I've made an interesting discovery while reading an article about a guy who went to the deserts of Israel to understand the ecology in the logical framework of the three great monotheistic religions experienced there (yes, I have an obsession with the desert, otherwise no, I wouldn't be reading this article). If the last sentence confused you, fear not, just go back to watching Fox News and pretend this blog never happened.
My Christian name means freedom, which I knew. But I also discovered, through the article, that my Hebrew name, Yitzak (Isaac), female version Yitzi, means [DRUM ROLL]
"(s)he laughs"
What's in a name indeed.
Interestingly enough, as I also discovered in the article, the idea of eternity was introduced by desert monks.
And, if you're bored, think about this for a minute:
"The paradox of monotheism is that the desert God, refuting all other gods, demands acknowledgement within emptiness. The paradox of monotheism is that there is no paradox - only unfathomable singularity."
-Robert Rodriguez
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
million little pieces of paper...that some guy ate
Once I was riding the subway from Old Town Alexandria to DC with a work colleague. This was back in 1992. Her name escapes me at the moment, I think it might have been Arlene; in any case she was hands down the WORST systems engineer I have ever dealt with.
Anyway, it was around 10 am on I think it was a Wednesday, and we were prepping for a briefing when the train stopped and this homeless looking guy got on. The car was empty except for us and the homeless guy. At that point I was able to ignore homeless people, but apparently he was making, fine, let's call her Arlene, uncomfortable. I was trying to make sure she was prepared for our upcoming briefing, which involved asking congress for money, a lot of money actually, but she kept staring at the guy instead of paying attention to me. For fuck's sake, I remember thinking. Then I looked at the guy too.
He had a stack of porno magazines in his lap. He was holding a straight edge razor in his hand. Flipping through the magazines, he would stop when he came to a picture of a woman with her breasts exposed. He would then use the straight edge razor to, shall we say, extract the breasts from the page. And no, for all you engineers out there, he didn't check the other side of the page to see if there were better breasts, leading one to assume he must have had a liberal arts degree.
After extracting the breasts, he would take the piece of paper containing the breasts and fold it up into tinier and tinier pieces. When he could no longer fold the breasts into smaller squares he would put the folded paper into his mouth, chew it, and swallow.
He got off at the same metro stop we did. The stop happened to be the stop for tourists going to the white house. Coincidence? I report, you decide...
for more stories about my fun with homeless people, check out my blog about the dead guy in denver and the Italian guy who gave me the full monty in London
Anyway, it was around 10 am on I think it was a Wednesday, and we were prepping for a briefing when the train stopped and this homeless looking guy got on. The car was empty except for us and the homeless guy. At that point I was able to ignore homeless people, but apparently he was making, fine, let's call her Arlene, uncomfortable. I was trying to make sure she was prepared for our upcoming briefing, which involved asking congress for money, a lot of money actually, but she kept staring at the guy instead of paying attention to me. For fuck's sake, I remember thinking. Then I looked at the guy too.
He had a stack of porno magazines in his lap. He was holding a straight edge razor in his hand. Flipping through the magazines, he would stop when he came to a picture of a woman with her breasts exposed. He would then use the straight edge razor to, shall we say, extract the breasts from the page. And no, for all you engineers out there, he didn't check the other side of the page to see if there were better breasts, leading one to assume he must have had a liberal arts degree.
After extracting the breasts, he would take the piece of paper containing the breasts and fold it up into tinier and tinier pieces. When he could no longer fold the breasts into smaller squares he would put the folded paper into his mouth, chew it, and swallow.
He got off at the same metro stop we did. The stop happened to be the stop for tourists going to the white house. Coincidence? I report, you decide...
for more stories about my fun with homeless people, check out my blog about the dead guy in denver and the Italian guy who gave me the full monty in London
Monday, January 7, 2008
Power Bars and Pests
In a previous life, I worked in an environment called a SCIF, which stands for secured classified information facility. I am disappointed that someone in the government was not clever enough to come up with a different description that would have resulted in the acronym SHIT, because that's what working in a SCIF amounts to. Imagine spending 10 hours a day in a sardine tin that has been encased in one of those little fire proof safes you can buy at home depot. Someone farted in the safe before it was sealed closed and no fresh air can get in. That summarizes a SCIF environment.
SCIFs normally don't have windows, so forget natural light. Most of the main entry ways require you to open a combo lock that is older than your grandparents. Not good with numbers? You'll never get into your office. Every place you go in a SCIF requires you to enter a code or swipe a badge. And since the SCIF is classified, OSHA is never going to inspect it.
The furniture usually has mold on it, the carpet looks like it was purchased from a fraternity house that burned down after one last puke fest, and the walls are normally painted some color that makes you want to kill yourself every time you look at them.
Most SCIFs are far off from civilization, so people bring food in with them and just eat lunch at their desk. That is the reason why I had a box of 24 power bars in my office in a SCIF. I had procured the power bars from a Costco with the help of my friend Eva. I went to a Costco once by myself and sustained serious injuries to my head (mild concussion) and my knee (it was even bleeding), as well as breaking a freezer door (after which I was thrown out by the management), and after that I never went in there by myself.
The usual plan for my Saturday evenings back in those days was for me to go to Eva's house. We would sit in the movie room eating cookies, pretending we were going to go to Costco. Eventually Dan, Eva's husband, would give up on us getting to Costco and back in time for dinner. So Dan would go instead, and we could eat more cookies and watch movies instead of going shopping. Strictly Ballroom was a favorite ("Not FRAN!").
But then a bad thing happened. Dan went out of town. We were out of cherry tomatoes and peanut M&Ms. Survival through the weekend was threatened. So we ventured into Costco and somehow ended up in the parking lot with a whole cart full of stuff without quite knowing where it came from, including a box of 24 power bars. I must have been really hungry, and drunk, because I was somehow convinced I was going to eat a power bar every morning for breakfast, and that was my justification for buying them.
Wine goggling + food = bad purchase decisions
I brought the weighty box into my office the following Monday. It had three different types of bars in it. The bar type was distinguished by what was referred to as "flavors". There was "apple and cinnamon", "oatmeal", and "peanut butter". The quotes indicate the veracity of taste when compared to what, for example, actual peanut butter tastes like.
I opened a bar labeled peanut butter and took a bite. It sucked. I threw the power bar into a file drawer next to my desk. I opened the apple and cinnamon. Even worse. I decided to sample the third flavor, oatmeal. It tasted kind of like oatmeal, if the oatmeal was made in a bark bowl and then set on a sand dune in the Sahara for a week before it was consumed. These bars, with one bite taken out, also went into the file drawer.
Over the next month I would forget how bad the power bars tasted and I would open one and bite it. After a mouthful they would go into the file drawer. A few times I was at the office late and had to open a power bar and take a bite to keep my blood sugar up. Eventually all bars ended up in the file drawer.
Approximately 6 months later we were temporarily forbidden to go into the SCIF because there was a rodent infestation. I ended up leaving the SCIF shortly afterwards to go work somewhere else. Another 6 months past and I was working in that SCIF again. They were still having rodent problems.
And then one day a secretary that I knew pretty well because she was always standing outside smoking came storming down the hallway. She had a box full of power bars with a human bite taken out of them at one end, and mouse bites taken out at the other end.
"I just can't BELIEVE this!" she raged. "SOMEONE put all these food bars in a drawer after partially eating them! They attracted mice and now we are going to have to bring in a specialist!" It turned out, on top of snacking on the power bars, the mice had also eaten through some of the network cabling and almost brought down a major system. Oops.
"This is just DISGUSTING!" the secretary continued. "I can't BELIEVE an ADULT would do such a thing! I just know it was [a guy we both despised because he was always blowing his food up in the microwave without a thought to cleaning it up - once he blew up some kind of pasta dish and it looked like someone had run over a squirrel and then stuffed the squirrel in our microwave].
I put on my best poker face and said nothing at the time. Eventually the word leaked out that the power bars belonged to me. I became an outcast in the SCIF and was glad when I was finally moved to a different location.
And, for the record, I recently had a little critter eat the Clif bars I keep in my climbing backpack in my front closet. Thank god, because I wasn't going to eat them. I almost put out a glue trap for the little pest but then decided not to since it didn't eat any of my backpack. Since ridding the front closet of gu and food bars the critter seems to have gone back to where ever it came from.
SCIFs normally don't have windows, so forget natural light. Most of the main entry ways require you to open a combo lock that is older than your grandparents. Not good with numbers? You'll never get into your office. Every place you go in a SCIF requires you to enter a code or swipe a badge. And since the SCIF is classified, OSHA is never going to inspect it.
The furniture usually has mold on it, the carpet looks like it was purchased from a fraternity house that burned down after one last puke fest, and the walls are normally painted some color that makes you want to kill yourself every time you look at them.
Most SCIFs are far off from civilization, so people bring food in with them and just eat lunch at their desk. That is the reason why I had a box of 24 power bars in my office in a SCIF. I had procured the power bars from a Costco with the help of my friend Eva. I went to a Costco once by myself and sustained serious injuries to my head (mild concussion) and my knee (it was even bleeding), as well as breaking a freezer door (after which I was thrown out by the management), and after that I never went in there by myself.
The usual plan for my Saturday evenings back in those days was for me to go to Eva's house. We would sit in the movie room eating cookies, pretending we were going to go to Costco. Eventually Dan, Eva's husband, would give up on us getting to Costco and back in time for dinner. So Dan would go instead, and we could eat more cookies and watch movies instead of going shopping. Strictly Ballroom was a favorite ("Not FRAN!").
But then a bad thing happened. Dan went out of town. We were out of cherry tomatoes and peanut M&Ms. Survival through the weekend was threatened. So we ventured into Costco and somehow ended up in the parking lot with a whole cart full of stuff without quite knowing where it came from, including a box of 24 power bars. I must have been really hungry, and drunk, because I was somehow convinced I was going to eat a power bar every morning for breakfast, and that was my justification for buying them.
Wine goggling + food = bad purchase decisions
I brought the weighty box into my office the following Monday. It had three different types of bars in it. The bar type was distinguished by what was referred to as "flavors". There was "apple and cinnamon", "oatmeal", and "peanut butter". The quotes indicate the veracity of taste when compared to what, for example, actual peanut butter tastes like.
I opened a bar labeled peanut butter and took a bite. It sucked. I threw the power bar into a file drawer next to my desk. I opened the apple and cinnamon. Even worse. I decided to sample the third flavor, oatmeal. It tasted kind of like oatmeal, if the oatmeal was made in a bark bowl and then set on a sand dune in the Sahara for a week before it was consumed. These bars, with one bite taken out, also went into the file drawer.
Over the next month I would forget how bad the power bars tasted and I would open one and bite it. After a mouthful they would go into the file drawer. A few times I was at the office late and had to open a power bar and take a bite to keep my blood sugar up. Eventually all bars ended up in the file drawer.
Approximately 6 months later we were temporarily forbidden to go into the SCIF because there was a rodent infestation. I ended up leaving the SCIF shortly afterwards to go work somewhere else. Another 6 months past and I was working in that SCIF again. They were still having rodent problems.
And then one day a secretary that I knew pretty well because she was always standing outside smoking came storming down the hallway. She had a box full of power bars with a human bite taken out of them at one end, and mouse bites taken out at the other end.
"I just can't BELIEVE this!" she raged. "SOMEONE put all these food bars in a drawer after partially eating them! They attracted mice and now we are going to have to bring in a specialist!" It turned out, on top of snacking on the power bars, the mice had also eaten through some of the network cabling and almost brought down a major system. Oops.
"This is just DISGUSTING!" the secretary continued. "I can't BELIEVE an ADULT would do such a thing! I just know it was [a guy we both despised because he was always blowing his food up in the microwave without a thought to cleaning it up - once he blew up some kind of pasta dish and it looked like someone had run over a squirrel and then stuffed the squirrel in our microwave].
I put on my best poker face and said nothing at the time. Eventually the word leaked out that the power bars belonged to me. I became an outcast in the SCIF and was glad when I was finally moved to a different location.
And, for the record, I recently had a little critter eat the Clif bars I keep in my climbing backpack in my front closet. Thank god, because I wasn't going to eat them. I almost put out a glue trap for the little pest but then decided not to since it didn't eat any of my backpack. Since ridding the front closet of gu and food bars the critter seems to have gone back to where ever it came from.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Pee T
The details of my heinous knee surgery are not worth going into here. Suffice it to say for two weeks after the surgery I honestly thought I was going to die from pain. And I mean I physically thought I was going to die.
One thing that lessened the pain was physical therapy. Or maybe the pain I endured in therapy was so great that the normal, every day pain of recovery seemed less. Anyway, when I moved to Baltimore from San Fran one of the first things I did was find myself a PT. It happened that a woman, who I will call X, had just opened a clinic in my gym. I became one of her first patients.
X was around my age. She was engaged to Y, who worked as her assistant. She spent hours doing extra therapy for me, and I often would be in sessions with her until 830 at night. There was a bar right next to the gym (good planning on some one's part!) and I would usually retire there for a drink and some peanuts before heading home.
As part of my PT I was also given a free personal trainer for a month. Let's just call him Z. He was a professional runner and in pretty high demand. Oddly enough, he had a close resemblance to my high school running friend Doug Rippey. I had gone through the other five trainers the gym had to offer in about a week, finding them all lacking and incompetent in even the most mundane aspects of working out (for the record, at that point I was going on 4 years working with a personal trainer, and was spoiled rotten by Tom Mendall and Shelley Hines, love and miss you both!). Z started joining me for my bar sessions after PT, and even participated in a few sessions to learn how to work better with my injuries. I kept waiting for Z to ask me out, but he never did.
So the holidays rolled around, and X invited me to her house for a party. She claimed she wanted to set me up with Z, who was shy, but who might open up in a social environment. So on the appointed night I showed up. The party had been in full swing for 3 or 4 hours (I was working late that Friday) and X was trashed. She grabbed my hand and pretended she was introducing me to people at the party, dragging me around like a child at a funeral, but it just seemed...weird. It was almost as though she were introducing people to me as her date.
Then, as I sat on the sofa next to Z and started trying to talk to him, X ran over, planted herself in my lap and put her head on my shoulder. Ignoring this, I continued trying to engage Z in conversation. I might as well have been talking to a frozen dog turd. The situation in my lap, however, was escalating. X began trying to fondle my tits. Then she grabbed my neck and started trying to force her tongue down my throat. I managed to fend her off, pretending that I had to go to the bathroom, but she followed me and was saying some very sexual stuff outside the bathroom door while I was peeing, including that it turned her on to listen to me pee.
I left the party shortly afterwards. Z ended up following me to my car. The interest of a female piqued his interest in me I guess.
For the record, I went on one date with him. He invited three of his friends. It was very high school. Also, when I was driving to his house to pick him up (get the picture - he was the bitch) I got lost because his directions sucked and I was on the cell with him and asked "so are you near the deaf kid sign?", the only visible land marker for miles, and it turns out the sign was in front of his house. I was like "why didn't you just say turn at the deaf kid sign" and he said "because the deaf kid is my brother and that's why the sign is there". How embarrassing.
I should also note that the hot guy muscle head of the gym got so wrecked at X's party that he peed his pants, and it was the talk of gym for the next few months. Why are the hot ones always so stupid?
Anyway, the next PT session was kind of awkward and I spent most of the time working with X's fiance Y. He assured me that X was just drunk and her behavior didn't mean anything, blah blah blah. Later, I went to the bathroom, and X followed me. I thought she was coming into the bathroom with me to apologize or something. To the contrary. While I was peeing she stood outside my stall door and said "You have a very strong stream". Oy vey. I cancelled all my remaining appointments, and started going to the gym at 430 in the morning so I could avoid everyone, X, Y, Z, and the idiot muscle head, who knew I knew he peed his pants and had taken to telling me stories about being abused as a child while I was trying to do my pull ups.
Shortly after the whole incident, X and Y broke off their engagement. X closed up shop and went back to her home town in New Jersey. I don't know what happened to Y. Muscle guy quit the gym and went to work for some other gym that offered Tae-Bo. As for Z, we had a heart to heart talk about life.
He told me that his deaf brother also had a drug problem and was mentally challenged. His mom started wearing a wig when he was in elementary school for reasons unknown. I suggested she might have converted to a very rigorous version of Judaism, which he said was "impossible". I was like dude, she is WEARING A WIG! NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE!
Anyway, the drama was too much and as much as I lusted after free shoes and running clothes from his sponsor, I couldn't bring myself to date him. Also, his check engine light was on in his car all the time and he never got it checked. It practically gave me an ulcer.
I wish I could say X was the last woman in Maryland who hit on me, but that is not the case...
One thing that lessened the pain was physical therapy. Or maybe the pain I endured in therapy was so great that the normal, every day pain of recovery seemed less. Anyway, when I moved to Baltimore from San Fran one of the first things I did was find myself a PT. It happened that a woman, who I will call X, had just opened a clinic in my gym. I became one of her first patients.
X was around my age. She was engaged to Y, who worked as her assistant. She spent hours doing extra therapy for me, and I often would be in sessions with her until 830 at night. There was a bar right next to the gym (good planning on some one's part!) and I would usually retire there for a drink and some peanuts before heading home.
As part of my PT I was also given a free personal trainer for a month. Let's just call him Z. He was a professional runner and in pretty high demand. Oddly enough, he had a close resemblance to my high school running friend Doug Rippey. I had gone through the other five trainers the gym had to offer in about a week, finding them all lacking and incompetent in even the most mundane aspects of working out (for the record, at that point I was going on 4 years working with a personal trainer, and was spoiled rotten by Tom Mendall and Shelley Hines, love and miss you both!). Z started joining me for my bar sessions after PT, and even participated in a few sessions to learn how to work better with my injuries. I kept waiting for Z to ask me out, but he never did.
So the holidays rolled around, and X invited me to her house for a party. She claimed she wanted to set me up with Z, who was shy, but who might open up in a social environment. So on the appointed night I showed up. The party had been in full swing for 3 or 4 hours (I was working late that Friday) and X was trashed. She grabbed my hand and pretended she was introducing me to people at the party, dragging me around like a child at a funeral, but it just seemed...weird. It was almost as though she were introducing people to me as her date.
Then, as I sat on the sofa next to Z and started trying to talk to him, X ran over, planted herself in my lap and put her head on my shoulder. Ignoring this, I continued trying to engage Z in conversation. I might as well have been talking to a frozen dog turd. The situation in my lap, however, was escalating. X began trying to fondle my tits. Then she grabbed my neck and started trying to force her tongue down my throat. I managed to fend her off, pretending that I had to go to the bathroom, but she followed me and was saying some very sexual stuff outside the bathroom door while I was peeing, including that it turned her on to listen to me pee.
I left the party shortly afterwards. Z ended up following me to my car. The interest of a female piqued his interest in me I guess.
For the record, I went on one date with him. He invited three of his friends. It was very high school. Also, when I was driving to his house to pick him up (get the picture - he was the bitch) I got lost because his directions sucked and I was on the cell with him and asked "so are you near the deaf kid sign?", the only visible land marker for miles, and it turns out the sign was in front of his house. I was like "why didn't you just say turn at the deaf kid sign" and he said "because the deaf kid is my brother and that's why the sign is there". How embarrassing.
I should also note that the hot guy muscle head of the gym got so wrecked at X's party that he peed his pants, and it was the talk of gym for the next few months. Why are the hot ones always so stupid?
Anyway, the next PT session was kind of awkward and I spent most of the time working with X's fiance Y. He assured me that X was just drunk and her behavior didn't mean anything, blah blah blah. Later, I went to the bathroom, and X followed me. I thought she was coming into the bathroom with me to apologize or something. To the contrary. While I was peeing she stood outside my stall door and said "You have a very strong stream". Oy vey. I cancelled all my remaining appointments, and started going to the gym at 430 in the morning so I could avoid everyone, X, Y, Z, and the idiot muscle head, who knew I knew he peed his pants and had taken to telling me stories about being abused as a child while I was trying to do my pull ups.
Shortly after the whole incident, X and Y broke off their engagement. X closed up shop and went back to her home town in New Jersey. I don't know what happened to Y. Muscle guy quit the gym and went to work for some other gym that offered Tae-Bo. As for Z, we had a heart to heart talk about life.
He told me that his deaf brother also had a drug problem and was mentally challenged. His mom started wearing a wig when he was in elementary school for reasons unknown. I suggested she might have converted to a very rigorous version of Judaism, which he said was "impossible". I was like dude, she is WEARING A WIG! NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE!
Anyway, the drama was too much and as much as I lusted after free shoes and running clothes from his sponsor, I couldn't bring myself to date him. Also, his check engine light was on in his car all the time and he never got it checked. It practically gave me an ulcer.
I wish I could say X was the last woman in Maryland who hit on me, but that is not the case...
Clouds
My dad was on the road all the time when I was a kid. I never really understood where he went when he was gone. All I knew is that he was on a plane, presumably flying around somewhere. I thought he was in a plane just flying around our house. I used to stand in the backyard and look up at the sky. I assumed he was on whatever plane happened to fly over the house.
One day I got a great idea, inspired by having to present something at a school show and tell. The last show and tell I had brought in my favorite stuffed animal, a shark from Sea World that didn't have any eyes because my dog had chewed them off. I was ridiculed for weeks afterwards. So I decided that I would bring a cloud in for the show and tell, and that the cloud would be supplied by my dad.
I cleaned out a jar that had contained sweet relish. I believe I even wrote "cloud" on a piece of masking take and stuck it to the jar. I packed the jar in my dad's briefcase. I thought all he would have to do is roll down the window of the plane, stick the jar out, and then put the cap on once the jar filled up with cloud. I imagined a it would be like a soft cotton blanket and was pretty excited at the thought of having my own cloud. I even found a hiding place in our house to make sure one of my siblings didn't let my cloud go during one of our fights.
My dad was pretty pissed when he returned from his trip because I has put a relish jar in his briefcase. He then gave me a lecture about clouds, and I'm sure it was along the lines of:
"A cloud is a visible mass of condensed droplets or frozen crystals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of the Earth. the condensing substance is typically water vapor, which forms small droplets or ice crystals, typically 0.01 mm in diameter. When surrounded by billions of other droplets or crystals they become visible as clouds. Dense deep clouds exhibit a high reflectance (70% to 95%) throughout the visible range of wavelengths. Thus they appear white, at least from the top."
I didn't believe him, and I was really mad because I had told everyone at school that I was bringing in a cloud. I ended up bringing in a copy of the book Jaws that I had purchased at a garage sale, and was subsequently sent to the principal's office for bringing an "adult" book into school. Sister Mary Paul (see my eighth grade talent show for more on my school) took the book away from me and I never saw it again.
The moral of the story is, if you want to raise a kid who isn't obsessed with great whites, fill a jar full of whatever and tell the kid it's a cloud.
One day I got a great idea, inspired by having to present something at a school show and tell. The last show and tell I had brought in my favorite stuffed animal, a shark from Sea World that didn't have any eyes because my dog had chewed them off. I was ridiculed for weeks afterwards. So I decided that I would bring a cloud in for the show and tell, and that the cloud would be supplied by my dad.
I cleaned out a jar that had contained sweet relish. I believe I even wrote "cloud" on a piece of masking take and stuck it to the jar. I packed the jar in my dad's briefcase. I thought all he would have to do is roll down the window of the plane, stick the jar out, and then put the cap on once the jar filled up with cloud. I imagined a it would be like a soft cotton blanket and was pretty excited at the thought of having my own cloud. I even found a hiding place in our house to make sure one of my siblings didn't let my cloud go during one of our fights.
My dad was pretty pissed when he returned from his trip because I has put a relish jar in his briefcase. He then gave me a lecture about clouds, and I'm sure it was along the lines of:
"A cloud is a visible mass of condensed droplets or frozen crystals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of the Earth. the condensing substance is typically water vapor, which forms small droplets or ice crystals, typically 0.01 mm in diameter. When surrounded by billions of other droplets or crystals they become visible as clouds. Dense deep clouds exhibit a high reflectance (70% to 95%) throughout the visible range of wavelengths. Thus they appear white, at least from the top."
I didn't believe him, and I was really mad because I had told everyone at school that I was bringing in a cloud. I ended up bringing in a copy of the book Jaws that I had purchased at a garage sale, and was subsequently sent to the principal's office for bringing an "adult" book into school. Sister Mary Paul (see my eighth grade talent show for more on my school) took the book away from me and I never saw it again.
The moral of the story is, if you want to raise a kid who isn't obsessed with great whites, fill a jar full of whatever and tell the kid it's a cloud.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
The Bad Water
NOTE: this story contains the word "vomit", excessively so perhaps. So if the word bothers you don't eat while reading this story.
It was a warm, perfect Ouray* day in August (2007). Clint and I were doing an overnight hiking trip. The plan was to hike the Bear Creek trail, link to the Horsethief trail, link to the Bridge of Heaven, and come down the Old Horsethief Trail, a round trip of about 27 miles (http://www.trails.com/tcatalog_trail.asp?trailid=HGR271-002).
The Old Horsethief Trail would drop us on the outskirts of Ouray, where we would walk 1 mile back to Clint’s apartment. Getting our usual alpine start around noon, we got a little lost and missed our trail turn off, and ended up coming up a gully to American Flats. Sunset was earlier than we had expected on that side of the ridge. The wind was blowing cold, and there was already a light snow coating the plain, which is at about 11,800 feet.
In the distance we could see little white tents of the sheep herders. They looked like little tissues dropped in the grass. The area where we were hiking is used by ranchers to graze their sheep. We found a boggy, somewhat flat field to set up the tent, and we went to a nearby stream to filter water for dinner. By this time it was rapidly getting dark. We noticed a few sheep droppings and sheep prints around the creek but thought nothing of it.
I am normally insistent that the water be chemically treated, but the San Juans are, comparatively, rarely traveled and filtering is normally all that is needed for most of the mountain streams. In fact, the morning we left for the hike, Clint insisted that I unpack the small, 1 ounce bottle of chemicals for purifying water that I had put in my backpack.
After getting our camp site set up Clint made a quick dinner dinner of broccoli, rice, and mashed potatoes. I decided to re-hydrate myself by drinking half a bottle of red wine, where as Clint stuck with the more traditional approach of water. After dinner Clint buried our food and stove under a pile of rocks in a boulder field about 200 yards away from the tent in an attempt to keep the marmots out of our food. I was organizing our tent and didn’t pay much attention to where he put the stuff sack with our stove and food. We then settled in to the tent around 830, with the idea of getting up around midnight to see the Hale Bopp meteor shower, which was almost over. I had spent numerous nights during August driving to various locations around Denver at 2 am to see the shower with no success. The meteor shower was coming to an end and this was my last chance to see it.
I had brought along the book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, which turned out to be a pretty bad choice for reading at 12,500 feet. I started dozing off, with the occasional suggestion from Clint that I drink some water waking me. I had decided to not drink much water that night because it was about 20 degrees F, and I had just come from 100 degree F temperatures in Denver. The thought of going out in the cold every few hours to pee was less than appealing.
Around midnight I was trying to rouse myself and get some clothes on to see the meteor shower. Clint suddenly sat up and lunged for the front of the tent. Not sure what was going on I watched as he fumbled the zipper, stuck his head out the tent door, and then started making a noise that sounded as if he was being strangled.
Still half asleep and wondering if he was playing some kind of joke on me, I sat up too. The smell of broccoli and cheese vomit wafted into the tent.
That’s interesting, I thought to myself, pulling my clothes on at a more hurried pace while trying to remember if the side of the tent Clint was puking on was the same side where I had put my backpack. He struggled out of his sleeping bag and ran a short distance from the tent as I pulled my shoes on. I found my head lamp and crawled outside, avoiding the big vomit pile just outside the tent entryway.
It appeared his body was doing a full exorcism of everything he had eaten in his past three lives. He squatted in the dark at the edge of the field seemingly attempting to shit and vomit himself to death. I started trying to piece together what was wrong with him. The situation appeared to be an allergic reaction, at least from my personal experience. But everything we had for dinner was a staple in his diet. I wondered if he was having a combination high altitude/too much wine vomit attack. I knew it couldn’t be food poisoning because that meant I would have been sick as well.
Then it suddenly hit me. The water.
When Clint finally came back to the tent he insisted on drinking more water to re-hydrate, even though I tried to convince him otherwise. I pointed out to him that the water was the only thing he ingested that I had not. All the water I had been drinking during the day and that evening I had packed in with me. The stream water that we used to make dinner had been boiled. There was no other factor that could have been making him so ill.
After another attack of vomiting, he finally agreed with me.
I headed over to the boulder field to locate the stove to boil some water so that Clint could re-hydrate without getting sicker. I also had snuck a Coke into the food stuff sack when Clint wasn’t looking, and I figured he could drink that as well. I stumbled around the boulder field with my headlamp trying to locate the tragically colored black stuff sack that had the stove and Coke in it (the stuff sack was about the size of a loaf of bread). It took about twenty minutes to locate. I also remembered, as I was walking back to the tent, that we had taken an almost empty gas canister with us because we didn’t think we would need much fuel. I hoped there was enough gas left to boil at least a few ounces of water.
Back at the tent Clint’s vomit and shit fest seemed to be waning. He got the stove fired up (for some reason he doesn’t trust me to light the stove, although I have patiently explained to him many times that all my stove calamities have been with the big appliances) and we boiled the contents of his Nalgene bottle, about 64 ounces of water. He mixed 6 ounces of water in with some Emergen-C and drank that. Then he drank about half the can of Coke. This seemed to re-ignite the evil water spirit. More vomiting and shitting ensued.
We still had a 12 mile hike out the next day, with about 4,000 feet of upward climbing between the down climbs as we crossed the various ridges. It was not going to be an easy hike out. Also, I was unfamiliar with the area we were hiking in, and there weren’t many good landscape features to pick out the trail based on the topographical map we had. Parts of the trail were still covered with a thin layer of snow making it even harder to figure out where to go.
I started thinking about what I was going to do if Clint wasn’t able to hike the next day. There was no simple way back to civilization from where we were. I stared pensively up at the sky, just to have something to look at besides Clint crouched over in a pool of headlamp light, rocking forward into the grass as he spewed Coke and Emergen-C. At that moment I saw five meteors shooting across the sky.
“Look! The meteor shower!” I yelled to Clint. He responded by puking.
Around 330 am we crawled back into the tent and Clint managed to fall into a light sleep. His breath still smelled like broccoli and rice, mixed with bile and probably pieces of stomach lining. I regretted agreeing to let him use my sleeping bag for the trip.
I finally fell into a light sleep myself, waking up at first light. I thought about our predicament. At least 12 miles away from help. Only 32 ounces of water to get us through those 12 miles. Two severely dehydrated hikers. Me, the healthy one, lacking knowledge of where the trail went. A temperature variance that would have us hiking the first 6 miles in temperatures cold enough to preserve snow, and the last 6 miles in summer time temps, causing further dehydration.
Well, the situation can’t possibly get any worse, I thought to myself. And then I looked out the tent flap. It had started to snow.
Clint woke up around 830 and I started packing up the camp while he drank more water. The morning was solemn and a herd of thick grey clouds seemed to be wandering our way. We got on the trail and started our hike out. At that point I had not had anything to drink since around 8 the previous evening, when I had the wine. But given Clint’s situation I couldn’t really complain about myself. I decided to let him drink all the water, partially because he was so sick, and partially because the Nalgene bottle he was drinking out of smelled like puke.
We walked along in the snow, and then the rain. We constantly had to take off or put on clothes to adjust to the weather. Clint’s feet were dragging in the dirt, and he had to stop every 15 or 20 minutes because his body kept trying to disgorge any remaining fluid. He would take a sip of water and throw it up 5 minutes later. His listlessness was starting to scare me. We didn’t talk because he said even the effort of listening to me say anything made him want to puke. Hmmm….
We finally found what we thought was the old Horsethief trail and started down it. It was a relief to be across the ridges and headed downward. We did stop for a few minutes at the Bridge of Heaven, but I was so worried about Clint that I barely remember it.
As we got further down the trail we realized we had gone the wrong way. We were much further from the outskirts of town that we expected. We ended up taking a different trail back towards the town since neither of us really felt like hiking 3 miles along the highway into Ouray. The trail was steep and little used, and dangerously unstable due to the rain that was falling intermittently. I worried that one of us would slip and fall because the narrow trail kept crumbling under the weight of our steps.
We finally arrived back at Clint’s apartment around 330 PM. I had not had anything to drink for the whole hike so I guzzled water. I then headed off to the pharmacy to some stomach medication for Clint. While he slept I did research and determined that we had gotten leptospiriosis, a small bacteria caused by sheep urine and feces in stream water. It turns out lepto is a rare bacteria and one of the few that can’t be filtered. It must be treated either by boiling or adding chemicals to the water. It normally takes 2 days to manifest itself, but for some reason it hit Clint right away, possibly due to altitude, or the amount of water he drank, or his level of dehydration.
That night we were sitting on the sofa watching a movie. I was smugly congratulating myself for not getting sick, as I am usually the one puking. I assumed the reason was because the only water I had consumed had been boiled. But then Clint pointed out to me that the hot cocoa I had at dinner was only heated and not boiled. But he couldn’t remember if the water came from the packed in bottles or the stream.
The next day I became extremely ill. It was even worse than the time I almost died from appendicitis. I was up all night repeating Clint’s performance. It was a day before I could hold down fluids, and another two days before I could eat. We had to take two different courses of antibiotics to get rid of the bacteria and both of us still have relapses, although that is supposed to stop after 6 months or so.
So, next backpacking trip, I’m in charge of the water…
*Ouray, Co, located outside of Telluride
It was a warm, perfect Ouray* day in August (2007). Clint and I were doing an overnight hiking trip. The plan was to hike the Bear Creek trail, link to the Horsethief trail, link to the Bridge of Heaven, and come down the Old Horsethief Trail, a round trip of about 27 miles (http://www.trails.com/tcatalog_trail.asp?trailid=HGR271-002).
The Old Horsethief Trail would drop us on the outskirts of Ouray, where we would walk 1 mile back to Clint’s apartment. Getting our usual alpine start around noon, we got a little lost and missed our trail turn off, and ended up coming up a gully to American Flats. Sunset was earlier than we had expected on that side of the ridge. The wind was blowing cold, and there was already a light snow coating the plain, which is at about 11,800 feet.
In the distance we could see little white tents of the sheep herders. They looked like little tissues dropped in the grass. The area where we were hiking is used by ranchers to graze their sheep. We found a boggy, somewhat flat field to set up the tent, and we went to a nearby stream to filter water for dinner. By this time it was rapidly getting dark. We noticed a few sheep droppings and sheep prints around the creek but thought nothing of it.
I am normally insistent that the water be chemically treated, but the San Juans are, comparatively, rarely traveled and filtering is normally all that is needed for most of the mountain streams. In fact, the morning we left for the hike, Clint insisted that I unpack the small, 1 ounce bottle of chemicals for purifying water that I had put in my backpack.
After getting our camp site set up Clint made a quick dinner dinner of broccoli, rice, and mashed potatoes. I decided to re-hydrate myself by drinking half a bottle of red wine, where as Clint stuck with the more traditional approach of water. After dinner Clint buried our food and stove under a pile of rocks in a boulder field about 200 yards away from the tent in an attempt to keep the marmots out of our food. I was organizing our tent and didn’t pay much attention to where he put the stuff sack with our stove and food. We then settled in to the tent around 830, with the idea of getting up around midnight to see the Hale Bopp meteor shower, which was almost over. I had spent numerous nights during August driving to various locations around Denver at 2 am to see the shower with no success. The meteor shower was coming to an end and this was my last chance to see it.
I had brought along the book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, which turned out to be a pretty bad choice for reading at 12,500 feet. I started dozing off, with the occasional suggestion from Clint that I drink some water waking me. I had decided to not drink much water that night because it was about 20 degrees F, and I had just come from 100 degree F temperatures in Denver. The thought of going out in the cold every few hours to pee was less than appealing.
Around midnight I was trying to rouse myself and get some clothes on to see the meteor shower. Clint suddenly sat up and lunged for the front of the tent. Not sure what was going on I watched as he fumbled the zipper, stuck his head out the tent door, and then started making a noise that sounded as if he was being strangled.
Still half asleep and wondering if he was playing some kind of joke on me, I sat up too. The smell of broccoli and cheese vomit wafted into the tent.
That’s interesting, I thought to myself, pulling my clothes on at a more hurried pace while trying to remember if the side of the tent Clint was puking on was the same side where I had put my backpack. He struggled out of his sleeping bag and ran a short distance from the tent as I pulled my shoes on. I found my head lamp and crawled outside, avoiding the big vomit pile just outside the tent entryway.
It appeared his body was doing a full exorcism of everything he had eaten in his past three lives. He squatted in the dark at the edge of the field seemingly attempting to shit and vomit himself to death. I started trying to piece together what was wrong with him. The situation appeared to be an allergic reaction, at least from my personal experience. But everything we had for dinner was a staple in his diet. I wondered if he was having a combination high altitude/too much wine vomit attack. I knew it couldn’t be food poisoning because that meant I would have been sick as well.
Then it suddenly hit me. The water.
When Clint finally came back to the tent he insisted on drinking more water to re-hydrate, even though I tried to convince him otherwise. I pointed out to him that the water was the only thing he ingested that I had not. All the water I had been drinking during the day and that evening I had packed in with me. The stream water that we used to make dinner had been boiled. There was no other factor that could have been making him so ill.
After another attack of vomiting, he finally agreed with me.
I headed over to the boulder field to locate the stove to boil some water so that Clint could re-hydrate without getting sicker. I also had snuck a Coke into the food stuff sack when Clint wasn’t looking, and I figured he could drink that as well. I stumbled around the boulder field with my headlamp trying to locate the tragically colored black stuff sack that had the stove and Coke in it (the stuff sack was about the size of a loaf of bread). It took about twenty minutes to locate. I also remembered, as I was walking back to the tent, that we had taken an almost empty gas canister with us because we didn’t think we would need much fuel. I hoped there was enough gas left to boil at least a few ounces of water.
Back at the tent Clint’s vomit and shit fest seemed to be waning. He got the stove fired up (for some reason he doesn’t trust me to light the stove, although I have patiently explained to him many times that all my stove calamities have been with the big appliances) and we boiled the contents of his Nalgene bottle, about 64 ounces of water. He mixed 6 ounces of water in with some Emergen-C and drank that. Then he drank about half the can of Coke. This seemed to re-ignite the evil water spirit. More vomiting and shitting ensued.
We still had a 12 mile hike out the next day, with about 4,000 feet of upward climbing between the down climbs as we crossed the various ridges. It was not going to be an easy hike out. Also, I was unfamiliar with the area we were hiking in, and there weren’t many good landscape features to pick out the trail based on the topographical map we had. Parts of the trail were still covered with a thin layer of snow making it even harder to figure out where to go.
I started thinking about what I was going to do if Clint wasn’t able to hike the next day. There was no simple way back to civilization from where we were. I stared pensively up at the sky, just to have something to look at besides Clint crouched over in a pool of headlamp light, rocking forward into the grass as he spewed Coke and Emergen-C. At that moment I saw five meteors shooting across the sky.
“Look! The meteor shower!” I yelled to Clint. He responded by puking.
Around 330 am we crawled back into the tent and Clint managed to fall into a light sleep. His breath still smelled like broccoli and rice, mixed with bile and probably pieces of stomach lining. I regretted agreeing to let him use my sleeping bag for the trip.
I finally fell into a light sleep myself, waking up at first light. I thought about our predicament. At least 12 miles away from help. Only 32 ounces of water to get us through those 12 miles. Two severely dehydrated hikers. Me, the healthy one, lacking knowledge of where the trail went. A temperature variance that would have us hiking the first 6 miles in temperatures cold enough to preserve snow, and the last 6 miles in summer time temps, causing further dehydration.
Well, the situation can’t possibly get any worse, I thought to myself. And then I looked out the tent flap. It had started to snow.
Clint woke up around 830 and I started packing up the camp while he drank more water. The morning was solemn and a herd of thick grey clouds seemed to be wandering our way. We got on the trail and started our hike out. At that point I had not had anything to drink since around 8 the previous evening, when I had the wine. But given Clint’s situation I couldn’t really complain about myself. I decided to let him drink all the water, partially because he was so sick, and partially because the Nalgene bottle he was drinking out of smelled like puke.
We walked along in the snow, and then the rain. We constantly had to take off or put on clothes to adjust to the weather. Clint’s feet were dragging in the dirt, and he had to stop every 15 or 20 minutes because his body kept trying to disgorge any remaining fluid. He would take a sip of water and throw it up 5 minutes later. His listlessness was starting to scare me. We didn’t talk because he said even the effort of listening to me say anything made him want to puke. Hmmm….
We finally found what we thought was the old Horsethief trail and started down it. It was a relief to be across the ridges and headed downward. We did stop for a few minutes at the Bridge of Heaven, but I was so worried about Clint that I barely remember it.
As we got further down the trail we realized we had gone the wrong way. We were much further from the outskirts of town that we expected. We ended up taking a different trail back towards the town since neither of us really felt like hiking 3 miles along the highway into Ouray. The trail was steep and little used, and dangerously unstable due to the rain that was falling intermittently. I worried that one of us would slip and fall because the narrow trail kept crumbling under the weight of our steps.
We finally arrived back at Clint’s apartment around 330 PM. I had not had anything to drink for the whole hike so I guzzled water. I then headed off to the pharmacy to some stomach medication for Clint. While he slept I did research and determined that we had gotten leptospiriosis, a small bacteria caused by sheep urine and feces in stream water. It turns out lepto is a rare bacteria and one of the few that can’t be filtered. It must be treated either by boiling or adding chemicals to the water. It normally takes 2 days to manifest itself, but for some reason it hit Clint right away, possibly due to altitude, or the amount of water he drank, or his level of dehydration.
That night we were sitting on the sofa watching a movie. I was smugly congratulating myself for not getting sick, as I am usually the one puking. I assumed the reason was because the only water I had consumed had been boiled. But then Clint pointed out to me that the hot cocoa I had at dinner was only heated and not boiled. But he couldn’t remember if the water came from the packed in bottles or the stream.
The next day I became extremely ill. It was even worse than the time I almost died from appendicitis. I was up all night repeating Clint’s performance. It was a day before I could hold down fluids, and another two days before I could eat. We had to take two different courses of antibiotics to get rid of the bacteria and both of us still have relapses, although that is supposed to stop after 6 months or so.
So, next backpacking trip, I’m in charge of the water…
*Ouray, Co, located outside of Telluride
Reflections on London
I meant to post this back in November when I was in London. But I somehow spaced it and just found it today when cleaning up my hard drive.
London is much more expensive that I had imagined. I was here in the late 1990’s a lot and it didn’t seem that bad. But, as an example, today I paid about $34 to ride the London Underground for 3 days. The ticket is only good for one station (i.e. I didn’t pay that much money for a pass that I could use to go anywhere), and the station I’m riding to is only 2.7 miles from my hotel. That comes out to about $2.09 a mile, which, interestingly enough, is also the exchange rate right now (1 BPS to 2.09USD). I would walk but cobblestones + 4 inch heels = haven’t my knees suffered enough.
The office I’m working in is amazing. Watching British romantic comedies used to make me scoff at the places where the characters worked. Now I realize there actually are offices like that in the city. This particular client’s office is all glass walls, fancy glass doors, lounges with wide plank wood floors and modern couches that aren’t moldy and stained, trendy yet tasteful colors on the walls, and cube wall dividers that are curvy and covered in colored material rather than the usual square metal set up that is conducive to boredom and depression.
The bad thing is every time someone starts talking to me I start thinking about Monty Python’s flying circus and I have to think of something sad (e.g. dogs that have been run over by cars) so I don’t start laughing. Especially when they say “cheers” or “right, then”. And today when I was going out to get a sandwich the guy sitting next to me said “going out for some lunchy munchy then?” and I had to think about buying Lucent stock at $72 and selling it at $6 to not crack up. I also think it’s funny the way certain words have an “s” on the end. For example, they have a bin for recycling that says “drinks cans”. There is also a “motors parks” and a “computers lab” in the building.
My favorite thing that I have discovered (besides how cheap, relative to US, French wines are – the only cheap thing in UK and it’s unfortunate I can’t spend my entire day drinking) is a snack called flap cakes. They are oatmeal and something called “inverted sugar” pressed into a bar. It’s like being able to eat oatmeal without needing a bowl. Flap cakes come plain or with fruit. And inverted sugar is my favorite ingredient that I’ve ever heard of, replacing “lemon zest”, which in real life is rather disappointing. “Zest” suggests some kind of excitement and zest is essentially just pieces of a peel in your food. Even I can do that. Inverted sugar sounds very X games-ish and daring, like something a chef would make in a bake off sponsored by Red Bull, and the next day there would be the headline: Chef Pulls Inverted Sugar – Wins Bakeoff.
London is much more expensive that I had imagined. I was here in the late 1990’s a lot and it didn’t seem that bad. But, as an example, today I paid about $34 to ride the London Underground for 3 days. The ticket is only good for one station (i.e. I didn’t pay that much money for a pass that I could use to go anywhere), and the station I’m riding to is only 2.7 miles from my hotel. That comes out to about $2.09 a mile, which, interestingly enough, is also the exchange rate right now (1 BPS to 2.09USD). I would walk but cobblestones + 4 inch heels = haven’t my knees suffered enough.
The office I’m working in is amazing. Watching British romantic comedies used to make me scoff at the places where the characters worked. Now I realize there actually are offices like that in the city. This particular client’s office is all glass walls, fancy glass doors, lounges with wide plank wood floors and modern couches that aren’t moldy and stained, trendy yet tasteful colors on the walls, and cube wall dividers that are curvy and covered in colored material rather than the usual square metal set up that is conducive to boredom and depression.
The bad thing is every time someone starts talking to me I start thinking about Monty Python’s flying circus and I have to think of something sad (e.g. dogs that have been run over by cars) so I don’t start laughing. Especially when they say “cheers” or “right, then”. And today when I was going out to get a sandwich the guy sitting next to me said “going out for some lunchy munchy then?” and I had to think about buying Lucent stock at $72 and selling it at $6 to not crack up. I also think it’s funny the way certain words have an “s” on the end. For example, they have a bin for recycling that says “drinks cans”. There is also a “motors parks” and a “computers lab” in the building.
My favorite thing that I have discovered (besides how cheap, relative to US, French wines are – the only cheap thing in UK and it’s unfortunate I can’t spend my entire day drinking) is a snack called flap cakes. They are oatmeal and something called “inverted sugar” pressed into a bar. It’s like being able to eat oatmeal without needing a bowl. Flap cakes come plain or with fruit. And inverted sugar is my favorite ingredient that I’ve ever heard of, replacing “lemon zest”, which in real life is rather disappointing. “Zest” suggests some kind of excitement and zest is essentially just pieces of a peel in your food. Even I can do that. Inverted sugar sounds very X games-ish and daring, like something a chef would make in a bake off sponsored by Red Bull, and the next day there would be the headline: Chef Pulls Inverted Sugar – Wins Bakeoff.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
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.
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.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
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.
-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.
Monday, December 10, 2007
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...
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...
Friday, December 7, 2007
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…
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…
Thursday, December 6, 2007
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...
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...
"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...
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
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!:)"
"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.
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.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
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...
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...
Monday, December 3, 2007
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....
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.
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.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
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...
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...
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