Oh, doctor

Dan, teaching Megan how to do heel and toe turns on the snowboard: You’re not trying! You’re being a chicken. You need to really wipe out. Then I’ll know you’re trying.

[Megan makes a few successful turns and then wipes out hard. Cries.]

Medic: Are you OK? Need a lift?

Dan: Nah, she’s fine. [Medic drives away. Turns to Megan.] Do you need a doctor?

[Megan cries.]

Dan: Guess I shouldn’t have told you to wipe out. But good job!

The truth is, I thought I’d be a lot better at this. And I suppose I have the technical stuff down. But breaking your bum really takes a toll on the ‘ol confidence. Forget pride; I lost that taking a dive off the ski lift.

Nonetheless, and you wouldn’t have been able to tell 20 minutes ago, but this is the best vacation I’ve ever taken. And I still can’t forsee going back to skis. But damn, skiing came easier..

According to my calculations, I burned nearly 1,700 calories yesterday. I need to man up and take a few more runs in order to earn the irish car bomb that’s waiting for me in two hours. Oh, doctor.

The Pantsless Skier

You should know…I’ve been having a small laugh about this for days. I’m sure I’m creating loads of bad karma for our upcoming trip to Steamboat, but I can’t help myself. Poor guy.

Pesticides: No Bueno

My new job has been good for me for a lot of reasons, one of them being that I have my hands and eyes on an intense amount of information every day. This information ranges from the political to public health, to advocacy and energy.

One topic I seem to becoming well-versed in lately is pesticides and its serious health effects on expectant mothers (neurological side effects in fetuses), children (links to autism), women (tumor growth and breast cancer), and, well, all of us (Parkinson’s).

But frankly, eating 100% organic isn’t practical for me or most people I know. It’s expensive for one, and I don’t exactly have a Whole Foods at the end of my block.

However, since I know most of us fall into the at-risk group for pesticides (women and/or caretakers of children), I thought I’d pass along a handy rule of thumb for the fruits and veggies you should try to buy organic above all else.

If you’re looking for more information on pesticides, you can visit the Pesticides Action Network, or Beyond Pesticides**, two not-for-profit organizations aimed at reducing harmful pesticide usage. The stuff on lawn care might be particularly helpful if you have rugrats.

Check it out; you might be surprised. I sure was.

**I don’t work directly with either of these organizations.

Is the Apocolypse Starting in Iowa?

My aunt sent me this photo a couple days ago; this morning it was in the New York Times. Insane.

Friends heading back to the Hawkeye State this weekend will face a roughly 300-mile detour to get from the airport to their final destination (which is normally a short 20-minute drive). Other oddities include my neighbor, who was found dead (along with the dog) in the garage. Current suspect: her son, and childhood friend of my brother’s.

Sigh.

But alas, all is not lost. And if you’re in DC, are from Iowa, like Iowans, or just want to do something nice for human beings, you should go to Iowa Disaster Relief 2008, with lots of fun food and drinks—with all proceeds going to Iowa relief efforts. If you’re not in the immediate area, you can still donate to the State Society of Iowa.

[UPDATE]: Coincidentally, right after this post, I received an email with this slideshow showing the flood waters in Iowa City creep up, up and up. The photos are taken on the west side near my old office, apartment and of course, the art buildings/museum. Some of the photos get repetitive, but worth a look.

Morning Roundup: Friday the 13th Edition

“Megan, you have to call in sick to work. You can’t go in like that.”

This is the conversation D and I were having at 7:55 this morning.

This was after I had woken up from a bad dream (getting kidnapped by Mexican slave drivers after being falsely accused of shoplifting a pastry from their cover-up business) which roused me from sleep at 7:40—over an hour later than my normal wake time.

This was also after I sprinted into the shower and crushed the sensitive part of the elbow on a senseless metal bar/washcloth rack that lives on my shower wall.

What’s that you say? An incredibly late start and a sore elbow aren’t reason enough to call in sick to your new job?

Of course not!

The bigger problem is that last night, D jokingly tried to give me a hickey. This morning, much to our horror, the big joke had morphed into a massive, bing cherry-colored catastrophe.

“I’m not calling in sick! I can’t!”
“Then you have to wear a turtleneck.”
“It’s the middle of summer. And a turtleneck would be totally obvious.”
“Oh, man. I’m canceling our plans tonight. We can’t hang out with our friends like this.”
“We? It’s my neck!”
“Then you have to wear your hair down today!”
“I have five minutes to get ready—it’s going up.”

This went on for some time, until I pulled a fitted jacket with a high collar out of my closet and found that it was just high enough to cover the unsightly blemish. I looked at D for approval.

“Oh yeah, that’ll do. You’ll have to wear that tonight, too.”

It’s not my best outfit ever, but so far I don’t think anyone has noticed. I try to keep everyone on the right of me, which makes me feel a lot like Mariah Carey. And no, I’m not wearing this god-forsaken jacket over the weekend. Friends, you all will have to deal with my unsightly monster hickey.

On a totally unrelated note—black cat Ella Bean wishes you all a happy and very lucky Friday the 13th!

Casualties of Laundry

Ugh. One of my favorite sweaters (pictured here and here) made it into the laundry this afternoon, and now looks fit for a two-year old.

The upshot is that my two-year old is someday going to have one of the cutest sweaters in existence.

For the Commute :: Trapped

Peter Twittered about this New Yorker piece last week and I still can’t stop thinking about it. The article chronicles the lives of elevators, weaving the piece around the story of Nicholas White, who was trapped in an elevator for an unbelievable forty-one hours. The eery time-lapse surveillance video shows White struggling to get out, and as Bregar aptly put it, “I feel like I’m watching a man go insane.”

It’s an utterly intriguing piece from all angles. Don’t miss it.

I’m Moving Out.

During my first week in my apartment, Ella drug out a mouse and politely deposited it in the kitchen. I dealt with it.

During my second week in my apartment, a woman committed suicide by jumping off her 10th story balcony into our front walk. Eventually, I got over that.

Yesterday as I was filling up Ella’s water dish, I saw a roach scurry across my counter. I tried smashing it with a liquid soap dispenser, and when that didn’t work, I picked up my cookbook and finally smashed it to smithereens. Then I gagged for about thirty seconds. And then again when I had to pull out two of the roach’s legs from the pages of my cookbook. Can I Lysol paper?

To say the roach is the straw that broke the camel’s back isn’t quite accurate, because I would have gagged and cried over a roach in my apartment had I seen one on the first day. They’re the epitome of filth and all I can think about is that where there’s one, there’s hordes more. Plus there’s that whole thing about them crawling back behind your eardrum. It’s been a fear of mine since I was a kid, and I might literally go mad if that fear were to be realized.

“Roaches are disgusting,” D agreed, “But they’re part of apartment living.”
“Uh, I’ve never had a roach in my apartment. Not ever. Not once.”
“Really? We had them in our apartment all the time in Korea. Costa Rica, too. They were huge.”

June 15 can’t come soon enough.

A Step Below Homeless

Last time I checked, I lived in a big, furnished apartment where some people go to end their lives.

But in the eyes of the District, I live no place.

I’m subleasing my apartment, which, in the eyes of the non-state, apparently means nothing. And, given that my city-owned utilities (electric and water) are included in my sublease agreement and are therefore not billed to me, I lack official evidence that I live here.

Which means no registration. No license plates. No tags. No city parking permits.

So I called the police.

‘Cause, see, the police station is where you go to get a temporary parking pass, which I got last week. Since then, two officers have courted me, half pulling me over before realizing that my temp pass is still valid/having mercy on my poor Colorado-plated car.
So after a trying time at the DMV and then the Social Security Administration, I called the police.

Me: So you guys gave me this parking pass last week, and I’ve been trying to get registered at the DMV and they won’t accept my sublease contract as proof of residence. My DC utilities are included in the contract, so I get no paper bills for those.

The Filth: Hmm. What’d they say?

Me: Well, actually they told me it was illegal to sublease in DC.

TF: What? Hang on.

[Puts me on hold]

TF: Subleasing is not illegal, ma’am.

Me: That’s great to hear. So how come my sublease contract was good enough for you to give me a parking pass and not for them? Because pretty soon you’re going to be pulling me over for expired tags and the whole nine. I’m just supposed to drive unregistered for three months until  my sublease ends?

TF: Hmm. Uh, well… [gruffly] So what is it I can help you with?

Me: [silence]

TF: You could come in and get another visitor’s pass.

Me: Great. Thanks.

But you know, at least he offered something, even if it wasn’t a solution at all. When I asked the lady at the DMV how, if my lease wasn’t acceptable proof, I could possibly prove residency, she just shrugged and said, “Not my problem. Go get Social Security card.”

But even after dealing with the  jerks at the DMV (one of them walked up to me while I was waiting in line, plucked my coffee from my hand and threw it in the trash), sitting at the SSA, and speaking with an officer, the final kick to the ovaries didn’t come until a few minutes ago.

Apparently it’s easier for actual homeless people to show proof of residency. Check it:

I Can’t Stand the Rain

I only wish I had a big ass black garbage bag looking thing à la Missy Elliot circa 1997. Then maybe I wouldn’t have gotten drenched on my six-block walk to Tryst…where I sat down, ordered food and drink and finally heard everyone bitching about how the wi-fi was broken.

I basically feel like the most ineffectual person on the planet this week. I should’ve gone and protested the war today instead.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to write a smart, witty letter to a local ad group and try to get them to hire me. Eesh.