December Recap

Wow. What a month. I have been more busy than ever before, mostly owing to my new job taking me all over the globe. I moved into my new apartment on Nov. 30th. “Moved in” is a generous term because I really only had a desk, a chair, four bookcases to hold my DVDs, and a bed as usuable furniture from my shipment from the Hague.

I spent exactly one night in my new digs, got up the next day and flew to London. This proved to be only the beginning of the tenuous relationship I have with my new apartment. In the past nineteen days of December I have been in London for five days, Godalming for three and a half days, back in New York for three days before finding out I need to make a last-minute trip to both the Netherlands and to Heidelberg (where I am in a hotel room now at 2:09am suffering from jetlag and writing this). I was in Princeton for a day delivering furniture that wouldn’t fit in my apartment, seeing friends, and making shopping trips for myself for Christmas in Princeton’s WalMart and in Newark’s IKEA.

I bought myself a new plasma TV (nothing extravagant, only 32 inches), as well as a new suite of IKEA furniture. I was in such a rush that I didn’t even really look around IKEA, I merely looked at the printouts that Lynn sent me of stuff that she picked out from their site (a little remote shopping in Newark from Guildford, god what a marvelous world we live in). I have to say, I was a bit worried about the aqua, lime green, fuschia, and red-striped carpet that she picked out, but as I was running late and had no time to comparison shop I threw it in the cart and raced to the checkout.

I shouldn’t have worried. I was never going to make it in time to return the rental car anyway. At 2:00pm, the time when the van was supposed to be back at AVIS, I was walking out of the IKEA in Newark. It took me an hour just to get from Newark to 76th street, half an hour to unload the car by myself and drag my bags up the steps, and when I returned the car at just before 4:00pm they graciously agreed to charge me only 75% of an extra day instead of 100%.

Thanks Avis. You guys are so swell.

Now, I just have to find time in the next four days to go to work, do all my Christmas shopping, stay home to get my cable/Internet installed and receive delivery of all the IKEA furniture I couldn’t carry myself and had delivered (which is most of it).

And the travelling isn’t done then. There’s one more flight to take on the 24th. But I’m looking forward to this one. Heading to Florida to spend Christmas in the (hopefully) sunshine and palm trees playing tennis and sitting in the hot tub at Hammock Dunes.

If only I drank, then I could throw in “sipping a fruity cocktail with a little umbrella in it”.

If you don’t get a Christmas present from me this year, I apologize in advance.

Maybe I can gift you some frequent flyer miles.

😉