Nutcracker Weekend

My daughter is a dancer. She is a beautiful graceful dancer. I take no credit for this. To say I lack grace is an understatement. I have broken my ankle walking down stairs, and torn all the ligaments in my knee watering the lawn. I am grateful she has that talent, most of the time.
However this weekend was Nutcracker Sunday. I use the term both to refer to Tchaikovsky’s ballet and as a crude reference to the behavior of the females in my household before up to my daughter’s performance in it.
I have to say that this year’s version was not quite as bad as last year’s. Last year she played Clara, one of the leads, and it was a pretty intense preparation. This year she played one of the kissing dolls and the lead Marzipan as well as several other dances.
When I refer to preparation, I am mainly referring to the work of Christina, the daughter and my wife, the mother of said fifteen year old.
There is the learning and rehearsal of the dance, which to the uninitiated would seem like the difficult part. However there is also the matter of shoes, costumes, hairdo, makeup, transportation, and tickets.
Aside from being the driver for rehearsals I have almost no role in the dance part, Christina handles that well. Each of the other matters do involve me in one way or the other.
First the shoes. Ballet requires two kinds of shoes, the soft ballet slippers that are featured in the cutesy décor of little girl’s bedrooms. My job with those is to find them. For each most rehearsals I hear ‘Where are My ballet shoes’ and in my omniscience I can usually locate them in the car, the closet or the shoe cubby. The second type of shoes are pointe shoes. These have hard toes and enable the dancer to stand on her tip-toes These are held on the foot by ribbons. Now, unlike most footwear that come ready-to-wear, pointe shoes have to have the ribbon sewn to fit each dancer’s foot. Many shoe manufacturers include a special needle and thread to do this. My job is not the sewing. It is finding the needle and thread that inevitably gets misplaced. Somehow, although I have never used them it becomes my fault when they are lost.
Next are the costumes. The costumes for group dances are from the dance studio. They do not always fit. So there is more sewing, and hemming. The show was Sunday night. My wife was up sewing Saturday night until midnight at which point she said to me, “You have to go to the store early and get light hemming tape. The stuff I have is too heavy. ” Now I know what hemming tape is so I said sure, as soon as Walmart opens I will be there.
And I was there, and went to the craft section, and looked at the hemming tape there was regular hemming tape, heavy duty hemming tape, and then I spotted ‘Ultra Light’. I beamed. I would get this right. So, I rushed home, and opened it and looked at it. It was hemming web and looked like plastic wrap and looked too permanent. My wife looked at me with that. ‘You are utterly hopeless’ look. I would see a lot of that by the day’s end.
I woke my daughter up with a cheery ‘Good morning’ and was greeted in return by a grunt and groan.
Christina went to the bathroom and came out and gave me her version of the ‘You are utterly hopeless’ look. “Dad, I asked you to get me conditioner” she waved a plastic bottle at me.
“I did, I even got you ‘happy hydration’ just as you told me.

“THIS is shampoo and conditioner in one. I can’t use THIS” she sighed.

“I will get conditioner when I go back to the store”, I told her, “I know you will need something else.” To be continued..

Steel Tango Part 4 - Health

We went back to the steel mill on Tuesday morning. It was a lovely spring day. We were ready to work. But wait. Were we healthy enough to work in a steel mill with extremes of temperature and the aura of sulfurous fumes drifting through the air. We had to be given a physical exam. My Spanish is not too good. I was laughed at back in the seventies in Madrid when I tried to buy train tickets; and that was when my Spanish was better. I puzzled out the questions, and deciphered the pantomime enough to answer the questions and then get an EKG. Apparently I was fit for the job. I wondered why they made it so difficult to allow someone to solve their problems. Perhaps they truly were concerned for my well-being.
We passed through security, with a bit more scrutiny this time. I am used to security checks by now. I am always the ‘random’ person in the airport who has to be thoroughly searched and wanded. I know without looking that my boarding pass will have SSSS stamped on it and I will be singled out. I am used to the stares of fellow travelers who know I must be a terrorist. This time was easy. They checked our passes, our PC cases, wrote down the serial numbers and we were on our way.

Steel Tango Part 3 - Meat

We survived and actually became inured to brushing other vehicles. I no longer winced passing within two or three inches of other cars. I did learn that any card would work since it is not electronic but that was not until later.
Once we were settled into the hotel we went to dinner. Now, dinner begins at 8:30 PM. No one eats before then. We went to one of the two restaurants that our man in Argentina would recommend in that town and had our first Argentinean meal. Argentines eat meat. That’s it, meat, and beef at that. The best beef I ever had, and inexpensive, but just meat. You can order a side order of potatoes which I did, but as far as green veggies go, they were nowhere to be seen. So we had beef, filet mignon, and French fries. It was delicious. The meal was followed by ice cream. I could feel the cholesterol rising. At lunch throughout the week we went to the other restaurant, and instead of filet mignon I had grilled sirloin. This was repeated all week, with one exception. I had chicken once, and added fruit to my breakfast, for health reasons.

Steel Tango Part 2 El Commandante

We went easily through security and to the meeting. There were four of us from my company, two Argentines (I will call them Martin and Eduardo, just to protect their identity, they are absolutely wonderful men, among the most hospitable I have met.), a Frenchman, Pierre (brilliant, warm, great guy) and myself (no comment). We were meeting with the project leader, Luis. Now it is important to remember the purpose of our visit. We were here to fix problems arising from changing the software that controls a steel rolling mill. This facility has ovens that heat huge slabs of steel to over 1000 degrees C and sends them down a line to be squashed to about one eighth their original thickness. Of course they also get much longer. It is awesome, in the original sense of the word. Well the software controls the machines that do all this, so when there is a problem it can be in Luis’ words “catastrófico”.
Luis was dressed in a khaki uniform, the standard for professionals who work in the mills. I immediately, in my warped mind, gave him the nickname ‘El Commandante’ (see photo of Luis in his spare time). He would smile once in a while but behind it there was always an implied ‘you better fix it now.”
We also met with his boss, a dour man in a suit and tie who appeared to be suffering from chronic indigestion. We assured them that we were on the case and would be back bright and early the next morning to perform all kinds of wonders.
Then we went to town, to our hotel. I am not exactly sure of what I was expecting in the city we went to. I knew it was about the same size as the city I live in and I had seen it more or gogglen Google Earth. But let me just say I was unprepared. I will call the city San Miguel. Downtown is about ten miles from the steel mill. The road there was a two lane highway, with three lanes of traffic. I sat in the backseat. I prefer the backseat because the driver can’t see my white knuckles. We passed many cars from the 60s I think the best image would be the atmosphere from ‘The Last Picture Show’. I was fascinated. There is no idea of zoning or front yards so auto body shops were abutting upper-crust houses and car dealerships were cheek bybarbecueth barbeque shacks.
When we got to downtown proper Martin just went straight through each intersection, as did all the cross traffic. I put my trust in him and Dios mio.

Steel Tango, Part 1

One of the nice things about my job is that once in a while I get to travel to far away places. One of the bad things about my job is I get to travel to far away places. Last week I went to Argentina.

I work for a global corporation that does industrial automation. This is the reason why it is sometimes less-than-perfect in traveling. Most places where they have heavy industry are not the same places where tourists flock. So for instance if I were to travel to the States I would not normally be called into Honolulu or San Francisco or New York City, but more likely Detroit, Toledo or Flint.

So it was this time. I took the 11 hour flight to Buenos Aires, and it would have been great to stay there. I felt very ‘New York’. But, no, I was picked up by a company colleague and whisked to the Argentine Immigration Bureau. It appears that while you do not need a visa to travel to the country you need to pay for a ‘work’ visa to contribute to their economy. There was a French engineer also sent there to solve the problem and we got a taste of Argentine bureaucracy. My company had hired an ‘expert’ to facilitate the process but it still took two and a half hours to receive the stamped sheet of paper that said we could work there.

Once we were legal, we headed out to the site. It was in a mid-sized city 250 Km from Buenos Aires over the flattest land I have seen, and I have been to Indiana. It was interesting, for the first twenty minutes. Then I realized that all cattle farms look alike and the occasional sheep or llama ranch was not enough to vary the view. I dozed on and off until I was jolted awake because we were on a pot-holed dirt road. I was informed that since we were in a hurry (we had a 3:30 meeting scheduled and it was 5:00 PM) we were taking a short-cut. And sure enough 15 bone-jarring minutes later we pulled into a gleaming modern office building, with lovely blooming violet jacaranda trees (see photo, actually the tree in the photo is in Buenos Aires). Just from the sulfur scent overwhelming what I assumed were the floral overtones I know this was the only gleaming modern building on the site.

Nobel Prize 2015 - Male's Missing Sense Discovered

It is the time the Nobel prizes are awarded. I know there is no prize for Psychology, (the prize committee has always stretched the Medicine prize to cover a lot of territory) but perhaps one of you budding young neurophysiologists is looking for a Nobel-worthy project. I believe I have found one.

We know there are differences in the brains of men and women, but they are subtle and not very remarkable. This is because we males have been dense and disbelieving. Women must actually have the facility to read minds. I know that stuff is for the left coast, new age, para-psuedoscience crowd but the evidence is becoming overwhelming.

Take this past week, and just one female in my life. I think the mind-reading faculty is most evident in teenage girls, or at least they do not have the fully developed facility to hide it that adult females do.

My daughter is 15. She is very active and besides being an honor student, is an exceptional dancer, and now is involved in drama at school so there are very few nights where we get to sit down and eat as a family but that is the topic of another rant. This means she comes home any time between 6:30 and 9 PM most days. She is hungry, naturally, and her first activity upon arrival home is to open the refrigerator and look for food. Those of you who have teenagers know the second activity is to exclaim “There is nothing to eat.” This is a required response, whether the cupboard is bare or I have just returned with $200 worth of groceries. Now this is where, as a male, lacking the ability to read her mind I invariably respond “What would you like to eat?” Then comes the look, not quite a rolling of the eyes but a definite look of disdain for a lower creature on the Tree of Life. I realize that is when the mind-reading ability should come in to play, and she obviously doesn’t realize I am incapable of it.

Now this scenario played out to an extreme last Thursday. The lovely girl was harried, overworked, frazzled, a very volatile state for a fifteen year old female. To compound the danger, the food situation was rather low. Not that we were in danger of famine, but the choices were limited to maybe the menu of a good size diner. However, she was not interested in any of the choices available, naturally.

My lack of anticipating the dietary needs of the young lady put her into the funk that only a fifteen year old female can feel. My heart was broken, again. As it was I had to go out to the store for something completely unrelated to he dinner, namely my own ice cream. I magnanimously asked the princess if I could get her something to eat. After a few perfunctory huffs and puffs, she consented to allow me to get her ‘a sandwich from the deli’. Now I am not a total idiot, I could smell trouble. To forestall the inevitable “You KNOW I don’t like…”

I asked, innocently “what type of sandwich?”

“Anything, as long as it doesn’t have anything gross..”

This was a sure recipe for failure. So I pressed her gingerly, “And by gross we mean..”

“You know, like tomatoes”

“Perhaps a chicken pesto panini like your brother brought you the other day?”

“You KNOW I hate pesto.”

Well, perhaps I did, at one time know that.. but I have no recollection. I did know she was not partial to green things in her foods.”

Well I went to the store, perused the sandwiches, and settled on a chicken caesar panini. This was well thought out. She only likes one type of salad, Caesar, and she has ordered a Caesar salad out, as a meal. This was safe. I was almost sure. But just to be certain, I picked up one of those ready to heat up lasagna dinners. I KNOW lasagna is her favorite eating out dish.

Feeling secure again in my role as provider I brought the two items, as well as my own ice cream, home. Smiling I presented them to the lady, expecting at least a noncommittal grunt.

“What were you thinking Dad? A sandwich made out of salad? Lasagna from a grocery store?” You should know..”

And there it is. I should know. And therefore I am encouraging all the young ambitious scientists looking for a Nobel prize worthy goal. Please find out how I can know. If we are expected to know there must be a way.

Dendrochronology, say what?

I love to read, and my reading tends to be eclectic. I read a number of books at once and to be honest I rarely finish a book. This is for two reasons. The most common is I lose interest. There are people who will pick up a book and trudge through it even if they do not like it. I have no idea why anyone, reading time is too precious. The other reason is that if I really like a book I hate for it to end. I understand this is an absurd reason, but I figure I will always come back and finish it someday.

The books I read can be on almost any subject. I often get ridiculed for the books I read. My wife thinks I am weird in this. She has made fun of my reading books on soils (I am a Bronx native, I figure you never know when you have to determine the appropriate crop for the soil you have, but I guess the odds are rather high against using that knowledge), rats (a great book on the rats of Manhattan) and almost any non-fiction book I read.

However every once in a while some of the esoteric knowledge I have picked up comes in handy. Last night, for example, I was helping my daughter with here homework. The topic was archeology. I am by no means an expert in the field, but I have read my share of books that touch on the subject and she needed some methods of dating archeological artifacts. She, brilliant young woman that she is, had gotten the obvious ones, and she asked me for anymore. Well, from somewhere deep in the recesses of my cluttered brain I blurted out "Dendrochronology" . I even astonished myself. She looked at me and started to laugh as I explained how scientists used tree rings to get the exact date of things from fairly far back in the past.

Sometimes, and you never can tell when or where, our ‘useless knowledge’ may come in handy, if only to persuade your teenager that you are not as dumb as they think.

We don't look good in black hats.

I remember when we were the good guys. I grew up in the 1950s just after we saved the world from the AXIS. We were proud to be Americans because we did the right thing in the right way.

It was the height of the Cold War. America stood for the rights of man, we fought against the abuses of ‘godless communism’. In Russia we knew people were being spied upon by Big Brother, they were being taken from their homes in the dead of night and being tortured in concentration camps for their religion and charged with being enemies of the state, .

We were horrified by this.

We would never do such a thing.

But now, it seems we do.

Agents rounded up hundreds, if not thousands of American citizens, because they were practiced Islam. No one was told why or where they went.

Our President is trying to authorize torture of ‘enemy combatants’.

American citizens are having their phone conversations spied upon.

I ache to wear the white hat again.