Today, I am unloving...

So I turned 40 last February. For a whole year before, my friend A kept telling me that "It's like clockwork. The day you hit 40, your eyesight deteriorates." For a whole year, I was constantly teased about getting reading glasses as my 40th birthday gift.

Thankfully, I didn't get reading glasses as my present. And it didn't seem like I needed them. I was reading perfectly fine, thank you very much!

Until, on a whim, I tried my friend A's reading glasses... And it was, literally, eye-opening. The text on my phone (my only reading material during that night at Barcino's) seemed larger, sharper, clearer! I was shocked.

A week later, when the shock  (and denial) wore off, I had my eyes checked. And... [sob!]... I do need reading glasses!

Today, I am unloving that the "oldometer" really is like clockwork. And that I need to read any scale - oldometer or other - with (gah!) reading glasses!

Photo from heritage.

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the up button is getting me down

The elevators in my very old office building serve different floors. But the Up buttons control all 5 elevators rather than say, just the one that stops on my floor. So when one elevator opens at the ground floor, the Up button lights of all 5 elevators turn off. 

I guess the assumption is that that one elevator is sufficient to serve the ground floor riders. But in the morning, there are 5 long lines of people at the ground floor waiting to go up to one of the 24 floors in our building.

So the people at the front of the lines at the other elevators need to be alert. They need to press the Up button as soon as the elevator that just stopped at the ground floor moves up. Because if the Up buttons stay unlit and an elevator skips the ground floor, the person at the front of the line will get dagger looks from everyone behind him.

But what gets me in a panic is when my elevator is neck-in-neck with another elevator. When that other elevator stops at the ground floor and people are piling in, my elevator from the basement ends up skipping the ground floor. So I have to wait all over again for my elevator to go up to the 24th floor and back down while hoping the other elevators don't pass the ground floor just a few seconds again before my elevator. So imagine my panic when people are piling in so slowly into the other elevator while I see my elevator inching up... B4... B3... B2... B1... Get in, people!!... 

And the tricky thing is that you need to wait for the right time - for the other elevator to start moving up - before pressing the Up button. If you press it too early, the other elevator's door re-opens and it ends up stopping at the ground floor even longer! Gah!!!

Who would have thought an Up button could make me feel so down?

Photo is of a postcard I got from a cool art shop in Vietnam.

Click here for more of my elevator woes.

Today, I am unloving...

Isabella is going to college this coming schoolyear so she will be taking driving lessons before the summer ends. 

I can't help feeling ripped off by the fact that she will be taking lessons to drive an automatic. Having taken lessons at A1 Driving School the summer before college myself, there seemed to be way better value for money learning to drive a car with manual transmission. Now that they don't need to teach the lessons on shifting gears, on getting the right rhythm of releasing the clutch and stepping on the gas (in other words, "making timpla") and on driving on an incline ("hanging"), I'm not really sure what lessons I'm going to be paying for on an automatic.

Okay, okay, they may not bring her to steep inclines...

but they''ll make her drive in busy thoroughfares... 

... (I got honking-jeepney-and-bus-filled North Edsa on my Day 1 years ago!) which I would never do if she took driving lessons from me. And yes, they'll still have to teach her to parallel-park. 

Still... the absence of the manual gear shift just seems to eliminate the lesson that requires the most teaching. And somehow, it doesn't seem to be "real" driving when you don't know how to shift gears. That seems to be the essence of driving - feeling your car's power, knowing the right moment to shift gears as you speed up on the highway.

So today, I am unloving... that Isabella's driving lessons may teach her how to maneuver her car around the city, but it might not teach her the true essence and joy of driving. 

Photos from annniegirl and americanhoney.

Click here for previous posts from the Today, I am unloving... series.

oops, my neurosis is showing...

As you might know from here, I've been enjoying my new grown-up's coloring book. But I have to admit that when I started out, it kind of tested my decision-making skills.

After coloring in one part, so many thoughts flooded my head: Which color do I use next? Which warm color do I put beside this cool color? Should I pair it with its complementary color or not? 

With all these decisions, coloring a page took a while. Until I started a ROYGBV color scheme...

Coloring rainbow-style made it easier to choose which color to use next! So I've been obsessed with it.

Gee, I wonder when I'm ever going to finish this non-ROYGBV page now...

Oops, my neurosis is showing again.

Photos are my own and from here.

Click here for the of-dots-&-things version of this post. Click here for previous posts from the Oops, My Neurosis Is Showing... series.