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.

Thanks So Much, and You Have a Great Weekend, Too

"Hello?"
"Hello, is Kimberley there?"
"This is she." (That's what I said, but in my head I was thinking oh shit, what organization is going to ask me for my money today...)
"Hi Kimberley. I don't want to take up too much of your time, but I wanted to let you know that in the upcoming election for DA, the Police Association supports Ann Marie Schubert. Can we count on your vote for Ann Marie?" Right to the point! Nice!

Okay, now there's a couple of ways to go here.

I could just hang up. But I never do that. It's rude. (Although if I try to get a few words in and the person on the other end just will NOT let me speak, then I will hang up. Because then THEY are being rude, not me.)

I could simply respond in the way that will most expediently and politely get me off the phone and say, "Why yes, you absolutely can count on my vote!" and be done with it. But again, I never do that (unless it's true) because I don't want to lie (plus, if you say yes right away I'm pretty sure they will switch gears and ask you for a donation to the campaign).

What I did do was to answer honestly.

"Well, I'm actually one of those people who like to research the candidates, especially in a race as important as DA in times like these. It seems to me that Ms. Schubert has done a decent job so far, but I know there is a man challenging her and running slightly to her left, so I'd like to look into why he's running and the changes he thinks are needed before I commit my vote." This is the point when the conversation can easily go south, when the person on the other end of the line starts talking at you, instead of to you.

"Ma'am, I completely understand that. And I appreciate that you are taking the time to do that." OK, very nice. I like being appreciated.

"Thank you, and I appreciate knowing that the police are supporting Ms. Schubert. I will tuck that piece of information away and consider it as I make my decision." Returned the appreciation, did not relinquish my vote, and kept a smile in my voice. The lady on the other end sounds quite nice, actually.

"Ma'am, thank you so much for your time today. Please consider that Assemblyman Jim Cooper and all five Sacramento County Supervisors also support Ms. Schubert, along with the Deputy Sheriff's Association." More information for me to use as I begin my due diligence. And most impressively, she hasn't badgered me at all. She has not bashed the opposing candidate. She hasn't pushed me. She hasn't asked for money.

"Thank you. I definitely will take that into consideration. And thanks so much for taking your time to do this and be part of the process. I appreciate what you do." We're both going to gag on mutual appreciation at any moment.

"Thank you. And you have a great weekend, ma'am. Thank you for listening."

And really, that's all I did was listen. That's not hard to do when the speaker is being respectful.

"Thanks so much, and you have a great weekend, too."

And that was that.

Flat Out Racism

I'll have a venti half-shot low-fat decaf almond milk latte, no whip. And please hold the racism.

I said please, so I'm sure everything will be fine.

I'm following the story of the two young men who were taken into custody in a Philadelphia Starbucks earlier this week.

In case you missed it, two twenty-three year old black men arrived at their local Starbucks to meet a friend for a business meeting. One of them asked the woman at the register if he could use the restroom. She informed him that bathrooms were for paying customers only. He did not protest or ask again. He simply sat down with his friend to wait for their business associate to arrive.

The barista came over to ask them if they wanted water or drinks. They politely declined. The barista called the police.

WTF? The barista called the police?

I've been to Starbucks and sat for twenty minutes without ordering anything. Never been arrested. And no barista has EVER come out from behind the counter and come to my table to ask me if I wanted to order anything. It's a Starbucks. You order at the counter.

Why did this barista (I really hate that word) feel the need to call police to come get two well-behaved young men sitting quietly at their table?

If you say anything except racism you're living in denial. It wasn't "unconscious bias". That's giving someone an excuse for something that is inexcusable. Even Starbucks executive chairman, Howard Schultz, knows why his employee called the police. "There's no doubt in my mind that the reason that police were called was because they were African American."

I'm not really sure where I'm going with any of this. I certainly don't have a solution to the problem of racism. Nobel Prize to me if I did. I do, however, very much appreciate that Starbucks is not taking this lightly. They are closing all of their stores for an afternoon to do training to make sure this doesn't happen again.

It will happen again. But maybe not at Starbucks, and that's a start. And to those who think that Starbucks is only doing the training "for their corporate image" and that their actions really don't mean anything, I would ask has any other company or organization ever done anything like this in the wake of racist accusations? I can't think of any. And also, have you ever heard a company CEO or COO say anything like this: "Our practices and training led to the bad outcome." That's a quote from Kevin Johnson, the company's chief executive. That's putting it on the line. That is the opposite of passing the buck (note to Trump: You see? Taking responsibility for your actions CAN be done!).

I know that one of the most frequent responses to crisis these days is to boycott, or to disengage from a company. In the wake of the Parkland shootings, I discontinued my account on TripAdvisor (and several other companies) because of their association with the NRA. I get the tactic. It works. After a few days these companies discontinued their association with the NRA (there were probably a few other people who stopped using these companies, but in my mind it was MY politely-worded email and withdrawal that tipped the scales).

But I am not going to boycott Starbucks. Because Starbucks DID something. They did something IMMEDIATELY. They did not hem and haw and try to run from it. They clearly identified the problem and their part in perpetuating the problem. They took responsibility and arranged a first step in ensuring that this doesn't happen again in their establishments.

So Starbucks will not be receiving a polite email from me telling them that they no longer have my business (not that this would have scared them considering the number of times I actually frequent Starbucks). Instead they will be receiving a polite email congratulating them on owning up to a problem that is pervasive, and that maybe we all might be complicit in even though we might not want to admit it.

You have my business, Starbucks, and my admiration for setting an example in what it looks like to own up to being part of a problem.

The C Word

Not that one. No one should EVER use that one.

The C Word I'm talking about is the one that used to be employed by well-intentioned people everywhere to signal that in order to get something they wanted, they were willing to give up something in exchange.

How did compromise come to be a dirty word?

George Washington warned against a two party system in his farewell address, but since his cautions were promptly ignored, our congressional representatives in the House and the Senate have been perfecting the art of the give-and-take for over 250 years. In this great nation of ours, it has been the norm that 535 grown men (with perhaps a statistically irrelevant number of women here and there) would discuss, argue, cajole, persuade, and yes, compromise in order to get the job of running the nation done.

No more. The "art of the deal" is dead. The idea that no one gets everything but everyone gets something has been replaced by the notion that no one gets anything they want but everyone gets a little bit of what no one wants.

So we have an omnibus bill, signed sealed and delivered, that increases the national debt, increases military spending, does nothing regarding DACA and does not contribute to building a border wall.

Is there an opposite of zero-sum game?

What happened to one side saying they refuse to contribute to the increase in the national debt, the other side saying fine but we have to raise taxes in order to increase military spending, the first side saying no we're not raising taxes we have to cut some existing programs, the other side saying fine but not entitlement programs designed to aid the low-income families, etc... ?

We need the back and forth, the give and take.

Is either side even listening to one another anymore, or is everyone involved just playing Follow the Leader? Demeaning nicknames, pointless criticism and dismissal of facts all fit neatly into 144 characters. Thoughtful solutions to difficult problems require more than an opposable thumb.

"Grass Roots" seems to be a current buzzword. The idea that things come from the ground up instead of the top down has taken hold in this nation. What if we apply that approach with the intent of reinstating compromise as a welcome tool with which to solve problems?

I imagine moms and dads teaching their kids what it means to compromise at a young age, kindergarten maybe? It's not a difficult concept. It's easily demonstrated. Grade schoolers would comprehend this idea.

So kids grow up understanding and employing compromise as part of their skillset.

These kids grow into young adults, who expand their use of compromise into more complex situations.

And before you know it (ok, a generation from now) we have members of our government at all levels not just solving problems, but talking WITH one another and not just AT each other. Maybe the "us vs. them" is replaced by "we're all in this together."

It's the pollyanna in me. I realize this is far too simplistic a solution to a deeply entrenched and exceedingly convoluted problem. But why not try? Who is going to argue against teaching our children the art of compromise?

We have to start somewhere.

Tales from the Trip: London/Paris (Fish (head) n'Chips)

Five years ago we took the kids to London and Paris. I was not writing a blog back then so I didn't chronicle our adventures. I wish I had. There were many. I know as time moves on it gently erases the details of what I thought would be indelible memories. So in the interest of preserving some great stories that deserve to be archived because they are part of Traversi family lore, here is the first of what will likely be many "Tales from the Trip: London/Paris edition".

Picture the four Traversis wandering somewhat aimlessly about London. It's not that we don't have a destination. We do. We are heading to a pub for our first dinner in London. We are heading to a specific pub, by the way. We're not just out looking for any random dining location.

The thing is, we are afraid to use our cell phones. We got international plans before we left. But does anyone really understand international plans? Data, roaming, wi-fi, LTE... it's like a different language. And we've heard stories of people who get what they think are great international plans only to come home to a whopping bill anyway.

So we're trying to be very prudent with our phone usage. Prudent, in this case, means that we have a place we want to go but we don't want to use navigation tools to get there. Or at least we don't want to use them more than necessary.

We have general directions, but we end up lost. So we cave and turn on "maps" to figure out our next move. Maps confidently leads us into a dark alley in a sketchy part of London. We make it out and eventually to our pub, which turns out to be a rollicking establishment full of young professionals who seem to be cutting loose on a Friday night. We are a family of four. So fitting right in...

And the fun doesn't stop there! We order fish n'chips. Because England.

It turns out that the English version of this dish is ever-so-slightly different than the American one. Theirs should perhaps be called "An Entire Fish n'Chips". Because you get the WHOLE fish, deep fried. The head. The eyes. The fins. The gills. The tail. It's all there for you to enjoy. Yum.

You can only imagine what our reaction is as the dish is served. Picture four people madly looking from one to another to another and then at the waitress and then back at each other... and then hysterical laughter.

And it came with some lovely warm beer. Welcome to England!

I honestly cannot remember how much of that fish got eaten. We are all pretty adventurous eaters, but I think that particular dish may have been our Rubicon (in this scenario we are not Julius Caesar but rather the fraidy-cats who would not cross the river with him).

I don't have any grand ending for this story. I wish we had a picture of the fish but we didn't think to take one, so here is a stock photo that looks pretty much like our dinner. Enjoy!