• Coffee comes in small cups. Very small.
• A t-bone steak costs about a dollar. And it’s better than any 30-dollar-steak in Minnesota.
• My grandma’s homemade gnocchis. From scratch.
• The way the subway rocks and sways and wants you to sleep.
• It’s normal to have dinner after 10. The restaurants are full at midnight and beyond.
• Pictures I had never seen of grandparents I never met. My dad’s report card from 1960.
• The afternoon light through the tall trees that line the avenues.

Things I dislike:

• My mouth gets tired of speaking Spanish.
• It’s impossible to not gain weight.
• Babies sleeping on foam pads beside their parents in the street. Walking by on the way to my hotel room, and a bed.
• Noise. Busses, scooters, honking, sirens.
• Not knowing which street I’m on, where it’s going, and which part of the city I’m in (but I’m learning).

Case in point: I had a meeting with my sister last night at a place I’d never been. She sent me the directions in an email about a week ago. They said that the place was located

in St. Louis Park, just off of
highway 100 and 394. take 94 to 394 west, to 100
south, to cedar lake rd exit. take a right on the
first driveway you see into Parkdale Plaza. The
address is XXXX South Highway 100″

These are not difficult directions to follow, had I noticed them. Instead, however, I noticed the handy little icon on the side of my GMail screen that said “Map This”, like this:

So, sensing that Google Map’s directions to the place would be better than my sisters (and more techy!), I clicked that.

Problem. A sensible human being will notice that Google is offering to map a completely different address (one it had picked up from an earlier e-mail in the chain). So the map I received gave me excellent directions to the wrong place. If I had read my sister’s e-mail, I might have realized that.

Instead, I trusted Google to read her e-mail for me, assuming it would figure out where she wanted me to go on its own. Google is, sadly, incapable of having meaningful interactions with my sister via e-mail. So it got confused and got me lost:

Credit: Bill Bamberger (interview)

Bus #663

The driver is compassionate. He waits at the stop for a balding Chinese man who is running at the bus like it was home plate. He wears glasses and a blue checked shirt. He sits on a bench seat across from the wheelchair lift.

A big wide-spaced-teeth smile flashes on the face of a woman wearing an ugly vest. It triangles and square and squiggles stitched on it in felt. This is something she could’ve made in third grade, had she had the proper equipment. She has thick eyebrows and thick arms.

Then there is a brown-haired girl on the right. Paled-skinned and wire fingers, she is reading “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down.” I don’t understand the title of her book. Shouldn’t it catch you after you fall down? And, if it’s catching you, how can you also be falling?

This could be an error in my notes. Maybe it was. “The Spirit Catches you When You Fall Down.” That would make more sense.

But then, it would also make more sense to wear a respectable vest on the way to what I imagine must be some academic or administrative job.

The chapter is “Gold and Dross.” Dross is discarded, waste, or impure matter. Also the scum formed by oxidation on the surface of molten materials (like lava?). What a strange wiry-fingered girl this must be. She is pessimistic (you fall down) but also interested in science.

Wait, googling… ah, here:

(Turns out my fake-shorthand notes were accurate after all. Nice to know.)

It’s a sunny morning anchored in still, cool air. But even now the sun is hot, and it’s going to be a summer day, this one, for sure. Still and cool, yes, but clean, no. It smells city-y. Like a mixture of pollution smells that adds up to something more than just pollution.

Most of work was spent looking up antique furniture serial numbers. It’s a good table, but not great. Built of walnut or oak by White Furniture of Mebane, N.C., a company that built furniture by hand for years. They stopped making it that way before this particular model, but it’s still nice to know. Like having a 1980s Mustang. Not as good as the older ones, but still in the same vicinity. Anyway, the factory closed in 1993(photos here and here), so it’s at least sort of an antique.

Left work shortly after one. Work continues on the Coffman lawn. They’ve now dug it up twice since the building opened at the beginning of the year. Apparently it’s a complicated lawn.

The day is warm. Not so hot like I thought it’d be. What a nice day.

She was singing to me in slow, warm breaths. I could feel her lips brushing my ear, but I wanted her closer, so I pulled at her hips.

“I’m crossing you in style…someday…”

It was night, and we were dancing. The moon shone a thin, half-full light on the smooth cobblestone rocks of the Lake Superior beach.

We were at the Big Beach, about 50 feet from our cabin and 15 miles south of Canada, at the Hollow Rock Resort. The air was cool and dry, normal for northern Minnesota in August, and a relief from the daytime heat that had just subsided.

The lake was quiet, as it had been all week, but the water stirred enough to nudge a few rocks, making the waterline into a kind of dull, random xylophone. Above us the sky was as calm as the lake.

My first reaction, on seeing the flat water and the flat stones, had been to run to the shoreline and skip rocks. This I did proudly (6 skips, 11 skips, etc.) for a few minutes, thinking she was watching me, awestruck. Then I turned around and realized she wasn’t there.

Hiding panic with playfulness, I called to her.

“Come on, what are you doing? Where’d you go?”

A long pause nurtured my growing alarm.

“Seriously, come out, this isn’t funny.”

This elicited no answer from the darkness, and that was enough to send me scuttling back up the beach. I was calm enough to remember I had a flashlight, which I turned on, but not calm enough to keep from dropping a couple of excellent skipping rocks.

Near the top of the beach, she popped into the light from behind a picnic table, her arms raised to resemble a grizzly bear. A real grizzly bear would not have scared me less.

But my anger was tempered by relief, and after I forgave her we sat and talked and tossed little stones into the giant lake. But revenge was on my mind. In a crisp movement, I brought the light just below my chin, turned it on, and made a hideous face!

…that she didn’t see, because instead of aiming the powerful light up at my face, I had pointed it directly at her eyes, burning her retinas and making her pupils close like spaceship doors from an early Sci-Fi movie.

Half blind and stumbling, she lunged at me, but I deftly avoided her swinging limbs. Her attacks continued verbally, and constrained to low tones by the quiet night and two nearby cabins.

“Why did you do that?” she scream-whispered.

“I didn’t mean to,” I said. “I was going to make a face.”

“Don’t do that,” she said, referring, it seemed, to everything I was, had been, or had ever considered, doing. I tried to cheer her up by doing the hideous-face flashlight thing again, but it felt empty and silly, like I was making fun of her.

I stood there in a blank, apologetic silence, while her anger eased. A quiet lakeshore makes it hard to hold a grudge. Soon we were back on the rocks, talking and sitting even closer than before.

And then we were dancing, and she was singing.

“We’re after the same…rainbows end,
Waitin’ round the bend,
My Huckleberry friend,
Moon…river…and me.”

Yep. That’s right. Hear those loud booms? Those are the pillars of humanity crumbling. Well, I hope insurance covers it, because come this Friday, July 30, I’m done.

FOR ONE WEEK! Hahahahahahahhahahahahhahah!

Ahahahahahahaha!

Ha!

Sigh. Whew.

Next week I’m on vacation. Up north, as we say here in Minnesota (although to most people the whole state is ‘up north’). We’ll be staying just 10 minutes south of the Canadian border in a cabin right on Lake Superior. At night you can hear the big lake’s little waves lapping at the smooth-rocked shore. That, and the sound of Canadians, lots and lots of Canadians, just minutes away.

Amazing how their voices carry.

Have you ever thought how weird it is that I, a Jew of eastern European descent, son of Argentines, now feel totally at home vacationing in the northern Minnesota hinterland? Sure you have. Can you imagine seeing a born-and-bred northern Minnesotan talking it up with the locals in Rio, wearing one of those scant thong-bottom swimming suits? If you can, I salute your healthy imagination.

But come on, have you been to Minnesota? Thongs?

Anyway, I anticipate a relaxing week, lots of painfully cold, wonderful swimming in the biggest lake in oh-I-don’t-remember-the-statistic-but-it’s-pretty-huge. Should be real pretty up ‘dere, you ‘betcha. As long as the bugs aren’t too bad (they can be a problem, you know).

My big dilemma has been whether I should bring my computer with (if only all the world had such dilemmas). On one hand, I just want to relax and forget about any obligations. On the other hand, I’m terrified that if I stop posting for a week, I’ll never be able to start again.

You see, writing is like riding a bike; you never forget how. But coming up with ideas of what to write about is very different. The less you write, the harder it is to think of something to write about (at least for me). And already the hardest part of my week is coming up with things to write about every day (the second hardest part is getting to bathroom in the morning, but I’ve already covered that).

If I don’t keep writing while I’m on vacation, it’s going to be hell getting back into it when I get back. So I’m pretty sure I’m going to bring my laptop along.

Of course, by that reasoning, I’ll never be able to stop writing, which is a scary thought. I mean, what if I wanted to stop? Maybe there’s some kind of rehab therapy for writers who want to quit…

… sure there is, it’s called TV. Preferably cable TV.

Of which there is none where I’m going. The cabin has a TV, but it only picks up one channel, and it picks it up like floss with a chopstick. If I ever quit writing, it’s not going to be next week.

So, if you only read the first and last paragraphs of this, here’s what you got:
1) I am an arrogant egotist and I’m going to quit writing.
2) I’m not going to quit writing and I don’t know how to floss. Or use chopsticks.

All in all, a pretty accurate description of what’s going on in my life. The other, shorter way of saying all that goes like this: On vacation next week. Up north. No posting.

Photo: California Coastal Records Project (if you\’ve never seen this site, go now, it\’s amazing).

All of these things (a living postcard from San Francisco) could be seen with a mere tug on the cord that commanded the south-facing curtains. But the Golden Gate Bridge was the only one that required risking my life.

To see the bridge, you had to first find a way to open the sliding window open all the way. The windows had been altered (a screw driven into the sliding track) so they\’d only open about eight inches. The reasons for this are obvious and sensible, if somewhat gruesome.

You can imagine what the reasons were.

But determination, especially of the youthful, reckless type, trumps every obstacle. A screw driver, employed in reverse, rendered a six-foot wide, screen-less opening. With that accomplished, the view of the golden, rounded \’W\’ shaped spans and the sun setting over the vast Pacific were just a few steps away.

The next thing was to breathe deep and wipe your hands dry. After that, you placed one foot on the window ledge, and wrapped the other through the post of the bunk-bed beside the window. Then, with an eye to the heavens and brief thoughts of your loved ones, you thrust your body fully outside of the building, your unwet hand firmly anchored on the wall.

At this point, you\’d be facing due west. You left foot and arm would stand atop a beautiful 300-foot column of air. And if the evening fog was a little late for dinner, you could see the great bridge, with the perfect, round sun falling behind it.

This position was not easily maintained, especially as many of the students who lived in the dorm-towers across from mine started pointing out their windows and laughing at me. Plus, the sunset was brief, and this particular life-risking activity was done with the goal of seeing both the sunset and the bridge, not one or the other.

The challenge, then, was how to get most of one\’s body-weight back inside the building. Shifting your center of gravity out there was easy, but shifting it back (especially when said center had nothing to rest on) was not.

Basically, this required an exertion of calculated, controlled strength that could only be inspired by downward glances and surprise gusts of wind. Inspiration, I\’m happy to say, was abundant.

Back in the room, now darkening under fog and night, a few wobbly steps provided some grounding. After that, it was a cinch to replace the window-jamming screw and forget the whole affair.

With a new appreciation for postcard photographers (if this is how they get their shots, they are undercharging) and an urge to get closer to the ground, I often descended to the seventh floor, where some of my friends lived.

Then we\’d hang out on the balcony that came off of the lounge. Extending out beyond the edge of the building, the balcony was safely fenced and a good place to relax at night. And once the fog retreated, it offered a clear view west, where from the comfort of a plastic lawn chair you could see, in flickering lights, the lolling reverse-arches of, what else, the Golden Gate Bridge.

Lesson learned: For every death-defying stunt it takes to see or do something really cool, there is a completely safe and easy alternative.

And yet, that\’s what the driver on the bus yesterday morning told us, as we waited at a particularly popular stop for the ride to continue.

Now, as you may know, the bus system in the Twin Cities is called Metro Transit (I didn\’t name it, OK). And the Metro Transit bus drivers have been on strike for over a month now.

So really, when you think about it, it\’s pretty amazing that we haven\’t had any serious bus-related accidents in the last month, what with all the busses running around the city without drivers.

I wish the bus I was on yesterday morning had been one of those driverless ones, because I doubt the bus itself, absent a driver, would have been so stubbornly insistent on complying with the dubious federal law.

Alas, it wasn\’t a city bus, it was a University of Minnesota bus, so we were stuck with the driver who I\’ve come to know as \”Mr. Chubby Hispanic w/Sunglasses.\”

He appears in my notes on August 15 of last year as the driver of bus 660 (the same one I was on yesterday). In this case, he is noted not as \”Mr. Chubby Hispanic w/Sunglasses\”, but as \”Asshole Driver\”, a reference to the time when he came back and closed my window after I had opened it while we were waiting at a stop on a hot day.

Perhaps an essay about some of the other drivers is called for. They\’re in my notes as \”Happy Days\”, \”Robot Voice\”, and \”Rolling Stones\”, to name a few.

But not now.

Now, we are at the Moos Tower stop, on Washington Ave. in Minneapolis, on a very crowded bus. It was about 9 a.m., and everyone was on their way to work or class, most of us in a hurry.

But one more person, a woman who I can\’t see (too many bodies in the way), was trying to get on. She made it to the top of the stairs, when Mr. w/Sunglasses growled, \”We need everyone behind the white line.\”

This prompted the groggy, clumsy column of standing passengers to shuffle back about 1.5 inches in a halfhearted attempt to make room.

And still, no room.

\”OK, I just stand here,\” the woman said in a thick accent. Actually, it wasn\’t so much of an accent as it was a weird syntax that showed she had a shaky understanding of what she was saying.

But bus 660 is a by-the-book bus, apparently, and the driver made that clear, saying \”In this bus we will obey the laws of standing passengers.\”

No, he didn\’t. He said, \”No, it\’s not OK, it\’s a federal law, you can\’t stand there.\”

Asshole. He\’s the only driver (and I\’m pretty sure I\’ve ridden with all of them) that does this. I\’ve been on busses with Robot Voice where there were people practically hanging out the doors, third-world style.

I don\’t know if the woman was from the third world or not. But she sounded crushed when she said, \”So do I have to get off?\”

\”Yes, you do,\” he replied, in a tone of voice that a little-league coach might reserve for that moment when he has to tell his own son he\’s cutting him from the team.

I have to tell you, it was a moment that inspired compassion. Listening to her turn and walk slowly down the stairs, then watching the door hiss shut behind her, and the rumbling of the big diesel engine as we headed off, leaving her standing there in our exhaust.

I\’ll always wonder what became of her, that poor, confused traveler. Abused by the system, a victim of a strange law and a grumpy bus driver, she was too good for this world transit system.

Related:
How to walk to work when the busses don\’t run
Public transit fan

Update:
On the off chance that any of you University bus drivers are reading this, please accept my apologies. Really, you guys are great, and I appreciate your work. Except you, Mr. w/Sunglasses. You need to loosen up.

There are some palms, yes, and it’s hot. But that’s it. The rest is like blood pulsing through the veins of a hyperventilating aerobics student.

At the airport, waiting for my grandmother to bring the car from the parking lot, the first thing that struck me was the warm, sweet air. See, coming from Minnesota in December, any air above 20 degrees is warm and sweet.

My grandma appeared, riding high in a huge, rickety, diesel-fueled van. As I climbed inside, the hot upholstery felt both pleasant and unpleasant against my skin.

I was in the front. My girlfriend was way in the back, in the bench seat,

She was smiling, I remember; ducking her head down and looking around. I was smiling, too, in that oh-please-don’t-freak-out kind of way. That was because I could see that my grandmother’s feet reached the pedals the same way a five-year-old’s hands reach the kitchen faucet.

Every time she had to shift the van’s stubborn gears, her whole body would slide down the seat a little. And this was before we’d even made the highway.

Somehow, though, my girlfriend failed to notice this, and looked content.

I kept asking Baba (that’s what we call my grandma) things about Argentina, and then trying to relay the answers to the back seat. But with the windows open and the sound of 50 other cars idling around us (we were caught in a jam at a toll), communication was impossible.

When we got on the highway, my girlfriend’s contented smile turned into a concerned smile. It was as if she was watching little kid carry a huge glass pitcher, thinking, Ok honey, just don’t drop it.

The highways in Argentina are like rivers. There is some semblance of order;
there are traffic signs, speed limits, and everyone on the right side of the median is driving in the same direction.

But beyond that, there is a feeling of chaotic fluidity. Currents. Swirling eddies.

Lanes are not respected. It’s common to see cars driving steadily with their wheels straddling the dashed white line.

Signals – I mean those that use the car’s blinkers – are rare. More common are hand signals, quick glances, or just unannounced changes of direction. Perhaps this is just a sign of a more trusting society, but I doubt it.

Also, there is a lot of random slowing down, which was problematic. Cars in front of you will drop speed like kids in front of a lifeguard at the pool, as if to fool you – Oh no, I wasn’t going fast, I was always going this slow.

Fooled or not, you have to hit the brakes. And, as I explained before, sudden pedal changes, for Baba, are little feats of acrobatics.

Now, Buenos Aires is an immensely beautiful city. It is known, rightly, I think, as the Paris of South America. Some parts of the city are as impressive as any place I’ve ever been, the real Paris included.

But the highway is not one of those. The highway is ugly. The buildings surrounding it look like they were built from materials left over from the construction of the concrete lizard down below.

Before you reach these laundry-speckled slabs, further out from the city, there are some green patches to either side. That’s where, believe or not (I couldn’t until I saw it), people have picnics on the weekends. Right there, next to four throbbing lanes of erratic traffic.

My grandmother, who is HOW OLD, is impervious to all this. She went calmly along with her arm resting out the window, like she was driving a golf-cart down the middle of a fairway.

When we got to my grandparents’ house, we were wobbly. We stepped into the cool shade indoors and fell almost instantly asleep on the fold-out bed in the living room. There, it was quiet, peaceful and cool. Just what we needed.

Little did we know that in the evening another adventure awaited. My grandpa wanted to take us sightseeing in the maze of downtown city streets, where intersections are like gang-fights and parking is like the last level of Tetris.

If we thought the afternoon’s ride had been rocky, we had a rude awakening coming: the streets in the city are made of cobblestone.

Not so for my mom and brother. They called me from the deck of the Paradise to inform me about its ten decks and free drinks.

Ten decks? That\’s like a floating parking garage. Or a floating any-other-kind-of-building.

Free drinks? My brother is eleven; what does he want with free drinks?

What shocked me was the number of people on the ship who are just there to take care of the ship: 920 total staff.

And there\’s only capacity for 2052 guests. So pretty much every staff member has two guests to take care off. Like a personal assistant!

That\’s just great. Here I am in the frozen tundra scraping my windshield off at 7:30 in the morning, while my little brother has his own half of a personal assistant to do things for him.

He\’s eleven, he doesn\’t even know what to do with an assistant. There\’s going to be some poor sailor running around the 3rd sub-deck of the Paradise on some obscure errand my brother cooked up: \”Find me six unwrapped Yu-Gi-Oh cards! Mwa ha ha ha!\”