Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are is Dead

Little Guildenstern Margoshes passed on from this world early yesterday morning, resting among the green leaves of his plastic aquarium begonia.

Guildenstern was a good guppy, a happy guppy. His hobbies included sleeping on top of his water heater, swimming through his Greek ruins, and scavenging the glass stones at the bottom of the bowl for sunken flakes of food. He was also extremely resilient, having survived an apparent suicide leap from the counter to the kitchen floor where the cat was waiting to pounce, and several weeks later bouncing back from an accidental plunge into the open dishwasher. The latter he never fully recovered from, but as his color gradually drained away his spirit did not.

He is survived by his best friend, Rosencrantz Margoshes, and his hungry sister, Taffy.

Rest in peace, little guy.

Really?

     About a month ago my mom, cousin Naomi and I took a trip to Watertown, NY to visit family. Along with my grandma, we drove four hours to Niagara Falls for an overnight.
     We had just pulled off the freeway en route to our hotel when we noticed a Niagara Falls tourism center (about the size of a hefty drive-thru coffee stand) and parked out in front. The lady who helped us--a jovial, overly made-up elderly woman named Toni--placed on the counter in front of us a brochure that contained information on three different guided tours that explored the falls and surrounding landmarks from various heights and means of transportation.
     Toni pointed to the first tour. "This one--" She stopped and quickly scanned our faces. "You're not traveling with anyone under 12, are you?" Her eyes found mine. And stayed there. For an uncomfortable length of time.
     "No," we all answered.
     Still Toni stared.
     I had no choice. "I look 12," I finally said, and saw in Toni's eyes a flicker of victory. "But I'm 24."
     Her jaw dropped. Her hand flew to her heart. "No!" she gasped, with an expression that my mother later described as being "decidedly shocked." "That can't be true!"
     Having experienced this reaction more times in my life than I care to admit, I have mastered the art of mentally rolling my eyes. I did so then, and offered up an apologetic smile. I felt as though I had somehow disappointed Toni, and disappointing Toni is not something one would ever want to do.
     "That's crazy!" she said. Her eyes darted suspiciously from my grandma to my cousin to my mom, daring another confession. "And you?" she asked, settling on Naomi. "I suppose you're..."
     "Twenty-three," Naomi answered.
     "Oh lord," Toni said.
     "And I'm 90," my grandma added.
     That about did Toni in. "Oh my god!" she shrieked. "You're 90? Oh, bless your heart! I hope I look that good when I'm 90! Boy, you folks sure are drinking from the fountain of youth!"
     We managed to pry ourselves away from the desk before Toni extended invitations to her next family reunion and we walked silently back to the car. Once all the doors were closed we burst out laughing.
     Twelve, I thought, shaking my head. That's a new record.

And it is. I believe that guess puts my average perceived age at about 14. Maybe it's time I accept it. If you'll excuse me, I'm off to put my hair in pigtails and dig out that old pair of corduroy overalls I threw into storage 15 years ago.

Olivia Talks Sport: World Series Edition

Hello and welcome to the first installment of "Olivia Talks Sport," wherein I pretend to be knowledgeable about athletics I only watch when strapped to a chair or when there are no bugs crawling across the sidewalk for me to study.


First, though, this brief note: I am aware that "sport" in this context should be pluralized. If you have not yet been fortunate enough to encounter this video or sound clip, please humor me for six glorious seconds.

Good. Now that that's done, let's jump into today's topic: baseball. I know that nothing is more American than baseball--except for maybe football and super-sizing things, but let's try to limit today's post to just one sport about which I know absolutely nothing, and we'll touch on the obesity epidemic at a later date. Yes, I'm aware that the way I feel about this popular sport is how many people feel about my favorite sport, soccer. A friend once told me that he can't stand to watch the beautiful game because he finds it "ass-numbingly dull." I, of course, take exception to this, but am relieved to know that he feels the same way--if not more strongly so--about baseball.

But my point here today is not to bash a game where people stand around with sticks, swing them at things, and then once in a while prance from one while flat thing to the next over the course of, oh, eight hours. My point is to say that if I'm going to find something a colossal waste of time, I should at least educate myself on what exactly it is that makes watching it so excruciating.

In other words, I'm becoming a baseball expert.

Let's start with the fact that I know both of the teams playing in the World Series: the San Francisco Giants and the Detroit Tigers. I know, too, that tonight will be the fourth game, played in Detroit, and if the Giants win this then they win the series. I know that no team in the history of this competition has ever come back from a three games to zero deficit, so things aren't looking too rosy for Detroit. I know that RBI stands for Run Batted In, and I even know what that means. I know, thanks to my patient mother, that pitchers bat in the National League but not in the American League, and I know that for a pitcher to hit an RBI is quite a feat, although such an accomplishment doesn't exactly get me up on my feet waving my logoed hand towel. I know that pitchers have approximately 700 different pitches in their repertoire, some over 100 miles per hour, whereas I have only one: off-target and really really slow. Actually, two. I can also do it underhand. I know that though they have absurd upper body strength and hand-eye coordination I can't even begin to comprehend, I'm fairly certain I could demolish most professional baseball players in a cardio test.

But you see, I snark because I care. (By the way, "snark" is a verb now. Spread the word.) I know that any number of people could spit back at me all the reasons why soccer is useless, and many do. One friend cites the sheer pointlessness of a game that could end in a 0-0 tie, or any tie for that matter. Another finds the sport nothing more than a complex game of ping pong. And no one who's not an avid fan understands the offsides rule, even when I recreate it with condiments at fine dining establishments. What I am doing here is putting a leash on my right to sarcasm, taking it for a stroll around the block, and stopping at the baseball field on the corner to marvel at how the same game was in the bottom of the eighth when I last walked by...the previous week.

My Cat is Cuter Than Your Honor Student

I rest my case.

Autumn, I Love You

There are a lot of things I don't love about fall. My dresses go into storage. Soccer winds down. I finish lunch and look out the window and see my reflection staring back in the darkness.

But even what I don't love about fall, I love about fall. My summer clothes are swapped out for gloves and hats and sweaters and scarves (and oh how I love scarves). By the time November rolls around my poor little over-stressed soccer heart is pleading for the off-season. Shorter days make it socially acceptable for me to hunker down next to the fire in my pajamas at 4:30 in the afternoon with my cup of tea--all of which are things I do anyway but I particularly appreciate the excuse of darkness to make myself look less like the world's youngest spinster and more like someone who just really likes drinking chai in her sweatpants.

Simply put, autumn is magical. On the trees, color spreads like ripples. The bike trail along the river is covered in such a thick layer of red-golden leaves that you can hardly tell where the path ends and the woods begin. The crisp air brings a numbness to your fingers that only a mug of peppermint hot chocolate can dissolve. Fall in the Pacific Northwest is especially wonderful because you can wrap yourself in layer after bulky layer of black, brown, and dark grey and pay no heed to the 700 fashion crimes you're committing because if you're getting hauled off to style prison, everyone within a 500-mile radius is coming with you. The chill in the air practically begs you to preheat your oven, and during what season is it more appropriate to whip up a honey pear tart with pears poached in white wine and fanned out atop a sweet almond crust? Even the word itself--autumn--is a deep, meditating breath.

So yes, goodbye skirts that billow when I twirl barefoot on the grass. Goodbye Scarves Up and my Sounders cowbell and booing David Beckham (actually, I never stop booing David Beckham). Goodbye sunsets that glow red along the horizon until well after I go to sleep. I will see you next year.

In the meantime, hello to the harvesting of pumpkins and the comfort of fleece and and exquisite earthy scent of the world, once again, changing.

Happy autumn, everyone.
 

Quick Question

What the hell, Glade Sense & Spray?

I'm sorry, but how did the design of this air freshener ever strike anyone as a good idea? I look at this product and see one thing (and let me tell you, it's not something I care to display on my coffee table or bathroom counter. I wouldn't even display it in my garbage can.)

 

 And, if possible, it looks even more X-rated in its packaging. The little parentheses to indicate the motion sensor? Yeah. Why? Am I the only one seeing this? Please tell me I'm not the only one seeing this.

 

Poetry Corner Monday Tuesday

Cancer

By Stanley Plumly

Mine, I know, started at a distance
five hundred and twenty light-years away
and fell as stardust into my sleeping mouth,
yesterday, at birth, or that time when I was ten
lying on my back looking up at the cluster
called the Beehive or by its other name
in the constellation Cancer,
the Crab, able to move its nebulae projections
backward and forward, side to side,
in the tumor Hippocrates describes as carcinoma,
from karkinos, the analogue, in order to show
what being cancer looks like.
Star, therefore, to start,
like waking on the best day of your life
to feel this living and immortal thing inside you.
You were in love, you were a saint,
you were going to walk the sunlight blessing water,
you were almost word for word forever.
The crown, the throne, the thorn--
now to see the smoke shining in the mirror,
the long half dark of dark down the hallway inside it.
Now to see what wasn't seen before:
the old loved landscape fading from the window,
the druid soul within the dying tree,
the depth of blue coloring the cornflower,
the birthday-ribbon river of a road,
and the young man who resembles you
opening a door in the half-built house
you helped your father build,
saying, in your voice, come forth.