L U N A T A L K with Eva Moon

Squeeze Play

I have a great deal of sympathy for travelers of size. Dave Quick, the guitar player in my band, is 6′4″ and I don’t know how he manages to fold his legs into the puny soup can that constitutes a coach seat. So I understand WHY people feel compelled to tilt their seats back: for some it’s the only way to pry their knees out of their larynxes. But it doesn’t make it any harder to bear for the tiltee. I do have one heartfelt plea, however:

Don’t do it. But if you have to tilt your seat back, warn the person behind you!

One of Dave’s friends actually lost a laptop to a sudden tilt back that trapped the lid between the tray table and the latch and cracked the screen. Please, friends, it only takes a second.

I don’t expect this plea to work. No one wants to gaze into their victim’s despairing eyes. It’s easier to just pretend the seat behind you is occupied by a sleeping munchkin. Suck it up. Don’t assuage your conscience pretending this is a victimless crime.

The man in front of me on a four and a half hour flight from Detroit to Seattle last night was not tall or even particularly fat. But he was massive. He rumbled down the aisle like a Subzero refrigerator in denim. When he sat, the seat creaked and expanded. The seat back shuddered and bent. I wondered if anyone had ever been decapitated by an exploding tray table.

But worse was yet to come. As soon we were airborne, he cranked it back. I was expecting that. Not happy, but resigned. What I wasn’t expecting was the casual toss of his hands over the top of the seat back. I suppose that’s how he lounges in his Barcalounger at home. But on a plane? Four and a half hours of shrinking confinement with meaty paws dangling in your face can mess with your mind. At one point I was seized with a sudden perverse urge to lick his fingers. I should have done it. It probably would have cured him of hand-dangling forever.

For the record, I never lean my seat back.

See more like that one:

• South and East
• Patchwork
• Snarkfree Sailing
• South and West
• Trading cactus for coffee

No Sailor Moon

I was hoping to share breezy/sunny pics of me hoisting the mizzenmast or getting keel hauled or whatever it that people do on sailboats, but it was not to be. I showed up at the appointed time and dock, but it turned out they were racing that night. I wouldn’t trust myself as ballast in such circumstances and sadly trudged away from a new career as a seafaring wench.

But it is the sort of trip where one follows one’s feet and doesn’t get too attached to any particular outcome. Had I been on the briny I would have missed a stumbled-upon outdoor jazz festival. When one hatch closes, a porthole opens. In this case the porthole offered a rented chair, a glass of chardonnay and some sweet tunes.

Thus ended the leisure portion of my trip.

A while back I wrote about a restaurant concept we came up with called “Pitchers” where all the food comes served in pitchers (Pitcher o’ Bacon, etc.). Ok, we were drunk, but admit it - the idea is brilliant. Subsequent drink - I mean business development sessions led us to the conclusion that Americans might find it intolerable to have to wait for the pitchers to arrive so we dumped that idea for the even more brilliant “Hoses” restaurant concept. I had a preview Thursday and Friday at an event innocuously called a “user conference” where the hoses descend to sluice great heaving mounds of information directly into the pried-off top of ones head. The jury is still out on how much of it will actually be digested and how much will simply pass through, but I feel sufficiently stuffed to justify the trip.

Sailing home now, but the ship is becalmed with a three and a half hour delay in Straights of Detroit. I don’t recall signing up for the Detroit tour of duty. If the Northwest winds don’t fill our sails soon, I may volunteer to walk the plank.

See more like that one:

• South and East
• Patchwork
• Snarkfree Sailing
• South and West
• Trading cactus for coffee

Feets Don’t Fail Me Now

Friends keep asking me if I packed underwear on this trip. Even if I hadn’t, Madison is a city that provides for its visitors (see right). But of course, no Eva trip would be complete without some level of miscalculation and this trip is no exception. This may have something to do with my packing technique. I have a thing about traveling light. It’s all got to fit in the carry-on. Not that it did me any good this time around. The proper packing mindset involves several elements of self-delusion.

Myth #1: I’m good at it. I have the idea that I’ve got this down. I’m not sure where I got the idea, but it saves hours of planning and prep time. Just fling things in the general direction of a suitcase as the airport shuttle pulls up, zip and go.

Myth #2: I’m psychic. It’s not like it would be difficult to check a weather report. But it would be cheating. I need only close my eyes and connect with my inner doppler radar. NOAA with a gazillion dollars of geosynchronous flying hardware can’t predict the weather outside my window today, but I can sense conditions two weeks out and thousands of miles away. Except when I can’t.

Myth #3: It’s not like I’m in the wilderness. So what if I didn’t bring something. I can make do without it or find a store. This one is actually fairly accurate. Except when it’s not. One of the entertainments of a light traveler is smugly watching the struggles of heavy packers at the airport hauling carts piled high with refrigerator-sized suitcases. What do they have in there? Are they heading to the Klondyke with a year’s supply of bacon and hardtack? Heavy travelers take note: Your smugly entertained moment is at hand:

This trip’s miscalculation: Footwear. I brought sandals for walking. No socks, no sneakers, no stockings, no bandaids, no morphine. I love to walk and believe there’s no better way to get the feel of a new town than on foot. So you’d think I’d know better. I’m sure some part of me does, but she wasn’t around for the packing. I’ve put a solid twenty miles on these sandals the past two days and my poor dogs are panting. I tried slapping on some blister bandaids early on, but you might as well duct tape the space shuttle. The only thing left to do at this point is apply Madison’s best anagesic. That and a foot dangle in the lake and I’m good to go. To the #3 bus.

See more like that one:

• South and East
• Patchwork
• Snarkfree Sailing
• South and West
• Trading cactus for coffee

File Not Found

I have bad sectors in my brain. It’s something I’ve known for a long time. Though I can foresee a day when even that knowledge will slip into a bad sector. At that point, I’ll just sit on a porch swing and eat Doritos until I die. But for the moment, I’m at that uncomfortable stage of knowingly watching my brain slip into a black hole.

I’m convinced that everything we know, see, hear or feel is held in our brains somewhere, each memory tucked cozily into its niche. But the door keys are slipping off the ring, one by one. Or by the hundreds. I really have no way of knowing for sure.

I first became aware of this phenomenon years ago, when I realized I could never retrieve the word “sublimate” on demand. Not that I needed it often, but each and every time I needed it, I’d rattle the doorknob in vain. It was only when I’d given up and moved on that it would waft out through the keyhole and chuckle smugly from the sidelines.

I developed a theory that the connection to that particular memory was broken in some way; the path to it severed by some random lesion. It was fascinating. I felt like a scientist unraveling the secrets of the brain. And it was a word that I was willing to sacrifice in the name of research.

Continuing my experiments, I managed dig under the floor of its little cell and break in, even though the door was permanently bricked up. Now I can grab it by the scruff of its gaseous little neck and drag it out, blinking in the sun, at will. Sublimate sublimate sublimate. Hahaha!

But time moves on and I’ve started to notice that more and more memories are trapped in inaccessible cells. Suddenly it’s not an interesting fluke but Frankenstein’s monster run amok. The latest evidence is pictured below: A lovely little coffee house in Madison (where I am now seated) with a name that will NOT stay in my head.

Mother Fool’s Coffee. I have a picture now. I have fixed the name in pixels. Perhaps it will be enough. But yesterday, time after time I’d look for it and find the flat, blank face of a locked door. I didn’t really need to find it, but once I noticed it was MIA, it bugged me and I couldn’t let it go. I finally had to just come back. Will these measures be enough to burn a new pathway? Stay tuned.

-=-=-

Yesterday was another lovely day in Madison. I walked about ten miles through Capitol Square and along the shore of Lake Monona. I found the local gay pickup alley and the state mosquito preserve. I retract my previous statement that Wisconsin is unrelievedly white. The pedestrians around the capitol, at least, were reassuringly diverse. It’s not what I’d call a melting pot, but hey.

I had a traditional Wisconsin lunch at a traditional Wisconsin supper club, The Old Fashioned on the square near the state capitol. I was assured that the grilled summer sausage, red onion and muenster cheese sandwich (No. 38) was about as Wisconian as you can get and several other people have confirmed it after the fact, nodding contemplatively in agreement. No doubt reliving past sandwiches. I did not order the batter-fried cheese curds or the beer cheese soup. My lunch companion had the soup. It comes garnished with popcorn crumbs. Also apparently traditional. It may be ambrosia, but it looks like someone forgot the tortilla chips for the nachos and scrounged in the sofa cushions for a bit of flotsam. “They’ll never notice…”

I’ll end this on the happy note that it pays to sit in coffee houses. I now have an invitation to go sailing tomorrow evening on Lake… um…

See more like that one:

• South and East
• Patchwork
• Snarkfree Sailing
• South and West
• Trading cactus for coffee

Pt. 4: Free Beer

I don’t mean free as in, you don’t have to pay for it, but free in the sense of roaming wild and unfettered. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

Madison, Wisconsin was totally hitting on me today. The weather was transplendant; clear, sunny, low-70s, light breeze, low humidity, no bugs. A music festival beneath the leafy canopy of Orton Park directly across the street from where I’m staying rang with really excellent jazz all day, capped off with an amazing set by a band with arguably the best name ever: Garaj Mahal. (Do check them out.)

The houses of Madison are quaint, old and colorful (There are two purple houses across the park). The residents may or may not be quaint or old, but they are certainly the whitest bunch I’ve seen in a long, long time. And I live in Redmond, Washington which is pretty relentlessly white. Politically, Madisonians run the gamut from Obama supporters representing the far right and moving left from there. And all those babies that aren’t getting born in Seattle? Madison is picking up the slack. Sticky blond toddlers swarmed the park in scampering hordes. Every third belly was festooned with bump or a Snugli. I was hesitant to drink the water.

As you may have guessed, if you’ve been following this thread, I finally did escape from Detroit. I was a bit confused about the length of the flight. Looking at the schedule it appeared to be an 18 minute flight. Eighteen minutes? I could have walked! (Looking at a map, it became clear that Madison is WEST of Detroit across a time zone and walking would entitle me to start a religion, since Lake Michigan is on the route.)

About the free beer. In Seattle, if you want to have a beer at a public festival you must do so penned up in a corral euphemistically called a “beer garden.” It’s hard to imagine any place less like a garden. It is drinker’s purgatory. To get into a beer garden you must present a photo ID or no beer for you. Queen Elizabeth II recently tried to snag a brewski at the hemp fest, but they weren’t buying the “left my driver’s license in my other palace” line. Make no mistake: This has nothing to do with preventing underage drinking. It is a shakedown. The City can come in any time and check for IDs. If they anyone in the beer garden without, whatever their age, they fine the vendor. Easy revenue. We’ve gotten so used to the indignity of having to sit in time out with our beers that we’ve started to think it’s normal.

But in Madison, beer roams free. You step up to the booth, slap your three bucks down and ask for a beer. If you look like you might be a grown up, they hand over the beer! I felt oddly naughty, walking around with my beer open. In front of the kids!

Tomorrow, Madison might show a different face. But for today, I am a stressball that was compressed into a small ugly wad suddenly released to slowly unfold to its original shape. If the city is hitting on me, I am totally falling for its lines.

See more like that one:

• South and East
• Patchwork
• Snarkfree Sailing
• South and West
• Trading cactus for coffee

Pt. 3: Breathless in Detroit

I am allergic to Detroit. I’ve never been here before. I have no particular preconceptions about the place. But for some reason, I can’t stop sneezing and snifflng. Which is unfortunate, considering how long it’s going to be before I leave. It’s odd that I should be allergic to Detroit. I was tested for allergies a few years ago and I am so non-allergic I didn’t even react to the histamine control - the one thing everyone is allergic to. Maybe it’s psychological. And no wonder.

The plane staggered in three hours late, so of course everyone missed a connecting flight. My suitcase is already partying in Madison. I expect a breezy “wish you were here” postcard from it any moment now. It will slip in under the door of the Detroit hotel where I am languishing without so much as a toothbrush. The one time in the last dozen years I check a bag and this is the time.

When my kids were little they had a PlaySkool airplane with little peg-assed people. (I recall being seriously torqued that the girl pegs had hard plastic dresses on that made it impossible for them to fit in the cockpit.) By the time we were making our approach into Detroit, my ass felt like it was pegged into something of about that size and comfort. But relief was near. Or so I thought. (Cue ominous music.)

As we were landing, the flight attendant announced that everyone was to go to gate 41 to rebook for another flight. We landed at gate 75. I found out later that the distance is nearly 3/4 of a mile. This is a significant point.

When I got to the head of the refugee line at gate 41, I discovered I had already been rebooked on a 7:09 pm flight to Madison. It was 6:59. The flight was leaving from… gate 71. (Cue Olympics theme music)

I raced the 26.2 miles back to gate 71, hurdling luggage carts and small children. I’m not sure, but I think I passed Usain Bolt. And he didn’t have a flapping purse, laptop, jacket and entirely inappropriate sandals. I staggered and wheezed across the finish line, but no podium for me. The medal winners were on the plane. The door was locked and there was no one even to beg. Next flight? 12:15 pm. The next day.

But hey, a hot shower and couple glasses of merlot later the aches begin to fade. Tomorrow’s a new day. What could possibly go wrong?

See more like that one:

• South and East
• Patchwork
• Snarkfree Sailing
• South and West
• Trading cactus for coffee

Pt. 2: Tale of Woe and Tarmac

They say the rear-most seats are safest in a crash. This turned out to be of more than academic interest. But I get ahead of myself. My seat on the plane was so far back that I could enjoy a refreshing “blue mist” shower whenever someone flushed in the lavatory.

The woman in the window seat on my left was doing medium level sudokus. In pen. I was alarmed at first, but other than that she seemed completely sane and even friendly. On my right was young man doing crossword puzzles. In pen. Did I miss the notice about no pencils on airplanes? In trained hands, I’m sure a Ticonderoga #2 could be a deadly weapon.

We taxied to the runway. Familiar thrum of energy as the engines engage and the plane rumbles up to speed. Then we stopped. Some time later, a second attempt. Another stop. And we sit, waiting. Eventually, an announcement from the captain: One of the two engine generators is “having a problem” and we need to taxi back to the terminal so maintenance can look at it. Everyone groans. I wave goodbye to my connection in Detroit.

Three hours later, I’ve learned a number of things.

• Airplane seats shrink. It’s magic!
• Starbucks turkey rollups, despite a price that would suggest the meat has been lovingly carved with gilded knives from the breast of Howard Schultz himself, make one nostalgic for grade school paste.
• If you curl your thumb and forefinger into a little circle, you can make a camera obscura to project an image of the overhead light on your tray table. Try it!
• Penn Jillette is not quite the novelist he thinks he is (more on this later)

The captain comes back on the PA: Repeated attempts to fix the generator have failed. So they’ve decided they didn’t really need two generators after all and the hell with it. Let’s go to Detroit! Oh, and by the way, there are major thunderstorms in the area so we’re going to take a meandering lazy river route across the country “just to be safe.”

Another thirty minutes and we’re miraculously airborne and wondering which engine we should be watching for smoke.

The flight attendant cheerily announces that when we get to Detroit (or Indianapolis or Chicago or wherever the deadly storms are thinnest), everyone gets a meal voucher (not true). This makes me feel so much better. They should be comping us beers on the plane at the very least but we don’t get so much as a peanut.

Suddenly I have a craving for more paste.

See more like that one:

• South and East
• Patchwork
• Snarkfree Sailing
• South and West
• Trading cactus for coffee

Pt. 1: Why the Shuttle Comes So Frickin’ Early

I breeze through airports. I print my boarding pass at home. I never check a bag. I have my baggie of fluids right at the top for easy access and I wear slip-on shoes. I’m a lean, mean boarding machine.

So it always irks me that when I call the airport shuttle and tell them I have an 8:30 am flight, they say, “We’ll be there at 5:30.” Five thirty? What takes three hours?

I found out today.

The Frickin’ Early Airport Shuttle (FEAS) arrived right on time and Randy, the driver, said we just had one more pick up and then off to the airport. Feeling unusually chipper for 5:30 am I asked the woman behind me where she was heading.

“The airport,” she replied. What are the chances?

On the way to the next stop, the FEAS got an “add on” – a last minute call for a pickup. No problem. It’s not like I was in a rush. The dispatcher asked Randy what time he thought he could be in North Mercer Island. “6:05,” he said. At this point, watching the clock became an exciting game. We picked up our third in Bellevue and arrived at the add on address right on the dot. I was impressed. Anyone who reads this blog knows that space and time become fluid and formless to me inside a vehicle. The thought that anyone could know with that degree of accuracy… Wow.

Even with the add on, the FEAS arrived at the airport with a solid two hours to spare.

It wasn’t until I was stepping out of the van, I realized that the wine bottle I’d packed as a gift contained… get this: liquid. And was unlikely to fit in my baggie.

Damn. I briefly considered giving it to Randy as an award for the arrival time game but decided to check the suitcase instead. That’s when FEAS reasoning started to become clear. The line at Northwest Air was twelve miles long and under the iron-fisted control of a fierce Chinese woman small enough to fit in my carry on. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out.

Once the bag was checked, security was next. The line was long but swift and my confidence was buoyed (falsely) as I stepped blithely through the metal detector. It bleeped. Damn. I had thoughtlessly chosen a top with a sewn-on decorative buckle. I had a choice: Shirt in a bin or wanding. I chose wanding. They offered me a private screening but I declined. Let them maul my tits in public. I have nothing to be ashamed of. Let everyone see the terrorist who had the nerve to try to sneak a buckle onto an airplane. Even so, the wanding was distressingly thorough and more dangerous devices were uncovered. An underwire bra! The grope that followed was no doubt intended detonate it on the ground. A barrette! Sharp edges? Eventually, I was deemed safe for air transport.

Thanks to the FEAS, I still had time to walk nine miles of corridor, fidget behind standers on four escalators, hop the train to the S terminal, and stop at Starbucks for a hilariously expensive breakfast to eat on the plane. I even had time to spill juice from a fruit cup on my skirt before they called general boarding.

Is this how the masses negotiate airports?

See more like that one:

• South and East
• Patchwork
• Snarkfree Sailing
• South and West
• Trading cactus for coffee

Trail Mixed

Once a year I hike to the top of Mt. Si. Mt. Si towers over the Washington town of North Bend (location of the cult TV series Twin Peaks) and since it’s only 45 minutes from Seattle it’s one of the most popular hikes in the country. The trail rises 3,200 feet over 4 miles. For me, it’s my annual excuse to eat trail mix, or GORP as we used to call it. GORP is an acronym for “Granola, Oats, Raisins and Peanuts” which is pretty stupid, since the oats are in the granola, but I guess it needed a vowel. Of course, nowadays there are so many different combinations of goodies, mere GORP seems quaint and puny. Looking at trail mix rack, I wondered, how does one choose? And that got me to thinking: What if you could have custom trail mixes suited, not just to a particular hike, but to different stages of each hike? Much like a sommalier might recommend a different wine for each course of a gourmet meal, your snackier could whip up just the right combination to suit your trek.

Therefore, I present to you our day hike with appropriate trail mix suggestions.

MILE ONE: We arrive at the trailhead, fresh and ready to tackle the mountain. We sling on day packs, check water supplies, tighten bootlaces and we’re off.

TRAIL MIX RECOMMENDATION: GORP - Granola, Oats, Raisins, Peanuts. Good old GORP is the perfect accompaniment to the first mile of the hike. Say it out loud: GORP. It’s a happy, friendly sound, reminiscent of the sound your boots make tramping across the gravel pathway at the start of the trail. GORP GORP GORP GORP.

MILE TWO: Still going strong, but it’s getting hot and there’s no breeze. We’re all sweating profusely, but gamely forging on to the interpretive signs that will mark our first stop.

TRAIL MIX RECOMMENDATION: CRAP - Chocolate chips, Raisins, Almonds, Peanuts. Mere GORP simply won’t do the job any more. What’s the deal with all that cereal anyway? It’s time for something more substantial: two kinds of nuts and chocolate will shore up flagging energy and make a fine complement to the increased exertion.

MILE THREE: I don’t know how it happened - it’s only been a year since we were last here - but they’ve raised the mountain! Mile three goes on for at least four or five miles and what used to be a manageable 15-20% grade has become nearly vertical. Judging by the rivers of sweat soaking our clothes, they’ve also apparently moved the entire mountain to Equatorial Guinea.

TRAIL MIX RECOMMENDATION: HELPMEGOD - Hazelnuts, Edamame, Loganberries, Pretzels, M&Ms, Exedrin, Granola, Oats, Dates. Time to kick it up a notch, don’t you think?

MILE FOUR: Starting to come out of the cover of trees. The sun is a relentless orb of burning torture. The summit recedes into the shimmering distance. I always thought it would be cold in the stratosphere, but it’s not. Oh God, it’s not. Legs begin to liquefy. Will it never end?

TRAIL MIX RECOMMENDATION: KILLMENOW - Kalhua, Ibuprofin, Loganberries, LSD, M&Ms, Ecstasy, Nuts, OxyContin, Wild Turkey. Ice. Somehow I must find ice.

SUMMIT: Four miles of switchbacks bring us to the summit of Mt. Si. The last batch of trail mix is just kicking in. There’s a lovely breeze up here and the view is spectacular. Mt. Rainier is majestic as hell and downtown Seattle looks tiny and remote. The top of the Space Needle looks like a floating tic tac. What was I so upset about? It’s beautiful! We ramble about the summit a bit and rest for awhile. After some time, we rouse from our stupor and start to think how nice it will be to get home and have a shower. Then the realization hits: Four miles up = four miles down.

TRAIL MIX RECOMMENDATION: AAARRRGGH!!! - Almonds, Absinthe, Amphetamines, Raisins, Red Hots, Red Bull, Granola, Ganja, Halcyon. That’s better.

UPDATE: It wasn’t just my heat weeny-ness. The temp was a record-breaking 90º (two degrees hotter than the previous record). I can hear all you Florida types snorting, but I challenge you to find so much as a hill to climb. When I visit Florida, I pretend freeway overpasses are hills. Just for laughs.

See more like that one:

• It's not the heat...
• Chopping List
• The Magi had it easy...
• Day 15: Which Way to the Egress?
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Computer Term or Bad Sex?

I will leave it up to you to fill in the descriptions or suggest additions.

• The Instant Messenger
• Bloggy Style
• Help Desk Session
• The Anonymous Upload
• The BSOD Lifestyle
• Kernel Panic
• Control Panel Login
• Pinging the Server
• The Router
• Wii Fit
• The Back Button
• Googlebombing
• The Cold Fusion
• Sticky Content
• The Cross Post
• Packetswitching
• The Device Driver
• The Dongle

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• The Laying on of Cats
• Fresh Meat
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• How can you ever really know?
• Secret NSFW Spot