L U N A T A L K with Eva Moon

Tips n’ Tricks, Mr. Obama

This article in the New York Times shared the odd little low-tech fixes people have come up with for high tech problems. Things like extending the range of your remote car key by touching the key to your head while clicking (try it - your head becomes a poor but functional antenna) or eking a few more pages out of a spent toner cartridge by running a hair dryer over it.

With economic doom and gloom on the horizon, I was wondering why we don’t put our Yankee ingenuity to the task of tricking things back into working order. Mr. President, I hope you’re listening. The people are speaking. And they are mad as hell.

First, let me say I am extravagantly and ferociously pissed off about the whole economic situation. Especially with the bailout. Those of us who were so stupid as to live within our means and buy what we could afford are going to bail out those who didn’t. Oh sure, there are some stories of sheer bad luck, but mostly what this is about is greed.

Still, I don’t see a good way out of the bailout. Imagine you’re on a boat. You’ve been keeping your side of the boat trim and proper, swabbing the decks and all, while those bastards on the other side partied it up like it was 1929. And gosh darn it, now there a big nasty hole on their side. Should I let them sink?

So we’ll stuff the holes now and deal with the assholes later.

Which brings me back to “Urawaza,” a Japanese term for clever lifestyle tips and tricks.

I wonder how people came up with these tricks. Some of them are so random - like wrapping a balky credit card in a plastic bag to make it scan. Who discovered that? I think we all ought to start being a lot more random. Who knows what we’ll come up with? Here are some idea starters:

Home Forclosures. Did you know that if you simply place a lender who has approved a $500K home loan to a $20K/year cab driver into a tightly sealed bag of rice for a month, the home will usually end up in the hands of someone who can pay for it?

Bank Failures. Is your bank failing? Try this: wrap the head of the CEO in a plastic bag and run it through a subway turnstile several times. The bank may still fail, but what have you got to lose?

Auto Makers. Improve your mileage with this simple trick! Remove the tires from your bloated monster SUV and just have some auto execs carry it for you. Depending on the size of your vehicle and the age and condition of the execs, it may be possible to get by with four. Your mileage may vary.

Frivolous Lawsuits. So many of our daily costs have gone up because people are afraid of being sued. Teachers can’t control rowdy children, doctors order unnecessary tests. It’s out of control. But here’s a clever idea that just might help if nothing else has worked. Lawyers, bundled into rafts of five or six with heavy jute twine make wonderful, all-purpose safety mats for playgrounds. (Sorry, Sq, I know you’re one of the good lawyers. It’s sad that 90% ruin it for the other 10%)

Struggling Airlines. Air travel has become a particular sore spot with weary travelers tried to the limits by malfunctioning, aging equipment, overbooked flights, humiliating security and services cut to the bone. I remember a simpler, happier time - a time of small-town neighborliness, block parties and cookouts. Wouldn’t an old-fashioned airline CEO barbecue take some of the sting out of air travel? I recommend lighting up a big old bed of coals down yonder at the end of Terminal C. Or in coach.

Ordinary people like you and I can beat this crisis if we just get out there try any damn fool thing that comes into our heads. It’s the American way! How could it be worse than what the experts are doing?

I feel more optimistic already.

Please share your ideas!

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Eso si que es

First a rant. Then a joke.

What’s the deal with women’s socks these days? (she said in her best Seinfeld whine.) I figured I could pick up a pack of regular athletic socks at Costco the other day. There was an entire sock AISLE, so plenty to choose from, right? Wrong. Apparently the Costco sock gods have decided that women have overheated ankles and can’t abide socks that do more than peer timidly above the shoe top. I hate anklets. I don’t object to their existence. I’m sure they’re quite handy (footy?) in places like, oh say, El Azizia, Libya. But here in the Pacific Northwest? In February? I looked up the location of Costco National Headquarters, thinking they must be in some heat-addled desert, but they are located in Issaquah. Washington. I can SEE Issaquah from my window.

No matter, there are other stores.

Then I noticed an ad circular for a sale on socks at Kohl’s. Every single women’s sock in the ad was… an anklet.

This is getting alarming. Has the economy sunk so low that there is not enough yarn left for a whole sock? I think this could be a new indicator. Watch this space for the Sock Index.

And now for the joke:

A Spanish-speaking woman goes into a store in search of socks. The store employee asks if she can help her find something. The customer says, “Yo quiero calcetines.”

The employee knows no Spanish and has no idea what calcetines are, but wanting to be helpful (in this super-polite joke world. Work with me here.) holds up various guesses. Blouse? No. Belt? No. Skirt? No. Finally, by luck she holds up a pair of socks (real, non-anklet ones, for the record).

The woman’s face lights up and she exclaims, “Eso si que es!”

The employee, peeved, grouses, “Well, if you could SPELL it, we could have saved a lot of time!”

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Fred Scores

As we were driving out for our St. Valentine’s Day massacre, we passed a house where the yard was festooned with masses of tiny red lights. There was a big heart with FRED + STEPH in the middle of it. I was tempted to grouse at this further evidence of an irritating trend which can only end in the purchase of separate yard decorations for every day of the year. Christmas is fine. Halloween I’ll concede. Easter seems to be encroaching rapidly. And now we are supposed to put on a competitive show for the neighbors on Valentine’s Day? Pfft. What color lights do I need for the ides of March?

But wait!

Looking at the heart from the street, the names were backwards. The display was aimed at the house, not at us.

Way to go, Fred.

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I will NOT go out on Valentine’s Day

I will NOT go out on Valentine’s Day
I will NOT go out on Valentine’s Day
I will NOT go out on Valentine’s Day

Only 97 to go.

Why did I even want to? I guess it’s part of the idealistic romantic dream, but for some reason restaurants don’t seem to be able to deliver on it. I hesitate to name this particular restaurant because I’ve had perfectly lovely meals there and don’t wish them ill. They are certainly not the only establishment to stumble in executing the quadruple axel that Valentine’s Day dinner seems to be. How is it different from any other busy night? Perhaps someone can enlighten me.

You’d think I’d learn.

But I had the dress. Low cut, very short, clingy, purple. I had the shoes. High, black, shiny. I won’t go into undergarments or their lack. I was buying into the fantasy.

The restaurant is tiny, lavishly and romantically decorated, dimly lit, couples lingering at every table, though there aren’t more than a dozen tables in the main room. Our table, however is in a little side coventry with lighting suitable for major surgery and some kind of force field at the door that erases the minds of servers each time they pass through it. They wander aimlessly with bowls of soup and bread as if unsure of how they were transported to this alien planet.

We had reservations for the second seating at seven. Which should tell you something about the wild Redmond night life. The first seating was at FIVE. Who can eat at five? The dinner was prix fixe, so there was nothing to do other than to select one of four entrees and wait. If waiting were an Olympic sport, the judges would have dinged us many points for fidgeting. Unless fidgeting were also an Olympic sport.

I have no problem with leisurely dining. I don’t want to be rushed through the soup on a romantic night. But there are different qualities of waiting. A leisurely meal should have a pace and flow to it. Not long periods of suspended animation punctuated by sudden discovery by passing waitstaff wondering how on earth people suddenly showed up at a table they could have sworn was empty.

Water is served in white wine glasses. Cold, lemon-infused. Lovely. Sometime later, forks, knives and spoon arrive to grace the heart-shaped paper doilies. Water glasses arrive with apologies for serving water in wine glasses, but the water-polluted wine glasses are left, as if to be shamed by proper water glasses. Rolls and butter waft in, though without plates. Eventually a very tasty but cool cream of asparagus soup appears and we can balance our rolls on the edges of the soup plate. There’s been no chance to order wine and won’t be for hours yet when we lay a snare for an unlucky waiter who wanders too close.

The salad, which the menu card promised would be arugula, had several recognizable leaves of the stuff on top of shredded ICEBERG with brown edges. Iceberg. Let me say it again. Iceberg. I ate the two pear slices and entertained myself with a short game of find the raisins.

Wine was finally procured from a passing caravan.

Mike had the beef tenderloin which he pronounced excellent and cooked just right. I had the stuffed shiitake mushroom which might also have been excellent had it not passed through the path of the bernaise volcano in the kitchen.

Dessert was excellent, deeply chocolaty and served with champagne flutes though the promised contents, a bubbly Blanc de blanc did not arrive until long after our plates were scraped clean of chocolate atoms. Coffee did not seem to be an option.

A mere three hours after being sucked into the Valentine’s dinner vortex, we made our escape into the night, poorer but wiser.

Next year, we dine at home.

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My Life at First Try

I’ve just finished a book I’d like to recommend: My Life at First Try: A Novel by Mark Budman.

I dislike Mark Budman. He writes the kind of light, lean, witty, poignent prose I kept wishing I’d written. If he were to read my blog he’d probably take me to task for overwriting and I’d deserve it. Oh well, maybe I can learn.

My Life at First Try tells the semi-autobiographical story of the life of “Alex” from his childhood in the Soviet Union through middle age as an immigrant to the US. The chapters are short, breezy and funny and the story flies by, but all the heartbreak is simmering just beneath the surface. It’s a splendid combination.

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Trading cactus for coffee

I’m heading home and feeling lucky so far. I needed to be at the Phoenix airport right about the time the nearly victorious Arizona Cardinals were due in from Tampa.

I was in Atlanta the year the nearly victorious Braves went from “worst to first.” The entire city was insane. Even smallish businesses were buying full-sized freeway billboards just to congratulate the home team. My personal favorite, on I-85 was “Chop Chop Tomahawk! Shallowford Vasectomy Clinic.” Their near victory homecoming was a scene of unbridled, hysterical pandemonium. I can’t imagine what would have happened had they, oh say, won.

So I was a bit concerned about what I might find at the airport today. But if there are unbridled, hysterical Cards fans here, I haven’t seen them. It’s quiet here in Terminal 4. Maybe it’s a good omen.

It’s been a whirlwind tour of excitement. I was finally able to cross Downtown Tempe off my bucket list. The Heard Museum in Phoenix is well worth an afternoon and Scottsdale has more high-priced art galleries than Cards fans.

It’s not an unpleasant way to pass a few hours. Especially if you like cowboy art. Being spoiled by the parental units for a few days has been enjoyable and relaxing. They’re just too cute. I won the great parents Superbowl. But I don’t think there will be a huge crowd waiting at Seatac either.

Fans these days. I tell you.

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The Natives are Restless

My parents have lived the gypsy life for some dozen or so years, perpetually roaming North America in their ginormous RV, Roadzilla. There’s not a museum or roadside attraction they have not seen. Then Arizona lured them to put down a tentative root. They now have a “park model” in Mesa, Arizona. A park model is like a RV with no wheels. I guess they call it that because it’s “parked.” They’ve been nudging me to come visit for at least 50 years, so here I am.

Their park model, which is actually airy and comfortable, is plunked down in an RV park, but I use the term “park” figuratively, since any park-like features are sealed safely under a solid sheet of concrete. It’s a daunting sight: 2000 lots in a tight grid crammed with RVs (parked and otherwise), retirees and kitch. It reminds me a little of that scene at the end of the Indiana Jones movie where they hide the Ark of the Covenant in that hugewarehouse. You could lose an RV here forever. Every single lot has a grapefruit tree and the grapefruits are excellent. There is no dearth of activity: Tennis, bocce, cards, gym, computer lab, lapidary shop, wood shop, metal shop, pools, poker, silversmithy, tap dance, square dance, jazz dance, belly dance, painting, stamping, scrapbooking, bunco, live music (Tony Orlando without Dawn next week)… You could stupefy yourself with recreation.

I’ve met all the Jews (six including my folks). Of the rest, about half are Canadian snowbirds and all are busy, chipper and sociable.

Twelve years on the road does something to a person. Driving becomes a recreation in itself. So we’ve been doing a lot of it. When I told a friend I was off to see the sights, he snarkily questioned the existence of sights in Arizona. Big talk from someone in Florida. The last time I was in Florida I had to pretend freeway overpasses were hills to keep from becoming disoriented by the relentless flatness.

Back in Arizona, we spent eight hours on the road doing the full Apache Trail scenic loop. The last hour was a challenge to maintaining consciousness, but overall it was a hellava day. The first stop was Goldfield Ghost Town, a tourist attraction on the site of an old gold mine. If there were any ghosts, they’ve been scared off by the earnest moseying of colorful old west character types and wall-to-wall bluegrass bands. The last stop was a steep and beautiful hike to the fascinating ruins of ancient cliff-dwelling natives.

Saguaro rustling is a major crime in Arizona. The tall iconic saguaro cactus is so popular here, there is a government program to microchip them so they can track down cactus thieves and bring them to justice. A couple factoids for your next trivia night: Saguaro are slow growers. They are usually about 80 years old before they begin to grow their first branches. If you’re thinking of rustling a few for your patio, be sure to mark which way they were facing in the wild. They are directional and will pine away if you plant them facing the wrong way.

The desert is a clever place with no quarter for mistaken strategies. There’s a stark and terrible beauty here that’s impossible to deny. The bones of the earth are bared to the sky and every shred of living matter is exquisitely adapted to its niche in a scrappy, intricate web of survival. I am repelled and fascinated by the suspended arid stillness of the desert. Color is rare and fleeting. There are not enough resources to waste on something so profligate as vividness. But there are a million subtle beauties if you look very close.

It’s only the humans that are profligate in their busy scurrying and brilliant hues.

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Flying to Phoenix

I am not a frequent flyer. Maybe a few times a year. The gaps are just long enough that each flight brings fresh humiliation and deprivation but not quite long enough that the memories of previous humiliations and deprivations have faded.

Think about your life right now. Whatever aches, pains, irritations plague you now, in ten years you will long for these days. In a way it’s a comfort. If my future self thinks things were pretty good ten years ago, who am I to say she’s wrong?

It’s the same way with air travel only it happens a lot faster.

This time I managed to dress metal-free, having experienced the public full body search that follows the criminal negligence of wearing a barrette. But I should know by now that no matter how prepared I am, the airlines are ever vigilant for new ways to challenge their enemies. I mean, customers.

US Air has ceased all complimentary services. All of them. Well, not all. You still get a seat, a seat belt, reasonable quantities of air and nine square inches of space in the overhead bin. But should you want a Coke? Two bucks. That flimsy Styrofoam thimble of brown swill that passes for coffee? Peel off another dollar. They’re charging for water. Water. You thought you missed those tiny bags of peanuts? Just wait. There will be a credit card slot on the lavatory door next time. Mark my words.

Just for the record, I do know that these are relatively minor things compared to the near miraculous feat of whisking people safely from place to place. And even landing them safely on bodies of water in dire emergencies. In 1976 I spent a summer in the Soviet Union. I survived domestic Aeroflot flights where the fight attendants had to use their fists to hammer the sagging bulkheads back into place, where cabin compression occurred in a single, ear-stabbing burst, and passengers loudly and openly prayed on take off and landing.

The flight from Seattle to Phoenix was an uneventful 2 hours 45 minutes. It’s a testament to my overall faith in the safety of air travel that I can afford myself the pleasures of snark.

One thing I’ve discovered about traveling from Seattle: You collect sunglasses.

It NEVER EVER occurs to me that the sun is shining somewhere else until I get there and squint, mole-like at the scary bright sky monster. So, every landing involves a hasty stop at a drug store to buy cheap shades. I have dozens of them. Now I have dozens+1.

Fresh from the compressed darkness of a Seattle winter, Arizona sunshine pulls your body outward in all directions. It feels so vastly open you almost fear you’ll fall off the ground and spin helplessly into the sky. I have managed to keep my footing on the earth. But only just.

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Flying to Dreamland

By the time I get to Phoenix I’ll be irritated at US Air, but more about that later.

I had a vivid dream the night before. I rarely remember more than snippets of my dreams – and what I do remember is typical dreamcrap not worth wasting brain cells on. But every now and a vivid one hits and stays with me in great detail. Permanently. The earliest vivid dream I can recall I must have been not much more than two years old. My grandmother was dying of cancer and spent most of her final days sleeping on a daybed in the front room. In my dream I saw her there in the dim light and was unhappy because my mother was unhappy. But then I heard a voice from the fireplace telling me it was all OK. And then candy came down the chimney. Hey, I was two.

I’m still trying to figure out last night’s dream. Maybe you can help. I don’t subscribe to the belief that certain things in dreams always symbolize specific waking life things. But I do believe there are some common themes and vivid dreams can guide your thinking and inspire new insights.

In this dream, I suddenly and unexpectedly gave birth to a beautiful daughter. She was lovely and pale with dark-lashed blue eyes and I adored her instantly, despite being entirely unprepared for her arrival. Everything about her was fabulous. Even her shit was special.

The scene shifts and I’m sitting on the floor while she sleeps in my arms. In front of me, my 22-year-old son, Alan and a friend of his are sitting by a pillar covered with paper and playing a strange game involving taking turns drawing kanji characters on the paper. It’s some sort of strategy game and they are having a great time challenging each other with clever plays, but I have no idea what the characters mean or what any of the rules are. Also, the characters are not really kanji, but squares with Mondrianesque hashings of geometric lines inside. They are dream kanji.

After ten or so moves, Alan hands me the pen and says, “Here mom, you take a turn.”

I have no idea at all what the game is about, but suddenly I know what the next move is and draw it on the paper in a few quick strokes. Somehow, I know it was not a brilliant move in the game but it was a legal move and will serve. Alan is impressed.

Then the alarm goes off and it’s time to fly to Pheonix. I swim to wakefulness, push the covers aside and swing my reluctant feet to the floor.

Anyone care to put on their Dream Interpreter boots and have a go? Please don’t be literal. I absolutely do NOT crave another actual child.