Mileage Plus

I travel a lot. I can't help it. There are just so many places to see and people to visit. So many things I have not yet done or want to do again. So I tend to pack my valise (or my backpack because who really owns a valise) and hit the road, or the air, as much as possible.

Over the years, I've turned into a bit of a mileage… whore. I guess that's the word. I am all about the miles. Miles for flying, sure, but also miles for shopping and miles for dining and miles for just about everything that takes Visa. Miles.

And all of the miles have earned me Premiere status with United Airlines for the past several years, status which has earned me dubious looks at the airport.

"This line is for Elite status members and first class. I think you want the counter over there," advises the agent directing traffic and pointing me toward a long line.

"I'm a Premiere member," I protest, generally earning a dirty look or scowl.

In addition to the shorter lines at the counter, I have recently discovered that I have access to shorter lines at security. (At least, that's what the security guy kind of snarled at me when he checked my boarding pass early Saturday morning.)

"Why does everyone go through the regular line?" he spat. "Nobody's in the premium line. Noooo… Everyone's in the regular line with premium tickets."

I retrieved my pass and ID and edged slowly toward the scanners, maintaining a sightline with him in case I needed to turn and flee at any point. I walked to the people mover, rode across the tarmac and from the people mover to the gate where I encountered yet another benefit of Elite status: seating area 1. After first class, I get to board the plane, regardless of where I'm sitting (which is generally behind first class in the "award-winning Economy Plus cabin, which offers up to five extra inches of legroom.")

And best of all, with all these miles, I get free flights. (Okay, maybe that's not best because the extra legroom really makes a difference, even to my 5-foot, 8-inch frame.) The free flights do come in handy, though. In recent past, I've flown free to New Zealand, Alaska, Indiana, and, soon, I will fly to Turkey for the price of 50,000 miles (just 10K more than my trip to Seattle in June). Over the past two years, I have taken full advantage of the free trips.

Unfortunately, well, I've taken full advantage of the free trips. A couple of weeks ago, I realized that I barely had enough EQM (Elite Qualifying Miles) to maintain my status. No more short lines. No more quick boarding. No more seats with glorious extra legroom.

I panicked. I decided to visit every friend and family member in the Western Hemisphere. Unfortunately, I would need to do it all by the end of the year and my weekends are already booked through Thanksgiving.

"What to do? What to do?!" I pondered. I fretted and feared and formulated. Finally, I decided that I would just have to make the trips. Long trips. Weekend trips to Sacramento. To Oregon. To Amsterdam. I would find a way to earn the miles and connections I would make. "Here to New York by way of Philly and Trenton? No problem… More miles!"

Thinking through my fall, I continued to worry. Turkey would pretty much devastate my travel budget, which, frankly, was already wiped out in Alaska. My vacation days were definitely demolished. I would just have to make do with moving to the back of the plane.

I had just resigned myself to my fate when what to my wondering eyes should appear but an email from United Airlines. Apparently, I spent enough in the dining program to renew my membership for another year.

Dining program = Capitol Lounge (with forays into the Pourhouse)

Enough to maintain Elite status. I think I just drank my way to the front of the plane.


Tag: Airlines United Airlines Mileage Plus iDining

Metro attack

Even before I stepped out of the stall, I knew the girl at the counter would be my friend Gayle. I don’t know if recognized her cough, her step, or I just expected her. It’s always Gayle. My bathroom/elevator/Metro friend.

We met several months ago but had seen each other for ages before that. We work on the same floor and we work the same schedule. We both ride the metro. I see her several times a week. In the bathroom, the elevator, the Metro. We’d talked a few times before she introduced herself. We talk all the time now. Swapping stories of the weekend, well wishes for the night ahead. More than the elevator nod or the smile of recognition, actually talking.

When I stepped out the stall tonight, I smiled and said, “Hi.”

“I knew it would be you,” she said. “We’re the only ones still working, I think.”

She was right. I was the only in still in my office. I washed my hands and moved over to the paper towels as she watched herself, making the “O” face that goes with eye makeup and lipstick. Suddenly, she turned.

“Did you leave at this time yesterday?” she asked. I struggled for a minute, trying to remember.

“I think I left early…” meaning somewhat close to on time or not so crazy late.

“Were you in the Metro when that woman attacked that girl?”

“What? No!”

She proceeded to tell me a story, wide-eyed and full of surprise. Apparently, a girl, on the Metro platform had been pacing while talking on her cell phone. (Obviously a Verizon subscriber.) She bumped into a woman, apologized and continued her conversation. A minute or two later, the woman walked up and slapped the girl. Again. And again. And again. Four times she slapped the girl and walked away.

“Who does that?” I asked. “Why?”

“She was obviously crazy.” Gayle continued her story, telling of how the shocked girl glanced at her (Gayle) in bewilderment and my bathroom/elevator/Metro friend shrugged. She didn’t know what was happening. The woman had gone and taken a seat. Mere moments later, she got up and attacked the girl. According to Gayle, she’d not just hit the girl; she beat her. She stomped her. She was filled with rage.

“I don’t know what happened. She looked just like us, professional, well dressed, like she’d just gotten off work. Obviously, she was crazy,” Gayle explained as I dried my hands and walked back to the sink. A few women had tried to peel her off the tiny college student, to no avail. “She was swinging and shouting anti-American sentiments.”

A couple of men tackled her, pulled her away. Someone ran for a station attendant who meandered down the stairs and toward the scene. By the time he arrived, the woman, the attacker, had stepped on a train and ridden off into the night. The girl, late for a class at George Washington, tried to leave; though, others tried to persuade her to file a police report.

Standing there, muttering with shock, I watched Gayle finish her makeup and pack up her bag. I almost envied her the experience of someone go nuts. Almost. I tried to imagine such a scene on the platform below. It was hard. People don’t act like that in real life. People barely act like that in movies.

After my own day of rage (I was positively livid at one point), the worst I’d done was snap at a couple of people while volunteering to help with someone else’s project, to fix someone else’s mistakes. I’ve never been angry enough for a beat down on the Metro platform.

Following Gayle out of the bathroom and toward the elevators, I wished her a good night, a safe trip home. I went back to my office to work a little more before heading home. I couldn’t find anything about an attack online. It’s almost like it didn’t happen. Almost. But for the news from my bathroom/elevator/Metro friend Gayle.


Tag: Metro Attack Violence

Big Easy

I am tired. Exhausted. This morning, knowing full well that I would get a ticket for my illegally parked car on street-cleaning day, I struggled out of bed, straggled toward the door and weighed the cost of a ticket with an extra 20 minutes of sleep. I chose sleep and crawled back under the covers. The weekend took too much out of me.

Before I left, Sunday afternoon, sitting in the airport, I started to drift. Reading my book, I closed my eyes for longer and longer periods. Looking up, rubbing my eyes, I glanced around the waiting area, wondering if anyone saw. I hunched over my backpack. If I could have made myself comfortable, I would have slept, but the armrest kept getting in the way. I resigned myself to reading, sleeping in brief little spurts and jerking awake with the feeling of falling, with the certainty that my book was tumbling from my hands and I was tumbling from the seat.

I don’t suppose I started the weekend well. Packing on Friday night led to putting away my laundry and organizing my closet, pulling out the clothes I don’t wear and shouldn’t wear and rotating my summer and winter wardrobes. Mere hours after giving up on the whole thing, on piling clothes next to my trunk in lieu of eking out closet space or sorting through sweaters I haven’t worn in many moons and many months, the alarm clock sounded.

Shower. Unpack and repack my bag, rather creatively. I refused to wrap my mind around the idea of checking a bag for an overnight trip. I filled my contact lens case with solution and planned to use hotel shampoo and conditioner, moisturizer and face soap. I figured I was taking a bit of a chance but it was a nice, expensive hotel. The product couldn’t be half bad.

I ran through a mental list: dress, shoes, necklace. Non-liquid makeup. Appropriate undergarments and inappropriate undergarments and a bra that wouldn’t make me look like a hooker under the white button-down shirt I packed for Sunday. A couple of T’s. Book. Another book. That should be it.

Zipping up the bag, I sat down at my computer to read my email for one last time, preparing to go cold turkey for 36 hours. Offline. Email. Blogs. The phone rang.

“I just woke up!”

“Okay…”

“I have to get Denise’s car. She just called me. I just woke up!”

Somewhat garbled, the story came out. Kayla had forgotten to set an alarm. Fortunately, a friend called, the friend whose car she planned to borrow for the trip while someone else borrowed her car and my brother borrowed mine. She donned running clothes and literally ran the mile or so to the car, with her clutch in hand. “A girl never knows when she’s going to need her purse!”

She almost fell on the way, arms, legs and purse flailing. She caught herself with a skip and a jump. Watching her pantomime the fall in the car on the way to the airport, I laughed. Hard. We made it to Dulles on time and I checked in, making it through security and to the gate in time for the first boarding call. Economy Plus and a little bit of napping my way to New Orleans.

It was the first time I’d been back. It was the first time I’d been to New Orleans since the hurricane. It was never my town, but I stayed there for a while a lifetime ago and had been back to visit a half a dozen times since then. This time it was different and the same and completely heart-wrenching all at once.

I went back for a wedding, the wedding of the man with whom I stayed a lifetime ago. He wasn’t my boyfriend. He was never my boyfriend. He was a friend and part of the reason I left Colorado. I hated my job. I loved the mountains but it wasn’t enough to make me stay. I saw him at a wedding and he suggested I quit. Just like that. And I did. I quit my job and drove around the country for months, staying with him in New Orleans for a month, give or take.

We drove to Mexico with the guy who lived downstairs. Actually, we drove to Brownsville, Texas and hopped a bus to the heart of Veracruz, to a fishing village surrounding a nuclear power plant. We almost killed each other on that trip and he almost killed himself with free pork or creamed corn or tequila. Actually, when he lists the things that could have made him sick, nobody wonders that he did get sick.

Going back to New Orleans for his wedding, or rather the reception (he married two weeks earlier, on my birthday, in Mexico, the only girl good enough for him), the memories came back. They came back with a vengeance; they came back as they’d never really come back before, on earlier visits.

I never really thought about New Orleans after the hurricane. I never really considered what changed. I saw the pictures. I knew the devastation, but it never really sunk in and altered the place in my mind. Riding the shuttle into the city, I thought about a store I knew and how I wanted to find a red bead necklace to go with my dress. I realized the store might be gone. We drove past the Superdome, bannered and awaiting the first home game since before the storm.

“So that’s where everyone was?” asked the woman next to me on the shuttle.

“There and on this bridge.” Shivers ran up my spine.

Walking through the quarter, I noticed all the empty storefronts, and there were a lot. The store I liked, the store with the funky jewelry, was there, though. And Café du Monde. And the bar on Bourbon Street with a man in a giant, inflatable hand grenade costume.

Walking through the quarter, I remembered the apartment we rented for Jazz Fest and the hotel where I stayed before Kayla and Michelle arrived. I actually got scared walking through some of the neighborhoods I had known. (I live in DC. I’m not afraid of much, but the empty streets were scarred and angry.)

Throughout the weekend, I remembered more than the city, though. I remembered things I hadn’t thought in years. The naked woman lighter/key chain Joe gave me with the spare keys. He insisted I carry it. Going to get mice for a snake that wasn’t his and stopping to get a beer in Buddha's Belly Bar, kitty corner from the Nine Inch Nails compound. I remembered staying in bed, reading all day, and staying out all night. I remembered Rebirth Brass Band and Kermit Ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers. In the morning, I'd find Joe's girlfriend's bras in the bathroom as she marked her territory.

I remembered why I don’t drink hurricanes and why the carpet’s gone from the bedroom in the back of the apartment where I used to live, if only for a little while and where his brother now lives. I remembered meeting his brother, 11 years old on the stairs outside a college party on Little Sibs weekend. He’s grown up now. We all are.

One of Joe’s clients asked me what he was like in college. I laughed. If they only knew…

Remembering exhausted me more than travel and the drinking and everything else. On the plane, on the way home, I slept deeply. Soundly. I slept in a bit this morning. I napped on the couch. I tried to catch up but I am tired. Happy, but tired.


Tag: New Orleans Travel Memories Exhaustion

Jesus Camp

I went to Jesus Camp last night. Not an actual retreat or anything (I'm not that religious) but the movie, the documentary, Jesus Camp.

I am terrified.

Directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady introduced us to Becky Fisher’s "Kids on Fire" summer camp in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota where kids as young as 6 years old "learned" to become foot soldiers in God’s army, to help take back America.

I grew up in the church. Literally. My mom was the church secretary and I spent more than my fair share of time crawling around under pews, playing hide and seek in the choir loft, tucking into the sacristy to play with the little glass communion cups. I grew up in the midst of little old ladies with papery, powdery skin, and birdlike handshakes, older men with deep, rich voices, young families and parents teaching Sunday school.

Every summer from second grade through high school, I spent a week at a church camp in the middle of the woods in the middle of Ohio. The summer after high school, I worked as a lifeguard-slash-kitchen worker and played red rover with college kids under the stars. I made it to my first bachelor party, 17 years old and slinging Jäger with men who used to be boys who worked at the camp. I caught a bug and got so sick that I thought I was going to die in my little cabin in the woods, half a mile from the nearest bathroom and surviving on Twizzlers and Oreos because nobody thought to bring me food. I made great friends.

Over the years and over the summer, I camped and creeked, canoed and crafted. I learned to get over appearances – we weren’t allowed to use electricity to get ready or makeup or hairspray and we spent a lot of time in the mud. I learned to play well with others. I learned about nature and I learned a lot of songs – some spiritual, more silly. Somewhere in the middle of it, we talked about God. It was a church camp but I don’t remember all that much talk about religion. I just remember equating God with nature and people I loved, slowing down and opening up.

That was so not the message I got from Jesus Camp. Politics and rhetoric filled the air as leaders asked campers to pray over President Bush, a man who brought "credibility" to religion. Indoctrination about controversial socio-political popped up in church services, home schooling and camp. They covered a lot of issues with blessed PowerPoint presentations, with hammers and tape and making kids cry, tearing them down before building them up. Honestly, the only thing I didn’t see in the Jesus Camp was Jesus.

At no point, did I hear anything remotely Christian. Sure, they talked about sin and abortion, prayer in school and global warming, but I didn’t really hear anything about the basic tenets of Christianity. No "love thy neighbor" or "be kind, one unto another." No talk of a man whose closest companions included a tax collector and a hooker. A whole lot of "sin leads to death" but nothing about life. (Though, a lively 10-year-old did talk about separating dancing for the flesh from dancing for God with Christian heavy metal.)

Sitting in a DC theater, far from the religious right, I grew a little angry – frustrated with the camp, the church. Frustrated with parents taping their childrens' mouths shut in front of the Supreme Court. Frustrated with the filmmakers for not defining "evangelical." (I think they meant the Penecostal movement within Evangelical Christianity. Semantics but as an Evangelical Lutheran, the lack of distinction offended me.) Frustrated.

Sitting in a DC theater, far from the religious right, I laughed at the absurdity of the film, at the thought of children proselytizing in a bowling alley next to an adult superstore. Walking out, my humor faded to fear. The camp is real. People think like that and feel like that and raise their children like that.

I call myself a Christian. I ought to be more open, more understanding but the philistinism scared me. Children preaching to one another, as soldiers for Christ, willing to die without learning about the religion itself: terrifying - for them and for the future of our country.


Tag: Jesus Camp Religion Documentary

A gun

Walking home from the metro, I tried to read in the waning light, but by the time I rounded the corner for the home stretch, I could barely make out the words. I tucked my finger between the pages and closed the book, picking up my pace.

In between cars, I caught a flash of light. And again. And again. I wondered, briefly, if the car at the corner intended to turn left, the wrong way down a one-way street. The traffic light changed, but the SUV failed to move. Cars honked and pulled around quickly, recklessly.

Closing in on the corner, I realized that it wasn’t a turn signal but a flashing headlight. One flashing headlight. The driver’s side was out. The bumper was mangled, and I couldn’t quite figure out what it hit. I didn’t see another car or dead body or steadfast object, just an SUV with hazard lights flashing and a twisted front end dangling into the intersection.

The light changed, the car remained. I’d made it across the street and glanced in the windows. At first, it seemed empty but then a man poked his head out of the passenger-side window.

“Do you have a cigarette?”

“Um, no… Sorry.”

“Well, that’s okay!”

I kept walking. He seemed awfully chipper. In a few paces, I reached my own door. A little confused. I wanted to go out and watch, see what was going on. I’m a little voyeuristic that way. Instead, I waved to my neighbor’s mother, pulling away from the curb and wondered if she’d get stuck behind the broken SUV.

Walking into the apartment, I headed straight to the kitchen and started rooting around in the freezer. M&Ms. More M&Ms (dark chocolate). Kinder eggs. Succotash. Under a purple gel eye mask I found them. Menthol Parliament Lights. Lord knows where they came from – nobody I know smokes Menthol Parliament Lights. Plain ol’ P-Funks, sure. Marlboro Lights. Menthol Marlboro Lights. Newports. But Menthol Parliament Lights? No idea. And it was almost a full pack.

I walked back out of the house and to the car on the corner. I handed the guy the pack.

“I thank you very much!”

“No problem,” I waved and walked away, thinking that man seemed drunk and/or way too happy for someone who’d just been in an accident.

An hour and a half later, flashing lights brought me out of the apartment. A police van, cruisers, motorcycles and the SUV still on the corner – doors open, police walking around, taking notes.

“Well, that’s a twist,” I thought. “I wonder if the car’s stolen. I should have paid more attention.”

I couldn’t have identified the guy with the cigarettes if my life depended on it and I really hope that he didn’t leave the pack, with my fingerprints, in the car. Bored with Monday night television, I went out to watch. I saw a man in handcuffs, maybe one of the men from the car. Suddenly, the officers spread out, flashlights pointing down, looking for something.

“You haven’t seen a gun, have you?” asked a female cop, looking in the ivy in front of my house.

A gun? As in… a gun?

“Uh… no.”

I wondered if I should tell the cops I’d given the guy a pack of smokes. Another cop came up and talked to me for a while, but he wasn’t looking for information. He was hitting on me. I told him about the cigarettes, that the men had been on the corner since 7:30 at least. Two hours later, they were searching for a gun.

“They found bullets. It might have been a robbery. You might have been a target – they might have been coming to your house.”

Bullets? As in… bullets?

I told him my car was unlocked; that they could have thrown something in there. He asked if I drove the VW bug in front of the house.

“No, the Wrangler across the street.”

“A Jeep? You drive a Jeep? Girls that drive Jeeps are crazy. I’ve got a whole theory on that.”

Definitely hitting on me.

I didn’t get to hear the theory. The K9 squad sent me into the house with a “Ma’am, could you go inside? Could you go inside the house now?” They kind of yelled at me. I went inside. I could hear them moving my trash bin and rifling through the recycling. Over and over again. I turned on the light in the front to help with the search but I could still see blue and red flashing through my blinds. Almost three hours after I got home, I can still see the lights.

A gun… Those guys had a gun... I gave them cigarettes. Can I get one back? I think I need a smoke... A gun.



Tag: DC Cops Violence Cigarettes

I heart Pete Yorn (Part II)

Turning left on V Street, we saw a line stretching out from the doors of the 9:30 Club, down the street, break for the alley and stopping just short of the corner.

“They must have just opened the doors,” I said as I cruised slowly behind a police cruiser, suddenly conscious of every move I made as a driver – lights; hands at ten and two; slowly, slowly… I turned left onto 8th Street, where I always park at the 9:30 Club and pulled into a spot.

“Look at all this parking,” Kayla said. “Where did all those people park?”

“Young crowd? Mommy and Daddy dropped them off? They do have all ages shows here,” I suggested. Unsure. The parking certainly did not seem commensurate with the line at the door. We got out of the Jeep and I walked around to the sidewalk.

“Unlocked, right?” Kayla asked, slamming the door, or attempting to slam the door, which hit the belt buckle and swung back toward the sidewalk. “Unlocked but not wide open, right? Maybe I could get a flashing light – hit this one!” She shut the unlocked door completely in the second try.

(Unlocked because it’s a Wrangler and even in the best of neighborhoods, people tend to unzip the roof and take what they like, leave the doors open, move stuff around and the 9:30 Club is not in the best of neighborhoods. A couple of years ago, I can't remember the show but I was parked in somewhat the same location, someone unzipped the roof and removed a friend’s jacket, which would have been bad enough. The fact that her keys – car, house and work – were in the pocket made the loss even more profound. These days, nobody leaves anything worth taking in the Jeep and we leave the Jeep unlocked.)

Crossing the street, we walked back toward the club and the line, which seemed a bit older than a Mommy and Daddy-dropped crowd. Maybe they cabbed, took the Metro or they were from the suburbs (read: paid to park in the club’s lot, costing more in time and money than street parking, but relatively safer). The line moved quickly, and we soon found ourselves at the alley break. A bouncer held us back, kept us from blocking the drive. Chatting with Kayla, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.

“Hey – why do they get to jump the line?” I asked, seeing a couple join the queue on the club side of the break. The bouncer yelled at them and they talked back to him, sparking an argument. We moved across the divide. “Oops… I think I just got someone in trouble.”

Slowly, we approached the doors and the line in front of us split in two. Behind us, a gaggle of girls talked about age.

“I suggested an ‘I’m not 50’ party and she seemed totally into it but never had one,” a girl behind us said, a little too loudly and more than a little exasperated. “I think we should have an ‘I’m not 25 party.’ What do you think?”

“I’m just glad I’m not 22 anymore. Do you remember 22? It was such a horrible year.”

The girls drifted toward the left line, chatting inanely, and Kayla pulled me to the right. “I’ve got to get away…”

She noted aloud that she had a decade on them, on 22-year-olds at least. I had almost a decade, having just celebrated my 31st birthday, still celebrating my 31st birthday: the tickets and a couple of beers were a gift from my friend. We presented our ID at the door, still looking young enough to be carded.

“Right hand, please.”

Kayla fumbled with her purse and her ID. “I had to think which one was my right.”

“It’s the one labeled ‘right,’” I joked, pointing to the picture of a hand marked “right” (next to a picture of a hand marked “left”) in front of the bouncer.

“She’s the smart one, right?” he asked and stamped my hand. We walked through the doors and toward the bar on the left, the one that takes credit cards. I tried to keep the stamp away from my new sweater. Kayla ended up with ink on her left forearm and I’ve done the same in the past. I’ve been known to wake up with a mirror image of 8:15 on my forehead or cheek, my clothes, my towels. Saturday night, I stood with my hand extended awkwardly in front of me as I blew on the stamp.

We drank our beers and waited for Pete, standing where I always stand at the 9:30 Club or at least, the spot where I stand more often than not – conveniently located near the food counter (which I’ve never actually visited), the bar (which I’ve visited on many occasions) and the trashcan (which I visit as often as the bar, maybe more often as, depending on the proximity, I end up tossing other people cups and bottles). Sounds like a drag.

Actually, it’s also conveniently located near the stage, but that’s the thing with the 9:30 Club. Everything’s located near the stage. There isn’t a bad seat. Actually, there isn’t really a seat at all except the couches in the room in the corner, the bar downstairs and a couple of stools at the top bar. I think there are seats in the VIP area, too, but I’m not that lucky.

More often than not, I stand to the left, near the bar and the trash, near the food counter, and pray to keep my line of sight. (The number of really tall men seems to grow exponentially in the first five minutes of any show, and they pepper the crowd, blocking ‘most everyone’s view.) Fortunately, Saturday night, I managed to keep an eye on Pete for most of the show. When I couldn’t see him, I could watch guitarist Joe Kennedy. Strangely enough, nobody blocked my view of Joe.

Pete, though. Pete was the main attraction and despite my utter adoration of the man, I felt like an outcast. Everyone around us seemed to know every word to every song. Even the guys. Especially the guys. They sang loudly, with emotion. It was a little bizarre. And they cheered for everything.

“I’m going to play a song I’ve played before.” Cheer. First two chords of the song and even louder cheer. It didn’t even matter if the song was Pete’s or a cover.

He could have played Old MacDonald and the crowd would have joined in eagerly with a “cheep, cheep” here and an “oink, oink” there. Here a “yea!” and there a “roar,” everywhere a “woo hoo!” It didn’t matter if nobody had ever heard the song before, the crowd cheered at the drop of a hat or the doff of a hat and they definitely cheered when Pete donned his at the end of the show. It’s was exhilarating. Unfortunately, it was also dampening – the cheering led to a bit of a shower for me.

“Someone needs to get control of their beer!” I shouted to Kayla, looking up at the balcony. I’d felt a few drops before but the last round of applause resulted in a downpour with beer on my head and shoulders. I exhaled slowly and laughed. “No clapping with beer! No clapping with beer!”

The music soothed me. Even at the end, during the encore, when a drunk girl came over to her friends and shouted in my left ear for the better part of the second-to-last song. Holding a hand to my ear, I managed to block her slurring to some degree and enjoyed a Strange Condition.

I enjoyed it all - beer, yelling, tall guys and all. Walking back to the car, we saw a man with a sign around his neck, proclaiming himself security, saying he watched our cars and asking for money. It kind of cracked me up but I only had a twenty. The car was fine. Unlocked. Undisturbed. We drove home with music running through our minds and with sore feet, aching from hours of standing and dancing in girly shoes. I was just another girl wishing that song had been written for me.


Tag: Pete Yorn 9:30 Club Music Concerts Washington DC

Surefire hangover cure

Granted, I wasn’t completely hung over, a little tired, depressed, guilty, but it wasn't really a full blown hangover. Of course, it wasn’t really a wild and crazy night. After a week of long days at work, movies and late nights, I just wanted to curl up on my couch with a book and a movie, to fall asleep by 8.

Instead, I met Kris and Wide Left of Center for happy hour at a friend’s office, which turned into wine at Bistrot du Coin while waiting for a table, which turned into bottles of wine over dinner at Odeon. (Our happy little trio had expanded to include a couple of friends from happy hour and we had trouble getting a table for five at the French café.)

The first bottle of Chianti was lovely; we ordered a second. A bottle arrived, presented for visual inspection, corked and poured into the half-full glasses. Ever thirsty, I drained my water glass and picked up the goblet. Sipping, I wrinkled my nose. Musty. I looked over at Wide Left of Center who was sniffing the bottle. He picked up his glass and tasted the wine.

“Corked.”

Waving over the manager, he explained the situation and the bottle and glasses were whisked from the table. A new bottle appeared. Clean glasses. The manager displayed the label to Wide Left and offered him the cork and a sip. With a nod from my friend, the glasses were filled and another bottle appeared. The process repeated.

A couple of glasses of wine at happy hour. A glass at Bistrot du Coin. Two and a half bottles shared over dinner. Five, six glasses of wine over as many hours. Not exactly drunk but definitely not sober. I crawled into bed much later than expected, much later than eight.

It probably wasn’t such a great idea, going out. Neither was watching a movie when I came home. I knew I had to get up early (as did Kris and Wide Left, for a different reason, but we’d planned to keep it low key). Not only did I need to get up early, but also to keep my wits about me. I'd committed to volunteering. In a swimming. With kids with disabilities. The last thing I needed was a hangover, exhaustion, depression or guilt but the best laid plans and all that.

When the alarm sounded at 6, I groaned and started to rise. Then I realized that I had at least an hour, maybe two, to sleep. I knew I should take some aspirin, drink a glass of water. Instead, I changed the time and curled under my quilt, drifting back to sleep. Two hours later, I clambered out of bed, pulled on my swimsuit and layers of comfortable clothes. I trudged to the pool and waited.

Eventually, I left again, walked the four blocks home and checked the time on my computer. I had marked the wrong time on my calendar and arrived 20 minutes early. I grabbed my bag and walked back to the pool. Outside, I saw Colin locking up his bike. Inside, I saw a group of volunteers I recognized. Charlie, Jen, Lucia and about a dozen more. When the kids arrived, I recognized most of them from the swim program or the gym-based group. KEEN (Kids Enjoy Exercise Now) is a nonprofit, volunteer organization that provides free one-to-one recreational opportunities for children and young adults with mental and physical disabilities. I’ve been volunteering off and on with the organization for the better part of the past five years.

Colin paired coaches and athletes, handing out the profiles. I hit the jackpot with Myles, a favorite of all and quite the ladies’ man at 8. Another coach joined us and the three of us spent an hour, an hour and a half in the pool, splashing and dunking, tossing and catching, ducking, laughing. He styled my wet hair, pulling locks in front of my face. I did a couple of handstands to make him laugh.

When I got up this morning, I felt terrible. I hated myself almost as much as I hated wine. A few hours later, showered and dressed, I walked through Eastern Market with another volunteer, chatting about pancakes and crashing on the couch. At the corner, we said goodbye and I walked home, calling my sister on the way.

“I feel great,” I told her. “I’ve already exercised, done something good for my community, made the world a better place. Maybe. Just a little. It’s a very good day.”

Tag: Volunteering KEEN Wine DC

The Black Dahlia

I think I have a cold. Either that or I’ve suddenly developed an allergy to dahlias. Black dahlias, to be specific. I started sneezing about an hour into the movie. Fifteen minutes later, I could no longer breathe through my nose. Open-mouthed, I stared at the screen and tried to suppress the sneezes.

“Achoo!” The woman in front of me leaned forward in her seat, resting her elbows on her knees.

“Fuck,” I thought. “Did I sneeze on her?” I felt horrible. It was one of those terrible sudden cold/allergy things where all I wanted to do was crawl into bed with a tissue shoved in my left nostril and half a box of Benadryl shoved down my throat.

Breathing through my mouth for a while, I pressed a popcorn-greased napkin to my nose. I suppressed the urge to sneeze, focused on breathing for a bit and watched the movie. The Black Dahlia.

I wanted to see the movie well before Kayla won the tickets. I actually won my own to another film (Flyboys) but decided to give up my seats to see the unsolved murder mystery with beautiful people: Josh Hartnett and Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Eckhart and Hilary Swank. Halfway through I thought, “I didn’t know Rose McGowan was in this” and “Who is Betty? I almost recognize her.”

The Betty question drove me nuts until I came home and Googled her. Mia Kishner. My age. A little older. In the L Word, but I didn’t watch that. (I preferred gay men to lesbian women in my Showtime original series.) 24: Nope. A whole bunch of movies I’d never seen. Maybe she wasn’t that familiar. Not like Rose or Jemima Rooper, the ghost from one of my favorite shows (Hex)on one of my favorite channels (BBC America).

Throughout it all, I sneezed. I laughed and coughed and breathed through my mouth. I felt like crap, but I enjoyed the movie. Not much later, as I walked out with my friends, I heard girls complaining to radio station personnel outside the theater.

“That’s the worst movie I’ve ever seen!” they chimed brightly, as if praising the perfect twinset or crème brulée. "Absolutely horrible!"

Walking a few steps behind them, my friends and I laughed.

“Aren’t you glad you didn’t pay for the movie?” I asked. “I liked it. It was cheesy and overdone and I liked it.” And I did. I liked it.

I don’t know that Black Dahlia would appeal to anyone who doesn’t like films from the 40s. It’s not serious like LA Confidential or even Hollywoodland. It doesn’t apply 21st century principles to 20th century material. It applies the rules and standards and cinematographical mores of the 1940s to a modern film.

As with films of the 1940s, some of it is overdone. The women are shot with a blurry, flattering filter and even that doesn’t change the fact that Scarlett Johansson looks bad in high-waisted pleated pants, especially those she wore in every other scene, and somebody should have told her that big-breasted women should not wear high-necked tops – Where are Trinny and Susannah when you need them?

The movie? I’d call it a bit campy. Definitely funny. And entertaining to a girl who likes films from the 40s. The sex scenes? Downright hot. I wanted to have sex with Hillary Swank halfway through the movie and I’m a straight girl from Ohio. Sex appeal practically oozed off the screen.

A lot of people seemed to dislike the film, my friends included, but I liked it. A lot. I laughed, hard. My heart beat a little faster during the scary scenes. Sure, I found the music a little much. And the acting. And Scarlett’s red, red lips, but it was fun. Entertaining. Twisty and turny and a darn good time.

Non-fans of the flicks from the 40s probably wouldn’t enjoy it. It’s a bit much compared to the subtle, angst-riddled films of today or a little too subtle compared to shoot ‘em up, bang, bang action flicks, but it was fun. Funny and smart, stupid and entertaining. Fun. I would have paid to see it, no matter how much my friends complained.


Tag: The Black Dahlia Movies

The Last Kiss

Walking out of the theater, I stumbled up the steps, following crumbs of conversation. Grumble, grumble, grumble… “Assault.”

“There wasn’t any assault,” protested the girl.

“She pulled a butcher’s knife. A butcher’s knife!” from her date.

“Well, that’s not assault. That’s battery,” the girl clarified.

Meanwhile, I reviewed the scene on the screen in my head and thought, “That wasn’t a butcher’s knife. It was a chef’s knife. Big difference.”

While my mind wandered, the couple continued walking and talking, Mr. Date tearing down the movie, Miss Date defending it, definitely differing in their views of the movie we’d just seen. The Last Kiss.

I suppose we were the same, the four of us with our glasses and workbags, with different tastes and expectations. Mine were high, being a huge fan of Garden State. I knew that Zach Braff hadn’t written or directed the new film. I knew I ought to scale back my hopes, but I didn’t. I kept the hope alive. I wanted chemistry and kismat, a great soundtrack and believable, bearable angst.

My hopes were dashed, just a bit. I didn’t feel the connection between Braff and costar Jacinda Barrett, the "love of his life." They were an adorable couple, hugely likable. Cute. Charming. I just didn’t feel the draw. The attraction. Not with Barrett, not with the girl who plays Summer in the OC. Nothing. Not with Braff, anyway, but he's not the only man in the movie.

The movie was well scripted and well acted. It inspired a visceral reaction, a little bit of tension and some definite frustration with the messes in which we find ourselves, the way we destroy our relationships. From a distance, from the second row from the back, over to the right, they seemed so easy to me, so fixable, but from experience, I know that the view from the middle of a relationship is never so clear.

One friend called the flick cute. Sweet. Another seemed to like it well enough, not saying much. The third asked me, scornfully, if I was crying.

“What? Crying? No.”

“I heard sniffling… I thought it was you. Maybe it was the girl next to you…”

“I have allergy issues today,” I sniffed for effect. “Definitely not crying.”

I didn't really think it was sad (unlike my friends). It was… real. Maybe that's why we had trouble with it - it wasn't an escape from reality but a portal into it, a little bit ugly and funny, angry and sweet. Entertaining, at least, with truly beautiful people and a decent soundtrack.


Tag: The Last Kiss Zach Braff Movies

Voting Rights

I remember the first time I voted. I was a senior in college, barely 21. I would have voted sooner but I didn’t turn 18 until my freshman year and it wasn’t an election year. The next year I lived on campus and couldn’t go home, didn’t really have a home and I was a little spastic. I didn’t think to get an absentee ballot and I didn’t think to vote until I moved off campus and established myself as a resident of Bowling Green, Ohio.

It was a clear, autumn morning, a Tuesday (of course). I went to the polls after class, before work. I walked to the Ridge Street School and followed the signs to the library or cafeteria or gym, some big anonymous room and joined the line for N through Z.

As I walked up to my little booth and cast my vote, I remembered going with my mom: playing with cars on the tiled floor, pulling at her hand, wanting to leave. Years later, the college senior wanted to stay. I was excited, thrilled to do my part, to make my voice heard, to live up to my responsibility, my privilege, my honor. An American girl with a right to vote since 1920 and the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

I grew up with School House Rocks! “How a Bill Becomes a Law” left an impression on me. Poor Bill, sitting on Capitol Hill, needed help becoming a law, and I wanted a say in who would help them. (It still plays a role in my life; I'm sure it's part of the reason I live on Capitol Hill. I’ve got the DVDs on my shelves and Interplanet Janet with the train from Conjunction Junction on my fridge, but that’s another story.)

When I got home from Ridge Street School, wearing my flag sticker, I called my mom.

“I voted today!”

I wasn’t so sure she appreciated it, but I was proud of myself. I changed my clothes for work and transferred the sticker from sweater to dress, wearing it all day.

A decade later, I still get a rush from voting and I still want to call my mom. Granted, it’s not exactly novel. I notice the campaigns more today – the public appearances, the door knocking, the palm pressing outside the metro and the pamphlets littering the station floor pose a problem to the accident prone and obsessively clean. The commercials bug me, especially the negative ones. They make me dislike the “likable” candidate and the yard signs just clutter the issues.

And yet, I get a rush from voting. It’s a good, grownup thing. Like donating blood without the needles. Like volunteering without the aches.

On Tuesday, when I went to vote in the primary, I walked down the street to avoid the clusters of people with signs and pamphlets, brochures and big, cheesy grins. I’d had them for months. I was done. I just wanted to cast my vote.

I followed the signs and walked into a big, anonymous room. I gave my name and took my ballot, and I walked up to my little, plastic sided booth where I cast my vote with a little yellow pencil, connecting two sides of an arrow, pointing to the candidate of choice. Proudly, entirely too quickly, I walked to the scanner and submitted my sheet. Done. I went an hour out of my way between work and movie to cast my vote and I practically skipped home to call my mom.


Tag: School House Rocks Voting Election

This Film Is Not Yet Rated

Damn the man! Save the movies.

Sex, strong language and violence. Well, sex and violence. Actually, officially, just "some graphic sexual content" earned This Film Is Not Yet Rated an NC-17 rating.

NC-17
This rating declares that the Rating Board believes this is a film that most parents will consider patently too adult for their youngsters under 17. No children will be admitted. NC-17 does not necessarily mean obscene or pornographic; in the oft-accepted or legal meaning of those words. The Board does not and cannot mark films with those words. These are legal terms for courts to decide. The reasons for the application of an NC-17 rating can be excessive violence, sex, aberrational behavior, drug abuse or any other elements which, when present, most parents would consider too strong and therefore off-limits for viewing by their children.

Generally, I just don't care. I watch pretty much whatever I want. I'm a grownup. I can’t remember the last time that a rating determined my movie selection; though, I am a little hesitant to watch G.

G
This is a film, which contains nothing… Well, really. Enough said.

Monday night’s screening, though, was all about the rating. Or the rating system. Or the organization that doles out the grades. This Film Is Not Yet Rated blows the cover on the super-secret organization that’s protecting young minds from dirty movies.

At least, that’s what I thought about the NC-17 rating. Dirty movies. Porn. Bad acting, big sunglasses and blowjobs with some 70s guitar going "bow chicka bow bow" in the background. I didn’t realize that a lot of well-known, well-respected films and directors earned the rating and kept the rating (with the loss of their advertising or studio support) or edited their films and their vision.

Boys Don’t Cry? NC-17 for three reasons, including Chloe Sevigny’s apparent enjoyment of a sex act. Her orgasm lasted too long. The Cooler? Maria Bello’s pubic hair. Team America: World Police? I’ll let you find out for yourself but I’ll give you a hint… It was eventually rated R "for graphic crude and sexual humor, violent images and strong language - all involving puppets."

The more stringent rating could signify the difference of millions of dollars for some films. Some media outlets refuse advertising for these films. Some theaters refuse to show them and a number of retail video stores refuse to sell or rent them. It’s in the best interest of the film-makers to earn a more lenient rating. Unfortunately, however, the process seems both arbitrary and secretive. The appeals process a joke. All of it geared toward big moviemakers and against the little guy, the independent filmmaker.

Of course, that’s how I’m supposed to feel, leaving a documentary. Impassioned. Motivated. Desperate for change. Either I’m a big sucker for documentaries, which is probably true, or the film really is that good. I’ll go with the latter. It’s a good movie. Worth watching. Besides, it’s a little graphic for the voyeur inside.

The film compares NC-17-earning scenes against their R-rated peers. Fascinating in the lack of differences and well worth watching, if only for the T&A. Actually, I found the whole film enjoyable – caustic commentators, great graphics and a catchy soundtrack. Besides, a girl hasn’t lived until she’s heard John Waters describe felching. Priceless.


Tag: This Film Is Not Yet Rated Movie MPAA

Blues for a Monday

Anywhere but here: That's where I want to be. Mondays are always hard. Even more so after vacation. Especially the day before an election. Most decidedly so on September 11.

This morning, when the alarm sounded, I burrowed even deeper into the bed, my bed, the first time I'd slept in it in over a week. Muttering a protest, I got up, padded over to the window, and slapped the snooze bar in protest. Ten or 15 minutes later I did it again. And again. And again.

The buzzer sounded, then the radio as I curled up in the fetal position under my lumpy old patchwork quilt, the one that my ex-stepfather's grandmother made, the one I rescued from the cottage when my folks moved away and sold all our stuff, the one I would have given back if he weren't such an ass. Under the quilt, I hid from the world until the radio got too loud and pulled me back.

Normally, on days like today, I would turn on the television, rely on Matt Lauer to restore my faith in humanity (or at least entertain me for a half hour or so) but not this morning, not on September 11. There was nothing in the least bit amusing about today. Or Today. And so I kept quiet under my quilt.

The radio asked if I remembered where I was five years ago, forcing me to think, forcing me to get up and slap the blameless alarm. (No wonder none of my clocks keep time. I've beaten the sense out of them.) I silenced the alarm but not the thoughts racing through my head.

Of course, I remember where I was five years ago. Watching the Today show. Matt Lauer. Katie Couric. I didn't know what was going on. It was weird. A plane hit a building in New York, why would I suspect terrorism? Nothing like that had happened before. The rest of the morning went downhill with crazy reports on NPR – fire on the Mall, bomb threats, and more real, live plane crashes. The towers falling.

During my meeting, everybody's cell phones and Blackberries sounded. (Were there Blackberries then or did I make that up? It was a software company; we would have been cutting edge.) We all went home – I couldn't get back to my own office, the road was blocked. I couldn't reach my roommate, the mobile networks failed. I stopped for gas and an attendant filled my tank, said he was under orders to provide full service. I drove to my sister's house, and the sky was clear, blue, silent as I drove on the Dulles Toll Road and the Greenway, past the airport. So quiet. Such a beautiful day.

I've seen pictures from the air traffic control system command center, the place where they coordinate national traffic based on weather, system outages, whatever. The screens were dark. The screens are never dark. I didn't know that then. I didn't know any of it. At that point, I was just waiting for something else to happen.

Days passed. I worked the Pentagon hotline on the night of September 12. The graveyard shift. I wasn't qualified to handle callers so I worked on a database, tracking calls. I made signs. I got coffee and moved chairs and tables. I rolled into work looking like death around 8:30 the next morning, straight from the hotel in Crystal City.

A year later, on the first anniversary, our office closed. Another year passed. In New Zealand, on our Thanksgiving Day, a spurned pursuer, a Brit, verbally attacked a friend of mine. He was angry at me but attacked her, saying that September 11 was the best thing that had ever happened to the United States. He regretted only the low number of deaths. All 5 feet and 2 inches of her stood up to this massive brute, shoved him, yelled at him. I yelled, too. But nobody stopped him. Eventually he walked away. Left. She cried. A few people apologized. Most everybody else stared for a bit and turned back to their drinks.

The memories went on and on, battering my poor travelogued mind. It was exactly what I tried to avoid by not watching TV. It wasn't fair. I didn't want to think. I didn't want to forget, but I didn't want to remember. Not now. Not today.

Today was my niece's birthday. She's not really my niece but we claim her anyway. She's had enough loss. On her last birthday, when she turned 7, her mother was there. Spoiling her. Loving her. That was on my mind as I burrowed deeper into my bed. And money. And work.

Rumor has it that vacations should revitalize the weary worker. Before I left, my furrow-browed self worried about work and family, money and health. A couple of days away and it all… Well, it all stayed. My stomach flipped as much as it flopped and I barely slept through a night. I regaled my friend with story after miserable story of stress and fear. Fortunately, she failed to kill me in my sleep and sympathized with her own work-related terrors.

At least one study shows that within three days of returning, half the benefit of vacation was gone. Within three weeks, it disappeared completely. Mine lasted all of 20 minutes after I got into the office. Actually, it might have preceded that with a brief, misguided venture into TVland, with a half dozen accusatory political ads and some 9/11 coverage. I was pamphletted and propaganda'd on the way to the metro and again on the train, despite the buds firmly lodged in my ears, blocking out sound. In the office, within 20 minutes, I found out about several major changes to my project and picked up a couple of monumental tasks. In addition to the glut of work-related messages, meeting requests and tasks that littered my inbox.

Three weeks? Three days? 20 minutes? All I wanted to do was crawl under my lumpy old patchwork quilt and quit the day.

Note: Chairborne Stranger's post reminded me that I've got nothing to complain about. I'm just blue. Sorry about that.

Tag: Stress Vacation Work September 11

Weather or not

In planning for the trip, I didn’t pay much attention to weather predictions. Actually, I didn’t really do much in the way of planning – I realized that my voucher expired soon and got around to calling to make a reservation on the last day of the promotion. At that point, I didn’t even think about where I was going or what I was doing.

“I want to fly to Alaska,” I told the booking agent on the phone.

“What city?” he asked.

“I don’t know… What’s the big one? Anchorage?”

We talked about dates. I hoped to go over the fourth of July, taking advantage of the federal holiday and prime tourist season. Of course, I was making the reservation in April, which meant that I was out of luck. (Some people just spend more time planning than I do.) I went with my second choice: Labor Day weekend. It meant that I could celebrate my birthday in Alaska and take advantage of both a federal holiday and the end of peak season. I booked my trip, waited in line for (what seemed like) hours in painfully pointy boots at National Airport, so I could turn in my voucher, and walked away with a trip to Alaska, which I promptly forgot.

Every once in a while, it popped into my mind with an “Oh, yeah. I’m going to Alaska in September… Maybe I should plan for the trip.” Over beers, after trivia one night, Cheryl (who’d booked herself a ticket on miles) and I sketched out a loose itinerary. I suppose we must have done some research before then, but not much. We each took pieces of the trip, made the appropriate reservations and didn’t much worry.

I didn’t read my Frommers guide, which I normally do from cover to cover. I watched a documentary on Denali but spent more time glued to my email than the TV screen. About a week in advance, I finally looked up the weather. Showers. Scattered thunderstorms. Rain. Not even “Cloudy with a chance of rain” but downpours. Every. Single. Day.

When we got here, the weather was predictably gloomy. Gray, cloudy, blah. It drizzled throughout our first morning’s walk in Anchorage, sometimes downright pouring, sometimes misting. Always cold. And wet. Later that afternoon, though, on the way to the State Fair, the weather cleared. We saw the sun and for the Alaskans, it was the first time in three weeks.

The next day dawned coldly dismal again, but as we wound along Turnagain Arm, down the Seward Highway, the weather cleared for a truly spectacular drive. The glacier cruise was cold, as one might expect from proximity to a giant hunk o’ ice that flows down from the largest ice field in North America (and possibly the world, but I wasn’t really listening when the ranger talked about it). The day after the cruise, though, cloudy in the morning, clearing up by afternoon, by the time we reached Bird Point to wait for the tide.

And the day we left for Denali? Absolutely incredible. Clear skies from the moment we arose, which was far too early in my opinion. Walking down to the train station, we saw a peak in the distance.

“Is that it?” I asked, pointing at the triangle of white against the cerulean blue sky. As if Cheryl would know.

On the train, we sat across from a local woman, a woman from Palmer, and her sister. The Palmer denizen (Mary) said that we couldn’t have seen the peak from Anchorage and later, that the peak we saw from the train couldn’t be Denali. Annie, the train tour guide, affirmed her assertion with “That’s got to be something else.” After a bit, though, she came around.

“That peak we saw, it was Denali,” Annie announced, laughing. “I’ve just never seen it look so big from here.”

Rumor has it that only about a third of visitors to Denali actually see the peak. The tallest mountain in North America, Denali, as the Alaskans call it, or Mount McKinley, as it’s officially known, towers at 20,320 feet. It actually creates its own weather system and is frequently shrouded in clouds, even on clear blue days, and this summer might go down in history as the Alaskan summer of rain. I heard another rumor that there have been about 10 clear days this summer and we arrived at Denali for one of the best.

By the time we left the McKinley Mountain View Princess Lodge, a name that makes me feel like a 3-year-old clamoring for Disney, dolls and princesses, the mountain disappeared. Actually, most of the Alaska range vanished from sight and we enjoyed a cold cloudy day with hot chocolate inside a lodge. Perfect weather for what I needed. Relaxation. Downtime. Something I know very little about.

On our last day in Anchorage, I’m toting around my rain jacket, a last minute purchase for which I am grateful. (I used it on the glacier cruise, if nowhere else.) I hear the weather in DC is gorgeous – 70s, clear, sunny, with not a hint of Ernesto left in sight. I’m sure I’ll enjoy it but right now, I’m quite happy with clear Alaskan days.


Tag: Alaska Vacation Weather Denali Mount McKinley

Nothing to do

The morning dawned gray and cloudy, vanishing the mountain, all 20,320 feet of it, and threatening to rain. With a bus back to Anchorage scheduled for late afternoon, we slept in a bit, lazed about the room, packing and repacking. We walked to the lodge and turned in our keys. We handed over our bags and moved into the big room, finding space between the fireplace and the two story windows facing what would be the mountain if the mountain were there. Denali.

Cheryl curled up with her book, moving from chair to chair, easing her way to the cold hearth. She asked at the front desk (twice) and sent me to ask (once) but the fireplace remained barren.

I curled up with my laptop, checking my email, instant messaging a friend, posting everything I had spent the week writing. A whole day with nothing to do, nowhere to go and wireless internet access. I was in heaven. Suddenly, I experienced a light bulb moment, something could make my day even better, something other than a fire in the fireplace.

“Do you want a peppermint pattie?” I asked my friend. She looked up and nodded eagerly, a grin spreading across her face.

“And can you ask about the fire?”

With a detour by the front desk (“We’ll call someone to start a fire,” they promised), I headed to the bar.

“Do you need something?” asked a man in a pink shirt and Princess nametag.

“Do you have peppermint patties? Hot chocolate? Peppermint schnapps?”

“We do… The bartender will be back in just a minute and he should be able to help you out.”

Five minutes later, the bartender appeared, a shorn-headed, rumbly-voiced man with quick hands.

“Can I have two peppermint patties?” I asked.

“Coming right up,” he promised and headed toward the schnapps. “I don’t know if I have enough of the peppermint.”

“No worries,” I said, thinking “That’s okay. We probably shouldn’t be drinking anyway.” It was not yet noon. Then, I glanced around. Beer and wine, liquor drinks abounded. While I stood there, a man brought in an espresso and asked for a shot of Kahlua. Vacation mode, I hoped.

While the manager, the man in the pink shirt, went off in search of hot chocolate, the bartender served up a half dozen cups of lemonade, a glass of merlot, the Kahlua, a soda. He poured the hot chocolate on top of the clear liquor and turned to the fridge, grabbing a stainless steel canister with a nozzle. Targeting the first mug, whip cream sputtered for a second and stopped.

“I have to admit that I hate this part,” the bartender said after deconstructing and washing the tool. “Making my own whipped cream. It’s great to have the freshest ingredients but this job generally requires speed.” He poured in cream and fiddled with the canister, trying to put it back together.

“No worries,” I said as I waited.

“Hey, you’re management. Can’t you talk to someone about this?” he asked the man in pink. The bartender turned to get a shot of Kona coffee liqueur for a man with a Styrofoam cup. He returned to the canister and strained to screw something on or off, I didn’t know which. I waited while he grew frustrated and tossed it aside. The manager man picked it up and worked on it while the bartender reached into the fridge for a pastry bag of whipped cream. He piped swirl upon swirl of white, creamy, sugar onto our cups, “I’m terrible at this part.”

“No worries,” I said as I exchanged my credit card for the mugs. He ran my card and turned to the coffee drinker, taking his payment and making change while I waited for a slip to sign. Eventually, he came back with the paper.

“You’ve been waiting a while,” he apologized before zigging to the other side of the bar and another order.

“No worries.” I signed and walked back toward the fireplace. By the time I sat down with my lukewarm chocolate, it was past noon and I felt even less guilty about a little vacation tipple. I curled up with my laptop again, a book beside me, buds in my ears. Nothing to do, nowhere to go.

Tag: Vacation Peppermint Pattie Bartenders

The Talkeetna Roadhouse

Walking through the door, I stopped for a second to let my eyes adjust from the brightness outside to the darkness indoors.

I looked around to acclimate myself. Dining alone, I was a little more timid, a little more hesitant than usual. Unsure of my footing, I took stock of the room: a long table empty table, a board with the breakfast menu, a glass counter filled with pastries, an opening into another small room filled with tables. I stood in front of the blackboard, reading through the offerings.

“Do you want breakfast?” asked the girl behind the counter.

“I don’t know… I’m debating between breakfast and a pastry.”

“Take your time,” she said, leaning on the counter. “If you want breakfast, just seat yourself. Otherwise, I can help you.” She pulled herself off the glass top and wiped her hands on her apron.

“I think I’ll have breakfast… Thank you,” I announced, with more than a little uncertainty. I walked through the door into the room with tables, more tables.

“Just sit anywhere,” came a voice from behind, a waitress bustling past with a pot of coffee, her hair covered in a kerchief, her clothes covered in an apron, and I sat at the end of one of the long tables. Two seats down, a woman finished her breakfast and left. The waitress reappeared, “Would you like some coffee?”

I nodded and started to pull out my book, dinner companion of choice for single girls. I placed it in front of me and wrapped my hands around the steaming mug. I stole my first real look around the room. In addition to the seating, the long, Catholic or Mormon family-sized tables, I spotted an intimate table for two tucked in a corner. Built-ins filled with books filled the jagged angle of stairs leading up to bedrooms (presumably). In the back of the room, a sofa nestled in front of the fireplace and more shelves offered load of books and games to diners and boarders alike.

The Talkeetna Roadhouse. Lodging. Meals. Bakery. Built in 1917 and opened as a roadhouse in 1944, the building still provides hearty food and lodging to travelers in the funky and remote village of Talkeetna, Alaska. In the early years, meals were served family style, with a traditional fried chicken dinners on Fridays. Thursday morning’s breakfast wasn’t quite family style, more communal with guests ordering for themselves off the hand-lettered chalkboard and sharing space and stories, if not bowls of food.

A couple from Houston joined me not long after I sat, but they were involved in conversation with each other and I took advantage of (spotty) cell-phone reception to reassure an anxious Kayla that she would, indeed, pass her security clearance and start working with me within a month. My stomach lurched at the thought of work, an unwelcome travel companion on any vacation, and I decided to calm it with a half order of the breakfast special: banana-blueberry sourdough hotcakes, made from 1902 starter.

I worried briefly that a half order wouldn’t suffice, that I’d still be hungry. When the order arrived, I laughed at my own naiveté as the flapjack flopped over the edges of the plate. Lingering over my dish for more than an hour, I still couldn’t finish it, try as I might with fresh birch syrup and homemade apple butter, breaks for water, breaks for coffee. I was completely wired by the end of the meal but a quarter of the cake remained.

“Some people come in and say they want the ‘full standard’ breakfast,” said a waitress, joking about the size of the portions. “I’ll ask if they’re sure, it really is a lot of food and they say full standard’ that’s what they want. ‘Are you sure?’ I’ll ask. A full standard has eight eggs in it. They generally change their minds.” The waitress laughed, deeply, jiggling a little under her apron and headed toward the kitchen.

The couple at the end of the table neared the end of their specials. I worked on mine.

“Do you sell the apple butter here?” asked the woman at the other end of the table. The waitress said that they’d had a bad season, that the apple butter didn’t not set well enough to sell. They only had enough for the tables, but she returned a couple of minutes later with a cookbook. “The recipe’s in here if you want to make it yourself.”

Later, I bought a copy of the cookbook. Two more as gifts. Then, though, I just added another dollop to the banana/blueberry bit of heaven on my plate.

Another couple joined us, an older couple. Cruisers. They deliberated over the menu, a little confused.

“Should we give them the rundown?” asked the woman who’d finished her breakfast. She explained the serving size to the couple. I added a couple of comments, gesturing generously to indicate that a half order fell over the edges of the plate. We explained the 1902 starter, the mixture of water, flour and yeast from which sourdough was made, a mixture that was regularly depleted and fed, that a batch of starter could be used for years and this batch started 104 years earlier.

Over coffee and hotcakes, we chatted about travel and work, family and friends. One couple came to celebrate a baby’s birth, her grandson, the newest resident of Talkeetna. The other couple came on a cruise. They thought I was brave for traveling alone, for traveling with a friend, for traveling so much. They asked if I worked, how I had so much vacation time, if I was a page on the Hill. (I could have kissed someone for that as I celebrated my 31st birthday four days earlier.) We chatted about war and protests. We chatted about books and movies.

Glancing down at my watch, I realized that I needed to leave, that I needed to meet Cheryl. As the new grandmother and her husband left, they shook our hands, exchanging pleasantries all ‘round and I reluctantly rose from the table, unwilling to let the experience of the Talkeetna Roadhouse end. It was more than a meal.


Tag: Talkeetna Roadhouse Alaska Breakfast Sourdough

Sweet home Alaska

Day 5: Send help. We sang karaoke last night. Sweet Home Alabama. In the middle of Alaska. Well, south of middle but nowhere near the southland. Fortunately, people seemed to like it. The song. Not us. Even the Dutch couple from sang along but that might have been the beer.

Actually, we attempted to sing two songs but technical difficulties kept anyone from hearing us during the first song - The Gambler – which we sang with a man named Ashley. He left (us, not the bar) after the song. I think our singing scared him. Actually, we sang Sweet Home Alabama with another man. Tony from Detroit. He disappeared after the song, too.

Were we really that bad? Was it a case of wham, bam, thank you ma’am? Sing ‘em and leave ‘em?

At least we didn’t attempt Margaritaville, which Bob sang twice during the course of the night. We didn’t attempt Celine Dion or Mariah Carey. (Not that I know the words to any of their songs.) We didn’t do anything particularly foolish other than get up in front of a crowd of inebriated strangers and try to sing. Try being the key word.

Fortunately, we didn’t lose all of our male admirers in the smoky, dusky Yukon Bar. Johnny the halibut fisherman stayed with us ‘til the end, buying us beer (the first with a 100-dollar bill and all without asking if we wanted them) and offering us shots, which we declined.

“You all are pantywaists,” he slurred, more than once, in our direction. He was nice, though. Telling us about halibut cheeks. Telling us we were pretty. (Drunk Alaskan men seemed to say that a lot.) He clapped when we sang and told us he enjoyed it, which was probably a lie. Though, he did tell us we were losers when he couldn’t hear us in the first song, so maybe the G&T’s on his part or the Alaskan Summer Ale on ours mellowed our unmelodic screeching.

Later, after last call on the singing, before last call on the drinks, we made our own call. For a cab. (I’d already gone to the bathroom once, squatting in the stall while a woman outside the door plunged madly at a hole in the floor. I wasn’t looking forward to a repeat visit.) As we left, Johnny lurched outside to yell at us half-heartedly.

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” he called as we crawled into the cab. With a shrug, he turned back into the bar. He really didn’t seem to mind and we both seemed to have a pretty good idea of what we were missing. I felt bad about the beer he bought, but he just appeared with them a few times. I didn’t know when they were coming or how to get him to stop. I suppose I could have just asked. Nicely. “Would you stop buying me beer?” but those words sound so foreign and so wrong.

The next day, Cheryl told me about the 100-dollar bill and that Johnny had told her about the hillbilly uniform of overalls. I lamented that I hadn’t seen any in our visit to Seward, on the glacier cruise or even at the Yukon Bar. I definitely didn’t see any at the Alaska Sea Life Center or later at the Sea Bean, where the crowd lounged comfortably on couches or at kitchen tables, enjoying espresso drinks and free wireless access. It seemed more urban than anything else.

By that time, poor Johnny was probably out on his boat in the rain and 28-foot waves, looking for halibut. We headed out in the early afternoon, hoping to catch the bore tide (a breathtaking wall of water, up to 6 feet tall, roar up Turnagain Arm). By the time we caught it, the tide wasn’t roaring so much as crawling but it was still pretty. We enjoyed the fresh air and felt a little more human when we got back in the car. We even sang along with the radio.


Tag: Karaoke Sweet Home Alabama Yukon Bar Seward Alaska

Kids don't float

A ragtag bunch of boys in gloves, hats and lifejackets stenciled with “Kids Don’t Float” wandered up the deck in front of us, pushing, pointing and shouting. At one boat they stumbled to stop, staring. The captain of the boat lunged toward them.

“Argh!” he shouted and clapped his arms together, hooks clanging. The adults – the fisherman, the mothers, those of us trailing behind – laughed. The boys stood mesmerized. Even as they walked toward the end of the dock, they continued to look back, turning, stumbling, dumbstruck.

The mothers tried to turn them around, to keep them from walking into people and it worked (with limited success). They moved down the dock slowly and Cheryl and I walked around them as did a couple with Kenai Star tickets. As we passed another tour boat, the man at the bottom of the plank muttered, “I hope they’re not with us.”

Once again, the adults laughed. For about 30 seconds. Until the group walked past the gangplank.

“They’re with us,” someone in our group bemoaned. I didn’t know who said it - it wasn’t me, but I groaned with everyone else. A gaggle of kids on a 7-hour cruise.

Much later, as the Kenai Star pulled out of the harbor (or whatever the technical, nautical term is), we realized that the kids weren’t on the boat. Much, much later (as in the next morning) we realized that they were supposed to be on the Alaska Sea Life Center’s boat but had gone too far down the dock, probably distracted by the Captain Hook.

Though, we did spend time with the only two kids onboard as a family of four was assigned to share our table of six. They promptly took over the table with Mom stretching out for a nap on one of the two benches, Dad disappearing for blocks of time and the two children (a preteen girl and a boy sporting a patch of peach fuzz on his upper lip) slumped on the other side of the booth – he with his book, she with her handheld game.

The somewhat undersold cruise allowed Cheryl and I to claim a table in the middle, away from the highly-prized windows and we found ourselves getting up more often than not to go out and take pictures – the front of the boat, the back of the boat, on the upper deck. The blue skies gave way to gray and later rain as we moved through Resurrection Bay and Harding Gateway into the Gulf of Alaska and the Pacific Ocean.

On our way to the glacier, we saw an otter rolling playfully off starboard (or at about 4:00 o’clock). Later, we saw sea lions lazing about the Chiswell Islands. We saw seabirds on land and on the water, murres and petrels and puffins. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see any whales, but we did see a black bear swim a quarter-mile in front of our boat from one island to another, pointed out by first mate Eagle Eye Gary, who coincidentally also found a trio of bald eagles for us.

Gary also worked the engine a little while we sat in a bay, watching ice melt. The point of the cruise, the glacier, provided endless entertainment as we froze our stiff little fingers in thin stretch gloves, unwilling to move from the wind or the rain/ice pelting down on us as little icebergs floated past and the glacier calved in front of us, cracks ringing like gunshots in the cold still air. Gary tried to create a disturbance, to rock the water a bit to get the glacier to calve a little more. (Captain Colby had taken a break at the prime rib and salmon buffet, chatting it up with Brian the bartender from Limerick.)

Later, Brian made us margaritas from glacial ice plucked out of the blue, blue water. (Brian sounded so familiar I text messaged an Irish friend in DC. I didn’t quite realize that it was 11 p.m. on Monday at the time, but he’s a bartender and I was right. It was the same accent.) We cruised back to Resurrection Bay, to Seward, to dinner and beer and a good night’s sleep.

In the morning, we got a better view of the sea lions and seabirds at the Alaska Sea Life Center, but it wasn’t the same as seeing them out in nature, out where they belong.


Tag: Glacier Cruise Major Marines Seward Alaska