Day 214 – One fraud claim + one couch warranty + one medical insurance bill = two complete lottery failures

During my travels I accumulated several problems that I had to deal with back in New York:

1. Capital One couldn't figure out how to compensate me for the thousand bucks stolen from my credit card on a Bloomingdale's purchase somewhere in Florida. For some reason it was absolutely impossible for them to email or fax a fraud claim for me to fill out – apparently, these important papers can only be mailed to you. They also have what they call a "grace period of the claim", 60 days within which you have to file it, otherwise you can forget about any reimbursement. Of course, I came home approximately 90 days after my credit card was compromised. The kicker to this annoying situation is that the claim was never sent to my home address anyway, although I requested it at least three times during my multiple remote attempts to straighten things out. Interestingly enough, none of those attempts were "in the bank's system", whatever that means. So I went to the bank to deal with this crap in person. One hour later, utterly frustrated by our most useless conversation – "Mam, this is impossible that the papers haven't been sent to you" – "But I didn't get them" – "But it's impossible" – "But I still didn't get them" – "But that's impossible", – I finally managed to make them file the claim through their system. Right away I started mourning the loss of this thousand stolen dollars, so confident the lady at the bank was when she sympathetically said to me, "I am really sorry it has happened to you, but we can only put the facts in the claim and the facts are it has now been 90 days since the money was spent and we have no record of any of your calls anyway, so I'm fairly sure your claim will be denied". Brilliant…
   
   
2. I got a phone call from my dermatologist's office informing me that my insurance didn't cover my last visit and I owe them $1,500. Reason "unknown". Now I have to call the stupid insurance, figure out what went wrong and try to convince them to pay a bill that was supposed to have been paid almost a year ago. Great…
   
   
3. Seven years ago I got the best couch on this planet at Macy's. It came with the best warranty invention also: you can spill anything on it – food, wine, blood, candle wax, a bucket of paint – they guarantee cleaning it, and if they fail, they replace the damaged part and/or the entire couch. This goodness is extended for seven years. Of course, over the years some stuff has been spilled in the direction of the couch, nothing major, but since my super-warranty expires in October, I decided to file a claim for replacing the cushion covers. It was back in January. For the past 7 months we have been conversing regularly with the warranty department on the subject of them not having the sales receipt from the original purchase. From my part, I did everything I could to get the stupid sales receipt to them: first I faxed it – no luck, they couldn't read it, fair enough because after 7 years it did fade quite a bit; then I mailed it (regular mail) – they "didn't receive it"; so I mailed it again (priority mail now) – they "didn't receive it", although I did get a notification from the post office that it had been delivered. This exchange started to become quite ridiculous and since the damage to my beloved couch was truly minor, I decided to give up on this endeavor and just let the warranty expire without taking any advantage of it. A sad waste of time…
   

I hate being on hold and resolving the above would involve a lot of holding time, so I kept postponing the calls… until one day when I decided to finally plunge into the first round of battling the system. I had no doubt that there would be multiple rounds to the process. But – OH MIRACLE! – every call was a complete success: the stolen money has just been returned to my account, the dermatologist's unpaid bill suddenly got paid, and the funniest of them all, Macy's decided to replace the entire couch (that didn't happen though because they don't have the same model anymore, so I settled for… a lump sum payment of $400!). What unbelievable streak of luck! I just had to buy a lottery ticket immediately!

And what a sore disappointment: out of 30 numbers on the ticket I didn't even guess ONE correctly! What kind of luck is that??? Out of sheer desperation I bought another ticket, and – struck of genius! – filled it out with… THE SAME numbers in each of the five rows. I must have thought that asserting the numbers in every row should somehow entice the luck fairy take my side. No comment…

Day 211 - Plane ocean

Yesterday was our "meat snacks night at the beach" (this is our loving nick-name for the Korean BBQ that Ellen cooks up for us). The night was just perfect: no wind, a clearest sky with no moon and a myriad of stars at first and then a bright red crescent appearing on the horizon and slowly turning into an orange marmalade slice as it was climbing up, Jupiter's casting a path of bright light on the ocean's surface (by the way, it surprised me to realize that in English there seems to be no special word defining this phenomenon; in Russian, for example, such a path cast by the moon is called moon path, in Spanish it's camino de plata - silver way)… In between snacking on the delicious fire-grilled morsels of Korean-style marinated meat, we played with fireworks (a somewhat illegal activity in North Carolina, yet you hear this distinct blasting sounds all the time from all directions here), sat around the fire chatting or just walked on the beach.

I came very close to the ocean and stood still for several minutes with my eyes closed. I took in the awe-inspiring splendor of the ocean at night. I listened to the roar of waves. I thought, "You can enjoy this sound literally forever, it's the most soothing sound on earth…" It was so peaceful and beautiful… All of a sudden I realized though that the sound of breaking waves is exactly the same as the sound of an airplane taking off. And I know for a fact that if I were standing next to the airport hearing to this same roar, I would be annoyed by it beyond belief. Go figure…

Days 209-213 – OBX – Food is mood OR It is what it is…

For some people food is merely fuel. Without noticing any taste, they relocate the content of their plates into their mouths, thus starting the processes of ingestion and digestion, raising glucose level, releasing insulin, secreting intrinsic factor, and that is that.

For me, food is art. Food is social interaction. Food is struggle and victory, sadness and joy, boredom and fun. Food is mood. Usually, good mood.

That is why the week of our annual food fest in OBX is so special to me. Last year, Ellen and Alex invited a group of friends (12 people altogether) to rent a house in North Carolina for a week's vacation. Our diverse team is an excellent combo of amazing chefs and avid foodies, and somewhere between a home-made pizza night and a Korean BBQ beach outing it became clear that this gourmet event was paving the way for an annual tradition.

The week's cooking schedule and approximate menu get approved before the trip. We bring our essential cooking equipment from home to ensure that the absence of special knives or blenders does not get in the way of executing our original food ideas. First thing we do on arrival is shopping, a team effort that usually takes several hours (especially when some smart pants among us insist on self check-out of our 1000-dollar worth groceries).

Of course, other fun activities happen during this trip. This time, for example, Michael and Dima got scuba-certified by Javier (hurray! now we can all dive in Cozumel, hopefully, soon!). We go to the beach during the day to swim and during the night to watch the million stars that we forgot about in the fog of the city.
But our days revolve around meals and at any time of the day (and sometimes night) you can see someone in the kitchen, chopping, boiling, stirring, kneading… Logically, the memento of the trip is… the menu:

Dinner Menu

Saturday:
Lunch (on the road) - Old Mill crab house
Dinner (on location) – Mac & cheese
Sunday: Tamales by Diana

Monday: Korean BBQ by Ellen at the beach and oysters by Dima, Michael and Javier ("bought by" that isJ)
Tuesday: Four different kinds of pizza by Dave (shrimp and artichoke, sausage, deep dish, mozzarella and basil)

Wednesday: Ellen's amazing seafood soup (that we had to eat for breakfast due to… see below)

Our breakfast spread always included freshly baked bread and some kind of yummy omelet and lunch – Bubba burgers and hotdogs made by Alex and Simon, the masters of the grill.

Argh! Our trip got cut short due to the stupid hurricane Earl!!! We were supposed to stay till Saturday, but had to evacuate on Wednesday! Unbelievable! The problem was all the food that we had left and all the goodness that didn't get to be cooked, including but not limited to slow-cooked Mexican style pork stew and grilled marinated pork shoulder. THIS was the real disaster.

Of course, the stupid hurricane died away by Thursday night, which means we didn't really have to leave… Oh well, it is what it is…

Days 204-208 - NY, NY - Week 6 - I h-e-a-r-t NYC

This week's sentiment - I h-e-a-r-t NYC, it is the best city on Earth. I used to hate poems because I couldn't understand their concise beauty, but now I'm sad that I cannot write one about New York myself...

THE CITY
by Prabhath Avadhanula

The city is gritty, dark, and hard.
The subways rumble on and on.
The rats scurry as the people overflow
Onto the station and up to the neon show.

Outsiders look up, locals look straight.
The hawkers haggle, the hookers wait.
The traffic rushes scornful of the streets
Marred and littered with a million moving feet.

And yet the congregations grow.
Worldly masses turn and flow
To money as muslims to Mecca.
And pilgrims walk amidst the glimpses of gods in Tribeca.

This website - http://www.blackcatpoems.com/n/new_york_poems.html - is actually worth checking out.

This week has also brought me a new art piece. Where shall this beauty be displayed? Absolutely precious:).

Days 197-203 - NY, NY - Week 5 - Four of a kind

I like symmetry of events in my life, so I'm always on the lookout for it. And this week didn't disappoint me.

It started with a friendly game of poker at Sasha's. Although my hands sucked beyond any belief, it was still highly enjoyable just for the improbability of it all: one deck of cards (a new one, mind you!) kept giving us the most unlikely and seemingly statistically impossible combinations -four aces on the flop, four jacks on the flop, four aces on the flop again.

Coincidence? I think, not. Sure enough, four memorable events followed, four of the amazingly warm and fuzzy kind...

Food Club

Some time last year we made an attempt to periodically get together for our own Book Club. That was a complete flop. We just couldn't select any enjoyable book, and no quality discussion - especially polemic - is possible when everybody hates what they read. The gatherings were still nice though. Why? Because awesome food was served at all of them. The choice was obvious. Ditch the book discussion and just focus on what we do best, eating!

Ever since then, approximately once a month, we go to different ethnic restaurants - Mexican, Korean, Persian, Indian, Senegalese, Jewish, you name it - to sample their food selection and general ambiance. This endeavor is an absolute success. Ironically, we do discuss books (sometimes).

Manhattan through the eyes of a tourist

Javier arrived on Wednesday. Sure enough, his bags didn't. I start to notice a pattern here: almost every time somebody comes to visit me (be in Cozumel or Manhattan), something happens to their luggage. Oh well. This time though it was funny: literally, half of the plane didn't find their bags on arrival. Seriously, how is this possible that a couple of hundred suitcases get forgotten!

I love it when friends come to visit Manhattan. It is such a rewarding experience to show them around. It is so easy to impress anybody with Manhattan. You don't have to overexert your brain trying to figure out the next entertainment: just leave the house, turn the corner and discover where the day takes you. So far, the past several days took us to the obligatory touristic Fifth Avenue, Times Square, Central Park, Grand Central and totally un-touristic LES (Lower East Side) with its cozy community parks and yummy restaurants. "Fancy Delancy" bagel sandwich at Russ & Daughters (featuring smoked tuna and wasabi marinated fish roe!) was the definition of deliciousness. Also, Dima and I were totally impressed that Javier liked Holland herring, something that non-Russian / non-Scandinavian / non-Dutch people usually get utterly disgusted by. In their defense, I can see how taking a smelly salty herring by the tail, dress it with cubed raw onions on all sides and sticking it whole in your mouth can be an acquired taste...

Our LES walk reminded me of Tanya's birthday last year, when we decided to celebrate it in style by creating our own Manhattan Treasure Hunt. We had so much fun! Although I almost got killed for "confusing wording" of some clues by the over-competitive participants (obviously, "confusing wording" was part of the clues, duh). The race was organized in 3 parts: everybody was supposed to meet at a different bar after each leg. We (the organizers - Tanya, Michael and I) thought that the bars would be the main attraction of this event and the hunt would be just a nice background to drinking. Little did we know about the winning spirit of our friends! Regardless of the imminent danger I endured throughout the night, this birthday was a super successful operation, and our Treasure Hunt script has been used as a guide to the Lower East Side by some of my out-of-town friends visiting Manhattan!

Memento dinner disaster

No, don't get me wrong, the food was delicious. Five pounds of scalloped potatoes, along with three pounds of green been tomato salad and twelve BBQ shredded beef sandwiches were devoured by 8 people in approximately 15 minutes. It was a more personal disaster for me. You see, I pride myself on always cooking a new main dish for my dinner parties. And so far I had been successful in keeping up with this self-imposed objective. Until this past Friday...

I decided on the menu on Monday, the main dish being BBQ shredded beef sandwiches. I picked this one because it involved slow-cooking, brewed coffee and liquid smoke. I remembered wanting to cook this dish before, fascinated by the coffee + liquid smoke combination. But somehow I failed to remember that I, in fact, already HAD cooked it before! Like a total idiot, I was rambling on and on to my friends about my excitement for manipulating the liquid smoke on a skillet. My friends are supportive and polite (apparently), so they patiently tolerated my ranting and happily joined me in my excitement. Of course, later it turned out that they had been surprised by such an overwhelming reaction to this repeat recipe on my part, and that their excitement had stemmed from the fact that they were looking forward to something they had sampled and liked before...

Now the best part. The total cooking time of this dish is 12 hours: 10 of them are actual cooking and 2 are dedicated to pre-paration and post-paration (this word should totally be included in the Webster's!). All this time I continued to be excited and slightly nervous (as usual) about the outcome. None of the steps had tipped me off. Sadly, even having a bottle of liquid smoke was not a good enough clue of having cooked this before (although I did get surprised for a second that I already had it).

The Memento moment finally dawned on me when everything was ready and I was pouring the remaining BBQ sauce from the skillet into a little bowl to put on the table. "Oh crap!", I thought, "This seems so familiar..." My heart sank, and in a split second I saw last BBQ shredded beef sandwiches dinner in backward fast motion: my guests at the table in front of the meal praising the deliciousness of my BBQ dinner, Dima shredding the cooked meat while I pour the sauce into the exact same bowl, adding the liquid smoke to the skillet, brewing coffee for the sauce, putting meat in the slow-cooker, and finally ordering a 5-pound chuck roast at the Amish Market. What? Wow! Or as Tanya would say in Russian, "nda..."

The Office

Ironically, I met with my office friends in Scranton, "The Office" location. I have always been so fortunate with being surrounded by awesome people. The only reason why I stayed motivated and relatively sane at Strategic Insight for almost 12 years of my tenure is our team. We were always extremely efficient and continuously delivered high quality results not because we cared about our jobs per se, but because we cared about each other. I remember at one management seminars they told us an educational story about Southwest Airlines. Apparently, this airline was one of the very few that didn't completely collapse after September 11. When approached for advice on how they had managed to do it, the CEO or COO of the company said, "It's really very simple. We make sure our employees are happy at all times. Because happy people do good work." It has been our team's motto for years. Thank God!

Days 190-196 - NY, NY - Week 4 - High Anxiety and The Cure

New York is making me anxious. About money. This is a new feeling for me. Well, obviously, I hadn't worried about this before, because I had always worked and had a steady stream of income ever since I was 19 years old. And now that I'm unemployed, the buzzing streets of the city that I love so much ambush me with overwhelming attacks of paranoia. "What if I never find a job that will pay well? What if I will not be able to pay mortgage? Shit, I'll have to sell my cute little apartment, and move somewhere cheap. True, I have always been lucky with my jobs, but what if my luck has run out???" When I force myself into rational thinking about this fear (which is very difficult to get to through the quite tangible panicky symptoms such as heart palpitations and waves of sudden weakness - ridiculous, right?), I realize how irrational it is. After all, I'm fully qualified and talented enough (as well as modest:)) to expect a good salary in the future of my choosing. I finally realize that New York can be quite intimidating and almost impossible to enjoy while disconnected from the lifeline of continuous influx of money into your account. At least, for me. It is quite annoying that all of a sudden I cannot relax on the subject. I'm a bit disappointed at myself...

The Cure

To distract myself from this high anxiety, I read. A lot. This week I have devoured three books: "Without Reservations: The Travels Of an Independent Woman" by Alice Steinbach, "Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi" by Geoff Dyer, and "Don't Read The Book" by Michael Clifford. The travelogue was recommended by a friend, "Jeff in Venice" was a New Yorker book club selection, and the book by Clifford was my own pick based - for the first time in my life (I usually buy books by recommendation only) - solely on my sudden attraction to its cover at Barnes and Noble. None of these books is especially good. However, all of them are entertaining. "Jeff in Venice" deserves a special mention, because it almost made me blush: after about a hundred pages -without any particular warning that it was going that way - it suddenly launched into a very detailed two-page play-by-play of pretty sophisticated (in the sense of highly complicated and finely experienced) sex. Turns out that I was startled by this sudden turn of events only because I had not bothered to read the cover that clearly defines the book as "a wildly original novel of erotic love and spiritual yearning". I wouldn't go so far as "wildly original", but it was a pleasure to read. At the same time it made me feel a bit stupid since I couldn't catch any allusions to Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice", whereas apparently it was meant as an act of repudiation. Oh well...

Reading took up most of my time this week, but I did do other things as well.

Eat Pray Love

A friend asked me, "Are you going to watch 'Eat Pray Love', loosely based on your life story?" Of course. I just had to do it. The movie felt longer than the book and was much less funny and far more dramatic. I know, many people don't like 'Eat Pray Love', but I actually enjoyed the book quite a bit. Most likely, I just was in the right mind-frame for taking it all in exactly as it was intended. And no, I hadn't decided to go travel because of the book; in fact, my general direction had been mapped out long before I knew about the existence of the book. Actually, I would have never even thought about reading it had it not been for this talk by Elizabeth Gilbert on the subject of creative genius, especially the Tom Waits beat:

One day he was driving on a Los Angeles freeway when a fragment of a melody popped into his head. He looked around for something to capture the tune -- a pencil or pen -- but had nothing to record it.

He started to panic that he'd lose the melody and be haunted by it forever and his talent would be gone. In the midst of this anxiety attack, he suddenly stopped, looked at the sky, and said to whatever force it was that was trying to create itself through the melody, "Excuse me. Can you not see I'm driving? Do I look like I can write down a song right now? If you really want to exist, come back at a more opportune moment ... otherwise go bother somebody else today. Go bother Leonard Cohen."

Waits said his creative process, and the heavy anxiety that permeated it, changed that day. In releasing the creative force, he realized that creativity "could be a peculiar, wondrous, bizarre collaboration and conversation between Tom and the strange external genius that was not Tom".

Happy Hour at SI

Just like New York, Strategic Insight hasn't changed a bit since I left on my trip. This encounter felt strange though, as I showed up right where I had left off six months ago. Realizing this confused me: on one hand, it is comforting to know that things don't change and hence you cannot lose your professional grip even after a long absence; on the other hand, does that mean that while you are continuously present at a non-changing job, you are actually stagnant? Despite this unpleasant question lingering on my mind, the evening was more than pleasant. The Stag's Head is a great venue, one of those rare places where you can actually sit down with your drink and talk, instead of the usual lip-reading to the head-cracking musical "background", pushed and squished by a million people around the bar.

Tell me what gift you choose for your boyfriend, and I will tell you who you are...

No, I still cannot figure that one out! Here's the story. Tanya's boyfriend Michael finished writing his book last week, and as a gift, she... ADOPTED A WALRUS for him. Sweet, no? We sincerely hope that the walrus is not coming to visit his new family any time soon.

www.freerice.com

I wish I had found this website - www.freerice.com - when Tatyana and Liang were obsessed with iPhone Scrabble in Cozumel. That could have certainly given me a competitive edge in the obsession department back then. But it's OK, I'll catch up now. My current indulgence of compulsive behavior actually makes a difference: FreeRice is a non-profile website run by the United Nations World Food Program, and for each correct answer in your vocabulary game it makes a 10-grain rice donation to the countries with chronic hunger.

Sunday brunching

Brunch is my favorite meal. What can be more relaxing and enjoyable than getting together with friends on a late Sunday morning to spend several leisurely hours in the presence of delicious food, refreshing drinks, and pleasant chit-chat about nothing!

Days 183-189 – NY, NY - Week 3 - Starting the Next SIX Months

I cannot believe it's already been half a year… How is it possible, that time flies with such unbelievable speed?

I can safely assume that I'm not the only one who is fascinated by the change in our perception of time when we are children versus when we grow up. Nabokov, for one, says the following on the topic of fast-moving time in his "family chronicle" Ada, or Ardor:
"… of course, at fifty years of age, one year seems to pass faster because it is a smaller fraction of my increased stock of existence and also because I am less often bored than I was in childhood between dull game and duller book." I love how Nabokov never suggests anything, he knows. There are no "maybes" for him, there are only "definitelys". I have never read anybody more arrogant, more obnoxious. Never have I read anybody more elegant and delightful. Incidentally, Ada, or Ardor is my favorite book of his, although at the same time this is the most difficult book I have ever read. Given that I'm pretty fluent in English I didn't understand probably 35% of what he was saying. To be fair, when I originally read it in Russian (Nabokov, by the way, wrote it in English and then translated it into Russian himself, like he did with a lot of his books), I didn't understand a big percentage of words and constructions either. Reading it was like a dream – a blurry vague narrative mixed with bright moments of light-bulb understanding. And when you do understand what he is saying, IT IS ALWAYS GORGEOUS! Reading this book was a true love-hate relationship experience for me.

When I left New York six months ago, I honestly believed that I would grow tired of not working and being away from my routine… I thought that after my MBA adventure (Mexico/Brazil/Argentina) I would be eager to find a new job… NOT AT ALL! I'm not ready to settle back. I am absolutely not done with my journey.

I have thought of a new approach to my travels now. I want to go back to Mexico or Argentina (or both) and live there for a while. Find some absolutely unlikely job (unlikely for me that is; in other words something that does not constitute a career-oriented move). Learn to speak Spanish fluently. Learn the culture. Travel a bit around the country of choice. Eat. Sleep. (Dive). Quoting Elizabeth Gilbert from her awful sequel to Eat, Pray, Love titled Committed, I would like to try the "travel that isn't even really travel anymore, but rather a willingness to be ingested indefinitely by an unfamiliar place." At this point, it seems like a grand idea. We shall see how it pans out.

Highlights of the Week

• We celebrated Dima's birthday* at a reputable New York steakhouse The Capital Grille. It was delicious. By New York standards… My taste buds have not forgotten the real Argentinean asado, and sadly, the comparison is not in favor of NYC… But the company was unbeatable! By any standards!
  
  

  * For the past several years there has been some confusion around Dima's age, started by his ex-girlfriend organizing a huge surprise party for his 29th birthday, thinking that it was his 30th... This big celebration set a new clock for his age, and although he is 32 this year, we all think he is 33, and somehow it is impossible to reprogram.

  
  
• In The Witch of Portobello by Paolo Coelho the main character says, "You should acquire knowledge on a specific subject only when you have the need for it." In other words, there's no reason to be an erudite unless your job is to write encyclopedia articles. I had to re-read those lines many times this week in an attempt to convince myself that it is OK to be so unbelievably ignorant as it turns out I am. You see, when I went to watch the documentary The Radiant Child, I had no idea who Jean-Michel Basquiat was. And then it turned out that not only he was one of the most important pop-artists of our time and a dear friend (just friend) of Andy Warhol's, but also that the whole world - except for the ignorant me and a couple of equally ignorant friends of mine (let's not name names here, you know who you areJ) - knows about him and his amazing life story. Really, how can I live with myself after this?
  
  
• We celebrated Michael's book finish at The Beer Garden in Astoria. Pictures are worth a thousand words, aren't they?
  
  
• I haven't had a migraine for over two months now, so I guess, it's inevitable that I would have one at a most inconvenient time. Well, there's never a really convenient time for a headache, but frankly, I would prefer to have it during the week, when all my friends are busy working, than during the ENTIRE WEEKEND, filled with lots of fun hanging-out plans! Not fair! I have been bed-bound unable to move for two full days starting Saturday morning. I have to admit that when I was in a migraine pain non-stop for months, my attitude toward it was much better, more optimistic. Nowadays, when I get a migraine fairly rarely, I get either pissed at myself (for not being able to get rid of this pain once and for all) or utterly depressed. Today, I'm pissed.