I haven't put up any photos in a long time--mostly because my traveling has been rather limited. However, some kind generosity gave me the opportunity to visit the Caribbean in February, and this is the Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park on St. Kitts.

The one thing I missed getting a photo of? "Karl with a K," the cruise director. You CANNOT beat this guy's flourescent pink shirt.

What didn't I attend? The Hairy Chest competition on the pool deck. I don't consider that to be a missed opportunity.

Interlude

Location: A Dunkin' Donuts drive-thru

Speaker: Hello! How can I help you?

Me: Hi. I'd like a medium hazelnut iced coffee with regular cream and no sugar.

Speaker: Ok, that's a medium hazelnut iced coffee with regular cream and extra-extra sugar.

Me: You've got everything right except the sugar--no sugar.

Speaker: Melt the sugar?

Me: Regular cream ONLY.

Ugh.

The Worst Phone Number in the World

I have the worst phone number in the world. Here's why.

Once upon a time, Ida and George led a happy life somewhere in New Hampshire. They rented movies, they had the tires on their car fixed, they gave money to worthy charities. They were card-carrying members of the NRA. When Ida ended up contracting cancer, she chose a diligent treatment facility that eagerly updated her on her progress.

Then, Ida and George decided that their home phone service was too expensive. After years with the same home number, they switched carriers and gave up their well known, much used and shared phone number.

And, now, I have that number.

The reason I know all of this information about "Ida" and "George" is because I receive more phone calls for either one or both of them than I do for myself. Contrary to much recent advice, they gave their number out to everyone--companies, neighbors, doctors and hospitals. The only problem is that they neglected to inform these organizations and individuals that their home number was no longer the same.

There are three levels of annoying phone calls I receive for Ida and George:

First, there are the straight, run-of-the-mill telemarketers. There is no chance that Ida and George even considered putting their number on a "no-call" list. However, the only good thing about these calls is my response--I'm not Ida, I'm not George; sorry you have the wrong number, click.

Second, there are what I will call "service" calls. Apparently, Ida and George's tires were ready for their car. And, they had some rented movies out a little too long. Do Ida and George know about this? No, I do.

The worst--and I mean this in all seriousness--were the calls relating to Ida's health. Ida has some form of cancer, and there is no way I should know that. In fact, since I do know that, the doctor's office should take heed to handing out too much information while leaving a voice message on a machine that doesn't reference an Ida in its instructions. I received so many phone messages about this, the tone of the caller increasing in urgency with every unreturned message, that I actually called the office myself and explained that they not only had the wrong number, but that I didn't even know who Ida is.

If this weren't enough, a local man's home phone number must be a digit or two off of my own, as I've spoken to many of his friends lately. Unfortunately for me, this gentleman is a rather early riser, and his buddies tend to give him a ring between 5 and 6 in the morning.

His friends, though, are extremely nice people and have only been apologetic about the disturbance. The video store guy--now that is another story.

The Soup and Grilled Cheese Sandwich Diet

After catching a stomach bug two weeks ago, I ended up in one of those terrible connundra where one has to choose between alleviating hunger and winding up feeling miserable. And yes, did I choose wrong many times...many times...ugh.

Upon coming out of it, I thought I would bounce back really quickly. I also thought that vegetables had to be OK--I mean, what could be easier to digest? I was wrong on both fronts. Ugh (yet again).

So, I am introducing The Soup and Grilled Cheese Sandwich Diet. For some unexplained reason, ever since I semi-regained my ability to eat, I have been able to eat canned soup (not vegetable, of course) and grilled cheese sandwiches. Coupled with the bug, I dropped about 8 pounds.

Oprah, eat your heart out.

Asshole of the Day

So, I'm driving along, and I end up stopped at a light near a local supermarket. As I'm waiting for the signal to proceed, I notice a woman in a faux-jeep-like car creep up next to me in the turning lane to the left. The light turned green, and since she was well behind me, I went ahead.

And she beeped at me.

Then, as a line of us are approaching a turn onto a nearby highway, she speeds up alongside me to the right, quickly puts on her turn signal, and swerves into my lane in the narrow space between the car in front of me and I. To add insult to injury, she waved at me in a casual "na-na-na-poo-poo" way in her rear view mirror.

What the hell was that?!

Note: I apologize for suddenly monitoring comments. Last month, someone visited my blog multiple times and left ads on about 10 of my posts. I don't intend to delete comments unless you're trying to sell me something.

Ennui

My next door neighbor is the local mail carrier. Last week, he came to my door with a package I had to sign for. While I was doing so, he mentioned that he had taken some photos of my cats visiting his yard:

"I got this great shot of the grey one--she climbed a tree and sat on the birdhouse there while she watched the bear prowling around."

This is why my cats do not go outside unless it is A) during the day and B) I am at home. Since I work five days a week, and the days have naturally shortened, this limits the opportunities for a feline saunter in the New Hampshire woods. The cats are certainly aware of this, and they make their collective protests felt every morning I walk out the door and every night I return home again.

Worry not, the cat population is no where near bored.

The focal point of their interest and attention has shifted to the centerpiece on the coffee table in the living room. There are many unique and interesting elements to this self-created attempt at decorative art--sand, a bowl of water with floating candles, rocks, fake leaves and berries--it is almost too much for a cat without anything to do for eight hours five days a week.

When this became apparent to me, I attempted to ensure that the resulting mess didn't reoccur. However, I've discovered that the different ways I've addressed this issue have been approached as puzzles for the cat collective to work around.

The L.L. Bean Box:
Destroyed. Multiple sittings bowed the flaps adhered down the center of the back to the point that a few claw-sharpenings and tooth-applied shreddings later, the flaps were free from their adhesive, and they were raised in order to allow access to the coveted bowl of water.

The J. Crew Box:
I just rotated this replacement out. When I first looked the box over, I thought "there is no way they'll be able to pull this apart." I was wrong--entirely. First, they pulled apart a corner so a little borrowing would lift it just enough over a cat-sized body to get at the water. After taping that up again, they resumed their original approach to the previous box, with the same result.

The Milk Crate
When the crate fit perfectly over the square plate of decorative sand upon which the bowl of candles rests, I thought I had finally found the answer. I placed a set of books on top of it to make sure no one could shift it. Later, I discovered the evidence of an attempt at the bowl--sand was all over the table--cat paws fit comfortably through the grate in the crate, and pawfuls of sand had been scooped out and distributed on the table surface. I am sure it is only a matter of time before this method also is retired.

I can't blame them--classes were created around the Rubik's Cube puzzle. And, I'm sure the participants were equally without amusement.

Relaxing? Not Quite

Upon deciding to take today off yesterday after work, I thought it would fit the fairly typical mould--catch up on rest, do some reading, look over that magazine that I purchased a week ago.

Instead, I got up at 8 and moved furniture, completely rearranging my house.

Of course the exercise started rather innocently. At some point this weekend, I was going to have to clean the house, and this train of thought naturally led to the consideration of the underused space that is my office. My main problem was seating--a very nice desk actually lacked a chair of any kind, and there was literally nothing else to sit on in the room unless one counted the floor. I was sitting on the couch in the living room when I thought this out, and it didn't escape my notice that a chair, purchased as part of a set with the said couch, sat infrequently used on the other side of the room.

Hmmmmm.....maybe I could move that.....

My first attempt was entirely unsuccessful. The chair had legs screwed onto the bottom, and with this attached, it was impossible to push the chair through the doorway into the office. After removing them, the job transformed into a breeze, and the chair was reassembled in the office.

I tried to place the chair against the different, available walls in the room. None of them offered an ideal location, and most made the new addition appear out of place in its new environment. This made moving the office furniture around a necessity, the desk, filing cabinet, and stereo system took entirely new places in the room.

And then, naturally, the living room had to be reorganized to make up for the large, open space that the chair left behind.

I stopped short of wallpapering that section under the window in the kitchen that has been bothering me....just barely.

Parental Hidden Talents

My father exemplifies the adjective "formidable." My brother, familiar with our father's place of employment, reported that he is "respected and feared" there. In one of our few moments of mutual harmony and agreement, my brother and I both asserted that if we were ever unfortunate enough to be caught by the police and forced to either spend a night in jail or call our father to bail us out, we would enthusiastically choose the former option.

Of course, this isn't a complete picture of him by any stretch of the imagination. He is also incredibly generous, sensitive, and comical. What I didn't know about him until recently is that he is completely unintimidated by, and even able to relate to, teenagers.

Last weekend, my mother was involved in an event in our hometown, working for a nonprofit organization that needed to raise money for its activities. I agreed to spend some of the weekend at home to help out, and later in the afternoon, my father appeared at the festivities. My mother was in a state of exasperation--there was a competition due to commence at 5:30 pm, and the implements for the race had not been assembled. My father agreed to stay around and find a solution to this problem. A table was set up, and at first, a group of adults, my father and I included, attempted to rectify the situation. Then, a group of middle school students came by to help.

Most teachers will agree that middle school is the most difficult age to teach in class. The sight of a pack of preteens brought about the retreat of some of the adults, whether moving off to some other activity or engaging in conversation with each other. To my great surprise, my father arranged the students in two lines and showed them how to quickly get the work done, instructing and encouraging them along the way. He was familiar; he was unintimidated. He was the one of the only adults among at least half a dozen that engaged these kids and stuck with the project, only a few others excepted.

Who would have thought?

My Pills, My Problem

One of the little momentary annoyances of life occurs in the pharmacy. Whether you're on a regular medication or you have to pick up a prescription to treat something localized and temporary, in order to acquire the small bottle of essential pills, you have to go through the inevitable song and dance at the counter.

I've rarely been thrilled with the service offered at my local drug store. With a few, but certainly notable, exceptions, most of the staff during the day is lacking in professionalism to say the least. On one occasion, I desperately needed a prescription for a steroid filled quickly because of sudden, unexplained swelling n my throat. In the interests of time, the doctor I saw for the problem immediately faxed the request to the pharmacy. When I got there, they hadn't seen the request at all, and after I explained it had been faxed over to them, one of the employees went over to the machine and picked up what had to have been a stack of ten similar prescription requests, none of which had been looked at, let alone filled.

Earlier in the week, I returned home from work with a message on my phone from the doctor's office. Apparently this time, the pharmacy had done it's part--they had called the office to get authorization to start a new round of refills on a regular prescription.

The young lady in the office called me to ask me what the prescription was.

Huh?

She didn't recognize the name, and she had somehow consulted a reference book on the matter, which didn't list or identify the prescription. She was in an office full of doctors she could have asked, I presume she had access to the Internet and its wealth of databases on the topic, and the number for the pharmacy was clearly listed on the fax. Instead of any or all of these avenues of authority, she instead chose to call me up during business hours at my home number to ask me.

The next day, I called the office, and a completely different person answered the phone. I explained the message, answered the question, and asked her why I had been called about the issue given how many other options were available to answer the caller's question.

"Well it is YOUR prescription."

Yes, point taken. But come on.

Fatal Accident Caused By....?

I have come to the conclusion that there is one thing far more distracting, and therefore, far more dangerous, than text messaging while driving.

It's the mosquito in the car.

I'm sure it surprises no one who has at least seen the moth photograph that I live in a slightly remote area in northern New England (where else would one find a moth with a twelve-inch wingspan who could easily audition for the next X-Man movie?). A combination of mild temperatures and lots of rain resulted in a spike in the creepy wildlife category out here this year. For example, one night upon taking out the trash, I noticed that there were at least five frogs on my car.

Nothing beats the mosquitoes. Absolutely nothing. I haven't been able to walk across my lawn once without dousing myself in a hefty dose of Deep Woods Off. While this is inconvenient, reentering the house generally disperses the cloud of noisy bloodsuckers, and those that are unfortunate enough to make it indoors are quickly hunted down and consumed by the cats.

The car is another issue entirely. It's trapped; you're trapped and belted to the seat. At first, it bounces along the dashboard, on and off the windshield attempting escape through the glass. Then, it may drift over to the window where you make a desperate dash to open it to let it out. When that's not successful, you lose sight of it somewhere, and patches all over your skin start to tingle and crawl. Wherever you think you've been bitten, you've only managed to whack unadulterated skin, but when you get out of the car, you notice at least two or three welts where you least expect them to be. And, if you're unlucky enough, it will be waiting for you in there, probably eager for another meal, when you get back inside the car to drive home again.

All the while you're engaged in a battle of wits with an insect no larger than a fingernail shard, you drift around the road, cross the yellow lines a few times, and tailgate that guy in front of you to near a rear-end job.

I wonder how many accidents may have been caused by the simple mosquito in the car. I am certain, however, that there are no statistics to report on this phenomenon.

Giant Moth

In keeping with the nature-oriented turn that this blog has recently taken, this appeared on my living room window the other night. I presume that this isn't the culprit that continues to knock my trash can over every night. One never can tell.

I think these are wild strawberries growing in my front yard. As they could also very easily be something poisonous, I certainly did not sample them.

And somehow, Anne climbed up the frame and into the roof of the carport. I'd rather not have to call the fire department to ask for assistance with this one.

Wild Kingdom

Every morning when I get out to bed, three cats all rush to the kitchen from wherever they had settled in for the evening. Contrary to popular belief, they bypass the food dishes in favor of the far window that looks out the driveway. The resulting excitement revolves around a woodpecker's decision to build a nest in the framework of the carport. As soon as the window is open, two cats will pack themselves in on the narrow sil, leaving one to pace around back and forth on the floor until a coveted viewing space opens up.

The woodpecker is entirely undeterred by this wild kingdom peepshow.


Oh, and something did this to an unfortunate tree across the street. Yeah for living in the woods.

Social Engagements and a Neglected Apartment

I'm the type of person who really needs a balance between the social and the anti-social. In addition to a slew of college-entrance exams, and in the hopes of somehow finding the magic cure to not knowing who we were, a whole host of personality tests were administered to us during our formidable teenage years. The lack of accuracy of these tests is best demonstrated by the experience of a friend of mine. She took a lengthy test that was meant to pinpoint careers that fit her personality. Her result? Mortician. What has she really done? She's traveled the world, lived in dozens of places, and works in marketing. In my own case, no test was ever able to tell me whether I was more inclined to be around people or whether I was better on my own.

Last week was the classic example of this carefully crafted equilibrium being entirely thrown for a loop. For about five or six days running, I was rarely home. Each day, I had a different social event to go to and different people to meet. The engagements ranged from a small birthday dinner for a close friend to a surprise party where I had been asked to appear as a pilgrim for the guest of honor. Two things resulted from this: exhaustion and a very messy apartment.

I live in a one-bedroom apartment. Even in its cleanest state, it still is small. The morning after my last social event, I woke up with barely a clear square foot on my floor or a clear place to sit on my couch. In the interests of getting to work on time, I forwent contemplating the state of the place. I turned on the car--a must-do for us in northern New England, I got dressed, I made coffee. I was half a minute away from walking out the door to head to work when the phone rang.

It was my landlord. I had announced about three weeks before that this would be my last month in this apartment. After a long search, I found a new place that addressed some of the shortcomings of my current living space. He said he was going to advertise the apartment, and he would let me know if anyone wanted to see it.

And someone did. That afternoon.

Suddenly, I had an "Oh, shit" moment on my hands. I hardly knew what to do. The apartment was in no state to be shown by anyone's imagination, unless the purpose of the visit was to feature it on a TV show with a "don't try this at home" theme. I had no choice but to call my boss and explain that I would be late.

I spent two and a half hours cleaning. You wouldn't think that you would need that kind of time for a one-bedroom place, but it had devolved to such a state that under normal circumstances, I probably would have divided the work over several days. You also notice several things that would have passed before, but to the landlord's eye, may have been signs of a bad tenant. In order to get this done, I actually had to change back into what I wore to bed--not wanting to wreck a nicely-put together work outfit. Because of an ambitious plan to clean up a classroom at work, my broom and mop were not present, so I had to use a brush and dustpan to get the bits and pieces off of the tile in the kitchen, and then, pull out a replacement sponge for the mop I didn't have and clean the floor on my hands and knees. I didn't stop the whole time, and I probably dropped about 5 pounds in the process.

In the end, for the first time, the apartment looked like a showplace. The landlord noticed nothing amiss. And, I had a whole lot more time this weekend to myself than I had originally planned for.

I probably wouldn't have turned out to be the "spontaneous" type if there had been a test for that.

Chocolate Squares

Someone should have alerted the brilliant team at Ghiradelli that advertising the new line of peanut butter filled chocolates may not result in the boost in sales they are aiming for at the moment.

Delight in Old TV Favorites Resurrected

My parents have the ultimate cable television package--something that I would have to give up meat products and alcoholic drinks to afford. When I visited for Christmas, I discovered the Fine Living Network, and this particularly excited me because two old favorites are on the regular schedule there: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and the original Iron Chef.

Both of these shows take me back about four years. When they were regularly broadcast on main TV channels, I was still at Plimoth Plantation, I was living with a boyfriend, and I hadn't continued my education beyond a BA yet.

Queer Eye provided hours of entertainment for me and instruction for my significant other. I think he watched mostly to pick up grooming and dressing tips. Additions to his wardrobe included new underwear and button-down shirts with stripes. He also became conscious of his nose hair, and the fact that stray strands should be removed.

I never liked the new, American version of Iron Chef. The whole campy, flamboyant flavor of the original is captivating, and Iron Chef America never caught on to this fact. I also prefer the Japanese Iron Chefs to their American counterparts--when you watch, you get to see their talent without that annoying dose of American "I know I'm going to win" arrogance.

There's a vote for mindless entertainment for you. And yes, both of these shows are recorded daily on my DVR.

I am also particularly excited by the apple pie in my fridge right now.

That Knock on the Door

At this festively political season of the year, no place of residence is safe from the multi-front attack by canvassers, enthusiasts, and volunteers. As we speak, there is a small delegation from the local Obama camp, whose office is adjacent to my place of employment, wandering around the neighborhood. For a solitary moment, they stopped outside of my building. I was planning my defense. I was comfortably situated on my couch, a plate of breakfast on my lap and curlers in my hair. I figured that I could just avoid answering the door, but the fact they could easily see right into my front window would have probably encouraged them to up their efforts to get me up to listen to their practiced schpeal about their chosen candidate.

I must extend warm thanks to my next door neighbors. In their patriotic desire to support Barack Obama, they acquired a sign from the aforementioned office and placed it right in front of the house. Upon first glance, the building looks like a one-family home rather than a modified three-apartment structure. The canvassers took one look at the sign, figured the people inside were already collective Obama supporters and therefore, speaking to them wouldn't accomplish their goal of convincing people to vote for their candidate. They moved on to another, less fortunate set of individuals.

A Job Well Done

Thanks a lot, Anne.

Temporarily Disabled

About four weeks ago, my mother nagged me into the doctor's office. My foot had been painful to walk on and somewhat swollen for about two weeks without much improvement, and I thought perhaps I had a stubborn sprain that wouldn't heal because I couldn't go for an entire week without at least some minimal walking. To make a long story short, I explained what was wrong to the doctor and he ordered some x-rays.

And it turned out to be broken.

Now, I had never had a broken bone before, so my mental imagery on the subject was rather skewed from the reality--visions of jagged bones protruding through pliable flesh and disjointed limbs hanging in pendulum-like motion apparently weren't entirely accurate. I had a stress fracture on the top of my foot. This meant three days of ibuprofen, four weeks without excessive walking, six weeks out of the gym....and a whole week on crutches.

I may have been carrying my own body weight distributed between two pieces of rubber-padded aluminum, but that didn't mean that suddenly I stopped needing necessities. During the course of my temporary disability, I made three trips to the supermarket--three different supermarkets. Here are my ratings for each of these establishments.

Market Basket
Rank of Three: 1
Customers: Excellent

My first trip, I took with my co-worker, who offered to help me out when I asked him. He wheeled the cart around and I hobbled from place to place to select items. People kindly moved out of the way for us, and some even went the long way around aisles so not to get in our way. I rarely had to stop my momentum to allow people and carriages to pass--many times, people willingly curtailed their own progress to allow us to pass. Some were even kind enough to ask me what happened and to share their sympathies. Overall, a very nice crowd, and I was able to do a fairly large food shopping even without the use of one foot.

Shaw's
Rank of Three: 2
Customers: So-so

I did a quick shopping for a meal's worth of food towards the end of my tenure on crutches at a local Shaw's. I put a backpack on, made sure that the only things inside of it before going in were my wallet and cell phone, and I put each of the items in the sack. I offered to let the cashier to look in my bag to make sure I had taken everything out of it, but she kindly refused with a knowing smile.

There were some snags in this supermarket shopping, however. I was swinging myself along in time with someone directly in front of me walking in the door, and without thinking, she stopped to look at a circular right at the entrance, making it next to impossible for me to get by her. I had to push the crutches together resulting in such a skinny fit that I almost couldn't push my body through them, and at no point did she look up. Although it was difficult, I managed to make it all the way across the store from the produce aisle to the bread aisle (why they put these two common staple categories so far apart, I will never know). Here, I was presented with a conundrum. Although the aisle was wide, there were too many displays down the center of it for me to use that as a transportation channel. On one side, a woman had parked her carriage and was scrutinizing several loaves of Sarah Lee bread, and on the other, a woman had two children in the plastic red car mould attached to the carriage, making it about twice as wide as it would have normally been. Upon approaching this aisle-wide succession of obstructions, I thought if I just paused in front of them, they would notice me and one of them would have moved. After moving close by enough that I could not be ignored, neither of them shifted. I waited a minute--still nothing. Finally, I sighed and literally said "Come on, ladies." That got their attention--both of them moved and one (the bread-examiner)even apologized.

Whole Foods
Rank of Three: 3
Customers: Should not be allowed to reproduce

This trip was absolutely incredible. It was enough to make one lose faith in humanity all together.

I arrived here and parked around the side because every single parking space in any kind of walking distance was taken up by some large gas-guzzling vehicle with four-wheel drive and a luxury logo. On my way in, a young man, who saw me coming and was just a little too far away to beat me to the door at a normal walking pace, actually rushed in front of me to ensure he would have to wait for me to get in the door before he could. I made my way to the back of the store--I only had a few items to pick up and this time, I knew exactly where they were. On my way, I had to maneuver around one clueless guy who was having a very hard time figuring out whether to go for the hot or cold entrees bar with his little, biodegradable carton, and walked in front of me no less than two times in deep contemplation over this topic. After picking up what I needed in the pasta and fish departments, I went over to the produce section. I stopped in front of the bags of salad. I leaned my crutches up against the side of the refrigerated display and shifted about three feet down the way, as the spinach I was looking for was sitting there. No sooner had I picked up the plastic bag and put it in my backpack then a guy, who couldn't be given the consideration of not knowing I was the owner of the crutches, parked his cart right between me and my means of doing any traveling. I couldn't believe it. I had to hobble around him, and actually use his cart to hold myself up, just to get to the crutches. When they were safely under my arms and I was about to move, a conga-line of produce shoppers started to pass by--fifteen of them. I held myself up there while shopper after shopper and cart after cart passed me by and not ONE of them stopped the progress so I could move out of the way. Instead, they looked at me as if my genes would pollute the perfection of the human race with an up-and-down look and an accompanying eye-roll as I stood there supporting my own body weight with my upper half.

The only bright spot in all of this was my next turn into the seasonings aisle. While a store employee had a conversation with a customer in front of where I clearly needed to get, a man approached me and asked me if I were by myself. Since I was, he asked if I needed any help, and I thanked him, but I told him I was Ok. He said if I needed anything, he would be happy to help, and he left. This was the only man in this store who deserved to live.

This solitary bright-spot in my grocery shopping experience was immediately followed by a trip to the check-out line where my successor talked my ear off about the diet she was on and how much weight she had lost.

Excuse Me, Mr. Yeats

I was peeling through some literature compellations, and I found the context for the "woman won or woman lost" quote. I thought Yeats said it on his own at some point (my source, sadly, was The Boston Globe's "Quote of the Day"). In fact, it starts the last stanza of Part I of his poem "The Tower." The poem is really long, so I am not going to post it (if you're interested you can find it here). Here is the stanza it comes from:

Does the imagination dwell the most
Upon a woman won or woman lost?
If on the lost, admit you turned aside
From a great labyrinth out of pride,
Cowardice, some silly over-subtle thought
Or anything called conscience once;
And that if memory recur, the sun's
Under eclipse and the day blotted out.

Yeah for minor discoveries.

In other news: Someone wants to publish some of my pictures--and the stuff I took with the old point-and-shoot, too (not the fancy thing I take pictures with now). Do I get any money? Uhhhh.....no. Oh, well.