Nascar

Here's a platitude to begin today's ramblings--you can't judge a book by its cover.  Marketing students will tell you this is false because that is what sells a book in marketingland (as opposed to the reality the rest of us occupy).  That is not true about books, soap, shoes, jewelry, or people. You indeed do not know anything by the cover.

I am a 54 year old white woman with a Master's degree in English.  I have all the classroom hours toward a Ph.D. in 19th Century English literature.  My politics are liberal.  I like gardening and organic food.  I make my own granola, for heaven's sake.  And I'm a huge Nascar fan.  Put that in your demographics.

I've known about Nascar from birth.  My father's favorite story from being stationed in Atlanta, GA was that he got see Fireball Roberts race at Atlanta Motor Speedway in 1952.  So any three minutes of racing ABC's Wide World of Sports was willing to throw our way--we watched.  We listened to the Indianapolis 500 on the radio.  In fact, Memorial Day weekend was the weekend for taking down the storm windows.  My dad and I set up a radio on the patio and washed windows and listened to the race.  We were race fans.

My first child was born the year CBS finally aired the Daytona 5oo live.  Wow.  I'd married a race fan (you don't marry outside your own kind), so we watched the race.  Fisticuffs broke out in the infield.  Omigod, it's not the fans--it's the drivers.  America started liking this edgy stuff.

I was so happy when the rest of the world caught up to my predilection for auto racing.  Pretty soon Speed started running Formula One races live, and I could see open wheel racing.  ESPN was running NHRA (drag racing).  It's heaven for a race fan now.  A race track even opened close enough to me for me to have season tickets.  This is even more fun than watching it on tv and loads more fun than the radio.  Real cars going around right in front of me!   Wow

So as you are marketing this sport to men who drink crappy beer (my son falls into this category, not much of a race fan), ask yourself if you might be missing someone in this overall demographic.  Someone with disposable income and a granddaughter to convert.  Hmmm.

Go Kevin Harvick.  Let's get 'em at Vegas.

Missing people

Isn't it funny how people who are so important for a time in your life just fall away from you?  Today I'm missing all those people who I was close to because of an interest our children shared.  You know the ones.  The ones you have lunch with because of the PTA.  The ones who find out about the latest trauma in your life because you spend so much time with them.  Then nothing.

What I wonder is if you can hang on to everyone.  Does the entire world have this falling away problem or is it me?  Could I be more forceful about hanging on?  And really should I be?

This inevitably for me leads to Christmas cards.  What you didn't make that jump?  I always think I should expand my Christmas card list to include all these people I never see anymore. But I'm not convinced that I get the same feeling from sending or reading cards.  I'm not sure I'm really still in touch with these people.

Maybe these people really only serve a purpose in your life for short periods of time.  And I don't mean that in any karma or fate way.  I mean that when you no longer share the thing that brought you together in the first place, maybe you don't have anything much else in common.  There must be room in our lives for short term relationships that are fulfilling, but not meant for the long haul.

I think that idea is counter to what most people believe.  I think we need to hang on to people and things in a desperate attempt to make change disappear from our lives.  If all the people around me and the things around me never change, I never change and therefore have a say in my life.  It's the illusion of control.  And it is an illusion.  You are not in control.

But it's still bittersweet for me to think about some of the really neat people I've encountered over the years.  It's good to know in the midst of winter that those people are out there, being as supportive and warm as I remember them.  I know they are enriching someone else's life just as they did mine.

Yippy skippy--it's snowing again.

seattle: the review

So I'd never been to Seattle before last week.  It makes me proud to keep adding states to my resume.  I'm getting to the point that I don't need to count ones I've only flown over.  I added Texas a couple of years ago.

First ya gotta like a city that keeps its snow tied up in one place so that the residents may visit it whenever they feel the need.  Snow-covered mountains surround the place, and a visitor may go see them at will.  But snow is not forced on anyone.  Right now, that counts for a lot.

Restaurants cover the place.  Most are exceptional.  For a foodie, it's a great place to visit.  More on the restaurants later.

I was quite surprised by the hills.  I believe Seattle is the origin of the joke about a parent telling his child how difficult it was in his day when students walked uphill to school both ways.  I guess if I'd thought about the proximity of the mountains, having lived in foothills myself, I'd have figured it out.  It just didn't occur to me.  That was killer.  I didn't really need to discover how out of shape I am while visiting a new city.

The restaurants we chose were mostly fabulous.  Our first dinner was at Tulio.  I had heard of it, but didn't realize it was on the same block as our hotel.  It was fabulous.  I had the best duck I have ever put in my mouth.  The duck was served with kumquat, obviously a take off of orange, but the kumquat had a more robust, less sweet hit than orange usually does.  YUM.  We had homemade sausage for appetizers.  They were also wonderful.  We were both tired, so we passed on dessert.

We next ate at Etta's Seafood.  The appetizers were sort of uneventful, but my salad was a work of art.  It was a huge plate of frisee and baby greens with apple, bacon, goat cheese,etc.  It was so good.  I could have eaten a ton of it.  My dinner was the special which was black cod and mussels.  The mussels were like candy.  Very Yummy.  My eating companion stuck with Tom Douglas's crab cakes which lived up to the hype.  I had a tart for dessert.  The rest of the meal overshadowed dessert.  I liked it, but I really don't remember much about it.

The surprise find was Palomino.  We saw it on the sign for City Centre as we walked back and forth to the convention center.  It seemed intriguing.  We looked up info on it and decided to give it a shot.  It's a very bustling city kind of restaurant.  It occupies the third floor of City Centre and looks out over the atrium.  We had lovely salads.  I had salmon, and my companion had scallops.  Both were fabulous.  My salmon actually tasted like salmon.  The scallops, which seemed like they might be overwhelmed by the sauce and side, held their own quite well thank you.  Very good food, very good waiter.

We had two sorta disappointing meals.  I'm not sure I'd say they were bad, but they certainly didn't live up to their advance hype or to the other restaurants we ate at.  The first was Wild Ginger.  We went with a large group (6), so we tasted a lot of dishes there.  We ordered spring rolls and pot stickers as appetizers.  Very pedestrian.  All the main dishes were all right.  But nothing stood out or had a memorable taste.  We had duck, lamb, chicken, shrimp, scallops, and beef.  I wouldn't send anything back, but I wasn't in love with any of the dishes.  I had a serviceable panna cotta for dessert, again not awful, but not memorable.

The other disappointment was Matt's at the Market.  This was lunch and so we went for soup and sandwiches.  Again, not horrible, but very what you would expect soup and sandwiches to be.  And since we didn't get a table by the window to look out over the market, it was a wasted trip as far as I was concerned.  I had oyster sandwich, which was fresh and nice, but in Seattle that is kind of the given.  The soup was butternut squash and pear and a little too sweet.  Again, not horrible, but not to die for either.  And not worth the premium prices you pay here.

Our quest for coffee and breakfast led us first to the original Starbucks to at least check out the original logo.  There are no seats or bathrooms there, so we moved on.  Down the street we found Local Color, an art gallery/coffee shop.  I had a croissant and the prettiest cup of coffee I'd ever seen.  I hated to mess it up.  But I perservered.  It was very well done.

We toured the market and rode the monorail.  That trip is fun and worth the 4 bucks it costs you.  Experience Music is not.  15 dollars for one to see old concert tape and Jimi Hendrix's guitar is way over the top.  It is nice to go out to the Space Needle since you can see it from everywhere. We did not spend another 30 dollars for 2 to ride the elevator to the top.

We visited the Mystery Bookstore while we were there.  Very large selection in a small space.  Lots and lots of autographed books.  The clerks are fabulous, and we enjoyed this place a lot.  If you read mystery books, check this place out.

One thing I consistently disliked about Seattle was its overly aggressive panhandlers.  I was sick of them after our walks around, but I was particularly annoyed by one who cursed us for not giving him a quarter.  I'm not used to being assaulted for money, and we call that extortion in some places.  I'm not under an obligation to give you money because you ask for it.  New York leaps to mind as a place where I didn't feel nearly as put upon as Seattle.  And I'm more likely to respond positively to less aggressive and abusive treatment.

Our actual reason for being in Seattle was the Northwest Flower and Garden Show.  It was such a beautiful display.  The gardens were inventive and gorgeous.  I loved the container gardens which lined the connecting spaces.  Food and places to sit were abundant.  It was easy to come and go with a hand stamp.  Very nicely done.

Overall, a nice city.  Very pedestrian friendly because crosswalks are respected by the drivers here (a nice change from anywhere else I can think of).  I'd go there again.

and now another rant

I'm sure when the snow melts, I'll be writing about the beauty of nature and the wonderful ways flowers bloom in the garden.  And puppies.  And kittens.  Right now I'm snowed in and cranky.  So a rant it is.

Stop trying to sell me stuff.  You're annoying me.  I have two separate but related trains of thought here.  Both relate to crass commercialism.

Suddenly, I'm closed out of a forum where I used to lurk.  Why?  Because I have to register to be able to view the forum.  After several years of viewing without registering, I'm taken aback.  What has my lurking done to offend anyone?  I sometimes don't really have anything to add.  I'm not someone who has to restate another' s point or lol at what has been said.  But I usually enjoy the advice and nuggets of faux info one can glean.

But I digress.  The reason I must now register is that this forum is owned corporately, and the corporation wants email addresses to add to its (note correct usage) database.  I'm supposed to willingly submit to corporate spam.  Knowingly.  Now the ads I must navigate around are not enough to feed the corporate beast.  It must target my mailbox.

I can tell you my reaction.  I don't go there anymore.  Now the ads on the page are not being seen by me because I came for the forum.  And I'm locked out.  I have no reason to try to navigate the page.  You no longer offer anything I want.  Shoot yourself in the foot why don't you?

The related rant has to do with those people who already have my email address.  No not my friends--I quite enjoy all the forwarded nonsense I receive.  No all the businesses who have my address because I buy things from them.  They send me ads nearly every day.  Now I'm an avid consumer and shopper, but they can't truly believe I'll buy something every day.  So they have made themselves pests as far as I am concerned.  It makes me not want to buy things from them anymore.   And I always uncheck boxes about receiving updates.  This is blatant.  One outfitter from Maine calls this a newletter.  What a unique definition.

I do tolerate an occasional ad.  It's kinda like they're checking to see if I'm still ok.  But this every single day thing has to stop.  And by the way, marketing mavens, my email program consistently puts this in junk, so I don't see it anyway.  If the program is smart enough to know when enough is enough, you should too.

And, my final word hoping for positive thoughts--ENOUGH WITH THE SNOWING ALREADY.

The its conundrum

Here it is--my pet peeve.  Native speakers of English apparently have no idea what the word "it's" is used for.  It is NOT possessive.  Let me say that again.  NOT POSSESSIVE.  The word means it is and very occasionally it has.  It NEVER is used as an adjective.  

So using it's in a sentence is VERY VERY simple.  The dog lost its way.  Why no apostrophe? Because it is makes no sense here--the dog lost it is way.  The simplest test in the world. Substitute "it is" for "it's" anytime you think that might be what you mean.  It's simple.  See the test works--it is simple.

And why should you care?  I "knew" what you meant.  Let's suppose I didn't.  Let's suppose it means that I don't do business with you or it costs you money because your sentences are unclear.  Let's suppose your boss knows the difference and cares about it.  Let's suppose it makes you look ignorant when you use it incorrectly on your resume.

Most of all, let's assume in a world like ours that communication matters.  Maybe we ought to be precise enough to mean what we say.  It just might be the difference between being understood or being misunderstood.  And if I communicate clearly about what I want or expect, maybe I have a greater chance of getting what I want.  Maybe.

Ok. Class dismissed.  There may be a quiz later.