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Escape Route

An article in the New York Times discusses the rising number of Americans who hold passports for other countries due to ethnic heritage, country of birth, or where their spouse was born. Among the cited perks of having multiple passports is being able to select which passport to use depending on the country that one is entering. Interesting. I imagined myself arriving in Paris and breezing past all the American tourists with my European Union passport while sighing Ah, it’s so good to be back to the motherland.

“I want to become a French citizen,” I tell Mr. P.

Naturally Mr. P attributes my desire to the greatness of the French Republic rather than a compulsion to appear sophisticated to strangers in an airport terminal. “Why do you want to leave your country now?” he asks. “Bush is gone. You’re safe for at least four years.” He pauses. “But after that, if the Republicans ever come back… hm, maybe we should inquire at the French consulate now, just in case.”

Move to France? Moi? Well, I can’t say it never crossed my mind. I read the other day that the birth rate for Red State Christian conservatives was nearly 3 times that of Blue State Godless liberals. There’s women out in Kansas and South Carolina, having babies solely to staff ‘God’s Army’ with anti-choice, gay-hating, science-loathing Bible thumpers who believe that Earth is 6,000 years old. What happens when they’re old enough to vote? Jeb Bush appears to be on the cusp of having another go at public service… pair him with Sarah Palin, and that’s a Red State dream ticket.

Oui, oui, move to France. maybe! It turns out we have to be married for 5 years before I can apply for French citizenship. I also have to prove some small verbal competency in the French language. But while I look at America right now with optimism, I still harbor enough pessimism to want to re-start with the je parle francais. GW Bush has left me encrusted with cynicism and as cagey as a cat.

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By Meredith – January 22, 2009

Tales from the T

Believe me: I had a different post in mind for tonight. “In mind.” I entered the Red Line at South Station just after 6pm. I was eager to return home by 7pm so I could use the hour before dinner in order to bring this excellent idea for a post to fruition.

The subway platform was crowded, even for rush hour. As each minute ticked by, foreboding set in: This was going to be one of those commutes. Cancel your plans and hunker down for the long hual. Hardened commuters eyed each other with unspoken commiseration and sniffed at the unsuspecting day-trippers and travelers with their unwieldy space-consuming luggage and baby carriages.

An automated announcement sealed the dread: “Attention Red Line customers, we are currently experiencing delays due to a switching problem at Alewife Station.” Alewife is the terminus station in the direction we were headed. It is also my destination. I snapped open my cell phone and thumbed out a Twitter text: Delayed on subway due to “switching problems”… Aka “we’re having problems pushing a button.”

Even a 10-year veteran of the T such as myself could not have imagined that I would not arrive at Alewife station until 7:10pm. The switching problems had turned a 20-minute trip into a 1 hour and 10 minute ordeal, replete with a man yelling at the conductor over the emergency intercom about how he had to get off the train in order to pick up his handicapped son. The time was mostly spent sitting in a tunnel, reading the newspaper and listening to the exasperated sighs of my fellow passengers.

And that great post that I had “in mind”…. well, it was time for dinner when I got home, and I’m writing this hurriedly and without much thought so I can join my husband in bed. All I can say is I left that post on the Red Line, and it’s stuck in a tunnel somewhere between Harvard Square and Porter Square due to a switching problem at Alewife.

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By Meredith – January 21, 2009

The Presidents I have Known

With today’s inauguration of President Obama, I should be looking forward to a bright future instead of looking back at the other Presidents during my lifetime. But I can’t help but to reflect back on the others, simply because they make President Barack Obama seem that much more miraculous…

  • Jimmy Carter was President when I was born in 1977, but I had not clear understanding of who he was until my mid-teens. I think that baby Meredith would have liked Jimmy Carter because he has kind, gentle eyes. My Approval Rating: 55%
  • Ronald Reagan. I remember learning about Ronald Reagan when I was in grade school. He was the President, but I never questioned the when, why and how. To young children, such things just are. Mom is mom, Dad is dad, and Ronald Reagan is President, which is like being America’s principal. Like most children, I went with the status quo, and it didn’t occur to me that I could have an opinion about Ronald Reagan. I did have impressions of an old man who was married to a skeleton woman who had dual obsessions: keeping kids from doing drugs and keeping kids from being kidnapped by strangers. Nancy Reagan, thanks for the childhood of fear. My Approval Rating: 8%
  • George HW Bush. Another old white guy? I was beginning to sense a pattern. Desert Storm coincided with my nascent rebellious phase, and the anti-war sensibilities that I inherited from listening to late-Sixties acid rock flared my dislike for Bush Senior. Even more damning, teenaged Meredith was adamantly Pro-Choice, and anyone who wasn’t could suck her left one. My Approval Rating: 5%
  • Bill Clinton. I have strong memories of watching the Clintons dancing to Fleetwood Mac at the Democratic Convention and just welling with happiness. It felt like the Dark Ages had lifted. I loved Bill Clinton. And for all his faults — NAFTA, “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” welfare reform, blow job — I still love Bill Clinton. Is it a coincidence that he was President during my wild years? My Approval Rating: 69%
  • George W Bush. Where did he come from? I remember thinking. I couldn’t figure out what he brought to the table. I couldn’t even see the charm that everyone crowed about. He always struck me as arrogant and stupid. Even 9/11 didn’t inspire any blind devotion in GWB, simply because I couldn’t understand why we should rally around the Administration that allowed such a massive eff-up to happen. The only redeeming thing about his Presidency is the sheer amount of laughter provoked by his stupidity. I laughed, I cried, it was better than Cats. My Approval Rating: 2%

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By Meredith – January 20, 2009

Working on MLK Day

Another 4 inches of fluffy snow fell last night after sundown, after residents can justifiably abdicate their sidewalk-shoveling responsibilities until the next morning. So when I left the house at 7:15am, I could not reasonably whine about how the laziness of my fellow citizens was endangering my life by forcing me to walk in the streets. The streets were empty anyway, except for rivulets of sludge and the occasional plow truck adding to the snow piles alongside of Massachusetts Avenue, which were still white and pure and fresh. The morning felt peaceful.

Despite there being no cars, buses, bicycles, or people on the road, the T still managed to be packed. Leave it to the MBTA to reduce the number of trains to exactly the level needed to maintain a cozy, crowded crush of passengers. The trains were running on a Sunday schedule under the premise that everyone would be too busy pondering the state of race relations in the United States to want to take the subway anywhere.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day used to be a holiday that corporate America would ignore. I’ve worked nearly every Martin Luther King Jr. Day for the past 8 years, and every year, the streets of Downtown Boston become a little more empty, which is a nice sight.

At lunchtime, Cosi was so dead that the infamous sassy salad lady, who is regarded with fear and respect for the no-nonsense, queenly attitude with which she takes each salad order, was doubling as a sandwich preparer. “A TBM lite,” I order, which is a tomato-basil-mozzarella sandwich with light vinaigrette dressing. She flounders for a second, seizing a flatbread and staring blankly at the ingredients. “TBM,” she repeats. “Now what could that stand for?” She looks at me and laughs, a behavior which sort of stunned me. I’ve never seen her when she wasn’t expertly grabbing salad ingredients and yelling things like “Ceasar! Greek! Cobb!”

I was not happy to be at work. Maybe that’s sort of an empty statement, like “I’m so peeved to be sick with the flu” or “Getting in a car accident was most chagrinning,” yet most days I’m pleased to have my singular, insignificant place within the greater Rat Race. But when you take away all of the other rats, there is a sudden emptiness that amplifies the hollowness of working life. The race has paused, the other rats are gone, and there’s just a handful of us trying to be motivated on our own initiative.

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By Meredith – January 19, 2009

Fluff Storm

Today we woke up and were somewhat surprised to see about 3 inches of the fluffiest whitest snow ever on the ground, with more coming down. Impromptu backcountry ski!

We loaded the skis in the car, shoveled the driveway, and drove ever-so-slowly on barely plowed roads to the Middlesex Fells Reservation. There we skied thru the snowy woods for three hours. Sometimes we followed the ski tracks of other hardy souls who ventured out in the fluff storm. Most of the time, we were forced to blaze our own trails, a job left to me and my big-assed backcountry skis that I bought three months ago at the REI garage sale for $25 (including boots).

I’m running out of interesting ways to chronicle my XC skiing trips. I apologize for my one-track mind. But it’s a particularly snowy January in New England. If I wasn’t writing about skiing, I’d probably be writing about cabin fever activities like cleaning out my closet, baking bread, cleaning the bathroom tile grout with baking soda and an old toothbrush, and oh yeah, redesigning this website with help from Dreamweaver’s Spry functionality. Look… widgets!

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By Meredith – January 18, 2009

I’m a Twitterer

About a year ago, I totally bashed Twitter as being a silly, useless vanity app. And now, as evidenced by the Twitter badge on the right, I’m a Twitterer. A Twit, maybe.

Why not? I like the idea of being able to micro-blog from my phone. I want to remain on the forefront of technology. And I’m paying for 400 text messages a month, 90% of which go unused. Why not?

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By Meredith – January 17, 2009

Local Ski

Today was a gorgeous freezing Friday and I had nothing to do until late afternoon. No work, no meetings, no errands, and no burning desire to tackle my ongoing To-Do list. I contemplated staying in bed, nuzzled safely under the electric blanket with Infinite Jest propped up in front of me so I could shave off another 100 pages off of the 1000-page tome that is, indeed, proving to be infinite but does not contain, thus far, abundant jest.

But how can I lay in bed when there’s 6 inches of snow on the ground, just laying there, begging to XC skied upon? So I logged onto Zipcar.com to procure a car and then drove it 20 minutes away to Weston Ski Track, which boasts the lone 15 kilometers of groomed XC ski trails in the Boston metro area.

Though I have gone to the Weston Ski Track once before, we did not actually ski that day due to the icy conditions, and our overall impression was not impressed. The Weston Ski Track is located entirely on a golf course. Though it is common for XC ski courses to double as golf courses, WST’s golf course is particularly sterile, with only a smattering of token trees. Not only is it uninviting, the lack of protection from the sun makes the snow patchy and icy. And both the Massachusetts Turnpike and I-95 are located less than 1 mile away, filling the air with the dull roar of the highway and invisible exhaust particles.

But today, the WST was my only salient option. I arrived at 10am, the official opening time, although I spotted several skiers already on the course as I drove up in my Zipcar (a Nissan Versa with 3000 miles on it). As I lazily unloaded my skis from the backseat, a woman drove up in a Volkswagen. She hopped out wearing bright-green sexy pants and a matching jacket with a XC Ski club stenciled in yellow on the back. Only a hardcore ski jock would wear something so preposterous. She grabbed her skis and ran to the course. Later I would see her doing insane drills like repeatedly skiing uphill without using her poles.

In fact, at 10am the WST was crawling with XC ski jocks. I was probably the least hardcore skier there, in that I’m not training for a race or wearing a club insignia. Other skiers flew past me with scary velocity. There’s 2 reasons why I’m slow. One, my skis — cloddy comfort cruisers — are simply not designed to fly. Two, when I go skiing it’s an all-day affair, meaning I’m used to pacing myself. I have endurance. These speed demons may be leaving me in their wake, but they’re done by 11:30am.

I skied on the icy tracks for another hour, feeling a little ridiculous on the golf course. It’s the XC skiing equivalent of a treadmill. My dissatisfaction comes to an apex when the sound of chainsaw reared across the icy plain. A public works crew was chopping down trees along the perimeter of the golf course. That’s when I realized it’s impossible to really commune with nature when you’re only 15 minutes from Boston.

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By Meredith – January 16, 2009

Toxins: It’s What’s for Lunch

When I leave the office to get lunch, usually I head to Cosi. The exceptions are when I’m too rushed to make the 20 minute roundtrip walk into the Financial District, or when I’m with co-workers who invariably dismiss Cosi as being overpriced and/or unsatisfying. “I’m not going to Cosi. I’m not going to wait in line for ten minutes behind dozens of ravenous fresh-from-the-gym yuppies. I’m not going to pay $7 for a lettuce flatbread sandwich garnished with meat,” says Co-worker, who prefers Viga, the Italian place that serves enormous $5 sandwiches, because only a Viga sandwich will tame his appetite until dinner.

Me, I’m willing to spend the extra few dollars at Cosi on what I perceive to be a higher quality of food. Cosi lettuce is at least two shades darker green than Viga lettuce. Cosi sandwich spread does not taste like it came from a vat of industrial mayo. Cosi eggplant does not have the texture, consistency, and appearance of leather. And all of Cosi’s flatbread is fresh from the open-flame oven that anchors every store. Nothing nourishes my soul like warm bread!

Yes, the Cosi portions are a fraction of the Viga portions, but I don’t believe that people who sit at desks 9 hours a day need a 10-inch long, 5-inch wide, 2-inch thick slab of greasy foccaccia loaded with meat and cheese in order to meet their nutritional requirements. Maybe if I was hiking a 4000-foot mountain, I’d want that level of caloric support, which I guestimate to be at least 1000 high-fat low-fiber calories. “Do you think it’s a coincidence that there’s, like, 5 times the number of overweight people in Viga than in Cosi?” I ask Co-worker one day after we leave Viga.

“So what are you saying, that Viga makes people fat?” asks Co-Worker, who is of normal weight. Somehow. “No, fat people just like Viga more. It fits into their dietary plan. They’d eat just as much if they went to Cosi, only they’d have to pay for 2 sandwiches.”

These days, most of my co-workers are bringing their lunches from home to avoid having to go out in the frigid winter weather. And so I’ve been going to Cosi almost every day for a sandwich, usually the Hummus and Veggie, the Fire-Roasted Vegetable, or the Tomato Basil Mozzarella. Cosi sandwiches come with either a bag of potato chips or a bag of baby carrots, and since it’s winter and I need a little grease to keep my ribs warm, I take the potato chips.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that Cosi had two types of potato chips, plain and salt and pepper. I tried the salt and pepper potato chips and found them unbelievably scrumptious! Cosi’s peppered potato chips awakened within me a lust for flavored chips that has lain dormant since college senior year, when dinner would be a 99 cent bag of Doritos. (I had a passion for Doritos. So tasty!) All morning I would sit at my desk, counting the minutes until lunchtime and Cosi and the salt and pepper potato chips.

“You know those have MSG in them?” Co-worker just happened to be walking past my desk as I was digging into my salt and pepper potato chips.

“What? No they don’t,” I said. I have a weird reaction to MSG… not physical, just mental, because for 30 years my initials were “MSG,” so I rather enjoy the notoriety, although I’d rather not ingest it.

“Yeah they do. All flavored chips have MSG in them,” Co-Worker says, flipping the bag over and pointing to the ingredients. Sure enough, Mono-Sodium Glutamate. “What do you think of that, Ms. Cosi Quality?”

Naturally, I was horrified to find out that I’ve been giving my body a daily dose of MSG. But I couldn’t reveal that to Co-worker. “So that’s why they’re so good,” I said, smiling until he walked away, when I promptly dropped the half-eaten bag into the trash. I felt betrayed, as if Cosi has lulled me into a false sense of security and then drugged my body with toxins. Such are the perils of lunch in This Modern World.

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By Meredith – January 14, 2009

Adventures in Discount Acupuncture, Session #6

That running title for my weekly acupuncture treatment is catchy, but now a misnomer. The discount has run out and the cost has vaulted from “discount” to “premium.” My health plan isn’t covering it, so I bear this expense with a fair amount of wincing. I reason: Well, I’m thrifty in other ways. This is my health, after all. It’s not like I’m going to a spa for Ayurvedic treatments and hot-stone massages. It’s acupuncture, a practice that even the National Institute of Health has recognized as effective for the treatment of several diseases… none of which I have, but still, that establishes it within the annals of even staid government-sponsored Western medicine.

When Western medicine advocates acupuncture, the most frequently cited benefit is lowered stress via the release of endomorphins. Does this mean acupuncture has the potential to become addictive? What will my body do if deprived of its weekly needling? I see myself huddled in an alley with the other acupuncture junkies — “acupunkies” — fiending for balanced yin-yang and sticking dirty needles in each other’s spleen meridans.

Tonight M. stuck a needle in the top of my head, right where my hair part would be if I had parted it straight. I knew from M.’s website biography that she was keen on “scalp acupuncture,” but I never imagined… on me. Last week she stuck a needle between my eyes, which made me anxious at first but it turned out to be a very relaxing point. I think M. was working up to the top of my head. I must say, I bore the scalp needle like a champion pin cushion.

Speaking of champion pin cushions… the Chinese acupuncturist pictured at the right pierced his head with over 2008 decorative needles to celebrate last summer’s Olympics. His qi must be as unfettered as Niagara Falls. Before I started acupuncture, this picture would have totally freaked me out, but now… no, sorry, it still freaks me out.

wei

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By Meredith – January 13, 2009

The Profane in Maine

My theory of the East Coast of the United States is that the deposition of the citizenry correlates to the temperature of their respective environs. People warm up the further south you go, all the way to Key West, a town so laid back that it’s perfectly acceptable to ask where the closest ‘pisser’ is. Head north and the smiles gradually harden and frosty detachment becomes the norm. Here in Boston, people will actually glare at you for sneezing in public. Go an hour further north and you’ll be in Maine, where only the moose smile at strangers.

So a small town in Maine is getting a topless coffee shop, thanks to a local entrepreneur who told the Boston Globe “Everything is failing, but nudity is not a dying business. No matter where you go, people are half-dressed. I figured, what the hell can I lose?” How about your shirt, ha ha? Seriously… where are people half-dressed in Maine? Even at the height of summer, it’s too cold to wear a swimsuit to the beach.

The topless coffee shop will be called… The Topless Coffee Shop. So much for retaining an air of mystery. On the menu will be coffee, tea, cappuccino, juices, soda, and pastries. Oh, the innuendo. “Would you like milk or cream?” Oh, the hazards of frothing milk at the espresso machine.

My initial reaction is that the people who hang out in coffee shops aren’t the same crowd who get off on a topless staff. But the shop could attract a following, simply because there’s really nothing else to do in Maine. Plus 9 months out of the year females swaddle their flesh in wool and synthetic fleece, heightening nakedness’s attraction. Bottom line is, if this works out I may have to revise my theory about the East Coast, because I don’t think even Key West is ready for topless coffee shops.

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By Meredith – January 12, 2009