Ex-expatriate

Living overseas for many years breeds some quirky hankerings and habits. I've known folks who want nothing more than to get a box of Kraft Mac 'n'Cheese - -and they never ate it before, nor would really want to eat it again. There were times in Tokyo when we actually paid some absurd sum of money for a can of Manwich. Yes, Manwich. Sloppy-joe in a can has some weird appeal when it is as expensive as kobe beef and not nearly as accessible. I developed an odd yearning for things like Almond Joys, a desire to read The National Enquirer and a real jones for Hellman's mayo.

Notwithstanding anything else to read in English, I once paid 2,000 yen ($20) to buy a Readers Digest. It was at that point that George informed me that we just couldn't continue to afford my "magazine habit." One Readers Digest was unquestionably the first baby-step on a slippery slope to paying a king's ransom to having People Magazine delivered to me no matter what country I was in. Oddly, George ended up being right. I stopped buying R.D. in Tokyo, but I did continue to pay extravagantly to have People sent to me. It was crack. Crack in bite-sized US pop culture nuggets.

Expatriates also often suffer minor personality disorders associated with hording. We make lists before we travel back to the US, and can often be found with more than 10 boxes of Special K in our pantries. Tuna, flour, the aforementioned Mayo and red licorice were always found in copious amounts in my own cupboard. The other thing we always had were drugs. Lots of modern pharmaceuticals.

Sudafed, Motrin, baby aspirin, Advil, Milk of Magnesia, stuff to clog and other stuff to unclog - - the whole nine yards. Take a stroll through your neighborhood pharmacy, think of the things that you could possibly use in a year and imagine buying some of each to stock your own mini-Walgreens. God forbid you had to treat some ailment with Japanese or German medicine. Not a real confidence builder.

Tonight I decided to finally take some medicine to clear up the the copious amounts of snot inside my face. I trip up the stairs to get me some drugs in my own little pharmacy. But, you know what? I didn't have a single unclogger that didn't expire 12 months ago. Hmmm, one of those sure signs that you are not an expatriate any more, but haven't relearned the necessary life skills to fully adapt to US living. Weirdly, I didn't even think to go out and get something when I discovered the cupboard was bare. It only occurred to me as I was writing this, that there are these fabulously cutting edge places called 24-hour pharmacies in the good old us-of-a. What a concept. Oh, and I still eye those Almond Joys with a sense of awe.

Sick

I have a head cold. Nothing that a few days of tea and sleep won't fix, but alas, I feel like my head is filled with great green globs of greasy grimy gopher guts. It's one of those colds where you can actually feel the slime moving in between your sinuses when you shift positions. Frightening where all the crap comes from.

In two days, it is likely that George the Elder will also become afflicted with this cold. It will be blamed directly on me. George does not get a cold virus randomly from the external population. He ONLY gets colds that are apparently diabolically manufactured by me. Yup, I am a mad scientist who's only objective is to design and infect George with the nastiest little cold virus I can muster up.

In case you haven't seen this video on You Tube - - you need to watch this. It is called Man Cold. Hands down one of the funniest things I have witnessed. It is hysterical to all women. It is hysterical in that "been there done that kind of way."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXLHWmjA5IE


We were in Bhutan a couple of years ago. I managed to get a nasty head cold and suffered through this for a couple of days. Those couple of days were spent uncomfortably at some 12,000+ ft above sea level and the nights in a freezing cold tent lying not more than 2.5 feet from my dear husband. Interestingly, when George came down with the same cold a couple of days later, he could barely move from the back seat of the van AND he was lucky enough to have to endure his cold back in a semi-heated hotel. When I chastised him about being such a baby, reminding him that I had had the same cold just days before - - he responded (and I kid you not): "What??? You were sick???" Observant guy.

Right now my voice sounds like someone who has had WAY too much bourbon and far too many cigarettes. It might actually be a great voice if I were employed as a phone sex operator. All that mouth breathing and everything. Oh yeah, except that I am physically unable to successfully pronounce any hard consonants. Drat, there goes that bright idea for new employment possibilities.

I've been talking like this since I picked the boys up from school 4 hours ago. Two minutes ago I blew my nose for probably the 20th time in an hour. Henry finally just looked over and said, "Are you sick??" Smart kid. It only took him 4 hours.

Conundrum Complete

At exactly 9:04 pm on Friday January 23rd, the Theme from Rocky, the Theme from 2001 a Space Odyssey and Fanfare for the Common Man began to ring out simultaneously in my head as I boldly wiggled the last piece of my Stave Puzzle in place! Arms were raised in triumph and a loud "YOP!" could be heard for miles around. I scared the dog.

As promised, here is a photo of this bad boy. Disappointingly, it doesn't look quite as complex assembled as it did when all the pieces where scattered randomly around. So, it's likely you're scratching your head wondering what all the fuss is about. No matter. I'm the one who put the friggin' thing together and only I must endure the memories of the mental battlefield that was once a but a mustering troop of diabolical puzzle pieces.

I tried to capture some of the insanity in this close-up of the dragon's heads, but again, it looks easy. If I told you that the ruffled edge along the top was merciless, would you believe me? Or am I just a whiny wimp?

Wimp or no wimp - - the journey is over. And upon this milestone, another problem rears its ugly head. At what point can I take the puzzle apart and remove the "puzzling table" from my living room? Honestly, I would like to gaze upon my accomplishment at least for a couple of days. But, really, how lame is that? A grown woman who wants to look at her finished puzzle for a couple of days? Does this have "get a new life / hobby/ pedicure appointment" written all over it or what?

Well, I could always frame it and put it up in the guest bathroom. Nothing says "What's wrong with your hostess?" like framed puzzles in the loo.

Things I Never Heard at Robert F. Nicely

Ages ago, I went to elementary school. I actually had the excitement of going to a brand spankin' new school that was constructed in 19-something-late-middle when I was in third grade. It was truly state-of-the-art with a cool "multi-purpose room" that had these cool foldy-up tables so that you could eat lunch AND have gym in the same place. The design of the school possessed these cool grade "pods". Circular buildings were separated in to five or so pie shaped slices with movable walls. We all said the Pledge of Allegiance together in the morning and then tried to focus on what was going on inside our slices versus the more interesting antics of Mrs. Burkheart's class in the adjacent one. And, while it was brandy-new, it still had mimeograph machines (loved that smell), film strip projectors and lunch trays with tiny milk boxes with the pictures of the presidents - - how else would I know who Woodrow Wilson was? In other words, it was the 60's

I was thinking about this the other evening after I heard Henry make a comment at dinner that made me laugh out loud. It was then that it occurred to me in a dead-on certain way, that there are things that Henry says about 4th grade that I would never have heard during my time at Robert F. Nicely Elementary:

• In response to the question "where is the lost and found?" - -"You know Mom -- it's right near the compost pile beside the school."
• "Of course we play dodge ball!! We play with Nerf Balls and the little kids get to play too!"
• "Mom, you can't put M&Ms in those cookies. Elliot is allergic to artificial coloring."
• "Jumbo, Jumbo Bwana, Habai gami, mzuri sana" (Kenyan folksong - -unofficial school Alma mater)
• "I really hope that Obama wins tomorrow. If not, three of my classmates are leaving the country."

So, I hearken back to the olden days when the compost pile was called the dumpster; where big strong kids whipped hard red playground balls at each other and little kids were excluded unless they were willing to take the risk of those faint bruises that appeared when you didn't "dodge" quickly enough; where the only allergies that we knew of were those kids that blew up like balloons when they got stung by bees; where we sang American the Beautiful in the morning right after the Pledge; and where no 4th grader knew very much about politics and certainly not enough to decide that they were potentially going to leave the country if things didn't go their way.

I have no opinion which was better or worse. The point is - - it's just different. I suspect that some folks probably had compost piles in the 60's. But certainly not with the enthusiasm and sense of public purpose that our kids (at least in SF) do. Hell, Henry chastised me the other day for putting a paper napkin in the regular garbage. He said, "Mom that's not very responsible or earth-friendly."

And while I know that he is right (the little wise-acre), there's a part of me that just doesn't want to scrutinize the recyclable properties of everything that I need to get rid of. Food? Paper? Food soiled paper? What kind of little triangular recycling thing is that? Can someone please find my glasses so I can see what number is inside the little triangular recycling symbol??? What I sometimes really want to do is just throw it away where it is then hauled to the dumpster. You know, the dumpster. The place where the school bullies used to skulk around, smoke cigarettes and count the lunch money that they stole. You know - - the place where the compost pile is now located. You know - - the compost pile that is ecologically breaking down our bio-degradable Nerf balls and finger-painted "Yes We Can" posters.

Beelzebub in a Box

Several years ago, George started a sort of on-again, off-again tradition of buying me really cool puzzles for Christmas. They are beautiful works of art. You can find them on the web at stavepuzzles.com. I'm not kidding when I say that these are beautiful works of art. Beautiful works of art that are hand cut in to tiny little pieces sent directly from Satan headquartered in the netherworld. They are amazingly frustrating, yet oddly compelling. Even the owner of the place describes himself as Chief Tormentor. He hires little she and he-devils to help him.

They arrive in these cute little blue boxes - - kinda like the blue of Tiffany's - - but without the shiny baubles inside. There is no photo. Beyond hitting the web-site to figure out what you are about to attempt to construct (which is verboten in the puzzling world), you haven't a single clue what you are doing. You simply dump the pieces out and start to see what fits together.

There is no "flat side vs curvy side" to get you started. The key, and only, strategy is to start with one piece and try it against every other single piece. One by miserable one, by miserable one, by miserable one. After many hours of "puzzling" (the euphemistic term that the ardent fans of Stave Puzzles use to describe the hellish action of trying to construct the unknown), you are rewarded by getting two morsels to fit together. Clouds part, angels sing and you look for someone nearby to fist-bump cause you're so damn thrilled. What's really crazy about it is that you keep on doing it. Hour after hour. Hence, the oddly compelling part of it.

My newest cherry wood conundrum is 270 pieces of swirly red/white/orange pieces. There is some variation of color which you think would help. It doesn't. I dumped it out the day after Christmas. I am still not finished. Sadly, and somewhat embarrassingly, I pulled an old card table up from the basement and put the puzzle on it. Now my living room looks like some old lady's that builds puzzles of kittens and porpoises frolicking in the ocean. I also, embarrassingly, tend to drink a lot of hot tea while I am "working" on it. What has become of me?

BUT, I have not yet given up despite the social ramifications of being known as a person with a puzzling card table in their living room. And, more importantly, Henry's initial prediction that it would take me 140 days to put it together (assuming the two pieces per day average in the beginning), I have only about 50 devilish little chunks of befuddlement to fit together. It goes a bit faster now that there are only 50 fragments to try at a time.

When it is done I will take a photo of it. According to the website, if I send in the photo of my finished puzzle, I earn Stave Points towards my next purchase. This seems wrong. I should earn Stave Points towards either a) psychiatric counseling to determine why I would want to do it the first time, let alone repeat the puzzle, or b) a week long visit to a spa that does massages and serves drinks.

In the end, one thing continues to nag at me. As I said, I get these from George. What do you figure he is trying to punish me for? When I am "puzzling" he sometimes strolls by, or looks up from the couch and just laughs quietly. The laugh has the Mwa-ha-ha of Dr. Evil sound to it. I think I even heard him mutter under his breath something about "idle hands, devil's play thing." What's up with that?

Dave

Did you ever see that movie "Dave" that starred Kevin Kline and was about the doppelganger who posed as the president married to Sigourney Weaver? (Wow - - doppelganger and Sigourney both in one sentence - - a spelling challenge). But, back to the question. Did you ever see that movie?

In one scene sequence, Dave invites his accountant buddy, played by Charles Grodin, to help him come and look at the country's books to squeeze out some money for a homeless shelter. In then end, they cull some of the pork and voila! they have funding for a shelter.

While I was reading the SF Chronicle today, I had a "Dave" moment. On the front page was the typical blather about how CA doesn't yet have a signed budget and that Schwarzenegger (yet one more 25cent word) is going to try to get it together by making dramatic cuts in education funding. CA is already ranked 47th in total student spending - - less than Tennessee!! Yes, please let's cut the education funding. This makes sense???

This kind of stuck with me as I traversed the rest of the paper and headed towards the "Bay Area" section. This section is most often where I find the stories that bring a smile to my face. Not because the are traditionally funny, but because they are so illustrative of some of the absolute stupidity that can make up the daily news in SF. Beyond that, there are the obits and I have a thing for reading those (a question for another day). In any event, today in the Bay it was reported that there were only 34 suicides in '08 off the Golden Gate bridge. This was slightly higher than in past years, but given the economic conditions of the state and the country - - are we not surprised that this number wasn't higher? Yet, I digress.

The connection here is that the tiny little blurb on page B3 reminded us Californians that we were going to be doing something to stem this flow of jumpers. We were going to help our fellow humans. Yes! We are going to spend $50 million dollars to build a snazzy little safety net under the bridge to catch those poor souls that wish to leave their earthly bounds sooner rather than later. $50 million. $50 million!!!!

So, in my "Dave" moment - - I thought - - $50 million to build a net to catch 34 people (and possibly not all of them California Residents as I could imagine that to some out-of-state suicidal folks there might be some last ditch poetry in making a final pilgrimage to the Golden Gate and going out in style).??? OR, here's a thought - - how about we forgo the net and, oh I don't know, do something better with the $50mil. Like, hmmmm, what? Give it to the damn schools.

And, the worst part is that there are surely a million other stupid projects like this going on all over California - - not to mention the US as a whole. Makes you wonder how the folks righteously serving these projects justify taking money from education to fund their absurdities. Like the new project that will study why the regular alligator at the SF zoo randomly attacked the Albino alligator and bit his toe. We're gonna spend a few hundred thousand to come up with the following: "because he's an alligator". Surely that's worth spending the money as opposed to buying text books for second graders? Go us.

San Fran Drivers

I have been noodling something since I moved back to California. I have been wondering why, at least here in San Francisco, there seems to be a total disconnect between actual traffic laws, commonly known standard driving practices and the way that these are interpreted and applied here in San Francisco. As I recently had to take my written test to be awarded a California Driver's license (and as aside, I look like an oopma-loompa in my picture - - for some reason I am entirely orange tinted - - sort of like Magda in "There's Something About Mary") - perhaps I am a little more aware of the actual laws, since I did study for my exam.

Still, one would think that generally common sense would apply to most driving situations, but that appears to be absent here. A few examples:

1. San Franciscans are flummoxed by stop signs. Oddly, I have always thought stop signs were simple. Big Red Sign. Stop, and I mean completely stop, look all ways and proceed with caution. The SF application means, see big red sign - - sort of pause and continue driving. There's no need to look any where - - just keep your eyes straight ahead, it takes less time. This makes crossing the street for pedestrians kind of tricky - but hey this is California, so if you get hit, you just sue the driver for a cool few million and then also sue the government for not painting the sign red enough.
2. San Franciscans are outright CONFUSED by four-way or three-way stop signs. Again, easy enough. Come up to the stop sign. Note who is already there or approaching. Person there first gets to go - - if you all arrive at the same time - - yield to the right. I would like to add at this juncture that there are about a bazillion stop signs in SF. We like stop signs more than we like traffic lights, so the daily application of navigating them is significant. You'd think they'd get it right. Hell NO! It's a friggin free for all. Either someone is overly aggressive (i.e. applying the skills of #1 "pause and proceed") or they are so confused by the other cars and the progression of who goes first, that they just sit there until you either honk your horn or frantically wave at them from in your car. I have tried the giving-up-in-exasperation technique and just proceeding, but dollars to donuts, as soon as you move off the mark, they also start to go. Is it just a game?
3. San Franciscans do not have any idea what the lever is to the left of the steering column. IT IS A TURN SIGNAL FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE. Know it. Use it. And, more importantly, if you do use it - - use it to signal the actual way you are turning. You know - - left for left, right for right. Oh, and when someone has their signals on - it means that they are GOING to turn. Sheeeeesh~
4. San Franciscans always have the right of way. Example. You are driving on a road. A parked or standing car is blocking your lane. Common sense would indicate that you should slow down, or at least look to see if there is either on-coming traffic coming towards you in the open lane, or if you are on a one-way street or 4 lane road, you should look before changing lanes. Nope. That's not the way it works. In SF, if there is something in your way, you immediately enter the other lane - regardless of whether it is occupied - - you shift to the right or left as if some magical lane modifier were there. The vehicle in the other lane, must somehow anticipate this magical lane shift and also swerve to avoid striking the car that is avoiding the obstacle in the lane. It's as if they think that the whole damn road just bends to their wills. Fascinatingly dangerous.
5. San Franciscans believe that changing lanes on a Freeway can be done the absolute moment the spirit moves them. See #3 - - turn signals are not used. The rear view mirror is a place to check to see if your sun glasses, or lipstick is applied properly. It is not a tool to be used to look behind you for approaching traffic. Side view mirrors just make the car look cool. You don't use these either. If you are in the far left lane and want to exit within the next 50 yards -- just head on over there - you can make it!!! Whenever I hear of an accident on one of SF freeways, I am never amazed. I am far more shocked that there isn't a 10 car pile-up every single moment of every single day.

I know that there is more to say about this, but just writing it down makes me crazy. Not too long ago, I witnessed the strangest and most confounding thing. A minivan (nuff said right there, but I will continue) paused at a stop sign right in front of me. At the next light I sidled up to said minivan where the driver was talking on her cell phone (yes this is illegal in SF). Simultaneously, she was checking her make-up in the rear view mirror and wildly gesticulating along with her obviously important conversation. At the next light I was in front of her. When I checked her out in the rear view mirror, she was still talking on the phone but now squeezing a zit on her forehead. Yeesh. And finally, when I checked my rear view mirror again between the next two lights, her van was still moving forward, but SHE WAS COMPLETELY MISSING. The driver's seat was empty as far as I could tell. A couple of seconds later, she popped up. She must have been looking for something in the passenger side floor well. Her mascara? Her cell phone? Her brain????