Clare and Bucky!

So, here's the 6-months-preggo Clare, my first and only pregnant friend. She apparently is right in the thick of pregnancy and babies with the folks she knows (see Bucky Blog in my links). BUT! This is exciting for me. She and Ross had a party Sunday and I got to see Clare and even got to feel a little kick as we were leaving. It was nice. I'm glad to have people around me having babies. Just not ready to go there myself!

Declaration of Editorial Integrity

I saw this this morning on the DC Pubs yahoo group chatter, and thought it was funny.
It is from the website of Dann Maurno:

Declaration of Integrity
Whereas a Client possesses the inalienable right to professionalism and integrity from a Freelance Employee, selfsame freelancers are a quirky lot, often peculiar in practice and demeanor.
Following are several Credos by which freelancers should live, and for which you may depend on me. Each is based upon Authenticke Incidents and Peculiar Bevhaviours of freelancers I have known.
1. I pledge not to swagger like Jack Palance in "Shane." The client is a company purchasing professional services, not simple prairie folk who need a hired gun to pull their irons out of the fire.
2. Should I be asked to work "on-site," I shall hit the ground running, not spend the first day decorating my cubicle like a dormitory room.
3. I shall dress as befits the client. Should a client generously invite me to dress casually, I shall not construe this as an invitation to a masquerade ball.
4. I shall not speculate as to the depth of the client’s pockets. An expense account is an operating parameter that I respect, not a stagecoach that I rob.
5. The client’s stockroom is not a "Staples" store, never shall I use it to restock my home office with Post-It Notes and legal pads.
6. Should the client generously offer a dinner allowance for a long day, I shall restrict myself to fast food -- no single-malt Scotch whisky, swordfish steaks and Black Forest Cake desserts.
7. Free speech is like an "all you can eat" buffet, and I shall not make a hog of myself. I shall leave my politics, faith, and opinions (which are generally regarded as asinine, at any rate) &cetera, at home.
8. Everyone believes he or she works in a gulag. Should an employee complain about his/her workplace, I shall nod politely and extricate myself from the discussion at first opportunity.
9. I shall work as hard as I must, as long as it takes. Not half as hard for twice the billable hours.
10. I shall not use my creativity to create high-fantastical excuses to miss a deadline.
11. Better late than never, but better never late.
12. Pride in one’s labors is always desirable, but only within reason: I have written marketing collateral, and ad copy -- not "King Lear."
13. I shall hone and perfect a piece as the client sees fit, for I am the client’s creative interpreter, and my labor is not ended until such time as the client cries with glee -- "Magnificent! Print it!"

GW is a rip-off!

Just got this not-so-shocking bit of information from Ben:

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Tuition at the most expensive four-year college is up
only 2.7 percent from last year. But a small increase on an already big number
is still gob-smacking. Landmark College, the school with the priciest tuition since at least 1998, is charging $37,738 for tuition this year, according to data from the Chronicle of Higher Education. That's up $11,238, or 42 percent, from 1998.
Of course, not everyone is aiming to go to Landmark, a school in Putney, Vt. that provides a liberal arts education to kids with learning disabilities and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

But the price tag isn't that much lower at the other nine schools that charge the
highest tuition. George Washington University in Washington, D.C. ranks No.
2 with a tuition of $36,400, up 7 percent from last year.

Boy am I glad I only paid $30K! And that was without scholarship, "luckily." Stephen Joel Trachtenberg should be ashamed of the tuition he charges at GW. It's not even for special services, like instruction focused on students with disabilities!!

Victory for the other Sox

It must have something to do with being another team associated with the utilitarian foot accessory, and having also not won the series in more than 80 years. The White Sox won the world series last night.

Last year, Ben and I were really into the world series ("Why is it the 'world' series?" he asks. "There aren't any international teams in it!") because it was "his" team, the Red Sox, that won. It was fun, and we carved a pumpkin that said "Go Sox!" and made fast friends with other people in our apartment complex who saw it. So, this year was anticlimactic.

Unintelligible instructions

I will preface this with the fact that I truly respect people's attempts at mastering other languages. We can see below that I am making my own, sometimes bumbling, attempt to master French. However, I have an utter disgust for those who insist on publishing documents with obvious errors, let alone errors that make something completely incomprehensible.

I bought a "rear carrier" for my new bike, a shelf that attaches to the hub of the rear wheel and sits just behind the seat, to strap gear onto. It came with a plastic baggie full of nuts and bolts and other bits and pieces to assemble. There was a letter from the bike company that instructed me to first follow the directions to assemble the rear carrier, then follow the bike company's instructions to attach it to the bike.

The carrier came with a 6" x 8.5" folded piece of thin paper, printed with what seemed like a photocopier, that contained the following information. I will reproduce the text as faithfully (and therefore painfully) as I can.

Parts List :

1. Fitting
2. Fitting Adjustor
3. Upper Clamp
4. Lower Clamp
5. Plastic End-Cap
6. Bolt
7. Cog Washer
8. Height Adjusting Plate
9. Reflactor Shelf
10. Pump Hook

Height Fixation:

* Please find scales on the adjusting plates, there are 3 concavities for 3 different heights (26", 700C & 28"), fit carrier on your bike after chooseing 1 suitable scales, make sure this is right size and screw it up.

Fitting Clamp & fitting Assemblies:

1. Insert 2 Fitting Adjustors into Lower Clamp
2. Insert Fitting into Fitting Adjustor
3. Please cover Fitting's end by Plastic End-Cap
4. Put Upper Clamp on Lower Clamp
5. Join Fitting Clamp to Carrier by Bolt & Cog Washer (attach only, not tighten up)
6. According to your bike to adjust Fitting's position. (It could be adjusted by left & right, up & down or back & forth)
7. After find perfect angle & length, please screw Fitting & Fitting Clamp up carefully
8. Assembie Reflactor Shelf if necessary
9. Pumb hook, suitable for 11" pumb

Attention:

* Continually check all bolts be fastened.

Now, how you screw anything up carefully, I can barely imagine. I can't even begin to explain how funny this was to me! Ben (I have gotten the OK to use his name, especially since I've linked to his virtual PC company and self-defense company) and I opened the thing and started to install, and frustration was overcome by amusement about the instructions.

Alors, j'ecris en Francais

Alors, je suis a la maison, en train de lire "The Poisonwood Bible" par Barbara Kingsolver. Il s'agit d'une famille qui demenage au Congo pour faire du travail missionaire. Ca me fait penser de Katie, qui est maintenant au Senegal dans la Corps de la Paix. C'est un peu la meme chose. Mais au Congo on parle Kilongo et Francais, et au Senegal on parle Wolof et Francais. Je sais que le Francais en Afrique est beaucoup plus different qu'en France. Mon directeur de programme d'etudes a l'etranger venait du Congo, et il parlait Francais de France et Francais du Congo. C'etait tres difficile de comprendre, le Francais du Congo. Mais depuis que j'habitait a Grenoble, j'ai ete expose aux accents differents parle par des Africaines et Marocains qui vivaient a Grenoble (c'est une ville tres "mondiale," comme dit la femme avec qui habitait une de mes amies Americaine).

Ben, je me sens force d'ecrire en Francais, puisque je suit le cours a "l'Alliance Francaise" et ca me fait penser un peu en Francais pour m'amuser. Mais, je craigne que personne va comprendre mon petit poste de blog. Peut-etre que quelquefois ce n'est pas une chose mauvaise...

Characteristics of an Editor?

From Arthur Plotnik, "The Elements of Editing":

What kind of person makes a good editor? When hiring new staff, I look for such useful attributes as genius, charisma, adaptability, and disdain for high wages. I also look for signs of a neurotic trait caled compulsiveness, which in one form is indispensable to editors, and in another, disabling.

This was posted to the copyeditors' Listserv. It's a very useful way to get questions answered and discuss all things "edity." The archives are a good place to search for answers.

There was a huge discussion over the past few days about the word "penultimate" that had to be squashed by the "list mom" because it was getting out of hand. Who would have thought that someone could say so much about one word?

hyphen hysteria

From "'New Art City': Abstract Expressionism and Its Aftermath" by Jed Perl, a book review by John Updike in the October 16th New York Times:

In his commendable desire to stretch the language of visual perception and philosophical understanding, Perl coins compound adjectives as if hyphens were snowing upon his word processor. We have: "the individual's at-an-angle relationship with society," "go-with-the-flow neighbors," "an increasingly knit-together, everything-is-one-thing, homogenous character," "knock-you-in-your-teeth actualities," "the wacky-bleak fascination of a play by Samuel Beckett," "this everything-becoming-something-else moment," "more-than-material yet grounded in the materials of art," "the whatever-happens-happens nihilism," "Ashbery's go-with-what-amuses-you attitude," and "the stark, nobody-knows-you-when-you're-down-and-out decrepitude." Some of these Germanic compounds, like "at-an-angle" and "go-with-the-flow," are handy enough to be used more than once, but they are, along with stretch adverbs like "amazingly," "infinitely" and "immensely," and such tenuous concepts as "everydayness," "brownishness" and an "ordinariness" that "melts into the silveriness of the images," symptomatic of the stresses placed on the vocabulary of those who would write about art.

Ha ha! I love it. The do-as-you-please willy-nilly new style of writing.

Audible books

I subscribed to an online library of Audible.com books, that I download in MP4 (I think) format, and upload to my iPod. I started listening to The Kite Runner this morning. I'm a fan. When I started my current job in February, I stopped taking the Metro, meaning my hour of reading time was replaced by either walking or biking or taking a very crowded bus or two very crowded buses, which is very distracting and not conducive to reading.

I'm supposed to get an iPod Shuffle for my trouble, and I see what they mean by trouble now, after having had to wrestle with the files and the new Audible Manager software and iTunes to get my files last night. But, when I signed up I never got confirmation that I'd get my Shuffle. I have to harass these people over the phone, I guess... be audible.

"Path of Love"

By Atman, on Nirvana Lounge disc 1:

He is not famous.
It may be that when his life at last comes to an end,
He will leave no more trace of his sojourn on this earth
Than a stone thrown into a river leaves on the surface of the water.

Yet it may be that the way of life he has chosen for himself
May have an ever-growing influence over his fellow men
So that, long after his death, perhaps,
It may be realized that there lived in this age
A very remarkable creature.

Eli the Barrow Boy

Eli the barrow boy, in the old town
Sells coal and marigolds
And he cries out all down the day.

Below the tamarack, he is crying,
"Corncobs and candlewax for the buying,"
All down the day.

Would I could afford to buy my love a fine robe
Made of gold and silk Arabian thread.
She is dead and gone and lying in a pine grove
And I must push my barrow all the day,
I must push my barrow all the day.

Eli the barrow boy when they found him
Dressed all in corduroy, he had drowned in
The river down the way.

They laid his body down in a church yard
But still when the moon is out with his push cart
He hauls down the day...

Would I could afford to buy my love a fine gown
Made of gold and silk Arabian thread.
But I am dead and gone and lying in a church ground,
Still I push my barrow all the day,
Still I push my barrow all the day.

--The Decemberists.

Back to life, back to reality

Ah! Food and Friday. A great combination. Tonight LH and I are going out for dinner to celebrate out 1/2-year anniversary at Citronelle. They think it's a "full year" anniversary, I guess, because they asked what the occasion was and I wasn't going to say, "It's our 6-month anniversary!" and sound like an idiot. The last time I was there was the night my parents met LH for the first time. It was, I believe, the weekend I moved out of my dorm after graduation, 2002. LH picked us up from the dorm in the pouring rain, and my mother said she didn't think she'd ever been in a Mercedes before (neither had I, until a few weeks proir!), and we were off. Dinner was wonderful, and my mother even had a glass of wine and got tipsy, then said to me in the bathroom, "Jen, he knows what all the silverware is for!" I took this as a seal of approval. Back at the table LH and my dad were talking fractals or some such science junk. So that went well. I'm really excited to go back.

Blogging article in the Washington Post

This encapsulate what the blog has been for me so far. Here is the article.

A bit of the text I pasted below.

From 10/12 Washington Post:

Cyber-Catharsis: Bloggers Use Web Sites as Therapy

By Yuki Noguchi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 12, 2005; Page A01

...

Although AOL provides tools that allow bloggers to limit their audience to selected viewers, most don't, said Bill Schreiner, vice president for AOL's community programming. "It's like they're writing the novel of their lives, and [public] participation adds truth to their story."

Blogging combines two recommended techniques for people to work through problems: writing in a journal and using a computer to type out thoughts. Some bloggers say the extra dimension of posting thoughts on the Web enables them to broach difficult subjects with loved ones, as well as reap support from a virtual community of people they don't know.

"I think it's a way of validating feelings. It's a way of purging things inside of you," said Judith HeartSong, a 41-year-old Rockville artist. As a child, she kept diaries filled with anguished accounts of abuse hidden under her bed, she said, but now she posts entries on the Web.

My fuse is short.

I'm preparing for an editing job I'll need to do in the next few days, reading the requirements for the document I'll be editing. In the guidelines, they write, "The Offeror shall place in an appendix any table or exhibit that is longer than one page (8 %'' x 11") in length (either portrait or landscape)."

I normally ignore things like this (if I didn't, I would go insane), but this set of guidelines outlines their very strict requirements for submissions. If they are so particular about what they will accept, how can they put out things like this? What the hell is an 8%" x 11" page?!

I guess I'm just hungry and irritable. 4 hours until that can be remedied.

24 foodless hours

I'm about to embark on my second Yom Kippur fast. Last year I made it, mostly by walking around the mall all day. This year may be more difficult, because I will be at home, doing work (as much as an unfueled mind can), when I'm not at services. I am hungry right now, and LH is coming to get me so we can eat before Kol Nidre tonight. I don't think he'll make it past tomorrow morning. But I think he might make an attempt.

Last night I said to him, if a certain group of people was forced to work 20 hours a day with no food for years, I can certainly make it 24 hours.

He said, that's like your high school friend who said she had no right to complain about anything because her ancestors survived the potato famine in Ireland!

That being said, I still think my point has a point. I'll try to do it for them. Wish me an easy fast!

A funny thing happened on the way to the office...

No, really. Actually, three funny things. And since my delivery apparently sucked over the phone, I'll try it here.

1. I saw my senior thesis advisor on his bike on the way to GW. It took me a minute to recognize him since he was on a bike and it has been three years since I saw him, and he looked back at me a few times, but I didn't want to say anything, because I didn't really feel like it. I smiled at him. Maybe he'll remember who I am later today.

2. Immediately after I watched thesis advisor bike away, I hear this haggard, gravelly voice say, "Nice calf muscles." I didn't actually look in the direction of the voice, but I looked around and it seemed that I was the only person whose calf muscles weren't covered by clothes, and therefore he was talking about me. Thanks, I guess!

3. Rainman rode the bus. I hopped on the bus a few minutes later because it showed up as I was walking by (and I have a cut on my foot that makes me limp a little), and a man that I had seen on the bus before was there. A thin middle-aged man with coke-bottle glasses (really) got on after me and sat behind me, repeating things softly to himself. When some people cleared off who were sitting near the driver, he got up and sprang into full-blown "Wapner in five minutes" Rainman speak, to the driver, who was totally used to it.

"I'm off tomorrow, Yom Kippur, but I'll be back Friday. I'm off tomorrow. The boy at the school where Joan works, he fasts for 28 days, he eats before the sun comes up and then after the sun goes down, for 28 days. I could never do that. He fasts for 28 days. I could never do that. Mike! There are two dogs! There are two dogs!" Mike, the driver, asked this guy what he thought of the "game," and Rainman went off about the Angels and the Cardinals and the White Sox. Then he switched to football. He knew all the stats and scores, I could tell just from the few things he said.

I guess "Rainman" really is a case of art imitating life. I don't think this guy was imitating anything!

Nintendo Opera

My LH just sent me this really funny video clip. Entertaining for anyone who ever spent hours playing old school Nintendo.

Saab guy is an asshole

I read this story in the New Yorker's October 3 issue yesterday, about how a woman who writes for the O.C. rubbernecked at an accident and bumped the Saab in front of her, the owner of which freaked out over nothing and insisted upon calling the cops and filing a report. The cop said he didn't see damage either. Then Saab guy billed the woman about $900 for a "crease" in the plastic cover of the bumper. Her fiance, a writer for The Office (this is obviously happening in L.A.), told him that was a load of crap, but he persisted. So, the fiance says he'll donate the $900 to the Red Cross for Katrina relief. The Saab guy says no first but then says he'll think about it. Meanwhile, the fiance tells his friends, then tells his blog, the sends out mass emails, and collects about $60K in donations for Katrina relief through the "Saab Guy Is an Asshole" fund. He then starts feeling bad for collecting money out of spite (most donors added comments like, "That guy is a real jerk!"), and cuts off the operation. In the end, Saab guy agrees to donate half of the $900 to the Red Cross, and use the other half to repair his bumper. Fiance never told Saab guy about the campaign, and the last comment in the article is made by Saab guy, saying he's considering sending back the check.

It's a damn good thing he didn't tell Saab guy, because I'm sure he'd be pissed! He could probably sue fiance guy for defamation of character or something silly like that. He sounds like the kind of guy who would (he's a lawyer, too).

Chana (Hannah), my Jewish namesake

Since we are in the midst of the Jewish high holidays, I'll say a little something about my being Jewish. I converted, and have been a Jew since the summer of 2004. During the conversion process, my sponsoring rabbi asked me to choose a Hebrew name for myself. I think my main avenue of searching was online, and I found a site that listed the personalities of several biblical Jewish women. Some converts pick Ruth, the original convert, but I found Hannah, and liked her because her description said she was very devoted to her family.

I realized last year at Rosh Hashanah that the Torah portion that day is the story of Hannah! So, even if I don't go to services regularly, I get to hear my story as long as I go on Rosh Hashanah... which I will do every year barring some emergency.

I get these emails that I signed up for during the conversion process, little discussions/sermons written by rabbis about the week's Torah portion, and I got Hannah's this week. I haven't been reading them anymore, but I read this one and I paraphrase it here:

Class 11 - The Story of Chana: Prayer with a Purpose by Mrs. Leah Kohn

Chana's is the story of one woman's prayer. That a woman should be recognized as a role model for prayer is interesting given that, in terms of formal prayer, men have more obligations than women. Women are required to pray once a day, but can do so on their own and in their own words. A man's involvement in prayer is far more regimented and public, yet the sages teach us that many of the halachot (laws) of prayer are derived from Chana - a woman. She was childless, married to Elkanah, who also had a second wife, Penina, who had 7 children. Chana's anguish at not having children had to do not only with her own yearning to have a family, but with her desire to serve G-d by dedicating her offspring to Him. In response to Chana's entreaty from her heart, Hashem blessed Chana with a son Samuel (I Samuel 1:20), who would become a prophet compared to Moses and Aaron in greatness.

Chana's example indicates that, contrary to current misperceptions, different obligations between men and women in prayer do not indicate women's inferiority. Chana forged such a unique connection to Hashem through prayer that she became a role model for future generations, despite the fact that, as a woman, she was not even obligated in this area. Chana teaches us that devotion to G-d helps us to rise above perceived limitations in life. Certainly, we come into the world with parents, talents, resources, and life circumstances, but if we are sincere in our divine service, we may accomplish our most meaningful goals. Chana asked for a personal blessing so that she might more fully serve G-d. Her joy at bearing a child expressed not only her personal thanks to Hashem, but her gratitude and wonder at His total mastery of Creation. Through Chana we understand that when G-d blesses just one of us, He is in essence blessing us all. Our sages tell us that Chana's prayer is prophetic, inasmuch as it describes not only the history, but the future of the Jewish people, when the Messiah will redeem all of Israel.

Women in Judaism, Copyright © 2005 by the Jewish Renaissance Center and Torah.org. These classes are available here.

I took out most of the overly religious messages that were in there, because my main point is that I didn't really know what I was talking about when I told my sponsor I wanted to be Hannah because she was family-centric. She's more a groundbreaker than a family woman. And what this discussion doesn't mention is that when she was praying, she only mouthed the words, and the other men there told her to get out because they thought she was drunk. This I learned last week when LH's hometown rabbi gave his sermon about Chanah. I don't see why it's so bad to pray when you're drunk. Alcohol is a truth serum, right? I guess that's a question for the rabbis.

Anyway, my sponsor said, "well, sort of," when I told him my reason for picking Hannah. Then he said, "That's probably the best name anyway, because it's the closest you'll get to 'Jen.'" So I thought I had lucked into the perfect Hebrew name, and I do still like it, but there's less for me to feel connected to now that I know the whole story.

New things, related to reproduction.

I was re-measured at Victoria's Secret on Saturday. It's almost embarassing, but somehow I grew to cup size D. I had to get some new bras for my new boobs.

I believe this can be attributed to two things: (1) the "Newlywed Nine" (like the freshman 15) and (2) the birth control patch, which is stronger than the crap I was on previously and has the obvious benenfit of once-a-week application. However, I did actually have a bit of morning sickness for the first 2 months or so, and now have these gigantic knockers. There is another member of the household who sees absolutely nothing wrong with this, but it's hard to get used to.

I realize this has nothing whatsoever to do with editing. I could try to connect it, but it's Monday. The only thing I can think of is how poorly made those informational packets included with prescriptions are. I read that whole thing and didn't get any useful information from it at all.

Wallace and Gromit, good and bad news

Just got an email from LH with a link to this CNN article: http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Movies/10/10/aardman.fire/index.html

Oh NO! The warehouse in Bristol, England, which housed all of the sets/creatures from Nick Park's claymation movies, was completely destroyed by a fire. I went to see his new Wallace and Gromit movie on Friday (http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Movies/10/09/boxoffice.ap/index.html), and absolutely loved it. It was the top grossing movie of the weekend.

I was introduced to Wallace and Gromit by some guy friends in high school, and bought the whole set: The Wrong Trousers, A Grand Day Out, and A Close Shave. They're very funny. And I said again to the guys I saw the movie with this weekend that I am always amazed at the time and energy it takes to make those movies.

http://www.aardman.com/ is the website of the production company.

http://www.wallaceandgromit.com/fla/wg.html is the site for W and G.

I have to figure out how to change words into hyperlinks.

My car loan and other fiascoes

I am always amazed at how stupid people can be. We got a new car (http://www.subaru.com/shop/overview.jsp?model=IMPREZA&trim=WRX_SPORT_WAGON) and I sent in an automatic payment authorization to the loan institution who will remain unnamed. Nothing happened. I do know that the address, for license/registration reasons, is my in-laws'. Here's the conversation:

me: Hi, I sent in automatic payment authorization in August with my last payment, and no payment was ever deducted from my account.
her: Oh, well, you don't have automatic payment set up on your account. Did you send a voided check?
me: No, I filled out the form on the payment book and sent it in, like it said.
her: You need to send in a voided check.
me: ...Ok. Can I just send the check?
her: No, you need a new form. I can send it to you, but you could expedite the process by going to a local branch.
me: I'd rather just get it in the mail, since I have a whole month before my next payment.
her: Well this would be much faster and you want to do it as soon as possible. But I can mail it to you.
me: Yes, I'd rather it come in the mail.
her: Ok, I can do that. Is it going to Pennsylvania?
me: No, I need to change the address. I sent in the change of address form with my payment yesterday, so I'd better change that before you send the form.
her: I can't send the form until the address is changed.
me: Can't you change the address now?
her: No.
me: Ok, what CAN you do?
her: [laugh] Well the address change is already in the BB&T imprint so I can't change it. You will have to call back after the address is changed to request a new form.
me: [very annoyed] Ok. Bye.

I realize now that she thought I had faxed my change of address request. However, no one ever told me there was a fax number! And how would I FAX my payment in? And I don't even really know where the fax is at my office anyway. So I have to wait for the mail to get there, for them to change the address, and then I have to keep calling until the address is changed so I can request a new form so that I can send them a voided check. What ever happened to customer service?

This reminds me of my hatred for the Social Securituy Office, in particular the one on M street. Those effers! Well, it was just the one woman who really got to me. So, I get married, right? And I buy this checklist of items/forms for name change purposes. It includes the form to change your name with the social security office, which is the first thing you have to do before anything else when changing your name. You need the new SS card to get your new driver's license, and you need the new driver's license to do everything else. The form says you can mail your application in, so I figure that's the best idea, to avoid taking time off work during business hours to sit around in line. So, I dutifully and carefully fill it out and send it in, with my original marriage certificate. I wait 3 or 4 weeks (like it says I should), and then decide to call the office to make sure it got there. But, I can't find a phone number for the office I mailed it to. It's nowhere on the SS website. I call the main line and ask about it. They ask if I mailed the certificate, and I say yes, and they say, well you should be all set. I ask for the office number anyway, and spend several days calling, being put on hold for 2 minutes with horrible music, and then being hung up on; "Have you tried our website at www.socialsecurity.gov?" Blah blah, click. I finally decide to just go there, and take a Friday afternoon off. The situation was starting to get desperate, because I was supposed to travel to a wedding in about a month, under my new name... with no identification to prove it! And no marriage certificate, either, if these clowns lost my application.

I go to the office. The man at the door directs me to sit. A woman at the counter says, "What do you need."
"I sent in my application a few weeks ago and wanted to make sure it made it here."
The woman says, "That's in my mail pile, and I'm NOT going to go look for it right now." Everyone in the waiting area is staring at me, waiting to see what kind of scene is about to take place. The woman at the next desk over gives me an apologetic look.
I ask, "So I can't even find out if it's here?"
The woman says, "Did you send everything in?"
"My original marriage certificate."
"And your driver's license?"
"A copy of it."
"No, your ACTUAL license." (I'm thinking, I'm supposed to SEND you my driver's license?! The application did NOT say that.)
"No."
"You have to send your driver's license. I don't understand why you have to mail it if you could just come here with it like you just did."
I say, "Well, I obviously made a mistake!!"
She looks at me and says, "I probably sent it back already because you didn't send everything in. What did you send it in?"
"A big yellow envelope." The woman gets up and huffs off to her "mail pile" which she apparently hasn't touched in weeks (nor has she answered the phone in that long)! She comes back with my envelope!
"Well, come on." I go up there, license in hand. She opens my envelope.
"What's this?"
"My middle name is going to include my old last name."
"Oh, no. We don't change middle names here. You have to do that through the court system. If you want to do that, you have to amend your passport, then come back here." She starts to give me my application back.
"No! I need this because I'm flying under the new name in a few weeks. Just change the last name." Without looking at me, she starts typing something into her computer. She makes the change and stamps some sort of seal of approval on the receipt. Luckily my new card arrived in a few days and I was able to get my new license in time for the trip. No thanks to anyone else!

I'm going to get REAL good at talking back to people if I continue to be treated like an idiot.

Language barriers

So, I go to my French class on Wednesday, after having missed three classes. I don't think I missed too much; we talked about reality shows and I told the story, in French, so it took a while, of My brother and sister-in-law being on Design Invasion (FOX, only one season...). Another woman had written a "defense" argument for reality shows. However, she was struggling and had made up words by pronouncing English words with a French accent, and the funniest part of this was the look on the professor's face as the woman read. The prof this cute young blond from Provence, with amazingly icy blue eyes, and I didn't think she could look so sour. I mean, it was great... she was scowling and I could tell she was thinking (in French, of course), "What the hell is this woman saying?" Granted, everyone in the class deserves credit just for being there, and this woman is fluent in German so she's one up on me, but perhaps she should just stick to German. I don't think the prof realized the face she was making, because she was concentrating so hard on understanding. I have been in situations where people I am trying to communicate with don't know any English, but usually it's easy to understand broken English. THIS was something truly special.

Happy New Year.

Or, l'shana tova. Apparently Joe Buck wished us a shana tova during a game last night, because his editor was off for the holiday. I am bummed that now my religious holidays aren't official days off from work. I am out of accrued leave after the trip to Michigan, so my Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur will be "LWOP." Apparently, though, in some private organizations they are taking to giving the high holidays as official days off (like my mother's workplace, where her best friend was a director, and Jewish, and made it happen). Perhaps the trend will spread.

Last night in LH's home town, we called in an order for pizza, and when we went with LH's mother to pick it up, the little Italian woman who owns the place says (as usual) with a big voice, "My big-a boyee!" She adores him. She asked what we were doing there on a Tuesday just for the day. We said it was Rosh Hashanah, and that we were going home that night. She said, "my sister, she lives in New York, and she gets the whole week off!" We said, oh yeah? That's nice. Then she launches into this description about "My sister, she lives in a place where the people they are all..."--and in a small, clipped voice--"Jew... and they wear wigs!" We said, oh yes, they are Orthodox. And then it was like a train wreck; she kept going, "and you wanna know what they do? They have music and dancing, and my sister says they have a big parade!" We escaped as quickly as possible, and when we came out, LH's mom said, "...like being at the zoo! Like we didn't know any of those things." I mean, I know she was just trying to connect with us about something, but the way she tripped a tiny bit before she said "Jew" made me uncomfortable because I thought she was embarassed and unsure about how to say it.

Michigan revisited

And now, married and wanting to buy a home, I am looking at this "city" in a whole new light. I spent my childhood looking disdainfully upon it, because it was a "city" and not nearly as picturesque as our lake. I guess this was my parents' doing; we avoided it unless we absolutely had to go to the grocery store or the laundromat, which was once a week. Now that I live in a real city, I realize that Traverse City is a great middle ground, and GOOD LORD are those houses huge and cheap. My oldest brother and his wife and 2 girls are moving to Traverse, having just made a killing on their house in Fairfax, VA.

So these are the appealing attributes of Traverse:
(1) the lake house is 45 minutes away,
(2) we would have family literally a stone's throw from home,
(3) it would be guaranteed that we would see my whole family for at least a week each year,
(4) my parents live at the lake 4 months out of the year now,
(5) Loving Husband can probably telecommute and I could freelance or work for one of several publishing houses or magazines in town that I found online today,
(6) we would still have basic city conveniences, like being able to walk to restaurants and shops, which are getting to be rather cute in the shopping district,
(7) the house prices would allow us so much room (meaning room to grow...),
(8) there's a synagogue that even offers hebrew school,
(9) LH says the in-laws would probably really enjoy spending time up there.

There are other implied benefits in this list, like future built-in babysitters, no-cost travel to vacation home, and hopefully a hometown that would attract our friends to visit. I am just thinking this thing out here in my head.

Drawbacks:

(1)Leaving our friends,
(2) leaving DC and all of its culture and food and nightlife,
(3) leaving the sights and sounds of the city...

OK so I can't think of another. LH and I drove around the neighborhoods where we would potentially shop for houses up there, and just kept giddily wowing over houses. We went to www.taar.com and checked out homes in the price range we're looking for in DC, and those homes are too big for us there. Too big! I mean, literally, 7 bedrooms and 5 baths on 100 feet of lakefront property.

My question is this; who are these people buying homes here in DC? Granted we are not rich, but we're an average DINK family, pretty common in DC, and can't afford a home in an area that LH will let me walk around alone in. Who are those people buying the $700,000 homes? Why are there so many of them? And why do they all want to live where I want to buy a house for cheap??

In Traverse, there AREN'T any areas to feel unsafe in. There would be no almost getting shot outside a hotel on embassy row while coming home from a French class... but then again there would be no embassy row, and no French class to be coming home from.

Michigan

Just spent a week in Michigan with my Loving Husband and my parents. Lots of family history there:

My great grandmother Ellen lived in Ohio and in the '20s, on doctor's orders (though I bet it was because Ohio sucks), went north for the summers because of allergies. My great-grandfather's name either escapes me or has never been mentioned to me. We have a historic map up in the house with the names of original homeowners on it, and his initials are apparently C.F. They bought a bunch of properties along Glen Lake in northern MI, by Glen Arbor, then a VERY small town. They had three children, one of them being my grandmother Margaret. There was a "big house" and several smaller cottages, like 5 or so. They all had names, like "Redwing" and "Birdie" or something like that. I will need to clarify these things with my mother, though I'm not too worried about the details at the moment because a historian picked my mother's brain last year and will be publishing a book about the homes on Glen Lake. The big house is Glen Ellen, after my great grandmother. My grandmother inherited the big house. There were 3 kids, and my great aunt Dottie and great "Uncle Did" inherited the other houses. There was even a "honeymoon cottage" across the street from Glen Ellen, one room, fit for oompa-loompas. NO honeymooner would want to stay there now, even if it hadn't collapsed in a heap of rotted wood from lack of use and care. I barely remember it, except for my mother telling me to stay away from it because it wasn't safe. Same goes for the outhouse attached to the garage, since they had a septic tank installed somewhere along the way.

Anyway, my grandmother married Fritz Krueger, whom she met at the Curtis Music Institute I believe, and they moved to Philly where he sang Tenor in the opera and she was a concert pianist. They even had a radio show together called "Mr. and Mrs. Music." They spent summers with my mother and my uncle at the lake house. My mom used to tell me about riding horses, playing with her cousins, sitting at the kitchen table with her grandmother, hiking the dunes (http://www.sleepingbeardunes.com/), watching sunsets over the lake.

My mother stayed in the Philly area and passed on her love for the lake to me and my three brothers. Now there are already 6 little ones, furnished by my brothers, being instilled with an inescapable draw to the house and the lake.

When I was growing up, my brothers were much older (especially much older than they seem now) and I have few memories of being at the lake with from about age 6 to about age 16. I do remember them burying me waist high in the sand dunes and having a good laugh before digging me out. I remember they spent their time sleeping and doing whatever else in the boathouse, and my parents rigged an intercom system to call them for meals (the lake is several flights of steps down from the front yard). We always spent two weeks there, and there were only a couple of years that it didn't include my birthday, up until I was in high school. My birthday is July 5, and I was told (and believed, for a while) that the fireworks on Lake Michigan in Glen Arbor were just for me!

More of my childhood memories involve my mother's cousin's daughters (aunt Dottie's grandkids), and I can't tell you if that means second cousins or cousins removed from somewhere. But I call them cousins. So, they were usually up around the same time, and I also sometimes brought my best-friend-cum-maid-of-honor with me. I guess my parents thought I deserved a playmate, since my brothers were each other's built-in buddies. Those are some of my most vivid childhood memories, and maybe it's because it was the same every year.

We would pack for a week beforehand. My mother would get out her infamous index-card-packing-list from the previous year to be sure we didn't forget anything. We would stuff everything in The Van (green pre-1987, gray and maroon post-1987), including the hammock, various children, and whatever dog(s) we had at the time, and drive off, always later than planned and with a few stressed-out parental spats. We would drive through the night until one year my mother got tired of that, then we would stay overnight at the Knights' Inn in Toledo, which takes dogs. I remember entertaining myself in the car, listening to my dad's CB radio, reading, listening to a Walkman, counting cars. One drive-through-the-night year, when my mother went to the back seat to sleep, my father let me sit up front and have a Coke and one of his Archway cookies. Suddenly I was a racecar driver, complete with squealing breaks and revving engine... the late-night Coke didn't happen again after that.

There were two tunnels through the mountains in western PA. My parents always woke me up for them. And I can still hear the sound of the wind through the little window that slid open next to my chair. And the grocery store in the "city" where we always had to stop when we arrived still reminds me of that desperate feeling of wanting to just be at the lake already. Swim in the lake, go out on a boat, lay on the dock and read, watch sunsets, hike the dunes, go to the Totem Shop and buy Minnetonka Moccasins.