The Actual World Championships

Dean goes to LA tomorrow to prepare for World Track Cycling Championships.

We always joke about the weekly race series down at Portland International Raceway being the “PIR Championships of the World” because beginners and Master level racers on $5,000 bikes take it so seriously, but THIS is the ACTUAL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS.

He’s had a lot of help, and yet, and also, he’s done it all by himself. Godspeed to him. I hope he has a blast.

Helloooo, Academy

Getting Dressed: More Difficult Than You Might Think

In our last Goodwill clothes drop, I included an expensive jacket that I bought at a chi-chi 23rd Street boutique no more than four years ago. It was artfully frayed and patched in spots, with extra bohemian touches like charming artisan buttons. Yet when I recently put it on and looked in the mirror, the age of my face didn't match the age of the jacket.

It occurred to me that I am at the age where I could actually embarrass hipsters by wearing clothes too similar to their own.

I'm not sure when I stopped looking in the Juniors department for clothing. I'm not sure when I stopped feeling self-conscious about shopping at Coldwater Creek (well, actually, I still feel self-conscious about shopping at Coldwater Creek). It may have come on slowly but at this point, my taste in clothes have skewed so much toward the soft and elastic-waisted that even though I have long since thrown away my 90s-era velour tracksuits, if you offered me one today I might not turn it down (as long as there was nothing written fetchingly across the ass).

I know I'm not taking this aging thing well, but I think I'm beginning to dress the part.

P.S.: HOWEVER. You'll pry my Maximum Fun hoodie out of my COLD DEAD HANDS.

Comedy Nerd Adventures.

Now that we're living IN THE FUTURE, we can spend most of our free time in a pursuit that our friends and relations have only the vaguest idea even existed.

Me: I'm a comedy nerd. I know the best comedy podcasts to listen to. I know the best places for live comedy in LA, New York, Philadelphia, and Austin (even though I've been to none of them). I know which household names have no respect in the business and which ones do. I know that Rooster T. Feathers is an actual comedy club.

And why is it important to me? I don't know. Why was it important to me to collect all the Peanuts comic strip collections as a kid? Or all the Tumbleweeds comic strip collections? Or Bloom County after that? Or Calvin and Hobbes? Why did I quote Steve Martin throughout high school? Why are nine of my top ten movies of all time comedies? Laughing is important. It may be the thing keeping me afloat.

Speaking of floating, Helium Comedy Club opened in Portland this last summer. I was excited because although Portland had a comedy club, it was (is) a dump and doesn't draw top names. This new one was an offshoot of a popular club in Philadelphia and the word among the comics I admired was that they would try it out. And advance notice from the first few comics was good.

We saw Jimmy Pardo last August. We drank in the bar before we went into the showroom - rookie mistake, as those drinks don't count toward the two-drink minimum required in the showroom.

The comedy club two-drink minimum custom is an annoyance, and seems like a rip-off after you've paid good money for your tickets, but the sad truth is that ticket sales do not cover expenses. It's like the airlines with their goddam luggage fees. They could charge you a fair price for the whole service up front, but they are afraid you might not buy the ticket at that price. Same holds true for comedy clubs. It works, too. I remember recently deciding not to go see comic Mike Birbiglia because the theater tickets were like $100 for the two of us. Last night at the comedy club, we spent $50 for the tickets, and another $40 for food, drinks and tips. Comedy club win. Honest theater ticket price fail.

Back to Jimmy Pardo. Luckily for us, food orders count towards that two-thing minimum, so I still remember the evening. If you ever get a chance to see Pardo in person, I highly recommend it. He does very little touring as he serves as Conan O'Brien's warm-up act on the Conan show (as he did for Conan's short run as Tonight Show host), but we were lucky to catch him between gigs, so to speak (after the Tonight Show ended and before Conan began production). Pardo should have his own television talk show. He hosts an excellent one via podcast - one of the few pay-per-view podcasts that is a going concern, and the only podcast I pay to download (see Never Not Funny at Parcast.com).

We saw Greg Proops in September. He made a tactical error by starting off the set by mocking Portland's large bicycle riding community. Especially all those bike riders wearing helmets. Huh? This was met with a few laughs and A LOT of icy stares. After that, he seemed to retreat into tried-and-true material and did better, but never really won back the crowd. Pleasingly multi-syllabic? Certainly. Comfortably left-of-center? Sure, but never hilariously so. In the meantime, all I can think about is how hungry I am. Our waitress forgot to take our food order, and as we were in the front row (which in this room is practically on the stage), there was no way we could have tackled a waitperson without causing a scene. So hungry.

Another digression about comedy clubs: why do they have to deliver the check for your table JUST as the comic is ramping up to his big finish? We're all following the comic, happy to be in his or her head instead of our own, and then, just as it's getting good, we all have to stop and do math! That's bullshit. And it cools down the room for the comic - that rapt attention is lost just when it is needed most. There must be a better way - like a McMenamins movie theater system, where you order and pay for your food up front and then go in and sit down, and the waitress brings it out. Do I have to think of everything?

Back to Proops. So he's working hard, trying to get us to commit, and here comes the waitress with our bill. FOR TWO DRINKS EACH. What? We might have ordered two drinks if we had had the chance! Drew throws his credit card on the bill without putting his glasses on to read it, and I say nope, not paying. This catches Proops' eye, which gives him a focus for all the frustration he has amassed up to this point. He spits something like, "look at these out-of-towners trying to figure out what to tip. They must be from Gresham!" A cheap, old, easy laugh that he paid for with our icy stares for the remainder of the set, which ended with another elderly bit about how when we were growing up, we didn't need any of those dumb seat belts, and we grew up just fine. No, seriously, that's what he closed his set with. Ouch. HIS new podcast is called The Smartest Man in the Room. It has received a lukewarm reception from critics of such things.

Oh, and we convinced the management not to charge us for drinks or food that we weren't able to order.

After the Proops Incident it took some arm twisting to get Drew back to Helium, but when I heard Patton Oswalt was coming, I said "please" and he gave in because he likes to make me happy. This time I didn't pay extra to get reserved seats, which means we would have to line up like cattle to get our seats and share a table with two strangers, but it also meant that we wouldn't be sitting up front in danger of stand-up push-back. Luckily, it's a small enough room that even if we were seated at the back, it wouldn't have lessened the experience.

We got fairly good seats, and our waitress took our order! Yay! The feature act was good for a beginner.  He was 26. My son is 26. If you had lined them up side-by-side, you would have thought that (a) they couldn't possibly be the same age, and (b) they may not even be the same species. But I think that's due to the fact that they were both outliers - in opposite directions. One a full-time athlete and one a full-time gamer.

Patton Oswalt is one of the great stand-ups working today. If you only know him from King of Queens or Big Fan, do yourself a favor and Netflix one of his recent stand-up specials. Or just go see him live. Or watch this You Tube animation. As much as I enjoyed Jimmy Pardo, I laughed more at Oswalt. Just a flawless set - whether from prepared material, or riffs on Portland, or crowd work, or marveling at the (pretty bad, but very colorful) backdrop mural, it was funny.

And therapeutic. Better than a spa day. I think. I've never actually had a spa day. But if you want to get to the bottom of this, you can always arrange one for me.

Last Night in Twisted River: The $3 Book Review

I'm a slow reader. I can speed up for something really exciting, but for the most part, it's a slog. What's worse, I'm fussy about the words that go into my eyes when it comes to books (as opposed to, say, the words I encounter on Facebook). I can't abide preternaturally beautiful heroines, premises that could not survive outside New York City, teenage vampires, or science fiction that takes itself seriously. But one thing I can always count on enjoying is a John Irving novel. Yet this last one was a slow go.

I managed to finish Last Night in Twisted River, even though I didn't feel that it picked up steam until page 371 of its 554 pages.  It was a lot of Irving - so much so that it would have benefited from more rigorous editing.

It is the story of a father and son, beginning when the father is a logging camp cook and following their travels and travails through New Hampshire, Boston, Iowa and Toronto. As I grew up in a logging community, albeit on the other side of the country, the technical aspects of the logging activities rang true. The wacky accidents that propel the story are signature Irving, and elicit an occasional what-the-hell smile.

However, even with all 554 pages of words, I didn't feel like the characters were fleshed out enough to make me feel fond of them. It seemed like I was watching them move about a vast board game - not living their lives alongside of them. Throughout the coincidental mayhem that is a hallmark of Irving fiction, the only time I felt a tug at my heart was at the climax of the story, and even then, the sentiment was quickly diluted by a series of clumsy call-back references (as if he was afraid we hadn't been paying attention and had to be reminded how neatly he is pulling this all together).

By powering through this one, I'm pretty sure I've earned a master class certificate in the John Irving Writing Style.

The John Irving Writing Style requires the following literary features:

• Start with sentence structure: combine every other sentence with a semicolon, then polish the corners until they fit together.
• Add a bear. Even better, two bears. And maybe a case of mistaken identity involving a bear.
• Include references to a lost hand - the grizzlier the hand lopping, the better (grizzly!).
• All protagonists must go through trials, but YOUR protagonist's trials must be by comedically random and fluky accident.
• Somebody has to go to Exeter Academy.
• Now throw in some large women.

I liked Last Night, but I wouldn't reread it. If you haven't read any, here are my top five John Irving books as of today:

1. A Prayer for Owen Meany
2. The World According to Garp
3. Setting Free the Bears
4. Trying to Save Piggy Sneed
5. A Son of the Circus

If you're curious about John Irving, and don't mind a few bears in your fiction, try one of these. You won't be sorry. Irving at his best can be life changing.

Dean's 26th Birthday Dinner.

Squid jerky is surprisingly delicious.

I ask Dean, "how was your servant?"

He looks at me uncomprehendingly.

"Your runner?"

"Oh," he says, realizing he's Talking To Mom. "He was fine. His name was David."

He offers nothing more.

Runners are the riders' drivers, minders, and General Dogsbodies. Think Baldrick. Think Mark Linn-Baker in My Favorite Year. I read this story about a reporter-slash-runner, and it made the job sound much more Upstairs, Downstairs than I had been led to believe by Dean's previous Six-Day appearances. I'll never get to the bottom of this. He's not telling me the whole story. I guess what I really want is my own servant.

We are at Tanuki in Portland. Dean, Jenny and I trade knowing looks about the name of the bar.  Having inhaled every Tom Robbins book in existence, we recognize the Tanuki as a Japanese trickster of legend, looking like a cross between a raccoon and a panda, like the coyote of Native American lore, only with more booze.

Drew agrees to pick up the check for a prix fixe plate evening. The agreeable waitress agrees to keep bringing the goods.

We eat quail eggs. They are small eggs. Adorable, but, you know, eggs. High cuteness factor.

"So did the crowd eventually expect you guys (Dean and Netherlander Yondi Schmidt) to put on a show?" As the video and photo evidence attests, Dean and Yondi often bumped and wrestled, trading helmet paint during the nightly Kierins, usually during the prelude to the sprint while everyone was going a governed speed behind the pace motor.

"The announcer played it up a little bit," he said. "But Yondi played it up more on Twitter, tweeting before the races how he was going to "take it to Dean Tracy tonight."

Dean and Yondi enjoy the old-school contact-sport style of sprinting. Not everyone is into it, or good at it, and the UCI increasingly frowns on it; but it is spectator candy, and at the Six-Days, the refs look the other way. It's mostly for fun and/or show. Note that most of the argy-bargy is done during the slower laps before things turn serious.

Netarts Bay oysters on the half-shell with kim chi shave-ice.  They were gone fast. I think I liked them.

We talk about the multiple-personality music that blasts from the speakers at a Six-Day nonstop for hours-upon-hours each night: oompah music, electronica, disco, hip-hop, more Dutch oompah music, a baffling European hit in which "Barbra Streisand" is the only lyric, and for every win, "Stand UP, Stand UP, for the Champions, for the Champions." It makes for long nights for the riders, as it takes time for the brain to calm itself after hours of pumped-up music and laser lights.  Special after-race riders' bars help to ease the pain.



The whole grilled pike eel is a puzzle to, um, open, but an experienced Dean uses his soup spoon to open the top layer of flesh, so that we can attack it with our chop sticks. Salty and satisfyingly fishy.

We talk about the benefits of having an agent, something that Dean has not had much access to or need of so far, but something, with his slow-building popularity and fast-developing speed, may be the wise next step.

Seaweed wraps with tomatoes and something-or-other (I wasn't paying attention) is delivered. The seaweed is so thin and crispy, and the tomato whatever is good. The sake, sipped from a tiny, adorable cup, is beginning to have an effect.

The bar television is showing Japanese cartoons. A hamster complaining about his owners' (explicitly depicted) sex techniques, and a family of American style mannequins say shockingly explicit things. Now the boy mannequin is on fire. Fascinating. The Japanese will eventually implode in a ball of self indulgence, or they will rule the world.

Kim chi fried rice with shrimp. We dig in. This is good.

"So, when you win, are the people in the winner's photo with the flowers and the Lovely Ladies the people from the company on your jersey?"

"Yes. Companies pay something like $5,000 Euros to have a table in the infield, and like $40,000 Euros to get their name on your jersey. It's usually the president of the company and his wife."

Korean marinated rib-eye with mushrooms. It just keeps getting better, and I keep getting fuller.

"So, do you have to go shmooze with the infield tables?"

"Oh, yeah. That's part of the show. They can pay even more money and have a guided tour of the riders' cabins, then they get to talk with the big stars one on one."

I mentioned that he's probably pretty good at this part with his sales background. He confesses that his sales-smooth schmoozing technique has not gone unnoticed. We dish a little about the very successful love lives of the single sprinters.

A final miso soup with fresh tofu.  A little salty, but we are so full that we don't complain.

Dean gives me one of his sponsor jerseys. It smells like sweat. I love it.

Sim Me

Rain over ice. Add dogs on leashes. It's a recipe for coccyx disaster. Although I'm sure the ERs are full of cracked cocci this morning, my personal coccyx is intact, as is Drew's, but only because he turned back half a block into the walk, after his first foot-flinging flirt with the concrete.

I took both the wet dog leashes and slid along the rest of the way to the park. Drew seems completely out of sync with both gravity and the ground and braced for the pain when ice is introduced, either by nature or by skates. I, with my lower center of gravity, lower emotional age, and innate boogie-woogie muscle memory, find it exhilarating. It made me wish I lived closer to an ice rink. Which made me spend much of the rest of the walk planning my dream neighborhood.

There would be an ice rink within walking distance, but not right across the street or anything. A) they're ugly and b) I would like to walk there with my skates over my shoulder.

There would be a Trader Joe's within walking distance.

There would be a coffee shop on the block. A nice one. Not too snooty and not too mermaid-y.

Powell's Books would be within biking distance.

There must be NO CUPCAKE SHOPS within walking distance. I'm not mature enough to handle that sort of temptation.

There would be a back yard for two dogs and a goat to be named later.

Personal Coccyx would be a good name for an indie band.

What?

No amount of rereading can make this sentence better. Or even make it make sense.

"One day, the writer would recognize the near simultaneity of connected but dissimilar momentous events - these are what move a story forward - but at the moment Danny lost consciousness in Carmella's sweet-smelling arms, the exhausted boy had merely been thinking: How coincidental is this? (He was too young to know that, in any novel with a reasonable amount of forethought, there were no coincidences.)" - from Last Night in Twisted River

John Irving wrote that, a writer who once wrote my favorite book (A Prayer for Owen Meany). A writer who has said something to the effect of, I don't write well, but I rewrite well. Makes me wonder what the first draft looked like.

Other flinch-worthy moments include writing Italian accents like they were written for 60's pizza commercials: "Say-a no more, Dominic - we don't-a need to know why, or who you're running from!"  and awkward race distinctions like this (contrasting an Italian with a Native American): "Her olive-brown skin was not unlike Jane's reddish-brown coloring; her slightly flattened nose and broad cheekbones were the same, as were her dark-brown eyes - like Jane's, Carmella's eyes were almost as black as her hair."  Reddish-brown coloring? Really? 'Cause she's an injun?

Really? Really, John Irving? I'm still going to finish it. It's still John Irving.

Confessions of a Leftist Elitist, Part MCVIII

Next time I get my hair cut, I'm going to ask my stylist, "Do they teach you how to cut hair for developmentally challenged girls who can, at best, comb their hair in various directions after they wash it? Because if they did, give me that."

I have had, like, thirty years to learn how to work a hair dryer and I still cannot seem to wield one in a way that makes my hair look better after I use it than before. Part of the problem is my hair, which is full of cowlicks and half-full of curls. It won't do curly well, and it won't for the life of me do straight. However, most of the problem may be my impatience. Even though my hair is so fine it can dry before I get the hair dryer plugged in, I often lose interest before I get halfway done.

Last week, I scrunched some mousse in my hair, got sidetracked by something shiny, didn't even so much as comb it before I picked out my outfit, slathered on my half-bottle of lotion, got dressed, and picked up my towel and dog-walking clothes before remembering my hair was as I left it, crumpled like a bad essay on the Peloponnesian War. I tried to save it, but it was too late. I went through the rest of the day like that. The sad part was, it was so close to my usual hair disaster that nobody said, "What the hell is that on your head?"

This morning, I was tippy-toeing around in the bathroom, trying not to wake up The Captain, asleep after a long night at the fire station, wondering whether to attempt hair dryer success today after the 10,950th failures that came before. Then I laughed and walked out.

The Best Worst Movie You Missed In 1988

So Jason Schwartzman was on Fresh Air this week and he mentioned sitting at home as a kid watching his cousin, Nicholas Cage, in Vampire's Kiss. He was so blown away that he watched it over and over again until he could do all Cage's scenes.

I was intrigued. Drew and I don't have a "Song" like other couples do, but we have a Movie. Well, a couple of movies. Neither of them are what you would call, you know, good, but they are, for reasons shrouded in history, ours.

One is Valley Girl.  Nick Cage's performance in what could have been a forgettable confection based on an even more confectionary pop song is a tour de force of scenery chewing above and beyond the call of duty or logic. It's thrilling to watch the budding crazy.

Since Valley Girl, he has shown some signs of the old wild-eyed hammery (Moonstruck, Wild at Heart, Con Air), but after that 1983 break-out performance, he seemed to reel in the crazy and just give the audience enough goofiness to remind them how much they enjoyed a glazed ham.

But all this time, there was this...THING that he did after Moonstruck and before Wild at Heart, where he let his freak flag fly at the tippy top of the mast.

If you are at all interested in seeing Nicholas Cage shrieking the entire alphabet at his psychologist, this is the film for you.  If you are at all curious at how Cage could get the most out of the line, "Am I getting THROUGH TO YOU, ALVA?" and if you just want to hear Cage speak in the silliest foppily psuedo-English put-on delivery (except when the character "forgets" to put it on), then Dude. You need to experience Vampire's Kiss. It's all there.

What's it all about? In spite of the title, there are no real vampires in the movie.  Cage's character, with the help of a few coincidences and a lot of crazy, convinces himself he's a vampire and the illest of illnesses ensues.

It's on Netflix instant view. I highly recommend it if you have a couple of hours and maybe a bottle of wine to kill.  If not, try the ten-minute YouTube greatest hits version.

You're welcome and I'm sorry.

Backsliding

I was doing great on my secret diet. Hunger didn't bother me. Salads were my friend. I was losing two pounds a week for three weeks straight.

Then hormones struck and I gained three pounds overnight.

My diet mojo was lost.

That was a week ago.

All I have to say is that Monday better watch its back. Because Monday, the Double Secret Fat Killer Diet is back on.

You might remark that it is Friday, and I could get quite a leg up on Monday if I just started back on the DSFKD right now.

You might want to shut the fuck up.

In Which I Wish I Were There

Dean is in LA, competing at the USA Cycling Elite Track National Championships.

Every year, Dean goes down, freaks mostly out, pulls out a win in the team sprint on the last day, and everyone moves on to training for next year.

Every year that I travel down to watch, I freak totally out, try to tamp down my Gordian-knotted stomach with whatever Valium or Xanax I can scrounge, feel worse for it, and vow to stay home next year for the sake of us all.

The last two years, I have taken my own advice and have stayed away. It helps me cope and it allows Dean to relax and concentrate on his job.

Somehow, my stomach did not get the memo and is acting up regardless of the 962 miles between it and LA.

Despite my stomach's whining, I am still missing seeing Dean with his inscrutable game face wheel his bike onto the track, get in position, give a last minute tug to his toe clips, and then play some genetically modified hybrid of pro wrestling and drag racing.

Tonight, he has escaped disaster again by making it into the match sprint finals, but he was matched with one of the fastest in the business for the next round.

Damn. Wish I were there. I'm sure my stomach wouldn't sustain permanent damage.

Next year for sure. Maybe.

You Need Cute Pet Pictures

And I need a new, easy blog post. Everybody wins.

This is Scotty in drag. His first groomer put a bow in his hair. I didn't go back. Not because of the bow, but because the bow seemed to be the only clean thing in the place.

This is Scotty after a walk in the rain. He doesn't care about the rain. Annie cares A LOT.

This is what Scotty looks like at his most relaxed.

This is how Annie makes sure she has control over the ball during rest periods.

This is Coco wishing this stupid roasted chicken carrier was more like a box.

This is Coco watching Jaws with me.  She likes fish.

Check back later for more lazy blogging.

Batten Down the Hatches

You've heard the joke that getting old is not for wimps. If you're in your twenties, that might sound like an excuse for saggy arms and spare tires. But believe me, with age comes not just wisdom, but some surprising rounds of pain and mind games you never see coming. 

Unless you listen to me.

You know about wrinkles. You know about gray hair. You may even know that women around menopause age need two hundred to three hundred calories less per day, which means eating the same way you have all your life will now make you fat. But do you know that menopause can make you crazy?

Most of the literature written by doctors lists "mood swings" along with hot flashes and increased abdominal fat (I know!) as symptom of menopause, but later in their narrative dismiss the same mood swings as those darn ladies worrying about their fat gut, thinning hair and wrinkles. 

Being a woman and all, I have come to recognize a monthly hormone storm and distinguish it from emotions that have an origin outside my own neurotransmitters. However, recognizing a hormone storm does not give me much power over the emotional havoc it wreaks. Now with the added bonus of the Creeping Menopause, the storms are getting stronger.

Yesterday morning, I had a category 5 hurricane in my head, and nothing I tried could calm the storm.  This one came in the form of a black-hole size depression, and made me (as usual) feel empathetic towards those of us with more chronic forms. 

As I walked the dogs, my own evil black cloud hovering over my head and a lump in my throat, I tried to force myself to be happy by reminding myself that I have a nice house, funny dogs, a wonderful husband and family. The painful sadness remained unfazed. I tried to shake myself out of it by telling myself that I should just be damn thankful that I am not one of the 1.2 billion humans on the planet without access to a flush toilet. The throat lump was only getting bigger. I tried to run it out, but I stepped off the treadmill feeling worse than before. It all ended soggily in a crying jag in the tub that continued unabated through drying and dressing and finally in a puddle on The Captain's shoulder.

Within a half-hour of the shoulder-puddle, it was over (luckily, since my next task was balancing the checking account, nothing you want to attempt while in a vulnerable state).

Why am I oversharing? Because somebody needs to. I would like to know that somebody else is crying while shaving their armpits because there's nothing to do but get on with the day, even if it requires duct taping a box of Kleenex to their face. So if you get any comfort in knowing this, then you're welcome.

And if you don't, start running before I have one of those anger hormone storms.

AGITATED OTTERS

Nixonland, Page 341 and Counting

I'm a slow reader, which is embarrassing for a member of the Leftist Elite, but I do great on reading comprehension tests.

After a summer of struggle (and a few sidetracks, such as reading Little Women and Werewolves, listening to several Audible books and a half of a Kindle-for-iPhone book - hey, it's a weighty subject) I am up to page 341 in the 748-page (not counting footnotes) opus Nixonland by Rick Perlstein. I probably would have not made it to the cash register with it, but once Patton Oswalt quoted from it on a podcast, I was determined to not let a very busy comedian trump me in the Leftist Elite department.

The reason I bring it up now and not 406 pages from now is that every page seems to resonate with the current political climate - you know, the crazy Vietnam war, the dumbass Iraq war, the massaging of the media, the left against the right, etc.

The page in question recounts how the public's reaction to the severe beating meted out by cops and National Guardsmen on teenagers and journalists alike at the 1968 Chicago Convention was not anger at the cops, but overwhelming anger at the hippies and blacks in general (by then, there had been a rash of inner-city riots with a myriad of causes, lack of fair housing opportunities being only one). The Average American saw cops pummeling kids, and assumed, no, imagined scenarios in which, the kids had driven them to it, and got what they deserved.

Perlstein points out that at that time, there had been more damage done by terrorism (in the form of bombing and arson) on the right, by groups such as the Cuban right and conservative militia groups, then by the hippy-dippy left. However, the images of the leaders of the Black Panthers making threats against the police were so powerful that the majority of the country were convinced that the hippies and the blacks were the sole architects of the lawless state of the cities. And they certainly did their part. Both sides resorted to random acts of violence (i.e. terrorism) to promote their cause.

I saw a tweet today with a quote from a right-wing wingnut conflating some of the more fear-mongering names from the sixties with the mosque contemplated to be completed some two large blocks from the north side of the gaping hole that is still ground zero.

First, if I had not been in the middle of reading this book, I, a forty-eight-year-old, would not have recognized any of those names, as I was six in 1968, so who is the audience for this sort of scare? (Answer: your grandma and grandpa. They still vote.)

Second, who were the terrorists in the 60s? That's right. Us. Us meaning We Christians and We Hippy Hindus. Islamic terrorism was not a thing. Yet, we were just as scared. More, if you realize that our fear elected Nixon.

It doesn't matter what you're scared of. Somebody is going to find a way to push your buttons with your own fear. Don't let them. The founding fathers didn't.

Please Don't Tap On The Glass

Joking while texting is very unsatisfying - especially now, in the post-LOL days (and the pre-HHHH days*).

A text message conversation I had with Dean while he and Jenny were touring the Newport Aquarium last Wednesday. I'll be here all week. Enjoy the veal.

Dean sent me a text message consisting of this photo.

Me:  The 2nd part of the sentence doesn't make me not want to do the 1st part.

Dean:  Turns out it's somewhat difficult to agitate an otter.

Me:  Try calling them weasels.

*I'm starting a new LOL. It stands for ha-ha-ha-ha!

Rest In Peace (Eventually), Charles Lee Tracy

The Captain's dad died. He was a Good Man: honorable, loyal, slow to anger, and quick to laugh. It was pretty sudden - after fighting cancer for something like six months and surviving in remission for six years, the damn cancer swooped back, and within a week of feeling poorly, he was gone. It was a hard blow for The Captain and his family.

The Captain's mom and dad, Marlene and Chuck, in 2007 at Dean and Jenny's wedding

But there is no better cure for grief than a big family funeral. And no, not because it's cleansing and closuring, but because there is no time to think about the sad passing of a beloved when you are negotiating your way around twenty of your closest and craziest relatives.

Oh, come on. I can talk about The Captain's relatives, because they are no crazier than mine or yours. Every family just has a slightly different brand of crazy.

Chuck and Marlene, putting up with some of Dean and Jenny's crazy.

The craziest thing about The Captain's family is that they live in Ridgecrest, California. Ridgecrest is in the uninhabitable expanse of the Mojave desert, within spitting distance of Death Valley (unfortunately, after twenty minutes exposed to the super-heated air, it is impossible to produce spit, so this cliche is unhelpful).

They live there, and the town exists, not on some dare gone horribly wrong, but because it is the home of the China Lake Naval Weapons Center. The China Lake Naval Weapons Center is in Ridgecrest because China Lake is actually a large dry lake bed, so far from anything important that the Navy can practice blowing things up there and no one will be inconvenienced. You know, because of the uninhabitable desert thing.

Chuck Tracy worked at the China Lake Naval Weapons Center for twenty years, so it makes sense that they lived there. However, it must be noted that they did not move away after Chuck's retirement, so it has to be deduced that they enjoy living there. Indeed, The Captain's sisters choose to live there, as do other family members, even though they have experienced life elsewhere. There's something powerful about familiarity. That's all I can figure. Well, that, and steady employment.

We drove down, because in addition to baggage fees, legroom fees, blanket rentals, and food fees, the airlines have quietly done away with the emergency bereavement fare that once reduced the price of a last-minute ticket by up to fifty percent. Now, if it exists, it's a wopping five percent discount. So we made arrangements for the dogs and hopped into the Prius for the two-day trip down.

Travel tip #1: do not stay at the Motel 6 in Carson City. Just trust me on this.

Something about driving into Ridgecrest, which we have done many times over the past twenty-eight years, always makes me want to eat York Peppermint Patties.

After some (understandably) distressingly tense voices on the phone over the last week, we didn't know what to expect at The Captain's mom's house, but everyone was on their best behavior. Plans were made for the funeral the next day. The pallbearers, in honor of Chuck's favorite piece of haberdashery, were to all wear Hawaiian shirts. Flowery shirts were distributed to those who were undershirted, and The Captain's mom warned those known to be promptness-challenged to be there on time.

Travel tip #2: No matter what Motel you stay in, get yourself a white noise machine. I don't know if they work, but they couldn't hurt. Air conditioners cycle on and off. Dumbasses talk outside your room. Cars gun their engines and honk their horns. Neighbors play their TVs too loud. Motels are just not designed for sleep.

The funeral was lovely, although I couldn't help but notice that the front wall of the church held a strong resemblance to the Laugh In set, if it were decorated by a 70-year-old Victorian Bed and Breakfast proprietor.

The next stop was Bakersfield National Cemetery, an hour's drive away. If you've never seen a hearse lead a funeral procession at somewhere over 80 miles an hour, then I win, because I have.

Bakersfield National Cemetery is brand spanking new, with a temporary headquarters in a mobile unit, and bulldozers going nonstop. It makes for less than a restful place of rest, but I'm confident that eventually, it will be nice. Right now, it's a dusty, loud construction site.

The highlight of the interment ceremony (if there can be a highlight) was the military rites performed by the Blue Eagles Honor Guard from Edwards Air Force Base (Chuck retired from the Air Force before he moved his family to Vernonia, allowed his son, Captain America, to get involved with a local hussy, then hightailed it out of there to save the rest of his family and take a job at China Lake.) They were beyond sharp, in ninety-plus-degree heat, in dark blue dress uniforms. I've never seen a flag folded with that kind of aggressive perfection. It was beauty in blue.

Stock photo of the Air Force Honor Guard. You get the idea.

We ate at Del Taco on the way home from the funeral. I don't know. It just seemed right.

We stayed a couple of days after the funeral to visit with The Captain's mom. The temperature topped out at around 105 most days, so there were no pickup games of touch football on the lawn. We mostly stayed inside and watched the kids take short forays into the back yard and back in for needed rehydration. Luckily, Mom will continue to have plenty of kids and grandkids around to keep her busy.

Travel tip #3: Do NOT stay at the Mt. Shasta City Inn & Suites. Beds past their dump date. Bathrooms that smell like an old mop. "Continental breakfast" that consists of Cheerios and an empty coffee pot. Broken air conditioner. All for twice the price of the awful Carson City Motel 6.

Now we are glad to be home but still sad about losing Chuck. Chuck was a wonderful man who touched a lot of lives in nothing but a positive way. But maybe, with the help of crazy relatives in a crazy place, we're a little less sad than before.

Born To Run For A Little While Then Stop

So I read Born to Run. Well, I put it into my brain through my ears via audiobook.

If you aren't hip to the trend, in Born to Run, Christopher MacDougall advocates for barefoot and minimally-shod running while telling the story of the sandal-wearing Tarahumara Indians and their running exploits, both in the U.S. and in their own Copper Canyon.  It's a hell of a tale, ending in a corker of a foot race through the hot, treacherous canyon with a Seven Samurai-worthy cast of characters.

MacDougall has a persuasive argument for (a) the anthropological evidence that our bodies were molded into running machines by a high-mileage lifestyle in the hundred thousand years we spent growing big, meat-eating brains and yet were not quite smart enough to make spears, and (b) the fact that our intricately arched feet are more damaged by the heel-strike running style that the modern running shoe enforces than by running in nothing at all.

MacDougall and several other like-minded barefoot-running or minimal-running enthusiasts and advocates urge that to go barefoot means to relearn to run, focusing on landing on either the lateral side of the midfoot or the ball of the foot, shortening your stride, and straightening your posture. He believes with these changes, runners (like himself) will be able to run longer with fewer injuries.

I bought it. It's worth a try. I've never been able to run longer distances over a long term without injury, pain or whining, and running shoe stores always outfit me with the "beast" style shoes for the problem pronators, something that MacDougall says only makes you more prone to injuries. What the hell? I have nothing to lose, since I wore out my last pair of running shoes by doing nothing but walking. I will give barefoot running a try, but with a skeptical eye, and a slow-and-steady approach.

I started, as many suggest, by slipping my shoes off once I got to the park, and running around the perimeter of the grass soccer fields for a mile or so.  It felt SPECTACULAR. And Scotty liked it too. I kinda felt like a kid, and not a little silly, but I kept it up for a week, and at the end of the week, I was ready to take the next step.

Although Nike has a bad rep in the barefoot running community by singlehandedly inventing the running shoe industry, I know a nice person who works at Nike, and I was able to get a screaming deal on a pair of Nike Frees, their entry into the barefoot running trend - a light slipper with a flexy sole - just enough to protect the foot, seemingly without messing with one's natural barefoot stylings.

I have worn them twice since I bought them, and I have to say, I am cautiously optimistic. My runs felt, if a little self-conscious about my new mid-foot strike style, quite easy and less tiring than usual, and my feet and legs feel no scary consequences other than a little (expected) tightness in the Achilles area (minimal shoes have minimal heels, unlike my usual stability runners).

I will report back if this fad sticks to me. I do tend to go whole hog on things. For a little while. Then I stop.

However, whether you buy the barefoot running thing or no, I do recommend the book. The story woven throughout is a page turner, and there is a lot of knowledge worth knowing in there.

Annie Keeps Staring At Me

Annie is having one of her Alzheimer moments. If you know Annie, you would expect her to have the quiet kind of Alzheimer's, where she just lies around and thinks she's on a cruise ship. But no, she is developing a more combative strain, where the last scene will be Annie in her housecoat in a standoff with the cops, getting gunned down on the front porch for threatening them with a blunderbuss.

This evening, she ran out the door in a panic when I opened it for some political door-to-doorers.  I had to catch her by the butt and pull her back in.  She continued to try to get out the door even when I was shutting it on her face. She wouldn't come when I called. She ran away when I told her to sit down for a moment and chill so she could eat dinner without hurling.

So I put her outside to "reset." Sometimes her brain gets fried on overdoses of sleep and she gets paranoid. Now she is outside, alternately pacing and trying to lie quietly on the grass. She keeps looking over at me, either hoping that I will decide she has calmed down enough for dinner, or possibly because she is wondering whether her stay of execution has arrived from the governor.

Oops, now she's barking at the kids next door.  (Annie doesn't bark.)

It's going to be a long, crazy night.

Update:  Annie seems back to "normal" this morning. She was able to eat and hobble around the block on her wrecked shoulders. (What are "shoulders" in dog anatomy? Withers? Dubloons? Loonies? Wait, that's Canadian money. "Shoulders" will do.) I swear, she will outlive us all.