arks

I made an interesting discovery on Monday night watching this show about arks on the channel my maid likes to watch (I can't figure out how to make the channels move on the TV in this hotel so any time I turn it on I'm left at the mercy of her whims since she knows how to change the channels and watches TV while she is supposedly cleaning my room). There is a third ark called the ark of the covenant that I didn't know about.

So, the first two arks I knew about. One is the boat thing that Noah was on. The next is a box that Moses made that if you get too close to it will rip your face or arm off. The third, new one, is this cup that Jesus put some blood in and then gave to one of his guys before he got killed, and if you drink the blood you'll be alive forever, but not have to be a vampire.

...which brings up the point that the bible keeps having the same story over and over, and then they did a sequel called the new testament, and that just has even more of the same story but they tried to put a different plot twist on it. It's like the Rocky movies, but more confusing because there are a more people in the bible. In books, extras are free.

All these arks got lost somehow, even though one would think that they were important enough to be looked after. Of course, you give a man responsibility for anything...

Depending on what kind of person you are, you go look for one of the arks. The guys looking for the boat ark, at least in the show I saw, were all kind of geeky scholar types that were probably thrown out of the house by their wives: "honey, you are driving me NUTS - why don't you go look for Noah's ark again, I heard on Oprah that someone saw it in Turkey". The second guys, who have hats and think they are indiana jones, go looking for the box kind of ark. They usually want to use it to take over the world and rip the face off someone they don't like, but a person they don't like for stupid reasons, like maybe some guy's dog peed on the ark searcher's lawn and killed an azalea bush or something so now the ark searcher is like "I will find the ark and smite my neighbor - and his dog too!". The third guys, looking for the cup, are always really religious and they end up getting into wars and getting their asses kicked (who wears white to a war? great cammo if you're fighting clouds, otherwise, bad choice) and they want to live forever I guess in the hopes that they will one day happen upon an era where they are considered cool. That era will be, um, next never.

The show I saw said, about the box ark, and I quote, "Not even Jesus knew where it was". That's kind of mean since the box was commissioned by his dad and I bet his dad knows where it is. So some day, when God dies, Jesus is going to be at the estate settlement and the lawyer is going to be like "Well Jesus, your dad left you...the ark." And Jesus is going to be like "Dammit! I already have one of those. By the way, did he say where it is?"

It would be convenient if they put all the arks together in one spot, kind of like winning the power lottery thing where you get millions of dollars instead of just a million dollars. Or you could put the box ark inside the boat ark and then the cup ark in the box - it would be like a turducken.

I'm actually quite inspired by these ark stories. My co-author said that if you find an ark you get sucked into heaven like you're on the extra express elevator to salvation. He also said that every one who's written a story that's worth a damn about trying to find the ark died before the story was finished.

Which reminds me of the book I'm trying to write with my co-author. I will likely die before it's finished, which is not to say I'll die prematurely, but instead to say I'll be lucky if we finish that book in the next 60 years.

flakers beware

This past week was fairly trying, and I was looking forward to a visit from a friend, let's just call him A (for asshole), who said he really wanted to come visit me in Miami.

A was supposed to arrive Thursday, we were going to go to Key West for the weekend, and then he was going to fly home Tuesday. He likes to tell me how much he wants to see me.

Well, Monday I hadn't heard from him so I called and sent an email. No response. I did the same on Tuesday. Still nothing. Thursday comes and goes, no A. Finally, Friday morning, I get an email from him saying he isn't coming.

Had I known he wasn't coming I would have invited someone else to come stay with me. Instead I ended up hanging out at Key West by myself because I have an asshole for a friend. This on the heels of Banff...

So, for the new year, I've started a black list, for people who flake on me. I'm really tired of people being selfish and having no thought for others. Anyone who ends up on the black list gets none of my time or energy until they do something that makes me not want to kick them in the nuts. I spend way too much energy on people who really don't give a fuck, and these days I don't have much to spare, so I am resorting to these measures, which I wish I had put into place years ago. And I think everyone else should start boycotting flakers. It's the only way we can bring about a positive change.

And flaking, for the record, is not cute, amusing, forgivable because you're an irresponsible asshole, or acceptable. People who flake are self centered and don't care about inconveniencing others. And being busy is not a reason to flake. Saturday was the first day in 3 months that I haven't worked at all. And I still find time for my friends, or to tell them I don't have time for them. So, fuck flakers. F2. Go ahead, put it on a t-shirt, don't give me royalties, I just want to get the message across.

the FBI is here, it must be Monday

Just when it seemed that this engagement couldn't get any more exciting (bomb threats, fist fights, network crashes, and Thursday and Friday spent in a political battle with the company that bought my company because they thought I was somehow infringing on them - read, selling stuff that they won't get a commission on - causing them to talk bad about me to my customer, who told them to fuck off, which is why I'm still working for them even though it's 9 PM and I haven't eaten yet) I get in to the office today and find...the FBI.

Here's what happened. A bank was bombed in Oregon (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h3NkOmNbgySlywqhyoTVETQY9f_wD953EN981). The bomber used a cell phone from the company I am working with. So the FBI on Saturday tried to contact the company through the sales reps to find an IT person who could help them trace who owned the phone. The sales reps, being in sales and therefore being idiots (see above paragraph) couldn't give them a contact.

So, an enterprising Oregon State Police officer resorted to going out to facebook and doing a search on the company's name. He found T, a guy I work with, who just happened to list on his facebook page that he is an IT admin for the company. The police officer called him immediately. T, being an IT guy, and therefore having little common sense and social skills, figured the whole thing was a joke and acted like an asshole to the guy.

So then the FBI called him. T behaved the same way. Meanwhile a sales rep had finally had one moment of intelligence and called the legal department, who called T's boss, and T had to go into the office to help them locate the information late Saturday and again on Sunday. When I was there the FBI was just finishing up. T was hoping his name would get in the papers but any further information about the incident, other than the guy was tracked via a cell phone, will not be released to the public, at least not at this point.

Drama, drama, drama...

sesame street

Today I was running errands and happened on This American Life, one of my favorite shows ever. It was the same show I had been listening to on my drive to key west but ended up losing as I headed south. It was a weird show because it usually has 3 or 4 stories on a theme, and this show they were trying to do short segments based on what a play group in NYC was doing. The play group would do 30 2 minute plays. They had one of the plays on TAL and it was hilarious.

Anyway, one of the stories was about the first day cadets are at West Point. I started thinking about my ex and remembering how we often would go into San Fran for the weekend and driving home on Sunday we would listen to TAL, and then I looked up and saw all these palm trees and for a moment was confused because it seemed I had actually gone back in time to the year 2000 and was driving on the freeway from San Fran to Capitola.

Another story was about this guy who was smoking up with his friends and he made the comment "the band Journey is the 80's equivalent to Dynasty". This caused a game to be created called monkeys to monkeys, the point being to name some band and the equivalent TV show. The final line in the monkeys to monkeys story, where the guy is talking about how he still plays that game with his friends is "and that's why marijuana makes you smart". Said very sarcastically.

I started thinking about how I would never be able to play that game. When I was growing up we didn't have a TV, and when we finally got one it was a black and white piece of shit with a wire hangar for an antenna. This was the source of many issues at school. I had to make up elaborate games when people would spend the night so that they wouldn't notice we didn't have a TV (living on a lake with haunted woods was useful). All the kids at school were obsessed with Sesame Street and I could never participate in the conversations about the show, not knowing any of the characters.

Then once, at a neighbor's garage sale, I happened on some books for this show called Sesame Street. So I bought the books, which were written like comic books, and assumed that they were transcripts of the actual show. I spent the entire weekend reading them thinking I could go to school and pretend I had seen the show.

I went to school the Monday and started talking about one of the story lines involving the cookie monster, who in the book was a king, and how he was having problems trying to find the perfect cookie to eat. Everyone looked at me strangely. Turns out the books had nothing to do with the show.

But I enjoyed them a lot and was very sad when my younger brother cut them up, ostensibly to make napkins for dinner because we were out and my mom was yelling about that. The reason we ran out of napkins is because I had decided they made good hats and had been riding my bike with my napkin hat, and then other kids in the neighborhood wanted hats, so I took all of our napkins and handed them out. When I cried because my brother ruined my books my dad yelled at me and said I shouldn't be reading comic books anyway.

Though he may have known more about raising kids than one might think. To this day I've never smoked pot.

key west

I drove to Key West yesterday.

First you pass the Miami hurricane shelter and then you get to the Lazy Days restaurant. Pass through Key Largo where there's the African Queen and streets with names like Coconut Drive, Lime Drive, Bonefish Drive. Though right before is a Largo residential community which has, for every mail box, a cement dolphin holding the actual mail box in its flippers. There's a dolphin research center near by. The air smells like what a fish's house would smell like if they had houses and invited you to visit.

Cheap cigarettes. A carton of marlboros for $25.

Then you go over this bridge. which is not THE bridge, because you haven't gone through Marathon yet, but it's long. Signs for the Key Deer, which are almost extinct, so you shouldn't speed so you don't hit one and kill it. Then finally the Seven Mile Bridge, with all these side bridges next to it that just seem to start and stop but don't connect to each other, people fishing off them, and a couple riding their bikes in the breakdown lane on the bridge which doesn't seem safe.

Ramrod key, Cudjoe Key, Sugarloaf Key, Shark Channel, Shark Key, and my favorite name Waltz Key. Drive all the way to the end of Key West. If a stack of pancakes were a town, that town would be here. Hang out on the beach until a sunburn seems inevitable, no one on the beaches but a couple getting married, their wedding party laying bored on lounge chairs while they have their picture taken, 3 homeless guys, a guy walking his little dog, a guy in a yellow canoe who was fishing but is back now, ask the Hawaiian Ice guy where everyone is, he says "that's next week", drive back.

dreams about me and you

Last night I had a dream that I was back in my old high school, but at my current age, and that I was meeting with people there for a reason that wasn't totally clear, but it seemed that the US had been taken over by nazis or something and I was trying to put together a resistance movement. Then these two guys and a woman came in and said they were part of this nazi group, and that they were going to cut my head off. I asked how they were going to do that and woman told me, "Oh, we have a machine conveniently located in the basement!"

And then she cut off all of my hair and I was sad because it looked like shit but then it didn't matter because I was going to get my head cut off anyway. So I asked if I could go to the bathroom thinking I could find a way to escape and the woman was like "of course" and I asked her if she was going to escort me and she said "no, there's no reason to" and gave me this evil smile. So as I was walking to the bathroom I was thinking how to get out of the building and when I walked in I saw the bathroom was stacked with piles and piles of bloody dead bodies without heads and some were missing their hands and feet and rats were crawling between the bodies. And then I thought (seems funny now that it's just a dream) "it's really hard to comprehend someone telling you that you are going to die until it actually happens".

My heart started racing and I thought I have to get out of here and I could hear these nazi people marching in the hallway, filling up the building, so I went out to the hall and pulled the fire alarm and everyone started running and I mixed in with the nazi group and we were all running down this dark tile hallway towards an open door where the sun was shining and I could hear the woman who had cut off my hair screaming for people to stop me.

And then I woke up.

And then I fell back to sleep after drinking some water and had a dream that I was going to SMS text you about the dream even though I guess we aren't emailing or speaking anymore, and somehow I accidentally hit "call" instead of "SMS text" and I heard your voice going "hello? hello?" so I started talking to you about my week and you interrupted me and said "look at the screen on your blackberry" so I did and there was a graphic that looked like the work breakdown structures you see in most government contracts and it had things like "real estate", "business", and "housing" on it. Then you said "these are the only things I talk to people about on the phone, and you don't have anything to do with these things, so please don't call me again" and then you hung up on me. I was sad because I wanted to tell you about my dream. And then I woke up again...

And decided to NOT go back to sleep again and also to stop watching documentaries about concentration camps or lynchings right before bed time.

signing ceremony

Signing Ceremony
Hotel Timeo, Taormina

The lilac peak of Etna dribbles pink,
Visibly seething in the politest way.
The shallow vodka cocktails that we sink
Here on the terrace at the close of day

Are spreading numb delight as they go down.
Their syrup mirrors the way lava flows:
It’s just a show, it might take over town,
Sometimes the Cyclops, from his foxhole, throws

Rocks at Ulysses. But regard the lake
Of moonlight on the water, stretching east
Almost to Italy. The love we make
Tonight might be our last, but this, at least,

Is one romantic setting, am I right?
Cypresses draped in bougainvillea,
The massed petunias, the soft, warm night,
That streak of candy floss. And you, my star,

Still walking the stone alleys with the grace
Of forty years ago. Don’t laugh at me
For saying dumb things. Just look at this place.
Time was more friend to us than enemy,

And soon enough this backdrop will go dark
Again. The spill of neon cream will cool,
The crater waiting years for the next spark
Of inspiration, since the only rule

Governing history is that it goes on:
There is no rhythm of events, they just
Succeed each other. Soon, we will be gone,
And that volcano, if and when it must,

Will flood the slope with lip gloss brought to boil
For other lovers who come here to spend
One last, late, slap-up week in suntan oil,
Their years together winding to an end.

With any luck, they’ll see what we have seen:
Not just the picture postcard, but the splash
Of fire, and know this flowering soil has been
Made rich by an inheritance of ash.

Only because it’s violent to the core
The world grows gardens. Out of earth we came,
To earth we shall return. But first, one more
Of these, delicious echoes of the flame

That drives the long life all should have, yet few
Are granted as we were. It wasn’t fair?
Of course it wasn’t. But which of us knew,
To start with, that the other would be there,

One step away, for all the time it took
To come this far and see a mountain cry
Hot tears, as if our names, signed in the book
Of marriage, were still burning in the sky?

-Clive James

Natalie's Cooking Show

excess email charge

I regret to inform you that, due to the current economy, I am going to have to start charging a fee for every email unless you are a gold member of our frequent emailer club (that would be my dad, Hilton Hotels, David Cseke a.k.a. Daffy Duck, and that guy from Ethiopia who claims he's going to give me a million dollars).

The fee will be $15 for every email, unless it is over sized, in which case you will have to pay $75. If your email weighs over 50 pounds you will be charged $45.

It's quite possible that, with these new fees in place, people who are not frequent emailers will stop sending me email. It's hoped that, with the over sized email fee in place, people will stop forwarding their junk mail to me, which includes shit I read back in 1996 (the Smithsonian letter comes to mind), those stupid chain letters, or emails with pictures of soldiers, hearts, or puppies.

I accept cash only, preferably a currency that's not depressed.

and just when things seemed to be calming down...

This evening at my client site, just when I thought things couldn't get worse, a bitter male employee took down all of the company's servers. I heard the sys admins over the cube wall (from my new cube, which is the old cube of the brawler, who keeps walking by glaring at me because he thinks that I asked for his cube forcing him to be moved, great, guess I'm next on the hit list) tracking the employee trying to figure out what he was doing. Then everyone started yelling "we're going down!" like we were on the fucking Titanic or something.



All hell broke loose and I realized sitting next to the lead sys admin was a bad thing. The web site went down and there were about 20 people in my cube area. The CIO came running in, pointed at me, and yelled "get her the FUCK out of here!"

The network take down was poorly timed since auditors were at the site to give a rating on their network reliability. The good part is the models I've been working on out here could be used to show what applications were critical and which servers needed to be brought up first. Though, my customer just looked at me when I told him that.

So I went on mandatory break outside by request of my customer POC, who promised to come get me and let me back in when things calmed down. It was about to rain. And me without my umbrella, in a white shirt. It did start raining so I sat down on a table that had an umbrella on it. The customer came out 15 minutes later and said "you need to take your things and leave - just work from your hotel". I was like whatever bitch, 9 hours in this looney bin is enough for me, and I headed home. Did I just say that? I meant, I headed to the hotel.



Where, as I was smoking outside, I was invited to take an "exciting ride" on the Crowne Plaza Miami International Airport hotel shuttle's newly installed ramp for wheel chairs. I was told it was "free" and that I would "really enjoy it". So I stood on the ramp with a hotel employee and we were hoisted up into the bus. Then we pretended to be in a wheel chair so the guys could practice strapping the chair in. Then we were lowered off the lift. Whee.



Not the first time a man has promised me an exciting ride and failed to deliver.

Rough Neighborhood

I'm on a very weird engagement in Miami.

First, I was informed on Monday that I could only smoke in a certain area outside the building. The area literally is the Everglades. I was warned about alligators, and laughed, until I realized the guys were being serious. So now every time I smoke I have to keep an eye out for creatures that might want to eat or maim me.

Then, yesterday, there was a bomb threat on the building. I am not working for the government, I'm working for a small company in an industry that is not known for being dangerous. It's a phone shop. Ridiculous.

Now, today, I've been moved from my cube to a conference room across from my cube because a male employee physically assaulted a female employee. He was not fired because no one saw the incident. So they are moving him to my cube because my cube has two cameras trained on it (wish I had known that before - I probably wouldn't have eaten so many cookies yesterday - the guards were probably like "oh my god - she ate 5 cookies! Look, she's eating another one!"). Theoretically he could still hit someone off camera, like me, because the conference room does not have a camera and I'm in his line of sight, but try to tell the security here anything.

And, nice to know consultants are so trusted.

I won't even go into the shit show hotel IBM put me in, except to say the front desk called me because I left four pennies in the change tray in my rental car and they were worried someone would break in and take the change. So I had to go down the elevator, using my key to get access to the ground floor, and not taking the stairs because the stair well doors are all locked (ask me how I know that), and then walk through a gate to get to my car. Then repeat the process to get back into the hotel and up to my room. And the first night I was scolded by the parking lot guard for walking a mile down the street at 8 PM because "there are gangs!" and if I wanted to walk I was advised to use the gym facility in the hotel, which requires me to go through 3 key checkpoints to access, only to discover the treadmill isn't working right.

I need hazard pay...

snakes on a plane, on a train, the hotel must be next

I have had the worst nightmares about snakes (still) for the past three days. I thought by watching the darjeeling limited again I might get rid of my nightmares, which were caused by the scene where the snake gets loose in the brothers' train compartment (it suddenly occurred to me, after racking my brain, that the origin of the skinny cobra snake in a previously mentioned nightmare came from that movie - this was confirmed when I watched it again friday, or saturday, forget which day).

This morning I woke up at 3 am and was sure there was a snake in my hotel room. How could that be possible, you might ask. You're on the 5th fucking floor. But snakes are quite devious. I mean, if one of those little reptilian bastards could bring down the entire garden of eden (with Adam being all like "Yo, Eve, why were you talking to that snake? What's wrong with you?" and Eve being like "What ever Adam. All you do is golf. I needed someone to talk to and the snake was there." and then Adam being like "Oh, so you're saying it's all MY fault we have to wear clothes now. Next I guess you'll say that all future men will be obsessed with naked women and that there might even be a magazine showing them in lingerie." and then Eve saying "Shut up and go away asshole. I have cramps.").

So, humor me for a second. A snake gets a job working at a laundry. When he finds out I'm checking in he manages to conceal himself in my towels. After the maid does her normal shit show job of stacking my linens in the bathroom, not noticing the snake hidden in the billion towels she leaves for me even though I specifically requested only one towel, well, guess it's hard to count when you're taking crack cocaine like it's a cough drop, the snake makes himself comfortable in my bed. Watches something on TV, probably a movie that he charges to my room (causing my expense report to be rejected).

Then, when he hears me opening the door when I get home at night, he hides behind a pillow. As I am a creature of habit (sort of), he knows I'll be leaving in 15 minutes to go to the gym and then get food. When I return he strategically conceals himself as a wrinkle in the comforter.

I get into bed. He waits until I'm about to fall asleep and then sneaks out of the comforter right near my face. He opens up his hood and then sprays poison in my eyes. While I'm all like "Dammit, stop it! I just had an eye operation!" he bites me. Or worse, stabs me.

And that's why I checked every drawer in my room when I got home tonight. Took all the pillows off the bed. Put my suitcase against the door so he couldn't sneak under the gap. And am currently trying to figure out how to brush my teeth without putting my feet on the floor.

Fucking snakes...

3 cups of tea

I finished reading the book 3 cups of tea two weeks ago. It's a decent book, inspiring in its way, but the one story that I found the most remarkable in the book is the story about Greg and his wife.

Greg was "dating" some woman who was, in marine parlance, a fucking asshole. She leaves him for some guy with more whatever (money, security, etc.). Then he leaves for Pakistan to build a school. At some future date the asshole comes back and wants to be with him. He tells her to fuck off.

Then, at some black tie event, Greg meets his soon to be wife. They spend all night talking. She says "welcome to my life" and he responds "welcome to my heart". They spend the rest of the week hanging out together. Get married 7 days later. Procreate. Etc.

Of all the things in the book (kidnappings, abject poverty, etc.) this is the part that left me the most stunned. I'm sure this happens to people all the time, but every time I hear a story like this it revives the whole myth of meeting some person who is so perfect you can figure all of your relationship shit out in 7 days or less and go on to live happily ever after together. Most of me does not think I believe something like that could actually happen. But I guess part of me believes that it can.

In theory, at least. Of course, in theory there are 11 dimensions in the universe. Good luck experiencing any but the first 4.

why I dislike TV

TV is about the most disorganized thing I have encountered outside the government. It's a wonder people still continue to watch it after all these years.

For example, last night I was trying to find this show about detectives that track down killers (it's called something with the word "48" in it and it's about real people who died). It used to be on channel 32, but now that channel is a different channel. I don't understand why every TV can't use the same numbers all the time. Stupid.

Anyway, I found this show called History or something that was about Osama Bin Laden. I started watching it because I'm reading The Looming Tower (great book). Anyway, I never would have known what show I was watching except that they kept flashing this History thing in the corner of the screen. I guess that is the name of the show.

Then, when that show was done, they had a commercial for another show. I don't know why you have to have commercials for shows when people know (theoretically at least) what show is going to be on that channel. Isn't that like having a pop up on the Yahoo web site that says "next on...Yahoo!". Anyway, the commercial for the show said the show was going to be on Tuesday, but then it was on right after the commercial! What sense does that make? If I were relying on the TV to know what day it was I would think it was Tuesday. No one said anything about the show being on Sunday and Tuesday. So annoying.

And a final thing, at my sister's house, my mom showed me how to push this button that makes an index of everything in the TV and what time it's on. The problem was the index was wrong. It said this one channel had a show on it but it wasn't on and the channel was something else entirely. I guess there's a web site to look this stuff up for a TV but that seems like too much work. Also, I pressed a bunch of buttons on the TV in my hotel room to try to find that special button but it didn't seem to work on my TV.

I think TV would be better if it were like the internet. I could just type in a web address for the show I wanted and it would be there. I hate having to look at channels to see if I can find the one I'm looking for.

And that's why I don't watch TV and refuse to own one.

bad snake dream

Don't know if it's the altitude or what, but I had the weirdest nightmare last night...

I dreamed that I was in the kitchen of my sister's house, except it was only half the size, and one wall was missing. The house was open to the outside and right where the wall was supposed to be was a pool with the carcass of a dead man floating in it. The carcass was missing the arms, legs, and head, and it had a big bite taken out of the middle of it. Inside the pool was a huge great white shark.

I wanted to jump into the pool because I thought the shark could protect me from this psycho man, who kind of looked like one of my ex-boyfriends. The psycho man had a stick and kept poking this long green snake. Every time he poked the snake it would flare up into a cobra. I was panicking and wanted to get away from the man and his snake. He was trying to pick the snake up by the tail, supposedly to throw the snake out of the house so I would be safe.

The man and the snake kept getting closer and closer to me. I was standing on the edge of the pool pleading with the guy to let me jump in, but he kept saying "I know you think that shark won't bite you, but it will."

Then the guy grabbed the snake by the tail and the snake started lashing out at me. It was getting really close and I was screaming so the guy threw the stick to me and said "If it gets close to you just hit it with the stick." I picked up the stick right as the guy dropped the snake and the snake was at my ankle. I felt like I was going to faint and then I looked down to see if maybe by standing still the snake wouldn't bite me. Right as I looked down the snake was flared like a cobra and bit me right in the heart and then I was like "Damn, I'm going to die. I knew I should have jumped into the pool with the shark." Then I woke up and was so scared from the dream I couldn't go back to sleep.

Maybe I should stop eating tuna fish sandwiches for dinner. I've had a lot of bad dreams this past week...

Mayor's Christmas Ball

My friend David Cseke, whom I've talked to for maybe a total of two hours, sent me an email today saying that he, David Cseke, is upset because I only mentioned him in one paragraph in my blog, where as I mentioned Betty more times, and wrote an entire blog about a TV.

David Cseke thinks he deserves more recognition in my blog, maybe because he made fun of me more than Betty did, or maybe because he sent me a warning email (too late, I might add) that I would likely get eaten by an elk on my evening walk.

David Cseke is also upset that I don't capitalize the "T" in the Banff Centre. This might have been what led to the comment that I shouldn't make fun of loonies because "you're a girl named Franki". And while we're making the list, he said I use too much profanity on my blog and therefore David Cseke won't be showing it to his boss. Or inviting me to the Mayor's Christmas Ball. Which is such a shame because it means I'll have to find something else to do over the holidays.

I may spend the holidays cleaning since I will finally be rid of my house pest. For those interested, David Cseke is a self proclaimed clean freak who recently moved to a house that has deer in the back yard. The ones that move, not the plastic kind. Or, he says they're real. Could be the bleach fumes...

It's For You, TV

I've seen a TV do a lot of things, for example, play TV shows, play video games, and play movies. But today I saw a TV answer a phone call.

I was in a conference room at my customer's site, using this huge TV as a projector. I've taken to calling the TV "Fuzzy" because the picture is completely unclear but the TV is so complicated no one can figure out how to fix the resolution, and we can't use the projector since the TV cost so much money that it has to be used. Fuzzy has a big sign on him that says "Leave Your Ink On The Table!", apparently because someone wrote on him with a marker. There are some TV markers you can use to highlight stuff on the screen but unfortunately when I tried to use them I activated something because it's a touch screen it caused me to crash the software I was demonstrating. Oops.

That's not the only bad thing Fuzzy has done. He likes to go into sleep mode right at crucial parts of my presentation and someone has to smack him on the screen to wake him up. I am no longer allowed to touch the screen since the aforementioned software crash and also because I was eating pumpkin cupcakes today and not wiping my hands off. Fuzzy also turns on his video display and then, all of the sudden, there we all in the conference room are projected on the TV. For the record, I don't think I look 10 pounds heavier on Fuzzy, but I do look more tired.

Anyway, at the end of the day today I was talking to some data base admins (one of whom went to high school with me) and suddenly we heard a phone ringing. Everyone reached for their crackberries except for me because I never turn my ringer on. Then we realized someone was calling the TV. It turns out Fuzzy had phone capabilities for doing remote conference calls. It was a telemarketer calling to tell Fuzzy if he had any credit problems he had a place to turn. It took us a few minutes to figure out how to hang up his phone. I wonder if people can leave him messages while he's asleep. And if he has an email address too.

I like to send copies of my blog to people when I make fun of them.

the final days of Banff

I found out something interesting slogging through my final day on Saturday as a volunteer at the Banff film fest. A woman I've been working with, Betty (see previous post), is the originator of the film fest. She and her husband used to invite people to their house to watch movies. Eventually this event was co-opted by the Banff Centre, the movies became more pornographic (from an athletic perspective), and now Betty gets to rip tickets for events.

I worked the door of Saturday's film fest with one David Cseke. I'll give you a loonie if you can pronounce his last name correctly. Over the course of my time knowing Dave, he made fun of me for writing "theater" instead of "theatre", predicted I would get eaten by an elk (do they even eat people?) during one of my evening forays along the cliff heading up to the Banff Centre, called me a geek for my mad math skills (jealous, I know), and told me that the reason the front desk refused (before I offered money) to print my boarding pass for my flight home is that in 2001 an attendant got a paper cut and now it's illegal for them to print out anything for customers. Okay, that last thing, I think he made up. He also said he felt like my "Banff book bitch", due to a mis-understanding caused by translation from Canadian to civilized English.

David, where's my fucking book?

Favorite part of the film fest: evening walks up to the lake, which had nothing to do with the film fest - exactly
Worst part of the film fest: getting stalked by an old dude who looked like a wolf 3 months away from getting shot to put him out of his misery - luckily R. shooed him off though it was a bit embarrassing later when I showed up at the airport only to find myself in line right behind him

the underbelly of Banff

I ran into more Amazing Race people today. I saw the hot guy and his friend running down Bear Ave. As they ran by me in a group of about 10 people, all wearing these yellow tied on Amazing Race signs, he yelled "Fucking Franki!" and tried to high five me. I can't believe he recognized me, though I guess I'm the only one in town with a pink down jacket.

This caused R, from the other evening, who was walking down the other side of the street, to run over to me. We ended up having tea at Starbucks. R suffers from arthritis, and was taking some kind of meds that made his pupils really small. He blew off his volunteer shift so we could go drinking, and I imagine it would have been something more potent had I not warned him I had a client telecon to attend to in a few hours.

I had a fun time listening to his stories of eating hash in Morocco (he said you know the buzz is kicking in when you hear the wind in your ears) and traveling through Africa with a guy from the French Foreign Legion. Between the two of us we managed to remember, in Latin, the first three paragraphs of Caesar's Gallic wars, the first 10 lines of the Iliad, and, in a total latin geek moment, we recited our favorite silly Latin poems (mine "Latin is a language, dead as dead can be / first it killed the Romans, now it's killing me").

The two interesting travel tips I learned from R are the following:

-if you are in an explosion open your mouth so that your ears won't get blown to bits; in addition, if you pull into a village and see all the kids standing around with their mouths open run away quickly because something is about to get blown up
-to find out the status of a country, change some money every day because the money changers really know what's going on - once in Algeria R was changing money and the guy offered 10 times the going rate if R would give him american dollars instead of whatever the french currency was at the time - a day later there was a coup - he said the CIA should have figured this out years ago, but hasn't

I started the day off at 630 am because I went to a publishers' workshop. I didn't learn a whole lot but did get inspired to put together a pitch for my next book which will likely be published way before my first book (or, not published at all, but I can dream can't I). The talk of the festival, which kept getting mentioned in the workshop, is some woman who got on the Oprah show. I sat in on her lecture yesterday. It's funny because to her face everyone says how great it all is. Then when she's gone they talk about how bad her lecture was (I agree), how she just used other people's material to write the book (just bought the book so can't say if that's true or not), and how she isn't that good of a writer so why did Oprah pick her. It's funny how two faced most people are here about stuff like that.

It's true especially of the women. There is a woman here who wrote a book about her husband dying; she ended up marrying his best friend. Packs of women were standing around talking about the book, and personal details about this woman's life, basically shredding her.

As the recycling nazi today I guess they felt comfortable saying these things around me. I mean, who would worry about talking in front of someone wearing a big green apron yelling "that doesn't go in there! it goes HERE!" as people try to throw their trash away. I had one little dude cower and scamper off with his trash rather than deal with me (this is 6 hours into my shift as a recycling ambassador, after only 5 hours of sleep, I was perhaps being a cranky bitch). This pack of old dudes, who I swear are stalking me, kept showing up with cups and asking "where would you like this to go, your highness?" even though they knew damn well where to put their coffee cups. I yelled at Jim Donini for trying to put a cup made of potato starch into the plastic recycling bin when it was supposed to go into the organic recycling bin. I ended the shift with my apron tied around my neck like a super hero cape, mostly because I was fucking bored, and also to shake the interest of a Banff Centre worker who, after hanging out with me for an hour, told me she thought I was "so juicy" and proceeded to ask me a question that isn't fit for this blog. The answer to the question was "NO!"

That woman was replaced with a woman named Betty that I worked with yesterday. We talked about cruisers and our obsession with walking. She told me the most interesting factoid about Banff. Apparently no one ever gets murdered here, except for once a few years ago. The police ended up going door to door to canvass the neighborhood (something they would do in my 'hood if they gave a shit). They discovered that 40% (Betty's number) of the people living in Banff were on the lam from the law! Great place to hide, I will admit. Of the people on the lam most were murderers from, according to Betty, Ontario. She told me to stop walking in town by myself at night. She should have come to visit me in Baltimore to experience what it's really like to live in a city of murderers.

I worked part of the morning with a kid named Sam who is from Australia. He wasn't good as a recycling ambassador (he couldn't keep the bins straight and showed up late; he kept telling people "I'm tired, so please take your trash somewhere else") but he was entertaining to talk to. My favorite thing he did was shake out his long dreds and then put on his hair band, right at the busiest recycling time, blocking people from throwing their trash away. I was like "dude, move!" and he just smiled at me and said "must look pretty before all things!" He tried to talk me into ditching my ambassador role at 1030 to go have a beer with him but I declined.

I should also mention, on the subject of guys, I finally had an encounter with the wine guy. I was walking down the street last night around 930 after a perfectly boring slide show, looking for food, when I saw him coming the other way. First of all, he was wearing these weird shoes and socks. And also wearing these shiny black pants that looked like basketball shorts but way longer. Ugh. And if that isn't bad enough, a green and black flannel shirt, but not cool flannel, just a shirt with one box of black next to one box of green, ad naseum. It was hideous. I tried to make small talk with him while not getting blinded by the street lights shining off his pants, especially after he mentioned having an entire case of cab that needed to be eradicated by Monday, but I couldn't get past the shoes. I mean, if I went to drink wine with him, at some point he would probably want to get comfortable and take his shoes off, then I would have to look at them in all their unsightly glory, and would surely lose my buzz.

I rounded the day out with a walk to Lake Vermilion. I'm supposed to go to Bruno's this evening because it's open mike night or something and Sam is going to be playing his diggery doo. Not sure I'll make it though. It's so warm in my room, I have writing to do, and it's cold outside.

A closing thought - at Topher Donahue's slide show last night he was talking about a parent-child relationship evolving to "dad as buddy" through climbing. Funny that I've been thinking about that a lot as it perfectly describes the relationship I have with my dad. He's a great buddy, totally reliable, enthusiastic about having adventures together, and someone I will never mind doing a 24 hour hike with or getting up at 3 o'clock in the morning to hang out with.

And I'm not just saying that because it's almost Christmas :D

hostess cupcake

This morning, at 8 am, while I was mulling over my plans for my day off from the festival (gondola ride and a hike) I received an email asking if I could be a hostess for an author event this afternoon. I immediate said yes, and imagined myself grandly meeting guests as they entered the event, yelling at waiters "bring more canapes!" and having everyone tell me "thanks for inviting me to your party, your theater is so beautiful" to which I would reply "yes, we like it".

Turns out being a hostess here isn't the same as being a hostess in, for example, an Alfred Hitchcock movie. I had to rip tickets, check tickets, direct people to the washroom, deal with one corybantic author who wanted to make sure all her relatives distant and close got into the event for free and felt the best way to do that was to scream at me while trying to put post it notes that listed their names on my badge. I also had to keep people from slamming doors, and shush the annoying people who left their cell phones on. My favorite person was a woman who unplugged camera equipment so she could plug her iBook in and type loudly during one poor author's presentation.

My favorite presentation was by this guy who tracks megafish. Those are fresh water fish that get really big. There was one carp thing that weighed 500 lbs. I also learned that there are freshwater sting rays. The author, Zeb Hogan, showed a video of himself getting drunk with Malaysian fishermen in an attempt to get them to respect him so they would listen to him and stop killing all the megafish. After doing many shots he had to play cards with the fishermen, and he commented that he wasn't sure if he was winning or losing, only that the fishermen kept punching him. The next scene shows him in the early morning after the drunkfest, standing in the rain in water up to his knees, looking like he was dead. Funny.

I also bought four books on accident (well, it's better than shoes). I'm hoping that when I repack my suitcase everything fits...I also managed to squeeze in a 25 minute shopping trip at the Gap to get clothes for monday since I'm not going to have time to go home before my consulting engagement starts. It was a great experience. I walked in, explained to this girl that I needed professional clothes to wear for next week, and asked her to put together some outfits for me while I answered some work emails on my crackberry because I hate shopping. She did make me try everything on before she would let me buy the clothes, but what she picked out was perfect. It turns out she is the niece of the guy who runs the Banff Centre, and she said she would shop for me anytime. I would actually fly her to Denver so I would never have to shop again. She is going to track down some shoes for me to try on tomorrow in between my work schedule, which is going to be very busy.

Tonight I go see Tabin and Topher Donahue talk about...something. The book awards are tonight too. I might try to crash that party by using my publisher's name in vain, or maybe R from last night can sneak me in. I keep getting invited in to stuff, I think because I'm the only one in this town that smiles and talks to people. Most of the female staff at the BC run around like world war 3 has started and they keep yelling at people, especially me, because I do things like let some little old dude into a talk even though he can't find his ticket. They even fucked with Jim Donini for not having his ticket last night for the party I worked. Really...

cabs, crashers, and can't leave

This evening I was a "hostess" for the writer and film documentary dinner. Don't ask how I finagled that, suffice it to say I listened to a Banffian who had control of the volunteer schedule talk for over an hour about his nervous breakdown and got the gig, even though there was already a volunteer assigned to it. I would like to note that my pink long sleeve volunteer t-shirt was taken away from me (full disclosure - it was a bit small) and was replaced with a short sleeve light blue t-shirt (not that I'm complaining, but I was kind of psyched on the pink - I know, I'll live).

The other volunteer, well, let's call him R. He's a Banffian who claimed to be interested in my book, though he never really let me get in a word edgewise about it. We, R and I, were supposed to be taking tickets at the door of the dinner. I was supposed to check people off on a list. The list was incomplete, most people didn't have their tickets, R was letting all the riff raff through because he knows everyone, and at the end I just gave up and decided to let all the crashers in. In between the flux of people arriving I was instructed on terrorism, politics, and gossip about the writers, film makers, and the National Geographic staff.

Then a woman from the Banff Centre invited me in to the dinner because everyone had more or less arrived (Tabin was absent). R followed me (he was invited too, but not necessarily to follow me). We showed up at the bar (R checked out the food first, I was like "tourist!") only to find out they were out of wine (and I was so looking forward to a glass of the cab, which might suck, but which has a cool poster, which I know because I put up a million of them yesterday). Out of the corner of my eye I spotted the hot guy from the wine sponsor, who was making his way over to me. Hooray! I thought. HE can get me wine, and, more importantly, he's hot.

Ah, but R, still mentally entangled in some comment I had made about the middle east, proceeded to get us some water (ech) and then shuffled me off to a corner so he could hear me better. I met a few of the writers in passing as they came over to pay their respects to R. I had my picture taken about 100 times by this photog for what ever reason, while R looked on and said (I swear I'm not making this up) "I'm NOT posing for a photo. This is NOT the way to do this at all! Just circulate and catch us speaking naturally!" Then as an aside to me he said "She OBVIOUSLY doesn't know her job. I don't know where [name redacted] is getting his interns!"

The wine guy approached twice but was turned away by R as I sat there like the biggest fucking idiot on the planet and let it happen. I've lost my game, what can I say...

Then, when it seemed things couldn't get any more bleak (loss of t-shirt, loss of wine guy flirting op, pic taken with old dude that might end up on a web site somewhere) R's wife showed up. Turns out she's one of the people I met yesterday who works at the Banff Centre. She was NOT HAPPY when she happened upon R and I in a "secluded" corner, discussing in what probably appeared to be a suspicious manner the Joseph Conrad book The Secret Agent (thought I was the only one on the planet who read it). She came over, gave me the look, gave R the look, and stormed off. I was like "Dude, um, why don't you go see where your wife went?" and he was like "I have the car keys." Power. Makes the world go round.

The evening ended with R offering me a ride home (I declined because I'm pretty sure his wife wanted to stab me), the wine guy leaving with his friends, and then coming back only to find me STILL talking to R, and then leaving again, and then me finding out R is on the book review committee and (wink wink) if the book ever gets done...yeah, please invite me to Banff again. Time of my life.

I retired to my hotel room, where the thermostat reads 72 degrees (liar), and I tried to change my flight reservation to fly out Saturday instead of Sunday since I have to be at a customer site on Monday, in DC. It was not to be. I now am flying from Calgary to Denver on Sunday, then to Dulles, getting in at 1 am Monday morning, appearing at the customer site 6 hours later. And I have to buy some clothes and shoes since I have nothing work related with me.

Fuck extreme sports. Bring me the skiers. Those bitches would cry after living my life for a month...

Quote of the evening, from Timmy O'Neill: "I didn't recognize you at first because I'm sober."

Amazing Race

Walking to work today the most interesting thing, so far, of the festival happened. I was walking up to the Banff Centre, listening to my mp3 player, when two guys coming down from the centre started waving at me. I ignored them until one of them, who was pretty hot, walked up to me and pulled my head phones out and then shouted "Where's the fucking bicycle obstacle course?"

I then noticed he was wearing this weird Canadian shirt, and his companion (who was nice, and also an explicit user of the f word, but, unfortunately, not as hot) was wearing a Tony Roma's apron over his back. While I was processing that the hot guy explained to me that they are on the Amazing Race, which is a TV show about something, and they had to find the course. I looked in my backpack for my map but hadn't brought it, so I suggested to them that they try this bike trail I've been walking on. It turns out I guessed right, and hopefully will see them again so I can collect the offered drink that I couldn't accept when I ran in to them because I was on my way to work.

I might watch the Amazing Race but I don't know how to find something on TV.

Radical Reels

So today I completed my first day of "work" as a Banff volunteer. I went from having 2 hours of assignments to working the whole day (guess it's hard to find competent volunteers). I knew things would work out when, upon showing up at the Banff Centre, they put me in charge of the wine. The rep for the wine was super hot (the free wine hookup also foremost in my mind) but I was bitch blocked by some bleach blond tramp who kept following the guy around. I also put up a bunch of posters and decorated the room where they're setting up all the vendors. I was given a volunteer shirt that hooray! is pink.

Then tonight I went to Radical Reels, which is a collection of extreme sport movies. The show opened with Timmy O'Neill, more sober than usual, going off about something that made no sense, followed by these kids from the audience jumping on stage and playing Eye of the Tiger in some game called Guitar Hero. It was fairly retarded and was a waste of 10 minutes of my life I'll never get back.

The films this year were exceptionally good, especially compared to last year's kind of boring documentaries. My favorite was either Crux, which had such a good sound track that I'm going to download it (http://cdbaby.com/cd/corduroykid) or Massive, an amazing ski movie. The Sonny Trotter movie came partially thanks to Will Gadd who apparently organized some funding so he could finish his movie If You're Not Falling.

After the intermission we had to suffer through another song, this time Blondie, though the kids were around 14 (how do they know these songs?). There is a way to "win" Guitar Hero though I'm not sure how. And it was kind of gay to see some kid jumping around on stage with the equivalent of a plastic toy. Like, dude, those aren't the kind of plastic toys that get a girl hot. Goes to show how little 14 year old boys know...

Then there was this weird Mountain Idol contest thing. These kids got $100 for being "ambassadors", what ever that means. Some kayaker guy won the Mountain Idol contest and was given $1,000. Didn't get what that was about at all.

As for victims, so far I've racked up three. I heard from Tami Knight, illustrator and author extraordinaire, that Banff is a huge hook up opportunity. Since I've been slacking around doing my own thing today was my first interaction with the male species hanging out here. Most of them are Canadian (read: timid virgins with no game that likely only get laid because some events have alcohol).

My first encounter was with a sound engineer who is two inches shorter than I am (and that's an even bigger number in centimeters) who kept following me around today while I was trying to decorate. I had to hide in the women's bathroom for 5 minutes and then lock the room I was working in to lose him. Then there was the documentary film maker who thought he was sneaking a picture of me with his camera phone while I was having a smoke (it was about as subtle as a shark attack) and then texting his friends about me when he was standing RIGHT NEXT to me and I could see the messages. Lame. I ditched him in the crowd going into the auditorium to watch Radical Reels. Then there was the guy, kayaker, age 25, who thought I was 23, and who seemed overly excited about the fact that I have a job. Ech.

I did, oddly enough, end up sitting next to a guy who works for New Belgium who lives in Ft. Collins and who knows some people that I know. I am supposed to meet him and his friends out for a drink later this evening but it's almost 1130 and, hell, I'm old.

If I could transport myself anywhere right now, it would be to a ski slope with 2 feet of fresh powder and with my new skis, and maybe one of the guys from Massive to give me ski lessons. Then, back in my hotel room, if someone brought me sushi I would think I had died and gone to heaven.

The sushi in Banff...well, that's another story.

Tomorrow I work until 9 PM and will hopefully get myself invited to some parties. Not that I'll go, I just like being invited places, especially if I also get a badge to get in to the parties.

IKEA epic - the corrections

After a, well, let's just call it a discussion, Con Way requested the following corrections be made to the IKEA epic story (see pic at left of CW punishing a wall that made fun of his driving):

He DID listen to me about closing the passenger door. What happened was he opened it to tie rope around it that was being used to hold the back door closed after we got everything loaded, and when he opened the door a box that had been resting on the arm rest fell and that's why we couldn't get the door closed and had to unpack. I did not realize that was what happened because I was at the back of the car and so I falsely assumed that he (being male) ignored me. He said he told me that he thought it was a good idea when I first mentioned closing the passenger door. I probably wasn't listening when he said that because I was busy cursing him in my head for buying so much fucking stuff at IKEA.

He is a good driver, even though he is Asian. He just occasionally forgets he's driving. For the record I rode to Brooklyn, the doughnut shop, and to the Flushing mall on the back of his motorcycle and only once feared for my life. I heartfully apologize for being racist regarding my comments on the way Asians drive.

(It must just be a coincidence that none of them can drive, and have nothing to do with them being Asian - I mean shit, if Asians could drive wouldn't Lucy Liu have had an Asian driver in Kill Bill? Con Way, I'm KIDDING! KIDDING!)

I did something bad, which I failed to mention. After we got everything packed up Con Way asked where the cookies were and I told him they were not accessible, when in fact they would have been very easy to get to.

I also forgot to add that earlier in the afternoon Con Way and I were giving piggy back rides to each other (CW's idea) to get in a leg workout. So by the time we got to IKEA we were both kind of tired, leg wise, though our piggy backs provided great amusement for at least one couple that was watching us act like total idiots in the park.

So, CW, the record is set straight, or straighter. Please don't be mad at me anymore...

the three Fs

At Bachtoberfest I started talking to a woman named Claire, mostly, to be honest, because she said she wanted to set me up with her son, a Marine Colonel currently serving in Iraq. Yum. But then she told me he's married to, as she described his wife, "a ding dong" that she was hoping her son would divorce upon return from Iraq (enter me, stage left, according to her plan).

I told her I wasn't interested in her little scheme, and then we started making fun of men (at a party where we were served 4 types of german wieners, it was hard to not chuckle every time we saw a guy), and discussing our bad behavior with them over the summer. She told me that she had a procedure for men, which she called "the three Fs": find him, fuck him, forget him.

Claire, I should mention, is 72 but looks 42. She was married, had three kids, drop kicked her husband, and has followed the three Fs since. I can't help but think she's right. As a woman, if you have a job and don't need a man for anything other than sex, why invest all the energy and money into a real relationship? You know the asspipe you're with is going to fuck someone else sooner or later. Wouldn't it be nice to have not wasted your resources on him?

A movie I watched recently, Romance and Cigarettes, had a line along this theme. Susan Sarandon finds out her husband is cheating on her and during an argument screams at him "It's just a hole!" Since the movie was written by a man I thought the line was very profound. That's the difference between men and women. When a man is fucking you, you are just a hole. For women (again, as in the movie) it's hard to think that way when you're having sex (for the record, I don't actually think the movie was about a guy who cheats on his wife - it was about a guy dying of lung cancer - oops, spoiler - and I think that's why there was an emphasis on "the hole", as in smoking even though you know it will kill you and maybe that's the equivalent of cheating on your spouse, which, now that I think about it, should somehow be a theme in the book I'm no longer writing, but with climbing instead of smoking...hm...I digress).

Likely women feel differently because, if you aren't careful, nine months after something goes in something comes back out. Men don't ever have to understand that or feel responsible for their actions once they have sex. This is why there are mis-understandings between the sexes that can never be resolved. I know people stay together, happy or unhappy, for reasons that usually don't make any sense, but can be boiled down to a feeling of security for the woman and a feeling of dependence on the part of the man. Yawn.

And they call it love.

IKEA epic - the Con Way Renovation Story

I think someone should offer me my own home renovation show. I’ve spent the past 4 weekends helping people renovate their places (with one weekend off for Bachtoberfest). But last night showed how willing I am to risk my life so a friend can have a closet.

I’m staying with my friend Con Way in NYC*. I arrived Sunday to find his apartment in a state of utter disrepair. I spent the evening ripping a closet out and sustained many wounds and bruises, and also touched an exposed switch that shocked me so bad I’m pretty sure I saw Jesus waving me over to the open bar. He’s been renovating everything in his apartment, at the same time, but not finishing anything, so the place is a mess of drywall, clothes, furniture, exposed wires, rotting insulation, and wood shavings.

After ripping out the closet, CW informed me that we would be going to IKEA to get a new closet, which is blue. Sounds simple enough, I thought to myself and agreed to help him. His friend Chris spent the night Wednesday night and he and CW spent 4 hours discussing the set up of the new closet. It was starting to sound more complicated than just putting up a new cabinet, but I figured CW knew what he was doing.

After consuming, I am not making this up, five, yes FIVE, doughnuts as an afternoon “snack” CW (who makes me look fat) rented a Toyota Scion zip car and we headed to New Jersey. CW had no idea where the IKEA was, so, as the driver, I was subjected to many last minute changes in direction and was even admonished because the map software on my black berry “sucked”, that being the excuse of why we got so lost. I tried to explain to him that some of the driving maneuvers he suggested were okay for him because he’s Asian, but not for me because I’m a good driver, but he wouldn’t listen.

At IKEA I perused the cookies and jams while CW spent 2 hours (it seemed like 10) with the closet lady trying to figure out what he needed for his “little” project. At one point I was so bored I hid in a closet, planning to scare him when he opened it. But after about 5 minutes he didn’t open the closet so I walked out, scaring instead, on accident, a family with a small child.

Finally, inventory list in hand, we ran down to the self service area to pick up part of the order, the other part being pulled for us. I should have, at the time, questioned WHY we couldn’t pull everything ourselves. We had to run to pull stuff because it was 9:25 PM and IKEA closes at 10 PM.

After checking out, CW pulled the car to the loading zone and went in to get the rest of his order. He arrived with a pallet containing three 93 inch glass doors. They weighed a lot. This is going to be interesting I thought, surveying the mess of boxes that had to fit into the poor little Scion.

“There’s two more pallets I have to bring out.” CW said, running back into IKEA before I could protest.

It turns out that CW decided to buy TWO closets instead of one, explaining the now four VERY HEAVY glass doors and extra boxes. I knew we were in trouble when the IKEA staff made themselves very scarce instead of offering to help us load the car as they normally do for customers.

“Dude, we are so fucked,” I said.
“Dude, this is going to fit!” CW retorted, waving a tape measure in my face.

With only 5 minutes until IKEA's closing I realized the stuff would HAVE to fit.

Thus began a long ordeal of loading the heaviest fucking boxes on the face of the planet into this poor little Scion. The highlights of the loading process was probably when a box slid over onto the shifter, causing the shifter to get a little crushed, and causing us to have to completely unload and reload. In the process of the reload, against my suggestion, CW left the front passenger door open, and then we couldn’t close it because a box, on the bottom of course, was sticking out too far.

So we unpacked the VERY HEAVY glass doors AGAIN, plus some other fucking heavy boxes, and reshuffled the boxes AGAIN, this time managing to get the front door closed while at the same time not blocking the gear shifter. There was a moment of panic when CW tried to move the gear shifter after we freed it from the boxes, fearing we had broken it by piling, oh, let’s estimate about 600 lbs on top of it, and it wouldn’t move. I let him freak out for a minute or two before telling him that the car had to be turned on for the shifter to move. We also lost the tuner button for the radio and never found it.

We couldn’t get the back of the Scion closed so we had to tie it shut with twine. I watched CW fuck around with the twine for a while and then asked him if he knew what he was doing. He immediately put me in charge of knot tying and hopefully realized that hanging out with a climber has advantages.

At approximately 10:45 PM the car was loaded. We argued over who had to drive and CW lost so he got into the driver seat, started the car, and then realized he couldn’t see to the right at all because boxes were stacked seat to ceiling from the very back of the car all the way up to the windshield. After ANOTHER reshuffling of boxes, and an improvised solution involving propping my Vitamin Water bottle between two layers of cardboard to provide some right side visibility, we decided we were ready to head back to Manhattan (go system engineers!).

CW drove around the parking lot while I stood outside the car watching for bad things. There was only about two inches of clearance between the car frame and the wheels but it seemed to be okay. I got in the back seat, wedged myself between boxes, and ducked my head under the twine that was wrapped around the door frame to hold the back door closed. It was, shall we say, a bit uncomfortable.

Then we took our first major left turn. All the boxes shifted over on top of CW and I. He ended up wedged under about 5 flat boxes that landed on his shoulder. I got crushed against the car door. We were later laughing that if the boxes had shifted more we could have been crushed and trapped in the car. We imagined the IKEA staff driving by the Scion and staring at us as our faces were mushed against the windows and our limbs impaled by particle board.

We managed to get back to Manhattan with only a few little mishaps like when CW almost drove into a guard rail because he forgot he was driving and was looking at something that wasn’t the road, and when a guy who got pissed that we were going slow (with the hazards on) decided to cut us off right before a red light. We seriously missed hitting him only because he then ran the red light. We arrived home at midnight.

Then began the process of unloading all this shit from the car and carrying it up two flights of stairs. I’ll spare you the details. Suffice it to say I can barely move today. To his credit CW talked a sushi bar into letting us do take out at 1 AM (I was so hungry I was ready to eat my own arm) and after only a bit of complaining opened a good bottle of wine (all I had to do was gently imply that he was one dead fuck if he didn’t pour me a drink post haste and he popped the cork). Then we ate most of the cookies we bought at IKEA and passed out around 2 am.

I would like to point out that, after getting everything into the apartment last night, CW now refers to his place as "a blue closet with an apartment". He'll probably rent it out as a bedroom.

and the rest of us had to get up early for work this morning…

*Full disclosure: he said I could write this story making fun of him only if I linked to his company (www.xerpi.com).

the confusion (or, my Saturday afternoon with the evil twins)

My Uncle Denny, Aunt Carol, and cousin Andrea are supposed to be coming to visit me from Kentucky. They are traveling around out here and weren't sure when they would get here so Den said he'd call me. He left me a message on Friday when I was stuck in this shit show travel situation trying to get home from Vancouver (DEN was closed and I got stuck on a runway in Cheyenne for three hours - fun) and I thought he was getting to my house Friday. But when I got home at 930 PM on Friday he wasn't there and so I assumed that he might have decided to stay with my evil twin cousins in Boulder since he couldn't get in touch with me. The evil twins are Chris and Andrew, identical red head twins that moved to Boulder two years ago.

So on Saturday while I was having lunch I got a text from a Kentucky area code number inviting me to see Andrew, one of the evil twins, play at a bar in Denver. I assumed it was Den so I called the number back, left a rambling message, and headed out to the bar. Then I got to the bar and found the evil twins but no Den. Turns out the text was from my cousin Chris, who also has a Kentucky area code because he never updated his number when he moved here. I was like "Where's Den, Carol and Andrea?" and they were like "Oh, are they in town?"

Andrew is an amazing performer and the audience was really into his show. I had to save him from these two horrible 40 something women who wanted to attack him. A guy in the back gave him a $40 tip for playing two songs. People were dropping money in his guitar case during the show.

He told me this great story about how once these really drunk girls once dropped their phone number in his guitar case. It turns out, as they were leaving, they hit a car as they were pulling out of the parking lot. When the cops showed up they were asking Andrew about the girls and he gave them the phone number. So then the cop called the driver and pretended to be Andrew. When the girl drove back to the bar to meet him the cops arrested her.

Too funny.

folding papers

I have been having some really weird dreams lately.

A week ago I had a dream that I was standing in an airplane hangar with my friend Jen who used to be a lesbian but isn't anymore. The airplane hangar was on fire and I was trying to get the maps out of the plane before they burned up because the maps were expensive. Jen and Angelina Jolie were arguing about Jen deciding to not be a lesbian anymore because apparently Angelina wanted to hook up with Jen. Angelina kept pointing this really long finger in Jen's face and saying "I want to know if you're really going to do THIS!" and Jen kept making excuses about not hooking up. I was like Jen, you're an idiot and no one cares that the hangar is burning down except me. Then the roof of the hangar fell in and I woke up.

Then I had a dream that I showed up to work and everyone looked like a zombie and had blood coming out of their eyes. I took a secret staircase from whatever floor I was on and started running down the stairwell because I was afraid someone was going to eat me. That's what zombies do. Then I got to this lobby and started running across it and this guard was like "Oh god! Look in the mirror!" and I looked in one of the mirrors in the lobby and my eyes were bleeding too. So I started crying because I didn't want to be a zombie and then the guard shot me in the chest and I woke up.

On monday before I left for Canadull I had a dream that I was at work meeting with a client and the client kept staring at the cuffs of these brown tweed pants I was wearing. So finally I looked down at them and the bottom of my pants were covered with deck stain and I had accidentally worn my flip flops into work and all my toe nails had turned black and one of my feet was a really weird green color and was slowly disintegrating into this gelatinous goo. I started to panic because I thought I had accidentally stained my deck in my work clothes and now they were all ruined. Then the client got on the phone to my boss and told him I had to leave before all of me disintegrated into goo. I was trying to explain to the client that it was only my foot but then these guys came in with a wheel chair and put me in an elevator. As soon as the door closed I realized the elevator didn't work and I was going to plummet to my death as soon as one of the wheel chair guys pushed the button for the ground floor, the elevator buttons being outside this particular elevator. I heard the ding of the bell and the elevator started to fall and then I woke up.

My favorite dream I've had this week is I was in a garbage dump but all the garbage had been washed and smelled like soap. I was standing on this huge pile of junk pulling out everything that could be recycled and these little midgets were taking the recycling and putting it into magic wheel barrows that would fold up the recycling. So then I sat down on this old tricycle and started racing the wheel barrow to see if I could fold the recycling up faster than the wheel barrow could. When I woke up I was really happy because for a second I thought I really had recycled a bunch of garbage. But actually I didn't.

the coasties

I'm in nowhere West Virginia this week working with the coast guard. Don't ask me why they have an office that is so far away from any body of water, I don't know.

The class has been interesting, starting with the second day when I discovered a workbook that has all the student exercises in it wasn't shipped. I had to tap dance through the next hour while the customer printed the books (customer being NOT happy about that). It was even more fun than the first day of class when everyone's laptops were crashing due to a bad software image and me having a different set of slides than what was delivered to the students.

This is one of those weird dry counties and there are signs all over the hotel (not a chain) that I'm staying in saying you can't have alcohol in the hotel. So the coasties who came in for the training hang out right outside the door of the hotel with their alcohol. At any point in the day, starting around 4 pm, there are at least 5 guys outside smoking and drinking.

Yesterday, while I was trying to make calls to figure out what the hell happened to my training material, a bunch of coasties showed up from dinner. The guy who drove was so drunk he had vomit on the sleeve of his shirt, where he had, he told me, wiped his mouth after puking out the car window. He said this as he was downing a long island iced tea. I asked him if he thought it was a good idea to keep drinking at which point his friend defended him with the statement "Well, he's eating peanuts too!" Apparently vomit head dumped a bucket of peanuts in the bar they were at (I suspect Divas, a topless joint 30 minutes from the hotel) into his pants pocket. The friend then yelled at vomit head for not offering me a peanut.

He offered me a peanut.

Living in a small town makes people crazy like that. The guard at the base gate decided to give me a hard time yesterday when I was entering the base. He wanted to see my ID, class roster, black berry, and probably my tits. When I pointed out to him that I had a base pass, which he had given me the previous day, and which had his handwriting on it, he said "That pass don't mean shit. I'm not talking about yesterday, I'm talking about today." I was told by my customer that the "threat level" of the base had been elevated due to the Yemen embassy incident. Elevated to what I wonder? Bringing out the rednecks and their trailers so they can shoot people in rental cars? I mean, how could someone attack this little base that isn't even on a map and is hard to find with directions from the customer? And why would the base get attacked?

Unless vomit head stole his peanuts from a terrorist...

Balls

File this story under things you probably didn't want to know.

When I was in the shower at 530 Sunday morning getting ready for my flight to DC I happened to notice my razor was on the wrong shelf. I went to move it and noticed that it was clogged with long hairs. That's strange, I thought to myself, especially since I haven't used the razor in over a week and had just changed the cartridge.

As I was toweling off after my shower, suddenly I remembered the following conversation I had with my housepest Ryan, who has taken a part time job teaching swimming:

F: Michael Phelps swim suit always looks like it's about to fall off.
R: That's how you're supposed to wear that suit.
F: I wonder if he shaves his back.
R: Of course he does. Swimmers shave everything.
F: Even their balls?
R: Especially their balls.

If Ryan shaved his balls with my razor, I really really really don't want to know.

My Uncle Denny

My Uncle Denny and Aunt Carol are planning a drive by through Denver on their way home from picking up my cousin Andrea. Andrea works for the forest service and does things like jumping out of helicopters to tag elk. We've been emailing to figure out if I am going to be around when they come through.

My Uncle Denny is my godfather of sorts. We have a similar sense of humor. For my 9th birthday he gave me a Ouija board. For my 10th birthday he gave me Dungeons and Dragons, the first set ever made.

He also has a lot of good stories about farts. Sometimes when he's telling fart stories he farts. I laugh my ass off every time we hang out.

He has scars on his face from the time, when he was 10, that he decided to build a volcano. He and my mom lived in this plantation house in Louisville that took up an entire city block. It was haunted and had secret passages. One of my cousins wrote a book about the house called "The House on 3rd Street". Anyway, my uncle dug up a major part of the back yard and made this huge pile of dirt that was about 5 feet high. Then he dug out the core and put dynamite in the hole so his "volcano" would explode. The dynamite, as physics dictated, blew the dirt outward rather than exploding upward, at which point my uncle belated realized that standing next to the volcano was not a good idea.

I sent him an email today to let him know that I am going to be in Vancouver when he was initially planning on coming by. He sent me a response that started out: "Franki, What the hell are you doing in Vancouver ?" He then went on to make fun of my cousins who are referred to as the evil slacker twins in Boulder, and then he closed the email with "Love, Uncle Denny _everyone does".

Indeed...

The List

My perfect man qualifications:

• A good climber and who excels at other sports
• Older than me and established (i.e. not living out of his car)
• Owns a custom made pair of cowboy boots and understands shoes
• Can socialize across the spectrum
• Has a good set of friends
• Writes well and reads a lot
• Has a great music collection of stuff I haven't heard yet
• Has a background in the sciences and likes to talk about math and physics just in case I want to talk about, for example, small number theory or strange attractors
• Has good business sense
• Is not a water sign
• Is above average height
• Has a large dog or would get a large dog and name it Heshy the Knuckles because I've always wanted a dog called Heshy the Knuckles
• Can cook
• Eats sushi a lot
• Knows something about wine and will drink wine with me
• Will hold my hand in public
• Is not obsessed with porn
• Knows who the Little Prince is
• Has traveled extensively
• Has had one traumatic injury from which he's recovered
• Can do currency calculations so when we travel we don't get ripped off changing money
• Owns a tux and wears it at least once a year
• Has above average intelligence and an above average sense of humor
• Doesn't have to wear anything to correct his vision
• Has some interesting scars, especially on his hands
• Doesn't have any tattoos, but has his ear pierced
• Is not afraid of the water
• Does something for his community or gives money to charities
• Speaks at least one other language besides English
• Has an advanced degree but not a PhD
• Has the same taste in films as I do and doesn't make me watch shit movies (Transformers comes to mind)
• Writes romantic notes to me and sends me postcards
• Believes in recycling and rides his bike
• Will not sandbag me on a climb or if we are skiing
• Plays at least one musical instrument
• Has at least some Romanian blood
• Tells the long version of a story rather than the short version
• Only gossips with me
• Doesn't have kids or any weird drama with an ex
• Self effacing
• Can identify trees and birds
• Would take care of me if I were sick or injured and wouldn't complain or expect me to have sex with him until I was better
• Owns a Toyota truck
• Drinks yerba mate and coffee but doesn't put sugar in his coffee
• Has great teeth, which he brushes and flosses regularly
• Gives me records even though I don't have a record player
• Likes John Coltrane and going to listen to music
• Is a good photographer
• Wears flip flops when ever possible
• Is not financially irresponsible
• Has lips like Mick Jagger or Keith Richards
• Has an imperfect rib cage
• Doesn't get headaches or whine about being tired
• Knows how to shave with a straight edge razor
• Is president of at least one thing
• Is not easily intimidated

If you happen to find this creature, please send him to me ASAP...

Words of wisdom from Neil

Last night I was talking to my friend Neil and we were laughing about my latest romantic entanglements and he said something that I thought was very profound. He said that to even get started in a relationship takes so much, and if the situation is complicated chances are it won't work out.

He quoted the Springsteen song Tunnel of Love "ought to be easy, ought to be simple enough/man meets a woman and they fall in love". I started thinking about how all of my relationships have been more or less mitigated disasters, and how every one of them was so complex I found myself spending all of my time trying to figure out how to make the relationship work rather than enjoying the relationship.

There was my ex who lived in a different country and who couldn't ever seem to be in the same city as me no matter where we moved. The idiot mountaineer who would argue with me all the time because I refused to drop out of my master's program on the off chance he was home for a week. The guy who lived 1,200 miles away from me with kids who was going through a divorce and, even though he didn't really have a job, was busy doing other stuff, forcing me to drive up to New York every weekend to try to spend time with him. Etc.

None of these guys ever did anything to try to accommodate me or my schedule. Even with my recent relationship, I ended up making some less than beneficial career decisions to spend time with him. All of my efforts ended up being a waste since every one of those guys ended up with someone else.

From now on I'm keeping things simpliciter. No more guys with a shit ton of problems or inconvenient issues. I feel like I should have stocked up enough karma going out with some of the biggest ass pipes on the planet to find a good guy. Hopefully there's someone out there that can qualify.

I knew it was Monday before you told me...

In the interest of trying to make my backyard look better I decided to stain my deck and fence. I spent the past two days doing that and some other little carpentry projects. This summer we've only had a few days of rain, which happened to coincide with my dad's visit and our hiking. The stain required two days of drying during which it's not supposed to rain.

Last night, when I was standing on my patio, I noticed a breeze had kicked up and the sky was a weird kind of reddish color. This summer has been characterized by evening thunderstorms that never produce any precipitation so, though I felt a little uneasy, I assured myself that it wouldn't rain.

This morning I woke up at 430. It was raining.

Fucking rain. I wonder what will happen now.

lions, tigers, and yaks

Last night I had a dream I was in this field in England for a birthday party for Clint. He walked up to me and was holding hands with some girl that was his new girlfriend. I was trying to figure out why he invited me to the party but instead of answering my question he took me over to this rickety wooden fence and said "Look at my animals".

There were two doors like a barn and one had a small window. He slid the window down and there was a horse head in the window. Then he slid the window closed and open again and this time there was a yak with all these weird ribbons and shit on its head. Then Clint walked away but not before saying "don't let my animals out".

So I opened the doors to see what other animals there were and the animals started running out. None of them were real animals except for one which was a lion. The fake animals were really scary looking, like a tiger with a bear head. I started to panic when I saw the lion and tried to close the doors but the lion jumped on the doors and knocked me over.

I was laying on the ground and knew the lion was going to try to eat me so I pulled myself up between the wall and the door and the lion went running across the field. Then these two guys came up to me wearing suits and carrying briefcases and they were like "Franki, you missed your flight! We have to go to the airport now!" And I asked them who I should call to let them know I let all the animals out and they were like "We don't have time!" so then I was in this really old airport and a woman told me my flight was leaving in an hour so I ran up to security and I had these HUGE orange and red tickets.

Then I got to my terminal and found out my flight didn't leave for 6 hours. So then I was like well I'll go smoke but I couldn't get out of the terminal because there was no door, only windows and then I also realized I was in the airport by myself and that I was trapped for whatever reason by the guys with the suitcases.