Thursday, December 01, 2005

Never mind Cyber Space, what about Phone Space?

I got a phone call tonight that struck me as a Very New Thing, and it got me thinking in that grandiose universe-pondering way we all sometimes indulge in. (At least I hope we all do, or I'm a schmuck.) The phone call I got was from a restaurant I have reservations at this Saturday. I had made this reservation a couple days ago, and now it's Thursday, and I picked up the phone when it rang and there was a lady calling me to confirm that we really did plan to show up at the restaurant Saturday evening for dinner. I just blurted out, "Holy cow, now restaurants call to confirm reservations? I thought only doctors' offices did that!"

The woman chuckled and answered, "Well, usually we only call for parties of ten or more, but it's very busy this time of year, and I'm going to have to close out our reservations, so I am just making sure that we really have no spots left to offer." (A diplomatic way of saying she's calling to make sure we don't stand them up.)

But I really wasn't ready to move on. I said, "That is just the darndest thing. A restaurant is calling me."

Again she laughed, and finally I said, "Well, I have someone flying in from out of town for this dinner, so by all means, we do intend to be there Saturday."

She responded, "In that case, we will have a table waiting for you." It was all quite amicable, and I got off the phone feeling a bit as if I'd had a chat with a friend.

The thing is, I don't really think they'd be doing all this calling if they didn't have a reasonable expectation that they'd reach a lot of the people they were phoning. After all, people probably don't usually call them back, unless they threaten to cancel the reservation, I guess. So I'm guessing what makes this feasible is cell phones, and that phone technology in general has expanded the telephone's role in our lives. My sense is that "phone space" has become a real world, much like cyberspace, a place where we are an abstraction of ourselves, and a place where the social rules are slightly different, where genuine bonds form easily but fleetingly.

There was another incident recently. I wanted to buy firewood, and because the price of gas heat is supposed to be so high this winter, firewood is actually pretty dear right now. I looked in the local advertising flyer and saw one entry offering seasoned oak for sale. So I called. I could immediately tell I had gotten someone in her truck because of the plentiful background noise. She quoted me a price, made a few soothing side comments to her child, who was clearly a passenger, and explained that she really couldn't take my number down right then, but could I please call back and she would not answer and I could leave my phone number on her voice mail? I said I'd be in touch, and I got off the phone. I decided not to call her right back because I hadn't yet priced wood elsewhere.

But here's the thing about the modern age. You can't just call someone and not leave tracks, at least not if you haven't turned on caller ID blocking. Twenty minutes later she called me back to talk me into a load of wood she had right then because she was in my neighborhood. I was going to give her the brush-off when she distractedly told me this involved story about how she was going to drop this wood at one lady's house but the lady wanted her to bring it around back and she never does this because it means leaving the pavement in the truck but the lady's husband had just left her and her OWN husband had just left her and she felt a certain kinship because of that and agreed to leave the pavement and now the truck was stuck and the wood sale could not go through and could she perhaps instead drop the wood off at my house as soon as she got unstuck?

Yikes. I realize I'm a pushover, but what do you say to that, really?

And really, part of it was just this weirdness of getting the blow-by-blow of someone's tough day because they're calling me from their cell phone while it's happening. If she had called to tell me this story the next day, it just wouldn't have had the same effect at all, nor would it have made any sense for me to be her next customer because of proximity.

Ultimately, we made the wood deal a few days later, because her truck didn't get unstuck at all. But the point is that sale was closed by saga-via-cell-phone, nothing more.

Which leads me to my last Phone Space story, the one where I make friends with the United Airlines' automatic voice-recognition phone maze for delayed baggage. I travelled recently to, let's just call it a third world country. I don't want to disparage it in public. But it was far far away, and my stay there was more-than-usually wearing, and I and my business partner had three long legs to fly back. It being a third world country, our first flight left two hours late, and that meant we missed our connection, and that meant our baggage didn't make it home with us.

At first we thought this was no big deal. Frankly, we were so happy to be home, we were probably the most cheerful reporters of lost baggage in the history of the airline industry. We had flown on three different airlines, so we realized things would need some sorting-out. But then it took a week to get all four bags returned to us. And since my partner had to leave only a few days later for another trip, I was the one left to track the bags down.

Every time I phoned the United Airlines delayed baggage 800 number, I had to first have a conversation with the automated phone maze. I probably called him 45 times. Every single time, I eventually wound up talking to a live, human agent, and I developed some mini-friendships with several of them as well, but this automatic voice was the one consistent feature of the experience. I found out I could mostly skip him by just saying "Agent" right away, but usually I didn't, preferring instead to conduct my business with him until I stumped him, which was a lot of fun.

He would ask me to say "delayed bag" if that applied to me. I would say it. He would say, "I think you said delayed bag, is that correct? Please say yes or no." I'd say "yes." It would go on like that; where did I file my report? What was my name? Each time I answered, he'd tell me what he thought I said, and I'd confirm it. When it got to my name, he didn't dare try to pronounce it, so there'd just be this silence where he was supposed to say my name, and then he'd spell it. But the fun really came when he asked me where I had originally checked the bags. Like I said, this was a third world country, and it just wasn't on his list of possible choices. So I'd say the name of the city and country, and he'd guess what he thought I'd said. It was our little game. "I think you said Los Angeles, California. Is that correct? Please say yes or no." "I think you said Saint Louis, Missouri. Is that correct? Please say yes or no." "I think you said London, England. Is that correct? Please say yes or no." "I think you said Bangladesh. Is that correct? Please say yes, or no." Once I burst out laughing, and I swear he was taken aback.

He'd guess three times, and then he'd express regret that he hadn't been able to help me, and he would pass me off to a live agent. But I always liked our little chats. 170 hours after our flight landed, we got our last piece of luggage back. The next day, I phoned the automated guy to say goodbye. He no longer had my name in his system.

Men can be fickle like that.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Ubi Sumus? Quo Vadimus?

I went, tonight, to a fancy dinner. This dinner was thrown by the management of my company, and it's a real plum to be invited. They do this twice a year in concert with a sort of board-of-directors review, and you're usually only invited if you gave a talk at the review or if you were deemed to have done important work. I have been invited, in the past, because I have done relevant work, but this year, I was more of an imposter; I was invited because a colleague had done important work, and my work was relevant to his. Sort of a secondary invitation, as it were.

The point of my story, though, isn't about the work. It's about the food in relation to my sense of the basic tenets of identity and existence. Yes, I know. Very weighty. And this would all make more sense if you knew me, which of course you might only just slightly, if you've read all my previous posts, or you don't at all, if you started with this one.

The central thing to know about me is that I love food. I am a gourmand, in the true sense of the word. Cultured, painstakingly-prepared food is a joy for the senses. Cheetos are also a joy for the senses. I have a couple shelves of my bookcase devoted to cookbooks. I love to cook, and though I usually cook only for myself, that frees me to experiment and explore the world of flavor.

Another thing to know about me is that I love to drink, but I usually don't. I had a period in my life where I drank a lot, and after realizing the counterproductivity of that kind of lifestyle, I have switched that for a life where I drink very little. I don't abstain entirely, but I almost never have more than two drinks and I usually have none.

So I approached this dinner with an appetite in more ways than one. And at the same time, this being a work-related event, I approached it with a desire to conduct myself well. The dinner is renowned -- expensive red wine, batter coated enormous shrimp... this restaurant is a former haunt of George Bush Sr, so, whatever your politics, you've got to assume it isn't shabby fare.

I should possibly mention at this point that I've also been on "a diet" for the past few years. I put it in quotes because I would tell you that it's an attempted lifestyle change and not a diet, per se. I have lost approximately 30 pounds by eating less and eating healthy foods and whole grains. My summer has comprised an almost comical amount of fresh fruit.

I hit this dinner and gradually, over the course of about three hours, ate and drank the following: approximately three glasses of red wine, grilled eggplant and squash, stuffed mushrooms, mini crab cakes, batter fried jumbo shrimp, quail and mushrooms, lobster-stuffed pasta, a tiny rack of lamb, an orange-glazed breast of duck, and a mound of whipped cream with a finger cookie and fresh strawberries with coffee to finish.

This sounds good, right? Or, at least, you can imagine that it must sound good to somebody, right? It sure sounded (and tasted) good to me.

However, the effects of this meal were pretty alarming, and I'd call it "the aftermath," except that it actually started kicking in during the meal. First of all, I felt smashed. Not tipsy, but out and out drunk. Obviously, my tolerance had decreased, but I never really imagined that it would get to the point where three glasses of wine in three hours would feel like a binge. I'm a pretty good sized person; even with the 30 pound loss I clock in at 185 lbs, so I didn't expect three moderate glasses of wine to make me feel like a sorority girl. And then, the rich food had me rushing for the bathroom at awkward moments, just to get me to the point where I could gracefully return to my table and engage my conversation-mates without looking distressed.

If you told me this story, I'd consider it kind of self-evident. I'd say, "Dude, your system isn't accustomed to all that rich food. You can't just dump all that in your body at once and expect a good reaction." Strangely, though, it never crossed my mind that that might apply to me. I AM the rich food, good wine poster child. When I made the decision to generally abstain from all these things for the good of my physical and mental health, it never once occured to me that I was turning in my membership card. I've heard about dieters who lose their taste for rich food or drinkers who lose their taste for drink, but I'm not one of those people. I'm still crazy about all of that. I have fantasies about the perfectly-seared fat in the recesses of a good prime rib.

And this is where the existential crisis comes in. Who am I? I thought I was a person who revels in rich food and good drink, but who simply limits such indulgences out of necessity and good sense. But if that limit is zero, is that really who I am? Have I become, instead, one of those people who irritate the crap out of me, who wave away life's greatest pleasures because "oh, that's just far too heavy for me"?

I realize there's a middle ground here. I could have the wine but not the rich food, or the rich appetizers but a light meal, and so on. There are very likely compromises I might explore. But in real life, most of these things tend to come as all-or-nothing propositions; the company dinner at the ex-presidential restaurant, after all, does not get offered every month.

And so, I have come to the reluctant conclusion that I am a part-time Roman, in a sense. A few times a year, I will go, I will indulge after my fashion, it will make me ill, and I will consider that all part of a good time. I'm not that comfortable with that existential plateau, but until I figure this out in some clearer fashion, that is apparently where I sit.

I just hope I don't break the chair or otherwise disgrace myself while I'm there.

Saturday, October 08, 2005

It's a Dog's Life

I have a dog. She's brown with white spots, light-boned, about 40 pounds, and she's half farm-collie, so she's got kind of a sporty border-collie thing going on. Except she's very skittish, so she's more like the after-image of a border collie (as in, "was that a border collie I just saw?"). This month, her cousin has come to visit; Meg is my mother's dog and she is a standard sable collie, with a huge collie coat and long needle nose. She's a little bigger and a little younger than Chaos. (And yes, I realize that Meg is technically Chaos's aunt, but we decree all our dogs to be of the same generation.)

I'm writing about them because I took them for a "hike" today. The hike consists of a walk in the woods in a community park near my house, and it takes about an hour. Today we did it in the pouring rain, the first rain we've gotten in at least five weeks. I did this because they were restless and because I am trying to lose weight, so we all needed the exercise. I also did this because it seemed like an adventure to hike in the rain; it's still warm out, so I thought it would be very soothing and natural and not particularly uncomfortable. I wore a rain poncho, but otherwise I just got wet, and indeed by the end of the hike, my hair and jeans and boots were soaked, and my tshirt had wet streaks down it where the water had gotten in.

What surprised me, though, were the dogs. As far as I can tell, they really were not "with me" on this whole back-to-nature thing. Unlike me, they are not steeped in middle-class suburban angst; they're not worried that we're losing the environment, that our metropolitan area is getting overcrowded, or that we spend too much time away from the outdoors. They don't worry about the health of their soul if they spend hour after hour sealed off from the world. They didn't mind the fact that their rambunctiousness was tearing up our house. They don't care about their cholesterol.

So the entire hike, while they accompanied me willingly enough, they trudged along, casting woeful glances up at me that said, "What have we done wrong?" Occasionally they would stop and rub their drippy wet faces with their paws, and once, my dog Chaos just stopped in the middle of the path and hung her head while we walked on without her. I spent much of the second half of the hike trying to encourage them; they acted thoroughly defeated.

I always kind of think of my pets as reminders of the beauty of the simple life. They find enjoyment in very basic things; they're not materialistic; they plainly care more about being with me than about the circumstances of our mutual existence. But I think I learned today that they're a little more materialistic than I realized, at least in an indirect way. They may not have any concept of buying a house, but they sure do want to live in it. If you let them choose between being with you out in the rain and being with you in the pillow-top queen bed at home, they do in fact have a pretty definite opinion. And if you hike with them in the rain anyhow, they will look at you as if you're cracked.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Stinky Fish

I had a little bit of a Truman Show incident this evening. What I mean by this is that I had an encounter that made me feel a bit as if I'm a pawn acting in something staged. It was a funny feeling.

Here's what happened. I went to the Safeway tonight, which is about a quarter mile from my house. I went to buy milk and cream for a quiche I'm planning to make because my mom is planning to visit and I am going to have to feed her. This usually brings out my creative culinary side, perhaps to my mother's chagrin. But anyhow, I planned to buy milk, cream, something to eat for dinner tonight, and some fruit for snacking. The milk and cream were simple. The fruit was also a straightforward choice, since seedless black grapes were on sale for a dollar a pound, and you can't beat that, even if grapes do make you terribly sick to your stomach every other time you eat them. They're too yummy to pass up, and if they wind up being like an instant trip to a third world country where you shouldn't have drunk the water, then you get free virtual travel to boot.

For dinner, I went to the fish department, trying to be virtuous. Catfish was on sale, and I love catfish, so I decided to take a couple home and pan fry them, which is a technique I don't have the hang of. (Of which I don't have the hang?) I thought it would be good: a quick, healthy meal and some cooking practice rolled into one.

So I made my purchases and trundled home. I washed the grapes, chowed some down, could already tell they weren't going to sit well, and checked my email. After about half an hour, I headed over to start the fish. I began to heat my cast iron skillet, set out some flour in a bowl for dredging, and then opened the plastic-wrapped fish to wash it. STINKY!! Stinky fish! Baaaaad, stinky fish!

That was the end of the Fish Dinner Plan. Pan fire off. Flour back in the bin. Fish back in the bag. Shoes on the feet. Fish and woman in the car. Fish and woman and car returned to the Safeway.

This is the Truman Show part. I walked in with the fish and went to the customer service counter. The woman behind the counter was standing, but she was leaning so heavily on the counter that she looked quite relaxed, and indeed, she greeted me with good cheer, as if perhaps I was joining her for a beer. I explained that I had just bought this fish half an hour ago, and it was clearly spoiled, and I would like to return it. And she said:

"I know."

You what? How could you know? Or you knew, and you just let me buy that stinky fish anyhow? You still have it for sale when you know it's rotten? You knew I'd be back? You've been leaning here waiting for me? Am I the hapless nerd who buys the stinky fish? Am I on film?

So I said, kind of dumbfounded, "You know?"

She said, "Oh, yeah, uh-huh, I know. I saw you in here with your little basket."

Now, first of all, I object to the "little basket" remark. The basket is not little. It's exactly the same size basket as anyone else uses who wanders into the Safeway and picks up the baskets they offer for shoppers who don't want a whole cart. No, the basket is fine. It's me. I'm a giant. I make the basket look small. But you don't have to go commenting on it, especially not with a knowing smile on your face because you were in on the planning behind the Return of the Stinky Fish episode.

Okay, I'm not a giant. I'm pretty tall, over six feet tall, and usually people comment on that, so I'm probably a little paranoid. But still. Little basket. Sheesh.

And something else dawns on me. She is not, I realize belatedly, trying to tell me that she knew the fish was bad. Nor, I think, is she trying to tell me that she knew I purchased fish. I think she was merely saying that she knows I was in the Safeway half an hour ago buying things. And yes, she probably does know that because it happened right in front of her and I am, in fact, noticably tall.

So I don't think I'm on the Truman Show after all.

The woman gave me much more change than I deserved for the fish, and when I commented on that, she explained that if a customer is dissatisfied with a sale item, they refund, not the sale price, but the original price. I thought this was awfully generous, but I pointed out to her that, if she was smart, she'd get rid of the rest of the catfish before I could buy it and make a handsome profit returning it. She laughed at my funny joke, which just shows you what she knows.

I can fit a lot of stinky fish into one of those little baskets.

Monday, September 19, 2005

Guard him and make sure he doesn't leave

One of my favorite things is those surreal conversations one has from time to time. The quintessential example is from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," in the scene where the king wants his son, who wishes to escape marriage, guarded in his room by two guards. The king wants the guards to stay in the room and guard the son to prevent his escape. He says this in as many clear ways as he can, to no avail. The guards continually misunderstand him, and when the king ultimately turns to leave, they attempt to follow him out. If you have never watched this scene, you really should, because once you've seen it, life will remind you of it repeatedly.

I bring this up because I had a mildly surreal encounter at the vegetable stand on Sunday, and I thought I'd try to transcribe it here, as best I can remember it. This stand is between my house and the woods where I hike with the dogs on Sunday mornings, and sometimes on my way back after the hike, I like to stop there and get some decent tomatoes. I can't grow tomatoes myself (that's a whole different story), and I don't think grocery store tomatoes are worth the space they take up, but this stand manages to sell me some tasty ones from time to time.

So last Sunday I stopped. I picked up eight tomatoes, four ears of white corn, and two apples. I put each set in their own white plastic bag and brought them to the register, which is propped on a wooden counter under a roof. A roof, I might mention, that I crack my head on every single bleedin' time I visit this vegetable stand. The man tending the stand rose and said a friendly hullo, and then the conversation went something like this:

"Hullo."
"Hi, how are you today?"
"Fine, just fine. Lovely day. Will this be all?"
"Oh, yes, thank you. I've got four ears of corn, I think eight tomatoes, and a couple apples. I don't know which stuff you do by weight and which you count, but I think it's probably eight tomatoes."

As I said this, he took the tomatoes and the apples and put them on a scale, thus wordlessly letting me know he weighs tomatoes and apples rather than counting them. Then he looked over at my bag of corn and scowled.

"You sure that's eight?"
"Yes, eight tomat... oh, the corn? Four corn. I have four ears of corn."
Then him, chuckling, "I didn't think that was eight corn. You said eight, I thought you were crazy."
"Oh, no, I said four corn, eight tomat..."
"Cause you said eight corn and I can tell that ain't eight."
"Well, yes... that's four."
"Cause you said eight."
"Well, yeah, that was a mistake. I meant four."
"Uh-huh."

At which point he was satisfied, and we concluded our sale.

Saturday, September 17, 2005

Citizens' Antiterrorist Brigade

My friends tell me I'm funny. Mind you, they don't tell me this all the time, or even particularly often. But they tell me often enough that, when I sit here and stare at this empty blog, I think that there really must be something terribly funny to say. But of course nothing comes to mind.

Instead, I'll relate an odd little experience I had on the D.C. Metro recently.

I got on the red line and was riding it to Gallery Place, and suddenly a man farther up the car stood and shouted to another man walking away, "Sir! Is this your bag??" The other fellow shook his head no and walked off, leaving the man staring at an unoccupied seat. Our whole car full of people just kind of froze... what the hell to do now? We couldn't see the bag he was referring to, so we weren't sure how serious this was, and then he picked up an Eddie Bauer fabric lunch tote. We all just stared at it for a few seconds, like meerkats on the Serengeti. Finally his wife asked, of the entire car, "What should be do? Should we open it?" We all muttered indistinctly, and meanwhile the husband lost his patience and started squeezing the bag to feel if there was anything in it. It appeared to be empty. So he finally just shrugged and put it back down on the seat and sat in his seat. We all sort of chuckled and looked at each other and said, "wow, that was really a bit freaky!" and then rode on. The guy and his wife got off at the next stop, and after that I saw a succession of people get on the train, eyeball the bag like nervous horses, and then sit without comment. One woman even got on and sat next to the bag, giving it a leery look before sitting turned away from it as if it was an unhygienic passenger. Finally my stop came, and at that time the seat with the bag was empty, so I went over there and took the bag and an umbrella that had also been left behind. My reasoning was that it was stupid to leave the bag at this point, where it might cause a whole new stir a few stops farther on, possibly something much more outsized and costly and inconvenient for all involved, when we had already determined the bag was not a danger. Then I had to decide what to do with it. I was still carrying the whole thing as if it could still be a bomb, but finally I had to kind of admit I couldn't possibly believe it was a bomb or there'd be no way in hell I'd be carrying it. Therefore, the fact it was in my hand proved it was safe... in a circular-logic kind of way. Then I thought I'd turn it in, but I realized that would be pretty stupid... the staff would just throw it out or put it in some bottomless lost and found box. Or maybe it would go to a new good home, but I really wasn't sure it would. I finally stopped long enough to poke through it and realize it had a few names and a phone number (not of the owner, but of someone who once offered the owner or the owner's kids a babysitting job) on a slip of paper, and a name written on the bag itself, so I decided to take it home with me to try to locate the owner to find out if they wanted the bag back (it's a very nice bag, really). If nothing else I wanted to tell them about the stir their bag caused on the train.

So anyway, then I got on the green line to come to Greenbelt station. The whole time I'm riding, I'm sitting across the doorway area from a big tub of some kind of sealant, or, at least, that's what it says on the label. It's really a very large white tub, with a white plastic bag on top that says "THANK YOU!" in red, with no owner sitting next to it. I hypothesized that the man sitting the next row back, talking to the guy across the aisle from him, was in fact the owner of the tub, but there wasn't any strong reason to believe that. I thought of asking him and putting my mind at rest, but somehow it seemed faintly ridiculous to go through the same process twice in one Metro trip, so I didn't. I just stared at the tub, wondering why one can't count on nice exposed wires or maybe a clock ticking down when one is being an Observant Citizen Helping To Keep Our Country Safe From Terrorists. I tried to picture a bomb inside the tub, and I wondered if it would be filling up most of the space inside or would it be just hunkered down like so much scrap in the middle of the bottom. And who would think to use a tub of sealant as a bomb disguise anyhow? Wouldn't you pick something that wouldn't stand out so much? Or would it be extra clever to pick something like a tub of sealant? And how stupid would I feel if that thing blew up while I was thinking all this? I pondered how little effort it would be to (a) ask the man about the tub or (b) switch cars or (c) get off the train and wait for the next one, and marveled at how I absolutely knew there was no chance I would do any of those things even though they were almost effortless and I was supposedly potentially risking my life.

Two stops before my own, the man in the second row concluded his conversation, got up with his friend, grabbed the handle of the tub, and took it with him off the train. I knew it all along, of course.