Barack Obama is in Asheville. This very minute. Right now. Kinda makes me want to squeal a little bit.
This is, somehow, different from, say, the time I was out running after work on the Mall in Washington, D.C., and stopped to find out why there were crowds of people standing on the hill by the Washington Monument. They pointed toward Airforce One, just landed across the street, as President Clinton emerged, waving and smiling just like in all the pictures. It was, I'll admit, pretty thrilling.
And I have that picture of me also in my D.C. days standing awkwardly by Tipper Gore, whom I didn't even like at the time, squeezing in my one Kodak moment before some other gawking onlooker grabbed her for their photo op. I was, frankly, kind of embarrassed about the whole thing, but my friend's sister, who had invited me to the event, insisted.
That doesn't even count all the lesser politicos my friends would point out as we had dinner in Dupont Circle or drinks at a bar on the Hill. It was Washington. Politicians were pretty much expected scenery.
But in Asheville about the only scenery you expect this time of year is a lot of foliage. It's pretty stunning and all. But it's somehow even more stunning when Barack Obama comments on how beautiful it is.
I thought my celebrity-laden days were over when Hubby pulled me away from the golden folks on the West Coast. In Asheville, I've been content with taking the occasional yoga class with Andie McDowell. Which is not, by the way, worth calling my nieces about, the way I used to call them with news of having coffee next to Brad Pitt at the Starbucks on Beverly Boulevard or practicing yoga next to Katie Holmes or spotting Tom Hanks while out shopping at The Grove.
Now, detoxed from those heady days, I get excited when I hear that Barack is staying with Gladys Knight.
"Gladys Knight lives here?!" I ask excitedly. "I didn't know that!"
As if my real estate values have suddenly doubled. As if this isn't little Asheville, but a city of greater flash and prurient interest.
And maybe that's what makes Barack's visit so exciting. You don't expect it here.
I should point out -- she says with outward pride and inward astonishment -- that Barack is in fact the last of the current Dem celebs to visit this year. Michelle gave a rally on Primary day. No fewer than ALL THREE Clintons have made appearances -- Chelsea showed up first, in a modest little talk and appearance at a local church; then, when the race was getting tight, Bill swept into town to speak at Asheville High; and finally, just to show how concerned they were, Hillary made an appearance in one of Asheville's more suburban spots.
So, really, I shouldn't be so surprised or excited or giddy over Obama. But I am.
It began Wednesday, when the Obama campaign announced that he would be staying here to prep for his debate on Tuesday in Nashville.
Nashville, for those who don't know their Appalacian geography, is not very close to Asheville. But it is also not in a big battleground state.
Still, there was no announcement of a speaking engagement, nor, naturally, a location within Asheville. Just that he would be here. Which was exciting. Even though I really didn't see why he wouldn't do just as well prepping at home, which I would think is a little more comfortable, even if the foliage isn't as pretty.
By Thursday, the rumors were flying. A Saturday night fundraising dinner for him was supposed to have a "special, surprise guest." Secret Service had been spotted sweeping the Governor's Western Residence.
And then Thursday night the news broke. Obama would be speaking at a free rally at Asheville High on Sunday. The crowd went wild -- well before Sunday. Fliers appeared, the Sheriff of Buncombe County left me a pre-recorded phone message, and the Obama campaign emailed me to ask for my RSVP, even though they wouldn't guarantee me a spot on the grounds.
By Saturday, I was jumping up and down as friends told of being stopped on the highway by Obama's motorcade -- as if I hadn't been stopped (and annoyed) by motorcades a million times in D.C. Where was my been-there, done-that attitude? Stipped away by hillbilly air, I suppose.
I gave a "way to go" wave to my neighbor as she headed out for the fundraising dinner where, yes, he did appear. I even dreamed I was there.
And on Sunday, after failing to brave the crowds and instead letting my toddler nap in comfort as I watched the rally on the local ABC affiliate (yes, I know, one day he will blame me for not making it possible for him to say he once saw Barack Obama), I gathered around the cell phone of the Asheville High band member who lives across the street to see his picture of Obama and to hear about how OBAMA SHOOK HIS HAND!
I suppose we're entitled to a little bit of enthusiasm, living as we do in a town that doesn't expect much in the way of national attention. I'm sure every one of us knew that Obama tells every crowd to whom he speaks that they live in "God's country" and that he sure plans on returning to visit because it's just so nice here. But every one of us cheered and bounced in our seats when he said it all the same.
As for me, I guess I'm entitled too. Because I may have lived among celebrities when I was in Los Angeles and Washington, but then I had to act like I lived among celebrities. Excitement was strictly frowned upon and, frankly, not worth it most of the time. I mean, Brad Pitt looks pretty much the same whether he's in the pages of People magazine or sitting at the table behind yours sipping a latte.
Now, however, I've been in Asheville for over a year, and all I expect is to enjoy my life without any shiny trinkets of celebrity-spotting to convince anyone else there's something here to enjoy. So when something unexpected does pop up, I have the pleasure of seeing yet again that Asheville has a surprise or two up its sleeve.
Which, I think, is worth getting excited about.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Gas Shortage on the Ground
The gas shortage in my chosen home of North Carolina made the front page of the New York Times yesterday. Which assures me that even if I hadn't managed to notice it ten days or so in by, you know, living in the middle of it, I would have eventually figured it out by reading about it in the New York Times.
It is, I'll agree, hard to miss long lines of cars clogging the streets, idling away the fumes at the bottom of their tanks in the hopes of making it to the front of the line before the supply runs out. Especially when that long line is snaking its way down the street that intersects our sleepy little residential one.
Aha -- so that's why I suddenly noticed speeding strangers making use of the bypass we offer. Sure, the kids playing ball in the street -- as they are accustomed, our little one-block stretch of road leading exactly nowhere and therefore generally offering no real danger from speeding cars -- might slow them down a bit. A speed bump, if you will (luckily not a literal one). Once I saw what was out there, I understood their detour, even if I still sort of resented it. (I resent it when a stranger parks in front of my house, so you can see how the proprietary feelings I have about the public throughway on which I live might pop up in these circumstances.)
Still, hard as it is to miss a severe gas shortage, I did. For a long time.
Sure, I heard people talking about how hard it is to fill up and worrying about making it to work. But I work at home. Besides, under the best of circumstances, standing at a gas pump is an occasional activity for me. I hardly ever have to drive more than two miles at a time. Plus, oh yeah, I'm pregnant, and pumping gas is a no-no for pregnant women.
In fact, I grew so accustomed to having Hubby pump my gas during my first pregnancy that I became convinced it's something I just don't do even long after I gave birth and got over the notion that it was somehow harmful for The Boy to so much as sit in the car at a gas station.
This somewhat pampered feeling that Hubby is the member of the family who mans -- literally -- the gas pump is, I'll admit, troubling to me. I recall one especially memorable feminist-who-pumps-her-own-gas moment from my high school days. This was when there was actually a real choice between self-service and full-service stations. Near my high school was a little independent self-service with the cheapest prices in the area. And a big sign reading WE PUMP GAS FOR LADIES.
I, of course, took this as a challenge.
Being only sixteen, newly driving, and in my father's car, I might have been a tad cautious backing up to the pump. But nothing, I'm sure, to justify the two men making wild gestures as if I needed their guidance to arrive safely at my male-dominated destination.
I don't remember what I said in response to their assistance, but I do remember the worried/amused expression of my friend in the passenger seat.
I shoved the car into Park and lunged for the pump before one of them could get to it.
"We pump for ladies," the older of the ground crew said to me.
"I can pump my own gas," I muttered. I reached for the gas cap and turned. Or tried to. And tried to. And -- really frustrated now -- tried again.
The manly man tried and failed. Finally, the younger of the two gave it a good tug and managed to release it. As I grabbed the pump from him with a surly internal curse of my father, who, after all, owned the car with the tight gas cap, he grinned at me the grin of the vanquished.
"You see?" he said, his face still, twenty-six years later, hovering in memory. "There are some things ladies just can't do."
So, okay, I can pump my own gas. I feel, at times, obligated to. And still it took me days and days to notice that everyone else was having trouble doing just that because, literally, there was no gas to pump.
My first inkling that something was wrong came on a quick run to the grocery store one afternoon. Usually I know just how to navigate the left-turn-lane-less street that takes me to the highway. But this time I found myself caught in a long, not-moving lane. Did it occur to me that I might inadvertently be in line for gas? Nope. My well-tuned brain figured school was back in session and this was just the result of parents lining up to meet their children at the nearby elementary school.
"My son isn't going to that school," I said huffily by way of punishing whomever I could blame for causing my seven-minute ride to the grocery store to balloon to twenty minutes. I considered calling Hubby to share this decision with him but decided against it. Perhaps a good call, as I'm not so sure he would have let me live my astonishing ignorance down any time soon.
It wasn't until later that afternoon that I finally figured it out. This time I wasn't even in a car. I was walking Audrey (she of the chicken-hunting fame) and had to cross the line of cars waiting at the BP a block from our house. Still, the wheels turned slowly. Until my head finally also turned slowly and I took in the rather stunning sight of cars backed up for a mile or more.
This is, I hasten to remind you, Asheville. We don't get mile-long traffic jams. We just don't.
A flash of understanding. This line of cars looked suspiciously like the one I had endured earlier in the day. Only then, at least a week and a half into the crisis, did I start to pay attention.
So what can I tell you about what it's like on the ground of the gas shortage? Kind of self-satisfied if, like Hubby and I, you can congratulate yourself on choosing to live in the city -- close enough for him to bike to work and me to walk The Boy to school -- forsaking the safety of the suburbs. Not that the suburbs hold the slightest appeal for us or ever have. But, still, we take our self-congratulations where we can get them.
Of course, there's no way not to get caught up in the frenzy to grab gas when you see a station with pumps that aren't covered in tell-tale trash-bags. It's hard to resist when everyone's talking about it -- where there was gas this morning, whether it's still there, how long one should drive around wasting gas looking for gas, how long someone they knew waited in line only to pump six cents' worth into their tank before the supply ran out.
In fact, a few days ago I was driving by a station that -- look! -- had gas! I nearly pulled a U-turn right there, but resolved instead to stop on the way back from my errand. Never mind that I had a full half a tank that under normal circumstances should last me two more weeks. In Asheville these days you just never know when you'll be presented with another opportunity to buy gas without waiting in line.
So, half an hour later (having, in fact, wasted gas driving to a store that was -- wouldn't you know it -- closed) I headed back to the station.
What slowed me down was the discovery that there was in fact a line. Not the more obvious reason to skip it. Namely that I am -- as I may have mentioned -- pregnant and therefore not supposed to pump gas, no matter how lucky I am to find it.
I'd blame my forgetfulness on the Second Pregnancy Syndrome -- whereby you don't pay the least bit of attention to what you eat, what air you breathe, how much you exercise, or all the other things that were so vitally important during your first pregnancy and that does not bode well for the level of attention the second born will garner. (I am, in case you hadn't figured it out, a second born and therefore absolutely determined that this child will get just as much attention and will seem just as much a genius as The Boy. But I'm apparently not off to a good start.)
But, the truth is, neglect of my second pregnancy has nothing to do with it. Because even the least gasoline-addicted of us can't help but get caught up in the fever of a real live local gas shortage.
It is, I'll agree, hard to miss long lines of cars clogging the streets, idling away the fumes at the bottom of their tanks in the hopes of making it to the front of the line before the supply runs out. Especially when that long line is snaking its way down the street that intersects our sleepy little residential one.
Aha -- so that's why I suddenly noticed speeding strangers making use of the bypass we offer. Sure, the kids playing ball in the street -- as they are accustomed, our little one-block stretch of road leading exactly nowhere and therefore generally offering no real danger from speeding cars -- might slow them down a bit. A speed bump, if you will (luckily not a literal one). Once I saw what was out there, I understood their detour, even if I still sort of resented it. (I resent it when a stranger parks in front of my house, so you can see how the proprietary feelings I have about the public throughway on which I live might pop up in these circumstances.)
Still, hard as it is to miss a severe gas shortage, I did. For a long time.
Sure, I heard people talking about how hard it is to fill up and worrying about making it to work. But I work at home. Besides, under the best of circumstances, standing at a gas pump is an occasional activity for me. I hardly ever have to drive more than two miles at a time. Plus, oh yeah, I'm pregnant, and pumping gas is a no-no for pregnant women.
In fact, I grew so accustomed to having Hubby pump my gas during my first pregnancy that I became convinced it's something I just don't do even long after I gave birth and got over the notion that it was somehow harmful for The Boy to so much as sit in the car at a gas station.
This somewhat pampered feeling that Hubby is the member of the family who mans -- literally -- the gas pump is, I'll admit, troubling to me. I recall one especially memorable feminist-who-pumps-her-own-gas moment from my high school days. This was when there was actually a real choice between self-service and full-service stations. Near my high school was a little independent self-service with the cheapest prices in the area. And a big sign reading WE PUMP GAS FOR LADIES.
I, of course, took this as a challenge.
Being only sixteen, newly driving, and in my father's car, I might have been a tad cautious backing up to the pump. But nothing, I'm sure, to justify the two men making wild gestures as if I needed their guidance to arrive safely at my male-dominated destination.
I don't remember what I said in response to their assistance, but I do remember the worried/amused expression of my friend in the passenger seat.
I shoved the car into Park and lunged for the pump before one of them could get to it.
"We pump for ladies," the older of the ground crew said to me.
"I can pump my own gas," I muttered. I reached for the gas cap and turned. Or tried to. And tried to. And -- really frustrated now -- tried again.
The manly man tried and failed. Finally, the younger of the two gave it a good tug and managed to release it. As I grabbed the pump from him with a surly internal curse of my father, who, after all, owned the car with the tight gas cap, he grinned at me the grin of the vanquished.
"You see?" he said, his face still, twenty-six years later, hovering in memory. "There are some things ladies just can't do."
So, okay, I can pump my own gas. I feel, at times, obligated to. And still it took me days and days to notice that everyone else was having trouble doing just that because, literally, there was no gas to pump.
My first inkling that something was wrong came on a quick run to the grocery store one afternoon. Usually I know just how to navigate the left-turn-lane-less street that takes me to the highway. But this time I found myself caught in a long, not-moving lane. Did it occur to me that I might inadvertently be in line for gas? Nope. My well-tuned brain figured school was back in session and this was just the result of parents lining up to meet their children at the nearby elementary school.
"My son isn't going to that school," I said huffily by way of punishing whomever I could blame for causing my seven-minute ride to the grocery store to balloon to twenty minutes. I considered calling Hubby to share this decision with him but decided against it. Perhaps a good call, as I'm not so sure he would have let me live my astonishing ignorance down any time soon.
It wasn't until later that afternoon that I finally figured it out. This time I wasn't even in a car. I was walking Audrey (she of the chicken-hunting fame) and had to cross the line of cars waiting at the BP a block from our house. Still, the wheels turned slowly. Until my head finally also turned slowly and I took in the rather stunning sight of cars backed up for a mile or more.
This is, I hasten to remind you, Asheville. We don't get mile-long traffic jams. We just don't.
A flash of understanding. This line of cars looked suspiciously like the one I had endured earlier in the day. Only then, at least a week and a half into the crisis, did I start to pay attention.
So what can I tell you about what it's like on the ground of the gas shortage? Kind of self-satisfied if, like Hubby and I, you can congratulate yourself on choosing to live in the city -- close enough for him to bike to work and me to walk The Boy to school -- forsaking the safety of the suburbs. Not that the suburbs hold the slightest appeal for us or ever have. But, still, we take our self-congratulations where we can get them.
Of course, there's no way not to get caught up in the frenzy to grab gas when you see a station with pumps that aren't covered in tell-tale trash-bags. It's hard to resist when everyone's talking about it -- where there was gas this morning, whether it's still there, how long one should drive around wasting gas looking for gas, how long someone they knew waited in line only to pump six cents' worth into their tank before the supply ran out.
In fact, a few days ago I was driving by a station that -- look! -- had gas! I nearly pulled a U-turn right there, but resolved instead to stop on the way back from my errand. Never mind that I had a full half a tank that under normal circumstances should last me two more weeks. In Asheville these days you just never know when you'll be presented with another opportunity to buy gas without waiting in line.
So, half an hour later (having, in fact, wasted gas driving to a store that was -- wouldn't you know it -- closed) I headed back to the station.
What slowed me down was the discovery that there was in fact a line. Not the more obvious reason to skip it. Namely that I am -- as I may have mentioned -- pregnant and therefore not supposed to pump gas, no matter how lucky I am to find it.
I'd blame my forgetfulness on the Second Pregnancy Syndrome -- whereby you don't pay the least bit of attention to what you eat, what air you breathe, how much you exercise, or all the other things that were so vitally important during your first pregnancy and that does not bode well for the level of attention the second born will garner. (I am, in case you hadn't figured it out, a second born and therefore absolutely determined that this child will get just as much attention and will seem just as much a genius as The Boy. But I'm apparently not off to a good start.)
But, the truth is, neglect of my second pregnancy has nothing to do with it. Because even the least gasoline-addicted of us can't help but get caught up in the fever of a real live local gas shortage.
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