I’m really disappointed with the state of fruit in America. Here it is, summertime, and I can’t get a good plum. I miss that perfect mix of tangy and sweet, a tough smooth skin on the outside and a pucker of juice pouring though the skin when pierced.
My friend Mike gave me a pile of plums from his backyard. That was very nice of him. He has two or three varieties of plums, all of which look like oversized cherries. You see them hanging from trees across California.
He brought over a mix of red and purple plums and about a dozen greenies. I opened the oversized Target bag in which they arrived and salivated with glee. He’d told me about how good they were, so I picked up a little purple plum and gnawed into it. A beautiful red flush of juice accompanied my bite, but it tasted like a Winn Dixie plum: bad. Mushy, wet, slightly sweet, with almost no tart flavor. I tossed the rest of the plum into the open trash can and picked up another, this time with a reddish hue, and a little firmer skin. I took a bite and cringed. Sour and squishy.
I figured I was just having back luck, so I pulled out one of the green plums, almost the color of a bright sprig of grass. I examined its slightly chalky coloration – that unexplained film that plums seem to possess – and wiped it on my shirt. I took a bite. I took another bite. It was firm. It was slightly dry. It was very tangy. It was horrible.
Out with the recipes. My mom was in town when the Target plastic bag full of plums arrived from Mike. I voiced my displeasure with the three tastes I’d had and she immediately found a solution in the webpages of Cooks.com and Food Network. We were going to make a plum tart or plum jam, or maybe a plum cobbler or crisp. So she chopped up the plums – all three shades – and tossed the pits into the compost bin. Worried that the plum crisp recipe would be too sweet, she used only about one-half of the sugar that was to be added to the batter, took some walnuts I handed her to sprinkle on top, and put the concoction into the oven.
While the thing baked, I thought about the pleasure and displeasure of fruit. I like it dried. I like it freeze dried. I like it shaped into little fruit bars and added to salads. And I like it fresh when it’s really, really good. Give me cherries, peaches or apricots, but don’t give me bad ones. Years of bad bananas finally made me turn away from that chalky fruit. A wonderful cantaloupe thrilled me for two days last week, but the next one I bought tasted like a supermarket cantaloupe – bland and musky. A super-sweet watermelon I downed in New Hampshire a few weeks ago happily substituted for any cake I would otherwise have craved, but the watermelon I purchased in San Francisco tasted like water and melon. Give me cake.
The plum crisp that my mom baked tasted like a mix of cough syrup, lemon, and red food coloring, mixed with clumps of powder and stale nuts (I don’t blame her for that, and I don’t blame Mike either). I couldn’t eat more than a few bites. And when I turned away from the languishing cobbler, I took another look at that big Target bag of fruit. Another hundred plums to deal with.
Over the last few days about a dozen of those plums rotted, skipping the delightful brandied prune stage and going right to oozing wet rot. I pulled one little purple plum out of the batch. It remained blemish-free and firm enough to swell as I wrapped my mouth around it for a bite. It wasn’t too bad. Not great, but not too bad. I would eat more like that.
And dear Mike, whose inexhaustible tree continues to burgeon with fruit, has offered more plums. I may take him up on the offer. I might try one of the other recipes my mom dug up.
In the meantime, I’m addicted to Black Velvet apricots, which seem to be fuzzy little purple plums that are so packed with sugar, a whole pitcher of iced tea could be sweetened by one falling to the bottom. My friend Jesse just turned me on to Trader Joe’s frozen mango chunks, that were delightful enough to finish off in a couple of days. I will continue to buy fresh cherries until there are no more, hoping that one out of ten is sweet. I will pick the most perfect blackberries that grow in the back yard, pulling out a handful from the thorns each afternoon until summer is over, soothing my scratches with moisturizing cream.
Summer will end. We’ll be stuck with the apples that fall brings. Abundant and hard and dull, apples are a compromise we’re forced to accept until the stone fruit trees blossom again next spring and we can begin our seach anew for the perfect bite of fruit.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Friday, July 04, 2008
Bobbie's in town
Time for the annual 4th of July bowl over your face photo (this is what we do when we're incredibly bored in San Francisco on cold summer days).....
Can you figure out which is the mother and which is the son?
Can you figure out which is the mother and which is the son? Sunday, June 22, 2008
Avoiding sheds
I’m on my way home from Jones Island. Maybe you’ve heard of it? It’s a very small island in Highland Lake, which is a fairly small lake in New Hampshire (large by my standards, but small if you compare it to Lake Michigan or even Lake Winnipesaukee). Jones Island has only two buildings on it and is linked to the mainland by a pedestrian bridge, accessible only by foot in the summer months when the center portion of the bridge is in place. At all times of the year, the island can be reached by water and, during the winter, a snowmobile or skis would be an option.
The smaller of the two buildings is a shed that houses an old bed frame, some tools, and a couple of brooms and ropes. The shed smells like a shed. When you pry open the door, your nostrils fill with an expected damp mustiness.
The shed is one of those buildings that qualifies as a #3 building. A #3 building is a building you don’t really want to go inside. The experience of being inside is far less satisfying than the experience of being outside, and in almost any situation, when faced with a choice between being outside the shed or being inside the shed, even in a rain shower, the preferred option is to be outside the shed. It certainly doesn’t hurt that the shed is surrounded by blueberry bushes, and the shore of the lake is about three feet away, making the experience of being outside the shed even better than it would be if you were outside a shed in the middle of the desert or in a city or just a parking lot. Other buildings that would qualify as a #3 building include a rusty automobile service station, a decayed farm, or an old slaughterhouse. I tend to stay away from #3 buildings if I can. I think #3 buildings are responsible for environmental illnesses and phobias and stillbirths.
The other building on Jones Island is a #2 building. A #2 building is one that attracts you with its charm, usually from the outside, but makes you wish for more comforts when you’re on the inside. For example, an old farmhouse may be very beautiful, and you’re perfectly comfortable spending time there, but if you had the choice of leaving to go to an old mill out back selling hand-painted pieces of wood or a Wal-Mart Supercenter, you would probably opt to head for the jumbo parking lot so you could get inside and look at all the goodies Sam Walton pulled together for you: brightly wrapped plastic toys and appliances, an abundance of food and DVD choices. A #2 building is a nice place to be if you can be in the mood for it, but usually, people who spend too much time in a #2 building crave the experience of being inside of a #1.
The #2 building on Jones Island is a beautiful old turn-of-the-century (the 20th) two-story lake cottage. A non-functioning well in the kitchen, the neighboring tiny bedroom has a set of rusted bunk beds. Upstairs four twin beds fill the space of the shabby, but charming, sleeping room. A small parlor on the first floor is home to family memorabilia and antique furniture. Without running water, the cottage has a small room with a compost-generating mulbank, installed in the 1970s as an alternative to an outhouse.
The best part of the #2 building is the wrap-around porch, screened against the mosquitoes, but still offering its guests a peaceful view of the lake shore on all sides of the cabin.
Across from Jones Island, on the mainland, is another #2 house, this one with running water and arguably improved furnishings. I must confess I lied at the beginning of this entry. I didn’t actually stay on Jones Island: I stayed in the other #2 house because I value running water. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t stay on Jones Island next time I’m there, as I did last year when I was there, but this time I needed some modern convenience. Forced to choose between the Wal-Mart and the hand painted wood shop, I chose the Wal-Mart of the two #2 buildings (considering there weren’t really any #1 buildings around). You see, I’m living in a #2 building right now.
A #1 building is a building you really want to be in. Sure, it’s a Wal-Mart or a Bloomingdales, or a Red Lobster or French Laundry. It’s a building that’s well maintained where most of us want to spend most of our time. In a rainstorm, I’m perfectly at ease in a #1 house, whereas I might opt to get wet if my only option is a #3 shed (or #3 outhouse). When I need rustic relaxation, a #2 house is perfectly fine once I realize I can handle a daily Claritin to deal with the mold, paired with a set of Sudafed to unblock my ears that are left clogged even while the Claritin is at work. As long as I know it’s not a long-term stay, a #2 house is perfectly fine.
My previous house was a #1 building. It was very comfortable, quiet, mold-free, structurally sound, had a kitchen stocked with European appliances, and featured forced-air heat. It was clean and polished.
My new house is the opposite of my former home. Although it is cozy, it is not quiet when the windows are open, seems to incubate some spores (must have something to do with water running under the house), leans a bit and has very wobbly rear staircases, has no-name Chinese appliances in the kitchen ("Modern Kitchen" brand?), a small gas leak, and no heat. Ugly wallpaper in the living room and poor lighting do little to mask the other features of the home.
So why would someone trade “up” from a fully outfitted #1 flat to a million-dollar #2 fixer upper? A little bit of insanity perhaps? Yes, perhaps.
“Good bones,” people have said.
“Great views. It’s all about the views,” say others, trying to muster their best compliment.
The most positive has come from my friend Mike: “It’s so cozy.”
My #2 house is charming. It offers a splendid and sunny vista, drops us into a great neighborhood, affords three spaces for parking. It also has that magical word: p-o-t-e-n-t-i-a-l.
“It’s wonderful that the two of you can see the potential in this place,” is the comment that seems to make its way out of most people’s mouths, in one form or another.
Unfortunately, to reach the potential requires a lot of money. The plans have been drawn by our esteemed architect, Mark Reilly, and they’re nothing shy of brilliant. The structural engineer has sent something for me to sign, which I will do later today. The outcome of their efforts, not to mention a contractor, lots of subcontractors, and Brad and me, will be a #1 building. It will feature all of the charms that make it a pleasing #2, but with the added bonus of being comfortable, quiet, mold-free, structurally sound, and with a kitchen stocked with European appliances. Yes: forced-air heat, non-wobbling stairs.
But for now, the house is not so different from the #2 building on Jones Island. The best seat in the house is on the deck. The mold, leaks and creaks, and catawampus floors, suggest to me I have a figurative extended stay on Jones Island over the next year. I will just need to learn to expand my tolerance for #2 buildings, and head to Wal-Mart for a supply of Claritin and Sudafed when I need a #1 building experience.
The smaller of the two buildings is a shed that houses an old bed frame, some tools, and a couple of brooms and ropes. The shed smells like a shed. When you pry open the door, your nostrils fill with an expected damp mustiness.
The shed is one of those buildings that qualifies as a #3 building. A #3 building is a building you don’t really want to go inside. The experience of being inside is far less satisfying than the experience of being outside, and in almost any situation, when faced with a choice between being outside the shed or being inside the shed, even in a rain shower, the preferred option is to be outside the shed. It certainly doesn’t hurt that the shed is surrounded by blueberry bushes, and the shore of the lake is about three feet away, making the experience of being outside the shed even better than it would be if you were outside a shed in the middle of the desert or in a city or just a parking lot. Other buildings that would qualify as a #3 building include a rusty automobile service station, a decayed farm, or an old slaughterhouse. I tend to stay away from #3 buildings if I can. I think #3 buildings are responsible for environmental illnesses and phobias and stillbirths.
The other building on Jones Island is a #2 building. A #2 building is one that attracts you with its charm, usually from the outside, but makes you wish for more comforts when you’re on the inside. For example, an old farmhouse may be very beautiful, and you’re perfectly comfortable spending time there, but if you had the choice of leaving to go to an old mill out back selling hand-painted pieces of wood or a Wal-Mart Supercenter, you would probably opt to head for the jumbo parking lot so you could get inside and look at all the goodies Sam Walton pulled together for you: brightly wrapped plastic toys and appliances, an abundance of food and DVD choices. A #2 building is a nice place to be if you can be in the mood for it, but usually, people who spend too much time in a #2 building crave the experience of being inside of a #1.
The #2 building on Jones Island is a beautiful old turn-of-the-century (the 20th) two-story lake cottage. A non-functioning well in the kitchen, the neighboring tiny bedroom has a set of rusted bunk beds. Upstairs four twin beds fill the space of the shabby, but charming, sleeping room. A small parlor on the first floor is home to family memorabilia and antique furniture. Without running water, the cottage has a small room with a compost-generating mulbank, installed in the 1970s as an alternative to an outhouse.
The best part of the #2 building is the wrap-around porch, screened against the mosquitoes, but still offering its guests a peaceful view of the lake shore on all sides of the cabin.
Across from Jones Island, on the mainland, is another #2 house, this one with running water and arguably improved furnishings. I must confess I lied at the beginning of this entry. I didn’t actually stay on Jones Island: I stayed in the other #2 house because I value running water. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t stay on Jones Island next time I’m there, as I did last year when I was there, but this time I needed some modern convenience. Forced to choose between the Wal-Mart and the hand painted wood shop, I chose the Wal-Mart of the two #2 buildings (considering there weren’t really any #1 buildings around). You see, I’m living in a #2 building right now.
A #1 building is a building you really want to be in. Sure, it’s a Wal-Mart or a Bloomingdales, or a Red Lobster or French Laundry. It’s a building that’s well maintained where most of us want to spend most of our time. In a rainstorm, I’m perfectly at ease in a #1 house, whereas I might opt to get wet if my only option is a #3 shed (or #3 outhouse). When I need rustic relaxation, a #2 house is perfectly fine once I realize I can handle a daily Claritin to deal with the mold, paired with a set of Sudafed to unblock my ears that are left clogged even while the Claritin is at work. As long as I know it’s not a long-term stay, a #2 house is perfectly fine.
My previous house was a #1 building. It was very comfortable, quiet, mold-free, structurally sound, had a kitchen stocked with European appliances, and featured forced-air heat. It was clean and polished.
My new house is the opposite of my former home. Although it is cozy, it is not quiet when the windows are open, seems to incubate some spores (must have something to do with water running under the house), leans a bit and has very wobbly rear staircases, has no-name Chinese appliances in the kitchen ("Modern Kitchen" brand?), a small gas leak, and no heat. Ugly wallpaper in the living room and poor lighting do little to mask the other features of the home.
So why would someone trade “up” from a fully outfitted #1 flat to a million-dollar #2 fixer upper? A little bit of insanity perhaps? Yes, perhaps.
“Good bones,” people have said.
“Great views. It’s all about the views,” say others, trying to muster their best compliment.
The most positive has come from my friend Mike: “It’s so cozy.”
My #2 house is charming. It offers a splendid and sunny vista, drops us into a great neighborhood, affords three spaces for parking. It also has that magical word: p-o-t-e-n-t-i-a-l.
“It’s wonderful that the two of you can see the potential in this place,” is the comment that seems to make its way out of most people’s mouths, in one form or another.
Unfortunately, to reach the potential requires a lot of money. The plans have been drawn by our esteemed architect, Mark Reilly, and they’re nothing shy of brilliant. The structural engineer has sent something for me to sign, which I will do later today. The outcome of their efforts, not to mention a contractor, lots of subcontractors, and Brad and me, will be a #1 building. It will feature all of the charms that make it a pleasing #2, but with the added bonus of being comfortable, quiet, mold-free, structurally sound, and with a kitchen stocked with European appliances. Yes: forced-air heat, non-wobbling stairs.
But for now, the house is not so different from the #2 building on Jones Island. The best seat in the house is on the deck. The mold, leaks and creaks, and catawampus floors, suggest to me I have a figurative extended stay on Jones Island over the next year. I will just need to learn to expand my tolerance for #2 buildings, and head to Wal-Mart for a supply of Claritin and Sudafed when I need a #1 building experience.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Three perfect days in San Francisco
Just wrapping up the best three-day weekend. Sloshed down two expensive bottles of wine and looked out at the dreary and cool San Francisco weather. It seems like my friends are mostly out of town and those who aren’t are busy with other things. Let me share some of the wonderful things Brad and I did to pass the time.
Signed up for Netflix. Brad was desperate to avoid the lousy DVD rental places down in the new neighborhood (unless you’re looking for porn, the DVD rental options in the Castro are sad), so we signed up for Netflix. To get things started, he secretly downloaded a show for us to watch: Gay Getaways hosted by Greg Osborne. We sat in the kitchen on two hard wooden stools and ate a sad concoction of “spaghetti and corn” while watching perhaps the most pathetic television show host make his way around strip mall restaurants in Las Vegas. The show is so cringeworthy, you almost feel sad for the guy who keeps saying “Oh my God” and “Awesome” as he keeps moving his fingers toward his nose (cocaine addiction?). The best part of the show, however, is the theme song written and performed by the show’s personality-less host. The few people he seems to interact with on the show seem to be chuckling to themselves with embarrassment that they are being interviewed. But, because it drags on for so long and is so bad, it’s actually incredibly amusing, if you can put up with it. He would make the local cable access “Evening Magazine” television hosts in a place like Topeka seem extremely talented and insightful. Netflix is the best.
Spaghetti and corn. I mentioned it above but it deserves special second mention. We were pretty much out of everything in the house so I dumped spaghetti in a pot and added some corn and tomato sauce. It seemed a bit like something they would serve in a women’s prison on 'fancy dinner' night.
Signed up for Netflix. Brad was desperate to avoid the lousy DVD rental places down in the new neighborhood (unless you’re looking for porn, the DVD rental options in the Castro are sad), so we signed up for Netflix. To get things started, he secretly downloaded a show for us to watch: Gay Getaways hosted by Greg Osborne. We sat in the kitchen on two hard wooden stools and ate a sad concoction of “spaghetti and corn” while watching perhaps the most pathetic television show host make his way around strip mall restaurants in Las Vegas. The show is so cringeworthy, you almost feel sad for the guy who keeps saying “Oh my God” and “Awesome” as he keeps moving his fingers toward his nose (cocaine addiction?). The best part of the show, however, is the theme song written and performed by the show’s personality-less host. The few people he seems to interact with on the show seem to be chuckling to themselves with embarrassment that they are being interviewed. But, because it drags on for so long and is so bad, it’s actually incredibly amusing, if you can put up with it. He would make the local cable access “Evening Magazine” television hosts in a place like Topeka seem extremely talented and insightful. Netflix is the best.
Spaghetti and corn. I mentioned it above but it deserves special second mention. We were pretty much out of everything in the house so I dumped spaghetti in a pot and added some corn and tomato sauce. It seemed a bit like something they would serve in a women’s prison on 'fancy dinner' night.
Spaghetti and corn is totally gross. I can't believe this horrible photo is on-line.
Farmer’s Market. Brad and I wandered around the Ferry Plaza farmers market. It had rained Friday night and was cool and dreary, so it seemed a good bet to head to the farmer’s market because it was doubtful that there would be a crowd. But those pesky tourists showed up and saturated the place. I ordered wild mushroom eggs at the lousy Hayes Street Grill booth (one of those restaurants where old white people go to eat broiled fish before the opera), picked up the pepper shaker and started sprinkling not only the pepper that poured out of the little holes, but also the rainwater and dirt that had accumulated under the pepper shaker, giving my eggs a bath in germs and wetness. The bright spot: we bought great cherries and stopped into Miette Bakery and got the yummiest French vanilla macaron.
Strawberry bread. I baked strawberry bread. Because all of the cookbooks are in storage for the next year, I found the recipe on the internet and made use of the gobs of fresh strawberries that are around.
Strawberry bread. I baked strawberry bread. Because all of the cookbooks are in storage for the next year, I found the recipe on the internet and made use of the gobs of fresh strawberries that are around.
The first strawberry bread was eaten in a few minutes. You see there are three more to go.
This strawberry bread is perched on the deck enjoying the view. I bought the cool little cardboard baking things at Daiso.
Chocolate bars. Out of sheer boredom, Brad and I watched Paula Deen make the totally gross things she makes. There’s a fun clip of her making Velveeta fudge on the Ellen show (click here to watch), skewering it, dipping it in caramel, dipping it in white chocolate, dipping it in nuts, and then Ellen trying to take a bite. Brad wanted me to make Velveeta fudge, but instead I pretended like I was Paula Deen and made homemade chocolate bars with Nestle milk chocolate chips (Do not buy Nestle chocolate chips: they are terrible. I can’t imagine that even food stamp central, otherwise known as Winn Dixie, could sell worse milk chocolate chips under their nasty Thrifty Made label). I made one apricot bar, one filled with coconut, one with rhubarb-cherry jam that I bought in a moment of boredom at Marshall’s, and one – the best of the bunch – with peanut butter. I think I will try again, but next time will use homemade cashew butter and Guittard chocolate.
Paula Deen: Eat your cholesterol-clogged heart out. I'm making chocolate bars.
Put more creams on my rashes. The screwy rash won’t go away. Horrible horrible Orr Hot Springs. That place should be shut down. Stay away!
Anyway, that's the wrap up of my finest moments. Can't wait until next Memorial Day.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Don’t drink the water
I cannot swim in this pool or sip its blue nectar.I’ve stayed in many hotels where I haven’t been allowed to drink the water (for my own health). They were in Guatemala, in India, in Mexico, in Malaysia, in China, in Colombia … places where we delicate gringos get hit with puking disease when we have a sip. In India, my friend Abigail slapped a big square of duct tape over her mouth for each shower she took so she would avoid taking a sip.
I’m in the US right now, but was handed a letter upon check in to this Best Western that the water is unsafe to drink. They handed me two bottles of “Sunny Select Premium Drinking Water” and told me there were many more bottles if I needed them.
Apparently, the water is flush with bacteria: the Department of Public Works is doing work on the city’s water system under the main street through town. I was warned not to brush my teeth with the water, and the pool is barricaded.
I took a shower this morning. I did a good job avoiding swallowing the water. I have dutifully used my bottled water for brushing my teeth.
The person at the front desk this morning didn’t seem to want to give me any more water. "Didn’t you get some bottled water when you checked in?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied. “And I was told that I could come back and get as much water as I wanted.”
He harrumphed and passed me two bottles. I thanked him and returned to my room.
Now I watch CNN and see the desperate people in China and Myanmar who have no clean water at all. And no homes. And corrupt, horrible governments. And I will drive to the next town where I can drink the water.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Drug-addicted (sort of) at 40
I use drugs. I nearly freaked out on the teeny plane I was just on, the plane that took off from a location below sea level, wobbled its way into space on the border next to Mexico, swayed in the sky for about an hour, and dove to a landing at LAX.
I used to be a freaky flyer and had to pop an Ativan every time I flew. “I only take drugs when I fly,” was my response, and over the years I whittled that little pill down to something like an eighth of a milligram, just as reassurance that I had some nugget of calming wonder flushing out the freaky interference in my brain. I finally realized I was essentially taking a placebo, and stopped popping the tiny tranquilizing slivers. I had gotten over my fear of flying without drugs.
The airplane freak out happened for the first time on a flight from Tel Aviv to New York. Immediately after the plane took off, I panicked and didn’t know up from down, down from up, terrified for ten hours and finally passed out at some point shy of landing. On the ground in New York, the ticket agent told me I was welcome to hop an earlier connecting flight than the one I had scheduled, but I shot down the offer and tried to calm myself at utterly uncalm JFK for a few hours before finally taking my scheduled onward flight. After a lifetime of flying, at age 22 I became afraid of flying. Ativan came to my rescue and once again I regained the freedom to go wherever, whenever, arriving perhaps a little groggy but calm.
The freak out flight was precipitated by my second go-around with a vestibular neuronitis – an inner ear disorder that would occasionally flare up (usually overseas, due to an illness, or sometimes on its own in very polluted places) and I would begin to have balance problems. Being unable to maintain one’s balance is a horrible feeling, and led me to my panicky episodes on the plane, and sometimes in tunnels and on bridges and other locations.
In the last six or seven years of Ativan-free domestic flights, I’ve gotten a little antsy from time to time, but usually calm myself down after about 20 minutes. For really long, overseas flights, I’ve continued to pop a pill and enjoy a mellow journey that I will have almost no recollection of afterwards. Even puddle jumpers, which have become more and more abundant in our current state of air travel madness, have been perfectly normal floating environments for me.
So I was surprised that I decided to take half of an Ativan on my last flight. And because the drug is best taken an hour or two ahead for maximum results, I don’t think it did anything for me. I felt edgy and irritable and a bit panicky. Now I’m sitting in one of those first class seats on an A319, designed for people with big asses and long legs (and I will become one of them, without the long legs, if I eat anything else today). I feel perfectly at ease.
I’m more drug-reliant than many people I know. They’re all legitimate prescription drugs and I’m not being Dubya daughter or a McCain Barbie wife. I know I’ll never be addicted. I don’t like to take most of them, but do enjoy the comforts modern medicine offers us: Lunesta, Sonata and Valium each have their place in everyone’s medicine cabinet. Sudafed, Claritin, Horsepills of Ibuprofen: these are the modern wonders that help us cope with the modern problems.
I’m assuming that my latest freak out probably had something to do with stress, less than four hours of sleep last night, and lousy air quality on the US-Mexico border. Or maybe I’m just becoming a freak again and I should give up on all of this flying.
I just sold my house and now I should be calm. I should be really calm. And I should finally be able to sleep very well now that I’m not dealing with realtors and difficult personalities. So tonight, with an Ativan already in my system to stay calm, and a Benadryl waiting for me at home, to sleep well, I will medicate my way to the relaxed state of being that I should be now that there is less stress in my life.
I used to be a freaky flyer and had to pop an Ativan every time I flew. “I only take drugs when I fly,” was my response, and over the years I whittled that little pill down to something like an eighth of a milligram, just as reassurance that I had some nugget of calming wonder flushing out the freaky interference in my brain. I finally realized I was essentially taking a placebo, and stopped popping the tiny tranquilizing slivers. I had gotten over my fear of flying without drugs.
The airplane freak out happened for the first time on a flight from Tel Aviv to New York. Immediately after the plane took off, I panicked and didn’t know up from down, down from up, terrified for ten hours and finally passed out at some point shy of landing. On the ground in New York, the ticket agent told me I was welcome to hop an earlier connecting flight than the one I had scheduled, but I shot down the offer and tried to calm myself at utterly uncalm JFK for a few hours before finally taking my scheduled onward flight. After a lifetime of flying, at age 22 I became afraid of flying. Ativan came to my rescue and once again I regained the freedom to go wherever, whenever, arriving perhaps a little groggy but calm.
The freak out flight was precipitated by my second go-around with a vestibular neuronitis – an inner ear disorder that would occasionally flare up (usually overseas, due to an illness, or sometimes on its own in very polluted places) and I would begin to have balance problems. Being unable to maintain one’s balance is a horrible feeling, and led me to my panicky episodes on the plane, and sometimes in tunnels and on bridges and other locations.
In the last six or seven years of Ativan-free domestic flights, I’ve gotten a little antsy from time to time, but usually calm myself down after about 20 minutes. For really long, overseas flights, I’ve continued to pop a pill and enjoy a mellow journey that I will have almost no recollection of afterwards. Even puddle jumpers, which have become more and more abundant in our current state of air travel madness, have been perfectly normal floating environments for me.
So I was surprised that I decided to take half of an Ativan on my last flight. And because the drug is best taken an hour or two ahead for maximum results, I don’t think it did anything for me. I felt edgy and irritable and a bit panicky. Now I’m sitting in one of those first class seats on an A319, designed for people with big asses and long legs (and I will become one of them, without the long legs, if I eat anything else today). I feel perfectly at ease.
I’m more drug-reliant than many people I know. They’re all legitimate prescription drugs and I’m not being Dubya daughter or a McCain Barbie wife. I know I’ll never be addicted. I don’t like to take most of them, but do enjoy the comforts modern medicine offers us: Lunesta, Sonata and Valium each have their place in everyone’s medicine cabinet. Sudafed, Claritin, Horsepills of Ibuprofen: these are the modern wonders that help us cope with the modern problems.
I’m assuming that my latest freak out probably had something to do with stress, less than four hours of sleep last night, and lousy air quality on the US-Mexico border. Or maybe I’m just becoming a freak again and I should give up on all of this flying.
I just sold my house and now I should be calm. I should be really calm. And I should finally be able to sleep very well now that I’m not dealing with realtors and difficult personalities. So tonight, with an Ativan already in my system to stay calm, and a Benadryl waiting for me at home, to sleep well, I will medicate my way to the relaxed state of being that I should be now that there is less stress in my life.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Comfort food with dish
I’m just going to vent for a second. Not that I don’t always do that. The last few months have royally sucked.
My mom was counseling me yesterday, offering hope that these recent events will be the “worst thing” I ever encounter, before acknowledging that there will be worse things for me to deal with in the years ahead. “It’s been very rough, but worse things will happen.” She’s very optimistic.
Bad things will happen. Stressful things will happen. Some things have been miserable and some things have just been compounded white girl problems. Between Brad’s grandmother’s death, my uncle’s death, a very stressful house selling transaction (which has, by itself, fifty separate stress points), too much to do at work (and lately I’ve not been the best at staying on top of things), a few research things hanging over my head, a never ending allergy season, buying a new house, retaining a lawyer, asking tenants to move out, spending money left and right, death of a laptop, Brad’s unjustly towed truck by San Francisco’s corrupt DPT, feeling sick and getting this itchy rash from Orr Hot Springs, getting ready for a house remodel, almost a dozen cancelled flights, sleepless nights, and no vacation to look forward to.
So what am I to do? Well, I decided to go to Nate n’ Al in Beverly Hills for a bit of comfort food: A Reuben sandwich (It was too late in the day for a bowl of their delish stewed prunes).
Speaking of sandwiches. I loved French Dip sandwiches as a child. We’d go to Coco’s and I’d order one and think it was the fanciest thing I’d ever eaten, apart from caviar and marinated asparagus. I don’t remember where I ate Reuben sandwiches as a child, but I really liked them too. I probably ate them on fun-filled family trips to Ohio. Then I went vegetarian and then poultry-a-terian allowing me to discover Zingerman’s most wonderful Georgia Reuben (a turkey Reuben made with coleslaw rather than sauerkraut). I have been addicted to anything in the Reuben family ever since. And ever since my trip to Argentina a few years ago, when I became an omnivore, I’ve had a few Reuben sandwiches with corned beef and pastrami. That’s exciting.
Nate n’ Al serves a lame bland Kosher-tasting dill and an even more unsatisfying half dill pickle, along with a small serving or sauerkraut, all smashed together on a little plate. It doesn’t look particularly attractive, but it feels very ‘deli.’ The sandwich also comes with really good coleslaw on the side. I spread on top of the corned beef and cheese and Russian dressing. Yum.
My mom was counseling me yesterday, offering hope that these recent events will be the “worst thing” I ever encounter, before acknowledging that there will be worse things for me to deal with in the years ahead. “It’s been very rough, but worse things will happen.” She’s very optimistic.
Bad things will happen. Stressful things will happen. Some things have been miserable and some things have just been compounded white girl problems. Between Brad’s grandmother’s death, my uncle’s death, a very stressful house selling transaction (which has, by itself, fifty separate stress points), too much to do at work (and lately I’ve not been the best at staying on top of things), a few research things hanging over my head, a never ending allergy season, buying a new house, retaining a lawyer, asking tenants to move out, spending money left and right, death of a laptop, Brad’s unjustly towed truck by San Francisco’s corrupt DPT, feeling sick and getting this itchy rash from Orr Hot Springs, getting ready for a house remodel, almost a dozen cancelled flights, sleepless nights, and no vacation to look forward to.
So what am I to do? Well, I decided to go to Nate n’ Al in Beverly Hills for a bit of comfort food: A Reuben sandwich (It was too late in the day for a bowl of their delish stewed prunes).
Speaking of sandwiches. I loved French Dip sandwiches as a child. We’d go to Coco’s and I’d order one and think it was the fanciest thing I’d ever eaten, apart from caviar and marinated asparagus. I don’t remember where I ate Reuben sandwiches as a child, but I really liked them too. I probably ate them on fun-filled family trips to Ohio. Then I went vegetarian and then poultry-a-terian allowing me to discover Zingerman’s most wonderful Georgia Reuben (a turkey Reuben made with coleslaw rather than sauerkraut). I have been addicted to anything in the Reuben family ever since. And ever since my trip to Argentina a few years ago, when I became an omnivore, I’ve had a few Reuben sandwiches with corned beef and pastrami. That’s exciting.
Nate n’ Al serves a lame bland Kosher-tasting dill and an even more unsatisfying half dill pickle, along with a small serving or sauerkraut, all smashed together on a little plate. It doesn’t look particularly attractive, but it feels very ‘deli.’ The sandwich also comes with really good coleslaw on the side. I spread on top of the corned beef and cheese and Russian dressing. Yum.
Side dish: half-dill + bland dill + sauerkraut on a saucer at Nate n' Al
So that was how I dealt with the stress. I flew to Los Angeles, drove to Beverly Hills and ate. And then I got back to work and am currently on a relaxing flight back to San Francisco.
The good news is the buyers of my home signed their loan documents today, and I’m supposed to go to the title company and sign my loan-closing documents tomorrow. So I’m still crossing my fingers. Maybe the remnants of extra stress will go away and I’ll be able to return once again to my usual stressed out version of me. Without the bonus stress.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Orr Hot Springs’ creepy crawlies
Orr Hot Springs is a beautiful little hippie retreat near Ukiah in Mendocino County. Little cottages called yurts and creaky old crumbling rooms give the place a rustic feel. The hot springs complex is wedged between a hill of daffodils and a tree-covered cliff, and is the perfect place for nudists to flaunt their flesh and hop into communal tubs and bathroom tubs, soaking up the piped-in waters from the springs. A communal kitchen affords guests a place to store and prepare food, and a common room welcomes guests to gather and play games, play with the cats (stay away if you’re allergic!) or listen to music performed by a local legend.
The water smells a bit like it has high sulfur content. Or at least that’s what I thought it was. It turns out I might have been sitting in a tub full of infectious diseases.
I am scratching. The last time I got a rash all over my body was from Splenda, which pissed me off enough to name my ejournal Splenda Sucks. Now I’m trying to figure out if I need to secure orrhotspringssucks.com. I went to the doctor who told me I have a lovely case of bacterial folliculitis as a result of my time in an unclean tub. Considering my butt started itching within two days of leaving Orr Hot Springs, both the doctor and I are pretty confident that Orr is to blame. Little pimple-like bumps appeared at the base of each hair follicle on my tummy, and in patches on my chest, and under my arm. Add to that itchiness on my scalp and legs, I’m scratching away.
Of course, now I have a wonderful topical antibiotic, and a steroidal spray, priced for those without insurance at $266 a can and $403 a bottle, respectively. Fortunately, with my insurance, and a handy discount card the friendly Dermatologist Sam Ellison gave me, my out-of-pocket expenses were minimized. Now I just need to apply both medications twice each day and hope that my rashes fade as quickly as my desire to ever return to Orr Hot Springs.
My trip to Orr Hot Springs wasn’t especially wonderful. The bed in the old room was the worst I’ve slept in, and just trying to fall asleep was a challenge as I heard every other word that was muttered in the room next door. “Rustic” is a nice term to use, but I think it’s fair to add “uncomfortable” and “not very peaceful.” People were chatty in the group tubs, making it hard to find a quiet, private space. I suppose you can find privacy if you want to bathe in one of their bathrooms, but I can do that at home. In clean water.
Don't tell. Since I’ve acquired this lovely rash, a couple of people advised me to call Orr Hot Springs and tell them that they are spreading disease (and one encouraged me to call the Mendocino County Health Department), but others told me not to do that: that I shouldn’t let them know, because there's nothing the folks at Orr will be able to do about it. A friend of mine, on her way to Orr today, took my warning, but drew from her background in biology and expertise in pathogens to acknowledge getting folliculitis is a risk anyone runs by going to places like Orr. In a discussion I recently had with a few friends who’ve frequented Orr in the past, everyone agreed that the tubs take a long time to drain and people probably don’t wait around for them to drain (and to scrub them), instead plugging tubs back up, keeping the water ripe with dead skin, fecal matter and nasty floaties.
So I will take the advice of my doctor and avoid sitting in dirty water at Orr Hot Springs. I begrudgingly will keep my complaints -- and scratching -- to myself, just like I always do.
The water smells a bit like it has high sulfur content. Or at least that’s what I thought it was. It turns out I might have been sitting in a tub full of infectious diseases.
I am scratching. The last time I got a rash all over my body was from Splenda, which pissed me off enough to name my ejournal Splenda Sucks. Now I’m trying to figure out if I need to secure orrhotspringssucks.com. I went to the doctor who told me I have a lovely case of bacterial folliculitis as a result of my time in an unclean tub. Considering my butt started itching within two days of leaving Orr Hot Springs, both the doctor and I are pretty confident that Orr is to blame. Little pimple-like bumps appeared at the base of each hair follicle on my tummy, and in patches on my chest, and under my arm. Add to that itchiness on my scalp and legs, I’m scratching away.
Of course, now I have a wonderful topical antibiotic, and a steroidal spray, priced for those without insurance at $266 a can and $403 a bottle, respectively. Fortunately, with my insurance, and a handy discount card the friendly Dermatologist Sam Ellison gave me, my out-of-pocket expenses were minimized. Now I just need to apply both medications twice each day and hope that my rashes fade as quickly as my desire to ever return to Orr Hot Springs.
My trip to Orr Hot Springs wasn’t especially wonderful. The bed in the old room was the worst I’ve slept in, and just trying to fall asleep was a challenge as I heard every other word that was muttered in the room next door. “Rustic” is a nice term to use, but I think it’s fair to add “uncomfortable” and “not very peaceful.” People were chatty in the group tubs, making it hard to find a quiet, private space. I suppose you can find privacy if you want to bathe in one of their bathrooms, but I can do that at home. In clean water.
Don't tell. Since I’ve acquired this lovely rash, a couple of people advised me to call Orr Hot Springs and tell them that they are spreading disease (and one encouraged me to call the Mendocino County Health Department), but others told me not to do that: that I shouldn’t let them know, because there's nothing the folks at Orr will be able to do about it. A friend of mine, on her way to Orr today, took my warning, but drew from her background in biology and expertise in pathogens to acknowledge getting folliculitis is a risk anyone runs by going to places like Orr. In a discussion I recently had with a few friends who’ve frequented Orr in the past, everyone agreed that the tubs take a long time to drain and people probably don’t wait around for them to drain (and to scrub them), instead plugging tubs back up, keeping the water ripe with dead skin, fecal matter and nasty floaties.
So I will take the advice of my doctor and avoid sitting in dirty water at Orr Hot Springs. I begrudgingly will keep my complaints -- and scratching -- to myself, just like I always do.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Northern Allegheny County offers a transit lover's treat
Driving. I drove more than 300 miles in the last 3 ½ days. I was also in cars and buses, not driving, for maybe another 60 miles. And on airplanes for more than 4,000 miles worth of travel. If a GPS tracking unit had been attached to me and some weird FBI agent was looking at my movements from a distance, he or she would wonder what I was up to. At least one bus driver did.
Of course the flying was linear. I got on a plane in one place and got off in another.
The more than 300 miles was not linear. And much of it was at speeds of 25 to 30 miles per hour. My GPS path would look like a bowl of tossed noodles because I didn’t really go anywhere. I just drove all over the northern half of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.
I actually drove all over the northern part of the county numerous times, taking turns at intersection after intersection and then retracing my steps down the same streets and the parallel avenues and through parking lots. I wove back and forth over bridges and drove around some blocks two or three times.
Learning the roads. Obviously, there was a purpose to this. In planner lingo, we can call it fieldwork. My objective: to learn as much as I could about the existing transit routes operated by the Port Authority of Allegheny County, the public transit system serving the greater Pittsburgh area.
I think I’ve got it. In preparation for the fieldwork, I spent a good bit of time reviewing transit schedules and maps, and looking at street views on Google Maps and at birds’ eye views on Microsoft Live Maps. Then I got on the plane to see them for myself.
It was wonderful to take a drive up Troy Hill and already know what to expect before I even got there: where the school was, what the “loop” where the bus turns around would look like, what grocery store I should expect to see before making a right turn. For the routes that I’d had the chance to preview, it was very easy to understand what was going on -- how those buses navigated the narrow roads, ran over the hill crests and the valleys, made tight turns and launched up grades that rival those in my hometown. For the routes I hadn’t had the opportunity to fully explore online, driving around was invaluable.
Some routes are very confusing. Pittsburgh’s street network is more complex that that of almost any other major North American City. For those routes that completely confounded me, I either rode the bus or followed behind in my rented minivan. This morning as I was following a bus operating along Route 11D, about 15 minutes into my excursion, the bus picked up a passenger at one stop and then pulled forward. Then it stopped again. And it sat there for 30 seconds. The next thing I saw was a very angry looking bus driver who walked behind the bus and headed right toward my van.
“What are you doing following me?” she demanded.
I had already rolled down my window in anticipation of this confrontation and greeted her with a smile.
I assured her I was trying to understand the route and complimented her excellent driving ability. She asked for "some sort of ID" and I promised her I wasn’t trying to freak her out.
She said it made her uncomfortable, having me following her everywhere she went.
"I'm really just trying to understand the route. From what I can tell, you're on schedule and doing a great job, " I told her.
Then she warmed a bit and headed back to the bus.
I followed her for another block and then turned to explore a variation the route sometimes follows. When I got back on the main road, she was long gone. I bet she sped the hell out of there or turned down another street so she wouldn't have to have me on her ass.
I wouldn't blame her.
Of course the flying was linear. I got on a plane in one place and got off in another.
The more than 300 miles was not linear. And much of it was at speeds of 25 to 30 miles per hour. My GPS path would look like a bowl of tossed noodles because I didn’t really go anywhere. I just drove all over the northern half of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.
I actually drove all over the northern part of the county numerous times, taking turns at intersection after intersection and then retracing my steps down the same streets and the parallel avenues and through parking lots. I wove back and forth over bridges and drove around some blocks two or three times.
Learning the roads. Obviously, there was a purpose to this. In planner lingo, we can call it fieldwork. My objective: to learn as much as I could about the existing transit routes operated by the Port Authority of Allegheny County, the public transit system serving the greater Pittsburgh area.
I think I’ve got it. In preparation for the fieldwork, I spent a good bit of time reviewing transit schedules and maps, and looking at street views on Google Maps and at birds’ eye views on Microsoft Live Maps. Then I got on the plane to see them for myself.
It was wonderful to take a drive up Troy Hill and already know what to expect before I even got there: where the school was, what the “loop” where the bus turns around would look like, what grocery store I should expect to see before making a right turn. For the routes that I’d had the chance to preview, it was very easy to understand what was going on -- how those buses navigated the narrow roads, ran over the hill crests and the valleys, made tight turns and launched up grades that rival those in my hometown. For the routes I hadn’t had the opportunity to fully explore online, driving around was invaluable.
Some routes are very confusing. Pittsburgh’s street network is more complex that that of almost any other major North American City. For those routes that completely confounded me, I either rode the bus or followed behind in my rented minivan. This morning as I was following a bus operating along Route 11D, about 15 minutes into my excursion, the bus picked up a passenger at one stop and then pulled forward. Then it stopped again. And it sat there for 30 seconds. The next thing I saw was a very angry looking bus driver who walked behind the bus and headed right toward my van.
“What are you doing following me?” she demanded.
I had already rolled down my window in anticipation of this confrontation and greeted her with a smile.
I assured her I was trying to understand the route and complimented her excellent driving ability. She asked for "some sort of ID" and I promised her I wasn’t trying to freak her out.
She said it made her uncomfortable, having me following her everywhere she went.
"I'm really just trying to understand the route. From what I can tell, you're on schedule and doing a great job, " I told her.
Then she warmed a bit and headed back to the bus.
I followed her for another block and then turned to explore a variation the route sometimes follows. When I got back on the main road, she was long gone. I bet she sped the hell out of there or turned down another street so she wouldn't have to have me on her ass.
I wouldn't blame her.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Cheap vodka for oldsters
Old people. I know I have mentioned how old people love drug stores. Let me tell you about a particular pair of very old women at the downtown San Francisco Rite Aid.
These two seem to be in heaven in the aisles of that store, sorting through their pocketbooks for the correct change. Both wear head scarves, like my grandmother wore when I was a child, keeping their hair in place. One is taller, slightly more robust looking than the other, but with ruddy cheeks, dull gray eyes and hair that’s wispy and white, peeking out from under her olive scarf. She wears a faded powder blue raincoat over a dark plain dress. The other, small and thin, with a tremor and dark glasses, looks as fragile and frail as a nursing home patient. Her scarf, clear plastic with a white rim, tied neatly over a matte of chalky hair, covers her small quivering head. She also wears a raincoat, gray over a black frock. If I were to guess their ages, I’d put them soundly in their 90s, but perhaps they are just old looking 80-somethings.
As they waddle through their way through the store, they make their way to the Rite Aid aisle of booze. They spend a long time in the aisle, grasping a wrinkled Rite Aid circular, and then hone in on the vodka special of the week. The taller woman scoots one bottle – I think it is 1 ½ liters – off the shelf and puts it in the quaking hands of the smaller woman. Then she grasps a bottle herself. The two of them continue to scan the bottles, perhaps making sure they got the best price on the largest available bottle of vodka. Then they turn, again the tall one leading the small one, and wander to the register. They fumble for their change and hand wadded up bills to the cashier. The cashier takes their money and wraps their bottles in triple plastic bags. Then she turns to other cashier next to her. She giggles and rolls her eyes.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
All about show business
February was a low travel month, which was really nice for a change, especially since a bit too much was going on in my life. I’ve been able to keep travel limited in March too, but that is coming to an end. So here I am writing and sitting in seat 13 C on a Southwest Airlines flight to Los Angeles. I have to go to do some fieldwork and a bit of pitch-hitting on a survey that my colleague is managing in Hollywood.
Yes, I will be hanging out in Hollywood for the next two days, not enjoying the glamour of Lindsay Lohan’s and Heath Ledger’s wondrous lives, but instead seeing if there’s anything I can do to help with the down-and-out side of Hollywood, improving the transit services and developing a shuttle to make it easier to get around Tinseltown. In preparation for my trip to Hollywood, I’ve taken in several performances lately.
The Trampoline Hall Lecture Series. My friend Jesse Costello-Good roped me and Brad into this masterful performance. It involves an incredibly annoying guy from Toronto who is very excited about his own on-stage persona and repeats himself a thousand times. What he repeats are the ground rules and how exciting the performance is going to be. As an audience member, you think, “Gosh this Misha guy’s annoying, but he’s so excited about this, it might actually be good.” Then you discover that you’ve made a mistake.
The premise is that the Trampoline Hall Lecture Series assigns a lecture topic to an individual who has no expertise whatsoever in the subject matter. That individual must prepare a convincing lecture and present it to the audience.
The first lecture was dull. The audience’s questions were completely useless. I went to the bar and got another gin-and-tonic, because I expected the remainder of the evening to be an unrivaled experience of blandness. The second lecturer was a space-cadet of a young woman who gave a talk on different forms of gangrene and how to amputate a leg in the event of frostbite or gangrene. It didn’t really fit together so well, but her delivery was amusing because she clearly had flunked basic high school biology. She used an overhead projector to sketch how to make incisions and illustrate how to spot gangrene. It reminded me of my high school anatomy and physiology class.
The third lecture was absolutely terrible: a stand-up comedian sort of guy talking about something I can’t even recall. I just remember it was bad so we left, picking up a photo of my keys (they took photos of audience member keys for no purpose whatsoever).
I saw a performance of Sonny’s Blues. The Word-for-Word Theater Company in San Francisco usually presents compelling short stories with even more compelling performers who act out the text from a short story. In this case, the James Baldwin tale proved to be monotonous, dragging me down and keeping me squirming in my seat during this intermission-free performance. Combined with the fact that the venue, the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, seems to offer San Francisco’s most uncomfortable seats, I was thrilled when Sonny’s Blues ended. Some of the performers were very good, but the lead actor’s monologues were exhausting.
Gurglegurglegurgle. The third show I saw was a live music performance: throat singers playing traditional instruments. Hailing from Tuva, the Siberian republic that once enjoyed a short-lived period of independence and now is part of Russia, the four men who perform as Huun-Huur-Tu sat in their very Tuvan garb across the stage. They twiddled and plucked their beautiful instruments while controlling their vocal cords to emit low-octave croons and high pitched whistle-like melodies. The “young, beautiful one,” as he was called by the leader of the band, gave an impressive unaccompanied (by instruments) solo. I soaked it all up. I was relaxed, sometimes even mesmerized by these nomadic performers. I drank sparkling juice and zoned out, my mind tromping about in the snowy Tuvan countryside.
All of that relaxation is gone now. I suppose a performance of 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother smothered it. (Okay, not really true. I would blame that on real estate transactions and workloads and other annoyances). Judy Gold did a fine job of communicating the lives of Jewish mothers, but the performance wasn’t especially funny. It had touching moments, and plenty of over-dramatized ones too, but some good story-telling kept my interest. My main concern was that it was going to be a very long performance. I kept waiting for the intermission that was indicated on the printed program, thinking to myself, “Oh my God. If this goes on any longer, we’re going to have to leave at intermission.” Thankfully, intermission was also the conclusion.
No performances scheduled this week. I’ll have to find something else to look forward to.
Yes, I will be hanging out in Hollywood for the next two days, not enjoying the glamour of Lindsay Lohan’s and Heath Ledger’s wondrous lives, but instead seeing if there’s anything I can do to help with the down-and-out side of Hollywood, improving the transit services and developing a shuttle to make it easier to get around Tinseltown. In preparation for my trip to Hollywood, I’ve taken in several performances lately.
The Trampoline Hall Lecture Series. My friend Jesse Costello-Good roped me and Brad into this masterful performance. It involves an incredibly annoying guy from Toronto who is very excited about his own on-stage persona and repeats himself a thousand times. What he repeats are the ground rules and how exciting the performance is going to be. As an audience member, you think, “Gosh this Misha guy’s annoying, but he’s so excited about this, it might actually be good.” Then you discover that you’ve made a mistake.
The premise is that the Trampoline Hall Lecture Series assigns a lecture topic to an individual who has no expertise whatsoever in the subject matter. That individual must prepare a convincing lecture and present it to the audience.
The first lecture was dull. The audience’s questions were completely useless. I went to the bar and got another gin-and-tonic, because I expected the remainder of the evening to be an unrivaled experience of blandness. The second lecturer was a space-cadet of a young woman who gave a talk on different forms of gangrene and how to amputate a leg in the event of frostbite or gangrene. It didn’t really fit together so well, but her delivery was amusing because she clearly had flunked basic high school biology. She used an overhead projector to sketch how to make incisions and illustrate how to spot gangrene. It reminded me of my high school anatomy and physiology class.
The third lecture was absolutely terrible: a stand-up comedian sort of guy talking about something I can’t even recall. I just remember it was bad so we left, picking up a photo of my keys (they took photos of audience member keys for no purpose whatsoever).
I saw a performance of Sonny’s Blues. The Word-for-Word Theater Company in San Francisco usually presents compelling short stories with even more compelling performers who act out the text from a short story. In this case, the James Baldwin tale proved to be monotonous, dragging me down and keeping me squirming in my seat during this intermission-free performance. Combined with the fact that the venue, the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, seems to offer San Francisco’s most uncomfortable seats, I was thrilled when Sonny’s Blues ended. Some of the performers were very good, but the lead actor’s monologues were exhausting.
Gurglegurglegurgle. The third show I saw was a live music performance: throat singers playing traditional instruments. Hailing from Tuva, the Siberian republic that once enjoyed a short-lived period of independence and now is part of Russia, the four men who perform as Huun-Huur-Tu sat in their very Tuvan garb across the stage. They twiddled and plucked their beautiful instruments while controlling their vocal cords to emit low-octave croons and high pitched whistle-like melodies. The “young, beautiful one,” as he was called by the leader of the band, gave an impressive unaccompanied (by instruments) solo. I soaked it all up. I was relaxed, sometimes even mesmerized by these nomadic performers. I drank sparkling juice and zoned out, my mind tromping about in the snowy Tuvan countryside.
All of that relaxation is gone now. I suppose a performance of 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother smothered it. (Okay, not really true. I would blame that on real estate transactions and workloads and other annoyances). Judy Gold did a fine job of communicating the lives of Jewish mothers, but the performance wasn’t especially funny. It had touching moments, and plenty of over-dramatized ones too, but some good story-telling kept my interest. My main concern was that it was going to be a very long performance. I kept waiting for the intermission that was indicated on the printed program, thinking to myself, “Oh my God. If this goes on any longer, we’re going to have to leave at intermission.” Thankfully, intermission was also the conclusion.
No performances scheduled this week. I’ll have to find something else to look forward to.
Friday, February 29, 2008
San Francisco house for sale
I haven't had any flights this month, so I haven't had any time for blog blab. Forgive this shameless plug, but I know of a really great flat for sale in San Francisco's hip Lower Haight. Check it out and tell your friends.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Cheers to Michael Jay Miller
Pittsburgh. In the last three months, I’ve been to Pittsburgh three times. The first time was for work, to begin a study for the Port Authority, to redesign the transit system in Allegheny County. Most of my days were spent in meetings and doing fieldwork with Port Authority staff, exploring the busways, riding the light rail lines and buses, and watching the buses circle the streets in downtown Pittsburgh. While I was there I managed to squeeze in a dinner with my Aunt Kathi and Uncle Mike, and we had a fun time at Lidia Bastianich’s restaurant in the Strip District.
My second trip to Pittsburgh was the following week, for Thanksgiving with my family. My mom headed into town, as did my sister and her husband and kids. Cousins came from Cleveland to join the celebration as my Uncle Mike and Aunt Kathi took us to Pittsburgh’s Grand Concourse. We made a visit to Fallingwater and arrived back at my aunt and uncle’s house to watch my niece and nephew crawling all over Uncle Mike.
I’m on a flight now, heading home from my third visit to Pittsburgh. I was supposed to stay until later this week, but am returning two days early because I threw my back out this morning. Nothing sucks more than that.
Something sucks more. I’m coming home from the funeral of my Uncle Mike. The guy I’ve known since I was born; the guy who was the face of Pittsburgh for me. Uncle Mike was my mom’s younger brother, nine years younger than she. He was supposed to live for a long time. But he died of a series of strokes, with complications in the hospital including a collapsed lung, pneumonia, a heart attack, and surgeries gone awry by inexperienced medical staff. My mom spent the last month in Pittsburgh with my Aunt Kathi at my uncle’s bedside hoping for the best news, but getting the worst.
I won’t remember him for the medical problems and hospital debacles that marked his last days. I’ll remember him for picking up the much younger version of me and throwing me around, for swinging me in circles and tickling me endlessly. I giggled without a break, screaming “uncle,” the universal code word for “stop tickling me,” appropriate when shouted at him.
I’ll remember him for standing in the Farrell’s Candy Store, after we shoveled down ice cream parfaits, and telling my sister and me that we had three minutes to get as much candy as we wanted. He was paying. No limits. And I remember my sister and I had the hardest time deciding what to buy.
I remember him at his wedding, where I was a junior groomsman in my rented charcoal tux. And at my Bar Mitzvah. And at my high school graduation. And my college graduation from Michigan, the arch-rival of his beloved Ohio State. He came to all of them. He was there to celebrate with me.
I remember going to Disney World with him. I did it as a child and I did it as an adult.
Other than Walt himself, no one was more of an expert on the Magic Kingdom, Disney-MGM Studios, Epcot, or Disney’s Animal Kingdom than Uncle Mike. He had a passion for it and liked sharing it with friends and relatives.
I remember that he gave me tickets to the Michigan-Ohio State game in Columbus. He had season tickets and couldn’t make the game, so my friend Anne and I sat in the Ohio State Alumni section, next to 80-year olds knitting crimson and grey sweaters and scarves. Anne and I shouted and cheered for Michigan. Michigan won the game and I got slugged in the shoulder by an unhappy Ohio State student.
I remember that he was addicted to his Marriott Rewards points. And the Cleveland Browns. And Costco. And Bernie Shulman’s.
I remember going out to eat with him. He couldn’t have “third world food.” He couldn’t have anything with vegetables. He freaked out when my mom told him the zucchini bread she baked -- the one he was enjoying – was, in fact, zucchini bread and not coffee cake. He spit it out on his plate. And I remember he only liked to eat pizza and fried chicken and hamburgers and milkshakes, and donuts for breakfast, and beer and cheesy eggs and pepperoni rolls. And that’s what was his downfall.
At least 200 coworkers and friends and relatives flooded the funeral home, all saying wonderful things about him. “A mild-mannered guy, listened to everyone’s yammering, went out of his was to solve problems and help people.” An unlikely good guy. His death notice appeared in Pittsburgh and in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
It’s been a rough few weeks for my mom and my uncle’s wife and kids.
And a sad five days I spent with them all, trying to celebrate the life of my Uncle Mike, wishing I hadn’t had to make the third trip to Pittsburgh.
My second trip to Pittsburgh was the following week, for Thanksgiving with my family. My mom headed into town, as did my sister and her husband and kids. Cousins came from Cleveland to join the celebration as my Uncle Mike and Aunt Kathi took us to Pittsburgh’s Grand Concourse. We made a visit to Fallingwater and arrived back at my aunt and uncle’s house to watch my niece and nephew crawling all over Uncle Mike.
I’m on a flight now, heading home from my third visit to Pittsburgh. I was supposed to stay until later this week, but am returning two days early because I threw my back out this morning. Nothing sucks more than that.
Something sucks more. I’m coming home from the funeral of my Uncle Mike. The guy I’ve known since I was born; the guy who was the face of Pittsburgh for me. Uncle Mike was my mom’s younger brother, nine years younger than she. He was supposed to live for a long time. But he died of a series of strokes, with complications in the hospital including a collapsed lung, pneumonia, a heart attack, and surgeries gone awry by inexperienced medical staff. My mom spent the last month in Pittsburgh with my Aunt Kathi at my uncle’s bedside hoping for the best news, but getting the worst.
I won’t remember him for the medical problems and hospital debacles that marked his last days. I’ll remember him for picking up the much younger version of me and throwing me around, for swinging me in circles and tickling me endlessly. I giggled without a break, screaming “uncle,” the universal code word for “stop tickling me,” appropriate when shouted at him.
I’ll remember him for standing in the Farrell’s Candy Store, after we shoveled down ice cream parfaits, and telling my sister and me that we had three minutes to get as much candy as we wanted. He was paying. No limits. And I remember my sister and I had the hardest time deciding what to buy.
I remember him at his wedding, where I was a junior groomsman in my rented charcoal tux. And at my Bar Mitzvah. And at my high school graduation. And my college graduation from Michigan, the arch-rival of his beloved Ohio State. He came to all of them. He was there to celebrate with me.
I remember going to Disney World with him. I did it as a child and I did it as an adult.
Other than Walt himself, no one was more of an expert on the Magic Kingdom, Disney-MGM Studios, Epcot, or Disney’s Animal Kingdom than Uncle Mike. He had a passion for it and liked sharing it with friends and relatives.
I remember that he gave me tickets to the Michigan-Ohio State game in Columbus. He had season tickets and couldn’t make the game, so my friend Anne and I sat in the Ohio State Alumni section, next to 80-year olds knitting crimson and grey sweaters and scarves. Anne and I shouted and cheered for Michigan. Michigan won the game and I got slugged in the shoulder by an unhappy Ohio State student.
I remember that he was addicted to his Marriott Rewards points. And the Cleveland Browns. And Costco. And Bernie Shulman’s.
I remember going out to eat with him. He couldn’t have “third world food.” He couldn’t have anything with vegetables. He freaked out when my mom told him the zucchini bread she baked -- the one he was enjoying – was, in fact, zucchini bread and not coffee cake. He spit it out on his plate. And I remember he only liked to eat pizza and fried chicken and hamburgers and milkshakes, and donuts for breakfast, and beer and cheesy eggs and pepperoni rolls. And that’s what was his downfall.
Uncle Mike sure knew how to carve a beast.
At least 200 coworkers and friends and relatives flooded the funeral home, all saying wonderful things about him. “A mild-mannered guy, listened to everyone’s yammering, went out of his was to solve problems and help people.” An unlikely good guy. His death notice appeared in Pittsburgh and in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
It’s been a rough few weeks for my mom and my uncle’s wife and kids.
And a sad five days I spent with them all, trying to celebrate the life of my Uncle Mike, wishing I hadn’t had to make the third trip to Pittsburgh.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Wigdoll freaks me out and other recent photos
I have taken a few photos recently that I would like to share.
First is a sweet baby.
This little doll is bald. But she is modeling her favorite wig. She is a fan of Loretta Lynn.
I also saw the Statue of Liberty. In Tennessee.
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Here Brad and Courtney sport a serious pose in front of Lady Liberty.
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And here is Lady Liberty, cross in hand, in all her glory without the heathen blocking your view. She's in front of a massive church, across from a religious bookstore, a rent-to-own store, and a minimart.
Belated Christmas.
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I dressed up for Christmas. I got the nose from my Secret Santa at work. I got the antlers at the office holiday party. Everyone got them.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Escaping: getting out of London
View from the Tate Modern: People were evacuating. I didn't know that. I thought it was just cool to watch all of the people down below. Then I was told to evacuate.
The three days were supposed to be a last posture against the overwhelming stress that seems to consume me. With luxury accommodations, museums and shopping, surrounded by London’s masterpiece architecture and throngs of culturally upbeat theatre-goers, the trip was to refresh me. I would be joined by a friend visiting from Paris. Together we would explore the Soane Museum, return to the Tate Modern and wind our way past the dinosaur bone casts and giant plastic whale in the Natural History Museum. We would peruse the shops along Kings Road, Fullham Street, and join the throngs of deal-seekers filing under the awnings on Portobello Road. Later we would carefully select a pub and kick back a couple of pints. I would seek out new places to shop, like undiscovered Hammersmith.
Everything I would do in London was actually done. It was not enthralling. It was a getaway. But the cold British with their odd interactions, the rush of traffic past Hyde Park, conversations overheard, and unreasonable prices make London exactly what it was to me. Quick getaways can make us appreciate our own hometowns, our own lives, and even our own stressors.
I liked London, as a city, on this trip. I had never really cared for it much in the past. I saw beautiful neighborhoods and interesting shopping districts. Manicured parks and circles looked inviting, but were gated to prevent entry from common passersby. The diversity is curious, with Africans in colorful folds, Indians in saris, the Chinese in Western wear, and pale English people -- fat and thin – with the empty expressions that are the trademark of the British.
Before and after: I sucked down a very rich hot chocolate at Paul, the French chain patisserie, in London.
Outspoken bigots. Being in another land, riding a different subway, listening to new voices, seeing prices in pounds. That’s what a quick jaunt to London should be. But I also heard much of the same and saw much of the same. Yesterday when I ducked into a local chicken shoppe, I quietly ate my chips, peeking up at the posters on the yellow walls. In wandered a Black man, with an accent suggesting he may have come from the Caribbean or Africa. He wandered table to table, asking to bum a fag and some pence. After he’d left the immediate area, the woman seated near the window turned to address the two of us who has been approached by the man. She was stout with a black top hat and a red-and-white striped scarf.
“Those people really should be removed. They emigrate over and simply beg. He’s not worked a day in his life. He spends it in front of the shop, doesn’t contribute to our society at all.” She smirked. “I know they make immigrants sign a form that says they won’t be on the dole, but these people just come and become indigents.”
I looked at her for a moment and returned to the chips, trying to dip them in what was left of my ketchup. She continued to talk, but the other person in the room listened to her and served as her sounding board. Her accent was one of those that sound like clips of English. I’d probably call it Eliza Doolittle, but I don’t know one bad British accent from another. I just heard lots of words. “Oh yeah, they certainly do.” “Never a day in his life.” “Lazy, they all are.” “Used to be a better neighborhood.”
It was a conversation that easily could take place anywhere in the US. I could hear it in Mississippi about the local Blacks, or in Michigan about the Mexicans. But you don’t usually hear it between female strangers in the presence of others. At least, not in 2008.
Americans don’t have a reputation for being the quietest and most polite citizens. But after hearing the boasting and loud shouts and the general lack of civility in London, I feel a lot better about Americans. Americans with their slight smiles and pleasant “Have a nice day.”
Being upsold. This morning, when I left my hotel, I waited for a hotel-marketed Hoppa bus. A shuttle that runs between Heathrow-area hotels and the airport terminals. Passengers must buy a £4 ticket. When I inquired about the next bus at the hotel, the first person told me it would arrive in a few seconds. The second told me it would come in two minutes. The bus came 15 minutes later. All the while I watched the free public buses passing by every two or three minutes in the direction I was heading.
I had taken one of those free public buses the night before. The ride from the airport took about five minutes and the bus had dropped me just a block from the hotel. Now I was wasting my time because they had sold me a ticket for an inferior service. I could have taken bus Route 140 again and skipped the Hotel Hoppa. Don’t listen to the people at hotels.
Louise Bourgeois' spider under gloomy London skies: I 've seen this in a few other cities.
Protecting us from terrorists. This morning, I arrived at Heathrow and headed toward the security lines. I was stopped by one of Heathrow’s 4,000 employees who have menial security jobs. I was told to put my suitcase into one of the metal cages to see if I could take it on the plane. This is a suitcase I’ve carried on at least 500 separate planes. It fits in the overhead bin, front window to aisle, minimizing the amount of space taken up in the bin. When the woman at the airport set it on top of the cage, it didn’t slide right in. I took at and pushed it in. I showed her it fit and she said, "OK.” Then I tried to remove it and it wouldn’t come out. I picked up the giant stand attached to the cage and turned it over to shake out the suitcase. Suddenly four of these employees surrounded me telling I had purposely jammed it in there. One employee helped me remove it and then told me I would have to check my bag. I told him I would absolutely not check my bag, I would take out more stuff so it would fit in the cage and then I would put the stuff back into my suitcase.
I did exactly that. In a huff. And I left London.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
The monster I’ve become
Flying here and there. It has been a while since I’ve been on a flight, so I haven’t had an opportunity to be forced to sit in a seat and write in my ejournal. But there I was on my last flight in seat 14 C for about five hours on a US Airways flight from San Francisco. The A321 was my home at 35,000 feet while I watched the heartwarming Nanny Diaries and a M*A*S*H episode on the cabin screen. The thing I noticed about the aircraft was that all of the aisle seats leaned toward the aisle. I guess all of the people in aisle seats who have flown to Charlotte over the last ten years made a bit of a dent. None of the aisle seats had a structural support on the aisle - just a curved bar that floated above the floor. So all of the seats leaned. You’d think they could fix that. You would think so, but this is US Airways. So I sat in the leaning seat. And that’s where I became an ogre.
First, let me say that I actually think I’m a nice person. As much as I admonish myself for taking out my anger on Walgreen’s employees, I am nice to most of them. I always thank the bus driver. I strike up conversations with seniors who look lonely. I think people are generally good. And I’m kind to children. And most pets.
Cruelty. I remember as a child, it seemed that there were always mean adults on the plane. And on my last flight, I was the mean person. Even though I really did nothing mean.
As the six-year old girl in the seat behind me colored snowflakes with her father, she continued to kick my seat. Not intentionally, I am certain. I overheard their tender conversation and put my headphones over my ears, concentrating on the US Airways in-flight entertainment: an advertisement for the Agua Caliente Casino in Rancho Mirage. But finally, I turned around, forced as polite a face as possible, and asked the child, looking at her father as I spoke, if she might try to be very careful and not kick her feet against my seat. Her face flushed with the look of shame, as if she’d been discovered doing something evil, like skipping school or punching her classmate. And the fact that another adult had spoken to her about her behavior in front of her father made it a very uncomfortable experience.
I remember feeling the same way when I was a kid. I kicked seats before I ever realized that other people had the right to the space around them. And then I was scolded by adults who were not my parents. The adults were probably very nice to me, but I remember the experiences with horror.
The girl’s father apologized and said she probably didn’t even realize she was doing it. He explained to her that the man in front of her (I was that man) could feel her feet pushing on his seat. I flashed a harmless smile, offered a meek “thanks,” and retreated to my forward-facing direction.
Somewhere in the middle of the flight, the girl’s parents traded seats. Her father moved back to 16 D and her mother moved up to 15 B. The child remained in 15 C. And at some point during the second half of the flight, the jostling began again. Those little feet, restless as they are, started bumping and pushing against my seat. I tried to meditate and remain calm. But I couldn’t even close my eyes and rest with the swinging of little feet. So, I did it again. I pivoted on my knee and peered over my seat to the eyes staring up at me. Eyes that showed a look of hate. I squinted up my eyes into the friendliest look, putting on a face that showed patience. It showed that I recognized that it was a mistake and a that I was a really, really nice guy who didn’t want to shame her but really, really just wanted her to remember that her feet might accidentally be tapping the back of the cushion. And it wasn’t a big deal, but I just wanted her to remember that we’d already talked about this issue. Her mother apologized and told her daughter the same thing the girl’s father had said earlier.
Arrival. When the flight landed and everyone jumped up to get their belongings, I turned around to give one more sweet smile to the girl behind me. But she had been replaced by a baby who had been sharing seat 16 D with the other parent. The baby smiled. Maybe the baby would tell his sister that I was nice. That she shouldn’t be ashamed. And that someday she’ll ask a child to stop kicking her seat.
Anyway, that was my first flight of two to get from San Francisco to Washington, DC, via Charlotte. On the second flight, another child, perhaps age three or four, sat behind. She had a complete meltdown, kicking and pounding and screaming. My seat shook with each kick. And I sat calmly, contemplating how I’d destroyed the life of the sweet little girl with fidgeting feet on the first flight. And I let the little monster kick the hell out of my seat. And I didn’t say a thing.
First, let me say that I actually think I’m a nice person. As much as I admonish myself for taking out my anger on Walgreen’s employees, I am nice to most of them. I always thank the bus driver. I strike up conversations with seniors who look lonely. I think people are generally good. And I’m kind to children. And most pets.
Cruelty. I remember as a child, it seemed that there were always mean adults on the plane. And on my last flight, I was the mean person. Even though I really did nothing mean.
As the six-year old girl in the seat behind me colored snowflakes with her father, she continued to kick my seat. Not intentionally, I am certain. I overheard their tender conversation and put my headphones over my ears, concentrating on the US Airways in-flight entertainment: an advertisement for the Agua Caliente Casino in Rancho Mirage. But finally, I turned around, forced as polite a face as possible, and asked the child, looking at her father as I spoke, if she might try to be very careful and not kick her feet against my seat. Her face flushed with the look of shame, as if she’d been discovered doing something evil, like skipping school or punching her classmate. And the fact that another adult had spoken to her about her behavior in front of her father made it a very uncomfortable experience.
I remember feeling the same way when I was a kid. I kicked seats before I ever realized that other people had the right to the space around them. And then I was scolded by adults who were not my parents. The adults were probably very nice to me, but I remember the experiences with horror.
The girl’s father apologized and said she probably didn’t even realize she was doing it. He explained to her that the man in front of her (I was that man) could feel her feet pushing on his seat. I flashed a harmless smile, offered a meek “thanks,” and retreated to my forward-facing direction.
Somewhere in the middle of the flight, the girl’s parents traded seats. Her father moved back to 16 D and her mother moved up to 15 B. The child remained in 15 C. And at some point during the second half of the flight, the jostling began again. Those little feet, restless as they are, started bumping and pushing against my seat. I tried to meditate and remain calm. But I couldn’t even close my eyes and rest with the swinging of little feet. So, I did it again. I pivoted on my knee and peered over my seat to the eyes staring up at me. Eyes that showed a look of hate. I squinted up my eyes into the friendliest look, putting on a face that showed patience. It showed that I recognized that it was a mistake and a that I was a really, really nice guy who didn’t want to shame her but really, really just wanted her to remember that her feet might accidentally be tapping the back of the cushion. And it wasn’t a big deal, but I just wanted her to remember that we’d already talked about this issue. Her mother apologized and told her daughter the same thing the girl’s father had said earlier.
Arrival. When the flight landed and everyone jumped up to get their belongings, I turned around to give one more sweet smile to the girl behind me. But she had been replaced by a baby who had been sharing seat 16 D with the other parent. The baby smiled. Maybe the baby would tell his sister that I was nice. That she shouldn’t be ashamed. And that someday she’ll ask a child to stop kicking her seat.
Anyway, that was my first flight of two to get from San Francisco to Washington, DC, via Charlotte. On the second flight, another child, perhaps age three or four, sat behind. She had a complete meltdown, kicking and pounding and screaming. My seat shook with each kick. And I sat calmly, contemplating how I’d destroyed the life of the sweet little girl with fidgeting feet on the first flight. And I let the little monster kick the hell out of my seat. And I didn’t say a thing.
Speaking of airlines
In addition to the pleasant US Airways flight I describe above, I’ve been getting around lately.
Last month I got a taste of Northwest’s best. I am convinced that Northwest is the worst domestic airline. The aircraft was a 757, old and crusty like the ones United flies. But Northwest does not show movies, even on a long flight from San Francisco to Minneapolis. Northwest does not have pillows. Northwest does not have blankets. And the seat was the most uncomfortable airline seat I’d ever been in: no cushioning in the middle. Maybe only pointy bodies had sat in it.
Northwest does not even give you a small bag of pretzels. You must purchase one of their snacks in order to eat anything at all. And their horrible snack boxes are designed by doofy Minnesotans who are all obese and diabetic. When we landed in Minneapolis, we were told by flight attendants that if we were continuing on the next flight, we could leave our carry-on luggage aboard the plane. Of course, we did that and went to get food. We came back to discover they had taken all of the bags off the plane and put them on the wheelchairs in the gate area. Stupid. Horrible airline.
I also got a typical Continental experience last month. I missed my connecting flight. This happens about half the time I fly Continental and change planes in Houston. The Continental aircraft was clean enough, and Continental offers blankets and pillows unlike their horrible partner NWA. But Continental is severely customer-service challenged. They have the worst airline desk staff in Houston. The flight to Houston took an extra hour to get there, but no announcements were made to indicate why the flight time was so long. And no announcements were made saying that they recognized we were an hour late and would probably have missed our connecting flights. This seems to be the way they operate: denial. At least they should announce that we’re really late and a customer service agent will be available to help us reschedule our flight.
And then there’s United. Which I also flew last month. And I tend to fly often because their hub is in San Francisco. Granted, it’s a lame hub without nonstop flights to most major Midwest and Eastern cities. And they operate only one flight a day to key Southern cities. But still, they operate the most flights in California. United’s 737, 757 and 767 aircraft are old and in serious need of updates. On the plus side, their seats are usually comfortable, they have blankets and pillows, and they have movies and TV on all flights except their 737s. But I was also screwed up by them last month due to mechanical problems and a crew that timed out. They don’t have enough pilots so they’ve been canceling flights left and right.
Someday, I won’t travel as much. Until then, I have trips planned to Washington, London, Pittsburgh, and Los Angeles in the next couple of months. And will probably have about 50 more round trips this year. I will acquire miles and not look forward to redeeming them.
I would support consolidation in the airline industry. I think there’s the potential for better customer service and more travel options. I wouldn’t mind a Delta-United combo, and anything that would make Northwest go away would be a good move. But even if airlines consolidate, they’ll still be crappy. And I’ll still buy whatever is the cheapest ticket I can find for most of the journeys I take, as long as I can hold a seat in advance.
I look forward to a lifetime of leaning seats being kicked by 5-year olds. Old Joey Goldman, with an unhappy butt and bad snack boxes.
Last month I got a taste of Northwest’s best. I am convinced that Northwest is the worst domestic airline. The aircraft was a 757, old and crusty like the ones United flies. But Northwest does not show movies, even on a long flight from San Francisco to Minneapolis. Northwest does not have pillows. Northwest does not have blankets. And the seat was the most uncomfortable airline seat I’d ever been in: no cushioning in the middle. Maybe only pointy bodies had sat in it.
Northwest does not even give you a small bag of pretzels. You must purchase one of their snacks in order to eat anything at all. And their horrible snack boxes are designed by doofy Minnesotans who are all obese and diabetic. When we landed in Minneapolis, we were told by flight attendants that if we were continuing on the next flight, we could leave our carry-on luggage aboard the plane. Of course, we did that and went to get food. We came back to discover they had taken all of the bags off the plane and put them on the wheelchairs in the gate area. Stupid. Horrible airline.
I also got a typical Continental experience last month. I missed my connecting flight. This happens about half the time I fly Continental and change planes in Houston. The Continental aircraft was clean enough, and Continental offers blankets and pillows unlike their horrible partner NWA. But Continental is severely customer-service challenged. They have the worst airline desk staff in Houston. The flight to Houston took an extra hour to get there, but no announcements were made to indicate why the flight time was so long. And no announcements were made saying that they recognized we were an hour late and would probably have missed our connecting flights. This seems to be the way they operate: denial. At least they should announce that we’re really late and a customer service agent will be available to help us reschedule our flight.
And then there’s United. Which I also flew last month. And I tend to fly often because their hub is in San Francisco. Granted, it’s a lame hub without nonstop flights to most major Midwest and Eastern cities. And they operate only one flight a day to key Southern cities. But still, they operate the most flights in California. United’s 737, 757 and 767 aircraft are old and in serious need of updates. On the plus side, their seats are usually comfortable, they have blankets and pillows, and they have movies and TV on all flights except their 737s. But I was also screwed up by them last month due to mechanical problems and a crew that timed out. They don’t have enough pilots so they’ve been canceling flights left and right.
Someday, I won’t travel as much. Until then, I have trips planned to Washington, London, Pittsburgh, and Los Angeles in the next couple of months. And will probably have about 50 more round trips this year. I will acquire miles and not look forward to redeeming them.
I would support consolidation in the airline industry. I think there’s the potential for better customer service and more travel options. I wouldn’t mind a Delta-United combo, and anything that would make Northwest go away would be a good move. But even if airlines consolidate, they’ll still be crappy. And I’ll still buy whatever is the cheapest ticket I can find for most of the journeys I take, as long as I can hold a seat in advance.
I look forward to a lifetime of leaning seats being kicked by 5-year olds. Old Joey Goldman, with an unhappy butt and bad snack boxes.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Creamy products and wine
Brad and I recently stumbled across an amazing selection of creamy products at remarkably reduced prices: the maxx for the minimum. We were in Tennessee trying to kill time by shopping for shoes in a Germantown strip mall. And then we hit payday. Zia rich and natural skin cleanser for $2.00. Some Australian brand of body polish for $3.00 that would reduce the appearance of cellulite. A rich fancy looking moisturizing hair gel for $3.00 (regular retail price $15.00). H20 body scrub at far less than H20 prices.
Productos. I tend to get excited about things like this, but I’d never seen Brad get so excited about cheap body products. He was having me look up the various products on my handy web-browsing cell phone to see whether they were indeed valued at the “original prices” listed on the tags. A bottle of Zirh men’s cologne that was selling on the web for $48 was being sold in Germantown for $14.00. It found a place in the shopping basket for a few minutes while I read the review of the product on-line: hints of cinnamon, musk, berries, mint, copper. We opted to skip the purchase, deciding that a good deal shouldn’t trump the ability the actually sample the scent first.
I bought a humungous bottle of EO lavender conditioner that normally retails for something like $30. It was about six bucks, but now I’ve got enough conditioner at home to moisturize not only my head, but also every chest hair for the next four years.
I had made a pact with myself sometime in 2007 to stop buying products. I have enough. And I end up collecting little bottles of shampoo and conditioner and moisturizer and face cleaner and soap during each of my 30+ hotel nights each year to keep me fully supplied so I should never have to buy any personal care products again. But this time it was Brad’s fault. He was excited about the products and his excitement convinced me that I should be excited, and therefore I purchased. And it was also the fault of handheld access to the Internet.
The Internet has been coming in handy for retail purchases. If something seems like an amazing deal, but I’m not sure, I find myself typing in the name of the product into my phone and doing a little corner-of-the-store research before making my purchase. When Brad was out purchasing wine for my big 40th birthday bash, I sent him to the Grocery Outlet store and told him to call me once he was surrounded by the options. It was the ultimate “phone a friend” lifeline as he read wine labels to me and I looked them up, checking not only the value, but also the reviews. We ended up with some fine wines at cheap prices.
So that’s it. I’ve become one of those annoying people who consult the Internet all the time. No longer is it just for airline tickets. It’s for email. It’s for checking Facebook status. It’s for buying creams and wine.
Productos. I tend to get excited about things like this, but I’d never seen Brad get so excited about cheap body products. He was having me look up the various products on my handy web-browsing cell phone to see whether they were indeed valued at the “original prices” listed on the tags. A bottle of Zirh men’s cologne that was selling on the web for $48 was being sold in Germantown for $14.00. It found a place in the shopping basket for a few minutes while I read the review of the product on-line: hints of cinnamon, musk, berries, mint, copper. We opted to skip the purchase, deciding that a good deal shouldn’t trump the ability the actually sample the scent first.
I bought a humungous bottle of EO lavender conditioner that normally retails for something like $30. It was about six bucks, but now I’ve got enough conditioner at home to moisturize not only my head, but also every chest hair for the next four years.
I had made a pact with myself sometime in 2007 to stop buying products. I have enough. And I end up collecting little bottles of shampoo and conditioner and moisturizer and face cleaner and soap during each of my 30+ hotel nights each year to keep me fully supplied so I should never have to buy any personal care products again. But this time it was Brad’s fault. He was excited about the products and his excitement convinced me that I should be excited, and therefore I purchased. And it was also the fault of handheld access to the Internet.
The Internet has been coming in handy for retail purchases. If something seems like an amazing deal, but I’m not sure, I find myself typing in the name of the product into my phone and doing a little corner-of-the-store research before making my purchase. When Brad was out purchasing wine for my big 40th birthday bash, I sent him to the Grocery Outlet store and told him to call me once he was surrounded by the options. It was the ultimate “phone a friend” lifeline as he read wine labels to me and I looked them up, checking not only the value, but also the reviews. We ended up with some fine wines at cheap prices.
So that’s it. I’ve become one of those annoying people who consult the Internet all the time. No longer is it just for airline tickets. It’s for email. It’s for checking Facebook status. It’s for buying creams and wine.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Going to Graceland
I just came back from a trip to Memphis. It was my second visit to the flat city on the Mississippi River. The city has wonderful barbecue, which I ate, and a dreary airport, at which my flight from Minneapolis landed. Brad’s mom picked us up and drove us to the family home in Germantown, a pleasant suburb of shopping malls and gated communities built around a charming small town.
It was Christmas Eve. Houses were decked in bulbs and wreaths. But the streets were quiet with anticipation.
A Christmas Day surprise. Christmas is so predictable for many people. Awake, they wander downstairs to the living room, pour a big glass of eggnog, and start to open the wonderful gifts that Santa brought. The Christmas tree aglow, tiny bulbs cast a soothing light on the boxes taped in red and gold. For the Jew in me, it’s always been just another dreary day when everything is closed so you have to go see a movie. But this was my second year of enjoying the Christmas spirit, filled with coffee cake treats and gifts to be revealed.
After a few hours of unwrapping and warm thank yous, we retreated to a Christmas dinner with corn pudding and turkey and stuffing and cranberry Jell-O mold. It felt like a second Thanksgiving. It was wonderful. Then I wandered upstairs for a short tryptophan nap. Later in the afternoon, we went to see the film Juno, and then returned home for a lazy evening.
Asleep for an hour, I was told to wake up! We were headed to Graceland. Just after Midnight, I pulled on my jeans and the same shirt I wore all day, wrapped myself in my red vest and got into the truck. After an hour on the road, driving by shuttered shopping centers and dozing Starbucks, passing sleepy houses along the quiet road, we arrived. I sent a couple of emails along the way from the back seat of the Toyota pickup.
We arrived about 1:30 in the morning: Graceland Nursing Home, Oxford, Mississippi. It was quiet, but the lights were on. We rang the bell and peered down the hallway behind the glass door, watching from outside in the frosty Mississippi air as a blonde woman in a brown nursing uniform — a small speck in the distance — slowly lumbered toward us. From the other end of the long, dim hallway to her arrival at the front door easily took two minutes. We followed her back and into the room where Brad’s grandmother had been alive only an hour earlier.
I see dead people. A dead woman lay there. Later, I told Brad that she didn’t look so good. That she looked very, very dead.
I had met her a year ago. Although she had been very feeble at the time, and barely knew who her own grandson was, she was polite and offered me a warm hello. This time, her face was as white as her hair, her mouth was frozen in the shape of an egg, and her thin body was draped with a red nursing home-issued acrylic blanket.
I remember seeing my own grandmother when she died many years ago. She, too, looked like a sack. But she had been a robust, loving, funny person. She had managed the Thriftique, the store operated by the Cleveland Council of Jewish Women. She walked to work everyday, made amazing stuffed cabbage, told stories about the people she knew and the experiences she had, bargain shopped at Bernie Schulman’s, and lavished her grandchildren with gifts and food and unconditional love. She also snuck cigarettes, had heart attacks, ate fatty foods, and died of kidney failure. Being in the hospital waiting for her to die had been a horrible experience. And once she died, her body in the hospital bed, if I hadn’t known who she once had been, to me she would have been only a waxy encasement, mouth open, eyes closed. I knew, looking at Brad’s grandmother under the red blanket, she had been much more than a body.
The funeral director drove in from Tupelo and spent some time chatting with Brad’s mother and telling her about making funeral arrangements. And then we asked the late-night nursing staff for some trash bags. They returned with a handful of heavy duty Hefty’s, dark orange, like cinnamony pumpkin pie. We pulled clothes — housecoats, old pantsuits, dresses, undergarments — off the hangers and stuffed them into the bags, along with shoes, teddy bears and random holiday decorative items that we found in the closet.
I pulled down the photos of relatives, mostly people I’d never met, and set them in a box. The snapshots were taken at various stages of her life and their lives. In some of them, she was with grandchildren and nieces and friends. All reminders of a life that was filled with meaningful interactions. And now she was lying in a hospital bed, dead, with her family around her pulling down her last possessions and putting them into trash bags at 2:30 in the morning.
The funeral director asked us if we might step out of the room so he could get her ready. While we stood in the hall, he moved her to a gurney and covered her body in a furry red dead-person body cover with the name of the funeral home embroidered on the side. Then he wheeled her away. We walked back to the parking lot and returned to Memphis, and I hopped back into bed again before 4:30 AM.
I’m glad I had the chance to meet Mary Wells in 2006. I won’t remember her like this. And I know Brad and his family won’t remember her like this either. On Christmas night, she vacated her body and moved on. Hopefully, far from the dreariness of the nursing home with its hallways and smoking lounge and attendants who looked like they’d rather be sweeping the aisles of Wal-Mart than the bathrooms of Graceland where residents pee and miss the toilet.
Already, I think she’s closer to being the woman she once was. The family came into town two days later to relish memories they had of much better times and of a grandmother who was a special person to all of them.
I don’t think of my own grandmother as the cold body in the hospital bed. I still think of her as a warm spirit who added so much to my life and, in many ways, made me the person I am today.
It was Christmas Eve. Houses were decked in bulbs and wreaths. But the streets were quiet with anticipation.
A Christmas Day surprise. Christmas is so predictable for many people. Awake, they wander downstairs to the living room, pour a big glass of eggnog, and start to open the wonderful gifts that Santa brought. The Christmas tree aglow, tiny bulbs cast a soothing light on the boxes taped in red and gold. For the Jew in me, it’s always been just another dreary day when everything is closed so you have to go see a movie. But this was my second year of enjoying the Christmas spirit, filled with coffee cake treats and gifts to be revealed.
After a few hours of unwrapping and warm thank yous, we retreated to a Christmas dinner with corn pudding and turkey and stuffing and cranberry Jell-O mold. It felt like a second Thanksgiving. It was wonderful. Then I wandered upstairs for a short tryptophan nap. Later in the afternoon, we went to see the film Juno, and then returned home for a lazy evening.
Asleep for an hour, I was told to wake up! We were headed to Graceland. Just after Midnight, I pulled on my jeans and the same shirt I wore all day, wrapped myself in my red vest and got into the truck. After an hour on the road, driving by shuttered shopping centers and dozing Starbucks, passing sleepy houses along the quiet road, we arrived. I sent a couple of emails along the way from the back seat of the Toyota pickup.
We arrived about 1:30 in the morning: Graceland Nursing Home, Oxford, Mississippi. It was quiet, but the lights were on. We rang the bell and peered down the hallway behind the glass door, watching from outside in the frosty Mississippi air as a blonde woman in a brown nursing uniform — a small speck in the distance — slowly lumbered toward us. From the other end of the long, dim hallway to her arrival at the front door easily took two minutes. We followed her back and into the room where Brad’s grandmother had been alive only an hour earlier.
I see dead people. A dead woman lay there. Later, I told Brad that she didn’t look so good. That she looked very, very dead.
I had met her a year ago. Although she had been very feeble at the time, and barely knew who her own grandson was, she was polite and offered me a warm hello. This time, her face was as white as her hair, her mouth was frozen in the shape of an egg, and her thin body was draped with a red nursing home-issued acrylic blanket.
I remember seeing my own grandmother when she died many years ago. She, too, looked like a sack. But she had been a robust, loving, funny person. She had managed the Thriftique, the store operated by the Cleveland Council of Jewish Women. She walked to work everyday, made amazing stuffed cabbage, told stories about the people she knew and the experiences she had, bargain shopped at Bernie Schulman’s, and lavished her grandchildren with gifts and food and unconditional love. She also snuck cigarettes, had heart attacks, ate fatty foods, and died of kidney failure. Being in the hospital waiting for her to die had been a horrible experience. And once she died, her body in the hospital bed, if I hadn’t known who she once had been, to me she would have been only a waxy encasement, mouth open, eyes closed. I knew, looking at Brad’s grandmother under the red blanket, she had been much more than a body.
The funeral director drove in from Tupelo and spent some time chatting with Brad’s mother and telling her about making funeral arrangements. And then we asked the late-night nursing staff for some trash bags. They returned with a handful of heavy duty Hefty’s, dark orange, like cinnamony pumpkin pie. We pulled clothes — housecoats, old pantsuits, dresses, undergarments — off the hangers and stuffed them into the bags, along with shoes, teddy bears and random holiday decorative items that we found in the closet.
I pulled down the photos of relatives, mostly people I’d never met, and set them in a box. The snapshots were taken at various stages of her life and their lives. In some of them, she was with grandchildren and nieces and friends. All reminders of a life that was filled with meaningful interactions. And now she was lying in a hospital bed, dead, with her family around her pulling down her last possessions and putting them into trash bags at 2:30 in the morning.
The funeral director asked us if we might step out of the room so he could get her ready. While we stood in the hall, he moved her to a gurney and covered her body in a furry red dead-person body cover with the name of the funeral home embroidered on the side. Then he wheeled her away. We walked back to the parking lot and returned to Memphis, and I hopped back into bed again before 4:30 AM.
I’m glad I had the chance to meet Mary Wells in 2006. I won’t remember her like this. And I know Brad and his family won’t remember her like this either. On Christmas night, she vacated her body and moved on. Hopefully, far from the dreariness of the nursing home with its hallways and smoking lounge and attendants who looked like they’d rather be sweeping the aisles of Wal-Mart than the bathrooms of Graceland where residents pee and miss the toilet.
Already, I think she’s closer to being the woman she once was. The family came into town two days later to relish memories they had of much better times and of a grandmother who was a special person to all of them.
I don’t think of my own grandmother as the cold body in the hospital bed. I still think of her as a warm spirit who added so much to my life and, in many ways, made me the person I am today.
Friday, December 21, 2007
All about food
Food. I feel like thinking about food at the moment. Not that I’m particularly hungry, but that I need to reflect on what I’ve been shoveling into my body. I suppose it’s the first step toward developing a resolution or two for the New Year. And I just returned from the airplane lavatory, so I’m going to think back on the foods I’ve eaten lately, in reverse order, to imagine how I’d be feeling if they were not inside of my body. This is where things get momentarily crude and if you prefer a dainty read, then I suggest you skip a couple of paragraphs. Not that there’s anything wrong with natural human body functions, of course.
It feels so great to go to the bathroom on an airplane. Not just one of the ten pee breaks to be taken during a five-hour flight, but having your once-a-day special seating way up in the air somewhere over Nebraska.
You know how it is. The plane takes off and the air pressure changes. You get that horrible bloaty feeling all over: the kind that doesn’t just remain in your stomach but oozes into your extremities. Your calves feel like they’ve expanded; your head feels packed with Charmin. It’s always worse if you eat prunes for breakfast. Although very few options exist to remedy the change in altitude, expulsion is an option. Nose blowing and ear popping only go so far. Sometimes, you just need to just need to take a crap (And then, please unhook the air freshening gel from the little holster above the toilet and hold it directly in front of the air vent for 15 seconds. I recognize it will smell like an old lady’s powder room, but it provides a sense of Febreze-like freshness for the incoming passenger).
I, personally, don’t know what happens when one poos in space. I mean, perhaps it stays in a bucket under that forceful blue flush, but I’ve heard stories about big chunks of bluish ice (and the attached chunklets) dropping into chimneys, crashing into McDonald’s, and damaging elementary school gyms.
I digress. Working backwards with food here….. Before slipping into the lavatory, I indulged in an in-flight delicacy. Brad is sitting next to me and we ate our delicious United Airlines snack boxes. He got the smartpack and I opted for the minimeal. That means I ate potato chips, cheese spread, applesauce, crackers, pretzels, Milano cookies, and pepperoni. If you think about it all being squished into a big ball, it’s completely gross. He nibbled at granola, pears, bagel chips, sour apple sugarless mints and Cashew Roca. Okay? Who the hell is packing these things? And why have United’s snack boxes been proclaimed the best and healthiest food in the domestic sky? Anyway, it’s too soon for any of that to have made it into the deposit I just left 37,000 feet above Omaha.
Let’s just imagine I’d avoided the snack box. Then I’d still have raisin bran sliding around in my gut from breakfast this morning. That was on top of the midnight snack of a reuben sandwich that made its way into my belly. I still feel a little Thousand Island dressing sticking to my esophagus.* The late night snack was courtesy of United Airlines. They offered seven dollars in food and a room at the Comfort Inn due to an aircraft mechanical problem and flight staff that essentially timed out. During the time spent waiting through the updates from staff and the gate changes, I snarfed down about one-third of a garlicky Caesar salad (or what passes for one) from the Corner Bakery “To Go” at O’Hare’s Concourse C.
After a day off in Chicago, I’d like to think it was only travel-oriented food that was gross. But it wasn’t. I will say, if we could remove all of the food I just described, that would be great. If that were the case, then the last thing in my stomach would have been the chocolate pecan pie from Frontera Grill. Can you believe I hesitated ordering it, deciding I only really wanted the flan-topped chocolate cake with cajeta? Well now I will go buy Rick Bayless’ cookbook and make that pie happen in my own home. Perhaps every week. The sweet completed a bright culinary experience in an otherwise bleak food week.
The previous night, dinner had been at Tomboy, an Andersonville Lesbian-ish restaurant. I ordered a server-recommended tilapia in pumpkin sauce. Hmmm. Next time I crave that dish, I’m headed to the Canned Foods Grocery Outlet store for a bucket of 79-cent pumpkin pie filling and a $1.99 piece of past-dated fish. I’ll just lay the fish on some mashed potatoes and spinach and dump the pumpkiny goop all over. Lesbians! I’m hoping that my recent lavatory visit was the completion of my body’s experience with that fish. Would I call it the worst dish I’ve had in a year? Easily.
Here’s the deal: If I had avoided this trip to the Midwest, the last thing in my body would have been a bit of arugula, gnocchi and chocolate-coconut ice cream made with coconut milk. Good San Francisco food. I would have sadly missed Frontera Grill’s crunchy ceviche, smoked mahi mahi tacos and mole-doused enchiladas (and the tamarind margarita with chipotle peppers and sugar on the rim, which our gracious server shook precisely 50 times). But I also would have missed a bleak salad at Culver’s “Home of the ButterBurger” and horrid chicken blobs from O’Hare’s Man-Chu Wok.
A clean colon. I’m on my way home and looking forward to a fresh food start in 2008. I will try to eat better food this New Year. I will think about what the inside of my stomach looks like as the cheese and chocolate mix with turkey burgers, Flamin’ Hot Doritos, pudding, Flax cereal, cranberry juice, dried apricots, and Meyer lemon ginger cookies. A big mound of pinkish gelatinous opaque meat-like goo with assorted chunks and stomach acid. But first, I will head to Memphis for a few days for lots of barbecue, caramel cake, and fried catfish.
*That reminds me that when my friend Viet turned 21, he felt so grown up he went to the bar and ordered a thousand island iced tea.
It feels so great to go to the bathroom on an airplane. Not just one of the ten pee breaks to be taken during a five-hour flight, but having your once-a-day special seating way up in the air somewhere over Nebraska.
You know how it is. The plane takes off and the air pressure changes. You get that horrible bloaty feeling all over: the kind that doesn’t just remain in your stomach but oozes into your extremities. Your calves feel like they’ve expanded; your head feels packed with Charmin. It’s always worse if you eat prunes for breakfast. Although very few options exist to remedy the change in altitude, expulsion is an option. Nose blowing and ear popping only go so far. Sometimes, you just need to just need to take a crap (And then, please unhook the air freshening gel from the little holster above the toilet and hold it directly in front of the air vent for 15 seconds. I recognize it will smell like an old lady’s powder room, but it provides a sense of Febreze-like freshness for the incoming passenger).
I, personally, don’t know what happens when one poos in space. I mean, perhaps it stays in a bucket under that forceful blue flush, but I’ve heard stories about big chunks of bluish ice (and the attached chunklets) dropping into chimneys, crashing into McDonald’s, and damaging elementary school gyms.
I digress. Working backwards with food here….. Before slipping into the lavatory, I indulged in an in-flight delicacy. Brad is sitting next to me and we ate our delicious United Airlines snack boxes. He got the smartpack and I opted for the minimeal. That means I ate potato chips, cheese spread, applesauce, crackers, pretzels, Milano cookies, and pepperoni. If you think about it all being squished into a big ball, it’s completely gross. He nibbled at granola, pears, bagel chips, sour apple sugarless mints and Cashew Roca. Okay? Who the hell is packing these things? And why have United’s snack boxes been proclaimed the best and healthiest food in the domestic sky? Anyway, it’s too soon for any of that to have made it into the deposit I just left 37,000 feet above Omaha.
Let’s just imagine I’d avoided the snack box. Then I’d still have raisin bran sliding around in my gut from breakfast this morning. That was on top of the midnight snack of a reuben sandwich that made its way into my belly. I still feel a little Thousand Island dressing sticking to my esophagus.* The late night snack was courtesy of United Airlines. They offered seven dollars in food and a room at the Comfort Inn due to an aircraft mechanical problem and flight staff that essentially timed out. During the time spent waiting through the updates from staff and the gate changes, I snarfed down about one-third of a garlicky Caesar salad (or what passes for one) from the Corner Bakery “To Go” at O’Hare’s Concourse C.
After a day off in Chicago, I’d like to think it was only travel-oriented food that was gross. But it wasn’t. I will say, if we could remove all of the food I just described, that would be great. If that were the case, then the last thing in my stomach would have been the chocolate pecan pie from Frontera Grill. Can you believe I hesitated ordering it, deciding I only really wanted the flan-topped chocolate cake with cajeta? Well now I will go buy Rick Bayless’ cookbook and make that pie happen in my own home. Perhaps every week. The sweet completed a bright culinary experience in an otherwise bleak food week.
The previous night, dinner had been at Tomboy, an Andersonville Lesbian-ish restaurant. I ordered a server-recommended tilapia in pumpkin sauce. Hmmm. Next time I crave that dish, I’m headed to the Canned Foods Grocery Outlet store for a bucket of 79-cent pumpkin pie filling and a $1.99 piece of past-dated fish. I’ll just lay the fish on some mashed potatoes and spinach and dump the pumpkiny goop all over. Lesbians! I’m hoping that my recent lavatory visit was the completion of my body’s experience with that fish. Would I call it the worst dish I’ve had in a year? Easily.
Here’s the deal: If I had avoided this trip to the Midwest, the last thing in my body would have been a bit of arugula, gnocchi and chocolate-coconut ice cream made with coconut milk. Good San Francisco food. I would have sadly missed Frontera Grill’s crunchy ceviche, smoked mahi mahi tacos and mole-doused enchiladas (and the tamarind margarita with chipotle peppers and sugar on the rim, which our gracious server shook precisely 50 times). But I also would have missed a bleak salad at Culver’s “Home of the ButterBurger” and horrid chicken blobs from O’Hare’s Man-Chu Wok.
A clean colon. I’m on my way home and looking forward to a fresh food start in 2008. I will try to eat better food this New Year. I will think about what the inside of my stomach looks like as the cheese and chocolate mix with turkey burgers, Flamin’ Hot Doritos, pudding, Flax cereal, cranberry juice, dried apricots, and Meyer lemon ginger cookies. A big mound of pinkish gelatinous opaque meat-like goo with assorted chunks and stomach acid. But first, I will head to Memphis for a few days for lots of barbecue, caramel cake, and fried catfish.
*That reminds me that when my friend Viet turned 21, he felt so grown up he went to the bar and ordered a thousand island iced tea.
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