Dedicated to the Fashion Week, Tommy Hilfiger and Nice Subway Strangers

It's Fashion Week in NY.  Did you know?  I only found out this Thursday under peculiar circumstances...

My closet ate two of my skirts and countless number of tops.  It's true and it can happen to you if you are not vigilant and stuff your closet with everything: from bags of old clothes prepared but never quite given to donations to ill fitting shoes you are not ready to part with to confiscated toys.  Somewhere in between the bag of unmatched children's socks and an old pillow are my missing clothes.  But to find them, I would need to organize my closet, so for now I am doing without.

The absence of skirts coupled with the fact that quite a few of my other skirts have salt and snot stains on them - winter, I know you are here! - resulted in having nothing to wear one fine Thursday morning.  Frantically going through every piece of clothing I own and rejecting them one by one - snot, too small, too summery, too dressy, salt, snot, yogurt, snot, too small, wore just yesterday, damn it, I should've left 5 minutes ago!!!!- I finally came to a piece that resulted in a "maybe".  It was kind of summery, somewhat ill-fitting (yes, I gained weight like I do every winter and summer and fall ) and a jumper to boot, but running 15 minutes late made the "maybe" piece a winner.  In retrospect I realize that even my closet exercised a better sense of fashion by refusing to consume this jumper.  But maybe my closet just got overly fastidious, after all it was Hilfiger! 

Despite my unseasonal garb, the entire day went just fine.  Going back to work, the subway was overflowing with people, but I don't think that it's fair to blame my jumper for it.  As I squeezed myself between two people who insisted on standing close to the doorways, I came standing right in front of a seated guy about my age.  "Asian," I thought, so I figured that I had about 50% chance of getting his seat at Delancey, only three stations away.  Yes, racial profiling in NY subway system is so rampant, it's appalling.  As I was shamelessly calculating my chances to get his seat, our eyes met and he uttered the unicorn of subway phrases, only few of the riders claim to have heard and scientifically proven to be non-existent.  "Would you like a seat?"

 I was caught a bit off-guard.  I was not pregnant - did he know something I didn't? - or sick or elderly.  But then my instincts kicked in and I said, "Sure!  You are being awfully nice.  Thank you."  "He must be getting off next stop," I told myself.  He did not.  I stubbornly pushed away the obvious.  "He must be a REALLY nice guy," I thought.  We passed Delancey, and my benefactor was still standing only a few inches away from me.  I looked at my jumper, my protruding stomach and remembered slightly greenish tint on my face from watching Interny till wee hours the night before; all the dots connected and I could no longer deny it.  "The nice SOB thinks I'm pregnant."  As this thought entered my mind, I glanced to the left and saw my neighbor studying pictures from the Fashion Week shows.  "Is it Fashion Week?  Again?  (Sigh.)  I am so out of vogue.  (Deep sigh.) I bet this fashionista would never wear a jumper that made her look pregnant, " I sulked.

And then another thought entered my mind.  "Too bad for her."  I got a seat in an over-crowded subway car.  Half of those well dressed fashionable women were getting killed by their high heels and poked in the ribs by neighbors' elbows.  And frumpy and pregnant looking me was comfortably sitting.  Right then and there I made a decision to upgrade the jumper to an all-season regular.  With that thought I peacefully drifted off to dream about fashion, jumpers and Interny.

With a little help from my neighbors...

I just shocked my neighbor, profoundly. No, I did not run around the neighborhood in my birthday suit, set anyone on fire or robbed a local grocery store. I had done something much, much stranger. I decided to be nice.

About two years ago the house next door to ours was sold and new neighbors moved in. According to my husband there are at least three families living there. Whatever, they don't disturb us and we don't disturb them. As a matter of fact, they seem to be of the rare species in our neighborhood - the ones that actually use their garage and driveway and don't take up precious parking space on the street. And that seems to be about all we know about them. They could be some cult leaders, practicing polygamists, a band of psychopaths or the latest most popular reality family on TV - and we would be the last to know. Well, turns out that they know about us even less than we know about them.

I was taking out garbage tonight when I saw neighbor's daughter pulling into the driveway. As good manners dictate, I made my way to open the gate and save the girl trouble of getting in and out of her car. All of a sudden I heard honking, then again. I stopped opening the gate and heard the girl telling me, "Hey, I live here!" I asked her if she wanted me to open her gate. She repeated about what she and I and now you already know - that she lived here. Finally I said, "I KNOW. I am your neighbor! I just wanted to help."

It finally dawned on the girl that she was not heroically stopping the robbery of her house. She started thanking me, still rather surprised that anyone would actually do something nice for people she doesn't know well. Then she said something that shocked me even more than my good will gesture shocked her. She said that she had never seen me around, but she probably had seen my daughter. She went on and on and turned out she wasn't referring to either DD or the baby, but my college age daughter. In a nutshell, she was mistaking me for my landlady, who is 1)the mother of TWO college age and still living at home daughters, 2)is 5 inches shorter and 3) is at least 20 years older than me.

Once again, SubHub found the whole age thing quite amusing, but left me wondering whether marriage had aged me THAT much.

In the heat of the night

Wish to congratulate everyone on the start of the air conditioning and consequently high electricity bills season! Those who were complaining about an unusually long cold weather got their wish, bleh! No more baking, farewell to home made cakes and pizza, roasted potatoes and peppers, baked fish and chicken. On the other hand, welcome unapologetic consumption of ice cream!

Which reminds me, last night a had a huuuuge craving for apricot ice cream. I could not remember for the life of me when and where on earth I have had apricot ice cream/frozen yogurt or was it just a figment of my imagination and I never actually had it? Hmm... If any one of you has any idea where I could get one, please drop a comment. (Could it have beeb one of those Israeli five-flavored tubs? Anyone? I am stuck at home and can't check out my theory.) The craving is gone, but the mystery of where I had or hadn't this flavor of ice cream is still bothering me.

The Mysterious Affair in Brooklyn

This post will make the most sense to local kosher Brooklynites. Did you notice that about a month ago whole chickens - that previously were sold with all limbs attached - are now missing at least one wing and sometimes both? First I thought it was the Mountain Fruit schtick, but now that I have started shopping in Moisha's, I have noticed the same thing! Not that I miss them or anything because kosher chicken wings look like that have been on aggressive Rogaine therapy and are pretty much inedible unless you want to spend an hour plucking them. But I am curious nevertheless...

What's going on? Did they start purchasing their chickens from the abused bird shelters? (Just imagine that from the chickens' perspective. There you are at the shelter thinking that you are finally being rescued only to be slaughtered after they fatten you up. Unimaginable cruelty, I say. Unless, of course, these birds died of natural causes. - I'm going to pause for a minute and gag.)

Or did the chicken wings became the choice of poultry among the rich and famous and all of a sudden saw a sudden increase in demand? Or maybe they are using them to feed/torture political prisoners/war criminals and Madoff?

Here's another theory, maybe our patriotic kosher chickens are cutting off their wings to protest all the bailouts, stimulus packages and current economic situation? Or maybe their wings are falling off due to a lack of preventive care because chickens do not have universal health coverage?

Does anyone know what's going on?

P.S. For those who are not very familiar with the laws of kashrut, animals who were sick at the time of the slaughter or died of natural causes are not kosher by default. I was just trying to be funny, that's all.

Can't we all just get along?

Apparently not.

Warning: I am in a horrible mood. Really, really bad mood. So if you are looking for something cute and bubbly and sunshiny, head over to some other blog. Still here? Thanks, but consider yourself warned.

You know one would think that once a person reaches a certain age, i.e. stops being a teenager, some things become apparent without anyone pointing them out. That, for example, teasing people is not nice. Or that having the latest cell phone doesn't really make you have a cool personality. There's another one: listening loudly to the music causes hearing damage. And is annoying to your neighbors. Especially the ones with little kids. Especially at 1.30 am. On the night when we change the bleeping clock and lose an hour of sleep.

But no, some people just don't get it. Probably because they incurred irreversible brain damage from listening to their Walkmans on max. volume.

Last night since about 9 p.m. our neighbors were playing techno. So loud, my kitchen floor was vibrating. But the kids weren't asleep yet, so I basically ignored it. Now, I am not some sort of a music prude or snob. I love, enjoy and listen to it. And on some level I might understand the allure of turning the volume all the way up, if one is a teenager. Our neighbors, however, are no longer teenagers, they are a middle aged woman with three children in their twenties. Who are otherwise functional or so it seems.

Around 10.30 the music became less loud, and we were enjoying a relatively quiet night. When all of a sudden around 12 it started booming again. Us, being polite folk and all, didn't want to disturb people at 12, even though they were disturbing us. At 1 am our patience wore out, and SubHub went downstairs to explain that sleeping is a necessity for some people and vibrating walls and floors are not particularly conducive to slumber. When SubHub came home, I asked him what he told the bunch of young hoodlums. To my sheer astonishment, he said that he didn't talk to the young ones, he was talking to their mother. One would expect that it would've occurred to at least a 50-something year old woman and a mother of three that some things are just not appropriate. Are extremely rude. And even illegal. Not so...

This wasn't over yet. Today, around 2 p.m., I guess around the time when the young and the restless got up (I know they didn't go to sleep until 3 b/c I heard music coming from their apartment at that hour), they turned their techno on again. And if I thought that what I heard last night was the max volume, I was wrong. I guess these people do possess some basic human decency to not turn music on to the max in the middle of the night. I guess I misjudged them or something. I was in a dire need of a nap, but when I felt the bed beneath me vibrating, I knew that there would be no napping.

At that point I decided that if I were to suffer, it would be on my own terms. And if I had to get a headache, it would be from my own music. From the personal experience I know that nothing annoys non-Russian speaking folk as much as Russian rock. At the high volume. Well, maybe except Karmina Burana, but I am keeping that one for the time I go shopping and no one dear to me is in the vicinity.



So here's little something if you have to annoy your neighbors or just want to enjoy a piece of Russian classic rock.

P.S. Happy Women's Day! Almost forgot!

Let it snow

Snow, snow everywhere! And I love it, I simply love it! As SubHub points out that’s because I don’t drive. True, but still there’s something magical about waking up, looking out the window and finding the normally gray and dull Brooklyn winter landscape covered in a while blanket of snow. It makes me feel refreshed, it puts a smile on my face and a spring in my step, and it energizes me better than coffee. It’s so white and pure and clean and beautiful. Ahhhh. (Am I a closeted neat freak? Must shoo away this thought.)

I know that in all likelihood, by the time of my night commute the snow will turn into a brown disgusting mush, and SubHub will complain how hard it was to drive all day long, and the floor in the house will be much dirtier than usual (there again, did you see that? Another thought on neatness just crept up). But I am from the part of the world where snowless winter made just as much sense as a vegetarian steak, so I need a certain amount of this white stuff for mental health (or whatever is left of it) preservation.

So let me enjoy it now and bask in its beauty. Because soon this whiteness will pass and the magic will be gone. And you will be able to drive your cars without any hassle whatsoever (hahahaha, get it? Driving in NYC? Without a hassle? Real funny…ok, ok, maybe not so much. Obviously, the last two snowless winters took their toll on my mental health.)

Kosher lunch in 30 easy steps

I keep kosher and work in Manhattan, so getting lunch presents certain challenges. I do realize that the following post is a confession of a spoiled brat since people in other parts of the country/world/Manhattan have a much harder time finding kosher food or any food at all. But then again, it's my blog and my whining. Whoever wants to remind me about starving children in Africa is free to leave a comment, Mom .

So this is lunch, a-la SubWife, in 30 easy steps.

1. Promise yourself the day before that you will bring lunch from home. It's too expensive and too much trouble to buy.

2. Don't pack lunch the night before and run out of time in the morning. Alternatively, pack lunch and leave it in the fridge. Either option is acceptable since the result is the same.

3. The minute you get into the office, email you lunch buddy, who swore, bli neder, yesterday to finally start bringing lunch from home and find out whether she made good on her promise.

4. Tear up at getting her response. She didn't. Now you don't need to worry about making a minimum for delivery. IF you choose to get it delivered.

5. Start thinking about what it is that you want for lunch around 11. Narrow down your choices: meat or dairy? Make a little list of pros and cons of each, and arrive to conclusion that you want dairy because 1 - meat is too expensive, 2 - food is unimpressive, 3 - your lunch buddy will probably not be in the mood for meat any way, 4 - meat lunch is really, really expensive. Find the list of pros and cons from yesterday and realize that it is exactly the same as today's. And you ALWAYS go with dairy. Promise yourself to never consider meat again.

6. Email your lunch buddy again and casually ask if she gave lunch any thought, knowing perfectly well that she was hard at work on this since 11.

7. Convene at 11.30 for a quick meeting re: what to order for lunch and from where. Be a generous spirit and offer her to make a choice of place. She will try to make you choose, but don't fall for her niceness - it's a trap. For a few minutes try to make each other decide on the place since neither of you wants to be responsible for the disaster that will inevitably come.

8. Once one of you is worn out or tricked into making the decision, choose what you want - salad or something cheesy. Agonize over this decision for another 10-15 minutes, but make up your mind before 12. Whatever unappetizing thing you are getting, you would want to order it before lunch rush or you will get it for dinner.

9. Toy with the idea of actually going out to buy lunch instead of having it delivered.

10. Decide on delivery, just like you did 100 times before. Remind yourself that the added cost of delivery saves you from having to pass by 7 adult DVD stores and 3 strip bars.

11. Finally place an order and feel the weight of decision-making lifted off your shoulders. Take a coffee break because you have exhausted yourself making all these choices.

12. Call the food place back in half hour asking where your order is.

13. Call again in another half hour.

14. Get your order. Carefully examine it. Wonder whether it is your imagination or the salad is actually smaller than the last time. Find beets instead of tomatoes with croutons and grated cheese missing from it. Curse under your breath.

15. Call the place and complain. Graciously accept their apologies and refusal to make you whole or threaten to never do business with them again. Don't worry, no one will take your threat seriously any way; they know that your lunch options are limited.

16. Decide that tomatoes are too important a source of anti-oxidants to forgo and run out in search of a fruit stand. Find that due to bitter cold there are no fruit stands anywhere in sight. Start walking along 8th Ave in hopes of finding a grocery store.

17. Walk three blocks before you find a business, any business, that doesn't sell booze or human flesh, in digital or natural form. Enter the so-called grocery store only to find out that they don't sell tomatoes.

18. Keep walking.

19. Keep walking.

20. In the process of walking ask yourself why you paid extra for delivery since the point of delivery is to avoid walking in the bitter cold.

21. Finally find the store and buy the stupid tomato. Realize that by now you have spent on your lunch more than the average monthly income of an average African family.

22. On the way back to the office consider moving to Africa.

23. Call your significant other and inform that you and him are moving to Africa. Soon. Patiently explain that you are neither drunk nor joking.

24. Learn something new about your genetic makeup from your significant other. Find his findings amateurish and dismiss as a vicious rumor.

25. To preserve peace in the family, decide not to move to Africa. Besides, kosher food is hard to come by there too.

26. Cut the tomato with plastic knife.

27. Eat your salad.

28. Get hungry again in an hour because salad is not very filling.

29. Complain to your lunch buddy about how ridiculous it is to pay so much for bad service and blah food.

30. Swear, bli neder, to bring lunch from home tomorrow.

Peculiarities of parking in Brooklyn

We live on the block with primarily private houses. So common sense would suggest that finding parking there should not be an ordeal because every one of those private houses has a driveway that would easily fit two cars. Easily. Not so. Parking space any time of the day is hard to come by, and after 6 p.m. it is simply non-existent. Since we come home after 7 p.m., parking presents a particular challenge for us. On more than one occasion we circled around the neighborhood for close to 20 minutes, going as far as six blocks away from where we live, only to be unable to find a spot, any spot. And with $200 worth of groceries and two tired toddler in tow, this particular exercise seems even less fun. At the same time, all these driveways are completely empty most of the time, and G-d help you if you block them for more than 30 seconds.

One of our neighbors shows particular devotion to her husband. When she comes home from work around 2 or 3 p.m., she parks her car smack in the middle of two parking spots, so that her husband, who comes home around nine, doesn’t have to look for parking. She simply moves her car into the first spot, and he occupies the second. The idea that someone might desperately need that second spot during the 6-7 hours of her husband’s absence probably doesn’t cross their mind or simply doesn’t bother them. And the funniest thing of all? Their driveway is always empty. Her husband simply could pull into it at any time of the day. But why worry about anyone else?

These peculiar parking habits are unfortunately not unique to our block. The block where we used to live before had similar issues. Again, one of our neighbors could not tolerate anyone other than herself parking in front of her house, which was situated between two driveways. Once hubby had to use that spot because the spot in front of our house was taken (our landlord didn’t let us use the driveway, so we had no option but to park on the street.) The minute we got out of the car, our neighbor started yelling at hubby that he was blocking both her and her neighbor’s driveways. Hubby looked at this woman in complete bewilderment. He wasn’t blocking anything! Our car fit perfectly into that spot. Yet the lady continued to yell that we were blocking her driveway, causing her unimaginable discomfort and pain, and that she would call the cops. Hubby said, “Go ahead.” Of course she didn’t, and even if she did, we got no ticket that day. Again, the most peculiar thing about this exchange was that at the time of her yelling her car was parked at a curbside a few feet from ours. As a matter of fact, it was always parked at the curbside, which left the supposedly blocked driveway free pretty much all of the time. And all that pain and suffering? Probably self-inflicted.

SubReviews: BabiesRUs - Union Square

So I have decided to introduce a new series on my blog: SubReviews. A few weeks ago Sally Hazel made a suggestion that I/we should write a review on double strollers. Funnily enough, by then I was already toying with that same idea. However, I wanted to review toilet paper first. But I took Sally's suggestion to heart and decided to start with something less intimate. Alas, I am being perfectionist about it, and that stroller review has been in my drafts half-written for quite some time.

So brief intro. What qualifies me to write reviews?
1. I am a consumer.
2. I am not picky or fussy, but have reasonably high expectations of services and products.
3. I worked in service industry.
4. I am a maniac, when it comes to spending my money, that is. I like getting my money's worth. I do oodles of research before purchasing thing. And I always feel a bit disappointed: once the decision is made, all that accumulated info is lost and no one else gets to benefit from it.

So here I am, sharing my opinions and reviews about things I buy and places where I buy them.

And now the main feature:

A friend of mine recently had a baby, so I needed to buy something for the bris that will take place tomorrow. One rarely has more than a two or three day notice to shop for a bris gift. Since the recipient is a friend, I felt that giving money was slightly impersonal. Plus, I remembered having my first baby and liking gifts at that time as much as cash and gift cards, if not more. And to top it all of, I really LOVE shopping in baby stores. So I had a dilemma: 1) what to buy and 2) from where.

The choices that I had in Manhattan were very limited: BuyBuyBaby (BBB), ToysRUs (TRU) and BabiesRUs (BRU). (There probably are smaller stores somewhere nearby, but I am not aware of their whereabouts.) I love BBB, but that option was quickly eliminated. I am a strong believer in gift receipts, and they are not. Also, they have very few branches, compared w/RUs network. After some consideration, I eliminated TRU too. I was unable to get in touch w/customer service to find out how extensive their baby section is. So based on my experiences with other branches, I headed to the safe waters of BRU, or so I thought.

BRU at Union Square is a three-floor store. I had an idea of what I wanted to buy - a couple of toys - so seeing toys on the first floor made me smile: it seemed that shopping would be quick. I was wrong. The toys I was looking for weren't among the ones on the first floor. They ended up being on the third floor. This actually gave me an opportunity to look over the entire store. I was not impressed to say the least. Given the amount of space, one would expect great variety, and one would be wrong. One toy I came to buy was not in their inventory. As a matter of fact, their entire toy department was unimpressive.

I decided to abandon my initial plan and buy a bouncer seat. And I was disappointed again: there were only 6 varieties available, three absolutely hideous, 1 dysfunctional, 1 ridiculously expensive, leaving only one viable yet still not impressive option. That idea had to be abandoned as well.

I headed to the clothes dept, and again variety was greatly lacking. I couldn't find anything cute enough for a gift. And again, I am not THAT picky. Finally I went back to toys on the third floor and got one, then picked out bassinet sheets on the second floor and found another toy on the first.

A trip that should have taken ten minutes (because I knew what I wanted before coming into the store!) turned into a full hour ordeal of running between different floors and trying to decide what goes with what. While standing in line, here are conclusions I have made:

1. I still love BRU, but I will probably not come back to the Union Square brunch ever. The one in Gateway Mall is SOOOO much better.
2. Even though they have tons of space, unless you are looking for bedding, car seat or a single stroller, variety is greatly lacking across all other departments.
3. Having three floors is annoying, especially that things are not very logically organized (i.e. toys are located on all three floors).
4. Calling ahead to check on availability would be hard, as the phone seems to always be either busy or unattended.
5. I should listen to SubHub more often. SubHub thought that we should just give a check instead of looking for a gift.
6. It's a fine line between being persistent and stubborn. I should've cut my losses once I realized that the toy I was interested in the most was not in stock and bought a gift card. Yet I persisted in finding a gift...
7. Overall experience (shopping coupled with admitting that DH was right): frustrating.

Lighten down

This past Friday we had a company picnic, and our family members were welcome to come. SubHub was busy that day, so I decided to take DD with me. I was toying with the idea of taking both kids, but that seemed a bit too much. DD behaved reasonably well in the office, and when we finally made it to Central Park, she had a blast. I barely spent any time with her - she was so happy to be in the open space with other kids. Seeing her happily running around made me think that maybe leaving the city is not such a crazy idea after all.

We all had a good time at the picnic. The food was great, the weather was gorgeous, and the planning committee actually came up with some fun games for adults as well as kids. It was really nice to be outside in the park during warm time after a long winter. Everything was fine until some jerk decided to light up, again and again. Please explain this to me: how hard is it to step just slightly aside with your cigarette instead of standing right next to the food table, with kids running around? (Or if you are standing outside of BabiesRUs, where most customers are either pregnant or with little kids, how hard is it to move away from the entrance to avoid blowing smoke in people's faces?) How about some consideration for others? Why is it that smokers understand perfectly well that passing gas and emitting various BOs in public is unacceptable, but will not extend the same logic to smoking? Honestly, I am just as much interested in smelling cigarette smoke as I am in sweaty armpits. Both are gross! And guess what? Many of you, smokers, continue to smell pretty badly long after your smoke break! I have a co-worker who reeks of cigarette smoke so badly that I try to avoid talking to him as much as possible. The smell is simply suffocating. I have heard other people in the office making comments about it, so I am not the only one. But I will bet you this guy is oblivious to this because your own poop doesn't smell to you.

And then there's the issue of health. I am perfectly aware that there are as many studies proving that second-hand smoke causes cancer as there are disproving this. So right now let's say the odds of either opinion being right are about 50/50. When the chance of something being bad for me is just as high as the chance of the substance being benign, it's only prudent to rule on the side of caution. You want to take liberties or chances with your own health - go ahead, but respect my decisions about my and my children's health.

So please, next time you are at a picnic and feel like lighting up, remember that people came there at least in part to enjoy fresh air and step aside from children's playground and food area. Better yet, put a plastic bag over your head so that you get those precious fumes all to yourself.

Another thing I hate about you...

I don't know how I could have forgot this one!!!!


#13. (in reality should be much higher on the list) - People who still haven't discovered the invention of deodorant!!!! Especially the ones that take a subway! Especially on 34th or 42nd street! And if on top of it they wear flip flops....

12 things I hate about you

I am the first one to admit that I dislike summer. I didn't dislike summer before I came to New York, but here the minute winter is over, the temperatures get into high 80s within days, making spring virtually non existent. So here are some of the reasons why I dislike NY summer:


12. It is harder to hide extra weight in light summer clothes. Also, finding modest summer clothing that doesn't suffocate the wearer. requires all the skills of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple combined.

11. Flip flops, everywhere. I don't know why, but they are annoying.

10. Allergies

9. Heat

8. Bill for electricity, double the usual amount due to constantly running air conditioners. For some reason I don't mind the extra expense of ice cream consumption. I wonder why...

7. The music from the ice cream truck!!!

6. Inevitable arguments in the middle of the night, "I want to raise the temperature, I am cold", "But I am hot as is!" "But I am REALLY cold and can't sleep" "Well, get a blanket" "I already have a blanket!" "Then take the winter blanket!!" "Don't you think the temperature is too low if I have to use WINTER blanket in the middle of the SUMMER?!!!. There is a reason why they call it a WINTER BLANKET!!!!!" Not really conducive to the marital harmony. Makes cold winters look really romantic, when one's natural inclination is to cozy up to the significant other...

5. Cooking in the hot kitchen.

4. Having to figure out ways to warm up the food on Shabbat without melting itsconnoisseurs.

3. Ants. Everywhere. Literally. Having to check EVERYTHING in the kitchen for the presence of their little bodies. Even salt. Ewww. Also reminds me of the ant story in Hundred Years of Solitude, bringing back unusually strong desire to strangle the author and hug my children all at once.

2. Mosquitoes, bees, beetles and all other insects that are unusually active during summers.

1. Taking subway. If anyone had ever taken a subway on 34th or particularly 42nd St in Manhattan in the middle of the scorching heat wave, they would know what I am talking about: temperatures that is 10-15 degrees higher than on the surface, terrible smells of subway, hardly pleasant in the chilly weather, intensified tenfold during the summer, gasping for every breath; need I go on? Those who believe in the flames of hell should try it - a very good deterrent against sinning...