Hurricane Sandy

We made it through Hurricane Sandy unscathed and I’m very grateful we did, considering all the awful devastation in New York City and the Jersey shore. Our office was closed Monday and Tuesday so I just worked from home and got a normal amount of work done. We never lost power, surprisingly, and there was no flooding in the basement.

I did discover that our peeling ceiling is in fact a leak in the roof, rather than just wallpaper peeling due to humidity from the shower. I heard a drip in the ceiling Monday morning. Luckily, I was able to get into the crawl space and shove a bucket under the drip, so we’re OK until we can get a roofer out. Knock on wood, that seems to be the only leak.

One thing this hurricane taught me is that we can be resourceful. I didn’t make any kind of special purchases for this storm. Thursday night, I had done my regular food shopping and didn’t buy anything special. We have enough food in the house that we could survive for a few days and if we got desperate, there was always the Halloween candy we got for the trick or treaters. I never buy any booze or comfort food anyway before a storm.

I didn’t buy any bottled water either but just filled pitchers with tap water. During Hurricane Irene, I discovered that bottled water was gone from stores and all of Delaware was in a death panic and figured, “I’m not running around looking for water. We have filtered water from the fridge so I’ll use that.” When the crisis passes, I’ll just use the water for coffee or something so it’s not wasted. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before last year. I didn’t buy extra ice, either. I just got ice from the icemaker and put it in containers. If the power failed, I would just fill coolers with the ice and put the perishables in there.

Plus, we technically could still cook since I could light the gas burners or use the BBQ grill. We’re lucky to live in a built-up area and can walk to places to get food if we need to.

We have a bunch of batteries in bulk that we got from BJ’s so we didn’t need to buy those. We also have an insane amount of candles already and I found a bunch of old candles in the basement. So we were lucky enough that we made do with what we had in the house. I was even able to get a bucket to fix the drip without going out for any supplies. All this underlines two things: How much crap we have in our house that we don’t even know about and how we can survive on what we have on hand without freaking out and running around shopping.

Thank God this storm fell well after my supermarket day so I didn’t have to deal with hordes of people shopping for a nuclear winter rather than a two-day hurricane. Hurricanes Sandy and Irene have shown me how similar the hurricane preparation is to snow preparation and that’s unfortunate. Hurricanes actually are serious business and we do need to be prepared with food and supplies, so a little freaking out is justifiable. But from what I heard, people weren’t food shopping with much more intensity last week than they do when the forecast is 4 to 6 inches of snow. There’s something out of whack there because 4 to 6 inches of snow are truly nothing to worry about unless you’re elderly. So next winter, when everyone flips the fuck out before a mundane snowstorm, I’ll be asking why they’re acting like a destructive hurricane is coming.

Not a Drop to Drink

By Brian McCurdy

Very rapidly, the day was becoming long and tense. Lowering skies were just starting to spit down on them as they hustled across the parking lot. A woman shuffled to her car with a cart with several pounds of butter, three gallons of milk and some potato chips. Another guy walked to his car struggling to carry an oil lamp, a mag light and a large pack of batteries. 

In the last day or so, Madeleine and Rob had become quite familiar with the subtle gradations between the colors of the hurricane clouds. Late yesterday afternoon the clouds looked sort of charcoal. By that morning they had progressed to a slate color. Now, before dusk, they settled on gunmetal. 

They streamed into the store with the rest of the crowd. It was too much to hope that Wal-Mart would be anything less than a mob scene. There was a steady stream toward the grocery aisles with a tributary breaking off and moving toward housewares and hardware. The evening before the hurricane, the store looked like the rains and winds had already hit and left a trail of destruction. Ron and Madeleine walked past the devastated bread aisle and ravaged dairy case. 

It was slim pickins at the bottled water section. Most of it was gone except for a few cases of generic Wal-Mart brand bottled water.

“Are you kidding me?” Rob said. “Generic water? I can’t drink this.   
 

“We’re running out of time,” Madeleine said. “The storm will be here overnight.    
   

“How far does someone have to go to get a decent case of Dasani? Or at least some Aquafina. Something potable. Honestly.”   

“I know but at this point, we may just have to take whatever we can get, babe.”   

Rob bent down and checked out the labels on the bottles. “I know, I know. I really didn’t think every store would be sold out.”     

“Seriously. Acme. Target. Super Fresh. Pathmark. Wawa. CVS. No water.”  

“And I don’t want to be stuck inside for a few days and they tell me we can’t drink the water because it’s contaminated. Or we have to boil it and the power’s out and we can’t.”

“BJ’s. Walgreens. Seven-Eleven. Nothing.” 

A woman wandered by and at the sight of the generic bottled water, her eyes widened. She put a case in her cart, with an eye on Rob and Madeleine.
    

“Maybe we should just …”        

“No,” Rob interrupted. “I hate to sound like a diva but I just don’t want this water. If we’re stuck inside by a fallen tree or something, I just don’t know that I can drink this stuff.”          

“We’re running out of options.”    

   

A guy in a blue Wal-Mart smock, taking inventory, walked by. “I couldn’t help overhearing.”         

“Yeah, we’re just having no luck with bottled water today. Deer Park, Nestle, Fiji, anything.” 

“You know what you could do,” the employee suggested, “is head to housewares and get a couple pitchers. Then just fill them with tap water at home. You’ll have enough to get through the storm and you can reuse the containers. It’s probably cheaper than buying all that bottled water anyway.”      

Madeleine and Rob looked at the guy like he had three heads.          

“Tap water?” Madeleine said. “I’m sorry … tap water?”         

“No. I’m not doing that,” Rob insisted. “Not tap water. What is this, Malawi?”         

The couple pushed their way through streams of people and left the store. Rob was already looking at his phone, trying to find any stores in the area they hadn’t already scoured. Water quest continued.

Ann Coulter is a troll

The latest thing is that Ann Coulter called Obama a retard on Twitter. She must know that the R-word has been the third rail and even though people from my generation used the term as a general insult, it’s been regarded as offensive for awhile now. So Coulter is trolling again; using some obnoxious slur to get a rise out of people. I know you’re not supposed to feed the online troll since the best way to get these people to go away is to ignore them …

… but this blog does not have a national platform that would feed into Coulter’s ego so indulge me for a few paragraphs because I’m going to be nasty. The best possible response to these types of people is the extraordinarily graceful letter from the man with Down syndrome but I don't have it in me today to replicate that.

This isn’t the first time Coulter has acted like an asshole in public. She once called John Edwards a faggot. Edwards is a lot of things (“morally bankrupt” would be a better term) but I wouldn’t use the F-word. The fact that she did just betrays an immaturity. Teenagers use the word sometimes not to refer to sexuality but because it’s the first naughty word that pops into their heads and they know it will get them attention. It’s like calling someone an asshole when he cuts you off in traffic. There’s no great thought behind this. We do this because it’s just a nasty term. 

So Coulter using the R-word or the F-word has no thought behind it. It’s just the rambling of some imbecile who recently learned a curse word and knows it will get her attention. She’s usually doing this because she’s making the talk show rounds to promote some book (probably called Liberals Are Faggots or some other erudite title) but this kind of knee-jerk name-calling is beneath someone who wants to call herself an intellectual or pundit.

Coulter is what would happen if you gave a national platform to the darkest, most ignorant anonymous commenters of some general interest website.

It’s like nobody’s paid her any attention for a few hours so she farts and hopes people notice. Then she laughs and tells everyone to lighten up. That’s what she did with Edwards. When people criticized her for saying the F-word, she countered by saying it’s a schoolyard taunt and people should lighten up. But should someone who wants to be taken seriously as an author be using schoolyard taunts? If you’re going to insult someone, at least say something clever with some substance behind it. Don’t just grab the first slur that pops into your head. Act like an author and not a troll.

Turnabout is fair play. I wonder what Coulter would do if someone called her something nasty on live television. I wonder if she can take what she dishes out.

What goes through my mind while waiting in line three hours for a roller coaster

This line goes so far ahead that I can’t even see the configuration ahead of us. It looks like it turns perpendicular at some point but I can’t be sure.

What on earth are these girls ahead of us talking about? She slept with Don while her friend was in the room? Who are these people?

I love Millennium Force. Hopefully, today’s ride will be more fun than last night’s in the rain. The feeling of rain pelting my face at 60 mph was … I guess you’d call it bracing.

I don’t care about smart phones but having one would give me more to do while waiting.

2+2=4. 2+2=4. I can see why this is so popular!

The wind off Lake Erie is very chilling today. Why didn’t I bring a warmer coat? I guess I’ll have to break down and buy a hat at a gift store. You know, they say a lot of your body heat escapes through your head so you really should cover up in the cold. I’ve just never been one for hats so I don’t really have any. I finally had to buy a baseball hat so my head didn’t get sunburned on the beach but I only wear that reluctantly. Isn’t sunburn on your head the worst? I tried spraying sunscreen on my scalp but it stings a little and I don’t want it in my hair. So, a hat it is then.

Wow! Look how far we’ve come in two hours! I’d hate to be one of the suckers in line way back there!

If you want an engrossing read, look up “List of amusement park accidents” on Wikipedia. Or is it “List of amusement park deaths”?

Where should we eat dinner tonight? I know I’ll be ready to eat by the time we’re off this ride. I guess I should have something light, since we’ll be spending our evening going upside down and through corkscrews.

Know what would suck? If we got right up to the front of the line and they closed it due to high winds.

It’s strange to be standing in line and seeing all these people wearing high school and college sports T-shirts and I don’t know any of the schools because we’re in Ohio.

This ride has three trains and each seats 36 people. That means, if my math is correct, that 108 people graduate from this line every time the ride rotates through three trains. That must mean there are a few thousand people in this line.

Did I turn off the oven?

This guy in the green hoodie is amusing. He’s getting close to the front of the line and yelling excitedly, trying to get everyone enthused about nearly getting on the ride. It’s something to do.

They should just call the fast pass line the “la-dee-da” line.

Maybe I’ll buy a new pair of pants.

Almost there! Look how far we’ve come! Now we’re actually up to the ride. Four more cars and we can get on!

Getting on now. Let’s buckle up. I love roller coasters!

A really rollicking yet respectfully mournful funeral

What song makes for a really good funeral? I mean, a really rollicking yet respectfully mournful funeral?

People certainly have some odd choices for music to be played when their coffin is being lowered into the ground. Some British group took a survey of popular death music and Adele’s “Someone Like You” is on the list. This seems bizarre. It’s like Adele is not only breaking up with her boyfriend, but she’s breaking up with everyone she ever knew. If you read the lines “Never mind/ I’ll find someone like you” as addressed to an entire group of loved ones, it’s really cold and dismissive. I wonder if the people who pick this song just figure, “It’s sad and people cry at it. We’ll go with Adele.”

Besides, as I’ve said repeatedly, “Someone Like You” annoys rather than moves me. I would be the one dry-eyed person at the procession out of the church where they play this. The song would actually make me feel better if I were upset because I would focus my feelings into a vague aggravation.

A few of the songs on the funeral survey are either appropriate or amusing. “My Way” is maudlin enough that it actually works much better at a gravesite than at karaoke when an old man sings it as people are actually trying to forget their troubles. I’ll give a pass to “Wind Beneath My Wings” because I find it cheesy but it would probably be comforting in the face of death. I guess “My Heart Will Go on” would be fine. “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” totally works for people who have a sense of humor and would laugh to keep from crying.

On the down side, we have “I Will Always Love You,” which is a break-up song and Whitney Houston’s vocals would probably wake the deceased. “Unforgettable” would only be OK if it’s the Nat King Cole version because the one by his crackhead daughter is a creepy duet with her dead father.

And then we have “Wonderful World,” as croaked out by Louis Armstrong. Enough people seem to like this that it’s inevitable that I will go to a funeral one day where they play this. And I will struggle mightily to suppress my laughter at the horrific vocals.

For future reference for anyone who plans on dying someday, here is a list of other songs that might be inappropriate at a funeral: “Blasphemous Rumours” by Depeche Mode, “Dig My Grave” by They Might Be Giants, “All by Myself” by Eric Carmen, “Without You” by Harry Nilsson, “Alone” by Heart, “I Just Called to Say I Love You” by Stevie Wonder, “Mer Girl” by Madonna, “Heresy” by Nine Inch Nails or “Eleanor Rigby” by the Beatles.

You all know the drill with me. Play “Being Boring” by the Pet Shop Boys at my funeral. Seriously.

Food?

I have a few questions about food.

I don’t really get the idea behind wraps. My God, they’re everywhere. Walk down Main Street in Newark and it’s like the Wrap District. Every restaurant is pita. The name of every place has a poetic variation available on “wrap” or “pita.” I don’t get the idea behind wraps. I’ll just take regular bread with my sandwich, thanks. I guess the idea is that wraps are healthier than bread but I don’t eat out often enough to have some critical mass of bread so I can afford some tasty bread when I go out. Wraps to me have the appeal of cardboard. I also don’t like the messiness of wraps. I can’t stand food that falls all over the place so I’m not eating some drippy mess wrapped in pita. I’m not a big fan of sandwiches for dinner anyway. I think it’s funny how people think wrapping the same crap in pita makes it healthier. That Big Mac is the same toxic shit no matter what it’s wrapped in. The bread isn’t why you’re fat.

What is a “gastropub”? Isn’t it just a bar that serves food? Or a restaurant with a liquor license? Doesn’t that describe pretty much every establishment? It seems to me that it’s just a way to get people to consider a non-exceptional experience as exceptional. “Woo! This new gastropub, the Hipster’s Beard in Northern Liberties, serves high-end hamburgers and microbrewed beer! Totally different from a regular bar or restaurant! I’ll pay a premium for that!”

I am not at all a foodie so a lot of high-end foods are lost on my. My palate just isn’t sophisticated enough. I also could never be a restaurant reviewer because I have this inability to identify tastes and smells. I would eat something and only be able to say “it tastes good” without identifying what “it” is.

Is it lunchtime yet?  

Rebuttal

I’m not all that interested in the presidential and vice presidential debates, to be honest. Does that make me some sort of irresponsible citizen?

I started watching the first Obama-Romney debate and just got really bored a half hour in and started reading. I caught about the first two minutes of last night’s Biden-Ryan debate and turned it off and started reading. I was mostly bitter that Parks and Recreation was not on. Diane Sawyer called it “one of the most important vice presidential debates in history.” Faint praise.

It didn’t help last night that they immediately started going on about Libya and the recent troubles. I’m sorry but I just don’t care. I’m barely aware of what’s happening there — I know a few people died and there was some unrest — but it seemed like it blew over rather quickly. I’m not terribly interested in foreign affairs anymore. If it’s something like a war in which our soldiers are involved then that’s certainly worthy of attention but if it’s just unrest in one region of the world, I just feel like it’s one goddamn thing after another over there and those countries can solve their own problems. We have far more pressing domestic problems and I’d rather see a debate about that.

Am I shallow? Do I not care? I do care about who governs this country, of course, but I’m not sure the debates are the best forum for that, at least not this election.

There’s just been so much attention paid to the posing that goes on in debates. The general consensus was that Romney won the first debate because of his forceful attitude and that Obama lost because he just sort of stood there like a limp banana. The general consensus was right but the analysis was just so surface-oriented. Both candidates are coated in a thin layer of bullshit, because that’s how politics works, and I would rather read the post-mortem analysis of what they said rather than tune in for the theater.

In particular, Romney explained his economic plans but they still didn’t make sense to me. So what’s the point of declaring him the winner and praising his assertiveness if it’s still basically bullshit? There are better ways to weigh one candidate against another and it’s not some tabloid-esque analysis of every smirk and sigh the candidates do at the podium.

The night Ben folded five

My experience at the Ben Folds Five concert was mostly hearing an opening riff and saying, “Oh, I love this song” and taking a few seconds before realizing what song it actually was. I like the band but sometimes I have a hard time recognizing songs until they’re a bit of the way in. Steve was probably happy I didn’t keep asking him, “What’s this song called again?”

I very much enjoyed the show. I had never seen the full band together; just Ben solo on a double bill with Tori Amos. It was sublime hearing the three band members break into a harmony on the gorgeous “Missing the War,” one of my favorite of their songs. I’m a sucker for a good harmony. The guys played pretty well all night. 

The show was pretty much some selections from the Five’s new The Sound of the Life of the Mind and other greatest hits, making it perfect for someone like me who isn’t familiar with a lot of deep album cuts or B-sides. The end of the show was especially fun, with Ben Folds Five tearing through “Philosophy,” “Kate,” “Song for the Dumped” and another of my favorites, “Army.” The final song “One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces” was rollicking. I think the best of their songs project an atmosphere of bitterness that’s somehow jaunty and insouciant. 

There were a few other songs I would like to have heard, like the grandiose “Narcolepsy,” and Steve had lamented that they didn’t do much from The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner. The only Ben Folds solo material they did was “Landed” and Steve noted that during this, Robert Sledge and Darren Jessee had looks on their faces like Pink Floyd did as they gritted their teeth through their reunion a few years ago. 

Of course, there was “Brick.” I wonder if the band only performs this because they feel obligated. Like Radiohead’s “Creep,” when I heard “Brick” on the radio, it was a song I thought Ben Folds Five couldn’t top but then I heard the rest of their discography and discovered they had much better material. The song doesn’t fit in with the rest of their upbeat stuff and I just can’t get sing along to a ballad about an abortion. 

One thing I noticed at the show – do we still do this? – was that people were throwing around a beach ball. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we were at an outdoor Jimmy Buffett show. I’m all for fun but batting around a ball just didn’t fit with a concert on a rainy night at the Tower Theater. The guy next to us caught the ball and deflated it. 

Anyway, I’m glad I got to see the group live.

Ignorance Is Bliss

I live under a rock in a remote cave on the dark side of the moon. I am out of it. I have no idea what’s going on.

Apparently there’s some song called … “Gangnam Style”? By some outfit named … Psy? Or PSY? In some genre known as … K-pop? And there’s a video of this song on something called … You Tube? Am I getting that right?

This kind of thing buzzes at the peripheral edge of my consciousness but I have somehow managed to avoid it. The song is viral and is No. 2 on the Hot 100 and it’s racked up millions of You Tube views. (I always take You Tube as a measure of popularity with a grain of salt, at least in music. Of course popular songs will garner all these views because they’re free. Ask people to pay and see how “viral” the song is.) There are even parodies of the song. The Internet is always imploring me to “Watch kindergarten class parody ‘Gangnam Style’ video!” I’ll get right on that, Internet.

I am sure this video is great and have nothing against it but sometimes I take a perverse pleasure in staying completely in the dark about things. It can be restful sometimes to go through life with headphones on, ignoring the jackhammers tearing up the street around you.

How did this happen? How did I become so ignorant? This “Gangnam Style” has apparently been online for some time but I only became aware after it metastasized. I don’t get it. I’m online all the time. I read gossip columns and entertainment sites and even if I’ve never seen or heard the phenomenon in question, I at least am aware of it most of the time. So how do these things sneak up on me? It’s another thing that in the future, when people make references to it, I will stare like a deer in the headlights.

This actually doesn’t concern me overmuch.

Things to Do in October

It’s all over but the crying. Even though the season didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to, I did enjoy watching the Phillies, and will miss them in the off-season. They at least made a bit of a run in September, avoided the indignity of a losing season and I have some hope for next year. Still, it was painful to watch the Nationals clinch the National League East and for the Phillies’ divisional dynasty to end.

Let’s look on the bright side: I’ll have a bit more free time this October. For the first time in six years, I won’t have to stay up late watching playoff games and holler at the TV. Yay? So here’s a list of things I can do for the rest of the month to pass some time.

* Throw baseballs at my life-size cardboard cutout of Bryce Harper
* Laugh at the Mets, who still finished below the Phillies
* Strategically root against any MLB playoff team that has stymied the Phillies since 2007
* Clean the house
* Cry and collect the tears in my 2008 World Series glass
* Bang my head on the wall
* Offer a prayer of thanks for not having to listen to Joe Buck
* Plan our wedding
* Be especially vigilant of falling lead pipes
* Read a book
* Eat a cheesesteak topped with bitterness
* Devise a highly conceptual Halloween costume that will be discussed through the ages
* Catch a Flyers ga … oh, wait …
* Watch the DVD of the 2008 season on a loop until April, sighing heavily the whole while

Enjoy your month!

Well, I never!

I am regularly appalled at the questions I hear people asking strangers. I read about these things in online articles and advice columns. I am not always the model of decorum but there are certain things I would never, ever say to a stranger.

One of the things I would never do is ask a visibly disabled person, “What happened?” A woman in a wheelchair wrote a recent article saying people often asked her this and that flabbergasts me. I see someone in a wheelchair and just think, “I don’t know this person and it’s not my business and this person may not want to discuss some horrible circumstance.” If it’s someone on crutches, I think you might be safe asking, “What happened?” because it might be some temporary injury that the person will recover from. But for people in wheelchairs, I always figured maybe they are just sick of a lifetime of discussing something private with strangers. It’s none of my business. Let them bring it up if they want.

I would also never ask, “What’s that?” when I see someone with any kind of skin condition or goiter or whatever. That is something a child asks because they don’t have a sense of boundaries yet; not an adult. An adult should be able to suppress his or her curiosity so as not to put someone on the spot about what might be a sensitive subject. That person’s facial tumor might be an amusing factoid to us but the person in question may not want to talk about it. So it’s best to keep one’s mouth shut.

I’ve read some advice columns by parents of adopted children who have strangers ask them why the child does not look like the parents. I am flabbergasted that people would do this. When two blond-haired, blue-eyed parents introduce their dark-skinned, dark-haired daughter, it doesn’t take much intelligence to think “adopted” (or maybe conceived through some other method that is not remotely anyone’s business). And people with propriety would smile and keep such thoughts to themselves. I can’t stand when I read an article that says something like, “The Smiths have two daughters and an adopted son.” Unless the article is highlighting adoption, who cares? The article should say, “The Smiths have two daughters and a son.” Nobody should qualify their kids. The only introduction I need is, “Here’s my child.”

No way in hell will I ever inquire if a woman is breastfeeding or plans to circumcise her son. I figure, it’s not my breast or my penis so I should stay out of it. Pregnancy turns people into such vultures about personal things that really don’t concern them.