tangentwoman

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Post-vacation ramblings

I haven't been at work in, like, half a lifetime. Actually, since last Wednesday, but I think this is my longest stretch out of the office since the Smelmooo and I went on our honeymoon. And it is nice. It's one of those stretches that makes me want desperately to win the lottery.

Before we officially kicked off the road trip last Friday, we had some errands to do in our home town: dry cleaners, video store, library, liquor store. We tend to divide and conquer, so while the Smelmooo hit the dry cleaners, I went to the convenience store for drinks for the car ride up (I had secured snacks for the trip earlier in the day, but totally forgot about drinks). And it took FOREVER because this woman who was three people ahead of me in line was buying dozens and dozens of lottery tickets, with very specific numbers. Finally, the clerk told her she'd need to hang on while he waited on his other customers. The other people in line ahead of me were also getting lottery tickets, but taking the random number-generation option. There was some confusion (feigned, I'm fairly sure) about which guy was first, and I kept thinking how, if either of them ended up winning, the other would be kicking himself, either for being so damned pushy in line or for being too much of a pushover and not fighting for his rightful place in line. But I'm guessing none of them won, not even the lady who probably ended up spending a hundred bucks, because I expect that's the sort of thing one hears about fairly quickly in a small town.

[I'm sure you're paying extra-close attention and wondering, if I haven't been to work since Wednesday, and we didn't leave until Friday, what the heck happened on Thursday? I played hooky and went to Great Adventure with Minnams, is what happened, and it was a great treat to enjoy quality time with her AND to ride the roller coasters, although I'm concerned that I'm now too old to ride the roller coasters. Ten years ago, I discovered I couldn't deal with spinny rides, but now I've mostly accepted that roller coasters -- even ones that don't spin OR go upside-down -- make me feel a little hungover. I may not have many more amusement park days left in me. But I was glad to see that some things haven't changed: people still, for some reason, feel inclined to make out while waiting in line for rides, and there are still cheesy couples who wear matching or coordinating t-shirts as they saunter through the park with their hands in each other's back pockets.]

Anyway, we made our way up to our friends' place in Massachusetts, where we crashed on Friday night before heading up to Maine on Saturday. The male half of the couple we visited is an old friend of the Smelmooo's; we'd last seen him and his family -- he and his wife have two boys, six and three, who are adorable and smart and funny -- on our way up to Maine last summer. And it turns out they're having a third kid, in three months, which we didn't know until we showed up. The other thing we hadn't known until fairly late in the game was that our friends had a family party on Friday night, a booze cruise for the birthday of someone we'd never met. And, it was sponsored by a country music radio station. Two words: line dancing. The Smelmooo posted a video to YouTube, so you can see for yourself.

The trip to Maine the following day was fairly uneventful; we stopped in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where I'd not been before, just to walk around, eat ice cream, and kill some time. And then we went to the L.L. Bean outlet, home to myriad fleece products and completely overpriced chocolate novelties (lobster-shaped chocolate popsicles, only four bucks apiece!).

And then, our home for the week, a cottage on a lake, where we stayed last summer, as well. I am really more of a beach person than a lake person (I think mostly because I grew up going to the beach; people who grew up going to lakes think that the ocean is stinky and dirty and gross, I'm sure), but I really like sitting on the dock by the lake, and looking at the lake, even though I don't especially enjoy swimming in it. But we fished (I caught zilch), and read a ton, and napped a ton (mostly me), and ate a ton, and hiked some (Tucker jumped/fell into a puddle at the summit), and relaxed a ton. We went to a country fair and watched some kind of competition involving donkey-training and another involving tractor-pulling by children (and, ha! A little girl kicked all the boys' asses).

When I was a kid, we were not allowed to watch television on vacation, except for the Olympics (and, even that, I think it was only the Los Angeles Olympics that I remember actually watching). I try to adhere to that rule, although I planned on making an exception for the convention, as well. And then, somehow, I only managed to stay awake for Hillary's speech. I watched Michelle's and Kennedy's online, and the Smelmooo kept trying to wake me up for Barack's, but that was one of the nights we drank wine, and I just could not keep my eyes open. And I can't imagine actually watching an hour-long speech online, or even reading the transcript, so there you have it.

We also watched Season 2 of Dexter (so, yeah, it seems that the no-TV rule is fairly arbitrary, after all), which I found incredibly satisfying. I felt relieved that there wasn't a cliffhanger ending to the season (the Smelmooo pointed out that it's never clear whether Showtime shows will get renewed, so they're more inclined to wrap things up fairly neatly at the end of a season), and I could not believe that they made me hate a character way more than I hated Deb in the first season (aka Lila), and that I actually did NOT hate Deb this season. I think it's not only because she's not Lila that I didn't hate her; she seemed actually not just to be a two-dimensional character with a potty mouth this year. Ask the Smelmooo about our experience purchasing the DVD the day it came out. It involved a car chase. Sort of.

So, that was vacation, in a nutshell. And today, I did some back-to-school shopping, even though I'm only going back to school if I win the lottery. But I got a couple of staples for my fall wardrobe, and lamented the lack of decent summer clothes on the sale racks. I finally retired the Target swimsuit I got in the spring of 2001, and I got citronella on the ass of my olive-colored shorts the first day of vacation, so I was hoping to replace both today, in part because I'm looking forward to our next warm-weather trip, to Hawaii in January. But no swimsuits to be found, and the only shorts I could find either fell below the knee or barely covered my girly bits. The only happy medium I could find cost 40 bucks, and I don't wear shorts frequently enough to justify that.

Next weekend: a surprise outing for my birthday, plus some long-overdue time at the Jersey Shore. I think I'll need it after a whole four days in the office next week.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Rules are rules

First off, I have to say I'm a little unhappy with the New York Times web site this week, their Olympic spoilers screaming at me from the home page. I don't even remember what I was looking for yesterday morning, but I sure wasn't expecting to find out the outcome of the uneven bars competition that didn't air until 11 o'clock last night.

But knowing the outcome didn't keep me from watching the event last night, and glancing at the headline didn't make me understand how the tiebreaker worked, so that part, at least, was news to me.

And as much as it's a flawed system of tiebreaking, and as much talk of scandal there was about the tiebreaker (and about the scoring more broadly, with near-constant lamentations about how the Americans are getting screwed), it's not like the judges or the IOC or whoever made it up on the fly. They had a system in place for just this occurrence, and they followed that system, and despite a tie score, Nastia got the silver. And yeah, that's got to sting, a ton, and maybe she can call up Al Gore and be like, "Dude, I totally get it now," but that's the system, dopey as it may be. Don't take it away from the Chinese gymnast who ended up with the gold medal, and make snarky comments like, "Does she REALLY think she earned the gold, as she stands up there on that podium?" Well, yes, I bet she does, because she, in fact, did earn the gold.

And as much as I enjoy the American gymnasts, as crappy as I think it is that these 12-year-olds are competing (and, here, of course, the Chinese -- or Chineses, if you saw Tropic Thunder -- have circumvented the rules, which I agree is crappy, perhaps LEAST of all because it potentially gives them a competitive advantage), as beautiful as Nastia's routine was last night, as much as I'd have liked her to win gold, I think everyone needs to keep in mind that judging here is inherently subjective. It's not a matter of who touches the side of the pool first, or who crosses the finish line a nose ahead of the next hurdler.

So yes, I thought that Alicia Sacramone's (I am afraid to look up the correct spelling of her name for fear of additional spoilers, so apologies if I got that wrong) got hosed, but I also thought that Nastia's floor routine was better than Shawn Johnson's. That's my opinion; I just thought it was more graceful and beautiful, and although Shawn's was more powerful and athletic, I value that slightly less in a floor routine. My opinion. And even though there are some supposedly hard-and-fast rules here -- a step out of bounds is a one-tenth deduction, a fall is five-tenths, a balance check on the beam is something and a bobble is something else -- whose to say that one judge's balance check isn't another's bobble? There's an art to this stuff; it's subjective. What resonates with me and appeals to me in a routine as an American, and as a long-ago gymnast, is probably different from what appeals to an experienced gymnast from Australia, and what is perfection to Bela Karolyi (whom I love, by the way, which makes me feel conflicted given how awful he seemed to be in his coaching of Nadia) may be just adequate to a Chinese coach. That's just how it goes.

So although I appreciate the patriotism, and the media's and commentators' and fans' support for Team USA, I also feel like we need to dial it down and quit it with the sour grapes. Because even though I long ago outgrew my leotard, I still have this mantra seared in my brain: Gymnasts don't say "can't"; gymnasts don't cry; gymnasts don't whine.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

A teensy hypocritical, no?

So, I'm no big fan of Jennifer Love Hewitt, although I loved, loved, loved Party of Five, and joined a letter-writing campaign to save the show in its early days (I wish the effort to save My So-Called Life had been equally successful...). But by the time JLoHew found her way to her spinoff series, I was more than over both Sarah and her.

But I have also been happy that she seems to be settling down with someone who seems good for her (although I did not enjoy all of those clearly posed "candids" following the engagement, with the parrot and the head on the shoulder and all that nonsense). And I hated that she took so much flak for those vacation photos a few months back, and I was glad that she fought back with the whole "I am perfectly happy and healthy in my body, which by the way is a Size 2, thanks."

And then today, I was in D.C. for work, and, as is my custom, went immediately for the US Weekly for my train ride home. And the cover story is how JLoHew lost 18 pounds in 10 weeks, woo!

And I flipped through the story, and it actually seems like maybe her trainer and her PR person need to get on the same page, or maybe she needs to fire her trainer for flapping her gums. Because, of course, the trainer is quoting JLoHew as saying she wants to get in shape so she looks awesome in a tank top, and the rep is saying the new look is all about getting in shape to run a marathon.

Which it may be. I'm sure she is going to run a marathon, and she'll probably beat Katie Holmes's time, but it just seems like one shouldn't go on and on about how the media is perpetuating girls' issues with body image and then crowing to US Weekly about taking 18 pounds off of her Size 2 body. And maybe she didn't go after it; maybe the trainer was out of line; maybe it's all totally made up (although the revelatory: "She likes cherries!"? You can't make that stuff up!). But I felt a little indignant, seeing that. And maybe that's the point. Maybe indignance, and a somewhat Love-hate (heh) relationship increases sales of trashy magazines.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Pop

I've written here a little about my grandparents, mostly my mom's parents, who I knew much better than my dad's. My mom's dad, Pop, was loud and politically incorrect and easily exasperated, but he loved my grandmother more than anything in the world, and in between all of his bad behavior, he was sweet and gentle and affectionate. He loved fishing, even though the priest at his funeral got that mixed up and talked about how he loved model cars, or something, which made us all giggle uncontrollable, and helped to lighten the mood considerably.

Anyway, in addition to lying straight to our faces with stories like Gus, Sam and Gregory Peck being the Three Wise Men, Pop enjoyed assigning crazy nicknames to all of my siblings and me. I can't even remember all of them; one of my sisters, I think, was 72 Mack; another was Nutzie Fagan. I was The Baby, up until Pop died when I was 19 years old, but I also was Osceola Guy Lacy.

I had no idea who Osceola Guy Lacy was until today (and, in fact, I always thought of it as Gailaesi, or something), although I had a vague recollection that he was a baseball player. But I discovered today that he was a baseball player who, as one web site put it, "had coffee with" the Indians: he only played for 3 months, in 1926. He had 24 at-bats his entire career in the majors.

So I wish I'd known all that, or at least paid attention, because I am struggling to understand what Pop meant by assigning me that nickname. Maybe nothing at all; it might have been as arbitrary as Gus, Sam and Gregory Peck. Maybe he loved that Osceola got a taste of the big-time and then settled back into a relatively calm, obscure life away from the spotlight and the pressure of MLB. Maybe he thought I was too big for my britches, and needed to be taken down a peg. Maybe he rooted for him the summer he was 24, which may have been the year he married my grandmother.

What I do know is that I'm glad that there was a horse racing this weekend at Saratoga named Osceola Prince, because that's what made me think about all of this and inspired me to do some research. But I also know that I need to quit it with the betting on a horse just because of his name, because as much as I want it to be, that is NOT a valid indicator that he's going to win.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Points for creativity

I get literally hundreds of spam emails every day; so far today, I've had 2 flagged as carrying viruses, one that made it through my filtering software, and 122 others that the software caught. Once in a blue moon, the software errs in the other direction, and a legitimate email gets detained, so I usually scroll through the junk mail once a day.

My favorite subject line today?:

"GPS-equipped turtle stumbles upon field of marijuana in a D.C. park"

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

A slippery slope

So, I learned today that at least one airline is now charging for water (two bucks for a bottle, one of my colleagues reported; at least they aren't -- yet -- charging two bucks for a dinky plastic cup), and another for blankets and pillows. And the rumor is that the next frontier is providing wireless access, at ten bucks a pop or so.

Which, in some ways, would be excellent. I sometimes end up having to work offline on my laptop on a long flight, and then always have a devil of a time getting everything synched up. And it would take Twittering (or, as I've learned it's actually called, Tweeting) to a whole new level: 5:02 -- flying over Lake Tahoe! 5:12 -- flying over the Grand Canyon!

On the other hand, I really like that I am unreachable for five hours on a cross-country flight, and that I currently feel no guilt when I choose to watch the in-flight movie or read a book or even a trashy magazine or three. If there were wireless available, I'd feel compelled to be on it, and others would feel free to pounce on that time. So, overall, meh.

But what REALLY scares me is that cell phone usage on planes will be right around the corner. I can't imagine anything worse: thirsty, hungry, cold, cramped, cranky people shoved into close quarters with no hope of escape, all yammering into their phones. It might be worse than the world depicted in Wall-E (not to be confused with Walley World).

Separately, I just paged through my Brangelina Twins issue of People, and I can't help but think that Knox is getting the shaft. What's up with that? There are hardly any pictures of him in which his face is actually visible and in focus. They seem cute, although I'm not sure what the big whoop is (not that babies aren't a big whoop generally, but...really?). And there is one photo in which I was convinced, for a full 30 seconds or so, that Brad had a long, French-manicured thumbnail, which was completely shocking, until I realized it was actually Knox's white blanket creating an optical illusion. Phew, although I wish the wife-beater shirt were also an optical illusion.

Monday, August 04, 2008

The itchy & scratchy show

A few weeks ago, there was a piece in The New Yorker called "The Itch," by Atul Gawande (who I think is brilliant and amazing and wonderful, but I'm starting to find his style a little predictable. Could you maybe mix it up just a tiny bit? I'll still love you if you don't).

[Warning!! Do NOT click through to page two of that article if you are squeamish, if you're eating or have just eaten, if you are about to go to bed, or if you have any hope of getting romantic in the foreseeable future.]

Anyway, to summarize, the article is all about why we itch, and why we itch just because we think of something itchy, even though we don't feel hot if we think about holding a finger over a flame.

And it is so true; as I read the article, I was itchy, itchy, itchy. And, about a week after I'd read it, when my brother emailed our whole family to (a) thank us for coming to a birthday party at his house that weekend and (b) inform us that his kids brought home a letter noting that there was a lice epidemic at their summer camp, so everyone please check yourselves, you'd better believe I did not stop scratching the entire day (despite not having lice myself, I promise).

Oooooog. That just squicks me out.

Apparently, though, there are people who are professional lice removers; you pay them a few hundred bucks, I think, and they will patiently and expertly comb through your little girl's foot-long, curly locks and rid it of every last nit. I'm curious how one gets into that line of work, but I guess it's a good gig, and I'm fairly certain that my nieces went to her (my brother just shaved my nephew's head and called it a day, but I imagine that that would not fly with the girls).

I thought to write this blog when I discovered a spidery-looking bug on my forearm. I flicked him off mid-bite, despite believing very strongly that doing so makes the effects of the bite worse: big and malformed and itchy as hell. But it's impossible for me to resist the urge to flick when I spot a bug on me; I can't imagine just waiting it out, figuring that that's a better long-term strategy than interrupting the bug's feast.

Are you itchy, too, now? I am barely noticing my forearm now, because by writing "itch" so many times, I've caused it to spread, to my scalp, and my toes, and my left ear. I am a mess.

When the cat's away...

So, the Smelmooo was scheduled to be away for a work trip beginning on Saturday. I am always sad when he's gone: the house feels empty, I don't sleep well, Tucker is extra-anxious, I have no one to share the household chores.

But, particularly on the first day I'm flying solo, I have to admit there's a teensy piece of me that enjoys having sole control of the remote (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants! Save the Last Dance! 90210! All without judgment!), and relishes having some time to do the things that the Smelmooo doesn't enjoy: going shopping, getting a pedicure, making a stir-fry or ordering Indian food for dinner. And when the family reunion I was supposed to attend on Saturday afternoon got rained out, I started getting excited about doing all of those things.

And then, the Smelmooo's flight got canceled (I guess I did the "cancel the family reunion" rain dance a little too fervently, although I didn't intend it as a "ground all the flights out of Newark" dance), and he couldn't get another one out until yesterday. So, all of a sudden, we had an unexpected day together, and we just sort of blinked at each other for a minute, like, "What the heck do we do?!"

The Smelmooo kept joking that I'd need to call my boyfriend to let him know that the husband was staying in town, so once I took care of that, the Smelmooo and I rallied and made the most of our extra time together. We did boring stuff: ate lunch at the diner, stocked up on bulk items at BJs, went to a movie, walked downtown for dinner, played Wii, walked downtown for breakfast with Tucker. All, in the end, much better than shopping and a pedicure.

But I did give myself a pedicure last night, and I have been wearing my retainers practically 'round the clock. I did the laundry and the dishes. I made a stir-fry; I took Tucker for a walk/jog/run this morning (our speed was dictated by a complex formula involving our proximity to garbage trucks, morning commuters, and other dogs). I'm a wild and crazy gal.

And now I'm done. I've had my me-time; you can come home any time, hubby.