As the World Cup and all things soccer slowly fade from the American public's mind, I'm just starting my own education on this ball-kicking phenomena known as the beautiful game. Let me say, for the record, that I'm just about as American as they come. Raised in the Midwest on corn and parades. A grandpa who would rather die than drive around in a car built by any nation from the dippy Axis powers. Or as he called them, "meatheads."
He would've appreciated the match between Germany and Italy. But that's beside the point.
Funny enough, Russ and his family have a long history of soccer-love. Russ's dad, George, superstud and soccer beefcake, was so talented that he tried out for the national team in the seventies. But he said that it was all political and thus, was shut out from ever putting on the (very bland) uniform of red, white, and stripes. Russ and his brother grew up with soccer in their blood, so they played a lot. Russ was a goalie and when I really want to get a rise out of him, I state that goalies are simply the laziest players on the team. You should see the indignation, the pursing of the lips, the shaking of the index finger. I find great entertainment in this.
But I - American as Peanut Butter, as my friend Danielle would say - didn't grow up around such soccer love. I grew up around parents who yelled and shrieked at the Bulls, the Bears, and the Cubs. Chicago fans ARE just as scary as all the rumors. I remember lying in bed some nights as a kid, listening to the Rebel yell of my parents as they watched those games and wondering how someone could get so worked up about a stupid game. I don't know that I would've known the difference between them being slowly murdered by intruders and Michael Jordan shooting a game-winning three pointer.
My first encounter with soccer was a bit violent: Within the first five minutes of playing the game, I kicked at the ball and ended up missing it, kicking a fellow player in the shin instead. She had to be taken to the hospital because her leg swelled to the size of a purple Japanese lantern. She walked around in a splint for the next few weeks. It might not have been so traumatic if twenty minutes later, I hadn't pushed against another girl and she hadn't sprained her ankle. Again, more weeks-long splints. Let it be said: I am clearly suited for American football with all my brutishness and injury-infliction.
Despite all the emergency sirens in the background, I had a good time playing soccer. And when I met Russ, I could see that he was clearly in love with that kicky little black-and-white pentagonal ball. So, I did what any good person would do: I faked it until I made it. (That rhyme doesn't sound nearly as good in the past tense, by the way.) I indulged his need to watch Fox's Soccer station whenever we were in the same room as a cable TV. I hung at British pubs when they showed the Euro Cup or Manchester United. I kicked around the soccer ball with him, though I did not get anywhere near the shin-ankle area.
But never did soccer really take hold in me until recently. And it wasn't even the World Cup games, which we watched at our local Brit-Cal pub with a bunch of other regulars, although that just sweetened the whole finally making it thing. For me it, of course, took a writer and that writer would be Nick Hornby.
Let me say that I don't love all of Hornby's work -- I'm not a Nick slut. I started A Long Way Down and closed it in frustration after 50 pages. I wanted to like it, but in this case, I couldn't fake it or make it. I was just annoyed by the style of the book. But that wasn't the case when I opened June's National Geographic to his essay on what makes soccer such a great sport. The whole issue was dedicated to soccer and what's more, there were journalists and writers representing and writing about different countries, giving us (soccer-ignorant) Americans insights into why it's such a big deal everywhere else but here. The introduction to all these essays, written by Sean Wilsey, was hilariously accurate: "There are many beautiful things about being an American fan of men's World Cup soccer—foremost among them is ignorance. The community in which you were raised did not gather around the television set every four years for a solid, breathless month. Your country has never won. You can pick whatever team you like best and root for it without shame or fear of reprisal. You have not been indoctrinated into unwanted-yet-inescapable tribal allegiances by your soccer-crazed countrymen. You are an amateur, in the purest sense of the word. So with the World Cup taking place this month in Germany—and the World Cup is the only truly international sporting event on the planet (no, the Olympics, with their overwhelming clutter of boutique athletics, do not matter in the same way)—you can expect to spend the month in paradise."
It made sense to me, coming from a family with a dad who only owned shirts with Chicago sports team logos on them and a mom who decorated in Cubs paraphanalia. Had I decided to root for the Detroit Pistons in basketball or the Green Bay Packers in football or anyone else in baseball, there would've been both shame and reprisal. Maybe disowning, too. After I moved to Los Angeles, my dad once told me that we would always be on good terms, so long as I still rooted for the Bears. "But the Bears suck," I said. "They've sucked ever since they won the Super Bowl." And then I got a classic piece of fanatic sportsman wisdom: The Bears, he replied, were like an ugly kid. You know it's a trainwreck and you love it anyway.
But it was Nick's article, "Faded Glory: Taming the Hooligans," about fanaticism, the riots and the tears and the tear gas after games, about how embarassing and yet, how deliriously addictive it is to love a team as much as he loves England. Also, how complicated it gets when your sports team gets tied up in your national identity. We don't have that so much over on this side of the pond. Our sports teams are only bonded to cities and states and the whole state-supremacy thing sort of died with the Civil War. So we can be fanatical about our sports team and how it defines our city, like say, how the Bostonians define themselves by the Green Monster or how Angelinos define ourselves by our contempt of the Angels, but the Red Sox - no matter how many curses they break or cute butts they show off - are only ever going to be a small part of the whole that makes up our national face.
My recent fondeness for soccer has a lot to do with liking the idea of a national face. One that isn't militaristic or bossy-pants. I'd like to be able to root internationally for some part of my country without being caricatured and for me, soccer is a pretty good deal. At this point, America's team is more like the Bears, the ugly child, a little harder to love than the beautiful teams like Argentina or Italy. But ugly or not, it's nice to feel like cheering. I like events where we, America, come in as the underdogs instead of the favorites. It makes a win that much more thrilling and, I think, it makes the rest of the world like us just a teeny bit more. It's saying that you'll wach and participate, even if you're not the best, because it's great to see the best in action. Which I think is the whole point of soccer and just a little subversive. But in a good way.
The last thing that Hornby said was that whereas the face of soccer used to be rough and tumble, images of Terry Butcher with a messy, blood-soaked head and uniform, it's now represented by David Beckham in all his mohawked and sarong-ed spelendor: "The England fans...were still singing their 'No surrender to the IRA' song, and there's more than a suspicion that they'd rather be watching Terry Butcher and his fixed bayonets than David Beckham, a man who, after all, has been photographed wearing a sarong. But then, that's England all over at the moment. We'd still rather be bombing the Germans; but after 60 years, there's a slowly dawning suspicion that those days aren't coming back any time soon, and in the meantime we must rely on sarong-wearing, multimillionaire pretty boys to kick the Argies for us. We're not happy about it, but what can we do?"
Obviously, I'm more in the tradition of Butcher -- inflicting pain on others, racking up head wounds, messing up my clothes. But I appreciate those who can spruce it up, flash a little teeth for the cause. It should be encouraging to us as Americans, just entering the game. If a sarong and smile can represent the face of soccer, the possibilities really are infinite.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
So You Don't Waste Time, Like I Do
Just in case anyone out there really likes the song being played on the July Target commercials, the ones with spinning plates and boxes of dancing Special K, and is annoyed that they can't find the name of the song even after multiple google searches with all the right key words that just don't work, I come bearing good news:
Ragg: "I want more"
Ahh. Enjoy that half hour.
Ragg: "I want more"
Ahh. Enjoy that half hour.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Documenting Summer
The summer after my senior year of high school, my two good friends Rebekah and Rebecca decided on a summer-long mission: They were determined to find the best Caesar salad in the greater Aurora area for the best price. So they embarked on this quest with nothing but loose change from their respective summer jobs and moxy.
They had a running written log of their opinions on each place they visited, each salad they consumed -- had it been now instead of then, perhaps they would've shared their knowledge by way of a blog. But it was 1996 and, being the technological dark ages and all, we only had Hello Kitty! notebooks and cool Japanese pens that broke the third time you used them. Apparently, their detailing of each restaurant was extensive, as was the detailing of the ingredients, quality, and overall combined flavor of each salad. I'm not sure if I ever heard the final results of their summer long adventure, but I'm sure they're still hard birds to please when it comes to a salad with creamy dressings, crutons, and Parmesan cheese.
I have my own version of this, which just happens to also coincide with summer. Russ and I just finished the first season of Stargate SG-1, which was awesome sci-fi fun, and are gearing up to begin the whole Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series, interspersed chronologically with episodes of Angel, Firefly, and Serenity. Before you call me a dork, I need to tell you that it's been claimed by some of the most intelligent writers I know that Buffy is the best written series that's ever been on TV -- and that's a heavy claim, indeed, when up against shows like The Simpsons, Seinfeld, The Sopranos, M*A*S*H, and the X-Files. I'll keep you posted on my own thoughts about Buffy and its place on the medal podium of TV series.
The other thing, besides sci-fi series, that summer means for me is documentaries. I love me a good documentary and summer seems to be the perfect time to catch up on all things weird and wonderful. Documentaries are the film version of creative non-fiction: You can't believe every single detail to be the God-honest truth, but you can relax into the most truthfully entertaining version the creator could muster.
So here is my carefully compiled must-watch documentaries for maximum summer (indoor) enjoyment:
1. Spellbound: I went to the annual Illinois Speech Meet a few times in elementary school, which is nerve-wracking enough. But at least you know exactly what you're going to say going into it. These kids are the definition of graceful as every word in the book (literally) is thrown at them.
2. Riding Giants: I'm a little afraid of ocean waves, so watching people surf 50+ foot waves at beaches like Mavericks almost makes me faint. But it's a thrilling ride nonetheless.
3. Bob Dylan-No Direction Home: Martin Scorsese's documentary is often scattered, but that fits the life and myth of Bob Dylan perfectly. I not only learned about Bob Dylan's 1965 transformation from folkie into electric rocker, but all about the folk movement of the 1950s and 60s.
4. Ken Burns' Civil War: I was just eleven when I saw this for the first time and I've been a fan ever since. Back in the day, I hoped to marry a man in the mold of Shelby Foote. If you watch this, you'll understand why. Plus, Mary Chestnut was the C.W.'s equivalent to bloggers.
5. Grizzly Man: Was he passionate or mentally ill? The questions are as much fun as watching Timothy Treadwell walk up to an Alaskan Grizzly bear and pet it on the neck.
6. Waiting for Guffman: Not technically a documentary, but for laughs, music, and small-town insights, there's nothing better than hanging out in Stool World and then, heading down to the DQ for a lowfat blizzard.
7. Supersize Me: I'm not a "DIE MCDONALD'S!" sort of gal, but watching this guy gain 30 pounds and huff his way up three flights of stairs is pretty sobering. Keep veggies on hand while watching to counter any nausea.
8. Bowling for Columbine: No matter what you think of Michael Moore, this is a compelling look at gun usage in America.
9. Andy Goldsworthy-Rivers and Tides: This is a quiet documentary, almost a meditation, but also a fantastic insight into the life, inspiration, and projects of an outdoor sculptor.
10. Touching the Void: A mix of actors and documentary, this one is full of tragedy and lives on the brink of loss up in the Andes. Russ and I sat on the edge of the couch while watching this one.
Honorable Mentions: Dogtown and Z-boys, The Gods Must be Crazy, Ken Burns' Jazz, This is Spinal Tap
In my soon-to-be viewed queue: An Inconvenient Truth, Wordplay, Who Killed the Electric Car?, K.B.'s Baseball, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Rize, Trekkies, Unknown White Male, Murderball, Born into Brothels, Dig!, The Blues, and Fred Rogers: America's Favorite Neighbor.
Enjoy.
They had a running written log of their opinions on each place they visited, each salad they consumed -- had it been now instead of then, perhaps they would've shared their knowledge by way of a blog. But it was 1996 and, being the technological dark ages and all, we only had Hello Kitty! notebooks and cool Japanese pens that broke the third time you used them. Apparently, their detailing of each restaurant was extensive, as was the detailing of the ingredients, quality, and overall combined flavor of each salad. I'm not sure if I ever heard the final results of their summer long adventure, but I'm sure they're still hard birds to please when it comes to a salad with creamy dressings, crutons, and Parmesan cheese.
I have my own version of this, which just happens to also coincide with summer. Russ and I just finished the first season of Stargate SG-1, which was awesome sci-fi fun, and are gearing up to begin the whole Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series, interspersed chronologically with episodes of Angel, Firefly, and Serenity. Before you call me a dork, I need to tell you that it's been claimed by some of the most intelligent writers I know that Buffy is the best written series that's ever been on TV -- and that's a heavy claim, indeed, when up against shows like The Simpsons, Seinfeld, The Sopranos, M*A*S*H, and the X-Files. I'll keep you posted on my own thoughts about Buffy and its place on the medal podium of TV series.
The other thing, besides sci-fi series, that summer means for me is documentaries. I love me a good documentary and summer seems to be the perfect time to catch up on all things weird and wonderful. Documentaries are the film version of creative non-fiction: You can't believe every single detail to be the God-honest truth, but you can relax into the most truthfully entertaining version the creator could muster.
So here is my carefully compiled must-watch documentaries for maximum summer (indoor) enjoyment:
1. Spellbound: I went to the annual Illinois Speech Meet a few times in elementary school, which is nerve-wracking enough. But at least you know exactly what you're going to say going into it. These kids are the definition of graceful as every word in the book (literally) is thrown at them.
2. Riding Giants: I'm a little afraid of ocean waves, so watching people surf 50+ foot waves at beaches like Mavericks almost makes me faint. But it's a thrilling ride nonetheless.
3. Bob Dylan-No Direction Home: Martin Scorsese's documentary is often scattered, but that fits the life and myth of Bob Dylan perfectly. I not only learned about Bob Dylan's 1965 transformation from folkie into electric rocker, but all about the folk movement of the 1950s and 60s.
4. Ken Burns' Civil War: I was just eleven when I saw this for the first time and I've been a fan ever since. Back in the day, I hoped to marry a man in the mold of Shelby Foote. If you watch this, you'll understand why. Plus, Mary Chestnut was the C.W.'s equivalent to bloggers.
5. Grizzly Man: Was he passionate or mentally ill? The questions are as much fun as watching Timothy Treadwell walk up to an Alaskan Grizzly bear and pet it on the neck.
6. Waiting for Guffman: Not technically a documentary, but for laughs, music, and small-town insights, there's nothing better than hanging out in Stool World and then, heading down to the DQ for a lowfat blizzard.
7. Supersize Me: I'm not a "DIE MCDONALD'S!" sort of gal, but watching this guy gain 30 pounds and huff his way up three flights of stairs is pretty sobering. Keep veggies on hand while watching to counter any nausea.
8. Bowling for Columbine: No matter what you think of Michael Moore, this is a compelling look at gun usage in America.
9. Andy Goldsworthy-Rivers and Tides: This is a quiet documentary, almost a meditation, but also a fantastic insight into the life, inspiration, and projects of an outdoor sculptor.
10. Touching the Void: A mix of actors and documentary, this one is full of tragedy and lives on the brink of loss up in the Andes. Russ and I sat on the edge of the couch while watching this one.
Honorable Mentions: Dogtown and Z-boys, The Gods Must be Crazy, Ken Burns' Jazz, This is Spinal Tap
In my soon-to-be viewed queue: An Inconvenient Truth, Wordplay, Who Killed the Electric Car?, K.B.'s Baseball, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Rize, Trekkies, Unknown White Male, Murderball, Born into Brothels, Dig!, The Blues, and Fred Rogers: America's Favorite Neighbor.
Enjoy.
Monday, July 03, 2006
Ye Old Swimming Hole
Up until now, I've been the kind of girl who was in the pool from June until Spetember. I would still like to be that kind of girl, but unfortunately, living in Monrovia doesn't give me a lot of options, pool-wise. There isn't a community pool and that's all the more unlucky because right now, it's hot. Muy, muy caliente. Sticky, too. And our house, cute as it may be, is not a champ when it comes to maintaining a reasonable temperature. Sometimes sitting in my house feels like watching that "Temperature" video where most of the video consists of a thermometer climbing and falling until it looks on the verge of exploding at both points.
You would think that a house built back in good ole 1906 B.C.E. - before (air)conditioning expected - would have all sorts of funky little features that would keep it temperature stable. Things you see in the Gamble House, like ceiling windows that encourage air flow. Unfortunately for us, this seemed to be rustic winter house of rich family who probably felt it was charming to put in lots of air-stopping walls, a fireplace, and a big, stuffy attic just for kicks. Since they only used it during the few winter months, they probably had the option of high-tailling it to the Northern California coast when the heat got a little kicky. I'm thinking it cost about $800 for a summer of luxurious coastal living.
Ah, to be a rich person in 1906.
I once got a fortune out of a cookie that said "Lucky is coming your way." I always loved that -- I think it meant luck is coming your way, but maybe it meant some person/canine/time traveller named Lucky was soon to be arriving on my doorstep. So lucky was ambiguous -- it could've meant anyone, anything. What made me think of it is two-fold: one, that I just recently wrote a section in a novel-chapter that I've been working on that spends time on luck(y) and two, that when it comes to pools and other full-body submersion tanks of cool-cold water, I've always been lucky.
I grew up as poolside royalty at a swim club called Westwind. What made me royalty was the fact that my grandpa just happened to own the joint and so, my family got free summer admission to both Westwind and the tennis club next door which - again - my grandpa just happened to own. You knew we were like the scholarship kids because we were the only people that rolled in ten-year old Cadillac without a muffler and with the windows down, since the air-conditioner was usually broken. Oh, and my little sister was usually hanging her whole head, neck, and sometimes chest out the window as we made our way to the parking lot. Believe it, Gloria Allred.
My cousin Cathy just reminded me a few weeks ago about what terrors we were because of this royal status. It was probably the first and only time that any of us had a sense of entitlement, i.e. our grandpa owns this place so we should be allowed to get on the P.A. system and us girls should be allowed to run through the guys locker room. Which I never did, I swear, except once when I took part in the "All-Female Westwind Sleepover," an event where we hunted ghosts, slept on lawn chairs in sleeping bags, and yes, took that coveted all-access tour through the crappy boys locker room. But my sister and Cathy - never ones to let mere lifeguards get them down - took some excursions through the locker room during regular hours. They also waited for every chance to jump on the P.A. system and when it came, they would page our moms with phony messages. My sister and Cathy were three years younger than me, but I learned everything I ever needed to know about prank calling from listening to them on the P.A. system.
If you've ever spent any amount of time in the Midwest during the summer, you'll understand why we spent almost every day at the pool. Temperatures can and do reach 100 degrees by 10:00 a.m. and that's without the humidity. One thing I enjoy about living in the desert climate - California, in other words - is that no matter how hot it gets during the day, the temperature always goes down at night. In Illinois, that's not so much the case. You can spend the night in toasty 90 degree + humidity sweats. The years of my Illinois life seemed to fluctuate between winter and mosquito season.
When I came to California, I heard what I can only call now a very vicious and hurtful rumor that there were NO mosquitoes. I was told that they couldn't survive, that there just wasn't enough water for their viral reproduction patterns. I was overjoyed. I was the girl who (apart from always being in the pool) always had dozens of small red bumps on her arms and legs as a child, the one who the mosquitoes always attacked first. And I was the one who doesn't just get bit, but whose bites swell up to astronomically red and itchy proportions. So I came to California, bright eyed and like so many others, was deceived by the rumors of this golden land. Because IT'S NOT TRUE. Mosquitoes live, jive, and survive all over this place. And it turns out, that in a way, my saving grace is partly to blame. (But that comes later.) And yes, there are less mosquitoes here than in Illinois, but it's not saying much since there are less mosquitos everywhere compared with Illinois. Right now, I've logged a total of nine bites in the last week. Which is a lot compared to zero.
Sadly, by my last years of high school, Westwind was a shadow of its former glory days. Aurora got the bright idea to open kick-ass community aquatic centers, which were a fraction of the membership it cost to hang out at Westwind. Plus, the aquatic centers had cool slides, wave pools, and the classic mom favorite, the lazy river. So Westwind closed. My mom and aunt Janie got subversive one year by sneaking us into an exclusive neighborhood-only pool by using our grandparents address as their membership address in order to get a key. Of course, their high class version of fence-hopping only made me nervous. I've never much had the constitution for getting in trouble. It gives me gas. We spent one good summer there before a certain Benedict Arnold ratted us out to the community center. We were thenceforth banish-ed. Now that I think back on it, I feel a certain sense of pride that my mom and Janie were cool enough to pull the wool over the eyes of an entire neighborhood community center for a summer. I'll be calling them if I ever have the urge to check out one of those exclusive hipster clubs like LAX or Bungalow 8.
So here's the later part: Russ and I have spent some miserable days in the heat, shutting ourselves up in dark rooms, and sitting in front of fans with our bellies exposed. I once heard that if you put your belly in front of the cold air, it will cool down the rest of your body, which, like the no-mosquitoes-in-California thing, seems to be untrue. Even for all that, it was still so hot and sticky inside. Just when we were considering taking up that old tradition of sneaking into pools, Russ had a brilliant idea.
He figured out how foothillers, like ourselves, beat the heat without spending a fortune to drive to the beach or join the Rose Bowl's Aquatic Center. He discovered the hidden pools of the foothills inside all the canyons on a hike last week. Some of the water from the late-melting snow in the mountains is still coming down this way and so, the pools of the foothills are high and beautifully cold. Whole families gather with picnic baskets and coolers and spend the day in the water. Some of the pools are over six feet deep; some are beside waterfalls; the one Russ and I relaxed in on Saturday was about four feet deep and full of tadpoles. We sat on the rocky bottom, reclined against rocks, and let the chilly mountain water make up for the 100 degree heat, the weird humidity, houses without central air, and of course, all those damn mosquitoes.
You would think that a house built back in good ole 1906 B.C.E. - before (air)conditioning expected - would have all sorts of funky little features that would keep it temperature stable. Things you see in the Gamble House, like ceiling windows that encourage air flow. Unfortunately for us, this seemed to be rustic winter house of rich family who probably felt it was charming to put in lots of air-stopping walls, a fireplace, and a big, stuffy attic just for kicks. Since they only used it during the few winter months, they probably had the option of high-tailling it to the Northern California coast when the heat got a little kicky. I'm thinking it cost about $800 for a summer of luxurious coastal living.
Ah, to be a rich person in 1906.
I once got a fortune out of a cookie that said "Lucky is coming your way." I always loved that -- I think it meant luck is coming your way, but maybe it meant some person/canine/time traveller named Lucky was soon to be arriving on my doorstep. So lucky was ambiguous -- it could've meant anyone, anything. What made me think of it is two-fold: one, that I just recently wrote a section in a novel-chapter that I've been working on that spends time on luck(y) and two, that when it comes to pools and other full-body submersion tanks of cool-cold water, I've always been lucky.
I grew up as poolside royalty at a swim club called Westwind. What made me royalty was the fact that my grandpa just happened to own the joint and so, my family got free summer admission to both Westwind and the tennis club next door which - again - my grandpa just happened to own. You knew we were like the scholarship kids because we were the only people that rolled in ten-year old Cadillac without a muffler and with the windows down, since the air-conditioner was usually broken. Oh, and my little sister was usually hanging her whole head, neck, and sometimes chest out the window as we made our way to the parking lot. Believe it, Gloria Allred.
My cousin Cathy just reminded me a few weeks ago about what terrors we were because of this royal status. It was probably the first and only time that any of us had a sense of entitlement, i.e. our grandpa owns this place so we should be allowed to get on the P.A. system and us girls should be allowed to run through the guys locker room. Which I never did, I swear, except once when I took part in the "All-Female Westwind Sleepover," an event where we hunted ghosts, slept on lawn chairs in sleeping bags, and yes, took that coveted all-access tour through the crappy boys locker room. But my sister and Cathy - never ones to let mere lifeguards get them down - took some excursions through the locker room during regular hours. They also waited for every chance to jump on the P.A. system and when it came, they would page our moms with phony messages. My sister and Cathy were three years younger than me, but I learned everything I ever needed to know about prank calling from listening to them on the P.A. system.
If you've ever spent any amount of time in the Midwest during the summer, you'll understand why we spent almost every day at the pool. Temperatures can and do reach 100 degrees by 10:00 a.m. and that's without the humidity. One thing I enjoy about living in the desert climate - California, in other words - is that no matter how hot it gets during the day, the temperature always goes down at night. In Illinois, that's not so much the case. You can spend the night in toasty 90 degree + humidity sweats. The years of my Illinois life seemed to fluctuate between winter and mosquito season.
When I came to California, I heard what I can only call now a very vicious and hurtful rumor that there were NO mosquitoes. I was told that they couldn't survive, that there just wasn't enough water for their viral reproduction patterns. I was overjoyed. I was the girl who (apart from always being in the pool) always had dozens of small red bumps on her arms and legs as a child, the one who the mosquitoes always attacked first. And I was the one who doesn't just get bit, but whose bites swell up to astronomically red and itchy proportions. So I came to California, bright eyed and like so many others, was deceived by the rumors of this golden land. Because IT'S NOT TRUE. Mosquitoes live, jive, and survive all over this place. And it turns out, that in a way, my saving grace is partly to blame. (But that comes later.) And yes, there are less mosquitoes here than in Illinois, but it's not saying much since there are less mosquitos everywhere compared with Illinois. Right now, I've logged a total of nine bites in the last week. Which is a lot compared to zero.
Sadly, by my last years of high school, Westwind was a shadow of its former glory days. Aurora got the bright idea to open kick-ass community aquatic centers, which were a fraction of the membership it cost to hang out at Westwind. Plus, the aquatic centers had cool slides, wave pools, and the classic mom favorite, the lazy river. So Westwind closed. My mom and aunt Janie got subversive one year by sneaking us into an exclusive neighborhood-only pool by using our grandparents address as their membership address in order to get a key. Of course, their high class version of fence-hopping only made me nervous. I've never much had the constitution for getting in trouble. It gives me gas. We spent one good summer there before a certain Benedict Arnold ratted us out to the community center. We were thenceforth banish-ed. Now that I think back on it, I feel a certain sense of pride that my mom and Janie were cool enough to pull the wool over the eyes of an entire neighborhood community center for a summer. I'll be calling them if I ever have the urge to check out one of those exclusive hipster clubs like LAX or Bungalow 8.
So here's the later part: Russ and I have spent some miserable days in the heat, shutting ourselves up in dark rooms, and sitting in front of fans with our bellies exposed. I once heard that if you put your belly in front of the cold air, it will cool down the rest of your body, which, like the no-mosquitoes-in-California thing, seems to be untrue. Even for all that, it was still so hot and sticky inside. Just when we were considering taking up that old tradition of sneaking into pools, Russ had a brilliant idea.
He figured out how foothillers, like ourselves, beat the heat without spending a fortune to drive to the beach or join the Rose Bowl's Aquatic Center. He discovered the hidden pools of the foothills inside all the canyons on a hike last week. Some of the water from the late-melting snow in the mountains is still coming down this way and so, the pools of the foothills are high and beautifully cold. Whole families gather with picnic baskets and coolers and spend the day in the water. Some of the pools are over six feet deep; some are beside waterfalls; the one Russ and I relaxed in on Saturday was about four feet deep and full of tadpoles. We sat on the rocky bottom, reclined against rocks, and let the chilly mountain water make up for the 100 degree heat, the weird humidity, houses without central air, and of course, all those damn mosquitoes.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Don't Roll Your Eyes, People
I know, I know, the ads aren't the coolest. I apologize, but since I'm looking for a job this summer and since Russ and I are living off bulk spaghetti in the meantime, this is just one more way to make a little side change. I had to take drastic measures -- Russ laid out this elaborate plan to turn Saturdays into aluminum can collecting day. So clearly, it was either this or digging through other people's property.
So don't blame me. Blame Russ.
So don't blame me. Blame Russ.
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