On stalking Martha...

As many of you already know, I vacationed in the Northwest in July. I flew to Portland, Oregon to experience an increasingly rare thing: time with Martha. For those of you who don't know who Martha is, the explanation is simple: Martha was one of my famed roommates from the University of Pennsylvania and, more importantly, one of my closest friends. After obtaining her undergraduate degree in Spanish from Penn and her masters in Spanish from UVA, she is going to attend the University of St. Louis for her second bachelors degree: a BSN. However, it's not really St. Louis she's after; she will spend the next two years in Madrid, working towards her nursing degree at St. Louis University's sister school. When she completes her schooling, she will be licensed to practice in both the U.S. and the E.U.

With all these accomplishments under her belt, it's really no wonder why I would stalk Martha to the far Northwest reaches of the States. Since she was traveling to Portland for an oncology massage class, it made perfect sense for me to climb into her suitcase and travel with her. (Boy, was she ever surprised to see that, instead of clothes, she had only packed me! Talk about taking stalking to a whole new level!!!)

Anyway, I was on the ground in Portland for about six days and six nights. My first night in the city gave me an awful first impression that thankfully did not hold true for the rest of my stay. I arrived at my hostel to discover that they had mistakenly booked me for Saturday night instead of Friday night. As it was already late at night, I booked at the hotel where Martha and I would be staying for the rest of the week for an ungodly rate. The cab driver thought I took the upset quite well (surprisingly well, one could say) so you'll have to take his word on the matter. I managed to smile and partake of pleasant conversation even while being royally screwed. I think they call that "poise" in the pageant circuit.

The next morning did not start any better when I realized that they had canceled Martha's week-long reservation when they booked my room the night before. It took some work, and a little bit of Martha's happiness, but in the end, things got sorted out.

Most of the week was spent as an individual tourist, as Martha's class lasted from about 9AM to 5PM every day. My days were spent in pursuit of all things uniquely Portland, while my nights were spent hanging out with Martha and experiencing the culinary delights of this foodies' haven.

If you ever make it out to Portland, here is a nice convenient list of my impressions, recommendations, suggestions, and thoughts, served up Andrew-style (aka in numbered format):

1. Places worth the visit: International Rose Test Garden; Japanese Garden; Colombia River Gorge (even if, like me, you manage to accidentally delete all your pictures); Pioneer Square (just randomly visit at different times of day to see what the city's residents are up to – I managed to catch a transvestite show one day); Saturday Market; Powell's bookstore (basically, heaven on earth for the literate); Chinese Garden.
2. Places not so worth the visit: Marquam State Park; the OHSU air tram; walking along the waterfront; getting a pedicure at Spa Sasse (can I say "Ow!"??? The pedicurist tried to treat my toes like a wishbone! Not relaxing at all…); every single coffee shop and café that closed their doors by 6PM.

3. Dining experiences that make Portland a culinary destination: Mother's Bistro (my all-time favorite); Half and Half; Sin Ju; Fratelli; Tea Chai Te; Pazzo's; and Mio Gelato. I am convinced there are more, but there was only so much I could eat in six days! (And, seeing as I spent at least one meal a day at Mom's (read: Mother's Bistro), there weren't a lot of places I tried.)
4. Dining experiences to avoid: even though we only tried dessert and coffee here, Martha refused to drink both the tea and coffee she ordered. My profiterole was only middling. This does not bode well for such an expensive place, supposedly renowned for its quality Northwest cuisine. The Heathman Bar and Restaurant wins the Tastes Like Butt award.
5. Random commentary: If at all possible, do not walk around Chinatown or Skidmore. The only reason to be in either of these places is to see the Chinese Garden or to experience the jeering and come-ons of homeless people. Although, if you are with Martha, it IS worth it. Then you get to watch as the jet-propulsion engine that is apparently stowed in her butt comes to life and she zooms across the street and down the block before you can say, "Scary homeless person!"
6. Totally necessary comment on the weather: The weather in July is absolutely exquisite. There really is no other word for it. Temperatures top out in the mid-eighties, but there is no humidity and you can comfortably wear a long-sleeve shirt all day. I returned home to 100+ degree weather, where the air had a viscous quality to it and immediately began planning my life out in the Northwest. If there is any weather condition that makes life unbearable, it's humidity.
7. The people: two things about Portland's population immediately jump out at you. First, there is a disproportionate amount of homeless people on the streets. The appeal of Portland is its temperate weather and the number of services it offers the poor and homeless. The city therefore attracts a lot of young runaways and older homeless people. Since there aren't a lot of people out on the streets at any given time of day, the homeless population becomes quite conspicuous. The second generalization about Portland's people that I could make very easily is that the city appears to attract a lot of society's outsiders. There are a significant amount of goth kids, heavily tattooed and pierced people, and grunge kids loitering about the streets. You leave the city with the impression that much of the rebellious fads pursued by teens in the 1990s never quite died out with the new millennium. A little less obvious, but still quite prevalent is the attitude of the people of Portland. They can be very Southern. By that I mean that asking a simple yes or no question will never give you a simple yes or no answer. Northwesterners are more likely to give you their life story before even getting around to your question. So be prepared for incredibly friendly people to chat, and chat, and chat, and…

If anything could burn in hell, Comcast would

I have five reasons to loathe Comcast now:
1) Their low-wage customer service employee processed the wrong work order and sent the wrong guy to the condo for the first appointment;
2) The second Comcast service dude did not show up;
3) The third Comcast service dude did not show up;
4) The only thing Comcast could do to make up to us for all this crappy service was to offer us a $40 credit on our bill, despite the fact that we cut out of work for at least a combined eight hours. My time off of work is worth well over $40;
5) The fourth Comcast service dude did show up, but called Anthony’s cell phone to be let inside. Anthony was in Ghana. Needless to say, he did not answer. So I cut out of work early yet again for no reason. And then I called to complain and they told me they could not help me because I am not an authorized user of the account.

My loathing of Comcast is growing in leaps and bounds.

And what, pray tell, do I want them to do? Anthony and I paid a contractor to build a nice flat wall in our condo just so we could hook up our t.v. and other electronics right there. So we need a cable wall plate installed. That’s it. I would imagine it might take someone two hours to finish said job, if s/he were to patch up all the holes in the wall that would be needed to move the wires. Yet Comcast insists on two visits – the first to conduct a survey of the work needed to be done, and the second to actually do it. And we can’t even get the surveyor to appear.

Grumble, grumble.

Things that annoy me

Have I ever told you about Ben’s “bitch list?” Back in my undergraduate years, personal webpages were pretty popular and Ben made one to list his general grievances of the world at large. He listed really annoying things such as the speedbumps in his Bethesda neighborhood. They really tend to slow you down from that 90mph you’re trying to achieve.

Well, I have a few problems lately here in DC and I always find that it’s better to get them out than to keep them in. “Better out than in,” I was told recently.

So, without further ado, here is my very own, miniaturized “bitch list:”
○ DC cab drivers. Hands down, no contest, DC cab drivers are the most likely thing to give me a raging ulcer.
○ General DC attitudes. The veneer of politeness that just barely conceals the utter loathing the general DC public has for you is a load of crap. At least in NYC, if a random person on the street doesn’t like you or something you’ve done, they let you know in no uncertain terms. You always know where you stand. In DC, it’s a completely different political landscape.
○ DC food. What is with this place? Everyone keeps telling me that DC has a fine tradition of a wonderful variety of dining experiences. Yet I haven’t been to more than one place (Marcel’s; and we can’t go that often because they charge an arm and a leg and your firstborn for a meal) that makes me want to come back on a regular basis. Most of the restaurants here are more focused on the environment instead of the food (which clearly should always be the top priority). At least in Philly, there were a lot of quality options that didn’t break the bank. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked about the food trucks, or the Royal, or Sabrina’s, or Monk’s… Dammit, where has all the good food in DC gone? (Of course, if you have suggestions, I’m all ears…)

Now that I sound like I hate living in the District, I should probably point out some of the really cool things about the city:
○ The amount of green space. I love the fact that we have a huge park slam-bang in the middle of the city. And I like it much more than Central Park in NYC because there are far fewer people in it; it feels more like nature.
○ My condo. More importantly, my condo’s parking space. This is the equivalent of having my old NYPD parking permit in NYC. It just kicks ass!
○ The museums. Granted, I hardly ever go to museums because I have this (teeny, tiny) problem of becoming extremely bored when forced to appreciate art or history as a totally passive bystander – BUT, just knowing they are there at my disposal makes me a happy chica. And one of these days, I will see one of ‘em.
○ The National Zoo. Yeah, they haven’t always had a stellar reputation for their animal care, but they are working on it. And I love the animals. And the fact that it’s free. In fact, that applies to the museums as well. You can spend a lot of time in this city, reaping the awards of culture and not spending a dime. (Even Kennedy Center performances are free – they have daily live shows in one of the halls that are absolutely free.)
○ My friends. In fact, to make me sublimely happy, the few of you who are not here at this very second merely have to move. (Yeah, that means you.)
○ The Metro. I’m not going to lie – it could be a LOT better. But it does a tap dance on the dead corpse that is LA’s public transportation system and is the cleanest system I have ever seen in a major metropolitan area. And, unlike London’s tube system, DC’s Metro has air conditioning in the summertime. What a novel concept.
○ Dr. Rhea (now Elliott). She is the coolest vet EVER. I was just at the Dupont Vet Clinic yesterday so I may still be basking in the glow that is coming from the fact that Pookie’s urine is now completely crystal-free.
○ Furry children. The fact that this is where I got my kids should also be part of this “pro” list. Grace came to us through the hard work of HART and Pookie was originally fostered through the Feline Foundation.

Closet, what closet?

Yesterday was the last day of the living room doubling as a construction zone. That nearly useless coat closet that used to reside there has now gone into hiding…behind a big, beautiful wall!

We couldn’t quite undertake the home improvement project we wanted to (which involved installing a pocket door to the bathroom) because there was a large concrete support hidden in the wall where we wanted to work, but the end result is pretty sweet. I could have lived without the massive amounts of drywall dust that settled everywhere throughout the condo (apparently so fine that it can fit through key holes and such), but I am quite pleased with the wall that resulted.

I can now get to work on convincing my cable company to install a cable outlet in the wall and on getting a flooring contractor out to install wood flooring throughout. Someday, this place will be fit for living!

And then we’ll move, of course…

How not to spend your summer vacation

These past two days were the hottest, most humid days of the year so far. Clearly, it was the perfect time for my heat pump to stop functioning. On Tuesday morning, my air conditioning just stopped. Just like that. No workie-workie.

Forty-eight hours later, with most of the humidity down to an acceptable level, our HVAC guy is able to fix the problem. The bonus was that he also installed our new thermostat. Double bonus: he only charged us for one hour of labor, instead of the three hours that he could have. Triple bonus: my thermostat cost me $40 at Home Depot, which I thought was expensive until the HVAC guy told me that for the same exact model his company would have charged me $210. Quadruple bonus: I now have a functioning air conditioner.

Yay me!

My 2 cents

Two days ago, Rob Stewart was on the Today Show to publicize his documentary, Sharkwater. What had begun as a simple shark documentary turned into a glimpse at the terrible world of illegal shark finning. I was completely horrified by the images Stewart’s team filmed of poachers catching sharks, cutting off the fins, and then tossing the rest of the shark back into the ocean – WHILE THEY ARE STILL ALIVE. Without their fins, sharks are unable to swim and will sink to the ocean floor. They will be consumed (often while still alive) by other fish.

Watching this interview of Stewart reminded me of a conversation I had recently with two girls, one a vegetarian, the other a vegan. The vegetarian told me that she had grown up on a farm and, if a brand could guarantee that the meat it was selling was from sustainable and ethical farming, she would probably go back to eating meat. It is an interesting dichotomy to hear a professed vegetarian who went “veggie” for the animals tell me that she would eat meat again if the animals were bred and raised appropriately.

And she has a point. Far too much of our fishing and agriculture industries is so overly profit-driven that the quality of life of the animals is at risk. In the case of the sharks, it is far more profitable to ignore international agreements and harvest shark fins for the lucrative pay associated with them. With our cows, pigs and chickens, it is far less expensive to factory farm them. In neither case is the general health and welfare of the animals considered.

I can’t say that I have the answers to either of these problems, nor am I an expert in any of these fields, but I highly recommend that we continue to look into these issues and try to develop lasting solutions. There are professionals out in the field every day, working hard to get us to pay attention to the unnecessary damage we are inflicting upon our world. It isn’t feasible that we could stop farming or fishing, but it is absolutely possible that we can do it in a far more humane way.

For more information about the movie, please see their site. Right now it appears the movie is only playing in Canada, but perhaps it will make it out to the States.

Below are some facts and figures from the movie’s website:

What is Shark Finning?
○ Shark finning refers to the removal and retention of shark fins and the discard at sea of the carcass. The shark is most often still alive when it is tossed back into the water. Unable to swim, the shark slowly sinks toward the bottom where it is eaten alive by other fish.
○ Shark finning takes place at sea so the fishers have only the fins to transport. Shark meat is considered low value and therefore not worth the cost of transporting the bulky shark bodies to market.
○ Any shark is taken—regardless of age, size, or species.
○ Longlines, used in shark finning operations, are the most significant cause of losses in shark populations worldwide.
○ Shark finning is widespread, and largely unmanaged and unmonitored.
○ Shark finning has increased over the past decade due to the increasing demand for shark fins (for shark fin soup and traditional cures), improved fishing technology, and improved market economics.
○ Shark specialists estimate that 100 million sharks are killed for their fins, annually.
○ One pound of dried shark fin can retail for $300 or more. It's a multi-billion dollar industry.

Impacts of Shark Finning
○ Loss and devastation of shark populations around the world. Experts estimate that within a decade, most species of sharks will be lost because of longlining.
○ Unsustainable fishery. The massive quantity of sharks harvested and lack of selection deplete shark populations faster than their reproductive abilities can replenish populations.
○ Threatens the stability of marine ecosystems.
○ Loss of sharks as a food staple for many developing countries.
○ Local waters are invaded by large industrial, foreign fishing vessels that threaten traditional sustainable fisheries.
○ Threatens socio-economically important recreational fisheries.
○ Obstructs the collection of species-specific data that are essential for monitoring catches and implementing sustainable fisheries management.
○ Wasteful of protein and other shark-based products. Up to 99 per cent of the shark is thrown away.

Are there laws against shark finning?
○ Each country with a coastline is responsible for laws and regulations pertaining to fishing in their waters.
○ A number of countries have shark-finning legislation. Many stipulate that fins must arrive in a 5 per cent weight ratio of the shark carcasses onboard. Only a few countries demand that sharks arrive in port with fins attached.
○ According to the IUCN Shark Specialist group, the easiest way to implement a ban is to require that shark carcasses be landed with fins attached. The possession of fins alone on vessels would thus be illegal.
○ Shark finning violates the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries.
○ Shark finning is contrary to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's International Plan for the Conservation and Management of Sharks.
○ The United Nations Convention on the Trade of Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna (CITES) lists the whale shark, basking shark, and great white shark as species that could become threatened if trade is not controlled. To date, 169 countries have agreed to be legally bound by CITES.

Take action against hate crimes

I would write if I could, but living in DC doesn't grant me access to Senators. If you believe in promoting equal rights of gays under the law and want to support legislation that will create tougher punishments for those who perpetrate hate crimes against gay/transgender people, please see Musicguy's post.

Thank you.