A Conundrum, A Dilemma, and a Wow

Can anyone explain this to me?

Last Thursday I mailed 2 packages from the East Greenwich, RI post office. They were both addressed to my sister and niece, in a Los Angeles, CA suburb. I spoke to my sister last night, and she said that the one addressed to my niece arrived on Saturday. The one addressed to my sister, however has not. I just checked the tracking number and see that it’s now in Nashua, New Hampshire.

Why on earth would a package from Rhode Island, bound for California, be in New Hampshire? Why didn’t it go on the same path as the other package with the same address? This makes no sense to me. At all. You’d think it would be somewhere like Chicago. But no. It’s in New Hampshire. Maybe it needs to go to Nova Scotia first?

:::

I have not finished my Christmas shopping. Not even close. I have approximately 13 people left to shop for. And I also have 4 dogs to shop for. Heaven help me. Most of those 13 people are nieces and nephews. I have 12 nieces and nephews, and now they are all getting older. The oldest of the bunch is 14, and the youngest is 3. The ones under the age of 10 are easy to shop for, as all I need to get them is any toy. The older ones are a bit harder. Every year I agonize over what to get them. I want each present to be memorable, and I don’t want to insult their intelligence by getting them something that’s too young for them either. I don’t want to sell out and get them clothes either. I want them to open something fun on Christmas. Fun presents for teenagers ends up being a bit more expensive. But they all have iPods now, and the like. Teenagers tend to like the bigger ticket items when it comes to toys, and I am out of ideas. I don’t want to spend the entire evening tonight taking items off shelves, putting them back again, just to pick them up again in a fit of indecision. Any suggestions?

My nieces and nephews have restored my love for Christmas. When they were all small, I loved sitting back and watching them squeal with delight after Christmas Eve dinner as they tear through the wrapping paper. It would warm me from inside out when they would latch onto the toy that I bought for them, above all other presents under the tree. This is the reaction I want to have every year with them. I think I am putting too much pressure on myself.

:::

And finally a mind blowing thought for today. What exactly is the difference between a million and a billion?

1 million seconds is equivalent to 11 days, 20 hours, 4 min and 4 sec. 1 billion seconds is equivalent to 31 years, 251 days, 13 hours, 34 minutes, and 26 seconds.

I’ve been alive approximately 1,097,539,200 seconds, as I am 34 years, 9 months and 18 days old. So, I’ve been around for a billon and change seconds.

My dad, who is 70 years, 10 months and 12 days old has been alive for approximately 2,234,822,400 seconds. Dad, whom I often call “older than dirt” is more than 2 billion seconds old.

My cousin’s 3 month old baby is 102 days old. She’s been alive for approximately 8,812,800 seconds. An infant is only 8.8 MILLION seconds old.

I am ruined for the rest of the day. My mind is completely blown.

All Grown Up and Nowhere To Go

I am 34 years old, and still do not feel entirely grown up. I like to think that I will never be a grown up, and a large part of me will still do things like drive too fast with the radio in the car blaring. On Thursday, Todd and I hosted Thanksgiving for the first time. It seemed like such a grown up thing to do. I set the table and actually cared about how the plates, napkins and silverware looked, and that they actually came from matching sets. Todd slaved over the stove, and I cleaned the house and fretted over dog hair on the furniture. The guests we had for dinner have been to dinner at our house a kabillion times, and don’t care about dog hair on the couch, or dust in the corner of the room. They’re our friends and our family and they came over to be with us.

But there’s something about hosting a big meal like Thanksgiving to force the inner adult to silence the inner child. I’ve seen people flip out over making Thanksgiving dinner the perfect meal that Martha Stewart would approve of. They scour the Internet for recipes and they make impossibly difficult centerpieces out of things like cranberries, pinecones and gourds. Todd and I survived our first Thanksgiving without freaking out too much about it. We had a lovely time with his parents and our friends. But I still don’t entirely feel grown up, even after hosting a major holiday meal.

Today I was looking at a picture of my sister C. In the picture, taken 5 years ago, she was my age and she’s holding her newborn 4th child. And it’s funny because I don’t think that a childless 34 year old and a 34 year old with 4 children really are the same age. We’ve taken different paths in life. Five years ago she gave birth to her 4th child, and I was getting married. Yet, if you put the two of us next to each other at age 34, she would instantly have more credibility as a grown up than I would. Never mind the fact that I’ve been in the working world and she’s largely been a stay-at-home mom. Never mind the fact that I’ve finished my master’s degree (she’s almost done with hers, just 3 more classes to go and just suck it up and finish, C!) I’ve learned to sail, owned my own business, and held I don’t even want to admit how many jobs. I’ve lived abroad, I’ve travelled alone, I’ve lived alone, and I’ve dated a lot of guys--all the things that my sister didn’t do. But somehow I feel like all that experience falls short compared to her giving birth to, nursing, potty training and raising 4 children.

Does having children force one to be a grown up? What exactly is a grown up? Am I just a “different kind” of grown up? And if so, why do I have a gigantic zit on my forehead?

The Aftermath of the Best Conversation Ever

My last post has gotten a few of my readers, and myself, wondering about random things other than the first person to ever dress as a clown. (Though that one still perplexes me. Why would someone do that?) Every time I go sailing, or hiking, or even driving in a remote spot I find myself wondering how the scenery must have looked the first time an explorer sailed up to that spot, or walked up to the ridge to look at the view.

Last week my mother in law and I were at the pool at the Holiday Inn. We were talking about the human body, and we both decided that we have no idea why men have nipples. What purpose does the nipple serve on the male body? We all know what a woman’s nipples are for, but why do men have them? A female dog has nipples to feed her puppies, but a male dog doesn’t? (I just now checked both Griffen and Nemo to confirm that they both do not have them.) This leads me to wonder if someday men will evolve to be able to feed their young. With the norm now being a dual income family, maybe natural selection will force men to be able to nurse if the women are stuck at work.

Heidi, one of the commenters on my last post, wonders where the belly button goes. It starts off on the surface of our skin, then leads inside somewhere. When we were fetuses that was where the umbilical cord traveled from our stomach to our mother so that she could pass nutrients along to us. I am assuming there is still some sort of path from the surface to the stomach that has since been tied off by a doctor. If the doctor didn’t tie that off and create the belly button, would we deflate and blow around the room like a balloon that wasn’t tied off? Heidi’s question about the belly button brings up another question, why don’t puppies and kittens have belly buttons? How did nutrients reach their bellies when they were in utero?

Gypsy, another commenter, wonders who was the first one to eat a crab. That’s a great question, Gypsy. Who was walking around at the shore one day and said “Look at that thing scurrying along sideways! That looks like it would be delicious with some melted butter!” But someone somewhere caught a crab, dismembered it, cooked it and ate it. What always impresses me is the way modern man arrived at food preparation. Centuries of process has formed what we eat today. We don’t have to raise a cow and shoot it so we can eat the beef. We don’t have to stretch a net across a river and snare flying ducks with it so that we can eat.

What constantly impresses me is the way civilizations thousands of years ago ate. I remember when I was in Australia I was on a tour in the desert. The guide was pointing out different plants and pointed out a fruit on a particular tree. He said that the fruit is toxic when eaten right off the tree. But early Australian Aborigines discovered that if they soaked it in a stream of running water for a few days, and then roasted it for the better part of a day in a fire it would become edible. How did they arrive at that ritual? I always imagined a group of Aborigines scratching their heads and saying “OK, Gladys died when we sat that fruit in the stream for 2 days. Let’s try soaking it for 3 and see what happens. Who wants to try it next?”

I also wonder if this is the exchange that goes through Todd’s brain when I cook. “The last time she tried a new recipe it tasted very bad. Do I really want to taste this one too?” Maybe that’s why the pizza place is on speed dial on our phone.

Jet Lag

I am often amazed at the concept of time. It’s a measurement when we tell someone “I’ll be there in five minutes.” It’s a reference point when we talk about something that happened in the past “I was 16 when I got my driver’s license, which was 17 years ago.” I remember joking with my field hockey coach in college, because I was late to practice and had to run a lap for every minute I was late, “Really Coach, time is all relative. I mean, whose watch is right? Mine says I am on time. What do you say we split the difference on the laps?”

We turned the clocks back on Sunday and daylight savings time is over for the year. It is 5:16 PM as I write this, and it is pitch dark outside. In a few weeks it will start to get dark at 4:30, even in the late 4:20’s.

It’s this time of year that Todd and I find ourselves more tired, as we are adjusting to the early darkness--kind of like we’ve flown into a time zone on the other side of the world, and we need to adjust to that. It amazes me to think that somewhere in the world right now the sun is rising and it is morning, and somewhere west of here the sun is setting right now too. All at the same time.

When I was a kid and my sister lived in Arizona I used to marvel at the idea that over the winter the Mountain Time zone was only 2 hours behind us in the Eastern Time zone; then in the summer she would be 3 hours behind because the Mountain Time zone doesn’t fall behind or spring forward. My mom would look at the clock and wonder if my sister was home from work yet so she could call her.

When I lived in Australia my junior year of college I arrived in Sydney in July. It was summer in the US, and winter in Australia. I shivered as I walked to the bus from the terminal, as I was wearing a rayon sundress and a jean jacket, yet when I got on my plane in LA, it was hot out, the peak of summertime.

It was morning in Sydney, and I had no idea what time my body thought it was. I had just spent 15 hours on a plane from Los Angeles to Sydney. I had 2 suitcases that weighed something like 80 pounds each. I arrived at my dorm, and of course my room was the furthest possible room from the front door, and the dumbwaiter in the building wasn’t working. I scoured the building for a clock, trying to figure out what time it was, as my watch was still set for Eastern Time. In the US.

I set my watch and called my parents, after figuring out how to maneuver Australian pay phones. “What time is it there?” my mom asked. We figured out that I was 14 hours ahead of her. It was still Saturday at home, but it was Sunday where I was. I joked with my mom that calling me would take a lot more calculation than it would to call my sister.

Then daylight savings time ended on the east coast, but started in Sydney. The clock at home turned an hour back, the watch on my wrist in Sydney turned an hour ahead. Now I had to calculate 16 hours behind to know what time it was at home, so that I wasn’t calling my parents in the middle of the night.

Right now in Sydney it’s 9 something in the morning. The Australians are just getting to work on what we consider tomorrow morning, while the Americans in the Eastern Time zone are going home from work on what the Australians consider last night. I think I just blew my own mind.

Ring Riiiing….. It’s God Calling

This morning I went to a funeral of a friend’s father. We were all in the church, and the priest just finished giving a eulogy about how the deceased was a veteran and a fire fighter. People were crying and then a cell phone began to ring just as the priest was about to do a blessing over the casket.

Ring ring.

The priest paused for a second, and continued with his blessing.

Ring ring.

The priest paused again, shorter this time. The phone rang five more times until a woman a few pews in front of me finally dove into her purse and shut the thing off. It took 5 rings for this woman to think to reach into her purse and turn the phone off. Five very loud rings that echoed through the church. Five very loud rings that caused the priest to pause in his blessing. Five rings. I clenched my jaw and silently wished that she was a heart surgeon waiting to hear about a donor for her patient. Though I have a sneaking suspicion she was not a surgeon but really just a careless cell phone user.

I do not have a cell phone, and am constantly amazed at the growing lack of consideration that is sprouting up among cell phone users. Sometimes you’ll hear one ring in the movie theater, and an urgent voice whispering into it “I’m at the movies right now, I’ll have to call you back.” Very often you’ll see people on their cell phones at the tables in a restaurant, and ignoring the people they are sitting with at the table while they talk on the phone.

At what point to we get to unplug ourselves and just enjoy where we were without having to need to know what’s going on somewhere else?

:::

This morning at the funeral I sat with one of my best friends (Krista) and her new fiancé, also a good friend of mine. I watched my friend (Allison), whose father just died; walk back up the aisle at the end of the service with tears streaming down her face. She mouthed a thank you to the 3 of us sitting in the pew toward the back.

Last night Deb, another college friend, came to the wake. When Krista, Allison, Deb and I all started college we were all 18, and we were all in the same place. We were all in the same stage—graduated high school and starting college. Four years later we were all in the same stage, just graduating college and starting our careers. It’s at that point, age 22, where life stages arrive at different rates.

This morning I looked at my life, Krista’s life, Allison’s and Deb’s lives and thought back to where we were all in the same stage, and how we are not in the same stage anymore. I got married 4 years ago, have a house, am trying to buy another house, and our talk of a baby doesn’t start with “if” anymore but “when.” (Though it’s still iffy as to when the when will be.) I lost my mom 6 years ago. Krista just got engaged a few weeks ago, they are starting to plan their wedding and the rest of their lives together, and both her parents are alive and healthy. Allison is single, has a great job, her own condo, and just lost her father. Deb bought a house with her boyfriend, and they have a dog—her parents are alive and well too.

Regardless of when ever you get to the married stage, I think that you are supposed to be much older when you lose your parents. You aren’t supposed to lose your parents before you get married. That is the linear chronological order of how life stages are supposed to happen. Both your parents are supposed to be raising their glass of champagne at your wedding. My mom wasn’t at mine, and now Allison’s dad won’t be at hers.

When Allison gets married she’ll miss her dad on her wedding day just like I missed my mom. It is a sad group Allison just joined, the one where you don’t get to have both of your parents there on your wedding day. It’s a group I wish nobody had to belong to.

Random Thoughts...

...on the beauty of nature.
This morning I went out with Griffen to jog at 6:30. The moon was still out and was in the western sky, and the sun had already risen as well. The moon has been full and bright lately, and this morning it hung in the sky wearing a unique shade of peach, while the sun glowed in magenta. It was a perfect moment. The kind of moment that made me stop my jog routine and stand in the middle of my street and stare at the moon in the west, then turn around and stare at the sun in the east and then turn around and stare into the west again. The kind of moment that makes me marvel at the concept of the earth rotating, allowing the sun and the moon to take turns showing us how beautiful, how perfectly round, and how constant they are.

:::

...on being woken up.
I am not the most coherent person when I am talking in my sleep. Let me rephrase that. I am perfectly coherent when I am talking in my sleep, but the topic I am discussing in my sleep is completely out of sync with everything that is going on around me. For example, I once woke Todd up in the middle of the night frantic because we were going to be late and we didn’t have tickets. I also once got annoyed with him because I didn’t understand why “these shoes are news.” I don’t know where we were going that we were late for, and I don’t know why a particular pair of shoes annoyed me to the point where I speculated as to their newsworthiness. Of course, I have no recollection of those two discussions, as I was sound asleep.

September has been Todd’s month to carry the pager for work. They take turns, and he has to take it for two months out of the year. If he doesn’t answer the page within a certain amount of time the system will call his cell and our home number. At 4:30 on Tuesday morning the phone rang. I saw on the caller ID display that it was for him. He listened to the message, and came back to bed. The only rational thing I could think to say was “Is it Saturday?”

:::

...on bad dog behavior.
I wish my dog could talk. This way I could ask him this question:

“In all the time that you’ve known me, when have I ever not gotten really mad at you for putting your snout into a pineapple upside down cake on the counter and inhaling the whole thing?”

“Fellas, We’re Out of Beer. But I Have an Idea…”

I am a bit of a news junkie. I watch CNN every morning while I am getting ready for work. I read a few news web sites at work when I am taking a break from working. I love offbeat news sites, I love reading about people who do very strange things—when you know that they were dead serious in their intentions.

For example:

Naked Man Does Hula, Steals Beer at Store

DE SOTO, Mo. (AP) -- The naked truth: Three eastern Missouri men were willing to go to extreme lengths to get some beer.

That's the accusation after an incident in the early hours of August 18th at Fish's Quick Stop in De Soto. Store clerk Vicky Gaines says a masked man walked in and began doing the hula dance.

Police say the plan was for the naked dancer to create a distraction while another man took a case of beer from the store. It didn't work.

Gaines called police. As the naked man and his accomplice joined a third man in a car, a customer got their license plate number. All three were caught a few days later.

The men, ages 19 to 23, face charges of shoplifting and indecent exposure.

Does it get any better than this? I love it when naked people commit crimes. How did they even arrive at this diabolical plot? Can you imagine the meeting of the minds in preparation for this crime? These guys would not have done this if they didn’t think it would work, right? I can just picture it:

“OK, this is how it’s going down. Jimbo, you go in there naked and start doing the hula. I’ll grab the beer. Bob, you drive the getaway car. It’s foolproof, if you think about it. Maybe I should get some chips too; the clerk will be so distracted.”

“Let’s not get greedy, Steve. Just grab the beer. Maybe we’ll go for chips next time.”

Did they have a discussion as to who would be the naked hula dancer, and who would be the beer grabber?

“Jimbo, you get naked and dance, you’re thinner than I am.”

“But wouldn’t a fat guy like Steve be more distracting? While Steve is dancing they’ll watch and think ‘Wow, this guy’s got guts to come in here looking like that and dance naked.’”

“You make an excellent point. OK, Steve’ll dance, you grab the beer. I’ll drive. Ready?”

"Let's do it!"

Just Another Manic Monday

This morning I was driving in to work, and witnessed an accident. I pulled over and waited for the police to come so I could be a witness and give a statement, as it happened right in front of me.

A man was riding his bike against traffic down a hill and was about to cross the driveway to the Walmart. A woman was pulling out of the Walmart, and was going slow as she was entering traffic. She hit the man on the bike, and he went flying off his bike. He seemed to hover in the air before he landed on the pavement, like he was soaring through the air in slow motion. The accident looked staged, like it was a stunt in a movie. The man flew off his bike and landed on his right side on the road. He sat up, and began to rub his right leg where he landed. He stood up and walked to the side of the road. Other witnesses pulled off and called the cops on their cell phones.

The woman from the car was talking to the man on the bike to make sure he was OK. The scene was very calm. The man on the bike was sitting on the curb talking on his cell phone, presumably calling work to say he’ll be late, calling his family to tell him he’d been in an accident. There was no “Hey! Why don’t you watch where you’re going? I am going to sue your ass off!” The only thing that indicated there had been an accident was the mangled bike, still under the front tires of the woman’s car.

I was talking to the other witnesses. One of the witnesses was a man who said that he is a cyclist. He was saying that it was his biggest fear, to be hit by a car. Then he went on to say that he didn’t feel so bad for the man on the bike, because he was riding against traffic. I said to him, “That doesn’t matter to me, I still feel bad for him because he was in a scary accident.”

The ambulance came, the fire truck came, and the police car came. The ambulance crew got the man onto the stretcher after determining he hadn’t broken anything. The police took my statement, and asked me a few questions.

I found it interesting that the cop had asked me “So, the woman in the car was facing the left to watch for the cars, and didn’t see the guy on the bike?”

“You know, I have no idea which way she was looking. I wasn’t looking at her so I cannot say which way she was looking,” I replied. I honestly have no idea which way she was looking. I have closed my eyes and tried to remember where she was looking. I’d hate to think that my statement could get her into trouble because I obviously could not corroborate her story of where she was looking. I can only tell the cops what I remember seeing, right?

“It was an accident. She obviously didn’t see the guy on the bike and she hit him,” I said to the cop. The cop agreed that it is obvious that there was no malicious intent. It was an accident. I left the scene, and went about my commute. But I can’t stop thinking about the accident. Imagine being that man’s family and getting that call “I was on my bike on the way to work and I was hit by a car.” The man was lucky. He didn’t hit his head, he wasn’t wearing a helmet, and he was able to walk off the road to the curb. Imagine being that woman, knowing that she’d hit a man on his bike. I can imagine the accident playing over and over on repeat in her mind all day long, all week long.

Then I got into work and got an email from a man in New Zealand. In his signature on his email it says that his office is on Puke Road. So no matter how bad your Monday is, no matter if you get hit by a car while on your bike, at least you don’t live on Puke Road. No matter what happens, it could be worse.