The Da Vinci Code

May 20, 2006

I’ve found over the years, (ever since my truck accident in 1985), that having a terrible memory requires a lot of extra work. You have to write everything down, or do something as soon as you think of it. Otherwise, you forget.

This is probably why I rarely sit down – I’m always jumping up, doing something I just remembered I need to do.

There’s one advantage to this problem, however. Seeing a movie based on a book I’ve read is just like reading the book for the first time again, only quicker. I have to disagree with the New York Times assessment that “‘The Da Vinci Code' is a code that takes longer to watch than read.” Last night my friend Rashmi and I used some free movie tickets that I had (leftover from a Microsoft Christmas gift a couple years ago) to see the movie on its opening day in Columbia. We're glad we did.

I was unaware beforehand that my favorite actor from “Das Boot” (Jürgen Prochnow) plays Andre Vernet in the movie – so that was a pleasant surprise. Also, the lead female, Sophie Neveu, is played by Audrey Tatou, the adorable actress that who starts in the light-hearted romp of a movie called "Amelie." Of course, I don’t recall Tom Hanks ever making a bad movie—nor Ron Howard, for that matter. “The Da Vinci Code” is definitely worth seeing in the theater.

I won’t say much more than that, for those who haven’t seen the movie yet. And I won't say anything about how the ending compares to the book.

So, my kitties are still battling it out. Madison is getting better, I think. If Martin didn’t hiss at her when she invades his personal space, I don’t think she’d bother him much at all - except maybe in a quest to get him to play with her. ("Martin" and "play" don't belong in the same sentence together.)

Last weekend I gave her a stern warning to be nice to Martin or return to a life of incarceration – and it’s as if she heard me. The next couple of confrontations she had with Martin, she just sat there looking at him from a safe distance of about six feet. She never pounced, and never hissed – good little girl that she is. :)

So we’re still trying.

What is it about cats and catnip? I got some fresh catnip out for Madison last Saturday (right after vacuuming the entire house). She proceeded to sit in it like a kid in a sand box. Her long hair was soon coated in little green flakes, which she managed to leave all over the house. When I came back, there was catnip everywhere.

Man, I wish I was a cat. Humans don't get the pleasure of jumping into, say, a big vat of chocolate. Cats get away with everything.

Kitty Update

May 13, 2006

Man, this kitty business is taking a lot out of me – mostly emotionally! Martin is not a fighter. Even since Miss Madison came on the scene, my sweet adorable Martin has not gone into attack mode. His defense is to retreat. Every time. He’s a lover, not a fighter, I swear!. (Notwithstanding the evil kitty pictured here. . . .)

It all started with normal hissing. Martin is simply warning her that he is king and she shouldn't mess with him. Over the past 5-1/2 weeks, Martin has added this alien deep, throaty growl to his hissing - it's a scary sound I've never heard before; while Miss Madison has decided that pouncing upon poor Martin while he’s cornered is the best response. Ugh! That’s not what I want her to do!

Honestly, I don't think she's being mean. I think the pouncing is all a front. I am pretty sure she just doesn’t know what to do with this big Tom cat that outweighs her by 4.3 pounds. (Originally I thought he was twice her weight, but after their vet visits I found out she’s a lot bigger than I thought – 11.5 pounds – and that Martin had lost a few pounds since New York. He's down to 15.8, his lowest weight yet since I got him. He's my lean, mean, fraidy cat machine.)

The attacking has been tearing me up because Martin seems petrified of Madison. I broke up every fight as soon as she pounced on the innocent Martin. And, event though the nice lady at Howard County Animal Control told me to let them finish a fight, I’ve had a really hard time not protecting Martin – so there’s been no resolving anything!

Unfortunately, Martin was about six months overdue for a medical check-up, so last night I took him to the vet. It turned into a disaster. He was so agitated when they tried to get his blood pressure that he hid in the crevice on the floor behind the examination table and wouldn’t let anyone go near him. He even hissed and bared his teeth at me! I'd never seen him like this before and attributed it to the stress of Madison's advances added to the terror of going to a vet (and a new vet at that). I felt badly for him – as did the doctor.

Finally, I distracted Martin, and the assistant pulled him out by the scruff of the neck. (I read somewhere that cats hate it when you do that to them.) We managed to get him back in his carry bag. . . all but his head. The idea was to calm him down enough to finish the exam. Everyone left the room but me, and I petted his exposed head and tried to soothe him for several minutes. He was so upset. Eventually, he had enough of that crap. He wanted out of that bag and out of that room so badly that he hissed at me – in a gentle, warning sort of way. I pushed him all the way into the bag and zipped it up.

When the doc came back in, I told him that Martin wasn’t going to let him go anywhere near him. So he sent us home at no charge, and we rescheduled for June. I felt terrible for poor Martin. At that moment, I decided that Madison had to go back to the shelter. No matter what, I wasn’t going to let her out of her room last night so Martin could regroup.

But later when I went in to play with her and comb her, she purred and nuzzled her face against mine over and over. So I got all teary-eyed at the thought of sending her back to animal control today. I couldn't bear the idea of incarcerating her again. I'm such a bad mom! I had to leave the room just to stop crying. (Now who's the big baby?)

Today I got up early and got Madison's papers in order. I planned to take her back to Animal Control when they opened at 10:00. But I thought about it some more and decided that I’d probably regret giving her up without trying one last time and actually letting them fight it out at least once, as advised by an expert.

Ugh. So today while Martin was up in his perch I coaxed Madison into the room. She got within about eight feet of him, saw him, and said nothing. He saw her and hissed. She meowed back at him and hissed a little. Then she sat down for a bit and just looked at him, not going a paw closer. Finally she gave up, turned around, and walked away. Progress! For once she didn’t jump him. (I think that’s because he was higher up than she was – which gives him an offensive advantage.) She has spent the rest of the day minding her own business, even though all doors are wide open.

Martin has been in one of his kitty beds behind my TV chair in the corner of the basement. At one point, I couldn't find Madison in the house. I went up and down the stairs calling to her a couple times. Usually she comes when I call. Finally, I saw her walking out of the TV room! But there hadn't been a fight (I would've heard it). That means she was in the same room with him without pestering him. Either that, or she didn't know he was in there, which I find hard to believe.

So we’re trying again. I’ll give it a little more time. Maybe we can break Madison of this habit after all. Martin seems to have recuperated from the vet disaster. In fact, last night , he repeatedly visited me while I was watching TV in the basement. Each time he'd look me right in the eye as if to say, “Do you forgive me?”

My poor baby.

"That's right, Missy. You'd better stay where you are."

Mean Girl

May 11, 2006

Well, things aren't going so well with the two kitties. My poor sweet Martin. He just wants to mind his own business, (sleep and eat all day - between belly rubs, that is). He does everything he can to avoid Miss Madison. She, on the other hand, is an instigator. She seeks him out in one of his hiding places and deliberately antagonizes him. He sits there growling and hissing at her in a very stern and controlled manner, as if to say, "Don't even think about it, little girl." Sometimes he pretends he's sleeping. He never advances. If in a position to run, he retreats. But if he's backed into a corner, she insists on moving closer and closer to him, (in plain site, no less!), eventually pouncing.

Ugh. Martin's had enough. I feel badly for him being in hiding half the time. After all, this is his home. She's the intruder. And yet he's being indifferent toward her. Actually, I think he's been pretty big about the whole thing. Madison is like the bratty little sister who just doesn't know any better than to antagonize big brother. (I can relate.) As sweet as she is alone with me, she holds no affection for Martin.

So on Tuesday I called animal control and spoke to the woman there who handled my adoption of Madison. She has eight cats at home, so she has experience in this arena. She told me that, now that five weeks have passed, it's time to unleash them upon one another. Open all the doors whenever I'm at home, and let them "resolve their issues." I'm supposed to spray water if they get into a tussle paw-on-paw. So I've let her roam free most of this week - except that I still find myself trying to prevent her attacks on Martin. I've never actually gotten as far as using the water bottle. I must harder to let them work this out themselves.

Martin is so passive. He won't even fight back. He wants nothing to do with that behavior. He's tried verbally warning her, but she is nonchalant. Here she is, stalking and provoking a cat who is 50% bigger and twice as old as she is. I don't get it. Is she brave or just stupid?

Unfortunately, some articles I've read on the Web say that it can take as much as 18 months for cats to begin to get along. I don't think I can stand by as Martin is tortured this way for that long. Although I've become attached to the little "mean girl," as Peggy calls her, my loyalties are to Martin first. So I'm giving her another couple of weeks to get her act together. Then I'll decide if this is worth all the aggravation to poor Martin. It would break my heart to send her back to animal control, but it's killing me more to see Martin pinned in a corner, crouching in fear.

The whole idea was to get him a little playmate. I'm beginning to believe that he was much more content to have the place (and me) all to himself.

Meanwhile, I've never had such bad allergies in my life. The sneezing and itchy nose is driving me nuts. I had to rinse the pollen off my recently cleaned car after work yesterday. Maybe I'm just allergic to Maryland.

I also figured out something else that is strange about where I live now - it's that I miss having big things to look at - whether it be volcanoes, skyscrapers, or even vast bodies of water. Suburban Maryland does not have these marvelous wonders. . . . I give myself another year before I'm outta here and back in a real city. I'll try to last longer. We shall see.

Dullsville

May 9, 2006

This weekend my parents came up to visit me after a visit with my brother’s family in Virginia. They got here Saturday evening, so it was too late to go anywhere. I planned on showing them a couple of local “sites” on Sunday morning.

So, Sunday around 9:30 we set out for historic Ellicott City – a quaint 1800’s town with lots of antique stores, art shops, and the like. We got to Main Street, and everything was closed. I was so disappointed. So we drove through town, and then headed south to the town of Savage so that we could tour historic Savage Mill. Well, we got there, and they were closed too! A sign said that the mill opens at 11:00am. It wasn’t even 10:15 yet.

Ugh. There just isn’t that much to see here, and the only two ideas I had were closed. Mom and Dad didn’t want to go to Baltimore or D.C. or Annapolis, so I suggested we go to the outlet mall in Hanover. Mom needed a dress for a party, so she liked that idea.

We showed up at the mall at 10:40 and guess what? The mall was closed until 11am! How frustrating. My mom was like, “Is this the Bible belt?” I told her I didn't think so. Heck, I know I'm not THAT far south of the Mason-Dixon line – about 45 miles (as the crow flies). Sheesh!

Wrong I was. My neighbor Nancy told me this morning that Maryland is a Blue Law state. Because the Christians have to be in church on Sunday mornings, they expect the rest of the world to be in church, too. God forbid anyone go shopping when they could be in church!

So much for separation of church and state. My ex-husband used to call Virginia “the communist state.” I guess that goes for Maryland too.

I gotta get back to a real city. This whole fantasy of making my birth state my future home is just that now - a fantasy. Ain't gonna happen. You pay half a mil for a townhouse here - and for that, you think you'd get a mountain view or some exciting places to shop or some serious culture (museums, theater, concerts....). But no-o-o-o-o-o. You get squat. Bupkes. Your half a mil buys you screaming kids riding their scooters through community stop signes and selfish bitchy neighbors who don't care about blocking their neighbors' driveways with their Saabs, Beamers, and Mercedes. I guess rednecks come in all income brackets.

I want my money back.

Needless to say, Mom and Dad and I spent Sunday afternoon and evening with the Deluxe Scrabble board and a bottle of Scotch.

Play Ball!

April 30, 2006

What a coincidence that my friend Rashmi would get free tickets to an Orioles game for a day that the Mariners were in town. And what better luck than to have the perfect spring day for the game yesterday. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky the entire day. It was baseball weather.

Baltimore is about a 20-minute drive from my home. We went down and found parking near the convention center. Ten dollars. I was in reverse sticker-shock! Just $10 for all-day event parking? If we were in Seattle, parking that close to the stadium would start at $25 or 30 (and I don’t even want to venture a guess for the same in Manhattan).

We walked down Pratt Street and over to the famous Inner Harbor – Baltimore’s main tourist attraction. Visiting the harbor has been on my to-do list for weeks. The cool thing about going there with Rashmi is that she was raised in Maryland, so she makes a great tour guide. One interesting fact she pointed out was that the first casualties of the Civil War occurred right there on Pratt Street.

The harbor walk was packed with people walking around, renting paddleboats, taking harbor cruises, walking aboard the tall ships, and visiting the aquarium. We ate a delicious seafood lunch and then walked and shopped until game time. The views from Federal Hill Park were great.

I hadn’t been to a baseball game since my friend Tom used to take me to M’s games at Safeco field in Seattle. I learned a lot about baseball from Tom in 2001-2002 (when the Mariners were top of their league), and came to love the game. Very few people wore M’s caps or shirts at Oriole Park at Camden Yards yesterday, but I was one of them. Another cool thing about Rashmi is that she knows baseball. And she enjoys it as much as I do.

When we got to the gate, Rashmi handed me my ticket. I took one look, saw the five-dollar price tag and laughed out loud. Neither of us could believe how cheap the seats were. (If you were familiar with the company Real Interface that gave her the tickets, you'd understand.) Rashmi noted that one ticket was less than the price of parking! What can I say, I’m a cheap date. Granted, they were nose-bleed seats, but for that price I expected bleachers, not actual seats. The seats were actually pretty good. Behind home plate and slightly over on the 3rd base line side. Our view was excellent. We were almost able to call balls and strikes ourselves.

By the way, you young single men out there: Rashmi is single. Late 20’s, college degree from Boston, owns her own home, works at the F.B. I., and is something of a technology geek (but you wouldn’t know it unless you sat in the same office with her). She’s super-bright and has a warm, generous personality (and great sense of humor) to go with it. You couldn’t ask for a better friend. Oh, and she doesn’t take crap from anyone.

So that’s my plug for Rashmi (a.k.a. Tech Writer Girl). :)

Anyway, it was a weird feeling being in the opposing team’s stadium. When the 34,000 fans there cheered the O’s, I felt out of my element. And I was disappointed in the M’s. First of all, it wasn't the same Mariners team that I used to know. I didn't recognize most of the players. And the majority of them were named Jose, Luis, Ramon, Hernandez, Lopez, or Gonzales.

My Mariners did nothing for the first five innings – one hit, and that was it – while the O’s racked up runs. As soon as I got out of my seat and went to use the restroom in the 6th inning, the tables turned, and the Mariners started scoring runs right and left. I should've left my seat sooner! I missed out on Ichiro stealing a base or two and getting a run. By the time I got back to my seat, the score had gone from 4-0 to 4-3. And the O’s fans were not happy.

Every time a Mariner scored, the fans booed. I found this to be in very poor taste. Of course, by the 7th inning most fans are drunk, but that’s really no excuse for poor sportsmanship. And some 11-year old kid a few rows up behind us screamed his annoying head off the entire time. I kept thinking, “Where is his mother?” Combined with boo-ing fans, and rude fans in front of us who spent more time standing than sitting (because they kept getting up for beers and bathroom breaks), I am not sure I’m inclined to become an Orioles fan after all. We’ll see.

In any case, the M’s won 8-6! It was an exciting finale, as the closing pitcher for the Mariners kept loading up the bases, keeping me on the edge of my seat. He finally struck out the batter, and the game was over. Whew.

Baltimore is a neat city. I definitely want to go back and do some more exploring.

Petspectations

April 25, 2006

Well, the kitties are still separated. I must say, I’m proud of my Martin. He’s gotten much better about this new kitty in the house business. His recovery time after seeing, hearing, or otherwise sensing Little Miss Madison is much quicker now than during the bathtub ordeal.

Last Wednesday was the two-week mark, and Martin and I were in the kitchen. I was fixing dinner. Miss Madison had finally started displaying some real fear of the other, bigger cat - (all an illusion, trust me) – and wasn’t coming out of her room. So I left the door cracked and kept an eye on the stairwell in case she changed her mind.

My back was turned mere moments when I heard a scuffle and some loud screeches on the other side of the kitchen island. Madison had snuck in and pounced Martin! Both were surprised, I’m sure. Next thing you know, he’s running for his life down the stairs, and she’s pounding after him. I chased after and found him in a corner under a table hissing at her in the basement. I immediately took her to her room for a time out.

I was surprised at how quickly Martin recovered that time. I thought I’d never see him upstairs again. But he was wandering around in no time, being extremely stealthy when approaching the top level (where her bedroom is). He’s been good that way ever since.

So, as of a few days ago, now I leave her bedroom door opened an inch or two at all times. I have a door stop and large rubber band keeping her from opening it. Martin will carefully peer in there from a distance, never going too close.

I let several days pass before I tried another introduction. Tonight Martin was sleeping in “his” swivel chair in the living room on the middle level of my townhouse. I let Madison out. Slowly she ventured downstairs, keeping an eye out for the big ‘fraidy cat that Martin is. She went around and around the room a few times, never noticing him in the chair. I stayed between them. Finally she spotted him and hissed. He hissed back. I turned the swivel chair so they couldn’t see one another and removed Miss Madison to the stairwell. She thought about it for a minute and decided to go back to the safety of her room.

I consider that the first quasi-successful intro between the two. No major fight broke out, and I praised them both profusely.

Tomorrow will be three weeks. Slowly, but surely, I plan to make this work! My boy needs a girlfriend. (Or maybe, like me, he knows he’s better off without any complicated male-female relationship in his life.) We’ll see.

Ceiling fan is hung, and just in the nick of time. It’s warming up here in Maryland.

Reunited with Mona

April 22, 2006

Wow – hard to believe that April has nearly come and gone. It’s raining today, so I’m spending the weekend indoors, doing more home chores. I have to hang a ceiling fan in my bedroom and several IKEA shelves in the other two bedrooms. I’m finally getting settled in. All of the boxes have been unpacked, broken down, and recycled. I even came across some items from storage that I had been afraid were lost forever - the most important of those being Mona.

When I moved from Bellevue, WA, to Manhattan in late 2004, I had to box up of a number of things for storage. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to fit it all in a New York apartment. The problem is, after I moved, I couldn’t necessarily remember what had been stored. When something came up “missing” in my life – I didn’t know if the movers had lost it, or if it had ended up in storage.

Mona was one of those items. Mona was a gift from my sister-in-law Judy and brother Dave a couple Christmases ago. 2003, I think. I adore her. She's my Martini-drinking, cigarette-smoking, slutty-dressed alter ego. Since I don't drink or smoke any more (or wear slutty outfits), she does it for me. It wasn’t until I was getting ready to move to MD that I realized that I hadn’t seen her in over a year. I worried about her. Was she in a box somewhere? I dug through boxes looking for her, to no avail. Finally, after a few weeks of searching, I unveiled her from one of the very last boxes I had left to inspect. I was so happy to see her.

Things seemed much better then. Life was whole again. Mona and I were reunited. The universe was in order. Whew, that was a relief.

Kitty Adaptation

April 10, 2006

It’s been almost four full days now since I brought Little Miss Madison home from the shelter and put her up in her own guest room. According to all the literature I’ve read, you should keep a new cat separated from the existing cat for 5-14 days, introducing them slowly during that time.

A couple of times I’ve let them see each other through a cracked door. Each time, Martin has hissed at this new kitty invading his territory. That’s normal. My fear has been that Martin wouldn’t be accepting of the new cat, not vice-versa. It never occurred to me that Madison wouldn’t accept Martin. He's so docile and lazy that I figured it would be easy going for him. Boy was I wrong!

Today I tried a quick introduction to see how things would go. Martin was in the master bedroom, and I let Madison see him from the hallway with the door open. He hissed at her, and to my surprise, this little girl ran at him at full speed, chasing him under the bed! I quickly separated the two, and put her back in her room.

But poor Martin. He went into the bathtub and cowered in there for an hour. I finally took him out and put him on the bed where he cowered in the same spot, unmoving, for another 20 minutes, his eyes glued squarely on the master bedroom doorway. Finally, I picked him up and carried him downstairs so he could eat, which he did. My baby! I feel terrible. It just breaks my heart to see him so fearful in his own home. I never imagined him to be afraid of a little kitty that weighs half as much as he does. This is why you have to be careful introducing a new pet into a household that already has pets.

So, I will keep trying. Poor, poor Martin. He's my baby. I've always been so protective of him, and now I feel like I've let him down allowing this intruder in his home. I hope it works out in the long run. I really want him to have a playmate.

Madison is back in her room, purring away like nothing ever happened. Last night when I went in to play with her, I brought the little laser pointer that I’d gotten for Martin a couple years ago. Martin never showed the least bit of interest in that toy. But Madison is his polar opposite when it comes to toys. She’ll play non-stop until I’m too tired to play. The laser light is a fun toy. She thinks she’s caught the little red bug, then it disappears out from under her paws. Hee-hee!

Too Cute for Words

April 6, 2006

Martin and I have a new addition to the family. She’s a 7-year-old tabby cat from the Howard County Animal Control shelter. She was given to an 11-year-boy many years ago. That boy grew up, the parents divorced, the 19-year-old young man went to live with his father, and his dad said “No” to keeping the cat. Hence, she was dropped off at the shelter on 3/31/06. For a long time I’ve thought about getting a companion for Martin. I met this new kitty on Monday and brought her home this afternoon. She didn’t have a name.

She seemed a tad aloof when we met. A very pretty, thin girl with long hair, green eyes, and feathery feet, she immediately made me think that she should be pussy-footing down Madison Avenue. Hence, Martin and I will call her Little Miss Madison.

I had to sneak her in the house quickly before Martin could figure out what was going on. I ran her up to a third-floor bedroom, and Martin’s been hanging outside her door ever since. When you introduce a new cat to a multi-cat home, you have to do it very slowly. That means that Madison will have to stay in her own room (the guest bedroom) for several days while both cats get used to each other's smells.

Most cats take one to six months to adapt to a new home. I remember when Tom gave me Martin in late 2003, he spent most of the first several months sleeping on a comforter folded up in the bedroom closet. It was a long time before he’d let me pick him up or scratch his ears.

Madison is quite different in that respect. She purrs like crazy every time I go in her room, and she rubs up against my legs. She loves to be combed. She reaches up and rubs her face against mine. So precious! She’s a very sweet girl. I’m sure Martin will be a great friend to her. Tom (Martin's previous owner) told me that Martin lived with his sister his first 8 years, before both were given up for adoption and (unfortunately) separated. That was when Tom adopted Martin in 2000. So I think he’ll get along just fine with Madison.

I'm finally done unpacking all the boxes from our 3/3/06 move. Now I just need to finish furnishing the new townhouse and then shell out about $15K for a deck, patio, and fence. After that, the only big project is window blinds. Then I'll be done! I'm ready to be done moving.... I think Martin is too. He seems to have adjusted well and is already losing weight from running around and going up and down the stairs. That's my boy!

If it Weren’t for Bad Luck…

March 28, 2006

Ever since I left NY I’ve suffered from a chronic case of Murphy’s Law Disease. I am trying to remember what sin I committed to bring about all this bad karma. Was it the underwear I bought at Sears that I realized after I got home had not been rung up with the other stuff I paid for?

(I swear, I had every intention of going back to pay the $9.98. But, because Sears sat on $2015 they owed me for a solid month after I cancelled a washer/dryer order, I was holding those panties hostage. I swear I must have made two dozen calls to various Sears numbers, in a vain effort to get back my rightful money, weeks after the delivery date had come and gone. I wasn’t about to go back to the mall to remit ten dollars in stolen panty funds until I that two grand was credited back to my VISA.)

I think that things are finally starting to turn around for me. But things were really bad for a while…. Every day when I woke up, my first thought (right after “Do I have to really get out of bed today?” and “Wahhhh”) was “What’s going to go wrong today?” And every day that instinct was right on target. This went on for weeks with no end in sight - all while moving and starting a new job and buying a house. It was stuff like….

My home builder designed a laundry room that doesn’t fit a washer and dryer - (oh, oops!) - which I didn’t discover until the no-speaka-english installation guys arrived with my brand-new LG titanium W/D set, which they miraculously managed to squeeze in, prompting me to tip them both.

However, the W/D issue led to an electrical problem requiring me to constantly reprogram my VCR. And God knows I couldn’t miss another episode of Boston Legal with all the stress I was under. Must have TV. Must escape life.

So I had to take time off work to meet the electrician at my home. The first thing he did was throw a burning cigarette out his truck window into my front yard just three days after I spent an hour picking up dozens of butts in my yard. The second thing he did (after taking off his shoes and revealing an unspeakable foot odor that kept me out of the basement for at least 24 hours afterward) was spend 90 minutes of my precious unpaid time pulling out every receptacle, light switch, and light fixture in the basement, and moving all my items away from the walls and generally making a mess. This, despite the fact that I told him the breaker didn’t start tripping until the W/D were installed and subsequently trips only when I run the washer. “Oh, but those are on a completely separate circuit. It’s just coincidence,” said the foreman when he dropped in because the idiot and his sidekick couldn’t figure it out. Finally, Tonto was at a dead end when I did that annoying finger maneuver that says, “Come here,” and lured him to the laundry room. Sure enough, there was a loose wire hanging down behind the washer that was connecting with the metal washer when it spun out of control.

But why, you ask, is a brand new $2700 W/D set spinning out of control?

The W/D aren’t balanced. The noise drives me nuts. So I spent an hour at Home Depot this past weekend trying to get them to fix that problem. Naturally, the delivery company (GE) wouldn’t take responsibility for not installing the W/D properly. (And I tipped those guys, dang it!) LG wouldn’t take responsibility either. “It’s up to the consumer to do that.” And I can’t balance them myself because there’s exactly 1/8th of an inch clearance on either side of the washer and dryer - that we were able to open up from 1/16th of an inch only after I removed the molding from the door frame.

Let’s see…what else?

Oh yeah, for the first time in the six closings, the funds for my home purchase were not wired in time for closing that day, arriving two hours after I left the attorney’s office - sans keys - in a car loaded up with stuff to move into my new place. Boy was I mad. That’s the first time in history that USAA has let me down. Actually, it was more NFCU’s fault for not getting me the dollar amount until the last minute. USAA's customer service record, in my experience, is spotless. I had to drive all the way back to Gaithersburg (outside D.C.) to get the keys during rush hour. On a narrow two-lane road coming home there was a multi-vehicle accident that left motorists like myself trapped for at least a half hour.

When I got back to my townhouse with a second carload late that Thursday night after closing, my neighbor-of-a-thousand boyfriends had parked her car in my driveway, so I was unable to unload until I found the owner and waited around for her to move her car. The driveway, mind you, is so narrow that when I step out of the car, I'm on grass, not pavement. The garage is no bigger. I am just waiting for the day that I knock off one of the side-view mirrors trying to park.

Another day, I asked this young thang, Ms. chicky-chick, who stays three doors down, if she could please not park her Saab at the end of my driveway now that I’ve moved in. I kindly suggested that park it in front of her boyfriend’s home instead (over in the next row of townhouses). Her immediate ressponse to that idea was, “He’s my f---ing husband,” followed by a long rant including a sarcastic suggestion that I get driving lessons, etc. She went on like this, unloading stuff from her car, without ever looking me in the face. And the husband/boyfriend came outside so they could gang up on me and tell me it's a free country and they can park wherever they want, etc. No resolution was reached, and every day the Saab is parked directly across the narrow street from my driveway.

The truth of the matter is, New Yorkers are nicer people than a lot of these Marylanders I've met. And I hate to say it because I was actually born here.

And here’s the biggest one of all: After six straight months of battling with Hewlett Packard over them sending me one defective notebook computer after another, I thought I would lose my mind trying to convince them to take back their stupid piece of crap laptop and just give me my money back. Hey, a computer should last five years, not five weeks. Unfortunately, the very limited warranty says you can only get your money back if you return it within a mere 21 days after purchase. (Go to Costco - they give you six months to return a defective computer.)

I felt this was a corner case, especially after all the hell they'd put me through over several months, and the hundreds of hours I'd wasted setting up, installing, configuring, uninstalling, repackaging, and returning one defective computer after another to HP. But my “case manager” Curtis wouldn’t budge, no matter how many emails I sent to CEO Mark Hurd. I begged Curtis to escalate my case so I could just get my money back – a request I presented to him about 12 times. But every time I ask, he quoted the warranty to me. Needless to say, I was extremely agitated with his attitude and lack of empathy.

After multiple phone calls to (and from) the Executive Relations Office at HP, one woman pissed me off so badly (by transferring me to Curtis!!), that after I hung up, I called back and immediately asked for her manager. (Curtis claimed to not have a manager every time I asked the same. I kept telling him I know he's not the highest person in the company, but he was stone cold and would not budge one millimeter.)

Only then did I get someone who was sympathetic to my plight. It took three days before this manager and I could connect, and when I finally told him my story (for the umpteenth time), he sympathized and offered to do a buy-back. Finally!

So that was basically six months of computer hell. It’s bad enough that the HP sales guys don’t know an infrared port from the port on their rear ends, but the tech support is just as bad. This was one of the single worst customer service experiences I’ve had in my life. And because of that, never again will I buy an HP computer. Dell is the way to go. Dell has never let me down – not in 16 years. I'm typing on a Dell right now.

And finally, over the course of several weeks, I watched Microsoft stock prices closely, trying to exercise my remaining options at just the right time to get the most bang for my buck. It’s like gambling, and I hated every minute of it. I finally finished exercising all my options last week, but didn't realize that I wasn’t going to get any checks in the mail. Why, you ask, would Smith Barney not send me my money? Are they owned by Sears, or do they just get their customer service training at the same location as Sears? What's up with that, anyway?

Well, get this: The Patriot Act requires that you provide a residential mailing address to certain companies that you do banking or investing with. Because I was living in temp housing for five weeks (three different places, no less), I was forced rented a PO Box and use it as my legal address. I got a letter from one of my VISA companies telling me that I was required by law to give them a home address – but I never made that connection to Smith Barney. And guess what – Smith Barney wasn’t going to tell me! They were just going to sit on my funds (earning interest) until I called them to ask where my money was. Geez. Not only that, but you can't just tell them your address over the phone (like you can with VISA). They fax you a form, you fill it out and fax it back, then in "2 to 3 business days" they'll process it in the system. Only then will they even consider mailing you your money.

I, of course, suggested that, as a courtesy to their customers, they inform us of this requirement. But no-o-o-o-o-o. It's all about the money.

Once again, customer service disappoints me.

Meanwhile, I just heard through the grapevine that Microsoft employees are calling for Steve Ballmer’s retirement. After all, the stock has been at the same price (about $25-27) since Steve took the helm six years ago, and Vista isn’t going to ship until sometime in the next millennium.

For that story, see http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/85527/microsoft-employees-call-for-ballmer-to-go.html.

Good night!

p.s. I can't post any photos until I find the misplaced USB cable that goes with my digital camera....which doesn't surprise me one bit.

Please Don’t Call Me Ma’am, Ma’am

March 1, 2006

I miss New York. A lot. And when I shiver in the bitterly cold weather here in northern Maryland, it makes me miss the temperate climate of Seattle.

Talk about culture shock. It’s one thing to move from Seattle to New York City – such excitement, awe, fun; so much to look forward to! But to move from the Big Apple to a place south of the Mason Dixon line, well that’s another story. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. This one is going to take some time and extra adaptation efforts.

For one thing, the next person who calls me “ma’am” is going to be taken out behind the barn and shot. To me, ma’am is derogatory, if not patronizing. The truth is, it's just downright geriatric. Why does everyone use that term when addressing a woman down here? The one time I caught myself accidentally calling another woman “ma’am” on a New York subway last year, I immediately took it back, “I'm sorry, I didn’t mean to call you ma’am.” She appreciated that!

Another thing they do down here that drives me nuts: People I speak with on the phone or otherwise regarding some service they’re providing for me just love to call me “Mrs. Bernard.” I guess that, by default, it’s assumed that any woman my age is married. Even after I correct them, they still call me “misses,” as if I ought to be married. What ever happened to calling people by their first name? Mrs. Bernard makes me cringe every time I hear it. Aaaaagh! I’m beginning to feel very OLD living here.

And the bodies behind the barn are going to start piling up.

But my biggest pet peeve of all is what I call the TMI Factor. I think it’s OK to socialize at work, as long as you keep it brief and don’t impede on your co-workers’ time. But here in the South, many people seem to be oblivious to the fact that other people in the office are there to work. They act like it’s a Tupperware party, boring their co-workers to tears with their extensive personal medical reports and incessant jabber about their kids.

There’s this woman I work with who has a super-fantastic attitude. I like her well enough. But she talks a mile a minute and is the most verbose person I’ve ever met. Being a mom, she only works 24 hours a week – and she works most of those hours at home, so I do get some reprieve. But my god, whenever she’s in the office all I can think is “Please go away. Go away now. Do it before it’s too late. Can I show you to the barn?”

Example: She walks into my office (where I’m peacefully concentrating on my work, which involves heavy research and writing); she immediately launches into how she has to go to the doctor later because the mucus she’s coughing up got thicker over night and her coughing kept her husband up and now she’s had this cough for six weeks and has been through two rounds of Amoxicillin and just can’t seem to shake this thang and she pulled a muscle in her back [insert lengthy description of how that happened] and blah, blah, blah. My God, woman, too much information.

I’d only met her once when she whipped out a miniature photo album with at least three dozen pictures of her kids. I am not joking – she carries this thing in her purse! Her family must spend every weekend at the local Olan Mills portrait studio. Kids in costumes. Kids standing by a picket fence holding a plastic flower. Kids on their bellies. Kids on their sides. Kids in chairs. Kids with Mom. Kids with Dad. The whole family in front of a blue backdrop with painted-on clouds. And of course, I have to be told their names, ages, and the details of their most recent illnesses.

After one visit with her I’m ready to scream. As soon as she leaves, I shut the door to my office and turn the lights off.

The problem is, it’s hard to say “TMI” to a co-worker when you’re the new kid on the block. So I generally smile and nod. Well, I did that the first few times. Now I turn around and start typing on my keyboard. But that doesn’t seem to help. Southern people will spout off to the back of your head for just as long as it takes before you plug your ears.

So, needless to say, I miss the abruptness of the typical New Yorker. In New York, things get done. Heck, I worked on Wall Street for a year and a half and never knew a single intimate detail about a co-worker’s medical history. And I can’t imagine any of those hard-working guys forcing me to sit my cubicle and listen to them carry on for 30 or 60 minutes about their personal lives while I’m trying desperately to get back to my hectic job. They just aren’t that inconsiderate in New York. They actually work at work.

It is strange. Not sure how long I’ll last here. I’m sure I’ll feel better about life after I get moved into my townhouse, get unpacked, get all the furniture delivered, and actually have time to spend exploring D.C.

In the meantime, I continue to feed my homesickness by watching as many episodes of Law & Order as I can squeeze in before bedtime every night.

Snow! 

Parking Lot: Before 

Parking Lot: After 

Russet Area in Laurel, Maryland Where I Currently Stay 

My Temporary Apartment - Top Floor 

Snow!

February 12, 2006

They said it would snow Saturday but I didn’t know it was going to snow this much! A foot! I am so glad I brought a pair of snow boots to temp housing; I needed them today. And good thing I stopped by Wal-Mart for an ice scraper for the car last night. (Me and a thousand other people.)

When I got up this morning the electricity was off. And it stayed off till after noon. The hardest part about that ordeal was not having any coffee to wake up with! Not much to do inside, so I bundled up and went out with a broom and large dust pan that came with the apartment. It took me an hour to clean the foot of snow from off my car – and from in front of it. It was a chore I had to do.

There’s no way I was going to miss work tomorrow.

Note: Your attitude toward work changes drastically when you are no longer a salaried employee and instead get paid by the hour. You are much more motivated to show up on a snow day.

I didn’t realize how much work snow removal was. I'm used to having a garage, so it's been 12 years since I've had to clean snow off my car. By the time I was done this morning, I was soaked with sweat and my back hurt. It had been a while since I needed a pain pill for my back, but I took one today. I must say, Oxycontin works.

I was born in southern Maryland in 1964. My dad told me on the phone today that we got enough snow that year to break records – about 23” in a week.

Welcome to Maryland!

TGIF and TGI Can Afford Grapes Now

February 10, 2006

Within one hour of starting my new job Monday I found out I had a deliverable Friday - just five short days for my first deliverable. Actually, two deliverables. I’m new to the entire Common Criteria project, not to mention the company, so I had to bust some serious hiney to figure out what I need to know to start and finish two annotated outlines – one for a user’s guide and one for an admin guide. I really wasn't sure I'd finish in time.

But by 4:15 today I’d handed in both outlines. (And my peer, a company veteran who had just one deliverable due today, was unable to meet the deadline. My lead kept prompting me to push this guy to get his work done. I tried, but you know you can't make the horse drink. The guy just wasn't able to focus. In fact, by end of day he'd barely even begun his outline. Guess who's working this weekend?)

My office-mate—a wonderfully smart and funny woman by the name of Rashmi—told me to give myself a pat on the back. And so I did!

I celebrated by going to Costco to buy another fake plant for our office, which Rashmi and I have been decorating together (item by item) all week. Normally I wouldn’t be too keen on having an office-mate, but I adore Rashmi. She is one of these quiet, shy, sweet people - but ironically she has me in stitches half the time. We have a lot in common, and we laugh a lot - probably to the point of annoying other people on the hallway. She even takes my recycling home with her since the apartment complex where I live doesn’t provide recycling pickup. Blasphemy. After years of heavy-duty recycling training in the crisp, clean Pacific Northwest, I found it unbearable last week to throw away a plastic milk jug and several plastic soda bottles. Rashmi to the rescue!

Living in suburbia is so different from the City. I think I’ve been to Wal-Mart ten times since I got to Maryland two weeks ago. Why? Because I can. And I’ve been to Costco four times. And the grocery store many times. Last week I paid $1.79/lb. for green grapes. The same would’ve cost me $3.99/lb. at Food Emporium on 49th Street and 8th Avenue in NYC. (I went most of 15 months without eating grapes because I wasn’t going to pay that.) This week I paid 58 cents a roll for Charmin toilet paper – the big rolls – instead of a buck a roll for the skimpy sandpaper rolls. Oh, and the best deal of all—I got my usual 30-lb. bag of kitty litter for just $9.99 instead of $18.99. Yay! I can afford kitty litter again! Martin is oh-so-pleased.

Yesterday I took my portable hard drive to work to copy some key files over to my office computer. When I realized I had all my photos on that drive, I pulled up some of my favorite NY shots and set up one of the night shots of Times Square as my desktop wallpaper on my PC. That way I can still pretend I live in the City. I smile every time I look at that picture. I do miss NYC. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like my new life . . .

. . . which will finally be back to normal on March 3rd when I move into my new townhouse. No more moving!! I just want it to be over with so that I can have some sense of “home” and stability and security and…well, not moving!

Movin’, Movin’, Movin'. . . Rawhide

February 5, 2006

- “Susie, what did you do on your vacation?”
- “I moved.”
-“What about last year?”
-“I moved.”
- “And the year before that?”
- “I moved.”
- “Well, then what’d you do last weekend?”
- “I moved from Manhattan.”
- “What about this past week. You do anything different?”
- “Nope, I moved from Columbia to Laurel.”
- “Aren't you done moving?”
- “Nope. I’m moving to Ellicott City at the end of this month.”

Today my brother Pete turns 44. Next month my sister will be 43. And I’ll be 42 the following month. By then I will have moved 42 times. What happened to that number being just 41, you ask? Elephants. That’s what happened. I had elephants living above me in my temporary apartment in Columbia, and I’m pretty sure they were bowling. Yes bowling. In the living room.

The newly built apartments look nice from the outside and are pretty nice on the inside, but I'd swear they were constructed of cardboard and Saran wrap - unlike my Manhattan apartment that was walled in solid cement.

The pounding and stomping from my upstairs neighbors (dogs and kids included) got so bad that the corporate housing folks had to call the apartment management office. My first complaint was passed on to them last Monday. The second complaint went in on Tuesday. When that didn’t work, I called the apartment people directly last Wednesday night, after hours. In turn, they called a state patrolman who lives on site and acts as community watch.

The young, strong, good-looking officer with his military haircut came to my door that evening. He wasn’t surprised about my complaint; he said he’d been up to that apartment responding to complaints on several occasions. He said they have a history of slamming doors and running up and down the stairs a lot (bam! bam! bam!). I agreed wholeheartedly. So he went up and knocked loudly (like cops do) on their door.

From inside my apartment, I heard the upstairs neighbor run to his front door and stop to look out the peep hole. He saw the cop and didn’t answer the door. The officer tried knocking again, saying, “Maryland State Police. Please open the door.” Still the tenant refused to answer. (Guilty much?) The nice officer stood there knocking for several minutes to no avail. He came back down and told me that they were standing right behind the door but wouldn’t answer. I’d heard the whole thing and told them I knew they were there too. He indicated that they’d be getting a nasty letter from the landlord.

It was quiet the rest of the evening, but with people like that who don't care about their neighbors, chances are they aren't going to change. So I decided to cancel my short-term lease and move out. So much for settling in. I went home-hunting again the next day and found another corporate apartment in Laurel. This one is on the top floor of a 3-story apartment building and is more expensive, but I took it for the peace and quiet.

I spent Friday moving to Russet. It took two car trips and a zillion trips up and down stairs, huffing and puffing. Four hours later I was done moving, and Martin was scoping out the new place. It only took him a matter of minutes to get adjusted this time. He even slept with me the first night. This moving stuff is old hat for him now.

So tonight is an exciting, long-awaited event: Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl. Yay, go Hawks! And tomorrow is the big day. I start my new ‘beltway bandit’ job as Security Systems Engineer for a large scientific research and development company in Columbia. I can’t wait to start working again. Not that moving isn’t work – but I’m ready for some brain work. Oh yeah, and a paycheck wouldn't hurt.

As it turns out, the house I was going to buy in downtown Laurel fell through at inspection last month. I decided that, after failing at purchasing a home after at five costly house-hunting trips, I would just rent for a while - as much as I dreaded moving twice...something I wanted desperately to avoid. I found a nice 2-bedroom, top-floor loft apartment to rent at the Elms at Mont Joy in Ellicott City and was all lined up for it. I’d done everything but sign the lease, which they were going to mail to me in New York.

On my way out of the Elms complex, I had to pull over to write down a phone number. If someone had been behind me in their car, I wouldn't have pulled off the road into a parking lot. As it happens, the parking lot that I was forced to stop at was adjacent to a model town home. I had the car in reverse, ready to leave, when I noticed the model. I decided “What the heck,” and got out to look. I figured I had time to kill, and I'd look just for fun.

The model was beautiful. Just astonishing. I fell in love with the gorgeous kitchen with its Zodiaq counters, and the huge master bedroom, thinking “No way I can afford this.” I talked to the agent. Yup, the place was around $550,000. Too rich for me. However, she told me that they were running a special on their less expensive Freedom models - $40,000 off. She pointed me to that model, and I drove over to take a look. I’d seen it earlier and been tempted to stop, but I drove on past it with the thought, “Nope, I’m going to just rent – no more house-hunting!”

To make a long story short, within a week I’d decided to buy a brand new town house on Mont Joy Place in the new Mont Joy subdivision. This was my serendipity, so I knew it was the right thing to do. I’d totally given up on buying when the right place just fell in my lap. As it turned out, I bought the last one available. So I knew in my heart it was meant to be.

It’s still being built and should be ready for closing the last week of February. This will be the first brand new place I’ve ever owned! (Thank goodness I got in soon enough to change the color of the kitchen counters!)

So my future home is in Ellicott City, Maryland, voted one of the 25 best places to live by Money magazine. I can’t wait to move. Um….again. Gad. I’m going for the Guinness Record for most moves in a lifetime. . . .

Oooooh - Seattle just won the toss. It's kick-off time. See ya!!!

Hello, Suburbia

February 1, 2006

On a beautiful nearly-seventy-degree Saturday, my Manhattan movers moved most of my stuff into a 10x20 storage unit in Catonsville, not too far north of where I’m staying. We said our good-byes, I tipped them heavily, and then I finished moving the rest of my stuff into a temporary apartment. Since then I’ve been enjoying sleeping and shopping and car-driving in this strange new environment called suburbia.

Everything is so-o-o-o-o convenient. This area near Columbia is a great location – close to all the major roads including I-95. And convenient to both D.C. and Baltimore. I haven’t had to fight traffic. Grocery stores are wonderfully huge – with aisles that can fit not only multiple people simultaneously but also these metal things on wheels that you can carry your groceries in. They're called carts. It’s amazing how many groceries you can fit into one of these carts. And you don’t have to carry it all home on both arms – you can put it in your car and drive it home! What an amazing concept. I’d forgotten what real grocery shopping is like.

And Costco – wow! I hadn’t been in a Costco in a year and a half. That was fun. I bought a new faucet for my future home and some jeans for my new job (which, by the way, is casual dress - no more Wall Street suits, yay!). Suburbia also has lots of malls and huge department stores like Wal-Marts where you can buy just about anything. Shoe stores the size of Bill Gates’ house. Discount clothing stores that sell scarves for under $640 and purses under $850. There's a Pier 1 on every corner....and even a Sears in the Mall at Columbia.

I haven’t shopped this much in a year. Although I miss the excitement of New York, I’m adjusting easily to suburbia and loving my new Ford Escape Hybrid. It makes around 30 mpg, which is twice the mileage I made in the Explorer. It has some cool features – including a GPS sensor and navigation system, a mileage meter that shows fuel consumption as you drive, and a graphic display showing when you’re using the gas engine, the electric motor, or both.

Just a few more days of errands and getting to know the area...oh, and the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl...then I’m off to my new job!