THE ACCIDENT that Mark referred to earlier on 75-Southbound, was apparently due to a cattle truck tipping over. The poor cows had to be corraled out of a sideways semi onto the highway, with cars passing by.
My last day at work (really, I mean it this time) was yesterday. Seems like that was just in time for me to get sick with a lovely sinus infection. I'm going back to bed now, as that is the only place I don't feel like dying.

My friend Jim and I exchange interesting words we've come across all the time. Yesterday he sent me a great one -- 'Treppenwitz'. This is the term for when you think of a good response too late (from German, "stairway wit" -- wit that comes to you when you're already on the stairs). Use it in good health.

I had Treppenwitz in spades after my court appearance last month over a parking ticket. That was a story I'll have to relate some time...

Surreal driving experience on the way in this morning. There was an accident on 75 North that had all lanes blocked. There's at least six lanes where this happened, so this was a major deal. Everyone else was getting off and going over to Hwy 41, but I worked in that area before, and knew another way around. I ended up getting back on the interstate just above the accident, and for a few miles, I was the ONLY person on the interstate. Six lanes to myself!

There was another accident on southbound 75 around the same place that had most lanes blocked. Southbound is a much busier direction this time of day, so it was an absolute mess. Traffic backed up all the way to my workplace exit, ten miles north of there. Check it out here while it lasts.

This ranks up there with the time the guy passed me going sideways after an ice storm a few years back...

Some other New York observations:

Expensive or cheap? For what is supposedly one of the most expensive cities in the world, I sure did find (and buy) a lot of cheap things. Three pairs of socks for $5, a huge umbrella for $10, two slices of pizza, a salad, and a bottled water for $7.50. If it weren't for the rents, I bet you could get by living there for next to nothing, if you knew where to shop.

I must've seen twenty or thirty broken umbrellas just lying in the street like mangled peacocks. Apparently the thing to do if your umbrella breaks is to just drop it.

I love walking around the town just for all the cultural references that pop up. From movies, we walked by Bloomingdale's (Moscow on the Hudson), FAO Schwartz (Big), and the Empire State Building (Sleepless in Seattle), among dozens of others. And songs pop into your head all the time -- I found myself singing all of these lyrics at some point or other, just from chancing across the relevant landmark:

Well you can stand on the arms of the Williamsburg bridge crying hey man, well this is Babylon... Soul Coughing, "True Dreams of Wichita"

I can't give it away on 7th Avenue The Stones, "Shattered"

53rd and 3rd, standing on the street The Ramones, "53rd and 3rd"

I can slip on the East River and crash into Queens, all skittering Soul Coughing, "The Idiot Kings"

I don't want to go to Chelsea Elvis Costello (okay, he's talking about London, but still...)

The say the neon lights are bright, on Broadway Who does that song?

Won't you please stand clear of the closing doors? Soul Coughing, "The Brooklynites"

When we walked through Little Italy... PJ Harvey, "Good Fortune"

On a rooftop in Brooklyn, one in the morning PJ Harvey, "You Said Something"

I've been walking Central Park Singing after dark People think I'm crazy The Stones, "Miss You"

For posterity, here's the set list from Saturday night's show, courtesy Mike's page...

Sunday
Cactus
Breaking Glass
Fame
Ashes to Ashes
Slip Away
China Girl
5:15
Survive
I've Been Waiting for you
Rebel Rebel
I'm Afraid of Americans
Life on Mars
Heroes
Heathen (the rays)
--------------
Moonage Daydream
Afraid
Stay
Bewlay Bros
Everyone says Hi
Hello Spaceboy
Let's Dance
Ziggy Stardust

Here's the blog entry I composed over this eventful weekend...

[Friday evening] Greetings from 36,000 feet. Marjorie and I are on our way to New York City. We thought it best not to announce to the world via our blog that our house would be unoccupied for the weekend, so this will be posted when we get back.

Marjorie and I both just asked for seltzer water from the flight attendant; they gave her club soda, and me a Perrier. I guess I just exude class.

Quite a weekend ahead of us. Especially tonight -- our friend Mike scored us tickets tonight to see DAVID BOWIE in a 300-seat venue!!!! It should be amazing. Especially since we're likely going to be in the front row. I hope my brother, who's been a huge fan of Bowie's since I can remember, will still speak to me afterwards...

Sunday we're going to meet with Kate and Marc in person, whom we met on-line via BlogSpot. They're the couple that seem to be living parallel lives with us, having gotten married this year and almost moving to Singapore.

Monday we're going to visit Ground Zero. We actually might be able to see it from up here in a half an hour or so. Just the hole in the skyline will be troubling enough to look at.

This is our third time to NYC together, and our sixteenth plane trip overall. Not bad for a little over four years.

[Monday night] It's now Monday night, and we're sitting in Newark airport waiting for the flight home. Quite a weekend.

After arriving and checking in on Saturday, we met up with Mike and cabbed to Brooklyn to have pizza at Grimaldi's, which is a favorite of Marjorie's and is right around the corner from where Bowie was going to play. The pizza was good enough that we ordered a second one halfway through and gorged ourselves.

The venue was a little bigger than I expected -- there were about 1000 people there. We wedged our way up front and ended up right in front of the speakers on stage right. Bowie started with a ponderous piece, from the new album I think, and I was worried that we would experience a repeat of the Beck experience we had last month, where he would play all new, unfamiliar stuff, and we'd be left scratching our heads. But for the second song he launched into an explosive cover of the Pixie's "Cactus", and I was hooked. He mixed old and new all night, and played the old stuff without any of the sighing complacency that some artists take on when forced to trot out popular favorites. From this category we heard "Life on Mars", "Let's Dance", "Rebel Rebel", "Fame", "Ashes to Ashes", and "China Girl". He played for a good two and half hours, and was obviously enjoying himself, as were we all.

Our position in front of the speakers left my ears ringing pretty bad, but luckily that passed within a day. We were even close enough to see his different-colored eyes!

After the show we tried for twenty minutes to hail a cab in the rain. Finally a very nice couple from Boston picked us up and drove us into town.

We were still abuzz from the concert, so we walked around a while and ended up in a Japanese restaurant. We had a few mixed drinks (made with saki -- very strange) and some sushi. Sitting there, I commented to Marjorie: "Will you still love me if I turn 56 and I'm not as sexy as Bowie?" She smirked and responded: "You're not that sexy now."

Sunday we met with Marjorie's good friend Karen and her husband Tom. We lunched at the Waterhouse on the East River (no bodies floated by while we watched) and just walked around the city most of the day. It was good to see them again.

That night we met with fellow bloggers Kate and Marc at Von, a beer-and-wine place on Bleecker Street. We chatted there for a while and moved on to an Indian restaurant on 6th Street. [Now writing from home.] A fine night of food and conversation with a super-nice couple. We went to sleep happy and content.

As Marjorie noted, we went by Ground Zero on Monday... The scale of the tragedy is almost impossible to get your head around. We had been to the lower floor the WTC two years hence trying to buy show tickets. Now it's all just a big hole in the sky that makes you ache to stand near.

"First We Take Manhattan....."

Mark and I went to NYC this weekend. We had a great time, but I won't talk too much about it, as he's planning on posting a text page he's been writing over the weekend about the journey.

Highlights of the trip were seeing David Bowie (which I'll let Mark write about first or he'll hate me) and seeing my best friend Karen and her husband, It sucks having your best friend live several states away, but it's nice to be able to meet someplace like NYC when you get together.

Today we went to Ground Zero, which was a truly sobering experience. Maybe even more so than it might have been due to the recent terrorist attack in Bali.I tried to be a big girl about the experience, but found my eyes welling up as we walked along the borders of where the towers used to stand. Looking up at the void in the sky was especially hard for me. At one point a little girl, around 7 or 8, was bawling behind us and I couldn't help but wonder if she'd lost a family member in the attack. Overall, I'm glad we went, but it was difficult to be there.

I love New York. Everytime we go there I imagine what it would be like to live there. Mark would love it, but I think the constant overstimulation would get to me after awhile. I don't know, maybe if things don't work out for us in S'pore or Australia, we'll see if we can make it in New York.

Might as well. Don't expect any real thought to be involved.

THE FRIDAY FIVE

1. If you could only choose 1 cd to ever listen to again, what would it be? Practical answer: Some complicated Rachmananov thing that would take me decades to figure out. From the gut: Elvis Costello, The Juliet Letters.

2. If you could only choose 2 movies to watch ever again, what would they be? I should really pick a couple of those movies that you can watch over and over again that they always play on TBS, like Groundhog Day or The American President. But I'll say Rushmore and Reservoir Dogs.

3. If you could only choose 3 books to read ever again, what would they be? Shogun, Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, and a world atlas.

4. If you could only choose 4 things to eat or drink ever again, what would they be? Blueberry cobbler with ice cream, salame picante pizza from Fritti, Jaeger schnitzel mit spatzle, and some unbottled, unpasteurized German pilsner straight from the source. [Wipes drool from chin.]

5. If you could only choose 5 people to ever be/talk/associate/whatever with ever again, who would they be?
Aside from Marjorie? I bow out of this one too.

THE FRIDAY FIVE

1. If you could only choose 1 cd to ever listen to again, what would it be?
Wow, that would be really tough decision. At the moment I'm leaning towards Abbey Road/The Beatles

2. If you could only choose 2 movies to watch ever again, what would they be? Amelie and American Beauty.

3. If you could only choose 3 books to read ever again, what would they be? I don't know, I'm very glad this isn't a realistic scenario. Off the top of my head I'll say "Fear of Flying" by Erica Jong, "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and "Nine Stories" by J.D. Salinger.

4. If you could only choose 4 things to eat or drink ever again, what would they be? I'm going to be greedy and assume I can have 4 things to eat, and 4 things to drink. Drink: milk, water, Alice White Chardonnay, and Harp Lager. Eat: Spinach, Rice, Pinto Beans, and Monterey Jack cheese.

5. If you could only choose 5 people to ever be/talk/associate/whatever with ever again, who would they be?
What a boring life that would be... I guess if forced to be in a jail cell with 5 companions I'd choose my husband Mark....besides that I'm not going to choose. Too much potential for offending people I love and care about, (of which there are more than 5).

The beauty of real life is that I have choices and thank God for it. I'd hate to have to restrict myself to such a limited selection of ideas.

After lunch today we snuck off into HobbyTown USA. A cow orker bought a MicroSizer. They're way cool. I want to be able to buy stuff again!

Congratulations go out to Jimmy Carter, on winning the Nobel peace prize. It is richly deserved. It's hard to think of any troubled area of the world in the past twenty years where Jimmy hasn't tried to step in and use his clout as a force for good, by arranging negotiations, monitoring elections, or just focusing the spotlight of the press on wrongdoers.

By the way, the Carter Center mentioned in that article is walking distance from our house...

Uhm..... Mark's last post there is hard to follow. Sobering isn't it, but truly is anyone suprised that the Bush Administration would have something in common with facists. I generally remain shockingly ignorant about the political goings-on of the world. It's emotionally too much for me to deal with, and I feel utterly impotent in the face of it. Worse, I know I contribute, and perhaps AM the problem because I choose to remain ignorant. Me and the majority of the country. Sigh.
Work today really sucked. This morning a mother asked me one of the many dreaded standard questions. This time it was "Do you think she'll be delayed for the rest of her life?". When you work with people who have very young children with disabilities you get asked lots of questions of this ilk all the time....and they are sooooo difficult to respond to. I want to be honest, but generally it's not the best policy to share my "honest opinion". Children are malleable, especially at the ages I see these little ones (birth to three), so even if the little one is significantly delayed now, it doesn't neccesarily mean that the child will have significant delays in a year....but.. they probably will. So, knowing that, how do you respond? My usual reply is that it's impossible to predict, which is true, but I still feel like I'm not being entirely upfront with these families.
In general though, I love my job, and I'm lucky to be in a position where I can help people.

Posted without comment:

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

Go, carbon-based bipeds! After grandmaster Gary Kasparov was humiliated by the computer program Deep Blue in 1998(?), many thought that computers had surpassed humans in chess for good. Well, the humans are battling back. Yay, us!

I think many are amazed that computers can compete with humans at this high level of intellectual competition. Me, I'm amazed that humans even have a chance against machines that can consider bajillions of board positions every second.

I wrote a chess program a few years back. It's called Buzz, which was my father's nickname growing up (he's the one who taught me how to play chess -- hi Dad!). If you can compile a C program, you can check it out. It was a lot of fun to write. It even beat me a few times (I'm a sloppy player). Someday I'll go back and work on it some more. Maybe I can put a web interface on it...

Weird how the brain works, isn't it? I was just typing the word "constants" and instead typed "constance". I type homonyms like that all the time -- I guess the part of my brain responsible for typing occasionally just "takes dictation" from the part of my brain that is internally "speaking" what it wants to have written. And I occasionally will type commands from programming languages I haven't used in years, out of the blue.

Marjorie and I both have books and movies and such indexed in our brains by their first letter, and at least for me, by the length of the words I'm trying to remember. Recently I was trying to come up with a book title that I wanted to read, but all I could remember was that it was one long word that started with an "C". (It was The Corrections, by the way.) We both do that all the time (especially when we play trivia games!).

Another weird thing I experience is that when I play word games such as Yahoo Word Racer, and I get in a "zone", memories of things long forgotten, unrelated to anything else I'm thinking about, will occasionally pop into my brain. It's sort of trippy.

Oh, and the alarm clock in the morning. I can't tell you how many times I've been completely confused as to its purpose when I wake up, or think that I can just turn it off (instead of snoozing it) for no reason that makes any sense whatsoever, or just plain forget how to work the snooze button. All because my brain has yet to engage. It just utterly befuddles me just about every morning.

I'm sure everybody's brains do strange things from time to time...

Now how can I write about the baseball game I saw tonight without looking like an insensitive clod? Anyway, while Marjorie was feeling sad, like a typical male I was at game 5 of the Braves series against the Giants, with Marjorie's dad and some friends. And we lost, and the season is over. I got to see living legend Barry Bonds hit a home run. And it may be the last game I see for... ever?

Now I'm all melancholy...

HI HO, HI HO, It's off to Ho Chi Minh we go...
I'm a wreck today. I think I'm suffering from "oh my God! What have we done?!" syndrome, with a little premature grieving thrown in for good measure. I haven't even begun to worry about all the things we need to do. I'm still too emotional, worrying about all the things we're leaving. In my saner moments, I know we've got plently of time to prepare ourselves for this move. The actual packing process should go pretty smoothly. The hard part will be deciding what to take, and what to leave, but in some small way, I think having these extra months to contemplate the move will make it easier for me to leave some non-essentials behind. It's just stuff after all. What I will have trouble leaving are the people in our lives, particularly my parents and their dogs Beau and Sadie. Sounds silly to miss dogs, but ya know, they don't e-mail, and they don't talk on the phone, and worse than that, they don't know you still care about them when you're gone. As for my parents, they do e-mail, read our blog, and talk on the phone, but it's been nice having them so close for the last several years (they live in the Atlanta area too) and I know I'm really going to miss them. I'm not as worried about missing my friends for some reason. Most of my best friends live far away from us now, so our day to day relationship won't change much with regards to the move-I can still e-mail them and talk on the phone, and I hope/believe Mark and I will still try to see them at least once a year regardless of where we live. The blog will also help us keep in contact, I hope, that was the original reason for starting this.
I know everything will probably be fine, and truthfully, it's so much easier to do this now then it was when my parents moved overseas for the first time more than twenty years ago thanks to the internet. But it's still a little scary, and a little sad to leave our present lives behind.

Now what? We have so many other things to do. I don't know about Marjorie but I'm going to have to deny myself the fun of looking through tourist guidebooks, except to reward myself for getting other things done. First things first. I have to get my paperwork in order for Australian immigration, and that's a major pain. We have to get all our doctors visits scheduled too -- lots of innoculations still left to get, and I need a physical and an eye exam. There are bank accounts to set up too.

Couples having their first child often fret that they don't know what they're doing, and people always assure them, "It's okay, no one ever does, the first time." This is maybe a little like that. Without the labor pains though.

Thoreau once wrote:

I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not LIFE, living is so dear... I wanted to live deep and suck out the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life... to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms... and be able to give a true account of it...

I've been thinking about this passage a lot. The "marrow" bit has been quoted overmuch lately -- it's the deliberately that really resonates with me. Almost all of what I (or maybe we) have done with our lives up to this point has been the path of least resistance. And there has always been friends or family nearby for counsel. This is the first real deliberate thing I've (we've) ever done, and with that comes enormous potential for self-doubt. Marjorie's right, though, we really have nothing to lose. We'll only have each other to count on, but that's not chopped liver.

HOLY GEEZ!
We've finally done it. We booked our tickets for Singapore tonight. We leave on Thanksgiving Day (sorry Mom and Dad). It's exciting, but scary. I've been so anxious to do this, but I have to admit that I feel some trepidation now. I suppose that's the nature of change. We really don't have anything to lose though. Worse case scenario, we spend a few months traveling around Southeast Asia, before we look for work in S'pore, and if we don't find anything we'll have to come back to the States. IF that happens, we wouldn't really have lost anything, and we will have had the chance to explore another area of the world.
At the moment, our plan is to go to S'pore, leave most our things at our friend's place, then fly to Hanoi to start our travels.We'll probably travel (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand head the agenda) throughout December/January until Chinese New Year's (Feb. 2 this coming year). After Chinese New Year we'll get serious about looking for work. In the meantime, we're still trying to submit our migration paperwork to Australia so eventually we could look for work there.
The next few months should be pretty exciting.