Got any Raid?

I suppose everyone has been wondering why it’s taken me so long to update the blog today. (Has everyone been wondering? Or did no one notice? Maybe no one noticed…) I’ll explain all that in a second… Right now I’m on the 32nd floor of a brand new hotel in Las Vegas. And I mean BRAND new. It’s only been open a couple weeks. It’s so new that I’m not sure anyone has ever occupied this room. The towels still have little pilly lint balls on them because they haven’t been washed much. And there are advantages and disadvantages to staying in a hotel this new. Some of the pros: the bathroom is so clean that I’m not even thinking twice about walking barefoot through it. Usually when I get to a hotel, I immediately toss a few towels on the bathroom floor so my feet don’t touch any part of it. (I mean, do they ever really CLEAN the bathroom floor in a hotel room?) Another pro: the TV is a really cool flat-screen plasma thingy – the kind of TV that wouldn’t have even been available back when they built half the hotels in this city. And there’s a little bitty one in the bathroom, too. Which is cool, because when I’m walking barefoot across the squeaky clean tiles, I like to be entertained. Another thing I like is the décor – very modern and up-to-date. As I look out at some of the other hotels I can see from my balcony – Treasure Island, Aladdin, New York, New York – I imagine (although I don’t know for sure…) that the rooms in some of those places are a little more on the kitschy side.

Now for the cons: When a hotel is this new, there are bound to be bugs to work out. And we seem to have arrived in the middle of a very buggy time for this hotel. Some of the bugs have been pretty minor – it took at least a half-hour for our luggage to make its way up to our room when we checked in (although the porter was a Yankee fan from Brooklyn, so that had to be forgiven…), we didn’t have a room-service menu or amenity book in the room when we arrived, and a few of the TV channels don’t work. But a couple things have been a little more annoying – we had no internet access until about four o’clock today (even though we’re paying a “resort fee” that’s supposed to include high-speed internet), and, perhaps the most annoying thing of all – the little mini fridge in the room was making a horrible, intermittent noise all night. It sounded like a metal fan banging against another metal fan, and it woke us up a couple times in the middle of the night. So after several phone calls to the front desk and to maintenance, we finally seem to be online. AND (thank goodness) the horrible refrigerator noise has been squelched.

So this is the first chance I’ve gotten to update anything on the blog. The hotel we’re in is actually one of the quieter hotels around here – no casino in the lobby or anything like that. However, it’s directly across from the MGM Grand, and attached by a walkway, so we were able to just walk over there last night and check out the craziness of a crowded Vegas hangout. We ate dinner at the Wolfgang Puck Bar & Grill (VERY good), which is pretty much right in the middle of the MGM Grand casino. And today we walked around a little bit, and visited a few of the other hotels. They’re all set up in a similar way – shops, restaurants, and a big casino, laid out in a way that makes you think perhaps you’ve entered some kind of adult-oriented theme park. I have to say that after the small taste of the city I’ve had, Las Vegas may not necessarily be my kind of “thing.” It’s very noisy, very crowded, and very hot. It’s kind of like visiting a giant mall on Christmas Eve, with an added bonus of desert sand blown in your eyes when you’re walking down the street. And the whole thing is extremely manufactured – it really IS sort of like a weird kind of Disneyland for grown-ups. I’m not saying I wouldn’t come back, but I’d definitely try to come during the off-season (if Las Vegas HAS an off-season…) as the throngs of people have been a little disconcerting for me at times. (It’s like a Shy Person Nightmare…)

Rick knows several guys from work who claim that Las Vegas is their “favorite place in the world.” And all I can think, after visiting, is that these guys must have a very limited view of the world. I mean, it's certainly not the WORST place in the world -- but the best? Those guys must've never been to Maui…

What have I learned?

We finally made our way to the quintessential San Francisco landmark today – the Golden Gate Bridge. Tomorrow we pack up and leave this city, and head toward Las Vegas. I have to say I’m a bit sad to be leaving – San Francisco is a very interesting place, and I’m sure we missed all kinds of cool things we could’ve seen and visited. But that, of course, just means I’ll have to come back some day. (Provided California hasn’t fallen into the ocean before I have a chance to return…)

A few things I’ve learned about the city of San Francisco that I didn’t know before: First, it’s crazy to navigate. The streets downtown aren’t so much laid out as THROWN out in a haphazard fashion. It’s like some civil engineer was playing with pick-up sticks and liked the way they looked all tangled and crisscrossed on the floor. The fact that we were always able to find our way back to our hotel was a testament to the usefulness of an auto navigation system. Without the nav system, I’m pretty sure we’d still be wandering around strange side streets or going in circles or traveling the wrong way on one-way avenues. Maybe running over cyclists or taking up space in bus lanes. And we’d definitely be making all the locals really, really mad…

Second, San Francisco has GOT to have the most Starbucks per capita of just about any city anywhere. We took a walk today around the neighborhood – just walked a few blocks away from the hotel, then circled around and came back the other side of the block. It probably took about a half hour. And in that half hour, I counted six Starbucks. SIX – that means that every five minutes, you could walk into a brand new Starbucks and order another cup of coffee. If it’s like that throughout the entire city, you could be wired all day, constantly, and never worry about accidentally nodding off. I haven’t been to Seattle since I was a kid, but I imagine if any city might come close to that kind of Starbucks saturation, it would have to be Seattle…

Third – and this really surprises me – San Francisco does not seem to be a late night kind of town. Sure, they have a Starbucks on every corner, but if you want your coffee, you’d better get there before six o’clock, because everything shuts down. This was a realization we made the first night we were here and decided to visit the shopping center next door. There’s a four-block mall adjacent to the hotel, and I wanted to check it out. Unfortunately, just about every store was closed already. It was only seven o’clock, but things seem to start shutting down around early evening. I’m sure there must be some kind of crazy part of town that stays open all night, but it’s obviously not around here…

But I definitely hope to come back some day. And now that I know I can easily find coffee every five minutes (or maybe every thirty seconds if I drive…) I won’t give a second thought to making the journey. :)

Worth the walk...

We spent the day at Fisherman’s Wharf, one of the really touristy parts of San Francisco. There’s an aquarium at Pier 39, so we started off there. It’s a small aquarium, but they had a couple big tanks with see-through tunnels underneath that were really interesting. (On a side note – the funniest thing happened when we were walking toward the aquarium entrance. The entrance is on the second floor, so you have to walk up a flight of stairs or take an escalator to get there. As we were walking toward the stairs, a family of about six people stepped onto the escalator. They’d only been there for about two seconds when the escalator suddenly stopped for some reason. Now, I don’t know about most people, but if I was on an escalator that stopped suddenly, I think my first instinct would be to simply climb the stairs. After all, I’ve been climbing stairs for most of my life, and if I had to climb one extra flight, I don’t think it would ruin my day. However, when the escalator at the aquarium came to a halt, the family on the steps looked truly stumped. They stood there, unmoving, shooting questioning glances at one another and talking in confused voices. It was as if they honestly couldn’t figure out what to do now that their motorized transportation to the second floor had been cut off. They were still standing at the bottom of the escalator when Rick and I reached the top of the staircase. Maybe they’re still there… maybe they never figured out a solution to their dilemma… I hope someone eventually explained to them that it’s okay to MOVE on an escalator if need be…)

After the aquarium, we wandered around some of the shops at Fisherman’s Wharf, and ended up at the end of the pier where a whole group of sea lions was hanging out on floating docks. Apparently these things started showing up shortly after the 1989 earthquake, and more and more have been taking up residence in the bay ever since. According the info posted on the pier, during the summer there are up to 600 sea lions in that area. They make a lot of noise and they smell pretty funky, but it was cool to see them all lying around like that. They were like giant, lazy sultans, waiting for servants to peel grapes for them…

And while all of that was fun, as soon as we had taken pictures of the sea lions we walked back toward the main road. I had a mission to complete, and I forged ahead through the throngs of tourists to search for my target. Up several blocks, a block to the left, past the ticket counter for the trolley cars, another block or two, and finally – at last – I saw it. Like a warm beacon of light at the end of a dark journey, it welcomed me from atop a hilly slope – the original Ghirardelli chocolate store and soda fountain. After walking eight or nine blocks from the pier, we had to climb several flights of stairs to get to the actual chocolate store (too bad there were no escalators…), so by the time we got there, I felt more than entitled to one of their “world famous” hot fudge sundaes. And yes, I’m not ashamed to admit that I pretty much ate the entire thing myself. (Okay, I’m a little ashamed…)

But we had to walk back down all the stairs and back the eight or nine blocks to the parking garage, so really, it’s like I barely ate anything. (Right? Sure.) On the way back to the hotel, we took a detour and found Lombard Street – the really twisty crooked street you see in all those shows about San Francisco. That was an interesting adventure, actually, as Lombard Street is in an amazingly steep, hilly part of the city. Some of the roads were so steep that you couldn’t SEE them over the front of the car when you turned onto them. It was like driving on a roller coaster. A little bit scary if you don’t know where you’re going.

Maybe they could create some sort of escalators for cars to transport them up and down those sharp hills. You’d just have to hope they never ground to a halt…

Crazy lady part 2...

Some pictures from the Winchester House:

Flowers in the garden

A view of some of the confusing layout from a balcony in another part of the house

The rather creepy-looking grand ballroom -- what's really strange is that Mrs. Winchester was practically a hermit. She rarely had visitors, and besides her servants and the workers building the house, the only other person who spent any significant time with her was her niece (who, of course, had her own bizarre wing of the house...). So what would they need a grand ballroom for??

Stairs that lead to nowhere. Anybody believe in ghosts? You always hear on those ghost hunter shows that spirts show up as "orbs" in photographs. Check out all the orbs! Spirits all over the place! Or maybe it was just dusty on that staircase... but that sounds so much less spooky...

The tour guide kept saying that Mrs. Winchester was really ahead of her time -- she came up with innovative ways to heat the giant house, and ways to conserve water, and apparently, ways to keep sneaky burglers at bay... (this was probably funnier if you were on the tour -- I saw the ADT sticker just a few seconds after hearing "Mrs. Winchester was so ahead of her time..." It struck me as funny... but sometimes I'm rather easy to amuse...)

Crazy lady...

Today we went to the Winchester Mystery House, which is in San Jose – about 40 miles south of San Francisco. The last time I was there I was about sixteen years old… so it’s been a couple years. It was back when my older brother Bob lived in Sacramento, and we flew out to see him. (That was the trip we took with my cousins Steve and Kevin, and Steve made a sign that said “honk if your horn is broken” and we taped it to the window of our rented minivan. I was amazed by how many people actually honked… What’s even more amazing is that I still HAVE that sign back home in a scrapbook…) We’d picked up Bob in Sacramento and drove the hour-long drive to the San Francisco/San Jose area and spent the day here. I remember it like it was yesterday, because, as I said, I was sixteen years old. Which practically WAS yesterday…

Anyway, Rick and I took the tour of the Winchester house today, since he’d never been there before. If you don’t know the story of the Winchester house, let me see if I can sum it up: the original house was a nine-room farm house, and it was owned by Sarah Winchester, the widow of the president of the Winchester Rifle company. Mrs. Winchester was apparently a big fan of psychics and séances, and one of her psychic friends advised her that the spirits of all those people who’d been killed by Winchester rifles were very restless. Very restless indeed. And if Mrs. Winchester wanted to appease the spirits (after all, as the heiress of the Winchester rifle fortune, she was, in some vague, indirect way, responsible for sending them all to their place in the afterlife…) she would have to start adding on to her little farm house. In fact, she would have to continually build on to the house for the rest of her life. Which, I believe, turned out to be 38 years. So for 38 years straight – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – workers were building rooms and adding on to the house.

And they weren’t building in a way that made sense – most of the house seems to be random and haphazard, like it was constructed without any kind of plan whatsoever. And it probably was – when you have to continually add rooms and floors and cupboards and windows to a house – without stopping to consider what you’re doing – you’re bound to end up with some major mistakes. And in the Winchester house, the “mistakes” are pretty obvious – a staircase that goes nowhere, doors that open into walls, windows in the floor, strange nooks and crannies that have no rhyme or reason or purpose. It’s bizarre and more than a little creepy. In fact, one of the theories for all these “mistakes” in the house construction is that Mrs. Winchester was hoping to confuse the spirits that apparently haunted her for most of her life…

It seems to me that if you were some kind of heiress who felt responsible for people’s deaths, that you could find a better use for your money than making your own house bigger and bigger. What kind of crazy spirits are only appeased if you’re living in a bigger house? Does that make any sense at all?

Spirit #1: Can you believe what that Winchester lady did to us?

Spirit #2: Yeah, you know what she deserves? Another kitchen.

Spirit #1: Absolutely. Three or FOUR kitchens. And maybe a conservatory.

Spirit #2: And, like, a dozen extra bedrooms or something.

Spirit #1: She is SO gonna pay when she gets lost on her way to the bathroom…

I just think it would’ve made more sense to take all those millions of dollars she spent on the crazy house, and donated it to a hospital or something. Because then it could’ve been used to SAVE a few of those Winchester rifle victims. But perhaps Mrs. Winchester really DID know what she was doing – after all, no one would pay admission to see a plain old nine-bedroom farm house. So for all the money she SPENT on the house, I suppose even more has been EARNED by the house.

No word on whether any of that admission price is donated to the local hospital…

P.S. I do have some pictures, but I'm having trouble getting them to load right now... so I'll just post this and try to post pictures tomorrow. :)

Yep, this is San Francisco...

I’m on the 14th floor of a hotel in downtown San Francisco. And, as the earthquake safety blurb in the hotel information booklet says, if an earthquake hits, I should be just fine if I duck under this desk. I’ve already performed a couple of Test Desk Ducks, just to be sure I have plenty of room under there. So far, so good…

So we started out the day in Las Vegas this morning, although we didn’t actually stop – but we’ll be spending a couple days there on the way back. I had to wonder though, as we were driving past the sprawling span of hotels and casinos and housing developments – who was it, exactly, who thought it would be a good idea to build a city in such a desolate, bleak environment? I mean, obviously it worked out – Las Vegas is one of the fastest growing areas of the country and it attracts plenty of visitors every year. But who was the FIRST person to look out into the endless scrubby-brush-dotted desert and think, “hey, you know what would be GREAT here? A ton of casinos, some theme hotels, Wayne Newton… heck, let’s throw in Celine Dion, too, just for good measure…” It must’ve seemed like a really crazy idea at the time, but I guess sometimes the crazy ideas turn out to be the best ones.

And it’s funny how all these little touristy places have popped up in the middle of the Mojave desert. There was some silly “Greek” fast food/souvenir shop out in the middle of nowhere (and a Starbucks, too – we couldn’t find a Starbucks out in west Texas, but in the middle of the Mojave? Sure! No problem!), which I’m sure had absolutely nothing to do with Greece (unless they’ve started opening chains of Dairy Queens and selling shot glasses and magnets all over the country…). And it got me thinking about some of those road trips we used to take when I was a kid. I started remembering how my mom always wanted to stop for lunch at this chain of Pennsylvania Dutch restaurants. Something like the Holland Cupboard or the Dutch Kitchen – no, wait – it was the Dutch Pantry. I don’t even think they served anything remotely Dutch or Pennsylvania Dutch – it was mostly just grilled cheese sandwiches and hamburgers. But my mom didn’t want to go for the entrees – she went for the dessert. Some kind of pie… moo shoo horsefly pie, or horseshoe pie, or tie-your-own-fly pie, or something like that. Shoo fly pie? Was that it? Anyway, it seems like every road trip we took began with a stop at the Dutch Pantry. It was the kind of place you only visited IF you happened to be on vacation. And certainly not the place to educate yourself about the Pennsylvania Dutch culture…

But this week I won’t be worrying about the Greeks or the Pennsylvania Dutch… I’ll be worrying about finding myself some really good chocolate. And I might be worrying about needing to duck under this desk, but I’ll try not to. :)






This picture is for Faisal -- you probably need a vacation anyway, so I think you should plan to be in Vegas on July 29th. :)

A few random pictures

Rain in New Mexico

Nearing the New Mexico/Arizona border

Argh! Crazy gas prices near Flagstaff

"Scenic turnout" on the way to Hoover Dam

Lake Mead

Hello from the desert...

Tonight I’m in Henderson, Nevada, which is just a few miles south of Las Vegas. In fact, driving toward the hotel, we were able to see the city – blanketed in a gray haze – just a short distance away. Driving through the dry landscape toward the hotel was like visiting the surface of an alien planet… and then, as if an invisible line of demarcation were in place, we made a right turn and wound up in the middle of a green oasis. Yesterday’s hotel theme was Santa Fe – today, it seems to be more along the lines of, oh, I’m going to guess Moroccan. The coffee shop is called “Marrakesh Express,” the restaurant where we ate dinner was “Café Tajine,” and the gift shop is called “Souk.” I’m actually loving this hotel – it’s huge and airy and surrounded by palm trees, and the Casablanca décor makes it seem as if we’re some place much more exotic than Las Vegas…

We started the day in Albuquerque, which really seemed like a nice city. If we’d had more time, I wouldn’t have minded wandering around to explore for a while. Then we made our way through Arizona – I was surprised when we reached Flagstaff by how piney it was. Meaning it was covered with rolling hills and evergreen trees – not nearly as barren as the rest of the state had seemed. (When I mentioned this to Rick – “I’m surprised by how piney Flagstaff is” – he thought I said TINY. He then proceeded to explain that we hadn’t driven past the entire city yet…) We also drove over Hoover Dam today – we didn’t want to take the time to stop, but we’re thinking of driving back this way on our way home. Rick said he’d really like to take a dam tour… er, a tour of the dam…

So tomorrow we’ll drive the final leg of the road trip before San Francisco. I have to say that one of the greatest recent car-entertainment innovations has been XM radio. Driving across country without the annoyance of constant radio static makes for a much more pleasant journey. Even better than the music channels are the baseball channels – we were able to listen to the entire Yankee game this afternoon without the inconvenience of dialing through random stations to find it.

And of course, what road trip would be complete without a rousing game of Choo-choo? Wait – you’ve never heard of Choo-choo? Yeah, maybe that’s because it’s a really idiotic game that Rick and I invented in the midst of a monotonous car ride a few years ago. The game is pretty simple – if you see a train, you call out “choo-choo.” It doesn’t have to be a train that’s actually moving – it just has to be a train with an engine. Over the last couple years, we’ve refined the rules to add bonus points or take points away. For instance, if a train has a blue engine, and you call out “blue choo-choo” you get an extra point. But if you call choo-choo, and someone ELSE calls out “blue choo-choo” then your point is taken away. See how it makes perfect sense? Okay, yes, it’s the lamest game EVER… even more lame than that license plate game where you try to find a car from every state…

So today in Las Vegas, the high temperature was 100 degrees, and the humidity was about 5 percent. And by tomorrow night, we’ll be in a city where the high will be about 65 degrees, with 70 percent humidity. Confusing? Maybe. At least the XM radio will stay exactly the same…

View from hotel window...

Crossing over into the Mountain Time Zone...

I’m in a hotel in Albuquerque that has a very “Santa Fe” kind of décor, and which, strangely, smells a bit like cumin. At least the hallways smell like cumin… the room seems to be fragrance-free. Which is good – because while I enjoy the occasional Tex-Mex meal now and then, I’m not sure I’d want to be greeted by the scent of tacos in the morning. I'm trying to figure out if the spice smell is some kind of purposeful effort by the hotel to create a "New Mexico" ambience, or if it's all in my imagination...

We spent most of the day driving through the northwestern part of Texas -- the magnificent, picturesque beauty of which is undeniably evident in the following photograph:

Wow. That’s all I can say.

I usually make it a point to buy car snacks before I leave for a road trip – “car snacks,” of course, being snacks that I buy for the express purpose of eating on a road trip, and nowhere else. For instance, if I were to buy a package of Oreos and put them in my pantry at home, there would be a fairly decent chance that those cookies wouldn’t survive a week, and I’d end up feeling responsible for their untimely demise. Whereas if the Oreos are designated as “car snacks,” and eaten only in the confines of my car, it’s perfectly acceptable for me to eat them at any point during the trip. And what’s more, I’m pretty sure they lose all caloric content, as well. Something about the molecular structure of air trapped within a moving car combining with the fat content of an Oreo… well, I’m sure you’re all highly intelligent and I don’t need to explain it. Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that I forgot to buy my car snacks this time, so I’ve had to make do with convenience store staples like bottled water and M&Ms.

So tomorrow we’ll be in Las Vegas – actually, we’re staying in Henderson, which is just outside of Las Vegas. But on the way back to Austin, we’re planning on staying in Vegas for two days so we can dispose of any money we might have left over. But I don’t plan on having too much left – I just read an article about how San Francisco is considered the chocolate capital of the U.S., and I plan to explore this claim further. Some serious research may be required.

Let’s just say my “car snacks” should be taken care of on the way home…

Sunset tonight in Albuquerque...

This internet connection is slooooooooow...

I’m in Dallas tonight (at a hotel with sloth-speed internet access), which always seems to be our first stopover on any road trip out of Texas. All roads lead through Dallas… actually, that’s not true – last year, we drove to San Diego by way of El Paso. There is pretty much absolutely nothing between Austin and El Paso, except for a large quantity of windmills. Driving to El Paso gives you an exhausting picture of just how big this state is. There is an inevitable point where you scan the dusty horizon, searching for some sort of civilization – or at least a “Welcome to New Mexico” sign – and, upon realizing there is nothing there except the same landscape you’ve grown painfully accustomed to over the last six hours, exclaim, “how is it possible that we’re STILL in Texas??”

But driving to the north through Dallas gives you a populated stopping point to break up the monotony of a passage through Texas. So we’ve set up camp for the night (in a manner of speaking… I haven’t literally been camping since I was a kid…). We met dad for dinner at the Antares restaurant, which is one of my favorite places to eat in Dallas. It’s a revolving restaurant in a tower, so every hour you have a complete view of the city. You can eat dinner and fight vertigo at the same time. I tried to take a few pictures, but most of them came out a little blurry – I guess even the slight movement of the rotation made it difficult to hold the camera steady. But I did get a cool shot of the reflection of our dinner table candle in the window.

Nothing too interesting to talk about otherwise – except that Rick invented a new word on the drive up from Austin. We were stuck behind a frustratingly slow truck towing a trailer in the left lane, and Rick finally passed him on the right (since the driver was obviously not interested in following that “slow vehicles keep right” rule…). It’s fine if you need to drive more slowly than everyone else, but it seems like the polite thing to do is to allow other drivers to pass. Once we were finally clear of the truck, we had the following exchange:

Rick: I understand if you have to drive slower because you’re towing something. I have no quabble with that.

Me: Did you just say “quabble”??

Apparently “quabble” is one of those expressions formed when your brain is mulling over two or three different words and your mouth can’t decide which one to choose. In this case, I’d say a mix of “quarrel,” “problem,” and “trouble.” Quabble. Seems like a reasonable linguistic creation… maybe…

So tomorrow we head toward Albuquerque, hopefully after fueling up on a plentiful amount of Starbucks coffee. Because if I don’t get my morning dose of caffeine, I’ll definitely have a quabble…

The perils of packing...

I just finished packing for my trip. Yes, I JUST NOW finished with the packing, even though I started yesterday. I know some people (like my brother, for instance) who seem able to just throw random items into a suitcase and happen to end up with most of what they need for their destination. (I say “most” because I can remember a few occasions where Eric had to run out to buy razors or shampoo or underwear or some other item he’d forgotten to throw into his bag…)

But I’ve never been able to pack so haphazardly. What’s more, I try to pack as little as possible while still having everything I could possibly need. That means that if I’m going away for two weeks, I make sure to pack two weeks’ worth of clothing and underwear – I don’t pack one weeks’ worth in the hopes that I can find a laundromat. However, I also make sure that much of my clothing is of a multi-purpose variety. I bring articles that can be mixed and matched, and worn for casual purposes or more dressy occasions. And I never pack shoes that can only be worn with one outfit – that would be a waste of space.

What I was realizing, as I was finishing up my little packing project this morning, is that I seem to view packing for a trip as some sort of mathematical problem. There’s a kind of logic to it that can spell the difference between over-packing, under-packing, and just right. There’s a way to fit all those clothes and shoes and bottles of shampoo into a suitcase in such a way that the space will be maximized, but sometimes it takes some trial and error to figure it out. Like this morning – I started packing everything into a large gray suitcase, but I realized that things weren’t fitting quite how I wanted them to fit. So I unpacked the gray suitcase, and dragged out a giant blue one (I love my giant blue suitcase – you could fit Rhode Island in that suitcase…). Things were fitting much more nicely, but I realized that between my things and Rick’s things, I’d still need a bit more space. So I found a small black suitcase, unpacked half of what I’d packed into the blue one, and started dividing up the clothing. And then I decided it would make the most sense to divide everything by necessity – when we’re on the road, we won’t need any dressy outfits or nice shoes, only shorts and t-shirts and jeans and sneakers. So finally, after hours of working everything out in my head, it was immensely satisfying to see all articles of clothing and pairs of shoes falling into their temporary suitcase inhabitance like pieces of a large and very strange puzzle.

So now, I am completely certain that my efforts have paid off, and my trip will run more smoothly because of it. Although I have to be honest, sometimes I really envy Eric’s ability to toss-and-go when it comes to packing a suitcase. Maybe some day he’ll be kind enough to give me some lessons in disorganized chaos… :)

Has anyone seen my heart?

I’m taking a break from packing (yes, right after I UNpacked from my trip to Buffalo, I started packing again). We’re heading to San Francisco tomorrow – driving this time, not flying, so we don’t have to worry about flight delays. Just traffic delays. Most people seem to think it’s crazy to drive across the country instead of flying, but I think there are pros and cons to both. (I mean, I thought it was pretty crazy to sit inside an unmoving plane for four hours on Monday…)

When you fly somewhere, the whole trip is about the destination. The flight itself is usually nothing memorable – although my mom will occasionally take a few pictures of whatever plane she happens to be flying on when she goes on vacation, so it can have a place in a scrapbook. But let’s face it – one plane pretty much looks like all the others, so it’s not like if she pasted a photo of the same plane over and over in different scrapbooks anyone would take much notice. Whereas with driving, the destination is only part of the trip – with driving, the journey itself can become as remarkable as the final location.

When I was young, my parents used to pack up the car and travel with Eric and me to various vacation locations every summer. We went on so many road trips when I was young that by the time I was a teenager, I’d visited all 48 contiguous states and many parts of Canada. (I added Alaska and Hawaii to the list a few years ago, so I’m covered on all 50 states…) And one of the things I learned from all that driving is that every state – no matter what our preconceived notions might be – possesses something beautiful or interesting or unique. Take Kansas, for instance. I’ve never thought of Kansas as a particularly appealing state. It conjures up images of waving brown wheat and tornadoes. But drive down the interstate in Kansas at the right time, and you’ll be rewarded with fields full of sunflowers – miles of lemon-yellow petals perched atop brilliant green stalks. It’s a striking sight, and one that would be missed at 32 thousand feet…

And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve tried to apply this same lesson to all of my travels (and even to people). I don’t like to judge a place before I’ve visited it, and I don’t like to judge a person before I get to know them. I figure if every state in this country has some kind of beauty to offer, the same can be said for every country in the world (not to mention a lot of the people who live in all those countries). It’s a simple lesson, but I have to wonder – would I have been the same person if I hadn’t taken so many road trips? If a butterfly flapping its wings in some far-off place can affect the wind currents (or however that goes) then perhaps a person can be shaped by something as trivial as a cross-country drive.

Personally, I think driving is more convenient. Not faster, by any means – but when it comes to plain old convenience, it’s hard to beat. Flying may get you from point A to point B hours (or even days) sooner, but it’s certainly not without its aggravations. When you drive, there are no lines to check-in and no lines to go through security. You can keep your shoes on OR take them off – it’s up to you. None of your toiletries explode (unless you happen to be driving up a mountain…), and if you have ten bags, it’s fine – as long as they’ll fit in your car. You can eat what you want, when you want. You can start your journey whenever you’re ready, and end it whenever you feel too tired. And if the person next to you is talking too much, chances are you can just tell them to shut up without worrying about much of a consequence. True, driving means paying for gas and hotels, but for a hotel junkie such as myself, the experience is worth the money.

So this week, as I’m driving toward San Francisco, I’ll not only be focused on my ultimate destination, but I’ll make sure to pay attention to everything along the way, as well. Dallas, Albuquerque, Las Vegas – and all the places in between. Because you never know what you can learn if you pay attention…

Look up in the sky!

It would seem that we chose a rather unfortunate time to visit Buffalo. Or perhaps, more specifically – we chose a rather unfortunate time to fly through Chicago. My parents had just as much of a struggle getting home yesterday as Rick and I had the day before. Their flight from Buffalo was unable to land in Chicago due to storms, and after circling for an hour, they were forced to land in Fort Wayne, Indiana to refuel. While on the ground in Fort Wayne, a thunderstorm rolled through that delayed their departure to Chicago. And when they finally did make it to O’Hare that afternoon, they discovered that every flight to Austin was full until 9 p.m. And, in keeping with the “everything must be delayed” theme, the flight did not depart until 10 p.m. Since I wasn’t actually there, I can’t provide the detailed description I wrote of my own journey yesterday. But that may be a good thing, since Rick proclaimed my recap was “eerie” – apparently my memory is much too precise, and I remember things that normal people don’t give a second thought to. Hey, that doesn’t make me eerie… it makes everyone else, um, mentally deficient. Yeah. At least that’s what I’ve decided to tell myself…

So what are people to do when they find themselves wrapped up in an inconvenient conundrum such as a major flight delay? What can you do when you’re caught in a thunderstorm? What can you do if your plane breaks down on the runway and blocks the hundred other planes waiting to take off behind you? What we need is some sort of improbable solution to all our problems. What we need, obviously, is a hero. No, wait – not just a plain old “hero,” because mortal heroes can only do so much. What we really need is a SUPERhero.

The problem with superheroes is that they’re so concerned with their identities. They try to hide their true selves behind glasses or suits when they’re taking a break from fighting life’s injustices, knowing that when a crisis arises, the glasses must come off, the tights must go on, and the crisis must be averted. (Why they need to wear tights to avert a crisis, I don’t know… freedom of movement, I guess…) Anonymity is key. Any random person we see on the streets could be a superhero, and we wouldn’t even know it. Because, I am certain, superheroes have an active system in place to preserve their identities. Even now, as I type, superheroes of the world are actively and adamantly advocating anonymity.

But all this anonymity, of course, means that those of us who are mere humans must endure the modest difficulties we encounter, never knowing who to summon when our plane is trapped on a runway and we wish we could fly away. Superman? He can certainly fly… Wonder Woman? She has her own plane… Captain Anonymous? (What? You’ve never heard of Captain Anonymous? Must be all the anonymity…) Captain Anonymous is the superhero who should’ve reminded me that I had my iPod when I was stuck on my grounded plane. But I think he was falling down on the job that day…

I suppose most superheroes can’t be bothered with things like flight delays and thunderstorms. Not when they have true villains to conquer and mortal danger to overcome. So it looks like, for the foreseeable future, us mere humans will simply have to take everything in stride. A flight delay is, after all, simply that – a delayed flight. A minor hassle in the midst of a life unavoidably filled with ups and downs.

But I still wish I’d remembered my iPod…





Waiting for a superhero... but I've got my iPod, so it's okay if I have to wait a while...

I coulda been in Bermuda by now...

Our journey back to Austin yesterday began with such promise. It was a beautiful, clear, sunny day in Buffalo, and we arrived at the sparsely-occupied airport with plenty of time to spare. The woman at the check-in counter barely noticed Rick’s expired license (“Did you know your license is expired? Here’s your boarding pass…”) and we breezed through security in about two minutes, neither of us in possession of any forbidden objects. Our flight from Buffalo left right on time, we had a smooth, uneventful flight to Chicago, and landed early. And that was about when the good fortune stopped…

It was taking us an exceptionally long time to taxi to the gate, and we came to a complete stop several times for unknown reasons. At one point, I looked out my window and noticed what appeared to be a conga-line of planes waiting to take off. I told Rick I had a bad feeling about getting out of Chicago on time. But we had a good hour-long layover, and perhaps things would be moving more smoothly by the time we boarded our plane.

Inside the terminal, travelers and luggage and annoying little motorized people-moving carts were everywhere – it was a total contrast to the wide-open space of the Buffalo airport. Waiting in line at Starbucks was like waiting to ride Space Mountain at Disneyworld. But I suppose this should be expected in a busy airport like O’Hare on Memorial Day weekend. We managed to get some coffee and some food and found two empty chairs by the window at our departing gate. As I sipped my coffee and watched a 747 pull into the gate next door, I was noticing a very slight, subtle change in the light outside. It was still sunny, and I could still see plenty of blue sky, but off in the distance was a hint of a gray cloud bank. Before I even had a chance to mention it, Rick said something about how Chicago was expecting thunderstorms. (Rick knows that I hate any mention of approaching thunderstorms, so he likes to mention them as much as possible…)

The rest of our journey went something like this:

3:30 – We board our plane right on time, and settle into our seats. Airplane seats are never the most comfortable places to sit, but hey, it’s only a two and half hour flight to Austin, so no big deal. Before the flight attendants have even shut the door, the man in front of me is napping. Every few minutes, he’ll start snoring loudly and wake himself up, at which point I imagine he must have a “where am I? what am I doing here?” look on his face.

3:45 – We have pulled away from the gate and taxied toward the conga-line. I’m dismayed to notice it’s still there.

3:46 – Captain So-and-So: Well, folks, right now it looks like we’re fiftieth in line for take-off. (Did he say fifteenth? Or FIFTIETH??) We’ll get you out of here as soon as we can, but right now we have fifty planes ahead of us. (Uh, yeah, that was definitely fifty…)

4:01 – Captain So-and-So: Uh, well, it looks like they’re shutting down the south-bound runway because of some bad weather to the south of us. They’re still allowing planes to take off to the west, but right now we’re unable to go south. So it looks like we’ll be sitting here for a little while. I’m going to go ahead and turn the engines off. If you need to get up to use the bathroom or walk around, go ahead. I’ll let you know more when I hear from the tower…

4:18 – Snoring guy is still happily oblivious to our unmoving plane. I start to wish I was one of those people who can fall asleep anywhere. Like Rick. Rick could fall asleep on a cot in the middle of an interstate next to a busy railroad track…

4:39 – I start listening to the conversation going on behind me, between a man from Austin and a woman heading to Austin on business. I can’t tell if the man is flirting or simply being nice, but he does manage to find out what hotel the woman will be staying at… he then pulls out a computer or a PDA or a phone (I can’t turn around to see without being REALLY conspicuous) that can display weather forecasts, and starts talking about the storm heading our way.

4:59 – As I look at the blackening sky, I realize that I don’t WANT to take off right now…

5:05 – The plane starts to move, but we aren’t actually moving. We’re bouncing around like we’ve hit turbulence, yet we’re still on the ground. Flirting Guy behind me shows off his meteorology knowledge to Business Woman next to him by explaining that the storm front is hitting us – and when I look outside, I see blades of grass blown horizontal by the force of the wind.

5:15 – As it starts to rain, Captain So-and-So speaks again: Well, folks, you can feel that the plane is getting bounced around a little bit from the storms moving through. Basically, at this point, the airport has been shut down. They’re not allowing flights to take off or land right now. We apologize… I know this isn’t how you wanted to spend your Memorial Day. I’ll let you know more as soon as I hear anything.

5:35 – Plane seat that didn’t seem so bad at first is beginning to feel less comfortable. Business Woman tells Flirting Guy that she’s been craving Indian food, and he tells her that all the Indians he works with swear Bombay Bistro near the Arboretum is the best Indian food in Austin. I make a mental note of this so I can try it sometime…

5:55 – The sky to the west of us appears to be clearing, and I can see slivers of sunlight slicing through the clouds. Flirting Guy strikes up a conversation with a flight attendant, showing her his spiffy weather forecasts, and predicts we’ll be moving within a half hour.

6:05 – Through the metal cocoon I’m trapped in, I can hear the sound of engines roaring down a runway. Planes are taking off again.

6:07 – Captain So-and-So: Right now, the tower is clearing a few planes to take off to the west. They’re still not letting anyone go south, but they’re plotting some re-routes and allowing planes to take off to the west, where they can head for a more southerly route once they hit the Mississippi. Uh, we should be able to get a route out to the west, but the tower won’t talk to us until we’re about ninth or tenth in line for take-off. Let you know as soon as I hear.

6:18 – The weather behind us seems to be clearing quite nicely. The sun is out again, and the runway is already dotted with dry patches. Snoring Guy is finished with his nap, and Flirting Guy has managed to shut up and mind his own business. My seat is starting to feel like it was constructed of plywood.

6:30 – Captain So-and-So: Um, well, folks, just a little bit more bad news – one of our competitor’s planes in front of us has lost its auxiliary power and is unable to start its engines. They’ve already called a maintenance crew to come out and tow it off the runway, but unfortunately we can’t go anywhere until it’s out of our way. So, as soon as they move the plane, we should have a better idea of when we can take off.

6:49 – I start to wonder if a plane has ever run out of gas from sitting on a runway for too long.

7:01 – Rick, who, up until this point has been reading a book, announces that he’s thinking about pulling out his iPod. MY IPOD! I have completely forgotten that my iPod has been sitting patiently at the bottom of my carry-on for the last three and a half hours, and it happily would have provided me with entertainment to pass the time. Instead, I have been dividing my time between a book, magazines, staring out the window at the lovely O’Hare landscaping, and eavesdropping on conversations around me. I also have, at this point, sent about twenty text messages to various people. (What did people do when they were trapped on planes before cell phones and laptops and iPods?)

7:05 – We’re moving! Slowly but surely, we inch our way up the conga-line. Thank goodness, because I am absolutely certain, at this point, that my seat is filled with jagged rocks.

7:15 – Captain So-and-So: Well, it looks like we’re first in line for takeoff on runway (insert random number of runway here), but I’m not sure where we are overall. But we’re definitely close, so I’m going to ask the flight attendants to prepare for take-off.

7:16 – I’m forced to turn off the iPod that I’ve only been listening to for fifteen minutes.

7:30 – At last, after four hours of sitting in a plane on a runway, we are airborne. Amazingly, my seat immediately feels less uncomfortable.

So, all-in-all, including our flight from Buffalo, we spent about nine hours on planes yesterday just to get back to Austin. That kind of time could’ve been spent flying some place much cooler, like London or Hawaii. Oh well… as I was saying on the plane when the storm was blowing through – I’d much rather sit on the runway and be sure to arrive safe, than fly in a storm like that and take chances.

And besides, if our flight had been uneventful, I might not have had much to blog about today…

Flying around the storm -- how can something so fluffy cause so much trouble?

Rated PG-13...

I am at my hotel in Buffalo, hesitant to turn off the TV and the lights and to allow the quiet darkness to lull me to sleep. More on that in a moment...

We had a great visit with family this weekend. We ate WAY too much ice cream at Alethea's (which has to be the best ice cream parlor in the Buffalo area), managed to completely surprise my grandparents with the anniversary party, and reminisced and told stories while we hung out in their log cabin home (Eric and I are certain that house was bigger when we were kids...).

But our trip hasn’t been free of the occasional snag. As we were checking in at the airport on Saturday, the woman behind the desk noticed that Rick’s driver’s license was expired. Apparently Texas no longer sends a notice when your license is about to expire, and we’re expected to stay on top of this sort of thing. The only problem is, most people don’t think to look at their licenses very often. In fact, about the only time I pull mine out of my wallet is when I’m getting ready to board a plane. Or when I order alcohol and I get carded. (Which DOES still happen. Shut up, Faisal…)

After a tense moment in which we were uncertain Rick would be allowed to board the plane, we were given the okay and proceeded to security. At this point, Rick found out he’d been selected for an extra-special security screening, and as my parents and I hung out near the bookstore, a TSA agent went through everything in his backpack and discovered a forgotten pocketknife. While the agent kept a close watch on the knife, Rick gave me his backpack to hold, then reclaimed his knife from the agent and ran with it out to the car (kids – don’t ever run with knives…). When he finally made it to the gate some time later, he was limping. All that running had caused his ankle to give out and he twisted it.

Our flights, fortunately, were fairly uneventful. But once we arrived at the Buffalo airport, we went to the rental car counter where my dad had made a reservation, and were told they were out of cars. This, of course, conjured up memories of “Seinfeld,” and the episode where Jerry tries to pick up his reserved rental car, only to find out there are no cars to rent. He tries to explain the meaning of “reservation” to the woman behind the desk, who claims to know the definition of the word, but Jerry replies, “I don’t think you do.” What, exactly, is the point of a reservation if nothing is actually reserved? After a few back-and-forth conversations between our rental place and the rental place next-door, we were able to procure a minivan from another company.

We then proceeded to dinner, where we met up with my mom’s cousin and her husband. Everyone except me ordered roast beef on kummelweck – a kind of roll dotted with salt and caraway seeds. “Beef on weck” is one of the specialties Buffalo is known for – less well-known than Buffalo wings, obviously, as I’ve never seen beef on weck outside of Western New York. And while my mom swore that the last time she’d had the beef on weck at this particular restaurant it was perfect, the dinners served last night were less-than-edible. No one ate much, but since we headed to Alethea’s afterwards anyway, we certainly didn’t end the night hungry.

At 11:30, Rick and I were finally exhausted from a day spent traveling, and, in our quiet hotel room, prepared to fall asleep. Through the thin wall behind us, I heard a faint noise that Rick at first described as sounding like “an owl.” But after a few seconds the noise got louder, and it was quite apparent that what we heard had nothing to do with ornithology. The couple next door was, um, sharing way too many sounds with us, which I shall not reproduce here. They, however, may be reproducing in about nine months or so…

Which brings me to tonight, and my hesitancy to try to fall asleep just yet. Not that I have any idea if those two are still staying here, but we noticed the “do not disturb” sign was on the door when we got back to our room, and I’d just rather not have to be a witness to that kind of thing again. Maybe I should keep the TV on, just in case…

Heading to Buffalo...

Or should I say “shuffling off to Buffalo”? What is that from? 42nd Street? Yeah, I think it’s 42nd Street. And if I remember correctly, the two people “shuffling off to Buffalo” were on their honeymoon… seriously, if you’re spending your honeymoon in Buffalo, you are painfully lacking in imagination. Or perhaps they weren’t referring to Buffalo, New York, in that show. Maybe it was Buffalo in the south of France. Or that tropical island called Buffalo out in the middle of the Pacific…

I, however, am heading to Buffalo, New York, for my grandparents’ 65th anniversary party. My grandparents are not like the stereotypical retired people in this country who head down to Florida as soon as empty-nest syndrome sets in. No, they have tenaciously remained for years in the same log cabin they built with their own hands when my mom was a girl. My 91-year-old grandfather still plows his own driveway when the snow piles up every year, and during the summer, he and my grandmother grow vegetables in their garden. And if I’D built a log cabin with my own hands, I’d probably never want to leave it, either.

I think it’s funny that when you visit the Weather Channel’s website and search for the forecast for Buffalo, it pops up with an option to “get the beach forecast.” The beach forecast. For Buffalo. The one in New York. Not Buffalo in the south of France. I can’t remember ever visiting the “beach” in Buffalo when I was a kid. But maybe that’s because we had a pool in our backyard. And yes, we DID use the pool quite frequently during the summer. I’ve always thought it was interesting how Buffalo is notorious for its snowfall, but it’s the summers I remember most. If I’d stayed much longer than the nine years I spent there, I probably would’ve been old enough to start helping with the driveway shoveling. THEN I would’ve remembered the winters…

Family members aside, I can’t imagine a reason I’d want to live in Buffalo today. I’m kind of grateful that my parents moved away when we did, so I was able to explore a couple different parts of the country. It isn’t the cold weather in Buffalo that I find so unappealing – New York City gets plenty cold, and I love it… Chicago is downright freezing, but I think it’s a great city – no, I can’t really put my finger on it, but Buffalo never seemed to have that “spirit” you find within certain cities. It’s probably just my personal preferences – I imagine cites, like people, possess qualities we either click with, or we don’t. I don’t happen to click with Buffalo… Buffalo and I don’t have much chemistry. In fact, I’m seeing several other cities behind Buffalo’s back.

Don’t tell Buffalo…

Someplace other than Buffalo...

Can you see me?

There are times when I wonder whether the things I think about are totally unique to me, or if other people out there think about them, too. For instance, I was driving down the road the other day, and I had a sudden overwhelming feeling of invisibility. Now, obviously the logical part of my mind understands the irrationality of such a thought. I can not, under any circumstance, become invisible. I do not own a magic Harry Potter cloak, and I know that no such cloak exists. And yet, as I stopped at a red light with dozens of other cars and drivers surrounding me, I couldn’t help but wonder how I could be certain they were seeing me.

And this wasn’t the first time I’d questioned my own ability to be seen. This thought crosses my mind quite often when I’m driving alone (although strangely, never when I’m driving with someone else – it’s as if I realize that whoever I’m driving with is definitely visible, so I assume everyone else must realize it, as well). I’ve also felt the “am I invisible?” vibe in places like crowded movie theaters and the mall – anywhere large groups of people gather, giving me the chance to observe them, while simultaneously questioning my own ability to be observed. Maybe it’s because I don’t WANT to be observed – so it’s simply some sort of wishful thinking on my part. I WISH I could walk through crowds unseen, and peruse items in stores without salespeople bothering me, and go for a stroll through my neighborhood and not be suspiciously curious about the laughter of small groups of children I pass (are they laughing at ME? What did I do that was so amusing?).

But even more than my yearning for invisibility is my fascination with the knowledge that every person on this planet has their own life, and their own thoughts, and their own questions, and their own feelings, and their own points of view. No two people can ever truly see the exact same thing from the exact same vantage point at exactly the same time. What I see through my eyes is different – even if that difference is miniscule – from what everyone else is seeing. When I’m driving in my car, surrounded by travelers from diverse areas of the city, or perhaps areas of the country – maybe even from different parts of the world – I find myself amazed by the idea that every person in every one of those cars is out there driving for a different purpose. What are they thinking about? What are they worrying about? When I think about the billions of people on this planet, and the billions of thoughts wandering around some kind of metaphorical pseudo-space at any given time, it’s overwhelming. If all those thoughts are out there, and all those people are thinking about different things, how can I be sure that my car is one of the things they’re thinking about? I’m even amazed that we all managed to see the red light at the same time…

For all I know, none of this makes sense to anyone but me. Sometimes that seems to be the case with the things I write. But I suppose it doesn’t matter. After all, there’s a good chance I’m invisible anyway…

This can't possibly make sense...

Does anyone else find it strange that the post about toes has generated more comments than any of my other posts? Good call on that one, Kat – if you have any other blog ideas, let me know. :)

So last night on Lost… um, to be honest, I have no idea what happened. Oh, don’t get me wrong – I WATCHED the show. I wouldn’t have missed it. I’m just really not sure what, exactly, happened. Desmond came back in his sailboat – I saw that one coming. The guy disappeared from the island at the beginning of the season and no one ever bothered to say, “I wonder where that guy from the hatch ran off to?” Since he mentioned that he was in a sailboat race when he got stuck on Anti-Fantasy Island, I had to assume that sailboat belonged to him. What I loved is that he had it all stocked up with Dharma-logo liquor. Is there anything these Dharma people DON’T put their logo on? We saw it on the shark and the polar bear, it’s on the door of all the crazy hatches, it’s all over the boxes of food, and apparently they stamp it onto bottles of rum and tequila, as well.

I think my favorite part of the show was when Sun, Jin and Sayid were in the sailboat, heading for the Other’s outpost (which, of course, turned out to be nothing more than a staged façade…) and they discovered the giant foot statue. And amazingly, I can tie this in to yesterday’s toe discussion – because the giant foot statue only had four toes. Four toes. Like a Simpsons character. Sayid found this “disquieting” (I love that he used the word “disquieting.” Who uses the word “disquieting” on TV shows, huh?), as well as the fact that the statue had been cut off at the ankle, apparently suggesting it used to be one big GIANT statue of a four-toed (and, I’m assuming, four-fingered) person. Or maybe a monkey. Or, like, a monkey-man hybrid. I mean, really – who knows WHAT they’re experimenting with on that island…

Oh, and of course the show continued with its “don’t I know you from somewhere?” theme between all of the characters. Last night we discovered that Desmond’s boat used to belong to Libby, who was in the insane asylum with Hurley. Hurley, of course, had that imaginary friend named Dave, and Libby, interestingly enough, told Desmond that her late husband’s name was David. So was she really married? Or did Hurley’s “friend” have some sort of imaginary life of his own? We also discovered that Kelvin, the man who originally dragged Desmond to the hatch and taught him all about the crazy button, was the same guy who made Sayid torture prisoners in Iraq. I think this guy may have also had some connection to Kate’s dad, if I remember correctly.

The most interesting part of the night happened in the last two minutes – for the first time since the show began, we caught a glimpse of the post-plane-crash outside world. Up until that moment, the only time we saw the outside world was in flashbacks. Does this mean that next season we’ll start seeing more about what’s happening in the “present” outside world? And by the way, was it just me, or did it look like the kid who plays Walt grew about a foot taller since he was supposedly kidnapped by the Others? (Which, in show-timeline, would only be a few weeks… those Others have obviously been making him eat his vegetables…)

So, all in all, it was a very confusing season finale. We still don’t know if Eko and Locke are okay. And what about Desmond? They were all still in the hatch, right? So are we to assume all that magnetic energy destroyed everything in its path? Has the hatch ceased to exist? Does this mean no more showers for anyone?? If you don’t watch Lost, you might as well start, because there’s no way you could be any more confused than those of us who’ve already been sucked into this show…

Move over, Roger Ebert...

Lost Lost Lost Lost Lost… Oh, the Lost season finale is tonight, in case anyone was wondering. Hold on, I need to go check my Tivo to make sure it’s set up to record… Yes, everything looks good. There was an “incident” (to borrow a Lost expression) a couple months ago when my Tivo decided not to record the show. I usually let about twenty or thirty minutes of the show go by, then start to watch so I can fast-forward through commercials. But during this particular “incident,” none of the show had been recorded, so there was nothing to fast-forward through. Thank goodness for downloadable programs on the internet… I’m a little worried about tonight’s show, as I’ve heard a rather disturbing rumor, which, hopefully, will turn out to be false. Perhaps I’ll post a crazy nonsensical Lost recap tomorrow…

Okay, enough about Lost… So I saw the movie version of The Da Vinci Code last night, and I have to say I was a little disappointed. I loved the book – I’ve enjoyed all of Dan Brown’s novels. And while he isn’t always concerned with getting his facts straight (but it IS, after all, fiction) he’s always managed to keep me interested from the first page to the last. The guy can spin a good yarn.

(And as a quick aside – I have to mention that there are two groups of people who annoy me when it comes to The Da Vinci Code. First are people who read the book and believe every word Dan Brown says, and second are people who read the book and are offended by every word Dan Brown says. Even worse are people who DON’T read the book and decide to be offended by it anyway. How can you be offended if you haven’t read it? Okay, I guess that’s actually three groups of people… Anyway, The Da Vinci Code is, absolutely, a work of FICTION, and should be enjoyed as such. I think perhaps Dan Brown has been having a bit of fun playing devil’s advocate, as I’m sure he, of all people, is well aware of the factual mistakes and misguided assumptions throughout the book. But he’s certainly not going to mention any of that when the whole thing has stirred up such a ridiculous storm of controversy. If more people would understand that the book is simply an entertaining, fast-paced thriller and stop looking at it either as a history book or as heretical dogma, then maybe everyone could have more fun with it.)

So as I was saying – I was a bit disappointed with the movie. The book was so good that it seemed like perfect movie fodder – the kind of book that is destined to be transformed into some kind of cinematic treasure. All the elements were there – murder, mystery, puzzles, codes, chases, mistaken identity, striking locations, eccentric characters – and yet when this story was translated onto a screen, it fell remarkably flat. The most obvious flaw was the casting of Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon – Tom Hanks was able to act with a VOLLEYBALL for two hours in “Castaway” and made it interesting. You’d think there would be nothing this guy couldn’t do. Wrong. He definitely does NOT do “Harvard-symbologist-turned-murder-suspect-turned-code-breaker.” In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Tom Hanks acting so listlessly. He and Audrey Tautou (the French actress who was so good in Amelie – great movie, if you’ve never seen it) had absolutely zero chemistry onscreen. There was a scene at the end of the movie where they hug, and it seemed so strange – as if two people who’d just met on a subway decided to hug each other. For at least the first half of the movie, it seems their only purpose, really, is to explain what’s happening in the story... sort of like detached narrators.

And by the way, if you haven’t read the book, I wouldn’t see the movie. I’m not sure it would make much sense to someone who didn’t already understand what was going on. The parts of the movie that deal with the symbols and codes and anagrams – detailed so fascinatingly in the book – are rushed over so quickly that you’ll probably miss them if you blink. You’ll definitely miss them if you run out for a soda and popcorn…

The one real “character” in the movie is Ian McKellen’s Teabing – after an hour of mind-numbing Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou, he’s like a big cup of cappuccino with extra espresso. And Paul Bettany as the albino monk Silas wasn’t bad (although for some reason, Rick started laughing every time he appeared on-screen…). Another thing that made us laugh was this strange repetition of dialogue between characters – one character would say something, and another would repeat it back, as if to make sure the idiot audience understood what was being said:

“So what I’m saying is, the Holy Grail is not a cup.”

“Wait a second! So what you’re saying is, the Holy Grail is not a cup?”

“Da Vinci used codes in his artwork.”

“Wait a second! Da Vinci used codes in his artwork?”

“This dialogue is horrible.”

“This is really bad dialogue!”

So I guess the movie, like the book, can’t be taken too seriously. I’d probably watch it again some time, just to see if I missed some of the subtle nuances of Tom Hanks’ performance. But, as is usually the case when a story of such detail is transformed into celluloid – the book is much better than the movie.

Toes Prose

So everyone wants to read about toes, huh? A toe post. Right. Okay. Um, I may have underestimated the difficulty of writing about such a minute part of the body. Although it’s interesting, is it not, how we barely notice our toes unless we happen to injure them in some way? I mean, have you ever been walking around your house in the dead of night, with all the lights off, and forgotten about that magical coffee table that can materialize out of thin air? Never mind the fact that it’s a little strange to be wandering around with all the lights off (is it that difficult to flip a switch?) – suddenly, that pesky table pops up in your path, and before you can say “open-toed sandals,” you have a bruise the size of a grapefruit. Which is quite impressive, seeing as most toes are no bigger than, uh, let’s say plain old grapes.

So in half a second, your perfectly normal grape-toes are covered with grape-colored bruises and feel as though someone has used their OWN toes to stomp on yours in a vat full of smushed soon-to-be-wine fruit. And what if one of those little grape-toes is broken? Well, since apparently it’s impossible to make tiny little grape-sized plaster casts, the best you can do is tie on one of those weird half-shoes and hobble around for a few weeks while it heals. And THAT is the point when you realize you do, in fact, have toes.

Up until that point, of course, toes are barely noticeable… almost forgettable. They’re not like fingers, which curl so effortlessly around pens and pencils and doorknobs and coat hangers. They’re hidden under socks and buried within shoes and forced to keep ranks with their foot neighbors when we go for jogs and stand in lines at the grocery store. And the only time I’m certain those toes must get excited is when we pull out a pair of flip-flops – ah ha! Finally! At last! The toes are given a purpose. With flip-flops, it is the TOES themselves that prevent the entire shoe from falling off and being abandoned on a sidewalk. It is the TOES that embrace the responsibility of protecting the entire foot. For a few hours, at least, the forgettable little grape toes are transformed into tiny little hard-working heroes.

I once saw a show on the Discovery channel about a man who’d lost a thumb in an accident, and they were able to surgically replace his thumb with his big toe. Now THAT must’ve been a happy toe. It must’ve felt privileged to move from its unremarkable position near the dust and dirt of the ground to an elevated location replete with brand-new grasping duties. A big toe that can hold a remote control... how unique. Then again, maybe it’s not so unique – I’m sure there are guys out there with perfectly functioning hands who’ve felt it necessary to change a TV channel with their toes. I mean, if you’re already settled on the couch, and the remote is juuuuuust out of reach… (I certainly wouldn’t KNOW any guys like that…)

Anyway, I can definitely say, without a doubt, that this is the most I’ve ever written about toes. Who knew they could inspire four paragraphs? I have a sudden urge to find the nearest nail salon and ask for a pedicure…

Guess whose birthday it is?

Yes, that’s right! Carl Linnaeus! The Swedish botanist who introduced the world to his complicated scientific classification of all living things! Without Linnaeus, none of us would have had to memorize those endless charts and graphs in biology class. So thank you, Carl Linnaeus – because of the “genus” of your scientific mind, a new order was brought to the kingdom of taxonomy and all the species on the planet have benefited greatly. You’re a real class act! (Did everybody get that? Because if not, I’ll be really disappointed…)

Oh, I’m just kidding. Actually, it’s Rosemary Clooney’s birthday! Yes, Rosemary Clooney, who sang such classics as, um, I think she sang that song about “come on-a my house” and something about how I’m gonna give you apples and pears and peaches… and maybe a kumquat or something. And candy. Yeah, there was definitely candy in that song. (What’s up with that song? Does anybody know? Is it supposed to be literal, or some kind of metaphor? I mean, that lady has an awful lot of fruit at her house…) Okay, so I really don’t know much about Rosemary Clooney. Except that she was George Clooney’s aunt. And apparently my mom used to sound like Rosemary Clooney when she sang in choir in high school, because someone left a comment about it in her yearbook. And, of course, today is Rosemary Clooney’s birthday!

All right, all right, seriously – HAPPY BIRTHDAY ERIC!!! My earliest memory actually goes back to the day Eric was born. Not that I can remember being excited about the prospect of a baby brother in the house (although maybe I was, who knows…) – no, what I remember is that my grandparents were staying with me while my parents were at the hospital. And my grandmother gave me a piece of toast with jelly for breakfast, but there was a tiny little black speck in the jelly so I refused to eat it. Thus began a lifetime of picky eating. And since it was Eric’s birthday, I suppose HIS lifetime of picky eating began that day, as well. I’m sure, even as a newborn baby, all wrapped up in a blanket in a crib somewhere in a hospital in Buffalo, New York, Eric was thinking, “I guess this place isn’t so bad… except for that mayonnaise stuff… eeeewwwww…” Eric is still the only person I know who really understands the way I eat. If we were in a roomful of people who all cleaned their plates, Eric and I would still have little piles of reject food parts on ours. There are just some things you can’t eat… and if you DO eat them, you’re just plain weird. (Yeah, that’s right, I’m turning it around – YOU are the weird ones. Not me. Not Eric. YOU. Eric and I are perfectly normal…)

So Eric, I hope you get a chance to run out to the Starbucks across the street and have some birthday coffee. Right after you have some birthday French toast at the Pancake House. And when you get the big jar of birthday mayonnaise I sent you, there’ll be no need to thank me. I KNOW you’re gonna love it… :)



Oh, don't look at me like that. I didn't REALLY get you mayonnaise...

Like bricks and mortar...

The Canadian fellow-blogger who occasionally posts here got me thinking about words, and how we use them, and how we put them together. And how words can be used to communicate, certainly – but they can also be used for decorative purposes, in a manner of speaking. I once read somewhere that Charlotte Bronte – the author of one of my favorite books, Jane Eyre – would carefully choose every single word she wrote down. She would mull over a myriad of linguistic choices in her mind before settling on the pieces of prose she felt best expressed her thoughts. Because she knew, no doubt, that each word on its own was simply an entry in the dictionary – a random bit of driftwood in an endless ocean. But lash those words together in a meaningful sequence, and they float like rafts, carrying us to different times and different places… inspiring thought and dialogue and dreams… making us believe we can travel from one place to the next on the cadence of ideas. They can be powerful things, these little arrangements of letters…

Writing is like constructing a puzzle – each word must be comfortably nestled next to its neighbor… each phrase must compliment the one before. Only after every section has been locked into place will the entire picture be visible. And if one tiny piece is missing, the entire project seems to be ruined. Of course, there’s a fine line between “complete” and “overkill.” This was something I started to realize in school, when we were given assignments to write papers that were, for example, “at least 20 pages long,” and after about 17 pages, I’d run out of things to write. I had already made my point, I had already provided the proper amount of embellishment necessary for a research paper, and anything extra would simply be “filler” material. What’s more, I was certain whoever was grading the paper would be intelligent enough to recognize filler material, and would laugh at my insistence that I had a “really, really, really, really, really interesting time writing this very, very, very, very, extremely important paper.”

So I would take a chance and turn in my three-pages-too-short paper, and be quite surprised when it was returned to me not only with a good grade, but with comments about how “concise” and “to-the-point” my paper was. After a while, I started realizing those page number requirements were really more of a guideline – I was never given a lowered grade due to a shorter paper, and I suppose it’s because when you’re writing to make a point, it’s more important that you simply make your point. It’s more important that your message is received loud and clear than for a few more slips of paper to be added for embellishment purposes. As long as the entire puzzle is complete, what more can you say?

Creative writing, of course, is a different story (pun not intended…). Embellishment is half the fun. I took a fiction writing class at St. Edward’s University a few years ago, and one of the things we talked about was the difference between “showing” and “telling” in a story. Sure, you could simply TELL your audience that, “John was angry.” Or you could SHOW them by saying something like, “John threw open the door, flung the phone across the room, and slammed his hand down on the table.” You know John is angry, but the word “angry” doesn’t even appear in the sentence. And that’s part of what I find appealing about writing – the way that words can be used like clay, and sculpted into different forms until their collective meaning is apparent. These words can form pictures as multihued and vibrant as anything hanging in the Louvre or the Met. To me, talking just seems less colorful. Then again, I probably think about these things more often than a lot of people, seeing as the ABSENCE of talking and the PRESENCE of writing almost seem to be part of what makes up my nature. Or perhaps “almost” isn’t even relevant – they ARE part of what makes up my nature.

So I think I’ll go indulge in the vibrant layers of a novel. And hopefully, when I’m finished, I will find myself in a completely different place from where I started. Because that’s the adventure of holding onto a raft made of words…

Real men drink lattes...

When my dad brought the Mediterranean pictures the other day, he also brought some pictures from his recent trip to Montana with Eric and Dave. I was not invited on this trip, because, I was told, it was a "guy" trip. Only men allowed. Men who were going to do all kinds of man things. So in homage to all things man, I present the following photo montage entitled, "We Are Men."

We are men. We live in the mountains...

In cabins...

By lakes...

We are men. We eat meat.

We eat meat as big as our shoes. Because we are men.

We are men. We build fire.

WE BUILD FIRE!

And we have guns. Because we are men.

Sometimes we play Charlie's Angels. But we are still men.

We are men. We like chocolate chip scones with our drive-through coffee shop lattes.

Yes, life is good. Because we are men.