a sad story about a cat

The story you are about to read happened to my friend John Mitchell. I did not, repeat, DID NOT make it up. John, if you are out there somewhere, please verify.

John lived at Woodlawn plantation in a house that was divided in two. On one side was John's place, which he shared with his sister. On the other side was this crack head kind of couple that had a million cats. Okay, actually they only had about 20 cats. Anyway, the cats kept getting eaten by foxes or whatever, and the crack head wife (they weren't crack heads, actually, they were just really weird not quite hippy people and I think the guy wore black socks every day, and his wife was that crazy lady with 20 cats, you know the type) kept accusing John of trying to poison, strangle, capture, torture, barbecue, or relocate (the cat version of extreme rendition) her brood.

John is the type of guy who would never hurt a living creature unless it was human. So it used to make him mad because the cats would pee in his flowers and scratch up his screen and the only thing he ever did was yell at them. Once one pooped in his softball shoes, which he had left out on the porch because they were wet.

Fast forward to the point of the story. One cold, rainy morning John went out to the driveway to start his truck. The driveway was a long dirt thing ending in a big circle from which everyone's parked vehicle radiated like petals on a pollution flower. He put the truck into gear and started to back up. Suddenly he heard a horrible howl.

He pulled forward and hopped out of the truck. There, on the ground, was a flattened cat. And not just ANY cat, but the crazy lady's FAVORITE cat. It seems the cat went to sleep in the well of John's back wheel because it was dry and warm. The cat did not register that starting the truck meant moving the truck.

John was in a panic. He didn't want to tell crazy lady that he killed her cat. So he did what any man in his position would do. He got a small shovel and pried the cat off his tire tread where it was lodged. Then he placed the cat on the back tire of the crazy lady's car.

Amazingly, it worked. The woman had a nervous breakdown and she and her husband moved from Woodlawn Plantation. We had a huge party, which, oddly enough, is the last time I saw my friend Doug Rippey. Apparently I was wearing leather pants at the party. Oy vey.

New Computer Status Choices

I hope someone reading this has contacts at Microsoft. Ever since Dell "upgraded" my "operating system" to Windows Vista, I've been coming up with new computer status options (accessed when you go to, for example, log off):

-Instead of just sleeping, how about sleeping with the fishes, for when my bastard machine refuses to boot up and then I open it up and touch the mother board without grounding myself and of course I'm standing on a shag wool carpet wearing a fleece. Bye bye mother board. I never learn my lesson...
-Instead of just hibernating, how about hibernating for the winter. I have had luck leaving a computer off for a couple of months, and then turning it on and discovering it works again.
-Defenestrate - or is throwing Windows out the window redundant?
-Recrash - for when you want to reboot but you know the bastard is going to just crash again, so why not just say recrash instead of leading us down the hopeful path that some day the computer might reboot.
-Sleeping but possessed - For some reason the blue power button on my new computer starts flashing randomly in the middle of the night.
It wakes me up and makes me think of Poltergeist the movie. Does anyone know where I can get some virtual holy water, or maybe I should burn some sage in the DVD drive...
-Sleeping with nightmares - sometimes when I put my computer to sleep it seems to wake up, but then when I try to do something with it, it slips back to sleep. Strange.

George's Air Supply

I first met George the weekend my mother came to visit me for a shoe shopping, um, I mean, business trip right after I had moved to Baltimore. We were eating at a restaurant called Mt. Washington Tavern, on the outskirts of the city. The restaurants claim to fame, among other things, is that the chandeliers date back to 1889. That used to be impressive until I bought my house, built in 1890.

Anyway, we were at the bar waiting for a table when my mother was assaulted by this red headed Irish guy named George. He tried to buy her a drink, hit on her, etc. He was there with some colleagues who were all reporters for Fox news. He dropped that fact on me as if I would find it impressive. He didn't believe me when I told him I didn't have a TV and didn't know what Fox was (I thought it was a sitcom, which, it sort of is, except some people don't realize that because it doesn't have a laugh track). His colleagues eventually dragged him out of the bar and then my mother and I were seated at our table.

We were seated in a booth right against a window so we could see the main thoroughfare, and were just about to start on our salads when we heard a loud thunk. We both looked over to the window to see George with his face smashed against the glass, speaking incomprehensibly, partially because of the glass and partially because of the booze. His friends pulled him off the side of the building, and our window, so he proceeded to make an ass of himself on the sidewalk. At one point when I went to the ladies room my mom made contact with George and said something along the lines of "although I'm not interested my daughter is single and just moved here - maybe you should take her out sometime".

I wasn't George's type but he did make a few obligatory calls, which I didn't return, until the day he called and said he had free tickets to see Cats but didn't want to go and did I want the free tickets? I accepted the tickets, as well as others to see Beethoven's Fidelo and Ninth, Cabaret, Chicago, and a string of other shows. He got the tickets free for his job but never went because he found shows boring. I decided I at least owed him dinner and we went to dinner at a restaurant called An Poitin where his twin brother worked. Free tickets and free food - George was turning out to be one of the best friends my mother has ever found for me.

George's twin brother had a kidney removed in an attempt to save George's dad. George's dad lived for a few years after getting the new kidney before succumbing to whatever illness it was that he had (I didn't pry to find out). Whenever George and his brother were fighting George's brother would grab the side where the kidney was removed and say "it's hurting".

The kidney was a weird issue between the brothers. They both got tested to see if they were an acceptable tissue type for the transplant. If you volunteer to do this, just for future reference, and you are the right type, you can still say you don't want to be a donor and the doctor tells your family you weren't a match. So George's brother always suspected George was too much of a wimp to get his kidney taken out and told the doctor to say he wasn't a match. The fact that George and his brother were almost identical twins did cast a shadow of doubt on George's story, but seeing how much it hurt George to even joke about it, I know he would have given anything to help his father.

So, the point of this story: one night I met George and his brother out at An Poitin for my free Friday dinner. George was in pain and said his stomach was killing him. He was sure he had an ulcer. As I plowed through my dinner George's pain got worse and worse. The owner of the bar brought George back to a private room to lie down. An hour later he said the pain was excruciating, so I agreed to take him to the hospital.

If you know nothing about downtown Baltimore you have no idea what I was signing up for. Special Forces train in UM Baltimore because it's one of the few places in the US where they will experience gun shot wounds similar to what they will experience in Iraq.

We waited for hours to see a doctor. I cradled George's head in my lap and tried to wipe the spit off his mouth before it landed on my jeans. We finally were brought back to see a doctor 6 hours after arrival. He put George on a gurney and whisked him off for tests. The whole time I kept reminding myself how many free tickets he had given me, because the last place I wanted to be on a Friday was the emergency room of a city hospital. As the hours crept on the population of the hospital was slowly getting scarier.

Finally they brought George into this room that had 20 beds separated by blue curtains hanging from the ceiling. There were women crying because their boyfriends were shot. Women crying because their boyfriends beat them. Men crying because their friends were dying of overdoses. And then me and George, the whitest white people ever. But George swore his pain was as bad as the gunshot victims' pain, and I believed him.

The doctor strolled in around 230 in the morning. "What have we got here?" he asked. George, with tears welling in his eyes, explained his pain. The doc looked at the blood tests, scans, and x-rays. He could find nothing wrong. Wondering if it might be some early stage appendicitis he told George to lie flat while the doctor pushed on his stomach trying to pinpoint the spot where the pain was coming from. As the doctor put his hands on the lower right side of George's abdomen and pushed, George emitted the fart to end all farts. It rang through the entire emergency room and seem to last as long as a fire drill. If the walls of Jericho had still been standing, this fart would have knocked them down. It even silenced the gang bangers in the room with us.

George felt instantly better, and was released from the hospital. I was not allowed to tease him about saying he was going to die due to a fart. I tried to stay friends with him but couldn't face him without laughing, especially at inappropriate moments. He stopped calling me and offering me free tickets and then I started school and that was that...

the naked physicist

So there I was, the new kid in Baltimore, back after a stint overseas and in San Fran. My best friend Rita had taken up with a man that she eventually married, so, with my partner in crime occupied, I ended up going out a lot by myself. It wasn’t particularly fun.

One day at work I was walking out of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (APL) with some of my colleagues. As the name implies, it’s a place filled with ill dressed, out of shape, wonder bread boys, most of whom have never realized you can buy clothes made from natural fibers. Imagine my surprise when this gorgeous creature walked through the door in the opposite direction.

“Hey Morgan!” my colleagues said.
“Hhhrgh.” said Morgan.

I managed to make it to the car before I asked about him.

“So, is he single?” I queried.

A round of snickers and giggles ensued. Working with software developers is torture. Finally one of them said “Oh, I’m pretty sure he’s single.” Another round of the giggle fits. It took all my willpower not to punch every one of them in the balls.

I got Morgan’s email address at the lab and sent him an email from my yahoo account. I wrote “Hi, we have some colleagues in common (blah blah about them) and I’m working with APL on (blah blah). My favorite weapon is the lawn dart.”

He replied a couple of minutes later acknowledging my lawn dart joke, and then inquiring about my academic pedigree. The end of his email said “Just so you know, I do not date women without PhDs.”

It turns out Morgan had two PhDs, one in physics and one in engineering. I could feel the beginnings of a crush: gorgeous, in shape, and over educated. Right up my alley. I tried tempting him into a cup of tea by sending a favorite logic puzzle from Smullyan’s Riddle of Scheherazade. He liked but said no to tea. My wit was no match for his stubbornness.

Finally I sent him a story I had written about ice climbing, which I had submitted to a local paper, so it had my real name on it, as opposed to my nick name. Within seconds I got a response back that said “Are you related to Dr. X?” When I confirmed he said “I must meet you and experience your DNA in person.”

It turns out Morgan had used some research my dad had done on, I am not making this up, something about “Dynamic Elastic Moduli of Titanium Aluminides”, super alloys, and vacuum processing for something or other. Morgan looked up my home number and had left 5 messages for me while I was at work. He wanted to go out on a date. Things seemed to be falling into place.

We agreed to go to a place called 8x10, and for Morgan to walk over to pick me up. He lived, oddly enough, only 5 blocks from me. The club we were going to was ½ mile from my apartment.

I told the boys at work I had a date with Morgan. More snickers and giggles. Idiots, I thought to myself, ignoring them as best I could. Morgan had proven to be a first rate e-mailer, and a thoughtful guy who sent little notes and poems throughout the day. All the women at work were sighing over his picture, which I had found on the Hopkin’s web site, where he worked part time as a professor.

The morning of our date I logged on Yahoo. I emailed him asking what he was up to for the day. He sent an email back saying he was sending naked pictures of himself to all his friends. This was typical of our exchanges (much more clever if you read the originals). So I sent back saying I must not be a friend because I hadn’t gotten a picture yet. That afternoon I checked my email again. All the women from work were standing behind me to see what sweet things Morgan had written.

I had received an e-card so I clicked on the link. There, to my embarrassment, was a naked picture of Morgan, with a little smirk on his face. And when I say naked I mean naked as the day he sprung out of his mom’s vagina and said “Oh goody! Only 17 more years until I can go to college!” Oy vey. I had a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, but most of the women, after getting over the initial shock, found the picture provided even more incentive for me to date him.

That night I was on standby to buzz Morgan into the apartment building when my land line rang. It was Morgan. “Dude, you are supposed to be here right now picking me up” I said. I hate it when people are late.

“Well, there’s…a little problem,” he said.

The problem turned out to be an illness issue that he had not been disclosed. Morgan suffered from agoraphobia. He had a hard time leaving his apartment most days, unless he was going some place familiar, which my apartment building decidedly was not.

“So, I’m just going to chill for 15 minutes, and then I’ll be over,” he promised. 15 minutes later the phone rang. Same problem. Same solution. This went on for two hours until I finally lost it. “Get your ass over here or fuck off!” I yelled into the phone. Seven minutes later my buzzer went off.

I buzzed Morgan up to my place. I should mention that I was living in a department store building that was being made into loft apartments. I was the first, and at that point the only, tenant in the building. The hallways were still uncarpeted and detritus from construction abounded throughout. My apartment was more or less finished and was in its usual manically clean state.

Morgan pushed open my door, which I had left propped, and rushed over to the kitchen sink. “I’m just going to wash my hands,” he said. No problem, the building is dirty, I thought. But then he kept washing his hands. For five minutes. And then he dried them off and started washing them again.

The reason for my colleagues amusement over my date was suddenly becoming crystal clear.

It turns out Morgan was very intelligent, and as a result, mentally ill. He suffered from agoraphobia, OCD, haphephobia (fear of being touched), misophobia (fear of dirt and germs), and a whole host of other things. He had tried to take drugs but felt they made him dopey and slow witted so he coped as best as he could. Which, on this evening, was probably not very well, as he was not able to stop washing his hands.

I poured myself a glass of cognac and contemplated jumping out the window. I was on the 10th floor.

“Gross, don’t get near me with that!” said Morgan. He had wrapped my hand towels around his hands and headed into the living room. “I hate the smell of alcohol. It makes me want to vomit. I am going to have to lie on your floor for a minute because my back is bothering me.” I transferred more cognac to my glass, thought for a second, transferred that into a larger glass, which I topped off, and went into the living room.

He had not taken off his leather jacket (it was winter time) and the sleeves were pulled over his hands. I noticed, for the first time, that he was wearing a pair of really thick wool socks and Birkenstocks. Very few men can get away with that look. Morgan, on a good day, was one of them. But this was not, as mentioned above, a good day. Mental illness, academic snobbery, allergy to alcohol - all that could be forgiven. But not the Birkenstocks.

“Please leave.” I said, sinking down onto my sofa.
“I can’t leave now. I am just getting used to this place. I’m going to have to work myself up to go back out into that filthy hallway.”
“So how long will it take until you can leave?” I asked. He didn’t answer.

He started telling me his life story, including a play he wrote about a blow up doll, how his old girlfriend was murdered in Baltimore, about working at Hopkins, various patents he had applied for or currently held, and on and on. Finally, around 4 in the morning, I ran out of patience, energy, and, more importantly, cognac. I had to find a way to get him to leave.

A plan came to mind, a plan so preposterous I knew it would work. I started scratching my nails against the side of my sofa. Morgan stopped his monologue, delivered to the ceiling, and whipped his head around pretty quickly for a guy that had back problems.

“Did you hear that?” he asked in a frighten tone.
“Oh, that scratching sound?” I responded casually.
“What is it?” Morgan asked in a tone that said he didn’t really want to know.
“Well, a lot of the apartments don’t have external windows (this was true). The workmen leave their lunch stuff lying around (this was also true – most unfinished apartments looked like homes for wayward McDonald wrappers) and the rats come in at night and eat the food. There’s one rat that seems to be trying to get into my…”

Before I could finish Morgan moved off my floor with almost supernatural grace. His birks didn’t even come off. He rushed to my door and swung a be-sleeved hand in the direction of the knob. He looked like he was about to have a massive breakdown and couldn’t produce an intelligible sound.

I opened the door for him and he ran all the way from my apartment to the elevators. Two separate pairs of gloves fell out of his pockets but he didn’t stop. When he got to the elevator it was still waiting for him (they were set to end up on certain floors and not leave that floor until someone pressed a button because of the construction). The doors closed. I knew I would never see him again.

I went to bed around 430, relieved that my ordeal was over and vowing to not date again. Around 8 am the phone rang. It was Morgan, telling me what a great time he had had and asking if I was free for lunch that day as he wanted me to meet his friends. He warned me to not mention the ice climbing to any of his friends as he feared that would make me look too manly. He continued chattering away until I interrupted him.

“Fuck off.” I said, and hung up the phone.

As an odd afterward to this story, I was at an engineering dinner with my dad about two years later and I was talking to some physicists about Morgan. They seemed shocked that I was shocked that he sent me a naked picture. Apparently most physicists are crazy and like to give women naked pictures of themselves.

So ladies, if you are still looking for Mr. Right, consider yourselves warned…

Things Not To Say When in Texas

So I have a rowdy group of "cowboys" that I am working with here in the city that...sleeps...a lot...which must be why everything but the Olive Garden and Taco Cabana close down at 6 PM sharp.

In any case, back in the day, 1993 to be exact, I was sentenced to work 8 months in what I consider hell on Earth. That's right, College Station, Texas. I was attacked by bull frogs the size of Johns Hopkins lacrosse players while trying to run on a soccer field my first morning in that god forsaken place. I barely escaped with my shins intact. In any case, I came to think of Texas as a place where EVERYONE carries a gun. Even 5 year olds.

So, I'm having lunch with these guys, 2007, expecting the normal conversation about .357 Pythons, .45s, etc. but they were all talking about video games, and specifically, the new Wii. I don't play video games. I used to get killed in pac man after about 20 seconds of playtime and was permanently banned from spending any money at Dave and Busters after I managed to crash my helicopter twice in 20 seconds while playing a game that cost $3. I was feeling a little left out of the conversation. So, in my usual smart ass way I announced "You know, last time I was in Texas, everyone was talking about their guns. Now all you guys want to talk about is playing with your Wiis."

A moment later my brain caught up with my mouth.

Dead silence resumed for the rest of lunch. I haven't been invited out with them since.

Cowards...

Notes from the Front Range - Chicken Confusion Cleared

Again, emailed from Janet Estes:



"Franki, THAT was a Turkey. You know, Thanksgiving and Turkeys go together. And the stuff in the ass of the turkey, that's called dressing. Or Stuffing for people from the south. Potatoes usually come mashed, in a separate container. The chicken pot pie thing - - -that is what Clint and Brian made from grandma's recipe the day before our Thanksgiving meal. It is really Chicken and Dumplins'. But the kids all called it pot pie growing up. I hope this kind of clarifies the food thing. I know, being food challenged, how you could get a 24 lb turkey and a chicken confused.:-)"



She has obviously heard the story about how I couldn't find butter in the grocery store because I didn't realize it had to be refrigerated...

Notes from the Front Range - Antlers!

My guest writer, Janet Estes, sent the following email to me and I wanted to share it. She is the one who introduced me to the concept of an "antler lamp". In fact, I have her entire box of antlers in my garage. In case you are puzzled about the antler lamp, this is also the woman who told me she was making chicken pot pie, but there wasn't any pie. It was just a big chicken with 'taters coming out its ass.

"Oh by the way, I HAVE replaced my towel racks with antlers! Just thought you would like to know. We also put a large number of large antlers on the roof with lights around them. The kids in the neighborhood think that Santa fell through our roof and he is in permanent residence at our place. I suppose that explains the constant flow of letters at our front door asking for appliances and such!:)"

am I shot or not?

So once I had to have emergency surgery because one of my fallopian tubes got all ganked up. This caused the tube to fill with blood, causing me to be in excruciating pain every time I sat down, and then, after a while, to be in pain all the time (the reason for this problem was diagnosed as trauma to my lower abdomen – four years of full contact karate will do that).

So, after about a week, I decided to go see a doctor, and was told I had to have surgery the next day before my fallopian tube burst. They wanted me to go into surgery that night but I decided not to because I’ve had surgery at 1 in the morning and it was pretty scary.

So the next morning, at 530, I walked to University of Maryland Baltimore Hospital. The hospital is about a ½ mile from where I was living. I had arranged for my boyfriend at the time to pick me up after my surgery. I will not name names. I will only say that he is a doctor and that he is world renowned in his field. And he is really hot, and at least at that time drove an Audi TT.

I got out of surgery around 1030 am. The doctor tried to give me a shot of morphine when I got to recovery. I was, at that time, wearing a huge yellow bracelet on both wrists saying I was allergic to morphine. I also had one on my right ankle. There was also a huge purple sticker on my folder that said I was allergic to morphine. I managed to stop him before he injected it but then was told they didn’t have any other pain killers in recovery and that I would have to get something when I got up to my room.

I was taken to my room on a gurney and then left alone for about 30 minutes. I was in excruciating pain (imagine having your appendix out with no pain killer) and wretching from the anesthetic, because I’m allergic (they can give you a drug to make you not sick, but I didn’t know that at the time). A nurse finally came in and I asked for something for the pain. She left. She came back about 15 minutes later with a ginger ale and some Lorna Doone cookies. She said I had to eat something and keep it down before she would bring me pain drugs. All I wanted was Tylenol but I was dealing with Nurse Bitch. I shoved the cookies in my mouth, chugged the ginger ale, and pleaded again for even an aspirin.

As soon as she left I got up and crawled to the bathroom to throw up my cookies and ginger ale. When I came out of the bathroom, my gurney was gone. In place of the gurney was a folding chair.

The nurse came back with some Demerol. I asked where my gurney was. She said she didn’t know and told me to sit in the chair. I refused on the grounds that I was in serious pain as well as sick to my stomach and there was no way I could sit in the chair. She forced me to take the Demerol (which I am also allergic to, I found out) and left looking more than a little pissed off at me.

After vomiting up the Demerol I decided to go to the nurses’ station in the hopes that one of them would find me a place to lay down. I was wearing a hospital gown with nothing underneath (opening to the back). I had on pink surgery socks, and my hair looked like Einstein because it was wet when they put my surgery cap on. My abdomen was bleeding from the surgical incision so the front of my gown had a huge blood stain.

I was on the women’s ward floor, and was one of the few patients there who was not having a baby. So families were hanging around to be with mother and child, and I got more than a few concerned looks as I staggered past them on my way to the nurse station. When I arrived all I could say was “need…gurney”. Nurse Bitch grabbed me by the arm and led me back to the room, pushed me into the chair, and told me to not leave my room again.

Right after she left I noticed that there was an empty gurney parked outside my room! I staggered over to it and climbed on top, lying on my side. I put the sheet that was on the gurney over my legs. A few seconds later a nurse came out of the room across from mine.

“Hey, can you push me into there?” I asked her, pointing at my room.
“Get OFF of that gurney right now!” she screamed at me.
“No.”

She started trying to pull me off the gurney but I was holding onto the bars as tightly as I could. An older guy walked by and gave us a look.

“What happened to you?” he asked.
“Gunshot wound!” I said, clutching my stomach.
“Leave her alone!” he yelled at the nurse.
“She isn’t shot!” the nurse yelled back. “She needs to go into her room and STAY THERE!”

People were starting to stare.

Dr. Boyfriend was supposed to pick me up at 2 PM unless they released me earlier. He was supposed to call to find out when to come pick me up. At this point it was 1130. I thought, I’m going to die of pain before he gets here. I hoped that he would call and they would tell him to come get me.

Eventually some medical staff person brought me a padded chair from the waiting room that reclined a little bit. I lay on my side seething. I tried to locate a phone to call Dr. Boyfriend but they wanted me to pay them $5 to make the call. I hadn’t brought any money with me. I begged them to call Dr. Boyfriend for me on one of their phones but they refused.

I went back to my room and put on my clothes and shoes, determined to walk home. I got to the nurses’ station and was sent back to my room. The second time I managed to get to the elevators by walking right next to a fat nurse wheeling a patient. But she noticed the bloody stain in the middle of my white shirt (bad choice of outfit) and sent me back to my room.

With nothing to do but look at the clock I counted the seconds for Dr. Boyfriend to arrive. He was an hour late (blame it on his South American roots). When he arrived at the nurses’ station all he had to do was give them my first name. They all knew what room number I was in. And he parked really, really far away. In the end, it would have been quicker to walk home.

Around 9 PM that night a nurse called Dr. Boyfriend’s cell phone, which was listed on my record as the “in case of emergency” number. They said they couldn’t find me and that I had been missing for a while. I was still attached to some of their medical monitoring equipment and they wanted it back when or if he was able to find me.

We broke up shortly after this incident…and, for the record, I was charged $8 for two 200mg tablets of Tylenol.

Car Light at Night

Tonight I was walking to get dinner when I happened by a gated apartment complex. I guess I startled the security guy (no one walks in Houston - seriously, at my work they had to send a bus to carry people 5 blocks from one building to another) who responded by shining his big ass mag flashlight right in my face. My eyes are very sensitive to light. I was pissed.

I decided to yell out "It's okay, I'm white!" The guard laughed (luckily, because I don't really want to get my ass whupped with a mag light). The incident reminded me, for some reason, of a game that I invented when I was a kid.

The game was called Car Light at Night. Parents, if you are reading, now is a good time to stop.

We (my brother Bob, my best friend Vic F, and a motley assortment of neighborhood kids whose parents hadn't banned them from playing with me yet) would stand by the side of the road, a somewhat busy two lane highway, called Taylorsville Road. It didn't have much in the way of lighting. If the headlights from a car driving by shone on you, you had to do something crazy. Among other things, we mooned cars, did crazy dances, did cart wheels, shot at the cars with our dart guns, or threw rocks. We were chased by more than one pissed off driver and even caused a few accidents.

The saddest part of this whole story is that Car Light at Night was sequel game for another game I invented called Cross Light. Again, at night, we would stand on either side of this two lane road waiting for a car. When the car came, you had to wait until the last possible second to run across the street. In front of the car. Safety first! The closer the car the better, although you lost props if the car slammed on its brakes.

Cross Light came to an untimely end when a kid in the neighborhood was hit by a car while playing the game. Actually, he was just tagged, and the guy driving the car was drunk, so the situation had the potential for no consequences except that the kid had some kind of weird breakdown and ratted on us. His name was either Joey or Scotty and he lived diagonal to our house. After he was hit by the car his mom kept the blinds permanently closed on their front window and never let Joey (or Scotty) out again to play . Joey (or Scotty) had a military dad who was never home, and the mom was a little tweaked even before I almost killed her only child.

I should also mention I delivered their daily paper so it was a kind of awkward situation. I remember taking the newspaper to her house the day Reagan was shot and all I could here inside was this high pitched wail.

It prepared me well for my adult life...

Invasion of the Towels

Now that I am traveling 100% of the time I am struggling with my desire to save the planet. At my house, for the record, I recycle 90% of my trash. My dad is afraid to throw anything away at my house because I am that serious about recycling.

But now, living in hotels, I am struggling. I carry grocery bags of recyclables all over the city of Houston to get rid of my trash (recycle cans and bottles at my building, recycle papers at the Starbucks down the street, carry plastic bottles to the airport for recycling at the end of my trip, the Super Shuttle guy thinks I'm homeless and crazy). I have even, I am embarrassed to admit, brought my trash home to Denver because I couldn't find a place to recycle it.

Meanwhile the hotels, with their stupid signs "can you sigh backwards" (whatever THAT means) and "we are trying to conserve water - a towel on the rack means I'll reuse" blah blah blah are lying! It's so much bullshit!

For example, I'm staying at a Hilton. I arrived in my room and found 12 towels. Yes people, TWELVE towels. I am ONE person. I am staying for A WEEK. Unless I'm delivering babies, I have NO NEED for TWELVE towels.

The towels are arranged in little milieus, such as "no, I'm not a wash cloth, I'm a beautiful white flower hanging over the toilet". You can't even use these towels for the purpose intended because they are all contorted into these weird bunchy designs. Why can't they just put up an antler lamp and get over the decorating? (ha ha, antler lamp Janet, I know you are reading this)

So when I first started staying at hotels I would have my travel agent call the hotel (she loves me) and request that I only have one hand towel and one bath towel in my room, and that my sheets not be replaced. Do you think these bitches listened to my request? NO! I find myself in the situation of stacking new towels that show up in my room every day. I wish I was joking but right now I have nine bath towels stacked up on my sofa. I don't know how many washclothes are there, but there are ten hand towels. I have left numerous notes for the maid to not bring ANY more towels. Or soaps, bottled waters, or shampoos. But they keep coming. I can feel the earth buckling under my room.

And this room in particular...I requested a non-smoking room that doesn't smell like smoke (it's Texas so you have to be that specific - it's the lone star state, not the smart mind state). They gave me a room that smells like static electricity. My first night here I realized the bath was leaking hot water - enough to half fill the tub in the course of 5 hours (I blocked the tub so I could measure the water loss). I called the front desk and complained. I left a note for the maid. I put a sticky on my door explaining to the plumber what I thought was the problem.

When I got home from work the next evening, expecting over the course of 12 hours they could fix the problem, I found my leak was not fixed. But somehow I gained a flat screen TV. I am still trying to figure out how "tub leak" translated to "need a flatter TV". The world will never stop amazing me....

Staple Face

Today I was walking to work and I saw a girl coming out of the unemployment office. My office happens to be right across from this particular unemployment office due to my office also being within spitting distance of Reliant stadium in Houston, TX (concrete capitol of the world, also home of the world's largest pigeon collection, I wouldn't order the chicken if I was you).



As you may recall, Reliant stadium hosted many people from Hurricane Katrina until Barbara Bush looked around and noticed there were a lot more black people in her hometown and got upset (http://urbanlegends.about.com/b/2005/09/08/barbara-bush-on-hurricane-katrina-refugees.htm - NPR, you heard it first).

In any case, this girl was wearing a shirt that said "I'm too pretty to work". While I applaud the sentiment of the t-shirt, I have to protest that it was inappropriate for the wearer. More truthful would have been something like "I decorated my face with a stapler and now I can't get a job". Whenever I see a kid with so many piercings I can't help but think "you recycled your braces! nice!"

I guess that's why I don't have any friends.

Italian Sausage

So I arrived in London this morning, or last night, depending on how you look at it, and needless to say I was a bit tired. The woman who sat next to me on the plane spent the entire 9 hours trying to get meto accept Jesus as my personal savior after she realized I was getting a kosher dinner (which, BTW, meant I got chocolate mousse for dessert, whereas she got this little biscuit that was broken in three pieces, hardly supporting her argument that my life would be better as a non-kosher meal consuming passenger).

Anyway, to get to London I took the Heathrow Express because the hotel I'm staying in is in Paddington. I got on the train at terminal 4 and mycar was empty. I stowed my luggage and took the one seat facing forward since I get motion sick sitting backward. The train stopped at terminal 1,2,3 and this older (60ish) Italian man got on. I knew he wasItalian not just because he was wearing a blue blazer with brown wool pants that had a huge burgundy pinstripe, but also because he was talking to himself in Italian. He took a seat on a bench diagonal from my seat and he proceeded to stare intently at me. A few more people got on the train but sat away from us. Great, I get to sit with the psycho guy or risk throwing up, I thought to myself.

As we neared London the man got up and started fumbling with his belt. I was ignoring him and looking out the window, so he moved right into my line of sight. And there he was giving me the full monty. I was so tired that I don't thinkmy facial expression changed at all, and it was taxing my brain to try to figure out what was going on. I even thought maybe I had fallen asleep and was dreaming. Then the guy tucked himself back in to his pinstripe pants, sat back down, and continued talking to himself. We rode the rest of the way toPaddington in what I would call an awkward silence. I don't know if that's a common occurrence on the train or not. It seemed a little bizarre to me, even knowing that euros are not as uptight about nudity as Americans. If anyone can think of a good one liner to deal with this situation in the future send it my way...

So, my favorite one liner was from Montes. He said I should have pointed at his Italian sausage and said “Hey, I have one of those!” Another favorite suggestion was “Hey, that looks like a penis, but smaller”. From Ron C:“You need to get out in the sun more”. And from Joshy, a comment about ordering fish and chips, not the full monty (ha ha). I will be ready with my camera next time I brave the Heathrow Express...

turkey day

Turkey day always brings back memories for people, usually of their loved ones and the fun times they’ve had. My most memorable Thanksgiving is the time I tried to cook a turkey.

NOTE: This is only slightly more memorable than the Thanksgiving I spent with Neil Donahue. A bunch of people were supposed to come for dinner but only two showed up, and they left right after dinner. Somehow we ended up with 7 pies. At the end of the evening, and after one or two bottles of wine, Neil proposed we have a pie throwing contest. We went out to my back alley, and both picked up a pie, and I launched my pie as hard as I could down the alley. Then Neil threw his pie at me. There were five more pies. I think it’s only fair to say I won contest since Neil cheated.

So, one evening I was at Eva (aka Evil, aka my younger, prettier, smarter sister) and Dan Bachenheimer’s house, and I proposed that I would cook Thanksgiving dinner. Again, there was a bottle of wine involved. Anyone who has been around me for any length of time knows I can’t cook, even when I’m really trying. Eva and Dan agreed to let me cook the dinner. I had three weeks until Thanksgiving.

It didn’t occur to me until I was reading an article on NPR two days before Thanksgiving that I had to “prepare” for the dinner. I had planned to go to the grocery Thanksgiving morning, cook up the turkey and whatever else, and then be well on my way to a glass of port by 5 PM (Dan has great taste in port).

But the article on NPR said that people were already cooking! And stores were selling out of turkeys! In a panic I went to the grocery after I got off work and waited in the longest line ever. I got one of the last turkeys and, deciding that the grocery was too crazy, decided I would buy the rest of the stuff I would need later, especially since I hadn’t gotten around to even figuring out what that other “stuff” was. As I waited in line I started eliminating things from our dinner. No one really likes pie I decided, especially since they are so hard to carry around a grocery store. I could get mashed potatoes from my favorite bar in Old Town Alexandria, where the bartender Billy made Eva hot fudge sundaes with tons of whip cream. And instead of cranberry sauce we could just drink some cranberry juice. Sweet potatoes were not a favorite of mine so they didn’t make the cut. Green beans we could do, and I figured I could get a woman that I worked with who liked to cook to make those for me.

With the dinner menu settled I checked out with my turkey and got it home. It was trussed up in the back like some kind of kidnap victim, so I decided to cut the thread thing that was holding the poor turkey’s legs together. As the legs oozed apart I noticed something sticking out of the turkey’s ass. While I don’t make a habit of looking at turkey asses, this was a pretty large, cavernous ass. It was definitely the dream for a German pornographer who would be interested for some nefarious reasons not worth mentioning here. Anyway, the thing sticking out was shiny, perhaps metal.

Visions of apples with razor blades suddenly filled my mind. Maybe some psycho maniac had decided to try to kill people by filling their Thanksgiving feasts with deadly metal. Congratulating myself on my skills of observation, I put on a pair of work gloves, strapped on my head lamp, got a pair of pliers, and began trying to extract the implement before someone was maimed.

The object in question turned out to be a temperature gauge of sorts. Having once had a bad experience with spaghetti sauce where the masher of the sauce had broken off and ended up in my jar, causing the sauce to be full of metal shavings (I ate it anyway), I realized some turkey factory worker must have been asleep on the job and allowed this tool to remain in situ through the packaging process. But then I realized removing the temperature gauge had also dislodged a net bag, much like the bags they put lemons in. Wondering if perhaps my turkey had been mistaken for a chicken, and if this was perhaps the way they made lemon chicken, I yanked on the top of the mesh and pulled the bag out. Inside, to my horror, was, instead of lemons, what appeared to be maybe a heart, some dark brown gelatinous substance that could have been a liver, and, I wish I was making this up, a neck. Some sicko had cut off my turkey’s head, and shoved it up my turkey’s ass.

I carefully packed all the bits up and returned the turkey to the store from which I purchased it. The customer service rep sent me back to the meat counter. She was barely containing her laughter. Suspecting that I had become the butt of some sadistic grocery store joke, I marched up to the meat counter, plopped the now quite warm and therefore pliable turkey on the counter, where it began to settle like a melting cheese ball.

I explained to the guy that I had found some stuff in my turkey, shoved into the nether region as if the turkey’s ass were some kind of pocket, that the store was lucky I found these parts before I cooked the turkey, that I didn’t expect my turkey to be like some kind of cracker jack box but with BAD surprises inside, and that I wanted a new turkey. The guy looked at me for an uncomfortable amount of time, and finally said the only turkeys they had were the ones that had stuff in them and that people liked having the stuff, and I therefore could not have a turkey without stuff in it, so I could either eat the turkey I had or maybe become a vegetarian. This is a polite summary of what he said. I left the turkey on the counter, did not have my money returned, and never shopped at that store again.

Luckily Dan had the foresight to order Thanksgiving dinner a week before my rather disappointing foray into holiday cooking, so we did end up having a nice meal after all. I even helped prepare dinner by cleaning the gutters on their house and opening alcoholic beverages for people. I also found out from Dan that they really do put stuff inside the turkey and that people use this stuff for cooking. Whenever people tell me how barbaric other countries that I have visited are, I think of that turkey neck and smile to myself. If only they knew what the US is capable of.

the great gray reef shark swim

WARNING: the following narrative contains some material that may be deemed offensive to certain individuals, specifically rednecks. In fact, if you are a redneck you might want to stop reading right here. Don't feel bad. I used a lot of big words so you wouldn't have understood the story anyway.


Although I hear it's possible to go to the Bahamas and not do a shark dive, I find it improbable that anyone would turn down the opportunity. That is how Grant and I ended up doing a dive with approximately 20 gray reef sharks. We went with a great dive shop, Xanadu Underwater Adventures, http://www.xanadudive.com/, which I highly recommend.

It was our second dive of the afternoon. As we pulled up to the dive site, apparently a fin cut the surface of the water. I can't say this for sure because I couldn't see around or over the approximately 17 redneck divers who were on the boat with Grant and I. While most men would have chivalrously stepped aside for me so I could see, these guys instead crowded every square inch of the boat side and started throwing sandwiches into the water (the price for the dive trip included a boxed lunch for every diver). This incident highlighted their first mistaken belief about sharks - sharks, in fact, don't like peanut butter and wonder bread has never been discovered in a shark stomach.

Under normal circumstances I would have shoved my way to the front of the redneck mass to see the shark. As I am still recuperating from my knee surgery this was not an option. The dive master overheard me whining to Grant that the only way I was going to see a shark was to jump in and said that I could get into the water if I wanted. So I grabbed my snorkeling gear and carefully slid off the side of the boat into the water. As I got in I saw one dark shark shadow swimming beneath me. Suddenly there were five, and then about fifteen of them swimming below me. A few swam up towards my feet, sniffed them and then swam away (note to self - add odor eaters to dive booties).

As I was adjusting my mask I looked back towards the boat. Seventeen redneck faces were looking at me with disbelief. In a show of male pride at being out done by a sissy girl they immediately began putting on their snorkeling gear. It was amazing how many equipment "complications" started occurring on the boat. One guy suddenly couldn't find his snorkel. Another "accidentally" broke the strap off his mask. I heard one guy stating that he wouldn't get in the water because I was wearing a gold necklace and sharks are attracted to shiny objects. In fact, it's barracudas that are attracted to shiny objects, not sharks. I remember once having a severe concussion from getting kicked in the head, and I will admit at that time I could have confused a barracuda with a shark. However, that was only temporary retardation. This poor individual had no noticeable head trauma and yet was unable to distinguish between a foot long skinny silver fish that swims around with an expression that screams gee I'd like to bite you in the ass when you aren't looking with a fish that only weighs about 1000 pounds more and that's only 5 - 7 feet longer than an average barracuda. Duh!

After a few minutes, when they realized I hadn't been eaten or attacked, they decided it was safe and almost everyone on the boat got in the water.

One idiot did a cannonball, momentarily scaring the sharks off. Another attempted to (I'm not making this up) swim down and grab a shark by the tail. Gray reef sharks are between 6 to 8 feet long, so they aren't "small". In addition, last year, gray reef sharks had the highest attack rate on humans of any shark, including great whites and tiger sharks. I believe this individual was momentarily overcome with shock at the number of teeth in the shark's mouth. Judging from his origins (north Florida) I imagine one gray reef has more teeth (360 of them) than the entire human population of his town.

It should also be noted here that sharks have a soft palate. This means they can sense the fat content of an object. It is also believed they can get a sense of an object's fat content by smell. So while I, composed of lean muscle, would not be a particularly tasty treat and would be safe, some of the other people on the boat, specifically one guy whose beer gut could have been mistaken for one of the smaller Bahamian Islands, should not have felt so at ease. In addition, sharks can sense fear in the same way a dog can. I was not afraid because I have read a lot on sharks and shark behavior; some of the other guys on the boat, whose main education into shark behavior stemmed from such shows as Fox's "When Animals Attack", were probably secretly shitting bricks.

After a few minutes of snorkeling we got our dive gear on and dropped to the ocean floor. We were at approximately 55 feet. The sharks were swimming around us in a curious, but non-threatening, manner. They reminded me of cats, in both behavior and physical appearance. The gray reef is a very graceful swimmer. The eyes have a slit black pupil, similar to a cat's eye. The sharks would usually swim pretty close to the divers, veering off at the last second. Air bubbles usually frighten sharks so a shark would usually swim within a foot or so of my face and then when I exhaled turn away (note to self: bring tic tacs on next shark dive).

We swam around with the sharks for a while and then went off to look at a wreck. The sharks followed us over to the wreck and swam along the periphery of the group while we explored a sunken fishing boat. During our safety stop I also saw a brown shark, approximately 8 feet long.
I think that if most people did a shark dive or a shark snorkel trip, they would realize that most of their shark fears are unfounded. Also, this type of dive is much better than a "shark rodeo", where sharks are fed from a barrel shaped mass of dead fish while divers stay 20 or so feet away. In fact, shark rodeos are changing shark behavior, making them more likely to approach divers which, for obvious reasons, is not a good thing. Seeing sharks in their normal habitat goes a long way in erasing negative images like that of great whites ripping a seal carcass to shreds. Not to say sharks are not dangerous, but respect, not fear, should be the rule.

the worst sushi experience

My sushi experience with my boss, Barry Lewis...we have a little sushi club that goes out every Tuesday for sushi.

You might ask yourself the following question: why would a person with at least an average IQ eat a raw egg? That is the same question I found myself asking when the sushi roll with a raw quail egg showed up on the tray last night.

"Try it," said Barry, "It's a delicacy." (I should know not to trust his judgment after he also encouraged me to go to a very boring 6 hour meeting because I would "learn something").
I didn't really want to eat the raw egg, but I had promised Barry I would try it. Plus, it costs an extra $.50 to get a raw egg on a sushi roll. But somehow the IDEA of a raw egg is less unpleasant than the ACTUAL raw egg, sitting like a slimy eyeball on an otherwise palatable roll. I studied the gelatinous goo of a yolk, which also gave off a funky odor similar to some of the more easily identifiable foot fungi, and wondered why I hadn't studied sleight of hand tricks more rigorously when I was a child.

"Stop looking at it and put it in your mouth!" Barry commanded.

I picked up the sushi roll and the egg quivered. I contemplated an accidental drop on the floor, but since there was no room to scoot my chair out away from the table it would have been hard to pull off. Well, I told myself, you can't DIE from eating a raw egg. I pictured the raw egg gone but couldn't quite visualize the disposal.

I finally did work up enough nerve to eat the egg. It slithered into my mouth much like the blob overtaking a small country, coating everything in an unspeakable slime. Death would surely follow. I fought back a choke and vowed not to throw up although Barry was such a close and convenient target.

I managed to swallow the stupid thing by drinking massive amounts of Sapporo while chewing and repeating the mantra: "This isn't really happening. You didn't really just eat a raw egg. It's just a really bad nightmare about sushi."

The egg eventually glided down my throat and into my stomach, where a short discussion ensued with my brain over whether or not the egg was going to get to stay. Due to cultural pressure the egg remained, but I have to say that I personally will never be the same.

Diving with a SEAL

NOTE: The following is not an exaggeration and REALLY did happen exactly as depicted in the story. You can ask Bach if you don’t believe me.

My friend and forensic consultant Dr. Bachrach called me up this past Tuesday and inquired if I would be interested in jumping out of a plane on Saturday (October 9). Surprisingly enough, I get calls like this a lot. Of course I said yes, since it’s very rare that I get to have an adventure that I don’t have to plan, and it’s something I’ve wanted to try.

So Saturday morning I got up at the ungodly hour of 5 am, after only a couple hours of sleep. I’d been working on my midterms Friday night and then watched Key Largo, which wasn’t over until 3 am. I ended up watching the whole movie solely because I was hoping at some point Lauren Bacall would change out of those horrible espadrilles and put on a normal looking pair of shoes. It’s hard to explain the pain I suffered every time they showed her feet. But I digress.
The company we jumped with is called Sky Dive Orange[1], near Culpepper, VA. We were told to arrive at 9 am to undergo training before our jump, scheduled for 10 am. We arrived at the hangar at 830 am[2] and tried to check in for our jump. The woman working behind the counter told us (this is a direct quote, please note that capitalized words were screamed): “You guys need to HANG TIGHT for a couple of minutes and COME BACK LATER when I get done with these guys because it’s REALLY BUSY[3] and they need to get on a PLANE NOW and I’m TIRED because all my skydiving friends are asleep on the floor of my 600 SQUARE FOOT EFFIENCY and I HAVE A SINUS INFECTION but I HAVE TO BE AT WORK while THEY get to SLEEP ON MY FLOOR. I LOVE SKYDIVING!!!!!!!”

To which we responded, “Okay, we’ll be back.” We wandered around the inside of the hangar checking out all the bizarre people. One girl had the dirtiest feet I’ve ever seen and she was running around the hangar singing Elvis songs, complete with renditions of Elvis dances. She also rolled on the floor like a dog. Another guy seemed to have some version of Turret’s Syndrome, and on top of that another problem of itchy balls. Bach felt the need to inform me every time the guy was scratching himself, which was often and in between outbursts of swear words and Nirvana lyrics[4]. I kept looking at the clock wondering when we could get on the plane.

Finally, at 9:45, sinus infection girl came up to us and screamed “I’VE BEEN LOOKING ALL OVER FOR YOU!!!” Note that the hangar is an open room approximately 30 feet by 30 feet filled with a bunch of hippy looking freaks. Bach and I stood out pretty easily in our clean clothes and normal haircuts. She dragged us to a room and handed us 20 pages of waivers to sign. We did this while we watched a 15 minute “training” movie. Example dialogue, delivered by a guy who looked like a cross between the guitar player for ZZ Top and an elf, included such gems as: “You are attempting a dangerous activity”, “No parachute can ever be made 100% safe”, “There is no guarantee you won’t die during the course of a jump”, “Your jump instructor is not a lawyer and can not give you legal advice. If you are wondering if skydiving is right for you we suggest you go see a lawyer”. At the very end they did show someone jumping out of a plane. I didn’t feel particularly enlightened as to what our experience was going to be.

We had signed up for a tandem jump. That means you jump with an instructor to whom you are tethered. I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of having some strange man strapped up against my ass, especially after seeing the riff raff in the hangar. But I figured if Bach could do it, I could too. And the only other option for a beginner jump was a static line jump, which would have meant no free fall, which is what we really wanted to experience.

Our jump time of 10 am came and went, as did 11 am. Finally at noon, sinus girl screamed into the microphone “Frank Schullaferkekerterk, please meet your jump instructor in the front of the hangar”. I assumed she meant me and went to the front of the hangar where a couch that even the Salvation Army wouldn’t touch sat next to a foosball table. My instructor was named Paul, as he reported to me from his seat on the sofa. For our entire relationship (all 20 minutes of it) he never once removed his wrap around shades. He told me he was a retired Navy SEAL, which surprised me since he was only a little taller than me and probably weighed only 30 pounds more. He had been jumping with Sky Dive Orange for 5 years, and had over 2,000 jumps. Just to bust his balls a little, I said “Oh is that a lot?” Paul’s mouth formed a thin red line. Without acknowledging my comment he grabbed me suddenly by the shoulder and said in a rather sinister voice “Now you’re going to stand there and I’m going to put your jump suit on.” I asked if he dressed all his clients or just the blonds. He muttered something under his breath that I’m glad I didn’t hear.

The jump suit was a rather depressing black thing with more zips on it than a John Galliano dress (pre-Dior era). Trying to loosen Paul up a bit as he zipped me into to this funereal one piece, I said “I was thinking more along the lines of a light blue ensemble with maybe a dark blue parachute, more red blue than navy blue, and perhaps some yellow highlights, that makes the statement “Hey, look at me”, while at the same time saying “I’m part of the sky”. What color choices in canopies do we have?” Had I been a man, he probably would have punched me, but instead he said, “My chute is black and purple. You don’t get a choice in color. That’s my jump suit.” I realized that the lilac and black atrocity lying on the floor next to me, that I had been making fun of moments earlier, was his suit. Oops. He strapped me into a black harness.
After spending what seemed like hours buckling and unbuckling me into things (helmet, ugly glasses, harness, clothing, gloves, altimeter) I was finally fully loaded in all my horrible rental gear. Luckily I have a small head, and got to wear a kid’s helmet. Bach got stuck in a helmet that looked like a cross between something from World War II and a phallus. But his jump suit had little wings on it and mine didn’t. Bach was rather selfish about his winged jump suit and wouldn’t even let me touch it. He stood with his instructor, a guy named Sean, joking and laughing and learning how to pull the rip cord and steer. My instructor had taken off to somewhere in the dark recesses behind the hangar. Before he left, he had growled at me “You stand RIGHT HERE and DON’T MOVE until I come back. You WILL NOT walk past THIS LINE without me[5].”

When they announced that our jump group, Otter 6, had 5 minutes until take off Paul reappeared and grabbed me by the leg harness. “Come on!” he said, dragging me along like a dog by the choke collar. Bach’s instructor Sean was dancing around like a five year old at a birthday party, punching him in the arm and saying “Dude! Are you ready to JUMP??? Are you PSYCHED????” Bach kept turning around to look at me and grin as I was hauled across the runway by my leg straps. Fuck you, I thought to myself.

The plane was a small twin engine thing with a door at the back through which we were supposed to board. There was a set of five metal steps leading up to the plane floor. I got to get in first because I was the only female. Before I headed up the stairs, Paul grabbed my shoulders and put his face right next to mine. “Don’t! Walk! Into! The! Propellers!” he shouted, enunciating every word as if speaking to a moron. Since we were at the back of the plane and no where near the propellers I said “NO PROBLEM!” Then he said, “When you go! Up the stairs[6]! Duck your head!” He patted his head for extra emphasis, maybe worried I wouldn’t understand the word. Then he yelled “Because the ceiling! IS VERY! Low!” He made a chopping motion with his hand towards my head to simulate walking into the door frame or perhaps to gauge where he would sever my skull if given the chance.

I started up the stairs, and, just to be a smart ass, leaned WAY over to show Paul I was ducking under the door. He unceremoniously shoved me in the ass, sending me tumbling into a wooden bench. I started to sit down but he screamed “WAIT A MINUTE! YOU DON’T SIT DOWN UNTIL I DO!” Then he sat behind me and yanked me backwards between his legs[7].
Bach and Sean boarded next, in a much more convivial fashion. They sat on a bench across from us. Then three other jumpers got on. One, it turns out, is a weapons inspector and had been on C-SPAN the previous day talking about Iraq. We joked around about weapons of mass destruction, waiting for the pilot to complete his takeoff checks. When I leaned forward to get the C-SPAN guy’s name Paul yanked me back into his lap by my shoulder harness strap. I sighed, leaned against him, and looked over at Bach and Sean. Sean had clipped Bach’s harness into a series of hooks hanging off the plane’s walls. It was their version of a seat belt I guessed. I wondered why Paul, safety man, hadn’t seat belted me in yet. So I grabbed a hook and turned around to Paul and said “Should I hook my harness into this?” He exploded. “DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING!!!!” He grabbed my head and turned it so I was facing forward again and then put his arms around me so I couldn’t move at all.

Having nothing better to do, since I was more or less immobilized, I started playing with my altimeter. Sean was talking to Bach about the jump as Paul stared sullenly out the window. I decided to try to initiate conversation with him again.

“Hey Paul? I did want to mention one thing about the landing. I have this knee problem…”
“We will discuss the landing 5 minutes before the landing occurs.”

“Okay, but I just wanted to point out that…”

“We will not discuss the landing now. We will discuss it five minutes before it occurs.”

The jump was starting to remind me more and more of one of my really bad dates, except that I wasn’t on a date with Paul, I was just in the process of getting strapped so closely to him I could feel his appendectomy scar. As the plane took off and began ascending I looked around to take my mind off the strapping activities. I noticed one of the jumpers didn’t have any shoes[8] on.
“Where are your shoes?”

“I never jump with shoes.”

I looked at his pasty fat feet, assessing their down-pillow like qualities.

“You’re going to jump and land on those soft little things?”

He started railing about the fact that he has never jumped with shoes and has even landed on lava rocks while jumping in Hawaii in bare feet. Obviously this guy had the toughest feet north and south of the Mason Dixon. I was sorry I had asked.

When we reached 14,000 feet Mr. No Shoes opened the door and everyone got ready to jump. Paul and I went last, the best position because you get to see everyone else fall. He double checked my harness again, cinching the strap across my chest so tight I was sure my breasts would explode upon impact with the ground.

One by one people tumbled out of the plane. Then we were up. I tried to walk as elegantly as possible, which was not that elegant considering I couldn’t stand up straight in the plane and I had a Navy SEAL strapped to my ass. When we got to the door I felt the first rush of the wind, which was cold. Above the door was a metal bar that looked like the handicap bars you see in bathtubs. Paul hung onto the bar as we stood in the door.

According to the video we had seen, and a short instruction session given by Sean, I was supposed to line my feet up with the plane floor so my toes dangled out into the wind, locking my hands around the shoulder straps running down my chest. Then I was supposed to arch my back and neck as far back as possible. Once we were airborne I would put my legs up so my knees were at a 90 degree angle, and release my hands from the harness. My hands would then go to the sides of my body to help stabilize us as we tumbled 8,000 feet, which would take approximately one minute. Paul would open the chute between 6,000 and 5,000 feet and it would take another 4 to 5 minutes to hit the ground.

But as I began lining my feet up with the floor I felt Paul’s pelvis banging into me like Buick with bad brakes. The next thing I knew I was on my back staring up at the sky. I couldn’t breathe. We rotated around and suddenly I was facing the ground, still unable to take a breath. It felt like someone had turned on a fire hose and aimed it up into my sinuses[9].

Free fall doesn’t feel the way I expected. The air is cold and so dense it’s almost impossible to breathe, but the force of the wind is nowhere near the force of gravity. Stabilizing my body was not a problem, and my limbs didn’t feel like they were being blown around too much, but the feeling of dropping with a tremendous amount of speed was somewhat disconcerting. Air doesn’t feel like air, it feels like water. The sensation felt like someone had just tied a two ton anchor around my hips and then thrown me into an ocean crevasse off the coast of Monterey.

Paul turned us a few more times. Bach and Sean were way below us. They weighed more than Paul and I so they fell faster, and Bach had been allowed to pull his ripcord, which he had trouble locating, so their chute opened later than ours[10]. Paul pulled the canopy at about 6,000 feet without warning me first. One second we were spiraling around and down and the next second I heard a tremendous ripping noise. Before I had time to get nervous my harness jarred against my torso and I felt myself flying upward like a spring. The chute made a cracking noise as Paul luffed it, and then we came down hard again. I felt like a bug that had just been stepped on, wedged on the bottom of someone’s shoe, and stepped on again.

The tearing wind sound was gone and things were suddenly quiet. Too quiet, apparently, for Paul. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Yes.” I responded, glad that I could breathe again. I was surprised that we could speak in normal tones and hear each other. It was quieter than the hangar.

“How’s your stomach?”
“Fine.”
“Good. Now we’re going to do some tricks. Look, there’s the airport!”

I looked down. The airport landing strips were an obvious landmark, especially since they are in the middle of a huge field with nothing around it. The roof of Sky Dive Orange’s hangar was painted a bright orange, so that was obvious too. I could see Bach and Sean far below us. The altimeter said 5,000 feet.

“Now I’m going to loosen your buckles. You’re still strapped in so DON’T FREAK OUT!” He loosened the strap going over my chest and suddenly breathing became easier.

“Now I’m going to take off your helmet. You will remove your glasses and slide them around your neck. YOU WILL NOT DROP YOUR GLASSES. Then I will put your helmet back on and YOU WILL BUCKLE IT IMMEDIATELY. You will NOT FREAK OUT.” Without the glasses my eyes started tearing in the wind but it was better than having them pressing against my face. Everything seemed tremendously pressurized. The force of the fall was also pushing me into Paul.

Paul began to turn us in tight spirals. “WHEEEEE! Isn’t this fun!” he said. Fun like being shackled to Barney the Purple Dinosaur I thought. “Look at the chute!” he exclaimed. I looked at the canopy, not particularly enthralled. My curiosities about skydiving lay elsewhere. For example, I wanted to know if Paul had ever had his canopy attacked by a flock of birds with West Nile virus, but decided not to ask.

Paul said “WHEEE!” a couple more times as we executed turns. With each go around we turned on our sides and I would feel the pressure of gravity increase, pulling me down with a strange flattening sensation. He luffed the canopy a couple of times, stopping us in midair for a moment; we would start to plummet down until the canopy caught air. This caused my stomach to feel like it was being rocketed from the basement to the fifth floor of my body at light speed. It was kind of fun in the way I imagine doing crack cocaine is fun.

“Look, there’s the airport!” he said again. So I decided to spend the rest of our ride down constantly asking where the airport was, because I knew Paul would love that. After six or seven queries from me about the airport’s location Paul caught on and we both decided it was best to drift along in silence for a while. The feeling was not weightless and smooth the way I imagined it would be. It felt more like being a puppet attached to strings, dragged along by an uncoordinated child running down a flight of stairs with no thought for the safety of the poor puppet. As we got closer to the ground Paul wanted to know every five seconds how my stomach was doing. I promised him that if I was going to throw up I would let him know.
The last couple thousand feet he said I seemed to be a natural in the air because I was so comfortable, but I don’t imagine he gets many clients who spend a lot of time at heights. Most of the people in the hangar appeared to be having their one adventure of a lifetime. Some of the clients screamed from the moment they left the plane until they landed on the ground. I knew from the moment the free fall stopped that I would not be sharing their sense of exhilaration from the jump. I had hoped to get to steer or do something but Paul was afraid to let me touch anything. He told me that he’d had a number of clients freak out without warning. The two worst ones were Marine Corps officers, both of whom tried to kill Paul during the free fall.
Finally we approached the drop zone, swinging in tighter and tighter circles until we coasted softly onto the grass. My final request, which was to land on an ugly old blue school bus that I’d had my eye on for some time, was ignored. It was a beautiful and gentle landing. As we came in I leaned back as far as possible, riding Paul like a human toboggan through the grass and dirt. We came to a stop near Bach and Sean who were already canopy-less and standing. I decided to continue to lie on top of Paul for a moment, smiling because my elbow was digging into his abdomen.

“Oof. Come on. You need to get up.” With a shove I was sitting upright and he unbuckled me with light speed so he could more easily throw me out of his lap. I waited until he had gathered his chute and then we walked inside. As I piled up my jump suit, glasses, helmet, altimeter, and harness, Paul quickly shoved some tchotchkies into a manila envelope and then signed a tacky looking certificate for me that said I had performed a skydive in accordance with the Basic Safety Requirements of the United States Parachute Association at Sky Dive Orange.
“Here you go. You have to fill in the name. I can’t remember your name. I have a lot of clients. Good luck to you.” He shook my hand abruptly and left. We waited for Bach’s instructor so he could get his certificate but the guy was off doing who knows what. After about 5 minutes Paul came back.

“Are you STILL HERE?”
Bach explained. “Yes, we were waiting for my instructor. Can you go find him?” Bach’s request went unheeded; no one bossed Paul around. He grabbed the same stuff he had given to me for Bach and handed it to him. “Okay, that should be everything. Goodbye.”

We both managed to get out of the hangar before we cracked up laughing. On the drive home with both decided that the jump had been fun, but not the kind of fun either of us wanted to repeat. The best part had been the free fall. Maybe the jump would have been more fun without an instructor, because, as the saying goes, no skill no thrill, but it takes a couple of jumps to go instructorless. And unfortunately, the next step in skydiving after a tandem jump is a static line jump, which doesn’t involve any free fall at all. So I’m afraid our skydiving days have come to an end.

Anyway, what’s the point of diving with SEALS if there are no sharks involved?

[1] www.skydiveorange.com
[2] Since Bach is perpetually late for everything I allow extra time in the schedule to make sure he is on time. I blame his South American roots and his electrical engineering degree. Electrical engineers can explain everything to you, but don’t understand practical application of anything, to include “time”.
[3] There were two people standing at the counter, and they were still half asleep
[4] Nirvana is a poser band. Case in point.
[5] “this line” being the exit of the hangar
[6] to get onto the plane
[7] “He didn’t even bother to buy you a drink first,” Bach snickered later. And that’s the real reason why I drove his sports car all the way home without taking it out of fourth gear.
[8] The fact that I notice people aren’t wearing shoes IN NO WAY implies I have an obsession with shoes. Anyway, who wouldn’t be curious about what footwear was available for a skydiving inclined girl who could always use another pair of “sports related” shoes. Sports related shoes can’t be counted when assessing the total number of shoes a person owns, in case someone wants to make an issue of the fact that some people own over 300 pairs of shoes, which isn’t a lot really, but in fact just SOUNDS like a lot. Anyway, don’t you think YOUR obsession with my shoes is kind of strange?
[9] Sean told me on the ground afterwards that he tells his clients to take a breath before jumping out of the plane because this is normal during the free fall. Sean told me a lot of other things after the fact that would have been nice to know before the jump actually. But he was too busy strapping himself to Bach to help me out I guess.
[10] I found it unfair that Bach was seen as being more capable and coordinated than I. After all, have I ever gotten drunk and walked through a screen door at someone’s party? Have I ever gotten run over by my girlfriend when trying to take pictures of her sand boarding down a hill, thus crushing my hopes of competing in the NYC marathon this year? Have I ever dropped a 16 ounce glass full of beer on my date’s new shoes?

things to do in Denver when you're dead

This is an absolutely true story. I have delayed writing about it for a week because I was so freaked out by the whole thing. Everything else in this blog is going to be about a dead body and I don't want to get the usual "you ruined my lunch" emails. If dead bodies freak you out, stopreading here. I'm serious.

Still reading? Okay then.

Last Tuesday I was heading to work, as usual, rolling out of my alley around 830 am to avoid traffic on I-25. I will pause here to mention this is your final warning. I pulled to the end of my alley, which backs up to a tall wooden fence that runs along the alley and turns perpendicularly down 28th street, which is the street where the alley empties. As I pulled up to 28th street, right past where the fence turns at a 90 degree angle, I looked both left and right as I always do before I pull out onto the street. Then I looked left again because there was a man laying propped up against a shopping cart that was full of one large black grocery bag, two smaller silver bags, some Target shopping bags,and a jacket. The shopping cart was blue and was from the local Safeway.His head was at a weird angle against the fence, with his back propped up against the bottom metal part of the cart, and at first I thought he was staring at me. Then I realized he was dead. As I was processing that two people walked by this guy and didn't even notice him.

I backed my car up, pulled into my garage, and tried to think of what to do. I decided to walk to the end of the alley and look at him a little closer. After looking at him from about 10 feet away it was pretty easy to confirm that he was dead. I went into my garage and called 911. I was told to call a number for the local cop shop (apparently in Denver dead bodies don't rate as an emergency worthy of the 911 operator). I called the cop shop (located, I would like to point out, about 8 blocks from my house). The woman who answered the phone didn't even take a report at first, and then she kept asking me if I was sure he was dead, as if a very sick or passed out guy on the sidewalk was okay. When I started pushing back that it was (at this point) 9 in the morning and there was a dead body laying on the sidewalk 3 blocks from an elementary school the woman I talked to agreed to dispatch a cop.

The strange thing about dead bodies is that you can't help but look at them. I sat in my house for 10 minutes waiting for a cop. Then I started worrying he might be at the body so I went out to the fence again. The guy was covered in vomit (later I was told he probably died of a drug overdose). He was a Hispanic guy, obviously homeless (thus the shopping cart), but I couldn't figure out why he died where he did. There are so many other good areas of the city to pass into oblivion, or where ever you think your religious choice is going to direct you. And it kind of freaked me out that his eyes were open, as well as his mouth, and he looked like he was about to say something stupid, like "nice ass senorita".

For 45 minutes I did a circuit between the body and my living room because I had a compulsive need to keep looking at the guy, I guess the same way people look at dead animals on the side of the road. Finally my doorbell rang, and I opened the door to find a cop. On a bicycle. As I was processing his poor choice of vehicles he said "Okay, so where's the body?" I thought it was quite obvious where the body was, and further had told the dispatcher where it was. But I walked the cop over to the guy, listening to the annoying clicking of his gears.

The cop stood there looking at the body for what seemed like five minutes. "So" I asked the cop, hoping to nudge him into activity. "Are you going to dispatch an ambulance or something?" I figured he would not be able to prop the guy up on his bike rack in order to get him to a morgue but for some reason the image of the cop riding around on his bike with the body seemed very funny. I looked down at the sidewalk and tried not to giggle or do anything that would make me seem crazy.
"Wellllll, we're REALLY busy right now." The cop looked bored. It was a bit hard to believe that on a beautiful Tuesday morning (at this point almost 930) Denver's finest had so many things going on that they couldn't cruise by and pick up this poor dead person.

"So how long is he going to, um, stay here?" I asked, as if he had a hotel reservation that had been over extended. The cop turned his back to me and started talking into this little radio thing he had on his shoulder. He walked down the sidewalk away from us, as if worried we might overhear something important, even though one of us was dead and wouldn't be hearing anything, at least in the traditional sense, ever again. It was dawning on me that there might be a reason why no one else had called the cops.

In the end I went to work, Mr. Law Enforcement gone, the body still laying against the fence. The cop hadn't even covered him up with anything. When I got home that afternoon, the body was gone but the cart and bags were still there against the fence. I called the police back again and asked them to come get the guy's things. Then I went climbing and by the time I got home from that the bags were gone but the cart was still there. The cart was finally gone by the next morning. It's possible the guy's things were removed by some other homeless person, I don't know. It seems strange that they would take the guy's body but leave potential evidence as to why he died laying around the neighborhood, but this is also the same police force that almost shot me one night when I was walking down my street.

This morning, almost a week later, I got a call from a cop asking if I had anything more to add about the dead guy. I said I didn't and asked if he had anything to add. He told me he couldn't discuss the case, as if it were the Jon Benet murder case or something. Frankly, I'm shocked I got a call at all.

In any case, the lesson learned is don't die in the city...

shoe calculations, or why broccoli sucks

So there I was getting ready to go to the grocery and buy broccoli yet again. I'm trying to eat more broccoli because of its anti-oxidant properties, although it's hard to imagine that anything that smells like farts when you cook it could be good for you.

As I walked out my door I was suddenly propelled over to my car by a little voice that said Why don’t you go buy some shoes instead because shoes are good for you. But I’ve stopped buying shoes I told myself sternly. Then I tried to remember how many pairs I had left, since I cleaned out even more shoes this past week. Was I down to 100? Er, 150? Okay, I was under 200, right? And I hadn’t bought any shoes since August. Except for some shoes I had to buy at the end of August for climbing. And my thanksgiving Nikes which I needed for the drive to my parents’ house because my other shoes weren’t the right color and caused me to push the gas pedal too hard resulting in a speeding ticket, my first ever. And there were the shoes I had to buy in December to keep my mom company because she was buying shoes for Christmas, but sympathy shoes don’t count. And then there was that one tiny little pair I bought in January, which really don’t count because I promised myself I would return them except that I accidentally wore them instead.

While my mind struggled to work complex equations to calculate my total shoe value (really, it's more complicated than taxes – I’ve included a form at the end of this story for your edification) I suddenly found myself at shoe nirvana – Nordstrom (5,000 pairs on line – www.nordstromshoes.com – go ahead and look, I’ll wait). I’m just going to browse for a few minutes because the produce guy probably hasn’t shown up with the latest shipment of broccoli anyway, I told myself. The next thing I new, a pair of Charles Jourdan stilettos jumped out and impaled themselves on my arm. Gosh, I better carry these around with me so they don’t hurt anyone else, I thought. Then I realized they were available in 2 other colors so I grabbed those too. After all, there were children in strollers lingering in the shoe department and I didn’t want anyone to be injured or to perhaps lose an eye. And I had recently read an article that pointy toed shoes, while stylish, are bad for the feet. I’m sure I saved three women undue pain and agony. So it seemed like it was time for a little reward for myself.

Then a pair of Merrells popped into view and the little voice said those are going to be necessary if you are really going to move to Colorado and they would make a perfect reward. This is very true I thought to myself. The Merrells came in two colors, so I bought both for luck. Then there were the orange trail running shoes. Orange is the color of the third chakra, the core muscles, and I had been having problems with that chakra lately. But once I picked up the shoes I felt the problem dissipate and I could sense that I was a step closer to inner peace.

The rest of the hour is unaccounted for. When I came to, a guy was carrying bags behind me and we were at my car. I’m not sure how I got there. He said “Are you sure you’re okay to drive?” as he loaded the bags in my car. I mumbled a reply and fumbled my car keys. Quick, drive away before someone sees you! the little voice commanded.

I got home and folded all my shoe boxes into tiny little squares because I prefer the compact look. I plan on putting them in the dumpster after dark, when the prying eyes of the neighbors will be busy watching TV or cooking dinner (I really hate having to lie, like when I was walking up to my apartment with a couple of the bags of shoes and one of my neighbors saw me and said “Oh my!” forcing me to respond in a somewhat untruthful manner “These aren’t for me. I bought them for the sniper I’m sponsoring in Iraq”).

And for your information, I plan on spending the rest of MY evening working on my thesis and NOT communing with my new shoes. Seriously. Right after I eat my broccoli.

Adjusted Gross Shoes Total
Total Number of Shoes You Bought This Year
1.______
Total Number of Shoes You Admit You Bought This Year
2.______
Subtract Line 2 from Line 1. This is your adjusted gross shoes total.
3.______
Deductions
Athletic shoes
The athletic shoes deduction is calculated as the total number of sports you are participating in multiplied by 5 potential pairs of shoes per sport unless the shoes come in really kicky colors in which case the deduction is the total number of colors of the shoe minus 2 (you really shouldn't own every color of a pair of shoes - isn't that a bit excessive????)
Weather related shoes
5.______
The weather related shoes deduction is calculated by the total number of seasons experienced in any area where you travel or live multiplied by an allotted 2 pairs of shoes per season per territory unless the season involves 6 inches or more of water or snow in which case you are allowed 2 other pairs of "back-up" shoes
Sympathy shoes
6.______
There is a standard deduction of 4 pairs of shoes that were purchased in sympathy of a friend or relative purchasing shoes, unless there was a recent breakup or bad date experience by your friend or relative, in which case you can take a deduction of 6 shoes, not to exceed 10 shoes for the year.
Hot Guy Shoes
There is a one time deduction for one pair of shoes that were purchased while attempting to attain a hot guy.
7._______
Future Use Shoes
8.______
There is a one time deduction for up to 10 pairs of shoes purchased for an event that will occur in the future (e.g. greater than one year).
Stolen Shoes
9.______
There is a deduction for any shoes borrowed or stolen during the course of the year. If they were borrowed or stolen by someone you really dislike you can take a double deduction.
Medical Shoes
10.______
There is a deduction for any shoes that you wear that the doctor might actually approve of. Inserting an insole into a stiletto makes them eligible for this deduction.
Pain and Suffering Shoe
11.______
Any shoe purchased due to pain and suffering (including emotional) or any shoe that causes pain and suffering should be deducted on principle
Total Shoe Deductions:
Total number of shoes that must be declared: