#41 Boston - Queen of the Idiots - March 17 2007

And again, that would be me, always seeking new ways to distinguish myself. It was a true Petra moment, one of those, where I am convinced to be right, and the whole world is wrong. In this case, the folks that were wrong were the manufacturers of door lock cylinders, what do they know, right?

What did qualify me for the position of Queen of the Idiots was my stellar performance in trying to re-install a door lock - I had decided to re-key my doors, mostly due to some slightly strange irregularities in my apartment that were discovered after my return from Europe. "Selbst ist die Frau" - a do-it-yourself woman I aimed to be, and bursting with confidence I dismantled the locks, drove to the friendly folks at Commonwealth Lock on Mass Ave and waited for the new keys to be inserted. Returning home, I did pretty well at installing the bottom locks, but seemed to be experiencing serious difficulties with the deadbolts, trying every which way to insert them and it just did not work. After futzing around with this about an hour or so, I cried Uncle and called my friend Ulandt, carpenter extraordinaire, who promised to stop by later and put me out of my misery and install the darn things. That little nagging voice in my head though kept saying, "You can do this, come on! You are not THAT stupid, right?" Apparently I was, and after finally figuring out that I had the outside cylinder upside down and once I turned it around (.... that way you can read the SCHLAGE brand name right side up as well - duh!!!) it fit like a glove and was a 2-minute job, I felt like the biggest idiot in town. I kept wondering why the inside cylinder had the word "top" on it, but the way I tried to squeeze it in, the word "top" was on the button..... Oh man, just sign my name on the line, Petra, Queen of Idiots, no election needed, I would win it by a landslide anyway.

It has been a challenging week for this homeowner, when I returned from Europe the gate had blown off our fence, the recycling bin was stolen, and of course yesterday we had a little snow storm. Tuesday and Wednesday we had experienced the first signs of Spring and the return of the flip flops (which made the Boston Metro react instantly with the headline "Flip Flops and Business Suit - Not a good outfit" - Amen to that, you know the beef I have with that unsightly combo....) - 70 degree weather!! Birds were chirping, everyone was in a good mood, it was nice indeed. Jump forward to Friday where we got ourselves a nice little snow storm, the walkway next to my house featured about half a meter of snow and you know what that means - heavy duty labor. Armed with a shovel I did some damage control last night, but the incessant snow fall was followed by a torrential rainstorm - you guessed right - basement got flooded. Good news is I do have a pump now, which will get most of the water out of the basement. Life is good.

I have to say that my street and my neighbors are great!!! Everyone was out there armed with shovels, and helped everyone dig out their cars. It was key to get the cars free, as we are expecting glacial temperatures tonight, and once the snow freezes around your tires, the work becomes exponentially harder. Antonio Senior and his daughter Maria were involved as usual, my Vietnamese neighbors whose names I can't remember even if I wanted to, and of course Mrs Lopez, Irene, who is probably in her 80s at least, pretty much deaf, and somewhat fragile, but she was unstoppable. We did good all of us, and I probably would have stopped a little earlier, had I realized that there was water duty in the basement coming up.

I am exhausted!!! Which does not bode well for tomorrow's first road race of the season, the Ras nahEireann race in honor of St Patrick's day - you run 5 kilometers and then you head for the Irish pubs in Somerville where the beer is free (and green is some instances) (http://baevents.com/rasnaheireann/ ). While this is one of my favorite races, I call it my annual pancake race, just like the first pancake you make is never perfect, I always stink at the first road race of the year, and my last two practice runs have not convinced me of the opposite. I have been seriously sucking wind; there is lots of training needed to reach my goal for the year, which is to break the 8:30 min/mile mark.

I have settled back in, jetlag is slowly disappearing (after a couple of embarrassingly early bed times) and Oscar is back from Casa Cooper, his vacation home in Salem. Last night I had my first social outing after returning from Europe -a very girly excursion - Ellen, Elizabeth, Amy and I headed to the Museum of Fine Arts to see the Paris Fashion Show - http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/sub.asp?key=15&subkey=2139 - impressive, stylish, colorful, bizarre, most outfits not something I would be caught in, ever!! We learned that there are two types of fashion, haute couture, which are individually designed pieces, and ready-to-wear (prêt-a-porter), frocks that will be mass-produced later. Our favorite was Olivier Theyskens for Rochas - he was apparently the CFDA Designer of the Year in 2006 (Council of Fashion Designers of America - don't tell me you did not know that?) - dresses with Edwardian silhouettes, sleek suits, everything with a slight and suitable hint of Goth - we fell in love with his clothing line instantly. We liked a couple of Karl Lagerfeld designs, but were not swayed by Tunisian fashion maven Azzedine Alaia or Christian Lacroix, the first one was too furry, the second one too frou-frou..... My friends at Wikipedia tell me that Christian recently designed new uniforms for the staff of Air France, and it you happen to travel First Class, you get Lacroix-designed pajamas. There you go!

I know I owe you pictures from Europe, and I have been working on them, I will send them next week most likely. Until then, sit tight, stay warm and out of trouble.

e-hugs to all of you.

PetJ