Two Vignettes

 Vignette 1

On Presidents Day I went on a bike ride with some Freezing Saddles teams. The ride was led by some young, strong riders, so it was a little fast, but those of us in the back still just about kept up. At the end of the ride we stopped for lunch at a delicious vegetarian taco place in Georgetown. Despite it being mid-February, the weather was nice enough that the ten or so of us ate outside on the patio. My cycling friend N was on the ride. She is a breast cancer survivor who chose not to have any reconstruction. After we finished our tacos she reached under her cycling jersey and from her bra cup pulled out a baked sweet potato wrapped in plastic, which she proceeded to unwrap and eat. She explained that since she "has only one boob", she uses her other bra cup as storage on bike rides. I love that she is totally casual about the whole thing, like pulling a sweet potato out of your bra is just the most normal, natural act. It certainly didn't lose her any points with the other cyclists. When N matter-of-factly explained the situation, another woman at the table, who had been working to entice N to join her for an upcoming randonneuring ride (randonneuring is crazy ultra-long distance riding - 120+ mile rides) exclaimed "Oh, you'll fit right in with my group!"

Presidents Day Ride Group

Vignette 2

At a recent Great Northern performance, someone came up to me and said that at first he couldn't tell if it was me or Marty (another keyboard player in the local jam band scene) because I was wearing a hat like Marty wears. Well. First of all, I am a hat guy, and I was a little offended to have been described as looking like Marty because I was wearing a hat, not looking like me. Secondly, it is clear that I am wearing a porkpie, while Marty favors a Trilby (sometimes referred to as a stingy brim fedora). Buddy, if you can't tell the difference between hat styles you shouldn't be commenting on people's hats.

Which does raise the question of why keyboard players are hat people. Four keyboard players cover most of the waterfront in the local jam band scene: if you go out to see a local band playing Grateful Dead music, chances are good that the guy in the keyboard chair is going to be Will, Marty, Murph or me. And we're all hat-wearers. Marty with his Trilbys, Will with his porkpies, Murph with his bowler or cap, and me with a range of styles. I mean, it's not 100%. Lee of Allman Others isn't a hat guy, nor is Shep, and so on. But still ... 

In my case it has to do with the fact that I play head down a lot of the time, and if I'm not wearing a hat people are just seeing my shiny little dome. More generally, while guitarists and bassists get to strut their big, um, instruments, and drummers are back there dynamically hitting things, playing the keyboard is not all that visually different than paying bills. You're essentially sitting at a desk typing on a keyboard. I could be up on stage entering data into TurboTax and it wouldn't look much different. Maybe we keyboardists sense that we're not entertaining to look at and use wardrobe to spice up our stage appearance a little bit.

 

Thai Massage - maybe?

Some friends got me a gift certificate to a Thai massage place for my birthday. They figured I might enjoy Thai bodywork, which is an admixture of massage, Twister, yoga, and wrestling. I waited until after the holidays and finally made an appointment for my massage last week.

The brochure which came with my gift certificate listed three massage options: Traditional Thai Yoga Bodywork ($139 for 90 minutes), Signature, which is described as a blend of Eastern and Western techniques (also $139), and Signature Deluxe, which is Signature plus hot oil ($140). When I called to make my reservation the woman with whom I spoke insisted that there were only two options: Traditional Thai and hot oil. She asked the amount of my gift certificate and when I told her "$139" she said, "oh, that's the amount for Traditional Thai - that's what I'll put you down for". There was a bit of a language barrier in our conversation and I just couldn't get across to her the ideas that (a) I wanted to understand my options before choosing one, and (b) if appropriate I would come up with the one dollar to cover the difference between my gift certificate value and the cost of the Signature Deluxe. Eventually I gave up and just accepted her choice of the Traditional Thai, since that option was interesting to me anyway.

It was cold and rainy the day of my massage, but I was greeted warmly when I showed up. The first thing they have you do is change into these funky Thai pajamas. Then they give you a foot bath - not really my thing, but not a negative, except that it was really hot. As I soaked I told Tina, my masseuse, that this was my first time there and I didn't really know what to expect. She looked surprised, saying that the reservation specifically asked for her. I said no, unless my friends who got me the gift certificate somehow specified it - but it was hard to see how that would have worked, since when I made the reservation I wasn't asked for any sort of gift certificate number or other identifier. But it didn't matter - fate had brought the two of us together.

In my Thai massage PJ's

Tina asked me what I wanted her to work on, and in reply I said that I didn't really have any specific issues. She then asked, "You want relaxing?", to which I answered yes - who doesn't like relaxation? This turned out to be a big mistake, since once she heard I was interested in relaxation she made up her mind that the hot oil massage was what I wanted, a position from which she could not be dissuaded. As with when I made my reservation, I tried to explain to her that I wanted to better understand my options before deciding, but everything I said was met with an identical response that hot oil was what I wanted. I have experienced this kind of stonewalling before - mostly from people from other cultures. I have no basis for saying this other than my own experience, but I think Americans' idea of negotiation (current politics notwithstanding) is for both sides to state their opening positions then immediately begin to look for common ground, whereas in some other cultures the approach seems to be to stick to your initial bid for as many iterations as possible, hoping to get the other party to concede first. I experienced this in the past when I shopped in Itaewon in Seoul, and again here - no matter what I said, Tina would repeat the exact same response that what I wanted was a hot oil massage. And she indeed won the negotiation - after a few laps of this I shrugged and agreed to the hot oil massage.

In short, the massage itself was quite enjoyable and, dare I say, relaxing. It was closer to a Western massage than I had been expecting: a little rougher, with use of elbows and such, but none of the walk on you and twist you like Gumby stuff I had been anticipating. I did very much enjoy it. And I got a $140 massage for only $139 - score!

I might go back some time to experience the actual Thai Bodywork massage. If I do, maybe I'll even ask specifically for Tina.