The Front of the Plane

When I fly internationally, I always sit in coach. It's never been an option to move into business class. I've been lucky the last few flights to even have a window seat.

And when I fly domestically, it's usually from the Midwest to somewhere on the East Coast. Nothing usually more than about 90 minutes or so. And then, really, you can sit anywhere in the plane. I hate sitting in the back because I don't have the patience to wait for everyone else to get off, but really, you can sit anywhere for less than two hours, even squished in a middle seat between two sumo wrestlers.

Lately though, I've been trying to work down my AirTran credits. I flew a lot last year, almost all on AirTran and my credits are starting to expire. It only takes four credits to upgrade to business class and I think I've done that for most of my last five or six flights. It's a little bit of a waste for a short flight, but it's use them or lose them, and I figure they were given to me to use.

So what I've learned is that while I can definitely sit in coach and have no issues doing so, it's still nicer to sit in business class. The biggest differences - a bigger tray table and enough space so that you can use a computer or do some writing without sticking your elbows into the person next to you. There's probably even more leg room, but I'm short and how much leg room can a short person use?! The other good part is that there is a bathroom up front that is theoretically reserved for the 12 people sitting in the front of the plane. I'm fairly certain it is no larger than the one in the back of the plane for the other 126 people, but the idea that it's more available is a nice one.

Alas, AirTran flies from Chicago but not directly to any of the places I generally need to go. I need two more round-trips before April to get another year's worth of Elite status, which is nice to have even if I can't use it, so I'm sure I'll take at least another two trips. The question will be whether I still have enough credits left to sit in the front of the plane....

Psychological Testing at Midway Airport

I was put through an arduous experiment last week at Midway Airport that was designed to measure anxiety levels. Strangely, no one ever asked me to sign a human testing waiver.

First, at 9am on a Friday morning, the security lines were as long as I've ever seen them. And the distinctions between the Family, Casual Traveler, and Business lanes were non-existant. But the Business lane was on the right and I didn't see quite as many families in line, so I took my chances there. It didn't matter. It still took me 15 minutes for anyone to even look at my ID.

And then it's the great guessing game - which magnometer line to enter. There were too many families in most of the lines - and that always means it takes longer. Most of the lines seemed to have about 10 people waiting, which isn't horrible, just annoying. And I'm not sure why, but usually the lines on the right side of the security set up at Midway are actually faster. So I went to the right.

We were all the way against the wall and it was taking a very long time to even approach the main line of machines. Something seemed wrong. When we got to the corner of the wall, the experiment became clear. We were not being directed into the machines on the right side of the security set-up, we were being sent to the machines in the way far away right side. Seriously, there was an entire TSA conference room in between the machines that were not being used and where we were headed. There were a good 60 -75 people in line in front of me.

I remain fairly certain that the 20 minutes it took us to get to the magnometer was a sick psychological experiment designed to make us crazy. That, and the people who were in line so long they risked missing their flights and so thought it was okay to cut in front of the rest of us. It was okay, because they shouldn't have to miss their flights, but the line should not have been so long as to put any of us in that situation to begin with.

Needless to say, everyone's anxiety level was higher than the security threat levels. Way beyond orange, that's for sure.

And, by the time I got through the whole line, no one asked me to sign a waiver. I'm pretty sure there's a law against this!

I Want a Lake House

I'm in Michigan spending the weekend at a friend's lake house. It's small, furnished and decorated many, many years ago, and most importantly, just sitting on the shores of a small lake.

I want one of these. Not here, but somewhere closer to where I live, where I can drive far enough to feel far away and close enough that I won't be annoyed to get in the car to drive somewhere. (Even though to get here today took 75 minutes on the El, 2 hours waiting at Midway, 37 minutes in the air, 20 minutes waiting to be picked up and then another 75 minutes driving out here.)

There's nothing to do out here unless you like swimming or boating or sitting in the sun. Fortunately, I like reading, which technically can be done anywhere, but is particularly nice when sitting along a lake. I'm sure it will also be nice tomorrow perhaps sitting on the dock or in a boat. But it will probably be nicest sitting in the shade.

The Button on my Box Won't Work

The title here is for a friend who, when I said this, told me that I could write lesbian porn with that line. For the record, what follows is not lesbian porn.

I finally stopped working around 6pm tonight and decided to finally read the morning's paper, eat dinner, and do it all in front of the television. Now, keep in mind that while we've had cable for a week, I've maybe watched all of 2 hours of television in the last six days. And I think it was mostly on the Food Network Tuesday night. (The LOST episode of Ace of Cakes and Chopped, if you were curious.)

So I sit down with the paper and my dinner and hit the "all on" power button on the remote control. The television goes on and I realize it's the Home Shopping Network. This in itself was strange because it certainly wasn't the last channel I watched, but I figured, maybe I hit some random button when I turned everything off the last time.

And then I realize that the actual cable box isn't on since the "power" light is still red, and not the blue it should be when it is on. (I almost wrote 'turned on', but I don't want to be accused of writing sordid tales.) So I press the cable button and then power. Nothing. I try this three more times. Nothing. I change the batteries in the remote control. Nothing.

All I have is the Home Shopping Network and they are selling non-down comforters made of Egyptian cotten and have a 440 thread count that really feels more like 5 or 600. And evidently they are soft enough to use without a duvet and they can be thrown in your home washer and dryer. I did find a second station that was broadcasting in Spanish. This may have been more interesting if I understood any of it.

So I got up to look at the cable box. It's actually not a cable box, it's a dvr. It's a big, shiny, silver box that has one small black panel in front with the word power that either lights up in red (off) or blue (on). The light is clearly red. I notice that there are no panels to open on the box, nor are there any buttons.

I feel like I've entered the robot-built space ship on I, Robot (a must-read if you haven't, or a re-read if you've haven't in a long time). There are no buttons on my box. It is, just a box.

So I call the cable company. After wading through voice-mail hell and then being on hold for 10 minutes, I finally reach a human being. But not a trained customer service representative. Ultimately, he tells me I can either exchange my remote control or have a technician come out. I opt for plan B. At which point I get disconnected.

Seriously?! Yes, it's true. So I call back, wade through voice-mail hell again, and am on hold for another 10 minutes and this time speak with a woman who at least hears how frustrated I am. We have a technician coming out tomorrow afternoon and she credited our account for the time we are without cable. And if I call back tomorrow, they'll credit me another day.

Post script: Ronnie got home and turned on the television. He also got the Home Shopping Network but by now they were on to selling make-up remover which I don't need (and neither does he). But he started playing with the television remote and realizes that if you punch in station numbers (as opposed to use the channel up and down buttons), we have access to cable stations. The only station number I've learned so far is Versus (75) because they are broadcasting the Tour de France. We found the channel just as Andy Schleck was beginning his time trial.

Starbucks

I'm really amazed at how much people spend on coffee drinks. For a variety of reasons, I'm working from Starbucks today. I brought in my own mug and got plain coffee.

It's a small shop, but consistantly busy this morning, and all sorts of people are walking in and ordering so many different kinds of drinks I can't figure out how they learned to order them.

They are also offering extra shots of espresso in drinks today, I'm not sure why, so listening to the staff call out the drinks has been a whole education as well.

And, they are raking in the cash. My drink was less than $2, and because I'm using my Starbucks card I get free refills (although I have yet to test that theory). But everyone else is spending a lot of money - the largest size macchiato (I have no idea what that is) is $4, and that's just the plain one. I've heard a lot of those coming through the line so far this morning.

And, if I didn't have so much work to get done, I'd be able to focus more on the people-watching.

And it's not even 7:30am!

I just set up our wireless network. It's actually fairly simple, but if you don't know how to do it, it doesn't matter whether it's simple or not. And, as a reward for setting it up, it works.

This means I can work from home and not jump from Panera to Starbucks, back to Panera and then to the laundromat (yes, the laundromat around the corner from us boasts wireless access).

Our cable television is also now working. To be fair, all I had to do was let Bernard into the house - I didn't actually have to set that up! I have probably not watched television in any kind of intentional way in almost two months. Maybe more. Without LOST, there's really no point, anyway.

But... the Tour de France is on, and that is my sport of choice. And save for about 45 minutes at a friends house the other day, I've seen none of the coverage. So if you call this week and we don't answer, we're watching le Tour.

My Laptop

My work computer is a relatively new laptop. Two weeks ago, I found the blue screen of death, shut my computer down and it then refused to boot back up.

Thankfully, I was headed to DC the next week and the folks in IT worked their magic and now my computer works. Except when it doesn't.

It turns out that they fixed my hard drive but had been testing random batteries and left me with one that has no life. Literally. If I unplug my power cord, I have 5 minutes of life before everything shuts down. Before, I had 2+ hours. Needless to say, this makes access to outlets imperative at a coffeeshop.

We're having cable and internet installed in our new place tomorrow. Until now, we've been borrowing wireless access from our neighbor, Kevin. We've never met Kevin, and truth be told, we don't know if Kevin is his name, his dog's name, or the name of their favorite band. We're not picky though and as long as Kevin allows his network to be shared, we're happy. Until we're not.

Last night and today, Kevin's network is visible but not accessible. I'm not sure what we did to offend him, nor do I know how to find him were I want to apologize (which I am not, just for the record). But it has made working from home more difficult than anticipated.

So this morning I went to a coffee shop to get some work done. I plugged in (again, access to an outlet is still an imperative) and got nothing. Well, that's not exactly true. I got a message that said there was nothing available to boot up. It had been working just fine several hours before and I couldn't believe that the IT magic was already losing it's shine.

I rebooted. Nothing. I rebooted again. Nothing. Not even the blue screen of death. Nothing. Just a message that said I was SOL.

So I unplugged my computer, put the cord in my backpack and started to put the laptop in it's padded compartment. Where it hit something at the bottom. The only think I ever keep in that section is the laptop, so I couldn't figure out how I had that drastically misplaced my phone charger or sun glasses. But you never know, so I reached my hand into the padded section and pulled out... the hard drive.

Yes, the hard drive had fallen out of my laptop. Which meant that the message I'd received about having nothing to boot up, was actually correct. Who knew?!

And now things are working fine, in case you were wondering.

Obstructed View

Fireworks tonight began at 9:15 at the lake front. So at 8:30 or so, we set out for the beach. We were clearly not the only ones with that idea. There were hundreds of people streaming east. At least we knew we were going the right direction!

We got to the park and decided walk two more blocks up to the beach. There were people with blankets and chairs set up all the way to the water. And there were a good number of boats in the water. There's the tiniest of boardwalks that runs from the street to the water, and we decided to find a place to sit there rather than the sand. Again, we were clearly not the only ones with that idea.

By 9:25 the fireworks started and from the first blast, we knew we were in trouble. There was a tree line between us and the beach where the fireworks were being launched. The bursts went mostly over the trees, but not the huge, very tall tree that was in the middle. So mainly we saw funky colors behind the enormous tree, heard the booms, and occasionally saw the higher bursts or the ones that were just a little to the left or right of the biggest tree. Almost all of us had the same problem, so at least we didn't feel dumb individually...

Waiting for Kenny Y.

I put an ad on craigslist today to get rid of our wardrobe boxes and whatever other boxes we managed to empty. I've gotten 18 or so calls. The first one said he'd pick boxes up at 5:30pm. He said he's shipping off to Iraq for two years in an administrative position but he needs boxes for him and his younger "boys".

He just left with two wardrobe boxes, about 60 smaller boxes, and 6 large bags of packing material. His name is Kenny. He is tall and bald and when I asked what branch of the service he's in he said, "the marines... the only real branch."

When I met him at the front door he said he'd just been putting in a playground at a synagogue. I never would have pegged him as a member of the tribe, but as it turns out, he's got dual citizenship with Israel and is also a colonel in the Israeli army.

Ten minutes of chatting as we loaded boxes, part of a life story, and he drove off...

Packing (and unpacking) should be a four-letter word

If for no other reason, I will never move again. Forget that I have already made that promise to my husband - I will never move again.

IF.... you have a month to leisurely pack and go through things and make sure you don't actually bring things that you haven't used in the last 10 years but who knows, you might want tomorrow, then packing probably isn't so bad. And even if you do decide to bring things that are still in their original packaging from many, many years ago that you (or someone you live with) thought you absolutely needed and couldn't live without but clearly you could, unpacking them and figuring out where they go is a problem.

Enough said.

Summer in Milwaukee

We're known for our summers here in Milwaukee. Everyone is outside, all the time. Biking, walking, going to Summerfest, playing volleyball on the beach, going to festivals - it's just a really nice time to live in Milwaukee.

But today, not so much. It's raining, which does happen sometimes, but it's also in the low 60s, which is just not acceptable weather when it's also raining at the end of June. And since we are moving, we have packed every coat, jacket and long sleeve shirt because, hey - it's summer in Milwaukee, we won't need those things until Labor Day weekend.

Evidently I was wrong....

The Perils of Packing

There are oft unreported perils of packing. We all know about the strained muscles from lifting and bending. We know that the metal thing that tears the tape off the role is sharper than it needs to be. And we always remember just a little too late that boxes really shouldn't be stacked more than three boxes high.

No, I'm talking about the peril of discovering a previously unknown hoarding disorder. And the problem is I'm not sure if it's my disorder or Ronnie's, although I'm pretty confident I could make a good guess.

I've just packed three boxes of bathroom stuff. I thought I would fill one box and was surprised when I needed most of a second. Then I remembered we have a 2nd bathroom complete with it's own closet. (I didn't forget we had the second bathroom, I just don't generally pay attention to the closet.)

We have a lot of Q-tips. And a lot of tubes of toothpaste. And so much dental floss that we could probably make enough ropes to help dozens of prisoners escape their lot. Maybe even a score of prisoners. Yes, I found that much dental floss. We have half a dozen Ace bandages. We also have a lot of bandaids, but it doesn't look as overwhelming as it did because I stuffed a lot of them into just one box. We have enough Cold-eez to help a small town get over their colds.

There were also two blow dryers. I think the last time I blew my hair dry was 10 years ago. Seriously. There were three large sun screens (all different brands and SPFs), four large moisterizers (all different brands, all unscented), and a dozen bars of Lever soap (again, Costco).

We will have two bathrooms in the new place, but only a small linen closet. It's going to be interesting to see where we store things and what we forget about when we finish the current tube of toothpaste or the last inch of dental floss....

It's too hot.

It's too hot.

Last summer, Milwaukee never hit 90 degrees. Now we're in it two days in a row. It's hard to concentrate, and even my poor laptop is feeling the effects. The internal fan is running way too often. In fact, today I went to the public library to work. I got there about 1:30pm and was very clearly not the only person who had that idea.

Plus, the heat and constant sweating makes packing difficult. As if I wasn't sweating enough, now I've got to do physical labor?

Tomorrow might be a tiny bit better. They're predicting a high of 86. My hope is that 6 degrees will make a huge difference. Or at least I'll pretend that it does.

The Man at My Table

The last few days, I've walked to the coffee shop and there's been a man sitting at my table. Which means I have to sit somewhere else. And I know better than to sit at someone else's table, so at least two of the past several days I've wound up at the tilted table. The legs are fine and it doesn't wobble, but the top is on crooked. It's too hard to read the paper. It just doesn't feel right. Plus, I'd rather sit at a square table than a round table....

But this morning, I got there at 5:40am, just 10 minutes after they open. One of the other regulars was already there. My table was empty. People slowly filed in over the next 20 minutes and then, he was there. The man who has routinely been taking over my regular space. He arrived at 6:00am and left at 6:30am. He started to sit at the tilted table, and then moved. See, even interlopers like him don't like that table.

I'm pretty sure he was wondering who was sitting at his table....

Splitting 'em Up

We all know that the President and Vice President never travel on the same plane. And I've heard that some couples never fly together, lest something happen to one of them.

Last week, when Ronnie and I flew to St. Louis, one of us sat in business class and the other in coach. It's not quite the same thing, but I did think about it at the time. (That is, until the other one of us got upgraded and then we were just on opposite sides of the aisle, which we generally are anyway.)

But back to the point at hand. My cousin stayed with us this past Friday night and on Saturday morning, he tell me he's going downstairs to see if he can find his other shoe. Curious, I asked why they weren't together. He told me that he'd split the pairs and packed one of each in one suitcase, and the second of the pair in his other suitcase.

So of course my natural response was.... is that so you lose one suitcase you still have the other shoe?

Annoyance at the Grocery Store

I rarely go to the big grocery store two blocks from our house. When I need to run out for something, I'll go, but I don't shop there on a regular basis at all.

It's been really hot today and I've been drinking water non-stop. But tonight I really wanted something cold and carbonated. A fountain soda would be perfect, but there's nothing nearby for that (and the lines out the door of Baskin Robbins was way too long!). So I decide to walk to the store and buy whatever kind of diet soda was on sale (as long as it wasn't regular Diet Coke).

I'm in luck - they have Caffiene-free Diet Pepsi on sale at five 12-packs for 12 dollars. I picked up a 12-pack and headed to the registers. It rang up at $3.96. Now, math is not my strong suite, but I'm pretty sure that the price that rang up is not the sale price. When I ask the cashier about this, she says that I would have to buy five 12-packs in order to get the sale price.

Not only do we not need 60 cans of soda, I can't carry that much home even if we did need it.

I paid for the soda, registered my complaint that this was not a commuter-friendly sale and headed started to head out the door.

And then I decided to talk to customer-service. The woman behind the counter listened to me say how much I love living in Shorewood and the ability to walk everywhere but that their store was creating a serious disincentive for shopping there if I had to buy 60 cans of soda.... (Yes, I know there are far more important issues facing consumers and the overall food economy.)

She told me that it was a Pepsi policy for the sale and not store policy, and then she gave me money back so that my purchase equaled the sale price.

And now I'm home chilling a few cans, drinking one over lots of ice and trying to decide if I should walk back for another 12-pack (not).

Gift Anxiety

I was at a birthday party today. Nice party, good people, tasty cake. There were two points of possible anxiety attacks during the course of the afternoon.

First, I clearly did not get the memo that black and white were the requested clothing colors for the day. I was wearing a khaki skirt and pink striped top. One person was wearing green, but I chalked that up to his possible color-blindness. To be sure, there were a few other people who also hadn't gotten the memo, but the vast majority of attendees were most definitely wearing black and white.

Second, at one point, the celebrant said she was going to begin opening presents. The gift I'd brought was nicely wrapped, and I thought it was fine - modest, nothing too extravagant. But then the first gift was opened. It was a heat/massage attachment for an office chair. It looked fancy. Then, there was a lot of jewely. It was passed around, and it all looked pretty nice. And there were gift certificates. And more jewelry.

Of course, at this point I'm thinking, "maybe by the time she gets to my bag, everyone will be up getting more cake." No such luck. Thankfully, it gift that was a bit humorous and everyone laughed. I'm not sure if they were thinking, "Damn, I could have been funny, too!" or "Wow, I can't believe she didn't bring something nicer."

Did I mention that there was really good cake?

Yellow Split PeaSoup and other things

I had half a jar of yellow split pea soup that I'd made a few weeks ago and taken out of the freezer a few days ago. But I didn't really feel like eating soup and I figured it didn't have too many more days of life in it. So I decided that Yellow Split Pea Soup Fritters would be worth a try.

What is that? No clue, but I dumped the soup into a bowl (it was pretty thick), added about 4 tablespoons of flour, a little oat bran because it never hurt anyone, mixed it up and put spoonfuls into the frying pan in a little olive oil. Basically like making latkes.

I gotta say - not bad. It would probably be good with a mango chutney since it tasted vaguely Indian, but it was also pretty good with a wasabi sauce and honey mustard (not at the same time).

I was at Einstein's this morning, about an hour later than I usually go. There are a few major differences between arriving at 6:30am and arriving at 7:30am. Usually when I go, it's rare that I see moving cars, even when I'm crossing the main street. It's just a quiet time. The regulars are always there, sitting in the same places, the only variables being whether they ordered a muffin instead of a cookie, or whether one decided to splurge and get regular cream cheese instead of low-fat.

But this morning, I arrived around 7:45am. First - I had to wait several seconds before I could cross the street. Who knew there are so many cars out at that hour! And once I got there, one man asked me if everything was okay since I was there so late. I should mention, that until two weeks ago, I barely got a nod hello. Now, at least this one guy says hello every morning. Most of the regulars were on their way out as I walked in. About 20 minutes later, I looked up from my paper and saw a totally different population. Young moms and kids with huge strollers, and senior citizens. It was as if they were released from their curfew at 8am and all decided to go to Einstein's.

It was a nice day and not raining for a change. So why all of the moms with kids and huge strollers had to actually bring the huge strollers into the shop I'm not really sure. They leave their dogs outside, I'm not sure why the strollers can't be left there as well.

Recycling Day

Every other Tuesday, it's our neighborhood's turn to recycle. You can tell a lot about people by what and how they recycle.

Almost everyone has small, blue open bins for their recycling, so you can see what they're putting out. Every so often there's an over-achiever with a huge, green, covered container. The only thing I know about those people is that they are consuming too much if they still have that much to recycle in just two weeks time. But for everyone else:

• You can tell who reads the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal, and who splurges on the Wall Street Journal.
• You can tell who drinks a lot of beer, and whether they're drinking the cheap stuff from cans or the pricier European micro-brews from bottles. And you can definitely tell the wine drinkers.
• You can tell who orders pizza, from where, and how often (per two weeks).
• You can tell who shops where by the paper bags they've got the rest of their recyclables in. What's most interesting to me about this, is that the prevelance of paper bags from Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and the Outpost (our local co-op) in particular, mean that people aren't using their own cloth bags there.
• You can tell who has kids and how old they are by the diaper boxes and baby food jars.
• You can tell who has cats and what they like to eat. And lastly,
• You can tell who ran to Costco over the weekend by the big boxes of stuff that no one really needs that much of (diced tomatoes, granola bars, copy paper....

Too Many Green Beans

I'm pretty sure that just about a year ago, I wrote about buying too many plums at the produce market. If I remember correctly (I could just go back and check the blog, but I'm too lazy), I bought a basket full for $3. I didn't need 30 plums, of course, but for $3, I certainly got my money's worth.

Today, I went back to Pete's and bought a big basket of green beans. I don't really like green beans that much, but the whole basket was only $1. Yes, you read that correctly. It filled an entire plastic grocery bag (the kind they bag your groceries into, not the kind you put your cucumbers in while you're shopping). I also bought a basket of bananas for $1 and 11 multi-colored peppers for $3 (four green, four orange, three yellow). The beans and bananas looked like they should be cooked sometime before Monday, and the peppers I think would last a week.

Yes, I could buy the same vegetables for more money that I wouldn't have to use this weekend, but why? We can eat whatever I cook with them for the week, right?

Last week, I bought baskets of peppers, eggplant and onions. Thankfully, a friend of mine could use the overflow. This week, I need to start thinking creatively about the green beans. I roasted some, marinated others, and I still have a gallon size baggie full left.

The only problem with Pete's is that you never know what they're going to have, in or out of baskets. Last week they had nice looking asparagus (not in a basket). This week, I didn't see a stalk. They have mushrooms, but they're expensive. And no matter the season, they always seem to have watermelon.

The Dilemmas of Shopping

I decided that I wanted to make fish for dinner. The closest, nicer fish can be found at Whole Foods and since it's usually an interesting store to walk around, that's where I went.

The store was actually pretty empty (because really, who can afford to shop there!) and there was one guy doing double duty behind the meat and fish counters. So before he could help me on the fish side of the counter, he had to finish weighing and packaging something on the meat side.

I told him I wanted salmon, and as he reached for the fillet, I asked if he had changed gloves. He looked at me a little strangely. I told him (politely) that I'd like him to change gloves, and then mentioned that it was good that I wasn't from the health department.

Since he did change gloves, I continued with my purchase.

And then I had to decide if I should say something to anyone else about my experience. I decided that I wouldn't mention it to the guy behind the customer service counter. I'm sure he would pretend to care, and maybe even would for a minute, but I wasn't confident that my concerns would be passed to anyone who could make sure that the guy behind the counter got some "safe meat and fish handling re-education".

I decided that I would write a comment on the comment card. Most of the comments that they post are of the "I love Whole Foods" variety. I was pretty sure that my comment wasn't going to be posted, so I didn't bother with the "I love Whole Foods" line. Plus, I enjoy looking around, but I don't actually love Whole Foods.

So I wrote up my experience, and then had two more decisions to make. Should I include the offender's name? And should I include my name and contact information. On the first question, I decided that since I was hopeful that this was an isolated incident, I would include the name of the counter guy and hope that someone would make him re-read the safety practices.

The second question took a little more thought (which is not a problem, since I have a lot of them). Their comment board asks you to leave their name and contact information if you want a reply to your comment. I certainly didn't need a reply, but I wasn't sure if it was okay to include his name and not mine. I decided that since two witnesses are required in Jewish law, and I had been alone at the counter, that it was not a question of being a witness. I wasn't sure that relaying an experience was actually accusing him of something, so it wasn't about him knowing his accuser. And I didn't require a personal call back. So I didn't leave my name.

Of course, I probably won't buy fish again at Whole Foods.... Next time I'll make the drive back out to Costco.

Clinic Visits

Like my role in Israel, here in New Orleans, I take people to the clinics. Yesterday, I took a boy to the St. Bernard Clinic located in the parking lot of the Wal-mart that has been closed since Katrina. From the outside, the clinic looks like it's made up of six or eight mobile homes. But when you walk in, it looks like a full clinic. I'm not sure how they did that with the space available in the mobile homes, but they did.

The boy I brought in had been hit in the eye with a basketball. He just wanted his eye checked out and it turned out that he has a small scratch. The doctor was great. He's also the parish coroner and told us just part of his Katrina story. He was in the St. Bernard Hospital when things started flooding. They had 50 patients who hadn't been evacuated and over the next few days, several of them died from the heat and consequences of having no electricity.

The one thing I noticed about the exam room, was that there were posters on the wall, cute little sayings, and other random but interesting things to look at. I mentioned it to the nurse and she said that it was the doctor's idea and that the walls in the other doctors' rooms were blank

And today I went to the New Orleans Health Clinic with a girl who injured her leg. She's fine but needed a few stitches. This clinic was the cleanest place we've been so far. They were doing a brisk business of tourists, so I guess business is good!

More Ranting on GPS

So it turns out, that if you go more than 10 miles above the speed limit, the GPS lady says, "CAUTION!" Can you imagine how annoying that is? It's like driving with your mother. I did find today that I was able to turn that function off. I'm not doing so much highway driving, but when I do, I don't need some anonymous voice telling me to slow down. She's not in danger, and I definitely don't need an imaginary back seat driver.

One other thing. I had to turn left on LA 3021. Now you might think that the voice would say, "Now turn on Louisiana three zero two one." But it doesn't. It says, "Now turn on Louisiana three oh twenty one." It's a freakish thing.

GPS

I have a GPS device in my rental car. I hate it. I can't get it to stick on the dashboard, the voice is always too loud or too quiet and she has an accent that is difficult to understand.

I've heard that there are many different voices in most of these devices in different accents and a choice of male and female voices. Not on mine. I have a choice of English and Spanish. And the woman's voice sounds like English is not her first language. I guess I should try the Spanish voice and see if English is her first language. Except that I'm pretty sure that wouldn't help me.

I made a comment to someone that it sounds like she learned English phonetically. They replied that she did. I think that some words should be pre-programmed. Like most numbers. Or ordinary street names. Except that there aren't ordinary street names in New Orleans. Try and say Tchoupatoulous phonetically. Or La Manche. Corondolet sounded fine, sort of.

Also, she's sort of bossy. If you miss a turn, she says (like she's speaking English as a Second Language that she learned phonetically), "U-turn as soon as possible." Or she says, "In 500 feet, turn left on Dauphine St. " And then "Turn left on Dauphine St. in 200 feet." And then "Turn left on Dauphine St. now." If you don't turn, she says, "What the hell?! I've been telling you for 500 feet about this turn. Do you ignore your mother like this too?!"

I need to buy a map.

The Lower Ninth Ward

If you drive around the lower ninth ward in New Orleans, you see some new houses, some that are old but clearly rebuilt with people living in them, and also a lot of empty lots and lots that have houses that look like they haven't been touched in more than three years. The empty lots are generally overgrown with weeds and the concrete slab the original house sat on has been broken up and overgrown. It's shocking that after so much time, so little has been done. Which is not to discredit the work that has been done - it's just not enough.

Today, we had our buses stop at the corner of Tennessee and N. Claiborne Street to find some space to do their group conversations. I got there a little early. Wow - there are some incredible houses going up. If you asked an architect to design a New Orleans-style house for the 22nd century, I'm pretty sure that this is what they'd look like. Bright colors, similar proportions to the traditional shotgun houses (but much, much bigger), interesting iron work balconies, and also really interesting angled roofs and many with solar panels. It turns out, this is part of Brad Pitt's Make it Right Foundation.

On a completely different note, while I was driving around, I saw four chickens on the side of the road. One of them started to cross in front of my car. There was no reason I could think of why this chicken would be crossing the road. Because I know you're wondering, I neither ran him over nor asked him why he was trying to cross the road.

New Orleans

I'm back in New Orleans this week for spring break. We have 140 students working in New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish on 11 different projects. It's easy to see that things have progressed a little bit in the last two years, but shocking that things are still so devastated.

There are houses all over the Lower Ninth Ward that are still uninhabited and uninhabitable. They are still marked with the Xs of the first responders. And many houses have been rebuilt. They look like new, modern houses and don't have the same unique architectural features that the old houses did, but they are ready for residents and their families.

This week, our groups are tiling, painting, scraping, and doing some deconstruction. This morning, I helped tear down sheet rock. And then I scraped paint off of molding. Very exciting work. And I should have brought my own safety goggles (yes, I have them). The ones I borrowed were too hard to see out of!

Vegan Mac 'n Cheese

Last night, months after having printed out the recipe, I finally tried Vegan Dad's Mac 'n Cheese. The other things I've tried off of his site have been great, and I figured it was time to try something completely different.

I realize that the first thing anyone reading is probably wondering is, "why, when you like cheese, would you try a vegan version?!" Well, because it's there. And because the only other kinds of macaroni and cheese I'm aware of either involve strange orange powders or the making of a roux, a skill that I have not yet really tried to master.

So now I hope you're wondering, "How was it?" Well, it wasn't bad. It wasn't good either. It was too bland. I think it needed a shot of soy sauce. Of course my first thought was that I should have added worcestershire sauce or anchovy paste, but both of those would have negated the vegan-ess of this whole endeavor. My other thought was that it needed some sharp cheddar cheese. My last thought was that it needed peas.

I'm not sure why, but I think with some peas, and maybe some sauteed mushrooms, and a shot of soy sauce, it would actually be good. And it could also have been bland because I didn't have onion powder. But really, if that's what made it bland, it needed more than the recipe called for.

Had I read the comments to the recipe before I'd tried it, I probably would have just started it all that way.... It seems I'm not alone in thinking it needed a little something. Maybe the folks at Velveeta have it right.

New Best Website Ever

Turn on your volume. Don't worry - there's no loud or obnoxious music.

http://savethewords.org/

Business Class vs Coach

I've got a lot of credits on AirTran and while it's not impossible to use them for a free ticket, the several times I've tried, I would have had to get a business ticket (16 credits each way) rather than a regular coach ticket (8 credits each way). And my credits are about to expire - what's a girl to do?

Well, for 4 credits, I can upgrade my ticket to business class when I check in. That seems reasonable to me. The only downside is that it's only a 90 minute flight between Milwaukee and Baltimore. By the time you're allowed to turn your computer on, it's almost time to turn it back off.

As far as I can tell, the benefits of business class are:

• More space. As I am short, the additional leg room doesn't really matter much to me. But what I like are the wide arm rests and the extra big tray table that has room for my big computer. Also, since the row in front is farther away, I can use the computer like a normal person and not be all contorted typing as coach seats necessitate.
• Drinks as soon as you get on the plane. It doesn't matter whether you want alcohol or not - having something to drink early on in the flight is just nice.
• Better snacks. Instead of four mini-pretzels, I got a whole bag of some sort of chips. Granted I'm not really a "chip" person, but I'm also not such a pretzel person, so it was better than the coach alternative.

I have enough credits to upgrade on my next 12 flights.... I could get used to this.

Escalators

Washington DC is really a particular kind of place. As much as everyone there is from somewhere else, a culture develops very quickly, and woe to the person who does not fit in.

At the airport in Milwaukee, I take the escalator from the lower level to my terminal. I stand wherever I want on the escalator. No one is rushing up unless they are seriously late for their flight, in which case it won't be the escalator that slows them up, it will surely be the folks at TSA.

And when I arrive at BWI and take the escalator down to catch my bus, I make sure to stand on the right side. Anyone loitering on the left should know better, despite the fact that there are no signs anywhere indicating this unspoken rule. But at BWI, people who want to walk on the left are polite, because they rightly figure that many of us are coming in from other places.

But on arriving in DC, there is absolutely no standing on the left side of the escalator. Anyone who does is looking for trouble. The words "excuse me" may be read politely on the page (or in the blog), but when someone says them to you on the Metro escalator - beware. They are about 2 seconds away from trampling you or shoving you to the right (and correct) side.

Metro has gone through various attempts to communicate the "walk on the left, stand on the right" culture, and inevitably they give up. There have been on the sides of the escalators, and for a while there were hideous big yellow circles on the floor with "walk left, stand right". My biggest gripe with those was with their grammar. I know what they were trying to say, but it sounded wrong. It would sound better if it said "walk left, stand correctly." Even though I know that's not what they were trying to say. Either way, the circles are gone....

More on Seitan

What can I say? I'm a fan. Tonight I made "ribz". They tasted almost like the Gardenburger Riblets and I have no idea how those compare to the real thing. My guess would be that they aren't even close for a real meat eater. The recipe was the same basic one I've used for fake meat and veggie sausages, but baked with barbeque sauce instead of steamed in foil. The only other small problem I have is that I didn't actually love the barbeque sauce and now I've got most of a bottle left to use.

I've also discovered Trader Joe's Organic Tofu, which is not as firm as I'd like, but it's much cheaper. I can't figure that part out out at all. And for baked tofu (glazed with miso, if you have to know), it's probably better, so it's good all around.

I still haven't made the vegan macaroni and cheese. Mainly because it's not cheese and it requires (according to the recipe) five minutes in the blender. I'm not sure I can handle the noise for that long.

Blog-worthy San Francisco

Observations from my 48 hours in San Francisco:
There is something blog-worthy about having done a site visit at a university that boasts a Palestinian mural to Edward Said on the Malcolm X Plaza outside the Cesar Chavez student center.

It rained almost our entire trip, which was good for the California drought and not so good for walking around.

It may be a relatively small city, but it's very easy to get lost, even with GPS. And since when are GPS voices supposed to have attitude. I'm fairly certain that not following the exact directions being shouted at you at the last minute does not call for the otherwise friendly but increasingly annoying voice to say "If you don't want to follow my instructions you should just stop driving."

Whoever said that there is world-class dining at SFO has not had to wait for a Northwest Airlines flight. On the other hand, Northwest Airlines gets my vote for their decision to hold the last flight of the night 15 minutes to allow us to make the plane.

There can only be one explanation for the fact that Pier 2 and Pier 14 are only a few hundred feet apart. The competing reasons are: Piers 3 - 13 sank, OR, Pier 14 is really Pier 1.4 and the decimal point fell off a few years ago. Why anyone believes the latter is beyond me, but evidently I am just that good of a liar.

I had a terrible headache one morning and after realizing that copious amounts of caffeine were not helping, I asked the cashier at our diner where the closest convenience store was so I could go get some aspirin. She told me there was a small store across the street, but when we both looked over it started to rain again. So she reached into her purse and gave me two wax-paper wrapped packets of powder that she told me had Vitamin C and other good things in it that would clear up my headache. She gave me a glass of orange juice, told me to mix it in and I'd feel better. First, I hate orange juice. Second, she's asking me to take an unknown powder that looks like it was packaged at her dining room table. And she was generous enough to give me another one for later if I needed it. So I took it. I'm not sure whether that, or the Aleve that I took an hour later was the cure I needed, but it turns out that you can take drugs from strangers.

New Technology

I'm not a technophile, nor am I a technophobe. I like gadgets, but in general I'm not convinced that most of them can really improve the quality of life. I could be wrong, and I'm pretty sure I'll think otherwise if I'm ever on a ventilator. In any case, I was thinking about the newer technologies that have made things better and/or easier.

The DVR is something that I love. I can pause a show mid-sentence to dump pasta in boiling water. I can rewind to hear an important line of dialogue that I missed when someone was talking. I can skip commercials. I can re-watch LOST.

I like my ipod, but it hasn't really changed my life. It's nice and I'm glad I have it and wouldn't want to lose or break it. But if I'd never gotten it, that would be okay too.

Someone in our office bought a Keurig coffee machine that takes "K-cups" and brews an individual cup of coffee. Or it can make hot chocolate. Or tea. Or whatever is in the little k-cup. I'm pretty sure it can't make a martini, but in time, I'm sure someone will figure out how. This is something that has changed my office life. I used to go out in the morning and get a large coffee. I would take my time drinking it and by late morning be done. But now, all I have to do is put a little k-cup in the magic machine and there's another cup of coffee. And all for the very low price of fifty cents. I'm not sure I would need one of these at home, but at the office, it's like having our own magician, just for us.

I wonder what's next....

Clumping

I think there are two kinds of people and things in the world: those that clump and those that do not.

For example - last week I was at Whole Foods. They usually have a fair number of samples scattered throughout the store. What I had never noticed is how close together they all are. You don't even have time to finish trying one thing before you're beset with another. I understand that there are good reasons for why they place their samples where they do (something about having them near the product they are actually trying to sell), but it's not convenient for us grazers.

Or today, when I was waiting for the bus. On my way to the bus stop I saw two buses go by (and I was too far away to catch them). Another bus didn't come for 15 minutes, and when it did, there was another bus immediately behind us. There are six bus lines that run down the street -and if they were to each go down the street every five minutes, no one would wait for a bus more than a few minutes. This way, they all seem to be on the same annoying schedule.

More Cheese

It turns out that you can make fresh mozzarella with regular milk. I still bought the Organic Whole Milk, rather than the regular stuff. It's the first gallon of regular milk I think I've purchased in 16+ years. Even though we use other dairy products, for milk, it's only soy in our house. I may need to try the cheese with soymilk next....

I think the cheese is good. It's not as soft as store-bought fresh mozzarella - it's much firmer. I'm not sure if that's a temperature issue (too high?), a rennet issue (too much?), or a patience issue (not wanting to keep dipping and kneading). Or, it could be something else entirely.

Either way, I have more fresh cheese! And a huge (!) pot of soup that I made from the leftover whey. I'm calling it lasagna soup because that's what it smells like. The whey smells a little like ricotta, and once all the vegetables are added and some noodles, it's more or less the same ingredients. Except there's no parmesan. And lasagna doesn't usually have celery and carrots. Or peas or green beans. Or a little bouillion. Whatever.

We also have 1/2 a pot of chili left and if I don't make black bean soup tomorrow, I'll have to find room in the freezer for about 6 cups of black beans. And I also have to figure out where to put another 4-5 cups of navy beans. There's no room in the freezer!

Art

http://www.jacksonpollock.org/

Need I say more?

Someone explain to me...

Why the Washington DC area practically shuts down when there's a threat of a little snow. I woke up this morning to about 1/2 inch of snow, and reports on television of every school in the area closed. At least the Federal Government didn't close. I think that's because Obama is from Chicago and knows that this tradition of closing when there's a little bit of the cold stuff on the ground.

Topics that come up just tonight at the house of the people I'm staying with this week:
Little people (dwarfs), House (the tv show), the virtues of cotton vs polyester socks, hacking into Apple tv, poop, Nigerians, Disney sun glasses that aren't made in adult sizes, the difference between black raspberries and blackberries and last, but definitely not least, octuplets.

Erev Lost!

Heads up - the next season of Lost starts tomorrow. I'm not sure if the internet was slow during the inauguration or if cell towers were overwhelmed, but they will all be fine tomorrow night. All eyes and ears should be watching Lost. No phone calls (maybe not even during commercials), no surfing the web. No Facebook. No reheating dinner. No doodling or creating grocery lists. No speculating during the show about what's going on during the show.

This should also serve as fair warning. Do not call me tomorrow night. Do not expect e-mail from me tomorrow night. Do not expect any Facebook updates.

Fresh Mozzarella!

Sunday, I made cheese. I figured 30-minute mozzarella might actually take a first-timer a bit longer, but it didn't. In 30 minutes we had great, fresh mozzarella cheese.

Not included in the 30 minutes the time that was needed to buy a thermometer (or remember that one was needed) and find low-pasturized milk. And in case you are wondering, low-pasturized milk is expensive! Ideally, raw milk is used, but that's not exactly legal to purchase in the local grocery store.

Thoughts on the Winter

It's always a bit strange to me that winter weather is news. It happens every year, right?

You may be tempted to believe that 16 degrees above zero is a veritable heat wave after days at -6. I am here to say, "do not be tempted". It's no longer dangerous to be outside, but is also not yet warm. By any stretch of the imagination.

The lid of my coffee cup which has been sitting in the car for the last three weeks was frozen onto the base. It tooks several minutes of warm running water to open it.

I no longer believe that 1 inch of snow is worth shoveling.

I saw several cars running unattended this morning. Coincidentally, I read in the newspaper that doing so is a crime. And if your car is stolen while you're warming it up, you still get the fine for leaving the key in an unattended car. But evidently the city has decided not to give tickets if the temperature is less than 10 degrees. Maybe be cause even car thiefs aren't that stupid?

My favorite headline this week came from the Chicago Tribune: City Held Frostage. Below it was a timer marking how long the city temperatures were staying below zero.

My Aliases

When I called home from Israel, for some reason the caller ID always registered a different name. Among them:
John Mort, John Sbonik, Maria Caldero, Paula Collins, Veronica Garza, Mary Dowling, Jeffrey Smith, Terry Nowak, Janell Robinson, Anthony Tomasze, Jim Legault, Nichole Phillips, Kristine Blackman, Domenique Gwin, Joann Berdelman and last but not least... Subway.

Back in the US

The only saving grace on a 14 hour flight is no one sitting in the middle seat.

I learned to order an Asian Vegetarian meal on Delta - it's much better than the regular vegetarian meals, except when dinner is an okra-based meal, and the same thing is served again for breakfast.

We landed in Atlanta, picked up bags, went through Customs, then dropped our bags back off at the "re-check" counter, and then go through security again before getting to the next terminal. Asking people to take off their shoes after a 14 hour flight is just mean.

Delta no longer serves tomato juice on their domestic flights. Instead, you can opt for Bloody Mary mix. Crazy, but at least it has more flavor.

The Nigerians are Here!

Well, not here, since I'm now back in Jerusalem, but they were here when I was in Tiberius.

I walked into the King Solomon Hotel and found myself in a sea of Nigerians. Fifty people (maybe more?) all wearing clothing made from the same bolt of fabric. Some with tunics and pants, some just tunics, some tops and skirts, some dresses. But all the same fabric. No different pattern, no different colors. Not knowing anything about Nigerian culture, I don't know if this is normal, or just special for traveling.

But here's the great part - what they were wearing was in perfect contrast to the carpeting in the hotel. I'm pretty sure it was not planned in advance.

In case you're wondering, I tried but was not successful at getting pictures of all the Nigerians together. Nor could I get a picture of a Nigerian walking across the carpet. Oh well.

Aroma in Kiryat Shemona

I can't decide if it's a compliment or just embarrassing when the woman behind the counter at the coffeeshop (Aroma) in Kiryat Shemona greets me like a long lost friend. I didn't think I'd spent that much time here!

Last night, walking from our hotel to downtown Tiberius (an oxymoron if there ever was one), we saw a green bean tree. I'm not sure they were actually green beans, and it was definitely not a vine that looked like a tree, but it most definitely looked like a green bean tree. Only in Israel.

Tiberius

For reasons unknown, I really love Tiberius. It's a lot like Milwaukee maybe - a little town on a lake. Ok, the lake here is more like a pond, and it's very hilly, but otherwise, maybe they are similar. What I don't love (which my faithful readers have read before), is that there is no internet access here. I have to drive out to the southern end of the Kinneret to the Aroma cafe in order to get any work done. I could also be working at the gas station next door (the Yellow), but the cafe is a bit nicer and the music isn't quite as loud.

Plus, if I stay long enough, I might order a haloumi sandwich for lunch, which would make me very happy.

On a different note, I am NOT on my fourth rental car, but I am on my third and while I thought I was going to get another one this morning, they just cleaned out the third. Somewhere along the Bika road yesterday, a light went on. Now, I basically grew up with the idea of just putting a piece of tape over the light and assuming it was no longer a problem. But... I was on a desert road with very few places to stop and while it wasn't the engine light, I also didn't want to get stuck with no where to go, no cell phone reception, a barbed wire fence on once side and a really, really big hill that tops out who knows where on the other.

So I stopped at a gas station where thankfully someone spoke English (I do not know car-related words in Hebrew). We checked the oil (fine), brake fluid (fine), wiper fluid (low, but I didn't care), radiator fluid (fine, I think), and finally they said I needed more distilled water in the battery. I asked if it was dangerous and was told that it wasn't. So I kept driving. I had about another hour before I could get to Tiberius and change the car.

When I walked into Hertz, the woman started laughing, since I had been there a week ago to change the first car to the second. The car guy there confirmed for me that while the light didn't indicate anything dangerous, it was very, very good that I'd brought it back. So I got another car, but it was filthy. I couldn't exactly understand when they told me to come back this morning if I was getting a new, clean car, or if they were just going to clean the third car. It turns out they cleaned it, sort of. Whatever....

Other Random Things

Some of the hotels I've stayed at this trip have a German language station as part of the cable package. I was flipping through the channels late one nights and noticed an episode of Law and Order. Since there are probably thousands of different episodes at this point, the chances of seeing one I haven't seen is generally pretty good. Except that this episode was dubbed into German. And there were no subtitles - in Hebrew or English. And I'm sure the voices sound different to people who actually speak or understand German, but to me, they all sounded the same. Needless to say, I did not watch the show.

Last night was crowded on Ben Yehuda street. And right in the middle of the road (it's a pedestrian place, so not exactly a road) there was a Korean choir singing. I think they were Korean - I'm not actually positive. And I couldn't tell what language they were singing in. It may have been Hebrew. They had song books, and a choir director and seemed very earnest, whatever they were singing. And they had quite a crowd around them who I think were also wondering who they were and what they were singing. I learned this morning that they are there every night.

We talk in our staff training about remembering that the things we have always loved about Israel may not be the same for our participants. And we always use the example of someones favorite falafel place - that just because you've always gone there and had great falafel, doesn't mean that other people have to make it "their" places as well.

So last night, I was walking by the falafel stand that we went to several times a week on our first trip to Israel. I don't know - maybe I went there once a week, but in my memory, it was every night, which I know it wasn't. They have a new sign out front that says "established 1985". Well, that's a huge problem, because my first trip to Israel was in 1982! Is my favorite falafel stand not really my favorite falafel stand? Did they get the sign wrong? Was it a different falafel stand but in the same location? I haven't actually eaten a falafel there in years - but it's got the reputation of being the best place on the block. So even if it's not my falafel stand, it's someones....

Dakar 2009

It so happens that I'm usually in Israel for two of my favorite sporting events - the Tour de France in late June/July and the Dakar rally in January. Over Shabbat I was thinking that the rally should be starting sometime soon and sure enough, when I turned the tv on last night (obviously NOT charging my phone) I found coverage of the first day of the rally.

This year, they are racing round trip from Buenos Aires through Valparaiso, Chile. Now I realize you might be wondering why the traditioanlly Paris-Dakar rally is running on a completely different continent, and the answer is: I'm not sure yet. The coverage I've seen has all been in Hebrew and mainly dealt with the first day crowds in Buenos Aires and the length of the first day (longer than the route for previous first days of the rally).

The Hotel will Speak for Itself

I had a strange hotel room the last three nights. Not one outlet save the one that the television was plugged into. In fact, the cord on the desk lamp had been left hanging since there was no where to plug it in. I'm not sure why there even was a lamp in that case. The bed side lamps were attached to the wall (as opposed to sitting on the nightstand), which was fine, except that the switch to turn them on and off was on the wall in a place where even a person with very long arms would have to get up out of bed to turn them off. Having only one outlet meant I had to decide whether to charge my phone or watch tv. I don't like decisions like that.

Many of the rooms I've stayed in have a hot water kettle and tea bags, sugar etc. This room obviously couldn't because there would have been no where to plug in the kettle. Never the less, there was a card on the desk that read,

"Dear Guests,

Your room is equiped with a coffee/tea making set

For your conviniance we are happy to oper you a coffee packege which includes:

Black coffee, instant coffee, decafenated coffee, tea, non diary cream milk, sugare, artaficial sweather

For the price of 10 NIS

You mey purchuse the coffee/tea package at the lobby or dail the room service"

Seriously - all those spelling errors were theirs - not my poor typing!

Blown Breakers

Last night I stayed up in the Thai Village. It's near Kfar Blum, and basically a bunch of cabins with a pseudo-Thai theme and a Thai restaurant. It was raining last night and everything was really muddy. This place doesn't have a paved road in site. Most are gravel and the walkways that exist from the road to the cabins are very unevenly spaced paving stones.

I got into my cabin, turned on the lights, turned on the heat, and started some hot water for tea. Two minutes later, the power goes out and an emergency light goes on. I put my muddy shoes back on, go outside, and find out that it is only my cabin that is without power. Because I left my car key inside, I cannot get to the flashlight I have in the back seat.

I come back inside, take off my muddy shoes, and look for but do not see any obvious circuit breaker box. I call the main reception desk. No one answers. I put my shoes back on, get to the car (remember, there are only ill-spaced pavers between me and my car) and drive over to the other side of the Village. [why drive? a) it's raining. b) there is no bridge over the Jordan river and c) it's a long walk in the middle of the night in the rain.

I park my car in a huge puddle (the only place to park) and make my way to the restaurant. It's basically closed, and there are only Thai women there cleaning up. I try to explain that I have no electricity. The woman asks me if I need a remote control for my television. I said, "I have no lights or heat - I have no electricity". She gets someone else who can understand me.

The next woman says, "Why didn't you tell Casey?" A) I have no idea who Casey is and B) I have no idea where I would find Casey if I knew he existed. She calls Casey who agrees to meet me at my cabin. On a side note - seeing Thai women speak Hebrew is weird. I take Casey's number in case there is some problem since I'm not so excited by all the rain and mud and driving. And by the way, it's late.

I drive back to the other side of the Village and find my cabin door open and a man standing on a chair looking at the breaker box I hadn't found earlier. He flips a switch, and then says, "I'll be back." I was grateful that he didn't also say "Come with me if you want to live."

And my flashlight was still in the car....

Talk Radio, the Ocean, and Free Candles at the Coffee Shop

I'm sitting in my hotel in Netanya. I moved the desk so I can look through the floor to ceiling windows as I work. I'm probably not quite as productive as I would be if there wasn't a very blue Mediterranean Sea crashing along the beach 50 yards away, but there didn't seem to be a point in having my back to the view. Two things would make this a much better situation: clean windows and some fresh air. It's very windy, so the fresh air might get old quickly in terms of noise, but it would be better than stale air. Even so, it's all pretty spectacular.

I drove here this morning from a place across the road from Kiryat Shemona. That's less relevant than the fact that it's hard to find a decent radio station. And what I did find was talk radio. I hate talk radio - it doesn't matter what language it's in. If I don't agree with the callers, there seems to be no point in wasting my time listening to them. And if I do agree with them, there's also no point to listening. Thankfully, I have three new CDs to listen to and I can't wait to load them on to my ipod. (Thanks, Esther!)

I stopped on the way at a coffeeshop to get some work done since I had no internet access at our last hotel. I ordered some coffee and sat at a table as far away from the smokers as I could be. The problem - there was no outlet nearby. So I had about 90 minutes on my computer. Just as I started to close everything up, the guy behind the counter gave me a scented candle. That's a new one for me. He also gave it to the guys behind me who looked like truck drivers (and who looked like they had never seen a vanilla-scented candle) and the older couple behind them. Maybe I should stop there more often.

It's been raining the last few days. It's good for the farmers and the Kinneret and muddy for everyone else. Really muddy. My car is filthy as are many of my clothes. Oh well.

I was in Tzfat yesterday. There's a well-known candle factory there that evidently had a fire. I heard they lost their entire inventory. I'm not sure whether it would have been better to lose everything by other means or not....

More...

Ok - so this should have come before the last post. You'll get the idea. I tried to send it on Wednesday night but it just saved and wouldn't post. I think it's all working now....

I was sitting on Wednesday night (aka Christmas Eve) at the Atlanta airport and learned that Terminal E has free wireless. The other terminals do not - so for any of you who fly and carry your laptops and have a layover and want to check you email, head to Terminal E. In Terminal C, where I landed, there was great Christmas music playing. Terminal E - nothing. If I hadn't been so tired, I'd have taken the little train back.

Seen: one Israeli woman wearing a lime green velour track suit. Lime green. Velour. Lime green. She may have been comfortable, but it was not a nice cut for her and less flattering than she realizes. I know that I tend to let people know when their slip is showing or their fly is down, but this situation was way beyond my abilities.

Seen: One clearly Jewish mother and two tween girls. The mother was dressed in a longer skirt and sweater. The two girls were wearing skirts and tops AND tights that had multi-colored horizontal stripes on them, and really, really ugly shoes. And the horizontal-striped tights weren’t two or three or four repeating colors – oh no. There were at least 9 or 10 or 11 different colors, none of which seemed to match the brown color of the skirts they were wearing. I know it’s not nice to make fun of kids – I’m blaming their mother for this one.

Seen (and on my flight): One tall blond woman (not naturally blond) who was wearing a skin-tight red dress that was quite short and quite plunging. She was also wearing 4-inch heel red leather boots and carrying a gold shiny tote bag. Oh, and she had a fedora on. I was pretty sure she'd be seated next to the most religious man on the flight, but alas, she wasn't. That would have at least made for good theater.

It seems that the majority of people traveling on Christmas Eve are either Israeli and/or Jewish, or Muslim or Hindu. Some of them might be Orthodox (Christian) but I couldn't tell that. Pretty much everyone I saw was speaking Hebrew, wearing a head scarf or appears to be Indian. The Israeli women all had that curly hair and the men all had shaved heads or are old with their shirts unbuttoned too far down. Seriously - I thought that went out in the 70s, or at least the 80s.

I believe the one exception to this was the couple who was sitting next to me for a while who prayed before eating their Panda Express combo plates. I’m not sure how that place really stays in business – and it’s definitely not food I would eat, or I want my seat-mates to eat before a long international flight! I had a bagel and peanut butter for the plane and I was lucky that I got non-peanut allergic neighbors on the plane. I wasn't looking to send anyone into anaphylactic shock. That would be bad Israel karma.

Oh, and one more thing. I think my mother will be followed my flight on NORAD like some people follow Santa Claus. She called in the afternoon to find out what airline I was flying and what time the plane left. And she double checked that I was leaving from Atlanta and not New York. I'm not sure if NORAD follows flights out of North America.... I guess she'll let us know.

A lot to write...

A lot has happened in the first several days....

I spent Shabbat Kibbutz Ginosar. It’s beautiful but it's shocking to see how low the level of the Kinneret is. The boat docks have had to add one lower extension after another so that they have access to the shores. I’m told that you can see the tops of the water pumps – if the water goes much lower, they won’t be able to pump the water at all.

It’s still Chanukah, and what I’ve learned is that latkes are not a particularly Israeli food. On the other hand, there are sufganiot everywhere.

My rental car is one of the worst I’ve ever had the pleasure of driving. It actually drives fine, but that’s about all that’s ok. It’s fairly dented up (duly noted on the rental sheet) and when I closed the door yesterday, the antenna fell off. Then, I was driving two people up North with me and we realized the floor of the back seat (left side) was soaking wet as was the seat on the right side. What we didn’t know until much later, was that the trunk was also soaked along with the things that had been sitting in the trunk. Lovely.

On the other hand, I’ve had great shakshouka, which could make up for having a crappy car.

UPDATE:
I traded in my car today, which looked even worse than when I got it. I think whatever glue they were using to hold some of the parts together was finally coming loose. But now I have a Subaru of some kind rather than the Mazda. And this car doesn't smell.

Snow...

We've got a lot of snow on the ground - maybe eight inches or so, plus some serious drifting. I flew in last night before the snow began and they were already cancelling flights for this morning. Even the malls are closed this morning - a surprising thing just a few days before Christmas.

You know it's a bad snow when in addition to all of the school closings, the Milwaukee Beer Hall is closed. They just announced it on the news, which has been all snow, all the time. And it was just announced that the on and off ramps to the main highway out of the state are closed. I guess they figure they're just giving up until it stops blowing so much.

And supposedly some of what we got was thunder snow, and some may have been convection snow. It's all white to me.

Our neighbors to the East are German immigrants and keep a meticulous lawn and driveway. I’m fairly certain we’ve seen them getting snow out of the cracks in their sidewalk with a tooth brush. Seriously. Even they aren’t out yet and theirs is usually the first house clean on the whole block.

Our neighbor on the other side has a a big, powerful, envy-worthy snowblower. (I honestly don't envy her snowblower, but if I did aspire to bigger and better loud machinery, that would be the one). Even she was having trouble getting through the drifting snow. She's the only one out trying their hand on our whole block. And the snow hasn't stopped falling yet.

And then there’s us - playing a game of chicken with our downstairs neighbor for who will go out first to start shoveling, or tempting fate with our small, possibly broken snowblower....

Baltimore Police Department

I'm in Baltimore, sitting in a coffee shop with five Baltimore Police Officers sitting at the next table. They are all really big guys. Humongous guys, all in full uniform. I'm not sure what all of the things are that are attached to their belts, but there are a lot of things. They spent five minutes talking about whether the Sarge likes one of the guys or not. It was very eighth grade, with one of the other officers text messaging the Sarge to find out.

It's an inside look at how groups work. One guy is talking too much (the one who thinks the Sarge doesn't like him), one isn't talking at all and is just quietly eating his bagel, one guy who looks more senior is just sitting back chuckling most of the time etc. This could be police officers (it is), or social workers, or retail workers....

My New Obsession

I'm a bit obsessed with seitan. A few weeks before Thanksgiving, I found a new website: http://vegandad.blogspot.com/. I'm not sure how I found myself there but I'm glad I did. The first thing I noticed was his recipe for vegetarian sausages. I figured the worst thing that could happen if I tried them was that I might be wasting $3 worth of ingredients. Not a horrible cost for a food experiment. At least the recipes don't call for truffles!

So I tried to make them. It was a little too easy and I was pretty sure that I must be doing something wrong. Plus, I didn't have all the spices he called for (fennel and oregano - I know, who doesn't have oregano?!) and I added some Korean hot sauce.

Ronnie and I were both nervous as we tried them - I mean we knew they wouldn't be completely inedible, but whether they would be worth eating was going to be another question. They were not only edible, they were excellent. And lightly cooked in the frying pan for breakfast the next morning, they were even better.

So for Thanksgiving, I tried the stuffed "turkey". It was also excellent! The only thing I would do differently there would be to try the stuffing he recommended or make mine more interesting. I made a pretty boring stuffing and it tasted too much like the "turkey" (but with a different texture).

And today, I watched a video (from a different website) on making seitan corned beef. There are two strange things about that last sentence. First, seitan corned beef?! (Evidently yes.) Second, a video teaching you to make seitan corned beef on the internet? (I am so far behind this whole technology thing!)

I think my next project is going to be the veggie lunch meat from Vegan Dad's site. The one thing I know for sure, I will never buy another package of Tofurkey slices or otherwise.

The Transference of Opposibility

I'm in St. Louis. One of my regular fall tasks at my parents house is to duct tape a big garbage bag over the air conditioner in the kitchen so it doesn't let the winter air blow in. I've done this for the past four years without consequence.

This year, I decided to sign my work in duct tape strips on top of the air conditioner. Just trust me - if you saw the set up, this would make sense. But I learned that vanity comes at a price. In fact, I paid in blood. Trying to cut thin strips of duct tape to spell out "AH", I got the scissors stuck on the tape and when I unstuck them, I also sliced open my left thumb.

I finished my signature and then headed inside, leaving a bloody trail. Ok, there wasn't enough blood yet to leave a trail, but there could have been if the wound was bigger or if I'd had a few more initials to put down in tape on the garbage bag.

There are no easy decisions at my parents house. Bandaid or steri-strip? Anti-bacterial goop or none? Emergency Room or Urgent Care? I decided right away against the ER and also decided that if the bleeding didn't stop in 10 minutes, that I would consider Urgent Care. I think with enough pressure on a wound, you can just assume that you've scared the blood away.

And we went with anti-bacterial goop, gauze and tape.

So for the next few hours, I couldn't really use my thumb. Which made eating dinner hard. It was then that I was wondering why only our thumbs are opposible and not our other fingers as well. I can't really figure out what that would look like, but it would certainly make eating easier.

I know that there are people all over the world who for many reasons have no thumbs, or even hands for that matter and they are not malnourished. So I get that it's possible to eat without the use of one thumb. But wouldn't it be interesting if our bodies compensated by transferring the opposition to another finger when our thumbs aren't able to perform their regular duties?

I'm just sayin'....

Malls....

I was in a mall today for the first time in a long time. My Trader Joe's is on the outskirts of an outdoor mall, but other than that, I don't think I've been in an indoor shopping mall in well over a year. What I learned, is that there will probably be very little reason to return anytime in 2009.

Malls are filled with maybe three or different types of stores (jewelry, clothes of various types, and electronics) and they're all basically selling the same thing. And right now, everything is on sale, which makes me wonder why anyone goes there during the rest of the year.

Why did I go to the mall? There was one store going out of business and I was hoping to see if there was anything worth buying given how inexpensive things would be. After all that, there wasn't. Really, at 40% off, there still wasn't anything worth spending money on.

What was interesting about the overall experience though is what happens at malls before the stores actually open. I got to the mall before the stores open. People were walking in so I figured it would be better to wait inside where it was warm than in my car. Plus, there was no coffee in my car.

There were probably a hundred people, really, walking around in circles throughout the mall. Mostly older people and mainly women. And these are serious walkers - a few of them almost ran me over. But in my search for coffee, I found the men. They were all sitting at the food court drinking coffee and playing cards and probably waiting for their wives.

My Herbal Medicine Class

So last night I took another class with the cheese lady. This time, it was class three of a four class series on using herbs. I wasn't so interested in the first two topics so there I was in a room of 15 other people, some of whom were also taking the 3rd class as their first. Who knew it would be so popular. Why did I take it? Well, I would never go to the doctor for a simple cold, but I figured it was cheaper than a co-pay, so why not.

She started off introducing herself as someone who is trained in the tradition of the Wise Women. And then she sang a song. She said that she always starts class by singing a song. Trust me, had there been a song at the cheese class, I'm not sure I would have come back. And I already paid for the 4th class. Oh well. At least it was a short song. And she didn't try to teach it and make us sing, so that was ok.

Now before I go on, picture in your mind the person who might be this teacher. Okay, got the picture? If you saw a 50-something woman with long gray hair tied in braids, you get a gold star.

And then she passed around kelp for us to munch on. I like seaweed, so I expected it to taste like the bottom of an aquarium. Others in the class had no such expectations.

Last night we learned how to make infused oils and the dangers of essential oils. I don't really remember why they are dangerous, but I suppose as long as I know she believes that they are, that's good enough for now. And then we made a balsam fir infused oil. In four to six weeks it will be ready to strain and ready for use. Evidently I'll be able to make lotions and lip balms, use it for cooking or massage, and if I remembered what healing properties balsam fir is known for, I could use it for that too.

Then we made a comfrey poultice. Yes, a comfrey poultice. It was fairly easy. You chop up some comfrey, add water, put it in a blender and then put a few spoonfuls on a rag. It's good for sprains, strains and other such maladies. I'm not sure I could ever do this on my own, not knowing what comfrey actually looks like in the wild. (She'd brought a big basket of the roots already harvested. )

And then, we made throat lozenges out of honey and marshmallow root powder. They don't really taste like anything, but my throat was soothed, or so I imagined. I brought six or seven home and I'm fairly certain I could make them on my own.

At some point, she had mullen tea for us to taste. I have no idea what a mullen is, but I will not be making tea from it anytime soon.

Class 4 should be interesting...

What not to Do

It's not a good idea to spill split pea soup in your keyboard.

Thankfully, it's our regular desktop computer keyboard and not my fancy new laptop from work. That would just be embarrassing. Mainly because I get the sense that our IT guys are more minestrone types than split pea.

Which takes me to the problem with winter. It requires too many bowls. Hot cereal for breakfast, soup or chili for lunch (or dinner) times two people is already four bowls a day. Not to mention spoons. In three days, we're out of bowls. Four days if we share a bowl or two.

The other problem with this is that when you're out of bowls, it doesn't mean the dishwasher is anywhere close to being full. The only part that's full is where the bowls go. Okay, maybe there are also a few plates but not enough to run the machine. So then the bowls have to come out to be washed by hand, which I would have done to start with if I had known.

Or it's possible I'm just eating too much soup. But it's easy to make and relatively healthy and freezes well.

Oh, the other thing not to do is wait to buy an electric teapot. I've wanted one for years and finally got one a few months ago. It's among the greatest inventions ever. It's probably just a winter appliance but since it's winter now, I'm happy.

Election Day

I just got back from our public library returning some old books and checking out new ones. The basement of the library was serving as a polling place today and the study room in the Young Adult section was being used to register new voters.

Let me be clear - the polls have been open since 6am and they are open until 7 or 8pm tonight. And early voting has been available for weeks. And yet, there was a line of at least 8 people (I didn't look and see how far into the room the line extended) waiting to register to vote. What were these people waiting for? Did they not get the message? I don't begrudge them their right to vote, but I think that registering to vote shouldn't take place two hours before the polls close.

When we went to vote this morning, we were asked for our name and to confirm our address. No proof of idenfitication, address or signature necessary. I left wondering who else's name I could vote under. I did not try and test the system.

Our polling place is an elementary school. They were having a bake sale. I think no one gave them the message that if you vote and wear your "I Voted" sticker you get free treats. Plus, if the referendum to lower property taxes by increasing sales tax passes, they shouldn't need to be holding as many bake sales or charging as much for what looked like a misshapen, dried out brownie.

Knock, Knock

I want the political canvassers (aka: people with clipboards) to stop knocking on my door and ringing the bell. It's been going on for weeks now, several times a day. And they're leaving all sorts of annoying literature. ARGGGH!

I finally wrote a note and posted it on the door. It says:
"Dear Political Canvassers,
Please do not ring the bell. We have finely honed
ESP skills and your thoughts will be more appreciated than
your actions."

What I wanted to end with was "Now go away!" But I didn't, because no matter what my reputation, I'm just not that rude. Most of the time.

When I went down to tape the note to the door, the clipboard-holding doorbell-ringing canvassers were across the street. You would have thought that I held raw steak for a hungry junkyard dog to see how fast they ran toward me. I pulled their literature off my door and handed it back to them. And then I (more or less politely) asked them to please take us off whatever list shows that we want to be interrupted several times a day by a loud buzzer.

One of them tried to hand me a "I Voted Today" sticker to put on our door that she swore would stop the offenses. I told her I hadn't yet voted and that when I did, I would be happy to wear a sticker. (Plus, I hear that all sorts of coffee, ice cream and donut shops are giving away free treats if you wear your sticker tomorrow. I wonder what happens to the people who voted last week and didn't keep theirs, or it stopped sticking. Maybe we could get a whole roll and pass them out to homeless people so they can get a coffee and donut? But I digress....) And, I have no idea if both parties are abiding by the "sticker on the door" rule or just hers.

The sad thing is that I love Election Day. I don't care who you vote for - I love that we vote. In fact, I think we should have a rule that says if you can vote but don't, your taxes double. That would either pay down our national debt really fast or get more people involved in the democratic process. Hmm, I wonder if any of the candidates has thought of this yet....

This Week in DC

I was in DC working. Many things happened. Try and match the quote with the quoter:

1. "Andrea, let me know before you go downstairs. I need to get lightbulbs and some pants." [commentary: You don't hear that line too often. I think it would make a great first sentence in someone's next novel. If you know any writers, please let them know. ]

2. "Really?!" (when talking about the cheese voucher we get in Wisconsin each year)

3. "You know what you should blog about?"

4. "I'll have a job by the end of the night" (said at 9:30pm)

a. Andy
b. Dennis
c. D'kneel
d. Stevie

I also learned a few things. We have a Hillel director at Tel Aviv University, P'nina, who was part of Operation Moses (the efforts to bring Ethiopian Jews to Israel). It was the first time I'd heard her story. She was only three, but she said that their community hadn't know that Israel was a modern country. They'd assumed it was just like Ethiopia, only Israel. Since the Ethiopian Jews were cut off from the rest of the Jewish world for so long, they only practiced the Judaism found in the Torah. They didn't know Chanukah, and some of the more remote villages didn't know that the 2nd Temple had been destroyed. And then of course there was the regular work stuff....

The Cheese Stands Alone

I live in Wisconsin, so of course I love cheese. Alaska may give out rebates to their citizens for their oil production, but in Wisconsin, each resident gets a voucher for 10 pounds of cheese a year. That's just not enough, so I decided to learn how to make my own.

It wasn't the full adventure I think it could have been, but it was interesting none-the-less.

Last Tuesday, I took an Intro to Cheese Making class at our local food co-op. We made mozzarella and started some feta. It was not hard at all. I'm not sure I would try feta at home, but the mozzarella - definitely. It takes a few days to get all of the whey out of the feta and I'm not sure I'd have the patience for it. But maybe...

I learned a few interesting things.

• Cheese is better with non-homogenized and non- or low-pasturized milk. And according to our teacher, raw milk (or "farm fresh" as the euphemisms go) is the ideal. I priced the non-homogenized, low pasturized milk and it's $5 per half gallon. I'm not sure when I'm going to try the mozzarella, but it better be good at that milk price!
• It's not hard to find vegetarian (and even kosher) rennet.
• At least for the soft cheeses, (if I understood correctly) the type of cheese is determined by the timing - when you put the acid and coagulant in.
• If you have a goat and nettles, you can make cheese. I have neither.
• Salt (flaked and non-iodized) is used to pull the whey out of the curds and it keeps the bacteria at bay. It's not a flavoring agent.
• If you really want to make hard cheese correctly, you need a cave.
• You can put feta in olive oil and then just put it on the shelf - no refrigeration needed.

And I now own a piima culture. This can be used to make kefir, cultured butter and cultured milk (aka buttermilk). Evidently this will last forever if I take care of it. I'm not so confident.

Some commentary on the class itself: There were 22 people - about 12 too many in my opinion. And the teacher was interesting but talked about her food and health agenda too much. I was there to learn how to make cheese, not hear about her aversion to anything that is not a whole, unprocessed food. I still may take an herb class with her next month - we'll see. And she said that if enough people request it, she'll teach another cheese class.

The Problem with Conservative Jewry

I got an email today from someone who works at a local Conservative synagogue. She asked if I could recommend a speaker for their Sisterhood Shabbat. Their theme is Jewish continuity, they have almost no money to pay someone, and they want someone to speak about population decline in addition to the practical side of what to do at home with your children/grandchildren to keep Judaism going.

Really?! This is their topic?! I recommended that they invite someone from interfaithfamily.com. It was a serious recommendation. To me, this whole topic, addressed at a Sisterhood Shabbat is preaching to the choir. Are there really that many things that an "outsider" can tell them that will teach them how to keep Judaism going with their children?

And what does it even mean - to keep Judaism going? Does that mean they have to marry someone Jewish? Go to services every Shabbat? Keep kosher? Is it ok if they just wear a Jewish star around their neck?

If they'd asked me, I would have suggested they find someone to speak about what the Jewish world will be like 10 or 20 years from now when their children are older. How have things changed and what direction are they headed? What will the next Heeb magazine be? Who will be the next Matisyahu?

And what's the point of talking about a population decline? There are far fewer Jains in the world than there are Jews and they've been around almost as long (if not longer).

I probably shouldn't pick on the Conservative Jews. I imagine these same subjects are bandied about in all sorts of congregations in all sorts of denominations. They just aren't asking me for recommendations....

Stumps

Today we removed a tree stump from our back yard. The yard guy who told us it needed to be done said it would take two hours. Sadly, he was mistaken. It was three hours of actually working in the yard, and another hour or so to buy the right shovels and an axe.

Yes, we are now the proud owners of an axe. Well, really it's more of a hatchet, but I don't really care.

We have at least three more large tree/plants to dig up around the house and I'm fairly certain if not very, very hopeful that we started with the most difficult.

First, it was, at some point, a fairly big tree. And at some point in the not so distant past, someone cut it down. And it looks like they even tried to take the stump out of the ground - a few of the monster roots were cut short. What wasn't cut were the two really, really huge and thick roots coming out the side and happily entrenched in clay and mud. Yes, I am now the proud owner of the knowledge that our back yard is evidently mostly clay.

But before we could dig in, we had to move the red volcanic rock that had been laid down by the previous owner. When we bought the house it looked beautiful. And then last fall the trees lost their leaves and have you ever tried raking rocks? That's right - it doesn't work! So no matter what we need to get rid of the rocks. I can only imagine what the slaves in Egypt felt like. Note to self: moving rocks is not fun.

We found no buried treasure. We did find lots and lots of worms. I'm not sure if they're red wigglers or not, but the idea of composting is fast becoming a possibility if they are and/or it doesn't matter.

Amazing Race and Survivor

I'm bored. It's a great show. It wins Emmys every year. And this season - it's just not doing it for me.

I was okay when the older bee keeping couple lost in the first round. There have been much more interesting older participants in past rounds. And I can't even remember who lost last week, but I'm sure I didn't like them so much either.

This week, the geeky boys lost. That was a shame. They were at least a little interesting. If only they'd read their clue more closely. Oh well. I would have been fine if the fraternity boys had lost. They are not doing anyone any favors by being on the show.

This week, the teams were in Bolivia. Seems like a great place, but not necessarily the place you want to do an aerobic challenge - like wrestling. Did they not think about altitude sickness for participants in advance?

And yes, I'm one of the people still watching Survivor, even though it hasn't been so interesting this round either. Maybe this week, when the previews have a wild elephant a little too close for comfort it will be a little better. And then again, maybe not.

The Bailout

This whole economic situation is crazy, and here's a perfect example. The headline reads: Woman, 90, shoots self inside foreclosed home. I was intrigued that a 90 year-old was still paying a mortgage. So I read the article.

Here's what gets me about this story - the woman took out a 30-year mortgage in 2004. I'm not sure when her birthday is, but if she's 90 years old now, she was 86 then. And a bank gave her a 30-year mortgage.

Really?! In what universe did they expect this woman to live up to the terms of her contract? More people are living beyond 100, but not so many are making it until 116. I don't think I'm advocating age discrimination. But c'mon, don't we have to wonder what the loan officer was thinking? No wonder the banks are failing!

Okay - the issue isn't that she died and left 26 years on her mortgage for her heirs to figure out. It's that she couldn't make the payments. Maybe she owed her bookie? The article doesn't say whether she was working into her 80s and therefore had reason to believe she could pay, or whether her social security was enough for the payments.

I am not unsympathetic to the folks heading in to foreclosure. But I think a good number of them should have read the fine print, and I definitely don't feel bad for the banks who made stupid loans when any 7th grader can tell them that someone with a $30,000 income can't afford a $500,000 mortgage.

There was a item on the news recently about a woman's whose bank failed and she lost $20,000. I coudn't figure out how that could happen - everyone knows that accounts are insured to $100,000, right? So I kept watching. It turns out she had $120,000 in her account and therefore the last $20,000 wasn't insured. It's a shame to hear that people are losing money they've worked hard for, but she knew the rules. A second account at the bank down the street would have taken her 15 minutes to open whether she thought her bank might fail or not.

Wow - I had no idea I was so heartless....

Update on the woman who shot herself here.