Harvey Might be the Man for Me

Quote of the blog:

Pei: Tell me about your date.

Brook tells.

Pei: Hmmm. He doesn't sound like your Mr. Rabbit to me.

****

This past August, after I finished my work in Oxford, I took a trip to Stockholm. The plan was to meet my friend Jason, my summer European travel buddy, at Rygerfjord Hotel (a boat hotel!). I arrived midday and stowed my things in our cabin: a room with two fold down bunks and walls just inches out of reach when I stretched my arms fully to the sides. Jason would arrive from Germany around 7:30pm. I explored the ship and then wandered the streets of Södermalm, the island where the hotel was docked. I got back around 7:15pm and left a Clementine and a note on the top bunk telling Jason to come up to the top deck when he arrived.

I sat at one of the tables with my back against the boat and relaxed. It was nice to decompress (not decompose like I accidentally said one time). The travel guide I pulled from my bag had almost been The Abba Guide to Stockholm (“The book ABBA fans all over the world have been waiting for!”). Traveling under the Swedish band's guidance was tempting and I debated at Blackwell in Oxford for a good twenty minutes before selecting the more updated, practical, and smaller Lonely Planet book.

I wrote in my journal, read my Stockholm guide and gazed across the water and watched the sky turn pink as the sun gently set behind the city spires. It was almost 10:00 pm. Where was Jason? Somewhere in Germany was all I knew. I realized that we hadn’t exchanged flight information and I wasn’t even sure where in Germany he was. I was just starting to really worry when he arrived at 10:30pm. His flight from Bremen and the airport shuttle to Stockholm had both been delayed.

I was falling asleep on my bunk as Jason regaled me with his adventures in Bremen. He showed me the children’s book about The Bremen Musicians he purchased. I loved that story growing up! I drifted to sleep as I listened as Jason talked about Germany. I hadn’t realized I had fallen asleep until I said something out loud I didn’t mean to. It was one of those, “was that my outside voice?” moments. I wanted to explain myself but fell back asleep.

In the morning, I asked Jason if I had said something embarrassing the night before. He started laughing and told me what I said. Apparently shortly after I dozed off, I announced in this happy, breathless, and tired voice, “I’m getting married.”

“What?” Jason asked.

I explained, swooning, “I met a rabbit.”

Jason, laughing, clarified, “You’re getting married to a rabbit?

I almost woke up only long enough to explain, “Oh, I was dreaming about Beatrix Potter…” before falling back asleep.

I finished the announcement: “We’re going to have lots of babies.”

For the next few days, any time we’d see a picture of a rabbit – or when we saw a live one – Jason would start laughing and elbow me. “Eh? Eh?” Once, in an art store, we looked at school paintings that had hung in classrooms around Sweden. The cashier showed us one that depicted a farm scene. A rabbit scurried across the road in front of a barn. Jason considered the poster and then told the woman, “Brook would like this one. She loves rabbits.” The woman looked slightly confused but turned to me and politely inquired, “Oh? You do?” Jason snickered and I blushed and stammered a response.

For Christmas my roommate Gaby commemorated the experience in a picture for me.

The story has provided ample fodder for teasing. And I’ve had more than one reminder that 2011 is the year of the Rabbit in the Chinese Zodiac. We’ll just have to see what the year brings but I don’t put too much stock in dreams – especially the dreams of someone who dreamt she was a rabbit in a Beatrix Potter cartoon. But if I ever introduce you to my man Harvey, you'll know not to ask.

Hop-a-long Honesty

Quote of the blog:

B: You can only be as honest with others as you are with yourself.

****

One of our family’s favorite stories was told to us by my mom’s good friend Candee Reed (see Police, Pachyderms, and a Pickup Truck). I grew up on the story. Candee told us about her friend who moved into a new home in Colorado (we’ll call the friend, Alice). Alice decided that she would befriend her next-door neighbor with whom she shared a fence. The neighbors were friendly and it seemed like their families would get along well, although Alice worried about their family pets.

Alice owned a full-grown black Labrador and the next-door neighbor’s owned a rabbit. Both roamed their respective fenced backyards freely. The neighbor’s bunny was The Family Pet. It was so much a part of the family that it had a Bunny House (cage) in the back yard and a private pet door for “whenever” access in and out of the home. Any time the bunny hopped around its backyard Alice’s Lab would go berzerk – running up and down the chain link fence that separated the yard, barking, jumping and staring.

One day Alice and her husband came home and to their absolute horror they found their dog with the limp rabbit in its mouth. The bunny was dead. What should they do? Worried about the new relationship with their neighbors they reluctantly walked next door to explain what happened but the neighbors weren’t home. After a bit of contemplation they made a plan.

They took the dead rabbit. It was filthy: covered in dirt clods and dog slobber but luckily no blood. They washed and cleaned the rabbit and even brushed the fur. Then they snuck into the neighbor’s backyard and placed the rabbit back in its cage. They figured it was better to avoid any awkwardness with their new neighbors and, really, did anyone need to know?

A few hours later they heard a bloodcurdling scream from the backyard. . They ran to the back yard fence, heart pounding – and asked the neighbor's wife who was in hysterics – what happened. She turned, and with a look of horror on her face said, “Our rabbit died and we buried it! And now it’s back in it’s cage!!”

A Methy Methy Christmas!

Quote of the Blog:

Brook to her four year old niece: You saved the day!

T: I’m not a super-herio.

*****

A few weeks ago my sister and husband asked their bishop if there was anyone he knew that needed help for Christmas. Without telling them the name of the family, the bishop let them know of a family that needed assistance - especially for their sixteen year old son. My brother-in-law, Jeff, decided to sell one of his Gerber LMF survival knives and use the money to get gifts for the son and the family.

Jeff didn’t have any trouble selling it online and it was purchased by a drug task force police officer in Missouri who planned to give the knife as a gift for his son's college graduation. Jeff sent the package via FedEx but a few days later the officer called Jeff because the knife still hadn’t arrived. Together they tracked the package – the address that was provided to FedEx was correct. They were connected with the FedEx delivery driver and she described the home where she dropped off the knife. The officer realized it had been delivered to an empty house two blocks away from his home. He called Jeff back a few days later to tell him the events that happened next:

The officer had stopped by the empty house, rang the doorbell, looked in the window and then saw the open FedEx packaging with his name on it in the trash. The house was “abandoned” but he got a search warrant and came back with his team. When they entered the house they found a METH LAB! While they were in the house a car pulled up to the house, saw their cars, and zoomed away.

They found the license plate on the dash cam and tracked the license and registration. When the officers visited the home where the car was registered they ended up arresting a mother and daughter. The mother/daughter had been using the empty house to run a meth lab. When they searched their car they found the missing knife under the driver’s seat. The knife was held as evidence. The Officer asked for its release and since the daughter’s fingerprints were on the FedEx package as well and they could use that as evidence they released the knife into the hands of our officer in time for the graduation.

I told Jeff he’s a Christmas Hero. Through helping a family with Christmas he started a chain of events that shut down a meth lab and led to the arrest of two drug dealers. Maybe we should have gotten him his own theme-music for Christmas. Perhaps one for the druggies: "Have Yourself a Methy Little Christmas", "I'm Dreaming of a High Christmas," or, our personal favorite, "Christmas in Kilmainham."

Pedicab vs. Cabdriver

Earlier this week my coworker and I manned a table at a Summer Opportunities Fair at a high school out in Long Island where we talked to junior high and high school kids about our programs. We didn’t get back to midtown Manhattan until 10:00pm and I decided to take a cab home. I hailed a taxi. It was a mid-size SUV with tinted windows in the back.

I got in and called my niece, Camri. It was her birthday and we started talking about what she had done that day (she had just turned 13). As we drove across town towards the West Side Highway we got stuck between two pedicabs (cycle rickshaw) were riding side by side. They blocked our lane and we, and the cars behind us, had to slow down as a stream of cars zoomed past us in the other lanes. My cab driver honked and gestured and yelled. The pedicabs didn’t break their side-by-side formation – they looked like they were casually chatting as they biked along pulling the empty seats behind them.

Camri was in the midst of telling me about her birthday dinner when there was finally there was a break in the traffic and my driver, all the while yelling, pulled around them and made eye contact with the one closest to us and swerved to almost hit him! I heard a yell and a thud and we drove on. I couldn’t believe it! About the time I thought I should get another cab (on principle) we stopped at a stoplight. We had just stopped when the two pedicabs rode around our cab, yelling, and they pulled in front of our cab. Every time the cabbie tried to drive around them they'd swerve in front of the car. Finally we shot around both of them and the cabbie drove half a block, fuming, then pulled to the side of the road and opened his door to get out of the cab.

I was in the midst of asking Camri, "Where did you decide to go for dinner?" When I, instead, said firmly, "NO. You can get back in the car, there is no need to get in a fight. I want to go home. Get back in the car. We’re going to keep driving." Camri giggled.

The cabbie grumbled but got back in the car and we kept driving. We hit another light and all of a sudden a pedicab pulled in front of the cab - lengthwise so the pedicab driver could look in my driver’s eyes. Another pedicab pulled up next to the driver's side window and leaned in towards the window, yelling. The pedicab driver that the cabby had swerved to hit pulled up next to the driver’s window.

Camri started telling me about shopping with her mom.

They started swearing and yelling and hitting the windows. They threatened and BAM! Hit the window. Swear and BAM! Hit the windows.

I sat in the backseat in kind of disbelief. I found myself wondering, “Did they call for backup? Is there some kind of pedicab backup hotline? Where did the third pedicab come from? Meanwhile, my niece, unaware of the situation on my end is telling me about shopping with her mom. I imagine I sounded somewhat detached but responded with, "That sounds like a lot of fun." As I watched the men's angry faces through the window and the cab driver yell back. The lead pedi-driver hit the window with the flat of both palms, as if pushing the cab itself in a fight, then he spat on the driver's window.

When the light changed they made a row of three pedicabs across the road so we couldn't get around. They tried to swerve in front of us anytime we tried to pull around. We finally zoomed around them a few blocks away. The cabbie stopped and opened his door to wipe off the dripping spit off with a tissue. Then we pulled on to the highway and we drove off.

I talked to my niece and then my sister for the next twenty minutes all the while thinking, WHAT just happened?

When he pulled up in front of my apartment building I asked, "Did you actually hit the bike or just swerve towards him? He said, "I didn't hit him. He hit the back of my cab! Did you see them in the middle of the street? They can't drive like that!" Then he smiled and wished me a good night.

Brad? Brad Who?

Quote of the Blog:

Mike in the Tate Modern: "Seriously? You call this Art?? I'm going to drink half a glass of water and put it on a shelf and call that art." Turns and points. "Oh wait. It's already been done."

*****

Five years ago, just before moving to New York, I was the college advisor for the School of General Academics at Utah Valley University (then Utah Valley State College- and yes, I figure someday that will date me). I’d decorated my office with a few items including a small poster of Roy Lichtenstein’s Drowning Girl.

I fell in love with the painting Drowning Girl (1963) the first time I saw it in print – and even more when I saw the large 68” by 68” original at the MoMA in New York City. I think it’s very funny yet layered in meaning and social commentary. Lichtenstein used Ben-Day dots to create his famous comic book paintings. Drowning Girl depicts a girl about to be enveloped by waves. Her thought bubble reads, “I DON’T CARE! I’D RATHER SINK THAN CALL BRAD FOR HELP!”

Generally female students reacted with amusement or a knowing head-nod to the poster. Men, on the other hand, responded in one of three ways (often enough that I started to keep tally on a sheet that has since gone missing):

Reaction 1: “I don’t get it.”

Reaction 2: “I think I recognize this! Which comic is it from??”

Reaction 3: “Who’s Brad?”

While not the most common, reaction three was the most interesting, amusing, and surprising to me. I had never thought of Brad as a specific person and yet dozens of men asked about it. Some even asked, “Is that supposed to be Angelina?” Finally when a student asked, “Who is Brad?” I’d respond with, “Well. You could be someone’s Brad.” Sometimes that helped, sometimes it didn’t.

I’d talked with male and female colleagues about student reactions but none of them had witnessed a reaction first-hand…until one day when Cindy was sitting in my office during lunch. A student walked in and started to ask a question about his math class. As he spoke he saw the poster, stopped mid-sentence, and asked, “Who’s Brad?”

Cindy started giggling in delight and actually pointed her finger at him! I gave her a look and her eyes widened in self-realization - she looked at her pointing finger in horror and clapped the hand over her mouth to stiffle her (now) embarrassed laughter.

Cindy excused herself and went back to her office (which was next door to mine) and I casually tried to brush past the moment, quickly explained that “Who’s Brad?” is a common question and we aren’t exaclty sure who Brad is and isn’t it nice outside and what is it you wondered about the Math 101 course?

You know, just now I realize that students may have thought of the painting as just one frame out of a comic book set that would have provided more context. Hmmm, either way, I find the reactions interesting! If you have thoughts about it, I’d love to read them. The Drowning Girl poster is in my room and sometimes I idly wonder to myself if maybe I'm some boy's Brenda.

Short Story Prompt

Quote of the blog:

Brook: That reminds me of that one part in that book on the Civil War where, err, two guys travel somewhere and save everyone in that one battle...

****

Earlier this year I took a Gotham Writer's Creative Writing 101 course. I wanted to get back in the habit of writing creative pieces and the six-week course was a perfect setting. Each week we were given a writing assignment that we would bring the next week and get feedback. One of the prompts was to write about a device that doesn't exist but we wish did. It didn't take me long to think of a memory device. I would love to better remember things I want to recall. The idea spurred the start of a short-story which I haven't finished yet - but very much enjoyed writing. The beginning of the story is below:

He scrubbed his hands and arms long after the bloody water had run clear. Footsteps in the hallway brought him back to the present, but only for a moment. He shut off the sink and turned around. Water ran unheeded down his forearms and hands in micro-streams and dripped onto the operating room floor. His brows drew together and, Benton Russell, Neurosurgeon, remembered.

The instant he sought for the memories he felt a small electrical pulse at the base of his skull. Absently he reached up and fingered the two chrome discs on the nape of his neck. They were just centimeters in diameter and only an inch apart from each other. He touched their cool tips and shuddered.

ReMemory version 1.0 was announced at the 2051 conference in Berlin. Benton had sat at the VIP table and listened as Kurt Perry, the slick-haired, oily-voiced spokesperson for the biotech company Genesis as he hailed ReMemory version 1.0 as “an advance in science unlike anything seen in over two decades.”

Perry made a sweeping gesture towards a massive screen behind him. “Watch,” he said grandly and stepped to the side. The lights lowered and Benton watched as a projected 30-foot version of himself began explaining how ReMemory functioned like a hard-drive for the brain. His voice continued as footage shifted to an operating room where he inserted two small chrome discs into the nape of a patient’s neck. He explained how “all-natural organic feelers” worked their way to the cerebellum where they tapped into neural pathways. When the brain struggled to search for a memory, ReMemory version 1.0 would activate and make the memory accessible in seconds. He smiled. It was quite simple really; electricity created by the brain’s activity powered the device. He explained that the memory had to be there, of course, housed in the brain’s neurons and dendrites to be retrievable. He smiled at the camera and invited the audience to listen to ReMemory users and the video ended with touching and inspiring testimonials of participants from trial-studies.

Now, just three years later versions of Memory Enhancers like ReMemory were everywhere. Even supermarkets sold the newest ReMemory Version 4.2 upgrade. And one year earlier, in an effort improve the country’s embarrassing rank among international academic performance, the government had approved a version for toddlers. It wasn’t uncommon to see a kid at the playground, her hair in a ponytail, two small chrome discs right under the hairline flashing in the sun.

An FDA representative had called him a few months before the approval. What was her name? –and there it was, another tinge of electricity at the nape of his neck and within one second he had it. He said it out loud, “Vivienne.”

“Vivienne?” a voice asked. Benton jumped and looked up. He hadn’t heard anyone come into the room.

At 5’5 Tyson Eptein was small but well-built and well-dressed. A Genesis logo tie-tack glinted in the sterile light. He walked into the room and eyed Benton’s wet arms and the puddles on the vinyl floor. He set his briefcase on a nearby gurney and looked at Benton intently. “What happened?”

Benton looked down in disbelief, “It grew. ReMemory grew. Our organic feelers not only tapped into the neuronal pathways it grew into and around them like some kind of ivy.”

Tyson hesitated, “That’s not possible.” His eyes widened, “Where’s Product #1?”

Benton met Tyson's gaze. “He’s dead.”

Car Hazing: Little Fella's Initiation to The City

Quote of the blog:

Gaby: I don't think we're taking that drive today, my radiator is missing.

****

Next April will mark my fifth year in New York City. My current roommate Gaby moved here just two weeks after I did. Even though we had never met before she moved the city Gaby knew my brother from college and we had a few other mutual friends that lived here. We hit it off as soon as we met. She had driven cross-country with her friend Brenda in her ’93 red Honda Civic, affectionately named Little Fella.

The weekend after she moved here the four of us, Gaby, Ty, Brenda and myself took a drive to Target in the Bronx to run some errands. It’s only a 20-minute drive but it was a nice drive, the afternoon was sunny and bright. There isn’t a Target on Manhattan (yet), so for now this is still the closest one to us. Little Fella was parked in the upper parking lot and we ran our errands. We were in Target for less than an hour but as we walked back to the car we saw something - someone had keyed the hood of Gaby’s car! In the middle of the day! We got closer, and what would have been exclamations of, “I can’t believe someone keyed your car!” Came out as “I can’t believe that someo---whaaa?” when we saw what was written.

In what started out as 4” letters that got smaller and smaller was the phrase FAF you. Huh? FAF you? What the what? We puzzled over it. What could it stand for? Did they misspell...? Was it a keyed typo? It seemed unlikely it was a random misspelling when they took the time to key out the word you. Hmmm. We were so curious. We pondered possible acronyms, misspellings, and slang options. When we got home we searched Google, looked on www.urbandictionary.com (search with caution!) and asked friends – and found…nothing. Note: there is an urbandictionary.com entry for FAF now but it wasn’t there four years ago and the definition doesn’t seem a likely fit. We were puzzled - although we did have fun giving it different connotations via tone and inflection.

That wasn’t the only City-car-hazing Little Fella went through: it was broken into multiple times (until Gaby moved it to a garage), was outrageously overcharged by a convincing mechanic, and perhaps worst of all, a homeless man peed on the passenger window– while Gaby was in the driver’s seat!

These experience could be viewed as a car’s rite of passage into city life. Sometimes we’ll see new cars: no dings, scratches, bumper guards, etc. and think, “it won’t look like that for long in the city.” And while we still don’t know the meaning of FAF you Little Fella became a City Car that day at Target (although he was henceforth known by some as Little FAF or Little FAF you).