Perhaps the dorkiest thing I've ever done was to program my laptop computer with John McLaughlin's voice so that, instead of the little "ding" sound for an error, it would actually shout, "Wrong!"
Anyway, I am much better now at pretending to be cool, but I'm still a sucker for a guy who yells, "Prediction!" before he offers his opinion on how anything will turn out.
In honor of John McLaughlin, and because predictions are so much more fun than resolutions, it's time to make some guesses about what 2006 will hold.
I've been a big consumer of all those disposable "wipe" products: from Swiffer cloths to Clorox wipes (actually the Target store brand version of those) and the specialty ones with lemon-scented furniture polish and Armor-All for the car and some sort of magic stainless steel cleaner that takes the finger prints off our fancy kitchen garbage can.
But I recently decided that this was producing entirely too much garbage and the environmentally decent thing to do was to switch from all this one-time use stuff to something reusable.
Thus, I went to Ace Hardware and bought a dust cloth, a glass-cleaning cloth, a package of scrubbing sponges and a super-absorbent dish towel, for a total of $17.96, plus tax.
Later, it occured to me that I'd just spent 20 bucks on rags.
I'm not sure exactly how I feel about all these genetically engineered Franken-foods. But, as long as people are messing with our food, couldn't someone make a regular orange that is seedless and easy-to-peel like a Clementine?
On my first day at the Sun-Times, I was given several black plastic items as a "desk set."
This, I should point out, is actually several more things than are usually given to new employees here. But I was hired by an editor (long since gone) who believed in really spoiling her writers.
So I got my own stapler, tape dispenser, letter opener, Post-It note holder, in-and-out box set, magazine holder, daily calendar and Rolodex.
Being enough of a geek to be fully committed to paperless-ness (not a popular attitude at a newspaper, but never mind that), I've never used either the calendar or the Rolodex.
If you can come up with a creative use for them, they're yours.
1.) Altoids Chewing Gum - cinnamon flavor. It's sugar free, about 2.5 calories per piece, and pleasantly spicy with just a hint of sweetness. If I could find a use for the cute little tins (which do seem sort of wasteful), I'd be over the moon.
2.) Delphi's MyFi portable satellite radio. Maybe it's a little arrogant to endorse a gift that I, nominally, gave to someone else. (OK, I gave it to my husband, but largely because I really wanted to be able to listen to the BBC. The other channels are for him.) But this little thing totally rocks. You get like a million radio channels with no commercials. Or even pledge breaks. You can use it like a walkman or in the car. And with the docking station/speaker deal you can get at Sharper Image, you can listen to it like a stereo. Last night, we listened to stand up comedy routines while cleaning up our shared home office. (Note: this is the network that has Bob Edwards, not Howard Stern.)
I e-mailed someone at a New York publishing company this morning and got back one of those auto-responses that she's out of the office until Jan. 3 and if you need anything immediately, contact her assistant. So I forwarded the original e-mail to the assistant.
And I got back one of those auto-responses that she's out of the office until Jan. 3 and if you need anything immediately, you should contact a different assistant.
When you e-mail that assistant, you get an auto-response message that says the offices are closed.
I'm not a big returner of stuff. Basically, if I buy something, I buy it. I cut the tags off immediately and, if it turns out that I don't use it, I let it hang around for a while, as a reminder of my mistake, and then give it away.
And, until I got married, I felt the same way about gifts. If someone gave me something, I kept it -- whether a gift receipt was attached or not.
Then we receieved some truly awful wedding presents.
And it was just too tempting.
Now, I feel like I've crossed some sort of divide. Like I'm becoming a return-er.
And I now find myself contemplating the exchange (even, possibly, the return) of a Christmas gift from my husband.
He gave me wonderful, cool and thoughtful presents, as he generally does. I love the New Yorker cartoon book and the almanac to answer my obscure questions when he's not around to be my primary source of trivial knowledge and the Office Space DVD (my favorite movie ever, except for The Graduate) and the cool gadget that lets me listen to my iPod on the car stereo and the several other inside-joke gifts that make me laugh and, at the same time, feel like an increasingly smug married.
But the black leather briefcase . . . .
I'm just not sure.
It's beautiful and sophisticated-looking.
But I'm just not really a briefcase kind of gal. Or I don't think I am, anyway.
So should I try to exchange it for something a little more funky? Or should I become the briefcase-carrying grown-up that I probably really should be at this point in my life?
R. and I headed west on Saturday morning, on the way to an Iowa Christmas with two of his brothers and their families.
We stopped in Davenport for lunch (I recommend the small taco salad at Ganzo's) and realized we needed to pick up a couple of Christmas-in-Iowa supplies: a bottle of champagne to enjoy that night while assembling the some-assembly-required toys our 8, 5 and 3-year-old nephews would be getting from Santa; plus some scratch-off lottery tickets to stuff in the older kids' stockings.
We ran into a HyVee (for the uninitiated, that's a big grocery-and-drug store, like a Jewel) for a minute, thinking we'd be able to knock both items off our list.
Here's the thing about walking in to a grocery store in Iowa: everyone says hello to you. And they say it in such a pleasant and sincere way that you're sure they actually know you. (Or, in my case, I'm certain they know my husband, even though he hasn't lived in Iowa for almost 20 years.)
But they don't know you.
They're just being nice. Which I always find freaky. Because I don't know how to respond. Should I stop walking and start a conversation? It sort of seems like that kind of hello. But what would we talk about?
It took four hellos, which R., speaking Iowan, answered pleasantly (but not conversationally) enough for both of us (apparently it is acceptable to smile, wave and just keep going), to get to the liquor section to look for the champagne.
We arrived to find a woman whose gone-on-to-college-and-gotten-some-citified-ways son was coming home for Christmas. She was nervously trying to select a wine to serve with Christmas dinner, since he now drinks wine with his meals.
She'd enlisted two store employees and several customers in the process and had (with their help) just about settled on a selection by the time we walked over. But she still needed affirmation.
"So this merlot (pronounced "mur-lott") is pretty good then?" she asked no one in particular, as we scampered away so we didn't have to answer. Or recommend a cab-ur-nett instead.
We found some Washington State bubbly. (Advantage of HyVee: nothing costs more than $15. Disadvantage of HyVee: this includes the wine.)
And then, after hitting the ATM for some cash, we used a vending machine to buy $20 worth of scratch-off lottery tickets.
Getting back into the car to continue our drive, we had to wonder if the stop might have qualified as a punch line for one of those "you might be a redneck" jokes, like "If you're spending more money on lottery tickets than on wine for the Christmas celebration at your brother's place . . . ."
I was in the middle of a long bus trip from Nairobi, Kenya to Arusha, Tanzania when I turned to my travelling companion and said, "You know, I really feel awful."
Since I was in Africa, my brain was listing off all the really horrible diseases I might have. But then Tom looked at me and said quietly, "I think you're just hungover."
Oh, right.
That happened again this morning. I just couldn't get out of bed. So I was sure my stubborn cold had turned into pneumonia or something equally dreadful.
And then my husband pointed out how much cough syrup (10 percent alcohol - yum) I'd had before bed.
It's really gratifying to get letters from the wonderful people who read the Sun-Times.
But sometimes I get letters from the jerks, too. Like this one:
Debra,
Pages 1-2-and 3 in The Sun-Times today; Iraqis vote to choose parliament, Midway flight tradgey story continues, Iran leader wants to wipe Isreal of the face of the planet, Ex Sun-Times boss charged with racketeering, and Debra Pickett is baking cookies! Actually the ongoing story of the Iranian leader seeking the destruction of Israel is further back in the newspaper as your cookie baking experience is so much more important to hear about first.
Thank god the recipe you received from your new husband's old girlfriend is one from someone who is now married and living in Australia, otherwise I would fear him gravitating to anyone who has a better grasp of the real world. Thank god your situation seems safe for now.
Yes, a full two column story today on your on-going effort to bake some spendicious cookies. When I read about how making your own Christmas tree ornaments had given you a couple of paper cuts, I thought I'd faint. I almost chuckled when you reported that that "it was touch and go for awhile". I can imagine! We could have lost our precious Debra Pickett to paper cuts but instead you survive to write about a lame cookie baking experience today. It's priceless!
I must ask you again, how do you get away with it? A story on baking cookies right there next to all the crime, hate, tradegy, and human suffering. I guess it's the newspaper's way of adding a little lighhearted nothing into the paper for other women who's biggest worries are paper cuts and getting good cookies baked at Christmas time, and maybe they're a lot of these superficial idiots out there, and I'm sure there are, but Jesus, how did you get so lucky as to be chosen to take these average writing skills to page 2 and write about such drivel again?
On page 5 the good news that 11 million in the U.S. are not literate and therefore saved from having to read your articles. Hopefully, none of those 11 million will have your article read to them. Can you imagine the astonishment and fright of having that happen? Hearing about hurricanes, earthquakes, suicide bombings, tsunamis, hate crimes and Debra Pickett's Cookie baking experiences are just hard to digest, no pun intended.
"Because, really, the most important thing will be that everyone has a good time".
That incomplete sentence is the final paragraph in your god awful article today, replacing the "maybe a marshmallow is just a marshmallow", unforgettable finale. I must tell you that I am becoming a big fan of your page two articles because of the astonishment factor I receive upon reading them. It's absolutely amazing! How do you get away with it? How were you chosen? I know you've ignored me up until now, but can't you just tell me how you've accomplished this? It's truly amazing! I almost feel like writing a book or at least a 2 hour screen play on your amazing story. Who should paly the lead roll, Nicole Kidman, Sharon Stone, Whoopi Goldberg? Give me some feedback.
Congratulations, and have a wonderful holiday season. Forget about the old girlfriend, you da woman now, take care of those serious paper cuts and please be careful, the lame and the bored are counting on you to level off this mean, cruel world with your meaningless drivel.
Happy Holidays!
AL BRODSKY
* * * * * * *
Dear Al,
Great to hear from you. I look forward to reading your coulmn every week.
Probably because I've never had a cavity or a root canal, I'm not one of those people who gripes a lot about going to the dentist's office.
The dentist my parents took me to as a kid was a super-nice guy who played Culture Club tapes in his office and artfully used a combination of custom-made retainers and tiny, transparent rubber bands to spare me the indignity of wearing braces. (Of course, now I have this one slight snaggly tooth in front. But it was still worth it.)
And the dentist I see now is a very cool woman who makes jokes about how boring it is to be a dentist and wears neon-trimmed Nikes with her scrubs.
But dental hygienists are another story.
What is with these people?
Pretty much without exception, the dental hygienists I've encountered have been both sadistically mad with their own power ("Open wider. No, wider.") and incredibly sanctimonious about issues like twice-daily flossing.
Lately, I keep getting stuck with Cheryl.
I'm sure she's a nice enough person outside the office, but, somehow, whenever I see her, things seem to go incredibly badly.
She rails about how small my mouth is (ironic, I know) and the apparently strange tendency of my gums to bleed when poked with a sharp instrument.
She also carries on about the importance of gum maintenance to my overall health, routinely warning of the dire consequences I'll face if I don't get with the whole flossing program.
It's getting to the point where I'm sorely tempted to point out that (1) her obesity is probably a bigger health risk than my shoddy flossing habits and (2) maybe it's just that her hands are too large.
In fact, I was kind of feeling like this might be the morning when I really let her have it.
But when she walked in to the exam room, she whispered that she had lost her voice. And so I got to have my teeth cleaned in blissful silence.
It was the best dental appointment ever, unspoiled even by the fact that the free toothbrush they gave me is pink and will totally clash with my bathroom decor.
I know the concept of fake, soy-based egg nog is a hard one to embrace. But, seriously, people, this stuff is ridiculously good. It takes exactly like egg nog, but without that strange, heart attack-y feeling you sometimes get when you drink too much of the real stuff.
2. Hipster tights by Hue.
I bought them at Nordstrom, but they might be available at other department stores as well. These are tights that are cut to be wearable under low rise waists and it's amazing it took this long for someone to invent them. I'm wearing them under jeans as a sort of almost long underwear layer and they're keeping me quite cozy. Not terribly useful for guys, I know, but oh well.
The only lasting result, as I understand it, from the last New York City transit strike, was the Reeboks-and-gym-socks-with-your-business-suit look. People got used to wearing them on their walking commutes and then didn't part with them when the trains started running again.
So you have to wonder what will catch on this time. My money's on rugged hiking boots and hats with ear flaps.
The fabulous phone -- NOT a phone, actually, but a "device" -- is working now.
Interestingly, the communication specialist at the Sprint store had signed me up for a service plan that did not include voice mail, e-mail, caller ID or web access, but did include streaming video. Once I changed that -- "Oh, did you want voice mail?" -- everything was fabulous.
For the next five minutes, I will be totally ahead of the technology curve.
I grabbed lunch at the Merchandise Mart's usually-crowded food court and it was almost completely empty.
If you're working this week, drop a comment here and let us all know what you're up to. Maybe the six of us who are left downtown can get together for a happy hour.
There's a written exam, actually, and I always get tripped up on the gambling question (remind me again why it's such a big deal) or lose my concentration in a reverie about Judy Baar Topinka's hair color.
So, rather than offer commentary on anything of substance, I'm the woman you call when you want a fluffy pop culture topic dressed up in some sort of faux-intellectual package. Of course the only real market for thought-wrapped-fluff is public broadcasting.
So, I'll be hitting the airwaves this evening on WTTW's Chicago Tonight with a stimulating commentary about the new King Kong movie.
Check it out tonight at 7.
They do a surprisingly excellent job with hair and make-up there, so I look like a total PBS babe.
The idea was pretty simple: combine our separate cell phone accounts into one "family" plan. The execution was insanely complicated.
First, we went to the Sprint-Nextel store on Clybourn. We described to the Communication Specialists there what we wanted to do and they nodded and agreed that it was a good idea.
But they couldn't help us.
Because only the (pre-merger) computer system could manage such a transaction and, since this was a new (post-merger) store, they didn't have any access to that system. They told us to go the Sprint store on North Ave.
We probably should have sensed trouble right from the moment we walked in since they had one of those busy restaurant kind of systems set up where we had to give our name and wait to be called.
There's a fancy electronic sign on one wall that shows the list of names in order. Jesus, we noted with some satisfaction, was behind us in line.
Once we did make it to the counter, it took more than an hour to join the two accounts. (Apparently, you have to have a full religious ceremony; you can't just take your cell phone bills to the courthouse and declare them married.)
And, two days later, I still don't have voicemail.
But we are saving enough money with the new plan that it totally offsets any marriage penalty that still exists within the federal income tax code. And we got super-cool new phones to boot.
In fact, I have typed this entire entry on my phone.
There was a point this weekend when I was wearing an apron and using a rolling pin. With no intentional irony.
I actually did as threatened this weekend and baked a serious quantity of Christmas (holiday?) cookies. There's something therapeutic and lovely about spending nearly an entire day in the kitchen: mix stuff, put stuff in oven, wash mixing bowl, remove stuff from oven, wash cookie sheets, mix different stuff in bowl. Alien invaders could have landed on my block and I wouldn't have noticed.
In fact, that was sort of the theme of the entire weekend, now that I think about it.
I was buying Christmas gifts and groceries when I heard about the whole secret spying-on-Americans program. And, while I was -- dutiful civil libertarian that I am -- incredibly outraged by the whole idea (because having secret courts that use secret laws to issue secret warrants really just isn't secure enough; sometimes you really have to sneak up on those potential evil-doers), it was remarkably easy not to think about it.
In the happy bubble of Target and Dominick's (each one with its own Starbucks; what a country), I focused on picking out great gifts for the kids on my Christmas list and wonderful food for all the guests we had over, and I guess I experienced that whole ignorance-is-bliss feeling of losing myself in minutia and trivialities.
We entertained friends on Friday night, I cooked all day Saturday, entertained more friends on Sunday afternoon and, on Sunday night, wrapped gifts.
I ignored the Sunday papers and missed the first half of the President's speech because I was too focused on squishing a large blanket into a not-quite-large-enough gift box.
This is, I have to insist, totally unlike me.
I'm usually a geek of the highest order. I like to rant and rave at political news and I view the Sunday morning talk shows as an exercise in audience participation.
So what's up with the happy housewife routine?
My working theory is that I'm going through some sort of "nesting" phase, settling in to a new life and home and all that. And, eventually, I'll get my actual personality back.
But what if I don't, I wonder.
What if this is who I really am -- someone more concerned with the stuff I bought at Target than the state of the world. And what if, more frighteningly, most everyone else is like this, too . . . .
Nope. I didn't make them. Because an amazingly generous reader bought some from a bakery and dropped them off for me.
So I didn't get to measure my cookie-making skills against those of R's ex-girlfriend, Kim. (Ah, yes, but can she elicit the sympathy of total strangers?)
And, to continue the theme of random acts of kindness, her father (!) read my column and sent me a lovely note -- along with a suggestion to use the egg whites left over from the Chrusciki recipe to make an angel food cake.
Restaurant: None. Actually, we just stayed in his suite at the Chicago Hilton.
Entree: Bottled water.
Check: $0
Best quote that got left out of the article: "You know, this is a very nice hotel."
Yes, I know this probably shouldn't actually count as a "lunch," since there was no food consumed. But haven't you ever skipped a meal?
Anyway, he was about to give a speech at a luncheon. And we talked about that. So I say it counts.
- The plastic sheeting taped over our windows for insulation because we didn't buy storm windows.
- The brightly colored laundry baskets my friend has in her bedroom because she doesn't have a dresser.
Can these things appropriately be described as "ghetto" or is that horribly offensive?
OK, how about the metallic red mini-dress I wore to a high school prom?
First of all, I'd like to say that R.'s ex-girlfriend, Kim, is a very nice person. And I'm sure her cookie parties really were given purely in the spirit of fun.
The whole "passive-aggressive" thing is just my dark interpretation of it, which, I'm sure, says a lot more about my state of mind than hers.
That said, check out this recipe and tell me it isn't torturously difficult.
Chrusciki(pronounced "crew-seek-ee," I think)
2 cups flour
12 egg yolks
1/4 cup milk
2 tbsp butter
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp lemon extract
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 oz brandy
powdered sugar
light oil
Add salt to yolks.
Beat until lemon colored and thick.
Add sugar, butter, milk and lemon extract.
Beat again.
Add brandy.
Beat again.
Add flour.
Add additional flour until dough is kneadable.
Knead until blisters form.
Roll very thin. (1/4 inch)
Cut into strips 1 1/2" wide by 4" long.
Make slits in center.
Pull one end through slit.
Deep fry in oil about one minute, turning halfway through.
Drain on paper towels.
Sprinkle with powdered sugar.
Makes 60 - 80 cookies. Can be frozen.
Africa: Opinions from several different white people
There's an incredible piece by Paul Theroux in today's New York Times, in which he -- brave man -- takes on Bono's big debt relief campaign for Africa.
I happen to really like Theroux's argument. (And his book, Dark Star Safari, is one of the best books about traveling in Africa I've ever read.)
But his piece also scares me because it could easily be misinterpreted as "the hell with foreign aid, it's every man for himself."
His main point, as I see it, is about the ability of Africans to solve African problems. And, last week, I saw that ability in abundance. There are so many great grassroots programs, like the community group in rural Laikipia, Kenya that encourages foster families to take in AIDS orphans by providing them with goats, which can be bred and sold for meat. Programs like this one need very little in the way of start-up funding. And, in fact, big infusions of cash can really muck things up. People everywhere have a way of getting caught up in constructing big buildings and losing sight of the services that are supposed to be provided inside them.
There's a big difference between going to Africa to be a teacher and going there to train others to teach. It's that whole "teach a man to fish" dynamic.
I'm totally with Theroux on that point, too. But volunteerism is a tricky thing. We have this human impulse to roll up our sleeves and do what we can and do-gooders (myself very much included) are not always as careful as they should be about staying on the right side of the whole teaching/fishing divide.
Often, when I tell people about some of the wonderful local organizations (partners of the Chicago non-profit Global Alliance for Africa) that I've seen in action, they ask how they can help. And it sort of bugs them when I say, "Write a check. My friends will buy some goats. It will be great."
People want to have those Oprah moments where they hand a kid a pair of shoes and it's all life-changing and inspiring and stuff. I get that. And, so who am I, or who is Paul Theroux, actually, to tell them that shoe-giving, as such, is actually sort of demeaning and counter-productive?
Damn. Now I'm stuck. Because I really don't have an answer to that one.
1. Over-the-counter cold medicine (and Lisa Madigan can't stop me)
2. The one carry-on / one personal item rule on Southwest Airlines
3. The kindness of strangers
4. College dining hall privileges
5. The use-this-only-at-the-bookstore credit card my parents gave me when I turned 18
and, now, alas, also the "continue reading" feature on this blog. (See the third comment here.)
Why is it that, in a world of super-advanced food-flavoring technology (I've read Fast Food Nation; I know the deal), the only flavor for cough syrup is that horrible cherry-with-undertones-of-cat-piss-and-decay one that comes close to spontaneous combustion when taken within two hours of brushing your teeth?
I hate to obsess about this, but, seriously, what is the deal with housework?
I spent three hours yesterday basically picking things up and moving them from one place (the floor) to another (the closet, washing machine, dishwasher, garbage can, etc.).
My husband watched this process with a certain bemusement, like the things I was doing were somehow mysterious or unknowable. He is, like most enlightened dudes, perfectly willing to help, if asked. But I hate asking because it implies, somehow, that these are my tasks to assign. And, anyway, he has mastered the male arts of procrastination (he'll take the garbage out, but only on some super-secret time schedule that I have resolved never to question, lest I become a nag) and limited competence ("Where does this go?" = "I really don't want to put this away.")
Meanwhile, as I straightened and futzed, he took a series of very grown-up sounding phone calls that included words like, "mutualize" and "cost of capital."
It made me wonder about the way our brains work. Specifically, it occured to me that marriage might actually be diminishing my IQ or at least altering my thinking patterns somehow to make me care more about whether the laundry is done and less about what the currency markets are doing.
(OK, admittedly, I never did care a whole lot about the currency markets. But still.)
My grandparents take their coffee with the meal. But, somehow, in the space of a couple of generations the idea of having a hot beverage with your meal has fallen out of favor.
I guess that's because the hot beverages themselves have become ever more meal-like.
The decaf tall soy Gingerbread latte I had this morning had 210 calories. (Oddly, with the soy milk they use in Canada, it would only have 190.)
(Check out the nutritional info for your beverage here.)
Anyway, I ordered hot tea with my lunch this afternoon and the woman at the counter gave me a look that said, "What are you, old?"
I smiled back defiantly. Because I'm determined to revive this trend.
Order coffee with lunch, people. You know you want to.
My husband, being sort of a soft touch, bought a Christmas wreath from a colleague's kid doing a school fundraiser. It arrived last week.
"Um, what is this?" I asked when I arrived home from the airport to find the thing -- a collection of rapidly drying greens in the shape of a J -- propped up against a living room window.
"It's the wreath I bought," he said, sounding sheepish enough that it was clear he, too, thought it was awful looking.
"Is it supposed to be a J?" I asked, wondering if monogram wreaths were the new big thing, right along with those giant inflatable snow globes.
"No," he said, "It's a candy cane."
There was a long silence.
"Do you want to put it on the door?" I asked.
"We could," he said. "Or we could just throw it out."
"Really?" I asked, shocked at his willingness to toss it, "Because it's really ugly."
We wrapped it in a plastic garbage bag and disposed of it. But, somehow, I couldn't let it go.
"Why did you get a wreath that wasn't round?" I asked.
"I bought this one because it was the cheapest," he said, and then, getting a little quieter, "and I didn't really look at the brochure very closely."
I love those "Watch for falling ice" signs they put next to tall buildings on sunny days. Because, really, how is a person supposed to watch for stuff like that?
In theory, Christmas should not be a big deal for me this year.
We're getting our first married-people tree (aww....), which is a fine and lovely thing. But being kid-less means there are very few other serious Christmas-at-our-house things to do.
Why, then, do I have this strange sense that I SHOULD be panicking?
Oh, that's right . . . it's because I told everyone that I was going to bake cookies this year. It just seemed like such a nice thing to do, what with all the fancy kitchen stuff we received for wedding gifts.
Now I'm trying to decide which is the more honorable course: admitting that I just don't have time or trying to pass off bakery cookies as my own.
I'm a huge fan of Nairobi street food -- especially Indian-style samosas and English-style chips -- but I rarely get a chance to eat it, since the people I visit there are way too generous as hosts to let me grab a meal from a kiosk.
So when, last Thursday, I worked through the formal lunch break of our meeting (yes, people, THAT's the dedication of this blogger), I took it as an excuse to walk a short way down Oloitokitok Road to the busy roundabout where vendors sell snacks from carts and small stands.
I passed by the sausage guy and the roasted corn lady and headed straight for the samosa seller.
"May I have a samosa, please?" I asked in my most polite faux-missionary tone.
"No samosas," he replied.
I was somewhat unprepared for this response, since I could see a half-dozen samosas sitting in a tray on his wooden counter.
"What about those?" I asked, pointing, wondering if I'd somehow been calling them by the wrong name.
"No," he said.
"Please," I said.
He said no again.
Finally, when I pressed him, he said, "They're not fresh."
I couldn't argue with that, so I left, samosa-less.
Later that night, a few of us went out to a restaurant and, after a fantastic steak dinner, spotted "banana split" on the dessert menu.
"I'll have the banana split," one of my companions said.
"We don't have that," replied the waitress.
A few well-formed follow-up questions revealed that, bizarrely enough, yes, they had no bananas today. This seem sort of odd for East Africa, since there were -- quite literally -- bananas growing on trees a few feet away, but there was clearly no point in questioning it.
Taking another direction, he asked, "Could I have the banana split without the banana?""
"That's ice cream," the waitress replied, quite sensibly, in a tone that implied we Americans were exceeding our reputation for extreme stupidity.
Ice cream, of course, was an entirely separate entry on the dessert menu. Appropriately chastised, we ate our tiny dishes of it and tried not to obsess about how the place could possibly have run out of bananas.
I considered these two stories as being somehow related, but I couldn't quite figure out how, until, this morning (or, possibly, yesterday morning, depending on your whole time zone/jet lag perspective) when I landed in Amsterdam, the halfway point of my journey home.
Groggy, and desperately seeking tissues and cough drops for the cold I'd somehow managed to pick up in the tropical weather, I stumbled through Schipol Airport, looking for a drug store. In my sinus-congested haze, I somehow lost the hiking boots that had been tied to my backpack.
In the grim moment when I realized they were gone (leaving me with only open-toed sandals for the trip home from O'Hare), I resolved to retrace my steps.
I returned to the drug store (which sold me some truly excellent lozenges called Strepsils; I consumed 13 of then on the flight home and, afterward, I had a feeling of absolute well-being, not unlike a post-yoga buzz) to ask the clerk if I might have left the boots in the shop.
"Oh yes," she said, all smiles, pointing to the doorway, "I saw some boots left outside there."
"Great," I replied, "Where are they now?"
She looked at me with a perfect blend of condescension and amusement and then said, "I don't know. They're not there anymore."
I thought it was kind of beautiful that no matter who you are -- samosa-seller, fancy restaurant waitress or graveyard-shift drug store clerk -- or where you live in the world, it's possible to transform your job from mere drudgery to a brilliant exercise in arbitrary power.
It occurred to me that it might be important to clarify that I harbor no illusion that spending a week in Kenya qualifies me as anything other than a tourist with slightly off-beat tastes.
The last time I came home from a trip here, a colleague remarked that I had a certain "humanitarian glow." So before anyone else mistakes the glare from my sun tan for a halo, I offer you . . . .
The Top Ten Reasons I'd Rather Be In Kenya
10. Local wildlife infinitely more attractive than pigeons and squirrels.
9. Women with big hips are considered extremely attractive.
8. Mind-numbingly slow Internet connections allow you to catch up on your knitting.
7. Two words: roasted goat.
6. Excellent Christmas shopping, as long as everyone on your list wants either beaded jewelry or wood carvings.
5. Everyone calls you "sistah."
4. Local television offers you a chance to catch up on Spanish soap operas, as long as you don't mind the Swahili voice-overs
3. Tea breaks at 10 and 4 every day.
2. Coke tastes better from glass bottles. (And Diet Coke isn't an option.)
1. It's eighty degrees here today.
In case you were wondering, yes, today’s column was written in advance.
It was last Thursday, to be exact. Is that cheating?
I’d like to think of it as rather industrious, but maybe I’m just kidding myself. The truth is that I feel like if I skip a week, they’ll have a guest columnist write in my place and he or she will prove to be so fantastically talented that my bosses will call me and tell me not to bother hurrying back.
You'd never know it by reading the headlines, but life here, in many ways, feels incredibly peaceful.
We've spent the last two days in meetings, working with the leaders of local organizations on how to develop their business enterprises so they can fund their own charitable activities. These eight community leaders are people who deal with unbelievable challenges everyday. Several are widows or single mothers themselves, yet they have decided it's their calling to provide care for the orphaned children and widowed (often ill) women who are bearing the brunt of the AIDS pandemic.
You might think there would be a kind of hardness to these people, that they would become immune to suffering somehow. Or you might think that they would be sad and desperate all the time, begging for whatever relief they might find.
Instead, they are some of the warmest, happiest, kindest, funniest people I've ever met.
I have to remind myself sometimes, when I'm basking in the pleasure of their company, about the realities of their lives.
But being with them is not depressing. It's incredibly inspiring and gives me a great feeling of optimism. Because they are doing incredible work (talk about "doing more with less") and are totally capable of doing even more. They need some help, certainly, and some resources, but they're incredibly hardy and capable. It's such a relief to be with them, to know that it's not up to the rest of us to come up with some grand solution to address the giant problem that is the pandemic, because they've already found things that work and ways to help.
I get overwhelmed sometimes by the grim statistics, but they never do. They just keep going -- finding a foster family for one more child, helping one more woman find a new way to make a living now that her husband is gone, coming up with one more idea to bring money and resources into their communities.
I feel like these entries have gotten progressively more sappy as I've been here and I hate that. Because one thing no one here wants is pity.
Of course, they also don't think they are deserving of admiration. They think that any of us, faced with a similar crisis, would respond the same way they have. I'm afraid they're wrong on that count.
This morning, we kicked off the work that was the main goal of this trip. Representatives from four Kenyan organizations that work with AIDS orphans and other vulnerable kids have gathered for a two-day meeting.
Along with nearly a dozen other Chicago volunteers, Alice and I had met with these folks 6 months ago to discuss how the organizations could become less dependent on grants and aid by building their own income-generating businesses.
We're here to see what progress has been made in 6 months.
It's a complicated question to answer, but we got a pretty good idea when one representative of an orphanage reported how she'd taken money she'd made by raising animals and used it to send some of the children to secondary school.
"That money was not donated by anybody!" she exclaimed, her face beaming with pride.
Is it too corny to say that was really cool? Because it was.
Maybe this is really sick, but as we were driving into the Kibera slum yesterday, I suddenly had a vision of one of those Chicago neighborhood welcome signs, like the rainbow sculptures in Boystown.
This caused me to ask myself, "What Would Daley Do" . . . if faced with an African slum?
Decorative planters along the unpaved streets? Sponsorship banners flying high above the open sewers?
Something we heard at Kibera yesterday is stuck in my head. And, as we begin our meetings with community leaders from all around Kenya, I'm still trying to sort it out.
As we talked about resources that might be available to help the Kibera women who are part of Jikaze, Jackie remarked that, while many agencies and organizations were interested in helping children, by feeding them and sending them to school, there seemed to be fewer who wanted to get involved in the problems faced by adult women.
"Why are they only interested in working with children?" she wanted to know. "Children don't grow on trees. They come from mothers."
The more I've thought about it, the more I've realized how right she is. You know, Sally Struthers never mentioned any of those kids' moms.
Today we visited the Jikaze Women's Co-operative in Nairobi's Kibera slum, the place made semi-famous recently by the movie, "The Constant Gardener."
As Alice, Anthony and I sat in a tiny room built from scavenged pieces of corrugated tin, lumber, tree branches and cardboard boxes, we talked with 10 Kibera women about the co-op they've formed to support each other in building small businesses, like selling vegetables and cloth.
The group's secretary, Josephine, showed us a detailed record of the group bank account, which is slowly building as each woman contributes 50 shillings (about 65 cents) each week in exchange for access to the group's loan program and shared expertise.
There's something utterly unfathomable about her ability to produce this computer-printed report (she goes to an Internet cafe near the office where she works) while we sit in this place that shakes in a stiff breeze. And it's the same when the group's chairperson, Jackie, gets up to answer her mobile phone.
You walk into Kibera and you think it's a different world. And that, somehow, is what your mind wants it to be.
Because realizing that it is possible to get cell phone service here, where clean drinking water is still a luxury and open sewers run through the streets, that's just too hard to wrap your mind around.
It takes some talent to sleep through a major earthquake, but I'm just the woman for the job.
My morning started out pretty unremarkably: Kenyan coffee for breakfast, disapproving glances from the missionaries when they (once again) noticed the red pedicure, the usual.
Then Anthony arrived with news of the earthquake.
Some of the buildings in downtown Nairobi had to be evacuated and he was concerned that we might have been a little panicked.
Nothing could have been further from the truth, really, since without television or radio, we had no sense of what was going on. And I managed not to have noticed a 6-point-something earthquake at all, which really says something for my skills as a reporter.
There isn't a bar here (or, you know, a Starbucks or anything), so you have to sort of make your own fun. (And even the missionaries seem to get the idea that fun really is necessary -- maybe more necessary -- when you spend your day in the slums.)
Last night's wackiness: reading the "internal telephone directory" left in each room.
First of all, the phones aren't exactly functional.
And, second, the list includes items like:
Swimming Pool Cafe (x. 448)
Pool Kitchenette (x. 453)
Coffee Shop / Room Service (x.440)
Health Club (x. 449)
It's kind of nice to know that even though the Guest House does not actually have, say, a coffee house or health club, the phone lines are there, standing in readiness.
When Mama Mercy handed baby Faith to me yesterday and she snuggled into my arms, I had a bit of an Angelina Jolie moment.
My mind began to reel with thoughts like, "How hard could it be to adopt an abandoned baby?"
And, "Wouldn't she look adorable in something from Baby Gap?"
Not to mention, "How could my husband be mad at me for bringing home a baby without his consent when it's obviously a humanitarian gesture?"
Fortunately, I suppose, my rational mind took over and I gave myself a million philosophical reasons for why it's better to work with the people who are improving the whole community and help them support Faith in her own culture, rather than just airlifting her way because she happens to be really cute.
But, you know, I do have a few days left here to change my mind.
172 children, mostly orphans, are cared for by the Good Samaritan Children's Home in Nairobi's Mathare slum. Three-month-old Faith is the newest arrival.
Alice and I arrived, celebrity-style, in Mathare this morning. Anthony Macharia, a Global Alliance employee whose job it is to help community organizations with their bookkeeping, had arranged a safari van to drive us to Good Samaritan, which was (characteristically) an incredibly kind and hospitable gesture, but not quite in keeping with the whole low-key, blend-in-and-look-like-a-missionary approach we were hoping to take.
Since it's a school holiday here, all the kids were around and once they got past the point of staring at our big white van, they were eager to practice their English. "Howareyou, howareyou, howareyou," they all chanted as they surrounded us. We felt a little like rock stars and a lot like space aliens.
We were visiting Good Samaritan, which is run by the incredibly charismatic Mercy Thuo (check out a documentary about the place here), to talk about the program they've organized that teaches tailoring and dress-making skills to orphaned girls. The program teacher, Grace Mwiti, has contacted local schools and has secured contracts to produce uniforms for their students. The profits help fund the Children's Home and pay school fees for some of the older orphans. Our goal was to help Grace develop some plans for the uniform business.
Mostly, this took the form of Grace coming up with a series of brilliant ideas and us writing them down.
Still, while we were visiting, we got a small taste of what its like to work in a place like Good Samaritan, where children sleep ten to a bed.
Mama Mercy introduced us to the tiny baby she's named Faith. Abandoned at birth, this beautiful girl was brought over to Good Samaritan because everyone knows it as one of the only safe places in the slum for orphans.
And, while Mercy says she can only take care of children 3 years and older, she could not possibly say no to taking in this child.
So, there we were, talking to Grace about how important it would be for her to save some of the profits from the uniforms "for a rainy day" so she could buy better sewing equipment.
But it's always raining here. Every day seems to bring another mouth to feed or another doctor visit or another payment on school fees.
Hanging out at the Methodist Guest House in Nairobi is pretty much just like being any place else in the world. Except for the missionaries.
For $20 a day (meals included), this place is a total steal. My traveling companion, Alice, another Global Alliance for Africa volunteer, and I have a room with two single beds, our own bathroom, and, at the moment, total domination of the " cafe," a small upstairs office with four computers and at least two working dial-up connections.
We arrived last night -- after a two-hour delay at O'Hare, an eight hour flight to Amsterdam, a two hour layover there and then another eight hour flight -- and pretty much sacked out immediately, though Alice was awoken by a particularly persistent mosquito. (I swear I didn't give her the bed by the window on purpose.)
In a few minutes, we'll leave here for Mathare, one of Nairobi's worst slums, and visit the Good Samaritan Children's Home.
The key, I've learned, to walking through the slums as a white person and not attracting ridiculous amounts of attention is to look like a missionary. And here at the Methodist Guest House, there's plenty of opportunity to study up on how to carry off that look.
The basic elements are:
long skirt - natural fibers only
school marm-ish bun
sandals with super-thick soles
backpack - mostly empty
I've pretty much got it going on, except for the fact that I forgot to take the bright red polish off my toe nails. Oops.
It’s not a food fight, it’s a political debate.
You know what’s lacking in American politics?
Fruit.
In Kenya, where there’s a sizable number of illiterate voters, they’ve adopted fruit symbols to make the ballots understandable. In the recent constitutional referendum, voting banana meant that you supported the new constitution being proposed by the current President (guess who’d have gotten all kinds of power in that government), while voting orange meant that you opposed it.
A brief survey of locals reveals that the expression “going bananas� does not really exist here, or at least not in the sense of going crazy.
But at rallies around the country, people did actually throw fruit at each other, which is, at least, much more pleasant than, say, rioting.
You can read more about Kenyan politics here, if you’re so inclined.
“I often think I’ve traveled into a deeply foreign country under jet lag, somewhere more mysterious in its ways than India or Morocco. A place that no human had ever been until forty or so years ago, and yet, now, a place where more and more of us spend more and more of our lives. It’s not quite a dream state, and yet it’s certainly not wakefulness; and though it seems another continent we’re visiting, there are no maps or guidebooks yet to this other world. There are not even any clocks.�
- Pico Iyer in Sun After Dark (Knopf: 223 pages, $22.95)
Entree: Soup and salad combination, with pumpkin soup and curried chicken salad. (Delicious! Have this for lunch while Christmas shopping and you will actually buy people better gifts.)
Check: $66.51, including tip, for four people. (Franklin brought a guest - not Studs. And the Sun-Times photographer had a salad as well.)
Best quote that got left out of the article: A mildly (but impressively) profane rant against the Tribune, because he's still mad about this November 21, 1997 editorial -
DR. FRANKLIN'S ONE-SIDED DIALOGUE
It would be hard to think of a more controversial and debated issue nowadays than affirmative action. Indeed, it may be the defining racial issue of our day.
But there'll be no debate before the president's advisory panel on race. That by decree of the chairman, historian John Hope Franklin, who said in so many words Wednesday that those who oppose affirmative action have nothing to say that his panel needs to hear.
What a travesty! What a tragedy! What an inglorious way for Franklin to cap a distinguished scholarly career--covering his ears, in effect, to avoid hearing opinions he disagrees with.
That ill becomes a man who has always enjoyed the academic freedom of the university. It ill serves a nation that is groping for answers on race and affirmative action, a nation that was promised a candid dialogue on those issues by the president who appointed the Franklin panel.
The president's race panel held a hearing on campus diversity Wednesday at the University of Maryland and pointedly excluded such opponents of affirmative action as Ward Connerly, the black University of California regent who led the campaign last year to pass that state's Proposition 209.
"The people whom we did invite had something special to say about how to make universities more diverse than they are," Franklin was quoted in The New York Times. "The people in California that advocate Proposition 209, for example, are not addressing . . . how to make the university more diverse. Consequently I'm not certain what Mr. Connerly, for example, could contribute to this discussion."
But isn't that what "hearings" are for? It is, anyway, unless the hearer's mind is already made up. And that seems to be the case with Dr. Franklin.
This probably makes me an ugly American, but there are certain circumstances in which I really like McDonald’s.
I mean, really like it. Also, the smell of Dunkin’ Donuts. And, forgive me, New York-style pizza.
These are the pedestrian (and fattening) tastes I tried to put behind me when I entered my mature (read: slowing metabolism) 30s. But they have a weird way of reasserting themselves when I’m about to travel.
So, one of my favorite things about the international terminal at O’Hare is that it has a food court right before the security lines. And I always grab an order of fries right before I go through it.
It’s a strange thing, since I’ll only be gone for a week and, under normal circumstances, I probably only eat fast food once a month, when feeling particularly poor or hung-over or anti-social. But there’s something about the airport -- and the idea of being far from home, completely removed from familiar landmarks, even (or especially) landmarks of which I snobbishly disapprove -- that makes me just a little desperate to grab for something chemically engineered to resemble comfort food.
This morning brought word that Michael Cooke, the Sun-Times' former editor in chief, is returning to us after a 10 month stint at the New York Daily News.
I, for one, am thrilled that he's coming back. And I'm not just syaing that to suck up.
I'm saying it because I really like wearing sandals to work.
Last year's card featured a sort of Sex and the City-esque illustration of a woman with holiday-themed shopping bags. That's probably not going to fly now that there are two names to sign.
What's the wife etiquette: do you ask for his opinion even when you plan to disregard it and then pretend that it matters? Or do you simply not ask?
Perhaps stupidly, I did ask for my husband's opinion on the whole card issue. And, to my great dismay, he had one.
So, now, after years of sending politically correct, super ecumenical cards with funky Eid postage stamps, I am confronted with the knowledge that I have married into a family where a "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings" card could well be viewed as an insulting affront to people's religious beliefs.
"It has to say 'Christmas,'" he said.
I didn't even mention the stamps.
This afternoon I went to Papyrus, in Water Tower Place, and spent an hour staring at my card possibilities.
After rejecting everything that was . . .
- too girly for him
- too religious for me
- child- or animal-themed
- glittery
- remotely risque
I wound up with this one, which meets the "Christmas" requirement, but also includes some actual wit. (Bulls dunking?!) I'm slightly bothered by the clear evidence (like the hot dog dressed with mustard only; clearly a NY dog) that this wasn't produced locally, but that seems like a minor quibble at this point.
I think today's paper says something about America, but I'm not sure what.
There's the extensive Oprah coverage, which seems to skirt nicely around the fact that she has produced a Broadway musical about, um, incest. I can't be the only person who finds this a little disturbing.
Still, I have to admit that I actually sat and watched Dave Letterman's big Oprah-fest. There was, to me, something rather sad about watching the guy (who was once the biggest smart-a** on television) fawning all over Oprah. It's not like I watch Letterman for the tough interview questions or anything, but an almost completely sarcasm-free Dave is tough to take. Did he have to sign some sort of contract that prohibited him from mentioning her very odd-looking dress? Was he not allowed to even bring up the whole incest song-and-dance scenario?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not questioning whether the Oprah in New York thing really merited having two Sun-Times columnists go to New York. [Let's see . . . one reporter to Iraq, one to New Orleans (actually, it was one reporter and one columnist. -ed.) . . . yep, that ratio seems about right.] Obviously, this was pretty important stuff, culturally-speaking.
And, meanwhile, those of us in Chicago were left to sort out what we view as the second-most important story of the day: Lord Black had to put his Palm Beach mansion up as bond and might not be allowed to travel to England for Christmas, since he's facing massive fraud charges.
Some other stuff happened in the world, too, but who really cares about Bulgaria and Ukraine pulling their troops out of Iraq? They're the 10th and 11th countries, respectively, to leave the "coalition of the willing." The lone Dutch soldier in Baghdad, however, is still hanging in there.
But what did you expect me to write on World AIDS Day?
I really don't mean to get all Oprah on you about this whole global pandemic thing.
I mean, I spent $45 dollars at Starbucks last month and sometimes I think to myself, "Good grief, woman, that's $45 that should be buying anti-retrovials for suffering orphans!"
But then I think, "Gingerbread latte."
So, really, I'm not just guilt-tripping you. I make myself feel bad, too.
I left the office for a quick errand and thought of two different ways I might have been killed on my trip to the bank.
First, I could have slipped and fallen while illegally crossing the snow-slicked street (jayrunning, you'd have to call it) in high-heeled boots. Then I'd get run over by the oncoming traffic and all the people on the sidewalk would be shaking their heads at how stupid and vain it is to wear heels on a snowy day.
Having narrowly averted that tragedy, I hailed a cab on the way back. Then I sat quietly, waiting for death, as the taxi swerved across two lanes when the driver had to fumble to put his required-in-Chicago earpiece in so he could answer his ringing cell phone.
This is why I don't go out much.
Vaguely relatedFreakonomicsquestion: Does a cabbie do better on short trips (fare = $4.65; I gave him six bucks) or long ones?
Somehow, our neighbors' gas leak ended up costing us money. It's funny how that happens, how you can, at one moment, be sitting in your ground-floor condo, enjoying a quiet Sunday afternoon, and in the next moment, find yourself suddenly in need of at least two major appliances.
The couple who live directly above my husband and me in our 3-flat called the gas company to report that they smelled gas. This unleashed something close to a Homeland Security red alert as a giant van arrived bearing a very serious-looking, double-overtime-earning crew who began to scour our building from bottom to top. Their investigation of the leak, naturally, did not begin in the second floor apartment when the gas could actually be smelled, but in the basement. And then it proceeded to our place, where the vigilant crew issued us the gas company equivalent of two traffic tickets, saying there were small leaks detectable from both our stove and our dryer. These leaks, of course, had nothing to do with the much larger leak that they discovered on the second floor, but they were, the guys decided, serious enough that they disconnected both oven and dryer.
The dryer, they said, could probably be repaired with a new connector. But the oven, they said, really needed to be replaced. (Admittedly, it is about 20 years old, but since the place had been owned by a series of deeply un-culinary bachelors over the years, it has hardly ever been used.)
We went to Home Depot and bought a new oven (plus a refrigerator and a dishwasher, since those were of the same vintage) and we went to Menard's to buy the part for the dryer.
The plan, as I devised it, was to have the guys delivering and installing the kitchen appliances to also re-connect the dryer, offering them a cash gratuity for the service.
The plan did not work.
I stood in front of the city's last two honest appliance guys, practically begging them to re-connect my dryer. One guy (clearly the junior member of the team; the one who had to walk backwards when they carried heavy stuff) seemed like he was at least a little touched by my pathetic appeal. But the senior guy would not be moved.
"Let her husband do it," he said to his partner.
That was all it took. They began gathering up their tools, as I stood there, in stunned silence. I could not believe that being married counted against me.
I couldn't deny the existence of a husband, since his name appeared on the appliance sales order. And I couldn't cast aspersions on his household-fix-it abilities since (1) he has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and could probably send our dryer to the moon, if so inclined and (2) it would clearly violate the spirit of the vow I made on our wedding day never to roll my eyes behind his back.
I could have gotten this done if I were still single, I said to myself as the appliance guys left and I stared at the still-useless dryer. This must be what they mean when they say marriage penalty.
As I left for work this morning, my brilliant husband was surfing the 'net looking for instructions on how to connect the thing. It was cute, but sad.
For reasons that are probably quite obvious, I have a bit of a fixation on Maureen Dowd. Whether it's the girl-on-girl nastiness of her Judith Miller take-down column or the I'm-so-brilliant-it-must-be-intimidating coyness of her latest book, Are Men Necessary?, Dowd has the whole sarcastic female newspaper columnist gig down to a science.
I always find her TV appearances sort of cringe-inducing, though, because she's got that oddly wispy voice and an apparent aversion to looking directly into the camera. She also tends to laugh at her own jokes.
Still, she's usually quite brilliant. Or at least a nice change of pace from all the super-serious pundits.
But her Wednesday night appearance on The Late Show with Dave Letterman was just plain strange. For one thing, she seemed like she was poised to start making out with Letterman, while he, on the other hand, looked like he was deeply frightened by her.
Mostly, though, it was her dress. Very attractive. Flattering even. Except for its sleevelessness. Because, let's face it, column-writing and book-touring aren't big upper body toning activities.
I found myself oddly mesmerized the wobbly bit of flesh just above each elbow, waiting for it to jiggle. I tried to make myself look away and felt hugely guilty for even noticing -- it's clearly a violation of deeply held feminist principles -- but there it was, right in the middle of my tv screen. (And I don't even have high-definition.)
And, since she was posed sideways, looking right into Dave's eyes, the waggling arm-flesh caught the worst possible camera angle.
So now I'm just wondering about the whole thing. Did Maureen not notice? Did no one dare point it out to her? Or was it some sort of purposeful statement about the female form?
I'm all for shedding the airbrushed oppression of unrealistic media images of women's bodies, et cetera, et cetera, but would it really have been such a hardship to wear sleeves in late November? What, exactly, was she trying to prove?
Whatever weird mid-life thing she's got going on right now (post-Pulitzer depression?) only seems to be getting weirder.
You can read Maureen Dowd's stuff here, but only if you pay for it. The Sun-Times website, on the other hand, is totally free.
