Settling in, again...

Ate the best sushi in SF for dinner. Again. How can something that’s good for you be so sinfully good? And so bloody filling? After eating what seemed like a tuna and a half, I felt like a walrus, and waddled back home at furious pace to attempt to burn off the rice. It reminded me of the San Sebastian vacation where we would attempt to stave off the guilt associated with a whole day’s uninterrupted hogging by climbing the 4 flights of stairs up to the apartment. Ahhh... such good times!

Got my hair cut… not a single person noticed the difference... in fact, some even seemed to doubt the veracity of my claim. Not exactly what I wanted to hear after trolling the web to find someone who would cut my hair within the next 2 hours (I was bored, and those bangs were LONG!), and then trudging all the way to the only hair salon in the Castro that had that someone who would. I would have driven, but finding parking in SF is possibly the only thing that scares me more than climbing hills.

Lately, I have gotten into the elite circle of employees who routinely experience the joy of late night calls with my brethren in the east. In this particular case (Halloween night), my involvement was requested to de-mystify the history & contract with a partner, to enable the purchase of more s/w. Before you underestimate the thrill of this job, I must throw in that this is a contract whose success was measured in kilograms.

Anyway, back to the call itself…this is the excruciating level of preparation that went into this call (all this exchange via email):

Me: "Meeting requested on tuesday at __"

India Party: "Can we have this call on friday pls?"

Me: "Is friday the earliest you can do? We need the license urgently in our India office...is there any way we can work out a time earlier than friday?"

India party: "I can also do the same tomorrow same time" (CHAMPION!)

Me: "Thanks a lot… so would that mean Wed, Oct 31 @ 10:30 p.m. for us (US pacific time), and Thursday, Nov 1 @ 11 a.m. (IST) for you?"

India party: "For me it would be 9:00 am to 9:30 am on 1st Nov Indian time" (not according to my calculations, but oh well...)

So… I send out an updated meeting invite.

India party: "Should be fine but can I dial below number from my mobile. I will be connecting from my home"

Me: "To be honest, I don’t know, as I haven’t dialed the India toll-free number myself. Perhaps you could try it before-hand, and let me know if it doesn’t work?"

India party: "It’s working. I have accepted"

Yipitee-fucking-do, right? Wrong. Fast forward to next day: 15 mins of waiting… no sign of India party on call. Meanwhile, my colleague who is on the call with me is bummed about missing all this trick-or-treat time with his young kids. And I’m smarting about losing out on prime booze guzzling time!!

Sometimes I wonder why I do this job. Why have I not put all my savings towards some good plastic surgery, “invested in myself” and snagged myself a rich (and mostly absent) husband? Actually, I think I know the reason why... it's because my so-called savings would only be able to get me one new boob... how pathetic would it be to have the other one on lay-away? Or be afraid that it'd be taken back if the monthly payments weren't made? Maybe it still won't be too late in 4-5 years.