Things that go bump (or bang or 35 mph)

In honor of Hallowe’en (yes, it has a frickin’ apostrophe), here are some things I find scary:

Elevator shafts
Can’t watch movie scenes in which people are trapped in/required to climb up them. It’s probably the unpredictability of the machinery (and I guess that’s why the scenes are so effective). If I were ever trapped in an elevator, and the only way to escape was by climbing through the roof and up the cables, I’d refuse. I’d take up residence in the box, and they’d have to lower supplies (perhaps a nice selection of cheeses and a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape) to me in a basket. I wonder whether elevators have WiFi?

Roller coasters
When I was a kid, I loved fast rides. Of course, kids have no fear in general, but there was also an unspoken faith that the machines were safe because they were operated by grown-ups, and grown-ups wouldn’t allow bad stuff to happen to kids, would they? And then a few years ago we went to Canobie Lake, which is a fabulous hundred-year-old amusement park with some rides that have been in operation since the place opened. And we decided it would be fun to go on the Yankee Cannonball, an all-wooden out-and-back coaster built in 1930. But as we waited in line, I realized that the ride operator was an acne-faced teen. And that I was putting my life in his hands. On a 70-year-old pile of wood.

It was too late to turn back (and we’d been in line for half an hour) so when our turn came, we took the next two seats. The first ten seconds of the ride were not too bad. And then it went downhill. Literally. Bear in mind that the train’s maximum speed is 35 mph, and that the entire experience is just over a minute long. But both The Boy and I were convinced we were going to die.

It didn't help that the “safety” bar intended to prevent riders from being hurled violently from the car turned out to be well below my center of gravity (and I’m only five-three), so every sudden dip and curve lifted me out of the seat, despite my best efforts to brace myself with my knees, arms and any other body part I could wedge against the side of the car.

When the ride ended, we stumbled out, white-faced. “I saw my whole life flash before my eyes,” said The Boy.

Oh, and the next day, there was an accident on that ride. I’m just sayin’.

Balloons
They pop unexpectedly. Yeah, I’m a wuss. At least I admit it.

Japanese horror films
The first one I saw was Joyu-rei (aka Ghost Actress), written and directed by Hideo Nakata a couple of years before he made Ringu. I’d never seen anything like it: the dense feeling of foreboding, the implied, barely glimpsed, shadowy terror. And because I had no idea who any of the actors were, it wasn’t even possible to guess who was likely to get offed in some grotesque way and who would make it to the end of the story.

Not that I avoid these movies in the same way I do roller coasters or balloons. I even bought a bootleg DVD of Ju-on on eBay when it first came out (of course, being a bootleg, it didn’t work properly). Maybe it’s because they don’t pose a threat to my general well-being.

Mushrooms
Not scary so much as icky. But I do try to stay away from them.

Another Republican victory
Need I say more?

Anyway, it could be worse. I could be afraid of buttons. Or lobsters.

I'm like a social drinker, but for food

I love food. I love everything about it.

I love going to the grocery store and wandering around, inhaling the scent of basil, strawberries, coffee. I love the vineripe tomatoes that smell sweet and dusty, like the ones my grandfather used to grow in his greenhouse, and the heirloom tomatoes that look as though they've landed from another planet, imperfect, bulging, exuberant (though frankly none compares to the plants we treated like neglected stepchildren this summer, but which nevertheless rewarded us with handfuls of intensely flavored cherry tomatoes).

We usually plan the week's meals while we shop, figuring out how many nights we'll be home, scoping out chicken and lamb and steelhead trout and scallops. Sometimes meals are decided based on what's available: if there's flank steak, it will be grilled and served with rice and beans and chimichurri. If there are pork chops, they'll be pan-fried and finished with a shallot-pomegranate reduction. Other times, we'll realize it's been a while since we had, say, ratatouille or black lentil curry or risotto, so that drives our decisions.

Tonight, for example, it's osso bucco, because the veal shanks looked good.

I love to cook, but because The Boy usually gets home from work before I do, he has taken over most of the kitchen duties. I don't mind too much, and it's admittedly nice to come home to find garlic frying in olive oil, or haddock bubbling in a pan of white wine and tomatoes, or lamb skewers, perfumed with ras-el-hanout, waiting to go on the grill.

On weekends, if we don't eat out, we often cook together. And I might also make something we can quickly heat up later in the week: a chicken stew, or a carrot-ginger soup, or a lasagne.

But one thing I've realized: if I'm by myself, I have very little interest in spending much more time in the kitchen than it takes to boil the kettle for tea and pour cereal in a bowl. It's not that I'm lazy; I just don't feel the need to do more if I'm the only one eating.

I think there are two types of food consumption: for wont of anything better, I'll call them refueling and relating.

Refueling is when you throw together a cheese and ham sandwich, or you grab a burrito or a protein smoothie during your lunch hour, because you don't have time to stop, and anyway you're by yourself, and you just need the energy to get you through until the next meal. The food might still taste good, but that's not the primary motive. The main goal is to top up the tank.

Relating is when food becomes part of something larger. To me, eating is a social activity. It's a way of connecting with other people, finding common ground. It's about sharing in the experience of satisfying a basic human need, while at the same time acknowledging the sensory aspects--aroma, texture, taste--unnecessary for mere survival.

So if I have no-one to eat with, I go into refueling mode. For instance, I was on my own for a few days this week because The Boy was at a conference in San Francisco. Each night, when I came home from work, I'd nibble on whatever I could forage from the fridge.

Luckily, we'd had friends over a couple of days before, so there was a good selection of party leftovers: Spanish goat's-milk cheese, olives, prosciutto, boquerones, grapes, rosemary crackers. So it's not as though I was suffering.

But had the selection been less civilized, I'd have happily survived on yogurt and bananas and toast.

Maybe it's a good thing I've never lived on my own.

I have a date

With pleasantly unexpected efficiency, those fabulous people at the INS got their act together and sent me an appointment for my naturalization interview: November 28. That's several months sooner than my lawyer expected, and while it means I won't be eligible to vote in time for the mid-term elections, I should still have everything sorted before the end of the year.

Of course, it also means I have to start studying for the civics test, but it should be pretty straightforward, especially as I'm going to transfer the test-prep CD to my iPod so I can listen to it over and over and over while commuting. I just have to make sure not to get carried away and start yelling, "Abraham Lincoln! Second Amendment!" on crowded trains ...

Wang jokes and pumpkins

On Friday night, we went to see Jon Stewart at the Wang Centre. He's doing occasional one-off stand-up shows in various cities, and as he's going to bear me many children one day, I figured we should go. He did an hour and a half on everything from the venue ("it sounds like a penis treatment clinic and looks like the inside of Marie Antoinette's vagina") to gay marriage to the imbalance between funding for the military and spending on education ("forget smart bombs; it's cheaper to just drop illiterate kids on Baghdad.") to Bush's manner of speaking (it's not that he's stupid--it's that he thinks the rest of us are stupid: "Freedom ... it's ... good.")

After the show, we met up with Tim and Peter (who had much better seats than us) and went to Finale for a heapin' helpin' of sugar and chocolate to celebrate Peter's birthday. The Boy and I shared a sampler plate with roasted pear, lemon bundt cake in blood orange sauce, chocolate cake with butterscotch sauce and a blackberry-merlot sorbet. Very nice with a glass of Sauternes.

On Saturday, The Boy took me for a day of suburban entertainment. First we stopped at Arena Farms outside Concord to check out their obscenely enormous display of pumpkins. Heavy rains in the spring meant the punkin crop was lower this year, but they still had a metric buttload of gourds.



I also got to feed the sheeps, which made me happy.



Then we drove out to Nancy's Air Field Cafe at Stow airport for lunch. It's a small room--maybe 15 tables--and I suspect most of the customers are regulars and locals. Nancy makes a point of supporting local farmers, so the meat and seasonal produce come from the surrounding area. I had the Persian lamb burger (good, but not as good as when The Boy does it with ras-el-hanout) and a tasty pomegranate-champagne cocktail. The Boy had chicken pot pie, which was loaded with veggies and big chunks of chicken.

And here I have to share one of my favorite interchanges with The Boy, which happened last spring:

The Boy: So you know how sometimes I go to Stow airport for lunch and get the lamb burger? Well, today I drove past the farm that provides the meat, and I saw all these cute little lambs bouncing around in the field. So I decided I'm not going to do that any more.

Me: What, you're not going to order the lamb burger?

The Boy: No, I'm not going to drive past the farm.

After lunch, we went into Maynard, where the town's artspace was having an open studio. The building used to be a school, and still felt like one (the oversized clocks, water fountains and cafeteria serving-window were still in place). Some of the art was dynamic and interesting (like Steven Bogart's swirling oil and enamel abstracts); a large amount was uninspired and noodly (watercolors of trees, boats, seashells).

And then there was Judith Jaffe. I'm not sure what she's trying to communicate, but I suspect she's working through a childhood trauma that involved bird-headed men, howling babies, and dogs like the ones Beavis drew in animation class. Here are some examples of her work, though apart from "Family Outing" and "Man Plans, God Laughs #3" they really don't do justice to her oeuvre.

Her work did make me realize one thing, though: it's time for another trip to The Museum of Bad Art.

A case of the Mondays

I have major issues with Monday mornings. I'm not quite at the stage of throwing a hissy fit at the breakfast table and point-blank refusing to leave the house, but I sometimes think about it. But this week three things happened on my morning commute that made me smile (and one thing that just made me feel better about my job).

One: The old guy who hands out the Metro outside Davis Square T said I looked "sheaahhrp" (I need to find the correct phonetic spelling for this word in a Bostonian accent).

Two: I helped an old couple with their suitcases (they were struggling a little and no-one else was volunteering). They were both very grateful, and I felt like I did my good deed for the day.

Three: Massed ranks of CityYear kids (in their khaki pants and red jackets) were doing synchronized jumping-jacks in Copley Square. It looked for all the world like a demonstration of the energy and enthusiasm of communist youth. Stretch, comrades, stretch!

Four: As I walked down Boyleston, I saw two nicely dressed women with what appeared to be pieces of paper hanging from their outfits. As they got closer, I realized each item of clothing had an oversized Marshall's price-tag hanging from it. They were doing the walking-billboard thing; a great promotional idea in theory. In practice, it would have been more effective if both women did not look furious about the arrangement. I'm sure the intended message was "We're so stylish and sophisticated in our reasonably priced outfits!" The actual takeaway was "I told them I'm a model! I'm a professional! Why did I get out of bed for this?"

And that's what made me realize I have it pretty good, workwise.

Oh, footnote: I also got Missed-Connectioned on Craigslist the same day:

"This morning at Davis you helped an eolderly couple with their suitcases and you seemed very sweet. you had a pinstripe suit and glasses and brown hair and i think when you talked you had an English accent, but maybe Irish or Australian?? Anyway i thought you were nice to help them and youlooked cute in your suit. I don't know what your situation is but would love to buy you coffee or maybe a drink???"

A nice compliment, but I don't think so. As I reassured The Boy, Johnnie Cochran-style: "If the fool can't spell, he don't got a chance in hell."

Noise, fire, shopping

First of all, a shameless plug for my coworker Ethan Joy's new song, Sucker. He spends a lot of time putting a new track together, hunting down musicians to play various parts (many of which he writes on acoustic guitar and has them transpose) and fitting in late-night studio sessions. He's a bit of a perfectionist, which in music is a good thing. This one is a nice slice of power pop!

In other work-related news, I am now designated Fire Safety Floor Inspector for my department. Which means, essentially, that in the event of a fire (or, one assumes, earthquake, flood, zombie attack or The Reckoning), my job is to make sure everyone vacates the floor. So not only do I get to go around being bossy, but also it is my official duty to check all the restrooms. Which may or may not be a good thing.

I have a training session next week. I assume that's when they hand out the shiny badges and megaphones.

Yesterday I went to the Wrentham outlets with my friend Jean. I hadn't seen her in a while, so it was nice to hang out for a few hours and catch up. We were there longer than anticipated (including the time it took to get lunch, it was practically a full workday) but at least we got most of the serious shopping done before the hoards arrived. I discovered that I now take a size 4--surprising, as this time last year I was in the 6 to 8 range--and so celebrated with a pair of charcoal-gray work pants. And a crisp white Banana Republic shirt that I suspect will get a lot of use.

Also discovered there's now a White House/Black Market outlet, but as usual it was disappointing. In theory, that should be My Store (as my wardrobe is largely monochrome) but their styles lean toward the loose/drapey/hippy look, rather than the tailored/fitted/clingy motif I prefer. I did try on one very cute camisole (white with black lace trim and black flowers twisting up the front) but sticker-shock and shopping fatigue were wearing me down, so I passed. I suspect it might have been a rat-shirt moment. At least Wrentham isn't as far as New York.