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September 30, 2009 | 2 Comments

Rain, rain, go ahead

It hasn’t rained here since June, if my memory serves. What was a rushing stream in the spring has dwindled down to a sophomore of a creek, propelled more by the turbine at the source of it than its own volition. The campus in our part of town has run in-ground sprinklers everywhere, including our front and back lawns, so we continue to see emerald green grass everyday, even while other parts of town are blanketed in shocking states of yellowness. A few times some dark clouds have rumbled through, menacing the ground with threats of a downpour, but none have come, even when we hear thunder overhead. It’s almost as if the rain refuses to fall all the way down to us because we aren’t worthy of anything but bone dry stillness. I can almost appreciate the oddity of last winter’s incessant snow, but as the television was out of order for five weeks, almost is as good as it gets.

Susanne and I have been staring at little blue lines this past week, namely the lines on the ovulation indicator multi-packs we’ve bought. These packs were found between the KY “his and hers” jelly and the female condoms, as if the pharmacy itself was in conflict over procreation. According to the back of the box, one will see a clear blue line on the right indicating a “control” condition—showing us the indicator strip is working. If you also see a clear blue line on the left, it means you’re ovulating RIGHT NOW, so you should run to your nearest sperm producer and harness his goodness. Or you could settle down and not jump on the first available man in proximity.

The issue with the test, however, is that these lines are nowhere near as clear as the little illustrations on the box. And by nowhere near, I mean something like the distance between, say, 3rd base at Yankee Stadium and the outermost ring of Uranus. So there we were, scrying into the vast whiteness of the indicator strip, our noses precariously close to a swatch of material very recently peed upon by Susanne. Is that a line or not a line, we wondered? It’s certainly not as dark as the test line, but that line isn’t very beefy, either. So maybe we’d just pee again, “we” meaning her, and “again” meaning tomorrow. So on we went.

Same result. Next day. Same again. I looked at all three test strips in my hand. Maybe this one was darker. Maybe yesterday’s was better, or maybe not. I looked away after memorizing the potential trajectory of lutenizing hormone as documented on the indicators, and saw a big black box in the air with two impossibly thin,  yellow lines, wherever I cared to look. Dear me, I’d burned the darn things into my retinas! I was going to see hormone levels until I died now. I wondered blithely how many people have lost their sanity staring at hormone indicator strips and realized, astonished, that even one life lost to this is too many. Where was the public outcry?

Meanwhile, our impregnating friends sat in the corner of the dining room, which was an arbitrary choice, really, as neither of us were trying to make a statement about the dining room. It’s got the nicest furniture in the house, actually, so what’s not to like? According to our “vendor,” the little helpers are guaranteed to be frozen solid for at least a week, so we strung ourselves along from blinding ovulation test to blinding ovulation test, reassuring ourselves nervously that any minute now, we’d be ready for prime time.

Tick tock, went the days, which sounded something like the biological clock noise we were hearing anyway. Okay, we don’t believe in bilogical clocks, but we were watching the calendar all the same. Finally, the indicators indicated something slightly more than a ghost of a line. Would we ever see a definitive line? Where did we draw the line [sic] at saying we should try now or not? We understood intellectually that we should only expect ovulation was happening when the lines were the same width and darkness, but we also read online that some women just don’t have that huge surge, and ovulate anyway.

All bets were off. The swimmers were waiting near the head of the dining table, calling out to me in the night. We’re so cold, Everett…help us! Save us!

Neither did we want to miss the timing window nor did we want to open up the canister to a warm vial of sperm corpses. So now was the time.

“Please tell me there are instructions inside this thing,” I said, and I broke the seal and opened the lid.

Inside sat another container, this one metal, with another seal. I began wondering if I wasn’t going to find a gate to hell inside a Russian doll set of containers. Helpfully, a set of instructions was sitting on top of the inside container.

I read through them, then went to the kitchen and put on oven mitts. It was at this point that Susanne saw me, started laughing, and ran to get the camera.

Really? Our child should see these pictures someday? Can i t be the cover of our baby photo book? I pulled out the vial, at the end of a long metal stick, and watched the air around it condense and freeze in a bright white frost. We put the vial on a table mat to thaw out. Both of us came down with a case of the giggles, the likes of which we hadn’t experienced since 6th Grade sex ed class. I don’t think people understand how funny the collision is between “Catholic school” and “sex ed class,” but I always thought it was hysterical.

Fast forwarding to this morning, I called FedEx and requested they pick up the containers, and left everything out on the front stoop. I really didn’t want to have another conversation with the truck driver, in case he asked me how the animal husbandry went.

I looked up and saw dark clouds in the sky, and laughed at them. Waiting for a rain drop is like waiting for two thick blue lines around here.

September 25, 2009 | 2 Comments

Shorter than a 100 meter backstroke

Like standing on a straightaway section of train track, Susanne and I have looked ahead and known children are in our future. We’re good with it, excited at the prospect of little fingers and toes, unintentional smiles, and impromptu cooing. We’re also well aware of the all-night feedings and intense lack of sleep, followed by intense stress and a certainty that you have lost your everloving mind.

canister of fun

canister of fun

Understanding that one can’t actually plan a pregnancy, we went ahead anyway, armed with optimism and a copy of the Mayo Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy. This was better, we’d heard, than the What to Expect When You’re Expecting, which apparently should be renamed What to Fear Greatly When You’re Expecting. Fear-mongering was not going to be a part of our process. We patted ourselves on the back for our intelligence and ability to learn from our friends.

Susanne, ever the feminist, wants not to refer to the little one—when there is a little one—as an unborn child or as a baby. I asked what we should call it instead, and she immediately responded, “let’s call it my parasitic fetus.”

“Really,” I asked, not wanting to betry my own feelings on the subject, since this is her body and her pregnancy, after all.

“What? It’s a parasite, you know. It’s going to suck nutrients out of my body and grow in my abdominal cavity.”

This is true, I thought. Still, I felt it was a little negative. I kept my opinion to myself.

“Okay, honey, it’ll be our little parasite.”

“Parasitic fetus,” she corrected.

So there we were, me reading the Mayo Guide to her before bed, interjecting the phrase “parasitic fetus” or “parasite” into the text where “unborn baby” and “fetus” were written. Things got a little convoluted when I came across “child.” What could I use for “child”? In a heartbeat, I had it.

Reading aloud, I said: “Nutrition during your pregnancy can have long-term consequences for your parasitic fetus after birth.” Susanne giggled.

“It’s okay, honey,” she said, patting me on the arm. “You can just call it a baby.”

Whew. The book would have taken 14 percent longer to read.

Looking forward again, on our metaphoric train tracks, we felt some vibrations from a vehicle ahead, and knew it was time to place an order with the sperm bank. Yes, I am not a sperm-producer, so last spring and summer, we identified some candidates for the job, whittling down to two finalists: the nerdy biochemistry student and the sweet librarian. Sweet librarian won out in August, mostly due to his sentimental answers to the questionnaire and the lack of autoimmune disease in his family. We did notice, however, that having a drunk uncle is an excellent indicator that one may choose to donate sperm—nearly every family history we read showed a maternal or paternal uncle with an addiction problem. I began wondering if it wasn’t code for something else, but so far, I haven’t come up with any ulterior meaning.

Lo and behold, the FedEx driver showed up on Thursday with our Very Special Delivery. I say “the driver,” because in Walla Walla, there is literally one FedEx Ground driver, a strapping middleaged woman with curly hair, always tied back, a body frame like a wine barrel, and a determined air. This woman could jerk and lift 300 pounds, I bet. There is also a sole FedEx Air driver, a beanpole, balding guy with wire frame glasses from the 70s and a chatty manner. He rang our doorbell. On our stoop stood a beige plastic container the shape of a Chinese mushroom, plastered with “medical specimen” and “perishable” stickers.

“Wow,” he said, clicking buttons on his electronic inventory machine, “I don’t usually deliver these to private homes.” He had a wild look in his eyes that concerned me.

“Oh,” I asked automatically, not really wanting to have this conversation.

“Yeah, I usually take them—”

Here I thought that he was going to say a fertility clinic, or something else that would make it obvious that we needed help in the getting pregnant department.

“—to a vet lab or a ranch.”

Okay. I did not anticipate that one.

“Well, we have a horse in the back yard,” I said, and I could feel Susanne cringe in the next room.

“Oh, the horse sperm container is much smaller,” he said, using his hands in a “this is much smaller” gesticulation.

He thought we’d ordered bull sperm? Seriously?

I may have, at that point, emanated more sounds in an attempt to form words, but I don’t recall much.

“You’ll open this up and find like, a tuna can in there.”

The FedEx driver was schooling me in animal husbandry. Yes, he was.

“Well thanks,” I said, picking up the container, the height of a toilet seat.

“Sure thing,” he said. “See you soon!”

Oh my God, let this happen on the first take. Please, sweet baby Jesus.

September 18, 2009 | 0 Comments

Just add water

After we picked up my sister and her girls and successfully motored back to Wallyworld, running on plenty of gasoline, we settled in for a few days’ respite before heading out again to the western part of Washington State. Our plan was to go white water rafting on the Wenatchee River in Leavenworth. Newly familiar with white water rafting since we’d done it exactly one time previously, Susanne and I were confident. My nieces had never done this before, but my sister Kathy is a pro, having rafted in West Virginia many, many times.

All we needed to do was make a 3-hour car trip to the rafting site. We’d meet up with the guides at 1 in the afternoon.

We pulled in to Leavenworth a bit early and instead of hanging out for an hour at the rafting departure site (read, bunch of old school buses by the side of Hwy. 2), we ventured into the town proper. And then we were amazed at what we saw.

It was Bavaria. Better, it was Pretend Bavaria. Everything in the town was Germanic—from the chatel-inspired McDonald’s to the lettering on the gas price signage at the Texaco. They didn’t miss a single building. This was not some half-ass attempt at reinventing the Alps the way they’ve never existed, no sir. This was a complete overhaul of what had been, 40 years ago, a desolate mining town a bit too far from Seattle to be interesting. Well, now it’s interesting, if not extremely strange in its—dare I say fascist—adherence to the Bavarian aesthetic. It was so comprehensive we had trouble finding things we wanted to find, like the pharmacy. Or the Mexican restaurant we were told to try for dinner. Just take a minute to wrap your mind around a Germanic Mexican restaurant. Yeah. Now you know what Vicodin is like.

Squandering our time on a putt-putt golf course, it was even more surreal to see the miniature version of Fake Germany. And here the height of the nieces came into wonderful relief.

Emily and Jamie are giants

Emily and Jamie are giants

Other than the really cute buildings, I am sad to say that this mini golf course is not really worth the cost of admission. But hey, we had time on our hands.

Then it was off to the river, where we put on our lifejackets (always stinky, but they’re kind of a part of the gestalt of it all) and got a quick course in river safety. We’d been informed of safety considerations the last time we’d been rafting, too, but this time, well, there wasn’t much of a need. In August, on the Wenatchee, after a summer of heat and blue skies, we were lucky the water was up to our knees. This was not so much white water rafting as lazy river floating. I’ve seen higher waves getting into my tub. We got stuck a lot, mostly under my fat ass, as it happened. It was a pretty course, though, and stands to be a lot more active if one travels there in say, late spring.

Our guides informed us that in two days they were expecting 75 Microsoft developers, which they would spread out over 15 rafts or so. I could only imagine. Talk about a team-building exercise. They could lose half their staff on some of those thick rocks. It’s one thing to get stuck at a management retreat trying to figure out how to survive on the surface of the moon with 18 inches of twine, 27 bottle caps, and two pounds of Limburger cheese, but it’s another to actually need to paddle together. I kind of wanted to tag along to see how it would go.

But we had other adventures to conquer—taking the ferry to Victoria, the wonderful and colorful Butchart Gardens, and the idiosyncratic fish-throwing mongers of the Seattle market. Low-water rafting was just our gateway vacation event.

September 14, 2009 | 0 Comments

Down from on high

August rolled around and we were thrilled to take our honeymoon, finally, a little more than a year after getting hitched. This is fine, as it turns out, since my knee is all better and I’ve had time to rehabilitate the joint such that it doesn’t blow up like a balloon animal after short walks.

And the cruise, as already noted, was fantastic, full of animal sightings, a tour of endangered glaciers (as well as one advancing ice pack), and some funny-because-it-sucked shipboard musical performances.

Then we docked back at the Port of Seattle. This wasn’t like disembarking off of an airplane, which has its own annoyances, including the rush to ignite one’s cell phone, waiting for the dumbasses in rows 5-20 to get their bags out of the overhead compartment so you can move forward, and the lovely time wasting exercise of standing in baggage claim. No, to depart a ship, you have to give your stateroom steward your bags ahead of time, thus leaving each person in your cabin precisely one bag of toiletries, dirty clothing from the day before, and all of your valuables-slash-electronics. Then you proceed with your dirty clothing carryon to some previously assigned room, such as the drinking lounge three decks below your stateroom, so that you can wait around until your specific departure time. This departure time, other than seemingly based on how many prior cruises you’ve taken with the line, is an algorithm of the finest mathematics, calculating  your likelihood of throwing a total caniption if you’re forced to sit around next to a bag of smelly underwear for more than two hours.

Fortunately, one dining room out of five is open this morning, so feel free to stand on your head while waiting for a table.

Finally, we were off the ship, roughly at 10 o’clock. We found a cab after standing in a long taxi line, and made our way over to our car across town. One quick cup of coffee back on land and we were off—to the airport. This would have been a great time to gas up the car, but as is my neurotic need to be early or on time, I could only rush down to SeaTac, as if the seconds were ticking away before my sister and her two daughters were landing. Of course, the seconds were ticking away. A full 7,200 of them. So really, we had time to take it easy. But I think our time in the Vista Lounge had addled my brain somewhat, so we did some more sitting as we waited for their flight to arrive.

Finally, it did, and then we were in the car, heading back to Walla Walla, and oh, what was this on the freeway? Traffic?

Bad traffic, as it turned out. It took us 2 hours to travel about 25 miles. Eventually we were able to go faster, and then we were out of the confines of the city, and the metropolitan area, to boot.

At this point I realized we were seriously low on fuel. Now our Honda CR-V is a handy little vehicle, and by handy, I mean it has a computer for everything. It will tell me if a tire is low, as it did on this day. Not which tire is low, mind you, but that one of the four presently supporting the vehicle, take your guess or buy a gauge. It communicates this status with what looks like two parentheses and a very upset-looking exclamation mark, the whole thing in italics, like this:

(!)

That this means “pull over, your tire is low,” is simply an amazing moment for technology to me. Because it SUCKS.

Another attempt at useful computering is the gas gauge. Not only do I have a pixelated series of columns showing me how many twentieths of a tank of gas I have—with 14 gallons in the tank, it’s showing me every .7 gallons per column on my dashboard—but I also have a “miles remaining” calculator. My brain likes this little number, like a friend gently telling me how great the road is ahead. This is so much better than that 1980 Ford Escort I used to drive that actually always pretended I had three quarters of a tank, presumably because 3/4 was just its favorite setting EVAR. I have therefore walked, usually accompanied by rainfall, a couple of miles to a gas station, needing to get a gallon so I can drive to the pump. But now I don’t worry, because my car tells me I have 79 miles left in my tank.

79 glowed at me, all happy and reassuringly. And then it read 78. We had passed an exit with gas a few miles back, well within 78-mile range, but who needed it?

I’d forgotten that the gas calculator takes into account, among other things, and for perfectly understandable reasons, the labor on the engine cylinders. So it was as we began to make our way into the Cascade Mountains, yes MOUNTAINS, that the “remaining gas estimate” changed.

Twenty-seven miles. 27. Fifty miles of level terrain navigating gone, just like that.

We kept motoring, and I saw the road sign ahead. The next town was 42 miles away.

I quickly did the math in my head, because I’m a sentient being, and frankly, it wasn’t hard, and realized we were screwed. Sure, I could turn around, but now we were in the middle of the mountain range, so we weren’t going to get many of those miles, the Lost Miles of 2009, back. I wasn’t sure we’d make it in either direction.

I stopped listening to the conversation in the car, and started sweating instead. It was like I could only do one or the other.

Susanne noticed my silence first, and as she was sitting behind me, she only had to look over my shoulder to read the dash and see the root of my concern. It was at this point that she started gearing herself up, getting ready to start walking for gas when our fumes gave out on us.

Now everyone was aware of our little issue. We had 22 miles, or so the car said. I was grateful for a couple of downhill sections of road, and coasted my way in the right lane. We pulled off as soon as we could, but we were really in the middle of nowhere. Next exit, nothing.

Next exit, down to 17 miles of fuel, and we found a ghost town. It really was like something out of a western movie, with boarded up storefronts on one dusty main street, but darn it, they had a gas station with one pump. You never saw people so excited for crappy noname gas. The girls bounded into the convenience store, and came back out, thrilled to find some kind of purple Monster cocktail that drives parents crazy in 6.4 minutes. And we were off again, 503 miles of gassed up goodness sloshing around in the tank. We may have spiked the sales tax income of that little town for that day.

September 9, 2009 | 1 Comment

Walla Walla neighborhood neighborhood

Living next to a recycling center, as I’ve mentioned before, is fascinating for its ethnographic opportunities. We see a specific kind of person venturing here: because it’s only supposed to service the college, the managers of the center have posted signs not to dump here. So the people who pull in at all hours of the day and night, are doing something very strange—they’re recycling, which is good, but they’re using a facility not meant for them, which is wrong. They make their way down the gravel-lined alley, frustrated that they can’t approach in stealthy silence, unbuckle their seat belts, for one should click it or ticket, and quickly remove their folded cardboard, tossing it over the chained and locked fence, before scrambling to get back in their Volvos, Saabs, and BMWs, acting like they’ve just bought a dime bag in the red light district. I can barely fathom such inconsiderate but ecology-focused behavior.

My favorite dumper, if such a thing is possible, is a man who comes by in the spring and summer, with a faded yellow bike jury-rigged to a red wagon. He wears only overalls, sometimes wet at the cuffs from standing in the nearby stream, and work boots. A neighbor posited that he is only “two clips away from fun,” because he’s obviously not wearing a shirt, and possibly goes without underwear as well. I had no idea why he kept coming by with boxes until I saw him one day in a coffee shop, collecting recycling for the transaction of a Mountain Dew. He does the dew. And then it was like looking through the lenses at the eye doctor’s office, and I could see—he goes around town, collecting cardboard, getting a few bucks for it or a soda, and this is his hobby.

He’s very regimented about how he disposes of the boxes. When the college wanted to stop the flow of recyclables coming to the center, it installed an 8-foot fence that it could close when the sole part-time employee left for the day. This was like putting up a Kleenex as a room divider. People just toss boxes over the fence, or push them through the gaps in the gate. They, for their trouble, look an extra modicum of guilty, but they do it nonetheless.

But my wagon man was thrilled. No more simple, setting the box on the ground. Now he could fling them over with gusto! Even when he comes by and the gate is rolled back, he still stands next to the fence and one by one, tosses them like frisbees. If he doesn’t like how they land, he’ll walk in, pick them up, and toss them again. In a sea of entitled people who ought to know better and use the city recycling center, I enjoy that he enjoys the cardboard fling so much. And I wonder who takes care of him.

September 4, 2009 | 0 Comments

Catch it if you can

We spent our time on the Pacific hopping around to every function that the ship had to offer. Salsa dance class. A Wii bowling tournament. Big band concerts, large-screen showings of Star Trek and some Jennifer Aniston flick that looks like all the rest she’s made. Lots of time staring at the water, looking for whales. Many, many mohitos served on the Sun Deck. At some point our lower limbs acclimated to the water movement and we didn’t look like drunken sailors during fleet week anymore.

Getting off the ship and into port, however, was exciting for us. So it was with much anticipating that we drew into our berth at Skagway, a once-was gold mining town further up the Alaskan coast from Juneau. Skagway has a winter population of 700 and this doubles in size during the summer months, when the cruise lines bring their business. It was here that I first started noticing the signs, hung over a small portion of the shop entrances, that read “locally owned and operated.” What does that mean, I wondered. Why wouldn’t it be locally owned? Starbucks, maybe, would want to cart all of their supplies up here, but I was sure I wasn’t going to run into a Bloomingdale’s or Red Robin. As it turns out, the cruise lines have bought up most of the storefronts, which is why we saw so many jewelry outfits along the way. I don’t suppose they do much for the local communities, which in Alaska, don’t have a lot of sales or property tax income, most of the state revenue coming from the oil industry. So some of our native shopkeepers had a little chip on their shoulder, and if I were them, I might, too.

restored White Pass train

restored White Pass train

We had signed up earlier to take the White Pass train up from Skagway to the summit of the mountains, just over the border into Canada. This was the route that the gold miners had blasted out to make exploration easier. As we chugged our way up the 18 miles of rocky landscape, I took note of the near-vertical terrain. And then it hit me. These guys were crazy. I can’t imagine the desperation they must have felt to put up with what must have been absolutely horrendous conditions—white out blizzards, frostbite, inaccessible or absent supplies, inaccurate or nonexistent maps, hyper-competitive people. That surviving through years of this place seemed like a good idea was almost beyond my comprehension. I can’t even think of a metaphor for who these people are today, other than daredevils who jump off of city buildings or people who decide living in a broken down bus in the middle of nowhere is the life for them, but they’re not trying to make money out of those endeavors, it seems.

After we drew haltingly toward the summit, we passed the US Customs building, which was 6 miles away from the border. The border itself is barren of everything except rocks, the obelisk marking the actual crossover point, and the few green weeds that can handle the climate here. The Mounties are no more hardy; their customs office is 7 miles north of the marker. I suppose we’re two trusting nations. One person on the train with us remarked that we probably would put up with the elements if the neighboring country were Mexico. Wow, so much for the glory of the Yukon—we travelers today are jaded and cynical.

our train heading up to white pass

our train heading up to white pass

Up at the summit, we saw a quiet and pristine wilderness. It had taken two and a quarter hours to traverse 18 miles. A small creek snuck by the rails on the right, giving way to yellow and purple wildflowers. Maybe this site was a brute in winter, but it was a gentle lamb today. I wished we could have stayed a while, but as we were in Canada, nobody who wasn’t an employee was allowed off the train.

We could, however, go stand on the caboose. We’d climbed into the first car when we set out, but the engineers removed the engine and drove it down to the rear of the train for our return down the mountain. So now we could stand at the end and watch the world go by us, which we did. Wow, was that worth the $200 for our tickets. We gasped the first third of the trip back down.

The next day, we were in Ketchikan, known as the salmon capitol of the world. Come on, I thought. Everyone says they’re the capitol of something, but what does that really mean? Lots more tourist traps, I thought, and I might have gagged if Ketchikan were a place that sold 3,200 versions of jade jewlerly carved into whale tails. I had really seen enough of those.

Ketchikan harbor

Ketchikan harbor

They weren’t kidding, though. Ketchikan had every salmon in the world, fighting through its ocean inlet and streams. More gawking ensued. It was hard to appreciate the natural resource with 9,000 other ship passengers attempting to do the same, but we found some quiet corners that morning. Seeing these tiny pieces of Alaska only made me want to return. Maybe the gold rush is over, but it really had a lot of other riches that a person could get into.

August 23, 2009 | 0 Comments

Into the clouds of Juneau

Looking at Juneau from the top of the tram

Looking at Juneau from the top of the tram

After a full day at sea we made it to our first port, the capitol of Alaska, Juneau. The city has a population of about 30,000, making it just a hair smaller than Walla Walla. We ate a quick breakfast and then made our way down the gangway to the dock. At the end of the dock two unfortunate Princess employees were dressed up in animal costumes, one a bald eagle, and the other a very starved-looking polar bear. They seriously couldn’t find a bigger employee for this costume? This was like the polar bear who gets stuck on the ice flow and can’t eat for three months. This was a polar bear costume in the “vintage” fit of straight up and down torsos. I ducked the photographers who were clicking pictures of people leaving the ship with the animals, because hello, I’m not getting in a photo where I’m bigger than the bear. Polar bears are supposed to outweigh me by several hundred pounds!

Our first event of the day was to head up the tramway to the top of Mt. Roberts, overlooking the inlet and the city. It was a pretty 4-minute ride, and at the top there was a nature center and several hiking trails. We picked a half-mile loop, and got to see many different vantage points of the mountains, glacial waters below, and treescape.

At the nature center the local native population has been rehabilitating an eagle named Lady Baltimore who’d been shot a few years ago. A bullet through her beak and face, she’d landed hard and detached her left retina and broken her right wrist. I asked if this was accidental, and the guide told me that shooting an eagle just can’t happen any way but intentionally. It was good to see that she’s doing better, and being taken care of, but I did have to question, privately to Susanne, if she’d gone hunting with Dick Cheney. Shooting or killing a bald eagle, by the way, will get you jail time and a $50,000 fine. As well it should.

We descended back down on the tram and took a look around town, which near the port is filled with tourist traps and 60 gazillion jewelry stores. As an east coaster, I’m used to kitchy boardwalk souvenir shops filled with tacky t-shirts that say nasty things, cheap bathing suits, and bins upon bins of flip-flops. Other than the Alaska T-Shirt Company, the stores are hawking loose diamonds, jade jewelry, and precious stones I’ve never heard of before but that seem to cost a fortune anyway.

We walked to the state capitol building, and it occurred to me that when McCain’s people flew in to meet Sarah Palin, they must have realized immediately what a culture gap there would be. The 4-story building in the tiny coastal village is not what D.C. insiders think of when they think state capitol. I’ll bet they told John he was out of his mind. But the capitol is friendly; a sign exclaimed that they held daily “complementary” tours of the building. Complementary to what, we wondered. Oops, they said, at some point in the past, because by the time our feet stood on the capitol steps, someone had plastered an “i” over the original “e,” correcting the usage error. And they say government doesn’t care about quality.

Grabbing a bus to the Mendenhall Glacier later that afternoon, we descended upon our first of many national parks. This refuge had a raised walkway with high, tight railings, the purpose of which quickly became clear to us. Splashing around in the stream were hundreds of pink salmon, otherwise known as “dinner” to the local bear population. Lo and behold, about 15 feet from us, otherwise known as “close,” a young black bear did his best to catch a leaping fish. He clearly needed some more practice at this and settled on tearing apart a recently dead salmon. High above in a tree right behind him, perched a bald eagle, the second eagle we’d seen that day. This one presumably had not had a run in with anyone trying to shoot it.

Young bear looks for lunch

Young bear looks for lunch

We watched the bear for a while, amazed and mesmerized, and then walked over to the glacier. Parts of it were the color of Windex, a shade of blue I never thought I’d see in nature. Icebergs littered the turquoise, still water like crumpled pieces of paper on the floor of a writer’s studio. We dipped our hands into the lake, feeling the frigidity of it. I picked up a rough pebble. These were not like the polished stones on the western side of Glacier National Park. They were probably rocks deposited much more recently, as this section of land has been left behind by the receding glacier only in the last 50 years. I could see where new calves had broken free from the 200 foot high ice shelf, presumably in the last few days.

Our tour only allotted one hour for people to gape at Mendenhall, so we scurried back to the bus and rode back into town. There were so many people on the bus from our cruise ship we badgered the driver into taking us back to our berth, although he didn’t exactly care. Alaskans seem to be fairly laid back, having realized already that a lot of life is beyond one’s control. If only I had learned this lesson earlier, I might not have been struggling against the limitations of Walla Walla all year….

August 16, 2009 | 0 Comments

We’re all at sea

Every day the ship prints out a list of all the goings on that passengers can attend—the “Princess Patter.” I of course, having a hard time remembering the name, just call it the pitter patter. I had no idea what to expect of these events before we boarded, this being our first cruise and all. Everything from learning ballroom dancing to bingo to lectures on buying diamonds, we giggled at some of the offerings and were genuinely interested in others. Always, they try to get you to buy a $6.75 drink at these things. We tried to map out a schedule for the day: start off at the gym, take a dip in one of the hot tubs, have lunch, go to a rumba class, get dressed up for formal night.

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The gym didn’t go so well because all of the treadmills were closed due to a lecture on weight loss. This seemed like a mixed message to me, although perhaps the gym director didn’t want someone my size on the treadmill anyway because it would make working out seem hopeless to fat people. We went straight to the next goal on our itinerary, the hot tub. That was a relaxing experience until the boat hit some choppier water, and then the water inside the tub was splashing all over. Susanne said she was starting to feel like she was being thrown about at sea. We changed, and had lunch.

There are many, many options for eating at sea. Because there are two buffets open 24/7, if one wanted to eat all day and all night, they could achieve success. But the buffets are not filled with the foodstuffs I’d imagined. I guess I’d pictured piles of Alaskan king crab and other regional seafood, something like a fancy cafeteria. Instead it was more like the catering Susanne’s college prepares, complete with those perfectly round, kind of bland cookies for dessert. How can anyone make a bland chocolate chip cookie, anyhow?

The dining rooms serve much better fare, and Susanne has discovered a favorite dessert: the Love Boat Dream, a chocolate mousse (in the shape of a heart), over a chocolate brownie (in the shape of a heart), served with raspberry sauce (in the shape of a heart). It is demonstrated in the following picture.

shipboard desserts

We’ve walked around all of the ship now, save a room or two, and have gotten pretty familiar with where everything is, but the going is a little difficult for passengers. I’ve seen more than a few look frustrated and lost. In fact, of all the little annoyances we’ve encountered so far on this vacation, I’d say pushy passengers top my list.

First of all, they’re everywhere we go, except our cabin. There is simply nothing one can do without at least 38 other people being there, attempting to occupy the same physical space you are standing in. The elevator, the lecture on fruit carving, the spa giveaway bonanza—sometimes we’re so pressed up together I have to look around to make sure I’m not on a subway car heading to Foggy Bottom at rush hour. And many of them are just as rude as the day we checked in. I keep wanting to ask if they think their  bacon burger will taste so much better if they bite into it 30 seconds earlier because they skipped someone in line. Susanne is good at giving me those “settle down” looks though, which is good.

That’s not to say we haven’t met some jolly nice people on board, however. At one meal we sat with two older couples from New Jersey, who were unhappy with the matzoh ball soup at lunch.

“Mine is 100 times better,” she said, tasting the weak broth.

“Mine is 300 times better,” said her friend, after her bite.

I’m pretty sure she just said her matzoh ball soup is 200 times better than her friend’s, but I didn’t mention that. I just told them of course their soup is better than the boat’s soup, and they smiled, first at me, and then at Susanne, as if to say, Oh, he’s learning already, on your honeymoon, too. You’ll do just fine with him.

The day at sea was capped off with the first formal night of the week, so Susanne and I changed into our fanciest outfits: me in my tux and she in her wedding dress. Good thing it doesn’t look exactly like the typical wedding dress, so people weren’t thinking we were getting married there and then. We did have “Just Married” balloons outside our cabin, so there is that, I suppose. I feel a little like we’re lying, having gotten married last July, but this is our honeymoon, so close enough, I guess.

Everyone else was decked out in their finery, too, and Susanne remarked that maybe such a night is appealing because it’s fun to play dress up; we did look a little like extras on the set of Days of Our Lives. At one point we spied a few women who had little crinkled tinfoil doggie bags. One wore it like an edible bracelet. Susanne snapped a picture.

The waitstaff had been made aware of the honeymoon thing because we had a card to signal to them that this was a special night among nights. We were rewarded with our own little “special events” cake and a “happy honeymoon to you” song, sung to the tune of happy birthday to you. After three courses of dinner and dessert, we couldn’t even begin to eat cake, so we asked for a to go container, and were somewhat chagrined to see the waiter return with the cake in a tinfoil sculpture. Our very own cake bracelet.

August 16, 2009 | 0 Comments

All aboard

We woke up at a decent hour this morning, cramming everything into our bags and making sure our car was okay in the parking lot—we just couldn’t justify paying $20 a day for the port parking. I do have a Seattle friend whose car was stolen back in 2005, but the thief was kind enough to leave a note saying he’d return it later, which he did, complete with a few dollars in change to account for the gas he’d consumed. Let’s just say that’s not the way folks perform grand theft auto in our nation’s capitol.

After showering and making sure we had all of our 7,289 belongings, everything ranging from fold-up umbrellas to playing cards to extra underwear, we headed out for breakfast at the Portage Bay Café. This is a catering business-turned-series-of-three-restaurants that features organic and locally grown, sustainably farmed food. Their motto is “Eat like you give a damn.” A little arrogant, but I get the point. More interesting to us, if I’m being honest, was the challah bread French toast and the all-you-can-pile-on toppings bar. Two orders of French toast for us. Susanne also ordered a decaf latte and I a double skim mocha. Seattle really knows how to make a coffee drink—the latte was rich without being too acidic, and my mocha tasted just this side of sweet, which is how I like it. If I wanted super sugary, I’d ask for chocolate milk heated up. At the toppings bar we indeed piled up, but taking care to follow their instructions: take as much as you want, but eat what you take. I couldn’t bear, however, to eat the bland apple slices, and I’m really dismayed that in Washington State, they save the worst apples for the residents and send the tastiest ones out of state. The rest of the fruit—the strawberries, raspberries, peaches, and blackberries—were terrific, as was the lightly sweetened whipped cream, and the organic maple syrup had a nutty complexity of flavor that I’ve never before tasted. I’m kicking myself for forgetting to ask where it originated.

Leaving the port of Seattle

Leaving the port of Seattle

After eating too much we waddled back to the car and got whatever else we deemed should come on the cruise with us. I called a taxi service. It was at this point that I realized I’d forgotten to pack black dress socks, so I hoped I’d be able to purchase some on the ship. I really didn’t want to look like a schmuck in my gorgeous tuxedo, replete with white Russell crew socks.

The taxi driver picked us up and looked a little astonished at all the bags we were carrying. We never pack this heavy when we’re flying. All we needed was a steamer trunk. And geez, it would have been so easy to find 2 cubic inches of space for black dress socks.

Coming up to the pier, we saw the ship. It dwarfed everything else in the marina. We had an immediate moment of exhilaration, and next of a weird sense of pride that yeah, our boat is big! Our boat! Big big big! This was then replaced, as the taxi pulled over to drop us off, at irritation with our temporary floating neighbors, who were some of the most clueless humans walking I’ve ever seen. We dropped off our heavier bags and made our way to the long, winding line to show our passports and get on the boat. It was at this point that they asked us to fill out a “Health questionnaire.” Their concern for whether we had recent coughing, fevers, or diarrhea was not urgent enough that we couldn’t all be using the same pencils to fill out our forms, a rather magnificent and ironic way of spreading disease around the ship right at the start of our voyage.

Standing in line, I sang one line of the love boat theme to Susanne, since this was a Princess cruise, after all. Two women in front of us told me to sign up for karaoke night, and then basically warned Susanne that they might steal her man from her! They clearly do not know Susanne. Or me, for that matter.

We made our way onto the ship. Geez, it was big. We walked around, familiarizing ourselves with the layout, mostly of the hot tubs, bars, and eateries. The cigar bar really needs to be better ventilated, and casinos just depress us, so we checked out the other options. Somehow the shuffleboard court keeps eluding us, though we found the nicely appointed exercise room and the amazingly tacky nightclub, high up above the very stern of the ship. All of the furnishings in the “Skywalker’s Nightclub” revolve around stars, except one quarter of the seating, which is in a paisley pattern. I am trying to wrap my mind around why.

Finally we found the “boutiques” on board. Lots of clothing, and should you have forgotten your cufflinks, there are several to rent or purchase. Black dress socks, not so much. Right now my options are the following:

1. buy black shoe polish and permanently discolor my athletic socks
2. ask our steward if he can lend us some of his socks
3. break down and buy black pantyhose

Apparently I am the first person in the history of Princess Cruise Lines to leave behind his socks. And the first formal night is tomorrow, before we will have reached port in Juneau.

Touring the ship, we came upon the spa area. They told us excitedly that we could fill out a raffle ticket for a chance at winning a free spa treatment. Cruise newbies that we are, we picked up more tuberculosis-covered pencils and filled out little cards. Make sure to come back at 5:30, they said, smiling, and somewhere in the distance, I heard a siren song.

We were in good company. Something like 150 people crowded into the spa area to attend the raffle name-pulling, since one had to be present to win. As people flooded in, I started wondering if they were going to give us a one-hour seminar on time shares in Boca. No, just a lecture on all of the spa services, which ranged from the delightful—hot stone massage—to the more esoteric—homeopathic liquid movement to reduce edema. Slowly, the head of the fitness center pulled out raffle tickets, usually to the beat of loud, thumping techno music, and the people around us nearly drooled in anticipation. These folks would have assembled for a raffle on ice water. We left a little early, wanting to get out of there before 150 crazy-for-any-bargain people were ready to leave.

The ship does move slightly with the waves, but it’s got a pretty firm footing overall. We’ve noticed that the drinking lounges and bars seem to be over the places where the engines cause more vibration and noise—maybe the ship designers thought drunk people would notice the movement less. Whatever the reason, it’s fortunate that not all of the ship translates the rotation of the propellers into shuddery movement.

The Golden Princess at her berth

The Golden Princess at her berth

One other note: I think it’s just an awful idea to have an entire section of the ship’s library dedicated to maritime disasters. Really, I don’t want to read about the Titanic while I’m in the middle of the cold ocean. Hopefully I don’t have to explain why.

August 5, 2009 | 3 Comments

The rather bored arm of the law

Driving up to the Tri-Cities to pick cherries last month, I got pulled over for driving 70 in a 60 zone. Cursed lead right foot of mine, I tend to speed on the same section of Route 12 because I want to put the stench from the Bad Broccoli Plant behind me as quickly as possible. I hadn’t spent time thinking that on Sunday evenings, the cops are out, hunting out-of-town speeders who’ve come to Walla Walla for a wine weekend and who are heading back to Seattle before the work week begins. I was driving right through ambush territory.

I looked at the ticket and saw that the fine was $144. Ouch. Certainly, it was less than a similar violation in say, the money-grubbing jurisdiction of Washington, DC, but as I’m not bringing in any income to the household right now, I was offended that I’d caused us money. I told Susanne I would go to court to see if I could get it reduced at all. After all, I have the time.

I showed up about 20 minutes before the court session of 9:00 a.m., signed in, and sat down in the empty courtroom. About five minutes later, a group of people began amassing outside the courtroom door, over in the county office. They huddled around their lawyer, apparently going over the audible plays for the day. Next another group of people walked in, shuffling quickly by the first group. Each camped out on opposite ends of the galley, making me think there was some drama between them. I presumed it would be interesting.

The clerk of the court walked in, and she looked just like a woman from Minnesota who had a crush on Susanne, never verbalized. This woman dislikes me, presumably because I’m Susanne’s partner, so the clerk, wholly unrelated to Unrequited Crush Woman, unnerved me a little. I kept expecting daggers to shoot out of her eyes, but no projectiles were thrown my way through the whole event of the morning, as it turns out.

Anyway, the clerk unlocked a door to the parking lot that had a WARNING: Do Not Open This Door message on it, making me concerned for all of us. What was the point of the message if they were just going to ignore it this way? And clearly the clerk, with her nonchalant manner, had unlocked this door many, many times before. Who was over seeing the overseers here, exactly?

In walked a prisoner and a sherrif’s deputy, doing their best to look the part. The prisoner could only be described as disheveled, wearing orange crocs and a black and white striped prison uniform straight out of The Shawshank Redemption. When was the last time Walla Walla bought new prison clothes, 1947? He sat down next to the shaved head guard, who stood in rigid position, and honestly, the guard scared me a lot more than the prisoner did. I know which one I’d rather see in a dark alley, and it wasn’t Mr. White Pride in Uniform.

Then it was the Arrval of the Attorneys — both in slightly ill-fitting pinstriped suits, as if each had bought them one dress size ago. Each also had a 6-inch thick stack of files that they barely touched through the proceedings, making me wonder why on earth anyone would carry around 40 pounds of paper if they didn’t have to. Perhaps it’s something I’d understand if I’d gone to law school. Maybe they were print outs of the US Constitution.

The judge entered, and we rose to acknowledge his presence. He looked a bit like Wilford Brimley’s younger, more dashing brother, and it was nice not to hear him say the word, “diabeetus.” I really hate those commercials. I kept looking for the cop who’d written me the ticket. Back in New York, they have to show up as witnesses or the judge dismisses the ticket. This makes traffic court in New York awful because all kinds of folks show up hoping to get out of paying.

The prisoner went first. A translator sprang up from out of nowhere. His was a sad story. Caught driving under the influence, the officer learned that he was an undocumented worker, and he had six weeks until deportation. County officials need to close out his case, however, so they still want to proceed with prosecuting him for the DUI. I don’t understand the law here, of course, but I felt for him, who obviously regretted getting in the car that fateful evening. He shuffled away and back out to the parking lot after conferring with the defense pinstriped guy.

Next up were the Hatfields and the McCoys, otherwise known as Feuding Families from College Place. Whatever originally irked one party is no longer understandable by human beings, though perhaps humpback whales can wrap their brains around it. Party A was looking for a permanent restraining order against Party B, their neighbors from across the street and one house over. Heck, they didn’t even live next door to each other? They wanted Party B’s surveillance cameras taken down because they were pointing at their livingroom, they intimated that Party B had poisoned and killed one of their dogs, and they feared for their safety. Well, holy crap. So much for the sweet 7th Day Adventist town. Party B maintained that since they installed the cameras, no dogs had urinated on their lawn, or knocked over their trash, or otherwise defaced their property. Party B’s main complaint was that Party A’s massive pickup truck and towed boat, when parked in front of Party A’s house, blocked Party B’s ability to get in and out of their driveway, which brought up two questions for me: 1., what an eyesore for the neighborhood, and 2., with all the cheap expanses of land out here, why didn’t the town build wider frigging roads?

The judge looked at them with a jaded eye. He’s seen it all, I imagined. Twenty minutes later, he reached his decision, a compromise between what both sides wanted.

Next up were the speeding infractions. My kind of people. Here’s what I had come to address, myself. One by one the judge called them up. I learned then that in Washington State, unlike in New York, the affidavit written by the ticketing officer serves as the witness for the state, so no wonder my cop wasn’t there. No easy dismissals here. As it was, each leadfooted driver sounded more ridiculous than the previous person. Oh, I never speed, Your Honor, I just was doing 66 in a 60 zone. That counts as speeding, ma’am. One declared that the cop had set a trap. Yup, that’s what they do, ma’am. But although none of these folks got off scott free, he did reduce their ticket amount to $90, a $64 “discount,” in other words. But I was happy, anticipating that as soon as I got called up, I’d look like an ass for a short bit and get some fine knocked off as well.

They didn’t call me up.

Next the judge called up a woman who had another sad story. She had to come to the court every couple of months to prove she was still sober and in alcohol counseling and AA. Apparently she also had a probation officer. I guessed something had gone horribly wrong in her life for all of this monitoring. She’d missed her appointment in July and was here on a bench warrant. The judge looked at her and calmly told her that saying she hadn’t gotten anything in the mail telling her to show up wasn’t an excuse, that she knows this is the arrangement, and needs to call the court if she doesn’t hear from them, and then at some point, they’ll let her out of making all these visits. She nodded, got her paperwork, and left with her mother. I felt for her, and the prisoner who had left earlier. I complain about not finding a job in Walla Walla, but I should remember to be thankful, too, that my life is full of blessings and good people who love me and who I, for my part, adore.

The prosecuting pinstripe headed back to me in the galley, now sitting by myself.

“So uh, what’s your last name,” he asked me. He had on light brown shoes with a navy suit, but I decided I’d answer him anyway.

“Maroon, Everett Maroon,” I said, wanting to bonk myself for mimicing the great James Bond, albeit unintentionally.

The judge asked me to come forward.

“Mr. Maroon, I don’t know why I don’t have your paperwork. Give me just a second here, please.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said. And then I added, as if my mouth had decided to make noise without consulting my brain, “I would just like to note for the Court that I was the first one here today.”

I’d been there for two hours at this point. The courtroom staff laughed, including the judge.

He looked at me.

“You know, I could just print out this affidavit off the Internet and proceed,” he began, “but you’ve sat here patiently all morning, so I’m just going to dismiss this infraction.”

“Thanks, Your Honor,” I said, nearly leaping up from my chair.

$144 I don’t have to pay now. I wonder what that will buy me on the cruise to Alaska next week….

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