rachel's blog

Just before Princess Buttercup gets attacked by an eel in the movie “The Princess Bride,” the movie cuts to the grandfather reading the story to his sick grandson.

GRANDFATHER: She doesn’t get eaten by the eels.

KID: What?!

GRANDFATHER: The eel doesn’t get her. I’m explaining to you because you looked nervous.

KID: I wasn’t nervous.

[Grandfather pauses.]

KID: Well, maybe I was a little bit concerned. But that’s not the same thing.

::

Like the kid in “The Princess Bride,” I’m hesitant to say I’m nervous, but I can’t deny that I’m a bit concerned. Prior to the selection of Sarah Palin as the Republican candidate for Vice President, I wasn’t certain whether I would vote in the November election. I’m certain now.

Nothing I have heard so far leads me to believe that she would be a suitable vice president. Everything I know about her has already been plastered all over the news and the internet, so it doesn’t seem necessary to launch into a litany of all the things that concern me. Let’s just say that I have personal friends who I think would be more competent in the Office of Vice President than Sarah Palin would be.

What baffles me most is that so many people are so enthusiastically supportive of her! To me, she seems so obviously unqualified that I have a hard time understanding why so many people think she’s a great choice. What do they like about her? That she’s a woman? That she’s a mom? That’s she’s attractive? That she has a child with special needs? That she can see Russia from Alaska?? (Did they watch her interview with Charlie Gibson? I found it almost painful to watch.)

I recently discovered a blog called Women Against Sarah Palin. American women of all ages and from all walks of life have written concise statements about why they do not support Sarah Palin as a vice presidential candidate. I’m not a feminist, and do not necessarily agree with all of the opinions expressed there, but I resonated with much of what I read. The words of these insightful, articulate women often gave me chills. Good chills. Chills of hope.

STARTLED. If I’m out for a walk and you recognize me as you drive by, don’t beep your horn when you’re right next to me. It startles the living daylights out of me.

SINGLE. I’m long overdue for a date with a man who enjoys my company as much as I enjoy his. If you want to be him, now would be an OK time to make the first move.

STOMACH. There’s nothing like going for a walk before dinner… and being followed by an ice cream truck.

SUGGESTION. Ladies, when you jog, please wear a good, supportive bra. And a shirt.

STRANGE. Eating plain white rice gives me the hiccups.

SALUTATION. I prefer Ms. to Miss, especially in business/professional settings. “Miss” sounds diminutive.

SUMMER. Goodbye, friend. Hello, beautiful fall.

I live not far from a four-lane U.S. highway that runs east/west through the center of town. Typically, the only reason a vehicle would stop on the road is if the driver is waiting for a traffic light to turn green.

This afternoon I left my lazy little street and headed out to run a few errands. As I approached this main street, I was surprised to see that a few cars were stopped on the road — but not at a red light. There were no emergency vehicles in sight, and as I quickly scanned the scene, it didn’t appear that any vehicles had collided or combusted. After a moment, several vehicles drove off. One of them, a light blue VW Beetle, turned the corner and pulled up beside me, but another car remained parked in the middle of the four-lane road.

I rolled down my window. “What’s going on?” I asked the driver of the VW.

“A dog got out!” the woman said, holding a cell phone to her ear. She sounded alarmed.

“A dog got out?!” Was she serious? This was all about a dog??

“It’s a pit bull. I don’t want him to get hit!”

I was too stunned to say anything nice, so I just raised my eyebrows at her and drove off. There’s a dangerous dog running around, and all the owner can think about is the DOG’S safety?

You thought I was exaggerating, didn’t you?

When I told you that people tell me all the time that I look like someone else they know, you probably thought I was stretching the truth just a little bit for the sake of a good story. I wasn’t. In fact, I was erring on the side of caution when I said that people mistakenly recognize me every few months. In the four weeks since I last wrote about it, it has happened twice.

Two weeks ago I ran into a local pastor who I had met at a meeting several months earlier. When I said hello and shook his hand, a lightbulb mysteriously went on in his head.

“Did you have lunch at Chili’s today?” he asked me. I hadn’t. He had seen a young woman there who looked familiar, and when he saw me that evening, he thought he had figured it out. Sorry, better luck next time.

This evening it happened again — same basic plot, same central character. Around 6:30, I went to the grocery store to pick up a few items. The place was dead. As I was leaving the register with my reusable shopping bag and a gallon of milk, a woman I had never seen before picked up a shopping basket and entered the store. Her face lit up when she saw me. “Hey, how are you?!” she asked warmly.

Her expression began to change, but before I could stop myself, the words were out of my mouth: “Do I know you?” Please. Why did I ask that? I know who I know, and she’s not on the list.

The woman apologized and explained that as soon as she opened her mouth, she realized I wasn’t who she thought I was. “You must have a twin around here!”

Either that, or people are just really bad at recognizing their own friends.

Facebook — a popular online social networking site — has a feature by which a user can notify their friends of their current activities or thoughts by typing a short “status update.” A status update always begins with the user’s own name, so a status is typically written in the third person.

Facebook’s old design is being phased out, and everyone is gradually being switched over to the new design. I’m still on the old layout, so at the right side of my screen, I see my own status update, followed by the three most recent status updates made by my Facebook friends.

I’m sometimes amused by the sequence of these friends’ status updates and the stories they inadvertently tell.

A while back, one of my friends wrote this status update:

“R— is distraught. You CAN talk to me, you know that?”

… and right below that I saw:

“J—- is not talking about it.”

Ha! See what I mean?

This morning a friend of mine wrote a message on my Facebook Wall about three status updates she saw in sequence. She wrote:

I know you enjoy the little funnies that occur with ‘friends status’ here on facebook and I just got a little chuckle. =) One friend says he is getting ready to go play golf. The next friend is really teed off! And the next one is getting back into the swing of things.

I love it! Thanks, Dawn!

My plan for this morning was to exercise, go to the Farmers’ Market, and install my new front door. Before heading out, I put on my sneakers, poured myself a glass of water, and sat down at the computer to check my email. It was then that I learned of a sudden death. I was in disbelief. We had spent a lot of time together and we were close. Very close. The installation of my front door would have to wait while I dealt with this unexpected news. As much as I wished it weren’t true, I couldn’t argue with the facts. My computer monitor was dead.

My apologies if you came here looking for information on the former gymnastics scoring system or for photoshopped pictures of the female form. But do stick around. My blog is worth reading.

I love to exercise in the mornings, but recently I’ve loved sleep even more, and have been unable to get out of bed in time to exercise. (Do you think this has something to do with my tendency to be a night owl?)

On my morning walks, it’s increasingly common to see deer, and last week I reported seeing as many as eight deer at once. On the four occasions that I’ve seen deer in that neighborhood, they have never been in the same place twice, and I’ve never seen them in the evening.

This evening, however, I saw deer grazing in a yard where I saw them last week… and I counted a perfect ten.

Ten?!?!

Last evening I went out to dinner with a friend. It so happens that this friend is a single male. Before you get all excited, I should mention that it wasn’t a date… but it also wasn’t NOT a date. In other words, he certainly never said, “Can I take you out to dinner?” But we’ve also never had a conversation that contained the words “We’re just friends, right?” This particular friend lives rather far away, so when we found ourselves in the same time zone last evening, out to dinner we went.

Welcome to the complicated landscape of the life of a single woman.

Navigating the terrain can be tricky, especially when dinner and money are involved. At the end of the meal, when you’re sipping your water and talking over empty plates, it’s really helpful to know whether you’re on a date. At any moment, the chipper waitress is going to stop by and ask if she can get you anything else, and if all you say is “No, thanks,” the next thing she’ll bring is one check.

If you’re not 100% sure if you’re on a date, that last waitress visit before the check comes can be the worst moment of the entire evening. If I speak up and ask for separate checks, the man I’m dining with is either going to feel rejected or relieved… but I will probably never know which. And if I don’t speak up, and allow the waitress to assume that we want the entire meal on one check, the conversation after the check is delivered is probably going to be awkward.

Last night’s dinner and conversation were quite enjoyable, and we both seemed to survive my request for separate checks. Fortunately, I narrowly avoided a blunder that would have been just as embarrassing as making an incorrect assumption about his intentions. Let me back up.

Before my friend arrived at my house, I stuck my credit card and a few dollars in the back pocket of my jeans. When you’re pretty sure you’re not going on a date (or even if you are), it’s a good idea to be prepared to pay for your own dinner and ice cream.

We decided on a downtown restaurant, which means we were going to be walking. I ran upstairs to grab my Tevas (a.k.a. the world’s most comfortable footwear), and then decided to also change into capris while I was up there. I folded the jeans I had been wearing, but instead of taking a few extra seconds to put them in my dresser, I laid them on a chair.

It’s a good thing, too. As this smart, savvy, single woman tossed her jeans aside, she saw her credit card fall out of the back pocket.

Two and a half weeks ago I was surprised to see a deer as I was out for an early morning walk. The next morning I saw two. Last week I saw six deer shamelessly nibbling on a lovely flowerbed. Yesterday morning I saw eight. No, not one deer eight times — eight deer standing in someone’s yard, looking at me suspiciously as I walked by.

Oh, deer. A few weeks ago I was excited to see just one, and now I’m only surprised by the number, not by their presence.

Eight deer in a neatly manicured yard? I don’t know anyone who lives in that neighborhood, so I haven’t heard anyone complain about it, but it would be easy for me to say that that neighborhood has a deer problem. Or do they? Can we really blame the animals? Is it the deer’s fault that someone built houses on the land they occupied? The deer were probably there first. How all-American to kick creatures out of their natural habitat!

I’m certainly not a treehugger, and I’m not pretending to be an expert on the topic of land use and development, but maybe instead of thinking about it as a “deer problem,” we should start seeing it as a “building problem.” Then again, with a national forest to the west and a national park to the east, what kind of deer would want to hang out in a residential area? Oh, deer.