The Continuing Adventures of Alex and Cati*

When it comes to interacting with strangers, I consider myself a guy of slightly higher than average niceness.  Having grown up in the Midwest and South might have made me a tad nicer than your average Northeasterner– but who knows?  After living for the past decade in the Northeast, I’m sure I’ve acclimated to the local mean [get it?  "mean," "average" ha, I kill me].  I noticed that I had changed when we lived in Ann Arbor, MI during 2009.  Bartenders and waiters were eerily chatty, and it seemed, I dunno, invasive.  Even toll-booth operators were oddly sweet during our 2-second interactions.  I didn’t like that.  Here in the Northeast, toll booth operators are the most miserable lot of them all– I have come  to know that as normal and like it that way.

Lately, here in northern NJ, I’ve had the good fortune to be on the receiving end of some remarkable kindness from strangers.  Let me tell you about ‘em:
1) About 3 months ago we were hosting friends from Boston for the weekend.  These friends, like us, have particular palates, so I was aiming to please (hey, ya need an angle to keep friends coming back, right?).  I went to a near-by liquor store to buy some tequila, beer, and a bottle of Bordeaux for the three of us to enjoy (Natalia hadn’t been born yet, so no booze for Cati).  I noticed the store was a little dark when I walked in.  The shop owner told me the electricity on the entire block was out.  Therefore they could not make any credit card transactions. “Oh, great,”  I thought.  I went to the ATM across the street, but it was dead too.  I went back to the store to get in my car and drive away like a dejected failure.  The guy who was in line behind me was waiting near the store entrance and he asked me, “How much do you need?”

“Well, the total at the register was $85, but I could’nt possibly…”.

He stopped me and pulled out a wad of cash and said, “Here, take it and stop by my place of business to pay me back some time this week.”

I declined his offer, but he insisted and said he felt compelled, as a Christian, to help me out.  I, of course, passed on the opportunity to point out that God probably wouldn’t approve of all the drunken heresy the booze was to fuel.  Instead I said, “Well, I live about a mile away, so just follow me home and I’ll run in and get you the cash.”  He agreed.  We had to take a circuitous route home from all the downed trees from recent windstorms (hence the power being spotty around town).  As I was driving, I thought, “This is crazy, a stranger is offering me cash at a liquor store to buy booze.  I would NEVER do that.”  We arrived at the house and I gave him the cash.  He insisted on taking no more than I borrowed, even though I offered.

2) I was driving the bimmer (1988 M6) back home from the NJ motor vehicle inspection facility and it stalled at a light on Route 10 (talk about brilliant timing).  It wouldn’t restart.  Where I broke down, Route 10, is six lanes wide with a median– six fast lanes and an ashpalt median demarcated only by paint.  Horns started blaring as the light changed to green and I wasn’t moving.  I put on my hazards and started waving people around my car.  Well, the guy behind me in his big truck waited there with his hazards on to protect my stalled car from being rear-ended; he had room to go around but instead he was putting his car at risk to cover me.  Granted, it was a more visible pick-up truck than my two-door coupe, but still.  I might have just driven around.  So when the light became red again, some guys in another pick-up from the lane to my left offered to use their truck to block traffic in that lane and help push my car to the median.  All these strangers were super-helpful and concerned about my safety.

After I made it to the median, I fiddled under the hood a little, while I was on the phone with Cati.  I was able to get the car started after a few minutes.  Even though I was in the median, it was still pretty unsettling with all the cars zinging by so fast– I was glad to get out of that situation.

3) We keep the BMW at a public storage unit about 1 mile from the house.  Cati was home getting the babies ready for bed, so I parked the car at the storage facility and started walking home.  The gentleman who works there saw me walking and asked me if I wanted a lift.  I was only going a mile so I really didn’t need it, but what the hey.  He didn’t know me from Adam.  He delivered me to the house and I thought, “Man, what luck.  These people are nice.”

I don’t want to use these acts of kindness to make an ugly point; nonetheless I couldn’t help but wonder if the interactions I describe above would have played out differently if I looked like I was of a different ethnicity or apparently lower SES.  I don’t mean to imply that I benefited from racism (or at least not racism alone), because I doubt anyone would be so nice if I looked like a homeless-guy or had the word “INSANE” tattooed on my pierced forehead.  Well, I ain’t one to pass up a good thing, and I certainly hope it continues (for us all).  Oh, but it’s not all upside, I still get treated rudely from time to time.  The cashiers at Whole Foods seem to hate me.

For those of you who prefer food-themed blog posts.  Check out this great one from Serious Eats. This is the kind of post to which I aspire.  It’s entertaining, rigorous, and articulate.

Also, we bought Nina a little play kitchen to subliminally train her to take over the cooking responsibilities in the house.  She loves it.

Come to think of it, I need to get her a play lawn-mower too.

Also, here’s a song from everyone’s favorite Russian-speaking gypsy punk-rockers from Ukraine– Gogol Bordello:

Anyone else want to get hopped up on vodka and pickled herring and play chess?  No?  I do (especially after that little violin solo at ~1:45).

I try not to be a language-snob.  I realize that language is dynamic and rules are constantly changing/relaxing.  I even defend, nay, encourage the practice of using the maligned “y’all.”  I think its use clarifies the speaker’s meaning beyond the ambiguous plural or singular “you.”  The English language used to distinguish between “you (pl)” and “you (s)” with the words “thou” and “ye”– we’ve lost that distinction by just using “you.”  I am not advocating the return of “thou” and “ye”; so why not adopt the word “y’all” from our friends in the American South to take the place of “ye” to mean “you (pl)”?  Many years ago, I was at a party in Texas and I remember a mildly inebriated Texas-gal, waving her plastic cup around as she spoke, explaining the correct use of this infamous Southern contraction.

She said, “If I say ‘you,’ I’m talkin’ just to ‘you’ [pointing at me].   If I say ‘y’all,’ I’m talkin’ to you three [pointing at me and my two friends].  And if I say ‘all y’all,’ I’m talking to EVERYBODY HERE [gesturing to the entire room of 20 or so people]!  I laughed and never forget that valuable lesson in Southern syntax.

Anyway, there is something that I often hear that drives me a little crazy.   Too many people misuse the expression “begs the question.”  I often hear people use “begs the question” to mean “invites the question,” or “raises the question”– that’s wrong.  Begging the question is a logical fallacy where the “question” refers to the topic being debated, and “begs” means to avoid.  To “beg the question” means to assume your perspective on the ”question” while making an argument for your point.  Obviously, a no-no.

I can better explain it by providing an example.  Let’s say Mickey and Donald* use the recent execution by firing squad in Utah as an opportunity to debate whether capital punishment is right or wrong (i.e. “the question”).  In any debate, certain assumptions are made and accepted by both parties.  Mickey posits the following:

“Murder is morally wrong.

Capital punishment involves killing a person.

Killing a person is murder.

Capital punishment is therefore murder.”

Donald should immediately be on him like white-on-rice for begging the question.  Donald ought point out that the word murder means “wrongful death.”  The definition of the word has wrong built into it.  Heck, we don’t call veterans murderers but they might’ve killed folks aplenty.  In Mickey’s statement above, he has just asked Donald to accept his perspective on the issue being debated as an assumption in his argument.  That IS the argument, not a data point to support it.  That, my dear readers, is begging the question.

You might run into someone begging the question if s/he says, “I know Daisy is telling the truth because she told me she’s telling the truth.”  That point requires the assumption that Daisy is truthful, which is the whole question.  Bam!  Begging the question.

I remember as a kid (and young adult) I ran into begging the question when I asked Sunday school teachers how we can know the Bible is true (I didn’t know it was called begging the question then).  They always answered that we can know this because II Timothy 3:16 tells us so.  Say wha?  Beg the question much?  Of course, just because someone begs the question doesn’t make their perspective wrong (or right), it just makes that person a poor debater whose argumentation makes no sense.

So, the next time you hear someone say “…that begs the question…” she’d better be referring to a logical fallacy or she is using the expression incorrectly.  I often want to say to these people, “I don’t see the logical fallacy in what you are describing, please explain.”  But doing that would make me a know-it-all Ahole– which I might well be, but not EVERYONE has to know that, right?  There’s a much better dissection of the term Begging the Question here; enjoy.

Oh, and one more thing, Nina is learning about gravity the hard way.  Poor thing keeps falling and bumping around.  She’s all bruised up like a little-kickboxer these days.  It’s a little nerve-wracking to see her being so clumsy.  She has a promising future as a stunt-double.

This is her new theme song:

Also, Cati and I think that Natalia might be a reincarnated pirate’s parrot.   She seems most comfortable on one of our shoulders– ALL THE TIME– noon, 3AM, 5AM, even when I’m blogging.  We’ll have to see if her first words are “shiver me timbers.”  That might prove it.  See what I mean:

So, tell me in the comments section, what drives you crazy? I also wince when I hear adverbs misused as adjectives.  For example, “I feel badly.”  That means your sense of touch is busted. You likely mean, “I feel bad.”

Also, I have some confessions to make (just call me St. Augustine,  Jr.).  I am not without my own hideous grammar faults.  I have been corrected by Cati several times over the years for saying something like “He had just went to the store.”  She stops me and says  “GONE.  He had just GONE to the store.  Stop saying it wrong.”  I still do it though.  I’ve tried to defend it or explain it and I can’t.  I’m just ignernt.

* I’m watching more Mickey Mouse Clubhouse than I care to, these days.

Baby #2 arrived last Friday.

We named her Natalia.  We are acclimating to her arrival and sleeping as much as possible (not much, really).  In naming her as we did, we broke two of our own naming rules.  We wanted something short and not overtly religious, we failed in both respects.  Natalia clocks in at seven letters vs the four in Nina.  Furthermore, the root of the name Natalia is the same as the word natal– as in birth– as in the birth of Christ.  We didn’t really think about it until after we decided on the name.  The connection isn’t too widely known, like the name Mary, say.  Actually, it’s the biblical boys’ names are tough to avoid– think about it.  Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, Michael, Joseph, David, Daniel, Thomas– all Bible names.  It would appear that Xians and their affinity for the afformentioned Bible characters popularized these name.  Look how well the villians’ names fared.  How many guys do you know named Judas, Cane, Pilate, or Goliath?   ;)

Nina is very concerned about Natalia.  Any time Natalia cries, Nina says “bebe” and starts pointing as though we should do something right away.  We hope they’ll be good friends.  They’re off to a good start.

Cati and Natalia are both doing very well.  I, on the other hand, had to eat hospital food AND sleep on a small single mattress in Cati’s room for two nights.  Oh, the humanity!  Worry not, dear readers, I too am recovering nicely.    

Wish us luck; we’re in way over our heads now. 

I thought this song fitting (don’t worry, they’re not Tuvan):

So after only three weeks in the new house, we already had the police make a visit.  I came home from work today to find a police car blocking my driveway.  Don’t worry though, this story is more appropriate for the “Weather Channel” than ”COPS.”  Thanks to all the rain and wind, a tree in our front yard blew over into the street– the whole tree– rotten trunk and all.  It looked perfectly healthy.  Cati called the police and they came out right away to have a look and wait for the borough to come out and take care of it.  It turns out that trees that are less than 10 feet from the street are the resposibility of the borough.  Whew, I was wondering if I was going to have to come up with the removal costs, but it turned out that our ample local taxes covered it. 

Staying true to the white-guy-on-”COPS” stereotype, I put on some soiled cut-off jeans, opened a beer, pulled my shirt off and cried when questioned by the cops.  Is that weird?  nah.   

Let’s see, other than that, we thought we spotted Vincent van Gogh eating Swedish meatballs er sumthin’ at IKEA in Elizabeth, NJ.  I busted out the camera and took a sneaky photo by pretenting to show Cati a photo on the camera. 

Uncanny, innit?

And Nacho is officially the most tolerant dog in the world. 

Oh, and I like this song:

Hope you lke it too. 

Oooh, “Cops” is on.  Man, I hope they’re in Albuquerque, that place is “Cops” gold.  Gotta go.

Cati and Nina attempted to get H1N1 vaccinations on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 and had no success.  Cati waited in line, outside, in the Michigan cold, for three hours and it became increasingly clear that it wasn’t going to happen for her or about 700 others.  Cati was among 1700 people who showed up (even more tried to get in line, but they were turned away unless they were pregnant or had children) for 1000 available shots.  It was a poorly planned and managed event.  LONG story short, Cati and Nina left hungry, cranky, cold, and dejected– without either having received the vaccination. 

We think that getting the vaccination is important, not to avoid imminent doom or anything; rather to protect Nina, Cati, and Fetus (Yep, Cati is pregnant.  Nope, that’s not what we plan to name him/her).  Sure, we’re concerned about how women and children seem to be at greater risk of severe illness from H1N1.  Plus, to a lesser extent, there is an element of community stewardship involved– y’know, kinda like giving blood.  We’d like to do our part to limit the proliferation of the H1N1 virus by eliminating ourselves as vectors.  I don’t qualify to receive the vaccination as a healthy adult male, but if more were available, I’d get it (I usually get the regular flu vaccination as well).  Everyone who has not been vaccinated benefits from the fact that the spread of the virus is curtailed by those who have.  

As parents of a toddler, we’ve thought (and read) a lot about vaccination in general.  I disagree with parents who are opposed to vaccinating their children.  The risks associated with vaccinations are minuscule compared to the benefits.  Heck, we put our children in far greater danger everytime we strap them into their car seats for a drive.  Most anti-vaccination folks are operating on fear and anecdotal tales of how vaccinations cause autism, for example.  There is no data to support their claims (and researchers have looked).  Now, some people are of the opinion that it’s their child, and therefore their choice to vaccinate or not, but it’s not that simple.  If their children live in a bubble, great; if not, they are putting many others at risk and helping viruses flourish.  How’s that saying go?  “In God we trust– everyone else, bring data.” 

Anyway, preparing for the worst, Cati tried again.  This time she went 2.5 hours prior to the clinic opening.  She brought food, a lawn chair, a book, and a thick winter coat.  Nina waited at home with me.  This time the vaccines were administered at the Eastern Michigan University Convocation Center in Ypsilanti on November 5, 2009.  And you know what?  It went really well.  Organizers gave color-coded wristbands to those who showed up.  These served as a guarantee for a vaccination, as they only issued as many wristbands as they had shots.  The color indicated at what time people should return so they didn’t have to wait in line all day.  This eliminated the chance that someone might wait for hours and still be turned away.  For those whose time was within a few hours of arriving and chose to wait in line, the facility was big enough to accomodate them indoors, rather than out in the cold.  Between October 27 and November 5, someone got their shi- stuff together.  When Cati arrived near the front of the line, she secured wristbands for herself and Nina.  Later she called me; I brought Nina (and 20 cups of coffee from Biggby for our fellow Michiganders).  Hey, if you are going to jump in front of throngs of screaming babies and exhausted parents, the least you can do is bring coffee, right? 

It went really well.  Cati and Nina received their vaccinations in a timely and efficient manner.  As a critic of, well, pretty-much everyting, I was delighted and proud of how well it was handled.  It’s a rare day when one can say his taxes are being put to good use. 

Here are a few pics of the ordeal.

Interestingly, Nina made the local news too.  She makes her grand dramatic debut at 0:25 in the video below– and what a debut IT IS!   Turn your speakers’ volume WAY UP for the full effect– I dare you.