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A Humble Account of Sandy

30 Oct

While the barrage of phone calls/text messages/emails from my friends makes me feel more loved than anything, it also reminds me that the nation is looking to New York City in this catastrophe. Those that aren’t here keep asking me what it’s like, what’s happening. While I’m blessed not to be in the thick of it or strongly affected, this is what it’s been like.

FRIDAY: For days, we have been hearing about a storm brewing that could possibly affect us, but this is the first time that I’m hearing the terms “Frankenstorm” and “Superstorm.” People are starting to get nervous, and it is just about the only thing people are talking about. Most people are making jokes in reference to Hurricane Irene (correction Tropical Storm Irene) that hit us last August. All the media hype amounted to about two hours of rain and winds that knocked leaves off of the trees in Central Park. No one was taking this year’s storm seriously, and absolutely no one was cancelling their Halloween weekend plans.

SATURDAY MORNING: The head doctor arrives at the clinic in the morning with bags of flashlights and batteries. My co-workers and I laugh at him, telling him he is over-reacting. He fights back that the storm is coming, and that we should all be prepared. The standard response is still “I’ll believe it when I see it.” He was in Morocco one year ago and didn’t experience the over-hype that was Irene. As he leaves for the day, he solemnly wishes me luck. I roll my eyes.

SATURDAY EVENING: I’m texting with a friend about what her last-minute Halloween costume should be. We come up with a brilliant idea that she should be the Hurricane itself. Hair all messed up, an inverted umbrella, a spray bottle to squirt people with water, and a poodle skirt to identify her as Sandy from “Grease.” We joke and laugh about this throughout the night on the town.

SATURDAY NIGHT: Bars are overflowing with drunken New Yorkers in skimpy costumes, no one speaks of the storm. I start to see reports on my phone that the subway system is going to be shut down. I start to feel a little nervous.

SUNDAY 10AM: I wake up in Murray Hill where I slept over at the boy’s apartment. Cuddled in his warm bed, the sky outside is dark, and it sounds windy. I can hear the noise of what sounds like an abandoned swingset, that metal creak of post-apocalyptic movies. Things start to feel foreboding, and I try to figure out in my head when I should plan on heading back to Queens. We spend the morning looking up news reports on his computer and listening to a Velvet Underground record. For an hour or two, the hurricane once again feels like a joke.

SUNDAY 1PM: We finally make our way across the street to buy bagels and coffee before the Jets game. The lines are around the corner out of every store. We make jokes about our last meal.

SUNDAY 2PM: While watching the Jets game, his roommates start showing up with cases of water and forties of Bud Light.
“Maybe we should get some pasta or something?” one of them says.
“Make sure you get some solo cups for beer pong.”
“Do we have flashlights?”
“I think I need to head back to Queens,” I tell the boy.
I still only have my Halloween costume, so I borrow a flannel shirt from him, and head home. Among the raincoats and rainboots, I’m wearing two inch heels, short shorts, a flannel shirt and a trench coat while carrying a large foam M&M suit. The most epic walk of shame of my life. Correction: Stride of pride.

SUNDAY EVENING: Back in my Elmhurst and changed into jeans and chucks, I decide to stock up on some supplies myself. I prepare thusly:

  • two very large bottles of water
  • a box of cheez-its
  • a flashlight
  • two candles
  • generic breakfast bars
  • pasta
  • a People magazine
  • a liter of Diet Ginger Ale…because I already have the whiskey

SUNDAY NIGHT: I reassure my mom over the phone that I’m in the safest neighborhood possible and that, yes, I bought bottled water. I watch the New York Giants edge out the Dallas Cowboys while consoling the boy over the phone about the tragic New York Jets loss. I watch the San Francisco Giants win the World Series with the mildest of interest, as I mildly dislike the Tigers. I look out the window to see no rain, although there is a light breeze.

MONDAY DAY: In the morning, still no rain, not even very windy. Cabin fever sets in early. Texts start pouring in from worried friends. I watch “Breaking Bad”, “Ru Paul’s Drag Race”, “American Horror Story,” and read a bunch of pointless articles on the Internet. I check facebook every 20 minutes, to see my New York friends are pretty much all fine and drinking either wine or whiskey.

MONDAY EVENING: Winds start to sound fierce outside my window, and I start to feel nervous. I keep my blinds shut in case the windows blow in, which sounds completely possible. It sounds so strong, that I imagine cows swirling past my window a la “Wizard of Oz” although what a cow would be doing in Queens, I can’t tell you. I live close to a hospital and the ambulance sirens have been going for hours, back and forth, up and down.

MONDAY 9PM: I haven’t been watching the news, so I finally start browsing photos on CNN, checking live blogs. I see my friends posting about the transformer exploding on 14th street, the fires in North Queens, the extreme flooding in Brooklyn, the blackout in Manhattan, the failed generator at NYU Langone Medical Center. I start to feel blessed and extremely lucky to live where I do. I send out texts to the people I care about in those areas to make sure they’re okay.

TUESDAY MORNING: I awake to a flood of text messages from worried family and friends. I reassure them that I’m okay. I turn on the news and stare jaw agape at the destruction around my city.

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: My roommate and I dare to go out in our neighborhood. We walk the 15 minutes to a 24-hour diner. Along the way, we see leaves strewn and one fallen down tree. The streets are crowded with people trying to get fresh air. The diner is also crowded. But my roommate and I bond a bit over cups of coffee, greasy diner food, stories of boys and hurricane updates we’ve read. We browse the dollar store. We buy Uno.

TUEDSAY EVENING: I figure out that walking to work tomorrow will take me two hours and debate whether I should or not. I sign up for a volunteer list serve. I sit down, bored, to write this, which if you’ve made it this far, you must be equally bored. C’mon over! We have plenty of whiskey, and that rousing game of Uno is about to start.

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Těší mě, Prezident Klaus

30 Sep

Tuesday at work I was feeling pretty exhausted. I had Monday off after working a 60-hour work week Tuesday-Saturday the week prior. Monday was not enough time off, and I spent most of the day running around, trying to catch up on errands. So Tuesday, I still felt tired, but still found myself back at work. About half way into my 11-hour workday, I get an email from my friend Danilo inviting me to karaoke/trivia night at a bar in Midtown with some of our other softball friends. I was on the fence about it. But in life, your odds of having an amazing night tend to go far up when you force yourself out of your comfortable little home bubble. So out I went. I figured I’d have a beer and head home.

The bar was about two blocks from the UN, and towards the end of the trivia game, a group of about 10 very official looking people came in the door. We didn’t pay them much attention aside from making the joke that they were going to kill us in the Geography round.

At the bar we were at, they shift from trivia to karaoke, so we likewise moved to a table next to the stage and also next to these UN people. I was planning on leaving, but my friends talked me into staying and doing one song, my iconic “9-5” by Dolly Parton. We were the only ones singing karaoke in the bar as most everyone else was invested in the Yankee game on the television screens. But my crew was a diverse set. Maybe the best karaoke performance I’ve ever seen was by my usually quiet friends Trisha and Octavio who banged their heads through Three Little Pigs by Green Jelly. Before I was destined to hit the stage, a man from the UN delegation got up to sing “Satisfaction.” First though, he looked out toward his group and said, “I just want to welcome the president of the Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus and dedicate this song to him.”

I looked toward the table he was pointing at and sure enough, it was the president of the Czech Republic. I’d had a couple of beers by then and was so excited. My friend Danilo began insisting that I meet him and show him my tattoo, a humble homage on my left foot to my time in Prague. As the Rolling Stones karaoker descended the stage, Danilo grabbed him and asked if I could meet the president. The man seemed as excited about it as I was. We got up, and everything happened so fast, I was quickly ushered through a large group of security, all speaking in Czech. All I could make out was “student” and “from Prague.”

In a blink of an eye, I was shaking hands with the president. I searched my inebriated mind for any remnants of the Czech language. I managed to say, “Na Zdravi!” and point at his beer. He didn’t seem to speak English or maybe he just wasn’t interested in speaking English to me. So I was at a loss as to what to say. So, I lifted my left foot up into the air to show him my tattoo.

“Život nezničitelný vždycky jásavý”

I read to him what it said, as he looked confusedly at my foot. He responded by saying something in Czech, and I smiled and nodded having no clue what he had said. I told him “Thank you” in Czech, and he laughed at my feeble language skills. Danilo and I returned to our table, incredulous as to what happened. We all had another round of beers, and I got up to sing “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

Whilst I was singing my heart out (I don’t mess around when it comes to karaoke), the UN Czech group was heading out. As the president walked past the stage, he reached out and grabbed my hand. It was surreal, but I serenaded him as best I could. I guess he’s a big Bonnie Tyler fan as well.

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Tricks

5 Sep

I have spoken here before about the sage advice of Dr. G. He’s just my favorite. Today I assisted him in a spay while he regaled me with stories of him traveling around the world to do a rare procedure known as a PU for various wealthy people’s pets. During the spay/story time, a receptionist interrupted to let him know that a client was on the phone about her dog’s persistent diarrhea.

“Jesus,” Dr. G muttered. “Tell her to wipe the dog’s ass, and leave me the fuck alone.”

Classic.

Recently, I found a book that the office manager started of Dr. G-isms. It’s a gold mine. You’ve got the traditional phrases that we hear all the time, like, “I should have been a mortician.” And you’ve got your situational quotes. In reference to expensive makeup: “It’s all just horse piss. Why don’t you buy a gallon of horse piss and put that on your face?”

But there’s one that I found in there that I simply can’t stop thinking about. I think it’s pure genius.

“You can’t just be a whore. You’ve got to be a whore with tricks.”

To me, this is such a good philosophy to life. Dr. G is one of the best veterinarians and the best surgeons in the country. But that’s not the only trick up his sleeve. He loves to cook and cook very gourmet meals. He’s an obsessive Yankees fan. He loves fish. Yep, fish. He has bowls of them in his office that he takes care of every day. He goes to special fish stores and gives them special fish food. Every year, he takes a week to volunteer at a camp in Colorado for terminally sick kids. He has whole other aspects to him besides being a sharp-tongued surgeon.

I guess this is something that has bothered me. My life has been at the vet office the last month or so. I spend all my time there. I’m looking into vet schools, looking into other volunteer options for animals. It’s become all consuming, and that’s not healthy.

I don’t want to just be a veterinarian. I want to be a writer too. I want to write novels (crappy or amazing, I don’t care), I want to see all the baseball stadiums in the country. I want to be a coffee snob all through Western Europe, then a beer snob through all of Eastern Europe. I want to play soccer AND softball. I want so much more out of life that I think I’ve even realized.

Sometimes it’s so easy to get caught up in something that seems bigger than yourself: a relationship, a job, even a hobby or a passion. But none of it is bigger than yourself is what I’m starting to realize. I’m not just a whore. I’ve got tricks.

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The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

10 Jul

I now find myself working a new schedule, Wednesday through Saturday. While this means that I can no longer play Pac-12 softball (please, let’s not speak of this sadness), it does mean that I have two weekdays off.

On this Tuesday, I let my hair go curly. Something I almost never do, because it often frizzes messily or hangs limply like overcooked spaghetti. But today, the planets aligned and my hair curled perfectly; bouncy, honey-colored ringlets falling down my back. So I had to leave my apartment, I had to show my curls to the world.

So I went to the West Village, to a bookshop that had been recommended to me, Three Lives & Company. Lately, I’ve been reading the biography of Elizabeth I. It’s interesting, but it hasn’t been able to pull me in. All those accounts of what happened, what might have happened, and what is no doubt rumors is dizzying, and the writing was as dry as a Wikipedia article. I found myself watching “Gossip Girl” on Netflix at the end of my days instead of curling up with a book. If this happens, it is safe to say that one is reading the wrong book as that show blows. It pulls you in, but it blows.

So I browsed the tiny store for about 30 minutes, until I resolved to buy this book. It has been on my literary to-do list ever since I arrived in my beloved Prague over five years ago. So I purchased the book and headed to a coffee shop. I finished the chapter I was reading about the death of Amy Dudley in Elizabeth I’s biography and picked up the Kundera.

Within the first few pages, I was in love. A lot of times when reading a book, I’ll rush through, read fast and loose so that I can move on to the next book on my to-read list. So many books, so little time. But it is such an amazing and distinct pleasure to find a book that makes me want to go slow, to savor every paragraph. Instead of doing laps in a pool, I’m swimming in a mountain lake on a hot summer day.

My mom always used to tell me that “Money comes, money goes, but money always comes again.” I have found this so true in life, but I’ve found it to be true with everything. After months of the daily grind getting you down, a friend agrees to fly to Japan with you. After weeks of feeling unhappy with your job, a new opportunity presents itself and you find a new passion with which you want to spend your life. After a couple of weekends of nothing interesting, you find yourself at a surprise Brunch birthday party, drinking pitchers of mimosas and laughing with new and old friends for hours. After a series of lackluster dates, a man you’ve known for months crouches down and runs his finger over your tattoo, and it shoots electricity straight to your knees. You remember you’re not the girl who is okay with merely a dinner partner but needs someone who can put your all too sturdy knees in check from time to time. And, finally after throwing “Fifth Shades of Grey” across the room and sighing “Spare me,” and half-heartedly reading a dramatization of the Borgias (what rotten people), and forcing yourself to read a historical book so that you can meet your self-imposed yearly non-fiction quota, you find yourself with an amazing book that you can’t stop thinking about, that you know will be dog-earred, pen-marked, and reread. So if you’ll excuse me, I must return to my book now.

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New Jobs Suck

12 Jun

Nail trims are the most dangerous things we do. Here’s proof.

My job as a technician isn’t new. I’ve been training at it for months. But, now I’m full-time. When they offered me the position a couple of weeks ago, they put me in the tutelage of my co-worker Christine who was due to give birth the first week of July. Dr. Z (the practice owner) very firmly told me that I had two months to “sponge Christine’s two years of college-level tech training and her 16 years of experience. You must become the best technician.”

One and a half weeks into my intensive training, Christine is out on bed-rest, and I am completely unprepared. I am a perfectionist. I hate not doing things well and starting a new job kills me. I hate being discombobulated and feeling useless.

Last week went really well. Christine is an awesome trainer. I was inserting catheters in pit bulls, intubating poodles, running ear swab cytologies, setting up ultrasound equipment and scrubbing in a dog for a nasty gastrotomy. I was feeling amazing. Drawing blood from the jugular vein of a cat? That ain’t no thang.

I don’t know what was wrong today. All I could think of is watching Mariner’s games where Felix Hernandez doesn’t pitch well. He’s such an amazing pitcher with exceeding talent, but sometimes things are off, and it gets into his head, and he pitches a shitty game. Today, I pitched a shitty game.

I made so many simple mistakes. I was tripping over myself, and I felt like I spent most of the day just standing around taking up space. It makes matters so much worse that Dr. S, the vet that once told me he’d help me in my path to becoming a vet tech and that he had complete faith in me, now wants me gone. He was happy when I quit, and I only got the tech position because of Dr. Z and Christine’s efforts. He glares at me. He snaps at me. But most of the time, he pretends like I’m not there. The man hates me for a lot of inconsequential and silly reasons. Stupid metaphor, but I feel like the dog that keeps getting kicked.

It got into my head. I’m my own worst enemy when it comes to criticism, and I’ll beat the shit out of myself mentally when I make mistakes. At some point in the afternoon I was running an ear swab cytology for Dr. R. I could not for the life of me focus the microscope. I kept checking the oil lens, readjusting, making sure the slide was in place. It just wasn’t happening, and Dr. S was standing nearby staring me down while flipping through his charts. I felt like crying. But I didn’t. I just kept focusing until I found the swabs I was looking for. But it took forever. Dr. R appeared at my side.
“How’s that slide coming? Got a yeast party for me?”
“Um, the left ear has tw0 to three yeast per field with occasional cocci, but I’m still checking the right ear. I’m so sorry it’s taking so long.”
“No worries. Listen, you are doing fine. It sucks that Christine had to leave early, but if you need help, I’m here. I’ve been exactly where you are. I can answer any of your questions.”
It was reassuring, but I hate being so helpless.

After that I held a Cairn Terrier for my co-worker Daryl to cut his nails. The dog started flipping out the second Daryl touched its paws. I tightened my grip and braced myself. This dog was going crazy. I had the dog in a muzzle and a headlock to keep him from biting us, but his foot got up under my arm and sliced me (see above.) I’ve been scratched a million times before, so I didn’t think anything of it until another technician Clive walked by.
“Woah, he got you!” I looked down at the gashes in my arm, gushing blood. No dog had ever broken skin before. Clive and Daryl started clapping.
“Welcome to being a technician! You are one of us now!” They patted me on the back and started to show me all their scars.

I’ve been staring at that stinging wound all day. I rolled up my sleeves on the subway so everyone could see.

I was a shitty barista at first, and my boss wouldn’t let me anywhere near a steam wand. Now I can make you gorgeous latte art and the silkiest milk imaginable. I was originally dead weight with the Mariners, but I ended up running my own kiosk and raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars for the team I love.

I am a technician now. It’s just going to take a while before I’m a really really good one. But I will be. I’ll be the Felix Hernandez of veterinary technicians.

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Back in the Buff

5 Jun

Niagara Falls

This last weekend, I met up with my family in Buffalo, New York to bring my grandfather’s ashes to my aunt’s and grandmother’s graves.

I left Buffalo when I was 11-years-old, and this was my first journey back. I was curious as to what it would feel like, what I would remember. It turns out I remember very little. We visited old homes, drove by old churches, and I had faint recollections of different moments of my childhood. I’ve written before about the idea of home. I still feel envious of people who have a hometown or a place that they can return to and restore themselves. I lived in Reno for 8 odd years, but now that city feels like the place my parents and a couple of friends live. Buffalo is an even larger abstraction to me.

One thing that is important to mention is that I’m not actually from Buffalo proper, I’m from a suburb called Williamsville, and that is where we spent the majority of the weekend. Williamsville is frankly adorable. Lots of open spaces, parks, a main street full of little shops and unique restaurants, a dog groomer called “Oh, You Dirty Dog” and a funeral home called “Am I Gone”  for instance. I didn’t see too many chains, noticed no graffiti, and all the homes looked well-kept.

We drove up and down the streets we used to know, everyone reminiscing. The second house I lived in was two blocks from my grandparent’s house, and driving down that street, I can remember riding my tricycle in the dusky evenings after dinner, my grandmother meeting us halfway, waving at our little family.

The Fourth Home

Our fourth home appeared in front of me in an eerie way, like a dream. I suppose I did spend my first couple of years in Nevada dreaming that I was back in the house we called “Green Gables” for obvious reasons. I knew it existed in the world, but I didn’t expect it to be so exactly the way it looked when we left.

I felt like an amnesia patient being shone pictures from the past. Every memory felt like it was on the tip of my tongue, yet I couldn’t name it, couldn’t understand the distance between myself and what had happened there.

At one point, one of the members of my small four-person immediate family said something about how they wondered what our lives would have been like if we hadn’t moved across the continent to live in the desert, who would we be now. We all quietly agreed that it is something we’ve often thought about. Two completely different lives.

It was a sad and strange weekend. I’ve never spread someone’s ashes before, and I had never actually visited the grave site of my aunt and grandmother before. It was also a lovely weekend. I got to go on the Maid of the Mist with my parents, a boat ride right up to the horseshoe falls at Niagara, so beautiful, so much mist and power. I ate a foot long at my favorite hot dog stand IN THE WORLD. Old Man Rivers. My mother and I had a much needed heart-to-heart over Pina Coladas at the hotel bar. There’s nothing like your mom reassuring you that everything is going to be okay. We gorged on insanely hot wings at Duff’s, again the best Buffalo wing place IN THE WORLD. We laughed with each other, we talked about the past, we talked about our presents. There weren’t any fights or bickering this time, we were one big happy family, and it was an amazing weekend with them.

Duff’s

Buffalo is by no stretch of the imagination glamorous. It’s a busted boom city with a couple of humble neighborhoods. But for a long time it was home, and a part of my heart still resides there. A part of my heart that I was happy to visit one more time.

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I Gamble

29 May

I got so many wonderful responses to my “I Quit” post that I thought I should write a follow-up.

The main reason I quit my job was because I hated working at the reception desk. I knew it wasn’t for me, and I was only sticking it out so that I could one day move to the tech position that was promised me. At some point, I felt like I was being shuffled around and was never actually going to get my chance. It seemed the only way I would ever have a chance at being a full-time technician was if I quit the reception desk and cleared up my schedule. So I gambled.

I’m a good Reno girl who knows how to gamble responsibly. For me, the key is always to not put at risk too much. Sure, you have to bet big to win big, but no one wants to lose their house or their entire life savings. Gamble what is feasible to lose. I am in a lucky position in life where I can be unemployed. I have the financial resources; I don’t have anyone depending on me; I have a lot of support from those close to me.

So I felt it was a 50/50 chance that in quitting my job I would be offered the technician position. But if that didn’t happen, I was still okay with my decision. It was still worth it.

So I quit. The following week was difficult as some of the upper management began acting rude towards me. It hurt, because I was under the impression that I was a good employee, that I’d put in over a year of hard work, and I deserved much better treatment. I accepted that my time at the clinic was over, and I was meant to move on.

Then, last Tuesday, I was called into the clinic owner’s office. I thought he was going to hand me some sort of a project for my last few days. Instead he sat me down, said a lot of uncharacteristically kind things to me and offered me the technician job. Apparently, the woman that has been training me the last couple of months insisted that they hire me, that they were being foolish if they didn’t. I was surprised by his offer, and I decided to take it.

It’s good training, and in many ways what I wanted to happen, but at the same time, I find myself disappointed. I’m not entirely happy with where I work, and oddly enough, a part of me was excited about being unemployed. I feel like that is such a callous and foolish thing to say. There are millions of people out there that are struggling with unemployment, so I find it hard to sit and whine about having a job. I should be grateful. It is the job I wanted after all.

But a part of me wanted to have time to write, to travel, to lay in the sun in Central Park, to visit friends and family, to spend an afternoon plotting out my life and scheming for the future. But it’s off to work I go. Don’t get me wrong I am happy, but there is always a part of me that will wonder if I could be happier.

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I quit

15 May

I quit my job.

It still feels shocking to say it or write it, but on Monday, I put in my two week notice and breathed easy for the first time in weeks.

It was such a hard decision, because in a lot of ways, I loved my job. I loved working with animals, training to be a technician, being respected as a good employee.

But in so many ways, I was absolutely miserable. I didn’t like working reception, and I desperately wanted to move to the technician job. Unfortunately my office manager put her foot down, screamed at anyone who wanted to help me, gave me the silent treatment and demanded that I stay in reception. I was apparently too good an employee to lose. I tried everything. I tried reasoning with the practice owners, I tried compromising my schedule, I tried working extra days. I tried demanding the raise I’ve been promised over and over again. It was like I was talking to walls.

Then I got sick. Really sick. I was fainting in strange places, losing vision, feeling numb in my extremities. I was sick to my stomach, and I finally went to a doctor. After a bunch of tests and a lengthy medical history interview, the doctor essentially told me that I was killing myself with stress, and that I needed to cut something out and focus on taking care of myself. I knew what was wrong.

I was miserable Monday through Thursday working at the reception desk. I was angry, frustrated. I could feel tension in my neck and shoulders when I left the office. My only salvation was working as a technician on Fridays. But by the time Friday rolled around I was suffering from exhaustion. I hated my job. I hated the clinic. I was miserable.

So I quit. I’m terrified about what lies ahead, but I’m also so relieved. I’d rather be dead broke and happy, then sorta broke and miserable. Not a huge difference there anyways. I’ve jumped from job to job my whole life without ever taking the time to really look for something that I want to do, that means something to me. I’ve always hired on to whatever place has taken me. And if you’ve heard the stories of my job history, sometimes it worked out well, sometimes it was a nightmare.

I feel free. In two weeks, I can move anywhere in the world. I can spend my days writing. I can actually take a moment to breathe and think about what I want to do.

I’ll find something else. I’ll find something better. After all, it has never been a problem before.

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Sunday Scrubdown

3 May

imageMonths ago, Brian and I were shopping in Soho before heading to a Husky football game. We stopped into a shop neither of us had ever heard of before called Sabon. I have since seen this store all over Manhattan, and I even saw a location in Tokyo.

Anyways, we were browsing when a salesperson asked us if we wanted to wash our hands. Er, okay? We guess so.

In the middle of the store was a large bronze sink with huge spigots. To run the water, there was a pedal by our feet. She looked at us both and assessed what scents we might like. After rinsing our hands, she gave me a scoop of Lavender Apple scrub. I don’t know how she knew, but to me, it was the best smelling thing EVER. After she dried our hands, she gave us our matching scent lotion. Not sure what scent Brian had, but it was semi-manly, like musk or mint.

Our hands were unbelievably soft. As we continued our shopping excursion, we kept sniffing our hands and running them along our faces. So soft, so smooth. We just couldn’t stop. We joked about how we wouldn’t have to pay for anything at the bar, we would simply run our hands along the bartender’s cheek, and they would magically give us whatever we asked for.

I wanted it. I wanted the scrub. I wanted the lotion, but I simply couldn’t justify spending $30 on a tub of scrub, and an additional $23 on lotion. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So a month or so later, I broke down and spent the money, and when they asked me if I wanted the little wooden scoop for an additional $1, I caved and got that too. Because sometimes, you have to treat yo-self.

(NBC will probably disable that video, but hey it’s great while it’s here.)

So now I enjoy what I like to call the Sunday Scrubdown. Every Sunday I allow myself an exceedingly long shower, one where I use the scrub, then I take my time getting ready and using the lotion. I end up feeling surreal the rest of the day, pure silk and enchanting aromas.

$54 well worth it.

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Thanks Mariners

27 Apr

Making a wish at SafeCo Field. 2008.

One year ago, life was horrible for me, the worst. I’d had my heart broken. I didn’t know where I was going to live. I didn’t have a job I loved or that I thought would take me anywhere. I was living in a lonely city with few people to turn to. I thought I might have breast cancer. I couldn’t eat. I was broke.

With all my problems weighing heavily on me, it made the little things so much worse. An ipod dying became a tragedy on top of it all. It might sound silly and a bit obsessive, but the fact that the Mariner’s were a horrible team last year made everything worse. I would try to sleep at night, all my troubles swarming in my head, and after I had catalogued them all for the millionth time, I would also think, “And the Mariner’s can’t win a fucking game!” I needed them, and they were just depressing me further. I even stopped following them. For the first time since leaving Seattle, I didn’t subscribe to mlbtv.com to watch the games. I just didn’t care.

I KNOW. I really lost it. I kind of kept up with the scores and news worthy updates, but I let myself not care for a season.

My life is back now. It’s not perfect, but it is probably the best it has been in years. Some days, I even feel like I have it all. So this year, when baseball season was coming back, I made the conscious decision to throw my weight back into my Mariner’s. Everyone predicted that they would be horrible this year…again. But I didn’t care. I downloaded some necessary apps to my phone, started following some key M’s blogs, and I started watching the games whenever I had a free night.

I’ve been fighting off a cold and a bad mood all week, so I stayed in on a Friday night to have some me-time and to watch the Mariners play the Blue Jays. We won. That’s the gist of it. But something more. Even at the top of the 9th when we were beginning our two-run deficit comeback with a Michael Saunders’ (not even one of our star players) homerun, I thought, “We still might lose this, but this is actually an exciting game.”

Good M’s offensive, good M’s defense, smart moves by the coaches. In the last couple of years, the M’s have been so crippled, so disappointing, the games haven’t even really been worth it. But tonight, home alone on a Friday night, I was really really enjoying this game.

Then at the top of the 10th, Michael Saunders (again, not even that great a player) got a Grand Slam that basically clinched the game at 9-5.

“SAUNDERS?” I said aloud to myself. “Saunders?!?!” My computer had been on the fritz, and it was freezing, so I thought maybe I saw it wrong. Then the ding-a-ling score alert went off on my phone, and I knew it was true. I was on cloud nine.

The M’s are playing surprisingly well this year. Granted it is April, and they still have room in the season to have a 14 game losing streak. But right now, things are fantastic. So goes baseball. So goes life.

Those that aren’t sports fans have a hard time understanding the utter devotion someone can put behind a team. It’s like everything worthwhile in life. Sometimes you are disappointed. Sometimes you don’t know if it is worth the effort. But when it’s good, it’s great.

The M’s have made me happy lately, and I’m so glad I didn’t break up with them a year ago when things were rough. While one year later, my life is back on track, I’ve had a rough week or two, and it’s like the M’s showed up at my door with soup, ice cream, and flowers.

Being a baseball fan is worth it. It’s worth the hours you spend in front of your television screaming at umpires, or your catcher, or your team’s manager. It’s worth the obsessive thinking about stats and lineups and injuries.

It’s nights like tonight that I realize just how much I love baseball.

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