I went to Lynch Park with my sister and her three small children and my mother. Lynch Park has two beaches, a playground a rose garden and an ice cream stand, so it’s the perfect place to take small kids. My Mom used to take my sister and I (and all of our cousins) there when we were kids for the same reason. Unfortunately for us, Lynch Park has lately removed all their trashcans in an effort to save money. (Because allowing people to throw litter on the ground and make the place disgusting isn't going to eat into your revenue stream the way having trashcans will?)
We spent the morning on the beach, and aside from the part where my smallest nephew decided he was afraid of seaweed, we had an enjoyable morning. We ordered take-out from Dom’s Trattoria in Beverly Farms and ate the take out at a picnic table. Because there were no trash cans Mom and I took the pizza boxes and plates back to the car to throw out in my trash. Here is where the problem arose.
We got stuff into the trunk, but then Mom wanted to put my niece’s shorts (which had gotten wet) into the car to dry so that my niece could wear them later. Mom pulled on the handle of one of the back doors to the mini-van and the car started crying. “Now we’re going to have to go get your sister.” Said Mom. I didn’t want to walk all the way up the hill to where my sister was, because then I’d have to oversee the three small children while she walked out to the parking lot. Also, the car would be crying and using up its battery the whole time this took, so I called my sister to ask for help. Unfortunately, she wasn’t answering the phone. I kept calling her.
After another 5 minutes of trying to get doors opened, I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands. I don’t drive—but I troubleshoot machines for a living. I asked for the electronic key fob. I pushed all the buttons on it (luckily for us, this key fob did not have a panic button which sets off the car’s alarm.) When I hit the button for close and lock all the doors (I assume-the key fob is a bit worn so the icons convey less information than they originally did) the car stopped crying. But now my 70-year-old mother is trapped in the back seat and the back doors won’t open (when she tried to open them the car started crying again.) She was uninterested in climbing back into the front seat to go out the two doors that work.
So I did the thing that made the most sense to me. I sat in the driver’s seat and turned the car on. “Do not turn the car on!” Said Mom.
“Mom, if I’m going to figure out what’s wrong with the car I have to sit in the Command Center.” (A friend of mine laughed her ass off when I described the driver’s seat as the “Command Center” but I think my metaphor was not too wrong.) I had unhappy machine. In order to figure out why it was unhappy, I turned it on and went to the place where all the information was displayed.
“Turn the car off!!” I really don’t know what she was thinking—*I* know I can’t drive—I didn’t plan on solving the problem by taking the car for a spin. “Turn the car..!! Oh. It’s in Drive. Put it in Park.”
“How do I do that?”
“Move the lever—no not that lever—the other one. Up one. No up one more.” My mother has a Master’s degree in Education, but apparently this does not apply when Teaching How To Operate a Motor Vehicle.
“So..the doors wouldn’t open because the car was in dive?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“You didn’t put the car in Park when you ‘parked’ it Mom?”
It was at that point I heard my phone saying “To replay this message press 1.” So the whole episode was caught on my sister’s voicemail.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Frankenstein
On Friday morning, I was discussing Frankenstein with a good friend of mine over breakfast. We were in Sugar Magnolias,in Gloucester awaiting one of the best breakfasts to be had in Massachusetts. Now, my buddy Mike does not like Frankenstein where as I, well it will be hard for me to say I *like* it (which I will explain more about in a minute) but I think the book is very important and as a Sci Fi fan I think he aught to respect it more. Consequently I bring Frankenstein into the conversation and wave it in front of his face whenever I think there is an opportunity to make him think better of the book. I was bringing it up in this instance because I had asked him about the most recent Planet of the Apes movie which he had gone to see and which he had enjoyed. When he described the plot, it sounded remarkably like the plot of Frankenstein and I asked how he could still hate the book, when this enjoyable movie had the same plot.
That my buddy Mike will continue to engage me in discussions of Frankenstein, instead of shutting me up with a withering glare or by simply saying that I don't know what I'm talking about is a kindness given that 1) he is a professor of rhetoric and I'm a network administrator and 2) as became apparent in our most recent exchange he has read the book more recently than I have.
I don't remember what age I was when I first read Frankenstein, but I remember that I got the book by ordering it from Scholastic through my school. When I was a kid, before the advent of Amazon.com, Scholastic and other publishers of children's books would distribute catalogs through schools. The catalogs were age-appropriate so that a 4th grader would not see the same catalog as a 1st grader. A kid would get a catalog and an order form from his/her teacher and take it home. The kid and his/her parents would decide what books to order and bring the order form and a check back to the teacher. A few months later, the books would arrive.
I wanted Frankenstein because I was fascinated by horror and occult books. When the thin volume arrived I was disappointed because it said "abridged" on the cover. Even as a grade-schooler I saw no point in reading abridged books. I don't know what I actually expected the plot to be--I only remember that having discovered an interest in ghoulish literature, I was delighted to see a book that I knew (even at the age of 8 or 9) was a classic work of horror in my catalog.
I was disappointed and shocked. This was the saddest book I had ever read. I hated it, because it made me so sad. Why did Victor Frankenstein suddenly hate his own creation? It wasn't horrible to him when he was sewing dead limbs together (which I personally, would have found gross) but once it was alive he despised and feared it. Why would he not, once his creation had come to him and begged him for a wife not give it to him? His creation merely asked for a companion.
When I discovered that I had to read the book in 9th grade English I was dismayed--I hated that book. I have not reread the book since then. Why then am I forever bringing this book, which I hated in (let's say) 4th grade and again in 9th grade into the conversation?
Frankenstein made a big impression on me. At the time I first read it I was simply horrified by how stupid and cruel people could be--even smart ones like Dr. Frankenstein. But as I've read more science fiction, I have come to the conclusion that Frankenstein is important because it is one of the first pieces of science fiction. The story is important because although science changes and the manner of writing books changes (epistolary novels have fallen out of fashion) the story is still relevant. I realize that I am not the first person to have made this connection--but I made it on my own without the guidance of a professor or anyone else (since most of the people I know who have read the book prefer, like Mike, not to discuss it.)
My undergraduate degree is in French Literature--not English Literature. If,like my buddy Mike, I'd had to read Frankenstein in college and spend hours discussing, and writing papers on, whether Frankenstien's fear of his creation had it's roots in Pygmalion or whether he (Frankenstein) was trying to be God by creating new life, or whether the whole book was really about how people were afraid of science and scientists I'd probably hate the book too.
Instead I've come to my own conclusions about Frankenstein. They range from "why not just pick some guy who died of a heart attack and replace the heart--instead of building a whole new being" and "well, actually it would never work because once the brain dies, if you reanimate it, it will be with severe lack of function" "The real monsters are the normal humans" and "If you're into reanimating corpses, make sure you have stomach--not just curiosity."
That I think is the real point of the book, and it's one that is still relevant. If you are creating a monster, have some plans for what to do with it once you've created it. Have some sympathy for your monster
That my buddy Mike will continue to engage me in discussions of Frankenstein, instead of shutting me up with a withering glare or by simply saying that I don't know what I'm talking about is a kindness given that 1) he is a professor of rhetoric and I'm a network administrator and 2) as became apparent in our most recent exchange he has read the book more recently than I have.
I don't remember what age I was when I first read Frankenstein, but I remember that I got the book by ordering it from Scholastic through my school. When I was a kid, before the advent of Amazon.com, Scholastic and other publishers of children's books would distribute catalogs through schools. The catalogs were age-appropriate so that a 4th grader would not see the same catalog as a 1st grader. A kid would get a catalog and an order form from his/her teacher and take it home. The kid and his/her parents would decide what books to order and bring the order form and a check back to the teacher. A few months later, the books would arrive.
I wanted Frankenstein because I was fascinated by horror and occult books. When the thin volume arrived I was disappointed because it said "abridged" on the cover. Even as a grade-schooler I saw no point in reading abridged books. I don't know what I actually expected the plot to be--I only remember that having discovered an interest in ghoulish literature, I was delighted to see a book that I knew (even at the age of 8 or 9) was a classic work of horror in my catalog.
I was disappointed and shocked. This was the saddest book I had ever read. I hated it, because it made me so sad. Why did Victor Frankenstein suddenly hate his own creation? It wasn't horrible to him when he was sewing dead limbs together (which I personally, would have found gross) but once it was alive he despised and feared it. Why would he not, once his creation had come to him and begged him for a wife not give it to him? His creation merely asked for a companion.
When I discovered that I had to read the book in 9th grade English I was dismayed--I hated that book. I have not reread the book since then. Why then am I forever bringing this book, which I hated in (let's say) 4th grade and again in 9th grade into the conversation?
Frankenstein made a big impression on me. At the time I first read it I was simply horrified by how stupid and cruel people could be--even smart ones like Dr. Frankenstein. But as I've read more science fiction, I have come to the conclusion that Frankenstein is important because it is one of the first pieces of science fiction. The story is important because although science changes and the manner of writing books changes (epistolary novels have fallen out of fashion) the story is still relevant. I realize that I am not the first person to have made this connection--but I made it on my own without the guidance of a professor or anyone else (since most of the people I know who have read the book prefer, like Mike, not to discuss it.)
My undergraduate degree is in French Literature--not English Literature. If,like my buddy Mike, I'd had to read Frankenstein in college and spend hours discussing, and writing papers on, whether Frankenstien's fear of his creation had it's roots in Pygmalion or whether he (Frankenstein) was trying to be God by creating new life, or whether the whole book was really about how people were afraid of science and scientists I'd probably hate the book too.
Instead I've come to my own conclusions about Frankenstein. They range from "why not just pick some guy who died of a heart attack and replace the heart--instead of building a whole new being" and "well, actually it would never work because once the brain dies, if you reanimate it, it will be with severe lack of function" "The real monsters are the normal humans" and "If you're into reanimating corpses, make sure you have stomach--not just curiosity."
That I think is the real point of the book, and it's one that is still relevant. If you are creating a monster, have some plans for what to do with it once you've created it. Have some sympathy for your monster
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
What I have been doing a lot of lately
It's 10 PM on a Tuesday and I'm pacing around my apartment having several conversations with myself. Most of them have to do with what I need to do at work over the next few days.
I have been very busy lately at work. I have been busier with straight-up work (as opposed to work-and-school) than I have ever been excepting the 12 day week I worked in Winter 2010 when we moved our environment to new servers.
I like being busy. I like learning new things (and I have certainly learned a boat-load of new things in the past few months*.) But I am overwhelmed. I feel like a processor in a computer. I move all day and cannot say at the end of the day what I have done (partly because my short term memory is shot, but also because I feel like I spend all day answering requests for data that someone else has to process.) I've become afraid of going into the kitchen for coffee because some staff member might corner me with a problem they're having with a printer or our Document Management System or worse, a problem that a client is having accessing our online client vault. I feel bad about this.
At the risk of ranging into Christian metaphors--the user community is my flock and I am their shepherd.** Or to put it another way, they are *my* clients and when they ask me for help I would like them to see my willing, helpful face as opposed to my "whaddayouwantnow-I'm bizy" face.
It's times like this that I wish I had some sort of partner. I can't explain everything that's going on at work to my friends and I can't express everything that I feel to my co-workers. I wish I had someone who could listen with a sympathetic ear and provide advice "Look into the SQL Management Console" or alternatively "Never touch the SQL Management Console again."
However, the technical problems are not as worrisome as the "people" problems. Technical problems can be hammered out, usually by speaking with software and hardware vendors. Technical problems are matters of electrons, resistors, conductors and the software that was written to make these things all work in concert. I cannot imagine that the ways in which we are trying to make our software work have never been though of before, so somebody must be able to make them work.
Working, as I am now, on IT projects all the time I had assumed that once we had gotten a blessing from the owners I would be working with geeks--INTJ types like me and that would make everything work smoothly. Sadly, no. I don't understand why.
Here I can't go into the details, because it's private, but suffice to say that people, who I had known for years to be sure to think "x" had suddenly decided to think "y."
I know that large technical projects are rarely completed on time and within scope (70% are not according to my Project Management professor Fall term.)
I am beginning to take a cynical point of view. I think of two things that people have told me. The first is my best friend on advising me on how people in New England drive "think of the least logical-the stupidest--way that people will behave and expect it and you'll be alright." The second thing that comes to mind with this current project is something a friend of mine in high-school said "My mom says that the number of teenagers present is the inverse square of the number of brains present" (assuming I stated that correctly 2 teenagers - 1/2^2 or 1/4 brains present.)
If anyone is actually reading this post I apologize for being vague and rambling. The point of this post was more to scratch a boil on my brain than to make any sense.
*to the point that I've had bad dreams about SQL 2008 Management Console and Microsoft Exchange
**Only in terms of technology. It is for others to decide everything from standards of customer service, trading workflows and financial planning workflows.
I have been very busy lately at work. I have been busier with straight-up work (as opposed to work-and-school) than I have ever been excepting the 12 day week I worked in Winter 2010 when we moved our environment to new servers.
I like being busy. I like learning new things (and I have certainly learned a boat-load of new things in the past few months*.) But I am overwhelmed. I feel like a processor in a computer. I move all day and cannot say at the end of the day what I have done (partly because my short term memory is shot, but also because I feel like I spend all day answering requests for data that someone else has to process.) I've become afraid of going into the kitchen for coffee because some staff member might corner me with a problem they're having with a printer or our Document Management System or worse, a problem that a client is having accessing our online client vault. I feel bad about this.
At the risk of ranging into Christian metaphors--the user community is my flock and I am their shepherd.** Or to put it another way, they are *my* clients and when they ask me for help I would like them to see my willing, helpful face as opposed to my "whaddayouwantnow-I'm bizy" face.
It's times like this that I wish I had some sort of partner. I can't explain everything that's going on at work to my friends and I can't express everything that I feel to my co-workers. I wish I had someone who could listen with a sympathetic ear and provide advice "Look into the SQL Management Console" or alternatively "Never touch the SQL Management Console again."
However, the technical problems are not as worrisome as the "people" problems. Technical problems can be hammered out, usually by speaking with software and hardware vendors. Technical problems are matters of electrons, resistors, conductors and the software that was written to make these things all work in concert. I cannot imagine that the ways in which we are trying to make our software work have never been though of before, so somebody must be able to make them work.
Working, as I am now, on IT projects all the time I had assumed that once we had gotten a blessing from the owners I would be working with geeks--INTJ types like me and that would make everything work smoothly. Sadly, no. I don't understand why.
Here I can't go into the details, because it's private, but suffice to say that people, who I had known for years to be sure to think "x" had suddenly decided to think "y."
I know that large technical projects are rarely completed on time and within scope (70% are not according to my Project Management professor Fall term.)
I am beginning to take a cynical point of view. I think of two things that people have told me. The first is my best friend on advising me on how people in New England drive "think of the least logical-the stupidest--way that people will behave and expect it and you'll be alright." The second thing that comes to mind with this current project is something a friend of mine in high-school said "My mom says that the number of teenagers present is the inverse square of the number of brains present" (assuming I stated that correctly 2 teenagers - 1/2^2 or 1/4 brains present.)
If anyone is actually reading this post I apologize for being vague and rambling. The point of this post was more to scratch a boil on my brain than to make any sense.
*to the point that I've had bad dreams about SQL 2008 Management Console and Microsoft Exchange
**Only in terms of technology. It is for others to decide everything from standards of customer service, trading workflows and financial planning workflows.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
The Perfect Storm
"When the first involuntary breath occurs most people are still conscious, which is unfortunate, because the only thing more unpleasant than running out of air is breathing water. At that point...the drowning begins in earnest.*"
It's sentences like these that initially kept me from reading Sebastian Junger's _The_Perfect_Storm. I have a healthy fear of water. As far back as I can remember I've had dreams of sinking boats or being swept out to sea. I put this down to growing up on an island (even if it was the Island of Staten) and spending a large amount of my childhood at the beach. Don't get me wrong--I love the ocean, but It is large and I am small. I had no interest in _The_Perfect_Storm because I thought it would give me nightmares and make me afraid to set foot in any water deeper than a clogged-drain puddle for about 6 months (have I mentioned that I have a lively, morbid imagination?)
In addition to my original fear of the text, I have the book snob's abhorrence for any book that has been around for a while but is suddenly popular because It Was Made into A Movie or Oprah Read It.
But I got over all of that about two weeks ago. My best friend and I were perusing her library. We are bibliophiles and we shop each other's libraries shamelessly. We are also former booksellers--so we hand sell our own books to each other.**
"Read _The_Perfect_Storm." She said.
I responded by saying that I hadn't read it because it scared me.
"Oh but it's fascinating! No one knows what actually happened to the boat, so he fills the gaps with all sorts of other details about the industry--he writes *around* the unknown parts. You can skip the part where he explains what drowning feels like."
I didn't pick the book up then, but after her description I was hooked. I picked the book up two weeks later. And she was right--it is fascinating.
The book is about the last few weeks of the Andrea Gail--a swordfishing boat that sailed out of Gloucester. I *love* Gloucester. I love the beaches, I love Stage Fort Park, I love having breakfast at Sugar Mags or Zeke's (where the cook is a woman and they do toads in the hole and grits). I love watching the boats come through the narrow canal where the draw bridge is, I love hiking in Dog Town and going out on the breakwater to watch fishermen haul in stingrays--still alive and jumping, I love Bass Rocks, Destino's subs and I even love the Ugliest Guest House on the Promenade.
My Gloucester is not the same Gloucester that the characters in _The_Perfect_Storm encounter. They are fishermen. I am a Bougie from Beverly who's there for Sugar Mags and the beach.
A week ago I was in Gloucester with my Mom and my Aunt (who had read _The_Perfect_Storm_.) As we drove past The Crow's Nest my Aunt asked if my buddies and I ever went in there. "No. We mostly come here for breakfast at Sugar Mags. We would be out of place there. The Crow's Nest is a place for other people-not for us." Writing this down it sounds snobby, but really--it's a fisherman's bar and we are not fishermen. If I went there with my buddies the locals would think that we were either Perfect Storm tourists or Bougies who were slumming/looking to cruise a sailor.
Sebastian Junger has done a good job of making the denizens of the Crow's Nest-people who would otherwise fly under my radar (and probably yours--if you're being honest) sympathetic characters. The people in the book are swordfishermen. Swordfishing involves going out to sea in dangerous conditions and working 20 hours a day doing dangerous and/or gross work for a month at at time.
"Baiting has all of the glamor of a factory shift and and considerably more of the danger." ***
Baiting involves putting squid or other bait on a hook on a long line along with buoys, and radio transmitters see here for details. The fishermen put about $20,000 of gear in the ocean every time they set a long line, which is to say every night they are out.**** Also, it's apparently very easy for the man who sets the bait on the hook to get caught on the hook and pulled out to sea. The men who do this work are often high-school drop outs and men who owe a lot of money (for child support as crew member Bobby Shatford does.) The author does not romanticize his characters--he gives enough spoken dialogue from surviving family members to make them human.
And the details are fascinating--everything from the physics of ocean waves to the way that boats call out that they are entering Canadian waters and all their fishing gear is stowed.
My obsessive little heart loved the fact that every time the fishing boats pull into port they overhaul the engine. "Imagine" I thought "Downtime to do a complete overhaul before putting a system back into production. I wish I could do that."
In the end I even read the parts that describe drowning. I found the book a good read not just because it was fascinating, but because the logic of the narrative is so obvious. The author gives definitions of a number of objects--his characters (through their surviving family members' words) and nautical terms (down-flooding, long-line fishing etc.) and then constructs his narrative with these objects. He gives examples of what might have happened to the Andrea Gail and then reinforces his credibility with accounts of what actually happened to several other people who experienced the perfect storm and lived to tell about it.
So I give the book two thumbs up.
Once I took the Boston Harbor Ferry out to one of the islands for a day trip. When you take the Boston Harbor Ferry, they narrate your trip. They point out the islands and other places of interest as they pass them (including Deer Island's ginormous sewage digesting tanks.) One of the places they pointed out the pier where they hold a fish market at Fuck You O'clock in the morning. It's there that the restauranteurs go to buy what will be their "Catch of the Day." I like to imagine that as a place where men and women in Armani suits from Legal Sea Foods, Number Nine Park and Locke Ober go to talk with men like Captain Billy Tyne of the Andrea Gail--fresh off a voyage in a flannel shirt and jeans. They would discuss subjects of mutual interest--the quality of fish and the Sox over a cup of coffee.
This, I admit, is a romantic fantasy. Captain Tyne sold his fish on the pier at Gloucester to seafood distributors and Legal and the other restaurants probably deal with those distributors, but I like my fantasy because I like the idea of legitimate business people-Suits-having to bargain with the fishermen and giving them a fair amount of money for the fish that they worked so hard to pull out of the ocean.
*_The_Perfect_Storm_ Sebastian Junger, 1997 page 180 in the mass market edition.
**If you're a bibliophile the need to get people to read books that they would enjoy is baked into your OS (Operating System.)
***Page 64
****Page 83-84
It's sentences like these that initially kept me from reading Sebastian Junger's _The_Perfect_Storm. I have a healthy fear of water. As far back as I can remember I've had dreams of sinking boats or being swept out to sea. I put this down to growing up on an island (even if it was the Island of Staten) and spending a large amount of my childhood at the beach. Don't get me wrong--I love the ocean, but It is large and I am small. I had no interest in _The_Perfect_Storm because I thought it would give me nightmares and make me afraid to set foot in any water deeper than a clogged-drain puddle for about 6 months (have I mentioned that I have a lively, morbid imagination?)
In addition to my original fear of the text, I have the book snob's abhorrence for any book that has been around for a while but is suddenly popular because It Was Made into A Movie or Oprah Read It.
But I got over all of that about two weeks ago. My best friend and I were perusing her library. We are bibliophiles and we shop each other's libraries shamelessly. We are also former booksellers--so we hand sell our own books to each other.**
"Read _The_Perfect_Storm." She said.
I responded by saying that I hadn't read it because it scared me.
"Oh but it's fascinating! No one knows what actually happened to the boat, so he fills the gaps with all sorts of other details about the industry--he writes *around* the unknown parts. You can skip the part where he explains what drowning feels like."
I didn't pick the book up then, but after her description I was hooked. I picked the book up two weeks later. And she was right--it is fascinating.
The book is about the last few weeks of the Andrea Gail--a swordfishing boat that sailed out of Gloucester. I *love* Gloucester. I love the beaches, I love Stage Fort Park, I love having breakfast at Sugar Mags or Zeke's (where the cook is a woman and they do toads in the hole and grits). I love watching the boats come through the narrow canal where the draw bridge is, I love hiking in Dog Town and going out on the breakwater to watch fishermen haul in stingrays--still alive and jumping, I love Bass Rocks, Destino's subs and I even love the Ugliest Guest House on the Promenade.
My Gloucester is not the same Gloucester that the characters in _The_Perfect_Storm encounter. They are fishermen. I am a Bougie from Beverly who's there for Sugar Mags and the beach.
A week ago I was in Gloucester with my Mom and my Aunt (who had read _The_Perfect_Storm_.) As we drove past The Crow's Nest my Aunt asked if my buddies and I ever went in there. "No. We mostly come here for breakfast at Sugar Mags. We would be out of place there. The Crow's Nest is a place for other people-not for us." Writing this down it sounds snobby, but really--it's a fisherman's bar and we are not fishermen. If I went there with my buddies the locals would think that we were either Perfect Storm tourists or Bougies who were slumming/looking to cruise a sailor.
Sebastian Junger has done a good job of making the denizens of the Crow's Nest-people who would otherwise fly under my radar (and probably yours--if you're being honest) sympathetic characters. The people in the book are swordfishermen. Swordfishing involves going out to sea in dangerous conditions and working 20 hours a day doing dangerous and/or gross work for a month at at time.
"Baiting has all of the glamor of a factory shift and and considerably more of the danger." ***
Baiting involves putting squid or other bait on a hook on a long line along with buoys, and radio transmitters see here for details. The fishermen put about $20,000 of gear in the ocean every time they set a long line, which is to say every night they are out.**** Also, it's apparently very easy for the man who sets the bait on the hook to get caught on the hook and pulled out to sea. The men who do this work are often high-school drop outs and men who owe a lot of money (for child support as crew member Bobby Shatford does.) The author does not romanticize his characters--he gives enough spoken dialogue from surviving family members to make them human.
And the details are fascinating--everything from the physics of ocean waves to the way that boats call out that they are entering Canadian waters and all their fishing gear is stowed.
My obsessive little heart loved the fact that every time the fishing boats pull into port they overhaul the engine. "Imagine" I thought "Downtime to do a complete overhaul before putting a system back into production. I wish I could do that."
In the end I even read the parts that describe drowning. I found the book a good read not just because it was fascinating, but because the logic of the narrative is so obvious. The author gives definitions of a number of objects--his characters (through their surviving family members' words) and nautical terms (down-flooding, long-line fishing etc.) and then constructs his narrative with these objects. He gives examples of what might have happened to the Andrea Gail and then reinforces his credibility with accounts of what actually happened to several other people who experienced the perfect storm and lived to tell about it.
So I give the book two thumbs up.
Once I took the Boston Harbor Ferry out to one of the islands for a day trip. When you take the Boston Harbor Ferry, they narrate your trip. They point out the islands and other places of interest as they pass them (including Deer Island's ginormous sewage digesting tanks.) One of the places they pointed out the pier where they hold a fish market at Fuck You O'clock in the morning. It's there that the restauranteurs go to buy what will be their "Catch of the Day." I like to imagine that as a place where men and women in Armani suits from Legal Sea Foods, Number Nine Park and Locke Ober go to talk with men like Captain Billy Tyne of the Andrea Gail--fresh off a voyage in a flannel shirt and jeans. They would discuss subjects of mutual interest--the quality of fish and the Sox over a cup of coffee.
This, I admit, is a romantic fantasy. Captain Tyne sold his fish on the pier at Gloucester to seafood distributors and Legal and the other restaurants probably deal with those distributors, but I like my fantasy because I like the idea of legitimate business people-Suits-having to bargain with the fishermen and giving them a fair amount of money for the fish that they worked so hard to pull out of the ocean.
*_The_Perfect_Storm_ Sebastian Junger, 1997 page 180 in the mass market edition.
**If you're a bibliophile the need to get people to read books that they would enjoy is baked into your OS (Operating System.)
***Page 64
****Page 83-84
Sunday, July 10, 2011
A Walk in my Favorite Ocean
I love when the tide is out and I can walk far out on the lovely waved sand. In cold weather I'll put on water proof shoes and walk out as far as I can. In warm weather I'll wear short shorts and walk from Dane Street Beach to Lynch Park Beach.
There haven't been many beach days for me this year--it's been rainy or I've been busy on weekends. The few beach days I've had have been high-tide days. There's nothing wrong with a high tide day--those are for sitting on the beach and reading a book while baking and then quickly dipping myself when I get too hot. Low tide beach days are for walking over the whale road from one beach to another.
Walking on the whale road means walking over parts of the ocean that are generally not visited by people--that's part of what makes it fun. I see lovely manes of seaweed and strange things that feel off of boats and old lobster traps. Also, usually the water is clear because people haven't been walking in it.
Unfortunately for me, I showed up at the tail end of low tide, so many people had been walking in the water, so it was rather murky. I took my flip flops off because it was annoying trying to walk with them on, but that was before I got to the parts of the ocean that were murky. Still, I got to see a few interesting things for my troubles--I saw an old lobster cage that had seaweed in three different colors growing on it. I saw a seagull with a whole skate in its mouth. A whole skate.
That was the end of my walk being any fun. My brain likes to find things to be afraid of. I have an overactive imagination and I'm twitchy and obsessive. This fear-loving part of my brain does not listen to reason. "There could be skates in the water" it says. "If there was one that the seagull found--there's one that your foot could find. You can't see where you step, and they blend in with the sand." It does no good to remind this part of my brain that in 50+ years members of my family have been beach-bumming and sea-bathing in Beverly no one has ever been attacked by a skate.
It doesn't matter. I am suddenly sure that I'm going to be the outlier--the one who stepped on a skate. I can't see my feet and suddenly I need to get to the rocks where the seagull who was eating the skate was. Not being able to see my feet is problematic, even if I wasn't suddenly afraid of skates, because there are rocks, and seaweed (which is slippery and I'd prefer not to have an emergency seating because I've got my phone with me) and possibly broken beer bottles. I remind myself that I've only seen dead skates in the water by the beach. "When have you seen live skates? Only on the break-water in Gloucester--that is deep water." That memory doesn't help because I remember how the skates looked twitching about and how the fishermen avoided the skates tails. I only picture my foot landing on one and it twitching about to sting me.
I arrive at the rocks and clamber up. I have ruined a perfectly good walk by letting my panic monster have something to panic about. Well no, not ruined--I walked half a mile at least through the water before I freaked out and I still have the rocks to scramble over and the tide pools to admire. As I clamber over the rocks I watch an old man with a fishing pole take his grand daughter out into the water. "That guy has spent much more time than I have on the beaches of Beverly and he wouldn't be bringing his grand daughter out if he expected her to step on a skate." I told myself. But logic doesn't work on the panic monster. So I stayed on the rocks until I got to Lynch Park.
There haven't been many beach days for me this year--it's been rainy or I've been busy on weekends. The few beach days I've had have been high-tide days. There's nothing wrong with a high tide day--those are for sitting on the beach and reading a book while baking and then quickly dipping myself when I get too hot. Low tide beach days are for walking over the whale road from one beach to another.
Walking on the whale road means walking over parts of the ocean that are generally not visited by people--that's part of what makes it fun. I see lovely manes of seaweed and strange things that feel off of boats and old lobster traps. Also, usually the water is clear because people haven't been walking in it.
Unfortunately for me, I showed up at the tail end of low tide, so many people had been walking in the water, so it was rather murky. I took my flip flops off because it was annoying trying to walk with them on, but that was before I got to the parts of the ocean that were murky. Still, I got to see a few interesting things for my troubles--I saw an old lobster cage that had seaweed in three different colors growing on it. I saw a seagull with a whole skate in its mouth. A whole skate.
That was the end of my walk being any fun. My brain likes to find things to be afraid of. I have an overactive imagination and I'm twitchy and obsessive. This fear-loving part of my brain does not listen to reason. "There could be skates in the water" it says. "If there was one that the seagull found--there's one that your foot could find. You can't see where you step, and they blend in with the sand." It does no good to remind this part of my brain that in 50+ years members of my family have been beach-bumming and sea-bathing in Beverly no one has ever been attacked by a skate.
It doesn't matter. I am suddenly sure that I'm going to be the outlier--the one who stepped on a skate. I can't see my feet and suddenly I need to get to the rocks where the seagull who was eating the skate was. Not being able to see my feet is problematic, even if I wasn't suddenly afraid of skates, because there are rocks, and seaweed (which is slippery and I'd prefer not to have an emergency seating because I've got my phone with me) and possibly broken beer bottles. I remind myself that I've only seen dead skates in the water by the beach. "When have you seen live skates? Only on the break-water in Gloucester--that is deep water." That memory doesn't help because I remember how the skates looked twitching about and how the fishermen avoided the skates tails. I only picture my foot landing on one and it twitching about to sting me.
I arrive at the rocks and clamber up. I have ruined a perfectly good walk by letting my panic monster have something to panic about. Well no, not ruined--I walked half a mile at least through the water before I freaked out and I still have the rocks to scramble over and the tide pools to admire. As I clamber over the rocks I watch an old man with a fishing pole take his grand daughter out into the water. "That guy has spent much more time than I have on the beaches of Beverly and he wouldn't be bringing his grand daughter out if he expected her to step on a skate." I told myself. But logic doesn't work on the panic monster. So I stayed on the rocks until I got to Lynch Park.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Enjoying the Company of Women
Tonight I was scheduled to have drinks with a friend of mine in Jamaica Plain (JP.) I had been meaning to do this for a while, because I miss going to JP (James' Gate, JP Seafood, Wonder Spice Cafe.) I love JP--sometimes when I lived in Cambridge I'd go to dinner there by myself, but that's kind of a ridiculous undertaking now that I live in Beverly. Furthermore, this friend of mine had been coming up to Beverly a lot and I wanted to return the favor (let me do the traveling instead) and I wanted to meet her girlfriend.
My friend emailed me today and suggested that since the weather was so nice we should just have dinner and a few beers at her place outdoors. Twist my arm, why don'tcha? I hadn't seen the house she bought last year and while I missed James' Gate dinner outside was more appealing. I bought beer at the liquor store by the T stop and showed up laden with bags of beer and a bouquet of flowers. I found my friend and her girlfriend and another woman sitting outside. They had been gardening all afternoon, so they were wearing shorts and bandanas. I was wearing business casual drag, but I didn't feel out of place because they were welcoming and friendly. I said I'd keep the bag from the liquor store because the Internet Order Fairy had visited me today.
I'd bought a dress from JCrew and had stuffed it into my handbag along with half a focaccia and the soap I bought at the farmer's market. "Oh! What did you get?" asked one of the women who had just met me for the first time."Model it!" I pulled out the dress and held it out. "Oh yes--that's nice!" "That line will cover a multitude of sins!" It was a black A line dress with no sleeves-I plan on wearing it to work with one of my ridiculous cardigans. And I bought it because the design of the dress has a flattering line (covers a multitude of sins.)I hadn't even had my first beer yet and already I liked these women.
My friend gave me a tour of her house. "There are two cats." She said. At my feet was the biggest cat I'd ever seen--stretched out to allow as much of her body as was possible to be on the cool floor "Are there really two cats or did this one eat the other cat?" I asked. She snerked. The house was lovely. There were two kitchens (there are multiple people living there) and there are mermaids on her shower curtains.
We ordered pizza from Bella Luna. I'm lactose intolerant, so I can deal with goat cheese but not cow cheese. My friend spent 10 minutes trying to explain how we wanted a pizza with just goat cheese on a quarter of it("It doesn't have to be perfect--we don't have a protractor.") while the rest of us giggled. The pizza arrived as requested 1/4 sans mozzarella. I told my friend that she had used up her pizza karma for this month. All ate pizza and sighed happily.
My friend emailed me today and suggested that since the weather was so nice we should just have dinner and a few beers at her place outdoors. Twist my arm, why don'tcha? I hadn't seen the house she bought last year and while I missed James' Gate dinner outside was more appealing. I bought beer at the liquor store by the T stop and showed up laden with bags of beer and a bouquet of flowers. I found my friend and her girlfriend and another woman sitting outside. They had been gardening all afternoon, so they were wearing shorts and bandanas. I was wearing business casual drag, but I didn't feel out of place because they were welcoming and friendly. I said I'd keep the bag from the liquor store because the Internet Order Fairy had visited me today.
I'd bought a dress from JCrew and had stuffed it into my handbag along with half a focaccia and the soap I bought at the farmer's market. "Oh! What did you get?" asked one of the women who had just met me for the first time."Model it!" I pulled out the dress and held it out. "Oh yes--that's nice!" "That line will cover a multitude of sins!" It was a black A line dress with no sleeves-I plan on wearing it to work with one of my ridiculous cardigans. And I bought it because the design of the dress has a flattering line (covers a multitude of sins.)I hadn't even had my first beer yet and already I liked these women.
My friend gave me a tour of her house. "There are two cats." She said. At my feet was the biggest cat I'd ever seen--stretched out to allow as much of her body as was possible to be on the cool floor "Are there really two cats or did this one eat the other cat?" I asked. She snerked. The house was lovely. There were two kitchens (there are multiple people living there) and there are mermaids on her shower curtains.
We ordered pizza from Bella Luna. I'm lactose intolerant, so I can deal with goat cheese but not cow cheese. My friend spent 10 minutes trying to explain how we wanted a pizza with just goat cheese on a quarter of it("It doesn't have to be perfect--we don't have a protractor.") while the rest of us giggled. The pizza arrived as requested 1/4 sans mozzarella. I told my friend that she had used up her pizza karma for this month. All ate pizza and sighed happily.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Jackie Chan
Today I assisted as my friend E moved her cat Jackie Chan (or Ms. Chan, as we often call her) to her new house. My friend E has two cats and a dog. She and her husband moved most of their possessions the dog and one cat over to their new house last night. Today we were moving the other cat.
Ms. Chan is one of the cats that hide. I joke with my friend E that Ms. Chan is an odalisque, because she's generously proportioned, she likes to hide and she has eyes that would not be out of place on a Turkish slave girl. Also, she reclines on her back like a Playboy model (another friend of mine calls her "Porno Kitty" for this reason.)
Although I've known Ms. Chan for several years and have been a frequent guest at her house the extent of her familiarity with me is that she will sit near me and purr (provided I don't touch her) or, lately, if she's in a good mood, I can hold out a hand and she'll rub her head against it.
Yesterday, her owners moved most of the furniture out of the house where she lives (including the cabinet under which her basket is) and didn't come back until this afternoon. That was bound to mess with her little kitty head a bit. Later today we came back to move her and she sensed that Something Was Going On. She went and hid under the couch. To get Ms Chan into the cat carrier, my friend E told me to leave the room and put a bowl of yogurt out. It took 5 minutes of coaxing before Ms. Chan would come out and I heard a few "Ow!"s before she was unceremoniously dumped into the cat carrier. I thought "this is not likely to improve her outlook or make her a friendlier kitty." And I felt sad for her because she didn't actually get to eat any yogurt.
"She's going to cry all the way to the new house." My friend E told me. "You and Ms.Chan can make angry cat noises through the whole ride!" offered E's husband M. We gathered up all Ms. Chan's stuff--her catnip and her litter box and her bed full of enough cat hair to knit another cat and drove across town. E drove, I held the cat box. Not surprisingly, Ms. Chan complained the whole ride. Because she is a big cat, I could feel her changing positions in the box. We spoke soothing words. I meyowed with her. We got her to her new space, set up the food dish, water dish and litter box and let her out.
It's fun watching cats explore new spaces. Her tail was twitching the whole time. She found a tiny crawl space she could sneak herself into (we got her out and blocked it) and then went to "hide" behind things left on the floor under a desk.
I went in to check on her before I went home for the evening and she not only rubbed her head against my hand but actually let me pet her. Well, maybe even thought I'm not her favorite person, I'm at least familiar.
Ms. Chan is one of the cats that hide. I joke with my friend E that Ms. Chan is an odalisque, because she's generously proportioned, she likes to hide and she has eyes that would not be out of place on a Turkish slave girl. Also, she reclines on her back like a Playboy model (another friend of mine calls her "Porno Kitty" for this reason.)
Although I've known Ms. Chan for several years and have been a frequent guest at her house the extent of her familiarity with me is that she will sit near me and purr (provided I don't touch her) or, lately, if she's in a good mood, I can hold out a hand and she'll rub her head against it.
Yesterday, her owners moved most of the furniture out of the house where she lives (including the cabinet under which her basket is) and didn't come back until this afternoon. That was bound to mess with her little kitty head a bit. Later today we came back to move her and she sensed that Something Was Going On. She went and hid under the couch. To get Ms Chan into the cat carrier, my friend E told me to leave the room and put a bowl of yogurt out. It took 5 minutes of coaxing before Ms. Chan would come out and I heard a few "Ow!"s before she was unceremoniously dumped into the cat carrier. I thought "this is not likely to improve her outlook or make her a friendlier kitty." And I felt sad for her because she didn't actually get to eat any yogurt.
"She's going to cry all the way to the new house." My friend E told me. "You and Ms.Chan can make angry cat noises through the whole ride!" offered E's husband M. We gathered up all Ms. Chan's stuff--her catnip and her litter box and her bed full of enough cat hair to knit another cat and drove across town. E drove, I held the cat box. Not surprisingly, Ms. Chan complained the whole ride. Because she is a big cat, I could feel her changing positions in the box. We spoke soothing words. I meyowed with her. We got her to her new space, set up the food dish, water dish and litter box and let her out.
It's fun watching cats explore new spaces. Her tail was twitching the whole time. She found a tiny crawl space she could sneak herself into (we got her out and blocked it) and then went to "hide" behind things left on the floor under a desk.
I went in to check on her before I went home for the evening and she not only rubbed her head against my hand but actually let me pet her. Well, maybe even thought I'm not her favorite person, I'm at least familiar.
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