brain fuel.

It's a well-known fact that bananas don't grow alone, but they've also got something to say. That story, and no others, on tonight's Ad Watch.

doot-do-do-loot-doot, doot-do-do-loot-doot, doot-do-do-loot-doot, do!

Notice anything different about everyone's favorite yellow fruit? You'll have to look closely, for you might not notice that those familiar blue stickers say more than just the brand name nowadays. The Chiquita banana company still says cha-cha-cha, but now it's saying a little more.

Stickers now bear sayings promoting the fruit, things such as "Peel Me - I'm Fat-Free!" While these last minute marketing notes may not directly cause consumers to pick Chiquita over Dole or even bananas over berries, the quirky and cute tactic might make people think favorably of Chiquita in the future. Slowly, the company may win themselves loyal fans with phrases such as "Brain Fuel" or "PSSST! I'm Full of Vitamins!"

Local grocery stores have noticed people lingering a little longer in the banana section to check out these tiny blue ads, and a Harris Teeter in Raleigh, North Carolina even reported one customer stealthily taking stickers and then nonchalantly purchasing nectarines. Some companies might consider that a marketing failure, but we talked to the Chiquita banana lady herself, who said that the stickers are just a way of attracting attention. She then added, "PSSST! I'm Full of Vitamins!"

Another reason to love fresh fruit, another reason to go cha-cha-cha, and for the easily amused, another reason to hang out in the produce section. This is Ad Watch. Goodnight.



doot-do-do-loot-doot, doot-do-do-loot-doot, doot-do-do-loot-doot, do!

team player.

I learned the importance of restocking early and often when I was waiting tables. I also learned the importance of balance, charm, and efficiency, and all of these skills have helped me in my post-server life. But who knew that restocking had anything to do with being a software engineer?

As a waitress, restocking is important as a part of a team. If you have a second to refill the creamers or cut more lemons, you should do it. Period. Because later, there won't be time for silly things like refilling creamers, because there's not even time for important things like taking orders or delivering food to increasingly hungry and angry customers. You will appreciate yourself later. What's more, your coworkers will appreciate it. They will think that you are a Team Player, and they will be more likely to do their own restocking in an effort to help you out. I know I'm getting all pre-game pep talk on you, but you should always restock. Also give 110%.

Restocking is not important as a software engineer per-se. In fact, it only comes into play in the kitchen of my company, where the free soft drinks live. Some of them live in the refrigerator, and some of them are on the refrigerator waiting list, living on the floor off to the side, huddled together in groups of six. Obviously, when someone wants a drink, they take it from the fridge. Drinks taste better when they're cold, or at least the cold covers up their flaws.

When a software engineer takes the last Dr. Pepper from the fridge, what should he do? Would would he do, if he were a Team Player?

Sadly, I do not work with Team Players. Well, not in terms of the fridge. They're actually great Team Players when it comes to getting software done, but not in keeping a steady supply of frosty beverages. I probably shouldn't complain about the far less important matter. Maybe it's all those years of restocking creamers, but an empty fridge drives me nuts.

For a while, I would faithfully restock the fridge every afternoon. It was lovely. There were always plenty of drinks for any taste. I didn't just refill the Dr. Peppers, I would refill the Diet Cokes and the Sunkists and the root beers, because I am a Team Player. But I gave up, because I was obviously the only one who gave a crap. No one else bothered to even refill the drinks they liked, much less the drinks they didn't care for. So I quit my daily restocking ritual to leave them to their lukewarm sodas. That'll teach 'em.

It didn't. Rather than someone else becoming conscientious, the fridge became something you might see in a bachelor pad. Occasionally someone would restock, but he would do so by taking an entire 24 pack of Coke and shoving them wherever they fit. That is called Looking Out For #1, and it is the antithesis of being a Team Player.

Yesterday afternoon, I sighed and gave in. The constant disarray of the refrigerator was driving me even more nuts and I realized that restocking was a pretty stupid thing to get worked up over in software. Fine, you win. You shall have a well-stocked fridge. There will be cold beverages for everyone. No one will appreciate or help me or even notice that someone had to put the cherished Diet Mountain Dew in the fridge for it to be cold in their hot little hands. But I will do it anyway, because I am a Team Player.

gong for god.

All the churches in New York City look lost to me. It's probably because I'm just a small town girl, but I don't expect to turn a busy street corner and find myself starring at a gothic cathedral. I wonder where this church meant to be, and how it got so lost that it just sat down here between a Hungarian bakery and a cobbler's shop.

We stumbled upon this massive Episcopalian church, The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine. Going inside a place like this, all marble and domed ceilings and stained glass, I do start to think that if I were God, I'd hang out in the expensive churches. It's really a lucky thing that I'm not God, for a lot of other unrelated reasons.

Anyway, behind the pulpit in this cathedral, there was something hanging from the ceiling. It was huge. I took a poor quality picture of it, and I post that picture here, not because it is a good picture, but because it is fascinating.


It's a gong. A giant, probably six feet high, gong. In a church. I have no idea why, except that if I were God, I would be pleased.

slow cooker love: chicken and dumplings.

It all started with a slow cooker.

I used to call it a "crock pot," which is the genericized trademark name. However, out of respect for my new and beloved appliance, which is not made by Rival (who makes the "Crock Pot" line), but by Hamilton Beach, I call it a slow cooker. Slow cookers are tortoises in the cooking world, the culinary equivalent of slow and steady wins the race. The best part of using a slow cooker is coming home. You've had a rough day, no one understands you, traffic was crappy, and then, your house smells like someone loves you. Someone does love you. It was you, eight hours ago.

So it all started with a slow cooker because that's how I really started getting into cooking. As a novice, the idea of throwing a bunch of raw ingredients in a container and going away for hours appealed to me. That is my kind of cooking. While I have since advanced to recipes that require occasional stirring (and one ca-razy one where I had to flip something), I still have a deep appreciation for the negligent method of dinner preparation.

I see my slow cooker as a friend and ally in this confusing food world, a trusted confederate, a kitchen gadget with a Protestant work ethic. "Go on to work," she cries, for why shouldn't she be a she? "Go earn more money to buy more raw ingredients! I'll stay here and make sure that you have a warm meal to come home to, so that you'll have energy to go out and do it again tomorrow! And leftovers! There will be leftovers!" The more I think about it, the more my slow cooker and I are starting to sound like a married couple in the 50s. She did ask me to balance her checkbook once.

So if you haven't done it lately, give your slow cooker a little love. Along with some chicken and spices.

Note this recipe is a convenience recipe, meaning it's only one step removed from buying a can of chicken and dumplings soup. There are ways to make your cream of whatever soup, and I do know them. But I'm not telling, because, honestly, I'm not quite there yet in terms of my culinary devotion to "made from scratch." So even though it's a long ways from your Amish grandmother's soup, it doesn't taste that way. Feel free to add your own spices and whatnot. Also, I shred the chicken after it's been cooking for a while, though you could cube it before cooking.

Slow Cooker Chicken and Dumplings
ripped shamelessly and modified only slightly from Allrecipes

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves


• 2 T butter


• 1 (10.75 oz) condensed cream of chicken soup


• 1 (10.75 oz) condensed cream of celery soup


• 1 onion, chopped


• 2 (10 oz) package refrigerated biscuit dough, torn into pieces

1. Place the chicken, butter, soup, and onion in a slow cooker, and fill with enough water to cover.


2. Cover, and cook for 7 to 8 hours on low. About an hour before serving, place the torn biscuit dough in the slow cooker. Shred chicken. Cook until the dough is no longer raw in the center.

the jackie o. sump.

I went to New York City over a December weekend with another Big Apple Virgin. I get very self-conscious about being seen as a tourist. And so it was always a small thrill to me when some other out-of-towner asked us what to do. Of course, those other people were the fanny pack and freshly-bought "I (heart) NY" t-shirt crowd, but it was still nice to think that we could pass for natives, provided you weren't very hip yourself.

One morning we were on our way to Central Park. We had consulted the map and knew the general direction, if not how many blocks we needed to take, figuring we would know it when we saw it. We saw the sidewalk turn to grass, with picturesque running trails and a small soccer field. As we waited on the corner across the street for our turn to cross, a lady came up to us and asked, "Excuse me, do you know of any cafes or bakeries near the park?" We shook our heads sadly and explained that we were not from around here. We congratulated ourselves, both on our navigation and on our masquerading as city folk, and started along one of the picturesque running trails to enjoy the nation's most famous city park.

We'd walked about half a block into the park, consulting our little map as discreetly as possible, when we started to think that something was awry. For one thing the Jackie O. Reservoir looked like a sump (a fun word to say, but really more of an insult if it's named after you). Also, the park appeared to be only a block or so wide. I was a newbie to this whole New York thing, but I was pretty sure that Central Park was supposed to be bigger than the park at my middle school. Finally, we saw a sign saying Morningside Park. We felt a little silly, but we felt worse for the woman wandering around looking for bagels.

We did find Central Park. It's much nicer than the park at my middle school, or really anything in my home town. It might be bigger than my home town. And Jackie O. will be relieved that her reservoir is worth photographing, which is what I did.

the chef did it.

My sister-in-law suggested that I blog about cooking, but I am hesitant about the idea. The trouble is taking what is essentially just a recipe and turning it into a good blog entry. If you're not interested in cooking, there should be something for you to enjoy as well. I suppose I should see it as a challenge.

Perhaps I feel this way because it's only recently that reading a recipe on a blog or anywhere would interest me. Recipes are all about the same, right? There's some ingredients, some directions, some notes, but never any plot twists, intrigue, or thoughtful commentary on the human condition.

But lately, I've been reading a lot of recipes, because I've discovered what makes a recipe worth studying - trying to figure out if you can actually make the thing. Out of nowhere, I discovered that I like to cook. Actually, I discovered that I was not totally inept at cooking, which was really what was keeping me from enjoying it. Who likes to do things they suck at? Not me. I approached the kitchen with apprehension, and more than one dish was flavored with the salt of my frustrated tears. But somehow, quite magically, I found some easy recipes that yielded delicious results and my confidence started growing. I am not afraid anymore.

I'm excited about my new hobby. I bought a new slow cooker, loaf pans, pie plates, and even dropped some major cash on a food processor (which has already paid $2 for itself in grated cheese savings). I bring my lunch to work every day and secretly hope someone will ask me what I'm having so that I can proudly tell them that I made every bit of it. I want to cook two or three new dishes every evening, despite the fact that my fridge is already full of what I cooked on past evenings. I look at recipes online, marking things that sound good and within my skill level. In restaurants, if I find something I like, I go home and look it up, to see if it can be prepared at home. I feel like I'm unravelling the mystery of food - I'm discovering that many fantastic dishes just aren't that hard to make.

I found a can of soup in my pantry the other day, a pop-top lid number with 'Select' or 'Fancy' or 'Choice' in the name that I'd bought months ago on sale. I scowled at it. What was I going to do with this? Since then, I've learned to make about four kinds of soup myself that can show this silly can what it can do with its pop-top. I suppose I'll have to donate it to a food drive to go to someone who doesn't have a slow cooker.

So what I'm saying in all this is that I'm going to at least give my sister-in-law's (sister's-in-law?) suggestion a whirl. I may decide that it's not in me to make recipes interesting to those who are still in their pop-top lid stage. Or maybe I'll write a brilliant murder mystery, where the important clue is a teaspoon of allspice.

nodding donkey.

Josh had never before been to Kansas before I took him there, which is surprising, since surely all American children visit this tourist hotspot at least once. Before we went, he told me that he wanted to be sure to get a picture of a pumpjack (also known as a nodding donkey or a thirsty bird). "Don't worry," I told him. He kept bringing it up, as if I would forget or there weren't more of them than trees in Kansas.

Once we got to the farm, he seemed to be satisfied that we would indeed be able to photograph one, as he finally understood what I meant by saying they were "freakin' everywhere." One evening, at about dusk, we finally snuck off into someone's field and made out took some pictures of a pumpjack.

I remember being fascinated by the things when I was a kid, the way they tirelessly seesaw up and down, up and down, slow and steady wins the race. But I'd never gotten really close to one. It's sort of like going to a natural history museum where they have dinosaur skeletons. It's massive and seems to be part of a different time, an composition of simple machines, not circuits. They are beautiful, in a Kansas sort of way.

take your medicine.

While Josh and I were preparing for our trip to Kansas, I tried to convince him that Dorothy's home state could actually be quite beautiful, rather than the vast, flat wasteland he was imagining. I lamented that we would not be going in the summertime, right before harvest, when the amber waves of grain would be in bloom. What I hated most was that he would miss seeing the fields of sunflowers, tall and beautiful like an antihistamine commercial where no one ever has to sneeze.

But no, we went in October, when the predominant color was brown.

We were driving past a field one evening when the crops changed from harvested wheat to something else. "Wait, what are - oh NOOOOOOOO!"


And of course, this was beautiful, too. Just in a tragic and heartbreaking sort of way, like an antihistamine commercial where someone dies young from not taking their medicine.

science-based magic shows.

I've had three physics classes over the years. Despite that, I know very little about the topic. The subject bears the distinction of being the only one that I never really got a handle on. In fact, it reduced me to tears on at least one occasion. I can't blame my lack of knowledge on my teachers. I had one teacher who was a good educator but knew nothing about physics, one teacher who knew about physics but wasn't a good educator, and one who luckily had both physics knowledge and the skills to communicate it. Even she was unable to break the tough membrane around my skull that will not allow physics in. Of course, by that time, I was so wary of physics that I avoided it, and as a result, did not study very hard.

But I'm only here to talk about the first teacher today, the one who had previously successfully made the transfer of chemistry from her brain to mine, but was unable to reproduce the process with physics. You can't teach physics if you don't understand it, and Mrs. Buchman didn't.

My high school honors physics class consisted of six students, smart kids from the junior and senior classes. I'm not sure why it was an honors class, because I don't think there was a regular physics class at the time. My high school had an extensive horticulture program, but we weren't much in the way of the high sciences. I only took the class because, being an honors course, it would have a bigger impact on my GPA, and that was the kind of thing that was important to me at the time. GPAs were important to all the members of that class, because GPAs were important to college admissions and scholarship committees.

The class in itself was a lot of fun. We did some physics, sure. Mrs. Buchman would sorta explain stuff and we wouldn't get it, or maybe we would kinda get it when she explained it, but not enough to be able to reproduce it. Then we'd get distracted and talk about something else. In terms of physics, we were all very easily distracted.

I have a lot of faith in Mrs. Buchman, and I feel strongly that she is a good person who actually cares about her students learning. That semester was not one of her shining moments. I know she was feeling some guilt at the fact that she was not teaching us material we came to learn, guilt that was only made worse by the fact that we were top students.

For being a terrible class, it was a lot of fun. I've had terrible classes which were boring, and they pale in comparison to this one. To feel like we were doing something, anything physics-related, we came up with a science-based magic show. We toured elementary school classes, showing off goofy tricks you can do with inertia and polarity. I remember in particular demonstrating the former while balancing a coat hanger and some clay balls on my head. The kids seemed to like it and we all had a great time doing it.

The semester passed quickly, and why wouldn't it? It was my senior year of high school, and I was in the fun science class where I got to be goofy instead of learn. But there was a dark shadow looming at the edge of the semester's horizon in the form of a state end-of-grade test. At the end of all this not learning, I was expected to show the state of North Carolina how much I had not learned. As the time rolled on, the dread of this test filled our little teenaged hearts and added to our already-high stress levels.

By the last week, we were all capital-F Freaking out. We didn't know anything about physics. We had spent the semester gallivanting. We were students who cared about test scores, because they went on our transcripts, and transcripts were sent to colleges. We weren't going to get to go to college. We were going to have to stay in Lenoir and work in the furniture factory. Life was truly over.

Taking the test went about as expected. I honestly had no idea at all on about a third of it. I had vague ideas on the rest, mostly because I had at least heard of the words used. That only meant that I could eliminate one choice, meaning I only had 2/3 chance of missing it instead of 3/4. It was a glass-half-empty kind of test. It was a miserable experience, but we all knew it was the equal and opposite reaction of goofing off all year long.

The nice thing about standardized tests nowadays is that they are graded so quickly, and so we trudged back to Mrs. Buchman's classroom later in the day to hear our results. They were stupefying. We had all miraculously scored in the high 80s and above; I personally landed an 88. One girl had scored a low 90. Though we were kids who usually scowled at a 'B' test result, we rejoiced. We weren't going to have to go to our second-choice colleges after all. Mrs. Buchman beamed at us all.

Months later, I happened to get ahold of a copy of my high school transcript. I glanced through it, just to see what was there, to see what I'd been obsessed with improving for the past four years. I saw my test score from the physics state test. It was not an 88, nor was it even in the 80s range. It was more than fifty points south of what I'd been told.

Panic. Sets. In.

Holy crap, this score has been here all this time, tainting my entire transcript with it's pathetic lowness. College admissions offices saw it. Scholarship committees saw it. How in the world had I ever been granted anything?

Panic subsides.

I realized that I already was accepted to college, and that I wasn't paying for it. It was almost like that one little grade hadn't been there or even that it hadn't mattered.

I was immediately irritated at Mrs. Buchman for lying to us. I don't like being protected from the truth. I like to think that I'm a strong enough person to handle the world as it is, no sugar-coating please. Even if it turned out that the grade didn't matter, did Mrs. Buchman necessarily know that?

Then I thought about my classmates and realized that she might have been right. Type A doesn't even begin to describe us, and we were already high-strung with the competition for class rank between us. Maybe I could've handled the truth and maybe not. A couple of my classmates definitely could not have. This conclusion is the one that I've come to after six years, because I still have faith in Mrs. Buchman. I don't think she did it to keep us from hating her or being mad at her (which we would have had a right to be). She just didn't want us to kill ourselves over it.

Now that I've got three whole semesters of physics under my belt, I wonder how I'd do on that same test that gave me fits years ago. I don't want to brag, but I bet I could get a 45 now.

flat.

The rumors are true: Kansas is flat. Not all of it, you may be surprised to know, but the part that is flat is so overbearing in its flatness that you forget you ever saw a hill in your life. But it's sort of beautiful that way. The open prairies make you feel free and peaceful, nothing to worry about. If trouble were coming, you would see it half a mile away.

all intensive purposes.

My name is Sandra and I've been a bad blogger.

I feel the need to apologize. And yet I feel the need to not apologize. This is, after all, something I do in my free time for your enjoyment. I'm under no obligations of length, frequency, or even quality of blog articles. But I know that some of you are out there, checking this space every once in a while and going, "What's up with Sandra?" I've finally managed to get my mother to stop nagging me about blogging. And she's a nice lady, so she has. Now, instead, she just mentions the last entry I did and talks about it like it was an old friend.

So I won't apologize, but I will acknowledge that I am aware that my blogging has been sub-par lately. Let's get past that now.

In case I am unable to meet your blogging needs, I would like to recommend an alternative, Language Log. It's far superior to my blog, as it has several interesting and educated contributors and is updated several times a day. But it's all about language. So if you're not interested in that and really only tune in here because we're related or because you are keenly interested in the daily lives of young, female computer programmers, then maybe it's not worth your time.

Language is fascinating. It is so embedded in our daily use that many people don't see it as anything to be studied. But it's alive, and what's more, it's evolving. New words are invented and brought into wide use, others fall away or become other words.

A person on an internet forum was complaining about people who start sentences with conjunctions (and, but, or). Lots of people were taught that doing so was incorrect. The person remarked that this technique is often used in newspapers and magazines, and the fact that professional journalists didn't even know such a basic rule was just a commentary on the general dumbing down of our society.

Okay, so that pissed me off. First of all, because it's not a real rule and starting sentences with conjunctions is perfectly "legal." Secondly, even if it had been a rule, once the journalists start ignoring it, it's effectively not a rule anymore. The rules of grammar change as the populace changes, because a rule is no good if no one ever follows it. When the rules change, nothing is good or bad or smart or stupid, it's just evolving.

It's not just the rules, but the words themselves. Have you ever looked at the etymology of a word and wondered how on earth it came to exist as you know it? It starts off as a Greek word that looks and sounds only like a distant cousin. But over the years the word got changed and reshaped as people passed it along and said it over and over until it because what it is today. And years from now, it may be something completely different again. For example, consider the phrase "for all intents and purposes." For about twenty-two years, I thought the phrase was "for all intensive purposes." You know, because some purposes are intense. So I'd been saying it wrong for years until I saw on a web site that it was another of those commonly misused phrases. I'm not the only one who got it wrong. But if more and more people keep getting it wrong, how long before no one knows the real phrase and the wrong becomes the right?

I read a complaint about Language Log written by a woman who didn't get it. She questioned the way the linguists conduct research, which is to search on Google. If they want to find out how often people use the phrase "for all intensive purposes" as compared to "for all intents and purposes," they search for each and compare the number of hits received. The woman did not think that was an appropriate way to do research. While it's not a good way to conduct an in-depth study, it's an excellent way to get a general idea of something for a blog article. Those Google hits are composed of millions of newspaper, magazine, and blog articles - they give a great picture of how people are using words right now. And that's what the linguists are studying, what language is like at this very second and how it's changing itself right before our eyes.

In case you were curious, "all intensive purposes" received 3,250,000 Google hits, and "all intents and purposes" received 1,930,000. Maybe the incorrect is already correct.

Note: Although my entry turned into my trying to convince you that language is alive and changing, I really would like to give a hearty plug for Language Log. It doesn't just study evolution, but also how language can be manipulated or misconceptions that can occur because of language or commentaries on writing in general. It's really everything language-related. To give you a head start, I've linked a few very good articles to get you interested.

A discussion of why we use country accents when imitating old people

How words from tonal languages are written in English

The media's constant scrutiny of President Bush's speaking prowess

Bart Simpson versus the First Amendment

code freeze.

"Where did November go?" a voices cries out over the cubicle walls. It wasn't my voice, but I lamented along with it. I wanted part of November back. No one would mind another Thanksgiving. Let's go back and celebrate our veterans again! Why can't it be more like 60 days hath November?

My company operates on an annual release cycle, that is, we release a new version of our product every year. We shoot for sometime around March. And so we put out a beta version during January and February, which means we should probably finish up the coding...well, really soon. In fact, the official date that we're told to stop writing new code is December 31st. Would you like to learn a new, hip computer science term?

code freeze (n): The time when programmers stop adding new code. The existing code may be tested for bugs, which can be fixed (and probably should be), but no new features are implemented, no functionality is added.

Code freeze happens for us on December 31st. It's not a friendly deadline, because working overtime to meet your deadline means working during the holidays. I suppose I could be bitter about that, if I weren't so stressed.

I'm not exactly stressed out. I've just got a nagging stress, the kind you got in high school when you were assigned a paper and every day you procrastinated there was this tiny feeling of mild unhappiness in the back of your mind which soured your every second only minutely. I've had this feeling since September.

My only relief is that everyone else seems to be suffering, too. I don't mean that I find joy in the discomfort of others. It's just that I'm new here, and so I don't know how much I'm realistically supposed to get done. But if everyone else, even the folks who have been with the company for 15+ years, are lagging behind, then it gives me hope that at least I'm not the lone gimpy sled dog.

Still, that doesn't really make the stress go away. It only calms me when I'm in danger of hyperventilating that I'm not going to make my deadlines, I'm incompetent, I will start out the new year by looking for another job. I'll just take a deep breath and write code for ten hours straight if I have to. Code freeze will come, but it will happen after I get my features in.

Still. Where did November go?

cramp my style.

"Hey, Sandra, would you mind taking pictures tonight?"

I sigh with defeat. I've been going to Josh's band's shows for over two years now, getting in free, enjoying free beer and food and backstage freedom. And yet I never have to run a merchandise table or take pictures or pass out flyers. Sometimes I have to fetch a beer, but I'm free to get one for myself along the way. Still, I knew that at some point, I would be required to earn my keep by doing more than just kissing the bassist (although I do that a lot).

It was Friday night and we were playing at the Cat's Cradle. I say "we," just like a football fan would say it, as somehow part of the band but in no real way contributing. I love playing the Cradle. To anyone who pays any attention at all to bands that play in clubs smaller than football stadiums, the Cradle is a big deal. I remember living in Boone and wishing that we had such a place where bands would be willing to come play. As it was, I made the four hour drive twice during college.

Aside from being a real club that gets real bands, the people that work there are incredibly nice to us. Every once in a while, we open up for a band at the Lincoln Theatre. They treat us like crap. They yell at us, scold us, kick us out of the green room, are generally just jerks to us because we're a podunk local band. Or maybe they treat the big acts that way, too.

But back to taking pictures. I agree to be photographer for the evening and take charge of the drummer's tiny digital camera. I don't mind it so much, except that my photographing philosophy, particularly in the digital age, is to take as many pictures as possible, so that at least five of them will be worth keeping.

The show starts, but I'm still backstage, which turns out to be the place with the best view of the band. The sound board is on a raised platform at stage right, and the technician tolerates me as I wander around taking blurry pictures. Even with a steady-cam button, it's hard to take a good shot of a drummer. I do wander out to the crowd a bit to get a couple of shots of the massive (for us) audience. I'm feeling cocky in my official position as girlfriend/picture-taker/beer-getter. I'm with the band, we're playing the Cat's Cradle, and I describe them using the first-person, plural pronoun.

At some point, the guitarist gives me the "I need a beer" signal. Actually, he gives me several, because I interpret the first few as the "I have a crick in my neck" signal, the "I like to move my neck like a duck" signal, and the "I've got something stuck in my teeth" symbol. So I make my way back to the green room to fetch a PBR, but am blocked by a mass of people I've never seen before. They number half a dozen, and are being led through by someone like me, someone with a band, but not in it. This person is different from me in that he is trying to impress one to four girls by showing them and their friends the green room.

At the tail end of the group is a dude in a leather jacket. He is no way blocking my path. Yet as I pass him to get to the fridge, he says, "I'm sorry we're back here, cramping your style." I reassure him, "It's okay. I don't really have any style." He thinks that's funny, but he would think anything I said was funny. I could have given him the "I like to move my neck like a duck" signal and he would've thought it was great.

I'm so amused. For some reason, this guy thinks I'm someone of importance. He probably realizes that I am just the girlfriend of a bassist in a local band, and yet that means I am cool and should not have my style cramped in any way. After all, I was already backstage when he arrived, and I didn't even need a tour guide.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a They Might Be Giants concert. I've been their number-n fan since I was twelve or thirteen. I stood in line with other fans while a girl my age took our money for t-shirts and albums and hats and bumper stickers. I confess that I thought this girl was so cool. She's the TMBG merch girl! Oh, what it must be like to be the merch girl for a band like TMBG! Who needs programming when you can be a merch girl? If I ran into this girl, I would apologize for cramping whatever style she had.

I should get used to being so revered. Josh has asked me to start manning a merch table.

the generous stranger.

The concept of earning a living by waiting tables is a weird one. You wear a uniform, spend an hour or so with some people you've never met, trying to keep them happy while relying on factors that you have little to no control over, and at the end of it all, they decide how much you are worth. And you live on that.

Some people are schmucks or don't know any better and are lousy tippers. Some servers are schmucks and deserve lousy tips. Most people are decent folks and don't create too much of a hassle for you before leaving you an acceptable gratuity. Then there are some tables that just click!, where you're charming and the food is just right, and they're all ready to slaughter the fatted calf if only you'd come home with them. Basically, you can often predict your own tip based on how the dining experience has progressed before the check is dropped.

And then there is the Generous Stranger.

The Generous Stranger is the one who overtips for no apparent reason. Something you did struck that guy just right and you didn't even know it. The meal went fine, nothing spectacular, and you foresaw maybe seventeen percent. But then you're left with something like thirty or fifty percent, and you have no idea why. These are the kind of reassurances you need in your job, a stranger who owes you nothing and expects nothing in return saying, hey, good job there, tiger.

Now that I'm on the other side of the apron, I like to be the Generous Stranger. I remember my days in the trenches, when some days it was those mysterious people who were the only things that kept my head up. I eat alone a lot and like to be left alone for the most part. At the same time, if I need something, I don't want to have to sit quietly, looking forlorn while my server is somewhere else. It's a difficult balance, but some people nail it. Those servers refill my tea without disturbing me, and if they have to ask me something, they do it quietly and apologetically, as if they were interrupting. They are not pushy, nor do they try to be my buddy.

It's such an easy role to play, particularly when you eat alone. On a $10 check, it's only three extra dollars to go from a twenty percent tip to a fifty, and you're a hero. It's even easier at some greasy spoon where the check is five bucks and the waitress is sweet but looks like she could use some dental work. Servers don't think so much in dollars as they do in percentages when they look at their tips.

Someday, if ever I make it to a status of ridiculous wealth, I'm going to take the Generous Stranger to the extreme. I'm going to leave a hundred dollars or something crazy for a ten dollar check. I'm not just going to make someone's day, I'm going to make someone's year. They'll be telling that story to their grandkids, how some crazy old woman came in, had a tuna sandwich and left a crisp, clean C-note. They'll wonder what it is they did or if I was hitting on them or if maybe I thought I was leaving a Washington instead of a Benjamin. I delight in the idea of leaving that kind of wonder in my wake.

I am the Generous Stranger.

coulda been your twin.

"You know, we used to have a woman that worked here, her name was Tina, and she coulda been your twin sister."

"Really? Huh."

"She had a great personality, too."

I'm not feeling spunky enough to say, "Oh, well, I actually have a terrible personality," though I enjoy the joke to myself. See, by saying that I have a rotten personality, I'm making a good joke, which indicates that I, too, have a terrific personality. You see what I did there?

I don't have a twin sister, though I do have a sister-in-law named Tina. She doesn't look much like me, though I suppose as her marriage to my brother continues, she might be heading in that direction. Frankly, I have my doubts about how much this mythical Tina with the great personality looks like me. I actually get told that I look like someone quite a bit. It's annoying, because I never actually look like my supposed doppelgangers. Had I been feeling really snarky, I would have responded, "Oh, so you mean she has brown hair and wears glasses?"

I'd like to announce that there are a lot of females out there who have brown hair and wear glasses. I look like very few of them. I'm tired of being reduced to the two things that people notice first when they see someone. Maybe next time, I should ask, "Oh yeah? Did she have a mole right here on her neck? Does her nose do this ski jump thing? Was she tall with big feet? Well, I guess we're not related after all!" I want to tell these poor well-meaning strangers that I am more than brown hair and glasses.

Obviously, I'm just going to have to get over it. I'm not a particularly striking person. There is probably a Lego woman who fits my description. So people who don't look very closely might think I look like any other girl with brown hair and glasses. I'm sure this sort of thing happens to lots of people: red heads with big noses, blonds with unibrows, short, fat, bald guys. Looking at those groups, having brown hair and glasses doesn't seem so bad anymore.

I suppose the tiny silver lining of this story is that I'm totally set if I ever decide to rob a store.

"Sir, what did the assailant look like?"

"Well, uh. She had brown hair. And glasses. And uh, actually, you know what, she looked exactly like this girl I used to know. Coulda been her twin. Her name was Tina."

equines.

The signs vere placed every block or so, on opposite ends of the downtown street. They were white with moveable black letters, such as you might buy to announce your church barbeque or a sale at the locally owned jewelry store. I was lacking any device that said "megapixel" anywhere on it, so I had to make due with the camera on my cell phone.

"No equine on Main Street except for parade."

Before Saturday, I'd never been to Benson. So maybe it's the kind of town where that sign needs to stay up all year long, to remind the citizens to keep their horses and mules and donkeys to the side streets unless there's a parade on. Then it makes one wonder how many parades there are a year, and whether you have to register or sign up or if you can just throw yourself in there, provided you have a hoofed work animal to ride upon. My favorite part of the sign is the word "equine," because you look at the citizens of Benson and wonder how many of them know what it means. But then you know that it was chosen because the sign originally said "horses," but all these people with mules and donkeys felt they had the right to trot up and down Main Street, regardless of parade status. Someone in the Benson Town Council owns a thesaurus.

The fourth weekend in September is Mule Days in the town of Benson. Someone might ask why a festival about mules exist, and the only answer I can come up with is that some other town was already celebrating acorns. The sad part is that other towns do host Mule Days, and one in Tennessee apparently attracts over 200,000 mule-lovers annually. Poor little Benson, North Carolina only gets about 60,000 mule-lovers. (The official Mule Days web site states that they get between 60 - 70,000 visitors, which seems like quite a wide range.)

I decided that I wanted to go to Mule Days because I had nothing else to do, because I am Southern, because I am charmed by small town weirdness. I've been to a lot of such festivals. I can't say that there is really a lot of variety between them, but I enjoy them just the same. I like being outside and eating overpriced fried food that is bad for my blood vessels. I like looking at the various vendors of crafts, and I like buying things that I could never find anywhere else. I like being surrounded by friendly people in good moods. And Josh shocked me by loving me enough to go with me, because, really, Mule Days? Sounds like a waste of a Saturday.

Mule Days was pretty much what I expected in terms of festivals. We sat in the park and ate barbeque ribs while listening to a bluegrass quintet play old church and country favorites. We looked at the vendors and debated on whether to buy a Mule Days t-shirt (we decided not to). I wondered if my dad would think the statement "If it ain't half ass, it's just a horse" was funny enough to risk wearing a t-shirt bearing the word "ass." The biggest difference in Benson's grand festival was the smell and the fact that you really needed to watch where you stepped.

We got there in time for the last 3/4 of the parade, where lots of equines were free to roam Main Street. The parade halted only minutes after we arrived, but no one moved. What were we waiting on? Why weren't we proceding to other mule-related festivities? Josh and I navigated through the throngs on the sidewalks further down Main Street, where we realized that a train was coming through town and directly crossing the parade route. Apparently no one in the Benson Town Council owns a train schedule.

While we waited on the train to pass, a chubby ten year old boy stopped to talk to the people in front of us.

"You seen my momma?"

"Huh-uh. She ain't been 'round here."

"She h'ain't? I gots to quit this. I been runnin' up and down the street a-lookin' for her."

"Oh, well, honey, there's yer momma, right 'cross the way."

My skills are not up to reproducing the words as well as I would like, but I was startled to realize how strange this conversation sounded to me. After all, I had grown up listening to exchanges like this. There is likely video or audio tape of me participating in such conversations. I already knew of the existence of the word "h'ain't." Here in the South, we like to give our apostrophes a workout. But I'd been surrounded so long by people who were much less country than I that I'd forgotten what English could sound like in a small southern town. Was I horrified? No. In fact, I was strangely pleased that such dialects continue to thrive. Somehow, it's part of my heritage, and though it reeks of ignorance to big city folks, it's just another culture.

Finally, the train passed, and we were able to catch a glimpse of the rest of the parade. I can honestly say that the Beson Mule Days parade is the best parade I've ever seen live. But perhaps that was only because of the relative lameness of the Christmas parades of Lenoir and Blowing Rock. Josh told me about the Macy's parade in New York, but does it have a rodeo man on a mule riding on a horse trailer cracking a whip?

Now, I can't say this is exact, but I've concocted a short recipe for creating your own Mule Days parade.

Ingredients:
A dozen classic American trucks
3 high school marching bands
2 cheerleading squads
Half a dozen road buggies
2 dance troups of 20 - 60 little girls in tap shoes dancing to techno remixes of bluegrass songs
2 dozen beauty queens of a range of ages with various cheesy titles in fancy convertibles borrowed from local doctors, pharmacists, and lawyers
A vintage McDonald's truck featuring long-forgotten advertising and Ronald McDonald
Any golf carts lying around
3 pickups blaring gospel music, advertising local churches
6 Shriners dressed as clowns with silly bicycles
A dozen classic tractors, one of which should have "Old Rusty" painted on the side
A dozen small carts pulled by shaggy, half-pint ponies
All the equines you can find, with riders of every race
60 - 70,000 spectators

Line spectators up along Main Street. Make sure they have to stand close together so as to best mingle their flavors. Mix the remaining ingredients well. There will be many more equines than anything else, so just shove them in a big group at the back. Teach the beauty queens to wave (elbow, elbow, wrist wrist wrist). Send equine/queen/tractor mixture down Main Street between lines of spectators on a sunny fall day. Wave. Holler. Enjoy.

not a movie review: judgment at nuremberg.

If I told you that I watched a movie featuring Judy Garland and William Shatner last night, you'd be intrigued. "Captain Kirk and Dorothy? Awesome!" And then I'd sigh, because watching the movie for a bizarre combination of supporting actors is fine in some cases, but this is actually great cinema we're talking about here.

Judgment at Nuremberg is a black and white film from the 60s, which means it was black and white on purpose. Unless you're more than unusually slow, you can probably guess that it's about the Nuremberg Trials, specifically the Judges Trial. To me, this is a particularly fascinating time in history. How do you try someone for six million counts of murder?

This movie has many strengths, but we'll start with directing. I have a hard time deciding whether the direction is good or bad in movies. It seems an impossible task to tally up the quality of decisions in all aspects of the making of the film solely as a viewer. There are people who do it, I know. However, I strongly suspect, with my completely uninformed and amateur powers, that director Stanley Kramer knew what he was doing here. That opinion is mostly based on one item: the handling of the bilingual nature of the trial. It's the story of a trial held in Germany with German defense attorneys and defendants and witnesses, yet with an American prosecutor, judges, and audience. The participants in the trial constantly make use of headphones, into which translators are speaking. At the beginning of the movie, the defense attorney is giving his opening statement in German. He is seen through a long shot from over the translator's shoulder. His voice is dim, while the translator's voice is prominent. This goes on for several sentences. As you get used to it, you think, hmm, that's a good way to handle it, though you suspect that it might make the movie a bit long. Then, there is a sudden zoom into the defense counsel, as he switches mid-sentence from German to accented English. You understand that in reality, he is still speaking German and the translator's voice is still ringing in the headphones of the America tribunal. It's important to understand that there is a huge language barrier in place here, but you don't have to wade through that to watch the movie. This crucial aspect was handled so well that I decided to trust Kramer in everything else.

The cast is impressive, a list of people who have already proved themselves in other roles. Spencer Tracy, Marlene Dietrich, Burt Lancaster. Even the relatively small performances were absolutely perfect. Judy Garland broke my heart, guys. Shatner was good enough that I didn't recognize him until the credits rolled. The roles in this movie are so powerfully played that I feel certain that I will think first of them whenever I see these actors in other parts.

But while the acting was fantastic, they really seem only to be a part of the whole, a vehicle to get this story told. One of the things that I loved about this movie was it showed just how many shades of gray there can be (Perhaps the black and white film was a good choice, eh?). On trial are four judges, and each represented a different kind of mindset. Each approached the problem differently, but arrived at the same destination of assisting the Nazi government in sterilizing and executing innocent people. One was scared, and one was obedient. Only one was a really terrible person, who took the government's policies of hatred and ran with it. And finally, there was the tragic figure, a patriotic, brilliant, and dignified man who thought he was helping his country be great. As these men are on trial, you feel that all of Germany is, too. Where does the blame of letting something happen stop? Are the rest of the citizens of the world fully guiltless? The defense brings up Winston Churchill's praise of Hitler as late as 1938, as well as American Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes support of the idea of sterilizing the mentally incompetent.

Tense is maybe the word of the day for this movie. The German people are rebuilding, ashamed of what happened, embarrassed for their country and anxious to prove to the occupying Allies that they are not all Hitlers. The Soviet Union is making advances, and as a Cold War seems imminent, many U.S. officials want to make sure that the Germans are on their side. Both the defense and the prosecuting attorneys are passionate about their cases, one wanting to recoup some shred of dignity for Germany, the other haunted by memories of liberating Dachau and wanting to see justice done. And then there is the main judge of the case himself, as he is forced to pass judgment on a man that he respects within his own profession.

Judgment at Nuremberg is both an investment in time and emotion. Surprisingly, the three hour dialogue-driven film does not drag, though I suppose you have to be into that sort of thing. It raises a lot of questions and then leaves them for you to answer for yourself. It is a beautiful, powerful film that represents a very tense and sticky time. If I were a history teacher, I'd make it required viewing. As I am not, I'll just recommend it heavily. See this movie, even if it's only for Captain Kirk and Dorothy.

my special day.

My birthdays are traditionally underwhelming. I have no one to blame but myself. I don't like to make a big deal about my birthday. I hate it when people manage to bring up the fact that the anniversary of their birth is today or tomorrow or next month. It feels like a plea for attention and above the age of, oh, say 16, is just sort of obnoxious. (There are people whom I love that do this, and I'd like to state that I do love them still, but sometimes even people you love do annoying things.)

A notable exception was my twenty-first birthday, when I was just so over the top with excitement that I found myself unable to keep it in. (Addressing whether my excitement was indicative of a larger problem is not a topic for today's discussion.) People asked me how I was, and they were informed that it was my birthday. They reacted about the way that I do when other people do that. "Oh. Happy Birthday." I don't feel that I was trying to get attention, I was just excited. And maybe that is what other people are feeling, because it's their "special day."

Birthdays are not inherently special, but we live in a culture that makes them so. If you'd spent your whole life believing you'd been born on one day, only to find out at age 45 that you were actually born three months earlier, which day would you celebrate? Okay, probably both.

I can yammer on about silly cultural traditions all day long, but at the end of it all, I was still raised in this silly culture, and so I expect my special day, too. "You know, this birthday business is just an excuse for people to feel good about themselves and have a party. It's just another day that doesn't really mean anything. I suppose you could argue that it's a good time for reflection upon your life, but do you really need an assigned time for that? Wait, is that cake?"

Because of all the build-up that birthdays get, I always expect to feel different somehow on the actual day. I am apparently a very slow learner, because I never feel any different. I don't feel older or wiser or even sort of glowing. In fact, I have to keep reminding myself that on this very day in 1982, I made a wet and screaming entrance into the world. Hmm, I need to pay rent tomorrow...but it's my birthday today. I'm out of milk...on my birthday. This code that I wrote isn't quite working...on my birthday.

To sum up, I don't want to make a big deal on my birthday. But if someone else wants to make a big deal about my birthday, then that is just fine. Pass the cake, give me a silly crown to wear, just don't say that I asked for it. I'm just special today, that's all.

Christmas cakey.

Upon hearing that I was about to turn 25 without a ring on my finger, my Uncle Jack called me a "Christmas cakey." I was confused, because that doesn't make any sense at all. Is that like a Christmas cake? And if so, is that like a Christmas pie? I don't really eat cake at Christmas.

"A Christmas cakey?"

"You know, because it gets passed around and no one wants it."

"Oooooh, a fruitcake!"

"A Christmas cakey is how they say it in Japan."

I thought about how weird the Japanese were, that they adopted this English term and then pronounced it wrong. Granted, we do this sort of thing all the time, as it seems the French are often bitching about how we've stolen a word of theirs and tainted it with our German-derived pronunciations. Just go to a restaurant in Paris and ask what they've got "a la carte" and then taste the haughty French spit in your drink. It just never occurred to me that other cultures might do the same to us. And, given the word sake," to say "cakey" actually sounds like a pretty reasonable interpretation of "cake." What's really funny is how they've taken this phrase, Japanized the pronunciation and then applied it as a metaphor for women who don't get married young enough for arbitrary societal standards.

It makes you wonder, of all the things that we could have given the Japanese, why fruitcake? Did all the people who have received fruitcakes they didn't want finally catch upon the idea of sending them to foreign countries? I really wonder whether they just heard the custom of passing around fruitcakes or if perhaps they developed it on their own because even they didn't want them.

All these thoughts passed through my mind before it occurred to me that I'd just been insulted. Maybe that's why I'm still a Christmas cakey.

* Wiki research shows that the term "Christmas cake" is used in the UK. In Japan, it's not a fruitcake at all, but just a spongy one marinated in liquor. The cakes are often saved to be eaten the following Christmas as a symbolic high five to the Ghost of Christmas Past.

The cakes are also used in a growing New Years custom involving hurling them at the girls who turned 25 that year without nabbing a husband. This last part was completely made up by me, but if you saw it in Wikipedia, I bet you'd believe it.

we can always use some more electrical equipment.

My boyfriend is a collector of vintage electrical equipment. Most of you would say that he collects old, broken crap. Some days, that's what I say, too. But usually, I'm more generous with my phrasing, perhaps because I'm used to it. My ex-boyfriend also collected old, broken crap and there are members of my family who have old, broken crap collections, too. I should admit that I've held onto a piece of OBC longer than I should have once or twice, though usually, I'm more into ugly, kitschy crap.

Anyway, Josh and I were driving through Cary one day and happened upon the largest example of OBC that either of us had ever seen. Josh requested that I take out my new, working digital camera (not crap) and take pictures, as he could hardly add this particularly stellar piece to his bedroom-based collection.



I sort of like vintage electrical equipment, myself. (See what I did there? When I like it, it's called "vintage electrical equipment." Writers are shifty.) It's sort of fascinating to look at it and think that it used to be state of the art. Back then, the concept of a digital camera had not been born. Then I try to think of things that might be state of the art once my digital camera has become vintage electrical equipment, but I give up. I get as far as go-go-gadget helicopters and realize that I can't think outside the box enough to realize what would even be possible. The future is kinda fun that way.

But here's to the past.

tumblin' tumbleweeds.

We were at a stoplight on our way to the zoo, and the eighteen-wheeler in the lane next to mine was over the line that should have been running between us. Driving next to trucks in a compact car always makes me a little nervous anyway, but I hate it when they start to infringe on what the department of transportation mandates is my turf. But what could I do? I could ram the guy for all I'm worth, and perhaps on his next stop he might have noticed a little red paint on his bumper.

The light changed, the truck pulled ahead. Lying on the road underneath the truck and explaining its position was a tumbleweed. Apparently, trucks give birth to tumbleweeds. There's so much about this Midwestern life that I know nothing about.

Josh was excited, because he had never seen a tumbleweed in real life before. I wasn't that excited, because though I couldn't remember specifically when, I did have the vague notion that I've seen one at some point previous.

"We should go get it," he exclaimed.

"And do what with it?" I asked, quite logically.

"Take it home!" he replied.

"Home?" I responded, afraid of where he was going with this.

"To North Carolina!"

I'd like to pause at this point in the story and point out that I consider myself to be a much mellower person than my mother. She is, bless her heart, a bit uptight and excitable. While this trait makes her very detail-oriented and a good person to plan for something, when things go a bit awry, she freaks out. I have a trace of this in me, but either I hide it better or the trait is one of those that becomes more pronounced with age.

However, when Josh started talking about transporting this two foot tall tumbleweed back to North Carolina, I freaked out. I was already picturing driving around with the tumbleweed behind us, explaining its presence to my parents, carrying it through the airport, taking it through security.

"Ma'am, what's this in your bag?"

"It's a tumbleweed, sir."

"Why do you have a tumbleweed, ma'am?"

"It's my boyfriend's. He's going to keep it in his room at the mental asylum. They took away his pet boulder."

Despite every bone in my body, even the tiny ones in my ear, vehemently protesting the idea, I agreed to turn around and get the tumbleweed. I didn't want to be a killjoy, a party pooper, a Salsola spoilsport. Secretly, I was hoping that Josh would come to his senses. Sometimes in love, you have to gamble a bit.

We continued on to the zoo, our new pet in the backseat, already shedding. By the time we got there, the back of the car was covered with the beginnings of little tumbleweeds. I suppose that's part of the design. The tumbleweed is like a sailor sowing his oats at every port, its transient nature is the key to its continuation as a species. And either the sight of the mess already made or the sight of my frown was enough to bring Josh back from the brink of insanity change Josh's mind.

He was contented to allow me to take pictures of him standing proudly next to the tumbleweed before releasing it in the wild, sort of, but not at all like the end of White Fang. I would post the pictures for you to see, but I'm afraid that you, seeing my handsome boyfriend, would try to lure him away from me.

"Hey, sugar, I'd let you have a pet tumbleweed..."

local color.

There are several steps to true thrift store patronage.

1. Entering a thrift store, perhaps accidentally.
2. Buying something used as a joke or costume.
3. Buying something that you would actually use/wear on a regular basis that you happened to notice while looking for a joke or costume.
4. Entering a thrift store while not searching for a joke or costume.
5. Buying multiple items on multiple trips to the thrift store because you're financially disadvantaged.
6. Buying multiple items on multiple trips to the thrift store because money's a bit tight.
7. Buying multiple items on multiple trips to the thrift store when you have no financial restrictions other than personal thriftiness.
8. Entering a thrift store with the intent of looking for a specific item (e.g . jeans) when you have no financial restrictions other than personal thriftiness.
9. Buying a gift for someone else at a thrift store when you have no financial restrictions other than personal thriftiness.
10. Entering a thrift store while on vacation in a town other than your own.

I know these steps, for I have taken them all. You may be horrified. If so, we probably don't hang out much. There may be more steps yet; I'll let you know when I find them. I see the ten steps as an evolution of thought. You start out with the idea the new is better, then work up to the idea that used is just as good, but cheaper, til finally you start thinking that something is better because it has been used.

While I could probably write long, passionate entries about each of those steps, I'm still in Kansas mode, and so it's the last on which I'll concentrate: Thrift stores are the best places to get souvenirs.

I'm a big fan of used items anyway. I like things which are unusual, I like things which have a history, and I like things cheap. It's a win-cubed situation. Each trip to a thrift store is a treasure hunt through the trash of other men. And so to pass up the opportunity of visiting the trash piles of people in a completely different part of the country is more than I can bear.

But there is something more genuine about thrift store souvenirs. This souvenir shot glass is a remembrance of my visit to Kansas, but this used flannel work jacket and this university football practice jersey are relics of daily life in Kansas. We are remembering the place itself instead of just our limited experience as outsiders. Yeah, there's a space museum there, but so are there hundreds of people who pass by it daily on the way to work.

Perhaps you need the nine steps before to appreciate the ideas behind the tenth. I would not be in the least surprised that most people don't give a crap about the daily life in their vacation destinations, and that's fine. You can still have a great time in Kansas eating at Applebees (*shudder*) and buying t-shirts at the airport. I guess I just want to soak up every bit of new experience possible, the stuff that I cannot get at home. I want local color, not Anytown gray.

If you don't get it, you don't get it. You take your vacations your way, and I'll take mine. Just don't expect any used presents from me, bucko.

salt of the earth.

We can be happy underground.
-Ben Folds Five

People are naturally curious about Kansas. The most common question is "What are you going to do there?" However, they don't mean it the same way they do when they're asking about your upcoming trip to the Bahamas. They really mean, "What is there to do there?"

There is stuff to do in Kansas. I know, for I have done them.

In the town of Hutchinson, known as "Hutch" to natives and visiting North Carolinians, there exist two sites that may interest any wayfaring wanderers. In fact, both of them have been nominated to be one of the 8 Wonders of Kansas. I have no idea why Kansas in particular gets a whole extra wonder than the rest of the world, particularly since none of the Wonders of the World are in the Sunflower State. One of these Hutch-based, wonder-worthy sites is a space museum, and the other is a salt mine 650 feet below the town, leaving one to believe that Hutchinson isn't that exciting at ground level. The town is also the home of the largest and longest grain elevator in the world. I viewed the grain elevator in question, and was heard to remark, "Man, that's a big grain elevator. Uh, honey, I think we're lost." I guess I was less than amazed.

Hutch is the Salt City, though it used to be called Temperance City. Perhaps the name change came when the townspeople started drinking a lot of margaritas. More likely, it came when the salt mine was discovered and ten or so salt companies suddenly popped up.

I've always thought that your guide could make or break a tour experience. A good tour guide is interesting, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic about the subject matter. A good tour guide is willing and able to answer follow-up questions. A good tour guide makes you want to spend lots of money at the requisite gift shop.

In case it is not obvious yet, I would like to state plainly that we did not have a good tour guide. He was not interesting, knowledgeable, or enthusiastic. He was unable to answer follow-up questions. Not only did we not want to spend lots of money at the gift shop, we wanted our $13.50 tour fees back. Our experience was so bad that we purposefully voted against the Underground Salt Musuem in the 8 Wonders of Kansas contest. We filled our ballots with checkboxes next to sites we'd never been to, just to make it clear that the salt mine should not get a vote.

The Underground Salt Mine and Museum tour started out well enough. We were given hard hats, a safety lecture, and a personal rescue device meant to allow us to breathe for up to ninety minutes in case of a gas leak. We were advised not to lick the walls. As far as tours go, that's pretty hard-core. We boarded a two-level elevator and descended down, down, down towards the general direction of China in the pitch black. Someone asked how long it took to get up and down, to which our guide replied, "About a minute. It's the same going up or down."

"Only if you take the elevator," I said.

Once we reached the bottom, we found ourselves in a long room, hundreds of feet long. The ceilings were high and patterned, as if cut by machine. The walls were striated various shades of gray, and never before have I felt such an urge to lick a wall before. The floors were smooth, the air was cool. We boarded a small tram and waited. I was excited at the time, because the idea was so neat. A museum! UNDERGROUND!

Had the ballot for the 8 Wonders of Kansas included a category for "Site with Most Wasted Potential," I would've given it to the salt mine. It's such a great idea and very different from any museum I've ever been to. Where else do you get a personal breathing apparatus? What other place recommends that you do not lick the walls?

So sitting in my tram, taking goofy pictures of Josh and me with our silly hard hats, I had no idea that the best part of the tour was already over.

I'm about to say unkind things about our tour guide, who I'll call Steve. If he gave us his name, I didn't catch it, which is bad form, I think. How can I be your friend on this, our underground journey, if I don't know your name? However, since I am southern and therefore don't wish to seem like a mean person, I'll be sure to throw in a "bless his heart."

Steve, bless his heart, had a speech impediment.

I feel for those who stutter, I really do. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to be unable to express yourself fast enough that people will listen to you. How irritating it must be for others to constantly finish your sentences for you! Even if a stutterer is never cured, I do hope that one can find people who are patient and understanding as well as a career where one can thrive and be happy.

Don't be tour guides. Other careers to mark off your list: disc jockey, telephone operator, TV weatherman, auctioneer, President of the United States.

I think that I could have been okay with St-St-Steve as a tour guide had it been worth it to listen to what he was trying to say. I could probably be patient if I was rewarded at the end of it. But Steve did not reward listeners. He talked, badly, and said nothing.

"Up here, on your right, up here, you'll see, a, uh, well, it's what's called, a, uh, a wall, uh, the miners call it a...gob wall, and it's called a...we call it a, uh, a gob wall, because you see, it's called a gob wall, and the miners, they, uh, well, they just gob things together to make...it, the gob wall, they gob together stuff to make the, uh, gob...wall. In the, uh, mine. They do this, they make this gob wall, what is called...the gob wall, to close off part of the mine, with the gob wall, and that's done to control air...to control air flow. So to control the air flow in the mine, they, the miners in the mine, build this, what's called a gob wall, to control the air flow."

AAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!

A tour guide should answer your questions, not create more. Going down, down, down in that elevator, I had one question. Just how do they mine salt anyway? After that one speech in front of the gob wall, I had a bunch more. How do they decide where to build the wall? By control the air flow, does that mean control where the air goes or what kind of air comes in? How do they know if bad air is there? Does bad air mean poisonous air or just too much or what? Where does the air come from? Is the bad air caused by the sighs of frustration from tourists? Also, just how do they mine salt anyway?

Every stop was like this: a mangled speech about something that we were looking at that left me more confused than before. It was painful. I wondered if my personal rescue device would give me access to some sort of air that would put me in a better mood, like pure oxygen or laughing gas. It seemed like Steve had simply glanced over some information before starting - perhaps he did it in the elevator on the ride down. Later, Josh and I toyed with the idea of doing the research ourselves and sending them a script with strict instructions to use it exactly.

At one point, we were allowed to vacate the tram and dig through a big pile of rock salt. We were given tiny canvas bags and told to fill them with as much free salt as we wanted to commemorate our visit to the Kansas Underground Salt Mine. I wondered if this was how the miners did it. I could've asked Steve, but he might have tried to answer me.

By the time the guided part of the tour was over, we were left to wander through some exhibits. One of them was the display created by the marketing minds at Underground Vaults and Storage. A long time ago, someone came up with the brilliant idea of charging people to store things in the salt mine for them, where their valuables would be safe from weather, natural disasters, theft, and slugs. A lot of movie studios and some governments make use of the underground storage; in fact, the master copies of The Wizard of Oz are there.

The display was basically a timeline of twentieth century events that could have caused damage to items stored in traditional methods. However, it all seemed pretty irrelevant. That is quite impressive that the storage units were unaffected by either the 9/11 attacks or Hurricane Katrina, but I bet that had more to do with the fact that they were hundreds of miles away. Now that I think about it, nothing in my apartment was harmed in those events, either. Perhaps I should get into the storage business. I understand that the point is that the units are immune to the general idea of terrorist attacks, but couldn't they just say that? It irritated me that the whole thing was a sales pitch, when it could have just been fun trivia. I'm just Jane Kansas-Tourist. I don't have anything worth saving underground.

And then finally, it was the underground gift shop, where they had t-shirts and hats that said things like "Salt of the Earth" and "Where the sun REALLY don't shine." I am related to people who would enjoy this kind of humor, but they didn't have my dad's size. Okay, fine, I thought they were kinda funny, too. Back up, up, up the elevator, where Steve encouraged us all to vote for the Underground Salt Museum to be one of the 8 Wonders of Kansas. It was dark, so I felt free to roll my eyes.

It's not that I'm saying you should never visit the Underground Salt Mine and Museum. I would just, you know, wait a few years. Give them a chance to do a little research, train some tour guides, get speech therapy for Steve. They've got a fantastic space down there, if only they'd figure out how to show it. Go now, and you're just setting yourself up for disappointment. Someday, I hope to have a wonderful time 650 feet below the town of Hutchinson, Kansas. Sadly, that experience has not been (groan) mine.

my kansas roots.

To: Developers_Group; Support_Group
From: Sandra
Subject: Vacation

I will be on vacation from Wednesday, October 10 - Friday, October 12. I will be in Kansas.

Go ahead and start with the Dorothy jokes.

Sandra

For the most part, it's a good thing to work in an office where everyone can joke around. But if you're announcing your upcoming vacation in what is widely considered the most boring state in the country, you can expect all your quips and asides to come back at you.

I'm going to Kansas, maybe for the last time. Even if I do someday enter within the borders of the Sunflower State again, it won't be the same thing as "going to Kansas." See, our annual family vacations consisted of piling the whole bunch into as many vehicles required and then driving from North Carolina to Kansas. While there, we would spend several days enjoying the local, uh, attractions and visiting my maternal grandparents. Then we'd drive back. Each leg of the trip was two full days of driving, rising earlier than the sun did and arriving at our destination sometime after it had disappeared over the horizon.

People have always found our annual pilgrimages fascinating. In fact, they find the fact that I have a Kansas connection fascinating. Suddenly, I become the closest thing they've ever known of a person who came from Kansas. "I'm not from Kansas," I tell them, "My mother is from Kansas." They shrug and ask if it's really as flat as they've heard. Josh is particularly amused by it. His last two ex-girlfriends had Nicaraguan and Chinese heritage. Yeah, well, his current girlfriend is half-Kansan.

I don't know how Kansan I actually am. There is a lot of my mother in me, but how much of it is from her home state and how much of it is just her? I do claim my midwestern heritage, but I'm not sure why. I feel certain that it's a part of me, but I'm not sure which part: my skin tone, my sense of humor, my love of corn? Is it really only from all those week-long visits as a kid?

It seems now that my Kansan roots are being uprooted. My grandmother, eighty-seven years old in the shade, is moving from her gigantic farmhouse, which is mere miles from where she was born, to a tiny town in the mountains of western North Carolina. My parents are going to fetch her and bring her to her new home, vastly different from her old in that it has trees and hills and, you know, neighbors. Not a lot, and you can't see them because of the aforementioned trees, but neighbors nonetheless. She's selling the farmhouse and the barn and a chunk of the land. So even if I happen to find myself driving down a long and straight road with neverending fields on either side of me, I can't go back to the farm. I suppose I'll just be like all the other Kansas tourists. I can only assume they're from Oklahoma or Nebraska or somewhere really boring.

And, because it's my last chance, I'm taking Josh. It seems like a big deal to me, like bringing him to Thanksgiving at my parents', but times a hundred. I've watched all my siblings bring spouses through the initiation ritual of a Kansas trip. It's bonding by shared experience. I'm sorry that you don't like taking baths, but this dusty farmhouse with no showers is a part of my childhood. That decrepit barn is important to me, so take my picture in front of it before it falls down. To us kids, it's a shared family memory. Even though everyone didn't get to go every year, we all have the same idea of what going to Kansas smells and sounds and tastes like. It's a bit hard to explain to our peers, who went to the beach during their summer vacations. How can you know what it's like to be in this family if you've never been to Kansas?

buggin'.

"Would you like to try the mealworm marinara?"

The thing about eating food with bugs in it is that it's all in your head. I have a history of unpleasant bug eating, starting with chowing down on a locust after receiving some bad advice from an older brother, on to eating a cricket in a sucker as a matter of pride. But I found myself in line at Cafe Insecta only for personal pride. No one knew me there, so I wasn't going to lose face by not getting my recommended daily allowance of grasshoppers. I'm not sure why I was in line, really, except that I knew that I was dreading it, and somehow that was reason enough that I should grab a plate and say, "Please, sir, may I have some more?"

Bugfest is put on every year in downtown Raleigh by the NC Museum of Natural Sciences. I like festivals, and I guess bugs are pretty cool, so I wanted to go.

The outdoor activities were mostly hands-on things for kids. They varied by the sponsors. So the North Carolina Beekeepers association had a bunch of hives on view behind glass, and some local dance studio led a bunch of little girls dressed as butterflies in basic frolicking around a giant flower. There was also a sort of bug Olympics, where little kids pretended to be dung beetles and pushed giant balls around with their stomachs. The balls were brown, of course. There was a flea circus, and I found out once and for all that flea circus is a pretty literal term. It was a circus in a suitcase. I guess there were fleas involved, though it was hard to tell from my vantage point of ten feet away. Maybe the entertainment is really in having a lively ringleader.

Inside the museum was four floors devoted to educating minds about all kinds of bugs. There were live bugs for holding and live bugs only for looking. There were dead bugs held in place by stickpins. There were a billion little kids, and not only little boys. Perhaps some little girls have some snakes and snails mixed in with the sugar and spice. I wished I had a little kid to drag around, because my excitement over the creepy crawlies was really not enough to sustain my interest at any one booth for very long. It was truly a lost opportunity to be a cool Aunt Sandra. I did spend a little money, because I'm really good at that. One booth was selling beautiful rainforest butterflies in frames, the proceeds of which were to benefit the beautiful rainforests. I didn't buy a bug coffin suitable for framing, but I did buy a necklace charm which contained a butterfly wing. Of course it's gorgeous, especially if you don't know what it is. Whether it's cool or just creepy, I feel no need to decide.

But then after I'd looked at all the exhibits and admired all the many six-legged creatures, I found myself facing my fears at Cafe Insecta. The buffet was a free service provided by museum dollars, an opportunity to gross out all the little kids. It started innocently enough, with a smashing shrimp dip, but then it quickly went downhill with ant hummus. There was grasshopper stirfry, lasagna with mealworms, and some spicy crawfish with vegetables, the last which I would have gladly eaten anyway. There was a lovely worm and watercress salad, some hush "grubbies," and some friend crunchy thing with six-legged crunchy things inside. It was all undeniably gross, and I will allow the teenage girl inside of me to confess that the Ew factor was very high. But I did it. I didn't go back for seconds, and I had to talk to myself a little bit ("it's all in your head, you can't even taste it, it's all in your he- ew, a worm!"). So now I've done it, and I feel no need to do it again. Sure, I'll wear dead insects on a string around my neck, but I'm definitely above eating them.

return to sender.

I occasionally get misdirected emails. There are people out there who think that they have my email address. Perhaps they wish to be more like me. Or maybe they're just forgetful. It's a bit annoying, having people who forget that they're not you, because you get spammed that way. So I get emails from companies directed to Sandra SomeOtherLastName. But I also get some real correspondence, too. I always read them, because I have no moral qualms about reading email that was sent to me, whether the other person knew they were sending it to me or not. Sometimes I delete it, and sometimes I respond, telling the other person that they've got the wrong address, please stop sending me e-cards of butterflies and flowers. I periodically get reminders to get pick up my cat's medications in Houston, and I once had a really hard time convincing a Colorado technical college that I had not missed my meeting with my academic advisor.

The problem was actually worse with my previous email address. I would get daily emails meant for other people. I got several letters from a guy in prison who thought he was writing to his mom. He told me a lot of fascinating details about some sort of Little Debbie scandal. Apparently, he'd been framed by some execs, thus his stint in the big house. I really wish that I had saved those.

I got a new email this morning, one from a teacher at the Anglo-American School of Moscow.

Good Evening!

As you may know, we have had a substitute teacher assistant all week. Today our substitute teacher assistant needed to go home ill and another substitute assistant arrived to assist our class. Brian* had great difficulty with this change and was not listening to the substitute's instructions and was acting very silly during the break and at lunch. I know that change is a difficult thing to deal with, but Brian needs to listen to all adults that speak to him and also needs to stay in control when these changes occur. The substitute assistant spoke to him and so did I. Could you also speak to him about listening to adults and showing respect for all?

I felt such a plea needed a response. What if Brian's problems continued, and he became President of the Russian Federation and restarted the Cold War...all because of me! I had to reply.

As much as I would love to give little Brian a talking-to, I think you have the wrong email address. I don't have any children. If I did, I would be sure to teach them to show respect to all adults.

I hope you're able to track down Brian's parents and that his behavior problems desist.

Ladies and gentleman, I have saved us all from certain Strangelovian doom. Thank me later.

*By the way, the kid's name was not Brian. Trust me, you'll never guess it.

my aim is true.

I'm not really an Elvis fan, but I did see him last week.

When a free concert ticket comes my way, I generally take it. And so it was in this way that I ended up stuck in the line of SUVs on the way to the Elvis Costello concert. This was Josh's dad's birthday present, to take his two sons to see Elvis with the Raleigh Symphony Orchestra. His oldest son's girlfriend got to come, too.

Like I said, I'm not really a fan of Elvis Costello. His music is something I'll probably be really into at some point later. When I listen to it, I enjoy it, but I don't really come back. Then someday, something will click in my head and suddenly, I'll know every word to My Aim is True. I tell you this from experiencing the same phenomena many times with other acts. (See The Violent Femmes, Ween, Modest Mouse).

I don't say much on the drive over. I like Josh's dad, but I grew up in an environment that didn't stress either music or literature, his true loves. Besides, I like watching the three guys interact with each other, because they're all so much alike. Later, I will ask them to postpone the discussion of who is the greatest living guitarist until after the concert. I sometimes wonder how much the father lives through the sons. He's got their band's CD playing in the car, and they talk about the possibility of covering a song from his old band. I am at most every show, but he's probably the biggest fan. For now, they're talking about cartoons, another of their shared interests. Josh's dad says he isn't able to stay awake to see the late night ones, but he can usually catch the 10 PM reruns of Futurama.

One thing I can participate in is the running joke of making fun of Cary, the high-class suburb of Raleigh where the concert is being held. I have to admit that the venue is beautiful, all cobblestone and pine trees, but I know I'm paying for it with these $6 beers. Yeah, that is the fancy beer price, but when the Budweiser is $5, you might as well pay the extra buck and drink something good. Our seats are general admission lawn seats, and so we stand at the back.

Costello comes out in a tuxedo and says lots of charming British things. Or rather, they were normal hello-how-are-you things, but they sounded charming with a British accent. He introduces the "band" - the Raleigh Symphony Orchestra. That's a long way from The Attractions. "Give it up for my main man on the cello!" (insert long, rockin' cello solo here)

The first few songs are purely instrumental, written by Costello (I think). He started out in 1977 as a rock star, but like most of the audience, he's mellowed in the last thirty years. He then starts moving into the old favorites, saying "If I don't play 'Allison' tonight, there might be a riot later." He plays the guitar, but there are no face-melting solos. He's playing rock and roll songs, but is he playing rock and roll?

The men are torn. I can see it in the way they bob their heads to the drums and guitar sounds that aren't playing right now, but are in the albums in their heads. They play a little subtle air guitar and make the noises that the symphony won't. They're happy to be here, but sad that this is the way it is.

We slip out during the encore, after Costello has fulfilled his promise of playing "Allison." Josh's dad talks about how good it is that Costello has not sold out, how if he just played the old favorites as he wrote them, he could sell out huge auditoriums. Instead, he's doing what he wants, experimenting with new music for less money. Me, I think Costello probably makes more than he can complain about, but if he does that doing what he wants, more power to him.

Later, when we are at home, Josh plays My Aim is True for me from a vinyl disc older than either of us. He's grateful to me for listening to it with him, despite having spent the evening listening to the same songs. But to him, they were not the same songs.

Some rock stars never get old, but the ones who survive age along with the rest of us. We're still young enough to think that there's nothing worse than getting old and slowing down. But Josh's dad understands, because he was twentysomething in a rock band back in the 70s, too. Now he can't stay awake to see the late night cartoons. It's not good or bad; it's just the way it is.