Alecto's Ophelia

Ah Jeeze...

I had to turn off the new compose editor because based on results I must have a very slow connection. Heh, sucky T3 line.

So here's my dog. Notice he's filling up a monogrammed bed? Notice his name is NOT Homer? Poor Homer. Looks cute, yah? He pees constantly. Almost always where he's supposed to (on the paper) and has only pooped in the house once as compared to the seventy-eight times he's pooped outside since Sunday evening when we brought him home. Might have something to do with taking him out every thirty-seven seconds.

It's been a great week. Or something. On Monday Nanny wrecked the nanny mobile. OK, I exaggerate. On Monday Nanny was in an accident that did just under $6,000 in damage to my $14,000 15 month old Honda Civic that has to live another, let me see, six years. At least. Nanny is fine (she's just mad because the woman who pulled out in front of her wouldn't make eye contact after the fact). Little Girl was not in the car.  All right, so that was Monday.

On Tuesday I found a series of photographs that sent me from hot to right off the deep end. They went like this:

1. Photograph taken Friday night at my house while I was in Vermont. Ten nannies having a party. I can draw the conclusion that the photographer was either my seventeen year old daughter left home alone for the first time ever or nanny number eleven. Before we left Nanny asked if she and four friends could have dinner in my kitchen to celebrate her birthday and could she have a bottle of champagne and the answer was a very polite hell no so I thought I'd better explain no parties and for god's sake no house parties and here are all the reasons why the hell not in my house with my kid present much less in my house even if my kid is not present. Could I be any more clear? Apparently I was clear as mud (do I strike any of you as murky?).
2. Pictures of my kid that while harmless were posted on a public site along side some rather questionable photos and while I don't have a huge issue with my kids on the web, it's um, only if I post them, not you the nanny and certainly not after you've been told by me and Au Pair America that we do not post pictures of the children on the Internet.
3. Photographs taken by my nanny at an over 21 club in Stamford. She's 20.
4. Photographs of what appeared to be my nanny at said club hanging upside down from a, um, pole. By her feet. Mostly dressed.

I wanted to drive my nasty-assed rental car (that I have so that she can drive my car to get the kid to and fro all the places the kid needs to go) home immediately and interrogate her within an inch of her life but Nomans and I had an appointment we'd already put off once and really needed to keep. So we fretted the hours away until we both arrived home at about 7:45 and confronted the poor girl with the photographs.

It went badly. Lets see, how'd it go...

• I didn't know ten was a party
• I didn't invite them all they just showed up, I couldn't stop them
• Everyone goes to Hula Hanks, we just walk right in
• I never drink and drive your car, Nora drives
• Cletus had no idea we were downstairs, we were really quiet

Nomans did a pretty good job finishing her off on Tuesday evening. I refused to even look at her until Wednesday morning at which point I assured her that she was (and is) a wonderful nanny but that she absolutely can not behave this way and live in my house and that flagrant disregard for local laws and custom (especially felonies) shows extreme idiocy and sets an absolutely unacceptable example for my seventeen year old. OK, I used slightly stronger words.

On Wednesday evening we all went to dinner as planned to celebrate Nanny's birthday and our anniversary (because it was actually last night). When we got home she took my car and went out. We stood stunned at the audacity at the top of the stairs.

This evening, after taking over Little Girl's care because Nanny apparently can't get her showered and in jammies and to the table on time, we had the car conversation. The Honda will not be fixed for about a month. That's how long it's going to take to get the parts and settle with the insurance company and fix the mess. My car is a train car. It is my car. It is not the nanny mobile. She has it while I have the rental car. She has it for Little Girl and Cletus and class and required nanny events but other than that she's on her own.

She's downstairs sulking in a state of disbelief. (actually last I checked she got somebody to pick her up so she can finish her sulking at Starbucks with the rest of them)

She's a really great nanny as far as my experience with nannies goes (like I nearly killed the one from last year?). I wonder if she's going to make it? How in holy hell do other people do this?

My dog though, how freaking cute is he?

On the politics of politics

I don't know if it's age or time but with each presidential election the issues seem to become more blurred and the screaming louder. I would indicate the direction in which I dress (and for the love of god would somebody Puleeese pick up on that reference we could all USE a little humor these days) but regardless of the revelation I'm bound to take fire one way or another. So why bother? Just so I can add to the screaming? Pass.

OK, having written all that it's only fair to fess up and admit to being just as polarized as the majority. I am as freaked out over Sarah Palin as anybody on the right might be freaked out over Barack Obama and I can give you leventy-leven reasons why too. And at least leventy-ten of them would be fact checked and validated but that's hardly relevant because the idea of voting against versus for something is truly terrifying. In my decidedly humble, if a bit snark like, opinion. But that's the truth of it.

I personally have been voting against benchmarks my entire adult life. And that's not bragging, it's a confession. Of sorts. Yes, I do vote the party ticket even though I don't actually fit most of my party's ideals. Hell, I don't fit any party's ideals. My point being, I vote against the things I find most offensive. Anti-abortion laws, inclusion of church and state and censorship. Those are my big hairy boogies and I choose based on those issues even though the scary party in question may be more supportive of a large number of smaller and possibly less hairy boogies.

My point being that doesn't leave much room for a clear and positive agenda, does it? Might explain all the shouting.

I do not watch political events. I do not listen to political events. I don't watch state of the union addresses unless we've been blown up and or are going to war. I'll read just about anything but I will not actually watch or listen to the circus. Can't do it, makes my belly knot up and my eyes go crossed. Last night oldest daughter needed to watch one of those debatable news type shows that come on after the little kiddies have gone to bed. She needed to watch this for her American Government class and I wanted no part of it. She went off to watch on her own but came back ten minutes later because there was just this yelling and screaming and something about lipstick and pigs.

..................

So I sat down and watched the rest of it with her in an attempt to make some sense of the conversation.

...................

Horrifically painful. We watched four apparently well educated and intelligent people, two men and two women ostensibly one of each from one of each, behave like nine year olds with roid rage. Seriously.

So now I know just exactly why Sarah Palin is the queen of all evil and why Barack is a terrorist but I have no idea at all what either party actually sees in their candidates. None. OK, that's not true. I googled 'Why do Republicans like Sarah Palin' today because, like Amy, I do want to know because I do not understand and I don't want to hear words like maverick and change either unless you can get darned specific about what kind of change and how being a maverick will support that clearly defined change (because I'm a maverick and I can sure as shit make a mess of things when I get to being a bull in a china shop).  Anyway, the first site to pop up was the gay republican site and here's what I gleaned from two pages of text. Sarah Palin has awesome Audry Hepburn like hair and she backed a bill on same sex partner insurance. That's it folks.

So seriously. What is it? Or are we all so polarized by our own fears (me too) that we can only see through a red haze of rage? Have we become a nation of raving lunatics who feel so strongly about so many polarized beliefs that we are all, myself included, making complete asses of ourselves? And is Putin really licking his chops?

Somebody's Mother

Some things are beyond comprehension. Yesterday we got an email alert from the school system which was followed up by a brief article in the online paper (not sure what will show up in print).

Yesterday somebody's mother lit herself on fire and burned to death in one of our baseball fields. Her body burned for approximately 30 minutes before she was discovered.

Unless it turns out very differently, evidence supports the belief that she poured five gallons of gasoline over her body and then lit a match. Somebody stopped at the park to have lunch, thought a mannequin was on fire and called the police to put it out. The police arrived with a fire extinguisher and discovered the mannequin was a person and that was that. The fire department arrived but there was nothing to do.

This is the parking lot in which we taught my daughter to drive a stick shift. This is the town where my children go to school. This is the park closest to my neighborhood with a few nice fields and a great swimming hole. This is my home and that was my neighbor. In a town our size anyone living here is your neighbor. This is a thing which in itself is so horrible most of us will not touch more than the very edges of comprehension. This is a thing which perhaps ought to have been noticed and interrupted before it ever got to the purchase of gasoline. This is a thing of unbearable violence. This is a statement of internal brutality. This is a thing I can't even imagine.

Yesterday somebody's mother lit herself on fire and burned to death in one of our baseball fields.

I am so sad.

Running Amok

Things change, the world moves on.

I feel like I ought to be writing something utterly profound; there's certainly been enough profundity running amok in my head lately and I find I can't write. I don't find that I have nothing to write about. Instead I took a walk over to Madcap's site and discovered that she's written something so mind numbingly intense I couldn't even respond to it; not even enough to say, 'welcome back, great post'. It was a great post. What's even more stunning is the fifth comment down. MC, I don't know if you'll delete it or not but you've got to admit that it's quite powerful in it's timing.

MC asks in the context of Elie Weisel's experience of himself during his father's death in a concentration camp (Night), "If we can't hear, are we accountable? Who blames the sleeper for his dreams?"

The anonymous fifth comment down is so full of utterly incomprehensible vitriol and hate that you'd think it's enough to bring the cosmos crashing down around us in it's pointedness and passion alone. The juxtaposition of Elie Weisel's pointed moment of horror and guilt against the backdrop of a comment suggesting ultimately that we will indeed annihilate ourselves with collective rage leaves me breathless.

I'm sorry, MC, great post and welcome back. I could not speak or write.

Things change, the world moves on?

I had NoMans put a very pointed Student Driver sign on the back of the car when he takes Cletus driving (I have removed myself from her presence so that she might learn to drive without the fear of not being enough since apparently even with my mouth shut Mommy is a formidable presence) so that people might be a little more patient and stop honking at her for driving the speed limit. Then I had him put another sign on the back of the car that reads (real big) STANDARD TRANSMISSION and then in smaller letters: Student Driver. They're still honking when she stalls at an intersection and still riding right up her backside when she stops at a stop sign that happens to be on a steep hill. The back windshield is not big enough for me to explain what a stall is and everything else that goes along with a clutch and a standard transmission.

The world, at least in these parts, has moved on and we have not moved with it.

Another reason for NoMans to do the driving. I would get out of the car at the stop sign and eat eyeballs or some other such atrocity. We've got enough of those I think.

Alecto's Excutive Summary - For Russ

"Let's face it, I'm tired!"

NaNo finished last night. I even managed to, um, wrap it up, more or less. It ends with Kate driving back into the driveway at the end of a twelve year day only the car doesn't smell like feet anymore and she stands in the driveway looking into the forest... and you'll just have to wait until I publish the book(bwahahahha) Book? What book? There's no book.  I'll go back and look in a week.

My friend Russ over at R a d h o l e did what I would call an executive summary on himself. Russ is pretty cool and I love going to his site, he often makes my day. So Russ was asking who and where I was and I realized that while I'd been introduced to Russ through Amy's NaBloWriMo site in October he might not actually have a clue who I was so instead of answering in email I'll put it here:

Alecto's Executive Summary (hold the snarkiness until it's over)

I am a forty-three year old professional mother of three. That sounds ludicrous, doesn't it? That's because I have a very schizophrenic relationship with my self the creative programming junkie and myself the mother. Myself the creative programming junkie is very important to me. Myself the mother is a given. Sorry, ladies, but that's a fact. I've had to work harder to be taken seriously in the work environment than I have in motherhood. Sad, but true. And whether you share my values or not, understand that to me, the me that is outside of mother is just as important as the me who delivered those squishy bundles 21, 16 and 7 years ago. Yeah, I have a 21 year old son. How cool is that? I also have a 16 year old daughter and that's cool too right up until it's not. The 7 year old saves my sanity.

In writing the story of Kate during November I had to come nose to nose with some very painful pieces of my past. So here it is. I am a corporate fast track executive washout. I made it seven years in a technology corporation on the fast track to SVP of a major profit center and then who knows what else when I fell so hard from grace that I could not bear to go back in for another round. It's not that I did bad, it's that I lost my stomach for it. That embarrasses me more than I can tell you. If I was a man I would be shamed into oblivion for not picking up and going on. As a woman I have been given a buy and this is what shames me more than anything. I hang my head but know the truth.

So where was I? 43 year old mother of three, divorced twice, married three times, I might be the bravest person I know. Or most stupid, jury's still out. I receive no alimony and no child support from the father of my first two. The father of my third is a bit better and I got smarter. I am hard core mother, that's a fact. I am an application programmer and business analyst. I look at numbers and tell you, more from my gut than not, what a particular market is doing. For me it's in paper and printing at the moment but I'm pretty good at it. I work with databases and system architecture. I am the person you call when it all goes to hell. I don't have the answers but I'm the one who will work it out because I believe the buck stops in my lap, even when it doesn't. This is a not an attribute.

I care more about the food my children eat than the state of my databases. This causes daily angst as I try to wrap up in time to get home and feed them something organic and appropriate before they need to go to bed. The S on my chest is for Sucker and I'm finally OK with that.

I like to write, a lot. I recently wrote a 50,000 word book in 27 days. I am nuts.

I paint, mostly in watercolors but when I was younger in acrylics all over my bedroom walls. My mother was very good to me. I grew up with horses, sort of. From the time I was twelve years old I leased a pony or a horse so I could ride. I did the family laundry and a whole lot of other things to support this habit. It was never for free. I was very good, good enough to do things but I didn't care, so I hacked instead and was happier that way. I had a farm with horses during my first marriage. The horses have all gone back to my mother in Ohio, I'm OK with that.

I would like to have chickens in my backyard again. I might just do that. Even though it's going to piss off my neighbors so bad I won't be able to stand it.

I read a lot, almost anything except chick lit and romance, can't stomach the stuff. I like Mark Helprin and Stephen King. My favorite book is Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale. It's about magic, and cloudbanks the structural integrity of bridges and New York City before and after the turn of the century.

I live in a part of the country that is unbelievably privileged. I worked very fucking hard to get here. I am a high school drop out. I was raped on the floor of my living room at 17. The evidence of my case was hosed by the over zealous detectives, he is still out there. My parents emotionally abandoned me at 17 and then completely at 18. I cleaned houses to put myself through college. It was not so easy. I had a baby and a husband too, that part was OK. I am privileged but I have a really, really hard time acknowledging that. I am angry and that embarrasses me. 

I love music. I don't listen to nearly enough since I split with husband number two, who has a real knack for picking up the esoteric and eclectic. Lately I listen to almost nothing but what's over on Madeline's site or what's on WFUV, which is basically public radio.

OK, that's not exactly an executive summary, is it? I'm babbling. But there you go, that's me, precariously balanced and doing my damn best to have it all.

(p.s. I'm also a happy person. Because I want to be and that is all.)

(p.p.s. I just wrote 1,100 words like it was nothing. Damn. Look what happened? Maybe I can do this after all)

No one died and the car is fine.

NaNo Stats: so far tonight I am at 16,387 and have 1,950 to go before I can hang it up for the night. Yup, Alecto is behind (I'm OK with that, I'll catch up). However, I do need to note that Ridgewalker is at 25,000 the last time I looked! How cool is that? The man is on fire.  I can't wait to read the final results (even if he did kill me off early) There will be a short excerpt after I tell about Cletus and Psycho-mommy today.

************************************************************************************************************************

Today I put Cletus Marie behind the wheel of a 2003 Mazda6, 5 speed transmission on a deserted gravel parking lot in the woods. She has only once ever been behind the wheel of a moving vehicle; it was an aging automatic and nearly seatless minivan my mother uses to transport bulldogs and such to dog shows and she drove it around the circle of the paddock one time before my mother recalled her two previous experiences with adolescent drivers and made her stop so that she could get out and vomit between her legs.

I set Cletus up, I did. I had her depress the clutch, put it in first, start the engine and then take her foot off the clutch.  I didn't tell her anything else and the car did what you'd expect it to, it bucked and stalled. What a look that child gave me, but she understood. When she started again she took off at a reasonable speed and without a hitch. It was stunning. As we neared the turn I suggested she depress the clutch as an aid until she understood the turn and she made that corner like butter. Around and around the gravel circle we went until I suggested she might want to introduce herself to second gear. What a look that child gave me!

Eventually Cletus managed to upshift and downshift between first and second, come to a complete stop without stalling and avoid the grassy areas in the parking area.  She got the thing into reverse and backed up the entire length of the parking lot in a straight line. She came nowhere near hitting anything at any point during her thirty minutes behind the wheel .  My blood pressure remained absolutely stable. It was almost as if she'd medicated my tea before we left the house. She did take one corner on two wheels and I started calling her Mario but she appeared to be in control of the vehicle at all times.  Baby smiled. A lot.

I had her drive up toward the main road and onto pavement which she pronounced nifty.  She came to a stop without stalling, noted that the car was damn near out of gas, turned off the engine, leaving it in first, set the parking brake and handed me the keys.  I drove her home.

When we pulled onto our circle I asked if she'd like to take it around once. She did want to and so I pulled into our driveway, turned the car around. I'm not ready to have my light post knocked over again. Not yet, at any rate.

Before she even got behind the wheel she had attended three driver's education classes, passed the test for her permit, watched her brother completely wreck multiple vehicles and be taken to court once for rear-ending a man in traffic while he played with his contacts. She grew up with a father who makes most road rage look tame. We live in a town that puts so much emphasis on drunk driving and drug use that they have one day in school every year where they stage mock deaths and selected students don death masks, remain silent for the day and attend their own funerals. Before she got behind the wheel she got the accountability lecture from her mother which was prefaced with "The only appropriate response to what I'm about to tell you, other than questions, is 'OK'. Do you understand me completely?"

So when she sat poised at the edge of the driveway in first gear, ready to turn onto our circle the statement "there will be children and other vehicles around every blind corner and hill' landed squarely between her eyes". She was terrified and drove brilliantly between 15 and 25 miles per hour. She did not stall on a hill (we haven't even covered that little doozy yet), she did not drive over any curbs, she did not hit any mailboxes and no cars or pedestrians appeared. Until we got to the bottom of the hill and she stopped at the first of two stop signs. She stalled the car.

A youngish blond woman in a black SUV with it's own zip code pulled up behind us and honked. She honked her horn in a residential neighborhood and Psycho-mommy Got. Out. Of. The. Car.

Getting out of your vehicle when you have been honked at is probably one of the most overtly aggressive acts you will ever witness in this part of the country. In some cases, you can reasonably assume it will be accompanied by a fire arm or a baseball bat. I should have stopped there. I did not. I proceeded to shut my door, come around the passenger side and yell at the top of my voice.  I'm sure she didn't hear a word I yelled behind those bullet proof glass windows but she read the body language. The body language said, I am coming straight through your window and I am going to eat your heart while it still beats and you watch. I'm quite certain that's what she heard. She also heard, go around idiot, student driver and so she did. Very, very slowly and carefully. Two more vehicles came down the hill and we motioned from within the car for them to go around. They did.

When the coast was clear, Cletus put the car in gear, stalled it two more times, and then took off grinding the gears only a little. She stalled at the next stop sign, made it up the hill and pulled into our driveway narrowly missing our neighbor's mailbox. She parked to the left of the truck as instructed. At an angle.

Over all Cletus and I did very well today. No one died and the car is fine.

**********************************************************************************************************************

To give Joe credit, he exercised his rights to the letter. He eliminated all three of the designated trainers in his group post haste and according to the guidelines.  He then packed the personal contents of his office and exited to the parking lot. During the one hundred and eighteen minutes that he remained in the building he managed to exude a stench of malice and rancor so thick it grayed the air. Surviving trainers, writers, developers, support staff and managers fashioned gas masks and eye covers out of a discarded roll of cheesecloth fortuitously located in a supply closet. Multiple personnel rushed for the centrally located bathrooms and voided conspicuously and often publicly. Facilities were contacted by multiple mid-tier managers with requests that the attic fan be turned on and left on until further notice. Directors and Senior Directors huddled in corner offices and the VPs barricaded themselves in their suites. By end of day the air had cleared and ten percent of the staff had vanished into the ether.  Parking spaces became available within twenty yards of the building. Kate came out of her office, red eyed and guilty, and walked the halls in search of the living.

Rage Against the Machine

Rage is not new.

I caused some extra carbon this weekend by driving to Vermont.  It was really beautiful.  Along the way I noticed the effects of Global Warming. Leaf season should have been over in Vermont. Instead it was at peak.  This is either a fluke or we've moved the season up two solid weeks. Just noticing.

It was a difficult weekend in that we didn't manage to stay where we usually stay, because we waited so long to make a decision because life is just like that sometimes, and neither of us deal well with a shift from the expected if we're stretched too far for too long.  And we have been.  It's been a difficult six months. We were out of sorts and not liking much the near asphyxiation from a gas fireplace that hadn't been serviced in, oh, I'm guessing three years, maybe four, since this inn changed hands as the inn-keepers looked genuinely stunned that there might be some maintenance involved.

Add that to the general decompression involved in removing oneself from the hotbed quite abruptly and you've got the ingredients for colossal meltdown given the right combination of stimuli. I almost wish the meltdown had occurred because then I might actually feel better and be able to think more clearly, as opposed to the bottled up container of thermal gas I'm currently choking myself on. That made sense, right?

On the way out of town we stopped in Brattleboro because that's what we always do. We're creatures of habit, he and I.  We parked where we always park in this lot at the top of the main street heading back toward 91. We parked next to an aging vehicle with brightly colored plastic letters glued all over the outside.  That vehicle said some very interesting things. The first thing I read was enough, the rest of it just wouldn't process. There on the drivers side of the car read: (and I paraphrase because I might have gotten this just slightly wrong)

'Maybe the planet would be better off if none of us were here'.

And inside the car, amid the clutter and trash, on the passenger seat within easy reach of the driver, was a hard pack of Marlborough Reds.

The top of my head blew off and I just about shouted the response,

Well all righty then!  We'll start with you! Although I see you're well on your way to doing that to self and others with a pack of smokes, ya bloody screamin' hypocrite! What's next, pipe bombs in the bakery?

I recognize this is inappropriate and unacceptable and not even remotely forwarding behavior. I recognize that my bloody done button has popped and I also recognize that very little of it stems from free radicals, that's just how it landed in the moment.

I'm starting to understand how people get to this place.

In the seventies we got all up in the face of conservation. We payed a great price economically by refusing to buy American Gas Guzzlers but we saved on fossil fuel and helped invent the global economy. We had little stickers that went on all the light switches that reminded people to turn out the lights! At my house we kept the thermostat first at 62 and then finally at 56.  I hate my father for that to this day. I lived in my coat. In the mean time we continued to exploit third world countries.  Does anybody honestly think this is a new development?

Then the eighties came, the recession lifted and returned and lifted again. Alan Greenspan held our heads as we vomited up the last of our supply side fears and consumed, consumed, consumed. We even managed to disgust ourselves. The Stay At Home Mom was reinvented as a SAHM. This makes me giggle to no end because we all know, lets face it folks, that the SAHM was invented during the industrial revolution. Now its a sanctimonious validation of personal lifestyle choices.  I say sanctimonious because that's what I hear.  I try real hard not to judge the SAHM but I rarely experience the same respect of personal choices.

Seems to me we've become a nation of ranters.  I need to defend my choices by making you wrong.  No matter what you do, as long as it's not exactly what I'm doing, I'm going to make you wrong because I just cannot live with the idea that my choices, radical as they may or may not be, might not be right! Or I might not like the prices I've paid. Or I might not be doing it right.  Or I might be waking up to find out I've raised a lunatic who can't or won't contribute to society even though I bloody well followed the dotted line. (this embarrassment of offspring began at the dawn of time, it's not just you)

Makes me wonder why the hell we bother?

I was sitting in the forty year old auditorium which is about to be made over by the Madams of Conspicuous Consumption to the tune of 1.8 million dollars (you read that right) of Weston high school listening to my daughter's choir make the most beautiful sounds and I was caught crying by the concert director.  I wanted to tell him, it's OK, I always cry at these events. I even get up and sing when asked too, even though I'm really embarrassed by it all.

There were two slide shows projecting through out the concert.  On the left were the current statistics on global warming. On the right was the program as we came to each piece.  This was to avoid printing programs because we've gone green, whatever the hell that means. At the end of each slide on the left was a list of things that could be done by each consumer to reduce the personal carbon foot print. They were small and little things.  Things so small and meaningless that we just shouldn't bother.  Things that would have the radicals tell us to just kill ourselves now we suck so bad.

And they were things that honest to God make a huge impact when they add up.

So I kind of wonder as the radicals scream at me from all angles that I suck beyond belief and ought to just take the hose already, if they're screaming to be right or if they're screaming because they want change?

It takes a lot to change the direction of a moving barge or battleship. It does not turn on a dime. So what I'm curious about is why would we expect it to? Or do we just want to yell a little bit more?

I can be pissed off about the Madams of Conspicuous Consumption or I can start by reducing my vehicle consumption by 15 miles per week, changing my light bulbs, putting those sticky things back on the switch plates, dropping the house temp to 66, insulating my windows and doors, growing my own veggies and buying local.

I won't be stop the new theater from being built but I might get their attention in other ways.

Maybe. 

And maybe this planet would be better off without any of us. But is that the point? Or does it just piss us all off like a bunch of over crowded rats that turn canibal?

Lost in Translation

Once when I was young and unfocused I was a traveling sales lady selling software to insurance agencies which kept me pretty much in my own region, the multi-faceted North East. I did this until I couldn't live with myself anymore and then I became a software trainer, for the same company and same clients.  It is a humbling thing to train the last three sales you closed and find yourself on the other side, telling the truth. I am happy to say that my tires were not cut in the parking lot but maybe they should have been.

Software trainers do not always have regions; you go where your skills are needed.  In my life, as a traveling trainer, the world was my region. In this iteration it was only the lower 48. We, I and my boss, discovered fairly early on that there were some regions where my strong New York Metropolitan personality with its underlying tang of Midwest righteousness didn't go over so well. For starters, I did actually have trouble in the Midwest.  It wasn't that we didn't like each other, we did, very much, it's that I simply talked way too fast. Think staccato information overload. It was OK, they learned to tell me to slow down and I learned to shut up and breathe periodically.  Or I mastered circular breathing.  Or something. With a  smile, almost always. Knowing these things, my boss and I did our very best to keep me in very specific regions, mostly out of the South.

And then it happened.  I had to go South because there was nobody to go South. When you travel a lot you tend to fly by the seat of your pants or hem of your skirt or the run in your panty hose. You don't sweat the small stuff and you do not waste energy on details.  Details get worked out. This was a last minute deal and I had Friday to get it sorted out.  I had a paper ticket to fly out on Sunday and I returned from my last trip on Thursday and headed into the City to meet up with some friends.  When I arrived at the restaurant I was met by a group of worried friends and instructions to call the hospital.  It seems my soon to be ex husband had driven one of my cars under a gas truck and was darn lucky to be alive.  I hopped in my other car (my early midlife crisis travel mobile, a 1983 silver RX-7 which I rustled up for peanuts at an autobody place owned by a high school friend and drove like the demon I was)and headed out of the city.

I spent all night and all day and well into Saturday taking care of this man. And my kids, have I mentioned my kids?  There were only two at the time.  I forgot all about my trip on Sunday and so when it came time to leave I had no idea where I was going, other than Central Florida.  I called every number I had and left copious messages.  This was before email. I got on the plane, flew into Orlando and picked up my rental car.  I drove my car to the hotel which turned out to be a motel with bullet holes in the door. Being the seasoned traveler I was, I made note of the bullet holes, threw the chain on the door, set my alarm for stupid early and crawled into bed.  I was out before my eyes adjusted to the parking lot lights.

In the morning I started making phone calls again. I had an agency name, a town and a phone number and nothing else.  The nice clerk at the bullet ridden motel helped me look up the address in the phone book and gave me vague directions. This was before mapquest, before cell phones became ubiquitous and before anybody at any insurance agency picked up the main phone before 9 AM.  Which is when I was due to arrive.  Which was when the female receptionist was due to arrive which was as early as anyone could reasonably expect to have that phone answered. I woke up my boss at home in Arizona just to let him know how dire were my circumstances. He snarled into the receiver and I hung up.

I drove into what must have been a grand old town at some point in time.  At the beginning of the grand old town was the remains of a grand old hotel the likes of which I have only ever seen in Louisville, KY. It's windows were death, shuttered barely against the winds and rain. There was one main drag and that's where I was headed.  Once the main drag had many blocks.  Now it had but two.  I located the address, parked out back and knocked on the back door.  It was 9:05.

The agency owner answered the door. He was not pleased. We all wore black suits with white shirts and black polished shoes. We all had nice haircuts and proper grammar. Two of us were pissed as wet cats and made no secret of it. I didn't bother trying to explain. We went to the classroom. I started to teach.  He said, stop. Stop right there. That's not what you're here for.

It's not?  No, it's not. Oh. Well. I. Don't. Actually teach that product but you know, I've played with it and maybe I can help you out. I do have it installed.  Lets boot it up and have a go. As long as I'm here. OK?

Snarl.

Snarl.

We broke for lunch. We strolled down the main street, all two blocks of it. We were behaving as custom dictates, politely. We got to the end of the two blocks. I started to cross the street. One lovely young man put his hand on my arm. I flinched. He said, no, it is better to walk back the way we came. I looked across the street.  It was black as night.  I looked up the street. It was entirely lacking in pigmentation. I snarled and started to cross the street.  Eight suited gentlemen quickly hustled after the uppity little girl with the staccato Midwest tang from New York City. A handful of colored gentlemen and youths got the hell off the sidewalk. A Bona-fide Black Lady walked right through the middle of us, bag over her arm, properly hatted and gloved. We reached the end and crossed the street.

I finished early and drove to the airport.  I called my boss from the airport.  He said the agency already called the company president because they're personal golfing buddies and boy was I in hot water. I asked him for which incident was I in hot water.  He said he really didn't know. Well, I said, I'll write it up and fax you a report.  You can do what you like.  But Micheal (yes, it's really spelled that way), if you ever send me South again we're going to have trouble.  And if you ever send me in to teach something I don't know maybe you ought to at least give me the opportunity to prep on the plane.

His response:  You didn't call me on Friday.  Sigh.  OK.

Now lets look at it from the other side.  I'll make this quick; I'll try to make it painless. I am still embarrassed and ashamed. Uppity New York City girl flies unprepared into an environment that is unstable and openly hostile and applies her own way of being and thinking to that environment. All hell ensues.

I'm so sorry. I don't know to whom I am more sorry. The White Good Old Boys who had to chase me across the street and deal with my attitude, arrogance and screaming ignorance, the Colored Folks on the other side who had to scramble to get off their own turf because I trespassed into the delicate balance, or the husband, father, brother, son of the Bona-fide Black Lady with the hat and gloves who had to wonder what might transpire from her Rosa Parks style demonstration of self. I don't know. 

I am not sorry for my boss. He had me coming.

P.S.  I have since learned to pass remarkably well through the South. I have since discovered a predilection for Southern Gentlemen, Good Old Boys or otherwise.  I have since learned to think before I speak. Some of the time. I have learned to say I'm sorry.

Being There. Priceless.

El Greco - View of Toledo - The Met

I don't know what got into me, really I do not. My intention was to sleep until my back screamed and then roll out of bed, down the hall to very old coffee and the Saturday version of the Sunday Times.  Today was NoMan's day in New Jersey with the boys.  That means he left around 7ish and even resetting coffee to brew at 8:30 I still meant for it to be old by the time I got to it. And the Saturday version is just because they like to get a jump on the Sunday news. It's true.  Then I was going to roll around in my messy bed with the paper, half a bagel and some more bad coffee and read that paper cover to cover with nobody fighting for shares. And then I was maybe going to get up, have a shower and shave my legs.  I love the Saturday shave, I get a new blade and everything comes off smoooooth as silk.  It's a beautiful thing and part of my favorite Saturday ritual.

Not happening.  Not any of it.

I don't know. Sometime around 8:30 or so, when I could smell the coffee brewing, I started to think about what kind of nice day we were expecting and the fact that it was only me and Cletus Marie all day and we could pretty much do anything we (I) felt like doing. We (I) felt like going to The Met in NYC (Metropolitan Museum of Art).  Which meant We had to get out of bed at a reasonable hour if We wanted to park anywhere near the vicinity of 5th and 80th.

It took me until 9:30 to make up my mind and by then it meant We had to seriously get our acts together and blow out the door. I banged on Cletus's door on the way to coffee and yelled, 'Get up and shower, we're bugging out of here!'  Cletus may have bothered to ask where and for what but I wasn't listening and so we moved. I also told her to look nice.  I don't know why I told her to look nice and I don't know why I thought I wanted to look nice either. This edict resulted in both Cletus and I leaving the house in stacked heels. We wore jeans but we wore stacked heels.  I'd have been better off in my cowboy boots. We looked good.  Don't know why we looked good, but we looked good.  As I backed the truck out of the driveway I remembered a conversation NoMans and I had with another couple mid-way through a whole day tour of Vatican City.  We were talking about my shoes.  These very same shoes (and probably very same jeans) I was wearing.  And the woman said, 'They sure are cute but I bet you're ready to cut your feet off and leave them in the gutter.'  Yup.  I was.  And yes, I did it.  Again.

I didn't tell Cletus where we were going until we were almost there.  Not sure how she worked it out because I can't remember the last time I drove directly to Museum Mile, versus parking at my brother's building or somewhere else, or taking the train. She worked it out about 8 blocks North of our destination.  She looked down at her feet in her super hot sexy Rat Stomper boots and then looked back at me and said, 'Momma, I look GOOD, why are we going to a museum?'

Sigh.

When we pulled up to park the nice man had a look in the back of the truck and said 'I hope you don't have a body back there or anything.'  I said, 'No, just the contents of my closet which my lovely husband swore he was taking to Good Will, oh four or five weeks ago now.'  He laughed and let us in.

Now let me tell you, I haven't driven in NYC in quite awhile.  This is not a skill that once honed will ever really go away but I was driving the truck and it was a beautiful day and people were everywhere and by the time I got us parked and into the back entrance I was pretty well good and flustered. The fact that Cletus did not abandon me at the first opportunity is testament to her general good nature because if it had been me and my mom had been behaving like an utter lunatic I'd have bolted for sure, or at least sulked about it. Cletus was golden, even if she was laughing at me and still asking, 'Um, why the hell are we in this god forsaken museum?' Because we are, darlin', because we are.  And you'll suck it up and like it too!

We wandered first through the Greco-Roman period.  This part was really surrealistic for me because the last time I wandered through the Greco-Roman period I was in blasted Greco-Rome and the stuff is still in the streets, not locked behind glass or up on pedestals.  It was just plain weird and then it was sad because I'd kind of gotten used to just being able to pick up and fly to Europe for a long weekend if I felt like it.

OK, maybe that sounds a little ridiculous but there is a reason I do what I do for a living.  There's a reason my husband does what he does.  And if you take those two incomes, even after subtracting maximum 401k withholding, Other investments, Alimony and Child Support, we still do OK. And one of the reasons that we choose to do what we do is because it gives us the means to pick up and go if we are so inclined, and both of us are very much inclined. Only we can't do it anymore.  We probably can't do it again for another two years because I probably cannot leave Ms Cletus behind, or take her with me, until she is eighteen. And while that's a price I'm more than willing to pay I did get hit upside the head with it today and I stood there looking at the Vermeer's and the Caravaggio's and wishing for some Bernini statuary and a Piazza Navona and wishing for one particular Caravaggio that I remembered (after tearing from one end of the Dutch Painters exhibit to the other) was probably in Rome at the moment.

And it all boils down to this:  I miss being on adventure with my husband. And I cried. And then I wiped off my face, got a good look at my daughter and said, 'Alecto, you are here today.  Be here.' And then the day took off.

We looked at everything.  We looked at musical instruments and made roaring noises at each other in the horn section. We looked at armor and weapons and giggled over the one cod piece some assine king had made to display his enormous erection during battle (um, most warriors tuck the boys up under chain mail and as close to the skin as possible - this guy had it on display and it freaking curled up at the end too!).  We did look at the Vermeer's and I cried because the man was a genius and I had the great privilege to stand in front of a handful in New York City because I live within the 60 mile radius (barely) and have the wherewithal to get myself there. We went to the Eternal Ancestor exhibit and learned about the Congo and the Fang region and the death, fertility and burial rites.  I even a bought a book (which scandalized Cletus because these things ain't cheap) because I was so completely enthralled with one particular burial process where - I think, I still don't quite get it yet - the deceased is sewn into what resembles an over-sized ugly doll and then buried.

And then we had tea.  We got in line for tea at 2:30 and were ready to pass out. Cletus looked at me and said, 'I just want a bloody cold drink already.  I do NOT drink tea.'  I said, 'No, no, Cletus, we are HAVING tea.' Cletus wasn't having any of it but Momma was and so Cletus snarled and sucked it up.  Twenty minutes later we were seated.  Twenty minutes after that we had tea. 

It was wonderful and amazing and from here on out if anyone says the word tea to Cletus she will immediately jump to attention and ask if clotted cream and lemon curd are possibly going to be involved, in which case she will practically mainline the tea to get to the goodies. There were little egg salad tea sandwiches with scallions and asparagus.  They were round and made on dense white bread.  There were the most delicate little chicken and apricot pies and salmon rolls and savory pancakes.  There were scones, and tarts and petit fours. And there were four pots of clotted cream, blackberry jam, lemon curd and marmalade. The best part was that everything was teensy tiny so that you could have just a taste of many, many wonderful sweet and savory things. There might have been champagne involved as well but I was driving.

Cletus had to be told to wipe her face.

The icing on the cake was our exit from the building.  After years and years of visiting this place I still don't get it.  I can get as lost as all get out and spend hours happily wandering in ever widening circles until I pass out from sheer exhaustion but fail to actually locate an exit. (I do a lot better at the Museum of Natural History, for some reason)

I told Cletus, as I poured over the map, that I had no idea how to get out of the building toward the garage.  Cletus said she had it handled, all we had to do was go back to the Greco-Roman period which was right below the nearly closed Islamic section and we knew right where that was.  We went there.  Unfortunately as we went there Cletus decided to gallop (like a horse on the way back to the barn) through Eternal Ancestors which caused one of the Docents to gallop after her in serious alarm which caused me to use 'the voice' to get her attention which caused the Docent to nearly drop dead in fright. After that she had the good graces to slow down.  Somewhat. (Cletus has got Momma figured out, if you go too slow Momma will stop to look at things and we WILL NEVER GET OUT OF HERE).

Once we got to Greco-Roman Cletus led us through eight precise turns and I'll be damned if that wasn't exactly the backwards path from how we started our day.  Except that on the eighth turn I realized we were passing the same bathtub for the third time, just at different angles. The exit was at the entrance or the way we'd come back. Cletus was beside herself, I'm still having fits of giggles.

I'm so glad I got out of bed today. Maybe I'll shave my furry self in the morning.

Road Rage - How Justice Was Metted Out in the Route 7 Corridor

There is a science to driving in traffic; rules, regulations and social mores developed and clearly understood by the ever-widening organized aggregate called 'that wave of people I drive to work with every day'. Some examples of these rules might be

• don't come to a complete stop at that three-way on Cedar, just look right and go if you can, otherwise we get backed up to that last stop and then all hell breaks loose.
• look left at the three-way at the end of Cedar, if you can see cars, turn right and go around, this appears to meter the flow.
• stay in the right lane starting 3 lights back (or when you start to see congestion) if you are going to make the right turn to Super 7. we all hereby agree that we will not use the funnel method at the last light.
• if the line to get on 95 South is past the hospital, go to the next exit, turn right, turn right, go straight and get on one exit south.  This appears to meter things.
• if you do get in line to enter 95 South from Super 7 make sure you merge in the funnel method a the end.  Do not go driving up the shoulder or someone will chase your ass down and put you on time out.

Those are just a few, but they are the big ones and they are an amazing occurrence that helps us collectively manage the horrendous overflow that we are. Lately another rule has been developing but I'm not sure where it's going because it involves a somewhat dangerous and winding dirt road without a guard rail, above a river as a bypass to some significant backup caused by the overflow of Local 7 evacuees coming out of Redding, Ridgefield and Wilton.  We know this will stop once the construction moves from the intersection at Wilton High school to beyond the route 33 cutoff where 7 can be skirted alternatively. In the mean time, how many people will go around, causing another metering affect, and how many people will choose to spend an average of 7 minutes in line waiting to get past the new meter (which is finally developing a funnel approach to each detoured vehicle allowing the release of one hostage vehicle in line as if we have added our own stop sign.

In any event, these rules are developed out of necessity, over time and without anyone but a few collective spouses actually speaking a word of it. Think about this, the old brain kicks in the hive mentality and if we accept (without much thought I would imagine) that we are part of this large moving organism then we manage to make it a little better for everyone.  So what happens when somebody gets out of line?  I saw it this morning and still can't believe what I witnessed.

Before I launch the story of the VW Bug and the Pickup, let me say that there are always a few spoilers who won't get in line and wait their turn and for the most part we deal with them effectively by refusing to let them in until the last minute, causing multiple I'm going to be late for work because I'll have to go around heart attacks. By and large, in this part of Southern Connecticut, despite Nanny's opinion, the drivers are rational, well behaved and sane.

So this morning I'm in line waiting to get on Super 7 and the VW Bug in the left lane is getting ready to dive in front of the truck in front of me as soon as he opens up so much as an inch. Well he does open an inch.  He opens a good 2 or 3 feet and then steps on the gas to catch up.  She misses his quarter panel by a coon's hair. They are momentarily deadlocked.

He starts yelling at her, she is yelling back (this was her biggest mistake, if she'd just looked at him with that 'I'm a complete moron and I can't believe I just did that to you' look, he would probably have been diffused). I am sitting in my car giving NoMans the play by play because he is too far behind to see it. I realize at this point that he has his door open.  She guns her engine and dives in front of him as he's lost track of the line while yelling at her. I wonder if she did hit him? He chases her down the line and gets all up in her stuff. This cannot be comfortable and I am thinking I'm going to be late to work because he's going to run her into a telephone pole and then we'll all have to wait but part of me is glad for this display of public punishment because I notice not one car from the left lane made any attempt to cut over.  Suddenly they all had somewhere else to be.

At the turn she performs another faux pas and cuts up on the right, which does not make the final left onto Super 7 but continues back into the deeps of Wilton. I know what she's going to do and she doesn't let me down.  Like the terrified sneak that she is, she slips in front of a dump truck at the very last minute and makes the turn.  The Pickup truck is right behind her. I am right behind him (both of us in the correct lanes, just gunning it).  I am not about to miss any of this.

The VW Sneak leads us on a merry chase across the 3 mile connecting stretch of Super 7.  We are doing close to 90 mph before I come to my senses and let them go.  I am disappointed to have missed the rest of the show but I don't think I ought to be doing 90 in traffic, even if it is keeping up with me.  I get back in the right lane and behave myself.

I approach the line to 95 South and determine that I am in alignment with the Norwalk Hospital rule and do not have to go around. I look up and see that I am about six vehicles behind the Pickup Truck.  How did this happen? Suddenly he makes as if to pull back into the middle lane and changes his mind.  He has done this because the VW was coming up on his left and he intended to scare the bejesus out of her.  How did she get behind me? One more time.  To drive the point home. After that I have no idea what happened.  All I know is I stayed with the Pickup truck all the way to exit 9 where he got off (I get off exit 8). My guess is she decided to meter herself one exit down.  Or just go home and call it a day.