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Birthday? Again?

I spent most of the day in a computer lab of an elementary school in gritty-urban East Boston, observing students as they used a beta version of our next software release. To actually see kids using the program with such enthusiasm and diligence evokes a profoundly noble feeling; for once in my career, I’m part of the solution, not the problem. I hope that developing software teaching people how to read will compensate for the seven years that I spent developing software helping large organizational entities do strategic long-term capital planning across their vast real estate portfolios.

Despite my attempts to not be a distraction, it’s impossible to nonchalantly observe kindergartners in a computer lab. Before each class, the lab supervisor introduced me and my colleague to the students. “This is Miss Meredith,” she said. “Can everyone say good morning to Miss Meredith?”

“Good morning Miss Meredith,” they would sing in perfect unison, which totally freaked me out.

Although some of the little girls seemed fascinated by my blonde hair — not many blondes in this heavily-Hispanic school — my colleague drew more attention because he’s 6’9″ tall. “Is he the tallest man in the world?” a first grader asked me.

“Almost,” I said. “I think Shaq is taller.”

The major ice-breaker with the younger set is asking them “How old are you?”

“I’m six,” one little girl said.

“How old are you?” a little boy asked me.

“Well, tomorrow is my birthday, and I’ll be 33,” I admitted.

“Tomorrow is your birthday?” They all looked stunned, almost awed. Ah, I can remember when birthdays were the event of the year, aside from maybe Christmas. And now… birthday, bah.

“My birthday was in March,” the little girl said.”And I had a princess party.”

“Oooo that sound fun,” I said. “I hope I get to have a princess party!” But of course, no, I don’t. Give me some good conversation over a couple of glasses of wine, maybe a low-key rendition of “Happy Birthday,” maybe a symbolic slice of cake and I’ll be set for another year.

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By Meredith – May 28, 2010

Dead as a Toenail

An odd thing happened during last weekend’s hiking trip. At the end of the first day, as I pulled off my mud-caked boots and peeled off my sweaty socks, the toenail on my right foot’s big toe kinda sorta fell off.

“Oh, CRAP,” I said, as the nail — painted a dark metallic blue — became partially dislodged from the nail bed. Not wanting to deal with a lost toenail in the midst of a hiking trip, I took a band-aid and essentially taped the errant nail to my toe. Strangely there was no pain, only the mental distress that any yoga-practicing woman who just bought two new pairs of sandals would feel.

Winter’s transgressions are finally catching up with me. My toenail troubles began during last December’s skiing trip to the Alps, when Mr. P’s family was trying to locate a pair of skis and boots for me within the clan’s vast collection of winter sporting gear. The problem is, of course, that I’m a robust American, and they’re all petite French. After conferring among themselves in French, my father-in-law presented me with a white pair of women’s ski boots. They belonged to Aunt Francoise, who is evidently known in the family as having gargantuan feet.

I tried on Francoise’s boots as the Ps watched. “They’re pretty snug,” I told Mr. P.

“You want them to be snug,” he told me. “You don’t want your feet to move around.”

I could wiggle my toes, but nothing else was moving, that was for damn sure. What a relief, that I wouldn’t have to rent boots! The next day, as we were skiing, Mr. P asked me, “How are your feet?”

“Honestly, they are completely frozen,” I admitted. “I can’t feel a thing.” This worried Mr. P, because if my feet had numbed, this may mean that the boots were too small to allow heat to build up around the foot. But because I couldn’t feel anything, I didn’t care… until that evening, when I took off the boot and found my toenail had turned completely black.

Delightfully, my black toenail became the topic of that night’s aperitif. It was then that my mother-in-law actually converted shoe sizes and figured out that “Big Foot” Francoise actually wears a size 7 1/2 shoe. I wear a size 9.

So my toenail turned black and everyone told me that it would eventually fall off. I didn’t believe it, though. I got a pedicure and life continued just fine. No one knew that underneath this coat of dark blue metallic paint was a black toenail. I even forgot.

But now… Just in time for sandal season! After taping the toenail back into place, I could continue to deny that I would lose my toenail until the next day, when the rigors of mountain hiking loosened the band-aid and the toenail ended up under my foot. “Let’s take a break,” I told Mr. P, “because I’m repeatedly stepping on my toenail.”

I could no longer deny it: my toenail was gone. All that remained was a spot of black bruise and the rough beginnings of a new nail protruding from the matrix. I am not vain about my nails, so it was surprising devastating. Everytime I look at it, I become fascinated by how grotesque it is, this little stub of a nail covering one-fourth of the nail bed.

“Toenails are useless, anyway,” Mr. P — who is no stranger to missing toenails — consoled me. He’s obviously not a foot man, but he’s right. Toenails are simply a remnant of our evolutionary past.

“Functionally useless, perhaps, but I want it back!” I wailed. “I can’t paint a nail bed.” Or…can I?

(BTW, after Francoise’s ski boot turned my toenail black, I wound up borrowing an old pair of ski boots from my father-in-law, which fit perfectly. Cringe.)

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By Meredith – May 26, 2010

Semi Pemi Loop

Now that our insane, dogged quest to hike the White Mountain 4000 Footers is complete, we need a new challenge to stoke our ambitions and keep us in prime condition for our impending trip to the Machu Picchu in Peru at the end of August. One of the most physically reckless feats in the White Mountains is the Pemi Loop — a 32-mile, 9200-foot elevation gain hike around the Pemigawasset Wilderness that hits eight (8) 4000 Footer summits. The supposed record for completing the Pemi Loop is 8 hours, although it takes most normal people 2 or 3 days. Mr. P could probably do the Pemi Loop in a single day if he started with a headlamp at 5am and finished with a headlamp at 9pm, but alas, he married a normal person — one who takes her sweet time descending water-slick rock slabs and has been known to remove her boots for even insignificant brook crossings. So we decided to attempt an abridged version of the Pemi Loop — 27.2 miles, but with roughly 10 miles on a flat former railroad bed that runs through the center of the loop. We’d hit only five (5) 4000 Footers and enjoy an overnight stay in the AMC’s Greenleaf Hut, which was still in self-service mode (i.e., bring all your food and bedding, pay only $35/night, avoid force-feeding of refined carbs at 6pm, enjoy the company of a slighty more rugged crowd). We started off in Lincoln Woods at 11am on Saturday. It’s been awhile since we made such a formidable hike with our backpacks, and so we were surprised by the amount of sweat that poured from our foreheads as we gained elevation on the first peak, Mt. Flume. I prayed for that moment when the trail would stop climbing and level out into the rocky flat of the summit: “Oh, merciful mountain!”
Mount Flume Summit

Conditions were fair-to-good for hiking on the exposed Franconia Ridge: High clouds, intermittent sun, a gusty wind that wasn’t quite enough to stave off the pesky flies that feasted upon us whenever we entered the Alpine Zone. We made it to Mount Liberty less than an hour later.

Mt Liberty
Liberty, with looming Lafayette in the background

It’s been exactly 4 years since we first ascended Mounts Lincoln and Lafayette on the otherworldly Franconia Ridge Trail. The allure of peak-bagging distracted us, but we always yearned to return to Lafayette, which is perhaps the most popular tourist hike in the White Mountains owing to its gothic rock formations, expansive views, and convenient access off of I-93.

Lincoln (protecting neck from flies)
Franconia Ridge

We summited Lafayette at around 5:30pm and then descended 1 mile to the AMC Greenleaf Hut. Because the hut is in self-service mode in May, dinner was already in full-swing, with guests loitering around the kitchen waiting for their pasta to cook. We claimed our bunks, wiped down our salty bodies, then dug out our stash of pastis and almonds for aperitif before the kitchen freed up around 7pm.

I have never experienced sleep in anything more than fits and starts at any of the AMC huts, but that night at Greenleaf was by far the worst. A quartet of Quebecois stayed up until11pm playing cards, drinking Baileys, and ignoring the pleas of the hut caretaker to be quiet. They stumbled into the bunkroom and promptly fell into drunken, nasal slumber while I tossed and turned. I know that I must have slept for at least a minute because I had a bizarre dream involving me interviewing old people at an ice cream parlor. They were eating a flavor called “Cat’s Meow,” and I asked what was in it. “Crushed gumdrops,” I was told. I woke up desperately wanting ice cream, but choked down a Cliff Bar instead. I needed carbs for the toughest part of the day: the morning 1-mile hike back up to Mount Lafayette.

 

7:30 am on Lafayette
Morning Fog in Franconia Notch
We continued onto to Garfield Ridge trail, towards the fifth and final summit of our semi-Pemi loop, Mt. Garfield — a sentimental favorite. Garfield was the very first 4000 Footer that Mr. P and I summited together 4 1/2 years ago. We were both ill-prepared, out-of-shape smokers and when we reached the top, we couldn’t see anything but clouds. So we felt sort of triumphant when we reached Garfield, feeling light on our feet and on our faces.
Mt Garfield

After Mt Garfield, it was all downhill. Thank goodness.

We trekked down into the Pemigawasset Wilderness and cruised along the mostly-flat 8 mile trail back to the car at Lincoln Woods. Along the way, we stopped at the Thirteen Falls area for lunch. Mr. P tried to go swimming, but the frigid mountain water precluded any body part above the knees.

Thirteen Falls

We reached the car at 4:30pm, tired, relieved, slightly dehydrated. On the way to the highway, we stopped for ice cream. Normally I would eschew ice cream, but my body demanded fuel, and last night’s dream of Cat’s Meow ice cream prompted me to order a vanilla soft-serve. It tasted fantastic. We sat in the fresh ice cream parlor, smelly and itchy and dirty, licking our spoons, enjoying a moment of post-hiking Zen.

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By Meredith – May 25, 2010

Putting Up With the Palins

The New York Times ran an article today (here) called “For Roaming Palin, Home Base Is Still in Alaska.” Ostensibly, the article is about how the Palins are still entrenched in the rural strip-mall small town of Wasilla, and how the town is coping in the wake of the media firestorm that ignited when John McCain unleashed the Palin scourge upon this nation. But the article is really just an excuse for the Times to tap into its tabloid side by “reporting” on Todd Palin as he stands by his Dodge Ram outside of the Palin compound and tosses off witty ripostes to reporters like “Are you the guy who’s been writing all that crap about us?”

Umm… probably, although it would take a pretty intrepid reporter to admit to rugged and armed Todd Palin that yes, it is I who writes “all that crap” about you and your brood. Journalists with that amount of fortitude should be investigating tribal alliances in Iraq or inquiring about Taliban leadership in Afghanistan, not listening to Todd Palin endorse obscure conservative political candidates with affirmations like “Joe’s got a fire in his belly to serve!”

Last week a few eyebrows were raised over the news that 19-year old daughter Bristol is commanding speaking fees upwards of 30K to lecture about teen pregnancy (here). Because who better than to console girls against teen pregnancy than the country’s most infamous unwed teenage mom? “Seriously, even if your boyfriend is, like, the town’s best ice hockey player and hot enough to pose for Playgirl and become a gay icon, you should wait until marriage. I know that pre-marital sex turned out to be pretty lucrative for me, but the fact is, most of you will end up impoverished on welfare. And when my Mom’s Tea Party friends get their way, you won’t even have welfare. I don’t know what will happen to you then. I guess you should just pray for money and child care.”

According to the Times, Sarah Palin’s father Chuck Heath also makes personal appearances at conservative rallies in the West. “I do kind of enjoy putting my message across,” Mr. Heath said. “You know, ‘Bring back America.'” You know. That old tagline. But Chuck doesn’t assert his message too much, because “I don’t want to push the wrong button with Sarah. Besides, she doesn’t make the decisions. Let me retract that. I’m sure she thinks them over and she has a lot of say as to yes and no.”

Hey, Chuck: Todd Palin wants to know if you’re the guy who’s been saying “all that crap” about them. Because the truth is, the Palins are their own worst enemy. You thrust a bunch of Wasilla wahoos in the limelight, and “all that crap” will practically write itself, as evident by the article’s closing paragraphs: Mr. Palin started to pull away, then he stopped and leaned toward the window. He emphasized that he did not want to be misrepresented by a reporter. “What goes around comes around,” he said, still smiling.

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By Meredith – May 24, 2010

(No) Crash–

I would like to take a moment and issue a note of solid gratitude to the motorists of Massachusetts for managing to go five solid days without hitting my car. I applaud your attentive vehicular operation and all-around roadway decision skills — my dinged and scratched VW Jetta is grateful for the respite, as well. Let’s see if we can go another 5 days without me calling an insurance company and/or the local police.

My boss came into work a little bit late today after being held up in traffic on Route 2. “It was a car fire,” she said. “I’m so glad to see you in the office.” She paused. “I hate to say this, but I saw the car fire and I thought of you.”

I nodded. “These things do happen in threes,” I admitted. “And a car fire would be the logical progression.”

I’m beginning to detest owning a car… but then again, if I didn’t own a car, I wouldn’t be able to commute to my near-dream job. And as Nietzsche said, “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”

Nietzsche also said “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” Presumably, Nietzsche has never been in a car fire.

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By Meredith – May 20, 2010

The Real World, Mars Edition

In Moscow, six men from Russia, Europe, and China are preparing to be locked up in an isolated and confined space for the next 520 days during with they will conduct countless scientific experiments. It sounds like some wacky, Soviet-style reality TV show plot, but no, this is a simulation that will test how humans would cope with the mental and physical demands of what is now a wholly theoretical space mission to Mars (here). Sort of putting the cart before the horse, but whatever, this sounds like a good time.

What would you do in the days before you were to be locked up in a mock spacecraft with five strangers of the same gender for the next 520 days? Me, I would roll around in a grassy field and bask in the sun, like a dog. Then I’d go on a chocolate, cheese, and unoaked chardonnay binge. After some flagrantly quality time with Mr. P, I’d smoke a pack of cigarettes, since there’s no opportunity for me to get addicted. Finally, I’d go to some type of a major league sporting event in order to nurse loathing for the common man and his crude, hollow pursuits — a Jets home game would be perfect. Only then would I be ready for the Mars endurance experiment.

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By Meredith – May 19, 2010

The Hit and Run

Last week I blogged about how I almost got in a car accident. Several days later, I actually got in a car accident when a redhead in a red Jetta gently rear-ended me on Route 2. So I blogged about that car accident. Then, last Saturday, guess what happened? Yes, another car accident! There seems to be a psychic facet to my blogging. Perhaps I should apply these newfound superpowers by discussing imminent world peace and miraculous stock market rebounds, but I feel a moral obligation to blog about my second car accident because it involves the police and a contrite SUV owner.

Though I was clearly not at fault for the first car accident, Mr. P seemed convinced that I did something to trigger the rear-end collision. Such is any husband’s confidence in his wife’s driving abilities. “Did you brake suddenly?” he asked.

“No, I wasn’t moving,” I said.

“Did you start to move and then stop?”

“No, I was stopped for about a minute.”

“But the cars in front of you were moving, and you didn’t start moving when you should of?”

“No, darling. Nothing moved except that girl’s Jetta into the back of my Jetta!”

I escaped any such scrutiny for the second accident, because when it happened we were in New Hampshire, hiking on the Greeley Ponds trail as our car waited patiently for us at the trailhead. It was a cloudy Saturday in the White Mountains with spats of drizzle and wind gusts, so we choose the mostly-flat trek to the ponds as an appetizer to our historic Bondcliff hike the next day. Despite the weather, we were pensively merry as we skipped through the woods and reminisced about some of our more notable hikes — our ill-prepared tramp to Mt. Garfield, the spectacular sky that greeted us on Mt. Moosilauke, the agonizing wall-like trail on which we ascended Mt Hancock. We discussed our favorite hikes (Carrigan, Madison, Bond) and our least favorite hikes (Cabot in torrential rain and Owl’s Head— fuck you, mountain.)

A short, older man approached us on the trail, and I flashed him a genial smile and a “Hello!” He returned the greeting, and then asked “Is that your Volkswagen Jetta parked by the trailhead?”

Panic pounded in my brain. I mean, there’s no possible good reason why he’d be asking this. He proceeded to explain that a black Jeep had backed up into my car, struck the front bumper, and simply drove away. “There’s not too much damage,” he said. “Just some scratches and a small dent in the fender.”

The panic blossomed into full-tilt rage fueled by powerlessness and confusion. Such was my state of mind that I barely heard this wonderful, wonderful man as he proceeded to explain that he got the license plate number of the Jeep and left it on my windshield. I should have dropped to my knees and thanked him for his supreme civic manners, but my mind fought to really make sense of the situation, and I barely thanked him before we hurried the 1 mile back to the trailhead.

We tried to call the cops from the parking lot, but T-Mobile didn’t feel like letting us, so we drove into the town of Lincoln and found the Police Department. We were a little nervous barging into the police department to report the accident, but we shouldn’t have been, because the minute the policeman heard that we were reporting a hit-and-run and that we had a license plate number and witness, he was positively radiant. This was excitement! It turns out that vehicular hit and runs (called “Conduct After Accident” in New Hampshire) is a misdemeanor and an arrest-worthy offense. He issued a regional BOL (a “be on the lookout”) for the Jeep and assured us that he’d find the guy — “He’s probably going home right now, thinking about his dinner, but we’ll get him.”

All this excitement! Of course, the next day after the police tracked down the driver of the Jeep that hit my car, he claimed he didn’t even realize he hit my car. And since he was driving a Jeep Patriot — a veritable tank– I actually believe the guy. It doesn’t hurt that he’s a middle-aged dentist with a really swank suburban Boston address, and he’s terribly, terribly contrite about the whole incident. So while I could press to have this guy arrested and charged with Conduct After Accident, as long as he’s paying to have my car fixed, I can’t be that sadistic.

So that was my second accident in 1 weeks time. They say things happen in 3s, so I’ll hold off getting my car repaired for at least another week…

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By Meredith – May 18, 2010

Bondcliff 4265′

It’s over. We won.

Having attained the summit of Bondcliff this morning via an 18 mile hike in the windy sunshine, Mr. P and I have finished our dogged years-long quest to hike all 48 mountains in the White Mountain 4000 Footers (here).

Where’s the champagne?!? Oh, we already drank it on Bondcliff. Fuck yeah we did.

And so our 4 1/2 year long journey came to an end. 48 mountains. Hundreds of miles spent trudging through the forest, sometimes deep in conversation, sometimes with me practicing my French on a captive native audience, sometimes enjoying the resolute silence of the trees. Thousands of rock slabs, rock slides, rock steps, and rock piles. Scores of energy bars. Dozens of brook crossings — only one unsuccessful. A couple of moose. No hypothermia or skeleton injuries. More laughs than tears, but more sweat than anything.

So when we reached the summit of Bondcliff, we were so ready to unloosen the cork from the champagne bottle. We were celebrating the accomplishment of a long-term goal, but we were also celebrating that we were no longer beholden to The List. Now we can choose hikes because they are scenic, or because a hiking group is going, or because we did the hike before and we want to do it again. No more choosing our hikes based on a somewhat arbitrary criteria that involves a mountain of a certain altitude. Maybe we can even go hiking in Maine for a change. There’s fourteen 4000 Footers in Maine…





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By Meredith – May 16, 2010

The Accident

Teach me to go blogging about near-miss car accidents. Tempting fate, really, as I haven’t been in a car accident since I was a 16 year-old neoteric motorist and I backed up into some dumb bitch housewife in the parking lot of the King of Prussia mall. Then again, there was that decade of non-driving between the ages of 22-32 during which there was a spate of almost-collisions between my body and cars, my bike and cars, and my body and bikes. Life is dangerous, but why dwell on it?

I was on Route 2 West, headed to work after an invigorating morning at the gym where I was coerced into taking the 7:30am spinning class at my gym, which is tucked in the suburbs amid an upscale office park of global headquarters for various multi-national conglomerates. The median age of gym-goers is around 45, with the young corporate hotties intent on ideal physique balanced by the aging entrenched C-level folk intent on living forever. Normally I find a stationary bike in the corner and pour over the New York Times, but an ardently amiable acquaintance from the locker room insisted that I try out the morning spinning class. I’m totally jaded when it comes to spinning — I’ve spun with the best, so it’s hard for me to be impressed with a shrill woman in her 20s, wailing motivational epithets to a room full of aging, flappy upper-middle class white people while Salt n Pepa’s “Push It” blares at ear-bleeding decibels. For this, I give up a morning with Paul Krugman?

I was listening to Howard Stern on Sirius. Ever since college, I’ve gone through phases where for months at a time I’ll be a devout listener until Howard’s puerile immaturity starts to peeve me and I begin to wonder why I’m wasting my allotted time in this world listening to an egomaniac pontificate about his scatological and sexual obsessions. But Howard Stern has matured in recent years; his show is scads funnier now that he’s not hemmed in by the FCC, and his material seems more deliberate, more honed. Also…no Stuttering John! Ha-ha-hallelujah.

Route 2 is a highway peppered with traffic lights as it passes through Concord. I was stopped at a traffic light, fiddling with my touchscreen radio to find some music while Howard went to commercial, when my car gave a solid shook, not unlike when I throw it into 3rd gear instead of 1st gear and it disapprovingly stalls. I glance at my dashboard, wondering why I stalled, and see that I didn’t stall at all. In fact, my Jetta was very gently rear-ended… by another Jetta, no less.

As I said, I’ve never been in a car accident, so I didn’t know what to do. I jumped out of the car and examined my bumper. There was no structural damage, but I spied a scratch. The other driver, a young redhead in her early 20s, was saying “I don’t know what happened, it just started moving!” I ignored her; we were, after all, standing on a highway and traffic was zooming all around us. “Let’s pull over at that gas station,” I said, jumping in my car, memorizing her license plate number, and calling Mr. P all at once. It’s not easy to drive stick shift and talk on the phone at the same time. “Someone hit my car, what do I do?” I cried. He ordered me to get a whole slew of personal information– address, phone number, insurance, VIN, driver’s license number… I hung on him to shift into second gear.

Turns out, the girl who hit me was an old pro at this. She handed me a piece of paper with all her information on it. “Can I have your driver’s license number?” I asked her, and she looked at me like I was crazy.

“You don’t need that!” she exclaimed, jumping into her 2005 red Jetta and waving. A redhead in a red Jetta. She looked pretty wild. I bet she was texting when she hit me.

Later that day, the insurance company sent an appraiser to examine my bumper. He found a single scratch and valued the repairs at $250. I probably wouldn’t care except… the car only has 8k miles. I want to preserve its newness as long as possible.

(“May all your accidents be that small!” a wise woman remarked…)

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By Meredith – May 14, 2010

LOLPat(riot)s

Found here… good if you need a laugh, or a loud smile.

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By Meredith – May 14, 2010