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Mounts Lafayette and Lincoln

Sunday I climbed Mount Lafayette via Little Haystack Mountain and Mount Lincoln, along with seemingly hundreds of other people (as a ranger commented to me after the hike, “I bet it was like Route 128 during rush hour up there”). It took about eight hours but I emerged full of vigor, feeling invisible.
Monday I woke up on my 29th birthday, feeling 89. My quadriceps were screaming, my shoulders were burnt rosy red, and my body was just like “What did you do?”

Sunday I climbed Mount Lafayette via Little Haystack Mountain and Mount Lincoln, along with seemingly hundreds of other people (as a ranger commented to me after the hike, “I bet it was like Route 128 during rush hour up there”). It took about eight hours but I emerged full of vigor, feeling invisible.
Monday I woke up on my 29th birthday, feeling 89. My quadriceps were screaming, my shoulders were burnt rosy red, and my body was just like “What did you do?”




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By Meredith – May 28, 2006

Spargelmeister

I did a variety of things during my weekend in Pennsylvania: Revisited Valley Forge National Park, went bowling, ate at a swank Manayunk restaurant, ate at a Red Lobster, attended to a Lutheran church service, and drove to Lancaster to hang out in the backroom of a historic seafood restaurant with several dozen members of my extended family. There, I ate asparagus.

It is the asparagus I will talk about, not because it was by any means the highlight of my trip. It’s just that as far as vegetables go, asparagus is downright fascinating.

Asparagus has been cultivated for over 2000 years, and is mentioned in the oldest surviving cookbook, De re coquinaria from the 3rd century A.D.

Asparagus is a word that is both singular and plural. Is it correct to say The asparagus is tasty or The asparagus are tasty? Both are correct… and quite true! Asparagus is an inkhorn term: A English word that was purposely “Latinized” by English spelling reformers in the 17th century. These much-derided grammar snobs deemed the Latin term asparagus to be more refined than the Middle English sperage. It was too refined for the common man, who derived the folky name sparrow grass from the Latin name.

The “proper” way to consume asparagus spears (meaning how the Queen of England does it) is by picking them up and eating them with your fingers. More specifically, “They are taken from the stem with the fingers. They are soaked in a sauce, if desired, and the soak part is introduced in the mouth with a single bit without sipping“. It sounds easy, but it can be tricky if the asparagus is overcooked to the point of drooping, and gushes green-infused juice when bitten. Perhaps because of graceless boobs like myself who cannot make this look like a refined table manner, or perhaps because treating asparagus like a french fry shocks the sensibilities of less-educated diners, etiquette guides usually relent: “Nowadays, the fork can also be used with this vegetable.”

Of course, the most fascinating property of this dainty spear is its ability to infuse urine with a distinct ammonia smell. A majority of Americans have a gene that converts asparagus into “really foul smelling urine”, while others are not affected, and some can’t even smell it in other’s urine. Apparently, this phenomenon is not something most people mention in polite company. It took Babe Ruth to break the taboo: “Asparagus makes my urine smell funny… This is one way of identifying how closely related to Babe Ruth you are.” I must be a distant cousin, at least. I’m not a scatological person, but I think it’s kinda neat. Last night at the Connecticut rest stop on the way home, it was a nice reminder of the asparagus consumed at the lovely family gathering earlier in the day.

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By Meredith – May 16, 2006

You Mother

I’m off to Pennsylvania this weekend to pay tribute to my mother, my mother’s mother, and (unavoidably) the NJ Turnpike Authority.

Ah, Mother’s Day. What started as a day to honor thy mother with flowers and loving sentiment has morphed into another opportunity to equate love with consumer goods. What are with these Mother Day Gift Guides that tout luxurious cosmetics and jewelry as the perfect way to show Mom you love her? And do you have a choice but to abide by these profiteers? “Sorry, Mom. I don’t celebrate Mother’s Day out of a personal conviction that it’s gotten too commercial. What’s for dinner?”

Hal Runkel, a national parenting expert, is calling for the abolishment of Mother’s Day: “There should be no such thing as Mother’s Day… While it sounds great to have a day when we recognize and appreciate our moms who do so much in our families, what about the other 364 days”? What do you mean, “What about the other 364 days?” Those are the days we slowly strangle Mom’s soul.

I guess Hal Runkel is beholden of the philosophy that every day should be Mother’s Day. You know what else every day should be? Earth Day. Christmas. My birthday. The day the bass players took over the world. New Year’s Eve. The fact is, if every day was Mother’s Day, the tenuous balance of trust and respect in the mother-father-child relationship would be profoundly usurped. The kids should serve mom breakfast in bed, every day? The father should cook, clean, and pretend not to resent the motherhood that turned his bride into a mess of stretch marks and nerves, every day? Fresh flowers and chocolates for Mom, every day? What kind of a “parenting expert” would advocate such insanity?

And even more, what kind of a mother would want her children to spoil her, every day? A bad mother. Good mothers like mine derive great satisfaction from fussing over their offspring; we should only deprive our mothers of that fussing for one day a year.

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By Meredith – May 12, 2006

He Didn’t Start the Fire

Okay, technically, Daniel Biechele did start the fire at the Station nightclub that resulted in the deaths of 100 people. As Great White’s band manager, it was probably his duty as well as his honor to light the pyrotechnics when Great White took the stage. I can only imagine what his other duties included: Handling child support payments, negotiating king-sized beds at the Motel 6, rallying the band to perform “Once Bitten Twice Shy” for the millionth time while discouraging them from playing new stuff. It’s only rock and roll, after all.

“The devastation wrought by the conduct of [Biechele] is unparalleled in our state’s history,” the prosecutor told the court before yesterday’s sentencing. His conduct? He wasn’t drunk-driving or building bombs. Certainly in his wildest dreams Biechele couldn’t imagine that the pyrotechnics would ignite the flammable foam negligently erected by the culpable criminals, the brothers Derderian. Biechele cried as he apologized, “I never wanted anyone to be hurt in any way…I never imagined that anyone ever would be”.

Reporters hounded the victim’s families outside the courtroom after Biechele was sentenced, eager for the emotion-fueled sound-bites of outrage over the sentence of 4 years. The mother who shouted at Biechele’s parents in the courtroom “You get your son back after four years!” could be relied on to comply: “Of course he is getting away with murder… four years for 100 lives he killed? It’s a joke”.

In some states such as Maine and Connecticut, he would not have even been eligible for jail time, as negligence is clearly on the owners of the nightclub. To send him to jail is the height of vengeful justice. The sheer enormity of life lost from an event as random as a nightclub fire is punishment enough for Biechele. People who, say, kill someone in a car accident can hope to attain a life of some normalcy, but Biechele will never be at peace. He will anguish about it every day. The pain of losing a family member in such a unnecessary tragedy is unimaginable, but I have genuine sympathy for Biechele, who must bear more guilt than any of us will ever feel.

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By Meredith – May 11, 2006

Smiling in the Rain

I am only posting today something just so that creepy optical illusion picture from yesterday doesn’t freak out my visitors. It makes me dizzy when I look at it.

Boston is being hammered by a stalled Atlantic storm system. I welcome the rain but spit on the wind. Not in the wind, just on it.

I saw a girl today walking down the street sans parapluie, wearing a big ole grin on her face as 25-mph wind hurled rain into it. She looked like one of those over-achieving collegiate femme nerds, with a tumefied backpack and practical, sporty style. And her “I’ll smile in the rain” cheerifulness was admirable, but she looked like a lunatic. Somedays I try to smile for no reason except to brighten the world. Today I just couldn’t muster the moxie.

Here’s all I can offer to you today: www.bitchmakemeasandwich.com. If you’re looking for my birthday present, may I suggest this lovely beer mug?

mug

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By Meredith – May 9, 2006

4 Eyed Monster

A mishap this weekend with an errant contact lens that was infused with tree debris for a full afternoon left me in glasses today. I wear my glasses maybe a half dozen times a year, making me preoccupied with them the entire day. I could feel them perched on my nose and was bothered by my lack of peripheral vision. Chiefly though, I felt like a dork.

Today I wasn’t just a young lady, I was a young lady in glasses. She’s an entirely different species. She’s asserting her acumen, her identity as a brainy being. Spectacles confer intelligence, a stereotype that is not without both anecdotal and scientific evidence. Some studies have found a direct correlation between myopia and IQ, perhaps because the gene that determines brain size also determines eyeball size. When I started wearing glasses at age 12, I thought of it as my final merit badge for Geekery. My brother told me that I ruined my eyes by reading for hours on end, and I believed him. I felt like a martyr to obsessive literacy.

According to a rigorously scientific poll on Misterpool.com, 95% of respondents say “Yes, women with glasses are sexy”. I think what they mean is sexy woman are still sexy in glasses, in a different but not entirely unrelated way to their usual sexiness. A few men do fetishize the spectacled female. Witness Girls with Glasses, a website featuring pictures of cute women modeling glasses that was born from its creator’s obsession with Lisa Loeb, whose persona would be dust without her trademark retro frames. Reportedly, she’s allergic to contacts.

Thanks in part to Lisa Loeb, eyeglass frames are uber-stylish these days, but teenaged Meredith could never find frames that flattered a pasty, pimpled complexion. I slapped in contact lenses the moment my optometrist suggested them. As Dorothy Parker said, “Men seldom make passes / At girls who wear glasses.” There’s vanity involved, but also security. In lenses, my vision is suctioned to my corneas; glasses can shatter at any second.

The most chilling episode of the Twilight Zone is about Mr. Henry Bemis, a spectacled bookworm who can never find enough time to read. Henry sneaks down to the vault at the bank where he works to read, and survives at atomic blast that wipes out everyone in town. Looking on the bright side, he rejoices that finally, he can read in peace, all day long, for the rest of his life! Then he breaks his goddamn glasses. It’s a moment that TV guide ranks as #25 of TV Guide’s 100 Most Memorable Moments, and a moment that preys on the phobias of four-eyes everywhere.

From www.coolopticalillusions.com

foureyes

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By Meredith – May 8, 2006

Commence Speaking

It’s that time of year again, when our nation’s luminaries hit the graduation podiums to bestow parting wisdom on newly-minted college grads. Many walk away with an honorary degree in exchange for their services—like Henry Winkler (“The Fonz”), who spoke today at the New England Institute of Technology. Because nothing says cutting-edge tech quite like the leather-jacketed king of jukebox cool.

Some heavy hitters hit the commencement trail hard. Hilary Clinton gave five speeches in 2005 alone, nearly exhausting the pool of colleges willing to listen to her tell the same story about Yale Law in slightly different regional dialects. Not to say she’s scraping the bottom of the barrel, but this year, Hillary won’t be doing a simple “find and replace” on her 1998 Harvard Medical School speech to deliver it at Buffalo State or Long Island University.

Meanwhile, our noted rhetorician George W. Bush gave four commencement speeches that year, starting at Oklahoma State. He told graduates to “harness the promise of technology without becoming slaves to technology… science serves the cause of humanity and not the other way around.” What does that mean, exactly? Is that a veiled scolding about stem cell research? An anti-abortion parable? A vague warning about the uprising of intelligent machines? Also: killer robots are already a thing. Ask Boston Dynamics.

Bush did get a laugh out of OSU’s mascot:

“If you read the papers, you know that when some want to criticize me, they call me a cowboy. … This cowboy is proud to be standing amidst a lot of other cowboys.”
Way to pump them up for their futures in either ranching or student loan repayment.

To his credit, even Bush seemed aware of the irony of addressing a room full of academics. At Calvin College, he quipped:

“I was just telling Laura the other night what fun it would be to come to Calvin College. I said, you know, Laura, I love being around so many young folks. It gives me a chance to relive my glory days in academia. (Laughter.) She said, George, that’s not exactly how I’d describe your college experience. (Laughter.)”

Isn’t it refreshing to have a down-to-earth president who can joke about his own mediocrity?

Boston colleges scored some speaker coups that year—Condoleezza Rice at Boston College, Les Moonves at BU, Lance Armstrong at Tufts. Harvard went for a safe choice in Jim Lehrer, after bringing out John Lithgow in 2005 and Will Ferrell in 2003, who told graduates:

“You’re young men and women whose exuberance exudes a confident confidence of a bygone era. I believe it was Shakespeare who said it best when he said, ‘Look yonder into the darkness for knowledge onto which I say go onto that which thou possess into thy night for thee have come with only a single sword and vanquished thee into darkness.’”
A+, no notes.

Once the domain of politicians and CEOs, the commencement circuit has become a hotbed of fame-chasing. Colleges want speakers who will entertain the crowd and impress potential donors. Bono opened his 2004 speech at UPenn with: “My name is Bono and I am a rock star.”

Richie Sambora, at Kean University the same year, told grads:

“I’d appreciate it if you all referred to me as Doctor Sambora from now on (and I’ll be asking my wife to do the same, since I already bought her the nurse’s uniform).”
We’ve all been through things.

Jon Stewart crushed his 2004 address at the College of William and Mary:

“What piece of wisdom can I impart to you about my journey that will somehow ease your transition from college back to your parents’ basement?”
Timeless.

For years I’ve told people that Wynton Marsalis was my commencement speaker, though I’m now pretty sure it was his brother Branford. All I really remember is him scolding the graduates for acting like children in front of our families. Which, to be fair, we were.

The whole day’s a little hazy. I stayed up until 4 a.m. arguing with a guy I’d just met about whether the actor who played Cliff Clavin on Cheers was one of the rebel pilots in Star Wars. I was wrong. Cliff Clavin was in Star Wars.

And that—ladies and gentlemen—was the cherry of knowledge atop my college education.

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By Meredith – May 7, 2006

Making Strides

I always loved running. it was something you could do by yourself, and under your own power. You could go in any direction, fast or slow as you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs. — Jesse Owens

I haven’t been running outdoors lately. If the weather is the least bit imperfect or if I feel a mere twinge of laziness, I’ll slink to the gym and leisurely pound the treadmill. But Saturday morning the weather was perfect: 69 degrees, sunny with some light clouds, and a calm breeze circulating pollen to which I am immune. My muscles were loaded with carbs from pigging out at yesterday’s office pizza lunch, my iPod Shuffle was newly filled, my legs were freshly shaved, and my Saucony sneakers have a perfect 100 miles of tread-wear. The planets aligned for a jog.

The Charles River path was filled with groups of tourists, dog-walkers, and other exercisers. No citizenry is as appreciative of a fine Spring day as the beleaguered Bostonians. When I first started jogging the Charles River, way back in – is it possible? – the spring of 2000, the presence of witnesses to my huffing and shuffling annoyed me. The other runners seemed snide as they nimbly passed me, limping in their wake. Honestly, watching an out-of-shape person struggle to run is both amusing and pitiful. You can admire their gumption, but you do fear for their knees and heart.

But as my running improved, pedestrian traffic became a welcome distraction during the tedium that can be a long run. Today I probably passed hundreds of people in both directions, just long enough for my brain to assess their purpose on the path. Runners are, obviously, running but by analyzing their grace and stride, I can gauge if they are a rail-thin speedster, an all-around athlete, a solid life-long runner, or a weekend warrior trying to stave off a middle-aged spread. Walkers wear sweat clothes and carry water bottles, and pump their arms high up in the air, proclaiming to the world: I am exercising! Other walkers are less purposeful in their constitutional, wearing natty clothes and strolling in groups that have a tendency to spread out over the width of the path, obstructing impatient exercisers, especially the bicyclists and rollerbladers. I used to view them as a nuisance, but now I watch with interest the near-calamity that can ensue when a family on bikes attempts to pass a group on the narrow path, or when a walker steps in front of a mercurial rollerblader.

Today the most breathtaking creatures on the path was a group of 5 tall, skinny, coiffured young women wearing workout clothes that cost more than my Sunday best. They all had a bottle of Fiji spring water in one hand and a cell phone in the other, talking in what sounded like Castilian Spanish and walking about 2 miles per hour. I watched them as I approached them from behind, marveling at their otherworldly breeding. In between me and the sophisticates was a plump woman in jogging shorts with an ungainly stride that called to mind my blundering beginnings as a runner. She resolutely charged past the women. When I passed her, I noticed she had cellulite on her calves, a phenomenon I never thought was possible. That she can run with calf muscles literally riddled with fat gave me a little extra inspiration for the remainder of my jog.

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By Meredith – May 6, 2006

Googles

For several years I’ve observed this website’s referring search phrases, and I can attest 1: This world has a lot of sickos, and 2: Internet users are constructing their search engine queries with increasing complexity. Instead of typing a single word that would return my site on page 150 of 2000, users string together specific keywords in hopes of honing in on what they seek. Of course, my site is irrelevant to everything, except the ones looking for “meredith green.”

I am also getting a fair amount of traffic from Ask.com, which attracts less-adept Internet users who take comfort in Ask.com’s gimmick: That all queries must be in the form of a question, just like Jeopardy…

(from Google)
alec baldwin likes chubby women
“his hugo boss suit”
dim sum girl lyrics
panera bread “corporate structure”
necco candy financial report
men urinating
themes in green days by the river
nylon novels
crack portrait ux50
dj tanners boyfriends
maury povich sandal
music /i-am in love with a stripper by mike
reporter “virgin boy”
drunker ladies pics
greek goddess,escort,detroit
men in suits and bulging crotches
beefy babes
down with toilet paper
butt pictures of baseball players
tom brady half naked pictures
“cindy fitzgibbon” feet
crystal meth in restaurant salt shakers
non russian rape sites
singapore gals in one piece swimsuits
free movie david hasselhoff orgy party
american idol cattle call auditions
buttermilk yellow hourglass hollywood style suits
also non as the flying tomato who is a woman

(From Ask.com)
how to turn your unused basement into a yacht
when will the next earthquake hit san francisco again
what are the odds of catching meningitis
does anyone have any before and after plastic surgery photos of beautiful ivanka trump
should serial killers have communication rights with non family members
what was the meaning of tony soprano’s dream about mistaken identity
do mormons spank their children
is singer peaches a transvestite
is “empire carpet” more expensive than home depot
what’s green days website called
what does green days house look like
what kind of cigarettes does billie joe armstrong smoke

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By Meredith – May 4, 2006

American woman, listen what I say

Today I was on the C branch of the detested Green Line today for, oh, about 40 minutes (the MBTA dares propose to raise fares to $1.70 from its current rip-off of $1.25? The 2007 increase will make fares comparable to “several of the nation’s other largest transit agencies”… but gee, when I go to New York or Washington, I ain’t sitting in no slow-moving trolley that stops every block, yields for cars, and invokes a feeling of imminent derail when it hits 10 mph. The MBTA justifies the fare increase by pointing at their $8.1 billion in debt, but this is symptomatic of problems that won’t be fixed by tapping their existing riders for an extra .45 cents.)

I sat behind a young British man and an American woman who were comparing the relative virtues of the UK and America… rather, he trashed America and exonerated the UK of the same offenses, and she sat there like a Kewpie doll, agreeing with fawning flirtatiousness, enchanted by the sweeping generalizations uttered in his dashing English accent.

“British politicians are much less corruptible. Our electoral process is much cleaner, so we elect politicians who have a genuine desire to serve their government, not personally profit from it.”

The American woman breathed, “Totally! We have, like, so much corruption and, like, bribery.”

“Americans have no global awareness. They’re so involved in their own lives. The British are curious about the world and stay informed about what’s happening globally.”

The American woman nodded vigorously, saying “It’s so sick how ignorant we are.”

“Americans are so spoiled. They don’t realize how much less they pay in taxes or how cheap their petrol is. ‘Petrol’ is gasoline,” he explained to her questioning look.

The American woman agreed, adding “And instead of appreciating it, we just get greedier.”

The conversation continued like this for a while, to the point where I expected him to say “American women are all silly whores,” and her to gush, “We are. We are.”

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By Meredith – May 4, 2006