Say Yes To The Tilt-A-Whirl

There's hardly anything more American than the Kern County Fair. You might think your county likes it's fair, but that's because you have not been to this particular fair. Don't get me wrong, Michiganders know how to throw a fair. We've got the animals and the fried food and the country music and the borderline unsafe carnival rides. It's not the content of the Kern County Fair that makes it all that different from any other county's fair, it's the enthusiasm of the fairgoers.

We went to the fair during it's second week on a Wednesday night. That place was jam-packed full of people sporting cowboy gear, forking out $30 for an all-you-can-ride carnival wristband, lining up to pay and see a 1,000 lb. pig. And you could tell this wasn't just any old family outing. People were dressed in the part, acting like kids in a playground (granted, some of them were actual children on actual playground toys), drinking libations and singing aloud.

My particular crew included only one Kern County native, and you could tell that she had a special twinkle about her that the rest of us lacked. We had one Swede, on his first trip to an American fair. I think he summed up an outsider's likely feelings when, upon entering the jam-packed fair amidst of sea of cowboy hats, a seemingly endless row of 'exotic' food vendors and more blinking lights and dinging bells than ever seen on Christmas, he said "What is this exactly that we are doing?" No one could actually explain.After some spirits, gut-busting treats and a walk through booths of vendors peddling fair souvenirs we headed to the rides. I'm not sure if you know me, but I am here to tell you now (in case we are ever in a situation where there are rides) that I don't enjoy rides. I will go on rides sheerly under the force of peer pressure, and I will close my eyes throughout the experience repeating over and over to myself "Statistically speaking, this will only last 90 more seconds." There was a time, during my young, naive days when I thought I might be the type of person who liked rides. But as I got older my tolerance for violent jerking and speedy elevation changes became less and less. I guess it's one of the cruel results of aging which, by the way, completely explains the Gravitron Incident of 1991 when my dad braved the Gravitron at my insistence and proceeded to toss his cookies about 10 seconds after we exited the ride. (pictured below: an example of a ride I didn't go on, but I did hold the extra purses, cameras and cell phones...everyone has a role to play)
There is, however, one glowing exception to my distaste for ride. The Tilt-A-Whirl. I.Love.It. The tilting, the whirling. All of it. My dad taught me the subtleties of centrifugal force on that ride (only a few rides before the Gravitron Incident circa 1991) and to this day I appoint myself the lean-coach of all Tilt-A-Whirl carriages in which I am a passenger. "Leeeeeeean to the RIGHT!" "Leeeeeeeean to the LEFT!" I had the luck to ride with David and the Swede, meaning the weight in our carriage was greater than all those puny children who were trying to whirl the way we could. Nice try, losers.

What is more American than an array of deep fried candy bars?The animals are my favorite part...everyone else went along with it only because I was a sport about waiting while they were on the rides.

Yours Truly, A Bookworm

One of the downsides of having a job is that all your spare time seems to evaporate. The luxury of the housewife lifestyle to which I had grown accustomed includes plenty of time for napping, reading, walking, blogging and reading. I mentioned reading twice because that's how much I LOVE to read. I've loved it since I learned how to do it, which I don't exactly remember, and I've often stood in a bookstore or a library (don't you LOVE the smell in a library!?) and marvelled at the sheer number of books there are to be read. How disappointing to realize I'll never even make it through a fraction of what I could know! I spent our time in Europe getting through as much of that fraction as I could, reading 100's of books, some two or three times.

I've inherited a love of reading from both my parents. Even my sister, who we initially thought had been passed over by the gene, can't get enough of a good book. From The Giving Tree to A Wrinkle In Time to To Kill A Mockingbird to endless college textbooks and the rediscovered joy-of-reading that comes after college graduation, I've always had a literary obsession. Starting a new job reminds me of how hard it can be to find the luxiouriously long hours curled up reading that make life worthwhile.

My friend Abby reminded me of that when I read her blog this morning. As a new mom, she too understand the way reading-time can be oh so easily replaced. And as a friend she a wonderful partner with whom I can discuss any book. So she's made a list based on the recommendations of a group of ladies that we belong to. And she vows to read each of these books. And now, thanks to her inspiration, so do I. In the next twelve months I plan to exhaust the list of must-reads that our group decided on. Those I've already read are in bold.

The Diary of Anne Frank
Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt
A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer
Outrageous Acts & Everyday Rebellions by Gloria Steinem
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Night by Elie Wiesel
Persuasion by Jane Austen
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
Vanity Fair by William Thackeray
To Kill a Mockingbird By Harper Lee
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer (but I'll read it again, and so should you.)
Shake Hands with the Devil by Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver (Thanks, Suze!)

If anyone has any essentials they care to add (Nell, I know you do!) please tell me and I'll edit the list!

Source.

A Penny Saved Is...Something Blah Blah Blah

Today I found an abandoned, CURRENT edition of the New York Times during my post-work, pre-yoga stop at a coffee shop. After a week of slogging through names I'll never properly pronounce and beginning a long pattern of begging as all non-profit employees do, this find was a real gem. The perfect thing to peruse as I sip tea and unwind.

And then I got to the headline.

'Vast Bailout Plan Is Proposed In Bid To Stem Economic Crisis'

Talk about a T.G.I.F. buzz kill. Not that this headline is either new or shocking. The current financial situation, the origins of which I can neither speculate nor comprehend, has been front page material for months. What started as a mortgage crisis (far from affecting me in any way) morphed, some might say predictably, into a more generalized economic crisis.

Unless you live in complete financial and social isolation Ted Kacynski-style, in which case you are certainly not reading this blog, there is really no way the current economy isn't having some effect on your life. Whether you feel a ripple or a tidal wave, we're all in the same pond. Maybe the house next door was foreclosed on, maybe you can't afford to fill-up your Hummer, maybe you've lost your job or lost money in the stock market. We notice it, too, and we shudder collectively with my countrymen and women when I hear 'Great Depression' comparisons. But the thing is...

We have no money! For the first time, it feels quite good to say that. Liberating even! It's not that we've lost our money somehow, it's just that we generally spend the dough we earn. Sure, we accrue savings each year and always talk about doing something with it. Like, for example, investing. But two things always seem to conspire to derail that plan.

First of all, we don't know what the hell 'investing' even means. I get speeches from well-intentioned family members and friends about how simple it all really is. Stocks, CD's, financial advisers, diversify your something or other, blah blah blah. Honestly, I try to listen and become more knowledgeable for my future financial security. But to me that's like saying I should listen to parenting advice for my unborn, unconceived, inconceivable future children. In both instances I want to put my fingers in my ears and scream LA LA LA! Sometimes we get spurts of maturity and decide to research the basics of investing online. Then we get bored and/or confused and one of us says "Want to look up funny clips on YouTube?" Yes. Yes, I do.

Secondly, we avoid investing money because we want to use it. We don't spend it on material things the way a stereotypical American should. But we've gone all through Europe, Canada and the U.S. on money that could/should have been invested. We spend it on concerts, picnics, dinners, boat rides, souvenirs and a sampling of the local alcohol of our destination. Then we spend the rest of the money ordering prints of the pictures we took during our adventures. And then with the leftover money we buy some bottles (ok, ok, a box) of wine and invite our friends over to share our stories of travel. And being with our friends makes us miss our friends who are far away, so we (under the nostalgic influence of that box of wine) book plane tickets to visit them and take more pictures. And so the pattern continues.

I know what you're thinking. It's probably some version of either a) Hell yes! Spend it while you can! Life life to the fullest! You can't take the money with you when you go!  or b) You better smarten up, little miss! Or you'll end up living off cat food when you retire at age 87! Both of you are right, and so begins a new era in our lives. My job has some kind of employer matched 403-something-something blah blah in which I am enrolled and plan to investigate more at a later date. We're on a plan of frugality that is even more frugal than our previous plan. I've discovered the virtue of buying in bulk. And I see what you meant all those years mom and dad, cereal is expensive! I'm interested in having a portfolio, if only for the reason of being able to say 'I have to consult my portfolio.' Fancy, right?

But, we still plan to continue in the kind of existence that includes spending money to help us enjoy life. If a meteor falls on my head tomorrow it would be incredibly lame if people could sit around saying "Well...she did have a rather impressive portfolio." If that were the case death would be a sweet release! Lame! Instead people could sit around with all those picture albums and my preferred variety of box wine saying "Well, she was broke but it looks like she had a HELL-of-a-time!" Awesome! Also, I think some time would have to be devoted to discussing the nature of my passing. Pulverized by a falling meteor? How random! 

So for now we'll empathize with others who've lost so much and thank our stars for what we do have in terms of health and happiness and of what don't have to lose...like money. As my mom used to tell me when I rather nosily tried to ascertain our socioeconomic status, "All you need to know is, we're rich in love." Sob.

Like Eating With Chopsticks

The big news on this end is that, besides having internet at home again, I am now a working woman. I've started a job, nay!, a career and Dave is honing his skills as a house-husband. He grocery shops, walks the dog, makes the bed, and whips up a mean quiche. I'm expecting to come home some day soon and find the house spotless with David putting the finishing touches on a candlelit dinner...wearing nothing but an apron! Depending on what's for dinner and how he's positioned when I walk it, it's either a dream come true or an unsanitary nightmare.

And while he perfects his role as the supportive spouse, I'm trying mightily to adjust to the schedule of a working woman with a very demanding Real Boy. I'm still committed to my new yoga studio, helped in part by my girl-crush on the instructor (her voice is so SOOTHING and her tattoo is a work of art!) and I'm training for a 5K obstacle course. I set my alarm for six a.m. or earlier! I don't take naps (unless I happen to fall asleep during that meditation part at the end of yoga) and I get dressed every, single day. It's a revolution around here, try and keep up.

But even with all this enthusiasm mustered, it's hard to smile through all the awkward beginnings of a new job. You know the ones I mean? Trying to be the best, most interesting and interested, capable and inquisitive, well-dressed but not over-dressed, cheerful and enthusiastic version of yourself while in reality you have no idea how the computer system works, which forms to use, why you wore these shoes or how you are going to make it through this without becoming a coffee drinker. I felt somehow more justified in my new-job confusion when I was a bit younger, fresh out of school, not expected to have much life experience.

But now, with just a few more years tacked on, I feel a bit more responsibility to pick up on things quickly and when asked what I was doing previous to this position I can't use school as an excuse. Sometimes, when I'm a good mood, I give the sunniest portrayal of the last two years. I was traveling, reading, tutoring, sleeping in, baking, blogging, living the life. When I'm feeling a bit more gruff or self-conscious, the most I can do is channel the spirit of my dear friend Sherry and answer as simply as possible. Once, during our first year of 'housewifery' we were attempting to breach the fortress of immigration that is the Cardiff, Wales airport. The officer questioned us, very nosily in my opinion, about where and with whom we were staying and then headed into the murky territory of what jobs we held in the Netherlands that would assure we would return there.

Sherry: "Well, our husbands play ice hockey."

Officer: "Right. But what do you do?"

Sherry: "Nothing."

Officer: looks puzzled

Me: trying to interject helpfully "You see, we go to the gym, we ride our bikes downtown, we read books, we grocery shop. We're professional housewives."

Officer: still looking puzzled "Right. But what do you DO?"

Sherry: exasperated "Look buddy. We just HANG OUT."

Officer: stamps our passports and lets us in, somehow not puzzled anymore "Right."

So once again, the onset of autumn (100 degree autumn) finds me navigating a somewhat foreign country: the full-time workforce. And just as I have spent some of my days each autumn for the last two years interacting clumsily, trying to decipher what seems like some kind of code, and sitting in rooms full of people who are not speaking English, so I continue the tradition for a third year with this new job. Which is, for those who will ask, helping refugees find work. Even more difficult than it sounds.

In a perfect culmination of my first two awkward days, my boss came from L.A. to take us out to lunch and discuss the plan of action. His choice was Japanese, and since I'm the only person in California who isn't cool enough to like sushi, I zipped my lip. And when chopsticks were the only utensil presented, I kept it zipped in hopes that the reasonable proprietors of this establishment would bring a fork, spoon or even a spork when they delivered me the only non-sushi dish on the menu, noodles. And when said noodles arrived without spoon, fork, or spork I dove in with chopsticks despite the fact that I cannot successfully use them except in stabbing manner. I slurped, twisted, pinched and smiled my way through that lunch, appreciated the irony but vowing to swallow my pride next time and as for a fork, making it easier to swallow my lunch.

Palm Trees: To Distract You From My Absence

We're alive, we're moved in, and we're disconnected from the internet for the next week or so. Enjoy the last days of summer sunshine, while I try not to melt.

The Bangs And The Baldy

Overseas or across the country, I miss that baby like I miss that purple sweatsuit.