Cassandra - Times Online - WBLG

Google Alert

A friend of mine told me about this last night. “Every time someone mentions you on the web,” she said, “Google will send you an alert.” My first thought was, characteristically, dread. Why would I want that? All those alerts coming in all the time … it will be a distraction.

But then she pointed out maybe there’s stuff being said that I would want to know about.
“There could be a lot of people you don’t know about who don’t like you.”

So I changed my mind. Who could pass that up?

What a mistake. Now, I’m waiting. And waiting. And there hasn’t been one alert. Not one.
So depressing. I’m now obsessively checking my e mail to see who’s not talking about me.

I called my friend. “How long does it take?” I asked.

“Oh, right away. You’ll see. They pop up all the time.”
“How do you know?”
“That’s what happened to me when I put my name in.”

Maybe I didn’t do it right. So I took my name out and put in “Hillary Clinton” just to see what would happen. Before I was even done typing, there was an alert.

Now that I know it’s not broken, I put my name back and have returned to receiving nothing.
This can’t be good for my self-esteem. But I’m hanging in until I get one alert.
How long will it take? A month? A year? I’ll keep you posted….

I'm Too Late To Say I'm Sorry

What’s the difference between an excuse and an explanation?

The other day I was meeting someone for lunch and I was half an hour late. When I arrived, apologizing profusely, I approached the table and I could tell that whatever I was about to say wouldn’t matter. I could have been held up at gunpoint. I could have been in a car accident. I could have been in a car accident and then held up at gunpoint and I knew what his response would be. "Well you should have left earlier.”

And blaming it on traffic is the worst way to go. There’s always someone who will point out: traffic doesn’t make people late, it makes late people later.
So how far in advance am I supposed to leave to make 100% sure I’m not late? If I have a lunch plan with someone do I leave after breakfast?

But if you think about it, the person who is waiting has it easy. They’re inside, sitting at a table with a glass of wine, quietly fuming. Whereas the person who’s rushing not to be late is on the verge of a stroke. We're stuck in a tunnel of darkness underground with no way to escape, sweat dripping, the mobile has no signal and the train isn’t moving. And, worst of all, you know that when you arrive and say “The tube had delays” or “Traffic was terrible”, you might as well be saying “I don’t care about you” because that’s all they hear.

Why is it that people who are kept waiting never seem to think about the people who are late? It’s very inconsiderate.

Spiders in London

It is 2:45 am and I have a situation. About 3 hours ago, I spotted a spider in the bedroom. I was just about to get into bed when I saw it climbing up the wall. My initial reaction was to feel grateful that I had not yet turned out the light. What if I hadn't known it was there? Thankfully, I saw it. I stood on the bed and panicked. All sorts of things went through my head.

First – the article I read in the tabloids about the invisible spider – highly poisonous - that came in a bunch of bananas and bit a woman – or was it a man – it bit someone. And they nearly died.
.
Second – I thought of a friend of mine who years ago was bitten by a brown recluse spider while she slept and then nearly lost her leg.

Third – I thought of how I could never go on I’m A Celebrity - even though I’m not a celebrity and would never be asked, it didn’t matter – the point was there are spiders in the jungle. Loads of them.
I felt a surge of admiration for all those celebrities. Even though I couldn't remember who they were.

At this point, I’m standing on the bed wondering who to call and what to do. It was too late to call a friend and, who would I call anyway? Liza in New York? She's got her own problems with mice. This is what a husband is for. I’m fine most of the time on my own but I really just need someone to deal with things like spiders in the bedroom late at night.

Someone needs to come up with a 24-hour hotline to call for Emergency spider, bug, and vermin situations.

Just then, as I’m thinking of all this…I can see that the spider has moved to the ceiling and is now sliding down. At least I think it’s the same spider. I watch as it slides - not so slowly either - inches away from where I had just been standing. It was like a horror movie.
If I hadn't moved it would have landed on me.

So now I’ll be up all night because there is no way I can go to sleep. Who can sleep with a spider in the room? It could crawl up my leg or into my ear.

I decided since I’m up all night anyway to go on the web and I googled: “Spiders in London.”
BAD IDEA. I’d thought it might be reassuring if I could spot the spider and see that it wasn’t deadly. But I hadn’t counted on all the close-up photos of all the spiders. Then, under the heading “UK Spider Bites” it said: It may come as a surprise that a dozen or more spider species resident in the UK are capable of.…
I couldn’t bring myself to click and find out the rest of that sentence.

Now it’s 3:30 am. I keep looking up at the ceiling every 5 minutes making sure there aren’t any spiders descending. This spider wasn’t tiny either. It had long longs that looked very…spidery. And, it’s still alive. Only now I don’t know where it’s gone. It could be in my boot, waiting to bite my toe.

I don’t know what to do. There are other people out there who have been in this situation, I’m sure. What happened? What did you do? Are you still alive?

Elevator Encounter

All sorts of people live in my building in NY. Yesterday I was in the elevator at around 7 pm waiting for the doors to close when a man got on at the last moment and pressed 14. Normally I don't talk to people on the elevator. But he was wearing scrubs. “Are you a doctor?” I asked. He replied yes, he was. “Do you live in the building?”
He told me he did.
Suddenly, I was excited. “What kind of doctor are you?”
“I’m a gastroenterologist.”
“A gastroenterologist? I need a gastroenterologist! Can I get your card?”
He paused.
“I don’t really like to treat people who live in the building.”
“Why? Because they know where you live?”
He looked uncomfortable.
“What do you need a gastroenterologist for?”
“I think I have IBS”
“You don’t have IBS. It’s stress and diet.”
“How do you know?”

We had reached his floor and he was about to step off the elevator but not wanting to be rude, he held the door from shutting with is arm and continued the conversation.

“Why do you think it’s IBS?”
“Because I’m bloated all the time and…” Just then I realized rather than have him hold the elevator, why not get off at his floor? I stepped off the elevator.
He looked disappointed. Now we were standing in the hallway.

“I’m telling you,” he said, “It’s stress and diet.”
“What if it’s not? What if it’s colon cancer?”
“Do you have a history of colon cancer in your family?”
“No.” I paused. “Not that I know of.”
“Ok,’ he said, reaching into his pocket, and backing up. “Here’s my card. I gotta go. Dinner’s on the table”

I thanked him and when I got upstairs to my apartment, I put his card on my desk. I'll keep it but I probably won't call him. He's right, it would be weird. I don't like people checking out what I'm bringing back from the supermarket - why would I want to run into someone who knows what going on in my intestines?