I just bought a size 7.5 off of someone, and it's too big, even with my thick sports socks on. That's the thing with Craigslist exchanges. There's a real person involved and you actually have to be assertive like you're supposed to be in real life (yeah right, not my real life) if you don't want it.
If it's some big chain store, you just bring in the receipt and the employee hired for the customer service desk takes back your unwanted item, and gives you the store's money back for it. If it's an online purchase, no human encounter required! Just package it up, smack a return label on that shit, and boom--gone forever. You don't have to see it eye to eye ever again.
We agreed to meet at Coffeesmith. It wasn't clear whether we were supposed to meet in the parking lot (as is rote) or inside the establishment, so I stood outside my car for a bit answering text messages in the cold. Some cars pulled into the parking lot: an old Asian couple, a young Asian couple. Coffeesmith regulars. Maybe 5 minutes passed (I was right on time, surprisingly) and I decided to put on my identifying marker on (my backpack--I'd said I'd be working there afterwards--which maybe indicated "meet inside") and make my way in.
Not 1 minute passed and a young Asian (! not a granola white person?) woman, maybe a few years older than myself, knew just who to go to: "Are you the one asking about the climbing shoes?" she asked with a Vietnamese accent. No canvassing eyes or anything. She must have been staking me out in her car where I couldn't see her (I'd looked into the driver's side of all the cars around mine).
She got chatty, which surprised me, because in our email correspondances she didn't even mention her name (I did) or identifying characteristics at all. I was ready to just try on the shoes and be on with it, but she maintained conversation as I was eyeing the pair of shoes. "So, are you a student? What are you studying?" So I asked her, "So why did you decide to sell your shoes?" And she gave me a whole history of her climbing, i.e. she has 3 climbing shoes and is trying to get rid of them, she climbs at Vertical Rock ("How's the Sportrock in Sterling?") with her fiancee, she only climbs a 5.8 which makes it difficult because others are either lower or higher than her, she used to have a monthly pass but then she started going only once a week and less and less because of traveling for work (I should have asked: "Where! I want your job!").
She asked me how often I climb, and I'll bet she didn't even need to ask me to find out because I tried the shoes on with my socks (too much slippage for real rock climbers). I asked her who she climbs with--Meetups? And she (not I!) extended the invitation to climb together. I made the subtle suggestion, but she gave the explicit offer.
So basically I paid a girl 50 bucks to be my climbing buddy. I don't even know her name.
Maybe the shoes will fit my sister. We can be an Azn Grrls! climbing group.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Recreational work
So I've been meaning to record some of my day-to-day happenings at my part-time job (front desk at a recenter) for a while now. I've been there for 4 months now, and every day I could write a good few paragraphs about the crazy things people say and do and what's going through the mind of my relatively reserved self when I encounter it.
I usually work pretty consistently 6am-11 or 12 three or four days a week. My supervisor was always Derek, and I always worked with the same front desk volunteers: Lee, Roberta, Skip, and Anna. Ken didn't work the FD but I saw him twice a week TR. But since the new school year's started up (most of the FD are in school), schedules are desperately shifting. Vince, who pretty consistently works the 6am shifts when I'm not, has classes in the morning. Alex, who used to work most of the evenings, has shipped off to Australia. And so now I'm doing from 6am's and 11am's and to 8pm's and catching up with volunteers and managers I haven't talked to since September when I started.
For the past week or so we've been chasing a mouse. I came into work one morning and the door to the back desk was shut with more than the usual 1-2 people behind it. It was strange because everyone who works at the recenter (everyone, from volunteers and FD and instructors) go through the back. I thought there was some kind of hush-hush manager's meeting going on. I asked what was up, and someone said that there was a mouse. I thought they were just trying to make me go away.
So we've had a lot of shut doors this week. First the back office, and then the other day I heard some shouting and then I couldn't get into the storage/mail room.
The last time there was a mouse at the front desk, it was dead, and I was a volunteer. It was a Saturday morning when I worked 8a-12 every week to get free gym access. The managers were trying to get Jessica (FD then, now a FD manager) worked up, so they invited her to check out what was in this gift bag. And in the gift bag was a dead mouse. She screamed. I asked what in there, and as they were laughing at her loud reaction and extending the bag for me to get in at the joke, I felt sad for the little thing. Mice are actually pretty cute and furry (I'd seen one at the recenter at my alma mater; it jumped from the 2nd floor to the 1st floor, and lived to skitter away to a safe corner somewhere away from stomping tennis shoes).
They caught the mouse yesterday; how--I don't know. I asked Derek and he described something about pouring the mouse into a drip coffee machine and turning it on brew or something like that... I didn't catch his whole story but it was made up anyway (I'm sure it was a good one) and I just wanted to know if it was alive and they'd let the little thing go into the wild.
FEBRUARY 2012
I usually work pretty consistently 6am-11 or 12 three or four days a week. My supervisor was always Derek, and I always worked with the same front desk volunteers: Lee, Roberta, Skip, and Anna. Ken didn't work the FD but I saw him twice a week TR. But since the new school year's started up (most of the FD are in school), schedules are desperately shifting. Vince, who pretty consistently works the 6am shifts when I'm not, has classes in the morning. Alex, who used to work most of the evenings, has shipped off to Australia. And so now I'm doing from 6am's and 11am's and to 8pm's and catching up with volunteers and managers I haven't talked to since September when I started.
For the past week or so we've been chasing a mouse. I came into work one morning and the door to the back desk was shut with more than the usual 1-2 people behind it. It was strange because everyone who works at the recenter (everyone, from volunteers and FD and instructors) go through the back. I thought there was some kind of hush-hush manager's meeting going on. I asked what was up, and someone said that there was a mouse. I thought they were just trying to make me go away.
So we've had a lot of shut doors this week. First the back office, and then the other day I heard some shouting and then I couldn't get into the storage/mail room.
The last time there was a mouse at the front desk, it was dead, and I was a volunteer. It was a Saturday morning when I worked 8a-12 every week to get free gym access. The managers were trying to get Jessica (FD then, now a FD manager) worked up, so they invited her to check out what was in this gift bag. And in the gift bag was a dead mouse. She screamed. I asked what in there, and as they were laughing at her loud reaction and extending the bag for me to get in at the joke, I felt sad for the little thing. Mice are actually pretty cute and furry (I'd seen one at the recenter at my alma mater; it jumped from the 2nd floor to the 1st floor, and lived to skitter away to a safe corner somewhere away from stomping tennis shoes).
They caught the mouse yesterday; how--I don't know. I asked Derek and he described something about pouring the mouse into a drip coffee machine and turning it on brew or something like that... I didn't catch his whole story but it was made up anyway (I'm sure it was a good one) and I just wanted to know if it was alive and they'd let the little thing go into the wild.
FEBRUARY 2012
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Good color combination, too
I just got the sweetest effing bike I have ever come across in my entire life.
It just fell in my lap. No Craigslist browsing or begging. No shopping around for used bikes and price-comparing. I needed it but I didn't want it (at least, not as much or for as long as Joanne has). In fact, it was only after consulting with both the Bike Shop (Centreville) and Bull Run Bicycles (Manassas) that I was even actually considering buying a new (...used) bike instead of just replacing the brakes on my hardly-used Huffy bike that has been with me since I was in middle school.
I didn't go to Goodwill looking for bikes. I went looking for khaki pants (and maybe shoes and blouses, because I always end up getting them without expressly shopping for them) for work. It was only because I was considering getting those bookshelves for the library that I've been meaning to get that I even ventured out of the soft goods.
And there it was. Adult-sized bicycle. Looking functional. Not quite like my magenta bike in build--which could have been a deal-breaker, but it ended up being a deal-maker. On the middle rod it read: "FUJI."
Fuji... just the day or two before Joanne had mentioned the name, trying to get my blessing to buy a $100 Fuji bike off of Craigslist because they're "really expensive" and usually go for something like $1000 (or some other high number. Maybe $400. It was just seemed a lot to me at the time). So I was thinking of Joanne but it was me--I really wanted it. Like I want an Italian silk dress no matter how it looks or fits. Like I want a Banana Republic blazer or chemisier from Lord and Taylor no matter how outrageous the print is.
Chrome. Gushy handlebars with another set of "advanced" blue handlebars for when you need to get down and athletic. Had an vintage-like charm to it. Maybe not 1970s like Amanda's solid-rubber-wheeled antique ride, but definitely not 2010's. All the essential parts seemed to be present and intact.
I went through the trouble of relinquishing my ID and maneuvering awkwardly into unwieldy double doors and around post-Saturday-yard-sale truck beds to try it out in the parking lot. I almost fell and I might have injured myself. It was way too tall. But there was a heavy, metal, out-of-the-ordinary attachment screwed on at the saddle keeping it there at its too-tall height. Anyway, for $35, if the metal attachment didn't come off or the frame didn't fit Joanne, it would fit whoever would appreciate a Fuji that retails for $hundreds, right?
It was like fate that I'd resorted to driving my mom's bulky van that day, empty, waiting for this brilliant silver bike with blue handles.
Bringing it home was something else.
Unlike my impression of how I imagine intimate relationships to progress, the more I got to know it, the more wonderful things I found out about it: the saddle was clean and cushy and Fuji, too. Changing the gears gave my fingers the same sensation as typing on an old, clackety typewriter. Adjusting the saddle required no tools: only a flick of a pressure-fastened clutch and swoosh!--tall to short. There were similar flicky appendages on the front wheel, and back: quick-release levers (the kind that all the pros off the Vienna W&OD have... that's how they do it)!
Took in my baby today to Bull Run Bicycles for her check-up, vaccinations, oil, adjustments, etc. Can't wait to bring her home!
It just fell in my lap. No Craigslist browsing or begging. No shopping around for used bikes and price-comparing. I needed it but I didn't want it (at least, not as much or for as long as Joanne has). In fact, it was only after consulting with both the Bike Shop (Centreville) and Bull Run Bicycles (Manassas) that I was even actually considering buying a new (...used) bike instead of just replacing the brakes on my hardly-used Huffy bike that has been with me since I was in middle school.
I didn't go to Goodwill looking for bikes. I went looking for khaki pants (and maybe shoes and blouses, because I always end up getting them without expressly shopping for them) for work. It was only because I was considering getting those bookshelves for the library that I've been meaning to get that I even ventured out of the soft goods.
And there it was. Adult-sized bicycle. Looking functional. Not quite like my magenta bike in build--which could have been a deal-breaker, but it ended up being a deal-maker. On the middle rod it read: "FUJI."
Fuji... just the day or two before Joanne had mentioned the name, trying to get my blessing to buy a $100 Fuji bike off of Craigslist because they're "really expensive" and usually go for something like $1000 (or some other high number. Maybe $400. It was just seemed a lot to me at the time). So I was thinking of Joanne but it was me--I really wanted it. Like I want an Italian silk dress no matter how it looks or fits. Like I want a Banana Republic blazer or chemisier from Lord and Taylor no matter how outrageous the print is.
Chrome. Gushy handlebars with another set of "advanced" blue handlebars for when you need to get down and athletic. Had an vintage-like charm to it. Maybe not 1970s like Amanda's solid-rubber-wheeled antique ride, but definitely not 2010's. All the essential parts seemed to be present and intact.
I went through the trouble of relinquishing my ID and maneuvering awkwardly into unwieldy double doors and around post-Saturday-yard-sale truck beds to try it out in the parking lot. I almost fell and I might have injured myself. It was way too tall. But there was a heavy, metal, out-of-the-ordinary attachment screwed on at the saddle keeping it there at its too-tall height. Anyway, for $35, if the metal attachment didn't come off or the frame didn't fit Joanne, it would fit whoever would appreciate a Fuji that retails for $hundreds, right?
It was like fate that I'd resorted to driving my mom's bulky van that day, empty, waiting for this brilliant silver bike with blue handles.
Bringing it home was something else.
Unlike my impression of how I imagine intimate relationships to progress, the more I got to know it, the more wonderful things I found out about it: the saddle was clean and cushy and Fuji, too. Changing the gears gave my fingers the same sensation as typing on an old, clackety typewriter. Adjusting the saddle required no tools: only a flick of a pressure-fastened clutch and swoosh!--tall to short. There were similar flicky appendages on the front wheel, and back: quick-release levers (the kind that all the pros off the Vienna W&OD have... that's how they do it)!
Took in my baby today to Bull Run Bicycles for her check-up, vaccinations, oil, adjustments, etc. Can't wait to bring her home!
It's me in every way (story to follow)
I came here to write about the rollerblades and ended up reading old blog entries from 2008. I can't believe I wrote those. I was such a good writer. Writing definitely peaks at early 20s. And yet, I remember reading (probably in 2008) stuff I'd written in middle school and not recognizing who that exquisite writer was. Maybe the peak is 12, 13. But I guess science or history would say it's somewhere in between. I'm pretty sure Rimbaud, Voltaire, Socrates were teenagers when they were in their prime. 17, 19, 16 or something (Voltaire, then, was right if I'm being self-affirming).
Anyway. Let me start again.
Rollerblades. This is actually an entry that has been a long time coming: I got them several weeks ago and have been using/exercising/gotten beat up by them up until I got my new (used) bike (story to follow).
I think my perception of Patti, the woman who gave me the rollerblades is impossibly connected to the actual Patty. I mean, I don't know what I thought she would look like. I definitely knew she was a micro-managing, perhaps a little desperate and always too eager in her sales and her life. She sounded like a woman who knew what she wanted and seemed so assertive to the point of vulnerability. I don't remember what I thought she'd look like.
But I think the person I met fits in well with the person I thought I was going to meet. Tall, dyed blonde hair, wearing a blouse from another decade but not in a dumpy way. In a trying-make-an-impression kind of way. Like her demeanor didn't make you question what she was wearing. An overcompensating dark-colored "van" (that's what she called it) SUV.
I arrived a good 30 minutes later than expected; we were to meet in front of the CVS and there were 2 CVS's in Herndon that could have been the one she was talking about and I didn't want to call and confirm (of all the calls she gave me, I only made or returned 2, maximum. I'd've been happy to text, but she didn't).
It's a strange thing, when you meet someone in the parking lot for a Craigslist exchange. You're both just sitting in your driver's seat, peering around the parking lot looking for someone with the same expression of... sketchiness. I pulled into a spot right next to a guy attending to his car (the CVS was next to an AutoZone) and I just thought at least I was only as sketchy as he was (I think an open hood in a public parking lot is too revealing).
Patti brought out the rollerblades from its still-intact box and I have to say I was expecting more. I had 2 other potential rollerblade vendors that had aerodynamic fit for women and reassuring lace-ups in addition to the buckles. This one only had buckles. She demonstrated how these (great!) blades adjusted to your foot size. She numerated other tech specs and I knew when I tried on the rollerblade that I couldn't refuse her eagerness, as eager as I was to almost (almost!) ask if I could just pay $20 and not the $25 she was requesting. I just didn't have the heart.
She said that her son stopped rollerblading because of an accident. "He didn't know what he was doing." I was thinking like the independent, adult person I was and chuckled, "Oh, he was traumatized by the event?" So that's why he gave it up? And then she shook her head and said something affirmative, but unsurely.
I only realized later that she was (obviously?) being a mom--she was trying to tell me that she prohibited her son from rollerblading anymore. It's funny how perspective changes with age. And I wonder, was that my perspective as an autonomous individual (thinking of myself but wearing her son's size 5 blades), a naive projection? Or was it actually disbelief that a woman who carried herself as such was actually raising children, successfully and with strict boundaries?
Anyway. Let me start again.
Rollerblades. This is actually an entry that has been a long time coming: I got them several weeks ago and have been using/exercising/gotten beat up by them up until I got my new (used) bike (story to follow).
I think my perception of Patti, the woman who gave me the rollerblades is impossibly connected to the actual Patty. I mean, I don't know what I thought she would look like. I definitely knew she was a micro-managing, perhaps a little desperate and always too eager in her sales and her life. She sounded like a woman who knew what she wanted and seemed so assertive to the point of vulnerability. I don't remember what I thought she'd look like.
But I think the person I met fits in well with the person I thought I was going to meet. Tall, dyed blonde hair, wearing a blouse from another decade but not in a dumpy way. In a trying-make-an-impression kind of way. Like her demeanor didn't make you question what she was wearing. An overcompensating dark-colored "van" (that's what she called it) SUV.
I arrived a good 30 minutes later than expected; we were to meet in front of the CVS and there were 2 CVS's in Herndon that could have been the one she was talking about and I didn't want to call and confirm (of all the calls she gave me, I only made or returned 2, maximum. I'd've been happy to text, but she didn't).
It's a strange thing, when you meet someone in the parking lot for a Craigslist exchange. You're both just sitting in your driver's seat, peering around the parking lot looking for someone with the same expression of... sketchiness. I pulled into a spot right next to a guy attending to his car (the CVS was next to an AutoZone) and I just thought at least I was only as sketchy as he was (I think an open hood in a public parking lot is too revealing).
Patti brought out the rollerblades from its still-intact box and I have to say I was expecting more. I had 2 other potential rollerblade vendors that had aerodynamic fit for women and reassuring lace-ups in addition to the buckles. This one only had buckles. She demonstrated how these (great!) blades adjusted to your foot size. She numerated other tech specs and I knew when I tried on the rollerblade that I couldn't refuse her eagerness, as eager as I was to almost (almost!) ask if I could just pay $20 and not the $25 she was requesting. I just didn't have the heart.
She said that her son stopped rollerblading because of an accident. "He didn't know what he was doing." I was thinking like the independent, adult person I was and chuckled, "Oh, he was traumatized by the event?" So that's why he gave it up? And then she shook her head and said something affirmative, but unsurely.
I only realized later that she was (obviously?) being a mom--she was trying to tell me that she prohibited her son from rollerblading anymore. It's funny how perspective changes with age. And I wonder, was that my perspective as an autonomous individual (thinking of myself but wearing her son's size 5 blades), a naive projection? Or was it actually disbelief that a woman who carried herself as such was actually raising children, successfully and with strict boundaries?
Monday, August 29, 2011
The less virtual Craigslist
The thing I like about thrift stores, used book stores, Craigslist is that each object has a history besides the one you are about to create with it, a history outside of the factory. Someone, at some point, decided to buy it or invest in a hobby or give it to someone they thought would appreciate it. There is a conscious decision "YES," and there is just as a conscious a decision when they say "NO," I'll give this away now.
McKay's: the ultimate used book/CD/DVD/software store. I bring visitors there because I think it's a destination. There's always something for everyone, and a lot of it.
I've never really had somebody comment on my (potential/actual) purchases before. Not even the cashiers. I guess even at a used book store the drugstore/grocery store rule applies. I mean, self-check out is popular for a reason.
Joanne and I took our cousin Jasmine (she's visiting for the week) to McKay's after going on a tour of Bull Run (first time for all of us). I pointed Jasmine to the manga/anime/graphic novel section which was about 2-3 whole shelves-worth of material (she'd asked if I read manga, or if there was manga at my school library--apparently it's abundant at Norview HS). I bee-lined it to the DVD sets to check if My So-Called Life or Freaks and Geeks were on the shelves again (they weren't; things like that always appear when you're not looking for them).
The Little People, Big World set was still there. Grey's Anatomy. Dexter. New on the shelves was Breaking Bad: Seasons 1-3. I picked up the first season, $15. A classic horror movie (with directors and actors you hear about but never actually watch) set was only $4. I thought of Staci's November birthday and got it.
Right next to the DVD sets are the foreign language DVDs, and a cover of one particular DVD caught my eye. Joanne voiced what I was thinking: it was the same cover design of the Criterion Collection edition of Au Revoir Les Enfants. I did a paper on Au Revoir Les Enfants a couple of semesters ago for an IR through Film class. This one was called Lucien, Lacombe.
"It's good." I heard someone say somewhere behind me.
I wasn't planning to turn around. But then nobody had replied to the man's comment. So I turned around, waiting for someone to say something back.
A young-ish dude, he was talking to me and Joanne. Woops. 20-something, post-grad probably. Non-descript but good-looking with a green tee and neat blonde stubble.
I was instantly flattered, and then immediately a little embarrassed for the Relay for Life T-shirt, baggy light blue knee-length board shorts, and zip-up black boots I was wearing with my hair tied up because my neck was hot.
I asked if he'd seen Au Revoir, Les Enfants. A test, I guess you could say. And then he shot back with a whole mumbo jumbo which was a spot-on, almost academic or critic's description of Louis Malle's directorial style. WTF?!
Okay, mister, if you know Louis Malle so well, "Which one's better?"
"Well, they're just... different." A pretentious answer. A very critical answer. But not a sure answer.
"Huh."
I went back to sizing up whether or not $15 was worth getting this DVD. Joanne said it wasn't. Then she walked away, saying she was going to find Jasmine in the graphic novel section. She left me alone!
And I thought I was done. I was going to spend a couple more seconds deciding and digesting and then the guy (with my BACK to him) says if I like that kind of stuff, I might like this Finnish movie he just picks up from the section he's standing at. The comedy section? A movie in Finnish isn't in the foreign language section but in the regular comedy section? Inconceivable.
"Cool. Huh."
He puts it back but the Finnish and the fact that this guy keeps going makes me pick it up to consider it again. It was nominated for an Oscar.
I escaped back with my handful of DVDs and retreat to the manga/anime/graphic novel section.
I ended up buying everything (including the Finnish comedy) except for Breaking Bad, which I figured I could find easily enough online or borrow from Staci.
Later on in the car, Joanne says something about why people are put off by pretentiousness. And how it's just everyday practice in intellect, ambition, curiosity, courage, in a way, to not hide capabilities. I wasn't entirely convinced (I'm one of those who are put off by it, but I may practice it). We did agree, however, that this man was some kind of plant, a business idea implemented by the crafty geniuses behind the desks of McKay's. "Green Day's not real punk rock," Joanne suggests. "Try this." Haha!
Thinking about it more, well, 2 things. First, I'm more embarrrassed in retrospect because this guy was probably just trying to nudge his way to the foreign film section (and the Finnish comedy was as far as he could get). And 2) I wonder if Lacombe, Lucien was his?
Anyway in the span of writing this entry it has actually become more explicitly about Craigslist I'd planned: I've posted my first Craigslist ad, ever. It's in Missed Connections.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
In the market
I'm currently in the market for some lightly used rollerblades with secure fasteners (laces and buckles).
Joanne and I have been rollerblading since we were little, but since we outgrew our latest pair from Kid's World, we started sharing our Dad's from time to time. They were a little bit on the big side and the shifting inside the boot strained our feet, but if you strapped in really tight, they were usable even for 10-year-old feet.
They came out for the first time a several years a few weeks ago when I decided to take up skateboarding again. Joanne wanted to learn, so I let her use mine while I used our old friend's brother's board that came to us like 15 years ago.
We were all set, or thought we were, until the old board literally started to fall apart with me just standing on it over the carpet in our house. The rubber keeping the trucks secure onto the deck was cracking away on one side. And then the other side. And then both trucks on the deck were completely unsupported. Useless.
So as an alternative, we broke out the blades.
They worked for a while. But then my ankles started to hurt. And then I couldn't strap in securely because the rods of the fasteners were nudging themselves out of their hinge with every stride.
(Women's) Size 8 rollerblades, seeking
Patti was the first person who actively responded to my inquiries about the listed rollerblades. She had a Size 7 men's which could translate well into a size 8, 8.5 women's. One of the other rollerblade Craigslisters noted (generously) that you should always go a size up rather than size down.
Most Craigslisters, at least from my rare experience, are fine with email and text. But this woman who was trying to sell her men's blades was insistent on the phone. I emailed inquiries a couple days before leaving for Chicago, and she called me at least once every day in between that and actually leaving for Chicago. She left me voicemails and even apologized for having missed my call (what, me, making the first phone call? Don't think so). She called me the morning of our departure, saying that she would bring the blades with her to the daycare she worked at so that I could possibly pick them up before our 1:30 call time. Wow, thank you lady, but really, you shouldn't have. I emailed her, of course, telling her not to go through the trouble (I know I should have called). A few days later I got an email in my inbox saying that sure! she'll hold the blades until I got back!
I guess she really wanted to get rid of them.
I think she's since lost her patience with me, this go-getter, on-the-run middle-aged mom-type since I've come back to Chicago. Her emails are less excited and I haven't checked my phone but I'm pretty sure she didn't call me this time. She's definitely trying to convey in her emails that she doesn't go online often. I hope I've conveyed that I don't do phones often. I wish we could meet halfway, via text.
So now I'm set for her $25 blades and either $20 women's blades from somebody in North Arlington or $25 blades from somebody in Annandale, whoever contacts me first. Joanne hasn't expressed a desire for a new pair of rollerblades, but I don't want to go skating around town alone.
My first purchase
I semi-impulsively bought peach kefir at a cheese shop in NYC. I've seen kefir other places, too, but traveling in a different city just gave me an excuse to finally try it again since the real stuff in Russia in 2009. I was worried it would be like drinking peach-flavored buttermilk, but actually, it was like having a tangy, drinkable peach yogurt. I was hooked to the taste, to the protein content, the probiotics.
Researching it online when I got back home from NYC, I learned that you could make your own kefir using kefir culture in regular milk. It also multiplies, and although you could pay for a pack of dehydrated culture or buy it off the "kefir lady" online and get it delivered padded in a small jar of milk, many kefir culturers end up sharing their overgrown kefir grains, for free.
So I joined neighborhood sharing sites that I'd read about in Time magazine: SnapGoods and NeighborGoods. However, the sites were confusing and my local network was basically unpopulated. So, of course, back to Craigslist.
Kefir grains from the soccer mom, purchased for $5
Craigslist DC, to my surprise, had the cheapest and most abundant kefir grains even compared to hipster Richmond, hippie Charlottesville, and homemade Williamsburg.
The $5 kefir grains was categorized under "health/beauty products," was sparsely in lowercase, and the location was "gmu," George Mason University.
If you go on Youtube and search how to make kefir, most of what you'll get is some young adult or middle-aged man straining kefir from a plastic jug. They have a medium or muscly build, because it's likely they're athletes drinking kefir like a daily protein shake.
So of course I imagined some tall basketball player coming out of his Mason dorm wearing socks and adidas flipflops, scooping out some of his kefir grains straight from his bottle of prepared kefir. The texts he sent were short and to the point, some words shortened like kids tend to do these days (and my parents, I should have thought) and he never tried to call me. The meeting place was outside of McDonalds at University Mall; who else but an unsupervised college youth would make McDonalds right outside of a college campus a meeting place?
Well, a soccer mom who takes her kids to McDonalds for fries or a sundae after an exhausted Saturday's game and is worried about strangers coming to her children's house, that's who.
We pulled into the driveway in front of McDonalds at the same time. She was a "cool mom" with Rivers Cuomo glasses and I could have sworn her daughter was wearing a soccer uniform coming out of the passenger seat. Although I'd come prepared with my jar of milk that the basketball player could just spoon the kefir grains into, she'd come more prepared: I had a good half cup of the stuff, chilled in a glass jar and banded with foil.
I was pleasantly surprised and grateful! After effusive thanks (returned with a observant, neutral gaze) I sheepishly handed the woman my $5 payment, feeling really, really stupid and juvenile: the payment was $5 in dimes, sealed in a plastic ziplock sandwich bag. "...You can count it, if you want..."
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