Things in My Neighborhood That I Love (Part 1)

Back in the Ehs Ehs Ehs Ehr

Everytime I hear "Back in the USSR", I can't help but think of one particularly horrific day during my "Russian Language Journey".

In college, I took Russian as my foreign language requirement and embarked upon three of the most awful years of my life. Okay, so that's a bit of an exaggeration, and I wouldn't have met Amanda otherwise, but it was pretty grueling. Note: if you're not good at languages, Russian probably isn't where you want to head first. Start with something nice, like Spanish.

The part of the whole experience that had the greatest impact on me, is that I studied Russian in the mid-1980s, at the time of Glasnost and Peristroika. Our Soviet-era textbooks (with such profound statements as "Good workers do not steal pencils") were quickly outdated, and every single day was a new lesson in geo-politics and the changing Soviet empire. That was absolutely fascinating.

Plus, we drank a lot of vodka. For some reason, my classmates and I took to celebrating the end of every exam and semester at The Little Russian Cafe, which was conveniently located spitting distance from our campus. We also did a fair amount of our studying there, which actually, could explain a lot...

Anyway, about halfway through my second year, we had an exam. I never did well on exams, much to the dismay of Yevgeni, our professor. Yevgeni was sort of new to the teaching scene and he took us all under his wing as his pet project, so he took it all quite personally when we struggled. And we struggled. I really struggled.

Our tests were a lot of fill-in-the-blank statements and questions, along with an oral section, one-on-one with Yevgeni, and then a series of translations, both from English to Russian and Russian to English. On this particular exam, there was a translation statement that was something like, "Vladimir and Pasha enjoying playing music together in Leningrad. Vladimir has a balalaika and Pasha does not. Vladimir is a large man. Pasha resembles Bronson Pinchot."

Pretty basic stuff except, as it turned out, NO ONE in the entire class could translate "balalaika". Well, actually, the problem was more that we were all trying to translate it. Twenty-five of us and not a single correct translation in the room.

So when Yevgeni returned our tests the next day, he flew into a Polish-accented-English-and-Russian rage. He couldn't believe that none of us knew the Beatles' song and when we explained that we did know the song we just didn't think of it, he got even more upset. Looking back, it was such a simple thing and now it's hysterically funny, but at the time we all just cowered in our seats while he sputtered and yelled at us what a balalaika was and that even the Beatles knew and why didn't we? (You know, if he'd only posted the picture, we would have gotten it... I blame Yevgeni.)

I guess you had to be there, but hearing that darn song on the radio always makes me think of that day, good ol' Yevgeni, and his failed project of making us all perfect Russian speakers. I did, however, retain one very important thing and now Я должен очистить рыб. (I must clean the fish.)

Doping and the Dopey Dopeheads who Dope

The big news today in my little corner of the world is that Floyd Landis tested positive for doping.

Yesterday, a news alert came through (yes, I'm a cycling news dork) that an "undisclosed" rider had tested positive. I couldn't help but wonder if it might not be Floyd, while hoping that it wasn't.

This morning it was confirmed that the positive test came from Phonak leader and Tour de France winner Floyd Landis. This is big.

Yeah, I know you're innocent until proven guilty. It could have been a false positive; it could have been any number of things. The deal is that after a terrible day on Stage 16, Landis went on to have a phenomenal Stage 17, making up most of his lost time. It was after this stage that he tested positive for increased testosterone levels*.

The next step is that the cycling federation is now testing his "B sample". This is a backup sample taken for situations just like this--in case the A sample was somehow tainted, or whatever. If the B sample comes up positive--and we should know by tomorrow, Landis is fired from Phonak, stripped of his title, and the rider wearing jersey #1 next year is Oscar Pereiro, this year's second place finisher. It will be up to Landis to prove he is not guilty at that point. (And it is possible... perhaps he has higher natural testosterone levels than most men? Who knows?)

I hate this doping crap. It's part of what has ruined baseball for me (I think Mark McGwire should sport an asterisk), and it's always tainted pro cycling. I've had interesting conversations over the last few weeks with my colleague, Pedro, and my brother, Bill, about this. Maybe I'm naive, but I don't think drugs or any sort of doping have any place whatsoever in pro sports. If they do, we've got our values all wrong.

Kids look up to these athletes and by condoning doping and those who partake, we're sending really bad messages to our kids: It's okay to win at any cost and cheating is okay.

Pedro and Bill both commented that it's so prevelent we should just be up-front about it and accept it. More and more athletes do it, it's the poor schlubs who get caught. But just because it's prevelent doesn't make it right.

And Bill commented today, "Guys in the 50s and 60s would have killed for Gatorade--blood doping and steroids aren't so different." I countered that they are because they're illegal and dangerous, and he replied with a statement I do agree with: "The only reason something is deemed legal or illegal is based on who is making money off of it. Legalize all forms of doping and performance enhancing drugs, let these guys die of heart attacks at 42 and watch the records fall!"

Anyway, I hope that this situation with Floyd was all some silly misunderstanding and we'll have a good little laugh ala "I Love Lucy" when it's all over. Regardless, I think our friend Gabe might have gotten it right when he told Bill they should just give the title to Lance anyway....

*Correction--I'm learning more about this today than I ever wanted to know. What he tested positive for was a low level of testosterone, not elevated. They test for the ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone. His testosterone was low; his epitestosterone extremely low, hence the suspicion that a testosterone patch was used to aid recovery.

The Greatest American Hero

Believe it or not I'm walking on air.

Oops, sorry about that earworm.

While Floyd Landis was winning the Tour de France and Tiger Woods was winning that golf thingy, another major sporting event was taking place, and one of my heros was participating in it. My brother Bill participated in his first triathlon in Boulder on Sunday.

Now, let me set the stage. My 36 year old brother used to be a slightly-overweight guy who thought a balanced breakfast consisted of both M&Ms and a Coke. A good weekend involved staying in his dorm room bed all day to watch as many football games as humanly possible while surviving on delivery pizza (and I'm sure there was beer around, too.) Then, a few years ago, he caught the bug. Out went most of the junk food and caffeine, and he started running.

Bill's always participated in sports at a recreational level and he's always been an avid cyclist. Until he started running, he subscribed to the Homer Simpson school of sports: "“Son, when you participate in sporting events, it's not whether you win or lose: It's how drunk you get.”

Now, he's running marathons (New York was his first a few years ago), riding Ride the Rockies, and stuff like that. He is defying our strong Eastern European/Anglo-Irish genetics. His next challange was a triathlon. Might not be such a huge deal for the average crazy athlete, but Bill doesn't swim.

Wait, I take that back. He does swim. He started taking lessons in January.

So, this weekend he got out there and proved to himself that he could do it. And he did. He completed the 1k swim, the 42k bike ride, and the 10k run, and lived to tell about it. His older sister never had any doubt. My brother has a drive and confidence that, well, you just don't see in our family. Hell, this guy does competitive yoga. (Yeah, Bill, she told me. Did you know that yoga wasn't meant to be a competitive sport?) So, my little brother is a rock star. And congratulations again, Bill. I knew you could do it.

(So this crappy free website's photo uploader dealio isn't working. I'll try to add a picture or two later. Grrrr.)

Tour de Floyd

Another thing I love about summer is the annual Tour de France, which fills July with some of the best bike racing in the world. Today, American rider Floyd Landis won the first Tour in the post-Armstrong era. He rides for team Phonak, but is a former teammate of Armstrong's, as he road for Postal (now Discovery) until last year.

Landis is an awesome rider, who now must undergo hip replacement surgery--that could end his career. Yeah, he rode this year's Tour (and won three other major races this year) needing hip replacement surgery. This guy is super-human.

I've been a cycling fan for nearly as long as I can remember. I don't know if it was the 1979 movie "Breaking Away" that did it, or the Coors International Bicycle Classic.

Breaking Away rocked. I fell in love with all things cycling, and Italy, too. It was a great coming-of-age story about "the Cutters"--a cycling team that enters the University of Indiana's Little 500 bike race--and wins. It's based on a true story and a real race. It's a bit dated, but it's still fun to watch.

The Coors International Bicycle Classic used to be the country's top annual Tour, and in the 1970s and 80s, Colorado was part of the race course. My parents used to pack us all in the car and take us to Boulder to watch some of the all-time greats of the sport including Davis Phinney, Connie Carpenter, Jonathan Boyer, Dennis Stetina, and many more.

Regardless of where and how it started, I love pro cycling and I eagerly anticipate each July. This year, there was a lot of speculation about how the Tour would play out, post-Lance. Favored to win was CSC's Italian rider Ivan Basso, but the day before the Tour opened, a number of riders, including long-time great Jan Ullrich of T-Mobile, were disqualified from the race due to suspicions of doping. Suddenly, an already wide-open field was opened even wider.

The United States has some awesome riders on a number of teams--not just Floyd Landis. Dave Zibriski, Levi Leipheimer, and George Hincape are certainly among them, as is Christian Vandervelde, who had an outstanding Tour.

Tomorrow is the final stage, where they all ride into Paris. Sure, someone could challenge and take the yellow jersey from Landis, but that's not expected to happen. There is a long-standing tradition in cycling that by the time they ride in to Paris, what's done is done. Oscar Pereiro, who is in second place, is a friend of Landis's and it's highly unlikely he would challenge at this point. Today was his last chance to do that--or actually, to hold on to his lead, as he was in yellow when today's time trial stage started--and he failed to do so.

Tomorrow is for the sprinters and for Floyd Landis to celebrate. Viva la Floyd! Viva la Tour!

More Things I Don't Understand

Does anyone not actually put the Q-Tip inside their ear canal? Why do we all pretend like we don't? Why do the Q-Tip people pretend we don't?

Why would anyone put under-eye concealer on an infant, spurring a warning on the package from Almay not to do so?

(And I know what KP is going to say here but I'm one step ahead of you--putting self-tanner on a baby is a completely different thing. Tanya did what she had to do. You would have, too, if you had swapped babies with your super-hot bisexual boyfriend's Indian ex-wife so that no one would find out that your baby's father wasn't actually her ex-husband, but was the now-dead old guy with too much jewelry you married because he blackmailed you into it. This I understand.)

How or why would you get Chapstick in your eye? Why do they need a warning on their tube?

How can Adrianne Curry get so freaked out about Christopher Knight going to a strip club? She claimed that she was worried about ruining his "Peter Brady" reputation and disappointing his leigions of fans. Um, didn't he already to that by hooking up with this drama queen ho-bag and agreeing to be on another VH1 TV show with her? (They met on the Surreal Life, for anyone who missed that detail.)

Yeah, her regular control-freak behavior and drunken faux-lesbian bachelerette party freakout really help Knight's reputation a lot. Going to a strip club made the whole thing seem almost normal. I give this marriage, oh, about five minutes. These people are nuts. And I can say that as one who is clearly not nuts.

(Yes, I know the first three are about legal liability. Still.)

Even in the Face of International Chaos, She's Still a Gomer

I love the Internets. I love them so much. The Internets are a series of tubes and information flows throw them, from me to you and from you to me. Al Gore invented them and our lives have changed markedly because of them. Thank you, Al Gore!

I kid, I kid.

But I am still such a goon when it comes to the Internet and nothing thrills me more than getting an email from some faraway place, as I did yesterday. Actually, I got THREE emails--from distant family in Israel.

My aunt and uncle in St. Louis embarked on a geneology project several years ago. We'd always known there was family in Israel but it was Aunt Esther who had the primary connection to them. Most everyone is in Tel Aviv but others are scattered, including a few relatives in Haifa. My aunt and uncle have found everyone and have established regular contact with them. They wrote, expresssing their concern over the latest Middle East situation, and received these replies back.

Thank you so much for your concern about us. We all feel very safe and have confident in our county’s strength. The situation will calm down soon. Regardless the situation we need to be more in contact with you and I apologize for that. We hope that you will get well as soon as possible after this Surgery. Thanks again and Best Regards, Avraham and Yaffa

This is Shay writing, my father (Ya'aqov) is in Bulgaria this week, he flew there to work and to see his aunt who got in coma a month ago. We here in Israel appreciate your concerns and we are hoping that the situation will calm soon. Everybody in the family are feeling good and healthy. Here in Tel-Aviv the life is normal. My Uncle (mom's brother) and his sons who live in Haifa have stayed at our apartment until yesterday, and today my uncle returned to work and his sons went with their mother to an hotel in TA. I am appreciating the rally at St. Louis and all the support that we got from the USA. Hope you will recover soon from the surgery and that you will feel and walk like before. Keep in touch.

Thank you for your support. Although we are going through difficult time, we hope it will bring the North of Israel better days. In our family everything is fine. We spend a lot of time watching TV, but otherwise life in the central part of Israel continues as usual. Sorry to hear about your knee replacement. Wish you good health and hope for the best. Love, Avi and Lotta

How cool is that? Thankfully everyone is okay, but I still can't get over the fact that we can communicate so effortlessly with family in Israel. (Yet, isn't it funny that I had to find out from family in Israel that my aunt in St. Louis had knee replacement surgery? There's a certain irony there....)

Oh, and for the record, this is likely the end of my posts on Israel. It's not a topic I generally discuss. The whole thing is just one big ol' clusterfuck that I don't feel well-enough educated about to talk about rationally or intellectually. I'm not Zionist enough for most of my Jewish friends, but I'm too Zionist for most of my goyim friends. What can you do? It's one of the few political topics where I (wisely) keep my opinions to myself.

The one thing I think (and hope) we can all agree upon, however, is that there are peaceful days ahead--and soon. Would it be weird to quote Jimi Hendrix? Oh well....

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."

A Pirate Looks at 41

I'm 41 years old tomorrow.

There. I said it.

I'm of two minds about this. Part of me doesn't care. Part of me cares greatly.

Eh, it's only a number. It beats the alternative. Yeah, yeah. Whatever.

In my head I'm about 25 years old, listening to all the hippest music and seeing the world as one who is down with the kids, because, well, I am one of the kids. Well, probably not because I don't think they say "down with the kids" anymore. Whatever.

I realized the other day that the liquor store that has always carded me doesn't anymore. It must be that middle-aged look I'm sporting these days. My mom claims I'm not middle-aged but she is. Um, only if you're planning to live well into your 120s.... (And maybe she is. Have you met my mother?)

Forty had me a little stressed out but mentally 41 is worse. I'm in the thick of it now, I'm on the other side of it. I've got aches and pains I never dreamed of, my hearing isn't what it used to be, and I'm dealing with a new and exciting medical issue, the likes of which I've never had to deal with before.

But yeah, I suppose it does beat the alternative. And hey, Nigel (who is three weeks older than me) and I are still hip to trying new things (though we're not iPod people yet) and I listen to Ethel more than Fred lately. You wanna talk Gorillaz, Arctic Monkeys, Gnarls Barkley, or White Stripes? Bring it on.

And now I have a certain amount of professional cred (that's credibility to you old folks) that I didn't have before. Part of that is due to the position I hold at work, and part is a function of age and maturity. "The grey beards" of our industry don't lump my contemporaries and me in with "the kids" anymore. There's a new generation of kids. And recently, I was offered a very senior position in a young publishing company. I declined, but it made me feel like I've arrived. I have a professional reputation and the references/connections to back it up. I didn't have that at 30, and honestly, I wouldn't trade it for all the weeknight parties in the world.

I guess it's a matter of what you do with it and it's all about attitude. I feel young, therefore I am. Right? I do not plan on going gentle into that good night but I wish one of you kids would bring me a piece of cake already.

I'm a Good Girl, I Am!

Or: A Tribute to Alice

By request--sorry, brother Ricky, the people want cats. Cats they shall have.

I still don't feel much like writing so we'll ease back in with a tribute to Alice.

Alice is our eldest cat, and 8 year old brown patch tabby who is Queen of All Things.

Alice was mis-named. She should have been Eliza Doolittle, the poor little Cockney guttersnipe turned into a beautiful young lady. That's Alice. The Cat Care Society told us that some children found her at a bus stop, scooped her up, and brought her as a gift for their teacher. As best we can figure, she was feral. Our little princess.

Alice loves Nigel, and really, only Nigel. I'll do if he's not around, or if she wants to make him jealous, but really it's all about the love Alice and Nigel share. She is persnickety and demanding, and she will hiss and spit at anyone who bothers her. And the list of what bothers her appears to be long.

Her favorite thing, aside from sitting on Nigel's chest and rubbing her face against his, is to be outside. She has a pretty hot pink leash and harness and she also gets to roam the backyard if one of us is out with her. And every day, beginning about an hour before Her Beloved gets home from work, she sits in the back window, crying and pining--for him or to go out, or a combination of the two. She loves to eat grass and puke. She loves to explore the backyard and "Born Free" plays in my head everytime she makes her bold escape.

The poor little thing had thyroid surgery this winter. She's always been a slight cat, but she dropped weight rapidly and went from looking like her normal royal self back into the ragged cat of days gone by. Her fury was patchy and matted and her disposition was worse than usual--she would steal food off your plate and then scratch and bite at you if you dared to stop her. We knew something was wrong. The picture taken above was right after her surgery and you can see the bare spot on her neck.

And Alice doesn't do anything halfway. No, sir. She had the highest thyroid levels of any cat our vet had ever seen--I happened to just stop by the office as Andy was receiving the results by fax. His eyes popped when he saw them and he later apologized for his reaction. Then, when they removed her thyroid, they learned that her thyroid was three times the largest they'd ever removed. They have it in a jar; let me know if you want to go see it.

So, anyway, Alice is fine now. This is Alice and Nigel, having one of their cuddles. To see them together, you'd think she was actually nice....


She is one of the funniest cats we've ever lived with. Every day is an adventure--and a new set of demands and needs--with Alice. And please, don't hate her because she is beautiful.

Go Here

I haven't felt much like writing lately, so for the moment I'll leave it to those who do it much better than me anyway.

Check out Danny Miller's latest entry here; it's great. (As always.)

I Confess

No, I didn't ruin three lives (or if I did, I don't know about it yet...)

I confess that I love Jewel's song "You Were Meant for Me" and I sing it at the top of my lungs every single time I hear it on the radio, especially if I'm in the car, which is really the only place where the radio is ever on anymore.

Mostly her stuff is too smarmy for me, but I love this one with all its smarmy greatness, and I imagine it that I sing it as heart-felt and strongly as she does. Deep down inside I know that's not true but I just can't help myself.

There. I feel a lot better now.