The Home of Dum Dum Pops and Etch-A-Sketch

It's that time of the week - injecting a little geographic exploration into an otherwise sedentary life.

I've had the pleasure of driving cross country twice. Once with mom and once with my sister. There's nothing like the thrill of seeing all the quirkiness that America has to offer. Jackalope in South Dakota, Dorothy's house in Kansas. A multitude of java huts scattered around the northern Nevada desert. That last one is just plain weird.

On one trip going west to east with my sister we stopped off in Chicago to meet one of her friends - and to take their car back east as a favor. They would be spending the summer there and since we were going that way - and had spent about 2 weeks sharing the same car, we were happy to oblige.

In Bryan, OH we pulled off the highway for lunch and hopped back on. And off. Seems that the timing chain on my car had died (broken? snapped?). The car basically came to a dead stop and I pulled over onto the shoulder. Having literally just gone through the entrance toll - and Bryan not being a particularly busy entrance, I was fine. Alas, my sister who was ahead of me in the other car got about 1/2 mile down the road before she realized I was no longer in her rearview mirror. She pulled off, came back around and found me. We called the police who came and took me away - I was literally sitting in the back seat of an Ohio State trooper's car - it would have made a great photo - while the tow truck took dear Sacajawea (we named the car that since she had taken my sister and brother - the "white men" - to the Pacific) away.

Since the car would be there overnight we checked into a hotel and went out looking for fun and adventure. You'd think a small town situated on the Ohio Turnpike between South Bend and Toledo would be hurting for activity. You'd be WRONG! Bryan, Ohio is home to both Etch-A-Sketch AND Dum Dum lollipops. Everybody knows Etch-A-Sketch and if you've ever spent anytime in a doctor's waiting room (or have a doctor for a dad) you know Dum Dum's.

We checked out the Etch-A-Sketch factory and asked to take a tour. No dice. No tours. Okay. So we went outside and took photos of us crying in front of the place. We then went over to Dum Dum's hoping for better luck. Alas, you had to be a school group to go on a tour. Bummer. Again, we took photos of ourselves crying outside the factory. Didn't they understand I had eaten every flavor at least 50 times?

So much for Bryan, OH. A sleepy town with such enormous potential for tourism.

Have you ever had your car break down somewhere? What did you do? Any adventure?

Dad and the Redhead

This post brought to you by Soccer Mom in Denial - posting every Monday on a different musical memory.

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It's my dad's birthday today so this post is a tribute to him. Lucky for me, he likes music.

He's a huge music fan which is great - the thing I love most is his love of jazz. Benny Goodman, Stan Getz, Bucky Pizzarelli, these are the records I remember. A jazz drummer is a sight to behold. A jazz guitarist or bassist is a marvel.

Dad is a clarinetist. It got him into medical school. (well sort of).

He's a pretty bright guy and managed to go to undergraduate on a full scholarship so the odds were in his favor anyway. He went to his medical school interview fully expecting a grilling on his qualifications. Instead what he got was a bizarre query from the interview panel.

Instead of questions about the biology of the cell, plasma membranes or the doppler effect, the panel noted that he played in the university band.

Well, yes he did.

At every home game, when a certain zaftig redhead walked by the band played a sort of belly dancer tune?

Yes, they did.

Why is that? they asked.

Well, seems she had something of a reputation (not that any of the band members had first hand knowledge given their doubly geeky status as both Hopkins students and band members).

Question answered. That was it. He got in.

30 Days Until I Turn 40, I Feel...

Intrepid

For more Singular Saturdays go visit Jenn in Holland.

My Morning Constitutional

It's beginning to look a lot like spring here - you can just see the buds on the trees just ready to come out. And the daffodil leaves are all up - you just know there's a flower coming soon.

I'm one of those lucky people who can walk to work. If I go by metro it's about 30 minutes in a crowded box, by foot I do it in 40. And I get some exercise. When the weather is nice, walking is clearly the better option.

My route takes me down a street full of restaurants and stores, eventually arriving in the more commercial area - DC's "downtown" as it were.

At the end of this area is the White House. I cut through Lafayette Park which fronts the President's residence and as I pass by I'm sure to give the 4-finger salute. Gets my day going better than a cup of coffee.

I love spring.

Wayfaring Wednesday

It's that time of the week - injecting a little geographic exploration into an otherwise sedentary life.

For this week, I'm going to ask the readers out there to tell me the wackiest place they've ever been (And if I can figure out that link thing too I'll start including that).

What is it? Tell me the wackiest place you've ever been. Think broadly - maybe the NYC subway in the 70's, Florida in a snowstorm, France during a rail strike (oh wait, that's normal)...


To get you started here are a few of mine:

1. The Home of Dum Dum Pops and Etch-A-Sketch
2. Guantanamo Bay
3. The Palace of the King of Pobe

More on each of these in later posts.

Inquiring minds want to know...

I Remember It Well

This post brought to you by Soccer Mom in Denial - posting every Monday on a different musical memory.

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My husband and I were having dinner with friends this weekend and the subject of our engagement came up. The actual moment when we became engaged. These friends know us well and have known us for sometime and yet had never heard the story. So we decided to tell them.

It had a romantic setting - Paris in June in front of the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel - on these things we agree. The other details are sort of in dispute. Well, not exactly in dispute - more like we remember them differently. I'm the first woman to go to Paris with her boyfriend who didn't expect a marriage proposal - so the moment itself was a bit discombobulating for me. In a good way. A very good way. I was definitely caught by surprise.

For me, seconds seemed like hours. My recollection of the events occurred in slow motion. My mind was going in six different directions so I can't say which thought preceded which. My husband recalls the details a bit differently - his mind was a bit more focused at the time. On this we can agree, we became engaged in front of one of the most beautiful views that Paris has to offer.

It reminded me of that song from Gigi - that's us, on our 50th wedding anniversary.

He: We met at nine.
She: We met at eight.
He: I was on time.
She: No, you were late.
He: Ah yes! I remember it well.

He: We dined with friends.
She: We dined alone.
He: A tenor sang.
She: A baritone.
He: Ah yes! I remember it well.

He: That dazzling April moon!
She: There was none that night,
And the month was June.
He: That's right! That's right!
She: It warms my heart to know that
you remember still the way you do.
He: Ah yes! I remember it well.

He: How often I've thought of that Friday,
She: Monday
He: night, when we had our last rendez-vous.
And somehow I've foolishly wondered
if you might by some chance be
thinking of it too?

He: That carriage ride.
She: You walked me home.
He: You lost a glove.
She: I lost a comb.
He: Ah yes! I remember it well.

He: That brilliant sky.
She: We had some rain.
He: Those Russian songs.
She: From sunny Spain.
He: Ah yes! I remember it well.

He: You wore a gown of gold.
She: I was all in blue.
He: Am I getting old? Oh no! Not you!
She: How strong you were,
how young and gay;
A prince of love in every way.
He: Ah yes! I remember it well.

On the First Day of March, Waiting for...

Spring

For more Singular Saturdays go visit Jenn in Holland.

A Little Geography Quiz

I got such a positive response to my geography post - half-joking - that I thought it was time for another geography teaching moment. Maybe I'll make this a regular thing.

For work and play I travel to lots of interesting places around the globe. Recently I started a new job where it is expected that I will be covering a few countries for our team. Every day I would come home from work and my husband would ask "what did you get? what did you get?" and I had to answer "I don't know yet".

Well now I know. Maybe you can guess:

1. You would never get a tourist visa for either of these countries.

2. Both countries' average highs hover around 90 degrees F - every month of the year.

3. One country requires French-speaking skills, but not so much the French spoken in Paris. Cross the border and you need to speak Spanish.

4. The other country has a name very similar to its neighbor to the north - which when mispronounced sounds like a racial slur (it's fun to watch people struggle with that one!)

5. I'll be taking malaria medication. And hopefully this time it will work.

Can you guess them?

Baby Beethoven

This post brought to you by Soccer Mom in Denial - posting every Monday on a different musical memory.

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Joyfully, I find myself spending a lot of time buying baby gifts these days. If you invite me to a shower or over to see the new one I'll bring books and clothes (for 18 months - thinking ahead to the time when the 600 onesies you got will be useless).

Lately I've also been thinking about Baby Beethoven. I think it's partly due to a dinner I went to where the hosts played their CD incessantly - the child was upstairs sleeping and somehow the CD playing in the living room on the other side of the house for hours after the kid had gone to bed was somehow going to keep her in bed. Rather than soothing, I found the plunk-plunk of the toy piano on the CD mind-numbing. Maybe it was hearing my wedding procession played like I was a toddler that finally got to me.

Partly inspired by SMID's constant introduction of music to her children - real musicians playing songs the way they were written (graphic lyrics and all) - I put together a CD for a friend of a great album by Leon Fleisher. "Two Hands" is Leon Fleisher's first recording in 40 years after he suffered from focal dystonia - he had lost the use of his right hand. Thankfully, he recovered to great success and even went on to receive a Kennedy Center honor.

Hopefully my friend's baby will find this music soothing, at a time when she's probably more focused on burping better.

(I apologize for the poor quality video - go out and buy the CD!)

On a cold gray day

Hibernating

For more Singular Saturdays go visit Jenn in Holland.

VaVoom!

Yesterday I posted on our attendance at one of LA's premiere entertainment activities - pro-wrestling mixed with striptease.

The VaVoom is all about the striptease. You'd think one would find this fascinating for the usual reason - women stripping - but there was so much more. Typically you have a woman using fans in a clever way to hide her body parts; if you haven't seen it in person you probably caught it in a movie like Victor, Victoria.

Here a few of the higlights of striptease brought to a whole other level:

It's hard to tell from the photo exactly what's going on - I'll do my best to describe it. There's a man dressed as a cowboy bouncing up and down continuously on a pogo stick with a plastic horse on it. Follow me? He's bouncing vigorously for what had to be 10 minutes (thighs of steel!) all the while taking off his clothes. Just when you think he's reached the end, wearing nothing but a stars and stripes decorated speedo he pulls at his last remaining piece of clothing (still hopping!) and a burst of silver glitter sprays from his crotch. Yes, a g-string! What ingenuity!

The best tease was the last one... a woman (or so it seems) using a feather fan eventually reveals herself to a be a himself. And then proceeds to perform the most acrobatic, beautiful, and truly impressive act with a hula hoop. Calves of steel! Brilliant!

The evening's finale was something called Sashay Gigante. You're watching a bunch of men onstage in various outfits (fireman, postman, etc) and they proceed to strip off their uniforms revealing a variety of speedos. Only this group seems off, they are not nearly as buff as the previous peformers - both wrestlers and strippers. You wonder what's going on as they proceed to gyrate. And then they run into the stands and hump various audience members. That's it. Nothing else to it - just a big ole Sashay Gigante.

Plates of steel? In their heads?

Lucha VaVoom!

This post brought to you by Soccer Mom in Denial - posting every Monday on a different musical memory.

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We just got back from LA where we hit both the high and low cultural points of this town.

For Valentine's day my husband and I joined my little brother and his girlfriend for Lucha VaVoom! A combination of Mexican masked wrestling and burlesque, this show was outstanding in its acrobatics and colorfulness. Wrestlers dressed as chickens and nurses, women (and sometimes men) performing denuding feats that only years of wasted time could produce. Truly astonishing. A memorable performance all around. And some heart-racing music played at full volume.

I leave you with this short clip of the night's festivities...

More on Lucha VaVoom! and other highlights later this week...

Valentine's Haiku

Flying to LA
Valentine's Day in the air
Join the Mile High Club...

Happy Valentine's Day everyone - we're off on vacation.

Visit My Mommy's Place for the Second Haiku Buckaroo Contest! You've got until Friday to enter your own poetry. And this time you'll win prizes.

Geography

I am a geography geek. I could peruse an atlas for hours. And so it was with great interest that I came upon this map.



Funny, they forgot to mark the Starbucks at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Another Round!

This post brought to you by Soccer Mom in Denial - posting every Monday on a different musical memory.

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With SMID visiting Europe this weekend I was reminded of my travels there as a child and all of the music we took in. Mostly, we staged productions of ABBA songs - "Fernando" and "Dancing Queen" were favorites. Occasionally we would be exposed to other music.

For instance, Roger Whitaker. Popular amongst the German housewives at the time, and sung in English, we found more fodder for our dramatic talents. I recall vaguely something about a staging of "Yellow Bird" and "Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella" - maybe that was the Muppets. Not that you could tell the difference. English-speaking children spending the summer in Germany will take whatever they can get.

Finally, I distinctly recall a particular song we learned while touring around - "In Munchen steht ein Hofbrauhaus, eins, zwei, Hofbrau!". While other kids were learning "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" we were learning beer hall songs.

Oh, what an educational childhood!



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p.s. Watching the Grammys as I write this. Anyone else think the sound quality is sucky? Isn't exactly selling any tunes.

I don't know what to make of it.

Dick Cheney's dog, Dave, and Lucy, our beloved cat, have the same veterinarian. Good thing we didn't schedule our appointments at the same time.

Poor dog, such a shame his owner is heartless.

Posting at 11pm on Saturday Night

Late

For more Singular Saturdays go visit Jenn in Holland.

Kiss Them!

I came home today to this in my mailbox. Not only does it indicate that spring is a mere 6 weeks away, it shows last night's primary results.

I'm not going to promote one or the other - they are both clearly liked by a number of states and voters. In fact, one won more states, one won more delegates. Reminders of 2000.

Alas, I was not part of yesterday's frenzy - that is next week - but my family was! My dad tried to caucus in his new hometown but hadn't registered in time - but he really did try! And as luck would have it, the polling place was his favorite bookstore. Gotta love that.

My sister, brother, and mother all voted in the first ever global primary. Not sure how many delegates that is and who exactly those people are. And if any of them count. No matter, they voted! Kiss them!

Super Tuesday in Jakarta

(notice there are more cameras than voters)

Worlds Collide

This post brought to you by Soccer Mom in Denial - posting every Monday on a different musical memory.

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Are you a fan of Bollywood, Teletubbies, and HIV prevention?

I am!

And if you are too, this is the video for you! (Not for the kids)

Four Flights In Four Days

Dizzy

For more Singular Saturdays go visit Jenn in Holland.