You're Doing It Wrong

I’ve been taking the light rail to work for almost 2 months now.

I thought I would get a better idea of the rhythm of the thing, but so far, not so much. Twice recently there was a train sitting there as I drove up which means there is no way I will make it. If I notice a lot of people on the platform as I drive up, that’s my clue to hurry because there will probably be a train any moment. If the platform’s empty then I take my time since I probably just missed one.

The platform has a digital sign and a recorded voice that says things like “yellow train to city center expected to arrive in 7 minutes.” I’ve learned that this has little basis in reality and is almost never correct. Also sometimes when a train comes in it sets off an alarm that warns “You have violated a secure area. Leave immediately. Authorities have been called.” I’m sure.

Once I’m on the train it’s about 25 minutes. I use the time to read and found that magazines make the best material. I can get through The Week in one round trip. Novels are harder because of the stop and start and my not-optimal concentration. I just read House Made of Dawn and struggled with it a bit and ended up reading the cheat notes online because my comprehension wasn’t all there.

The crowd on the train is commuters, lots of kids going to school and some sketchy types. Especially when I’m riding home later on yoga night. I’ve been fare checked twice, witnessed a scary domestic dispute, smelled more than a few folks that I would encourage to try out bathing and heard a lot of really inane 1-sided cellphone blather.

I don’t hate it but I don’t love it either. I have more to say but as usual, running late. Bye.

I was inspired by Marc’s Museum of Hair so I’ve been saving Pam hair pictures hoping to put together my own bad hair on parade. I pulled together what I have for now and threw something together here. Obviously I need to fix it and attach stories plus I’m missing some primo bad hair like the Farrah type doo from 7th grade and I don’t have many red hair pictures and I can’t find even a black hair picture. Plenty more to come but at least a little entertainment for today.

Yesterday Bob and I went up to Evergreen to an art event at the Longhouse. The event wasn’t actually at the Longhouse but at the Gallery and the card I got in the mail said that Lillian Pitt, Larry McNeil and Jim Jackson were going to be speaking plus other Indian art in the exhibit.

We drove up in the afternoon and when we got there we saw cousin Bari’s (BG) art was part of the exhibit. BG had done an artist residency up at Evergreen last year and gave us one of her pieces on her way home. We have it hanging in our living room. We didn’t even clue-in that this exhibit was including her work until we got there so we were pretty excited to see it. All the speakers were fantastic, too. Very talented, amazing artists. I left quite inspired.

Also this week I started reading these books I was talking about. I started Hotel World by Ali Smith which I have wanted to read forever and almost bought more than once and geez, I didn’t even make 10 pages. I swear I read multiple great reviews which said things like “luminous first novel.” Well if that means: unreadable, okay. It’s another one of those Lovely Bones, dead person telling you about something except in this case without benefit of the complete sentences and coherent thoughts that I prefer in my reading material. I can’t believe we live in a world where Little Friday can barely get read and this book gets rave reviews.

My final whine of the evening will be about this article I read in The Week that talked about women CEOs and why more women aren’t in top coporate/leadership/power positions and if there is any hope that this will change in the future. Turns out, a lot of women end up out of the work place because they’re taking care of their families, as if this might be a bad thing. Why don’t we read more articles about male CEOs who want to spend more time with their families?

I’m going to go eat that last piece of coconut cream pie.

(Yes loyal readers, I know. I barely posted anything for two weeks and now I post about 10 things in one day and change the dates so it looks like I’m keeping up on a regular basis. It’s not you, it’s me.)

This morning I caught up on my Neal Pollack. I would provide links to earlier mentions of him but that search item on the top bar of this blog is a fiction and I can’t remember when I talked about him. He’s the one that inspired me to take on the 50 book challenge. (If you haven’t been keeping up, I’m reading book #15 now. I’ve been meaning to annotate my book list but can’t seem to get that far.)

Neal writes:

It depresses me, as I’ve taken on this 50 Book Challenge for no good reason, to look at, say, Bookslut, who’s on something like her 35th book, and most of those books are actually current and interesting and haven’t been sitting in a pile by her desk since the winter of 2003. link

My general sentiment, except the books in my pile have been crammed on the shelves sometimes since winter of oh, 1997. I’m clearing out a lot of old stuff.

On Friday I sort of cheated and did a library run for some fresh stuff and checked out books that have been on my list since oh, 1997.

I like prunes. I buy them plain in big tubs or flavored in foil bags — but not the cherry essence. Those taste like cough syrup. I like my prunes after dinner for something sweet.

Apparently, America isn’t consuming enough prunes. Perhaps the youth of today thinks of this a food for old people who need to keep their digestive systems moving.

Recently they (you know, “they” in this case probably some Prune Association of America) decided to rename them “dried plums.” Also if you look at the picture of the fruit on the bag, it shaped less round and more pear-like, but juicy fresh (because of course they can’t put the dried prune looking picture on the bag.)

The other night I read the bag for some reason and looks like the expert marketing committee behind this great re-imaging of the prune has been working overtime. These are actual quotes (and punctuation, but I’m too proud to recreate the bold, extra large fonts for you) from the bag:

“Way, way, way more nutritious! Using the Nutrition Density Index (NDX™) you can compare “apples to oranges”, and Dried Plums to all other fruits. When you do, you’ll find that compared to fresh fruit: Dried Plums Rule!”

“Dried Plums are so nutritious, people send us amazing testimonials! Read these remarkable accounts at Amazing Testimonials.com” [Hey, I checked the link and they’re under construction. Not too late to send in your testimonials.]

“Tuck some in your purse, briefcase, lunch box, or even your pocket (try that with fresh fruit); [ ] Dried Plums won’t ever bruise! Dried Plums are “the ultimate fruit” for today’s on-the-go lifestyles.”

Doesn’t it sound like they’re trying too hard?

I’ve read about this once in Cooks Illustrated and once in FoodDay in the Oregonian.

Both sources said that if you had leftover red wine that you wouldn’t be drinking, you could put it in ice cube trays in your freezer and then transfer the cubes into a ziplock bag and these would be handy for flavoring when you made sauce or soups. (This isn’t an April Fool’s joke.)

I recently had some red wine that I didn’t finish and thought I’d try this trick. I appropriated a couple of ice cube trays and left a big note on the freezer so Bob wouldn’t freak out when he found them.

I had some stuff going on so I didn’t get to them for a couple of days but when I finally got ready to transfer them I found that they were a wee bit slushy. Well, that’s to be expected, right? Alcohol doesn’t freeze like water.

As I transferred them to the bag they disintegrated further and now I have a ziplock bag filled with winey slush in my freezer.

I forgot to tell you about this blonde girl dressed in pink on the plane on the way home from Denver. We were in row 19 — so, close to the back of the plane. Generally when a flight is deboarding, people are civilized and file out in an orderly way row by row front to back.

I got ready to exit my row during my turn and the little brat, maybe 4 years old, barrels through from the back, elbows my leg out of her way, bellows, “Excuse us,” and takes off down the aisle.

Me, finding this not even a tiny bit charming, did my best sarcastic, “Yeah, well I guess so.” And here comes Mom behind her and I figured she’d give me one of those embarrassed smiles and possibly even a muttered apology but no, she’s barreling past me out of turn as well. Then comes bratty slightly older son given the responsibility of carrying some sort of seat-contraption which he transported by kicking it down the aisle with his feet. Neat-o.

The next person, who might have been Dad was kind enough to stop and let me edge in but I had to endure kick-the-seat kid who made slow progress through the plane.

Hey people: not everyone is as patient as you are with the kids and, never too early to teach them some manners.

And slightly related: if you haven’t tried this yet, I highly recommend earplugs for public travel. This is a new discovery and it’s been fabulous. I’m thinking I’ll start wearing them when I take the train to work as well.

There was an article in the NY Times recently talking about commuters and iPods and how the iPod isolates people from each other. Yeah, right. Because public transportation has always been the hotspot for casual conversation with random strangers. You could argue that I’m also isolating myself by sticking my nose in a book the moment I get on the train. 25 minutes twice a day I could be building communities but instead I’m consuming media.

I also sometimes bring the iPod, mainly to drown out the people who use the train ride for inane chatty cellphone time.

Today it was high strung passive-aggressive woman: “Have you thought about my refrigerator? … Do you know when you’ll be thinking about it? … No, no hurry. … What? … I don’t know. … How much would you be willing to pay? … I don’t know. … What do you think?”

Earplugs. iPod. The choice is yours.

I bought some perfume (I guess they call it fragrance now) from a catalog because, you know, smelling good is a big priority for me. This source appealed because not only do they have the usual jug-size that would last me 12 lifetimes, but also a perfect tiny size which doesn’t cost much and will only last as long as I still enjoy it.

Ordering fragrance from a catalog is sketchy because how accurately can you describe a smell? This catalog says things like, a delicate scent wrapped in veil of dew-covered grass, rich moonlit evening and citrus. Oh. Okay.

I picked 4 and tried them all and then annotated the list. The one I liked best I put a star next to. Another one I wrote “rainy” because it reminds me of a fragrance I used a long time ago that was called something about rain. For the other two I wrote “whorehouse” and “bugspray.”

Bob and I went to Denver over the weekend to see String Cheese Incident with our friend, Walker.

Everything went smoothly and we had a fantastic time and according to Bob I saw 1 of the best Cheese shows ever. Good news because honestly, these were my 7th and 8th shows and all the songs still sound the same.

We hit a small snafu at check-in. Apparently one of our names matches a name on the current watchlist and given the braintrust that is operating “security” for this nation, I don’t doubt that half the people in the country get tagged when they want to board an aircraft. We were given a sheet of paper so that we (they don’t know which one of us triggered the extra security check) can go through some 45 day process to avoid the extra hassle at the airport. I’m certain it will be unnecessarily invasive and stupid and not sure we are even going to do it. If giving up kiosk check-in and waiting an extra 5 minutes for an ID check is the alternative, given how little we fly, we’ll probably live with it.

In the gate Bob pointed out this kid dressed in full Davy Crockett get up — coonskin cap and a brown denim top and pants in a deerhide color. When we boarded turned out we were in the back row, next to young Davy. He was a little twitchy but probably average for that age. He worked on his math homework, basic addition and subtraction: with a calculator. Are you allowed to do that? Shouldn’t it be a basic life requirement to add and subtract in your head?

I was burnt about the back row but all sorts of interesting people lined up to use the john. One guy had on a Phish shirt so I asked: “Are you going to Cheese?” and w/o even hesitating he said yeah and proceeded to tell us how it was a bunch of buddies doing a last minute reunion, they didn’t have tickets, but they knew lots of “other” ways to get into the show.

Another guy looked like a rockstar Tommy Lee guy in black leather fringe jacket and he brought two adorable little girls back, both wearing Harley Davidson t-shirts.

We met Walker at the Airport and grabbed a cab and headed downtown, checked into our hotel, changed clothes and headed right back out to grab a bite before the show. Walker and I both had a Great Divide Amber and we both took a sip, set down our glasses and at the same time said: That’s great beer.

We arrived at the Fillmore in time for the full-on hippy freakshow out front. Some guy with a megaphone wanted donations for something and tons of hippies stood around with a finger in the air, hoping for a miracle. (Didn’t see the guy from the plane.)

The Fillmore is a giant venue with a wide ballroom floor and chandeliers plus huge side areas with a few chairs and tables and plenty of bars. We chose to sit in the risers behind the stage. The view was excellent. I was thrilled to have a place to sit and during the show we could see what the band saw: the crowd bouncing around. Kyle had one of those little flying cows on a wire that went in circles over him during the show both nights. A cow tech adjusted the cow before each show and during the show if there were technical difficulties. I was riveted by the flying cow’s status and cried, “Cow Tech!” when it flopped around and needed an adjustment.

So about the show: I don’t know what to tell you. I had fun. I like live music and dancing around. The cloud of patchouli and smoke took about 5 years off my life, but it’s all part of the scene. Perry Farrell DJ’d Friday night and SCI played some Jane’s Addiction songs with him which I loved. And Del McCoury’s band (w/o Del) played with them a lot on Saturday night which was awesome. These were Walker’s 50 and 51st shows and Bob’s 25 and 26th. The band would play a bar or two and Walker, Bob and the crowd would all cheer and I’d be thinking, “This sounds exactly like the last song.”

After the show we went to the best liquor store ever. It was across the street from the Fillmore and basically a giant barn filled with rows and rows of every kind of wine or liquor you could ever think of plus a whole wall of fridge case with beer. We could have shopped there forever but we only had 15 minutes until closing. Walker wanted to buy a bottle of water and the guy was like, “Um, I think we have that… .”

After the show Saturday night we went for a late night snack. I wanted something sweet and all the choices were chocolate or cheesecake except for apple pie – which I ordered and they were out of. I went against my instincts and ate this cheesecake thing. Never again. I could hardly sleep my roiling innards were so unhappy with my choice.

We staggered out early, and headed back to the airport under a cold, clear sky. Excellent adventure.

Has anyone heard? Has there been a national advisory or anything because I think there’s been serious upswing in the amount of dust in the world. Or at least at my house.

I can’t believe how much dust accumulates in my house. I moved a couple of things around on the dresser the other day and was appalled to see a thick coating of dust complete with mini-dustballs covering the back corners of the thing. Then I walked by these little shelves we have between our kitchen-dining area and stopped to stare. Then I swept a finger along the edge and a huge ball of dust rolled off my finger.

Has it always been so dusty?