Two Things About the 'Net (a takeoff on yesterday's)

There are two things about the internet.  The first is that you
can hear someone mention a famous building by a famous architect in a
famous place, forget most of it, go online and put "Bilbao Spain
Guggenheim" into Google, and voila:  instant expert.  Fifteen
minutes later, having viewed the panorama, sampled the art, checked the
arrival time from Madrid and the local airport, and looked at the
prices in the nearest restaurantes, you could excusably think there was
actually no need to visit the place in person.

Then there's the other thing about the internet.  Over two decades
ago, before there was an internet, you could have stumbled on a
little-visited corner of a famous place, and sat there all alone for
hours in a light drizzle, alternately watching the fog drift in from
the Forth and being blind and quiet and alone in that fog, with your damp back
against the ancient stone, contemplating a doorway leading, ruinous, from outdoors to outdoors; your
fingers tingling with chill and your mind slowly melding with the eons
of minds that meditated just there, in just that way.  Then today
you could have put "Edinburgh monument Arthur's Seat" into Google and
voila:  the panorama, the arrival time from London and the local
express, the prices at the nearest pubs -- and hundreds of evocative stills of
the stone and the city and the doorway and the mist.  And you
could have excusably damned the technology that makes it possible for
anyone to imagine, for one instant, that there is no need to visit the
place in person.

The Bridge, the Building and the Art Museum

During a recent interview seeking a well-educated, well-rounded
candidate capable of varied tasks, my boss asked our interviewee to
name his favorite bridge, building, and art museum.  I listened to
the response with half an ear, composing my own:

The 4-mile-long Astoria-Megler Bridge reaches from Washington State to
Oregon in one long rising arc, overflown by gulls and underscored by a
misty mixture of briny coastal fumes.  Riding up the incline
makes you clutch your seat roller-coaster-wise, and passing through
cloudy wet air over the roiling mouth of the Columbia, you find yourself airborne on
four wheels.

The only time in my life when I had time
to notice buildings was my 9-month sojourn in Europe as an
undergraduate, and my institutional home at the time being the
University of Edinburgh, I thought at first my choice would have to be
one of the great monuments on the Royal Mile, winding down from Castle
past St. Giles to the Holyrood.  But then I remembered another
building.  Or a remnant of one, but what a remnant!  St.
Anthony's Chapel sits enduringly on a heathery outcrop with the misty
Scottish air wafting through the open doorway that looks, from one
aspect, on the great ancient/modern city below, and from the other on
the rising green of Arthur's Seat with its quiet, looming prehistoric
majesty.

Finally: although I seldom frequent art museums, my abiding memory is an
evening spent rambling an impressive display at the National Gallery of
Art.  Spilling out after this intellectual fulfillment into the teeming
metropolis near Judiciary Square, at the foot of a tall
pillar announcing the exhibit in lovely pastels and ornate writing,
there lay, passed by the uncaring feet of a thousand well-shod white-collars, a
large, dead, bloated RAT.  I'm not sure what summary I can make of
that experience, but it definitely had something to do with art (anagramatically at least).

(our interviewee, incidentally, cinched his candidacy by taking the
all-in-one approach and citing Gehry's ship-shaped Guggenheim Art Museum in Bilbao,
Spain, and the adjoining bridge; a quick retort even more impressive
than his easy answers to both:  "If the President announced a $1
billion program, what would the individual cost be to every man, woman
and child in America?" and "How does an air conditioner work?")

And you?  Your bridge, building and museum?  (or just
repeating, for my dull English-major's brain, how an air conditioner
works would be okay too)

Diving Boards

This
is me, not going off a diving board, but doing something I much prefer,
which is sitting watching other people with my digital camera in hand
(in case the watch-ees do something interesting, like, oh, going off
a diving board).

This weekend I took the kids to a local "water park," which is the
very-small-town-America version of the big-deal water parks with huge
slides and everything.  This one has a small slide, and a
dumping-bucket device, and just a general nice atmosphere for kids and
water on a 93-degree day.

So Ms. 7 was working her way up toward the diving board, going from lane to
lane and practicing jumping in at 4 feet, 5 feet, 6 feet.  I
trotted by with Ms. 4 in hand and offered encouraging words. 
"Mom!" she said hopefully.  "How about YOU go off the diving
board?"

Me:  Okay.  Jump off the diving board?

Her:  No, no.  DIVE off the diving board.

Me:  Uh.  Well.  Here, hold my hat.  And my glasses.

There was no way, with my appreciative little audience standing raptly by, that I was NOT
diving off that board.  And that board, after all, wasn't anything
major -- just a normal little low-dive.  But I haven't dived for
at least a decade.  And definitely not with the purpose of
empowering a child.  I stood in
line.  The kids smiled expectantly.  The guy before me
went (a splashy double-flip).  I felt absurd little butterflies in my stomach. 
Everything slowed down as I went up the steps and walked slowly down
that gravelly bluish surface, reliving the quaking moments in Minnow class.  I squared up my toes on the edge.  I
looked down into that deep, deep, deep water.  I took a big breath,
put hands over head, and went off.

Me:  (heaving myself out, grinning and dripping) 
There!  See!  It's really easy! (internally congratulating
myself and contemplating a new little mantra; perhaps: Sometimes you've just got to dive off)

Her:  (critically)  Mom -- what was all that about l-e-a-n-i-n-g over?  You need to RUN and JUMP.

Parenting Training

It's a crowded
restroom at the rec center where a junior counselor is shepherding five
little campers, who've entered the stalls to change into bathing suits.

Counselor:  (nervously surveying the row of closed stalls) Okay, I think we need to assign numbers to you guys.

Girl:  I'm 99!

Counselor:  Uh -- no, how about 1 through 5?

Girls:  (chattering all at once) I'm 1!  Yeah, I'm 4!  No, I'm 4!  No, ME.  I want to be 4!

Counselor:  Errr -- okay, I'll assign
the numbers.  [the girls emerge, after loudly comparing suits, and
she counts off]  1, 2, 3, 4, 5.  Okay, now you say your
numbers.

Girls:  3! 5! 4....4 heh heh. 2!  1, 1, 1!

Counselor:  No, no, NOOOO!  In order.



....at which point I had to leave to avoid laughing too impolitely loudly....

Final Minutes

It’s late afternoon on a sultry Tuesday as our rented Dodge Caravan
closes in on home.  I'm the vacation’s designated driver; now a master of about 18% of all the vehicle’s buttons, dials,
gages and levers (tallied at 67 by the kids before they got tired of
counting).   We're at a soap opera moment, and key to today's drama is Ms.
Sick, who’s been
fighting a fever and worsening sore throat for two days and has just
thrown up copiously (a mini-catastrophe expertly managed  by my
mother, armed with paper towels, brisk
efficiency and sunny sympathy).  Ms. Sick's sister, Ms.
SickOfSitting, has perfected the art of trapping an air bubble in her silly putty and
popping it like a firecracker.  The fifth occupant is
an older gentleman whose identity we’ll fully protect by naming him
merely Mr. BackSeatDriver. I’m nearing the apex of a spiraling
tension that began this morning somewhere around Indianapolis, when I
phoned Ms. Sick’s doctor and set an appointment for 4 pm.  375
miles of construction, bathroom stops, lunch breaks and gas stations
later, we’re about forty-five miles from the doctor and it’s almost
three.  We've just passed a mini-metropolis with 25 stoplights
on the only thoroughfare.  There is a half-completed bypass.  Mom and I mull
over the Hobson’s choice and lose.  A semi blocks the detour back to the
main route, and our spedometer's at creep speed.  

Mom leaps up with the paper towels.  False alarm.

We make it back to the  highway and I put us behind
a Taurus exceeding the speed limit (theory:  the cops’ll go for
the
leader).  The ocean- liner-sized thunderhead overhead turns black
at the edges, and lightning streaks down in a nearby windbreak. 
Simultaneously a warning buzzer thrums behind the steering wheel.

The clock reads 3:35.  Two more strikes of lightning shatter the
near horizon.  I press down the gas pedal and turn off the air.

A microburst buffets the van.  The trees along the two-lane are
leaning sideways and even on highest power the windowscreen is almost
opaque in the downpour.  A sapling crashes across the other
lane.  We edge into a small town.  All the stoplights are
out.  I stick to the bumper in front of me as a fire truck screams
out of a side road. 

She doesn’t break pace, even as Mom bursts suddenly into song in her clear soprano.

The van sways and  the rain pours down blindingly.  It’s 3:42.

Mom, a bit of a Luddite on the personal technology front,  pulls
the phone gingerly from my purse with two fingers.  She does appear to
be holding it right side up.

I glance sideways.  She’s got the phone pressed to her ear and the
other hand is cupped around her mouth as if shouting down a well. 

It’s 4:01.  I take the first exit.  The rain is pelting
slightly less severely.  Some asshole in front of me is going the
speed limit.  I’m on his bumper, and when he slows to turn off I
nearly plow into him.  It’s 4:04.

I turn onto a back route.  The van heads down a vertical residential
street with parked cars on either side.  I notice Mom’s hand,
clenched on her seat, is white-knuckled.  I trust that the van’s anti-lock break system doesn’t require activating Button
#68.    Even Ms. SOS is
silent.  We go temporarily airborne over a rise.

The light at the base of the hill turns yellow.  I floor it.

The clock hits 4:10.  I come to a quick halt, punch the parking
brake, and leap into the soft rain.  I pull Ms. Sick from her
seat.  Ms. SOS shoots out of the car, then, remembering her silly
putty, starts to go after it.  All three adults instantly lash out
at the top of their lungs.  She ejects herself again, wild-eyed.



We dash off the elevator at 4:11.  The kids and I stare white-faced around the empty room. 

The receptionist smiles calmly and re-opens her window.


Postscript:  Mr. BSD (not, incidentally, my spouse) is a well-loved member of the
family whose many good qualities are sacrificed here on the alter of good 
tale-telling.

In My Own Words

"Thank you, Your Honor, yes:  'in my own words,' yes sir. 
Well sir, it began with the snake.  Or maybe it began with the
birth of my children, but yesterday's situation definitely began with
the snake.  It was just a ratsnake, sir, just a harmless big black
serpent trying to find bird eggs or some other easy prey.  But it
was nosing around the house like it meant business, and when it
slithered up on the porch and knocked its nose at the door, my husband
and I
decided to try to remove it.  So I was out there on the porch with
a broom, it was coiling and hissing, and the kids were piling out to
check out the action.  I shouted at the kids.  They didn't
move.  My husband shouted at me.  The kids got closer.  I yelled at the kids.  The
instigator of the family broohaha got away into the maple, and I was
left dressing down the eldest about not obeying.  She rolled her
eyes at me, and I...well...  well, a large segment of uncooked
broccoli got thrown, sir, not to put too fine a point on it. 
First person declarative?  Yes, sir:  I threw....
A joke?  No, sir, unfortunately it was thrown very seriously
indeed. Except I missed, so it shattered -- did you know uncooked
broccoli shatters, sir?  It's actually sort of astounding...stick
to the point, yes sir.  Well, it shattered all over the wall, the
windowsill, the chair, and the all across the floor.  My kid ran
away screaming ("You threw broccoli at
me;" sort of the ultimate
insult, I guess, sir) and I cleaned up the broccoli (except for the bit
on the windowsill, which I missed, and my husband complained lateer)
and I calmed down.  Then I went to have a chat with the child. 
She was curled in fetal position on her sister's lower bunk, and when I
started talking she put her hands over her ears.  Anyway, after a
while of that I just shut up and sat there staring out at the porch
where someone hadn't put away the sidewalk chalk, and after a while she
uncoiled and started sliding around on the bed.  I think maybe she
was wishing she were the snake that got away scot-free and didn't have
a mother to complain about irreverent behavior.  Or throw
broccoli.  So anyway, she slithered through the rungs of the
bunk
ladder my husband made out of 2-by-4.  I was trying to break the
ice, so I said something about if
your shoulders go through the rest of you does.  Then, watching
her crawl around, I got to remembering my caving days, and after a
while I got up on the bunk and tried going through the ladder. 
She was laughing and asking if I really thought I could.  My
shoulders were a pretty tight fit, but I dragged my trailing arm
through okay.  Then I had trouble with the hips.  In short,
sir, when you're 43 and female, your shoulders aren't your widest attribute.  Well, I
think I could have made it in an emergency, sir, if I'd taken my shorts
off and maybe asked for some cooking oil to help ease through, but
there wasn't that
extra-bit-of-adrenaline thing going on, you know, sir, and then
unfortunately it turned out the shoulders didn't go back through either, sir.  So I heard the little
sister calling and I told my eldest to go check on her, but she
said:  "I think you're stuck, I'm going to get Daddy."  So my
husband came in and raised an eyebrow or two and went off
again,
and came back with the power drill and the Phillips-head extension, and
took off one of the ladder rungs.  The kids were both cavorting
around, and the eldest was saying, "Daddy's screwing Mommy out of the
ladder," over and over.  So I thought about not moving and just
staying there, but after a while I pulled myself out.  I told the spouse at
least I'd achieved my objective in defusing the situation, but I think
he misheard me because he was laughing himself silly until he collected himself enough to choke: "Yeah, you amused everyone, all
right!"  Then he said something about hips, and slapped my
rump.  What, sir?  No sir.  I didn't have any more
broccoli, is the only reason why not, sir.

Mmmmm......uh........hamburger!

So.  Cultural imperative compels me to stick to the tv theme for the moment.  Only I didn't see Paris ( this link is a digitized online version of the commercial, and Mom, you might not want to click) on tv, of course, I watched her in the (more-or-less) private adult space of my cubicle at work.

Schizophrenic reaction: 

• 43-year-old been-around-the-block-more'n-once female:  Whoa!  Soap me up, baby!
• Mother-of-two:  Hon?  Know how I put you and that damned tv in your own separate room?  Well, get out the childproof locks.  Distance is not sufficient; that device requires absolute isolation.
• Disinterested student of human behavior:  So if I show this to the kids, will they react as follows?

*this conversation is a figment of my imagination*
Ms. 4:  Why is she wearing those spiky shoes to wash her car?
Ms. 7:  [all big-sister-like] She isn't washing her car, silly.........
Ms. 4:  [thoughtfully] No, she's crawling all over it.  That looks like fun.
Ms. 7:  ....she's washing herself.
Ms. 4:  Why would you wear a swimsuit to wash yourself?
Ms. 7:  I wonder what her Mom said when she ruined the camera by spraying the hose on it.

........TV

Exercising my body is simultaneously exercising my already quite
healthy (although previously ungrounded) disdain for all things
television.  With five of them staring me in the face while I gasp
and pound away, every lunch hour brings on another helping of CNN,
reality tv, a soap or two, Fox "News," or making over your kitchen,
den, spouse or yourself.  And frankly none of it seems anything
but off-kilter and badly staged. 

So the other day I saw the usual antic people interviewing some eager
young female contestants to be the wife of an aged billionare.  As
a denouement, they were supposed to deliver the eulogy they'd give at
his funeral before cashing in on his wealth, and then longingly lick the urn. 
Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Over the top, but hardly more over the top than
anything on any of the competing four screens..........except. 
Except every now and then a great big "FAKE!!" would flash up.  Apparently the kicker here is that the whole scenario is
made up, and these chicks are being duped.  No real
billionare.  'Cause it's (self-proclaimed):  BSTV!

Er?  Oxymoron, anyone?

Assimilating Loss

A mutual acquaintance, hearing of Siobhan's situation, said: 
"Well -- it's not so dreadful as that, is it, really?"  Tears
caught in my throat, and I struggled to find words.  "Sometimes,"
I finally said, "when you're in the midst of something difficult, it's
hard to focus on the fact that it could have been so much worse." 
And that isn't just true for Siobhan herself, suddenly contemplating
her husband's unexpected job change and all that means:  the
house-selling, house-buying, packing-up and leave-taking; the
desperately
rapid location of one's new grocery, school, library and neighborhood
park in an unfamiliar city among different people.  It's also true for all
Siobhan's friends and affiliates.  Some are people like me who
looked
forward to connecting with her every other day and find themselves in
preemptive mourning already.  Others are people who know her only
in passing and
will find themselves, at summer's end, discovering her absence second
hand and suddenly realizing the emptiness in their own lives that she
so quietly and competently filled.

If I had to describe Siobhan in a two-word phrase, I'd have a hard time
choosing between "beautifully tenacious" and "tenaciously
beautiful."  Regarding the latter, Siobhan has those angular
cheekbones chiseled from some ancestral Celtic cliffside and covered
with a pale perfection of skin that is in certain lights almost translucent.  Her golden brown curls furl softly
around her arresting profile and cascade down her back in fashion fit to catch your breath and
demand the attention that her kindly manner doesn't itself in any way
demand.  Siobhan doesn't have the sort of beauty that spurts and
pales along the bell curve from puberty to middle-age like most of us; she
naturally possess the quality of comportment and physical
form that arrests passersby for a lifetime.

Such loveliness suite some well enough as the focal point for career and
personality both, and Siobhan's pre-motherhood career as an actress was
certainly a place where beautiful people congregate.  But Siobhan's beauty
is only peripheral to the core of herself, which holds a tenacity
that is, in her, also gorgeous. 
Siobhan doesn't do anything by halves.  Where others lay out a
plate of cookies and some iced tea for an afternoon's gathering of
friends, Siobhon puts the finishing touches on chocolate cheesecake,
strawberries and kiwi, carefully arranged on china with champagne on the
side.  Where other moms arrive late and frazzled to pick up their
kids from dance practice, Siobhan is sitting on the sideline,
pen-and-paper in hand, writing down every move to help her daughter
practice at home.  Yet like her apparent disregard of her beauty,
she has an easy excuse for her perfectionism on all fronts:  "Oh,"
she laughs causally, "I thought a cheesecake was the right thing for a
really special party," or, with a twinkle in her eye, "You know my
daughter needs that
extra practice!"  But the only excuse us mere mortals have for not
achieving Siobhan's degree of performance is sheer lack of will to push
ourselves that far.  Siobhan's loving attention to all the details
around her spring from a well of volunteerism that defines "altruism," and benefits every one of the friends, family,
acquaintances and organizations with which she comes in contact.

Siobhan is, for me, one of those very few people, in all one's decades
of knowing and loving and moving on, whose laughter and choice words
will come to mind at the odd moment when I most need a friend. 
And to think now of the days and weeks and months to come when she
won't be there in person is to suffer, indeed, a loss that despite the
lack of any real tragedy in the current situation brings nevertheless a sense of personal devastation.

....For What You Have.

It was only as I fell violently backwards into the electric fence, with
the mattock and the huge strip of uprooted orchard grass on top of me,
that I thought:  "Hmm.  I'm glad I have an office job during
the week."  The verbally-expressed translation was a bit  --
briefer.

And you.........?