Garter Skirts and Legos

Shoe Series: Brown T-Straps

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Fri, 25 May 2012 17:27:00 +0000

They were one of my last pair of brown dress shoes. I’d just been having such a hard time finding new brown dress shoes that I stopped trying and figured I’d make do. The few other pairs I had before were gone and I was down to these brown t-straps I think I’ve had since undergrad and a pair of pumps I always forget about.

They’re cute and sort of retro in a late ‘30s, early 40’s kind of way. Rounded toes with leaf cutouts on top and around the heel. A medium brown with some color texture blending a little darker and little lighter in spots, making them ideal for matching with a variety of brown shades.

I last wore them with my fabulous stretch knit dress with the brown and tan cane pattern over a white background and some olive knit tights from Munchkinhead. During the work day, the right shoe started squeaking when I walked, the kind of broken metal rubbing on broken metal squeaking that is too familiar to someone who’s broken a few shoe supports in her lifetime. I could feel the top piece pushing up into the shoe, rubbing against the sole of my foot. I figured the shoes wouldn’t last long, but I wasn’t expecting what happened next.

While walking from my office to the train station, I felt like I stepped in a hole. This isn’t unusual as the sidewalks have very large gaps between them. But then there was another hole, and another. I looked down and the left heel on my shoe was bent in half! Severed from the back mostly through, it was fixable in the sense that I could bend it back into place. So I did, and I kept walking. Then, the hole feeling again. I lifted my foot to fix the shoe again and discovered the heel was gone. Completely gone. So much for these shoes. Good thing I know how to walk on the balls of my feet.

Too Many Choices!

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Wed, 23 May 2012 17:34:00 +0000

We talk about how much stress there is in our lives. One of the main contributors to this large amount of stress is all the choices we encounter everyday. Choices require making a decision, weighing factors, gathering information.

I loved shopping in Zambia. Need toothpaste? Get the only one available. Milk? Choose between Cowbell or Nido. Want cheese? Too bad; it’s too expensive. The small corner stores were easy to get to and easy to navigate. They may have only had a little of anything, but they had some of anything. In a building the size of a hotel suite, I could purchase food, fabric, candles and even farm implements if I wanted. In and out and no hassle. It’s quite the opposite of our US stores filled with 100 different kinds of laundry detergent and half an aisle of toothpaste, not to mention the two aisles of soft drinks.

My adventures booking my flights for Angie’s funeral perfectly exemplify how much stress choices can induce. On each side of the journey, I had three airports to choose from. Oakland, San Francisco San Jose and Regan, Baltimore and Dulles. For each set, there was a preferred airport but there was more to consider.

For each airport, I had to gather information about ease and cost of transit to and from the airport. This also differed based on what time a flight would depart or land. For example, I would normally take BART to OAK or SFO, but if the flight leaves before 7am, that’s not an option. San Jose (SJC) had cheaper flights, but driving there from my house can take between an hour and 3.5 hours depending on traffic. There’s Amtrak, but then that’s another schedule, etc. You get the idea.

Aside from weighing airports, I had to look at departure and arrival schedules for each flight. And, as mentioned above, this could impact whether or not an airport made sense in terms of being able to get to it or from it. That’s not even considering lack of sleep.

Then there’s the flight schedules themselves. How many layovers? How long are the layovers? In which airports are the layovers? This means also needing information about the airports, how far apart gates are, their reputations for flight delays, wi-fi and food options and such.

And of course, there’s also the factors by which airlines differentiate themselves. What’s the airline’s reputation for service and being on time? How much seat room do you get? Where are the nickel and dime points? Etc.

Oh yeah, and cost. That one’s so big it does the first narrowing of choices and then goes off the table.

Amenity considerations like airport wi-fi and airline reputations went out the window first. There were just too many more important things to consider. The cheapest flight was out of San Jose and into Baltimore. Two inconvenient airports. After some research and math, I found that once transit costs to and from the airports where added in, the cost savings was marginal. So I was at least able to narrow the list of choices down to my preferred airport on each side.

But, there was still all this schedule stuff. One flight had good departure and arrival times but had 2 layovers that were both only 48 minutes. That means leaving one flight when the other is boarding, running through airports; if the first flight is delayed at all, possibly missing the second. Another had better layovers but went through ATL. That airport is a nightmare. Gates are far apart, flights are often delayed.

Trying to minimize the stress associated with the flight itself, I was getting stressed with the options to the point of almost just giving up. I called a friend who I knew would understand both the frustration of trying to find the best flight option and the need to go. She was super helpful. By helping me prioritize the factors that had overwhelmed me, we narrowed the list to just two or three flights where schedule was the only meaningful difference. Now I could easily decide which non-ideal was the least worst and pick a flight. I decided that having to get up at 3:30am was a lesser evil than having short connections, and I was set.

Then the airline nickel and dimed me – all “free” seats were gone and I had to purchase special seats on 3 of my 4 flights – so I almost had to start over, re-comparing costs. Luckily (I guess), the extra $100 in seat fees didn’t bring any other flights into the equation.

Had any one of the flight options been the only option, I would have taken it. But having so many different choices required a whole lot of thinking. It’s nice to have a few choices, but when I’m faced with a whole boat load of them, I really miss Zambia.

A Meat and Potatoes Kind of Vegetarian

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Mon, 21 May 2012 17:18:00 +0000

I’m getting completely spoiled by the Bay Area, all this delicious vegetarian food at practically any restaurant. I’m starting to expect choices on every menu, entrée selections in addition to appetizers and side dishes. Spoiled and snooty. But I wasn’t always this way.

You see, I grew up in Wisconsin, in the Midwest, in the land of beef and beef and more beef – and chees and milk, of course. Us Midwesterners we’re a meat and potatoes kind of people. I’m a meat and potatoes kind of vegetarian.

Dinner at my family’s house was always fun and the meals were your standard, balanced meals: meat, a starch and a vegetable. Daddy’s not much of a pasta or rice fan, so we usually had potatoes and some sort of vegetable. And that’s what I ate, potatoes and a vegetable, with lots and lots of milk. And it was fine.

As I got older and Mommy and Daddy started to decide maybe this wasn’t a fad, they began to accommodate my diet. Mommy got some fake meat once back when fake meat was still an experiment. - It was years before we tried that again. – She would separate out some Hamburger Helper to make for me without meat or leave the bacon sprinkles out of the Suddenly Salad. Later, when Daddy started worrying about his health, he’d buy veggie burgers for both of us and even started making some of his signature casseroles separate for me, without meat.

Out in Cali, when people invite me to dinner or we’re going out to eat in a group, if they know I don’t eat meat, they ask a whole bunch of questions about what I’ll eat, what can they make, where can we go. I tell them not to worry about it, as long as there’s something without meat, I’ll be fine. “I’m not picky; I just don’t eat meat.” I grew up making do, and even if I’m getting pickier in my spoiled veggie-controlled community, I can still make do. After all, I’m a meat and potatoes kind of vegetarian.

A Quilt of Many Color(ful T-Shirt)s

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Sat, 19 May 2012 13:51:00 +0000

Two years ago, Mommy was working on a Alfred and Nathy-Boo’s wedding [link] present, a t-shirt quilt made out of t-shirts they’d acquired growing up. Not any old t-shirt, the ones from things like band, twirling, sports, 4H, etc.

Mommy’d been wanting to teach me - or I’d been wanting to learn, something like that – how to quilt, and a t-shirt quilt seemed like a great simple way to start. Then the office manager at work started to clean out the old supply shelves. All sorts of old items for which the organization no longer had use. Amongst the piles, some old t-shirts from the early days and past events. I looked at those t-shirts, and I looked at the giant set of shelves filled with the current t-shirts, and I knew exactly what to quilt:

the history of Creative Commons in t-shirts.

We had a lot of fun making the quilt: cutting pieces, laying out patterns, sewing squares, finding a backing, tying it down and being silly.

Mommy graciously offered for the backing one of the fun fabrics I’d brought her from Nigeria. That seemed perfectly appropriate as I had applied to CC while living in Nigeria and worked closely with the CC Africa teams. Plus, the fabric’s bright colors went well with the t-shirt colors and the pattern incorporated a close approximation of CC’s signature green.

Now, the quilt lives in the couch room at the CC office. Often, when the office is too cold, I find the quilt and wrap myself up in the coziness.

And it all started from this:

A pile of t-shirts.

Wedding Rules

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:23:00 +0000

People say there’s a certain age that’s the “wedding period” of your life. The time where you are invited to a wedding every couple of months. I’ve been stuck in the “wedding period” so long it’s the same people getting married again. So I’ve had to make a rule:

If I came to your first wedding, I’m not coming to your second.

Now, if I missed your first wedding, say because you eloped or I was living on a different continent, then I’ll come to your second. I think there’s only one close friend who still falls into that category, and I highly doubt he’ll ever have a second wedding.

Luckily, none of my friends are giving Scarlett a run for her money, so I haven’t had to contemplate any weddings beyond the second.

My friend, Caitlin at her second wedding. I missed her first.

I wonder if I’d have this rule if I still lived in Wisconsin, i.e. closer to the people getting remarried. If it didn’t take all day to get somewhere (or two days for these Iowa weddings) and didn’t cost more than the set of bridal party dresses to go, would I double-up? Probably. One of my recently divorced friends is thinking about moving out to the Bay. If she should happen to find a new husband and get married out here, I think I’d go, even though I went to the first one.

Maybe someday when my school loans are paid off and my income’s a little higher, I’ll come to extra weddings. But for now, if I’d rather take that day and that small fortune and actually visit my friends when I can talk to them and hang out and spend time with them. For the second wedding, I’ll send a card.

Coming of Age in a Bubble

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:21:00 +0000

A few weeks ago, I caught an episode of Frontline about the housing crisis and accompanying recession. It answered so many questions that I had asked back when I was in college.

How it’s Supposed to Work

My parents raised us in a frugal environment focused on needs, balance and temperance rather than wants and extravagances. We didn’t resent our classmates’ name brand clothing; we thought they were stupid for spending so much extra money for a logo. We loved our quirky hand-me downs and our “Made with Love by Mother” labeled clothes. Mommy and Daddy taught us to keep debt to a minimum, that there were trade-offs and wanting two things meant needing to make a choice and that sometimes you just have to wait. They taught us the basic rules of living within your means and led by example.

And the Credit Flowed

By the time I was in college, I was questioning everything they’d taught me. It was the turn of the century and the credit bubble was inflating. The method of using business loan risk as its own investment product invented by young bankers at Chase had started spreading to other banks and other types of risk. Credit was as free-flowing as water.

Mommy and Daddy had taught me that you needed to pay off the credit card balance each month or you would lose a lot of money to interest, eventually have a maxed out card and be unable to get more credit. But life was telling me a different story.

I was 20, a college student with a part-time job that paid barely above minimum wage and I had close to a dozen credit cards all with ridiculous limits. My Victoria Secret’s store card alone had a several thousand dollar limit. (Who needs several thousand dollars worth of lingerie?) Nobody turned me down. Nobody I knew was ever turned down. Somewhere along the line, I stopped paying the full balance. Further along, I was only making minimum payments. Whenever a balance approached my credit limit, I’d receive a letter in the mail telling me my credit limit had been increased.

I didn’t understand the logic of what Mommy and Daddy had taught me. Why would anyone ever pay the whole balance each month? It didn’t make sense when you could pay $30 – $100 each month and go out and buy as much as you wanted and basically never pay for it. There was always another credit card to get, another limit to increase. And there were no repercussions. There was always more credit.

Luckily for me, the teachings of childhood were resilient. Even though I couldn’t make sense of things, I believed what I was taught, figuring my parents must understand something I wasn’t getting. So I started to work on getting rid of that debt while the bubble was still inflating. During the summers, I worked two jobs, nearly 60 hours a week. I took a less-than-ideal job because it paid higher wages and I attempted to go bare bones on further spending.*

Banking in the Bubble

That less-that-ideal job was as a loan collector for an American bank. A bank that, while I was there, purchased a whole bunch of defaulted mortgages. Again, life in front of me was going against my upbringing. I phoned customers who were behind on their house and car payments. I listened to their stories, and I couldn’t understand why the bank had made the loans in the first place. People’s jobs had not changed; they just spent too much.

They wanted to put their mortgage payment on a credit card. Interest on top of interest. But who cared when those cards came with unlimited credit? A doctor whose mortgage was in default yelled at me that I didn’t know what I was talking about when I told him he could lose his house if he didn’t catch up on the mortgage. “I filed bankruptcy before and I’ll just do it again before they take the house.” Even a bankruptcy history didn’t stop the credit from flowing.

POP!

When the bubble burst, I blamed the spenders. The people who didn’t follow Mommy and Daddy’s rules, the rules of the depression and previous recessions. The people who did exactly what seemed to make the most sense. The people who relied on the banks and credit lenders to make responsible business decisions.

I didn’t understand why the banks would make so many bad loans. It was downright stupid lending to people who couldn’t pay, people who already had mountains of debt. I thought banks couldn’t survive if they made bad loans. But I didn’t realize, the banks weren’t considering the risk of each loan because the banks had no plans to keep the risk.

By the end of the Frontline program, I still scorned the spenders for attempting to live beyond their means, but I also pitied them some and I was mad at the banks. I was mad at the banks not for taking advantage of people, not for encouraging the lavish excessive of the ‘90s, not even for being lavish themselves. No, I was mad at the banks for being so incredibly reckless that they weren’t even paying attention to their own best interests. They broke the market.

*Honesty disclaimer: it took my college fund helping before I was fully bailed out. On my income, I wouldn’t have been out before the bubble burst. And note, that said “attempted;” I have this thing for shoes.

Got a Hat, Hat… Or a Coaster

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Sun, 13 May 2012 13:49:00 +0000

There’s this adorable holiday tune by Bob and Doug McKenzie, truly Canadian rendition of The Twelve Days of Christmas that includes many items as baffling as the original song’s activities. (Why are those lords leaping? What on earth is 2-4?)

Recently, thanks to a lovely Canadian, I finally learned what those “fi-ive go-lden toques!” are. And once, I knew they were just those adorable hats with the pom-pons on top, I had to make my own. So, I set out with a set of size 5 knitting needles and the most golden yarn I could find.

And I wound up with a coaster.

Oops. It’s a very lovely coaster. In fact, it’s now my favorite coaster. I’m debating about making more so I have a set, but I’ve other knitting projects to finish first.

I used a hat loom to make the golden toques.

The Lord’s Newest Super Angel–Part II

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:16:00 +0000

The sweet notes drifted through the sanctuary as the saxophonist began to play. God joined in on the thunder, perfectly befitting the somber, yet joyous people gathered below Him.

It sounds odd to describe people at a funeral as joyous, but there was joy. There were tears; there was laughter and stories and sadness and celebration, but most of all, there was peace. One look at her mom standing proud in the front row and you immediately saw where Angie got her strength. Her father, brother and fiancé were holding up well, too. But her mom, her mom was solid; grieving, but not despairing.

Many services for the departed claim to be Celebrations of Life, but this was the first one I attended that truly lived up to the designation. It was also the first time I’ve heard people pay their respects without any exaggerations. Angie was so incredible, it would have been impossible to exaggerate and be even remotely believable.

The celebration was beautiful. People from throughout her life’s journey shared their remembrances. Everyone who spoke praised God for the gift she had been to their lives. There was no anger, at least not here. No demands, no “why, oh why” pleas. Just peace, and love and celebration.

Our tears flowed. Even the friend sitting next to me who promised herself she wouldn’t cry had to dab at her eyes with her tissue from time to time. We mourned. But we also celebrated. And I think that’s exactly what Angie would have wanted.

Congratulations Roger and Katie!

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:32:00 +0000

Katie and I met when we were ten years old. As she tells it, we met at the park where I was jumping off the swings and landing on my head. She thought I was so crazy, she just had to meet me. I don’t have any recollection of this, but I disagree. I was very good at swing-jumping and there’s no way I would have been landing on my head!

Either way, Katie and I met that summer before 5th grade and became fast friends. She’s been one of my best friends ever since. And while we’ve both had other best friends that have come and gone, Katie now has a new permanent best friend, her husband Roger.

Of course, everything about the wedding was beautiful. Though I have to admit, this trend of going to Iowa in April for weddings is getting a little old. It’s cold there folks!

I loved the men’s colors, orange vests and yellow ties with their black tuxes. They matched my shoes! And Munchkinhead’s tequila sunrise.

Katie and Roger are both engineers, so there was lots of fun, hands-on stuff around at the reception. Plastic wind-up robots that went gshzzz-gshzzz-gshzzz as they wobbled across the white tablecloth linens, cardboard robot kits, even crayons and a coloring book. The coloring book had two robots on the front and then a whole bunch of blank pages. Munchkinhead and I had a great time filling the book with images of Katie and Roger as all sorts of things: fish, astronauts, beers, old people.

And of course, there was plenty of dancing. Mommy and Daddy danced to their song. Munchkinhead and I rocked out to Don’t Stop Believing, which is pretty much Munchkinhead and whoever’s around’s song. We polka-ed, we funky chicken-ed, we YMCA’d. The DJ even played the song Mommy and I dance to at every wedding.

My second-favorite part was when the lady sitting next to me turned to the bride’s mom and started talking about these shoes she saw at the ceremony that she really liked, “yellow with black polka-dots.” “Hey, those are Munchkinhead’s!”

I also really liked seeing Katie and her family again; it’s been a few years. But my favorite, absolute favorite part was seeing how happy Katie is and how much Roger adores her.

Here’s to a long and happy life together for both of them!

My Neighborhood Trademark Infringement

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Mon, 07 May 2012 13:47:00 +0000

Just in time for INTA…

Walking down the street to get some quarters from the bowling alley, I passed a sign taped to a lamp post. It caught my eye, and I had wait for the light to change before I could cross the street, so I took a closer look.

“A new gym in the neighborhood. Awesome! Maybe I’ll check it out; it would be nice to walk instead of BARTing or driving to the gym.” Then I saw the logo and became slightly puzzled. “Is this a subsidiary of 24 Hour Fitness, or related in some other way? If it is, maybe my 24 Hour membership will work there and I could start using it now without any extra fees.”

The fact that this question even came up in my mind – is this gym related to another gym I know – raises trademark concerns. Here is a closer view of the logo on the flyer:

And here is one of the 24 Hour Fitness logo:

Same colors, same use of a red circular shape, outlined in blue with white text in the middle. The fonts are different, the names are different and the word “fitness” is in a different color, but there’s still a lot of visual similarity between the two.

The standard for trademark infringement is whether a mark is confusingly similar to another mark. I was confused. Mr. Trizzle wasn’t. “They have different names.” What do you think? Would you wonder if the two were part of the same company?

After looking at the poster in more detail, I decided the gym is likely not related to 24 Hour Fitness, but I’m still not sure. In either case, I think the new gym is trying to use 24 Hour’s reputation and strong presence in the area to its advantage, which is still a problem.

It’s a Bird; It’s a Plane; It’s a Tuning Slide!

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Sat, 05 May 2012 21:50:00 +0000

High school marching band is the source of many wonderful memories for me. Some of the best parts of my four years of high school come from band rehearsals, competitions and camps. I loved marching band, but then, it’s hard not to love something when you’re the best at it. Of all our competitions during those four years, there was one in which we did not take 1st place, State my freshman year, when we took 2nd place by .03 of a point.

From all those great memories, one that remains an easy favorite is from the Burlington High Chocolate Festival my junior year. It was our first year at this particular competition. Our old assistant band director, Mr. Mannisto, had left Cudahy High School to become the main band director at Burlington High. He invited our band to compete at his new school’s invitational.

The first piece ended with a nice double forte. We held our instruments high, blasting out our last note. In unison with the drum major’s arms, we snapped our instruments down to attention, holding perfectly rigid, heads held high, in perfect formation on the field. One of my section mates, Will, snapped his horn down a little too hard. Something flew over my head, the glint of light reflecting off the shiny brass catching my eye. It was his tuning slide! Plop, it landed in the grass some feet in front of me, just behind another of our section members.

“Don’t move,” I could hear one of the first trombone’s mutter through gritted teeth from behind me. But the guy in front of me either didn’t hear or didn’t listen. While we were all standing straight at attention, waiting for the drum major to start our next song, the guy in front of me bent down and picked up the tuning slide. He stood up, staying nearly at attention, holding the tuning slide over his shoulder as if expecting someone to take it from him.

When the drum major called, “Band! Horns up!” to begin the next number and no one had relieved the poor guy of the tuning slide he never should have picked up, he dropped it and brought his horn up to play. His first move was diagonally backwards, exactly in the direction of the discarded tuning slide. With the precise movement of a skilled marcher, he took a firm step backwards and marched right onto that tuning slide.

For him, that was the end of the tuning slide incident; the show went on as normal. But for our two first trombones, it was only the beginning. Without a tuning slide, it was not only impossible for Will to play, it was difficult for him to even hold up the horn. Trombone tuning slides also contain a weight that balances out the heavy bell from the front of the horn. But Will was big and strong even then, and he held the horn up and moved his slide as if he were actually playing. Our section leader was left to carry the entire first part by himself, covering for the silent Will. He pulled it off nicely.

At the end of the show, as we stood together at the side of the field, listening to our band director tell us what we did well and what we did wrong, our assistant band director approached the trombone section. “Did anyone lose a tuning slide?”

The Lord’s Newest Super Angel - In memory of Angela Holland

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Thu, 03 May 2012 14:24:00 +0000

She was like Elle Woods; one of those people who’s so amazing she makes you feel like you can do anything. And I hate that I’m talking about her in the past tense.

Everyone gravitated towards Angie. You couldn’t help it. Her bubbly personality, her enthusiasm for everything, the sincere compassion that just oozed out of her being. The only bad thing you could possibly say about her was that she was always so busy doing 1800 million incredible things that she’d probably be late to the 1800 millionth and one thing she was going to do with you.

Teach for America, Street Law, and probably scores of other projects I don’t even know about, Angie was always giving of herself. And she was so smart. She chaired the academic program for BLSA (the Black Law Students Association), and she wrote onto a journal (instead of getting on through the normal competition) and became Editor. For anyone who’s been to law school, you know how difficult it is to get on a journal, and she did it the harder way.

No matter how down and out you felt, Angie would lift your spirits. When you felt excluded, she’d make sure you were part of the group. And when you felt overwhelmed by all the things you had to do, you spent 5 minutes talking to Angie and felt like you had all the free time in the world.

Somewhere out there, a new angel with a big smile on her face is walking up to a someone in need, “Hey girl.”

Mr. Trizzle, Angie and her family/fiancé at VULS graduation 2008

(I almost got to see Angie just a few weeks ago. In DC for a friend’s birthday, I went to house warming party for another friend and Angie was likely to come to that party. Whether she went to the party or not, I don’t know. I had to leave pretty early to catch my flight back to California. I figured I’d see her soon enough at the Vandy reunion in a year or two. I was wrong. And now I’m on my way back to DC…)

Book Review: Wanted

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Tue, 01 May 2012 22:18:00 +0000

I enjoy Amish-set fiction immensely. These books always make for a nice break in between some heavy non-fiction. The ones I’ve read are usually pretty similar, love stories where one of the lovers is grieving the loss of their previous spouse or beau or and the other is struggling with their past while trying to win the grieving person’s heart. The focus on community and God are constant and one of the reasons delving into the books for an hour or two can be such a calming experience.

In Wanted by Shelley Shepard Gray, the main character is struggling with accepting her own behavior during her Rumpspringa. Her heart is set on a widower who is still grieving the loss of his wife in a buggy accident. It’s nothing out of the ordinary for these books, but it is a delightful read.

Apparently, this book is part of a series called Sisters of the Heart, which focuses on different characters during different books. I got the impression that this is the second book and that the first was about this main character’s older sister. I vaguely feel as though I may have read that book, but I honestly do not remember. That just shows it’s easy to pick up the book without needing to know about others from the series.

Good, simple, wholesome fiction. It’s like homemade apple pie for your soul.

Pockets Away

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 22:03:00 +0000

We’ve all had it happen. We somehow missed that small piece of paper or that scrunched up tissue buried deep in a random pocket. If we’re lucky, we have only a few stray pieces of stringy tissue to pull off as we fold the laundry. If we’re extremely lucky, we found a $20 bill we didn’t know we had. But, if we’re very unlucky, we discover amongst the frayed remains of a note or printed receipt that some ink has run, leaving a clear “I was here” message in the vicinity of our pocket.

That’s exactly what had happened to a few of Mr. Trizzle’s dress shirts. Over the course of many months, I collected these shirts with intentions of seeing what I could do. I’d been able to save one or two similarly situated shirts on a prior occasion by simply removing the pocket. The shirt fabric was not stained, so voila! a new shirt.

Four shirts, four pockets, four stains. A few of the stains were very small and light. Highlighter remnants it appeared, tucked just near the pocket edge on a French blue fabric. OxyClean couldn’t quite get the whole stain out of the pocket, but it was able to remove the little bit of highlighter from the shirt. This one could be saved that way, but the others could not.

Pockets Off!

My first step was to remove the four pockets. I then deconstructed them in order to use them as patterns for new pockets. This was incredibly interesting because I had shirts from three different companies, Brooks Brothers, LL Bean and a more generic brand called Eighty Eight. The Brooks Brothers and LL Bean shirts were clearly of a higher-quality construction than the other shirt. Their pockets were not just folded under before being top-stitched onto the shirts. The edges of their pockets were stay-stitched, pinked and adhered to the back of the pocket before being stitched to the shirt.

It was also neat to see how they had other slight differences. The LL Bean and Brooks Brothers were the more-difficult-to-sew rounded corner style, while the Eighty Eight shirt had a simple pointed bottom. The Books Brothers and Eighty Eight shirt had a straight line for the pockets top hem, but the LL Bean shirts had a detailed V-line.

Pockets On!

One thing I have learned from my mother, among many, a good supply of scrap fabric is invaluable. In my bin of stray pieces and old clothes, I was able to find fabrics that went fabulously with the three shirts needing new pockets.

For the pink, diagonal striped, Eighty Eight shirt, I found an old Victoria’s Secret blouse of mine that had been torn in the back. The pinks went perfectly. Using the blouse presented some extra challenges because I had to remove back darts from the stretch poplin fabric. Victoria’s Secret’s professional clothes are very tailored. After a few ironings, the dark stitch holes disappeared and all was well.

For the blue and white striped Books Brothers shirt, I matched another old shirt. This one had been my grandpa’s shirt, and from the looks of it, he had worn it a long, long time. I couldn’t really tell if the short-sleeved dress shirt was white or off-white. By this point, it was basically sheer. But when I doubled the fabric over, it looked perfect with the blue shirt’s pinstripes. Another great pocket.

Lastly, I had the blue LL Bean shirt. This one was tougher because blues can be so hard to match. I had some plain blue fabric left from making my bucket cover, but it was just off in terms of shade of light blue. (It would have been a great contrast pocket for the French blue shirt had that one needed a new pocket.) I needed to find something that coordinated rather than matched perfectly. And it just so happened that I had the perfect fabric in a scrap from another discarded article of Mr. Trizzle’s. I’d been using this purple, blue and green striped fabric in a suit I’m making for myself, but there was enough of it left for a pocket. The stripes and colors added a nice funky look to the shirt.

Four shirts, three new pockets, four new looks.

I was way more excited about the shirts than Mr. Trizzle. He’s still trying to figure out what to do with them. I have to admit, they aren’t really appropriate for professional suit-wearing anymore. But they sure are fun!

Book Review: The Slaves’ War

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 21:04:00 +0000

It was one of those books that I ordered expecting it to languish on my shelves until I should happen to be in the mood for it. Though it sounded terribly interesting, interesting enough to prompt me to buy it, it was thick and had the sort of college-course-assignment vibe to it. But it didn’t languish nearly as long as I expected, and my expectations for how long it would take me to finish were even more exceeded.

The Slaves War by Andrew Ward is billed as “The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves,” and that’s exactly what it is. Woven together with more standard historical battle accounts and report from generals are first-hand accounts from slaves collected during several interview projects in the early 20th century.

The book is arranged in chronological order, covering from just before the war through some of reconstruction. It’s incredibly interesting to see how the slaves’ ideas about and reactions to the Yankees change as the war goes on. From an initial fear of an unknown described to them as a monster, to an almost idolizing, to disgust, distrust and near hatred, there’s a very visible evolution that comes with the war, occupation and Reconstruction.

Nearly every anecdote popular about slavery and the Civil War seems to come out as true in some area another. The South was (is) a big place and there was great variety among slave-holders, slave treatment, and direct effects of the Civil War. Some stories of society in the mid 1880s seemed to have a striking resemblance to aspects of current society. Stop snitching has deep roots.

But for me, the most striking part of the book was this photograph from the Library of Congress,

which immediately brought to my mind this picture,

and reminded me of Ba Faye (fourth from left, back row) telling me while we were picking cotton that she wished someone would kidnap her son (front row, 2nd from left) to make him a slave because then he would be in America.

I recommend the book.

Note: My “Zam Fam” pic also appears on the post “Mosquitos Kill, Kill Mosquitos” from October 26, 2008.

Guess the BART Stop

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 20:32:00 +0000

“They're called stereo-types for a reason,” I was scolded. “Yeah, because they’re often true,” I muttered under my breath. “Because, they’re often not true,” she continued. True or not, they make for some entertaining time-passing on public transit.

One of my favorite games on my way home from work is called “Guess the BART stop.” People watching upped with a predictive element. Based pretty much solely on stereo-types, I guess at which BART station other passengers will off-board. I’m correct more often than I’m wrong, but not nearly 100% accurate.

Red line coming out of San Francisco.

Some are pretty easy and obvious. Pink or green hair, odd piercings, extremely flamboyant clothing; most certainly getting off the train at Downtown Berkeley.

Some are a little tougher for pegging the exact stop, but easy enough to narrow-done fairly well. Mid-40s in professional clothing; if they didn’t get off at MacArthur to get into their car or switch to the Pittsburg/Bay Point line going out to the big house, big yard suburbs, they’ll most likely exit the train at North Berkeley, where they’ll get into their car and drive to their home in the hills. Really ghetto-dressed people, often playing badly distorted music at top volume from their cell phones, who don’t exit the train at one of the Oakland stops are likely to stay on until Richmond. Though occasionally, some of the younger ones go to Downtown Berkeley.

Late 20s, early 30s hipsters in their skinny jeans and plaid shirts; it depends. If it’s commute time and they’ve got their terribly ironic and practical messenger bag with the seatbelt buckle tossed around their back, they’ll likely get off at Ashby, maybe a few stragglers at Downtown Berkeley. But if it’s later in the evening or it’s a train going the other direction, they’ll most likely exit at one of the downtown Oakland stops.

Red Line pre-San Francisco

The BART-leg of my commute home actually begins in Millbrae. But, I have not learned enough about the neighborhoods’ on the Peninsula and heading into the City to be able to play the game down there. All the people at that point just look the same to me.

Orange Line to Freemont

I can also sort of play on my way into work, when I take the orange line to Union City. However, since I board BART so near the end of the line (and so early in the morning), there aren’t really a lot of people to watch and guess about. The main thing is to guess which people will transfer at MacArthur to the San Francisco bound train. It’s pretty much everyone other than me who is dressed nicely.

As I spend more time on BART, I get better at the game. But then, just when I’m starting to get too proud of myself and think I have everything figured out, a noisy phone-blasting kid gets off at North Berkeley, or someone with pink hair rides all the way to my stop. “They’re called stereo-types for a reason,” because they can help you make a quick judgment when you need to but not necessarily a correct judgment.

Happy Anniversary Alfred and Nathy-Boo!

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 14:03:00 +0000

Today is Alfred and Nathy-Boo’s first anniversary. Since I didn’t post about their wedding a year ago, I figured this is a good occasion to do so.

The air was moist and warm, droplets of imagined rain clung to the ferns. Munchkinhead and I ducked under a banana tree leaf and giggled. Paradise. Nearly everywhere you turned there was lush green foliage or a burst of flowers. Hard to believe it was 40 and rainy outside. No, we weren’t in a jungle. Munchkinhead and I were just pretending we were in a jungle. Where we really were was the rehearsal for Alfred and Nathy-Boo’s wedding.

A truly exotic location, Des Moines, Iowa.

I’ve been to quite a number of weddings over the years and I have to say that this one was by far the best wedding I’ve attended. It was well-organized, beautiful, economically, delightfully representative of the bride and groom, tons of fun and just over all amazing. And I’m not just saying that because it was my sister’s. Alfred knows I’d tell her if I thought she could have done better.
Alfred did pretty much all of the planning herself. The venue was delightful: the Des Moines Botanical Center. A beautiful glass dome arcing high above succulent gardens with a small stream where colorful fish flipped their tales. Banana tree leaves and spindly flowers waved in the breezes created by people walking down the cobblestoned paths. The moist, warm air inside hid any indication of the cold April gloom covering the outside world. Why fill a church with expensive flowers when you can have the convenience of an indoor garden?

Alfred’s dress was, of course, absolutely beautiful. A simple woman of logic and practicality, she is nothing of the diva that her two sisters are. Her dress showed this perfectly, classic, yet elegant, with just a touch of sparkle in the purple embroidered flowers at the bottom of the white satin. Being as cold-blooded as the rest of her clan, she has had a matching bolero for the reception.
Her bridesmaids dresses also exemplified an important part of her nature, her consideration for others. Knowing that the fairer sex is prone to fluctuations in body size and shape, and having her bridesmaids coming from across the country, Alfred chose an adjustable option for the dresses. Purple satin corsets with matching long skirts. Of course, Mommy made all the dresses, her own, the bridesmaids and Alfred’s.

Standing at the front of the garden with the other bridesmaids, I couldn’t help but tear up. Not only did Alfred look so beautiful and happy, but Daddy was tearing up next to her. How could anyone not get misty eyed seeing that?

The ceremony was short and sweet, presided over by the pastor from our home church in Milwaukee who came all the way to Iowa on Easter weekend just to marry Alfred and Nathy-Boo. And then the bride and groom walked together down the aisle to music from Star Wars. Geeks.

And then the real fun began, the reception. Every person had a gift to take home with them, lovely nameplates cross-stitched by the bride herself. Alfred and Nathy-Boo also made all the centerpieces for the dinner tables, out of Legos! No one can tell me they’ve had better center pieces. The small cake above the mountains of cupcakes was also Lego-themed, with a small corner of icing peeled back to revel bricks beneath and a Lego bride and groom up top.
The cupcakes provided lots of amusement throughout the night as the cake part, and the fillings inside were quite delicious, but the frosting was a bit too much for anyone. Tables were covered with mounds of frosted peaks carefully removed from little cakes. Mugs overflowed with the pastel swirls, looking like fancy lattes. One of our aunts had close to a dozen cupcakes and left a fine frosting display around her table place.

Alfred and Nathy-Boo’s music was perfect. All their favorites. I don’t think the dance floor was empty the entire night. A ridiculous line formed across the middle for the “Time Warp”. Munchkinhead and I waltzed to Metallica and danced with Daddy to the family theme song. Mommy and Daddy danced to their song. Alfred and I played air piano to “November Rain.” And we all polkaed.

It was a fabulous night. Wonderful to see so many family members and old friends and an absolute blessing to see Alfred and Nathy-Boo so happy. Congratulations on a fantastic wedding and on your anniversary!

Photo by Jill Brown

My Lake

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 02:16:00 +0000

[Originally written on my way to visit Alfred, November of last year.]

As we flew out over Lake Michigan, a tear slipped from the corner of my eye and slowly rolled down my cheek. I was so happy. Though miles away, seeing the lake made me feel close to home, as if Mommy and Daddy were an arm’s length away.

This lake, this wide shimmering body of blue, this lake is part of me. Though it took the life of one of my friends and still holds the body of his wife, I bear it no ill will. Theirs were not the first, nor last it has taken. But it does not know.

It ripples on, beats against the shores, rages on the breakwaters and laps onto the sands. This lake that I have enjoyed from every side, climbing dunes in Indiana, sitting on the beach in Michigan, walking along the cliffs in Wisconsin and gazing at hungrily from a plane leaving Illinois.

This lake that filled my marching band days with the smell of dead fish, that kept us ten degrees cooler than the next county over, that brought us extra snow, delightfully heavy snow perfect for snowmen and snow forts.

This lake that gave me beautiful sunrises, the red ball reflecting below, yellow rays streaking out in all directions, a mirror of water and sky both purple at the edges, a glow of pink slowly lightening into a bright clear day.The lake that tumbles under my favorite bridge.

How much of this lake have I drunk, swan, bathed in, played in!

Yes, this lake is truly great. It is my Great Lake.

Churning Churches

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 15:31:00 +0000

I want to go to the church I went to when I was 8, or the one I attended when I was 16. But where do I find those churches in this crazy new-fangled world?

My church in El Cerrito took a little field trip up to a “new” kind of church in Sacramento. It had all the eh-things about my church without any of the good things I like to balance it out. Like the big non-denominational churches some friends attended in high school and college, this church was all about doing things a new way, with drum sets and solo singers and that sort of stuff. Different, new, exciting, yadda, yadda, yadda. “Church attendance is down, we have to do things different.” “People are looking for something new.” “Church has to be exciting.” Bah humbug.

I want organs and choirs in robes; acolytes with long wick holders, preachers draped with stoles, Bible passages read from a giant Bible on a pulpit, hymnals and people in their Sunday best. I want my favorite hymns that I can only hear in church. Not electric guitars and drum sets and one singer with a mic, not overheads and jeans, not songs I hear on the radio.

But somehow, for some reason, church can’t mean these things anymore; it has to mean the opposite. And before you know it, there’s nothing special, nothing about church you can’t get anywhere else. Before you know it, there’s no reason to go.

While the easy-going churches lighten up even more to fight dwindling attendance, the Catholic church up the road fills 5 services a week.

Sometimes it’s not a need for less structure and more change, but a need for more structure and less change that we need.

Adventures from Home: the Zoo

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:26:00 +0000

Way back when, now about 6 months ago, I was frolicking around Milwaukee with my delightful and adorable younger sisters. We have a bit of a tradition amongst ourselves that whenever we are all home we go to a Milwaukee field trip or tourist destination. Most often, since we are most often all home together around the Christmas holidays, we go to the Milwaukee Public Museum [link]. This time, however, we thought we’d take advantage of being home together in the middle of summer, and we head off to the Milwaukee County Zoo.

Like the museum, we’ve been going to the zoo pretty much our whole lives, on school field trips and random adventures with friends. When I first started college at Carroll, the school had a day outing to the zoo where we could meet our future roommates. Being long-familiar with the exhibits and offerings of the zoo, we all have our favorite spots. My personal favorite is the petting zoo and, for some reason, the very steep valley that goes under the zoo-train tracks on one of the main walking paths.

At the museum, we like to imitate the exhibits. We tried to do this at the zoo. It did not work as well; the animals keep moving!

We found being the topiary, signs and statues a much easier task.

Since we don’t come to the zoo very often, we decided to have an extra special treat and take a ride on the zoo train! We all remembered liking the zoo train. We did not remember it being so small! Even Munchkinhead’s knees were up to her chest. We had excellent timing for as soon as we boarded the train, a light drizzle started.

Rain continued on and off the rest of the afternoon, culminating in a fierce thunderstorm that made us feel like we were in Jurassic Park, all the more so for the scary dinosaur topiary with beady yellow eyes.

Standing in the foyer of the conference room building watching the wind toss around heavy tree branches, lightening momentarily sending spooky shadows everywhere, we decided to make a run for it. To the aviary building. Our umbrellas protected us from things worse than rain.

Adventures from Home: Hanging out with Daddy

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 18:49:00 +0000

When Alfred and I were little girls, our grandma would watch us while Mommy and Daddy were at work. We’d spend our summer days running a muck around Grandma and Grandpa’s old Victorian home. Playing tag around the outside of the house, swinging on the wooden swing on the front porch, imagining what it might be like to slide down the banister, jump over the railing from the floor above or do other crazy things our Uncle Steven had done has a kid. (Though I don’t think we ever imagined launching ourselves through the plate glass front window.)

Grandma and Grandpa’s house was like a giant castle to us, full of games, toys, surprises and spooks. The basement terrified us. A trap door into a damp and murky 100+ year-old place is creepy enough, but those added psychedelic paintings my aunts put on the bricks in the 1960s were even more frightening. The servant stairs also scared us a bit, but they were still one of our favorite places to play. And of course, there were the piles and piles of books, the dollhouse with its adorable pink appliances and the puzzles Grandma was always doing.

Being at Grandma and Grandpa’s was great in itself, but there some adventures on which Grandma would take us that beat any fun we could have inside. On really, really special days, we’d get to go visit Grandpa and Daddy at work!

The office was just a few blocks from Grandma and Grandpa’s house. We’d go out the backdoor, through the laundry room that always smelled like a mix of dryer vent and fresh air, down the cement steps, past the iron water pump, to the back corner of the yard. Here, there was a magical hidden gate that only Grandma and Grandpa could find. (Probably because Alfred and I were too short to see it among the vines.) Grandma would open the gate and help us down the steep stone steps into the alley. We’d head down the alley to the main street, turn up the street, pass the large cemetery where my namesake is buried and head to the busy street of the Office.

The Office was built by my great-grandpa many years ago, along with several of the buildings surrounding it; including the house where he lived and my great-aunt still resides. With it’s regal red brick, white painted shutters, high columns and green ivy wrapping around the corners, it always look steady, important, classic, and just like the doll house at Grandma’s. All things that made me love it.

We’d have to be very quite going into the Office, in case Grandpa or Daddy or one of the other lawyers in the building were meeting with clients. As soon as we knew the coast was clear, we’d go bounding into their offices. Daddy’d say “hi”, wiggle his moustache, sit back with his feet up on his desk. Across the hall, Grandpa’d reach into his secret drawer and pull out treats for us, packs of oyster crackers and breadsticks that he’d saved from the restaurants he visited.

If we got to stay for awhile, we’d photocopy our hands on the giant Xerox machine behind the counter. Grandpa would pull out his automobile accident reconstruction stamp collection and we would make pictures of auto accident scenes to our hearts’ content. We’d get multi-colored paper from the cabinet and write our own stories, illustrated in highlighter and felt pen. We always had a lot of fun and felt very special to be “behind the scenes” in the Office.

The Office is still a special place to go. Grandpa’s no longer there to share his breadsticks. But the paintings he used to hold us up to see still hang on the walls and I imagine him asking the same questions, “what do you think is at the end of that road?”

Daddy still says “hi” and puts his feet up on the desk, but now he also says, “There’s this thing going on with these people and we need to figure out this. Can you help?” Now there are new reasons to visit Daddy at the Office. And they’re even more special.

Daddy and me at the office.

My First Knitting Project

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 18:14:00 +0000

Some people say, “when life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” I say, “when life hands you a ridiculously long commute, make a new wardrobe.”

One of the first things I did when my office moved several months back was map out the many different possible ways to get there and calculate the time for each. The next thing I did was ask one of the ladies at church who I always see knitting if she could teach me how to knit. She was delighted to teach me and we began a wonderful nearly-weekly knitting gathering at her house.

My knitting teacher is fabulous, and not just because she’s from Wisconsin (which I didn’t realize until after we began knitting together). She’s always got several different projects going on. That reminds me a bit of myself with my sewing. And she often wears her creations on Sundays, beautiful shawls and skirts and scarves. She’s sure that someday sooner than I think I’ll be making my own dresses. I love sweater dresses, and sweaters. No matter how much my body size fluctuates, they fit, and they’re so soft and cozy.

But, skirts and sweaters and the thigh-high stockings I can’t wait to make are still a ways off. So far, I’ve done two starter projects and am working on a third, all in preparation for winter – or the part of my commute that feels like winter: a scarf, a hat and gloves. The gloves I’m just starting.

I love them. Especially the scarf. It’s so soft and supple, reminds me of blankey. It’s nice and warm, and, the extra special bonus that makes it so me, it’s sparkly!

I’ll let you know when the gloves are done. (If I don’t poke my eye out with one of these 5 double-pointed knitting needles sticking out of the project.)

10 years and 2000 miles later

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 18:17:00 +0000

On the 10th Anniversary, it seems obligatory to do a blog post about 9/11/01. But my memories related to September 11th do not start that morning.

My thoughts start two weeks before that day, when I finished reading Angles and Demons. For those unfamiliar with the book, a very devoted Catholic stages an attack on the Church in order to revitalize the Church community and support for the church. I remember finishing that book and thinking, “America needs something like that.” Tired of people being ashamed of our country, of flags being uncool and patriotism being dead – and this was before I moved out to the Bay – it seemed that the last time our country had been supported by its people was World War II. We need a cause to rally behind. I didn’t expect us to get one, and I certainly didn’t expect it to be so dramatic.

The morning of September 11th, I was trying to sort out some credit card bills. I called the customer service line. The lady on the other end was all distracted. “I’m sorry,” she said, “we just heard about the World Trade Center.” “But that was years ok,” I thought, thinking of the parking garage bombing. Then my roommate came rushing into the room, let out of her 8am class early. “Did you hear?!” “Hear what?” She turned on the small tv atop our dressers. Every channel, every single one, was showing the same thing, the clip of the second plane hitting.

There was lots of excitement, people running down the halls, exclaiming any news they’d gotten that others might not have yet. Candlelight vigils on the campus’s Main Lawn. Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” moved even those that hated country music. American flags everywhere, not just cool again but practically required. It was a cause to rally behind, and for most of us at my small Midwestern school, that’s all it was.

Ten years ago, I hadn’t been to New York. I didn’t know anyone in New York. I didn’t know anyone who would be on an international flight. New York was like Harvard, a place that only existed on tv and in the movies. It wasn’t until this week that I learned the plane that crashed in a Pennsylvania field was bound for SFO. Even if I had known, it wouldn’t have mattered. As a Midwesterner, I scorned those people on the coasts who flew from one side to the other, treating real Americans like they didn’t exist, “fly-over-country” nonsense.

Ten years later, I’ve been to New York. I’ve seen the World Trade Center hole, and not because I went there to see it, but because it’s down the street from my friend’s dad’s office. I know people there. I know people who are frequently on international flights, including friends and family, and me. I know some of the “coastal people,” heck, I’m even friends with them. And while I still disdain the fly-over-country mentality, I don’t hate them. Ten years later, the events are more real than they could have been to a sheltered twenty year-old. And sadly, ten years later, the flags are mostly gone again.

I liked that patriotism; I’d like to see it back. But I don’t expect it anytime soon. It’s impossible to be both an apologetic and a patriot, and the loudest voices in our society are still demanding we be the first.

September 11th, 2001 may have given us a rallying cry on which to rebuild our patriotism. But the events of the next 9 years destroyed it all again. John Yoo said we’re safer and freer now than we were ten years ago. He’s a good speaker, but I disagree. When I feel trapped in my city because transportation out of it is either too long or too anxiety-filled due to the “heightened security measures” – not the risks, the measures – I do not feel safe or free. I never feared the terrorists; I fear TSA.

They won. We have lost both our patriotism and our freedom.

Oh, Betty!

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 12:48:00 +0000

Betty’s my Buick. My beautiful 1993 Buick LeSabre with 130,000 miles on her. She’s the same as my daddy’s car, just a decade older. I got her during law school, when I finally gave up on trying to get around Nashville solely on public transit.

Betty parked by a twin Buick in Nashville

She’s been holding up pretty well the past 4 years, several trips across the country, 100 miles a day on my drive-to-work days, still getting 20 miles per gallon (not bad for an 18 year-old boat!).

Alfred and Munchkinhead on Betty down in Arizona

I love Betty. Her interior is spacious and comfy. She sails down the highway like a she’s surfing on air, even at 80 mph. She’s a tough cookie, can take a hit and not even show a scratch.

Giving Betty a bath in Wisconsin

Betty’s a good car, but Betty’s starting to show her age. Paint’s chipping off the way that’s common with white GM vehicles from the 90s. Her underbody, well, as my mechanic puts it, “the underbody looks like a car from Wisconsin.” She is. The engine’s leaking oil from three or four different places, all minor leaks my mechanic doesn’t think are worth the cost to fix. The muffler has a hole in it, actually several; one’s extra large and right by the catalytic converter. Oh, and the air conditioner doesn’t work; all the coolant leaked out. But that doesn’t bother me. All minor issues really; she still runs great and my mechanic thinks I can another two years at least out of her.

But then there’s the door. My front driver’s side door won’t open. I’ve had that fixed once before. - The parking structures around here have these poles in really strange places and I’m not so good at seeing them. – I’m not sure it’s worth the several hundred dollars to fix it again. The window still rolls down; the door just doesn’t open. Luckily, I’ve moved enough beds on Betty that I know another way to get in and out of the car. ;)

Betty the Buick

Crazy Knobs

noreply@blogger.com (goldenrail) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 03:07:00 +0000

I’ve worked in hardware; I’ve worked in maintenance. I’ve sold many, many different kinds of doorknobs; I’ve installed doorknobs; I’ve fixed doorknobs. But, I had never seen a doorknob like this before.

Two and a half years I’ve lived in my fabulous little apartment and just the other day I accidentally discovered that I can lock the front door from the inside. I thought it only had a deadbolt and chain for inside-locking. From the outside, I knew I could use a key to lock the deadbolt and the doorknob. Two lock options inside; two lock options outside. Seemed decent to me.

Then I was fiddling around with the knob while saying goodbye to Short Fabulous (whose goodbyes are never short) and I discovered I could lock the door from the inside! There’s no button, no little switch, nothing on the knob itself, just a bump. But, if you turn the knob while pushing it in, voila! locked.

Short Fabulous was not impressed by my discovery. Neither was Mr. Trizzle who placidly stated that he was familiar with such doorknobs when I tried to explain my astonishment with bubbling exclamations and half-sentences. Apparently those doorknobs are quite common out here.

Bump on the knob

Unlocked

Locked

I’m excited to have learned something new, but I am also rather worried. It is possible to lock myself out of the apartment now.