Out of My Foxhole!

Will a week out of the bubble of Spring, TX have a lasting impact on me? What will I learn from NYC? I learned a lot in the day it took to get here.

Saturday passed in slow hours of airports and plane trips. Upon our appropriately early arrival at Austin’s airport, we were treated to “random” selection for pat-downs, shoe swabs, and bag searches. It was fairly innocuous, but as I sat waiting to be released into the terminal, I couldn’t help pondering the usefulness of random searches. I cannot let go of my (possibly faulty) reasoning that truly random searches wouldn’t have a high enough success rate in weeding out dangerous air-travel contraband, and thus in order to validate the expense of this precaution, somehow the powers-that-be must surely have expanded profiling criteria so that a greater variety of selectees could camoflage the profiling that surely is still going on…
So upon this path of serious reflection, I tried to determine what about us had garnered additional attention. We were, in fact, very suspicious looking:
1. I was sporting nail art on my left thumb, but the rest of my nails were unpolished. This could have been seen as some some sort of tiny, sparkly visual cue to other members of a ring of nefarious troublemakers that I possesed a piece of a McGoldbergian*1* doomsday device slowly being assembled in plain sight out of everyday items that only evil geniuses would be able recognize and contribute to.
2. I was wearing evil genius glasses.
3. Jesse was wearing jeans, but had tucked his shirt in. No one who was going to spend the day schelpping luggage through airports, or trying to keep his elbows within the confines of a tiny coach class airplane seat would really tuck in their shirt! It was a very clear indicator that he was actually planning to do something other than spend the day traveling. Something in which loose, comfortable clothing would be a liability. Something diabolical like hanging silently suspended above the Schlotsky’s and interfering with the sandwich fixin’s.

Because we are not actually evildoers, the searches did not reveal anything. But if there was a chance (even an infintessimally small one) that our plans for disrupting homeland security were actually to be carried out in Chicago (the first leg of the flight we booked), then of course, we must be thwarted. And so, under the guise of “storms” and the threat of getting to Newark at midnight or later, we were re-routed to fly from Austin to Houston Intercontinental where we would wait around for a couple of hours before finally flying to New York. O’Hare would be protected, and the (hypothetical) threat we posed would be neutralized, because obviously evil geniuses wouldn’t be dumb enough to terrorize an airport 15 minutes from where they live.

So don’t let the stringent toiletry restrictions, the lines, limitations, and all the other whimisical elements of our new air travel routine fool you into thinking that we are jumping through hoops solely for the purpose of creating a cunning trompe l’oie*2* of security to keep us traveling and spending our economic recovery checks on the very stimulating tourist industry… No! Be encouraged that OHS is very clever indeed, that they are vigilently seeking out and double checking everyone who looks, acts, smells, or is – in any way – suspicious. I certainly am greatly relieved, and when I fly I feel much, much safer.

Jesse, upon proofreading this for me (and kindly correcting all my broken English), indicated footnotes were in order, and having just finished a lovely long book with wonderous footnotes, I was happy to oblige:

*1* If Rube Goldberg was cloned, and McGyver was wormholed here from a parallel dimension where fictional characters are real people, and the pair provided the genetic material to create a mastermind inventor of elegant, invisible until in motion, chain-reaction devices, that would be McGoldberg.

*2* trompe l’oie is French for “fool the eye” – a style of painting that looks dimensional or real, but is in fact an image on a flat surface. (I used it metaphorically, and perhaps improperly, but such is blahging.)
At some point on Friday, I’m hoping to see a large and famous example of this here in the city. Muralist Richard Hass has disguised a brick wall as a detailed frontage to match the surrounding architecture in the heart SoHo’s Cast-Iron District. I think it will be a nice precursor to my Cloak-and-Dagger-knock-off-bag-shopping Chinatown adventure. I wonder if fake Prada is another tip-off that will result in special attention at the airport…

Out of My Foxhole!

Will a week out of the bubble of Spring, TX have a lasting impact on me? What will I learn from NYC? I learned a lot in the day it took to get here.

Saturday passed in slow hours of airports and plane trips. Upon our appropriately early arrival at Austin’s airport, we were treated to “random” selection for pat-downs, shoe swabs, and bag searches. It was fairly innocuous, but as I sat waiting to be released into the terminal, I couldn’t help pondering the usefulness of random searches. I cannot let go of my (possibly faulty) reasoning that truly random searches wouldn’t have a high enough success rate in weeding out dangerous air-travel contraband, and thus in order to validate the expense of this precaution, somehow the powers-that-be must surely have expanded profiling criteria so that a greater variety of selectees could camoflage the profiling that surely is still going on…
So upon this path of serious reflection, I tried to determine what about us had garnered additional attention. We were, in fact, very suspicious looking:
1. I was sporting nail art on my left thumb, but the rest of my nails were unpolished. This could have been seen as some some sort of tiny, sparkly visual cue to other members of a ring of nefarious troublemakers that I possesed a piece of a McGoldbergian*1* doomsday device slowly being assembled in plain sight out of everyday items that only evil geniuses would be able recognize and contribute to.
2. I was wearing evil genius glasses.
3. Jesse was wearing jeans, but had tucked his shirt in. No one who was going to spend the day schelpping luggage through airports, or trying to keep his elbows within the confines of a tiny coach class airplane seat would really tuck in their shirt! It was a very clear indicator that he was actually planning to do something other than spend the day traveling. Something in which loose, comfortable clothing would be a liability. Something diabolical like hanging silently suspended above the Schlotsky’s and interfering with the sandwich fixin’s.

Because we are not actually evildoers, the searches did not reveal anything. But if there was a chance (even an infintessimally small one) that our plans for disrupting homeland security were actually to be carried out in Chicago (the first leg of the flight we booked), then of course, we must be thwarted. And so, under the guise of “storms” and the threat of getting to Newark at midnight or later, we were re-routed to fly from Austin to Houston Intercontinental where we would wait around for a couple of hours before finally flying to New York. O’Hare would be protected, and the (hypothetical) threat we posed would be neutralized, because obviously evil geniuses wouldn’t be dumb enough to terrorize an airport 15 minutes from where they live.

So don’t let the stringent toiletry restrictions, the lines, limitations, and all the other whimisical elements of our new air travel routine fool you into thinking that we are jumping through hoops solely for the purpose of creating a cunning trompe l’oie*2* of security to keep us traveling and spending our economic recovery checks on the very stimulating tourist industry… No! Be encouraged that OHS is very clever indeed, that they are vigilently seeking out and double checking everyone who looks, acts, smells, or is – in any way – suspicious. I certainly am greatly relieved, and when I fly I feel much, much safer.

Jesse, upon proofreading this for me (and kindly correcting all my broken English), indicated footnotes were in order, and having just finished a lovely long book with wonderous footnotes, I was happy to oblige:

*1* If Rube Goldberg was cloned, and McGyver was wormholed here from a parallel dimension where fictional characters are real people, and the pair provided the genetic material to create a mastermind inventor of elegant, invisible until in motion, chain-reaction devices, that would be McGoldberg.

*2* trompe l’oie is French for “fool the eye” – a style of painting that looks dimensional or real, but is in fact an image on a flat surface. (I used it metaphorically, and perhaps improperly, but such is blahging.)
At some point on Friday, I’m hoping to see a large and famous example of this here in the city. Muralist Richard Hass has disguised a brick wall as a detailed frontage to match the surrounding architecture in the heart SoHo’s Cast-Iron District. I think it will be a nice precursor to my Cloak-and-Dagger-knock-off-bag-shopping Chinatown adventure. I wonder if fake Prada is another tip-off that will result in special attention at the airport…

Out of my Foxhole!!!

the difference between me and my daughter: more excerpted reflections

My arm is aching from Guitar Hero. I have graduated to using my pinkie!!!! and I had fun outfiting my avatar in a new leather outfit with flames on the jacket and the boots. Her normally blonde hair is now fiery red. Completing the look is a silver guitar that depicts St.George slaying the dragon.

Yeah, I’m aware of my geek issues. I’ve sought help, turns out people are just born this way and there really isn’t much to be done about it. I could try to be cooler, or try to pass for normal, but I’d get an ulcer or go on a spree of murderous mayhem or something. So I have to celebrate giant dork I am destined to always be.

You know who’s going to turn out not to be a dork: Olivia.
(Wilson, unfortuneatly, inherited the geek gene from me)
True story:

Every night about half way through dinner, my children begin their irritating shennanigans. Livi sings a single line from a song over and over and Wilson tells jokes that aren’t really jokes, they’re just nonsense he makes up off the top of his head. So a few nights ago, Wilson says “Mom, why did the chicken turn left on his way to Ellie’s house?” “I don’t know Wilson” I reply. “Because he forgot how to get there!!!! Ha!” (Ellie is his friend across the street and to the right of our house) And as he’s cracking up at himself, Livi says – totally deadpan – “That’s not a joke, Wilson. That’s a map.”

***

She also pronounced a picture of a girl-creature-thing on her bottle of pink hair conditioner to be very stylish (it was sporting large eyes with longs lashes, pouty lips and hoop earrings). I said “Really? What does stylish mean, anyway?”
sigh of mild exasperation at her mother the simpleton: “It means, you know, when someone is really cool or something. When you look pretty”

I kid you not.

So, Miss Livi has got the cool thing all figured out. She’s the one who’s going to rule the world – whatever pieces of it she decides she’s interested in…

Addicted to TV much?

an excerpt from a message I just sent an old friend who has the stupendous good fortune to be starting his next assignment on one of my favorite shows:

I”M SO JEALOUS!!! (and thrilled for you, of course)

Tell Tim Gunn your friend ADORES him and his giant vocabulary. If there is any appropriate way to hint that befuddling the designers with $100 words is excellent TV, please get that point across. Also please encourage more  bizarre analogies from Heidi. They are priceless. At one point there was one about sausages. 

How they are going to top Christian I can’t even imagine. I don’t know what mayhem I might have committed if he hadn’t won. (Thankfully, he did, and I didn’t turn into Attack of the Suburbanite Gila Monstress.) I suspected his genius from the beginning, but when he created the biker outfit for the 501’s challenge, I knew. (How did he not win that challenge? A denim cocktail dress outshone a biker outfit with bootleg jeans made of reincarnated SLEEVES??? Nina, please.)

* * *

I know that I watch too much TV.  Everyone who knows me knows I watch A LOT of TV.  I suspect a part of me may  think that the invention of the DVR has meant more to me than the discovery of penicillin.  I know that blogging about it probably doesn’t help much.  I’m only self aware enough to know that I have “acceptable” vices which I want to want to overcome, but really I don’t actually want to overcome.  Last night, the cable went out.  The company had no answers about it when I called to inquire.  It’s broken, it’s a huge network problem, they have no idea when it will be working again.  (still not working)  Maybe it is a sign.  I’ll be meditating on this whole situation.   What would my life be like without the comfort, escape and distraction of TV?  I’m sure I’d be more productive, but what would I be producing? 

Memorial Day

Reflecting on how very entrenched I am here, I realize at 10:56 pm that I got the day off to honor the people who dedicate their lives to protecting and serving this country and I didn’t think about it once today until this moment.  Nothing I watched on TV mentioned soldiers, the war, veterans.  I was preoccupied with cleaning my house, bathing my dog, enjoying my friends, and playing guitar hero.  

I am very much up in the air about the general election in November.  So, after realizing that I should have spent some of my day off thinking about who we are memorializing, I decided to go hit the candidates’ websites to read their thoughts about the issues of veterans, the current members of the military, and the wars we are fighting in the Iraq and Afghanistan.  McCain not only had much more to say than the Democratic contenders (‘ speech writers), but he also was the only one speak to the current situation, giving his position and explaining it thoroughly.  It isn’t a popular opinion, but at least it was reasoned. .. and I’m frankly more inclined to trust someone who sticks to their unpopular POV when their conscience and intellect insist upon it.

Giving it another Go…

I tried to start a blog two years ago and it never got off the ground.  Here’s the only thing I wrote:

I was a seventh grade English teacher before I had two kids who became my current full time job. My son is a pre-schooler and my daughter is a toddler. They are both very spirited, and I fear, much smarter than I am. My husband and I are settled into a comfortable circle of friends and neighbors who make life fun and interesting. The distance from our parents is starting to feel a bit uncomfortable, though; very little meddling but very little babysitting… I spend a lot of my time trying to keep up with my kids, my house, the things people need or want me to do, and when I’m not totally distracted by that stuff, I wonder what I can do with myself and my gifts. What can I be when my kids grow up? Life feels pretty fast paced right now, and I suspect this Mom gig will be over before I know it…

***

That was two years ago and not much has changed.  I did go back to work, part time, as my plans of being a stay-at-home-mom were curtailed by my daughter not turning out to be a stay-at-home-kid.  So now I teach public school Pre-K to a special population of low language or low socio-economic kids.  It is … interesting.  Obviously, God found a way to put to use some of those gifts I was musing about putting to use.  He also made it clear to me that the public schools available to me right now are not the best choice for my own children, and then providentially gave us an alternative for Wilson, who will be going to a liberal arts school in the fall.  I don’t know if this is His long-term plan for both of my kids, or if this is just for Wilson and just for one year, but it is okay not to know.  I trust God’s plan for my children, and I know the Holy Spirit will guide me into desiring His will.

I’m slowly figuring out the blog thing.  I really just want a place to talk to myself, and welcome the insight of anyone who cares to read about what’s on my mind.