Blast from the Recent Past

Mike and I got spruced up last night and headed to the Japanese Embassy to celebrate Japanese Self-Defense Force Day. We felt very honored to be on the guest list and excited at the prospect of spending a couple of hours in the company of Japanese people. The embassy is on Nebraska Avenue in Tenleytown, a neighborhood in NW D.C. near American University. The nearest subway station is about four blocks from the embassy, allowing us to feel virtuous about getting a little exercise.

The ambassador gave a double-take as we were going through the receiving line when he heard his wife mention my Peko-chan pin, the one Kathleen Jr. found in Seto. The pin, the Anpanman charm dangling from my camera, and my kimono fabric purse were excellent conversation starters unless, of course, I found myself standing next to an Estonian Army officer. Who knew Estonia had an army? Brasil (which I assume is what I heretofore spelled Brazil but will henceforth spell Brasil -- when in Roma, etc.) sent a surprisingly large contingent.

I have frittered away about four hours today, trying to get my Michigan trip thoughts in order. Now that I've taken care of the embassy, I'll get back on task.

The Best Used Book Store Ever

I am blessed with a wonderful extended family. Being able to spend five days in Jackson was a real treat despite the fact that two-year old Teddy, who was born the month after we moved to Japan, ran away whenever I got within 10 feet of him. I took about a hundred pictures and they seem to be fairly evenly divided between relatives and grave stones this trip.

Amy and Matt went to the used book store with me and graciously lugged three heavy bags of mysteries I bought to send to Kyoko. When I was a kid the book store was a gas station frequented by my parents which is why there's a picture of me pumping gas in the ad section of my high school yearbook. I'm pretty sure it's the only ad I sold.

The Assistant Postmaster's Great-Granddaughter

That economic slump I keep reading about in The Washington Post has not yet reached the D.C. suburbs judging from the mall crowds we ran into last weekend when we were stocking up on winter school uniforms for Matt (a full two weeks before he has to start wearing them, no less). Kate momentarily escaped the teeming masses of humanity by crawling into a store window to pose with this pair of political hopefuls.

Do you suppose all those shoppers work for the government or, like me, are supported by someone who does?

I'll ponder this tonight when I'm on the plane bound for Michigan. This morning I'm heading to the National Postal Museum to make my debut as soon as I finish speed-reading A Lucky Dog: Owney, U.S. Rail Mail Mascot. If those first graders hurl tomatoes at me, you'll be the last to know.

Guidelines for Choosing a Rug Cleaner

Josh and Andrew delivered my freshly-cleaned rugs yesterday. This is good news for you because it diverted me, at least momentarily, from researching hospital CEO salaries and trying to get a handle on the wide variance in what people are charged for MRIs and other medical procedures in this country. Is that a collective sigh of relief I hear?

Josh and Andrew work for Ayoub Carpet Service, the company that cleaned eight of our rugs. Josh is handsome, Andrew is cute, and they are both wonderfully personable which is good because otherwise I might be annoyed they forgot to bring the new rug pads I ordered. We're going to have to wait one more week before we unroll the rugs on the first floor and reposition the furniture, but the end is in sight.

"Get rugs cleaned" has been on my To Do List since Katie was a freshman in high school. Between eBay, the charmingly-christened The Dump in Virginia Beach, and fundraising bazaars in Japan, the original two rugs slowly but surely multipled into 10 rugs. The plan has always been to have the rugs professionally cleaned whenever we move but the movers have always been at least one step ahead of me, unrolling the rugs and positioning heavy furniture on top of them while I'm averting a crisis in another part of the house (trying to find toilet paper, probably). This time I stuck with the plan and that's a big reason why it's taking us so much longer than usual to get settled.

For a rookie like me, choosing a rug cleaner was a lot like playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey (without other people mocking your missteps). A company based in the District was my first preference but the ones advertising themselves as D.C. companies in the Yellow Pages are really located in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs, and distant suburbs at that but that's beside the point because all the companies offer free pick up and delivery. I finally settled on Ayoub Carpet Service for some very sound reasons: (a) My parents had good friends named Sam and Thelma Abdou, and Ayoub sort of sounds like Abdou, and maybe their grandparents were friends back in the Old Country, (b) the company is located in Chantilly, Virginia which is one of the most upbeat, bouncy, and danceable city names I've heard in a while (certainly better than Gaithersburg, Maryland which I cannot pronounce while smiling), (c) the company was founded the year I was born, and (d) Linda, the Mi-Mi clone who took my call, acted like she was laughing with rather than at me when I couldn't rattle off the approximate dimensions or provenance of any of the rugs.

The Elephant/Donkey in the Room

When did we start substituting the expression "health care coverage" for "health care"? When the health insurance industry was cobbled together in the mid-1960s, I was preoccupied with the Funky Chicken and getting out of the house in a mini-skirt without my parents noticing. I can remember when the only person on a doctor's payroll was a nurse who doubled as a receptionist. Then, around the time the Beatles split up (Ono, Yoko), doctors were expanding their office spaces to accommodate non-medical personnel trained to decipher the fine print on insurance policies.

I was lucky to land a job with great health insurance, although I only made two claims (Katie and James) in 15 years. I paid out of my own pocket for routine annual check-ups because I didn't see doctors often enough to meet the annual deductible.

James was born with a tiny hole in his heart. This "pre-existing condition" was a problem when I decided to change jobs. The insurance company was required to offer continuing coverage for a certain period of time, say six months or a year, and offered to insure Katie and me for $50/month. Insurance for James would cost me $850/month. This was the same company that had received roughly $9,000 in premiums from my employer while shelling out about $700 for my health care over a decade and a half.

I get peeved when people use "health care" and "health care coverage" interchangeably. If we want affordable health care, maybe we need to start talking about eliminating the middleman.

Just Call Me Precious

We seem to have acquired a Jack-of-all-trades. His name is Larry, he rides a bike, and he likes to weed, mulch, sweep, rake, change tires, and wash cars. We rarely see him during the week or much earlier than 4:00 pm, leading me to believe we are providing his party funds. I'd estimate him to be in his mid-30s.

Larry is a self-starter: he sees a need, fills it, then knocks on the door to see if we might want to pay him "whatever" for his time and effort (and, sometimes, supplies). Whenever this gets a wee bit annoying -- like last Friday night, for instance, when he knocked on the door at 10:00 pm to present us with a scarecrow he had created to add a seasonal touch to our porch -- I pretend I'm a character in an Alexander McCall Smith book, specifically Mma Ramotswe, the Botswanan lady detective who believes one ought to share one's good fortune by providing employment to others.

Matt hasn't read any of the #1 Ladies' Detective Agency books. He hasn't ready anything by Stephen King either, thankfully, or he'd probably be even more creeped out by the late night rapping on the door or the mysterious flat tire that needed changing. (Frankly, Mike and I were a little skeptical about the tire ourselves until the tire store guy informed us the tire had been slowly leaking air for months and no foul play was involved.)

Subculture: The Gestalt of the New Millenium

Matt's meet Saturday was at Bull Run Park, just north of Manassas. Civil War buffs will recall that the Confederate Army favored geographical references when naming battles (Bull Run) while those Yanks named them after the closest population center (Manassas). As for the rest of you? Well, now you know and you can thank me if you're ever a contestant on Jeopardy and this comes up.

This was the first meet Kate's been able to squeeze into her frenetic schedule. Her timing was excellent; we bought a couple of those collapsible chairs on our way home from the last meet and Mike ("The Gent") let her use his. The XC (cross country) "subculture" (Kate's word) is a new experience for us after years of following basketball, soccer, volleyball, and football. The most similar spectating experience that springs to my mind is golf: there's some walking involved, quite a bit of down time, lots of fresh air, and absolutely no reason to engage in conversation with other spectators. Everyone but us seems familiar with all the courses so we just trail along after them to the next vantage point. Baaaa!

Matt was disappointed in his time - a minute slower than last week - but we thought he did terrific considering the heat (Indian Summer, I presume). And he must have been having fun because Mike caught him smiling about two-thirds of the way to the finish line.

My Primitive Phase Catches Up With Me

The UHaul loading dock Friday afternoon was more fun than my last class reunion. We grinned when we watched Mom's cedar chest and our old Liverpool school desk come off the truck; we groaned when we glimpsed that dark oak chest that tries to pass itself off as a desk; we reminded ourselves that we're saving all those books because eventually, someday, maybe, hopefully, we'll get around to transforming the walls of our dining room into a library, like the one we spotted in a magazine sometime in the last Millenium.

I spent four hours on that hot loading dock because Bill tasked me with watching the truck while he, Frankie, and Mike buzzed back and forth between the freight elevator and our storage lockers. Stupidly, I didn't grab my book when I left the house so finding something semi-productive to do was a huge challenge. After strolling around the UHaul lot and carefully reading the travel tips on the sides of 50 trucks and trailers (I can hardly wait to head for Alberta to check out the remote lake where our government attempted to construct an aircraft carrier from wood pulp and water in 1943), I tidied the glove compartment, memorized the map of Virginia, munched on some stale breath mints, and scraped a few millimeters of old parking decals off the rear window. I am never, ever, ever going to leave the house without a book again.

The most interesting thing I found in the glove compartment was an ad for the "Largest Antique Showroom in the Shenandoah Valley." Gosh, just what we need: more old furniture!

Move Over, Helena Bonham Carter!

Sandy is playing Mrs. Lovett, the Angela Lansbury-Patti LuPone-Helena Bonham Carter role, in Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and I am going to catch one of her performances the last weekend of this month. I've been postponing going home until Matt and Mike could go too, but I just can't pass up this opportunity to see and hear the family diva on stage. So I am finally going to meet Teddy and Baby PJ, and catch up on the rest of my Michigan family and friends. And I am hoping to meet Sandy's friend Ann Holt, she of the Book Keeping blog, who happens to be co-directing the play.

I've been having such a miserable day here that, had I not purloined Sandy's picture from Facebook, I planned to borrow a title from Judith Viorst. When I looked Judith Viorst up on Wikipedia to make sure I got the words straight to Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, I found out Judith has coined a number of titles that more or less sum up my day. This embarrassment of riches wiped that frown right off my face for at least 15 seconds:

• Alexander, Who Used to be Rich Last Sunday (ain't that the truth)
  
• Alexander, Who is Not (Do You Hear Me? I Mean It!) Going to Move
  
• I'll Fix Anthony (I can think of at least three names, including Helena Bonham Carter, to insert for Anthony)
  
• If I Were In Charge of the World

That truckload of stuff we stored in Norfolk while we were in Japan? It's going to be delivered tomorrow. If Mike is having a better day than I am, it's going to be delivered straight to a second storage locker without passing our house. Fifty boxes of books, three beds, two sideboards, several bookcases, a hutch, a washer, a dryer, enough lawn and garden equipment to start a nursery business, and a partridge in a pear tree. And this is just the tip of the five pages of inventory.

Whatever I Like is Alike, Right?

The Stamp Stampede tour has three modules: Stamp Collecting, Post Office Jobs, and Transportation. Jeff wants me to present my first module on October 23, the next tour scheduled on a Thursday. Thursday is "my day" at the National Postal Museum. If Jeff knew me better, he would have until October 22 to mention this to me.

Stamp Collecting is the module most docents-in-training choose for their debut. Stamp Collecting involves the concepts of "alike" and "different." Things that are not alike do not a collection make. Easy-breezy, right?

Each child is given a little plastic tub filled with flower, transportation, and people stamps and tasked with making a collection of six stamps. Susie picks flower stamps, Bobby goes for the airplanes, Mary finds six red stamps, and Tommy . . . well, Tommy has a problem. Tommy is stumped. The clock is ticking and Tommy is getting more and more frantic. Clearly Tommy can distinguish between alike and different; there are a half dozen train stamps heaped up next to his collection card. But Tommy also feels a magnetic attraction to a stamp picturing a faded blue face. The clock keeps ticking, Tommy starts hyperventilating, and I find myself wondering how in the world I managed to get promoted to second grade.

Since a docent probably shouldn't whisper "Put the trains on the card and stick that one in your pocket," I'm going to steer clear of Stamp Collecting for my debut and talk about Post Office Jobs instead. How much trouble can I get into passing out 42 giant laminated pennies?

Dream Dinners Rediscovered

My friend Michelle, like many military spouses, worried about having too much time on her hands when the Navy decided to send her husband to Kuwait for a year. Under similar circumstances, I would have been content to subscribe to a few more puzzle magazines and prioritize my reading list so I was bemused when Michelle accepted the spouse club presidency, agreed to lead a Brownie troop, and lined up a part-time job. Who could have imagined that Michelle's job would change my life? For the last six months before we moved to Japan, I drove to a strip mall in Chesapeake at least once a month to toss together 72 servings of some truly memorable entrees at the Dream Dinners franchise.

Dream Dinners offers a different menu every month. Choosing which meals I'll make is almost as much fun as wandering through a college bookstore during exam week to see what books I'll get to read next. I pick the meals and register for a session on-line. When I show up for the session, I work my way through the stations for the meals I've selected. If a recipe calls for chopped tomatoes, there will be a container of pre-chopped tomatoes sitting on the counter right in front of me. It's quite magical.

The fact that ingredients are already chopped appeals to many customers. Others like having someone to clean up the spills and crumbs they leave on the counters. Many enjoy the convivial atmosphere that naturally occurs whenever a dozen or so women (and men) find themselves together in a kitchen. While I like all these things, working against the clock is what keeps me coming back. It's one reason I assemble 72 meals when most people are content to make 36, it's why I clap my hands and strike a victory pose when I toss my last meal on the freezer shelf marked "Kathryn" in under two hours, and it's why I was quite frantic when I realized I was going to be at least 45 minutes late for my initial session at the Lake Ridge franchise last month.

I chose the September 11 session because it was offered in the morning on a weekday. It did not cross my mind that September 11 is AKA 9/11 until long after I and several thousand other drivers were directed off the roads within a three-mile radius of the Pentagon. It did not cross my mind that September 11 is AKA 9/11 until I was running a gauntlet between hundreds of orange cones and spotted four fire engines racing along a parallel street. And when it first crossed my mind that September 11 is AKA 9/11, the next thought that crossed my mind was "Those despicable terrorists have staged another attack and I need to find my way to Matt's school and then we need to grab Katie and head for Michigan." Then I turned on the radio and heard our nation's leaders dedicating a 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon. Oh. I washed myself in a few waves of relief before noticing the road was no longer lined with orange cones and that traffic had lightened considerably. What are they teaching in traffic engineering school these days? If they are going to direct traffic off a major interstate highway, shouldn't they put up signs or wave orange batons to get us back to the highway?

The good news: when I finally found Lake Ridge, I had enough excess adrenaline to assemble 72 meals in one hour and 15 minutes. The bad news: Katie and Mike tell me I won't be able to cross the Potomac River if a terrorist attack occurs. Kate will assume responsibility for Matt, Mike will disappear into one of those places we read about in spy novels, and I . . . well, maybe I should subscribe to a few more puzzle magazines.

Tomorrow I'm going to Dream Dinners for my October session. This is what I'm going to make: Martha Stewart's Pot Roast, Firehouse Three Cheese Pasta and Meatballs, Seafood Cioppino, Salmon and Crab Pinwheels, Diablo Chicken, Tangy Down Home Pork Chops, Classic Chicken and Dumplings, Chicken Mirabella, Canadian Bacon Stuffed French Bread, and Buffalo Chicken. Feel free to stop by for dinner whenever you're in the neighborhood.

With Apologies to Haruki Murakami

Between the smoke from the starter's gun drifting overhead and a couple hundred boys stampeding down the grassy slope in front of us, Mike and I imagined we were watching Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg. Without the rifles, of course. The Great Meadow is about an hour west of D.C. in Virginia's horse country. The rolling terrain made for a tough course but Matt liked the variety and was the first O'Connell runner to cross the finish line in his heat. The Great Meadow reminded Matt of a Civil War battlefield, too, except he calls it The War of Northern Aggression. This is what comes from raising your children below the Mason-Dixon Line.

Yesterday Mike ran in the Army 10-Miler and beat his 2004 time by nine minutes. Setting a new personal best record was cause for celebration so he ran an extra 3+ miles from the finish line at the Pentagon to the Smithsonian Metro stop. But the real celebration took place last night when Katie met us in Bethesda for Opera Night at Sorrento, our favorite Italian restaurant. The median age of the crowd would have been 80 without Matt, Kate, and the two little boys at the next table pulling it into the septuagenarian range; this was nice because we don't get to spend enough time around older people these days. We had no idea what to expect but the two singers were fantastic and I went to bed pleased to have a son who appreciates such a wide range of music. Come to think of it, "From Metallica to Mozart" would have been a good title for this entry. Can anyone figure out why I'm apologizing to Murakami?

But Not Necessarily in That Order

After shadowing Jeff and 13 first graders through the Postal Museum this morning, I rolled my fingers and thumbs on what looked like a miniature Xerox machine, listed my name and two aliases on the ID application form, and screwed my face into a quasi-dignified expression for the camera. The Stamp Stampede tour for Kindergarteners-3rd graders seems right up my alley, especially the Pony Express segment when we slap our thighs and gallop through the forest. The Stagecoach interlude, when we try to imagine the odors generated by 17 unwashed adults and an infant crammed together in close quarters for two weeks, is also pretty fun. Lest you get the wrong impression, we actually have "learning objectives" and "curriculum connections" that are spelled out in a 16-page syllabus. More's the pity.

Thanks to the Smithsonian ID photo session and an email from Kathleen Jr telling me to check that box from Japan one more time, I was looking rather spiffy in a black suit with Peko-chan lapel pin. I'd like to think this is why a German couple approached me in the Metro and asked for directions to the Capitol. And why a young Middle Eastern man thought I could direct him to Union Station. But I remember the first time Katie and James had to change planes in Atlanta on their way to visit their father in Dallas. If you get lost or need help, I told them, do not ask anyone for help other than a stewardess or an old lady.

Do you happen to know which airline has flight attendants who wear black pant suits with Peko-chan lapel pins? Me neither.

WANTED: Rubber Boots, Size 9 1/2

O'Connell High took second at the Arlington County Cross Country Meet last night. Matt ran 5 kilometers in 23:10, Kathy ruined another pair of shoes walking in wet grass, and Mike remembered to bring the good camera. The meet took place at Gravelly Point Park on the Virginia side of the Potomac River at the end of the Washington National Airport runway. To Mike's credit, he took more pictures of Matt and his teammates than airplanes.

Saturday O'Connell will compete against 80 other schools at the Octoberfest Invitational in the Great Meadow near Stafford, VA. Matt's coach is really great about providing detailed driving directions so we ought to be able to find the place. We're going to remember to take umbrellas this time even if the sun is shining when we leave the house.

Next weekend's meet, Glory Days Grill Invitational (where DO they get these names?), will be in Manassas, Virginia. Since it's a three-day weekend, we're going to keep heading west after the meet in hopes of glimpsing a little fall color in the foothills of West Virginia.

Out of the Mouths of Hairdressers

This is my hair guy, Stephen. He is a college graduate and was an AIDS counsellor for 17 years. Stephen is interested in the Japanese concept of corporate responsibility. He is intrigued that Japanese executives of companies that betray the public's trust make public apologies. Often, although not always, the executive resigns his position after apologizing.

Stephen wishes American business leaders would spend less time pointing fingers and more time accepting responsibility. I think Stephen has a point.

It's a Wonderful Life

A box from Japan landed on my front porch yesterday. Inside I found this adorable Poko-chan mug cushioned between boxes of mushroom-shaped cookies. Kathleen Jr. spotted the mug when she went to the Seto Pottery Festival and thought of me. How sweet is that?

Matt plans to share some of the cookies with his Asian History and Cultures classmates. We've heard a rumor the Thompson family might celebrate Thanksgiving with us so I'll try to save the rest of the cookies until then.