Under Pressure

There is a book at my parents’ called What Every Woman Should Know About Her Car. This subtly sexist little gem (Do men not need to know these things? Are these things specific to women’s needs, like where to keep tampons or how to shave your legs with part of the engine?) is a classic, circa 1974, which probably paved the way for the entire “teach yourself/things for Dummies” genre. Sadly, for all you female auto owners, it is now virtually unknown- my first Google search for this read took me to an antique book site and I found it used on Amazon for as little as $0.37.

For all the jokes I made when my dad gave it to me to read 10 years ago, I’ll admit I was sort of wishing I had it today. To both my credit and shame, I tend to live a fairly independent life, doing things on my own and frequently avoiding asking for help. In doing this, I’ve discovered the secret of finding good people. People you can trust to do things fair and right. When I have a question about my company’s retirement plan, I call my “money guy.” And If I need my oil changed I don’t have to ask someone to help me or neglect it until I’m in serious trouble- I just call “my car guy.” Unfortunately, the car guy doesn’t cross state lines and he’s also not open on Saturdays. In college, lost without my car guy in the wildly flat land of Illinois, I depended heavily on AAA and put aside my ego long enough to have a friend point me to the only gas station in town with free air. Since then I’ve been a psi stickler, purchasing a fancy little pressure gauge and deriving a fair amount of pleasure from keeping my tires fully inflated.

So when I noticed my driver’s side front tire looking a bit sad I put taking advantage of Wawa’s free air at the top of today’s to-do list. Somehow, what is normally annoying, but overall thoughtless, became quickly frustrating and very nearly defeating. The little chart inside my door says the front tires’ psi should be 30 and the rear’s 29. The gauge said 25, so I hit the start button and pressed the hose up to the valve. Thirty seconds later the pressure was down to 20 and then 15. Instead of air going in, it was coming out. Now I’m not an expert, despite skimming What Every Woman Should Know back in the 11th grade, but even I know that is NOT how tire inflation is supposed to work.

Gwyneth was with me, being very positive about the impending abrupt end to our day in the city before it even began, but it wasn’t enough to mask our cluelessness about what to do next. My car guy wasn’t open and Wawa’s not the sort of gas station where you can go in and ask someone for help with your car. “Oh sure, as soon as I finish this hoagie.” Definitely not going to happen. But then our humbling/self-assured/saving grace pulled up in his big black truck.

Spotting damsels in distress (and clearly annoyed that we’d been monopolizing the air hose for at least 20 minutes) he got out to watch us fumble. Frustrated, dressed too cute to be kneeling in a parking lot and really, really hot, I put all pride aside and asked him for help. Oh the light in a man’s eyes when young women need him! He instantly diagnosed that the hose was leaking and used some sort of super human grip to keep the air going into the tires instead of leaking out which my little hands could never have managed. He also simultaneously decided that I was a silly girl.

I realize it looked bad. I mean, how hard is it to put air in your tires? And why do it when you’re wearing skinny jeans and armful of gold bangles? The answer to the first question has already been explained, and as for the latter- I think what every woman knows is that 1) There is no such thing as looking too good for any occasion or activity, and 2) If I waited until I didn’t look good to take care of car maintenance, it would never happen. Our guy was oblivious to these truths, though, and insisted I probably had a nail in my tire. Yes. That is it! I ran over a nail one second before I started putting air into the tires and THAT is why the psi is going down. And when I said the psi should be 30, he pointed out that the tire said 51 psi and that the decal on my car only applied to the original tires. Hmmm. That makes absolutely no sense. There is a pretty big difference between 30 and 51, regardless of whether you’re talking pounds gained or lost, potato chips consumed in one sitting or pressure per square inch. Also, the car is almost 10 years old. It probably didn’t even have original tires when I bought it, which means that I would have been seriously under-inflating my tires all these years, driving them half-flat.

He dismissed my skepticism by saying that’s what he always goes by and challenging whether I was getting good gas mileage. So I conceded and let him fill those tires up to 50 psi. Because the truth is that I wasn’t sure I was right, and I was also really grateful he was there to help us. I clearly don’t know what every woman or man should know about their car, but I do know when I’m beat. The pressure (no pun intended) to move things along was also increased as a very confused woman in a mini van pulled up next to us, forming a literal line of people waiting for me to hurry up and get some air in my tires.

We drove to the city, and the tires did not explode or deflate. I am very grateful that man was willing to help me in my moment of need. But some subsequent research has revealed that I am not an idiot. The number stamped on the tire is the maximum pressure rating, the psi on the door is indeed the manufacturer’s recommendation for the load of the car. So while the tires got me to and from the city, I’m not feeling super confident in the whole situation. So I will be doing what any independent woman does when she as a car problem. Calling my car guy first thing Monday morning.

It’s getting hot in here…

It’s hot here. A low of 77 degrees, chapstick melts in your purse, even being near a lightbulb makes you sweat kind of hot. And up here on the third floor, it’s even hotter.

I’ve traveled to some pretty hot places- Agra, Dubai, Palm Desert- and I’ve lived without air conditioning, but never at this altitude. As you walk up the stairs an oven-warm wall of air welcomes you to the top floor. It is as if the couple below is furiously baking bread, generating as much heat as possible to keep pace with my lone window AC unit, ensuring that my apartment maintains a constant standing temperature of 84 degrees.

I am slowly winning the war on sweat with an evolving strategy of strategically opened windows, fans and the one AC unit working overtime. The hum of electricity in this little apartment is impressive and I am vowing to do something really noble in September to erase the carbon footprints I’m leaving. I’m also wearing a minimal amount of clothing, taking a lot of showers and, when possible, taking refuge in free, artificially cool places, like Giant, Target and Mom & Dad’s.

Along with being extremely uncomfortable, this heat business is stressful. The hum of the AC drives me crazy, I’m getting very little done because I move at a glacial pace and it is too hot to cook or clean. Just thinking about doing so makes me feel hotter. This works out alright though, because no one wants to come over when your apartment is a sauna, so who cares if it is dirty?!

It can’t stay 100 degress outside forever (if it actually CAN, please don’t tell me), though, so I’m trying to be a good sport. I’ve got pop ice in the freezer which solves most of the world’s woes, and finally a good excuse to lie around the house in a bikini drinking icy beverages. If only I could dial the sun down a notch to 85, I think summer on the third floor could be alright.

Tips from the top

Not to worry, this post has nothing to do with corporate success or climbing any ladders or mountains.  It does, however, have a lot to do with climbing stairs.  3 flights of stairs to be exact.  These are my Tips for Third Floor Living…

1.) You can always carry one more thing.  Not carrying it means another trip up and down the stairs, so free up a finger to wrap around that hanger, shove that book into your purse and never be afraid to carry your mail with your teeth.  You can rinse with Listerine when you finally get upstairs.

2.) You are what you eat, and you only eat what you carry, so shop smart.  Try and space out your heavy purchases. Do you really need detergent AND a gallon of milk on the same day? (Also, if you live alone like me you should probably NEVER purchase a gallon of milk, because it’ll go bad before you can drink it all.) And when chicken broth is 10 cans for $3.00, restrain yourself.  And once you’ve made your purchases, insist that it ALL goes in 2, and only 2, re-usable cloth bags. This is more about comfort than the earth, I’ll be honest. The green bags at Giant have nice long handles that can go over your shoulder, freeing up your hands for library books and your coffee cup.

3.)  Heat rises.  62-64 is a pretty optimal setting during the winter- let your neighbors below do the heating for you!  And as soon as the temperature outside hits 70 turn the heat off.  Because you’re going to start sweating in about 20 minutes and you’ll find yourself plotting your attack with a series of fans, window AC units and misting bottles aimed at the ceiling fan.  Summer is all about survival of the hottest.

4.) Do whatever you want when the blinds are open. People down below can’t see you unless you’re right next to the window.  If, however, you have a neighbor who is also on the 3rd floor of their building, they have a much better vantage point, so consider closing those blinds before making breakfast in your bra.

5.) The exercise is good for your guests.  Learn to stop apologizing for living on the 3rd floor.  It’s not your fault people get tired or don’t have strong thighs.  And feeling bad about the altitude of your apartment will only hurt your self-esteem and make you afraid to have guests.  Think of the stairs as a good screening mechanism. Real friends* will climb. 

*The exception to this rule is grandparents and people with bad knees.  Take pictures of your place and then hang out with them in a stair-neutral location.

6.) Plan ahead for trash day.  You can’t see the trash cans from my apartment, and remembering when I get down there that it’s trash day stinks, literally and metaphorically, because there is trash everywhere and none of it is minee. Mine is all the way on the top floor.  If you I back up, I’m late for work and it’s a whole extra trip up and down. If I wait, the trash stays until the next week.

7.) Put things on the stairs.  Ordinarily this is not a safe thing to do with stairs, but when it comes to needing to remember things you want to take down stairs, I find putting them on the top two stairs right outside the door ensures they go down on the next trip.  Objects might include trash, PECO bills, library books to return and an umbrella if they’re calling for rain.

Living on the third floor can be fun if you approach it right, and it’s great for strengthening your thighs and heart muscles.  So embrace the fact that no one can climb or see in your windows, make friends with someone who has air conditioning, and learn to love the top.

Think Twice

Ruth’s Rules of Political Rhetoric

1.) Don’t make a Holocaust analogy

2.) Don’t invoke race or gender unless it’s yours, and even then you should probably think twice about it.

 Ruth Marcus, Washington Post columnist, speaking to Melissa Block on All Things Considered about Geraldine Ferraro’s recent careless statements.

Radio Therapy

NPR has made me cry twice in the last 5 days. The topics weren’t particularly sad, and I wasn’t feeling especially emotional, but something about the segments moved me. What I love most about NPR and all its various shows is the attention to detail. While most media drones on and on, repeating what we already know or filling us in on things that we really shouldn’t know, NPR finds a back door into every topic. A secret entrance if you will. They cross section life and pull out a layer, giving it a voice and telling its story.

On Tuesday evening as I drove to St. Joe’s for a graduate class on rhetoric, the topic on All Things Considered was the decline in burglaries in the US. Rather than simply report recent studies and statistics, they interviewed a former burglar, William Long, on why he no longer burglars homes. Citing the near impossibility of re-selling things for any type of profit on the streets these days and that fact that people in this age of credit no longer keep cash at home, Long seemed more disappointed by the culture shift than reformed from his old ways.

Until it got personal. Since retiring from burglary, Long himself was robbed- a video camera was stolen from his car. While he doesn’t miss the camera, he is upset by the loss of the tape inside. On it was footage of his dying stepfather. “They could have had the camera. Just give me that film,” he says. “I want the film of that moment we had.” There is a silence and then the interviewer asks Long if he thinks he may have ever stolen something similarly sentimental from anyone. More silence and then s Long slowly responds, “I never thought of it that way.”

I’m not sure quite why I got so choked up hearing this. In some way it was so intimate- listening to a man have an epiphanal moment as he suddenly realizes he’s created for others the same suffering he faces. A sense of conviction like that is hard to take in, and Long says nothing more, just walks out of his house to go to work, and ironically, locks the door behind him. The scene also profoundly communicated where the real harm in theft, of anything, not just objects, so often lies- not in property rights, but in hearts.

On Wednesday, as I drove home from my parents’ house, I listened to part of an episode of This American Life, titled “Return to Childhood 2008.” When I tuned in This American Life producer Alex Blumberg was trying to find Susan Jordan, who babysat him twenty years ago when he was 9. He shares some of his memories of those days, unsuccessfully calls every Susan Jordan in Cincinnati, and eventually hires a private investigator to track the babysitter, now a grown woman, and finally finds her.

He calls her and they reminisce and Alex discovers that the truth about those moments he recalled from age 9 is actually very different from how he remembered it. At this point in Alex’s story I was already home, sitting in my parked car, tears in my eyes, totally engrossed in Alex and Susan’s story. It turns out that the year Alex remembers with Susan as his babysitter was a year she’d rather forget. Susan’s life was a lot harder than Alex could understand at such a young age. And she was drawn to him and his family by a need far beyond earning extra cash. Somehow their individual fragilities tightened their bond, and listening to them I was overwhelmed by how well they still knew each other from that year spent playing and driving around Ohio together.

It turns out that I am not alone. While downloading the podcast of the entire episode on Itunes, I found an especially accurate review of This American Life, entitled “Beware of this show” :

“Oh sure, This American Life almost always begins with some rollicking, humorous piece directly related to its theme. You’ll hear Ira interview someone to a backdrop of fun, upbeat or whimsical music… You can’t help but get sucked in.

But know this, and know it well: Ira glass is an insidious and manipulative genius. Sure you’ll start out the hour laughing (maybe harder than you’ve ever laughed at a public radio show) but inevitably and seamlessly, in a completely unconscious manner your emotions will be turned inside out and you’ll end the hour sobbing in your car, in the Target parking lot you’ve been parked in for the last 40 minutes. And sometimes you won’t even know why you’re crying, all you’ll know is that some sort of emotional release is needed before reintegrating yourself into the outside world.”

So it seems I am not alone in my NPR-inspired waves of emotion. Next time I listen I will picture thousands of other people, just like me, crying in parked cars all over the country, their lives being touched in secret small ways. And, through my tears, I’ll smile.

Bring to a boil. Repeat.

Moving into a new apartment has required some new purchases as I furnish and outfit the place for daily life. My previous apartments were in Illinois and London, so many of the things I had during those phases were either given away, sold or left behind. For the last two years I lived with my parents, who thankfully did not require to me to provide my own silverware, vacuum, knives, etc. The result, however, was that I moved into this apartment with 12 wine glasses (purchased last year for a party), lots of Indian throw pillows and a rice cooker. No plates, no cookware, no couch -It was BYOC (bring your own chair) and eating scrambled eggs out of a bowl for the first 2 weeks.

So I have been shopping and, overall, doing a pretty good job. After many fateful Ikea trips in years past where I came home with things like this:

I am finally able to refrain from buying crap I don’t need because it’s cheap and/or looks good in the hip Swedish showroom. I am still, however, prone to a form of buyer’s remorse, where I buy the thriftier of two choices and then later regret it and wish I had purchased the more quality product. Last week this hit me hard with, of all things, my tea kettle.

I purchased what I thought was a decent tea kettle at Target. It held enough water for myself and guests, should I host any tea parties, looked easy to pour and totally capable of boiling some amazing hot water. It was even kind of pretty.

So every morning I would fill it with water and boil it for my French Pressed Kenyan coffee. When I’d go to pour it, though, the flow was awful. Sometimes almost nothing came out or it sort of sputtered out the sides. I’d tip the kettle forward further, thinking the water needed more momentum or help from gravity, but still the water just didn’t come out very well. By Tuesday I was feeling very annoyed and disheartened. I’d only had the kettle a week and it was already a disappointment.

Wednesday morning I went about my usual routine, still lamenting my poor tea kettle selection skills. Then, as I was pouring the water into the French Press, a small piece of white paper floated out. A sudden realization hit me, and I quickly pulled off the lid. There inside were the soggy instructions, formerly a white piece of paper folded into quarters. I had been filling the kettle through the spout, and had never bothered to wash it since anything in it was going to be boiled. Unbeknownst to me, this included the instructions, which after being boiled every day for a week, finally protested and under the pressure of daily boiling, fell to pieces.

Bad news: My common sense is now suspect. Good news: My tea kettle is actually awesome, not a dud, and boiled paper is not harmful to your health. Even better news: I think ingesting all those words has made me better at Scrabble.

So while I no longer regret my purchase, I am now slightly concerned about my ability to live alone and take care of myself. I don’t think there is any way I can get in trouble with a couch, though, is there?

I don’t care…and that’s okay.

I worry far too much about what people think of me.

Moving into an apartment with no off-street parking has made this overwhelmingly clear as I find myself circling the block to avoid being watched by a car behind me as I painstakingly parallel park on the left side of our one-way street. It is dark. They can’t see my face and no one in this town recognizes my car yet. And still I am full of shame when I can’t back in perfectly on the first try and an SUV has to sit there waiting for me to straighten out so they can pass.

It is hard to tell if living alone will dampen or fuel this fire. Several weeks into it, I am amazed by how freeing it is to not have to worry about what other people think (at least when I am inside the apartment). I can make the whole apartment smell like bacon in the morning and don’t have to apologize. I can be obsessive and make all the knives face the same direction- or not-and no one else is affected. I can vacuum at 8 am and listen to my Bollywood film soundtracks while I make dinner without giving a single thought to whether I am being annoying. (My family would argue that being annoying has never stopped me before. If they only knew all the additional things I refrain from doing…) It may not be healthy to go through all of one’s life this unconcerned with others, but for right now it is absolutely amazing. And I always have parallel parking to keep my ego in check.

Not necessarily in that order.

My dad is a creature of habit, a trait I have definitely inherited, and one of his daily routines is reading The Daily Local, our local newspaper. It is, I think, as much a source of “news” as it is entertainment. Today, for example, there was a letter to the editor suggesting that since teacher strikes negatively impact the students by causing them to miss out on their education, they should be held in summer when school is on vacation. I’m not sure this individual has the whole “strike” concept down…

Along with the Letters to the Editor, my dad also reads the obituaries, regardless of whether they’re people he knows or not. Obituaries tend to follow a pretty basic formula which I think isn’t all that interesting to read, but a few weeks ago he discovered a real gem that we are still laughing about.

Camille

Her parents immigrated to this country from Italy, and from them she learned to be bold. Maybe that’s why she used to enjoy driving on newly opened freeways in California, before she lost her eyesight to macular degeneration. Even afterward, people couldn’t believe she was blind.

She loved country music, Hawaii, Italy, animals, dancing, family, having people around her, going out to dinner (especially at the bar at Ludwig’s Inn) and drinking cosmopolitans, not necessarily in that order.

Probably most of all, she loved her late husband, Chuck, whom she has now joined for eternity.

Camille passed away at the age of 89 after another bout of pneumonia, which was more than her lungs could handle.

It carries on with the usual survivors and service information, but I love those opening paragraphs as a unique tribute to a woman who was probably a lot of fun. So fun that you couldn’t believe she was blind as she drove down the open road!

I hope that my obituary someday is equally unique, although I would like to think it could say “Definitely most of all, she loved her husband, ” and not probably. And reading, french fries, her family, white wine, her friends, London, Indian food, and hiking, though not necessarily in that order.

In Demand

I am 26 and very single. With the exception of an awkward blind date in 2006, I haven’t been out with a guy in over 2 years. (My apologies to any men who thought it was a date when we were just hanging out. Let this be a sign that you need to step up your game.) And most of the time I am pretty okay with this. I have even gone so far as listing “not dating” as one of my activities in my facebook profile. I am not actually actively avoiding dates, but I admit I am doing very little to make them happen. My most glaring dating sin of omission? Not signing up on an internet matchmaking site.

The spam in my inbox has made it clear to me that whatever type of man my heart desires, there is a site just waiting to to match me up. Whether I’m thinking Jewish or Asian or even want to go by geography and find myself a West Chester or Philadelphia single, I’m covered. But whenever I start thinking about all that would entail- juggling multiple “matches” at one time, deciding whose profiles to close and phone calls with total strangers- I feel physically stressed. And an encounter at work yesterday only served to affirm my decision to stay offline.

The organization I work for has recently grown and that means we spend more money than ever on printing and mailing, something I am partially responsible for handling. Nearly every day I am solicited by a company that would like our business (i.e. our money) or at least the chance to bid on our projects. And while I appreciate that competition can help us get the best deals, I don’t have the time to be constantly screening vendors and taking risks with new products, nor can I keep more than a few sales reps straight at one time. Trust is a big deal as well, and this can only come after working with someone for awhile. Nothing you send me in a proposal is going to make me trust you more than someone I’ve worked closely with for several years. Can you see how this already resembles dating?

On Tuesday, I was getting ready for a 10 o’clock appointment with Print Rep 1 when Print Rep 2 dropped in on me unexpectedly. He had received one of our publications in the mail and wanted to know why I hadn’t given him the opportunity to bid on it. How do you tell a man who donates to your organization, and who you know depends on commission, that it isn’t personal, but you already have enough printers and aren’t ready for another? I took his card and added it to my growing pile and told him we’d keep him in mind for future bids, and added that if it was any consolation, the printer we had worked with was someone we had a long established relationship with. Could this sound any more like dating??

Before Printer 2 could step out, Printer 1 showed up with a new sales rep he wanted me to meet, and suddenly my little office had 3 men in it, who all wanted my business, and a 4th was on the phone. Needless to say, it was awkward, but thankfully I was able to avoid having them introduce themselves to one another and reveal that they were actually competitors. Afterwards though, I was stressed. So stressed that I had to eat two of the miniature Hershey’s Special Dark chocolate bars that we got for Christmas - from a printer. I have been eating a lot of those lately. And I can only imagine, if I were on eHarmony or Match.com, how many additional dark chocolates I’d need.

Because just like my organization is a coveted account due to the volume of work we’re doing and the cash we’re spending, I know that one look at my jazzy e-profile and my inbox would be overflowing. I mean, think about all the things I bring to Mr. Right’s table. I can help him set up a blog, I can order off an Indian restaurant menu and know what I’m getting, I medaled in Triple Jump, I’m decent competition in Scrabble, I won’t ever eat his cheese (don’t like it), and the real clincher- I have access to tons of printing companies. The virtual line for a catch like me would be around the block, and I think it would just all be too overwhelming, trying to screen them all and make sure they don’t know about each other, and making awkward small talk on the phone with people I’m clearly uninterested in because I can’t say no.

Perhaps in a few months or a year I’ll have to sheepishly go back and delete this post, but for now I’m going to persist in my resistance to internet dating. If only the printers were younger and single- I’d have it made!

Expecting

Confession #1: I am a substandard blogger. Being a correspondent from everyday life is harder than it looks, especially when you’ve got high standards on what’s worth sharing. The stories from the cozy front lines often seem as trivial as the dangers are minimal. But if you can’t find meaning or humor in the little things, who are you to talk about big things? So, among several others, one of my New Year’s Resolutions is to improve my blogging… please do not hold your breath.

 

Confession #2: I’m feeling broody. After a period of great expectation I find I often slide into a bit of contemplative angst. And what greater season of waiting is there than Advent? It is an ancient lesson in patience and knowing that God is at work even when it appears nothing is happening. Every year we open tiny doors on whimsical calendars and light candles on wreaths to mark the approaching celebration. And we never have to wait more than 25 days. But Israel, she waited for her Messiah for centuries, through war, exile and occupation. How anticlimactic that baby must have seemed.

As I reflect on this and try to place myself in some ancient shoes, I recognize that my disappointments are generally just misunderstandings of how God is working. A baby instead of a warrior king? Sure, if you’re into radical redemption, humility and a 30 year plan. But if you were desperately waiting for a revolution, tiny little God incarnate might have been a hard hope to swallow.

Coupled with my post-Advent angst is my New Year’s expectancy. Wondering what might happen this year. 2007 was a great year for baby-making, and many people in my life will be having babies in 2008. This is something they can anticipate for 40 weeks and be quite certain will arrive. There is no chance those babies are just gonna hang out in there for another year or so. I think the reason people get so obsessed with pregnant bellies is that they are evidence that something is happening. They mark the passing of time and signal approaching joy. And we are just nuts about touching them. I took friends to the Liberty Bell on Monday, which can no longer be touched because of its fragile state. Instead there is some faux liberty bell on display for those whose hands can’t resist. Funny how the Liberty Bell is apparently more fragile than a woman’s pregnant belly.

But I am not expecting a baby, though I will be keeping tabs on others’, and I am not even sure if the things I’m hoping for are scheduled in the stars to take place this year. And I am not really looking for my stomach to suddenly swell as the time for a new job or apartment nears. Some sort of sign would be nice though, I have to admit. You know, like a big star or a host of angels. Something that says, “Hey, something huge is about to happen. Quit freaking out.” If He did it for shepherds, He could do it for me, right? Either way, I hope that I recognize it when it comes.