specials for just a few hours and yes, there we were on the street in the dark in the early morning hours waiting. It was the first and last time I've ever done that. Now, when you wait for any amount of time with a high concentration of New Yorkers congregating somewhere (the line went on for BLOCKS), things tend to get interesting. For one thing, I heard Polish, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Arabic, and oh yeah a little English being spoken. In the 2 hours it took to get into the store, the police drove up, ate their donuts, and left, just in time for a drunk Mafia hit man (well, he looked like one with his long coat and highly polished shoes and hair) to walk up and down the line yelling at us how we all had "issues" and should re-evaluate our lives. My husband could barely contain himself, laughing, "OH yeah, WE'VE got issues" under his breath but loud enough that I elbowed him. Then there's the lady at the front of the store, when we finally got there, one of many who tried to eek their way inside with some lame excuse. She approached the bouncers - you didn't think they'd just trust us to behave did you? - one big burly guy who clearly does this for a living, and one older tough guy who clearly is a cop or ex-cop, claiming to have someone inside that she was just joining. When that didn't work, she blurted, "I'm a cop." "Oh yeah," said the off-duty cop, "show me your badge and I'll give you the courtesy." Now, if this lady was a cop I'd be pretty surprised - maybe the mother of a cop, but not a cop. She whipped out a bunch of cards, "Nah, nah, c'mon," she was busted. Sigh, it's true, we New Yorkers - some of us - are quite pushy.
Finally in the store, we had the good fortune to get the right employees to tell us the right line to wait on, only to have a girl insist that she was in front of us. And I thought I was gonna get away without a fight! Oh no, chickadee, I SAW you get on line after me, and I'm right behind this guy, and you're not even on line, talking over there with the techie. Well, chickadee wasn't one to admit the error, and started the encroachment. We see your encroachment and raise you one squeeze. She proceeds to bad mouth us in Arabic to her parents, as if we don't understand (we don't) but it's sooooo obvious. My husband starts making fun of that to me in Hebrew, and well, middle east conflict comes to Brooklyn. We could tell her parents were telling her to calm down and leave it alone, and in the end they asked us for some advice on which computer to buy and the tension fizzled. Turns out her (very lovely) parents were just visiting from Egypt - the way she was carrying on she clearly lived in Brooklyn!
Well, there you are, more than you ever wanted to know about the birth of this computer. I ended up bringing back that one because of software issues, only to receive one with hardware issues, only to return that finally for this one. And now I just found out that my husband signed for the computer twice as the return was rung up incorrectly. I really hope I get the money back, but if not, this episode will go down in history as the single biggest thing my husband gets to rub in for the rest of my life!
posted by Miriam at 12:28 AM
5 Comments:
Tee Hee sounds like the day teh cheepie place (C-Mart) got the super expensive hand bags to sell after an expensive department store closed... They had to close the store & call the cops it got so bad... But when you are handing out numbers not in numerical order what do you expect. (BTW $600 was still too damn much to pay for a hand bag!) I'll e-mail you the newspaper article.
What a great story. You had me laughing!
Ah, yes! Brings back fond memories of our three years in Manhattan. Squeezing into subway cars at rush hour - hoping to not be grabbed by a total stranger! We lived on the upper west side while hubby was in grad school at Columbia. I wish I had been into quilting then, so that I could have sought out all those fabric stores. I once showed my DH a pic of the staff at City Quilter and asked him to guess where the quilt store was. Way too easy! They were all dressed in black! DH would move back to NYC in a heartbeat - but with two kids, he would need to inherit several million dollars first! Thanks for the great story! Hope your machine gets fixed soon!
So sorry you are having sewing machine issues, and glad that your computer issues are getting mainly resolved. Although I have had people try to cut in front of me in line (sometimes I let them - it just isn't worth the hassle), I really haven't been shopping in a hostile environment like that, thank goodness. Makes for a good story though!
Sorry your machine is in the "hospital." I was without my machine from the Monday before Thanksgiving to Jan 4! Makes ya nuts!
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