What about your role in this?  You left the loaf right there on the counter behind the tomatoes.  Why aren’t you taking any responsibility?  And Max?  He nudged it closer to the edge of the counter where I could clearly see and smell it. Does he get ANY blame in this?  Don’t forget about Petey….his stomach growled which totally reminded me that I was hungry…why are you still yelling at me????

This worked so much better for BP.

I’m not someone who runs to see the sights of any new city to which I travel.  Sure, I’ll hit a museum or two but my greatest joy is sitting in restaurants, wandering around and getting a feel of what it might be like to live there.   My second greatest joy is reading the guidebooks.  I tend to skim through the overall history of the place.  Sure, there were some riots, Evita was beloved and be-hated, they can never get the economy off the ground, etc.  But, it’s the little stories tucked in that can make an entire trip worthwhile.  On our third day in Buenos Aires, after my master class was missed (more about that on another day), we went to Ricoleta.  This is a beautiful part of the city, with great shopping, a huge park and the famous cemetery.  There were wonderful parts about that day, from seeing the huge gum tree where I had a picture taken of me at the age of 6, to the dogs (which, by the way, take themselves very seriously in the capital city….don’t laugh at them) but I loved the cemetery.

The Ricoleta cemetery is one of those beautiful and yet creepy and questionably sanitary mini-city of above-ground mausoleums.  Much like above-ground pools, they call into question the judgment of their owners.  At first, there is the shock of seeing some rotting coffins just behind a gap in the marble.  Then there is the gross factor of seeing that they have an impressive drainage system that must mean that seepage must occur.    Then you realize that each mausoleum has an underground area to keep the majority of the family that begs the question: “who ranks highest in the family to get the above-ground digs?”.  Then you see the coffin gourneys strewn about which implies recent additions.   Then you pet the “death kitties” which roam around before you realize that they can get into the mausoleums and probably do some mean ratting down there.  But none of these activities were my favorite part.

There is a mausoleum in Ricoleta dedicated to Ruffina Something.  Stop if you’ve heard this story before.  Ruffina had a cataplectic fit and was buried at the age of 19.  At some point after the initial burial, or as I like to call it “Death.1”, she woke up and realized she was in a bad situation.  She attempted to claw her way out but was unsuccessful.  “Death.2” occurred as a result of some serious splinters under her fingers, anoxia and a heart attack.  There are many questions I have about this scenario.  Did they not check pulses in the 18^th century?  How long did they wait after the fit before they threw her in the box…thirty minutes?  An hour?  How did they know that she had not died before they tossed her into the ground?  I’m imagining a few possibilities.  “Antonio? Did you hear something?”  “No, I just have a little gas”.  “Has that coffin lid always been askew?”.

But this isn’t the best part of the story.  Apparently, some well-meaning friend of the family, or neighbor, heard about poor Ruffina and made a vow to never allow something this tragic to ever happen again.  So, he set to work, designing a coffin with an alarm system and a release.  Now, this gentleman was tenacious and he wanted to make absolutely sure that his new contraption would work.   So, like any good engineer, he tested it….12 times.  Not satisfied with a mere 12, he decided to give it another go and, on the thirteenth time, his design failed him and he died inside the coffin, of finger splinters, anoxia and a heart attack.   I don’t know about you, but I have more questions now.   Were twelve attempts not enough to reassure him that his product was safe?  Did he not tell anyone what he was working on?   Why on earth would he do this by himself?  It would be a simple favor…”Hi Antonio, I’m going to be testing a new coffin, would you mind hanging out in case it doesn’t work?”  Maybe they did hang out for a while but got bored after test #8 and decided to head to Cabreras for a glass of Malbec and a tenderloin.

When you stand in front of Ruffina’s grave (a substantial upgrade as only guilt can buy), you are struck by the statue of the young woman with her hand on the door handle.  It’s as if she is saying in a bored tone, “Hi.  Come on in.  I’ve got a story to tell you.”



Nope.  Today, I gave my first lecture outside of my own little microcosm of residents.  I flew out of the nest.  I left the farm for the first time.  I left the hive behind and buzzed out into the world.  It’s important here not to confuse “world speaker” with “international renown”.  More accurately, I am like Celine Dion, working out the kinks in my performance overseas before I bring it back to the US.

So, standing in front of a room full of Argentine physicians, I dazzled them with my brilliance.  I also learned a few things.  For example, despite the simultaneous translation, jokes don’t really translate well.  During the talk, a paparazzi-esque photographer kept snapping photos of me while I droned on about metabolic diseases in infants.  Angeline Jolie?  Yeah, I feel her pain. After the morning session, the woman organizing the event planned a “meet and greet” lunch.  This was my favorite part of the day.  Sitting in a circle and discussing the various pleasures and problems we found with medicine in our respective cultures.  Their socialized medicine structure appears very much intact and I couldn’t tell at times whether they are behind us or our future.

If you’re ever planning a little lunch for people who speak different languages allow me to suggest getting an official interpreter.  I speak Spanish a little bit.   Essentially, I understand 8-9 out of every 10 words people say.  This means that I can carry on a conversation without difficulty at times and that I can also completely miss the point.  For example “We’re so excited to have you here sharing your ideas of emergency medicine” can also be “We’re so excited to have you here sharing your diseases in our emergency department”.  Despite my imperfections though, I think I would have done a better job than the interpreter we had.  The organizer, a completely lovely and enthusiastic woman, made the most lovely introductory speech that went something along the lines of “On behalf of the physicians here, we would like to extend a warm welcome to our American colleagues.  We are so excited that you travelled all the way to Buenos Aires to speak with us and to sit with us here to share ideas.  I would like this time to be about asking each other questions about the way medicine works in our very different systems.”  The interpreter then “translated” this to be “She welcomes you to Buenos Aires, if you have questions for each other, ask.”

Really, it appears that their issues are similar to ours.  How do you do research in a busy clinical practice, how do you keep patients happy when there are so many inefficiencies and waits, and how do you practice medicine for 30 years without becoming burnt out.  One of my colleagues addressed the last question with the basis of academic medicine in the US.  You can avoid burn out by staying in an academic setting and decreasing slightly the number of clinical hours you work by pursuing loftier goals: research, advocacy, administration, etc.  They were all nodding their heads until he stated “….and this way, you’re not seeing patients for 40 hours per week”.  At that point, we lost them.  The woman next to me, coyly remarked that she works 12-15 hour days at three different jobs.  It turns out the “part time” physician here works 36 hours per week and that is only because her husband works more and makes enough to support them.  I’m no health care czar but I think that if you went to most American physicians and said “Look, good job and everything on your eight years of graduate studies and 5 years of residency.   You’re now going to need to take a second job to make ends meet.  Maybe a third…it’s hard to say right now”….you would have a riot on your hands.  Not a violent one, more of a conservative physician, sulking in the corner type of riot….holding signs that said “we don’t want to play anymore” and “I’m taking my stethoscope and my pen and I’m going home”.

12-15 hours per day.   That is unreal!  Now, I’m sure they don’t have the same stringent rules about documentation.  I’m sure their nurses don’t spend 2/3 of their time writing in charts as opposed to taking care of patients.  And, you don’t hear a lot about big payout Argentine malpractice suits.  So, maybe medicine here is actually fun to practice.  Maybe they spend the majority of their time making decisions based on medical necessity and not patient satisfaction scores.  If I didn’t have to coach my patients to say that they received “excellent” care today when they were phone surveyed a month from now, after they recovered their health and received their $1000 bill, maybe, I wouldn’t mind working 12 hours a day.   Doctors in the US used to practice this way.  Round at the “public hospitals” before you went to see their patients in your clinics.  So I really couldn’t tell if these fine and brilliant physicians were behind us or if this will be our future.

Two days later one of our patient representatives, a southern lady through and through drawled to me as I passed her in the hallway.
“Dr. Emily.  I saw you on TV last night saving those kittens.  I thought ‘well that sounds like Emily, saving kittens.”
“Jane.  I talked about sunscreen.”
“Oh yeah? It’s all the same.”
Sunscreen and kittens, I get the two confused all the time.  I forgot all about it.

The next weekend, we were hanging out at the neighbors pool (slathered in spf45 as I am paler than Powder) and they said “Emily, we DVR’d your news special.  It’s hilarious , you’ve got to see it.”
Oh no.  Trying to seem nonchalant, I leapt out of the pool and barely dried off before I stood in front of their TV, dripping on their hardwoods.
“Well.  I guess, if you went to the trouble of taping it, we should watch it.”

We fast-forwarded (interesting how that has become a verb) through the usual shootings, car accidents and weather.  Then…..oohooh….there she was, my interviewer.  Standing in what looked like a park with a bunch of sunscreen products in front of her.  This is not where we interviewed.  Where was I?  She spoke about sunscreen and the things we talked about.  She misquoted me (making sure though that she got my name right) and said “We have to break for commercial but we’ll be back with the doctor to tell you more about the dangers of sun exposure.”
The news came back on.  It wasn’t me.  It started with a male reporter describing a “terrible tragedy” that occurred the day before.
“Today, a _____ county man is behind bars for cruelty to animals and littering.  Yesterday, he was spotted throwing a garbage bag full of baby kittens from the drivers’ seat of his pickup as he sped down ________rd.  AND THIS WOMAN SAW IT ALL.”
Who was this special person who is now living with nearly a dozen cats?  Apparently, it’s me.  There I am, in a video clip, (muted, of course) standing in my scrubs with my #*Y%-ing name tag on, smiling and laughing and, ostensibly, discussing the horror of watching the Hindenburg of cats go flying out of a pick-up.
So, if I seem to be snobby or disdainful of the local news and their need to get an expert to tell you to put a coat on, it’s with reason.  They’re idiots.

Background:  Lisa is a vegetarian, thus she would not be driving up to find dinner chickens.  However, she has mentioned on numerous occasions that she would like to raise them.  I find this admirable…as it is also icky.

“Are you going to buy some?”
“No.   Although I have had some eggs from this farm and they are the best damn eggs I’ve ever had.”
“Is Chris going to buy some?”
“No.  This is the place where he hunts turkeys in the fall. We’re going to feed the turkeys and take a walk around the farm.”

At first I was confused. Why on earth are there turkeys at a chicken farm.  Maybe if you grow chickens, you dabble in turkeys? Or is it the other way around?  After I got comfortable with this bit of information, the cruelty of their gesture started to sink in.  Hey turkey, I’m going to make a special trip up here to feed you and get you used to me so that when I come back in the fall to shoot, kill and eat you, you won’t be scared of me.  I can see them all right now.  Hey! It’s that guy who comes for visits and morsels of good food.  I don’t know what that large stick is that he’s carrying.  Maybe he launches the treats towards us so we don’t have to waddle so far.   Hey! We’re over here! Launch some goody treats our way!
Lisa and I quickly transitioned to more practical matters.  Why hunt the turkeys when the chickens would be so much easier.  You could just sit on the fence and pick them off.
For some reason, this made me think of Buddy.  Buddy is our neighborhood’s newest edition.  He’s a yellow lab and as such, he is not that bright.  The neighbors already had three small children, so it’s unclear at times why they thought a mentally challenged puppy would be good to add the mix but there he is.  Buddy has an electric fence that allows him to sit out in the front yard and observe the world around him.  Buddy is out there a lot.  It’s unnerving.  He is the only dog in the neighborhood that spends any great deal of time outside.  While the rest our animals are snoozing away their afternoons in our beds, we sit astounded that a dog could survive out in the wilds.  The neighbors have wondered what terrible crimes he could have committed that have relegated him to this “outdoor” existence.  Did he eat a Pottery Barn sofa?
Buddy also inspires a fair amount of guilt.  For example, my bloodhound and I like to play fetch.  It is a slight derivation from what many people would consider something I like to call “classic fetch”.  In our derivation, I throw the saliva-laden racquetball and Wyatt goes charging after it.  He doesn’t catch it so much as stop it with his body and then grabs it off the ground.  Ball in mouth, he runs right past me ignoring my pleas to stop.  About 20 yards away from me, he drops the ball out of boredom and exhaustion and then returns to me, without it, in hopes that I will go and get it and then throw it again.   It’s great exercise.  It is also impossible to play this game in front a Labrador puppy who watches the event as though he were a spectator at Wimbledon.
Lisa and I discuss Buddy’s fate as though he were a political prisoner in Tibet.  So unfortunate. What an innocent soul.  Surely they’ll have to bring him in soon.  At this point I bring up the lion.
If any of you haven’t seen this video, you must check out Christian the lion on YouTube.  I’m a little fuzzy on the details so bear with me.  These two guys see a lion cub in Herrods’ and decide that department store living is no good for a cub, so they buy him.  They take the cub to some place.   I think it’s a church? Or a school? Where they spend the next year raising him.  Lots of great footage of two men with bad hair, rolling around on the ground with what looks like large kitten.  When said lion cub, named Christian, reaches critical mass, they realize that this church/school/park/whatever is no good and that he needs to go back to Africa.  SO they send him.  I’m sure this was a more involved process but, again, details not clear.  The best part is that a year later, they go to Africa to find their lion….and they do.  Now here’s where it gets good.  They get warned that their old buddy might not recognize them because their lion is now the head of his….tribe?      herd?      group?     pride?      peeps? something.   You then see, our heroes walking through the African plains and a male lion running up to them at full speed.  They get down on their knees as if they are our neighbors welcoming Buddy back into the house.  The massive cat leaps for them and nuzzles them.  The three of them roll around on the ground together.  Each time, it looks like Christian is going to take a good bite of the jugular and instead they are all laughing.   When asked why they were so sure that the bounding 300+lb cat was going to be friendly, they said that they could tell by his body language.  His body language.  After a year, they trusted their ability to read a lion’s body language that he was not, in fact, going to eat them but merely say hello.    All I’m saying is that it’s a good thing they’re milking this for all the publicity they can, because they don’t sound very bright.

After that, I asked Lisa how she was feeling about starting law school in the fall.  “Fine”.  “Great.  Well I really didn’t have anything else exciting going on.”  “Me either.”  We agreed we’d talk soon and hung up.  It feels so good to really connect with someone.

Navigating the waters of relationships can be tricky.  I have to brag that most of the time, our waters resemble a cool, deep lake.  No currents, no risk of tipping, and any possible obstacle is completely visible before your vessel approaches.   The only problem with this scenario is that when you see said obstacle, there is a great deal of discussion as to which side to go around it as we silently but purposefully start rowing in opposite directions.  As the rock draws nearer, our conversation becomes more impassioned as we continue to row against one another.  One of three things happens: one of us gives up but sulks about it for a while pretending to not be bothered by the whole thing, we hit the rock (slowly usually and with much laughter), or one of us (usually me) agrees just the point of making the other one let up a bit.  At this moment, the agree-er digs in like the Swedish team in the two-man boat Olympics and takes the boat where they wanted to go the whole time.
Before we all talk about the potential problems with all of the above behaviors, allow me to say that they are unintended.
1.    The agreement with sulking.  This usually occurs as we’re getting ready to go somewhere.  We are running late.  We haven’t dropped off dry cleaning in a month so instead of closet full of clean ready to wear clothes, we have a pile of wrinkly worn once but clearly smell too bad to try again clothes.  In the flurry of activity, a question gets thrown out.
“what are you wearing tonight?”
“expletive….I don’t know.  What are you wearing?”
We see that this is getting us nowhere so I make the first foray into the closet and appear with, what I think, is a lovely outfit.
“what about this?” –smiling
“you cannot wear those jeans with those shoes.  Where is your belt?  Do you maybe want to iron that shirt?”

Now, at this point, any reasonable person would say the following.  “You asked for advice.  You don’t want to go out looking bad so you really should be thankful that someone cares enough to notice the details and have you looking your very best when you walk out the door”.  The reality is, I do feel that way.  How I respond though is with a snarl. “Fine.  What shoes should I wear?” (if you’re so smart you tell me).  “The black boots.”  Damn.  “With the heels?!?”  “Yes”.  At this point, I’m throwing off the tennis shoes and scowling at the boots that I can barely walk in but at least look decent.  Now, she’s pissed…for good reason.  It all goes back to advice my father gave me.  “Don’t ask for an opinion when what you’re looking for is assurance”.  I realize I’m being unreasonable so I try to act happy and rational about the whole thing.  She avows never to give advice again and that I can just look like I get dressed out of a 1980’s Target catalog if I want to.  The boat goes the right way.

2.    We hit the rock.  We have a lot of house guests.  We love having house guests.  We feel so honored that people would come all the way to see us that we spoil them rotten when they get here.  We get overwhelmed with house guests. (Note to all of those who may come to visit….we can’t wait!)

Excitedly -“Hey. I talked to Sally the other day.  She wants to come for a visit.”
Guarded – “When?”
With enthusiasm – “Great question.  She’s not entirely sure but sometime in the next few weeks.  I told her my work schedule so I think maybe one of the weekends I have off.”
Perplexed – “OK.  We’ve had a lot of house guests though and you were just saying that you needed some downtime.”
Rationally -“I know. I know.  But it’s Sally.  We haven’t seen her in forever.  She’s totally low maintenance and we’ll all have a great time together.”
Irritated – “Maybe we can just put it off for a few weeks.  Remember how you just said last night that you were exhausted?”
Deflated and irrational- “You’re right.  You’re right.  I’ll give her a call and let her know that we can’t do it right now.”

A few weeks later…still gliding toward the rock.
Concerned – “did you manage to get a hold of Sally and tell her that this month doesn’t work for us?”
Oops – “haven’t had a chance yet but I’ll call her today.”

Later that night…rock looming ahead
Sheepish – “Couldn’t get a hold of Sally.”
Irritated – “Wasn’t she supposed to be coming this weekend?”
Blink-blink – “Um..yea…. I think this was one of the weekends we spoke of.”
Sigh – “Do you think it might have been nice to let her know earlier?  If she’s planning on coming here then she is leaving her house tomorrow morning.  You can’t just change someone’s plans like that.”
“oh”

Next day…house guest arrives…rock meets boat.

Another great weekend enjoyed by all until Sunday evening.
Concerned – “Hey Em. You look irritated, what’s going on?”
Frustrated – “I’m just tired.  I really need some downtime.”

3.    The fake
This is another one of my party tricks that could not be more irritating and brings us to the title of this essay (finally). Mulch.  There is a large area in our backyard that is left “natural”.  This is code for “Jesus Christ that’s a big area.  No way do I want to plant, weed and tend to it but we can’t afford to get it landscaped so it sucks to be our neighbors”.  This year, we decide we’re going to mulch.  Bringing order to chaos.  Organizing our little section of nature and beautifying our view from the patio we are finishing so we can enjoy sitting out there.  She and I have different ideas of what will look good out there.  As the person responsible for mulching my parents yard when I was growing up, I am partial to the large mound of double hammered hard wood that gets dropped on the driveway.  It’s rich dark color and fragrant aroma are a joy to work with which is good since it takes my twiggy arms about two days to spread it all out.  She likes the aesthetic appeal of the nugget variety.  Crisper.  Neater.  And here is the rock in our lake.
As we glide toward the rock, negotiations begin.  I won’t bore you with the details, let’s just say it’s an intelligent back and forth about the relative merits and downsides of each of our mulch choices.  We listen.  We understand.  I still don’t agree but I offer compromise.  “If the mini-nuggets are as good for the soil underneath, I will get them, otherwise I’d prefer the double hammered hardwood because it will condition the soil for planting in the future.”  Seems so rational doesn’t it?  She stops rowing.   I call and the mulch-expert on the other side of the phone tells me all about how great the hardwood is and I’m sold.  I start rowing like there’s no tomorrow.
She, with good reason, is now irritated. “Why did you waste my time and energy discussing this if you were going to do what you wanted anyway?”  The good news is, though, that she will have lots of time to tell me “I told you so.”  Invariably the path that I choose leads us around the rock into another rock.  I’m sure that later in the summer when the well-conditioned soil under the warm southern sun is sprouting weeds like crazy through my carefully placed hardwood, she will enjoy reminding me of the merits of the mini nuggets that I will then be placing on top of my double hammered hardwood.

Stay tuned gentle reader, the mulch will be delivered on Friday.

The video began and, to be honest, with the exception of the 30 amateurish photos he took set to banal music….Norah Jones…..really?  It was very sweet and captured the weekend he and his wife spent with their friends very nicely.  Sadly though, I saw neither TV nor computer in their mountain home.  This begs the question, how will they watch this gift when they receive it?

I get very tired when social commentators discuss the lack of written records we leave.  It’s true, nobody writes letters anymore.  Only the grooviest and most introspective folks write by hand their thoughts and goings on in a journal.  I see no problem with this for a few reasons that I will title completely offensively as a cheap ploy to grab your attention.

1.    You are average
Let’s face a few hard facts of life.  We are all average.  There are a few shining stars that compensate for the multitudes (I put myself here) that can’t even achieve the median.  These stars are the only ones we should spend time on.  Who’s diary to we really care about? John Adams? Or, his second cousin Bob the soy farmer who never left his hometown?  John’s diary includes beautiful imagery of what life was like at the time as well as describing the interpersonal relationships of the fathers of our country.  Bob’s diary, I feel would have read something like this. “March 13: got up, ate breakfast, fed the cattle, worked the field, came home, ate dinner, went to bed”….fascinating.   Should we really mourn the loss of such potentially stimulating page-turners?
“But how will people know what life was like in the early 21st century without diaries and correspondence?’  This brings me to my next point.

2.    We waste our lives AKA I’m thrilled nobody knows how I spend my time
Thank God no one knows how I spend my time.  Diaries were interesting when evenings were spent retiring to the great room for conversation with neighbors, a glass of brandy and clever discourse regarding the days’ events.  All the while, the women were completely tapestries of embroidery projects and men were smoking cigars.
Do we really want people to know what we do?  “Today, after work, I forced myself to go to the gym. Here I worked out enough to justify eating a large dinner and drinking half a bottle of wine but not enough that I will hurt for the rest of the week.  After coming home and tending to the needs of the hound, I cooked dinner, which we subsequently ate in front of the television.  After dinner, we watched a Netflix episode while taking turns looking at our Facebook pages.  After a continuation of our eternal debate, whether to open another bottle of wine, we decide to go to bed.”
Don’t get me wrong, I love my life.  But if I journaled every day, I might want to hang myself.

3.    Nobody wants to read your shit
One saving grace of diaries and letters is they are meant for a very specific audience or none at all.  Sure, we’d all like to think that posthumously our thoughts would be published as “a brilliant commentary of the author’s era”!    I would like to refer you to #1.  I’ve tried on numerous occasions to express myself creatively.  I’ve played music and made numerous half-hearted attempts to write.  I was in orchestras and played in a punk band and I would like to describe my artistic impact as being akin to an ATT phone plan.  I was able to reach out and touch Friends and Family.  If my thoughts were profound, well communicated and performed, they might reach a larger audience but the reality is that nobody outside my plan really cares.  I don’t say this disparagingly.  I just continue to hope to strike some chord, create one thing that’s above average enough to outlast me.

In the meantime, I say to all those who wish that people committed more to paper, be careful what you wish for.  You might be forced to watch a ten minute video of a country house.  Those things that are truly excellent will rise to the top and be preserved for the rest of us to aspire to and deeply appreciate.

The irony that I’m writing all of this in an average Joe blog, for my friends and family plan to read, is not lost on me.

I now hate the Facebook recipe quiz.

Tonight Carm has expanded the facebook page.  This has been going on for some time.  At first, it was merely joining the national movement towards “sharing”; now, she’s “updating” and “enhancing”.  She has taken a movie compatability quiz with my brother.  Apparently, they’re cinematic BFF’s.  This was all fine.  Building relationships, making friends, connecting with folks we haven’t heard from in a while.  Until, that is, the recipe quiz entered our lives.
For those who don’t know this little game, it is an online quiz from the sadists at epicurious.com to see who recognizes the recipe from their photo gallery. The more questions you get right, the higher you rate in their kitchen.  Some are potato peelers, some are line cooks, some are sous chefs, etc.  I don’t know the main prize, I haven’t achieved that yet.  After seeing a “potato peeler”, carm decides to rock out the recipe quiz.  This, is great.  I love to cook, she finds it tolerable.  To be fair, she’s  a wonderful chef…she’s just anal.   She finds it frustrating if exact measurements and exact times are not noted and respected.  I tend to be a more fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants-Julia-Roberts-Pretty-Woman sort of girl.  It makes her crazy.  To find her having an interest in the culinary arts is, in my mind, an attempt at bonding.  How wrong I can be.
Today, while I was at work, she came home from her job and took a few quizzes (yes, a few because there is a need to win).   When I arrived home I was greeted with “You’ll never guess what I was ranked” today.  This is a statement to which there is NO appropriate response.   I waited.  “I took the recipe quiz! What do you think I would be ranked?”
Again, there is no appropriate response.  I threw out a few ideas.

“Dishwasher!”  This was my first idea…..it was not met well.
“Firestarter!” Playfully recalling the first meal she made for me when she ignited a paper towel.  The smile on her face was fading to  a grimace.  I tried to evoke the memories of our many breakfasts.

“Microwaver!”
“Toaster?”

I was starting to lose confidence.  I was clearly not getting the clues and it was going to cost me the last glass of wine from the bottle tonight.  She gave me a hint.  “What….do….I….do…while…you…cook?”

“Neatener?!”  It’s true.  She’s really good at it.

“Card player?” We do play gin while I’m cooking sometimes…..

The answer, sadly, was “salad maker”.  You have to understand that I grew up with my mom making the most fabulous dressing that I have been trying to replicate for TEN YEARS.  Carm gets it after two tries.  She has mastered the dressing.  And I have neglected this skill.

So, now, she has elevated herself in the game and in my life as the one who can make the perfect salad.  I will be thinking a lot about this day and the fun we had laughing about it until our stomachs hurt.

I have a lot of time to think now that I sleep on the couch.

Who lives in a neighborhood with a Homeowner’s Association?
Who is an actual part of a Homeowner’s Association?
How did these people get appointed to this group?
On whose authority to they derive their power?

In my little relatively homogenous neighborhood, we have an HOA (how cute is that) and it is run by a very reasonable man.  We call him il presidente.  He’s nice, he does good things for our community, he believes in community, he takes pictures of naked women as a hobby.  I mean really, how could it be better.  Integrity with a hint of scandal, just what I love in a president.  Under his watchful eye, and likely lens, dues get collected, the parking strips remain mowed, and the entrance has tended shrubbery.  Every few months the neighbors (you have to understand this means 10 houses) get together and squabble over how the parking strip gets mowed and who trims the shrubbery.  Apparently these talks get heated but having never actually attended, I have no room to comment.

The unfortunate step-child for our HOA is, no joke, the ARC (Architectural  Review Committee).  It seems that there is great concern that one of us is going to whip out a wheel-less 1984 Corolla on cinderblocks onto the front yard next to the above-ground pool and we need someone in authority standing by to beat them.

As you might remember from previous conversations, I have a slope in my back yard that is held together by a tenacious Wandering Jew that is always being trampled by the hound.  The sloping unfortunately extends to the back of the house where the foundation is increasingly exposed.  It is time for a retaining wall and a patio.  I went to the same folks that did some other work in the neighborhood and are using them to build this very complex wall and floor.  Enter the ARC.

Again, I would like to point out the beauty of the backyard plan is in its simplicity (and coincidentally cost effectiveness)….retaining wall and patio in tasteful pavers.  There are no fountains, water features or Buddhist meditation areas.  Despite the fact that no one can see this area unless they go through the back gate while being molested by a 100 lb drooling bloodhound, an official “plan” needs to go through the WHC-HOA-ARC.  A friend draws up a to scale drawing of the area complete with computer generated shrubs (which lets face it, I won’t be able to afford until next year), and I send it in along with an official letter and a brief description of my need to prevent my house from sliding down an eroding hill (which I do think would actually take out the Wandering Jew).

I was then informed that the WHCHOA-ARC would need to meet and possible go to my backyard and look at the offending area. …you know, before they could make a decision…..are you kidding.  Then I was then privy to the email banter that went back and forth between members of the WHC-HOW-ARC.
Member 1
“We are leaving early on Thursday morning for ten days. Based upon the description you provided I would have no objections.
If everyone else can meet you guys go ahead without me. I do think it is important that we have plans in hand (not promised) before we give her an answer. “

…wtf….

Member 2
“Were the attachemtns on the previous email considered “plans”?”

….no, a drawing of the wall and floor that is to scale isn’t a plan….we wanted to give you something pretty to tack up on the fridge.

I won’t bore you with the remainder of the communications.   I just want to know, what on earth do you do for a living that gives you the time to examine , meet and discuss, and come to a decision about what your neighbors do in their backyard.

Again I can’t understate the complexity of my request, wall…..floor.  I informed the WHC-HOA-ARC that a more sophisticated rendition of wall and floor was going to cost extra because, it’s so *$#%#-ing easy, the landscape architect didn’t need to draw it.  This sent them into a tailspin.  I was not privy to the ensuing debate over this little development.

Eventually, my request was granted, and as I sit here typing, 5 men are laboring in the backyard to build aforementioned wall and floor.  There have been more delays, including waiting for the city to mark the yard for cable and gas lines but they finally started.  Of course, their first step is to dig up the sprinkler system as it, naturally, runs right under  where the wall is going to be.
Maybe I should have seen a plan.