Will someone please explain...

Okay, so the idea here is that I'm going to make a list of things I don't understand.

Not science-y or math-y stuff, of which I understand relatively nothing and am never really expecting that to change.

These are things I see that must have some logic-based solution that completely escapes me. So here goes:

1. WHY oh why are razorblade refills so flippin' expensive that they are kept in locked cases in the store? If someone could help me out with every single nonsensical part of this I would be eternally grateful. Please don't say they're locked up because they are a frequently shoplifted item. That would only explain half of my conundrum. I still need to know why a refill pack of four razorblades is $20. I'm just finding it hard to believe that there's mind-boggling new R & D technology that makes each blade worth a whopping five dollars! Perhaps they are one of the more shoplifted items because they are SO FLIPPIN' EXPENSIVE!

2. When a ballpoint pen seems to not work, why does writing on your hand seem to make it work? Anyone else ever do that? I don't get it. What magic properties does my skin have?

3. How come hotel shower faucets are so confusing? It's like a brain teaser--to get hot water you have to pull out on the handle, turn it clockwise to the 3 o'clock position, push it in halfway and then look for the lever that makes it a shower instead of a bath. And they're all different! So when you finally figure one out it's not useful information at all the next time you stay in a hotel.

4. Picture this: you're sitting at your computer. You open up your browser--let's say Safari. You single click in the search bar, which then brings up a box with all of your bookmarks... and randomly maybe your frequently visited sites. But sometimes not your frequently visited sites. Why do they come up sometimes and not other times? Why not always? Or never? Someone please explain to me what it is I'm doing that makes the frequently visited sites either show up or not show up.

5. Why do sodas taste better through a McDonald's-sized straw? It seems to have something to do with the width of the opening to me (as opposed to the length of the straw), but I"m not positive. And I don't know why the width would make a difference. But it does.

6. How come none of us ever know the name of the drummer in a band (exceptions made for Ringo Starr, John Bonham and Don Henley)? Do you know who the drummer is in Maroon 5? Metallica? U2? Coldplay? Pearl Jam? Me neither.

7. Someone explain the process of determining state postal codes. If Alabama is AL and Alaska is AK, why is Alaska AK? If it's because Alabama came first in the alphabet, then riddle me this Batman: why is Arizona AZ and Arkansas is AR? Shouldn't Arizona get the AR because it's alphabetically before Arkansas? Shouldn't Arkansas be AN or AS?

8. Why do some people care so much about whether the toilet paper comes up from under or over the top of the roll?

9. If you're in the "C" boarding group on a Southwest flight, why are you even trying to bring a carry-on bag aboard? There's not going to be room. You're going to have to gate check it. You're just holding up the departure of the plane. What are you doing, man?

I think that's it for now. I'll start my list anew now that this one has been released out into the wild. I'm not really expecting anyone to answer these questions for me, but it feels a little cathartic to put them out there, just in case I'm not insane unique and other people wonder about these things, too.

I Can('t) Do That

Last night, out of nowhere, our garbage disposal went on the fritz. Both of them (yes, we have two separate sinks and disposals--installed by the previous owners).

Dave went straight into "fix-it" mode. He took out all of the drawers to get access to the smaller sink's pipes. He emptied the cabinet under the sink to get access to the pipes under the main sink. I just stood there, saying, "Anything I can do?"

There wasn't.

Because I am not one of those people who can do anything. I want to be one of those people. I once fancied myself one of those people. But all it took to convince me otherwise was a little foray into (making an attempt at) changing out a dated bathroom faucet for a newer, more updated one.

It seemed like a great idea at the time. Dave was going to Yosemite with his students for five days, and I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be a great surprise if he came back and the ugly brass-colored faucets in our master bathroom were replaced by sleek-looking brushed nickel faucets?"

Along with that thought should have been me also thinking, "Yes! He would love that! I'll call a plumber to do the job since I have absolutely zero experience in anything even remotely related to plumbing." But no. That sensible thought did not occur in my head. No, instead, I convinced myself that I was an intelligent person capable of following installation instructions, which surely would come with the new faucets.

Those instructions did, indeed, come with the faucets. I was not, as it turns out, capable of following them.

I won't go into excruciating detail, but suffice it to say that there is particular rudimentary "which pipe goes where" knowledge as well as vocabulary when one is installing faucets, and I was not in possession of any of it. There are also (supposedly) helpful diagrams. Again, if you're not familiar with the schematics of that kind of graphic, it's all just tiny little pictures of unidentifiable parts that to me, looked all the same.

I lasted all of about forty-five minutes under our bathroom sink before I called "mercy," and a professional. He did both sinks in about an hour.

Plumbing is just one of the many skills I do not possess. I can mow the lawn, but I cannot edge it. Because weed-whackers are terrifying. If anything at all goes wrong with the refrigerator, I'm out. Same with the oven (or any major appliance). I once, and I'm not kidding here, called the local appliance store because our dishwasher wouldn't work. They sent out Ralph, who I'm sure thought I was a complete idiot when it turned out I simply had mistakenly pressed the "delay cycle" button. He pressed the button again and voila, the dishwasher was fixed.

And the list of things I cannot do goes on... and on...

My husband, on the other hand, has mad skills, and diverse mad skills! He can replace door hardware, seal a leak in the hot tub, do the electrical work to install fans outdoors, build furniture, change the oil in ALL of our cars, add RAM to his computer, replace a broken gate and a broken tail light, construct a wheelchair ramp for his parents' house, make a perfect cappuccino, explain Einstein's Theory of Relativity and perfectly cook a steak.

I can do exactly none of those. I can make a good cappuccino. But that's it (and if I"m being honest the only reason I can do that is because Dave taught me). I do have skills, but mine are less useful. I can load the dishwasher to maximum capacity (you can laugh, but I can fit twice as many dishes in the dishwasher than anyone else in my family--it's my super power). I learn languages easily. I make truly great chocolate chip cookies.  These are entirely different kinds of skills than Dave has., though. His are wide-ranging, useful skills. Mine are... what's the word I'm searching for... extraneous? superfluous? I mean really, life's going to be just fine without my skills--maybe a little annoying at how often the dishwasher would have to be run.  Life's would be, first of all, ridiculously expensive without Dave's skills, but also it would be a revolving door of repair people--the house would constantly be in a state of falling apart.

I have great appreciation for people who are fearless in attempting tasks with which they have no prior experience but are fairly certain they will at least mildly succeed at. (One of my other super powers is grammar/punctuation, so in case you noticed that last sentence, please let me reassure you that ending a sentence with a preposition is now considered acceptable)

While I am not fearless, I am pretty game to try new things. The difference with me is that rarely am I even remotely thinking that I will succeed on a first try. First tries are training ground for me. But I don't care. I'm still willing to make the initial attempt. So I guess that counts for something.

I'm trying, in my head, to connect the dots with all this, and what I'm seeing is the common thread of optimism. People like Dave give things a go because they are confident that they can master something; they are willing to put in the time, the work, the sweat-- they can visualize mastering a skill and can devise a path to get them there. People like me, though we don't have headline-worthy success rates (sometimes ever) with our talents, are still willing to give things a go because we can visualize improvement (any improvement!) at some point down the line. It's sort of a glass starting half full and filling up for Dave and an empty glass slowly filling up for me.

I imagine my metaphorical glass to slowly fill up with a nice Robert Strong Chalk Hill chardonnay. And when I'm done I am positive I can fit that glass into the top rack of what seems like an already-filled dishwasher.

I Will F*$@ing Smash Your Fu*^#ng Head (subtitle: Trauma Underground)

So, the New York City subway system.

That title's making a little more sense to you already, isn't it?

A bit of qualifying background on me, since I am about to embark on a critique of the NYC subway system. I grew up in the SF Bay Area and have ridden BART hundreds of times. I've never gotten off at the wrong stop or not known which train to take. I've ridden the Paris Metro system, and while I have a rudimentary knowledge of French I am far from conversational, and yet I never got on the wrong train or was stymied by where to get off. I've ridden the London Underground on more than one vacation. Not to be repetitive, but again, easy to figure out how to get where you're going and you would have to try pretty hard to find yourself on the wrong train.

So, with that background information, I feel confident saying that the New York City subway system is a tangled mess of an imbroglio (I'm learning new words--join me!).

In our family, Steven and I are the designated navigators if we are on vacation. We are both great at reading maps and schedules and figuring out routes to destinations. On this particular trip, however, it was just me and Dave. We are two smart people with good life skills. That doesn't matter, however, if you're riding the NYC subway on a weekend. The only thing that matters in that particular situation is whether or not you are a frequent NYC subway traveler.

We are not. Nor are the literally tens of thousands of people who are tourists in New York City every year. Let the chaos and confusion begin!

Okay people who are in charge of the subway system, first off you need to post maps of the system ALL OVER the stations. One map located in the vestibule where you buy your ticket does not help because it's not accessible once you've gone through the turnstile onto the platform. And also, what if, hypothetically, a person who is not familiar with any of this goes back out the turnstile to talk to the agent in the booth and then cannot get back onto the platform because the ticket now thinks it's been used? I'm not saying this happened. I'm not saying this didn't happen. I'm just wondering for a friend...

Okay, so maps. Lots of maps, please.

Also, it would be super great if the schedules for the trains were organized. And by organized, I mean readable. There should be some recognizable structure to train schedules. People who can walk and talk at the same time (but who don't live in NYC and frequent the subway) ought to be able to look at a train timetable and understand how to read it.

And for the love of god, if you're going to have a different schedule for the weekends you need to post a SEPARATE weekend map and timetable. Or at the very least put an asterisk or some notation next to trains that do run on the weekends. Because when you don't do that, otherwise intelligent people take the time to come up with the best possible route to Yankee Stadium from 81st Street only to find that the carefully mapped route bears no resemblance to what is possible that day.

Same thing for local vs. express trains. There needs to be some visual cue that indicates which one is running at any particular time. Even the New Yorkers we encountered had no idea if they were on a local or an express.

Let's move on to signage. Most important, there needs to be some. If I am standing on the platform, there should be a sign, somewhere I can see, that indicates which train will come through next. And how far away that train is. And the sign CANNOT just randomly say 10 minutes and never change. The number on the sign should actually represent, in real time, how far away the next train is from the platform.

Ideally, electronic signs posted along the platform would flash which train is coming next and at what time it is due into the station. The point of destination would also be helpful. Because trains go two directions, and if you can't orient yourself because you're underground, there's no way to tell which way the train is going unless you know either its origin or destination.

This is not complicated stuff. This is "Running an Underground Transportation System 101."

I think that's all I've got. Maybe one more thing: if you're going to shut down entire stations on the weekend, again, there needs to be some indicator on the schedule so that people do not walk on crutches all the way to a station only to find it's locked up tight. This did not happen to me, but it could have!

The title of the post, in case you're wondering, comes from our family's vacation about five years ago. We were in a Paris Metro station, and while Steven and I were off buying the tickets Dave and Olivia were on the deck of the station, people watching. They heard some noise and looked over to one of the little kiosks that sells magazines and newspapers. The proprietor was screaming at a college age kid. Perhaps the young man had tried to steal something from the shop--they weren't sure. But the owner yelled, top volume and in slightly accented English, "I will fucking smash your fucking head!"

Which perfectly sums up how Dave and I felt about whomever is currently in charge of the NYC subway system.

Three Words to Describe Dave

Last week Dave and I were in NYC for a few days. If you’re thinking to yourself, “Why didn’t she end that first sentence with an exclamation point because NYC!”, I’ll tell you why. We were there for me to get scanned, which I have to do every four months for a few years. So, yeah, no exclamation point. BUT, per usual, my amazing husband somehow made a trip that could have been all about stress and worry into, instead, a trip that was filled with diversionary events that made the stress almost disappear! Yes, that sentence demanded an exclamation point. 

We went to a Yankees game, via the subway. (Hey, NYC, for being the tourist mecca that you are, your subway maps and instructions need some serious work--I’ll address this fiasco in a future post.) We saw Giancarlo Stanton hit a home run! We saw Judge get a nice hit. We explored the stadium during the two hour rain delay :) 

We went to the Met and saw Shaker furniture, some intriguing modern art and even a couple of Botticellis and Van Goghs. 

We had dinners that were up there in our top ten list of meals we’ve eaten. And at one of these dinners, the night before my doctor’s appointment, Dave started a kind of game that proved to be the perfect antidote to my mind wandering down rabbit holes.

He asked me what three words would I use to describe him. And three words to describe each of our kids. And our siblings. And our parents. It was a task that required some serious thought on more than a few different levels. It was a great distraction that sparked thoughtful, fun and spirited conversation. It was the perfect diversion. 

We spent a good portion of our meal describing everyone in our immediate family, and rationalizing to each other why we chose each word, because we did not choose the same words, and yet we agreed that the words we each chose all were quite apt. 

So I want to share three words that I think epitomize Dave. This is not easy to do, by the way, because Dave defies limited descriptors. He’s got a staggering amount of character. By no means is Dave limited to these three words, just sayin’. 

Devoted. My six foot six husband has a heart the size of his height, and his heart is owned by his kids. As they say in baseball, ownage is ownage. There is nothing he would not do for them. They are the light of his life. You can hear it when he talks about them and you can see it when he is with them. 

And as Dave reads this for the first time, right about now he’ll be thinking, “Hey, don’t forget that you (me) are the light of my life, too.” I’m not saying this because I’m all that. I’m saying this because I know how he feels, and I have no doubt in my mind that I am his number one priority. That’s not to say that the kids are not his number one priority. Of course they are, too. But they are adults, living independently. When they need something, they are absolutely the priority. But it’s somewhat few and far between these days that the kids need something (kudos to me and Dave for raising kids who have strong problem-solving skills) . They are off being grown-ups making their own decisions, as it should be. And this past year has... (I’m searching for the right word here and I want to say evinced,  except that evinced means revealed, and it’s not that I didn’t already know this, it’s that it re-evinced, which is not a word... still searching...) Okay, going with re-evinced (yes, I’m going with a word I just invented). So let me start that whole sentence over so you can understand it, because that was not the best example of clarity.

This past year has re-evinced Dave’s devotion to me. During a time that could have crushed the spirit of almost any spouse, it did the opposite to Dave. Every time the situation got more difficult, and I would start to feel despondent, Dave would reinvigorate me with love and optimism and tenacity. He did not even blink when it came to putting my needs first. It was just second-nature to him. In hind-sight, I can very clearly see the fact that he has always put my needs first, before his. His devotion has been constant for the past twenty-six years. 

So that was my first word to describe Dave, in case my lengthy explanation of that made you forget what I was doing in the first place. 

My second word was wise. I chose that word very specifically. It doesn’t mean the same thing as smart. It means so much more than smart. It means having good judgement. It means having experience and learning from experience. It means listening well and being able to discern what is important. It means being able to see the big picture and seeing more than one move ahead. It means being able to see options for response, instead of just seeing one narrow path. Let me illustrate how to use this in a sentence so you will best understand my gist: I am smart. Dave is wise. 

My third word was... actually, I think I came up with a few, but the one I’m going to go with here is confident. Confident is not an easy thing to be. Most people I know are not confident. We all doubt our abilities. We are uncertain of our talents. We are apprehensive to try things at which we are not sure we will succeed. It’s not that Dave never doubts himself. It’s just that he never lets his doubt get in the way of what he wants or needs to accomplish. He is confident he will do his best at whatever he does. His effort is never less than one-hundred percent, and he doesn’t dwell on failure because he knows he will get better if he continues to try. He is not afraid or hesitant to try, and try again. His confidence is contagious, and I’m so grateful for it. 

I am so grateful for him.