Saint Saturnin de Lucian

This post is looooong delayed, but this experience was so good I still had to write about it.  

This summer I visited my wonderful French family, and my cousin planned an incredible excursion to Saint-Guilhem-le-Desert, a gorgeous town in the Hérault Valley.  What deserves mention here, though, is our stay in Le Mimosa in Saint-Saturnin-de-Lucian.  The hotel is amazing,  especially to those of us who aren't from Europe and aren't used to seeing ancient buildings as part of the day-to-day landscape.  The bottom photo shows the interior of our room.  The giant stone wall jutting out seemingly from nowhere is the remains of the old town walls that were just incorporated into the building of the hotel.  Why waste a good stone wall, right?  

Aside from the room, the hotel owners prepare some of the greatest meals I have ever eaten.  Even better when the food is so good, it was seemingly endless.  Thanks to the help from my cousin and the presence of the owner's brother (who spoke English really well), we got to enjoy great conversation with our meals as well.  

I never would have made it to Saint Saturnin without my dear cousin, but it's definitely a place I would return to.  Incredible food, incredible hotel and all within easy driving distance of incredible wineries.

Fog and Sun on a Sunday

A few minutes can be transformative.  Love you, Vancouver.

Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

I have had Cloud Atlas waiting for me for a long time, and I was definitely not disappointed.  I love David Mitchell and was tremendously impressed by the ambition of this novel.  I think I was even more impressed that it came before Black Swan Green, another favourite.  So often authors start small (i.e. with a traditional style narrative) and then feel they have to go 'big' and experimental.  Mitchell showed that traditional storytelling matters as much as time-spanning meditations on what it means to be human.

Glad I waited until I had time to read this book well - that is, with enough time to read big chunks of it in one sitting.  That way I was able to appreciate not just Mitchell's power with words but also his ability to weave disparate worlds together.

The East Side Culture Crawl - An arts weekend

I have talked before about things I love in my new city, but today brought an unprecedented level of admiration.  The East Side Culture Crawl is an incredible opportunity to see over 400 artists and designers in person with their work.  They have thrown open their studios (which is fantastic in and of itself), but in this city that I now call home, the neighbourhood was full of people walking around and visiting all the incredibly creative spaces.

Thanks, Vancouver, for being a city of people who care about such things..  Thanks, East Side Culture Crawl, for organising the event.  Thank you, artists, for making our city a better place to be.

Button Pushers - A rant

You know those big round buttons near doors?  They usually have a wheelchair on them and 'push' written on them.  They seem to have proliferated in my years outside of Canada so that now they are on doors of all types.  They are, I'm sure, a huge boon to people with any kind of physical impediment to entering and exiting through heavy doors.  These impediments might range from a disability to carrying heavy bags of groceries.  Parents with strollers, I am sure, love them.

Okay, benefits of the buttons is now established.

So why is everyone else using them?  Seriously.  Why does the guy exiting the building in front of me push the button and wait for the door to open for him?  He's probably 30 (at most), fit and heading off to work.  But he still pushes that button.  Why does the young woman use her fob to unlock the door and then push the button and stand there waiting for it to open?

The other day I finished working out and was in a bit of a rush, and the guy ahead of me (who had also just finished working out) pushed the button and we both had to stand there waiting for the door to open.  I almost ran into him because I was walking fast behind him.  I almost wish I had run into him so that I could have said, "Ooops, sorry, I thought you were going THROUGH the door."

The only reason I can think of (and I could be completely wrong) for so many people to be pushing the buttons is the generalized germophobia we all seem to be feeling.  When I asked a friend recently why she chose to push the button, that was her answer - "Germs!"  But that doesn't make any sense when you think about it.  Door or button, they have both been pawed by countless numbers of hands.  I usually open doors either with the back of my hand or my sleeve, but the big round buttons seem like they would be harder to do that with because of their placement height.  That is, they would be harder to avoid 'germy' contact with.

So what gives?  What's driving people unencumbered by injury, disability, children, or packages to stop opening doors under their own power?  Is it the feeling of control (though we are far more in control if we are actually opening the doors themselves)?  Is it laziness?  What gives???

Lynn Canyon - A frosty hike

These cold days brought crystal clear skies, so we headed up to Lynn Canyon all the way to Norvan Falls. Gorgeous day...cold hands but amazed by the forest and the mountains. 

Good Morning, Vancouver.

Earnest Ice Cream and A&W - Unlikely birds of a feather

Okay, to write about A&W and Earnest Ice Cream in the same post probably doesn't happen too often.  A&W, after all is a big corporate chain of fast food restaurants.  Earnest Ice Cream, on the other hand is basically producing ice cream more like an artisan would.  They make it in (delicious small batches) and sell locally.  They only have two stores, and growth is not their primary concern.

That said, I was shocked to find that they have a few things in common.  Let's start with the easy one of the two, Earnest.

Earnest is seriously some of the best ice cream I have ever had.  I am not one to spend five dollars on an ice cream cone easily, but this is worth it.  The range of flavours is incredible, and the quality of the ingredients is obvious with each lick.  The thing I rave about the most when I talk about Earnest, however, is their goal of being zero-waste.  The ice cream either comes in a cone or a real dish.  With a real spoon.  Even if you request a taste, you get it on real, metal spoon.  Not one of those ridiculous bio-degradable plastic jokes that are just a bit better than plastic.  Everything in the store is compostable; the garbage can has a sign over the mouth to stop you from throwing anything away because, if you got it in the store, you can compost it.  Quality and conscience plus local ownership and ingredients...You can't go wrong.  I love you, Earnest.  You are my number one choice when I indulge myself with dessert (which is not too often).

Then there is A&W.  I joked for a long time about going to A&W after seeing the commercials for Chubby Chicken.  My joking was based primarily on the name - Chubby Chicken - as it conjures odd images for me.  I don't often eat fast food, and when I do, it's not usually from a big chain.  One day, however, circumstances aligned just right and A&W was the best option for us to get a quick meal.

They offer a decent veggie burger and really good fries.  That's a prerequisite, but it gets better. [Before I go into detail, let me acknowledge that I know it's a big chain and chain eating is not something that should be a norm for anyone, but, hey, A&W deserves some big props here.  These are just the props, not a blind spot.]

They have stopped using beef produced with hormones or steroids.  Similarly, their chicken does the same AND skips antibiotics.  Their tomatoes are grown in greenhouses because it's more environmentally efficient.  Nice one, A&W.  

When I ate in the restaurant, I was shocked to get my fries in a metal basket, my drink in a real mug (not a throwaway cup), and my veggie burger with a simple paper wrapper (no clamshell thingy).  That doesn't even happen sometimes when you eat in a non-fast food restaurant.

Plus, A&W in Canada is actually CANADIAN OWNED.  Yes, it's true.  A&W in Canada is more Canadian than Tim Horton's, everyone.  Plus, since they are sourcing so many of their ingredients in Canada, this is really your most Canadian choice.

So, A&W is not perfect, but if circumstance ever make it the best choice, I will very happily (no guilty conscience) eat at A&W.  Good job, guys.  You may not be Earnest, but you earned my respect.

On the subject of dads and books...

Recently I told the somewhat embarrassing story of going to Lordco in Osoyoos to buy wiper blades.  That story prompted some reflection on my present and past and led to a story about my father.

In the meantime I have still been thinking about the novel Your Face in Mine by Jess Row.  The book is pretty memorable for quite a few reasons.  This book also has a 'dad' connection that is worth a little storytelling.  I got lucky with my own dad, but I also got lucky with my two fathers-in-law, and the book is emblematic of a tiny part of that.

If I walk into my in-laws apartment, I know with unwavering certainty that the coffee table will be covered with an assortment of thought-provoking books.  New and interesting, classic and unforgettable, it's all there.  My fathers-in-law being who they are, they usually encourage us to leave with at least one book.

It's one of those nebulous things that, simply by its existence, reassures and comforts me - something like a bowl of soup on a wet Vancouver afternoon.  It's nice to know that there will always be a pile of books there, that there will be people reading those books, and that someone will insist you take one away to read.

It's nice to know that the people you're stereotypically supposed to dread being around, love to talk to you about books, ideas, films, and plays.  They engage with the world and with you and crave new experiences...

As I'm writing this, I'm realising that I really don't have any point.  I'm not sure where I'm going with this other than to say I'm lucky.  Perhaps I'm just feeling sentimental about Dad and the season in general...

Whatever it is, I am glad to know those books will be there on the coffee table.  Thanks, Dads.

Alanis and Ironic - I LOVE the update

Out of My Element at Lordco (part 2): A Dad story

I wrote recently of the humbling experience of shopping for wiper blades at Lordco.  If you didn't read the other post, it basically came down to being relatively smart but not knowing how to do much of anything.  That's where I am now, but it wasn't always this way.  In fact, I could have turned out to be a pretty good guy to have around in the zombie apocalypse, but life had other plans.

I come from handy stock.  My dad, and it seems all the men before him, knew what they were doing with a toolbox.  My dad apprenticed early on and did all kinds of construction work in his early years. He worked on huge infrastructure projects, installing major machinery and, along the way, picking up a bunch of different skills.  Once he had a family, he left behind the vagaries of construction and the life of work camps in the bush for a steady office job.

That didn't stop him from doing physical work, though.  My parents bought a major fixer-upper when I was very young.  My dad fixed dry wall, painted, cleared pipes, and repaired wiring before we moved in.  The weekends of my childhood were filled with my dad working on the house to make it better.  He turned our unfinished basement into the second living room (but the one we actually used as opposed to the one upstairs).  He poured cement to fix the cracks in the masonry and the paving around the house.  He installed insulation in the walls and ceiling and added Tudor-like touches to the eaves of the house.  He planted trees, fixed fences, and even managed to put up a basketball hoop for me.

Somehow he even found time to help other people do work on their houses.  Friends and neighbours always knew my dad could and would help.  Trips to my grandmother's cottage were essentially work trips for my dad as he fixed everything that broke over the winter (which seemed to be a stunning amount of things).  While others saw the cottage as a way to get away from it all and relax, my dad knew it would be a lot of work.  Loving my grandmother (my mum's mum) as he did, I don't think he minded as long as she made him eggplant at least once.

In truth, it was pretty amazing, especially since he had little or no training in most of those areas.

I think even as a little kid I was kind of in awe of all the things he was constantly doing.  I started out just following him into the basement, watching and asking constant questions.  'What's that?'  "What does that do?'  'Where are you putting that?'  'What kind of glue is that?'

I was the shop assistant that basically didn't assist but just asked annoying questions.  It might have been to shut me up, but my dad eventually started giving me pieces of wood, extra nails, a hammer, whatever was lying around.  I happily started banging away at things.  Making things would be way too big a stretch, but I was doing things.  Then I got the best Christmas present of my life - my own tool set.  Not one of those little plastic things, but a real set of tools scaled down for smaller people.  I had a saw, clamps, a plane, a hammer, a level, hand drill...it was awesome.  Now I was hooked.  Every time my dad went down to the basement to work, I followed.  My dad showed my how to mark wood and cut straight.  Sometimes I even cut things for him and sanded them down after.  I had my own little corner of the work area with a hang board and everything.  I kept all my tools clean and put them away neatly at the end of every 'shift.'

I guess I was on my way to being handy, and then life intervened and threw a wrench in the works.  My parents separated (temporarily) and sold the house.  Though they eventually got back together, it was apartment living from then on.  No more work space, no scraps of wood, and no real projects.  I don't think my dad minded too much.  After all, his weekends actually became a time to relax instead of fix something around the house.  My mum was probably pleased too since they could finally do something together on the weekend.  I, however, was bumped off the track of becoming the handy guy who could fix or build something for you after the zombie apocalypse.

I had two more forays into the world of tools.  In high school I took wood shop and actually made some pretty good stuff.  A woman I brought home once was even shocked that I had made the cutting board my parents had.  It was pretty good.  That said, the B+ I got in shop meant that I wouldn't risk taking another class like it for fear of it messing up my grade point average.  Easier to take an academic class with tests and essays.  I could study for those.

Later on, when I returned to Toronto as an adult, I taught myself how to do all my own bike repairs.  I even collected a decent set of tools.  Once again though, my homes after that have all been apartments with no real work space.  If you asked me to repack the bottom bracket on my bike now, the first thing I would do is probably go look for a youtube video to figure out where to start.  Today I am probably best described as intelligently incompetent.  The woman at Lordco might not even credit me that much.

Now that I have started life on theBside, however, I am determined to get started on that path of being somewhat self-sufficient.  My first step is knots (something else my dad was damn good at).  I figure I can learn that while watching a movie.  We'll see.

Either way, I feel like I have a lot to live up to.  Coming up on three years since his death, my dad still gives me something to aspire to.

Writing Across the Curriculum: It doesn't have to be the domain of language arts, ya know?

Writing Across the Curriculum: We Can All be Writing Teachers

Whether we want to admit it or not, writing is still the basis of communication for almost all core academic subjects.  Today many teachers (and many of those who came before us) have done incredible work to create innovative projects that allow students to demonstrate learning using different media (think video, podcasts, book talks, pecha kucha), but they all have a basis in written communication.  A video project without a script is pretty much guaranteed to be a disaster.  An off the cuff pecha kucha will put an audience to sleep.

Then of course there are all those essays, lab reports, stories, blog posts, explanations of solutions to math problems, and exams; each one has a legitimate place in the student toolbox as they learn to communicate ideas, information and opinions.  And they all depend on the ability to write.  Even for those who dictate their work, it’s still writing - there’s just a device ‘hitting’ the keys instead of human fingers on a keyboard.

Writing instruction, however, remains primarily the domain of the Language Arts teacher (and occasionally the Social Studies teacher).  It’s not just the commas, periods and semicolons, but the organisation of ideas, the clarity of expression, and the use of language that fall, in most cases, to Language Arts.  The better students write, however, the more successful they will be in all subject areas.  Plus, imagine how much happier the science teachers will be with coherent lab reports that follow a solid organisational plan.  Or the math teachers who can actually make sense of the steps students describe in their explanations of problem solving.

So how do we make the teaching of writing a shared endeavour?  

• Share those rubrics!  We language arts teachers can start by sharing our writing rubrics with our colleagues in other departments.  Imagine the science teachers deciding to take just one column of a language arts rubric (say, writing organisation) and adding it to their lab report rubrics.  The teachers get a ready-made tool for assessing the skill, and students get reinforcement of a skill they are developing in another class.  
• Suggested tools: Google Drive is a super simple, free way of sharing rubrics between courses and teachers.  You can make them “View only’ if you want to and your colleagues can make a (digital) copy.  They can then use and edit that copy, perhaps by just copying a column (e.g. Language) to their own rubrics for something like a lab report.
• Invite teachers from other departments to anchoring sessions.  At our school we start and finish each year with a common writing assessment to determine individual and group writing needs.  Why should that meeting be open only to Language Arts teachers?  Bring in reps from other departments and have them weigh in on what our collective goals should be.  It gives them a voice and stake in writing instruction.  Perhaps most importantly, it reinforces the idea that writing is a team effort.
• Suggested digital tools: For this one, nothing beats a face-to-face meeting.  It’s the discussion that counts.  Sorry.
• Design some units that have crossover.  Maybe we’re emphasising sentence structure or language clarity in Language Arts.  Science teachers could work on lab reports in class, and we could use time in Language Arts to apply what we have been working on to peer edit them.  Or take an example like writing conventions.  In middle school, we often work towards building sentence sophistication.  Let’s say we do a mini-lesson on compound sentences (e.g. I multiplied the speed (42 km/hr) times the time (45 minutes or .75 hours), and the result was 31.5 km), and we share that with our fabulous math colleagues.  They could ask for and expect students to incorporate them into their problem solving explanations.
• Suggested digital tools: Google Drive could work for this to share ideas and resources, but if you really want to move towards integrated units, try creating an integrated digital space for your course or unit.  If your school is willing to pay for it, you could go with a Learning Management System (LMS) bursting with features like Haiku.  Haiku allows multiple teachers and student rosters and comes with built in discussion functions, dropbox space, and assessment tools (quizzes and grading).  Free alternatives include: Coursesites by Blackboard, edmodo, EasyClass, or Wikispaces.
• Writing celebrations and/or contests  Invite the other departments to write, share and judge.  It sends a huge message that the school culture embraces writing.
• Suggested digital tools: You could use any of the above (Coursesites by Blackboard, edmodo, EasyClass, Google Drive or Wikispaces) to take submissions, create polls/nominations, or collect comments on writing pieces. Invite parents to view as well.   For the writing celebration itself, try digital slideshows running during the day showcasing particularly elegant turns of phrase or short excerpts of bold prose running throughout the day in your library.  Consider author or reader interviews (with students) in iMovie running on your playlist in YouTube in the cafeteria or office.  
• Design integrated units that culminate in multi-disciplinary projects.  It was always a dream at our school to take one of our Humanities units (like Adaptation) and tie it into math and science.  We already looked at Adaptation from a social studies perspective and intertwined it with personal narrative writing and literature.  Why not take science (plant adaptations under different growing conditions, for example) and math (calculating growth rates given different variables) and weave those in as well?  The final result would be a multi-disciplinary project with instruction and assessment from all teachers involved.  
• Suggested digital tools: This one is ripe with possibility.  Think of something where students can combine writing, video, images, and graphics (just as examples).  In one day, students could write in Science, screencast in Math, present in English, and film in Social Studies.  Something like Google Sites would allow them to then combine all the elements of their multi-disciplinary projects in one place viewable by peers and teams of teachers.

These are, for the most part, baby steps towards integrating writing instruction and only intended as ideas.  When everyone teaches writing, everyone wins.  

Fuse at the VAG - An awesome evening

Last night, the Vancouver Art Gallery hosted Fuse, an evening of art, music, and dance.  It was a great opportunity to make seeing art a festive, fun event.  Kudos to the curators who planned this great event.  Who would imagine people lining up on a cold rainy night to get into an art gallery?

Nicely done.

Jess Row's Your Face in Mine - Remarkable in several ways

Your Face in Mine is a good novel.  It's the first novel I have read since starting life on #theBside here in Vancouver - which is an unusually long interval for me to go without reading a novel.  It was good to resume my reading life with a book that gives so much to think about.

Perhaps what strikes me the most about the book is that a quick scan of my search results for the title only gives the usual - a New York Times review (linked above), goodreads, amazon, Slate, the Los Angeles Times, etc.  Given the the theme and content of Jess Row's book, it seems amazing that the book didn't make the news.  Not just the news of book reviews and book clubs, but the news-news, the talking head and panel shows.

The book was published in 2014, and the Rachel Dolezal story broke in June 2015.  Remember her?  She was the white woman who 'became' an African American woman, even going so far as to be a leader for the NAACP.  Her professional life fell apart when her parents spoke out to say that, yes, their daughter was white.  As details emerged, it became clear that Dolezal had 'revised and edited' just about every aspect of her personal story.  Some elements were deleted, others added, and a host of others were like Jack's magic beans.  They became seeds for something much larger than life.

When the story broke, it consumed the mainstream media for a brief period.  There were those who were simply fascinated, and then there were those who truly found the issues raised to be both intellectually and emotionally important.  What is identity?  If race is basically a social construct, are genetics really that important?  Is it racist to appropriate someone's culture?

With all the attention her story garnered, I still can't believe that Jess Row and his novel Your Face in Mine didn't somehow leap to the fore of the media storm.  Why?  Okay, I deliberately postponed making the connection.  Row wrote a novel that one would think would have been written immediately after the Dolezal 'scandal'.  Instead, he wrote a novel about a white, Jewish man who, after a childhood and adolescence of 'racial dysphoria' seeks out the medical treatments necessary to become an African American man.

Now this book could have been nothing but a story revolving around the gimmick of adopting another racial identity.  But there really isn't anything gimmicky about the book.  Row's novel is serious, just as his character, Martin, is serious about the idea that he was basically born in the wrong body.  It's a serious literary look at identity, at who we are and what we choose to be.

Martin, a stalwart capitalist, sees choice as the new frontier of identity.  Now that medicine (in the novel) has unlocked the process by which we can become what we believe we are, a huge new market awaits.  As part of his marketing strategy, Martin hires Kelly, the one connection to his past identity, to be his putative biographer and tell his story of disconnection, discovery, and transformation.

Kelly, weighed down by his own personal story of loss, is himself a man of complicated identity.  A fluent Mandarin speaker with a now dead Chinese wife and child, he is adrift and alone.  It's partly testament to Row's writing, that I didn't connect Kelly's experience to the idea of identity at all for at least half the novel.  He is, at first, just a very sad man trying to create some kind of forward momentum for his life.  As things unfold, however, Row begins to show how a sense of belonging is as much a part of identity (racial or otherwise) as anything else.

Like I said, it's a good book.  I'm glad it didn't become popular because of Rachel Dolezal, but I am surprised that it didn't get more attention.  After all, Row actually took the time to write a thoughtful novel that examines not only the concept of racial identity but what it means to all of us to be part of something larger than us.  And he did it all before Rachel Dolezal's story broke.

I can't help but wonder if she has read it.

Out of my element at Lordco

To begin this post, let me say that I am a reasonably competent and intelligent person.  I have been successful at most things I have tried.  When I have found skills or tasks difficult, I have generally put in the time and effort to figure out how to do them passably well.  Some of those things were quite difficult.  Most of my colleagues in my career have considered me to be good at the things I do.

That said, there are some ENORMOUS gaps in my skills.  If the zombie apocalypse occurred, I doubt I would be anyone's first pick to join their community of survival refugees.  I might be in demand if people wanted a good conversationalist or a good storyteller.  After all, I am well read and can talk about everything from literature to government and from current ideas in science to innovative agricultural techniques for our climate changing world.   I'm not completely helpless either.  I love solo camping and can take care of myself reasonably well out in the wilderness.

But ask me to repair your water pump and I won't really be able to help you.  Change the oil on your car?  Sorry.  Catch your fish, gut it and clean it?  Give me a manual and I might be able to figure it out, but otherwise we would all go hungry.

So it was with great trepidation that I walked into Lordco, an auto parts store in Osoyoos last week. To be honest, even the name scared the hell out of me.  LORDco?  The name has nothing to do with religion (just a combination of the two founders' last names), but it just conjures up this incredibly intimidating image of hardcore Christians quizzing me about things like fuel injectors and venial sins. Talk about being out of one's element.  

We were driving back from the Okanagan and had just left when we realised that the windshield wiper blade was broken.  It was a drizzling, grey day and we would be driving through some areas that could get snow, so we stopped in Osoyoos to pick up a wiper blade.  At first I was insistent that I could just drive back with one (since the broken blade was on the passenger side), but humiliation was trumped by my desire to get us back home safely.  As soon as I parked, I braced myself for a humbling experience.

My nemesis

For someone like me, walking into an auto parts store is akin to taking a trip to another country.  If there were passport checks, I am pretty sure they wouldn't let me in.  I know more or less what everything is, but I don't know what to do with any of it.  I said (out loud), "Brace yourself for a humiliating experience."  I took a quick pass through the store and, not finding the wiper blades, went up to the cash register.  There was an older woman wearing a witch's hat, but she was busy so a young woman called us over.  Damn.

Just to establish the situation clearly, I said, "I am probably your most ignorant customer, but I need wiper blades."  She looked at me completely stone faced and then asked, "What size?"  Exactly what I had been dreading.

"Umm, I don't know.  Do they go by make and model of the car or something?"

"No."

Okay, now I was stuck and kind of just stood there going 'hmmm' with a sheepish smile on my face. For some reason she suddenly softened and took us over to the wiper blades and helped me choose a pair.  Maybe she remembered that time in elementary school when she had trouble figuring out how to solve a math problem, and the teacher helped her through it...whatever it was, she went from incredulous at my stupidity to quite helpful.  I had the broken blade so we could quickly determine the size, but the connection was now the problem.  I had no idea.  I meekly asked if she could take a look at the car, but she said she wasn't really allowed to do that (which I can understand).  She seemed to be taking pity on my stupidity and led us to the cash register saying that if they didn't work, we could return them.  We walked out with me mumbling, "God, I hope that was the hardest part."

It wasn't.

After I paid I moved the car to the centre of the parking lot where no one from the store could hope to see me fiddling around with the wipers.  I like to try and fail in private.  In fact, I don't mind trying and failing repeatedly as long as I don't have an audience for it.  The package had no written directions.  Instead it was the diagrams intended I suppose to be 'universal'.  The problem with these 'universal' directions is that there is no 'if this happens, do this' kind of thing.  Universal directions basically suck.  For everyone in the universe.

Anyway, the directions showed the blade and a little connector that came in a small box inside the main packaging.  In the diagrams, it showed (or at least it seemed to) the connector fitting inside the wiper blade and then the hook of the windshield wiper arm (the part actually permanently attached to the car that moves back and forth) fitting into that connector.  I fiddled and fiddled and came to the conclusion that the hook from the wiper arm did not fit into the connector.  It was too wide.

This meant another humiliating trip into the store.  If we hadn't had a 5 hour drive ahead of us, I probably would have spent at least an hour in the lot trying to figure it out on my own.  As it was, I walked back in wiper blades in hand.  The same young woman was waiting for us.  I started with, "Your most incompetent customer of the day is back."  This self-deprecating but true opener was meant to soften her up and make her sympathetic, but I got absolutely no reaction.  I explained how the blades didn't fit.  In my mind, she was looking at me vaguely sympathetically but thinking, 'What kind of idiot can't change wiper blades?'

She was willing to take the blades back but didn't seem to really know what to do with me.  "Let me get my manager.  Hold on a second."

He came out a moment later and asked me to describe the problem.  He asked me if the 'j-hook' didn't just slip into the wiper.  In my defence, this is an important illustrative moment.  I knew instinctively what the j-hook was (so I'm not totally incompetent - only partly so); I just could not get the j-hook into the connector.  Thanks to the gods of Lordco, he offered to take a look (thank you!!!) and came out with me.

As you might guess from the situation - especially if you have ever installed a wiper blade - it took him all of three seconds.  What was the great mystery that had eluded me for fifteen full minutes?  I didn't need the connector.  The 'universal' directions had misled me.  In the case of our car, the blade attached directly to the wiper arm.  Vaguely humiliated but very appreciative, I thanked the manager profusely and the woman from the register.  Though she could have massaged my ego a bit more, she was helpful.

As it happened, there was no rain or snow for the rest of the drive.  In fact, we ended up driving through a gorgeous sun-filled fall day.  I saved that second wiper blade change until today.  I had some time and, most importantly, some privacy and went outside to examine the car.  I took a look at the recently replaced blade, examined how it fit, went over to the driver side and quickly removed the old blade.  A few minutes of wiggling and another glance at the new blade and how it fit, and it was done.  No problems.

So you see, I may not be the kind of person you need in a zombie apocalypse, but I'm not a complete idiot.