Vive La France

Leaving the Biosphere

2009-11-11T11:39:00.003-05:00

Oh, how I shall miss the creepy elevator that waits until the doors close you in to launch into its moment musicale. And the explosive sound of the Bellagio fountains, every fifteen minutes between 8 and midnight. And the sight of Orthodox Messianic Jews playing poker at the high roller tables. And the view, a teeny-tiny slice of it, of the mountain desert - peeking at you between the Planet Hollywood and the blindingly bright advertisement for Peepshow.

In just a few hours, I'll be heading to the airport to go back to life in the District of Columbia. And I. Can't. Wait.

This is just not the city for me. I'm like a Mormon at a Starbucks convention, an Amish family at a NASCAR race, an Evangelical Christian at a pro-life, lesbian, feminist Planned Parenthood convention. Vegas just doesn't appeal to me.

As I pack, I'm watching the Today show on our 50-foot television screen and Bon Jovi is playing live in New York. The song they're playing is "It's My Life," which is very uplifting. However, the news scroll going over Jon Bon Jovi's head says "DC Sniper is put to death..." Awesome.

I'm so glad that whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Particularly Vegas itself. I'm really happy Vegas stays in Vegas.

Journey Into Middle Earth

2009-11-10T22:03:00.002-05:00

Rivka and I were reflecting on our horrible trip to Israel two years ago and I said, "Well at least we launched a wonderful friendship."

She looked at me and said, "Yes, our friendship is like a lotus. They bloom in mud."

This afternoon after a long nap, Rivka and I decided we needed to leave the temperature controlled biosphere and go outside for some fresh air. This was kind of a mistake.

We had lunch in "Paris" and then decided to walk down the Strip and take in the sights. Here, a list of some of the sights:
1. A midget (little person) dressed as a leprauchan touting 24-hour Happy Hour at O'Shea's bar. Rivka said seeing him in that horrible green costume made her feel as though "the last remnants of humanity has been sucked from the city." And then she said she wanted to nap again.
2. We were given the option to take a "gondola ride" in "Venice" - either one trip around the fake outdoor pool or an indoor cruise past Barney's New York for $16.
3. We stopped at Walgreen's for sundries.
4. We were overcome with the scent of vanilla and coconut being pumped out of the cheap crap casinos.
5. Denny's has slot machines and a grand slam breakfast.
6. Horrible, horrible people.
7. A kiosk called Big Balls.
8. We refused to pay $15 to walk around Sigfried and Roy's dolphin and man-eating tiger habitat.
9. A line of electric scooter wheelchairs at the slots at the Mirage. "It's great they've made so many accomodations for the handicapped," Rivka noted.

We tried to get a cab back to the hotel, but were yelled at by a 75-year-old cop. He had no problem with the teen hookers and open containers of alcohol, but God forbid we catch a cab when we weren't at a sanctioned taxi stand.

We finally trudged back to the Bellagio, exhausted. We were too tired even to take advantage of our line-jumping card, which enables us to cut in front of the millions of people patiently waiting for a table and stuff our faces first.

Rivka took a bubble bath under the benevolent gaze of Donnie and Marie Osmond while I changed the channels on both televisions to watch the local news, which reported three horrible crimes that occurred in a five mile radius within the last two days - child molestation, punching a woman in the face and stabbing a neighbor.

I love Vegas!!!

The Service Sector

2009-11-10T12:17:00.002-05:00

Rivka and I have met a lot of people since we arrived in Vegas. And they're all in the hospitality industry. Take, for example, our lengthy discussions with our pedicurists at the salon. I offer you some choice quotes:

"The A section of the Yellow Pages in Vegas is by far the largest because of all the listings for Adult Entertainment and Attorneys."

"I did Omarosa's nails. I didn't know who she was. [She's a reality TV show "star" from Donald Trump's show, The Apprentice.] She told me she was an entertainer. But in Vegas, if you say you're an entertainer it means you're a stripper."

"I did Britney's pedicure during her crazy years when she shaved her head. My cousin told me she was a singer and I said I hoped she would get some good exposure here."

There was also Jeff, our TV repair man. Rivka was in our cavernous bathroom ironing when Jeff arrived. As he fixed our television (it had sound but no picture), Rivka shouted to him to ask where he likes to dine out in town. "Oh, I don't like the Strip much," he said. "I like Applebee's. Oh, and Claim Jumper has the best prime rib!" Rivka ironed on merrily and I nodded dumbly. Applebee's? Really?

We have two televisions. One is in the bathroom, and unfortunately it responds to the same remote control as the one in the bedroom. The way the bed is positioned, whoever is holding the remote can end up muting one TV while changing the channel in the other room. At this very moment, for instance, Rivka is looking for something to watch in the bedroom. As she's flipping channels in here, the bathroom TV is going bananas scrolling through all 15 of the Asian news channels, including the one sponsored by the Chinese government.

Rivka and Hadassah in Sin City

2009-11-10T10:01:00.003-05:00

The last time Rivka and I traveled together, we were in the desert, strolling on the holy sands of Israel. Nearly two years after that journey, we've reunited under similar conditions - strolling through the Sands in Las Vegas.

Rivka was invited to speak at a conference about a popular book she wrote (New York Times non-fiction bestseller, ahem), so she invited me along as her spiritural advisor/personal assistant/penny-slot gambling pal. I obliged, of course.

Our limo driver, Jack, picked us up at the airport and tried to convince us on our drive that we should see a ventriloquist act. "I'm not normally into ventriloquists, but this guy was HI-larious!" he gushed. We arrived at the Bellagio and were ushered away from the hordes of fanny-pack and Hawaiian-shirt-wearing Minnesotan hordes in the lobby to a private room.

The high rollers get checked in to the hotel in a suite complete with silver urns of coffee and tea, fresh baked cookies and a spread of fruit rivaling the Garden of Eden. (Mental note: hug the conference organizers who set all this up for Rivka.)

Back out in the lobby, a loud argument got louder. Two young French guys were ready to punch each other in the Gucci glasses, saved at the last minute from a brawl by four burly, 60-something, George Hamilton-tanned security guards.

Rivka and I got to our room and wanted to start jumping up and down on the bed in sheer joy. The room was fabulous, and the view...the Eiffel Tower, a 100-foot-high image of a woman's ass (an ad for the Crazy Horse) and a billboard of Donny and Marie Osmond, spray-painted onto the entire side of the Flamingo hotel. Classy!

In our next installment: Rivka makes friends with the help.

Children of the Corn

2009-11-03T20:44:00.004-05:00

Until this week, the swine flu vaccine was restricted to pregnant women and children. Today was the first day when people with "underlying conditions" (in my case, insanity probably counts for more than the Parkinson's) were eligible to get inoculated. So I went to wait in line at the local high school. It was a very. Long. Line.

Also, the line was filled with children. I could hear their little germy voices rising above the cool autumn breeze as I rounded the corner. I wished at that moment I had worn a bubble. Then, I prayed a crop duster would swoop down and cover them in a delicate coating of Benadryl to keep them calm.

I immediately made friends with the Young Ukranian, a lovely twenty-something standing in front of me in line. When a rogue toddler crossed in front of us, she made a face I recognize well--because I pioneered it. It's a sneer that requires a slight wrinkling of the nose indicating you've smelled either a rotting corpse or fresh dog poop, a raised eyebrow that could signal fear but also serve as a warning of sorts, topped off with a pulling up of the hands toward the chest, palms out, as though ready to shove the offending object far away from one's person. Then she said with a slight quake in her voice, "I didn't think there would be so many children." Ah yes - she was destined to be my friend.

She's a recent college graduate, a tender 22 years old. When I told her my age she gasped and said she thought I was only 25. Have I told you I liked her instantly?

We gabbed merrily for about an hour, jumping up and down to keep ourselves warm and maintaining a hopeful eye on the welcoming open door of the high school where our immunity awaited.

So imagine my surprise (and utter horror) when we entered the school to find hundreds more screaming children all crammed into endlessly long hallways.

Standing in front of the Young Ukranian and me was an adorable mom and kids - a 12-year-old girl and her 8-year-old brother. They were teeny and cute, each with matching brown eyes. I could hug them all. Except the 8 year old probably had germs. In fact, Young Ukranian and I watched in abject terror as two kids drank from the same water fountain. I shared my hand sanitizer with her as we turned our eyes away from the microbial disaster before us.

Young Ukranian and I made friends with Petite Famille and I provided the 12-year-old with my perspective on the world. "She wants to be a journalist," said the mom. I snorted knowingly and gave her the eye. "You should go into opera instead," I offered. "It's a burgeoning industry." She wasn't sure whether I was kidding or not. Neither was I.

Then the five of us watched in awe as a little boy dressed up as a Power Ranger pitched a Force 5 hurricane temper tantrum. I thought he was going to faint. Actually, I wished he would faint. His mom got down on the floor and looked like she was praying. Then there was little Liam, whom Young Ukranian and I tutted over. Poor toddler looked more like a drunk college frat boy than a baby. He had a weird puffy face and big built-up shoulders. I wondered how much steroids Gerber put in their crushed prunes and apples.

Finally, we were allowed admission to the basement where dozens of tables were set up with nurses and swine flu vaccine waiting for us. It was very Soviet-era. We sat beneath dismal fluorescent lights on metal folding chairs while children screeched in pain from the shot or at the shock of having vaccine mist jammed up their noses. Then the security guard came over to ask me to save a chair for "that woman," pointing to the praying mom and her screaming son, who now had a tsunami of snot running down his face. I nodded numbly and looked for an escape.

When I was allowed behind the curtain, a security guard took my picture while I had my arm jabbed with vaccine. And then Young Ukranian and I ran out into the fresh air of the evening, hoping we hadn't contracted some dread toddler flu while waiting in line and trying to figure out whether the one drip of flu mist she had allowed to escape her left nostril was going to compromise her immunity.

Innocents. A Broad.

2009-09-28T12:37:00.002-04:00

As I was sipping a cup of hot Swee-Touch-Nee 97.5 percent caffeine-free tea (black "tea" leaves wrapped in tea bags made from Ukranian women's old stockings) after having peeled a layer of skin off my hands with some name brand Eastern European liquid soap (read: lye) in the office kitchen (cost cutting measures mean everything, including the recycled toilet paper, is from the highly questionable stock of the local Dollar Tree), I ruminated on a recent weekend I spent with American Boy and his two sons, whom I shall call Eight and Nine (because those are their ages).

The four of us went to an arts festival in Maryland on a beautiful sunny day to partake of funnel cake, lemonade and crap pottery lovingly crafted into serving dishes in the shapes and colors of sick cats.

A dance school was showcasing its many levels and classes in a lovely outdoor space. Upon hearing the music, Eight and Nine decided they wanted to have a seat and observe the dancing. The awkward salsa dance between an oversized, heavily breathing female and her smaller, lither partner, passed without comment. As did the adorable kindergartners dressed in chef hats and fake moustaches and the disgruntled bunch of white teens crunking to Lil' Wayne and trying to act "street."

Then, the emcee announced there would be a performance of burlesque.

American Boy and I each raised an eyebrow. But then we thought it would surely be G-rated since the perfomance was on a Sunday afternoon at a "family event."

The woman who emerged onto the stage was like no burlesque dancer I'd ever seen. Or the boys had seen, for that matter. Eight and Nine stared at her like an alien was coming out of her head. Before I begin my parade of insults for which I am so famous, let me start by complimenting her on her excellent shape. She had a great body. Which was, of course, swathed in the cheapest, clingiest white polyester I have ever seen. The dress, with a slit from Baja to Fresno, was backless, which served to show off the delightful terror of the tatooes covering her body. Her ankles were wrapped in roses and vines, the ink of which was mellowed only by her Bain de Soleil tan.

She held two large fans, which she waved and waggled at the audience throughout the song. And when she turned our way, we enjoyed a full view of her one lazy eye wandering o'er the crowd as the other kept its focus on the fans (the ones in her hand and the drooly house-husband ones in the audience).

Needless to say, when she kissed an audience member on the cheek, leaving big red lip marks behind, American Boy said something to his boys about her giving the guy the cooties.

"Yeah," said Eight emphatically when we finally dragged them away from the scene of the crime. "Definitely cooties."

Blessed Virgin

2009-09-12T13:10:00.002-04:00

The driver who picked me up from my crap-heap, dump-garbage, flea-bag motel on Friday morning to take me to the airport was a meticulously dressed Indian sikh. He was very polite and we chatted all the way to airport. He gave me a roll of mints (because I kept clearing my throat from the cold that was settling itself into my body) and a bunch of tissues (because I was sniffling all over the place) and great advice from his mum on the best remedies for allergies.

He also had a wicked temper. A huge, double-decker tour bus tried to cut us off in traffic and he accelerated past the guy while gesticulating madly. I thought we were going to get squashed between the bus and the wall of the tunnel. I yelped and he said, "That guy is crazy!" Um, yeah. Then, as we approached the airport, a car ran a stop sign and my driver didn't even slow down. We were headed for the other guy's bumper at about 60 miles per hour. I yelled out again, and he swerved just in the nick of time. My driver never broke a sweat. "I hope he's going to our terminal so I can get out and have a word with him," he said in his impeccable English accent.

I made it in one piece to the giant international flight holding area at Heathrow and plopped myself down in Duty Free heaven to wait for my plane. As I sat there waiting, I could feel my cold nestling into my nasal passages and I knew I was in for a rough flight. I felt dizzy, sweaty...in general pretty bad.

I got on the plane and into my seat and was fine for a couple of hours. But eventually my nose started to run without stopping (giving the guy next to me a total swine flu panic - understandably) and sneezing horrendously. Oh, and my tremors kicked up. So I staggered up to a bundle of flight attendants and asked them if they could radio ahead (radio ahead? what is this? World War II?) for a wheelchair to meet me at the gate at Dulles.

One of the male flight attendants said, "Of course," and then he said the magical words I didn't expect...

"Why don't you have a lie down in Upper Class?"

Upper Class, you understand, is Virgin Atlantic's fantastic First Class cabin with lie-down beds, white linen tablecloths, real food, real utensils....I nodded my head dumbly and let him steer me to a free seat.

It was like a dream. A lovely female flight attendant unfolded the seat, made my "bed" with a down comforter, fluffed my pillow and brought me a cup of hot tea (with lemon!!!!!). I dropped right off to sleep, practically crying with relief.

I slept like a stone for about four hours, until we had about 45 minutes until landing, and then headed back to my seat (which, in Premium Economy - thank you dad!! - wasn't exactly in steerage) so I could get my things. I kept a handkerchief over my nose and mouth the rest of the trip because I felt like germs were wafting off me like swine flu perfume (Christian Dior makes it - Eau de Cochon).

When we finally came in for a bumpy landing, the woman across the aisle from me barfed.

Excellent.

I waited until the plane cleared and a gaggle of flight attendants helped me to my wheelchair. I was through customs, with my luggage in tow and in a cab within 45 minutes flat.

And then I went home and passed out with fatigue. I've made it through about four boxes of tissues and three bottles of Tylenol. And I've never been happier to see my own bed.

Blimey!

2009-09-10T06:04:00.005-04:00

What is WRONG with these people? No wonder their sailors got scurvy! I can't get a freaking lemon around here to save my life!

I escaped from the Hell Hole Hotel yesterday afternoon and went for a stroll in Greenwich. I thought I'd enjoy high tea somewhere in the little market area. I found an adorable coffee shop filled to the rafters with patisserie and asked for a cup of tea and a scone. Scone, yes. Tea, yes. Lemon? No. Of course not. Do you see any lemon trees around here?

Getting lemon in your tea in England is like putting pants on your cat. It's really hard, but you know that if you tried, you could probably do it.

I'm working at corporate headquarters this morning and I asked at the desk if they had lemons for tea. "Oh no," she said, shaking her head gravely. "No, no." I think she even tsk'd me. Seriously! A tsk! What's that about?

I DON'T LIKE MILK IN MY GOD DAMN TEA!

Okay. Deep breaths. I'm moving on.

Here's a picture of the conference protesters yesterday - for your enjoyment.

As my wry editor pointed out, it's fanatical religious freaks, not advanced weaponry, that got us into the war in the first place, so devotional praying before a faux blood-soaked sign may not be the best way to petition for peace.

In other news:
I finally figured out why my hotel room bathroom is shaped like a pod and raised up off the floor. When I described it to a friend of mine, he exclaimed, "Oh! It's one of those self-cleaning jobbies!" Nice. It may not be self-cleaning, but he was right. The whole thing is one big plastic surface. So the grumpy Polish maids can hose it down with Clorox every morning. How messy are their guests? Are people gutting and skinning their antelope in the shower after the afternoon hunt?

Yesterday afternoon I had three interviews scheduled with sources in the U.S. That meant I was occupied on the phone until at least 8 p.m. and feeling a little bleary as I wrapped up the last interview. As the program manager went through the list of items hanging off his new helicopter, I could have sworn he talked about "precision kill musicians" instead of munitions. Which is fantastic. I had a sudden vision of a string quartet all dressed up in their tuxedos, firing violin bows at rebel troops.

It's time for me to come home, isn't it?

The Docklands Gulag

2009-09-09T15:05:00.001-04:00

Everything looks better after a good night's sleep!

Okay, some stuff looks better after a good night's sleep!

Errr...

A couple of things look better after a good night's sleep!

Let me put it this way. This trip has its highlights. But they're the weird kind of highlights - like finding your lost cat.

Part of your lost cat.

The tail, perhaps. At least it's your cat!

Those are the little joys I seek from this week in London.

I awoke to the delicate smell of jet fuel from landing aircraft blowing in on a cool, refreshing breeze. My hotel happens to be directly in the flight path of all flights from London City Airport, so who needs an alarm! The first flight out or in is at 7 a.m. Perfect!

I hopped in the elevator to meet my colleagues for breakfast, whereupon we discovered there were no cups. We asked a joyless Croation server for a cup to put our tea in and she looked at us as though to say "This job is worse than watching my father get gang-raped by Serbians during the war." (That delightful comment is courtesy of one of my editors, who obviously has a tremendously dry sense of humor.)

I went around to the bar to try to steal a couple of cups but was cut off by a surly short dude from some unidentified war-torn Eastern European country who informed me that if I dared get a cup from the bar, I would have to pay. "But I just want the cup, not the coffee," I insisted. He kept saying "No, no!" and pointing back at the restaurant.

I returned to the table just in time to see the crabby Croation dump off a bunch of hot cups, which presumably she'd cleaned by spitting in them and then rubbing dry with her elbow.

There was no lemon for my tea, of course. I asked one of the kitchen workers for lemon and he looked at me as though I'd asked for sliced llama steaks. "We don't have LEMON!" he said sternly. Luckily, I'm mildly insane, and had a real lemon in my room. I rushed back to the elevators to make the 7-floor trip for a slice of lemon.

As I waited for my elevator, I watched a Ukranian woman swabbing the floor with giant, unhappy sweeps of the mop. The floor was covered with black marks and skids from everyone's shoes. She was trying to get each mark up. She would sweep over it once with the mop, look forlornly at the scratch, sigh, then go over and bend down with a filthy rag and scrub until that mark disappeared. Then she would repeat with each mark. I smiled at her and she gave me a look so bleak I almost teared up myself. Ah, the smell of desperation that permeates that hotel. Delightful!

I heard the "ding" of the elevator and hopped on board. As I pressed the button for my floor, two Russians boarded with me. They were a dreadful pair. He looked like he'd just emerged from a year in an underground missile silo in Siberia (buzz cut hair, craggy skin, unhealth pallor, ill-fitting polyester pants and short-sleeve white shirt). And she - presumably his girlfriend - was equally eerie looking. She wore short shorts that struggled to contain the reckless loads of flesh wrapping her thighs. And in a sweet, delicate move, she tugged at them repeatedly - probably to keep her ass from eating the shorts whole. She also sported a hoodie sweatshirt that settled about five inches above her nicely tanned, broad midriff.

At least they were in love. She couldn't keep her hands off him. She hugged and kissed him repeatedly, clinging to his chest. Kind of looked like a hippo mounting an emu. It was oddly romantic. Also - somewhat disturbing.

I zipped into my room, grabbed a fresh lemon slice and returned to the breakfast table to peruse the morning tabloids with my colleagues. I arrived at the table in time to see my editor shutting the page on a totally naked lady. "Is that porn?" I asked him. "Oh no," he replied merrily. "That's just the morning news in London."

Quite.

On the banks of the Thames

2009-09-08T11:28:00.004-04:00

Isn't London supposed to be nice and gloomy this time of year? A little mist, a little rain, a coupla' clouds?

Well, not this year. This year it's hot. Hot and sunny. "We're having an Indian summer this year," said a colleague of mine in her crisp British accent as we sat roasting in the sun eating our fish and chips for lunch. "You don't have those kinds of Indians," I snapped. "You can't have an Indian summer."

She stirred her mushy peas a bit and then looked at me brightly. "Well, maybe for us it's Indian summer from India - you know, because it's so hot."

I admit that 80 degrees in London is a far cry from 112 in Mumbai, but it feels cruddy all the same. There's not a lick of air conditioning on this whole damn island, which means that a bunch of sweaty European and Arab arms dealers are making the exhibit hall at the show I'm covering smell like a hairy armpit after a triathlon. What, you ask, is an armpit doing competing in a triathlon?

I'll move on now.

I'm back in my hotel room shielding myself from the broiling British sun, window cracked and bits of sunlight streaming through the moth holes in my curtain. The positive and bright side of me says "Think of the pinholes as stars, and the curtain as your sky!" The other, more uncomfortable and perpetually annoyed side of me thinks, "Aaaaaaarghkajsdjfkas ahskdffhhh!!!!"

I spent most of today running around with my camera crew grabbing bits of film from a variety of demonstrations. After about 25 takes and a pocketful of curse words on one shot (I think I made a British sailor blush with one of my streams of profanity), I think my camera crew got what they needed to make a couple of spiffy videos of my first day here.

My sister, meanwhile, is on her honeymoon in Costa Rica, where it is pouring rain every day. But then again, she's on her honeymoon. What does she care?

London Bridge

2009-09-07T16:12:00.002-04:00

Hello from London town! I would have blogged about my sister's wedding, but honestly, there was just no snark to be had anywhere. It was a brilliant, beautiful event with a glowing bride and a happy groom!

So instead I will regale you with tales of London. Sunday afternoon American Boy dropped me off at the train station in Philly - he went back to DC and I hopped on an Amtrak to Newark Airport so I could catch a flight to London for a week-long business trip. Needless to say, this was possibly last on my list of things I wanted to do after spending such a fantastic weekend relaxing with American Boy and celebrating my sister's nuptials.

I landed this morning utterly exhausted after my 6-hour flight. I fell asleep immediately in the back seat of the hired car and woke up only once on the way to the hotel - when my head tilted back far enough that I choked on my own snore and surprised myself into consciousness.

Then I arrived at my hotel.

How can I capture how depressing this dump is? The rooms are so spare and gloomy that I'm surprised the hotel hasn't tried to kill itself. It's like Ikea designed by Walmart. It's not a room, it's the inside of a Winnebago, complete with too-short bed and step-up modular bathroom with the sink a mere depression in the Corian countertop. It's like a Soviet-era gulag where they punished Jewish poets.

Okay. I went too far. Not even the Communists would imprison Jews here.

Thankfully I packed as though I were deploying to Afghanistan - I have my own towel, my own pillow, a cashmere throw to cover the rayon/polyester coverlet, a couple of candles to cover the scent of despair and a hairdryer (because there AREN'T ANY IN THE ROOMS).

I also went out shopping immediately to try to make this place more comfy. I bought loads of food, soap (because the bar of soap in the bathroom is so small I could lose it while washing my ears) and a bundle of trashy English magazines.

Isn't business travel fun?

Wedding Belles

2009-09-04T12:21:00.002-04:00

Yesterday morning, American Boy and I drove up to Philadelphia for my sister's wedding. We arrived at the Four Seasons hotel (where the Chef, my future brother-in-law works) and popped the trunk to unload our piles of luggage. Picture this if you will - Four Seasons Hotel parking lot, peppered with one Maseratti, two oversize Cadillac Escalades, a Porsche or two, and...my dirty Hyundai Accent. Also, my dirty Hyundai Accent and Target luggage. Sweet!

American Boy speculated as to how much we'd have to tip the valet to keep my car parked out front with the other luxury vehicles. Since I didn't have $750 in cash, we sheepishly drove it over to public parking and left it with its brethern.

This morning we headed out to breakfast (because we didn't feel like enjoying $50 Eggs Benedict in our room) and found a lovely diner. As we were waiting for our drinks, American Boy noticed there was a monk sitting at the outside tables, enjoying a morning chat with a friend. A monk. A real monk. Brown robe, white rope belt, longish beard...and sporting perhaps the most stereotypical in monk attire - a Blackberry.

Whom exactly does the monk receive Blackberry-urgent messages from? Do the Benedictines have a message board? Sandals for sale and such? Perhaps he's twittering, "Day 4,286 as a monk. Still no sex." Maybe God has tapped into the 3G network somehow.

In a few hours, I will head up to my sister's room to engage in all the bridal preparations. She offered to do my makeup, citing her new vibrating mascara brush as an enticement. I told her my mascara brush vibrates when I hold it, I don't need additional help.

Stay tuned for live tweets from the actual wedding. I've invited the monk and his Blackberry to the reception.

Meet and greet

2009-09-01T23:33:00.002-04:00

I've met my fair share of somewhat famous people in my lifetime. There was that cross-country flight I took with exercise king Richard Simmons, for example. I exited the aircraft so drugged out on Xanax that when he grabbed my hand and started parading me through the airport waving at everyone and telling people I was his wife, all I could think about was how awful it would be if we weren't headed to the same baggage claim.

Then there was the day Prince Albert of Monaco visited the Dassault Falcon Jet (the private jet manufacturer where I once worked) chalet at the Paris Air Show. I didn't know he was there. I just happened to spy my friend standing in what looked like a line of my other friends on the front steps of the chalet in front of an open door of a giant black Mercedes. I rushed outside and started gabbing to my friend, then took my glasses off and wiped them on my shirt. Which is exactly the point at which the Crown Prince of Monaco walked by me to shake my hand. I couldn't really see who he was, so I sort of half-waved at him before he went on to the next person. Turns out that "line of friends" was a receiving line for the prince, who was being whisked away to his private car.

Oh, and I can't forget seeing Patrick Dempsey (now of Gray's Anatomy fame) in the Galeries Lafayette in Paris in the 1980s. I was with my dad, whose arm I grabbed and said in a strangled whisper, "That's Patrick Dempsey!!!" Dad, having no earthly idea who the hell Patrick Dempsey was, yelled out, "PATRICK!" Of course, Dempsey turned around, only to see a strange Frenchman waving wildly at him. My dad looked over to see I was hiding behind a rack of clothes, dying of embarrassment. He thought Patrick was a friend of mine from school and he was just being polite and trying to hail him for me.

This is a long lead-in to my most recent brush with fame - with Admiral Mike Mullen. I'm betting most of you reading this have no idea who the hell Admiral Mullen is. Let me explain this simply: he's the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Kind of like the president of the entire U.S. military. I see him regularly at press conferences, but since I'm lowly trade press, I don't ever get to interview him one on one.

Last week, I was sitting in my little Pentagon press room cubbie/pod, stuffing my face with fistfuls of a delightful little cracker named the Wheat Thin. I'm perusing my Facebook page when I look up just in time to realize I'm staring Admiral Mike Mullen in the face. He reaches over my cube and shakes my salty, cracker-crumb hand and says, "Hi Bettina!"

I almost swooned dead away. HE KNOWS WHO I AM!!!

Then, of course, he says politely, "And what do YOU do?"

Oh.

I forgot I have a name tag on the front of my cube. And Admiral Mike Mullen, being the king of all that is military and used to dealing with all kinds of people, thought to read my name and introduce himself. I told him what my magazine was, then I made some weird, stalkerish kind of joke about his visit to the press room, and then he took himself and his shiny stars away to another corner of the room to talk to the big time reporters who weren't wiping cracker grease on his uniform.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

2009-08-17T15:08:00.002-04:00

I've had a couple of requests lately for blog posts. But what I've come to realize is that I only blog when things are going badly. Because what's funnier than my misadventures?

Well, lucky for you, I was deployed to New York for one night so that I could edit video filmed at one of the many air shows I attend. I repeat - ONE. NIGHT. That's all it took. Here, a quick rundown of my roundtrip so far.

I start the trip by getting into a shouting match with a cab driver in D.C., who was a Marine in Korea and with whom I thought I agreed on everything (Obama, the disaster that is health insurance in this country and how freaking hot it is), but it turns out with whom I did NOT agree on policy in Afghanistan. "The government WILL NOT TELL YOU MEDIA EVERYTHING!!!" he screamed at me before drop-kicking me out of the cab at Union Station.

I hopped on the Acela, feeling all business-lady-like. But upon opening my laptop and attemping to get some work done, I remembered how nauseating the ride is (high speed train, low speed tracks) and I had to divert to listening to "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" podcasts and shouting out the answers in the quiet car while a Waspy lady in her fisherman's sweater and Keds glared at me and read her Wall Street Journal in such a fashion as to give me paper cuts on the arm and face. I responded by asking to go to the bathroom a lot (so she'd have to get up) and stepping on her handbag repeatedly.

I arrived in the city late and had dinner alone (both the friends I was supposed to meet deserted me at the last minute - YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE). Then I went back to my hotel room to get some work done and go to sleep. But the air conditioning was broken and blasted me with Arctic air all night. I couldn't even turn it off. Actually, I tried, but the penguins in my shower asked me to turn it back on again and I felt bad.

I woke up this morning to a lovely Inuit family serving me warm tea and then headed to the office to do the editing work. After spending nearly two hours on the phone with Virgin Atlantic trying (unsuccessfully) to book my flights for a September trip to England (I'm on hold with them right now - again - in fact), I was able to get the videos partially done. Then I ran to catch a cab to Penn Station to come home.

The air conditioning at Penn Station is broken today. And the temperature is somewhere between hell and the Sahara, only with a smidge more humidity. And my train was cancelled. So I had to take the next available train - a regional train that takes nearly four hours to get back to DC.

At this point, I did not cry. I wanted to cry. I really kind of still want to cry, or shout, or dance about waving my hands over my head. But I can't. I would scare the lovely Israeli family that's in my train car. And I wouldn't want to disturb them since they're busy shouting at each other, throwing their luggage on different racks and slamming their tray tables down behind me.

When I arrive home (eventually I imagine I'll end up there...one day), I'm going to ask the cabbie to stop at a bakery where I'm going to buy a chocolate sheet cake for twelve, plop it into my lap and eat it with my hands.

'Til next time!

My Lovely Innards

2009-07-01T17:21:00.001-04:00

I've been poked and prodded in the name of science pretty steadily since I was diagnosed with Parkinson's. And the general consensus among my many doctors is that I have fabulous innards. Truly. So why am I such a mess on the molecular level?

After my ultrasound to check for a possible aortic aneurism, the doctor told me, "You have a beautiful aorta. Don't tell anyone else I said so."

At a recent neurology appointment, my doctor cooed over my MRIs. Really. She cooed! She told me my spine looks perfect and that my brain is utterly symmetrical. She performed a nerve study on my hands to check for carpal tunnel and told me that my nerves are "fantabulous." My readings are off the charts. I have the best nerves she's ever seen.

My general practioner said my low blood pressure (which recently caused me to have to lie down on the floor under my desk at the office) was excellent. The American Heart Association said so! And by the way, my blood tests were great, my thyroid is delightful (okay, maybe he didn't exactly use the term "delightful") and aside from my low levels of Vitamin D, I'm fine!

Now about that shaky arm...

More on Paris

2009-06-17T08:37:00.002-04:00

Hi everyone! I'm very sorry I haven't been posting, but I've been terribly busy with the air show. So here's a super-fast rundown of some of my activities:

1. I've taken on the persona of eccentric American by riding around the show on a bicycle. I appear at every press conference on the bike, chain it up outside the corporate chalet and then wave merrily (and ring my bell) when I leave.
2. The guards at the chalets are totally annoying. Talk about a power trip. So to combat their evil ways, I try to be cheeky as often as I can. This morning I rode up on my bike with my posse - two colleagues from Aviation Week - and parked in front of the Boeing chalet. The guard, who is bald, approached us and nastily sneered, "Can I help you?" I looked at him and his bald head and said, "We're going to leave the bikes out here while we pick up some press materials. We'll be out of your hair in just a minute." Hee!
3. So much for being a Member of the Tribe. I got into a shouting match with a guard at an Israeli industry chalet. I couldn't remember enough Hebrew to give him a tongue lashing (unless I wanted to unleash a stream of "Yes," "No," "Please," "Shalom" and the beginning of a random Yom Kippur prayer), so I put my finger right in his face and used good old fashioned Jewish guilt, "We're doing this for YOU! Not for me! For you!" He still made me walk all the way around to the front door of the chalet.
4. Dad has been driving me and two of my friends to the show in the mornings. The car is stopped every morning and we have to show I.D. before we're allowed to proceed to parking. On the first day, one guard did his circle around the car with his oversize dental mirror (they stick it under the vehicle to check for bombs) and the other one made us all step out of the car. The guard came around to my side of the car and with a big smile and heavy accent he said, "You don't have Bin Laden in there, do you?"
5. I went over to the Italians today to do an interview with a test pilot. He looked me up and down and said, "Why are you so white?" I said something about being half Irish. He replied, "Don't you tan?" All this while waving his arms around, greatly distressed at the pale color of my skin.
6. I found out that a big French company was having a ritzy party at the Louvre and I really wanted to go. The problem was that I was not invited. Not even slightly. My buddy and I walked past the Louvre, which was all lit up and gorgeous and I figured I would give it a shot. So I walked up to the line of guards and said "I believe someone left tickets here for us, is there someone I could speak with?" They pointed me to a desk that had a big sign reading "No Invitation." I told the girls at the desk the same thing about not having tickets, gave my name and then politely dropped the name of a colleague who WAS on the list. Bingo! We were in! Expensive champagne! The Louvre with no lines! And to top it all off, when we were leaving the party, we ran into the president of an American company waiting outside because they wouldn't let him in without an invitation.

That's the news for now!

Les Grandes Aventures, Part Deux of Many

2009-06-13T18:05:00.002-04:00

So today started out like any other. The sun came streaming through the windows of the apartment, I leapt out of bed and headed to market with my parents. Oh the lovely colors of the fruits and veggies! The local flavor! The baked goods! The uneven pavement!

Oops.

I caught an edge of the pavement and went down like a ton of bricks. I skinned my ankle in a couple of places and twisted it pretty good. As with any sudden fall and wave of pain, I just sat there and let the whole nauseating moment wash over me while my mom knelt down to find out why I was examining the table of canteloupe from the bottom.

And then my favorite moment of the morning. A French woman approached us with her basket of fruit and baguette in hand. She looked at me lying on the ground and said in a very annoyed tone of voice, "Well, what's she doing there?"

The afternoon was spent in more relaxed fashion. I visited Munkle, my dad's brother. (My mom's brother is Crunkle - for cranky uncle). Munkle stands for Manic Uncle. And manic he is indeed. We had a great lunch, wherein he proceeded to yell a lot about Israel and religion, read us dirty French limericks and puns he'd composed and eat and drink with enormous gusto.

This evening I had dinner with friends. I showed them "my" neighborhood, we took photos of Notre Dame at night and then I returned to my parents' place utterly exhausted. But sleep was not to be had. At least not immediately. Only in the past few minutes (it's about quarter past midnight) did the French dance party from hell (La Macarena, anybody?) stop blasting its horrid beats up through my open bedroom window.

Oh, and I'd show you photos of the trip, but my company's new encryption device has locked me out of my own computer. And the "Help" desk is closed on weekends. If I drank, it would be high time for a whiskey. Instead, I'm going to crawl into bed with a package of dark chocolate and hum myself to sleep to the fading strains of Buster Poindexter's "Hot, Hot, Hot."

Bonjour monde!

2009-06-12T15:15:00.002-04:00

Why am I posing with a flight attendant, you ask? Well, because she and I became good friends over the endless hours we spent together. Her name is Adrian, and she kept a big smile on her face despite the nightmare that was my trip to Paris. Let's start at the beginning....

My driver came to pick me up a few minutes early from my house and we zipped speedily toward the airport. He was a lovely gentleman, and spent much of the trip telling me about his kids. He also told me about what a tragedy it was about the Air France flight and that he and his brother were just talking the other night about what it must have felt like to die in an airplane. "What were those last minutes like? As the aircraft filled with water?"

Really? REALLY? He was driving me to THE AIRPORT.

I said snippily, "They didn't feel anything. They hit the water at 500 miles per hour and died instantly."

"But what about if the plane landed on the water and the cabin filled up? What was that like?" He was insistent. "It must have been terrible."

"It WASN'T terrible. They DIDN'T feel anything. THEY EXPLODED AND DIED INSTANTLY!"

He was quieter after that. I think he felt bad about the discussion because he sent me a text after he dropped me off telling me to have a nice flight.

I checked in early and headed to the gate, which slowly began to fill with children. Much as I imagine an aircraft cabin would fill with water if it were to land in the Atlantic in the middle of the night.

By the time we boarded, I was in the throes of an anxiety/claustrophobia attack. Luckily for me, I was sitting next to my buddy KDL and we had our awesome flight attendant Adrian taking care of us.

We pull away from the gate on time, all the little snotty kids safely crammed together a bunch of rows behind me and...

BANG!

KDL and I looked at each other. "Bang" is not a good sound when you're taxiing to take off. Oh, and after the bang, there was a roaring sound of air. Then the cabin got hot.

The pilot came on to tell us he thought something was wrong. Really? Thanks, Sherlock. Needless to say, we drove back to the gate and told we were getting new equipment. I'm just glad we hadn't gotten trapped in the aircraft on the tarmac for hours. KDL found a wine bar and a group of us settled in for drinks and appetizers.

About two hours later, we crammed on to another airplane. A smaller, older airplane with fewer seats than the last one. Good times! Luckily, KDL and I got our old seats back (and Adrian! Yay!) The kid across the aisle from us looked over and said, "Well, at least we're not breaking up into pieces over the Atlantic."

Ha ha! Yes! This is so funny! I LOVE aircraft crash humor before a flight. My anxiety at this point was akin to the slight case of nerves you might experience if you were being, say, buried alive.

We pull away from the gate, we wait a few moments on the taxiway while the pilot gets a new route around a bunch of thunderstorms and then we take off.

Yay! We're in the air! I'm ready to sleep! Except for the fact that I'm just a little anxious from the evening's events so far. And then the pilot comes on the intercom out of nowhere and says tersely, "Flight attendants, please sit down immediately. Flight attendants, PLEASE SIT DOWN."

Instead of screaming, running around the cabin like an insane person, tearing off my clothes and crying, I grabbed my handbag, chopped up enough Xanax to kill a team of Clydesdales and swallowed it with a big swig of water.

Next thing I knew - we were in Paris! Yay! France! And just think - this is only my first day! Stay tuned...

Shhhhhhhhhhh...

2009-06-06T21:15:00.002-04:00

Last night I was invited to attend the parade at the Marine Corps Barracks in Washington, D.C. The parade is a big deal. It's held after sunset on the grounds of the Barracks in the shadow of the Commandant's gorgeous house. The coolest part of the presentation is the Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon. Check out what they do by clicking here.

Before the performance, however, there was a VIP reception hosted by a Congressman and the Commandant of the Barracks. I attended with my boyfriend, American Boy (his nom de blog), my colleague Jen and three people I'd never met - two of whom work on the Hill. One of the Capitol Hill people, I'll call her Janet, works for a pretty well known committee, so she's really used to schmoozing. I watched her work the room and then approach an older woman sitting in a wheelchair. Janet leaned closer to hear what the woman was saying. I guess she was gesturing across the crowded room for Janet to summon somebody.

Janet asks politely, "Oh, I see him. Did you want me to get your son?"

The woman in the wheelchair looked at her for a second and then said, "That's not my son, that's my husband!"

Janet almost fell over. Not only because she'd just stuck her foot right in her mouth, but because the son/husband was a one-star Marine General.

Oops.

Janet tried desperately to make nice while the rest of us dissolved into totally inappropriate fits of laughter.

Cut to my conversation with a Rear Admiral. He was a tall, totally deaf Navy chaplain. But it turns out he and his wife and daughter live in Glen Ridge, NJ, right near where I grew up in Verona, NJ. And his daughter attends a ritzy private high school called Williston-Northampton, right in the same town as my alma mater, Smith.

The Admiral said to me, "Smith?! Smith?! You went to Smith?!!"
I replied, "Yes, I did."
The Admiral then said (and please remember he's a chaplain at an official event), "Smith, huh? Then why are you with a guy?" He then laughed and gestured at American Boy, who laughed extra loudly to cover up the Awkward-Exchange-Among-Utter-Strangers moment. I waited until the laughter died down and then said sweetly, "Well, I am now."

Oh! What fun it is to make jokes with a perfect stranger, who just happens to be a Navy CHAPLAIN (a religious man!) about how maybe I'm a lesbian.

I wanted to ask him what wonderfully naughty trouble his daughter has gotten into to earn four years at a private boarding high school in Massachusetts. Especially when her mom let slip to me that her two siblings were in public school in New Jersey.

After that reception, the quiet, gun-tossing Marines were kind of boring.

Stupid is as stupid does

2009-06-04T11:11:00.003-04:00

As I took a deep inhale of my delicious, warm morning brioche, topped liberally with powdered sugar, and proceeded to nearly choke to death, I began to ruminate on all the truly embarassing things I've done in my life. Here's my latest:

I was sent a video of a new unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to post on the company blog, which is called Ares. So I did what I usually do, I loaded the video onto YouTube and then copied the web address and cut and pasted it into the Ares blog entry. Then I wrote a neat little intro to the clip and posted it.

About half an hour later, I get an email from a colleague of mine, GW. He says politely, "Um, I think the video you posted on Ares is incorrect." Hmmm. I wonder what I posted instead? I pulled up the blog post and saw a still image of a big fat guy. That, I thought to myself, is NOT a UAV. Without looking at the incorrect video, I took it down quickly and switched it for the proper video.

A few moments later, I get an email from another colleague - an industry colleague, not a person I work with at my publication. That email says, "Hey, I think you have the wrong video up on the site." Okay, well I'd fixed that part. And then he writes:

"Let me say that I have never seen so much male genitalia on an aerospace blog before."

Uh. Oh.

Turns out, the video with the fat guy in it (the video I didn't look at), was a short documentary about museum sculptures. Male nude sculptures in particular. With numerous close-ups of genitalia. Fantastic!

I thanked both of my friends for getting in touch with me so quickly so that I could fix my error. My industry colleague wrote back and said, "No problem. I feel culturally enriched."

That's one way of looking at it.

(Also a lesson you should learn from this post - NEVER breathe deeply when you're eating a food item covered in powdered sugar.)

The Hotel California

2009-05-12T22:22:00.002-04:00

Remember that song? "You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave." Ummm.....kind of like that at the Gaylord. I couldn't resist snapping this photo of the disclaimer on the window of the hotel room. Lest there be contamination from nature, no windows shall open. Actually, I think it's to keep guests from leaping out in utter despair. Let's just say I made it home safely from my Disney-fied adventure and I am very happy to be back in the thick of things in D.C.

I attended a luncheon for some electronics association late last week. See? It's not all guns and bombs for me. I write about other, more peaceful things, like radar jamming and computer hacking to bring down rogue governments. And stuff. At any rate, I plopped myself down at a random table, my green PRESS pass might just as well have read PARIAH on it. People shrink like the Wicked Witch near a bucket of water. Sometimes I want to lean over and whisper, "It's okay, I'm not going to quote you on the record. You're not very interesting anyway."

Just before the featured speaker appeared, we were served lunch. I had a plate of spinach sprinkled with cheese put in front of me. That translates into a plate of death. I'm allergic to cheese and spinach makes my tongue feel hairy. Anyway, I just let the salad sit until they came to take it away. Across the table from me, a man I have never met says loudly, "I would have eaten that salad!"

Okay. I'm all for sharing food, but not with someone I don't know. So I shrugged and said something useless and turned away. Next came the chicken-like substance, which I poked at. After about five minutes, the same guy says, "Are you going to eat your potato?" I looked at him a bit strangely because I couldn't identify which item on my plate even remotely resembled a potato. So I said, "No."

So he proceeded to lift his own plate into the air, shove in front of the guy next to me and say, "I'll take it." I was frozen for a second. Really? This guy was going to eat my potato? Again, I have NEVER MET THIS PERSON IN MY LIFE.

So I just waved him off and handed him my entire plate.

And he ate my potato!

When it came time for dessert, I just pushed my brownie at him without even looking. Next time I'm bringing my own snacks.

Say What?

2009-05-06T10:16:00.002-04:00

Hello from the Biodome!

I thought I'd give you a little taste of this morning's first conference session. Here follows a list that was on a Power Point slide (all of today's soldiers have a Power Point medal, by the way - it's how they communicate):

Key Points
1. ARFORGEN
2. JCA
3. JTFL ICD-AOA
4. FVL CBA – OSD AT&L LED
5. ROHA
6. MEDEVAC
7. CCMRF RSTA/ISR (ISR TF) – TF ODIN (I/A) ERMP QRC
8. QDR
9. CONGRESSIONAL ENGAGEMENT

And guess what? I know what each of these acronyms mean.

I need to go out more.

The Nashville Biodome

2009-05-04T23:14:00.002-04:00

Where do I begin?

I'm in Nashville, Tenn., for a helicopter conference. If you're in the habit of reading my blogs, I'll bet you'd lay money on me mocking Southerners first. Or perhaps you think I'll pick on all the fried food. Or all the pick-up trucks. No no no. That's boring compared to the hell to which I have been introduced down here.

And it is called...

The Gaylord.

Last year I had to spend the entirety of this very same show at another Gaylord Conference Center in National Harbor, just outside of D.C. Back then I was dodging Norwalk virus, food poisoning, loose muskrats in the stairs (not kidding even slightly) and mice. This year it's Swine flu, drunk helo pilots and families with children.

It's hard for me to properly communicate what this Gaylord place is like. But you better believe I'm going to try.

Let's start with a dash of Disney. Lots of waterfalls, potted plants blowing in the "breeze" (air vents pointed at the trees) and music being piped through speakers designed to look like rocks. Add a touch of, well, Disney. Hotel rooms that all face a noisy atrium that is populated by restaurants with clever names like "Crazy Wasabi" (sushi, get it?), or "Stackz!" (for stacking burgers, not because of the chesty waitresses, sorry). Now throw in a good old fashioned corn maze - this place is about 400,000 acres of winding paths (named ridiculous things like Hickory Smoke Way) and top it off with a touch of cheesy mall vendors dressed up to look like boutiques with totally overpriced CRAP.

Now put a glass roof on it.

OH MY GOD. I realized this evening I haven't been outside for more than 5 minutes in nearly three days. Last night as I was strolling back to my room along the River Styx - oh yeah, forgot to tell you they have river boat cruises ON A FAKE FREAKING RIVER THAT GOES NOWHERE - when I saw a couple looking down at the goldfish in Random Koi Pond #354. I heard the woman say, "Isn't it a lovely night?"

I wanted to push her off the fake foot bridge and drown her in the two feet of water. I wanted to scream that it was not a nice night at all! In fact, in the REAL WORLD, just outside the doors to this dreadful post-apocalyptic place, it was RAINING!! Here, inside the Thunderdome, it was a balmy 72 degrees!

I also love that people bring their families here for a vacation. Seriously? You could take your kids to the mall, sleep overnight in the Pottery Barn Home display, eat at Williams-Sonoma in the morning and top it off by taking a jog past Banana Republic and you would end up with a far more authentic experience. This place makes Vegas look like the untamed wilderness.

Truly, it's horrible. Also, totally random - most of the workers here are from Egypt. What's that about? Did someone in Cairo decide Nashville would make a nice place to settle the family?

SEND HELP!!

2009-04-05T11:39:00.002-04:00

In my extended family, there's enough religious zealotry to go around on both sides of the fence - Jews in Europe and the born-again Christians in the U.S. The born-agains outnumber the Jews because they're all descendents of Irish Catholics who had big families. Although in a strange twist of fate, the Evangelical contingent supports my Jewish brethern's support of Israel because of that strange End of Days fantasy where the Christians all get raptured and leave the Jews behind to re-open the kosher delis for those sinful gays and Muslims. Or something.

Anyway, one of my more, shall we say, "devoted" Evangelical family members is on Facebook. As am I. And she's my friend. Which is weird just because it's weird to have people your parents age "friending" you. (Thank Moses, by the way, that mom and dad are NOT on Facebook at all.) And this devoted family member has a blog called Right Wing Granny.

Seriously.

And she's been right winging all over my Facebook page. The first comment had to do with a status update I posted about how ridiculous the AIG executive bonuses are. She weighed in with some Bill O'Reilly speak, to which I did not respond. However, one of my colleagues (a very liberal journalist -- I know, that's redundant) weighed in and they got into a fight. On my Facebook page!

Then there's the recent status update where I wrote, "Yay, Iowa," for that state's having passed a bill allowing gays to marry legally. She of course posted about state's rigths, civil unions, blah-de-blah-de-gays-should-just-be-quiet type thing. To which I did not respond. But another family friend did - and there goes another argument on my Facebook page!!!

So here's my question for you, friendly readers. I'm committed to what I consider the liberal ideal - allowing and entertaining all points of view, whether I agree or not. In the past, I've avoided my cousins' and Right Wing Granny's religious discussions, online prayers, etc. by just deleting or not responding to emails. But once that stuff is up on Facebook, it's difficult not to engage. Should I unfriend my family member?

Or...should I post something about supporting stem cell research for Parkinson's and watch them really freak out?

Taxi

2009-03-04T10:47:00.002-05:00

I nabbed a cab last night to take me to a black-tie work event and had an interesting experience. When I got into the car, he was listening to National Public Radio. I told him where I was going, we nodded at each other, and we zoomed off down 16th street toward downtown.

At some point, the news started to get on his nerves and he waved his arms madly about in what I assume was an attempt to communicate with me.

Cab driver: (Right and left arms flailing in the air as though trying to conduct an orchestra of kindergarten French Horn players with ADD.)
Me: Are you tired of hearing all the bad news?
Cab driver: (Nods emphatically and draws his thumb across his neck.)
Me: Did you want to turn the radio off?
Cab driver: Yes! Video!
Me: Video?
Cab driver: (Picks up a CD with a smarmy-looking guy on the front of it and points.)
Me: Oh! Music! Sure! Let's listen to music! I'm tired of hearing about our crappy economy anyway.
Cab driver: (Raised eyebrows at me.)
Me: Never mind! Music! Yes! Video!
Cab driver: (Pops the CD in the player and takes a deep breath.)

The music? It's hard to describe. The singer was the equivalent of a Pakistani Barry Manilow. Only with a much higher pitched voice. And a chorus of ladies singing in the background. I couldn't understand the lyrics, except that I knew they were in Arabic. The first song went a little like this:

Pakistani Barry Manilow:
Oooooooh! Ooooooh! Ooooooh!
Israel has no right to exist!
The Jews are killing our Hamas brothers!
(Chorus of ululating ladies with tambourines.)
The infidels will suffer!
Death to the West!
La la la la la! Oh happy day when the streets run with blood!
(Ululate, ululate, ululate.)

I smiled thinly and looked out the window. As we approached the venu, he turned the music back to news. The reporter was talking about the tennis tournament in Dubai where they refused entry to an Israeli tennis player because she's, well, Israeli.

Cab driver: What is the problem with this? Dubai is Muslim!
Me: Are we there yet?