Sparkly Thanksgiving

We woke up not to a white Christmas, but to a Sparkly Thanksgiving at my parents' house. Turkey's going on the grill shortly which will soon melt the frost away.

Pokey

10 or so years ago my brother went to see “Dr Wong” for neck pain that had never been cured by physical therapy et al. Doug came out with a wacky-big bruise on his neck, and feeling pain free the first time in ages. Dr. Wong has since retired, but luckily, an acquaintance who used to go to Dr. Wong now recommends “Dr. Kan” as his substitute.

So this afternoon I headed to Dr. Kan’s office, grabbed the proper forms sitting next to a big bowl of ginger candies (my kinda place), and was slightly taken aback when the receptionist asked me if I’d ever had acupuncture. What went through my brain was “you mean a neck bruise won’t solve all my problems?” But hey, I was open to it as 2 chiropractors haven’t cured my sciatic nerve problem, and “western types” so far tell me just to tough it out and stretch. I figure if Dr. Kan can’t solve it, I still have time to give the Weill-Cornell network another whirl pre-Bali.

So the Dr sat me on a table, asked me a lot of questions, and quickly identified the problem. He then asked me to stick out my tongue and he remarked “You didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, right?” Well that didn’t impress me too much given the circles under my eyes, but I was still game for whatever was (is?) his game.

Dr. Kan then proceeded to poke me all over asking “Does this hurt? Does this hurt? And now? Does THIS hurt? Does this hurt?” and while slightly repetitive on the verge of annoying, nothing hurt. I told him I had a high threshold for pain. He then stuck 4 needles in my left arm, 4 in my left leg, and 3 in my right arm. His instructions were to relax for 25 minutes, don’t worry about wiggling around, and I might even be able to catch up on sleep.

The needles are a bit eerie, some stick straight out, like, well, pins, some list around like weeping willow branches. They don’t hurt, but there were definite numbing tingling sensations traveling around. Perhaps this was from sitting around in a chilly room for a long time (I refuse to insert a pins & needles joke here). Next session I’m bringing a sweater and I’ll keep writing on how all this progresses.

Major Discoveries for the 3rd week of November

1) “Samantha Who?” is charming, and will replace the soon to be cancelled “Pushing Daisies” in my TV quota.

2) After kvelling about my mom’s pies to a few people, I discovered that a shockingly large percentage of my friends do/consume store bought pies for Thanksgiving. My family is so lucky.

3) Even though you may feel like no one is looking at you when you’re in a car in NYC, you are quite visible to bored people on buses looking out the windows. I have done the Superman many a time in my car, but going forward I will never change my clothes in the car next to a bus, given what I, and my bus-mates saw going on in a red Mini a few days back.

4) Any bus taken before 7am in NYC is just as good as an Express (Limited) bus.

5) For my friends looking immediately for marketing jobs, I have a company in need of you: This morning I saw a chocolate bar labeled “Pure Icelandic Chocolate.” That has to be among the worst naming jobs ever. Iceland has many wonderful qualities, including what I assume is a lot of purity, but I don’t associate icy-Iceland with fabulous milk (i.e. such as in Belgium or Vermont) nor with fabulous cacao beans (i.e. such as in Venezuela or Ghana) nor a particularly notable dessert tradition (i.e. such as France or Japan). On top of that, the chocolate was wrapped in dull grey paper with miniscule brown writing. As I was caffeinated this AM, I was chatty with my neighbors in the checkout line, and we all agreed we’d never touch the stuff. If the product hasn’t disappeared by spring, I’ll apply there too.

Snake Oil Talk

A friend of mine once told me the story of going to a car dealership, just to look around. Suddenly the salesperson started saying all of these attractive things, which my friend knew were sales-talk-snake-oil words, but suddenly the friend started agreeing with everything the salesperson said, and next thing he knew he’d traded in his sturdy old black Volvo for a zippy yellow subcompact which he drove off the lot just a few scant minutes later.

The same thing happened to me at the gym. My gym offers new members a complimentary fitness assessment and personal training session. I went in all cocky and fit from swimming, surfing, elliptical, Pilates classes, you name it. I was just curious, that’s all. The plan was to go, pick up a few tips, and then continue on with the group classes and cardio I can very well do on my own.

Well, they put me through all these agility tests, and turns out that I’m weak in my hips (which might explain my perpetually sore thigh) and could use some work on my core. The trainer emphasized “We would do exercises that would really improve your balance when skiing” and “This regimen will make you last all day in the water instead of just a few hours” and “I’d really like to do some stuff that will strengthen the areas around your perpetually sore thigh” then she really hit below the belt “If you do 6 weeks with me I’ll get your body fat down from 24% to 20% without you changing your diet.”

So cruel. So below the belt. So… just what I wanted to hear. And stupid me, even though I didn’t bring my credit card so I wouldn’t buy anything, I’ve bought enough stuff online over the years that I have the # memorized, and of course, they accepted that same number when I rattled it off verbatim.

But, that being said, like my friend is happy with his zippy yellow car, I’m loving my new hard core routine. The trainer’s showing me stuff I haven’t seen in magazines before, and correcting the form. Hoping it pays off, hoping that I don’t look like Madonna in a few weeks, and hoping the trainer doesn’t make me buy new sneakers, too.

Who is the knucklehead with the injury stats and calculator?

I started looking into health insurance for my trip. COBRA ain’t going to kit me up and fly me home if I get raked across a reef or whatnot in Indonesia. So I googled and puttered around looking for the action sports packages to ensure that whichever company I buy from doesn’t back out of covering me and my addiction to surfing. I found a great package, it’s even called the "Extreme" package (hello 1997) and read that they’ll cover the following sports:

Abseiling, BMX, bungee jumping, canyoing, caving, flying (private plane), hang gliding, heli-skiing, high diving, hot air ballooning, kayaking, inline skating, mountain biking, mountaineering (ropes and guides to 4500m from ground level), paragliding, parascending, rappelling, rock climbing (ropes and guides to 4500m from ground level, scuba diving (to 50m), skydiving, spelunking, whitewater rafting (to class v).

And no other sports not grouped within the list above. Do you notice any major sports missing from the list that have to do with waves and balsa wood?

I began fretting, looking frantically around the web, getting more creative with my search terms, and I still couldn't find surfing coverage anywhere. Yes, surfing is not included in that list of insane sports above, the majority of which I would not participate in anyways (not for lack of will, but for my propensity to get motion sick, but that’s another embarrassing blog entry for another time.)

As a last ditch effort, I turned back to the piddly regular package which covers things like tripping on steps and scooter crashes, and what do you know, surfing isn’t considered hard-core enough to be excluded from the piddly normal person package. Thank you insurance probability estimators for being kind to my budget!

Lobstah and Pigs

We headed to Maine for the day so that Mom could indulge in LL Bean and so that I could indulge in Lobster (hereby referred to as "Lobstah").

Didn’t need anything at LL Bean, so I played around in the books section of the store- there’s an entire genre related to Maine. My favorite was “Pigs in the Mud in the Middle of the Rud” by Lynn Plourde. (Pigs in the Mud in the Middle of the Road) Obviously my favorites were the ones using the local accent. Learned that “Aya” is the stuff you put in your tires and “Ajuh” is answering in the affirmative. Good to have it spelled out for me.

Lobstah was delicious- there’s a glut right now because the high rollers aren’t buying as much. But my mom’s leftover pork loin sandwich beat out the restaurant meal. Nothing can replace her cooking.

Coaxing to Re-bloom

Although my mom can make most anything grow, she’s never bothered with the drama that diva Orchids create. She buys “cheap” ones at Trader Joe’s with the understanding that they’ll look pretty for a while and then never re-bloom. But this year she has officially changed her track record- she left a couple of leafy ones (i.e. post-bloom) outside all summer and now they’re all re-blooming. I guess some things are best just left alone, and they figure themselves out.

PS Shoutout to The Blue Petunia for making my new blog layout & design beautiful! http://thebluepetunia.com/

Billy Elliot

My mom came to town and we saw Billy Elliot. The dancing is supposed to be the part which blows audiences away, but the costumes really got my attention- it’s fun that the clothes of my childhood are making a comeback in the play as well as on the street: down vests with corduroy shoulders, pantaloons, primary color sneakers, crazy 80s dance clothes with purple sparkles and legwarmers. Not sure if that’s what was authentically in style in Northern England back then, but it was fun to see it again. But back to the dancing- Billy was extraordinary. Check out the 3 boys who all play him on the Today Show (yes, I know, the song starts off slow, it doesn't feel that way in the play- hang on for the spins)

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/27279964#27278310

Evening walk to the west side

After meeting my friend Amber downtown for coffee, I took the long way home to my specific subway line on the west side, and played with the night settings on my camera.

How can you improve on a win-win situation? Triple Win.



I have no idea what this sign is trying to tell people. It is posted over stairs going into a basement, so maybe it's just intended to distract visitors from hitting their head on the overhang. What's going on with that poor guy's flat top? Is he pulling something out of the bag to wipe the spot off his nose?



A French designer captures the American national mood.



The other night I dreamt that I didn't own a puppy, but instead an animal that looked like a cross between a pigeon and a seal. This painting seems to capture the metamorphosis of those three (or maybe other?) animals. Check out the fins mid-torso.



Didn't quite ever get this shot- maybe time to look for a bitty tripod. In any case, a grouping of objects you'd find in many a man's living room: Bombay Gin, polka dotted Vespa helmet, elephant statue, finely tailored clothes. Is this homage to 007?



Teeny, tiny, complimentary matches from a luggage store. Infinitely cute... but pretty tough to use for those with a slow twitch reflex.

Who IS writing the fortune cookie slips these days?

Last night my friends Andrew & Thomas invited a few of us to their fave restaurant, Homes Kitchen. They have eaten everything on the menu, so always do a fantastic job of picking special dishes & hosting. Often when I head to Chinatown I have order envy, but not last night:



And by the way- who is writing fortune cookie slips these days? Do they have ANY insight into my current lifestyle?

Regularly Scheduled Programming

I've gone cold turkey on the news. Back to our regularly scheduled programming:

The shoes, of all things, set the tone for the day

Tuesday started off on the right, er, left foot, when I realized that I packed two left shoes. Yes, I love my waterproof Merrells so much that I own 2 identical pairs- just didn't think it through when shoving them in my suitcase. Took it as a good omen.










My fourth day of canvassing was brightened not only by the prospect of finally seeing the results of our work, but also because Cindy drove down from Brooklyn to be my persuasion partner for the afternoon:







Luckily it didn't rain too hard- which was much appreciated by my non-waterproof shoe encased feet, as well as for the poll lines in PA:



We hit 136 houses to encourage people to go to the polls, got in a quick nap at my lovely hosts' home, and then headed to the viewing party for all Bucks County Volunteers:



Joe the Voter is very different than Joe the Plumber in that his name isn't Joe, he isn't a plumber, and he's actually licensed to do things- in this case by the FCC, and to scuba dive:



This was my favorite t shirt of the night- MLK Jr and JFK in the background:



And here's the mood at the party after the TV declared victory- YES WE CAN!

Hitting everyone, well, most everyone with the right message

Canvassing was again, uneventful. At the HQ they told us that we reached 1MM houses on Sunday- so it feels good to be part of an effective machine. Today we left hangers with instructions on where to vote, during what hours, etc. They're expecting a turnout which could overwhelm the polling infrastructure.

I had a few run ins with people voting for the other candidate who felt compelled to share with me a such, but no reason to provoke them, especially since I was on my own. There were also supporters who yelled at me from their cars, or in person. One woman yelled at me through her screen door, "Keep going, girl! You're going to win it for us!" and another yelled at me through her screen door, "Give me ONE good reason to vote for Obama, lady." Odd who called me a girl vs. a lady.

My favorite sign of the day: O'Bama with the apostrophe being a little shamrock:



This street shall go unnamed to protect the inhabitants' privacy, but it has a similar name to where the Desperate Housewives live.



A birdfeeder collection:



The squirrels found payload at this particular garbage spot:



This isn't exactly Heartbreak Hill, but seeing this incline was a bit demoralizing:



At the end of the day there was a bit of brightness in the darkening sky with a hot air balloon:

Keeping the brain busy

An embarrassing admission: canvassing is pretty boring. Especially today as they asked us to hit as many houses as possible without human interaction. We just double checked on addresses, and placed door hangers with polling location information. I went to 119 houses, and to keep my brain busy I focused on pictures.

First up - a pink McCain sign- in support of a cure for breast cancer? In support of women's rights? Hmmm:



This bird feeder has bee honeycomb inside- click on it for a better view:



At a rest room stop, didn't hear much honking in this part of PA:



A teacup full of rainwater and leaves, a sand castle shovel, and cement chicken.




A burning bush:



Canvassing the last hour was somewhat invigorating because we ran into McCain volunteers who were also leaving door hangers. Imagine the awkwardness if these neighbors come home at the same time:

Side by Side in Bucks County, PA

Started campaigning today in PA. They sent me to a neighborhood which was 50/50 McCain/Obama, but I was asked only to connect with registered Dems. Not any indications of the differences between the various houses, though there were some patterns with the various makes of cars.

All of the pre-work and reading seemed lost until I stumbled upon, gasp, an undecided voter (!?!) I just told her to check out the Barack Obama site which has a simple side by side comparison of the most important issues. Chickened out on trying to persuade her beyond that. Which reminds me, have you read some of those side by side comparisons?

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/