Lame Adventure 25: Suffering the Stupids

Posted on March 24, 2010 | 1 comment

Elsbeth calls me into her office to assist her in writing six emails of a confidential tile-related nature.  I will reveal that if there are three words in the English language that could compel my boss to go Ninja in a nanosecond, blue, pink and green would be the winners these days.   As we are writing and rewriting, Elaine, our Marketing Director, pops in and announces, “Sharon Stone is in the showroom!”  I joke sarcastically, “Hold me back!”  Then, I return my attention to the task at hand.

Elsbeth says, “If you want to go down there to see her, go ahead.”  I say, “Nah, let’s get this over with.”  Elsbeth insists – note, insists, “Are you sure?  Go down there.  We’ll finish this when you return.”  I repeat, “Nah, let’s get this over with.”

Yes, my boss twice suggested I stargaze and twice I said, “Nah, let’s get this over with.”

If I worked for a horrible boss, somebody life-sucking, demeaning and hateful, I could scream, “That goddamn bitch kept me tied to my chair while Sharon Stone was lying on the floor in our showroom looking at a mountain of tile I invested years of my life labeling while paparazzi were staked outside!  How fucked up is that?  This was a gift from the gods blogpost, but I got screwed because I work for Satan!  My boss is ruining my life!”

No, I can’t say any of that.  Elsbeth probably wanted to see her herself, but since we were working, she was hoping I would be inclined to say, “Sure! Let’s both go, Boss!”  In fact, if I had a single functioning brain cell at that moment, maybe, just maybe, I could have compelled Elsbeth, who could be a professional photographer, to have taken the gotcha! shot of the year for my blog, but what do I do?

I suffer the stupids!

Possibly, Elsbeth would have said in response to my photograph request, “Are you out of your mind?  She’s a customer.  I’m the owner!  Do you want us to lose business?”  Therefore, I could have asked Greg, my sidekick, to take that gotcha! shot for me.  Afterward, as I am flogging myself numb over this, Greg – who had no idea that Sharon Stone was in the building — says, “Sure, I would have done it – had you asked.”

Determined to bring my masochism to the next level of humiliation, the final one being writing this post, I reveal to Milton that Sharon Stone visited the showroom today.  He’s thrilled and gushes, “How did she look?”  I grimace, and admit, “I didn’t see her.  Elaine told me about it … Elsbeth even encouraged me to check her out.”  Milton looks horrified, “Why didn’t you do it?”  Lamely, I admit, “I was thinking about tile.”  <sigh>

Sharon Stone while filming "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" near my place of employ.

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Lame Adventure 24: Getting Around

Posted on March 22, 2010 | 1 comment

In the more than twenty years that I’ve resided in Manhattan, I have never owned a car, but I do have a driver’s license, even though I’ve seldom had a need to drive.  Milton has never owned a car nor has he ever had a license.  We are both hardcore mass transit users, which is pretty typical of many New Yorkers.

Recently, while standing in a crowded 2 express train on my way to work, I became fixated on an ad showing Edie Falco in her Showtime TV series called Nurse Jackie.  I was in my usual early morning stupor, so although I was staring at a picture of Edie Falco, I was not fully focused on who or what I was looking at.  In fact, I initially thought I was looking at an image of Ellen Degeneres in hospital fatigues and I wondered, “Why’s Ellen Degeneres dressed like a nurse?”  Maybe it’s just me at my most bleary-eyed, but I think she and Edie Falco bear quite a resemblance.

Nurse Jackie

Ellen

Although I am not a car person, I often read about cars online, primarily as a form of procrastination away from writing my play, a mystery about an endearing half deaf short person of indeterminate race and gender who suffers food addiction.  One car story I recently read was published in The New York Times about the new four door 500-horsepower Porsche Panamera Turbo that costs $132,600 for the low-end model and $157,040 for the in-your-face edition with every available option including a working toaster oven.  It is possible I may have imagined the toaster oven since that was not mentioned in the Times’ article but I have been craving Pop Tarts.

For the more budget conscious Porsche enthusiast with a family, a model will soon be available with a V6 engine starting at a modest 75 grand, or seventy years worth of $89 monthly Metrocards to strap hangers like Milton and me.  No matter what model is purchased, all four seats will comfortably fit any passenger who is 6-feet-2; this was a demand of Wendelin Wiedeking, Porsche’s former chief executive who is that size and apparently so diverse, he’s comfortable with being both the motorist as well as the back seat driver providing GPS service.

After reading about this new family-friendly Porsche, I called Milton.  We’re both trying to wrap our brains around the necessity of a sports car suitable for people with kids.  It strikes us as perverse for we think of sports cars as two seaters for people heading to a fun and sexy rendezvous.  Of course, you want to get there fast, because you’re eager to have fun and sex.  We do not think of sports cars as being available in a size that accommodates parents traveling to hunchbacked spinster Aunt Helene’s with bickering children alternately whining, “Are we there yet?”  Is anyone in that group in a hurry to eat coffee cake with a judgmental geriatric that loathes restless, bored small-fry?  Milton thinks this Porsche’s target demographic is a quartet of wealthy gay guys heading to Provincetown, and then added, “I’d get a Lexus.”  If Milton and/or I were to ever ride in a Panamera, if only around the block, considering that the Times compared it to the bullet train, it would probably behoove us to pop Dramamine before take-off.

Porsche Panamera - the vehicle that will get the kids to school at warp-speed.

Back in the day, my family-guy dad drove GM cars.  In 1968, he upgraded from Chevys to Buicks.  That was the year he purchased his first LeSabre.  It was so big, so powerful, so comfortable and so solid, I recall referring to it as “a rolling couch.”  It was in an electric blue color with a black vinyl roof, and had other extras including air conditioning and a shrieking alarm that my grandmother instantly activated even though my father had shouted at her, “Ma!  Don’t open the door yet!”  My dad’s LeSabre was the envy of the entire neighborhood.  Mean Streak, our slobbering dog, was not allowed to ride in it.  I asked Dad what he paid for that car.  He said, “About 82-83 hundred.  That was a lot back then.  It was top of the line.”  I did not tell him about the Panamera.

1968 Buick LeSabre - a family guy's muscle car.

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Lame Adventure 21: Dragging Forward and Bumbling Back

Posted on March 15, 2010 | Leave a comment

My colleague, The Quiet Man, sits in the back of our office buried in a mountain of work.  Occasionally TQM comes up for air or to voice a complaint.  One of the things TQM loathes is the hour change.  He likes getting an hour back in fall, but despises losing that hour in spring.  TQM and I are on the same page about this.

When I was a kid, my father was fond of bellowing about the hour change, “Why don’t they just leave it the hell alone?”  My father had good reason to take the hour change personally.  He was a factory rep for the Bulova Watch Company.  We had 37 watches and clocks strategically placed throughout our house, and I knew that Dad had numerous live samples in his line.

Every Saturday on the weekend of the hour change, Dad would hole up in the garage with our dog, Mean Streak, and change the hour on all of the sample timepieces in his line.  While performing this bi-annual ritual, Dad would curse in a low voice and Mean Streak would snarl softly in a display of canine solidarity, or maybe he just relished this opportunity to be fierce without reproach – as if any member of our family would dare cross our forever-angry mascot who only obeyed my father.  When Dad finished resetting all of the timepieces in his line, he and Mean Streak would tour the entire house and do the same with all of our watches and clocks.  I am sure at those moments my father regretted not being like his buddy, Al, who sold rings.

Since I only have two watches and two clocks, resetting my timepieces is hassle-lite.  Resetting my biorhythms is an entire other issue.  All day I have been feeling cranky, but at least in my current job, I do not have to work weekends.  That was the absolute worse and this happened frequently when I worked a job in the Armpit Department in network news.  Sometimes I would draw the short straw in the schedule and find myself assigned to the Sunday half of the weekend shift when the hour change took place.  This memorably happened on Sunday, October 31, 1999, the day the hour fell back that year.

Early that morning, off the coast of Nantucket Island, EgyptAir Flight 990 crashed killing all 217 on board.  When I worked in news, I would immediately turn on the TV upon rising so I was aware of this horrible event.  My shift started at 8 am, but I knew it was going to be a heavy news day, so I figured it was imperative that I arrive at the network early.  Therefore, I skipped my morning workout, and performed my ablutions at warp-speed.  At 7:10 am, I was polishing off a bowl of cereal, when my phone rang.  I answered and the caller was my supervisor, Stupido Dipshit, a stunningly incompetent woman I despised just a tad less than my department head, a shallow, egotistical, corporate brown-nose I will refer to here by the pseudonym, Waste O. Space.  The following is a transcript I’ve committed to memory:

Stupido:  What the hell are you doing home?  There’s a big plane crash … someplace!  [Note:  Stupido never watched the news nor read a newspaper, so she had no clear idea about what happened anywhere.] Waste O. Space called the office looking for you!  You’re supposed to be at work right now!  Do you have any idea how late you’re gonna be?  Your shift started at eight!  What am I supposed to tell him?  Give me a good answer!

Me:  The time is 7:10.  This weekend I turned my clock back.  I suggest you and Waste do the same.

Stupido:  Oh, shit!  I had no idea the hour changed!  Now I gotta tell Waste O. Space to reset his clocks!

I hung up the phone.

Einstein the Cat, trained by Waste O. Space.

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Lame Adventure 20: Look Ma, No Hand!

Posted on March 12, 2010 | 2 comments

This evening, Milton, Albee and I went to the theater.  We saw Christopher Walken who’s starring on Broadway in A Behanding in Spokane, a new play by one of our favorite playwrights, Martin McDonagh, who has written two of the best plays Albee and I have never seen staged, The Pillowman and The Beauty Queen of Leenane.  On our way up to our row A mezzanine level seats, I overheard a guy talking on his cell phone announce, “I’m seeing A Beheading in Spokane … No, it’s a play — I’m in New York.”

There were no beheadings anywhere in this play, but quite a few disembodied hands.  As for Christopher Walken, he owns the role of Carmichael, a menacing guy with some loose screws who’s in search of the hand that was taken from him 47 years ago.  Walken’s delivery, timing, and body language is spot on from start to finish.  He’s great fun to watch.  Near the play’s end he haphazardly tosses something out a window that had the three of us choking with laughter.  If choking on Christopher Walken’s on stage theatrics is how I’m meant to check out, I would die happy.

Another well-timed comic moment is when Zoe Kazan climbs up a radiator pole at warp-speed.  At the risk of sounding like a Zoe Kazan stalker, this is the third time I’ve seen her on Broadway, and I’ve enjoyed watching her in each role, first as Marie in a revival of Come Back, Little Sheba, next as Masha in The Seagull, and now as Marilyn in Behanding.  Hm, all three of her character’s names begin with the letter m.  What does this mean?  Probably that I have too much time on my hands if I’m thinking of minutiae like this, and then as further proof of my crackpot-itis, I write about it here.

For anyone who’s a Christopher Walken fan like Milton, Albee and me, A Behanding in Spokane is must-see theater.

Christopher Walken as left handless Carmichael.

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Lame Adventure 19: What’s wrong with this picture?

Posted on March 10, 2010 | 2 comments

There are times when all I need to do is enter my building’s vestibule, and there, a lame adventure, will be waiting.

This is for real.

Fortunately, this is not my mailbox, but I happen to know that the previous tenant who had that mailbox was Mamie Gummer.  Who’s that, you ask?  Try the actress-daughter of fourteen-time Academy Award nominated-loser, Meryl Streep.*  A very courteous young woman; Mamie held the door for me once and I thought, “Huh, that girl looks a helluva lot like Meryl Streep.”  Possibly, Mamie decided she could no longer bear residing in a building where the letter carrier slammed the mailbox shut on the mail.  Well, I continue to live in this building, and there are times when my mail looks like whoever placed it in my mailbox did so with a plunger. What happened to the art of delivering mail?

Pictured below is Leon E. Jones – the Rembrandt of letter carriers.

Leon radiating excellence.

For more years than I care to reveal, Leon delivered my mail with dedication and consistency.  His was one of the first numbers I input into my cellphone back in 2000, Leon was so vital to my well-being.  I had always vowed that I would move by the time he retired, but I also vowed I would move to Canada both times George W. Bush became president.  This proves that my vows are hollow, for I have yet to even visit Canada and I am now the third longest residing tenant in my building.  Leon the Lion of Letter Carriers retired in 2006, and I remain, living here in the era of the inferior delivery.

A portrait of pathetic.

*In anticipation of hearing from my fellow movie maniacs, I am aware that Meryl’s been nominated a total of sixteen times and has won twice, but can any of you, aside from Milton, take The Lame Adventures Challenge and name the films where she scored her victories off the top of your head(s)?

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Lame Adventure 18: Real Cmple

Posted on March 8, 2010 | 1 comment

I am acutely aware that the vast majority that log onto Lame Adventures do so primarily to view the stellar images on this site stemming with the one of me being shot out of a cannon over the Central Park Reservoir while cradling Gazoo.  Initially, I suffered some anxiety about that image, not wanting to reveal too much about what I do for pleasure in my remarkable private life, but I overcame my hesitation fast, especially after Ling, my graphic designer bud, very persuasively said, “Here’s your banner, take it or leave it.”

The real obstacle to launching this blog was my not having a digital camera.  I recall that Stu, the husband of Elsbeth, my boss, had found a Canon Powershot in one of our tile showrooms some years back.  The owner never claimed it, so after a while, Elsbeth began using it.  My boss is an amateur photographer with an excellent eye and a dark room where she does her own printing.  Until this digital camera fell into her life, she had exclusively shot film.  Elsbeth now enjoys the immediacy of digital photography very much, so much so that she soon purchased a high quality digital still camera for herself and shoots in both formats.

My digital camera needs prompted the following exchange between us last January.  The setting is Elsbeth’s office.  She is sitting at her drafting table designing something extraordinary.  I am doing her filing, and I have just accidentally slammed the filing cabinet shut on the leather fringe of her Prada handbag.  Fortunately, I unslam the filing cabinet in a nanosecond, Prada is not junk, so there is not a dent.  Elsbeth is focused on her work.  She is completely oblivious to me lurking, much less almost damaging her designer handbag, until I initiate blathering.

Me:  Hey Boss, what’s the story with that digital camera Stu found a few years ago?

Elsbeth:  I dunno.  It’s someplace.

Me:  Can I borrow it?

Elsbeth:  Sure, if I can find it.

Elsbeth finds it, but the one thing it lacks is a USB cable to download images.  Unfortunately, whoever left it in our showroom forgot to leave that handy accessory.  How thoughtless.  I consider calling Ulla and Coco, our sales team in that location, to ask them to post a sign requesting whoever left that camera behind in September 2007 to please provide the USB cord without further delay, but I do not want to draw attention to my neediness.  Needy women are such pills.  Therefore, I resort to Plan B and decide to invest $10 in my neighborhood Radio Shack and buy my own cable, but there’s a catch.

A digital camera USB cable from The Shack costs $23.99!  It is also sealed in one of those heavy seamless plastic packages that requires no less than twenty tons of TNT to detonate open.  “Holy crap!” I think.  “Holy crap!” I say to the sales clerk, a teenager who is about half the age of some of the fillings in my teeth.

Perfectly fine Canon Powershot on loan from Elsbeth.

Me:  For that price, I should just buy a new camera!

Radio Shack Clerk: That one does look kinda old.

Me:  (defensive) I got it for free!

Radio Shack Clerk:  It shows.

Me:  (still defensive) From my boss!

Radio Shack Clerk:  He doesn’t like you much, does he?

Me:  (quickly approaching coronary-inducing defensiveness) My boss is a woman and she likes me just fine!

Radio Shack Clerk:  So you want the cable or what?

Radio Shack corporate headquarters a.k.a. Price Gouging Central

I want the cable, but decide to pursue the “or what” option, and leave.  There has to be an affordable USB cable somewhere out there that does not require a government loan for me to purchase.  Where to look?  Where else but Amazon?

As fate would have it, this model of the Canon Powershot, the A520, was launched during the Sputnik era, but with a little digging almost anything can be found somewhere on Amazon, or Amazon’s Marketplace, the area of their site where there are even better bargains from sellers that have the Amazon seal of approval.

It is indeed on Amazon’s Marketplace where I am able to find the exact cable I need for a single cent and $2.98 shipping from a company called Cmple based in Brooklyn.  Cmple has a 96% positive rating from their many satisfied customers.  I place my order on a Saturday and I receive my cable the following Wednesday – during a blizzard and days ahead of scheduled delivery.  Also, my cable is nicely packed in an easy-to-open plastic bag within a padded envelope. One other important point, it does not look like it was jerry-rigged by a Unabomber-type in his garage.  It looks legitimate and smells brand new, providing me with a contact high.

Works good, smells good.

When I first connect my one-penny cable to Elsbeth’s camera and my computer, I will admit that I am a tad nervous, wondering if anything might explode since Ted Kaczynski is heavy on my mind at this moment.  The download works fine and neither the electronics nor my computer are damaged.  It was, dare I say, real simple.  Afterward, when I tripped over the USB cord and the camera went flying, I was even able to access my circus acrobat skills and caught it mid-air.

Low on glitz, high on quality and service.

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Lame Adventure 17: Shiny Naked Gold Guys

Posted on March 5, 2010 | 1 comment

The only major television event that regularly excites me is the Academy Awards.  This is a bit perverse since I am seldom excited by most mainstream movies and that is the predominant fare that rules this extended tribute the film industry pays itself annually.  Yet, I am what I am, a film-whore.  Although I’ve seen nine of the ten Best Picture nominees (only missed District 9), no commercial films released in 2009 blew me away including Avatar (but I will admit a soft spot for Up since it made me think of my widower father, plus I liked the chubby Asian Boy Scout and the dogs).  I am not such a snob that I failed to recognize this box office titan as highly entertaining and worthy of its nominations, but as the ending credits rolled, I wondered, “Huh, what will the kids look like?”  Since it sounds like James Cameron is going to create a sequel, I guess I’ll get to find out.  Woo hoo.

Every so often, a fluke that annoys the masses, but impresses me, does get award-winning recognition.  In recent years, friendo, it was No Country for Old Men.  Usually, I’m apoplectic about some poor choice, like Crash stealing Best Picture from the far more worthy Brokeback Mountain.  I can feel my blood pressure rise just typing that sentence. Even my father and boss were scratching their heads over that one.  Yet, if Avatar is the big winner on Sunday, I do not anticipate anyone needing to call 9-1-1 for an ambulance on my behalf.  Ideally, I would like to see Kathryn Bigelow win Best Director for The Hurt Locker.  She’s the first woman nominated for directing that deserves the victory since Lina Wertmuller for directing the Nazi concentration camp dramatic comedy, Seven Beauties, back in 1977.  Wertmuller lost to John G. Avildsen who directed that year’s (allow me to access my air sickness bag) crowd-pleaser, Rocky.  Should Bigelow lose as her predecessor did, I will think that she got robbed, but I will be able to function in-between screaming fits.

Bigelow with her Directors Guild award.

My first lame adventure that I can recall was film-related.  It occurred in my San Francisco-based tot-hood when my parents announced that they were taking me to see my first film, Best Picture winner, West Side Story.  I was no more than 4, maybe as young as 3.  It was one of the best days of my life (ever).  I also got my first pair of sneakers that afternoon.  They were PF Flyers and marketed as allowing the wearer to run faster, jump higher and a third thing, maybe kill yourself sooner.  My mother also allowed me to select the color I wanted.  I shrieked, “Red!” at the top of my lungs and almost deafened the salesman.  That evening, after seeing my first movie in my first pair of sneakers, I went out of my mind.  I HAD to move to New York.  I wanted to be a shark.  I wanted to be a jet.  I wanted to dance in the street.  I wanted a girl named Maria.  I had so much energy after seeing that film in my brand new sneakers, I did a somersault, and threw out my neck.  That instantly slowed me down.  During my recovery, my father offered me a compromise solution to appease my delirium.  He taught me how to snap my fingers, a safer alternative to channeling my non-existent inner Cirque du Soleil.

The film that started it all.

Now, that I am some years older, I am more tranquil when expressing my film-inspired enthusiasm.  Last October, I was eating a roast beef sandwich as I waited for Milton in the seating area outside Alice Tully Hall to attend a screening of Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon at the New York Film Festival.  Haneke walked right in front of me, and stopped to talk to a small cluster of people, clearly friends or family.  This thrilled me beyond belief and I could feel my heart race.  I may have even had a beef shred protruding from my mouth momentarily before quickly accessing my toad-skills to suck it in.  I considered taking a photograph of one of the most talented filmmakers currently working, but I decided to feign cool New Yorker-dom and remain in the closet about my consummate film nerdia.  I so wanted to pee myself.

Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall

When Milton joined me, oblivious to walking past Haneke, he said, “Hi.”  I pointed with my eyes and replied sotto voce, “Haneke.”  Milton turned, and looked nonchalantly in the direction of my visual cue.  He looked back at me nodding his head slightly and smiling wryly in approval, equally aware that we were in the aura of filmmaking genius.  After Haneke entered the building, I gushed my guts out to my friend about aching to take a photograph of this great cinema artist, possibly the most interesting filmmaker working today since Ingmar Bergman retired from directing.  <sigh>  Milton thought that ignoring my inner paparazzo was the preferred course.  I agreed and then pounded my head against the pavement in agony before following my companion into the theater.  When will I ever be this near cinema greatness again?

Michael Haneke, filmmaking jesus.

The White Ribbon is nominated for two Academy Awards, Best Achievement in Cinematography, and Best Foreign Language Film.  Avatar is also nominated for cinematography and I anticipate it could dominate, but The White Ribbon was spectacularly shot, so I was delighted when I heard that it received a deserved nomination in this category.  I have only seen two of the other Foreign Film nominees, Ajami from Israel and The Prophet from France.  The competition from those two is stiff, but if I were a voter, I’d stick with The White Ribbon.  I will be dismayed if it loses, but not so dismayed that I will end up on life support …  Famous last words.

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Lame Adventure 16: Channeling Spring

Posted on March 2, 2010 | Leave a comment

This morning’s commute was my usual death defying flirtation with a heart attack.  I hotfooted down the 72nd Street subway station steps and dove into a 2 express train a nanosecond before the doors shut.  When the express train pulled into the 42nd Street Times Square station, I catapulted across the platform to a 1 local that had just pulled in.  With adrenaline practically pumping out of my ears, I was able to get a seat, stop huffing and puffing like a steam engine, and possibly return a second to my dwindling lifespan.  Just as I was about to read The Talk of the Town section of this week’s issue of The New Yorker, I noticed that a woman sitting across from me was bare legged and wearing red ballet flats.

It was 35 degrees.

On my commute home, I exited the 72nd Street subway station amongst a listless end of day throng clad in winter down and heavy wool when I spotted a lumpish fellow in a nylon windbreaker, baggy basketball shorts, and dainty anklet socks, that seemed more appropriate for a toddler girl, as he dodged mounds of melting snow.

It was 41 degrees.

I ached to photograph Lumpish Fellow, but my camera is not mine; it’s on long-term loan from Elsbeth, my boss.  From behind, Lumpish Fellow looked like the spawn of a sumo wrestler and a middle linebacker.  Since the sun had set, I feared my camera might flash, he’d turn around and I would be transported back in time to almost 13 years ago when I saw the film Titanic at the multiplex with a former close personal friend called Va Va Voom (name changed to protect the ridiculous).  The Father of Lumpish Fellow was sitting in front of us.

Father of Lumpish Fellow

Here’s the setting, a sold out movie theater, where the masses are reverently watching this blockbuster epic.  It is a few weeks into the film’s run so repeat goers are scattered amongst the first timers.  Va Va Voom and I belong in the latter category.  It is approximately one hour into the film when Va Va Voom groans loudly in the dark.

Va Va Voom:  When the hell are they gonna hit the fuckin’ ice berg?

The Father of Lumpish Fellow stirs.  Since I am inherently brave, I begin praying, “God, if you exist, please, please, please, make me invisible.”  Unfortunately, God is either a myth or was preoccupied, perhaps dealing with Bill Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky troubles.  Father of Lumpish Fellow turns, looks left at The Second Coming of Bettie Page and right at Miss Pothole. Can you guess whom he chose to address?

Bettie Page hanging out.

Me on a bad hair day.

Father of Lumpish Fellow:  One more word, you’re gonna eat my fist.

Fast-forward to the present as I walk behind Lumpish Fellow fils observing his cinderblock shaped head and alabaster calves that are twice the size of my thigh.  His girth reminds me that I still have zero appetite for a fist sandwich.  There may also come a time when Elsbeth will start reading my blog and say, “Give me the camera.  Now.”  I’d rather return it to her whole than in bite size pieces.  Therefore, I conclude that the prudent course of action is to forego a gotcha! shot, keep the boss’s camera put, and my life intact.

Back to the original point of today’s lame tale, why do people think that dressing for the next season, in today’s case, spring, will expedite the end of the present season, in today’s case, a very cold winter?   Clearly, these individuals were not a product of my style of upbringing and a mother who dressed me like the mummy just to go from the house to my father’s car … That was parked in the garage.

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Lame Adventure 14: Sick and Sick of Snow

Posted on February 26, 2010 | 5 comments

For the past eight days I have been suffering a common cold.  Therefore, I have been feeling rather lackluster.  At first, I was in denial of the obvious that I was falling ill.  The first signs of my oncoming illness were nasal congestion and sneezing, that I initially experienced in a screening room last week.  I assumed that I was sitting near someone with a cat, since I am deathly allergic to kitties, and this is a normal reaction I have to cat people.  My brother, Axel, is a bonafide cat-man. Whenever I’m in his presence, I sneeze frequently.  Oddly, though, when Lola and I saw the play Grey Gardens at the Walter Kerr Theater three years ago, I had a sneezing fit when several cats were projected on a screen at the rear of the stage.  Lola handled my distress with her usual compassion.  She bellowed in a loud whisper, “You’re looking at pictures of cats!  Stop sneezing!”

Ugh.

What I have now is definitely a cold for I am in my very own no cat zone sanctum sanctorum sneezing thunderously as snow falls at a steady clip outside my window.  This has been a very snow-packed winter.  It is definitely not one of those years where we’ve only had a pathetic dusting and we’re all saying knowledgably to one another, “Global warming.”  As I look out my window, I’m seeing vivid proof of global cooling, as well as major roof shoveling.  Mounds of snow are flying off my roof and landing with loud thuds.  One of the guys who maintains my building is shoveling snow off the roof, proving that there are worse jobs out there than being the sap who cleans out the Ricola horn.

Ugh job.

My friend, Roz, who has just recovered from a cold, emails me: try a neti pot – i hear they are great.  i have one but have never used it.

I email her back: They make me nervous. I fear all the crap I’ll try to flush out will somehow slide down my throat instead of out the other nostril and I’ll gag endlessly.

Roz responds: I understand about the neti pot – I bought it 2 years ago and have been afraid to use it.  I take it out and look at it periodically.  I took it out this morning and put it on the counter.  It’s still in its box, though.

The superhero in me is now challenged.

I am on a mission to conquer the neti pot, but first I have to figure out where to get one.  Roz lives in New Jersey, so she either got hers there or maybe ordered it on line.  I want an immediate neti pot.  I approach Elsbeth, my boss, who is sitting at her desk eating a salad.

Me:  Hey Elsbeth, do you know anything about where to get a neti pot?

Elsbeth puts down her fork, rises from her chair, digs into her massive satchel, removes an 800 page manual on neti pots, and hands it to me.

Elsbeth:  You can get one at Rite-Aid.

Since we have a Duane Reade down the block from our office, I decide to try there first.  I make a beeline to the blow-hole section of the store, snag the cheaper Duane Reade brand neti pot, and hightail it back to work.  As much as I would like to resume breathing at my earliest convenience, I refrain from trying out my neti pot in the Tile department restroom.  I wait until I am in the privacy of my own abode where I can indulge in obnoxiously disgusting behavior guilt-free.

I read the neti pot instructions three times.  It is recommended starting with a half bag of solution mixed in warm water.  My proboscis is the most D cup aspect of my person, and it occurs to me that I probably require two bags of solution per nostril.  Therefore, I commence with one bag.  It might be more to my benefit to use a neti kettle, but for now this appears to be a one size fits all noses product.

I diligently prepare the solution per directions, and insert the spout into my right nostril, tilt my head accordingly, and as I wait for something to happen, on cue, I sneeze voluminously and the sink, mirror and me are all immersed in neti pot solution.

I change my shirt, dry off my bathroom, and mix a second pot of solution, when the phone rings.  The caller is my friend, Rhonda, who asks, “How are you feeling?”  I tell her I don’t have time to talk, but we’re on the phone for half an hour.

For a third time, I mix a pot of solution, insert the spout into my right nostril, tilt my head, and fluid starts raining out of my face.  Finally, neti pot success!  I then repeat the process with my left nostril, and encounter a second victorious deployment.  I can shout from my snow-cleared rooftop that I have conquered the neti pot. I can email my friends and family about this achievement. I can even blog about it lamely since my imagination is essentially in mothballs right now.

Only drawback to trendy nasal irrigation, it’s not very magical, and I do not feel much different.

Eh.

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Lame Adventure 13: Family Matters

Posted on February 22, 2010 | 1 comment

A week from today, my father will turn 83.  Although he suffered a pretty serious health scare a year ago, and he’s almost deaf as a post, overall he seems to be going strong now and he’s still completely self-sufficient.  He also has full use of all of his mental faculties that he has told me is a blessing and a curse since so many of his peers have little use of theirs.  He maintains an excellent rapport with his three children, my sister, Dovima, brother, Axel, and me, but Axel recently put him on the defensive for not recycling his Avatar 3D glasses.  Dad was so distraught over this perceived transgression, he called to voice his lament:

Dad:  Did you recycle your 3D glasses?

Me:  Yeah.

Dad:  Where did you recycle them?

Me:  There were two guys collecting them when I left the theater.

Dad:  They didn’t have any guys collecting them in San Francisco.

Me:  Maybe they had a recycle can.

Dad:  What recycle can?  Like I told your brother, I recycle!  He pissed me off.

Me:  I know you recycle.  When I’ve attended other 3D films, they usually have a place where you’re supposed to recycle the glasses.

Dad:  I didn’t see that place.  You think there was a place?  How’d I miss it?

Me:  Were you still wearing your 3D glasses when you walked out of the theater?

Dad:  Yes, I drove my car home wearing them.

Dad has maintained his sense of humor his entire life, but one area between he and his children that has always resounded with a thud has been gift giving.  He gives us great gifts, usually in the cash department, but we have a history of failing miserably when it comes to returning the compliment.  When we were young and high, we gave him legendary disasters like a polka dot bow tie and a wine making kit.

Legendary disaster 1

Legendary disaster 2 (as I remember it).

Now that we’re middle age and medicated, we give him duds like towels and water purification filters – gifts we end up returning ourselves.  Since he’s a huge sports fan, I thought I found the grail the year I gave him a subscription to Sports Illustrated.  He asked, “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?”  I replied, “In theory, read it.”  I got the message and did not renew it.

Although Dad does not want anything, if we didn’t give him something, he’d be terribly hurt.  Several years ago for Father’s Day, I sent him a VHS of a film I thought he’d like, Far From Heaven.  He didn’t say a word to me about it, and I thought it was odd that a guy who’s pretty open minded about people would have an issue about a tragedy set in the fifties about a white woman married to a gay man who falls in love with her African American gardener.  Dad is a fan of melodrama.  He watches the Lifetime channel.  He loved Philadelphia.  Finally, two months later, I summoned the guts to tell him it was okay that he didn’t like my Father’s Day gift figuring he hated this one so much he couldn’t even talk to me about it.  Relieved, he cried, “You sent me a gift!  I thought you forgot!  I didn’t want to bring it up.”  As it turns out the Post Office lost it, so I practically tracked down the Postmaster General to find it.  They located it, and it was delivered in late August.  Dad thought the film was okay, but was disappointed that Julianne Moore did not take off with Dennis Haysbert.

This year, my mind has been a complete blank about what to give him, so I email Dovima for suggestions.  She emails me back:

“I have no idea what to get Dad and Axel asked me not to ask him either.  I guess we will get him movie tickets.  If you think of anything, please let me know.  How about a bow tie or winemaking kit?”

35 years later, those fiascoes still resonate.

On my lunch hour at work, I visit a bookstore in search of ideas and see that a new biography about Willie Mays has been published.  Dad’s baseball team is the San Francisco Giants and he was a big Mays fan back in the day.  To spare myself the schlep of going to the Post Office, when I return home, I buy it from Amazon.

This year's likely dud.

Although Dovima has emailed me several times to discuss her horrifying colonoscopy conducted by, in my opinion, a poor choice of gastroenterologist, a doctor named Mengele, in my emails to her I forget to mention that I have purchased the Mays book.  When Dovima emails me over the weekend that she is finally feeling better, she adds:

“We decided to get Dad movie tickets and the new Willie Mays book even though it’s around 600 pages.  Hopefully, he will be okay with this gift.”

I email her back that I’ve purchased that book, too, and he should receive it this week.  From clear across the country, I can hear a voice that sounds just like my sister’s screaming, “Shit!”

Dovima before donning her Dad gift giving thinking cap again.

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