Stinkin' Up the Joint

Like moths to a flame, they came. From near and from far.  They waited for hours, sometimes until the middle of the night, to experience it.  You would have thought that John and George had come back from the dead so that the Beatles could perform together again.

Actually, though, the source of all the excitement was a bloomin' Corpse Plant at the Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh. Indigenous to Indonesia, the Corpse Plant takes an average of 7 to 10 years to bloom and then the bloom only lasts for 24 to 48 hours.  It is so named because while it is in bloom it stinks to high heaven and smells like hell, and the smell has been likened to rotting flesh.

As you can imagine, all this had Phipps' curator of horticulture Ben Dunigan pretty excited.  He described himself as being like a father waiting for the baby to be born and the blooming of the Corpse plant as being the Super Bowl of the plant world.  They named the plant Romero after George Romero, the director of Night of the Living Dead  which of course was filmed in Pittsburgh (Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/neighborhoods-city/corpse-flower-romero-blooms-at-phipps-700083/#ixzz2cydjqe4N)

This may have been a dream for the botanists, but it could have been a nightmare for the good folks working in marketing and public relations at the Phipps.  I mean, would this awful-smelling plant keep folks away from the place during some peak summer hours?  

But it's all about the spin.  Like a modern day P.T. Barnum or Tom Sawyer getting the town's boys to line up to whitewash the fence, Phipp's marketing department promoted the living daylights out of this unlikely attraction.  The blooming of Romero was heralded with ads telling you that this was your once-in-a-lifetime chance to see and smell this plant.  They threw a big party and stayed open late, and even had the foresight to save some of the smelly nectar for people to smell so as to extend the fun for a few days after the bloom had faded.  And the people came, hundreds at them at a time.  Grow it and they will come.

Despite my admiration for this stellar public relations effort, I never once considered joining the hordes to visit the plant.  For one thing, the bizarre-looking Titan Arum (its real name) looked vaguely familiar to me.  I realized that I had seen its cousin playing Audrey 2, the man-eating plant in a few productions of Little Shop of Horrors.  Lending to this illusion is the spadix that leaps from the leafy structure (http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/botany/stink-plant-stink.htm) which one visitor compared to a ballerina's leg, but at first glance resembled another anatomical appendage to me.  

But mostly it's the smell that kept me away.  Although some of my senses (such as vision and hearing) have started to fade with age, my sense of smell has remained as ever-sharp and particularly acute as it's always been.  I can smell a smell a mile away.  I am surprised I didn't smell Romero from my house in the North Hills.

I spend a fair portion of my time trying to avoid the noxious smells all around me. I buy products to clear the air in the bathroom.  We do laundry to remove smells from our clothes.  We're constantly in the kitchen wondering where that smell is coming from so that we may remove it.  Is it the garbage, or something in the trash disposal, or what? Mice sometimes like to die in the walls of the building where I work.  I have smelled every bad odor used to describe the stench emitted by the Corpse Plant, so why would I make a special trip to stand in line to smell this plant? 

My friend Mamie, who was kind enough to allow me to use her photos here, waited in line for three hours to see Romero, with her baby (who is just a few months old and who loved the sights and sounds of the Conservatory but slept through the actual viewing and smelling) in tow.  She assures me that it was worth every minute, and that is the general consensus among those who made the pilgrimage.

I wondered why the plant smells so bad.  It turns out that the stench attracts insects which is necessary for pollination, given its very short blooming period (Ibid).   It seems the stench also inexplicably attracts people, too! Either that or the marketing professionals at Phipps deserve a bonus.  

Recreating the Error

The mechanics at Firestone were very sorry that my car was working just fine.  They assured me that they saw the problem I described when I brought it in when they pulled it into the garage, so I definitely wasn't crazy.  Nonetheless they couldn't determine the cause of the problem even after the extensive diagnostics because they couldn't get the error to recreate.

The error in question was an occasional hesitation between when I put my foot on the gas and when the car started to move.  The latest lull started when I tried to pull out of the parking lot at work and lasted several seconds leaving me temporarily stranded blocking the entrance to someone's business.  When I got the car to move, I drove it directly to Firestone, my friendly neighborhood mechanic.

I have trust issues when it comes to mechanics.  Although I hate to say it, some mechanics I have patronized in the past have taken advantage of my ignorance of car mechanics  and have performed procedures on my cars that were not necessary.  Hard to believe I know, but not terribly unusual.

However, I cannot say enough nice things about Firestone and its crackerjack team of mechanics, who are the epitome of ethical professionalism.   They do an excellent job  They explain everything to me in detail, and they never do anything that doesn't need to be done without my permission. So I have nothing but appreciation for these fine and trustworthy gentlemen who explained  that there could several causes for such a problem - some simple and inexpensive, others more serious and potentially very expensive - but until and unless they could get the error to recreate, they couldn't determine what needed to be fixed.  

They assured me that they took it on several test drives trying to get it to screw up, but the car just kept working.  Furthermore, the car didn't need anything to pass inspection, but there were a couple of minor things that could be fixed, if we chose.  I chose to have them done, just in case one of these repairs fixed the problem, which these ever-truthful mechanics assured me that they would not.  The car has worked fine since I drove it away that day.

I hate it when the professional you finally consult can't recreate the error that has been causing you so much trouble.   Like when the web site administrator can't recreate the error that has kept you from updating the web page for the past week or when the symptoms that have been plaguing you and stumping your family doctors for six weeks mysteriously disappear the second you are finally being examined by the specialist.

Now, as the car runs smoothly every day, I am on edge just waiting for the car to malfunction again.  It's like the Sword of Damocles hanging over my head.  Well, I have a plan.  Just the minute the error recreates, I'm having AAA tow it right to Firestone without even trying to get it there myself.  

But you and I know that the car won't recreate its error until I'm on the highway in the pouring rain in the middle of night. 

A Mountain on Maui

According to an article in Parade magazine last week, when Oprah Winfrey was asked why the film Lee Daniels' The Butler brought her back to acting she responded, "Lee was relentless.  I remember being on my mountain in Maui where I go to restore myself.  And he called..." (http://www.parade.com/58556/katherineheintzelman/oprah-winfrey-forest-whitaker-talk-lee-daniels-the-butler-racism-and-the-n-word/comment-page-1/#comments)

 

Seriously, Oprah?  Your mountain in Maui?  And how is this apropos of why you accepted this role in the film? 

You know, this is why I think that Oprah has lost touch with the common folk.  I'm guessing that most of us don't have a mountain in Maui for rest and relaxation. I can't speak for everyone but to me it just feels like bragging.  Oprah really wants us to know about her mountain in Maui.

I shared this information with my Friends, some of whom decided to share where they go to restore themselves.

Tom likes to restore himself on his back patio with a cup of hazelnut coffee.

Janette likes to go to coffee shops or little diners to be an anonymous person with her journal or sketchbook and hide in plain sight with a cup of coffee or a good breakfast.  Just to clarify, I asked her if any of said coffee shops or little diners were in Maui, but she confessed that they were mostly here in Pittsburgh or in Michigan, where she was born and raised and where many of her family members still live. I thought Michigan and Maui were similar because they start with the letter "M" and are both out of state. Janette assured me that even if they were that she owned neither a mountain nor a coffee shop, for that matter.

Mary always said that she went to her old claw-foot tub to restore herself. I reminded her that she and I often went to the Highpointe restaurant, which was near California University of Pennsylvania where we met as students, where we restored ourselves after class with crab legs, which were not listed on the menu (you just had to know they had them).  I thought that the Highpointe and a mountain were almost the same thing because they were both, you know, high.

Then Debbie said that she used to restore herself at the Village Dairy, a sandwich shop and favorite dining spot in our hometown of Swissvale.  Just the mention of the Village Dairy filled me with that kind of fond nostalgia that is restorative.  Nancy, another Swissvale classmate, also remembers the Village Dairy, but now goes to her back porch or patio to restore herself.

As for me, the place I go to restore myself is to my side of the love seat in my living room with a cup of Zen tea and Mr. Rip by my side.  It's not on a mountain and it's not in Maui, but it is our only home.  Thank goodness, because flying to Maui is probably so stressful and expensive that if I didn't need to be restored when I left, I surely would need to when I got there.   

Playing the Game

It was one of those oh-so-rare lazy Saturday afternoons  at home with nowhere to go and a clean-enough house.   I pounced on the opportunity to catch up on some much needed organization of my computer apps and files while watching mindless television.

The mindless television pickings were especially slim.  Then I found a whole day worth of Family Feud scheduled on the Game Show Network.  I have always liked watching game shows involving words or trivia, so I have enjoyed many an episode of the Feud over the years, with all five hosts. Yes, this would do for mindless background television.

As I watched, I remembered that for a time Family Feud was my online game of choice. It was hard at first because the game involves thinking like other people, which has never exactly been my forte.  I mean, seriously, where DO they find some of these “100 people surveyed?”  Slowly, I caught onto what answers the masses would come up with, which was in some ways more disturbing to me than getting the wrong answers.

But now I am actually pretty good at the game. In one game in this mini-marathon I kept yelling "sporting events" at the contestants who were trying to come up with an occasion when people scream when they're having fun.  Not only did I have the right answer (which none of the contestants  ever did get), I also had the right terminology.  I would never say "sporting event" in everyday conversation.

Despite this, I would probably never go on the show.  First of all, one of the family leaders on the episodes I watched kept introducing his one family member as "my wacky Aunt Sharon."  This gave me pause, as I, too, could be described like this in front of a national television audience.  Not to mention what a nightmare it would be to coordinate our outfits.

I have no idea how the families pick which two family members play the fast money round, but I just think it's a lot of pressure. Not only might you lose the game for the whole family, but you could be like the woman who answered, "crab fishing" when asked "What is a dirty job that someone has to do?"   

Of course, no one in the survey said that.  Then, to make it even worse, the host said "I'm not touching that one!" As the studio audience erupted in laughter,  the other connotation of her answer dawned on me.

Although I'd like to think that my answer would never be that crazily inane, I could inadvertently say something with another meaning because double entendres are often lost on me.  They just sail right over my head.  I still think “Cream”, my favorite Prince song, is about coffee, or maybe about realizing your potential, even though many a more knowing soul have scoffed at my naiveté, suggesting that it might be about sex.  Well, if they say so.  All I know is that it had a beat and you could dance to it.

I just envision the family reminiscing about that stupid answer at every holiday get-together for the rest of her life.  

Mostly, though, I hesitate because now the Feud gives the winning family a car, presumably to split five ways.  Even Solomon might have trouble figuring that one out.