Of Maps and Summer Strolls

I've been using Mapquest a lot recently and I've been wondering how the service began.

Did the company hire people, give each employee a key to a car, and instruct them to take copious notes on distances and turns as they traveled across a geographic region?

Yeah, right - you're saying to yourself.

Well, it's possible.

One of my first jobs after high school was a summertime gig with the state. I was given a car and a measuring wheel, and told to make mileage notes to within a tenth of a mile.

I drove to specific developments, parked the car, and started measuring mileages from the nearest main road. I walked up and down every street in the development, taking every conceivable combination of twists and turns. The reason for my daily strolls was to establish boundary lines between school districts.

It was a great job. Folks would come out of their houses to ask what I was doing, then walk along and chat for a block or so.

If Mapquest builds their database the same way perhaps I'll submit an application. I've always wanted to see more of the country. To get paid while I'm doing it.... well you couldn't beat that with a stick.

Phones and Simplicity

I made a phone call today and was shocked when there was neither an answer nor an answering machine at the other end. I let the phone ring over twelve times before realizing the ringing would continue until I hung up.

Oh my gosh, I thought, I'm going to have to keep calling this person back until I catch them at home. Who doesn't have an answering machine these days?

I was brought up short by the realization I was feeling inconvenienced by the prospect of having to make multiple attempts at reaching my party. Me, the guy who was dragged kicking and screaming into the cell phone era. Me, the guy who used to view the blinking light on an answering machine as an unwelcome intrusion in my schedule.

It really wasn't that many years ago that an unanswered phone was commonplace. Those same relatively few years ago, friends were appalled that I didn't run to answer my home phone when it rang.

Whoever it is can call back, I would say with a shrug.

Perhaps, instead of feeling inconvenienced, I should applaud the person with the unanswered phone. Just maybe they have taken the first important step in simplifying their life - or maybe they never allowed the world to encroach on simplicity in the first place.

Baking a Home

Yesterday evening marked the beginning of Motivated Mom's holiday baking season.

There is nothing that turns a house into a home so much as baking cookies.

When you read the above sentence, the first thing you probably thought of was the smell of freshly baked cookies.

And while the aroma is a big part of the happy to be home experience, there's so much more.

There's the toasty warmth of the kitchen heated by the oven. A warmth that can only be equaled by snuggling under a down comforter or spooning with your loved one.

The clatter of cooking sheets and the scraping of spoons in pots and bowls tell clearly that the chef is at home in the kitchen.

Then there's the ringing of the cooking timer that brings family members from all parts of the house.

The sound of the timer is quickly drowned out by the chatter of family members reliving holiday's past while impatiently poking at the piping hot pastries - waiting for the treats to cool just enough that they won't burn salivating mouths. Almost without fail, patience runs out too soon and the anxious cookie samplers end up blowing on fingertips or trying to simultaneously chew and suck cool air into their mouths.

These are the things that make four walls a home.

Sleepless in the City

I don't know how people who live in the city manage to sleep.

It's been a long time since I spent the night in a private home within city limits. I had forgotten that life in the city never stops.

I was fortunate to get a reprieve on my first night at College Dude's place in Pittsburgh. The city was dead on the eve of Thanksgiving. Things were so quiet that even College Dude remarked on the lack of noise.

But in the wee hours of Friday morning, the city's pulse returned. I was repeatedly awakened by night prowling pedestrians, horn-happy drivers, police cars, fire trucks, and med-evac helicopters.

After twenty-two years of country and suburbia living, it was impossible to ignore the racket.

I don't think I could have ignored the noise even if I had been an accomplished city dweller.

Patchwork Jeans

I was sewing a button back onto a pair of pants last night and I got to thinking about the lost art of patchwork jeans.

These days it is a fashion statement to have tears in a pair of jeans, but back in the 60's torn jeans were not cool - patches were the thing. No, not those navy blue iron on patches made of some variation on fiberglass, but bright colorful patches. Anything from a NASA commemorative patch to the logo of a favorite sports team was acceptable.

I had several pair of jeans with more patches than denim. In fact the waist and belt loops may have been the only denim remaining. I suppose I should have accepted the need to move on to a new pair of pants when I started spending entire Saturday mornings sewing new patches to the existing patches. But by that time the pants (I couldn't really call them jeans anymore) had become a piece of art.

Yes, I did all the sewing myself - by hand. I could thread a needle with one eye closed. The tip of my right index finger was permanently imprinted with the scaly texture of a thimble. It was tough going driving a needle through two or three layers of overlapping patches, but I was an accomplished craftsman.

So why was it that sewing on that one button last night took more time than running to the store for a new pair of pants? Perhaps it stems from my need for a magnifying glass to supplement my magnifying glasses.

Mailbox Contortions

I want to know who designed the Postal Service's curbside mailboxes. The mailboxes with the extended necks that allow you to drop off your mail without getting out of your car - supposedly. I'm curious to know about the designer because I want to satisfy my suspicion that her or she had arms as long as an orangutan.

Because unless you're in a van or SUV, trying to get mail into the curved neck of the mailbox is like trying to scratch a giraffe behind its ears.

I pulled up to one of these curbside conveniences yesterday. I was in my Honda Civic and the first thing I discovered after lowering my window was that I would need to release my seat belt. Naturally the obnoxious buzzer immediately alerted me I had violated safety protocol.

Even with the freedom to lean out the window, it was obvious that from the confines of a compact car the deposit slot would remain elusive unless I could somehow mimic the circus contortionists who twist themselves into pretzels.

I wedged my right foot against the firewall in an effort to leverage myself upward - and quickly realized I should have first set the parking brake. The mailbox was suddenly half a car length behind me.

Fortunately I was the sole visitor at the time and was able to shift into reverse. With the car now repositioned, I set the brake, boosted myself out of my seat, twisted to the left, and snaked my arm into the mouth of the mailbox. Had I been anywhere other that in front of a faded blue mailbox, onlookers would have been calling 911 to report a man having a seizure.

How Much Longer

How much longer until we get there?

This is the question that has come to define road trips with children in the car.

Let's face it - kids just aren't good at sitting still for extended periods of time. Put a kid in the backseat of a car, drive more than twenty miles, and THE question is going to come.

If the trip is less than an hour, parents can breath a sigh of relief at being able to cheerfully say we're over half way there at the twenty mile mark.

But if the destination is seven hours away what do you say to your child - Hey how about that stock market - rebounded nicely today didn't it?

So I sort of cringed when, on our way to Pittsburgh this past weekend, we ran into one monster of a traffic snarl. I knew The question was coming as soon as we slowed to 10 miles per hour.
Media Girl didn't disappoint, she threw THE question out there with no hesitation whatsoever.

....And then THE answer came in a blinding flash of brilliance. I asked Media Girl how many bars her phone had.

Media Girl was instantly plugged into her friends back home, diffusing the possible hysteria caused by a seven hour drive turning into a nine hour drive.

Of course, I did have to listen to the eternally repeated question so what 'ya doin' now? as Media Girl tried to discern what the person on the other end of the phone was doing that might have been different from three minutes earlier.

I was on the verge of asking How much longer until that call is done?