Little girl to little boy at the playground as they played house:
“I’ll be the mommy and you be the team leader.”
Our civilization is doomed.
Category Archives: true life 2006
Now where'd I put that picnic basket?
Passing by the waste treatment plant yesterday, with the overwhelming stench of sewage in the air, I thought to myself, “Gee, I sure wish the City of Arlington had spent $646,000 on plans to develop a park here at the stinky, stinky place so I could hold my nose and have a picnic.”
Imagine my relief when I remembered that Arlington paid Mary Miss that exact amount to create those very plans! Your tax dollars at work! Except it was an unworkable plan for a place with much more pressing needs…
“Mary was trying to change the tires on a tractor-trailer going down the road at 95 miles an hour,” said Larry Slattery, the plant’s bureau chief. Some of her ideas were innovative, he said, but he added dryly, “It’s very difficult to put a rain garden over existing utilities we have to maintain.”
Miss, who has also overseen public art projects in New York’s Battery Park and in Santa Fe, N.M., said she envisioned making the “invisible visible,” prompting residents who might prefer not to know what happens after the toilet flushes to contemplate or even tour the plant. Information kiosks were to dot the Edenlike landscape. She thought people might even picnic there.
Bring the kids! Make a day of it.
Just don’t stand downwind.
Aside from laughing heartily I don’t have a lot to say about Scott Mclellan’s departure (which I have been mocked for predicting here for months, not that I’m feeling smug). A post about sewage is as good a tribute to Scotty as I can think of.
Happy Easter, or anything worth doing is worth doing with power tools
So says the recipe for Easter Turduken. It’s revolting, yet hilarious.
On a powertools-related sidenote: It’s 10 a.m. on Sunday morning. Our neighbors have been running their fucking powertools for hours. Now the house on the other side has started alternating between a jackhammer and a wood-chipper. (At least it drowns out all the barking dogs). Husband just snapped and yelled, “Are they digging for Jesus? What the hell? It’s Easter!”
But I digress…
NPR had a piece on peep pie with the brilliant title “rolling with my peeps.”
We used to have peep-pie bakeoffs at work. None of us were especially adept, which is a rather sad statement. A friend sent me Cadbury Egg Cake, which I think is much funnier than peep pie. Probably not something you’d want to eat, but on the other hand I never especially wanted to eat the peep pie, either. Plus, the Cadbury Egg Cake has a riff on eggs that makes me laugh every time:
I am learning that basically, you just need to forget everything you THINK know about eggs because man, you don’t know anything. You know nothing about eggs. Eggs is like “You don’t know me! Don’t even play like you know me!”
Of the three, Cadbury Egg Cake is the best science experiment, but it’s Easter Turduken that breaks new processed food ground, in my opinion. But I don’t get out much. Plus, I’ve been listening to a chipper-shredder for 30 minutes straight. My judgment may be somewhat impaired.
Pablo Picasso died on this date in 1973
(Picasso was a surrealist but not a dadaist. Nevertheless, that is your art trivia for the day.)
A couple of days ago, Da Loungebunny and I hit the Dada exhibit at the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art. We timed our visit to ensure we got to see and hear a performance of les ballets mechanique. It was all terribly exciting. An outing. And not just an outing, but an outing with nice company and delightfully raucous music.
The mechanical orchestra plays twice a day, at 1 and 4. I checked the website for today (Saturday) to make sure it would be playing, and then Husband and I went downtown. Let me repeat: Husband and I went downtown. To a museum. On the National Mall. On the last day of the Cherry Blossom Festival. On purpose. We subjected ourselves to this very specific form of torture so that Husband could hear the mechanical orchestra.
We didn’t get there by 1, so we drank coffee and then actually braved the exhibit (and the terrifying crush of people) until 4. It’s a good exhibit, even with the weekend crowds, but I suggest you go during the week if you actually want to be able to see it. We plan to go back one morning so Husband can spend more time. We expected that. He can’t hear the orchestra in the morning, however, so we waited it out.
4:00 came and went.
No music.
We went down to the lobby to leave. I was convinced we were going to miss it if we left. The eternal optimist, I was sure it was just running late. Since there were two people at the information desk and they weren’t in the process of helping anyone I stopped and asked the woman at the desk if the performance was still going to happen. I asked politely. Most people, when they’ve in actuality been terribly rude, preface a story like this with “I asked politely.” I, however, mean it. I worked at an info desk. Even if my eyeballs were being devoured by fire ants, I would feel compelled to smile and politely phrase any question I asked at an info desk. I feel bad for anyone who takes questions at an info desk all day.
The woman snapped at me that the only performance scheduled was for 1:00, (in a tone that suggested she believed I personally had hacked the website and changed the schedule), told me other people (lepers, I derived from her tone) were under the same mistaken impression, and then turned her back on me to end the conversation.
If she’d just politely said the listing was an error it would have been nothing more than a minor disappointment, but giving me a tongue-lashing?
I don’t care if 500 people have just asked you the same question, if your job (paid or volunteer) is to provide information and it’s so difficult for you to, you know, provide information in – if not a polite tone – a civil one maybe you have the wrong job.
The saddest part is, over the years many students have complained to me about how badly some docents at the NGA have treated them because they looked like poor students, and I never paid it much attention. Now I wonder if it’s part of the accepted institutional culture. That’s a shame, because both wings and the sculpture garden are lovely places. The West Gallery is in serious need of a signage overhaul and both museums ought to seriously renovate and/or maintain their restrooms (as long as I’m picking on the place I ought to mention that), but otherwise the exhibits are generally very nice, the theatre is nice, and the interior of the West Gallery is as nice as some of the art. And yes, I know there are about a thousand people working there and they aren’t all mean. I have in fact known some very lovely people who worked there. I don’t think any of them are still there, now that I think about it. Only one I can think of off the top of my head, at any rate.
But I digress. It’s just acceptable to treat the public badly, even, if the public does generally suck. The generalized sucking of the public is beside the point. You don’t have to be particularly nice to people, you just need to not be rude. Especially if you’re also constantly holding out your hand for donations.
I just doublechecked the website and I did not read it wrong:
Go ahead, NGA. Hit me up for money again. I dare you.
Truth be told, there’s a truly dadaistic element to housing the exhibit in a fancy series of museums (it’s a travelling show) and advertising performances that don’t happen, then treating the audience as if the absence of scheduled art is their own fault. So maybe the joke is on me, after all…
North Pole Marathon
I hate the cold, so I can’t explain why I love Iceland so much. The never-ending geothermally heated water and the little horseeeees are pretty groovy. But still, cold. Very, very cold.
It was pleasant enough the winter we were there, but it was only the last week in November, which is sort of Winter Lite. I suspect things take a turn for the cold from there. Send me there to live and I’ll report back. But I digress…
So I hate the cold but I want to live in Iceland. That’s weird, but not nearly as weird as my desire to complete the North Pole Marathon.
Certified 26.2 mile marathon course (Association of International Marathons and Road Races) — Only certified marathon distance that is run entirely on water, the frozen water of the Arctic Ocean — Recognised by Guinness World Records as northernmost marathon on earth — Listed in all the major international calendars — Large international field in the event — The world’s leading athletics, adventure and military magazines feature articles on the race — Participants are eligible to join the exclusive North Pole Marathonâ„¢ Grand Slam Club by finishing a marathon on each of the seven continents and this race on the Arctic Ocean. “Nothing quite compares to the surreal experience of the North Pole Marathon. It’s a priceless adventure.” Steven Seaton, Runner’s World UK, July 2004. “The world’s coolest marathon? No contest: it’s the North Pole Marathon…” Sunday Telegraph, October 2005.
Of course, if one is going to do the North Pole Marathon, one might as well do the Antarctic Marathon, as well. Hell, why stop there? You might as well do the Grand Slam.
I don’t even marathon, so I have no explanation for the appeal. Maybe all the Galactica 1980 has well and truly finally broken me?