F is for Flying

When you fly, not only do you check your baggage, you check all control of your life. I hate flying not because I'm afraid of crashing and dying (though, that would probably stink), but because I can't CONTROL everything just the way I like.

Plane's on time, plane's not on time. Now we have the plane, but we don't have a crew. Now we're on the plane, but there's a big lineup on the runway ahead of us to take off. I have to sit there and can't yell at anyone!

A recent flight from LaGuardia in New York (I know, I know) to Fort Lauderdale: the JetBlue sign keeps saying "on time," even thought there is no plane at the gate and it is almost time to board.

Our plane arrives at the gate 20 minutes late, and the woman at the desk tells us our flight will be very full, please check extra luggage, don't hog bins when you get on the plane, etc. Passengers milling about start to shift closer to the boarding line area, jostling for position to get on. Time ticks by, but there is no announcement to start boarding.

More minutes pass, and then desk lady (who sounds an awful lot like Snooki) announces: "Listen up passengers on flight 318 to Fort Lauderdale. Here is some information. The plane that is here is not your plane. This plane is going to another gate to take people to West Palm Beach. Your plane is having mechanical fumferfumferfumfer unintelligible and will be here in an hour."

The hour turns into an hour and a half. I amuse myself by taking note of all the families waiting to get on our flight, and how children are shaped like their parents. Look, those round people have round children. The tall people with slim hips have tall children with slim hips. One adorable 2-year-old blond boy is terrorizing the entire terminal, pulling at the elastic straps on the metal poles that rope people off into lines. He keeps detaching the straps, causing them to fwap loudly into the metal poles. The father is sitting with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, while the older sister, about 8, is making valiant attempts to get the boy to stop.

Finally, our actual plane arrives! I hope that the blond boy and his peers have all exhausted themselves so that they will pass out in their seats. My hope is fulfilled! We land in Fort Lauderdale only two hours late.

Then we experience my least favorite of all my least favorites about flying: the lag between the "bing" that lets you jump out of your seat, and the moment when the door actually opens...and then people eventually start to move out of the plane. (Let me out let me out let me out get out of my way.)

But, similar to childbirth, the pain of flying fades quickly once I get back home...and start dreaming about our next vacation. So, yes, I will fly again. And I will hate it.

A Slanted Report

The exit ramp from southbound I-75 onto westbound Griffin Road is a consistently backed-up mess. When I saw a little news report in August that they were going to redesign it, I thought: "Wow! Someone in government is actually doing something necessary. How can this be?"

The first evidence of action I saw at the work site was a flashing sign that urged me to SLOWDOWN, SLOWDOWN, SLOWDOWN, a port-o-potty, and a row of Bob's Barricades. I don't know who Bob is, but his seem to be the only barricades I ever see around South Florida roads. I'm guessing he's living in the lap of luxury somewhere, since road construction in South Florida takes longer than...well, that's actually the point of this post, so let me continue.

The barricades and potty sat there during the planning week before school started. And they sat there the first week of school. And they sat there and sat there. At some point several weeks in, I noted a lime-green Volkswagen Beetle parked near the port-o-potty. And then at some point after that, I saw one of those bright-yellow dirt-moving trucks (my knowledge of construction equipment is only surpassed by my knowledge of trees -- see my post about nuts) parked near the lime-green bug, and there was a little bit of evidence of dirt having been moved.

Zipping forward to the week before winter break in December: the site reached the point where the invisible workers had created a slope of dirt that appeared to be in the shape of a ramp. Barricade Bob, I'm sure, has been counting up his rental money these past months while cruising on the Caribbean or some such place.

Now it's January, and what previously appeared to possibly be a ramp of dirt is now unequivocally a ramp of dirt. There are a couple more trucks that I don't know the official names of sitting proudly next to this earthen mound of progress.

So, let's recap accomplishments in the last five months: sign and barricades, Beetle, life-sized yellow toy truck, something resembling a mound, a couple more trucks, clearly a mound, Bob taking many vacations and perhaps purchasing a second home.

Think about how many things you personally have done in the last five months. FIVE MONTHS. This project has taken five months to create a slanted mound of dirt. Maybe they need to reprogram their sign to: HURRYUP, HURRYUP, HURRYUP. Not that Bob's worrying about it.

A sincere question for NRA members

A few weeks ago I was talking to two of my teacher friends about guns, when they both mentioned that they are gun owners. This did not upset me, nor did it even surprise me. While I don't agree with their position, I do understand it. Then they also said that they are both members of the NRA. This caused me to stop talking and wonder how two incredibly nice women whom I like very much could be members of the NRA.

I decided not to say any more about it, but I'm sure I was making "my face." I'm not exactly sure what this face is, but I have been told that I make it. I even said to them: "I'm not going to say anything. I'm just going to make this face." And I pointed at it.

I haven't brought this topic up with them again, because, as I said, they are both incredibly nice women whom I like very much, and it seems there's no way to say anything more without seeming antagonistic. BUT I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO STOP THINKING ABOUT THIS.

So instead, I've decided to write this post and ask one sincere question for any NRA members out there who would like to answer it for me. I am honestly asking this: no sarcasm, no irony, no intention to provoke or pick on anyone. It's a question I just can't seem to answer myself. Here it is:

What is the NRA doing with your membership money that pleases you?

I've tried to come up with answers. Here are some guesses.

1. I think some people honestly think that Obama is trying to become a dictator, so citizens need their own militia to prevent this. They think the NRA unites them in this cause. I don't understand how they think that Obama could get the U.S. military to act on his tyrannical behalf against its own citizens. I'm pretty sure that's impossible.

2. I think some people believe that left-wing liberals want to make all gun ownership illegal in this country. They think that if the NRA doesn't lobby against the liberals that everyone will either have to give up their guns or go to jail. This, too, I think is impossible. The U.S. opened up Pandora's gun cabinet a long, long time ago, and there's no way all those guns are getting shoved back in there.

3. Maybe some people join the NRA because they view it as an interest group the same way someone who plays tennis joins the USTA. It's a hobby or sport, and the NRA links them with others who enjoy the same thing. They don't really think about whatever advocacy the NRA may be doing as relates to armor-piercing bullets or those other kind of bullets that shred a person's insides as they go through, etc. I don't see how this type of advocacy can be ignored.

So there it is: my question, my guess-answers. If anyone wants to help me out with better answers, please comment here (or on my Facebook link, where most people seem to comment instead of here). I promise I'll do my best not to make my face.

Extremely Nutty

Everything Ricky and I plant in our yard dies. Too much water. Too much fertilizer. Not enough water. Not enough fertilizer. Snails. White flies. Evil squirrels building nests. I don't know what it is but we have bad foliage karma. Except for the nut tree in our front yard next to the driveway.

I say "nut tree" to illustrate the degree of tree knowledge that I have. There's a tree that's been in our front yard for the 14 years we've lived here, and it's never before dropped the avalanche of nut-like objects like it has this year. You can hear them ping off the branches as they pinball their way down to our driveway where they patiently await our coming and going which will mark their besplattered deaths. Crunch, smush, ooze.

Today I decided to deal with them because they had become a nutty blanket covering the grass and driveway. It seemed only a matter of time until they started to get that stench that rotting organic materials emit. And it could even be that they were attracting the squirrel that had set up its condo in the palm tree on the other side of the lawn.

As I raked, the little brown balls mocked me by continuing to plink-plunk their way down to the ground one seemingly benign projectile after another. As I began to realize the true bulk of their numbers, I decided I needed to document this. For this purpose, what better resource than a teenage girl watching TV, Skyping, Googling and texting right inside my very own house?

"Amy! Come do me a favor, will you?" I shouted through the garage door. "Come outside and take a picture of my pile of nuts."

Amy looked up from the 47 different electronic devices she was using simultaneously and said, "Is this a joke?"

I convinced her it was worth getting off the couch and disengaging from her assortment of tech tools, and the picture you see here is her handiwork. Whereas my handiwork was much, much, much nuttier.

Return of the Tumbleweed

I could no longer deny that something was going on in that tree. It is one of three palm trees that stands on our front lawn next to the driveway. Now, to clarify, when I say palm tree, this is not one of those poolside-at-the-Ritz-in-Palm-Beach kind of royal palms. No, this is something called a washingtonia palm, which looks more like it should be in the backdrop of a prehistoric movie with a tall dinosaur eating the top of it. It has a bushy, spiky pom-pom of fronds perched atop a long, scraggly stick-like trunk.

This particular tree is significant to me because just a couple of months ago I had a traumatic experience with it. After a mild hurricane passed through, I went outside to find what looked like a tumbleweed nestled against the car parked next to the tree. While mulling over the fact that we do not have tumbleweeds in Florida, I grabbed at the orangey ball of debris WITH MY BARE HAND (finding it to be rather heavy and well-adhered), turned it over and found DEAD BABY RODENTS! After doing an extensive "EW EW EW!" jig and vigorously flapping the cootie hand as if I wanted it to fall off, I put all the incredibly icky facts together. And then I tried to forget all about it!

That's why when I started noticing over the last few days that there were bits of tree in the front yard and on the driveway, I decided: "It must have been windy today." Ha! Yeah, that's it! It was windy, so little bits of this tree dropped down to the ground. Nothing suspicious about that at all.

Except that there was no debris under the other two trees that are exactly the same. And then yesterday, there was only a little bit of tree guts on the ground when I went in the house, but when I came out 20 minutes later, there were lots and lots of tree guts on the ground. And there had been no wind. The final undeniable evidence occurred today. When I got home from school, there was a mound, nay, a ball, nay, a TUMBLEWEED on the lawn.

I nudged it with my toe. It was lighter than the original. It was also lighter in color, more straw-like. I pushed it over...and, it was empty. I heard a rustling above me and looked up to see a grey, fluffy tail disappear into the bowels of the pom-pom. And so, a new rivalry begins.

Williamsburg: The Cappiest Place on Earth

Warning: If you or someone you love is a hipster, then do not read this.

Williamsburg in Brooklyn is a college town (minus the college) for people just past college age who are still being supported by their parents. This is what you get when the everybody-gets-a-trophy generation reaches an age where their helicopter parents no longer have teachers, school administrators, league coaches, camp counselors, music instructors, SAT tutors, admissions officers or professors to badger. The "kids" wind up in an overpriced section of Brooklyn reminiscent of Disney World. It is Disney-like not because the streets are supernaturally clean (as a matter of fact, the streets appear to be paved with cigarette butts), but because it all seems contrived.

We went there in search of a famed meatball restaurant. In the restaurant every single person was 23 years old and wearing a wool cap. The shops in town look like thrift stores, but if you want to buy a T-shirt, it will cost you $40 on sale. There are empty lots with trash and some shuttered stores with graffiti. (But, incredibly artistic graffiti. Everyone gets a trophy!)

This is a place where extended adolescence has taken on Gumby-like proportions. (Ironic reference to an old-timey animated character.Very hipster of me.) There are a couple of vinyl record stores (you can buy old albums there, also for $40), a make-your-own beaded jewelry shop, lots of storefronts with the word "vintage" in the windows, and restaurants boasting gluten-free menus. The real estate is expensive, yet no one seems to be at work in the middle of the day.

Where is this generation headed? I couldn't tell you, but when they get there, they'll be sporting a bad case of hat hair.

What's the hurry, honey?

I know I wrote about how I don't panic, but that doesn't mean I'm mellow. If I gave that impression, I apologize. I happen to be incredibly impatient and find that no one does anything fast enough. People walking in front of me are always walking too slowly. The person checking out at the register ahead of me is always digging in her purse too long. Whoever is in the bathroom stall that I'm waiting to use...what in the heck are you doing in there anyway?

There is one woman who works behind the deli counter at Publix who drives me absolutely crazy. She calls everyone honey, which is fine from a friendliness standpoint, but it also makes her go slower! I actually do a little internal incantation as I'm waiting my turn while clutching my numbered slip of paper: "Please, not the honey lady, please not the honey lady." If I get her, I become despondent. Noooo! I will be here so long! The five people behind me will all be done before I am, I just know it! And then, the worst case scenario is when I order my half pound of oven-roasted, low-sodium, Chipotle-dijon, free-range organic turkey breast and have her tell me: "I have to go get a new one from the back." Noooo! Not the back! She will wander off, almost never to be seen again. Then, when she finally comes strolling back, she will have to OPEN the new one.

"Is this sliced okay, honey?" she'll ask me. Yes, yes, yes, sliced whatever fine.
"Want a taste, hon?" No, no, no thanks, don't want a taste just give me my turkey!

I try to smile and modulate my voice like a normal, friendly human, but I'm not sure if she's onto me. I'm terrible at small talk in general, and I sometimes pause (briefly) to wonder why I am so impatient. I have attempted self-therapy: "I am not in a hurry. There is no rush. It doesn't matter if whatever is happening ahead of me is MOVING AT A GLACIAL PACE." (I am not very good at self-therapy.)

But this year will be different! It's the beginning of 2013, and I resolve to be more patient. And I plan to make this change right away.