The Ugly American

Although I do my best to blend in and not make a spectacle of myself while travelling abroad there are times when I have blundered, sometimes in spectacular fashion. I think anyone who’s ever visited a foreign country can relate- mangle a pronunciation here, misunderstand a sign there, and suddenly you’re the laughingstock of the general vicinity. I’d like this to be a semi-regular feature but fortunately, my stories aren’t endless. So, for future installments I’d like to solicit stories from the rest of you as well- Americans or not.

Riquewihr France, 2002

Kang and I were travelling through eastern France with our friend Don. Riquewihr is a beautiful medieval walled village in the middle of Alsatian wine country near Colmar- the nearby hills are dotted with vineyards and abandoned castles. My only previous experience in France had been in Normandy, along the northern coast. Although the Normans were (much to my surprise) quite hospitable and I enjoyed much of their cuisine, I quickly discovered that Alsatian food was very different, and very, very good. Alsace is on the German border, and during various parts of history has been part of Germany- the blend of French and German culinary influences in this region leads to some mind-bendingly great food.

That first afternoon in Riquewihr I had been introduced to flammenküche, aka tarte flambée. How I had managed to walk the earth for 30-some years and never taste this gastronmonical delight is beyond me. One of the most cherished memories of my life is sitting in an outdoor courtyard on a cool spring afternoon, drinking Kronenbourg 1664 and eating my first flammenküche (oh, getting married and seeing my son born were cool, too).

I had sometimes struggled with the food in Normandy (we had two mystery meals- one good, one not), but the Alsatian cuisine was leading me to become more adventuresome every day. It is with this mindset that I entered a restaurant in Riquewihr for dinner. The place was obviously very old, with ancient exposed timbers holding the roof and a collection of antique farming equipment adorning the walls. I was in an exceptionally good mood that night- we were in a delicious smelling restaurant in a charming little village in a beautiful region of a wonderful country, and I was positive I would shortly be eating one of the best meals of my life. We settled into our table, and before long the waiter came with menus and silverware. He also deposited a parfait glass on the table, containing something that in the dim light looked a bit like unpopped popcorn. It didn’t look like any appetizer I’d ever seen, but I was not about to miss out on any facet of the Alsatian gastronomical experience because of any smallminded American biases. I quickly took a piece and ate it.

It was, in fact, stale unpopped popcorn. I was attempting to figure out what possible edible application this could have when our waiter returned with a votive candle and an absolutely horrified look on his face. He quickly placed the candle in the parfait glass, lit it, and ran away from our table. I had eaten part of the centerpiece.

To Don’s everlasting credit, he stoically took a piece of the popcorn and ate it himself. “There, now you’re not alone” he said. I don’t remember what I ate that night, though I’m sure it was great. Every time the waiter reappeared he approached our table warily, as you’d approach a cage of wild monkeys that might, at any moment, begin flinging their feces around the room. There was no telling what these idiotic Americans and their friend of undetermined European origin (Kang) might do next. We left quickly after the meal, and repaired to the bar across from our hotel where my two companions laughed loud and long at my stupidity.

The guilt of the working mom

I’m sitting in the hospital waiting room and The Today Show is playing on one of the TVs. The ladies are discussing the “guilt of the working mom,” whatever the hell that means. Maybe it’s because I’m a guy, but I don’t understand why women would feel guilty about working and not staying home with their children. I don’t mind dropping the boys off and heading to work. In fact I could drop them off permanently and come back when they are fully-developed adults. Okay so that’s a bit extreme even for me.

Still, I don’t think anybody should feel guilty about providing for their children’s future. But perhaps it’s different for some people, they feel like they will miss some major milestone in their child’s development or something: their baby’s first step, spoken word, ad nauseum; if they are not in their child’s life every nanosecond. I did get to experience both those things and I can honestly say they are overrated. Now that I think about it, I don’t even remember what my firstborn said. Luckily moms remember those kinds of things.

I don’t really have anything against these people, I just feel like women in general need to give themselves a break and know that they are good mothers and that leaving their children for a few hours is okay. These ladies talking about guilt are not doing anybody any favors and might even make women feel worse about themselves. Just my 2 cents…

Waiting

They say patience is a virtue. Bullshit! I am not patient and I hate waiting. When has waiting for anything ever been a good thing? Do you enjoy waiting for your pizza? Do you enjoy waiting for FedEx to deliver your package? No, and hell no! I will give waiting the benefit of the doubt, but it’s not looking good. I might need your help. Can you folks think of an occasion when waiting is a good thing?

At the hospital

Being at the hospital is like being at an airport. You are basically trapped in an artificial world. There’s nothing natural about either place, and nobody wants to be there to begin with. The food is terrible, the prices inflated, and there’s the dreadful possibility that some tragedy can befall you at any time.

That being said, both hospitals and airports are wonderful places to people watch. As any good writer knows, people watching is a skill you must possess. People watching, and listening to their conversations can give you endless subject matter for your writing. I don’t know how many times I’ve overheard a fascinating conversation that I simply had to run home and write about.

Anyhow, Sharkette and I are at the hospital now waiting for her to go into surgery. She is having her thyroid removed, a one day procedure, and I took PTO to be by her side. Luckily the hospital has free WiFi and with WordPress and my Android phone, I’m hoping the day passes quickly and safely.

Whatever. Let’s have a fucking lunch meeting.

At 12 ‘o clock I was literally on my way out of the building when Jonas informed me that we’re supposed to be having a lunch meeting. Oh great. My favorite kind of meeting. The Big Boss (the one that everybody hates) had come down all the way from Stockholm and wanted to discuss last week’s interviews with the school inspection people. Okay. Sure. Fine. I guess we absolutely have to do this right fucking now.

I was having such a great day at work too. Some of my colleagues and students and myself had spent the morning painting one of the school walls with different motifs and quotations, and having a really good time doing it. This was one of the student counsel’s projects. They wanted to decorate the school and got permission to paint a few walls. We worked on it until lunch time and then I got ready to leave since I had worked my scheduled hours for the day.

I was pretty eager to get the hell out of there too, since it was past my normal lunch time of 11:30 and I didn’t have time to eat any breakfast this morning. When this happens it’s usually not a big problem because I can grab a piece of fruit or something from the conference room and then have an early lunch around 11 or 11:30. Not today, however.

With my stomach as hollow as the Grand Canyon, I sat down and proceeded to watch everyone else eat lunch for the next hour. We each had to tell the Big Boss precisely what the school inspectors had asked us and what responses we gave during our interviews. He had all the English teachers go first so I was done after about ten minutes. I then sat there for the remaining 50 minutes not able to concentrate on what anyone else way saying (in Swedish, naturally) because I felt like I was about to pass out from hunger.

Then they wanted to have an after-work session at 5 ‘o clock later on and they wanted me to go. I said that I was only scheduled to work from 8 to 12 so I was going home. Yeah, but after-work is not considered part of working hours, they said. Duh. No, I said. I’m not coming back for that. Then when they started to press me further, I informed them rather loudly and irritably, that I really needed to leave because I hadn’t eaten yet and I REALLY NEEDED to eat.

I then stormed out of the building and headed home. Of course I had just missed both of my normal short cut methods of transport (bus and ferry) so I had to take the bloody tram. It doubles the time it takes to get home. When I got to where I change trams at Brunnsparken, I bought myself two doughnuts and gobbled half of one down immediately.

When I got home I ate the rest of the doughnuts and cracked open a Bacardi Breezer, even though it was only two in the afternoon. I’m feeling okay now. Doughnuts and booze did the trick.

…say it in llama

Llamas. They are adorable, fuzzy and spit at people. Nature’s perfect creature!

Now, nature’s perfect creature is the world’s most perfect font. Have a love letter to send? Say it in llama. Have some bad news to share? Say it in llama. Would you like attention the next time you send out your CV? Write your cover letter in llama. After all, llamas make everything better.

McJobs, the road to recovery

I admit I enjoy waking up in the morning and checking the Drudge Report. It’s kind of like watching a fuel-oil fire: very fascinating and it fills you with dread to think what it’s doing to the environment. The big headline link on Drudge was about the massive hiring event that McDonald’s is having. Apparently they are aiming to hire 50,000 new employees this month. They are also engaged in some serious PR, trying to persuade people that a job at McDonald’s is not a McJob, but can lead to a fruitful career. I read that a McDonald’s manager can make up to $50,000 dollars a year. For real? Shit, that’s more than I make now! Still, I don’t think my parents would be too proud of me unless I was actually in McDonald’s Corporate, and I’m not about to quit my day job.

I’ve got nothing against McDonald’s, in fact I eat there at least once a week. Those stupid fries are addictive, and hopefully if I die, they will preserve my body without the need of formaldehyde hahahaha, I kid, I kid. No, McDonald’s is doing great, they are a profitable company that employs thousands of people, and they are also one of the largest real estate owners in the country. One could say that McDonald’s is too big to fail. I applaud McDonald’s for trying to get this economy back on track by offering jobs to people, and for not requiring a government bail-out. In fact, McDonald’s is helping us all out with their deliciously cheap Dollar Value Menu.

My only concern is if this is the future of job creation in America?

…fuck Time Warner Cable

Seriously. Fuck it hard with shards of glass and sand.

I don’t ask for much out of life. All that I really need is a little financial security, a happy and healthy toddler, a home with Tiffany lighting and an internet connection that doesn’t suck greasy, hairy ass.

I’m woefully addicted to connectivity. I go through withdrawal if we lose power and my iPhone battery runs out of juice. I shake. It’s worse than going without a cigarette, in certain ways. That said it’s not just a consistent internet connection to me. It’s my livelihood since I work out of my home.

Years ago, I was able to work off-line. Since I transitioned to my new position last year, I no longer have the luxury of keeping things on my own desktop as I work with patient data which must be double-sooper-seekrit encrypted in llama and wingdings. Trying to download and upload any document is a complete pain in the ass on a good day. When the size of the file is the cyber equivalent of the entire State of North Carolina, the task is odious. The process takes so damn long that I’m able to empty and reload the dishwasher and do laundry.

While I appreciate being able to multi-task like no other, I am far too impatient for this madness. Around middle-March, I upgraded my service to uber-maximum-light speed performance. Or so I thought. Our service may be faster but I wouldn’t know as I am now unable to maintain a connection for longer than a mouse fart.

After sitting on the phone with the diagnostic staff stationed in, oh let’s say Bangalore, they finally agreed that it’s an actual physical problem. Being the nice folks that they are, they agreed to dispatch a technician to make some repairs.

The technician showed up in a torrential downpour with a surly attitude. I suppose I’m having flashbacks from all of the acid I did not drop in college because he made us believe that the problem is in our heads. My seven years of living in this house and dealing with the same fucking problem over and over and over again did not matter. Jesus could be standing next to me, explaining the problem to the tech and I would still be wrong. Oh. And going to hell, too.

After slamming my head off the wall and hopping up and down in the foyer (not really), I finally convinced the surly tech that the problem is, indeed, with the actual cable running to the home. Yay! Unfortunately, surly tech did not bring the appropriate equipment to make such repairs. Our only recourse is to schedule another appointment.

I can certainly appreciate the fact that not everyone is a prognosticator and not everyone will bring every fucking tool in the shop to a service call. What I do not appreciate is paying for an upgrade and receiving a downgrade or a no-grade.

So, again, I will have to call Time Warner and sit on eternal rot with Bangalore to have the same surly tech dispatched to the home where I will have the same irritating conversation about what is actually wrong. Because, you see, I have an infinite amount of time to spend on this issue. I will end up dropping to my knees, with tears streaming down my face and pleading with someone who couldn’t give a flying fuck that the problem is not with the router. It’s not with the modem. It’s with that tangled up mess of a cable outside of the house. In short – it’s not me. It’s YOU! It’s you and your shitty cable that does not deliver a consistent bleep-blip-bloop signal to my damn house, Time Warner.

In the interim, I will spend, at the very least, ten minutes trying to access my WLAN to spend an additional ten minutes trying to upload a document. Then I will spend an additional ten minutes trying to explain to my boss why it takes me twenty minutes to complete the simplest of actions.

All because of an upgrade.

Word of the Day: hopefully

Today’s word is the first in a special WOTD series I’ve decided to call Objectionable Words. The word hopefully is an adverb formed from the adjective hopeful. There’s nothing particularly wrong with the word hopefully, at least nowadays. The dictionary informs us that while the word used to be objectionable to usage purists (and let us not deny that it still is), apparently these days it’s considered an acceptable sentence modifier.

But I just don’t like it, okay? It’s one of those words that debases the English language. It’s basically a lazy way of saying, “I’m hopeful that…” or “I hope…”

Examples:

Hopefully the weather will clear up later on today.

Versus:

I hope the weather clears up later on today.

More Boring Grammar Stuff

Hope is a noun; it’s an emotion, like happiness. It can be formed into an adverb by adding adjective-forming suffix “ful” and then the adverb-forming suffix “ly.” However, the noun-forming “ness” suffix does not allow the word happiness to be further formed into an adverb. This is one of the annoying inconsistencies with English grammar. “Happinessly” is not a word, although happily most certainly is.