Cosmo Girl

I was probably about 14 when I last bought a Cosmo magazine. Even at the height of my girliest phase I didn't have much interest in this kind of schlock. These days when I want to read fluff I'll pick up a People magazine, but I don't go near the girly stuff or the tabloids. Today I was getting my hair done after work and the magazine choices were slim, leaving me with the latest edition of Cosmo.

So here are some of the fascinating things that I learned from the October issue of Cosmo:

• After taking the "Are You Intimidating?" quiz I discovered that I am not obnoxiously bitchy, but a "self-assured ally." (Well, that's a relief!)
• Patrick Dempsey is dreamy. (Yeah, no kidding. Did we need a half a page of blathering to convince us of this?)
• It's okay to tell "small white lies" to the guy you're dating in order to break up with him. (Is this okay for guys too?)
• Guys need sex to connect emotionally with a "girl." (sigh)
• Five ways ice can spice up your sex life (Okay, this was somewhat enlightening. However, the other 100 pages devoted to sex tips were quite tedious. Honestly, if you need that much help then just give it up!)

PolishFest

Aside from family and friends, what we miss most about living in the Detroit area is our Polish culture -- the restaurants, music, language, bakeries, etc. We're especially disappointed that we have yet to find a Polish restaurant or bakery anywhere near where we live. There's a Russian deli near my work, but it's not very good. We often find ourselves craving pierogi or stuffed cabbage or pickle soup.

We've tried to bring things back from Michigan, but most of the doughy products don't survive the drive well. Of course, I could cook more Polish food, but most of what we like is pretty labor-intensive and I don't do that much serious cooking most days. So today was like a holiday for us. The Polish National Catholic Church in the area had its annual PolishFest this weekend. It's not the most exciting festival, but the food was excellent. And the best part was that we found a newly opened Polish deli and store about 20 miles from our house. It's not the same as walking across the street to the Polish bakery, but I think it'll be worth the drive.

Lucy's Baby

I am utterly fascinated with the recent archeological finding of the remains of a 3.3 million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis, likely ancestor of our human species. This is an especially remarkable find since it is the remains of a child, roughly three years old. Selam, as she is named, is referred to as "little Lucy" or "Lucy's Baby" after the most famous female skeleton of this time.

I think that if I were to choose a new career, it would be anthropology. I have always been fascinated by ancient civilizations (partially explaining my addiction to CivIV). I also really appreciate the close linkings between the physical and social sciences within archeology/anthropology. I remember one family vacation when I was about 9 or 10 and we went to Mackinac Island. Instead of swimming in the lake, biking around the island, or eating fudge, I spent hours sitting aside an archeological dig site, completely fascinated by the slow and meticulous process of digging up ruins. I didn't see any exciting discoveries, just a little pottery, but I was riveted by the idea of what could be found. (I was very fortunate that my dad was patient enough to indulge me in this "fun.")

No need to worry, though, I have no intentions of starting a new career. I'm still quite happy as a sociologist and I'm enjoying my current job. I'm just planning ahead for my next life. Oh, and in my next, next life I want to be an astronomer or, even better, an astronaut if I can shake the motion sickness problem after two reincarnations.

The New Semester

The new school year is underway. I had a bit of a slow start this year because it was hard to switch gears from vacation mode to professor mode in less than a day, but now I'm starting to get into the semester groove again. I love the beginning of the new school year -- the changing weather, fall wardrobe, new and returning students back on campus .... I also love that new school year buzz -- the energy of untapped potential, the excitement of young people enjoying the college journey, and even the anticipation of learning new things. That buzz usually disappears by midterm time, so I try to enjoy it while it lasts.

I'm particularly bothered by the Beloit College mindset list for the incoming freshmen (class of 2010). For someone who does research on post-communist Eastern Europe, the following points are especially troublesome:

• The Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union.
• There has always been only one Germany.

It's always hard to be relevant to your students, but this is tough!

Perplexed

When I was in the waiting room of the doctor's office yesterday there was another patient there wearing a T-shirt that read: "Resistance is frugal." I've been bothered by this saying since I saw it because I simply don't understand it. I know that it's a take on the Star Trek Borg saying "Resistance is futile," but frugal? Huh?

According to Webster, frugal is "characterized by or reflecting economy in the use of resources." Resistance implies the use of force or energy, so how exactly can it be frugal? If I'm missing something here, please enlighten me. Is this really cute and I'm dim, or is it just stupid?

Media Blackout

I turned on the radio this morning to listen to NPR during my 10 minute commute to work and I turned it off a minute later. I had forgotten that today was 9/11 and that the media would be filled with talk of the terrorist attacks five years ago. I can't bring myself to listen to the radio or watch t.v. on days like this. I know I risk sounding unsympathetic and unpatriotic and I am neither. The attacks on America were real tragedies and the events still weigh heavily on my heart and mind.

What bothers me about the media coverage of today is how insular we are in our grieving and remembering of such tragedies. Rather than listen to ordinary people talk about how 9/11 affected their lives or recall where they were when they heard the news, I'd rather talk about what we have learned from these horrific events and how we can focus our new knowledge to help other people in similarly horrible situations. Our grief is no greater than that of the Sudanese in Darfur who have also experienced unimaginable tragedies over the last few years and who are still at risk for even more genocide. Most Americans probably don't even know where Darfur is, let alone are they aware of the terrorism that people there are still experiencing.

As I was sitting in the doctor's office this morning, the office staff were commenting on today's date and a patient sitting next to me screeched, "Oooooh! I gotta play that number!" Now that's deep ...

Inside Passage

Despite our difficulties getting back to Albany, our vacation to Alaska was fabulous. We took a 7-night cruise through the Inside Passage, which is the tail end of Alaska hugging western Canada. We sailed from Vancouver to the Hubbard Glacier in Yakutat Bay, stopping in Sitka, Juneau, and Ketchikan. The scenery was amazing -- lush green mountains, deep blue ocean, wispy fog, and shocking blue glaciers.

Aside from the natural beauty of the state, the striking thing about Alaska is how wild and undeveloped it is. The port cities cater to the tourists from the cruise ships and belie the remoteness of Alaska. After a day of sailing you quickly sense how far away Alaska really is from the rest of the U.S. Many of the islands in the Inside Passage are either uninhabited or contain isolated populations that connect to the mainland only by boat. The entire state of Alaska only has just over 600,000 inhabitants and the local women are eager to complain to tourists about the gender imbalance in the state.

The most impressive part of the trip for me was visiting the Hubbard Glacier. It's 6 miles wide and 76 miles long containing ice over 400 years old. It has a sky blue tint to it because the smaller wavelength of blue light scatters more than that of the other colors when it passes through clear ice. This is a picture that we took of part of the glacier with the mountains in the background and the wispy fog hanging overhead. We'll have lots of other great pictures and we'll put them online soon.

I vaguely remember an American History class in grade school where we learned how the purchase of Alaska was called "Seward's folly" because of public criticism over then Secretary of State William Seward's decision to purchase the "icebox." After seeing this amazing state first hand, I can now understand why Seward's Day is now a state holiday in Alaska. What a steal!

LOST

Labor Day

I’m looking forward to catching up on season 2 of LOST this month before the new season begins. As we’re dealing with the Northwest debacle, I wonder if a similar experience sparked the idea for LOST. As we’ve spent the last day with the same 150 people, it’s been interesting to watch the interactions among a group of strangers forced to deal with one another because of an unpleasant situation (although not quite as dramatic as a plane crash on a strange island). You naturally become friendly with many of the strangers and little cliques begin to form (the three wheelchair couples, the elderly cruisers, the single gals). You learn about people’s back-stories, but in piecemeal fashion – a snippet in line at the ticket counter, another in the security line, a little more over dinner. And, of course, there are always some interesting characters who stick out in a crowd – the annoying, little, middle-aged, balding man who insists on pushing to the front of every line, even though we’re all going to the same place, and his mousy gray-haired wife who follows two paces behind him; the sweet elderly couple returning from their Alaskan cruise who continually put a positive spin on everything happening to us; the chain-smoking white-haired woman who walks with a limp and who won’t stop complaining in a very loud, Maude-like voice; the new-age white thirty-something couple with their adopted brown baby trying to look purposely unphased by all of the drama … and so on. Of course I realize that Eddie and I are also “characters” in this mini-drama – the overweight couple with nearly matching t-shirts (completely unplanned due to a lack of clean clothes) whispering snide comments to one another and laughing among themselves about the absurdity of the day.

Only 2 more hours in Detroit ...

Northwest Debacle

Labor Day

A wonderful vacation to Alaska ended poorly when our Northwest flight from Vancouver to Albany, via Detroit, was cancelled due to a failed navigational system. The cancelled flight was inconvenient, but one of those things that you just chalk up to bad luck when you’re traveling, much like inclement weather. However, dealing with the incompetencies of Northwest has made the last 24 hours a nightmare. The ordeal isn’t over yet as I’m writing this from the Detroit Metro terminal, although I won’t post it until I get home because I refuse to pay for internet access at the airport.

Our Northwest itinerary for the last 24 hours:

Sunday – Vancouver

11:50 a.m. PDT Dispose of all beverages and board flight.

12:20 p.m. Flight is supposed to take off.

12:30 p.m. Slight mechanical problem. Just sit tight.

12:45 p.m. Waiting for a mechanic. It’ll be about an hour. You can get off the plane, but you don’t have to take your carry-on bags. (Yes, some people actually left their bags on the plane unattended. Who are these people?)

1:00 p.m. Please reboard the plane to claim your carry-on bags. Oh, and if you’ve lost your little boarding pass stub, wait in line for another one before reboarding the plane to get your bags and get off again.

1-5:00 p.m. Northwest couldn’t decide if they would fix the plane, reschedule our flight, or rebook us on another flight, so for the next four hours we walked around the Vancouver airport in the following loop, prodded along by poorly informed Northwest employees. (Note that Vancouver is a fairly large international airport.)

• leave gate
  
• pickup baggage (the first two times the bags didn’t show up and Northwest said they’d get them for us – ha!)
  
• exit through Canadian immigration
  
• go to ticket counter and be instructed to return to gate
  
• reenter U.S. customs
  
• reenter airport security
  
• walk to gate again

We did this loop three times non-stop with vague instructions from Northwest personnel along the way. You know there’s a problem when the customs and security agents stop you and ask why you keep coming around.

5:00 p.m. Northwest officially cancels our flight and reschedules us for 7:00 a.m. on Monday. They provide us with meal coupons and a hotel voucher and instruct us to take the free shuttle to the hotel.

5:00-6:30 p.m. 150 people wait in line for 2 hotel shuttles that can only hold 12-people each. Oh, wait, with all of the luggage that we have they can only hold about 8 people each. You do the math.

7:00 p.m. Wait with 150 people to check into the same hotel.

7:30 p.m. Finally get to eat mediocre free meal. It’s been 12 hours since our last meal and 7 hours since our last drink of any kind.

8:00 p.m. Settle into our room and take stock of the day. My still unhealed ankle is the size of a grapefruit and Eddie’s left hand has swollen to twice its normal size from carrying bags all day. In addition to our 6 bags, we occasionally helped some of the elderly passengers who couldn’t manage on their own. Luggage carts and wheelchair assistance were in short supply.

Monday
4:15 a.m. Northwest is supposed to send two large buses at 4:45 to pick up 150 people from the hotel and return us to the airport. We tried to avoid the hassle and reserved a taxi van to haul us and all of our bags to the airport. We figured it was worth $20 but another couple from our flight stole our cab and refused to give it up even when Eddie confronted them. (As luck would have it they ended up sitting in the row in front of us on the plane, looking slightly embarrassed when they sat down.)

5:00 a.m. The big buses never show up (surprise!) so we wait for the two 12-person shuttle buses to make their rounds.

7:00 a.m. Finally make it on board our flight. Supposed to take off but some passengers haven’t made it yet. They were probably still waiting for the hotel shuttles.

8:15 a.m. Take-off!

3:00 p.m. EDT Arrive in Detroit. Wait in terminal for 6 hours for connecting flight to Albany.

Blogging is definitely cathartic. I feel better already. Only 4 more hours to wait!