Saturday, September 06, 2008

Raindrops on roses... or at least houseplants.

We walked off the train into the first few drops of a lovely rainstorm - at least now that I have dry clothes on I think it's lovely! That's not entirely true. I like walking in the rain a great deal, but I'm not really a big fan when I'm still carrying all my stuff from work. Anyhow, within a block it was coming down pretty hard and we got good and soaked.

When I got home, I had to water the plants. I know this is silly, and certainly a case of me anthropomorphizing totally inappropriate things, but I feel bad for houseplants when it rains. It seems as though they know that the rain is coming down and can't figure out why they aren't getting any. (This is not totally absurd, since the changes in the air probably to key them in on some cellular level to expect water. Feeling disappointed for them, however, is a little bit daffy.)

Today was, as I expect you noticed earlier, Dave's birthday. We didn't do much celebrating, as we had a show call at 6 for Fela! and two shows tomorrow puts a damper on going out post show. I did at least take him out for an early dinner and we went down to Tekserve to pick up his birthday present. I'd been at a loss all week - the only thing he really wants is a macbook, and that's just slightly (ever so slightly) out of my price range! Last night on the train he was listening to his iPod and said something about how he'd not had the headphones out of the jack since he got it, two years ago. Those awful little earbuds that come with the iPod. (If anyone needs some, by the by, I have three sets in my desk drawer. I really have no idea where some of them came from. I don't have enough iPods to justify this. There's no reason for it.) I hate those things. I hate them especially much on other people who are near me on the train, but I hate listening to them too, and it occurred to me that Dave might likewise dislike them. So I asked if he'd ever considered getting a better set. I have the old Shure E3c model and I love them. He said he just hadn't wanted to spend the money. Perfect! A luxury item you wouldn't buy for yourself? Bingo! Birthday present! Now, I'm not made of money, far from it, so he has to settle for the SE110s, but he seems to like them, and they are a great deal better than the ones he has.

Note to Steve Jobs: You could do a major public service for transit riders everywhere if you would just include a slightly better headphone with the iPod. The ubiquity of the iPod, in all its many incarnations, means that you could single handedly reduce the irritation level of all the people who do not want to hear other people's tunes! It can't be that expensive, I'm not asking you to include Shure SE530s or anything, just something like the junkers that came with my xm radio. Slightly isolating. With similarly meh sound quality to the current iPod buds. 

3 comments:

impudent strumpet said...

LOL, I always water plants when it's raining too. It somehow seems morally wrong not not.

impudent strumpet said...

Or "...not too", even.

Sarah Haendler said...

Interestingly, I didn't catch the mistake until you corrected it - I'd just auto-corrected in my head, I suppose. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one indulging in the houseplant-rain fancy.