Cutting edge technology and young Luddites

Two 11-year-old boys are sitting on my family room floor; they have a card game spread out on a small, round, low-to-the-floor Japanese style wooden table.  The Capitals are playing, but the boys aren't paying attention to the game, although one of them is an avid fan—he’s even wearing an Ovechkin jersey.  The boys, best friends since they were 4, are convinced that something weird is happening, because they keep rolling dice in combinations that add up to six, or drawing combinations of cards that also add up to six.  I’m tempted to ask them if they know that President Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln and President Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy, but that might be too much for them.  The Penguins just scored; cards and dice are forgotten for now.

*****

I can’t decide if I should buy a new phone or not.  My phone is fine.  But I want a new one.  I keep shopping for new phones; I’ve even had phones in my shopping cart, but I never actually complete the transaction.  Other things we need, I think; other things to spend money on.  Still, the phone keeps calling me (see what I did there?) 

*****

While I shop for the latest and presumably greatest mobile device, I spend Saturday evening with two young boys who love everything old.  They went through a typewriter phase a few years ago; now, they use giant garage sale purchased Clinton-era camcorders to document their adventures.  It's like Snapchat for the Stone Age. They disagree on which is the best Beastie Boys song; my son's friend favors "Fight for Your Right," while my son holds out for "Paul Revere."  Both of the boys agree that "Sabotage" is far inferior to their favorites.  "I liked their old stuff so much better," my son says.  

Now, during the intermission between the second and third periods of the game, the boys are watching old Harlem Globetrotters videos on an iPod, but they need a larger screen to see Meadowlark Lemon in his full glory.  They want to borrow this computer, so that's all for now.  Let's go Caps. 

Ain't nobody got time for that

I signed up with NaNoWriMo in November, because I wanted to really get started on my novel.  I knew that I didn't have the vaguest chance of actually finishing it in 30 days, and I didn't finish it in 30 days.  In fact, I just passed 50,000 words yesterday, and I think I have about 40,000 more before it will really be finished, which means that I'll have finished it in about a year.

Maybe a real writer can finish a novel faster than that, but I'm working full-time and up to my neck in lots of other projects, too, so I feel fine about that time frame.  I write for about 15 minutes a day, almost every single day (sometimes I take Sundays off.)  Every so often, I go back and revise. Sometimes, I cringe when I reread my own work, thinking "who would ever read this bilge?" Other times, I laugh out loud at my own funny funny dialogue, because no one laughs harder at my jokes than me.  It's not necessarily a humor novel, although there are funny parts.  At least I think they're funny, but I'm no judge, because I crack myself up.

*****

My husband wants me to go shopping with him to pick out tile and paint and fixtures for my bathroom, which is in dire need of repair, especially the floor, a horrid old stick-on vinyl hot mess that won't come clean no matter how hard I scrub it.  As badly as the bathroom needs attention, though, and as much as I want the project finished, I just can't bear the thought of spending hours in a home improvement warehouse picking out stuff.  Instead, I'm picking out tile and a vanity, etc., online, and we'll just pick it up at the store when it arrives. "But what if you don't like it?" my husband asks.  "Don't you want to see this stuff in person before you buy it?"  No.  No, I don't.  Even if the tile color is slightly off; even if the vanity doesn't look quite as nice IRL as it does online, it will be much better than what we have now, and that's all I need.

*****

When I was young and single, I read magazines.  Vanity Fair was my favorite; but I also loved Vogue, Mademoiselle, and Glamour.  I stopped reading magazines because the Web made them obsolete; and because I just didn't have time anymore.  Not only did I not have time to read the magazines; I didn't have time to live life the way the magazine writers said that I should.  If everyone did everything that magazine self-help articles advised--8 hours of sleep, daily structured workouts, organic paleo diet, the right clothes and hair and makeup--then no one would ever have time for anything other than self-care and maintenance.

I was busy before I started working full-time again, but now I'm ridiculously busy.  I can still accomplish things, though; I just have to set priorities and manage expectations.  I don't have time to shop and deliberate over fixtures, but I can still renovate my bathroom as long as I'm willing to live with whatever I can order sight unseen from the Internet.   I can write a novel as long as I don't need to act however a novelist is supposed to act.  I'm not sure how novelists are supposed to act, actually, but I'm pretty sure that they're not supposed to write two or three sentences at a time, for five or fifteen minutes at a time, while dinner is on the stove or coffee is brewing.  Eventually, I'll have a functioning bathroom and a book that might or might not be readable.  I'll also have 24 hours a day; same as everyone else.

Basic

Yesterday, we helped to make deliveries for the Rockville High School mulch sale, an annual booster club fundraiser.  Believe it or not, driving high school students around the suburbs and delivering mulch is not a bad way to spend an afternoon.  They all worked hard and stayed cheerful and polite, despite cold, wind, and intermittent hail.  I was proud of them.

I didn't mind driving, loading and unloading, or even the dirt, because my car was not involved in the delivery of mulch.  This is my car.

I love this car.  I didn't name it Brad or anything like that, but I LOVE this car.

My last car was a Honda Civic, which I bought new in 2001, when I was pregnant with my first child.  I drove it until he was in 7th grade. So obviously, I'm not much of a car person.  The Honda was actually the first brand-new car that I ever bought.  Every other car I'd ever owned was purchased used, with only two features in mind: Does it go when I apply the accelerator, and does it stop when I apply the brake?  Sold. This approach to car buying and car driving served me very well for many years, speed camera tickets notwithstanding.

For some reason, though, sometime in 2012, I started to notice Subarus, and I decided that I wanted one.  My husband wasn't impressed. His approach to car buying is completely different from mine.  He has never bought a used car, and he swears that he never will.  Even at 18, in college and working three jobs, he bought a brand-new car (a Nissan Maxima.) He wanted me to get something flashier and more luxurious, but I'm not very flashy or luxurious, and I'd just feel like an idiot driving around in a car that's more stylish than I am.  The Subaru is not beautiful, but it's good-natured and dependable, and I can think of worse things to be.

But just because my car isn't flashy, that doesn't mean that I'm not fussy about it.  I'm VERY fussy about my car.  My husband is particular about styling and horsepower and make, but the inside of his car is a damn free-for-all.  When they're in his car, my kids and their friends eat snacks, throw their muddy cleats and gear everywhere, and fling straw wrappers and empty chip bags all over the place.  A family of rodents could take up residence in there, and it wouldn't look any worse than it does now.

We took my husband's old Isuzu Axiom for the mulch deliveries, which, if possible, looks even worse than his other car, and the dirt is the least of its problems.  It doesn't matter where you drive in that car; it feels like you're driving an East German-made flatbed truck down an unpaved mountain road somewhere in the Caucasus.  Fifteen bags of mulch stuffed into the cargo hold actually improve the ride noticeably; I considered buying a few extra bags, just as ballast.

My son was quick to explain to his friends that his mom's other car is much cleaner than the one we were driving in, and one of the boys claimed that his father has a truck that is much dirtier than ours. Maybe it is, but his father wasn't delivering mulch, either.  He probably just has an average everyday dirty truck, but not so dirty that he can haul 15 bags of mulch at a time, for multiple deliveries, and then still not feel particularly compelled to clean up afterward.  Our truck didn't look any worse post-mulch than pre-mulch.  If you're going to claim that you have a dirty truck, then that's the standard that you need to live up to.  Or down to.  If there are raccoons or squirrels in that car, then they probably have plenty of shredded hardwood with which to feather their little nests.  My car is still nice and clean.

They're on your head, Mom.

So many things to write about; if only I could overcome this apparently chronic case of fuzzy brain.  Well, "fuzzy" is descriptive, but maybe not entirely accurate.  Sometimes, I'm as sharp as the proverbial X-acto knife, but  then whatever brilliant and sparkling clear insight happens to occur during those moments disappears as quickly as it arrives, leaving me thinking "What was that thing? About the guy, and the Potsdam Conference?  Or was it the Yalta Agreement?  Damn it, I forgot to take the chicken out of the freezer.  What time is it? Where are my sunglasses, damn it! And did I pay the phone bill?"

*****

Aside from January's monster snowstorm, we've had a relatively mild winter, but winter is winter and by the end of February, I'm always ready for it to be over.  That's why I'm downright offended by the sight of snow on March Bloody 19th.  What's that saying again?  March: In like a bitch, out like a damn whore. Thankfully, we didn't have any sports or other outdoor activities today.  Instead, we went to one of my very favorite annual events: The Friends of the Library used book sale at the Aspen Hill Library.  I spent $5.70, and got the following:

The Blue Flower, Penelope Fitzgerald.  I love Penelope Fitzgerald so much that I bought this even though I already had a copy.  This one has a prettier cover.  Now I can lend the other one and not worry about whether or not I get it back.

Please Don't Eat the Daisies, Jean Kerr.  Another one that I already have.  This was a 35-cent Crest Books edition from 1959.  Click here if you want to read what I wrote about this book.

A Woman in Jerusalem, A.B. Yehoshua. I have no idea, but I liked the cover blurbs.

Holidays on Ice, David Sedaris.  I still laugh my head off at "You Can't Kill the Rooster."

The Pocket Book of Ogden Nash.  I love old Pocket Books.  This one is from 1962, so it was already old when a previous owner used a dentist's appointment reminder card from 1997 as a bookmark.

With All Disrespect: More Uncivil Liberties, Calvin Trillin.

If You Lived Here, You'd be Home by Now, Claire LaZebnik.  She seems delightful.  Maybe I'll send for a signed bookplate.

The Americans: The National Experience, Daniel Boorstin.  I'm reading The Democratic Experience now.

Life and Death in Shanghai, Nien Cheng.  Sometimes I read about the Cultural Revolution, when I need a break from the gulag.

More Tales of the City, Armistead Maupin.

Away, Amy Bloom.  No idea about this one, either.  I'll find out soon enough.

*****

The $5.70 that I spent also included a few books about Navy ships and magic tricks, selected by my 11-year-old son, who is now sitting on my couch with his best friend, singing "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party.)"  Apparently, you don't, though.  I'm sitting on my couch at 8:15 on a Saturday night writing about used books and memory loss, and if that's not a party, then I don't know what is. 

What not to wear

I'm back to work full-time, at a real job, in a real office.  The first week went very well.  At least, I think it went well.  I'm not sure how my boss feels, but a good time was had by me.  Much to my dismay and chagrin, however, none of my coworkers wear yoga pants and t-shirts to work.  So that means that my other work uniform of flannel pajama pants and a hoodie is probably also just outside the confines of the dress code.

Shopping isn't my least favorite thing in the world, because dental surgery and toilet cleaning are worse.  I went shopping yesterday with my usual total lack of enthusiasm, and forced myself to try things on before I bought them.  I don't feel comfortable in most work-appropriate things, but I suppose that work isn't necessarily the place to feel comfortable.  I even bought some things.

Every so often, I decide that I need to try clothes that are different from what I usually wear.  I always wear this color, I'll think, or all of my tops are cut the same way.  I should try something else.  But then I do, and I realize that there's a reason why all of my clothes look the same.  So now I'll need to return most of what I bought yesterday, and go buy some newer versions of the kinds of things that I always wear.   Super fun.  Dental surgery still retains its previous rank, but toilet-cleaning just moved up a notch.

My work here is done

I was supposed to start my new job today, but my start date was pushed back to tomorrow.  No big deal, except that I had no other work to do and I don't do very well with unplanned free time.  I made chili, and I washed my car, and I exercised and did some housework.  I also worked on my book, and read for a bit.  Still, it seemed like a rather wasted day.

Oh, and I watched TV--IFC is running a "Rocky" marathon.  I never get tired of Rocky.  And I cleaned some windows that were sorely in need of cleaning.  And researched some quick weeknight meal ideas; with my new full-time job, I'll need to plan dinners ahead of time.  And still, I felt like I had too much time on my hands.

Plus I drove one kid to school, and then drove to the high school to drop off something that the other kid forgot and begged me to bring to him.  While I was driving, I rehearsed the speech that I'll need to give him, the one about not forgetting things at home because I won't be home to deliver them to him at school.  And then, of course, I wrote this nonsense, too.  And it still felt like I didn't do very much.

This is what happens when you're really busy for a really long time.  Like full-time working, raising children, volunteering, driving children to sports and activities, going to school, moving, moving again, changing jobs, changing jobs again, compulsive housecleaning busy.  You get accustomed to that level of activity, and then you just don't know how to fill the empty time when any one or more of those things don't need doing anymore.  And this is only one day.

Well, a week from now, I'm sure I won't be wondering how to fill my time.  Meanwhile, dinner is already cooked, at 4:20 PM.  What to do with the rest of the evening?  Yo! Adrian!

Out of the frying pan

Recipes always list insanely optimistic cooking times for chicken, don't they?  "Roast for 20 minutes at 425."  And then take it out and put it right back in for at least 25 more minutes.  And I don't know how to type a degree sign, and I'm not going to bother to look that up.  You're smart people, you'll read that as 425 degrees.

Working from home, 100% of the time, has given me more time to think about housekeeping and its relative importance and just how much time is reasonable to spend on cleaning and cooking and making things generally pleasant and livable. I have mixed feelings about housekeeping.  On the one hand, it's relentless and repetitive and it's never done, no matter what.  Even if the house is perfect, someone is going to need to eat something, or shower, or sleep in a bed, or change their clothes at some time in the very near future, and then it won't be perfect anymore; there will be one more thing out of order; one more thing to clean.

On the other hand, I can't even pretend that it's not rewarding, because it is.  Something is dirty, and I apply some effort, and then it's clean.  The result is visible, immediate, and quite satisfying.  When everything else is utter chaos, I know that I can at least whip the house into shape, and then something will be firmly under my control. Temporarily under control, of course (refer to previous paragraph) but still under control.

Things are going to change, though, and very soon.  After this week, I'll no longer be working exclusively from home.  I loved my job, but it's feast or famine for contractors, with a strong bias toward famine.  I haven't worked full-time for years, but it's time to put on some real clothes and get out of the house.  If I leave it alone, maybe it will clean itself.

Gaslight

We have gas lamps in our neighborhood; real, old-fashioned gas lamps that turn on automatically at twilight and remain softly lit until sunrise the next morning.   The light is beautiful and atmospheric (though not really authentically atmospheric, since my neighborhood was built by Levitt Brothers in the mid 1960s.) They're also useful.  A few years ago, we were plagued with frequent power failures, and the gas lamps were the only available light during those times.  Of course, if a gas lamp is on your property, as in our case, you have to pay for the gas.  Some of our neighbors have gotten rid of their gas lamps for that reason; we like ours so much, though, that we've never bothered to really analyze how much it affects our gas bill.

*****

If you want to write a novel, you have to read novels, and a lot of them.  This isn't hard for me. I still read novels for the story and for the characters, but I also like to study the differences between one approach and another.

For example, Rebecca West versus Penelope Fitzgerald, not that I compare myself to either of them, since they were two of the greatest writers of the 20th century.  I just finished Fitzgerald's The Beginning of Spring, which takes place in Russia just before the revolution.  It's hard to imagine that anyone could write anything about early 20th century Russia in fewer than 1000 pages, but The Beginning of Spring is just barely 200 pages, and it's really a novel, not just an overly long short story or novella. Fitzgerald was a late-in-life novelist, and I have to wonder if she didn't spend years writing this and her other novels in her head before finally setting them down on paper.  Because in her novels, including The Beginning of Spring, the reader understands the story and the characters and the conflict (though not how it will be resolved) almost from the first page.  There's nothing gradual; you're immersed in this very foreign world (and apparently, Fitzgerald herself never even visited Russia) from the very first moment.

Rebecca West's The Fountain Overflows, on the other hand, is over 400 pages long, and it meanders for the first 150 or so.  I love Rebecca West; I've read The Thinking Reed at least three times, and Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is one of the best books, in any genre, of the 20th century.  And I'm usually (not always, but usually) extremely reluctant to abandon a book once I reading it, but I almost made an exception for this one.  I'm glad I stayed with it, though.   The story really picks up momentum about a third of the way through, and then it doesn't let go.

The Fountain Overflows is about an Edwardian family who were apparently very much like West's own family.  The book was written many years later, after World War II, and is told in the first person by Rose, one of three sisters whose father is a brilliant but careless writer, and whose mother was a concert pianist in her youth.  Rose, who is also telling the story from the perspective of late adulthood many years after the events of the story take place, is neither nostalgic nor sentimental.  She's just aware that the world in which she grew up is irretrievably gone, and that no one other than her father was aware that their world was endangered until it was too late.  I'm a little slow on the uptake sometimes, so it took me a while to figure out why Rose keeps mentioning the gas lamps in her family's house. Light from gas lamps is softer, less harsh and glaring, then light from electric lamps. But once the electric lamps took over, gas light was gone, almost for good, except for decorative purposes, just like my gas lamp.  I suppose that someone who spent years studying to earn an English degree should recognize an extended metaphor before it has to come and beat her over the head, but I learn everything the hard way.

*****

The Beginning of Spring (and it just occurred to me now that this title might have been ironic--again, slow on the uptake) and The Fountain Overflows are very different books, with one very big thing in common.  Both books take place in worlds that will soon vanish, completely and violently, and the occupants of those worlds are mostly completely unaware of what's about to happen.  This seems relevant right now, for some weird reason.

Bibliography

I don't really keep a diary or a journal, other than this silly thing, but I do make lists. Most of my lists are of the to-do variety, but I also keep longer-term lists, including lists of books that I've read.

My 2015 list was long, and now that I look at it, kind of crazy. Apparently, I'll read just about anything. Most of these books were library book sale books, purchased for less than a dollar.  A few of them made enough of an impression that I actually wrote about them; on the other hand, a few of them made so little impression that I forgot about having read them until I re-read my list.  The rest of them fall somewhere between those two extremes.  My 2015 list: 

The Gulag Archipelago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn.  I had to look up the English spelling of his name, again. 

Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III, C.S. Lewis

Holy Days and Gospel Reflections, Heather King Read her blog, and then read everything else she has ever written. 

Men at Arms, Evelyn Waugh

Officers and Gentlemen, Evelyn Waugh

The End of the Battle, Evelyn Waugh

That Hideous Strength, C.S. Lewis

Wallenberg, Kati Marton.  No good deed goes unpunished. 

Anthem, Ayn Rand. Silly.  Just ridiculous.  I had never read anything of Ayn Rand's and felt that I should. Too stupid for words. 

How to be a Woman, Caitlin Moran.  1/3 genuinely funny and heartfelt memoir; 2/3 beat-you-over-the-head doctrinaire feminism. The 2/3 part made me tired. 

Whose Body? Dorothy L. Sayers

The Elements of Style, E.B. White and William Strunk, Jr. 

Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, Lynne Truss.  I approve of a zero-tolerance approach to punctuation. 

Eminent Victorians, Lytton Strachey

American Heritage History of the United States, Douglas Brinkley

De Profundis, Oscar Wilde

Sometimes I Feel Like a Nut, Jill Kargman

The Lords of Discipline, Pat Conroy. This was one of my 14-year-old's summer reading selections--we took turns.  

The Soviet Communist Party, Ronald J. Hill and Peter Frank.  I don't know what I was thinking.  Lent maybe?  Penance?  Anyway, I knew more about the Soviet Communist Party after I read this than before I had read it. So there's that. 

To Asmara, Thomas Keneally

Offshore, Penelope Fitzgerald. My favorite Penelope Fitzgerald, but they're all so good.  I don't know how she did it. 

Circle of Friends, Maeve Binchy

Tales of the City, Armistead Maupin. I liked this so much better than I expected to. 

Who Killed My Daughter? Lois Duncan. I loved Lois Duncan's paranormal YA novels when I was growing up, and was so sorry to learn that her daughter had been murdered.  Sadly, this book is a scatter-brained foray into occult psychic phenomena, and I couldn't finish reading it. Too crazy. 

The Secret Letters, Abby Bardi.  Abby Bardi was one of my college instructors; I took three classes with her.  I liked this novel a lot; believable and very funny. 

People I Want to Punch in the Throat, Jen Mann

Memories of the Good and the Great, Alistair Cooke

The Worst-Case Scenario Handbook, Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht

The Chaneysville Incident, David Bradley

If You Can't Say Something Nice, Calvin Trillin. Useful 1980s political and cultural background for something I'm writing. 

A Way of Life Like Any Other, Darcy O'Brien

Life Lessons from the Hiding Place, Pamela Rosewell Moore

The Loved One, Evelyn Waugh

Well, that actually looks even weirder in (electronic) print than it does in my chicken-scratchy handwriting in the back of my 2015 planner.  Not really a unifying theme here, although the list does tend to skew in favor of dead English authors and 20th century killing fields.  The party never stops. 

You won't believe what this cat does next

Dear Internet,

1. "This" is either a pronoun or a determiner.  As the former, it's often used at the end of a clause, as in "Look at this."  As the latter, it's usually used at the beginning of the clause, as in "This is interesting; consider reading it."  In no case is the word "this" meant to be used as a one-word sentence to indicate the writer's approval of or agreement with something.  If you want me to click on your link or like your post, then write "Look at this," or "This is interesting/funny/crazy; you should read it."  If you write simply "This," then I'm going to ignore whatever it is.*
2. "This is everything" is not an acceptable use of "this" as the determiner; accordingly, I'll also ignore anything prefaced by that sentence.*
3. I'll consider reading your top ten list or viewing your top 17 slide show.  There are rules, however.  If it's a list, then you have exactly one click.  The entire content of the list must be visible at the first click (if it's a long list, I'll allow a second page.) If it's a slide show, then you have exactly one click per entry/image.  I will bail out of any slide show that forces me to click once to see the image, then to click again to see the caption, then again to see additional description, then again to move on to the next image.  One click per entry.*
4. If I see "you won't believe what happens next" in the title or subtitle, then I'll take you at your word and will decline to click on the link at all.
5. Pick a platform.  Almost nothing is worthy of appearing on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, AND Instagram.  Each of those platforms has its own particular uses.  Determine the best medium for the message or image you want to share, and post accordingly.  If I already liked it on IG, then I probably don't want to see it on Facebook or Twitter.**

Well, that's all for now.  Hope all is well.  

Sincerely,

CDP

* Unless there are funny cats.  

** See previous note; in this case, however, they better be really funny cats. 

Lovely weather we're having

This is the proverbial calm before the proverbial storm.  I finally turned off the local news channel because I just couldn't bear to hear one more word about the potentially historic snowstorm that's bearing down on Washington, DC right now, nor about the very real possibility that we'll be snowbound and without power for days after the snow hits.  Right now, we're cozy and secure: The house is stocked with food and other essentials, schools are closed tomorrow, and there's a neat pile of recently chopped firewood right outside.  We'll be fine.

We get a fair amount of snow in DC, but the last (crippling, historic, catastrophic, fill-in-the-blank adjective) snowstorm that I can remember was in early 2010.  This is something I wrote the day after that storm.  I'm posting it again because we're nothing if not predictable, and it's very likely that some variation of this will play out on Saturday.  Snow is not the only thing we need shovels for. 

January 2010

I like snow as well as the next person, which is to say not much at all.  This is entirely too much snow. 

My husband loves me, and I love him.  This doesn't stop us, though, from engaging in frequent marital chop-busting.   There are variations.  Sometimes, it's event-specific, like after I received my fifth speed camera ticket in 2009*; or like when security man, who never stops nagging me about locking my car, went out and left the front door WIDE OPEN (an event which he denies any memory of, two years after it most assuredly took place.)  At other times, the busting of chops is focused on particular quirks.  I never answer my phone, and he'll interrupt anything to answer his.  I misplace things all the time, while he can engage in a lengthy conversation with me and then just minutes later, forget that the entire conversation took place.  Today, we went a few rounds of what I call situational chop-busting.  This is distinguished from event-specific chop busting in that it occurs during a recurring situation, such as putting up Christmas lights, or negotiating over playlists for a road trip.  Or shoveling snow.

My normal snow-shoveling method consists of standing at the kitchen window.  That's why I got married, I'll think to myself as I watch my husband shovel.  Today, however, there's really just too much snow for one person to handle.  So I put on my boots and jacket, picked up a shovel, and started to move snow with it.  How long do you suppose it took for him to begin offering helpful critiques of my shoveling technique?  If you guessed anything longer than 10 seconds, you're wrong.

"Hey hon?" he said.

Holy Mother of God, I thought.  Already?  He has a helpful snow-shoveling hint already?

"What?" I said, in what I hoped was a "don't start with me" voice.  By the way, I'm not sure why I even bother with the "don't start with me" voice, because it has no effect whatsoever on him.

"Try to move the snow to your right, not to your left.  See, that just adds more snow in back of your car, and I'm eventually going to have to shovel that out, too."

"Fine," I said, in what I felt was a very clear "shut the hell up" tone.  The "shut the hell up" tone, incidentally, is also lost on him.

Since we were trying to shovel out his truck, because that's the only thing we'll be able to drive in an emergency,  I thought that it would be wise to clean the truck off first, so that I could then shovel up the snow already on the ground along with the snow that I cleaned off the truck.  That's good thinking, right?  I thought so, too.

"Hon?"

Jesus Christ on the Cross, I thought.

"WHAT?"

"You should use the broom on my car.  Good idea to clean the truck off first, but you should use the broom."

"There's two fucking feet of snow on this truck," I said.  "Nothing but a shovel is going to make the slightest dent in this snow.  I'm not going to hurt your car."  I couldn't promise that I wouldn't assault him with the shovel, but I was very careful with the car.

He continued to shovel without further comment.  HA, I thought, I WIN! How long do you think his diplomatic silence lasted?  If you guessed any length of time longer than thirty seconds, you are wrong again.

"Hon?"

"WHAAAAAT????"  A blind and deaf person would have clearly discerned the "God help you if you say one more word" tone, but he missed it entirely.

"Don't you see where you're shoveling?  That's the grass, there.  You don't need to shovel the snow off the grass.  Just concentrate on making a path down to the street for the truck."

"NO, I can't see where I'm shoveling because AGAIN, there's TWO FEET OF SNOW OUT HERE.  How am I supposed to distinguish grass from pavement when they're both under two feet of snow?"

"Yeah, but the truck is parked on the bump-out, and the grass is right behind the bump-out.  Even you should know where the driveway ends and the grass begins".

"Oh REALLY?  Well you know what else?  EVEN I know that you're wearing a woman's hat!"

"What are you talking about?  My mom made this hat."

"Yeah, I know. She made it for me. It's a lavender and teal crocheted cap with a tassel on top.  What about this hat says menswear to you?"

"The fact that it's keeping my head warm.  I don't care what the hat looks like, my head feels just fine."

"And it looks downright pretty.  I have a scarf to match, I can get it for you."

"No, don't bother.  You just keep shoveling out the lawn in case someone wants to play badminton.  When you're finished, you can climb up and shake the snow off the tree branches...you never know if a hibernating squirrel's going to need an ambulance up there."

I crack up at things that are far less funny than that, so the back-and-forth ceased for a few minutes.  I'm nothing if not gracious in defeat.  This was a good-natured argument to begin with, but even if it wasn't, I'd have laughed at the tree suggestion.

We continued to shovel for a bit, talking about this and that.  Did I see how the mailboxes were just barely poking out of the snow?  Yes, I did.  Did he know that the Postal Service had announced that there would be no mail delivery today?  No, really?  Yes, and they'll probably close school on Monday, too.

I was finally tired, so I decided to take a break.  "Go ahead," he said indulgently.  "I'm going to keep going for a while...it's good that you cleared off some of that grass, just in case anyone needs to practice putting."

I put my shovel down.  "That's still a woman's hat," I said.

* So many more speed camera tickets since then.  I lost count at 12.  I wish I was joking about that. 

Stranger things have happened

There's a lady in our neighborhood who runs every day, almost without fail.  Rain, shine, cold, heat, wind, snow; it doesn't matter.  Running Lady (we call her Running Lady, although I do know her real name) runs.

I used to joke about running.  If you ever see me run, I'd tell people, then you'd better run too.  Don't ask questions, don't waste time looking to see what's coming, just run.  The idea being that if I'm running, then something is chasing me; and you, to save your life, don't need to outrun whatever it is.  You only need to outrun me, and that's not hard.  The bar is pretty low.

Well, never say never, is what I always say (although I suppose you should never say always, either.)  Unpursued by anything life-threatening, I started to run a few weeks ago, and I feel strangely compelled to continue.  I'm really terrible at it, and I mean really terrible.  I'm slow, awkward, and lack endurance.

Every runner hits a wall at some point; for me, it's usually about 15 or 20 steps in.  That's no exaggeration.  I'm barely out of my driveway when I start to feel like I can't go on, but I push past it, and once I do, I can usually focus, for a few steps at least, on something other than how much I hate to run.  Each time I run now, the number of steps that I can run while thinking something other than "When can I stop? Now? Did I run a mile yet? No? Not quite two blocks? That felt like a mile.  Damn it," increases, and my determination to go just a few more steps grows.  Eventually, I stop and walk, and then I start running again.

I hope that someday, maybe even one day soon, I'll be able to run for longer distances and that the walking breaks will be fewer and shorter and farther between.  For now, I'll take what I can get.  I'm not planning to train for a marathon (even a 5K would be ridiculously ambitious at this point) but never say never.

Interior design

I just saw a televised tour of El Chapo's hideout.  It looked like a 27-year-old software engineer's apartment.  White walls, unadorned by anything other than a wall-mounted flat screen TV; beige, builder's grade carpet; a brown microfiber living-room suite, with the couch, love seat, and overstuffed chair pushed up against the bare white walls; and a bedroom furnished with a bare mattress and box-spring set, with a pile of pillows and blankets that looked like they'd been recently slept on or under.  Pizza boxes, newspapers, and DVDs were strewn about.  Minus the bullet holes, the place looked like it belongs in a garden apartment complex in Reston.

Maybe El Chapo should consider a career change.  Defense contractors in the DMV are always hiring engineers. He'd have to settle for $100,000 or so a year, rather than $100 million, but his apartment would be just as nice as the one he just vacated, and he'd be able to leave home once in a while without a disguise.  And it's not likely that Sean Penn would come around pestering him, either.  Something to think about.