Inappropriate eye contact

I attended a small, interactive session at a conference this summer, and giggled a little bit when someone nudged me and pointed to their computer screen - another poor soul in the room was twittering about how the speaker, who was, ironically, speaking on the art of good public speaking skills, needed to be told a thing or two about inappropriate eye contact. It's true - he lumbered around the room slowly, trolling for victims, and stopping directly in front of some poor onlooker who happened to shift their eyes upward at the exact wrong moment, when he would catch them and hold them in a death stare as he spoke directly to them for at least 20 seconds. I was one such victim, to my recollection, a couple of times during the talk. Engaging your audience just gets creepy when you seem to be trying your hardest to pretend, however briefly, that you and a single attendee are the only people left in the universe, and that communicating directly to them the next five bullet points of your powerpoint just might save you from certain destruction. It was that intense.

Looking someone directly in the eye is an act of intimacy that just feels mortifyingly inappropriate at certain times. Every once in awhile in a gym class, we'll be doing something terribly embarrassing, like laying on our backs with our legs spread apart, or plowing over so that our feet come over our head and touch the floor behind us. In these moments, the last thing you want to do is look someone in the eye. It's just not the time. Yet, it happens. There you are, facing me, with your legs flailed up and spread-eagled, raising your chin in a crunch, whincing and grunting, and we're just not paying attention to where our eyes are falling. We look away as quickly as we can. Let's pretend it didn't happen, okay? We'll be casually friendly after class and forget the whole incident. We were both vulnerable, and it was a mistake. Don't read into it. Just keep crunching, and make a mental note to always, always keep your eyes on the ceiling in compromising positions.

Two fancy meals

My husband and I both occasionally pick up classes at the French Alliance here in Philly, mainly to sit in a room the size of a closet and try our little hearts out to butcher the language with slightly cleaner cuts than we had managed the week before. This has led to a few friendships, and more than a few acquaintances, some of whom appear to be prominent (and wealthy) city socialites - people who jet off to their apartment in Paris "for the weekend" and attend galas and fundraisers in ballgowns. I'll never quite understand the connection people automatically make between France and haut culture (a connection that, I'll admit, I sometimes make too), but learning French, no matter how late in life, is apparently a must in high society. One thing that we've both noted about this sophisticated lot is that they compare chef stories and restaurant experiences like teenagers compare song collections on their i-pods - whoever can call up the little gem that nobody else knows definitely triumphs as the true connoisseur, a position envied by all.

H and I never find ourselves in the running. He has at least managed to pick up a few important chef's names here and there, but I'm hopeless. It's not that we haven't been to nice places in town, for birthdays and anniversaries and such - it's just that they've amounted to a handful of cache when you really need a mountain to play the game.

We've been trying lately, though. Last weekend, we were invited out by a woman, nice enough to put faith in our manners, however simple they might be, to an Italian restaurant everybody's apparently been raving about - "It has a real following..." her friend told us over wine and handmade bread. H and I had the pheasant. It was bony. I was hungry again an hour after we ate, and wished I had gotten dessert. It just didn't meet my expectations of fancy dining.

Our attempts to culture ourselves with good cuisine didn't stop there, though - this week happened to be Restaurant Week, a little celebration of all food Center City that some corporation or other sponsors twice a year, when you can sample a real, live, fancy-schmancy 3-course meal for a mere $35 dollars, a steal of a deal in some restaurants. Choosing the restaurant is an art in itself - some places are a bit dismissive of restaurant week eaters and end up giving you the cheapest bits of the menu while turning up their noses at you for going the bargain route. On the other hand, you don't want to choose a restaurant that's too cheap - the point of Restaurant Week is to experience something a little beyond your normal price range. Very delicate. I have to say, though, we made the perfect choice, and it's all thanks to our Alliance friends. Apparently, Bistro St. Tropez has been the talk of the French Alliance for awhile now, and we had a delightful meal of FOUR courses (they threw in an extra, just to be nice). They were overly polite, doting and generous, and we stuffed ourselves silly with mushroom curry soup, scallops in a cream sauce, bleu cheese encrusted salmon with pistachios and duck on a bed of lentils and raspberry chutney. The glow of the neon, blinking palm tree somehow managed to enhance the ambiance, and the 4th floor view of the Schuylkill River, was perfect. It might not be a mountain of cache, but it's another chip, I suppose, on our little pile. Even if it was during Restaurant Week.

Girl Scout Cookie Season

Those girls. They work so hard. According to a colleague with two girl scout kids, there's so much competition to push these little boxes of happy that some troop leaders actually try gorilla tactics of sabotage, making deals under the table before the official start of selling season, and stabbing other parents in the back for prime real estate. And who could deny the vital importance of the parent's workplace in the fundraising formula?

I was never a girl scout myself, but having the cookies in the house reminds me of my childhood in a different way -- I would be offered, as a treat, a box from my parents, or I would scrape together enough allowance to indulge myself a little with a box of samoas (always my favorite), and squirrel them away under my bed. The sad image of me hunching over to dig one out every so often, eating it on the floor alone while picking at the carpet isn't really my favorite childhood memory, but, looking back, I'm amazed at myself for how long I stretched those babies. I sometimes still had unfinished boxes the next time girl scout cookie season rolled around. (Where did that resolve go? Sweets are so much more precious when you're a child.)

This year, my coworker, a confident, assertive woman with a healthy streak (she steers clear of the 25-plus birthday cakes we help ourselves to every year) sent out an e-mail announcing the start of cookie season, and I went the same day to put in my order. She handed me the brochure with a sigh - she has only so much patience for things like fund-raisers, apparently even for her kids. I stood in her office, drooling over the pictures and agonizing over the fat content of a single thin mint before telling her exactly what I wanted. I hadn't even gotten to samoas yet when she replied in a chipper but slightly cautious tone: 'that's enough.' That's enough. Three boxes is enough. "Oh," I said. A girl scout cookie mom telling me to stop the madness that is my gluttonous free-fall into cookie overload. Yes. Now there's an admonishment you should really listen to. She brought me my cookies the following week, and I must say, I'm slightly disappointed. Have the cookies changed, or have my tastes? All I know is that next year, three boxes will, indeed, be more than enough.

The best remedy for food poisoning

I'm terrible at being sick. Whenever I get even a hint of the sniffles, I put on my pajamas, shuffle around our apartment wrapped in a blanket, pouring myself nonstop cups of tea and complaining to anyone who will listen. I was caught this weekend with a mild case of food poisoning - at least I think that's what it was, those ripples of pain in my ab muscles that someone I can't recall, probably a Web M.D. addict, once told me was a sign food poisoning. I spent yesterday on rotation between lying on the couch and clutching the porcelain bowl, between sleep and watching VHS tapes of pretty horrible romantic comedies that I used to collect in college - Emma, As Good as it Gets, and -- the worst of them all, and, shamefully, still a favorite -- You've Got Mail (oh Meg Ryan, remember when you could actually move your face?) You have to understand that normally I'm an avid reader, and I don't think much of turning on the t.v. unless H and I are watching a Netflix-ed item, curled up on the couch, an hour in the evening that we warmly consider 'together time' (we, in fact, had a decent conversation about what would happen to the character of Jackie on The Sopranos today, proving once again that t.v. can be the best bridge between spouses who might otherwise pass a lonely meal without exchanging words - thank you, HBO, for making my marriage just a little bit more stable). But, when it comes to being sick, I have a natural aversion to anything printed (What? I'm sick! You expect me to concentrate on reading when I'm sick?? Who can read when they're sick!).

Today I knew it was the last straw when I pulled out the second season of Full House on DVD that my sister gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago. (She got it used and cheap, and it was meant to be a gag gift. Sort of. Who doesn't have a small soft spot for little Michelle Tanner?) Two episodes in, I decided I better try and eat something. Because if bad '80's t.v. shows don't have the power to heal, then what the heck does?

Neighborly nice

It's amazing what sort of neighborly congeniality natural disasters, or any kind of disasters, can conjure up. Last month during the winter crisis, neighbors were out in the street, shoveling the sidewalks together, helping to maneuver cars out of parallel parking spaces, smiling at each other with a Wow, can you believe this?? sort of expression. H helped a neighbor push his car, wheels spinning, to a spot where the tires were able to catch, building up enough speed to get himself down the street. His wife, a neighbor who must live within 20 feet of us, and seemed quite charming, dropped by some lemon bars the next day as a thank you. We had a short conversation, I closed the door, commenting to myself that they seemed like nice people, wondering vaguely about the possibilities of striking up a new friendship, and I haven't seen her since.

A friend of mine once commented that the end of a final exam was like that - you could walk out of the exam with someone you hadn't spoken to all semester long, and chances are you would still have at least a 15 minute conversation about the exam questions, how hard you thought it was, how you thought the professor would grade, etc. - because all of a sudden you had something stressful in common, the same vulnerability and desperation.

Our neighbors have crawled back inside their apartments, gone back to their normal social circles, and began diverting their eyes quickly again when they see each other. I suppose it says something that people ban together in a desperate situation, when they really need each other. Maybe it's a bit sad that we really don't have things to say to our neighbors on a regular basis. I do think it's a shame that connections and nice encounters don't happen like that more often. Guess we'll be waiting until the next winter crisis to make headway on our neighborly relationships.

My to-do lists

When I start to feel a little overwhelmed at work, I often start a to-do list - scrap paper, a pen, my scribbly handwriting, and a quick 30 seconds makes the day suddenly seem much more orderly (take that, technology!). Today, I did so around 10 a.m., and this represents the internal dialogue I had at 11 a.m. - a dialogue that I often have with myself throughout my working days as I turn back, periodically, to that to-do list:

Yes! Finished something else. Can scratch it off my list. Where is my list? Ah yes, here we go -- e-mail to Christine, done! Hmmm, where is...? Oh. I didn't add that e-mail to my to-do list. Wow. That's too bad, it would be really nice to see something scratched off my list for the effort I went to. I mean, it did take me a good 15 minutes, and it was productive. Hmm. Maybe I'll just add it to the list. E-m-a-i-l C-h-r-i-s-t-i-n-e...That really deserves an exclamation point, too - it was pretty important. And -- drum roll, please! Line through it! Mission accomplished! That's THREE things on my list with lines through them!

I really wonder if this is normal.

Christmas trees

The holidays have nipped at my heels like a beast that's excited with innocent energy but doesn't know the most appropriate ways to show his affection. They've been wonderful, really - kept me running around with visits to special people, and I honestly haven't sat down at a computer for longer than five minutes in the last week. All of this is supposed to be a pathetic apology for not posting. So there it is.

I received, for the most part, very nice gifts this year. My friends and I have all agreed on no gifts (and it's a relief - we have too much stuff already, and it's nice to be able to spend a little less). A woman that helped raise the children of our family (and who is by virtue of this fact a family member herself), Louise, gives us a tree every year in a city park - a really special gift that goes beyond stuff. She brought us a picture recently of the first one, the one that we planted ourselves (since then, a simple phone call takes care of the arrangements and the actual planting), us bundled up in our coats, me with mittened hands folded in front of me, squinting at the camera and flashing a grin that showed off the large gap between my teeth that braces have minimized since. No one could remember the exact year, but everyone agreed I must have been about five or six. She's given us a tree, and we've met there every year on Christmas day, ever since.

As we drove to the park this year in search of the new one, I felt a pang of guilt for not having any idea where any of those trees actually were. Sadly (and slightly ironically), Louise informed us that the first one (the one we actually worked so hard to drag to the middle of the park and plant with our own hands) died a few years ago (there goes any suggestion that our thumbs might be even the slightest shade of green). Still, there must be over 20 others. I can blame my incredibly dull sense of direction, and the fact that I don't live in my hometown anymore. Truthfully, I'm not sure any of the other children (inside and outside my family -- she took care of lots of children during the same period) she devotes the tree to have any idea about their locations, either. But maybe someday, during a warped reunion where we all marvel a little longer at grown-up versions of ourselves, we can walk through the park and map them all, so that we'll have a key back to each one. And we can put a little red 'x' on the map, marking the hole where the first one used to be.

An old-fashioned Christmas tradition

We always decorated our tree a couple of weeks before Christmas when I was still in school and had those nice long breaks, but this year, the tree had to wait until all the kids were home from their working lives to help, until December 23. Decorating the tree in our house always has to be accompanied by appropriate cheery music of the season, and the only Christmas music we have in the house is a Time-Life collection of records. We bought it when I was young, and it seemed definitive to me - all the classics done by (and I know nothing about music here) the best singers (who could argue with Dolly Parton's, Elvis's, and The Jackson Five's legendary statuses?) But the record player has to be at least 20 years old, and the speakers gave out every once in awhile, so I had to run and tinker with them to preserve the proper tree decorating ambiance. Typical of us - we never invest in new technologies unless we absolutely have to. The records just barely got us through this year, but (finally) with a new cd player in the house, we should probably stock up on some cheap Christmas cd's for next year, and, with a few sniffles about the end of an era, we just might have to consider finally chucking that old record player.

The Christmas tree will only be up for the week, but the Christmas spirit that went into assembling it (nurtured by records) is worth the whole season! (Oh, that's so tacky to say, and not really my style, but it's Christmas time, and what else can I write?)

Hope everyone had a very merry Christmas!

Winter drama

In the northeast, people always have a winter weather story – abandoning a car by the side of the road, dealing with no heat for several days, slipping and ending up with a bloody nose. I suppose small gestures in the midst of minor weather disasters can, like a butterfly effect gone haywire, collide and leave you with a serious mess on your hands. Now, in my third winter in the northeast, I have my story (and let’s hope that story is complete).

A couple of weeks ago, I lost my keys. This is a fairly ordinary occurrence for me (second set that disappeared this year), and it left us with one precious car key that I, for some reason, decided to leave on a tiny key ring all by its lonesome rather than attaching it to a larger bunch of keys – I was sure, actually, in my idiotic way, that I would watch that key much more carefully, guard it much more securely if it was on its own. I meant to get another copy made, but just hadn’t gotten around to it (in addition to being forgetful about my keys, I’m also lazy about errands, even important ones).

This weekend, in the midst of a record-breaking snowstorm, I decided to move my car to a safer place. After backing out into our little one-way street, I was distracted by a neighbor, and in a split second of deciding to turn the ignition off and pocket the key before getting out of the car, my little winter adventure began. I returned to my car door, reached into my pocket to find – no key. Check all your pockets. No key. Check inside the car. No key. Check –all those feet of deep white snow around you. Holy sh-- No key. We searched for hours, our car boldly stretched across the entire road, blocking the way for any brave people who ventured down into our neighborhood. There was cursing (much, much cursing), frantic digging on our hands and knees (It has to be within this 10 foot radius!), careful shoveling (we thought we could sift through the snow), and a bit of crying (I just felt so stupid); concerned neighbors (concerned about the street, not about us – They’re going to skip us when they come to plow!), redirected cars (waving our arms – Back back!), telephone calls to AAA (We aren’t doing service in the city now. Only people who are stranded. You’ll have to wait until morning.), and the police (begging them to just tow us away -- Sacre bleu! What a story! And, yeah, absolutely nothing we can do about it now.). Perhaps the sheer elation I felt when the tow truck finally did show up at 4 in the morning (the brave tower got stuck in the mounds and mounds of snow three times, spinning his wheels to no avail, having to get out and dig), was worth at least some of the trouble. Worth even more was the feeling of vulnerable gratitude to my dear, patient, and amazingly sweet husband, who never raised his voice, and spent more time out in the cold than I did through the whole ordeal; it makes me weak in the knees and ready to swoon for him all over again (mushy, but true). And the happy sleep I got Sunday, the warm house, the Christmas wrapping paper spread out everywhere, and the bottle of wine I shared with friends Sunday night were all the more delicious and precious. High drama, at least, can sometimes lead to happier days. I just hope that’s the last of the crises for this winter.

And yes, a new set of keys has arrived (my mom saves the day again), and never, ever, ever again will we be without a spare.

Fundraising Fruit

I remember the days of fund raising only vaguely. I'm probably blocking out all sorts of humiliating moments, standing on neighbor's doorsteps with four-page catalogs of chocolate-covered pretzels and coconut flavored cookies, with nothing but the piddly little ounce of natural charm I could muster up to get me through the experience. And then there was always the easy way out - hand off the catalog to my mother to push on her colleagues. Now that I'm working, it's cosmos payback for all those orders that people placed with me, probably out of pity and with a realistic sense of just how much they actually needed another can of flavored popcorn for the holidays (I have to admit, though, I do love the flavored popcorn). For a mere $25 and a sense of smugness at having made a little girl's list of orders a little bit longer, I am now the proud owner of about 20 oranges and about 15 grapefruits. I'm not sure how we're going to consume so much citrus goodness in the next week before we leave for Christmas, but we will try our little hearts out, and probably end up giving some away (what doesn't make for a nice neighborly Christmas gift but a lovely bouquet of oranges and grapefruits?) I have to admit, fruit is an excellent healthy alternative to all those candies that I used to offer in my catalog. I don't even know what the fund raiser is for (does anybody ever bother to ask?), but I hope she enjoys her new softball uniform, or her new band instrument, or her field trip to Washington D.C. I know I'll enjoy my fruit.

More on late nights (and early mornings)

I remember the exact moment I discovered that I was "not a morning person." A friend of mine turned around in our first-period sophomore History class and asked me a question that demanded a nuanced answer. I must have looked very grumpy and not responded to her liking, because she immediately rolled her eyes and said "You're so grouchy in the morning!" That phrase shocked me out of innocent adolescence like none other. I don't understand! , my mind raced. It's morning...isn't everybody grouchy in the morning? It's before eight a.m., for the love of those evil high school scheduling gods! I was totally flabbergasted that she didn't feel the same way. Could it be that some people actually...like the morning? That some people are perky in the morning? It didn't help that we had a math teacher the year before who was adamantly for changing the high school day to a later time. She was a teeny, tiny woman with a big voice and a very practiced expression for laying down the law in her classes, and she told us with a high, assertive chin that she never got up before 11 on the weekends and that research had shown that high schoolers don't actually fully wake up until 10 a.m., and that we really couldn't expect to absorb much, as a result, those first two hours of lessons (and I thought - yup, that sounds about right). I suppose I just assumed she spoke for absolutely everybody.

I found that my fuzzy mental construction of night versus day people came into much more detailed focus when I befriended a tried and true night person in college. She would show up when the sun was setting, ready for the first meal of her day, sit at dinner with her eyes half closed and declare dryly, You know, the world is ruled by morning people. Morning people control everything. They seem more productive because they're the first to work. They get things done ahead of everyone else. It's really not fair. I'm pretty sure she was a part of some secret night-person society, bandana laden and drawing out plans for a mass conspiracy - some fateful day when no alarms would go off and all storefronts would stay locked and dark until noon. I was always in awe of her ability to go for days without spending time in the sun. She, by the way, remains a good friend, and now has a 9 to 5, confirming her worst fear: they suck you into their life, those morning people. It might take awhile, but they eventually get you.

Late nights

I am by no means a morning person. If there was one thing that deterred me from becoming a high school teacher, it was the early mornings. I come from a family of early risers, and it was always just a bit painful to come downstairs at 10 a.m., bleary eyed with hair going every which way, and find the cheery bunch of them, their fourth cup of coffee in hand, with a list of chores already completed for the day, errands already run. I would say it balanced everything out when they all went to bed early and left the house to my mischievous wiles, but that stopped being fun and started to feel a lot lonelier when I stopped being a teenager.

But I find as I settle into a real working life, things are changing. I am lucky enough in my job to be able to roll out of bed a little after eight, and I've actually gotten quite used to it. I'm finding that late nights just don't do it for me anymore. This weekend, we decided to pretend like we were artsy adventurers and headed off to a late showing of Taxi Driver. The movie began at midnight (or thereabouts), and when we left the house a little after 11, I knew my body was telling me that I was now much more suited to a midnight night cap in some comfy pajamas. Not that I would refuse a late-night party or a rousing night at the bars every once in awhile, but my days of just staying up for the heck of it are over. I doubt I'll ever be up with the early risers, but perhaps next time I'm home, they'll only be on their second cup of coffee, and still in the middle of their morning routines, when I join them, a little less bleary-eyed than before.

Free food

I'm a sucker for free food. You announce that there will be a spread somewhere, and you've got my attention. When I arrive at an event with refreshments, I immediately begin some serious investigating -- how soon is too soon to head to the free food? How interested do I have to act in what's going on before I stuff my face? Have other people helped themselves yet? And if you make me wait through a presentation while the food languishes in the back of the room, spread out and untouched, you can usually find me pretending to be interested in what the speaker is saying while checking my watch, licking my lips, and shooting longing glances at the cookies every so often. What I wouldn't do for free food.

A store close to work recently advertised a small holiday celebration (all day!), complete with refreshments. I internally cheered since I had brought a sad little soup lunch that day, and geared up for a midday visit to the little place. I told coworkers that I still had a bit of Christmas shopping to do, so why not pop in and see what they had? When I swung through the door, hungry for munchies and sweets, I found...nothing. No food. No other customers. Only the blank faces of the clerks. I circled around the place a couple of times, in and out of the aisles, trying to find the buffet table, and wondering if I had gotten the wrong day, or if this was some kind of mean trick. And then I saw it. Right there, up by the cash register. I see your plans, I thought. You aren't going to feed me unless I buy something. And this is where the story gets really sad. Because, I did. I bought something. It wasn't entirely for the food -- I came away with two mediocre Christmas presents for cousins that I rarely see (I got one a candle that supposedly smells like the beach (she misses California), another one of those chrome water bottles...not too bad of a gift, since he's a biker) -- but I would be lying if I said the food didn't play a little part in it. Chips and dip, breads with cheese, and cookies. But, even if my dignity is a little bit bruised, that's two more Christmas gifts I can cross off the list, not to mention a half a lunch. And, I suppose, it was better than walking up, stuffing my face, and leaving the store empty-handed. There's comfort in knowing that I haven't hit rock-bottom quite yet.

Thanksgiving in Philadelphia

Thanksgiving is fast becoming one of my favorite holidays in my adulthood for the very reason it wasn't a favorite when I was a young kid - it's probably the least commercial holiday (although all those poor turkeys might beg to differ). I spent this Thanksgiving in Philadelphia with my family, and I'm proud to say I orchestrated a pretty good meal out of it, with enough time to spare to walk down and see the Thanksgiving day parade -- the only pageantry of the day that might smack a bit of commercialism, what with the Campbell's and Starbucks sponsored booths and all, but we have to be willing to indulge ourselves a bit, right? It's in the spectacle of holidays and big events that Philadelphia blushes in slight embarrassment to our big, more successful sister two hours north. Macy's day parade, we learned from television, had a guest list so stuffed with stars it could have been a galaxy of its own. Philadelphia, on the other hand, does its best with floats of Elmo and Frosty, and tries to get at least some mileage out of the star power of Miss New Pennsylvania. Some soap opera star was at the bottom of the art museum steps (not being a soap opera watcher, I wouldn't know who), and sang a version of "I Saw Mama Kissing Santa Claus," complete with choreography by not-so-burley men. Not much competition for the endless concerts given by the likes of Shakira and Justin Timberlake in New York. We in Philly will smile sweetly, thank Santa for his appearance, and hope we can dazzle them with Mummer's on New Year's day.

We'll always be the quieter, slightly less successful sister that people forget about, but we've got a charm all our own, too. We'll be proud of being a bit less overwhelming, and a bit more accessible for real living. And, of course, we'll always have Rocky.

The beginning of a mini-marathon

Benjamin Franklin Boulevard, cutting from City Hall all the way up to the Art Museum, is normally a main feature in any Philadelphia bike or foot race, and usually represents either the first or the last stretch of concrete that the athletes must tread. You can often tell when the city is gearing up for a weekend of racing by one major sign: blue port-a-potties appear lined up neatly on either side of the street, boxy and patient, like colorfully dressed soldiers waiting for orders. There are sometimes a few, sometimes hundreds of them, secured by little plastic locks, shiny and clean, reporting proudly for duty. Every time I see them lined up, I always have the same reaction, and the same conversation with myself: Firstly, I can't imagine why there is a need for so many of them - surely all the athletes won't need a potty all at the same time - then I reason that maybe there's a certain capacity the potty can reach, so that once, say, 20 people have used it, it's gone from decently clean to disgusting to absolutely unusable, and whatever it is inside the potty that holds all that unpleasant stuff is at a dangerous capacity. At that point, there would be a need for the next potty, so that the next 20 people can use it. So the port-a-potty company might figure, if you saturate the area with potties and there are lots of potties to choose from, different folks will choose different ones, reducing the probability of one potty going bust to a safe recess. I then try not to think about the process of cleaning all of those potties, and the poor people who have the job of doing it. Who knows. I suppose, though, if I ever do run that marathon, having a new, clean potty to use at the end of the race will be all the more incentive to cross the finish line sooner.