I wanted to leave this on a more upbeat note for the weekend. We are relaxing before leaving the house tomorrow at 7am for Cleveland for a very brief visit. Looking forward to seeing my in-laws and my friends, although I did get to spend yesterday with Miss Kerry which was great. Patrick is feeling better after a stomach flu and I have luckily remained healthy. Thanks to everyone who sent us wonderful gifts! More to come next week or maybe not until next year. |

Here I am at the end of day one working from home. Sometimes I'm really glad I work in the IT world. Patrick wrote about it this morning, but I thought I'd also weigh in on the strike.

What frustrates me is the whole state of what unions have become. They were founded out of the noblest reasons, to bring fair working practices to a world where capitalist gains won out over humanistic concerns such as working livable hours making livable money and having time off. But now we live in an era where a lot of people are making minimum wage, which is not livable, and union workers generally make a wage comparable to equally skilled white collar workers but many of their industries (such as steel and textiles) are failing in this country because trade is going to other countries where the prices are better because the pay is bad and people work in conditions equal or worse than pre-union era America. So - how much progress has there been?

And then you have this situation. Yes - the MTA should have offered more up front and shouldn't have boasted so much about having an extra billion dollars right before negotiations. But... it's hard to have sympathy when the union isn't being faced with some horrible injustice. They were offered (I think this was the final offer, but I may be wrong) a total of 10% in raises over the next 3 years, keeping retirement at 55, and current employees keep fully paid for health insurance and new employees pay 1%. This is a better deal than I have ever been offered. Especially the health coverage, which was one of the sticking points.

And so now college educated middle class people who can work from home (ie - me) inconvenienced. But more importantly, the poor working class people are hurt. People have to choose between walking miles, paying at least $20 per day in cab fares, or taking unpaid leave (possibly not even an option if they want to keep their jobs). Schools start 2 hours later leaving a lot of people with a child care gap. And perhaps the worst - there are the newstands that are on subway platforms, often run by recent immigrants who can barely scrape by and don't have an extra day's wages in savings, and now they can't even get into work even if they had customers. So I have to wonder - how is this really helping the cause of the worker? |

Little more than three months into life in New York and we are faced with the very real possibility that we could wake up tomorrow morning to no trains and no buses thanks to a strike. Craigslist is full of rideshare listings, and since cars have to have at least 4 people to a car to cross the bridges. It's shaping up to be a fun morning tomorrow. |

Note to self: When you normally are a tea drinker and you have a craving for a coffee drink one day, it is probably not a good idea to guzzle a 16 oz mocha complete with 2 shots of espresso.

Add to that half a can of diet coke and the tea I drank this morning and I am beyond wired right now. Although, on the upside, I have been super-productive at work and still managed to blog twice. |

We came home Saturday from a day of Christmas sightseeing in Manhattan (pictures will be posted soon) to discover that most of our power was out. As in, our fridge and 2 outlets worked and nothing else. It reminded me of ice storms in the old farm house to find myself reading in bed by candlelight.

Investigation yesterday found that our neighbors were having the same problem. It was the first time I had actually really talked to my neighbors aside from saying hi when passing on the stairs. I also got to find out that the dry cleaners complain to everyone in the building about the water leaks yet never actually call the landlord. Also, we found out that Byron isn't just crazy and we probably have his persistent stalking of the spaces next to the stove and under the fridge to thank for the fact that we haven't seen any mice. One neighbor has one in her kitchen and the other's cats have caught 2.

Many calls to the landlord and the super later, an electrician finally showed up and woke me up ringing the doorbell this morning at 7am. Since I told him to hold on a second as I was still in my pyjamas, he went to my neighbors to investigate the problem. I left for work with minimal power still. Just got a voicemail from the landlord that apparently a generator on the street "burnt up" and ConEd would be fixing the problem today. One would think that some automatic system would let the power company know when a generator burnt up, but, apparently not. Well, at least they haven't blacked out the entire northeast yet. |

I had a lot to say and then I got sick and didn't feel like writing so now I can't rememebr what was so important that I was going to publish it...

I do have one thing I am proud to report. I joined a gym and worked out for the first time in 3 months last week. I went to a "cardio tai box" class (basically, kickboxing without bags or people to beat on) class on Thursday and cashed in my complimentary session with a personal trainer on Friday. The class was a lot of fun, and I was happy that I could still keep up. I guess, after working out steadily for 2 years, 3 months doesn't erase everything. The trainer session was good, but, it made me realize that basically the instructors I had at the corporate gym in Cleveland were like free personal trainers, because all the routines and stretches and form he was showing me were things I already knew. So - for $80 per one hour session (on top of my monthly membership fee) I think I will be skipping the trainer and just using my own knowledge to create a routine I like.

Other than that, spent the weekend with a bad cold and sore from working out. So - that was no fun. But I am on the mend now... (Sadly, I always know when a cold is almost gone when I wake up feeling like someone is sitting on my chest. I suppose, being asthmatic, I should feel lucky that I don't have any shortness of breath along with the heavy chest feeling...)

I think I will be stocking up on those homeopathic 'take at the first sign of cold or flu' things since my immunity is apparently not up to NY standards yet. Anyone tried Airborne or Zicam? Which one's better? |