california hitchcock

One of the great things about living in the suburbs of California is that I can have an entire house with lots of windows, where every room is directly under the roof, with lots of skylights to let in the Californian sun or to let me hear the winter rains.

The downside is that something about this roof seems to attract a flock of birds, whose main traits are that they are loud, unintelligent, and enjoy early mornings.

They gather on the roof of my house at 7 or 8 in the morning, sometimes two or three at a time, but sometimes (like this morning) in a flock of ten or twenty. They thud onto the roof, hop around, squawk loudly at each other, and then proceed to peck viciously at anything and nothing. In this picture, you can see three of them pecking at a rather nondescript piece of wood. Others were frantically tapping on shingles or panes of glass. On another occasion, two of them squabbled loudly over a Bic lighter that they had found and somehow managed to drop onto the roof.

Waving at them in a threatening manner does nothing. Tapping back at them with a pole does nothing. Holding my dog up so that they can see him through the glass (in case he's more frightening than I am) does nothing. They continue scrabbling, jumping, cawing, and tapping until, on some unknown cue about ten or fifteen minutes later, they all take off and go elsewhere.

It's like the Hitchcock flick, except that the birds just try to annoy you to death. I've never seen such dumb birds before, and I don't know if it's because I haven't met many birds, or if it's because Californian birds are just like that.

jet blues

We flew out to New York for a wedding last weekend, and because it was a short trip with a lot of travel time, we decided to fly JetBlue (which was already more expensive than the other airlines), since they have an option to pay extra for roomier seats, which we thought would help us deal with the red eye on the way there, and the early morning flight to get right back to work on the way back. More money = more space = more sleep, right? I wasn't completely convinced, but my boyfriend was quite firm that it would be worth an extra $200 per person.

It may have been worth it for my boyfriend, but on our flight from JFK back to SFO (which is an hour longer than the flight from SFO to JFK, if I may just point that out), I was seated next to a supremely obese man who took up four inches of my expensive seat, and I spent every minute of those six hours fuming about those four inches and that extra $200.

Mr. Too-Big-to-Fit-in-Seat-5E on the Monday morning JetBlue flight from JFK to SFO, you owe me $200 and six hours of sleep. Also, you owe me a mind wipe to get the feeling of you squishing and rubbing on me for six hours out of my head.

individual states may vary

In the next two weeks, I'll be taking trips to the two parts of the U.S. that are arguably the most different from the rest of the country: this weekend, I'm going to a bachelorette party in Vegas, and next week, my boyfriend and I will be spending a week in Hawaii. Both of these are slight reprises of trips I've taken within the last year: my boyfriend and I went to Hawaii last October (and stayed at the same hotel and dove with the same dive shop), and we also took a road trip to Vegas in December.

I've only ever attended one bachelorette party (most of my female friends are inclined to more sedate girls' night celebrations), and I've definitely never been to one in Vegas. I am somewhat curious as to what I will come up with in terms of "sassy clubbing gear," since it's been years since I've aspired to any sort of clubbing (much less sassy clubbing in Vegas), and I am somewhat wary of the possibility that there may be male strippers. Although it would probably be hysterically funny, I can't imagine that there would be anything remotely sexy about a beefy man in a "sassy" policeman's costume, waving his nether regions in your face and expecting you to shove dollar bills down his pants. I'm definitely looking forward to catching up with my friend, who is the bride, but if an oiled-up fireman in a thong comes at me, I may have to dive behind a couch so as not to hurt his feelings with uncontrollable laughter.

I can't decide if this weekend will qualify as an "Only in America" experience or an "Only in Vegas" experience.

fourth of july

Fourth of July, the most American of holidays -- it's so important that we get a long weekend off for it, which I spent...

...going to Switzerland. It just so happened that there was a huge party in Zurich that weekend, so there were carnival rides and fireworks, and the celebration was probably bigger than whatever I would have ended up participating in had I stayed in the States to celebrate.

You know it's a party when they have flags everywhere:

And not only carnival rides...

...and pony rides (who needs a normal carousel when you can make one out of real ponies??)...

...and man-powered tram rides...

...but also camel rides:

And you can't really call it a good party unless there's a scary corn stand:

And just for good measure, to make sure that people don't go too wild, the ticket inspectors were out in full force (there are nine in this picture at one tram stop alone, and there were three more that I couldn't get in the shot):

This is Zurich's way of saying: "Have fun, just make sure you have a valid tram ticket while doing so."

overkilt

Just to show that the man in the previous post was not a unique fluke, here is a guy we spotted a few weeks ago at a cafe. Note the white socks, black boots, ponytail, skirt, and sheepdog (which has bows on its head, though they may be hard to see in this picture).

Welcome to my strange little world.

license to kilt

What is it about California that makes men think that wearing skirts is a good fashion choice? Is it the hippie culture? The high concentration of software engineers? The weather?

I'm not against men wearing skirts, if done properly. I admit that there is something appealing about a hunky Scotsman in full regalia, but that is a far cry from the skirt-wearing men of Silicon Valley.

Take, for instance, the man in this picture, taken in the wild today on a trip to Whole Foods:



He is wearing a wrinkly skirt with a sweaty Indiana Jones hat, a Hawaiian shirt, black socks, and brown sandals. He is shopping for oral hygiene products. And that woman is making the same look of awe and trepidation that I was probably making as I snuck the picture.

Why, California? Why?

cheap and cheerful

America, do you realize how fortunate you are that food here is so cheap?? I went out to a sushi restaurant for dinner last night, and the total tab, including a generous tip, was $308, which might sound like a hefty bill, until I add in the fact that there were fourteen of us there, so that we each paid $22 to gorge ourselves to the point of bursting on rolls of every kind: soft shell crab, salmon, yellowtail, lobster, spicy tuna, you name it, we had it, and all with top-grade fresh fish. In Zurich, that much money would probably get you second-rate sushi for four people.

The night before, my boyfriend and I went and got three live lobsters steamed for take-out, and the total was $37. We ate nothing else for dinner, just lobster and butter, and there was food left over, so really, $30 was probably enough for the two of us to over-stuff ourselves on lobster.

That's just ridiculous. In a good way.

long distance

You know what's kind of weird about living in California? You can fly for hours and hours east or west, and still be in the same country. Or you can drive all day, and still only make it as far as Vegas.

a different kind of blog

I've decided to try to record random (and not-so-random) acts of kindness that the universe chooses to do to me. Let's see how this works, since I've never been a "glass half full" kind of person, mostly because I don't like water.

check, please

I was never a big fan of checks. They seemed so random and insecure. I often lost track of my checkbook in my apartment, which was annoying enough, but the thought of losing a checkbook out in the real world is worse. Losing a checkbook is worse than losing a credit card, because it's much harder to cancel the lost checks to make sure that someone doesn't run around using it to pay for things, and it's worse than losing cash, because there is no fixed value of the money you might lose.

Once I moved to Switzerland, I rarely used checks, since everything there is done with online transfers. I had a few checks left for my American account, and used them for random American bills that wouldn't take online bill pay. When I moved back to the States, I used my last two checks to pay my first month's rent and security deposit on my apartment. I didn't bother ordering new ones, because I pay all of my bills online, and I set up a recurring transfer and payment for my rent.

Well, now I'm moving, and the new landlord wanted my first month's rent and security deposit right away. No credit card, no online transfers, no PayPal. And I don't own a checkbook. I had to go to the bank and get a certified check cut there. I actually had to look up the bank online to find out where it was, because I never go to the bank. It all felt so primitive.

Seriously, America? Why are you still using checks??? Get over the check thing, already, and move into the 21st century.

(For the record, when anyone I know needs to pay me money, I actually tell them that I don't accept checks, because who has the time to go to the bank to deposit them? Cash, wire, or PayPal only, please.)