Answer ...

The answer is ...

KIA Sportage or something like that !! The Cherry was right !

It was an ok drive, it felt like a Civic only a lil bit taller.

Guessing Game

NB. Have a better entry in mind, but no time to post it so here ya go ...

This week I am not sure what car I am driving, I know it is white; it is either a Suzuki or a KIA. It is one of those SUV type vehicles that is white, has beige interiors and it looks like a mix between a jeep and a sportier car. The radio is good, I was able to listen to NPR all the way from Charlotte without having to adjust the station, and it will be expensive, since the unlimited mileage is around 90, ugghhh. As you all know I fly in to one airport and fly out of another, so I take whatever car they can give in Charlotte and mae sure they change the contract to unlimited miles. Yes so is the excitement of my traveling life, anyone care to guess what kinda car I am driving ? I will post the answer tomarrow.

Nigella on the NYT

Every Wednesday I read the Food Section of the Gray Lady, its one of my addictions I have to confess, This week there is an article on the fashions of the women who cook in TV shows, exploring the trend to sexier clothes, and how it all got started by my crush, Nigella Lawson – yes I adore her, I think she is fabulous, absolutely fabulous. For once she speaks English well, her vocabulary has more than 50 words, and her recipes are easy and look yummy, and they seem to be something anyone could do – the house in Belgravia helps – but it is mostly the way she speaks and the way she expresses herself that makes her irresistible to me. She is the only show I would watch religiously from the food network or any of the style channels, unfortunately it is never on when I am home. She might even turn me straight – insert laugh track. Here are a couple of quotes from the article:

“The only small parts of me are my waist and my wrists,” she said. “I’m pretty bosomy with a very small waist, and if I wear something that’s not tight on the waist, I look like Mama Cass.” What she wore in real life, an outfit she calls “home-based,” translated brilliantly to television.

“The camera on television can’t distinguish between empty fabric and full fabric, and if you wear empty fabric, it looks very bulky,” she added. “The three-quarter length sleeve is more flattering to the wrist, and I don’t want sleeves in my food. And if you wear sleeveless after a certain age, you shouldn’t be beating eggs.”

You have to lover her, after a certain age, you should not be beating eggs in sleeveless shirts …

Death and the Roller Coaster

Last Sunday I had a panic attack. It was caused by a roller coaster, I know, me in an Attraction Park? You ask, well yes I went and as we entered the park everything was fine, some common friends of the Argentine and me, invited us and we tagged along. I had thought it will be a total change of pace and will be a break in the routine. So I said yes, knowing full well that I do not enjoy masses of people. The park was not very crowded and the weather was good (good – warm yet not overtly sunny), but as soon as the crew chose the first roller coaster I froze. I mean it, I froze. I saw the loops up in the air and the seats – one of those roller coasters where ur feet dangle – and I thought O.M.G. I am going to die. Seriously, that is what I thought. I tried to get out of it, and say I will wait for you here, but they would not hear a word of it. The Argentinean, told me to do it once, and if it was horrible I could pout the rest of the day. Of course my attack has just started, we made the line, and its was long, felt like we spent 45 minutes waiting, and everyone encouraged me and all, but I was just trying to breath in and breath out and the more I thought about, the more the fear latched on to me, and towards the end I even felt short of breath. It was like I was sure we were going to die, or become paralyzed, or have a terrible accident, or the ride would stop midway and we would spend 2 hours dangling from the thing in wait for rescue … the scenarios in my head where countless and all fatidic. Finally we get there, we are about to get on the little seats and I thought this is my chance I will just keep walking and no one will notice. But I realized I had promised I would try it once, and the Argentine was very sweet and told me that nothing was going to happen. Against all my survival instincts I sat down and strapped myself, and then I closed my eyes …
The ride starts with this extremely strong push forward (to generate the g’s needed to push the cars up and then around and around) and that was not scary, then we turned and went up, up, up and then I opened my eyes and yes my feet were dangling, but nothing felt wrong, it actually felt – can you keep a secret? – Good. The ride took us over 4 or 5 loops, around, up, down and sideways and you can see the park bellow you and it is so fast you can not really stop and think much. All of sudden it comes to an end, and we were down again, and I realized I had not lost limb or life. I – can you keep another secret? – had even enjoyed it.
From there we went on to 4 more roller coasters and I enjoyed them immensely, I even laughed specially in one that was inside, so you could not really tell what was coming next. All in all I had a great day in the park – I know some of you would not think I would enjoy it, but I did – it was very clean and the only bad part was the pizza we had in the beginning, yuck. Such a total waste of carbs, anyway, we made up by working on oatmeal cookies later that nite.

Am I a soccer gay ?

This week, I am driving a minivan, not just any minivan but a Dodge Caravan. I got into Charlotte and I say hi to my friend the driver of the Avis shuttle – we go way back, she reminds me of Miss Gay at the Hampton – anyway so she takes me to my spot and there it was a Minivan. I could not believe it; I know I am not a stellar driver but a minivan? I went into the office and they told me it was the only thing available if I was going to return the car in Greensboro. So I took it, what was I to do, take the broom and fly to Wilkesboro.
I got on board, and drove all the way, and have been driving the entire team to lunch every day this week, ohhh joy! I mean the car drives funny, it is different than driving a truck (I drove that Nitro remember), which was what I expected, almost like it has no suspension and I feel like I go in all directions as soon as the pavement is not smooth. Also I do not enjoy changing the wears with the handle next to the wheel – yes being terribly gay I am not sure what the name of that type of transmission is, I mean it is automatic but I am sure it has a special name. Finally there is no hand brake, and that I do not like, why? Do not ask, I just like knowing I have the break there.
I will return the car tomorrow, and have to fill her up, cuz I am not giving Avis any extra $ for the tank of gas, I used to take the gas option until I realized I was paying for an entire tank of gas even if I returned the car with half a tank. Of course this is the week where the ten commandments for drivers come out, and all, and I have been very careful, except when I forget to put the car on reverse and try to back out and things like that, but hey I am driving a minivan so I am sure other drivers just think, there goes another clueless soccer mom. Wrong! I am a useless gay driver, not a soccer mom.

Ten Commandments

The Vatican has seen my driving I am guessing, and they came up with driving's ten commandments. They are all kind of funny - I think - but here they are:

1. You shall not kill.
2. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.
3. Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.
4. Be charitable and help your neighbor in need, especially victims of accidents.
5. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.
6. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so.
7. Support the families of accident victims.
8. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness.
9. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.
10. Feel responsible toward others.

Its not like one can disagree with any of them, but still when they are written and spelled out I can not help but chuckle. I know I am not a good driver, but c'on, I do not need 10 commandments do I ?

Pride weekend

This Saturday was Pride, and let me tell you it was exhausting. I have to thank a very special someone for putting up with me and all the craziness around the event. By the time the parade started I was feeling a little off and did not really enjoyed myself till the very last 30 minutes, for some reason, even the crowds and the day made no impact on me. On previous years there is always a sense of adrenaline going on, making me think yes I am out and freaking proud but not this year. It was enjoyable, do not get me wrong and lots of fun, but maybe because I was on edge I did not get to enjoy as much. Maybe because I was not carrying a water gun and ended up filling people’s gun and not really doing anything else.

Do not get me wrong, I had a great time and I think this year we made a real good job of generating a good idea and taking that idea into something that was doable. We managed to have pretty much everything ready the day before (a first) and the marching contingent looked unified and I am sure for a lot of people seeing men in Speedos was a great reprieve from all the other groups that march in over decorated S.U.V’s that truly scream everything but fabulous. Watching the groups that came after us, while we cleared the car and rested, I can not help but think, aren’t we supposed to be fabulous, aren’t we supposed to be the trend setters and makers, and then I look around the pride parade and it seems like the more garish and sad, the better. I do think that the parade and the festival need to be rethought, not sure what the answer is, but then again I am no friend of street festivals, so that part of the weekend will never be for me, I know there are people who manage to enjoy it – like the Diplomat – but not me, never have, maybe one of these days my opinion will change, but not any time soon.

The weird thing is I am not sure I should post this, it seems rather petty. Pride is great, one of the high holidays in the calendar. I always look forward to it, it marks the middle of the year and it is such a pagan day that it is great to enjoy. I already foresee some issues for next year, given its proximity to IGLA, not sure who will be able to put anything together, but like the Architect says that is in the pile of “Not my problem”, I am thinking that that is in the pile of “Not my problem, yet”.

Hopefully everyone else had a great time, and enjoyed the weather, Sunday was rather pretty and cool.

Book Review

Book Review

An idea occurred to me this weekend, we who read books need to start an itinerant library, there is no point in everyone buying books, but we can lend them to each other and that way we can all read different books and we can all save a little money. Sometimes I feel like I can not go into Kramer’s without purchasing one of such objects. The Argentinean even proposed to create a blog that basically encompasses book reviews, and the idea intrigues me. I can post about Paris and Amsterdam, but those entries would take way too much work and not sure I have the energy right now, later of course (yes skinny one, I know I am always promising posts), so I am tackling the book we discussed last Sunday, Mrs. Dalloway.

I approached this book with a little caution, I had never read any of her books, and was not sure what to expect. Like most people I had seen The Hours, so was curious to see if I could infer things from the movie that would help me read the book. I was disappointed when this was not the case. I skipped the introduction, one of the problems with reading one book every month, is you have to read it – yes I am the guilty one that tries to read them even if he dislikes them. Ok, so I started the book and I was familiar with the first line, so I followed the story, but then it changed, the narrator kept changing on me, and it took me like the first 30 pages to get used to it. But then I was fine, and by the time Peter comes to visit the morning of the party, I was able to identify the changes in narrator immediately and determine where the story was going next. My recommendation would be to skip the intro and just go for it, jump in and fight with her long sentences and her descriptions of things until you get the hang of the story and just keep at it.

The story is simple yet complicated, it is something we can all relate to because we all do some level of introspection, and we do not have the amount of time people had in the 20’s to just walk to the florist, but we still have 30 minutes here and there where we think of things, we need to do, of things we have not done, and of things that happened in the past and that still affect us to this date. The great thing about these exercises for me at least is that it gives you perspective, is shows how things that seemed so important were not and how little things ended up being what one keeps. Ok enough about me, the book surprised me because it was extremely pro British Empire, and how it went through all these characters cutting across the upper classes paying very little attention to the lower classes. I had thought she would be more of a socialist and a feminist than that. I can see how the book was and is revolutionary and how it is written with such craft that she keeps you reading even after she has cycled through similar descriptions over and over again, always through different perspectives. At the center of the book is a love triangle, that haunts its main characters through their lives, and this is a recurring theme in life and literature, but she manages to make it nuanced and interesting. Finally here are the things I would focus if I was to read the book again:
* The details about the park
* The lunch scene with Lady Bruton
* Elizabeth’s shopping scene
* Septimus appointment with Dr. Bradshaw

I know this post is a bit too long, but I would recommend anyone to read this book. The language will be a challenge (it was for me, but I am not a native speaker) but the story is beautifully told, its worth reading it for the sentences and the paragraphs alone. Also I like Clarissa, I like her a lot, so I guess I am biased because from the get go, when he is mending her dress for her party she had me.

PS. There is a new link on the right, y’all know who he is.

Trying not to abuse the Tylenol.

Morning, yes it has been a month, but half of that I was in Paris, France, Europe and Amsterdam, Netherlands, Europe, so I have a good excuse. Many adventures need to be told, many great pictures need to be shared. A great time was had by everyone, although I wish I had come home Saturday and not Sunday, because Monday at 9 am I took a flight to Greensboro to get back in to the flow of things at work, so lets just say that yesterday jetlag plus getting caught up in everything that happened and everything that needs to happen has taken its toll. My sleep pattern is a mess, I wake up at 3 am, and have trouble staying in bed till 6 or 6:30, one of my aids in this fight for sleep has been Tylenol pm, I took one Sunday, still nothing, I tossed and turned, mostly anxiety about getting back on a plane after spending 24 hours traveling the day before. Then Monday, I took 2 pills and slept from 9:30 to 6:30 and was pretty refreshed, but last night I decided that I had to do it on my own and of course I woke up at 3:30, I managed to sleep a little bit more, the hotel does not serve breakfast until 7 so its not like I was going to leave the hotel at 6 and go sit in my cube at 6:15, so I stayed put till 6 and then started the day.
The good news this week is that I ma driving a Mustang, it was partly my fault that I got such a butch car because I messed up my rental reservations, thinking I was flying into Charlotte and not Greensboro, so I asked for whatever they had and they had a Mustang. I took it; there was no other way for me to get into town otherwise. It is black and automatic and I feel like such a bad boy driving it, it is not even funny. It drives well, much better than the HHR I had before I left on vacation.
The bad news is that I forgot to bring my camera with me, so I have 300 pictures that need to be downloaded and edited and they are waiting for me in DC, instead of being here where I could work on them in the evenings. Oh well, I will have to post real posts to keep you entertained until I can post my pictures.