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Mounts North Kinsman 4293′ and South Kinsman 4358′ July 5, 2008






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By Meredith – July 5, 2008

Kicking Black Coffee

Drinking black coffee, black coffee, drinking black coffee, staring at the wall
Black coffee, black coffee, black coffee, staring at the wall
Black coffee, drinking black coffee, drinking black coffee, staring at the…
–Black Flag, “Black Coffee”

I started drinking coffee at the wild age of 16. That first cup was consumed under subtle peer pressure at the Denny’s Restaurant in King of Prussia late one summer night. Up until then, I favored hot tea, finding the bitter taste of coffee to be overwhelming. But there I was at Denny’s, surrounded by suburban teenaged misfits drinking coffee, and I couldn’t bring myself to order the tiny silver teapot of hot water, served with a Lipton’s tea bag and a slice of lemon. So, at the urging of my best friend AS, I drank the coffee and almost cried from the perceived acrid dirty taste.

In only a few months, I acquired enough of a taste for coffee that I decided to apply to work at the coffee specialty store in the King of Prussia mall, the Coffee Beanery, where one of the many perks was as much free coffee as you could consume without twitching. I discovered espresso, as well as a strange physical elation that came from drinking multiple chocolate-spiked shots of it. It really made the time go by.

And thus began my dependance on coffee. Every morning, every afternoon, and right before, during, or after any important social or mental event, there was coffee. When there was no sleep, there was coffee. When there was no food, there was coffee. On road trips, you better believe there was coffee. I never resented coffee for compelling me to drink it. My morning cup of coffee was like an award for getting out of bed. In recent years, I cut my consumption back to anywhere from 1 to 4 cups a day, but I never considered giving it up.

Until last week. I’m down to 1 6-ounce cup of coffee in the morning, and I plan to phase even that out in the coming week. This small dose of caffeine seems to be preventing the withdrawal headaches and fatigue, although my head was pounding last night in bed before I drifted off to a (deeper than usual?) sleep.

Oh, coffee. I’m not saying goodbye forever. But you will no longer be a daily ritualized addiction, more like an acquaitance who I’ll invite for breakfast once in a while. And I’ll welcome you with my best “DAMN good coffee, and HOT!”

Posted in Nostalgia.

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By Meredith – July 3, 2008

Slow news day

This time of year is known as a slow news season because everyone’s on vacation, including most of the media, and those who are left to man the newsdesks know that no one is reading newspapers or watching the news, so they report ridiculous stories like how a runaway tractor carrying potatoes “mashed” a car in Germany, how people would rather barbecue burgers with Barack Obama than with John McCain how bird experts are concerned about the decline of the piping plover along the New England coasts, or how George W. Bush wants to send more troops to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan. You know, real fluff stuff that has no or little bearing on housing foreclosures, fuel prices, major league sports, or Britney Spears’ career.

Well, me too. I’m having a slow news day. Here are some of the highlights:

1. I bike to the T today in a knee-length skirt. I highly recommend biking in skirts to any woman who feels the need to affirm her femininity.

2. In the office, I am the first person to use the Ladies Room on my floor (as evident by the blue-colored disinfectant in the toilet).

3. At 10:30am, I drink some white tea with one sugar — my favorite mid-morning “pick-me-up.”

4. I learned a new word: Colophon

5. I narrowly avoided getting drenched in an afternoon thunderstorm as I bike back home from the subway in my knee-length skirt. Feeling: Smug, even more feminine.

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By Meredith – July 2, 2008

Black Fly Pie

I love hiking in the mountains because it continues to thrill me long after I’ve returned to my workaday life, which is filled with pastimes that simply make existence bearable: Reading the news, walking on the bike-path, shopping, going to restaurants, going to the movies. These activities provide fleeting escape, comfort, or amusement, but nothing matches the exhilarating exertion of climbing a mountain, the meditative calm of nature’s sanctity, and the sense of accomplishment upon attaining a summit.

And even if hiking in the great outdoors doesn’t inspire lasting awe, the bug bites will endure as a remembrance for a couple of days. Bugs have always been attracted to me. Maybe it’s my tender ivory skin, my dull reflexes, some unique chemical scent that signals me as delectable insect fodder, or maybe bugs are like cats in that they are always drawn to the person who likes them least. Maybe my extreme bug aversion is a losing tactic; I should start courting bugs to come, frolic in my vicinity, and rest their weary thoraxes upon my supine forearms.

On last Saturday’s hike, I achieved a bug bite on my ear, an oval bump nestled in between the helix and the antihelix that has swollen the antihelical fold into an angry purple contusion. I suspect that it’s a black fly bite. Black flies are somewhat storied in northern New England, where they thrive during May and June. They are smaller that normal flies, but none less vigorous in flight, and apparently have quite a capacity for blood. For a time, I dared not venture outside in New Hampshire or Maine in early summer for fear of being swarmed. I had heard stories about black flies devouring live cows.

But while black flies are pesky, they’re not that bad. The black fly bite on my ear is slowly de-swelling and lacks the exquisite itch of a mosquito bite. I am particularly sensitive to mosquito bites, which can swell to unbelievable mass and often demand fingernail attention a week after sting.

My paranoia of mosquitoes is acute. I always wear long sleeves and pants in the woods, even if sweat is pouring down my body. When buying insect repellents, I ignore any bottle featuring pictures of families enjoying a bug-free picnic, and go straight for the pictures of dark, foreboding deep woods that provides jungle-level protection. If it doesn’t have 30% DEET — the highest allowed by law– then you might as well rub apple juice and Calvin Klein’s Obsession on your body and run through the woods named and blindfolded.

Posted in Existence.

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By Meredith – July 1, 2008

Crying Over Spilt Milk

An article in the New York Times explores how a new boxy-shaped, spout-less gallon milk jug is being received by customers of Sam’s Club and Costco. The boxy jug’s design is environmentally-friendlier, easier for retailers to stock, and more efficient for dairy producers to deliver. The end result is fresher, cheaper milk for consumers. Win-win-win-win, right?

Wrong, if the bitter and enraged Sam’s Club shoppers are representative of the typical American consumer (and, let’s face it, they are). “I hate it,” one woman says. “It spills everywhere,” says another woman, a homemaker who is pictured attempting to pour milk from the boxy jug while rolling her eyes and smirking, as if to say They call this a milk jug? What kind of game is being played here?

Sam’s Club is even giving lessons to shoppers on how to pour milk, emphasizing that it works better if “rock-and-pour instead of lift-and-tip.” Despite repeated reminders that the milk is fresher and better for the environment, plus the added bonus of no longer having to expand energy lifting the jug into the air, consumers remain rueful and suspicious of this strange new milk.

Still, the numerous benefits of the boxy jug may mean that it is the gallon milk design of the future, and Americans better get used to this newfangled way of pouring milk. In fact, with packaging re-design in the works for virtually every aspect of our way of life for greater efficiency, they better get used to a lot of things. The era of milk jugs with convenient pouring spouts is coming to end. Will we persevere?

Posted in Americana.

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By Meredith – June 30, 2008

The WTF Mountains

Yesterday we bagged 3 White Mountain 4000-footers in a single hike: Mounts Tom, Field, and Willey. POW POW POW.

First, we took the Avalon Trail (1 mile) to the AZ Trail (1 mile) to the Mt. Tom Spur Trail (.5 mile) to the summit of Mount Tom, where we joined a small cluster of fellow hikers lamenting the lack of views due to thick cloud cover. Then we hiked back on the Mt. Tom Spur Trail (.5 mile) to the Willey Range Trail (1 mile) to the summit of Mount Field, where we lunched on bread, cheese, and cherries and, again, lamented the lack of a view. We continued on the Willey Range Trail (1.5 miles) to the summit of Mount Willey (shown below, left, with me getting downright punchy). Finally, we hiked back on the Willey Range Trail (1.5 miles) to the Avalon Trail (3 miles), which we took all the back to our car. Trip stats: 10 miles, 6 ounces of cheddar, 5 hours and 45 minutes, 3 peaks, 1 baguette, 0 views.

As Mr. Pinault astutely pointed out on our way home upon seeing a certain bumper sticker, the first letter of the mountains form the acronym “WTF,” guaranteeing that I’ll always think of the hike as the WTF hike. As in, “WTF? I can’t see anything because of the clouds.”

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By Meredith – June 29, 2008

Mounts Tom 4051′, Willey 4285′ and Field 4340′ June 28, 2008






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By Meredith – June 28, 2008

In My Town

Yesterday I took a mid-evening jog on the Minuteman Bikeway, a 10-mile paved path that transverses the center of my town and provides not only recreation but genuine transportation for thousands of cyclists, walkers, joggers, and rollerbladers, many of whom (including myself) use the path to access the Boston subway at Alewife station.

Of course, I enjoy the path more when I’m not using it to commute to work. I enjoy it in the morning, when it is quiet except for the hurried exerciser, the early-bird commuter, and the gaunt old man who drops torn pieces of bread onto the path for swarms of sparrows to devour. I enjoy it in the afternoon, when elderly residents and mothers with baby carriages use the path to access adjacent supermarkets and pharmacies. I enjoy it in the evening, when gangs of white-collar cyclists don tight jerseys and spandex and zoom past pokie exercisers, straggling commuters, couples heading to the town center for dinner, and — my hero — the old lady who walkes with a metal wheeled walker affixed with a large stereo radio that blasts talk radio (I call it the “iPed.”)

After I do 5 miles on the path, I head for home, jogging past the large parking lot in the town center. In the summers, on Wednesdays, from 1pm until 6:30pm, there is a farmer’s market. I have only been to this particular farmer’s market once. It features typical farm vegetables, scrubbed and trimmed to resemble supermarket produce and placed alongside high profit-margin, desirable yuppie commodities like goat cheese, olive oil, and baked goods. I found it inferior to the farmer’s market that I frequent in Cambridge at my former co-op, where you can find 5 different varietals of bok choy, hydroponic herbs, and more strains of tomato than most markets have of apples.

But whatever, that’s Cambridge. This is the next town over, geographically closer to the farms but philosophically light years away. Farmer’s markets are still new and exciting to many residents, even if they only buy corn and strawberries because they have no clue how to cook swiss chard.

The time is approaching 6:30pm, and the farmer’s market is still packed with shoppers rushing to make purchases as the workers load up their trucks. Suddenly, I find myself blocked by an immense black SUV that is parked on the sidewalk at one of the parking lot’s entrances/exits. The unoccupied SUV is facing the parking lot, as if someone pulled into the parking lot, stopped the minute they were off of the road, and hopped out. I cannot get around the SUV in either direction — in the front, some unwitting cars are blocked from exiting the parking lot, and in the back, there’s the speeding rush-hour traffic coming off of Mass Ave.

I stand there, wondering why, why someone would leave their SUV on the sidewalk. Then a casually-dressed woman in her 50s walks to the driver’s side, carrying a pint of strawberries. She waves at the cars trying to leave the parking lot with a dutifully sheepish grin. She starts up her tank and backs up into oncoming traffic, causes a chorus of horn-honking that nearly blows out my ear drums, then takes off down the road. I wish I had asked her what the hell she was doing, but I knew: Her titanic motor vehicle was simply too massive to drive in the cramped, busy parking lot, but she really wanted some farm-fresh strawberries. There’s a metaphor there, for sure.

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By Meredith – June 26, 2008

GUILTY

Today Neil Entwistle was found guilty of murdering his American wife Rachel and 9-month daughter Lillian. Ever since the murders in Hopkinton, MA, and Entwistle’s immediate fleeing to his native England, Entwistle’s guilt has been a foregone conclusion in the minds of most Bostonians, an opinion bolstered by the unseemly details that emerged in the trial and breathlessly reported by the local news: “Today in court, stunning revelations!… Entwistle was financially broke… he was trying to use the Internet to have an affair… he searched on the Internet just days before “How to kill with a Knife”… He changed his story, again!… When Neil cries in court, it looks like he is laughing diabolically!“

On Monday, after 12 days of witnesses and evidence, the Prosecution rested. In a shocking display of confidence, the Defense immediately rested without calling any witnesses, and posited in the closing arguments that Rachel shot her daughter before committing suicide. On Tuesday, the jury was in the second day of deliberation while the local news fought to justify the story’s continual top-billing: “Today in the Neil Entwistle trial, the jury asked the judge a question!”

When it comes to high-profile court trials, I refrain from making judgments about the guilt or non-guilt of the accused. I’m not on the jury, forced to consider every piece of evidence; all my knowledge has been filtered by a sensationalistic media that ferrets out the most tabloid details. Half the time, the information that the media presents isn’t even ruled as admissible evidence.

But with Neil Entwistle, there was never a doubt in my mind that he is guilty. I am strangely elated by the conviction. I look at Neil Entwistle and I see a monster. When I discussed the Entwistle trial with Mr. P during dinner the other night, my confidence in his guilt bothered Mr. P, who defended Entwistle against each point that I raised:

“Okay, so he claims he came home and discovered them dead. Why did he flee to England if he wasn’t guilty?”
“Because he was afraid everyone would think he did it.”
“Oh come on! If you came home and found me murdered, would you not call 911, not call my family, and just hop a plane to France?”
Silence. “It’s hard to know what I’d do.”

Okay, that’s fair. But Neil Entwistle had motives:

“He was unemployed and in debt. They were living beyond their means.”
“Babe, that’s half of America.”
“He placed personal ads on internet sex websites.”
“Again, half of America.”
“He did an Internet search for ‘how to kill with a knife’ only 4 days before the murder.”
Silence. “I’ve searched for some pretty random things, myself.”

The same tawdry evidence that convinced the public of Entwistle’s guilt made Mr. P suspicious of a witch hunt. But in the end, what convinced Mr. P that Neil Entwistle probably did kill his wife and baby girl was old-fashioned evidence, including DNA and Entwistle’s own contradictory statements. Me, I would have convicted him on the grisly Internet searches alone.

Posted in In the News, Massachusetts.

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By Meredith – June 25, 2008

Spontaneous Combustion

Today during my lunch break, I took a semi-aimless walk along the waterfront of the Boston Harbor. Near the World Trade Center, a long line of people waited to board the high-speed ferry to Provincetown. Most people had various assemblages of luggage. Most people wore bright, summery clothes. Most people looked content.

An insane thought flashed in my brain: I should go to P-town, too, right now, on this ferry! The stray impulse began to blossom into a fantasty, and then steamroll into a full-blown scheme: I have my wallet, phone, and sunglasses. I could call the office and say “something came up.” I could be in P-town in 90 minutes. I could walk to a hotel in the center of town. I could rent a bike. I could buy new clothes. I could go to a straight bar, order a dinner, and watch a drag queen sing Celine Dion songs while sipping port wine and eating beet fries.

For too long, my window of opportunity for spontaneity has been cracked open about an inch, just enough so that a meager flow of fresh air is discernible when one bends before it, but not wide enough to reduce the overall stuffiness of the room. Little impulses here and there, like “Let’s go out to eat tonight!” blurted at 7:30pm when last night’s leftovers loom in the refrigerator. Like an impulsive trip to the bookstore. Like a sudden spousal kiss while walking down the street. Nice things, whimsical things, but not truly spontaneous things…

Like jumping on the 1pm ferry to P-town. As the passengers boarded the ferry along the gangway, I imagined what would await me in P-town: the scenic bike trails, the laid-back populace, and idyllic lesbian hotel that I stayed at last summer. But I made no move to the ticket window, and soon abandoned my dockside vigil to return to my office. A funny thing happens when you grow up: Anything that could be considered truly spontaneous is also probably irresponsible, but only if you actually follow through with it. Spontaneous reveries are restorative, affirming, and free.

Posted in Massachusetts.

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By Meredith – June 24, 2008