A Part of My Heritage

When a building is integral to the story of a place, sometimes government steps in and protects it from the forces of progress and change by calling it a heritage site. The home in Salzburg where Mozart was born. The Old North Church in Boston where furtive lanterns warned patriots that the British were coming. Tear down those buildings, and the towns don’t just suffer a loss of tourist money. Losing heritage sites is like losing history, diluting identity. 

You don't have to be a country, or even a city, to have a heritage sites. Everyone has places that played an important part in their lives, their histories. A childhood home where that one cabinet door never closed right. A corner store where allowances were spent on gummy worms. A park where someone knelt and offered a ring. Any place whose destruction you would mourn, because you could never share it with your children, is a personal heritage site for you. 

I'd like to share one of mine.

Place Ville Marie is an office building at the heart of downtown Montreal. It’s 47 stories of steel and sparkling glass, making an cross shape distinctive enough to earn it a place on postcards. A spotlight spins around on its summit after dark, sending out a bright white beam for miles.

At the heart of the cross, a dozen elevators whoosh up and down at an alarming speed, popping ears and making riders reach for something to hang on to. Downstairs, beneath the atrium where the sounds of high heels and conversations echo off the marble walls, is a shopping mall connecting it to Montreal's underground city.

Outside, between the main building and one of its small satellites, is a courtyard with trees and slick grey granite. Every warm sunny day, it’s filled with suits and their to-go lunches from the food court.

That courtyard is my heritage place.

I visited often enough during my suburban high school and CEGEP years, but once I found myself on the McGill University campus every day, I became a regular. Between classes, or before leaving for home, I'd come and sit on the granite ledges, alternating between reading a book and watching the water play on the green statue in the fountain. Sometimes I'd throw a penny into the fountain as I passed, although I can't say that fountain was any better at delivering on wishes than any other. When the weather got too cold for me to sit on the stone, I'd stand at the railing overlooking McGill College Avenue, a double-double warming my hands through my gloves, and take in the sparkling Christmas lights and the scarf-wrapped crowds.

The view is beautiful from that spot. McGill College Avenue, wide and tree-lined, stretches out from Place Ville Marie up to McGill's Roddick Gates and the campus beyond. Behind the university's old stone buildings, Mount Royal looms, its colors shifting over the seasons. I made sure to bring my husband here when he visited Montreal, to show him this little place that means so much to me.

I miss that courtyard dearly, and I always try to return when I'm in town over a weekend. I stay just long enough to throw a penny into the fountain, sip a coffee, and enjoy the sound of my city.

Five kitchen tools I use all the time

Many months ago, I prodded my friend Tasha to write some blog posts about her kitchen tools - which ones she used all the time, and which ones she regretted ever taking home from the store. 

Given a few minutes to rummage through their kitchen cabinets, I think everyone can come up with lists like that. So I did. 

Digital meat thermometer

I don't know how I ever cooked meat before this thermometer came into my life. I switch it on, pull off the cover, and stab it into my teriyaki pork loin to see if it's done yet. My previous technique was to stab meat and see if anything pink came out, and then decide that either way, another few minutes would probably be smart. Let's just say I cooked with a lot of gravy in the old days.

Oneida plastic cutting boards

I use these pretty much daily. They're stained from years of use, but they're sturdy and easy to sanitize. They're grippy enough that they don't slide around the counter, which is a big plus when you're trying to chop onions on them with a huge sharp knife. Mom admired them when she came to visit, so she went home with a set of her own.

Pizza pan

Sometimes, I actually use this for pizza. Far more often, I use it for roasting veggies. It's the perfect size to hold a couple of chopped potatoes and an onion that I've tossed in olive oil and spices. I also use it to bake frozen pierogies and to broil garlic bread. I use it as a drip catcher when I'm making pies or a baked pasta. It has looked like hell for a very long time, despite my attempts to make it shiny again, and I'm okay with that. It does its job well and never complains.

Meat tenderizer/smasher

This thing has two "tenderizer" sides I've never used, but the flat pounding side has been a miracle tool for me when it comes to cooking chicken breasts. If I flatten them so they're uniform, I can cook them evenly and they don't dry out! I can't explain why it took me years to come to that revelation. These days, if I'm cooking chicken in the frying pan, I'm beating it to hell with this thing first. It's so much fun to smash things.

2 Qt KitchenAid saucepan

I picked this little guy up at Home Goods to replace a small saucepan that had sprung a leak at its handle. It's a nice heavy weight without being burdensome, and the rubbery handle doesn't get too hot to touch. I love this thing because it's exactly the right size. I always make rice in it. I cook veggies in it. I empty a jar of marinara into it and then dump in frozen meatballs to simmer them in the sauce. On the days I'm lazy and resort to those salty, convenient "noodle sides" packages, this is exactly the right size for them.

So, what about you, readers? What's in a regular enough rotation in your kitchen that you'd have to cancel dinner if it went missing?

 

A Light Inside

I went to church today.

I made a quick left turn through a gap in the rush-hour traffic and pulled into the parking lot at Saint Patrick's. I hushed the radio, switched off the engine, and sat in the quiet of my car for a minute before taking a breath and stepping out.

A small sign among the early daffodil greens in the front garden said "The Light is On For You," but when I pulled open the front door, the church was dark inside. The space was silent and empty, and I was alone. I paused at the entrance. Dipped my fingers into the small bowl of holy water by the door, a tiny golden bird-bath. Made the sign of the cross, out of habit, without thinking. I used my left hand, the wrong hand, because I still held my car keys in my right.

I walked up the center aisle towards the altar, relieved to be wearing quiet shoes, because even the rustling of my purse against my coat seemed loud and rude. I had come to find the small altar, off in a corner, where rows of flickering candles hold the pains and hopes of the people who set them alight.

The church had small dim alcoves off to either side of the main altar. Each housed a statue and a table holding four short rows of votives. I intended to light a candle beside Our Lady, because it's what my mother does. What all the women in my family do. Tradition and heritage, to ground me. To bring comfort. Not, for me, from faith or from prayer, but from ritual and familiarity. When someone needs help, members of my family light candles for them. When someone needs extra help, we light candles in a church. But there were no familiar saints with compassionate faces to greet me at Saint Patrick's. Only ghosts. I had forgotten that it was the Lenten season, and that some churches shroud the holy figures in purple in the weeks before Easter. I was alone except for faceless human forms wrapped as though for burial.

I chose the altar on the left side, not knowing which figure was standing over me, who would watch over the tiny flames I would leave behind. I folded up a bill for the thin slot marked "offerings" and smiled to myself at how pagan and out-of-place that word seemed in a church. I set my purse down and struck a match against the side of the matchbox, wincing at the abrasive sound. I touched the match to the end of a long wooden skewer, which crackled into flame. Slowly, carefully, I touched the flame to the wick of three candles, side by side, in the front row. One for me, and two for dear friends who are hurting. All of the votives were new, white, silent. Mine were the only ones dancing.

The small padded kneeler creaked as I knelt in front of the shrouded saint. I found myself mouthing dimly-remembered parts of the prayer of Saint Francis. The cadence of my words matched the tune of the hymn from my childhood. Music strengthens memory.

Make me an instrument of peace. Grant that I may never seek so much to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved, as to love with all my soul. 

I left the candles, sat at the end of one of the pews, and looked up. The vaulted wooden ceiling stretched up forever. The only light in the church besides my candles came in through the beautiful abstract stained glass windows on all sides of me. It was late afternoon, and the sun was low enough in the sky to drag the colors into the church and paint the floor with them.

Despite the comfort I find in ritual, I don't believe in a divine plan. Catholicism lost all credibility for me long ago, through inconsistency, intolerance, and the sins of the church. There is no Fate. Life isn't fair, or unfair. Bad things happen to good people, and I can't accept that there is a deity up there rolling dice to decide who deserves to suffer. There is only life, and what you can make of it, which makes it that much more important.

Rush hour continued just beyond the colored glass. Birds chirped in the garden. The sun was setting, and would rise again in the morning. Tears came to my eyes. I let them fall, finding comfort in the knowledge that the world is so very much bigger than me.

How Did We Get From Saying "I Love You"

"I married a Canadian - whom I love very much - and she introduced me to a great band called Great Big Sea. And this song is in NO WAY dedicated to her. At all."

We needed this cruise. More than I realized; more than I can really explain.

Different couples deal with stress in different ways. Some argue, slam doors, and seek out space away from one another. Some look so far outside the relationship for comfort or for escape that nothing can be salvaged.

I have always been afraid that stress would pull my relationships apart. My family doesn't have a good record in that area. Almost every one of my aunts and uncles who married found themselves in a hurtful and bitter divorce. My parents' relationship was strained and uncomfortable for years, and ended the same way.

My first boyfriend abandoned me when my parents' divorce made me "too goddamn sad all the time" and "annoying to be around." I see now that it was an unstable and unhealthy young-adult relationship that was a bad idea from the start, but it crushed my 18-year-old self. I dropped out of college and floated through several months in a blur before finding the light again and crawling my way towards it. I went back to school. I tried to be sociable. But things were different. I had witnessed a relationship I thought was the most solid and reliable one in the whole world - my parents' marriage - falling angrily apart in front of me. I had no good role models, nobody to look to for thoughts on a healthy relationship except the columnists at Cosmo and the couples on Friends.

When my husband and I were moving towards our wedding day, I was flooded with conflicting thoughts. Of course we'd last forever - we loved each other so much, understood each other so well, laughed so often together. But everyone must think that at one time, or nobody would ever risk the commitment of marriage. Who could say, then, whether our relationship could withstand all the years ahead, all the problems that would come our way?

It's been a hard year for us. Members of my family, far away in Canada, have been sick and needing surgery. I lost one grandmother, and the other is 98 and fading. I'm far away and can't be there for the ones I love, and the guilt eats away at me. I left my old job, which meant leaving some of my support group behind. Other friends moved away. I'm still striving to find my role in my career and in this world. Arguing with immigration agents. Arguing with health insurance companies. Struggles and loss. I got scared. Scared for us.

I tell my husband, often, how much I love him. I cling to him sometimes when we're in our office together. I drape my arms over his shoulders, my cheek pressed into his beard, as he reads message boards and checks his email. I doubt. I worry, analyzing everything. I ask him again and again whether we'll be okay, whether we'll stick together, all the while hating myself for asking but not always able to stop. His answers are always the same, always reassuring, always patient, always yes, yes, of course, I love you and we're in this for the long haul no matter what.

"How Did We Get From Saying 'I Love You'", by Great Big Sea, is a breakup song. It's about running into your ex after the breakup and realizing you can't find anything in common anymore, anything to talk about except the smalltalk of strangers. It's heartbreakingly sad. My feelings of inadequacy and fear of divorce and loneliness make a song like this really resonate with me.

And my husband played this song for me, at an open mic night on our cruise. Knowing how much I love hearing him play music, my husband found a way to dedicate his performance to me without dedicating the song itself. A little gesture, spontaneous, touching. It meant so much. Maybe we've come from saying "I Love You" to the place where the words don't matter as much as the sentiment, and maybe I can be okay with that. I am loved.

 I'm linking up with some amazing bloggers over at Yeah Write. Stop by and spend a little time reading and supporting the gang!

 

Here in America

"Here in America, we don't use a maiden name as a middle name."

Her emphasis was on "America". Reminding me where I was and who was in charge. As though the huge flag behind her and the US Citizenship and Immigration Services badge on her arm wasn't enough. With her declaration, she scratched out the name I'd printed on the document. The name I wanted.

"You can add it to the last name and hyphenate it," she told me, "but you can't replace your middle name."

"But...." I protested, "Everyone I know did it that way after they got married. I don't want my old middle name."

"You can go through the court for a name change. Did you go to the court?"

Of course I hadn't. I thought my marriage certificate was enough, as it had been for everyone else I knew. I dug through my folder to find it for her.

"That's not good enough. You need to do it in the court. What's your middle name?"

She moved her hand to the top of the form and wrote my middle name where she wanted it to be. A few more quick scratches of her pen, and she added the name I wanted to the "aliases" section. I have aliases now. Like a spy. A criminal.

She sighed. Shook her head. "You'd be surprised how many people come in here and think they can just change their names like that. It doesn't work like that. You need to go to the court."

I couldn't argue with her. You can't argue with immigration officials when they have your future in their hands. You can't risk upsetting someone on the wrong day and having your petition denied. You go along with what they say. You do as they ask. You apologize for being so ignorant, for being in the way, for doing everything so obviously backwards, even though you followed every instruction to the letter. They are right and you are wrong.

I want to be angry. I want to be offended that I was told not just that I'd made a mistake or misread instructions, but that here in America, things are done differently. Because I know that's ridiculous. Besides the fact that America isn't a homogeneous mass, I can point to dozens of personal friends and professional acquaintances who have done exactly what this woman tells me is not allowed. Maybe it's the truth; maybe there's some fine print somewhere that says I can't change my name with USCIS on the basis of a marriage certificate alone. But this woman dismissed me outright when I protested. She held fast to an approved script, instead of listening to me and seeing me as a person who needed help understanding the process. I am Canadian. I am white. I speak flawless English. I can only imagine how much more degrading it must be to face these people if you're wearing a veil or struggling to find your words in your second or third language.

Maybe I'm overreacting. Civil servants aren't known to be the most caring and understanding of individuals, and working with the public can harden and desensitize you until you see everyone as a problem instead of a person. But it is wrong for the words "here in America" to be used by a member of the agency that every single immigrant to this country will need to work with. I am already in America, contributing to America's economy, helping save American lives with my work. Yes, I am an alien here, but I am here.

When I told this story to friends, I was reassured by some that things will improve once I become naturalized and acquire American citizenship. That thought is why I'm hurt and saddened by this experience, and not furious as perhaps I should be. To think that once I cross that line and pledge allegiance and get a tiny American flag to wave, my slate will be clean and it will be like none of this ever happened. I'll be the exact same person before and after that ceremony, but everything will change. I don't know if that's what I want. Do I want to be one of them? But I'm also tired of fighting. What does my name matter, anyway? If they say my middle name has to stay, maybe I'll just keep it.

“But it was alright, everything was alright, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.” -- George Orwell, 1984

Linking up once again with other writers who blog and bloggers who write, over at Yeah Write. Please head over there and support some fantastic writers by reading and enjoying their work.

 

To Those Who Wait

I arrived at the office five minutes after it opened, and every seat was already taken. People who arrived too late and lost the race for a chair were leaning against the back wall, clutching document folders and little paper tickets. I said good morning to the armed security officer at the door, who surprised me by smiling and responding in kind before handing me a little paper ticket of my own. That was the last happy moment in my day.

I found a bare spot between a poster offering the services of Spanish sign language interpreters and a pictogram instructing me not to take photos with my phone, and I joined the sullen group holding up the wall. I glanced down at my ticket. C306. The TV screen bolted into the corner displayed a row of blinking numbers: B46, C394, G30. A voice called out G31, and the screen changed. An old Chinese woman in the middle of a row stood and waved her ticket as she gathered her purse from under her chair. I wanted to hear her call "Bingo," but of course she didn't. She turned and inched unsteadily past the line of politely shifted knees to reach the aisle leading to the clerk's window. As she exited the row, a young man entered it from the other side to take her empty seat.

The numbers crept upwards in small groups. A few Bs were called. Two Cs and a handful of Gs. Then nothing. I glanced up to find the lone clerk sitting at her window and staring out towards the door. Soon, the smiling security guy came in holding a huge set of keys in one hand and pink tennis shoes in the other. He handed both to the clerk, who then changed her shoes and laced them up before calling G35.

The waiting-room musical chairs continued, with vultures swooping on abandoned seats before they could cool back to room temperature. An elderly man came unsteadily through the door with an orthopedic cast on his foot, and sighed as he scanned the full rows of seats. Only after eye contact could no longer be avoided and public shaming was imminent did the young woman with the Kindle stand to offer him a seat. The only smile in the room, besides the one on the security guard now grooving to his iPod, was George Takei's on the poster across the room.

No, George, it wasn't.

C304 and C305 must have had better things to do that morning, because they weren't around to answer when the clerk called them. After almost two hours, it was my turn. I approached the window with a smile, hoping honey would set the right tone for the interaction. 

"Good morning," I began, putting my documents on the counter.

"Ticket and application, please." Her eyes didn't leave her screen.

I gave her my crumpled C306 and my application form #SS-5, filled out and printed from my computer for maximum legibility. She impaled C306 on a metal spike and scanned my application form.

"Name change? You have paperwork?"

I took my marriage certificate from its envelope and handed it to her. Anticipating her next move, I opened my passport to the photo page and extended it towards the window just as she barked "ID." She looked at my passport photo, then at me. She flipped the passport over, read the all-caps CANADA across the front, and snapped it shut.

"Are you a US citizen?" She handed my passport back to me.

"Not yet," I replied. "I have a green card."

"Let me see it."

"The card itself expired last week," I explained. "I have a document here extending it while they process my renewal. This is the official paper that says I'm allowed to live and work in the US." I showed her the document that my immigration lawyer had rushed me by overnight courier.

She glanced at it and pushed it back to me. 

"Green card," she repeated. "I need to see your card."

I sighed and pulled it from my wallet. She took it from me, leaned it up against her computer monitor, and began typing. Her computer beeped. She looked up at me.

"We can't use this. It's expired."

I blinked. 

"I... I know. That's what this other document is for. It extends my green card until they can process the renewal."

"Sorry, the card is expired. You need a valid card."

I resisted the desire to connect my forehead with the desk in front of me. I held the extension notice out again.

"The guy I spoke to on the phone said that this counts as an official document from immigration and I could use it for a name change," I explained. "I've been married almost three years now and I would really, really like to use my married name. I had to wait to renew my green card, because otherwise the fee is almost $600 to change it. This paper is all I get for now - I won't have a physical card for another year, maybe. Are you sure you can't use this?"

She must have sensed something in my voice, because she softened. She took the paper back out of my hands and laid it on her desk to read it more carefully.

"Well, it's got your alien number on it. That's the same as your green card. Let's see if the system will accept this as an expiration date instead."

"I appreciate this so much," I told her. "It means a lot to me that you're trying to help."

She typed away for a moment, and then frowned.

"Honey, I'm sorry," she said, giving me back all my documents. She turned her screen so that I could read it. "Looks like they don't have your name changed with immigration yet, see? We can't do anything until that system has your new name in it. I'm sorry."

I nodded and thanked her again for her effort. I folded my documents neatly into my accordion folder and left the Social Security office, the same person I was when I arrived.


Note: Those of you who follow me on FB or Twitter may be looking for a post about the "Here in America" comment. I'm still working on that post and hope to have it ready by the weekend. 




 

Final Report on 31 in 31

For a couple of years now, I've been taking my friend Tasha's lead and making an "X in X" list instead of New Year's resolutions. She started it with her 30th birthday, intending to do 30 things in her 30th year, and I liked the idea. To be fair, I like making these lists far more than I like facing them at the end of the year and seeing how much (or how little) of them I actually got done. But I know I'll get grief from a couple of friends if I don't review last year's list, so here goes.

What I achieved:

1. Bake a cake completely from scratch. (Note to self: ask Sarah for pointers!)

I've done this a couple of times now, starting with my red blood cell cake, and it wasn't nearly as hard as I expected it to be. I'm not yet convinced the result is worth the extra effort compared to the average box cake, but I've only tried one recipe so far and I'm willing to agree that some scratch cakes are better. The frosting was definitely better than the stuff in the plastic tub, though, and I feel like I've started down a scratch-frosting path and I can never turn back.

2. Update my phone and address book, transfer to memory of home phone and cell phone. I'm tired of having to search my Gmail archives to find someone's most recent address or phone number.

I did one better and got myself one of them newfangled smarty phones (I can hear at least three people shouting "FINALLY!!!") so I can get at my Gmail archives anytime I please. I spent the first hours with my new phone getting everyone programmed into the address book, so can we all please stop moving and changing phone numbers?

3. Blog regularly.

I don't think I've missed a week all year. I'm getting better at this! My Ornament Advent Calendar ended this year with a bunch of great posts, and I think I've got some momentum built up to get me over the holiday slump and into the new year.

4. Email (and call) my friends more.

I've kept in closer touch with my family and friends this year, although I still feel like I could do better. My new phone helps, since some people are so technologically advanced that they've evolved beyond speech and are now only able to communicate via text message.

5. Take a class. Any class.

I took a writing class! It wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but I got some writing practice and learned to take (and dish out) constructive criticism. I'm very interested in joining a local writing group now, to try and keep myself in line.

6. See the stars from the cruise ship.

Learned: There are a lot of lights on a cruise ship. I saw some stars, but it wasn't a glorious vista of astronomical wonder or anything. I did have a fabulous time on the cruise, though, and got to pet dolphins and shake Wil Wheaton's hand. (How to tell them apart: Wil walks on legs and is better at karaoke, the dolphin swims a lot and is better at flips and shit.)

7. Organize all my printed and photocopied recipes.

I can't believe I actually got this one completed, but I did. I received a pretty recipe binder for Christmas last year, and after staring at it for months, I finally decided to spend one rainy weekend afternoon on the family room floor, mercilessly culling my stacks of clipped magazine recipes. The best ones are all sorted by recipe type and protected in plastic sleeves in the binder now.

8. Make cookies that aren't for Christmas.

I made Easter-themed sugar cookies to share at work.

9. Impress them at my new job and get a good review and/or raise.

Three for three on this one! Go me!

10. Paint living and dining rooms.

And get new hardwood floors installed. And some new carpeting. And rip up nasty basement carpeting with my bare hands. And a zillion other home improvements. We've been busting our butts getting this place in shape and it's finally starting to show.

11. Get my sewing machine out of the box, plug it in, and stitch something. Anything.

I used my sewing machine to make a special Christmas present for a friend. More on that in a later post.

12. Read 50 books.

I don't think I quite got to 50 unless I count the audiobooks, but after much soul-searching I've decided that they count. I'm learning from them and enjoying them, and they make my commute tolerable.

13. Take my vitamins.

I finally caved and bought a little pill reminder box to help me out. I'm old now. Bifocals are coming, I just know it.

What I kinda almost accomplished:

14. Participate in Thing-a-Day. It'll be incomplete because of the February cruise, but that's ok.

I did make some things, but I find that I don't enjoy creativity under pressure. Instead, I participated in a couple of other challenges this year and had a blast with them. I played along with Marian Call's European Adventure Quest game to celebrate the release of her new album, and I had my own little December writing challenge. Those were tons of fun and I will seek out other writing-related challenges for next year.

15. Stay hydrated.

I was doing really well until about October and then I stopped trying.

16. Get us off mailing lists and reduce junk mail.

I did try to get this done. I filled out forms and canceled a bunch of subscriptions, but we're still getting a ton of junk going straight from mailbox to recycling bin. There are places online that offer to stop your junk mail for a small fee but I'm not falling for that.

17. Work on embroidery to figure out if I like it.

I don't think I like it yet. I also branched out and got a crochet lesson from someone at work, but I'm not convinced I'm the crafty type. I have a hard time just making something without a reason. With writing, I can create a thing, people can read it, and we're done. I'm not making a doily or tea cozy or bird feeder that I'm going to give to someone who will then have to decide whether to bring the damn thing out from hiding when I visit, or trash it and lie to me about how the dog ate it.

18. Try a CSA again. Research it better, get recommendations.

While I really want to broaden my vegetable horizons and support local farms, I can't quite get my husband on board to try again after our first disastrous CSA experience. Eating new kinds of veggies is enough of a challenge without them being bruised to hell and coated in a wiggling carpet of aphids. I visited the farmer's market often this year and got my veggie fix that way instead. Bonus: I discovered purple potatoes.

Complete misses:

19. Bake Pioneer Woman's famous cinnamon rolls.

I've got tentative plans to tackle the cinnamon rolls in January with my sister-in-law. Cinnamon rolls are an all-day commitment, and we weren't able to squeeze a baking day into the busy Christmas season.

20. Grow food - more than tomatoes and herbs. Maybe peppers?

We're working on a total backyard overhaul, so I avoided any big gardening projects this year. I could have tried some container gardening, but with the squirrels and rabbits we have in the yard, I'd have needed barbed wire and an armed guard to keep my beans and peppers from getting eaten. The plans for the new landscaping include a space for a raised bed, so I'm optimistic that someday I'll have something to work with.

21. Put together an emergency kit for the car.

I completely forgot this was on my list. Maybe next year's list will include "print out the list", or "actually check the list sometimes".

22. Read Darwin's Origin of Species.

It's pretty heavy reading - have you ever had a look at that thing? I'll get to it... someday...

23. Make a birthday list so I stop relying on Facebook to tell me.

Facebook ain't broke, so I'm not sure why I felt the need to fix this one.

24. Set up a safe deposit box for our important papers.

I forgot about this one too.

25. Try curling. Yes, the sport. Yes, it IS a sport.

I haven't been able to convince anyone to come with me for a beginner's lesson, and I'm too chicken to go alone.

26. See the National Christmas Tree in DC. I've wanted to since I got here and haven't managed yet.

Things were hectic this year around the holidays. Not a good excuse, I know, but it just didn't work out.

27. Make bagels from scratch.

I brought home enough bagels from Montreal that I really had no need!

28. Lose some weight.

29. Wear moisturizer.

I fail so consistently at these that they are hereby banished from all my resolution lists forever. I'm tired of them making me look bad.

As for the two I decided not to share on the official public list, one worked out and one didn't.

I haven't decided yet about posting a list for next year. I feel like it might help me to have a list of small goals to work towards, but it might also give me more to feel bad about if I don't do enough. What do you think?

2012 Review

The year is ending.

I think it's probably more useful, around New Year's Day, to reflect on the year that's leaving us, instead of making lists of resolutions to burden the new year with expectations before it's even begun. Maybe with the perspective gained from examining the good and the bad of the old year, we can approach the new year more constructively.

There was good this year. Much of it came out of my own efforts and decisions, and I can point to many of the joys of the year with a sense of accomplishment.

This year, I settled in at a new job where I never have to work on holidays, never have to skip lunch because I'm too busy to eat, and never have anyone yelling at me to work faster. I sometimes worry that the change was good for my blood pressure, but bad for my brain, who's going soft without all that pressure to think fast and solve problems before someone dies. Everyone assures me I'll soon have some opportunity to grow in the new place, and I look forward to starting that growth. I still miss parts of the hospital world. I can't say I'll never go back to the craziness, but for now I'm comfortable where I am.

This year, my husband and I went on a cruise so incredible that we're going to do it again. We visited tropical islands and got sunburned and ate fancy cruise food. We got to touch dolphins and witness some of the best karaoke of all time. We had so much fun and met so many wonderful people and we've stayed in touch with many of them. I'm getting better at this "social" thing. Slowly.

We made tons of progress on the house. Paint, wiring, electrical and plumbing repairs, ripping out and replacing floors... we've been really busy. Of course, as it always goes with houses, we're nowhere near done and new problems keep popping up as we fix others, but it's more "our home" every day and we love it.

I've written more than ever this year, dedicating more time to my blog and to commenting on the work of other talented bloggers. I took a writing class, getting over some of my fears of meeting new people and sharing my work in public, opening myself up to criticism. I've gotten involved with Twitter and started following and interacting with some fascinating people, who may talk me into joining writing groups who can help me improve at what I love.

I tried new recipes. I finally took my sewing machine out of the box and made something. I played with glass. I visited home and saw my brother's new place, and I spent a week in the Outer Banks soaking up the sun (and the rain). I got a smart phone. I lived through another hurricane.

I need to be honest with you. I had a very hard time being objective this week when I looked back at 2012. While I could find plenty of good in it to celebrate, it was also a very painful and difficult year for me. As the year ends, I find myself hurting, frustrated, and angry. There have been many tears.

When I examine my pain, though, I realize that everything that hurt me this year was outside of my control. I didn't fail. I can't look back and say that I didn't try hard enough, wasn't strong enough. That's difficult for me to accept - when you're brought up in an atmosphere where you're reminded daily that you can achieve anything you want if only you try hard enough, it's hard not to feel guilty as you face your failures.

Life isn't fair. But life isn't unfair, either. Life just is. Life is happening and you're caught up in it and sometimes bad people win the lottery and good people get cancer. That's very hard for me to come to terms with; just ask my therapist. The little girl inside me with a cape and a strong sense of justice is stamping her feet and yelling that it's just not right, but my task over the next year will be to try and explain to her that the world doesn't work that way. She'll be really mad about it, and she won't want to believe me, but there are some things that even the most super of superheroes just don't get to have control over, and that's important to understand. Of course, giving up any sense of control over anything that happens is equally disappointing, so hiding under the covers and giving up isn't the answer either. Somewhere between dark fatalism and sparkly idealism is the world of rationality and acceptance. I'll get there.

Old Lady

I am starting to feel old.

Not feel like a grownup - despite the husband and the mortgage and the nice respectable career, that feeling still eludes my grasp. I just feel old more often than I'd like.

It's hard to ignore the signs. I've got some grey hairs growing in. Right at my part, of course, and sticking straight up where they can catch the sun and reflect rays back in blinding silver. My joints creak dangerously when I get out of bed. I say "oof" more often than I want to, when I'm changing position. Without my pill reminder, I would forget to take my pills. My feet hurt sometimes for absolutely no reason. I buy underwear for comfort. I think my doctor might be younger than me.

Older family members are slowing down, taking more medications and fewer risks. The oldest ones are leaving me.

Time is moving faster. My nephew is talking. Thanksgiving is here again. I've been far from home for almost 5 years. Married two-and-a-half. How is any of that possible?

I can't ask time to stop, of course. If it did, I'd never see how my nephew will look as a teenager. Or how that Hobbit movie will turn out. I just wish I knew how to slow my perception of time's passing, to make it easier to enjoy all the moments. To cherish what's here and what's now. It's so very important that I learn how, so I don't look back and wonder how I missed so much.

We survived Sandy!

Many of my friends are doing a "30 days of gratitude" exercise through the month of November. I applaud the concept, but I don't think I'm going to be able to dedicate my blog to gratitude all this month. It's not that I have nothing to be grateful for, it's that a lot of it is difficult to put into words. Maybe I'll manage a thoughtful and introspective post around thanksgiving, while I'm immobilized by a food coma. That said, I do need to express how very, very grateful I am that we came away from Hurricane Sandy with only minor inconvenience.

We didn't lose a single tree. Only some small branches broke off in the wind, and none of the siding or gutters or roof have even a scratch. Despite some serious water pooling on the side of the house, we had no flooding in the basement. There was water collecting in the garage, which we expected and prepared for by moving most items off the floor.

Our house didn't lose power until Monday evening, and since the government shutdown kept us both home form work, we both got to spend a day here on the couch, watching TV together. It rained incredibly hard for the entire day, and the wind picked up steadily into the afternoon and evening, so I was surprised the electricity stayed on as long as it did. We spent the first night at home, sleeping under some extra blankets, but in the morning we decided to head to Dave's parents' place for a hot shower and a meal. They were also kind enough to let us keep our food in their fridge and freezer, a transfer made easier thanks to my weekend freezer organizing.

As usual when this sort of thing happens, we left the cats behind with extra food and water. Because it was cold in the house (56 was the lowest I saw, so it wasn't that bad) I left extra blankets on the couch so they could burrow and snuggle in a warm kitty pile.

Miraculously, the power was back on by Wednesday night, and the heater switched back on immediately without us needing to reset anything. I was expecting a week off the grid, given BGE's historical restoration pattern! I'm not sure why everything went so much more quickly this time. Maybe fewer communities lost power, compared to Irene and the derecho, or maybe they're finally getting their act together after the state and county laced into them about their previous failures. Either way, I am delighted to be back in my own home so soon, and I'm so grateful that our property and our persons are intact.

Not everyone was so lucky. I know several people in New York and New Jersey who had to leave their homes because of a lack of power and water, or who are toughing it out beside their fireplaces, trying to stay warm.

I've made a small donation to the American Red Cross, whose disaster relief teams are on the ground in the affected areas, doing what they do, helping people stay warm and fed and safe.

Because the storm caused many blood drives to be canceled and shut down donor centers and blood transportation for a few days, the Red Cross has put a call out for donations. Especially if you live outside of the affected areas, please consider making a donation of blood or platelets. The Red Cross normally only has a buffer of about 2-3 days' worth of blood products even in disaster-free times, so a pause in collections in a big area like this can have bad consequences across the country.

See redcrossblood.org to find a donor center or community blood drive near you. And if you can't or don't feel comfortable donating, then tell a friend, or say something on Facebook or Twitter about the need for blood. Every little bit helps.

We're not terrible people. Really.

Driving home late one night, Dave complained of a scratchy throat. Being the good wife that I am, I offered him a mint or a Lifesaver to take his mind off the scratchiness. He selected the Lifesaver option, so I dug one of my individually-wrapped, assorted-fruit-flavor sugar rings out of my purse and unwrapped it for him. I held it out for him to take, but he opened his mouth and said "Ahh", with his tongue out.

"Really? You want me to feed it to you?"

He nodded and grunted in the affirmative, tongue still out.

I put the candy on his tongue, at which point he drew it into his mouth and said in all sacriliciousness: "Body of Christ." I tell you, you can take the Catholic out of church...

"Wow, honey, if that's the body of Christ, he's got some serious diabetes."

He shrugged. "Hey, he's made up of all those white bread wafers. Nothing but carbs will do that to a person."

"So, refined carbs were Jesus' downfall?"

He considered that for a second. "Yeah. That and the Romans."

For Momo.

My grandmother, Mabel Mills Blais, known by all as Momo, passed away last weekend. I have been wanting to write her a tribute, but how can I condense a whole life onto this page? The magnitude of that task intimidated me all week and kept me from trying, until I realized that it's not my job to chronicle every detail of Momo's long and fascinating life; at least, not right now. Everyone who knew her has their own version of Momo to remember, and all I can do is share my Momo with you. The Momo who will live on in my memories.

My most comfortable and familiar Momo memories center around her kitchen table, where we'd sit and chat when I came to visit. Standing ready by the stove, nudging one of her rescued feline friends from the counter, she'd ask “Shall I make us a cuppa tea?” Refusing the offer got me nowhere – half a cup was always her next offer, as though the thought of a guest in her home not drinking at least a little tea was unconscionable. Officially, Momo herself only ever wanted half a cup of anything. She just had to drink through the top half to get to the bottom half, that's all. When the tea situation was settled to her satisfaction, she would clink mugs and spoons and shift the whistling kettle while she hummed to herself about what one should do with drunken sailors*. Always sturdy, sensible, big coffee mugs for Momo's tea - I never saw her using dainty teacups. Dainty just wasn't her way. 

Momo's mugs of tea always came with offers of food: cookies, May West snack cakes, toasted tomato “sangwiches”... Despite years of my best efforts to convince my grandmother that I do not like sliced raw tomatoes as a sandwich filling, she offered me one every time I was in her kitchen. I can't decide whether my preference just never registered for her, or whether she was getting a good laugh out of it. I'm inclined to believe the latter. Still, I have to wonder – what if I'd said yes, just to throw her off? Did she keep fresh tomatoes in her kitchen all year, season to season, just in case I called her bluff?

We talked about everything at that table. Sometimes politics, sometimes family goings-on, and always a discussion of something she'd heard on the radio. CJAD talk radio was her constant companion, always droning on in some corner of the house at all hours of the day and night. When her eyes started to go, the radio meant even more to her, and she'd relate stories from the radio programs as though she'd heard them from good friends. Whenever I came to her with a problem or a complaint about something at work or at school, she'd think for a moment and ask “Do you ever listen to Dr. So-and-So on CJAD? They talk about that sometimes. You should call in.” I often sighed, quite rudely and unfairly, when she asked me about the radio programs, because I never listened to anything but music stations and she knew that. It was the tomato sangwiches all over again!

She did watch TV sometimes, most of it absorbed through her closed eyelids while she rumbled the couch cushions with her snoring. If someone tried to turn off the TV while she was installed, she'd wake with a jolt and protest that she'd been watching that, and resting her eyes! And you know, if you quizzed her, she could almost always tell you exactly what had been happening on the screen.

Momo never had a problem sharing her opinions with you or with anyone within earshot. She was a woman who loved a good debate, and would shamelessly shift sides in a discussion if it meant it would keep the conversation lively. Looking back on those moments now, I can't help but think that I've got a bit of her in me. I see all sides of every argument and can play the Devil's Advocate and rationalize almost any position, if I'm given a chance. I see now that all those cups of tea with Momo had more of a role in shaping my personality than I ever realized at the time.

There's so much more. More than I could ever fit here and more than I could ever really relate to those who never knew her. So many little things about Momo and about the big house in Longueuil. The Crayola-red and -yellow tulips in the front garden. The white stone lions on the front porch, who made such comfortable chairs for the grandchildren having imaginary adventures. Holding out peanuts for generation after generation of backyard squirrels (all of whom were named "Chippy"), and throwing stale bread out to the "dickie birds". 

Her home was always a home to all, with family members holding a lifetime, unrestricted Golden Invitation to come and stay as needed. Nobody would ever be turned away - even the Jehovah's Witnesses who came to the door were accepted for a chat, and every stray cat who ever sat on the porch and meowed for food was given love and a warm home to purr in.

We'll miss her. She was strong and opinionated, kind and witty, and it's obvious that her whole family carries parts of her with them. You won't be forgotten, Momo. Toodley-pips, and God Bless.

*Her preferred method of dealing with one was to kick 'im in the belly and bust his boiler, whatever that means, but I can't find a reference to that line anywhere other than in my memories.

My Class

I took a big step outside of my comfort bubble last night. Ever since I escaped shift work and started my new day job, I've been muttering about taking a class of some sort. Frustrated with my endless procrastination, I dedicated an afternoon to searching the internet for online professional certificate courses to push my career along, but became discouraged when I found that legitimate courses are very expensive. But I was tired of always saying I wanted to do something, and never doing it, so I decided to start small instead of giving up. Baby steps aren't much, but they're better than standing still. I registered for a writing class at the community college.

My first class was last night. I wasn't given any information beyond the name of the high school where the classes were held, so all I brought with me was a good pen and a slightly-used yellow spiral notebook, figuring that I'd at least have the basics covered. Notebook in hand, I stepped nervously through the front door to the school and was greeted by a helpful volunteer who showed me to my classroom.

The desks were tiny, arranged in three neat rows facing a chalkboard half-filled with a teacher's precise handwriting. I saw that the class was reading and analyzing Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, and I smiled to myself, thinking it was probably just as well that I never had to read that one at school, or I wouldn't  have enjoyed it. Sometimes, reading too much into a book takes all the joy out of reading the book.

I was alone at first, twenty minutes early on purpose so that tardiness wouldn't add to my anxiety. The door was behind me, hidden at the end of a short hallway, so each time I heard the click of a new student arriving, I had to turn and wait to see who would appear. One by one, my five classmates came in and chose their seats. It's a very small class - only six women - and I am by far the youngest student. It feels strange to be taking a class about memoir and legacy writing when I'm not really old enough to have much of a life story, especially when I'm sitting there beside women in their seventies and eighties who have done so many incredible things.

When the teacher asked us to introduce ourselves and tell her why we were taking the class, I told everyone that I'm a Canadian import who came here for love, and that I love to write and want to learn more about it so that my blog will be better and maybe someday I'll write down my family's interesting stories for my grandchildren to read. I then had to explain a "blog" to my oldest classmate.

I hope I like the class, and I hope I do well. It's not for credit, but I will feel better if I can notice a difference in my writing, or at least in my approach to writing, by the end. We do writing exercises and share our work, which terrifies me. How strange that I can put my work online and not feel anxious about how it will be received, but reading a paragraph to the class makes my voice tremble. But it's not a challenge if it doesn't push me, so I'm going to do my best.

The first bit I read aloud to the class was the result of the teacher's instructions to find an important moment in my life and write about it for ten minutes. No other guidelines, just put something on paper and share it. I wrote about my first date with my husband, and while I would definitely go back and polish it up before presenting it to the world as an example of what I can do, it made the class laugh, and writing it made me happy.

I'm not sure whether I will, or whether I even should, share the results of my writing exercises with the internet. Who wants to read my memories, anyway? The important thing is that I followed through on a goal I set for myself, and I'm trying to be creative and find a way to grow a little. Wish me luck.

'Tis the Season

Not the Christmas season, of course; it's much too early to be thinking about Santa Claus. Unless you're a major department store, in which case you've had your light-up snowman yard ornaments on display in your seasonal section beside the rakes and lawn bags for two weeks. I know it's true because I saw this guy at Sears last week and would have brought him home to live with me if he wasn't so ridiculously expensive.

But I digress.

What I'm trying to talk about is cold and flu season, which started a week ago for me. Despite my best efforts to wash my hands and stay healthy, I caught a real humdinger of a cold. In hindsight, handling a giggling snotty nephew wasn't the best idea, but I just couldn't help myself. So I got to enjoy blocked sinuses, sniffles, sore throat, fatigue, and a low fever, making me a miserable slug for a week. I'm grateful that everyone has given me permission to take it easy and rest up, and I'm glad that laundry is a fairly low-energy task, because otherwise we'd be out of socks by now.

Don't be like me. Don't get sick. Avoiding small, sniffling children is a good start, but that's only one (very effective) method of germ transmission. So what's to be done?

Wash your hands.

 

Everyone says this, because it's absolutely the best way to keep from getting sick. The CDC has a whole page dedicated to handwashing, with links to videos, factsheets, and podcasts.

How to wash your hands. Image from cdc.gov

Yes, sometimes people will cough or sneeze right at your face (small children, I'm looking in your direction) and you'll be out of luck, but it's far, far more likely that you'll get germs on your hands and deliver them to your face yourself. Someone coughs into their hands and then opens a door, or sneezes on an elevator and pushes the buttons, and then you follow behind them a few minutes later, unaware of the collection of cold viruses waiting for you on those surfaces. You open the door, you push the button for your floor, then you rub your tired eyes or bite your nails. The next day, you'll start feeling off and will probably start distributing those germs yourself.

Cold and flu viruses (and plenty of other nasties) can live on surfaces for up to 48 hours under the right conditions, so unless you want to wear gloves all day and get strange looks, you should make an extra effort to touch only what you need to, wash your hands every chance you get, and keep your hands away from your face. At home, if someone's sick, break out the Lysol now and then to spray doorknobs, toilet handles, and faucets. Encourage everyone to wash their hands after using tissues to blow noses, and to cough and sneeze into their sleeves instead of into their hands.

You don't need to bother with antibacterial soaps. Any soap will do, used with warm water and brought to a good lather. In fact, there's research to suggest that the main antibacterial agent in most of the commercially available hand soaps, Triclosan, is contributing to antibiotic resistance.

It's also a good idea to keep an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with you, for times when you may not have quick access to soap and water. Again, antibacterial agents aren't necessary here - anything that's got an alcohol content of 60% or higher will be effective in destroying most of the bacteria and viruses that are on your hands. You should still look for a sink eventually, though, and wash your hands the old-fashioned way as soon as you get a chance.

With all this handwashing, you're likely to get dry skin, no matter how many emollients the soap and sanitizer manufacturers add to their products. Get yourself a good hand lotion, because chapped and cracked skin is not a good barrier against germs!

K-cup Vivisection

Things got a little brutal yesterday at work.

I've moved up in the world and now work in a place with a communal Keurig machine in the break room. Everybody buys their own K-cups, so there's no fighting over who paid how much for their coffee dues, and we all get to make our favorite flavors. Heaven. Seriously. It's the small things.

After spending too much money on K-cups, my coworker and I each picked up one of those DIY-K-cups from Bed Bath and Beyond (with a 20% off coupon, naturally). The packaging says you just fill it with your preferred ground coffee and pop it into the machine for a delicious cup of coffee for a fraction of what the official K-cups would cost you.

The thing is, we can't get it to work. We get coffee, yes, but it's terrible. Even filling it to the absolute maximum line and setting the Keurig for the smallest cup (6oz), the result is extremely weak. We've tried putting more coffee, less coffee, finer and coarser grinds, and different brands of coffee, but it always comes out like a cup of watered-down coffee. Watching the process closely to pinpoint the problem, I noted that the liquid coming out of the Keurig with one of these things in place was a lot lighter in color than when a K-cup was in there, so I put in a K-cup (since I wanted a decent coffee!) and watched the machine to confirm my suspicion. Sure enough, the coffee looked dark at first, but gradually got lighter until it looked as watery, right at the end, as the stuff coming out with the Solofill cup.

Hypothesis from the peanut gallery in the break room: Maybe the K-cups are super-packed with much more coffee than we could fit in the Solofill! Considering how everyone who walks up to the machine with a K-cup is always unconsciously shaking their little coffee pod like a maraca, I knew this couldn't be true: if it was packed really tight, it wouldn't make noise when shaken. The group wanted proof, of course, so I fetched a sacrificial K-cup from the box of freebies in the office supply closet, which is stocked with decaf and flavors nobody likes. My victim: spicy eggnog. Eeeeeewww.

It was obvious, once I held the pod up to the light of the window, that it was only half full. The interesting thing is, it's the top half that's full, and the bottom is just air. I cut it open to confirm that it was just air and not a filter or something, and yes, just air¹. The top half of the cup was taken up by a thick papery filter full of coffee.

Second hypothesis from the peanut gallery (we have very chatty peanuts in our group): maybe it's not real coffee in the K-cups! Maybe they put instant coffee in there to fool us! The problem with this, though, is that a used K-cup still has coffee in it. Yes, we dismembered one to check. 

New hypothesis! Maybe there's a combination of instant coffee and real coffee in there. This would explain why there is still coffee in the pod once it's done brewing, and explain why the coffee is darker at the beginning, because the water dissolves the granules right away while the rest of the coffee does its thing. My goodness, what a sexy hypothesis! How to check? We tore the lids off the new and used K-cups to compare the volume of coffee grounds, because obviously the instant coffee would have melted away. Weighing them was immediately rejected, because one was waterlogged. Instead, we dumped out some of the dry coffee from the new pod and compared it to regular ground coffee. It looked the same, but just to be sure, I sprinkled some of the K-cup coffee in a coffee cup and added warm water to see if it would dissolve. It did not.

So now we all know what goes on inside a K-cup, but aren't much closer to making decent coffee with the reusable filter. The current hypothesis is that the filter isn't fine enough and the water goes through too fast, not bringing enough coffee flavor with it. Cramming more coffee into the Solofill just causes an overflow problem, so that's not the answer. The paper filter in the real K-cup is very thick, so we're thinking that's the key.

They sell other kinds of multiple-use Keurig pseudo-pods², so the new plan is to buy a couple of different ones and see if they work any better. All of them seem to have similar reviews online, so it's hard to decide what to try, but with our filter hypothesis, I'm going to look for one with a very very fine mesh.

1. I suppose it may have been helium. I did not run it through a mass spectrometer.

2. Pseudo-pods, as in "false pods" not as in "a temporary protrusion of the protoplasm, as of certain protozoans, usually serving as an organ of locomotion". To my knowledge Keurig coffee machines are not amoebas.

Mars and the Wright Brothers

During my week in the Outer Banks, I braved rain and high water to visit the Wright Brothers National Memorial at Kill Devil Hills. Even on a do-nothing-and-relax vacation, as this one was supposed to be, I couldn't resist visiting something historical and museum-y.

 

This boulder and metal track in the ground mark the takeoff point of the Wright Brothers' Flyer, and the four smaller plaques in the distance mark where the first four successful flights landed on December 17th, 1903.

First successful flight of the Wright Brothers

One hundred and twenty feet. That's how far Orville Wright got on his first successful powered flight, which the brothers were smart enough to capture on film. It is amazing to me that there is a photograph of this huge step forward in technology, this incredible achievement. And this all happened in 1903, which isn't really all that far away if you think about it. Not much more than a hundred years from their success in flight, we used a rocket-propelled sky-crane to gently lower an automobile-sized rover onto the surface of Mars.

I bring up the Mars Curiosity rover not only because it's awesome and on Mars, my favorite planet that I don't currently live on, but because we stayed up late on Sunday night, in the big rented house on the beach in Avon, and hooked up the TV to the internet to watch the live feed from NASA as they monitored Curiosity's descent to the surface.

Four of us, and a couple of sleepy weenie-dogs, settled in on the cushy sofas for the whole thing, from the interviews with NASA engineers to the triumphant cheers and tears of joy on the big screen when a safe landing was confirmed. More than once that night, as we watched the camera pan over the control room and the excited and nervous NASA folks speaking into their headsets, I was overwhelmed with a sense of awe and insignificance. Not only are we at a place in our evolution as a species that we can safely place sophisticated technology onto other planets, but it's become routine enough that it's not much more than a blip on the news. Sure, the nerds and space geeks of the world were huddled in front of their TVs and computers to watch it all unfold, but there's a bit of a "been there and done that" feeling from the news coverage, and that makes me both happy and sad.

I'm happy, because it means that awesome feats like this have become common enough not to make a big splash. Not only can we send stuff to Mars, or Jupiter, or to explore giant asteroids, but we do it all the time. We are an amazing damn species. But I'm sad, because when events are common, they stop being news, and people stop caring. When people stop caring, people forget why we're doing all of this in the first place and see it as a waste of money and resources.

But it's not a waste. No, it's not directly ending world hunger or fixing the economy, but space exploration has brought us so many advances in technology, and is worth every penny put into it. And, frankly, it's only pennies that are put into it. NASA's budget is a joke, and the joke keeps getting smaller. This comparison puts it into perspective:

I'm not trying to get all political here - I still don't have a vote in this country - but when you see how little NASA gets from the US budget, it's hard to understand the folks who are complaining that we're spending so much money to visit other planets for nothing. Especially when you see this:

Not that I'm bashing the Olympics (just NBC's dismal coverage and overuse of Ryan Goddamn Seacrest), but in the grand scheme of things, we get so much out of space exploration, and it's silly to argue against funding it. It's not just about rockets, minerals, and spectral analyses. It's about engineering, programming, and robotics, and dozens of other applications to medicine and nutrition and memory foam mattresses.

Three days after I watched Curiosity touch down gently on Mars to begin its mission of exploring the planet, I stood in the spot where we first took to the air in powered vehicles, and I whispered a thanks to the Wright brothers and all those who built on their work, for what they've made possible so far.