More Snow

February 25, 2007













The week after my house flooded we had a bad winter storm that left snow drifts that were sealed solid by a thick layer of ice. They were like miniature glaciers--impenetrable. This was followed by temperatures well below freezing for several days. Finally, over the past few days, all that snow began to melt. By yesterday most of it was gone, with the exception of some dirty mounds still piled up along the roadways, and an icy drift on my deck (resembling a frozen wave) that had sealed my sliding door shut for several days.

Cars remained filthy, coated with that familiar gray film, as the stuff melted. But the wet roads continued to kick up salt and dirt. Yesterday the roads finally started to dry out. It was sunny so I finally shelled out nine bucks at a Shell station for a "deluxe" car wash that even cleaned the wheels. My car hadn't been this clean all month.

Today's forecast called for sleet and rain. But, it turns out, the weatherman was wrong. I woke up to heavy snowfall late this morning after oversleeping. By 1:00pm the snow started sticking to the roads. I went outside in my ski coat to take photos a little while later and found myself trudging through the fluffy white stuff. By then it was at least 3" deep and still falling.

My neighbor Dan was outside. He's a super-nice guy with a wonderful family. He had shoveled his walks once before loaning me his snow shovel. By the time I finished one pass on my driveway and walks, it was covered in snow again. I couldn't keep up. I just kept on shoveling.

I had nothing better to do and needed a break from the indoors. I shoveled Dan's area again and my neighbor's area on the other side, too. She's going through a rough time right now so I wanted to do something to help. A couple days earlier she'd had her loser boyfriend arrested, and she'd just gone to court Friday to get a restraining order. Then on Saturday after a visit to my Lasik doctor, I went over and helped her change her locks. I really felt for her. I recall being in a similar situation many years ago in Charlotte, so I could sympathize. I'm glad to see that she finally got that redneck out of her life and out of our neighborhood. I was sick of him parking in front of my house anyway.

Then I did another pass on my walks and driveway. I wasn't ready to go inside, plus I was in need of some exercise, so I started in on the road in front of Dan's place and cleared out the snow around his truck. I figured the more I got off the road, the less snow the snow plow could pile on our driveways tomorrow morning.

I was on a mission. Two hours after I'd started, I'd cleaned off three cars, four driveways, the sidewalks, and the better part of the road in front of Dan's place and mine. That's a lot of caloried burned (but I wasn't thinking about my back, and I'm feeling it now!) I even did my neighbor Patty's driveway while her able-bodied 20-year-old son stayed indoors with several of his friends who showed up. (Doesn't anyone's kids do any chores any more??)

Three doors down, my neighbor Tom's young son J.J. came out with a broom but wasn't making much progress. He's probably about 8 years old. Very likable kid. We chatted the whole time we were out there together. I passed Dan's shovel on to him so he could work on his driveway, which his dad had offered him $5 to clean.

I was cleaning off Dan's wife's car nearby when J.J. asked me if I'd shoveled Dan's driveway. I replied, "Well Dan did the first pass, and I did the second." J.J. looked at me, "Did you owe him money?!" I laughed and told him, "No, I was just being neighborly." What a cute kid.

By then it was about 4:00PM and my gloves were soaked through, so I went inside to put some dry clothes on. A little while later, the first time I tried to get out of a chair, I realized that my lower back had all but given out on me. Drat.

I'm looking forward to spring. Meanwhile, here are some pictures from today's snow.

Party of One

On Friday the carpet suckers (a.k.a. ServPro) showed up at the beginning of their two-hour window to reinstall my downstairs carpet. (They finally showed. It was a miracle!) It had been a week and two days since a burst pipe flooded my rec room—something I thought I could get wrapped up in a couple days. Ha.

Also on Friday afternoon, the plumber showed up right in the middle of his four-hour window. Consequently, his visit overlapped that of the carpet suckers. (I'd assumed he'd come at the end of the window or later like the Cable Guy.) Hence, the carpet suckers sent my nice plumber away to come back later.

The plumber, who was a jolly young guy with a great sense of humor, was able to come back later that day to replace the busted pipe. He cut out the narrow pipe and showed it to me. It only had a hairline fracture, which wasn't visible without extreme twisting. The pipe seemed so small—maybe a half inch in diameter—and it was still filled with ice. I was like, "That little f---er is what caused this mess?!" He laughed, "Yup, that's the little f---er all right." So he got his job done, I paid him $225, and eventually everyone left.

What a relief that was. All I had to do was let the freshly cleaned carpet dry overnight, and I could put my rec room back together in the morning. I was so worn out that I went to bed at 7:30 Friday night and stayed there for 12 hours, dead to the world. I think I'd had enough. The next day was just like moving in all over again (like I haven't done that enough).

Unfortunately, the relief of "getting settled" into a home for the umpteenth time came at an unexpected price (and not just the $500 deductible): back pain. I think it was caused by a combination of moving furniture and books and DVDs yesterday and the long-term stress I've been under since I sold my downtown Bellevue townhouse in January 2004. The worst part is that most of my stress of that past few months has been from my job, not my unsettling home life. Let me tell you, very little is more distressful than having to deal daily with a jerk who (for reasons unknown) would like nothing better than to get you fired. Well, there is one thing worse: when he succeeds. But I'll save the axe-grinder story for my memoirs.

Luckily I had survived nearly ten months without back pain—a record for me. Before my disc replacement surgery, I never went 10 weeks without back pain, not since the late 80's anyway. It had been so long since I had back problems that even the Vicodin in my cabinet had expired 14 months ago. The good news is that the expired Vicodin actually still worked. The bad news is there were only four pills left in the bottle. :(

I wasn't going to let it get me down, though. I had my TV room back—a room I could relax in! I spent a lot of time with my heating pad yesterday after I was done with the "moving" and cleaning.

For a brief moment I considered that maybe—just maybe—thing things would turn around for me.

Ah, but it truly was a brief moment, a moment that lasted right up until I checked the mail. The envelope marked "Howard County Police" worried me, so I opened it outside in the freezing cold on my way back in from the mailbox. (Why couldn't my Chinese mailman have sent that one back to its sender?)

I'd been ticketed. By a camera.

There on the piece of paper were three consecutive photos of me running a red light the previous Friday evening after work on my way to the mall. I remember it exactly. I was heading to Sears after another raunchy week at work but decided to swing by Dave's Organic Market first. The winter sun, low in the sky, was blinding. I was afraid I'd missed my turn but wasn't exactly sure. I was trying to pinpoint the turn for Dave's Market when I realized that I was driving right under a red light on the mall road. Whoops!

My first reaction was that of anyone else—a quick 240-degree check for cop cars. All clear. "Whew!" I sighed in relief, "No cops. How lucky. I can't believe I just did that." It truly was an accident. And I truly thought I'd gotten away with it. But Howard County couldn't care less that I didn't intentionally run a red light like most the Speedy Gonzaleses around here. Dang! There was nothing I could do but write them a check for $75. I'll think of it as community service.

You see, I'm not kidding that I'm having this relentless bad luck streak. My sister-in-law Judy emailed, "You're the only person I know that has gotten at ticket from a camera!" Naturally.

The sad thing is I only touch the tip of the iceberg of my bad luck in my blog. You would not believe the mountain of crapola I've had to deal with at my contract job over the past few months—and it's been enough to make me wish I'd never moved here to take that job. There are some malicious people out there, let me tell you. And it really sucks when you have to work with them. It's gotten to be way too much drama for me. But that's another story.

I admit, it's hard to not feel sorry for yourself at times like this. As my physical therapist (Lisa) in NY once said to me in a sing-songy restaurant hostess voice as I whinced in pain, "Pity party, party of one!" To this day her matter-of-fact statement makes me laugh. Once you put it that way, it's tough to keep taking it all too seriously. . . .

Drowning in Bad Service

So the first floor of my house flooded last Wednesday, due to a hose bib bursting inward through the drywall of my downstairs bathroom on a 4-degree morning. See, living in Manhattan for 15 months ruined me for home ownership. I forgot to turn the valve off before winter began. I thought about it in Novemer but thought it was too early, then I simply forgot.

The water pumped furiously into the house for god knows how long—but long enough that it left an inch of standing water in the bathroom, standing water in the laundry, water running out through the garage down the driveway (that's what those streaks in the snow were!), and a completely soaked Berber carpet that lined the floor of my big rec room. So, no TV for a week. Aaaaagh.

I honestly didn't think it would take very long to get my rec room back to a TV-viewable state. I mean, I've never been flooded before. But this company that I'm dealing with, ServPro, has done everything in their power to prolong my agony. And where they couldn't screw this up, mother nature gladly kicked in to pick up the slack.

All of this happened just weeks after I finally finished getting my house "done" after the move to MD from NY (last January), starting a new job (February) the closing and moving (March), the decorating, deliveries and unpacking (April – June), the horrid contract job on the deck, fence and patio (June-July), the extensive landscaping (July-August), the measuring and installation of the window blinds (October), the structural repairs to the stairs (November), and the cleanup from that whole mess (December). I was finally done and could relax a bit.

So my house floods. Not to mention, the disaster happened just two days before I was expecting company for the weekend in my newly finished home. Now my nephews would have to sleep on the hard-wood floors instead of the Berber carpet.

Obviously, my luck hasn’t changed.

On Wednesday, the day of the disaster, ServPro gave me a two-hour window when they'd show up and start removing the water from the bottom floor of my house. They showed up hours late and didn't finish up until after 7:00PM. On Thursday they agreed to come out between 1 and 3PM the following Monday to put down new carpet pad and reinstall the Berber carpet. I made arrangements with my job to be home for that. I didn't think I could live through the weekend with the mess (furniture stacked up in the foyer, the TV all unplugged, bookshelves emptied and moved, Martin's litter boxes moved to the living room, no easy chair to come home and relax in, the carpet pulled up, and industrial fans and other equipment running all over the downstairs, etc.), but I decided Monday was better than later.

As usual, nothing works out like I plan. On Friday, after I'd left work, ServPro left me a voicemail message saying they had to cancel for Monday and reschedule. When I got the message, I thought I was going to have a cow. You have to understand how hard it is for us anal-retentives to live with things being undone or out of place. This was a living hell for me. By the time I tried to call them back, they were closed for the weekend. Of course.

This was reminiscent of the stair repair guy, who left me a message on a Friday night saying they were planning on setting up their wood saw in my garage the next Monday morning for the job that took them seven weeks to get right, even after coming over on four separate occasions to measure. There was no way I was going to let an electric saw be set up indoors, but I couldn't get a hold of the guy to tell him that he needed to come up with another plan of how to manage the saw in the Monday morning drizzle. I'd already made plans to be off work Monday morning. Sure enough, they covered every single item in my garage with saw dust. We won't even get into their failure to clean it up as promised and how the "clean-up" consisted of dumping dustpans of saw dust directly into my trash can instead of bagging it (which I discovered a week later).

Anyway, I did get a hold of ServPro on Saturday. At first they hemmed and hawed as to the reason for canceling my Monday appointment. Finally, I got a bitchy supervisor named Tammy on the phone who explained to me that because they had so many jobs lined up it was easier for them to go pick up all the padding at once. Easier for them. The fact that I'd rearranged my work schedule and my house was a mess and I couldn't watch "Grey's Anatomy" on Thursday wasn't of any concern to them. I even offered to go pick up my padding. She was steadfast in her denial of any request I made.

I nearly went ballistic. It didn't matter how much I begged, they weren't going to keep our appointment. I even told the girl, "Before I moved to Maryland, I've never lived any place where so many businesses cancel appointments on me." It truly is unbelievable here. She didn't care. She rescheduled me for 8:30AM today.

So, Sunday I dragged the huge heavy TV stand out of the bathroom across the unattached yet dry, lumpy carpeting downstairs, plugged in the TV and re-wired my A/V setup. Then I managed to somehow roll my easy chair into the rec room too. I had my "comfort zone" back. Somehow that made me feel better, and that was all I needed. I could now live with the mess knowing that "Brothers & Sisters" would get recorded on Sunday night.

On Monday, (after finding out that my immigrant mailman had returned all three of my W-2's and I couldn't do my taxes as planned), I called a plumber who agreed to come out between 12 and 4PM today to repair the busted pipe. I was all set. I even lined up a drywall guy for later. I was supposed to call him after the plumber left to tell him how big the new hole was, then we'd schedule time for me to miss more work for him to come out.

Tuesday morning it started snowing. The snow turned to sleet and ice in the afternoon, and the entire state of Maryland started closing down around 1:30PM. Schools and businesses closed. The laser hair clinic called to cancel my 6PM appointment. I left work at 3:00.

We were under a winter storm watch, and I knew exactly what that meant: my carpet would not be reinstalled today.

Sure enough, it sleeted and snowed all night and everything remained iced over and closed today. I awoke to the sound of ice pellets hitting the windows. It took me an hour just to shovel my driveway this afternoon in the 40-mph winds. Earlier in the day, when Tammy at ServPro called to cancel, I just laughed. We both laughed. In fact, neither of us could stop laughing for a minute. I'd already had my nervous breakdown on Saturday, and I had my favorite chair back, so I didn't care anymore.

Now I'm rescheduled for Friday 1-3:00. Plumber is rescheduled for that afternoon too. But I'm not holding my breath. Who knows what will happen next.

Gee, is hurricane season over?

The Postman Doesn't Speak English

Several days ago my U.S. mail stopped showing up. It was things I was expecting on certain days—like my NetFlix movie rental DVDs and a leather check cover I'd ordered—that I was missing. Then nothing. Several days last week I received no mail at all. One day there was one of those USPS change-of-address packets in my mailbox, which left me dumbfounded. (If I'd moved away, what good would it do to have a COA kit in my mailbox where I didn't live anymore?)

I contacted NetFlix after spending a frustrating amount of time trying to locate their well-hidden customer service email address on their Web site to let them know that I wasn't getting my movies and, worse, I wasn't even getting the movies they were sending me to replace the movies I wasn't getting. They assured me that this was unusual and that I should use an alternate address. They suggested I rent a P.O. box.

OK, so the solution is to pay $150/year to rent a P.O. box, plus the usual $19/month for my NetFlix membership. On top of that, I'd then have to drive to the post office every time I wanted to pick up a movie. At that point, it's costing me nearly 40 bucks a month and a lot of extra trips to the overcrowded post office just to rent movies. Talk about missing the whole point of ordering movies online and getting them delivered to you.

Something was terribly wrong, and I needed to get to the bottom of it. The problem with the USPS is that they don't advertise the phone numbers for their post office locations; you have to call an 800-number and speak to Deloris in North Dakota if you want to complain. So I tried a couple other routes first. I went online to usps.gov and located a complaint form. I wrote a letter on the form describing exactly which NetFlix shipments I was missing from which dates, etc. Even my mom had a letter returned to her three times as "undeliverable." I submitted the form and was informed that I'd receive a response within 48 hours. I finally did get a response via email two days later, stating they received my complaint and that I'd hear from someone within 48 hours. Geez.

So the online form is useless.

By Saturday I was quite concerned because no mail was arriving at all and I was worried that NetFlix was going to charge me for the four lost movies (which is now six movies, as of today). Monday when I came home from work, I had an empty mailbox again. It was a couple minutes before 5pm, so I called the 800-number and got Deloris (or whatever her name was). I explained everything to her. To my dismay, the postal service doesn't consider mail "missing" until it has been delayed by at least two weeks. Aaargh. That doesn't do me any good, except for the check cover that was now over three weeks late. Anyway, Deloris wrote it all down and said someone would contact me within 48 hours. (It's now been 51 hours with no word back.)

I also wrote a letter addressed to "postmaster general" at my zip code and shipped that off as well. So between email, US mail, and the phone, the postal service was going to get my message. Loud and clear.

Last night on a yellow index card I wrote a note to my mail carrier describing in detail which items (I knew of) were missing from my mail. I folded the card like a little tent, wrote "IMPORTANT MESSAGE TO MAIL CARRIER" using a red Sharpie on both sides, and left it in my skinny community mailbox.

This morning I was on the middle floor of my town home doing my usual morning routine and eyeing the snow that had blanketed the cars illegally parked in front of my home. I checked my work email while drinking my coffee and let my boss know I was going to come in an hour later than usual—after the rush-hour crazies were off the icy roads. Unbeknownst to me, the entire time I was doing those chores this morning, water was spewing through a hole in the drywall in my downstairs bathroom, flooding my entire first floor and garage. It had gotten down to about 4 degrees last night and a pipe had burst. (But that's another story.)

Thanks to the water damage in my home, I ended up stuck at home cleaning up, moving furniture, working part-time on my regular job, and waiting for the carpet-suckers (that would be the guys with the suction machines that extract water from inside your home) all day. Of course, I was given a two-hour window for the appointment: 1:00 to 3:00PM. And, not unlike the ever-elusive Cable Guy, they showed up at 5:23PM, (and only one of the two spoke English).

Hence, I was home when my mail carrier arrived around 2:00.

The mail carrier came up my driveway looking like a Chinese eskimo in his parka with the faux fur-trimmed hood framing his face. He immediately started spewing broken English at me. From what I surmised, he didn't understand that I still live here. Hence, he had taken it upon himself to make the decision to stop delivering mail to me.

The communication barrier was a difficult obstacle, but I managed to learn from him what had happened: You see, I don't like being on mailing lists. To get rid of junk mail, at least for stuff I don't want that's first class mail, I send it back. Thus, once in a while I'll take a piece of unwanted mail and mark it as "Refused. Return to sender. Please remove from mailing list. Thx." Having to pay the return postage usually deters marketing companies from sending me more junk mail. Anyway, I'd done this with an item from a realtor a couple weeks ago and had put the envelope in the outgoing slot of our community mailboxes.

According to my non-English-speaking mail carrier, "You put forwar' mail an' no live here no more." I was like, "No I didn't." He was spitting, "Yes! You move! You tell me you move!" I was like, "No I didn't." He was really upset. "You say no Steve here and forwar' Steven mail." I was like, "Nope, I don't know any Steve."

"Well who live here?" he asked, pointing to my house while standing in my driveway.

"I do."

"And you Sue-san?"

"Yes, I'm Susan."

"And you still live here?"

"Yes, and I still want my mail."

"So why you put "return to sen'er" on mail an' tell me you move?"

"I never did that. I put 'return to sender; refused; please remove me from your mailing list,' and you took that to mean I moved."

"But, but, but. . . you, you, you. . . .!"

The conversation went on like this for several minutes. I asked him what he did with all my NetFlix movies and the letter from my mom that she's sent three times now. "I sen' back! Return to sen'er."

I said, "So you took it upon yourself to stop delivering my mail because you thought I'd moved even though I never filed a forwarding address and was still putting mail in the outgoing box?"

"Yes. I put forward package and you no say not'ting to me." So, according to him, it was all my fault.

I put my face in my hands and just shook my head. I did this about three times during the entire conversation. By then, coatless, I was freezing. I asked him to please deliver all my mail and never return it to sender unless I tell him to.

We ended it with him assuring me that he'd give all future mail addressed to me to my boss. I was like "My boss? What do you mean my boss?" He said, "You want mail to go to boss." I looked at him like he was from another planet.

I swear, it took me five minutes to figure out he was trying to say he'd put my mail in my box.

I'd really like to see some of the questions they put on the postal exam.

I told my dad about it on the phone afterward and together we just can't figure out how my Chinese-speaking mail carrier passed the postal exam and managed to become employed with the U.S. government. I guess anyone can work for the federal government. Even those who can't read English are given the ultimate responsibility of delivering mail to the address that is printed on the envelope. . . in English.

So that answers that mystery. Now all my NetFlix movies will arrive but I won't be able to watch them because my TV stand (complete with all my A/V components) is now completely unplugged and residing in my downstairs bathroom, which earlier today was under 2" of water for about three hours.

I am frequently very unsure as to how I can go on in this insane world. In fact, every morning when the alarm goes off I wonder what's in store for me next and why even get out of bed?

Bumper-to-Bumper Red Tape

When I bought my year-old Ford Escape Hybrid on January 1, 2006, I also purchased a 6-year, 60,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty. I figured the warranty would be a good investment since it's a hybrid and only Ford dealers are qualified to service the hybrid parts.

On February 1st I dropped my car off at the Ford dealership in Columbia for an oil change. Why on earth would you go to the dealer for an oil change, you ask? Ah. This is because Jiffy Lube will no longer change the oil in my hybrid. According to district headquarters, the plastic cap that holds the tiny filter in place is breakable—and Jiffy Lube doesn't want to be liable for the $30 plastic part if they carelessly break it. Never mind that the local Jiffy Lube had changed my oil three other times last year without worry. But since that time, some corporate suit began thinking "liability alert" and handed down this stupid decision to deny service on Escape hybrids which, in effect, discriminates against hybrid owners. But that's not the story I'm here to tell today.

Anyway, since I was leaving the car at Ford for an oil change, (which takes 1.5 hours at the dealer as opposed to 20 minutes at jiffy Lube), I decided to ask them to replace the rear window seal that had a minor leak. I figured I may as well get the most from the extra grand or two I'd paid for my extended warranty. The guy at the service desk never smiled once, didn't tell me his name, and never offered me a business card. I assumed that this was due to the fact that it was about 29 degrees in the service bay where he was forced to sit on an uncomfortable stool all day. I asked him to call me when it was ready. My good friend Ed had stopped by to pick me up, and off to work we went.

By 3pm I still hadn't heard from Ford, so I called and left a message for my anonymous service guy. Turns out his name is Angel. Around 3:30 he left me a voicemail message to call him back. I finally got a hold of him at 3:45. The car wasn't ready yet. I thought silently, "They've had the car since 8:15. How long does it take to change the oil and replace a window seal?" According to Angel, he was still waiting on warranty approval. "You're kidding," I hoped.

Not kidding. As it turns out, effective February 1, 2007, the warranty company had imposed new strict requirements prior to approving any warranty work. The service guy was required to take digital photos of the car, the part needing repair, and the odometer. (Seriously!) Using a laptop and digital camera provided by the warranty company, the photos had to be uploaded and submitted with the usual extensive warranty paperwork. Angel wasn't happy about the new process; in fact, we both agreed it was pretty ludicrous. He told me that if I'd just come in the day before, there wouldn't have been any problem. Is this not typical of my bad luck, or what?

Angel wasn't able to get warranty approval in a timely manner, so the seal wasn't replaced, thus inconveniencing me (the customer) who made special arrangements to drop my car off that day and get a ride from and to the dealership.

You'd think the car would've been waiting and ready to go when I showed up at 4:45PM to pick it up, which is exactly when I said I'd be there. After all, they only did an oil change. Turns out, they had to order the window seal. Huh? This is the Ford dealership, not Don's Auto Repairs—isn't the Ford dealer supposed to stock Ford parts? Ugh. Thus, even with warranty approval, they couldn't have replaced the seal if they wanted to that day.

Finally, after several minutes of waiting for the "ticket" to appear through a glass window, Angel told me I could leave. I mentioned, "Don't you want me to pay for the oil change?" He was like, "oops!"

That's when the next problem arose. With the new system, he couldn't close out my ticket since there was a warranty part on order on the same ticket. Angel threw his hands up in the air when he realized this dilemma. He had to get help from one of the other service guys, then go back into the office to try to straighten out the ticket predicament. This took another 10 minutes. By the time I left, it had been nine hours since I'd dropped my car off for these two simple services, and only one of those had been finished. Wow. I admit, I miss Jiffy Lube.

This whole experience screams loudly that we have become such a litigious society that no one trusts anyone anymore. We can't lift a finger to do something for someone else without wondering, "Hmmm, who's liableif I screw this up?" Warranty companies now require digital photographs of the odometer? Please. It's pathetic. The warranty company has just increased the workload of the dealership service divisions ten-fold. More work means more time spent, and more time spent means costs go up. And guess who will ultimately pay the increase in costs? You got it—the consumer. You can expect your next warranty to cost a lot more money. (Sounds a lot like buying insurance, doesn't it?)

We know we're in trouble as a society when car dealerships start behaving like medical facilities, which are so overburdened by malpractice claims and the cost of malpractice insurance that a trip to the doctor costs more (and requires more paperwork) every year. I almost didn't go through with my Lasik surgery on Friday because the doctor required that I sign a form waiving my right to a trial in the event a dispute arises. I had to question the doc as to the legality of forcing me to sign a form denying me my constitutional right to a trial. They assured me that if I didn't sign, they weren't going to perform the surgery. What choice did I have, after all the time (and pay) I'd missed from work to make this surgery happen?

Alas, I signed, and I went through with the procedure. Sure, I never expected there to be any sort of problem resulting in the need for a trial. But that's not the point. I shouldn't have to give up any of my rights in order to go through elective surgery. I made it pretty clear that I was uncomfortable with what I thought could very well be an unconstitutional requirement.

Oh well, at least I can see clearly now—or, almost clearly, anyway. More on that later. Back to the Super Bowl where it's raining cats and dogs on the Colts and Bears in Miami.

Red-eye, Shmed-eye

My trip to Washington was great. I swear, everything went right. On Sunday I did a little shopping—I just can't go to Bellevue without visiting Nordstrom Rack—and had more good luck. I'd been carrying around this teeny bottle of Bath & Body Works hand cream in my purse for a few months. I must've gotten it from one of the motels I stayed in this year, probably in Boston. Anyway, I loved the scent so much that I've wanted to buy some for myself. It's called Cool Citrus Basil.

But I wasn't having any luck. In early December, I checked for it at the Bath & Body Works at South Street Seaport in lower Manhattan. No go. "Come back December 27th," the girl there told me. The first week of January I checked for this lotion at the mall at Columbia Town Center, here in Maryland. The girl there said that they did have some recently. She helped me sift through the baskets full of lotions, to no avail. Finally, at Factoria Mall in Bellevue (on the other side of the country), I found it! I bought two large bottles of the cream and one bottle of the splash. I wish I'd bought a Lotto ticket that day—everything was going right.

I had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory at Bellevue Square, (my old stomping ground), with my good friend Tom. Tom is my cat Martin's former adopter. I've mentioned him before—Tom was the only one (besides Paul and Janet, of course) who visited me in the hospital when I had my disc replacement surgery in 2005. He and I were sys admins at Homegrocer.com back in the dot-com days. I adopted Martin from Tom in the fall of 2002, long after the fall of the Peach.

Speaking of Martin, he's got this new habit that's keeping me up at night. He does that kneading thing that most cats do, in my hair and on my neck. Four years I had Martin and he never did that. At first it was sweet and cute. I Googled "cats kneading" and found out that this is a sign of contentment. That made me happy. At the time.

But now, after a few weeks of this instant middle-of-the-night head massaging going on, it's driving me crazy. I'm not getting my REM sleep. Every time Martin gets up from bed to get water or what-have-you, he comes back to bed and wakes me up with his kneading. All morning long he carries on this behavior. I'm not quite sure what to do about that.

Which brings us to the red-eye business. I need my sleep—not unlike everyone else. . . except that I do best on 8-9 hours of sleep these days. The truth is, I don't function well on anything less than six hours. (I'm middle-aged; I can't help it.) So, on Monday night when I left Seattle on the 11:42pm red-eye, I was hoping that I could sleep on the plane and possibly even go to work for at least a few hours Tuesday.

Let me tell you, that was my first—and last—red-eye flight.

I normally can't sleep on a plane, but I had high hopes for this flight in light of the fact that 11:42pm Pacific time is really 2:42am my time. I was exhausted from a day of business meetings, and the entire row of seats I was in was empty. Not a soul. As I walked back to my seat in the second row from the back of the plane, I noticed that all the children on this flight were near the front of the plane and that there was just one stewardess in the row behind me. Good, I thought, no screaming kids near my row, for once. I'll have some peace.

It was all quiet and dark back there. The plane pulled away from the gate a full 10 minutes early—something that has never happened to me on any flight ever! So things were still going my way. Then the pilot announced that our flight time would only be 4:10, about 30 minutes quicker due to a nice tailwind.

I settled down against my pillow, put in my ear plugs, and covered myself with a blanket. Just as I was relaxing in the complete darkness, the flight attendant in the row behind me turned on her overhead reading light. I was like a deer in the headlights. Talk about bright reading lights! This one lit up my whole row too. Drat, I thought.

After an hour or so, I finally fell asleep. I was stretched out on the three seats on my side of the aisle. The seats opposite me were all empty. At some point I was awakened by a kid talking animatedly—and very loudly too. Despite my ear plugs I could hear him rattling on about something. I was groggy. The kid kept on. Where was that noisy kid?

I finally sat up and looked at my watch—it was 5:30am. Still an hour and a half to go. Then I saw the kid. His dad had left their assigned seats and brought his loud 3-year-old son to the formerly peaceful row that I was sitting in. He set the kid up with Sponge Bob on a portable DVD player over by the window. But he never once told the kid to shut up. This little boy carried on at the top of his lungs for the entire rest of the flight. No such thing as an "inside voice" for this one. And Daddy just leaned back and shut his eyes.

So, why did Dad move him back there? To get him away from the other people up front so as not to bother them? What about us quiet, kid-free folks minding our own business in our assigned seats at the back of the plane? Why torture us? What are we, chopped liver? Not to mention, how can you possibly sit there and ignore the kid's unbearable decibel level? Are you completely oblivious that there are 100 people in the near vicinity that are trying to sleep?

See, this is what I don't get about parents like this guy. It's as if they can't hear their own kids when they're out in public. Worse, they let them get away with everything. Red-eye Kid kept carrying on about "I don't wanna wear a seatbelt!" So he didn't. Then, when we landed (and I was already grumpy from being kept up by this brat), the little kid jumped all over the seats next to his dad yelling, "Daddy, get up, we have to get out!" Over and over and over again. Obviously, the aisle was blocked with us passengers trying in vain to escape Red-Eye Kid's obnoxious mouth, so Daddy had nowhere to go. But the longer it took for folks to disembark, the more this kid demanded that his father get up.

Aaaaaagh! I wanted to duct-tape the boy's mouth shut. The guy in front of me in line (an extremely young soldier in dress blues with the shiniest shoes I've ever seen) kept smiling down at the kid like he was cute or something.

NOT cute! There was nothing cute about this.

The drive home from Dulles was an hour and 15 minutes. Since it was 7:30am when I left the airport in the freezing 30-degree cold, there was no way I was going to take the Capitol Beltway to I-95 to get home in the morning rush-hour heading toward D.C. It would've been total gridlock. So I went the scenic route, west and then north to Frederick and then east. It was 20 miles longer, but it probably would've taken me closer to 2 hours to get around the beltway and up to Ellicott City.

I was tired. I went straight to bed and slept for 4-5 hours (when Martin wasn't kneading my head). I got up but was still out of it. After eating and watching a re-run of the most of the fourth quarter of the Seattle-Dallas game that I'd accidentally recorded and an episode of Law & Order, I went back to bed at 7:00pm and stayed there until morning.

And it was back to work yesterday. Ugh. The funny thing is, I felt like I was leaving home when I left Seattle to return to MD—not coming home. It's cold here. It was 72 degrees on Saturday when I left the east coast, and 30 degrees when I came back Tuesday.

One of these days I'll be back in the Pacific Northwest. That's where my heart is, that's where several of my closest friends are, and I'm pretty sure that's where I belong.

Oh Seattle

Night before last, from seat 35G all the way at the back of the huge Boeing 767, I watched out my window as Lake Washington, the I-90 bridge, then the Space Needle, Smith Tower, and Safeco field came into clear view. It was 8:15PM Pacific time. My seatmate was a neat young woman named Mackenzie who manages a fish plant in Kake, Alaska. I was fascinated by her life in what she called the most beautiful place on earth. I called out the sites to her as I spied them. When I mentioned we were right over Qwest stadium, she said that the Seahawks had a playoff game that day. I told her, "Oh my god, they're playing right now!" The stadium was brightly lit, and every seat was filled. I knew it was a special time for Seattle. I looked on and watched hundreds of camera flashes light up the sky from within the stands. I could feel the energy.

We landed, and Mackenzie called someone on her phone to see if she could find out who was winning the game. Her first report was that Seattle was losing. Then she placed another call. She found out that Seattle has just won, 21-20; her friend said it was a wild game. We realized then that our plane had flown over the stadium right at the climax of the game. How cool is that? We were so excited that the Hawks had won and that, technically, we'd seen it happen! My trip had started out right.

Then I got to the terminal, and went straight to Avis to check in. There was no line. I was the only one there. "The Seahawks just won the play-off game!" I said with no lack of exuberance to the nice man behind the counter. He was so friendly. I asked what type of cars were in the class reserved for me, mentioning that it would be nice to have whichever one is highest off the ground (easier on the back). He looked at his computer and, to my surprise, said "You're in luck, we're all out of mid-size so I can upgrade to an SUV." Yes! How often does that happen?

I stopped at a Safeway that I used to shop at in Redmond. I grabbed some bananas and an Odwalla beverage and headed to the one check-out stand that was open. The only person in line ahead of me was a girl no more than 22 buying a pack of cigarettes—with dimes. $5.59 in dimes that she counted out one by one. (Dang, cigarettes are expensive.) It was late (after midnight my time), and after sitting on that plane for exactly six hours, all I wanted was to get to my motel and get unpacked. Naturally, I felt a bit annoyed. I guess if it had been milk and bread that she was paying for entirely in coins it wouldn't have bothered me as much. But when a young beautiful girl is so desperate for nicotine that she has to empty her piggy bank to pollute her lungs, why should I suffer?

Just as I was thinking that very thought, the girl looked up at me with a big genuine smile and sincerely apologized for making me wait. Suddenly it was all right. I could wait a few extra monments. Not only that, but the cashier—a dapper young man named Drew—expressed unbelievable patience with this customer. He held out his hand as she deposited the dimes there and remained completely pleasant. He wasn't faking it either.

When I got to my hotel in Redmond, the front desk clerk came out as I walked up to the counter, without my having to ring the bell. Not only that, she came out with a smile on her face. She checked me at lightening speed and showed me my room on a map. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my room had feather pillows on the bed, which is the only kind I can sleep on. Yay!

Later, I wandered past the front desk, ice bucket in hand. The nice girl came out and offered to fill my bucket for me, saying that the vending area was way down the hall. I was like, "You don't have to do that! I can go down there and get it." But she insisted and walked over to the nearby kitchen to fill the ice bucket for me.

I almost fell over. After two years on the east coast, I've grown accustomed to bad service. Well, it's more like I've resigned myself to it.

But this. . . this this is Seattle. Nice people, friendly service, and polite drivers. I've only been tail-gated once since my arrival (and that was some eastside snob in her Jag who practically drove on the shoulder to get around me). Things continued to go well yesterday. In fact, everything has gone right on this trip so far. Maybe it's a sign that I was meant to be back here—permanently. I love this place so much and feel right at home coming back. Oh and, once again, I forgot my umbrella. Ha!

Go Hawks!

Hero Week in New York City

A friend of mine on the west coast sent me a link to this story - which can't do anything but warm your heart, especially if you watch the video included in the story: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/05/kid.catch.ap/index.html.

The other hero is this guy who saved the life of a man who fell on the subway tracks. I am impressed with his response in this Reuters article about who the real heroes are: NYC, Trump, Disney reward "Subway Superman".

Hello, 2007

If you are in search of any new year's words of wisdom, you certainly won't find them in today's blog. I'm still too pissed off at 2006 and it's final "Screw you, Susie!" to come up with any proclamations about great things to come in the year 2007. Blah, blah, blah. The very last thing that the exhausting and oh-so-irritating year 2006 gave me in its final farewell was a visit from a horrid gastrointestinal virus—which struck me on December 27th, the first day in the entire year where I didn't have something to do or some place to be. All I wanted to do was relax for a change. Trust me, this virus was no form of relaxation. It was just plain ugly.

Mr. Virus finally parted ways on the first day of this new year. So much for returning to work the 28th. There went two days' pay down the toilet—and I don't mean metaphorically.

Alas, I am well again. My friend Rashmi told me to buy this stuff called Airborne to take the next time I fly. It's supposed to be an effervescent, herbal, anti-oxidant (etc.) immune system booster. Sounds pretty fancy, eh? Well, if it works, praise be to Rashmi. I swear, I get sick the same exact week every single year—Christmas week. (In fact, last year I missed Christmas because my illness came two days beforehand.) Usually it's a nasty cold or sinusitis or bronchitis—something involving miserable congestion. This year was something completely different, and something I'm not sure I'd wish on my worst enemy (which, at the present time, is my home builder who consistently burns three months on a two-day job). Nonetheless, I almost always blame my annual holiday sickness on the airlines and the mass of pent-up germs re-circulating in the airplane on holiday flights. It just isn't safe to fly during flu season.

So this week, rather than celebrate the coming of the new year and dreaming it will be better, I'm simply relishing in the passing of 2006. The only good thing that happened (to me) last year is that I recuperated from my disc replacement back surgery of the previous summer. After 18 years, I can finally say "I have no back pain." That's the big highlight for me personally. And the only highlight. The rest of the year can be summed up thusly: extreme stress, frustration, and irritation with the idiots that one has to deal with on a regular basis. Sigh…. I've become such a cynic in my middle age.

Funny, I made more money in 2006 than ever before. This just goes to prove that money doesn't buy happiness. It buys you a lot of designer knock-off purses on Canal Street, but that's about it.

So, bugger off 2006! I'm done with you and hope to never cross paths with you again. Nyah!

Oh, and Happy New Year to all of you Web surfers out there. I truly hope this is a good year for all my readers (all two of them) and their families as well.

Need a Last-minute Tax Deduction?

If you're looking for a way to pay less income tax in 2006 and put money toward a good cause, I've got just the thing for you! Why not join the fight against cancer and give to a great non-profit organization? I know just the organization that is literally running against cancer. It's called Joggin’ for the Noggin and was started by two friends of mine that I met while working at Aventail Corporation in Seattle in the late 90's. Allow me to tell you their story.

In Seattle I became friends with these two lively people from Canada – Kim and Stephen – whose wonderful sense of humor and spirit of adventure made me fall in love with Canadians. (To this day I haven't met a Canadian that didn't become an instant friend.)

Anyway, Kim's young sister Holly is a veterinary technician who lives in New York City. Less than two years ago, when Holly was just 24 years old, she was diagnosed with brain cancer. I didn't learn about it until later, in November of 2005 when I found out that Kim and Stephen were coming to NYC (where I lived at the time) from their Colorado home to run the marathon. Holly's tumor was the size of an egg and had to be removed immediately. She endured not only that major surgery, but months of sickening radiation treatments and chemotherapy, a 30+-pound weight loss, and other side effects. You think, "What a terrible thing to happen to such a young person." A terrible experience, indeed.

But the beauty of this tragedy is how Holly's family literally ran to her aid. The outpouring of love and support that I saw from afar touched my heart.

Not long after they learned of the cancer that had stricken Holly, Kim and Stephen started up Joggin’ for the Noggin, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that raises funds for brain cancer charities through long-distance running events. And that's how they came to run the marathon last year, with Holly watching from bleachers at the 17-mile post.

It's easy to give to this organization online using a credit card or PayPal account. Or you can mail a check to:

Joggin' for the Noggin
8423 Thunderhead Drive
Boulder, CO 80302

The good thing is that the money you send goes to Sloan-Kettering for cancer research, and donations of $26 or more earn you a Joggin' for the Noggin water bottle. :)

Stephen and Kim's 2006 Christmas letter says that Holly is doing great. She is still in physical therapy getting her leg functionality back after the impact of eight rounds of chemo on her leg muscles. See Holly's blog at http://hollysfightagainstbraincancer.blogspot.com/. Kim, Stephen, and Holly thank you for your help.

Here's wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and a Happy New Year!

Liberty State Park

Manhattan Skyline from Liberty State Park

Why I Should've Taken the Train in (Duh!)

Leaving NYC - Verrazano-Narrows Bridge

Fun in Philly

Until now I'd never been to the city of brotherly love. Despite a few discouraging comments from friends, I still wanted to get a closer look—closer than from the Amtrak rail that took me past the Philadelphia skyline many times last winter, leaving me curious about the beautiful buildings that lit up the night sky. Plus, I wanted to explore its historic sites. I'm always open to adding another U.S. city to my ever-growing list of places I've seen, so off I went up I-95 last weekend to visit the birthplace of our nation.

I also took a brief side trip to NYC, where I finally visited Liberty Park in Jersey where the Manhattan skyline views are incredible. I also finally got a chance to see Jersey City, which is where I would probably live if I could move back to that area. It was bitterly cold Friday and Saturday, but much nicer on Sunday when I explored Independence Mall.

In NYC, Canal Street was a madhouse—entire road lanes were taken up by foot traffic. But I wasn't leaving without another designer handbag (a Prada this time). I swear, all my life I bought my purses at Target. Nothing special, and I never cared. But ever since I got the beautiful patchwork Coach bag in a little back room behind a secret door off Canal Street, I've gotten more compliments on my bag than I can count! Even today at Costco a woman behind me commented on my Coach. Come to find out, she goes up to NYC twice a year and does her shopping at the exact same places I do – Canal Street, Century 21, and the Pearl River Mart on Broadway. My kind of woman!

In Philly, I got a kick out of the dozen or so non-English speaking Chinese people snapping photos of each other in front of Independence Hall. How's that for irony? I also enjoyed seeing the original Liberty Bell and learning about the history of the infamous crack. The last time the bell was rung was in 1846, in honor of George Washington's birthday. Damage to the bell was too extensive at that point, and it rendered dumb on that day.

I cannot believe Christmas is a week away. I finished my shopping and wrapping last month, so I'm done with that. But my job suddenly began to require lots of overtime work about three weeks ago. Between that and a free-lance writing gig that landed in my lap last month, I have not been able to find the time to get a Christmas tree. I really wanted one this year, but I couldn't find a single tree lot the weekend after Thanksgiving when I was just dying to get a tree. That surprised me. (Bah humbug, Maryland!) At this point it just isn't worth all the effort so I guess I'll forego tree decorating this year and just enjoy the tree at my brother's place down in Atlanta.

Christmas was supposed to happen at my parents' new home in an "active adult" community [reminder: never say "retirement community!"] in Canton, Georgia, this year. Their closing was scheduled for 12/11. But their builder postponed until 12/22, and now my mom's not sure if the builder will be ready by then. God, all builders are alike. I can't even talk about my horror story of the inside stair repair my builder performed on my new home last month. I'm still too disgusted by the total incompetence displayed by the various subcontractors day after day during a job that should've been completed in three days in early October, not three messy, dusty weeks in November. But we won't go there right now.

Happy Holidays, everyone! Here are some pictures for your enjoyment from Philly.

Club Quarters on Chestnut Street, where I stayed, and City Hall:

















The clothespin sculpture and the Christmas tree in front of City Hall:

















Market Street and and Independence Hall, where the U.S. Constitution was signed:

















Reading Terminal Market:

Father of the Navy, John Barry:

microdermabrasion (and other ways to torture yourself)

About three months ago I decided to try something new: laser hair removal. So I paid an arm and a leg to have a couple dozen hairs removed from my chin. (Breaking down the exorbitant price, I realize this is costing me approximately $25-35 per hair. Aaaaagh.)

Prior to that, I researched hair removal techniques and learned that there is no such thing as permanent hair removal. That’s what the experts say. But when I went for my free consultation at American Laser Center in Columbia, the receptionist/sales woman insisted that it is permanent. So “permanent” in fact that ALC offers a two-year guarantee that the hairs they remove will not grow back. So in laser hair removal speak, two years equals an eternity.

Something else I wan't overly keen on was their pricing scheme. You are expected to pay 50% of your one-year package price up front, and then the other 50% at your first treatment. I asked the woman, “So what happens if you go out of business before my first year is up?” She just laughed, indicating that the probability of that happening was zero. (Gee, thanks for your concern.) The alternative to paying up front is to pay per visit, at an amount almost twice as much as paying up front.

It was like haggling at a car dealership. I insisted I wasn’t going to pay the going rate of $1200 for this procedure (chin only). She claimed that this was the “sale” price (the normal price was $1999). I claimed unless she could discount it another 30% I was leaving. So she left to "call the manager," and when she came back she said, "Good news!" . . . plus she threw in a free $125-dollar microdermabrasion treatment to seal the sale. I was just waiting for her to hand me the keys to a new Hummer.

Even though my better judgment told me this isn’t a great deal and there are no real guarantees that my money will be well spent, I was sick of plucking chin hairs (my mother never told me not to!). . . . I didn’t argue with the woman about the permanency of laser hair removal and decided to give it a shot anyway.

I was, of course, concerned about how much this would hurt. She claimed that it feels like “being snapped with a rubber band.” The patient is supposed to get the treatments once every 7-10 weeks, and each session lasts about 15 minutes. I had back pain for 17 years, what's another 15 minutes every couple of months?

Two weeks ago I had my second treatment. I was a bit disappointed about five weeks after the first treatment, when all my coarse chin hairs grew back with a vengeance. So I questioned the nurse as to when I can expect results. After calling me impatient (twice), she told me I could expect to see results after the third treatment. So I still have a couple months to go before I can even hope to feel as though this $840 was well spent.

But let me tell you something – it’s not painless, and it’s not like being snapped with a rubber band. It’s more like being zapped with a strong, hot electrical charge. And when a follicle is lased, it smells. Ever smell burning hair? Ick. The second treatment seemed a lot more painful than the first, despite using a Lidocaine cream on my chin the second time around.

Not surprisingly, every time I go in for a treatment, the nurse tries to sell me more packages. “This week only, you can do both legs [from the knee down] for just $1300,” she cheers as she shoves a price list in front of my face. Aaaagh. Forget it. She also tried to sell me the arm pits. (Oooh - that's gotta hurt.) No thanks. This little tiny chin area is torture enough.

For all the money and the repeated discomfort, this had better work. If by the end of my year of treatments it has not worked, well then all I can say is I knew better. I really did.

On Monday I went in for my free microdermabrasion treatment. ALC recommends that you do this treatment twice a month. (That’s $250/month – almost a car payment!) When the aesthetician told me that, I thought to myself, “And let this be the last one.”

When I asked her if it will hurt, she told me it “feels like a cat licking your skin.” Yeah, I imagine if a cat licks your skin once it doesn’t hurt. But add a lot more pressure and continue to let the cat lick every centimeter of your face, over and over, while a tiny vacuum cleaner sucks up the dead skin cells. Yikes! It occurred to me then why it’s called microdermabrasion. To say it’s abrasive is an understatement, to say the least. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.

Sure, it feels great the next day – my skin is so-o-o-o soft. But as I was lying there on the table with the relaxation CD playing in the background, the fluorescent lights shining in my eyes, and the lion's tongue carving up and vacuuming the skin off my face I thought, “Never again.”

Why do women insist on torturing themselves this way? After all, your skin sheds itself every 28 days on its own. No need to speed up Mother Nature. Besides, you might just piss her off if you do.

Desperate Housewives Not So Wife-like

If you are a fan of the ABC television show Desperate Housewives, tell me this: why are they called housewives? Most of the “housewives” in the show aren’t even married. Susan is divorced, although she did recently remarry her Ex just long enough to commit insurance fraud. Edie the bimbo is not married, nor are we sure if she ever has been. Bree the Stepford Wife had a husband but he was murdered by the pharmacist who was secretly in love with Bree. Thus, she was unmarried most of last season. She just remarried last week to another potential murderer, so that marriage probably won't last either. Gabrielle the Beauty Queen is in the process of divorcing her husband, while grandstanding her hatred for Carlos by sleeping with other men in front of him. She may not be divorced yet, but shouldn't that kind of behavior disqualify her from being a wife? The only true housewife on the show is Lynette. (And really the only one with any sense.)

So a more apt name for the show might be Desperate Housewife.

I’m not even sure what makes them “desperate.” Is it that they’re so busy hurting one another that they are dying to get out of the suburban graves they’ve dug for themselves? After watching my taped recording of Sunday’s episode earlier this week, it occurred to me that the show’s portrayal of middle class America is flat-out pathetic. More accurately, it’s depressing.

Mind you, it is TV and therefore pure entertainment. But if you think about it (and I don’t encourage that), Wisteria Lane seems to bring out the worst in people.

Consider what these middle class suburbanites are not only capable of but seem to excel at: divorce, alcoholism, fraud, lying, back-stabbing, committing adultery (three out of four characters in the show commit this sin), abandoning their children to street life, murder (several so far), covering up murder, stealing boyfriends, burning down each other’s houses, chaining their children to the basement, motor vehicle hit-and-run accidents, stealing, promiscuity, kidnapping, suicide (too common a theme, if you ask me), home-wrecking, and other bad behaviors designed to basically ruin the lives of their neighbors. There’s even a bit of gay porn and prostitution thrown in for good measure.

I think the show has managed to cover just about all the bad things people can do to one another, with the exception of instigating nuclear war. And it really hasn’t been on the air all that long. It probably took Law & Order ten years to get this many crimes under its belt – and L&O is solely about crime.

With all of this evil going on, do you think this comic sitcom will last? Or do we relish the evil? Just how many more disappearing bodies can we take? True, we do enjoy a good mystery. But with underlying themes like suicide, adultery, and bad parenting prevailing with every new season, I don’t have high hopes for the show.

I suspect that viewers will get sick of being presented with suicide as a topic in their weekly TV viewing. In the very first episode the narrator of the show (a former housewife) blew her brains out with a .38 in her own living room. Later, when the freaky pharmacist George sucked down a bunch of pills, Bree sat by his bedside and watched him die. Just last week, Bree’s daughter feigned a suicide attempt to get attention. (Ironically, I found her brother Andrew’s sarcasm over the act to be pretty hysterical. Maybe throwing humor into attempted suicide will help ratings.) And now Bree’s new husband has intimated that he didn’t murder his ex-wife (as his ex-neighbor announced at the engagement party) – but rather that she’d committed suicide.

So what’s next for these desperate women and their families and neighbors? I don’t know, but I have a feeling that the show’s writers are going to start running out of ideas and continue to repeat the same old ones until we’re finally, ultimately sick of 42-year-old Teri Hatcher’s Size 2 jeans. By the way, has anyone figured out what she does for a living? She’s never once gone to work.

Stay tuned for why Meredith Grey should gain some weight, update her hair style, and start dating women. (That's another show that's gotten really old really fast. Same old, same old.)

Good night!

Old Town Alexandria

October 15, 2006

Happy Birthday to my mom!

Yesterday Rashmi and I took a little late-afternoon jaunt down to Old Town in Northern Virginia. Six miles outside of D.C., Alexandria is an historic town located on the west bank of the Potomac River that played a part in many a war. George Washington used the Market Square there for militia drills in 1754. Robert E. Lee grew up in Alexandria before leaving home to attend West Point. The British held the town hostage during the War of 1812. The famous Torpedo Factory there was built in the early 1900's and used as a U.S. munitions factory in World War II. The list goes on. . . .

Rashmi and I made the most of the daylight we had. It was a crisp fall day with perfect weather - perfect to me, anyway because it's what I call "sweatshirt weather." It sure beats the torturous heat of the past several months. Our little walking tour took us down the charming brick sidewalks of King Street past City Hall to the Torpedo Factory Art Center at the waterfront. There we met Brian Wilson, president of the Wilson Parrot Foundation.

Mr. Wilson is a former firefighter. After spending 2o years saving the lives of people, now he rescues parrots and is a regular attraction on the streets of Old Town, along with his traveling parrot clan. Rashmi and I stepped right up to have our photo taken with the friendly birds (the macaw resting upside-down on our palms was such a ham).

If you go to Brian's Web site you can click on a link near the top of the page to see video him featured on WUSA News JC and Friends in July 2006.

After passing through a couple of shops, we stopped to listen to a man who could play "Over the Rainbow" on water glasses. Pretty impressive! We watched the riverboat Cherry Blossom leave the dock with a well-dressed wedding party aboard and I chatted with a wonderful lady from upstate New York who had fled the 3-foot snows of this past week.

Later, after shopping, we returned to the waterfront to eat seafood at the Chart House restaurant, which has nice river views. With no reservations available, we sat at the bar. As we found out from one of the locals at the bar, it's a chain restaurant that has "terrible, overpriced food." The couple told us they never eat there; they were just there for drinks. The place to eat, apparently, is Landini's. So, we'll have to try that place next time we go.

It's true, my swordfish was pretty awful, but Rashmi's Chilean Sea Bass was wonderful. As our fine waiter was clearing our dishes away, I let him know not to recommend the swordfish to any more customers that evening. He asked me if he could bring me something else to eat, and I declined. But he insisted that I get something on the house to take with me. So, I got an order of the Chilean Sea Bass to take home. When we got the bill, we found out he hadn't charged for my entire meal. That was a pleasant surprise! And I had a lovely dinner at home the next evening.

Anyway, we met some nice people at the restaurant and stayed to watch the Detroit Tigers win a trip to the World Series with a two-out three-run homer by Magglio Ordonez in the bottom of the 9th. Rashmi and I both cheered when Ordonez easily popped the ball right over the fence. It's so nice to finally see a different team (other than the Yankees or Red Sox) headed to the World Series for a change. Remember a few years back when the Diamondbacks won? We need more variety like that.

So, I need to go back to Old Town when I can spend an entire day there and visit some of the muesums and other historic attractions. It's really a neat place, and the shopping is decent. I love the Artcraft store there - lots of gift potential in that place. I ended up getting another chunk of my Christmas shopping done. We noticed there were a number of international visitors in Old Town, including several young girls from Austria, so apparently Old Town is a popular tourist attraction. And it has some of the highest quality street performers I've seen and heard.

Little Italy in north Boston 

Paul Revere's house in Little Italy (built by Matt Barnard in 1680)