My FAVORITE section of the New York Times....

IS called METROPOLITAN DIARY

Here is a sample:

METROPOLITAN DIARY

Published: December 4, 2006

DEAR DIARY:
I was trying on clothes in Filene's, on Broadway and 79th Street, when I overheard the following conversation between a mother and child in the next cubicle:
''I like this cage, Mom.''
''It's not a cage, dear. It's a dressing room.''
''You look great in that dress, Mom.''
''No, I'm not getting it. I don't look good in pink.''
''But I love it. You could just wear it when we're home alone.'' Eva Oppenheim

Dear Diary:

While waiting for friends at a local restaurant, this is the conversation I heard while the barmaid was uncorking a bottle of red wine:
Patron: ''Do you have to chill red wine?''
Barmaid: ''No, only white wine.''
Patron: ''Why do you chill white wine?''
Barmaid: ''Because it's like Coke.'' Louis T. Iacovino Dear Diary:
Waiting to order in the bagel store, I noticed that the man in front of me was buying some prepackaged nova.
I asked him if he'd had it before. He said he had.
I asked, ''How was it?''
He answered, ''For an emergency, it was O.K.'' Alice Brickner

Dear Diary:
Pickup lines have to change with the times. One of the best I heard recently occurred around twilight one Saturday evening as a sport-utility vehicle was rounding the corner of Second Avenue and 52nd Street.
A pretty young girl at the corner was chatting on her cellphone, waiting for the light to change. A young man leaned out the passenger window of the turning car and said: ''Hey. You going to be on that phone long?'' Carol Lippert Gray

Dear Diary:
While waiting for the light at the corner of 23rd Street and Second Avenue, I became aware of a group of preschoolers obviously out on a class trip.
Instead of the usual all-hold-hands drill one is used to seeing, they were tethered to one another with those bungeelike cords that strap things to the roofs and backs of cars.
When the light changed, the teacher in the lead yelled, ''Go!'' and the kids crossed the street like miniature climbers scaling a horizontal mountain, leaving a sidewalk of grinning adults in their wake. Mary-Ellen Banashek

Dear Diary:
When my daughter started violin lessons at age 4, someone told her the old line about how the way to Carnegie Hall is ''practice, practice, practice.'' She immediately responded, ''No, it's not. You take the 104.''
Her lessons were at the French-American Conservatory in the Carnegie Hall building, and that is the bus we always took. Elizabeth Kopczynski Moore


Dear Diary:
Recently, my parents were visiting from California and we went to a Sunday matinee. Afterward, my dad wanted to go to Sardi's for a drink. Once we got settled at a table, I went to the bar and stood next to a couple sitting on the end as I ordered the drinks. ''Three Stoli Bloody Marys, please.''
The couple looked at me and then turned in unison to see where I had come from, spotting my parents. I said, ''I bet you thought I was going to drink all of those myself.''
The woman said, ''I was going to say it must have been a pretty bad show!'' Beth Hallo

Dear Diary:
I had just moved from California to the Upper West Side, and was in a neighborhood store, purchasing some plants for my new apartment. In front of me in line were two older New York couples.
The wife of the first couple said to the man behind the counter: ''Got anything for squirrels? I don't want to kill them; I just want to scare them away.''
To which her husband replied: ''I want to kill them. What do you have to kill them?''
The second couple, behind them, interjected, ''Where do you live?'' It was determined that they all lived within one city block of each other.
The next question: ''What does your squirrel look like?'' After some discussion, it was agreed that it was the same squirrel.
''That's him,'' wife No. 2 said. ''He's got a feisty stance, and beady eyes.'' To which her husband then suggested: ''Let's kill him together.''
The man behind the counter said, ''We're not killing squirrels here, ladies and gentlemen. This is Manhattan. We all got to get along.'' Naomi Starkman

Dear Diary:
I was walking to work this morning when I saw a huge group of out-of-town students filling the street corner on Eighth Avenue and 56th Street.
As I was squeezing my way by them, I saw two teenage girls looking up Eighth Avenue at the start of Central Park. One girl turned to the other and asked, ''Is that the end of the city?'' Alice Oglethorpe

Pics of Spencer with his Surfer Dude Cousins

Spencer is still with Bill in SO CAL and he and Bill and Bill's parents all went to visit Bill's sister Tamara in Orange County yesterday, about 2 hours south of Bill's parents house. She lives in like Capistrano Beach like three blocks from the ocean and her three boys, Dylan, Chase & Tai are all surfers. Spencer had a riot hanging with them ,and I could not believe my eyes when I saw these pictures, because when I first met the youngest one? He was a year old.

They are HUGE now!!!! I look at that pic of the four of them together at the doorway, and I cannot believe it. Spencer is gonna grow up to be that tall one day. SCARY!!!!!

Where were you when it happened?

I am not sure how we are supposed to try and remember or memorialize or celebrate this day that most of us will never forget.

I know that Bill had been up all night building a guitar for deadline I mean ALLLL night. In fact the guy whose guitar it was was there WATCHING Bill finish it until like 3 AM... Bill's customers.. what can I say about them? They are a small but deeply dedicated and disturbed following. WE SPENT THE NIGHT at the shop - well, I did I fell asleep in the futon in the back waiting for him to get done..

Two years earlier we had decided to give up TV and so we did not have one. I was up doing homework(writing like my fifth paper that week ) UGH U o P hahahah for a long time and then I just crashed waiting for Bill to get done with work. He stayed up all night and still had stuff to do in the morning. IT was Tuesday and our normal day for Doggie DayCare for Riley was on Thursdays, but Bill called the dog lady and asked if she had room to keep Riley all day today.. He was driving Bill insane because for some reason he was going CRAZY Barking and jumping and just really losing it. Her reply was weird to Bill. She said "Well, I guess he would be safe here. We are not next to any national monuments or tall buildings...."

HUH? THen she asked Bill if he knew what was going on. "NO I was up building an instrument all night and Liz fell asleep on the futon in the back."

" Oh well turn on the TV The United States is under terrorist attack, the WTC was blown up and the Pentagon etc..."

SO Bill takes the dog over to the lady and then comes back and wakes me up and tells me this. I was like HUH?????


It was only MUCH LATER when we realized that Bill had been scheduled to take a trip to NYC that weekend, but he and his friend Scott had canceled the trip. I booked it. I told them to stay in midtown, and also to fly in and out of Newark because its easy to get to from Penn Station, which would be near their hotel. They were going there to buy gear for Scott, like at all these great music stores there, and also vist a couple of friends at the Berklee school or whatever. They were going to fly out on Thurs night and leave on MONDAY but then they wanted an extra day to shop, and the stores were all closed on Sunday SO they decided to leave Tuesday AM. Their flight?

United 93, out of Newark, non stop to San Francisco.

They DID NOT GO Thank God. They both got too busy, Bill more than Scott, then I remember Scott being kind of pissed off that Bill did not plan better so they could take the trip. Had he been on that plane, and called me from it. I never would have answered the phone, because I am a reallly sound sleeper. SO it would have been a distraught phone message I would have gotten long after the fact. Esp since we did not have television. And there would have been NO SPENCER, and who knows if I would have lived thru all of that? Bill is a HUGE pain in the ass, and we pick at each other a bit, but I could not, and would not want to, live without him.

In fact I got all my news about 9/11 initially from Greg Kihn's radio show that AM. Then we drove to Scott's house and watched his TV. That was the first time I ever heard a news reporter say "Holy SH*T" on tv.

What I remember MOST about that day was the fact that our shop was kind of on a flight path to San Jose airport. There were always tons of planes going by and they were really really loud You almost did not hear them after a while, until that happened. then it was WEIRDLY quiet.

I cannot imagine what those people and their families went through, especially all of those first responders. When I think of the people on those planes, and those firefighters walking up those stairs when everyone was running out...

It was pure terror, and for NO REASON. The only thing since that has ever gotten me as angry and horrified was that Beslan school hostage shooting thing.

Uh Oh..... Here come the Ping Pong Balls!!!!!!

Does anyone remember Captain Kangaroo? Mr Moose? Mr Green Jeans?

I LOVED that show. I was born in 1965. I am ANCIENT... btu I loved The Captain. Watched it every morning. But then, I was also in love with both Mr. Rogers and Phil Donahue.... Seriously. I was.

Oregon's new state motto: "COME GET LOST IN OREGON!"

What is it exactly about this place that people come here for vacations, get lost on roads, or in forests or up on mountains and just never come back???

Since I have lived here there have been many cases of people getting lost here. There were the climbers on Mt Hood this past year http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16262193/ who were looking for adventure, but found out too late that Mt Hood is not for the novice. There was the heartbreaking story of the Kim family http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/06/missing.family/index.html on vacation with their two kids who were visiting family and then wanted a quick fun getaway to the coast and ended up stranded on the forest when they took the wrong road. In that case, the mom and the kids survived but the dad, sadly did not make it. , There was a priest and his female friend, who drove up from CA and crashed into a ditch at the side of the road, and no one discovered them for three weeks. They both perished. There was a guy who came for a wedding and drove from Portland to the coast and never really made it. There was a guy who took a wrong turn on a road they usually close for the winter in his motorhome, and they closed it for the winter after having discovered that they had forgotten to put the sign up. He died in his motorhome, which got stuck int he snow, but they found this diary he kept and he could not fugure out why no cars had come by that he coulf flag down for help. Now they just found this lady who was lost for two weeks. http://www.koin.com/Global/story.asp?S=7038633&nav=menu494_1 She and her husband were following some scenic route or historic trail or something and they ran out of gas. They both set off on foot to get help but she got thirsty and went to look for water while he kept going. They found him, fine and then it took them two weeks to find here. She was 76, with a broken hip, but she is now in stable condition and doing okay.


I get why people want to come here, there is a lot of really beautiful scenery, the coast is gorgeous, and the weather is mild if you are not in the mountains. But, the mountains here are not bunny hills, and the forests are not small - they are deep and dark and dense and endless. On the coast there are high and rocky cliffs, and NO ONE swims in the ocean here, it is just too cold. In the summer you can explore tide pools or go whale watching or whatever but that is about it. THe Pacific Ocean is freezing freezing cold, even in CA. THe only place it is really warm enough to swim is Southern California. The roads here in Oregon are not easy to navigate and there are thousands of miles of Oregon that are just uninhabited by people.

The point is, if you are going to come here and explore, think twice, or use a guide. Even the maps are not always accurate. Also do not take any roads that you think may be shortcuts, or that you have been advised to stay off of. Also maybe if you want to come here to hike and explore BE PREPARED. Make sure you have all the correct equipment, and even some stuff you don't think you will need, just in case.

One time on our first trip here,l early in our marriage, it was our anniversary and we were at the coast. We were staying at this nice hotel but it was in an isolated town with one restaurant. We wanted to go to a different restaurant, and so we drove there. On the way home, it was getting dark, we were running out of gas, and we got hopelessly lost on this forest road. There was NO CELL PHONE signal, and ONE radio station that was some public station who had this woman who sangs these horrible songs about her cat. So weird. We both thought that this state is SO WEIRD we are NEVER going to live here... We eventually found our way back in the dark but we had some TENSE MOMENTS and it could have turned out badly. As we drove thru the state on that trip I remember thinking:

1. HOW DID Lewis and Clark EVER get through this???
2. These trees are SOOOOO tall.
3. There is no cell service, there are NO GAS STATIONS, just bait shops and drive thru espressos!!!! There is NO WAY of getting help if you are stranded....


SO you have been warned... Come and visit our beautiful state, but be prepared.

Ever get a song STUCK in your head?

I do.

Special Torture!!!!!

The annoying songs today for me were:

1: R.E.M. MAN ON THE MOON

2. The theme to the horrible PBS Kids show DRAGON TALES

The first is not bad until you are like running it endlessly all day... the second is like some kind of virus.

SO Tell me.... what songs get stuck in YOUR head??? Anyone? Buehler? Anyone?

One more day off, then its back to the Rat Race.

Today we spent most of the day in Canby at the 'Sploded House, writing down items on a list that we will claim to the insurance co. THese are things that were damaged in the explosion and/or by the subsequent fire, collapse, or water to put out the fire. Because there was a LOT of stuff in the garage, because we had been storing it there and in the bonus room above the garage, a lot of things were damaged. We were storing a LOT of things in thehouse in those two rooms because we were remodeling.

Take your average yellow legal pad, add one item per line. Fill the entire page... I have 34 pages of items. We must document what it is, where we got it, how much it was warth when new how much it would cost to replace it, and the model numbers etc if available. THen you ust PHOTOGRAPH everything. This is for 34 pages of stuff. Then that gets rewritten two places: Official clam forms, and also my own excel spreadsheet. You cannot IMAGINE how fun this is, especially with a three year old and the world's most obnoxious dog.

For example I found two sharpie marker pens, melted together. I found my peach bathrobe that was sort of silky nylon you know? it was a blob of goo because it MELTED in the dryer, along with a bunch of other items: a hat, a book, a tupperware, a crystal vase, a picture frame, a pair of shoes, guitar stuff, serving platters, tile we intended to install in the bathroom floor like three days after the explosion - melted wastebaskets toys of Spencer's... melted Jeep Glow in the dark Basketball... You sit there with your "life" around you and its all a big giant ball of melted goo. But then I look around and Spencer is amusing himself on some old toy of his that he found, and Bill is yelling at the dog for the 41st time to get out of the neighbor's water feature fountain thing, while also going thru a giant box of melted cds, and I am just you know bored, tired, hot, etc but honestly? Life did go on. Life goes on with a lot of stuff missing. No one got hurt Its a HUGE hassle and inconvenience and some days I am despondent and others I am murderously angry and other times depressed but there is NO WAY OUT You have to just slog thru all of that crap in teeny pieces and write it ALLLLLLLL down, and spend every extra minute doing it. THe hardest part is that all of the neighbor's houses that were affected have all been put back together again. They had a crazy but still okay summer and all are ready to go back to school etc Our house is still sitting there, boarded up, weeds everywhere, crap in the front yard, after FIVE MONTHS.

Nothing really to do but keep going, keep working at it, knowing the only way out of McFake McFrance, is Work on the pile and make the list, and try your best to CHOOSE to be happy, and work with your lawyer. Besides, the Dahlia Festival is still on, and soon will be the pumpkin festival. Also, Spencer DID get his cast off on Friday and his leg is healed so THAT is good. I wonder what they give out for Halloween here in the Faux Chateau land? My guess it would be Brie en Croute, caviar on toast points, and cold salmon in aspic.

Ten Years Since Princess Diana.....

Where were you when you heard about when she died? I do not know why I am so interested in this stupid story...

I had just registered for classes was about to get engaged and I was driving home from school I had stopped at my friend's office, whose husband is a chiropractor, and they had the news on. All we knew then was that it was an accident. Then later on I was still there and she had died. I heard it from NBC Brian Williams. It was so weird. No one could believe it.

Probably a lot of people do not care about this. I was sad at the time. Still makes me a little sad.

But then today we have to do more work on the Sploded House. What a nightmare THAT is. Right now, Spencer is trying to feed me blueberry pancakes that his Dad just made for us. Ten years ago there was Bill, but no Spencer I was still in Michigan had not even gotten engaged yet. That thanksgiving I went to Paris over Thanksgiving, and I went to the tunnel thinking it would help me understand her death or something. It did not. You know how it was? Weird that little overpass thing with the Statue of Liberty Flame torch thing over it was all littered with flowers and graffiti about her.. Yet the flowers were sort of rotting and smelled like sweet sick rotting flowers It was kind of macabre and gross.

Then I read a lot of those stupid books, and I became kind of an expert on it. so then it got kind of funny...
SO I would read one of these Princess Diana books, and then I would review it on Amazon.com.

Well Bill had a couple of friends who put out CDs and he had reviewed their Cds on Amazon. SOMEHOW I am not sure how but our reviews got mixed up... and under Bill's name there were all there Under BILL CHAPIN it had the reviews of like three cds.. all about music and resonance and music whatever and then all of my reviews of the ten Princess Diana books I had reviewed BUT it looked like HE had written them all... he saw that and FLIPPED OUT!. And his friends started teasing him about how much he loves those Princess Diana books. The especially liked the one where he said.. something like... " ANd this is the best one yet and I know because I have read them ALL....."

Poor Bill. I often wonder if he would marry me again, knowing what he would be getting into. I am too afraid to ask him....