rebecca soble

I went to the Carrefour in Maltepe today, enjoying the feeling of being in a large supermarket with wide aisles and big selections.  I don’t know why I’ve never gone there before, it’s an easy ride on the minibus from my house.  But being three days before payday, my budget is tight so I bought just 8 things (fruit, veg, sandwich materials for workday lunches + some “garden spirit” scented tealight candles on sale for 3TL).  I went to the checkout and was pleased to find one reasonably short.  I got in the row, waited, put my things on the conveyor, and waited a bit more.  Then a woman came behind me and had also started putting her items on the conveyor when the cashier told her that this particular checkout was 5 items or less.  The cashier was very strict about this and made the woman leave.   I just watched.  I hadn’t realized I was in a restricted lane (the sign was very high up) and was wondering when the cashier was going to notice that I too was over limit.  In the meantime another woman came behind me and was discussing with the cashier whether 10 items would be okay since 5 of them were the same (5 packets of the same brand of mallo-cookies, yuck).  When it came my turn to check out, the cashier finally realized that I also had more than 5 items and she was about to get strict with me too, I could tell.  By this time there were two people behind me and it would have been a real pain in the patootie to retrieve my basket, refill it, back out, and get in another lane where everyone had carts piled high.  I had an inspiration:  I started talking in English.  “I’m really sorry, I just didn’t realize!”.   That was all it took, and she made an exception for my extra three items and let me go through.  As I took my change, I said (in my best English) “Thank you VERY much!” and smiled.  Nevermind that I understood every conversation around me and once I saw the sign knew exactly what it said and could have spoken to the cashier in Turkish.  Sometimes you’ve just gotta use your opportunities.

FWIW I think the “X items or fewer” concept is great, but I think the X should be closer to 10 or 12.   There’s a big difference between someone with a basket-ful and someone with a cart-ful.  If I have 8 items, is it better for me to be in the limited-item lane or fuming in the lane with people who have 50 items?  Here’s a nice solution I saw online, at another Carrefour (a French supermarket that has gone global) in Shanghai.  If you have a basket, you can pass through.  If you need a cart, find another lane.  I suppose someone could cheat with two baskets, but who wants to carry two baskets?

BTW the sign in the Maltepe Carrefour was about the same color and height as that one in Shanghai, but sideways to the checkout lanes rather than readable straight on.  I would have had to come to the checkout lanes from near the entrance in order to read it.

Ok, that’s enough about supermarket checkout lanes. 

In the US, if a workman came to your house to cut a hole in a glass window for exhaust ventilation, that workman would then clean up the glass fragments left on the floor afterwards.

In the US, a workman would assume that you wanted your possessions covered with drape cloths while they were doing the work and bring them along at the start rather than wait for you to insist, go out and buy them, and then two hours after starting the work, cover your furniture.

In the US, if a workman came to your house to install some pipes through your cupboards, and had to move your cupboard contents to do the work (obviously forgetting to mention to you first that the pipe had to go in that particular place, or you would have cleared the cupboard yourself), that workman would make sure that a glass jar of honey was not balanced precariously on the top of several other things on the highest shelf to fall down on you when you opened the cupboard.  IF, by chance, this DID happen, that workman would not then, faced with a pile of glass-bits-and-honey, say “oh, no problem” with a dismissive wave of the hand and then leave it for YOU to clean up.  (No, not a single apology passed any lips.)

In the US, if a workman cut a hole in your shower surround in order to install some pipes, that workman would make sure the hole was the right size and position so that it could be filled or covered in a solid way (in other words, the workman would PLAN AHEAD), rather than cut a hole larger then necessary and then realize after the fact (because you tell him) that when you take a shower water flows through the hole to cover your bathroom floor, and then only upon your insistence that “YES, THE HOLE MUST BE COMPLETELY COVERED”, slap up some flimsy plastic (in multiple pieces!  not just one!) with silicone.

—

No, I don’t feel better.  I still have hours of cleaning ahead of me and a jerry-rigged silicone-plastic-blob to look at every time I take a shower.  And I have no honey for my tea.

I can probably chalk it off to post-holiday-back-to-work and pms coinciding but the past few days I’ve felt a seriously strong lack of desire to do anything combined with a palpable boredom due to not doing anything.

I’ve actually socialized a bit more than normal this week, going out for a few hours on Thu after work (10pm is after work, btw!) and also Saturday evening, but overall I just feel blah. The idea of leaving the house is totally unappealing, but staying home is almost equally so (except I do enjoy my balcony). There’s nothing I feel like cooking, all my knitting projects are in the blah-zone at the moment, I’m in a lull in my turkish language education, etc etc.

What I’ve done so far today:

• downloaded some podcasts and listened to On Point Week In The News while washing dishes (these days, any podcast on the economy has me entranced).
• cleaned and reorganized some cupboards and one drawer. oh, and another drawer in a different room.
• half-watched some biographical program on BBC while knitting and then put it away (and turned it off) mid-row/mid-show.
• randomly swept and dusted, managing to not complete any room except the balcony (by far the smallest and easiest)
• felted a wool sweater in the washer (it had already been accidentally washed and half felted), cut it up into trivet- and coaster-sized pieces, and started some blanket stitch edges.
• cleaned the filter in the fish tank, entertained myself stacking up the decorative rocks in new arrangements.
• put whites in the washer (they’re still there, I assume they will get hung to dry by someone in a while)
• reviewed photos, games, and commentary online from the 2008 National Scrabble Championship, happening this week in Orlando, FL. Rah rah scrabble-buddies! And then realized nobody would be around to play Scrabulous on Facebook with me for a whole week.
• Grated a zucchini in preparation for making some mucver for dinner, with yogurt, yum.
• More stuff but, i can’t recall anything else worth mentioning.

(Sorry, RG, for the boring list, but that was sort of the point.)

I’m really in a quandary with my knitting, primarily with the problem of the socks. I wanted to try a pair of toe-up socks, and I wanted to do a bit of stranded colorwork (though it’s very simple, just blocks) but to be honest, I’m just up to the first heel and I’m pretty much not enjoying it. It’s a great carry-around project, and I have a hard time giving up, but I think I’m gonna hafta frog it because it’s just holding me back. What I’d rather be doing is a pair of simple cable fingerless mitts in preparation for winter. I also seem to have a bit of a felting bug (despite the difficulty of a front-load washer) and might try some felted bowls. But I have a t-shirt that is lacking just one sleeve that I really should finish…

Everything I do these days, other than walking around the city, feels pretty sedentary, and I feel the need for some new active thing to do. I thought about a yoga or tai-chi class, but the social interaction required from that is anti-motivating, plus the idea of having to do it according to someone else’s schedule. I really like the idea of geocaching, but would need to invest in a GPS device (I had an old one but gave it away to a friend who is easily lost, not sure how it’s helped). I’ll have to investigate how much they cost here in Turkey and maybe after payday (7th of the month) I can afford to get one. Geocaching seems ideal because I can do it alone or with a friend along, it would GET ME OUT OF THE HOUSE, plus it’s both puzzle-y and earth-y, both things that appeal to me. Yes, it sounds good.

Finally, I also need to get some energy back for my actual work. With my students also taking holidays and feeling “summer blahs” these days, what lessons I’ve had have tended to be more low-key and I’m feeling like they haven’t been very directed or effective. So I have to find some inspiration to get some energy back into my lessons. Ideas welcome!

Blah-ly yours,
Rebecca

A little of this, a little of that… a roundup of the last month-ish. Mostly working … a fair bit of walking … not enough knitting! Now that the weather is nice, all I want to do is sit outside in parks or outdoor cafes, watching people and ferries come and go and KNIT KNIT KNIT. And drink tea.

My work schedule is now at maximum (24 teaching hours plus travel time) but since all but one class is 1-1 students, every week I have a cancellation or two that eases the load. I’ve been walking to and from work more often now that the weather is warm. It’s about a 40 minute walk total over easy terrain except I’m still befuddled about the correct etiquette for passing people on the sidewalk. The rule seems to be “The foreign lady should step off the curb into the street while the three turks walk down the sidewalk arm in arm with 17 bags completely oblivious to anyone else on the sidewalk”.

A few weeks ago Emrah and I rode a new ferry (for me), from Beykoz meydanı to Yeniköy, and then had a nice twilight walk to Istinye and back. I took a picture of the Fatih Sultan Mehmet bridge, keeping the shutter open extra long because of the dark. And then we drank some tea.

Last weekend it was raining, so after giving up on a plan to go to Camlıca, we ended up at DenizAtı Cafe above the Kadıköy iskele (ferryboat terminal) reading the newspapers and watching the ferries. I worked on the crossword puzzle - in Turkish - and actually got five answers! The problem isn’t understanding the clues, which are relatively simple to read, but thinking of ANOTHER word that means the same thing. Emrah helped me with a few but I don’t think he’s crazy about crosswords, so I let him read the paper. And we drank tea.

This was a while ago, but a couple ex-students Zafer and Tuba (in photo) came to my place and cooked lunch - spanish omelet. We drank tea juice. Also, on the 6th Emrah and I went to a dinner party in Sultanahmet, the 25th wedding anniversary party of a couple friends of mine. We drank champagne, ooh!

Below are a couple of the things I’ve been knitting recently. First, a set of cute coasters for my boss’s birthday. They’re from the Mason-Dixon ballband dishcloth pattern (see Mason-Dixon knitting in my rather short blogroll to the right). And a pillow sham I’ve barely started, using some turkish patterns I found on the internet. I got the yarn for that from the Yarn Han in Eminönü, on a shopping expedition with Anne. The yarn for the coasters came from my local yarn shop - they’re starting to get to know me there, which means they don’t feel the need to follow my every movement while I’m in the store. Every time I buy something, they say goodbye with “güle güle kullanın”, meaning approximately “go and use it happily”.

Good news, the aquarium is alive again! This time the fish (5) are a bit smaller, Emrah replaced the gravel with a more natural variety (his theory for why the original fish died), and I’ve put in a few more plants to give them places to hide and play “obstacle course”. I’m not 100% sure fish like playing obstacle course, but I would if I were a fish.

I still spend a fair amount of time absorbing news from the internet, and I like to keep up with long-distance friends via livejournal and facebook. Whenever I look at facebook and find myself feeling envious about particular aspects of other people’s lives, I contemplate how they undoubtedly must feel different on the inside than they seem from the outside. Everyone has the mundane moments of doing laundry, the difficult moments of personal relationships, the occasional moments of extreme personal angst, right? Yeah, they’re running marathons, doing aid work in Africa, and designing their own knitwear, but for the most part, most people have pretty normal lives, right? Is it possible that my 87.8% mundane life seems interesting to other people who only see it from the outside? Is it possible that I’m living my life okay even though I’m somewhat unsocial, rather scattered career-wise, unmarried and childless, and a bit pudgy, given that I’m also mostly happy? Is it okay that I’d rather knit and drink tea on a sunny afternoon instead of collecting trash while scaling a mountain, rescuing kittens or doing a million other possible good deeds? Can making breakfast for my sweetie count as a good deed? Sometimes I wish I had an overarching purpose for my life, like Al Gore with his slide show, so I could feel useful to the world and less worried about wasting my time here on earth. But on other days I think it’s okay to be just a normal person, living as millions of other normal people do, never to make history or even a really exciting facebook profile. And the fact is that no project has come up yet that makes me want to give up knitting, walking the streets, people watching, and drinking tea.

None of these questions are rhetorical, answers are wanted. And, especially, from what you know of me (assuming you are a friend reading this), what kind of life-project could you imagine me taking on? Inspiration wanted.

Registration for commenting has been temporarily suspended as I await your answers. Big hugs to everyone. XOXOXO Now, how about a glass of tea?

Back in Istanbul again my most striking observation is the pervasive sense of impatience among the citizens. Turks are legendary for their friendliness and helpfulness, but, in Istanbul anyway, they can also be incredibly impatient. During normal interactions I often feel like I’m an unwanted interference rather than (usually) a paying customer.

When do you get Turk A (the helpful one) and when do you get Turk B (the impatient one)? As a general rule, you get Turk A among friends or acquaintances (friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend is still a friend!), when you are making large purchases in specialty stores (no rush, drink some tea), or if you politely ask an unrushed-looking person on the street or in a shop for help/directions/information. Turk B works as a cashier in every grocery store, drives the minibus, and is endlessly passing you on a narrow sidewalk as if you are a lamppost instead of a person.

The grocery store is my pet peeve. Oh, the insanity! The pre-cashier part is normal - items are placed on the conveyor belt (which sometimes conveys and sometimes does not). And then the cashier rings everything up as expected, pushing all the items to the far end of the counter where it is your responsibility to put them into bags. This seems reasonable except one of the following always happens. ALWAYS.

• The person in front of you is not finished bagging their things. In the meantime your things have been all rung up, your payment is made and your purchases are mingled. You are stuck in cashier-limbo waiting for the person ahead of you to finish while the person behind you is getting checked out.
• There are no bags. You ask for bags (they are kept hidden under the counter and doled out one by one) and the cashier finishes ringing up your items before reluctantly giving you the bags. At this point you become the person who is holding up the others behind you.
• Both of these at the same time.

The thing to remember is that once you have paid for your items, you cease to exist as far as the cashier is concerned. Any of your remaining unbagged items (possibly waiting for a bag to be supplied) are invisible as well. You and your purchases are expected to simply disappear immediately after payment has been made. So, STARTING TODAY, I am making a solemn oath to simply not pay for my groceries until I have finished bagging them. The cashier will glare at me, but I just don’t care any more. I’ll accept being thought an obnoxious foreigner in exchange for not being invisible.

The other issues aren’t so easily dealt with. If I refuse to get on the minibus until it fully stops, I’ll end up waiting for the next one. If I hesitate to disembark until it fully stops, I could ride to the end of the line. When walking on narrow sidewalks I could stop being the one to stand to the side, but that just results in bumps. The complete lack of eye contact or courtesy between people passing on the street actually hinders the efficiency and makes the world feel like a rather cold place sometimes. Hey people, what’s the rush???