You're Doing It Wrong

I started taking the bus to work regularly a little over two years ago. During a normal week I drive my car less than 50 miles.

Since I drive so little I usually listen to the radio or bring CDs to listen to in the car. Meanwhile, I’ve accumulated a lot of podcasts that I’d like to listen to, but really, there’s never a time I want to just sit around and listen to something.

When I drove to California in October I wished I could listen to all the podcasts I had stacked up but I never figured out the best way to do it.

I finally got a new iPod and I bought a gadget so I could listen to the iPod in the car.

But like all technological things I left it sitting in the packaging in a corner because I couldn’t be bothered with deciphering how yet another thing works.

This morning I had a 100+ mile each way drive to a work thing so I figured it was the perfect time. But I waited to figure it out until this morning and I had to leave the house by 6:30am.

I had the iPod ready but I cut myself getting the gadget out of the clamshell and I was bleeding. I had to dig around for a bandage and we have bandages that require an advanced degree in bandagology to apply. Seriously, how difficult is the world making itself?

By the time I got in the car I was in a rush but the gadget plugged into the iPod and I thought I was golden.

Except there was a problem with volume. I fiddled a bit while I was driving on the highway at 70 mph in the dark with a hard rain and I figured out if I held the prong into the iPod it would be loud enough to hear.

But my hand kept hitting a button or brushing the screen or something and the podcast kept re-starting itself. After the third time I told the podcast to go [omitted] itself and I put on the radio.

Then I went to the meeting and it was all great except that during the lunch break when they brought the receipt it said “Senior Discount” under my entree.

“Did they give me the senior discount?” I said, with HORROR.

My lunch companion agreed that’s what it looked like. I sat there, with my chin on the table and a tear in my eye thinking: this is funny, right? This is hilarious.

EXCEPT IT IS SO NOT FUNNY. I don’t even have any gray hair. Even if I’ve just completed a triathlon after a three day bender in Las Vegas, I can pass for under 50. WAAH!

But then I was like, Okay, what do I do?

“Excuse me? There’s a mistake here. I demand to be charged full price.”

I took the discount.

On the way home the gadget worked perfectly. I still couldn’t direct it much while I was driving so I hit the shuffle button and discovered all sorts of music I didn’t even know I had. I think I like that shuffle thing.

Outdoor facilities in Orleans at Mom & Dad’s place. This photo has nothing to do with the story.

I think a ghost has moved in.

Twice last weekend I was sure I could hear someone bumping around downstairs.

Our house has a basement that is accessible only through a door in the garage. Well, there are some tiny windows so I guess an extremely tiny person or maybe Tooms (Great, like I need that idea in my head) could fit through there.

The basement is the Bobman Cave and he has his computer and TV and work stuff and ten tons of other crap down there. If I hear something downstairs I assume it is him.

Also, I have really amazing ears.

Examples of things I can hear in the basement when I’m upstairs: shower dripping, Bob’s phone on vibrate in a jacket pocket, Bob’s music through his headphones if he leaves his music on and Bob snoring.

This first time I heard the noise downstairs I thought Bob had come home and I just hadn’t heard him drive up. A half hour later he drove up and came in the house and I thought, “Huh, that was weird I thought he was downstairs.”

The second time I heard the noise downstairs I went and checked to see if his car was there. It was not.

Then I freaked myself out because what the hell was going on down there? Here’s how I handled it. I opened the garage door so the meth-head robbers could easily get out. The meth-head robbers theory was the best I could do while panicked.

First of all, we have nothing worth stealing so I feel sorry for the meth-head who breaks into our house. All that work for nothing. I don’t have fancy jewelry. We never have any cash. Our electronicy gadgets are all ancient. We have a little metal tin filled with change (but not very many quarters because we use them for parking and bus fare) and a few Euro notes from our trip. I’m not sure how much meth costs but I don’t think a half pound of pennies and nickels is going to go too far.

Second, how did the meth-heads get in there? They either slithered through the tiny windows, or my other theory was that they hurried and sneaked in while Bob was backing the car out.

Regardless, I heard something down there so I opened the garage door so they could escape. (Or invite over more meth-heads!) And I put my cellphone in my pocket and I read the newspaper by the door so I could run out really fast if they tried to come in and slash my throat.

Bob came home a few minutes later and I said, “I heard something downstairs.”

He said, “Well someone left the garage door open.”

I said, “That was me, I wanted them to escape.”

He said, “Uh, okay. I’ll go check on it.”

There was no one down there.

So now I think we have a ghost.

There is this quintessential local kid. I don’t know maybe he exists everywhere but I haven’t traveled around enough to know for sure. This particular kid is in his twenties. He’s hippie-ish and possibly has ironic facial hair or eyewear. He’s earnest and hard working. He’s developing an app or playing in a band or starting some sort of green business that involves bicycles. And his name almost always starts with a J.

Bob and I call that kid Jason.

This isn’t a pejorative. It’s a shorthand joke between us.

We’ll say, “I went to the Apple store and got Jason to help me fix my iPod.”

Or, “I was at the coffee shop and guessed who waited on me? Jason.”

If the kid’s name really is Jason it makes it that much funnier.

Yesterday we spent the day at the Rivercity Bluegrass Festival.

For most of the afternoon we sat in the main ballroom. The audience in there was dominated by cotton tops.

After dinner (at Hooters. I can now say I’ve been to Hooters and had a girl in tiny orange shorts serve me a hamburger in a room with 11 giant TVs showing football) we went to the downstairs stage. The audience down there was more mixed but a lot more young people.

We saw the Infamous Stringdusters who were really good. Bob leaned over to look at the program in my lap. He said, “How many Jasons do they have?”

I’d already checked this out. I said: They have a Jesse, a Jeremy, a Travis and TWO Andys. Also, a Chris.

I highly recommend a day at a bluegrass festival. Even if you think you won’t like it. Nice crowd and great music. Way back when I first met Bob I mentioned to a friend that we’d been to a bluegrass how. “Bluegrass?” she said. “It must be love.”

Then she met a bluegrass man. The man is long gone but she’s probably at a bluegrass show right now.

Garmisch-Partenkirchen, March 2010

Someone linked to this website this week: Never Said About Restaurant Websites.

I thought it was funny because this is one of my pet peeves with restaurant websites. I’ll be trying to organize a meal out and I want to share the menu with a person or various people and I can’t cut and paste the stupid thing, meanwhile I have to sit through a linen table cloth slideshow. Or else I have to click around a bunch of times to find the hours and location. I don’t want the website to do fancy things. I want the information and I want it to be easy to find.

Police cars in Hamburg, March 2010

This morning I went to the library. I’m reading all about soccer right now and I wanted to see what they had. There was a long wall of sports books and less than one shelf was soccer stuff. I’d say at least one third of the soccer books had a subtitle something like: “how the US women’s team changed the world” “how a team of scrappy immigrants changed a small town” “how a group of soccer mom changed their lives.” Wow, that soccer stuff is powerful. Are there oodles of books like that for all sports? There was also a book about a jaded sports writer who was tired of regular old sports so he learned about soccer and guess what? He found it was just as thrilling as those other sports. Oh, and the Dad who knew nothing about soccer until his kid started peewee soccer and he had to coach. He learned a lot about soccer. And himself.

I’m hoping that soccer will change my life and my large-ish town and my world. And myself. (Or should it be: my Self ?)

Money machine in Germany, March 2010

One of my friends said: I have a fitness ball I never use. You want it?

I took it. Dang. Those things are wiggly. They call them stability balls. I call it instability ball. I also call it Elmo because it’s red.

The fitness people demonstrating the exercises on YouTube make it look so easy.

At this point, the bulk of my workout comes from having to run across the room to retrieve Elmo after it’s sprung out from under me during my one rep.

During the fall I unknowingly let my teaball fall into the garbage disposal and then I ran the disposal forever wondering what that weird sound was.

The garbage disposal choked for awhile but it finally started working again. The teaball did not survive.

I could not find a replacement ball. I went to 5 different places. Every single place I went to had this giant plastic stick with an infuser on the end and then a plastic stand to rest your teaball bat on. And just what I need, another big gob of plastic sitting around my kitchen just so I can enjoy my tea. Plus that’s not what I wanted. I wanted a teaball.

I complained to my sister and she brought me back this cool one from Germany.

I just spent about 15 minutes searching online for a photo of the giant ugly plastic infuser I kept seeing everywhere and I couldn’t find it. I did find about 25 other cool tea related gadgets that I didn’t even know existed. Too bad I can’t drink 25 cups of tea a day so I’d have an excuse to try all those things. But I have plenty of tea paraphernalia crammed into the cupboard as it is. Plus about 20 kinds of tea. And also Bob’s tea.

We should consider building a special room just for our tea.

This was at a park in Amsterdam. It has a bunch of clips on it and if you find a mitten you can clip it on there and hopefully the person who lost it will find it.

My life has been filled with technology the past few days. I got a new iPod which once I got home I found out isn’t compatible with my desktop system. I have a laptop that it is compatible with but I don’t listen to music on my laptop so I had to move a gabillion files and authorize and deauthorize and of course my music library is purchased under about 5 different usernames and we had this problem once before but I couldn’t remember how we solved it so research and cussing ensued.

Meanwhile, I upgraded some stuff and installed some stuff. I organized my photo library (finally!) and found tons of fun photos to post. I spent some time figuring out a better system for back-ups which involved different steps and devices and looking at instructions. Every single thing I touch needs a password or wants one I already gave it and makes me click things and wait. Some things hung up the computer so I’d have to quit or save or restart or do this little dance I do to appease the technology gods.

I’m not done yet but I can see done from here. I am very tired of sitting in front of a computer. Just in time for work tomorrow.

I had my favorite New Years Eve which involved going to bed early. Staying home is fun.

It was great time off although, as always, I wish I had a few more days. I expect the next couple of weeks to be busy AND we have RiverCity Bluegrass on Saturday.

I’ve been on a decluttering rampage the past few days. Well, clutter may not be the right word. I went through a giant folder of URLs of stuff I thought I might want to read later.

“Oh look, a 10K word article on Indigenous language in N. California. That might be interesting.”

I’ve been going through all that stuff and either reading it or getting rid of it. Mostly the latter.

I also have about 100 Photoshop and Illustrator tutorials bookmarked that I never get around to and whenever I do, it takes me all day to do one because I can’t remember how any of the tools work.

I’m not a big resolution maker but I think I’m going to resolve to stop saving stuff to do later.

My other project is my digital photos. I try to keep up with them but I’ve got all sorts of folders labeled “duplicate?” “probably delete” “make prints for people” “huge organization project.” I went through a little of that. I need to do a whole series of photos like the one above. Bob has taken zillions of photos of the back of me walking with various friends and loved ones.

The one above is probably Murnau, Germany last Spring with my cousin Lisa.

Here’s one more item found during the purge. I do this. This is one of my favorite things to do when traveling.

Travel Tips for Introverts

4. Develop the art of sitting and watching.

In her book, Helgoe talks about the French term “flâneur” (feminine, “flâneuse”). It translates literally to “idler or loafer,” but the poet Charles Baudelaire defined it as a passionate observer. Yes, yes! I am a flâneuse. I love just sitting and watching people doing what they do, and even more so when I travel.

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Just in case you hadn’t heard, the holiday letter has been posted here.

I’m going to be offline for a few days.

Merry Christmas.

Vancouver Lake and Powerlines. Or is it Power Lines?

Don’t forget to read the 2010 holiday newsletter.

I had a fantastic morning. I had more shopping to do and given the choice between getting on the bus and going downtown or getting in the car and driving back to that soul-crushing mall, I picked downtown.

I went to the office and checked the mail and phone messages. I took care of a couple of things and watered the plants.

Then I accomplished all of my remaining shopping chores in two super easy stops. Then I bought a carton of kickass Thai noodles. I can’t find a link to the cart. I’m going to have to do something about that.

I was home by 2pm. I still have wrapping to do and we have a couple of food excursions to take care of. We’ve got one long car ride and then: let the sitting around and eating begin!

* * *

During my travels I passed the kiosk where they sell the magical flat irons. They ALWAYS try to pull me over for that one.

Ma’am, can I show you my magical flat iron?

Me: Unless it can change the weather, don’t bother.

I already own a very nice flat iron. I love straight-ironed hair. There is no point in ironing my hair unless it is completely dry outside. I’ve gone from flat to frizz in the three minutes it takes to walk from my car to the bus.

* * *

Cover your eyes Kenman, I’m going to complain about the postal service.

Years ago I used to buy stamps by mail. There was a little envelope with a detachable form. I’d order my roll of first class stamps and stick a check in the envelope and send it to someplace just outside Portland. A few days later I’d get my stamps.

Then I guess the Post Office decided to streamline this process. Or maybe try to wring more money out of it?

Now, 3 or 4 times a year I get this giant glossy catalog. There’s a big order sheet in there and near as I can tell there is no box to check that says “send me 100 first class stamps.” I have to order 5 booklets of 20.

Then it takes almost a month to deliver and I get this:

Five individually plastic-wrapped with cardboard insert stamp booklets.

How is this a better system? I understand that people collect this stuff and I wish the Philatelics the best of luck in saving the Post Office but I just want some stamps so I can mail stuff. Make it easier for people like me.

Christmas living room, I’m going to guess 1980-ish. Yes, that’s orange carpet. Thanks for asking.

The holiday letter is ready!

You can find it here!.

If you want to skip ahead and just read the story, you can find it here.

Enjoy.