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On a Jet Plane

On a Jet Plane

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I was 20 years old the first time I went to Europe, my maiden overseas travel. I had saved money from a waitressing job and would spend it slowly over the next two months. I didn’t eat many good meals on that trip, but I did see the great cathedrals and museums, took ferries and trains and buses, heard German and French and Italian. I learned, much to my delight, that Europe really did exist, and that it was just as romantic and wonderful as I had hoped.

After that, I was hooked. And that — and a host of other decisions — led to my current work, a job that lets me travel occasionally.

Tomorrow, I leave for Cambodia. It’s a hastily-planned trip with an itinerary I just received this morning and a ticket booked just three days ago. I’m still figuring out exactly where we’re going — and I’m hoping we have at least a half-day in Angkor Wat.

The people I’ll meet, the places I’ll see, the sights, smells and tastes I’ll experience — those are still up for grabs. But of one thing I am certain. It will be an adventure. It always is.

Tunneling

Tunneling

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The thermometer read 32, just as it did yesterday. But yesterday it was sleeting and icing; today it’s “only” raining. Dark, gray, cold and wet — but somehow precipitation that remains liquid.

And so, I put into place my own winter emergency plan. No riding the bus from Courthouse Metro. I took my chances on Metro all the way. Most of all, no outside walking from Metro to the office. Instead, I took the tunnel.

The tunnel is longer but ever so much more pleasant, especially on a day like today. It’s a weird feature of this neighborhood, something about its spook-driven origins.

It’s a warren of passages, steps up and down. I passed a barber shop, an optician, a branch library and an experimental theater. I walked down a hallway with art on the walls.

It was warm, it was dry. It was divine.

Dark Corner

Dark Corner

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When I arrived at the office yesterday, I stopped first to chat with a colleague. “There was a guy here on Friday, and I had him turn off your lights,” she said, pointing to my end of the office, where my desk sat, finally, in the dark.

Overhead lights are a pet peeve of mine, especially the fluorescent kind, and I’ve been on a mission to darken my workspace as long as I’ve been here. My colleague Brenda has become my partner-in-crime.

I’ve no problem with natural light streaming in the window, but the flickering overhead substitution, well, it is no substitution. Better to look at a screen from a dim and quiet place, which is what I’m doing now.

Ah ….

Shut-Down Blackout

Shut-Down Blackout

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I noticed the difference the minute I stepped into the office. People were chatting with neighbors, hanging out. No one seemed in a hurry to get to work. I waved and smiled but moved right to my computer. I have a lot to do today, so I was going to get right to it.

Except … I couldn’t — and can’t.

There’s no power in the office, no internet service. I’m writing this courtesy of my cell phone’s hot spot.

With the partial government shut-down in its second month, with the State of the Union address postponed and a husband and daughter both furloughed, this has a bit of a “are you kidding me?” quality about it.

Maybe the power will be back on again soon. Maybe today’s votes in Congress will shame lawmakers and leaders into working together. Maybe we will all learn to live together in peace and harmony.

I would settle for just one of those, the first one. And that’s good … because I imagine that’s all I’ll get!

Keeping it Real

Keeping it Real

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Every year on New Year’s Day, the Washington Post‘s Style section features an “In-Out” list. As the years pass, I understand fewer references. But I always get enough of them (Out: Meghan Markle; In: Megan Markle’s baby) to glean a smile or two from the whole thing.

The item that made me laugh the most this year was number two in the hit parade:
Out: Keep Portland Weird.  In: Keep Crystal City Weird.

As I type these words I look out the window at Crystal City—its military precision, its empty buildings and plazas (even emptier now during the government shutdown), its anything-but-weirdness.

Yes, I feel a bit protective of this Arlington neighborhood, where I slog three or four mornings a week; where you’re more likely to see a soldier in camouflage than an artist in grunge; where even the foliage is orderly (see above).

Avant-garde it ain’t.

But it’s my workplace now, and I’ve come to terms with its straight-arrow ways. So as HQ2 moves in, I’ll be on the lookout for creeping signs of Left Coast-ness. Let’s keep Crystal City … uh, Crystal City.

Tale of the Transponder

Tale of the Transponder

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Paying for speed and ease of use makes sense to me. Which means I’m theoretically in favor of toll lanes on busy roads.  But when the toll lanes are the only lanes and the fee can hit $50 for nine miles of pavement, I have to draw the line.

Tolls on Route 66 can be avoided, though, when there are two people in the car, so Tom and I drove in together this morning. The toll, which changes every six minutes based on volume, was $34 when we passed under the sign. But four minutes later, when we hit the restricted section of the highway, the supposedly free-flowing part, the road was still clogged. We crawled along the expressway for miles, not seeing clear pavement until more than halfway through the trip.  Bad enough when you’re traveling for free, but hardly worth paying for.

And that’s not all. The main reason we drove in this morning was to avoid a $10 surcharge for not using the special transponder that has a switch you can set for “HOV2” (signaling that there are two or more people in the car). It had been a year since we rented two of these transponders and apparently had only used one.

Paying for open pavement — and paying not to use a transponder. If this is the modern world (and it most assuredly is), please drop me off in the 19th century.

Shoe Story

Shoe Story

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While I’ve never worn stiletto heels, I’ve always tried to look presentable at the office, footwear-wise. This has entailed keeping shoes at the office, since there’s no way I can walk long distances in pumps or even flats.

When I worked at McCall’s magazine years ago, my nickname was “Imelda” for the file drawer full of shoes I kept on hand. That was for Imelda Marcos, wife of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, whose 3,000 pairs of shoes were the stuff of legend, and which I learned today, take up the entire second floor of a shoe museum in the Philippines.

Back then, I had only about six pairs, not 3,000. And now, I have only three pairs, two black and one brown, no heel higher than an inch and a half.

Last week the shoes gathered dust because I bopped around the office in my tennis shoes every day, due to a taped-up right foot. It was delicious. My feet felt fantastic — and no one gave me a second glance.

I’m aware that wearing tennis shoes in the office is a slippery slope, though. What’s next? Slippers? Those big black shoes that grandmas used to wear in the old days? I’ve been telling myself to shape up. We must suffer to be beautiful, yes?

Which is all to say that I’m back to pumps and flats this week. It’s the only way to go.

Sunday on the Deck with Work

Sunday on the Deck with Work

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I’m spending a large portion of the weekend working not on my own stuff but on Winrock’s. This isn’t typical, so I don’t mind it occasionally, and it’s for a good cause.

When I do things like this I’m taken back to my freelance days, when work and life were more of a piece. I interviewed people, wrote stories, raised daughters, cooked and took care of the house. These joys and duties were mish-mashed together in a sometimes glorious, often exhausting round of duties and responsibilities.

An interview, a carpool, a long writing session. Followed by another carpool and an after-dinner writing session. Somehow, the work always got done, the daughters got raised.

And this was accomplished with no cubicles, time sheets or meetings.

So now when I’m called upon to juggle free time and assignments, it doesn’t seem strange. It seems like how things oughta be.

Kiss and Ride

Kiss and Ride

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There are quick pecks, long hugs and brief chats. There’s that final rummaging in bags for keys or other items that must be exchanged. I see all of this and more as I wait for the Arlington (ART) 43 bus each morning on Clarendon Boulevard.

Without an official “Kiss and Ride” lane, as there are at suburban Metro stations throughout the system, commuters must make do. So, there are last-minute maneuverings, swerves to the curb, double parking in the bus lanes.

But there is always that moment when passenger and driver turn to each other for a word or an embrace before heading off into their separate days. It’s a ritual I never tire of watching, the human element of the commuting drama: kiss … and ride.

On the Way Home

On the Way Home

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We file out in khaki and denim, in summer cottons and linens. Battalions of commuters on the march, back from our first day after long weekends and festive 4ths. Back to the artificial chill of the D.C. cubicle. Back to the train and the bus, to waiting in the swelter.

Leaving Vienna yesterday, I spot a happy Metro employee. He’s wearing short sleeves, bounces when he walks. The trashcan he pushes has wheels and makes a sound on the tile floor not unlike a train clacking on its rails. He walks against a sea of commuters.

We are the tired ones, worn out from our office jobs, from moving the mouse, from having the meeting. He looks fit and happy and ready to go.

I hear his clickety-clack as I move out of the station, into the early evening, and my car. I want to compare our lives but I have no way to do so. He is moving one way, we are moving the other. That’s the story.