Boston

I just got back from visiting my ex in Boston. He lives in a 2-family townhome in Waltham, a cute structure, small and petite without much yard space. While out there, we were hit by a true nor'easter. The storm came and dumped 2 feet of snow on us, as we watched spellbound from the window. It was fluffy, white, mesmerizing, and a LOT of snow. At this point, Brian looked at me sheepishly and confessed something.

"My neighbors and I sort of have a system going with the snow shoveling."

"Oh yeah? What's that?" I asked.

"Well, when I'm out of town, they shovel for me. And, when they're out of town, I shovel for them." He paused. "And...well, they're out of town this weekend."

I shrugged my shoulders. "No big deal--let's shovel. What is it--a couple of driveways, and you have two shovels for us, right? Between you and me, it won't take us but a half hour." I was totally sporty about it, until we tramped outside. There weren't two, but four driveways. Some entrepreneurial builder, who believes big in the American dream of more cars than family household members, put in two of the longest driveways I'd ever seen. They were like airport runways. Plus, there was a long pathway, which led up five very wide stairs and onto a hugely expansive and wholly unnecessary porch. I was all for skipping the front walk and porch, until Brian reminded me that people did need to use something called the front doors to gain access inside.

I kept my mouth shut, though, until Brian started rooting around in his garage for shovels. He pulled out a totally normal shovel and set it aside, then continued to forage in his garage. Finally, he emerged, looking rather disheveled and holding what looked like a small saucer with a stick on it.

"What the hell is that?" I demanded.

"It's a car shovel. See, it unfolds and you can unwind the handle and pull it out. It's a compact shovel. It's for you."

"No, it's a barbie-doll shovel, and I'm not using it. Give me the other shovel." I reached for it, but Brian beat me to it. What then ensued was a brief but uneventful battle over the shovel, until I finally gave up. I was just about to head inside for a sit-in to protest his unfair labor standards, when Brian proposed an agreement. I would start on the walk, stairs and porch, while he tackled the driveways.

"See? I'm all about fair labor practices. I'm even giving you the easier job. You'll probably even finish before me." He left me to the porch as he tackled the driveway. At this point, his neighbor came by with a snowblower.

"Want to use the snowblower?" He called out. Brian eagerly assented and finished off all four driveways in a matter of minutes. I stood there, panting with my four steps and porch still left to go. Brian beamed and waved at me from his expanse of now-cleared pavement. "See?" he said, "That wasn't so bad."

Christmas

Someone has been stealing packages in Sister No. 2’s building lately. She lives in a small multiplex, about 9 condos in a two story building in San Francisco. The condo association is small enough that it couldn’t be any of the residents furtively stealing packages from their neighbors. In fact, one resident recently put up a notice on the association board, warning others that her Christmas package had gotten stolen and for others to beware.

So, I recently sent my Christmas present to Sister No. 2. Because I was super cheap, I sent it without insuring or certifying the package. And because I was super super cheap, I sent it the slowest rate possible, parcel post. Two weeks later, I called Sister No. 2.

“Have you gotten my package yet? I sent it out like 2 weeks ago.” I asked.

“No,” she said, sounding worried. “I think someone stole it.”

“Oh no, really?!!” This worried me—I had put a lot of care and thought into that Christmas present, including a re-gifted gift certificate to Banana Republic. “It’s in a plain cardboard amazon.com box.”

“I haven’t seen anything like that.” She sighed. “Well, that’s that. It’s stolen.” she said, with an air of defeated finality.

“Well, let’s give it another week before we assume it’s lost.” She agreed and I didn’t hear from her again until I got a call several days later.

“I got the package,” she was slightly breathless, as though she had run up the stairs and just dialed my number. “But I think someone stole my box, took out what they wanted, and replaced it with things they didn’t want!” There was a note of urgency in her voice. “They probably thought it contained stuff from amazon.com and when they realized it didn't have any amazon stuff in there, brought the box back with all the stuff they didn’t want! Quick, tell me what you sent!”

“Well,” I said slowly, thinking this theory sounded a little bizarre. “I sent you a pashmina shawl, rosebud tea, a book, and a gift certificate (conveniently leaving out the fact that it was re-gifted) to Banana Republic. What was in the box?”

Complete silence ensued on the other end. Finally, she said, “I guess they didn’t steal it.” Another pause. “Thanks for the Christmas present.” Click.

Tajikistan Air

I recently--and voluntarily--took part in a terrifying experience called Tajikistan Airlines.

Having passed through the Sharjah Airport in UAE, we loaded ourselves onto a bus and drove to the airport rear where a fleet of very old and tired-looking airplanes lay in repose. Looking at the airplanes, one would assume this was where air vehicles were retired to live out the end of their rusty and ageworn days after decades (or possibly centuries?) of loyal service to the aviation industry. Not so, as they were very much used and in full service. While I was not in any particular rush to board one of these relics; my fellow passengers, however, felt quite differently and rushed out of the doors and onto the airplane with an enthusiasm incongruent to the idea of becoming airborne on such a machine.

We climbed the stairs and entered the cabin, which bore a striking resemblance to what you would find in a historical museum dedicated to the early evolution of aviation history. The walls were peeling and yellowing with age, the carpet was ripped and dirty and the seats were in definite need of some major fabric restoration. The plastic wall next to my seat hung loosely ajar from the window. I tried unsuccessfully to stow my carry-on in the overhead compartment, which was too small, until one passenger demonstrated the versatility of Tajik Airline seats. Not only did the seats flip up, but the seat backs also flipped forward (as I learned from the passenger behind me, who was zealously trying to stow something the size of a baby elephant behind my seat). Driven by my observations, I hurried to tighten my seat belt but, to my dismay, the belt was about 8 inches too long and hung limply over my legs. It was then that I looked up and noticed smears of blood on the back of the food tray in the seat in front of me. Oh my. The Tajik woman sitting next to me didn't even bother to put on her seat belt, choosing instead to trust in fate. I was reassured by her fatalistic stance--after all, this was a woman from the country flying this airline and would surely know their safety record--until I noticed the Tajik woman on the other side of her furiously praying with her prayer beads. Needless to say, this did very little to inspire my confidence in Tajik Air.
Looking around, I noticed that other passengers, too, had been unsuccessful in fitting their baggage in the overhead compartments. Instead, the overhead compartment doors were left open and plastic bags of various sizes were left hanging from the open compartments for the duration of the flight.

The flight itself was uneventful, punctuated only by the serving of a meal--the entirety of which my seat companion promptly stowed in the seat pocket in front of her. The only other remarkable event was that during our descent, the roof started leaking on my director. It's also possible that the reason I don't remember any astonishing events was because of the several pills of valium I consumed prior to the plane becoming airborne.

We arrived safely, and upon landing in Dushanbe, I breathed a sigh of relief and looked out onto the airstrip at the welcome land. Below the plane, a man was happily riding a bicycle around in circles on the tarmac.

Hello, Tajikistan.

Toilets East West

I was in Tokyo Narita Airport a few weeks ago en route home. After several cups of green tea, I was in a mad and urgent dash for the loo. I burst into a stall and plopped myself down. After the initial blissful moment of relief, I began looking around for the toilet paper. Instead, I found a series of small buttons alongside my toilet. Fascinated, I looked closer. The first button read, “Shower: For the Posterior.” Oh. The second button read “Bidet,” leaving its non-posterior targets up to the user’s imagination. The third button read, “Flushing sound.” Curious, I pushed the flushing sound button, at which point a very artificial gurgling sound emanated from the depths of the toilet bowl for exactly twenty seconds. Completely enchanted, I pushed it again to see if it would do it again, and it willingly obliged. I was completely fascinated at this point, and I toyed with the idea of staying in the stall a little while longer and playing around with the toilet bowl buttons, but my flight was due to leave soon and I had other pressing matters, i.e. duty free, to get to. Why couldn't we have all these great amenities attached to our toilets? I found myself deeply disappointed in our public waste system units.

Upon my return home, another toilet adventure shortly followed. I was in a very upscale, chi chi club and went to the bathroom. When I tried to flush the toilet, the toilet paper refused obstinately to flush down. I tried flushing a second time, then a third, then a fourth. At this point, I became aware of another person who was also in the bathroom and presumably listening to what sounded like a serious obsessive-compulsive behavioral attachment to the toilet. I gave up and exited the stall to find her looking at me askance. “I’m not really OCD," I told her, “I just couldn’t get the toilet to flush.”

Who needs a flushing sound when the toilet doesn't work anyway?

Old Exes Posting #1

So, this guy I dated for two months broke up with me, citing the fact that I wasn't going to church with him. Okay. This is the same guy who also designs weapons of mass destruction (WMD). I vividly remember our first conversation initiating me into the world of making WMD for the US government.

We were in a dimly lit restaurant, just getting to know eachother over glasses of wine in an atmosphere of sheer romantic ambience. I started off asking, "So, tell me about what you do. You're an engineer, right? What do you design?" thinking he probably created harmless things like chairs and lamp bases and rolodexes. Engineers seemed to design benign, yet varied, items. For example, I had one friend who made tractors for Caterpillar and another designing maxi pads for Kotex. He surely fell somewhere in the line between agricultural machinery and feminine products.

He swallowed a sip of wine and looked at me. "I work for Defenders ---. I design guns and the ammunition that they shoot."

I blinked.

He continued, "Well, see they had me working on ammunition for a while, but now they switched me to a group that's designing the lever that lifts the gun up in the tank. So they can shoot it." Really? "Before, when I was designing" (here, he lowered his voice conspiratorially so no one else in the restaurant could hear), "bombs, I was working on much more high-tech stuff. Ammo and gun stuff is not that complex, you know?"

I listened with a slightly morbid fascination, not unlike that one would have toward a bad car accident, because this was so impossible. I work in human rights, don't own a gun much less know how to shoot one, and even despise hunting (although I really don't have the moral high ground on that last one, since I eat meat and have a particular weakness for corn dogs). Here I was sitting across from a guy who probably created the very kinds of situations that other people have to fix, no doubt shot little rotund forest creatures for fun, and was probably living for the day when we could all legally carry our own WMD as he saw envisioned by the Constitution's right to bear arms.

He was pretty excited about his work, too. In fact, because I couldn't understand all the jargon about gun pieces, volleys, bores (is this even right?), he brought home a 90-page manual from work on how to design a tank gun. The manual was marked bright red: "HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL." He must have really liked me.

Nevertheless, after about 2 months, Gun-maker broke up with me. He cited my lack of enthusiasm for church (could this relate to that Easter Sunday when I slept in while he went to church?)

He said, "I really wanted someone who would go to church with me just one day a week." Why? So you could design bombs five days a week with a clean conscience? Although, I must admit that I'm not free from hypocriticism here, since I dated him for 2 months. After all, I could have disengaged myself from him and his choice of career, but I stayed with him for a while. Oh well. Next time, I guess I'll just stick to the engineers from Kotex.