Blowout

In every trip there is a potential for disaster. Past history has dictated that disaster will occur at some point when I travel. Our Cape Cod vacation was not an exception to this rule.

J and I left the Cape at 3:00 AM. Five hours later we were crossing the New York / New Jersey border and feeling confident that we would be home by 3:00 that afternoon. While I sleepily and quietly celebrated the successful ending to our trip, J ignored the loud thumping noise on the pretense that it was coming from a different vehicle, until I pointed out that there were NO cars around us.

We had blown out the driver's side front tire. As J opened the door, the acrid smell of burned rubber wafted into the van. I spent the next hour sitting on the side of I-287 South as J removed the spare from the rusted clips and replaced the shredded tire without getting hit. My job was to stay in the passenger seat and hold the lug nuts.

I have heard many complaints over the years that the residents of New Jersey are a most unfriendly bunch. As the daughter of a former “Jersey Girl” (my mother dated a mobster's son), who still has relatives in the state, I always found the criticisms to be unfounded.

As we walked into the Wayne, NJ location of Strauss Discount Auto, the first thing we noticed was four mechanics sitting on a stainless steel truck box and two more standing behind the counter. It was Monday, it was early and they were bored. Regis and Kelly played on the television.

Noticing that the coffee point was almost empty, one employee offered to make us a fresh pot. When he learned that I preferred tea, he rushed to get fresh water. When he discovered the water was not warm enough, he poured it into two Styrofoam cups(!) and sent one of the “girls” to heat it up in the microwave. He hunted down and cleaned up a plastic fork so we would have a stirrer for the sugar and told us about his former job as a night driver for the postal service. This included a graphic tale about time he witnessed the remains of a woman being shoveled off the highway. The woman had stepped out of her vehicle to change a tire.

After replacing the tire and lowering the pressure in the other three, we were sent to the checkout. Upon learning we were from Pittsburgh, the clerk exclaimed “I really want to visit Pittsburgh. That is where all the Steeler stuff is!” She was a Steeler fan and spent several minutes trading notes with J on the team.

We pulled into out house at 6:00 PM. As I attempted to unlock the front door I discovered that one of the pet sitters had jammed the lock and the door would not open. Exasperated, I trudged to the back and after several minutes managed to get into the house.

All that and I did not even sleep well Monday night. Too wired.

Vacation End

No photographs today, as J got the camera wet walking in the pouring rain yesterday while I painted, drank wine and watched the rain fall. Since the camera needed to dry out completely, I missed capturing the wind blowing the sand across the dunes, the workers processing cranberries and the blue, blue sky.

A and his wife K came out to spend the day with us. I almost knocked him over with my hug, as I have not seen him in nine years. Someone from a time in my life, still in my life, standing in front of me for the first time in nine years.

He looked the same. His wife K is lovely. He gave me a real hug after he caught his balance.

We walked on several of the beaches and got sand in our shoes and our hair and the pockets of our jeans. I lost my hat (Pittsburgh Penguins) several times. We got a little bit lost, but not too much. The wind blew so strong that I though it would knock me over.

We came back to the house, drank beer and wine, and ate far too much food.

Tomorrow we return home. Tuesday we go back to work.

Bicycle Bicycle

Note to MSNBC: As a resident of the city of Pittsburgh, I do appreciate that you sent a reporter to our city to do a story on the Santorum/Casey race. Next time, try not to choose your location shots based on the picturesque background of metal fence and curving steel bridges, especially when the fence in question is right next to a set of active train tracks.

Yesterday J and I rented bicycles and went for a ride along Cape Cod's Rail Trail. We spent almost four hours riding through the gorgeous fall weather, stopping occasionally so I could rest and listen to J say for the 10,009 time “I don't understand how you can swim over a mile without a problem but you become winded walking up a hill” and “your body really does not like you, does it?”


I married such a sweet, sweet man. Really. A half bottle of red wine at dinner helped to ease my pain.
Nor'easter today. Rain, wind and dead tree branches in the yard. J, overly optimistic that we would be spending all of our time out of doors, is desperately searching for amusement. My suggestion that he run to the store to purchase dinner for the next two days was met with a stare and a reminder to the location of the van's keys as he headed out the door on his walk in the rain.

Agenda for the rest of the day: Change out of my flannel pajamas (so comfy!), more red wine, painting, run to the store to buy bugs for tonight's dinner and steak for tomorrow.

How to be a Bad House Guest

The first step in becoming a bad house guest is to break something. Preferably something that is not too valuable, but is difficult to replace without a lot of trouble. For example, a door shelf on a Jenn-Air stainless steal freezer-on-the-bottom model refrigerator.

The object in question should be destroyed while using it in a perfectly reasonable manner, say in the process of placing a gallon of milk onto the shelf, which was specifically designed to hold gallon containers. It should break in spectacular fashion, in this case dropping straight down to the floor while my hand was still holding the milk.

This was first action committed by me in the very lovely summer home owned by my relatives.

The second step is to pilfer the non-secured wireless connection run by one of the neighbors to post this entry.

We drove up Wednesday night, arriving at 5:30 in the morning. Because my beloved and much worshiped Volvo had to have the rear rotors and pads replaced, we borrowed a caravan from J's parents and packed it full of pillows and blankets in case we decided to stop to sleep during the drive. The van guzzles gas and costs a fortune to fill up, so we plan on walking a lot while we are here.

Our first adventure was an attempt to locate the house key in the dark and discovering that the van's headlights were most inadequate to the task. In desperation I began digging through the utter chaos that is the glove box in the van and managed to come up with a working flashlight. After several more minutes of searching I located the key and discovered the flashlight could not be turned off. J had to remove the batteries.

After bringing the bags into the house we fell into bed, just as the sun was rising. We did not have the energy to stay awake long enough to see it rise over the beach a quarter of a mile from the house.

What we learned during our drive from Pittsburgh to Cape Cod:

1. It is easier to drive at night. Much less stressful.
2. There is something oddly fascinating in passing rest stops full of semi trucks all tucked in for the night. We also saw them along some stretches of road in New York.
3. The view of distant New York City from the Tappan Zee Bridge is beyond spectacular in the middle of the night.
4. We heard the song Sister Christian three times, once in New Jersey, once in New York and once while driving through Connecticut. On three different radio stations.
5. The rest stops Massachusetts are not open at night. The hours posted on the door were from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM.
6. The gas station/Dunkin Donuts we stopped at (down the road from the rest stop) does not start serving coffee until 6:00 AM. I learned this after hearing J cry in agony upon discovering that he could not get coffee. The clerk's very suggestion that we stop at the Starbucks up the road was met with another cry, as J will only go to Starbucks in Paris (France).
7. The hot political issue in Massachusetts appears to be Proposition 1, whether to allow grocery stores to sell wine. I saw an anti-Proposition 1 sign that was genius in its simplicity. Photo of sign upcoming.

Something Wicked this Way Comes

Boat

Fall Ocean

The Heart Remains a Child

I've been in a strange place mentally for the past two weeks. A cranky, funky sort of place. Where I can feel tears pushing against my eyes and have to fight to breathe. Where my patience with the human race is razor thin. I don't like existing in that place.

It is bad when you know the reasons that put you there and cannot articulate. It is bad when the options you normally have to relieve the stress of feeling are not available.

J and I are going to the Cape on Wednesday night, which should give me a much needed break from living inside my head. I'm looking forward to the quiet of the Cape. I'm looking forward to walking on the beach, drinking a lot of red wine, cooking some (out of season) lobster, reading and painting.

I hope to come back as myself on Tuesday.

So Much Stupidity, So Little Time

1. Bill O'Reilly claims that a mother's life is never in danger during pregnancy because she can always have a C-section?
2. Metallurg Magnitogorsk is suing the Penguins?
3. Roger Adamiak's assertion that women in Afghanistan "now have the right to vote and are now protected by laws that do not allow their fathers or husbands to kill them" in his October 16 letter to the editor?
4. Maggie Gallagher's assumption that the "hard left" hates Rick Santorum because he stands up and fights for “basic American values, whether it's the value of every single human life, or the importance of marriage as the union of husband and wife”?

Bill - STFU.

Metallurg Magnitogorsk - Get over yourselves. You coerced a 20 year old boy into signing a contract by withholding his passport and browbeating him in the middle of the night, without the benefit of legal representation.

Roger - Stop drinking O'Reilly's Kool-Aid and read something besides the Tribune Review once in a while.

Safia Amajan shot dead in Kandahar, September 2006.

Report by Amnesty International in 2005.

Afghanistan woman stoned to death in 2005.

Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan.

The women of Afghanistan.

Maggie, darling, the residents of Pennsylvania and don't hate Rick Santorum because he stands up for family values. They hate Rick Santorum because he ripped off the Penn Hills school district to educate his non-resident children and did nothing to assist the families who lost their homes and businesses to flooding a year ago.

Movement

I did not discover that an earthquake hit the Hawaiian islands until almost six this evening. I am a bit worried as my paternal grandparents live on Oahu and are quite elderly. They managed to get a message via my uncle's cell phone to my Dad's sister that they were OK, but without power or regular phone service, and would probably be so for several days.

J and I spent Saturday helping two of our friends, JW and K combine their separate households into one. There were six of us involved in the move, just enough people to make it bearable. Highlights included:

• Helper C gets into a heated argument with a neighbor at JW's old house after asking her to move her car for a couple of hours. The argument escalates until the feminine half of the group flees for the general safety of the house. This is the second time that C has gotten into an argument with this particular neighbor, both times over one of us taking “her” parking space.
• We discover that JW and K's new house includes a swimming pool.
• We discover that K's tolerance for filth is incredibly high. Due to conflicts with her roommate, K has not done anything to clean her house (which she owns) other than an occasional vacuum and swab of the toilet in over six months. Every surface in the house was covered with dirty dishes, filmy drinking glasses, food wrappers, dust and the hair from K's three dogs. We raise a glass to K's fortitude, as she is not a big fan of dirt. Disorganization yes, dirt no.
• The rehab on my left shoulder (from tendinitis) is set back several weeks when C throws a large, heavy bag of clothes off of K's porch right into the almost healed shoulder. I am forced to regress to the paddle board (again) for several more weeks.
• Mike's Hard Sour Apple tastes pretty good after a day of moving furniture and boxes.
  

After a long day spent relocating two houses, J and I headed off the Penguins/Hurricanes game.

Normally I am the type of fan who will stay through the worse a team has to offer. Last night J and I left at the start of the third period, when I could no longer stand the bad officiating or the two nitwits sitting behind us.

The Penguins were outplayed. Their skating and passing were out of sync and the Hurricanes defense and penalty killing unit were in top form. Cam Ward made several exceptional saves.

I can accept the referee's decision to wave off the first Penguins goal on the premise that they had ruled the play dead. A full arena can be very loud and the fans don't always hear the whistle. I cannot accept the referees ignoring the blatant interference as John LeClair headed towards the opposing goal on a breakaway, the body tackle committed on Sidney Crosby as he was attempting to score or a Hurricane hitting Mark Recchi hard enough to knock his helmet off.

And if someone is willing to explain to me why two players can receive the same penalty but one is forced to serve double the time, I would really appreciate it.

So home we went, and I to bed to sleep until 10:30 this morning. I put aside my original plan of painting all day for a book and the making a pot of clam chowder for meals later this winter.

Orhan Pamuk

Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Excellent.

The Sandbox & Iftar

First:

Doonesbury's Military Blog.

Second:

On Monday, I spent the afternoon in high heeled boots (my most comfortable heels) and a suit to act as emcee for the Pittsburgh Dialogue Foundation's Conference and 6th annual Iftar. I somehow managed to make it through the conference and dinner without destroying my white shirt and the only name I butchered was of one of the musicians. I should be ashamed of myself – he was Polish. Destroying a Polish name in Pittsburgh is a major social faux-pas.

Words really do escape me in trying to describe the Conference, except to say that it was amazing to sit in a room and listen to very smart, very literate people talk rationally about religion and faith.

I hope they ask me to emcee again next year. By then I may have the presence of mind to take notes.

Thank the Gods for Independent Movie Theaters

Friday night J and I took ourselves to the Regent Square movie theater to see "This Film is not Yet Rated", a documentary about the MPAA ratings system and the shadowy board of parents that determines those ratings. The director, Kirby Dick (honestly, I had a moment when I though he had made that name up) also takes the viewer through the odyssey that is submitting his film for a rating and the subsequent confrontation in front of the shady appeals board in an attempt to get the NC-17 "recommendation" reduced.

Dick intersperses his narration with interviews of other independent film makers such as Kevin Smith, Matt Stone, John Waters and Kimberly Peirce, all who have run afoul of the ratings board in past productions.

Matt Stone's story is one of the most interesting of the film. Co-writer/producer of "Team America: World Police", he tells how they intentionally aimed for a more restrictive rating by filming extra footage of the infamous puppet sex scene, in hope of provoking the board into telling them which parts of the scene needed cut. Stone and several other directors discuss how difficult it is to get specific feedback from the board while working as an independent and how easy it is when that same director works on a film with the backing of one of the studios that underwrites the MPAA ratings system.

With the help of a pair of women detectives, Kirby Dick manages to learn not only the names and faces of the ratings board, but of the appeals board as well. Most of the parents on the ratings board have grown children and the appeals board is made of up the CEO's and CFO's of major movie studios, distributors and chain theaters with a Catholic priest and an Episcopalian Minister thrown in to "observe" the proceedings.

In the end, Dick is not permitted to videotape or record his appeal, so it is re-enacted ala courtroom style sketches, in a style reminiscent of the play "Twelve Angry Men". He loses by unanimous vote and decides to release his film unrated.

Naturally, none of the chain multiplexes in the Pittsburgh area elected to show it in their theaters.

Response to the Washington Times

Lisa at A Clear View to a New Life linked to a Washington Times editorial about the Hastert/Foley scandal. Due to Blogger's current limitations, I was not able to post the response I wanted to the article.

Lisa's comment was that she agreed with 99% of what Tony Blankley had to say. And I also agree with the point of Blankley's statement. But I have strong reservations about the delivery.

While Blankley felt that Hastert should step down, he followed the classic party line in assuming the exposure of Foley and the continuing pressure on Hastert to resign is part of some vast left-wing partisan conspiracy to win the mid-term elections. He does an excellent job of playing the victim card, a tiresome but unfortunately effective tactic used by ultra-conservative Republicans whenever one of their own is exposed.

Blankley suggests that Democrats knew about Foley's taste for underage boys and withheld the information until it was politically advantageous. But Foley was a member of the House of Representatives for 11 years. There is also evidence to suggest that GOP leadership knew as early as 2001 that Foley was a little too fond of the male pages. 2001 was two (almost three) election cycles ago. If Hastert et al. concealed this information for the past five years then they are no better than the Democrats he is attempting to demonize.

I was also displeased by his subtle insinuation that Foley's predilection for teenage boys is part of his homosexuality. Trite, boring, unoriginal and untrue.

Family Values Left the Schools in 1976...

Was what the Vietnam veteran with arthritis in both his hands said to me on Saturday as we waited for the Sears mechanic to put the brakes back on my car. Our trip to see my parents had been punctuated with a dragging sound from the back of the car, which turned out to be seriously worn rotors and pads on the rear brakes.

As we waited, CNN* re-ran footage of the recent hostage situation at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colorado and the shooting death of a high school principal in Cazenovia, Wisconsin, thus provoking the veteran's remark. Puzzled, I maintained a neutral face (having heard him say to a companion minutes before that former Representative Mark Foley was being "persecuted" for sending sexually explicit emails and instant messages to underage boys) and mentally went through my checklist of events of 1976.

• The New Jersey Supreme Court rules that coma patient Karen Ann Quinlan can be disconnected from her ventilator?
• President Gerald Ford signs the Federal Election Campaign Act?
• Jimmy Carter becomes President of the United States?
• The Sex Pistols swear on live television?

A second look at Supreme Court Decisions from the era in question:

• Brown v Board of Education – 1954 (outlawed racial segregation in public education)
• Engel v. Vitale – 1962 (schools cannot have official prayers)
• Abington School District v. Schempp – 1963 (schools cannot hold mandatory Bible readings)
• Roe v Wade – 1973 (majority of laws against abortion violate a woman's constitutional right to privacy)

Nope, nothing for 1976.

I've searched through Wikipedia trying to determine what definitive event occurred in 1976 to take "family values" out of the schools and I have no idea. Was it just a random date? Did the man get his years confused? It is a mystery.

All attempts to return the conversation to more neutral topics rebuffed, I was glad to escape the confines of the waiting room, retrieve my car and head to my parents house for the evening.

My father is doing very well and happily shared the photographs from my parents recent cruise. Thanks again to everyone who has left messages and thoughts.

*I think it was the first time in years that I sat in a public waiting room that was not turned to Fox News.

Because We All Know Rodin was a Nineteeth Century Porn King

Art teacher in Texas fired for taking kids to a musuem that showed nude art. Perish the thought that a group of fifth graders have their virgin eyes corrupted by viewing Rodin's The Shade.

The school district claims that they had issues with the teacher's performance in the classroom.

The Beauty of the Puck

Pre-season: Pittsburgh Penguins 3, Buffalo Sabers 4

Friday evening J and I attended a pre-season Penguins game at Mellon Arena. Pre-season games in any sport are for hard core fans and a half-filled arena of hard core fans is very loud. By the end of the evening my ears were ringing and I was happy to leave the rink, after watching the Penguins fall to Buffalo in overtime.

Highlights:

Sometime between last May and this September, the majority of the team learned how to pass. Warm ups included passing drills and every member of the team stayed on the ice for the entire warm up period.

All players showed a marked improvement in skating and footwork.

Jocelyn Thibault has come a long way from last year. Steadier in the goal, quicker on rebounds, shaking off mistakes faster and quicker at following the puck.

Colby Armstrong will not be one of the most underrated players in the NHL for much longer and scored two of the Penguins three goals.

Jarrko Rutuu already doing what he was hired to do – agitate the opposing team. He needs to work on doing it EARLIER in the game and not drawing penalties during overtime play.

Man decides to climb over seats and gets foot stuck. Two ushers are forced to remove his shoes to free him from the seat. The crowd applauds.

Apathetic beer guy returns to the arena to ply his wares for another year. Hilarity ensues when he hears me say "Hey, it's apathetic beer guy!" and promptly goes into his routine of selling beer using the most monotone voice possible.