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My Corner of the WorldRandom thoughts and observations June 17 True Confessions......My recent trip to China started me thinking about all of the crazy and maybe unusual things that I've done in my life, so I decided to make a list of the things that keep popping into my head. Maybe some of the things aren't that unusual, but it just seems to me that the list as a whole is a bit whacky -
I promise that I'll write about the trip as soon as my mind can make sense of it - but right now, I just needed to get this crazy list out of my head....
1. Been to China 2. Used an outhouse for its intended purpose 3. Slept in the same bed that Bill Clinton and Michael Jackson slept in (not at the same time!) 4. Piloted a paddle-wheeler on the Lake of the Ozarks when I was 17 years old 5. Intimidated a 6'6" St. Louis Gang-banger and made him back down and shut-up 6. Driven a tractor 7. Ridden in an eighteen-wheeler 8. Watched the Epcot fireworks from a private yacht on Lake Epcot 9. Designed and built a house 10. Been within 20 yards of a full-grown moose in the Rocky Mt. National Park 11. Driven on a road with snow piled up on both sides higher than the top of an SUV 12. Watched the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean 13. Watched the sun set over the Pacific Ocean 14. Made pillows out of a feather bed 15. Helped wash clothes in a wringer washer 16. Picked ripe peaches from the tree 17. Spent 8 hours decorating 2 birthday cakes for my grandmother's 75th birthday party 18. Judged a little kid's beauty pageant 19. Married a man I met on the internet 20. Lived in a one-bedroom apartment, a mobile home, a barn and a house with a swimming pool 21. Been flashed 22. Survived cancer 23. Seen Carlsbad Caverns 24. Been to the top of the Washington Monument 25. Collected unemployment compensation 26. Made homemade apple butter 27. Swam in a river 28. Correctly guessed the number of pennies in a quart jar 29. Lost an election that I really wanted to win 30. Lost an election and was sort of happy about losing May 26 Once around the block - oh, and stop at the drive-in, pleaseWhen I was a kid, I remember that on occasion mom and dad would pile us all into the back seat of our beloved pink and white Ford Fairlane (we'd named her Passie because my dad liked to drive fast and we loved it when he passed all of the cars on the road!) and head off to the drive-in for a treat. We'd put on our pajamas, grab our pillows and a quilt or two and mom would load up a bag of snacks and off we'd go. It was always a good time.
I don't specifically remember many of the movies we saw, but I do remember the jostling for postion that my brother and sister and I did in the back seat, and the buzz of the mosquitos in the hot humid southeast Mo. air. We didn't have air conditioning at home so we weren't any more uncomfortable sitting outside to watch a movie than we would have been in our living room at home. Those 95+ degree days were so hot, that when the temps fell into the 80s at night it actually felt cold. It wasn't long after the sun went down and the movie started that we'd all three be cocooned in our quilts. Since normal bed-time was 9 p.m., it was a struggle for us to stay awake past the cartoon. My sister never made it - she'd be sound asleep leaning on me or my brother, long before Porky Pig stuttered 'thaaaaaat's all folks'. My brother and I would spend the next half-hour or so shrugging her back and forth to lean first on his shoulder and then mine... until we would finally fall asleep and leave mom and dad to enjoy the movie in relative peace.
By the time I was a teenager, drive-ins, in the south, had fallen victim to air-conditioned homes and multi-screened theater complexes. I thought they were gone forever, but the first Memorial Day after Joe and I got married he mentioned that the drive-in was open and showing Grease. I thought that was pretty cool, so we went and had a great time.
Last night we saw the new Indiana Jones movie at a restored drive in - the movie was good, a solid B, and just seeing Harrison Ford in that fedora again could arguably push that to a B+. The whole experience was totally cool. We got there early and there were lots of spaces to choose from. We were directed to park in the 'big vehicle' row next to the mom and dad vans, so we were right in the middle of little kids in pajmas, and middle kids tossing baseballs and footballs to each other in the aisles, and pre-teenage kids strolling back and forth between the consession stand and the family chariot.
We had consession-stand snacks for supper, hot dogs and hamburgers and fresh hot fries with seasoned salt...yum. I miss the old-fashioned speaker that used to hang on the window, but other than that, once I was snuggled up with my blanket and pillow, it was almost like those old days in Passie.
Here's the link to the website for the drive-in (that's definitely not like the old days!). It's called Twin HiWay Drive In, but there is only 1 screen right now. I think the 2nd screen is in the works. http://www.twinhiwaydrivein.com
I took a few pictures too...if you look closely, you'll see that there is a yellow taxi in one of the shots - do you think that the meter was running through the whole movie. What's the fare these days for a two-hour movie, and does that include snacks?
Kids playing catch - the kid in the black shirt was Mr. Cool.
Is the meter running?
May 25 Whole lot a Shakin going on...Another large after-shock occurred about 4:20 p.m. local time in China on Sunday. The US Geological Survey puts it at 6.0. Chinese seismologists are reporting that it was 6.4. Either way, it was a significant jolt. Early news releases indicate that fatalities were minimal compared to the May 12th quake, but that around 70,000 homes were destroyed. At this point, those structures have to be so weakened that they are just crumbling into rubble with each successive jolt. The devestation is unfathomable - both in the loss of human life and property damage. For the survivors, I'm sure they will live with the psycological damage for the rest of their lives. Even the damage to the national psyche will be long lasting too...I keep remembering how angry and victimized we felt as a nation after 9/11, and that was over a loss of fewer than 4000 people. I can only imagine the feeling that comes from knowing that more than 80,000 of your countrymen were killed in the blink of an eye. It chokes me up.
On a personal level, I'm more than a little nervous about this upcoming trip - my anxiety comes from several sources, some earthquake related, and some just plain old fear of the unknown. I'm trying to work through it, but I'm not sleeping well and as the trip gets closer, I'm getting grumpier by the minute, which Joe is quick to point out. He's feeling the stress too. He's worried and doesn't want me to go. My mom doesn't want me to go, I don't want me to go... but I don't want this hanging over my head for another year either, so at this point, I'm resigned to going and getting it over with.
We're undoubtly going to lose money - lots of money, boatloads of money, a person's whole yearly salary worth of money. I can't see any way that we'll be able to save this conference financially, but the cost of canceling it now would be even worse... cancellation penalties at hotels and convention centers don't come cheap, even in China. And, who knows what sort of damage we'd do to our reputation. We're just cultivating our international image and canceling our first international conference would not be good for that.
I'm hopeful that this experience will turn out to be one of those things that even though you dread it, and you can't wait for it to be over with, in the long run, you learn from it and are glad you experienced it.
Prayers are greatly appreciated - both for me and my traveling colleagues, but more importantly, for those millions of people who are directly affected by this horrible disaster.
May 24 Nothin could be finer than to be in Southern China in the Summmm-ah-ah-erI'm going to China - I probably should have been blogging about this for awhile, but I've been too busy being scared out of my wits to blog about it...
The center of earthquake that happened on May 12 is about 200 miles north west of where I'll be going. The city is called Chongqing and the population is about 29 million people, or around the combined populations of the top 16 US cities; New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philladelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, Detroit, Indianapolis, Jacksonville Fla, San Francisco, Columbus OH, and Austin Tx. That's a lot of people that I won't be able to communicate with, which, considering my talkative nature, has me a bit concerned.
I've been working with very nice people at the Convention Center and at 2 Western-style hotels. Their names are Lucy, Jane and Sandy - somehow I don't think those are the names on their birth certificates. We've mostly been communicating via email, and they all are quite proficient in English. I've made a real effort to reduce my use of slang and Americanizations, and they seem to be trying really hard to figure out what I mean. They check and re-check about things that they don't clearly understand.
Lately I've been working on the menus for the meals we'll provide to our conference attendees - I got the proposal from the convention center this week and I'm going to try to attach it here so that you can see some of the delacacies that we'll be sampling... I'm looking forward to trying some of it, but other dishes... not so much. I think that I'll definitely pass on the Sliced Pig Ear with Oil Sauce and the Ox Tendon Jelly, but count me in for the Sauteed Shrimp with Chicken, Steamed Baby Lobster and the Sacher Cake, which is a traditional Chinese sweet cake... I'll definitely try that.
The menu below will be for our all-conference banquet on June 11. You can see the price is RMB158 per person which translates into about $23 per person. A menu that included Lobster and Shrimp and this many items would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 per person, at a convention center or hotel in Boston or San Francisco.
中式晚宴GALA DINNER 时间time: 6月11日Jun.11th,19:00—21:30 地点avenue: 会议中心4楼宴会厅, 4F, Grand Banquet Hall, Convention Center 价格price: RMB 158 / Per.people (drinks & wines not included)
冷菜Cold dish:
热菜Hot dish:
点心Desert:
More on this subject later -
May 23 Un-Freakin-BelievableI'm taking a couple of days, or more accurately, portions of 2 days, off of work this week. I needed some downtime before I leave for China in a week or so. Have I mentioned that I'm going to China? I didn't think so... I guess in my mind, I thought it might just go away, but if a 7.9 earthquake centered 200 miles from where I'm going can't postpone my trip, I guess nothing will... I'll talk more about China later, but back to the original subject. Joe took today off as well and we spent a lazy morning just hangin out in our pajamas, and drinking coffee...ok, I spent a lazy morning hanging out in my pajamas and drinking coffee and Joe slept until Drew Carey called him to come on down and play the Price is Right. After tPiR, we had lunch at Olive Garden and made a dash through Wal-mart, dropping a quick $300 in Sam's coffers to do our part to help stimulate the economy. And then.... I needed gas, ok, I really needed gas, I'm having a hard time getting my head around $3.00+ a gallon for gas, so I've been putting it off ... and off... and off...until I was as close to empty as I've ever been in this car. I'm becoming obsessed with gas, I pass 3 gas stations on my way to work each day and I check the price at each one every morning and every afternoon... and it goes up every day.. not 1 or 2 cents per gallon, somedays it goes up 6 or 7 cents, one day it went up a dime from the time I passed the gas station in the morning until I come home that afternoon. Today, because Joe was in the car and one of his cardinal rules is that you don't let the gas guage go below 1/4 of a tank, and because I passed the 1/4 mark about 3 days ago, we filled up the car. I almost cried. The total was $70 and that was with a 10 cent per gallon discount from a local grocery store promotion... 70 freakin dollars just to buy a tank of gas... I just can not deal with this.... short of buying a horse and buggy I don't know what I can do about it, but it's really driving me crazy.
May 15 Baaa Baaa?An actual article from tonight's Pittsburgh Post Gazette - I don't even know what to say about this... but I laughed out loud.
Lamb's Sakes
Waynesburg will celebrate its annual Sheep and Fiber Festival from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.
High Street will be closed to traffic but be open to sheep and people. There will be sheep-shearing and sheep-herding demonstrations, plus wool washing, carding, spinning and weaving demonstrations, as well as crafters, food (including lamb) and music.
Some sheep may escape the lamb grilling competition at 2 p.m. Saturday. For more information go to www.sheepandfiber.com. For those outside of Western PA, Waynesburgh has another goofy festival called 'Rain Day'. It's rained something like 110 of the last 130-something years on July 29 in Waynesburg, and the town celebrates it. Here's a link to that story - http://www.raindayfestival.com/. This town sounds like it could be located somewhere near Hooterville.
April 27 Boys Will be BoysI am seriously in need of some girl-time. I'm definitely not a girly-girl, I don't really like to shop, I don't mind getting my hands dirty, I like being outdoors, and I thoroughly enjoy sports. I don't know any women, short of Robin Roberts, who can match my knowledge of sports...(not that I really know Robin Roberts...). I can talk about the infield fly rule, I know what an icing call is, and believe it or not, I can probably name all of the head coaches in the NFL. But this weekend... I've simply had too much ...between 2 Penguin hockey games, (which they won! GO PENS!) and the two-day event that is the NFL draft, I'm in danger of losing what little femininity I have left.... I think I'll go shave my legs and paint my toe-nails.
April 05 The Miralax Miracle and Pooping for DollarsOk, so maybe this isn't exactly a dinner-table topic, but here's the reality of the situation - Joe is a problem pooper and it's time I stopped trying to hide it. I've known him for more than a decade and he's always had trouble... for a long while after we got married the problem was too much poop, which I tried (unsuccessfully) not to take personally. Holy Crap! look, it was simple, something had given him a severe case of diarrhea and it was either married life in general, or me in particular. How can you not take that personally? so... we (he) did the whole testing thing.... upper GI, lower GI, colonoscopy... ugh, the prep on that is definitely unpleasant, but he didn't mind the test at all... he woke up from the anesthesia in a better mood than he'd been in for weeks and wanted to stop for Wendy's spicy chili on the way home... go figgure!
The verdict was Irritable Bowel Syndrome... hallelujah, it wasn't me! They gave him medication and the poops went away... I mean seriously went away. We spent the next 8 years trying to find a way to make him poop on a semi-regular basis without giving him the runs. He chewed a boatload of fiber pills, he ate enough roughage to fill a train car with Mexican produce. Nothing - nada... oh, sure, about once a week, there'd be an 'everyone out of the pool' session in the bathroom, but other than that..... well, you can imagine the bloating and cramping, the fussing and crankiness that ensued... and that was just from me! You should have seen Joe...
Then, miracle of miracles - this fall he had his yearly fun-with-laxatives session and went in for a routine colonoscopy. Thankfully no problems were found, but neither one of us really expected anything to change with regard to the poop situation. But wait, this was a new doc and he gave Joe a prescription for some stuff called Miralax. As it turns out, a prescription is no longer required, you can buy it at Costco or Wal-mart or the grocery store. It's a powder that Joe mixes into a glass of liquid and drinks every night and it's nothing short of a miracle worker. Now, Joe is as regular as you could ask for... pooping has become almost a non-issue at our house... except for the fact that Joe now thinks it's his federally-funded duty to poop at work. He said if he's going to be spending part of every day pooping now, he might as well get paid for it.
There, I feel better having gotten this out of my system.
Back from CalifornyI've been back from San Francisco for almost a week and I'm doing ok on catching up on my sleep. I got home around 1:30 a.m. on Sunday and promptly fell into bed. I also took Monday and most of Tuesday off of work - after spending a week listening to a constantly ringing phone and working 14 to 17 hours a day, I needed to be alone and just have some chill-out time.
I only saw a couple of areas of SF this time. The conference center and the hotel I stayed in are about 1 block apart and that's virtually where I spent my week. Three of my friends and I went to dinner at a converted bath-house right on the Pacific Ocean on the Saturday night before the conference started. We watched the sun sink into the ocean and talked and laughed and cried - about life and the passage of time and the paths we'd walked.
In all honesty, as great as dinner was, (and it was great), the company was even better. My friends are three very different, but very strong women... we make a nice mix. We have fun and laugh together most of the time, but the times when we whine and complain and cry together are good too. No one is judgemental and we take each other as we are. We aren't always together as a four-some, sometimes we add another friend from the office, and sometimes it's just a combination of 2 or 3 or 4 of the 5 of us. It's nice to have such a caring and comfortable group of friends!
I've posted a few of the photos Debbie took from the deck of the restaurant ... you can see why it's a very popular place.
March 02 Nothing in particularI opened this window, not even knowing what i was going to write about... hmmm, that's weird, usually I have some idea of at least a starting point. I tend to meander off the original intent, but there's always a starting point. Not so, today. Guess I'll just keep typing and see where we end up. Delete is a marvelous thing, so if you never see any of this, don't feel left out, that just means that it was even crappier than the usual drivel.
The week was crappy weather-wise, but my seasonal state of down-in-the dumps is a little better. My Aunt June gave me a tidbit to remember that helps some. 'There are reasons for the seasons'. yep, we're doing a mighty fine job of killing off bugs this winter, and I do like wearing sweatshirts, they are soooo comfly... so winter isn't all bad. I'm still tired of the ice and snow, but it's March, so we should be through with the worst of winter... time to move on to those soft spring showers and blooming azaleas.
Work is work... and as Joe says, that's why it isn't called vacation. I like having cool stuff and eating and not sleeping in a cardboard box, so I guess I'll keep working, and I hope they keep paying me.
We had a leap day this year - February is a weird month for me - lots of life-events happened to me in Februrary. I got engaged at age 40, on Valentine's day. The odds of a woman in her 40's getting married are astronomic, I don't know exactly what they are, but it's something like 100 to 1. I started my first-ever real job on Valentine's day, 31 years ago, and I started the first job of my new Pennsylvania-life on Leap-Day, 2000. I still remember the scared feeling I had, and that my mom made me a sandwich to take for supper for the first job (it was an evening shift job). I still remember the scared feeling I had while driving to the PA job, too, but for that job, I was greeted at the door by the Department Assistant who handed me a bouquet of 2 doz. tulips and welcomed me to the organization.
Well, guess that's enough rambling - I probably should hit delete, but I don't have anything better...so we'll leave it at this for now. :)
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