Umami

I know that it's been a very long time since I've last written anything. That's partially because I missed so much work from the snow that when I went back, I worked long hours (from approximately 9-5) to catch up and partially because another of our delivery drivers had to leave for a family emergency and that left me to do both my job and her job for an incredible eight hours a day. I hit the ground running every morning and hit the bed with equal enthusiasm each night. I have delivery stories to tell, and a very funny idea about what Lil Jon, Ludacris, and Usher would have to say about me delivering auto parts in rural Arkansas listening to their music ("WHAAAT?" says Lil Jon), but what I want to write about tonight is the Academy Awards, and more specifically, the rowing scene in "The Social Network."

I'll start with the definition for "Umami." It is one of the five tastes, together with sweet, sour, bitter and salty. It is popularly referred to as "savoriness." Honey is sweet, lemons are sour, coffee is bitter, and pretzels are salty. Umami is a little different, it simply adds body to food, gives them heft. It is the difference between Sam's Choice Cola and Coca Cola. I buy Sam's Choice because it's cheaper, but I prefer Coke. I thought it was the packaging or the advertising, or the desire to pass up the cheaper product for the name brand, but it turns out it's umami. Coke has it, Sam's Choice doesn't. There are people who study this, who make a living tasting food and determining this quality. For me it's more vague, it's just this imperceptible balance that you can't quite define, but you know you crave. It's a kind of perfection, this thing you seek without knowing exactly what you're looking for. And when you find it, you know it.

Since I learned the definition of umami, or rather, since I learned of the concept of umami, I've found myself applying it to everything. I'm fascinated by it. My favorite pair of jeans has umami. That song "If I Had a Boat," by Lyle Lovett has umami. John Hannah reading W.H. Auden's "Funeral Blues" in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" has umami. The rowing scene in "The Social Network" has umami. I saw the movie a few weeks ago. I saw it because I like Jesse Eisenberg and I was excited to see what Trent Reznor would do with a movie score. I liked it because it turns out that Mark Zuckerburg is one of those people who are such geniuses at what they do that they are totally mystified by human behavior and because of the rowing scene. I'm going to do my technologically-disinclined best to upload a link to this scene here so you can see what I'm talking about.



The whole movie is pretty good, but this scene stands alone. It's a very simple scene. They're just racing boats. The song is very simple. We've all heard the tune so many times I can't remember where it originally came from. It's recognizable, but somehow sinister - which I like. I've watched it several times trying to figure out why it gives me chills. I'm not sure, but I think it's this: If you'll watch, the entire scene has a rhythm. It follows a beat. Everything works together, the images, the acting, the editing, the sound, like in those few minutes everyone put forth their very best effort at the thing they're best at, purely, and it all came together like a dance.

Even after writing this I'm not sure what to make of umami, or if I'm describing it right. Maybe, in the larger, Annie's-over-thinking-things sense, it's different things to different people. Certain things just resonate with some people. For me it's my Gap jeans, it's a songwriter singing a simple song about riding a pony on his boat, it's "He was my North, my South, my East, and West, My working week and Sunday rest" in a Scottish accent. It's people rowing boats to a song we already know, and finishing a sentence, taking a hot bath and going to sleep.

Thanks for sticking with me, those of you still reading. I'll try to be better about posting more regularly.

Snow Day

This time I planned ahead. For three days I'd been hearing about "a storm of historic proportions" headed straight for my house. Of course, I'd heard that before only to get a dusting of snow and a bunch of uppity superintendents calling off school all over the place. So, while I had my doubts, I knew how the schools would react, and thus the daycares. I made arrangements for Daddy to watch Story so I could still go to work today.

I kept checking throughout the night, peeking through my blinds, only to see... not much. I had my alarm set for 8:00 AM. Many things get stopped by addiction and then started back up in sobriety, right where you left off. It's not just your emotional growth, as they say. There is absolutely no need for me to set my alarm for 8:00 AM. I wake up angry at the world every morning at 7:30 on the dot. I'm angry at the world because my mind does not understand that, while 7:30 AM was not a reasonable time to wake up when I was 18 and had gone to bed at 6:30 AM, it is a reasonable time to wake up when you habitually go to bed at 10:00 PM, no matter how hard you try to stay awake. Will I always be 18 in my head? Will I ever quit complaining about having to be places at 9:00 AM?

So, when Trish called at 8:00 AM I was already awake and coming out of my morning angst. I cracked the blinds and saw a pretty good blanket of snow, and more coming down. "Don't worry about coming in. The roads are too bad, we'll be closing early anyway," she reported.

"Great, I'll just roll over and go back to sleep!" I said. I rolled over, closed my eyes, then went ahead and got up and took a shower. It's been a very long time since I've had an entire day to fill with my own thoughts. First, I watched the news instead of Spongebob. I ate cereal with milk for breakfast. I made some cookies and didn't have to hide the butter from Story, who has been known to sneak an entire stick and eat it like a candy bar. I cleaned out the refrigerator. I started to take out the trash but stopped when I couldn't figure out what kind of shoes to wear through the snow. I watched the History Channel all day and learned that the Statue of Liberty and Rockefeller Center are both symbols for Lucifer. Then some Templar stuff, which I really enjoy. That's pretty much been my day.

All the while it was snowing, it didn't stop until about 6:00 PM. All told, there's probably about a foot of snow out there, a staggering amount that baffles the both the highway department and police officers. Luckily criminals are similarly dissuaded, otherwise Russellville would be Dead Wood until it warms up a little bit. Roads don't seem to be grated, I've never known them to put down salt, and I suspect that the sand I sometimes see on the roads has been purchased by the city from backyard sandbox-owners and shoveled out of the back of someones pickup truck. This is the South, we shouldn't have to prepare for feet of snow.

I know that the entire country is dealing with terrible storms of "historic" proportions. I know that Chicago had their "Storm of the Century" just a week ago. I'm not sure that this snow could be considered historic, I guess time will tell, but it has certainly paralyzed the town at least for today. It's supposed to get down to six degrees tonight, and that will definitely freeze the snow that's been packed on the roads by the brave souls who ventured out today, making it a solid sheet of ice by morning. To those of you who are reading this tonight and plan to go out tomorrow, be careful and good luck. I'm still not driving, even with my four-wheel drive and my monster truck tires because a woman disappearing off the face of the Earth only to be found months later frozen to death and buried in her car in a muddy creek somewhere might be historic. I hate driving in snow, it scares me to death.

How News Travels - Get Well, Richard

Last week one of the guys I work with was in a terrible car accident while coming back from his lunch break. The newspaper the next day had a horrifying picture of the wreckage, a caption about one person - whose name wasn't released - going to the hospital, and a headline that read "The Perils of Drunk Driving." What we learned that very afternoon, within hours, was this:

First the daughter of the owner of Cross Auto Supply called and said "Tell the delivery drivers not to take Finley Curve, there's been a really bad wreck." At this point we didn't know that the wreck involved one of our own, just that we didn't want our drivers to burn up all their gas sitting around in some traffic jam.

Then Gary came in to count out his drawer and tell us that Richard had gotten in an accident, the one on Finley Curve. It wasn't until later that we learned how the news got to the shop. Brad is a part time delivery driver, Brad's dad is a police officer in Pottsville, a town a couple miles down the road. Brad's dad was called to Russellville to help direct traffic. When he arrived he realized that Richard was wearing a Cross Auto Supply shirt and called Mike, the manager, who then went to the hospital.

Mike kept checking in. He said that they would not talk to him since he was not family, but that the doctor kept coming out asking for a family member, which we took as a bad sign and as a call to arms. We would find a family member. Richard's file listed his wife as his emergency contact. She, however, died some years ago. Trish turned to me. "Who do we know?" I don't know anybody, so I left it up to her to play six degrees of Richard Armstrong. She contacted the owner of the shop, and his daughter, both of whom searched the memory of their cell phones for anyone who might be related to Richard. We knew he had a daughter in Little Rock, and a brother here in Russellville. Get the brother and you've got the family.

Richard is a war hero. He was in Vietnam and once, after a particularly bad battle, he was the only man left standing out of his whole platoon. He lives his life like a soldier. He's the one who empties the trash at work, at the same time every day, commenting on the candy wrappers so often that I've started to kind of bury them under other trash to avoid the humiliation of being called out on my boredom snacking. When you have a phone call he'll come stand over you, get the extension number off of your phone, and with great ceremony, transfer the call, with a staccato "hmm," and leave the office. I'm the one who counts the money from everyones drawer in the morning. Everyone else just kind of throws their money in their bag. Richard has his paper clipped together with the adding machine tape using only gold paper clips, and it balances to the penny every day. He takes care of his aging father. He's always having to take off work to go make sure he's eaten and check his medication and all of that. And he's always upset that his brother never helps him.

I'm not sure how it happened. I think Richard started coming around in the hospital and gave up the brother's number. Mike called us and one of the guys up front called the brother, who said he would get dressed (it was about 2 PM at this time), feed his cats, and get to the hospital.

Throughout the day news trickled in from various tow truck operators, body shops, and mechanics. In the automotive industry, a bad wreck is big news, everybody knows everybody else, and most people have a police scanner. By the next morning, before the picture and caption in the paper even ran, this is what we learned through word-of-mouth, networking, and eavesdropping: Richard was on his was to the shop after his lunch break. He was coming around the inside lane of a particularly dangerous curve ("Finley Curve") in his Camry when a drunk illegal immigrant from Mexico cut into his lane in his Tahoe and hit him head on. According to who you hear it from the impact could have been equivalent to 120 MPH or 60 MPH. The Tahoe pretty much just drove completely over the Camry. Both cars were totaled. The Camry was reduced to tiny pieces of crumpled metal. The immigrant walked away from the wreck, or rather, ran away and tried to hide in a nearby house. The police caught him and he's in jail now after a sobriety test. Richard was rushed to the hospital, then med-flighted to Little Rock due to concerns about "this area," Mike had said gesturing to his chest. He had a broken pelvis, hip, and ankle. Mike also said that his entire right arm was black and swollen.

This all happened last week. Richard is doing much better, still has a long way to go, but the latest is that the internal bleeding has stopped, he's had ankle surgery, and he was sitting in a chair talking to his daughter today. His brother came by the shop to pick up Richard's cell phone charger. Today was the first time most of us had seen the wayward brother. He looked exactly like Richard. His hair was a little longer, a little shaggier. He was a little scruffier, unshaven. I can't remember what he was really wearing, but in my memory it was one of those hippie-looking knit jackets. But when he talked, it was Richard. After he left I kind of turned to Trish and shook my head. "I don't know what to say. It's like they both started out like this," I said, holding my hands in front of me, palm to palm, to indicate two identical roads leading in the same direction, "and then Richard joined the army and his brother dodged the draft," and the hands go out to either side. At lunch we were all talking about Richard and worrying about how his Dad was getting along without him there to take care of him. Mike said that Richard's brother had told him that he and his dad were going out to eat every day. "He said 'Dad just says he want to go out!'" So they go out. We all kind of looked at each other and laughed. We're missing Richard. Everyone has worked there so long that when one person is gone everyone else gets kind of tripped up. Today I had to clean the bathroom. Trish had to mop. These were things that Richard just did. We didn't think about them. I know that he'll be gone for a while, he might even choose to go ahead and retire. It's pretty different around the shop and while I do enjoy reckless, guilt-free snacking, I also miss having Richard around and so does everyone else. And we all got emergency information forms to fill out with our last paychecks.

On Parenting, and Latin

Just to give you a little bit of background, when we decided to have our now three-year-old son Story, the financial climate was much warmer. I planned on nurturing his every inclination with purchases of art supplies and sports equipment and hardcover Maurice Sendak books. I was going to buy only organic food, and vitamins from the health food store. I would research test scores and teacher-student ratios of all the schools in the tri-county area and send him to the best, even if it cost a little bit more. How was I to know that in the very near future I'd be cursing Walmart for raising the price of their three-quart bottles of juice from $1.88 to $2.38?

Although finances limit the number of museum trips I had planned, and totally exclude those Latin classes I intended to take so that, in our home, we could say things like "haec olim meminisse iuvabit" (one day, this will be pleasing to remember) when my hand is reduced to bloody ribbons from digging broken glass out of the toilet after Story smashes a bottle of perfume on the rim, I think we're doing pretty well. I do sometimes worry that there are those who wonder about my progressive parenting style. There are a few things that others might question. Let me explain.

Story's hair is unkempt because I want him to understand, right from the start, that one's time is often better spent on either sleep or creative endeavors, like lego building. Story is truly the Howard Roark of the three-year-old lego world. I'm not going to interrupt the work of a future genius architect with something as banal as hair-brushing.

Likewise, his clothes are not always matching, ironed, and/or properly sized. This is because I think that he ought not put too much emphasis on brands, fashion, and/or appearance. There are those who would disagree, those who think that "to be successful you have to look successful" or something like that. This philosophy is strictly for people who are not good enough at what they do to get by with looking or being however they want to be, like me. He should get his priorities straight, become an authority on a particular subject, and then he can dress like a successful person if he so chooses.

Also, daycare workers, you may have been a little confused at my reaction when you told me that he said "Damn it!" Twice. At first you only said that he had said a "bad word." My mind raced. This could be really bad. And I had to respond with what I thought was an appropriate level of horror. I might have overshot it a little bit when I said "I don't know WHERE he would have heard such language!" and started talking about the punishment I would inflict when he got home. Then when I finally thought to ask what exactly he had said, the look of utter relief that washed over my face, although I tried to hide it, must have been confusing to you. It could have been much worse. I mean, really, he could have heard that on prime time TV.

I know that Story can get a little wild and he's not very good at "doing what he's told." This is a concern of mine. For a time I worried that he might have ADD, but the fact that he can concentrate for hours on his lego projects eases my mind a bit. The wildness is partially due to the fact that he's three (almost) and partially because I think that a child his age should learn things on his own. If he thinks that he can build a tractor by overturning the chair in the kitchen and propping it up on the chair in the living room, who am I to stifle this creative impulse? The boy needs to use his imagination. The fact that he almost never does what he's told unless he's asked to throw something in the trash, brush his teeth, or get undressed for his bath, I attribute to him being very strong-willed, which if properly channeled can be a good thing. I know it doesn't seem like a good thing in the middle of the grocery store when I'm trying to chase him down an aisle with a cart full of overpriced juice and Goldfish crackers, but with the right discipline he could be a ruler of nations.

Unfortunately discipline is not something I'm good at. I feel like if I say something, people should listen - without me having to get loud, angry, dramatic, or physical. When Story does something I disagree with, like attacking me and my computer when I'm trying to type, it often turns into me whining to him about personal space and eventually a kind of awkward shoving match ending with me giving up and putting the computer away for the safety of all. I realize this is not the greatest way to handle that situation, but spankings are often ineffective because I'm not strong enough to make him quit grinning at me, and time out usually results in him peeing in the chair so that I have to take him out and get everything cleaned up. I know, he sounds like a monster, but "there are no bad kids, just bad parents," and I'm working on the parent end of that. We're coming along and we're both learning to communicate better.

Parenting is hard, especially when the parent is mostly just curious about what exactly the three-year-old is capable of, and the three-year-old is all too eager to indulge that curiosity. I think, though, that we're coming along pretty well. Hopefully soon we'll get to take a trip to the museum and maybe one day Story and I can learn Latin together. I think of all the languages, Latin would be the most interesting.

The strange land of women very different from me

I've spent a lot of time today reading. I started out reading stories on the McSweeney's website. Then I looked up some stuff on Wikipedia. I learned about bread, and Nicola Tesla, and that a Centurion in the Roman army usually commanded 83 men, not 100. Then I started reading Cosmopolitan magazine online.

What I've found is that there is a quiz for every possible uncertainty and insecurity in life, and everything can be neatly organized into a list. Does your hairstyle make you look fat? What do his food choices reveal about him? And if you've been wondering, they've got an article about "the dumbest thing you can do to your boobs." What does this mean? Are there women out there disguising their weight with their hair, finding meaning in chips versus chocolate, doing dumb things to their boobs?

I was a little thrown off by the titles of the articles, not to mention all the colors and the pop-ups and pictures of "Hot Male Models in Jaw-Dropping Outfits." But I did manage to get through "10 Ways to Feel Happier Instantly." Which gave me 10 ways to feel both superior and inferior at the same time - instantly. Most of their suggestions require coffee, friends, an insatiable appetite for sex, and a place to walk where you won't get scared out of your wits by honking horns and cat calls. But they also suggested that I take some Vitamin D, or buy some flowers, and those are things I could do.

You wouldn't know it to look at me, but I like the fashion articles. I like looking at clothes and shoes and even makeup. Like any girl, I like pretty things. And models in fashionable clothes with cool hair and makeup will always be appealing to me. Even if they leave me a little bored with my own clothes and hair, they will sometimes inspire me to go home and dig out all that makeup I bought last time I read Cosmo and come to work tomorrow looking like I'm going to the prom.

I think I used to read Cosmo a lot, and I think I was probably in high school. It's still somewhat entertaining but it just makes me blush and worry too much about my hairstyle making me look fat, it gives me too much to think about and analyze, and I can't stop wondering if I'm doing something dumb to my boobs. I think I'll stick to McSweeney's and Wikipedia. Maybe I'll read more fashion magazines without all the weird stuff. Then I can feel simply inferior, but inferior with a goal.

Shaking out the blanket

I suppose you've all heard about the birds dropping from the sky on New Years Eve? And about all the fish dying? And it's happening all over the world, birds, fish, now crickets. And that's just what's happening to the animals these days. Against my better judgement I leave MSNBC up as my homepage at work. I get used to the horrifying headlines, but sometimes I'm able to step back and read them as if I haven't read the same terrible things every day for the past year. Economic collapse. Mudslides. Fires. Shootings. Mass die-offs of wildlife. For some reason, be it astrological or coincidental or inevitable, everything seems to be up in the air these days, well, except for those birds.

I realize that every generation thinks that they're the last. I don't necessarily think that, but I just look around and wonder "how much farther can we go?" How could we make life any easier? What more could my cell phone possibly do? I can't imagine what the future looks like. I used to think "I wish I could leave the house and not worry about missing that so important call." Or "it's too damn hard to keep up with all these CDs, there should be a way to keep all my music in one place!" Or "I hate opening TWO jars to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, why don't they just combine the two?" How could life get any easier? Something's got to give.

I don't have very many friends, but I like to eavesdrop and I'm always curious about what is happening in the lives of people around me. I know I shouldn't but I love gossip. What I've been hearing lately is that everyone seems to be going through some sort of great "reorganization." It's not always bad, it's just different. Things are changing. We've reached some sort of limit, where things just have to change. It's as if the blanket of the world has gotten all rumpled and God himself has reached down to shake it out, the way Mom used to when she was folding laundry. Remember the sound at that first violent flip of the wrists that sent crumbs and wrinkles flying? Like that. It will probably be nice and smooth once He's done but right now everyone, and everything, seems to be getting all tossed about. It's not fun and it's not comfortable, but certainly soon things will smooth out again. I just thought that was worth acknowledging, that and also how creepy that must have been to wake up on New Years Day and find your entire town littered with dead birds. As one of the sheriffs of Beebe said "All the doomsayers were pretty sure this was it." This may not be "it" but it seems like "something." Changes are afoot.

New Year, New Skill

I have this idea that one day I'm going to have to live off the land, without the conveniences of things like meat that someone else has killed and a produce section. Things like gardening, food preservation, fire-building, and fort-building are all skills that I feel a certain urgency to learn. While not as horrifying as "how to pay the cable bill this month" or "that sound my car makes when I first turn it on," "what to do in a global catastrophe" is always there reminding me that I'm running out of time to learn how to do all those things that we as a population have spent the last 1,000 years making easier, so easy in fact that we've forgotten how to do them altogether.

So, on the first day of 2011, while I was thinking about December 21, 2012, which is less than two years away now, I decided that I was going to bake. When the engine of the world grinds to a halt, men will still want bread. People have been successfully baking bread since the Neolithic Age. I have never been successful. On hindsight I think that that is because instead of shortening I've always used butter. I don't know how to make shortening but I feel pretty certain that I could make my own butter if I had to, and I had access to a cow. The butter bread has always been edible, but it came out like a little bread-flavored brick. This particular day I decided to use shortening. If I'm forced into a position in which I can't purchase shortening, dense bread will probably be the least of my worries after all. It takes a good half a day to make yeast bread from scratch, what with all the rising and kneading and all, but it's worth it. I like the idea of starting with all these ingredients that are completely useless on their own and ending up with something as delightful as homemade rolls, which is what I made. I don't know if the shortening is what did it, but these particular rolls were fluffy and moist and even better than those that you might get on your table at a restaurant. It was the first time I've ever baked bread and not been at least mildly frustrated at the result.

So, come the day when bread is no longer mass produced and sold on shelves, I've got that one covered, and as long as shortening is still mass produced and sold on shelves, it will be fluffy and moist. Here's to learning new things. And it's a little late, but happy new year.