She Shoes, She Scores!

And the winners are . . .

The shoes on the left were chosen over seven other pairs as the winner in the category of "Summery Sneaker/Mary Janish Shoes", while the shoes on the right took first place, out of eight, in the category of "Comfy Black Slide Shoes". The other 14 contestant pairs are resting comfortably in their boxes and will soon receive an all-expenses paid trip back to their homes at Zappos and Lands End.

(Ann suggested in a recent comment that I am to be praised for my non-laziness in returning items that don't work for me. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with non-laziness and everything to do with financial survival. My credit card bill shows that I ordered about $1100 worth of shoes in the past week; it is my fervent hope that the approximately $1000 worth of shoes that I'm returning will get credited back to my account before my next billing date!)

For those of you who called and texted in to vote for the silver sneakers, they really appreciated your support, but unfortunately, sexism is alive and well here at Native Observation, where female voters always carry the shoe-selection demographic. Men were unanimous that the shoes were great and totally wearable; women (who all voted by e-mail or personal conversation) all confirmed my own opinion that the shoes were very cute and that I would probably never wear them. Plus, I decided that the hot pink Mary Janes would be cooler, temperature-wise, for the summer; are more versatile since they're aqua-shoes; and were less than half the price of the silver ones. I am, however, going to try to find the black version of the silver sneakers in my size when I get back from North Africa in a couple of weeks.

So there you have it, the view from inside the decision-making process of a Particularist!

Imelda I Am

In case any of you are wondering what I've been up to in the 2+ months since I last blogged, today I received 12 pairs of shoes that I ordered online, and I have four more pairs on the way. If I'm lucky, I will actually end up with three pairs that fit well enough and are cute and comfortable enough to keep.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love zappos.com? Express delivery (I often get my orders in less than 24 hours) and free shipping both ways mean that I can order from them like I shop in a shoe store: I order multiple sizes and styles of the same type of shoe, try them all, and then ship back whatever doesn't work. Woo hoo!

Is it safe to say that my American consumerism gene has been fully reactivated?

But more importantly, am I a person who can wear silver lamé sneakers? For some reason, when I ordered them, I thought that by "silver", they meant "pale gray", and normally, I wouldn't even consider something this blingy. But they're right here, and they're so comfy . .

Whad'ya think?

UPDATE: There is indeed more glitter involved than Zappos let on. Here's my own photo, which will give you a better idea of why I'm hesitating:

Existential Questions

Here I am, in West Africa again, until April 3. My guidebook assures me that the southern part of this country "has two rainy seasons: the first is from April to mid-July. . . . Harmattan winds billow out of the Sahara between December and March, and the hottest time of the year is from February to April." Do we all remember how much I hate heat and humidity? Good. Now it's time to ask ourselves some existential questions (EQs).

I spent the last week in lovely North Africa (which I promise to tell you about another time), where it was in the 70s and 80s, mildly humid, and I sweat up a storm. Last night, I took an overnight flight from North Africa to West Africa, with one stop in Wester Africa. Many of the people on my flight were wearing sweaters and coats. A woman sitting next to me, who boarded the plane in Wester Africa, where the outside temperature was 28° C (82° F), was wearing a shearling jacket.
EQ: Was I flying with a plane full of crazy people?

When we landed in West Africa at 5:30 am (you know, the coolest, freshest time of day), it was also 28° C (82° F). According to weather.com, it is currently 91° F outside, with a dew point of 77°, and a heat index of 104°.
EQ: Why does God hate me so much?

The airport was like a sauna, and stepping outside the airport was like stepping into a better-heated sauna. Then I got onto the hotel shuttle, where we had to sit and wait for about 15 minutes, to see if any more hotel guests were on that flight. The outside air blowing in through the open door of the van felt like a fresh, cool breeze compared to the interior temperature of the van. Of the many places that sweat was streaming from my body, I noticed that there was actually sweat pouring inside my ears.
EQ: Where was this sweat coming from? Do I actually have sweat glands in my ears?

The air conditioner in my hotel room emits a high-pitched and very annoying squealing noise whenever it's turned on.
EQ: Is it really worth running the a/c--wait! Sorry. This isn't an existential question. It's a rhetorical one.

On Time

Last Sunday, when the U.S. switched to Daylight Savings Time, I was resetting my "good" watch when the knob suddenly stopped making the hands turn forward. Today, I finally got around to taking it into a repair shop. The guy there told me that I had apparently stripped the teeth off a central cog, which would be an expensive repair. He recommended that I just set the watch by turning it backwards, until that no longer works, and then bring it in to be fixed. That sounded like a sensible approach, especially since, he reminded me, "You only set your watch twice a year!"

I thought about that for a moment, and then told him to go ahead and repair the watch now, and I'll pick it up when I get back from my upcoming business trip. Why? Well, I leave tomorrow, and in the next 3.5 weeks, I will be changing my "cheap" watch from Minnesota time to:

- Atlanta time, then to
- Paris time, then to
- North Africa time, then to
- West Africa time, then to
- Paris time, then to
- Cincinnati time, then to
- Minnesota time.

I guess there may be a reason that I've stripped the teeth off a cog in my watch.

Tragic Tags

When I moved back to the U.S., my very lovely parents gave me their old car, which used to be my car, before I sold it to them when I moved to France (my family thinks of cars like adopted children, which must never leave our family so long as we both shall live). They transferred the title into my name, and I inherited not only my sweet little Sentra, Simon, but also his very cute license plates: HWT 088.

I consider this is a great licence plate, not only because 8 is my favorite number, but also because it was very easy to remember, HWT obviously standing for Becky Hewitt, who was in first grade with me.

The tags had to be renewed in February, and I assumed I would just be getting a little "2010" sticker to put on the existing plates. But no! They sent me entirely new license plates (and sent them to the wrong address, ignoring the "Change of Address" form that I had filled in and submitted along with my check for the tag renewal), with a horrible, tragic new number:
341 BDC.

What's wrong with this tag? Let me count the things:
1) Nary an 8 to be seen!
2) The numbers come before the letters, which is Not As It Should Be in Minnesota.
3) Not only is the number odd, it's practically prime (divisible only by 11 and 31).
4) BDC isn't an obvious and easy-to-remember abbreviation for anything (although it's slightly better than "BDO", which is what I initially thought it said, and which clearly stands for Body Odor).

I Have Been Assimilated

My transition back to being fully American seems to be very nearly, if not totally, complete, as evidenced by how I spent my Saturday:

1) In the morning, I drove to the hardware store. Did I mention that the hardware store is 3.5 blocks from my house? And that I was not buying anything bulky or heavy, or going anywhere else on this trip? Nope, I drove 7 blocks round trip just because it was a little cold out*, and I didn't feel like walking.

2) For the first time since I moved to the Twin Cities, I went to the Mall of America, one of the largest malls in the world (there's an amusement park inside, if that tells you anything).

In the not-so-distant past, I would have been ashamed of myself for exhibiting these behaviors, but now that I'm American again, I think it's normal.

Resistance was obviously futile, but is it really too late for me to be saved? Is there any chance that my upcoming visit to Paris could cure this horrible and rapidly-advancing disease?!
Stay tuned . . .

*8°F/-13°C, with a windchill of -2°F/-19°C, in case you're wondering how we Minnesotans define "a little cold".

It's Here!

I'm not sure if the voting by you, my readers, had any influence, but the documentary film Pray the Devil Back to Hell has finally come to the Twin Cities! It's currently playing at the Landmark Lagoon Cinema in Minneapolis at 1:30, 3:20, 5:10, 7:10, and 9:30pm, and since I'm not sure if it'll be here for more than a week, I'm planning to go tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon. Let me know if you'd like to come along!

UPDATE: This is a really, really good movie. It gave me some much-needed hope about Africa.

OBG: Frencher and Frencher

OBG = Oldies But Goodies (recycled material)


I've finally begun my formal reintegration into the American Healthcare System, but before I start pontificating on that, I thought I'd share (or repeat, if you've known me long enough) one of my more memorable interactions with French Healthcare. The following true story is from an e-mail that I sent on February 1, 2005:
__________


Hi everyone,

It occurred to me recently that it's been a while since I've sent out one of my mass e-mails regaling you all with Tales of Life in France, simply because I don't seem to have many tales to tell these days. Why is that, I wondered? Is it because I'm unemployed, and now that I've discovered a channel playing reruns of "Law and Order" every weekday (you really haven't lived until you've seen Briscoe and McCoy dubbed into French!), I've become a total recluse and no longer have any interaction with those wacky people known as the French? Or . . . is there something darker at play here? Could it be that I no longer NOTICE the wackiness that surrounds me? Could it be that I'm (gasp!) getting Frencher?!

The degree of my cultural integration was thrown into sharp relief last week by the arrival of a newcomer from the States. "L" is the friend of a friend, and she's in Paris for 5 months to study French. I've been helping her get settled in and figure things out . . . how to get an internet connection, where to buy oatmeal, which brands of anti-perspirant don't sting after shaving . . . you know, all the basic information needed to survive as an American in Paris.

On Friday, L and I went to a movie and out for a drink with a German friend of mine who's lived here for years. We were all sharing funny stories, and I began to recount an odd-but-true incident that happened to me a few months ago. The following is a vaguely approximate transcript of that conversation. Any alterations were made for the amusement of my readers.

*****
Stephanie - "My doctor always has her dog with her at the office, and . . ."

Others (interrupting) - "WHAT?! A DOG?! In the DOCTOR's OFFICE?!?!"

S (confused) - "Yeah, well, you know . . . French people love their dogs. They take them everywhere."

L - "Isn't having a DOG in the DOCTOR'S OFFICE kind of a hygiene issue?"

S (thinks about it) - "Huh! Well . . . I don't know. I don't think the dog normally comes into the EXAM room, he mostly just hangs out in the office, under her desk. He's just a little lap dog, a bit yippy, but cute. Really, it seems pretty normal for him to be there. . . . But anyway! One day I went to see the doctor because I had the flu or something, and Sasha (the dog) was really nervous and yipping every time anyone moved. The doctor said that that morning, some workers had been installing a new window in an upstairs apartment--she just has a small office in a residential building--and they dropped a sheet of glass, and the noise totally traumatized Sasha, which was why he was acting so nervous. He was lying on a chair right behind the door, and when I got up to leave, I guess my opening the door scared him, because he flew out of the chair, latched onto my leg, and bit me! The doctor didn't see it, she just heard him yipping and said, 'Sasha, be quiet.' Stephanie: 'Doctor, your dog just bit me on the leg!' Dr.: 'Really?' I point to my thigh, from which I've just removed the vicious little fur-ball, and say 'YES!' The doctor glances down at my pants leg, doesn't see a hole, pats me on the leg, and says, 'Oh, you'll be fine. Have a good day!' And all I could think was, 'Do you not understand that, as an American, my cultural instinct is to sue you for this?!' "

Others (stunned silence) - "?!?!?!"

Stephanie - ". . . I mean, don't you guys think that it's kind of weird that the doctor didn't even want to look at the wound, to see whether the skin had been broken, and maybe disinfect it or something?"

German friend (finally regaining capacity for speech) - "Stephanie, do you still go to that doctor?!"

Stephanie - "Oh. Well, yeah! I really like her! I mean, in the end, the doctor was right, it wasn't THAT big a deal. The dog only broke the skin a LITTLE, and of course I had a big bruise on my thigh, but I had actually forgotten about it by the time I got home that day, and later it took me a while to figure out where the bruise came from. I just think Americans get too paranoid about germs and stuff, you know?"
*****

To recap: I was bitten by my doctor's dog, in my doctor's office. I was surprised that the doctor didn't offer to look at and disinfect the bite. However, I didn't think that (a) it was strange that my doctor brings her dog to the office with her, or (b) this might be a reason to find a new doctor.

So, does this mean that my attitudes are becoming Frencher? Get back to me on this!

Hope you're all doing well!

Love,
Steph


_________

And here's a photo from last January of Sasha in the waiting room, trying to get back into the doctor's office:

Making the World a Better Place

Readers who also frequent the blog Going 40 in a 20 Zone know that limericks are quite popular over there. But they make not know that back in the day, my college friends and I were fond of ending 'most any statement by saying "Questions, comments, limericks?" I'm not sure why we said it, but we did.

Today, I was e-mailing my boss about my upcoming trip to West Africa and the fact that breaking news on our project in North Africa means that I should probably go to both countries in one trip. The timing gets a bit tricky, because I need to make sure to have enough time in both countries to get some meaningful work done, but I start going a little stir-crazy if I'm out on the road too long. And I almost always get sick when I'm in West Africa (see prior posts on food poisoning/dysentery). At the end of this tediously detailed message, I wanted to ask for my boss's approval of my travel plans, and for whatever reason, I decided that the best way to word this request was by asking, "Questions, comments, limericks?"

He replied, "There was a young lady from . . . Sorry, but Minnesota doesn't rhyme with anything."

But I proved him wrong:

The coworker from Minnesota
With traveling plans over quota
Thinks too much time in Benin
Will make her quite grim
‘Cuz they don’t have enough diet soda*.

*(With thanks to my friend "I", who came up with "soda" for the final rhyme.)

My boss wrote back with the suggestion that "green" would be a better rhyme than "grim" for the correct English pronunciation of the country in questions ("buh-neen") and would also be appropriate, given my tendencies to illness there. I'm just so grateful to have a supervisor who helps me learn new things every day!

And to the American citizens whose tax dollars financed this important poetic contribution to ending poverty.

Dastardly Disappointment

It turns out that The Most Fun Work Thing I've Done in a Very Long Time was for naught: the requirement to include the "we-won't-give-money-to-anyone-who-supports-abortion" clause is included in the Corporation's statutes and is therefore unaffected by the Executive Order lifting the international gag rule. And I'm pretty sure that changing the statutes would take, quite literally, an act of Congress.

Will we never see the end of W's dastardliness?!