L o b a B l a n c a {dot} c o m

I lead a rather compartmentalized life at times. I like it that way. It gives me a sense of order (and probably a false sense of control). Order is comforting. I can write whole reams of paper on the placebo palliative of order. But that can wait for another post.

Back to compartmentalization. I tend to keep the various streams of my life from crossing. Work stays at work. Personal life stays out of my office. Even in my online living, I tend to keep barriers between my Internet Personalities^TM. Somewhat. I do cross streams a bit, but it’s somewhat one-sided. It’s kind of like how Tom Jackman tries to keep his life and family a secret from Mr. Hyde. Which doesn’t always work out…but the Bionic EastEnder is there to keep things sorted for the most part, so it’s all good.

What the hell was I talking about?!

Oh, yeah. Compartmentalization. Here, then, is a rare moment when I’m letting Dr. Jekyll’s and Mr. Hyde’s lives mix it up a little bit…for a beery good cause. So there’s a podcast I’ve been listening to for a while now called Here Goes Nothing. It’s a show about…nothing. And everything. It’s whatever you want it to be, really…movies, music, beer reviews, rants, ramblings…the whole nine yards, the kitchen sink, and a partridge in a pear tree. What makes it a gem is it’s hosted by two of the most amazing blokes you’ll ever hear. Not only do I find Boz and Casey to be two of the hands-down funniest people to populate this planet, but I’m very proud to consider them both to be my friends.

Sadly, life has roadblocked their ability to continue to record Here Goes Nothing. All I can say to this is a very loud FUCK CANCER. So, to honor (and honour even) their efforts, their humor, their rants, their chemistry, and their all-around awesomeness, I named my very first attempt at home-brewed beer after their show. I even designed a label just for them:

I was trying to make it a label somewhat akin to the grunge-effect labels used by their favorite brewery, Brew Dog (WOOF CLANG), but with deep, bold colors and a strong “heavy metal” font for my heavy metal dudes. And, of course, we here at LobaBlanca Brewing Co. made sure to include the proper paraphrase of a popular Here Goes Nothing truism (“Now That’s Metal!”)for this particular beer’s quote: “Now That’s Porter.” Here’s what the labels looked like applied to my three bottles:

And now, in that fine Here Goes Nothing tradition…

Loba’s Beer Review: Here Goes Nothing Chocolate Maple Porter

As I already wrote, my cousin did very well in her beer selection for the home brewing kit she gave me, because I love nothing more than a nice dark beer. And how much more black could this lovely porter be?

And the answer is none, none more black.

I cracked open my first bottle and was very pleased to hear the hiss of carbonation. One of my biggest worries was that I didn’t add enough yeast to the brew or that I didn’t activate it enough. It’s not quite as frothy as it could/should be (you can see from the photo that there was no head whatsoever when I poured). However, porters tend to not be as frothy as lighter beers anyway, and I’ve also come close to perfecting a headless pour (do with that statement what you will), so that doesn’t really bother me all that much.

I know very little about descriptive qualities of beer smell other than to say this brew has a decidedly strong, malty, and familiar scent. The smell has the rich quality of a professionally brewed porter…another positive sign.

As for the taste, the first sip was a bit…sedimenty. That would be completely my bad. I ended up siphoning too low into the brew jug and I pulled in some less-than-appealing sediment that I couldn’t then completely strain out. However, I let the glass stand for about 10 minutes and returned for a second sip…which was a mouthful of happy.

Deliciously robust with deep malty undertones and the slightest bite of tanginess at the end is how I would describe this beer. I modified the recipe slightly by adding a cup of black coffee, so I’m not sure what effect that might have had…maybe the tang? I don’t necessarily taste the maple sweetness, but overall, this is a solid, hearty porter. And with a 6.5 percent ABV, it leaves you with a nice, happy buzzy feeling.

I know already where I made mistakes in the process and what I need to do to fix them, but this is definitely something I can see myself doing again. In fact, Brooklyn Brew Shop has released a holiday Gingerbread Ale that sounds too delicious to resist…

And there you have it: My first foray into home brewing. A success? Mostly. Amazing birthday present? Absolutely. Suitable tribute to the awesomeness of Here Goes Nothing? I hope so.

I love coffee. Anyone who knows me, knows this truth. Don’t try to communicate with me before my initial caffeine intake has had time to reach my blood stream. Bad things might happen to you if you do.

It’s no surprise, then, that I would invest in a coffeemaker that’s a little more high-end than your average Mr. Coffee. It’s not that Mr. Coffee makes bad brew. It’s just…I’m a coffee snob when I’m at home. There, I said it. I am a coffee snob. I rarely buy pre-ground coffee. I buy whole beans, which I store in vacuum-sealed containers and grind per my own various specifications for the perfect cup to fit my varying coffee moods. I have been known to pay top-dollar for specialty selections, like 100-percent Kona beans. I use only filtered water. I tear down my machine for regular cleanings and decalcifications.

I succumb to very few personal indulgences in this life, but coffee is one of them. My coffeemaker of choice for more than a decade has been Bunn. My dad (another coffee fiend) purchased our first Bunn machine when I still lived at home. It was such a magnificent machine that when I finally moved out, my parents bought me my very own so that I would always have a decent cup of coffee to make everything better. The sprayhead on these machines disperses the water over the grounds in such a way that, to me, the end result is a pot of coffee that’s stronger and more flavorful than a conventional Mr. Coffee brew.

The primary reason I have long preferred Bunn machines, however, is because of their “velocity brew” line. These particular machines have a water reservoir that keeps a potful of coffee constantly at a brew-appropriate temperature. The reward for this? All I have to do is grind my beans, place them in the filter, pour in a pot of fresh, filtered water, and 3 minutes later, I have a full pot of perfectly brewed coffee.

It’s coffee nirvana for the terminally impatient.

The downside, of course, is the fact that these pots do expend a significant amount of energy, keeping that tank constantly at brew temperature. Also, if you go through a stretch of time in which you don’t drink a lot of coffee, you still have to remember to either switch off the reservoir or refill it regularly so that it doesn’t evaporate all the water and burn itself out.

The ultimate downside, however? When the reservoir seal fails and the tank leaks all over your counter.

This seems to be the intrinsic failing of the Bunn velocity brew line. And it’s gotten worse over the years. My first machine, the one that my parents bought for me when I moved out, actually lasted me a little more than 8 years. In that time, however, my parents went through three Bunn machines. Subsequently, others in my family (we are a long line of coffee snobs, apparently) went through even more of these machines. Almost every single one ended up suffering the same containment breach.

And now, the Bunn machine that I bought to replace the one my parents gave me has done the same thing. It’s not even 3 years old.

This is unacceptable. And so ends my relationship with Bunn. Obviously, some corporate douche in a suit made the decision to skimp on materials in order to make more money available for their own year-end bonuses. Fine. But you can no longer expect my money to add to that bonus level. Nor the money from my family. And, as far as I’m concerned, from this point on, I’m going to discourage people from wasting their money on anything from the Bunn coffeemaker line.

Hell hath no fury like a coffee snob who can’t make her own coffee at home without threat of electrocution from a leaking reservoir.

After some research, I have decided to give Cuisinart a try. Several of my family have already embraced this brand, including my dad. The problem was, I couldn’t find the machine that I wanted locally, so I had to order it online. It shipped today. I shall report back once I have had it and tested it out. Photos may be included.

Until then, though, you might just want to steer clear of me while I’m un-caffeinated…

Gather closer, denizens. Loba has a story to tell you all.

You might have noticed that I’ve done a fair amount of writing here at the lair about driving. I’ve told tales of bizarre fender benders, run-ins with police pettiness…I’ve even told you about how Sammy and I once closed down 95 South (I’ve also explained a little about why I have a car with a name; maybe one day I’ll try to explain why it’s “Sammy”).

Well, here comes another driving tale. Only this time, I was merely a passenger on this particular excursion.

So Saturday evening we had tickets to see Wanda Sykes. This might be the only time when this particular detail will ever be classified as incidental to the main story. We get to the venue a little early, find our way to our seats, and then I wander off in search of coffee. I find a wine bar instead. I’d already been drinking wine that afternoon at another social event (yes, sometimes even the solitary Loba makes exceptions and wanders out for social interaction), so I was still carrying a mellow wine happy inside from that time. I paid for my $8 plastic cup of wine and wandered back to my seat to imbibe whilst waiting for the show to begin. By the end of my cup, I was in an extremely happy mellow zone. The show starts, Wanda’s hilarious, the show ends, we scurry to the parking lot, end up beating most of the traffic trying to get out as well. Bonus.

Back on the main road, we retrace our path, find the exit that we need to get back onto the Beltway and…discover that the exits on both sides of the road for north-bound 495 are closed. Why, you might ask? Oh…we’ll get to that in a moment. We hang a U-bie (something that should be a part of the driving test for all new drivers learning how to navigate traffic in this area) and take the south-bound exit, content to simply get off at the next exit, loop around and get back on the north side that way.

First problem: The next exit is going to take us into the heart of the beast itself…the Springfield Mixing Bowl.

And now, a bit of a tangent. The State of Virginia is actually not a state. It likes to call itself the Commonwealth of Virginia. Fine. Whatever. What they then should do is give another name to its northern half: The Clusterfuckery of Northern Virginia. I hate Northern Virginia. I’m convinced that it’s the only tangible proof I have ever discovered that there might actually be a place called Hell and this is its infrastructure. The Springfield Mixing Bowl is a huge part of this horror. It’s like a monstrous earth-trapped Cthulhu, its tentacles stretched across the landscape in on-ramps, off-ramps, flyover ramps, damp ramps, camp ramps, vamp ramps….whatever kind of ramp you can imagine, it’s there. Simply put, it’s a hot rampy mess.

I will say this: Now that the nearly decade-long reconstruction is finished, the Springfield Interchange is much more navigable than it once was. It can still be confusing as hell, though, if you’re either not used to it or you’re slightly wine mellow. Yes, meet the players in your now rapidly unfolding comedy of errors: “Not Used To It,” who shall henceforth be referred to as “NUTI,” and “Wine Mellow.” Needless to say, NUTI and Wine Mellow end up taking the wrong flyover. Looking back in hindsight, I know precisely what error we made; it’s an error that I’ve nearly made several times before when completely sober, so no wonder I didn’t catch it on this night with about half a bottle of wine rolling around in my system.

Oh, by the way, note to hindsight: You’re about as useful as tits on a snake. Thanks.

We head in the wrong direction for about 5 miles before Wine Mellow starts to realize that the exits are for roads we shouldn’t be passing. Enter another off-ramp/loop around maneuver and we’re once more back onto the right side of the Beltway, heading in the right direction. Zipping along at a nice steady pace and all is once more right with the world. Quick check of the clock and we see that we’ve only lost about 20 minutes of time from when we first hit the Beltway.

You know what’s the worst possible thing you can see at 11 on a Saturday night on the Beltway? The red glare of a million taillights. Now, I’m not talking about a few slowed cars. I’m talking a glowing red snake of brake lights stretching as far as the horizon will allow us to see. Behind us? Headlights are quickly multiplying. Traffic is worse than weekday rush hour. We’re at a solid stand-still with no sign of relief.

Know what’s worse than sitting in totally stopped traffic at 11 on a Saturday night? Looking down at your console and realizing that your temperature gauge is on the rise. Oh, yes, denizens, we’re talking a notch every 10 seconds and closing in quickly on the red danger zone. We’re talking console lights are starting to flicker and the engine is beginning to shudder and make unhappy noises. We’re talking ohshitpullovernowandturnthisfuckeroffbeforeweexplode.

Okay, maybe not that dramatic, but still highly unnerving. We pull over and turn off the car. Maybe letting it cool down while we wait for traffic to break and move will be the answer?

Second problem: There is no break in traffic. Cars just keep idling in place. Headlights keep multiplying behind us. Taillights keep glaring their furious red stare back toward us. After about 10 minutes, we start the car and see what happens anyway. Not even 5 minutes later the temperature gauge is once more on the shift, this time faster than before. Lights start to flicker and dim and the shuddering seems more pronounced. And now there’s a slight chemical smell seeping through the vents. Mmm, tasty. Leaves me thinking there might be something going on with the coolant system, but I’m not a mechanic and it’s now close to midnight and I’m getting sleepy and I’m still riding the waves of that happy wine mellow. NUTI is definitely not a mechanic. She is, however, a masterful number dialer. Out comes the AAA card. We’ll get a tow.

Third problem: We’re stuck in an area with which neither of us is at all familiar, at the apex of two bits of highway coming together to form this particular stretch of the Beltway. There’s a road to our right, which we can’t see because there’s a Jersey wall right next to us. There’s a flyover ramp to our left, barrels all around us, traffic at a stand-still, and we can’t see any mile markers to help the AAA dispatcher pinpoint our location.

But, Loba, don’t you have a GPS? Yes, I do. Fourth problem: While trying to get us back on track when we were tumbling around the Mixing Bowl, I pulled out my handy little GPS, which was saving the day quite nicely…until it died. The battery just doesn’t hold its charge anymore. I do have a car charger for it. But that was in Sammy. Back at home. Parked in his spot. Dreaming happy Sammy dreams. Not really much help. So rather than having a GPS, at this point I had a lovely shiny doorstop.

The dispatcher finally gets enough information out of us that she thinks she’s pinpointed us. She sends a tow truck our way, but because traffic is as it is, she says rather apologetically that he might not get there for an hour. Okay, fine, we understand. So we sit. And sit. And sit. All the while, I’m trying to ignore the fact that my wine mellow is slowly turning into wine-induced bladder discomfort. However, I’m not going to lie to you, denizens. I was beginning to seriously entertain several different ways to set up a privacy barrier if it came down to it.

After about an hour, NUTI points out the window and says, “Hey, isn’t that a tow truck from the company they said was coming to get us?” Why, yes. Yes, it is. And it’s all the way in the far left lane. And there it goes.

We quickly call AAA back and explain that we think we just saw the truck pass us. They confirm that, yes, the truck did pass us, didn’t see us, will turn around at the next off-ramp and come back.

Almost another hour later, he makes it back. He loads the Jetta of Shame onto his flatbed, we all climb into his cab, and we’re off.

Okay, here’s another tangent. Dear Volkswagen, your NAFTA-built VWs are shit. You should be ashamed. I’d make a Hitler joke here…but you do that every time one of these abominations rolls off the assembly line. Congratulations for your holistic suckage.

It’s now close to 1 in the morning and we’re about 30 miles away from the dealership where NUTI wants the Jetta of Shame delivered, another 10 miles after that from home. Traffic, mind you, still isn’t moving much. And things are starting to get uglier. People are cutting people off. Others are refusing to let anyone merge in front of them. Horns are blaring. Tempers are flaring. Language couldn’t be bluer.

The bright spot? We’re in a flatbed tow truck. No one cuts off a flatbed tow truck.Our new BFF, Mr. Tow, barrels his way across four lanes of traffic and slips into the far left lane again (we learned at this point that he was over there the first time because it was the only lane moving, and he was under the impression that we were further up the Beltway than we actually were).

It still takes us another 30 minutes to make our way through the Clusterfuckery of Northern Virginia. We’re given a great view of what’s actually taking place: Construction crews have closed off all but one lane on the northbound side of 495. (Remember how this adventure all kicked off? With the northbound exits being closed? This was why.) Why were these lanes all closed? I’m still not sure. Nothing was going on. There were no construction crews in sight, minus one group who was setting up a flood light. Other than that, though? I really saw no reason to have decided to shut down three-quarters of this side of the Beltway for about 5 miles on a Saturday night. You know, beyond the fact that Virginia is apparently bat-shit crazy.

We finally get beyond the construction, all lanes open back up, we shift into the center left lane and once more approach a decent cruising speed. Mr. Tow is actually quite amiable, especially considering the fact that his company is located in a part of Virginia that’s about an hour south of where he picked us up and he’s now heading even further north. He’s pretty much not going to get back home until close to 3. If everything goes well.

You see where this is going already, don’t you?

First, an interlude. So we’re clipping along at about 65 MPH, chatting and listening to music and enjoying the fact that we’re moving and inside a vehicle with heat, when Mr. Tow realizes that the Mazda 3 in the lane in front of us is suddenly braking for no reason. He switches to the far left lane to pass the Mazda; as we’re going by, I look down and see that the driver is a young man, in his early 20s, and he’s behaving in a slightly odd manner. He’s laughing, looks like he’s in the car alone, and kind of slumping forward onto his steering wheel. Oookay. We get back into the center left lane once we’re past him and continue on.

About 5 minutes later, we see the Mazda 3 whiz past us in the far left lane, now doing at least 80 MPH. The car then begins to list to the left. Just as I ask, “What’s that car doing,” the Mazda drifts right into the Jersey wall that separates the Inner Loop and the Outer Loop. We all sit and watch in complete silence as the Mazda grinds against the barrier for a good 300 feet before ricocheting off and back into the far left lane. The driver straightens the car out for a moment but then does the exact same thing a few seconds later. We watch as the car grinds and bounces one more time after that before suddenly accelerating to at least 100 MPH and rocketing off down the Beltway.

How the hell someone that drunk was allowed anywhere near a car still baffles me. How he made it that far without encountering any cops baffles me even more. Shouldn’t they be all over the Beltway on a Saturday night/Sunday morning? All I can say is I hope he made it to wherever he was going. And I hope he wasn’t driving someone else’s car…because if he didn’t kill himself that night, they surely killed him the next morning.

We finally make it to the dealer service area. It’s now after 2 in the morning. NUTI and I are both well beyond tired. It’s been years since we were out this late, my wine mellow is now full-on “If I don’t pee soon, I might spring a leak,” but the good news is we’re so very close to being home and done with this entire debacle.

Remember what I said earlier about “if all goes well”? Strap in, kiddies.

So Mr. Tow hops up onto the flatbed to start disengaging the Jetta of Shame. NUTI heads over to where she’s got to fill out an envelope with what’s wrong, stick in the key, seal it, and slip it into the drop box for the service crew to retrieve when they next open. She does this and we head back to Mr. Tow. Who asks for the key so that he can finish unloading the Jetta of Shame.

Fifth problem: Do I even need to say anything here? No? Okay then.

Mr. Tow was actually quite calm about this…hiccup. He re-hooked everything, reset the flatbed, we all climbed back into his truck and headed off for the 10-mile drive to get the spare key. Bonus? I finally got to pee. All was once more right in that little corner of my world at least. We then headed back to the dealership where Mr. Tow finally unloaded the Jetta of Shame and very kindly drove us back home. He really was very easy-going and took the entire evening in stride. Thank the prophets for that, at least.

When all was said and done, it was almost 3:30 in the morning. I think I remembered to brush my teeth before going completely offline.

So…how was your weekend?

So for my birthday this year, my cousin of culinary cunning gave me the gift of beer…with a twist. She gave me a beer making kit. Tricksy little cousin, luring me into the scary world of kitchen stuff.

Actually, it was almost as if she’d read my geek-warped mind. See, all summer long, I’d been reading about Wil Wheaton’s adventures in beer-making and thinking that it sounded like something that I wouldn’t mind trying. However, my life being what it is, I was going in about 50 bajorillion (yeah, I did just write that…what’s it to you?) different directions, and none of them led me toward researching my own kit.

Enter my awesome cousin and her frightening mind-reading abilities (more frightening for her, I’m sure, since it was the detritus of my brain she was stuck sifting through). Not only was it my very own kit, but it was chocolate maple porter. Could that sound any tastier? My heart might bleed stout, but porters are a strong second in my list of preferred beers, and this particular flavor combination not only sounds perfect, it’s also recently received the Wheaton Seal of Awesome.

It took me a little while to gather the required utensils that I was missing (and a little bit longer to gather enough courage to finally just dive right in and hold on tight), but today was the day, denizens. Today was Beer Making Day at the lair.

And so we begin...

The instructions claimed that making your own beer was as simple as making oatmeal. Wil Wheaton swears it’s true, too, and I know I can trust him. Why? Because he was in Starfleet, and they never lie (well, you know, except when they’re pulling tricks in their shuttles and end up killing one of their team…then they might lie a little…but never about beer).

Beer Oatmeal: Part of a Balanced Binge Breakfast

Is it really that simple? Yes. Kind of. A very time-consuming, super-fragrant, slow cooking oatmeal that you can’t eat once you’re finished. But that, if you didn’t uck-fay it up-ay while making it, will taste awesome when you finally get to drink it.

A dark brew takes form...

Once you’re finished with all the stirring and boiling and simmering and thermometering and pouring and straining and cooling…well, then you reach the fermentering, which requires a funnel, a strainer, a jug, and a steady hand. I had most of those things…enough to get the dark brew into the jug, pitch the yeast, shake it all up and then rig the fermenter:

I'm only going to ask you se7en times, Detective...what's in the box?

This is my brew’s new home for the next two weeks while the yeast works its magic with my brew. See? I built it a little home and everything, to keep it cool and dark:

Built to code...

Once the two weeks are up, then comes the bottling, followed by two more weeks of cool, dark waiting before I can fridge up my beer and taste the spoils of my brewing victory. This also means that I have a month to come up with a name and maybe even design a label.

Stay tuned, denizens…soon There Will Be Beer.

Today’s EXTREMELY long-winded feminist rant will be brought to you by the letters C, S, and I. You have been warned.

Have you ever seen the first interaction between CSIs Catherine Willows and Sara Sidle? No? Let me share:

Not the most welcoming of people, that surly CSI Willows (just look at the video clip description: “Bitchy & Rude Catherine”). In Catherine’s defense, I should point out that Sara Sidle was originally brought onto the Las Vegas team to investigate one of their own for his role in the death of another investigator. She was an interloper, brought in to suss out the possible guilt of one of Catherine’s closest friends on the job. Not exactly the best setup for a warm and fuzzy friendship.

However, this animosity between our two heroines not only lingered, it evolved…or, rather, devolved into a series of biting comments, veiled insults, and out-and-out vitriol. True, some of it stemmed from personality differences. Catherine as originally created had a world-wise brusqueness to her, not necessarily spiteful or cruel, but direct and sharp. Sara, on the other hand, arrived with a quirky, nerdy sensibility and equal doses of naivete and a “black or white, no gray” outlook that often set her apart, not only from Catherine but from others on the team.

They weren’t the only ones on the team who had disparate personalities. Warrick Brown and Nick Stokes as first conceived shared very few commonalities. Our introduction to them also showed them vying against each other for a promotion. Yet right from the start they were still shown to share a comfortable camaraderie, a friendly competitiveness that served to bring them together rather than set them on opposite sides of an ever-widening chasm. Not at all like the steadily increasing animosity shared by our lovely ladies of the pink printing powder. (For the record, I love this scene for the fact that this is one of the rare moments from the show’s early days that showcases the previously mentioned contrasting characteristics of both women in a wonderful albeit short comedic moment.)

It’s not just this loopy lupine who noticed this decidedly disappointing development default in the relationship shared by Catherine and Sara. In this PopGurls Interview, Jorja Fox had the following to say:

You’ve said that the CSI writers and producers are really kind. That if there’s someplace you don’t really want to go with the character, you can talk to them, and generally they’ll change the course or direction. When was a time that you brought up a path w/the producers that you didn’t feel comfortable with for Sara?

There have been a couple of times over the years. The first one that comes to mind—very early in the show, the writers had wanted to create a real solid tension between Catherine Willows and Sara Sidle. They started off right away that we would lock horns and that this would be a theme that would go throughout the show. Marg [Helgenberger, who plays Catherine] and I talked about it and we both felt that, since we were the only women on the show at that time, to have [us] fighting each other and jockeying for position was an area that we were hoping that [we didn't have] to go. We wanted actually to work well together—we could still disagree on things from time to time. Certainly Sara and Catherine are very different people and they go about things differently but we didn’t want to set a tone that would last throughout the show. We went to the writers and they were kind enough to pull back on that which was great.

I felt more passionately about potential for camaraderie coming from these two women being so different instead of the opposite.

Two sharp women are better than one...

Kudos to Jorja and Marg for putting their feet down to character choices that would have done nothing but continue to substantiate a dismal stereotype of women in the workforce. Sadly, however, as with most stereotypes, this particular one grows from a kernel of truth.

Admittedly, I’m little more than an armchair sociologist, but I have noticed something about the way my generation was conditioned as young girls that is both distressing and highly counterproductive. First, a confession: During my formative years, I probably spent more time interacting with boys than I did with girls. But that’s because the boys were all into fun things like riding bikes or playing football, and they had cool toys like G.I. Joes and Transformers. The girls all wanted to play house and put diapers and frilly dresses on grotesque plastic effigies that to this day haunt my darkest nightmares. I really, really hate babydolls.

That being said, I learned from an early age that interacting with boys is a much different experience from interacting with girls. Boys are rough and brash and to the point. If they say something that another boy doesn’t like, there will be a confrontation. It might get physical. But they get it out of their systems and they move on. They’ve also got your back. If you’re their friend, you’re in their pack, you’re on their team. And boys are taught from a very early age about the dynamics of teamwork.

Teamwork was still a foreign term for a lot of the girls my age. Title IX had already made its initial impact for opening up to the fairer sex the world of high school and college sports, but I believe that the concept of girls viewing other girls as teammates was still a holistically foreign concept for my generation. Why?

Because our greatest influences in character development were our own mothers. And our mothers grew up in a time well before when girls would take to the courts and baseball diamonds the way the boys were always able to do. The only viable competition available for these preceding generations of young women was for the sole prize that they were ever allowed to strive for: the ideal husband. Even my own mother saw a future in which her biggest expectations for me concluded with marriage and motherhood.

Don’t worry. I shuddered a little bit, too, just then.

You don’t get a husband through teamwork. You get it by being the last woman standing…and you stay standing by whatever means are at your disposal.

Is it any surprise, then, that when our predecessors began finally transitioning in larger numbers from housewives to working girls, they carried these same “values” with them into the workforce? We didn’t have the sports-based team ethics that the boys had. Hell, we didn’t even get the Godfather‘s rules of “It’s not personal, it’s business”! Instead, we were taught that the best way to play the boardroom game was to steal our secretary’s ideas in order to retain our sole seniority status AND gain the attention of the alpha male protagonist.

[Loba Tangent: Seriously, what kind of fucked-up message was Working Girl trying to convey? That women can't work with each other unless they're on the same low-level rung of the corporate ladder with no aspirations for climbing higher? That women who do make it to higher positions shouldn't be trusted because they're not going to try to help other women make it as far as they have? Instead, they're going to use whatever means are necessary to ensure that they hold their competition as far down as they possibly can? Yeah, Sigourney Weaver met a perfectly Hollywood ending...but the movie still propagated stereotypes about women in the workforce that made me cringe almost as much as Baby Boom. But that's a completely different tangent...and this post is already too long...]

Am I guilty of offensive generalizations and of propagating the stereotypes that I claim to loathe through this post? Perhaps. I am proud to say that I’ve been lucky to have worked for some amazingly progressive female supervisors. They’ve encouraged me, they’ve depended upon me for the skills I can bring to their team, and they’ve never been duplicitous in their dealings with me. I wish I could say this was the way it was across the board, both for my own experiences and for the experiences of all women in the workforce. However, I can’t. I daresay neither can most women my age.

The sad truth is that too many generations of women have long been conditioned to view the same sex as competitors that must be eliminated, not as teammates. But is it still this way? Are today’s young girls still being taught to view others of the same sex as the enemy, competition to be vanquished whether it be for that amazing job promotion or for the old-school brass ring of marital bliss and motherhood? I should hope not. Then again, it’s my generation that is now in the parental driver seat…and this was how we were raised. Will they pass along harmful lessons to the next generation? Or, like Fox and Helgenberger, are they going to say enough to petty stereotypes that do nothing but divide and weaken us, not only as a gender but as a society?

I know a little bit about what she’s capable of. She’s been the head coach of the University of Tennessee’s Lady Vols since 1974. During this time, her coaching skills have brought UT 1,037 victories; her teams have only been defeated 196 times. She’s led the Lady Vols to the Final Four 18 times—more times than any other men’s or women’s college basketball coach—brought home championship wins from 8. She coached the U.S. women’s basketball team to a gold medal in the 1984 Olympics…one notch better than the silver medal she won as a member of the team during the 1976 Olympics. Many of her girls have gone on to walk in her footsteps as coaches in their own right. Some have carried her lessons inside them through their own trips to Olympic victories. Some continue to wield the skills she helped them hone, onto WNBA courts across the country. More importantly? Every one of the eligible athletes who played for her went on to graduate with a degree. She’s made certain of that.

And these are just the “big” stats. There’s lots more to her beyond what I carry around in my weird noggin.

You know me, denizens. I’m not much for sports or stats. But Pat Summitt has always amazed, inspired, and humbled me. She is a remarkable role model and, pardon my feminist streak for a moment, if she was a man in charge of a men’s college or NBA team, with the same set of stats that I just quoted, her name would be synonymous with the game itself, on the lips of every basketball fan from the Bay of Fundy to the Gulf of California.

Regardless of this lack of deserved ubiquity, the facts cannot be disputed. Summitt holds the record for the most wins of any college basketball coach, man or woman. She’s brought home more NCAA championships than any other women’s basketball coach. She was part of the inaugural inductees to the women’s basketball hall of fame, she’s in the basketball hall of fame, she’s received the ESPY award for coach of the year, she’s got roads, gyms, and courts named after her…

…and now she’s announced that she has the early stages of Alzheimer’s. She’s 59 years old.

My heart hasn’t stopped breaking ever since I first heard this news.

I know what this disease is capable of. I know how cruel, how unrelenting, how unmerciful it is. How it can rob the grace and intelligence of even the strongest wills. I’ve also already had my heart broken once before, with NC State’s Coach Jimmy V. I hate to link Valvano and Summitt, since I think that Summitt has many, many more years ahead of her…perhaps even enough time that doctors will finally find the key to stopping or slowing this disease. I only mention Valvano here because of one of his most memorable quotes: “Don’t give up…don’t ever give up!”

I hope Coach Summitt fights this with every ounce of the resolve that she carries in ample supply. I hope she never gives up. And I hope that every girl who has donned the orange of the Lady Vols, who has been pushed to their limits and beyond, who has been brought to tears and finally to triumph, and who has left the University of Tennessee that much more remarkable as an athlete and as a woman never forgets that it was Summitt’s fire that helped to forge them.

As some of you might have heard, we had a bit of a rumble in our area today. Okay, so not so much a “bit.” It was enough that my work building jiggled like a Jell-O mold for the better part of a minute. Fun for Jell-O. Not so fun for brick, steel, and glass, I can assure you. To be on the safe side, building maintenance evacuated us to the streets, where we stood about like disconnected drones for 20 minutes, holding our cell phones skyward, as though bringing our gizmo gods that much closer to their mother signal would somehow miraculously make them work. Then we went back in and carried on with our day.

No harm, no foul.

Until I got home. And found the body.

Poor Colonel Kira. Apparently, things rattled enough in our house that she took a tumble from my action figure shelf, her weapon nearly lost to the detritus of the shredder basket. I have to admit, I had a bit of a CSI moment when I pulled out my digital camera and started to “photo-document the scene.” I felt like I needed those numbered evidence markers to lay out, or at the very least some latex gloves.

And then there was Xena…

Rather than flipping over the edge and following Kira, she slipped backward…into Captain Picard’s crotch. While Dr. Crusher watched. Not the wisest decision made by the Warrior Princess, to be sure. She does, however, have many skills. Perhaps eluding a territorial CMO with a hypo full of poison is one them. Or maybe she’s convinced Batwoman to have her back. I doubt Ro would come to her rescue; she looks quite apathetic to the whole thing.

And there you go. Obviously, all is once more stable in the lair (or as stable as possible for me). I’m geeking as normal. Maybe even hyper-geeking: I would like to point out that in one short post, I have mentioned Trek, CSI, Xena, and Batwoman. All I need to do is point out that you can see Wonder Woman’s shield in the corner of the Xena pic and Starbuck’s flight helmet near Xena’s feet and I’m set with most of my major fandoms.

Xena’s not the only one with many skills…

There’s a short story, written by Leo Tolstoy, that poses the question, “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” It’s a wonderful bit of writing, and one that I reference often in response to the troubling cupidity of the human race.

I must say that visiting Alcatraz during my trip to San Francisco last year caused me to re-examine my feelings toward this question. How much land does a man need? I suppose 12 acres is satisfactory in certain contexts. When it’s all you’re allowed while society revels in an unbounded existence right before your eyes, but so frustratingly out of reach? Twelve acres might as well be 12 inches.

This fact hit me the moment I stepped onto “The Rock” and turned to watch the boat that had brought us begin to pull away from the dock. For the duration of my visit, there was no way off this island beyond the one that was slowly moving back across the mile-and-a-half chasm of frigid water that separates Alcatraz from the main land. True, the boat returned on a regular schedule and, unlike the former “residents” of the island, I was free to leave during any passenger transfer I wished.

Still, while you’re there, you can’t help but feel the claustrophobic whisper of captivity taunting you. You feel its oppressive presence all throughout the decay and atrophy that time is inflicting upon the remaining prison structures. And when you stand atop the highest spot on the island and look across at the City by the Bay, its precipitously sloping streets teeming with the bustle of a life denied you? I am about as anti-social as is acceptable to “normal” society, but even I would be driven to the brink of sanity by such isolation.

Maximum security. Minimum privilege.

These thoughts do not mean that I have in any way forgotten that the the men who walked The Rock found their way there through felonious deeds. And, really, the only thing that differentiates Alcatraz from federal penitentiaries in operation today is that it was located on an isolated island in the middle of the San Francisco Bay. I daresay, though, that if you found yourself stranded on this island for an extended length of time, watching life move on without you, feeling the damp chill of that capricious Frisco fog rolling into every corner, between every bone…I kind of think that “cruel and unusual” would take on a whole new meaning in a very short stretch of time.

Alcatraz "Library"

Loba reflects on life in a cell...

Last Meal: The final breakfast served before Alcatraz closed its doors

This final photo, of the Alcatraz lighthouse, is one of my favorites because it invokes this image in my mind:

This is the logo currently in use by the Golden Gate National Park Conservancy for Alcatraz materials and merchandise. It’s a beautiful, striking bit of illustration by Michael Schwab, who has done quite a few other, equally gorgeous illustrations for other California landmarks. You can see more of his works at the Golden Gate National Park Conservancy online store.

There’s something so mnemonic about the sounds of a summer evening. Walk outside and the air is filled with the thrum and buzz of summer cicadas and suddenly you’re a kid again, running through the sprinkler that your dad usually set up to water the tomato plants (but not on this evening), or grabbing your bike and pedaling up the road as fast as you can after the ice cream truck because the day can’t end without brain freeze from a rocket pop or a tooth-cracking attempt to bite off Buffalo Bill’s icy bubble gum nose.

For me, the sound immediately triggers memories of our annual family trips south to visit my grandparents. Even when I was too young to understand things like the soon-to-be transience of “summer vacation,” I understood that when I heard those big, loud buzzing bugs, we’d be leaving soon. My mom would spend the night before packing all our suitcases while my dad finished his work week on the evening shift. I remember the flurry of activity as she would finish the laundry and sort all our clothes and toiletries for the 2 weeks we would be gone. She’d pack snacks for the 8-hour drive that awaited us the next morning and pile the luggage and the cooler next to the door so that my dad could easily carry everything outside to pack the car.

It’s so strange that I remember all this so well…then again, it was rote for so many years. Life was never simple, but it was less complicated then, at least through the filter of my child’s eyes. There were certain things upon which I could always depend. The fact that my mom would remember to pack my favorite Mickey Mouse shirt and remind me to bring my Snoopy and my pillow for the long drive. That, no matter how much she packed, my dad would always find space for it and us in the Chevette. That, even if I fell asleep, my parents would make sure I was awake to smell the tobacco-tinged air and see the giant cigarette that stood outside the Phillip Morris plant in the heart of Richmond—markers that helped me identify how far into our drive we’d gotten and how much further we had to go.

My parents always tried to arrange our vacations so that we were at my grandparents’ house for 4th of July celebrations. Fireworks might not have been legal in their Carolina, but they were only 20 minutes away from the Carolina where fireworks were sold everywhere, be it from the roadside stand on the way to Myrtle Beach or the back of Roscoe’s truck (surely, there were many Roscoes along the way back then, right?). And back then, leniency was simply a way of life for the folks of that neck of the woods.

We’d slip over the border and load up on sparklers, bottle rockets, firecrackers (Black Cats, right, Janet?), Roman candles, ground spinners, color wheels, jumping jacks, crazy little novelty fireworks in the shape of tanks or cars—I remember one year, we found this strange little novelty with the cardboard shape of a hen on a nest sitting atop a fuse. Of course, we had to buy it, just to see what it did. That night, we went out to the dark and dusty dirt road that led to my grandparents’ house, plopped the little cardboard hen down and struck a match to her fuse. The spark and sizzle slipped quickly upward, igniting whatever was inside and suddenly the hen was shooting little balls of colored fire out of her backside!

It’s like second nature for me to fall into memories like these the minute I hear that ubiquitous cicada song every summer. I can’t help it. I’m suddenly that shy little freckle-faced kid again, watching one of my flip-flops float away on the tide after a particularly high wave swept it off my foot as my parents and I sat on my grandparents’ dock…desperately trying to eat all my Mickey Mouse ice cream before it dribbled down my forearms…taking rides in my grandfather’s motor boat all through the winding tributaries and waterways…going to the nearby zoo to see the animals, only to have the elephant sneeze all over me and my uncle’s wife…all of it floods over me in this bittersweet mélange that fills me with longing for what is no more yet joy for all that once was, and that lives on in me.

When the heart weeps for what it has lost, the spirit laughs for what it has found.

I hope you are enjoying every second of this summer, my beautiful denizens. Make memories and hold on tightly. Oh, and don’t forget the brain freeze…

Hey there, denizens! Miss me? Or did you even notice that the White Wolf had wandered away? It’s okay either way. Loba comes and goes so quickly here anymore that it’s not your fault if you didn’t notice my absence.

For those who did notice that the lair was a tad bit emptier than normal, the reason is because I ventured forth into the sunshine for a mini beach vacation. Of course, such a vacation is deemed successful for me not if I come back with a tan, but rather if I come back un-burned.

This was a successful trip. True, I’m slightly pinker than I was before and, yes, there are more freckles. However, no lobster coloring to match my red hair. I have learned well the lessons of Burn-Fu. I am the Pale Ninja.

Yeah.

Otherwise, we spent lots of time wandering the boardwalk in search of tasty junk foods and kitschy trinkets and lots more time chillaxing under an umbrella on the beach, listening to the waves and dozing in between book chapters (okay, maybe that was just me). All said, it was a wonderful albeit brief vacation.

Now I’m back at my work desk, Googling desperately for my motivation. Haven’t found it yet, but I know it’s out there. In the mean time, I’m totally digging eating my morning oatmeal out of the mug that I bought myself during one of our kitsch-seeking excursions:

Yeah, her shoulder looks a tad bit odd…and she looks a little bit like Liv Tyler in this drawing…but really? Could I pass up a Wonder Woman mug? I think not. Especially since it was the last one in stock. I took it as a positive sign that there was only one Wonder Woman left while there were several Superman and Batman mugs left on the same shelf. We all know Diana’s way cooler than Clark and Bruce.

And, just because I feel like it and kinda liked this pose, here’s another pic from my “Bat(woman) in the Hat” photo session. Only thing I did to this one is crop it down from full size. Enjoy!