Well, I did it.
Alert readers will remember our apartment's unusual bathroom plumbing arrangement, specifically the washing machine system, which involves laying the machine's open-ended drain hose in the bathtub every time one does a load of laundry. You may recall my expressed dread at the thought of ever forgetting to put the hose in the bathtub when I put in a load of wash. I think I knew somehow that it would eventually happen.
And it did. Yesterday.
The bathroom flooded and I probably should have been electrocuted as I stood barefoot in the inch-deep water cursing like a sailor. But by some miracle (called a circuit breaker) I was saved. Whether Jake will ever trust me to operate a major appliance again is yet to be determined.
JEM
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Final Results: Newman Cooler
***DISCLAIMER: The following post contains shirtless photos of attractive men. The photos are posted against the wishes of American Dresdner's primary censor, JEM's husband, who gave her a disapproving look during the writing of this post. JEM would like to take this opportunity to express that she thinks her husband is both cooler and hotter than Paul Newman or Steve McQueen or the lovechild they would hypothetically create if that were even scientifically possible.***
After a heartstopping race, Paul Newman emerged as the champion over Steve McQueen in the first ever scientific American Dresdner "Who is cooler?" survey.
McQueen was the projected winner after two AD readers voiced their support of the "Bullitt" star in a recent post. No Newman supporters stepped forward publicly in response to the post. McQueen also led the votes for several days with four votes. But while his support plateaued at four, Newman's votes rocketed to seven, where they remained until the polls closed. As of the writing of this post, no Newman supporters have come forward to offer their reasons for voting in favor of the "Cool Hand Luke" star.
As the editor-in-chief at AD, I have mixed feelings about these results. Paul Newman is probably hotter. You can judge for yourself by viewing these shirtless pictures of Newman and McQueen:
However, the question was not "Who is hotter?" it was "Who is cooler?" And is Paul Newman really cooler? Let's compare.
McQueen
— Spent much of his growing up years in a "home for wayward boys". (Genuine bad boy. Cool.)
— His absent father was a stunt pilot. (Thrill-seeking genes + fatherless angst = cool.)
— He had a lifetime penchant for racecars and motorcycles. He did the legendary chase scenes in "Bullitt" and "The Great Escape" himself and at one time actually considered a career as a racecar driver.
Newman:
— Also interested in racecar driving.
— His name is now synonymous with organic salad dressing.
But the people have spoken and so I will rest my case.
JEM
After a heartstopping race, Paul Newman emerged as the champion over Steve McQueen in the first ever scientific American Dresdner "Who is cooler?" survey.
McQueen was the projected winner after two AD readers voiced their support of the "Bullitt" star in a recent post. No Newman supporters stepped forward publicly in response to the post. McQueen also led the votes for several days with four votes. But while his support plateaued at four, Newman's votes rocketed to seven, where they remained until the polls closed. As of the writing of this post, no Newman supporters have come forward to offer their reasons for voting in favor of the "Cool Hand Luke" star.
As the editor-in-chief at AD, I have mixed feelings about these results. Paul Newman is probably hotter. You can judge for yourself by viewing these shirtless pictures of Newman and McQueen:
However, the question was not "Who is hotter?" it was "Who is cooler?" And is Paul Newman really cooler? Let's compare.
McQueen
— Spent much of his growing up years in a "home for wayward boys". (Genuine bad boy. Cool.)
— His absent father was a stunt pilot. (Thrill-seeking genes + fatherless angst = cool.)
— He had a lifetime penchant for racecars and motorcycles. He did the legendary chase scenes in "Bullitt" and "The Great Escape" himself and at one time actually considered a career as a racecar driver.
Newman:
— Also interested in racecar driving.
— His name is now synonymous with organic salad dressing.
But the people have spoken and so I will rest my case.
JEM
Friday, February 29, 2008
It's Better This Way
I'm a long-time hater of the comic strip "Garfield". It might have something to do with the fact that I grew up on a street called Garfield Street and have spent most of my life saying, "Yes. Garfield Street. Yes. Like the cat." But I suspect that it mostly stems from the fact that the comic strip is stupid.
This week I discovered Garfield Minus Garfield. Somebody took the Garfield comic strip and erased all signs of Garfield from it. It turns out the resulting comic strip, which revolves around a lonely, desperate, mentally ill Jon Arbuckle, is at once insightful, disturbing and hilarious. Please enjoy a few of my favorites.
JEM
This week I discovered Garfield Minus Garfield. Somebody took the Garfield comic strip and erased all signs of Garfield from it. It turns out the resulting comic strip, which revolves around a lonely, desperate, mentally ill Jon Arbuckle, is at once insightful, disturbing and hilarious. Please enjoy a few of my favorites.
JEM
Sonnenschein
For a few days this week, on and off, there has been a very bright ball of light in the sky. The light comes in all the windows and makes the apartment warm. I've heard the natives call it "Sonnenschein". When I go outside the light is so bright that it makes me squint and is so warm that I have to unzip my coat. It's making my brain release these chemicals into my body that give me a strange sensation. I think the doctor called it "happiness".
JEM
JEM
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Guns
I've been hired by a Korean scientist to sit across from him in the Max Planck Institute cafeteria twice a week for two hours at a time and talk to him.
I know. It sounds weird. Like friendship prostitution or something. But he'll likely be moving with his family to the United States in a few months and he wants to practice his English with a native speaker before he lands on American dirt. He wants me to listen to him and correct his mistakes and talk to him about American life and culture. But the most important thing is that we just talk so he can practice.
We met for the first time on Tuesday and talked about everything from the presidential election to his kids. Near the end of the two hours, I started scrambling a bit for material and brought up last week's shooting at Northern Illinois University. He told me, yes, he'd heard about that, and that he had a question for me regarding this.
"Why," he said, "can people have guns?"
He's not the only person thinking this. Most of Asia and all of Europe share his sentiment. Why on earth would a civilized country allow its ordinary citizens to walk around wielding weapons of death? Are they not bothered by the idea that the creepy person at the convenience store checkout can legally have a pistol in their back pocket?
It's a fair question.
I, personally, am not a big gun person. My immediate family members are not hunters. I didn't really grow up with guns the way many of my Idaho classmates did. But I have handled them. I've shot a .22 before and a 12-gauge on several occasions (and woken up the next morning with a bruised shoulder as proof of my poor form). I enjoy it. It's fun shattering clay pigeons and hitting targets. And I'm going to be totally honest with you. Popping the smoking spent shell out of a shotgun makes me feel like a total badass.
Me and a gun
But it also scares the bejeebies out of me.
I get the shakes a little bit every time I touch a gun. What if my finger slips? What if something distracts me? Or (the worst question of all) what if I just have one, tiny split-second lapse of judgment? Then what?
And so I've always been a little non-committal when it comes to the Great Second Amendment Debate. But I decided, for these purposes, I would start with the basics.
I explained to the Korean scientist what the Second Amendment is and who put it there. He'd never heard of the Second Amendment. I explained the word "militia" and I told him that the men who drafted the Bill of Rights felt that it was crucial that the American people be able to organize themselves into a citizen army and take up arms against their government in the event of irreversible corruption at its highest levels.
As I was speaking, I recalled an account I'd read recently about Dresden under Nazi rule that occurred relatively early on in the Nazi party's rise to ... whatever it was they eventually rose to.
On Nov. 9, 1938, the Nazis hosted a nationwide shindig that would be known later as the Night of Broken Glass. Basically, they marched into every Jewish-owned business in the country and smashed everything in them.
At this time, Dresden had a pretty small Jewish population, but despite this, was home to Germany's largest and, by many accounts, most beautiful synagogue. Most Dresdners, including those who prescribed to the Nazi party's anti-Semitic sentiments, loved this building. It added interest to the cultured city's gorgeous skyline and Dresdners have always felt that aesthetic is important.
Not surprisingly, the Nazis did not carry the same soft spot for Dresden's synagogue, and on the Night of Broken Glass, they doused the building in gasoline and torched it. Dresden's fire brigade rushed to the scene in full force, including a fire boat on the nearby Elbe River, to try to save what it could of the beloved building. But the Nazi soldiers blocked them and forbade them from extinguishing the fire. The fire trucks and fire boat sat unused as the residents helplessly watched the synagogue burn. Occasionally an onlooker would voice disapproval of the situation and be hauled away by SS thugs.
The story is indicative, I think, of most German citizens' relationship with the Nazi party. People wonder how something so evil could ever rise to power, but the citizens were completely helpless against it. They had their hands tied behind their back and a luger pointed at their collective head.
And I thought, as I explained to the Korean scientist the meaning of "militia", how things might have been different if the citizens of Germany in the 1930s had had access to guns.
It's possible, I thought to myself, that World War II could have been prevented.
And I realized at that moment that I believe, rather vehemently, in the Second Amendment.
It feels kind of weird.
JEM
I know. It sounds weird. Like friendship prostitution or something. But he'll likely be moving with his family to the United States in a few months and he wants to practice his English with a native speaker before he lands on American dirt. He wants me to listen to him and correct his mistakes and talk to him about American life and culture. But the most important thing is that we just talk so he can practice.
We met for the first time on Tuesday and talked about everything from the presidential election to his kids. Near the end of the two hours, I started scrambling a bit for material and brought up last week's shooting at Northern Illinois University. He told me, yes, he'd heard about that, and that he had a question for me regarding this.
"Why," he said, "can people have guns?"
He's not the only person thinking this. Most of Asia and all of Europe share his sentiment. Why on earth would a civilized country allow its ordinary citizens to walk around wielding weapons of death? Are they not bothered by the idea that the creepy person at the convenience store checkout can legally have a pistol in their back pocket?
It's a fair question.
I, personally, am not a big gun person. My immediate family members are not hunters. I didn't really grow up with guns the way many of my Idaho classmates did. But I have handled them. I've shot a .22 before and a 12-gauge on several occasions (and woken up the next morning with a bruised shoulder as proof of my poor form). I enjoy it. It's fun shattering clay pigeons and hitting targets. And I'm going to be totally honest with you. Popping the smoking spent shell out of a shotgun makes me feel like a total badass.
Me and a gunBut it also scares the bejeebies out of me.
I get the shakes a little bit every time I touch a gun. What if my finger slips? What if something distracts me? Or (the worst question of all) what if I just have one, tiny split-second lapse of judgment? Then what?
And so I've always been a little non-committal when it comes to the Great Second Amendment Debate. But I decided, for these purposes, I would start with the basics.
I explained to the Korean scientist what the Second Amendment is and who put it there. He'd never heard of the Second Amendment. I explained the word "militia" and I told him that the men who drafted the Bill of Rights felt that it was crucial that the American people be able to organize themselves into a citizen army and take up arms against their government in the event of irreversible corruption at its highest levels.
As I was speaking, I recalled an account I'd read recently about Dresden under Nazi rule that occurred relatively early on in the Nazi party's rise to ... whatever it was they eventually rose to.
On Nov. 9, 1938, the Nazis hosted a nationwide shindig that would be known later as the Night of Broken Glass. Basically, they marched into every Jewish-owned business in the country and smashed everything in them.
At this time, Dresden had a pretty small Jewish population, but despite this, was home to Germany's largest and, by many accounts, most beautiful synagogue. Most Dresdners, including those who prescribed to the Nazi party's anti-Semitic sentiments, loved this building. It added interest to the cultured city's gorgeous skyline and Dresdners have always felt that aesthetic is important.
Not surprisingly, the Nazis did not carry the same soft spot for Dresden's synagogue, and on the Night of Broken Glass, they doused the building in gasoline and torched it. Dresden's fire brigade rushed to the scene in full force, including a fire boat on the nearby Elbe River, to try to save what it could of the beloved building. But the Nazi soldiers blocked them and forbade them from extinguishing the fire. The fire trucks and fire boat sat unused as the residents helplessly watched the synagogue burn. Occasionally an onlooker would voice disapproval of the situation and be hauled away by SS thugs.
The story is indicative, I think, of most German citizens' relationship with the Nazi party. People wonder how something so evil could ever rise to power, but the citizens were completely helpless against it. They had their hands tied behind their back and a luger pointed at their collective head.
And I thought, as I explained to the Korean scientist the meaning of "militia", how things might have been different if the citizens of Germany in the 1930s had had access to guns.
It's possible, I thought to myself, that World War II could have been prevented.
And I realized at that moment that I believe, rather vehemently, in the Second Amendment.
It feels kind of weird.
JEM
The Shocking Truth
A Greek girl who works with Jake asked him the other day, "So, is it true that Americans are grossed out by the idea of eating octopus?"
He told her that there are probably some people living in the United States who like eating octopus, but that by and large, yes, Americans are grossed out by the idea of eating octopus.
"Really?" she said, shocked. "I thought that was just an urban legend."
JEM
He told her that there are probably some people living in the United States who like eating octopus, but that by and large, yes, Americans are grossed out by the idea of eating octopus.
"Really?" she said, shocked. "I thought that was just an urban legend."
JEM
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Looking Forward to Meeting You
About a year ago, while visiting Jake's parents, my father-in-law pulled an old, thick photo album from the closet. He laid it on the coffee table in front of me and flipped to a portrait of a raven-haired, ruby-lipped knockout. "Doesn't she look like a movie star?" he said. I said that she did.
He said he wished so badly that I could've known her, that beautiful, poised woman with a sharp wit and a gentle disposition who threw elegant parties and created stunning meals. That woman who could walk into a crowded room and quietly, without even trying, take everyone's collective breath away.
I would've loved her, he said.
I did love her, I said. I had known his mother for nearly five years. I had sat with her dozens of times. Held hands with her. Talked with her. I knew the stories she loved to tell. I had been surprised and delighted by her clever quips and flattered by her heartfelt compliments.
But I knew what my father-in-law was trying to say.
By the time I joined their family, his mother had begun to change. She repeated herself and forgot things and occasionally couldn't distinguish reality from her own imagination. Over the five years since I had met her, she had been exponentially disintegrating. She was still his mother, and yet, she was not.
She passed away on Sunday. And of all of the emotions I've felt after hearing the news, the one I can't seem to shake is this feeling of nervous excitement. I think it has something to do with knowing that someday, when I join those ranks on the other side, I'll have an excuse to approach this raven-haired knockout and introduce myself.
Because I just know I'm going to love her.
JEM
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