I Don't Think That Word 'Adventure' Means What You Think It Means

For most people, travel is an adventure.  Seeing new places, trying new things, and learning about different cultures is exciting.  I'm no different...I love all those things too and wish I could spend every day exploring the world and squeezing out every ounce of life and joy and discovery it has to offer.  The problem is that I tend to have as much or more adventure just trying to get to my intended destinations than when I'm actually there.  While I've never had a truly traumatic trip anywhere, the fact remains that something still manages to happen nearly every time I go anywhere near an airport. The cumulative effect makes me look like Pigpen from Charlie Brown, only surrounded by a cloud of disgruntled TSA agents rather than one of dirt.

You know you're hearing the theme song right now.
( Image © Charles Schultz)

This past weekend was no different.   The plan was to fly to Georgia for a big SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) event on Saturday to support two dear friends who were heavily involved in the event.  In spite of carefully planning how much time I needed to allow for check-in, I still nearly missed my flight--in part because the economy parking lot is located in approximately Luxembourg (which I didn't realize in advance, this being my first time to park at the Philly airport), and because of a slight delay while TSA felt up my ankle to make sure my sock and airport pants were not packing tiny AK-47s.

After running OJ Simpson-style--complete with untied sneakers--to my gate at the very end of the concourse, I arrived just in time to board.  There I soon discovered that my Delta "Comfort+" aisle seat was neither comfortable nor plus.  I settled in as best I could, only to spend the next 15 minutes getting whacked in the head and shoulder by an endless parade of baggage like some sort of ginger piñata. Seated next to me was Hoggy McHoggerson, who had already selfishly commandeered both armrests before I arrived.  Hoggy proceeded to spend the entire flight with his elbows digging into both me and his other seat-mate while he happily snored away, oblivious to our discomfort. Once everyone was seated, we watched an unexpectedly amusing safety video full of sight gags and snarky humor (my favorite!); for example, we were ordered not to smoke on the flight, which caused an apron-clad guy sitting in a plane seat and holding a steak on his leg to slam down the lid of a smoker grill in the aisle in disgust.

Guess which one was me?

In spite of a late curbside bag check, my suitcase managed to make it onto the flight, though the brand-new address tag with updated info I'd just put on it hours before was mysteriously missing.  Hopefully it just got torn off in transit rather than stolen by some creepy dude collecting addresses.  I grabbed my bag off the carousel and went to collect my rental car.  Alamo tried to shaft me with a compact car instead of the mid-size I'd paid for, but the garage clerk was cool about it and directed me to pick from a long line of silver, red, and white cars.  So naturally I found the single blue vehicle hiding behind the others and quickly grabbed it (red clashes with my hair). After adjusting all the mirrors and such, I messaged some friends in the off-chance one could meet me for dinner en route to my hotel. As expected, none could join me, though one said I might be able to assist another friend and told me to stay near the phone.  Meanwhile, I'm thinking to myself "I'm currently doing 70 mph down Hwy 20 in Atlanta...how far away from my phone could I possibly go?"  She messaged back all the details and the next thing I knew, I was barreling down the highway towards Joann Fabrics in a Hail Mary attempt to acquire quilt binding before the store closed so this other friend could finish a garment for Saturday's festivities.  I arrived a few minutes after closing but luckily managed to slide in and purchase the required trim before the door was locked.  Quite pleased with my successful conquest, I then went across the street to grab a very late meal at O'Charley's, one of my favorite restaurants and one which is sadly non-existent in the northeast.

I was bound to succeed.  (See what I did there?)

After dinner, things began to get really interesting.  I tried to contact my friends to ask if they wanted their trim that night, but the location of the event was in a rather isolated state park with very poor cell reception and I couldn't reach them.  So I made the executive decision to go anyway, driving past my hotel to deliver said trim.  When I got to the state park I found a big gate rolled across the road to prevent entry after 10 pm.  I may have uttered one or two terms of sailorish vocabulary displeasure.  Then I thought, "Well, I can just walk to the campground, deliver the trim, and make somebody drive me back up to the gate afterwards."  I walked around for 5-10 minutes, decided absolutely nothing looked familiar, then headed back to my car.  Unable to get a strong GPS signal or double-check the address online, I drove all around the state park trying to find the correct campground, eventually ending up right back where I'd started--in front of that big-ass gate.  I sighed, got out of the car, and proceeded to walk around the gate and down the hill towards the campground to find my friends.

To complicate matters, it was raining (and apparently had been for several days); the warm spring weather and heavy, misty rain created a deep and eerie fog which encompassed the entire state park.  Also, as in most state parks, there wasn't much in the way of ambient lighting at night so between the rain and the fog and the remoteness of the location, my surroundings were pitch black...and I do mean black.   I couldn't see squat, which might explain why it was so difficult to get my bearings.

Where movie co-eds go to DIE.

With nothing but a sad little travel umbrella, spotty GPS, and my iPhone flashlight to keep me company, I walked about a mile down the road looking for the event campground only to come out by some cottages overlooking a lake.  Unfortunately, the relevant campground does not overlook a lake...that would have been too easy.  So I turned around and started the long hike (mostly uphill) back to my car.  As I walked in the silky darkness and incessant rain I kept thinking to myself that it was a damn good thing I don't scare easily since my current situation was a Friday the 13th movie just waiting to happen. Oh, and did I mention?  I was doing this late at night...because walking all alone around a very dark, very secluded park's woods in the rain and fog at midnight seems like a sensible thing for a woman to be doing, right?

Meanwhile, the next day one of my oh-so-helpful friends informed me that, as it happens, Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives actually WAS filmed in that very state park right around where I was walking...in pitch blackness...at midnight...alone.  So were the movies Poison Ivy and Little Darlings.  Turns out she worked at the park back when those were being filmed.  Only I would be ridiculous enough to channel a horror movie in the exact same location where said horror movie was filmed.  That's just how I roll.  Yup.

"Oh, Gingerrrrrrrrrrr..."

Needless to say, I made it back to my little TARDIS-blue Volkswagen Jetta without being assaulted by any random hockey mask-wearing dudes. Giving up the whole enterprise as a bad job, I headed back to my hotel to check in.  There I found the doors locked and a sign up that read "No Vacancy."  A couple more colorful epithets may have escaped my lips...possibly...okay, probably.  I rang a doorbell to call the desk clerk to let me in, learned that my room was still waiting on me (phew!), and was even given a much-needed bottle of water for free.  I went upstairs to shower off the sweat and the rain (because clearly I needed more water pouring over me), only to find that the sliding shower doors were stuck.  Eventually I got one jammed door shifted enough in its track to open the other door so I could get in the shower.  Afterwards, I got on my laptop to check my messages quickly before going to bed, only to discover that it had picked up a virus and was busy popping up windows and downloading random programs as fast as I could delete them like some syphilitic 18th century prostitute.  Exhausted and lacking the requisite cybercillin, I slammed the lid shut and went to sleep.

No more computer viruses for me!

The next morning I finally located the correct campground, trim in hand. In spite of the 4-hour sewing extravaganza that ensued, during which I applied the binding I'd plundered to one garment and helped yet another friend finish an outfit of her own in a wildly unrealistic time frame, the rest of the day was calm and I had an absolutely wonderful time visiting with and catching up with my besties all weekend.  Lots of food, fun, and laughter (and also a few tears) were involved, and I even received some excellent swag:  A brilliantly badass friend gave me a book on dressing Italian Renaissance-style, another lovely friend gave me a sweet little green shoulder shawl she'd knitted ("I thought it would go with your hair"); I plan on pinning it together with a broach and running around everywhere pretending to be the kickass Claire Fraser, who has a hot ginger Scot waiting for me her at home.  Yet another dear friend made me a knitted crown so I can now be a self-rescuing princess, which is especially useful since the chances of me ever getting a crown in the SCA are about as likely as my freckles growing together into a permanent tan.  But I'm okay with that.

As anticipated, my trip home was not without its own bumpy ride--literally.  Monday morning I stopped at a few favorite shops in town before heading to the airport amid dark and stormy skies which the radio informed me were because of a tornado warning in the north part of Atlanta.   However, the airport is to the south of the city, so I arrived without major incident.  After returning my rental car (bye, pretty blue Jetta!), I headed into the always-crowded terminal of the Hartsfield-Jackson airport.  I quickly checked my bag but had to wait quite a while in the security line, primarily because of the doofus in front of me.  By the time I was able to leave the herd of people in line and shuffle up to the actual security scanners, the doofus, moving slow as Christmas in molasses, had divested his belongings into 4 different grey bins (most people use one or two), not counting an enormously over-stuffed black backpack.

Next his royal doofiness decided he needed to bypass all the body scanners for a personal pat down, only to get yelled at for forgetting to remove his belt first.  I escaped through the scatter scanner while they were bellowing for a male agent to come and feel him up.  For once I didn't set the scanner off, in spite of the metal brads on my jeans or wearing the exact same sock brand that nailed me on the previous trip.  While I collected my things, zipped up my laptop bag, and put on my shoes another agent yanked aside the doofus' big black backpack and my paper bag containing the jelly beans and fudge I'd purchased on my way out of town (as well as a necklace, pair of earrings, and my tablet).

The TSA agent asked if the bag was mine; thinking she had said "flat bag," meaning my paper one, I said yes.  Apparently she had meant the doofus' backpack and proceeded to get pissy with me because I'd said it was mine then said it wasn't. When I apologized for mishearing her and tried to explain my error, she got even more pissy and defensive to boot.  Presumably she thought I was in league with the doofus and trying to pull a fast one...I don't know.  At any rate, she put up her hand to shut me up and forced herself to shake off my verbal assault argument explanation (apologies can be so offensive), then grabbed the doof's backpack and started digging slowly through it.  She plopped aside big wads of dirty clothing (have some pride, dude--fold your crap), then tossed a grocery bag of dirty socks and undies in front of me.  I confess to being secretly glad she had to put all the guy's nasties back in his sack when her pitch made them fall out.  Next the agent pulled out three boxes of Schlage door locks--the kind with the combination buttons instead of a keyed lock.  At this point my friendly neighborhood doofus started getting twitchy; he tensely asked the agent if she had to open the boxes because he "wouldn't be able to sell them if the cardboard was damaged."  Since, you know, Home Depot never has dented boxes ever.  You'd have thought those boxes were filled with meth or state secrets the way this guy was sweating and fidgeting.  Meanwhile, the agent looked at him like he'd grown an extra couple of heads, barked out "YES" and proceeded to break open the tape seal with her pen.  Three boxes later she was satisfied the contents were indeed door locks, then set them aside to swab his suitcase with one of those little PH paper terrorist test strips, walking three aisles over to get the results...naturally.

By this point I was starting to twitch because this ludicrous charade was taking forever and I was about to be late for my plane yet again.  What made it worse was knowing that my bag would have taken approximately 90 seconds to check, but I still had to wait the 20 or so minutes for her to deconstruct Sir Doof's bag first.  Finally she finished and started to pile his clothes back into the backpack, at which point the doof tries to reach over to help her so he can pack it the way he wants.  The agent freaked.  That little move nearly got him arrested for trying to breach the sanctified air around a government official's table...I mean, how dare he interfere with an official government investigation by overly-enthusiastic TSA officials??  Also, and I say this with love, WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING BRINGING 3 BOXES OF SUSPICIOUS-LOOKING METAL BOXES WITH COMBINATION/DETONATOR BUTTONS THROUGH SECURITY??  Seriously, dude--WTF???

Once he backed away, the agent shoved his bag aside while he received the TSA Grope Special™("all the junk-touching with none of the dinner or movie").  Instead of immediately getting my bag to inspect next, the agent meandered over to the line to stack up a bunch of discarded bins, chat with her colleagues, pick up a couple more bins, and finally bother to pull my paper bag over to the inspection table.  You'd almost think she was dawdling to punish me for disagreeing with her earlier.  The agent set aside my tablet, poked suspiciously at the jelly beans (they might have been made of explosive cherry gel, you know), then pulled out the box of fudge to examine more closely even though it had the name of a well-known candy vendor on it.  Because terrorism.  She opened the box, inhaled the chocolatey goodness, and ultimately decided perhaps it wasn't candied plutonium after all.  She put the box back in my now-torn sack, pushed it at me, and said I could go.  The jewelry boxes she never even opened...apparently fudge is way more threatening than metal objects.

Weapon of Mass Confection
Also? Best. Fudge. Ever.

Sometimes I wonder if TSA has my picture, emblazoned with an admonition for agents to screw around with me, posted in various airports around the country.  When I mentioned this, one of my friends suggested it's because I have an IRA dopplegänger somewhere stirring up trouble.  Another friend suggested maybe it's a redheaded prejudice thing (and people wonder why I have a hate-hate relationship with TSA).  All I know is that it's always something, every damn time.  I have no idea what the deal is, but I would like for it to stop.  I just want to fly in peace.  Is that really so much to ask?

After the very time-consuming Doofus Debacle, I jumped on the tram and once again zipped down the concourse to my distant gate, pausing only to use the bathroom and grab a bottle of water and a quick burger from 5 Guys, as well as to waste another 5 minutes explaining the meaning of the word "schlep" to a cashier ("Schlup?"  "Schlap?"  "Ohhhhh--Schloop??") who was just fascinated to learn a new word. I reached my gate and wolfed down the burger just before boarding began.  This time my seat was farther back in steerage with the rest of the serfs, and was significantly more comfortable than the Comfort+ seat I'd paid a couple of extra bucks for to avoid sitting on top of the engines last time; somehow that just seems wrong.  My seat-mates were quiet and nonintrusive college girls who allowed me to lean away from the baggage going down the aisle so I didn't have turn into a custom Delta bobblehead.  As a result, the flight was much more pleasant than my previous one, at least until we hit some major turbulence near Philadelphia, which also happened to be under a tornado watch.  Perhaps I should change my name to "Ginger Stormbringer, Terror of TSA."

Don't screw with me, TSA...I have a crown and I'm not afraid to use it.
(That goes for you, too, Jason.)

Still, I wouldn't change a thing in spite of torn tags or tornados or TSA trials because it means I got to see my "sisters from other misters"--women who love and support me unconditionally, even after only knowing me a scant four years.  Women whom I likewise love and support, and for whom I would even traipse around undead serial killer-infested woods at midnight...because that's real friendship right there. Right?  RIGHT??

I Don't Think That Word 'Adventure' Means What You Think It Means

For most people, travel is an adventure.  Seeing new places, trying new things, and learning about different cultures is exciting.  I'm no different...I love all those things too and wish I could spend every day exploring the world and squeezing out every ounce of life and joy and discovery it has to offer.  The problem is that I tend to have as much or more adventure just trying to get to my intended destinations than when I'm actually there.  While I've never had a truly traumatic trip anywhere, the fact remains that something still manages to happen nearly every time I go anywhere near an airport. The cumulative effect makes me look like Pigpen from Charlie Brown, only surrounded by a cloud of disgruntled TSA agents rather than one of dirt.

You know you're hearing the theme song right now.
( Image © Charles Schultz)

This past weekend was no different.   The plan was to fly to Georgia for a big SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) event on Saturday to support two dear friends who were heavily involved in the event.  In spite of carefully planning how much time I needed to allow for check-in, I still nearly missed my flight--in part because the economy parking lot is located in approximately Luxembourg (which I didn't realize in advance, this being my first time to park at the Philly airport), and because of a slight delay while TSA felt up my ankle to make sure my sock and airport pants were not packing tiny AK-47s.

After running OJ Simpson-style--complete with untied sneakers--to my gate at the very end of the concourse, I arrived just in time to board.  There I soon discovered that my Delta "Comfort+" aisle seat was neither comfortable nor plus.  I settled in as best I could, only to spend the next 15 minutes getting whacked in the head and shoulder by an endless parade of baggage like some sort of ginger piñata. Seated next to me was Hoggy McHoggerson, who had already selfishly commandeered both armrests before I arrived.  Hoggy proceeded to spend the entire flight with his elbows digging into both me and his other seat-mate while he happily snored away, oblivious to our discomfort. Once everyone was seated, we watched an unexpectedly amusing safety video full of sight gags and snarky humor (my favorite!); for example, we were ordered not to smoke on the flight, which caused an apron-clad guy sitting in a plane seat and holding a steak on his leg to slam down the lid of a smoker grill in the aisle in disgust.

Guess which one was me?

In spite of a late curbside bag check, my suitcase managed to make it onto the flight, though the brand-new address tag with updated info I'd just put on it hours before was mysteriously missing.  Hopefully it just got torn off in transit rather than stolen by some creepy dude collecting addresses.  I grabbed my bag off the carousel and went to collect my rental car.  Alamo tried to shaft me with a compact car instead of the mid-size I'd paid for, but the garage clerk was cool about it and directed me to pick from a long line of silver, red, and white cars.  So naturally I found the single blue vehicle hiding behind the others and quickly grabbed it (red clashes with my hair). After adjusting all the mirrors and such, I messaged some friends in the off-chance one could meet me for dinner en route to my hotel. As expected, none could join me, though one said I might be able to assist another friend and told me to stay near the phone.  Meanwhile, I'm thinking to myself "I'm currently doing 70 mph down Hwy 20 in Atlanta...how far away from my phone could I possibly go?"  She messaged back all the details and the next thing I knew, I was barreling down the highway towards Joann Fabrics in a Hail Mary attempt to acquire quilt binding before the store closed so this other friend could finish a garment for Saturday's festivities.  I arrived a few minutes after closing but luckily managed to slide in and purchase the required trim before the door was locked.  Quite pleased with my successful conquest, I then went across the street to grab a very late meal at O'Charley's, one of my favorite restaurants and one which is sadly non-existent in the northeast.

I was bound to succeed.  (See what I did there?)

After dinner, things began to get really interesting.  I tried to contact my friends to ask if they wanted their trim that night, but the location of the event was in a rather isolated state park with very poor cell reception and I couldn't reach them.  So I made the executive decision to go anyway, driving past my hotel to deliver said trim.  When I got to the state park I found a big gate rolled across the road to prevent entry after 10 pm.  I may have uttered one or two terms of sailorish vocabulary displeasure.  Then I thought, "Well, I can just walk to the campground, deliver the trim, and make somebody drive me back up to the gate afterwards."  I walked around for 5-10 minutes, decided absolutely nothing looked familiar, then headed back to my car.  Unable to get a strong GPS signal or double-check the address online, I drove all around the state park trying to find the correct campground, eventually ending up right back where I'd started--in front of that big-ass gate.  I sighed, got out of the car, and proceeded to walk around the gate and down the hill towards the campground to find my friends.

To complicate matters, it was raining (and apparently had been for several days); the warm spring weather and heavy, misty rain created a deep and eerie fog which encompassed the entire state park.  Also, as in most state parks, there wasn't much in the way of ambient lighting at night so between the rain and the fog and the remoteness of the location, my surroundings were pitch black...and I do mean black.   I couldn't see squat, which might explain why it was so difficult to get my bearings.

Where movie co-eds go to DIE.

With nothing but a sad little travel umbrella, spotty GPS, and my iPhone flashlight to keep me company, I walked about a mile down the road looking for the event campground only to come out by some cottages overlooking a lake.  Unfortunately, the relevant campground does not overlook a lake...that would have been too easy.  So I turned around and started the long hike (mostly uphill) back to my car.  As I walked in the silky darkness and incessant rain I kept thinking to myself that it was a damn good thing I don't scare easily since my current situation was a Friday the 13th movie just waiting to happen. Oh, and did I mention?  I was doing this late at night...because walking all alone around a very dark, very secluded park's woods in the rain and fog at midnight seems like a sensible thing for a woman to be doing, right?

Meanwhile, the next day one of my oh-so-helpful friends informed me that, as it happens, Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives actually WAS filmed in that very state park right around where I was walking...in pitch blackness...at midnight...alone.  So were the movies Poison Ivy and Little Darlings.  Turns out she worked at the park back when those were being filmed.  Only I would be ridiculous enough to channel a horror movie in the exact same location where said horror movie was filmed.  That's just how I roll.  Yup.

"Oh, Gingerrrrrrrrrrr..."

Needless to say, I made it back to my little TARDIS-blue Volkswagen Jetta without being assaulted by any random hockey mask-wearing dudes. Giving up the whole enterprise as a bad job, I headed back to my hotel to check in.  There I found the doors locked and a sign up that read "No Vacancy."  A couple more colorful epithets may have escaped my lips...possibly...okay, probably.  I rang a doorbell to call the desk clerk to let me in, learned that my room was still waiting on me (phew!), and was even given a much-needed bottle of water for free.  I went upstairs to shower off the sweat and the rain (because clearly I needed more water pouring over me), only to find that the sliding shower doors were stuck.  Eventually I got one jammed door shifted enough in its track to open the other door so I could get in the shower.  Afterwards, I got on my laptop to check my messages quickly before going to bed, only to discover that it had picked up a virus and was busy popping up windows and downloading random programs as fast as I could delete them like some syphilitic 18th century prostitute.  Exhausted and lacking the requisite cybercillin, I slammed the lid shut and went to sleep.

No more computer viruses for me!

The next morning I finally located the correct campground, trim in hand. In spite of the 4-hour sewing extravaganza that ensued, during which I applied the binding I'd plundered to one garment and helped yet another friend finish an outfit of her own in a wildly unrealistic time frame, the rest of the day was calm and I had an absolutely wonderful time visiting with and catching up with my besties all weekend.  Lots of food, fun, and laughter (and also a few tears) were involved, and I even received some excellent swag:  A brilliantly badass friend gave me a book on dressing Italian Renaissance-style, another lovely friend gave me a sweet little green shoulder shawl she'd knitted ("I thought it would go with your hair"); I plan on pinning it together with a broach and running around everywhere pretending to be the kickass Claire Fraser, who has a hot ginger Scot waiting for me her at home.  Yet another dear friend made me a knitted crown so I can now be a self-rescuing princess, which is especially useful since the chances of me ever getting a crown in the SCA are about as likely as my freckles growing together into a permanent tan.  But I'm okay with that.

As anticipated, my trip home was not without its own bumpy ride--literally.  Monday morning I stopped at a few favorite shops in town before heading to the airport amid dark and stormy skies which the radio informed me were because of a tornado warning in the north part of Atlanta.   However, the airport is to the south of the city, so I arrived without major incident.  After returning my rental car (bye, pretty blue Jetta!), I headed into the always-crowded terminal of the Hartsfield-Jackson airport.  I quickly checked my bag but had to wait quite a while in the security line, primarily because of the doofus in front of me.  By the time I was able to leave the herd of people in line and shuffle up to the actual security scanners, the doofus, moving slow as Christmas in molasses, had divested his belongings into 4 different grey bins (most people use one or two), not counting an enormously over-stuffed black backpack.

Next his royal doofiness decided he needed to bypass all the body scanners for a personal pat down, only to get yelled at for forgetting to remove his belt first.  I escaped through the scatter scanner while they were bellowing for a male agent to come and feel him up.  For once I didn't set the scanner off, in spite of the metal brads on my jeans or wearing the exact same sock brand that nailed me on the previous trip.  While I collected my things, zipped up my laptop bag, and put on my shoes another agent yanked aside the doofus' big black backpack and my paper bag containing the jelly beans and fudge I'd purchased on my way out of town (as well as a necklace, pair of earrings, and my tablet).

The TSA agent asked if the bag was mine; thinking she had said "flat bag," meaning my paper one, I said yes.  Apparently she had meant the doofus' backpack and proceeded to get pissy with me because I'd said it was mine then said it wasn't. When I apologized for mishearing her and tried to explain my error, she got even more pissy and defensive to boot.  Presumably she thought I was in league with the doofus and trying to pull a fast one...I don't know.  At any rate, she put up her hand to shut me up and forced herself to shake off my verbal assault argument explanation (apologies can be so offensive), then grabbed the doof's backpack and started digging slowly through it.  She plopped aside big wads of dirty clothing (have some pride, dude--fold your crap), then tossed a grocery bag of dirty socks and undies in front of me.  I confess to being secretly glad she had to put all the guy's nasties back in his sack when her pitch made them fall out.  Next the agent pulled out three boxes of Schlage door locks--the kind with the combination buttons instead of a keyed lock.  At this point my friendly neighborhood doofus started getting twitchy; he tensely asked the agent if she had to open the boxes because he "wouldn't be able to sell them if the cardboard was damaged."  Since, you know, Home Depot never has dented boxes ever.  You'd have thought those boxes were filled with meth or state secrets the way this guy was sweating and fidgeting.  Meanwhile, the agent looked at him like he'd grown an extra couple of heads, barked out "YES" and proceeded to break open the tape seal with her pen.  Three boxes later she was satisfied the contents were indeed door locks, then set them aside to swab his suitcase with one of those little PH paper terrorist test strips, walking three aisles over to get the results...naturally.

By this point I was starting to twitch because this ludicrous charade was taking forever and I was about to be late for my plane yet again.  What made it worse was knowing that my bag would have taken approximately 90 seconds to check, but I still had to wait the 20 or so minutes for her to deconstruct Sir Doof's bag first.  Finally she finished and started to pile his clothes back into the backpack, at which point the doof tries to reach over to help her so he can pack it the way he wants.  The agent freaked.  That little move nearly got him arrested for trying to breach the sanctified air around a government official's table...I mean, how dare he interfere with an official government investigation by overly-enthusiastic TSA officials??  Also, and I say this with love, WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING BRINGING 3 BOXES OF SUSPICIOUS-LOOKING METAL BOXES WITH COMBINATION/DETONATOR BUTTONS THROUGH SECURITY??  Seriously, dude--WTF???

Once he backed away, the agent shoved his bag aside while he received the TSA Grope Special™("all the junk-touching with none of the dinner or movie").  Instead of immediately getting my bag to inspect next, the agent meandered over to the line to stack up a bunch of discarded bins, chat with her colleagues, pick up a couple more bins, and finally bother to pull my paper bag over to the inspection table.  You'd almost think she was dawdling to punish me for disagreeing with her earlier.  The agent set aside my tablet, poked suspiciously at the jelly beans (they might have been made of explosive cherry gel, you know), then pulled out the box of fudge to examine more closely even though it had the name of a well-known candy vendor on it.  Because terrorism.  She opened the box, inhaled the chocolatey goodness, and ultimately decided perhaps it wasn't candied plutonium after all.  She put the box back in my now-torn sack, pushed it at me, and said I could go.  The jewelry boxes she never even opened...apparently fudge is way more threatening than metal objects.

Weapon of Mass Confection
Also? Best. Fudge. Ever.

Sometimes I wonder if TSA has my picture, emblazoned with an admonition for agents to screw around with me, posted in various airports around the country.  When I mentioned this, one of my friends suggested it's because I have an IRA dopplegänger somewhere stirring up trouble.  Another friend suggested maybe it's a redheaded prejudice thing (and people wonder why I have a hate-hate relationship with TSA).  All I know is that it's always something, every damn time.  I have no idea what the deal is, but I would like for it to stop.  I just want to fly in peace.  Is that really so much to ask?

After the very time-consuming Doofus Debacle, I jumped on the tram and once again zipped down the concourse to my distant gate, pausing only to use the bathroom and grab a bottle of water and a quick burger from 5 Guys, as well as to waste another 5 minutes explaining the meaning of the word "schlep" to a cashier ("Schlup?"  "Schlap?"  "Ohhhhh--Schloop??") who was just fascinated to learn a new word. I reached my gate and wolfed down the burger just before boarding began.  This time my seat was farther back in steerage with the rest of the serfs, and was significantly more comfortable than the Comfort+ seat I'd paid a couple of extra bucks for to avoid sitting on top of the engines last time; somehow that just seems wrong.  My seat-mates were quiet and nonintrusive college girls who allowed me to lean away from the baggage going down the aisle so I didn't have turn into a custom Delta bobblehead.  As a result, the flight was much more pleasant than my previous one, at least until we hit some major turbulence near Philadelphia, which also happened to be under a tornado watch.  Perhaps I should change my name to "Ginger Stormbringer, Terror of TSA."

Don't screw with me, TSA...I have a crown and I'm not afraid to use it.
(That goes for you, too, Jason.)

Still, I wouldn't change a thing in spite of torn tags or tornados or TSA trials because it means I got to see my "sisters from other misters"--women who love and support me unconditionally, even after only knowing me a scant four years.  Women whom I likewise love and support, and for whom I would even traipse around undead serial killer-infested woods at midnight...because that's real friendship right there. Right?  RIGHT??

Who Do You Think You Are? - The Genetic Journey

Lately I've been watching a show on TLC called "Who Do You Think You Are?"  Largely sponsored by Ancestry.com, it follows various celebrities around as they trace bits of their family history.  Given my own history (and frequent lack thereof), I find this show fascinating.

On the one hand, I'm wildly envious of the stars' seemingly endless resources in hiring professional genealogists and researchers and historians to trace their lineage as they travel all over the world to discover where they came from.  Have to jet off to Europe or the Carribbean?  Oh, darn.  On the other hand, I love how much genealogical searching humanizes these celebrities; their reactions, whether of surprise or excitement or distress, appear genuine because in those moments they are just like the rest of us--regular people searching for who they are and where they came from.  And that's something we all want and deserve to know.

So far this season I've seen celebrities who've discovered they are direct descendants of European royalty and I've watched as other celebrities learned that distant relatives were murderers (though in one case it was arguably self-defense).  The common themes seem to be either how various family members persevered against great odds or how some aspect of one's personality carried down through the centuries.  For example, Jim Parsons of Big Bang Theory wanted to see if there were any creative people or artists in his line; apparently there were several.  Another actor, for whom family is paramount, discovered a long line of ancestors who routinely sacrificed for their families.  Just the other night I watched as Brooke Shields learned that her Italian lineage actually originated in France; turns out she majored in French Literature in college and has always been drawn to all things French without ever really knowing why.  Now she does.

Obviously this is a television show and is therefore edited for maximum effect, particularly in presenting the whole "rise above adversity" theme.  After all, the goal is to snag viewers.  Even so, I am drawn to the latter theme of continuity because I get it--I'm seeing it over and over again as I trace my own ancestry.  I find the idea of continuity in one's family extremely compelling, especially after growing up as an adoptee and having pretty much zero continuity or family history for more than four decades.  Certainly a great deal of who I am was instilled by my adoptive family and I'm grateful for that and for them, but those experiences only define a portion of what and who I am.  Perhaps that's why the recent search for my birth parents and my history has been so valuable to me because I am finally getting a glimpse of my unknown origins.  Some aspects of my ancestry, particularly on my birth father's side, will likely remain a mystery forever.  I wish it could be otherwise, regardless of my birth father's apparent lack of character, because his own ancestry still comprises half of my heredity and I'd still like to learn more about it...I want to see if there is a continuity present in his line as there is on my birth mother's side.

The Love of a Birthmother by Susan Scharpf

Even if I never learn anything more about my birth father, the information I've learned thus far about my birth mother's family has been a gift.  It's difficult to describe how meaningful an experience it is to be able to find a part of yourself that you didn't even know was missing...to hear the echoes of relatives long past calling down to you through the ages...to feel just that little bit more whole.  It's an amazing thing, this context, and I've watched it play out over and over in each episode of this show just as I'm now watching it play out in my own life on a much smaller scale.

It's these stories, these connections, that make everything so real for me.  Seeing names on a page is interesting and all, but when those names come to life and become real, breathing people with whom you might share commonalities?  Well, that's another matter entirely, and one which cannot be underestimated.  I've already written about some of the small commonalities I share with my birth mother, the odd idiosyncrasies that mark me as one of her line and no one else's.  Since then, I've learned a little more about her our family, even with my limited resources.  I'm starting to hear the echoes.  I have one great-grand-aunt who did medical research at a time when women were not generally that highly educated; she helped to isolate the typhus bacterium.  Her sister, another great-grand-aunt, was a musician who taught piano in Germany.  I gather my grandmother was also a pianist.  I know virtually nothing about these people, and yet I can still see glimpses of where my interests in education and music might have originated.  My great-great-grandfather himself founded a well-known mission in Indianapolis which is still in operation today.  I find it particularly ironic that it was originally founded as a home for unwed mothers (and initially called the Door of Hope) given the circumstances of my own conception and birth.  I can't help but wonder if that example might not have somehow influenced my birth mother's decision to put me up for adoption as opposed to aborting me.  If so, then I'm doubly thankful.  Regardless, the echoes are still there--I may not have done anything as big as founding a mission, but I have always liked helping people however I can.

Watching this show serves to remind me how we are all tied to our past whether we realize it or not, as well as whether we are trying to improve upon it or to merely live up to it.  Either way, we are still a product of all those who came before.  For me, this is much like the strange feeling I had a few years ago when I was in the UK.  We spent some time exploring London, though we missed many of the sites I would have liked to see such as Glastonbury, Bath, and Stratford-upon-Avon.  There were various complications along the way that made the trip less than it might have been, but when I got on the train to head to Scotland, all the frustrations melted away.  It felt for all the world like I was going home.  The closer I got to Scotland, the more relaxed I became--the more at peace--as if centuries of Gaelic ancestors were welcoming me back to my native land.  It was a surreal experience, particularly since I had no knowledge of my heredity at the time.

Since then I've discovered through DNA testing that most of my ancestors originated in the UK (with a few Swiss and Germans thrown in for seasoning). Apparently Ancestry.com (which provided the testing) filtered their findings more fully because one day I received an email with updated results showing that I am approximately 31% Irish (yeah, like that's a shocker) and 27% British.  I'm even 10% Scandinavian...yay, Vikings!  Research into my birth mother's family suggests that of that UK percentage, a significant portion is Welsh and yes, there are a a few Scots scattered here and there.  So far I've not found any Irish in my birth mother's lineage to speak of (though I'm not done researching), so I can only assume I inherited the majority of it from my birth father.  Either way, I now have a context for my life-long fascination with all things Celtic (and not just their kilts, though admittedly those are pretty fabulous and tend to make me a little weak in the knees).  I've always been intrigued with the history and mythology of the Celtic nations and drawn to Celtic art, particularly knotwork.  I never knew why before--now I do.  Besides, if I'm part Welsh, I can totally claim a legitimate connection to King Arthur and to Torchwood (and possibly Doctor Who by extension).  Bright side, people...bright side.

Learning about oneself and one's geneaology is a journey in every sense of the word.  Most people get to discover their history over decades; my journey has so far been compressed into two short years, making it arguably more impactful since I didn't have the luxury of living and breathing my genetic family history as I grew up.  Suddenly I have a context for things I didn't previously understand; suddenly I can see the beginnings of a continuity connecting me throughout the years.  Suddenly I understand why my time in Scotland felt so natural and grounding, like Scotland was calling me home.

It was.

Who Do You Think You Are? - The Genetic Journey

Lately I've been watching a show on TLC called "Who Do You Think You Are?"  Largely sponsored by Ancestry.com, it follows various celebrities around as they trace bits of their family history.  Given my own history (and frequent lack thereof), I find this show fascinating.

On the one hand, I'm wildly envious of the stars' seemingly endless resources in hiring professional genealogists and researchers and historians to trace their lineage as they travel all over the world to discover where they came from.  Have to jet off to Europe or the Carribbean?  Oh, darn.  On the other hand, I love how much genealogical searching humanizes these celebrities; their reactions, whether of surprise or excitement or distress, appear genuine because in those moments they are just like the rest of us--regular people searching for who they are and where they came from.  And that's something we all want and deserve to know.

So far this season I've seen celebrities who've discovered they are direct descendants of European royalty and I've watched as other celebrities learned that distant relatives were murderers (though in one case it was arguably self-defense).  The common themes seem to be either how various family members persevered against great odds or how some aspect of one's personality carried down through the centuries.  For example, Jim Parsons of Big Bang Theory wanted to see if there were any creative people or artists in his line; apparently there were several.  Another actor, for whom family is paramount, discovered a long line of ancestors who routinely sacrificed for their families.  Just the other night I watched as Brooke Shields learned that her Italian lineage actually originated in France; turns out she majored in French Literature in college and has always been drawn to all things French without ever really knowing why.  Now she does.

Obviously this is a television show and is therefore edited for maximum effect, particularly in presenting the whole "rise above adversity" theme.  After all, the goal is to snag viewers.  Even so, I am drawn to the latter theme of continuity because I get it--I'm seeing it over and over again as I trace my own ancestry.  I find the idea of continuity in one's family extremely compelling, especially after growing up as an adoptee and having pretty much zero continuity or family history for more than four decades.  Certainly a great deal of who I am was instilled by my adoptive family and I'm grateful for that and for them, but those experiences only define a portion of what and who I am.  Perhaps that's why the recent search for my birth parents and my history has been so valuable to me because I am finally getting a glimpse of my unknown origins.  Some aspects of my ancestry, particularly on my birth father's side, will likely remain a mystery forever.  I wish it could be otherwise, regardless of my birth father's apparent lack of character, because his own ancestry still comprises half of my heredity and I'd still like to learn more about it...I want to see if there is a continuity present in his line as there is on my birth mother's side.

The Love of a Birthmother by Susan Scharpf

Even if I never learn anything more about my birth father, the information I've learned thus far about my birth mother's family has been a gift.  It's difficult to describe how meaningful an experience it is to be able to find a part of yourself that you didn't even know was missing...to hear the echoes of relatives long past calling down to you through the ages...to feel just that little bit more whole.  It's an amazing thing, this context, and I've watched it play out over and over in each episode of this show just as I'm now watching it play out in my own life on a much smaller scale.

It's these stories, these connections, that make everything so real for me.  Seeing names on a page is interesting and all, but when those names come to life and become real, breathing people with whom you might share commonalities?  Well, that's another matter entirely, and one which cannot be underestimated.  I've already written about some of the small commonalities I share with my birth mother, the odd idiosyncrasies that mark me as one of her line and no one else's.  Since then, I've learned a little more about her our family, even with my limited resources.  I'm starting to hear the echoes.  I have one great-grand-aunt who did medical research at a time when women were not generally that highly educated; she helped to isolate the typhus bacterium.  Her sister, another great-grand-aunt, was a musician who taught piano in Germany.  I gather my grandmother was also a pianist.  I know virtually nothing about these people, and yet I can still see glimpses of where my interests in education and music might have originated.  My great-great-grandfather himself founded a well-known mission in Indianapolis which is still in operation today.  I find it particularly ironic that it was originally founded as a home for unwed mothers (and initially called the Door of Hope) given the circumstances of my own conception and birth.  I can't help but wonder if that example might not have somehow influenced my birth mother's decision to put me up for adoption as opposed to aborting me.  If so, then I'm doubly thankful.  Regardless, the echoes are still there--I may not have done anything as big as founding a mission, but I have always liked helping people however I can.

Watching this show serves to remind me how we are all tied to our past whether we realize it or not, as well as whether we are trying to improve upon it or to merely live up to it.  Either way, we are still a product of all those who came before.  For me, this is much like the strange feeling I had a few years ago when I was in the UK.  We spent some time exploring London, though we missed many of the sites I would have liked to see such as Glastonbury, Bath, and Stratford-upon-Avon.  There were various complications along the way that made the trip less than it might have been, but when I got on the train to head to Scotland, all the frustrations melted away.  It felt for all the world like I was going home.  The closer I got to Scotland, the more relaxed I became--the more at peace--as if centuries of Gaelic ancestors were welcoming me back to my native land.  It was a surreal experience, particularly since I had no knowledge of my heredity at the time.

Since then I've discovered through DNA testing that most of my ancestors originated in the UK (with a few Swiss and Germans thrown in for seasoning). Apparently Ancestry.com (which provided the testing) filtered their findings more fully because one day I received an email with updated results showing that I am approximately 31% Irish (yeah, like that's a shocker) and 27% British.  I'm even 10% Scandinavian...yay, Vikings!  Research into my birth mother's family suggests that of that UK percentage, a significant portion is Welsh and yes, there are a a few Scots scattered here and there.  So far I've not found any Irish in my birth mother's lineage to speak of (though I'm not done researching), so I can only assume I inherited the majority of it from my birth father.  Either way, I now have a context for my life-long fascination with all things Celtic (and not just their kilts, though admittedly those are pretty fabulous and tend to make me a little weak in the knees).  I've always been intrigued with the history and mythology of the Celtic nations and drawn to Celtic art, particularly knotwork.  I never knew why before--now I do.  Besides, if I'm part Welsh, I can totally claim a legitimate connection to King Arthur and to Torchwood (and possibly Doctor Who by extension).  Bright side, people...bright side.

Learning about oneself and one's geneaology is a journey in every sense of the word.  Most people get to discover their history over decades; my journey has so far been compressed into two short years, making it arguably more impactful since I didn't have the luxury of living and breathing my genetic family history as I grew up.  Suddenly I have a context for things I didn't previously understand; suddenly I can see the beginnings of a continuity connecting me throughout the years.  Suddenly I understand why my time in Scotland felt so natural and grounding, like Scotland was calling me home.

It was.

Happy Jerseyversary

Two months ago today, I moved to New Jersey.  If someone had told me years ago that I'd one day be living here, I'd never have believed them.  I grew up in a smallish town in the Midwest, middle Indiana to be precise, directly across from one of the ubiquitous cornfields dotting the Midwestern countryside.  My hometown, at least while I was there, boasted maybe 3,000 residents.  Today it's closer to 23,000 and is basically a suburb of Indianapolis.  Personally, I find this grossly unfair.  I mean, they have a movie theater, for crying out loud.  Where was this when I was a teenager??  But I digress.

Two months and counting.

When I was an adolescent, I couldn't have imagined all the different places in which I'd find myself over the years. True, I tended to be "take one day at a time" sort of person and so didn't really think about it one way or the other, but when you grow up in a fairly insulated and conservative town, it's often difficult to think past one's limited experiences anyway.

I stayed in Indiana for college and grad school after which I found myself unexpectedly transported to a whole new universe in Memphis, TN--the South.  I felt like an alien in a strange land and, in many ways, I was.  I spoke too quickly, I moved too fast, and I refused to say "y'all" on general principle.  I was introduced to real-life cotton gins that looked nothing like the little box in my childhood history book.  Eventually I adapted; I spoke a little more slowly, drank sweet tea, and even picked up the odd regional colloquialism, though I still avoided "y'all" as a matter of course; no doubt it will be "you guys" till I die.  Ultimately I came to love Memphis and I still think of it as my home.  Besides, Memphis brought me some of the biggest joys of my life, including the birth of my amazing and brilliant daughter and the opportunity to travel overseas not once but twice, for which I will be eternally grateful and because of which I want to travel even more.

Seriously...I do.

After nearly 20 years in Memphis I moved to Georgia because of the Spousal Unit's job.  Georgia was quite the adjustment considering the girlie went to her first year of college just 3 weeks after we moved and we'd just lost 3 of 4 parents in the previous 4 years--never mind a number of other things complicating the move.  In the process, I soon learned the difference between the South and the Deep South and that I don't really belong in it.  I made some fantastic friends in my short time there, but I never really fit in otherwise.  And that's okay.  It was a good place to discover how much more liberal I am than I'd originally thought and to better understand who I am overall and what I think after years of focusing on other people.

Four years later, just when I was getting used to the place and able to find my way around, we moved again and I ended up on the Jersey side of the Philadelphia metropolitan area.  I find this particularly ironic because when I was a kid, my family used to drive all over the country visiting relatives.  By the time I graduated from high school I'd been in most of the contiguous states at one point or another, with the exception of the northeastern US so naturally that was the region I was most curious to visit. Well, that and Alaska.  Then the girlie unexpectedly chose to go to school in NY, so I got to see a little of the Northeast for the first time--and now I live here.  That's kind of exciting, really.  In fact, I'm even planning a new blog that will focus on my explorations of both Philadelphia and the Northeast in general; hopefully it will be launched in the next month or so.  And what's a new blog without a small preview?

In the process of running around like a crazy person while trying to sort out things like driver's licenses and plates and registrations the first two weeks and after myriad jaunts to home improvement stores,  I've picked up a few things about my new home.  So here, in no particular order, are ten things I've learned about New Jersey so far.

  1.  The people here are surprisingly friendly.  No, I didn't think everyone was going to be a rude, overly-tanned mafioso, but I did expect a certain degree of terseness and directness in speech that is largely absent in the South.  And while everyone does tend to be more straightforward here (which is great, because I always have been too; it's one of the many reasons I don't make a good Southerner), I was still surprised by how just how polite and open everyone seems to be.

  2.  It is illegal to pump your own gas here.  I've been pumping my own gas since I started driving approximately 5 centuries ago, so it's more than a little weird to hand over my credit card to a complete stranger and sit in my car while he hooks up the pump.  I confess I keep eyeballing the card reader in case someone wanders by to try yanking it out of the slot.  On the other hand, I can see the potential advantages of being forced to stay in my car when it's rainy or snowy outside, so there's that.

New Jersey:  Where You Can't Be Trusted To Pump Your Own Petrol

  3.  Speaking of gas, it's cheaper in New Jersey than in Philadelphia which is good because it's pretty much the only thing that's cheaper here.  I knew going in that the cost of living up here was much higher than in the South or the Midwest, but frankly I'm still in sticker shock at just exactly how much more expensive it is.  It's daunting, to say the least, and kind of makes me want to knock over an armored truck just so I can squirrel away some reserves.

  4.  New Jersey has something called "jug handles."  And I'm not talking milk pitchers.  Jug handles (which constantly make me think of "Jug Ears" from the British show "Are You Being Served") are a bizarre means by which one makes a left-handed turn on the road.  I've actually done a couple now (mostly successfully), and they still seem to me to be overcomplicating the streets but then I'm just a misplaced Midwest-Southerner so what do I know?

Just in case traffic wasn't convoluted enough.

  5.  There are no Kroger's or Publix grocery stores here; instead one of the big chains is Acme, which I cannot look at without immediately seeing Wile E. Coyote holding a cardboard box and hearing "Ac-Meeeeeeee" playing on repeat through my head.

  6.  New Jersey is surprisingly green, and I don't just mean all the trees and grass.  (And, can I just say?  Fescue, how I've missed you!  So soooooooft...)  In my township, most of the lampposts have solar panels installed and the recycling program here is rather extensive.  Residents are even provided with a big recycling dumpster, thoughtfully emblazoned with the breast cancer support ribbon...but you have to provide your own trash cans.  Go figure.

  7.  I may not live at the epicenter of US culture, but I can access a significant majority of it within four hours or less.  NYC is maybe 2½ hours away, and Washington D.C. is maybe 3½.  I'm also only about an hour from the shore should I get the inexplicable urge to expose my pasty flesh to the sun's harsh rays.  And it's the shore, not the "beach."  That's one change that's going to take some getting used to.  Meanwhile, I'm a scant 20 minutes from the "Cradle of Liberty" that is Philadelphia, as well as its myriad museums.

  8.  While I'm pleased to be living above the fire ant line once again and can actually do yard work without the imminent threat of my extremities blowing up like inner tubes or burning as though doused in habañero juice, my car and I are both somewhat less than thrilled to be back in the Land of the Eternal Pothole. I may mock native Southerners' aversion to cold weather with the best of them (not that I won't soon be whinging here after 23 years of relatively hot winters), but I have to admit that the roads are much easier to traverse without all the cracking and expansion brought on by frigid temperatures.  Also?  I haven't picked up a snow shovel in nearly a quarter of a century.

It was good while it lasted.

  9. Furthermore, I've learned that summer in New Jersey means rain and lots of it.  I don't know yet if that's typical or if it's just this summer, but either way, I really wish my neighborhood's power lines could handle the strain a little better.  Seriously--you'd think if the electric company knows there's going to be a problem every time it storms they'd spring for proper repairs rather than going through their giant box of magic electricity bandaids to jury-rig the outages.  Still, that seems a small price to pay for significantly more temperate summers than I've had for the last 2 decades.  And while I dread surrendering my beloved flip-flops in favor of grown-up shoes this fall, I am totally down with hot cocoa and tea and cider and sweaters and cozy fires and trees that actually change more than two colors in the approximately 3½ days which constitute "autumn" in the Southern region.  Apparently my Celtic roots are showing.

10.  Lastly, New Jersey has my phone's GPS completely flummoxed.  I've been using the Tomtom app for several years now and, barring the odd exception (and parking lots), Paul's done quite well for me.  No, I didn't name him; the voice options came pre-named.  A few years ago when relatives were visiting, I was demonstrating the different voice and language selections.  I landed on an Australian voice designated as "Paul" ("That's not a knife...THIS is a knife!").  Eventually I got so used to Paul's voice that now all the other voices sound somehow wrong.  At any rate, Paul can't seem to manage New Jersey at all and consistently smokes silicon motherboard crack when plotting out my various destinations.  I've been told that others have similar problems with their GPS when in New Jersey.  I'm not sure why this is, but even Google Maps gives me better directions.  Yet if I cross back over into Philadelphia, Paul is good to go once again.  I can only assume that Australians have some sort of ocean-based enmity against Atlantic dwellers.  Or something.

All I know is that continuing to learn about my new environs should prove to be very interesting and I look forward to blogging more about my adventures starting this fall.  In the meantime, I need to figure out how to become independently wealthy so I can travel all over the rest of the world (especially Europe) because just the small sliver I've seen thus far has not only to whet my appetite for more but has fanned it into a voracious flame; clearly something must be done about this soon because we all know how easily gingers get burned.  That raises an interesting question, though:  who is more formidable?  A Jersey girl, or a ginger girl?  (God forbid one is both, I suppose.)  I'll have to do some research and let you know how it turns out. ;)

Happy Jerseyversary

Two months ago today, I moved to New Jersey.  If someone had told me years ago that I'd one day be living here, I'd never have believed them.  I grew up in a smallish town in the Midwest, middle Indiana to be precise, directly across from one of the ubiquitous cornfields dotting the Midwestern countryside.  My hometown, at least while I was there, boasted maybe 3,000 residents.  Today it's closer to 23,000 and is basically a suburb of Indianapolis.  Personally, I find this grossly unfair.  I mean, they have a movie theater, for crying out loud.  Where was this when I was a teenager??  But I digress.

Two months and counting.

When I was an adolescent, I couldn't have imagined all the different places in which I'd find myself over the years. True, I tended to be "take one day at a time" sort of person and so didn't really think about it one way or the other, but when you grow up in a fairly insulated and conservative town, it's often difficult to think past one's limited experiences anyway.

I stayed in Indiana for college and grad school after which I found myself unexpectedly transported to a whole new universe in Memphis, TN--the South.  I felt like an alien in a strange land and, in many ways, I was.  I spoke too quickly, I moved too fast, and I refused to say "y'all" on general principle.  I was introduced to real-life cotton gins that looked nothing like the little box in my childhood history book.  Eventually I adapted; I spoke a little more slowly, drank sweet tea, and even picked up the odd regional colloquialism, though I still avoided "y'all" as a matter of course; no doubt it will be "you guys" till I die.  Ultimately I came to love Memphis and I still think of it as my home.  Besides, Memphis brought me some of the biggest joys of my life, including the birth of my amazing and brilliant daughter and the opportunity to travel overseas not once but twice, for which I will be eternally grateful and because of which I want to travel even more.

Seriously...I do.

After nearly 20 years in Memphis I moved to Georgia because of the Spousal Unit's job.  Georgia was quite the adjustment considering the girlie went to her first year of college just 3 weeks after we moved and we'd just lost 3 of 4 parents in the previous 4 years--never mind a number of other things complicating the move.  In the process, I soon learned the difference between the South and the Deep South and that I don't really belong in it.  I made some fantastic friends in my short time there, but I never really fit in otherwise.  And that's okay.  It was a good place to discover how much more liberal I am than I'd originally thought and to better understand who I am overall and what I think after years of focusing on other people.

Four years later, just when I was getting used to the place and able to find my way around, we moved again and I ended up on the Jersey side of the Philadelphia metropolitan area.  I find this particularly ironic because when I was a kid, my family used to drive all over the country visiting relatives.  By the time I graduated from high school I'd been in most of the contiguous states at one point or another, with the exception of the northeastern US so naturally that was the region I was most curious to visit. Well, that and Alaska.  Then the girlie unexpectedly chose to go to school in NY, so I got to see a little of the Northeast for the first time--and now I live here.  That's kind of exciting, really.  In fact, I'm even planning a new blog that will focus on my explorations of both Philadelphia and the Northeast in general; hopefully it will be launched in the next month or so.  And what's a new blog without a small preview?

In the process of running around like a crazy person while trying to sort out things like driver's licenses and plates and registrations the first two weeks and after myriad jaunts to home improvement stores,  I've picked up a few things about my new home.  So here, in no particular order, are ten things I've learned about New Jersey so far.

  1.  The people here are surprisingly friendly.  No, I didn't think everyone was going to be a rude, overly-tanned mafioso, but I did expect a certain degree of terseness and directness in speech that is largely absent in the South.  And while everyone does tend to be more straightforward here (which is great, because I always have been too; it's one of the many reasons I don't make a good Southerner), I was still surprised by how just how polite and open everyone seems to be.

  2.  It is illegal to pump your own gas here.  I've been pumping my own gas since I started driving approximately 5 centuries ago, so it's more than a little weird to hand over my credit card to a complete stranger and sit in my car while he hooks up the pump.  I confess I keep eyeballing the card reader in case someone wanders by to try yanking it out of the slot.  On the other hand, I can see the potential advantages of being forced to stay in my car when it's rainy or snowy outside, so there's that.

New Jersey:  Where You Can't Be Trusted To Pump Your Own Petrol

  3.  Speaking of gas, it's cheaper in New Jersey than in Philadelphia which is good because it's pretty much the only thing that's cheaper here.  I knew going in that the cost of living up here was much higher than in the South or the Midwest, but frankly I'm still in sticker shock at just exactly how much more expensive it is.  It's daunting, to say the least, and kind of makes me want to knock over an armored truck just so I can squirrel away some reserves.

  4.  New Jersey has something called "jug handles."  And I'm not talking milk pitchers.  Jug handles (which constantly make me think of "Jug Ears" from the British show "Are You Being Served") are a bizarre means by which one makes a left-handed turn on the road.  I've actually done a couple now (mostly successfully), and they still seem to me to be overcomplicating the streets but then I'm just a misplaced Midwest-Southerner so what do I know?

Just in case traffic wasn't convoluted enough.

  5.  There are no Kroger's or Publix grocery stores here; instead one of the big chains is Acme, which I cannot look at without immediately seeing Wile E. Coyote holding a cardboard box and hearing "Ac-Meeeeeeee" playing on repeat through my head.

  6.  New Jersey is surprisingly green, and I don't just mean all the trees and grass.  (And, can I just say?  Fescue, how I've missed you!  So soooooooft...)  In my township, most of the lampposts have solar panels installed and the recycling program here is rather extensive.  Residents are even provided with a big recycling dumpster, thoughtfully emblazoned with the breast cancer support ribbon...but you have to provide your own trash cans.  Go figure.

  7.  I may not live at the epicenter of US culture, but I can access a significant majority of it within four hours or less.  NYC is maybe 2½ hours away, and Washington D.C. is maybe 3½.  I'm also only about an hour from the shore should I get the inexplicable urge to expose my pasty flesh to the sun's harsh rays.  And it's the shore, not the "beach."  That's one change that's going to take some getting used to.  Meanwhile, I'm a scant 20 minutes from the "Cradle of Liberty" that is Philadelphia, as well as its myriad museums.

  8.  While I'm pleased to be living above the fire ant line once again and can actually do yard work without the imminent threat of my extremities blowing up like inner tubes or burning as though doused in habañero juice, my car and I are both somewhat less than thrilled to be back in the Land of the Eternal Pothole. I may mock native Southerners' aversion to cold weather with the best of them (not that I won't soon be whinging here after 23 years of relatively hot winters), but I have to admit that the roads are much easier to traverse without all the cracking and expansion brought on by frigid temperatures.  Also?  I haven't picked up a snow shovel in nearly a quarter of a century.

It was good while it lasted.

  9. Furthermore, I've learned that summer in New Jersey means rain and lots of it.  I don't know yet if that's typical or if it's just this summer, but either way, I really wish my neighborhood's power lines could handle the strain a little better.  Seriously--you'd think if the electric company knows there's going to be a problem every time it storms they'd spring for proper repairs rather than going through their giant box of magic electricity bandaids to jury-rig the outages.  Still, that seems a small price to pay for significantly more temperate summers than I've had for the last 2 decades.  And while I dread surrendering my beloved flip-flops in favor of grown-up shoes this fall, I am totally down with hot cocoa and tea and cider and sweaters and cozy fires and trees that actually change more than two colors in the approximately 3½ days which constitute "autumn" in the Southern region.  Apparently my Celtic roots are showing.

10.  Lastly, New Jersey has my phone's GPS completely flummoxed.  I've been using the Tomtom app for several years now and, barring the odd exception (and parking lots), Paul's done quite well for me.  No, I didn't name him; the voice options came pre-named.  A few years ago when relatives were visiting, I was demonstrating the different voice and language selections.  I landed on an Australian voice designated as "Paul" ("That's not a knife...THIS is a knife!").  Eventually I got so used to Paul's voice that now all the other voices sound somehow wrong.  At any rate, Paul can't seem to manage New Jersey at all and consistently smokes silicon motherboard crack when plotting out my various destinations.  I've been told that others have similar problems with their GPS when in New Jersey.  I'm not sure why this is, but even Google Maps gives me better directions.  Yet if I cross back over into Philadelphia, Paul is good to go once again.  I can only assume that Australians have some sort of ocean-based enmity against Atlantic dwellers.  Or something.

All I know is that continuing to learn about my new environs should prove to be very interesting and I look forward to blogging more about my adventures starting this fall.  In the meantime, I need to figure out how to become independently wealthy so I can travel all over the rest of the world (especially Europe) because just the small sliver I've seen thus far has not only to whet my appetite for more but has fanned it into a voracious flame; clearly something must be done about this soon because we all know how easily gingers get burned.  That raises an interesting question, though:  who is more formidable?  A Jersey girl, or a ginger girl?  (God forbid one is both, I suppose.)  I'll have to do some research and let you know how it turns out. ;)