Did I Mention Lately How Much the FAA Hates Me?

Subtitle: Jenn's First Business Trip Goes Tragically Awry

Karma is a bastard. At some point in the past (as a child? In a previous life?) I did something truly awful, something so terrible, that this year has become the year that I cannot catch a flight on time to save my life.

The first sign, last Tuesday, that things were not going to go well was a radio transmission from JFK than an incoming plane was having an issue with the hydraulic systems.

First the flight was delayed, then canceled, because the part the plane needed was in New York City. All remaining passengers moved to the 3:30 flight to JFK and from there to Boston, arriving at 7:10 pm.

Flight to JFK delayed at the gate due to traffic at JFK. The plane was not cleared for takeoff until 4:30. We land in JFK and are instructed to stay on the plane to facilitate a quick turnover.

And we sit. And sit. And sit. First at the gate, then on the tarmac. During this time I am frantically text messaging my friend A, who was supposed to meet me at the airport at 4:00 pm, so we could have dinner together before picking his wife up from her class.

Instead A picked up his wife, picked my co-worker and myself up from Logan at 9:30 that evening, swung by the student union at MIT so we could grab a burrito for dinner and dropped us at the hotel.

Where I discovered that my room was directly across from the elevator, the king size bed was actually two double beds, my bathroom did not have tub, and the cable did not have Comedy Central.

No Midterm Midtacular. The only reason why my co-worker did not hear my screams of agony was because he had to go back downstairs to get his room key replaced.

A week later and I am still angry. Pissed that at the airline's stupid hub system, which strands passengers in smaller cities when something goes wrong. I don't want a $50.00 credit towards my next flight. I want the five hours I lost back.

The business end of the trip went smoothly, two days of training classes, with enough downtime to sleep in, swim in the hotel's saltwater pool and have dinner with A and K.

And the Young Shall Inherit the Ice

Seen at a recent Penguins game:


87 - Sidney Crosby
71 - Evgeni Malkin
20 - Colby Armstrong
11 - Jordan Staal
29 - Marc-Andre Fleury
19 - Ryan Whitney
44 - Brooks Orpik
7 - Michel Ouellet
12 - Ryan Malone
4 - Noah Welch
58 - Kris Letang (sent back to his Junior team, Val D'Or).

The youngest? Age 18 - Jordan Staal.
The oldest? Age 27 - Ryan Malone.

Thanks J

I have not been easy to live with this year, and the past several months have been especially difficult, as the immense amount of grief I have been carrying has overwhelmed me.

J (because I know you will read this), you have hung in there when a sane man would have shown me the door.

Thanks for taking such good care of me. I promise next time we go to Paris together I will not complain when you plan our routes through the city around all the Starbucks. I'll even pay for your BIG cups of coffee.

Love you.

Pablo Neruda...

Once wrote "Es tan corto el amor y tan largo el olvido".

"Love is so short, forgetting is so long".

I wish I could write like that.

If you Vote for Democrats the Terrorists will Blow Up Heinz Field

Making the rounds of the local news this morning was the report that two CMU students of "middle eastern descent" attempted to scale Gate 5 of Heinz Field and gain access to the playing surface at 2:00 AM. The students, ages 20 and 21, were filming a music video and thought that sneaking onto the field to film the final scene was a good idea.

Naturally, the local news reporters thought it was a good idea to stir up the public two days before national elections by identifying the nationalities of the suspects and give a detailed explanation of the security measures the staff at Heniz Field and the police in Pittsburgh were taking to ensure that the game would be incident free. Never mind the fact if it had been two drunk white men from Dormont, race/cultural background would have been immaterial.

The most galling part of this story is that the reporters got the students' nationality WRONG. The young men in question are United States citizens of Indian descent, from California and New York respectively, something that could have been easily ascertained if the reporters had taken five minutes to hunt down a photograph or actually READ the students' names.

References to the students' nationality have been scrubbed from news reports, except from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, the only source to correctly identify the two young men.

Pittsburgh Post Gazette
KDKA
WTAE

I Must See This Movie

Fuck: A Documentary.

Check out the official website.

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.

How to Charm Money out of a Cheap Bastard

My primary shift at the restaurant was breakfast, except when the coke-addled assistant manager was feeling especially cruel. Special cruelty entailed scheduling me to work a closing shift on Saturday night and returning six hours later to open on Sunday morning.

Another of the manager's tricks was to assign me, a non-smoker, to the smoking section of the restaurant. Except during the above mentioned night shifts. She freely admitted that she was trying to get me to quit. Apparently, she found my complete lack of interest in cocaine, pot, getting piss drunk or having indiscriminate bad sex with one of my co-workers unsettling. The phrase "goody two-shoes" came up frequently in her vocabulary when describing my personality.

As I was young and could honestly use the label "cute" to describe my physical appearance, I attracted a fair amount of attention from the male regulars. This also meant that I was an easy target for harassment. Comments about my looks usually took the form of asking me when I was going to land myself a "sugar daddy" to take me away from the drudgery of waiting tables.

Since physical retaliation was frowned upon, I developed a thick skin and the ability to quickly fire back a suitable insult, cutting enough to let them know they were pushing their luck, funny enough to make them laugh and not forget my tip.

Several mornings a week an elderly gentleman by the name of Jimmy would shuffle into the restaurant to order 1/2 of a breakfast and a cup of hot water for his used tea bag. Jimmy was immune to charm from any person male or female and universally disliked. It was not his personality but his physical appearance. Jimmy liked to smoke cheap cigars and a lifetime of bad smokes permeated his clothes, hair, teeth and hoary nails. But poor Jimmy's greatest crime was that he never tipped the staff.

Jimmy's most frequent sidekick was a truly horrible man by the name of Henry. Henry was mean and passed his mornings chain smoking and making cutting remarks to Jimmy. No one liked Henry, not even Jimmy. Henry did not tip either.

One morning Henry was in an extraordinarily foul mood and decided to direct his abuse in my direction. All morning long, every time I passed the table he was sharing with Jimmy he would make crude comments about my appearance and intelligence. Several times he poked Jimmy and said "Be sure you give the little girl a tip, she'll need them to support herself until she lands herself a husband".

After the fourth time he called me "little girl" I snapped. I put down the dishes I was carrying, looked Henry straight in the eye and said "I think you should be the last person in this place giving Jimmy advice on how to tip since you have not left a dollar a day in your life." As I picked up the dishes and walked into the kitchen I could hear Jimmy's cackling in glee. "She sure told you!" he said to Henry.

Henry sulked for the rest of the morning and never spoke directly to me again.

Jimmy left me a dollar.

I Hate Volkswagen

As much as I like to flatter myself into believing I don't watch that much television, I watch enough to be up on the current rotation of commercials running.

Volkswagen, always on the cutting edge when it comes to shilling their product, is showing a series of commercials to emphasize the safety of their product, with the tag line “Safe Happens”. They are truly disturbing to watch, as the actors are going about their routine day driving until a car comes out of nowhere and hits them. Except that the viewer can see the accident about to happen.

I hate them. I hate them a lot. I really hate the most recent one, which has two actresses debating the merits of this latest add campaign, only to be hit by car. I'm sure the ad agency executives enjoyed the post-modern irony, but it is not funny.

Why? Because I know, firsthand, what it is like to have a vehicle come out of nowhere and slam my car into a guardrail. It has been ten years and I can still hear the screeching of the brakes and feel the impact on the passenger side. I can still remember how loudly I screamed as my vehicle spun 180 degrees.

I also remember how fortunate I was to be hit on the passenger side, where no one was sitting. I was fortunate the other driver was moving so fast that the impact, which sent my car into the spin, also caused the passenger side of the car to hit the guardrail. I walked away with a totaled car and three bruises.

I was lucky to have really terrific co-workers who organized a system, without my asking, to make sure I got to and from work everyday. I was lucky to have a friend available to spend the rest of the day driving me to the hospital, the insurance agent and out for ice cream. I was lucky to have a neighbor who forced the keys to his car into my hand the next day and made me drive.

While I respect that Volkswagen has come up with a clever way to market the safety of their product, the commercials are emotionally manipulative and feed into the overall climate of fear generated by everyone from politicians to religious leaders. It took a long time before I could confidently get behind the wheel of my car and drive without worry. Every time a network runs one of the commercials I am forced to relieve that accident over again.

In My Previous Life

I was a waitress.

At a restaurant in Greensboro, North Carolina. I lived the cliché of a poor graduate student complete with kitten, crappy apartment, crazy roommate and worked with a crew of potheads lead by the assistant manager, a redhead name L.

Because I was a graduate student, the majority of my classes were at night. Because I was an out-of-state student, loans covered only my tuition and a fraction of my living expenses. Waiting tables seemed to be the only thing that would fit around my full-time graduate school class schedule and provide me with enough of an income to pay the heating bill.

For the next nine months I averaged five hours of sleep a night due to the following schedule:

• 5:00 am: Rise, shower and dress for work. Feed the kitten. Eat a plain bagel.
• 6:00 am – 2:00/3:00 pm: Open restaurant, work breakfast and lunch. Playfully insult regular customers. Get shafted from leaving on time by wait staff working swing shift. Forced to do prep for breakfast and dinner.
• 3:00 – 6:00 pm: Return to apartment. Argue with roommate over cat litter box in bathroom. Change clothes, walk to library to study. Eat another bagel with garlic cream cheese.
• 6:30/7:00 – 9:30/10:00 pm: Attend classes.
• 10:00 – 11:30 pm: Return to library. Study.
• Midnight: Fall into futon. Discover roommate's dog has peed on the sheets. Roommate claims kitten did it.
• 1:00 am: Go to sleep after cleaning up dog pee.
• 5:00 am: Repeat ten days in a row before getting a day off.

What did I do on my day off? Study and laundry.

Near the end of the school year, after yet another battle with the cocaine-addled assistant manager over her insistence that I work a shift during a FINAL, I quit. Two weeks later I landed a full-time job at a collection agency for twice the pay and half of the hours. With medical benefits and vacation time. For a company that permitted me to flex my hours during exams and use office equipment and supplies for schoolwork.

Coming up: A lesson in wheedling tips out of cheap old bastards.

Philliposaurus

My Obligatory September 11 Post

I am going to mark the fifth anniversary of the loss of 2996 lives in the destruction of the World Trade Center and the additional loss of life in Iraq and Afghanistan by talking about my brother.

• My twin brother.
• My twin brother, the guy I celebrated every birthday with from the ages of 1 to 20.
• My twin brother, who enlisted in the Army Reserves when he was eighteen and not handling college very well.
• My twin brother, who spent a year away from his family and friends training to serve his country.
• My twin brother, who wrote me some of the most colorful letters I ever received from anyone, during basic training.
• My twin brother, who has given up a weekend each month, two weeks each year for the past fourteen years to serve his country.
• My twin brother, who was "involuntarily transferred" from his quiet little clerical unit in the backwoods of Western PA to a unit on "high alert" in January 2002.
• My twin brother, who was shipped off to Kuwait in the spring of 2002 to serve as support staff to military stationed in Iraq.
• My twin brother, who could not leave his base in Kuwait without an armed and armored escort. In Kuwait, which is supposed to be safe.
• My twin brother, who answers the question "What was it like over there, really?" with "Even if you think you want the truth, I would lie to you".
• My twin brother, who came home safely, thirteen months later.

Two thousand, six hundred and seventy-one soliders serving in Iraq did not make it home.
Three hundred and thirty-six soldiers serving in Afghanistan did not make it home.

My brother did.

Pray for Peace

Another Damn Thing Blogger Needs To FIX

I can't blog photographs from Flickr any longer!

Anyway, because I have nothing else to say this afternoon...

I Swear

that if I see ONE MORE photograph of Eli and Payton Manning that has absolutely NOTHING to do with football, I may have to vomit.

The mayor's funeral is today. The procession will be going through downtown during my lunch hour. I wonder if it will stop in front of the Starbucks in Market Square he used to frequent?

My one encounter with Bob O'Connor was in that Starbucks. I had a grande skim chai and pastry in my hands and was headed out the door when a man darted in front of me to kneel at one of the tables. I nearly ran over him.

It was only after I left that I realized why there had been two City Police officers hanging out in the store, and it was not for the coffee.

Long Weekend Part II

Correction on Second Oakland Stop: The Nationality Rooms

My favorite of all the rooms is the Ukrainian Room. It is a newer room located on the third floor, with an elaborate tile fireplace and warm wood paneling. A hammered copper mural hangs on one wall and the shelves above the door are filled with ceramic plates. Traditional icons hang on the far wall opposite the door. What I like most about the room is that it reminds me of my high school math teacher, who was originally from the Ukraine. Sophie Lassowsky was a brilliant teacher who nagged me up until the day I graduated from college to drop my silly English major and study engineering instead. She died of breast cancer while I was in graduate school.

Third Oakland Stop: Soldiers & Sailors National Military Museum & Memorial

B loves military history, which made this museum an ideal stop in Oakland. It is small and simple and full of Civil war memorabilia. The displays run from the Civil War all the way up to the current conflict in Iraq and includes uniforms and arms. I wandered ahead to look at the exhibits when J and B stopped and checked everything out in detail. While I like history, I am not as into the military & munitions aspect as J and B. I was content to study the scale model of a ship I found in one of the side rooms and ponder Lincoln's Death Mask.

Fourth Stop: Pan Asia Chinese and Japanese Cuisine

This restaurant, located on Route 51, is the best place in Pittsburgh for sushi. We ordered a variety of sushi, sashimi and special rolls for the table and ate everything. The Crazy Tuna Roll, while more expensive, is beyond description.

Sunday in Pittsburgh

Sunday the boys set out on a hike and left me behind to catch up on sleep, work on a painting and spend some time writing. When J and B returned, we headed to Tom's Diner for a late lunch (in my case Cinnamon French Toast) and hit Half Price Books. Which was having a sale on everything in the store.

For $8.00 I was able to purchase a French language computer program so I could begin studying the basics. I also snagged a second language program in Spanish, since I am seriously out of practice and only remember enough to misinterpret conversations when eavesdropping.

Sunday night ended with dinner at the Casbah. If you have $100.00 to spend, this is the place to blow it. We shared two bottles of Dolcetto di Dogliani and a cheese plate. I had cioppino, which I could not finish and was even better when I heated up Monday afternoon.

I thought I was full until Jason, our waiter said two magic words “Pastry Chef”. Turns out I had enough room for homemade sorbet. J and B both ordered the bread pudding, made with fresh peaches and blackberries.

On Monday, after B left, I slept until 2 pm.

FIX THIS

Apparently I can no longer comment on blogs that have not been moved to beta.blogger.com.

And those accounts cannot comment on my blog.

Lisa at a clear view to a new life has a link to an essay everyone should read and her latest photograph is spectacular.

Jay, that cat is the most frightening thing I have seen in a long, long time.

Long Weekend Part I

The city was rather quiet this weekend. Partly because of the weather, which was "fall like" partly because the mayor died on Friday night and residents are still in shock.

How much shock? Ben Roethlisberger is going to miss the first two regular season games due to appendicitis and it did not become headline news in the local papers.

An aside: Is it really appropriate to say that Ben is "cursed" in the article just because he has ended up in the hospital twice in the past three months? Most of the injuries from his accident could have been prevented if he had been wearing a helmet. If he is cursed with anything, it is bad judgment.

This weekend J and I played hosts and tourists to an old friend from South Carolina, now living in Columbus, Ohio. The last time B visited Pittsburgh was ten years ago, so he was eager to see some of his favorite haunts.

We started with a traditional breakfast at Eat-N-Park. Eat-N-Park is a chain of local restaurants. Their claim to fame, aside from what really is a killer breakfast, is their Smiley Cookies. Which are made with lard and sit like lead in your stomach, but have a pleasantly round shape and come in all sorts of colors, including black and gold during football season.

An aside: One of the most embarrassing phone conversations I ever had with another person was caused by my innocently inviting a guy I liked to join my roommates and myself at an Eat-N-Park for a late dinner. Forgetting that the young man in question was not from Western PA, my question "Would you like to go to Eat-N-Park" took on a whole new connotation. After a long, confused silence I was able to clarify my intentions, much to the guy's relief.

First Oakland Stop: The Main Branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

B is the type of guy to appreciate a well designed library, and I am a library groupie who counts the Main Branch of CLP as one of the most interesting places in Pittsburgh to visit. Among the highlights of the newly renovated library is a small bamboo garden placed in a center courtyard where patrons can sit and read in nice weather. The administration thoughtfully placed a space heater in the garden in anticipation of colder days.

By far the best feature of the library is the stacks. The shelves of the stacks reach five stories and are connected by hazy glass floors. It is a quiet and romantic place, with hundreds of nooks and crannies where a person can disappear for hours. Some of the stack floors are closed, which only tempts me to sneak past the barriers and wander without interruption. On some of the floors you can look through the windows in the Dinosaur Hall of the Museum of Natural History. Sadly, the hall is empty and undergoing renovations.

Second Oakland Stop: International Rooms at the Cathedral of Learning

In order to tour the rooms one must stop at the gift shop and ask for a key. For a $3.00 fee you get a key attached to a tape player with worn out tape narrating the history of each room. I had turned over my identification and fee and had collected the tape player when J and B joined me at the counter. Upon seeing them the clerk informed me that the fee was $3.00 per person and I owed them $6.00 more. I paid the extra money and bit back the temptation to ask if the other members of my party also got keys and tape players.

The International Rooms are worth a visit on a rainy Saturday afternoon. Some are more interesting than others.

To be continued...

Prison Date

I have Lisa from A Clear View to a New Life to thank for sparking the memory that leads to this story. In a recent posting, she listed under "Other things I have done: 157: Dated someone who was not then but is now in prison (sadly)".

In a coincidence that can only be described as "downright bizarre" I also dated a guy who ended up in prison.

I was home for the summer between my sophomore and junior of college working at the local Pizza Hut as a cook. T was one of the delivery drivers. Sparks flew! We began dating. I stole him from one of the other cooks! He tried to teach me how to drive his new truck. Oh the small town drama of it all!

After several months it was clear that our lives and priorities were completely different. I was headed towards graduate school. T was headed towards his fourth job and his truck had been repossessed. I ended the relationship.

After we broke up, T earned the nickname "Radar Man" by my family for his uncanny ability to know when I would be home. It did not matter if I was returning for a weekend or a break – he always knew and he always called or stopped by the house to see me. It was downright creepy after a while.

Midway through my senior year of college the phone calls and visits stopped. I breathed a sigh of relief and moved on to graduate school in North Carolina. T became a distant memory.

Until the letter. Which arrived while I was visiting my parents one random weekend.

The letter had a Georgia postmark and address. It was mercifully short and did not mention his current location or employment. He wanted to know how I was doing and that he thought of me often.

When I looked up the address I discovered he was writing from a prison.

Fall Returns to Pittsburgh

I don't have the energy to put together a well thought out and coherent post tonight. Life in the city has been rather dull the past several weeks. The most excitement I have experienced is the weird form of insomnia I have developed. I go to sleep at the normal time and wake up at 4 am. Most mornings I stay in bed and stare at the ceiling for an hour. I get up, make some tea, read the paper and shower.

It is fall in Pittsburgh. Fall in Pittsburgh is not marked by the change of dull dark green leaves to the red, orange and yellow of other cities.

Fall is marked by training camp. Steelers training camp.
Fall is marked by the thousands of fans who tailgate in the stadium lot before a pre-season game.
Fall is marked by the thousand and one fans who mob sports bars and private homes all over the city to watch a pre-season game.

Ever been to Pittsburgh during a Steeler game? The city dies for four hours. Need to run an errand? You can get from one side of the city to the other in fifteen minutes. Need to take a flight? Schedule it during the Steeler game to miss the traffic and the long security lines. There is also no need to worry about missing the game, since it will be playing on every available radio and television screen.

As it is nearly impossible to have a social life in this city without occasionally watching a football game, J and joined several of our friends in a sports bar outside the city limits to watch the first half of the pre-season game on Friday night. The lure of this particular bar is the fact that they have a flat screen television at every booth and spaced evenly along the length of the two bars. And four projection screens along one wall. And large flat screens mounted in all the corners. The pool tables, video games and stage for live music is immaterial. What matters is the game, the only game. What matters is the Steelers.

The joy of watching a sports event in a place like Rick's is that everyone in the joint is watching the same exact thing. Aside from a random group of Eagles fans in the next booth over, everyone is rooting for the same team. Everyone yells at the same time. Terrible Towels are waved. Chants are chanted. High fives are exchanged.

For the record the game was a bore and we left at halftime.

In other Random News:

1: David Byrne has a blog! He gets excited over a puppet museum!

2: Winners of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest have been announced.

3: The Penguins have scheduled training camps!

Rookie Camp: September 7 – 12 at Mellon Arena. Open practices Saturday, September 9 and Sunday, September 10.

Regular Training Camp: September 14 – September 17. Three Open Practice sessions, scheduled on a weekend!

And I shall attend, camera in hand. I will try to honor requests for photographs, but please remember: An eight year old girl asking a professional player for a photograph is cute. A thirty-three year old woman asking that same player for a photograph is creepy.

Anonymous Lawyer & Little Miss Sunshine

I'm halfway through Jeremy Blachman's book and I love it.

J and I went to see Little Miss Sunshine on Friday night. I cannot do the movie justice, so I shall defer to Foilwoman's description of the movie. Definitely worth the full price of admission.

And hell has frozen over. She Who Must Not Be Named actually wrote a coherent column. I'm not linking to it, because she is evil and a bad writer, but I must say her editor did her proud for once. Well, there are those supportive comments on racial profiling, but really, I may be asking too much for her to cloak herself completely in rational thought.

The Rapture must not be far behind.

File This Under WTF?

Researchers link music tastes to HIV risks

Random Thoughts

The Good: Evgeni Malkin may be in Penguins training camp this fall after all. In a drama worthy of a made-for-television movie, he grabbed his passport and bags, left his team behind in Helsinki and headed to an undisclosed location (now known as Los Angeles). He officially filed a letter of resignation with his former Russian super league team, Metallurg Magnitogorsk.

The story is rather bizarre. Malkin renewed his contract with Metallurg two weeks ago in a 3 AM signing, under tremendous pressure from the club and his family. Metallurg is threatening to sue the owners of the Penguins and the NHL and calling it "sports terrorism".

Scott Burnside of ESPN.com does not cut him too much slack, describing him as "a boy...promising too many things to too many people" and "getting bad advice...trying to hard to please everyone in his world"

Hey Scott, go back and read what you wrote. He is TWENTY years old. A twenty-year old potential superstar trying to please too many people, including his father? You think?

Question: Am I the only person who is getting tired of the overuse of the words "terrorist", "terror", and "terrorism"

The Bad: The NYCLU had to file a complaint against three upstate pharmacists because they refused to refill prescriptions for doses of emergency contraception. One of the pharmacists altered the script so it listed no refills.

The Reprehensible: 33 year old Prashant Modi avoids jail for sexual assault and is ordered to write a letter of apology to his victim.

The Strange: No strangeness today. It is too hot for people to misbehave. Although I did see two middle class women throw a tantrum outside a bus stop because there were too many teenagers on my bus and all the seats were taken.

Wedding Story

In which my wonderful and awesome younger brother gets married.

To be honest, there was no drama. The groom and bride made it to the church on time. Everyone remained sober until after the ceremony, although the groomsmen shared a shot of Jack Daniels from the back of the future Father-in-Law's pickup truck to brace them for the afternoon's events.

In short it was fun. The kind of wedding fun you have when the two people getting married are beyond perfect for each other - the ceremony and reception are just a formality. I danced with three of my very young (ages 10, 8 and 6) first cousins, had a long chat with one of my aunts and shared photographs from my Paris trip with some family friends.

The best part? I got to see my younger brother cry for the first time in twenty-five years.

Breakup

My best friend for the past 14 years broke up with me today. Via email.

J and I were planning on attending her children's baptism on Sunday. Instead I received an email with the subject line "Don't Bother" and a request that I stay away from the baptism since I don't "seem interested in anything to do with her children" and that she does not want it to be another "inconvenience" for me.

In the past year I have had to deal with: debilitating migraines, uncomfortable and embarrassing tests for cervical cancer, almost losing my job, my in-law's and their extended family going batshit insane, my parents decision to re-enact scenes from The Days of Wine and Roses, my father's prostate cancer, my brother's wedding and the stresses that go along with being married.

She is absolutely correct. I have not shown much interest in her children in the past year. I've been too interested in putting the inconveniences of my health, my marriage and my family ahead of her children. Shame of me for being so selfish.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Wall Art

I love cities that put murals and other forms of art on to buildings. Pittsburgh is one of those cities. I was delighted to discover that Paris is another.

Pawprint

Pawprint
Originally uploaded by lcuy2 (Jenn).

Montmartre Cat

Montmartre Cat
Originally uploaded by lcuy2 (Jenn).

Montmartre Wall

Montmartre Wall
Originally uploaded by lcuy2 (Jenn).

Above the writing wall in the park.

Latin Quarter Wall

Latin Quarter Wall
Originally uploaded by lcuy2 (Jenn).

Translation:

Passer by
look at this large tree,
and through him,
it can be enough
because even torn, soiled
the tree of the streets, it is all nature,
all sky,
the bird is posed there,
the wind moves there, the sun there known as the same hope in spite of death.
Philosopher,
you have chance to have the tree in your street, your thoughts will be less difficult, your freer eyes, your more eager hands of less night.

Yves Bonnefoy

Montmartre Wall 2

Montmartre Wall 2
Originally uploaded by lcuy2 (Jenn).

I don't think this is the man coming through a wall.

Flowers on a Wall

Flowers on a Wall
Originally uploaded by lcuy2 (Jenn).

Montmartre Signatures

Montmartre Signatures
Originally uploaded by lcuy2 (Jenn).

You can leave your name. I'm not sure of the process. Located in a park near the cemetery.

Paris Trip Part III - Montmartre and Wall Art

My favorite day was Friday. Not only because the storms of Wednesday cooled the air down considerably. Not only because I had all my clothes and I was in Paris. Friday I went to Montmartre.

My City Walk Paris deck has three cards for Montmartre. The first two guide you to Sacre Coeur and around the sights of the hill. The third leads you to the Cimetiere de Montmartre, possibly one of the most peaceful spots in the city. Put the three cards together and, theoretically you have a decent walk of the neighborhood.

Except that I had trouble following the cards. I can read a map. Really, I can read a map. I have excellent spacial memory and once I have navigated to a location, I don't need assistance finding it again. Except for my hotel room when walking back from the Eiffel Tower. I got lost every time I tried it. But everywhere else in the city, I was fine. Totally ok. Really!

The directions on Montmartre 1:
Metro: Blanche (the cards tell you which Metro stations to use at the beginning and end of a walk).

"Head up rue Lepic."

Which way, precisely, is "up" from the Metro station? Seriously. I was totally confused.

"You'll pass Moulin de la Galette on your left."

If I head up rue Lepic, I will not see Mouline de la Galette on my left. Why? Because I already passed the giant windmill. It is difficult to miss. It is also incredibly ugly and screams Tourist Trap in flashing red capital letters. It is the first thing you see when you turn around at the top of the metro stairs.

"Across the street [from Cine 13] is a sculpture of a man coming through a wall..."

Really? They must have extracted that poor man from the wall. The sculpture was gone.

"Continue over to rue l'Abreuvoir, then up rue des Saule to admire Paris's last remaining vineyard..."

She fails to mention that the vineyard is behind a ten foot wall.

"Local artists (among them Picasso and Renoir) once gathered at The Lapin Agile..."

I could not find the cafe. I have no idea where it is located. The directions on the card say "just below the vineyard on the corner." But everything is "just below" when the walls are ten feet high.

Montmartre 2
Metro: Lamarck Caulaincourt

I ended up completely lost while attempting to follow the directions on the second card. I have no idea how I ended up at Sacre Coeur, except to say that I kept going "up" on the notion that the church would appear to me eventually.

A Confession and an Aside: I am a seriously lapsed Catholic. Lapsed enough that I know for a fact that some of J's friends are praying for my safe return into the arms of "the church". It is not going to happen, but that is another entry for a different day.

However I am not so lapsed that I am not offended by the general disrespect many tourists have for active parishes, such as Notre Dame de Paris. Some of the churches (such as Notre Dame) encourage this behavior when they install gift shops within the walls of the cathedral, then have the nerve to complain that the tourists will not lower their voices and put their photographic equipment away while a priest is saying mass.

Sacre Coeur and Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres stand out for actively discouraging such behavior. Chartres is closed to all but participants during mass. Sacre Coeur does not allow photographic equipment (although you can sneak it in) and will turn away anyone with a camera in his/her hand. It is a nice contrast to Notre Dame de Paris.

Both have gift shops though.

I lit a candle in Sacre Coeur at the window of Jeanne d'Arc for my deceased grandparents and took a slow walk around the interior. I left with an impression of light from the windows and the white stone walls. And ran into a gauntlet of vendors attempting to draw my picture (For free!) and tie string around my finger (Hey pretty lady, Don't worry, be happy).

Once I had escaped from the street vendors greedy grasp, I wandered down the streets toward the cemetery. Naturally I missed the entrance on the first attempt. Once inside I wandered through the old rows of stone, peering into ruined altars and looking at the masses of flowers covering some of the graves. I missed my opportunity to pay my respects to Edgar Degas, but I'm certain he'll survive. After my long wander I did not have the energy to find George Sand's house and headed back to the hotel.

Wall Art to follow. Enjoy the photographs of Montmartre.

Montmartre Sacre Coeur

Montmartre Sacre Coeur
Originally uploaded by lcuy2 (Jenn).

Just because I felt like taking a photograph at a weird angle.

Montmartre Cafe Corner

Montmartre Cafe Corner
Originally uploaded by lcuy2 (Jenn).

The cafe was not open when i took the photograph. Around the corner were windows with little rabbits displayed in shadow boxes. I love the intimacy of the courtyard entrance.

Montmartre House 1

Montmartre House 1
Originally uploaded by lcuy2 (Jenn).

This house sat high above the street and was surrounded on all sides by trees and other greenry. On the left hand side was a private staircase leading to houses higher on the slope.

Montmartre Street 1

Montmartre Street 1
Originally uploaded by lcuy2 (Jenn).

Montmartre Street 2

Montmartre Street 2
Originally uploaded by lcuy2 (Jenn).

Crazy streets.

Montmartre Tombstone Detail

Montmartre Tombstone Detail
Originally uploaded by lcuy2 (Jenn).

I took photographs of only one tombstone in the entire cemetery. This was it. I know I have seen photos of this before, but it is so lovely.

I Can't Resist. I'm Stealing This Idea

From Lisa, because it is too, too funny.

Read This

Many people has blogged on this article written by Anthony Bourdain for Salon Magazine. But it bears linking to again, not just because he was there when Hezbollah grabbed two soldiers, but because it clearly demostrates how our "Dear Leader" continues to fail American citizens all over the world.

Watching Beruit Die

Note: I don't have a subscription to Salon, so you may have to get a site pass to read the article.

Paris Trip Part II - Tour Eiffel

Blogger is being difficult about posting photographs, so I have to do it from Flickr instead.

I know it is a tourist site. I know that it is completely overrun with vendors selling silly, badly made little statues of the tower, lines that snake for hours of people wanting to see Paris from the different platforms and gypsy children trying to scam English speakers out of money with an index card detailing the sob story of a father from Argentina who goes off to Bosnia to fight in the war and never returns, stranding his luckless family in Paris.* It was a twenty minute walk from my hotel (when I did not get lost) to a prime people watching spot.

After fetching my luggage from the front desk, I change into clean clothing**, grab the camera and hit the street. Since I am only a mile away from the Effiel Tower, I decide to take a walk. On the way I see a champagne cork on the ground and I am stopped for the first of multiple times during the week to give directions, since I seem to appear to know where I am going.

Hundreds of people who have chosen to picnic in the park in the heat of the evening. Tourists play guitars, vendors sell small metal statues of the tower and a volleyball tournament is taking place.

Later in the week I will return to have a picnic dinner and see a newly married couple posing for photograhs, dogs playing, jugglers juggling.

During the time I was taking photographs of the wedding couple I look up into the sky and noticed it was getting grim. The type of grim that a girl from Western Pennsylvania knows is a cue to run for cover. The people surrounding me seemed unconscious to the rapidly changing weather.

As I crossed underneath the Eiffel Tower, the wind began to blow. At first it felt like a cooling breeze. I looked across the road and noticed clouds of sand lifted by the steadily rising wind. I start to walk back up the street to the hotel. The wind becomes stronger, the sky begins to rumble. The sand stings my eyes and ends up in my mouth.

It begins to pour. I take a wrong turn and become lost in the rain and the darkness. I return to the hotel soaking wet (and wearing a white shirt, naturally) and strangely happy.

* True story from my last trip to Paris. Before I could point out the inconsistencies in the story on the card J reached into his pocket and gave the girls five euros in coins.
** I will never again underestimate the value of clean underwear.

Playing Dogs

Playing Dogs
Originally uploaded by lcuy2 (Jenn).

Love

Love
Originally uploaded by lcuy2 (Jenn).

She is wearing the most divine wedding dress I have seen on any woman.

Juggler

Juggler
Originally uploaded by lcuy2 (Jenn).

Tower Sunset

Tower Sunset
Originally uploaded by lcuy2 (Jenn).

Champagne Cork

Champagne Cork
Originally uploaded by lcuy2 (Jenn).

Thanks Lisa!

For the "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE MEME" - "A Few Good Men" and the recommendation on my travel tale of woe. I'm working on the photographs from the rest of the trip (thus the delay) and I promise the story becomes much happier (and probably a lot less interesting) the rest of the week.

Five items in my freezer:
1. frozen vegetables
2. frozen chicken
3. several glasses in various stages of "frosty"
4. frozen pasta
5. coffee beans

Five Items in My Closet:
1. an autographed Martin Straka Pittsburgh Penguins jersey
2. a bin of letters from my best friend from college
3. a pair of green hemp Vans I never wear because they chafe my feet and I hate socks.
4. a red Coach purse.
5. cedar blocks.

Five items in the car:
1. a heavy throw meant for a couch
2. miscellanous computer books
3. a roadside assistance kit complete with a tire patch, jumper cables and a flashlight with dead batteries (really useful!)
4. two plastic lei's from a July 4, 1998 Jimmy Buffett concert
5. an overabundance of pens

Five items in my backpack:
1. my purse
2. bus pass
3. my IPOD and charger
4. my gym clothes and shoes
5. the red rubber keychain that came with the backpack

Paris Trip Part I - The FAA REALLY Hates Me

It took me 60 hours to land in Paris. Sixty hours in which I came to the conclusion that the FAA personally hates me. I also concluded that I will never fly through Newark Airport again. Next time I'll pay extra for a plane ticket through an airport in which all hell does not break lose when it rains.

At 11:30 Saturday morning I discovered that Continental cancelled my flights again. I called the 800 number and learned that the airline rescheduled me for Monday's flight. Since this was unacceptable, I asked to be transferred to the International division. A lovely woman by the name of Shondra arranged to have me fly through Detroit via Southwest and catch a connection to Newark at 6:30pm. I agreed to the arrangement as it was the only way to get to Newark that day. I called 5 minutes too late to get put on the last direct flight from Pittsburgh to Newark, and it is overbooked. She suggests I put myself on the standby list anyway.

And my troubles began...

1. The last direct flight from Pittsburgh to Newark experiences a technical problem and cannot leave. Since I am on standby and the flight is overbooked, I take the Pittsburgh to Detroit flight.
2. A Southwest gate agent pulls my original Continental Pittsburgh to Newark ticket. I protest, as I was told at the ticketing counter I needed to show that ticket in Detroit to get a boarding pass for the flight from Detroit to Newark. Continental agents in Newark are forced to hunt down a Southwest agent to print a FIM (Flight Interruption Manifest) so I can get on the plane to Newark.
3. The flight from Newark, originally scheduled to leave at 5:25pm, then delayed until 6:30pm is delayed until 7:30pm. At 7:30pm, the flight is delayed for another hour. I become upset and am comforted by a total stranger and the pilot of the plane. We do not take off until 8:45 pm. I ask a ticket agent while boarding if it is possible to hold the plane. She says that they will know I am coming.
4. Upon reaching Gate 111, at roughly 10:10pm the pilot repeatedly attempts to radio the Agents at Gate 74 to hold closing the gate so I can make the flight. The agents do not respond. I run almost ½ a mile through the airport to attempt to catch the plane. When I am told by one agent I must speak to an agent at the counter and not to block the closed door. The plane is still attached to the gate. The counter agent attempts to ignore me. When it becomes apparent that I am not planning on going away, she radios the agent at the end of the gateway with the statement "Were not taking any more people on this flight" and receives an affirmative. She rudely instructs me to go talk to Customer Service and will not speak to me after that.
5. I stand in line for almost four hours to see a CSR to get my new flight information. While in line I meet a couple named Clark and Rosalind, from Austin, Texas. After four hours I take the International 800 number and attempt to call for my new flight schedule. The automated system informs me, at various times, that it will take 15, 110, 61 and 50 minutes to speak to a CSR. We are also told that are baggage will remain checked and be put on our new flight.
6. I meet up with Clark and Rosalind again around 3am. They are still trying to find a hotel room for the night. I learn that among the stranded International passengers (and there are many, many passengers) is a 17 year old German girl named Pia. She is traveling alone and does not have enough money for a hotel. Clark and Rosalind ask if I would be interested in sharing a room. I agree. Rooms at the airport Sheraton are located.
7. While waiting for the tram to take us to the hotel shuttles, I run into the pilot from the Detroit/Newark flight. He reiterates that the agents never responded to any of his attempts. When I tell him that I was not allowed on the plane because the flight was closed, he says (and I quote) "that is bullshit". He also suggests that I write a letter. I make it to the hotel and fall asleep at 4am.
8. Upon landing at Charles De Gaulle Monday morning (I took the 6:15pm flight Sunday) I attempt to claim my luggage. And discover that it is lost. Not just a little bit lost, as in coming on the next plane. Lost as in Continental has no idea where it is located.

Note: At this point I have been wearing the same clothing for 50 hours.

I fill out a claims form, hail a cab to the hotel and take a bath. I have no energy left and cry myself to sleep. Later, resigned to a week in Paris without my clothing, I purchase 2 pairs of underwear, a set of disposable razors, shaving cream, two shirts and a skirt.

The airline locates my luggage and delivers it to me at 8:30pm Monday evening.

Breakdown of charges in the 60 hour detour:

1. Hotel room for myself and an unaccompanied 17 year old girl: $162.00.
2. Cost to hold my hotel reservation in Paris for two nights: $141.92
3. Disposable razors: 6.42 Euro ($8.14).
4. Shaving cream: .99 Euro ($1.26).
5. Skirt: 15 Euros ($19.03).
6. 2 shirts: 14.80 Euro ($18.77).
7. 2 pairs underwear: 5.98 Euro ($7.59)

Grand total of detour: $358.71.

Part II coming soon...

Disaster

I should be getting out of a car right now. I should be standing in a line, waiting for TSA to check the bottoms of my shoes.

Instead I am at home. Both legs of my flight were cancelled due to Tropical Storm Beryl. I've been rescheduled on tomorrow's flights. Continental Airlines made no effort to place me on a different flight. The CSR tranferred me to the "international desk". Since I did not have 70 minutes to wait on the phone, I hung up.

I've moved my hotel reservation (that poor, poor clerk must have been ready to murder me) and now I sit, depressed and upset. I'm not confident that I am going anywhere right now, as the rain from the storm is supposed to hang around for several more days.

$1200.00 for a plane ticket, and this is what I get. No plane or trip.

Miscellanea

1. I actually spelled "miscellanea" correctly on the first attempt.
2. Need a new, all-in-one cooking gadget? Try the Thermomix! I may have found the gadget to aid me in getting over my laziness in the kitchen. That is if I can get past the amount of time it takes to learn how to use the thing.
   
3. These are not auspicious signs when one is about to commence international travel:
• Sudden and massive allergies. Bad enough to necessitate renewing my prescription of Singulair to manage the inevitable asthma attack and get my allergies under control.
  
• Thunderstorm warnings for the next 24 hours starting LATE Thursday afternoon.
• Tropical storm Beryl (I'm flying out of Newark Airport. Yes, I know the airport is a hole).
• An ongoing heat wave in Europe. Guess I'll have to take those "too tight" tank tops. (This is according to my mother. J has reassured me that my shirts are not too tight.)
  
• The floor tile we ordered for the bathroom is on a truck "somewhere". Home Depot is not sure which truck or where the tile is at this moment. UPDATE: The tile made it, but not before a very befuddled CSR cancelled one of the orders. J straightened it out in a subsequent phone call.
4. These are auspicious sign when one is about to commence international travel:
• My father's biopsy results were clear. Cancer limited to the prostate only. He will not have to have chemotherapy or radiation.
• A state judge has overturn North Carolina's law banning cohabitation.
• I found the card for the a hat shop, Manon Martin, we visited on our first trip. On the back was the name of a cafe that served us the best meal we had in Paris.
  
5. A public service reminder: When one asks for a quote for a ride to the airport over the internet and receives an insanely inexpensive quote, one should confirm the amount BEFORE giving a credit card number.
   

Bang Head HERE

The Health section of the New York Times online is down right now, so my rant on the inaccurate information in an essay debating the FDA's wisdom in approving Gardasil for females between the ages of 9 and 26 is incomplete.

The summary version of the rant is this:

• Crucial information about the FDA's guidelines for administering the vaccine was left out of the essay, leading the reader to believe that FDA wants all 9 year old girls to be vaccinated.
• She seems to lack a basic understanding about the different strains of HPV and how Gardasil works.
  
• She has a cavalier attitude towards the 10,000 women each year who are diagnosed with cervical cancer.
• She has an equally cavalier attitude about the additional tests a woman with a positive screen must go through to determine whether cervical cancer is present. If I recall, she calls the additional testing a "little discomfort" or some such bullshit.
  
• After giving a nod to right-wing conservative religious groups about preaching celibacy, she goes on to state that the transmission of HPV can be prevented through the use of condoms. NOT TRUE. Protection against HPV (and Herpes) via condom usage is only effective when the condom COVERS THE INFECTED AREA. It is not the most common sexually transmitted disease because it is difficult to catch.

I have no more words (or bullet points) for this kind of stupidity.

Still Tired

Thank you, thank you, thank your for the kind messages and good thoughts of the past week. Dad's surgery was successful. The worse part was the 11 hours spent in the world's most uncomfortable chairs.

For those not familiar with UPMC Presby, it is a very large teaching hospital located in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh. The Family Surgical Waiting Room is staffed with several patient liaisons. Their primary responsibility is to track the status of patient's surgeries and keep the family informed. They escort family members to pre-op and recovery rooms, pass messages on and keep track of family members. They are very, very good at what they do and made a difficult day a little bit easier to bear.

If I ever win the lottery I'm endowing UPMC with a furniture budget so the hospital can purchase real couches and chairs.

An interesting article from NPR on the ritual of the mikvah. From the perspective of an outsider, I always thought this was a lovely ritual that Jewish women are incredibly fortunate to have as a tradition of their faith and culture. I also like the fact that more progressive women are claiming a meaning that goes beyond the original intent.

Prayers

Dad's surgery is today at 1pm. He will be hospitalized for at least three days. Mom is staying with us.

Will update when I can.

Today I Heart Ned Lamont

Because you have to like a man with a sense of humor. Or a man with an audience who has a sense of humor. Two videos for your viewing pleasure.

Note the comments under first video. So original!
Unintentionally Creepy Ned Lamont Ad Remixed

And even more original comments under video 2!
Ned Lamont Has a Messy Desk

Dissection of a Pig Roast

My visits home are always accompanied by mixed feelings. I was not happy because it was not the type of place that made me happy. Junior and High School were hell, a problem compounded by the fact that I was forced to switch from a public to a Catholic school in grade 7. The new school was small (by grade 12 the graduating class was 39) and intensely clique-ish. I did not have much athletic ability, cried too easily and was a little to willing to question the authority of the teachers and the actions of my classmates. I was an easy target for the other students to alternately taunt and ignore.

My dislike of enforced participation in any activity can be traced back to the “Secret Santa” ritual from junior and high school. Every year a “majority rule” voted to keep the tradition alive, and to voluntarily opt out was not permitted. Every year my name would be drawn, traded among classmates and ultimately ignored. I can only recall one year in which I actually received gifts, because one of the few classmates I had as a friend made a point of trading for my name so I would not feel excluded.

Through seven years and two degrees, as visits to my hometown became less frequent and less fraught with angst, I would talk to graduates from the grades behind me. Several said that what got them through and made them feel ok about themselves was my determination to be an individual in the face of so much teasing.

I spent three years at my former high school as a librarian and teacher. In between shelving books and showing middle school students the basics of research, I did guest appearances in Senior AP English classes to talk about narration via the X-Files, Frankenstein and Alice in Wonderland. I watched as the school transitioned from an outdated two story + basement to a Grade K – 12 facility with separate gym, cafeteria and auditorium, ample classroom space, two libraries and separate wings for each stage (elementary, middle, high) of learning.

I still see those kids, "my kids". They call me by my first name and greet me with hugs. The youngest have finished their first year of college. The oldest are finishing graduate school, marrying and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of their life.

My fifteenth high school reunion is in August. I am not attending. I see all the people I want to see from my tiny class of 39 and my former students. On Saturday, the father of one of my oldest and dearest friends looked around at the little group of us assembled for pre-party preparations. "This is my family", he said with a smile. "This is my extended family."

Quick Notes

I'm heading out of town for the weekend, so I will be missing most of the All Star pre-game festivities. J and I are heading to DuBois (home of hot dogs stuffed with peanut butter) for a pig roast. If you happen to be in the neighborhood, stop by! You can get directions from Palumbo's Meat Market.

Have a good weekend, everyone.

Now I Must Shower

Because Ray Shero signed the psychopathic forward Jarkko Ruutu today.

• Ruutu of the illegal hits?
• Ruutu, who damn near gave Jager a concussion at this year's Olympics?
• Ruutu, who spent as much time in the penalty box as he did on the ice last year?
• Ruutu, who seems to get far too much enjoyment out of hurting opposing players?
• Ruutu, who picks fights with his own teammates during practice?
• Ruutu, who it is reported is not even very good at being a thug?

Maybe my instincts about the guy will be wrong. Maybe he really is the type to help elderly ladies across the street and visit children's cancer wards in his spare time. Maybe he is what the team needs to keep Crosby from getting as beat up as he did last year.

I feel ill.

Update 5 July 2006

1.6 Million a year? Is Shero on crack? He could have resigned Ryan VandenBussche and gotten the same performance for less money.

Schadenfreude...

...is listening to a man on a high-speed bike gunning his motor while waiting in tunnel at a red light. Is watching said biker speed up and weave through traffic (dangerous and stupid) so he can make it to the next red light five seconds faster than the other motor vehicles. It is watching his biking companion, sans any protective gear, including helmet (no longer required in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania) also dangerously cut off multiple cars to catch up to his buddy.

And it is watching city police in an unmarked car (one of the vehicles biker 2 cut off) turn on their lights and pull both bikers over.

Schadenfreude can be a beautiful thing.

In other news, last night J and I saw the Violent Femmes play for $1.00. It was well worth the price of admission. We got a giggle out of the shock some of the teenagers, dressed in their punk/goth gear, felt when they discovered that the Violent Femmes are a group of middle-aged men. This is akin to the laugh I got several years ago during my incarnation as a teacher when one of my middle school students, in all seriousness, asked me about “that new band” Pearl Jam.

Lisa's recent post on parents who expect the public to worship at the feet of their badly behaving children, struck a sympathetic chord. One of the reasons I hesitate to start a family is that I might act exactly as described in the post. And I really do not want to be that kind of parent. I want to be the kind of parent with enough nerve to hold up a busy check-out line until my badly behaving child apologizes to the clerk because she was rude.*

In addition, I am the infamously stubborn black sheep in-law who refuses to allow her husband's parents to cow her into submitting to a life that includes non-stop in-law interference and family vacations. I've seen far too much interference on the part of a "doting" grandfather to convince me that bringing another child into the family will set me up for many, many years of battles I am not totally prepared to fight.

We have finally gotten to the point where J's extended family no longer overtly pressures us to have children. It is more subtle now, and includes Mother's Day and Father's Day gifts so we "don't feel left out". J's brother, a priest, has been giving me Mother's Day gifts from year one because "I live with his brother and that is work enough" as a joke, and I do find it funny. I don't find it neccessary for anyone else to give me a gift. We suspect they think we are childless by physical circumstances instead of conscious choice. I'm ok with letting them think that, as it takes the overt pressure off both of us.

*True story. The mother would not accept her change back until her daughter apologized to the clerk. I was amazed.