Back!

Friends, I know - it's been forever and I'm shitty for not updating the blog more. I know! I'm sorry! I couldn't access my account while in Calgary because 1) it was difficult to get computer time and 2) it was impossible to get computer time that was also alone time. My mother could teach Sauron a thing or two about surveillance.

The trip was fun, for sure. Will post a video at the end of this update that will hopefully attest to said fun. But, also, it was two full weeks with my parents AND 4 days with my sister. It seemed like a really long time.

Things I noted:

1) My parents' favorite hobby is to set the GPS for all trips, regardless of the length of the trip or their familiarity with the destination, and then not follow any of its directions. When driving separately, my mother seems to think it is a game of wits where the GPS will end up being thoroughly impressed by her municipal navigation and revamp its knowledge accordingly. My father sees it as an opportunity to prove his dominance by shouting unbelievably offensive invectives at the female-voiced machine and then willfully disregarding its her advice. I am afraid to think that this is their marriage in a nutshell and will only imagine that this is the roadtrip part of their marriage. Before I left, I changed the GPS in my father's vehicle to a male voice -- I await the phonecall where I am told that I have somehow made my father's GPS smarter.

2) My sister is in for a huge, giant, steaming, glorious pile of karmic retribution re: mutha'uckas 'uckin up her shi'. I spent two days of my vacation going through boxes of stuff I had left in my grandmother's house that my parents don't want taking up space in their house (Grumbling point: my sister has literally taken up loads of their space with her shit but 6 boxes of my stuff is intolerable, but whatevs, I'm over it) and this was waiting for me in one of them:
Yes, I wore rubber gloves. Yes, I found dead mice and horrible mice feces all in my boxes. Yes, I ended up throwing out most of it . My thoughts: That. Fucking. Slob. The house never had mice before my sister moved in, alls I'm saying. I was very angry at the time but I'm trying to move beyond it because there's just no point in getting mad at her. Indeed, I had this moment while I was spending time with her that was similar to that moment in High Fidelity (movie version, I'm thinking of) when Cusack's character looks at Catherine Zeta-Jones' character and suddenly realizes instead of being ubercool, she's kind of horrible. I love my sister, don't get me wrong, but I'm just saying that we share DNA and it's no big thing.

3) My sister's dog, Ryder, is wonderful!!! She's fabulous. She loves to fetch and swim - these two things combined means that walking her to exhaustion is dead easy: I drive her to the river, I throw a tennis ball in the river about 20 times, I throw it on the grass 5 times so she can dry out, we go home, it takes half an hour. The dog runs flat out fetching the ball the whole time, she falls into a coma for the rest of the day. It couldn't be easier. Ways my sister has trained her dog to do any of this: zero. I've tried to get Monty to fetch but he's having none of it.
4) My mother and I are seriously going to go to India to see my sister. Probably sometime next year. After traveling around Calgary with my mom, I don't know if we can do this. More later, I'm sure.

I can't be too negative about the trip or seeing my family because it was pretty good and I ate amazing food and saw old friends and generally had a good time. And, I'm back in the 'Twa to spend the remainder of the summer (ie/ 'til the 25th) with E! Am super happy about that.

Marjorie Merriweather Post

There's so much to report! In a nutshell: we packed up, moved from urban Balto to suburban Balto, unpacked, drove to Binghamton, spent a day in Bingo, drove to the 'Twa, unpacked, and now we're here in our nation's capital wondering what the hell just happened. Monty, especially. But that's not even the tip of the iceberg of the awesome I have to relate so will attempt to catch up the blog in the days ahead.

First off: before the hardcore packing commenced, we took a day off and drove to DC to take in the Hillwood Estate, former headquarters of Marjorie Merriweather Post (Close Hutton Davies May, bust above!), heiress to the Post Cereal fortune and founder of the General Foods empire. Born in 1887, died in 1973, she lived most of her life as the richest woman in America. She was married four times (divorced, beheaded divorced, died divorced, divorced) and had three daughters. Each of her daughters married a minimum of three times; daughter #2 overachieved with a total of six husbands and five divorces. Money is awesome!

What does the richest woman in America do with her time?

Collect bullshit!

The estate is a museum of her incomparable collection of 18th-century French and imperial Russian art. To put it lightly, the woman had an eye for the ornamental. The docents explain it away by saying that her father was very strict and wouldn't let her spend money on anything so when he died she went cray-cray and bought anything shiny, pink, or associated with royalty. By 1937, she'd been buying up rococo in a way that would compel even Elton John to stage an intervention when she went to live in the Soviet Union for a couple of years (third husband was a diplomat and became the US ambassador to Stalin in '37-38).

What does the world's ultimate consumer do in a context devoted to the unpretty where everyone is looking for a little cash? That's right - go *bananas* buying up trinkets of the newest ancien régime at bargain prices.

One word: Fabergé!

I had to fight my way through a crowd of old biddies to get this pic:

The cultural history writes itself: a gilded-age American heiress obsessed with the things of "real" monarchs at the height of their power and opulence just before devastating revolutions (there is no story trajectory here because - baah! - it's cultural history!).

Heart-felt looter, voracious preservationist, curatrix extraordinaire, early ancestor to the Home Shopping Network addict, or savvy businesswoman philanthropist, however you want to characterize MMP, her collection, and her mansion, these photos don't come anywhere near to doing them all justice. Hillwood was unbelievably fun to visit - I would recommend stopping what you're doing right now and planning your trip to DC.

In addition to everything about it I've already covered, four of my favorite things about the visit were:

1) The totally fucking awesome contrast between the grand dining room and the servants area. Not only the look but the smell, the temperature, just everything about the two areas was completely different. These two rooms are right next to one another, separated by only a door.

2) Creepy pet cemetery. Coco and Lassie seem to have been preferred names. No mention of servants' heads being put in glass cases on shelves or anything like that.
3) Beautiful Japanese-y garden. This is also a pic of E waiting and waiting for me to take the effing picture while the sun scorches her albino-ish skin.

4) A plethora of garden sphinxes, the likes of which I can only describe as both awesome and friggin' weird.

Uberthanks to B & I for making sure Hillwood was on our list of things to do!!! We're sorry we didn't go with you because that would have made the day pure perfection BUT we totally want to go again so when next I'm in DC, Hillwood, anyone?

Monty's Terrible Day

Friends, Monty had his teeth cleaned yesterday. Above all, I think he would want me to tell you that he was and continues to be NOT OKAY with what went down.

Turns out it's a pretty big procedure. Who knew? He was on antibiotics three days before the event, they had to put him right out for the actual surgery, *it's called a surgery*, they did all kinds of blood tests, administered pain meds during and after the surgery, and he had to be at the vet's all day. One day later, he is still groggy as all hell, kind of pissed off, and paranoid-needy like you wouldn't believe. I think if he had a choice he would willingly have his balls chopped off again instead of another teeth cleaning.

Maybe we should have known it would be so horrible for him from the pre-op consent forms we had to sign: ones for if there are complications during the surgery (!), ones for if they are to administer pain meds during and after, ones for if we want liver tests to be run, etc, etc. Each yes answer came with a price tag and ethical dilemma: you're a shitty person if you deny your dog post-op pain meds but also it's for a teeth cleaning so does he really need them or is your vet just up-selling in a bad economy? Hard to say. As E and I debated this particular dilemma I argued, "Maybe he just doesn't need all this medication." E doesn't want me to tell you how she responded but you can't just sit on stuff like this. She said, in all seriousness, "We don't want him to get addicted." I paused and then said what anybody else would have at this point in the conversation, "That's true, we don't want to wake up one day to find that he's in some back alley sucking cock to pay for his habit." Eventually, we consented to the painkillers.

The surgery went fine! Aside from carrying around an extra 2-3 lbs (aren't we all?) he's the picture of health and oral hygiene. You would never know it from his reaction to the event. We dropped him off at the vet's at 7:30am and picked him up again around 5:30pm. They led him out of the back and his ears were down, he barely wagged his tail. I picked him up and he started crying into my shoulder and didn't stop until he'd fallen asleep about 20 minutes later. We got home, E gave him his meds (wrapped in bacon), and I put him next to me on the couch. He'd sleep and then wake up and cry and then fall asleep again. Was he in pain? Just feeling weird from the anesthetic? Having horrible flashbacks to the trauma of being in the pound? Overacting? We just don't know. Whatever happened to him yesterday, it was awful.

He's better today but he's not eating his food with the usual verve so I think his teeth still hurt a bit. Poor thing.

But the before and after pics of the procedure are kind of shocking (not only because they're close ups of a dog's mouth):

That's what a $271 vet bill can get you. His breath is about 1000% better so that's a gift that keeps on giving and vets have been bugging us about his advanced tooth decay since we got him from the pound (his misspent youth on the mean streets of Chambana were hard on the teeth, apparently). One vet estimated that just getting his teeth cleaned would increase his lifespan by one or two years! Again, upselling in a bad economy? Whether we've been suckered or not, I promised Montoya that he would never have to go through this procedure again.

LibraryLobsterArtMilkshake

One of the best things about the apt in Mt. Vernon is that it is close to Penn Station and thus it's dead easy to take the train to DC.

DC has many things. Most relevant to my professional life is the Library of Congress and someone who is better at my job would have been going there at every opportunity for the past two years. Procrastinator Me, in contrast, does nothing about it for 22 months and then, with mere weeks left before E moves out of the neighborhood, decides it's time to acquaint self with the LoC. Fail. But better late than never, or whatever.

You have to get your reader's pass in the Madison building, but it's the Jefferson building that's the real eyecatcher. Finished in 1897, it is a monument to The Gilded Age (or whatever it's called) and contains enough symbolic hoohaw to melt the brains of any Dan Brown-loving National Treasure audience. Outside:

Inside: It's pretty effing cool.

Chocolate Report

Friends, I have promised a chocolate report and today I deliver. Before you organize an intervention of some kind, I want you to know that I ate all of these on different successive days and 3 of the bars I shared with E. So I am strongly denying the problem.

Let us begin with the three I did not share with E. The reason I didn't share? Greed. Also, she wasn't in the room when I wanted to eat them. What was I supposed to do, send out a search party?

1) Anyhow, first up is Sifer's Valomilk.

I first saw the Valomilk on an episode of Unwrapped and worked hard to find them when I was in the Midwest, but to no avail (though plenty of people told me they'd had them and the candy is made in Kansas). I bought many the Mallo Cup thinking it was a Valomilk, but it wasn't. As the company says, “When it runs down your chin, you know it’s a VALOMILK.”

The Valomilk pictured above did *not* run down my chin and I was thankful for that. After searching high and low for these special bits of Americana, I can now say with conviction that Mallo Cups rock the galaxy and Valomilks are a bit too sweet and marshmallowy. Maybe the ones I had were old because they didn't explode open like the factory-ready ones did on TV but even if they had, they would have still suffered in comparison to the Mallo Cup. The Sifer company is very proud that they have stayed true to the original recipe of 1931 whereas others (they're looking at you, Mallo Cup) have effed with tradition. Sometimes, however, I think tradition needs a good effing with. I believe they call it evolution. Whatever the case, I give Valomilk a 7/10 and Mallo Cup a cool 10/10. Perhaps in a previous post, I gave the Mallo a 9 in the hopes that something could top it, but nothing has so I might as well pony up with a 1-0.

2) The second bar I tried without E's assistance was Necco's Clark:

The Clark bar is brought to us by the same company that makes the horrible SkyBar (see my previous review) but I will try not to hold that against them. The bar itself is in the peanut brittle category alonside the likes of Butterfingers and Crispy Crunches but it is way flakier than your average Butterfinger. It was completely delicious and the flakiness reminded me of a Zagnut. Back in the day, Clark originated Zagnut but in the cutthroat world of American candy production, the company sold Zagnut to Hershey. So if you've ever wished for a Zagnut sans coconut and avec chocolately coating, the Clark is for you. I liked it a lot and give it a 9/10.

3) Then I tried the Charleston Chew
because it is everywhere! I guess being a member of the Tootsie Roll empire ensures superior distribution. I did not have the wherewithal to try the strawberry variety, but I tried the chocolate one and, as the packaging suggested, I tried a frozen vanilla one. My first question: why the fuck would anyone want to eat a frozen taffy bar? I almost broke my teeth/jaw on the vanilla bar and then got cold tooth pain. Then I waited for my candy to return to room temperature. The normal chocolate Charleston Chew was awesome. The vanilla, meh. Do not try it frozen. That's dumb. Chocolate: 8/10. Vanilla: 7/10. The frozen experience: 0/10.

But we need to move on. E pointed out that it might be better for you readers if there was another opinion of the bar in these reviews, something to perhaps balance out my own...idiosyncrasies. Or maybe she just wanted some of the chocolate. Either way, she wanted her voice heard. Please find it below. Note: we ate all of these bars in one sitting while playing Tetris Party Deluxe (which totally rocks).

4) The Take 5 (pictured below with Monty taking a quick midday 75 between pee outings):

Another in the Hershey's universe of candy, E's reaction after taking her first bite: "Wow, this is low rent." It's such a weird bar. Basically it throws everything and the kitchen sink at you: caramel, peanuts, chocolate, peanut butter, and - wait for it! - pretzels. I think it was the pretzels that prompted the "low rent" comment but she's right, it does seem like something some tangential family member made for a summertime get-together with hotdogs and sticky children and not enough booze. E gives it a frowning 6/10 and I'll say 5 so as to show that we are different people.

5) Next up was the Whatchamacallit, again from Hershey's.

It's basically the same as the Take 5 only instead of pretzels it contains rice krispies. We discussed at length why rice krispies somehow seem classier than pretzels and make for a better chocolate bar experience. We had no answers. The Take 5 bar was saltier and that didn't make me happy but E usually likes saltier things so we can draw no conclusions except to say between Take 5 and Whatchamacallit, you have to go Whatchamacallit. E enjoyed the Whatchamacallit and gives it an 8/10. I think there are way better options out there - purchase neither Take 5 nor Whatchamacallit with your chocolate bar money, in my opinion! I give it a 6/10.

6) Finally, we chased the Whatchamacallit with Peanut Chews.

The Peanut Chew is a major confection from the Just Born corporation, based out of Bethlehem, PA. The company name gave me pause; I wondered if the chocolate bar wasn't really supposed to be named "Jesus Chews" or some fundy thing like that. But based on some internet research, it turns out the born stuff is just because it is owned by the Born family and the company tagline is, "A great candy isn't made...it's Just Born." The candy is peanuts covered in molasses and chocolate and is apparently okay for vegans to eat. How nice! Anyway, we weren't that crazy about it. The molassesy flavor was really molassesy. E enjoyed the bite-sized portioning and gives the experience a 7/10. I'm not bought off by small, cute things and so give it a 6.

9.5 hrs ain't so bad

Last week I heroically jumped in my car and drove back to the 'twa for one day of meetings. Then I turned around and drove back again. I thought someone at my place of business would notice that I hadn't been to my office for a month but apparently not. I gave two of the admin assistants special hallowed chocolate from the road (MalloCups, the most delicious of the gas station chocolate bar selections) but they didn't seem interested. One said, "Oh, I suppose there's no calories in this." I didn't ask for it back but I wanted to. In the end, I didn't tell anyone about my transnational commute because they would have given my story a zero (isn't it at least a 2?) or more likely would have interrupted mine with a story of their own summer plan to do vital research in Kitchener.

I don't know what I was expecting (a parade? red carpet? some kind of spontaneous enthusiasm?) but I didn't get it. Turns out I'm really not that big a deal. [Aside: Wm+k8 will grace the 'twa for July 1 this year, the city is aflutter. They = actual big deal, it turns out. But will they be bringing MalloCups? I think not.]

My non-reception was sobering and I'm not sure if it mattered at all that I attended said meetings, aside from gaining more insight into dept culture and what a few of my colleagues haven't been reading. Nevertheless, I learned an extremely important lesson from all of this, one that appears in most fortune cookies and the opening credits of The United States of Tara, which I watch every week [excellent show - if you're not watching it and/or Nurse Jackie, I don't know what is wrong with you]. After 34+ years and a roadtrip to Ottawa, I think I'm finally getting it:



Ya just gotta enjoy the ride. Especially in this business because we all know that milestones are some made up b.s.

The drive to and from the 'twa was awesome! Solo road trips can rock for the following reasons:

1) Singing. You can sing as loudly and as soulfully as you want, to whatever music you want, with complete impunity. Duets unfit for other human ears include: me and Freddie Mercury, me and kd lang (I attempted to sing harmony which was astoundingly unsuccessful), me and Matt Berninger (truly awful), and me and Tori Amos (for realz, "beyond wailing" is how I would describe it). I enjoyed every second. I also carseat-danced to James Brown as I attempted to get up off of that thang but I didn't think that was worthy of its own numbered bullet point.

2) Pit stops! These United States have brought us wonderful rest stops with clean, working bathrooms and gas stations full of anything you could want: uppers; downers; showers; a gentlemen's club in close proximity; intriguing chocolate bars; dangerously compelling pastries made by L'il people; hygiene products for men, women and pets; every kind of jerky, coffee, hot dog, or deep-fried goodness under heaven; all legalish tobacco or alcohol-related products (snuff? I'm sure they have it); DVDs; DVD players; toy guns and rubber balls so the family road trip can become *super fun*; and mace. Some even have fresh fruit! You truly never know what you will find on offer at a gas station. For those financiers out there, here's my pitch for an independent film: a roadtrip docu-dramedy wherein for one year the characters must live in their cars, ONLY subsisting on goods purchased at gas stations found en route to Somewhere Else. Some will die of malnutrition, others will thrive, everyone will have ill-fitting T-shirts. We can intersperse this story with interviews of actual truckers who live this way all the time. Good, right? It's possible this movie already exists and is just in my netflix queue. If you want to finance this film then awesomesauce! I waive all my creative fees and rights under one condition: n8 plays The Bandit.

3) Gorgeous scenery and roads less travelled. On the way back, I veered off the interstate path so that I could hit State College, PA before getting to Balto. Best. Decision. Ever. I ended up driving through Ithaca and found myself winding through Pennsylvannia on US-15: amazing. The stretch of route between Gettysburg and Charlottesville has been renamed the "Journey Through Hallowed Ground" to attract Civil War pilgrims, but don't let that scare you off - the scenery along the whole highway is absolutely incredible. The day I drove it was a little bit foggy but still sunny - this made the surrounding forests and hills look especially vast and important, like a scenery shot in Land of the Lost or Last of the Mohicans or New World Movie X of the Y. Perhaps the highway gets clogged when the kiddies get of out of school but there was no one else on the trail when I drove it. Very cool. I can't post a picture because I was busy driving and singing but a snapshot wouldn't do it justice anyway. Yes, I eventually got stuck behind a camper and 4 Harley-clad weekend warriors but I was just enjoying the ride, man! The only downside to getting off the interstates was that when the GPS crapped out ("lost satellite reception"), as it did intermittently for the whole trip, I was really effing lost. But whatevs, I got here. We're definitely going back that way in July. US-15 - I'd recommend it!

4) Friend Pit Stops! Here's the best part of the trip: on the way up I saw mf in Bingo and on the way back I saw J&S in State College. Yes! State College is actually the name of the town. Yes, it's built around a state college!

In Bingo, we took Pumpkin to a fun dog park. Mf lost a key (loose key). Here is a pic of her looking for it. The pic is really of the terrain in which she lost it:

We did not find the key.

Here is a pic of J and me by a State College monument. Identifying eyes have been blotted out to preserve internet anonymity and emphasize my ill-fitting pants.
State College is small but not un-awesome. There I learned to heart a new frozen treat: Rita's Gelati, which is delicious Italian ice PLUS frozen custard. Like the most wonderful creamsicle in the world.

The ride was good times!

Oh no he didn't

Full text of an email I just received from my father:

date Tue, May 31, 2011 at 5:23 PM
subject T183

D:

IF YOU FORGOT TO MAIL THIS FORM TO ME, MAIL ASAP. I NEED TO SEND TO THE CRA FOR THIS YEARS RETURNS. IF YOU HAVE LOST THE FORM, I WILL RESEND IT TO YOU.

YFALF.

Because many of you, no doubt, are normal people who send normal emails to the loved ones in your life, you might interpret this missive as overly curt, hostile and possibly indicative of deep resentment. You might even read it as disrespectful. But that's just my dad. To appear as if he's an army general YELLING EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME IN CAPSLOCK TELEGRAM FORMAT is merely Stuball's style - both in writing and in person. This message could have just as easily appeared in my birthday card.

YFALF stands for Your Fond and Loving Father. Just as Ryan Seacrest probably thinks that "Seacrest out!" is awesomesauce, Stuball loves signing things YFALF. A decade ago I made fun of him for signing "Stu" or "SWK" to every note and card I'd received during my childhood. He promptly adjusted his signature so, ultimately, I am the one to blame for YFALF.

Sometimes my students wonder out loud, "What is so wrong with paternalism?" I will show them this email. I am 34 years old, I have a PhD (my mother just dragged him to the graduation ceremony, if I recall correctly, so my father does know that), a salary and a full time job with benefits. Some people call me professor. I have family and friends who love me and whom I love. Yeah, I don't quite have all my shit together all the time but I'm going to go ahead and say it: I am a fully functioning adult. Moreover, I have never forgotten about nor lost a tax form in my life. That includes both Canadian and US forms. He might have me confused with his other daughter. I mailed him the fucking form a week and a half ago.

Yes, I'm overreacting and need to remind myself to chant the mantra from above, "That's just my dad, that's just my dad."

Perhaps my overreaction to this is an issue of context. One of the gems my mother came out with during Grad '11 was something to this effect: "We're just so proud of you. Yes, for the degree, but mostly because you have a job. Your father was restructuring all of our finances so that if you couldn't get a job, you could come back to Calgary and live with us or maybe we'd have to support you somewhere else, we didn't know. But he's just so relieved that you can support yourself! This is a huge weight off his mind."

At the time, I was completely flabbergasted. I really didn't know what to say. Leaving aside what they may or may not think of my partnership with E, they weren't talking about the sparseness of good jobs in academe (a real point), they were talking about any means of supporting myself whatsoever. As if my whole life up until this point -- the one where I got degrees, and paid my own tuition, and worked at jobs, and did all manner of adultish things -- was proof of NOTHING. As my sister would say, sarcastically, "That's what faith looks like."
Whatever I do, in my father's mind I will only ever be a dependent. The fact that I am able to support myself is nothing short of a miracle to them. I am defying gravity.

And it's really not and I'm really not, which is what is so angering about it all. I don't want to poo-poo my good fortune at being employed, don't get me wrong, I am grateful! But also - COME ON. Explicating a rundown of all the cultural normativities alive in this situation won't help me get over it. Even doing my own taxes won't solve it -- I tried to wrestle my taxes away from my dad one year and my mother pulled me aside and told me that it makes my father feel good to do my taxes so it's really my gift to him to let him do them. Re-read email at the beginning of this post to see these feelings in action.

That's just my dad. I am Meadow to my father's Tony Soprano. Everyone else has this exact same problem, right? Just in different guises. Right? This 30-something angst is totally normal. Right?

In other news, it's really hot in Baltimore! They've cancelled school because it's so hot. Like a Snow Day only exactly the opposite only exactly the same. Exciting!

[P.S. After re-reading email above, I now get why JC's email manner (etc) at the Press never really fazed me.]