I had my first blog request recently and I'm not sure I can fulfill the request in the manner it deserves. We were enjoying a long overdue - and cheesily named - "ladies' night" downtown, successfully pulling together two new moms, one toddler mom, one woman with restaurant hours, one woman with night school hours, and others with just the usual schedule conflicts - it was no small feat to bring this group together.
We joined at the new trendy Lebanese restaurant and then enjoyed the beautiful night outside when we snagged a sidewalk table at The Foundation, a bar that makes it's own sodas and knockout cocktails. While enjoying my root beer float-inspired drink, made with Stoli Vanilla, root beer, and an egg yolk (freaky, huh?), Kyley grabbed my attention.
Kyley grabs most people's attention, as the beautiful spunky redhead that every fictional group of girls contains (c'mon, there had to be one in the Babysitter's Club), but that you rarely come across in real life. Kyley is model-thin, not quite model-tall, and colored in a way that women who pretend to be ginger waste buckets of money trying to emulate. She carries herself not with the cockiness of a girl that knows she's pretty, but with the confidence of a woman who believes her soul is beautiful. I suspect this confidence may have come from sharing the burdens of an awkward phase before becoming a beautiful woman, as long limbs, orange hair, and pale skin may have been less easily embraced by a growing teen.
And so this most beautiful of women, sipping her bourbon cocktail, turned to me and demanded that I write a blog about poop.
"Kirsten, you need to write a blog that tells people they are responsible for their own floating turds".
One can assume Kyley was coming from a very personal experience with this request, and perhaps hasn't spent her life lamenting the world-at-large's floating turd behavior. It wasn't hard to guess, as this wasn't the first time this group of ladies has discussed his movements, that Kyley was referring to her husband.
For Kyley's sake I will say here that yes, indeed, you are responsible for your own floating turds. Everyone deserves to be greeted by a fresh bowl, or at the very least, a poop-free one. If it requires going back to check after the swirling motion has stopped, then you should go back and check. If it requires a second flush, environmental-concerns aside, you should hold that lever down until your evidence disappears. As a healthy, fully-functioning adult, only YOU should have any visual or action-based contact with your droppings. That's what a civilized society is.
We all have our frustrations with sharing the bathroom. And I would guess that those of us who take on the role of bathroom-cleaner have more frustrations than those who only hold the role of bathroom-user. When we remodeled our bathroom, Bob couldn't fathom why I would want a double sink. There was no polite way of saying that I'd rather he keep his beard and toothpaste filth in his own area. (Oops, just said it here).
Just last month, after almost five years of being together and two of living together, I tentatively, gently, drunkenly, lightly jokingly, brought up the topic of perhaps him choosing to put the seat down. I didn't even ask that he do it at home, but that when we are visiting my parents' house, enjoying their beach hospitality, that he start making that effort. I suspect he saw immediately that this was the beginning of my efforts to take steps towards him eventually showing me the same courtesy. His argument that it was a sign of respect to my father to leave the seat up for him falls flat. It is because of the unspoken toilet-seat-down rule in my family home (containing two men) that makes me know this issue is far beyond just my wishes but it is what is right and true and required in the world of courtesy, cleanliness, and manners.
And so Ladies' Night results in too many of us sharing our bathroom frustrations: the one who suffocates when her boyfriend takes care of his morning business while she showers in their tiny bathroom, the one whose husband started remodeling the bathroom months ago and left it an unusable danger zone ever since, the one whose husband stops up their rental house's toilet 50% of the time that he uses it, the one who spent helpless moments of her pregnancy witnessing the woeful cleaning job her husband did on the shower, and poor Kyley, who is too often greeted by another man's floater. I can't solve your problem here Kyley, but I have done my best to follow through on your request to share your plea with the world.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
My Gift to the World
I was gratified beyond expectation by the personal responses I received to my obsessive advice on toilet paper and dishwasher loading. One new mother told me how she never paid attention to toilet paper loading and when she was up in the middle of the night, feeding her new cutie, she would head into the bathroom in the dark. More than once, a tired husband ended up doing a pee-pee jig in the door, pleading for her to hurry up while she helplessly spun the toilet paper roll around and around in the dark, grasping for the elusive end. After reading my earlier post, she now loads the roll the 'right way', and dear hubbie's painful prancing has come to an end. I daresay I changed their lives!
It is armed with this belief that my annoying attention to tiny details could benefit others that has led me to today's post. I am about to bestow onto the world the greatest knowledge I have to share, the solution to endless frustration and the satisfying creation of a thing of beauty. Today, right here, I will share with you how to fold a fitted sheet.
The first critical piece of advice I have for you is that a fitted sheet can not be folded in the air. Arms outstretched, grasping corners, and bringing them neatly together, while ideal for the neatness of a flat sheet, is a terrible method to try to fold a fitted sheet. The flat and the fitted trick you with their similarities into believing they can be treated the same way. They cannot. The fitted sheet demands a subtle hand, a gentle shaping, an intimate level of attention that the flat sheet gladly does without. The flat sheet is a hussy, while the fitted sheet is a noble dame, demanding appropriate attention and caressing before yielding to your hands.
As such, the fitted sheet, first and foremost, needs a flat surface on which to be shaped. If you have a sheet to fold, then I must presume you also have a bed and recommend using that surface for your folding needs:
With some practice, you can eventually move your skills to the couch while watching your stories, but do not be so bold as to jump right to that advanced folding placement. Start with the bed. Once there, find your four corners:
Once you have embraced and let this method be a part of your soul, you won't need to spread out the entire sheet as shown below, but start here Grasshopper:
This next critical step sadly lacks an effective photo, mostly because I recognize this endeavor to be ridiculous enough not to call Bob in from the other room and ask for help with the photography. What I am trying to show below is inverting one of the corners and inserting your hand like a mitt. (What we actually see below is how far apart my camera hand and my sheet hand can get. We also see, depending on the quality of your monitor, that I only buy sheets on sale and have poorly sewn this ripped seam together):
Take your mitted sheet hand and fit the corner you are holding inside it's opposing corner. Do this on both ends of the sheet so that you have essentially folded the sheet in half, but with the corners tucked into each other:
And here is where the magic can start to happen. The satisfying ease of the flat sheet is the right angles while the frustrating difficulty of the fitted sheet is it's lack of the same. What we are about to do with the fitted sheet is introduce the critical right angles that allow the neat and clean pile we all want to see at the end. To do this, fold the outer edges into the center. You will be folding the puffy, rounded, elasticized and bulky corners into the center, and giving yourself a clean right edge. The sheet I am illustrating with here is a king-size, so size of folds may be different with other size sheets, but the key is to get a right-ish angle where a corner should be:
Repeat with both sides so you are now dealing with a boxy shape:
Depending on the size of your sheet, you can now fold with the ease of corners as you would a flat sheet. With this king-size sheet, I folded it in half longways:
Now don't go running off to your laundry, thinking you've heard all my tricks and the path to the perfect fitted sheet is clear. We have one more important lesson to learn, a misconception from flat sheet folding that we must cast aside to find success with the fitted sheet. With the flat sheet we are used to meeting corners and folding in half. Whether up or down or side-to-side, we just keep folding in half until we have a neat square. I must remind you again - the flat sheet and the fitted are entirely different! We must embrace the concept of thirds with the fitted sheet, and it is this beauty of the triad that will finally allow you to know the peace of a perfectly folded fitted sheet.
What we have done by hiding the difficult rounded corners is create one bulky end and one smooth flat end:
Using the fold-in-half-and-half-again method now would lead you to trying to create a fold in the bulky corner collection and even if successfully folded, would leave you with one cowlicky end that keeps trying to pop up. Enter the tri-fold! Fold the bulky end down a third:
Then fold the smooth, thin end up a third. You have now taken the neatest part of your folded sheet and covered the most troubling, uneven part:
Even Doozer is impressed with how the mess of fabric from the first photo has turned into this shapely pile:
The final, beautiful epilogue to this tale of the fitted sheet: as the rounded corners of the fitted and the sharp corners of the flat sheet are reunited, joined into a "set", destined to stack together in the linen closet until it is time for them, once again, to be unfurled.
It is armed with this belief that my annoying attention to tiny details could benefit others that has led me to today's post. I am about to bestow onto the world the greatest knowledge I have to share, the solution to endless frustration and the satisfying creation of a thing of beauty. Today, right here, I will share with you how to fold a fitted sheet.
The first critical piece of advice I have for you is that a fitted sheet can not be folded in the air. Arms outstretched, grasping corners, and bringing them neatly together, while ideal for the neatness of a flat sheet, is a terrible method to try to fold a fitted sheet. The flat and the fitted trick you with their similarities into believing they can be treated the same way. They cannot. The fitted sheet demands a subtle hand, a gentle shaping, an intimate level of attention that the flat sheet gladly does without. The flat sheet is a hussy, while the fitted sheet is a noble dame, demanding appropriate attention and caressing before yielding to your hands.
As such, the fitted sheet, first and foremost, needs a flat surface on which to be shaped. If you have a sheet to fold, then I must presume you also have a bed and recommend using that surface for your folding needs:
With some practice, you can eventually move your skills to the couch while watching your stories, but do not be so bold as to jump right to that advanced folding placement. Start with the bed. Once there, find your four corners:
Once you have embraced and let this method be a part of your soul, you won't need to spread out the entire sheet as shown below, but start here Grasshopper:
This next critical step sadly lacks an effective photo, mostly because I recognize this endeavor to be ridiculous enough not to call Bob in from the other room and ask for help with the photography. What I am trying to show below is inverting one of the corners and inserting your hand like a mitt. (What we actually see below is how far apart my camera hand and my sheet hand can get. We also see, depending on the quality of your monitor, that I only buy sheets on sale and have poorly sewn this ripped seam together):
Take your mitted sheet hand and fit the corner you are holding inside it's opposing corner. Do this on both ends of the sheet so that you have essentially folded the sheet in half, but with the corners tucked into each other:
And here is where the magic can start to happen. The satisfying ease of the flat sheet is the right angles while the frustrating difficulty of the fitted sheet is it's lack of the same. What we are about to do with the fitted sheet is introduce the critical right angles that allow the neat and clean pile we all want to see at the end. To do this, fold the outer edges into the center. You will be folding the puffy, rounded, elasticized and bulky corners into the center, and giving yourself a clean right edge. The sheet I am illustrating with here is a king-size, so size of folds may be different with other size sheets, but the key is to get a right-ish angle where a corner should be:
Repeat with both sides so you are now dealing with a boxy shape:
Depending on the size of your sheet, you can now fold with the ease of corners as you would a flat sheet. With this king-size sheet, I folded it in half longways:
Now don't go running off to your laundry, thinking you've heard all my tricks and the path to the perfect fitted sheet is clear. We have one more important lesson to learn, a misconception from flat sheet folding that we must cast aside to find success with the fitted sheet. With the flat sheet we are used to meeting corners and folding in half. Whether up or down or side-to-side, we just keep folding in half until we have a neat square. I must remind you again - the flat sheet and the fitted are entirely different! We must embrace the concept of thirds with the fitted sheet, and it is this beauty of the triad that will finally allow you to know the peace of a perfectly folded fitted sheet.
What we have done by hiding the difficult rounded corners is create one bulky end and one smooth flat end:
Using the fold-in-half-and-half-again method now would lead you to trying to create a fold in the bulky corner collection and even if successfully folded, would leave you with one cowlicky end that keeps trying to pop up. Enter the tri-fold! Fold the bulky end down a third:Then fold the smooth, thin end up a third. You have now taken the neatest part of your folded sheet and covered the most troubling, uneven part:
Even Doozer is impressed with how the mess of fabric from the first photo has turned into this shapely pile:
The final, beautiful epilogue to this tale of the fitted sheet: as the rounded corners of the fitted and the sharp corners of the flat sheet are reunited, joined into a "set", destined to stack together in the linen closet until it is time for them, once again, to be unfurled.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Knife Points and Charmin Rolls
Sitting on a friend's toilet the other day, it hit me that I have two categories of behavior when it comes to believing that there is a certain way things must be done. The first category is activities which I choose to do one way, and firmly believe my way is correct, but will give you the respect and benefit of the doubt of not challenging your way of doing it. The second category is activities which I feel must always be done one way only and for which some OCD insistence tendencies emerge.
An example in the first category is loading the dishwasher. Bob would argue strongly that I put dish placement in the second category of obsessive rigidity, but that's only when it comes to loading our dishwasher. When I am helping to do the dishes in someone else's home, I respect the dishwasher style that they employ. I think glass racks are for glasses only (and any plastic containers or lids, as their instructions always clearly state "top rack only") and bowls are more closely aligned with plates, but if I am helping clean up at your house and you choose to mingle cups and bowls, I will follow your lead. I won't even judge you for it. I also think silverware should be placed with the handle pointing up for reasons of safety, cleanliness, and sanitation. Safety because if the sharp knife point is face-down, you don't risk grazing yourself as you hurry through loading to get to the t.v. in time for tipoff; Cleanliness because a dishwasher spraying from the bottom will hit the food-covered tips with the most force when the functional ends are closest; and Sanitation because you can move the clean silverware from the washer to the drawer by the handles without rubbing your potentially grubby fingers all over the eating ends. All of these clearly elucidated arguments aside, if your silverware has the spoon slopes and fork tines reaching for the sky, I will dangerously place the knife tip in the same direction.
In my own home, I believe that the glass rack only functions at it's highest potential if you don't sacrifice space to a prong-hogging bowl. The bottom rack can be piled and leaning chaos, but the top rack has evenly spaced rows for a reason. I doubt that Bob will ever understand why I care so much, and I doubt I could ever explain it, but nothing in the way we share space can throw me into a fit of "this is never going to work" anger more than when he throws a glass into the middle of the top rack, teetering on a random prong. We have had actual arguments about whether the prongs are there to divide sections for you, making the best option placing the glasses securely between the prongs in even rows (my view) or whether the prongs are there to have a glass balanced upon them (his obviously erroneous view). When it was clear that he would not agree with my logic of the security and efficient space usage with my approach, I turned to pleading and begged him that as this issue clearly matters to me far more than to him, could he just do it my way?
For the most part, he does, and it has become the single biggest indicator of how far our living-together relationship has come in the last year and a half. When the glasses are placed evenly in rows in the dishwasher, not sloppily dangling haphazardly from prongs, I believe that we have found a balance, that he respects the work I do in the kitchen, that our lives can progress together in an organized home. But when I find a dangler, a leaner, or - god forbid it or my head will explode - a glass placed so carelessly that it has fallen completely on it's side, every insecurity about our loving survival rushes to the surface.
I realize it is sounding more and more like I should have been medicated years ago. Don't worry, I am careful to self-medicate daily and I will save you all from the pain I could share here about the chaos wine glasses cause if you are inclined (wrongly, from my point of view) to put them in the dishwasher. Despite Bob's exclusion, for the most part I can respect that other people load their dishwashers differently. What I can't abide, what I don't understand, what my anxious fingers can barely stop themselves from reaching out and fixing, is a toilet paper roll loaded the wrong way.
As these issues of right and wrong seem harder for others to see as clearly as I do, I will let you know that the wrong way to load a roll of toilet paper is with the free end hanging from behind the roll. The right way to load a roll of toilet paper is with the free end hanging on top of the roll, facing the wiper, nose-blower, or mischievous cat. Picture a hotel bathroom that tries to wow you with cleanliness and freshness by folding the tip into a neat triangle (and try to ignore that this shape means the person who was just cleaning the toilet then manhandled the bit of paper that you will soon be touching). Fine hotels and even most shitty motels recognize and illustrate the right way to load a toilet paper roll.
I feel the benefits of the right way are obvious: if the paper is loaded the wrong way, you can't see where the end is hanging. And if you start rolling the tube towards you, you could potentially miss the end as it passes by. When the paper is loaded the wrong way, you could spin the roll around a dozen times and the end wouldn't get any longer. But when the paper is loaded the right way, and you spin it towards you, the end will present itself and get longer and longer as you spin. The end is closer to you, offering itself with friendliness to your service, instead of lurking in the back against the wall or cabinet, hiding from your needs.
Here my obsessiveness reaches out of my own home. If I know you well and think you will love me anyway or if you are someone I know so little I don't care what you think of me, I will correct your toilet paper roll. If it is clear the roll was changed right before me and the homeowner likely doesn't know yet which way it is facing or if it was changed by a guest, I will fix it. Even though I hate those stupid spring-loaded contraptions and know I am risking encountering the faulty one where the spring pops out and the holder scatters in parts across the floor, I will still feel the strongest need to correct your roll's direction. I know it's invasive and rude and slightly crazy, but I guess I approach it like my plea to Bob to just do it my way because I clearly care more. If you care so little about your toilet paper access that you load it the wrong way, than you clearly can't care enough about it to mind if I turn it around. I find it hard to believe that anyone strongly feels it must be loaded backwards and prefers it that way. I assume anyone whose paper is loaded the wrong way is a victim of lazy chance.
And I now arrive at my second product endorsement of this blog: please explore the new world of toilet paper holders. The one single item that makes me the happiest in the entirety of our remodeled bathroom is the spring-less toilet paper holder. Instead of that squeezed plastic tube between two cruddy porcelain ends, our paper holder is a U-shaped curved bar. You simply slide the roll on and off the open end. The whole process can be done with one hand, an amazing revolution in toilet paper holder technology. I find this advancement so critical that I once gave the 21st-Century holder as a birthday gift to a friend mired in bathroom renovations. I daresay it was one of the most beautifully functional gifts I have ever wrapped.
I think it's clear that it's approaching medication time and thankfully a bottle of Chianti is already open. I am sorry to those of you who have been unsuspecting victims of my invasive toilet paper handling. I'm just trying to make the world a better place.
An example in the first category is loading the dishwasher. Bob would argue strongly that I put dish placement in the second category of obsessive rigidity, but that's only when it comes to loading our dishwasher. When I am helping to do the dishes in someone else's home, I respect the dishwasher style that they employ. I think glass racks are for glasses only (and any plastic containers or lids, as their instructions always clearly state "top rack only") and bowls are more closely aligned with plates, but if I am helping clean up at your house and you choose to mingle cups and bowls, I will follow your lead. I won't even judge you for it. I also think silverware should be placed with the handle pointing up for reasons of safety, cleanliness, and sanitation. Safety because if the sharp knife point is face-down, you don't risk grazing yourself as you hurry through loading to get to the t.v. in time for tipoff; Cleanliness because a dishwasher spraying from the bottom will hit the food-covered tips with the most force when the functional ends are closest; and Sanitation because you can move the clean silverware from the washer to the drawer by the handles without rubbing your potentially grubby fingers all over the eating ends. All of these clearly elucidated arguments aside, if your silverware has the spoon slopes and fork tines reaching for the sky, I will dangerously place the knife tip in the same direction.
In my own home, I believe that the glass rack only functions at it's highest potential if you don't sacrifice space to a prong-hogging bowl. The bottom rack can be piled and leaning chaos, but the top rack has evenly spaced rows for a reason. I doubt that Bob will ever understand why I care so much, and I doubt I could ever explain it, but nothing in the way we share space can throw me into a fit of "this is never going to work" anger more than when he throws a glass into the middle of the top rack, teetering on a random prong. We have had actual arguments about whether the prongs are there to divide sections for you, making the best option placing the glasses securely between the prongs in even rows (my view) or whether the prongs are there to have a glass balanced upon them (his obviously erroneous view). When it was clear that he would not agree with my logic of the security and efficient space usage with my approach, I turned to pleading and begged him that as this issue clearly matters to me far more than to him, could he just do it my way?
For the most part, he does, and it has become the single biggest indicator of how far our living-together relationship has come in the last year and a half. When the glasses are placed evenly in rows in the dishwasher, not sloppily dangling haphazardly from prongs, I believe that we have found a balance, that he respects the work I do in the kitchen, that our lives can progress together in an organized home. But when I find a dangler, a leaner, or - god forbid it or my head will explode - a glass placed so carelessly that it has fallen completely on it's side, every insecurity about our loving survival rushes to the surface.
I realize it is sounding more and more like I should have been medicated years ago. Don't worry, I am careful to self-medicate daily and I will save you all from the pain I could share here about the chaos wine glasses cause if you are inclined (wrongly, from my point of view) to put them in the dishwasher. Despite Bob's exclusion, for the most part I can respect that other people load their dishwashers differently. What I can't abide, what I don't understand, what my anxious fingers can barely stop themselves from reaching out and fixing, is a toilet paper roll loaded the wrong way.
As these issues of right and wrong seem harder for others to see as clearly as I do, I will let you know that the wrong way to load a roll of toilet paper is with the free end hanging from behind the roll. The right way to load a roll of toilet paper is with the free end hanging on top of the roll, facing the wiper, nose-blower, or mischievous cat. Picture a hotel bathroom that tries to wow you with cleanliness and freshness by folding the tip into a neat triangle (and try to ignore that this shape means the person who was just cleaning the toilet then manhandled the bit of paper that you will soon be touching). Fine hotels and even most shitty motels recognize and illustrate the right way to load a toilet paper roll.
I feel the benefits of the right way are obvious: if the paper is loaded the wrong way, you can't see where the end is hanging. And if you start rolling the tube towards you, you could potentially miss the end as it passes by. When the paper is loaded the wrong way, you could spin the roll around a dozen times and the end wouldn't get any longer. But when the paper is loaded the right way, and you spin it towards you, the end will present itself and get longer and longer as you spin. The end is closer to you, offering itself with friendliness to your service, instead of lurking in the back against the wall or cabinet, hiding from your needs.
Here my obsessiveness reaches out of my own home. If I know you well and think you will love me anyway or if you are someone I know so little I don't care what you think of me, I will correct your toilet paper roll. If it is clear the roll was changed right before me and the homeowner likely doesn't know yet which way it is facing or if it was changed by a guest, I will fix it. Even though I hate those stupid spring-loaded contraptions and know I am risking encountering the faulty one where the spring pops out and the holder scatters in parts across the floor, I will still feel the strongest need to correct your roll's direction. I know it's invasive and rude and slightly crazy, but I guess I approach it like my plea to Bob to just do it my way because I clearly care more. If you care so little about your toilet paper access that you load it the wrong way, than you clearly can't care enough about it to mind if I turn it around. I find it hard to believe that anyone strongly feels it must be loaded backwards and prefers it that way. I assume anyone whose paper is loaded the wrong way is a victim of lazy chance.
And I now arrive at my second product endorsement of this blog: please explore the new world of toilet paper holders. The one single item that makes me the happiest in the entirety of our remodeled bathroom is the spring-less toilet paper holder. Instead of that squeezed plastic tube between two cruddy porcelain ends, our paper holder is a U-shaped curved bar. You simply slide the roll on and off the open end. The whole process can be done with one hand, an amazing revolution in toilet paper holder technology. I find this advancement so critical that I once gave the 21st-Century holder as a birthday gift to a friend mired in bathroom renovations. I daresay it was one of the most beautifully functional gifts I have ever wrapped.
I think it's clear that it's approaching medication time and thankfully a bottle of Chianti is already open. I am sorry to those of you who have been unsuspecting victims of my invasive toilet paper handling. I'm just trying to make the world a better place.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
The Perplexities of Naked Chicken
I called my mom tonight, as I sometimes do in the throes of a chaotic cooking attempt. She knows the basics of how to cook most anything in that instinctual way that someone who has spent thirty years feeding a family develops. I still look everything up - how long, what temperature, how do I know it's ripe? There's no way I could pick out a cantaloupe at the store, but she does it by smell. She knows how much meat to buy for ten people, whereas I have to step away from the meat counter and overthink a calculation that often ends up in way too much or slightly too little. I glance at a recipe a dozen times to check temperatures and cook times, but with my mom, everytime my dad answers her that whatever he just put on the grill will take "about ten minutes", she knows which meats will really show up at the table in fifteen. Along with my own mom, it is probably an unsung trait of mothers everywhere that she is the one person in the house that everyone goes to to ask "How long should I heat this in the microwave?".
I think I took her off guard with the intro to my question tonight, when I told her "I'm always perplexed by the naked chicken." But I am. Tonight was the third time I worked with a whole chicken and couldn't for the life of me figure out which end goes up. I've looked it up in the past, and was reminded again tonight that my Betty Crocker cookbook is disappointing in it's lack of an anatomical poultry illustration. There's one for beef - each part of the cow carved into little steaks with the label of what cut they are. Apparently no one needs this detailed guide for the chicken, other than me.
Having to ask for help on the phone, I described the chicken to my mother the way you would give directions: "If you're on the street, looking at the entrance to the mall, Old Navy is to the left". I described the chicken as if the poor bird wasn't currently beheaded and featherless on my counter: "So if the chicken is walking around like a chicken, with his little legs under him and his wings on his sides, is the breast the part that's on his back, or what's under him facing the ground?" My mom lovingly ignored the ridiculousness of my question and answered with the respect all reference librarians give to finding the correct answer, and let me know that the breast was what I was describing as the chicken's back. She tried to help me further by getting me to picture the Thanksgiving turkey, but I lamely had to admit that while the turkey seems obvious, this little roaster chicken's proportions didn't make a top and bottom obvious to me. It's not surprising I couldn't figure out top and bottom, since I mixed up front and back as well when I grabbed onto the neck bone and tugged, thinking I was pulling on the giblets that were actually stuffed in the other end.
I thanked my mom for her help, knowing she was going to get off the phone and turn to her husband to share something along the lines of "Our brilliant daughter just called because she can't figure out which side of the chicken goes up", inviting my dad to join her in disbelief of how I couldn't know that. Chicken anatomy aside, I felt pretty confident about my recipe endeavor tonight. Knowing now, at least, not to try to stuff the neck bone, I filled the chicken with lemon, garlic, rosemary and thyme, mentally thanking Bob's old chef roommate for planting all of these great herbs. The chicken went in a pot on top of some Dutch potatoes, a sliced onion (a rarity for me, being an onion hater), and a carrot.
An hour and a half later, the chicken was gorgeous. I sent a cell phone photo with pride to family members, shouting "Roast Chicken!!", exuberantly and unabashedly typing two exclamation points in the text portion of the message. I picked up a sharp knife, cut into the golden roasted skin, and my heart sank. It was pink. I got a little further and was dismayed that it wasn't just pink, it was brown. I had a disgusting, rotten, undercooked chicken.
And then I realized I had cooked the damn thing upside down.
What I was cutting into was not the white expanse of breastmeat, but the multi-hued dark meat of the thigh. I sighed and flipped the bird over, rolling the beautiful buttery-golden and crispy skin into the collected liquid on the platter and exposing the flacid, soggy, pale-as-if-raw skin hanging over the breast. Before I cut into this unseasoned sheet of disappointment, I made Bob come in and look at the chicken's beautiful backside, sent back into the darkness in the name of traditional carvery.
One would think this gaffe means I will definitely get it right next time, with such a vivid picture of the wrong way, but I turned the wrong way down the same street dozens of times before figuring out how to get to the taco place where we eat at least once a month. I fear that "chicken anatomy" may permenantly sit next to "sense of direction" on the list of my weaknesses.
It was, however, a deliciously tasty bird.
I think I took her off guard with the intro to my question tonight, when I told her "I'm always perplexed by the naked chicken." But I am. Tonight was the third time I worked with a whole chicken and couldn't for the life of me figure out which end goes up. I've looked it up in the past, and was reminded again tonight that my Betty Crocker cookbook is disappointing in it's lack of an anatomical poultry illustration. There's one for beef - each part of the cow carved into little steaks with the label of what cut they are. Apparently no one needs this detailed guide for the chicken, other than me.
Having to ask for help on the phone, I described the chicken to my mother the way you would give directions: "If you're on the street, looking at the entrance to the mall, Old Navy is to the left". I described the chicken as if the poor bird wasn't currently beheaded and featherless on my counter: "So if the chicken is walking around like a chicken, with his little legs under him and his wings on his sides, is the breast the part that's on his back, or what's under him facing the ground?" My mom lovingly ignored the ridiculousness of my question and answered with the respect all reference librarians give to finding the correct answer, and let me know that the breast was what I was describing as the chicken's back. She tried to help me further by getting me to picture the Thanksgiving turkey, but I lamely had to admit that while the turkey seems obvious, this little roaster chicken's proportions didn't make a top and bottom obvious to me. It's not surprising I couldn't figure out top and bottom, since I mixed up front and back as well when I grabbed onto the neck bone and tugged, thinking I was pulling on the giblets that were actually stuffed in the other end.
I thanked my mom for her help, knowing she was going to get off the phone and turn to her husband to share something along the lines of "Our brilliant daughter just called because she can't figure out which side of the chicken goes up", inviting my dad to join her in disbelief of how I couldn't know that. Chicken anatomy aside, I felt pretty confident about my recipe endeavor tonight. Knowing now, at least, not to try to stuff the neck bone, I filled the chicken with lemon, garlic, rosemary and thyme, mentally thanking Bob's old chef roommate for planting all of these great herbs. The chicken went in a pot on top of some Dutch potatoes, a sliced onion (a rarity for me, being an onion hater), and a carrot.
An hour and a half later, the chicken was gorgeous. I sent a cell phone photo with pride to family members, shouting "Roast Chicken!!", exuberantly and unabashedly typing two exclamation points in the text portion of the message. I picked up a sharp knife, cut into the golden roasted skin, and my heart sank. It was pink. I got a little further and was dismayed that it wasn't just pink, it was brown. I had a disgusting, rotten, undercooked chicken.
And then I realized I had cooked the damn thing upside down.
What I was cutting into was not the white expanse of breastmeat, but the multi-hued dark meat of the thigh. I sighed and flipped the bird over, rolling the beautiful buttery-golden and crispy skin into the collected liquid on the platter and exposing the flacid, soggy, pale-as-if-raw skin hanging over the breast. Before I cut into this unseasoned sheet of disappointment, I made Bob come in and look at the chicken's beautiful backside, sent back into the darkness in the name of traditional carvery.
One would think this gaffe means I will definitely get it right next time, with such a vivid picture of the wrong way, but I turned the wrong way down the same street dozens of times before figuring out how to get to the taco place where we eat at least once a month. I fear that "chicken anatomy" may permenantly sit next to "sense of direction" on the list of my weaknesses.
It was, however, a deliciously tasty bird.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
A little bit about poop
I have a weird new obsession; I hoarde quality poop bags. When Diesel and I go for walks on the trails around the nearby lake, I fill my pockets with the greatest poop bag ever: the Mutt Mitt. After so many depressing trudges with thin, flimsy, holey grocery store bags, I now walk longer, further, faster because I have the Mutt Mitt! No poop will touch me!
What's so great about the Mutt Mitt is implied in it's name - the key is the mitt action. The Mutt Mitt is like a bag-shaped glove, no finger holes or anything, but when you put your hand inside, the bottom stretches open. You grab the load and then simply remove the bag from your hand in reverse, like sanitary procedure with a surgical glove.
Beyond the awesomely functional shape, the thickness of the plastic is what makes the whole mitt action bearable. Even a double-ply grocery bag leaves too much texture to be felt, too much of an 'omigod I'm touching poop, I'm touching poop!' feeling. Anyone with dog poop removal experience is well aware of the magical range of textures the product can come in - I will refrain from discussing them here except to pull out the tired claim that the Inuit people have a gazillion words for snow based on each kind's unique characteristics. We all know dog poop could also benefit from a range of descriptive names, but I think I would need a cocktail in hand to engage in that level of creativity. I'm sure a quick Google - which I do not recommend - would provide some other fecal-focused mind's vocabulary list on this topic.
Anyway, the delight of the Mutt Mitt is the solid, defending, i'm-here-for-you-honey layer of plastic between your hand and his gift. The 'mitt' portion of the bag is doubly thick and black - so there are few visual reminders of the bag's contents once the flip and seal is complete. And if I may take one tiny step too far into the true experience of picking up poop, the double layer of black protects you from the temperature of the cargo, avoiding the little lurch of the belly when you have to admit you are not only picking up poop, but picking up steaming, body-temperature poop freshly escaped from your furry friend.
I have purposely avoided researching the Mutt Mitt's claim of degradability, knowing deep down that when I look it up the standards of biodegradability that I should be considering as I throw plastic into the trash are unlikely to be met. But I Love This Poop Bag. And so I will accept 'degradable' as a wonderful thing and allow my naivety to keep my guilt at bay.
The rambling length of the paragraphs above should show my love for these poop bags. But now I'm spoiled. I struggle with issues of right-and-wrong as I stare at the freshly stocked dispensers at the park and long to grab and go. I glance furtively around to see if anyone is watching as I grab one, two, three...never more than that! Well, never more than that in one passing. For a while I had only a few precious Mutt Mitts in my possession and carefully doled them out using the forthcoming Inuit guide to dog poop textures, judging the necessity of a mitt based both on quality of dropping and distance to trash can.
Now that I've started hoarding them, I have them stowed everywhere. In my purse, in my rain coat pocket, in my winter coat pocket, under my car seat, in my cup holder. I treat them like the precious gifts I believe them to be - when I remove each one I carefully fold it into a neat rectangular shape and slide it flat into my pocket. I feel a stab of anger and confusion when I see the Mutt Mitts that come out of my boyfriend's pockets - stretched and wrinkled and crumpled as if they were just another bag from the RiteAid. I secretly go behind him and smooth out the plastic, triaging and trying to give my little bag friend the dignity he deserves for the heroic service he offers.
I dream of one day splurging at the snooty pet store and buying my own case of Mutt Mitts, an endless stream of mitts with no hoarding and no fear of sharing. But c'mon - they're poop bags. Who can afford to spend their money on that?
UPDATE 2012: I have owned my own supply of Mutt Mitts for over a year. Last Christmas I bought in bulk and every dog owner I meet under the Christmas tree received a travel pack. I'll never go back.
What's so great about the Mutt Mitt is implied in it's name - the key is the mitt action. The Mutt Mitt is like a bag-shaped glove, no finger holes or anything, but when you put your hand inside, the bottom stretches open. You grab the load and then simply remove the bag from your hand in reverse, like sanitary procedure with a surgical glove.
Beyond the awesomely functional shape, the thickness of the plastic is what makes the whole mitt action bearable. Even a double-ply grocery bag leaves too much texture to be felt, too much of an 'omigod I'm touching poop, I'm touching poop!' feeling. Anyone with dog poop removal experience is well aware of the magical range of textures the product can come in - I will refrain from discussing them here except to pull out the tired claim that the Inuit people have a gazillion words for snow based on each kind's unique characteristics. We all know dog poop could also benefit from a range of descriptive names, but I think I would need a cocktail in hand to engage in that level of creativity. I'm sure a quick Google - which I do not recommend - would provide some other fecal-focused mind's vocabulary list on this topic.
Anyway, the delight of the Mutt Mitt is the solid, defending, i'm-here-for-you-honey layer of plastic between your hand and his gift. The 'mitt' portion of the bag is doubly thick and black - so there are few visual reminders of the bag's contents once the flip and seal is complete. And if I may take one tiny step too far into the true experience of picking up poop, the double layer of black protects you from the temperature of the cargo, avoiding the little lurch of the belly when you have to admit you are not only picking up poop, but picking up steaming, body-temperature poop freshly escaped from your furry friend.
I have purposely avoided researching the Mutt Mitt's claim of degradability, knowing deep down that when I look it up the standards of biodegradability that I should be considering as I throw plastic into the trash are unlikely to be met. But I Love This Poop Bag. And so I will accept 'degradable' as a wonderful thing and allow my naivety to keep my guilt at bay.
The rambling length of the paragraphs above should show my love for these poop bags. But now I'm spoiled. I struggle with issues of right-and-wrong as I stare at the freshly stocked dispensers at the park and long to grab and go. I glance furtively around to see if anyone is watching as I grab one, two, three...never more than that! Well, never more than that in one passing. For a while I had only a few precious Mutt Mitts in my possession and carefully doled them out using the forthcoming Inuit guide to dog poop textures, judging the necessity of a mitt based both on quality of dropping and distance to trash can.
Now that I've started hoarding them, I have them stowed everywhere. In my purse, in my rain coat pocket, in my winter coat pocket, under my car seat, in my cup holder. I treat them like the precious gifts I believe them to be - when I remove each one I carefully fold it into a neat rectangular shape and slide it flat into my pocket. I feel a stab of anger and confusion when I see the Mutt Mitts that come out of my boyfriend's pockets - stretched and wrinkled and crumpled as if they were just another bag from the RiteAid. I secretly go behind him and smooth out the plastic, triaging and trying to give my little bag friend the dignity he deserves for the heroic service he offers.
I dream of one day splurging at the snooty pet store and buying my own case of Mutt Mitts, an endless stream of mitts with no hoarding and no fear of sharing. But c'mon - they're poop bags. Who can afford to spend their money on that?
UPDATE 2012: I have owned my own supply of Mutt Mitts for over a year. Last Christmas I bought in bulk and every dog owner I meet under the Christmas tree received a travel pack. I'll never go back.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Grocery Store Assholes
I am my father's daughter when it comes to people avoidance: ATMs, pay-at-the-pump, online registrations, scan-it-yourself express lines...all cater to those of us who would prefer to get most of our business done without the necessity of interaction with strangers. When I was scouting out furniture stores looking at new sofa possibilities, I tried and tried but always failed to get in the door and past the scrum of waiting salespeople without the obligatory (hoping for your commission) introductory attack:
"Are you looking for anything particular today?"
Just looking, thanks.
"Well we're having a big sale right now, blah diddy blah blah..."
Okay, thanks.
"I'll let you walk around for a bit and will check in with you later. Let me know if you need anything, I'm Phil."
Thanks, Phil.
and then, sigh, obligatory handshake. Not only forced chatter with strangers but forced touching with strangers.
My boyfriend anticipated these uncomfortable conversations much more savvily than I, choosing to don a ratty concert t-shirt with some sort of skull graphic along with not-the-freshest of pants. I made the mistake of showering and automatically became the target for every Phil's best-sale-ever diatribes.
So I'm not the sort of person who looks for conversational openings with strangers, who chucks a "wow, long line" to others queing, who queries "wonder when it will stop raining" of unknowns. I keep my head down, always avoid eye contact, and couldn't be any more in love with the scan-it-yourself line at the grocery store (although this love also speaks to my childhood fascination with playing 'store').
I'll engage in the necessary pleasantries with an appropriate smile to well-meaning strangers, but I was taken aback at the grocery store this weekend when smug-middle-aged-guy commented on my outfit. Apparantly he was offended, or just-jokingly-offended, by my sartorial expression of fandom. On the day that UNC was playing in the Elite Eight, while I was in the home state of UNC, while I was twenty miles from UNC, while I continued to be a UNC graduate, I dared wear a UNC t-shirt. To the grocery store!
Now, the twenty mile distance I live from Chapel Hill happens to place me in Raleigh, home to NC State University. I can only assume smug-middle-aged-guy-loitering-around-the-bread was a State fan, and a Carolina hater, as he stared at me and said "It takes a loyal fan to wear a shirt like that in these parts".
As we all know, in situations like this the witty and scathing and brilliant comebacks occur to you long after the exchange is over. If I had it to do all over again I would have said something along the lines of "Oh, is State playing today?" or "Did State make the NCAA tournament?" or, most harshly "Huh, I didn't think State even made the NIT". But, I'm not a hater. I don't have anything against State. When UNC plays them, I want the Tarheels to win, but that is the extent of my feelings for or against the Wolfpack.
So I was, as I said, taken aback that this random stranger who is a fan of a team whose season has ended and is not in the tournament would openly attack me for support of a team with a number one seed in the tournament, playing that day. Like by cheering for my alma mater, located just down the road, I was spitting in the face of Raleigh State fans. And as jokingly as he may have believed he meant it, his words, as written above, are nothing short of a threat. Like I could get my ass kicked for such an offense? And really, "in these parts"? Like we're in some dangerous wild west where offending the local gang could get me killed?
Not having the benefit of witty timing in this situation, I responded to his - I'm gonna go ahead and call it a threat - I responded to his threat with a friendly smile and "You gotta represent." To which he derisively sneered "You sure are with that shirt" as if my outfit was some insane glorification of fandom, and not a simple blue t-shirt with "Carolina" written on it.
All I wanted was some fucking bread, dude. I didn't come to the grocery store to have an ACC battle of fan loyalties while my rosemary olive oil loaf was being sliced. Not to mention the raging bachelorette party hangover I was pushing my way through to pick up some gametime snacks. So fuck off. That's what I should have said - skipped right past the State jibes, looked him in the face, and just said Fuck Off Asshole.
Wow, that would have been awesome.
"Are you looking for anything particular today?"
Just looking, thanks.
"Well we're having a big sale right now, blah diddy blah blah..."
Okay, thanks.
"I'll let you walk around for a bit and will check in with you later. Let me know if you need anything, I'm Phil."
Thanks, Phil.
and then, sigh, obligatory handshake. Not only forced chatter with strangers but forced touching with strangers.
My boyfriend anticipated these uncomfortable conversations much more savvily than I, choosing to don a ratty concert t-shirt with some sort of skull graphic along with not-the-freshest of pants. I made the mistake of showering and automatically became the target for every Phil's best-sale-ever diatribes.
So I'm not the sort of person who looks for conversational openings with strangers, who chucks a "wow, long line" to others queing, who queries "wonder when it will stop raining" of unknowns. I keep my head down, always avoid eye contact, and couldn't be any more in love with the scan-it-yourself line at the grocery store (although this love also speaks to my childhood fascination with playing 'store').
I'll engage in the necessary pleasantries with an appropriate smile to well-meaning strangers, but I was taken aback at the grocery store this weekend when smug-middle-aged-guy commented on my outfit. Apparantly he was offended, or just-jokingly-offended, by my sartorial expression of fandom. On the day that UNC was playing in the Elite Eight, while I was in the home state of UNC, while I was twenty miles from UNC, while I continued to be a UNC graduate, I dared wear a UNC t-shirt. To the grocery store!
Now, the twenty mile distance I live from Chapel Hill happens to place me in Raleigh, home to NC State University. I can only assume smug-middle-aged-guy-loitering-around-the-bread was a State fan, and a Carolina hater, as he stared at me and said "It takes a loyal fan to wear a shirt like that in these parts".
As we all know, in situations like this the witty and scathing and brilliant comebacks occur to you long after the exchange is over. If I had it to do all over again I would have said something along the lines of "Oh, is State playing today?" or "Did State make the NCAA tournament?" or, most harshly "Huh, I didn't think State even made the NIT". But, I'm not a hater. I don't have anything against State. When UNC plays them, I want the Tarheels to win, but that is the extent of my feelings for or against the Wolfpack.
So I was, as I said, taken aback that this random stranger who is a fan of a team whose season has ended and is not in the tournament would openly attack me for support of a team with a number one seed in the tournament, playing that day. Like by cheering for my alma mater, located just down the road, I was spitting in the face of Raleigh State fans. And as jokingly as he may have believed he meant it, his words, as written above, are nothing short of a threat. Like I could get my ass kicked for such an offense? And really, "in these parts"? Like we're in some dangerous wild west where offending the local gang could get me killed?
Not having the benefit of witty timing in this situation, I responded to his - I'm gonna go ahead and call it a threat - I responded to his threat with a friendly smile and "You gotta represent." To which he derisively sneered "You sure are with that shirt" as if my outfit was some insane glorification of fandom, and not a simple blue t-shirt with "Carolina" written on it.
All I wanted was some fucking bread, dude. I didn't come to the grocery store to have an ACC battle of fan loyalties while my rosemary olive oil loaf was being sliced. Not to mention the raging bachelorette party hangover I was pushing my way through to pick up some gametime snacks. So fuck off. That's what I should have said - skipped right past the State jibes, looked him in the face, and just said Fuck Off Asshole.
Wow, that would have been awesome.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Covered in Flour
I had a moment today when I was so pleased with the image I had of myself; I was delighted to see that I had become the sort of person who decided to whip up a loaf of bread as if it was no big deal.
While patting myself on the back for being this sort of handy, crafty, homey creator, I neglected to acknowledge the other images of myself that I have seen over and over again: that I am the sort of person who realizes halfway through mixing that she's out of an ingredient, that I am the sort of person who misses a step in the ingredients, and chiefly, that I am the sort of person that hates the feel of flour.
I decided to try to put aside my uneasiness and discomfort with the grainy feel of that white magnetic powder because my kitchen looked so pretty with my cookbook perched in a book holder, opened to the photo and recipe for "simple white bread". I glanced in my flour cannister and confidently guesstimated that I could provide the requested 4 1/2 cups for the dough. It was only when I fell slightly short of the last half cup that I realized I was supposed to have an additional half a cup to fold in while kneading the bread, and additionally needed the amount necessary to flour my surface for multiple kneadings, along with my rolling pin and dough-encased hands.
I "kneaded" anyway, without the extra flour additions. I reference kneading here in quotes because what I did was much closer to molestation. Without extra flour to stop the dough from sticking, I just squished and squashed the mass between my hands. The recipe instructed me to knead until the dough was smooth and elastic, and not sticking to my hands. I tried to ignore the final detail and scraped the globs from between my now-webbed fingers, with no idea what smooth and elastic dough should look like.
My original bread baking inspiration and pride in myself was based on my decision that I needn't drive to the store to pick up bread to have with dinner - I could just bake a homemade loaf! Shocking confidence, really, given the fact that I had previously only baked one brick of heavy dough where far more ended in the compost than in our bellies. Having decided it would be easier, and I guess more fun, to bake a loaf at home than go to the store, I had to stop my three-hour process of bread-making to drive the four minutes to the grocery store down the road and buy a bag of flour.
My intention was to enjoy fresh bread with last night's reheated leftovers, a worthy goal that I would have realized wasn't feasible if I had read the recipe more carefully and calculated the second hour of rising - putting bread readiness around 9:15pm.
It has, at least, turned out to be a pretty tasty dessert.
While patting myself on the back for being this sort of handy, crafty, homey creator, I neglected to acknowledge the other images of myself that I have seen over and over again: that I am the sort of person who realizes halfway through mixing that she's out of an ingredient, that I am the sort of person who misses a step in the ingredients, and chiefly, that I am the sort of person that hates the feel of flour.
I decided to try to put aside my uneasiness and discomfort with the grainy feel of that white magnetic powder because my kitchen looked so pretty with my cookbook perched in a book holder, opened to the photo and recipe for "simple white bread". I glanced in my flour cannister and confidently guesstimated that I could provide the requested 4 1/2 cups for the dough. It was only when I fell slightly short of the last half cup that I realized I was supposed to have an additional half a cup to fold in while kneading the bread, and additionally needed the amount necessary to flour my surface for multiple kneadings, along with my rolling pin and dough-encased hands.
I "kneaded" anyway, without the extra flour additions. I reference kneading here in quotes because what I did was much closer to molestation. Without extra flour to stop the dough from sticking, I just squished and squashed the mass between my hands. The recipe instructed me to knead until the dough was smooth and elastic, and not sticking to my hands. I tried to ignore the final detail and scraped the globs from between my now-webbed fingers, with no idea what smooth and elastic dough should look like.
My original bread baking inspiration and pride in myself was based on my decision that I needn't drive to the store to pick up bread to have with dinner - I could just bake a homemade loaf! Shocking confidence, really, given the fact that I had previously only baked one brick of heavy dough where far more ended in the compost than in our bellies. Having decided it would be easier, and I guess more fun, to bake a loaf at home than go to the store, I had to stop my three-hour process of bread-making to drive the four minutes to the grocery store down the road and buy a bag of flour.
My intention was to enjoy fresh bread with last night's reheated leftovers, a worthy goal that I would have realized wasn't feasible if I had read the recipe more carefully and calculated the second hour of rising - putting bread readiness around 9:15pm.
It has, at least, turned out to be a pretty tasty dessert.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Little Brats
Last week I had the great pleasure to spend some time with my 3 1/2-year old niece - and, as I love her and she's mine, she's of course not in any way associated with "little brats". OTHER people's kids are little brats. And it was interacting with them that made me realize I automatically assume as such.
Kara and I enjoyed some time in the sunshine at the park. While Kara climbed on the playground apparatus, I sat on the retaining wall around the edge. At one point, a 5-year-oldish-looking boy walked along the wall right up to me, I think even stubbing me with his feet, and said "Uh oh!". The boy had apparently decided he was a train, and from his ramble it appears he believed he was some sort of 'ghost train', and here I was sitting on the track he was traveling around. I think the boy assumed with his "uh oh", standing right on top of me, and the explanation of the ghost train's needs, I would of course get off the track and let him proceed.
It struck me later what it says about me that I didn't get up. It would have taken a modicum of effort to stand up, lift my purse and Kara's sweatshirt from the wall next to me, and let this little boy pass. But still, I held my ground, listened to the boy's incomprehensible story, and waited for him to give up. I don't know if I would have stood up for Kara - probably. I would have thought her using the wall as a train track was incredibly cute and likely would have been recording the whole thing.
Somehow my refusal to stand and the extended interaction it caused between us led this kid to believe I was playing with him. When I crossed paths with him later, checking on a 'whooops' trip that caused Kara to cry and need a hug but of course not to stop playing, the little boy stopped me by physically grabbing my hand and proceeded to regale me for five minutes with tales of Power Rangers and something that sounded like Tai Chi. If this had been a guy in a bar, I would have used my best "I have no desire to talk to you" stare of disinterest, but as it was a 5-year old, I felt obligated to "um hmm" and "oh, really?" and fake my way through understanding and caring what he had to say.
He was a decent kid and probably thinking of him as a little brat is a bit harsh, but that he had the gall to assume I would move for HIM? And that I should listen to HIM babble? It's not the sort of behavior I enjoy in adults and I think I apply the same standards to little kids (except for my darling, precious, never wrong Kara). Or I'm just a jerk, which is sort of how I felt when I thought back to my refusal to get out of the ghost train's way.
Kara and I enjoyed some time in the sunshine at the park. While Kara climbed on the playground apparatus, I sat on the retaining wall around the edge. At one point, a 5-year-oldish-looking boy walked along the wall right up to me, I think even stubbing me with his feet, and said "Uh oh!". The boy had apparently decided he was a train, and from his ramble it appears he believed he was some sort of 'ghost train', and here I was sitting on the track he was traveling around. I think the boy assumed with his "uh oh", standing right on top of me, and the explanation of the ghost train's needs, I would of course get off the track and let him proceed.
It struck me later what it says about me that I didn't get up. It would have taken a modicum of effort to stand up, lift my purse and Kara's sweatshirt from the wall next to me, and let this little boy pass. But still, I held my ground, listened to the boy's incomprehensible story, and waited for him to give up. I don't know if I would have stood up for Kara - probably. I would have thought her using the wall as a train track was incredibly cute and likely would have been recording the whole thing.
Somehow my refusal to stand and the extended interaction it caused between us led this kid to believe I was playing with him. When I crossed paths with him later, checking on a 'whooops' trip that caused Kara to cry and need a hug but of course not to stop playing, the little boy stopped me by physically grabbing my hand and proceeded to regale me for five minutes with tales of Power Rangers and something that sounded like Tai Chi. If this had been a guy in a bar, I would have used my best "I have no desire to talk to you" stare of disinterest, but as it was a 5-year old, I felt obligated to "um hmm" and "oh, really?" and fake my way through understanding and caring what he had to say.
He was a decent kid and probably thinking of him as a little brat is a bit harsh, but that he had the gall to assume I would move for HIM? And that I should listen to HIM babble? It's not the sort of behavior I enjoy in adults and I think I apply the same standards to little kids (except for my darling, precious, never wrong Kara). Or I'm just a jerk, which is sort of how I felt when I thought back to my refusal to get out of the ghost train's way.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
To Pee or Not To Pee *
* A thousand apologies for the completely overplayed allusion in the title. But it is, indeed, the question.
Last week Bob and I journeyed to the new Durham Performing Arts Center to see the legendary Willie Nelson. It was a great show and Willie delivered far beyond what I expected from a man who has spent as many years as he has traveling the country high on a bus.
We were delighted to see copious drinking options at the new venue as well as permission to take libations to our seats. And so it was that we settled in to the fourth and fifth seats of Orchestra row Q with 24-ounce cans of Miller Lite in our hands. Willie's backing band, "Asleep at the Wheel", also served as his opening band and they performed toe-tapping yee-haw country for a good 30-40 minutes before the diminutive headliner joined them on stage. When Willie finally joined the stage it was pretty much the exact moment that I realized I needed to pee.
Seeing there would be no break between the opening music and the music we came to hear, I figured perhaps Willie's age would grant us all a set break. So I waited. And looked at my watch. And slowly began to accept that there would be no break, that any bathroom trip would have to be a rogue one, stepping out at the critically appropriate moment, over the feet and laps of strangers, scurrying up the rows trying not to obstruct the view, undoing the belt on the way to the stall, and peeing/buckling/flushing/washing (no time for drying) as fast as possible so as not to miss whatever classic song it would turn out to be that the crowd cheered for as I sat on the porcelain throne.
Of course, just as I accepted that I now really had to pee and there would be no set break, Willie switched from the new stuff that everyone politely clapped for to the greatest hits portion of the night. I pushed my pee thoughts aside momentarily to enjoy You Were Always on My Mind, swayed along with Crazy, agreed I wouldn't let my babies grow up to be cowboys, tried not to picture the opening scenes from Designing Women as he sang Georgia and decided that now, no matter what, whatever the next song was, I was going to have to pee. (all song titles referenced here are obviously lacking in accuracy and are only what I think the song is called).
And then Willie started playing On the Road Again. Now really, how can you pay $65 to see Willie Nelson - $65! - and leave the theatre as he's playing On the Road Again? That would just be ridiculous. And so I waited.
Not choosing to leave the theatre so as not to miss a good song is the saner side of my pee-holding. But I have to admit here that there was also a social anxiety element at play - the paralyzing power of those three strangers between myself and the exit aisle. It wasn't as simple as getting up and going - it would involve "excuse me, pardon me, oops, sorry, thank you, oof...", not once, but twice. Even though this was a concert, it was a sitting concert, and a sitting concert with older people, people who settle in and get their coats adjusted and glare at you in a "damn kid" sort of way when you have to jostle by them to go pee out the 24-ounce beer that they judged harshly in your hand when you first sat down. At one point the guy inside of me, further from the aisle, got up and myself, Bob, and the three strangers all stood up to let him by. I knew I should go then, to limit the rustling of the row by just sneaking through with him, while the pee-denying strangers were already standing. But I balked and missed my moment, hesitating because I considered that myself and Metro Blazer Guy would come back separately, thereby disturbing the triad of aisle defenders too many times. I missed the perfect moment to go, overthinking to pee or not to pee.
In the end, I clapped and cheered and Willie encored and wowed, but only ten percent of me was enjoying the show. Ninety percent of me was thinking pee, pee, pee, pee, pee, pee. It made me wonder how much of my life I have spent missing out, not fully being able to enjoy the experience in front of me because of the nagging persistence of my bladder. It seems inevitable at concerts and movies, frequent on car rides, unbearable on airplanes during landing when I waited too long and now we're quarantined to our seats. It seems only fair that with the majority of time I apparantly spend thinking about bathroom trips, I at least give it a few moments' thought here.
And I wonder now, after reading this tale, how many of you may have to pee?
Last week Bob and I journeyed to the new Durham Performing Arts Center to see the legendary Willie Nelson. It was a great show and Willie delivered far beyond what I expected from a man who has spent as many years as he has traveling the country high on a bus.
We were delighted to see copious drinking options at the new venue as well as permission to take libations to our seats. And so it was that we settled in to the fourth and fifth seats of Orchestra row Q with 24-ounce cans of Miller Lite in our hands. Willie's backing band, "Asleep at the Wheel", also served as his opening band and they performed toe-tapping yee-haw country for a good 30-40 minutes before the diminutive headliner joined them on stage. When Willie finally joined the stage it was pretty much the exact moment that I realized I needed to pee.
Seeing there would be no break between the opening music and the music we came to hear, I figured perhaps Willie's age would grant us all a set break. So I waited. And looked at my watch. And slowly began to accept that there would be no break, that any bathroom trip would have to be a rogue one, stepping out at the critically appropriate moment, over the feet and laps of strangers, scurrying up the rows trying not to obstruct the view, undoing the belt on the way to the stall, and peeing/buckling/flushing/washing (no time for drying) as fast as possible so as not to miss whatever classic song it would turn out to be that the crowd cheered for as I sat on the porcelain throne.
Of course, just as I accepted that I now really had to pee and there would be no set break, Willie switched from the new stuff that everyone politely clapped for to the greatest hits portion of the night. I pushed my pee thoughts aside momentarily to enjoy You Were Always on My Mind, swayed along with Crazy, agreed I wouldn't let my babies grow up to be cowboys, tried not to picture the opening scenes from Designing Women as he sang Georgia and decided that now, no matter what, whatever the next song was, I was going to have to pee. (all song titles referenced here are obviously lacking in accuracy and are only what I think the song is called).
And then Willie started playing On the Road Again. Now really, how can you pay $65 to see Willie Nelson - $65! - and leave the theatre as he's playing On the Road Again? That would just be ridiculous. And so I waited.
Not choosing to leave the theatre so as not to miss a good song is the saner side of my pee-holding. But I have to admit here that there was also a social anxiety element at play - the paralyzing power of those three strangers between myself and the exit aisle. It wasn't as simple as getting up and going - it would involve "excuse me, pardon me, oops, sorry, thank you, oof...", not once, but twice. Even though this was a concert, it was a sitting concert, and a sitting concert with older people, people who settle in and get their coats adjusted and glare at you in a "damn kid" sort of way when you have to jostle by them to go pee out the 24-ounce beer that they judged harshly in your hand when you first sat down. At one point the guy inside of me, further from the aisle, got up and myself, Bob, and the three strangers all stood up to let him by. I knew I should go then, to limit the rustling of the row by just sneaking through with him, while the pee-denying strangers were already standing. But I balked and missed my moment, hesitating because I considered that myself and Metro Blazer Guy would come back separately, thereby disturbing the triad of aisle defenders too many times. I missed the perfect moment to go, overthinking to pee or not to pee.
In the end, I clapped and cheered and Willie encored and wowed, but only ten percent of me was enjoying the show. Ninety percent of me was thinking pee, pee, pee, pee, pee, pee. It made me wonder how much of my life I have spent missing out, not fully being able to enjoy the experience in front of me because of the nagging persistence of my bladder. It seems inevitable at concerts and movies, frequent on car rides, unbearable on airplanes during landing when I waited too long and now we're quarantined to our seats. It seems only fair that with the majority of time I apparantly spend thinking about bathroom trips, I at least give it a few moments' thought here.
And I wonder now, after reading this tale, how many of you may have to pee?
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
An Allegory
As I have commented in an earlier post and demonstrated in a few, I enjoy and often find metaphorical meaning in literal actions or statements - like searching for meaning in running with cheese or walking on frozen footsteps. Sometimes the converse happens as well and I was struck last evening by the walking demonstration of a commonly thrown about adage.
I am surprised now to find that the phrase I will be referencing originates in the Bible (and not at all surprised that I wasn't able to recognize it as such). The Biblical origins of the enacted simile are all the more humorous to me as my story takes place in a smoky, drunken bar - a wonderful place for Tuesday night Guinness on special, but perhaps one that doesn't often inspire Bible quotes.
At the table behind my group of imbibement sat a heavily smoking trio of drinkers. My back was to the group of three women and I didn't notice much about them other than the irritating level of noxious fumes floating over the booth wall until the patrons arose and readied to leave the bar. In the hand of each woman was a long, slender cane and two of the women placed large, dark glasses over their eyes. They then stood in a line, each holding a cane with one hand and a friend's shoulder with the other.
I couldn't stop my amazed mind from silently screaming over and over, "The blind leading the blind. The blind leading the blind!" I didn't have time to really think about the phrase and explore or acknowledge that it is not often quoted as a celebration of the resourcefulness of the unsighted, but instead as a warning about the dangers of the unenlightened leading the unenlightened. Before my mind grabbed at the connotation denoted to "the blind leading the blind", the metaphorical danger was literally enacted in front of me, as the second woman in the trio (both a blind follower and a blind leader), smacked face front into a wall. The blind (or, one assumes, the semi-sighted, as she was placed in front and wore eyeglasses) leader failed to communicate the sharpness of the turn out the door either with words or her body movement and the second woman failed to angle her body sharply enough for the egress.
I don't mean in any way to indicate that I found pleasure or humor in the path of these women and I felt guilty witnessing the wall bonk, but I still can't get over my amazement of the perfect literal enactment of the blind leading the blind. It is, indeed, a dangerous thing. And, if it not so wordy and perhaps offensive to the original Biblical meaning, I would add a caveat that it is even more dangerous for the drunken blind to lead the drunken blind.
I am surprised now to find that the phrase I will be referencing originates in the Bible (and not at all surprised that I wasn't able to recognize it as such). The Biblical origins of the enacted simile are all the more humorous to me as my story takes place in a smoky, drunken bar - a wonderful place for Tuesday night Guinness on special, but perhaps one that doesn't often inspire Bible quotes.
At the table behind my group of imbibement sat a heavily smoking trio of drinkers. My back was to the group of three women and I didn't notice much about them other than the irritating level of noxious fumes floating over the booth wall until the patrons arose and readied to leave the bar. In the hand of each woman was a long, slender cane and two of the women placed large, dark glasses over their eyes. They then stood in a line, each holding a cane with one hand and a friend's shoulder with the other.
I couldn't stop my amazed mind from silently screaming over and over, "The blind leading the blind. The blind leading the blind!" I didn't have time to really think about the phrase and explore or acknowledge that it is not often quoted as a celebration of the resourcefulness of the unsighted, but instead as a warning about the dangers of the unenlightened leading the unenlightened. Before my mind grabbed at the connotation denoted to "the blind leading the blind", the metaphorical danger was literally enacted in front of me, as the second woman in the trio (both a blind follower and a blind leader), smacked face front into a wall. The blind (or, one assumes, the semi-sighted, as she was placed in front and wore eyeglasses) leader failed to communicate the sharpness of the turn out the door either with words or her body movement and the second woman failed to angle her body sharply enough for the egress.
I don't mean in any way to indicate that I found pleasure or humor in the path of these women and I felt guilty witnessing the wall bonk, but I still can't get over my amazement of the perfect literal enactment of the blind leading the blind. It is, indeed, a dangerous thing. And, if it not so wordy and perhaps offensive to the original Biblical meaning, I would add a caveat that it is even more dangerous for the drunken blind to lead the drunken blind.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Literary Fears
I hate used books. At my poorest as a graduate student, when buying a six-pack of tall boys was splurging, I bent my will to the savings offered by previously read editions, but it was only out of financial desperation. Given my true druthers, I would only touch the fresh crisp pages of new publishing, would only smell the chemical airs escaping from shrink-wrapped volumes, and would only scan my eyes across pristine pages free of smudge, crumb, or dog-ear.
This, dare I admit, 'obsession' with new books certainly has no roots in my childhood. My mother is a librarian for god's sake - you can only imagine how much of my childhood was spent in a library, touching, reading, smelling, holding, loving library books. No Saturday errand run was complete without choosing a stack to check out and take home. My own personal after-school program was spending hours playing treasure hunt with the card catalog and no other place in the world offers more feelings of safety and love to me than my mom's library.
But yet, I can barely stomach touching used books. On the rare occassions in my adult life that I have frequented a library for the purposes of recreational fiction, my selections were based more heavily on which books were freshly carded and shelved than what was highly lauded. It's quite possible that my research endeavors were subconsciously shaped by this aversion to older volumes as well, rationalized in my head as an attempt to capture the most recent research on a topic. Perhaps I even would have been able to finish my PhD if I hadn't been so averse to spending extended time with the highlights and underlinings of strangers.
One might argue that used academic books offer not only financial savings, but also a built in cliff's notes of a sort since the important sections are already marked. One might argue this if one also does not assume that most everyone else in the world is an idiot. I never had any faith that the anonymous student before me offered any value with his or her highlighting, underlines, or notes. Perhaps used academic books should come with a description of the previous owner's class performance, so we could tell better if the A-student's notes are of value or if the C-student's highlights should be categorically ignored.
Not only do you have to ignore the previous readers' scribbles, but you have to add your own on top or around. Last year's slacker used a yellow highlighter, so now I must pull out the too vivid green one, the pepto-y pink one, or, worst of all, the neon blue one. Color chaos on the page! Yellow, blue, and then those necessary times when I must trace my blue highlight over yesteryear's yellow highlight and the basic laws of primary colors add green to my page. Yellow, blue, and green? It's just too much to take.
While the marks of strangers appall my senses, nothing delights me more than writing in my own books. Writing in MY books. Adding MY thoughts. Underlining MY quotes of value. Recording a living diary of how I experienced these pages, where my eyes rested longer, where my mind struggled out an interpretation that needed to be noted. A squiggly line under the words of greatest import, brackets around a bit that I don't quite understand, and the audacious exclamation point in the margin when I find the deepest meat of it all, when the author offers me the thought at the very root of all the words around it.
So here I digress into my love of books, a much more satisfying and fulfilling exploration perhaps than my fear of stranger's germs, but I must get back to my primary point. My primary point being, of course, that used books are icky. There may well be some law of nature that requires readers to hold either chocolate or peanut butter over the course of reading a new book. What else could explain the preponderance of smudgy fingerprints in library books? And why, oh god why, is it so hard for people to find bookmarks? Is there no scrap of paper in your home? No magazine laying about, no grocery store receipt? Please, I beg of you world, stop folding pages. If you are absolutely incapable of finding your place again at the beginning of Chapter Three, then you probably don't understand the plot anyway.
I have forced myself to explore this issue here today to try to understand why in my unemployed state I allowed myself to spend thirty dollars at Barnes and Noble today (throw in chastisement that I didn't spend this money at a locally-owned, independent bookseller) when there is a perfectly good library down the street. I can't even claim that I buy my own copies out of a desire to keep them for my own library. While of course I love having books around and covet my copies of Tolkein, Dumas, Shakespeare, an academic life long ago cured me of the need to keep every book.
I will just have to hope that when the savings account shrinks, my dear librarian mother who knowingly accepts these minor psychoses of mine will continue to aid and abet my love of new books.
This, dare I admit, 'obsession' with new books certainly has no roots in my childhood. My mother is a librarian for god's sake - you can only imagine how much of my childhood was spent in a library, touching, reading, smelling, holding, loving library books. No Saturday errand run was complete without choosing a stack to check out and take home. My own personal after-school program was spending hours playing treasure hunt with the card catalog and no other place in the world offers more feelings of safety and love to me than my mom's library.
But yet, I can barely stomach touching used books. On the rare occassions in my adult life that I have frequented a library for the purposes of recreational fiction, my selections were based more heavily on which books were freshly carded and shelved than what was highly lauded. It's quite possible that my research endeavors were subconsciously shaped by this aversion to older volumes as well, rationalized in my head as an attempt to capture the most recent research on a topic. Perhaps I even would have been able to finish my PhD if I hadn't been so averse to spending extended time with the highlights and underlinings of strangers.
One might argue that used academic books offer not only financial savings, but also a built in cliff's notes of a sort since the important sections are already marked. One might argue this if one also does not assume that most everyone else in the world is an idiot. I never had any faith that the anonymous student before me offered any value with his or her highlighting, underlines, or notes. Perhaps used academic books should come with a description of the previous owner's class performance, so we could tell better if the A-student's notes are of value or if the C-student's highlights should be categorically ignored.
Not only do you have to ignore the previous readers' scribbles, but you have to add your own on top or around. Last year's slacker used a yellow highlighter, so now I must pull out the too vivid green one, the pepto-y pink one, or, worst of all, the neon blue one. Color chaos on the page! Yellow, blue, and then those necessary times when I must trace my blue highlight over yesteryear's yellow highlight and the basic laws of primary colors add green to my page. Yellow, blue, and green? It's just too much to take.
While the marks of strangers appall my senses, nothing delights me more than writing in my own books. Writing in MY books. Adding MY thoughts. Underlining MY quotes of value. Recording a living diary of how I experienced these pages, where my eyes rested longer, where my mind struggled out an interpretation that needed to be noted. A squiggly line under the words of greatest import, brackets around a bit that I don't quite understand, and the audacious exclamation point in the margin when I find the deepest meat of it all, when the author offers me the thought at the very root of all the words around it.
So here I digress into my love of books, a much more satisfying and fulfilling exploration perhaps than my fear of stranger's germs, but I must get back to my primary point. My primary point being, of course, that used books are icky. There may well be some law of nature that requires readers to hold either chocolate or peanut butter over the course of reading a new book. What else could explain the preponderance of smudgy fingerprints in library books? And why, oh god why, is it so hard for people to find bookmarks? Is there no scrap of paper in your home? No magazine laying about, no grocery store receipt? Please, I beg of you world, stop folding pages. If you are absolutely incapable of finding your place again at the beginning of Chapter Three, then you probably don't understand the plot anyway.
I have forced myself to explore this issue here today to try to understand why in my unemployed state I allowed myself to spend thirty dollars at Barnes and Noble today (throw in chastisement that I didn't spend this money at a locally-owned, independent bookseller) when there is a perfectly good library down the street. I can't even claim that I buy my own copies out of a desire to keep them for my own library. While of course I love having books around and covet my copies of Tolkein, Dumas, Shakespeare, an academic life long ago cured me of the need to keep every book.
I will just have to hope that when the savings account shrinks, my dear librarian mother who knowingly accepts these minor psychoses of mine will continue to aid and abet my love of new books.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
TMI (too much information)
I went through four pairs of underwear today. Now, before you turn away in disgust, let me promise you that there will be no mention of human fecal matter, urine issues, or even girl stuff, in the paragraphs below. And, if you are disappointed by that turn, I sincerely apologize; I am sure there are other blogs out there that might better cater to your interests.
The first two are easy enough to account for. Woke up in a pair, showered, and dressed in a clean pair - pretty standard daily underwear use.
I had to change into a third pair after being caught in a monsoon. Well, to be fair, it was just some rain, but monsoon sounds much more dramatic and even a downpour doesn't encourage accurate images of how wet I became.
It's all the dog's fault. Or, my dog-related guilt. The poor pup continued to look so cute and plaintive about having an outdoor adventure that I agreed to take him for a walk around the lake despite the color of the sky. I like to let him decide the direction at crossroads, although he is such a good dog he waits for the person walking him to lead the way. Today he seemed to know I was trying to short-change him though and immediately chose the long way when I paused to let him point out a direction.
I had set a goal of the next bend to turn around when the trees and the sky and the motion and the air signaled quite clearly that even the next bend was too far. It seemed the exact second I turned around to head back to the car, I turned into a wall of rain. It was refreshing, walking through the dramatic storm, except for the soaked jeans, sloshy shoes, and that tiny hint of danger that always screams out inside girls about the risks of being alone in the woods.
It's amazing how much water comes off a dog in that shake-shake-shake rhythm that zigs down their bodies. Unfortunately, you can really tell how much water flies off the dog - in all directions - when those shake-shake-shakes occur in the backseat of your car. Wow. What a freaking mess. When we made it home I toweled him off, toweled me off, changed into what I'm sure you now recognize as the third pair of underwear, and toweled off the car. I had intended to stop at the store on the way back from our walk, so I headed out in dry gear to pick up dinner ingredients.
And that's when I was just stupid. All that effort to dry off me, dry off the dog, and dry off everything the dog touched or sprayed, and I stupidly sat right down on the wet driver's seat that my previously soaked bottom had dampened. I didn't realize it until I got to the store and was walking towards the door, feeling the wet and looking back to see that my light gray pants were made of the sort of material that screams out wetness by turning a completely different dark color, hinting to strangers that I may well have wet my pants.
And so, despite sitting on a shopping bag for the return trip, upon my arrival home I also arrived at my fourth pair of the day. It's 10:00pm now and I'm trying to remain confident I'm going to hold it to four. Otherwise, tomorrow is definitely laundry day.
The first two are easy enough to account for. Woke up in a pair, showered, and dressed in a clean pair - pretty standard daily underwear use.
I had to change into a third pair after being caught in a monsoon. Well, to be fair, it was just some rain, but monsoon sounds much more dramatic and even a downpour doesn't encourage accurate images of how wet I became.
It's all the dog's fault. Or, my dog-related guilt. The poor pup continued to look so cute and plaintive about having an outdoor adventure that I agreed to take him for a walk around the lake despite the color of the sky. I like to let him decide the direction at crossroads, although he is such a good dog he waits for the person walking him to lead the way. Today he seemed to know I was trying to short-change him though and immediately chose the long way when I paused to let him point out a direction.
I had set a goal of the next bend to turn around when the trees and the sky and the motion and the air signaled quite clearly that even the next bend was too far. It seemed the exact second I turned around to head back to the car, I turned into a wall of rain. It was refreshing, walking through the dramatic storm, except for the soaked jeans, sloshy shoes, and that tiny hint of danger that always screams out inside girls about the risks of being alone in the woods.
It's amazing how much water comes off a dog in that shake-shake-shake rhythm that zigs down their bodies. Unfortunately, you can really tell how much water flies off the dog - in all directions - when those shake-shake-shakes occur in the backseat of your car. Wow. What a freaking mess. When we made it home I toweled him off, toweled me off, changed into what I'm sure you now recognize as the third pair of underwear, and toweled off the car. I had intended to stop at the store on the way back from our walk, so I headed out in dry gear to pick up dinner ingredients.
And that's when I was just stupid. All that effort to dry off me, dry off the dog, and dry off everything the dog touched or sprayed, and I stupidly sat right down on the wet driver's seat that my previously soaked bottom had dampened. I didn't realize it until I got to the store and was walking towards the door, feeling the wet and looking back to see that my light gray pants were made of the sort of material that screams out wetness by turning a completely different dark color, hinting to strangers that I may well have wet my pants.
And so, despite sitting on a shopping bag for the return trip, upon my arrival home I also arrived at my fourth pair of the day. It's 10:00pm now and I'm trying to remain confident I'm going to hold it to four. Otherwise, tomorrow is definitely laundry day.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Things I've Stopped Doing Since I Left My Job
- Brushing my hair
- Eating french fries at lunchtime
- Wondering if the Code of Federal Regulations or an FDA Guidance addresses the situation in front of me
- Wearing khakis or any pants that could be considered 'slacks'
- Drinking bad coffee
- Saving the drinking of bad coffee as my mid-morning treat
- Answering the phone "This is Kirsten"
- Hoarding those preciously tiny, mini binder clips
- Spending money at Target, my favorite lunchtime haunt
- Stressing over stupid shit
- Printing
- Small talk
- Knowing the date without looking at my watch
- Using cans of compressed air to clean cracker crumbs out of my keyboard crevices
- Spending time in the grocery store during the rush hour crush
Things I Miss Doing Since I Left My Job:
- Printing
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Frozen Steps
I like tripping over metaphors, hearing words in my head about a basic thing that hint at or shout out a double meaning - an application of meaningful import beyond the mundane situation to which they were first applied. And so I offer to you this sage advice:
Be wary of trying to walk on yesterday's frozen footprints.
We had a beautiful snow day on Inauguration Day, a rarity in these parts, and a perfectly cozy and majestically lovely day to watch the changing of the guard. But before the hours of coverage, we joined the dog on a romp through the neighborhood and enjoyed the crisp freshness of a still-falling snow. The next day's dog walk was slightly less crisp, not so much fresh, and far more dangerous. All the footprints of the previous day were now frozen into slippery shoe-shaped soles of ice, with tread and traction detail poking up edgy ice bits.
I found walking on yesterday's frozen footprints difficult and dangerous and a process that slowed me down considerably as the energetic lab I was leashed to desired to prance ahead at a much faster pace. It was no good walking on yesterday's frozen steps, following yesterday's path, trying to recreate an old pattern without acknowledging today's new context and needs. It was necessary to make new steps, a new path, and avoid the slips and jabs of old footprints.
And so I stepped into the unmarred snow and made my way forward with a far more free, far more fulfilling, and far more rapid pace towards my goals, recognizing that yesterday's footprints won't get me to today's places.
Be wary of trying to walk on yesterday's frozen footprints.
We had a beautiful snow day on Inauguration Day, a rarity in these parts, and a perfectly cozy and majestically lovely day to watch the changing of the guard. But before the hours of coverage, we joined the dog on a romp through the neighborhood and enjoyed the crisp freshness of a still-falling snow. The next day's dog walk was slightly less crisp, not so much fresh, and far more dangerous. All the footprints of the previous day were now frozen into slippery shoe-shaped soles of ice, with tread and traction detail poking up edgy ice bits.
I found walking on yesterday's frozen footprints difficult and dangerous and a process that slowed me down considerably as the energetic lab I was leashed to desired to prance ahead at a much faster pace. It was no good walking on yesterday's frozen steps, following yesterday's path, trying to recreate an old pattern without acknowledging today's new context and needs. It was necessary to make new steps, a new path, and avoid the slips and jabs of old footprints.
And so I stepped into the unmarred snow and made my way forward with a far more free, far more fulfilling, and far more rapid pace towards my goals, recognizing that yesterday's footprints won't get me to today's places.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Dangers of Sports Radio
I used to listen to broadcasts of my team's basketball games and post-game commentary on a local rock station. A few years ago the rock station became a country station but retained the game broadcasts. Usually I pull in somewhere and hop out of the car with the game still going or the interviews continuing, so it's always a bit disconcerting when I next start the car and am surprised to hear country music blaring.
I had the fortune to attend a game with my brother recently and in our long wait to roll out of the parking lot after our victory, we listened to the coach interview and stats. The next day when I got in the car, I heard one line of a country song. Just one line before my hand shot to the controls and jabbed a button, any button, to change the sounds shooting into my vehicle. I still can't believe these are real words to a real song that is really played on the radio:
"We'll put a bullet in your ass because that's what Americans do".
Consider me speechless.
I had the fortune to attend a game with my brother recently and in our long wait to roll out of the parking lot after our victory, we listened to the coach interview and stats. The next day when I got in the car, I heard one line of a country song. Just one line before my hand shot to the controls and jabbed a button, any button, to change the sounds shooting into my vehicle. I still can't believe these are real words to a real song that is really played on the radio:
"We'll put a bullet in your ass because that's what Americans do".
Consider me speechless.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Whiplash, the Cowboy Monkey
My boyfriend thinks I don't like monkeys. I have no problem with monkeys; I am sure they are charming creatures. Sure, the weird butt ones freak me out some, but for the most part they are an incredibly adorable species. What bothers me is monkeys in clothing, monkeys on tv, monkeys made to look like they are talking in commercials while dressed up in miniature human outfits to shill cars or diapers or mp3 players. It's like a (more) warped version of children's beauty pageants and I find it disturbing. Monkeys in the wild, all for it. Monkeys in the zoo, sort of sad, but zoos are getting better. Monkeys on tv, insulting to both them and I.
Now, I know that the title of this post is by far the most interesting one I have written. If I was coming to this blog for the first time, I would certainly click on "Whiplash, the Cowboy Monkey" first. I wish I had made it up, that I was responsible for some ridiculous cowboy monkey imagery purely from my witty imagination. Sadly, Whiplash is indeed a cowboy monkey. He was brought out during a period break at the hockey game we attended recently as an enticement to the rodeo occuring in the same arena the next day. Whiplash, the Cowboy Monkey, was of course dressed in a miniature cowboy outfit - chaps, vest, hat - and was riding a dog. It appeared that Whiplash's main trick was begin strapped to a dog, while the border collie below him was well trained to spin about and rear into the air, just as if Whiplash were riding a bronco.
It was probably the most horrible thing I have ever seen at a sporting event. And I was at a football game when a referee fell to the ground from a heart attack. I hope old Whiplash is happy with his life, and perhaps he does enjoy riding around on a dog saddle. If he were in a children's book, he would love the roar of the crowd and seeing the world. I'm going to try to believe in that version, casting him as a Curious George type. I hope that version of Whiplash makes it big, except that I still won't want to see him on tv.
Now, I know that the title of this post is by far the most interesting one I have written. If I was coming to this blog for the first time, I would certainly click on "Whiplash, the Cowboy Monkey" first. I wish I had made it up, that I was responsible for some ridiculous cowboy monkey imagery purely from my witty imagination. Sadly, Whiplash is indeed a cowboy monkey. He was brought out during a period break at the hockey game we attended recently as an enticement to the rodeo occuring in the same arena the next day. Whiplash, the Cowboy Monkey, was of course dressed in a miniature cowboy outfit - chaps, vest, hat - and was riding a dog. It appeared that Whiplash's main trick was begin strapped to a dog, while the border collie below him was well trained to spin about and rear into the air, just as if Whiplash were riding a bronco.
It was probably the most horrible thing I have ever seen at a sporting event. And I was at a football game when a referee fell to the ground from a heart attack. I hope old Whiplash is happy with his life, and perhaps he does enjoy riding around on a dog saddle. If he were in a children's book, he would love the roar of the crowd and seeing the world. I'm going to try to believe in that version, casting him as a Curious George type. I hope that version of Whiplash makes it big, except that I still won't want to see him on tv.
Friday, January 2, 2009
"Don't run with the cheese"
It's weird the things you hear yourself say when a toddler is around, especially when you find yourself repeating phrases. This Christmas celebration heard a chorus of "don't run with the cheese", as a precious 3 1/2 year old would run triumphantly from the kitchen with her slice of american cheese aloft, only to have a playful pup chase after her. Maybe perhaps without a dog around, running with the cheese would be okay, but encouraging the dog to start a chasing game with taunting food involved seemed unwise.
With repetition, "don't run with the cheese', starts to offer a mantra-like sound, hinting at a hidden meaning, a grand metaphor for life. I've been turning the phrase over for days, trying to hear what the cheese has to tell me.
I have long known the depressing truth that it is often easier to get through life if you appear mediocre. Examples are endless of how not standing out requires you not to stand out, but a simple A and B comparison was evident in my first job out of college. I was a legal assistant sitting next to another legal assistant. She was incompetent, I was competent. Attorneys brought me work, and the increasingly challenging work, to protect themselves from the mess she made of things. We made the same salary and when I argued for a raise, it was given to her as well, since in theory we were doing the same job. At the end of the day I was doing more work and working harder than her for the same amount of money because: she was mediocre.
Of course there is much to be said for the long-term results of this example. I left for graduate school after a year so was not able to benefit from the reputation I believe I had built that would have led to progress in the company while she sat in the same cubicle with her radio on just loud enough to annoy me. While perhaps in the short-term, mediocrity is safer and easier, in the long-term I have to admit that it is no way to achieve your goals.
Which brings me back to the cheese. I think the reason the phrase has been loitering in my thoughts is because it's wrong. You should run with the cheese. You should hold it high and flaunt it and say "Look at me! I'm a badass with some cheese!" and face the threatening chasers head on. Of course, for a toddler, still, don't run with the cheese, but for me, I think it's time.
With repetition, "don't run with the cheese', starts to offer a mantra-like sound, hinting at a hidden meaning, a grand metaphor for life. I've been turning the phrase over for days, trying to hear what the cheese has to tell me.
I have long known the depressing truth that it is often easier to get through life if you appear mediocre. Examples are endless of how not standing out requires you not to stand out, but a simple A and B comparison was evident in my first job out of college. I was a legal assistant sitting next to another legal assistant. She was incompetent, I was competent. Attorneys brought me work, and the increasingly challenging work, to protect themselves from the mess she made of things. We made the same salary and when I argued for a raise, it was given to her as well, since in theory we were doing the same job. At the end of the day I was doing more work and working harder than her for the same amount of money because: she was mediocre.
Of course there is much to be said for the long-term results of this example. I left for graduate school after a year so was not able to benefit from the reputation I believe I had built that would have led to progress in the company while she sat in the same cubicle with her radio on just loud enough to annoy me. While perhaps in the short-term, mediocrity is safer and easier, in the long-term I have to admit that it is no way to achieve your goals.
Which brings me back to the cheese. I think the reason the phrase has been loitering in my thoughts is because it's wrong. You should run with the cheese. You should hold it high and flaunt it and say "Look at me! I'm a badass with some cheese!" and face the threatening chasers head on. Of course, for a toddler, still, don't run with the cheese, but for me, I think it's time.
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