The other night when Whit was over, we spun off a scenario about starting a fictitious local running "club". I was both laughing and cringing. Sort of along the lines of the Her-ler club, a neighborhood gathering that holds monthly runs and meetings in community center basements at odd hours, like a Friday night at 8:00 p.m. on a holiday weekend. People had joined to sort of get a good run in for a good cause, seemed like some local fun.

Naturally, meeting attendence becomes paultry, due to the complete inconvenience of it all. This is when Scott (suddenly the club founder) has to really crack down. He'd start by calling the missed-meeting members at home.

-hello?
-yeah hi, is this sophie?
-yes?
-hi, this is scott from the federal hill striders.
-oh, hi...
-i noticed you didnt make our meeting last friday. (silence. wait.)
-oh, yeah, sorry about that, you know we went out of town that weekend--
-hey, look, we all have other obligations, but you know we need everyone's contribution to make this thing work. i'd like to stop by and talk to you about it. how is tuesday night?

He would strongarm a time, again, right at dinner time, when he shows up at their door. He refuses to come inside, but instead asks them sit on the stoop for about "five minutes of your time." It goes a little something like this. Very heavy-handed. (This, by the way, is sooo middle-management style, it makes my toes curl. I love it.) I picture them sitting down, Scott facing the person, hands interlocked with thumbs gesticulating up and down as he emphasizes:

"You know, I see a lot of potential with you-- you really showed us what you're capable of at the bake sale in July. We need to be able to count on your committment, and if you can't seem to handle that sort of pressure, maybe the striders aren't for you. Just think about it." He departs and walks down the street, a little self-important. The person is left to stand there feeling part guilty, part shocked and also ready to sprint after him and tackle him on the sidewalk.

Madness!

Hurricane Isabel blasted through here last week, and we are just now getting power back and getting dry. We got socked. But it was odd, the storm didn't seem so extraordinary aside from this thing called "surge" which I picture looking like a super slow-moving, thick tidal wave that pushed the surrounding water up and out all over cities and residences for about 10 hours. Really strange.

Even stranger, to me, was the media. It was media madness. I am guessing the technology has advanced, as never before has a storm been tracked so thoroughly. It was as if Isabel had taken on a life of its own in the form of some sort of media-hyped hurri-monster. Meant to be feared and revered for a full week in advance with psychedellic, spinning photo coverage: "She's losing strength!" one day. "Her tail is spinning out and appears to be breaking off!" another. We were all made sit and watch her eye spiral closer and closer to finally "She's looking right AT YOU and she's angrier than ever!". The news was all over this.

Probably because I am foolish, I wasn't getting jarred. Thursday, the day 'she' was due to strike, the skies turned dark and like most Baltimore businesses, our office closed and we were told that most likely we would not open the next day, either. I drove right to the store and loaded up on yummy treats, loads of wine and a big jugs of water. Time to party. Traffic was horrendous, people were starting to panic. I called Whitney and invited her over. I filled the bathtub up with water, a smart precaution if the power does go out, I was told. The skies darkened.

I cooked dinner, baked a dessert, we sat on our back porch and let it roll. Big gusts were felt, the rain pelted, leaves blew around. And that was about it. Whit walked home, we went to sleep, and I think Scott was a little disappointed.

I woke up the next morning and looked out the window, a few branches on cars but otherwise dry street. Ah, well. Time for work-- but thought to quickly turn to my friends on the local news and learned that we were under water a few blocks away. We threw on our sneakers & ran down to the harbor and it was spooky: the water level was so high, it was one big, blue-gray plane that stretched from building fronts to the middle of the bay. The waves were breaking against business buildings lobbies & windows. Where was the city dock? Where were the big giant cletes for moored boats? Where were the parking meters? All underneath the water. Feet of "surge" that swallowed it all up.

Needless to say, people were urged not to "walk around". We sallied up somewhat close to the city harbor with the massive tourist boats still safely moored super HIGH up in the air. It was truly awesome. And horrific.

But, again, maybe not as horrific as the media surge, which was just getting started. Footage from low-lying areas via helicopter showed entire neighborhoods where only rooftops and treetops were visible. It went on and on, evacuated seniors in lifeboats, lost yachts banging around in harbors, and so on.

The news was sent to and fro, live shots to here and there, with constant references to how wonderfully ACCURATE Isabel has been tracked by the WXYZ crew! As more horror stories of lost homes and businesses were revealed, the anchor people started losing it: Well PEOPLE, you can't say you weren't WARNED! What does that mean? This "surge" would have happened anyway? On-the-street interviews turned obnoxious, showing poor people in their cars, trying to get through flooded streets: So, did you THINK you were going to get through? [Shines big light into car.] Anchormen in hip waders trudging through god-knows-what in the city streets, hassling families hovering together on their top stair, marooned inside their completely flooded homes.

I was trying to eat breakfast and a weary anchor person cranked along: I think now we are going... ok, I am hearing that we are now going to Dottie Greene's house in Fells Point [zoom in shot of a dingy, dark bathroom in an old basement].. yes, this is a shot of, okay, Dottie Greene's toilet [cut to close up of bowl bubbling up and over with brown crud] ..and that is raw sewage. Instantly they switched off the pot-shot and cut right to the two anchors who stared out from the desk with looks of sheer horror and discust. Speechless. It was a few moments before someone said Uhm, and there we have it, we thank our crew for that shot of Dottie Greene's bathroom.

I tried to recouperate from that visual over the weekend and then guess who washed up at our doorstep? My brand-new in-laws!

Stuff. Everywhere is stuff. I am still weeding through items from NYC that I can now part with. Simplify. Ahh.

Last weekend, I unearthed a book that was given to me when I lived in SF by another Marylander titled: Hey Hon! How To Speak Bawlmerese or something like that. Will update with author info, I can't recall who wrote it.

I knew the guide would be humorous as the Baltimore accent is, truly, otherworldly, but I didnt expect I'd be spending my entire weekend laughing over it.

Its got the common sort of vernacular outlined: "Go O's!" = "Gao AO's!" but the beauty lies in the glossary. Pages of translations but each word has an example set in real context. With these lumpy-bodied illustrations. I spent all Friday night rolling, reading them out loud to Scott. We were tearing. It made it seem like all people in this city do is eat crabs, drink beer, and watch sports. Which is largely true.

Examples:
Prarty = Priority. "Prarty number one is beer, 'den cable, 'den crabs. Nao, nao: Crabs, 'den beer, 'den cable. Nao..."
Borned = Born. "All the babies borned in Balmer know how ta pick crabs."

My all time favorite?
Eeben = Even. "Eeben 'de crabs crod when 'de Coats leff." Translated: Even the crabs cried when the Colts left.

Crabs? Cried? That's great.

I just freaked myself out.

Am loving this retro-action this season. A little too much, I've gone bonkers with slingbacks and huge sunglasses and strands and strands of pearl baubles.

A glass item broke here, scattering small shards through the carpet and our maintanence man is super slammed. I kept crunching over it until I realized I could vacuum it up. So, downstairs I minced in my skirt, bubblegum top and giant necklace, resurfacing with a huge vacuum. I plugged it in and kicked the low-switch with my high heel, mind you, and blitzed all about, feeling very accomplished. It made a ton of noise. A spectacle all the way around.

I think I've earned a nice cup of ambrosia after work today.

A friend asked me how I was doing today over an email. Allright, I guessed. I feel like an alien in this office somehow, but aside from that, okay.

Then my mind went directly back to where I was, precisely, at this exact time two years ago. I'd just made it home from lower Manhattan. I was still unable to reach anyone on my phone, and had separated from everyone else from work. I was still shakey and I numbly walked home. About this time two years ago, I was sitting in my teensy apartment with the sun streaming in through the windows. I was supposed to be at work. Sirens sounded. The news was a nightmare carnival. I had visions of other buildings smoldering and crumbling like dominos, until the island was flat. I grabbed my purse and decided to walk to Rachael and Neil's, hoping, hoping they were home. Passing the multi-ethnic bodegas and store fronts, everyone had moved their small TVs onto the street, giving passers-by a place to give pause and maybe any relevant information. Anyone talked to anyone. Water was being handed out for free. People were alone, crying. Strangers were hugging. I felt sick and my heart hurt.

Happily, my friends were home. I was so relieved! I needed to talk with them, I shared with them blow by blow what I saw and where I ran to. My story isn't very newsworthy, but it was harrowing nonetheless. They were slightly north from me, and had similar stories. It was chaos. We uncorked, unscrewed, unwrapped all sorts of cocktail salves, and felt our rattled nerves start to steady. We aired concerns, asked questions, and over and over again tried to empathize with those less fortunate. I recall pulling from my drink, closing my eyes and trying to envision what must have been happening to them that morning.

Little did I know, I'd still be doing the same thing two years later. Oh, there's that lump again.

I am busy, which I like. As a stress-reliever, I just gave into the sudden urge to fire off a series of quick emails to Stuart. Little pop-quizes, like this:

Q: Who am I? "[insert random quote from unthought-of-for-10-years-person]"

Like a rattler, she replied instantly, correct every time. Then she got me back in spades with a quiz-zinger of her own, a quote from a fellow who I had buried far away in my mental filing system. It was from a series of nights in college where I was, without one single doubt, the *World's Best Wingwoman in the Continental United States*. (Within reason, of course.) Hint: there was baby-talk involved. Ohhhh, you owe me, dear friend. Wow.

Stuart had been dating Kevin for about a year. They weren't engaged yet, but things were cooking right along. Valentine's Day was rounding the corner, and what was the right thing to purchase the getting-serious boyfriend? We batted some unoriginal, yet safe, ideas around. Nothing seemed to jump out at her. The day had nearly arrived. "I've got it!" She exclaimed. She went on to describe her last-minute, cost-effective solution to the Valentine issue.

She would invite Kevin over, and bring him into her bedroom. She would sit him down and then disappear for a few seconds. At once, she would reappear in full costume: a danskin leotard with white stockings and two balloons tied to her wrists. Hurredly, she would scamper over to the boom box (always, always a boom box with cassette ready) and press "play". To the tune of something cutesy like "I just want to be loved by you, boop boop be doo" would be the song. Her routine would be of a sort of low-impact nature, yet highly orchestrated. A complex sort of foot shuffle to the left and right with coordinating hand motions. She would be concentrating extremely hard, counting at times, yet very few seconds would pass without return to a broad SHOW SMILE to her audience of one. There would be some involved spins, exposing embarrassingly perhaps a half-wedgie.

For no reason, that image popped into my head this morning, and I laughed uncontrollably. I love to picture him sitting there, completely uneasy, uncertain how to react, never having seen his girlfriend like that before. An excruciating few minutes. The best detail has to be the balloons. I picture them sort of floppy, a little deflated. The music wouldn't be turned up enough so the shuffling footsteps would be very audible, an occaisonal furniture rattle, her counting and breathing. There would have to be an impressive ending; maybe a low-leap, landing her on his lap, in all her Valentine glory. Fantastic.

The East coast/West coast tug of war. So many pros to each. But you know what could tip the scale? Licorice. Here we have Twizzlers. Puh-leeze. The West has Red Vines. Soooo superior. Chewy, dense, sweet. Ours are like eating rubber hose. I may have to move again.

My research continues on Baltimore's plight. There's been a campaign in place that while impressive, doesn't seem to move people to do anything (like stop selling drugs and killing each other, for starters). BELIEVE. Thousands of stickers posted all over the city on a plain, black background in white letters reading, simply: Believe. Its a neat idea; believe in the city, believe in yourself, just believe. Its not working. Its perhaps too esoteric for this situation. It would be as if everyone were starving and after lots of research, a bunch of well-scrubbed people said "Viola!" and served up a shiny, cool Vespa as a solution.

Others believe what the city needs is a tagline, or a nickname to draw people in. People like that. Really? That works? The City of Brotherly Love. The City of Lights. Its not fair of me to sit and judge, but its too tempting. That seems ludicrous to me; one thing? So here are my submissions, I love picturing the logos that could follow:

The City of June Bugs
The City of NO Volcanos!
The Carbonated City
The City of Yesterday's Tomorrow [Today!]
The Tartar Town

Clearly, I am no help either. Still thinking, however...

Two things are making it currently impossible for me to work:

1) An email from Stuart. All that it contained was a closeup picture of her cat and then a few lines describing that for no reason, her cat moved out of their home and into the home next door with an Asian man who speaks no English. The neighbor will open his door and call the cat over, in his native tounge, and within seconds the cat is at his door and he closes it. That cat prefers to be there now, for some reason. Up & moved out.

2) On the below-mentioned dinner run this past weekend, Jeff was in charge of getting dinner items that would agree with his super nice girlfriend who stayed behind. He treats her exceptionally well, which is why it struck me as humorous when we were driving along, laiden with fresh treats, that he would say "I ought to bring Jackie back a meatloaf sandwich." Out of the clear blue sky. That was it. The imagery of her crestfallen face upon seeing that her boyfriend assumed she deserved a meatloaf sandwich. Loaf. Greasy in its paper wrapping, oniony and odorous, as we marinade and chop epicurian stuffs. The shame involved in having it fall apart and thud on the paper. I have laughed too hard at this.

Maybe its because I've lived in cities for the past 10 years. Or maybe its that Maryland really is not a southern state. Whenever I head down to Scott's parent's house in sleepy Virginia, it takes me a while to get down to speed. A nice, languid, slow speed. You meet with people and have "visits" where the entertainment is rocking on your chair. Sipping something cool. You take your time. You notice the weather. You notice the birds.

A day or two into the weekend, I'd gotten my pulse to slow down enough. We went to get dinner ingredients at a local seafood shop called "Cap'n Red's". I sauntered in with Jeff and Scott, and felt un-Yankee-like as I made idle chat with the owner. We made some selections for a nice dinner when the following exchange occured:

Jeff: Got any cocktail sauce?
Red: Yes in-deed, right here. Made it m'self!
Jeff: Is it any good?
Red: What?! Its so good it'll make you wanna smack yo mama!

Red smiled proudly. Silence.

I honestly think my chin hit my chest before I burst out laughing. What? And how does that work? Ooo! This is so GOOD! Whack! Crazy! Who says that? Cap'n Red can.