Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

Off to Milwaukee again today.  7:00 am flight from Seatac meant my shuttle arrived at 4:30, which meant that I got up at 3:30 to finish packing after being up til close to 1:00.  The shuttle company errs on the side of caution, so I was at the airport before the gate agents opened their kiosks.  It was kind of strange to stand in front of the checkin monitors and watch the Windows 2000 logos flash on them as they booted up for their day’s work.  You forget that the myriad devices in your life are made of the same mortal clay as your trusty laptop.

I caught an hour or so of sleep on the flight to Minneapolis - I find it’s possible for me when I have a window seat and can prop my head against the window or fuselage.  Later, I perused the latest New York Review of Books, which hit the house on Friday and I whisked away from Mrs. Perils’ literery clutches.  There are some advantages to being up and out the door while the rest of the house is asleep.  I’ve been using plane time lately to read (I’m going to hate it when cell phone and email service inevitably invades that remarkable lozenge of time in the air), and a couple of hours spent with the NYRB is always such a learning experience.  Each issue is a series of kaleidoscopic peepholes into books and culture.  Yesterday, for instance, I read from the current issue:

• A review of Cormac McCarthy’s latest book by Joyce Carol Oates.  I’ve often liked her reviews, but, considering how prolific she is, I’m ashamed to say I’ve never read one of her works.  It seems she publishes a full-length novel every other month.  As is customary with NYRB reviews, this one ranged far from the book in question - there was a nice biographical sketch, a discussion of the apparent fault line between Blood Meridian and the Border Trilogy, from which sprang All The Pretty Horses.  (It seems some view Blood Meridian as great writing and the Border Trilogy as popularized pandering.  I’ve only read Horses, and seen the Matt Damon/Penelope Cruz movie).


• A review of Joan Didion’s latest, TheYear Of Magical Thinking, a non-fiction sort of journal dealing with the year after her husband, novelist John Gregory Dunne, pitched over dead as they sat down to dinner, a year during which her daughter also died.  I read a lot of Didion in the 70s - her “New Journalism” works The White Album and Slouching Towards Bethlehem, plus a couple of her novels, but I wasn’t compelled to follow her into Salvador or her other work in the 80s, and lost touch.  It’s interesting to be reacquainted, and be informed of your youthful misapprehensions of an author’s work.


• Another reviewer took on two books about the evolution/creationism debate that crystallized many of the political and intellectual issues surrounding it. 

All of that in 2 - 3 hours.  I still have articles from the same issue on judge Roberts, Richard Feynman, E. L Doctorow and the Five Books of Moses to peruse over the week and on the way home.  I think it’s going to be a good week.

Last night we headed up to Capitol Hill to hear Zadie Smith read from her latest novel, On Beauty.  The event was held in what is usually a music venue, Neumo’s, and was sponsored by the alternative weekly The Stranger.

Smith’s first novel, White Teeth, was published when she was 24 years old, and was a major success.  I thought it was a terrific accomplishment for a novelist of any age - fully developed characters of all ages, in a range of plot situations that a 50-year-old who was a careful observer of life might not be able to write, delivered with a measured and humorous prose style.

She’s 30 now, and a veteran of these book tours, and is an engaging stage presence.  Some of the salient observations that I remember:

• When asked if, in light of her early success, she would eventually tire of the “writer’a life”, she drew a comparison between herself and Ian MacEwan, whom she said reveled in being a writer and, if given a 150-year lifespan, would use the extra time writing.  She seemed to be acknowledging that the life may eventually fatigue her.


• Asked if she were a feminist and whether she felt she has a responsibility as a black woman writer, she said that she was a feminist, but that she felt that, in her writing, she was only responsible to create honest and readable fiction.  From what I took away from White Teeth, that’s exactly how she writes.  There was opportunity and, probably, temptation to become preachy in that novel, but there wasn’t a whiff of it that I remember.


• She called herself a “schematic” writer, in that she outlines a novel before writing.


• She’s a little squeamish about writing sex scenes, and hadn’t written any in her previous two novels, so she made herself write a couple for On Beauty.

I always feel, after one of these readings, that I should run right home and begin my literary career.  The writers seem so human, and literary success seems so tangible in their presence.

A group I’ve been doing some volunteer work for, 826 Seattle, also had a presence at the reading, with a booth and volunteers taking donations.  After their pattern in SanFrancisco, LA and New York, they have opened a drop-in facility where kids can participate in writing workshops and publish their work.  There’s a party tonight for volunteers at their newly opened storefront facility, and we’re just about to leave for it.

Last summer, my mom was thinking she should get a cell phone to carry with her when she was driving or walking.  It seemed silly to sign her up for a $50/month plan, so we bought her a phone and put her on our family plan, with the added benefit that she gets basically free long distance.  

She called yesterday with some questions about some financial correspondence, and while we were talking, there was a ringing in the background.  “Just a minute,” she said, “that’s my other phone.”  and I cooled my jets while she took the other call.

My mom put me on hold yesterday, folks.  It’s on my calendar.

The picture on the left has nothing to do with this post - just saw the truck today in front of the Ballard Starbucks and had to have a photo.  Click to enlarge.

I paid a visit today to a friend and former co-worker, a CPA in downtown Seattle.  I assemble tax data for one of my clients and pass it on to him for tax advice and return preparation, one of the dark arts I foreswore when I took up systems consulting.

He has a way of being both grounded and quirky, and attracts clients from some of the more interesting walks of life.  The way it works, I guess, is he disarms them with his own quirkiness, then busts their chops with his groundedness and guides them to do the right thing.  Works well for all parties, it seems.

A quick look at his files, however, discloses that one may cross the evanescent line between quirky and irredeemable: 

There’s no reason I couldn’t have mailed him my client’s data, but it struck me over the weekend that I hadn’t been downtown during the day in forever - such insularity is an occupational hazard of the home-office set, with the inevitable result that you forget how to dress yourself completely and act acceptably - so I sued him for lunch, and we had an excellent repast at the Dragonfish Asian Cafe. 

Didn’t see which venue my handiwork consigned my client’s files to, but I do have a couple of voice messages, and they’re probably not compliments.

Sort of a blah Saturday.  No OSU game, for one thing - they have a bye this weekend, so there’s no imperative to be on the couch with a remote and a latte in my hand at the ungodly hour of 9:00 am.  The USC-ASU game was pretty entertaining, though, and I watched the second half with my MIL.  I was hoping to catch the Yankees-Red Sox game, with Randy Johnson facing Tim Wakefield, but I guess it wasn’t carried on TV here, a game that featured Mariner castoffs Johnson, Alex Rodriguez, Tino Martinez and Jason Varitek in a battle for MVP honors (Rodriguez) and the Eastern Division title.  Meanwhile, the Mariners lost their 92nd game today.  In one season.

In other news, my brother is visiting my mom this weekend in Perrysburg.  The brother who has Power of Attorney.  One of her sisters is there, too, and it sounds like they’re having a great time.  And I’m glad they’re having fun.  I’ll take the will revisions in stride.  I’ve still got his Rubber Ducky.

As quickly as that, the rainy season seems to have descended upon us here in Puget Sound, and with it un-parseable weather forecasts such as “rain, turning to showers” that make almost no sense until you recall reading somewhere that the Northwest Coast indians had over 100 different words for “rain”.  I can’t find a citation, so I’m not sure if this was true or not, or if the original words and their nuances have been lost.

In celebration of the rainy season’s onset, then, I’d like to start a meme (use the comments below) to help us Northwesterners appreciate and describe the multiplicity of rain personalities we’ll be gazing at from under our parka hoods in the months ahead.  Here, I’ll start:

1. The rain that makes the music that impels mosquitoes to mate
   
2. The rain that rusts the Chevy but not the Pontiac
   
3. The rain that hits the back of your neck, sluices down your spine without warming appreciably, and thoroughly soaks your thong underwear
   
4. The rain that peels your window trim down to bare wood but doesn’t remove the dirt on the glass
   
5. The rain that dissolves pigeon crap off the gargoyles downtown and plops into your latte when you’re not looking (”Blah!  I didn’t order soy milk!”, you say.)

We probably can’t get to 100, but give it a whirl!

The desert has its charms, including running in the balmy 80 degree evenings, but it’s always a thrill to see Mount Rainier off the wing and know I’m coming back to Seattle. In this picture, Mt. St. Helens is visible to the right, and Mt. Hood (in Oregon) is just to the left of Rainier.

I pulled into the Best Buy parking garage and grabbed a spot.  Exiting the car, I realized that, in my haste, I’d left my cell phone at home.  No big deal, really, as who would call except clients? 

I wandered around Best Buy, decided that I should scope out vacuum cleaners first, get the “chore” part of this over with.  I soon settled on a “bagless” model that seemed to work like a Swiss army knife - you could use it as a standard upright, or pull it apart and use it as a mini-vac.  Brilliant choice!  I grabbed it and headed for the consumer electronics area, the only reason an American male with headroom on his credit card really comes to Best Buy.

I pondered a set of Sony earbud earphones to replace the ones from my Creative Nomad mp3 player.  I’m not really dissatisfied with them, but I’m thinking there must be something better, somewhere.  I carried the Sony things around the store with me for awhile.  I next ventured by “accident” into the TV section and wandered among the various flat-panel displays, just to check on the Washington-Notre Dame score.  I don’t really want a plasma-screen TV.  Gawd, they’re pretty…

In the end, I decided that I needed to do more research on headphones, and returned the Sony earbuds to the rack.  I did pick up a PC microphone, however, so I could try some VOIP teleconferencing and recording.  I swelled with virtue as I checked out with my practical and thrifty payload.  I threw the stuff in the trunk and, of course, the fucker wouldn’t start.  I was only in there 45 minutes max, what’s with this?  It should have retained the charge from the breathless, high-rpm freeway trip to Northgate.  I resigned myself to the debasing task of begging passersby for a jumpstart.  Back to the trunk, move the dandy little vacuum cleaner aside, pull open the hatch to the tool area and, of course, the jumper cables were back at home in the car that didn’t need them.

The obvious solution was to have Mrs. Perils drive up and give me another jumpstart, but - oh, yeah - I didn’t have my cell phone.  I don’t know if any of you have noticed, but it’s gotten really hard to find a public pay phone.  I wandered around for half an hour looking in what I thought would be obvious places: “lessee, wouldn’t this be a terrific place to make a drug deal?” - but no phone there.  Finally, the guy at Best Buy let me use a phone there for free.  I called home, got no answer, and left a message that, as soon as I hung up, I realized gave no indication of how to find me even if Mrs. Perils retrieved it.

I began to feel distinctly forlorn.  I walked a couple blocks in each direction trying to espy an automotive store, had no luck (couldn’t abase myself to ask anyone, that would reveal a weakness, wouldn’t it?), but as I walked back to Best Buy I noticed for the first time that the store just above it was GI Joe’s Outdoor and Automotive store.  I picked up a pair of jumper cables and then thought, why not just buy a damn battery?  Now, that’s a purchase I’d usually over-analyze trying to balance the cost against the length of guarantee, etc., and it felt ever so devil-may-care to buy it on a whim.

So, back to the Best Buy parking garage.  Here’s everyone else walking to their cars with sophisticated electronic gadgets just bursting with excitement to get home and use them, and here I am with my hood up, a Crescent wrench in my hand and my exciting car battery acquisition ready to install.  As I was doing this, a car pulled into the stall next to me, and I said, “Welcome to Best Buy’s new car repair department.”  He looked at me just the way that I would have looked at him had our roles been reversed - extremely askance.

Just then, Mrs. Perils bustles up saying, “There you are!  I’ve been looking all over for you!”  We exchanged strained pleasantries as I secured the cables to the new battery, and then she said, “Uh-oh.  Do you have your key to my car?  I locked mine inside.” 

In fact, I didn’t have my key to that car, because I’d separated it from my keyring in order to run both cars simultaneously when I did the initial jump.  It appeared that, provided that my Accord would now start, we’d have to drive it home, get a key to her Civic, drive back to Northgate and retrieve it.  She walked back to the Civic just to make sure hadn’t left one of the doors unlocked.  In a few minutes, she returned to sheepishly admit that her keys had been in her glasses case in her purse all along.

The Accord, against all odds on this particular Saturday, started and we drove home without further incident. 

I’m just about to board a flight to Tucson, where I’ll be working until Tuesday night.  More from the desert next!

So Cable Guy II left us a new cable modem Friday morning, and packets seem to be behaving since then.  On to other dysfunctional possessions.  The battery on my 95 Accord went wimpy Friday morning, and I used our other car for work.  Saturday, I pulled the other car up in the parking strip and jumpstarted the Accord - no problem.  My thinking was that the battery was draining because the motorized side mirror had broken loose last weekend and I’d had to cut the wire that serviced it.  I taped the individual wire strands so they couldn’t short out against anything, and hoped that would settle matters.

I let it run, and asked Mrs. Perils if there were any errands she needed run, something that would take me onto the freeway and allow the battery to charge.  She said she needed a new hand vacuum cleaner.  (Hand vacuum cleaners are a whole ‘nother topic - we buy them, they throw their belts and never can be restrung properly.  They’re all lined up in the closet.)

“Where should I go?” I asked.
“Well, there’s a vacuum cleaner store near Northgate.  There’s also Best Buy up there.”
My heart raced, but I struck a frown and said, “Oh, I hate going to Best Buy.”  Before I’d finished the sentence, I was bolting for the Accord.  I hopped in, backed out and struck out for I-5 and Northgate.

As I eased onto Northgate way, the Best Buy sign took form in all its shimmering lemon-Jello-shooter beauty.

To Be Continued