(insert profanity here)

Google search is a fantastic thing. I was seeking something that would, in one picture, express my near head-bursting hostility at coming out this morning in 17-degree weather, scraping my windshield, then having to pull over in front of a group of amused schoolkids waiting for the bus to scrape it again, because the befrigged defroster works only slightly better than blowing on the window through a coffee stirrer and I couldn't see.



Its March, people. The twenty-fifth of March.



Mothers of those kids: Sorry. I don't think I used any words they don't hear on the bus.



My anger seemed completely rational for approximately four miles. Then I became reflective. Wow, I thought. I really lost my S--t there. Weird. I tried to breathe and calm myself, but still had an irrational urge to shatter a windshield with a tire iron. I could hear the crunch muffled by the safety coating; could picture the glass crumbling into brightly sparkling bluish piles as I pounded it over and over. I found this image oddly comforting and savored it all the way to work.



MSNBC should be glad they don't have a comments feature on their articles. Because the "Global Warming is Making Spring Come Earlier" article would have been ranted upon; all my vocabularic vitriol (yes, its right. Shut up.) would have been poured on their alarmist nonsense. Come on up to Tioga County and see what's early, bitches. Bring a sweater.



Nothing is safe today. I'm a hate-seeking missile. What is up with this song that says "It starts in my toes, something about my nose, blah blah blah"? Does she have neuropathy? There is medication for that. Shut up, toes and nose girl. And while we are at it, why are they playing this song on the local country station? Isn't there a world of annoying country songs to choose from? How about the one where the man describes his wife as "Straaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwnnnnngh?" I haven't heard it in at least an hour.



Here's my Two Minutes' Hate list for Tuesday, March freaking twenty-fifth.

1. Wintry mix-- this is NOAA shorthand for "We don't know what the hell its going to do, we've been flipping a coin pretty much all season, so we'll just say you'll get everything and then you can't complain.



2. Lake effect-- I don't care what makes it snow. I really don't. Lake effect is blamed on everything from accumulation totals to Idiot Spitzer 'not keeping his dog in the yard'. And while we're at it.....



3. Anything else Governor Patterson did. Enough said.



4. American Idol-- If irrelevance had a color and a shape, a sound and a flavor, this would be it.



5. Business telemarketing-- Really. Stop calling. Especially not today unless you enjoy feeling like a piece of meat that just got thrown into a cage because that is the sort of mood I'm in today.



6. Whoever left a whiz-squirt of coffee in the pot and didn't make more.



7. Country Music-- "Because of you, I'd run over you on the si-i-dewalk...." Whatever. Please get over it. And Reba? Do we need to do the math on how long you'd have to be dealing with your mommy issues if this was your song? Does it make sense for you to sing it? No it does not. Maybe you should cover some Staind as well.


8. People who write everything like a txt msg- OMG. U sd lk a fkg idiot. Srsly.

Just to balance it out, here's my raindrops on mittens and strudel with kittens list. No, it isn't in any particular order. Cause I don't feel like it, that's why.

1. Flannel sheets


2. Target practice


3. Hot soup


4. Men in kilts


5. Cat snuggling (No, not cat smuggling)


6. Real cocoa


7. Robert Plant circa 1973


8. Fun purses

And because I can't leave you without something to look at, here. (This is for you, JD.)

Four Things

I love doing memes. I look at them as a sort of writing prompt, slightly more dignified than the ones I seem to get forwarded on MySpace. I have a lot of MySpace friends that are considerably younger than me. Even though they gamely forward me their lists of 40 questions along with everyone else, I get the feeling they really don’t want my answer to “Who is the last person u kissed” and “What’s the weirdest place u ever did the deed”. It’s kind of like playing Truth or Dare with your mother’s younger sister. She’s fun and cool, but still old enough that there’s stuff you don’t want to know about her because Thanksgiving would be awkward.

Here’s the latest from the fabulous Tricia, which I volunteered to do because I thought it looked fun.

Four films I’d watch again: (I assume this means again and again!)
1. Enchanted April (The thinking woman’s chick flick. No Cameron Diaz.)

2. Like Water for Chocolate (Yes, its in Spanish. But its awesome and has Marco Leonardi in it, who is delicious. )

3. High Fidelity (I love the whole movie, but its worth it just to see Jack Black dancing like a spastic dreidel to ‘Walking on Sunshine’. Plus it has John Cusack.)

4. Say Anything (There are a lot of movies I have memorized in their entirety, this is probably the one for which I could write out whole pages of the script just from screenshots. Plus it has John Cusack.)


Four places I’ve lived:
1. Swedesboro, NJ
2. Downingtown, PA
3. Grantham, PA (Messiah College)
4. Belfast, Northern Ireland (for too, too short a time)

Four TV shows I watch: (We got rid of our dish and don’t watch TV per se, but we do get some shows from Netflix.)
1. The Office (UK and USA)
2. Freaks and Geeks (arguably one of the best shows ever made, I own the entire series on DVD. )
3. Heroes (We are working our way through Season 1, prior to the last two months I’d never seen even a minute of the show. I love it.)
4. The Sopranos (I missed the last couple of seasons, watching them on Netflix now. I know already that the ending is BS, I still feel like I need to see it through.)

Four things to eat:
1. Homemade manicotti with handmade crepe shells (one of my specialties)
2. Crabmeat stuffed mushrooms
3. The occasional burger on a lightly toasted kaiser with crisp bacon and cheddar cheese, medium, with a drizzle of barbecue sauce and a side of sweet potato fries with honey mustard dipping sauce. And a pickle. (I’m sorry…was that more than one thing? Shameless plug—Harland’s Family Restaurant in Wellsboro, PA best place to have this meal. So good you’ll cry.)
4. Foldy pizza. Big, flat slices, thin and crisp crust, with pepperoni that requires a napkin blotting from a NON-CHAIN pizza place owned by guys from Jersey.

Four places I’d rather be:
1. Taino Beach, Grand Bahama Island…failing that…..
2. Here in Tioga County PA when its 25 degrees warmer and there are leaves on the trees
3. On the way to a weekend getaway with himself
4. Sitting at a table in a non-chain café with a cup of coffee and a really good book, or a cup of coffee and a journal and a really good pen.

Four people to tag (if they want to do it):
1. Lisa from ‘Boondock Ramblings’
2. Himself over at ‘Unfinished Person’
3. Miss Anna at ‘Everyday Occasions’
4. Oh Silly One over to MySpace


And just for funs, the only 'Four' song that came to mind this morning.

Celtophilia

Okay, kids. Its St. Patrick's Day. I feel almost as though I am obligated to post something on St. Patrick's Day, as if its 'my holiday'. My claim to that is tenuous, I could at best be described as half (maybe more like 30%) Irish and a lot of my 'Irish involvement' has waned over the last few years, replaced by things like 'marriage' and 'full time employment'.

But there was a time, boy howdy...there was a time.


In college I became aware of 'the situation' in Ireland. Some people call it 'The Troubles', a euphemism that, when Americans say it, annoys me intensely. (I don't think any tribe of Native Americans would call their progressive historical disenfranchisement 'The European Spot of Bother'....for instance.) At any rate, I started reading and learning, first with current events and finally reaching back, oh, about 800 years. I spent a year and a half just reading anything I could get my hands on. To say it interested me a great deal was an understatement; it was a 24-7 obsession. Thanks to a series of chance meetings I found myself with an opportunity not only to live in Belfast for a time, but to spin it for college credit. Advisors were argued with, and departmental meetings were held, mostly because this was a self-directed study, and partly because I was planning on living in a sketchy neighborhood of a city with a lot going on that didn't make the AAA Travel Guide, with people who spent most of their free time being harassed by the police and security forces. I argued and argued until I could prove the educational merit of my travel. I won the debate, and I went.

Some of my travel experiences, I've already written about here, some of the trip wasn't fun and in the interest of keeping things light here I'll avoid the politics altogether. Suffice it to say I jumped in with both feet, did what I could, and probably made sure I'll never get invited to the White House.

I spent time both in the Republic and the North, and while that by no means makes me any kind of expert on all things Irish, I noticed a few things that always come to mind when this holiday rolls around.

1. Ham and Cabbage --Nobody has a clue what the deal is with ham and cabbage. It is not an 'Irish thing'. An Irish American thing, maybe, but when I asked about it in Ireland, they looked at me like I had two heads.

2. The Beer Myth-- No bar I ever went into in Derry, Belfast, Dublin, or up in the Wicklow Mountains in the shadow of the Glendalough Monastery ruin, served warm beer. I went to a bar where you had to hold the stall door in front of you in the ladies room because some angry drunk woman with impressive balance had kicked it off the hinges, but even there, the beer was cold.

3. The Disney-quisition--In Belfast, 89% of the people who got into a 'So you are an American' conversation with me asked me if I had ever been to Disney World. (I have not, largely by choice.) Then they talked about Disney for 10-15 minutes. Anything less than a thoroughgoing enthusiasm from my side on the Disney issue was met with bewilderment tinged with hostility. I learned to lie.

4. Sweet Caroline -- Granted, I probably did more karaoke in Belfast than was good for me, but I discovered early on that this song is a very, very popular choice. The best performance was in a bar that looked like some sort of post-apocalyptic bunker from the outside, and it was sung by a giant guy covered with tattoos and home-inflicted body piercings...to his grandma.

5. Just call me 'Canadianesque'-- On three separate occasions, on learning I was American, people said, "Oh, I assumed you were Canadian." I never did find out what is so Canadian about me, or whether I should have taken that as a compliment.

6. Feeling the Love-- One night in Belfast when cabin fever drove me out of the house to a pub by myself, I timidly pushed my karaoke request across a table to the emcee. He asked me a question, and when he heard my accent, he let me walk about six feet from him and announced over the PA system "Listen up, everyone, this is Kimberly. She's come all the way from America to sing with us and she's here on her own, so someone needs to invite her to sit at their table." Once I got over the stomach-clenching horror at being singled out I realized that the ENTIRE BAR was waving me over to their table. This was one example of many where complete strangers made me feel at home just as naturally as breathing. I have never travelled so far from home and felt so welcome.


I had to add this, a bit late, but it made me smile today.
Talk about it at Videocracy

Cead Mille Failte await you at Humor-blogs.com!

Sonrisa

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our
life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire
forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we
come From God, who is our home…"
--William Wordsworth

12:30am. My gut fills with the familiar shot of nausea inducing adrenaline that comes from a sudden loud noise piercing the silent dark of the bedroom. When will I ever get used to that? I swing my feet out from under the flannel sheets and search for my sweatshirt, fumbling my feet into shoes and feeling blindly for glasses. I leave the house as quietly as possible and slip into the frozen night, saying a quick prayer as my sleepy, growling ignition catches and my car rumbles to life. I drive the empty streets to the station and take my pick of parking spaces.

Our patient is a 92 year old woman at an assisted living facility with difficulty breathing. She had a coughing spell and then got very dizzy, could not catch her breath. Someone who was with her decided she'd better go to the ER and get checked out. No bronchitis or recent colds, surprisingly few chronic meds, and she is able to get on the stretcher with very little assistance. We swaddle her against the punishing cold.

"Will I come back here?"

"Yes ma'am, I'm sure you will, we just want to make sure you are okay."

"I'd better take my glasses. Do you have my glasses? I don't have my glasses. Maybe I should leave them here. Where are my glasses?"

"Why don't we leave them here, so we know where they are and you can get them when you get back."

"Okay. Just don't forget my glasses."

We wheel out of her room and toward the exit while an honor guard of sleepy looking nurses holds all the doors for us. Frigid air eddies through the stairwell as we negotiate doorsills, ramps.

"Will I come back here?"

"Yes ma’am."

I walk around the side as she is being loaded so I can take my seat alongside the stretcher. I try my best to be there when they slide in so they don’t feel alone. As I join her and reach for the blood pressure cuff she turns to me with wide blue eyes and a brilliant smile.

"I’m sorry, do I know you?"

"Yes ma’am, I’m an EMT with Wellsboro and my name is Kimberly. We’re taking you to the hospital now."

"Okay."

We swing onto the main road, back into town, toward the hospital. I put my hand on her arm, to reassure her over the bumps. Her eyes open and I am again treated to the smile, like watching sunrise over and over.

"I’m sorry, do I know you?"

"Yes ma’am."

We trundle into the hospital driveway and she grimaces briefly against the cold when the doors are opened, squinting against the bright busyness of the emergency room. The nurses help transfer her into a bed. I gather our paperwork and give her hand a pat as I leave. She beams with the merry eyes of a sister who has just shared a secret.

Stars on 45 and other Random Thoughts

Yesterday was one of those days I spent in the car. For those who don't know, I do visual surveys for a moving company. I like meeting customers and walking into a stranger's house with their permission to view every single thing they own punches all my voyeuristic buttons, lemme tell you. I've learned two things: People are too twisted for color TV. And, your house is probably not as dirty as it could be.
Three appointments, all in New York, amounted to 10 hours on the road. I like days like this, for the most part. I'm alone with my thoughts and the day goes fast. Most of it, anyway. But I'll get to the slow part in a minute.

When you drive as much as I do, and get fed up with the radio (company car has no CD player, alas), you make up games to amuse yourself. Yesterday, I found myself thinking about my 45s. The royal blue and gold pasteboard box was a faithful companion through my childhood, until the purchase of my first cassette. (The Doors Greatest Hits, purchased at a farmer's market, fifth grade, in case anyone is wondering.) As a 'stay alert and in the lane' exercise I tried to remember what was IN my 45 box. I would mention, in my defense, that my music falls into two categories: I Wanted This and I Have No Idea Where This Came From But I Was An Odd Child.

1. "Smoke from a Distant Fire" Sanford and Townsend-- This is definitely one I can't explain, though I will tell you that I slavishly learned it, and sang it over and over, along with the record. What I thought it meant, in elementary school, I can't tell you.
2. "Baker Street" Gerry Rafferty-- This song still reminds me of driving down to Brigantine in a 1977 Ford LTD II with the windows open.
3. "Disco Inferno" The Trammps-- I have no excuse. I wanted this one.
4. "You Take My Breath Away" Leif Garrett-- I can still see him with his winged blond hair and shimmery scarf. He isn't looking so great these days. I inherited this record from my sister after she moved on to Pink Floyd, Molly Hatchett, and Black Sabbath.
5. "Love Will Keep Us Together" Captain & Tennille-- Also inherited.
6. "Love Will Find a Way" Pablo Cruise-- Even now, the song is in my head like an auditory hallucination.
7. The Theme from Hill Street Blues-- Because I was fixated on the show.
8. "Car Wash"-- Help me out here. Who did the song? Anyway, I thought the movie was funny, what I understood of it. I was probably eight when they started showing it on TV.
9. Last, but not least: the very first 45 I ever bought: "Bad Blood" Neil Sedaka. ---Please don't ask why, because I don't know. I have a feeling he was on Sonny & Cher or something and then I wanted it. I bought it at Wilmington Dry Goods on Naaman's Road in Wilmington, Delaware.

I did my 12 o'clock in Vestal and backtracked to Owego for my 2pm. I bopped up the three flights of stairs to his apartment, rang the bell, no answer. Not a problem; he worked two minutes down the road, maybe he is running late. I go back to the van, leave him messages, and work on paperwork. Ten minutes go by. Twenty. Thirty-five. Now I need to leave for appointment number three (back in Vestal) so I write him a polite note, include my cell number and a business card, trek back up three flights of stairs, and tuck it in his front door. At 3:40pm, while I'm doing appointment number three, he leaves a message on my cell.

"Hi, um, yeah. I called a couple of people earlier because I didn't write anything down or anything and I thought I had an appointment but I didn't know when. Is this really necessary? I mean, can't I just tell you on the phone what I have? Call me on 607-xxx-xxxx and let me know. I guess I'll have to reschedule or whatever. Bye."

I call the number he left, and it rings 25 times with no answer or machine. I decide to drive out to the main road, make a much needed potty stop and pick up a cold beverage, and try him again. This time he picks up the phone on the 22nd ring and I explain who I am and that yes, we do need to do an estimate.

"(Sighs loudly.) Can my landlady let you in?"

"Sure, if she's available, but I am twenty minutes away, so I'd be there pretty soon."

"I'll call her and call you back."

He calls back four minutes later and says:

"I guess I'll have to meet you; she isn't picking up."

"Not a problem, I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"So, like, do you know where it is? And what building I'm in?"

(Yes, I know what building you are in, since I sat in your parking lot for almost half an hour earlier in the day when were SUPPOSED to have this appointment. )

I go back to his apartment, hike the three flights of steps, and enter through the front door that he has thoughtfully left open for me. He doesn't get up. I'm fairly confident in saying that I'm the only female that has ever been in this apartment. Its furnished with approximately 25 milk crates, four plastic shelving units of computers, clothes in black garbage bags, and a single bed on the floor.He completely ignores me and stares at his bank of computers as I open all of his closets and cabinets and learn that he derives most of his nutritional needs from ramen noodles and fried things he can later store in castoff tupperware. I tell him that I have some paperwork for him and without breaking his gaze from the screen he waves vaguely to his in-box and says "You can leave it there."

Oh, hell no. I suppress the urge to smack him in the head with the sheaf of papers in my hand and decide its time for Invasion of The Dance Space. I get right in his grill and sweetly say, "I just need you to sign these." His proximity alarm goes off and he lets go of the mouse and takes my offered pen. No apology for blowing off the earlier appointment, no niceties at all. I cheerily bid him adieu and get the heck out of dodge. I will be getting home and hour and a half after normal quitting time. And the greater Denver area is gaining an aerospace engineer with no social skills. Lucky them.

On an unrelated note, on the way home, I pass an 'Adult Outlet' with a sign out front that says, "Hop on in for your Easter adult gifts". Because, you know, nothing celebrates the resurrection of our Lord and Savior quite as well as porn and sex toys. What a wonderful world.

Larry Norman 1947-2008

My first email this morning was a link here.
I grew up going to church from the time I was tiny. A square, stone, red carpeted Methodist church where everyone wore a suit or a dress and we sang all five verses of the hymn accompanied by an ORGAN. Nary a guitar or overhead projector or praise chorus to be seen. It was a nice place to grow up, when I was ten years old and the world was uncomplicated.

High school proved to be a less friendly place. Figuring out who you are and where the faith of your childhood fits in can be tricky. I made new friends. These new friends started making me tapes. And I was introduced to a world of music I didn't know existed. Music that talked about God but also talked about life, about our imperfect brokenness and the hypocrisies that exist. No more five-verses in a pew. This was music that went out into the world and came back with a report. And the report wasn't always pretty.

Larry Norman is often called the Father of Christian Rock. I kind of get the impression he rolled his eyes when people would say that. He didn't have an easy life. Being 'the Father' didn't earn him all kinds of money. Despite terrible health problems that worsened over years he was out there sharing and encouraging and singing. He spent himself up letting us know that even when it is very hard to see Him, God is there. Thank you, Larry. See you when I get home.

Screaming Meme....

My bud Tricia over at Middle Age Mania tagged me with this meme forever ago. But because I'm a lazy so and so I haven't gotten around to do anything with it. I always think of it on a Friday afternoon when I just want to put up the YouTube performance of Time
so everyone else can feel sort of freaky-depressed too, which is hardly conducive to a cheerful and amusing post. Suffice it to say I'm starting to develop a burning desire to move, but I recognize that as a normal late-February feeling up here, and I'm distracting myself with this kind of thing. So here's the deal:

1.Link to the person who tagged you. (Done)
2. Post the rules on your blog. (Done)
3. Share six (6) non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4.Tag at least 3 people at the end of your post and link to their blogs.
5.Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Okay, here's my six things.

1. I was once on public television. We got extra credit for singing in an invitational choir at Channel 12 in Philadelphia, so a bunch of people from my high school chorus went over and basically faked our way through Handel's Messiah. I was placed in the front row in a red sweatshirt with a teddy bear on it, with enormous round tortoise shell glasses and a barette smack on the top of my head. Channel 12 showed this on Christmas Eve EVERY YEAR for several years, until Luciano Pavarotti and the Vienna Boys Choir finally retired my transcendent dorkiness from TV forever. My grandmother still has the tape somewhere.

2. When I go to someone else's house I always look behind the shower curtain before I pee. (Hotels too.)

3. People who reflexively laugh at nothing at the end of each sentence make me want to punch them. My husband used to have a secretary who did this. And even though I love her dearly I had an almost involuntary urge to hurt her every time I heard that sound.

4. I have frequent ice skating and tango fantasies, and occasionally dream that I can do both. (I can't do either, and have serious doubts that I ever will. I may try the tango though.)

5. I own a sword and I (sort of) know how to use it. No, I am not some homemade-bustier wearing Ren Faire dork (anymore), I actually took classes in Japanese swordsmanship, which would continue to this day if I hadn't moved far away from my dojo. Why? Discipline, the silence of the mind it imposes, blah blah. Deep down we all know that its badass. And that's why we do it.

(That's me, second from the right.) Yes, I'm holding a wooden sword in a golf tube. No, that isn't the sword I was talking about. I have a real one.)

6. If I had it to do over again, I'd probably teach.

I'm gonna go ahead and tag himself, because he's oh-so-serious lately and I think he needs something fun to do, the sister-in-law, who in addition to being hilarious, is yet another treasure of this family I married into, and Cousin Anna, whose writing is as lovely and gracious as she is.

Snow Storm

I present for your consideration a guest post from one of my fellow
EMTs. My friend here came through EMT class with me (with one of the
highest grades and best recommendations, I might add) and in his short tenure of
certification has had some pretty intense experiences. He's one of
those teens that reminds you that this generation is really pretty okay.
More than okay.

Hello everyone! I’d like to start out by thanking the lovely blog host for letting me add a guest story here and there. I hope to interest some of you out there to join your local fire department or ambulance service. Just a little about me, I joined the fire department and ambulance as soon as I was of age and have been loving it ever since, but enough about me, onto the stories that you’ve been waiting for…

Snow Storm
The local weather service had been predicting a heavy snow storm for that night, and for once they got it right, except it all came as ice…The ice and sleet pellets were inches thick. I awoke to my pager’s annoying sound at 2am after being in a deep sleep. Dispatch reported a full arrest at our local apartment building. I didn’t bother getting dressed. I have a firm rule that after 1am if anyone needs my help that badly, they won’t mind me in my pajamas. I carefully made my way to the car attempting not to ice skate down the sidewalk. In the heat of the moment, taking the time to clean off my car didn’t seem like good idea. It did shortly thereafter. It is amazing what adrenaline and a sleepy mind will do to your common sense.

While driving down our main highway to the station I soon figured out that driving on a ice covered road with only a paper-sized port hole to look out of was not a good thing. Fortunately the general public has enough smarts and doesn’t drive too much at 2am on icy roads so it was deserted. I arrived at the ambulance building where a crew who didn’t have to drive was already there, one had decided to stay the night while the other lived next door. I jumped on board and away we went, with the bus occasionally sliding a bit. That experience will open your eyes very quickly.

We arrived onscene with the hospital’s paramedic beating us to the scene. We quickly found out that the building was locked down after a certain time and we were never given a key. The special emergency entrance had been locked as well. Somehow the paramedic had gotten in but we could not, so we radioed the communications center to have the police officer on duty come let us in. Just as he arrived a good citizen inside heard our knocking and let us in. We quickly boarded the tiny elevator and headed upstairs. We navigated the hallways looking for the room until we found it. Once inside we knew there was no help for this poor soul. The paramedic had determined that he could not be resuscitated, and we would have to remain on scene for the funeral home. The man’s wife was inconsolable, as anybody in her situation would have been.

She needed to notify family but was in no state to do so. Being the jacks-of-all-trades that EMT’s are, we began calling her family. We then called her friends who lived in a nearby town to come be with her. This was not a time for her to be alone. Of course, this was during an ice storm, so everything took a bit longer. We kept the woman company while waiting for the funeral home and friends, which would take at least an hour. She began to tell us about her life when she lived in New York City and how things were so much different here. It was actually quite interesting and got her mind off the situation.

After an hour of small talk and thinking to myself, what do I say…what can I possibly say to this woman that holds any significance and will help her cheer up? Unfortunately nothing came to mind. At last the funeral home arrived with Barney Fife and friend. These two were a pair to say the least, but they were there, and I was ready to be going. We quickly placed the body in the bag lifted him onto their stretcher. The friends arrived as we were leaving. After the funeral home completed everything they needed, we were on our way as well, carefully negotiating the slippery curves of town back to the station.

Once home, I hopped into bed and found that I could not get to sleep. The thought of death was on my mind. After dealing with so much death, it finally gets to you and you begin to realize we are all human and death is possible at any minute so we must cherish every moment.

Chapter Eleventy, In Which We Examine My Ongoing Battles With Gravity

I'm not sure what made me think of this story today, but I was musing about exercise, and about how my cabin fever has reached such a ridiculous intensity that I am more than willing to ignore the arctic cold and walk outside. I suppose this led me to the fact that I haven't been to the gym lately. So there you go, in this way I was confronted with my somewhat storied relationship with treadmills.

When I lived in New Jersey I belonged to a gym I really liked. Mostly because it wasn't a neon-mirrored singles-bar with juice, freeweights, and fake tans; there were people there of all ages, shapes and sizes and everyone was cool with that. Not that everyone was cool. I shared my time there with a man who apparently lived by the less well-known credo 'exercise like no one is horrified', He wore these skin tight, gray cottony shorts that are apparently meant to be worn UNDER another pair of shorts to minimize junk jiggle, not worn by themselves so we could all watch his barely restrained mantools dance in the mirror. We're talking ballet-inappropriate frontage.

Captain Grapesmuggler might have been ignorable if he didn't have one other problem. He sweated profusely the entire time he ran. This may not have bothered the rest of us if the treadmills weren't so close together. Or so close to the mirror. Or if he didn't run a HARD EIGHT MILES every time he came in. At least he was polite enough to swab his bodily spin art off the mirror and the 'mill when he was done. Still, no one wanted to be next to him and absorb the flingback.

One day I walked out of the locker room to be confronted with a worst case scenario. There were six treadmills. Four people occupied the ones from the right hand side, there was an empty buffer treadmill, and Captain G was swinging, sweating, and flailing away at the other end. I got four sympatheic glances in the mirror as I took my place in the splatter zone.

Because a back room was being renovated, the 'mills, as well as a row of exercise bikes and rowing machines, were located on the periphery of a room that had an aerobics class in the middle. It was a bit of a tight squeeze but it was temporary so no one really minded. I got my music on, ramped up my speed, and hung a (mostly ineffective) towel on the left side of the treadmill, all in an attempt to block out what was happening on that side and focus on my own workout. I was successful for a while. About thirty minutes along the familar BAM BAM BAM of the Captain sprinting full-out began to overwhelm both the aerobics instructor behind me and the Metallica in my headphones. Unconsciously I moved over just a bit to my right. What happened next happened very fast.

Apparently, my foot came down 80% on the actual treadmill belt and 20% on the grippy footrest on the side. 20% of grippy footrest is apparently just enough to bring your foot to a complete and sudden stop, which is, apparently, enough to make you fall down. In the split second before I fell I calmly reasoned that the belt would not move if I was sitting on it, and even if it did, it would do so gently. This was incorrect. You see, a treadmill set at 4 miles per hour moves at 4 miles per hour whether you are on your feet or collapsed in a heap. I was not gently moved to the end of the belt like a bag of apples at the grocery store. I was violently ejected into the back row of the aerobics class, where I took a lady out like I was shooting bottles at a carnival.

I hear stories about people being in a fugue state, where they literally disconnect from life as they know it and function in a separate reality. I think I know what that is like. I had nasty rugburn, I had the wind knocked out of me, but a voice from my past spoke up, my twelve-year-old gym class self. She said, "If you go in the locker room now, they'll laugh at you." I agreed. I got up, helped the aerobics lady restack her step (I'd have a pretty bruise from landing on that, a few days later), and I GOT BACK ON THE TREADMILL. And I went another half hour. I don't know if I earned the respect of my fellow exercisers, but I can tell you that the Captain was undeterred, through it all he pounded on his noisy, sweaty, vaguely obscene road to imaginary victory.

Municipal Sleepover

Yesterday dissolved in rain, snow, sleet, whatever. I don't know. I don't have any clever ways of describing it; I drove home on crap tires clutching the steering wheel singing loudly and talking to myself about whether 'One Step Beyond' is a song, a band, or an album. (I think its a Madness song but I'm too lazy to look it up and it kept me from hyperventilating so who cares.)
I was on duty, which meant that from 6pm-6am Wednesday morning, if there was an ambulance call I was obligated to get up, get in the car, and go on it. Fine. I do this every Tuesday. But since the winter craptacula was supposed to fall all night, ending with a nice coating of ice, driving off my hill in a medical-emergency-inspired hurry didn't appeal to me much.


Being volunteers, you are not obligated to stay at the station as paid departments do, but sometimes, we do it because of the weather. Fortunately, we have a 'bunkroom' for this purpose. For free, you can pack up your toothbrush and your jammies and go sleep in the ambulance building. I decided this was better than becoming a dispatched call myself, and I packed a bag.

Early in the evening it seemed like a fun and fine idea. Lots of other people were there, talking and laughing, like they usually are. Then the calls started coming in. I missed the narrow window to acquire something for dinner, its a small town and things close early. Once the rest of the crew left, it was just me in a cavernous garage with my vending machine dinner, a Pepsi and a blueberry Pop Tart. Lest you think that was my crappiest indulgence of the evening I should tell you that I also watched television. *shudder*

Around 10:30 it dawned on me how creeped out I was to sleep in this building by myself. I tried to write, I wasn't feeling particularly humorous, just cold and lonely and I missed my cat. (Pause here and reflect on how pathetic that is. Okay. Go. ) Oh well. I made up my bunk, turned off the light, and snuggled into a space clearly made for a child. Does anyone else remember sitting on the bottom bunk with another kid, I don't know, playing cards or giggling about boys or something? I sure do. Last night I felt like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. I was afraid I'd have dreams about punching through treetrunks; the sheet of plywood that made up the top bunk's base was about five inches from my nose. (In case you're wondering, top bunk was out of the question, what with the nightly peeing and stiff knees and 20/400 vision. Oh, and no ladder.)

Surprisingly, after the last call of the night around 2330 (That's fancytalk for 11:30pm) I did manage to go back and fall asleep. Strange noises and stranger dreams later I woke up to an ice-glazed gray morning and tried hard to remember the golden October day when I drove up to my new house with a car full of computers, weapons, and houseplants. I can't wait for the color to come back to this place.

Annoyances, Part Two, in which we contemplate the great Suckholery that is Winter in the Northern Tier

Yesterday I had an appointment. Whenever I get an address that is RR something Box something I shudder; you can't look that stuff up on maps, you have to get directions from the customer. So I called him, carefully wrote down what he told me, and went on my way. His busy schedule dictated an appointment at 4pm. No problem, I can always have a life once I retire.



The day was supposed to be mildly unpleasant, so I cast a fisheye on the glazy ice-looking bits of road I was travelling on, which all turned out to be puddles and not Great Black Sheets of Instant Grisly Death, one of my deepest, darkest fears. A normally boring drive was perked up by an impromptu roadside domestic dispute; I came out of Sylvania, PA to see vehicle pulled over at a hasty angle and a woman who looked at first glance like she was examining her shoes. As I passed I realized she was standing astride a man, on his back in the dirty road-salted snow, her finger pointed defiantly in his face. I can only imagine what sort of exchange between them would have prompted this woman to jerk her Voyager into a snowbank, yank this man out, and stand over him like a mittened, plaid bundled Colossus of Rhodes. I kept driving.

I found the light in Ulysses (yes, THE light, as in, there is one, and if you drive to the next one, you are in a different town), made the correct turn, and hit my trip odometer, since I was told the road I needed was 3 miles from the stop sign. You do this around here, since more often than not there is no street sign, and the landmarks you get make you want to punch old people in frustration. As usual, no street sign, I turned on the dirt road, drove past a farm, aimed the van down the ruts, and dropped it into a lower gear. My customer indicated that I should go 'straight after the road bends left and then right'. More accurately, 'after you go through the two hairpin turns with the sheer ice-covered dropoff on the right hand side, keeping your van on the five feet of cleared road in the dead center praying no school buses come up the other way, go straight'.

My road to go straight on is a dirt road of farms. With farms comes farm machinery, which means deep, ice filled wheel ruts. At least, I figure, I'm not sliding off this road, as I clutch up all my sphinctery muscles in a completely worthless attempt to avoid losing the oil pan, the gas tank, and everything else I feel scraping the centerline hump. I have to jam on my brakes once to avoid wiping out no less than six barn cats who chose that moment to chase each other across the road. With the help of a UPS driver I find the house, and glory be, they have a nicely paved driveway.

Covered in three inches of solid ice. Solid befreaked uphill ice.


I swallow some panic-attack flavored saliva and drop the van into low gear. I gain the hill and sort of slide diagonally into a parking place. The gentleman greets me in a t-shirt, socks, and sweatpants. When I mention that a moving truck would probably not make the driveway he said, 'Oh, its all right. I've been here all day and its been melting steady,'

All day, you say? You mean, like, during all those respectable hours when the SUN WAS OUT and I could have come here and gone back and not had to give up an hour and a half of my only evening at home? Bless your sock feet, sir. No, really. And I'm sure your soon to be ex-wife won't mind at all that her entire bedroom set and all her appliances are dumped on your porch exposed to the elements. I won't relish telling on you at all. I promise.


This weather makes me want to curl up in bed with a seed catalog and a fifth of Johnnie Walker Red. Fortunately our annual Fire Department/Ambulance banquet is this weekend, and while I doubt there will be much in the way of seed catalogs.....

A Midwinter's Tale

This is one of those posts I've contemplated repeatedly, then discarded in favor of stories more fun to tell. But the time has come, I suppose, for a little self-disclosure. I don't write a lot of heart-wrenching personal journey stuff because I feel like there's plenty out there that is more compelling and better written. But this is a big part of who I am, so here we are.

I need to lose weight. I've probably needed to lose weight since I was eight years old, though the amount and proportion has changed over time. When I was in high school I was mocked for my size, though looking back at the pictures I am puzzled, since I wasn't particularly grotesque, but random cruelty is a reality of high school that a lot of people experienced in one form or another so, whatever. I will mention, though, that the table of former jocks and beautiful people at my 10th high school reunion somehow got invaded with a handful of paunchy almost-thirty-year-olds with thinning hair. The karma train always runs on time, kids.

So anyway, with the weight loss thing. I've had a lot of stops and starts, some success and eventual return to old habits, but I'm staring down the barrel at 40 and realize that family heredity is dealing some cards to me that I do not want to double down. So its time to stop with the grand plans and make some practical progress.

Most of my help comes from Sparkpeople, a very useful site that is a mashup of every self help book you ever read, a warehouse of cookbooks, trackers, and calculators, and MySpace. Just go there and be mindboggled. I've been a member nearly a year, recently serious about it, and making progress. There are teams, and challenges, and encouraging and fun things you can do with other people that are nothing at all like the humiliating flag football games in 8th Grade. I promise.

I started by eliminating the closest thing to drug abuse I've ever engaged in; eating fast food. I realized that it was one of those things I couldn't bargain with, couldn't rationalize as a 'once in a while' deal; I simply had to not go there anymore period ever for any reason even if it was cold and wolves were chasing me. I've managed to live a whole month so far without any discernible evil befalling me for not going there.

I have committed to some pretty cool goals for 2008, most of them involve moving more and being smaller and I won't bore you with all the details, but I may check in now and again and talk about how its going. Because a lot of it sucks and schadenfreude being what it is, it should make for some humorous reading material. Once I get a little ways down the road, I'll give you some stats so you know where I actually started. Or you can join Sparkpeople and look for SHIELDMAIDEN96 and you'll see it unfold in all its messy glory.

And the flying squirrel? I've adopted it as my mascot because its probably what I'll look like when I'm done. I'm okay with that. I may even get me some aviator goggles.

Policy

Another double-transfer week.
Tuesday night, we went south to Williamsport. Wednesday was another visit to the fine folks at Robert Packer Hospital. Our patient was stable, the trip was uneventful, we got her tucked into bed, met up with another crew to grab some equipment to take back to our hospital, and we were on our way.

We only had one problem. Sayre, apparently, has a curfew. And we were past it.


Need a cup of coffee after 9pm ANYWHERE in a five mile radius? Tough. Because everything is closed. Everything. Our driver just wanted coffee. The rest of us were a mite peckish, but the driver having coffee is kind of important. We drive around and no luck. We finally find a Wendy's, which is open, but only the drive through. Surely, we reason, we'll be able to get coffee here.

Now. An ambulance is higher than a pickup, has a noisy diesel engine, and enormous side-vew mirrors so we can see past the patient compartment. Which means if we pulled up to the ordering thing, we couldn't get close enough and they would never be able to hear us. Never mind that we could never successfully complete the transaction on the other side of the building, between the height difference and the mirrors, without getting out. So we park the ambulance ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE BUILDING WHERE THEY CAN SEE IT and walk up to the window. This is the retardation that ensues.

Our driver: Are you open?

Window Idiot: The drive through is open, but the dining room is closed.

Driver: Can we just order here?

WI: No, you have to be in a vehicle. I can't take your order at the window.

The driver and I part and gesture to the AMBULANCE which is parked IN FRONT OF HER STUPID HEAD.

Me: We can't drive around the building in that, you'd never be able to hear the order over the engine.


Driver: I can't even just get a cup of coffee and pay cash?

WI: No. That's the rule.

Me: But we're in an ambulance.

WI: Sorry, that's the policy. We can't serve people on bicycles either.

I am so close to pulling her through the window I'm experiencing involuntary muscle twitch. Because, you know, four people on an ambulance transfer from an hour and a half away who are just trying to not FALL ASLEEP AND WRECK on the way home are just exactly like some douchebag on a bicycle. We all freeze for an instant and let the pointlessness sink in, then get in the rig and go home.

Things That Annoy Me, that No Doubt Make Me a Bad Person. A series.

Yesterday sucked.

Not in any catastrophic sense, it was just a series of small weirdnesses and grating annoyances that dragged on for many hours.

My first appointment of the day insisted on seeing me at 9am. This is a very civilized time, unless the customer in question happens to live 96 miles away, and you wake up to driving snow and inpenetrable dark. I make it to the office and the vehicle I'm supposed to use is not there.

No problem, the borrower of it turns up in 15 minutes and away I go. I stop for gas and quickly put a giant road salt/dirt swipe on my new coat. The weather improves/gets worse, alternately, all the way to Ithaca. I get on the road I'm supposed to be on and I cant find the #$%^&$%^! street. Can't find it to save my life. I call the guy, he gives me directions that would have been fabulous if I'd been coming from the other direction, and I end up calling him a second time. Now he sounds snippy. Because I am 9 minutes late.

I punch into his unplowed, unshoveled driveway and crunch through the snow to his garage, where he waits with Pepper, his Australian Cattleherding Dog. I know she's an Australian Cattle Herding Dog and her name is Pepper because 1) I mention she looks like an Australian because of her color, and remark that a friend had one with blue eyes, and he corrects me and advises that only SHEPHERDS have blue eyes, and his is a CATTLE HERDING DOG. Still an Australian though, so I'm not a complete idiot. 2) I know her name, because it is said approximately 500 times during the 30 minutes I am there.

Let me ask you a question, gentle reader. Do you talk like a babbling idiot to your pets? Do they have 59 nicknames? Admit it. I know I do. But I don't do it IN FRONT OF STRANGERS. Pepper, Peppy, Miss Pepps, Sweetybutt, Sweetbabycakes is apparently being trained not to bark and jump on people by being spoken to in a manner approximately 9.75 times as annoying as whatever she is doing. Each bark was met with 'PEPPY PEPPY! YOU may STOP it NOW!' while the fur bearing moron lunged at her leash like a rabid, retarded dingo. This continued for the duration of the visit. I was instructed to offer her 'kibbles, with an open hand' to win her favor, as I obediently received a handful of dog pellets. I'm not sure what that was supposed to do; the barking continued, but I guess I was 'her friend'. I'm sure she thought I was; after the customer instructed me to remove my shoes, he said, 'these should fit you' and kicked off his slippers. Yes, the ones on his feet. Which I was obligated to put on. And wear. Still warm from his feet. It was almost, yet not quite, as unsettling as the time I had breakfast with a Russian aid worker who scraped leftover bacon from her plate onto mine for me to eat because 'she hated to waste food'. My streak of unwelcome familiarity with strangers is thus unbroken.

We went upstairs, and the dog turned around as I was coming up and put her paws on my shoulders. I looked in her eyes and tried to telepathically convey how she would go down the steps as a doggie boogie board with my hands firmly clasped on her collar should I lose my balance.

All I wanted to do is get out of there, in my own shoes. Our business concluded, I jumped back in the van, chewed snow down his driveway, and headed back to town. My coffee cup was empty so I swung into a large grocery store for a refill.

I don't think anyone in Ithaca actually works. At 10:15 on a Wednesday morning after a holiday the parking lot was absolutely packed. I looked for a spot close to the 'Market Cafe' where the coffee shop is. I saw a few open spots that wouldn't require I waste a lot of time traversing the lot (because after all, I was working) and went to park. Then I saw the sign.

"Parking for Parents with Children".

Actually, I saw the signs, there were more than a dozen. Plus a special covered corral of carts. Four or five of these spots were empty. At first, I planned to go on by and look for something beyond them, but I was overcome with something I can only describe as 'resentment of entitlement'. (Note that I am NOT talking about handicapped parking, so don't go there. They need it and if you park there without a placard or a plate you deserve a ticket commensurate with your idiocy.)

I slammed on the brakes. Screw it. It was not raining, or snowing, or otherwise hurling potentially infant-damaging meteorological nastiness or any kind. (Okay, it was cold, but if you are going to raise kids in New York State they'd better suck it up; they'll be standing outside waiting for the school bus in it for about twelve years.) I swung the van into an available spot and didn't feel one bit sorry about it. When I was a kid, we rode to the grocery store in the front seat after getting our chins caught in the metal zipper of our winter coats, sat in the cart with no seatbelt or plush quilted liner, and threw Count Chocula in the basket while our mother's backs were turned. I started thinking about other special parking I'd like to see.

• Parking for Those Grappling with Certain Existential Realities
• Parking for the Damned (I maintain that this exists in certain airports. I'd just like to see who would willingly park there.)
• Parking for Scary Cat Ladies (Hey. You ever hauled three 26 pound buckets of Tidy Cat out of a cart?)
• Parking for Those Shopping for Dinner for People They Really Don't Want to Entertain

I got my coffee and was out and away in four minutes, having done no discernible injustice to any Wegman's-bound children or their parents. At the end of the day I called another client (80 miles in the other direction) to book an appointment and the first thing he said was "I'm sorry but I will have to have you come right at the beginning of the day if possible."

I hope he doesn't have a dog.

Of Ferries, Accents, and Bonnie Scotland: Travel Adventure Part II

When I was in college I had a map of Ireland that I bought from a map store in Washington DC. It was current and fancy and very very detailed, and I used to stare at it as I'd plan my adventures.

On this map, it listed a ferry service from Liverpool to Belfast, indicated that it was an overnight journey, and indicated the route of travel with a helpful dashed line that extended across the blue expanse of the Irish Sea. Since it was on the map, this is the way I had planned to get to Belfast after my visit to Liverpool.

In case you are wondering, I saw Penny Lane, and Matthews Street (Reference: Alarm song 'Spirit of '76, for my husband's benefit), and all of the notable Beatles landmarks. We drove by their boyhood homes, etc. The rest of the visit was spent in my friend's grim church, (I didn't mind the church part, it was the grim part I objected to.) a day jaunt to the Peak District (Ooo look! The house where Brideshead Revisited was filmed! Pause to reflect how much of a PBS watching dork I am, that I've even SEEN that.), a very strange alcohol-free New Years Eve, etc. But now it was time to leave my friend and sally forth to my intended destination.

My friend takes me to the BritRail terminal to book my ferry ticket. The gentleman behind the counter informs me that the ferry service was suspended due to rough seas. Permanently. I asked him what my options were. "By train? Up into Scotland, then you can take a ferry from there." Allrighty! "So when does that train run?" "THAT train? Its four trains, love." Okay, I pick a time to leave, and he prints me a ticket (actually, a stack of tickets) and I'm on my way.

I will say this-- train travel is, in itself, a very pleasant and civilized way to see a place you've never seen. Right up until old ladies start passing out and the fog rolls in.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I board the train with the lunch my friend's mother has packed for me(Cheese sandwiches on white bread and 'crisps' and tiny cans of Coke--his mom was some kind of trailertrash vegetarian) , and about 1/3 of the luggage I came to London with; after being coerced into laying all of it out on a bed and then picking ONLY what I needed. Away I go.

The first two trains involved boarding in stations in England. The first change from train #1 to train #2 goes flawlessly. Then we journey northward into that craggy bit of Scotland along the upper left coast. I'm sure that has a name. I shall call it "Endless rolling hills and tons of freaking sheep-land", or Erhtfsl, for short. A loong time after I board train #2, I reach my intended station and disembark.

I'll spare you the Harry Potter imagery because there was no magic platforms or Hogwarts or anything of the kind at this point, but the station definitely looked like something from a movie, probably something involving a lot of talking and opening and closing doors. It was the talking that got me into trouble. I go to the ticket counter and ask, "Excuse me, I need to board the train for (increasingly difficult to pronounce Scottish town)...where should I be?" I get an answer. There are words, and a pleasant facial expression that ends with a flick of the eyebrows that suggests our business is concluded. There is only one problem. I do not understand him.

At all.

I thank him, suppress panic, and walk until I am out of his sight line. I find another nattily dressed ScotRail employee and pose the same question. I get an answer, accompanied by a hand gesture that suggests I walk in a particular direction. I thank him and go. I wait for him to round the corner. I approach a lady with a small white dog in a wire cage and ask again. She assures me I am in the right place and I decide she is my new best friend and I don't leave her side until we board the train, at which point I can thank her and disappear.

Or she can sit across from me and grill me about every detail of my life for the next hour and a half.

Why am I no good at politely conveying my desire to not talk anymore? What is it about my face that says 'tell me all your darkest secrets, leave no horrifying detail unshared'? I excuse myself from my seatmate and go to take some pictures of sheep. I come back, and there's a bit of a problem. My seatmate is sweaty and pale. (Now I know that is called 'diaphoretic with poor perfusion'. ) She looks like she might pass out. A train employee tends to her. Her dog stares at me with watery black eyes like its all my fault. Now I have to stay with her. Fair enough. We should be almost there.

Now we enter the part of the trip I call Stopping For No Reason. Every twenty minutes or so, the train would just stop. And sit there ticking. And everyone ignored it. Once I figured it was because of the dense fog, but we started up again in a short time and the fog hadn't dissipated so I am still mystified what could have been holding us up. I can't imagine there is heavy train traffic in Erhtfsl, unless its sheep shearing time, so I'm stumped. But we slowly make our way up the coast and arrive at my intended destination.

Stranraer Harbor. (That's pronounced Strahn-RAAAR, but even with this help it'll still get stuck on the back of your tongue somewhere and induce a faint gaggy feeling. Even if you don't say it out loud. No wonder I don't understand these people.) My ferry awaits me. Only its not my ferry; being paranoid I might get there late, I booked passage on the one that departed about four hours later. Never mind, I think. I'll just sit in the waiting area and read and.....

I peer through the smudgy double doors into the waiting area because a noise not unlike Happy Hour on Super Bowl Sunday is coming from that direction. Seated on virtually all horizontal surfaces in the room are men. Men in 'football jerseys' (not of the Green Bay Packers variety). And they are singing. And they are drunk. I don't know why they aren't getting on the ferry. I'm assuming that security has wisely decided to let them dry out a little first, though apparently no one has noticed that nearly every one of them is clutching a giant can of Tennent's. I consider my options, and decide that the forbidding-looking security guards at the checkpoint are my best bet. "Excuse me, sir? I have a ticket for the next ferry. But if I don't get on this one, I'll have to spend four hours with them," pointing over my shoulder, trying to look as innocent as possible. He weighs my harrassment potential, punches my ticket, and waves me up the ramp. "Thank you, sir," I say.

I'm a little nervous about this trip; though this trip is considerably shorter, this is the same Irish Sea that caused cancellation of the last ferry. And its January. But we cast off and I think, well, this isn't so bad after all. I snap some pictures and settle in to a nice seat. We move through Loch Ryan. Yes, its a Loch. A lake-type thingy. With sides. We aren't in the open sea yet. The ferry is huge, multiple decks, full size restrooms, restaurants, etc. I'm sure it'll be just as nice all the way to Ireland. I don't at all think we'll hit the open sea and this enormous vessel will jam up and down on chop so bad that I will start looking around for the Professor and Mary Ann. Nope. I don't think that at all. Until it happens.

I've never been seasick before. I've been on all sorts of boats. But this ginormous floating restaurant is apparently just the ticket to screw up my equilibrium and send my cheese sandwiches and crisps a-churning. I close my eyes and try to remember where that point on your wrist is that you press on to make the barfy feeling stop. What a perfect time for Chatty Seatmate #212 to park himself next to me.

Now, I have to take a moment to explain here that some of my friends I was going to stay with were politically involved in Ireland, and that there was a certain degree of harassment they had come to expect in day to day life. As such, they took great pains to warn me not to give a lot of detail to strangers about where I was staying or what I was doing there. This is in the back of my mind as this man asks questions, and keeps coming back to where I'm staying. Time to ditch him. I excuse myself, lurch to the ladies' room, and conveniently fail to return to my seat.

We finally get to Larne. I wonder briefly whether the soccer dudes are being deemed seaworthy over on the other side as I find and board my train. I arrive in Belfast, call my friends, and meet them at the hotel bar. Three countries in one day. There would be more adventures of the less humorous variety, someday I'll do a '10 Reasons Why I'll Never Get Invited to the White House' list and tell ya about them.

Boxing Day

Hey kids! Its Boxing Day!

Yep, I'm American, and for me, that means, well, absolutely nothing. I'm not even going to bore you with an explanation of what it is because really, who cares. Look it up on Google search like I would if I wasn't so freaking lazy.

Someone posted about this non-holiday and I found myself thinking about the only time I gave a hoot in Hades about it. And really, I didn't start out caring, I just found out the hard way that I should have.

In the winter of 1991, I spent my January term of senior year in the north of Ireland. (I won't bore you with the details, those of you who have any notions about that can probably tell what color my curb is painted just by my calling it that but its a story for another time.) My plan was to leave just after Christmas, fly to England, spend a week with a friend, and take the ferry to Belfast. I bought my plane tickets and made my arrangements. Departure, 26 December. Arrival, 27 December, crack of dawn.

Okay, so whether I think its pointless or not, Boxing Day is a holiday. Stuff is closed, people are off work, life slows down. Guess when life picks back up again. Yep, December 27th.

I dutifully watch the instructional film on going through customs at Heathrow while on the plane, disembark starry-eyed, and start walking. As I do so, I'm having incredibly stupid thoughts that I'm glad no one is around to hear. "Wow! I'm in England! I'm not in the US anymore! Those are English fluorescent bulbs! Those are English floor tiles! Wow!" (Shut up. I was 21 and my passport was as stiff as a pair of new shoes. )

I collect all my luggage, answer the requisite questions, get my 'Leave to Enter Three Months' visa, and look for the bus terminal.

It is important to note a couple of things here. One, I am alone. Two, no one is picking me up. Three, I am bound for LIVERPOOL. Four, my luggage consists of a loaded backpack, a leather jacket, an Army duffel bag loaded to the clasp that weighs about 60 pounds, and a guitar. Hey. I didn't know what I'd need. So I brought it.

I am from the Philadelphia area. We have an airport. From any terminal, its about a five minute brisk walk to the curb. The train? Its right there. The bus? Right there. Cabs? Right there. Heathrow, on the other hand, is approximately the size of the state of Delaware. I'm pushing my luggage through Delaware and, apparently, the National Express terminal is in Newark. At a certain point, I ditch the luggage trolley, convinced someone is going to think I am stealing it because I could not possibly be walking this far and still be in the airport.

Finally, I reach the National Express office and walk into what sounds to me like an open casting call for Eastenders. I approach the counter and explain to the woman whose facial expression managed to be both bored and murderous at the same time that I needed to go to Liverpool.

"What, today?"

Uh oh.

Yes, today. I give her a couple of bills with pictures of my grandma in a tiara on them and she gives me a ticket with a giant neon sticker on the cover. It says STANDBY PASSENGER. I go to the curb, call my friend, and tell him where I am. He sort of laughs. Then he tells me to call him when I get to Liverpool.

The next three hours involves buses coming and my not getting on them, whilst being gazed upon with pity by a few dozen people with giant plastic sacks of Christmas presents. I go back inside and offer counter woman my firstborn if she can get me on the bus. She assures me that I should get on the next one.I drag my luggage back outside and wait.

The next bus comes, and bless the Lord, oh my soul, they let me on. I shove what I can in the storage compartment underneath, hoist my backpack into my lap, and away we go.

Some geography-- London and Liverpool are 328 km apart. 205 miles. They are connected by major highways. Its essentially a Harrisburg to Pittsburgh hop.

Unless you board the chainsmoking compulsive tourguide excursion bus from hell.

My friend at National Express didn't explain to me that my salvation bus was one that would stop in EVERY. SINGLE. TOWN. between London and Liverpool. Oh, she didn't explain a lot of things. Like if I had taken the Tube to Victoria Station, I could have gotten a direct bus that would have taken me there in about 3 hours. I can only believe that she's had a run in with the karma train already on that score. She just wanted a jetlagged American who looked like she had come for the World Busking Championships out of her face. Fair enough.

I put on my headphones and passed out face first in my backpack. I was the sort of tired where conversation was ill-advised. But my seatmate managed to extract from me that I was a first time visitor to the Isles. So every so often, I'd get poked.

"Look. This is Stratford. Shakespeare's from here."

"Look. We just passed through (wherever). (Random history fact.)"

I contemplate, but ultimately reject, a degree of rudeness I've never ever exhibited.

Soon, her attentions would be the least of my worries. The bus swings into a huge terminal, stops, and everyone stands up. Am I here? I thought. Did I make it?

No.

It is evening, I have been awake for 52 hours straight, and I am in Birmingham, England.

I can only assume that the REST of Birmingham is lovely. This part of Birmngham looks like a disused cattle auction. But nevermind that, EVERYONE IS GETTING OFF. I talk to the driver.

"What happens now?"

"Changeover, love, go over there and they'll tell you where to go."

At this point I am physically incapable of carrying sixty pounds of duffel bag, a backpack, a leather jacket, and a guitar. I simply stand between the buses and cry. A group of people gathers around me, studiously avoiding eye contact and, apparently, waiting for the bus I'm waiting for. They start to chat, to verify this fact, and quickly discover that while half of them are going my way, half of them are not, and all of them have been instructed to wait for the same bus. Say what you want about Americans, y'all, but these people were ready to throw down the giant bags of Christmas presents and rumble to see whether we were going to Dover or Liverpool. Once the discussion volume got a bit past civilized a group of uniformed National Express employees streamed out of an office and interceded. Someone points me to a bus. I flex my now dislocated shoulders for one more luggage carry.

Now, its dark. I have no idea what time it is, all I know is that I am on a bus, on a highway, headed to Liverpool, four days before smoking on public transport is banned forever in the UK, and everyone is making the very very most of their last four days. Oh, and traffic is completely gridlocked, just in case I was feeling homesick. Well meaning fellow travellers are still trying to make conversation.

I finally arrive in Liverpool, and can't shake the weird sensation I'm still somewhere around Newark, New Jersey. (Liverpool is somewhat nicer by day so don't be offended.) My friend comes to collect me. He says "How was the trip?" I muster the last of my strength and hang the sixty pound duffel bag on his shoulder. For now, I'm home.

Next installment: Why Its Important to Make Sure the Ferry You've Planned To Take Actually Still Exists.

Hey! Book your next excursion to funny at Humor Blogs.com.

Checking Out

“Suicide was against the law. Johnny had wondered why. It meant that if you
missed, or the gas ran out, or the rope broke, you could get locked up in prison
to show you that life was really very jolly and thoroughly worth living.”
--Terry Pratchett

Christmas Night.
I was just washing up the last of the dishes when my pager went off. "Stand by at your stations; call the center for details." I pulled on my coat as I dialed county dispatch. I really didn't have to call the center for details; I could have just gone down to the station, but I wanted to know what, exactly, was going to mark my first on-duty Christmas. "You've got a drug overdose, with alcohol, the patient is being a little combative so we're getting the state police over there before you go in."
Aces. Just aces.
When I got to the house, the rest of the crew plus ALS and a former member home for the holiday greeted me and we rolled, party of five. I was happy there were so many of us since I didn't know exactly what 'combative' was going to mean. The first thing I saw was a quart bottle of Yukon Jack on the counter, and most of it was gone. Nice little place, dish out for the cat, Christmas tree, and a man in a recliner flanked by two staties who are explaining to him that he needed to get his shoes on. While he was doing this, his daughter asked him if he was planning to leave any kind of a note. "Nope!" he said cheerfully. He pulled on his shoes, tossed an afghan at the cat, and came smiling into the kitchen, where he scooped up his coat and stared in wonder at the number of people in the house. The crew chief made introductions and he greeted us all with a broad smile. "Jeez! All these people!" as if he just walked into a surprise birthday party. We walked him to the ambulance and in the course of questioning I learned that he took two whole bottles--pain medication and sleeping pills. He kept explaining how he just wanted the world to leave him alone and he just wanted to die, and this news is delivered with the same magnanimity as everything else he said. The paramedic drew blood, we monitored his vitals, and he asked each one of us in turn if we are having a good evening.
After assessing the relative happiness of each of our Christmases he demanded of one of the crew "Do you know the true meaning of Christmas?" The crewmember gave him a quick answer of neutral, professional benevolence, something that conveyed "We'll be at the hospital soon, just hang in there."
Our very medicated patient declared "Its when God sent his Son Jesus Christ into the world to save sinners," in a way that made me expect him to recite Luke 2 in its entirety. We got him into the ER, and when I stopped back with paperwork a good while later, the entire group of family, frends, and neighbors who followed us to the hospital were still clustered together, waiting. I looked at the varying expressions on their faces, while they came to terms with what brought them there on a night that is not supposed to be spent in a hard plastic chair in a brightly-lit hallway, and all I could think of was "And Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart". She had an initially fearful but eventually hopeful Christmas to ponder in dark times. I sincerely hope these people will too.

God Bless Us, Everyone

Oh, yes, Virginia. That's me and Mr. C.
I do remember this photo. Grant's department store, Philadelphia, PA. I was four.
Something about this Santa was creepy and I wasn't having any of it. Did I pick out that outfit? You betcha.
Its Christmas Eve, we are home and planning to watch the 1951 Alistair Sim 'Christmas Carol' fortified by some Christmas spirit of our own. The cat is sporting a 'noghawk', he slapped an eggnog milkshake off the counter earlier and then stood under the plastic bag holding all the sopping napkins I cleaned it up with, which of course had a leak, patiently licking whatever dripped through and absorbing the rest just behind his left ear until I discovered his ministrations to my increasingly sticky floor and cleaned it up properly.
We spent the night last night at our in-laws and enjoyed family, friends, and decorations, I haven't gotten much done in the way of decorating at home so it was nice to be in a house where there is even a Nativity scene (flanked with candles) in the bathroom. (I still intend to do something here. Really. ) In the meantime, the breakfast casserole is ready to be fired up tomorrow morning, our gifts are wrapped, and most importantly, in this cold winter week we have each other--and we'll have a simple, grateful Christmas day. I wish you all the same.
Feliz Navidad!

Prozac Ye Merry, Gentlemen

I haven't posted much (read: anything) about Christmas. Everyone is doing their Christmas themed blogs, yet I've gotten no closer than a discussion about snow. Which is kinda Christmassy. Kinda.
Sigh.
Don't get me wrong. I love Christmas. I have lots of nice memories, a great set of in-laws to spend it with, and a family that almost never resorted to any combination of alcohol and bitter recrimination around the holidays. I kind of suck at getting decorations up and generally getting things together early enough, but that's just a quirk I've come to embrace.
I think my problem is that I'm too acutely aware of the fact that this season is hard for some people, for a variety of reasons. Finances, displacement, loss, whatever. I think about those people too much and those thoughts run a continual counterpoint to all the 'being of good cheer'.
Consider this your wee taste of Christmas Dark. If nothing else, it will make the rest of your weekend seem wonderful.
I call this song the Perfect Storm of Christmas Depression. Note that the performer here (if you can get through it) is not Randy Stonehill, but he does a decent job. If you can't bear it, here are the lyrics.

They got Christmas Muzak
Piped in through the ceiling
And the refills of coffee
Are always for free
And the waitress on graveyard
And the surly night manager
Are wishing that all of us losers would leave
There’s a star on the sign
At the Texaco Station
Like the star long ago
On that midnight clear
As I look all around
At these cold, empty faces
I doubt that you'd find many wise men here
And I'm dreaming about
A silent night - Holy Night
When things were alright
And I'm dreaming about
How my life could have been
If only, if only, if only
But somewhere down the road
I gave up that fight
Merry Christmas
It's Christmas at Denny's tonight
Once I had a home
And a wife and a daughter
Had a company job
Earning middle-class pay
Then Lisa got killed
By a car near the schoolyard
And my wife started drinking
Just to get through each day
I will never forget
That little red wagon
Turning to rust
All alone in the rain
One morning I flagged down a truck on the highway
I just couldn't bear
To go back there again
And I'm dreaming about
A silent night - Holy night
When things were alright
And I'm dreaming about
How my life could have been
If only, if only, if only
Well, it's not just the blind man
Who loses his sight
Merry Christmas It's Christmas at Denny's tonight
They sayLife's made of cruel circumstance
Fate plays the tune and we dance
Dance til we dropIn the dust and we're gone
And the world just goes on
The cop at the counter
He's the guardian angel
He watches these orphans
Through dark mirrored shades
And the register rings
Like a bell sadly tolling
For the fools we've become
And the price that we paid
Oh when I was a boy
I believed in Christmas
A miracle season
To make a new start
I don't need no miracle
Sweet baby Jesus
just help me find
Some kind of hope in my heart
And I'm dreaming about
A silent night - Holy night
When things were alright
And I'm dreaming about
How my life could have been
If only, if only, if only
But I'll still be here
At the morning's first light
Merry Christmas
It's Christmas at Denny's tonight

<><><><><><><>

The only thing this song lacks is dead pets and meteorological disasters. Jeez, Randy. It makes the Christmas Shoes seem positively gleeful by comparison. (Funny story about THAT song; I was once in an airport shuttle van with a bunch of strangers and that song came on somewhere between the Commodore Barry Bridge and Philadelphia Airport, in just enough time that the whole vanful ended up sitting in silence listening to it. When we got to the Delta curb and got out, every single person in the van had obviously been crying, including the gruff and surly driver, who pulled all our luggage out of the back and drove off as quickly as possible.)

Anyway, I'll be making an effort to post more cheery bits of Christmas in the next few days, I've got a picture of me -n- Santa somewhere, if I can just figure out how to use the darned scanner.



Go visit humor blogs.com, before you make the Baby Jesus cry.

Snow Day

I meant to post this yesterday. Really I did.

I left for work like a good little soldier despite the fact that the sky seemed to be dumping snow at a movie-machine- fake alarming rate...mostly because I work for people who believe that if you live in the Northern Tier you need to put your big girl panties on and deal with bad weather and I wasn't in the mood for recrimination.

I drove about halfway to Mansfield at around 27 MPH. Yes, I'm that person in front of you with a 10 year old car and no 4 wheel drive. You can hate on me all you like, after you pass me I'll pull up behind you when you end up in the ditch and hold your head until the ambulance comes.

But wonder of wonders, I was diverted with a phone call and given leave to return to Tranquility Base and I did so. Even cranked it up to 30 or so. I barely made it up the steep street that leads to mine, scurried in the house, and never stuck my nose outside for the rest of the day. So no, I didn't take the picture above. Someone from the Grand Canyon Snowmobile Club did.

I love a snow day. Read books, did my nails, took a nap, took another nap. The huz was also home, doing his thing. I was given stern direction not to use him as 'blog fodder', so I can't say much about him. I'm not allowed.

Besides, he hasn't done much that was funny lately. But we've had our adventures.

When we were first married, we lived in a ridiculously small apartment. In fact, the last college dorm room I lived in (Naugle Basement, Messiah College. Holla!) was roughly 2 1/2 times the size of this place. We had just enough room for a tiny table, a couch, a double bed, and a TV on a pressboard stand that could be turned so it was in our 'bedroom', or in the 'living room'. The building itself had been a mansion at one time in the dimly distant history; when the property was sold and subdivided to make a development of homes we would never be able to afford, the old house was also subdivided into apartments. It is a three story house. They managed to make it into THIRTEEN apartments. The bedroom portion of the apartment actually stuck out from the side of the building, with supports underneath it; it looked like a treehouse. A treehouse built over a parking lot.

So naturally, we got a water bed.

I worked for a moving company and someone in my Florida office offered me this bed. My agreeing to this involved the acceptance of a couple of half-truths involving ease of assembly that, in retrospect, I am ashamed I fell for. The bed arrived, a pile of unrecognizable lumber and a headboard that could best be described as 'redneck chic'. (Kind of like this one, only with roses painted on the mirror. Can you hear the strains of 'Sweet Home Alabama' in the background? Thought so.)

We put the bed together in about an hour. It was startling; it didn't look like much in a pile but assembled, it commanded a full 1/3 of our apartment, effectively filling the 'bedroom' alcove. I wasn't about to turn back now; I spread out the liner, and then it was time to deal with the mattress. We squared it up, hooked up the filling hose deal and connected it to the mattress and let 'er rip. Wow, waterbed mattresses fill up pretty fast. And somewhere between quite a lot of water and a metric buttload of water, we realized, hey, it might not be a bad idea to check this mattress and make sure it doesn't, you know, have any holes in it.

The Huz and I hauled up a corner of the mattress to have a look, and sure enough, there was a bit of water between it and the liner. There was a large hanging tag on the spout to the mattress so I searched it for some helpful advice. It said something like this:

CONDDENSATION SOMETIMES DOES FORM BETWEEN MATRESS AND LINER.

PLACE A TOEL IN BETWEN TO ADSORB.

ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US

So I got a tea towel and jammed it in there. Fifteen minutes later, I heard a squirting noise that filled me with dread. I ran around the bed looking for the leak, heart pounding. But it wasn't my bed. It was my downstairs car-obsessed neighbor out for his 11:30pm car wash. Relieved, I hauled up the mattress again.

I had a feeling at this point it wasn't condensation; the tea towel was floating on a gently wafting eddy of water. Crap. I started thinking about the 'liner', the sheet of plastic that stood between this moment and me losing my security deposit. I took out the 'Magic Drain', this contraption that was supposed to drain a waterbed via the kitchen faucet, and hooked it up.

One thing the Magic Drain folks fail to tell you is that it takes HOURS to drain a waterbed. We lay down on the floor and tried to sleep with the whole thing running. I only slept long enough to have a dream that seemed very much like Airport '77, complete with singing nuns and Darren McGavin. At 5 o'clock in the morning the mattress was sufficiently flaccid and we shut off the water. I figured, hey, there isn't that much in there, I'll just drag it into the shower and drain it.

Here's your science lesson for the day, kids: water is heavy. Water in a giant plastic sack laying in a wooden frame two feet above the ground without handles hates you and wants you to die. We dragged it, we pulled it, it fell on us and we crawled out from under it, I wrestled with the drain opening for half an hour and finally slashed it open with scissors and let it drain, and dragged the whole mess into the dumpster at dawn. Then we called Dial-a-Mattress or somesuch and got a proper bed.

I realize that isn't a Huz story. But its the one that came to mind on the way to The Day The Whole Fire Department Came to Our House. Next time, perhaps.

Please visit humor-blogs.com and see who else all your base belong to.