One of those weeks

Sinatra had it all wrong. It's not NY at all, but some place like India: "If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere."

Yesterday I had to email out a proposal before a call. Wireless isn't working. I use my data card, advertised as "speed at your fingertips." It's so slow that Google gives up and simply says that gmail is unavailable. Wouldn't be a problem since work email is just fine, except that every email sent to a non-internal account gets bounced back as "spam." I race around to three places for internet, unsuccessful until I reach my Hindi teacher's place and take the call from there. The company I'm speaking with assumes I'm in the field somewhere, but no, this is Delhi.

This is on the heels of the most successful/unsuccessful apartment shopping spree in memory. Tyler and I spend all of Saturday finally buying apartment items we've been putting off for three months: floor lamps, plants and a heater: 5 items in total (2 floor lamps, 2 plants, and a heater). We also decide to get a small table and chairs made. Toasting to our success, we enjoy a nice dinner.

Less than 24 hours later, one of the light blows (after about 2 hours of use), and the heater just breaks. 2 out of our 5 items just gone. It feels like complete deja-vu. We are back on his motorcycle, floor lamp and heater back in hand to fix and get new ones. Prepared for a fight, the folks at the light store turn out to be completely reasonable and replace the light. Knowing we can't just return the heater, we buy a new one.

Phew. Messed up evening plans to go to the gym, but at least we're all set again.

24 hours later, our new heater breaks and both lights blow. Are you kidding me?!?!

At least there's the table to be excited for. Expecting it to arrive on Tuesday, I work from home to wait for the delivery... which never comes. The carpenter ends up coming at 7am the next morning, with the set completely unfinished. While we asked him to copy an exact table we saw together over the weekend, he decides to take artistic liberty on the chairs, creating two throne-like structures, with the actual seat so close to the ground that you feel like Alice in Wonderland next to the tall table (it's so low that Tyler can't properly bend his knees, while meanwhile, I feel like I'm in 1st grade at the big kid table).

Ah, India. I know there are lessons in all of this, but why does everything supposedly "easy" have to be so frustrating?!