Pavlov's Passing Lanes

I've been commuting lately, and during that time I've spent a great deal of thinking about how to streamline the flow of traffic. The best solution I've come up with: administer small doses of shock up through the pavement of the left lane somehow. Just enough to cause discomfort so people won't want to be there. I.e. the drivers who are talking on their cellphones and just thought they'd stay over there so they don't have to focus on shifting lanes.

This whole concept of discomforting but not painful shock could be used to lessen many undesirable behaviors, if one advocated the Big Daddy model. Why haven't we thought of it before? We could make it mildly uncomfortable to turn without a signal, eat at McDonald's, or even watch television. If the idea of electric shock seems unpalatable, what about a high-pitched and localized noisemaker?

By the by, are there any pro-torture readers out there? If so, why? There's a cute little "anti-torture" banner I've been thinking of putting up on my blog, but that might give off the impression that I'm political.

Things I'd Never Done Before (and some things I never want to do again).

1. Driven a Cadillac through a narrow alley (or driven a Cadillac at all).

2. Used a port-a-potty (if you've never stooped to this, trust me, hold it or find a brush patch!)

3. Attended the Crosby Festival of the Arts.

4. Watched four hours of Lifetime (Television for [post-menopausal] Women).

New Links and a Recipe

Check out my new links to the two Jeffs. Let us hope that Jeff the Younger continues to post. Jeff the Older has an excellent set of links.

In other news, following the recent trend of discussions about weight, an elderly woman told me in the YMCA locker room today that I "carried my weight well because I'm so tall." How does she know what I weigh?? And it could have something to do with the 1/2 hour a day I spend weight training! Gosh. Short people are just full of unwarranted envy.

Thanks to the random comments I have been receiving about weight, I've decided to become anorexic. According to an article I read, vinegar can help me do this. Tonight I created an edible salad recipe, as follows:

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Michaela's (Dangerously) Tangy Horse Salad

In large bowl mix:
Leafy greens
One small green apple, cubed
1 cup chopped carrots
1/2 cup sunflower seeds (hulled)

Dressing:
1/4 cup vinegar
1 Tbs lemon juice
1 Tbs oil
1 tsp sugar/Splenda
1/2 tsp garlic
dash of ginger

Mix well. Prepare to pucker.
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Near Death Experiences, Misplaced Prayers and Skip-Bo

I thought it was a brilliant idea of mine to commute from Waterville to Ann Arbor. Free room and board is a hard offer for an impoverished student to pass up. So I've been testing the concept this summer when I go up to Special Collections twice a week. Theoretically, the drive is only an hour. In practice, there is usually an accident or roadwork. But annoyance turned to fear on Wednesday as I was driving home.

There was a torrential downpour that morning on my northbound commute (don't I sound responsible and important?). As I sat by the window on the seventh floor, the city looked like England in the early industrial age. The damp old trees, the Gothic architecture of the law school, and the occasional smoke stack from the medical and science buildings were shrouded in humid vapor.

The rain, however, did not start again until I started for home (sans my umbrella, naturally). Suddenly, outside of Adrian, MI, the sky behind me became blackish-green. The storm caught up, and the rain poured down, mixed with hail; the wind flattened the grass and blew branches across the road, and on my right side was the opaque blackness. The radio broadcast a doppler alert that there was a touchdown in Adrian and began to bleep (I never understood that--bleeping isn't going to help anyone in the middle of a tornado).

I did not feel at ALL like I was Dorothy going to Oz. The people around me began to slow down. I considered my options (well, that sounds deceptively logical). A) I could get off at the next exit and hide in the gas station. Somehow parking under a bunch of potential scrap metal didn't seem like the best idea. B) I could park and get in a ditch. But then I'd get all wet and my car might get ruined. C) I could try to outrun the storm. The paucity of other options combined with my natural instinct to flee made this the winner.

So I gunned it, and started hydroplaning at 80 mph past the morons going 35. I found myself whimpering "Mother!", and then realized that invoking an actual Deity might be more useful.

Thanks to the divine intervention of God and/or mother, I arrived home safely. Almost immediately the city alarm went off, and we made Grandma leave her embroidery and come down to the basement. Well, Mother and Grandma went to the basement. I went and spent five minutes trying to catch the cat. Our power went off (to be restored by 1:33 am, according to the automated answering service at the electrical company. Isn't it odd they can be so precise?), we did not get to see a tornado, and Mother's office flooded.

Definitely not as exciting as all the hurricanes I'm missing in Puerto Rico (taking horses and chickens in the house was such a delightful upset of natural order), but still a break from the same ol' same ol'.

Despite the power's being off, Grandpa and Grandma insisted on playing Skip-Bo. I adore having my grandparents downstairs, but the Skip-Bo obsession I do not understand. They've played every night for the past 10 years, and Grandma keeps the scores in her diary. Now, I don't know if you've ever played Skip-Bo, but let's just say that playing CandyLand or shooting craps takes more mental power and strategy. I think this is definitely what is called an addiction.

Am I Fat?

Take a great big sigh of relief. I don't want you to actually answer that.

I was supposed to start my new job at Special Collections today. Paperwork, however, thwarted that plan.

Special Collections is on the seventh floor of the Graduate Library. To get to Human Resources, one must take the far elevator down to floor 3A, where the Asia collection stacks are housed.

The first time I went into the stacks they frightened me. The guts of the building are exposed, the ceilings of the half-floors nearly graze my head, and there is worn, colored tape on the floor leading lost students to the exits (follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the yellow duct tape!). According to one librarian, people have gotten lost for hours or even days in the stacks...Anyway.

One must walk all the way to the back of the stacks, climb a half-flight of stairs, and traverse a long corridor of offices before one arrives at the den of the human-resource trolls (have you ever noticed that all bureaucratic offices look exactly alike?). The desk troll informed me that she would try to answer any questions, but she didn't know much about taxes (on a similar note, the customer service representative on the Department of Education's loan consolidation hotline didn't understand the difference between principal and interest). So, after filling out 10 identical forms, I realized I didn't have my SS card with me. Really, I had three forms of official picture ID with me--why did they need the blue slip of bondage?? It's not like I don't know the bloody number by heart!

Anyway, so I spent the afternoon doing my volunteer work, evaluating almanacs from 1868 and medical books from 1823 (did you know that studious lives in libraries tend to unbalance the mind?).

As I was leaving the library I decided to grab some pleasure reading books. As I checked out either
(a) I was wearing clothes that made me look incredibly obese
(b) My esteem appeared to be low because I was checking out a biography of the Ugly Stepsister
Or (c) Five hours of staring at miscellaneous Americana from the 19th century had made me glum.

In any case, the lone circulation clerk, a middle-aged man with a skull-cap, either out of compassion or boredom, initiated the following conversation:

Him: "Do you know what Jamaicans think is wrong with American women?"
Me: "Um . . . they don't have enough fun?" (thinking of the Malibu rum commercial)
Him: "No--they think American women are too skinny. In fact, many other cultures don't like skinny women. When I was a kid I had a book with this painting by Rubens. Our society promotes this uniform body type."
Me: "Um . . . yeah . . . like Kate Moss . . . yeah--Rubens definitely didn't paint skinny women."
Him: "I tell my wife and daughters that they don't need to be skinny. My wife is 5 foot and 160 pounds, and I tell her she doesn't need to change a thing."
Me: "Oh--that's great---well--um--thank you--have a nice day."

Switzerland

Unfortunately we only saw a very little bit of Luxembourg from the train (of course, there is only a little bit of it). So jumping ahead all the way to Switzerland.

The ferry, which we got to ride with our Eurail passes, on the lakes around Lucerne.



A grand hotel in the old sense.




We were trying to look serious in front of the Lion of Lucerne, but the Japanese men at the side spoiled the atmosphere with their grins.


Lattenbrunnen (above Interlachen; in the valley below the Jungfrau).


The (very cold, glacial) stream where we cooled our aching feet while walking to Latternbrunnen from Interlaken.


Being eaten alive by a vicious swan. Kind of like snakes except for the feathers, beaks, wings...ok not really like snakes.



It's a steeple!

I Get to Be Eleanor of Aquitaine!

Dr. Veith notes on his blog that one of my favorite historians, Niall Ferguson, has written a column predicting a new Dark Ages. What do we think?

Italia

I think I'm going to do Italy next, since Ann spent most of her time behind her camera there. Incidently, I did have other shirts, but evidently she thought I looked really hot in the red one.

Holland should really be classified under the Netherlands, right Emma? Unfortunately, we have no pot-smoking pictures, because we didn't, and no tulip pictures because we got lost trying to find the flower market.

In Germany, people would speak to us in German. Although we haven't spent our lives suffering indigestion from too much sausage and beer, we evidently look like we have. Not so in Italy. Ann got into a fight with a short, firey woman on the metro, Matthew was called Hitler, and I bought a fake Gucci purse from a one-legged street vendor.

Taken expressly for our own dear Mazzini . . .


The view from St. P's. Not to brag, but we WALKED all the way to the top. In the heat. On our knees . . .

The Roman forum, definitely where to go if you want to feel like an archeological ignoramus.

Caution: the Vatican museum will give you a neck ache, since the most elaborate art is on ceilings of the miles and miles of chapels (one for every pope, I swear).


Well, what d'ya know? Maybe I have some Italian ancestors, after all.

Trevi Fountain. Across the street from which one can purchase expensive, gourmet gelato (Food is important, but ice cream is paramount).

Pesto and bread at the hotel in Florence.


The Spanish Steps. We were far too afraid of smushing an Italian to try climbing them.


The pigeons of St. Marks. Ann was disgusted by our lack of concern for avian flu. What can I say--we were raised in the chicken coop.

G is for Germany

OK . . . I'm going to have to find a new way to remember what countries we were in.
Ah Koln--not only quite the cathedral but also quite the selections of H&Ms.


Yes, this is the same stein in the other picture I posted. I shudder to imagine what would have happened if I'd had two.


Koln Cathedral again. (OK . . . Cologne Cathedral--the absence of a cuckoo clock indicates that it was built when the French had the upperhand).


The clock tower in Munich.

Eternal Happiness: A Conundrum.

Happiness is the relaxation that precedes activity.
Relaxation without the anticipation of activity is tedium.
Perhaps the absence of ending is distressing because of its analogy to eternity.
Or is eternity distressing because of the anticipated tedium?

What Goddess Are You?

?? Which Of The Greek Gods Are You ??

Athena
Take this quiz!


OK...some discrepancies here. I won't deny my scintillating intelligence. But I think the fact that I constantly trip over my Puddleglum-like feet belies the sophisticated bit, and my habit of putting inappropriate things in the freezer contradicts the down-to-earth part. My family collectively guffawed when I informed them that I was "easy to get along with."

F Is for France

The country that, contrary to expectations, we adored--the people, the boulangeries (yes--pastries are important to me--very important), the streets, the metro, the churches.

A picture from the first platform of the Eiffel Tower, which is an imposing sight despite its status as a pop icon.

Street performer outside the cathedral at Strasbourg.


Our bedroom/bathroom at the Bristol Hotel in Metz. Note the 70s-era wood paneling and paisley wallpaper. I half-expected coin-operated vibrating beds.



The friendly cat of Notre Dame. (This skirt proved highly disfunctional in the Louvre, where, wandering agawk at the art, I would frequently find myself in a Marilyn Monroe-esque position over the cooling vents in the floor).



Street performer outside of the Sacre Coeur.


Swiss Churches are cozy, and Italian churches house a lot of beautiful artwork, but nothing compares to a Gothic church in inspiring sheer wonder.

Survey Results

If you want to look at them, go to surveymonkey.com and log in as michaelawilliblog, password random. The results are under my survey > analyze.

I have a hunch about who the vegetarian-who-loves-the-Netherlands-and-thinks-Emma-speaks-Dutch-beautifully is, as well as the malcontent who accused me of making a false dichotomy. The rest of you still have me stumped.

Take My Survey

You can find it here

I'm trying to learn how to be a good librarian. Really. This was not for fun and is entirely serious.