free Internet! (with $12 sandwich)

I'm posting this from the iGooogle Art Cafe in Roppongi Hills, a fancy-schmany mall in Tokyo. What's the art cafe? Well, as I posted on Facebook, I'm not entirely sure. It appeared overnight --a little cafe in the Mori Tower with glass display cases and a tiny laptop on each table. It seems like it would have taken a lot of time and money to set up -- but it's only here for two weeks.

I guess it's an art exhibit of sorts -- the name gave it away, and there's a list of famous Japanese artists outside. But when Sarah and I tried to look at the art yesterday, we were told we couldn't just walk around looking at it. The only thing we could do was order food and use the Internet. Apparently the art is just supposed to be ignored.

You know where you won't find any info on this cafe? On Google.

(Also? The default search engine is MSN Live, which cracks me up. You'd think if Google spent all the money to plaster its name and logo all over this place, not to mention creating sodas, an entree and a dessert based on its colors, they'd take the extra 30 seconds to set up Google as the search engine, no?)

So I came back today, and ordered a ham sandwich and tea so I could check e-mail on the seven-inch-wide keyboard and ignore the art, which is what all the Japanese patrons are doing. (I can report there is a giant orange Converse sneaker that appears to be made of plush in one of the display cases.)

This place is SO Japanese. Allow me to elaborate:

1) No fooling, a ham sandwich and a cup of tea cost 1,200 yen. (I'm overlooking that in favor of the exciting news that I ordered the food in Japanese, and even asked and understood what kind of cheese was on it.)

2) Like all electronics in this country, the laptops are miniature. They're about the size of a sheet of copier paper. I've made an estimated 600,000 typos while writing this due to the teensy keys.

3) The staff is super-over-helpful-genki-OK! I was hoping to maybe watch Top Chef on YouTube, but five IT guys and four waitresses are hovering around the customers, in case we somehow need help checking e-mail or are incapable of pouring our own tea, so it seems like that might be frowned upon.

4) Just, in general, WTF? Why does it even exist? Like a lot of things in Tokyo, I enjoy it and use it, but I can't say I understand it.

i'm starting to understand why mothra seems plausible

In addition to the giant crows that terrorize Tokyo, this city has the biggest earthworms I've ever seen. For serious, they're a foot long! That ain't right.

i swear the post office is toying with me

One of the perks of my job is having an APO address, which pretty much functions just like a stateside address, except for the odd Web site that can't handle military addresses (why do you hate America, Paypal?). The only downside is that the military postal system can be wildly unpredictable. Mail can take three days to arrive from the States, or it can take four months. You just never know.

That makes subscribing to weekly magazines a bit dicey, but I can pretty much count on Entertainment Weekly showing up every Tuesday to feed my pop-culture cravings.

Which issue of EW will show up is more of a crapshoot.

I almost always get a magazine, but they arrive in no apparent order. This week I got the March 21 issue, on the heels of the April 11 issue. The week before that, Feb. 15. But March 28 showed up right on time.

I'm convinced someone in the MPS is hoarding the magazines, and doling out one a week, at random. There's no other logical explanation. Not that that's a logical explanation, but knowing DOD, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

Getting the magazines late hammers home the lightning-swift pace of American pop culture. The copy I got this week is only three weeks old, but it's already as out-of-date as a 1996 copy of Time in a dentist's waiting room.

It's also a reminder that with every passing week, I slip a little bit further behind the cultural curve. This weekend I watched "There Will Be Blood" and "Enchanted" -- movies I would have seen on their opening weekends back home. I finally understand the finer points of using "I drink your milkshake!" as a catchphrase, but I also know it's long since passe. (Thanks to Ken-Jen for cluing me in to that.)

Pop culture -- especially TV -- is one of the things I truly feel deprived of here. On the flip side, not having to keep up with 20 shows has freed up a lot of spare time that I now spend doing things like "studying Japanese" (I'm finally learning some verbs! Hooray for complete sentences!) and "interacting with other humans."

i hear that all the time

Last night, I was standing in the "vinegar" section of the super-expensive Meidi-ya supermarket, wondering why they had blueberry and raspberry vinegar but not the balsamic vinegar I wanted, and whether it was in fact right in front of me and I couldn't read it, when a Japanese woman approached me and said, in careful English:

"Excuse me, do you speak Laotian?"

I do not, so a typical Japanese Apology Standoff ensued, in which I apologized profusely for not speaking an obscure Asian language and she apologized profusely for having bothered me, for asking me a question, and for asking a question to which the answer was 'no.' This part took place in Japanese, and then she moved into a conversation in Japanese, so I had to backtrack and explain that I speak only a little Japanese. So she moved her apology back into her careful English, and explained:

"All gaijin kind of look the same to me."

rehab takes way longer than i thought

One of the great things about karaoke -- aside from the opportunity to make a drunken fool of yourself -- is finally figuring out those pesky lyrics that you've never quite been able to understand. (For the record, in "Baby Got Back," the line after "So ladies if the butt is round" is "and you want a triple-X throwdown." I'd always been kind of vague on that. Also? That's my juhachi-ban now. I totally rock that song, which I proved Saturday night after Teri issued her own -- non-X-rated -- throwdown by saying "No one can sing that song, it's too fast." NEVER challenge my ability to talk fast!)

And sometimes, you have that "Kiss This Guy" moment when you realize you've been singing the wrong words for years. That happened to me playing Rock Band last week -- the Clash are singing "should I cool it or should I blow," not "should I commit or should I blow" -- although I think my version makes more sense.

Saturday I was humbled again. I'd always thought, in "Rehab," that Amy Winehouse was saying she ain't got SEVENTEEN days, which -- c'mon, Amy, you can't spare two weeks and change to get yourself together? That's about the time you go between shampoos, right? But it turns out she ain't got SEVENTY days. So, OK, I can see her point. I mean, who does?

i had the power to go home, all along

One central fact of my life in Tokyo: doing Japanese things is convenient but hard. Doing American things is easy but inconvenient, because that usually involves trekking to base.

If you were to locate Yokota AB and Nishi-azabu (my 'hood) on a Tokyo map, you'd think, "Hey, that's not far at all." You'd be both right and wrong. If I was, say, a general, or Will Smith, and I could ride to base in a helicopter, it'd be a short hop. But for mere mortals unable to waste thousands of tax dollars, there are two choices: drive, or take the train.

The choice is pretty easy for me, because I don't have a driver's license. Or a car. Or any freakin' clue how to drive on the left.

Lucky for me, though: if you're going to rely on any train system, make it Tokyo's. Like almost everything in Japan, it's ruthlessly efficient. (D.C. Metro officials, take note: even though Tokyo's system involves several interwoven systems run by different companies, and is about 9,000 times more complex than any transit system in the States, it's rare for a train to be late, and "escalator outages at the following stations" is an unknown phrase. [The Japanese equivalent, I mean.])

So, yesterday I needed to do an "American thing" -- go to the doctor. I headed for Yokota, which is a time-consuming but not terribly hard trip. (Downsides: it involves four different trains, and at the last transfer the trains don't run very often. So the trip can take an hour or it can take 90 minutes, depending on the wait at Tachikawa.)

Or it can take four hours, when fate and gaijin ignorance collide:

I left Yokota last night with plenty of trains still running, and an assurance from the kickass hyperdia.com (thanks Dubees!) that the dreaded outdoor Tachikawa layover would be only a couple of minutes. That was welcome news, because the temperatures were "mid-winter" and I was dressed for "late spring."

Somewhere between Tachikawa and Shinjuku, my trip -- no pun intended -- started to go off the rails. An accident forced my train to hold at Shinjuku for over an hour -- and as Wednesday turned into Thursday, Tokyo's subway system bade the city goodnight, tucked its head under its wing, and settled into its nightly five-hour slumber. (A gripe: you'd think a city the size of Tokyo would run trains all night, but noooo.) By the time my train limped into the Yotsuya station at 1:15 a.m., my transfer trains had long since stopped running, and I was stranded.

Oh yeah, and I had no yen on me, except a handful of change, so calling a cab was out.

My immediate plan was to find an ATM, pay a giant fee, and withdraw some money, so my heart sank when I emerged from the station and discovered the surrounding area is almost vacant. Also? Japanese ATMs don't much care for them foreign-looking bank cards.

I started working my way down my narrow list of options. The Family Mart ATM rejected my card, as did the Circle K ATM. I passed a hotel (I wasn't sure if it was an actual hotel or a love hotel, but it was bitter cold and I was getting kinda desperate, so I tried it), but at that hour you needed a room key to open the front door. Freezing, exhausted and panicky, I tried the absolute last option: a 7-Eleven down the block.

My card was once again rejected at the ATM, and I broke down in tears, which alarmed the Japanese workers. One of them spoke a little English, and he anxiously offered to help.

(Aside: people back home often ask me if I speak Japanese. The answer: I'm learning, slowly. Mostly from a course called "Japanese for Busy People," which is geared toward people in Japan on business, so most of what I've learned is along the lines of "The meeting is at 3 p.m. Monday" and "I'm going to the Kyoto branch next week." We spend a lot of time making up sentences about the activities of fictional American businessman Mr. Smith, and his associates. Last week, the exercise "State who went where, and with whom" proved too tempting for me, and now Sumisu-san's having an affair with his secretary. It makes the lessons a lot more fun.

Anyway, I can communicate a little, but JBP hasn't prepared me for understanding the subway announcements that would have told me about the hourlong delay, or for trying to explain that I do HAVE money, I just can't access it, and I'm not just some insane airhead gaijin who can't hail a taxi and doesn't know how the trains work. I had a whole plan! But there was an accident! I don't think I adequately got that point across.)

SOOOO, the 7-Eleven guy's way of helping was to CALL THE POLICE to come help me. I was horrified, because there's all kinds of potential for something to go wrong there, and baffled, because how are the police possibly going to solve the problem? Bust open the ATM with a battering ram? Lend me 2,000 yen? Drive me home in a squad car? I felt like one of those morons who calls 911 to ask what time it is -- I had a problem, yes, but not one that needed to involve law enforcement.

So the police came, and at that point, I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability. WAIT, wait, sorry, that's a very funny Ron White routine. Let me start over. So the police came, and called a translator, who ...

(WARNING: anticlimactic ending ahead)

... informed me that taxis in Tokyo take credit cards.

yep, that sounds about right

The green sentences below came from Sharon's blog; she's talking about her 2-year-old.

If you replace "crying and yelling" with "gesturing and apologizing," this PERFECTLY describes my Japanese.

Each word was work and we worked awhile for her to get them down. When something came along and it was a word she knew, she used it and everyone cheered and then we went back to communicating with crying and yelling.

even cash registers need copy editors

The commissary just installed self-checkout lanes, which have to be the greatest invention since ... whatever cool thing was invented just before them. I'm squarely in their target demographic: extremely impatient, with a degree of computer literacy and no desire to unnecessarily interact with other humans. I also have a knack for picking the worst possible line, like the time the old woman in front of me at King Soopers paid her $67 grocery bill in dimes and nickels ("$63.35, $63.40, $63.45 ... oh dear, I lost count, I need to start over ...").

So I'm excited by the commissary's leap into the 20th century. I do, however, wish the software vendor had run the produce lookup menu past an editor:

At the top left: "Aplles".

It's possible that this is the only typo in the entire produce menu (this page of the menu covers anise through avocados). But as any editor will tell you -- where there's one mistake like this, there's usually more. And worse. Because you have to wonder, if the programmers couldn't be bothered to run spellcheck before shipping this software to the Defense Department, did they bother to ... debug? Beta test?

And yes, I'm totally going to start buying random produce so I can look for more typos on other menu pages. Because I'm an editing geek, and that's what we do.

Something like the opposite

It's not every day that you take a job in another country. Or a job that was vacated by one of your best friends. Or both. But if you do, you should know -- you'll end up living a slightly surreal, Trekkian Mirror Universe of that person's life.

This is how the word "coincidence" gets misused -- it's not a coincidence that Stacy moved from Japan to the States as I was moving from the States to Japan. It's exactly by design, because I moved to Japan to replace Stacy. (Except I can never replace Stacy. She's irreplaceable. to the left, to the left ...)

But it is a little odd.

Stacy recently wrote a great post about feeling her life in Japan slipping away. It almost blew my mind to read, because I'm going through the same thing in reverse. Even though I miss my friends in the States, and my TiVo, it's astonishing how quickly I've gotten sucked into my new life in Japan. I feel strangely disconnected from things that mattered so much two months ago. I'm no longer part of our D.C. office; I'm part of the Tokyo office now, and the people in D.C., who I worked with for six years, are "them." My house, my car -- those seem like memories of things that belonged to someone else. And in a way they did.

I started to write that I'm a different person now, but that's a bit much with the hyperbole. I'm ... not sure how to explain it. I can't find the word. I'm living outside my comfort zone, and loving it. I eat different food now. I live without a car, and don't miss it at all. I spend my spare time learning kana instead of watching TV, and it's exactly what I want to be doing. (So I'm totally dismayed that Stacy says she's already forgetting kana -- am I putting all this effort into something I'm going to forget two months after going back to the States? Yes, probably.)

I mass e-mailed my family the other day about my adventures in apartment hunting, and someone wrote back "you must feel so far from home." But I don't, at all -- this IS my home now. Of course there are things about the States I miss (chicken biscuits), but there's more than enough awesome things here (lack of open-container laws) to make up for those things.

To my Mirror twin: enjoy life on the flip side, and thanks for leaving those Q-tips in our desk. Gotta love that they're individually wrapped! God bless Japanese overpackaging.

Things I can say in Japanese now:
Whose cell phone is this?

Things I can't say, but need to:
Do you have any boots ...
... in black?
... in my size?
... for less than $600?

the list: didn't hear it, didn't miss it

Proudly announcing the debut of a new feature on CH: "the list," a top 5, or 10, or however many, of whatever I feel like listing. Will appear sporadically, kind of like my posts.

Since I don't have access to American radio, and Japanese stores prefer tasteful orchestral renditions of classic carols, I made it through the whole Christmas season without hearing:

1) Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer -- I thought this was hiliarious when I was 10. Not so much in subsequent years.
2) Do They Know It's Christmas -- No, and they probably don't care, since Christianity isn't their primary religion. "Tonight thank God it's them instead of you." Awesome.
3) Marshmallow World -- I just don't like marshmallows. Or thinking about marshmallows.
4) The Barking Dogs' rendition of Jingle Bells -- enough said.
5) Any version of The Twelve Days of Christmas, including the original, the Jeff Foxworthy version, the annual AP story about how much those gifts would cost and the one that goes "A beer, in a tree."

I did kind of miss the Chipmunks song, though.

An open letter to the authors of 'Easy Hiragana'

Dear authors of “Easy Hiragana”:

First, let me congratulate you for coming up with an appealing title for your book; I doubt “Ridiculously Difficult Hiragana” would have sold as well. I look forward to upcoming titles in your series, including “Easy Gourmet Cooking” and “Easy Space Shuttle Launches.”

I applaud your strategy for teaching the Japanese phonetic alphabet to English-speakers. The exercises, which involve writing everyday words, are designed to teach the kana characters while building vocabulary – an excellent two-pronged approach.

I do, however, have a minor quibble with your choice of “everyday words.” On an average day in Japan, I’m far more likely to need to say “Tuesday” or “eggs” – neither of which is taught in your book – than “chrysanthemum” or “prime minister.” In the final lesson, we were taught to write “atomic energy” and “electric car,” objects that WHY IN THE HELL WOULD I EVER NEED TO DISCUSS IN JAPANESE and that would be better classified as “futuristic” rather than “everyday.” Perhaps at some point in my expat life I will want to say “George Clooney drives an electric car,” but I can’t really think why. Also I don’t know the word for drive.

I eagerly moved on to the section on sample conversations, hoping to learn sentences that I can use every day in Tokyo, such as “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Japanese,” “It costs how much?” and “I don’t like food that has eyes.”

You got off to a good start. The very first conversation opened with “Where are you going?” – always useful – but you quickly went off the rails. Of all the potential logical answers – “I’m going to work,” “to Shibuya,” “to buy a Gucci sweater for my dog” – you chose “I’m going to the police station.”

Out of concern for your well-being, I have to ask: what kind of crime-plagued municipality do you live in that an everyday answer to the question “where are you going?” is “to the police station”? Is your bicycle stolen on a daily basis? Do you reside in pre-Batman Gotham City? Does that maybe explain the whole electric car thing? Are you actually George Clooney, writing under a Japanese pseudonym?

I can think of only two scenarios where “I’m going to the police station” would be useful:

1) You are a police officer, so this sentence is the equivalent of “I’m going to the office.”
2) The person asking “Where are you going?” has just mugged you.

Neither scenario requires the ability to say “atomic energy.”

Just something to keep in mind as you write the next edition of “Easy Hiragana.”

Arigato gozaimasu!

Things I learned walking around Tokyo today

1) The Japanese are ingenious

People's exhibit a: I stumbled across a way-too-hip furniture store in Omote-sando (think Ikea, but less practical and more expensive). It's not a great place to put a furniture store, because the retail spaces are tiny. There's simply no space to display dozens of chairs and sofas. How to solve? A window full of tiny models. Yup, each piece was carefully re-created in miniature, about six inches high. Awesome! (unless you'd like to actually, I don't know, SIT on the furniture before buying it. Then you have a wee problem.)

Check out the marshmallow sofa.

Exhibit b: There's many things I love about buying clothes, and a few things I hate. One thing in the second category is finding other people's makeup on the shirt I want to buy. And nothing attracts big slicks of foundation like dry-clean only clothes, so once you've shelled out for the shirt, you have to pony up for cleaning before you can even wear it. Can the Japanese defeat this pesky plague? Of course they can! At the Gap, they give you a little "face-cover" (which, to be honest, looks a bit like a Klan hood) made of Kleenex-y material that you put over your head when you try on clothes. You keep your makeup; they keep their clothes from being ruined. Everyone wins, unless you somehow suffocate.

2) The Japanese are tiny
Size I wear at Gap, in the States: XS. Size I wear in Japan: at least a M. I'm not quite sure -- I gave up in horror when I couldn't even button a size S dress around my waist.

3) Demolition is fascinating in any culture
I couldn't help stopping to watch workmen dismantle a building piece-by-piece in the bustling heart of a shopping district. I thought I was being a tacky gaijin gawker -- until I saw a dozen Japanese people filming it with their cell phone cameras.

4) I can read a word!
A lot of signs in Tokyo are in English -- and a lot aren't. I've resigned myself to not ever really knowing what's going on. But today, for the first time, I looked at a sign written in kana and my brain didn't say "random jumble of kana and kanji that makes no sense to me.." It said, "No. Gi. Za. Ka. Oh my god. I know those characters! Nogizaka!"

(Full disclosure: At the time of this epiphany I was standing in the Nogizaka train station, so you don't have to be Elliot Stabler to deduce that the sign above the train station might say the name of the station. But still. I read it!)

Excuses, excuses

I got on the plane completely determined to become a regular blogger once I landed in Tokyo -- after all, now I have something interesting to talk about!

Total posts since I got here: zero.

Here's what's up: right now I'm living in government housing, and have no Internet access. I can post at work, or I can drag my laptop up to Roppongi Hills and try to find a hotspot. But I obviously can't upload photos at work, and I've written some posts on my laptop but have no way to put them online.

I meet Saturday with my realtor to start looking at apartments, so fingers crossed, this no-interwebs situation will be resolved soon. Otherwise I will go crazy.

10,000 miles in 27 days

Ladies and gentlemen, we will be taxiing for a few minutes, so please remain in your seat with your seat belt securely fastened* until the aircraft has arrived at the gate.

For those of you who call Denver/Rapid City/Washington D.C. home -- on behalf of the flight crew, welcome home. For you rootless transients who move every few years and don't really call anyplace home anymore -- um, you qualify for a free upgrade to United Economy Plus.

Portable electronic devices may now be turned on.

*The line about keeping seat belts fastened is probably the third-most-ignored instruction in the history of aviation. The top two:
#2: "Please take a moment to review the card in the seat pocket in front of you, which describes the safety features of this aircraft."
#1: "Maybe a hydrogen-filled blimp isn't such a good idea."

Packing for Tokyo 101: Pop quiz, hotshot

No. 2 pencils only. You will have three hours to complete this section.

Step 1: Gather every item of clothing you own.

Step 2: Assign each item to one of the following categories:

1) Goodwill: I don't want this anymore. Why do I even own this?

2) Take on the plane: I'll need this within 30 days of arriving.

3) First shipment: I don't need this right away, but I'll need it within three months, I think.

4) Second shipment: I'll need this at some point in the next three years.

5) Storage: I want to keep this, but I don't need it in Japan.

Categories 1 and 2 are fairly easy. (You'll have access to laundry, if that helps -- you can pack for a week and then wash everything four times.)

Category 3 is pretty much everything else you wear day-to-day, so again, not too hard.

4 and 5 are the toughies. Putting the Patrick Roy jersey in category 5 was a no-brainer, but asking yourself what clothes you need for three years is asking what your foreseeable future will be, and who knows? Will I need an evening gown? A suit? The white go-go boots that make such a great Halloween costume when paired with this mod dress? If I take the boots, do I need to take the white lipstick too?

And then there are the more existential questions: What kind of person do I want to be for the next three years? Do I want to keep dressing like a quasi-professional, or should I just live in jeans and CafePress T-shirts? Do I need 8 pairs of black slacks? (In D.C., the answer is no -- you should have at least 10 pairs.) Do these pants look exactly like ones that Stacy has, and is it creepy to take over Stacy's job AND dress just like her? (Moot point, it turns out, because the pants don't fit, but it's still a good question.)

Finished? Good. Now repeat this process for EVERYTHING YOU OWN.

Sayonara D.C., konichiwa Tokyo!

FAQ questions about my impending move to Tokyo ...



I heard you're moving to Japan, is that true?
Um, yes, see above.


WHY??
Because it's freakin' TOKYO, that's why. Not good enough? OK, here goes: I love Tokyo. I've always wanted to be an expat. And the perks are great. In short -- this is a dream come true.


When?
Not sure of the exact dates yet, but most likely Nov. 9 is my get-on-the-plane date.


Why so fast?
I'm filling a vacant job in Tokyo; like any job, they'd like the new person to start as soon as possible. When you look at it that way, five weeks isn't unreasonable. But it IS a short amount of time to get everything together.


So you're still working for Stars & Stripes?
Yes


But didn't you have some fancy-schmancy job in D.C.?
Yep, I was the assistant managing editor. Still am, for a few more weeks. And it made me really unhappy. I enjoy editing; I don't enjoy writing evals and making schedules and sitting in meetings. I'm not suited to management -- I dread confrontation, I have no interest in being a mentor or a coach. I just want people to do the damn work, and do it well, and not have to play mind games to coax them to do that. At first I was excited about the AME job: "my name is on the masthead!" But I've come to realize that being on the masthead means exactly one thing: I get a lot of spam.


Did you get, like, demoted or something?
On an org chart, yes -- I took a job two pay levels below mine But they key difference is -- I asked for the new job, interviewed for it, sweated it out just like any other candidate. I wasn't pushed out. I pulled the rip cord and bailed out.


Are you selling your house?
Yes. Unless Brian says no. Let's say, 90 percent yes.

Why do you all care so much about my house? You want to buy it?


Are you taking your car?
Nope -- it would be useless in Japan, because they drive on the left. I'll sell it to Carfax before I go.


You must have a lot to pack, huh?
I have NOTHING to pack.

The good news is, the Army is handling that for me. They just show up, pack up everything, and take it away to be shipped.

The bad news is, the Army is handling that for me -- so there are sure to be a few snafus.


How long will you be there?
My contract is for three years. The general opinion is that's horibly unfair, but here's how it works: the military spends a lot of money to ship me overseas;in return, I have to agree to work off the debt. This is exactly how military academies work -- we give you four years of college free, you give us four years in uniform. It's also exactly how human traffickings rings work, except I was led to believe our way involves less prostiution.



So, within the first year, if I leave I have to reimburse the cost of my move, plus move myself back to the States. Between one and three years, the move costs are forgiven, but I have to pay for the return move. After three years, I can come home on their dime, or extend my stay.


Are you living on a base?
Thank GOD no -- what's the point of moving to Tokyo and then living exactly like you do at Minot AFB? I'll be in base housing for a while, but I should be able to move onto the economy soon.


I'll have access to the base commissaries and exchanges, and I can attend festivals there, shop, hang out with people who speak English.


Aren't you scared to live in Tokyo?
A little bit. I worry about not being able to communicate, and about getting lost. But I have lots of people there to help me, so no, not freaked. Mildly freaked.


Can I come visit you?
Of course! I'd love that. But give me a while -- I'll be living in an MWR hotel until I find an apartment, so that's not condiucive to guests. And I need to figure out the city myself first before I start playing tour guide. But then -- by all means, come see me!



I'll update this list as more come up.

I suppose I should finish this story

It's been almost two months since Syracuse and I faced down the copper room, but the following takes place between 12 p.m. and 6 a.m., two days later.

It's just after midnight; I'm in the freezing lobby of Friendship Animal Hospital. I'm flipping through People, which seems the wrong thing to be doing, when my cat is wheezing and gasping for air, but I can't just sit here doing nothing for one more minute.

For the past two days I've been waiting for the other shoe to fall; when I wake up, when I come home from work, I go looking for her, and I'm not entirely expecting her to be alive. She's not, really; she's huddled in a corner of the basement, refusing food, refusing water, urinating on herself. She slept in the bathtub Monday night; sometime Tuesday she came down to the basement. I don't know if she went all in one trip or if she went a few feet at a time, which is all she seems capable of. It breaks my heart to think of her dragging herself down two stories over the course of 10 hours.

I try everything -- baby food, KFC, Wheat Thins, Hawaiian bread -- all her favorites. She turns away with reproachful disdain. The cardiologist has told me to hide her medicines in treats, but she rejects them, so three times a day I pry open her jaw and force the pills down. She fights it a little, but she's mostly resigned -- this is just one more indignity she's suffering. I call the vet again, and again, and get the same answer: give her 72 hours, until the Lasix kicks in, and she'll be fine.

Wednesday night starts out much the same, but she suddenly becomes restless, moving every couple of minutes, and her breathing becomes labored. I call the Annapolis emergency vet and get a series of unhelpful answers: they can't say if that's bad unless they see the cat. They can't say whether I should bring her in. They don't know of a closer ER. I give up. I find an ER in Northwest. I pick Cuse up to crate her and nearly fling her into the air; she's lost at least three pounds.

At the ER I move away from the front desk to avoid a German shepherd and the next client accidentally cuts in front of me. Her cat has a sore food. In my mind I go ballistic -- she's wasting time on a SORE FOOT when Syracuse is DYING -- but I say nothing, it's not her fault. The receptionist takes one look at the increasingly pathetic Syracuse and bumps her to the top of the triage list. I am vindicated in this pointless war of mine, but there's no thrill in victory. I don't want to be at the top of the list. I want my cat to be OK. In a corner a man and a woman pace and fret; their dog has been in the OR a long time now. The other patients avoid their eyes, then give them sympathetic glances when they look away. I talk to the owner of the cat with the sore foot. I read the magazine. I feel bad for the couple with the dog.

The vet finally comes out and he looks like Keith from "Scrubs," or maybe I only think that because he's wearing navy scrubs. He's kind and calm, and wants to keep Syracuse overnight. He's given her IV Lasix and an oxygen tent, and he thinks she'll be fine. OK. I ask what fine means, if she'll go back to being a normal cat.

I am expecting him to say yes. I'm expecting that in the morning I'll take her home, the IV will have done the trick, and I'll give her heart meds for the next eight years or so. Since the crisis begins, this is what I've thought will happen. I'm calm and unemotional; this is a hurdle, and an expensive one, but it's worth it to have my cat back. I hand over my credit card without flinching (outwardly).

He says yes, she'll probably go back to being a normal cat, and he says best-case scenario, she'll live another three to six months.

A sledgehammer hits me between the eyes and the tears come hard and fast. My brain cannot absorb the idea; my tongue cannot form the word. MONTHS. Months? "Six months," Tom Cruise says in my brain, "It's nothing. It's a hockey season."

My cat will be dead in less time than it takes to award the Stanley Cup.

Keith takes me back to see her; I'm shocked to see she's in a cage. It makes sense -- where else would they put the animals? I guess I was expecting something like the preemie incubator my sister slept in for the first six weeks of her life. I slip my hand under the oyxgen tent and scratch her head; she doesn't react. I tell her I love her, and I'll be back for her in the morning.

I walk back through the icy lobby; nobody there will meet my eyes. The couple with the dog in surgery give me a sympathetic look and then turn away. I'm the one everybody pities now.

As I shoot across Rock Creek Park I think about the vet's last question to me: If she arrests, should they rescuciate her? I told him yes. But as I wind across Military Road I rethink it; how many times will we relive this night? Even if her lungs clear, her heart will fail before the end of the year. I can't put her through this again, and I can't keep her alive in pain just to prolong the inevitable and put off my grief. I think about calling, withdrawing my consent to rescucitate, but I hesitate; I don't want to make this decision at 3 a.m.

Three hours later, there is no decision to make. The woman on the phone is polite but detached; she's made this call too many times. Syracuse isn't breathing, her heart isn't beating. The vet asks if they should intubate; I picture the intubations I've seen on ER and say no. She says Syracuse didn't suffer; I wonder wildly if they would say that even if she did. The woman is eager to get past the emotional part and on to the logistics: do I want to see the body (no), do I want her cremated (yes), do I want the cremains (no). She says, in what I'm sure she thinks is a reassuring way, that I don't need to come in, they'll send me a bill. I'll be thrilled to receive an invoice for shoveling my pet into a furnace, I'm sure.

Farewell, little Syracuse. You brought me a lot of joy and I hope I gave you a good life.

The copper room

2 p.m. Monday: I am bored. And frantic. And bored. To distract myself, I look across into the other room. The walls are painted peach, with a darker accent wall. I imagine the paint color is called dried apricot, or maybe copper pot. The large copper lamp, obviously expensive, casts a warm glow. The sofa is black, leather, maybe even Italian leather. It's a nice room, far nicer than any other room in this building.

I will give anything not to go into that room.

I am standing in the room across the hall, a utilitarian room with white walls, a paper towel dispenser and two phone jacks. I am leaning on the surgical steel table. My right arm is resting atop 11 pounds of cat, my fingers urgently scratching her head.

She is purring. She is panting. She is suffocating.

The copper room is too nice. Too soothing. This is the room where you wait and hope, and hope in vain. This is where the word "humane" becomes a horrible, hostile word. This is where you play God. This is where you choke on a sob as you nod. This is where you decide if you want to say your goodbyes and then leave before the end comes, or if you want to see this life all the way through.

I don't know the answer. I stayed with Zach until the end. I changed my mind just as the poison slid into his vein. I realized it was too late. I realized that believing in death with dignity is one thing; carrying out that belief is quite another. A second later his long and complicated life was over and I gasped and sobbed "I'm so sorry" as the finality of my decision sank in. He purred til the end. That was the worst part -- that cat loved and trusted me even though I'd only had him for a month.

I've had Syracuse for seven years. Since she was eight weeks old. And I cannot kill her today.

Two days ago she was fine. Now she is lying motionless in the base of her carrier, purring not in happiness but in distress. She is soaked with urine. I cleaned her up as best I could with paper towels, but they didn't help much. Other than her hindquarters, she is an ideal patient today. And it's breaking my heart, because she can't even summon the energy to hiss.

One week ago I finally crossed "Syracuse vet" off my to-do list. Distemper shot? Check. Claws clipped? Check (long overdue) Anything else? Well, she's been pulling out clumps of fur lately. The vet was reassuring; it's probably allergies. The weather -- downpours followed by long dry spells -- has bred pollen galore. The vet said he's seeing worse allergies than usual this spring and based on my Zyrtec use this year, I agreed. He said he could give her oral prednisone or pills. I thought back on the time I discovered her pill stash -- a week's worth of antibiotics that she hid under her tongue, pretended to swallow and then spit out behind the dryer -- and I chose shot.

It was such an innocuous conversation. Neither of us had any idea that in the next few seconds we would trigger a ticking time bomb.

The prenisone stopped the fur-pulling.

It also triggered heart failure.

5 p.m.: I have been sent to the Annapolis Mall (excuse me, the Westfield Shoppingtowne at Annapolis, which just rolls off the tongue) to "get a cup of coffee" while the cardiologist does an ultrasound. I have been here for two hours. This is what I have learned today: men's polos are 1/2 off at The Gap. Red Robin's burgers are mediocre. There are people in this world whose profession is "cat cardiologist." None of these people work in D.C.

I am sitting in the food court, flipping through Glamour and pointedly wiping the ice cream off my arm. I am directing angry thoughts at the parents of the child pounding his spoon onto his ice cream four feet from me. They are ignoring me, or perhaps they are not telepathic. I have turned the volume on my ringer all the way up and all four of us jump when it rings.

The medical term is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy -- the left ventricle of her heart is twice the size it should be. The defect has been lurking there for years, waiting for the perfect stressor to kill my cat.

The prednisone was just the excuse it needed. Her heart stopped pumping fluid properly, so the fluid filled her lungs and chest cavity. She is struggling to breathe.

The doctor is wonderful (side note: every vet I've worked with has been a far more thorough, caring and compassionate doctor than any doctor I, as a human, have had. I can't help but wonder if this is because pets don't have HMOs). He assures me that no one could have known about the defect without a chest X-ray, that I am not to blame for pushing for the prednisone. (And, he emphasizes, neither is my vet.) He compares it to high school football players who drop dead doing wind sprints because nobody tests a 17-year-old for heart disease. He says that in a roundabout way the prednisone fiasco is a good thing, because we caught it early. Otherwise she might have just dropped dead a few months from now. He says she's responding well to treatment and she doesn't need to be admitted.

He wants to recheck her in four months. That means he thinks she'll be around in four months.

Monday, 9 p.m.: She's not out of the woods yet. She's still not eating, and she's lethargic. The doctor says the first 72 hours will be the worst. She's on four medications; she'll be on some of them for the rest of her life. One drug is taking care of the fluid in the lungs, but the heart defect cannot be repaired. I am now the owner of a chronically ill animal.

But we dodged the copper room. And I will take a defective cat over a euthanized one any day.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

(That's Chinese for Happy New Year.)

I'm on the road again, this time in Singapore, to visit my friend Priscilla and her boyfriend, Keith, and to see more of Chinese New Year than the paper lanterns in D.C.'s meager Chinatown.

Yesterday was a fantastic day. We rode the MRT, Singapore's super-efficient subway, to Chinatown, where we met up with my friend Wes. By bizarre coincidence, Wes and his family, who live in Denver, are in Singapore right now too.

This is no two-block stretch hosting Benetton and Fuddrucker's. No, Singapore does Chinatown right, and yesterday -- NY Eve -- was its heyday. The streets were lined with vendors selling traditional CNY foods, decorations, silk cushion covers and bags, candy in bizarre flavors (cuttlefish, anyone?) and pigs made of every conceivable material, especially jade. (It's the Year of the Golden Pig, which only happens every few decades. The golden year means extra prosperity.) Thousands of Singaporeans thronged the area to do last-minute shopping, and the mood was festive and excited. We sampled Singapore's national dish -- steamed chicken and rice -- at a corner cafe and spent a few h0urs checking out the stalls and buying decorations meant to bring luck. And at lunch, I pondered the surreal concept of having lunch with one friend from Denver and one from D.C. -- and doing it on the other side of the world.

Then we headed for Clarke Quay, a former boat area along the river that's recently been revitalized into hipster central. It's gorgeous. Candy-colored restaurants and bars line the river, and the lucky riverside eateries have booths lining the riverbank and covered with huge domes to shield diners from the sudden showers that spring up. River taxis cruise up and down. A little further back, the inland restaurants -- protected from the rain by sky-high mushroom-like pods that light up at night -- provide chic and comfy outdoor seating and compete to out-hip each other. The hands-down winner in that category is Clinic, a restaurant with a hospital theme: the wall behind the host stand has lockers like a morgue, the outdoor chairs are made from hospital beds and diners eat in golden wheelchairs. We skipped that. Instead, we drank the evening away at Wine Garage, talking and people-watching, then had dinner at the Pump Room.

Just before midnight, we made our way back to Keith and Priscilla's eighth-story (or storey, as they spell it here) apartment, and watched the fireworks out the window.

On tap for today: the zoo, where I'm looking forward to seeing a lion dance.

Happy Lunar New Year!

Join the club

Today I'm welcoming two new blogs to my link list: Red Panda Zone, written by my friend Sadie, and Beat Incomplete, in which Tim attempts to blog about the song "Like A Virgin" EVERY SINGLE DAY. So far, so good. Check 'em out!