Monsters in Baltimore

While in Baltimore on Saturday, I encountered two different types of prehistoric creatures:



These (human-propelled) sea monsters patrolled the waters of the harbor. Since I am very interested in sea monsters, I found them fascinating. I hope that we can try one out ourselves next time we go to Baltimore. (Note that maps of the harbor are inaccurate these days, as none seem to include the sea monsters that reside there.)




At the aquarium, my friend (who works there) let me play with this hissing cockroach before she took it out to the general area and let other kids touch with it. Undoubtedly, if I saw a giant hissing cockroach in my apartment, I would scream, not let it on my hand, and certainly not pet it. As I look at this picture, I want to puke. But I swear at the time it was sort of cute.

I wish they had sea monsters of the non-roach variety at the aquarium!

Traitors to the Union

Husband and I tooled down to visit friends in Baltimore yesterday. We
went to the aquarium, where our friend works, and I interacted with
some animals. (Pictures tomorrow.) Dinner was crabs with Old Bay
Seasoning - yummy, messy, and guilty after a day at the aquarium.

This morning, as we walked on Pratt St to the garage where we parked
Fred the Red, I stopped and read a plaque/informative sign about
Baltimore's Riot Trail. It seems that a mob of Confederate
sympathizers gathered around a Union train and shot a soldier. Hence
the first Union casualty was in the fucking Union.

To commemorate this proud occasion, a poem was written about the
"brave" secessionists. It became Maryland's state song in 1939. Of
course. Because only in this fucked up country do we find it
acceptable for traitors and terrorists to celebrate their evil deeds -
as long as they are white southerners. (While the North is far from
perfect in terms of racism, I don't, for example, see New Yorkers
fondly commemorating the Civil War draft riots.)

Grrr... Despite the misguided vileness of "southern heritage pride," I
found Baltimore to be charming. We explored the harbor area, Federal
Hill, and Canton. As we left, we drove throught Patterson Park. (I
know that much of Baltimore is disintegrating and dangerous, but I
think it would be an interesting place to live and do community
development.) I want to come back and see the dentistry museum, the
visionary art museum of self-taught artists, the African-American
museum of MD, and the Baltimore Jewish museum.

--
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Blog: www.cussandotherrants.com
Book: www.offthebeatensubwaytrack.com

Lipstick Anniversary

A week or two before my wedding, I visited the Clinique counter at
Marshall Field's in Old Orchard Mall. Although I never wore make-up,
my friends were horrified by my plan to attend my own wedding au
natural, and insisted that I needed to obtain some sort of lip color
for the event at the least. The saleswoman listened to my plight and
suggested that I might like the Chubby Stick, which was essentially a
lipstick crayon. I bought two shades.

After my weding, I returned to my unfeminine ways and rarely used
either Chubby Stick. As I approach my nine year wedding anniversary
(July 2), I still had both. I put one on last week, only to discover
a strange chemical taste on my lips. For once, I exercised good
judgement and threw them out, even though there was a lot left and I
hate waste.

The lipstick outlasted Marshall Field's (taken over by Macy's, and
boycotted by all quality Chiagoans), but happily, not my marriage.
I'll consider wearing a new lipstick when we celebrate with Giordano's
and Ann Sather and the Taste of Chicago on Thursday.

--
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Blog: www.cussandotherrants.com
Book: www.offthebeatensubwaytrack.com

Case Histories

A few years ago, I read and fell in love with "Case Histories" by Kate
Atkinson. I thought everything about it was brilliant. The language
and word choices are sublime, the characters are well-drawn, and the
book is full of wonderful observations about life. It's also a book
about the relationships between fathers and daughters. Every time I
read it, I am delighted. It's one of those books I don't want to end
because I love being part of its world.

When the sequel came out, I was excited. But months passed and I
never got past looking at the cover. The next sequel came out. I read
reviews of it and thought about how I should read the middle book.
Then I did nothing.

Today I realized that I love "Case Histories" so much that I was
afraid to read the follow up books, even though I wanted to know what
Jackson Brodie was up to. What if the sequels were not as good as the
original? I didn't want to be let down. My cousin told me that my
fear was irrational and I should read the books.

After my contact lens fitting (yesterday I wasd told that the vision
in my left eye is blurry because I have astigmatism, so I went to get
new lenses, but the lens doctor said that the cause was that my
prescription is too weak, not astigmatism, so she upped it a bit and I
now see fine), I stopped at a used bookstore. I took a deep breath
and headed to the fiction aisle. I risked my life on a rickety step
ladder to pull "One Good Turn" down from a high shelf. I'm excited to
begin reading it as soon as I finish re-reading "case histories."

--
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Blog: www.cussandotherrants.com
Book: www.offthebeatensubwaytrack.com

Speaking of Licking...

On Saturday, I discovered that Del Monte made Daniel Craig-sicles on Britain. According to The Daily Mail, the frozen treats were available from June 1 to June 7. Curses! (I am incredibly impressed at the artistry that went into the popsicles - they really look like Daniel Craig in Casino Royale!)

Anyhow, that afternoon, Husband and I went to David Farmland with Alex Elliot, her husband, and their two kids. I am as impressed by Davis Farmland as I am by the Craig-sicles. The animals were all very well-behaved (including the human ones also visiting) and I enjoyed petting goats, sheep, and calves.

One calf, in particular, really seemed to like me and would not stop licking me, including my butt as I bent down to pet another calf:





She even licked my armpit, which was more than enough for me - I finally left the calf pen. I bet that calf would also have enjoyed a Daniel Craig-sicle, though.

Another Dream Come True!

According to "Entertainment Weekly," I can now lick Daniel Craig to my
heart's content. It seems that Del Monte is making some sort of
frozen fruit on a stick that is shaped like the buff actor who plays a
lot of Jewish guys in films and James Bond. I am not sure if this
treat is available outside of Britain, but from the 14 seconds of
research I conducted on my BlackBerry while Husband drives us to
Massachusetts, British women voted to render Craig as easily lickable
for the masses. (Another reason I am an Anglophile - such good
taste!)

Husband was in London on Tuesday, but either did not see the Daniel
Craig-sicle or deigned to purchase a cooler and dry ice to bring one
home for me. (He did buy me a Mars Bar, though, so big kisses for
that.) When I mentioned the Craig-sicle to him, he scrunched up his
face and glared at me through narrowed eyes. (He's so cute!) Un
fortunatelt, he also hates the Jesus bracelet vi found on the sidewalk
outside my apartment last week, and asked me not to wear it in his
presence.

Can't win 'em all, I guess.

--
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Blog: www.cussandotherrants.com
Book: www.offthebeatensubwaytrack.com

"The Lost"

On my way back from visiting my sister in Iowa, I read two books: On Writing by Stephen King (excellent - both entertaining and helpful) and The Lost by Daniel Mendelsohn. The Lost is about Mendelsohn's family history and his obsession with learning what happened to his grandfather's brother and his family during the Holocaust. Unfortunately, it is also about historical, current, and personal interpretations of the Five Books of Moses, and semi-related sibling rivalry stories. Also, the style includes a lot of repetition in storytelling after a tangent (just like listening to someone tell a story with lots of tangents) and dramatic foreshadowing (i.e. - "But I couldn't have know what would happen next.") I felt like Mendelsohn should have read On Writing.

That said, the core of the story is well written and very compelling to me. Plus, I learned important lessons for my own writing. I love me some tangents, but too many of them are distracting. I also always try to cram semi-related stories into my narratives, but now I see why that doesn't work. If The Lost had been about 100-150 pages shorter, it would have been brilliant. (On the other hand, it won a National Book Critic Circle award, so don't take my word for it.)

Reading stories about the Holocaust always makes me restless. Like Mendelsohn, I want to know what happened to my grandfather's family. When I discovered in 2005 that one of his brothers-in-law actually survived and moved to Israel after the war, it was a breakthrough. But that gentleman died in the early 1980s, and none of his relatives knew anything about my family, although they are lovely people and I am glad that I met them. I've always believed that not knowing what happened to someone is one of the hardest things that people deal with. The human mind craves closure.

Blowout!

Dana went to her six week post-birth doctor appointment first thing yesterday morning, (foolishly) entrusting the care of Marcus to my mom and me. Fortunately, the little bugger slept a lot, but when he woke up, it meant it was time for a diaper change and eating. I volunteered to be on diaper doodie (heh heh) while my mom heated up the bottle of pumped breast milk.

The changing process started out well. Marcus screamed himself red in the face while I removed his diaper, but I heard him fart and kept his poopy diaper in place, thus catching the burst of crap that he forced out. As I congratulated myself, however, he peed, which went directly into his face, all over the mat on the changing table, and on the new diaper I set aside to use. Damn. I'd witnessed this before, though, so I knew to wipe him down with wet wipes. Except that he was now soaking wet, and I had nothing to towel him down with before putting on his new outfit, so I grabbed a receiving blanket. While I dabbed him dry, I realized that the changing table was wet from pee, so I wiped that with a wet wipe, and put him down, not realizing that the mat was still wet from the wipe, and making him wet all over again. I picked him up again, wiped down the mat, and as I dried Marcus again, he peed on himself and the mat. I wanted to join his screaming.

Eventually, the stars and moon aligned and I redressed the dry squirmer. We went downstairs for a bottle. We sucked down five ounces in less than 20 minutes. When I burped him, he gave me a very big belch, which made my mom and I grin. We put him in his bouncy chair and watched him while we ate breakfast.

I was almost finished with my eggs when Marcus began crying again. As I lifted him out of his bouncy chair, I noticed a yellow stain near the back of his thigh. Shit! A blowout! (When my friend Dianne's daughter was a month old, I witnessed this horrible phenomena: baby makes a crap so big that it blows out of the diaper up the baby's back.) Back to the changing table, this time with my mom to help.

More peeing, screaming (Marcus, not my mom and I), drying, and re-diapering ensued. By the time Dana returned, Marcus was cozy, clean, and sleeping. Go us! I don't know how anyone does this job full-time.

Friendlyville

Iowa City may be a college town, but people here are very friendly.
While here, I walked to the local Hy-Vee grocery store twice. On
Saturday night, I passed two people out walking dogs, and both said
hello. Monday afternoon, I took a park pathway, and several bikers
greeted me as they whizzed by me.

I should not have been surprised, then, at how helpful the store
employees were. During my Sunday grocery run, the extremely hot
manager (who I noticed on Sat. night - tall, fit, dark hair) took me
from aisle 4 to aisle 3 when I asked him where the chili powder was
kept. On Monday, the cheerful boy stocking sundried led me an aisle
over when I sought Band-Aids and Neosporin.

In New York, I'm lucky if the people who work at my local grocery
store can understand my question, let alone personally guide me. All
this friendliness (and easiness on the eyes)comes at a price:
everything here cost more than I pay at my grocery store. That's what
really shocked me.

I'll miss my family and the friendly, attractive service when I go
back tonight, but it will also be nice to sleep in my own bed, buy
homemade organic peanut butter for cheap, and see Husband, although
that won't happen until Friday afternoon, as he is off to Europe for
work. (He was gone all last week, too.). Fortunately, he'll settle
the Daniel Craig tea towel debate with Mara while he's on that side of
the pond. I look forward to hearing about that!

--
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Blog: www.cussandotherrants.com
Book: www.offthebeatensubwaytrack.com

Marcus Is Home!

Here he is with Uncle Suzanne. Oh, I mean Tante Suzanne. (We think that the people at the hospital thought I was a boy. On Thursday, there was a crotchety weird old guy standing outside the entrance to my apartment building. As I passed by him, he muttered, "What are you looking at, young man? You better look away or there's gonna be trouble!" I was not sure if he was talking to me or this 12 year old boy who was walking the other direction.)

The $6 Eggs-periment

Hypothesis: Eggs from grass-fed organic chickens taste much better than eggs from grain-fed organic chickens.

My book club chose In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan for our May discussion. We all hated it. The tone was condescending at best, pedantic at worst. (Sort of like that last sentence...) All of his recommendations are impossible to implement unless the reader lives near a farm and has the ability to spend vast sums of money on micro-organic food.

However, I did decide to try one of his ideas: eat eggs laid by chickens that were fed grass instead of feed. He reports that the yolks are orange rather than yellow, and that the eggs taste better. I scoured the organic section of my grocery store, but no luck. All the cartons boasted that the chickens ate vegetarian feed. Pollan said that feeding chickens grain does not count.

Then last weekend, Dr. P and I passed by a farmer's market. The first vendor's sign said that they used only organic feed. Strike. The second (and only other egg vendor) had no sign.

"What do you feed your chickens?" I asked.

He pointed to a bowl of mixed greens. "Whatever we don't sell here, we feed the birds."

I didn't know if lettuce counted as grass, but decided to try the eggs anyway. They were $6 for a dozen. I gritted my teeth as I shelled it out.

"Damn, those better be the best eggs ever," Dr. P muttered.

The next day, we set up our eggs-periment. Dr. P made two of the eggs-pensive eggs for each of us, sunny side up. Then, since we are scientists, she made one of the organic grain-fed eggs in the same manner as a control. We dug in.

"Well, I taste no difference," I sighed.

"Me neither. That's good then, since you won't be tempted to buy $6 eggs again."

I've subsequently used scrambled eight more of the eggs. Interestingly, I think they do taste better, although I didn't make a control scrambled egg. Even so, I don't think the green-fed eggs are so much better than the other organic eggs that I will bankrupt myself buying them.

Conclusion: Bullshit.

Can You Tell the Difference?

So, now conservatives are really angry because liberals paid more attention to the assassination of Dr. Tiller than the murder of Pvt. William Andrew Long outside a recruiting office in Arkansas. (Another soldier was wounded in the attack.) I know that my stupid liberal brain is slow, but I am not sure that I get it.

First, no liberals are expressing joy or relief or thanking God that Pvt. Long is dead. This is unlike the extremist groups that encouraged violence against Dr. Tiller for, oh, like two decades.

Which reminds me: was Pvt. Tiller stalked and harassed before he was killed? No? Did he have to hire security guards because of the repeated threats against his life or the vandalism of his office, which happened repeatedly for almost 20 years? No? Then how are the two murders equivalent?

The killing of Pvt. Long is heinous and vile. But there is pretty much no support among liberal organizations for these aggressive actions against people we disagree with. We do not threaten to kill their children because we think that their actions are morally wrong. We do not bomb their offices. We do not give veiled condemnations of murderous actions that really celebrate those actions.

No one could have predicted that Pvt. Long would be killed. His death is horrible. But it is not part of a long term harassment campaign, and that is why I paid more attention to Dr. Tiller than Pvt. Long. Then again, I don't know why I expect people who equate a fetus to a person who is born, breathing, and feeling to be able to distinguish these types of nuances.

License to Tour

After applying for another job, then puttering around the apartment, I
decided to take the ecam to become a licensed tour guide. I filled
out the paperwork some time last year, but never got around to
submitting my application. If I get a job soon (fingers crossed), who
knows when my next chance will be to sit around the NYC Dept. of
Consumer Affairs for hours on end? No time like the present and all
that.

The 150 multiple choice question test took me over an hour to
complete. I was asked everything from which subway goes to Times
Square to when slavery was abolished in New York to how the Satmyrs
feel about Israel to how to get a tour bus from the Waldorf-astoria
hotel to the Cloisters. Some questions presented a non-numeric list
of attractions and asked me to identify which were in a specific
geographic area, but the answers were numeric (like 1,2,7,10,15) - the
list of places was supposed to correspond to a number. Of course, the
testing room was negative seven degrees.

I needed to get 97 answer right to pass, and if I got 120 correct, my
name would appear on the official tour guide list with a star next to
it. I coveted the star. As per my usual performance on exams, I did
well - but not good enough to achieve the highest ranking. My score
was 118. Frustrating, but still exciting because now I can offer Off
the Beaten (Subway) Track tours. Yay!

--
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Blog: www.cussandotherrants.com
Book: www.offthebeatensubwaytrack.com

I Found...

At the end of last year, I found and rescued an abandoned pirate near Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco:



This was before the whole incident with the pirates kidnapping the American ship captain, of course, but my pirate doesn't seem to exhibit any such hostilities. He just guards the treasures (paperclips, tape, scissors, etc.) I keep on my desk.

Then, in March, I found and rescued a wood fish in Carroll Gardens, where my friend lives in Brooklyn:



Yesterday, I found Jesus! OK, I found a wood tile Jesus and saints wood tile bracelet (like the one below, but a little different - my icons are blurrier, which made it impossible to photograph) on the sidewalk just a few doors down from my apartment:



Once I spotted it, I dove and snapped it up, not that any one else was in the area competing with me for it. I have coveted a bracelet like this for a long time. I think it is cool, but Husband would not be pleased if I spent his hard earned cash (or my own, for that matter) on such a Christian item. I am very excited to wear it about town. I hope that it is a sign that good luck is coming my way.

Chai Anxiety

Today's Urban Dictionary word of the day is chai anxiety. I can't say that I meet their definition of chai anxiety (anxiousness caused by too many coffee shop options), but it did seem oddly fitting for me and all the other women in my family. We are definitely people who carry around a lot of anxiety in general, although lately we are justified in feeling extra-anxious.

My nephew Marcus is still in the hospital, recovering from necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). However, he was finally allowed to eat breast milk yesterday, after a ten day course of IV feeding. The process of re-introducing food is slow: his allowance was 1/3 of an ounce every four hours to start. He will be in the hospital until at least Saturday.

My sister and her husband have been amazingly strong throughout the ordeal. Ryan had to return to work this week, so Dana is holding up the fort by herself now. She will go to the NICU every day alone to be with Marcus. My mom and I wanted to be there this week, but she has work and I have an interview tomorrow (and hopefully one or two more before the week is over). I'm flying out on Friday, and staying until Tuesday, June 16. My mom is taking the train on Saturday and staying through the following weekend, when my dad will join her out there. We are all hopeful that Marcus will be home for Father's Day.

It's a long story how my mom came to her Amtrak reservation (she's on the California Zephyr - how awesome is that?!?!), but she's never taken the train before. "Did she spazz out about her luggage?" my sister asked me when I explained the travel arrangements. My sister knows our mom too well - her chai anxiety was sky high when I booked her train ticket. In rapid succession, she asked me whether there was a bathroom on the train, if food was available, and how the luggage is handled, the luggage being a sticking point. I assured her that a porter could help her place her suitcase in the luggage rack. Still, she worried about the luggage.

We could all use a nice cup of tea to calm our chai anxiety.

I Had a Really Nice Dream Last Night...

Two days ago, I discovered a package in the mail from my pal Mara, who has the good fortune to live in London. She sent me a tea towel* from Emma Bridgewater:



When I showed it to Husband at night, he made his squinty eye, pursed lips face. It was very cute. The next day, he sent her an email objecting to her gift:

Thank you for the thoughtful gift of a dish towel, but I am afraid we cannot accept it. Although Daniel Craig brilliantly portrays militant Jews in motion pictures (three times by last count), he has insufficient acting credentials to be worthy of a prominent place in our home. While it pains me to reject high quality household goods from Europe, I cannot see how I can put anything in my kitchen that references an actor whose principal roles included casting in such notable films as "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" and "The Golden Compass". Rest assured, we would proudly display a towel if made reference to one of Mr. Craig's more respectable British peers, such as Robbie Coltrane or Robert Carlyle. Thanks again, but please be considerate of good taste when purchasing presents for us in the future.

What's truly hilarious is I had a really nice dream that night about... Matt Damon. Man, I just love him from the Bourne series. Then, yesterday, I was flipping through the channels while I waited for Husband to get home from work. Casino Royale was on USA! O, be still my beating heart!

Of course, when you are lucky to have a husband as witty as mine, who needs Matt Damon or Daniel Craig?

*If anyone knows what that is, please let me know - I use it to wipe my hands in the kitchen, which seems to work well.

Tea Bagging

The phone rang. I picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Did you know," a recorded voice intoned, "that Americans across the country are hosting tea parties to protest high taxes?"

Click.

Damn. I've been tea bagged! I feel so gross.

Take Out the T-C-P

I read the newspaper as I ate my breakfast sausage, as I do every morning. As happens almost every morning, one of the articles made me stop chewing. Usually, I temporarily discontinue eating because I am so outraged by whatever absurdity presented itself, but today I halted to parse language.

The front page of the New York Times proffered a story about one Republican's struggle with his party over the Sotomayor nomination. It said:

He quickly challenged the standing of the judge’s critics, like former Speaker Newt Gingrich, noting that they were not Republican officeholders and held no real responsibility for passing judgment on President Obama’s choice for the court.

“We are going to treat this nominee with the respect that she is entitled to,” Mr. Cornyn said in an interview this week.

There is important nuance in this sentence. To say that they will treat Sotomayor with "the respect that she is entitled to" is a lot different from saying that they will treat her with respect, period. It means that if they decide that they don't like her or her views, she is not entitled, as a human being, to respect. Respect is absolutely not the default, and they have the right to revoke it at any time.

Some time ago, I wrote about the phrase, "with all due respect," because I noticed that any time someone (including me) used it, it meant that the speaker accorded the person she addressed no respect because none was merited as due. However, whatever is said is somehow considered less rude since the speaker threw in the meaningless clause, "with all due respect." Cornyn's comment is a lot like that because he can credit for being civil, while not actually committing to do so. Very clever.

Tell it to them, Aretha!

Things that Are Happening that Are Good

Too many bad things happened lately. I'm still displeased with how Congress favors lobbyists over the general welfare of the nation, distraught over the assassination of Dr. George Tiller, and enraged that Cheney is working overtime to undermine Obama.* Plus, I need a job. Worse, last Wednesday, my nephew wound up in the hospital with a distended stomach, and he's still there. Very, very upsetting.

Fortunately, things are starting to look up a bit. The most important is that Marcus is doing much, much better. On Sunday, the doctors finally came up with a diagnosis for him: necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). While NEC is awful and scary, it also is curable, and his treatment is going very well. I spoke to my sister yesterday, and she said that Marcus is very alert and responsive, and also that he slept well the prior night for the first time in days, and thus was less fussy in general. I'm relieved, and looking forward to his return home.

Last night I presented a lecture at Adult Education, and it went smashingly. I had fun talking, the audience was wonderful, and the other speakers were great. I really love public speaking, especially when it is about something fun like taking a subway road trip. My brother-in-law was kind enough to video tape it (my new publisher, Turner Publications, which bought my book when my original publisher closed shop, asked if I could record the talk for marketing purposes), so I'll post it on CUSS when he has a chance to upload it. But, man, I just felt fabulous last night.

My third ray of sunshine is on the job front. In an hour, I have a phone interview for a position which I think will be very interesting. My fingers are crossed that the good vibe I had from last night will come through this morning.

Tomorrow, my friend Dr. P begins her visit with me. She got a job in Long Island, and is moving back up here from Florida this summer. Just thinking about her triumphant return to the New York area puts a big smile on my little face.

My Lecture Tonight on Urban Travel

Adult Education is a Brooklyn-based monthly event series where various speakers present brief, multimedia lectures on a shared theme. Tonight's theme is Urban Travel, and I will be sharing some of the "treasures" one can find by taking a subway roadtrip with the A train. The podium will be graced with three other esteemed speakers discussing subway map design, subway sketch art, and people who refuse to vacate seats specifically designated for people with disabilities when a person who has a visible disability enters the train. (Part of me has extra love for the last one because the blog URL is so long: www.peoplewhositinthedisabilityseatswhenimstandingonmycrutches.com.)

Time Out New York selected the lecture to highlight on their Own This City blog, so you know it will be good. Plus, it is only $5. Bargains like this are hard to come by!

I'll have copies of Off the Beaten (Subway) Track available for $15. (That's a whopping $1.95 off the cover price!)

Critical Info:
Union Hall
702 Union St (between Fifth and Sixth Ave)
Park Slope, Brooklyn
718-638-4400

Closest subway: M, R to Union St
For other directions: http://www.unionhallny.com

Writing about Pubic Hair Removal Restores My Good Spirits

I woke up this morning grumpy and unsettled. With all the serious shit that is going on in the world, like the assassination of Dr. George Tiller and the amount of money that banks are spending to lobby against sensible regulation, I feared that I could not do a good job on my BlogHer topic of the day, pubic hair shaving. Oddly enough, once I got going with my old friend, I felt a lot better. If you can't mock the crap out of pubic hair removal, what can you mock?

Plus, this latest BlogHer post is the third that I wrote in the past three weeks that returned me to my humor roots. In the last year, I've become so serious. I started blogging and writing almost four years ago (!) to find a funny outlet for my anger. It's nice to go back to that.

More bad jokes, less frustration!