Love those Cardinals!

Because I’ve been traveling and didn’t get to post anything during the World Series, I have to mention now that I am so excited the Cardinals won!

I only got to watch highlights on BBC World at night and read about the games in the Asahi Times (an English-language Japanese paper associated with the New York Times that the hotel delivered to our room every morning) the next day. It is not suprising that many of the articles were about So Taguchi’s contributions (or lack thereof) during the games. Apparently, he had a pretty big sacrifice in game 3 or 4 that advanced the runner (Eckstein, I think). To hear the Asahi Times tell it, you would have thought he had hit a game winning grand slam. I like So, but the paper’s coverage of him was out of control. It made me laugh.

This is not a test!

We here at No Exit wish to inform the public that the entire staff is on vacation until October 29th.

Nice to meet you. I’m 27284.

This morning, when I was still in bed and only half-awake, I was frantic. I couldn’t remember where I had put my identification card – from college. I thought about where I could have put it and why I couldn’t remember where it was. Since I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of eating at Walt’s without my I.D. (the man’s name who managed our college cafeteria was named Walt, so that’s what we all called it), I wondered if I would have time to drive to McDonald’s, or the Tiger Mart, before class. I also dreaded going to the administrative office and dealing with explaining why I needed a new I.D.

Then, my alarm went off for the second time. As I rolled over to turn it off, I chuckled at my ridiculousness. I’ve been out of college for ten years and, after having a dream about my college I.D., I still worry about where that stupid pink and purple rectangle of laminated cardboard is. As I stumbled toward the kitchen to make coffee, I thought about it for a little while and was even able to recall my I.D. number – 27284. Without even realizing it when I was in college, that number defined me for four years. It enabled me to participate in all aspects of campus life including registering for classes, getting credit for attending chapel on Tuesdays, participating in extracurricular activities, and eating at Walt’s. No one seemed to care about my name, but just wanted my I.D. number. I guess that’s why I remembered it so easily this morning. I still found it weird.

I’ve been thinking about it all morning and I’ve decided that I find I.D.s of all forms strange. Each of them defines us in some way, often in a manner we cannot control. For instance, we are all, if born in the U.S., issued a social security number at birth whether we want one or not. I know a man who, for philosophical and religious reasons, once tried to abdicate his social security number. He was willing to relinquish any benefits he might receive from the government, but still agree to pay whatever taxes he might incur throughout his life. The government couldn’t even conceive of someone who would want to take such actions and didn’t know what to do with him. He was unsuccessful.

In defense of the government, I think there has to be some system to keep track of the 300 million inhabitants of the U.S. The social security system, while imperfect to say the least, is what we have. It’s not practical to erase your social security number. However, I can identify with the man who tried to erase his social security number; it makes me nervous to think that big brother gets to decide how I’ll be known for my entire life and for what purposes my number is used. While it’s hardly a novel thought, I find it all a little apocalyptic.

Zoie’s Surgery

She is out, awake, and recovering. It will take about 10 days to get the results of the biopsy.

If you are the praying type…

Say a prayer for Zoie this morning. She is going under the knife as I type this – to remove what is hopefully a benign breast tumor. I’ll post an update this afternoon.

Random Monday Thoughts

1. Boston is a great city. It seems very livable. All the locals I talked with said it is expensive, but I didn’t find it terribly so. I basically ate my way through the city; the seafood is excellent.

My favorite restaurant was a place called East Ocean City. It is a Chinese restaurant that specializes in seafood. Coming through the front door on the way to the seating areas, you walk in past huge tanks of live Sea Bass and Crabs soon to appear on your plate, if you so desire. I desired. I ordered broiled Sea Bass with a black bean sauce.

About 20 minutes after we ordered, our waiter brought Jennifer’s food (General Tao’s Chicken – which was really good incidentally) and both of us a bowl of steamed rice. A couple of minutes later, a woman brought my fish. I moved my rice toward the center of the table so she could put the fish down near me. She grunted something unintelligible but, whatever she said, I understood that I was not to move the rice. She pushed it back where it had been and placed the fish in the middle of the table.

As soon as I caught a glimpse of it, I looked quickly at Jennifer. Her eyes were huge; she was staring at the plate. The woman was cutting fish meat from a huge Sea Bass that had been gutted and skinned but otherwise was still wholly intact. As the meat virtually fell off the bone, the spine and ribs of the fish became more and more visible. The tail was fairly innocuous, but the still attached head bothered even me a little. The dead eyes had turned a grayish color. Although I was a little grossed out, I couldn’t wait to hear Jennifer’s reaction. The woman continued cutting the meat while she scolded me a little for ordering a heavy sauce for fish with a light flavor. She said, “This is a Chinese restaurant, we know how to cook fish well. Next time you order lighter sauce. This fish is delicate, you ruin it with heavy sauce.”

After she finished, Jennifer stared for a few seconds longer and then said flatly, “Good luck with that.” I laughed out loud.

As soon as I took a bite of the tender, buttery meat, I completely forgot about the dead eyes. The sauce seemed fine to me but, if I ever go back to East Ocean City, I will have the same dish again with a lighter sauce. If it was that good with the wrong sauce, I can’t imagine what the right sauce would do for it.

2. I saw a couple of bumper sticker this weekend that I liked:

“God bless the whole world. No exceptions.”

“You can no more win a war than win an earthquake.”

3. Go Cardinals! If they win tonight, I think they have a pretty good chance of making the World Series.

Trees entrusted to me

Just before we left my parents’ house this past Sunday, I discussed with them the preparation of their estate plan. I found talking about it with them difficult because I was basically asking them, “What do you want me to do with your stuff when you die?” Everyone should plan for the inevitable, but it’s hard to recognize, and even harder to verbalize, that your parents aren’t always going to be around. Among other things and so that I can properly document their wishes, we talked about what they want done with their real estate, personal property, and what medical decisions are important to them. It’s heavy stuff to admit that we will not always be around or, perhaps more importantly, that we will not always be able to care for ourselves, even when we are still here. I could see the weight of the decisions on my parent’s faces.

As we traveled south on U.S. Highway 65, Jennifer was sleeping while I drove and listened to U2 – a serious band for a serious mood. Between Marshall and Leslie, I started noticing a few trees turning from green to orange and red. Not long ago, I heard someone from the Arkansas Forestry Commission talking on NPR about the autumn trees. He said the trees need a fair amount of water, warm days, and relatively cool nights – all of his conditions were very vague – in order to turn the bright oranges and reds that everyone loves to see. I don’t know if the nights have been cool enough, but I always hope for lots of color. I expect in another week or 10 days, we’ll know for certain.

Regardless, I was taken aback by the few trees that were changing color. It was probably owing to my conversation with my parents, but it occurred to me, when I saw the trees, that we each see the leaves change colors and fall off the trees a relatively few number of times. When we finally are aged enough to slow down and observe the trees, the beauty of the leaves is undeniable. In the brashness of my youth, I hate that I missed it for so many years.

As I drove and was mystified by the trees, I began to wonder why God created deciduous trees at all. Conifers plod along through the years without the need to stoop to such parlor tricks each autumn. I am sure a botanist would have some explanation about how different trees thrive in different climates and elevations and some other information that I simply do not care to hear. I personally decided that God made deciduous trees solely to remind us of our transient nature and that we are living on his creation. I also decided that it is a gloriously beautiful way to display the lesson.

Lately…

Work has been keeping me really busy and I haven’t had much of a chance to either post or read other blogs.

Jennifer and I went to Berryville this past weekend. I wrote some interesting observations in my journal. I hope to post a couple of them tonight or tomorrow. If not, it’ll be this weekend before I get anything else posted – we’re leaving for Boston on Wednesday (10/11/06) and will not return until Saturday.

Recent Observations

1. Earlier this week, I washed my car in an automatic car wash. It was the kind that has the little metal rack that cradles one of the car’s tires and lets the sensors in the car wash know it should start washing. As such, I knew that I was sitting still and that my car wasn’t moving. After I pulled in and started my iPod on a new song, I looked up to see the washing mechanism moving over my car. When I saw it, though, my senses told me that my car was rolling, not that the parts of the car wash were moving. I quickly slammed my foot on the brakes. Of course nothing happened. I almost immediately laughed out loud at my silliness. It’s weird how our senses sometimes play tricks on us.

2. We have a water cooler on my floor at work. I don’t use it because it is filled with spring water and I do not like the thickness of spring water (Evian is, after all, naïve spelled backwards). People at work cannot understand why I do not use the water cooler. I’ve been asked at least 10 times why I drink tap water. When I tell them I prefer the taste, they look at me as if trying to figure out if the third eye in my forehead improves my vision or not.

A few days ago, I was filling my Nalgene bottle out of the tap, which happens to be adjacent to the water cooler. A coworker walked up to the water cooler and filled a used Dasani bottle out of the water cooler. When she did, she physically put the mouth of the Dasani bottle on the water cooler’s spigot. I almost threw up. I am certain she is not the only person to have done that. I hadn’t considered it before, but now I am doubly glad I prefer tap water.

3. Zoie and Sadie (our dogs, if you haven’t seen previous posts about them) have a super power. It is disgusting but still a super power. They have some sort of foresight about when Sidney (one of our cats) is going to regurgitate cat food. After eating, he pukes about 3 mornings out of 7. On the mornings he pukes, they both follow him around until he does it and then scarf it down. It is probably the most disgusting thing they do. I obviously would rather they didn’t eat his vomit, but I am not willing to follow him around and clean up hot puke before they scarf it. On the mornings he doesn’t throw up, they don’t follow him around. It’s uncanny.

4. At work, we have a hard core eavesdropper (ED for short). ED stands outside people’s offices listening to conversations. It is so bad, it has become a joke around the office; we all talk about how, if you want to know something, ask ED because he or she has probably overheard whatever it is. Someone else I know, who used to report to ED, told me a story about how ED would stand outside the other person’s office and listen to conversations. After the conversation was over, ED would come in and critique the call and tell the person what they should have said differently. ED never had substantive suggestions, but merely stylistic things. I’ve taken to shutting my door when I am having a personal conversation.