blind insight

Friday Fun! Take the Blind Chick Arena Navigation Challenge!

Boy, did I have a blast last night. Five hours spent six rows from the floor, right behind the Princeton band, watching hoops that ranged from brilliant to embarrassing but were always full of grit and heart, cheering my brains out for the underdogs. Who lost. Both games. But not without a fight. I love this tournament!

During the two halftimes and the break between Texas/Princeton and UNC/Air Force, my work buddy and I made a lap around the Pepsi Center concourse to stretch our legs. This proved rather daunting for Ms. Blind Chick. If you'd like to experience this endeavor through my eyes, try the following exercise:

1) Put on blinders that completely eliminate all peripheral vision beyond a 12 degree radius. Cardboard and duck-tape should serve this purpose effectively.

2) Drape a piece of very thin cheesecloth over your eyes to create a slightly out-of-focus, smoky haze. Saran wrap will do in a pinch, but I am not responsible for any accidental suffocation this may cause.

3) Stuff just enough cotton in your ears that you can still hear the roar of background noise, but can't actually understand any of it.

4) Proceed to the nearest extremely crowded public place populated primarily by extremely large and extremely wasted frat boys. You might try Times Square on New Year's Eve, Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras, The Pearl Street Mall on Halloween in 1985, any pub in Boston on St. Patrick's Day, or your local shopping mall on the day after Thanksgiving (that last one will have more Play-Station-crazed moms than drunken college boys, but this is an acceptable substitute).

5) Attempt to walk in a straight line through your location while following a very fast-walking (but fortunately, also very tall) man.

6) For added thrills, repeat steps 1 through 5 while carrying a full beer and a plate of nachos.

Fun times indeed. But I survived (all three times) and managed not to spill beer all over myself.

Now I'm attempting to bang out the third brief of the week and wishing I was already en route to Crested Butte. Happily, briefs one and two this week turned out quite well, and I think I've finally figured out what to do with Justice Scalia's brilliant opinion in Crawford v. Washington. Or at least, I've finally managed to write the phrase "Justice Scalia's brilliant opinion in . . . " without having to triple-check the byline on the decision for the bazillionth time. It is, indeed, a strange, strange world in which we live.

Mad's Marchness.

At last, at last, it's March Mayhem time again! Which brings me to a very important question: What in the name of Dick Vitale are you doing reading my blog right now, when you should be over here watching the snazzy little scoreboard update itself every 2.3 seconds or so. I shouldn't even be here myself right now, because for the past 11 months I have been the proud owner of an almost-courtside seat to the first two rounds of the tournament, now underway over at the Pepsi Center. But I've got all this pesky work to do (and I spontaneously decided to go play in Crested Butte this weekend) so I sold off my tickets for most of the games to the highest bidder (actually, I just sold them to the billing manager and one of the secretaries for face value, but "highest bidder" sounded cooler). I will bear witness this evening, however, when Princeton hopefully beats the hide off the Longhorns and Air Force dive bombs UNC (or, beats the tar out of the Heels, whichever sportswriterism you prefer). I'm so excited!

So far, my brackets are holding up, despite heart-thumping scares from Wake Forest, Maryland, and Syracuse. And my Cardinal is making short work of UT-San Antonio (school motto: All you have to do to graduate is remember the Alamo!) even as I write. I'll be holding a grudge against Florida for years to come, however. I'm kicking myself for not following my gut-level antipathy towards all things SEC and picking the damn Gators to exit early.

As is my habit, I have two brackets in this year's office pool. The first reflects my earnest dream of a Tournament in which all that is good and right reaps its just reward (in other words, Stanford wins). The other represents the Bizarro Big Dance Universe in which all four #1 seeds fall by the Round of Eight and UConn (why? Because my daddy went there) beats Pitt for the NCAA crown.

Steve and I have also formed a Tourney Pool of Two, which our relationship hopefully will survive. As the rules stand now (under a point system arbitrarily devised by Mr. Badger Fan himself), the loser will have to cook the winner a gourmet dinner, complete with wine and dessert. I've added to these stakes the requirement that the loser pony up a full-body massage for the winner's enjoyment. Further side bets may be added upon the agreement of all participants, but probably will not be suitable for sharing with the blogging public.

Let the Madness continue. Oh, baby!

I see?

For the past several weeks, I've been fighting the realization that I'm not seeing so well these days. I've tried to brush it off as the result of eye fatigue from staring at the computer screen so much, but I'm only lying to myself. Today, when I came in from a beautiful morning run, my upstairs hallway seemed almost smoky as my eyes struggled to adjust to the light shift from outside to in. And the past several ski days have brought much frustration, as I struggle to identify terrain features in the flat light and grow increasingly terrified of being killed by a snowboarder (or inadvertently flattening a small child myself).

Even climbing, which has always made me feel confident, successful, and strong, lately has underscored my vision loss. At least this is so in the rock gym, where the lines of tape marking each route seem to wiggle away from my sight-line like brightly colored, mischievous caterpillars. Climbing outside on Sunday was almost a relief, since on real rock I can feel my way around for holds rather than searching for a designated chunk of plastic.

There is nothing to be done about this, of course. And so I laugh it off and continue in my persistent efforts to make going blind simply another vehicle for self-mockery and the amusement of the masses. Because when I acknowledge that perhaps I've lost another measurable increment of sight, it's not so funny anymore.

An open letter to my cab driver.

Dear Mr. Cabbie,
In order to ensure that our future shared experiences in your cab are mutually beneficial, I ask you to consider the following points.

First, when I approach your cab, please do not take that moment to stub your cigarette out inside your cab, toss the butt out the window, roll the window back up, and exhale that last deliciously smoky breath into the interior of your cab. You get angry and shake your fist at me when I exit your cab in favor of the smoke-free one behind you, so why not save both of us the aggravation, and secure yourself a generous tip, by smoking your cigarette outside the cab in the first place. There's even a trash can conveniently located right next to your vehicle where you can discard the butts. Furthermore, when it is 9:00 at night on a Monday and I do not have the energy to wait for a smoke-free cab, please do not think this gives you license to continue smoking while you drive as long as you keep the window open. I can still smell the smoke, particularly when you insist on turning around as you exhale to apologize for your nicotine addiction.

Second, I will not be insulted if you don't make small talk with me. In fact, nothing would make me happier than to sit in silence for the bulk of our ride. Even if I didn't have the window open in a desperate effort to salvage a breath or two of non-toxic air, and even if you didn't have country music blaring from the radio, and even if you weren't talking with a cigarette clenched between your teeth, I wouldn't be able to understand a word you're saying. And when I suggest to you that I'm both exhausted (Hmm. Why would I be tired when I've just left the office at this hour, in a city where 6:30 counts as "working late?") and hard-of-hearing, please don't take this as a license to babble on incessantly about (well, I'm not sure what. I CAN'T HEAR YOU!) while periodically turning your head to check for my response. While it is true that I might be able to understand you if you turn to face me, it is in both of our interests that you keep your eyes on the road.

Third, I really do not need to tell you what I do for a living. Yes, I do know that you're a cab driver, but a quid pro quo on the occupational front seems unnecessary in order for us to complete the cab-ride transaction. And when I make the mistake of informing you that I'm a lawyer, please don't feel compelled to (a) tell me how much better the world would be if people weren't so litigious; (b) ask me for free legal advice; or (c) tell me that you just got out of jail.

Fourth, when I ask you for $3.00 back on a $10.00 bill, leaving you with more than a 20% tip, please don't feel the need to voice your displeasure. I don't like having to take a taxi home when I work late any more than you like making short trips. Plus, it will only take you eight minutes to get back downtown, where you can wait all night for an airport run.

Thank you for listening. I'll be going inside to collapse now.

Where beer does flow and men chunder.

Um, excuse me. Could one of the fifteen Australians who found my blog in the past day or two by searching for some combination of "Melana + Jason + together" please explain themselves? I've come up with a few possible answers:

1) Australian TV recently filled a programming void by replaying the American reality hit (?) Average Joe, but preempted the cataclysmic finale in favor of the World Cricket Championships.

2) The venal, vapid "winners" of Average Joe (the aforementioned Melana and Jason) have been spotted on Bondi Beach a) necking b) fighting or c) using poor grammar.

3) Melana is Russell Crowe's secret love child and Jason is blackmailing the Thighmaster to keep the scoop from the Sydney Morning Herald by demanding a gig with 30 Odd Foot of Grunt.

4) Despite the brilliance of their native cinema (Strictly Ballroom! Priscilla! Babe! Gallipoli!), Australians have become obsessed with the romantic follies of venal, vapid, but admittedly pretty American reality TV contestants.

The other group of folks from Down Under who've been arriving chez moi in recent weeks is the crowd looking for news about Barbie's new boy toy, an Aussie boogie boarder named Blaine. I'm not quite sure what to make of this one, either. Are the folks from Oz simply thrilled to have one of their own canonized in anatomically incorrect plasticine form, or what?

This year in Jerusalem.

My parents left for Israel this morning. This means that for the next two weeks, while they gallivant around with their wonderful guide, meeting with interesting people and seeing fascinating sights and eating eggplant for breakfast, lunch, dinner and even (my mother swears) dessert, I will be on heightened alert, and will find myself deeply aware of the perils that would be involved in my day-to-day goings about if those goings about were happening in Israel.

I know this because it happened to me last January, when they visited Israel for the first time since my bat mitzvah trip 20 years before (I went again on a teen tour in 1987, but haven't been since). They jetted off armed with GSM cell phones, promising to steer clear of buses and hotels and leaving behind a long list of "things to do if we don't come back." Needless to say, this is not the way to reassure your child that your trip to a country ripped by terrorist attacks will be perfectly delightful.

While they were away, I found myself boarding the bus in the morning, thinking about what it might feel like to have to board a bus in Jerusalem knowing that it could explode at any moment. As I waited for my coffee in the morning, I would imagine the decision-making process an Israeli must make before stopping into a neighborhood cafe. And I clearly recall going to a party and wondering what it would feel like to attend such a gathering knowing that simply by joining a large group of friends for a celebration you became a target for terrorism.

In a way, this heightened awareness is good, because it forces me to pull my head out of the insular American sand in which I often hide it. But the reality is that I cannot possibly comprehend what it is to be Israeli, and to live day-to-day with the reality of terrorism. My Israeli friends tell me that they do not consciously assess the risks of boarding busses, dining out, and visiting friends. Those risks are simply part of life in Israel, and you cannot live in Israel without becoming a raving, housebound lunatic unless you accept them and proceed to live your life.

And of course my parents had a wonderful time, and came back bursting with excitement and satisfaction and wonderful gifts.

This year, they are traveling with several friends from their synagogue, and much of their trip will be spent with friends in Zichron Yaakov, a community near Haifa whose Reform synagogue has become the sister congregation to my parents' shul in Boulder. It is no easy proposition to sustain a Reform congregation in Israel, where a small Orthodox minority controls religious life, and the majority is completely secular. So my parents and their friends have developed a cooperative relationship with Zichron Yaakov, and members have been traveling in both directions over the past few years to build relationships and discuss how the partnership should proceed.

That they are in Israel for a purposeful visit and are not simply running around with cameras around their neck taking pictures of the cute little soldiers with their cute little Uzis does not alleviate my anxiety. I cringe in horror and sadness whenever I read of terrorist attacks in Israel. And I believe fervently that American Jews need to travel to Israel now, to support the economy and to let Israel know that we have not abandoned her. But, selfish child that I am, I just want my mommy and daddy to come home safe.

The new kid.

Tonight marked my second week of tutoring a new kid, Fernanda. She's a sweet, shy first-grader whose older sister is in the program, and she's very smart. She's struggling to develop her English vocabulary, and she's very quiet and uncomfortable speaking out loud, but she reads and writes beautifully, and she's capable of some pretty advanced deductive reasoning. After Carlos, it's a huge breath of fresh air.

I have to be careful to make sure that I'm challenging her, though, and stressing the areas in which she needs the most help. Instead of just letting her read through the directions on the various worksheets her teacher leaves us, I have her try to tell me what the directions mean. She clearly understands the instructions, but she has a hard time explaining them. For example, tonight she understood what a complete sentence was in the sense that she could easily pick out the incomplete sentences on the worksheet, but she didn't know how to explain out loud what made a particular sentence fragment incomplete. She was able to pick out the rhyming words from a list, but she couldn't explain to me what made them rhyme. So I spent most of tonight trying to get Fernanda to open up and try to explain things to me even when she's not sure she knows all the right words. She was even afraid to answer subjective questions ("what would it be like to play cards with an octopus," for example) because she was afraid of giving the "wrong" answer and of using the wrong words.

I still can't tell if she's warming up to me or not. She lurked near my friend and me during the play period after tutoring, rather than jumping into the frenzy of pent-up-energy-burnoff (a/k/a soccer) with the other kids. And she made sure I walked with her over to the cafeteria, but then she immediately abandoned me for her dad. I'm not the most warm-fuzzy-hearts-and-puppy-dogs type of person, and I'm not exactly sure how to interact with a shy seven-year-old, but I hope we're developing a good connection and that she'll continue to work as diligently and eagerly as she has so far.

My impression is that she's got a strong family support system, that her parents are committed to her education, and that her teacher is paying some individualized attention to her. Her father is very nice and well-mannered, and Fernanda seems to have a warm and happy relationship with him. He brings both girls to the school and waits for them until the end of the session, ensuring them far more stable attendance than the last couple of kids I've tutored. He speaks passable English, and both weeks has asked me to make sure to work on Fernanda's English skills, so he seems to recognize how important English will be to Fernanda's educational progress in the U.S.

So after two weeks, I'm excited about working with this kid who seems excited about learning, and I hope I can have some positive impact in her world. That's perhaps an unrealistic assumption, given that we have barely two months of school left, but if she stays at this school, she'll be able to continue in the tutoring program for as long as she wants. The population at my school is pretty transient, but the family seems stable. I'm hopeful . . . .

Pancreatitisgate?

While I scramble to determine what use to make of the decision linked below, I had a disturbing thought regarding Persecutor in Chief Ashcroft's reported medical woes.

While I hope Mr. Ashcroft is recuperating nicely and will soon be back at his desk shredding the Bill of Rights, I have this nagging feeling that he is being Chernenkoed out of the Justice Department by the Bush campaign team. Given recent reports that many mainstream Republicans are feeling alienated by Ashcroft's utter disregard for bedrock conservative principles such as privacy and limited government intrusion into business affairs, it would seem strategically sound (if rather totalitarian) to "incapacitate" him.

Confrontationally.

Sometimes, the Supreme Court gets it right.

Auntie Mad goes to Boulder.

I am wearing my still-novel "Auntie Mad" hat for the next few days, and falling in love with my gorgeous baby nephew all over again! At five months old, he is full of smiles, coos, and curiosity. He seemed a bit unsettled upon arrival at my house last night, as my parents and I scrambled over one another in an effort to be the first to make googly eyes and funny faces at him. But after a little romp around the living room with his silly Auntie, to the tune of "You are my Sunshine" (the only song I can sing in the general vicinity of on-key and for some reason the first thing that pops into my head the second a small child is placed in my arms), he seemed to remember us, or at least acquiesce in our fawning.

Since his last visit to Colorado back in December, Nathan has become an expert toe-grabber and has almost mastered the art of rolling over. He also has developed a powerful grip, and he spent much of the evening twisting my fingers around in his tiny fists. I'm heading up to Boulder after work for a family dinner and to marvel some more at Nathan's giggles and tricks, then will spend the rest of the weekend skiing with my brother, his wife, and their friends.

When I reach Boulder this afternoon, I'm also going to spend a couple of hours doing something (at least if you'd asked me three weeks ago) entirely unexpected: looking at houses! Yes, that little "moving back to Boulder" notion about which I wrote on Monday has developed into a full-blown idea and is building towards obsession. After playing with the numbers and variables, I doubt I'll actually make this happen any time soon, but my parents' friend the kick-ass Boulder realtor is going to show me a few places today that fit my parameters and possibly my pocketbook. It's scary and exciting and disconcerting all at the same time, but I'm hoping it will give me something concrete to work with as I roll this thing around in my head a bit more.