Mmmmmm.........

Usually I'm a beer/wine girl, but last night I went out with my friend, Becky, who is much more the "cocktail" sort. I decided to indulge myself in a fancy cocktail, but I never know what to order. The main reason that I stay away from mixed drinks is that they usually taste so BOOZY to me. I know that might appeal to a lot of people, but not to me. Booze tastes like paint thinner to me. Too harsh. I guess that's why I stick with wine and beer.

Anyway, I asked the very nice Irish bartender to recommend a not-too-boozy, not-too-sweet cocktail. Maybe something tart or citrusy. The bartender thought for a moment and asked, "Do you like grapefruit?" When I replied in the affirmative, he immediately set to busying himself with all kind of paraphernalia....ice, shaker, martini glass, several bottles...you get the picture.

When he was finished, there was a very pretty red/orange drink in a martini glass with a little twist of lemon zest wrapped around the rim. Lovely.

I asked what the drink was, but the bartender just encouraged me to try it first before asking 20 questions.

I brought the concoction to my lips and was delighted with the light, but very intensely grapefruit flavored taste. It was lovely.

Apparently was a "ruby red martini" made with Ruby Red Absolut. After I'd polished it off, (every last drop, of course), the barman asked me if I wanted another. I almost went ahead and ordered a second one, but then logic prevailed. If it didn't taste at all boozy, that didn't mean that it wasn't boozy. Probably just the opposite. So, I stopped at one, but I could have had fifty.

Get thee to a local bar and order up a Ruby Red Martini!

MMMM.....

Hell-Evator Ride From Hell.

In our quirky little building, our quirky little elevator recently became the source of my greatest nightmare.

On Tuesday morning, I solicited the elevator to the 6th floor. I boarded the elevator, checking my watch and calculating how much time I had to catch my bus. When the elevator stopped, I went to step off. The only problem seemed to be that the door wasn't opening. The elevator was no longer moving, and try as I may by pressing every single button in the thing, I could not get the door to budge.

I called Stephen on my cell. As soon as I heard myself announce to him that I was stuck on the elevator, the panic sank in. All of a sudden, I could not breathe. The elevator is tiny and dingy to begin with, but it seemed to be getting smaller by the second. It was horrifying. Stephen urged me to try all the buttons again. This I did. To no avail.

Stephen came down the stairs, calling through the elevator doors at each floor to see if he could locate me. Eventually was able to hear him. He was on the first floor, but his voice sounded like it was slightly below me. I was clearly trapped somewhere between the first and second floors.

At this point, I was hyperventilating. I found some paper with an "In case of elevator emergency" number, and promptly dialed it. I thought I would be dialing some elevator manufacturer in China, but was extremely relieved when I was greeted with, "C and J management, how can we help?" (C and J being the management company for our building.) Somehow I managed to blurt out that I was trapped in the elevator. The woman, a seemingly kind soul, issued some reassuring words, telling me to sit tight while she paged the manager. Several minutes passed with no update from the answering service, so I dialed back. This time, the "seemingly kind soul" greeted me with an annoyed, "What do you want??" She could not possibly be serious, right? WHAT DID I WANT? Ahhh...how about getting me out of this f*&@#ing rat trap for starters!!!

Anyway, realizing that our useless building "super" was going to do everything to protect his "useless" title, Stephen decided to call 911. Perhaps my deep panic in the elevator help lead him to this decision, too.

Within a few moments, I heard the sirens outside of the building. "Thank Christ" was all I could think.

Finally I heard the firefighters who had come to my rescue. I was almost weeping with joy and relief to realize they hadn't even bothered to send the cops, but rather had gone directly for the fire fighters. I mean, I am not putting cops down, and I realize the important role they play in our society and I'm thankful to them for it, but seriously...in situations like this, when you know shit is going to have to be DONE, you NEED and WANT the firefighters. Those peeps don't even try to waste time screwing around. They just get the job done. No small talk. No farting around. But the thing that I always find amazing about firefighters is that while they're getting right down to business, they always seem to find a word or two of reassurance or comfort for the person in distress.

Needless to say, Boston's Bravest did not disappoint in this regard. One of the firefighters, while trying to instruct me how to "kill the power" in the elevator, managed to call me every pet name in the book, all the while assuring me that they were there to help and I could stop worrying. I think it went something like this..."Ok, honey. Look, Sweetheart. What I need to you to do, Doll, is try to look around, Darling, and find the power switch, Pumpkin, and turn it down, Love." When I became alarmed at not finding the thing, the guy asked me, "Ok, Pet, no problem, Dear. You're in an older elevator, Sugar, and so you just leave it to us to figure out what to do, Baby." (Is this a typical Irish Boston Firefighter, or what? )

At any rate, intense conversation pursued as to how the would kill the power on the thing. At some point, they must have sounded as if they didn't know what to do, and I must have slid into a deeper panic because I think I hysterically said, "You're the firefighters. You always know what to do. Please don't tell me you don't know what to do!" I don't have a recording of what I sounded like, but I'm willing to wager that I sounded like a woman on the edge.

At this point, I was unsure of how many firefighters were there. However, at this point, when I expressed this primal fear that I was encapsulated in this elevator for the rest of my days, I heard about 6 voices make haste to reassure me that they would not leave my side until I was out of there, "even if it took all day and night." They made a solemn promise that they would stick with me, and I believed they would. I immediately started to breathe easier.

At any rate, the discussion seemed to end when the men reached a consensus that the best way to kill the power was through a control mechanism that is almost always on the roof of the building. When I meekly asked why they needed to kill the power, one disembodied firefighter's voice informed me that since I was clearly between floors, they needed to kill the power in case they had my body partially out of the shaft, and the elevator decided to start moving again.

'Nuff said.

Stephen accompanied a duo of the firefighters to the roof egress. The reached the 7th floor when he realized, "Crap, we don't have keys to the roof door!"

A voice behind him calmly stated, "I do."

Stephen turned to see one of the men with is axe at the ready. With it, he proceeded to nonchalantly bust open the door. He then walked, without missing a beat, to the box containing the elevator mechanisms, and used his axe to bust the hell into that thing, too. He proceeded to kill the power.

At some point, the firefighters who had adjourned to the roof returned and reported that it was safe to begin the entry into the elevator itself. I saw the beam of a flashlight enter the elevator and the men told me that they were coming in.

I heard the god awful crunch of metal and steel being manipulated in most unnatural ways.

At long last, the door was pried open, and I looked down into the eyes of my knights in shining armor...6 of Boston's Bravest.

As I said, I was somewhere between the first and second floors. When the men opened the elevator, they could see my legs from my knees down. I could, in turn, look down and see those guys looking up at me.

I started to jump the hell out of there, but they stayed me, asking me to patiently wait out the enactment of their elevator rescue protocol. Of course I obliged, even though the instinct to jump out of there was so great.

Anyway, they laid a ladder sideways across the exposed elevator shaft, braced their feet against it, and then instructed me to lay flat on my back in the elevator, with my feet pointed toward the door.

This I did, albeit feeling completely ridiculous.

The firefighters instructed me to inch my body toward the open door. Two of them stood on either side of me, catching my ankles and calf muscles. As I inched further, two of them grabbed me from under the thighs and low back. Still two more supported me from just under the shoulders. Eventually, my body was soaring above six strapping firefighters, parallel to the floor below.

Ever the caring professionals, they did not remove their supportive hands, even from my ankles, until my feet were again on terra firma.

Guys, all I have to say is THANK GOD for firefighters. I have always known they are the true heros in any crisis. This only proved my theory.

So, to all the firefighters in the world, including the best one, CALIFORNIA MO....Thank you for what you do every day.

Kiss my Ve Ri T-ASS

I was rejected by Harvard...AGAIN!!

I found out on Sunday through an email. My immediate reaction may surprise you. I was actually quite relieved.

Really.

You see, just that morning I was beginning to absorb the reality of what my life would be like if I were in school full time and not earning an income. I'd have to bid adieu to my beloved gym membership, my regular eyebrow waxing appointments, my frequent Target runs and so many other little things. My occasional iTunes purchases, for example, or my visits to the sale rack at Ann Taylor Loft.

I mean sure, the prestige of attending Harvard would have been great, but I don't do the whole "broke graduate student" thing very well. And why should I? I'm 34, for Chrissakes. I've been professionally employed for 13 years. How could I go back to drinking Milwaukees Best Light when my tastebuds have already been tickles by Czechevar, that oh-so-sweet nectar of the gods.

But OK, as soon as the relief subsided, I became a little indignant about the whole thing. Jesus. Why didn't they accept me? So, I called the admissions office to speak to one of the admissions officers. The woman told me that they were looking to generate a "more diverse student body." I assured her that I bring a very diverse perspective to the conversation. I'm older than the average applicant, for starters. I've had more life and professional experience. I've taught in an language immersion program her in the US. I spent two years teaching overseas, another in urban public education.

My line of conversation seemed to agitate the admissions officer. She told me, "That's not exactly the type of diversity we're looking for." As I pressed her to define "diversity" in terms of what I was lacking, she became increasingly uncomfortable and eventually asked me to told. Several moments later, she came back with a newfound sense of self-assuredness and snapped, "Your math GRE scores were really low."

Keep in mind, I am an English teacher. But rather than belabor the point, I simply said, "I understand" and exited the clearly pointless exchange.

I will stand up and face the people to whom I freely declared, "I think I'll get in. The real challenge shouldn't be the admission, but rather the fellowship." I probably came across as arrogant, although I didn't mean to. So, feel free to serve me up a big slab of humble pie and I'll happily tuck right into it. The rejection took me by surprise, but a little humility was never known to kill anybody.

Seriously though, those Harvard Be-atches don't know what they're missing because I'm fabulous. And that's the troof!!

Ha ha.

But come on....a rejection letter through email. Are they taking a page from Jack Burger, the asshole who dumped our Sex and the City heroine, Carrie Bradshaw, on a post-it note? Apparently so.

So, the plan is to stay the course at Umass Boston. I'm in a course now, and I can take a couple more over the summer. I have 5 years to do what I need to do, so I'm in good shape. And best of all, I get to keep my job and my paycheck. All is right with the world. With my world, that is.

As for the other happenings in my world:

My friend, Sharyn, lent me her hair straightening iron and, boy, has it changed my life. The thing rules. And it is so damn easy to use. If I am saying this gadget is easy, believe me, it is. If you don't have one of these things, I'd highly recommend checking one out.

My friend, Clay, got me to join up to Facebook. I had heard of it, but had no idea how to use it. When I signed up, I was all confused and shit. But with a little practice and frequent exposure to the requisite lingo, I was a seasoned pro. The great thing is that you can search people and then add them as your friends. You can then root around your friends' profiles to see if they have any long-lost acquaintances in common with you. You can then avoid doing the legwork of finding that third party, and just add them to your friends list as well. Genius.

And the best part of all is that you can play Scrabble games with folks. My friend, John, who lives in China (!) and I reconnected through Facebook and we're devout Scrabble mates now. Of course he kills me in every game because he uses these word generators that feed him words like "XDQQXXYQ." This would probably value like 4,000 points. I could use the same things, but I refuse as I'm a game purist...especially for word or language games. Sure, there may be a word, "XXXQQXX" that means "boil on the ass of a newborn rhino, but I've never heard of it, so I won't use it. That's just how I roll.

At this point my track record is that I've lost 23 games and won 2. At least I've lost those 23 games under my own intellectual steam.

Ok, I'm losing typing steam here.

My last thought....check out the "L Word" Showtime series. It's worth watching.

Burdened.

I am back at my Mac, and I actually know how to post pictures, but for this entry I won't.

Normally my pictures are whimsical or cheeky or whatever. Today, however, I'm feeling neither emotion.

You know the AWESOME kid that I blogged about just a short while ago? Well, he came around to my classroom after school today to talk. I know he's been in a pretty rough state for the past week or so. He's been stressed, disengaged and generally withdrawn. I mentioned to him this morning that I'm always around if he ever feels like chatting.

Anyway, following dismissal he showed up and he basically poured out his soul to me. Everything that has been weighing on this brilliant mind came pouring out and it was worse than I had ever expected it to be. He was crying as he talked. I was on the verge of crying, myself, as I listened.

Jesus, it just places much-needed but often overlooked perspective on the fact that these kids are coming to school with so much CRAP on their minds. How can we honestly expect school to be a priority to them when they're so burdened by the difficulties of their own lives?

This poor baby.

I restate that I will go and break the miserable face of anybody who ruins this kid. Not this kid. I won't have it.