May 31:The scene: Jorj is updating the Jorvo, his custom-written personal video recorder (like a Tivo). As with any development effort, results are often not as expected. Tobi: Would you stop breaking my movie?!?! Sue: (After 68 seconds of non-stop giggling) How long have you lived here? You would think he'd have noticed by now. May 28: It's all about the biking
Good ride tonight from Kitchen's Lane, to Manayunk for dinner, and back in the dark (without falling off the edge of the path into Wissahickon Creek). No ride this morning; after arriving at the train station, I found I'd left the U-lock keys in my other backpack. Back up the hill and into the car to drive to work. May 27: Union labelAs most of you know, I help Mom out Tuesday and Thursday mornings (and before you think this is some selfless act on my part, let me point out that Fred's niece -- cousin, really -- and her husband stop by three nights a week). I help with the moring routine, showering and dressing, and sometimes coffee. This morning, Mom hands me her shirt -- which is not a part of the routine, probably because to get me off to work earlier, because God forbid I arrive on time. And because this is not part of the routine, I make a wisecrack, like, "Sorry Mom, that's not in the union rules." To which my mother replies: "Susan, we're Democrats, but we aren't that Democratic." Oooo, sorry Mom, but yes, I am. Despite friends' frustrations with Union rules at their workplace (one isn't allowed to use tools, unless used for the wrong job -- lots of holes punched in wallboard by screwdrivers), I know that for many people, the one thing keeping them in safe, living-wage paying jobs that allow them to have an outside life is the Union. Look at Wal-Mart, facing a class action lawsuit for forcing people to work unpaid overtime. Now you know why I boycott Wal-Mart. It's easy to blame the workers, but when you work minimum wage, you don't have many choices. You probably didn't have a lot of choices to begin with, which is how you wound up on minimum wage in the first place. Sure, Wal-Mart wouldn't have the super- cheap prices if the workers were paid more, but then, how cheap do the prices have to be to still be affordable? How much money do the heirs of Sam Walton really freaking need, especially if they are nickel and diming their prime customers to death? So, yeah, on the balance, I am pro-union.
Yes, I know I need to get pictures up on the site. I have an AIM screen name, so that Tobi and I can converse during DejaVu without disturbing Jorj: suthecoder. Haven't IMed much since leaving Urban Tech, where we used MSN messenger all the time. Jo-Ann and I found pretty much every hidden smiley available. And yes, the name isn't misspelled; there is a suethecoder, so I did a one-off. Not adding umpty-zillion digits at the end. May 24: One month and countingTwo more days of biking, and now my knee hurts. The ride to work seemed much easier today than Wednesday, but the ride back to the station was agonizing. The wind was against me, and I seemed to have no energy. Perhaps I'll need a second breakfast about four p.m. And here I was worried about changing in the bathroom at work, and what I should have worried about was where to fry up a couple eggs, without a kitchen in the building. Last night we all saw Shrek 2, which is quite wonderful. Having seen the original only in bits and pieces on cable, I had little to compare the sequel to. Jennifer Saunders is wonderfully self-centered as the fairy godmother. Tobi enjoyed it and gave us a big grin at the end. Prisoner of Azkaban was previewed, and it looks great. I had to restrain myself from cheering after each scene. Unfortunately Spiderman 2 doesn't open until a week after Tobi leaves. Although the biking energizes me, by this time at night, my brain has gone quite to mush. May 22: Lazin' on a Saturday afternoon
Last night was games night with Gena, wherein Gena, Scott, Lynn and Steve came over for fondue, Steve's souffle' glace' and four hours of RoboRally. We were 1 for 3 on the fondue. I cannot make a fondue with a wine base, and Jorj can't make a fondue with a milk base, so the milk/wine base we started with didn't work at all. On the third try, I used just milk, and that worked. Jorj likes the taste of the wine, and perhaps I'll try adding some warmed wine once the fondue has come together. Steve's souffle' glace' was an egg-yolk and cream-based, frozen concoction that had the texture of ice cream. Must get the recipe from him. Jorj won the game, with Tobi a close second. It's a fantastic game for teaching logic, problem-solving and left/right spacial skills. Players frequently yell "Not that left! The other left! Now I'm driving into a pit/off the board!" I learned -- again -- that Gena doesn't play nicely. But I was the only one who didn't die all game. This morning the leftover bread became a French-toast casserole for breakfast. I'm quite pleased with it, as I had never done this before and had no recipe. It was a lasagne pan of stale, cubed bread. Then a milk-egg mixture with cinnamon, sugar and vanilla is poured over. The bread sits for five or ten minutes to soak up the egg mixture. Bake 20 minutes at 325, covered with foil for the first 15 minutes. Basically, it's a light bread pudding. Now I'm sitting in the back yard, looking at my mostly weeded garden, admiring how the butterfly bush recovered from its initial bad planting, the later move, and two years of drought to finally start looking like something I'd want in the yard. We're leaving to bike in a few minutes, and perhaps finally introduce Tobi to Jorj's father. Not to be catty, but you can really see the effects of Jorj's father's disinterest in raising kids in Jorj's relationship with him. Selber Schuld I say. Later the same day ...Wow! What a ride! We got a late start, between cleaning up after breakfast, adding another carrier to the bike rack, and the traffic jam on 309. We arrived at Valley Forge National Historic Park mid-afternoon, and rode towards Collegeville, for a round trip total of 12 to 14 miles. It was very flat, and I felt great afterwards. I was ready to go for another few miles. but we needed to get back. We visited Jorj's father before returning home. He can now be happy that he met Tobi before Tobi leaves the country. George Sr. showed Tobi his scrapbook from Forge Theater (with some choice shots of a teenaged Jorj, Jr.) and baby pictures of himself, Jorj, Scott, Debbie (Jorj's half sister) and Ellen (Debbie's daughter).
Ran into Stasha and Sue from meeting. First, Sue walked past us, and Tobi and I tried to remember where we knew her from. Once the brain got working, she was well past us. Then Lina and I ran into Stasha in the ladies. Where I had the presence of mind to yell, "Sue!" Duh. May 19: AccomplishmentsFirst, pictures of Dad Vail. Highlight of the whole event: running into J Christopher Erb, his lovely wife Kelly, and their daughter. Biked today, giving myself a nice mud stripe up the back of my new Gap khakis. And my sit bones still hurt from the Nishiki. There has been progress on the stairs, too. More interesting links: May 17: Doing my part to keep America beautifulI almost biked to work today. Just as I pedalled into the station, I saw a train pull into the station. The time was three minutes before the R2 was to arrive, and it looked like it had an R3 tag. Locked the bike up, bought tickets, asked if that was the Warminster train, crossed to the platform, and waited until the R5 went past ten minutes later. Back to the ticket agent to ask about the Warminster train, which, surprise! is scheduled to come through at 2 past the hour, not 5 past.
School is essentially over and Tobi has started his internship after a weekend in DC with Mori and some of his family, both American and German. Quite the relaxing weekend; just what I wanted. Finally got to meet Mori, whose e-mailed me and quite nicely spoken to me (in German and English) when he's called for Tobi. So tonight, with no homework on the schedule, we're watching Donnie Darko, Tobi's favorite movie. It's creepy, and the school is the nadir of American over-protective, psychobabble educational theory. It's surprising that Tobi came to America after watching this movie. We also saw Gena in DC, and did some sightseeing with her. Very cool. We have tentative plans to return over a three day weekend, when hopefully her new house will be built. And here's what I wrote on the train downtown: Anne has won a James Beard award for an article (part of a series) in Saveur on milk production, and why milk no longer tastes good. This is her third nomination (Stand Facing the Stove and another article) but first win. And she never told us! Not that she was nominated, and neither that she'd won! We made it through finals, we think. Math was pretty terrible. Having the person to whom it's all obvious tutoring was perhaps not the best move. It's very difficult for me to explain it -- look, it just works. It's math. It doesn't lie! Didn't realize how much gun posturing the Beastie Boys had in Licensed to Ill. Now riding Amtrak to DC to meet Jorj and Tobi (and Mori and Dori and Friedi and Clari) for dinner tonight, then Mt. Vernon tomorrow, and the Wash monument Sunday. Gena will be joining us Saturday. Just went through Baltimore. Strangely fond memories of picking Jorj up here to take him back to Martinsburg for a weekend. I think I'm in a business class car that's filling in for coach. There is an outlet next to me, and lots of leg room. There's also a hyper seven-year-old boy and two women who felt the need to talk for nearly an hour each on their cell phones. On the ride to 30th Street to catch Amtrak, I was sitting across from a woman who was speaking in such strong urban patois on her cell I thought she was speaking French or Spanish. She had distinct non-English rhythm to her words, and I couldn't pick out any word of English. Then I caught the phrase "I ain't got no problem." I'm not sure how this decaffeinating thing is going. Often I'll be up, pleasant, mildly energetic, then boom! I'm tired, unable to concentrate and grumpy. Umm, what was I saying? May 12: I missed everybody-update-their-webpage day!Apparrently yesterday was National Update Your Web Page Day, and I missed it. Just about every intermittently updated web site I read had new content posted yesterday. Here at the SusieJ experience, we did not. It's not as if I didn't think about updating after Tobi went upstairs, frustrated and sweaty, but I've been re-reading Harry Potter IV, and ... Finally got off my car seat today and biked to work. Not all the way, of course. I biked to the train station, hauled the bike onto the train, rode to the end of the line, then biked another three or four miles to the office. As easy as SEPTA makes the ride, hauling the bike up the stairs into the train is not only awkward but also dangerous. I've dropped my walled, breakfast and cell phone, nearly dropped the bike, and nearly dropped myself. Although the racing bike is lighter and easier to carry, I still dread hauling that big, bulky thing up and down the steps. So, the racing bike is chained up in Warminster (side benefit: only three bikes in the entrance). In the forthcoming weeks, the plan is to bike to and from SEPTA stations, leaving a bike at one station. No more carrying! I've also bought -- with Jorj's REI dividends -- a neon-yellow biking rain jacket. No more excuses. Maybe one: my sit bones hurt. I don't know how Jorj and Scott manage the bike trips. After a grand total of forty or forty-five minutes on the bike, I'm demanding the softest chairs for myself. I can't imagine hours and days in the saddle, even with padded drawers. This is all from riding the racing bike. My bike has a nice comfy seat and a shock absorber in the seat post. My handlebars are also much higher, so that I don't need to bend over and potentially bonk my forehead with a knee as I pedal. May Day: Good News in the Garden
No! It lives!
April 27: Scenes of domestic bliss
Afterwards a trip to Home Depot for supplies for Tobi's home-made steadicam. As is Home Depot's wont, they had almost everything he needed, but the wrong size washers. He also needs a free barbell weight. It's a project worthy of MacGyver, and he's quite happy with it. Now we are both working on web pages. Very relaxing. This weekend we also got to Abacus with Tobi for the first time. It was a very much delayed visit, and Tobi wants to go back (with less than two months remaining). The food was great and we told him the stories of heavy-metal, high-school Jorj and six or eight cronies arriving for dinner every Friday night. Yes, eight, loud, long-haired, high-schoolers every Friday night. And they were served and treated with respect. Combined with the best Chinese food in the 'burbs, and no wonder it is and alwys has been his favorite restaurant. Last weekend was the Moorestown Friends prom with Rosie, Britteny and Andrew; then two days in the Poconos with Croccos and Brennans. Very relaxing, even though we forced Tobi to do about four hours of physics homework. But he did do it and it's all done! Tomorrow night we review. Best of all, Aarika (pronounced Erica) Crocco brought an eight-day old lamb. It was rejected by it's mother. Aarika, a student at WB Saul High School -- yes the high school that had the small animals stolen, volunteered to care for the lamb over the weekend. She fed it every few hours through the night, and took it out inthe sun Saturday to gambol in the yard. By Sunday, Lucky was noticably fatter, stronger and more energetic: she tried to jump out of her box to get at the feeding bottle. April 21This came from Anita:
April 18: Homework in the back yardAnd a great skeevy beetle buzzing around the patio stones. Ew! Tobi refuses to defend me from it. I am not screaming. Test tomorrow. We study.
I can't call it Ground Zero. It was better than I'd feared, worse than I'd hoped. The city has prohibited merchendising, leaving items along the fence, handing out literature, prosyletizing. One could argue this is a restriction of free speech, but these rules are not in effect across the street. The site has been kept free of extremist ravings and proaganda and is allowed to be a memorial. About one hundred or two hundred people were there, probably all from out of town, many families with children from tots to teens, some couples. The parents brought the kids for a living history lesson, but the point seemed to go over the kids' heads. They climbed the fence for a better look at the hole in the ground and asked their parents what was there. Tobi and Sarah seemed matter of fact; neither had been to the WTC when it was standing. The adults were respectful and mostly quiet -- no laughing, no shouting. There was some picture taking, which made it seem like a tourist stop, but photography is a natural part of the human desire to preserve our highest feelings and desires, our most human moments. The current hole is the most powerful on-site memorial, to my mind. Perhaps a skeleton structure of the buildings that were there, like the skeleton of Franklin's house in Philadelphia. The emptiness of the non-structure would reinforce the loss. But if something must be built, I would prefer a collection of the missing person notices from the days after. But still, the site is in danger of devolving into a tourist stop; the buses are already stopping. There is nothing to emphasise the sacredness of the site. As much as ritual can be derided for replacing rote action with actual devotion, ritual also serves as a delimeter and reinforcement, saying here we stop with the ordinary, here we begin the spiritual, forcing us to focus on matters beyond the everyday. Fox preached the importance not only of worship and reflection but communal worship and reflection. Nothing at the WTC site reinforces the need for reflection that is needed to give meaning and purpose to the memory. Nothing says, this isn't another stop on the bus ride from the Lower East Side to Central Park. Good Friday
Started the day by cleaning out my car, for the first time in years. It took three paper bags, four mini-vaccuum bags and over an hour, but the car looks like it is owned by humans. Jorj had taken the day off to deal with strep. After returning from the doctor and picking up his prescription, we met for lunch at Nature's Harvest in Willow Grove. Oh, fantastic! And they have a cookbook out. I had the cold cucumber-jicama-asparagus soup, and a salad of baby arugala, sauteed spinach, hearts of palm and grilled olives, with additional grilled tofu. Nature's Harvest is the reason I stared really liking tofu. They rub it in spices and grill it. The outside is tasty, and the inside very firm. Picked up the supplies for Mom's MomDay present, then off to the school Although it was warm and sunny when I left, I could feel the car shake in wind as I sat in front of the school. The long-sleeved shirt and bike leggings (first time worn biking!) weren't too warm, even when the sun returned. We looped the river drives, about 7 miles. It was a good length with just a few inclines -- great for someone who hasn't biked since last September. We kept a good pace, doing the whole thing in about an hour, even stopping to take pictures. The city really was lovely. The cherry trees and daffodils are blooming. I spent so much time simply trying to keep up with Jo-Ann, I never noticed how lovely the park is. The beauty of the park is especially noteworthy considering that the city has now, never did, and probably never will have any money. Fairmount Park is a shining example of good design on no budget. Speaking of Jo-Ann, I gave her a quick call before we started out. There were still $2 emergency money for water ice in my bike bag from our times biking together. We'd finish the loop with a stop at the water ice/pretzel/hot dog vendor at the end of boat house row. April 8: More badness
Some cool things I've run across and keep meaning to share:
April 6: Being badJust have not been resisting temptation lately. Very tired Monday (more 5 a.m. math), so had a pot of black tea at the office. Then ran into Gabe as he made espresso. Just can't resist an espresso when Gabe makes that "drinky drinky" motion.
Off Friday, so I'll need to do some biking. With luck, I can meet Tobi at school with two bikes and we'll do the river drives loop. Nothing scheduled for Saturday yet, so we may get some cleaning and planting done. April 3Tobi's frustrated, which makes me frustrated too, because I can't just make his world and my country better by waving my hands. It starts with the fellow student who opined that the country needs more military spending than spending on education. Um, yeah. Because you'll really need that extra military not to police the world, but to put keep down the uneducated, jobless, dissatisfied masses.
There's the lack of challenge in school (his fun classes were either cancelled due to lack of enrollment or conflicted with ESL). The lack of sleep. The homework. The cancelled trip to Vegas. The great camera he can't afford. I can't imagine being poor like my mother or Jorj's mother (question: where were our fathers?) and not going crazy being unable to give your child things to help him grow creatively, intellectually and spiritually. Jorj and I would have been lost without free libraries, but that's not really creating, that's understanding. If you're working forty hours a week and can stretch the money to cover rent and food, how do you find ways to get your kids to do and make and learn, rather than drooling in front of the tv or Internet (trust me, you can do a lot of pointless web surfing)? Ahh! 2 o'clock! We've got to get going! We both have parties, and still need to buy presents! |
What I'm reading
What I'm listening toMore CDs to replace the tape & bootleg collection
Things to do with Tobi before he leavesAn incomplete list that will not be completed.
Things that make me happy (in no particular order)
No, really, this is not a blog
|
Finally a
weekend to relax and do fun things. 
The night was capped off with a trip to Franklin's Mills Mall with Lina.
The goal was a visit to the H&M outlet. By sheer luck, I hopped on
the Roosevelt Expressway (avoiding 95), found the mall (after one U-turn),
parked at the entrance closest to H&M. Tobi got a few summer shirts.
Amazingly, I found a few items in Euro 46, and more amazingly, two of them
fit. Most amazingly, Lina found nothing! Whenever I shop with Tobi or his
friends, they always find something; I find nothing.
Back up the mile long hill to the house, have some breakfast, then drive
to work. A mini-workout (it's a steep hill, even for Jorj and Tobi), but
not the eight or ten miles I'd hoped for.
Last summer and fall, I bought probably $150 to $200 of perrenials -- hostas,
bleeding hears, astors, salvia, iris, geranium, ferns, and a couple things whose
names I can't remember. During the spring, every sunny day is cause for a
general inspection of the garden: the too-shady back patio, the
recently-reclaimed ivy patch, the vegetable garden home only to rhubarb,
the sites of two former over-grown shrubs/evergreen trees (the only full-sun
areas in the yard) and the 
The hostas are mostly up and out, event he hostas living in deep shade
by the back patio -- they will move this year. Two new ferns seem to be
sprouting there too. In the reclaimed ivy bed, the grass is thick (and another
dead spot is re-seeded), the new hostas and old hostas have come out. (Marsha,
I would have adopted 
And the lawn. Well, I've been re-seeding the bare patches from leftover
leaves. The part sun places took to this well; full shade is still barren,
which may lead to further reliance on naturalized violets and crocus. Hey,
it's green and can be mowed! I call it a lawn! In fact, the lawn is BLUE
right now, between the violets (purle, white, and varigated), and lots of
other blue flowering plants I don't recognize. We'd hoped the blooming lawn
would last through Mom's Day for a lovely lawn, but it's bloomed early and the
onion grass is out of control.
A slacking evening, but very enjoyable. First, no one wanted to make dinner,
so we went to Persian Grille outside Chestnut Hill. One of the
great things about urban America in the early 21st century: the availabity
of an amazing range of ethnic restaurants. And isn't breaking bread one of the
foundations of civilization? How many traditions are there of not making war
upon one's dinner companions? Take out: the first step to world peace.
Another weekend in New York, and crossing more things off
A surprise day off! Didn't realize I had the day off until someone
mentioned it Monday. I would have shown up for work today if no one had
said anything. Anyhow, Tobi didn't have today off (odd
I thought Friends Select was a Christian school) I didn't have time to
really plan an over-scheduled mini-vacation; all I could plan was to
pick Tobi up from school for biking.
Strangely, Tobi is very grumpy doing math at 5:30. I can't take it anymore
and made him drink black tea. Then he was happy. Then he was
buzzing. Bad Mom: drugging the kid. I thought he understood
the math more, but apparently not. At least he didn't sulk.
Have been eating leftover wedding cake failure -- the bottom layer that
didn't bake through. Strangely, not losing the weight gained in Seattle and
San Fran.
Then there was the German teen detained at Philly airport. What was the
teen's great crime? Drugs? Being a smartass? Scissors in the carry on?
Sausage in the packed luggage? No, not memorizing the street address of the family he was
visiting, the family waiting for him in the waiting area. Apparently the
TSA reps hauled the 17-year-old (!) into a room and left him there alone
(!) for hours (!) without a translator (!) and wrote down his name incorrectly (!). Amazing.
Somehow the family (of a school chum of Tobi's) managed to be reunited with
the kid. They also witnessed the TSA reps yelling at French tourists (who
spoke no English) for using a cell phone.
