Thursday, January 31, 2008

Spatters and Drips: Memopad Leftovers and Mental Logjams

It seems I need to enliven the old Chucklehut with a handful of drolleries for the ADHD set - I mean, welcome, readers from OINY!  Yes, I’m the sicko who came up with the winning headline for their bi-weekly contest, which is as close as I’ve come yet to that goddamn National Merit scholarship (I’m looking at you, Princeton).  So I’m giddy with, um, gid, and stuff, and I’ve got crapreams of reamcrap coming my way today, plus weird anxiety and excitement (non-free-floating varieties), so let me take this opportunity to dump a few items of notebook-dross and to clear my mental dex as to issues that are producing particularly high levels of agitation. 

Noted while shopping at Walgreens:
* Most misleading name for cheap, shoddy, tissue-thin men’s dress socks: “Looking Good Mister” brand hosiery. 
* Least misleading name for cheap, probably shoddy, men’s athletic socks: “Bag o’ Socks” brand hosiery. 

Noted while driving from Seattle into California on the 5:
* A farming-equipment outlet with two stacked signs erected by the side of the highway, ostensibly advertising the products sold therein: (top sign) “Cummings,” (bottom sign) “Onan.” In that farmers are in the business of spilling seeds upon the ground this might actually make sense. 
* A mattress store called “Mattress Country,” with its offshoot outlet, “Mattress Country and More.” I’m wondering, once the whole country has gone mattress, what do they think is left?  I would recommend that future expansions be called “Mattress Territory” and “The Mattress Protectorates.” After that we get into Mattress colonialization and that’s always just a quagmattress. 

Noted while driving out to the 5 from SF on Highway 37 in south Carneros: The Randy Bolt Memorial Highway, and the Richard “Fresh Air” Jansen Memorial Bridge.  With all due respect to the deceased, what do you have to do to get such cool nicknames?  Nobody ever calls me by any of my preferred cool nicknames.  But “Randy Bolt?” Sounds like a combination wrestler-porn star!  Dang that’s a good name to put on a sign....

Cool nickname applied to my dad during his festschrift luncheon (which was a big important deal so get with the program): “The Anti-Quasi-Obscurantist.” I think he ought to have it tattooed to his forehead, but that might interfere with the whole “talmud professor” gig. 

Items on which I misread a final exclamation point for the letter “l,” indicating to me that I need to update my ocular rx:
* Christmas Salel
* A Potty for Mel

My current mental kidneystone: how did an indolent and under-exercised lout like myself wind up with “Jumper’s Knee?” Which jumper, and off of what?  Is this BASE jumper knee, or just toddler-overalls jumper knee?  I really hope it’s not bail jumper knee, anyway.  If I were in Mexico, would I say I had “humper knee?” And of course, how the hell did I get it?  It must be from jumping too rarely because high-frequency jumping is not, as they say, my thing.  And how did I avoid getting “lounger’s ass” or “nap-eye,” anyway? 

My current eagerly-anticipated thrill: I’m agonna Didnylan!  Yes, my dear step-nephew is celebrating his manhood with a bar mitzvah ceremony on Saturday, which means Kel and Z and I are going to jet down to Los Angeles’ south bay region for the weekend.  Saturday is the bar day, with services and a kid’s skating party (I assume there will be a bar at one of these events, anyway).  Sunday is the mitzvah day, and dad is taking us and also my sister and her little family all out to the Happiest Place in Anaheim (assuming the Ducks and Angels are having bad seasons) (and not counting that breakfast smorgasboard with the amazing apple fritters).  Zach is thrilled to meet “Pickymouse,” as he says it.  I don’t think he knows what he’s in for - the sight of a five-foot plastic rodent in pants is unnerving to even the most seasoned travelers.  Wish me luck.  Wish!  Wish harder, damn you!

Let’s wrap up with a list of qualifiers that I will insist apply to all my purchases and activities during 2008:
* Carbon-neutral
* Dolphin-safe
* Anti-bacterial
* Indigenous enterprise
* Rehabilitated
* Metro-sentient
* Pro-democracy
* Drought resistant
* Artesinal
* Neo-trad alternative
* Fully armored
* Re-legalized
* Disambiguated
* Ozone-replenishing
* Ritually slaughtered

So, anything that qualifies for all that, I can buy or do.  Disneyland will consist of 8 hours sheltered under a cloth umbrella trying not to exhale.  See why I need all that luck? 

Okay, g’wan with you now.  Don’t you need to milk a goat or something?  I know I do! 

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Golden Girl

Hey Heather, in keeping with my “never break a blog-content promise you made on the bus” pledge, here’s a bit of the old making-it-up:

The stack of jaundiced envelopes flopped into her brown plastic tray, as they did four times daily.  “Internal correspondence,” they all proclaimed in heavy letters across the top, followed by line after line of hand-scrawled senders and recipients, each envelope secured with a thread wound around two cardboard rivets. 

She spent much of her days unwinding those threads, opening those envelopes, and filing their contents: countersigned originals, FYI cc.s, yes, but mostly file copies of innumerable NCR forms: blue file copies, pink ones, random versions in green or sienna or peach or canary or tangerine, and even the occasional lavender.  She’d never created any of the originals herself.  The contents of the pages she received were meaningless to her.  All she did was file them.  If someone ever needed one back, it had to be findable.  She’d never heard of anyone needing to do so, of course.  Once she closed the cabinet door on a piece of paper, it was as good as dead to her. 

She rubbed her eyes, sighed, and reached for the new stack.  It wouldn’t do to have a senior clerk stroll past and see them sitting there.  Unwind, open, stack in order of how close the file cabinet was.  Original.  Blue copy.  Tan copy.  Cc.  There were an even dozen this time and she’d opened 11 before she got to one that caught her attention.

The “to” line was just her first name; that was unusual.  How had it reached her?  She knew there were others at the corporation who shared her name; it was so common that she sometimes tried to hide behind it.  The “from” line - was blank.  That was just weird.  She thought that Office Services didn’t even deliver internal mail that didn’t say who’d sent it; it was opened for sourcing and returned for label completion.  There was something unusual about this envelope.  She felt an inexplicable surge of excitement as she unscrolled the little thread and peered inside.

For a moment everything around her ceased to exist - her desk, the desks around her, the bullpen, the world.  She just gazed into the envelope.  It felt unreal, even as her incredulous fingers slid into its shaded confines to touch, withdraw, and gently grasp the single sheet it contained. 

It was so thin and delicate she could almost see through it; the NCR write-through was crisp - yet spectral, as if written by a celestial finger dipped into the azure skies of dusk.  She didn’t even realize she’d stood up until she heard the voice at the next desk break through her reverie from an unexpected angle.  “What is that?,” the neighbor asked, but from the tone of her voice it was clear that she already knew. 

“This… this is the goldenrod copy.” She’d tried to keep her voice controlled but the words carried of their own accord. 

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Sent to you?”

“Directly to me.”

“Don’t show it around.”

“Okay.”

“But - can I see it?”

“You can take a look, she replied with newfound steel in her spine, “but I’m not letting it out of my hands.”

By now a small crowd had gathered.  “Goldenrod.... goldenrod....” the mutters fluttered around her.  People who’d worked just a few desks away but had never so much as said hello to her were flocking close, their eyes sparkling with wonder and awe.  “I’ve never seen one.” “Thought they were mythical.” “How did she get it?” “What will she do with it?” “Goldenrod.“

The mail boy was wheeling his cart back to the elevators, old mail delivered, new mail acquired.  He was new and confused by the to-do.  “What’s going on?,” he asked from the back of the crowd.  “Is something wrong?”

A senior clerk, approaching retirement, face pasty from a life in the office, answered without looking at him.  “Don’t be an idiot. You brought her the goldenrod copy.  Things around here may never be the same.  Now take off your damn hat and show some respect.  You will never see a day like this again.”

And through it all, the file clerk stood in the midst of the throng, her face beaming and ethereal, her chest and chin uplifted, a single sheet of paper fluttering softly in her trembling hands as she cradled it under gentle HVAC breezes. 

Good fun, that, wot? Got lots more in the ol’ book plus loads of new fodder like inexplicable ailments and funny names for foot fashions!  Let’s see what the blog fairie brings us next time!  Or not!  I said you needed another layer with that skimpy jacket!

Patry Francis Day: Bookulation!

I’m hardly new to writing, but I’m kind of new to the on-line writing community.  I certainly don’t read enough to keep up with most of them but I do enjoy how they advise and support each other.  That’s why I’m jumping on this bandwagon today, to ask you to look at a book by a writer who’s overcome lots and has lots more yet to overcome - just about when she got her “your book is being published” letter, she was dx’d with bad cancer.  Now it’s a matter of getting her good words out to as many people as the blogternet can reach, and my litpark friends - about 300 of them - picked today to do that.  I’m one of them, I guess.  So check yourself out some Liar’s Diary when you get the chance.  Judging from the company the author keeps, it probably kicks ass. 

Since I’m being literary and stuff, I actually did read some book-like things recently: this and this.  And I’m currently reading this, which has a brooding air of impending horror about it but Kel tells me it’ll all be okay in the end, but regardless it creeps me out so I’m taking too long to finish it.  Plus, Kel just finished the first one of these and apparently I’d love them and will drink them down like cold yoohoo on a hot afternoon.  So I’m not sure when I’m going to fit in Liar’s Diary but I intend to.  You too, right?  Good, thought so!

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Redux: Slow and Pink

It’s been exciting, being out on the LitPark stage and having mumbled e-conversations with others of my writerly ilk… but now I have to face the fact that time marches forward and it’s time for me to figure out what to put up here next.  I really liked that last story but the fairly resounding silence it met makes me wonder if I’m barking up the wrong bus stop with that stuff.  Fortuitously, as I surfed around I happened to get a random link at the bottom of my home page that reminded me of a story I quite liked, but that I’d posted elsewhere.  It was fairly popular there, too, so maybe it’ll satisfy my craving for public response retroactively.  Regardless, it is full of imagery I’d prefer to be able to get into my brain without dredging other people’s archives, so here it is again (for those of you who’d seen it back in ‘05) or here it is for the first time (for anybody else).

I don’t quite recall what Jules said about him, exactly, which was par for the course because I don’t recall too much about him generally, except that he blew my mind in a sad, sweet, very slow way. She said something, though, about the slow pink parasol guy, and I knew immediately who she was talking about. I haven’t been to Santa Cruz much but there can only be one slow pink parasol guy.

We’d been strolling along a busy but intimate district of small shops and cozy cafes last summer, a neighborhood with a lot of activity, commercial and pedestrian. It was a great place to windowshop and peoplewatch and take in the world. And that’s where he was hanging out, so that’s where we saw him.

We saw him a few times that afternoon as we worked our way up and down the main drag. He was unmistakable, so extraordinary and unique that I was uncomfortable looking at him too closely. I don’t know why this was so; he clearly invited curiosity: he was all in pink, as I recall, with a pink hat like a bowler and a pink suit in an archaic cut - something Edwardian, or the like. I get a vibe of velvet cuffs and a ruffled shirtbreast; pants - corduroy? velvet? something with a texture, surely, pink as well, down to improbably mauve men’s leather shoes. And over his shoulder he rested a parasol, pink, the interior of which he’d carefully lined with aluminium foil. I want to say there were some flowers or a balloon, too, associated somehow with this parasol, but the more I pursue the details, the more they elude me.

He’d had this gaze, see, this sweet, earnest smile that he turned on everybody who walked past him, a look so personal and penetrating that I felt compelled to turn my own eye aside and let him be what he was without invading his autonomy by staring at him and writing mental notes on what I was seeing. But it was hard not to stare and to take a good long stare at that, because the man was moving so incredibly slowly. He seemed like a young enough man, his face unlined and the hair that curled out from under his hat still dark and thick, but he was moving at an infinitesimally slow pace. Each step he took was a fraction of an inch in length, and each tiny step took an eternity. It was like a zen exercise, a walking meditation done in slow motion in the smallest possible increments. It took him twenty minutes to creep past one storefront; in the few hours we wandered around this area I don’t think he got further than a single block.

As we’d occasionally walk past him he’d settle his serene smile on us and I’d feel obliged to look away from his pink penumbra. But before I did, face to face with him, I always noticed that his ensemble was quite careworn, bordering on shabby - thought clearly lovingly attended-to. The suit jacket was threadbare and sunbleached; the hat was stained; the shoes on his barely-moving feet were worn and scuffed and his parasol was refurbished and made me inexplicably sad, its crumpled foil liner improvisationally attached and pocked with holes. When I looked into his eyes and his soft welcoming gaze washed into my soul, I didn’t want to see the holes and stains in his shirt, the bent spines of his fringed parasol, or any evidence of how he clearly strained and strove to maintain this persona.

I could invent any number of reasons he might be doing it; I’d never know the truth of that matter. But I could also see him as he wanted to be seen, a vision of color and kindness, filling his corner of the world with something sweet and inducing of smiles. If I looked too closely, I’d only see the ways his efforts fell short, but with a quick glance and a friendly nod I’d just see the him he wanted me to see. To do otherwise seemed disrespectful to him, and deprived me of his artistic vision, or whatever the hell he was expressing. And I guess that’s why I didn’t look that carefully, didn’t inventory his strangeness so closely. It felt like a violation, somehow, to scrutinize him when he couldn’t really stand up to such close examination. He needed to be seen in passing, briefly. So that’s how I tried to see him.

And that’s probably why I let it go altogether till that night when Jules asked me to put my thoughts about him on paper.  I still figure I’m not doing him justice, but so it stands - I’ve outed him. There can certainly only be one of him, one slow pink parasol guy, and Santa Cruz is a fine place for him to be. If you go down Front Street near Water, you’re likely to see him too. Give him a nod and a smile - you’ll get one back. But don’t look too closely or you’ll burn the wrong image into your memory, and he’s tried so very hard to create the right image that it would just break my heart to dishonor his vision. It must take a lot of effort to be slow pink parasol guy, and I’d like him to get full credit for it.

Have a good weekend, y’all.  Ours will be rainy but relaxing.  Get out from under your parasol for a few minutes and let the rain fall on your smile, okay?

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

BFFs

Looks like it’s going to be the bus stop story, in honor of anyone who’s visiting from LitPark where I am doing a guest post today about noticing stuff, especially on public transportation.  This isn’t really something that happened on the bus but I’ll try to sneak by with it.  I’m sneaky that way, you know.

It was one of those special beautiful days. The sun was sunny and I was out with the boy.  We’d been shopping together – itself, a rare occurrence – and had arrived at a bus stop whence we might soon and swiftly be spirited home again, goody-laden and glowing with consumer confidence.  It was late in the afternoon and we were having a grand time together, there at the bus shelter outside the 6th and Geary KFC.

Though my hands were full of bags and parcels, the boy is still small so I had him hoisted on my hip. We chatted quietly together, wiling the time till our ride arrived.  Z often attracts attention from random folk we encounter, and the small group with us at the bus stop that day was no exception.  It included a couple of ethnic grannies, who watched Zach with delight and me with conditional approval of my apparent parenting chops.  There were also two of the high school kids who habitually patronize the adjacent chicken-biscuit refectory. 

The grannies were in their traditional stretchpants and babushkas; I noted to myself how interchangeable they seemed to be, even across cultural lines.  Less noteworthy to me was the parallel interchangeability of the high school kids – the melting pot of public secondary education blended all but the most integumentary distinctions between racial groups.  Euro, afro, sino and latino – they all dressed pretty much alike, sounded pretty much alike.  One thing I do love about this town is how all the kids I see intermingle across ancestral lines.  The grannies gather in homogenous groups, but the kids are substantially hetero – at least, so far as their choices of friends are concerned.  Race seems to have nothing to do with it.  It looks like it’s mostly about the clothes. 

This was what I thought as the two high school kids watched me with my two-year-old son: a white girl and a yellow girl, both in jeans as tight as plastic wrappers on hard candy, one in a hoodie and the other in a fur-ruffed jacket, both with long glossy hair and bright clear eyes and rosy cheeks and enticingly glossed lips.  Two cute kids, I thought, but my little boy’s cuter. My heart swelled with both pride and joy.

As if on cue, Z turned to face me in my arms, took my face in his hands, puckered all the way up and planted a big wet kiss on my chapped lips.  It was a solid one – extended and bilabial, ending with an audible smack. 

I could see the grannies – they grinned a little, or maybe they were smirking.  Then I saw the schoolgirls.  They were smiling at Zach, at Zachy and his daddy; then they turned their smiles on each other.  One put her hands on the other’s shoulders; the other, reciprocated with her hands on the other’s hips.  They gently drew together and kissed, lightly, then with more intensity.  It seemed like an excessively friendly kiss.  Hell, it was passionate. 

I guess I was staring by this point because one broke off for a moment to flash me a smile that I would otherwise have found innocent, but now seemed much more knowing. Then she returned her attentions to her friend’s oral area, and they earnestly osculated till the bus arrived. 

When it did shortly show up, they separated and loaded on with the rest of us as if nothing was out of the ordinary.  Zach was, as always, delighted to board the big vehicle.  The grannies were devoid of apparent emotion, as is their usual practice and affect.  The girls seemed to be just girls again, freshfaced and forward-looking, sharing a giggle and a plastic bench like any other kids might.

I, however, with my toddler on one arm and my shopping bags on the other, felt distinctly unsettled.  I was pretty sure Z and I hadn’t started anything between them, but we seemed to have encouraged it.  I was okay with that, too.  Maybe I was too okay with that.  Maybe that’s what I found so unsettling.

up next: I’m thinking, something a bit more wholesome and heartwarming.  Let’s see what I’ve got in the notebook.  Thanks for stopping by and please keep your hands and head inside the blog at all times.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Monkeyshines and Momulation

It occurs to me, now that I’ve hit “publish,” that this is my MLK Day post.  I mean no disrespect by it.  Really, now that I think on it, I believe this story helps me reach across some long-impermeable lines.  Language, culture, skin color and religiosity can all be barriers to communication and interaction.  This need not be so, and I think the following vignette makes that point quite neatly.  Radically paraphrasing Dr King, people are people.  Open your eyes to them and this truism will prove itself to you time and time again.

We spent our afternoon today at the Asian, where a special ceremony was held to dedicate two new paintings by Korean monks.  The dedication involved 45 minutes or so of sutra chanting, during which Zach was well-behaved for 15 minutes and in another gallery for the remaining 30 with Kel; I spent those 45 minutes kneeling on a tatami in increasingly deep meditation while the monks chanted in the soaring beauxzart Samsung Gallery until I sensed a disturbance in the force: Kel and Z were signaling me from the flyway bridge outside the glass doors.  Actually, Kel was signaling to me and Z was signaling to the people three stories below him in the lobby, but I got the point and excused myself. 

By the time we got back to the gallery, the monks had finished the “eye-opening” ceremony, enlivening the portraits by completing the painting of their eyes, and the jig was up, so to speak - except for the dancing and drumming that followed.  When I’d read that there would be “dancing and drumming” I immediately thought of something else, but what they actually had going on was much more restrained - a single beautiful woman in a ghostly white costume with sleeves as long as her torso, in a slow, delicate and extremely tightly choreographed performance to the sound of a single small tom-tom and a gong.  It was breathtaking to watch her, but Z’s enhanced energy levels were conducive neither to her concentration, the enjoyment of the rest of the audience, nor our continued attendance, so we only got to watch for a short time.  But during that short time I did see something that made an impression on me, and I’ll try to freehand it here for you:

The initial ceremony was conducted by three monks in sienna robes, shaveheaded and full-throated.  After we’d returned to the general vicinity of the great hall to see that they had concluded their devotions, I found one of them standing on an elevated throughway just outside the Samsung doors.  He seemed to be in his 20s or 30s, slender of build and middling of height. 

Before him stood a halmoni - a korean woman of an age exceeding that at which propriety permits me to estimate it.  Halmonis are, if I may venture a general stereotype, tough birds.  They run families, and since families run Korea, they are truly national matriarchs - and they damn well act like they know it.  This particular halmoni was just a shade over five feet tall, dressed in a severe black pantsuit with carefully coiffed hair and minimal but very accurate make-up. 

She stood, as I mentioned, before the monk, and spoke intently at - not to - him.  Her mouth moved inexorably and without pause.  As I stood near them, stealing peeks as I was able, I never heard her stop talking and I never heard the monk speak a word.  She had locked her gaze on him and he stood as if helpless before her.  His face, so serene during the ceremony, was now tense and hunted; he had taken grip of his beautiful robes in both fists and was anxiously twisting them ever tighter till I expected to hear the fabric rent.  His weight shifted from foot to foot and he glanced around like a forgotten prisoner looking for his missing jailer; meanwhile, halmoni’s hard eyes never wavered and her mouth never rested.

After several minutes, someone walked between them and broke the spell for long enough to let the monk suggest that they ought to view the dance - or so I assume, since they spoke korean, but halmoni immediately, unsmilingly turned on her short sensible heels and led him into the hall.  As she pushed her way through the crowd to get a good vantage point she looked neither left nor right, and permitted everyone whom she bumped to apologize to the back of her head for being in her way.  The monk, walking behind her, bowed low before entering the room and to every person before whom he passed, smiling and gentle. 

Halmoni was insinuating herself deep into the crowd, having spied an empty chair in the middle of the auditorium, but the monk turned right where she’d turned left and placed himself in a discreet spot near the back of the hall by a broad marble column.  As he stood there, a man - caucasian, but dressed in an all-black tunic-and-trousers outfit strongly reminiscent of monkwear - approached him and bowed to him with more than perfunctory reverence.  They engaged in a brief conversation, and then the man in black presented the monk with a cardboard box of the general size I’d associate with gourmet chocolates.  The monk seemed taken aback and smiled broadly at the gesture, taking a few moments to read and, it seemed, translate the wording on the box, and then opened it to see and sniff its contents - not chocolates, but incense.  The monk seemed delighted to have received it, and the man in black seemed grateful for the monk’s response. 

For a few moments, the two men stood together, exchanging few words but many gazes, toward each other as well as upon the graceful, anachronistic, otherworldly dancer.  Then, suddenly, the audience around them was torn asunder as halmoni worked her determined way back to the column and her monk.  The man in black sank into the background, and halmoni took up a position microns away from the tips of the monk’s ceremonial slippers.  She began to speak again, too quietly for me to hear her but with an intention that echoed unmistakably off the coffered ceiling.  The monk seemed to shrivel in his robes.  From his place against the column, retreat was impossible.  Halmoni scanned the crowd briefly and derisively as she resumed her part of a conversation in which interruption would have been, not only unthinkable, but actually impossible. 

That monk had entered a discipline that enveloped his entire life, had immersed himself in learning and spirituality, had become a teacher and leader to his countrymen and to strangers, and then had traveled nearly 6,000 miles to continue his work - and even so I found it all too clear that he still couldn’t get away from his mother.

Up next: oh, I don’t know.  I’ve got a cute Zach story, a bit of fiction, and a bus stop incident.  We’ll see what feels right.  And for those who are interested in the bigger world of words and what they can really say, can I ask you to take a look here?  It seems I’ll be guest-columning there on wednesday.  Stop by and help me move in some furniture or something.  I’ll bring the keg but you are responsible for filling it yourself. 

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Odyssey on Geary Boulevard: Theory and Practice

While I was writing out my last post longhand in my little notebook, I found myself having a conversation on the bus that has stuck with me.  Lucky you, I’m sticking it back right here:

As always, I took my usual seat and glanced sidelong at the empty space beside me.  I knew it would be, as always, one of the last to be filled, for whatever reason.  And, also as always, I wondered idly who would take that dive and dare to contiguate with me.  Another office-worn deskjockey with redrimmed eyes and a bulging briefcase?  An elderly shopper from Stockton street, laden with clumsy bags of fishmaw and bitter melon and herbs that make my clothes smell strange the next time I put them on?  Or even – dare I wish it – some young hottie, impervious to and dismissive of the world, with perfect makeup and a tiny clutch bag?  All these people were boarding at every stop, and still the seat beside me remained empty.  But as soon as I saw the tall guy get on board I knew that he’d be my neighbor for the rest of the ride. 

He was, as I mentioned, tall, and dark, with a tidy pencil moustache and a conservative light-brown sport jacket, plaid business slacks and well-worn leather oxfords.  He carried a small green canvas attaché case and held a small cassette player to his ear in an archaic posture of attentiveness.  He wove his way from the front door of the bus right to my seat and almost passed me by; I was ready to admit error in my prediction when he turned on his toes and lightly settled in beside me, still listening intently, his eyes focused on some inward target.  So much for the shopgirl hottie option, I thought, and settled in, listening to my own music and writing a story in my notebook.

I stole a few discreet peeks at my neighbor, out of curiosity.  I noticed that his attaché case was almost new; he’d filled its little tabs for holding pens with pencils of a sort I’d never seen, seemingly made of tightly rolled paper and topped with pristine pink erasers.  The man’s eyes were focused up at a steep angle as he listened raptly to his cassette player, regularly stopping, rewinding, and replaying it.  Well, he might not be my idea of a fun seatmate, I admitted to myself, but he seemed sufficiently inoffensive.  I would permit him to remain beside me.  As if I had a choice. 

Blocks and neighborhoods spun past the window; I scrawled; he listened.  Eventually, with an air of resignation, he clicked off the cassette player and took stock of his surroundings.  The bus had somewhat emptied; ambient noise was at a reasonable level so I had turned my iPod’s volume down a bit.  I glanced around, as is my wont, and our eyes met.  I saw his lips moving at me and I tried to hear him over my music.

“What (doo doo doo doo doo)?” I wasn’t picking up much of what he’d said, but it seemed to be a question and under the circumstances there was a very good likelihood it had to do with my notebook.  I answered the question I assumed he’d asked, as I popped out my left earbud:

“Writing a bit of a story; it’s about an accident to my car.”

“Oh, to deliver a claim to the DMV?” Now I could hear him more clearly, and discerned a distinct accent.  India, I wondered? 

“No, just to write about it.” He seemed inexplicably crestfallen by my answer, as if it had been a test and he’d failed it.  I tried to assuage his discomfort by deflection: “What are you listening to?”

“A vocal part for my church choir.  I am in a choir for my church.  It’s a Catholic church.” He paused delicately.  “Are you Catholic?”

My immediate misgiving, that I was about to be proselytized, evaporated as I looked into his curious but somehow anxious eyes.  “No,” I responded.  I was willing to speak to him, but this was a conversation he’d have to drive if he wanted it to go anywhere.

“Do you attend any sort of church, or, um…” His question trailed off like wet footprints evaporating on a hot sidewalk. 

“I am Jewish,” I told him, with quiet self-assuredness.  I didn’t think he would try to get me to switch teams, but I didn’t want him to think he’d be able to, either. 

“Oh very good, yes, the Jews are, um… a peaceful people.  Like the Catholics.  We’re very like each other.” In the pause after he spoke I saw him recognize the essentially ludicrous nature of his statement.  The silence between us was a bit strained.

“I think,” I replied after a moment, “they’re all basically peaceful if applied properly, and none of them work very well when you do them wrong.”

“Excuse me?” I repeated my comment a few times till he was able to hear it, or to process it.  “Ah yes, yes, yes, it’s all in the application, too true, too true.”

He paused reflectively, then turned toward me in his seat. “The others in the choir have known for years how to make music this way, it’s all they know so even a new piece of music is so much easier for them; I’m learning the music, the composed music, the theory, everything all at once – this is why it’s two times harder for me.” He looked genuinely pained as he confessed this to me. 

“It will become more natural in time,” I consoled him unconvincingly. 

“It’s not that, it’s twice as hard for me, it can be so difficult to be a supporting voice, you’re singing something entirely different.  You don’t understand.”

“Do you mean you’re singing a different song, or a different part of the same song?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” he answered enthusiastically.  I’m not sure he understood my question but I let it drop.  “Because I see all these people everywhere, singing,” he continued, “but they are singing whatever they wish, however they wish, with no regard for the composer’s work; it’s not about singing up at the lead all the time, it’s very very difficult to sing the supporting parts, you really don’t know how difficult it is, and I’m learning it for the first time you know.”

“I do know, I’ve done musical theater and it was always very difficult for me to learn harmonies.”

“Ah, so you read music?”

“No, one of my biggest regrets is not learning to read music when I was younger.”

“Did they teach it in your schools?”

“Yes, but I didn’t really pick it up.”

He seemed agitated by this comment.  “In this country you have so many resources and you do not use them – music classes and art classes and such – no one had that in India, and here you have them and you don’t even take advantage of them.  If I had been able to take music classes and art classes, and… I’d…” His voice was becoming tense and choked.  I tried to move things along.  I didn’t want him having a breakdown right there next to me. 

“Just reading music is only a piece of the whole.  Reading music is just a technical skill, but music is an art form.  Even if a musician knows technically how to draw, if he’s not an artist his drawings will just be drawings, not art.  Only true artists can make visual art.  These are different gifts, to be able to engage in these various modes of communication.  As for me and my little story, so many can read written words but so few can write them well.”

“Yes, not all can learn to play music even if they can read it, only true musicians can make real music.  It is, as you said, all in the application.” He seemed to be back on track. 

“Did you sing as part of a formal practice in India?” I queried gently.

“Of course.”

“Then I’m sure you have a vast body of training and perspective that can help you.  It looks and sounds unnatural now but if you commit to it I’m sure you will grow to see the natural rhythms and connections that underlie it, you’ll internalize it and it will feel not only natural but inevitable.  Just so long as you embrace it and are willing to let it lead you.”

“Yes, well, hm.” He seemed unconvinced, and peered out the windows into the darkness beyond.  “I must be getting off the bus shortly.  My church is nearby.” He rose.  “It was good to speak with you on these many subjects.”

“Likewise.  Good luck, and don’t forget to breathe from your diaphragm!”

He had walked away and was stepping down the stairwell as I almost shouted that last farewell to him down the aisle of the bus.  Several sourfaced commuters turned to see who’d been hollering a nasty word like “diaphragm” during their commute but I ignored them.  My mind was on harmonies and concordances.  I hadn’t sat beside a silent siren as I’d dared to dream when I boarded the bus.  Instead, I rode with a voluble Odyssus, fighting his way through foreign perils far from his familiar home.  He was just as eccentric as I’d predicted he’d be when I first saw him boarding, but, as I should know by now, that just made for a much more interesting ride. 

Monday, January 14, 2008

Left Waiting on the Church Steps

UPDATE: if you got here via a “muscle car” link, you will be sorely disappointed - unless you are okay with other kinds of cars too.  This one ain’t muscular.  Except in terms of the writing, of course, which is my usual literary version of six-pack abs (buried under several inches of abdominal adipose).

As promised....

Let’s take a backward glance, shall we, to the neon and neoprene of the early nineteen-nineties - an era of good feelings and personal actualization for all sentient beings on this great green globe.  Twin Peaks was in its first run, twin towers cast shadows that slid across Manhattan but not the rest of the world, and Kelly and I had only lately arrived in Frisco City.  We lived in a small apartment, we kept two charming cats, and Kelly was leasing a diminutive and undistinguished car. 

Back in L.A. she’d tried to get along with a superannuated Toyota Carina (sic) that was actually powered solely by the force of good intentions and a small group of inventive Ethiopian mechanics.  When it finally actually burst into flame and acceded to its doom, instead of trying to buy another untrustworthy antique more useful for amusing and enriching greasemonkeys than for providing reliable transportation, Kelly opted to lease a real - albeit real cheap - new car instead.  We stuck with Toyota but updated to a Tercel hatchback in low-charisma white.  It was the first truly new vehicle either of us had ever called our own and we were delighted by its cozy interior, in-dash AM-FM radio, new car smell and four steady-firing cylinders.  It wasn’t anybody’s idea of a muscle car (not even the weak muscles like the ones for extending your fourth toe) but we had a small life and it met our needs. 

The lease, as I recall, ran three years, of which we lived the first two in L.A. and the last in S.F.  We kept the Tercel gassed up and running smoothly, which really didn’t require much work.  As another condition of the lease, and of driving a car in general, we also kept it insured.  Insurance, of course, is a formality.  There’s never any reason to invoke a claim.  The maniac at midnight who leaves your car a misshapen hulk on the sidewalk is an urban myth, statistically. 

You can see where this is going, right? 

I’ll go on anyway.  You’ll get a kick out of it.

Three years had elapsed since that sunny SoCal day when we drove the Tercel off the lot.  The days had been happy and full, frustrating and vacuous, dull matte grey.  It had been life, lived in part behind the wheel of our little leased car, and now that lease was up.  It was time to turn in the Tercel.  Of course, since we’d paid for our allotted time, we’d have been fools not to keep it for as long as we could.  To turn it in early would have been a waste.  This, as it turns out, was the hubris of utilitarianism - a lesson we learned the hard way, as follows:

The lease was a contract with monthly payments.  So was the insurance.  These two contracts were slightly - just very slightly - out of phase.  Insurance was due one week ahead of the lease.  This meant that we could have paid for a month’s insurance to cover the last week of the lease, or we could let the insurance lapse and ride our karma for seven short days and a drive to L.A. to drop off the little auto-ette.  Karma abounded in those halcyon days; money to piss away for three extra weeks of insurance on a vehicle we’d no longer possess did not.  Such an expenditure would be non-utilitarian.  We therefore allowed coverage to lapse, and dug ourselves just a little more deeply into the inevitable travesty of fate. 

We were going to drive down to do the drop-off on Saturday.  The preceding Wednesday our doorbell rang at 2 in the goddamn morning.  More accurately, the buzzer for our intercom snarled and awoke us from the sound sleep of blissful ignorance.  Fumbling and indignant, I shuffled over to answer it.  “Yes?” “This is the SFPD, your car is parked illegally, get down here and deal with it.” His voice was humorless and brusque.  “Be right there.” I ran to the front window and looked down to the street; red and blue flashers cast crazy pantone shadows.  I pulled on my robe and Kelly got hers and we went downstairs to see what had been wrought. 

The cop’s cruiser was double-parked in front of an empty parking spot at the leading corner of the block, a spot where, in fact, we had parked the Tercel earlier that evening, but where at that moment no car was parked at all.  Our car, the uninsured hatchback with the lease about to expire, that had carried us to San Francisco but still had to make it back to L.A., rather than being where we’d left it, now hunched like carrion halfway up the low marble steps of the First Church of Christ Scientist. 

This church was the architectural anchor of the intersection.  It’s got lovely ocher bricks and warm Romanesque proportions.  The harmonious effect of the overall design was being thrown off, however, by the presence of our little car.  The Tercel now seemed to have a footprint more like a trapezoid than a rectangle.  From the front, the vacant stare of the headlamps and radiator grille still gazed out at us like a patient etherized; meanwhile, the back of the car bore immediate and obvious evidence of a powerful impact on the left side. 

The cop was profoundly unamused.  “What the hell were you thinking, parking there?” Glass littered the blacktop at our feet beneath the space our left fender had recently occupied.  I inhaled some predawn patience for my answer, then replied: “I didn’t park there, officer.  I parked right here.  It looks like somebody ran into my car and pushed it all the way across the sidewalk and up the steps.”

“Yeah?” He seemed to be considering this novel hypothesis skeptically but fairly.  “How old’s that body damage?”

“Never seen it before, officer.  And I think this here was our tail lights.” I pointed with my toe to the glittering rubble strewn around us.

“Hm.” He was, reluctantly, persuaded.  “Okay, I guess.  Just get it off the church property.  G’nite.” He turned to go.

“Hold on, there, officer, please.” Maybe my exhaustion and exasperation caught his attention; he turned back around impatiently.  “Can you give us a report on this, or something?  Our car is trashed here.  At least let me get your name.”

I’d come outside without paper, of course, which I remembered as I patted myself down on the sidewalk in the gloom of the night.  The cop sighed and pulled out a pad to prepare a report for us when he got a squawk on his shoulder-radio.  He and it barked a short conversation back and forth.  Suddenly, then, without a word to us, he bolted back to his car, hopped in, drove fast up to the next corner, and then pulled a hard left out of my life.  The street was quiet for a moment, and then I heard sirens from two or three cruisers turning on not far away.  It was a full-on high-speed chase down California Street toward the gulch as a miscreant flew past us followed by four noisy cop cars, roaring past us into the silent maw of the night.

Then it went quiet again and we just stood looking at our car smashed up on the steps of the church.  I went inside and called triple-A, came back out to wait for them and for the cop to come back to finish his report.  Eventually, triple-A came; the cop did not.  Once the car had been towed away I called the police department to try to track something down but I never even got close.  By the time the weekend came and the car was due back to the agency, we were negotiating paying for a lease extension so we could get it repaired instead of being charged with the total loss of the vehicle.  More money?  Sure they agreed to it. 

Once the car was repaired we returned it, and once the car was gone, a week or so later, all hope I’d had of scaring up a police report was gone with it.  On an uninsured car, that meant that the bill was ours and ours alone.  We fought it for months but not with a righteous heart.  We’d extended beyond the known limits of our karma and we had to pay the price - in this case, several hundreds of dollars, month after month, every month for about three years.  That’s the deal we worked out with our leasing agency.  We eventually paid off our overdrawn karma though, all right.  With interest.

The events of that unkind night and its salvo of repercussions stung badly for a good long time.  But time did move us into newer, wiser ways. There were specific evolutions, like how we make sure now that we’re insured against madmen at midnight, at least to the extent we’re legally or contractually obliged. But the main lesson was less specific than that.  Karma, it seems, has a specific tensile strength, and we’d managed to find its breaking point.  That’s the mistake we won’t be making again.

Wanted: Botin Q-Tips

Last weekend we visited the Academy of Sciences in its last few hours before it closed its downtown location permanently - it’s moving to the amazoid new facility being built in our neighborhood.  While we were there I was, once again, impressed by the intrepid scientists from many years past who sailed into unknown seas and lands, risking everything to obtain tiny samples of plant and animal life so that we might appreciate and study them later, like now.  I thought of them charging through the wilderness, riding the bowsprit of creaking wooden vessels, living with rough sailors and struggling to keep their samples and equipment safe during storms and encounters with suspicious natives.  I like to think of these gutsy guys not so much as scientists as “botineers.”

Yo ho ho.  That is all. 

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Easy Going Sunday

It started off as a not-great outing, I have to admit.  Kel and I were both bickering over who was in the bad mood and who was just trying to get past it but kept being antagonized by the other one.  It was the second beautiful day of the weekend and we’d already accomplished many great things (including finally watching SuperBad, seeing friends, getting some good exercise in the park, shopping for lots of critical household supplies, steamcleaning the kitchen floor - yes it needed it - and suchlike).  But we were sniping and sourfaced as we pulled away from the curb on our little trip.  Kel wondered if I really wanted to go to the museum; I didn’t have a better idea but would really rather have taken the bus since it’s cheaper than paying for parking downtown, inasmuch as we’d still be paying to get into the museum once we got there.  Things did not bode well.

Downtown, Kel suggested that I try a drive-by to find a parking space on the street before we caved and went to the lot, which was several blocks away and not exactly cheap.  In the spirit of placation I did so but I harbored doubt in my heart, because you simply cannot find street parking anywhere near SFMOMA on a Sunday.  The driveby was unproductive and I started circling semi-randomly.  I did try to get into a different, more nearby, parking lot, but missed the entrance and then couldn’t circle around again because of one-way streets.  Despite my best intentions to the contrary, the angry humors were starting to bubble up out of my gallbladder just like I’d read about in my medieval medical texts.  And suddenly, dammit, we were right back at the museum again and there isn’t ever any parking there and OH HOLY CRAP HE’S PULLING OUT!  Right in front of the museum, right in front of us, a parking space opened up and we slid in like a manta ray on its manta prey.  Whoo-hoo!  Plus, street parking is free on Sundays - this was a zero-cost resolution with maximum convenience.  I was floored.

So now we’re at the museum doors and I’m seeing an unusual number of little kids with artsy projects like paper hats and beaded necklaces.  In front of the door, there’s a little table set up and the guy behind it asks if we’re SF residents.  Yeah I am and whatzit tuya?  Do we have proof?  Yeah, dude, I smugly reply, flashing my DL.  Very good, welcome to SFMOMA, it’s family day, here’s your free tickets and a wristband that lets you in to, like, 34 other places around town today for free too.  To this, I had no smug reply.  I just gathered my mandible off the doormat and sashayed inside with my now-entirely-delighted family. 

First stop was the second floor for Olafur Eliasson’s special ending-that-day exhibit of a BMW hydrogen-powered race car, which he’d stripped down, re-housed in a cool metal mesh cage, and then froze into a lattice of ice.* The exhibit space was 18 degrees F (or 265 Kelvin, if that’s easier for ya) so we were provided with fleecy blankets to keep us warm as we gaped at it.  Honestly, it was pretty cool, along with being witch-tit cold.  Then again, Eliasson’s Icelandic so he probably didn’t notice it much.

Then we traipsed up to Floor 5 for the rest of the Eliasson exhibit, which totally rocked - amazing spaces full of rippling lights, pulsing lights, intersecting colors and reflections, and - my favorite - special lamps that killed all color: under them, my green shirt and Z’s red shirt were the same color and everything looked like it was in a b&w movie.  Then there was the crystalline jeweltones of the colortunnel, five stories above the lobby which was visible beneath us through a mesh floor, and the giant kaleidoscope star, and the tunnel of basaltoid hexagons, and the room with the curtain of mist that caught the light just so.... Z was fascinated by it all and so were we.  Then we took a quick spin through the long-term and permanent collections, which are excellent, and had a nice snack at their cafe, which left us ready for a bit of outside fun. 

Two blocks away was Zeum, the kids’ museum and lab for creativity.  We had ten minutes left to get in free there with our family day wristbands but even though we made it in time the line was brutal so we just cruised over to the enormous and adjacent Yerba Buena playground and rode on slides.  Then we visited the also-adjacent rink so Z could marvel at ice skating, which he now insists “we have to do;” luckily, we’re going to a bar mitzvah soon where the reception party will be at a rink and he can get his fill of falling on his ass with knives on his feet.  Good times ahead, eh? 

But our day was not yet over - we headed across the bridge over Howard Street to Yerba Buena Park and visited the MLK watergarden to cool our racing pulses before returning to our car.  It was just coming on to suppertime so we drove back homeward and a little beyond to check out the old neighborhood burger place that just re-opened, much expanded and improved; my burger and fresh house-made potato chips were just as I remembered them as having been: delicious.  Satiated and home again, Z watched some tube and then submitted cheerfully to a calming bath, and then fell asleep in half the time I’m used to spending getting him to fall asleep.  We even got to watch the penultimate episode of Amazing Race on the same night it was broadcast - almost unheard-of!  (extra bonus: elimination of a team we disliked.)

In all, it was a highly-successful second-half of a day that gave every initial indication that it was not going to go very well.  I guess my object lesson there is that, when life gives you the parking space you really need, get ready for things to get better out of the car than they had been going in the car.  Maybe that’s not much of a lesson but with a day like today I don’t need much of one.  Here’s hoping your week starts with good parking and just picks up from there.

Coming up: oh, let’s stick with parking stories - how about the one about when we found our car going to church at 2 in the morning?  You will, as they say, get a kick out of it.

*Photo courtesy of SFMOMA and Studio Olafur Eliasson

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Psst!  You in the Toque!

Boy howdy it’s fine to see ya here, rubbing your gnarled piehooks over the cold dead embers of the Chuklehut Recipe Coroner.  The larder is empty, the crockpot is crocked, and here I am picking my fangs and asking you where the hell you were while I’ve been polishing off the leftovers and hangers-on.  Oh, those were the left-onners, weren’t they?  That explains the hangover.  Goes to show there’s always something to be learned.

Shut up, I mean you too.  You want me to think you know everything there is to know about kitchencraft?  Is that so?  Well I never.  Which is to say, I rarely.  Which is, in turn, to say, here are ten things you may not know about making your food more easily, more delectably, and with higher hit-points.  If you already know them all, let me know and I’ll stop pestering you.  Otherwise, hunker down and get receptive cuz here comes:

TEN KITCHEN TIPS THAT WILL AMAZE YOUR FRIENDS AND MAKE YOU INVINCIBLE or at least a better cook:

1) Don’t use heavy plates or bowls in the microwave.  Even if they’re micro-safe they will suck up all the radiation and get superhot, while your food inside barely gets warm.  Use lightweight plastic storage containers, or a paper towel if possible.  Food will heat up INFINITELY faster

2) If you’ve fried something like potatoes or fish that gets all over-oily, the world’s best way to drain off the excess erl is with a paper towel over a paper shopping bag.  To drain both top and bottom, flip it onto a plate by lifting the whole paper bag, and then slide the food gently back onto the bag (with a fresh paper towel on it) other-side up after a few seconds.  That way the erl on the top doesn’t soak back into the food too much. 

3) If you are going to add dry seasoning or any powdered ingredient to a liquid or something that’s mostly liquid, don’t.  You’re likely to get lumps of seasoning that don’t dissolve into the whole mixture.  Instead, put the seasonings into a tiny bowl , add a few drops of the liquid, and stir gently till it’s gotten good and soaked.  Then you can add the highly seasoned tiny bit of liquid to the whole caboodle and it’ll blend through instantly. 

4) Lots of savory recipes call for water to be added.  Use broth instead if you can.  Makes a huge difference. 

5) Gravy!  Who doesn’t like a big boat of thick bubbling primordial gravy?  Evildoers, that’s who!  So suss out evildoers with this handy gravy recipe that works with pretty much any kind of cooking juice exuded from anything you’ve cooked: First, make sure the juices aren’t too fatty - pour it into a glass container and use a spoon to pull off any “excess” fat.  Get a saucepan (ah that’s why they call it that) nice and hot, then add a pat of butter and an equal amount of flour.  I usually use about 1-2 tablespoons of each, depending on how much gravy needs to be made.  Cook the flour in the butter till it’s browned and then add in the juice by dribs and drabs, stirring it thoroughly each time with a whisk.  Eventually you’ll have thickened up some damn fine gravy, and if it’s still too thin, pour it all back into another container and start more flour and butter going so you can do it all over again.  Really, this one is a proven crowd-pleaser.

6) Israeli cous-cous.  I’ve tried to avoid product-specific hints here but this is a product that is shamefully underutilized.  SHAMEFULLY, and I’m looking at you, mr and ms tiny-grain cous-cous.  The Israeli stuff is big-beaded, almost as big as tapioca beads in bubbletea.  It’s delicious, fast and easy to cook, and makes any random array of veggies and meats into a gourmett meal.  (Once again, cook it with broth, brother!)

7) If you are going to cook on a stovetop or in an oven, LET THE DAMN THING GET HOT ENOUGH BEFORE YOU USE IT.  srsly.  Everything cooks faster and comes out less frazzled.  (Exception: if you are cooking frazzles, the candy that turns into gum and then completely falls apart on itself.)

8) If you are cooking anything that’s been cut into pieces, take a little time to make the pieces pretty uniform in size.  They’ll all cook at the same rate, will be easier to manage in the pot or pan, and will look and behave better on the plate.  Knife skills are important, but so’s a good mandoline slicer.  Whatever it takes.  Just, for once in your life, strive for uniformity!

9) If you do any baking or need to add honey, syrup, molasses, or anything thick and gooey to your food, you should expect it to take for-freaking-ever to get it to dribble into a measuring spoon, and then twice as long to dribble out of the spoon into the food.  SAVE YOURSELF THE TIME: First, heat whatever it is just enough to make it nice and runny.  Then squirt your measuring spoon with spray oil before you pour in the goo.  It’ll pour in quickly and pour out just as fast.  Genius!

10) Rinse stuff out right after you’ve used it.  You don’t need to do a full wash-down but it’s so much easier to clean the damn place up if the bits and pieces have not been drying on the knifeblades and bowls for hours on end.  If you can’t manage this, consider filling a big bowl with water and using that as a soaking tub in your sink. 

Feeling edified?  Good then.  I expect supper to be prompt, delicious, and served hot.  Otherwise, I’ll just cook it myself again.  Some things never change.*

Now, got any for me?

*This fails to give credit to Kel who’s been setting up great suppers for me night after night lately since I’ve been getting home late and we need to eat quickly so as to get the boy to bed.  It was a joke, dammit.  Now look what I’ve done.  Well, to make an omelet you’ve got to antagonize your spouse, or something to that effect.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Backwash

Bathtime is funtime at Chez Zaqui.  Even before we traveled to pick him up, our reports from the agency told us how he enjoyed his baths, how he’d stretch his naked tininess, cooing with pleasure.  Even on those occasions when he lodges an initial protest against tubbal immersion, it’s almost always pro forma - he cries to do a little crying, but given the chance to toss some toys into the transparency of the bathwater, tears turn quickly to laughter.  I’ve even taught him to lie back in the water, floating (with support from me) so his shampooed hair spreads across the surface like wispy feathers, dispersing a halo of foamy white suds as he closes his eyes, his small body so relaxed, smiling and sighing.  The biggest struggle is usually getting him to leave the tub after it’s been drained dry. 

Draining the tub is another matter - one that is at the focus of my considerations today.  Z likes to pull the bathtub plug - insists on doing it, really.  I give him a few warnings about the impending expiration of bathtime - five minutes, two minutes, one minute, and a countdown for the last fifteen seconds.  As I reach “zero hour” he rushes the front of the tub, giggling and eager, scrabbling with vermicular water-softened fingers to wrest the stopper from the metal collar of the drain.  Then he plays with the outflowing water, sticks xylophone mallets into the drain plug and sings “happy birthday” to the upraised ends as if they were candles, and tests the effect of putting different things over the opening - a cup, a hand, an asscheek - enjoying the slow changes in his liquid environment. 

Yes, slow changes.  The ol’ bubbletubby is not what anyone would call a fast drainer.  It would be more accurate, perhaps, to call it “faster than evaporation” (the new name for my as-yet-unrecorded emo album).  Z enjoys this phase of his bath, but it does feel draining to me in a distinctly non-hydrostatic way.  What I’m getting at is that it’s boring to wait for the tub to drain so painfully slowly.  It makes me feel worn out and tired.  Also, I’m none too impressed by the anemic whirlpool produced - eventually - by this incremental process.  Z likes the whirlpool and I just wish it were more vigorous, both for his entertainment and for my convenience.  Yet all my wishing along such lines has proven ineffectual.  Its not a job for wishing. It’s a job for dangerous caustics, and I know where to get them. 

For, as you might have guessed, I’ve taken steps to ameliorate the unsatisfactory drainage situation: I went and got the biggest, baddest, blackest bottle of drain declogger available at my local omnimart.  It’s a hard-core product with two liquids in separate, adjacent sections of a single container, to be poured simultaneously down offending outflow orifi, resulting in an interaction with unparalleled schmutz-dissolving powers.  According to the ever-trustworthy technical copy on the label, it clears out anything but plutonium (which it nonetheless will polish to a sparkling luster).  It’s the top of the line in terms of drain-clearing technology available to the general public without a license, an electro-rooter, and special plumber’s pants. 

So: after Zebo’s bath one recent evening, I uncorked my magical vial(s) of chemical intensity, poured them simultaneously down the balky drain, and let it sit there overnight.  I dreamed, in the interim, of downspouts and MSs found in bottles and other hydrocyclonic phenomena. I was primed for big results.  I believed, dammit - I really believed. 

My shower the next morning didn’t fill the tub enough to reveal the efficacy of my efforts. That evening, pursuant to well-established policy, Kel and I traded jobs: she gave Z his bath and I read him to sleep.  I didn’t ask her to check the degree of drainal improvement; I wanted to see it for myself.  Later that night, K took a shower and the next morning I took another.  By this point that drain should have been quite thoroughly water-reamed.  That night, then, as I drew Z’s bath, I eagerly anticipated a nice fast hydroevacuation process when we pulled the drainplug, to the cheerful accompaniment of the unquenchable gurgling of a vigorous and substantial whirlpool.  Looking back, that was probably my big mistake: having expectations. 

Soon enough my little monkey was clean and had sufficiently frolicked in the warmth of the bathtub.  I gave the countdown and at zero he scrambled forward to yank the plug.  I held my breath.

Shortly thereafter I resumed normal respiration.  I could see that water was flowing out - the level was dropping, but not remotely as quickly as I’d anticipated. Z didn’t care, he played as he always does, but I was confused.  I’d cleaned the drain, hadn’t I?  Was it actually going slower than it had before?

After several minutes trickled past I was pretty sure of two things: it was slower, yes; also, by now I’d usually be seeing a whirlpool into the drain but this time I was seeing only smooth, featureless water, its surface untroubled by any evidence of cyclonic activity.  I figured that it would show up eventually, and that’s what happened at pretty much the last possible moment: as the final few quarts of dihydrogen oxide slid through the steel ring into the SF sewerage system, a wide oculus opened briefly in the water, a sudden yawn, a slurping gurgle, and then Zach was crawling around in an empty tub, grinning and delighted and still playing with his toys. 

I, on the other hand, was a little frustrated.  My plan had… what’s the equivalent of “backfire” for a bathtub?  The word that keeps floating through my mind is “backwash,” but it feels a little unsanitary.  Regardless, it’s probably accurate. 

Sorry, Zach.  I backwashed your whirlpool.  I’ll have to make it up to you.  In the meantime, it’s just your hard luck that bathtime doesn’t suck quite the way it’s supposed to. 

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Boxing Day - Miracles In Action (updated with photos)!

It’s been a long time since I’ve unshuttered the Chucklehut for a bit of an airing-out.  Now I get to return to those musty odors and mysterious wadded bits of fabric under the coffeetable that mutely accuse me me, “where in Jesus’ gravyboat have you been?  this place has gone to hell without you!” Oh, and I missed you too, you delightful dustbunnies of declamation.  (damn, he STILL GOTS IT!) So let’s get caught up, or cot up for those of you still sleeping off the cocktails that I did not imbibe this new year’s....

I - and my family - took a nice road trip up to outer Seattle ("the city that never completely dries out") to see some inlaws for the xmassing. The drive up was quiet - low clouds and scattered showers kept the view to a minimum; we barely even saw Shasta from I-5.  We overnighted in Springfield (town motto: “Not *That* Springfield"), then woke up gently and powered on out to the split-level paradise we’d be calling home for a week.  Last year our hosts - Tara, Phil, and li’l Nate - spent our xmas visit curled up with brutal stomach cramps, except for those special moments when they were rushing to the nearest basin for some dryheaves.  What joyful memories.  How was this year going to eclipse those experiences? 

It wasn’t easy, but a winning strategy was developed: Get a disaster going, and then make it as low-impact as it can possibly be.  Misery, filled with and surrounded by thick layers of “hell it ain’t so bad innit”.  This is an easy plan to make, but damn near impossible to carry off without overreaching.  We managed, though.  Let’s walk through the timeline:

Twas the day after xmas, and all through the house, we were getting a little tinsel-dizzy and candy-cane crazy.  We’d been sucking up high-cal food and hi-klass drinqs from morn till noon, then taking a bit of a nap, and then gluttony again from about 2:30 till the night overtook us.  It was time for some fresh air and what Western Washington State calls “sunshine,” which in this case was “weather that’s not actively precipitating on us”.  So we piled into cars and hauled ass and sled out to Hyak Snow-Park up in the Snoqualmie Pass (home of the
qualmest snow in the county).  Whereat: we sledded, we played,
we frolicked, and

generally had a good old time of things.  By 4 in the afternoon we were sore from laughing, just a little chilly, and
red-cheeked fore and aft.  It was time to pack it in and drive down the hill to our suburban crib. 

That’s when Tara closed the trunk of the car.  With the keys still inside it.  The trunk automatically locked and all of a sudden our snow-park frolic had become THE STUFF OF DISASTER.  Keys locked in car!  Night falling!  Temps dropping!  Toddlers getting cranky!  This is where we start to see personalities crumble and strong men melting like puddles of soiled fender-slush on the chains-installation section of the shoulder of I-90.  Guarded glances were exchanged among all adults, and then we settled down to enjoying the least disastrous chrismannakuah disaster in history. 

How so?  Let’s look at it this way: Chanukah was 8 nights long, and xmas was 12.  That gives us a goal of 20 miracles to redeem this event in dual cosmographies.  And we did it, people!  We got all our miracles! 

Count ‘em out with me, people!  Testify!

1: With one breath, Tara told us she’d locked out her keys.  With the next, Phil handed us steaming-hot mugs of cocoa, just brewed for us on a backpacker’s stove.  Miracles, 1-zip. 

2: Though their modern, powerful cell phones were - natch - locked in their car, I had my old vacuum-tube hand-crank version on me and - incredibly - it had excellent reception, even though we were 5 clicks east of central wilderness.  It was, indeed, a miracle.

3.  My cellphone has old, weak batteries, to go with the rest of its old, weak self.  I got to the mountains with two battery bands out of four.  By the time Phil was done
calling for roadside assistance (where he’d been kept on hold a long time), we were down to no bars, a flashing outline, and a “low battery” chirp.  However, we never lost power, dammit.  WE NEVER LOST POWER.  Miraculous.

4.  We all ultimately decided to go somewhere we could warm up and wait for a locksmith in comfort.  And even though it had been tight with just the three of us in the car, all six of us were able to fit reasonably humanely in our little Forester, with allowance for a few bent rules of road safety and common sense.  It is to be a miracle.

5.  We were able to get, very quickly, to a ski lodge - the only one for many many miles around - that happened to be entertaining night skiiers, and was therefore conveniently accomodating to our needs.  Mir-freaking-aculous.

6.  At the ski lodge, we were able to procure a decent cheesesteak.  This is more miraculous than you might think; I’ve got a pretty high cheesesteak bar.  Plus, damn dude, we are stranded in Snoqualmie pass - eating cheesesteaks?  Miraculoso!

At this point we got the “bad karma revival” call - on the cellphone that had MIRACULOUSLY regained three full bars of battery power: Roadside service will not be responding. 
No one is available to save our frozen asses. We should shelter in place, forage for pine nurts, and watch out for rutting elk.  Or call the state cops, or something.  Anyway, roadside assistance was gonna be a no-sho.  SO:

7.  We choose to
leave the disabled vehicle in its glacial bed and drive home for more than an hour on busy snowy storm-thrashed roads, four adults and two toddlers with one child seat and not much room in the back beyond that - AND WE MADE IT.  We got all the way home with minimal toddler freakout and minimal stress-positioning discomfort (sorry Phil, we shoulda made Tara sit back there).  Quelle mirable septieme!

8.  Of course, once we got past the pass the snow began to diminish and soon we needed to take off our chains - which I’d only learned to put on that morning, for god’s sake.  Luckily, we were on a busy slushy roadside at night without streetlights, illuminated only by the careening glare of fast-passing semis and personal motorcoaches, And wouldn’t you know it?  Those chains came off pretty damn easy.  Hell, I could almost say it was fun to hop out and pull them off but that would be over the top.  Miracle-wise, however, it totally ranks. 

9.  Except, of course, that it was pitch black out there, remember?  So how did we deal with that?  Turns out that we’d happened to give Z a little toy headlamp for xmas the day before, and for some reason we’d thought it might be handy if it came with us to the snow, so there it was in the car with us and not only had we brought it but WE FOUND IT in the overpacked vehicle, and verily it provided us with plentiful robust light, for as it is said, a miracle was done that night.

10.  Then we had the rest of the drive home.  That could have gone badly, if we’d been pulled over.  Child seats, passenger in the trunk… I couldn’t count on a Washington State Trooper being sympathetic to someone with California plates and two two-year-olds sharing a single restraining device.  As matters developed, we actually did get pulled over and issued a ticket - during our drive back, IN SONOMA COUNTY CALIFORNIA.  However, we drove home in the clown-Forester that night with no negative consequences, and an iPod to play a nice relaxing soundtrack for the ride.  Mira kill!

11.  Once we got to the house, of course, we had to get in.  And the housekeys were locked in the trunk, with everything else.  So, which window did we have to throw a brick through to get inside?  None of them, because Tara’s old friend Jen had a spare!  But that’s not really miraculous, you snorfle into your dustruffles.  Well maybe not - until you remember that Jen usually didn’t have any way to get the key to us, but as it so happened, that night she was housesitting and consequently had access to a car that allowed her to get the key to us before we arrived at the door.  Presto-Miraculo!

12.  The next morning Phil and I had to haul ass back up the mountain with a spare key.  The previous day we’d struggled through miserable traffic for 90 minutes to get to Hyak, and it had snowed a bunch since then.  We got up early to face the drive, and whaddaya know, there was no traffic at all.  We hit the crest of the pass with a noticeable accumulation of snow on the highway, and we were still cruising at highway speeds.  And lo there was no traffic to impede them in their way - and miraclemaking was done did.

13.  Once we got to the car we didn’t know what we’d find.  It was full of fun electronics like cameras and music players and as far as we knew it had probably been discovered by meth heads during the night who’d stripped it clean for meth money.  However, when we arrived where we’d left the car, we discovered it to be unscathed.  No busted windows or stolen contents.  Welcome to Miracle Town - population:
this. 

14.  The car we’d left behind had sat in a mountain pass, exposed but for some sleds propped against the windshield to ward off excessive icing, during a long snowy night.  The next morning could have dawned on it frozen in its parking lot, batteries drained and tires iced into place.  Instead, it just revved right up once we got it open and pulled smartly out of the space.  It wasn’t stuck.  Miracles do happen.  This was proof.

15.  Even the flimsy plastic sleds he’d propped in place the night before to ward off excessive icing were still there!  Nothing had blown away.  I smell miracle!

16.  On our way back from picking up the car we were able to stop at a local
flapjackerry to sample local flapjacks bacon waffles with a side of four large biscuits drowning in gravy.  Damn I love a mountain breakfast.  Miracle up!

17.  Upon returning to our table after I’d eaten breakfast, our Rubenesque server goggled at my empty plate.  “I can’t believe you ate it all!” was all she was able to stammer in her awe and amazement at my masculinity and prowess.  Yes, Rozelle, I ate it all, and I loved every bite.  Where did I put it?  Ah, that would be like explaining a perfect, beautiful miracle.

18.  On the way back Phil got tired of all the highway action and we took a side trip to Snoqualmie Falls, just to check’em out. 

They’re pretty damn miraculous, buddy.  I’m just saying.  And I wouldn’t have seen them if Tara hadn’t locked the keys in the trunk the day before - toss that on the miracle pile too while you’re at it. 

19.  And once we got home I had a lovely nap.  Hell yeah that’s a miracle, when there’s two two-year-olds demanding more Thomas toys every goddamn second. 

So there you have it, the twenty miracular boxing day bail-out.  It was as good as it could possibly have been.  Okay damnit I only have 19 miracles, but Zach took
this awesome photos of xmas lights to round things out.  For a kid 30 months old, I must say I am impressed!  And that, my friends, should be enough for the likes of you!