Dispatches from the Northern Outpost

Advanced Domesticity: A Flailer's Guide

2011-11-18T12:15:00.000-05:00

Photo from here, where you can get this sort of thing if you are more skilled than I.

At the risk of exposing my tendency to be insufferably haughty, I like to utter the phrase "I make my own."
I make my own laundry detergent. I make my own bread. I make my own soup, though I still buy Campbell's Tomato because you just don't mess with that. I never make cake from a box. Why would you? Jeez. (See how I am?) I realize something about myself, though. I choose my DIY projects very carefully. Things that involve too many steps, zoning variances, permits, or touching guts are generally on the 'bridge too far' list.

I pushed my luck with canning.

Until other commitments and a second-shift work schedule intervened, I use to belong to a women's organization. They are a great group of ladies who work hard to contribute to the community by encouraging young women to pursue their dreams. And annually they fund these efforts by flirting with Certain Death. This involves a fundraiser selling fudge (homemade) and bread in a jar. Each member was obligated to make a certain amount in a certain flavor in order to have enough to sell. I was handed an oversized photocopy of a decade-old newspaper article and recipe as a reference.

You may well wonder what bread in a jar is. I quote from the recipe:

"For those of you who haven't seen bread in a jar in gift shops, it is homemade quick bread baked in a canning jar. The jars are sealed and the bread lasts for at least a year...fancy up the jars after baking and cooling, with scraps of gingham or other fabric, and you'll have the hottest seller at the bazaar or bake sale."

So right up front you know you've got yourself a crowd pleaser, for the sweatshirts with cats on them set. The author taunts us further:

"The procedure is simple and just about foolproof; even if you've never done any canning. I've made bread in a jar with all kinds of recipes and never had a failure."

Now, I've never so much as had a canning jar in my hand for any reason other than scooping out someone else's jammy goodness, but to me this declaration smacked of superiority. "I am a nationally syndicated cooking editor and you are a slob who has a measurable layer of cat hair on every surface." Okay, maybe I'm projecting. But it made me look around my suddenly very unsanitary kitchen. I watched as my husband wandered in and ate a slice of ham out of the cold cut drawer with his fingers, blissfully unaware of my panic.

The directions I was given went on to address the sterilizing of things "per manufacturer directions" and suddenly I was feeling very paranoid and outside my DIY comfort zone. Follow manufacturer directions? Okay. I turned the case of jars over to find a set of Canning Commandments that covered the entire back of the box. I figured out that the jars need to be heated, not boiled, and there are strict instructions in block print to NEVER BOIL THE LIDS. I got this set up after I located and scoured my giant pot and inspected it for specks of archeological chili and errant cat fur.

Batter made, I spooned exactly-measured portions into my jars that were greased "generously inside but not on the rims", which was a bit like trying to eat a spoonful of something without getting it on your lips. I baked them "at 325 degrees no matter what" because that is what the recipe says. Dire consequences could result from failure to adhere, and I would not have dire consequences.

Two things happened that didn't bode well. First, all six cakes rose above the top of the jar, which I'd been warned against, and almost immediately, all the cakes got very brown. But I am nothing if not obedient. I baked them for every minute of the designated time and since the recipe directed the use of a 'sterile spoon' to push the overeager cakes back down into the jar, I did this, and successfully got the lids on and sealed. I stood back to admire my handiwork and discovered I had six jars of something that resembled wizened veterinary fecal samples.

What to do? would anyone willingly purchase these? If I deviated from any of the never fail baking commandments, would I unwittingly trigger some kind of terrible strain of cake ebola? And if I did, would it be traced back to me? It was clearly time to set aside my fears and start over. With trepidation I tweaked time and temperature, anxiously watching and waiting. To my surprise, despite failing the 'never had a failure' assurances of our intrepid food editor, the result was twelve jars of golden splendor that sealed with a satisfying 'poink'.

The bread in a jar weekend is upon us again and I salute the ladies who will once again brave home economics and science to make them happen. I have a special place in my heart for fancying up things with a bit of gingham. But I'll be sticking to safer and less stressful waters.

Precinct 1..Sign in Please

2011-11-08T13:11:00.000-05:00

I'm going to take a walk today.
I'm going to put on shoes that fit, that I had money to buy. I'm going to put on a pair of headphones so I can listen to music. I'm going to take a walk today, a clear-sky, sun-filled crisp fall day, through the crackle of leaves and the busy hum of my town. I'm going to listen to music, and walk.

While no place is perfect, and anything can happen, I can be reasonably assured of arriving at my destination safely. And safely returning home.

I'm going to walk into a polling place. It will not be surrounded with sandbags and armed soldiers. I will walk in there because it has been designated for me personally for proximity and convenience. My name is on a list saying I can be there, that I can participate in the process regardless of race, party, gender, orientation, or religious affiliation. People, lots of people, have died to make it so. And I can make choices based on my own convictions and informed desires without fear of violence or intimidation, and be reasonably certain those choices will be counted as equal.

I'm going for a walk because I believe in this process. And I believe that the only antidote for shabby attitude and inexcusable indifference is to participate in all forms of dialogue, of entreaty, available to us. To say "This matters" with one's voice, one's labor, one's aspirations. And at absolutely every opportunity, in large battles and small, one's vote.

Hope I see you on the way.

The Weight

2011-09-10T11:08:00.000-04:00

It didn't take me long at all to find it.

Tucked in my fire safe among years of tax returns, beside the folder of letters from my then-fiancee-now husband, behind the program from my wedding, the file.

It contains these things. A newsletter from my former company showing our trucks delivering supplies to the Red Cross center at Ground Zero. A message from a pastor friend of mine that can only be described as an epistle of hope. An email from the then-president of my collegiate alma mater. A message from Jim Goodwin, the CEO of United Airlines that ends with a toll-free number for families and, in bold print 'All United flights worldwide are suspended until further notice'. I run across it every so often, I look at the contents, and I put it back in the safe.

I was reluctant to write this post. 'Everyone will write one,' I thought. And some have stories more relevant than mine. But I feel the burden of this anniversary more so than the others. Maybe because in the last 10 years I've immersed myself in a world that was previously foreign to me. I had no experience with emergency response. 343 was just a terrible number then. Now I can imagine a face to every number, a precious willingness to do what others could not. Now I stand in a shining and orderly station listening to laughter and the clang of tools, see work calloused hands boosting children into trucks and I know what was lost forever.

On September 11th, 2001, I was at work, like many others. We stood gathered around a small TV and watched the towers fall, watched black smoke billow from the Pentagon. The phones did not ring. It was a brilliant and beautiful Tuesday. I'm always struck by this; the day could not have been more perfect, which made the sky all the more empty as I drove home. My grandmother had left a message on the machine, "Just checking on all my chickens," she said. I watched CNN until I couldn't take any more in. I had to leave the house. I drove to church, thinking I could sit in the quiet, but when I pulled open the heavy door I found that 400 other people had the same idea. No one spoke. I saw how getting to that place beyond words was necessary.

In the documentary 'Seven Days in September' people gather in a park in the week following the attack. One particularly difficult scene to watch shows a man and a woman who seem to be on opposite sides of an argument about justice and blame. They are each shouting about what the other does not understand, and the man describes what he saw, having been close to the towers when they fell. The woman says "I saw it too!" He says, one more time, "You don't understand!" and then, his voice breaking, "I just don't know how to process this!" The argument is over. The woman says, "Well, neither do I!" Two people who were nose to nose yelling a moment before, embraced and cried together. Past the anger and the rhetoric was the thing that made the days after September 11th so unique and amazing to me-- we were united in our brokenness and, at least for a little while, we had clarity of purpose--and the question, "Who is my neighbor?" had a much larger answer.

There is one more thing in my September 11th file-- I was asked to write something to be read over the PA system in my office during the National Day of Mourning the following week. This is what I read.

"There is in people simply an urge to destroy, an urge to kill, to murder and rage, and until all mankind without exception undergoes a great change, wars will be waged, everything that has been built up, cultivated, and grown will be destroyed and disfigured, after which mankind will have to begin all over again. In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it all will come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again." ---Anne Frank

Eternal and Merciful God,
We ask your help today, a day of remembrance after a week of grief. Our heart as a nation is broken and words seem trivial in the face of so much sorrow. Yet we come to You with hope, in the confidence that comes from knowing You never forsake us. We ask that you grant endurance to the rescue workers. We ask that you sustain those searching for loved ones. Grant them strength and patience. Comfort families who grieve. Remind us that in the face of so great a loss You are yet a greater God.

It is still very hard for me to watch the documentaries and rememberances, to hear the sounds and see the images of that day. The loss is still incomprehensible and when I look at those pictures I feel it pulling as if every silenced voice has a weight. But I realize that I owe it to the brothers who walked willingly into that hell to keep asking "Who is my neighbor?" And to put my own hands to the largest answer possible.

Summer Breeze

2011-06-28T12:27:00.000-04:00

I recently read a blog post about scent and memory. When I think about these two things my brain seems to have a favorite connection.

We were campers when it came to summer vacation. I'm told I was taken camping as an infant, sleeping in a sleeping bag my grandmother made for me out of a baby blanket. I can still remember all the steps involved in establishing our home away from home; find the site, back the camper in, unhitch, level it, unlatch the four corners, crank up the center, pull out the beds, and snap the canvas top all the way around. (We had a fancier camper that didn't require snapping, later, but the old camper with the snaps and the bug-eye brake lights is the one that is affixed in my mind.) Once our campsite was established and we'd scoped out its relation to the bathrooms, it was time to walk the loop and check out the campground; to peek at motorcycles in shy admiration, to strain to hear guitars (before I could play one myself),to feel pity for the people in giant RV's,their TVs visible through the screen doors (because they weren't REALLY camping), to look for distinct landmarks that would make nighttime navigation to our site easier. Once my compass was set at two sites past the red water pump near the people with the plastic tiki lights on their canopy, I'd return to ours and sit listening to the ring of stakes being pounded in the ground echoing off the canopy of trees, or to the fascinating rill of languages other than my own.

Camping was great for a lot of reasons. I got to spend a week with my Dad. I can still see him showing me how to light a gas lantern, how carefully he tied the mantles and added pressure to the tank. I can smell its ignition and hear it quietly seething while we dealt Uno cards or listened to stories. (A note to veteran dads: war stories make even the woods of West Virginia scary. Choose carefully.) We always did a lot of learning and exploring. Museums, caverns, historical sites, if it was there, we'd see it. And even in my kid brain I was fascinated by the idea that a campground was a community, a temporary and ever changing one, a place to live for a few days that would never ever be exactly the same again. (The sort of musing that no doubt kept my nose in a book and sharpened my vocabulary but made me hopeless at projectile sports.)

What brings all of this to me in vivid detail? A bar of Dial soap. I can open the package and I am eight years old, crunching down a gravel road, staring at my feet in green flip flops in the halo of light created by a silver flashlight with a red shade. I am retreating from the cinderblock shower building where we scrubbed off the day's dirt and bug repellent, ready to tuck in to my bed and listen to the snap of campfire wood and the murmur of conversation. Long before adult struggles and champion-level anxiety interfered with sleep, before "What if" became a weapon instead of a toy. At 41, I want that clean and simple peace back. Maybe the answer lies in that fascination with ever-changing community, the shifting and temporary sand of where we are, and who we are. We aren't working toward a permanence, a secure place where absolutely everything is exactly how we'd like it. Every permutation, every step along the loop has its own beauty. We can't always be two sites past the red water pump. But what we can do is hang our tiki lights, light a welcoming fire, and play a little music.

The Big Man Joins The Band

2011-06-19T10:40:00.001-04:00

Clarence Anicholas Clemons, Jr.

January 11, 1942 – June 18, 2011

Its like this. Its like church.

I've only had the opportunity to see the E Street Band once. My seats were so high in the place that I was looking for those little dangling oxygen masks they have on airplanes. It didn't matter. Everyone sang. Everyone. I've never been to a concert where the arena was so full of love. Love for the music, love for the musician.

I know I've talked before about music and how every bit of music I love soundtracks some part of my life. I can listen to an album and tell you exactly where I lived when I first heard it, how old I was, whether I had a Walkman or a simple tape recorder or a CD player, but when it comes to Bruce Springsteen, it goes a little deeper. I can tell you exactly where I was in 1982 when I finally got my own copy of The River (so I no longer had to sneak my sister's double album into my room when she wasn't home to play on my portable record player), I can tell you that I was in the car driving past the place where I took guitar lessons when I was pulling the shrink wrap off the cassette. And I can tell you that I played it until it broke, to be replaced later by a CD. Born in the USA was the very first CD I ever owned. I'd stay up late to tape interviews and rare B Sides, wait for broadcasts of janky, informal concerts at the Stone Pony. I even recorded the station ID Bruce did for Philadelphia's WMMR. I learned 85 of Bruce's songs.

Its frustrating to try and explain how much this music means to me. I'd lay on my bed with headphones on, listening and pulling it all apart; the gorgeous piano. The story that was being told. I got lost in the pictures being painted. And like a gold thread running through it all, that saxophone. It could sashay loud and sassy through a fun song or wail, disconsolate, through a sad one. I loved the songs and I loved that the band seemed like a family. A family that invited us, the fans, to celebrate, to laugh, even to cry with them. Which is what I feel like doing today.

Thank you, Mr. Clemons, for being part of the music that made my childhood. I will miss you.

Studio 30 Prompt: Hotels,or why I'll never sit on a polyester bedspread

2011-05-25T22:24:00.000-04:00

At one time I had a job that required fairly regular travel for business. Every couple of months I'd be packed off, usually at short notice, to a city that required a flight and a hotel stay. I was still enough of a peasant to be delighted by these opportunities, and every hotel with a free continental breakfast, however frightening the instant eggs and flaccid english muffins, seemed super nice and I sat at my small table under the everpresent bleat of CNN feeling smug and important.

One trip in particular took me to Atlanta for a GSA conference. The GSA, or General Services Administration, is in part the purchasing department for the federal government. This trip involved the standard conference experience of standing around smiling, smelling stale popcorn, handing out swag and business cards, our only entertainment whipping the occasional squeezy hand exerciser shaped like a moving truck at the douchebaggy lawyers across the aisle.

My getting there was a whole 'nother story, which is explained here . Once we got there we discovered why its really better to make your own reservations.

The salesman who was coordinating this shindig told us to stay at a particular chain hotel on Peachtree. Now for those of you unfamiliar with the fairest of fair cities, Atlanta, Peachtree St NW is a main corridor that runs through downtown. And there is one of these hotels very close to the conference location. This is the one he meant. The only wee problem is, its not on Peachtree. Its one block off. The other wee problem is, there was another of this chain on Peachtree. It was six blocks away. This is where we had reservations. And as every other hotel downtown was sold out, we had to keep them.

We got there and from the lobby, the hotel seemed to be full of old world charm. That is, after I shook off the creepy feeling from the historical marker outside, which detailed a horrific fire that took place there earlier in the century. Our rooms were done in early Miami Vice. Very, very early. In the case of mine the dusty floral and aquamarine-appointed room was obscured in a layer of funk comprised mainly of nicotine and despair. The night stand was sticky and scarred with multicolor stains much in the way a toaster gets when you leave the bread bag too close to it.

I peeled the gold bedspread off with two fingers and flicked it in the corner.

At this point in my life I wasn't much for making a fuss and complaining so my meek request to move to a non-smoking room was dismissed with the explanation that they couldn't move me until the middle of the day and WOULDN'T move my stuff if I wasn't there. I decided to make the best of it. I spent my life camping. I was a camp counselor. How bad could it be?

Any hopes of a luxurious soak in the tub were squashed by the jaunty, cheerful curl of a rogue pube. At this point I had no real desire to even take off my shoes. But the best was yet to come. The closet in this room had been moved in a remodeling, leaving a shallow recess in which a safe had been installed. Some terrible compulsion made me poke my head into the dead space alongside the safe, in the unused right hand side of the old closet.

This was a mistake.

Unfurled and stuck to the carpet was a used condom. A furiously whispered conversation at the front desk resulted in its removal....the next day.

These days, I get to stay in better hotels. Even so, I inspect them before I take off my shoes, checking all corners, scrutinizing surfaces. So far these inspections have yielded no more unpleasant surprises.

I still hold my breath when I peek into the closet.

Where the words come from

2011-05-14T13:52:00.000-04:00

"...as a child I was given much of the language of adults, and I continue to use it, even to describe my youth. I court the freshness, the immediacy, and all the resources of language that make the past tense strangely shine as though it were the present."

----Ahab's Wife or, The Star Gazer Sena Jeter Naslund

I was one of those kids. One that was given 'much of the language of adults'. I don't know where it came from. I grasped, comprehended, and seized on words in great greedy fistfuls. Adults would laugh and comment about the way I expressed myself. At the time, it confused me. 'This is what I have,' I thought. 'This is how I say it. All these words are here to use.' To me, settling for less was eschewing the box of 64 Crayolas with the built in sharpener for that four pack of generic crayons you get in a family themed restaurant so you can color on the placemat. I didn't want quadrichrome horses tacked up behind a cash register. I wanted great oceangoing behemoths heaving on swells of murk and shimmer, decks of walnut and ochre creaking under the dappled shade of snapping sails.

I wanted the words AND the color. These things have always been strongly and closely related. When I picture a calendar of months in my head, that calendar is and always has been exactly the same both in orientation and organization. Even the angle at which I view it in my mind has never changed, though it twists slightly as we progress through the year, almost as if it hangs on a wall not quite high enough to keep the bottom (October, November, and December) from resting on the floor. My mental calendar of a single week or entire month is much more simple and appears in my mind as if it is written on a chalkboard. But it always slants slightly downward toward Saturday. Centuries march through my mind as if in a parade on a broad city avenue. I look to my left toward the 1600s-1800s (where the buildings just begin) and see big skirts and horses, carriages and carts, which give way to early automobiles as I turn my head (in my mind) to the right; the cars get first bigger and then smaller, and then I can insert myself in this left to right progression of time. Its almost as if every block the fashion changes. Some of the cars have presidents, musicians, poets and writers in them.

I've always been fascinated with synesthesia, and wondered if I had it in one of its forms, first because of this calendar business, and second because I am instantly drawn to any series of objects that are identical except for their color. Eyeshadow palettes. Sets of colored pencils. I can stand in front of a paint display and stare at the cards of paint chips for several minutes and the only explanation I can offer is that seeing all the colors together makes my brain happy. I own close to 130 bottles of nail polish and choosing one to put on is one of the small but deeply enjoyed pleasures of my week. And if something is packaged like this, you can be sure I'm going to get it. I found this in a local drugstore and it was in my hand before I ever consented to purchase it.

Whatever its called, and whatever it means, the colors, the words, and the memories are tightly braided and always at the ready. I like to think that my strangely shining past tense is not a maudlin recitation of past glories or a desire to cling to things as they once were. I just enjoy taking out the colors of memory, laying them carefully side by side, and looking at them.

Maybe it makes my soul happy.

Mozart for Babies

2011-04-20T22:46:00.000-04:00

I was doing some chores this morning and turned to our on-demand music service, MOG, to soundtrack my efforts. I usually use these house-to-myself opportunities to blast show tunes, which I sing at the top of my lungs. I wasn't feeling quite that energetic. I wanted something I could turn on and let rip without much song-skipping or fear of getting randomized to something that would be stuck in my head all day. I turned to the search function and typed in 'Search albums by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart'. *click* Wow. So many choices. I took a whirl through the virtual 'album covers' and stopped, amazed at a lengthy series entitled 'Mozart for Babies'. Now, I'd heard about the 'Mozart Effect', the idea that classical music makes kids smarter or somesuch, though a study seems to point to this being largely hooey. Hooey or not, I have a friend who successfully soothed all of her children to sleep with classical music when they were small, so the albums labeled 'Calm and Soothe', 'Relaxation', and 'Peaceful Sleep' made perfect sense to me. Heck, I may try them myself. I kept flipping, though, and it got a teeny bit ridiculous. The rest of the albums were:

Communication
Concentration
Confidence
Controlling Energy
Harnessing Emotions
Inquisitive Minds
Memory

My first question is, who decided which particular piece of music improved which functions? Was there a control group of babies who were given concentration and memory tasks while listening to Vanilla Ice or Clay Aiken? I'm not sure I want to know what the 'confidence' control group had to listen to. And it occurs to me that if you want a child to 'harness emotions' or 'control energy' you'd give him something that would stir up a mosh pit. Get those emotions all harnessed in a big ol' circle. You can even surround it with baby fencing to give them the total concert experience. And since they lack the balance and muscle tone to crowd surf you don't have to worry about anyone getting dropped on his head.

Don't get me wrong. I wish this worked. More so, I wish it worked for adults. If only music could be piped into public places that would encourage people to balance budgets, to pick up litter, maybe a 'Mozart for Considerate Behavior'. No more leaving a mouthful of scorched coffee in the office pot or two squares of toilet paper on the roll. Amid the swell of strings and the silvery piping of flutes people would share taxicabs, use phrases like, "Please," "After you," and "Thank you." Bloodless coups could be a mere Violin Concerto in D Major away.

What role has music played in my development into a passable-if-satisfactory human? I developed a fondness for classical music in my teens courtesy of WFLN, the now-defunct classical station in Philadelphia. Far too late to hone my hormone-addled brain. My earliest music memories are more of the Top 40 radio variety. I was one of those kids that sang songs word for word LONG before I had any understanding whatsoever of WHAT I was singing about. Here are a few of my formative 'concertos'. Do treat yourself to the videos, there are many golden 'What the...." moments here.

Believe it; I was 'git cha git cha ya ya da da'-ing all the way to afternoon Kindergarten. I figured out what this song was talking about roughly 23 years later. I have no explanation for the outfits. I guess my Mozart effect lesson here was, er, Effective Merchandising'.

My mother tells me I knew every word to this song when I was four. The only explanation I can offer is that it was probably on the radio ten times a day. It mentioned trains and I always associated it with my father's commute into Philadelphia for his manager job at Grant's. Mozart effect lesson: Dealing with 'The Man'.

This is a song I associate with riding in our Camaro in the summer, my legs sticking to the back seat (which was probably good since my feet didn't touch the floor and I wasn't wearing a seatbelt. You have to dig this video--I suspect the set designer for the Smothers Brothers was doing some serious acid. Mozart effect lesson: Respecting Gravity.

This is one of those songs that was just creepy. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what it was about, it just gave me a weird feeling when I heard it on my bedside radio late at night. Staring at the luminous dial I imagined all sorts of things, some probably darker than the song's intent. I also thought Helen Reddy was awesome. Don't judge me. Mozart effect lesson: If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit. (I think.)

Now if I could just find that Mozart for Housecleaning and Organization album.....I'll be all set.

Writing the Words

2011-04-17T15:18:00.000-04:00

(This post was inspired by the lovely Meleah, who asked the question 'Where do you write?' In this post. You should read it. And everything she writes.)

I was answering the question this morning 'Where do you write?' I found myself not so much answering the 'where' as the 'why'. I've been writing since I was eight years old. Stories, terrible poems mercifully lost to the ages; it seems that I have only ever been happy if I had a place to put down whatever I had to say. When I was 11 my aunt gave me a blank journal for Christmas. It was a large one; 8 1/2 by 11 with a pebbled black cover and my initials inside that she'd placed there in bold black rub-on transfer. Something about the size and heft of that book impressed me. This was no dainty pink book with a feeble, pickable lock, a diary worthy of Brady Bunch episodes and afterschool specials. This was a book that promised permanence and seriousness. Of course, I still filled its pages with nonsense about boys and when I might get my period. I wish I still had both that journal and a later, prompt-filled journal called 'The Judy Blume Diary' that I filled cover to cover, because I'm quite certain they are filled with entries both hilarious and cringeworthy. I don't know what happened to either of them.Since then I've written in tiny leatherbound volumes, colorful blank books from bookstore clearance tables, dollar composition books, and, of course, in the flat blank spaces of Blogger.

I've written on airplanes, on trains, hunched in stairwells of political party offices in Belfast, in museums, on park benches, brooding by lakes, on bluffs overlooking summer camp waterfronts, on my couch in the wee hours when all my petty worries organized and presented a unified current of sleep-chasing anxiety. Lately I write at my cluttered kitchen table, despite a clear and perfectly serviceable desk in my bedroom, because the desk does not afford a pool of sun for the cat to sleep in.

In 2003 I undertook a major challenge; a 150 mile bike ride, and wrote 'dispatches' about my training and preparation. I emailed them to interested friends because other than some vague awareness of Salon. com, I didn't know about blogging. I started blogging the year we moved from our suburban home outside of Philadelphia to very rural North Central PA, mostly to cope with the four months of separation required by the move, since my husband had to be up here in July and my then-job obligated me to stay within striking distance of Delaware until October. Once I got here I blogged to cope with the fact that I was a 'flatlander' who felt like I'd moved into a Larry the Cable Guy anecdote.

People tell me I should write more. This is made difficult by the fact that these days I make a concerted effort to do less brooding than I used to. The 'humor' part of my brain has another passenger, one more Plath than Bombeck. Skimming along the surface and not peering overmuch into the depths keeps her contributions to a minimum and this is good all the way around. Or maybe I should be honest and say its easier. Maybe its just time to let go and Write the Words without restraint like I did when I was young and everything was raw, critical, vital and my internal censor was engaged elsewhere.

I can't promise it'll be pretty. Heck, I can't promise it'll be coherent. But whether you were here from the beginning or a new reader I hope you can say 'at least I'll enjoy the ride'.

The Official Answer is 'NEVER', and other questions that need answering

2011-04-15T08:50:00.000-04:00

Many people picture every call that comes in to a 911 center as a dire, life threatening emergency. Don't get me wrong. We have those. All the time. But I'm learning that there are three general categories of calls and radio requests. They are:

Stuff we do in the interest of the general course of justice
The aforementioned dire emergencies
Actions taken for the protection and betterment of people who spit in the face of 'Survival of the Fittest' every day

Now I would say that the first item is probably what we do the most of, the second item is the most challenging/rewarding/thing that gets you out of bed in the morning, and the third thing? Well, you are looking at what that gets you.

Case in Point:
"911, do you have an emergency?"
"Um, yeah. I just got back from a drive, and there was this guy in my yard, and he attacked me, but I defended myself with a baseball bat, now I'm in the house but he's still in the yard acting crazy and I want to know when its OK to shoot him."
Now, I'm no home defense expert, but I'm pretty sure "When you can shoot him" is NOT after you've successfully defended yourself by another means, barricaded in the house, called for help, and declared your intentions on a recorded line.

I went through some stages when I started this job. First, you are too overwhelmed with the sheer volume of things to learn to pay much attention to individual calls and situations. You sit very still and watch, and believe me, watching an experienced dispatcher pull all the elements together and coordinate a multi-department response to a fire is fascinating.

Second, you start to notice patterns. Who calls every weekend? Where are the trouble spots? Which police seem to always get those people driving on a suspended license and sketchy plates? I call this the 'holy crap, people are breaking the law ALL OVER THE PLACE' phase. There's a little righteous indignation.

Third, you get a little paranoid. Did the county suddenly tip precipitously into lawlessness just when you started this job? Was it all 'Gosh, Wally, your mom sure makes good pie' before you got here? Of course not. You're just more aware of Stuff That Happens. Because you don't deal with the 85 people who went to the bar, sang a little karaoke, had a couple of beers, and went home, you only deal with the one who drove on the wrong side of the road, knocked over a couple of telephone poles, flipped the truck, self-extricated, and made the rescue crew chase him through a cornfield. Again. So you start giving unsolicited mini-lectures on defensive driving. On personal safety. On just saying NO. When you are aware of Stuff That Happens its really easy to start sounding like your own grandmother--full of buzz-killing, querulously-delivered information that no one wants to hear at parties.

The fourth phase is harder to explain. Its just a reconciliation with the fact that people will hurt, people will suffer, people will make poor choices, and despite our best efforts, this will not change. I heard someone say once 'Be kinder than necessary, because everyone you meet is carrying a heavy burden'. I have a keener understanding of what those burdens are these days. In one degree or another we're all lost, all flawed, all disappointed, all searching. If I am to do this job with honest diligence I have to remember that patience and compassion can't be things I turn off when I'm 'off the clock', no matter how infuriating 'other people' can be.

That's not to say there will not be snark. But I snark in love.

Swimming with the Undercurrent

2011-03-22T12:01:00.002-04:00

This is brooding weather.
In younger days I did my best brooding in the Fall, when days shortened and every blazing tree was a threat of colorlessness; their leaves swirling around the bus where I sat with my head against the rattling window, headphones clamped and music filling my head, drowning out the voices.

At the risk of falling into gender stereotype and inviting flippant dismissal I will be honest; this internal wellspring of drama that I seem to be drinking deeply of is most likely PMS-sourced. All the same I recognize the monthly increase of doom and difficulty that envelops my every task this week. I am as acquainted with its intensity as I am with the way it dissolves like mist with very little warning, leaving me wondering what all the fuss was about.

I have no desire to wash dishes. I wander through the grocery store and nothing appeals. I have just the inspiration I need; house guests on Thursday, which will insure that I spend my day off making my house as presentable as it would be if I was a real adult and not one that spends more time doing her nails than doing housework. On Thursday the house will be all clean and shiny and pretendy and full of good smells. The only inner life I seem to be able to cultivate these days is the one that used to lean on the bus window, watching leaves swirl downward to colorlessness.

But this too will pass. And in the meantime I choose to write for the reason I used to write so much; to articulate, to triage, to overcome. And I'm going to be making some changes; for a while now I've had three seperate blogs, but I realize its kind of absurd on two fronts; one, I hardly write enough for one (though I'm trying to change that) and two, all aspects of my life are just that....all aspects of my life. I think I've been compartmentalizing a bit overmuch. So you may see some posts cruise on over here from my other blogs. And you may see more here about some of my other passions that I've kept separate. Which is a good thing. I promise it won't be about nail polish. Most of the time.

My Mixed Marriage

2011-01-23T12:10:00.002-05:00

Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness... and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him. ~Blaise Pascal

My husband is a sports fan.

It doesn't much matter what sport it is. Oh, he doesn't follow them all with the same worshipful attention. But he can find something he likes (or something he knows) about each and every televised event, be it college or professional.

To be fair, he writes for a newspaper, and at one time he even bore the title 'Sports Editor'. This meant our very lives were enhanced in a measurable way by the efforts of others who donned jerseys and competed against one another in organized competition. So in a sense, there was a time when I had a reason to care about sports.

I am not a sports fan.

Allow me to clarify and elucidate the depth of my sports-atheism. I follow no team. I have no allegiances. I don't care which group of overpaid individuals is putting its smeary fingerprints on any trophy while being showered with confetti and wearing Official Championship HatsTM. A game (particularly the frequent and endless standing-around bit) feels like a nine-hour insurance seminar. I understand the rules. I get the objective. I just don't care.

Don't get me wrong; I 'Understand The Value Of Sports' for kids, etc etc. I get it; exercise, teamwork, yaay. But all those things are benefits of PLAYING. Watching a man who makes more money while he's standing there shaking what God and his mama gave him back into the correct quadrant of his pants than I make in 10 years is of more dubious value. He's going to win or lose, get renewed or traded, reconcile with his third wife or marry his fourth, and there are a hundred in line behind him to play the same game when his turn is done.

Sometimes I wonder if he's disappointed in my lack of interest, my 'just show me the last two laps/pitch/thirty seconds and I'm happy' approach to paying attention to any game. I know I have interests he finds less than enthralling. At least I can make pretty kickass munchies...so if we do attend a social event that is built on the premise of watching some kind of sporting event I can at least come bearing a dish that, I hope, makes up for the fact that I'm only there for the chat and the commercials. And for those of you who, whether secretly or overtly share my antipathy....
.....see you in the kitchen. I'll bring wine.

This is not a Resolution Post

2010-12-31T10:49:00.003-05:00

I don't believe in New Year's Resolutions. I figured out a long time ago that the rush of 'new' wears off in about seventeen days and all of that which we intend to revolutionize about ourselves gets crammed in a drawer to minimize the guilty discomfort of yet another failure. Instead, I have decided to issue New Years Admonitions; none of this feel good 'turning of the year' nonsense.

1. Quit wasting time whining about your body. Move for the joy of movement. Decorate it. Get yourself some color and sparkle, adorn yourself joyfully, and add up all the parts you denigrate separately into something that is worthy, uniquely yours, and beautiful RIGHT NOW. If I hear you saying "My fat butt" or "My stupid (whatever)" I'm going to call you on it. Who is policing and shaming you? Why are you letting them? Tell them to shut up. Tell yourself to shut up if you have to. There is something called 'Health at Every Size'. Find out about it here.

2. If there are things in your life that are dragging you down, making you miserable, contributing to a trapped and hopeless feeling, GET RID OF THEM. This life is to be lived. If it involves buying a box of trash bags at Sam's and filling them with all the clutter that has made you feel like you are drowning THROW IT THE HELL OUT. Negative people can be placed on the same curb. Even if you can't get them out of your life you can choose to stop buying into their misery. Inform them of your boundaries. Invite them to get over it.

3. Stop wasting your energy being perpetually unsatisfied. Do you spend most of the day complaining about stuff? WHY?? Stop it right now. You are awash in blessing. They may be small. It may take a flexing of some mental and spiritual muscles you've let go to see and appreciate them. But they are there. Don't let the world tell you what you need to be happy. The world is easily confused, distracted, and deceived.

4. You are surrounded by the fragile, the hurting, the walking wounded. Every single day. You don't have to be a miracle worker to heal them. You just have to be kind. Cynicism and indifference kills just as surely as violence, but slower.

5. Stop. Every once in a while, just stop. Practice saying the words "No", "No, thank you, not today", "Thank you for thinking of me, but no." Its better that a few get your very best effort and attention than many getting what you can spare, and resentfully at that. I promise you that the refused will get by without you.

6. Every single person on the planet including Jesus Christ has had to deal with other people who hold opinions of them that are unwarranted, unkind, and unfair. You are not a special snowflake in this. It should neither surprise nor consume you.

That's it, kiddos. Don't wait until December 31 to celebrate what's 'happy' and 'new'. You get that every minute of the day.

The Inevitability of December

2010-12-08T11:44:00.002-05:00

Goodness. Wasn't I just writing about October or somesuch? Next thing you know the air is full of cinnamon and commerce and snow.

I've been experiencing those pre-ruminant rumblings that normally come before a blog post; I knew it would happen eventually. Sometimes there is so much to talk about that it all becomes an inarticulate blur before I can pin any of it down. I suspect I need medication.

The tipping point was on page 4 of my holiday issue of Every Day with Rachael Ray. There she is, swathed in as much religiously neutral sparkle as one can manage while keeping a silver pashmina on one's shoulders and hefting a frosted cake with five lit candles on it AND preventing one's long, perilously-close hair from catching fire. She's a multi-tasker, that one.
Page 4, the table of contents, really, suggests that for a 'quick, cracker-ready spread, stir a crushed candy cane and cracked black pepper into cream cheese'.

Excuse me, I have something in my throat. I think its my lunch.

I'm a bush-league foodie. I'm not afraid of tofu. I know what sorts of things you could cook using rendered duck fat. I know the difference between a shallot and a leek. But I'm pretty sure serving cream cheese with crushed black pepper and candy in it would put me in the company of not the Alton Brown set but the lady with all the dolls whose yard ornamentation is two seasons behind, who gives the kids bare-handfuls of circus peanuts in their trick-or-treat bags and thinks the government has put listening devices in her Lillian Vernon catalog.

I have a tenuous relationship with December. In years past it has just been the kickoff of Ye Olde Seasone of Suck, replete with weather-inspired anxieties and holiday expectation vs. reality funk. I'm disorganized, not the best housekeeper, and gift-purchasing turns me into Cindy Brady on 'Question the Kids' (more for the blank look than the 'Swiss Miss' braids). I find myself preoccupied with people who lack a social network this time of year, whose story does not have a Hallmark movie ending after two hours of gentle misunderstanding, over-magnified danger, and clever golden retrievers. (They're all around you! Try not to think about it. Ooops! Too late.)
Some Christmases past have been very dark indeed.

This December is better. I have a job I love. My obligatory bad-weather driving has been slashed to almost nothing. My house is still messy, but I do what I can and I release the rest. I'd like to have more money for presents, but since that only triggers my standing in Target with a deer-in-headlights look and a frozen brain its just as well. And I've realized just in the nick of time what I should do every year around this time-- slow down. Breathe. Look around. Take it in. Be peacefully quiet. Receive. Listen. Love with an undistracted heart.

And if all else fails, begin at the beginning.

You Wanna Hear a Story?

2010-11-08T07:55:00.000-05:00

I spent the summer running ambulance like it was my full-time job. Mostly because my actual full-time job became an 'eliminated position' in June. This resulted in 37 (thirty-seven) interfacility transfers in one quarter, sometimes as many as three a week. I spent most of Labor Day weekend in the back of a Horton.

Which is fine.

Sometimes there are great stretches of time in this endeavor where nothing much happens. It was a summer of cardiac rhythm disturbances and possible CVAs. There was the odd car accident. But last Friday night was a reminder of why I have a special place in my heart for people who make poor life choices on a regular basis.

00:35. We're called out to assist an airmedical agency, and on the way we find out its a 'hot load'-- we have to get the patient at the hospital and take him directly to the helipad so he can be on his way. This usually means that whatever is going on is pretty serious and there isn't time to pick up the helicopter crew, ferry them to the hospital, let them dink around and then wrap the patient in what I call the 'flying burrito wrapper' (their fancy insulated blankie) and take them back to he helipad. I know the ER's been quiet, so I'm interested to know what's up.

We get there, and the ER is quiet indeed, except for our patient, a twenty-something man in plaid boxers who I can tell either just engaged in a tearful confession of some kind with the Paramedic holding pretty vicious direct pressure on his right wrist, or he's drunk.
Oh, goody.
I step behind this Paramedic in an attempt to figure out why he's holding this young man's wrist so tightly. After all, he seems boisterous, and possibly inebriated, but not particularly violent.

Oh.

Peeking around a stack of four by fours is a deep cut that seems to go most of the way around his wrist. Four more packs of gauze sit stacked beside him and he asks me to open them. "Three of them should do it." Yikes. I open the packs and watch them wrap the wound. I sense a story coming.

"So what happened?" The paramedic asks as we drive to the helipad.

"Oh, man. You wanna hear a story? So, like, we were drinking and whatnot, and I, like, fell off the porch and caught my hand on the white things, you know the white things between the windows? And, like, my hand went through it. And I fell. And blood, like, shot out like four feet."

He offered further information.

"But, you know? Okay. You wanna hear this? Last year, like, my friends and I were partying, and drinking and whatnot, and I, you know, passed out on the sidewalk. And you know what the cop did? He TOOK ME TO THE HOSPITAL. What a DICK."

(What was he supposed to do? Put cones around him so no one would trip?)

"Thirty five hundred dollars. Man. That sucked."

"You ain't seen nothing yet," the Paramedic said. "Wait until you get the helicopter bill."

We waited, listening for the distant drone of his ride coming in over the lake. The patient coughed long and deep.

"That doesn't sound to good, are you sick?" I asked.

"Nah, its...you wanna hear this? Okay, so about a week ago I was siphoning some diesel fuel and I got some in my lungs. I guess I should have them check that shit out too while I'm at the hospital."

"So, you were just going to let that go and see how it worked out?" by now the Paramedic has that look on his face that tells me I'm going to be spending the next few minutes trying hard not to laugh. "Do you ever think about, like, staying home?"

What would we do on a Friday night if he did?

<><><><><><><><>

In other news, most of you already know that I lost a job in the beginning of the summer. Some of you may NOT know that I got a new job that I have a feeling may contribute some content to this blog, though from a different 'angle'.....I'm a 9-1-1 dispatcher in training.
Yep, I'm learning to work the other side of the radio....police stuff, protocols, geography, computer aided dispatch, its a whole new world. I love it-- the co-workers, the work, even the wonky schedule is cool.

Poor life-choice makers...holla. You already have my digits.

202,549

2010-10-04T10:22:00.003-04:00

It was a dreary, chilly Thursday with steady rain. I snapped the picture from the porch to avoid getting wet. And maybe also to distance myself from the ridiculous urge to be overly sentimental.

Then it was time to go.

I drove to my friend Rich's house and he followed me to the salvage yard. I went carefully across the muddy parking lot, leaping small puddles among the ranks of tagless cars, some with heavy damage or makeshift trash-bag windows. Inside, I breathed the motor oil-and-tire scent and peered into the ranks of metal shelving that marched into the darkened garage, the rows of disembodied stereos and gleaming stacks of rims, their vital statistics scrawled on the side with bright yellow grease pencil in the impenetrable kanji of mechanics.

"The next one you need is for a 2001 Dodge Caravan," He explained patiently into a two-way radio to the employee who was out in the rain cultivating their livelihood. "You'll see it, its just like the 2002 except that it has a little curved place where the other one is flat." He was describing headlight assemblies from memory, since he had this conversation while writing me a check and pointing out the places where I was to sign. I worked the key off my ring and placed it on the counter on top of the title, then borrowed a screwdriver. I ran back outside into the doownpour and my friend deftly removed the screws and handed me my license plate. Ducking back inside, I placed the borrowed tool back on the counter. "Thanks!" I called. "Thank you!" came faintly from somewhere in the gloom over the steady patter of rain on the roof.

Its just a car, I thought to myself as we backed out of the lot. The husband never stopped complaining about its 4-cylinder lack of power, especially after we moved to a place that wasn't bone flat. Just a car that I drove out of the Saturn dealership into a crisp fall day surrounded by cheering employees. Just a car that earned a polaroid snapshot on a special bulletin board at that same dealership with the mileage written on the white border when we crossed the 100,000 mile mark. Just a car that held my bicycle in the flipdown back seat so I could train every day for a bike ride across New Jersey after not riding a bike for seven years. Just a car that took us to Maine in 2004 for an unforgettable vacation. Just a car that, loaded to the roof in 2005, brought me here when our lives completely changed. It took me down roads that were not always easy to traverse, mute witness to as many sorrows as joys. May its salvageable parts carry lots of other folks with 15 year old cars into new adventures.

Moderate Excess, Volume Three

2010-09-30T19:34:00.003-04:00

What, did you think we were done? Oh my goodness no. We are done with the makeup, yes, but knowing as you do about my color issues, you must have guessed that the compulsion to have every color extends in other directions. Like this one.
This, my friends, is the kind of pencil/pen case you come home with if you shop at Walmart at odd hours of a Saturday morning. This item came home with me on the ill-fated bra buying trip.
I was stumbling around the office supply aisles and all the school stuff was out and suddenly the though streaked across my under-rested brain like a late breaking dementia: IMMA GET A PENCIL CASE!!!!
There were lots of sedate options; burgundy. Olive green. Even the ones with kittens looked less like they fell out of a young Ken Kesey's backpack. But I had to have this one. So have it I did. And here's whats inside.

We have Magnatank gel pens in red, blue, green, purple, and black. Papermate bold points in red and black, Dixon Tri-conderogas (on account of they are triangular, yo) and their special sharpener, two clicky pencils, some colored pencils, old school Bics (the lenders in my pencil case; these go to shady pen borrowers who may/may not return), some more gel pens, couple of Zebra Sarasas which are the best gel pens ever and come in maroon and forest green and other colors that make me want to weep with their perfection, two Pilot Varsity fountain pens that are grudgingly acceptable replacements for my cracked, old Parker fountain pen that the soulless bastards at Parker stopped making, more Papermate bold points, and various 3m Tape Flags and Tabs because you never know when you might run across something that begs to be tabbed and color coded and you NEED TO BE READY.

There was a time when this kind of pen stash was completely reasonable. I wrote letters. I had international pen friends. I wrote letters of encouragement in painstakingly transcribed Russian to prisoners for Amnesty International. I journalled, which is apparently what all of us did before we had this fabulous medium of self indulgence and confession.

These days, my commitment to the epistolary arts has not departed altogether but it is seriously diminished. I still journal, because there is some mental floss that simply does not require its icky bits to be flung into public scrutiny, whether it be an attack of preciousness or unassailable darkness. BUT BUT BUT....I NEED pens. I just need them. I still have to write checks and fill out ambulance paperwork and write more checks for the ambulance association and take notes in classes and carefully write appointments into my schedule book and sign birthday cards with a flourish. I need to leave notes to feed the cat and jot witticisms on bulletin boards. I need to scrawl "You, sir, are a selfish bastard" on a post-it and slap it on the driver's side window of a car parked across the last two parking spaces. (Do I carry post-its in my purse for this and similar purposes? Hells to the yes. )

But in the end, most of the pleasure just comes from spreading them out and looking at them.
I like to think it comes from a deeply seated need to see, feel, taste and experience LIFE.
In all the colors.

Acceptance in Words AND Action

2010-09-26T09:51:00.000-04:00

Its so easy, and more than a little fun, to sit here at this computer and write my little fingers off talking about size acceptance, empowerment, and refusing to belittle and degrade yourself even in jest. Its even sometimes not all that hard to say the 'F' word in public and ignore the barely disguised flinch of others when you do. But the critical voice never goes away. She bides her time and waits for that breach in the wall, that weak spot of self-condemnation that might be overlooked for a while but will pop up and surprise you.

I was uploading some photos to Facebook last night, and I reflexively hesitated at one of myself. I found myself thinking, oh, you can see how fat my legs are in that picture. Uh huh. So? I'm on standby as an EMT. I'm trained to use everything in that truck. I know what to do if someone passes out, if one of the football players gets dropped on his head, breaks an ankle, if there's a diabetic emergency, a cardiac emergency, a seizure. But I looked at that picture and thought to myself, if I put that up people can see that I'm fat.

WELL, SO WHAT?

There. Worlds did not end. Civilizations did not fall. And its really kind of liberating to say "This is me" in words AND pictures.

Moderate Excess, Volume Two

2010-09-24T11:02:00.005-04:00

Dims: 8 1/2 " X 11 3/4" X 10 1/2"
Loaded Weight: 14 Pounds
Contents: Fabulous

When last we spoke, we talked of the lips. The toolkit of color and spectacle, the vast possibility of attitude contained therein. But this is it, the IT that took me many moons to find. Previous 'makeup bags' and later 'makeup cases' were puny, feeble, and failed copies of this ultimate in pulchritudinous conveyance. They came in colors that mirrored the Barbie Dream Van. Their compartments were too small and too few. I wanted something that looked like it should be handcuffed to the wrist of a burly, darkly handsome Mossad agent in a $3,000 suit. (It even locks, which would excite me if I was still 12 and not the very kid makeup needed to be locked away FROM. )

Let's tour the facility, shall we?

The first stop is correction. Anything you could possibly need to cover, from a sleepless night to a sketchy memory involving Jose Cuervo, a couple of ill chosen karaoke numbers, and a guy named Paul who would call you if you hadn't given him your chiropractor's number can be taken care of out of this section here. Oh, and yeah. I got the new Cover Girl and Olay stuff. Because I'm not 23 anymore. I noticed that the Bare Minerals was accumulating in lines on my face in ways that were less flawless airbrushed perfection and more Kate Spade hobo bag. I'm over it.
The Girly Squee award in that section goes to that tiny tube of Too Faced Shadow Insurance. You'll feel slightly violated paying what that costs but BELIEVE ME its worth it. No amount of poor choices in an evening will budge whatever you put on top of that stuff.

Next stop, color! Most of the shadows on the green backdrop are out of Ulta color collections. (Forget Disney, people. Ulta is my happy place. You can shop online, but find a store near you and GO THERE. Its like Tractor Supply for girls. ) The rest of the color is either Bare Minerals, Smashbox, or cheap and fabulous drugstore finds. Wet and Wild has come a long way since I picked it up at Eckerd's with a new can of Aqua Net. They have a lot more than those $1 foot long black eyeliners we used to melt with a lighter.
Speaking of which....this is the eyeliner collection. So we've got your standard pencils, then again with the W & W because their liquid liner is fantastic and doesn't have that pokey brush that, in a moment of inattention, show you what its like to be blinded by a Sharpie, a bit of pricey Smashbox gel action, and my one bit of throwback that you'd have to pry from my cold dead hands, Mary Kay black cake eyeliner. They no longer make it. It takes practice to use. But you can get everything from a faint charcoal line to full on burlesque queen action depending on how much water you use and once it dries it goes NOWHERE until you want it to.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, yes I AM holding on to that shade of peacock blue until acid wash jeans come back.

Look at them. All neatly arranged like a symphony. On the left we have the basecoats and topcoats and sedate, tasteful, job interview-appropriate, do-your-grandma's-nails colors. In the middle back, the slightly bolder, arguably seasonal, but still normal colors. But on the right...well, let's take a closer look.
Let's see. We have black, yellow, orange, two shades of blue, two shades of green, and two shades of purple that, worn shimmer over flat, make my fingers look like they were dipped in awesome sauce. I call this my 'F-em if they can't take a joke' collection.

Oh, and the little bottles in the front? Embellishment. So I can do stuff like this. Tonight is Homecoming at our local high school. I have to go standby on the ambulance, so in addition to my Hornet's green ambulance sweatshirt, I'll be rocking these:

Its hard to focus on your own hand, particularly one as dainty as mine, but my middle finger is painted like a cheerleader sweater. (Do cheerleaders still wear sweaters?)
There's sparkles, y'all.

Moderate Excess, Volume One

2010-09-13T19:07:00.004-04:00

Beauty, to me, is about being comfortable in your own skin. That, or a kick-ass red lipstick.
Gwyneth Paltrow

There are some things in life I can't get enough of. I thought it might be fun to give you a peek into a few of them.

I confess, further, that these are things I have obsessed over since childhood. In my pre-literate days I was fascinated with color. I'd line up the Mobil Travel Guides or McCormick's Cookbooks and stare at the spines, spellbound by the way they were all the same and yet different colors.

I have trouble when things come in colors. How can I choose just one? What if, one dreary day, I want something different? Or what if that old compulsion to line them up and just LOOK AT THEM overtakes me? You can imagine how long it took me to pick out and iPod shuffle. (In the end I opted for red.)

So anyway. Somewhere between being a ground in, denim clad tomboy and my big hair high school days, I discovered makeup. I found out that I could look at pictures in magazines and copy the way makeup was put on. In the 80's this was not hard, since the application tended to be of the paint-roller variety and the color contrasts were pretty stark. Every woman on Dynasty looked like she was one gold-beaded headdress and a g-string away from Carnival. But I was in the fourth grade, and my makeup collection was limited to giant stick glosses the size of a peppermill in various flavors like grape and cotton candy. I'll admit now (since I believe that the statute of limitation on sisterly beating has passed) that my earliest experimentation started with creeping into my sister's room when she wasn't home and parking myself on her vanity bench.

These days, I'm a makeup connoisseur, but not a makeup snob. I'm just as delighted with a cheap thing that works great (hello, NYC Color and Wet & Wild) as I am with my Smashbox and Tony and Tina. But my ALL THE COLORS thing hasn't abated. If anything, its gotten worse.

I start with the lipstick case.
My lipstick used to be neatly ensconced in the Tool Box. (We'll get to that.) But it quickly overflowed its allotted portion of the box, crowding the other neighbors and causing complaints. Well, maybe I should just show you.
Its hard to fit it all in to one picture. What we have here is a seperate compartment for champagne/beiges, one for lipliners and sharpeners, one for pinks, and one for fiery reds, for those days when only a retro hair roll and a bit of burlesque-queen black eyeliner will do. What you see in the middle is the entire collection of NYC Color Extreme Lip Glider Lip Gloss, including the three special edition colors that weren't in the NYC display but I found then anyway. Oh, and seven Chapsticks. And a Blistex in Raspberry Lemonade. And some Rosebud Salve.

Don't judge me, but sometimes I lay in bed in the wan predawn light, thinking about what color I'm going to wear that day. Then I build the rest of the 'look' around it. I take issue with Gwyneth on one point; beauty is being comfortable in your own skin and believing that you are worthy of a kickass red lipstick. Lipstick says, hey, I decorated myself today, and I'm happy with the result. (Red lipstick says a few more things but I'll leave those to you to figure out.)

In our next installment, we'll venture to the Tool Box, where we'll examine such pressing issues as:
Is there a place in your life for yellow nail polish? (Perhaps)
Does one really need five completely different types of eyeliner? (You bet your sweet bippy)
Ulta: Delightful retail establishment, or dangerous makeup crackhouse? (You be the judge.)

Boogity, Boogity, Boogity

2010-08-08T13:41:00.003-04:00

Thanks to NBC Sports for the photo. Also: That is not my husband.

Things that are happening because my husband is at a race at Watkins Glen:

I rolled out of bed, ran a brush through my hair, and had a friend over for breakfast. I made omelettes. We drank high test coffee and talked about girl stuff, music, and world affairs. All before I'd put on street clothes, makeup, or a bra. Friends you don't have to vacuum for are AWESOME.

I've watched two different documentaries: this one and this one. I highly recommend them both. You'll need tissues.

I've left the air conditioner off and the windows open.

I've made cheese quesadillas an honorary food group.

I did laundry, but I haven't put it away. I may not put it away today, either. We'll see.

There is wine. Its cheap, cold, and in a jug. There is a high probability of italian food later, and it will very likely be consumed with a glass of the aforementioned cheap cold wine. Probably while watching another documentary.

We've had this text exchange:

Him: Hello...here
Me: Having fun?
Him: So far so good hot
Him: (Later) Pretty awesome
Me: Yeah? Can you see well where you are?
Him: (empty message-- itchy send finger, I guess)
Him: Yeah baby.
Me: Is it loud?
Him: Oh yeah.

So I gather from this that NASCAR is either so mind-numbingly awesome it simply buggers the imagination and one's ability to articulate its awesomeness via text message, OR its so loud and disorienting that it has reduced my husband's vocabulary to that of someone receiving a lap dance.
Either way, I'm not feeling sad or left behind.

I think I'll bake some pretzels.

In which I talk about undergarments and 'The Girls'

2010-08-01T20:47:00.005-04:00

Main Entry: 1bos·om
Pronunciation: \ˈbu̇-zəm also ˈbü-\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English bōsm; akin to Old High German buosam bosom
Date: before 12th century

1 a : the human chest and especially the front part of the chest b : a woman's breasts regarded especially as a single feature

If I was interviewed on 'Inside the Actor's Studio', and the man with the stack of blue cards asked me what my favorite word was, I'd be torn between 'luminous' and 'bosom'. I always associated bosom with a lady in a long dress and an apron who bakes and administers good advice.

Anyway.

On the way back from a late night ambulance run, we stopped at an 24 hour retail establishment because my co-pilot needed to buy a set of shelves that wouldn't have fit in her car. As we pulled into the parking lot I realized that I would practice some good self care and pick up something I desperately needed. How desperately? You be the judge:

That sad garment has five identical sisters. They slouch in a graying, resigned pile in one corner of my sock drawer, ready, sort of willing, and mostly able to do the very important job of aiming my headlights. I knew they needed to be replaced. I tried to ignore this fact. The final straw --no matter how carefully I attempted to avoid it when fastening my seatbelt in the ambulance, I always honked the horn with my left boob. Not exactly the professional demeanor one is going for in that situation.

Yes, it was time for some new ones. But I had two problems. The first had to do with the complicated algebra of determining correct size, where you are supposed to put on a bra that fits you properly (which is problematic because if I had those, we wouldn't be engaging in this particular exercise), measure around the band, measure around the 'fullest part of the breast', subtract one from the other, solve for 'x', multiply that by the cosine of 'y' over the result, bearing in mind that the nearest exit may be behind you, then have your chart done when Mars is ascendant to determine your cup size. I hadn't done this. But I had a vague notion of numeric size and as far as cups go I was somewhere between 'Well, Alright' and 'Rack of Doom'. So I figured I could guess.

The other problem was the time. 2-2:30am is not a particularly good time to make decisions about vital pieces of clothing.

I was not one of those girls that couldn't wait for a training bra. In fact, I held out so long that we were past training and heading into orientation before I agreed to wear one. I think I was terrified by the undergarments I watched my grandmother put on as a child. Ever the preacher of 'a dress only looks as good as what you wear under it', my grandmother took underthings very, very seriously. To put it in other terms, if your run of the mill Playtex is a VW Beetle, Mom-Mom favored the Armored Personnel Carrier. To this day I'll never understand how she did 18 hooks behind her back. I was no fan of scratchy fabric. Back then bras came in boxes, organized in drawers in the department store, and every single one a rappelling harness with a tiny rose embroidered on it. You wore it and you didn't complain.

Now the choices are numerous and varied. Too numerous and varied, I'm thinking, for someone who has been awake all day, got four hours of sleep the night before, and is now running on fumes through Walmart at 2:30 with only a vague sense of proper size. They still have the ones in the boxes; the drawers crouch demurely in the corner alongside gaudy specimens in every conceivable color and style, including some that should come with a red feather boa. I aimed for something in the middle and started digging.

One whole wall was what I would term a 'sports bra'. No hooks, you sort of wrestle yourself into them and those of us beyond 12 year old gymnast size end up with an attractive Uniboob. No, thankye kindly. On to the more traditional offerings.

Here's my first mistake. What is going on here?

It looks like it already has a pair in it. What was I thinking? I tried it on and while it fit nicely, I felt like I didn't so much put it on as decide to stand in it.

If only it came with a lariat. Oh, and in my delirium I bought an UNDERWIRE. Hate hate hate.

The second mistake was a two-fer. It was two to a pack; its sister is just blue.

No words. Only this.

Photo from here.

I suppose I'll get used to these in time, though due to a couple of miscalculations I need to get some extenders. But at least everything will be pointing in the right direction. And not activating any horns or sirens.

I'll let our buddy Creed take us out with some boobular wisdom.

Some Travel Reading for Your Journey out of Shametown

2010-07-22T16:38:00.000-04:00

Himself writes book reviews on a regular basis. (Interested parties can drop in here.) He's been bugging me to do it for a while. I told him it was too much like work, too much like school, and too much like he was telling me what to do and he could suck it. (Because polite discourse is always our preferred method of communication.)

In this case, however, its a good place to start. A good place to begin to explain the mental remodeling that's been going on with me these days. So I'll follow his format, and try to explain how much these books mean to me.

Book the first:

Title: Lessons from the Fat-o-Sphere: Quit Dieting and Declare a Truce with Your Body
Author: Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby
Publication Year: 2009
Genre: Nonfiction
Pages: 223

How I Found It: I'm having a tough time remembering how I found this book, but I'm pretty sure I stumbled upon Kate's Shapely Prose blog and it went from there.

This book is like that friend you wish you had in high school. The one that stood beside you, thought a little faster, and had the right thing to say when football players made ignorant comments about your weight at your locker. The fearless friend. The one that moved effortlessly between the cliques and refused to fit anyone's definition of cool because she had her own thing going and anyone who didn't like it could kindly fuck right off, thank you and goodnight.

Kate and Marianne quote Melissa McEwan of Shakesville.com

"It remains a radical act to be fat and happy in America, especially if you're a woman (for whom 'jolly' fatness isn't an option). If you're fat, you're not only meant to be unhappy, but deeply ashamed of yourself, projecting at all times an apologetic nature, indicative of your everlasting remorse for having wrought your monstrous self upon the world. You are are certainly not meant to be bold, or assertive, or confident-- and should you manage to overcome the constant drumbeat of messages that you are ugly and unsexy and have earned equally society's disdain and your own self hatred, should you forget your place and walk into the world one day with your head held high, you are to be reminded by the cowcalls and contemptuous looks of perfect strangers that you are not supposed to have self esteem; you don't deserve it. Being publicly fat and happy is hard; being publicly, shamelessly, unshakably fat and happy is an act of both will and bravery."

This book is a manifesto for finding that will and bravery. It dusted me off, set me upright, and dared to suggest that coming from a place of pressure, self-loathing, and miserable resignation to yet another diet is really not a foundation for effective self-care, never mind that its frustrating, ineffective, and turns you quickly into a sanctimonious preacher of the most tiresome ilk in a desperate effort to milk what little rush comes from those early days of control, when you make your little books and charts and buy your tools and convince yourself that this time, despite some 35 years of contrary evidence, THIS effort is going to magically make you someone you aren't and you'll stay that way, aloft, by some bottomless measure of effortless grace that comes from the Being Thin Fairy, who transports you to a magical land where everything fits and you feel fabulous all the time and your checkbook always balances.

I recommend this book as a starting point. More are recommended in its Appendix to suggest a better pattern for caring for yourself simply because you deserve good self care, WITHOUT weight loss as the goal. This book has made me pay attention to how often people talk about diets and dieting, how often they declare themselves good, bad, worthy or unworthy based on the number the scale gave them or whatever they ate that day, as if specific foods have a moral value. How many times I've done it. And how very, very tired I am of doing it. I'm learning how to be that friend I wish I had, both to myself and to others.

Next Time: The Nuts and Bolts of it all: 'Health at Every Size' by Dr. Linda Bacon

I could get used to this......

2010-07-01T16:47:00.002-04:00

Summer vacation. Say it aloud: Summer vacation. It has all sorts of satisfying noises in it, especially for someone who hasn't been able to take one in twenty years.

Twenty years, you ask?

Twenty years. In an industry with a 'peak season' during the summer. At companies with something called a 'vacation blackout period'. There was one week in July of 2004 when I took off and was allowed because, given the client I was dealing with, if I didn't get away from my desk for a week I was going to appear on the news walking meekly before a Delaware state trooper after a multi-hour standoff during which I would have simply broken a few of my boss'Lladro figurines and demanded a cheesesteak on a decent roll before dissolving into exhausted sobbing.

My first couple of weeks of unexpected vacation were a bit of an activity-filled blur. I disseminated resumes almost immediately, but the first week was our fire department carnival, so my idle time was spent avidly scrubbing the smell of fried peppers and onions and funnel cake out of my hair and lamenting the failure of modern dentistry in this part of the world. I cleaned a few things, sorted a few things, signed up for some volunteer work, started the networking process that will land me my next job, and finally, finally stopped and took a breath.

I'm loving the quiet. Just the clean quiet of an afternoon. The hiss of wind in the trees. My backyard is beautiful and I stopped seeing it; flying home between this and that and only allowing myself to be annoyed by the incessant barking of dogs. I'm soaking up this respite, this rest between measures. I know the music will take up again soon enough and I don't want to waste this.

New Directions

2010-06-24T10:19:00.000-04:00

"A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up."

--Albert Schweitzer

I've been too silent these last few months, and I'm going to remedy that.

The access to my well of words is a path too easily overgrown with weeds and deadfall; weeks go by without a coherent thought to share and the next thing I know I have to squint to see that track through to my subconscious, that faint trail into 'what I meant to say'. Much of it remained unexplained simply because I had no wish to complain, no wish to blame, no wish to give voice to that great net of unhappy facts to do with things I lacked; a vocation, basic consideration, a workplace that wasn't a minefield of treachery and misapprehension.

Well, someone stomped on the trap release on June 14th, and I bounded off into the woods.

My first week of unemployment was so monumentally busy that I could only pause from time to time to giggle at the supreme lightness of being free from that slow-burning anxiety that woke me almost nightly and guaranteed a slowly deepening Sunday afternoon depression. I am pursuing new possibilities while simply enjoying being able to freely breathe again.

A new adventure is coming.

A Pause in the Flailing

2010-05-11T13:22:00.004-04:00

Goodness, its May already.

In my industry we have what we call 'Peak Season'. It seems to have started a little early this year, so I've been on the road a fair piece, exploring both the interstate system of the Twin Tiers and the cabinet-organizing skills of scrapbooking mommies, industrious graduate students, and the odd Cat Lady.

Hours and hours on your own make for some interesting alone time. Helpful friends suggest books on CD and suchlike, but as the vehicle I travel in has no CD player (CD players having fallen in the optional category with power windows, cruise control, and air conditioning). I'm still working on good ways to occupy my brain without second-guessing film plots or listening to conservative talk radio. So far I've got:

Dream analysis
Attempting show tunes that are considered out of my vocal range
Writing blog posts in my head
Trying to remember what happened to my Barbies
Profiling other drivers
Speculating on clinical diagnoses of difficult people I know
Speculating on my own clinical diagnoses
Naming bands (like 'Dreams Walking in Broad Daylight'...the Talking Heads tribute band that doesn't exist, but should)
Thinking up ways to explode the myths of pop culture while simultaneously ensconcing myself as a pop culture icon though not in a trashy or sellout way unless its the fun and ironic but not overdone kind of selling out. (Oh, and for money, but not so much that its obscene)

I haven't posted much because, to be honest, ridiculous busy-ness doesn't seem to lend itself to the funny. The last few weeks have been a blur of Ambulance Association Treasurer-ing, meetings, ambulance calls, sleep catching up after said calls, driving, driving, and more driving, and increasing despair over my feeble housecleaning skills. If I had children without paws and a self cleaning feature they'd probably be dancing in the backyard around the pig on a spit and breaking some poor fat kid's glasses by now.

I'm still tying to honor my commitment to celebrating my fortieth year by pursuing what inspires me and what expresses my most authentic self. I'd like to be an authentic self with a clean kitchen floor, but, baby steps. Toward that end I'm renewing my commitment to post more often. It may not be all classic material but I see what happens when I don't occasionally take dictation from the goofball voices in my head; I get crabby and snappy and resentful and scatterbrained. I've never been one of those people who 'forgets to eat', but I have been one of those people who 'forgets to laugh'. And that, my friends, is nae good.

I also wanted to pimp my other site, Your Basic Dare to Be Great Situation. I've struggled with the whole 'two different sites, or just one' deal for a while and I think that, at least for the time being, I am going to 'keep 'em separated', because not everyone wants to hear me bang on about escaping the diet mentality, making peace with my body, caring for it out of respect rather than shame, and all that happydoodle. Though if it interests you, its all there. I've gotten off wrongfooted a couple of times, so early posts reflect some old attitudes, but the times and my thinking are a' changing and all of it can be found over yonder.

Happy Tuesday!

Fecal Matters

2010-03-29T18:31:00.005-04:00

....or, why I should tell that Little Susie Sunshine volunteer in my head to shut the hell up once in a while.

It started innocently enough. Himself forwarded me an email from the Director of Religious Education at our church.

"Our confirmation luncheon is coming up next Saturday...and we need your help!" What followed was a laundry list of food items and dessert requests. What the heck, I thought, I can bang out a batch of cookies. I thought of the cookie press, usually hauled out for Christmas only. I seemed to remember that there was a butterfly disc in the kit. I imagined myself baking a batch of brightly colored, spring celebratin', Easter-y Resurrection-y cookies. Wouldn't that be just swell. I answered the email and put myself down for what would, no doubt, be a triumph of religious-themed bakery.

I knew there was a grid on the back of the food coloring box that indicated how many drops made all sorts of fancy colors. Aztec Blue! Peach! Ooooh! PURPLE! Yes, I thought, purple butterflies are just the thing. I mixed up the batter and dutifully counted drops.

I mixed.

And mixed.

And mixed. And then figured, what the heck, its a big batch of batter. So I carefully added the proportions again.

I need to pause and mention here that I satisfied my one obligatory art credit in college with basketweaving. My basketry was heavily subsidized with surreptitious application of hot glue. I never had to grapple with the subtleties of color-mixing. Otherwise I might have suspected that blue and red food coloring in cookie dough that is already pretty yellow from the addition of THREE STICKS OF BUTTER makes this:

Mmmm. Tasty.
The dough was starting to get a little loose. This did not contribute in any kind of positive way to the overall appeal. (Anyone who has a cookie press knows this is why you spend the better part of this particular phase of Christmas cookie preparation engaging equal parts Arbor Mist consumption and profanity that would make the most jaded teenagers blush.)

But I was tired. I figured my opinion on the matter was tainted. So I asked Himself. He came into the kitchen and said, "Oh my God, you can't send those to church. They look like poop." He was not using a scatological term to suggest that they were 'not up to snuff' or 'looked somewhat untidy'. He MEANT it.

"Nonsense, I replied, they'll be okay once I bake them."

Nope, even baked they held on to a shade somewhere between taupe and proctology sample. At best they looked as though they were lovingly fashioned out of liverwurst. I especially like how the unincorporated blue food coloring makes some of them appear as though they have veins AND poor circulation. Now there's something you want crumbling into your tea.

APPARENTLY the color chart on the back of the box is for EASTER EGG DYING. Who knew. So the cookies went in a big ziplock bag, which sits in our kitchen. I suggested to Himself that he can eat them in the dark, where in the glow of the television they don't look quite so meaty and menacing.

Happy Easter!

Up for Grabs

2010-03-19T10:00:00.003-04:00

ELMIRA-- In this curious bit of joint marketing, the Throwdown of Throwdowns is advertised.

My money's on the Handsome Fella on the left. The one with the wavy hair and the borderline-biker beard. The other dude's a little, well, Beelze-bubbly for my tastes.

I like the second line. "Who's gonna get it?" Though I note a distressing lack of a phone number or a website. You know, for people who don't know how to cast their vote for Biker Jesus or Pointy Headed Red Guy Fawkes Mask ...Guy.

Must....blog.....must.....blog.....

2010-03-17T21:33:00.003-04:00

Yeah....its been like that. Bits of this stuck inside of bits of that....I drive and noodle around with ideas and look for fun stuff and wait for the magic to happen so I can come home and drop a fully formed blog post on ya. Sometimes its just that easy.

This seems to be one of those weeks where it isn't.

Ambulance duty has been quiet. Pop culture is leaving me cold. I never rant about health care or wars or TLC programs about people who procreate like its some sort of contest, so that's out. I'm trying to be a better housekeeper. My cat continues his romance with the feral female who occasionally sits on our front porch railing. (They mostly just stare at each other. He has neither the outside privileges nor the block and tackle to take it any further.)

My mad skillz as a weirdness magnet have not relented; I stopped in a grocery store a couple of days ago for a cup of coffee, having discovered after several failed attempts at actual service at the town's only restaurant (a McDonalds staffed by surly, indifferent youtes. How many times do you walk out of a Mc D's with no food before you give up on it entirely? The answer is three.) that the Tops just across the street had a Tim Horton's in it. The ride back to the office from there is sixty miles of poverty-line architecture and the occasional dump truck so a mid-afternoon bump is absolutely necessary to keep from having to pick bits of guardrail out of my front end. I was on the way out of the store with my cup of coffee and one snack item when I was confronted.

"HEY! Zis your cart?" he said, gesturing to a cart left in the middle of the aisle.
"No...I don't have a cart....just a coffee,"
"Well its in the way! Someone's going to trip over it!" He says this while angrily trying to drag it laterally to one side instead of, you know, rolling it. On the wheels.
"Its NOT MINE." I say, feeling antagonized at being yelled at for no reason. I'm really starting to think someone needs to test the water out there in the 814.
"Its IN the WAY!!"

At this point I seriously considered kicking him in the shins. I know that isn't a particularly kind response but being yelled at by a gap toothed yokel before I had even the first slurpy too-hot sip of my coffee was too much.

The weirdness isn't always confrontational; I was having a perfectly genteel cup of tea and a biscotti with a customer who, after knowing me about 11 minutes, was sufficiently comfortable with me to relate, in startling detail, the skill with which her favorite (though sadly, deceased) natural practitioner used to administer colonics.

Most of my folks are relentlessly normal; people of the princess canopy bed and scrapbooking set. Treadmills and cute throw rugs. I only had one recently that made me feel like I was in preproduction for an episode of COPS.

It started out innocently enough. A perfectly cheerful fellow called me and said his girlfriend needed to move 'right away'. I fit him in my day without an issue, it was on the way home.
As I cruise the block looking for the house number, I see it. Oh no please no don't let that be....dammit. It IS the house. The front porch looks like a Very Special Episode of Hoarders. I pick my way through the dozen bags of trash on the curb. A small pathway exists from the front steps to the front door. On one side, it is banked up with plastic bags of clothes, lawn ornaments, old magazines, and a piano. The other side is primarily porno tapes.

Yes, VHS porno tapes. Perhaps the neighbors have some kind of 'take one leave one' lending library, I think to myself. I knock tentatively on the door. I hope no one is home. Someone IS home. He comes out and explains blearily that what is on the porch is 'all that's goin', because apparently, his wife has absconded with the gentleman who called me to make the appointment. He explains to me, while idly scratching the spiderweb tattoo on his elbow, that he's been awake for two days straight gathering up her worldlies and throwing them on the porch. On the plus side, she got the piano, all the gnomes and, apparently, the entire 'Hot Asians' series.

I tried to take a photo of a poster the other day in Syracuse advertising the 'Canastota Psychic Fair' because it had a date on it, but no times. I guess people just KNOW. (If you are just a fan and not an actual psychic the times ARE on the website. Now I'm paranoid that they know I'm mocking them.) At any rate I was 1) too far away and 2) at a traffic light driving through Downtown Sketchyville because Route 81 is closed at 690W thanks to some chucklehead who owns a building that is about to fall down (and possibly spill its buildingy bits all over 81) but who doesn't think he's responsible to demolish it. Because its historic.

Spring is coming, and I'm sure new adventures will ensue. I'm sorry I didn't have some profound musing on St. Patrick's Day. Ireland is the only context in which I can ever be accused of having Republican leanings so I tend to shy away from the subject lest I end up explaining Why I'll Never Be Invited to the White House.

Mountain Medicine

2010-01-11T13:05:00.005-05:00

I've been sick.

It started innocently enough last Monday night; I came home wirh grand plans to go to the gym with Himself and I became aware that I had a bit of a sore throat. I made a cup of tea and dinner, did a yoga DVD, and generally got over myself. By Tuesday my nose was plugged up so completely that every swallow produced this disgusting 'snerk' and I was resorting to open mouth breathing to stay snerk free and keep my blood oxygen level somewhere in the 90s. Wednesday I stayed home.

I have to be careful when I get colds. I had walking pneumonia in college and ever since then, if I don't creep around and drink gallons of water and care for myself like a frail, fainting creature it all drains straight into my chest and sets up base camp to begin filming an IMAX film about bronchial infection. One bout of pneumonia was more than enough; I have no desire to spend another eight months taking theophylline (a delightful asthma medication with all the jittery excitement of double clutching on the yellow line heading eastbound and down with a trailerload and a deadline popping NoDoz like Pez) and sleeping propped up on pillows like the Elephant Man so I don't drown in my own gravy.

I've reached the downward side of this cold; the middle of my face no longer appears as if I rubbed it briskly with a microplaner and now that I don't have to fortify myself with night time cold medicine, the cast of Barney Miller has taken a merciful hiatus from my dreams. My consistent need to evict various nose goblins with fistfuls of Kleenex kept me out of the movies, not wanting to inflict my noises and juiciness on the ticket-buying public. But Sunday came, and I needed to go to church.

Himself advised me on the way in that we'd have to sit in the back, owing to his violent poinsettia allergy. We slipped into the pew normally reserved for the 'slightly late'. I took off my coat and indulged a quick succession of barking coughs that echoed off the rafters. The woman seated directly in front of us abruptly stood up and moved three rows ahead, which was apparently not enough of a disease barrier for her since she turned around and gave me a dirty look every time I coughed after that. I hoped she knew that the 'Passing of the Peace' was suspended so she wouldn't have to risk my cooties in the interest of sharing the love of Christ. Her place was taken by a Woman in a Hat.

You don't see too many of these anymore. Most of them are 'ladies of a certain age'....ladies who remember when all ladies wore hats in church. And gloves. I sat still, trying not to bark, admiring the silk roses and angel pin tacked on the faux fur. Himself said she had strong perfume on, but I couldn't smell it.

I whispered my way through the last verse of the last hymn and started putting on my coat. The Hat Lady turned around. I wondered idly what age ushers in the drawing of the eyebrows half an inch higher than they used to be.

"Are you the one with the cough?"

'Yep, that's me," I said, wondering where this was going.

"You know what you need to do? You need to get yourself a big bermuda onion, and cut it in half and put it in your bedroom. I've been doing that three years running and its worked every time. A nurse up at the hospital (oh, good God) told me about this."

"Well, um, thanks. I'll have to give that a try!"

We drove home. I don't have any onions. I wonder if a carrot would work.

The Road Not Taken (On account of the corn)

2010-01-04T12:55:00.002-05:00

Once in a while I experience a twinge of guilt, thinking perhaps my blog title here is a bit marginalizing and judgy, like, who am I anyway and this isn't so far out in the country and whatnot. Then I get directions to a party, which I reproduce here in all of their informational (and punctual) glory.

directions to Party

Take Rt.6 E to 287 N take the first left hand turn onto Marsh Creek Road

(this is across from the train station ,or toward Butlers where you buy

corn. Stay on Marsh Creek Road do not turn they did not get the corn picked)

Follow this road to just around the corner about a mile turn right onto Trailerpark
Lane. Ronnie has a navitiy scene and other lights in her yard
she is the only double wide.Parking in driveway and along the road.

Awesome.

Mom-Mom's House

2009-12-24T08:23:00.002-05:00

Christmas was the best.

I can still close my eyes and see every room, every softly lit corner, every china figurine, the order of the music boxes on the shelves that flanked the fireplace, every carefully chosen painting. I can smell the eucalyptus in the dried flower arrangements and remember the dry ticking of the mantel clock, its miniature Westminster chime announcing the quarter hours.

But Christmas was the best. The deep recess of the bay window was filled with light, a small tree at its center. The larger tree was decorated with ornaments no one else had; jewel toned birds with nylon tails that trembled and reflected the lights, bobbing on cunning springs. Tiny musical instruments with real strings. Glass ornaments that seemed to sparkle with sugar frosting. A jaunty man with a pipe stood smoking on the mantel, a smoldering cone of pine incense hidden under his brightly painted coat. The candlesticks bore tiny wreaths of their own, their light reflecting softly on the Christmas china's painted trees. Ceramic plates shaped like white poinsettias, or holly leaves and berries, were filled with cookies. The kitchen was busy and full of wonderful smells; if you opened the dutch door (closed to keep the dog from being a pest) you might be handed a bin of ice cubes, or a basket of rolls, to ferry to the table.

The turkey rested on the kitchen counter while gravy was being made across two burners in the roasting pan, majestic on its white platter. The electric knife would be unsheathed and plugged in, the designated carver summoned. Little by little, as real estate on the glass-topped warming tray was claimed by steaming, fragrant bowls, we'd start to gather. Someone would wander from room to room finding out 'what everyone wants to drink'. Pop-Pop's special iced tea glass sat beside his plate at the head of the table (Or the foot, depending on which one of them you asked). We'd all assemble, the shortest kid getting the back corner chair (on the leg, be careful not to kick it).

For several minutes you'd hear nothing but the scraping of silver on china. Seconds were a ballet since there was very little space between the table and the dry sink. (This did not deter us.) The talking would begin with news of cousins and family friends, funny work anecdotes, good report cards, and the combination of soft light and a full belly would lull you into a half dream, surrounded by the hum and murmur of safety, the warmth of people who loved you.

We would assemble after dinner in the living room, opening gifts one at a time, youngest to oldest, until everyone sat with a drift of paper at their feet. Slowly, so everyone could see. The waiting got easier as you got older. Mostly. I still have the Complete Works of William Shakespeare, its crisp smell and crackling cover slowly yielding to bookmarks and highlighted passages 27 years later, one of my favorite presents.

This Christmas is hard, because we know, finally, completely, that we don't have that place to go back to. What we miss is not merely the place, but the love that made it, and filled it, and held it together. We have to cry a little, and be brave, and make our own sanctuary. I can still see her looking at something and saying, "Do you know what I'd do with this?"

Yep. We know. You'd make it beautiful. Thank you for showing us how.

Bathroom Reading--it may save your life

2009-12-19T21:29:00.008-05:00

Stuff to understand first:
I grew up reading Reader's Digest. And I mean, from the time I was three and my feet didn't touch the floor. In my grandmother's house, when that magazine came in the mail, the little paper band would be ripped off and it would immediately go in the bathroom. You would no more expect to see an RD in in a different room than you would a roll of Charmin and anytime I saw them in other people's houses in a place other than the bathroom, I felt shocked, as if they'd left a pile of neatly folded underpants on their coffee table.

Being a compulsive reader I'd go through that magazine cover to cover, absorbing inspirational pet tales, detailed descriptions of medical procedures I wasn't sure I wanted to understand, vocabulary builders and government outrages and 'Humor in Uniform' (anyone notice how brief that feature is anymore? I don't think there IS much humor in uniform these days, or maybe not the kind suitable for RD), whatever it was, I read it. I was fascinated by the 'Shell Safety Series', which told you what to do in the event any number of vehicular horrors befell you on dark and stormy nights or in a blizzard or in six lanes of LA traffic. Heck, I didn't even drive, but I was one of those irritatingly precocious kids who wanted to know what to do.

So this would explain how my Friday went better than it might have.

I was tootling up Route 81 toward Syracuse for my only appointment of the day. 12pm, one and done, grab lunch, get home by 5, bang out a few dozen cookies, put up some decorations, have an adult beverage. This was the checklist I was working on as I listened to some classical music on the radio, one of the lesser Bachs with lots of initials. Then..... dun dun DUN, I hear bang! And swop swop swop swop and I know I just blew a tire. That's when my Reader's Digest inspired ninja training kicked in. 'Foot off the pedals', I told myself. 'Fade over to the shoulder'. 'Hazards on'. 'Brake gently' 'Freak out a little'. (Okay, that's not one of the steps, but c'mon.) The shoulder is ridiculously narrow, I'm about 8 inches on the good side of the white line and if I'd gotten any further over I knew whoever was coming to rescue me wouldn't have been able to deal with the tire, which was on the passenger side. Trucks are rocking the van as I sit there dialing. I call my boss and let him know what happened. He tells me who to call. I call them. The guy sounds like I woke him up.

"Hello (fleet emergency rescue company) can I help you?"
"Yes, I just had a blowout on 81 North just below Syracuse, NY."
"Okay, are you on the road?"
"Um, I'm on the SHOULDER," I tell him.
"Okay, can you tell me where you are?"
(Thinking I just did that) "Yeah, I'm just past the Preble rest stop, about a mile and a half below the Tully exit, I can see it from where I am, and,"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa...so, what TOWN are you in?"
"Well, I guess its TULLY, but I'm on 81. I'll give you the numbers off the mile marker." I wait for a break in traffic and dive out of the van, walking to the mile marker that is just behind me. I read off all three numbers.
"Ma'am, you are giving me too many numbers."
"Well, I'm sorry, sweetie, there are THREE numbers on the marker. One is the route number, and there are two underneath it."
"Do either of them have a decimal point in them?"
"Well there are a couple of BOLTS holding it to the post, so I couldn't tell you," I'm starting to consider just hoofing it to the exit. Then I reflect on the fact that its 15 degrees. With wind. I decide to believe in my guy here, who to be fair is in Massachusetts. He tells me he'll send someone out. I jump back in the van, put on my seatbelt, and pull out a book. Because what the heck, right?

A few minutes later I get a call from a tire place in Syracuse, telling me a guy is on his way. He asks me if I have a spare. I ask him where they typically are in a vehicle with no trunk. He tells me. I wait for a break in traffic, dive out of the van, and peer under the back end of the van.
"Yep, there's a spare."
I wait for a break in traffic. I dive back in, and read some more.
And read some more. And read some more. I start to triangulate the starting point of the truck and figure when I should start to worry. Time passes, and I receive faintly urgent message from the cappuccino I bought at Dunkin Donuts an hour and a half before. Half an hour later I get a call from the tire guy. He's just passed me, he has to go to the next exit and turn around, and he'll be here in 10 minutes. I read. A state trooper stops by just to make sure all is well. I glance longingly at the Nice and Easy at the next exit and have a fleeting urge to ask him to take me there so I can pee, but I dismiss it because that's just crazy. He leaves.

Tire guy comes, jacks up the van with me in it (its just like NASCAR, only slower and colder, and okay, its not like NASCAR at all but he didn't ask me to get out and its FIFTEEN DEGREES so screw it) and begins to remove the spare.

Only its not coming off. Not at all. Not after fifteen minutes of banging and prying. Not after twenty minutes of banging and prying. Not after forty five minutes of banging and prying. I squint at the Nice and Easy, with its cheerful early-eighties logo. Is it really a mile away? Could I make it? Its time to abort this mission. I wait for a break in traffic and dive out of the van. I stand beside the legs under the back end until a head peeps out.

"Lets just bag it, and call for a tow truck, okay? I don't think its coming off and its kind of unsafe here and (yes, I said this) I really, really, really need to pee."

He gathers up his tools and I jump in his truck, every interior surface of which has been touched by hands that don't have the benefit of a wash after changing truck tires. I notice he has the same GPS as I do, only its duct-taped to the dashboard on a mounting bracket fashioned out of coathangers. We go to the exit. Two hours and sixteen minutes have passed since my Shell Safety moment. I come out of the store and my knight in grease besmeared armor says, "Hey, well, here's what we can do. We can go back to the van, (south and then north) take the wheel off, take it to the shop (further north, then back south past the van, then off and back on the highway and north again) and replace the tire, and then go back and put it on, or we can tow it."

I blink at him. I decide not to ask why we didn't BRING THE WHEEL WITH US when we headed north in the first place. We go back south, turn around, come north, get the wheel, and drive to Syracuse. Change the tire. Put it back on the truck, drive BACK past the van, get off, turn around, and return. (I know this is tedious to read. It was even more tedious to DO.) In no time he has it back on and at 3:47pm, four hours and thirteen minutes after my Shell Safety Moment, I am on my way to my 12pm appointment. The customer was lovely and offered me tea, I did my thing and at about 5:30pm I stopped to get some lunch.

Good God, Syracuse. How do you deal with it? As soon as I got out of the van it hit me. This ridiculous sun-is-down-now-wind-driven cold, more than cold. A teabagging from Mr. White Christmas, Mr. Snow, the Cold Miser himself. I mean, jeez. I live in a place where it gets cold. But this was insane. I paid for my sushi, dodging one cashier for another after I determined the woman in front of me was not just momentarily befuddled by the intricacies of purchasing one apple and one banana but actually batshit crazy, and I was on my way. I got home at 8:45. I sang all the way home, loudly, accompanying my fevered vigilance for deer. There were no cookies baked. I took a shower and passed out by 10pm.

But don't worry-- the cookies are coming.

Dickens-ed Again

2009-12-06T18:03:00.005-05:00

Yep, another Dickens of a Christmas has come and gone here in town.

Once again my voluminous skirts are tucked away in the closet, and once again I make a promise to knock together some kind of bonnet before the big day so I don't walk around with snow-soaked bedraggled hair looking like the Children of Doom huddled under the coat of the Ghost of Christmas Present by 3:30.
(Though I won't lie; I'd KILL for those thighs.)

It snowed this year, and while that seems like it would have added a magical element to the strolling and the caroling and the Victorian-ing and the bread pudding-ing, it mostly made everything soppy and cold and faintly smell of wet dog. The vendors tried in vain to keep accumulating snow off of their wares. (Underscoring somewhat the insanity of a five block long outdoor craft fair in the middle of December. In North Central Pennsylvania. )
As ever, I was up at 5am, downtown by 6:30, and out on my assigned street making sure vendors knew where to set up and that they were within their allotted space. Once again I got to participate in my favorite part of Dickens, the little golden nugget of enforcement that warms the cockles of my heart and empowers me to spread little life lessons like Christmastime fairy dust.

Towing cars.

There are blaze orange signs all over town, pretty much on every other parking meter, on every street that will be filled with vendors. The signs say, in English, no less, "NO PARKING, TEMPORARY POLICE ORDER". And not surprisingly, there is at least ONE person on my designated block who doesn't get the memo. This year there were two. Yaay!
The tow truck driver swung in with amazing deftness, ran the thingy under the car, scooped it up and went. Do you know how long it actually takes to tow a car? About 30 seconds. Did you know you don't even have to get OUT of the tow truck to hook them up and take them away? They don't. Is there something wrong with the singular joy I take in this part of my responsibilities? Probably. In my defense I did NOT hang around waiting for the tearful college student to appear, asking in a trembling voice where her car was. But I'll be honest; I wanted to.

We sang our carols at the end of the day and picked our soggy way back to the car. I was never so thankful for my crock pot; dinner was ready and waiting when we got home, beef stew and homemade bread. A little ibuprofen and a hot shower and my joints were even working again. We had delightful company all weekend and I spent much time over a cup of coffee at the kitchen table, chatting and poring over catalogs and cookbooks. Little did I know, tragedy loomed.

I baked a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread this morning, preparing it in the wee hours so that it would fill the house with its wonderful aroma when we were ready to get up. I came home from shopping this afternoon and put some pizza dough in the machine for dinner. And when I pulled my ball of pizza dough out of the pan, I found this.

That little bugger is what makes the magic happen. Without it my bread machine is a doorstop. I WILL find another one, because I refuse to go back to the crumb-less, personality zero, stays fresh for weeks because its soaked in chemicals- plastic wrapped crapola in the grocery store. So if anyone has a Regal Kitchen Pro Model 6761 sitting on a shelf taking up space because Aunt Velma gave it to you 10 years ago and it only gives you a faint sense of guilt because you think you SHOULD make your own bread and string ecologically friendly Christmas ornaments made from cranberries and popcorn and use those darn reusable grocery bags you keep leaving in the car but who has the time and it doesn't make you a bad person dammit, you aren't Martha Stewart but you do okay, let me know. I'll take the bread machine and the lingering feelings of inadequacy and latent resentment off your hands.

Err

2009-11-30T20:11:00.001-05:00

Hey!

Just put up a new post, which can be found here on my other blog. I know, its confusing, but since not everyone wants to hear about my ensmallening hijinks all the darn time I keep it separated. But I'll be back with the random foolishness here that you have come to enjoy. Stay tuned.

Grocery Shopping, PMS, and You

2009-10-27T20:21:00.005-04:00

This is what I went to the grocery store for.

This is what I came home with. Not pictured: Two kinds of sugar (cubes and demerara). We also have cheese in a jar, cheese in a bag, cheese in wedges, a jar of chocolate, the aforementioned apple butter, and Rachel Ray.

Seamus DARES you to judge me.

I drank a glass of wine and made a balsamic reduction. Why? BECAUSE I CAN. And also, because nothing says, "My dearest darling, soulmate whose deepest secrets I keep, it would be in your best interest to stay out of the kitchen for awhile" quite like a pot of boiling vinegar.

Anyhow, dinner was grilled chicken with roasted red peppers and balsamic reduction over rigatoni with a touch of alfredo sauce. (Except for Little Lord Fauntleroy, who had to have angel hair pasta because he says he doesn't like rigatoni.) It was delicious. I tried to take a picture but failed to use the 'Food' setting on my camera, which it really has, and ended up with a distressingly glistening yet still out of focus plate of food that had all the charm of a co-ed night out uploaded to Facebook directly from the club-- a little sweaty and unsavory-looking. So you'll have to take it from me that it was pretty and tasted good.

Himself just yelled through the office door to ask what 'Emo' is. How the hell should I know? I'm having a second glass of wine.

Vacation Part the Third: Getting Home, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Fly Steerage

2009-10-23T15:59:00.005-04:00

So. We drove back to my friend's house in pouring rain at the end of the weekend, unloaded the car, put away all the extra beer, and napped. After a night spent doing laundry and petting a couple of touchy but lovable weiner dogs it was time for me to head back home. My friend lives minutes from the airport, so I breezed in and waited in line, chatting with the other passengers.

I may have mentioned before that my sister works for the airline. This is convenient, but not quite as effective as saying "I'm with the band", or "I'm IN the band," or "Despite my uncultured appearance I am actually a member of MI-5 and in addition to wearing a bitchin' sidearm, I can tell you that you are under arrest." No, flying 'non-revenue' works like this. You pick your flights, and you call to find out 'how they look'. Are they full? No? Okay, then you 'get listed' on the flight. Then you call the 800 number five times or so between the time you 'get listed' and the time you 'show up' to make sure there are still empty seats on that flight. If there aren't , you can roll the dice, or pick another flight.

When I called the night before my flight from Atlanta to Philadelphia had 'Sixteen open seats, with five non-revenues listed' including myself. Sounded good. Then I had them check my flight from Philadelphia to Williamsport, which had been fine as frog's hair for five days. The news was not encouraging. "Oh, I'm afraid that flight is full," my helpful agent said. I paused to reflect on how it could be, with the Little League World Series being over and no impending apocalypse that anyone could point to, that so many people had the inclination to fly to Williamsport, Pennsylvania at dinner time on a Tuesday. I changed my final leg to Elmira. I live smack in between so it didn't much matter. "Okay, so you are listed on Flight XX, operated by Air Wisconsin (huh?), departing XX and arriving XX at Elmira Regional Airport." I am still too confounded by the Air Wisconsin thing to hear anything else she tells me.

So I check in. And I breeze off into the terminal with all the sunshiny confidence of a person who has not noticed that their ticket has no zone or seat assignment printed on it. Security is a quick matter thanks to my paranoid and slavish attention to the rules, my slip on shoes, and the fact that my 3-1-1 bag is clutched in my hand when I get to the X-ray machine. I wait a few minutes, unperturbed by the rather large number of people at the gate. When they start calling zones I look at my ticket and realize I don't have one. I show it to the gate agent.

" You have no zone, dalin, because te flight is full." she says, and I detect a lilt of an island I fervently wish I was sitting on with my toes dug into the sand. I find a seat at the gate with a dejected-looking gentleman who informs me he's been at the airport for five hours already. He explains that the first flight of the day to Philadelphia was cancelled.

Fracksticks.

This means that all of the people with tickets they actually PAID FOR have to be bumped into later flights. Take away a handful who had to make connections and were booked on other airlines. That leaves, oh, a hundred or so people who just got tucked in line ahead of me in terms of actual human plane-boarding viability. I settle in for the long haul. After being informed I can try again for the next flight in less than an hour I trudge with my wheely-bag which must not ever be out of my sight the quarter mile to Starbucks and order the only tall Vanilla Latte that my budget allows. The barista has the cheerfulness of someone who is already home. I tamp down despair and trudge/wheel back to C25 to await my fate. I have already been told that flight two is full as well; my island friend added helpfully that 'Te flow of flights changes all the time, darlin', you can neveh tell what will happen." I flop in a chair and make my first of many calls home to inform that the plans they are a changin'.

Flight two begins boarding, and I stand hopefully just to the left of the little check-in stand, concentrating on looking interested and ready but not desperate and pathetic. It mostly works, although I have to give a hard look to the last four people to board. Just as I was told it looked like there were open seats they came, suit jackets flapping, computer bag bouncing against an expensive trouser-clad hip, clutching a folded and spindled boarding pass. A tense moment passes while the gate agents discuss another non-revenue passenger they thought was coming who was apparently of higher priority than me. "Maybe she's stuck at security," they muse aloud. I try not to hate them. Finally the woman turns to me as if seeing me for the first time and says, "Well, there is one seat left in First Class if you are willing to pay for the upgrade and I suggest you take it because" and I don't hear anything she says after that, having hypnotized myself with the dove hologram on my Visa card I am waving at her. The only hitch is that I have to check my bag. I explain that my final destination is still a big question so I'll have to check it to Philadelphia only and then see. She tells me that the ONLY REASON I can actually do that is because I'm flying First Class. Well, whoo hoo. I sprint down the jetway and savor those seconds of boarding the plane, glancing back to coach with its tiny seats and squirmy babies and little plastic cups and one tiny bathroom all the way in the back, and take my seat in row four. I resist the urge to throw double hand signs like I'm at a Motley Crue show. My seatmate, mercifully separated from casual hip contact by a seemingly useless leather console, never even acknowledges my existence. I decide its better to simply put on my headphones and peruse the Sky Mall. They come around with a basket (an actual basket!) of cookies and granola bars. The flight is peaceful, civilized, and brief.

In Philadelphia I wait at the bottom of the jetway while a young man specifically comes up the stairs on the outside and hands me MY BAG. I exhibit a degree of gratitude I'm assuming most regular First Class passengers don't bother with and steel myself for The Hike.

Philadelphia Airport is a really nice, recently remodeled, and insanely organized airport. Take a look in the front of the magazine next time you fly. Unlike Atlanta, which is all linear and ninety degree angles and trains and alphabetical order, PHL was clearly laid out by someone with anger issues and strong prescriptions. If you are headed for some sort of, I believe the polite term is 'Jerkwater outpost', you have to leave from 'F' Terminal. I'll let you ruminate on the propriety of that alphabetical designation. This involves hiking halfway through the main terminal, following haphazardly placed signs, to an escalator that leads to an area of the airport where you suddenly worry you aren't supposed to be. From there, you board a bus that threads among the planes and luggage tugs and various un-identifiable pieces of whatever and then deposits you in 'F'. I make the final ascent to my gate and present my boarding pass for Elmira. There is frowning and typing.

"This flight is full," the gate agent tells me. I start reeling off cities within three hours of home.
"Ithaca?" I ask, hopefully. "Maybe," he says. Then, "There are open seats on the flight to Williamsport," indicating my original flight. I go for it. "Here, he says, I'll keep you listed on this flight and give you a boarding pass for Williamsport and if it doesn't work out over there come back here and we'll try," I thank him and head to the other end of 'F'. My sister meets me. We chat. She gives me another book to read, something I hope isn't an omen. She talks to the gate agent for the Williamsport flight and his news is good. There are seats. And again, who the hell is going to Williamsport on a Tuesday evening.

Meanwhile, our plane, my plane, is unloading passengers from wherever. I figure in a few minutes we will board and be on our way and please please please, I will be on this plane. I don't notice a gray panel van approaching from my right. I watch with the other passengers as two men get out, take out big orange ladders, and set them up on either side of the left propeller.

Which they begin to take apart.

I watch for a while and decide I'm better off facing the other way. The gate agent continues to give updates, explaining that there will be a 'short' delay. Her mimed conversation through the window to the guys outside suggest short may be 'tomorrow'. I concentrate on breathing normally. A guy who 'knows about this stuff' stands at the window, arms folded, declaring that our flight will be cancelled. The natives begin to get restless. A nicely dressed and heavily pregnant woman appears at our gate, and something about her eyes suggests she is a heartbeat away from a meltdown. She is clutching a Continental Airlines boarding pass and explains that she 'Just needs to get home' and blah blah blah I am struggling to be compassionate while worrying that she is going to take my seat. She is banished to the ticketing counter. She leaves. We wait. I turn around briefly to see one of the mechanics handing down pieces of the 'fender' or whatever it is that goes behind the propeller. Pregnant lady comes back with a shiny new boarding pass. Idly, I watch a security dog and handler go by, noticing that the dog has a photo ID clipped to his orange harness. Just as I am overcome with the temptation to turn back around and try to interpret what is happening there is a hasty folding of ladders, a quickly flashed 'OK' from outside, and boarding begins. I still have to stand to the side while everyone else boards. She waves me through, and ten steps out the door she calls, "Miss?" I briefly consider just running. "This says you need to show (something something)" my ears are ringing at this, now hour 10 of travel, and I don't catch it.
She frowns and types. I look out the door and the flight attendant is shifting from foot to foot at the bottom of the stairs. "Oh, never mind, they just didn't change (something something), go ahead." I run before she changes her mind. A young man in a yellow vest takes my bag. It is the last one to be chucked in the trunk or whatever. I board, sinking gratefully into my seat at the back. The things you do to save a hundred bucks.

Interlude: My Favorite Intense Dollar Store Employee

2009-10-21T13:51:00.003-04:00

"Wow. So. You, like, really like macaroni and cheese."

"Just stocking up my office lunch drawer. Also: I'm kind of poor."

"Whoa. Yeah. I guess," she says, solemnly nodding.

Pay your student loans for seventeen years, angel britches. You'll get there.

Vacation Part the Second, In Which I am There, and there is Much Rejoicing (yaay...)

2009-10-17T10:51:00.003-04:00

Several of my lunch hours in this short week after my arrival home have been spent sitting in my car, scribbling furtively on the two pages in the back of my planner designated for 'notes'. This part of the vacation account has proven hardest to write, and I suspect it is because my vacation was exactly what it was meant to be; a complete disconnect from my everyday life, a deep plunge into no date, no schedule, and no demands. I was scolded more than once during the weekend for asking what time it was. It was as it should be.

My friend had rented a house in the woody bit of Georgia to the north of Atlanta. Having never traveled in that direction I was amazed how quickly we drove from EVERYTHING to NOTHING. But I am getting ahead of myself. Before we could embark on our journey, we had to obtain provisions.

I can tell you that from the time I was a wee snip of a girl until we were too old for family vacations, the shopping list was pretty much the same: hot dogs, hamburgers, rolls, cheese, condiments, chips, eggs, bacon or scrapple, Tang, macaroni salad, fruit salad, popsicles. Camping, family reunions, beach weekends; this list might vary based on length of stay or cooking facilities, lunchmeat replacing the hot dogs and hamburgers when there was no grill, but this was about as fancy as we got. This time we were being cooked for by my friend's father and his best friend, two people who probably should have been chefs. There would be no plastic containers of potato salad.

This was a MISSION. Seventeen or so people in a house for a weekend required a military operation in which we filled two carts at BJ's, visited a world market so vast in scope the employees wear tags listing all the languages they speak, sought out cheeses and fish in jars and stopped just short of caviar because apparently no 'suitable' caviar was to be found in the greater Atlanta area.

And then there was the wine. Various wines had been carefully packed and brought along by one of our weekend chefs, but more was needed. We pulled up in front of a supermaket-sized store called 'Total Wine".
Now. In Pennsylvania we have 'Wine and Spirits', and one of the more curious STATE jobs you can get is working there. So we have no such animal as 'Total Wine', which is staffed by over-caffeinated headset-wearing young people who appear ready to burst into a choreographed 'Up With People' number at any moment. All I wanted was a bottle of Red Cat. I approached a man in an embroidered golf shirt bearing a fistful of signs.
"Excuse me, where are your, um, New York Finger Lakes wines?" I asked.
"I'm just a distributor, I don't work here, but he can help you," he said, pointing to a young man who came bounding around the corner in a shirt and tie, headset at the ready.
"Do you have Red Cat?" I asked, feeling foolish in this literal warehouse of wine, aisles and aisles of things I'd never seen, arrayed under bewildering categories.
"YES we DO!" he enthused. "GOOD CHOICE!"
Good choice? I wonder if he would have said that no matter what I asked for. Wine is a mystery to me. I don't get notes, I don't get 'nose' or 'bouquet'. I can't praise or complain of oakiness, or a hint of moss and strawberry, or a faint flavor of an H & R Block office on April 14th. Its just wine. I like it, I don't. I should have said "Show me your finer screwcaps, nothing so piquant as a Two-buck Chuck but let's not go all the way to Boone's Farm-- something with the insouciance of a horny cheerleader but with enough smoky mystery that suggests second base is a distinct possibility but far from a sure thing."
Anyway, I got my wine.

Cars packed, we headed out. And I am going to say up front, I am completely lame. I did not take nearly enough pictures to document the weekend, mostly because I was having too good a time. First, the house.
Apparently its for sale, so if you have a million or so lying around you may want to snap this up. The views are spectacular. The company was even better. It was like all the kids in high school that were generally classified as dorks but were actually cooler than the cool kids grew up, got jobs, and came back together for a weekend with all gaming skills and Monty Python references intact. No reference was too arcane to be enjoyed. Several times, we burst into song. (I inadvertently typed 'snog' there first. No, it wasn't THAT kind of weekend.) We laughed, we celebrated, we proved that Smart People Are Fun. Most of the humor during those days is of the 'you had to be there' variety so it won't do any good to explain how I derailed someone's Rock Band efforts with a well-timed Jar Jar Binks impression. It was a fantastic weekend.

More adventure lay ahead, of course, especially since I essentially fly 'steerage'. But we'll talk about THAT next time.

Vacation Part the First: Getting Down

2009-10-14T20:43:00.003-04:00

What does this picture have to do with anything? Nothing at all. Its just awesome. Gentle readers, you know I live in the middle of nowhere. So air travel is not one of those hop on 95, park the car, and have at it sorts of things. When I booked my ticket I had two choices of beginning my journey within 55 miles of home: Williamsport, PA or Elmira, NY. Churchgoers, take a good look around next Sunday, and you'll have the general idea of the size of either airport. There were two flights available to me in my chosen city of origin; the very reasonable and civilized 12:05pm, or the actually-better-in-terms-of-sucking-the-marrow-out-of-my-vacation 5:45am.

Yeeah.
We availed upon family friends to stay with them Wednesday night so we could shorten our airport commute to about 15 minutes. After a brief chat centered mainly on cats we retired to the room they prepared for us and discovered quickly that its really just better not to monkey with someone else's sleep number settings, because it deflates almost soundlessly but firming it back up sounds like you pulled the starter on some piece of small and angry lawn equipment before shoving it under the bed. After about four hours of tossing and turning on an underinflated mattress we gave up and crept out of the house at 3:30 for a ridiculously early breakfast at Dunkin Donuts.

After a carefully organized and perhaps too brightly polite for the hour encounter with the TSA I was released to wait for the plane at the gate. I dozed most of the way and was surprised to be told we were making our final descent into Philadelphia. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and looked down at the twinkling strands of traffic framing neighborhoods that gleamed dimly like more distant stars. The dawn was just pinking up the horizon as we flew over Penn's Landing and I found myself awash in the peculiar homesickness that always visits unannounced and unexpected when I go down toward home. My sister, an airline employee, was waiting when I stumbled up the jetway and got my sleep-deprived self on the right bus to the right connecting terminal. I checked in and boarded my flight to Atlanta without much ado.

The doors closed and we were in the capable hands of, well, we were in the capable hands of the pilot and the co-pilot, who I decided I never want to think about now that I've reached an age where I eyeball co-pilots and think to myself, he is younger than me. Oh God, he's younger than me. Or when they are in line at Starbucks: What is he getting? Is he MY pilot? Is it okay, the vanilla latte, for flying? Is there someplace to put that muffin that's safe? So, no youngish co-pilot with a dangerously large muffin, just close that little door next to the bathroom and we'll forget all about them for the next hour and thirty-five minutes. Anyway, we had other things to worry about.
We had Sister Aeronautica and Sister Mary Catherine.

Look, I know its very important to please give my three minutes of attention to the flight attendant showing me how to remove my seatbelt by lifting up on the faceplate. I know I need to put on my mask before assisting someone else needing assistance. I know my seat cushion is a flotation device and that the nearest exit may be behind me, and that if I am sitting in an exit row I need to be willing to help other passengers go down the yellow slide with their seat cushion and masks that I put on them after I put on my own. Most people just thumb the Sky Mall and hit the mute button on all the 'what to do in the unlikely event of a depressurized and potentially fiery or watery death' business. Not today, friends. Because Sister Aeronautica was TALKING and you needed to be EYES FRONT. We were also advised that our seat backs needed to be straight up and our window shades OPEN. Though I don't know if 'advised' is a strong enough verb, since she walked through the plane reaching rather suddenly toward people's thighs, mashing the seat button with one hand while UPRIGHTING the back with the other.

Sister Mary Catherine, so named because she was younger, lacked the persistent shellacking of hairspray and determined eyeliner of her counterpart, and looked like she might be nicer but was taking her cues from the top, was in charge of window shades. I leaned toward the passenger in front of me who had lowered her shade an inch to prevent early onset cataracts and warned her by saying "Sister Mary Catherine is coming, you may want to put that back up." This illicited a snort and a giggle that was taken up by three other passengers, who she looked hard at one by one as she passed us. I feared being labeled instigator and made to stand in the galley with my nose in a circle of chalk. I needn't have worried, all the scolding was reserved for a woman speaking in rapid-fire Russian on her cellphone even though she was TOLD to TURN IT OFF. As I waited for her smackdown I listened to her conversation and learned there is apparently no Russian word for 'Altoona', 'granola bar', or 'home game'. 15 minutes before we landed she sequestered herself in the tiny bathroom and emerged five minutes later to ensure the last four rows landed wide awake. She'd apparently blown her whole 3-1-1 acceptable liquids wad on a perfume I can only describe as olfactory assault and battery. I wondered idly if anyone else had decided to hate her a little.

Next: Vacation Part The Second- Being There

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go.....

2009-10-06T13:20:00.003-04:00

Well, its down to the nitty gritty....tomorrow night we drive down to a family friends' home to be closer to the airport, so we don't have to leave the house at 3:30am and dodge deer and bears to get to Montoursville for my 5:45 am flight to Philadelphia, which if it didn't end in a deer collision would probably end in someone getting crankily punk-slapped somewhere in the Route 15 construction zone.

For those of you not in the know, my best friend all the way back from Freshman year Espanol Uno has rented a house in the Georgia hinterlands and we are converging on it to celebrate a certain birthday milestone that I won't be cheeky enough to reveal here but it wouldn't be too hard to figure it out. She has the pleasure of being one of the first of our gang to get there.

My last vacation was in November of 2006. Since then I've only taken days off for bronchial infections (my own) and death (someone else's). You can just imagine how excited I am.

I have travelled quite a bit, both for former jobs and, for a brief single and wild period, internationally. Given my adventures it might surprise you to know that I'm an anxious traveller. At T-minus 72 hours I'm usually in 'legal pad' mode. As in, wake up in the middle of the night and sit hunched over a notepad, writing down virtually everything I can think of that I need to pack, change, consolidate, pre-pay, or wax. This feeling of anxiety will likely remain until I get on the first plane and the doors close and I'm 100% certain that nothing I've ever done or failed to do will prevent the plane from taking off.

I also feel compelled to make a list of 'to dos' for Himself while I'm gone, as if my lack of proximity will result in his failure to attend to either his hygiene or the cat. (Fortunately the cat attends to his own hygiene whether we're home or not.) The man did manage to get through four months without me when we first moved without falling in a well or dying of rickets. Of course, we didn't have a cat then. So honey, scoop the litter every day. Drive carefully. Don't forget to put out the trash on Sunday. Don't eat too many hot wings. Slipcovers are not giant napkins. Don't give Seamus too many treats. Jagermeister is not a food group. Don't make me come home to a sinkful of dishes.

There, its out of my system now.

Oh, one more thing: I'll miss you.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Behind

2009-09-25T13:19:00.002-04:00

Hope springs eternal.

I'm gearing up for another run at self-improvement. Himself and I had a rather successful stretch of do-goodness around 2002-2004. Both of us got more active, pushed some boundaries. He pushed more than me, but both of us have opened the door to those pesky houseguests, Sloth and Gravity, who flopped on the couch and texted their friends Convenience Foods and the ever-spiritual Dances With Cheese to come over, on account of there was a party and the hosts had an open door policy. Dances With Cheese brought good crackers and a big bottle of cheap wine.

Its time to throw on the lights, and say, with hands on hips, "Just what the hell is going on here?" while turning off the stereo. Here's why:

As of this moment, 40 is 192 days and 21 hours away.
Himself is having the acid issues.
When I take better care of myself I'm not so crabby.
I have a COMPLETE set of Mc Donald's Coke glasses and don't need any more.

Oh, there's lots more, like the noise my knees make, and the fact that my achilles tendons hurt most of the time, or the fact that it seems like all the clothes they make in my size are for women about to board the bus to Salamanca with a gold leopard-print tote bag.

Anyhoodle, I had some fun picking a set of goals. I already have the tools in place to eat better and exercise more, blah blah blah, but I posted over here explaining where my standards came from. To be clear: I am NOT PLANNING to join the Army. I just decided to ask the question, hey, they are taking 40 year olds; could I make the cut?

Will there be hilarity? Doubtless. Will I share? Absolutely.

Every now and then you have to light a candle

2009-08-23T19:36:00.000-04:00

You work codes and unfold sheets. You put your arm around onlookers and family members and guide them away. You listen to them in the hallways of the ER. Wiping their eyes roughly with the heel of a grimy hand, going over and over the last thing they said, yesterday morning when they fussed at him for getting into the sugar.

Whether we want to admit it or not every death takes its little dig out of us. Every shattered helmet and flat green line and 'unknown downtime' puts a little dent in the armor, every LODD takes the whole works up and shakes it with a rough, unmerciful hand. So every now and then I just have to sit down and cry for no one and everyone, for the things that could have been prevented and the things that could not be helped. I have to gently place them all in a little paper boat and set it adrift; leave that red pillar shining in the quiet of the church for all the broken hearts and empty places at the table.

This song helps.

Conversations I Hope You Never Have

2009-08-21T12:26:00.003-04:00

　
　
I drive for a living, and one of the annual annoyances of driving for a living for a trucking company is the ‘random’ drug test. ‘Random’ earns ‘quotes’ because I usually am ‘told’ when its going to be because otherwise it’s a ‘scheduling nightmare’ and I’m not a ‘drug user anyway’ and wouldn’t know the first thing about ‘acing that kind of test’ so its unlikely that knowing affects the outcome.

Today was my special day, and I went to the clinic with my sheaf of pages and signatures and seals, feeling like I was trying to get a priceless work of art out of bonded storage in Bremerhaven for some sort of gala opening.

I slurped down some spring water on the way to the appointment, but realized too late I should have started a lot sooner. I answered questions and showed my photo ID, turning out my pockets to assure the nurse I didn’t have some foreign urine secreted about my person that I intended to dump into the cup while I made convincing ‘I’m really peeing’ noises. I waited for the magic to happen.

Now, I don’t want to blow your mind, but there are some things you may not be aware of. One of those things is that peeing in a cup with an opening 3 inches in diameter when you don’t have an ‘outy’ urethra isn’t particularly easy. Two, its even less easy when you are, as I am, a ‘person of size’. Three, trying to hold a cup down in a space where you are usually very disinclined to put your arm unless there is a wad of toilet paper at the end of it (and there isn’t a whole lot of wiggle room to begin with because you are perched on a toilet with handrails for the elderly and infirm), we’re venturing from not ‘particularly easy’ into ‘damn near impossible’. A whole school of yoga might possibly arise from the awkward necessity of maintaining that position while idly wondering just exactly WHERE the cup should be to catch the stream. None of this is helped by the poster situated directly across from the toilet, where a list of ‘how to make a clean catch’ tips is framed by a photo of an amused looking redhead who likely has a much smaller backside and none of these difficulties.

I hunched. I waited. I readjusted. I heard a faint tinkle which suggested everything I wanted was going where it normally goes and not into my shotglass o’ fun. But alas, my bladder was empty.

I pulled out the cup and eyed the line that was supposed to be my ‘target’. I was at least 1/8 of an inch short. I handed the cup to the nurse.

"Is this enough?" we looked at my sad contribution together.
"Hmm. Its iffy. Let me check."
I followed her to the little room where I’d emptied my pockets and signed for my pee. She poured it into the mail-able leakproof pee vial.
"Nope. I’m sorry."
"Okay, so, I guess I have to hang out for a little while."

I was shown back to the waiting room and given a styrofoam cup of water. I chose an eight month old copy of Good Housekeeping and sat down to wait. I read breathless letters from readers about how happy they were to see Jon and Kate and their engineered brood on the cover of the November issue. I found out how to handle too much clutter and too little space. I know how to flatter my waist no matter its size (though I noticed none of the models they chose would have trouble FINDING theirs, as I do) and I got a recipe for healthy loaded nachos. People came in. There were babies, toddlers, college students, a woman wearing kneepads and a helmet accompanied by two handlers. I went back to the window.

"I think I can try again." I said.
"Okay, it’ll just be a few minutes."
"No problem."

I watched Dr. Sanjay Gupta explain what I need to do to prevent macular degeneration. I watched Helmet Woman rock for a while. Just when things were getting kind of urgent and my potential success rate was hitting critical mass I was called back in, we checked my pockets for errant test cheats again, and in I went.

This time there was no doubt that everything was going where it should. Suddenly the cup was kind of heavy and I realized I had enough for my company, the IOC, and the International Cycling Union.
You know what’s hard? Knowing how full a cup is that you can’t see. You know what else is hard? Knowing whether you are holding that cup absolutely level when you are in a position that roughly approximates wrestling yourself, only over a toilet with your pants around your ankles, and removing that cup which (as it turns out) is full to the brim without spilling any.
The cup is a little slippery.

And urine spilling on cotton is ABSOLUTELY NOISELESS.
I didn’t realize the extent of the damage until I pulled up my jeans and felt a distressing wetness. There was a knock at the door.

"You okay?"
"Um, yeah, I had a little mishap," I said, as I handed the cup to her. She followed me to the exam room.
"Yeah, its all over you." She says this like she’s commenting on the weather.

I don’t remember the next two minutes clearly. Some merciful degree of personal mortification generated a buzz in my ears and kept me from being embarrassed until I got out the door. I was still clinging to hope that it wasn’t as bad as I thought, when the outside air hit me and I realized that it wasn’t as bad as I thought.
It was much, much worse.

(Calling the boss. )
"Hi. I’m all done here, but I had a little mishap."
"Oh? What’s wrong?"
"Well, the test is all done, but I had the cup….. and…. (choosing brutal honesty in a desperate bid to minimize questions) I have to run to Walmart and get something to wear that I haven’t inadvertently spilled pee on."
"Um, okay then."
I ran to the store, praying for something that I could ‘eyeball fit’ since trying on anything was out of the question. After paying for my purchases I beelined to the ladies room to change, hurtling past the ‘restroom closed for cleaning’ sign and dodging the surprised cleaner. I figured I had to give her some kind of explanation so I told her what happened while I was changing in the handicapped stall.

She listened to my tale and offered much needed perspective.
"Well, at least its yours."
　

Sew what?

2009-08-11T13:22:00.003-04:00

Oh, yeah. I am this cool. In fact, get this going before you read my post. I'll wait.

No, really. I'll wait.

I ACTUALLY MADE A USABLE THING with my sewing machine on Sunday. Threaded, bobbined, patterned, pinned, and cut, and made something. This may not seem like a real big deal, but I've never, ever, ever had my hands on a sewing machine before. I vacillated between grand notions of making a new wardrobe and fear that I'd end up somehow attached to the machine in a way that would require emergency intervention and several sutures. But wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, it all worked and I pressed the pedal and it made appropriate noises and joined pieces of fabric intentionally along lines I had drawn in a way that was neither pitiful nor an embarassment with no personal injury.

See kids, I'm almost 40. Among the great liberations of the age are these:

I'm no longer ruled (or in any way informed, for that matter) by fear of what other people think.
When I want to learn a new thing, I just do it.
My peers are not, by and large (though some of the by AND the large are breaking this rule) gallivanting around in low rise jeans with bits of themselves showing, so the fact that I don't flash my bits about doesn't really matter. (In fact, its a public service.)

Sooo, when I wanted to learn to sew, I just jumped in. My ultimate goal? Skill enough to turn out simple, functional dresses and skirts, which I'll wear. And perhaps the odd curtain. Which I won't wear.

I would also like to learn a musical instrument that doesn't require trunk space to transport. I own a flute, an eBay purchase from some years ago, and I haven't given up the desire to actually learn to play it. (In the meantime, I observe the 'No Stairway' rule.)

I've been thinking a lot about vocation. Asking the question, is this where I belong at this point in time? If not, what should I be doing? Is there a better use of my complicated degree/affiliation situation that I just haven't found yet? (BA in Christian Ministries from a Protestant college & I'm a Catholic.) Will I ever be able to read the college alumni magazine without the sad feeling that I squandered my college career eating ramen noodles and watching 120 Minutes and experimenting with ill-advised hairstyles? Can God still make something out of my missed opportunities and my seeming inability to find a meaningful niche that also pays the bills? Why couldn't the Professor fix the radio if he could build all that other stuff? I don't have these answers. For now, my motto is 'Learn, Ask, and Wait.'

In the meantime, I will sew.

Its all happening on 'The Bus'

2009-08-07T16:55:00.000-04:00

Hey y'all....
I finally squeezed a new post out of my busy brain, but its over at my EMT blog...so come on down to the station and jump on The Bus.

You know you are in trouble when nurses are apologizing

2009-08-07T13:22:00.000-04:00

Kids, kids, kids. Where has the time gone?

Without boring you with details, its 'peak season' in my paying job, which means that most weeks I'm driving hundreds of miles through the New York and Pennsylvania countryside, keeping my own company, practicing show tunes, and deepening my affinity for Jack Link beef jerky while I studiously adhere to the speed limit and handsfree cell phone laws because you can only talk your way out of a cell phone ticket in New York State on account of being a Volley and an EMT once because more than once is bad karma.

Anyhow.

Just as I was reflecting on how I hadn't been on a transfer in a while, prayers were answered. (Prayers I didn't exactly PRAY, you have to be careful with that kind of thing.) It was my first night home on time in a while. I'd made supper, there was a batch of blueberry jam in the bread machine, (I'm not nuts, it was in the manual!) and I was looking forward to an evening of pretty much nothing.

Phone Rings. I look at the screen. It says 'Xfer Hotline'. I should change it to 'Change of Plans'

Dicker: "What are ya doooin?" (This is his standard greeting. I like it better than "Let me tell you what you are going to be doing in 15 minutes." Even though that's exactly what it means.)

Me: "Eating dinner," (I'm suddenly acutely aware of the fact that I am actually wearing an APRON. As if I could wrap myself in a second layer of staying-in-ness.)

Dicker: "We got a transfer," (Well, obviously. But something about his tone tells me this one is special.)

Me: "Uh-huh..."

Dicker: "Its to Philadelphia."

For those of you who don't know where I live, visualize the pointy-cornered rectangle that is Pennsylvania. Put a dot in the lower right corner. That's Philadelphia. Now put one on the very, very top edge were the green cow-laden part of New York touches us, in the very center. Now imagine one of those maps like in the old 'Road to' movies where the line goes from one to another. Wheee-doggy, there's tolls and turnpikes and whatnot 'tween here and thereabouts.

I reluctantly took off my apron, changed my shirt, and went on down. We grabbed some petty cash and headed to the hospital. After wrangling the paperwork, arguing about completion, discussing cost with the family, it was time to get our patient and go. That's when the nurse meets us.

"Um, I got some supplies together for you." (Supplies? I'm suddenly in mind of the orderly cabinet in my office, full of notepads and packs of Post-Its. ) Our nursing friend looks unusually penitent, and this is a concern.

"The patient was given a dose of lactulose, because the doctor ordered it." You can go ahead and click on that link. I didn't have the benefit of a link, and had to fall back on my patented blank 'I'm not a nurse so I'm going to stare at you until you explain yourself' look.

"Um, one of the side-effects of it is loose stools." (This, my friends, is called understatement.)

Our nurse friend hands over a giant plastic bag containing a full package and a half of adult diapers, an entire ream of c-fold towels, a couple of random quilty looking things of indeterminate purpose, a bottle of skin cleanser, and the piece de resistance, a giant tube of 'skin protectant', much used, which I am helpfully told is needed because of 'the irritation'.)

Oh, and a gleaming metal bedpan wrapped in a pillowcase. Which would turn out to be useful only if we had the powers of both prescience AND levitation. It would remain nestled in its cheerful pink swaddling for the duration of the trip.

There was nothing funny about the patient's condition; he was the bright yellow color of an old bruise and it was painfully clear that a lifetime of hepatic and renal abuse was finally paying terrible dividends. This transfer was, no doubt, an effort to get him closer to family before his last day. He was reasonably cheerful, though, and we kept things light as we got him on the stretcher for the five hour trip.

As soon as we got going, the patient turned on his side, closed his eyes, and seemed to be sleeping. Great, I thought. Maybe he'll sleep and we'll get away without any major issues.

Oh, the altruism of a silly silly EMT who doesn't want to get pooped on. Somewhere in the Poconos the first alimentary grenade was launched. It was like Mr. Cosby said-- "First you'll say it, then you'll DO it." "Oh, s--t!" The patient said. I believe "INCOMING!" would have been more appropriate. His trajectory was mostly due north but the blast radius was knees to shoulder blades. We pull over. Gown? Gone. Sheets? Gone. Stand up, hose him down, change everything, wallpaper 10-12 square feet of everything with chux, and try again.

This happens three more times, though the volume and intensity, mercifully, decrease. I learned some valuable lessons, not the least of which was, if a large sick man is lying partially on a used adult undergarment, the way to get it out from under him is NOT to take hold of it and hoss it on out. Because it may fly apart. And bits of it may stick to your person. And you will again reset the limits on what you are 'okay' with. By the time we were rolling down Roosevelt Boulevard we could re-Depend faster than a pit crew at Talladega.

We pull into the ER entrance at the hospital and the security guard meets our driver at the back door. I would have chalked this off as an urban stereotype or made for TV drama but the first thing he says is "Do you have the gunshot victim?" "Um, no... were we supposed to?" Jeez.

The ER is a circus. I'm sure our blinking in the blinding light, such a contrast from the diaper changing mood lighting we had going on the bus, made us look even more like we'd just rolled up with the patient on the back of a hay wagon. "Wellsboro?" the guard said to me. "Where's that?" We're pointed to a security door just through the metal detectors and we make our way to the 6th floor. The patient is exhausted and we're just glad he's in good hands. "Youse guys aren't trying to go back tonight, are you?" he asks. "Yep," I said, "The ambulance doesn't fit in the parking garage at the Four Seasons." He laughed. We left.

The back of the ambulance looks like the aftermath of a very messy, very creepy party. I clean up as we 'look for a place to eat' which, given the viability of parking a $177,000 vehicle in Center City Philadelphia translates to 'drive to Allentown'. Stumbling into the turnpike rest stop is immediately disorienting; my beloved high-volume McDonald's with the always blazing hot fries and my Auntie Anne's pretzels has been replaced with a Starbucks and a Roy Rogers. Roy Rogers still exists? Yes, and its staffed with cheerful Chinese girls with a sketchy grasp of English and no patience for your decision making time despite there being no line whatsoever, making the whole food-ordering experience feel like a dream engendered by a warm beer and a bad burrito. I eat a very dubious egg sandwich and listen to the lack of sleep humming loudly in my ears. We fuel up, chatting with a truck driver who is interested in 'What one of them things costs'. I'm too tired for an apparatus weiner-measuring contest. I tuck the toll ticket and $10 under the edge of the Horton light and siren panel and go inside for one more pass at the facilities before we hit the road again.

What? Stuff can fall behind that panel? Oh. Frack sticks. Five miles before our exit I realize that the $10 is still there but the ticket is not. I turn to the driver and explain she will have to employ her winningest smile and we'll see if country charm can get us through the tollgate without a ticket. (Some stats: Times I've ever done this: 0. Number of EZ Passes in our apparatus: 0)
We pull into the only tollgate that is open and, with $30 in my hand, showing my absolute willingness to pay 'The highest toll to exit', I explain my situation.

"The ticket fell behind the panel." (Toll guy shakes his head.)

"You have to have the ticket."

"Okay, but see, I don't know where it is. This doesn't open. I can't feel it."
"You need a ticket to exit."

"Um, I realize that, but see, we DON'T have the ticket, we have our $7.85 receipt from where we came down, but what would you like us to do right now?"

"You'd have to pay the highest toll, $23.90." (I show him the $30 I have in my hand, again demonstrating my willingness to OBEY THE LAW. Trucks began to stack up behind us.)

"Okay, well, um, okay." he looks at the side of the ambulance. "Here's what you do. Give me your driver's license. " (The hell? I give it to him.) As he writes up this mysterious form, he says "I haven't ever done this before, but if anyone asks you, you came through MID COUNTY not Valley Forge and you went through the EZ Pass lane. Okay? You went through EZ Pass by mistake. And its $5.00."

So, lets review. I lost the ticket. I have the money. If we find the ticket later we can get reimbursed. But because this guy feels sad about taking so much money from an ambulance and its 3 in the morning I now have to be complicit in an ELABORATE LIE and deceive the PA Turnpike Commission and get a $2.85 discount on our return trip for NO REASON. But since the trucks behind us are starting to sound like they are idling in a slightly more hostile manner I pay my $5, take my mysterious paper that explains a different error than the one I made, and my license, and we go. I'm still waiting for that phone call wherein I perjure myself to the Turnpike Police and they Come For Me and there are Dire Consequences.

We rolled back in to town at 6:45am. I went home, showered, changed my clothes, and drove to Syracuse NY. I drank a lot of coffee and overshared to a handful of store clerks and the sun was very very bright all day and I sang at fierce volumes to stave off those weird daydreams that feel very much like sleeping with my eyes open.

Mr. D, you were worth a sleepless night and it was a privilege to meet you. I'm glad you got to see your grandson race on Saturday before your tired body gave out. Rest in peace.

Chutes and Ladders

2009-07-10T13:02:00.004-04:00

(I wrote this, accidentally lost it, reconstructed it, then got an ambulance call every time I tried to sit down and finish it, so its late. Sorry.)

(If you are so inclined, you can purchase the above here. Just drive gently after that.)

Another hard-earned Friday. Lots of driving makes the advent of Friday morning a joyous event and today was no exception. I traversed a two-hour chunk of New York yesterday so uniform in pastoral empty green-ness that rather than being able to enjoy it I found myself entertaining dark thoughts as my Garmin ticked away the miles. 'This is the kind of place where sudden and inexplicable murder-suicides happen' or 'I'll bet that field of soybeans has half an acre of pot in the middle'-- that kind of thing.

The day started with a client whose home, thanks to a combination of age, ill health, and a 'snowbird' refuge elsewhere had devolved into a wreck of storage and trip-hazards. I did not enter a single room without knocking something over, since the narrow paths carved through each room were heavily overhung with the accumulation of decades, led by an exceptionally fragile woman leaning on a cane. She told me of her latest injury; a spill down the basement stairs that shattered her femur. It took six hours for her to pull herself up five steps and wrench open a door to yell for help. And yet, when I asked her if she was taking the giant extension ladder lying in the middle of the garage floor that threatened to ensnare us both, she said, "Oh yes, I want that, definitely."

I wonder if they make a toolbelt you can hang your cane on when you are up powerwashing your house.

I stopped for a quick lunch at my favorite co-op, electing to choose a seat that faced the store so I could people watch. I smiled as a small child stared in gape-mouthed amazement at a young man sporting an eight-inch high mohawk the color of a lime Mister Misty Freeze and his cherry-soda colored companion. A tall, handsome cashier stood daydreaming, gently remolding a dreadlock that stuck out at an odd angle above his right ear. He poked at it with a restless restraint that suggested a desire to really get in there and scratch. Random hanks were adorned with large wooden beads, giving his head the appearance of a discarded macrame owl.

After an appointment I spent fending off the shambling advances of an amorous bulldog named Max, I was done for the day and heading home. I glanced in my rearview mirror and noticed that I was being followed closely and aggressively by a young woman in a white car. To the casual observer it probably looked like I was towing her; my couple of warning taps on the brakes went unheeded, as was my grand 'Step off, girlfriend' gesture that is likely ignored by most drivers but makes me feel better. She eventually passed me in a no passing zone and caused two people in the oncoming lane to pull off to avoid hitting her. This bought her about a 12 foot advantage; when I arrived at the red light at the bottom of the hill she was directly in front of me, sporting the bumpersticker above. I briefly considered adding some texture to it with my tire iron, but the mood passed. Driving like that she'll have unscheduled bodywork soon enough.

But bless her, she has respect for the Earth and all living creatures. So she has that going for her.

Sunday Silence

2009-06-28T18:55:00.003-04:00

This is the view out my window today.
Its Sunday, the tea pot is steeping, and the sound of the rain mixes with XM Hipster or whatever I put on. Its acoustic, and save one unplugged version of 'Billie Jean' by Jason Mraz that I didn't hate, its a respite from the Michael Jackson speculation and tribute.

Himself is visiting his parents and aunt and is staying over so I have the house to myself. Just me, a cup of PG Tips, some quiet offbeat music, and the cat. I tried and failed to snazz up my cellphone by installing a CD that came with it when I bought it months ago. He'll figure it out when he comes home.
Its a peaceful day. Tomorrow work begins again; so far I know another journey to Ithaca is forthcoming, hopefully not in the Dodge Dakota 4 X 4 I've been driving for work that I only recently discovered has no registration sticker and anyway is only legal for two more days. Though after going forth in a vehicle with a bad power steering pump and another with a master cylinder that failed while I was driving downhill, mere matters of paperwork are, by comparison, quite inconsequential. Their attempts to kill me/strand me 300 miles from home seem to be de-escalating, so that's a good thing.

Madeline Peyroux was chopping in and out. I had to go investigate. Apparently sattelite radio cannot penetrate the density of an orange cat's furry behind if its parked on the receiver.

Ahem.
I was driving way up into the knobby shoulder of New York the other day, the customer insisted on a 10am appointment, which necessitated my leaving at 3:45am. I minded this less than you might imagine; I zipped through all the usual traffic pinches with ease and by 'rush hour' I was well away from any areas where sincere 'rushing' was happening. Somewhere near Ogdensburg, while I was daydreaming,listening to Quebecois radio, and imagining myself in a thoughtful (and subtitled) romantic comedy, the cars in front of me began slowing down. White trucks were parked on both sides and as they flashed by I saw two words in large green block letters.

BORDER PATROL

Christmas in Killarney, did I CROSS THE BORDER????? Oh God, no. All I have is a Pennsylvania driver's license, no birth certificate, no 'enhanced' license, and when the smiling young man appeared in my window I was LISTENING TO FRENCH RADIO. I mashed the button, hoping for 95-point-whatever, the Big Pig, classic rock for the AMERICAN military base down yonder, but all I got is MORE FRENCH. Crap. Just as I was about to apologize, beg for mercy, explain I'd been on the road since 3:45, and stand back while the drug dogs went over the van, he did that two fingered pointing gesture thing cops do and said, "You can go ahead. You have a nice day, ma'am."
Oh. Ah. What? Okay.
And, oh. I'm still in New York. Apparently even though it flattened out and filled up with Frenchies and the odd Amish buggy, I was still in New York. Okay. I guess the border has, like, bigger signs anyway.

Not much else has been going on. I've been travelling a lot, thinking a lot, and feeling very much like something new is coming. Mostly I've been feeling peaceful, which is good, because I asked for that.

So enjoy your own Sunday. Here's a little music for ya. I like to imagine the You Tube comments on this are less idiotic, but I don't speak the language so I can't verify this. I don't see anything that looks like it was written by a French troll, though.

Albany Axes Adverbs

2009-06-18T13:41:00.005-04:00

State budget cuts target unnecessary parts of speech

ALBANY-- Governor David Patterson announced today that the New York Department of Transportation's rest area signage will undergo some changes in an effort to save state funds.

'What we're trying to do is trim wherever we can, without depriving New Yorkers the services they have come to rely on," the Governor announced in a press conference Thursday. "That extra '-ly' utilizes resources that could better be spent elsewhere, and given the amount of text messaging that takes place on our highways, I doubt anyone will notice a few shortened words."

The signs, located at several Route 17 rest stops east of Binghamton, will be canted slightly to one side so no one will be confused by their non-diagonal arrow, which is exactly the same as the arrow on the 'Park Parallel' signs found elsewhere on the lot.

A newly formed committee, the New York State Grammar Initiative, will also be looking at gerunds, dangling participles, and misplaced modifiers in coming months.

Patterson went on to remind motorists that texting while driving, like most things in the State of New York, is a punishable offense.

Finish this Sentence

2009-06-15T20:13:00.004-04:00

This magnet is on our refrigerator, a gift from a friend. For those of you who are not running geeks it may seem a bit random, for those of you who have seen Kenyans run, and their speed, elegance, and grace has brought a tear to your eye even before you contemplate the utter penguininity of your own existence, you know. Its about dreaming of being something that your skills, knowledge, circumstances, and your body will ever let you be.
I was driving home today, slurping the last inch of my cherry Icee and listening to my iPod. I'm sure that someday I'll find out that you aren't supposed to do THAT while you are driving in the State of New York, but given the number of college age girls driving around with a phone clapped to their ear who obviously never got a $50 ticket for it like I did, pbppphhhlt on the law. Mad apologies to the village of Dryden, NY, which was treated to the 'white lady in a minivan with headphones on and the windows down' version of this: (Its unedited....just so ya know)

Anyway, the music got me thinking about how I'd finish "In my dreams I am....". I've had a lot of fantasies. Most of them revolve around a degree of agility and grace I do not possess. One stands out. The quality isn't great but you get the idea.

Yep. I didn't just want to be on TV. I didn't just want to look as good as they do in those shorts.

In my dreams, I am a Fly Girl.

How about you?

Flags of Our Fathers

2009-06-12T13:27:00.004-04:00

I found myself having a little fit this week.

First, I went to the post office right at the end of the day and had a chat with someone while she was taking the flag down. She balled it up and casually shoved it into a mail bin. When I threatened to write about this, Himself pooh-poohed it and I decided I was just hot and gritty and cranky.
Yesterday I drove past this place. I do so about once a week. (Hey, if you have five million kicking around, its for sale.) Its closed, and its right on Route 81. Just one of those uninteresting landmarks that tells me "You are bound for Syracuse and points north. Again. Stay awake. Stay awake! Change the station! The rest stop is coming up! Stop picking that!"
Yeah, I spend a lot of time by myself.
While I realize that property management is usually limited to basic security, cutting the grass, and generally keeping the place presentable, there is something else that needs done there. Feebly waving in front of this building are two flags. Really, 1 and 2/3 flags.
The American flag is shredded. Absolutely shredded and sad and defeated looking. Its Canadian brother is missing the non-flagpole side red field, giving it the disconcerting appearance of a Polish flag with a maple leaf on it. Someone needs to take them down and dispose of them respectfully.
So if there are any patriots in Tully, New York.....all you'd probably need is a flashlight. Just sayin'. I thought about emailing the realtor and making that request but every mental paragraph I composed sounded like it was written by a patriotic but peevish old lady with twenty cats and a house full of dolls.

Speaking of which.

Another blogger's post about irrational fears got me thinking about things that I wouldn't exactly classify as a 'fear', just an extreme discomfort bordering on paranoia, which everyone knows is way better and not nearly as crazy.

I hate dolls.
Once a week I survey a house that has That Room. The one with the shelves around three walls lined with dolls. These kind.

Usually they are staring vacantly from yellowing and dusty plastic boxes, but it doesn't minimize the sense that they are watching me. There are few things I've ever encountered in this world (ostensibly "occult" items included) that would make me feel better to heap up in a large pile, douse with fuel, and set ablaze. Though the mental image of a pile of creepy dolls slowly deforming in the heat will probably haunt me for weeks.

I've been a little stressed lately and haven't posted much, but I'm sure the next week will yield some pleasant rumination on the nature of humankind, what with the Laurel Festival about to land on us like a sumo wrestler. Once again I will engage in my favorite festival activity; parking in people who park in the firehouse lot right in front of the sign that says PARKING FOR FIRE/EMS ONLY. Hope you were planning on staying awhile, Jersey plates.

I think I need some aromatherapy.

The Time of My Life

2009-05-17T17:16:00.006-04:00

I was a bit out of the loop this week for various reasons, and I suppose I'm still out because I didn't yet go to whoever started this and put my bit in/check the rules/otherwise acknowledge but I will do that now.

Okay. That's done.

Now, as soon as I read Meg's prom post, I knew I had to write this one, though I didn't realize right away that the prom I have pictures of is NOT the prom that needs telling.

Prom the Second: The Nice Story
First, the one that survives the photographic record. Where to begin. My grandmother made the dress. We started out with a different color and one pattern; she talked me into that color (which I did like) and three different patterns, which she combined to make a dress she liked. I loved it, other than the fact that she didn't get quite all the straight pins out of it and the first hour of dancing included some very startling and haphazard acupuncture.

I have no excuse for the hair. I it involved not just a curling iron but rollers and a lethal shellacking of Aqua Net and I did it myself because I was not one of those girls that cut school on Prom Day to go get their hair done. One, I didn't have a car. Two, I didn't have the money. Three, two girls did that years before and got in some horrible car wreck and died and I always remembered that as a cautionary tale against vanity, though I think it was intended more as a 'don't cut school' warning which I never did anyway so I had to ascribe some other don't to it.

The Boy. I've not written much about The Boy because The Husband reads the blog and because The Boy is now The Man with lots of letters after his name and a job that involves pews, sermon notes, and singing all five verses.
The short version is, he was part of my circle of friends and I tortured myself with longing for seventeen months before I told him of my feelings for him. We dated from January 17, 1987 until the day before Thanksgiving, 1988. It ended badly. It took a lot of years for us to be friends again. He is a good person. The rest of the details I'll have to leave be. Oh, and he's Italian. Which is kind of obvious both from this picture and from the Homecoming picture in which he is dressed in a pinstripe suit and looks like, well, this.
(Yes, I know we blend into the background. And that he seems to frequent a florist who puts wrist straps on wedding centerpieces. Too bad you can't see the little golden footballs threaded on the ribbon. They were truly classy.)

I can't for the life of me remember what we had as a Prom theme, but since the former committee organizer of such things is now one of my Facebook friends I'm sure I'll be set straight very soon. I know that this was one of the suggestions and for some reason never made it. (I'm not sure what I miss most: Jerry Orbach, a healthy Patrick Swayze, or Jennifer Grey's old nose. Did I mention that I hate anachronistic music in movies? No? Okay, its out of my system.) The Prom pictures were taken at the school, not because the Prom was there a la Carrie but because we had a little fashion show thing before the actual event at a local catering place. We were escorted there by the 5-0, and I have a feeling this 'Promenade' was an attempt to eyeball us and ferret out the underage drinkers. The dance was not much of a memory; decent food, dancing, angst, groping, etc. I was mulling that memory over when I realized there was another Prom in my past, a dark and distressing evening of prescription level pain and championship level humiliation.

Prom The First: The Descent

I was a sophomore. This young man I'll call Mark (because that was his name) asked me to go with him. I said yes, feeling pretty special to be asked to a prom by an Upperclassman, even one that was kind of creepy. I scored a free dress from a same-sized aunt who had just been a bridesmaid and I was good to go. I walked the halls trying not to be smug. Then, the bomb. Mark sent me a note in Homeroom and explained that he'd asked someone else. (Cue the scene in Pretty in Pink with all of the anger, only I didn't yell at him in the hallway and he didn't look like Andrew McCarthy and I didn't make an awesome dress out of my friend Iona's castoffs and something my dad bought at a rummage sale and show him. He wasn't worth all that.) So I wasn't going to the Prom, which wasn't my Prom anyhow. So whatever.

Then Brian (not the one I married) asked me to do him a favor. A friend of his was a senior, an awkward and quiet senior, who had no date. Brian was trying to help him out. "If you don't go with him, he won't go,"
I was still of the mind that this could cause terrible and lasting painful emotional distress. So I said yes.
Other Boy was nice. He lived in my development, I remember him walking over to my house to confirm details and I can still see him standing in my driveway, shifting from foot to foot while he gave a Good Humor chocolate eclair careful attention, tucking the stick into the wrapper to dispose of properly. He was a follow the directions kind of boy.

"So, we'll be here about 6: 30 then," he said. Correctly interpreting my hesitation and quizzical look, he said,
"My mom is driving us."
Okay. Hey, I didn't have a license either. And when your date has no friends with cars, or more precisely, parents who forbid him to go in cars unchaperoned with dates, its the way you get there. Mom, my date, and the Astro showed up right on time and away we went to the Riverview Inn for a night of magic.

The pressure in my head started shortly after being enclosed in the Astro with the flowers. I fully expected it to pass. We ate dinner, and every loud laugh or sharp noise twisted the metal band around my head a little tighter. This wasn't a sinus headache, kids, this was a full blown migraine. Which I'm sure is why my date started to annoy me. Had I not been feeling like begging someone to try their hand at trepanning to relieve the pressure I'm sure I wouldn't have minded that he kept running his chair over the bottom of my dress. Or the little spit-strings when he talked. Or his table manners. Or the fact that he was a foot and a half taller and dancing was a study in awkward, particularly when the music got stabby. My every foray to the water's edge for 'fresh air' contributed to his Eeyore-ism. And as a special treat, my efforts to not vomit were complimented by a walk past Mark and Linda, Mark's 'first alternate' Prom date.

The night ended with my date opening the van door for me, looking gentlemanly but resigned, and I stepped in, steeling myself for awkward questions and the physical assault of the van's air freshener on my throbbing head. I was so relieved to see my house I wanted to throw myself on the lawn and kiss the ground like a recently re-enfranchised refugee. As we stepped from the van his mother turned to us, smiled, and said "Take your time saying goodnight; I have a magazine."

Good God.

I could see my mother dozing in the recliner in the living room. I was in East Berlin and she snoozed comfortably on the other side of the Brandenburg Gate. I stared at her, willing her to jump up, throw open the door, say, "Young lady, where have you been??" and pull me inside. At that point I'd have been happy to see her waiting for me with three hundred lit candles, a Bible, and a butcher knife. I opened the door, turned to my date, and stuck out my hand like we'd just had a rousing conversation about copiers at an office supply convention. He looked humiliated and I was torn between feeling sorry for him and needing to baptize his shiny shoes with chicken cordon bleu. I leaned in for a chaste kiss and shut the door firmly as soon as he was clear of the frame.

Kevin, I'm sure you are out there somewhere, married, bunch of kids, I wish you happiness and I'm sorry. I hope your first real, decent kiss was Chevy Astro- and- magazine free.

Ruth Lydia Craley- 12/17/1919-05/06/2009

2009-05-10T19:58:00.003-04:00

I have quite a few pictures of my grandparents, but this one is my favorite.
I don't know where it was taken; something tells me in their back yard but it could have been someone else's.
I like to think it was a Saturday afternoon. And not necessarily a special occasion, because my grandmother dressed like that all the time. For any reason, or no reason. Elegant, refined, coordinated. I didn't appreciate this during my scuffed sneakers and grass stained jean years, my flashlight tag and fort building years. Advice like: A dress only looks as nice as what you wear under it. (And what she wore under hers would garner a nod of approval from the Department of Homeland Security.) Or her desire to buy me white things. (A disaster waiting to happen.) She told me the world was a better place when ladies wore gloves and men wore hats. (I'd remind her about polio, and fallout shelters, and duck and cover drills.) I endured disapproving appraisals of my many haircuts. I resisted ironing things. I resisted 'rising and shining'. (She'd CLAP when she woke us up, too. AAARGH!)

Its funny how your grandparents, your parents, get more right as you get older. When I was considering quitting a job because someone there had it in for me, her advice was 'Be above reproach and outlast her.' My rival left three months later; I stayed for twelve years. When I had chosen the wrong college major, she knew it. When I struggled with my personal demons, she knew it. When I resisted all the colors I looked best in, she knew it. She knew what they should be. I was thirty years old before I realized she was right on that one. She and I didn't always agree but I knew two things; she wanted me to be true to myself, and she loved all of us fiercely.

At Christmas we decorated the place she would only briefly return to, hopefully, my dad and I laughing that the two least decorator-able family members were dispatched for the task. We did our best. I sat in her cozy apartment by myself for a long time trying to imprint the smell of it; soap and clean linens and eucalyptus in a china pitcher by the door. I was suddenly a seven year old sunk in deep comforters at the old house, drifting to sleep by the glow of the radio dial and some dreamily playing orchestra. Safe and warm, the soft Westminster chime of the mantel clock downstairs.

Mom-Mom, there are a thousand memories, and a thousand stories, but it all comes down to this; thank you for loving us and believing in us so much. We will miss you and ache for your loss, but you gave us the strong legs we stand on.

Band on the Run

2009-04-27T21:25:00.002-04:00

Can you handle it?

Let me colorize teh sexy for you. The pants were red. The shirt? White satin with a red stripe. The dangly thing with the 'K' on it (which stood for the school and not my first initial, though I did secretly think it was cool that it was both) was black satin. The hat was 'white', that is, it started out white, taking on the aspect of a wad of dryer lint after a while, except where the red plume was nestled. There, it was pink. A good pounding of rain quickly made the hat look like a sodden bright red squirrel was taking liberties with it. At least the hat is clamped firmly on my head with a snazzy bead-tightened nylon strap.

Mr D. approached me during at-school band camp in the scorched dregs of August to ask me if I would like to learn to play bass guitar. In two weeks. Uh, sure. That might be more interesting than standing at attention holding one end of our school banner for the interminable duration of our 'field show'. I dutifully practiced.
And sometimes faked it a little. (Hey, I always LOOKED like I was playing. And I mastered the opening riff of the Barney Miller theme, not that I got to exhibit that particular talent much.)

It was someone's particularly sadistic notion that the bass player in our band should also be allowed to participate in parades. A large cart was constructed out of black-painted plywood that would hold an amp and a Kawasaki generator. This could be pushed by one of the 'runners', I would walk along beside it, and play.

There were a few logistics issues that seemed to escape the notice of virtually all of this brainchild's parents. First, the cart was large enough for human smuggling. A Kawasaki generator with a full gas tank weighs around 75 pounds. The amp, about 50. If we put the cart itself at around 50 pounds you have roughly 175 pounds on wheels being pushed by an 85-pound seventh grader who has to turn her head to one side at all times to minimize hearing loss from the roar of the engine and to avoid inhaling gas fumes.

Even if you turn it up to 11, there is really no drowning out what sounds like a push mower in a box with a bass guitar.

Christmas, 1986. Our band is marching down Main Street in our hometown. The streetlamps are decked out with tinseled candles, lights festoon the four blocks of downtown. They even adorn the small pine tree in a concrete pot on a wee concrete island at the convergence of two streets. A wee concrete island surrounded by potholes.

My cheerful plonk-faking through numerous Christmas carols is suddenly interrupted by a very definite tug on my power cord. I glance back toward my Flotilla of Sound and note the disconcerting absence of my cart pusher, my aide de camp, my tiny sherpa of soul. I step up on the concrete island. She's there, all right, frantically trying to dislodge the cart from a fissure in the street that has firmly claimed one of the wheels. I swing my guitar out of the way and help her. A distressing gap is widening between us and the last of the bass drums. The VFW is bearing down on us with grim and surprising speed and their banner bearers begin to wave at us, peevish expressions on their faces indicating their displeasure with our wanton disregard of their uniform and timely appearance before the review stand.

I back the cart up and with a desperate yank, its freed from the miry pit. There's just one problem.

A Fender bass has two things that make it hard to walk around with. One is the quite long neck. The other is the four giant keys at the top. I've never seen Adam Clayton or John Paul Jones have a problem with this. Though I would imagine neither of them ever stuck their guitar in a fully decorated Christmas tree.

I'm forever grateful to one of the Vietnam vets, who, being among the more sprightly of the VFW, jumped out of formation and helped disentangle the keys from the string of lights, freeing me but effectively rendering the bass out of tune and unplayable for the duration of the parade. We marched on, grim and silent, treating the audience to the throaty growl of gas-generated power.

The Infrequent Lover Returns

2009-04-25T11:10:00.002-04:00

Ah, spring. So you're back. After a series of teasing drive-bys, abbreviated calls, you think you can just cruise back in here, drop some flowers on us, put your muddy boots on my table, and I'll just give you a big sloppy kiss and all is forgiven, eh? Do you think the red tulips in front of the post office make me forget how late you are? You have some trees to get to work on, so get busy. Maybe I'll drag out the grill for you. We'll see how you behave.

Yes, so it seems that appropriately seasonable weather has finally found its way to the Outpost. Hard on its heels came The Tourists. The incidence of bright yellow license plates increases around 3pm on a Friday and you know They are coming. They are easy to spot; strolling slowly down Main Street arm in arm, gazing intently at everything. They say things like "Its SO PRETTY here." Or, "Where's the Diner?" (Answer, smack in the MIDDLE OF TOWN but you don't want to eat there. Go to Harland's on Pearl.)

I resent them, a little. Oh, I'm glad they are here. They are the bigger part of our economy, especially these days. But I feel like I just hiked up a giant mountain of suck known as Winter, clawing my way hand over hand with the promise of soft green grass and 70 degree afternoons at the top, only to be met by a carload of looky-loos who drove up the other side and stand gawping at the vista and complaining about the lack of a Starbucks. Where were you in the iron grip of February, when everything was brown and gray and the cold was a lingering torment even under layers of fleece? Where were you when the wind strafed the canyon with relentless daggers of ice and the snow fell up? Enjoy our town, but understand that we don't just enjoy this weather; we earned it.

I'm making an effort to be less crabby. This lingering malaise of non-specific anxiety is getting tiresome and I think its time to spend my energies in more worthwhile pursuits. Apparently there is some need for a person to work on the 'comedy' portions of our upcoming women's chorus anniversary concert. Some have intimated I should do this. Frankly, its terrifying. I much prefer being funny to distract or irritate and not on cue and for others. People say I should do standup. What I hear them say is 'You should go about naked, and see what kind of response you get.' It couldn't be any more stressful or potentially humiliating. Maybe stress and humiliation is the better part of comedy, but its always better when its someone else's comedy. So we'll see. Since the better part of both my employed and social life of late seems to be observing humans in the act of mistreating each other, the well of funny is running a little shallow and silty.

Well, its 81 degrees and I suppose I should get out and mingle with the off-worlders, bless their turnpike-driving hearts. Hope your day is splendid!

Welcome to Monday. Please keep your hands and feet inside the car at all times.

2009-04-20T12:34:00.002-04:00

I woke up this morning to my cat pressing a bottlecap against my forehead.

Good morning, frisky little bastard. Yes, 06:11 is a fantastic time to play chase-the-Smirnoff-Ice-cap and a bagless furry teabagging. Thank you.

*sigh*

Its one of those days where I wish I could fake cramps or something and beg off school and spend the rest of the day curled up on the couch watching the stories and eating artfully extruded cheese out of a can. I walked a whole bunch this weekend and the general opinion of my joints this morning was that I'm a hateful bitch who must be punished. I glossed them with so much ActivOn that I could have slid noiselessly into a wetsuit. (While the suit wearing doesn't appeal overmuch, the speargun as an accessory does indeed.) My attitude can best be described, in the words of another distinguished cat, as 'crabilated'. But never fear; I'll be taking to the highways of the Twin Tiers this week and I am almost certain my visits to cities far and wide will yield some amusement. In the meantime, I have posted new adventures From the Back of the Bus....

Psych Transport

2009-04-20T10:46:00.000-04:00

Well I’ve had this damn sinus infection for three weeks now and I was downtown and thought I’d go to the hospital but I couldn’t hardly stand up and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get out of the car at the hospital so I drove home and came back up the ramp and I was just sitting here and all of a sudden I couldn’t hold my head up (dog barks) SHUT THE F**K UP! (dog stops) so right I should give him any more cigarettes? F**k him. He smokes his and mine too and I have to buy him more and he never pays me back, that rotten son of a bitch. I should quit smoking? F**k you! Okay so I guess I can go with you but I’m not getting on that damn stretcher that’s how they get you, you know, so we can walk down the ramp hold me up now, hey you are nice and warm I’ll hold on to you okay oops be careful I don’t know if I can make the steps I’ll just sit here on the bench no, okay, I had better lay on the stretcher because now I feel sick to my stomach -- do you have a bucket? Well you’d better get one because as soon as this thing starts moving I’ll be making a mess of this place.I’ll tell ya, it never gets any better, the patches was what they give me and the damn stuff makes me throw up the first thing the doctor did was try to take away my cigarettes but Jesus Christ, I’m bi-polar already, can you imagine what I’d be like if I couldn’t smoke? I only smoke a little, maybe three or four a day, and some pot, that’s it, then I stopped, they give me a prescription for the patches but how do you get the stuff? You’d think they’d give a person a disability check on time for Chrissakes. I was down to see Fred, and I told him, I can’t deal with your shit anymore, I had the nurse talk to him, I don’t know what she said but he was bawlin’ when she got done. It’s a hell of a thing living on social security, but my car runs on air, so at least I don’t have to worry about that.

Note: This call was dispatched as a 'near syncopal episode'. This post is, to the best of my memory, a transcript of the breathless, pauseless, unbroken monologue of our patient.

Surviving the New Economy

2009-03-31T13:42:00.002-04:00

*sigh*

Tuesday, 5:40am. I'm staring at the ceiling fan. I'm rather fond of this fan, especially in the stuffy summer months, and its just as well, because I've spent a lot of time inspecting it. There's a bit of dust on the blades I should climb up and remove before we start using it.

Lately, every night begins and ends the same way. I fall asleep like I haven't slept in days. I sleep soundly for better than half the night.

I wake up in clutching, mindless, irrational terror. Scarcity, "what ifs", work angst, generalized anxiety, mental accounting of the vague and terrifying variety.

I'm kinda tired of it. Here's a list of nice things that happened today.

1. I woke up with my face snuggled in a warm cat. When I lifted my head he put his paw on it as if to say, no no, sleep, and planted a kiss on my forehead.

2. I had a cup of tea.

3. The sun is out.

4. I actually laughed at work.

5. I like my socks. Good socks today.

Yeah, I'm hanging on by my fingernails. Underneath me is my old, currently broken down car, a career I don't want, a future that is murky and uncertain, and an impending 39th birthday.

But hey. There's also this. And this is about the only thing that's keeping me from hiding under a blanket with a bag of cookies and the cat.

25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or
drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important
than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of
the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your
heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who
of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was
dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field,
which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more
clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we
eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans
run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need
them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these
things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about
tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.

Rollin' with the EMS Homies

2009-03-25T15:59:00.002-04:00

Hey! I posted, though its over here at yonder blog, my blog for all things medical and some things icky.

I keep this place and that there place separate despite the Husband's strident pleas that I combine all. I do this because not everyone wants to hear stories about death and poop.

This one involves neither, I promise.

Overheard at ITLS

2009-03-25T15:34:00.000-04:00

I took this excellent course last weekend, after a feverish three days of reading as much of the textbook as I could in 72 hours while still sleeping and giving a full time job due diligence. It was a great weekend, having practical time alongside Paramedics and RNs as well as EMTs from other stations was an excellent opportunity to sharpen skills, learn new things, and share what works with people from other departments. Even through I didn’t ‘get a weekend’ rest-wise, I came back Monday morning with my Patient Care batteries recharged. Hearing one of my former EMT instructors say how proud she was of her ‘graduated students’ reminded me what I like about doing this ‘free job’ I’ve got.

As usual, there were occasions for a few laughs.

During a lecture on ‘Patients Under the Influence’ our instructor told us a lot of things about what is going on in schools that convince me that I made the right decision limiting my children to the four legged, fur bearing variety. Apparently the ‘new and improved kegstand’ involves inverting oneself while beer is inserted into the anus. It would seem the alcohol crosses into the bloodstream faster and one can get drunk more quickly on less beer. Good grief, people. I feel like I’m taking a walk on the wild side when I eat a sleeve of Sprees and drink a Pepsi. Many questions spring to mind, as well, including but not limited to:

What about the carbonation?
Is there a separate keg for people who want their beer the old fashioned way?
Is there a surefire way to differentiate same that doesn’t involve sniffing the tap?
If you can actually stand on your hands and let someone do that without falling over (or, even more compelling, do it YOURSELF) is there a better outlet for your talents that might be in some way financially lucrative? Oughtn’t you check this out?

We’re all shooting the breeze during lunch on day 3 of class, discussing other training opportunities. A student (who is frequently an instructor) was telling us about Wilderness EMS, and I said we should have that this summer. I volunteered to be the ‘S’Mores Officer’ for the weekend.

(I realize the last couple of anecdotes seem unrelated. Bear with me.)

Said student went on to say that when he took Wilderness EMS the ‘patient’ he had to ‘keep alive’ in his scenario was hypoglycemic and unconscious, and that they had considered ‘putting chocolate up his butt’ as a possible solution.

There was a moment of silence while this was considered. Then I said,
"I guess that would be like a ‘S’mores Stand’. Though I don’t recommend using the graham crackers." (general laughter)

Aaaand…..scene.

Oh, and I passed. Not as high a grade as I’d like but I’m obsessive about such things. So if you wreck in the 'Boro on a Wednesday night, if you'd keep your injuries around a B+, I'd appreciate it.

You can keep your Strunk and White......

2009-03-13T15:55:00.004-04:00

The authority for all things English in my world has always been this:In middle school, junior high, and high school, Warriner's was my calculus. It was my holy book. My participles did not dangle, my modifiers were not misplaced, and my sentences were rigidly diagrammed with the help of a yellow ruler I kept clipped in my ring binder. My math skills may have been par to slightly sub-par, but when it came to words, I was double shifting. I was using all the crayons in the box. I was reading four years above my grade level. I 'hear' awkward sentence structure like an out of tune piano, a skill that earned me the silent treatment for two weeks in college after I red-penned the living hell out of a paper a friend asked me to proofread.

The Text Messaging Age has been hard on me. I know I'm not the only one who picks up on the general slippage in language skills. Whole blogs are dedicated to woefully written notes and unnecessary punctuation. Bloggers more popular than I have discussed it at length.

I may have upped the ante this morning with my email to the Wall Street Journal. I was glancing over the headlines when I saw this.

Treasurys? It leapt off the page, assaulting me with its wrongness. I read the article, thinking perhaps the title was put on later, by an editor, perhaps, but no, the author used 'treasurys' again. So I did what any other right thinking person would do at 9:15 on a Friday morning.

I emailed him and pointed out his error.

I didn't expect a reply, but I'd made an effort to pull the grammatical dress hem out of the pantyhose of the Wall Street Journal and that was enough for me. Imagine my surprise when Andrew Peaple emailed me right back.

Wsj style I thnk. Thanks for your comment though. (sic)

Seemed nice enough, he did, and since he replied to some random woman in a backwater town and acknowledged her picky observation, never mind the research that probably went into the article and the thousand things he had to understand to discuss the topic intelligently. So I emailed him again.

Ah. I forgot that sometimes the papers do things a little outside of Warriner's English Grammar. My husband is a writer/editor and I've been on the receiving end of his "Oh God, why didn't I see that" a few times so I just wanted to do you a solid and mention it.

Have a great day!

(See what I did there? Its called the benefit of the doubt. Even though I felt a little like Cindy Lou Who being told her Christmas tree had a light out and was being taken in for repairs.)

He sent back:
Thank you. Stay in touch!

By the way, I'm british, so am constantly wrestling with american spellings....

Again, a sweetie. A sweetie who is also capricious with capital letters and blames his fine country of origin, which aside from using words like 'banger' and 'pram' and throwing the odd 'u' in words that don't need it doesn't play fast and loose with the rules. So I'm still left with the feeling that all writing, even in the august Wall Street Journal, is on the skids.

FWIW.

Its paid for, but please don't......

2009-03-12T13:23:00.000-04:00

I finally got to ride in our sweet new ambulance Tuesday night. After countless bone jarring ambulance transfers in a 4WD vehicle that would have eventually resulted in breasts I could kneel on, we got a 2WD that offered a smooth ride and steps you can negotiate with a wide butt and short legs without looking like you just fell off a Mardi Gras float. Yaay for me!

It still has that 'new ambulance' smell, which is kind of like the 'new car' smell, if new cars came with extrication tools and the smell cost about $160,000 extra. Everything is shiny and unused.

We set off with a patient onboard who had difficulties that were not of the elimination variety, so I was alarmed when she had a whispered conversation with the nurse on board that ended with said nurse saying, "You have to POOP?" This was followed with a reassuring explanation of how very close we were to our destination, a place where she could do what needed done, possibly even without three onlookers in close quarters. This reassurance lasted exactly 45 seconds. I was at the head of the cot so I couldn't hear much of what was being said, only "Right NOW? Are you sure?"

A bedpan (which I prayed to the Patron Saint of Inopportune Defecation was actually IN the storage bin) was located, and we pawed through the layers of straps, tubing, non washable and very vulnerable-looking wool blankets, and ether blanketing to get to the patient and slip it in place.

Have you ever gotten on an elevator and experienced that awkward silence that settles in after the doors close? Or been witness to the 'party lull' where everyone stops talking at the same time for no particular reason? I would submit to you that these experiences run a distant seventy-third to dropping trou so you can poop in front of strangers in a moving vehicle.

We got the patient sorted out, then field tested something called the 'Power Vent'. (Ambulance manufacturers, whoever thought of a ceiling-mounted fan that sucks smells out of the back so they can hover malevolently over random municipalities, THANK YOU. It works like a champ.)

And nothing cheers up the staff of my favorite ER like walking in with a big red biohazard bag and saying, "Do you have someplace I can put this?" I wish I had one for them every day.

Here we go again

2009-03-07T21:18:00.002-05:00

Crap.

Here, I walk out of a movie that I couldn't stand, and pull up to the computer to have a little fun while I wait for it to be over, and I discover that once again I've managed to offend someone.

I made a comment on someone else's blog that had nothing to do with Canada. Only that a couple of folks from Canada had gotten hurt in a motorcycle accident. I didn't imply that being from there had anything to do with them having an accident. They could have been from Toledo. They could have been from Cheesequake, New Jersey. (Its a real place, one of my favorite towns EVAR.) They could have been from Pocatello, which is either in Iowa or Idaho. I think Idaho.
As it happens they were from Canada. I'm sorry.

I once took a Canadian Politics class in college that I absolutely didn't need because:

1. I had a small crush on the professor (an occasional adjunct at Queens University)
2. I knew absolutely nothing about your system of government and very little of your history outside of the bit of Irish history that overlaps it and that at one time you had a PM named Trudeau and a couple of Brians. I got a free subscription to McLean's and a B+.

I was busted for shoplifting in Montreal once. They were lenient. I was four years old. I was sent as a youth delegate to a missions conference in Niagara Falls when I was 17 and I conducted myself with utmost decorum despite the fact that our chaperone dropped us off at the hotel and went back to Buffalo to hang out with his daughter. We had a very good pizza, went on the Maid of the Mist, and sang a lot of songs about Jesus.

So gentle Canadians, polite Canadians, warmly dressed Canadians, please accept my apologies.

If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended,

That you have but slumber'd here

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream,

Gentles, do not reprehend:

If you pardon we will mend.

Febru-wha?

2009-02-18T20:43:00.002-05:00

Its what now? The 18th?

Jeez.

Wednesday night again; I'm at the ambulance building waiting for potential wreckage and mayhem from the snow/sleet/freezing rain/plague of frogs NOAA has sort of accurately predicted. So far, only one call, a person whose wreckage and mayhem was of a pulmonary variety.

Just spent a couple of hours with a sweet person who never fails to share details about people that I really don't want to know. I still haven't figured out how to say, "um, I don't want to hear this" without offending, so I spent the last twenty minutes making what I hope is a 'please stop talking' face. She's done now, and has gone home.

My thoughts have been limping, cripply, and unfunny lately, hence the recent blog-hiatus. I can't claim any personal Dark Night of the Soul (I almost spelled that Dark Knight of the Soul, which would imply some deep searching of Christian Bale, an activity I could completely get behind, even with his anger issues and whatnot. Hey-- who hasn't had the sudden overwhelming urge to give a pesky AD a South Philly shoeshine during a particularly tense scene of Batman-emoting. We've all been there.)

I'm sorry, I was just distracted by a commercial wherein a gentleman wearing a seemingly unnecessary headset just declared "We're going to make America skinny again, one slap at a time!" There's no way to understand that statement that doesn't disturb me.

Where was I. Batman. Christian Bale. Souls. ShamWow eyebrow SlapChop guy. Oh, right. Winter

ennui.

I'm trying to recall what I've been doing with myself the last few weeks. Other than mainlining Jan Karon novels and eating multiple bowls of Malt-o-Meal fake Froot Loops, nothing comes to mind. Surely my winter has amounted to more than discount cereal and Christian chick-lit.

Not so far. Here's a quick list of the rest:

1. Battlestar Galactica on Netflix

2. Snow

3. Subzero cold

4. Work

5. More subzero cold

6. Fire banquet

7. More cold

8. A bit more snow

9. A Super Bowl or something

I have reconnected with a lot of high school friends on Facebook. That's been fun, though if I knew how many of them stood at the ready with pictures of me in glasses with Hubble telescope-sized lenses and big hair I might have mashed the 'Ignore' button a few more times.

Seriously, though, while I love talking to old friends I caught myself OD-ing on nostalgia a time or two. And we all know its a short stroll down Memory Lane to 'What I Have Done and What I Have Failed To Do' Street, which dead ends on 'Middle Age Panic' Circle, with its declining property values and tacky landscaping.

So I tread lightly and carefully, dreaming of Spring and more interesting tidbits to bring to my readers. Even my intrepid customers have been pleasantly banal, no amorous canines or strangers who urge me to wear their slippers. I close my eyes and imagine tulips tightly furled against the dark, frozen soil, the yards hiding fragrant lilac bushes, the stalks of mountain laurel that will line these roads in riotous display in a few short months. I dream of green, the dark blue-green of the pines, the soft yellow-green of new grass, the lush green of the canyon under the heavy heat of August, laced with butterflies, with its smell of sun-baked green that rises in waves and washes over me like sleep. My desperation in the dark and freezing night does not delay it a moment. People....

...green is coming.

Getting all up in it

2009-01-23T20:39:00.007-05:00

According to the Washington Post, Obama exercises 45-60 minutes a day, every day, no matter how busy he is. He scopes out gyms in cities and the Secret Service 'convinces' the owners to open early or stay open late, so he can get some time in.

Somehow, I doubt its hard to resist them, when they ask.

While I admire it, his dedication to the whole fitness thing, it sort of makes that
'Yes We Can' thing seem a little annoying. A little gym-teachery, if you like. I can see him in a golf shirt and knee shorts and those little slouchy socks, with the folded arms and benevolent bemusement, explaining to an athletically challenged ninth grader (perhaps one with glasses and newly applied orthodontia) that if she keeps her eye on the ball, she doesn't have to worry about getting hit in the head with it, truly. He'd probably even say, "Look." and make that intensely concentrated 'I'm going to explain it to you again' face.

Weirdly, when I try too hard to imagine it, he morphs into this guy. So I try not to try too hard.

Trying not to try is a bit of a credo for me. If I had to pick a president that personified my own fitness policy, I'd probably fall somewhere in between here

and here. (That's Bill before his ticker suggested he back off on the In-n-Out Burgers. The other guy? William Howard Taft. He got stuck in a bathtub once. Awesome!)

Still, I guess I need to do better. We've been called on to roll up our sleeves and dig in. So my walking challenge starts on February 1, where I will be undertaking to walk 30 minutes a day, every day, from February 1 to March 31, thanks to these folks, who are in Nome, Alaska and don't tolerate any guff about it being too cold, since they live in the land of perpetual frozen-bits-falling-off danger. I'll keep you posted on my ventures into the frozen tundra, and I'll be honest about the days when I stay inside and do this instead.

Its a (freakishly small) world after all

2009-01-21T14:08:00.002-05:00

Recently I was reading a blog I subscribe to where the author was lamenting having said something that hurt someone's feelings. She described herself as someone who takes pains to be kind, and not do things like that, but despite her best efforts, failed in this one instance. I remember thinking, 'Man, I hate when that happens.'

No one likes to admit doing something dumb, thoughtless, and unkind.

I did something dumb, thoughtless, and unkind.

A few weeks ago I was stuck at the ambulance station. On New Year's Eve, to be exact. It was cold, I didn't want to be there, and I was passing the time watching TV, which I rarely do, Twittering and doing paperwork, waiting for something bad to happen so I could justify my presence there.

Jeopardy was on, which I haven't seen in forever, and I made fun of one of the contestants. I said mean things about how she looked, despite the fact that I know being on TV sometimes makes people look not-themselves, and despite the fact that my own appearance on TV when I was 17 was laughably awkward.

I have no excuse. It was simply unkind. Sometimes we forget that people we see on TV are actually PEOPLE. And I am glad that this particular person saw what I had written and called me on it, because I was reminded of that important lesson.

So formally, I apologize to Isis Uptown for the things I said. I have no excuse and a world of life experience that reminds me I should know, and do, better.

The road goes ever on and on....

2009-01-15T13:15:00.003-05:00

....sometimes, I wish my several readers could pile in the van with me when I'm on the road.

Not just because your presence would alleviate the boredom that causes compulsive license plate memorization and the effort to sing entire Broadway shows, but because some of the special, shimmery weirdness of certain moments is lost in translation when I bring them home to you.

I have a miniature one of these in my purse. I keep it there to jot down things that happen or that I see, so I can bring them to you later. A combination of various illnesses, travel, and the Apocalypse Now-like disorientation that accompanies Christmas (without as much psychopathic demagoguery or Marlon Brando) prevented me from writing out of my wee composition book. As I turn the pages, I find the following gems:

Archibald Pothole State Park. LOL!! This was less funny when I looked it up and discovered that the Archibald Pothole is a geological formation and NOT a guy named Archie Pothole.

Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Christmas I stopped for lunch in Shamokin Dam at your run-of-the-mill Chinese buffet, but it didn't take me long to figure out that this one had very, very special music for the Christmas season. Or rather, someone locked a group of aspiring Chinese pop stars in a room with a handful of 'Christmas phrases' and encouraged them to write some songs, accompanied by holiday-tinged drum machine tracks that said less 'Happy Holidays' to me and more 'Gitmo punishment cell'. Every song sounded like the instruction manual to electronics bought at the dollar store. I accepted a special dose of karma in a version of 'O Happy Day' that was obviously learned phonetically by non-speakers of English. I am abundantly repaid for walking around circa 1985 singing '99 Luftbalons' in German.

The Twisted Bitterness of the Non-Fat I popped into a local coffee shop on a very cold, miserable day to treat myself to something hot. I placed my order and chatted with the barista while she made it, and just as she was fitting the lid on the cup a woman walked up to the counter.

"What did you just make for her?" she said, jerking her thumb in my direction.

"Hot chocolate," the barista replied.

"I figured it was too good to be true. Give me a fat free, sugar free, vanilla soy latte."

The hell? I was sort of dumbfounded. WHAT was too good to be true? Had she hoped to lick the little metal pitcher? Was she going to offer to go halfsies? Why was she so angry?

Dog Dominance and the Brinkmanship of Ducks I had an appointment way out on the rim of the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon. I thought it'd be kind of neat; most of the houses out there are little cabins and I hadn't been out there in a while. The neatness wore off as the elevation increased and it began to snow. The weather gets crappy up there fast. I find the little dirt road, find the cute little cabin with the laughably narrow driveway, and park. The snow is coming down in earnest and as I climb the porch and greet my customer, she says she just wants to smoke a 'quick cigarette'. Um, okay. I shift nervously from foot to foot while she languidly draws on a cigarette the length of a CB antenna and tells me all about moving to Savannah, and I exclaim my wonder at her good fortune just loudly enough to mask the sound of my clipboard making contact with the skull of a patchy, smelly akita that has just mounted my leg. Its a bit like getting humped by a frat house sofa.

"Oh, " she said, smoking, "don't worry about him. He's just establishing dominance."

I put lawn furniture between myself and the dog and grab the screen door handle with a "WELL! Let's get started." After a torturously slow process and lots of asides that made me want to alternately go to church or take a nap, the customer looks out the window after another Springer-esque anecdote about her family and says, "Gee, you'd probably better go, hadn't you? Its getting bad out there. " Uh, yeah, thanks. I make a k-turn in the driveway, coming within an inch of her chimney and slide back out of her lane onto paved road, which is by now completely covered. Creeping down miles of empty road, with no company except steadily increasing snow and moaning, frigid wind, I am lost in thought. Then there are ducks. Right in the middle of the lane. They'll fly away. Won't they? WON'T THEY? I get within 10 feet and they are still both just standing there. Does duck sepukku usually involve the 1999 Dodge Caravan? I hit the brakes and skid around them. The ducks remain, gray shadows in the whirling snow.

I always forget to ask, but please stop on over to Humor Blogs.com, throw me a vote (or smiley me above) and check out the other folks (like Himself) who are ranked much, much higher than me because they always remember to shake what their mamma gave 'em. (Heck, sometimes they'll show it to you!)

Sick Day(s)

2009-01-13T13:13:00.003-05:00

Oh, good lord. Is this the day I should be writing the post I should have written weeks ago, yet have either been to busy, too lazy, or too sick to write? To quote a blogger dear to me, I'm sure I don't know.

Anyhoodle, Friday night I left work, went to the grocery store, came home and made dinner, and ate, oblivious to the fact that my 96 hours of house arrest had begun. We started to watch a movie, and I tried to ignore the intensifying feeling that all was not well in my GI region. Grape juice and DiGiorno thin crust supreme is less tasty on the revisit, and I will now forever associate Plan 9 from Outer Space with the intense nausea and cramping of January Virus Weekend 2009. The only upside is that we got a crap ton of snow, none of which I had to shovel, and Himself went out to buy me tea and other nice things. I slept a lot, and generally did my best Beth in 'Little Women' impression. Only I didn't die. (Sorry about the spoiler, for those of you who haven't read it in the 141 years since its publication.)

I tried to do a few things to make me feel better, though I learned that if you are going to do your nails during a movie, you should pick one without subtitles. You miss things. Just sayin'. I mixed up a fancy organic masque sample I had and applied it to my pasty face in an attempt to 'pamper' myself. It smelled like potting soil, bad breath, and vaguely toxic art supplies. The cat eyed me warily, as if he was silently chanting some feline incantation of rebuke and protection.

Monday, I stayed home, since a shower still required a two-hour nap recovery. Watched the two movies that make me feel better; Little Women and Enchanted April. Took more naps. Came to work today because the view from my bedroom window was starting to make me feel a little insane. (Tiny beige house. Tiny beige house. Tiny beige house. A car! Tiny beige house. Tiny beige house.) Fortunately today involves mostly sitting and doing things with my brain, and I think I can handle it.

I promise to post again very soon. I have dog dominance, duck brinkmanship, and strange overhearings at the coffee shop to tell you about.

Exhibiting my meme-ory

2008-12-05T12:49:00.002-05:00

I was tagged by fabulous fellow blogger Needless to Say for this ‘Seven Things’ Meme. I’m not sure if I did this one before, and I’m experiencing a medically induced laziness to check, so I’ll just off and do it again, shall I?

Seven things about me that I may or may not have shared previously in some form, known only by some family and a few friends who are probably sick of my stories and secretly think me a bit full of myself though they’d never say so because I have Many Endearing Qualities:

1. I was the lead singer in a terrible band in college. We did one show. There IS video evidence. Fortunately I lack the VHS to web technology to share it and ANYWAY you would never see it because, good God, its terrible. If I am really that awkward I should not leave the house.

2. I was on PBS in high school (Channel 12, for youse in Philly) fake sight-reading my way through Handel’s Messiah on live TV. I was sporting a red sweatshirt with a teddy bear on it, giant Jeanine-from-Ghostbusters glasses, with all my hair pulled back drum-tight with a giant tortoise-shell barrette. I’m right in the front row by the harpsichord so I got a lot of camera time and didn’t realize how painfully short bus I looked until my grandmother popped the tape in for all the relatives to see at a family gathering. They showed it EVERY Christmas Eve for years until Pavarotti and the Vienna Boys Choir became the go-to music program and the greater Philadelphia area was spared my dorkiness.

3. I own firearms and a sword and have been trained to use both.

4. I have socialized with people who were either expelled from this country or refused entry here. I had guns pointed at me and visited two different prisons on the same trip. I will likely never be hired by the Department of Homeland Security for these and other related reasons. I’m now slightly paranoid that this whole item has tripped some sort of flagging program and my blog will now be monitored.

5. I was once caught shoplifting in the Province of Quebec and was convinced that the store owner had the legal authority to imprison me because he had an accent. I was four years old.

6. I married the second person I ever dated. My husband married the first person he ever dated. We did not live together before we were married. We have been married for twelve years.

7. I’m a firefighter and an EMT. I do more EMT-ing than firefighting, mostly because half our firefighters hang out at the station and I’d have to have the power of by-location to get there in time to make the first or second truck. So I usually only end up going if it’s a huge fire and we dump the station. There aren’t many of those. But I have the nifty coat with my name on the back in yellow reflective letters, which still feels badass even though when I put the whole rig on with the boots and suspenders I am pretty sure that if you knocked me over I’d roll back and forth on the ground and yell "Hey guys! I CAN’T get UP!!" Like Ralphie’s brother in A Christmas Story. But I’ve been on 107 ambulance calls this year. Of those, only five involved the patient being zipped into a plastic bag. (One stroke, one massive MI, one motorcycle vs. Various Stationary Objects, two suicides.)

I know I'm supposed to tag others, but since most of you have already done this one, feel free to throw interesting anecdotes into the comments, so I can break my big record of like, eleven comments on one post. Just make sure you vote for me so I can feel the love.

I know what I know, if you know what I mean.....

2008-12-01T11:01:00.006-05:00

I usually pride myself on knowing, at least in a dim and rudimentary sense, about pop culture. True, the strength of my knowledge lies in the John Hughes era, but I am at least somewhat familiar with what's hot, enough that I could be filled with equal parts despair and amusement while trying to explain to my mother on the phone what a Wii is, and how its different from the last video gaming system she purchased and was familiar with (an Atari 2600).

Another gibbet of evidence that I'm creeping toward middle age (other than last week, when I bought birth control pills AND reading glasses at Walmart on the same day) is that I'm starting to let things go by. Things I realize I don't get and I'm okay with not getting.

1. WoW

In junior high I got together with a bunch of guys every other Friday night or so for a game. We all had our own dice, we all had folders full of sheets with our characters written out by hand in pencil. We sat together 'IRL' at a table, and a guy with a huge binder sat behind a trifold paper castle wall and determined our fate as we moved painstakingly painted lead figurines around on a piece of grid paper. We talked, ate Cheetos, and laughed our butts off. No one had seizures from playing 24 hours straight without sleep or food, though at least one bad movie was made about people taking it too far. By age 15, when we discovered things like extracurricular activities and the opposite sex, roleplaying tapered off sharply, with the exception of one live RPG excursion that ended in, as my doctor put it, 'The single worst case of poison oak he's ever seen" plus various minor blunt force and Ronsonol misfire injuries. (Hint: never run with a tiki torch.)

Today my Gmail ad du jour was from this company. Apparently, I can get a t-shirt with my 'Guild Tabard' on it. So when you do finally pry your ass out of the chair and grab a Big Gulp and a microwaved burrito, everyone can see what realm battlegroup and faction you belong to. Also: why your virginity is safe and secure.

2. Twilight

I didn't get it the first time, either. Did we have to start it all over again because Anne Rice found Jesus? (Be glad she did. Some of her pseudonymous stuff was, yikes. Just, yikes.)

3. Compulsive text messaging

Yeah, I use it. Mostly when I'm someplace too noisy to talk, and only when I have to tell Himself I'm on my way home. My one attempt to drunk text while at a friend's going away party ended in three very unintelligible and never sent messages that all started 'Hey bebby...' Which is probably why the party ended with breakfast at McDonald's at 7am. But is there really any reason why a guy has to stand around with a phone in his pocket that declaims "Apple bottom jeans and the boots WITH THE FUR" every twelve seconds? Does texting make you seem LESS like a 14 year old girl than just PICKING UP THE DAMN THING and talking to whoever it is that keeps sending you cryptic mini-missives that subject the rest of the free world to your questionable taste in music?

4. Tiny sweatshirts

I keep seeing girls in these sweatshirts that are basically a hood, sleeves, and about 8 inches of body, with a zipper that starts somewhere in the ziphoid process region. I beg anyone with mercy and sense to explain to me what the heck the point of this is, beyond making you look like you raided a toddler's closet.

5. The Hills

Is it a reality show? Is it a drama? Are there any other people in the world more in need of a savage kicking?

6. The Jonas Brothers

Methinks we've been here before. Let's see....

Oh, or

Or these guys, who disabled embedding so you'll just have to click on through to the otha side for all the hair-swinging goodness.

Look, I remember coveting my sister's Tiger Beat with Shaun Cassidy on the cover. I know from tweeny lust. But I look at these guys and all I see are the charter members of my high school Latin Club.

Hey, do a girl a favor and vote for me over to Humor Blogs, eh? While my husband hobnobs with the blogging elite I'm about five scrolls down the page. Its embarassing and precipitates haughty lectures from him about how I need to update my template and otherwise pimp myself out. I don't care if he's right. Its still annoying.

Not just a job, but an adventure

2008-11-28T21:52:00.000-05:00

Ah, the station. I probably spend more time here than I should. In fact, I'm writing this here. Mostly because we have a big flatscreen monitor on the computer and the keyboard isn't full of crumbs like the one at home. (I'm not to blame. I'll leave it at that.)
Anyway, the station is a little like college. You sometimes share close quarters with other people of whom you have a certain fondness. A certain camaraderie. Okay, you tolerate them. Sometimes.

We don't have a live-in program or anything, so there isn't a full kitchen, though we do have a bunkroom that has been used now and again. I camp here myself in inclement weather, since I have a car that isn't the best handler in snow and ice. I'd rather be here already if its really bad out.

Some time ago it was decided that someone should be cleaning this place on a regular basis. I won't get into why. Just trust me. It was necessary. A price was negotiated, and the job fell to myself. I don't really mind it. Twice a week I chase away the cobwebs, wipe up the smudges, and clean the bathroom. This is a pretty uneventful experience about 98% of the time. Today was a two-percenter. I performed an intervention. Then left this note.

Some Thoughts to Ponder

1. The throne on which
you are sitting delivers water at the rate of 1.6 gallons per flush.
2. Despite the impressive WHOOSH it makes when you pull the handle, it
is a LOW FLOW TOILET.
3. If you, in the course of business here,
believe that the payload you are delivering will not be sufficiently moved into
the sewage system of Our Fine Borough by 1.6 gallons of water, a mid-transaction
courtesy flush is in order.
4. The average human anus is approximately
the size of a dime. It does not require FIFTEEN YARDS OF PAPER to clean.
5. Should you experience a plumbing emergency worthy of intervention,
a plunger can be found across the street (in the firehouse) in the ladies
room. Knock first; it’s a one-seater.
6. Should I ever have to clear a
plumbing emergency like the one I found tonight, and the perpetrator does not
make an effort to solve the problem, and leaves it to me, and said perpetrator
can be positively identified, they might find what they left behind in the
pockets of their turnouts.

Brothers and sisters, this holiday season, if you stop at the station for a little 'You Time'....just make sure all systems are clear before you go about your day. That's all I'm sayin'.

Pleasing your Man

2008-11-26T16:24:00.000-05:00

Whoo hoo, sounds like a spicy one, eh? I grabbed this the other day and stuck it in my draft file, aka the doomed to never be published if I don't do it now file (Still sitting on one about my first attempt at canning, making fundraiser 'bread in a jar' for an organization I've since quit, complete with disturbingly glistening photos.)

Since, let's be honest, we're all pretty much pretending to work today, I figured I'd make today a two-fer. Because this article, from the Fount of All Dubious Advice, needed to be mocked. The sister-in-law had one not long ago about whether its okay to cry at work. This one is equally insightful.

So this is what MSN believes one needs to keep one's man.

1. Your backing when he takes a risk. Guys need to keep in touch with adventure—why else would Man Vs. Wild be a TiVo staple? “When I wanted to switch careers, my girl said to go for it,” says Will, 30. “Having her in my corner gave me the courage to try.”

2. The right to keep Secrets. Why should he have to tell you his friend is having an affair, or that his cousin lost his job and hasn’t told his wife yet? If it’s not integral to your relationship, don’t feel threatened. His discretion shows he’s a grown-up.

3. A guilt-free boys’ night out. The cure for “girly-man” syndrome is contact with other high-fiving men. This may mean a trip to the bar or an Ultimate Fighting Championship—but it’s definitely without you, and that’s OK. “See me off with a smile,” says Al-Teriq, 38. “That trust is critical.”

4. The green light to actually have sex, should the opportunity arise, with someone on his Celebrity List of Five. And by all means, hop on Brad Pitt if you ever get the chance.

5. Some space when his team loses the big game. And you can save your “maybe next year” optimism; just give us time alone to weep.

6. A heads-up when you just need us to listen. Sometimes all you really want to do is vent to us about something. A simple warning in advance and we promise we’ll stay quiet and let you talk it out.

7. Patience when he says the wrong thing. Like when you ask, “How’s my hair?” and we say, “Fine,” instead of “Amazing!” Give us a break: We’re trying.

8. Big guffaws and tiny giggles. We like to hear laughter—preferably following one of our silly jokes. We know, we know: Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld we are not, but anything you offer will be very much appreciated.

9. Frequent (and enthusiastic) trips downtown. Yes, we all request this, but that’s because it really is that good. We’re happy to return the favor.

10. A GPS for the car. You want this too. It will end those “where the *#!? are we?” arguments once and for all.

11. The freedom to be himself. It’s important for people in a relationship to retain a sense of self, and for guys that’s achievable in some unexpected ways; leaving the toilet seat up or spending the weekend in boxers.
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Good God. Where to begin. First off, is changing careers really on par with staggering through the desert swathed in a t-shirt cooled with your own pee? If your job is that demanding perhaps your girl would do better to be in your corner while you go buy some term life and name her as the primary beneficiary. I'm so glad that going without pants is enough to help a man retain his sense of self, especially since he is apparently one missed trip to the bar and a denied celebrity 'do' list away from becoming a screaming queen, which would actually be good, since MY sense of self revolves around whether or not he can appropriately assess my hairdo and maybe if he did bat for the other team I'd get some honest feedback. I can't mock these separately because all together they form this giant ball of stereotypey goodness that just gets stuck in my intellect like cotton candy with hair in it. So here's my own list.

1. Let's not fancy up the reality of things by calling it a 'Celebrity List of Five'. Its a wank bank. You know he has one. He knows you know he has one. Better to not speak of such things. Also: Brad Pitt gives me the heebies and he's starting to look like an unkicked jack o' lantern that has been on the front step about a week too long. And given his present company, if you apply the 'you sleep with everyone that person has ever slept with' theorem we're talking about a sexual history roughly the length of the OED. So, no. Also, ick.

2. I'm all for frequent and enthusiastic trips downtown. After all, its less than a mile and that's where the restaurants are. And the post office. And the park with the disturbing statue. And 19 churches. After that, its all deer and trees.

3. He cares about your hair about as much as you care about fantasy football. There. You're even.

4. Don't ask him why the underwear is in the trash. Just leave it there. No, really. You have bleach but he has plenty. Just leave it there.

5. Don't get a GPS if you think he'll dink with it WHILE he's driving. Rims are expensive.

6. If you don't want to touch the seat to put it down, clean the bathroom. Otherwise, shut up about it.

7. Just empty his pockets yourself. At least you get to keep the money you find. Yeah, its irritating. So is picking bits of tissue off your black pants.

8. Men do like to hear laughter. Just maybe not right after they run to you claiming something is terribly wrong with their gums, when actually they just discovered that weird little connector between their top lip and the rest of their face.

9. Regarding the sex thing, have some.

10. Operate on the general principle that your man is not an ornament or an accessory. He does not exist to get you stuff. He is a person that you've been given the opportunity to care for in a way that you care for no one else. Remember that he is a human being with an immortal soul and should be cherished accordingly when you are arguing with him in the cat litter aisle at Walmart.

Blitter Twogs

2008-11-26T09:22:00.005-05:00

I've had some stuff wandering around my brain that, while amusing (at least to me) was too short for a whole post here, and too long for Twitter. Others call it their 'Sock Drawer' or some kind of 'Meandering', I call it 'something to do to look like I'm working while I pass the time at the office because no one wants to work and anyway my boss is making me breakfast even as we speak'. Which is admittedly unwieldy and not particularly clever. I had intended to have some interesting photos each week also, but lately the camera has stayed in its case because there is precious little of interest going on while I drive the same stretch of NYS Route 17 trying to find a radio station that isn't playing country-music Christmas songs that pick me up and toss me into the gaping maw of depression. (What is WITH that, anyway? If I want separation and death I'll watch a Disney movie.)

(Pause to take a big bite of a bagel sandwich with cheese and Canadian bacon and a perfectly cooked egg)

Where was I?

Oh, okay. So this morning I'm driving to work, listening to NPR. Because that's what I do, Obama lovin' tree-hugger that I am. Since National Public Radio is, as the name implies, public, it is supported by various foundations, charitable trusts, and, say it with me, "Listeners like YOU." Every morning, the important-sounding fellow says something like 'Support for NPR comes from (fill in the foundation, charitable trust, or vague guilt-inducing implication that you should send us SOME MONEY)'

Today was special. "Support for NPR comes from the Department of Homeland Security."

What??

Yes, I'd heard correctly. Apparently they are hiring, because I was encouraged to 'visit their website at http://www.dhs.gov/ '.

Thanks, guys, but my past is sufficiently checkered that you would probably give me a pass. But you already know that, don't you?
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The other day I was sitting at my desk watching a co-worker earnestly try to fill out an online form. (I wasn't spying on her, she has a giant flat-screen monitor.) I didn't know what it was about, only that she'd been flogging away at it for a good half hour. When I got up to get coffee she waved me over. She was trying to enter a contest online that she'd read about in Cosmogirl.

"I'm so frustrated! How can I get this password to be orange? I don't have the toolbar to change it when I'm in this form!"

"Why does it have to be orange?"

"Because look," she says, pointing to the page in the magazine, "the directions say to go to this website and enter the password in orange."

"I think they are showing you what to enter, not what color it has to be entered in."

"Oh."

This woman is thirty-two years old.

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I listened to a story earlier that started out:

"This guy and his wife were over my house one night...and she ain't got any teeth either...."

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I was drivng back from Syracuse the other day listening to 80's music, contemplating the awesomeness of this lyric:

You know I feel so dirty when they start talking cute, I want to tell her
that I love her but the point is probably moot......

Never at any point during my big-glasses and docksiders time of life did I stop and say, jeez, this has got to be the stupidest song I've ever heard. You know why? Because its awesome. Give it a listen while you make stuffing or whatever-it-is you are supposed to do the night before Thanksgiving.

Also... Rick Springfield was SMOKIN' HOT. I forgot about that.

Twelve Years

2008-11-22T15:58:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow is my 12th wedding anniversary. Twelve years ago tomorrow, on the 34th Sunday in Ordinary Time (aka Christ the King Sunday) and five years to the day after I became a real live Cath-o-lick, Himself and Myself got married, at St. Patrick's church in a little South Jersey town.

I had the requisite South Jersey Catholic Big Hair, courtesy of a can of spray that requires a license and a hazmat certification to use and a hairdresser so fiercely bent on day-long perfection that not a single strand moved all day. (Nor, for that matter, for three days afterward. )

I was never one of those little girls who sprawled on her pink canopy bed fantasizing about her wedding. Once we picked the date, something I referred to as a 'Bridal Dictatorship' was initiated. Pick it, buy it. Say yes, say no. No foo foo nonsense. No quietly dying inside while someone else insisted on something you didn't give a toss about. When dress buying time came about, I purchased 1 (one) bridal magazine, picked an Alfred Angelo bridesmaid's dress that was under $150 and wouldn't cause any of my 3 (three) bridesmaids to do the Guantanamo Bay detainment diet, and I drove to 1 (one) David's Bridal and had this conversation with my mom in the parking lot:

"Okay, here's how this is going to go. I'm going in there, I'm going to find a dress, and I'm going to buy it."

"Okay."

I bought tried-on dress number three, once the helpful salesgirl realized that the DRESS was okay, but the ivory material made me look like I had decreased liver function. We tried the white, Mom cried, it was the right one, they shoved it into a pink wardrobe bag, and away I went.

I only really had one wedding image in my head that guided me. The one above. I wanted a big ol' train to drag down the aisle just like Maria. (Not so much the instant family and singing nuns. Just the train.) So I got it. For the uninitiated or not-as-insane its referred to as "a Cathedral Length Train".

So began a small problem that, if it had a Sound of Music-type song for it, would need a song called 'How do you solve a problem like a giant caboose and a bustled Cathedral Length train crammed into a folding chair'. Which isn't nearly as musical as 'a problem like Maria', but every bit as disconcerting. And for the record, you 'catch a chair and pin it down' by putting it against the wall behind the head table, perching on the edge, and jamming your feet against the floor. 'How do you solve a mark-ed lack of traction' is another story altogether.

I used the ladies' room exactly once during the reception. I took the dress completely off. It was easier. Plus I could readjust my foundational garments. (Read: briefly re-establish blood circulation to my thighs and various ladyparts.)

Still, it was a lovely day. Last Saturday, I took the Bustle of Doom to a consignment shop, hanging it up for the ladies to sigh over while I shamelessly reminisced about November 23, 1996. I felt a little sad as I left it with strangers. Oh well, I still have the best part of that day anyway.

Tomorrow: Perhaps scanned photos if I can get himself to hook the scanner back up. And sage advice from MSN about 'pleasing your man', complete with snarky heckles.

Physics is Not Your Friend

2008-11-22T13:25:00.000-05:00

I have no kids. Some might say I have no business dispensing advice to kids. I'm going to anyway. Its not particularly loving or kind. Too bad.

List of Realities For A Seventeen Year Old Male

1. You are too young to drink.
2. Anywhere. Anytime. Four more years to go. Wait.
3. Drinking anyway makes you a lawbreaker.
4. Drinking and driving makes you a selfish dickhead lawbreaker.
5. Such decisions are expensive. No one is impressed, least of all your parents, or the person whose rather new sportscar you totalled.
6. See #4 re: selfish dickhead
7. That body you are walking around in is essentially an animated bag of meat. It is fairly easy to break and poke holes in, particularly when you are too stupid to wear a seatbelt.
8. We all know that you know better. Since you aren't dead you get a chance to prove it. Don't screw it up.

The Audacity of Soap

2008-10-31T20:39:00.006-04:00

Or, how my day started with him:
And ended with him.

Friday was a grrreat day. It started with an emergency appointment in Bushkill, PA. I moved some things around to accommodate it, and three more quickly queued up to completely fill the day. First, the gentleman I missed on Tuesday owing to the Scranton area's Ice Age Drill grabbed the top spot at 9am. Then we slid a Forest City right behind it, followed by Mr. Bushkill, and just for good measure, one more in East Stroudsburg. For you geography kids, this is one hell of a loop that starts about three an a half hours to the Southeast of me. So I got up at Ye Daemon Houre of Sorrows. (about 4:30am). I slapped on my Velma glasses and threw a bag of randomly chosen cosmetic items and a toothbrush in my tote, intending to improve my appearance as soon as the sun came up or I gave a crap, whichever came first.

I have my nappin' spots when I drive long distance, when I start out that early I usually need about a 10 minute snoozaroo about 2-3 hours into the day. I pulled into my last-spot-back-lot Dunkin Donuts parking place in Tunkhannock and set my alarm for 10 minutes. I settled into the seat, wondered briefly how I'd fall asleep 500 yards from a concrete plant and zzzzzzz......10 minutes later I sat up and looked around, as the drive-thru coffee-goers eyed me curiously. I gave my hair a brisk brush and looked purposefully into my vanity mirror just long enough to assure them I was neither homeless nor insane and I was on my way.

I sat at a crosswalk smiling in Carbondale as a dad led a diminutive Buzz Lightyear across the street to his preschool Halloween party. I thought about the crisp fall evenings where I set out in some product of my imagination with a plastic pumpkin to collect goodies from my grandparents' neighbors. Even then the lure of having a look around someone else's house nearly trumped the candy in terms of interest. My Carbondale guy was nice shoes, expensive cologne, and ego; it was a divorce situation and I got the condensed version of what happens when Beautiful People must divide their spoils and go in separate directions, their house was a blur of Pottery Barn, exercise equipment, and ornamental dogs. It was spookily clean. I was glad to leave.

Number Two was in a small Scranton-y village 15 minutes to the north, nice people, I managed to smile as I grabbed a bag of parts off a shelf in their basement to explain what washer locks look like, only to discover too late that the bag had been used repeatedly by the cat for claw sharpening and the odd piss. I just talked and talked while I Lady Macbethed my hands in their basement sink with a squirt of whatever laundry detergent they had sitting there. My powers of denial and moving on are strong; one of those things a couple years of volunteering in emergency services will get you. I'm sure I'll be puked on by a random customer child at some point; I'm waiting for it.

Lunch break, then on to Number Three. Number Three lived in a state park. No. Really. IN a state park. I got to try out all the roadblock avoidance functions on my GPS since the route that it chose for me took me down the ONE road that has been washed out for two years that they decided to fix THAT DAY. I pulled into the steep driveway and glanced at the piles of plastic toys that littered the yard, topped here and there by a scroungy bad-tempered cat. I suspected I had arrived at The House The Neighbors All Talk About. I was not disappointed. The living area of the house looked like it had been filled with toys and household items from a hatch located in the ceiling, perhaps with a backhoe. I broke things I stepped on. I couldn't help it. They stood and sort of giggled while I attempted to calculate the approximate number of boxes the piles might be efficiently shoveled into, while considering how I might be kind in my report when the ready vocabulary for the mess included words like 'squalid' and 'disaster' and 'mind-boggling sh*thole'.

Task completed, I set out across the Poconos for my last appointment. I was sitting at a traffic light when the college radio station I found played this, and made my day.

You know, it was kind of warm Friday. And I had my window down. And I probably should have considered that before yelling "WHO THE F--- IS STEVE REEVES??" At a traffic light. There were stares. It was college all over again.

Number Four was small, the appointment brief, and I was happy to be heading at last in a Northwesterly direction. By the time I got back on Route 6 I was just chanting a mantra to myself: "I'm going to make dinner. Then I'm going to take a shower. Then I'm going to put my jammies on. I'm going to make dinner. Then I'm going to take a shower. Then I'm going to put my jammies on." I was hungry. I was tired. I was anxious to take off the Work Pants and scrub off the dirty house cooties. I was tired of the radio. I slapped in my headphones and was tapping the steering wheel listening to this when I looked in my rear view mirror.

Crap.

Was I speeding? Did he see my oh-so-inconspicuous white iPod headphones? Was I SPEEDING? I didn't think so. He walked up to my window and informed me that 'this conversation is being recorded'. Oh, jeez. Here's my license and registration, Captain Serious. The whole time he is telling me that the police are out IN FORCE because its one of the 'most celebrated holidays' and I'm all like, "What??" I recognize him. His sawed-offedness. The space between his teeth. The Barney Fifery. This was not your typical crew-cut, disarmingly handsome and usually good-smelling Pennsylvania State Trooper. This was a local dude, and more than that, the very SAME local dude who gave me my FIRST SPEEDING TICKET EVER.

Flashback: thirteen years ago. I'm driving too fast through a very small town trying to get to my boyfriend's house before it starts snowing for reals. I get pulled over. $117, thank you very much. I cried for miles afterward and generally felt dirty. I wanted to write an apology letter to send with my check. (Yes. Sometimes us Good Girls are sad and a little ridiculous. Sue us.)

He explains to me that Halloween brings out all the drunks. I nod politely and want to say, I'm not a drunk, I'm a 38 year old woman in a minivan, for crying out loud, who has been driving for umpteen hours and I just want my honey and olive oil soap and my jammies and some supper. I sign my ticket and drive 43.5 miles an hour all the way back to Mansfield, then 4.35 miles an hour THROUGH Mansfield, cursing the trick or treaters and the empty gas tank that forced my interaction with them as I pulled into the station for a fill.

I see my little house. There it is. I pull in the driveway, stagger into its inviting warmth, and drop all my junk in a heap. And walk straight into Himself having a girlfit because his cell phone isn't working. Also, he lost his credit card.

Some very uninteresting screaming ensued, followed by an angry shower and his retreat to the grocery store to get some nachos to throw in my cage. Followed by some more screaming, because I started to write this Friday and he had Girlfit II because I was using the computer.
You know what knocks the wind out of stress/anger/anxiety mixed together with a stupid high histamine level, complete with spontaneous hives? Three Benadryl. I passed out and slept for 10 hours, awaking refreshed and altogether ready to panic clean my entire house in three hours for unexpected overnight guests.

Its a new week, and I am rested and ready! Whether or not things go your way tomorrow, history will be made and the river rolls on. Go easy on the candy.

I get the frightful....not so much the delightful

2008-10-29T13:27:00.002-04:00

I didn't take this picture.

As my husband often complains, I never have my camera when I see stuff. But I took a couple of snaps like this on my cell phone.

Yesterday.

I had an appointment in Hallstead, PA, then another in Port Jervis, NY. For those of you playing along at home without an offhand knowledge of Pennsylvania geography, it's the right hand half of the rectangle kinda near the top, then aaaallll the way off the edge back into NY where the Delaware is merely a creek. I travelled down Route 81 and noted with amusement that it was getting progressively worse. Cue the wadded up station wagon against the guardrail.

Then I hit 84. Route 84 goes through the Pocono Mountains. Usually its a lovely, pleasant drive through towns with names like 'Promised Land' and the ever-giggle inducing 'Dingman's Ferry'.

Yesterday it was like crossing Caradhras with an elf and a bunch of cranky hobbits.

I made 45 miles in just over 2 1/2 hours, with the van in low gear, creeping along flanked by trucks who were going as slow as I was. Truckers are the flight attendants of bad weather driving for me. If I'm on a plane and there is turbulence but the attendants don't look concerned, I don't worry. If its snowing like a bastard and truck drivers are still hauling ass, I don't worry. When my Schneider guys and my North American guys and my big dumptrucks are going 20, I want to panic a little.

Almost to Matamoras (I love the name of that town, though the name is the most interesting thing about it; it needs a snazzy Mexican restaurant. SOMETHING. Though the welcome center bathroom is obsessively clean.) the road clears up a little and I am cheered. Perhaps its passing. I do my thing in Port J and get back on 84, ready to patiently brave the creeping traffic back toward the Scranton area. The electronic billboard is flashing CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION/ROAD CLOSED MM37 /USE ALTERNATE ROUTE.

I think to myself, where is Route 37? Never heard of it. Oh well. I don't have to drive on it.

(sound of penny dropping)

Oh. MILE MARKER 37. Crap.

I get off the highway, and plan my escape route. Because my THIRD appointment, the one I was most assuredly going to be late to, was in Carbondale, and I was hearing that they were having some sort of apocalyptic ice age and thank ya no, I wasn't going to risk my neck getting there. So I followed my second customer's advice and jumped on 209 north because "It'll put you right on 17, and you can run right on in to Binghamton!".

She left out the part about it being 98 MILES from Binghamton. And the fact that I'd have to drive through the Catskills. But it turned out to be not so awfully bad, I just continued my stress management technique of driving in low gear singing songs from the 70s at the top of my lungs and eating string cheese for the extra 98 miles and got back to familiar territory. Total workday: 6:30am-8:15pm.

Yeah, I slept in today.

Weekly Curiosities

2008-10-22T11:13:00.005-04:00

This week’s curiosity comes to you from the ‘Sometimes a yard ornament is just a yard ornament’ Department.
I drive by this house about twice a week, though I didn’t notice this treasure until recently. It appears carefully crafted and is deliberately placed on a small rise at one corner of the front yard.

I think the great wealth of candidate endorsement signs elsewhere in the yard should have been artfully arranged around this magnificent pillar. (Not that I’m implying that a four foot concrete phallus would be a fitting focal point, given the candidate on the sign. You can draw your own conclusion there.)

There are a couple of snaps I didn’t get this week, and they are, in no particular order:

Two gentlemen in Ithaca crossing the street; one pushing a shopping cart, the other tucked neatly INTO the shopping cart , with his crutches alongside and his apparently broken leg propped up on the front. It didn’t look terribly comfortable, though they both seemed cheerful enough about it.

My favorite political candidate name EVER. I don’t know what party he is with, I don’t know what kind of person he is, but anyone who is willing to get out there with signs that say VOTE TINKLEPAUGH is awesome. Sadly most of his supporters seem to live on busy roads with no shoulder and I couldn’t get any snaps. I did find this though. He’s on page 12. His home address is there too, if you are in the Greater Binghamton area and want to drop by. If you do stop by please don't mention that I referred to the Greater Binghamton area on Twitter as ‘Craptaculopolis’. ) Oh, and now I know he’s a Democrat.

The last of the glorious color making a cavern of golden light on a side road as I passed. ‘Denuded lanes, with leaves adrift below’, I thought. Yeah, I'm kind of a dork. But I like Rilke and I don’t watch TV so that’s the kind of stuff that rattles around in my craw.
The whole poem, in my favorite (and arguably, most depression-inducing) translation, is here.

Three Years On

2008-10-15T13:05:00.008-04:00

I realized while dawdling down the highway this morning that the third anniversary of our flight to the hills is upon us in two weeks. I got reflective. What have I learned since I left behind the convenience of the "Main Line" for the Glorious Northern Tier?
A lot, my friends, a lot.
I wasn’t a privileged girl, but I lived close enough to privileged people that I got a little bit of their snobbery on me. When I came up here, everything was cute, quaint, primitive, or OMG worthy. (Archival evidence here and here.) I talked too fast, drove too fast, and kept having to translate everything in my mind, though instead of English to Spanish it was What I Had Available Before to Where The Heck I Get It Now That The Mall Is 60 Miles Away.
I’ve chilled out a bit. This was facilitated not only by time but by a job loss that resulted in a readjustment of my income and my attitude. (One went down, one went up.)
Things I’ve learned after three years:

What a brush hog is.

That 'drivin' it like ya stole it' has to do with speed, not larceny.

How to correctly pronounce Jonsered and Husqvarna.

How to ride a six wheeler (though it was a mildly traumatic and majorly hilarious experience and I doubt my fellow firefighters will let me do it again anytime soon)
That bears can and will do this:

(PS- I have one just like that— and it’s a wrought iron pole.)

That misery may love company, but poverty likes it okay too. Something about having lots of friends that also have no money makes you feel less like the world will end at any moment because you don’t have any.

That its never too late to do something you’ve never done before,

and

Its never too late to get the brothers you always wanted.

Arnot Building Supply Fire, Mansfield, PA July 10, 2007.

Jeremy Raymond Memorial Softball Tournament. Department 1 Team. (The girl is someone's daughter and our ringer. Without her, it would have been an embarassing day. You rock, Kash.)

I have also learned that for every desolate, snow scoured, cold and gray day that makes you wonder why you moved here, there is a day like this:

Or this:
And all is forgiven.

Weekly Curiosities

2008-10-09T13:12:00.007-04:00

I believe I shall start something new.

I can't give it a name with any sort of alliteration, mostly because I can't guarantee that it'll always happen on the same day. Or that I'll be in the office on the same day every week. When I'm not in, this is my workspace:

That stretch of highway excitement is I-81 southbound. And despite this promising sign:

I can assure you there are no margaritas, white sand beaches, or overpriced parasailing opportunities to be found off that exit.

On my way to my work task, I stopped for a wee at a mini mart, and when I pulled out, I saw this.

Yes, that would be located alongside the 'It Pays to Enrich Your Word Power' marina. Though I realized this morning as I was cleaning the cat box (you'd be surprised how many feats of mental agility are performed over a scoop of poop) that I was confusing the word above with this word. Perhaps I should have lingered a bit longer over the Reader's Digest myself.

With a tip of the hat to Carmen Sandiego, I will publicly laud the first person who knows where I was yesterday. (I'll take a town name within, say, 26 miles of my actual destination. Since there's pretty much nothing but boat storage, customs clearance warehouses (hint) and signs like this in-between.)

The picture I didn't get:

I was driving through Onondaga Nation Territory and I found The actual Vortex. The source of that elevator rendition of 'When Doves Cry' that haunts your dreams. Yes, the Muzak office. I was in traffic on the wrong side of the road and couldn't get a picture. But now you know; people are working somewhere, making that music. For you. On purpose.

And that's all I have to say about that.....

2008-10-03T09:24:00.003-04:00

I really, really miss the days when this was the only Maverick in my world. *

Also, evidence I may be a bigger pen geek than Himself: While watching the debate last night, Joe Biden held up a pen, which I immediately recognized to be one of these. And yes, I did say to myself, 'Hey! That's a blue Uniball Vision! I love those!'

*I also miss the days when Tom Cruise wasn't a crazy bastard.

Blogger's Block

2008-09-28T13:40:00.003-04:00

Jeez.

My thoughts aren't very organized lately. Not sure why. Maybe the change of seasons has me off-track. Maybe its the election, the disruption of my exercise schedule, this new laundry detergent. I mean, I had a couple of days there where it was five or six hours past when I was supposed to take medication that is supposed to be taken IN THE MORNING (caps on the instructions) and preferably at the same time every day. I woke up from a dream this morning wherein I was back in college, although not exactly, though with friends from college, feeling this vague ennui coupled with a fear that I didn't actually graduate, but wait, they gave me that diploma, did I have enough credits? Were they humoring me? This morphed quickly into some sort of Bollywood film that I was both watching and participating in, and then They (not the Indians, another more sinister 'They..not that Indians are sinister, more that the first They were not sinister and the second They were. Oh, you know what I mean.) were after me because I was One of Them (too much 'Heroes', I guess) but they couldn't tell if I was Good or Bad.

Take your meds as prescribed, people.

Fleeting bits of humor drift through my transom while I'm driving, but nothing cohesive. After several weeks of bland customers, almost boring in their uniformity of wealth, I had a customer who had carpeted his driveway (indoor/outdoor, burgundy, very tasteful) and whose house was full of neo-classical Greek statuary but he and his sons (twins; 42-ish, still and always living at home) were so sweet and kind I couldn't spin a catalogue of weirdness out of it, try as I might. We talked about everything (over mugs of grape juice) from his wife's flea marketing habits to Alexander the Great to a fatal electrocution they witnessed 20 yards from their house. They sent me home with gifts; two large pink plastic hair clips and a framed print of The Last Supper, which I promised to hang. (And will hang, in my kitchen, with apologies to Himself, your parents have had the same giant portrait of a deer in their living room for 30 years. You can adapt.)

I took a couple of extra duty sections this week, I'm ten calls away from 100 in a year and grabbing a weekend here and there frequently enables you to practice skills that are not called upon on Wednesday nights. But I guess I need to back up.

It has come up now and again, in passing, in the comments section of other people's blogs, that I am a firefighter and an EMT. I have never talked about it much, in fact, I set up a separate blog for it, because about 95% of the time, stuff that happens is not funny. And this is a humor blog, si? Okay, once in a while it is funny. Drunk people (not the dead kind) are funny. Sometimes, crazy people (not the dangerous kind) are funny, but even that is treading on shaky ground. For every person who'd get a chuckle out of my responding to a full-blown psychiatric emergency on 'Dickens of a Christmas' festival day, all decked out in my best imitation Mrs Cratchit complete with elaborate Victorian hairdo, and no doubt heartily contributing to said patient's psychiatric emergency, there is someone who has been there, has coaxed a bug-eyed relative out of the barricade fashioned out of dining room furniture, full of the same assurances we had, that the neighbors are not trying to poison her because they secretly hate retired math teachers. So I'm basically left with the first time I ever responded to a fire call, wherein I fell over and banged my head on a forty year old engine parked across from my locker while trying to get into my boots, and got left behind in the empty garage littered with hastily cast off sneakers and workboots, lone witness to some sort of municipal rapture.

There is a unique brand of juvenile hilarity that one participates in, doing this job. A bystander, likely a pinched-up one who doesn't laugh at much, might call it immature. A rough game of king of the hill played on the snow piled at the corner, across from the firehouse, the guys looking like overgrown children, cigarettes dangling as they tumble down, laughing and swearing. Practical jokes where carelessly parked bicycles are lashed to chains, winched into the rafters, where they dangle over the head of the clueless owner who is endlessly talking, not seeing. "Shit, that was funny. Remember the time....." and the story is told. We need this. The same guy who does a maneuver he calls 'Fat Guy Freestyle'-- a crazily awkward but surprisingly high side-vault with a clicking of the heels off the end of a stretcher, a railing, with points given for a flash of buttcrack, can also tell you about the patient so badly tangled in a wrecked car it took an hour and a half to extricate her, mostly intact, her broken legs folded up over her shoulders. Half an hour of wisecracking in a circle in the garage might seem like a waste of time, but we need it. Then I can go home and do The Ritual.

Its simple; dead patient, gotta wash my jacket. The death doesn't have to be messy. It doesn't have to Get On Me. But if it happens; if there is talk of lividity, that low, animal wail from the living room when the relatives are given the 'Nothing More We Can Do' speech, the turning off of monitors, phone calls to county for the cadre of cleaners-up, I know I'm going to do it. I go home, peel off all the layers, clean out my pockets, zip it up, and throw it in the wash. There is an element of relief, of 'There, that's over'. It comes out of the dryer soft, its navy surface uniformly dark and reassuring. All is reset to zero, the good zero, the 'time to try again' zero, not the 'asystole on two leads/no response/ 1-1-1 on the Glasgow scale' kind of zero.

Suicides kind of mess up my schedule. I want to write about how nice the leaves are, with pictures. I want to muse on why I keep inadvertently running over squirrels. I toy with sly and amusing political humor, ultimately rejecting it in favor of keeping things non-partisan here in my little corner of the northern outpost. But Saturday morning at 2:35am I knew it was going to be another jacket washing day and I was right. I'll write about it later. (On the other blog, where the dark and heavy stuff usually goes when my boundaries aren't all blurry like they are today.)

Just this, and I'll leave you with it. You are out in the world, wherever you happen to be, surrounded by people who are fragile as crystal and carrying heavy burdens. Be kind to them.

Possible Evidence I May Need to Up My Dosage

2008-09-22T14:34:00.002-04:00

I just re-read this email I sent to a friend in response to her confirming plans for a weekend away over Columbus Day 2009. I'm not sure if the caffiene or the pharmaceuticals are to blame.

And its a time of year when I shouldn't have any trouble taking vacation
days, so even though it isn't a real holiday I can still take off. (I mean, a
real holiday where we get off. Though really, its not a real holiday. Because
who gives a damn about Christopher Columbus and his discovery of someplace
other than here that he found by accident when he was looking for something else
and thought he was there anyway for a minute because his navigational equipment
sucked but then people didn't look Indian at least not the way he expected
but he figured, hell, there's good crap I can steal here anyway. Except maybe
the Italians. They care. Not sure why. I guess they didn't get a cool saint to
have a drunken holiday over like we did. I mean, they have the saints. But none
of them inspire binge drinking and public urination. Thirteen year old martyred
virgins are kind of a parade-downer.)

Thoughts?

The Day After

2008-09-12T22:34:00.002-04:00

I have been running this week and not in the office much, today I spent my lunch hour hunched over a bowl of ramen and a magazine wishing away a sinus headache, with lots of bloggy-bits whirling around my head, nothing cohesive. I wanted to write a 9/11 post, in fact, I composed one in my head, and all the images of that day so overwhelmed me that I never got it written.

Every time I go to tell the story it starts out "I remember that it was a perfect day". Perfect, blue sky, no clouds, perfect temperature. After the stunned silence of the workday (I only got one phone call all day, from a woman in Japan who hadn't heard what happened yet.) I drove home, peering up at the perfect, empty sky. I absentmindedly missed my turn home and pulled into a convenience store for a drink and a pack of gum. The clerk at the counter looked at me and said, "Are you all right?" I knew what she meant. I just didn't know the answer.

Himself was at a school board meeting, which was held despite the events of the day. I sat transfixed watching CNN until I couldn't do it anymore. My grandmother called. "Just checking on all of my chicks," she said. After that I left the house, no destination in mind, just the desire not to be alone. I went to church even though evening Mass was over an hour before. When I yanked open the doors, the place was packed. A priest was walking up and down the center aisle, reading the Bible, flipping the pages, reading what came to him, comforting who could be comforted. I sat and cried with strangers.

We've all had those losses where, at least in your own world, time stops and you wonder how everyone else can just go on when someone you loved is gone. Only we all stopped. I remember wondering when it would be okay to laugh again.

On September 14th I went to Red Bank, New Jersey to visit a friend. As I drove up the Garden State Parkway the sky glowed purple as the sun went down. I thought of the brilliant sunsets that follow a volcanic eruption. In Red Bank, the sidewalk was lined with candles, flowers, and pictures. Some of the pictures had 'MISSING' written with black marker across the top, cell phone numbers. People stood hugging their own arms, in silence. For once, the question 'Who is my neighbor?' had an obvious answer. The next morning my friend Ann said,"I hope you don't think its morbid, but I just have to look." We drove out that cloudless Saturday to Atlantic Highlands and joined the others that had gathered silently on the pier, squinting through binoculars at the cranes that moved rubble, searching. Smoke still rose from the gray chaos. In church on Sunday in Middletown (a town that lost some thirty people) the pastor asked everyone who was returning to Manhattan for the first time the nextmorning to stand up. There were people standing in every pew. We prayed for them.

We've had a lot of time to attach all kinds of meaning to what happened, and what that day showed we were made of. But sometimes I wish we could hold on to those precious hours where it wasn't about politics or flags or defiance, but the realization that no matter our color or heritage or economics, we were one family who lost, one family who hurt, one family who loved, and one family who reached out and, for a little while, beautifully, held each other up.

One More Step Toward Bleak Midwinter

2008-09-02T11:57:00.003-04:00

sigh.

Summer's over. I know we will probably have a few more weeks of summerlike niceness, but when the months end in 'ber', for me, the summer is over. I took a break from the computer this weekend to try to suck up as much blue sky and fresh air as I could hold, in some vain hope that when I get to that dead gray middle of February when I want to run screaming through town wearing a flannel nightgown and slippers brandishing a tire iron, I can reach down inside and clothe myself in sanity-preserving sunshine and daisies.

So I signed up to sell raffle tickets. Our fire department is selling tickets for a chance to win either a 4-wheeler or a Harley, (winner's choice), and we set up a table in the middle of town to catch some of the weekend visitors. I had grossly underestimated the entertainment value of sitting in a folding chair on a streetcorner in my town. I recommend it, if you ever get the chance.

Not my town, though. Do it in yours.

Some observations:

If I am sitting at a card table, wearing a t-shirt that indicates my membership in the fire department of the town we happen to be in, please believe there is an excellent chance I LIVE HERE and that I would not mislead you regarding the parking meters. I'm not telling you that you don't have to put change in them on a holiday just to mess with you. So stop scrambling through your car looking for dimes. No, really. Stop.

The exact time the leaves will change is not SCHEDULED. It sort of happens, based on a variety of environmental factors. I can't really tell you when it will happen. Its like a nature thing.

Two big motorcycles came up the avenue and swung at an angle into a parking space together. The riders got off, took off jackets and helmets and they were GRANDMAS. Grandmas with big purses and orthopedic sneakers who strolled off down the sidewalk, shopping. Awesome.

Apparently, if you live in New Jersey you are issued at least four 4-wheelers. Every single one has a teeny license plate. Having lived in an area where the police have to keep order in the DMV because its so frustrating and crowded, I realize that must suck. Thanks for coming.

A man came out of the shoe store and asked if he could sit on the 4-wheeler. "Sure, " I said. He gracefully swung a leg over the seat and sat there for several minutes, his hands on the handlebars, gazing at a point far down the sidewalk. I expected him to start making engine noises, but he said nothing. After a few more minutes, he got up without a word and went back in the store. His wife came out and explained that he was buying a new pair of motorcycle boots and wanted to see how they felt on the footrests. He had an accident a year ago, and broke both legs. "Its a year next week....I guess he's getting back on," she said, looking both proud of him and slightly afraid.

The last hour or so was a bit dull; tiny dogs, RVs, a giant truckload of string beans, a few people complaining that none of the restaurants were open. Now I'm back, surveying giant houses that smell like a new deck of cards and navigating the ocean of paperwork that is my weekday life.
I leave you with this for your pseudo-Monday:

PS- The 'Flight of the Conchords' video is dedicated to whoever in Auckland, New Zealand was reading my blog this weekend. Howdy to my Brisbane, Australia visitor too! Feel free to give us a shout when you visit!

Love Guns and Donut Runs

2008-08-27T16:10:00.003-04:00

Its a beautiful day in the neighborhood....I left at 6am for an early appointment down toward Scranton.

I don't know what's wrong with me lately; either menopause is firing a warning shot across my forgetful bow, or its the medication. All I know is, I have to take great pains to remember things anymore. I made dinner plans with a friend a few weeks ago and completely forgot until the day after. Not only did I stand her up; I ended up forgoing a fabulous meal in exchange for a grilled cheese sandwich I made on bread heels and flipped with a spoon because all the spatulas were dirty. Then I went to bed at 10, counting the greatest pleasure of my evening as the moment when I got to take my contacts out and my bra off. Last week I agreed to meet someone to lend them something and forgot almost as soon as I said it; when the day came I took a nap instead and didn't show up.

I've fallen back in love with my Palm pilot; when I have to bug out early like I did today I set an alarm with a reminder that pops up on the screen to make sure I have everything I need when I go. This morning's list:

Sandals
Ambulance shirt
Pager
"Triumph of Caesar"
Phone

My phone was charging quietly in the corner of my bedroom; in terrible danger of being left behind. The shirt and pager are for later when I'm on duty, the sandals are my house shoes and I needed them because I was doing a survey in a Japanese home. I had a tantalizingly small number of pages left to read in 'Triumph of Caesar" and its on interlibrary loan with NO RENEWAL so I needed to knock it out. I managed to remember all of those things and actually put them in a bag rather than running out the door with them crammed in a messy armload like an inefficient burglar. I even made myself a cup of coffee to take.

Route 6 East seems to be a never ending source of amusement. Very near the spot where Cow Pie Bingo was advertised a few weeks ago, a gaily painted yellow sign announced upcoming Lawnmower Races. (Someone needs to build these people a YMCA.) I got as far as Tunkhannock and decided two things: one, that it was time to return my coffee, and two, the weird waking dreams and vague delusions I was having while driving meant I needed a 10 minute power nap. I turned toward the Dunkin Donuts/Minimart/gas station combo and waited for oncoming traffic to clear so I could scope out a nap-worthy parking spot in the back. Pulling out of the DD lot was a local policeman. I looked at the four cars in front of me and made a bet with myself; that not one of them would pause and wave him out. None of them did. Passive aggressive much? I stopped, gave him the 'invitation hand', and he pulled out with a thank-you wave and was on his way. My little contribution to police karma in exchange for mercy shown me by the City of Corning. (From 54 in a 30 to 'Failure to Obey a Traffic Signal'. Thank YOU, Lt. Allard. I'd be happy to plead guilty and I may bake you cookies at Christmas.)

My customers were very pleasant and I was shortly on my way to enjoy the drive back. Some random observations/things that made me wish I had my camera:

In front of a cute little cottage: a mailbox painted Williamsburg blue with a pistol neatly stenciled on the side. Coming out of the stenciled pistol: little stenciled hearts.
I'm not up on current hitchhiking etiquette, but I'm pretty sure that guy on 6 East would fare better if he was actually wearing a shirt. Godspeed, tanned guy with a duffel bag.
Why do companies around here seem to send the dimmest employees outside with the box of letters? The Wysox Comfort Inn offers 'Long Term Houseing'....the sad part is, it used to be spelled correctly, and someone un-corrected it. My beloved vet's office has Frontline and Advantage 'no perscription necessary'.
Not misspelled, but bewildering, in front of our local florist shop: 'Educate Your Children With Flowers'.

Now the befrigged bullet point thing is giving me fits. I think I need more coffee.

Please go vote for me on Humor Blogs before you forget.

Why I Love My Husband

2008-08-25T09:46:00.002-04:00

Me: I met this really cool nun once, on a train.

Himself: Did you exchange murders?

County Fair

2008-08-13T12:41:00.003-04:00

I know I usually keep to a certain chronological order in my Dispatches, but last week was such a rollover with entrapment that things got all jumbled up as I ran from event to event with clothes to change into shoved in my eco-friendly grocery bag with a paperback and some sunscreen.

So I'm a little mixed up.

Last week was the Tioga County Fair. Having learned my lesson last year, I steadfastly refused to sign up for ambulance standby for the rodeo, since one year of diving sideways to keep bull poop out of your french fries and arguing with a 90 pound cowboy who got stomped on by 1,800 pounds of angry beef that he should really go to the hospital, but he ain't, 'cause he has to be in South Carolina in the morning and he ain't got no insurance anyhow and you can't make him and then spending an hour cleaning the mud that the driving rain brought into the ambulance while you stood there getting soaked for no good reason as all his buddies tried valiantly to explain 'Hey-ow we AY-re and it ain't personal' is really one year more than anyone needs in a lifetime.

So naturally, I signed up for the monster truck show and the truck demolition derby and the figure 8 race. Because the potential for messy and potentially dangerous situations was a lot smaller there.

More to the point, no poop.

Before I get to all that though, I need to talk about the guy above. I want to talk about him first because much of this post will engage in gentle mockery of humans I'd lovingly classify as 'yokeltards' and I in no way wish to imply that Big Tiny is mockery material. Because Big Tiny is awesome.

He's been at our county fair for all of the three years I've been here, and he can play any song you can name. He's a great singer, his repertoire is vast, and he has a bitchin' synthesizer. I stumped him, though, by requesting this song.

He could play it, make no mistake, he just couldn't remember the words. So like any self-respecting fan with this song on my iPod, I got it out of my purse, popped in my headphones, sat down on the steps of the ambulance, flipped over a Patient Refusal of Treatment form, and wrote out the lyrics for him. By hand. I didn't get to hear him sing it, but I have to believe that I added a bit of additional musical enjoyment to the Big Tiny Young Show for the countless other Statler Brothers fans that will cross his path. Godspeed, Tiny.

At one point during the fair I started to worry that I would forget some of the things I witnessed. So I got out a pen and a little notebook and started to write things down. Some highlights:

Man on cellphone in the 4H tent: "Yes, yes! I see them! I'm standing in front of them right now! What? Well, yeah. Yours are bigger but hers are yellower. Like how much? I don't know. Yellow, like, 20% yellower. Well, just come down here and see them your damnself then. I don't know what to tell you." (Apparently the squash competition is ruthless.)

Woman in giant black pants with chains all over them, with dyed black hair, a trucker hat, and a black t-shirt and a lip full of metal, who was explaining loudly to a friend that she was going to kick someone's ass because they were staring at her.

Young woman in yellow dress, black fishnet stockings, and yellow shoes who was not part of any organized dance troupe or other street performance that I could see.

Large woman in an ill-fitting brown and white t-shirt that declared her a 'World Class Farter'.

Lots of boys with faux-hawks. Same boys trailing a vapor cloud of Axe which almost but not quite covered the faint odor of animal dung, various on their shoes. I suspect these boys were allowed to come to the fair "if and when" they got their chores done, and said chores were accomplished in record time and they moussed and sprayed themselves and headed out.

The elusive HFG, or Hot Farmer Guy. I caught a glimpse of exactly two. Tan, tiny waist, huge shoulders from lifting hay bales or whatever HFG's do all day, hat that isn't an ironic fashion statement because they gave it to him with his keys when he bought the tractor. Sunglasses. Boots. The other one, later in the evening, was wearing immaculate jeans and cowboy boots and a black cowboy hat and he was ROCKING the outfit. Bless your hearts, gentlemen. Please keep all your teeth.

Walking around, I had two epiphanies.

Revelation one: I really don't want to be that intimately acquainted with my milk. I LOVE milk. I love cheese, I love sour cream, I love all things with either the words cream or cheese in the name (except cottage cheese, which reminds me of baby sick) BUT I don't need to sit at a picnic table eating onion rings and watch the milk COME OUT OF THE TEATS into the hose that goes to the milkhouse, with the veins and the noise and the whatnot. I like my fish in sticks, my lobster bisqued, and I just want to scoop up that white plastic container that costs about the same as a gallon of gas, put it in my cart, and not think about it.

Revelation two: I'm afraid of large farm animals. Yes, afraid. Every year I force myself to walk through the beef barn at the fair, forcing myself to deal with the anxious breathing thousands of pounds of insensate potential crushing death placed shoulder to shoulder with strangers and small children prone to making sharp loud noises milling around behind them causes me. What keeps them in that little aisle? What keeps them from killing us all? Worse yet, I strolled through there with the taste of a recently enjoyed roast beef sandwich still in my mouth. It was the most intense whore in church feeling I've ever experienced.

The evening passed uneventfully, with the obligatory allergic reaction (kudos to the wise parents who allowed a kid who was allergic to horses PET THE HORSES, the gene pool clearly has a rip in the liner) and no serious injuries, though I had to throw my funnel cake on the dashboard of the ambulance and run across the dirt track to see to the monster truck that rolled over. Nothing ever happens on the track close to where we are parked, ever, and it was a delightful flashback to gym class to haul my considerable mass over a deeply rutted and potentially ankle-rolling expanse of mud in front of a grandstand crowd only to have the guy self-extricate and give everyone the Nixon-fingers to clapping and cheers. The only truly hair-raising moment was using the port-a-potty at the edge of the track while the demo derby was going on. As I hastily concluded negotiations inside I scanned the walls for something I could hang onto in the unlikely event that my comfort station might be rolling down the hill behind an '89 Astro with no brakes and 'BOB'S AUTO PARTS' spraypainted on the side.

Downstate

2008-08-11T13:06:00.003-04:00

Aw yeah. I was there.

A family contacted us because they decided to escape the rigors of city life and flee for the hills, much like we did. They are voluntarily moving to a small down near here that would ordinarily figure in a hilarious story told by flatlanders that included the phrases "and then we got LOST" and "I never thought we'd get home again". Since I'm the token flatlander here, and could spend the weekend visiting my homiez (Holla back, Chester County!) I went down.

I drive a lot. I can pretty much drive anywhere without flinching. But I was kind of nervous about the parking. I'm no world champion of parallel parking and a 1999 Dodge Caravan is not exactly a 'pop it in the spot' kind of vehicle.

First, I left sevenish and headed down to the Wilkes Barre area to drop off a couple of boxes to a customer. A last minute bid to avoid route 81 in all its hellish orange coney-ness was a good call and I found my destination with no problems. I reset my GPS for Philadelphia and headed on down.

I merge neatly onto 76 from the Northeast Extension and actually pump my fist and say aloud, "Schuylkill Expressway, y'all!" Which just goes to show you what a loser I am. Then I hang my arm out the window and drive all casual like, as if I do this all the time and really, it's no big whoop. I go through the city. The Walt Whitman bridge looms in the distance. I am almost there. I get off 76 and the fun starts.

Apparently, the time between the light turning green and someone honking at you on Oregon Avenue is .00002 seconds. I get honked at. I'm all like, "Whatever!" but notice I am hunched over the steering wheel. I straighten up and try to breathe normally. I turn onto 7th street and realize that my mental image of how narrow the streets are didn't take into consideration that I might have a guy on a bike riding no handed toward me on a one way street with cars parked on both sides talking on a cellphone. He taps my sideview mirror with his hand as he passes and never touches his handlebars.

I straighten up and try to breathe normally.

One more turn and and I'm at an intersection of, oh, six streets, I think. I expect to look between two buildings and see Diagon Alley. The GPS tells me to 'bear right' authoritatively and I wonder if she means 'bear right into the rear end of this van with a handwritten license plate' or 'bear right into the front window of this Vietnamese grocery'.

I straighten up and try to breathe normally.

Two more blocks and I see the house I am shooting for. Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, there are THREE PARKING SPOTS directly in front of the house. I do a ridiculously selfish park job that guarantees I'll be able to pull right out. Yeah, I know. I won't be there long anyway.

Work done, its time to flee. I Tom Tom my way back to I-95, salute the Wachovia Center or whatever its called now, and reflect on what a driving rock star I am as I fly past the shipyard, the airport, and through Chester.

Shore traffic diverts me to the north but eventually, after seething through a construction zone or three, I arrive here. The jewel of the Diamond State.

Ah, Wilmington. From your glistening industrial parks to your shimmering port you inspire me. Go Blue Rocks! Alas, I never got to visit the screen door factory. I just stopped off in Greenville to grab a whiff of old money and baseless entitlement. And coffee.

After a visit with my sister and nephew I headed down to my old hometown. I couldn't find any pictures to do it justice, you'll have to settle for a snap of D-town's badass rescue truck.

I had a great time visiting my friends, most of whom I met here. I reflected on how many more of my stories involve monster trucks and funnel cake these days, and how that is okay with me, though I still miss them an awful lot. I never got a cheesesteak but I got two things I can't get here: decent Mexican food and an all you can eat Japanese buffet.

The drive home was uneventful, though I saw tons of people on the side of the road in lawn chairs on Route 15. Apparently it is customary to sit outside and wait for your favorite NASCAR driver to happen by on the way down from Watkins Glen. Mind you, Kasey Kahne isn't going to be wandering into the Sheetz in Shamokin Dam for a LifeWater and a package of Oreos. But if you sit there long enough, you may catch a glimpse of the truck with his car in it. Which is apparently enough of a thrill for the hundred or so people out there in lawn chairs with handmade signs. Bewlidering, though, were the large groups of Amish kids. Not sure where they are getting their Talladega.

I know this is all out of order and whatnot, but I'll have to tell you about the county fair last week. It was a veritable feast of hilariously judgemental peoplewatching.