I got pinged in the whole Target brouhaha about their data breach. Some brigand used my debit card to "buy" $100 worth of stuff at a gas station in the NYC area. I think it was probably an ATM withdrawal since not sure how you could get $100 exactly of gas. If it was gas then he must have gotten like 10 gallons of if it since NY state gas is taxed all which way to tomorrow.
In the summer of 2013 we were broken into (Another thing that happened during the blog hiatus is that we bought a house!) and it was another case of minor items and major headaches. In both these cases I am amazed at the pettiness of the crimes. The robber in our house break in took my Xbox 360, an eight year old laptop on its last legs, our Wii (leaving behind the controllers and sensor bar. So, he got a paperweight essentially), some Blu Ray movies, and postage stamps. If I had the gall and balls to steal someone's financial info or break into their house then I would need go to all out and take as much as I can. I mean, of course I am going to take this oven mitt that says "Hail to the Chef" on it! I just broke into someone's house so I might as well! The cops came and dusted for prints in this case, but they got very little good ones (I knew TV shows made it seem like evidence gathering is easy, but even I was blown away at how hard it is to get a good fingerprint. Basically, cover your house in wood and dust every day so you can get a decent chance at it) and the thief remains at large. The dark part of me sometimes hopes dead in a ditch, but I remind myself that I was fortunate enough to buy a new XBox and not have to steal someone's.
Both of these cases brought out my bonkers side. As my mother always told me "Defend yourself like a cat on its back" and her ever fatalistic paranoid world view colors mine even though I feel that much more moderate (A WYHAK post will have to be that you are doomed to become your parents) of a person. I come unglued when it comes to debt collectors and money problems. I pay my bills. If, I owe you money then I will do so promptly, but the number of times I've gotten calls from debt collectors because of a clerical error. Oh man..that is like three calls and all three times I went nuts!
In the case of the robbery, I came back to the house and could not find one of our cats. I called out for her and she never came. I assumed that maybe she had lept out the open window to the backyard, but she is skittish of the outdoors and our backyard fence to high for her. I feared the worst, that she brigands had taken her and were slowly torturing her! As minutes turned to hours it got even worst. I knew (Just knew and still feel it to this day) it had to be bastard kids behind us and I stomped up and down the block ready to absolutely murder anything that came in my path. Literally, for I was armed with my flashlight and whatever weapons I could find. I stood out in front of their house with two knives hidden on my person and my collapsible baton ready to go sick house. Thankfully that never happened (and they didn't call the cops) and we found our cat hiding in a crawl space later that evening. I've never felt so mad. Never so blinded. This is what people must mean when they talk about road rage. Getting upset because someone cut you off is not road rage. Slipping off one of your house keys from the ring while it is still in the ignition so you can poke the guy in the eyeball when you surely catch up to him is road rage. Afterwards, with my cat and family in my arms, I felt so dumb for being so mad, but it is a much better me that can resist.
With the swindler I went nuts on the bank guy. While in college I fell for a phishing scam and have since been very nervous whenever someone calls me about a financial matter. It did not help that they guy from Huntington Bank sounded like a robot on Quaalude. He said his name was Tim and all I could think of was "How phonier a name can you get!?" Surely this was the Bulgarian mob trying to take all 800 of my dollars in my bank account. It marked the first time I ever said "Let me talk to your supervisor!" which he said he could not do, but that I could call the bank's customer service line to work it from the other end. Oh yeah, I would buddy. I would.
When I called it turned out to be all so true. It was also embarrassing since to prove that you are indeed who you are my bank asks people to state the amount of their last deposit. I said something horribly crass and elitist (I don't know. I'm professionally poor!) but hell if I knew! And I was mad! Once we finally got on the same page that I was I and the bank was the bank I told the lady "I kind of freaked out at the guy who called me. If you know Tim in Electronic Loss Prevention, please say I am sorry." Her response? "Oh, let me connect you to him."
SHIT!
Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts
Monday, January 20, 2014
Thursday, January 16, 2014
It's the Internet so time for CATS
There can be peace in the world because I saw this...
Our two cats (Lila on top and Curie on the bottom) hate each other in that special way cats reserve for each other. It is to toxic that I often refer to Curie as the upstairs cat and Lila as the downstairs cat (Which means two litter boxes and food bowls), but here they are all snuggled up relatively close on the couch.
It is tricky to tell in this photo, but they are not "twins" or otherwise related. They are both gray and white and in eerily similar layouts only compounded by the fact that we got them eerily similar collars.
Enjoy it!
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Another goodbye
I have tried my hand at blogging on and off for four years. Whether it was the original Blog of Plenty, the second Blog of Plenty, or Fear of the Blank Page, I always wanted to find a unique voice that would bring some readers. While I don't think myself as particularly vain, blogging is an inherently self-satisfying exercise and for those four years, I have been pretty much satisfying only myself.
Yes, I am officially closing Fear of the Blank Page.
I realize this is sudden and that I should have closed out on something better than the latest Sherlock Holmes movie, but I can realize that I don't have the blogging power. While the record may stand against it, I am not the person that likes to quit, but I can realize that my talents may not rest in snarky blogging. That includes both the craft and the patience to blog continuously. If you have a blog you follow routinely, then make sure to thank the blogger because it is tough to come up with thrice a week posts. Much less daily.
There are plenty of other places online where you can read funny movie reviews. Dave Campbell may be gone, but you can still find lots of great comics blogs, which also feature witty movie, book, and TV commentaries. If you want a good story, then check out your local library.
For anyone that read any of the blogs and their posts, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time and interest. I hope that maybe one of these blogs struck you in the same way as the websites that convinced me to put thought to HTML. Actually, that may be too much to ask, but I do hope you had some fun. I certainly did, but now is the time to put it to rest.
Peace!
Yes, I am officially closing Fear of the Blank Page.
I realize this is sudden and that I should have closed out on something better than the latest Sherlock Holmes movie, but I can realize that I don't have the blogging power. While the record may stand against it, I am not the person that likes to quit, but I can realize that my talents may not rest in snarky blogging. That includes both the craft and the patience to blog continuously. If you have a blog you follow routinely, then make sure to thank the blogger because it is tough to come up with thrice a week posts. Much less daily.
There are plenty of other places online where you can read funny movie reviews. Dave Campbell may be gone, but you can still find lots of great comics blogs, which also feature witty movie, book, and TV commentaries. If you want a good story, then check out your local library.
For anyone that read any of the blogs and their posts, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time and interest. I hope that maybe one of these blogs struck you in the same way as the websites that convinced me to put thought to HTML. Actually, that may be too much to ask, but I do hope you had some fun. I certainly did, but now is the time to put it to rest.
Peace!
Thursday, January 07, 2010
Ouch
I sustained my third sports injury ever earlier this week. Much as this may surprise you, loyal blog readers, I did not strain my thigh making the last second three-pointer at the all city street ball championships. * And don't worry gym fans, every piece of equipment at the local Y is still in fine order. I think.
No, I hurt my inner thigh on the Wii Fit. The Lunge Strength Training routine to be specific. You can see a sample of that routine on the video below. Just fast forward to about the four minute mark.
I knew this would happen as soon as I got the Wii Fit and, to be honest, it is much better than punching through a window after overcompensating in Rhythm Kung Fu. Or doing something horrible to an ankle (shatter, twist, roll...you name it!) during the Step game. Or just plain dying during the Super Hula Hoop. I'm like Zoolander...an ambiturner that can't turn left.
Thankfully, I did not hear anything pop or crack, but sure as hell felt it for the rest of the week. Most steps felt like your little brother trying to punch you out. Sure, it doesn't hurt very much, but you don't want to take hundred punches in a row.
It feels much better now, not that I can attest that to any specific mending routine. Plenty of ibuprofen and "No, I'm fines."
My Wii injury ranks right up with my two previous sports injuries, one of which did not even involve sports.
That one?
Well, I pulled a neck muscle while working as a janitor during one summer in college. You try unscrewing three dozen light bulb covers, wiping all the dead gnats out of them, and then screwing them back into place...
Yeah...I know you could do it, but, c'mon, it was me. I had inproper light bulb screwing posture. There is a joke in there somewhere.
The other? That did involve an sport, even though some may debate it as an activity.
It happened during the 9th grade in a gym class kick ball game. If the Wii thinks I am fat now, then it would have blown up if it meet 14 year old Garik. I usually played in the outfield because that was the nice place for fat kids that did not run very well. When we played soccer, I was usually a defensemen and in volleyball folks prayed that the ball did not lob itself in our direction.
One kid smacked the rubber ball straight into the air and it arched in a nice rainbow floater path towards me in center field. I reached out my arms, but did not tense my forearm muscles enough because the ball slapped past my hand, rolling my fingers against the back of my palms.
My right middle finger took the brunt of the drop and I never really bothered to take proper care of it. I took a friend to the school cafeteria and asked for some ice. We got a Zip Lock bag and wrapped the ice filled bag around my finger. There you go!
Of course, the ice did not last past third period and the finger healed on its own by permanently arching the first finger joint up, forcing my finger tip to always slight dip down. Here is a picture, albeit a slightly blurry one...
My finger looks like a dromedary camel. I remember asking my pediatrician back then if this was bad and he said no, but that it did mean the wound had healed incorrectly.
War wounds. The ladies love them.
PEACE!
*Mind you it is January. The All City, Slip and Slush Stretball Championship. Brought to you by Morton's Rock Salt. Don't get too much of it on the ball.
No, I hurt my inner thigh on the Wii Fit. The Lunge Strength Training routine to be specific. You can see a sample of that routine on the video below. Just fast forward to about the four minute mark.
I knew this would happen as soon as I got the Wii Fit and, to be honest, it is much better than punching through a window after overcompensating in Rhythm Kung Fu. Or doing something horrible to an ankle (shatter, twist, roll...you name it!) during the Step game. Or just plain dying during the Super Hula Hoop. I'm like Zoolander...an ambiturner that can't turn left.
Thankfully, I did not hear anything pop or crack, but sure as hell felt it for the rest of the week. Most steps felt like your little brother trying to punch you out. Sure, it doesn't hurt very much, but you don't want to take hundred punches in a row.
It feels much better now, not that I can attest that to any specific mending routine. Plenty of ibuprofen and "No, I'm fines."
My Wii injury ranks right up with my two previous sports injuries, one of which did not even involve sports.
That one?
Well, I pulled a neck muscle while working as a janitor during one summer in college. You try unscrewing three dozen light bulb covers, wiping all the dead gnats out of them, and then screwing them back into place...
Yeah...I know you could do it, but, c'mon, it was me. I had inproper light bulb screwing posture. There is a joke in there somewhere.
The other? That did involve an sport, even though some may debate it as an activity.
It happened during the 9th grade in a gym class kick ball game. If the Wii thinks I am fat now, then it would have blown up if it meet 14 year old Garik. I usually played in the outfield because that was the nice place for fat kids that did not run very well. When we played soccer, I was usually a defensemen and in volleyball folks prayed that the ball did not lob itself in our direction.
One kid smacked the rubber ball straight into the air and it arched in a nice rainbow floater path towards me in center field. I reached out my arms, but did not tense my forearm muscles enough because the ball slapped past my hand, rolling my fingers against the back of my palms.
My right middle finger took the brunt of the drop and I never really bothered to take proper care of it. I took a friend to the school cafeteria and asked for some ice. We got a Zip Lock bag and wrapped the ice filled bag around my finger. There you go!
Of course, the ice did not last past third period and the finger healed on its own by permanently arching the first finger joint up, forcing my finger tip to always slight dip down. Here is a picture, albeit a slightly blurry one...
My finger looks like a dromedary camel. I remember asking my pediatrician back then if this was bad and he said no, but that it did mean the wound had healed incorrectly.
War wounds. The ladies love them.
PEACE!
*Mind you it is January. The All City, Slip and Slush Stretball Championship. Brought to you by Morton's Rock Salt. Don't get too much of it on the ball.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
The Best!
2009 is winding down and I always think it is helpful to reflect on the year and its various highs and lows.
On a personal level, it was a mostly great year that saw Amanda and I get married and spend our first year in Cleveland.
However, if I must find something that truly was the best thing ever about 2009 then it would have to be the following...
And the Christian tradition begot Lent. And Lent begot the Fish o Filet sandwich. And the Fish O Fillet sandwich begot.....
Happy New Year 2010!
On a personal level, it was a mostly great year that saw Amanda and I get married and spend our first year in Cleveland.
However, if I must find something that truly was the best thing ever about 2009 then it would have to be the following...
And the Christian tradition begot Lent. And Lent begot the Fish o Filet sandwich. And the Fish O Fillet sandwich begot.....
THE BEST THING EVER!
Happy New Year 2010!
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Working Online
How does one get a job putting up fake job listings on Craigslist? Cause I want that job!
I swear that pretty much every posting on admin/office jobs is a fake. Receptionists jobs that pay $25 an hour with no experience necessary! Sweet! With all the receptionists and secretaries needed and working, who is actually calling into these offices?
And each ad saying that some club owners wants dancers and girls for his club is an attempt to get girls to undress. Does Cleveland really have that many strip joints? I don't even think Las Vegas or Atlantic City has this much demand for dancers and "photographic models" It seems that every day some rookie club owner is looking for the right girl to call Destiny and light up his mirrored cat walks. C;mon guys! Why work so hard to look at some girls when YOU'RE ON THE INTERNET!
Is this just hundreds of enterprising scammers? Or is there a con man guild?
Peace!
I swear that pretty much every posting on admin/office jobs is a fake. Receptionists jobs that pay $25 an hour with no experience necessary! Sweet! With all the receptionists and secretaries needed and working, who is actually calling into these offices?
And each ad saying that some club owners wants dancers and girls for his club is an attempt to get girls to undress. Does Cleveland really have that many strip joints? I don't even think Las Vegas or Atlantic City has this much demand for dancers and "photographic models" It seems that every day some rookie club owner is looking for the right girl to call Destiny and light up his mirrored cat walks. C;mon guys! Why work so hard to look at some girls when YOU'RE ON THE INTERNET!
Is this just hundreds of enterprising scammers? Or is there a con man guild?
Peace!
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Fever Dreams
Last week, I had a horrible cold that make my asthma flare up and bronchioles go all aflutter.
I treated it with a mixture of everything we had in the medicine cabinet. However, those were mostly second string treatments. The only rescue inhaler I had was the OTC Primatene Mist stuff. Any asthmatic unfamiliar this relic is lucky. The active ingredient is adrenaline, one of the earliest and first improved upon asthma treatments. It jumps starts your lungs by inducing a smaller version of the "fight or flight" response in your brain. To the uninitiated, imagine trying to cure your cold with an IV of Red Bull and you could get the picture. After repeated uses, the stuff stops to work, but I actually kept taking it for a slight tiny jonesing for the Styrofoam taste of it. Also, it comes in a bulbous container colored the same buff yellow of a whitehead pimple. Seems like an odd design for something that is pure adrenaline. They need to make this bad boy sexy and fierce looking. Maybe a lightning bolt or a racing stripe! It will kick that crap out of your asthma...for 10 minutes! And then it will move on to your throat!
Also, my Vicks Vapor Rub had expired. I had no idea that stuff could expire and that little date etched into the side was not fibbing. The stuff didn't work! I lather my chest and throat in the slime and felt no soothing vapors. I was just slimy. I might as well have tried to slip into a wet suit or slide down an air duct for all the grease that was on me.
The first night of the cold, I slept in intermittent periods of 15 minutes. As the night progressed at the same pace of a hockey game, I had a continuing dream where I was in prison. Not a regular prison, but a single dark room. The plaster on the walls was colored yellow, but that color had to come through black and brown smears. There was a chair. It was spindly, with metal legs and a puffy vinyl cushion with the seams coming apart. The only light came from a small barred window high up off the floor where the wall and ceiling met.
In the dream, I had the feeling I had done something horrible. I never figured out why I was trapped, but it was a heinous crime for sure. The only hint was a nagging feeling that many people had died, but it had all been an accident. An accident I caused.
I spent the night coming in and out of the dream. The room in the dream reciprocated well with our own sparse bedroom. A few times, I awoke and thought that I was still trapped. Except this time it was in China and the nagging guilt only felt stronger because everything in this room (i.e. the bedroom) was palpable and tangible.
After that evening, I spent the day feeling a bit better, but by the evening I had relapsed. We ended up going to the urgent care and getting an asthma treatment and some prescriptions. I also learned that I had the early stages of an upper respiratory infection and ended up on antibiotics. All better now, however. And you got a blog post out of it!
Peace!
I treated it with a mixture of everything we had in the medicine cabinet. However, those were mostly second string treatments. The only rescue inhaler I had was the OTC Primatene Mist stuff. Any asthmatic unfamiliar this relic is lucky. The active ingredient is adrenaline, one of the earliest and first improved upon asthma treatments. It jumps starts your lungs by inducing a smaller version of the "fight or flight" response in your brain. To the uninitiated, imagine trying to cure your cold with an IV of Red Bull and you could get the picture. After repeated uses, the stuff stops to work, but I actually kept taking it for a slight tiny jonesing for the Styrofoam taste of it. Also, it comes in a bulbous container colored the same buff yellow of a whitehead pimple. Seems like an odd design for something that is pure adrenaline. They need to make this bad boy sexy and fierce looking. Maybe a lightning bolt or a racing stripe! It will kick that crap out of your asthma...for 10 minutes! And then it will move on to your throat!
Also, my Vicks Vapor Rub had expired. I had no idea that stuff could expire and that little date etched into the side was not fibbing. The stuff didn't work! I lather my chest and throat in the slime and felt no soothing vapors. I was just slimy. I might as well have tried to slip into a wet suit or slide down an air duct for all the grease that was on me.
The first night of the cold, I slept in intermittent periods of 15 minutes. As the night progressed at the same pace of a hockey game, I had a continuing dream where I was in prison. Not a regular prison, but a single dark room. The plaster on the walls was colored yellow, but that color had to come through black and brown smears. There was a chair. It was spindly, with metal legs and a puffy vinyl cushion with the seams coming apart. The only light came from a small barred window high up off the floor where the wall and ceiling met.
In the dream, I had the feeling I had done something horrible. I never figured out why I was trapped, but it was a heinous crime for sure. The only hint was a nagging feeling that many people had died, but it had all been an accident. An accident I caused.
I spent the night coming in and out of the dream. The room in the dream reciprocated well with our own sparse bedroom. A few times, I awoke and thought that I was still trapped. Except this time it was in China and the nagging guilt only felt stronger because everything in this room (i.e. the bedroom) was palpable and tangible.
After that evening, I spent the day feeling a bit better, but by the evening I had relapsed. We ended up going to the urgent care and getting an asthma treatment and some prescriptions. I also learned that I had the early stages of an upper respiratory infection and ended up on antibiotics. All better now, however. And you got a blog post out of it!
Peace!
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Wild Accusations
This past weekend, I got into a discussion about board games with some folks from Ithaca. The conversation turned to the Parker Brother's game Clue and I proclaimed, "Oh man. I used to love Clue. I would play the hell out of it, begging my parents and anyone interested in playing a round."
Whenever you walk by board games in the store, you will often see a small label on the box saying "Plan a Family Game Night!" This is definitely a neat idea and wholesome campaign, but Clue should not be one of those games. Who would believe that it was a board game (not those dreaded video games) that would ruin our children?
And this is not because clue is about a murder. Not at all. That aspect of the game "keeps its real!" If I was in a mansion with a bunch of other well to dos, I would not be moved to playing Dick Tracy because someone lost their antique silver jewelery box. Sucks to be you I guess. Now where are those apple puffs? But a murder?! Holy crap! The killer could still be here! And I can't leave the house because I already paid the baby sitter for a full evening's worth of care. Let's do it!
Here is where Clue fails because it teaches children to run around making false accusations. Why doesn't anyone ask, "Hey, shouldn't we leave the homicide investigations to the professionals? Like the police?"
Apparently not. Didn't you just hear that I paid the sitter for a full evening? She is never going to give me my money back. I am going to find that bastards because it sure beats sitting around and those apple puffs just ran out.
Play too much Clue and you become a teetotaler. But an amateur one. Instead of seeing the deed, you run around spouting off more theories than Mulder and Scully until one sticks. The playground beatings will be swift!
Peace!
Whenever you walk by board games in the store, you will often see a small label on the box saying "Plan a Family Game Night!" This is definitely a neat idea and wholesome campaign, but Clue should not be one of those games. Who would believe that it was a board game (not those dreaded video games) that would ruin our children?
And this is not because clue is about a murder. Not at all. That aspect of the game "keeps its real!" If I was in a mansion with a bunch of other well to dos, I would not be moved to playing Dick Tracy because someone lost their antique silver jewelery box. Sucks to be you I guess. Now where are those apple puffs? But a murder?! Holy crap! The killer could still be here! And I can't leave the house because I already paid the baby sitter for a full evening's worth of care. Let's do it!
Here is where Clue fails because it teaches children to run around making false accusations. Why doesn't anyone ask, "Hey, shouldn't we leave the homicide investigations to the professionals? Like the police?"
Apparently not. Didn't you just hear that I paid the sitter for a full evening? She is never going to give me my money back. I am going to find that bastards because it sure beats sitting around and those apple puffs just ran out.
Play too much Clue and you become a teetotaler. But an amateur one. Instead of seeing the deed, you run around spouting off more theories than Mulder and Scully until one sticks. The playground beatings will be swift!
Peace!
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Kitty Cat Rising
Below you will find the reason why I have not blogged in about two weeks...
The newest addition to our menagerie of animals: Lila M. Kitty!
We got her as a stray at the beginning of August and have spent the past weeks cat proofing the house and introducing her to the animals. She seems terrified of Carson Rabbit, but his routine of sleeping and eating has not been very fazed by her presence. And I think Dante Pig believes cats are just an urban legend. The little guy does not get out very much. Oh, but she is so cute and has extra digits on her front paws! She can hitch hike to places with those thumbs.
Of course, this now means I have another animal to PhotoShop with funny hats.
Posts will continue to be erratic, but I have a "Book I Should Have Already Read" for you by tomorrow!
Peace!
The newest addition to our menagerie of animals: Lila M. Kitty!
We got her as a stray at the beginning of August and have spent the past weeks cat proofing the house and introducing her to the animals. She seems terrified of Carson Rabbit, but his routine of sleeping and eating has not been very fazed by her presence. And I think Dante Pig believes cats are just an urban legend. The little guy does not get out very much. Oh, but she is so cute and has extra digits on her front paws! She can hitch hike to places with those thumbs.
Of course, this now means I have another animal to PhotoShop with funny hats.
Posts will continue to be erratic, but I have a "Book I Should Have Already Read" for you by tomorrow!
Peace!
Thursday, August 07, 2008
A Deer
At the end of this week, it will be four months since we moved to Lakewood from Ithaca. We have everything unpacked, but only a few days ago did I find a final spot for this one throw rug we dragged around the living room. This also means that the summer is ending. Where the hell did that go?
I am a nester. An emotional nester as opposed to a physical one. I used to sleep on a tapestry that I substituted for bed sheets proper and made maximum use of a dutch oven pot as bowl and deep frying pan. By nester, I mean that I tend to settle into a situation quickly. In all of my jobs I imagine the rest of my life as if it were my last job. What can I do with a career as a janitor? After twenty years of making copies as a law office assistant. I would hope for a raise or promotion, but I tried to make my peace as early as possible. This helps when dealing with horrible jobs and it does not stifle any desire for upward mobility. That is the whole reason why we moved.
I got used to the move quickly. Ithaca and New York state were the only places I ever lived in after my move from Puerto Rico. So, I accept that everyone says "pop" here even though you will never catch me saying that. Did we go through a time warp here and start saying pop, shopping at Woolworth's, and getting our food from car hops? I have already spoken about the cadence of the Cleveland, OH metro area and how it is refreshing after the Ithaca scene.
However, there is one aspect of Cleveland living that I have yet to acclimatize myself to.
People tend to freak out here when they see a deer. We were driving though the Metroparks (A lovely set of urban parks in Cuyahoga County) and suddenly hit a four car long crawl. People take the Metroparks' roads for both the scenery and lack of traffic lights. Why were people going so slow?
There was a deer. A pretty ho-hum doe. However, there was also a fawn and this must have flipped people's lids. It was a late summer fawn and the speckled white pattern faded underneath he adolescent chestnut coat. Cute, but considering that our old house in Ithaca had three to four fawns living on the lawn we reacted with "Get the hell going!" as opposed to "Oh, honey go get your camera!"
Anyone living on Ithaca's hills shares an intimate relationship with deer. Deer are so common place that they end up becoming defacto neighbors with their own patterns and preferences. I used to whiz surplus apples into the hedges and one resident put our entire heads of Romaine lettuce for the deer. This might seem excessive, but these are sacrificial gestures designed to protect mums and lily bulbs. We just had too many apples and I swear those deer knew me as the "Crazy Apple Guy." When you stare at their black mirror eyes you begin to imagine and legitimize anything in that void. All the deer need to do is ask to borrow a cup of sugar and they can become full fledged neighborhood citizens!* If deer were ever to evolve into a new species, it would happen in Ithaca.
Everything is relative. While people here might scream out, "Holy shit! Look at that deer!" an average Ithaca resident visiting the Cleveland area might remark, "Damn! Synchronized stop lights!"
*If there isn't already someone advocating for deer rights in Ithaca then they are to come. Whatever happened to the dog park people? TCDEER, much?
I am a nester. An emotional nester as opposed to a physical one. I used to sleep on a tapestry that I substituted for bed sheets proper and made maximum use of a dutch oven pot as bowl and deep frying pan. By nester, I mean that I tend to settle into a situation quickly. In all of my jobs I imagine the rest of my life as if it were my last job. What can I do with a career as a janitor? After twenty years of making copies as a law office assistant. I would hope for a raise or promotion, but I tried to make my peace as early as possible. This helps when dealing with horrible jobs and it does not stifle any desire for upward mobility. That is the whole reason why we moved.
I got used to the move quickly. Ithaca and New York state were the only places I ever lived in after my move from Puerto Rico. So, I accept that everyone says "pop" here even though you will never catch me saying that. Did we go through a time warp here and start saying pop, shopping at Woolworth's, and getting our food from car hops? I have already spoken about the cadence of the Cleveland, OH metro area and how it is refreshing after the Ithaca scene.
However, there is one aspect of Cleveland living that I have yet to acclimatize myself to.
People tend to freak out here when they see a deer. We were driving though the Metroparks (A lovely set of urban parks in Cuyahoga County) and suddenly hit a four car long crawl. People take the Metroparks' roads for both the scenery and lack of traffic lights. Why were people going so slow?
There was a deer. A pretty ho-hum doe. However, there was also a fawn and this must have flipped people's lids. It was a late summer fawn and the speckled white pattern faded underneath he adolescent chestnut coat. Cute, but considering that our old house in Ithaca had three to four fawns living on the lawn we reacted with "Get the hell going!" as opposed to "Oh, honey go get your camera!"
Anyone living on Ithaca's hills shares an intimate relationship with deer. Deer are so common place that they end up becoming defacto neighbors with their own patterns and preferences. I used to whiz surplus apples into the hedges and one resident put our entire heads of Romaine lettuce for the deer. This might seem excessive, but these are sacrificial gestures designed to protect mums and lily bulbs. We just had too many apples and I swear those deer knew me as the "Crazy Apple Guy." When you stare at their black mirror eyes you begin to imagine and legitimize anything in that void. All the deer need to do is ask to borrow a cup of sugar and they can become full fledged neighborhood citizens!* If deer were ever to evolve into a new species, it would happen in Ithaca.
Everything is relative. While people here might scream out, "Holy shit! Look at that deer!" an average Ithaca resident visiting the Cleveland area might remark, "Damn! Synchronized stop lights!"
Peace!
They do exist!
*If there isn't already someone advocating for deer rights in Ithaca then they are to come. Whatever happened to the dog park people? TCDEER, much?
Monday, July 28, 2008
Santos Cielos!
After a full week of posts I come to you with some cosmic justice. I was getting into a blogging groove and then my computer crashed. I just woke up the next day and my desktop was making all kinds of horrible noises and failing to start up.
Thankfully, in a serendipitous turn of events, Amanda just got a new laptop and that is where I am currently blogging from.
Not really an excuse, per se, but this will seriously hurt my "Great Works Defiled" tradition of putting funny hats on the varmints. I had several pictures of the animals on the desktop and last thing I want to do is clutter up the laptop with such silliness.
I still have the blog, thankfully. Unless Google's computers crash, but, if that were to happen, I think people would want their G-Mail back up before FOTBP. When I could no longer access my files this morning, I realized that almost all my short stories are up on the blog. And all of my work for Tompkins Weekly remains on their website. I take a lot of pride in these little posts. Sure, they are riddled with typos I made in haste and lame jokes. But if trying to get someone to read any of this is my dream (My person, if you allow me to be so bold) then it is comforting to know that it will remain up and active. My work remains as "cloud computing," even though I really want those varmint pictures.
Peace!
Thankfully, in a serendipitous turn of events, Amanda just got a new laptop and that is where I am currently blogging from.
Not really an excuse, per se, but this will seriously hurt my "Great Works Defiled" tradition of putting funny hats on the varmints. I had several pictures of the animals on the desktop and last thing I want to do is clutter up the laptop with such silliness.
I still have the blog, thankfully. Unless Google's computers crash, but, if that were to happen, I think people would want their G-Mail back up before FOTBP. When I could no longer access my files this morning, I realized that almost all my short stories are up on the blog. And all of my work for Tompkins Weekly remains on their website. I take a lot of pride in these little posts. Sure, they are riddled with typos I made in haste and lame jokes. But if trying to get someone to read any of this is my dream (My person, if you allow me to be so bold) then it is comforting to know that it will remain up and active. My work remains as "cloud computing," even though I really want those varmint pictures.
Peace!
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Hot, Hot Heat
It is not as hot as when I blogged about the heat, but, the humidity!
TOO MUGGY TO COHERENTLY* BLOG!
Even Dante G. Pig thinks it is too hot and spends his time lounging by our above ground pool. OK, well by the rabbit's water dish. In my head this scene looks much nicer and you can get this Riviera look in between the fan, cans of soup, and flakes of bedding.
The apartment doesn't always look this horrible. I just read a short story by T.C. Boyle (Who I very much enjoy) in The New Yorker about a man with 1300 hundred rats. Two varmints is enough for us!
I also just finished reading a scholarly text on PR called Puerto Rico in the American Century. It stared at me from the "New Arrivals" section of the library and I thought it would be nice to reacquaint myself with the homeland. The last, and only time, I ever took PR history was in senior year of high school and our book was published in 1983! This was 2002, mind you. Those nine missing years became a sort of living history which we discussed through photocopies.
Very nice book, albeit for the academic crowd interested in PR history. It introduced me to a new word that describe that awkward feeling that makes me feel like a crappy Puerto Rican. It is "neonationalism." If you want to sound like you know what you are talking about, just put the prefix "neo" or "post" in front of anything.
Anyway, it is the idea that you strongly identify with the culture (nationalizing the culture) while also taking less of an interest in the actual apparatus of the state (denationalizing the state). While traditional nationalism could be used to strengthen the power of the state (Rally around the flag), neonationalism creates a strong brand image and does not guarantee anything beyond that. Hence, Puerto Ricaness** is defined by going to the beach every weekend, listening to regeaton, partying at San Sebastian, calling all breakfast cereals "Con Flakes," talking really loud, dancing to salsa music, driving really bad, and having Frech fries with your Chinese food. The phenomenon also ties directly into advertisements, with foreign companies sometimes interlacing PR identity with their good/service. When I lived in PR, McDonald's served this breakfast sandwich called "McCriollo." Criollo (a Spanish word akin to Creole) is used in PR to evoke the traditional and old, often exemplified by rural farm workers. The McCriollo was just a Egg McMuffin on bakery rolls, but since the bread had the hard crust atypical of PR bakeries, eating this sandwich was affirming your identity as Puerto Rican.
There is nothing wrong with being proud of your culture and heritage. While the neonationalist asides in the book gave me some touchstones, I am not one of those post modernists that believe in erasing borders and racial/ethnic identities. These are sources of pride and are healthy. But when you sensationalize a culture at the expense of the people who live it, then isn't that a raw deal. Considering PR has field day mentality to its gooferme...err...I mean, government, the un-watching public concerns me.
This talk also ties into the PR identity of all of us that live off the island. Should we extend this PR image to the mainland? Should we incorporate into existing communities? If Puerto Ricaness requires you to wear it on your sleeve and say it loud and proud, what do we become when we do not do so? We were already technically Americans, so where is the category? All minority communities struggle with these questions, but if you are interested in PR, then you might want to give the book a try.
Peace!
*This also accounts for yesterday's piece.
**While what I wrote is silly and fun, exactly what and who Puerto Ricans are has been the defining question of Puerto Rican history. To have found the answer to this 500 year old question in a cooler of Medalla Light beers on the beach in Luquillo feels a bit too convenient.
Even Dante G. Pig thinks it is too hot and spends his time lounging by our above ground pool. OK, well by the rabbit's water dish. In my head this scene looks much nicer and you can get this Riviera look in between the fan, cans of soup, and flakes of bedding.The apartment doesn't always look this horrible. I just read a short story by T.C. Boyle (Who I very much enjoy) in The New Yorker about a man with 1300 hundred rats. Two varmints is enough for us!
I also just finished reading a scholarly text on PR called Puerto Rico in the American Century. It stared at me from the "New Arrivals" section of the library and I thought it would be nice to reacquaint myself with the homeland. The last, and only time, I ever took PR history was in senior year of high school and our book was published in 1983! This was 2002, mind you. Those nine missing years became a sort of living history which we discussed through photocopies.
Very nice book, albeit for the academic crowd interested in PR history. It introduced me to a new word that describe that awkward feeling that makes me feel like a crappy Puerto Rican. It is "neonationalism." If you want to sound like you know what you are talking about, just put the prefix "neo" or "post" in front of anything.
Anyway, it is the idea that you strongly identify with the culture (nationalizing the culture) while also taking less of an interest in the actual apparatus of the state (denationalizing the state). While traditional nationalism could be used to strengthen the power of the state (Rally around the flag), neonationalism creates a strong brand image and does not guarantee anything beyond that. Hence, Puerto Ricaness** is defined by going to the beach every weekend, listening to regeaton, partying at San Sebastian, calling all breakfast cereals "Con Flakes," talking really loud, dancing to salsa music, driving really bad, and having Frech fries with your Chinese food. The phenomenon also ties directly into advertisements, with foreign companies sometimes interlacing PR identity with their good/service. When I lived in PR, McDonald's served this breakfast sandwich called "McCriollo." Criollo (a Spanish word akin to Creole) is used in PR to evoke the traditional and old, often exemplified by rural farm workers. The McCriollo was just a Egg McMuffin on bakery rolls, but since the bread had the hard crust atypical of PR bakeries, eating this sandwich was affirming your identity as Puerto Rican.
There is nothing wrong with being proud of your culture and heritage. While the neonationalist asides in the book gave me some touchstones, I am not one of those post modernists that believe in erasing borders and racial/ethnic identities. These are sources of pride and are healthy. But when you sensationalize a culture at the expense of the people who live it, then isn't that a raw deal. Considering PR has field day mentality to its gooferme...err...I mean, government, the un-watching public concerns me.
This talk also ties into the PR identity of all of us that live off the island. Should we extend this PR image to the mainland? Should we incorporate into existing communities? If Puerto Ricaness requires you to wear it on your sleeve and say it loud and proud, what do we become when we do not do so? We were already technically Americans, so where is the category? All minority communities struggle with these questions, but if you are interested in PR, then you might want to give the book a try.
Peace!
*This also accounts for yesterday's piece.
**While what I wrote is silly and fun, exactly what and who Puerto Ricans are has been the defining question of Puerto Rican history. To have found the answer to this 500 year old question in a cooler of Medalla Light beers on the beach in Luquillo feels a bit too convenient.
Monday, July 07, 2008
Detroit Avenue
Hey, it is a post!
My new apartment overlooks Detroit Avenue, a main drag that runs from Cleveland and into the Western suburbs. I do not see much of the traffic that goes along the road, but instead hear it from the living room recliner. I can not stick my head out the window because the edges are caked with the soot from the tractor trailers forced off the highway, making deliveries to the United Dairy Farmers convenience store and Pet Supplies Plus. The wood frames are bent, maybe from the rumble of the traffic or the lack of building maintenance. Still, I can hear everything and when I must look, I press myself to the dusty screens and leave my imprint on the wire checkerboard.
RTA buses have this low rumble combined with the pop and his of hydraulics. You can hear them from a block away and the noise signals me to pull the bus fare out of my pockets. If the buses have their air conditioners fired up, then I am transported to a small airport, waiting to jump on my puddle jumper across the plains. When I anthropomorphize them, the buses whine out "I'm coming, I'm coming!" as they pull up to the bakery downstairs from the apartment.
Cars all sound the same to my untrained ears. I need a gear head listener, with an ear most often featured on an avid birder. Sometimes the radios share their music and each day will have a surprise soundtrack. In my previous homes, such shared blaring would produce reggeaton or country music. respectively. Here the street is a mix CD. A pavement tuner set to the maximum value and permanently on scan.
"Two minutes to midnight...."
"Sexual eruption..."
"After two days in the desert sun..."
"Reeboks with the straps, with the straps..."
To snap out my noisy reveries, I rely on the slam of the loading dock doors of the pizzeria across the street.
I tried some onomatopoeia.
Peace!
_______________________
Untitled Aside
Untitled Aside
My new apartment overlooks Detroit Avenue, a main drag that runs from Cleveland and into the Western suburbs. I do not see much of the traffic that goes along the road, but instead hear it from the living room recliner. I can not stick my head out the window because the edges are caked with the soot from the tractor trailers forced off the highway, making deliveries to the United Dairy Farmers convenience store and Pet Supplies Plus. The wood frames are bent, maybe from the rumble of the traffic or the lack of building maintenance. Still, I can hear everything and when I must look, I press myself to the dusty screens and leave my imprint on the wire checkerboard.
RTA buses have this low rumble combined with the pop and his of hydraulics. You can hear them from a block away and the noise signals me to pull the bus fare out of my pockets. If the buses have their air conditioners fired up, then I am transported to a small airport, waiting to jump on my puddle jumper across the plains. When I anthropomorphize them, the buses whine out "I'm coming, I'm coming!" as they pull up to the bakery downstairs from the apartment.
Cars all sound the same to my untrained ears. I need a gear head listener, with an ear most often featured on an avid birder. Sometimes the radios share their music and each day will have a surprise soundtrack. In my previous homes, such shared blaring would produce reggeaton or country music. respectively. Here the street is a mix CD. A pavement tuner set to the maximum value and permanently on scan.
"Two minutes to midnight...."
"Sexual eruption..."
"After two days in the desert sun..."
"Reeboks with the straps, with the straps..."
To snap out my noisy reveries, I rely on the slam of the loading dock doors of the pizzeria across the street.
_______________________________________
I tried some onomatopoeia.
Peace!
Friday, June 27, 2008
A Post Coming
Hey, I have a short story for you! I wrote up a draft in my journal and will soon put it to blog. I would do it right now, but I am bit nervous today. Just job stuff. I am waiting to hear back from a few interviews and applications. Pretty nerve racking stuff considering that Amanda and her family have been completely supportive and my sainted mother has been...well...my mother.
But, I try to avoid from a rants, even though I do not always keep that promise. An old boss in college used to describe his life as "Still swimming upstream." I think we can all relate to that.
So the story will come up, but until then...enjoy this picture of Carson eating pizza!
I know he isn't wearing a funny hat, but, look at that! Both out animals love junk food, which means they hang around us way too much.
I think I hear Animal Control coming.
Peace!
But, I try to avoid from a rants, even though I do not always keep that promise. An old boss in college used to describe his life as "Still swimming upstream." I think we can all relate to that.
So the story will come up, but until then...enjoy this picture of Carson eating pizza!
I know he isn't wearing a funny hat, but, look at that! Both out animals love junk food, which means they hang around us way too much.I think I hear Animal Control coming.
Peace!
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
¡Ay Perdon!
Hey, a little slice of piece for you. In memory of George Carlin and in the spirit of many stand up comedians that can laugh at themselves, here is an awkward anecdote that happened to me yesterday...
How I do love Mexican food! Well, Tex-Mex food since I have never had the luxury of eating in Southern California, Texas, or Mexico proper. One day I will, but, again, how I do love Mexican food.
But we are in Ohio*, whose main culinary export seems to be chili. Chili from Cincinnati, which is pretty much Kentucky. But chili originates in the Southwest, so there is hope for jammin' Mexican food in Ohio.
I usually make an ass out of myself at Mexican restaurants. Not in the "We are taking Grandma Esther to have her first ever taco!" awkward or "This isn't as good as Taco Bell" horrible, mind you. My horror comes from something that you would imagine actually makes the process smoother.
I am a native Spanish speaker. Puerto Rican Spanish, of course, but Spanish nonetheless. I can say jalapeño with the necessary nasal uptick of the ñ character. I don't pronounce it to rhyme with "we know" or "hero." And I can salsa with the emphasis on the first syllable, almost coming out to sound like salt and not like some big Italian guy.
I don't look like I speak Spanish. I look like I am actually from Ohio. Somewhere in the middle of the state like Wooster, OH. Sometimes I notice that the waiters are caught off guard by this. My sister, who name drops her Puerto Ricaness like a job reference. will then bust into full Spanish. This somehow makes the entire experience more authentic.
I never bust into Spanish. There is no guarantee that that waiter or waitress speaks Spanish. They could be the Mexican-American equivalent of me!
"Well, I was raised in Mexico City**, but I do sound like am from Minong, Wisconsion, don't I!? Now, do you want those margaritas on the rocks?"
Or we could begin to switch a round of "que?" since the server would speak Mexican Spanish and I have my own Spanish. I say habichuelas, he says frijoles, and everyone else says beans.
The Spanish does break out and here is where I look stupid. Like the rolling "r's" you practice in Spanish clash, the languages sometimes rolls off my tongue and into pretentious prick land.
So when Amanda and I ordered some desert and I said, Can I have some sopapillas, por favor," my immediate reaction was to crawl under the brightly colored table in the shape of a sun.
The waiter must have thought I was saying that to be smart. How many times must the servers of Mexican resturants have an "hola," or "si," or "por favor," thrown at them by people whose limits of Spanish end at those words? I was just trying to say sopapillas right, becuase, you know, that is how it is actually said! I wasn't trying to be cute or coy.
When we got out deserts, the waiter handed me the fried dough drenched in honey and chocolate with a quick "Here is your desert, señor."
Ack! A señor!? Did he play along to placate me? Like I somehow did well in my Intro to Spanish class and required gratification. Plunge a knife into my heart because I hate looking stupid in front of my favorite ethnic food.
I need to up the Wooster, OH act.
Peace!
*Of course, I am new to the state. Maybe lovely readers will educate me with famous Ohio eats.
How I do love Mexican food! Well, Tex-Mex food since I have never had the luxury of eating in Southern California, Texas, or Mexico proper. One day I will, but, again, how I do love Mexican food.
But we are in Ohio*, whose main culinary export seems to be chili. Chili from Cincinnati, which is pretty much Kentucky. But chili originates in the Southwest, so there is hope for jammin' Mexican food in Ohio.
I usually make an ass out of myself at Mexican restaurants. Not in the "We are taking Grandma Esther to have her first ever taco!" awkward or "This isn't as good as Taco Bell" horrible, mind you. My horror comes from something that you would imagine actually makes the process smoother.
I am a native Spanish speaker. Puerto Rican Spanish, of course, but Spanish nonetheless. I can say jalapeño with the necessary nasal uptick of the ñ character. I don't pronounce it to rhyme with "we know" or "hero." And I can salsa with the emphasis on the first syllable, almost coming out to sound like salt and not like some big Italian guy.
I don't look like I speak Spanish. I look like I am actually from Ohio. Somewhere in the middle of the state like Wooster, OH. Sometimes I notice that the waiters are caught off guard by this. My sister, who name drops her Puerto Ricaness like a job reference. will then bust into full Spanish. This somehow makes the entire experience more authentic.
I never bust into Spanish. There is no guarantee that that waiter or waitress speaks Spanish. They could be the Mexican-American equivalent of me!
"Well, I was raised in Mexico City**, but I do sound like am from Minong, Wisconsion, don't I!? Now, do you want those margaritas on the rocks?"
Or we could begin to switch a round of "que?" since the server would speak Mexican Spanish and I have my own Spanish. I say habichuelas, he says frijoles, and everyone else says beans.
The Spanish does break out and here is where I look stupid. Like the rolling "r's" you practice in Spanish clash, the languages sometimes rolls off my tongue and into pretentious prick land.
So when Amanda and I ordered some desert and I said, Can I have some sopapillas, por favor," my immediate reaction was to crawl under the brightly colored table in the shape of a sun.
The waiter must have thought I was saying that to be smart. How many times must the servers of Mexican resturants have an "hola," or "si," or "por favor," thrown at them by people whose limits of Spanish end at those words? I was just trying to say sopapillas right, becuase, you know, that is how it is actually said! I wasn't trying to be cute or coy.
When we got out deserts, the waiter handed me the fried dough drenched in honey and chocolate with a quick "Here is your desert, señor."
Ack! A señor!? Did he play along to placate me? Like I somehow did well in my Intro to Spanish class and required gratification. Plunge a knife into my heart because I hate looking stupid in front of my favorite ethnic food.
I need to up the Wooster, OH act.
Peace!
*Of course, I am new to the state. Maybe lovely readers will educate me with famous Ohio eats.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Talking About the Heat, Part 2
Here is the second half on heat. This half focuses on air conditioning, fans, and what we do to try and beat the heat.
___________________________________________________________
On Air Conditioning
I can hear the echoes in my own words. I realize that saying something along the lines of , "I will never have or want any children," sounds a bit hollow in your early 20's. Who knows what might happen? But, right now, I don't want kids and that is a good thing since mine would probably tie me up on hot July and take advantage of my indisposition by buying an air conditioning. I would hope they would buy a wall unit somewhere locally, but the kids, angry at having their fish tank boil over, would probably buy it at a Wal-Mart, just to piss me off.
However hollow whatever edicts about children I say about children sound, I am solid about one thing.
This is not as crazy as it sounds. I do not take a hammer to central cooling units. Neither am I the Wicked Witch of Chill, melting whenever we get below 68 degrees. I just have an uneasiness to air conditioning. Whenever I sit in air conditioning (That I can control, mind you. I don't tell the bus driver to turn down the ac or scream at the movie theater manager), I feel as if I am getting away with something. An oscillating fan only takes the air around you and fires it onto your skin. While it is icky to think about it, fans help you sweat faster, making your natural evaporative cooling feel all that more satisfying. Air conditioners, on the other hand, have this Faustian ring to them. You don't need to sweat with ac as it brings the cool to you.
Hey, I like my body and marvel at its ability for homeostasis. When I cool off, I like to know that I aided natural processes like evaporative cooling and simple hydration. Air conditioning makes me feel lazy. And when you(like myself) spend summer already sitting around reading and re-playing every Grand Theft Auto game, you do not need to feel any lazier. If a fan is a nice walk down to the corner store, then air conditioning is hopping in your car to go down the driveway for the mail.
Please don't take this as some sort of insult to anyone that does use air conditioning. Hell, it is nice! And I realize that heat stroke is deadly serious. If you have a/c, then go nuts!* But, leave me to my little overheated zen.
Growing up in PR, everyone had a/c window units. If your house was newer or recently remodeled then you had central a/c or at least those slim Japaneses units that clung to the high walls like huge flies. Our house only had window a/c's and one for every room. The spaces in the walls featured black metal shelters for the outside half of the a/c. They were made of black bars and the air conditioner looked like it was in jail. I used to pretend these were escape pods, to be used if an hurricane with wind speeds greater than 145 mph** ever hit us!
And my mother let me turn on the air conditioner whenever I wanted! Woo hoo! I had a friend in school whose parents only let him turn on the air conditioner after 10:30 pm. Poor sucker, I thought. My mom was nice!
This was before I ever saw an electric meter or an electric bill. Our actual meter was outside the house, on a retaining wall against what used to be an alley. A schefflera*** tree blocked the meter, meaning you had to push the two story plant aside to read the meter. I once took a look at it when all the window a/c's hummed away and the disc looked ready for orbit. It was a "Holy Crap" moment, only intensified by the fact that it never got that hot where we lived. My first ever 100 degree weather was in Ithaca, NY! I spent my final two years in PR, sleeping only under the wobble of my ceiling fan.
When my father battled cancer, we ran the air conditioning in that room non-stop. There was a year where that a/c never turned off. Instead of getting such breaks, it would seem to let out a deep sigh, lag for a minute, and then hum back to life. I used to turn it off during those rare occasions he left the room, most often to enjoy some sun on the terrace. To little environmentalist Garik, the ancient a/c must have been spewing out CFC's! My parents lied to me in that way that only parents do. The kind of lies that take advantage of their parental status and make you believe that they can actually speak to a little bird of Santa Claus. They said there were no CFC's in the a/c, but I never believed them.
"You are killing the ozone layer, dad," I said to him!
He never replied, except with the lie, and it must have taken much will power to not respond, "And I am dying of cancer, kid!"
A/C units, particularly wall units, remind me off him. Of him with cancer. The room where he died always felt sickly with the huge sliding door glass windows perpetually boarded up. We put them up one summer for hurricane season and my mother, without the help of my father and with her back problems, never bothered to take them down. Because of this, the room felt cavernous. They had no house plants in the room (Not that any could of survived) and since the wall were a dulled peach color, nothing seemed lively. My father spent hours in a reclining chair by the corner and my mother would sit at the opposite end, at the foot of the bed, watching TV. And it was always cold.
_____________________________________________________________
This version had a bit more stream of consciousness to it. I hope that everyone also realizes that there is no snobby hippie to my anti air conditioning diatribe. I have ranted about mean hippies before and the idea to where environmental actions on ones sleeve. I just can't bring myself to fire up the a/c, unless something else (like a guest sweating to death) makes me realize that no one else has this idiosyncrasy. Peace!
*Well, within reason. They are energy hogs and screw with your car's gas mileage!
**Another parental lie, except this one came from my mom's most serious boyfriend. He said no house in PR could resist such winds. And while these kinds of winds could only be described as "the hand of god," there are no such things as specific building strengths.
*** Yes, that schefflera that you often see in mall planters. Originally from Australia, it grows to the size of a house in tropical climates!
However hollow whatever edicts about children I say about children sound, I am solid about one thing.
No air conditioners!
This is not as crazy as it sounds. I do not take a hammer to central cooling units. Neither am I the Wicked Witch of Chill, melting whenever we get below 68 degrees. I just have an uneasiness to air conditioning. Whenever I sit in air conditioning (That I can control, mind you. I don't tell the bus driver to turn down the ac or scream at the movie theater manager), I feel as if I am getting away with something. An oscillating fan only takes the air around you and fires it onto your skin. While it is icky to think about it, fans help you sweat faster, making your natural evaporative cooling feel all that more satisfying. Air conditioners, on the other hand, have this Faustian ring to them. You don't need to sweat with ac as it brings the cool to you.
Hey, I like my body and marvel at its ability for homeostasis. When I cool off, I like to know that I aided natural processes like evaporative cooling and simple hydration. Air conditioning makes me feel lazy. And when you(like myself) spend summer already sitting around reading and re-playing every Grand Theft Auto game, you do not need to feel any lazier. If a fan is a nice walk down to the corner store, then air conditioning is hopping in your car to go down the driveway for the mail.
Please don't take this as some sort of insult to anyone that does use air conditioning. Hell, it is nice! And I realize that heat stroke is deadly serious. If you have a/c, then go nuts!* But, leave me to my little overheated zen.
Growing up in PR, everyone had a/c window units. If your house was newer or recently remodeled then you had central a/c or at least those slim Japaneses units that clung to the high walls like huge flies. Our house only had window a/c's and one for every room. The spaces in the walls featured black metal shelters for the outside half of the a/c. They were made of black bars and the air conditioner looked like it was in jail. I used to pretend these were escape pods, to be used if an hurricane with wind speeds greater than 145 mph** ever hit us!
And my mother let me turn on the air conditioner whenever I wanted! Woo hoo! I had a friend in school whose parents only let him turn on the air conditioner after 10:30 pm. Poor sucker, I thought. My mom was nice!
This was before I ever saw an electric meter or an electric bill. Our actual meter was outside the house, on a retaining wall against what used to be an alley. A schefflera*** tree blocked the meter, meaning you had to push the two story plant aside to read the meter. I once took a look at it when all the window a/c's hummed away and the disc looked ready for orbit. It was a "Holy Crap" moment, only intensified by the fact that it never got that hot where we lived. My first ever 100 degree weather was in Ithaca, NY! I spent my final two years in PR, sleeping only under the wobble of my ceiling fan.
When my father battled cancer, we ran the air conditioning in that room non-stop. There was a year where that a/c never turned off. Instead of getting such breaks, it would seem to let out a deep sigh, lag for a minute, and then hum back to life. I used to turn it off during those rare occasions he left the room, most often to enjoy some sun on the terrace. To little environmentalist Garik, the ancient a/c must have been spewing out CFC's! My parents lied to me in that way that only parents do. The kind of lies that take advantage of their parental status and make you believe that they can actually speak to a little bird of Santa Claus. They said there were no CFC's in the a/c, but I never believed them.
"You are killing the ozone layer, dad," I said to him!
He never replied, except with the lie, and it must have taken much will power to not respond, "And I am dying of cancer, kid!"
A/C units, particularly wall units, remind me off him. Of him with cancer. The room where he died always felt sickly with the huge sliding door glass windows perpetually boarded up. We put them up one summer for hurricane season and my mother, without the help of my father and with her back problems, never bothered to take them down. Because of this, the room felt cavernous. They had no house plants in the room (Not that any could of survived) and since the wall were a dulled peach color, nothing seemed lively. My father spent hours in a reclining chair by the corner and my mother would sit at the opposite end, at the foot of the bed, watching TV. And it was always cold.
_____________________________________________________________
This version had a bit more stream of consciousness to it. I hope that everyone also realizes that there is no snobby hippie to my anti air conditioning diatribe. I have ranted about mean hippies before and the idea to where environmental actions on ones sleeve. I just can't bring myself to fire up the a/c, unless something else (like a guest sweating to death) makes me realize that no one else has this idiosyncrasy. Peace!
*Well, within reason. They are energy hogs and screw with your car's gas mileage!
**Another parental lie, except this one came from my mom's most serious boyfriend. He said no house in PR could resist such winds. And while these kinds of winds could only be described as "the hand of god," there are no such things as specific building strengths.
*** Yes, that schefflera that you often see in mall planters. Originally from Australia, it grows to the size of a house in tropical climates!
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Talking About the Heat, Part 1
This little piece came to me a week ago when Cleveland baked through a four day long, early June heat wave. Outside, now, the clouds block the sun's rays and everything feels cooler. Like many of these asides, this will be stream of consciousness style.
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
Heat Rises
All my apartments come in this ebb and flow of temperature. In college, I lived for two years in a brick apartment cut into the side of a low hill. They were officially known by the Soviet-esque name, Garden 29, but we all called them "The Bunkers." That certainly warmed them up! They proved cool enough that walking into them (or down into them) felt like walking into air conditioning. Sixty years ago, someone must have strolled down the stairs to their basement apartment and felt the gradual layered cooling of the air. "Hey," thought this individual, 'Wouldn't it be great if we could somehow bottle this!?" The Bunkers were pleasant, reaffirming that if cliff structures worked for the Anasazi then they would certainly work for the class of 2006 coeds.
When already graduated and gone, I took an apartment on the main street of a village in Central New York. The apartment had the perk of being right next to the office where I worked. A three minute commute! And it came with the miscellaneous bric-a-brac that can only come from a previous tenant that did not care and a landlord that cared even less. Silverware, an electric blenders, carpet samples, and a plastic ship model that hung flush to the wall. I named it the USS Ezekiel Benjamin. The entire apartment felt ship-like, but this would have never made it out of the shipyard. The cherry wood floorboards sagged in the middle of the living room floor and lifted up all four corners. My apartment had a topography! The fall of the first step through the front door and the depression in the middle room before the kitchen linoleum plateau. The heating unit was an electric range sized brown gas boiler that dominated an entire corner of the living room. The front had a little grill in front of it where you could watch the flames. The edges of the heater were swooped in that future-retro way where the Jetsons watch the news on a triangle shaped TV. It added to the ship analogy as I imagined myself shoveling coal into it to meet the captain's order for "Full Speed Ahead!"
My landlord turned off the heater's pilot light during the summer. But the heat still rose to the top of this split A-frame house. Heat came to the apartment like an universal black body. It had an inherent mugginess independent of the dew index outside. A friend once described such heat, the heat unique to old houses in the Northeast, houses built before we had the luxury to worry about summer more than winter, as "Satan's Asshole Hot." The thermometer on my fish tank shot up to the maximum range, but when I first noticed my Mollys and Platys swimming in circle's belly-up, I realized it was hotter than the 86 on the thermometer. I have never noticed an aquarium thermometer that goes beyond 86 degrees Fahrenheit. The entire industry could have not imagined an actual situation where a tank would boil to a point beyond that. "Inconceivable!" they must have said. "No, Apartment 5," I would retort! I dropped in a bag of peas to cool the water, but the Great Boil only broke when October first chilled the air.
I then moved into a true basement apartment, where the footfalls of the upstairs tenant reminded us that this was an apartment building. But, it looked like a real house, in the city limits and with a backyard where we set up a pen for our pet rabbits and guinea pig. Pity the poor animals in the heat. IF anything could actually melt than it would be the rabbit. Unable to sweat and with a toothy slit of mouth, their heat regulation looks almost reptilian. Of course, imagine anything horrible and it has to have been done to some bunny at some point. But, the heat looks and feels particularly horrible.
But that was all in the old apartment. This basement apartment physically reminded us of why creatures took the ground. The houseplants were not happy, routinely turning angry yellows and dropping leaves in a false internal Autumn.
In my current apartment, we live on the third floor of a brick-shit building. The ground floor is dominated by two bakeries and the smells of sourdough and crisp pie crust little make up for the heat. Oh, the plants are happy, for the sun pours in through the windows, but the animals have taken to spaces behind the bathtub and the aquarium thermometer creeps up to the far limits.
Maybe one day we will have a house with enough rooms to seek solace from the climate and to make all the living things; furry, fishy, leafy, and human, pleasant.
________________________________________________________________
So, why Part 1? Well there will be a Part 2, of course. I am not getting all post-modern on you readers! I decided to cut back on the stream of consciousness and focus this entry on the apartments. Tomorrow (Yes, tomorrow) I will have a little aside about air-conditioning and cooling.
Peace!
When already graduated and gone, I took an apartment on the main street of a village in Central New York. The apartment had the perk of being right next to the office where I worked. A three minute commute! And it came with the miscellaneous bric-a-brac that can only come from a previous tenant that did not care and a landlord that cared even less. Silverware, an electric blenders, carpet samples, and a plastic ship model that hung flush to the wall. I named it the USS Ezekiel Benjamin. The entire apartment felt ship-like, but this would have never made it out of the shipyard. The cherry wood floorboards sagged in the middle of the living room floor and lifted up all four corners. My apartment had a topography! The fall of the first step through the front door and the depression in the middle room before the kitchen linoleum plateau. The heating unit was an electric range sized brown gas boiler that dominated an entire corner of the living room. The front had a little grill in front of it where you could watch the flames. The edges of the heater were swooped in that future-retro way where the Jetsons watch the news on a triangle shaped TV. It added to the ship analogy as I imagined myself shoveling coal into it to meet the captain's order for "Full Speed Ahead!"
My landlord turned off the heater's pilot light during the summer. But the heat still rose to the top of this split A-frame house. Heat came to the apartment like an universal black body. It had an inherent mugginess independent of the dew index outside. A friend once described such heat, the heat unique to old houses in the Northeast, houses built before we had the luxury to worry about summer more than winter, as "Satan's Asshole Hot." The thermometer on my fish tank shot up to the maximum range, but when I first noticed my Mollys and Platys swimming in circle's belly-up, I realized it was hotter than the 86 on the thermometer. I have never noticed an aquarium thermometer that goes beyond 86 degrees Fahrenheit. The entire industry could have not imagined an actual situation where a tank would boil to a point beyond that. "Inconceivable!" they must have said. "No, Apartment 5," I would retort! I dropped in a bag of peas to cool the water, but the Great Boil only broke when October first chilled the air.
I then moved into a true basement apartment, where the footfalls of the upstairs tenant reminded us that this was an apartment building. But, it looked like a real house, in the city limits and with a backyard where we set up a pen for our pet rabbits and guinea pig. Pity the poor animals in the heat. IF anything could actually melt than it would be the rabbit. Unable to sweat and with a toothy slit of mouth, their heat regulation looks almost reptilian. Of course, imagine anything horrible and it has to have been done to some bunny at some point. But, the heat looks and feels particularly horrible.
But that was all in the old apartment. This basement apartment physically reminded us of why creatures took the ground. The houseplants were not happy, routinely turning angry yellows and dropping leaves in a false internal Autumn.
In my current apartment, we live on the third floor of a brick-shit building. The ground floor is dominated by two bakeries and the smells of sourdough and crisp pie crust little make up for the heat. Oh, the plants are happy, for the sun pours in through the windows, but the animals have taken to spaces behind the bathtub and the aquarium thermometer creeps up to the far limits.
Maybe one day we will have a house with enough rooms to seek solace from the climate and to make all the living things; furry, fishy, leafy, and human, pleasant.
________________________________________________________________
So, why Part 1? Well there will be a Part 2, of course. I am not getting all post-modern on you readers! I decided to cut back on the stream of consciousness and focus this entry on the apartments. Tomorrow (Yes, tomorrow) I will have a little aside about air-conditioning and cooling.
Peace!
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Ball Game
This post has been a few weeks coming, but, you know, I suck.
Over the Memorial Day weekend (Yeesh! It is already June!), Amanda and I partook in an American summer tradition by going to a Cleveland Indians baseball game at Jaco...err....I mean Progressive Field!
It was fun! My first ever major league sporting event and the Indians broke a seven game losing streak! Of course, then they slipped into another losing streak, but they won yesterday! Against the same team they beat at this very first of my major league ballgames*.
We had horrible seats. Section 514, Row K, Seat 18. After the gates opened, we fumbled around the ground floor trying to find the section. All the other people (i.e. real fans) knew where they were going and my hope was to find some other poor saps stuck at the roof of the world. We did reach the stairs to our section and after about three flights I noticed another sign for Section 514 and I said to Amanda, "Keep going up."
Hey, but that is part of the fun! We paid 16 dollars combined for those seats! And, let me tell you, we certainly knew that the white ants were our guys and the blue ants, the other team.
Oh, the sights and sounds! The children's choir signing the National Anthem and the heckling! The announced listed off the Indians starting roster and finished by saying "And they are managed by Eric Wedge." Then someone behind me (Yes there were people even higher than us. It is all relative) screams out, "No! They are mismanaged by Eric Wedge!"
Genius! I don't even know why they hate this Eric Wedge guy, but that is right up there with the heckle I heard at a minor league hockey game in Syracuse, NY.
Over the Memorial Day weekend (Yeesh! It is already June!), Amanda and I partook in an American summer tradition by going to a Cleveland Indians baseball game at Jaco...err....I mean Progressive Field!
It was fun! My first ever major league sporting event and the Indians broke a seven game losing streak! Of course, then they slipped into another losing streak, but they won yesterday! Against the same team they beat at this very first of my major league ballgames*.
We had horrible seats. Section 514, Row K, Seat 18. After the gates opened, we fumbled around the ground floor trying to find the section. All the other people (i.e. real fans) knew where they were going and my hope was to find some other poor saps stuck at the roof of the world. We did reach the stairs to our section and after about three flights I noticed another sign for Section 514 and I said to Amanda, "Keep going up."
Hey, but that is part of the fun! We paid 16 dollars combined for those seats! And, let me tell you, we certainly knew that the white ants were our guys and the blue ants, the other team.
Oh, the sights and sounds! The children's choir signing the National Anthem and the heckling! The announced listed off the Indians starting roster and finished by saying "And they are managed by Eric Wedge." Then someone behind me (Yes there were people even higher than us. It is all relative) screams out, "No! They are mismanaged by Eric Wedge!"
Genius! I don't even know why they hate this Eric Wedge guy, but that is right up there with the heckle I heard at a minor league hockey game in Syracuse, NY.
"Get off your knees, ref! You are blowing the game!"
Amazing!
I hope to go to some more games this summer and into the future. I might not like sports very much, but I sure do like the home team. I still use this tired gag whenever conversation lulls, which is something along the lines of, "Well, how about that local sports team?" My college roommate and I had this mini vaudeville bit around the line:
OK, well, by vaudeville, I mean nerdy, and by bit, I mean the reason we had no friends!
But now the bit has it's own new cadence, because there is a real local sports team!
So, more games for sure. If we can afford them. I remember reading about how expensive it is to go to a ball game, but it is different actually feeling it in the flesh and pocket book. At 6.25 a beer, I expected to watch a couple of movie previews on the world's largest baseball scoreboard or hear that my connecting flight to Atlanta was canceled.
The prices put a whole new spin on "Take Me Out To The Ball Game!"
But, again, it was fun. There was an energy to the event. The game was sold out and knowing that about 39,999 other people share a common interest with you always takes the sting out of any bullshit life deals you. So, while we still have to deal with George W. Bush, we beat the team he used to (partially) own! WOO HOO! Makes up for the erosion of civil liberties, delay of global warming response, and water boarding with the crack of Ben Francisco's bat and the leather plunk of Grady Sizemore's glove!
Peace!
*I must have gone to umpteen baseball games in Puerto Rico watching the teams of the Professional Baseball League of Puerto Rico. These had their own fun, but were far beyond major league, even though you could see some stars play there during the off season.
I hope to go to some more games this summer and into the future. I might not like sports very much, but I sure do like the home team. I still use this tired gag whenever conversation lulls, which is something along the lines of, "Well, how about that local sports team?" My college roommate and I had this mini vaudeville bit around the line:
"Hey, how about that local sports team?"
"Oh, they need to fire the manager."
"And build a new stadium."
"Hi-yo!"
"Oh, they need to fire the manager."
"And build a new stadium."
"Hi-yo!"
OK, well, by vaudeville, I mean nerdy, and by bit, I mean the reason we had no friends!
But now the bit has it's own new cadence, because there is a real local sports team!
So, more games for sure. If we can afford them. I remember reading about how expensive it is to go to a ball game, but it is different actually feeling it in the flesh and pocket book. At 6.25 a beer, I expected to watch a couple of movie previews on the world's largest baseball scoreboard or hear that my connecting flight to Atlanta was canceled.
The prices put a whole new spin on "Take Me Out To The Ball Game!"
Take me out to the ball game!
Take me out to the crowd!
Pawn off your class ring and golden latch
Don't you worry if you get your investment back!
Because it is...
Root, root, foot for the pawn shops!
If they close down it's a shame
Because it is...
ONE!
TWO!
Three mortgages on your house
To go to the old ball game!
Take me out to the crowd!
Pawn off your class ring and golden latch
Don't you worry if you get your investment back!
Because it is...
Root, root, foot for the pawn shops!
If they close down it's a shame
Because it is...
ONE!
TWO!
Three mortgages on your house
To go to the old ball game!
But, again, it was fun. There was an energy to the event. The game was sold out and knowing that about 39,999 other people share a common interest with you always takes the sting out of any bullshit life deals you. So, while we still have to deal with George W. Bush, we beat the team he used to (partially) own! WOO HOO! Makes up for the erosion of civil liberties, delay of global warming response, and water boarding with the crack of Ben Francisco's bat and the leather plunk of Grady Sizemore's glove!
Peace!
*I must have gone to umpteen baseball games in Puerto Rico watching the teams of the Professional Baseball League of Puerto Rico. These had their own fun, but were far beyond major league, even though you could see some stars play there during the off season.
Monday, June 02, 2008
Deeper Archives
One lovely thing about finding a new blog is reading through that blogger's archives. The act helps you familiarize yourself with the blogger and see how he or she got his or her voice. It is akin to tapping into a hot, still aired show into it's third season. You get all the back episodes on DVD box sets or watch them online to understand why everyone is so stoked for a fourth season.
Maybe, someone out there, will stumble upon this blog and say, "I need to read more of Garik! There is still an hour left until quitting time!"
Well, if you like books and the kind of jokes you read in the "Movies I Should Have Already Seen" bits, then you can peruse my Bookcrossing shelf and see the reviews for all those books I contributed to the wonderful experiment of BXing. Like the blog, the earlier posts feature a wide variety of typos and hasty text. The newer ones are sharper and my most recent one was the longest review in my BXing career. So many Bookcrossing reviews are short and lacking. "Hey, I liked it," is not going to get me on a cross-town bus so I can search underneath every desk at a local park for any book.
Enjoy, and another post coming up soon!
Peace!
Maybe, someone out there, will stumble upon this blog and say, "I need to read more of Garik! There is still an hour left until quitting time!"
Well, if you like books and the kind of jokes you read in the "Movies I Should Have Already Seen" bits, then you can peruse my Bookcrossing shelf and see the reviews for all those books I contributed to the wonderful experiment of BXing. Like the blog, the earlier posts feature a wide variety of typos and hasty text. The newer ones are sharper and my most recent one was the longest review in my BXing career. So many Bookcrossing reviews are short and lacking. "Hey, I liked it," is not going to get me on a cross-town bus so I can search underneath every desk at a local park for any book.
Enjoy, and another post coming up soon!
Peace!
Monday, May 19, 2008
Run Time
I took a jog the other day. The first one in my entire life. I always feel like watching me "work out" has to be hilarious. Recently, I had the chance to play with a puppy that had yet to grow into its legs. She was a Bernese Mountain Dog, a huge breed with bear like paws. She ran in a broken half-step best described as a stumble-gallop. At certain points she did not move her joints, but instead quickly thrashed across the carpet, swaying her hips and moving her static legs. That should give you an idea of me running.
Of course, I did not run the entire two miles. I jogged for a three minutes and then looked around to see if there was no one around me. When all clear I would simply walk. Sometimes I tried to be clever about it. Pretending my cell phone was ringing or the MP3 player was acting up. "Stupid machine! Now my heart rate will go down. Oh, better ease into the next sprint."
I just realized that I don't necessarily have the discipline to write a full blown short story. Oh, I can write up some asides and vignettes, but it is damn hard to create characters. Good characters. If anyone here has noticed a push towards more non-fiction and notes of journalism, then they are all on purpose. I mention this little confession because I also lack the discipline to jog. Exercising au natural requires the need to keep a constant beat. I shouldn't need a particular good riff during a song to keep me going. There are only so many times one man can hear "Highway To The Danger Zone."
I can only blame myself, but my jog proved much "higher impact" than anything I had done in a gym. The following day my entire body felt like hell. After my initial jog, I also tried my hand at small engine repair and lifted up a hundred pound outboard motor for a two-hour tinkering session. That is a whole other post, but, seriously, I was beat. Sore muscles are the worse feeling. That feeling of "Hey, I just worked out! Hooray for my heart!" feeling last until you take a shower, which hopefully is really soon after you are done running. But sore muscles last for about three days. Legs seem to buckle under you and thighs become coiled ropes, taut and stressed like dock ropes pulled too far. My ropey arms should not have these many aches and my chest seems to pull up and into itself. As a struggling writer, I realize that cliches like "hurt in places that you did not even know existed" are weak. There seems to be cosmic justice when you realize there is not better way to describe what you are feeling.
I think I will stick to the indoor gym. Of course, at this point I am not in the situation to pay for a gym membership, even at the local YMCA. That damn song mislead me. I'll try something here in the apartment. I wonder how thick the downstairs ceiling are and whether the neighbors own a gun...
Peace!
Of course, I did not run the entire two miles. I jogged for a three minutes and then looked around to see if there was no one around me. When all clear I would simply walk. Sometimes I tried to be clever about it. Pretending my cell phone was ringing or the MP3 player was acting up. "Stupid machine! Now my heart rate will go down. Oh, better ease into the next sprint."
I just realized that I don't necessarily have the discipline to write a full blown short story. Oh, I can write up some asides and vignettes, but it is damn hard to create characters. Good characters. If anyone here has noticed a push towards more non-fiction and notes of journalism, then they are all on purpose. I mention this little confession because I also lack the discipline to jog. Exercising au natural requires the need to keep a constant beat. I shouldn't need a particular good riff during a song to keep me going. There are only so many times one man can hear "Highway To The Danger Zone."
I can only blame myself, but my jog proved much "higher impact" than anything I had done in a gym. The following day my entire body felt like hell. After my initial jog, I also tried my hand at small engine repair and lifted up a hundred pound outboard motor for a two-hour tinkering session. That is a whole other post, but, seriously, I was beat. Sore muscles are the worse feeling. That feeling of "Hey, I just worked out! Hooray for my heart!" feeling last until you take a shower, which hopefully is really soon after you are done running. But sore muscles last for about three days. Legs seem to buckle under you and thighs become coiled ropes, taut and stressed like dock ropes pulled too far. My ropey arms should not have these many aches and my chest seems to pull up and into itself. As a struggling writer, I realize that cliches like "hurt in places that you did not even know existed" are weak. There seems to be cosmic justice when you realize there is not better way to describe what you are feeling.
I think I will stick to the indoor gym. Of course, at this point I am not in the situation to pay for a gym membership, even at the local YMCA. That damn song mislead me. I'll try something here in the apartment. I wonder how thick the downstairs ceiling are and whether the neighbors own a gun...
Peace!
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My father was not a man of faith That is something I stole from him, that phrase I use to politely defuse the handsome couple at my door on...
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