A Catalog of Current Injuries

1 jammed knuckle
1 sternum bruise
1 left bicep bruise
1 blood blister on right index finger

In my defense, I maintain that I wiped out face first into the barrier because of my desire not to hit other people, but I will freely admit that I was the only one to be temporarily ejected from the go-kart course due to excessive crash. I also lost a button on my shirt which devoted partner said just made me look more NASCAR.

That having been said, go-karting is fun! We went Saturday night for The Boy's birthday festivities and all involved enjoyed it far more than we thought we would. After all, driving a fast bumper car around a track can sound kinda lame, but actually driving a bumper car around a track while desperately trying to beat your friends and family? Fun!

Despite my first round wipeout (and people, I used the universal scuba ok-sign to let you know I was cool; just because you saw me crash headfirst into a barrier doesn't mean I was hurt - I'm superhard), I would like to say that I improved my time each round and, had it not been for a "bump" by she-knows-who-she-is in the finals, I would have finished a respectable 4th.

As it was, I am pleased to say, my own devoted partner took the gold, sheepishly I might add as, apparently, he took out the birthday boy on his way to the podium. I was pleased to learn that all of the participants experienced age-related aches and pains, but I hope I was, at least, the injury winner.

Next year, I'm suggesting bull riding!

Perhaps I Suffer From Overexpediency

I've been trying to give money away recently. I know that in this economy, that might sound strange, so I'll say that I've been trying to give money away in targeted areas. Apparently, it's not as easy as one would assume.

Let's pretend you are a small business owner and someone approaches you and says, "I would like to hire your business. Here is what I need. Please put together a contract and I will sign it and give you money." In my mind, a reasonable turnaround on that request is 24-48 hours - at the very least, there should be some form of communication within that timeframe. Similarly, let's pretend you want to BUY A CAR. Does it seem like a week should go by without the dealer getting back to you. And when he finally does, is it odd that he is responding to a voicemail you left from two weeks prior and that, in the interim, you met and spoke with him in person?

I feel so conditioned by my own past employment to assume that any request made is already 24 hours late and that everyone plays catch up meaning the sooner the request is fulfilled, the better, but I'm having to rethink this.

(As an aside, it is humorous to note that when the dealer finally did get back to me, albeit with the "woah, didn't anyone call you?" excuse on his lips, he then wanted me to make the decision within 2 hours so he could pad his monthly quota for July. Oh, sorry, didn't quite do that, did I?)

The problem, however, with wedding vendors, for example, is that I (and el padre) are interpreting this lackadaisical method of entering into contractual obligations with us, as unsound business practices which, according to the wedding books, is not something you want in a wedding vendor (of course the wedding books have also counseled me to start my facial and mani/pedi reginmen SIX MONTHS before the wedding, so perhaps not all of their advice is gospel). Don't these people want our money? And can I be assured that if we give it to them they will show up and do the job they were hired to do? Would I be better off hanging out at Home Depot on the morning of the affair and hiring day laborers?

Or maybe I'm just not spending ENOUGH money. Perhaps if I was inquiring at the Ferrari dealership, there would be more handholding, buttkissing, and returning of phone calls. Perhaps if Joel Robuchon was personally catering the party, I could expect things to happen tout de suite!

Or perhaps I'm just too high-strung and this time lapse business is normal and I'm the weird one (well me and my dad). I'm just having difficulty getting my mind around this.

NY FGF 1312

Though the calendar proves I am demonstrably an adult, I still play the license plate game on drives long and short. I am always amazed how, between my house and the Stamford Town Center 10 miles away, I can generally pick up at least 10 and often as many as 20 states - and not just because I-95 is a massive truck corridor. So it is always amusing to me how, on longer drives, the farther I get from NY Metro, the less diversity of state plates there is.

And I took some longer drives this weekend - to and from the greater DC area. By the long way. All of my mother's family lives in the Baltimore-Washington area and for years we have gone back and forth from NY Metro to DC Metro via the world's single least interesting corridor: I-95 between NY and DC. I mean the interminable part on the Jersey turnpike would be enough, but when you finally reach the Delaware Memorial Bridge, you're barely half way there. So in October, when we went down for my cousin's wedding, devoted partner and I tried something different: the long way. For road nerds, that would be I-95 to Newark, I-78, then PA 222 to PA 30 to I-83 and then I-695 to I-70 etc. etc. Google will tell you this adds anywhere from 30-45 minutes to your drive. Google does not tell you that even though there are some single lane bits in there, there is no pile-up by exit 8.

It is definitely longer IF the turnpike was never congested. However, the drive is gorgeous - through Pennsylvania farm and Amish country (the former does smell like cow poo, I mean a lot like cow poo, but it's bucolic), and, for the penny pinchers among us, CHEAP! The roundtrip via I-95 can set you back close to 60 bucks in tolls. This way: $13.45. That's one of the tanks of gas you'll need in savings.

But every route has its frustrating drivers. I'll attempt to spare you the by-now-unpleasantly-cloying description of where I learned to drive and how the rules of the road are better there, and instead point out the following to any of the people I shared the road with this weekend: if our route contains more than one lane and you and the car in the lane to your right are going the exact same speed, there is no reason for you to be in different lanes. I will grant you that speed limits do exist if you will grant me that they are considered guidelines, more than rules, to the majority of drivers, many of whom would enjoy getting in front of you. You have the power to facilitate this simply by moving to your right. Going the speed limit in the left lane when there is no traffic is just poor manners.

You know what else is poor manners? BMW 5-series with the drug-dealer tinted windows, NY plate number FGF 1312.

Dear sir, you seemed to be in such a hurry from nearly the PA/NJ border to the Jersey Turnpike toll entrance. I mean, the kind of hurry that would have led a casual observer to think that you were running for your life. Only in such dire circumstances would a man (and you HAD to be one) veer so dangerously in and out of lanes multiple times in an attempt to get ahead of all the other cars, even at the expense of those other drivers' lives. I mean, we all know that if there is already only one car length between cars, there is no room for your car to get in, but you had a different idea of the limits of geometry. The funny part was that the speed of traffic was about 76 MPH and for many miles. There was just no going faster. There was a critical mass of cars all progressing at the same speed and no break up ahead for a single driver to pull away. So, in point of fact, all of your life-threatening lane changing didn't get you ahead of anyone. You pulled in front of me, in the left lane, twice, then tried to better your luck and ended up behind me again and again.

Which is why what happened next is so perplexing. Once you got through the toll plaza at Newark and on to the turnpike north, you stopped. You were at the toll booth directly next to mine and then you were just in the right lane at 50 MPH, way below the average speed of traffic until I left you in my wake heading towards the bridge.

What gives? Why were you trying to kill your fellow motorists all along I-78 only to slow to a relative snail's pace once within spitting distance of home? It really did confound me. So much so that I decided to memorize your license plate so I could write about you today. Also, in preparation for the Next Big Thing, I have taken ownership of fgf1312.blogspot.com for the future home of the world's largest traffic griping website. In your honor. Because you scared a lot of people on that highway. Because you are a douche. With an ostentatious car. That isn't cool.

You know what's cool?

The guy in the vintage Corvette Stingray, color yellow. Driving in the right lane. On PA 222. Just being cool.

The Ferry Crossing Problem

I first encountered this logic problem in a book, probably sci-fi, probably in 4th or 5th grade, which is why it has made such a lasting impression. The long and short of it is there are 6 people, 3 good guys and 3 bad guys, and a boat that seats 2 people. Bad guys can never outnumber good guys and all the good guys need to get to the other side without the bad guys. How do you do it. I've always liked this problem even when, like this morning, I frantically IM devoted partner asking him what it's called (doesn't actually have a name), and if you don't want to take the time to figure it out, at the end of the post and after some carriage returns, I'll print the answer.

Now I like math and I like logic and I like to be smug about my skills in both. Which is why the personal ferry crossing problem that I am struck by is so horribly humiliating. And it comes up a lot.

I cannot cannot cannot wrap my mind around the math associated with two cars and two drivers and catch myself almost weekly abandoning logic in my mind for reasons I cannot explain. For some reason I find myself thinking: if devoted partner and I go to a bar in separate cars and I get too drunk to drive, devoted partner can drive us both home and then go back to get my car. I think this, in one way or another, ALL THE TIME. Take our upcoming solo airplane trips. I have thought: ok, I'll drive my car to devoted partner's office, then he can drive me to the airport in his car, and then take my car back home. I simply cannot comprehend that devoted partner is unable to drive two cars simultaneously while also being unable to understand why the idea begins in my head as a good one.

And frankly it's starting to drive me a little crazy. I mean even the dullest crayon in the box figures out AFTER A YEAR that two cars require two drivers. But then there's me, happily plotting impossible itineraries.






Solution
G=good guy
B=bad guy

First crossing: G + B
Return trip: G
Second crossing: B + B
Return: B
Third: G + G
Return: G + B
Fourth: G + G
Return: B

So, About That Whole Having Kids Thing...

No, please sit down, nothing to announce here.

Except that my position on the theoretical little monsters might have softened somewhat as I came across something this weekend that might make them worthwhile.

Now I have made my fair share of fun at the idea of birth gifts, the expensive baubles some wives expect and some husbands supply to offset the physical discomfort of childbirth (btw, ladies, your asking for a diamond as reward for having a kid doesn't make having a kid seem worth it - after all isn't the kid supposed to be the reward?). I have scoffed and judged, but possibly merely on account of my relative ambivalence to jewelry. But I saw something I want. Something about as expensive as a diamond whatever, but eminently more practical vis a vis the whole if-I-have-kids-I-will-become-a-washed-up-sexless-stretchmarked-milkbag dilemma.

First some more preamble:

Preamble 1: I forgot about this item because it has been in the neighborhood of 20 years since I had seen the movie at which time

Preamble 2: I figured I would never ever leave New York and therefore would never be in the market for one.

I have informed devoted partner that the price for my safely releasing his spawn unto the world is this.

This is clearly the perfect Yelena car, Yelena being very very similar to Steve McQueen in badassitude. I saw this at an auto auction on TV and was struck dumb - or as devoted partner described it, I didn't say anything lewd about my intentions towards the car which is how he knew I was serious. This car has pretty much everything I could want: it's hatchback-ey (see also my devotion to certain Datsun Zs, VW GTIs, and the amazingly hideous awesomeness of the Porsche 944), it's speedy, and it's a simply gorgeous retro shade of metallic pine. I love this car so much that I wouldn't even consider painting it orange.

And, for the practical bit, no one in his right mind could accuse me of being a washed-up-sexless-milkmachine if I picked up my kids from school in this. I don't care if their slovenly friends can't fit in the car - I do not exist to be a dirty child delivery service. If each of two children has one friend over, we can all still fit in the car; I don't really want to be responsible for more children than that. Once upon a time the fantasy had me in a Karmann Ghia, but where that is a Barbiemobile, this is a car that hews much more closely to Pam Grier than Audrey Hepburn and, in the end, which do you think I want to be.

I can see that you miracle-of-life people out there might shudder at this craven consumerism, but it is just an opening salvo: who knows, I might be able to get the car without having the kids thereby sparing them the kind of mother who would use them as negotiating chips in the acquisition of a car.

Miami (not really): Dinosaur Sex

IMG_1379-1
Originally uploaded by reallyct

Remember recently when I mentioned that devoted partner and I have a vehicular compulsion that necessitates our jumping in a car and driving places just cause? Our recent trip to Miami was no exception. It's true that I had taken perhaps a trifle more sun than I should have, but it's also a bit of hard work to sit slothfully under the sun doing nothing save reading, occasionally sipping from a pina colada, and cooling off in the pool or ocean from time to time. A day of it is terrific. Two days can also be good. But a ceaseless stream of doing nothing can get old. Since we're throwing ourselves in the water for a good solid week later in June, we decided to forgo a bit of Miamian diving in favor of a needless toodle (toodle=touring) to the Everglades.

We even splurged and rented the Mustang convertible.

We started the day heading west towards Naples and a lovely area run by the Audubon Society known as Corkscrew Swamp. Sounds charming, no? For those fearful of malaria, the Corkscrew Swamp folks have constructed a 2 mile boardwalk through their patch of the Everglades - this is also good for families and persons of limited mobility. While the adventurer in you or me might scoff, considering how putridly hot interior Florida is, having the route mapped out for you ahead of time with no possibility of becoming lost, isn't all that awful.

I was the expert animal tracker (to see the whole (unfinished) set, click here), discovering icky bugs, raccoons and the first alligator of the day. Feeling as though we had accomplished our main task, finding an alligator, we took the long way home, stopping for late lunch at a fish place (bad idea - out of season + flavorless + deep-fried = bland and bad for you), before heading back east.

And then we stopped for Bob. We were driving along an unremarkable and very straight road when we passed two people standing on the side of the road not hitchhiking. They were looking at something. We drove about 200 yards before turning the car around and going back towards the people who we had decided had spotted alligator. This was a fortuitous choice because we then spent the next half hour or so harassing poor Bob (the name we have the alligator) as he tried to swim and ignore fish and just get on with his afternoon. There were also some massive, and massivly attractive-hued, grasshoppers which are in the full (unfinished) set of photos.

Now that we knew what to look for - other not-stranded motorists on the side of the road - we drove the boringest road with more purpose. And this is how we discovered what we discovered. Alligators. Doing it. Yes, for my first non-local outing with the new camera, I was privileged enough to be confronted by some of the worst light, the darkest subject matter, and lizard humping. Do not be confused by the seeming innocence of these shots. These alligators effed one another. Underwater for the money shot and away from the MANY prying eyes, but you knew what they were up to. Then they went at it a second time. As we were walking away a charming blond girl of 3 or 4 came scampering up yelling, "daddy, daddy, alligators!" She turned to me and said, "I think it's a boy and a girl." I told her I thought they were married. "Daddy daddy the alligators are married!" "How do you know, honey?" I told the father it was that the alligators were VERY FRIENDLY. How's that for some serious Discovery Channel shit?

Tomorrow: la comida de Cuba.

Rally

Best friend is fleeing the country. By choice, not dictat, but the result is the same. I will be best friendless for at least a year. His self-imposed exile with best fiance will commence in Mongolia and, as we discussed this, I said that, should devoted partner and I win the lottery, we would do the Mongol Rally and meet up with them. Prompting, of course the question: what is the Mongol Rally? The short answer is the Mongol Rally is awesome. The longer answer involves perhaps fighting with Uzbek rebels and running out of petrol (this is a Euro thing) somewhere in a desolate landscape and resorting to yak hunting. The longer answer is also awesome.

I don't know where it started though I know I can blame Tim Cahill's Road Fever for much of it (Tierra del Fuego to Prudhoe Bay - sadly the lame-os at Guinness Records no longer allow you to break these sorts of records citing "safety concerns" - lames). Then, as anyone who has ever spoken to us knows, we spent the summer after graduation driving. A lot.

But best friend asked why something like this, 3-6 weeks of driving, would appeal to us. After all, there wouldn't be much time for sightseeing (I disagree; I think we could drive fast enough during the driving parts to leave ample time for local color), it isn't the most conventional of trips, and there is the danger part. I brought this up with devoted partner who, while not setting his sights on the Mongol Rally anytime soon, would certainly join up were having a job not mandatory, and he somewhat coldly analyzed our motivations thusly:

We're relaxed when we drive.

Devoted partner doesn't mind being behind the wheel while I ooh and ahh at scenery and goats who climb trees, and now that I actually know how to drive, devoted partner can feel free to snooze in the passenger seat while I drive (and ooh and ahh at goats). We have twice gone (by google's count) 368 kilometers out of our way simply to enjoy the highway between Nice and Italy. We like being in the car together. I can't remember a single in-car fight about getting lost or almost getting killed (we've both been guilty once). While trying to find a good photo to describe why we like that stretch of highway so much, I found these guys and seriously considered learning how to ride a bike in the hope we could go with them next time.

Perhaps we're just especially canine, leaning our heads out the windows as feeling the force of the wind as we waggle our tongues, but even the thought of getting to the Mongol Rally one of these days (did you know the Paris-Dakar rally is no longer run from Paris to Dakar? this upsets me greatly as that was on the bucket list and I liked our chances) makes me happy. If any of you can think of a way to make it revenue neutral, I'd like to hear about it.

Irrational Fears

Driving home last night after dinner alone, I was overcome with a fear so acute that I got a little emotional in the car. Let me back up a moment to say that I am not the biggest fan of poorly lit night driving. As anyone who has ever been bored to tears by me or devoted partner recounting the minutiae of our 10-week post-collegiate European trip will know, we drove from Prague to Essaouira in Morocco non-stop over the course of three days, meaning I have had a bit of night driving under my belt. But as anyone who has ever driven at night knows, there is a vast difference between night driving on a massive interstate/international highway, and driving through the barely lit nooks and crannies of a suburban neighborhood (see also driving through Manhattan at night which is pie).

While others may fear hitting deer on the Meritt Parkway or moose in Maine, my biggest fear is hitting someone's dog.

I can't really even put into words how absolutely devastated I would be. Last night as I wound my way through the side streets that would take me from the parkway to my garage, I played the interaction through: the absolute horror that would strike at the moment of impact, the feverish hope that the dog was merely wounded or stunned, and the absolutely gut-wrenching walk to the owner's house, begging the void that there are no children, and having to tear-stainedly admit to hitting their dog. (Even though I recognize that dogs should not be out at night roaming the streets, I would still feel entirely at fault.)

And I wonder if telling the distraught owner how much I adore dogs, how in my old age I even like and play with the small ugly ones, how I want nothing more than to be surrounded by drooly happy puppies, and that my worst nightmare is to run one over, would make any difference. I suspect not.

This would account for why, if you find yourself driving behind me at night, on the quiet streets, you would be tempted to tailgate or honk, seeing as you might want to proceed at a speed greater than the 17mph I am inching along at; I don't know if 17mph is slow enough to merely bruise the puppies of Fairfield and Westchester counties, but I hope so. I apologize for my slowness in advance.

Testing A Theory

When I bought (leased) new car, I chose a manual transmission for one simple reason: it's what we've been driving for a while. Devoted partner's car is a manual, when we visit our European friends we rent manuals. The last time I drove an automatic was in Arizona last year and it felt weird for the entire 10 minute drive.

But there was a nagging in the back of my head: are you really going to be ok driving this in less than optimal conditions. Stalling out is, to some extent, going to happen from time to time, and I'm proud when a month goes by in which I do not stall, but our driveway is, well, an enormous hill. Yes, we live in one of those houses that you reach by descent and it is not a gentle incline. So day one of pulling out of the driveway, I worried if I would reach the top. Fortunately, my fears were groundless. I actually did remember how to get up a hill, start on a hill, etc.

This morning, though was different. Five minutes after devoted partner left the house, he called from his mobile to tell me the conditions were bad. Really bad. All of a sudden, my driveway was no mere hill, but an icy deathtrap in my head. Devoted partner advised I attempt no additional hills on my way to the train station which is damn near impossible since the train station is altitudinally lower than my house. So, now I'm freaked out, and for one very good reason: I have never driven a manual car in the snow. After all, what kinds of sickos take vacations TO snowy places? Yes, in college, I drove in snow, but those were automatics, and I recall an especially rewarding skid on a blissfully empty suburban street in the college van.

But, this probably won't be the last time I wake up to a snowstorm and I did have to get to work, so I psyched myself up and got in the car. The driveway was the worst mostly because my anti-lock brakes made a hell of a racket as they complained about the lack of traction. But once at the top of the driveway, even as I gingerly progressed in 2nd gear throughout the neighborhood, it didn't FEEL bad. The nerves were worse than the reality.

Which made me draw the conclusion that I do, after all, know how to drive. It is true, I didn't get my license until I was 19, and I drove pretty much never until we graduated and spent a summer driving. So even though I've been driving, sometimes by myself in foreign countries, for well over ten years, there was always the nagging suspicion that I was faking it. In some ways, I guess, getting the technically harder to drive car was a way of verifying if, indeed, I could drive.

Which I can.

Which is good because I have to get home this evening as well, and you just know everything's going to be ice by then.

Traffic Laws

The first time I sat behind the wheel of an automobile it was on the corner of 87th Street and 3rd Avenue. I was 17. I learned to drive on the upper east and west sides of Manhattan with a driver's ed teacher. I took my driving test in Queens. Until I was 21 years old, I had never driven on a highway.

This is what it's like to grow up in Manhattan.

But I liked driving and, after a summer driving around Europe, I was pretty decent at it. Highways? No problem. (Unless speeding is a problem.) Paris at rush hour? No problem. It's kind of like Manhattan driving but with circles. The one area where I had both little experience and little talent was suburban driving for the simple reason that I had never done it.

So I won't lie, I was a little apprehensive about being a daily suburban driver. But, like with many other things, after you do it enough, it becomes second nature.

Almost.

You see, there are rules I have never had to learn and so I might be committing a variety of ticketable infractions on a daily basis.

This morning, it snowed. Now my brain knows that during precipitation, you turn your lights on. However, my car has daytime running lights. Are those sufficient for inclement driving or do I need to turn on my night lights? Would I get pulled over and given a ticket for failure to do so? Could I plead ignorance of the differences between daytime and nightttime lights?

Similarly we have a number of unfamiliar stoplights in town that I am fairly certain I am not using correctly. The configuration is thus: one red light atop two sets of yellows and greens, one of the greens is a turn signal. While the red light is still illuminated the green turn signal light will also go on, signaling that cars in that specified lane can turn. Ok. Fine. Easy. However, what happens next is incredibly confusing. The red light will go out; the green turn light will go out; and the other green light will go on. Now I know this means that cars in the non-turning lane are now free to go. But does it mean a)that cars in the turning lane are also free to go provided there are no oncoming cars or b)cars in the turning lane may no longer go. I happen to believe that the latter explanation is stupid as it would allow cars in the turning lane a mere 10 seconds per light change to participate in forward movement, so I assume the former. And I don't know if I'm just biding my time until I get a moving violation (don't even get me started on the scenario when it's a right-turn signal at an intersection where cars CAN go right on red. What the hell is the point of a dedicated turn signal when cars in that lane can pretty much go WHENEVER there's an opening?)

The stoptionals I engage in on a daily basis? These I know are wrong, but my neighborhood is generally empty and I really don't feel compelled to come to a complete stop at EVERY corner when a slight 5 MPH pause is more than enough to ascertain if cars are coming in the other directions. But these others... I won't lie, I get a little stressed out.

So if the Greenwich and/or Port Chester cops are reading this (as I know they are huge fans), if you see me break the law in front of you, could you please cut me some slack and understand that even though I now have a CT driver's license, it should, in no way, indicate that I am fully conversant in your ways. After all, while there are many of your mores that elude me, I am fully aware that the speed limit in Manhattan is 35 MPH. And that's not nothing.

The First Nick

I feel sort of violated. I'm pretty sure it happened while I was parked in the mall lot or at the station, because those are the only places I park. One of you SOBs in the greater Port Chester area hit my car. You took a nice little chunk out of my left rear. I'm not going to lie, I'm pissed and saddened. It is true, it is one inch on a car whose surface are is far grander, but it's kinda deep, and now that I know it's there, I notice it all the time.

For all devoted partner's comfortings about how there are products available on the market that can fix this problem, a big part of me wants to just bring the car to a professional, look up, with weepy eyes, and beg the proprietor to make my car new again. How much could that really cost? Ok, in all fairness, it's worth about $50 to me. My initial foray into the world of painting metal things was not an unequivocal success. I still haven't finished spray painting the lawn furniture and, well, as you might be able to guess, the days of lawn furniture may well be over for 2009. (On that note, what am I supposed to do with the lawn furniture in the winter? The garage is already full of cars and sawdust from devoted partner's woodworking.) If I take the car to the shop and he says it's an hour worth of labor no matter what they do, well, I guess it's yet another trip to Home Depot for me (oh Home Depot, when did you become a stop on the weekly to-do list?).

I may have mentioned before that I'm leasing this car (which means this dent will have to be fixed eventually if I opt not to buy the car), but I do feel as though I own it - after all I could buy the car at the end of the lease if I wanted, so I feel that the car is MINE. As such, it is the most expensive thing I've ever owned, and this little cosmetic defect so soon into ownership feels bad. Bad like the first time I badly scuff the heel of a new pair of shoes (thankfully the apple green peep toes survived their maiden voyage without incident). I know cars get banged around, hell in 2001, the old Mercedes had an ass-shaped dent on the hood from, we believe, a former neighbor's ample behind, but do they really get so little time to be pristine. I even took it to the car wash last week because it was looking dusty and now, with this dent, I feel I needn't have bothered. After all, now the car is forever marred, and a little dust wouldn't have made things worse.

When I parked the car this morning and glanced back at the space so I could note the number I would need to punch into the parking meter, my eye found the dent immediately. This suggests that the sooner I have it fixed, the sooner I can walk my town's streets without malice and violence in my heart.

Project Charlie: The Legacy

See, some of you are laughing and smiling knowingly and others of you not so much. Project Charlie was the "kids should not do drugs" class we all took in school. Spearheaded by Katie, my best friend's mom (a best friend who isn't bestest enough to read this daily - I hate you Ed, see you at dinner tonight), Project Charlie attempted to convince us that drugs are bad mmmkay. I don't know how successful that part of the class was, but the part I'm pretty sure hit it out of the park was Project Charlie on drunk driving.

Yeah, we were a bunch of city kids for whom the idea of getting behind the wheel of an actual automobile was likely only if our dads lost sight of reality long enough to let us take their 911s out for a spin in East Hampton. It wasn't like any of us had access to a car that in a few short years we would need to drive regularly, but the lesson was imparted nonetheless. Don't Drive Drunk. Ever.

Driving drunk, in my memory, was akin to clubbing seals. It was something good people never ever did, but something we would encounter time and again. When senior year rolled around, the only reason I signed up for driver's ed was that I knew I'd be going off to college where everyone else was going to be driving drunk so I figured I should know how to drive myself home if I was the only sober person in a sea of drunks.

So I had a license long before I had a car, or even access to a car. Coincidentally, the weekend after my 21st birthday when a rental company would deign to rent me one of their fleet, I took the opportunity to drive to best friend Ed's house in Massachusetts for the weekend. I can't be positive, but it might be truth that until we moved to Greenwich, I had never had so much as a single drink in my system prior to getting behind the wheel.

Of course, this is, apparently, an untenable position to hold while living extra-urbanly. My mother-in-law and I once got into a multi-hour fight about our competing positions (I'm right by the way, just because calling a cab if you want to down two bottles of wine with dinner is inconvenient, it's still the right thing to do). So it was with trepidation, dear Jeff, that I asked you last night if you wanted another round. You had debonairly offered to pick up the first round and I didn't want you to think I was the kind of girl who tapes up your mild groin injury in 1994 and then expects free drinks for life, it was that we had enjoyed a beer with dinner, and I was certainly enjoying the bourbon I had just finished and... well, and in less than 90 minutes, I was going to be at the parking lot in Port Chester getting my car.

I don't know what it feels like to drive while mildly intoxicated. Based on what I had drank and how long it would be before I needed to drive I was fairly certain I would be on the right side of the law, but is DUI something I want to play the de jure de facto game with? I fervently believe in zero tolerance for DUI, and by zero tolerance I mean like zero for reals for serious. My intransigence probably contributes to mother-in-law fights as well as devoted partner fights, but considering that DUI kills completely innocent people, I don't mind being Giuliani-esque on the enforcement end of things. So this is an issue where I don't want to slide by on a technicality.

Whilst in the burbs, it's easier: 1 drink. 1 drink because when the drink is finished, I have to get in my car and drive home. I guess if I wanted to be a pill about it, I could make sure that I had 1 drink per hour and left more than an hour after the last drink, etc. etc., but we're getting back to letter and spirit of the law with that nonsense. 1 drink is easier. But if I'm having dinner or drinks in Manhattan, it becomes a little different. The hour on the end is built in - it's the time it takes for me to get home. I allowed myself a second drink based on that. And, truth be told, I felt 100% normal when I got into my car with or without the knowledge that home was fewer than 2 miles away.

But it made me consider, with anger in my heart, the following: upon entering the track at Grand Central I saw the beverage cart: the cart that sells beer to commuters for their train ride. WHY IS THIS NOT ILLEGAL? You are selling beer to people to drink while they wait to drive from the station to their homes. But Yelena, you say, drinking and driving is against the law, why would it be permissible to sell these drivers booze? I cannot answer that question, dear friends, because frankly I feel like the only passenger on the Logic Boat here. Putting aside my utter and complete disdain for the jackholes who can't wait until they get home to have a frosty Bud Light (someone help me out here - is it "cool" to drink while Metro Northing? do these guys, and they're always guys, have serious drinking problems? what on earth is the deal with needing, or frankly wanting, a watered down beer while you shuffle homewards?), don't these beer stands downplay the severity of drinking while under the influence? I mean, hey, if you're going to sell me a beer before I get in my car, that's tacit approval right there. I know some of you are more inured to this than I, but last night, as I wrestled with the issue of how much is too much, seeing people buy beer to keep them company during their harrowing 45 minute train ride, chafed me real good. Thank god one of them wasn't sitting next to me or the train ride might well have turned harrowing.

Nonpropos: I'm about to channel my father when I say I can't believe I paid $70 for a pair of jeans. I realize that every woman reading this now thinks I'm insane because the jeans they buy all cost at least double that, but I find jeans, like t-shirts, to be a utilitarian item of clothing and not a fashion statement; ergo, $8 t-shirts and jeans from The Gap. But it seems that jeans from The Gap are now $70. In point of fact I'm not complaining because I'm so flipping happy The Gap has decided to stock jeans again - it's been about 18 months of jeans that are only available in size Ethiopia and size Jerry Springer guest. I was so excited, the thought never crossed my mind to wait for them to go on sale. The jeans I currently wear have gotten so bad that devoted partner, a man who has commented negatively on my clothing maybe three times in twelve years, came out and told me my jeans were unflattering over the weekend - something I couldn't even begin to get bent out of shape about because he is absolutely right. I am wearing stretched out jeans a size too big ultimately becoming the poster girl for saggy baggy elephant ass; but as I mentioned, The Gap has not been selling jeans recently. So thank you, The Gap, I may have felt like an idiot buying something called Curvy Low Rise Boot Cut Stretch jeans while being simultaneously flabbergasted by your new sizes where you list a waist measurement (note to The Gap: your jeans come nowhere near my natural waist - the area they do fall near has not been 31 inches since elementary school so this number is, essentially meaningless; nowhere on these pants is there a diameter of 31 inches), but at least I am now wearing jeans that fit, that do not have holes in the buttocks, and that are destined to ruin an entire load of laundry when I forget to wash them separately.

Dear Earth, Sorry I Drove To Work, Love Yelena

There were no parking places, I didn't want to miss my train, and 1010WINS said traffic was smooth sailing.

In retrospect I should have taken the next train as I had to make a special trip to the bank to get a roll of quarters and I will now be getting up every 50 minutes to re-feed the meter (I searched for quite some time, there were no spaces and I think I might rather give 10 bucks to the city in quarters rather than 40 bucks to a garage).

But perhaps the earth should thank me.

I took a small road trip with my brother and some friends over the weekend and was able to fill my gas tank for the first full time. It was embarrassing. Driving to and from the train station, the Whole Foods, and other assorted in-town travels net me approximately 19 mpg. In my tiny adorable Jetta that gets such good mileage. It is true, I really shift past third gear (though I might change that now), but 19 miles? I was a little crushed. After two days of highway driving however, not including this morning's foray into Manhattan, and I'm averaging, this is not a joke, 49.65 mpg. According to the fuel gauge, I would be able to drive 720 highway miles on one tank of gas. I don't quite know how this would be possible, and since, with the 2/3 of a tank I have left I'll be back to local driving, the theory will remain, temporarily, untestable, but wow!

Reviewing my driving, I don't think I did anything especially efficient - or anything intentionally efficient. Driving in the rain I used the wipers, had the air on occasionally, had the GPS plugged in, and went between 65-70 mph in mostly 5th gear, downshifting from time to time to pass, etc. Yet, at 3/4 of a tank I had gone 180 miles.

Devoted partner drives his car in a way I've always found strange: he'll stay in 5th gear until it's physically impossible not to. It's hard to tell if this has any positive effect since devoted partner's car is not in tip-top shape, but he says he does it to conserve fuel. I drive completely differently and match the driving to the gear. But now I'm questioning my strategy and considering asking the internet its opinion, even though driving 25 miles an hour in 5th gear feels really really lame. I just don't want to be wasteful.

Except, tangentially, I've noticed that now that I use the reusable shopping bags, I have no plastic bags I can use for trash. Is the solution to buy plastic trash bags? That seems wasteful also. And the paper bag I'm using for kitchen garbage right now is definitely the grossest option. Does anyone else have this problem? What did you do? Oh, and do you know if the driving the car in 5th gear all the time thing works?

Feh, must feed meter.

TV Makes You Sort of Smarter

There is a blurry photo of me taken by a German tourist in Southern France after I just inadvertently completed a 2 mile hike in a pair of 4-inch Gucci heels; the final leg of the hike was a scramble over boulders in a river. I thought this was something worthy of memorialization and am ever saddened by the German tourist's poor photo skills. Those who know me know that I can, from time to time, to time to time, be seen in inappropriate shoes. Heels at rugby matches; heels in a foot of snow; heels at the beach. In recent years, I have attempted to embrace other types of shoes, dare I say, more practical shoes. I own a lovely pair of knee high rain boots, a pair of snuggly snow boots, a bewildering array of dollar-store flip flops, two, count them, two pairs of sneakers I never wear, and a pair of Converse I do. This ownership does not prevent me from liking the idea of shoe incongruity. So when I think about myself and cars, I think about holding a wrench in one hand while standing over the hood of my car in heels. I think the visual of me with oil on my face and pricey Italian shoes on my feet is an excellent one.

Which goes to show I know nothing about cars. The least of this knowledge can be summed up in the fact that I have a brand new car for the next two years and if something were to happen that would necessitate me or anyone else opening the hood and using a wrench, proper footwear would be the least of my problems. But I do like cars. I have been known to say very un-ladylike things about very nice cars, and once I bumped my rental car into the curb because I wanted to get out of my car very quickly to tell a nice couple how much I loved their late 50s/early 60s Corvette Stingray - they thought this was funny.

So when devoted partner introduced me to Top Gear, it was a perfect match. I like snarky geeks and I like fast cars, ergo I like Top Gear. And certainly, from the number of episodes I have watched I must now know more things about cars. Right? I have been toying with the ideas of referring to my own car's transmission as "five on the floor" and turning off the traction control even though the dealer told me this latter thing was a bad idea. But I have seen the guys on Top Gear do it, and TV is smart. Yes, I am confused why we in the states refer to it as horsepower and they refer to it as brake horsepower though I have assured myself these two things mean the same. Also, I don't really know what horsepower is or does though I know more of it makes your car do more stuff better and faster and stronger but that it doesn't necessarily mean the car with more of it would win a race. Suffice it to say I know nothing about cars and will, for the foreseeable future, not be strutting around mine in coveralls and Christian Lacroix.

Yet, I like driving. True, I am still uncertain what leasing a car means and how much damage I can do to mine before the nice people at Volkswagen refuse to take it back and instead demand money from me which is why, thus far, I have been driving it like a grandmother. Add to this that all the driving I have done has been local, and the poor car hasn't even made it to 5th gear save a handful of times. Since I find suburban driving to be the single most confusing form of driving - city driving has clearly marked street signs and frequently is laid out in a grid pattern of some sort; highway driving is generally in a long straight line with frequent signage pointing out your current location and distance to your ultimate one - I am trying to get some more practice on the lovely Greenwich roads.

Aside: these roads are NOT lovely. I was under the impression you people, and I guess that now includes me, pay ridiculously high taxes. As such, your main road, the Post Road, should not be so hideously deformed by potholes. Your side streets are, likewise, not to be believed. I have been told that you might not want to repair your potholes because smooth roads encourage people to drive more quickly, but let me tell you, I live in a highly litigious society and until they make rules about who and how frequently I may sue, if your flippin' potholes mar my beautiful new, liability uncertain automobile, I will be expecting you to pick up the tab for the damages; and by expecting, I mean I will sue you. Fix the god damned potholes. Shabby rich is so 90s!

To wit, the drive from Casa Me to the fishmonger is about 2 miles and very direct. Yesterday, I decided to take a little tootle through the backwoods of Greenwich. Thereupon, I discovered something the locals must know, and must pay dearly for: you people have some sweet driving roads. True, yesterday, during my exploratory mission, I was driving your curvy, shifting altitude roads at about 20 miles per hour, but I was the only car. I could have been doing these roads at twice the speed, shifting up and down at will to really coax my car into and out of the curves - demonstrating the awesome farfegnugen-ness of the car and feeling fairly badass myself. How else will I be able to thoroughly enjoy a high-speed tootle through the Alps is I don't get practice now?

It is true that twice on my ponderous and frightful journey I encountered things I hadn't anticipated: a catering truck coming towards me on a road barely wide enough for my own car much less us both and a cop car that had pulled over a truck in the middle of the one-lane given to cars of my directional persuasion about 25 meters behind a blind curve, but I'm sure those were anomalies and that when I'm ready to open 'er up, I will have the roads to myself. Also a really good soundtrack pumping me up.

But I've discovered something terrible: the cool rubber mats in my car are grooved deeply enough that they latch onto tiny pointy heels causing the driver to a) stall the car, b) accelerate too rapidly, and/or c)herky-jerkily brake. This whole automotive fantasy obviously doesn't work unless the driver is wearing a slim skirt and precipitous stilettos.

My Stuff and Where It Might Be

We have been here 36 hours. Number of boxes unpacked: 0. We did find the alarm clock this morning because it went off, thereby leading us to its hiding place. Our move took about three times as long as I thought, mostly because I thought we had less crap. Our movers were terrific and did not demonstrate that they were put out by the fact that a 3 hour planned move took 8 hours. In fact the only thing that sucked about moving day was my car.

My brand new, first ever car that I love dearly even though we have been together a short while. The spiffy red car that has miles only I have put on it that I swore I would not park on the street in my neighborhood Friday night. No, said I, I would not permit my lovely new car to be sat on my hooligans, broken into, or stolen outright (though I might enjoy watching the mouth-breathers from my neighborhood attempt to drive a manual); instead, I would put it into the only reputable looking garage in the neighborhood, pay the 20 bucks for safety and security, and pick my car up in the morning no worse for the wear. I have just now returned from the Port Chester train station in his car, after dropping him off because my car? Still in the garage. Why, you might inquire, is your car still in the garage when you have been a suburbanite for 36 hours? That is an excellent question for which I have a terrible answer: the elevator at the garage is broken. So my shiny car is on level 2 with no way of getting to level 1. They don't know when the elevator will be fixed and given that the garage is located in my old neighborhood where things operate on UST, Uptown Standard Time, it could be many a moon before Big Red (not ACTUALLY the name of the car because I don't name cars or private parts) is reunited with me. This sucks.

Our living room and bedroom are the only two currently functioning rooms. I say this because I am typing this port from a computer that sits atop my dresser. As the movers were planning to move my desk out of my old bedroom, we realized it was no longer structurally sound and left it there, leaving me one desk short. The dresser desk is a temporary solution which is hard on my knees (they are what's currently pressing against the drawers). Instead of unpacking, yesterday we shopped, and for the most alluring of items: laundry hamper, trash bags, shelf paper, garbage cans. The shelf paper is what is confronting me today. This is an older house and before I go unwrapping all our gear, I'm going to repaper all the shelves - this job fills me with so much apprehension, I'm considering calling my mom for help (I'm not really great at a) straight line cutting or b) adhesives).

I'm also debating the Great Book Unpacking of 2009. Even with the 300 or so books that didn't make the cut - I'm looking at you high school copy of Macbeth - there are a number of boxes of books. Our movers commented on this several times. What stops me from diving straight into the books is that, technically, this room, my office, can stay unpacked longer than, say, the kitchen. It's not an essential room. as is obvious from the fact that it is an office with a dresser for a desk. The kitchen should be dealt with because it helps us eat; on the other hand, nothing in my office requires shelf paper.

My early review of this house is I love it. It's definitely big enough and I foresee lots of multi-level shouting since his office is downstairs and mine is upstairs. It had been raining quite a bit preventing us from doing all the backyard frolicking I had foreseen (the presence of neighbors with children will most likely prevent all the types of frolicking that could go on), but I smoked my last cigarette in the backyard right before bed on Saturday, and it felt nice to have a before bed outdoor area that didn't have other people blasting music in it. The living room is shaping up nicely. We liberated a chair, ottoman, and rug from my "mother-in-law" and as soon as we locate a rug pad (oversight, I know), I think the rug will be a welcome addition. It's seriously ugly, but in a way that completely matches the room (the room isn't ugly per se, it's just very retro - I promise pictures when things are better looking than they are right now).

So I commence papering. This is a lie. First I am going to unpack the espresso machine and have a cup of coffee; then I am going to contemplate the great papering. I just thought I should be honest.