You're Doing It Wrong

So did I mention I’m now apparently a member of AARP?

Uncle Marvin and Aunt Marvin thought it would be fun to buy Bob a membership for his 50th bday and me, as the spouse, also gets to enjoy the “benefits, advocacy and information on again for people age 50 and over.” Yay!

That was sarcasm if you missed it.

You know when I’ll be ready to join a group of old people? When I get to be a tribal elder. They always get to eat first and younger people bring them a plate. They also get to sit in the front all the time. I’m going to make sure they also always bring me a drink.

But I’d like to enjoy a few more years of middle age in the meantime.

Also, I’m glad Antman warned me about seeing more ants in the house right after the treatment because there is a major giant ant convention going on by the front door — not even the area we’d originally called about.

They aren’t looking like the happiest ants in the world and I really do hate killing things but at some point you have to draw a line around the living space. They can live out there in front foliage as much as they want but inside the house is off limits.

I am finally taking care of the bumper damage from the uninsured lady who hit us in December. I figured while the car was going in I might as well take care of the other ding (not my fault) and scrape (my fault!) so I did a bit of back and forth with insurance and the body shop and all I can say is this is a big incentive never to hit or be hit again.

I am car-less for 8 working days. I know zero about car body repair but it seems like an awfully long time. Since my person at the body shop asked me at least 10 times whether I had rental car coverage and I never once made mention of needing a rental car I suspect some rental car kickback incentive to drag the repair out as long as possible.

We can live on 1 car for a week and a half and have developed a highly complex program to trade off the car along with various combos of walking/picking up/dropping each other off, public transportation and/or relying on kind colleagues for rides.

I’m short on time this morning but I have to mention the most fabulous dinner I had last night at the Salmon Creek Brewery. It was a chef special called something like Shrimp Diablo which was grilled shrimp in a creamy, Cajun-y spiced sauce over pasta and was so delicious I haven’t stopped talking about it. I wanted the hoover the whole plate but save enough a little taste when I get home tonight.

I think I wrote about this last Fall. I phoned our heating oil company then to see if they could top us off so we’d go into the cool weather with a full tank. The woman who took my call got sort of bent out of shape about this. “You want fuel, now?” she said like it was a crazy idea.

I won’t get into it but I’ve had run ins with this woman before about our service plan. I’m not sure what her deal is but I would argue that she’s not striving to provide her customers with superior service and products… on time… every time… and always with a friendly smile.

I told her that on autofill they always got us at Christmas and tax time when we already had a lot of other expenses. At current rates it’s in the range of $600 to fill the tank.

Since we’re on the autofill program she said it would cost extra to fill the tank in October so I said, forget it we’ll do it your way and sure enough, December 15 we find the bill with notice that our tank has been filled.

Now it’s April. We’ve never got a second fill. We’re at less than a quarter tank. We’re using less but we still need heat. They supposedly use some complicated program based on our usage records multiplied by the daily low temperature and divided by the square root of the full moon on a Sunday after the vernal equinox. I don’t know how it works but I am finding it an astounding coincidence that after I specifically mentioned Xmas and tax time being bad time for fuel delivery that that’s precisely what we’re getting.

Bob decided to call them to find out what was going on and order 100 gallons rather than a full tank. He called me after he talked to The Dragon Lady and said: What IS her deal? The poster child for anti-customer service insisted to him that we didn’t need fuel and couldn’t possibly be that low. Like she would know better than us, right? She said our usage had changed and something about the ratio and blah blah blah. What, were they planning on delivering fuel in May when we don’t need it until Fall?

Bob had to insist and they agreed to deliver this week at the higher price which will cost us a huge extra $8. Our service contract expires in the summer and The Dragon Lady will just have to enjoy not providing customer service to some other people.

Meanwhile, I noticed yesterday I have a nice, slightly swollen gash on my nose. I have zero idea where it could have come from. I haven’t been playing contact sports or falling down drunk. No one has thrown anything at me. My best guess is that I hit myself in the face during yoga on Monday night. Denise kicked our butts.

We did the Star Wars Easter Egg kit wrong because I didn’t read the directions but apparently there was something you put on the eggs before you cook them and it looks really cool. I cooked the eggs in advance thinking I was being a big planner and so then it was too late.

The sandwiches look delicious.

Can it be true that I’ve only read three books this year?

How can this happen? I’m thinking I need to run out and buy some flimsy paperbacks. Maybe a thriller or murder mystery or a young adult book with vampires or dragons. Just to remember the feeling of finishing a book again.

Right now I’m reading Accordion Crimes by E. Annie Proulx which fulfills one requirement in that it’s been on the shelf for years. Besides I love Annie Proulx. I also haven’t totally given up on The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem even though I’ve been reading it (or not reading it) for roughly 2 months now and I’m only on page 67. I took it to NYC thinking maybe that would get me in the mood but I never had time to read on the trip and when I did, I was usually reading the travel book and wishing I’d picked it up earlier.

The problem with Fortress is that I need to quit because it’s just not working for me. Two months and 67 pages is enough. However, Lethem is the Arts and Lectures person on Thursday and if I really like him I may leave it on the nightstand and make one more try. The problem with Accordion is that even though I’m enjoying it, it’s not the kind of book you can just pick up and read a page or two and it’s hard to read when one is tired or has had a couple of glasses of wine which is me at least 7 nights a week.

[Update: I just checked and I wrote the exact same thing about Fortress 2 months ago except I was on page 60. What is wrong with me? I think the NYC trip convinced me to keep it on the nightstand. Maybe I’ll pose this during the Q&A on Thurs: “I’ve been trying to read Fortress of Solitude for over three months and can’t get past page 67. Should I quit trying?”]

On my days off I like to read in bed in the morning but if Bob is around he likes to talk to me and also, reading in bed all morning tends to start the day off on an unproductive note. I then proceed to an uninspired yoga practice that I quit early, daydream during my meditation, flip through the newspapers, catch up on a TV show or two and so on like this.

When I’m in the middle of a fantastic book that I can’t put down I carry the book everywhere and read before work, at lunch hour, after dinner. I haven’t carried these books around. My other problem is almost everything else on my “to read” shelf is a heavy literary tome so I’m not in a hurry to pick up something new. How did reading turn into a job?

I need to finish Accordion, preferably this weekend and then regroup on the reading program meaning I need to find some books I’m excited about.

On a quick side note: Bob and I watched Borat this weekend and I did not love it. Sure I laughed. I laughed a lot. But some of it was uncomfortable laughing. Short review: too mean. Related: one of our favorite food vendors at the Farmer’s Market is from Kazakhstan and they used to have a big sign that said so. This year they have a generic ethnic food sign.

I’m cheating and posting this on Saturday. At first I wasn’t going to do a computer free day this weekend but I changed my mind. We don’t really celebrate Easter at our house but we decided for this year we will “celebrate” by going to see a Grindhouse matinee. Then I’m going to roast a chicken and potatoes and make some creme brulee and we’re going to watch the final season opener of The Sopranos.

Hope everyone enjoys the day.

New York City Part IV: Final Installment

Photo set is here. I added a few more photos from Bob’s roll.

On Sunday we slept in and then headed out to the Museum of Natural History. It was still cold and I needed my hat.

This is a place to bring kids and no one arrives without at least 7 of them, plus 10 strollers. Except us.

I liked the giant whale, the Indians (of course) and the dinosaurs. Especially the dinosaurs. Evolution lives here. You look at those things and you have to think about it: this was once a real thing with skin and muscles and it moved around and ate and pooped. Really cool. It was too crazy to eat here. Just a phalanx of strollers all moving towards the smell of food. We decided to try our luck elsewhere.

We walked around outside and found Calle Ocho. I didn’t think it looked promising but Bob said he had a good feeling. When we walked in it was empty and smelled like a fraternity house. Then they took us to the back to a sunny room filled with people. The gal seating us said: “You know about the free sangria with brunch?” Us: “Huh?” Her: “Yeah, free sangria with brunch. Help yourself.” A long table was filled with giant glass barrels filled with sangria. Yippee! The food was delicious and reasonably priced, too. Score 100 points for Bob.

We took a quick rest at the apartment and then met Corey for a walk around Greenwich Village and Hudson River Park. He had to man the box office for a Cabaret Show so he left us at Strand Books. One of the owners of Strand Books is married to Oregon Senator Ron Wyden(D) and he met his wife at Powell’s in Oregon. Corey had told us this whole story and warned us about the “Powell’s-ization” of Strand Books. And sure enough, the set up was mighty familiar right down to the red INFO? signs. Since we didn’t know what Strand Book was like before, we were ambivalent about the whole thing.

Turns out Senator Wyden and Senator Charles Shumer (D-NY) were doing a book reading while we were there. I got to the top of the stairs and saw Senator Wyden and thought, “Hey, I recognize that guy.” I don’t know exactly what they were doing but something with health care because there was an employee in the back of the bookstore where I was looking at science fiction going off the rails about the irony of the Senator talking about universal health care at this bookstore.

Bob and I left the bookstore and headed over to St. Clements for the cabaret show. It was a fundraiser for gay pride events for the coming year. The food was spectacular and the entertainment fun. One of Corey’s friends that owns the restaurant, Carolyn was in the show.

Later I commented to Bob that our entire day was a fundamentalist nightmare: evolution, democrats and gay cabaret.

Monday we grabbed a muffin at the Bouchon Bakery in Time Warner Center and then hit the subway to South Ferry at the tip of Manhattan. We looked at the long line stretched across the park for the Statue of Liberty (which I keep mistyping “Statute of Liberty” – I’m sure there’s a good joke in there but nothing is coming to me.) I dislike boats and didn’t feel a strong urge to see the Statue of Liberty even if it wasn’t off in the mists. I’m not sure what Bob was thinking but he knows how much I hate boats and didn’t make a big deal about it. What a prince.

We headed over to the National Museum of the American Indian. The first thing I saw was a flier about Rick Bartow. Rick Bartow is Yurok and we were first introduced years ago by a mutual friend. Since then we run into him or his work every time we do anything remotely connected to Indian Art. I loved the museum and thought it was criminally empty after the long lines and big crowds we’d seen everywhere else.

Bob got us back to Grand Central Station where we had lunch at The Oyster Bar. I think this is the equivalent to having lunch at Fisherman’s Grotto in San Francisco meaning sorta cheezy touristy but how can you not? I had the salad foursome with shrimp, crab, salmon and squid (Hi Lena!). Bob had Oysters rockefeller. We both had beers: Long Island Pale Ale.

I was losing steam by this time but not Bob. We were off to the Guggenheim museum which is an incredible building which I see just now on the Wikipedia entry was designed by Frank L. Wright. I should have guessed. It’s a big spiral and you start at the top and work your way down. That’s how we did it. The exhibit we saw was Spanish painters and was fabulous. But by the end I was completely dead on my feet and not the usual sparkling-fun travel companion that my husband loves.

He promised to get me to the room for a nap before our evening show and he did. For 20 minutes. I made the best of it and rallied and we went to the Iridium for a Les Paul show. Les Paul is 94 and invented the electric guitar and is a hot ticket. That little room was packed to the rafters. The first thing I did was point out all the exits to Bob.

The club had lots of rules like you can’t hang your coat on the back of your chair but you can hang all your bags of crap. Kids are allowed and Bob thought the youngsters were the luckiest people alive.

Les Paul is old and has gnarled fingers but he does awesome with what he’s got. He paces himself. There were lots of side bits with the various players and he did a long joke about his hearing aids. But he’s dirty and hilarious and the music sounded great. The show ended too quickly.

After the show Bob wanted to go to the top of Rockefeller Center. I don’t love heights. I know, I know. Who would want to travel with me and all my anxieties: heights-no, boats-no, crowds-no. He’s a prince. I reluctantly agreed and then found out it costs $17.50. $17.50 to take an elevator up 70 floors. That is free money for those people. I bet on a good day there’s a line for miles. I balked again but after some pouting and bickering agreed to do it.

It wasn’t bad. At first I had to have my back to the inside and could only move by shuffling my feet but the cold wind numbed my head and also it was dark so I couldn’t clearly see the hazardous depths where I might die if I managed to get flung over the 10 foot Plexiglas enclosure. The view was gorgeous and we ended up staying for almost a half hour.

Tuesday was our last day and we cleaned up and packed up and left our luggage in storage at the hotel and then went out for our last day. We found St. Patrick’s Cathedral where the funeral for the lateJudge Richard Casey was going on so we stayed a little while to watch and listen.

This day was sunny and warm and a perfect day for walking around. Our last agenda item was the Public Library which is old and huge and historical plus has art and exhibits and is worth a visit.

Then it was time to get the luggage and head back to the airport and head home. Great trip but so much left we didn’t see. Something to look forward to for next time. If you’re still reading, thanks for hanging in for the longest post in history.

New York City Part III

A few last photos up on Flickr.

The whole set is here.

Saturday we slept in a little and then after a series of miscues on the subway, managed to find the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As we walked up the stairs to the entrance you know what I was thinking?

Damn! Why didn’t I re-read From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler before the trip. I loved that book. They should have a Claudia and Jamie Kincaid tour of the museum. Maybe they do, we were too busy with our own agenda.

As you go into the museum on a Saturday morning, about 10 trillion people are right there with you. I thought this predicted future awfulness. Thankfully, I was wrong. It’s so big that everybody is spread out. A couple of times we found ourselves all alone in a room.

The museum is gigantic and holds about 3 lifetimes worth of treasure. I was sorry I didn’t prepare better so I could make sure I saw everything I wanted. We spent a huge amount of time in the museum completely lost. (Grade for signage: C+. Lots of room for improvement.) But there’s cool stuff everywhere so even as we were wandering around to find one thing, I’d see 10 other things that we’d have to remember to go back to. That armor looked really cool.

We stopped to eat at noon and I expected to be elbow to elbow with other visitors fighting for the last soggy ham sandwich.

Wrong again. Nice, big and well run cafe. I had a yummy salad and a walnut-raisin wheat roll that I talked about for two days. I need to find a recipe. Bob had a grilled chicken sandwich. After lunch we went for the modern stuff.

Overheard one security guard to the other: “I’m a literary writer. I’m the new James Baldwin. Without the angst.”

By the end of the museum day I was majorly dragging ass. It took awhile to find the right subway. Inside some soul singers played. The next train took forever while the train platform steadily filled with people. I hopped around whining my anxiety about the crowd and Bob reminded me of something I say to him about worrying about things that aren’t happening yet. Touche.

The train finally arrived already packed. We all crammed on. I’ve never been so crowded in my life. The guy whose chest was pressed into my forehead says that this wasn’t as bad a Tokyo at rush hour. I made a mental note never to go on the subway in Tokyo.

Bob knew this was taking 10 years off my life so we got off three stations later. It was still cold but not bad and not raining. We returned to the apartment and I took an epic nap. We had a show to go to Saturday night.

Corey’s friends had a restaurant not far from our apartment so we met him there and had a yummy dinner. Corey ran into another friend on the way to dinner and brought her along so it was a nice little group of people for our meal.

Corey wanted to check out the scene at the Beacon Theatre so he took the subway with us and taught us a bunch of subway tricks that would have been useful earlier. Sadly, there was no “scene” like you’d have at a Portland show so Corey left and we hung out in the lobby and had some adult beverages.

The crowd was mostly Bob-like people (gray haired and not spring chicken-ish). Also a lot of what I am going to call hip NY young people with hair and products. Not like the happy hippy crowd making grilled cheese in the parking lot that you’d find in say, Eugene. I found them a bit squirrely. The people in front of us had at least 6 rounds of $9 beers which meant a lot of back and forth. During the set break I caught up on notes in my little notebook and they told me I was making them nervous writing all those notes.

Bob wrote the second set list in my notebook: Come into my Kitchen Dreams, Elizabeth Reed, All kinds of jammy stuff (my characterization of the entire show), Mountain Jam, Dazed and Confused, Mountain Jam. Encore: Whipping Post.

They had three drummers and at one point Bob said that the drummer was so-and-so’s son and I said, “Which one?” He laughed until tears came out of his eyes.

After the show the people in charge opened these side doors and we all headed down an endless ramp (our seats were in the upper balcony) where all the paint was peeling and after a minute of this, a bunch of guys headed back toward us and said we couldn’t go that way. Most people keep going forward and we stuck with them. At the bottom a security guy held the door open and complained no one else could come out that way. Like it was our idea. Also, a number of the Beacon security people thanked us for coming and told us to have a safe journey home.

We found the correct subway right away thanks to Corey and headed back.

I want to explain why we were confused. All the trains said Brooklyn-Downtown. In the places I’ve always lived downtown was the city center so I thought Brooklyn and Downtown were two different things and couldn’t understand what train to take. I’ve never lived anywhere that had an uptown. Priscilla tells me that Vancouver has an uptown but I’ve lived here 10+ years and I’ve never heard anyone refer to uptown. Also, it would take about 10 minutes to walk through the entire up/downtown so in my mind, it doesn’t count. In NYC uptown and downtown is like uptown towards Central Park or downtown is like lower Manhattan. Maybe this sounds stupid but you ride around on the subway in NYC for the first time and tell me how you do.

After the show we were all keyed up and decided to have a drink and something to eat. We found a funny restaurant on 9th near our hotel and I had a piece of pie and a glass of wine and Bob had a giant plate of noodles with crabcakes and “healthshake” with cow milk instead of soy. Great day.

(That last photo is The Dakota if you didn’t recognize it. We ran into a John Lennon love-fest in Central Park and had to pause for the cause.)

Thursday morning when I tried to check my email I got an error that said I had the wrong password. I tried logging into my domain controls and got the same message.

Normally when there are outages I don’t worry about it because (a) I don’t do business with my personal email or website and (b) it’s technology, not magic so there are bound to be times when it doesn’t work right.

The “wrong password” error worried me a great deal because I imagined Eastern European hackers had taken over my site and were using my bandwith to broadcast porn and now I was going to have yet another problem to unravel that would waste tons of my time and possibly cost me money.

I called support immediately and was assured that yes, there did seem to be a problem. (“That’s funny, I can’t log in, either.”) And that they would open a ticket and send it to support. 36 hours later I finally logged into email and received 1 message for me and 4 spam. That leads me to believe that a day and a half worth of email is gone. I don’t receive oodles of life changing email regularly but if you sent me something important on Thursday or Friday, perhaps you can resend.

Meanwhile, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

More photos up on Flickr. Still a few more to come.

We spent about 5 minutes in the city before I said to Bob: “Let’s never drive here.”

It’s hard to believe I grew up in Los Angeles and got my driver’s license about 3 seconds after I turned 16 yet, I’m a high strung driver. Sad, but true.

Based on my observation from a total of 6 days, I would describe the NYC driving system as complicit anarchy. The first 15 seconds of a red light is a suggestion only. Gridlock abounds. Pedestrians go whenever they can. If a car/cab/truck is coming through they’ll blast a warning honk. Pedestrians pause in the street to let the car/cab/truck pass through. If a car/cab/truck blocks the crosswalk, people go around. If a car/cab/truck blocks the intersection, everyone deals. The horn is used like a turn signal or brakes. No one seems mad.

I blocked the crosswalk near the office one morning and you’d think the fat man who had to walk around my car had had his birthday stolen what with the waving arms and histrionics.

Day 2 we took the D Train to Brooklyn to visit Corey at John Dewey High School where he teaches. We got on the train in Midtown at morning rush hour when 10 gajillion people were getting off and the entry and exit are the same thing so it was like swimming upstream. We had to throw ourselves into it.

John Dewey is a huge high school with 3000 students and a chain link fence surrounding it. Corey told us that they have 11 security guards onsite.

My high school was about 1200 and we had a lunch lady with a clipboard for “security.”

Corey told us we needed to be expected and we were met at the security shack by the ultimate Sopranos thug reject. We told him we were on the list and the name of the person we were meeting. “I don’t tink we have anybuddy by dat name,” he said doubtfully. Because you know what? It makes perfect sense that two completely square old farts would be trying to sneak into a Brooklyn High School. He was disappointed that we were legit.

He waved us into the office and then started a mini-brawl with a young lady who was sassing him. I could hardly contain my giggles.

Inside we met Mrs. Scapetti, an older lady who hasn’t taken any shit in the past 100 years. She issued us our passes and found someone to show us upstairs. The wide hallways had a line down the middle and all the lockers were roped off. Corey told us that their locker privileges had been revoked due to misuse and they had to carry all their books and junk.

We took a tour and met Corey’s colleagues and Bob was able to talk to the technology guy about their program. Every single person we met said we had to go to Coney Island for a Nathan’s hotdog.

So that’s what we did. As soon as the train doors opened, it smelled like fried food.

I don’t eat hot dogs. I can’t remember the last hot dog I ate. But for breakfast, I ate a hot dog, fries and a Coke. And I liked it.

We walked around Coney Island which was pretty much deserted. There were still dirty piles of snow here and there. Everything was closed. Very few people. Mostly bums and what my dad would refer to as “scum bags.” Everything looked run down. Lots of huge brick apartment buildings.

We had to use the public restrooms on the beach. I’ve seen worse but it was pretty gross. Bob’s had no TP. He had to use the guide book. He showed me where the pages were missing.

Next stop: Prospect Park and the Botanic Garden. When we got off the train, it was raining.

We’re from the PacNW. Rain doesn’t scare us.

We found the gate and paid a the combo-price for the Botanic garden and the Brooklyn Museum. The rain grew more steady. We wandered the garden alone. NY was at least two weeks behind the PAC NW in terms of blooming foliage. Nothing but sticks. The rain progressed from delightful to discouraging. We took refuge in a pagoda with 6 other visitors. We all watched a soggy heron.

Next stop: Brooklyn Museum. The Judy Chicago Dinner Party just opened and was completely fantastic. We walked through it twice. We took a good rest in the cafe and did some much needed vegetable and beer intake then headed back into town.

For dinner we found the Delta Grill – Louisiana food. The beer tasted great after a long day and our food was wonderful. This was our only night without an evening show. We walked around town and met Corey for some tea and a snack. We were still fighting West Coast time so we hit the sack early. Big day on Saturday.