We are back in Mexico, this time for two weeks, sans niño - first vacation we've taken without him in almost five years and it feels a bit liberating.  Our last journey here, he redefined the word "pill" and thus has chosen to attend his first overnight summer camp in the woods at home instead.  Fine with us, as pre-adolescence can be a bit wearying for everyone involved.

As punishment for actually saying out loud a time or two that we were happy to be going without him, the powers that be hit us with a big dose of karma on our flight from the Wretched Little City ® to Houston, the first leg of our journey.  For four hours, I was seated next to a 9 year old girl named Kyla, traveling alone for the first time.  Since I am generally a friendly sort, and felt bad for the kid who seemed nice and a bit scared to be traveling alone, I chatted with her and played a few games with her to pass the time.  In short order, she morphed from quiet, somewhat scared kid into hyper out of control bad seed child, pressing the stewardess button no less than five times to go to the bathroom, hitting, poking and climbing on me at regular intervals and generally being a giant A.D.D. pest.  Eventually I feigned sleep as a way to check out and though I still had to endure the regular poking, nudging, and attempts to shove unwanted chips and sticks of gum directly into my mouth, eventually her attention turned to the people behind us and she bothered them for awhile.  We lived through it all eventually and hightailed it off the plane at the end of the flight, convinced we had brought it on ourselves.

After enduring another travel gremlin in the form of a four hour delay on a flight scheduled to leave Houston at 8:50 PM and arrive in Mexico City at 11:10 PM, which actually left Houston at 12:10 AM and arrived in Mexico city at 2:15 AM (thanks to heavy rain in Baltimore - sheesh!), we finally made it to La Ciudad and crashed for a few hours in the airport hotel.  The next day we cabbed it to La Zona Rosa, where we had a penthouse suite reserved for my birthday at the Marco Polo.  The hotel was great and in a terrific location on Amberes, near all the hip and cool places including the local sex toy shop and "BoyBar", not the first time I've regretted not being born a gay man.  We were particular enamored with the bathroom, with a European style large jacuzzi tub, a veritable jungle of tropical plants, and big windows where one could shower while viewing the city vista on two sides. 



This was the first of two bathrooms I would become enamored with on our trip thus far.

After checking in and enjoying the view from the balcony, we decided to try hitting the Frida Kahlo exhibit at La Palacio de las Bellas Artes.  We feel incredibly privileged to even have the opportunity to visit this exhibit, which is the largest ever of Frida's works including many previously unshown works from private collections and only on display here for a short time.  Portions of it will travel to other countries but nowhere else will it be shown in its entirety.  Blog entries from earlier in the week recommended an early start to any attempts to visit due to big crowds and it was already well into the afternoon before we ventured out.  But we figured it couldn't hurt to try.

We hit the Mexico City subway, el Metro, and proceeded to attempt to find our way there.  After one misguided attempt going a few stops the wrong way on one line, we made our way to the correct station.  I found the Mexico City subway quite comparable to the NYC subway both in terms of age and lack of temperature control in the stations.  But generally it was fast and easy.  One interesting thing is that during certain busy hours, the first two cars of all trains are reserved for women and children only.  We gave it a try and rode surrounded by las mujeres de negocios in high heels, tight black clothing and good hair (all people middle class and higher in Mexico City have startling stylish coifs, with the men using even more hair product than the women), viejas straight out of some old silent film about Mexico with long gray hair and impossibly large and heavy loads of goods slung in swaths of fabric over their backs, and many jolly looking nuns.  Other than the annoying vendors constantly roaming the cars hawking various goods and being roundly ignored by all, it was not an unpleasant experience.

Upon arrival at Bellas Artes, we found ourselves first overawed by the building and then a bit chagrined by the line for the exhibit.  But we decided to give it a try anyway.



As cool as the building was outside, inside it was even more astonishing.







And - many people in line waiting to take it all in...



I took a place in line while V. went to buy tickets.  When she returned, she reported that her ticket had been free when the ticket seller discovered she is a professor, and my ticket had cost a whopping $3.50.  The line, though long, moved along at a good clip, and within 25 minutes we were inside the exhibit. 

Our experience there was one of the many I've had that make me love this country.  The overwhelming majority of attendees were clearly Mexicanos, and como siempre, they came in intact familias.  All ages were there, from babies through children through teenagers and college kids through adults and grandparents.  No one was left out, and all carried themselves with the same composure of hushed reverence at being in the presence of Frida's work.  As would never be the case in the US, there was no velvet rope separating viewer from art,  only a line of red tape on the floor so close to the wall that anyone including a child could easily have reached out and touched one of these great pieces.  There were guards who would occasionally admonish those that stepped over the tape, but that was it.  The vast majority of the paintings were unprotected by glass or plexiglass, and I stood in amazement just inches away from original paintings like Los Dos Fridas and Pensando de Diego.  Every brush stroke was visible and palpable and whatever you think of Frida's work (I happen to love it), you had to be humbled by the historical and cultural impact of it, especially on the very people that were in attendance.

From there, we were off to celebrate my birthday with a dinner at El Bajío in Polanco, one of DF's swankier vecinidades.  We were swayed by the recent NY Times article which referred to it as one of the "best and most distinctive Mexican restaurants in the world".  Other than finding it relatively full of gringos, who obviously also read the article, it was delightful experience.  The food was wonderful and we indulged without guilt.  If you love real Mexican food (not the TexMex that passes for Mexican in the US), this place is a must-visit.  To top it all off, the renowned owner is a native of Xalapa, our adopted home away from home, where we headed out on the luxury Uno bus first thing in the AM.

Per usual on this five hour bus trip to Xalapa, though I was suffering from a serious sleep deficit from the previous night, I could not bring myself to catch up on sleep during the bus ride.  The country side between DF and Xalapa is just too interesting to sleep through.  I also skipped the three movies shown on the bus during the ride, even though one was in English with Spanish subtitles.  Instead I attempted to take pictures out the bus window, always an activity fraught with uncertainty.  But I enjoyed it just the same.





Upon arrival in Xalapa, where it was not suprisingly raining in the afternoon, (our Mexico City cab driver, upon hearing we were headed to Veracruz, assumed we were off to the city of Veracruz itself on the coast rather than the state and said "Enjoy the heat!".  When we corrected him that we were actually headed to the state capital of Xalapa he just grinned and changed his parting shot to "Enjoy the rain!"), we made our way to our friend S.'s house where her granddaughter R. gave us the keys to S.'s daughter and our friend Isabel's house, where we are house sitting while they are in LA for two weeks.

We've been to Isabel and her husband Toma's house before and knew it was nice, but it's been awhile.  As we finally swung open the heavy wooden entrance door and rolled our bags into the foyer, we had big silly grins on our faces.  Not only is the house gorgeous, but it has a truly spectacular view off the back patio, of the green hills rising up to one of the local extinct volcanoes, El Cofre de Perote.  It is my personal opinion that the green hills that rise up along the east side of the central Mexican volcanic ridge from El Cofre to the mighty Pico de Orizaba in the south is one of the most beautiful places on the planet.  Yes, I'm biased and no, I'm not well traveled enough to have made a truly thorough assessment.  But I stand by my opinion all the same.

  


Have I mentioned the maid who comes every day, cleans, does our laundry and cooks for us?  Have I mentioned we are staying here for free?

To be continued, with more next entry on our hosts, their artistic endeavors, our travels in the countryside and another bathroom well worth fixating on.

Hasta pronto.  And by the way, click on any picture to see it larger.  :-D

® - Registered Trademark, Farmboyz

Word just in that Chris O'Brien, discussed in my last post as the local aspiring young folkie I've known pretty much his whole life - has made it as a finalist in Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion's talent contest for twentysomethings.  Since only six acts were chosen out of over 500 entries, we are justifiably proud as punch.  The contest will air on Prairie Home Companion on April 21st, and listeners can vote for the winner!  So listen in and

VOTE FOR CHRIS!

 (I don't care how good the others may be as well!)

C'mon - look at him.  Listen to him.  How can you resist??

Last Sunday evening, my girl and my best peep Denise and I, all journeyed down via car and train to NYC for a much too brief excursion.  The impetus: to see the Colombian band Aterciopelados at S.O.B.'s in Soho. 

Aterciopelados (loose English translation: "Velvety Ones") is essentially two people - Andrea Echeverri and Héctor Buitrago, both from Bogotá.  They have put out 7 CD's as a group over the past 13 years, and 2 solo CD's.   They are touring the US now to promote their latest new CD, "Oye".




I started listening to their music about four years ago, after giving V.'s CD "Gozo Poderoso" a listen, and seeing a few of their videos on MTV Español.  Four years later, I count them among my very favorite musicians ever, and cannot understand why they still seem to languish in relative obscurity in the U.S.  Beyond the obvious language barrier for English only speaking Americans, they are not nearly as popular among U.S. Latinos as I think they deserve to be.  All the same, in a recent interview they pointed out that they sell more CD's here in the U.S. than in any other country.  They have been nominated twice for Grammy awards and are internationally successful, and yet I've found very few people in this country who have heard of them.  Lest someone point out that I am not exactly living in a hotbed of Latino culture, I'll counter that the show at S.O.B's, which was the band's only stop in New York on this tour, was attended by only several hundred people, maybe 500 tops.  I don't believe the club was sold out, but I could be wrong.  It didn't feel uncomfortably crowded.

Those of us who did make the effort to turn out were well rewarded.  They were all I had expected them to be, and substandard sound quality notwithstanding (hello - isn't S.O.B.'s a music club???), the enthusiasm of the crowd was downright buoyant.  Most people there knew almost every word to every song, and there was much singing along con gusto.  The average age of attendees was generally a good ten years or so younger than us (OK - or more), but we saw at least a handful of  older folk as well. 

I would like to articulate fully why I so admire this group - but I'm a terribly inept music critic.  Describing music in words is just an effort doomed to failure, I think, though there are those with a talent for it.  Trying to say they fit a genre or two is equally wrong.  They are not like any traditional Latin group that the U.S. is used to hearing, at the very least.  Some call them progressive Latin rock, but that's not accurate either.  Their style is often more of the hook-laden rock or pop type variety , for sure.  But they mix and meld and borrow from so many Latin and non-Latin styles, using such a wide variety of interesting instruments, rhythms and sounds, that you can learn their entire catalog by heart and still not feel you have a good handle on them.  I just come away feeling that I love their music.  And you don't need to understand the lyrics to appreciate it either - though their lyrics are so clever and intelligent that it is well worth the time to translate them.  They are unabashedly political leftists and tackle numerous controversial topics with wit and depth.  The Boston Globe has done a nice piece on them here.

I don't understand why this band is not HUGE, but I suppose I am underestimating the language barrier.  It's a shame really, that people are so closed minded as to not even listen to music whose lyrics are not in their native language, when such a huge world of music exists in the world beyond that - and music transcends language so thoroughly that in my opinion it should never be constrained by it.  But, hey, does anyone give a hoot what I think?  Ha.  But really, please, listen to them.  You'll be glad you did.

After our very fun late night in NYC clubland,  with the only disappointment being that my beloved ACME apparently only serves brunch on the weekends and we didn't have time to go there to eat my favorite mashed potatoes with white gravy (*sob*), we whirlwinded right out of there again back to hickland without even time to grab a decent bagel.  But we vowed to come back soon, with more time on our hands.  It's really quite ridiculous that we live less than 3 hours from the City and yet visit so rarely.  So a belated New Year's resolution for us...

Three nights later, we found ourselves seated front and center at a small table in front of the stage at the famed Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton (it's really not all that famed outside of New England folkie circles but there it is).  We had come to see our prodigal son play to a hometown crowd.  Our prodigal son is named Chris O'Brien, and OK so he's not really my kid, but I often say Chris is the first person I actually watched grow all the way up. 

I met him when he was 5, my best peep Denise was 17, and I was 19.  Denise had just started seeing Chris' Mom, who was in her early 20's.  They ended up being together for 8 years give or take, and Denise was more often than not the one home taking care of Chris during those years.  I spent countless days over at their house, watching football, smoking cigarettes, playing street hockey, devising ridiculous money making schemes (a favorite: combination day care and worm farm), and generally just being young, silly and stupid.  It was like kids raising a kid, really.  Chris was always along for the ride, or just there playing with toys, laughing at TV shows with us, playing catch in the yard, being hyper and getting into trouble.  We went to his hockey and little league games, made him macaroni and cheese, procured rescued kittens for him (a favorite: a tiny orange tabby that grew into a giant lovable lug, dubbed "Tex" by Chris), and did our best to figure out how to help parent a kid when we were barely adults ourselves. 

I remember sitting in the stands one time watching him pitch a little league game, and the coaches' wife circulated through the stands handing out flyers for some upcoming team barbeque.  When she got to us, four or five dykes lounging in the upper bleachers with tank tops and flip flops, she paused ever so briefly, and then flashed a sunny smile and said "Are you all Chris' Moms?", then she proceeded to give us each a flyer.  We took them, smiled and shrugged.  We sort of were all his Moms, in a way.

Chris was not always the easiest kid, and we were not always fabulous role models.  But we all did the best we could, and in the end when I look back, the most important piece was that we all loved each other and had fun, in between the angst and confusion of course.  Yes, little Chris was raised by lesbians, and so what else was there for him to do but become - a folk singer.

Chris first became interested in folk as a young teen.  His Mom's ex-gf (pre-Denise) is a music promoter, kind of a big fish in a small pond out here in Western Mass.  She often booked women's music shows and since Chris was weaned on a steady diet of so-called women's music and folk, when he got his first guitar, that's what he learned to play.  The ex-gf would bring him backstage and for awhile she was Dar Williams roommate before anyone knew who Dar Williams was.  Dar helped teach Chris to play, and Chris got to know others women folk greats like Shawn Colvin and the Indigo Girls (I remember a good story of him bringing his guitar backstage to their show and playing with Amy).  At the time we all thought it would be a fun hobby, but didn't think it would really turn into his life's work.

Chris is 26 years old now (pause for shake of head in disbelief).  He lives in Boston and is part of a thriving music and folk scene there.  He is a regular at Club Passim, one of the oldest and most renowned folk clubs in the country.  He recently came out with his first CD and swung out this way to promote it.  The Iron Horse was packed with enthusiastic family and friends, and boy, could you feel the love.  The room was full of that sort of impossibly proud energy that adults feel when kids grow up to do something great.  And it's not like he's famous or anything, it's just that he's a contender in a very competitive art form, and he's good.  He's really good.  And we all have this enormous, proud, fragile hope for him that was just palpable in that room.  The fact that Chris has matured into a good-hearted, warm and funny man only makes us all prouder.  All in all, it was a very emotional evening and the music was great.  There's something about sweet, sincere young men singing folk music that gives me hope for the world, really it does.



When I got home, I spent 10 minutes reading all the liner notes of his new CD "Lighthouse".  Near the end, I was immensely pleased to see him thank "Tex".

My musical experiences this past week remind me of a saying that was painted for many years in large script along the wall in the Iron Horse, among many old instruments hanging on the wall.  I'm sure someone will be able to tell me where it originated.

The quote said simply

Music Alone Shall Live

It's late winter in Western Massachusetts.  Which means that we're all sick and tired of freezing our asses off and have completely forgotten that the cold weather didn't even begin this year until a good six weeks later than normal, giving us a nice long reprieve that should have taken the edge off enduring the short winter that inevitably did arrive.  But we've all thoroughly forgotten about that freakish stretch of Al Gore inspired balminess and settled right into our pissed-off sickofitall grumpy March selves.  Earlier this week it was zero degrees with a 35 mph wind, and I feared the chihuahua might freeze solid during her brief outdoor sojourns to do her business.  A thick crust of impenetrably solid snow and ice covers any ground that didn't get shoveled during the last snowstorm about two weeks ago.  A rime of dirt, road sand and salt covers every outdoor surface and the skies alternate between thick gray blankets of clouds, unbroken from horizon to horizon, and a blinding, crystal clear sun that throws no heat or comfort whatsoever as it only appears when temperatures drop below 10 degrees.  The nights that follow these harshly clear days are so cold that stars  look like sharp crystals in deep black glass, beautiful but deadly.

So we are looking this time of year - looking for any tiny sign of encouragement, any notion that the end might be near, that the frozen petrified world might come to life, that something besides the wind and the things wind blows around might begin to move on their own.  And the first thing that we grasp at here in the rural hinterlands are the trees.  Not the leaves of the trees, which won't even begin to show signs of budding for a good four weeks, and will take another two weeks after that to start sprouting.  It's not what you see on the outside of the tree that matters, it's what's going on on the inside.  On the inside,  things are happening, and on the very rare warmer days, sap is starting to flow inside the trees.  Because here in Western Massachusetts we still have a good amount of forest around, and because a good portion of that forest consists of maple trees, flowing sap means it is maple sugaring season.  And maple sugaring season means it's time to go eat breakfast at a bona fide sugar house.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of a sugar house, it's technically any of the small specially constructed barns where maple sugar is traditionally made by boiling enormous amounts of gathered maple tree sap over big wood fires.  They dot the hills a short jaunt up into the woods from our home, and range from small mom-and-pop operations that produce a few dozen gallons a year mostly for family and friends, to big business, tapping thousands of trees and shipping the sweet gold result all over the world.  However, for those of us not in the business of making the syrup, but definitely interested in consuming it, the sugar houses we really care about are the ones that open to the public this time of year and serve food.  Most restaurant-style sugar houses are open at most 6 weeks a year, generally from late February through early April.  They are always family-run operations, and it's all about the rustic. 



Over the years I've visited enough sugar houses to have developed a laundry list of qualities that make for the quintessential sugar house experience.  Since this is New England, and sugar housing is about reaching the end of winter, there is a ritualistic nature to the experience that is almost symbolic of life's greater struggle.  A true sugar house experience must reflect this yin/yang of the pleasure and pain of life to be truly worthwhile.  So, here is my ultimate list of what a sugar housing experience ought to consist of.

First, the sugar house needs to be located in the ass end of nowhere.  It needs to be a lengthy drive from home, into parts of the "hilltowns" as we call them around here, that are deep, dark and somewhat mysterious to those of us living in the valley.  Preferably the road they are located on will either be dirt, unnamed, or thoroughly pocked with miles of axle-busting potholes.  You will get lost several times on the way and maps will prove useless.  Signs will be unreliable or will peter out at crucial junctures.  The amount of snow in the surrounding area will be at least triple what it is at home. 

Second, once you have at last found the mysterious sugar house location,  the parking lot of the sugar house will be a large, unpaved, mud wallow.  On warmer days, big boots will be required to walk from your car to the sugar house, and you might lose one in six inches of mud along the way (wear thick socks).  On colder days, the previously churned up mud will have frozen solid into a bumpy, grooved, tire tracked mess covered with ice and ankle turning dips.  Do not be deterred.  Only the weak are deterred.  You are a New Englander.  You may be dumb as a post, but you are not weak.

Next, despite the impossibility of finding the sugar house and getting through the parking lot from the parked car to the sugar house itself, you will discover that hundreds of people have arrived there before you, mostly from places much further away than you live, such as New York.  There will be an enormous line and at least a 45 minute wait to be seated.  There will be no indoor waiting area, or only a tiny one, and you will have to stand outdoors in a very long, very slow moving line.  It will be 5 degrees outside with a 15 mph steady wind.  There will be no coffee.  It will be 7 AM in the morning because you came early to avoid the rush.  It will actually take over an hour for the line to snake its way into the tiny door of the very low slung old barn that does not even look as if it should still be standing, or as if normal sized people could possibly stand upright inside it. 



Once you finally arrived within and your frostbitten limbs and face are slowly beginning to thaw, you will sit at a very long table in a row of very long tables, each seating around 30 people, and made of unfinished wood.  Seating will consist of tree stumps.  Probably some of you think I am exaggerating or kidding at this point.  I'm not.  I have actually experienced all this while sugar housing.

Once you are seated on your stump and have a chance to look around, you will see that every one of the 20 people or so working there, either in the dining room or in the kitchen or boiling the sap in big vats behind glass windows so customers can watch, has the exact same nose.  Or eyes.  Or other distinguishing facial characteristic.  These are big hilltown families and everyone works during maple sugaring season.

Finally, after the appropriate amount of stoic suffering, the payoff arrives.  Although even dog food would seem delicious in the frozen, starving, coffee-deprived state you have been reduced to, something even better arrives.  Stacks of fluffy homemade blueberry pancakes.  Bowls of crispy crunchy corn and apple fritters.  Big airy waffles.  Thick french toast with swirls of cinammon.  Tubs of soft, real butter.  Fresh fruit.  Hot coffee.  And, of course, big stainless steel pitchers of fresh maple syrup for no extra charge.  The whole experience must be a decadent and guilt-free one and any mention of dieting or weight loss is strictly verboten.  Carbo-load away and just expect to while away the remainder of the day in a sugar-crashed haze of lethargy.

Finally, warm and sated, suck down one final cup of coffee and make your way off the tree stump and over to the gift shop.  Watch the cheesy video on the cheap 10" TV on how maple syrup is made.  Gawk at the men in coveralls feeding wood into the maw of the sap boiler.  Stand in the clouds of steam emanating from the boiler and inhale the heavenly mapley smell.  Mosey on over to the gift shop and pick up maple candy, maple cream, maple syrup in a bottle shaped like a maple leaf, and some homemade hilltown herbal organic soap.  Carefully pick your way back to the car, teetering over ice and mud in your bloated state, and make your way home.  Collapse in gluttonous, repulsive heap on the couch and watch bad movies all afternoon, ignoring the dogs' hopeful whimpers for a nice walk that might possibly burn off some of your hard earned calories. 

You have officially celebrated the end of winter.  Congratulations, you are ready for spring.

The reason behind the "Random Time Period" portion of this feature's "Prurient News Story of the Random Time Period" name should now be obvious.  One just never knows when one of these stories will pop up and at times they fly fast and furious. 

Story: Anna Nicole Smith, a woman single-handedly responsible for spawning, quite literally, the most astonishing string of luridly prurient news stories of the past decade and beyond, caps off her illustrious PNS career by turning up dead for no readily apparent cause in a hotel room in Florida (well known as the most prurient state within which to croak).

Primary Emotional Response: Train wreck fascination mixed with revulsion plus a side of the smug pity felt by the dysfunctional but not THAT dysfunctional, thank god.

Salient Details: Fresh off a particularly productive year of PNS's, including birth, death and lawsuits galore, Anna Nicole checks into a casino hotel in Florida, is seen by staff behaving in a "plastered" fashion, and is later discovered dead in her hotel room bed by her "personal nurse".  Attempts to revive her fail.  Vomit may or may not have been involved and present, along with sketchy mixes of prescription drugs and alcohol.  She may or may not have been found in bed naked with a sheet over her head, in a last ditch desperate attempt to associate herself once and for all with Marilyn Monroe.


You Couldn't Make This Stuff Up If You Tried:
Her almost-husband's name is Howard Stern.  But not THAT Howard Stern.  Darn.
A judge has ordered Anna's body be "preserved" to facilitate *paternity* testing.  Apparently this makes sense in scientific circles, and does not indicate that someone thinks Anna is in reality the baby's father in some sort of bizarre trans plot twist. 
Rumors are now flying that baby Dannielynn is actually the product of an incestous relationship between Anna Nicole and her dead son.
A dispute over the ownership of the mansion she was living in prior to her death with her daughter and not-really her husband and only-tentatively the baby's father (as he is only one of three contenders with a horse in that race at the moment) has already caused the locks on the mansion to be changed twice in the last few days.
Since her billionaire dead first husband's son is also taking the long dirt nap these days, the battle over his fortune will now revert to a five month old infant and those fortunate enough to share sufficient DNA with her, and the widow of the dead son. 


The One That Causes Us to Pause Ever So Briefly in the Midst of Our Rabid Prurient Twittering: That poor, innocent little baby girl.

Ultimate Winners: A slew of the worst breed of lawyers imaginable, plus the lucky guy whose boys actually did swim the fastest.  And finally, the American public, sure to feast avidly on rumor, innuendo and facts that make them pale in comparison for years to come.

Thanks for the mammaries, Anna.

Since our national culture seems to move from one prurient news story to another at regular intervals these days, I thought I would start a new feature here at EC so that we can better track and analyze these phenomena. So - here's my first feature post in this exciting new category - PNSOTRTP!

Story: Lady Astronaut Goes all Crystal and Alexis on Lady Engineer's Ass Over Two Timing Toady Astronaut Boyfriend

Primary Emotional Response: Glee at how the mighty have fallen

Salient details: Upstanding shuttle flying lady astronaut dons diapers, packs rubber hosing and pepper spray in duffle, and sets speed driving record from Houston to Orlando to meet incoming flight of romantic rival with nefarious intent. Ultimately botches the job and goes from smiley poster girl to stunningly unattractive psycho bitch in just a few short hours.  Hello?  Extreme Makeover?



Overlooked casualties: Psycho astro's hapless hubby, home with their kids while wifey was attacking her rival for some entirely other guy.

Ultimate winner: Toady Astronaut Boyfriend, sure to land a Lifetime movie contract, plus gets to keep the non-psycho girl and get his smarmy mug plastered on every news outlet looking studly in his spacesuit.  Astronaut?  Or Used Car Salesman?  You decide.



Long term outcome: NASA scuttles it's plans to create a trip to Mars reality show "The Real Out of This World", plotted to "put seven people in a spaceship to see what happens when astronauts stop being polite and start getting real".

Stay tuned...

We lost another of the great ones today, Molly Ivins. I am sad.

My V. had the great privilege of escorting Molly around town for two days during her last visit to her alma mater, Smith College. V. fit the bill for an escort as the only prof on staff born and bred in Texas. She says Molly was larger than life and just as funny in person as on the written page. She feels honored to have been able to spend even such a short period of time getting to know her in person.

Molly's last column is here. It should be required reading for all Americans today.

We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders.

Think about that, and honor Molly any way you can by acting on those words.

Finally, here is a link to one of the funniest stories I've read - one that Molly told after her good friend Anne Richards passed away just this past September. I think it sums up both Molly and Anne quite well.

I can't fall asleep without the TV on. I realize this politically incorrect habit is probably hastening the demise of my brain, wasting electricity, and planting subliminal advertising messages in my head causing me to feel strange urges during daylight hours to call my doc immediately if I have an erection lasting over four hours. We spend a ridiculous sum of money on a high end satellite TV package every month and so we have more channels than God (though he probably pays less). However, the old adage that there's a million channels and nothing on is often true and especially so late at night. Usually the pickings are slim for falling asleep options because I am picky about what I will fall asleep listening to. Obviously I am not actually watching it since I have not yet mastered the art of sleeping with my eyes open - (except in Operations meetings at work). Despite the fact that I fall asleep fairly quickly when my requisite idiot box is on, I still cannot just have any old thing on there. Oh no. There are rules. And since the minutiae of my life is so fascinating to everyone else (after all, isn't that premise the foundation of all blogs?), here they are:

- Nothing on Lifetime. Two reasons for this - they do that SO ANNOYING THING where the commercials are THREE TIMES LOUDER than the show itself. If the volume is appropriate to hear just enough dialogue to listen while drifting off, the moment the commercial comes on my entire body will levitate off the bed three feet like some cartoon character suddenly blasted by giant sound waves. I don't find that sort of thing at all restful. Also Lifetime movies often involve screaming and shooting or at least hysterical crying. Also not restful.

- No good comedy. I cannot possibly fall asleep listening to the Colbert Report because I am too busy laughing my ass off. Laughing one's ass off is fun, but not restful.

- Nothing that involves frequent dog barking. Dog barking on the TV prompts real dog barking by the dimwit mutts snoozing on the bed with me and again, just not restful - either the dogs barking or me shouting at them to shut the hell up it's just a TV dog.

- Cheesy supernatural shows are good. We're talking Bigfoot, UFOs, Ancient Astronauts, Loch Ness Monster, Abominable Snowman, etc. Good for falling asleep. Trust me. I don't know why except I suspect that it's because I am slightly interested but not enough to stay awake since ultimately I think it's mostly a bunch of hoo ha.

- Law and Order, any flavor, but preferably SVU, or as I call it TSC (Tight Sweater Chick). There is a small risk of the especial heinousness of the crimes spilling over into nightmares, but the strong confident melodious tones of Mariska Hargitay lull me back to a feeling of safety. Not to mention other more pleasant sorts of dreams involving tight sweaters. And Mariska. 'Nuff said.

- Weather Channel shows. Not the actual Weather Channel weather reports - though that sometimes does in a pinch. But I'm talking about shows like Storm Stories about tornadoes, hurricanes, floods etc. Human suffering of other humans apparently helps reinforce my own comfyness and I am out like a light.

- True crime shows - American Justice, FBI Files, Cold Case Files, plus anything narrated by Bill Kurtis. The voice of Bill Kurtis should be bottled and sold as a mild anti-depressant - better than ativan, really.

Tune in appropriate channel, set TV to turn off in 30 minutes, adjust pillows and dogs accordingly, and ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...

Growing up, I had my share of aunts. Most were of the biological or married to a biological uncle variety. However, a couple were close friends of my Mom's. One in particular, my Aunt Kathy, was someone my Mom had grown up with, since her childhood home was right across the street from my Mom's.

We spent quite a bit of time visiting her and her family when I was growing up. She had two daughters - Joanne was my age and her younger sister Jackie was a couple years younger than me. Her oldest daughter, the one that was my age, was trouble. She was one of those big-boned working class girls with a daredevil attitude who could outdo the boys at any number of pursuits, but was still attractive to them all the same. She was the type of girl that would threaten to beat up other girls, mean it, and be scary enough to pound you if you dared to cross her. On the other hand she was a hoot to hang out with - always looking for another scrape to get into. I spent all kinds of time being badly influenced by her when we were kids off playing while our Moms gabbed for hours. In the rear view mirror, I realize I had a schoolgirl crush on her, but that went right over my head at the time.

So I always liked visiting Aunt Kathy so I could hang out with Joanne. But Aunt Kathy was cool also. She was funny and sweet and kind to me. Her personality was warm and welcoming. Her signature pile of blond hair was always piled precariously high on her head, spot-able from way across the floor of a large department store (she and my Mom loved to take us tomboy girls on marathon clothes shopping trips). She made us hot chocolate and pastries, and they had a host of fun kids games in the basement rec room for rainy days.

As the years went by and I became more aware of context in the world, I eventually figured out that Aunt Kathy was a bit of an anomaly in her family. Since my grandparents still lived across the street from her parents in the same neighborhood, I came to know her family of origin as well. They were trouble also, as much trouble as Joanne and in numerous cases more so. Many family members had substance abuse problems with alcohol or drugs, a number of them didn't finish high school or were occasionally getting arrested or having other big problems. I often heard the latest gossip on them all when I went over to my grandmother's. My family's life was boring and sedate by comparison but a lot less fraught with drama and trauma.

But Kathy herself, at some point along the line, had become a born-again Christian. This revelation in her life kept her on the straight and narrow. She didn't drink or smoke, kept a nice house and seemed like night and day when compared with her siblings and other family members. So it seemed to me that at the time, being a born-again Christian must be some sort of good thing. I didn't really give it much though, honestly. I was raised Catholic, which meant little to me beyond going through the rituals and attending church events where I would hang out with my friends. At times I tried to believe in God since clearly everyone thought I should, but it never really stuck for me. I faked it to make my Mom happy at times but I was following in my agnostic Dad's footsteps when it came to religion.

As girls will do, Joanne and I grew up. The last time I ever saw her was probably 22 or so years ago, at her wedding. She got married rather hastily at age 20, when her boyfriend got her pregnant. I've heard since that she eventually had three kids, and, much to my surprise, has stayed with her husband all these years. But I doubt I'll ever find out for myself. The last time I saw her before her wedding was when we were about 17. I spent the day driving around her hometown with her and her friends, smoking joints wrapped in opium soaked rolling papers. Needless to say, the details are fuzzy.

A few years after Joanne's wedding, I still saw my Aunt Kathy now and then, mostly over at my Mom's place. I always enjoyed seeing her and she seemed to feel the same way. She had a great sense of humor and we would often end up laughing over some silly thing. She never spent any time trying to proselytize me or really saying anything to me at all about her born-again Christian status, except to occasionally mention god or Jesus in a referential sort of way, never in a heavy handed one. During that time, I finally figured out for sure I was actually a (gasp) real live lesbian. I came out to my Mom and she was great about it, as I was fairly confident she would be (but not totally confident so it took me awhile). Since my Mom has always been a pretty up front and frank person, she told her friends in turn at one point or another. I didn't mind and it seemed as important to her as to me to be "out" about it.

Aunt Kathy seemed to take it in stride, though we never really talked about it much. The last few times I saw her, she kept encouraging me to stop by her home some time. I was driving to her part of the state with some regularity because my new girlfriend was from the next town over and we went there to see her family every couple of months. She knew that and encouraged me to bring my girlfriend with me. At the same time, I also knew that she told my mother that her "faith" did not allow her to "condone homosexuality". So though she never said anything to my face and was always gracious, I also knew she didn't feel OK about it. That knowledge kept me from ever taking her up on her offer to visit.

More time went by, and whenever I asked my Mom about Aunt Kathy, she would indicate that they hadn't seen each other much lately. Eventually she told me they had had a falling out. She said Aunt Kathy had begun to really throw herself into her religion once her youngest daughter had flown from the nest, and that in my Mom's opinion it was becoming almost like an addiction in its own right. She saw Kathy's fervent devotion to her religion as a very similar sort of addiction as suffered by the rest of her family towards illicit substances. But the religion addiction seemed at least for a good long time, like it was less self-destructive than the drug and alcohol based ones. Eventually, however, it seemed to consume her. She started actively avoiding my mother, and I know it hurt her. They had been close friends all their lives, after all. I know my Mom missed her, and frankly, I did too. While the demise of their friendship could not be pinned on any one particular issue, I do know that my mother's acceptance of my own inherent queerness played a part. Kathy ultimately bought into her born again philosophies so much that she could not live and let live. She and my Mom had some disagreements over it, and there were no more relayed invites to come visit her. It was, all in all, a real bummer.

As the battle over gay marriage heated up in Massachusetts, my Aunt Kathy started a "ministry", and called it "Weeping Willows". She began to preach in her own right, and one of her biggest crusades was against gay marriage. She was right in the thick of all the battles outside and inside the Statehouse, where groups of gay activists and born-agains stood across from each other with signs and shouting. I could never bring myself to go to the Statehouse during that time to show my support because I always felt I did not want to run into her, that it would be too painful. Not that I felt it was all about me - just that I felt it would hurt to see someone that I grew up considering family to be fomenting such hateful attitudes about me and others like me. So I never did.

Aunt Kathy's ministry has its own website now, and it's pretty clear to me that she has slipped over into fanaticism (err - not to mention her dire need for a spell-check). Any hope I ever had of reconnecting with her is gone, and I know my Mom has given up as well. If this is what being born-again can do to a person, I'll stay a happy agnostic, thanks.

With a caveat that this may only work effectively for dog lovers like me -

If you are feeling down or blue, here's what to do.

1. Go to Dogster.com.
2. Click on the View Dogs button.
3. Look at the dog picture. Read the dog Nicknames.
4. Click the Next Dog link.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you feel much, much better.

Here's a handy link! - http://www.dogster.com

If you see my dogs there - be sure to leave them a bone!

I am old. And I am cynical.

Before the likely gentle protest or two that I expect might naysay these statements in the comments (which I'm sure would be few and not very convincing anyway), I will say just that I have had no choice but to come to this conclusion after mulling my experience of this so-called Christmas season thus far.

Every year I try with some reasonable amount of effort not to hate Christmas. I have especially tried to resist the hating since the arrival of semi-regular child in my life over these last four years. Like most children, he loves Christmas. Unlike most children his age (not far off from 11), he still believes in Santa Claus. To the point where for the second year in a row, we had a long discussion recently about how Santa will manage to get into our current home, which is sans fireplace, unlike our last home where Santa's favorite bizarre entrance and egress handily existed. V. nixed my suggestion to tell him that Santa dons scuba gear and comes up through the toilet, (lest this cause unnecessary anxiety related to commode usage) and instead we told him we would just leave the back door unlocked.

Due to the kid and the loving and the believing, the various holiday illusions must be bolstered and the tiny sparks of holiday spirit that occasionally flicker up in me and V. at rare moments must be frantically stoked and fanned so that some measure of holiday spiritness can survive for some discernible length of time in our old, cynical and generally agnostic lesbian household. We do our best, but I fear at the rate we are going, the cold wind of rampant materialism will finally blow out the sparks all together, leaving us hollow shells of bad holiday-spiritless actresses, with fake smiles plastered on our faces like animatronic stepford Moms saying the same inane holiday related phrases over and over in robotic tones. (I know, that is a horribly mangled sentence but I'm not editing it).

While I can't hang all the hating on the materialism hook, it is my most hated aspect of this particular Christmas moment, so I'm focusing on it. The fact is, I already have too much stuff. This is despite several moves over the past few years where I threw out at least half of what I owned each time, and despite my personal rule that whenever bags of newly purchased things are brought into the house, an amount of stuff at least equal in volume to the new things must go out of the house in very short order to maintain my precise "stuff equilibrium", and despite my avowed ability to detach emotionally from "stuff" and toss it out impulsively when required. Despite all that, I still have way too much stuff and not enough space to put it in. Pretty much everyone I know also has too much stuff and no one that I buy presents for actually needs anything that I buy them.

Oh sure, I pride myself on buying thoughtful gifts that people will like and usually they do (or at least fake it well) but they don't actually need the book about Cape Cod history (for my Mom's husband), the Rachel Ray cookbook (for my Dad who has a crush on her and will only look at the pictures of her but never cook any of the recipes), the DVD episodes of Green Acres (for V. who still quotes entire plots and lines from this show and also the Beverly Hillbillies), etc. etc. I don't mind giving them despite the fact that no one needs this stuff, but it seems awfully wasteful, really. And then I have to think up equally wasteful things I don't really need to tell them to buy me as well, lest I be scarred by not receiving my requisite amount of reciprocal stuff.

The kid really only wants a very small number items - two or three at most, and makes a very short Christmas list reflecting this lovely lack of greed on his part. However, he still must be provided with an additional zillion items ensconsed in red and green wrapping paper so that pictures of the tree can be taken with gobs of presents under it and so that he can rip this paper off dozens of items that hold little interest to him and that he may never actually play with ever. It is the ripping off of the paper that really defines Christmas for kids I think. The idea that all that STUFF is yours, no matter how useless the vast majority of it is and that you could literally roll around in all that new stuff should you want to is the ultimate goal of this ritual. Multiply all that stuff by two households and we are talking a tragic waste of natural resources to supply the requisite number of gifts for rolling around in at both houses.

Last year I tried to buy a more reasonable number of gifts after going way overboard the previous year. There is no doubt the kid noticed that though he could still roll around in the amount of stuff he had received, he might not actually be able to bury himself in it. This year I'm thinking of keeping it to the point where he can enjoy at least five minutes of sustained paper ripping but not really enough for actual wallowing. But I fear I will err too much in the dreaded direction of possible CCD (Childhood Christmas Disappointment). It's a well known fact among my generation that subjecting your kid to CCD (not the Catholic after-school catechism kind though it applies equally in this case) is a sure path to needing serious therapy later in life. Christmas must be all joy, all magic, all perfect for kids. And we will deliver that perfection if it is the last goddamn fucking thing we ever do for chrissakes!! Now plug in the annoying blinky lights!

Here's a pic of last year's tree, with the kid's stuff all to the left of center under it. Several people I have shown this picture to admonished me for having so few presents (or just made annoying comments of surprise about it) . They may have partially been influenced by the look of our rather pathetic tree, but I really resent when people imply that obscene amounts of stuff are the only acceptable level of Christmas loot. The kids was happy enough as the following picture also attests.









Yes, I am Scrooge-y. Please no comments about remembering the true meaning of Christmas, which may just send me right over the edge. Thanks so much.

My two favorite parts of the newspaper have always been the comics and the obituaries. I love the obits for largely the same reason I love reading blogs - they are a window into someone's life, whether mundane or fascinating. From the housewife who loved to knit and do word puzzles to the pioneering scientist who traveled the world, fought in wars and went on to teach for decades, I find everyone's life interesting. We are all universes unto ourselves and when someone dies, not just one person but a whole world they inhabited is gone forever. The obit is a way for us to learn about how unique we all are, and discover a bit about people we have likely never met, and now never will. Other times it tells us things about people we thought we knew, that in fact we didn't know at all until reading their obit.

V. and I have a bit of a contest going to find the obit of the person with the most descendants. Between the elderly French Canadians in the Northern New England woods from whence my family originated and the Mexicans from the Rio Grande valley where she grew up, the procreation rate is somewhat shocking at times. It all started with the obit of my own great aunt, who died in her late 90's in Burlington, Vermont. She left behind over 50 descendants at the time of her death. This impressive feat was quickly overshadowed by the Mexicans, however. The latest entry in this contest had over 120 descendants accounted for in their obituary, including numerous great-great grandchildren. Catholics!

Today, the following obit appeared in our local paper. This man is my new hero, having obviously given this some thought and written his own last hurrah in advance of his demise.

Daniel R. Porter

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. - With trumpets blaring, Zeus, god of gods, called Daniel Reed Porter III to His Heavenly Pantheon on Nov. 21, 2006.

He (Porter, not Zeus) was the second White child born in the new maternity ward of Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton on his father's birthday July 2, 1930. His mother Eleanor (Parsons) needed all the help she could get.

Porter was reared on a small farm with his siblings in Worthington. Sickly as a child, his parents often contemplated drowning him in Watt's Brook that flowed (trickled in summer) behind the house into which (the brook, not the house) they deposited other trash, sewage and cow manure.

After being partially educated in local schools, Porter matriculated in the class of 1952 at UMass, formerly Mass Aggie. Here he failed to distinguish himself in any meaningful way, and managed to alienate a number of his classmates and professors. Upon graduation without honors, Porter was drafted into the Army and served in Korea before and after the armistice. There he learned more than at college - never volunteer, be cowardly to survive, don't circulate petitions and keep away from indigenous females.

Returning home ill-prepared for an occupation, he was strangely accepted by the University of Michigan Graduate School where he tried to prepare for an acceptable if not respectable occupation.

A 35-year career as a museum and historical agency administrator and museum director followed. He moved from state to state five times to keep ahead of his reputation. He completed his career ignominiously in Cooperstown in 1992. On his demise, he was a member of no organization, club or charity.

Porter was not survived by his parents and sister, Janice Leroux. But surviving him are his relict, Joan (Dornfeld); a daughter, Leslie, her husband, Edward Easton III, and their daughters, Erika, Caitlin, and Allison, of Coudersport (God's Country), Pa.; his son, Andrew, and his wife, Amy (Pens), and their heir, Reed; a brother, Edward, and his wife, Shirley (Smith), on Watt's Brook; a brother-in-law, Al Leroux, and his Buick sedan of Northampton; and numbers of nieces and nephews.

There will be no final rites or any mumbo-jumbo. He will not lie in state at the The Farmers' Museum. His cremated remains will be scattered on Watt's Brook. Memorial gifts will not be accepted and cards are a waste of money.



Rest in Peace, Daniel.

This site is totally cool.

Genetics has opened up a whole new universe of scientific inquiry - not just health, but human origins and migration. Wouldn't we all like to trace our own ancestors back to the beginning?

These two books also look like a good read in this same vein. They're on the wish list!! Now I just need more hours in the day to read!!

I love to go to and explore new places. But it would be erroneous to say I love to travel, because to me, the word travel is not about the destination, but about the journey itself. Life may be all about the journey rather than the destination, but when traveling, the journey usually sucks. The only exceptions I can think of are my few fabled road trips, which were leisurely and involved actual spontaneous exploration and taking my time. Those sorts of journeys are OK. But they are unfortunately all too rare. More often, today's modern journeys involve circumstances that would try the patience of Job, including copious stress, anxiety, exhaustion and in my case, potential motion sickness. OK, so it must be better than the days of covered wagons and horseback, but everything is relative.

My strong distaste for traveling makes it very hard to take short trips, even in these days of fast flights to distant places. I just returned late last night from a whirlwind 5 day trip to and from Los Angeles, and though I'm glad I went, am very happy that I saw good friends and had fun while I was there, and am grateful to have made it there and back reasonably on schedule, I still feel as if I now need a week to recuperate from the traveling part. Fortunately, I do have two days off before I have to return to the totally different stress of my job, but the rest of the week would be even better. All this traveling has left me pooped.

This trip was a business trip for V., who had to do a departmental assessment for Pomona College's political science department along with some other academic types. They put her up in a nice hotel and paid for her plane ticket, so we just had to cover my plane ticket and a rental car cost, plus fun stuff. We have four friends in LA and hoped to have a chance to see them all in the short time we were there.

We flew all day Wednesday to get there, and the trouble began with a very bumpy flight from DC to LAX. I've mostly gotten over my previous urge to run screaming down the aisle on really bumpy flights, and instead just do my best to have an out of body experience or better yet, sleep through the whole thing. I'm pretty good at sleeping just about anywhere and this is a gift that has proven invaluable on many a turbulent flight. However, the sleep thing only works up to a certain level of turbulence - what I call the bumpy Mexican bus ride sort of turbulence. I am able in those circumstances to just pretend I am on a bus on a bad Mexican back road and I'm pretty much all good. However, this turbulence was more of the tossed about like a bottle in the ocean sort and it went on for much longer than I would have preferred (well, I would have preferred none of it, really).

The problem for me is not just the wildly irrational "ohmygodwe'regoingtodie" panic which causes me to sweat, palpitate and tense every muscle in my body, it's the fact that if I open my eyes for even 2 seconds during such turbulence, I will immediately be beset by the worst kind of motion sickness you can imagine. For some reason, if I keep my eyes shut, I only have to contend with the fight or flight syndrome, and not the urge to hurl my $5 snack box lunch syndrome. The whole thing just becomes an endurance test, where I keep trying to tell myself that the speed of travel is worth the suffering I endure to get there, while trying to suppress my inner voice, which insists on chanting "there must be a better way" at regular intervals.

I realize that fear of flying is completely irrational, but this does not help me one iota. I did once get stranded for two days in the Dallas airport and ended up getting an entire behind the scenes tour of the airport one afternoon, complete with riding in a pickup truck down runways while planes took off all around us. How I happened to get such a tour is a story for another day. However, something that impressed me immensely was the sheer number of flights landing and taking off, something like one every 90 seconds or so (no doubt the impressiveness of this was enhanced by the way the pickup vibrated violently as 747's took off several hundred feet away from us). This really made me appreciate the sheer amount of air traffic these hub airports receive, and though it probably should have increased my anxiety about air travel safety, it actually made me feel better when my tour guide told me that they hadn't had an accident of any sort in well over 10 years. Doing the math made me realize just how safe air travel is, from a statistical perspective. So sometimes when I'm in a panic 30,000 feet up, I think of that and it gives me about 3 seconds of slight comfort. But that's about it. This is a gut level thing that the forebrain just cannot talk the brain stem out of, I'm afraid. I've tried, really I have. I should probably just break down and ask the doc to prescribe me something mild for flying, but thus far I've been too proud to resort to that. I come from a long line of suffer in silence types, dammit.

Upon arrival in LA, two of our four friends were there to meet us, Tomas and Isabel, who are from Xalapa, Mexico normally, but are in LA for a couple years while Isabel gets her doctorate in piano at USC. Tomas' mother had also just flown in from Portland and had arrived within half an hour of us, by sheer coincidence. So we piled our luggage in their very small car, and went off to have a late lunch and a drink with them all at the groovy retro LAX restaurant the Encounter. (cue James Bond music) Since our friends' mother is 82, though pretty damn hip and spry for her age, I felt forced to stifle my ongoing observation that the place felt just like a big gay bar. A gay bar with a very "meet George Jetson" sort of 60's aesthetic, anyway. Regardless, the food was tasty and I had a much needed margarita to calm my shaken nerves. Conversation was lively and fun, the weather was Southern Cal lovely, and by the end of lunch I was feeling almost human again.

However, after lunch, we had to rush off because we needed to pick up our rental car and drive a good 40 miles out to Pomona, and they needed to go pick up their son Diego at his after-school program. By the time they dropped us off at the rental car place and we got our car and hit the road, it was getting dark. Though it was just after 5 o'clock LA time, those of us on East Coast time still felt like it was 8 o'clock. After rising at 7 AM that morning to start the traveling day, enduring the nasty flight and sucking down the margarita, I was definitely beginning to feel tired. However, I knew it was up to me to get us to Pomona. I have driven LA freeways before, and I know V. would be nearly unable to do so since she is a timid driver at best and shall we just say not so good with the directions. I pride myself on my ability to drive anywhere, and am usually very good with directions. So I had the freeway combination we had to follow to get where we were going in my head, and we rented a Jeep 4 x 4 so we'd be high enough up off the road to see better while we ran the gauntlet of LA rush hour.

And run it we did. Due to our colossally bad timing, we ran smack dab into heavy traffic almost immediately after leaving the airport. It soon became painfully clear that our 40 mile trip was going to take hours, at best. We were tired and cranky and this was not a nice way to end our trip. Traffic alternated between crawling and short stretches where everyone was going 80 plus for about a mile before screeching on the brakes again. I kept us switching back and forth between the car pool lane and the regular lanes, whenever it seemed like one or the other was moving faster. I nearly killed a motorcylist who was zooming between the two at high speed during one my lane changes. No matter where I drove, people were constantly cutting me off or roaring past me as if I were standing still, only to have to slam on the brakes immediately to stop for more traffic just ahead. I started having the feeling you have when your adrenals are shot and the slightest little thing makes you jump out of your skin in an exaggerated startle-response. But I was determined to get us to Pomona in one piece.

Our first freeway transition was from the 105 to the 605. We had moved recently from the car pool lane to the regular lanes when we saw the signs coming up. I saw at least one sign in the car pool lane indicating a special car pool lane exit for 605, and then the regular lanes came to a screeching halt while the car pool lanes seemed to be sailing along. So I slowly inched my way back over to the left and made it back to the car pool lane. However, the car pool lane ended up depositing us in short order on a local city street, somewhere in Norwalk. I managed to turn around and get back on 105, but in the wrong direction. Since one cannot just exit LA freeways, go over a bridge and turn around like in most normal places, I wasn't sure what the best method for turning around might be. I ended up doing a loop on freeways that took us a good 10 miles and half an hour or more out of our way. Finally, we were on the 605 and made it from the 605 to the 10 and on to Pomona. Well over two hours after leaving the airport, my mouth felt as dry as the Sahara and we had nothing to drink. By the end I felt as if I might start hallucinating at any moment, and when the road from the freeway exit to the hotel stretched on for several miles, I started to feel as if we might never get there. But of course, we did.

When we arrived at the hotel, we were given what I considered a substandard room, one of the only ones in the hotel without either a balcony or a patio, and right beside a hallway entrance door that was constantly being opened and slamming shut. This is a pet peeve of mine, and I'm convinced that women traveling without men are often given the substandard rooms. Either that or I have consistently bad luck with rooms by sheer coincidence. When I called and asked for a different room, the petulant young man at the desk behaved as if every other room in the hotel were booked. I hung up in disgust, but then decided I wasn't going to be put off that easily. I called back and this time got a very friendly, helpful woman, who immediately gave us a lovely room with a patio on the pool. Thankyouverymuch! We moved our luggage one more time and finally fell into an exhausted sleep.

The next day, V. was off on her work mission and I had the day to myself. I took the entire day to relax and recuperate from traveling the day before. I also ended up having to do about half a day's work remotely but mostly I was able to chill, and did some exploring of the area on foot. Typical of Southern Cal, I walked over 3 miles and saw only 3 other pedestrians, two of whom were muttering to themselves and in serious need of a shower. But I enjoyed checking out the Pomona/Claremont area, which I found to be lovely and pleasant, especially when the air was clear and nearby dramatic mountains came into view.

After my day of rest, I was ready to hit the freeways again. While V. continued her work, my friend E. and I were getting together at her home in Highland Park, back in LA proper. The plan was to spend the afternoon wandering the gardens and galleries of the Huntington, in Pasadena. This required that I once again navigate the LA freeways back to the city. After my recent bad freeway experience, I was a bit apprehensive. However, I was driving during daylight this time and the route was fairly straightforward. So I bucked myself up a bit and hit the road after breakfast.

About five minutes into my trip on 210 West, I was traveling in one of the the left lanes, coming up on a tractor trailer in a middle lane to my right. It was still a ways in front of me when I spotted something that looked like a large tree branch on the road in the middle lane in front of the truck. I remember thinking I was glad it wasn't in my lane, but I barely had time to register any additional thoughts about it when the truck ran right over whatever it was. As it did so, it quickly became obvious that it wasn't a tree branch at all, but rather something large and metallic. The truck dragged the thing under itself for a brief moment and then large chunks of the object began flying out from under the truck and across the highway. A big chunk of flat metal, about the size of stove, came flying through the air and bouncing up off the road high enough to slam through my windshield, headed straight for me. Without so much as half a second to check whether there might be another car in the lane to my immediate left, I swerved into that lane and the chunk of metal bounced by me, where my car had just been. By sheer luck, the lane I had swerved into was unoccupied at the time. The flying debris miraculously bounced harmlessly across the road and didn't hit my car or anyone else's. We all just kept speeding along as if this sort of thing was too trivial to notice. Over the next 30 miles, I passed three car accidents on the road, none of which seemed to involve serious injury but all of which involved noticeably smashed up vehicles. None of this was helping me feel better about driving on the LA freeways.

I made it in one piece to E.'s, and we spent a lovely day together, talking non-stop, laughing, enjoying the gorgeous weather and strolling through the amazing Huntington. The library and archives collection helped firm up my recent interest in pursuing my MLS degree. We had many laughs, caught up on gossip, and the day went by in the blink of an eye. Before I knew it, it was time for me to drive back to Pomona one more time. I tried to leave by 4 to beat the worst of the traffic, but that ended up being 4:20 and by then it was too late. Another torturous hour and half trip of frayed nerves later, and I was back in Pomona, but wondering how I was going to deal with driving back to LA yet again the following day. I decided my pride at being able to drive anywhere was starting to take a second seat to my desire to preserve life and limb. That night we ordered room service and relaxed. Neither of us was up for anything more ambitious as V. had also had a very busy day working.

Day four we checked out of the hotel and once again set out for LA on the freeway. I took comfort in knowing I would not have to make the trip back and forth from Pomona again, at least. Also since our first stop was E.'s house, the route was fresh in my mind and I felt a bit more confident about getting there. We made it this time with a minimum of flying debris and stress, finally.

Again we spent the day with E. and this time she drove us all around the city, showing us cool views and houses and neighborhoods, a pasttime we thoroughly enjoy. Since I didn't have to drive, and E.'s car had a very cool GPS system I got to play with, I was a happy camper. Around 5, we drove a short distance to Tomas and Isabel's house together. E. is a friend of their's now as well since we hooked them all up over a year ago. We called our fourth friend C., and he agreed to drive in and meet us at a local Oaxacan restaurant. We hadn't seen C. in nearly 3 years and have missed him since he graduated from our local university and took a job out there so we were excited to see him. I had a chance to show off my limited Spanish skills by translating between E. and the waiter since none of the waiters there speak English, we ate some totally fabulous food, laughed heartily at C.'s stories of his childhood Wonder Woman fixation, and generally had a great time. We stayed overnight with Isabel and Tomas and knew we would have to head out and catch our 11 o'clock flight the next morning to head home.

In the morning, we called Isabel's family in Xalapa and did so much animated phone chatting that our scheduled 9 o'clock departure time stretched to 9:20. When we finally headed out to the airport, I was a bit anxious about our late departure but still optimistic that all would be well. There was little traffic on a Sunday morning and our trip to the airport was smooth and quick. We lost a few minutes taking a wrong turn on the way to drop off the rent a car, but still made it to the rental car place a little over an hour before our flight was scheduled to leave. We made a quick rush to the shuttle bus, hoping to get right out to the terminal.

Then we sat. We sat some more. People trickled on the bus. Baggage was loaded. More people trickled on. Tick, tick, tick. A good 10 minutes ticked by while the bus filled completely full with both people and baggage until it was practically overloaded. Our already cutting it close timeline was now getting desperate. I knew with all these people on the bus, we'd be stopping at every terminal, and the chances of our airline being one of the first was a toss up. I was not happy that the rental place would let so many people get on one bus and wait so long for it to fill. My previous experience with other companies was that they would leave almost immediately once they had even a handful of passengers. Clearly this company, which rhymes with the word collar, was different. I was not pleased when we finally lurched away from the curb and towards the airport.

Sure enough we were one of the last people on the bus, before getting to our terminal, United. An additional 7 minutes had ticked by as we drove around to the other terminals and dropped off the other people. As we drove towards our terminal, we saw the bus driving right past a big sign that said United. Feeling a bit tense, we assumed the driver was missing our terminal. "Hey," we called out, "United! We are on United! Are you going to stop?" The terminal was number six. Irritated, the driver yelled back "United is Terminal 7". The whole thing could have been averted had he just had the common courtesy to acknowledge that there was apparently also some United service at terminal 6, thus the sign, but that this was not the main terminal. But no, he decided he had to be a jerk on top of being someone who waited 10 minutes for the bus to fill up. "But we just saw United on terminal 6!" we called back. Belligerently he hit the brakes and said angrily "Fine! You want me to drop you here? I can drop you here if you want!" No explanation, just attitude. I was pissed. What a jerk. We could now see another United sign on terminal 7 so we waved him on. When the door opened we stormed out without waiting for him to help with the bags or giving him a tip.

As I had feared, there was a huge line at United. I approached a service person towards the back of the line and presented him with our dilemma. Our flight was leaving in 40 minutes. There was no way we would make it through that line and on the plane in time. He told us to try the International line, though he couldn't guarantee they'd take us over there. We charged over and only a handful of people were in line. We were both tense, but V. was approaching full panic mode. She tried to randomly cut in front of the two people in front of us until I persuaded her otherwise. Another service person appeared and was less sympathetic to our plight, demanding to know who had sent us over there. We pled our case and she reluctantly let us approach an agent at an open window. We put our printed computer inventories in front of him and he seemed to be having trouble finding our flight. Finally, he angrily (more unnecessary attitude) whacked the paper with his hand and said "Look! US Airways! You should be at US Airways, Terminal 1" He dismissed us impatiently with a wave of his hand.

"What?!?" We both examined our itineraries. We had flown out on United. The return flights were listed as United flights with United flight number and the airline name clearly listed. However, under the flight listings was a small asterisk and the words "Operated by US Airways". "You have got to be kidding me!" I said "These are listed as United flights! We are supposed to know from that asterisk that they are actually US Airways flights?" "US Airways!" answered the agent, without a shred of sympathy or understanding, "Terminal 1 - down one level and then walk across the road and parking garages." V. started to argue more, but I realized time was ticking. "C'mon!" I said "We have to go - FAST!"

We found our way down to the first level and began to hoof it as fast as we could across two five lane roadways with no traffic lights to help us cross, just crosswalks. V. sprained her ankle about a month ago and cannot move particularly fast but we did the best we could. After the roadways came a big parking garage. We traversed it and found more roadways on the other side. Finally we came across another terminal building and down the end was US Airways. We hustled down to the ticketing area and blessedly there was only a very short line. Our flight was leaving in 25 minutes. I kept saying "We're never going to make it. We're never going to make it." and I meant it. We had two bags to check and we hadn't even checked in yet. I noticed that in addition to live agents, there were computer terminal check in stations that were not being used. I ran over to one and put in my own info, and jumped up and down as boarding passes printed out. Then V. tried. We couldn't get her passes to print. The machine behaved as if she had no reservation. We were forced to go over to a live person. One guy came over and started putting a baggage tag on my bag but I stopped him. "I don't even know if I'm going to make that flight yet!" I told him and he just handed me the tag.

The live person looked up V. and it turns out that in the 30 seconds between my check-in and her attempted check-in, the flight check-in and baggage check had been officially closed. A quick chat with a supervisor yielded a head shake of "no" in response. I slumped in defeat. Finally the agent took sympathy on us. He looked at the two bags we had been planning on checking. Mine was considerably smaller and could conceivably be carried on the plane. Since I hadn't put the tag on it yet, he said "Look, put your baggage tag on the big bag and we'll throw in on the belt now. It'll probably just barely make it on board. Carry on the other bag." He handed V. a slip of paper "Here is a gate pass." he said, "I don't know if this will get you on board the plane or not, but it's worth a try. You'll have to get your boarding pass at the gate." "OK! OK! Great!" We hurled the big bag at him, grabbed the smaller bag, and ran down towards the gate. It was 20 minutes until takeoff.

The security line snaked around 9 or 10 times and there were a good 50 people ahead of us. But, it was moving along at a decent clip. As we got close to the security check, I realized I had all my toiletries in my bag since I had been planning to check it. I knew if I left my liquids and gels in there, they would stop us and it would be an additional delay. We were going to have to sail through security if we expected to make it. As we got up to the table, I pulled open my suitcase on the table and pulled out several bottles of hair care products and dumped them in the handy trashcan nearby. Then I whipped off my shoes, took off my jacket, removed my laptop from its case and threw everything on the belt. I came through quickly and V. did the same. They didn't stop us or even delay us further. I crammed my shoes half on my feet and ran while jamming my laptop back in its case. V. did an exaggerated limping run to get to the gate, which seemed still very far away. When we finally made it, they were already boarding the last passengers. There were 10 minutes until takeoff. The gate agent issued V. a coveted boarding pass, 15 rows ahead of my seat, I gave her my bag so we'd both have two and we got on the plane.

I was sweating profusely and had to pee like you wouldn't believe. I managed to squeeze in a restroom visit and make it back to my seat just as we were about to take off. I feel into an exhausted heap and spent the next 4 and a half hours enduring just enough bumpiness to make me nervous, but not so bad as the trip out to LA. When we arrived in Philly, the captain told us we were ready to land, and then we proceeded to circle for 25 minutes. I hate when this happens and the pilot doesn't bother to tell you what the &*$#(&$# is going on. Finally we came in for a landing.

By the grace of god our departing gate was one gate over from our arrival. However, due to some kind of horrific rainstorms down south, our flight to the wretched little city was delayed. We managed to eat something in the terminal since we had nothing on the flight but a "snack box" consisting of four tiny "snacks". Again we were sitting nowhere near each other, but this was to be just a 40 minute flight. We finally got on the plane an hour and a half after our original scheduled departure time, and then proceeded to sit on the runway for another half an hour. Just as I was mumbling to the pleasant young woman next to me that we could have driven there faster (which she agreed with), we took off. 40 bumpy more minutes later and we were touching down in Hartford and I envisioned doing a little happy dance in the aisle, though I restrained myself from actually doing so.

Nearly an hour's drive later on wet roads, we were home. Again, we collapsed into an exhausted sleep. Sometime during the night, our extra neurotic cat, who was trying to sleep on my head because he had missed me so much, got irritated when I pushed him away suddenly in my sleep and scratched my face right across my upper lip so that I now have a big red scab across my face and it looks as if I have been in a brawl.

Then again, maybe I have been.

The Inimitable Ann Richards How much did we love her? How much will we miss her? May she rest in peace. Thanks, Ann.

Our kid fancies himself a comedian. This fits nicely in with a long tradition in both of our families which essentially boils down to our own individual philosophy that since we amuse our own selves so very much, we must by definition also be amusing to others. As I've learned over the years, this philosophy is unreliable at best in terms of its veracity, but we cling to it with great faith regardless.

Anyway, the kid loves jokes, and one of the few things we can ever persuade him to read is joke books. Often, during the course of any given day, he will suddenly announce "Hey Mama (or Hey L. in my case), I have a joke." All other activity and/or conversation will cease until he tells it. Sometimes he retells jokes he really likes that he's read (a favorite: Why was the ocean embarrassed? answer: Everyone could see its bottom.), but now he also makes up his own jokes. Most of his own jokes consist of word play type jokes, because despite the fact that the kid hates to read, he loves words and spelling, and loves to write. This would normally make little sense, but since he is on the "autism spectrum" it actually does. But I won't go into why here. Suffice it to say, the success of his own jokes have an even more uneven history than those invented by the rest of the family. But we appreciate his creativity and since on occassion he actually makes us laugh, we encourage the whole joke telling activity.

Awhile back, we were eating at a Puerto Rican restaurant in town, which has sadly since closed. It was a low brow sort of place with plastic tables and chairs but some very yummy Puerto Rican and Cuban specialties which are not easy to find in our mostly very white little town (which we often refer to as "Mayberry"). We ordered at the counter and sat at the plastic table waiting for our food to be prepared. As V. and I chatted about mundane things, D. suddenly interrupted with his "Hey, I have a joke" refrain. Indulgently we interrupted our conversation and waited for him to tell it.

In a loud voice, which easily carried across the entire small restaurant, he said,
"Why did the BLACK person live in the BLACK house?"
This was clearly one of his made up jokes and he obviously had some word play in mind. Since he had been totally unaware of race until age 8 or so until we explained it to him one day, with mixed feelings but with a desire to have him not be clueless about the world, we weren't positive he really meant a black person in the sense of a person of African descent. Knowing him, he could have meant a person wearing black clothing. Embarrassed by others having likely overheard is opening line, we stopped him and asked, "Wait a minute, D. - what do you mean a black person?"

He replied, even louder:
"You know a BLACK person! BLACK skin, BLACK hair, BLACK eyes!"
People were now actively turning their heads to behold the young racist boy in the racist family. Never mind that half the family is and looks Mexican. Resisting the urge to crawl under our seats we told him somewhat sternly, "Shhhhh D., you shouldn't make jokes about black people. In fact, you shouldn't joke about the color of anyone's skin." This went in one ear and out the other, as jokes were meant to be completed. "But," D. replied, insistently "Why did the BLACK person live in the BLACK house?"

Finally we just outright shushed him and told him he couldn't tell his joke. We tried to explain that it hurts people when you tell jokes about their skin color, even though it was clear that making a derogatory joke about such a thing wasn't even a concept anywhere on his radar screen. He sulked at being unable to share the punchline with us. Shortly thereafter, I made the situation more confusing to him by referring to the putting on of deodorant as a "French Canadian shower" (I'm of Quebecois descent so please don't indignantly email me). However since he still seems unclear on racist jokes, I figure the ethnic jokes would be OK.

The other day while we were riding in the car without D., we drove past a family of African Americans walking together down the street. Suddenly I turned to V. and said, "Y'know, why DID the black person live in the black house?" We looked wide eyed at each other and realized, we would never know.

Funny kid

I've always been a hedonist, in a largely unapologetic fashion. That tendency has become, if anything, more and more untethered with each passing year. Life just seems too short to waste on doing things I don't wholeheartedly love, especially if the counterbalance of moral or social convention is at all tenuous or questionable. And I've found that it's all questionable, really, under the right circumstances.

Often I am asked by others or myself, for rational explanations of why I would do this thing over that thing, choose this option over that option, when the reason really comes down to, I know what I like. That does not necessarily extend to I know why I like what I like. It does extend to I don't care why I like what I like. I just like it. And that's enough for me now, though in the past I would on occassion let such clear, simple insight get clouded by self-doubt. I cared more then what others thought. I haven't reached the nirvana of not caring at all what others think by a long shot, but I've discarded great chunks of such neuroses over the years, and good riddance.

This all rose to the surface today in a conversation with a friend, where I described two things: the general topic of traveling to and being in Mexico, and the much more specific topic of making an improvised and fortuitously delicious ratatouille composed almost entirely of herbs and vegetables grown in our modest garden this summer. Both things made me stupidly happy to the point of bliss. The problem came in trying to articulate why, which was the only half-serious question posed to me by my friend. The more I tried to articulate why, the less I had to say. While she found this amusing, I at first found it a bit distressing. However, by the time an hour or two had passed, I realized the important thing is having the ability to be stupidly happy, and knowing what it is that makes one so. Not that such things can always be known in advance, but the more you know and accept such things, the more you can cut through the various impediments that might keep that feeling at bay.

Some of the things I've decided make me stupidly happy include the following:

Gardening (see above). Getting dirty, weeding, buying plants, pruning, watering, obsessively checking, enjoying blooms of gorgeous flowers or eating the sweetest, juiciest tomato right off the vine. It can be exhausting and frustrating at times but is also tremendously rewarding.

Cooking (see above). The fact that this can be combined with gardening in the form of cooking with things I have grown in the garden is just double the bliss. The only instruction I've had in the art of cooking was learning how to follow a recipe when I was a teenager due to my Mom's instruction, and living with a couple professional chefs in my late teens and early twenties, who taught me a thing or two. Since then everything I do related to cooking is self taught from browsing the Internet or cookbooks. I aspire to take a cooking class or two for fun in the future, but for now I am relatively happy with my ability and like nothing better than to throw a dinner party for friends and have most of what I prepare come out reasonably well. I do get a lot of compliments so I at least tentatively believe I'm getting good at it.

Being in Mexico (yet again, above). The most I could come up with on this topic for my friend was "I love it because everything is different there." Of course, not only is that not entirely true, but it is also inclusive of many things that are different in a bad way, not a good way. But somehow crushing poverty, environmental destruction, massive government corruption, non-existent mail service, drug trafficking, undrinkable tap water, bad plumbing, a plethora of insects, bad roads, roaming packs of half wild stray dogs and really bad restaurant service just don't get me down. I don't know why. Perhaps if I spent more time there it would bother me more. I don't know. I just have a feeling when I am there like I belong there. I look past all the bad things quite easily and dwell on all the good things - the beauty of the countryside, the art, the warmth of the people, the relaxed culture, the language, the food, the drink, the cultural events, the weather, the flowers, the architecture, the coffee.

Learning Spanish. Sometimes. I've decided learning Spanish is like golfing for me. It's something I basically suck at, but every now and then I hit a great shot and that makes me so happy that it keeps me coming back for more and ignoring the five thousand lousy shots I make in between. It's addicting when you get it right and I seem to get it right just often enough to want more. Over this past summer I finally reached the stage where I can converse in Spanish, albeit on a relatively basic level. But I can converse. I can form sentences on the fly using reasonably correct grammar with a fairly decent command of basic vocabulary. At times in Mexico, I would go into a shop, ask a clerk some questions, buy something and converse briefly with that person. Being able to do this made me astoundingly happy.

Wearing jeans. This may be one of the dumbest things that makes me stupidly happy, and I attribute it wholly to growing up with a mother who my friend describes quite accurately as a "power femme". My Mom dressed me up a like a doll for the first 10 years of my life, liberally making use of materials such as scratchy lace, tight pinchy shoes, hair curlers that pulled my hair while sleeping all night long, pearl necklaces, white gloves, and even those stylish accoutrements of the 60's, the cape and the muff (no, not that kind of muff, this kind. Though now that I think about it, that might explain a lot of my later life. Often she would dress me up this way for school or family events, and I would suffer expotentially through the discomfort of it all. The most blissful moment for me was to come home and be allowed to change into "play clothes", which consisted of jeans, sneakers and a t-shirt. My only regret at the moment is that I have a job in which I can only get away with wearing jeans on Fridays, and then they must be relatively nice jeans with a relatively nice shirt. If I could live in jeans 24x7 I would happily do so, and in fact, I fully plan to do so once I retire.

Getting my hair cut. Now that my hair is long, I don't get my hair cut very often - only every three months or so. But I love getting it cut. I love the whole ritual of having someone else wash my hair, chatting in the chair while having my head tilted around in various directions, and feeling all renewed and good looking afterwards. This latter feeling may be a delusion on my part but who cares? I need a haircut! Yes!

Sitting on a deck, patio, balcony or similar structure, with a drink and a view. I love a good view, and purchased my last two houses with a view as one of my top 2 or 3 priorities (just after must have a roof and plumbing). Views don't have to be spectacular, but if you don't have something nice to look at, how can you relax? V. and I like living on a street with some activity so we can sit out and gossip about people going by. We would never be happy living in the woods.

Dogs. Goofy, smelly, happy, annoying dogs. Cats are OK too, but it's really dogs that make me happy. We all need companions in life, and dogs make the best companions in my opinion. You can take them with you places, have them jumping for joy to see you at the end of the day (never underestimate the psychological effect of having something jump for joy to see you), get exercise with them, they will protect you, they will make housekeeping a challenge, they will cost you ridiculous amounts of money, but they will love you. And you will love them. Dogs are the best.

Driving my 2000 VW Jetta. Jettas are the best cars in the world if you are not rich and have some practical considerations besides just power and performance. However, because mine is a 1.8 turbo, it does have power and performance, not so much on the autobahn next to a BMW, but definitely on the interstate with the minivans and SUVs. Throw in a moonroof, decent stereo, leather seats, 6 CD changer, big trunk and rock solid reliability and you have my little Jetta which make me happy every day as it zips me off wherever I'm going. The fact that I got a great deal on it buying it sight unseen on the Internet is just icing on the cake.

Throwing a good party. I mentioned this recently and it ties in the with cooking theme