My Own Planet

Chillin' with the Obamas
In the last year or so, the Obamas and I have developed quite the after-hours friendship. By "after hours," I mean roughly the hours between midnight and 7:30 a.m., during which I am alseep. (As are the Obamas, it appears, given that the lights at the White House were off when I drove by at midnight the other night.)

Ever since I was given the task of packing up their family photos, the Obamas have continued to reach out to me in my dreams. A few months back, Barack attended a birthday party for my sister at the community swimming pool in our hometown (my subconscious apparently forgot that my sister's birthday falls in the swimming-unfriendly month of February), and last night, I was hanging out with both Barack and Michelle prior to some sort of press conference/town hall meeting event. We were having a lovely chat about health-care reform when Barack was called away for his appearance. "I want to continue this conversation," he told me as he got up from the couch where I was wedged between him and Michelle. "Give me a call next week." At this point, it suddenly dawned on me that I'd been chatting with the leader of the free world, and therefore probably couldn't just dial his direct line. Of course, by the time I tried to communicate this to him, he was already gone, so Michelle invited me to join them for a dinner party the following week at their house in McLean. (Apparently the dream-Obamas think the White House is way too ostentatious for a family residence, so they actually live in a nice little black-shuttered white Colonial in northern Virginia.)

I can only hope that the "Obama dinner party" episode is next in line in this little show my subconscious is putting on, because that's going to be a fun one. Plus, I didn't get the chance last night to invite Michelle and the girls to one of my roller-derby bouts.*

*This is an actual goal of mine, but sadly, I am not as tight with the Obamas in real life. The closest I've come was while passing out flyers at a Georgetown movie theater where Malia happened to be seeing Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. My league-mate, Raptor, tried to get a flyer in the hands of her Secret Service agent when she came out of the theater, but he turned her down flat. Back to the drawing board.

These boots were made for walkin'
Much like my ongoing search for the perfect lip gloss, I am also on a never-ending quest for the perfect knee-high black boot. The last time I undertook this endeavor was in college; the trial lasted at least a year or two (during which I compensated by borrowing Diana's size-too-small, heel-too-high boots, which my feet did not appreciate) before I finally happened upon a pair of pleather Esprit riding boots, which I purchased online for around $40. Scarred by this tribulation, I proceeded to wear those boots for eight more years, which is probably about six or seven years longer than one should be able to wear a pair of $40 pleather boots. It wasn't until last winter, when I noticed they were literally coming apart at the seams, that I had to admit defeat and prepare to start the search over again.

Fortunately, online shopping has evolved tremendously in the years since I bought my last boots, so I could undertake the expedition entirely from the comfort of my office. I initially had my heart set on another pair of Frye boots, but as much as I tried to justify the $350 price tag with cost-per-wear calculations, I just couldn't do it. (Side note: The whole cost-per-wear theory always reminds me of one of my favorite British TV shows, "She's Gotta Have It," which was entirely about shopping. They did a whole show once on the cost-per-wear theory, which involved the host going into high-end stores like Karen Millen and buying expensive items and having the following exchange with the sales clerks: "Cost for this leather jacket?" "£250." "Cost per wear?" "2p!" As if.)

Anyway, with the Frye boots out of the running, I decided to go to the complete opposite end of the spectrum and look for the cheapest boots I could find and make do with them for a year or two while saving up for the Fryes. I found a pair of faux-suede over the knee boots for $70, which the reviews assured me looked way more expensive than they were. And yeah, from a distance maybe they did, but they felt cheap as hell. It was time to have a serious talking-to with myself. "Self," I said, "you are almost 30. It's time to stop wearing fake-leather boots." And so the fake boots went back.

Finally, I decided it was time for a compromise. I definitely wanted real leather or suede boots, but there were plenty of options out there that did not cost $350. I managed to zero in on two pairs of $170 Nine West boots, one of which was very similar to the pair I had just chucked, and one that had an interesting button detail on the side. I ordered them both, and last night staged a boot fashion show to determine which pair I should keep. After much pacing around the basement to determine which pair was more comfortable, plus a lengthy consultation with my roommate Kelly on the various pros and cons of each pair, the tide had pretty much tipped in favor of the button ones. But just to be sure, I logged onto Endless.com one more time to re-read the reviews for each boot--and discovered that the button boots had been marked down by 50 percent! Thanks to Endless.com's 14-day price match guarantee, that meant a 50-percent refund for me, bringing the cost of my new boots down to $85. ("Cost per wear?" "44 cents!")

And so, another boot search has ended happily. Plus, I now have eight more years to save up for those Fryes.

Ouch.
When you play roller derby, you expect that you'll rack up your fair share of injuries along the way: the everyday bumps and bruises, maybe a fractured collarbone, broken ankle or busted lip here or there. When you're being slammed into repeatedly by 50 other girls on an almost-daily basis, it kind of comes with the territory. But in my 9 months of playing this sport, I've encountered a whole new set of injuries, one that only affects a very small subset of the derby population, by which I mean me. I call these "the moronic injuries of a klutzy rollergirl." So far they include:

-Snapping myself in the eyeball with the elastic band of the helmet panty.

-Getting a metal splinter embedded into my thumb when attempting to reattach a toe stop.

-And, just last night, spraining my thumb while getting up from a fall.

I've been fortunate enough not to have sustained any injuries so far that necessitate ambulances or doctor's visits (and I hope this good fortune will continue, at least until Obama gets this whole health-care mess sorted out), but I'm guessing that the injuries detailed above might hurt worse than the big ones, thanks to the double blow to my pride. Plus, you can't get painkillers for sprained thumbs.

The end of an era
No, I'm not quitting blogging. (Although as you can probably tell from my infrequent posting, that day is probably coming sooner rather than later.) The era of which I speak is the era of me living on my own.

Six and a half years ago, indelibly scarred by microwaved vegetarian sausages and the Den of Filth, I jumped off the roommate train and set about creating my fortress of solitude. I collected the perfect IKEA furniture and salvaged knick-knacks, relished walking around in my underwear and singing Patty Griffin songs at the top of my lungs, and teetered dangerously close to the precipice of getting set in my ways. In short, it was perfect.

But then 2009 happened: The economy tanked, my pay went down as my rent went up, and I found myself a delightful new hobby (more on that soon, I promise) that kept me away from home most nights of the week. Suddenly, I realized I was spending nearly an entire paycheck every month on a place I rarely spent any time in. Looking over my budget, I realized something had to give: I could either cut back on travel and cute dresses, or I could look for a cheaper place to live. The choice was pretty clear.

I rekindled my affair with my old friend Craigslist and began browsing the "roommate wanted" listings. I met my fair share of slightly shady characters--including the guy who only wanted to rent out rooms in his house to girls, and the chick who casually mentioned during the interview that her ex-husband might be moving in--but somewhere along the way, I managed to find a trio of girls who seemed nice and normal, and whose house actually felt like a home, rather than a hostel.

Three weeks ago, I bid my fortress of solitude good-bye. It was hard; I'm not going to lie. I spent more than half a decade building up this Carrie-Bradshaw-Bridget-Jones-single-gal-on-her-own-in-the-city life, and it was difficult to leave that behind. But the fact is, pretending to be Carrie Bradshaw or Bridget Jones is not worth hundreds of dollars every month (not when I can spend those hundreds of dollars pretending to be a globe-trotting jet-setter).

And besides, I'm kind of in love with my new place. It's an old Cape with hardwood floors and a screened-in porch, and my room has wood-paneled walls, a sloping ceiling, and a little alcove with a window where my desk sits, which I like to think of as my atelier (mostly because I've always wanted something I could call my atelier, and this is probably as close as I'm ever going to get). And so far, adjusting to living with three other people hasn't been that hard. That's probably due to the fact that the four of us are rarely ever home at the same time, but it's also kind of nice to be able to share a bottle of wine with someone or have an audience for my sarcastic comments about TV shows (what a surprise, huh?). At the risk of jinxing myself, I should've done this years ago.

Amazing but true travel tales
Two years ago, I vowed never to fly U.S. Airways again when they canceled my sister's flight home from my grandfather's funeral because there weren't enough people on it. (They seemed unable to comprehend that the people who were on the flight had booked it because they wanted to, or in my sister's case needed to, get home that night.) Of course, I've never been very good at sticking to my principles in the face of a major sale, so when I found a flight on U.S. Airways from D.C. to Madrid for $500 for the first week of May--almost $250 less than the Iberia flight I'd been stalking for months--I completely abandoned my "no U.S. Airways" policy and snapped it up.

If only I'd had the willpower to stick to my principles. Not only did the price of the Iberia flight drop to $450 a few days after I'd purchased the other one, but U.S. Airways proved to hold fast to its mission statement of "We'll get you there...eventually. Just probably not when you need to/want to be there." The Friday before last, I was sitting in Reagan National Airport, waiting for a flight to Philadelphia, where I'd catch a connecting flight to Madrid. The fact that an earlier flight to Philly had just started to board minutes before mine was scheduled to take off should have raised a red flag, but at that point I still retained some misguided faith in U.S. Airways. However, that faith soon disappeared when I looked up to see that my flight's departure time had suddenly been pushed back by an hour, with no announcement. I was scheduled to depart Philly for Madrid at 6:30, so the new departure time was going to leave me with a very tight connection. I walked up to the gate agent's desk to see what was going on, and found that a long line of angry travelers had already formed. As I contemplated whether it would even be worthwhile to get in the line, I heard a woman near me tell her husband, "They won't put us on the flight that's leaving now because we checked our luggage." Looking down at the carry-on bag that constituted the entirety of my luggage, I put two and two together and raced down to the departure gate to see if I could get on the other plane.

However, it seems I'd waited too long to wise up to the unannounced delay--the boarding agent informed me that the plane was ready to push back from the gate, and there was no way I could get on. No worries, though--as long as my flight left at the newly scheduled time, I still had a glimmer of hope of making the flight to Madrid. So I decided to check with another agent to see what the holdup was. He explained that there was an air-traffic hold placed on Philly, so it was unlikely that our plane would actually leave at 5:22. In fact, he said, I probably wouldn't make it to Philly until at least 8. "That's kind of a problem," I said, "since my flight to Madrid leaves at 6:30." "Yeah, you're probably not going to get to Madrid tonight," he said, and went on to inform me that since Philly is such a busy U.S. Airways hub, I really should have allowed myself a full day to make the connection. OK, no. Just no. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that U.S. Airways flights should depart and arrive when they say they will. Yes, I realize that airports are busy and flights are often delayed due to overcrowded scheduling, but this should be the exception, not the rule. I should not have to build an extra day of travel into my itinerary to account for U.S. Airways' schedule mismanagement. And furthermore, if an hour and a half connection in Philly is so impossible, why are they even selling flights with that connection time? God.

At this point, I really wanted to scream, cry, strangle this man, or perhaps do all three at once, but instead I forced myself to remain calm and ask what my options were. He informed me that my best option was to wait another day for the next flight to Madrid, which didn't seem all that great to me, as I was due to meet Bri at the Plaza Mayor in Madrid on Saturday, and didn't really have a way to get in touch with her (she was in London for work) and tell her I'd be arriving a day late. I asked if perhaps there weren't any other options, and he did a little more searching on the computer and informed me that there was a flight to Munich leaving Philly that night, and if I could get on that, I could easily get a flight from Munich to Madrid the next morning. "Great," I said, "what time does the Munich flight leave?" "6:40," he replied. Yep, that would be 10 minutes after the Madrid flight. Seriously, dude? When I pointed out that if I could make a 6:40 flight to Munich, I could probably also make a 6:30 flight to Madrid, his only response was that I really needed to get to Philly, where it would be much easier to "work my connections." Once again: No. If all of U.S. Airways' flights to Europe leave Philly before 7, what good is it going to do me to get there at 8? I wasn't about to spend the night at an airport less than 3 hours from my house if I wasn't going to be able to leave until the next day anyway.

Fortunately, the trauma I suffered at the hands of United had taught me a valuable lesson--every person at an airline is going to tell you a different thing, so if you don't like what the person you're talking to is saying, find a new person. This dude was clearly an idiot, so I left him in search of someone more competent. The line at the boarding desk was growing by the minute, so I decided it was in my best interest to work the phones. Even on the phone, though, I got the same answer: That I probably couldn't fly to Madrid until the next day on U.S. Airways, although the rep I talked to seemed optimistic about my chances of making the 6:30 flight if my plane to Philly did in fact depart at 5:22. Since it was only around 4:00 at that point, I told her I'd wait and see what happened before I tried to rebook for the next day.

While I was waiting, though, I decided to go for the long shot: Because of my relentless stalking, I knew that the Iberia flight wasn't scheduled to leave Dulles for several more hours, so I called them up to check on their last-minute fare to Madrid. I was expecting an exorbitant four-digit figure, so I was a bit shocked when the rep quoted me a price of $480. As in $20 less than I'd paid for my U.S. Airways flight. I asked her to hold the reservation for me while I called U.S. Airways to see if I'd be able to cancel my flight and use the funds for future travel (although, understandably, I was loath to ever fly with U.S. Airways again). I was shocked again when, after explaining my situation to the new U.S. Airways rep, she told me that, because of the circumstances, she would be able to fully refund my ticket. She said I'd have to race to make their Madrid flight even if my plane to Philly did leave at 5:22, so although I was still a little skeptical about her refund offer, I told her to go ahead and process the cancellation, figuring I could always fight it out after the fact if need be. I called Iberia back, booked that flight, then waltzed out of the airport and hopped on the Metro to Dulles. Twelve hours later, I was standing on the Plaza Mayor with Bri, and a few days after that, U.S. Airways refunded the $500 to my credit card. Amazing but true.

There are more amazing but true tales to come from this year's Excellent Adventure: Spain & Portugal Edition (including how Bri pilfered the world's tartest orange while riding a bike in Seville, and how a drunk old Spanish woman tried to talk us into giving her some of our food at a seaside snack bar in Cadiz), but in the meantime, you can amuse yourselves with all the amazing but true tales of last year's adventure to Peru.

Thanks a lot, 29
So far, my 29th year is not off to the best start. This morning I managed to lock my apartment key in my apartment for only the second time in my life. I'm pretty paranoid about locking myself out, so I've developed this obsessive-compulsive habit of always putting my hand on my keys when I shut the door. The problem is, this technique only works when all of the keys are actually on the keychain. I'd taken my apartment key off last night to give to Dave and forgotten to put it back on. Thankfully, I realized this before I reached my car, so I didn't have to call a locksmith; I just had to wait half an hour for my landlord to show up at the office so I could get a spare key to let myself back in.

On my way home, I had to drive up to Reston to deliver some bridesmaid's dresses to their community center for a prom-dress drive. I decided to take the toll road home, since it's the quickest way to get from there to my apartment, but I forgot to grab some quarters out of my laundry stash this morning. I had absolutely no cash or change in my wallet, so I bummed 75 cents from my boss, since I was pretty sure that was the amount of the toll. However, it turned out that, at the point where I entered the toll road, I actually had to go through two tolls--a 50-cent one on the on-ramp, and then the regular 75-cent one. Unprepared for the second toll, I reasoned that I would just exit before I got to the toll plaza, even though doing so would mean I would have to drive through Tyson's Corner, which was the very area I was trying to avoid by taking the toll road. But hey, I thought, it's better than getting a ticket! Obviously, I didn't realize that there would be ANOTHER 50-cent toll on the off-ramp. I had no choice but to toss my single remaining quarter in the basket and drive away while the sirens blared. Great. Not only did I have to drive through the Tyson's congestion, but I am probably going to get a ticket anyway. I wonder if VDOT will have mercy on me if they note that my clearly unintentional scoffing of the law happened on my birthday.

Let's hope 29 only gets better from here.

Oh, Canada!
In the past six months, I have been to Canada twice—in November, I went to Alberta for work, and two weeks ago, Dave and I went to Montreal for a short vacation (or, as Bridget Jones would say, "a romantic mini-break weekend." However, since we spent part of Valentine's Day watching the NBA slam dunk contest, I'm not sure our vacation would have been up to Bridget's romantic mini-break weekend standards). Aaaanyway, I feel that two trips to Canada in pretty rapid succession qualify me to unequivocally state that Canada is awesome. Here are some of the reasons why:

-The food. In Quebec, they have this delightful concoction called tarte au sucre. For those of you who can't recall your high-school French vocabulary (I feel you there), this translates to sugar pie. Specifically, maple sugar pie. Yes, folks, the Quebecois have invented a pie made out of nothing but cream and maple sugar. Once I discovered this delightful confection, I ate as much of it as I possibly could. This is probably why the scale at my gym is telling me I've gained three pounds since the last time I stepped on it. Well, that and the poutine, which is another Quebec invention consisting of french fries topped with gravy and cheese curds. I'm aware that doesn't sound quite as delectable as the maple sugar pie, but in its own way, it is. I just wish I hadn't felt so disgusted with myself after scarfing down a whole plate of it. Perhaps that's why it was recommended in the guidebook as drunk food.

-The music. This is no surprise, as I have long been fond of Canadian musicians. This fondness started in high school with Sarah McLachlan and the Barenaked Ladies, and has grown over the years to encompass artists like Leonard Cohen and the Great Lake Swimmers. When Dave and I were looking for something to do on our last night in Montreal, I started poring over the live-music listings in the local alternative weekly, figuring this might be a chance to further my love for Canadian musicians. I found a small write-up on Jill Barber, a Vancouver-based singer/songwriter who was playing at a tiny club not far from our hotel, so we decided to check her out. The concert was awesome—she mostly sang songs from her newest album, which has kind of an old-school, 1950s feel. I did notice one odd thing about my first Canadian live-music experience, though—the audience was almost oddly well-behaved. To the point that Dave and I were the only people in the entire room dancing. Sure, most of the songs were pretty slow and not really dance-able, but there were a few up-tempo numbers. And it's not like we were breaking into a fully choreographed tango right there in the middle of the club—we were just kind of swaying along to the music, but we seemed to be the only people in the room moving our bodies in any sort of fashion. I think it might be a Montreal thing, though, as even Jill Barber commented a few times on how reserved the audience was.

-The fact that it's technically a different country. Canada might not be that far away from the U.S., and we might speak the exact same language (except for Quebec, of course, which was an interesting experience, attempting to speak French somewhere other than France), but it is technically a different country. I know because I had to wait a freaking hour to get my passport stamped at the Edmonton airport, and endure a series of bizarre questions from the U.S. border patrol guard on our way back into Vermont from Quebec. (My favorite: "Have you ever had trouble with the law anywhere in the world?" I mean, what was he going to do if I'd been like, "Well, there was this one time in London when my friend Dave and his roommate were playing in the shopping carts at the huge Tesco Metro, and a bobby came up and asked us, "Are you off your trolley?!"?) Anyway, Canada is kind of like international travel lite—you get the thrill of being in another country without all that messy jet lag and language barrier stuff.

As far as I can tell, pretty much the only bad thing about Canada is the weather. Next time I think I'll visit when it's not the dead of winter. (As a side note, all of my trips this winter have been to destinations that are colder than my current locale. This was obviously poor planning, and needs to change next year.)