Rick's Cafe Americain

Monday, February 28, 2005

My Dinner With Dawndre

The life of a blogger is tough. It’s not as easy as some people seem to think. However, this weekend Ilsa and I were lucky enough to host the inimitable and always delightful Dawn Summers for an evening at stately Blaine Manor. In the spirit of Clareified, I’ve decided to blog the visit using one of Dawn’s favorite devices, the dialogue. It all began with a phone call that came about three hours before Dawn said she would be arriving . . .

PHONE: [plays “Linus and Lucy”, by Vince Guaraldi].

ME: Hello?

DAWN: Hi!

ME: Dawn! Hi! Where are you?

DAWN: I’m not sure. I’m lost.

ME: Oh no. Do you have any idea where you are?

DAWN: I see trees.

ME: That narrows it down.

DAWN: And little Brady Bunch mini-houses.

ME: Uh-huh?

DAWN: And a silver Mazda RX-8.

ME: You’re at my house?

DAWN: I guess.

ME: Oh. Did you ring the doorbell?

DAWN: Yes.

ME: Did anyone answer the door?

DAWN: Um, no.

ME: Then we’re not home.

DAWN: That’s OK. I’ll just steal some of your neighbor’s children.*

Why was Dawn three hours early? Because she didn’t get lost. Yes, that’s right, Dawn added 3 hours to a 45-minute drive to account for the likelihood of her getting lost. Needless to say, we left that Outback right were it was until it was time for Dawn to go to the airport. Since she left at ten on Sunday morning, I can only assume she’s boarding the plane about now.

The first thing Dawn saw when she walked through the door was our cat, Guru. All I can say is, to quote Dawn herself (though not at that particular moment), “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”. While I sympathize with Dawn’s very real discomfort with most non-human living things, watching her jump every time the cat brushes against her just never gets old. Nor do her frequent conversations with the cat:

DAWN: You’re not that big. I could take you. Just remember that.

GURU: [blink]

The second thing Dawn saw was the Scrabble box:

DAWN: Oooooh, can we play Scrabble?

RICK: Sure.

DAWN: Can I win?

RICK: It’s possible.

DAWN: I want to win.

RICK: OK.**

I was about to set up the board when Ilsa pointed out that Dawn might want to go out and “see” Palo Alto, since she was only here for a day. Intrigued, I asked what was worth “seeing” in Palo Alto. And, for the record, if you’re planning a visit, here is the short list:

Number 1: Stanford University. Here, I employed a touring technique known as “drive into the middle of it and get lost, then drive around till you’ve found your way back out. It was highly effective, and we saw all the key Stanford sights, including the Famous Bell Tower Thingy, the Parking Lot In Front Of The Rodin Sculpture Garden, the Fake Mayan Ruins, the Bike Racks (Dawn’s personal favorite—I’ve never seen anyone get so excited and nostalgic over bike racks) and Panama Street (where Dawn mocked me for referring to the U.S. as “the States”, instead of “here"). 25 minutes later I was wondering what else to show her:

RICK: Oh, Stanford has a linear accelerator—want to see that?

DAWN: Here’s what I heard: “Ooooh, Stanford blah blah blah blah blah.”

RICK: It’s the physics equivalent of saying that Stanford has a TV studio filming WB shows.

DAWN: Ooooooh!!!! Now THAT I’d like to see!

Number 2: Downtown Palo Alto. Otherwise known as University Avenue, this is a long drive down a short, congested street lined with restaurants and shops. Highlight: Citibank.

DAWN: Oh, wow, look!

RICK: What?

DAWN: A Citibank!

RICK: So?

DAWN: That’s my bank!

RICK: Um, great, I’ll be sure to drive by the McDonald’s on the way home.

DAWN: Why?

RICK: Because they are about as rare.

DAWN: I get excited when I see a McDonald’s in a foreign country.

Number 3: New LLP’s Palo Alto Office. We didn’t go here, because I forgot. And because I don’t know where it is. And because, why would anyone want to spend their weekend out of town visiting their office? But if you want to see it while you’re here, Ilsa knows the address . . .

Anyway, after The Tour there was dinner, at Francis Ford Coppola’s restaurant:

DAWN: I wish I had David Blaine’s powers.

RICK: Why?

DAWN: So that I could make this table disappear.

RICK: Why would you want to do that?

DAWN: Then they probably wouldn’t notice if I stole my wine glass.

After dinner, Ilsa went bed and Dawn and I sat down to play some Scrabble. Now, this happens to be the time of night when Guru likes to fly around the living room at full speed, flinging himself onto one of the couches and scrambling about spider-like on its vertical surfaces, so Dawn was a bit distracted.

GURU: [flies past Dawn on his way to the nearest couch arm, where he hangs momentarily suspended by his claws]

DAWN: Eeeeeyyyaaaaahhhh!! [deep breath] I think you should go be with your mommy, cat.

GURU: [blinks]

DAWN: You’re not so big. I . . . could . . . take you?

GURU: [blinks]

DAWN: Eeeeeyyyaaahhh!!!

I won’t bore you with the details of the game itself, but I will share the final board, which shows how Dawn earned the title, “the [Salvador] Dali of Scrabble”:

For those of you who are interested, according to Dawn a “jif” is a “hurry”; “bonrelaxer” is “a very good relaxer”; and “zariy” is an adjective that refers to something that makes the Baby Jesus cry (for example, the word “bonrelaxer"). Apparently, “Zariy” is also a popular name in the world of pre-pubescent cartoon fan-fiction. I have no idea what a “codet” is, but I think it was featured in the DaVinci Code.

Needless to say Dawn won (as per our prior agreement), and a good time was had by all.

We can’t wait to have Dawn back, and I only hope that the next time she comes out this way she won’t be lured by strangers with Bavarian candy. After all, the doors on a Bimmer all open the same way.

* OK, she didn’t actually say that. But that’s what Dawn thinks our neighbors thought as they peered from behind their blinds to watch her loiter on our street for half an hour.

** I meant “OK, we’ll play”. Dawn heard, “OK, you’ll win”.

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Personal (Rick) • the Blogosphere • (3) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Sunday, July 25, 2004

Because it can't be all poker and politics

I started biking (road cycling) about a year ago after my zillionth round of physical therapy for running-related trauma to my knee. I stopped when winter hit NYC, and work prevented me from returning to it this spring. After three weeks back in the saddle, today I achieved a minor milestone. While it does not compare to some of the things I did on the bike last fall, it was very personally gratifying, and sounds kind of cool: I climbed Black Mountain.

I was a cross-country runner in high school, where I developed tendinitis in both knees (in large part due to the unfortunate combination of innocent determination and a coach whose entire repetoire of sports injury treatment consisted of “run it off"). In college, while running a “century” (up and down the stadium seats 100 times) for freshman crew practice, I blew out my left knee, and spent the rest of the season on an Concept II ergometer ("erg", or stationary rower) while everyone else ran. If you have ever had the pleasure of using an erg, you know that this is not a fair trade. It was particularly painful during our annual “triple century” event, which started with (if memory serves) 15,000 meters on the erg, then moved to a 6-mile run, and finished with 33 stadium flights. Poor Rick spent the whole day on the erg, ekeing out 45,000 meters.

Nearly every year since then I have tried to start running again. It usually works for a month or two, but once I start running more than about 3 miles at a time, inevitably I will come limping home to 6 months of physical therapy. I’ve learned a lot about my body: for example, my left iliotibial band (ITB) is very tight, which apparently creates additional stress on the weak tendons in my knee. It also accounts in part for the bursitis and sciatica that I suffer when I stay sedentary for too long.

Anyway, last year I decided that I hated physical therapy, and I best find something other than running to give me the endorphin rush. Since (stationary) cycling was a major part of my physical therapy, I started taking spinning classes. The pain, sweat, nausea and hamster-like pointlessness made me nostalgic for the erg, so I borrowed my brother’s bike and started riding up and down Manhattan’s West Side every morning. After a month, I knew I was hooked. I quit my gym membership and bought a road bike. I logged about 1000 miles between July and November, including three Centuries (100-mile rides). Then, as I mentioned, I stuck the bike in the closet (actually, the bike was always kept in the closet—I just stopped taking it out).

On July 6 I gave the bike a tune-up and headed out into one of the most bicycle-friendly communities in the USA. It was a pretty sad performance—my balance was awful, my cadence was atrocious, and my speed was just plain embarassing. It got dark, it got cold, I got lost. I didn’t get back on the bike for another week.

On July 14, though, I got back on the bike, and the results were much better. Not getting lost really helps. I’ve logged just under 200 miles since then, and with the exception of yesterday’s ride, which was delayed for 2 hours by a new rattle that—after adjustments to the head, seat, handlebars, derailleurs (front and rear), brakes (front and rear), and bottle cages—appears to have been caused by the air pump, it is consistently one of the high points of my day. The roads, weather and topography here are superb for biking (at least compared to Manhattan!), and I really don’t want to get off the damn thing (except to drive my car).

Today was my longest ride to date, although still a modest 25.7 miles. The old Polar S510 says I did it in 2:06:42, with an average heart rate of 158 bpm. What that doesn’t tell you was that half that distance was covered in the first 1:20 or so, because it was mostly uphill—or should I say, upmountain. Black Mountain, to be specific, one of the Santa Cruz Mountains and topping off at somewhere in the vicinity of 2,800 feet [correction: Turns out that while the mountian peak is 2800 feet or so, I climbed only about 2250 feet]. The grade varies considerably over the course of the climb, and I couldn’t tell you what it is, but some of it was pretty damn steep. [update: According to my Krebs Cycle Map (AWESOME MAPS!!!!), the grade of the climb starts at 4-6%, increases to 9%+ in the middle (4 miles or so?), and evens back out to 4-6% near the top.]

Anyway, there aren’t any mountains in Manhattan, so this was my first one (as a resident—I climbed the S-C mountains last summer on vacation out here, but I was at the peak of my cycling fitness then, and it was part of a much, much longer ride (just over 60 miles), so I don’t count it for these purposes). At the end of today’s ride I felt a little bit of that glow, that endorphin rush, that whatever-it-is that I used to get from running. As much as I love cycling, I thought I would never get that from anything but running. Now it looks like it might be possible after all.

Postscript: Going up, I have discovered, is the easy part. Going back down the way I came, I gave myself serious hand cramps from clutching the brakes, and had to stop four times to relax my hands. I learned that I find downhill hairpin turns at 35mph on a road bike absolutely terrifying. A lot of it is not being able to see what’s ahead, but I’ve never really tested the limits of this bike, and I don’t relish the thought of scrubbing the dirt out of road rash with a wire brush (something I had to do once before when I hit an oil patch at 125th street), or of doing an endo over the side of Black Mountain. I know that as I get more comfortable with the bike, the speed, and the road, I will use my brakes less, but for now, I provide amusement to the other cyclists who come zooming past me on the way down.

Next time I’ll bring a camera.

Post-postscript, to the kid in the Mercedes who took the turn past Foothills park at speed and almost bit it, and anyone else who feels the need to tackle the “twisties” on Page Mill Road at unsafe speeds: don’t be an asshole, you could have killed yourself or—worse—someone with brains. Next time I’m taking down the plate number and calling the cops.

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Cycling • Personal (Rick) • (7) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Sunday, July 11, 2004

I won't say no to Zaino

A bit of unsolicited plugging here for the company that makes the finest car exterior products I have ever used. I cleaned and waxed my new RX-8 this weekend with various products from Zaino, and I couldn’t be happier. The products are a cinch to use, and with the zFX accelerator, I didn’t have to wait long for each coat to dry. The service is remarkable. Having never used the stuff before and this being a new car, I had a ton of annoying, nitpicky questions. The owner personally answered every one promptly (often immediately) and thoroughly. I can’t remember the last time I was so satisfied with a purchasing experience. So much so that I am giving them this free plug (of course, since the 3 people that read this blog all live in NYC and don’t have cars , I’m not sure what the value of it is , but dammit, they do good work).