Life in the Slow Lane

Sometimes I think the hardest part of this human life is being finite. If I had more time... if I had more energy... if I had more knowledge. And yet to come to the end of myself, as frustrating and maddening as it usually is, means that I have found a boundary. And within the boundaries of my finiteness, I can be secure. What trouble breeds in insecurity! Oh, that I may know the truth of me, and may the Truth of He set me free.

Los Angeles has a lot of cars. Cars that can all be intending to go somewhere and yet spending hours and hours not going very far at all. But I have arrived at a partial solution to this problem. For most of my conscious life, I have been aware that frequently my eyes tell me there are two when there is really only one. When this happens, I know that if I close one eye, one image will go away and then my head won't hurt so much. Of course when there are many cars, the statistical truth is that there will be some cars that are doubles of another. When this happens, if I close one eye, maybe one will go away and then there will be more room on the road for actual movement.

If Slowlane leaves the house at 7:25 it takes 40 minutes to get to work, if she leaves at 7:15, it takes 35 minutes, if she leaves at 7:10 it takes 30 minutes. How early must she leave for it to take no time at all?

This week I am the proud parent of a huge salt-water fish tank filled with tropical fish, coral, crabs, and a snail or two. The set up on this tank is amazing... It has no fewer than three timer-controlled surge protectors with electrical cords running hither and yon. It has another tank which has the sole purpose of mixing water to the right balance to maximize the happiness of the little fish. And then there is another tank just for keeping extra water for when the high intensity lamps evaporate the perfectly mixed water. Feeding these fish does not mean sprinkling fish flakes across the top. No, it requires the use of a dropper, a set of tweezers, a syringe, a chip-clip and five fishy products. And surely you now understand how thankful I am for the flowchart organized by day of the week and time of day. Because unlike that time long ago when I had to call in help to provide the equivalent of fishy mouth-to-mouth and still had to explain to the little girls why two of their priz...

After writing 499 posts, I should be able to come up with something delightfully amazing to mark 500. But isn't it just like Life in the Slow Lane to not have fireworks and parades and formal speeches to accompany what calendars and record books would draw attention to? So to celebrate 500 posts, I'm not going to write about it. I will just arrange six pages of pictures in a masterfully cute scrapbook in commemoration.

Of course the easiest solution to the address question for the "in-between" times of a move is a PO Box. Only you can't get a PO Box without two official proofs of address. I can get a library card for less than that. But they need to see a utility bill or a bank statement or tax return. I hadn't the courage to remark on how subletting, online banking, and other such modern innovations have affected my ability to produce those. Someone once remarked that we are a generation that writes our address in pencil. I hope I will have that opportunity .

I now begin a series of posts on the topic of my nomadic life. I am not sure how long the series will last, nor how many posts it will consist of, but I find that appropriate for the theme at hand. When I happen to make mention of my plan to be without a residence of my own for a period of several months, I get two responses: the first is "If you need a place to stay, don't sleep in your car, we can find you something better than that;" the second is "That sounds like so much fun! You are so lucky to be young and single and able to do that." I have to laugh when I hear this last comment. I don't think I would have chosen to be without even a 9x10 room if circumstances hadn't grown to be what they are. But it is an adventure that more than one person has idly wished for. The first comment makes me think of life in the Old West, when young single teachers would routinely move from house to house throughout the year as each student's family provided ...

I typically do not wear a suit into the office. Perhaps it is because I do not want to have to dry clean more frequently than every six months, but it is also because I don't like who I am in a suit. The minute that suit jacket goes on, I feel like I am trying to rise in the ranks of "Intimidating Women at Work". Which is not a particular goal of mine. And neither is it a goal of mine to be unrecognised, while wearing my suit, and mistaken for an auditor... which I'm not sure is a compliment. (Auditor's are intimidating, aren't they?) But it takes less work to figure out how to match a suit jacket with it's other half than it does to match two other items, and some mornings, I need an easy answer when I face the closet. And maybe it is those same mornings when I really could stand to look a bit more intimidating. You know, to make my yawns look more business-like.

This year I seem to be hearing and reading lots of tirades about what a wedding consists of. I've read reasons why engagement rings are bad, why food at weddings is horrible, how a bad case of Bridezilla - itis might mean the groom should run, why conspicuous consumption has ruined a sacred institution. I've heard reasons why no guest should be invited unless they are likely to bring a gift worth $50 or more, 60 billion reasons (give or take a few) that elopement is the way to go, and parents console each other through the most stressful year of their life... planning a wedding. Dare I mention the other frequent complaints? Single women who are guilted into half- heartedly fetching a bouquet... family members who stand up to give a toast and cause the entire guest list to squirm... and waiting forever for the party to start when you really wanted to leave half an hour ago. I know you've collected your own version of this list, but I would, in the face of this colos...

Since I first started thinking about moving out of my little 9x10 room, there has been a topic of conversation that I refuse to bring up with myself. Of course, Me, Myself, and I all know that it needs to be talked about, but I guess you could say that it's been like an elephant in the middle of the room. And an elephant in a 9x10 room makes it nearly impossible to do anything at all. But knowing this group as I do, I dare not bring up the elephant problem with Me and Myself, because one of them is likely to start in with elephant jokes, and frankly, I don't think our problem will be solved by throwing a peanut into a cardboard box and waiting for the elephant to climb in after it. Although... I might have just the perfect toenail polish to help the elephant hide.

This is the Random Yellow Card Question that makes me wonder what sort of net I have beneath my trapeze .

I wonder how the trapeze artist feels the first time she lets go of the trapeze. How long do those seconds seem when she has not yet caught herself on another swing? Has she memorized the distance down to the net, or does she ignore it altogether? Does she begin to worry about the sweat forming on her palms? Does she begin to think that it would have been thrill enough to fly back and forth, never letting go of one swing to claim another? I've never attempted any daring moves on a trapeze, but as I pack my belongings for a move to who-knows-where, I begin to suspect that the trapeze artist would scoff at the phrase "with the greatest of ease."

When I was young, I was terribly confused by all of the things that were translated as gancho in Colombian Spanish. If I remember correctly, gancho included clothes pins, hair clips, hangers, safety pins, paper clips, and what might now be called "chip clips". I learned a great deal of my early Spanish vocabulary while tagging along grocery shopping. I distinctly remember standing in the laundry detergent aisle, seeing the word gancho on clothes pins and wondering why the same word was used for items several rows over. But this morning I couldn't find my hair claw, and as I searched on my night stand which also serves as desk, laundry counter, pantry space, and book shelf, it occurred to me that perhaps there isn't as much difference among what can be translated gancho as I thought. But so you know, clothes pins work better for holding up hair than do paper clips, binder clips, and safety pins.

It has taken me nearly a year, but I finally noticed something fun about covering the reception desk. It is our habit to ask for the first name of each caller so that a) we can allow the person being called a little advance notice and b) so that if the person being called is not available we can come back and say "I'm sorry, Sherry, she's away from her desk right now," and c) so we can keep a log of our calls. And this last part is where the fun begins. Because maybe it was Sherry that called or maybe it was Sheri or Cherie or Sharie. And when Carol called it could have really been Carole or Karel or Caroll or Caryl or Carroll or maybe I missheard her and her name is really Care Uhl. Yeah, it's great fun... until you need to find her in the data base and none of the options you can think of work.

A little unnerving. That's what it is when you walk by someone you don't know and they warn you beneath their breath "Just keep walking, and don't look at the camera." We had already been asked to be extras for the film shoot, but the original time for the shooting conflicted with the staff birthday party, and we decided that eating a piece of birthday cake would add fewer pounds to our hips than being on camera. But it takes less time to eat a piece of cake than it does to coordinate all of the potentially distracting sounds in a building which echoes with every printed page, every unanswered phone, and every disjointed rendition of "Happy Birthday". And so we carefully walked as if it were completely natural, as if we always perform our routine tasks with spotlight and crew. I think it went well, but I doubt the impression I made on the filming crew was all that positive. They arrived at the reception desk moments after I bathed everything with a ful...

For the last almost two weeks I have been residing at what I affectionately call my Vacation House. It comes with a dog, which I have not yet been able to call affectionately. No, no. That's not quite true. It is hard to not think fond thoughts of a dog that leaps in the air for carrots. But this dog, as dogs frequently do, exhibits many of the horrible habbits of a dog. Bad breath... eating Grossness (yes, it needs to be capitalized) and then licking the entire kitchen floor... yech. But I must say, a girl could get used to more space than a 9x10 room affords. Of course, when it comes time to clean tomorrow for the return of those who call this vacation house Home, I may wish I had only 90 square feet of space to clean.

Today the mothers-in-law moved in. Or at least their tongues did. Two, great big, towering mother-in-law's tongues now reside behind me, peering over my shoulder like flames shooting towards the ceiling, ready to devour. Sansevieria trifasciata . Also known as Snake Plant or Mother-in-law's Tongue. You might guess that these are not the friendliest looking plants. And placed as they are, their pointy tongues reach more than six feet into the air. Don't repeat this in their hearing, but I really hope they only stay for the weekend and don't manage to stretch their visit into a permanent arrangement.