We observe our heroine browsing through her old MySpace blog, checking it over for important tidbits she might not want to be lost when MySpace goes the way of Hammer pants, Dorothy Hamil haircuts, and The Macarena. Miraculously, she spots a blog entry of such high quality that she simply can't make that double-layer click-through then CATCHPA entry to finally see the entry deleted from 2007's favorite website.

Peering over our heroine's shoulder, we read...
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August 14, 2007

On the road again

Today I drove from Charleston to Union, West Virginia and then on to Roanoke, Virginia in an attempt to find a man that my firm wants to give tens of thousands of dollars. Actually, we're not giving it to him, more like holding it for him. He was a class member in a big class action involving mortgages and the case settled. He's my last missing class member and it is absolutely required that we find him. But he's a hard man to find.

Nonetheless, I don't mind a road trip too much. A four-hour drive is totally do-able. Sometimes I amuse myself with my observations and stream of consciousness. Here is some of what I thought about and saw in my four hours of driving today:

I am unable to hear the song Three Times a Lady without singing the chorus, out loud, as: "Unce...tice...fee tiiimmes a maadaayy." What can I say? As a child, The Little Rascals and Saturday Night Live were two of my favorite shows!


On the way through Lewisburg, I saw signs that said, "fair parking," and "no fair parking." I can't imagine that the "no fair parking" gets much business. Honesty in advertising is great but maybe they should just get out of the business.

Do you notice that, with every really good song that comes on the radio, or from your CD, or iPod or whatever, you turn up the radio? When the volume finally reaches its limits, it's a real downer. Then you're just stuck and your hearing is, of course, depleted and permanently damaged, so now you can barely hear your favorite song!!!!

When I get to a spot with bad radio reception, I either hook up the iPod or search for a CD. Today, I found a CD. It was a CD of love songs that someone had made me when he was overseas with the military. (Aawwww.) That reminds me of another time in the van...I found an unlabeled CD. I put it in and the first song was something really cool like Al Green or something. After that, Kung Foo Fighting. (Also cool, but odd.) After that, another really cool song. After that, the MoviePhone bit from Seinfeld (audio only...duh):

It was like a hilarious mystery!! The pattern went on like that for the whole CD...one great song, then something funny. I still don't know where it came from. Eric probably made it and then just forgot.

And perhaps the three sexiest songs in the entire universe are Crazy for You (Madonna), I'm on Fire (Bruce Springsteen), and Every Breath You Take (The Police). I mean, they're ssseexxxxy. Oh, yeah.... Excuse me for a second.



Ok. I'm back.

I have never driven down I-64 across Sandstone Mountain when it did not smell strongly of burning brakes. That stretch of road must be absolute hell on the truck drivers.

To the lady in the red Corolla: that white pick up truck with a yellow, flashing light in the middle of the grassy median is not, as you fear, a police officer in the wrong kind of vehicle and with the wrong color flashing lights. It is, in fact, a Division of Highways vehicle. There is absolutely no need to slam on your brakes. This causes me to slam on my brakes and annoys me greatly as you'd been playing the "I'm not going to use my cruise control" game with me for about 20 miles. Moreover, there is really, really, really no need to slow your speed down to 55 on the Interstate..cop or no cop. The speed limit is 70.

Somewhere just over the West Virginia border (in Virginia), I saw a tree with maybe 100 coffee cups nailed to it. They were all over the half of the tree that faces the road and went all the way to maybe 15 feet up the trunk. How cool! I wonder if it was Outsider Art or if someone hung their coffee cup on a spare nail one day (so they could carry a package from the mailbox, or a stray goat or something) and just thought it looked damned cool.

I saw this sign when entering the Interstate in Virginia:



I wonder what it means. I bet they don't like The Fonz.

If I ever accidentally leave my cell phone on after talking to someone and while I'm driving on a road trip, they'll be treated to a non-stop Karaoke-like, bad-singing fest like they've never heard before. In fact, if this ever happens when you and I are talking, you'd best just go ahead and try to disconnect the call. My singing voice could seriously break your phone otherwise.

And whatever happened to Eminem? I haven't heard anything new from him since before he remarried Kim and then sort of lost it.

When I got to the Monroe County Courthouse, I walked in and asked the first person I saw in the clerk's office if they knew the guy I was trying to find. They did (they always do in small towns) but they hadn't seen him for years. They gave me his daughter's phone number, though. This reminds me of walking into the Lawrence County, Ohio courthouse looking to find the birthmother of a client. (I had already found her name...now I just needed to find her.) The first woman knew her and sort of knew where she lived. The second guy drew me a freaking map to her house!!! (Here's a nice tidbit: when I drove out to her house and talked to her, she was, of course, wary of me. She asked what her supposed son's name was and I told her, "Brian." Her face softened. She knew that was right. Her voice was very sad when she said, quite simply, "I never wanted to give him up...but my parents made me." She went on to explain that she had been so distraught and inconsolable that the social worker had broken the rules and told her her son's adoptive name.)

When you drive through very, very rural areas...like where cars don't come along but maybe once a minute on the road...and when you do pass someone coming the other direction, the proper and accepted etiquette is to raise your four fingers (on the hand nearest the window) in a sort of modified wave. Everyone does it and I love it!! Okay, this may only apply to West Virginia. I've noticed it now in Monroe County and Pocahontas County.

That is all.

I recognized a pattern in myself today when Eric mentioned there was a camera (like a real camera, apparently not just a running-the-stoplight camera) at a local, major intersection. "What?!?! We said we didn't want cameras!" (The public had been asked for comment about surveillance cameras in Charleston a few years ago and the response was a big "NO!") Gazing out the window, I muttered, "I'd like to shoot it with a paintball."

Eric replied that I want to shoot everything with a paintball. I had to laugh and admit the truth in it. For instance, I have a slightly younger sister (not the one I talk about a lot) with...how to put this...a really craptastic man in her life. My youngest sister and I have plotted how to fairly deal with him. Hmmm. Paintball...center forehead...pink. Mystery cameras that appear despite the citizens' opinion? Paintball...center lens. Drug dealers messing up Everyone's East End? Paintball...center forehead...purple (an ironic tribute to Jimi and Purple Haze). And this last one is Martha's suggestion for bad drivers: a color-coding paintball system. It would let other people on the road know what to expect from you. For people who cut you off...orange. For people who run red lights...red (duh). Of course, some people's cars would display multiple colors based on this yet-to-be-completed coding system.

Funny thing is...I've never, ever owned, nor shot, nor even held a paintball gun. It just seems like it's perfect as my would-be weapon of choice. I mean, what's a mostly-anti-violence person to do? It's not like I'd ever beat anyone up, but some just need a serious butt whoopin. For humans on the target list, a paintball would be non-lethal, embarrassing, and leave quite a welt.

DISCLAIMER: If you go and paintball something up and try to pin it on me, I will so totally paintball you. Close-range, right in the back of the knee. Think how much that would hurt. But really...I will never, ever really paintball anyone or anything...as far as you know.

My post about Amy Williams' "Press 2 for Spanish" city-wide art installation piece drew a lot of positive feedback. Maybe the combination of a simple art piece, a primary color, and trying on new vocabulary words draws us back to a time when life was easy and happy and, even if there was a bump in the road, we were very resilient.

So this light feeling about the signs has stuck with me since the morning I first saw el reloj on my way to work. A few people sent me hints about where I might find other signs including the statement that, if we were to head out for gourmet pizza and red wine, we might just happen upon a sign.

And along those same lines, there was a sign marking one of my favorite restaurants ever, Bluegrass Kitchen...where you can enjoy a popular favorite like the Black Bean Burrito or one of the special entrees that are almost never the same, but always divine:


And although I've never gotten around to trying the hand-made selection of baked goods at Charleston Bread, I've heard only great things about it.

Then as I trekked around the block today (running errands during lunch), I passed the transit mall (or is it called "bus mall"?)...and I hadn't noticed how big the trees in that area were getting. Everybody deserves a retreat from the midday sun...and although there are a few people can make walking through this particular park uncomfortable for a woman, many just have no place to go during the day. I suppose sometimes it's hard to pass the time waiting for a cooler resting spot and good meal.


















Finally, the kids and I used another nice, pre-bedtime drive to cruise around and capture some more of our now-beloved signs. The kids munched on tiny fish sandwiches (the bread...I'm not sure how big the fish started out) which are perfect for a less-than-messy meal in the van. Right before heading home again to put our two youngest in bed, we stopped in front of Ellen's Homemade Ice Cream and gave the new, young man working there a run for his money. I'm sure when I walked in alone to get our treats, he didn't expect that I would be ordering five different flavors of ice cream scooped into five separate cups. Like all of Ellen's employees, though, he was good-natured so I gave him a nice tip. (Work is hard, ya'll!!)

And, these, so far, are the last of the signs we've found:

That last one is the East End Dog Park, by the way. The boys in the picture were pretty set in their positions right behind the sign and, since they're kids, I didn't want to make them very recognizable on the Internet. (Yes, I know I've put pictures of my kids on the Internet, but I'd rather leave those decisions up to a child's own parents.) Plus, there's only so long a 30-something-year-old woman can stand and take pictures of early teen-ish boys before it just starts to look weird.

So that's 18 signs for us. Far as I can tell, there's at least one more that's on the artist's MySpace profile page. As of today, that one still eludes me! Sadly, at least one of the signs has already been taken (liberated? removed?) but I have a feeling the one I can't find is in a spot that I could would come across if I were walking down The Boulevard instead of driving. So we'll see about that one and if any others are revealed.

Thank you for all this fun, Amy Williams! I love what I interpret as the more serious message behind them and I've love the lightness of searching all around Charleston for them.

Viva Festivall!!!

¿Qué es todo esto? Hablamos Español en Charleston, West Virginia. Un artista denominó a Amy Williams lo demuestra.

I noticed the first of these signs as I approached my office today on Capitol Street and I thought it was probably something for a school field trip. Immediately I was reminded of signs I would see when I lived in San Antonio...the ones that marked the transition into the migrant neighborhoods, where all the signs would be in Spanish. The basic colors of the signs and the simple, stenciled transmission of the necessary information always stood out on the cluttered backdrop of the city. So I still didn't know what this particular sign on the clock was for, but I really liked it.

Later in the morning, I walked back out of the building and, coming from that direction, I noticed another sign in the windows of Ellen's Homemade Ice Cream:

Finally, I walked out about lunch time, heading to my favorite coffee shop (slash cafe slash book store slash art gallery) a few doors down. Spotting yet another sign (in the coffee shop window), I asked the woman at the book and art counter what was up with the signs. She said they were part of city-wide installation piece called "Press 2 for Spanish" by local artist Amy Williams. She said there were even more signs around Charleston and suddenly I was hooked! All of a sudden this cool sign mounted on a clock post became a hide-and-seek that was way even more cool!! I decided to find out more, and e-mailed the artist. (If you go to her MySpace page, and add her as a friend, you can see pictures of any of the signs that I haven't yet come across..or may have already seen yourself.)

So as I walked from my office at the end of the day, and headed for the parking garage, I photographed the three signs I'd seen and prepared to look online tonight for the rest. (The Man has blocked access to MySpace in our building.) On the way to the garage, I saw this:

Then, on the way to pick up my youngest sister, Anna, from her job, I saw this...

...and then I saw this...

I had, just in the nick of time, snatched Anna from the jaws of insanity (she works eight hours a day in the infant room at a daycare center), when we saw this sign and I pointed it out to her:


Maybe we're just an overly-excitable bunch, but Anna was a San Antonian for only the first six months of her life. Assuming she didn't get out much for random street sign reading at that point, she isn't at all used to seeing street signs labeled in a language besides American English. When I told her that they were art and that there were a lot more of them around, she was drawn into my quest to undertake this sort of scavenger hunt with no clues.

So we went home, finished up the second bath of the day for the girls (which the babysitter had been so very helpful to start after a hot afternoon at the park), and took the kids to get something to eat. After we had packed the children back into the van, bellies full and sleepiness setting in, we set out to find whatever others signs we could. We drove back-and-forth on the four streets that run parallel along the river in our small city. We made our way down The Boulevard, then circled back toward town, making sure to pass the hospitals and the downtown fire station (all places we thought a sign might be spotted). We jumped and pointed when we saw anything red, white, and square (including for-sale signs and yield signs).

Usually, though, we would zip by a sign somewhere we weren't expecting it, yell and point as we drove by, then make a quick circle around the block, timing the stop lights so we could get a picture without obstructing traffic. As simple as it sounds, this was a fun time. The almost-four-year-old, like nearly any child her age, was lulled to sleep by the warm night and just driving around. My older daughter and my son showed off the random Spanish words they could think of from school. Anna asked good questions like "What makes that art?" and talked about trying to schedule an art class this fall, her first semester of college. It was a continuation of our conversations during a recent art show near our house where she got to see people her age (and younger) recognized for their urban art and realized that artists don't always look like old hippies or wine-sipping, black-turtleneck-wearing pretentious folk.

So we circled the blocks and photographed all the signs we could find before the time set in to get the other kids home for bed, too. Here they are:





It's time like this that make being a parent seem easy. It's not easy...but sometimes it seems that way for a minute.

Oh! And we were glad that we didn't know in advance where the signs were. I still don't know where they all are, but know for sure that I missed at least one, based on the artist's front page of her MySpace. I'm not sure I'll look at the her other pictures for a while. It'd seem like reading ahead to the last page of a book. But in this book, you get to interpret your own story. Whatever it means to Amy Williams, it can mean a dozen other things to you, or maybe nothing at all.

(Feel free to share with me any signs you might see, too!!)

I've just arrived home from the Pittsburgh Scrabble Tournament, and the report on my tournament results is only slightly better. I ended the weekend with a 4-and-8 record...but at least that put my play today at two victories for four games. Turns out Cross-Tables had only predicted that I win five of the games. I guess that's not so much worse than I thought...but then, on the other hand, several of the unrated players on Cross-Tables, though playing in their first tournament, weren't exactly beginners. In reality, I'm sure I didn't qualify for my seeded position.

So I think a tournament of 48 players that has nine new competitors (although most are not new to the game of Scrabble) is really awesome! It doesn't necessarily mean more people are playing Scrabble...because most people don't invest the time, money, and effort in a tournament when they first start playing. But it certainly means that more people are playing more seriously. Is this geek chic we're seeing? Maybe in our age of all-digital communication, the new, desirable cave man will be one with a big brain instead of a big biceps. Natural Selection, after all, is a constantly changing thing. (First...two Darwin references in one week make me really proud! Second...I'm seriously digressing here.)

Okay, so....second-to-last, but by no means second-to-least (whaaa?)...three out of our four WV Scrabble players at the Pittsburgh tournament did very well!! Chris, who was playing in only his second-ever Scrabble tournament, took second place in our division! Adding a mini-sweep to that very same division, Martha took home her first-ever first place win in a tournament!! AND...Martha's husband, Brad, took first place in his division (the middle division of three).

After the initial sting of my defeat wore off (and my late Saturday desire to "never fucking play Scrabble ever again"), my resolve was only strengthened. I'm not fooling myself about the situation...and if I ever want to get much better I'll have to invest some real time and effort to the cause. Plain n' simple. So we'll see. Life can get pretty hectic and there's not always time to be studying word lists. How is it not logical that one could absorb under-the-pillow word lists by osmosis? (Why, oh, why are the gods of simple physics against me?!?!?!)

And more worth it than a win was seeing the friends I've made on the regional Scrabble circuit...and making a few new friends, too. I loves talking with some smart people. Speaking of which, spending my four-hour drive chatting it up with Martha was refreshing. She's got a whole can of peas. Brad watched a movie on the way up, and napped some on the way home...both of which I hope were a very tiny, mini-vacation for him.

Okay, so...in conclusion. I'm truly proud of my fellow West Virginians and the weekend wrapped up pretty well. Stan and Terry put a great deal of effort into this tournament and then made it seem effortless as it went so smoothly. And, yeah...I know that other paragraph up there was supposed to be second-to-last. It's the New Math.

For the past several years, I've adopted the position that going for a drive to nowhere specific with someone, especially a teenager, is a great way to get them to talk. (Sitting across a restaurant table from each other also works because no one has to cook or clean and eating has always been a social event for people.) My youngest sister, Anna (whom I've raised since she was 12) is 19 now. Anna and I go for nowhere drives a lot...and we often talk at length about culture, equality, teen issues, movies and music. Of course, this got a lot easier after Anna turned about 17. Before that, between about age 13 and 17, it seemed like all she did was cry melodramatically and wail that my husband and I were crazy.

Anna has always identified more with the African-American culture and attributes this to having lived around several African-American families as a child where the mother was someone she really enjoyed and respected. Now, on our drives, she talks a lot about her experience as one of the only white people in her groups of friends, about the things people say to her, and about the reactions she gets. It's almost all positive. Anna doesn't try to be anything she's not and I think people, in general, relate to that.

Today she told me that one of her friends commented, "You have all black friends...but you act so white!" This wasn't a cut on her. They were talking about her lack of use of their own sociolect and probably about her choice of stylish but only slightly Hip-Hop-style clothing. I've always spoken to and around her about how I think a person can appreciate and admire another culture, but that one should not appropriate another culture for their own personal use like some sort of fashion statement (which is why I've always wanted to, but have never been quite sure if I should...wear a Sari).

So Anna said she laughed and said, "Hey, I live with the whitest gangsters in the world." She told them about my tendency to say I live in the Hoo-Dizzle, to turn the bass all the way up in the minivan when we're listening to rap music, speak at length about the complicated stories of The Black Panthers and The Conservative Vice Lords, and texting her Tupac lyrics ("We got money for war, but can't feed the poor").

She also did her impression of me singing rap lyrics in my excellent diction and nearly accent-free voice, all while usually wearing a t-shirt and my Danskos. (In case you're wondering why I'm not rapping in my beloved Appalachian accent...I really love it and am fascinated by its history, but growing up in some different areas around the country homogenized my accent.)

The moral of my story is twofold: (1) we're all our coolest when we don't try so hard; and (2) my Danskos are the most gangsta, high-end, healthy foot, comfort shoes...eva.

For work today, I did deed research in Cabell County, about an hour away. I love courthouse work. I get to drive, the work is sometimes interesting (like a puzzle, trying to find out what happened with someone's property), and no one bugs me. And it seems like any drive that lasts more than 30 minutes allows my brain to wander, gives me time to really take in some good music, and lets me be attentive to the funny or interesting things I pass.

So, today I thought...

Wow! My taste in music is so very eclectic. (Does everyone say that?) Anyway, my favorite style of music cycles from one genre to another all the time. Right now I find myself listening a lot to Queen, Blondie, and Meatloaf. It's surprising how well those artists go together on a playlist. I think they're artists whose music was/is different than anything else out there, and powerful in sort of an energetic kind of way. Many of the songs are in my repertoire of those I sing loudly when I'm in the car by myself. My greatest hits: Bohemian Rhapsody (No, No, No, No, NO, NO, NO!!!), Two Out of Three Ain't Bad (...but there ain't no Coupe de Ville hiding at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box...), and One Way or Another. I'm also digging on a lot of old disco right now. (Stop laughing.) Play that Funky Music makes me dance in my chair every time. That's some of the original Cowbell style, you know! And for you youngsters out there, here's an interesting, albeit trivial, thing about Bohemian Rhapsody: although there's speculation that the lyrics are rooted in Freddie Mercury's family's deep involvement in Zoroastrianism, when interviewed about the song, Mercury himself insisted that the lyrics were just "random, rhyming nonsense."

If you have a die-cut "In Memory Of..." decal on your car, and you have to remove it because you're selling the car, does the faint image of the decal appear whenever the windows fog up? If so, does this freak the new owner out? And if that happens, does the car get sold and resold, like one would with a haunted house, never telling the next owner what they're in for? Finally, would I ever want my friends and family expressing their "memory" of me on a bumper sticker?

As I passed by Barbie's Formals (a dress shop), I wondered, "Do all the dresses inside look something like this..."
I love my iPod. The thing that bugs me is trying to listen to it in the car with my current equipment. The only thing I've got so far to get the music from the iPod out through the car speakers is the radio transmitter thing. First of all, no matter what, there's a decent amount of static as a result of this process. Secondly, if you're "in town," then it's too hard to keep the radio tuned to a station that's adequately distant from the transmitter's frequency. If you're driving from one town to another, you're likely to notice the static getting worse when you get closer to the town (when your transmitter, again, is set on a frequency and there happens to be a station in the area close to that setting). I've got my eye on this contraption but, after factoring in installation costs, and the fact my OCD would require me to have one for each vehicle, the purchase would definitely be a luxury and a special treat.

And I wonder if the person driving behind me on the back road from Barboursville to Milton thought I was a maniac. First of all, my car's looking a little rough. It's six years old, sufficiently "dinged," and currently filthy. The last one is not only because cleaning the car is about the lowest thing on my priority list, but also because the rubber around the antenna is dry rotted, so the antenna is rockin the gangsta lean. Anyway, I can't take it through the automatic car wash. So I'm driving along in my usual...ummm...expeditious style and this lady in front of me started to merge into the turning lane to our left. She slowed way down and, calculating my ability to just glide on by her, I kept going pretty much straight. But she changed her mind and decided to turn left from the driving lane. I had to brake pretty aggressively to not hit her then, in my super-quick, lightening-style thinking, went to her right when I realized I might hit her anyway. Since Mario Andretti and I share the same birthday, this maneuver allowed me to reaccelerate. The whole time, I'm aware of the car behind me, in case the thing with me and Ms. Doesn't-Know-The-Rules-Of-Turning-Left causes them to plow into me, in which case I would have activated my force field immediately before the would-be impact. A minute later, I came around a slight turn which was angled just enough to hide this fairly big piece of styrofoam which was right in the middle of the road. I plowed into it and it smashed into a million pieces...then blew out of the back of my car like a tiny-beaded smokescreen. Of course, there was no need to slow down then...the damage had been done. I wonder if static electricity caused tons of those little things to stick to their car. THAT would be funny.