tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337546642024-03-13T08:03:42.356-07:00Leesburg JournalKatehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05525598322822559576noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33754664.post-18967877488029476492010-11-23T13:37:00.000-08:002010-11-23T13:44:13.340-08:00Leesburg Essay 16: The I Must Be Middle-Aged Issue<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I know now why “they” say that as people get older, they feel younger inside their own heads than their chronological age. This was brought home to me recently as I was reading a news article describing the background of a Greek government official. The article noted that this particular guy had been in college in the ’80s. My automatic thought was something like: ”…that long ago—wow.” And then I thought, “Hey, wait a minute! I went to college in the ‘80s!” How delusional can one be?</i><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Leesburg has been making halting steps beyond the typical fast-food, chain, and Italian options of a small-town restaurant environment. One of latest entries is “Cajun Experience,” which specializes in New Orleans cuisine. George and I went to lunch there one day (now that both kids are in school all day, we can sometimes go out to lunch like normal people do). It was almost as good as the food we had in New Orleans, although George felt the bread on the shrimp “po boy” sandwiches should have been much fresher. Beignets come out hot and drowned in powdered sugar. They had authentic beer, coffee, and music to complete the ambience. We would definitely go again. To New Orleans, for sure, or maybe just down the street. Nora has mentioned New Orleans a number of times since we were there and says she wants to go back, but she hasn’t yet been able to tell me why it made such a big impression on her. It was the same way with Bar Harbor, Maine, but in that case I think it had something to do with the souvenir shop at which she got the flip flops that changed color in the sun. Baxter ate them soon after, and she really has never gotten over it. </span><br />
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</span></div>Early this summer I managed to catch a number of the World Cup matches, and I have to say that my favorite thing about the whole competition was the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/10566287.stm">psychic German octopus that correctly predicted the outcome of a number of the games</a>. George doesn’t care about the World Cup, to be sure, but he is a true believer in the genius of octopuses. As I’ve noted in the past, he loves it when animals get the better of people. The editor’s note in a recent issue of <i>Cook’s Illustrated</i> contained such a laugh-out-loud kind of story, in which Christopher Kimball wrote about man vs. deer in a scenario that should send chills through the heart of any hunter.<br />
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<blockquote><b>Buck Bites Back</b></blockquote><blockquote><i>by Christopher Kimball </i>(from the July/August 2010 issue of <i>Cook’s Illustrated</i>—with apologies to the author for the excerpt!)</blockquote><blockquote>Over the years, a few of you have written in to say that my hunting stories are out of place in a cooking magazine. I won’t rehash my vigorous defense of this activity, but instead I offer the following narrative, told by one of our Vermont neighbors, Ryan Brown, in which the hunter becomes the hunted. I will let you judge its veracity.</blockquote><blockquote>“I had this idea that I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it up on corn for a couple of weeks, then shoot and eat it. The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that, since they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have much fear of me when we are there—a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the feed while I am in the back of the truck—it should not be difficult to rope one, get up to it and toss a bag over its head (to calm it down), then hogtie it and transport it home.</blockquote><blockquote>“I filled the cattle feeder, then hid down at the end with my rope. The cattle, having seen the roping thing before, stayed well back; they were not having any of it. After about 20 minutes, three deer showed up. I picked out a likely-looking young buck, stepped out from the end of the feeder, and threw my rope. He just stood and stared.</blockquote><blockquote>“I wrapped the rope around my waist and twisted the end so I would have a good hold. The deer just stood transfixed, although it appeared to be mildly concerned about the whole rope situation. I took a step toward it; it took a step away. I put a little tension on the rope and then received an education.</blockquote><blockquote>“The first thing I learned is that, although a deer may just stand there looking at you funny while you rope it, it is spurred to action when you start pulling.</blockquote><blockquote>“That deer exploded.</blockquote><blockquote>“The second thing I learned is that pound for pound, a deer is a lot stronger than a cow or a colt. A cow or a colt in that weight range I could fight down with a rope, and some dignity. A deer? Not a chance. It ran and bucked and twisted and pulled. There was no controlling it and certainly no getting closer. As it jerked me off my feet and started dragging me across the ground, it occurred to me that having a deer on a rope was not nearly as good an idea as I had originally imagined. The only upside is that they do not have as much stamina as many other animals.</blockquote><blockquote>“A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me when I managed to get up. It took me a few minutes to realize this, since I was blinded by the blood flowing out of the large gash in my head. (I had cleverly arrested the deer’s momentum by bracing my head against various large rocks as it dragged me across the ground.) At that point, I had lost my taste for corn-fed venison. I just wanted to get my rope back and go home.</blockquote><blockquote>“I figured if I just let the buck go with the rope hanging around its neck, it would likely die a slow and painful death. I recognized there was a tiny chance that I shared some minuscule amount of responsibility for the situation, so it was up to me to find a solution. I managed to get it positioned between my truck and the feeder—a little trap I had set beforehand, much like a squeeze chute. I started moving up so I could get my rope back.</blockquote><blockquote>“Did you know that deer bite? They do! I never in a million years would have considered this possibility, so I was surprised when the deer grabbed hold of my wrist with its teeth. Now, when a deer bites you, it is not like being bit by a horse: it bites and then lets go. A deer holds on and shakes its head—like a pit bull.</blockquote><blockquote>“Thinking back on it, I guess that the proper thing to do at that point would have been to freeze and draw back slowly. Instead, I screeched and shook my arm like it was on fire. My method was ineffective. While I kept it busy (allowing the buck to tear mercilessly at my right arm), I reached up with my left hand and pulled the rope loose. That was when I got my final lesson in deer behavior for the day.</blockquote><blockquote>“Rearing up on their back feet, deer will strike at your head and shoulders with their front feet, which are surprisingly sharp. I learned a long time ago that, when an animal—like a horse—strikes at you with its hooves, the best thing to do is try to make a loud noise and move aggressively toward the animal. This will usually cause it to back down so that you can escape.</blockquote><blockquote>“However, this was not a horse, so I surmised that this strategy would not work. In the course of a millisecond, I devised a different strategy.</blockquote><blockquote>“I screamed like a 5-year-old girl, turned, and ran.</blockquote><blockquote>“Now, the reason I had always been told not to try to turn and run from a horse is that there is a good chance that it will hit you in the back of the head. As I quickly learned, horses and deer do, indeed, have a lot in common. The second I turned to run, the buck struck me in the back of the head, knocking me down.</blockquote><blockquote>“But when a deer gets the upper hand, it does not immediately leave. I suspect it does not recognize that the danger has passed. Instead, it jumps up and down on your back while you lie there, begging for mercy, covering your head.</blockquote><blockquote>“I managed to crawl under the truck, and the deer finally went away.</blockquote><blockquote>“So now I know why people go deer hunting with a rifle with a scope. Deer may appear cute and docile, but when provoked, they are merciless killers.”</blockquote><br />
Speaking of nature getting the best of man, some men build “man caves” filled with—who knows? Maybe free weights, a flat panel TV, beer, and <i>Maxim</i> magazine. Places where they can escape from presumably shrill and annoying women and only sometimes male offspring. Well, instead of a man cave, I realized recently that George has built himself a nature sanctuary on our deck where he can contemplate birds, spiders, rodents and the stars through his telescope. After finishing his work rebuilding the deck, he installed a bunch of bird feeders—one regular, one “squirrel-proof,” one just for finches, and one for hummingbirds. This last proved surprising: just as George threatened to remove the hummingbird feeder because of seeming disinterest by hummingbirds, the birds moved in. They’re very amusing to watch as they suspend themselves in midair and stare at you. All the birds—hummingbirds and others—tend to nest in the big evergreens that line our back fence and then pop over for a snack. Baxter also enjoys the nature sanctuary, as he believes it’s his job to catch the squirrels that hang upside on the feeders. Sometimes George removes his collar so that Baxter can make a quieter attempt at catching them. Further afield, there have been quite a number of vultures around, and George believes he saw an owl in our backyard on a recent afternoon (although he still is unable to explain what the owl would be doing out during the day).<br />
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This summer was unbearably hot. We had so many days that were in the upper 90s or 100-plus that, looking back, we never seemed to get much relief. We had a few days of cooler temperatures during August, but as I write this paragraph on the first day of fall, the temperature has again shot up to the upper 90s. All this after our backbreaking winter (mostly so because this area is just not equipped to handle that much snow). To add to the fun, one day in August we had a real earthquake. It came very early in the morning, just after 5:00 a.m., and George—who was shaving at the time and was grateful he didn’t accidentally cut his throat—was convinced that it couldn’t be an earthquake. I was convinced that it was, however, because what else would make the house shake when it wasn’t storming? Maybe a power plant explosion or the crash of a big airplane, <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/local-breaking-news/dc/mild-earthquake-felt-across-re.html?hpid=topnews">but my bet was on earthquake</a>. Supposedly animals sense when such things are coming but Baxter was busy dreaming about squirrels and made not a squeak. I bet the squirrels themselves ran and hid, though.<br />
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Our peach tree clearly has some sort of disease, probably not helped by the extreme temperatures this summer. Even so, I believe the peaches that were on the tree earlier in the summer and nearing some stage of ripening were stolen. Not by wild animals getting the best of me as a gardener, mind you, but animals of the two-legged variety. One day we stepped outside and found that the tree had been picked clean. George thought that it had to be squirrels; I made the case for people. Of course there was no resolution here. Then a few weeks later I caught an article in the local paper that said that the Master Gardener Demonstration Gardens at Ida Lee Recreation Center in Leesburg had had all of their fruit trees picked clean by a peach burglar (who knew such people existed??). This was especially unfortunate as the gardeners were planning to donate the fruit to Interfaith Relief. A major piece of evidence as reported in the local paper echoed what we found in our own backyard: “…there were no hoof marks under the trees, no marks on the limbs, and no fruit lying on the ground as there would have been had the animals been pulling at the fruit and branches.” Kind of creepy, don’t you think?<br />
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We did have a big respite from the summer heat on our trip to Lake Placid. I believe that the ambient temperature dropped about 20 degrees from northern Virginia to upstate New York. Having never been to Lake Placid, I was stuck with this image from the horror movie <i>Lake Placid</i>—which George so helpfully brought up before we went—of this grisly hand coming up out of the dark water. No such hand was in sight during our trip, luckily. We took a boat trip around Lake Placid itself (our fabulous hotel was on Mirror Lake, right next door) and took a couple of longish hikes. For the first time, Nora hiked without complaining. The lake water was pretty chilly (75 degrees or so) so I ended up being the only one who went in all the way. I felt I could handle it because I survived Girl Scout camp at Saranac Lake (one of Lake Placid’s neighbors) and a number of summer trips to Washington Lake in New Hampshire. Neither place was notable for its balmy water temperature, even in August. The hotel had a great indoor pool in addition to its lakeside beach.<br />
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Because of scheduling conflicts, Alexander is not playing soccer this fall, so we told him he would need to get his exercise in other ways. In addition to the riding his “ripstick” (a hinged, two-wheeled skateboard-like thing that takes quite a bit of balance to maneuver) and playing various sorts of sports with his friends in the cul-de-sac, he and George have been on a couple of grueling bike rides—from Leesburg to Purcellville and back, which is just over 27 miles. Alexander likes these rides in part because they stop for lunch at a smoothie place in Purcellville and get smoothies and roast beef & wasabi sandwiches for lunch. And I had a heartwarming moment at an afternoon party recently when Alexander said, bravely given that our fanatical neighbors were circling around, “I hate the Redskins!” That’s my boy! Actually, I gave him permission to be a Redskins fan because he is from here, after all—I thought this was very big of me.<br />
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<b>Media Update</b><br />
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We have begun using our new cell phones (yes, the cell phone I have trouble answering) for GPS service, rather than our Garmin GPS. Using the phones rather than the Garmin means one fewer device to drag with us in the car, but what’s definitely missing is Aussie Karen. Aussie Karen is the Australian actress who provides the navigation prompts on Garmin’s devices. When you get your GPS, you have a choice of voices, and George quickly settled on Aussie Karen. I believe he had a crush on her. The kids just liked it when she would say “take ramp ahead” and it sounded to them just like “take Grandpa head.”<br />
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<b>Audiobooks</b><br />
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<i>Bridge of Sighs, </i>by Richard Russo. <i>Bridge of Sighs</i> concerns the family life of kids growing up in a mill town in upstate New York in the middle of the last century, particularly two kids destined to remain in the town and another one who eventually leaves and moves overseas. The book is told loosely through the memories of the main character, Louis Lynch. The end was—as is so often the case—unsatisfying, but the rest was very engaging and I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in stories about small town America.<br />
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<i>Vanity Fair,</i> by William Makepeace Thackery. This is a rather long novel written a long time ago about people in extremely different circumstances from those of the America of today, but, even though fiction, it shows once again that you can plop people down in different circumstances, different eras, and different countries and their thoughts and reactions will be much the same. I liked the novel, although I found most of the characters tiresome, to say the least.<br />
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<i>Push (Precious),</i> by Sapphire. This short, extremely graphic novel rings so true in parts that I had to look it up on Google to see if the author was writing her memoires, or, if not, if she had based the book on someone she knew. As it turns out, the author knew people who had had these kinds of experiences, but the book itself is fiction. The simple description is that the book traces the inner life of a severely overweight black teenager in Harlem who has suffered terrible abuse and neglect at the hands of her parents. She finds her way into an alternative school and finally, at age 16, begins to learn to read and write. This novel was made into a movie that received a lot of praise and the actress Mo’Nique won an Oscar for portraying the girl’s horrific mother.<br />
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<b>Books with Pages to Turn</b><br />
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<i>Eat, Pray, Love, </i>by Elizabeth Gilbert, which I borrowed from my mother before the furor over the movie started up. This book is hilarious and tragic in equal parts. For those of you who have managed to avoid it thus far, it contains the writer’s memoires of travels to Italy (eat), India (pray), and Indonesia (love) following a devastating divorce. The book is structured along the lines of numbers that are considered particularly auspicious in yoga philosophy, which in itself warmed me toward it. I didn’t expect that I would find such profound things in a book with such a premise, but if I had had a pencil available at the time, I certainly would have done some underlining. For example, the author describes a psychologist friend of hers who was to begin counseling Cambodian refugees. The author catalogues some of the true horrors that those people would have experienced, and then notes that her friend felt herself to be possibly inadequate to be counseling them about what she assumed would be terribly traumatic experiences. What the friend found instead was that these refugees wanted to talk about seemingly mundane and everyday matters like the relationship they’d started with someone who was on the boat with them. Again, people in different circumstances react as humans do.<br />
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<i>A Series of Unfortunate Events</i> (“Book the First” through “Book the Thirteenth”), by Lemony Snicket. Nora and I have been working our way through this children’s series for most of the summer and now into the fall (George and Alexander are just ahead of us and have almost finished the series). I am a big fan of the <i>Harry Potter</i> series, in which Nora and I are up to book four of seven, but this series is in some ways more remarkable. The writing is very sophisticated yet completely accessible for children. The farcical situations remind me of the best Monty Python material. Adults are mostly shown up to be fools in a variety of clever and novel ways. The books are definitely worth reading, whether you purport to be an adult or a child.<br />
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<b>Television</b><br />
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<i>Rubicon.</i> George claims that this new AMC series, about a group of quirky analysts at secret government agency masquerading as a national-security think tank, more accurately portrays what real CIA analysts do than most movies or TV shows about the intelligence community. We stayed tuned in after the first couple of meandering episodes in the hopes that the plot would eventually go somewhere; in the beginning it wandered around in a <i>Lost</i> sort of way. Unfortunately, the characters, although quirky, are not as engaging as those in <i>Lost,</i> and it’s set in a office building somewhere around NYC rather than in Hawaii (well okay, <i>Lost</i> wasn’t really set in Hawaii), so there the similarities end. As the season finishes, however, they seem to have sharpened their plot focus and begun to move things along.<br />
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We continue to enjoy<i> Mad Men,</i> although as we’ve settled into it, the plot takes on much more importance as the quirky 1960’s details become less shocking. As we’ve learned a lot more about the characters we’ve graduated to discussing their problems and motivations rather than simply speculating about whether people really drank that much at work and could still function. An <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/08/AR2010100802662.html?hpid=opinionsbox1">interesting editorial</a> from the <i>Washington Post</i> argues that<i> Mad Men</i> is an extremely accurate portrayal of the times.<br />
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And in the category of catching up, George and I are up to Season 5 of <i>The Office</i> on DVD, a show which is appalling and heartwarming at the same time. First of all, I love Steve Carell, who plays the clueless boss of a Scranton, Pennsylvania paper company. The love story between characters Jim and Pam is painfully real and played perfectly off the absurd things going on in the rest of the story. Many of these situations would be familiar to anyone who’s ever worked in a modern office environment, such as staff birthday parties, sexual harassment training, distribution of parking spaces, and on and on. My favorite character is Dwight Schrute, a salesman who is clearly a lunatic and completely rational at the same time. The worrying thing is how many of Dwight’s personality traits remind me of George. Hmmmm…<br />
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<b>Movies</b><br />
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<i>The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.</i> I found the first part of this movie—in which an old man is born in a half-baby/half-old-man state, from which he proceeds to get younger—extremely disturbing. I hate babies that are made to look like old men or vice versa. The freakish baby “grows up” to be Brad Pitt and then Cate Blanchett eventually shows up, so that makes it better for a while. It reminded me somehow of Forrest Gump, as this character floats through life observing all sorts of historical nonsense. I guess I liked it despite all of my criticisms, but I’ll never get the picture of Brad-Pitt-as-old-man/baby out of my head.<br />
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<i>Vicky Cristina Barcelona.</i> The real star of this Woody Allen film that purports to star, among others, Penelope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson (George sat near her on a flight once last year and I believe has been a bit enamored of her ever since) is Spain itself. The movie is a very engaging romantic comedy, and I’d happily watch it again, but what it really does is serve as one big travel advertisement. I immediately wanted to hop on a plane to fly over for an extended stay in some small Spanish towns.<br />
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<i>Frost/Nixon. </i>George and I both really enjoyed this one, which supposedly tells the backstory to the famous David Frost/Richard Nixon interviews that aired a few years after Nixon left office in disgrace. We both would like to see the original interviews, as the movie portrays the two in the end as basically battling one another for supremacy. The way the questions and answers play out (i.e., who’s on top) changes as they work their way through the hours of tape. The actors are very good, and I liked the ‘70s atmospherics.<br />
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<b>In Addition</b><br />
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<i>New York</i> magazine. For those of you unfortunates who did not spend your formative years in a suburb of New York City, <i>New York</i> magazine was during my childhood the chronicler of the cool and the shocking in city life. It taught me about city politics, arts, trends, the importance of a good restaurant review, and to my endless amusement, personal ads, of which the back pages were filled. The most important thing I learned, though, was that the Kennedy family represented the apex of American life. This was the era when John Jr. was thought simply fabulous and Jackie O. had escaped the family by marrying Aristotle Onassis and wearing really big sunglasses. They were worshipped as gods. The more I read about them, the more inexplicable I found this. I guess maybe had I been born in 1956 rather than 1966 I may have thought differently, but this was the ‘70s and ‘80s and it seemed to me that the bloom was off the rose, despite the relentless fawning of the media. One of my grandmothers used to get<i> Life</i> magazine and <i>The Saturday Evening Post,</i> both of which were definitely worth perusing, but neither was nearly as fascinating as<i> New York.</i><br />
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The next matter has only a glancing relationship to media, but it’s really an Internet-based research update, so I thought I’d include it here. It turns out that the history textbooks distributed to fourth graders in Virginia (i.e., Alexander and his ilk) contain certain misstatements about the Civil War—including the “fact” that thousands of black soldiers fought for the South—that were put in there by the author after she “verified” the facts on Google, which pointed her to a link to a website maintained by the Sons of the Confederate Veterans and other revisionist groups. The Sons of Confederate Veterans maintains that slavery was not the cause of the Civil War—the struggle was one primarily over preserving states’ rights and individual freedom and liberty. In any case, because of her misstatement, all the textbooks had to be collected for correction. This scandal has exposed the soft underbelly of textbook production in Virginia, as the author in question is not even a historian, and the “review committee” is pretty weak. Couldn’t they have found some starving history grad student somewhere in Virginia to act as a fact checker?<br />
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Once again this summer, a flock of Donaldsons were gathered around the TV for a tennis match, this time in Knoxville watching the “end” of the Wimbledon match that wouldn’t end. These poor guys played on and on and on and we kept watching and watching and watching as they’d go from deuce to advantage and back to deuce. And then the guy who ultimately won the match lost in the next round. A <a href="http://blog.oregonlive.com/tennis/2010/06/wimbledon_john_isner_nicolas_mahut_and_the_death_of_tennis.html">discussion of it here</a> takes the point of view that the match was boring, which I have to agree was probably true.<br />
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Last year I followed pro football with the help of the ESPN Podcast called “Football Today,” hosted by former pro scout Jeremy Green, the son of former NFL coach Dennis Green. By the time the 2010 Superbowl rolled around, however, I was sick of his antics, which had seemed to escalate over the course of the season and so I just deleted the Podcast from my list on iTunes. What I discovered over the summer, weirdly with no official comment from ESPN itself, was that Jeremy Green was arrested in July both for possession of illegal drugs and—something that is truly disturbing considering that he has (I believe) four children and had just recently remarried—for possession of child pornography. And to think that I’d listened to hours of this guy talking about football over the course of the year. YUCK. In the end, ESPN has found a replacement in Ross Tucker, a former player, who is beginning to grow on me, and thus I’ve tentatively taken up listening again. I can only imagine what the atmosphere is at ESPN that the network continues to breed these weird scandals with its personnel. It’s almost as though the analysts must mirror the scandals that so often engulf the sports stars they cover.<br />
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<b>Domesticated Animal Update</b><br />
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Animals like schedules and routines, as those among you who are pet owners have no doubt observed. Just after school started I read an article somewhere that noted that many pets get depressed when school starts again, in part because when the kids are home from school many pets get more attention. Baxter was absolutely the opposite. He was depressed all summer, even stopped eating his meals. Some of it could have been the heat, but all I know was that when school started Baxter started eating again. There’s a Staples commercial I love, one where a Dad is dancing through the aisles at Staples, presumably buying school supplies, kids standing nearby looking disgruntled while the song “It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year” plays in the background (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPIIMbG9R4w">view it for yourself</a>). All I know is that no one was happier than Baxter to see Alexander downstairs at 7:30 in the morning the day after Labor Day ready to feed him. He pranced off to the corner to see the bus arrive and sniff all the kids and his dog friends. He is not necessarily thrilled, however, that I have begun brushing his teeth upon the recommendation of the vet.<br />
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When we saw Cheryl, Hon and Annaliese in Knoxville this summer, Cheryl had with her a brochure concerning horse breeding. More specifically, this was a brochure that contained glossy pictures and information regarding horses that were being offered up for stud services. The thing that I found absolutely fascinating about this, given that I know nothing about equine industries, is that in order to breed your horse, the STUD NEED NOT EVEN BE PRESENT. I believe you pay a chunk of cash and you receive in the mail (hopefully packed in ice) a syringe containing the necessary material. But what if you can’t…er…administer it properly? There goes thousands of dollars. I imagine someone has thought of this and there are probably people who are experienced in equine in-vitro fertilization, but can you imagine how stupid you’d feel???<br />
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While we were all together in Knoxville this summer, Cheryl’s cat Max died. She had had him for such a long time; I have pictures of him from way back when Cheryl lived in an apartment in North Bergen, New Jersey. I know animals get old, and I guess he must have been about 15 or so and had a variety of health problems, but it seems weird to me that poor Max is gone. In tribute, I enclose my pictures of him here:<br />
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<b>Politics Update</b><br />
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In the category of how silly can things get when a president bends over backwards to please everyone except his own countrymen, check out <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/08/AR2010070804277.html?wprss=rss_opinions">this column by Charles Krauthammer regarding moral equivalence</a>.<br />
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George and I both read excerpts from <a href="http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/">the <i>Washington Post’s</i> big series on the intelligence system in the U.S.</a> This was set up to be, I imagine, the kind of series that brings a newspaper a Pulitzer prize. I read the first installment and was bored to death. It was more like a list of offices and organizations than any kind of analysis, ironically, and contained no information on the overall usefulness to policymakers of the kind of intelligence that is produced by this unwieldy system. For example, does the President’s Daily Brief meet his needs? Has the production of it become so bogged down in new levels of bureaucracy that it has ceased to function as intended? Has some other mechanism by necessity taken its place? In any case, George and I both liked <a href="http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/76632/richard-posner-top-secret-america-pulitzerfail">this piece by Richard Posner</a> that reviews the Post’s work.<br />
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And finally, as I’ve been expecting, <a href="http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/climate-group-regrets-shock-film-tactic/?hp">someone has finally advocated killing people to save the climate</a>. The extremists have finally tipped over the edge and become caricatures of themselves!<br />
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</div>Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05525598322822559576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33754664.post-40486788510147545352010-06-27T08:01:00.000-07:002010-06-27T08:30:14.740-07:00Leesburg Essay 15<div><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Travel Update</b></div><div><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div><div class="MsoNormal">We were in New Orleans for several days over spring break; the first time I’ve ever set foot in Louisiana. The trip was well worth it. We stayed at The Windsor Court Hotel, although we didn’t eat at the hotel’s very well regarded restaurant because the kids were too young. Cheryl, Hon and Annaliese were also vacationing in New Orleans, so we took a number of excursions with them, including a trip on the streetcar to look at the beautiful houses on St. Charles Street followed by a long walk in a huge park full of live oaks, a swamp tour that featured a number of alligators lazing about in the sun and a small house lifted and carried downstream by Katrina, and a nighttime horse-and-buggy tour of the French quarter. We had a number of good meals. I had red beans and rice every day; poor Alexander was on a continual search for shrimp that was not battered and fried. Our swim in our hotel’s outdoor pool may qualify as George’s favorite pool experience of all time: completely shaded, cool air temperature with pool heated. We didn’t take the kids on the Katrina tour. I can imagine how bored they’d be after a few hours on a bus following the path of devastation. We did drive by what appeared to be the Ninth Ward, and vast portions of it were still clearly abandoned and completely trashed. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">This summer we have our regular trip to Tennessee (we always go as soon as school is out), and during the first week of August we will be in Lake Placid, near to where I went to Girl Scout sleepaway camp at Saranac Lake (man that water was cold!).</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Homefront<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The garden is always beautiful in the spring, even when I haven’t gotten out much to weed or get the plants under control. Everything’s green and has new growth, we have cute little peaches, the strawberries are coming in, and the plants aren’t yet wilting in the heat every afternoon. The snow this past winter seems to have had a stimulative effect—the geraniums by the front walk have gone absolutely nuclear. Unfortunately, I had put in some grape and blackberry bushes in the fall and they didn’t do too well—I have only one left of the blackberry bushes and maybe two of the grape bushes and so I’m perhaps going to replant. The kids like growing lots of food, and they keep adding to the list of things they want me to put in. Not only pumpkins, but watermelon and corn (last year something ate our tiny corn crop). And Alexander has real concerns about the peaches surviving to adulthood. Last year the tree dropped its baby peaches before they matured—I suspect the issue may have been that the tree was still too young to sustain them. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Would that I had more time to get work done in the garden. We have been flat out busy since the end of March, especially as both kids were in sports this spring, Alexander had CCD up until the beginning of May, and Nora had to prepare for her dance recital. During a typical week there were two separate practices and at least three games, in addition to dance class and CCD—oh yes, and don’t forget the numerous random and time-consuming events such as team and dance class pictures, sports fundraisers, and the bringing of snacks for the teams for after games (don’t get me started). That, combined with all of Alexander’s homework, my teaching jobs, George’s frequent travel, two birthday parties, and Easter, and I was counting the days until school got out.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In fourth grade, Alexander will be enrolled in a special Loudoun County program called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Futura</i>, which is meant to be more challenging than the basic curriculum. I’m sure that this will be good for him, but he has concerns because he will be removed from his normal classroom once a week and bussed to another school for instruction, leaving the question of how much he will miss and how much homework he might need to make up. To address his concerns, we told him what we had heard about how the program works and then George printed out some materials from the Loudoun County website about the instructional approach. These materials were utter gibberish, the kind of thing that bureaucracies are champions at producing. They include a cute matrix of general statements about the progression of instruction from the basic to the more complex and abstract. We were making fun of it at dinner one night and Nora decided to simplify it for us—and for the bureaucrats. She replaced the three-dimensional matrix with one concise sentence that she wrote on the back of one of the pages: “Mack the kids lrn” (i.e., “make the kids learn”). So there, then.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As third grade wrapped up for Alexander, I looked back and realized that this was the year—the tipping point—when I began to have a hard time helping him with homework. He brought home math challenge sheets every week and sometimes I was utterly mystified by the way the questions were worded, although the math itself was simple. (A separate issue is the way the questions often fell over themselves to be “inclusive.” For example, one question from his prep book for the Standards of Learning tests was worded something like this: “Mikey is reading a book on Booker T. Washington. If he finishes five pages a day, how many days will it take him to reach page 125?” The fact that the book is on the subject of Booker T. Washington is utterly irrelevant to answering the question, and quite possibly a distraction to the student. )The real trouble for me, however, was when he brought home a project in which he was supposed to design a “simple machine” using a series of parts (like a wedge and a pulley) that they’d gone over in class. I am very relieved that he has a decent understanding of mechanical things because I would have had no idea how to help him and would have had to punt to George. Good thing I never had it in mind to teach third grade.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What I did do, of course, was work for EPA for ten years. When I explained this to the kids on a car ride one day (yes, Mommy went to a job every day just like Daddy), Alexander started speculating about what I was doing at my job. Knowing only tiny, disparate facts about environmental protection, and combining this knowledge with the memory of George’s encounter with the deer last fall, he came up with things like: “You worked to save the deer.” “No, you worked to save the recycling bins.” “You worked to save the deer inside the recycling bins.” “You worked to save the deer inside the recycling bins from the cars.” On and on, you get the idea, and by this point I was laughing so hard I could by no means begin to explain what I actually did at work. I can’t even explain it to adults, never mind nine-year-olds. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Media Update<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">New Technology: Four Stars<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Until February, George and I were utterly last century with our cell phones. We finally decided to upgrade and went all the way from the stone age to the Motorola DROID. It’s a great device that would be phenomenal if I could just answer the phone part in a timely manner. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Movies: Four Stars<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Up</i>. The question I have about this marvelous little movie is whether it’s really meant for kids. It was certainly marketed to children, but it contains some pretty adult themes that run throughout (I had the same feeling about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ratatouille)</i>. My kids did not get some of the more poignant parts. It was terrific all the same, and I just loved the pack of dogs that stopped whatever it was doing and froze whenever a—SQUIRREL!!—scampered by.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Slumdog Millionaire</i>. I had heard so much about this movie prior to seeing it that I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Even so, it was not what I expected. George and I both thought it was a terrific story, beautifully told, with a really interesting “framing” device that provides the structure. I can understand, though, why many Indians might resent how conditions in the slums are portrayed.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Doubt</i>. This lovely movie stars Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, and Philip Seymour Hoffman as two nuns and a priest who work at a Catholic school in the Bronx. Meryl Streep’s character suspects the priest of indiscretions and it is never quite clear who is telling the truth. The movie has a great look to it and the actors do a terrific job. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Movies: Two Stars<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Revolutionary Road</i>. This film, set in the 1950s and starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, purports to be about suburban boredom driving people literally nuts. I had the feeling throughout, however, that it was not so much that Kate Winslet’s character is driven to lunacy by the suburbs and lack of artistic fulfillment…she’s just crazy. I liked the atmosphere, but the plot certainly didn’t stick with me. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Elegy</i>. Penelope Cruz is probably the best thing about this movie, which also stars Ben Kingsley as an emotionally immature professor who falls for one of his much younger students. His character is so unappealing that it was hard for George or me to feel any sympathy for him. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u><br />
</u></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>Rashomon</u></i>. Apparently a lot of people at George’s job refer to this movie as a good encapsulation of how things sometimes work in international relations. Be that as it may, this 1950s Japanese flick is not really scintillating entertainment, more like watching performance art that extends for an hour and a half. The premise of this story is that a number of people witness a murder and they all have a completely different story to tell about it; George came to the conclusion that each witness’s story was based on the individual’s need to save face. I liked some of the visuals, but the acting was way over the top and almost bizarre. Well, at least now he’s seen it so that he knows what people are talking about. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Finale update</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">How to end a TV show that has captured viewer’s hearts and minds for years? When <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Sopranos</i> finished up a couple of years ago, it took one possible path: the non-ending ending that infuriated many fans. When <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">24 </i>ended this May, it had a quite touching ending, but by that point we were so beyond caring that it didn’t actually touch us. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Battlestar Galactica</i> had a great ending because it actually gave you an idea of where the characters had been and were going and it had some emotional resonance. The best ending, however, may have been achieved by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lost</i>, a show which had both enthralled and utterly exasperated us along the way. The ending didn’t answer many questions, but weirdly managed to make most of the more trivial questions irrelevant. The <a href="http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/catholicamerica/2010/05/a_hellva_lot_of_heaven_on_tvs_lost.html?hpid=talkbox1">best thing I read</a> about the <i>Lost</i> ending is from the “On Faith” column in the Washington Post.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Books</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">War and Peace</i> by Leo Tolstoy. What can I really add to the commentary on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">W & P</i>? The book is built up to such a degree in people’s minds, particularly with regard to its length, that having finished it my primary emotion is just relief (wow, it’s a real book with a real story!!). After years of hearing (and saying) things like “He thinks he’s writing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">W & P</i>” or maybe something like “It’s not like it’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">W & P</i>” or simply “that’s as long as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">W & P</i>,” I found that I enjoyed most of it immensely; a few parts I will single out for comment. First, I was struck by the amount of emotion that male characters would show toward one another, even kissing each other extensively and referring to each other as “dear heart.” This leaves me wondering whether this was the style among men of the time or just Tolstoy being dramatic. Second is Tolstoy’s arresting description of French troops basically dispersing into a non-army when they reach Moscow; this part in particular stuck with me. Third, I found myself extremely bored near the end of the book when Tolstoy devotes a lot of ink to analyzing how historians treat history. Finally, I was disappointed by the fact that (SPOILER ALERT) Boris and Natasha do <i>not </i>get together at the end; I somehow assumed partway through this book that the characters in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bullwinkle</i> cartoon must be homage to Boris and Natasha in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">W & P</i>. Oh well. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Overall, I think I have found that most books that are considered “great” books by a vast number of people over time have been quite enjoyable or at least interesting to read, with two big exceptions: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Moby Dick</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Heart of Darkness </i>(and no, I didn’t really like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Apocalypse Now</i> much either, but I digress). I found reading these, which I believe I did in high school, insufferable. I admitted that to Alexander recently, and he found this so interesting that he and George quietly rounded up a copy of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Moby Dick</i> so that Alexander could follow me around the house reading aloud to me from that “great” work. All I can think of is my English teacher at the time droning away about the “seven levels of meaning”…Good lord, what a bunch of nonsense. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Poisonwood Bible</i> by Barbara Kingsolver. I read the author’s first novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Bean Trees</i> some twenty years ago. It seemed like a perfect book for the early ‘90s, probably read with a soundtrack of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Indigo Girls</i> playing on CD in the background in my first or second Arlington apartment. I haven’t read one of her books since, but my mother passed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Poisonwood Bible</i> on to me and I really enjoyed it. It follows the story of a missionary family in the Congo, told from a point of view that shifts among the mother and the four daughters. The only thing I found annoying about it was that it took the oh-so-typical view that all of Africa’s problems are brought on by white people; one character is constantly trying to atone in some way for her white skin. The only character who doesn’t feel this way is presented as a fool. Despite this, the author does a great job of switching from voice to voice, even making mistakes in language appropriate to some of the characters. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Nora and I made our way through the first two Nancy Drew mysteries, which she received for her birthday. Although some of the concepts and old-fashioned language are difficult for her to follow, she seemed to really enjoy them. I read all of them when I was a kid; I think my friends Ginanne and Robin and I used to act them out. What cracks me up about reading these books many, many years later is that the author always describes Nancy as being “attractive,” and/or “attractively dressed.” Also, I’m really, really uncertain as to what Nancy is supposed to be doing with her time. I guess she’s graduated from high school as she’s 18, but she’s clearly not in college and apparently doesn’t really have a job either. I mean, I guess she goes around solving mysteries but there doesn’t seem to be a real career path there. Maybe she’s biding her time until Ned marries her?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Nora herself is ready to run for president, as depicted in a recent drawing:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br />
</o:p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3EEXdtt791dXsmgVGjeMmbguOgjzHJbcUpPOrWw_w7dGQQhbFARhHa0b_z-rn0WGuFCsgExY4TQwvFVntBE5cZaSxHoKJAYNMKc2Gk5J_ly-MLLNFjKg8pcng_aJIZ6Y7rtm9/s1600/Nora+as+President.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3EEXdtt791dXsmgVGjeMmbguOgjzHJbcUpPOrWw_w7dGQQhbFARhHa0b_z-rn0WGuFCsgExY4TQwvFVntBE5cZaSxHoKJAYNMKc2Gk5J_ly-MLLNFjKg8pcng_aJIZ6Y7rtm9/s320/Nora+as+President.jpg" width="232" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">At the same time, I should note, Alexander finished the first five or six Hardy Boys books, in addition to the first few books in the Percy Jackson series (which is extremely popular among kids at the moment). George, to whom Alexander read aloud one of the Percy Jackson books, says that the author’s approach to presenting the main character’s autism and dyslexia is to make these conditions almost a secret advantage, giving the kid super, elite abilities. For most kids with these conditions, I imagine this is not the case so I wonder what message the author is trying to project?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Audiobooks<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lush Life</i> by Richard Russo. I had read the author’s book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Empire Falls</i>, which was made into a movie with Paul Newman, but nothing else. His book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lush Life</i> reminds me a lot of the HBO show <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Wire</i>, which George and I love. The story concerns the investigation into a murder on the Lower East side of New York City. The book explores, in colorful language, the motivations of the numerous characters, including the police detective, the victim’s father, and the perpetrator, as the murder is solved. The melting pot is thoroughly explored as the various witnesses are interviewed (and reinterviewed). </div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Open</i> by Andre Agassi. I used to be a huge tennis fan, and I can still remember watching some really gripping matches, such as when 17-year old Boris Becker was playing in Wimbledon. Or those epic matches between Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe (one in particular had the whole Donaldson family gathered on the floor at my aunt’s house in Carlisle, Massachusetts, glued to the TV for four or so hours). And the match that won Andre Agassi the French Open the first time. I remember when I was a big fan of Stefan Edberg; my friend Carrie worked at that time for a sports management firm and managed to get me a glossy Stefan Edberg brochure package to peruse. The big revelation in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Open</i> has been repeated in the press a lot—that Agassi actually “hates” tennis—but the story of his childhood, his ups and downs as a player and marriages to Brooke Shields and Steffi Graf is fascinating and well worth reading for anyone who is or has ever been a tennis fan. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wolf Hall</i> by Hilary Mantel. This book is a very engaging story of Thomas Cromwell, the aide to Cardinal Wolsey and then advisor and fixer to King Henry the Eighth. The way she tells the story is very fluid, non-linear and the point of view shifts very gently throughout. I found myself admiring the book rather than loving it, but it brings English history alive. The most frustrating thing for me in any work of historical fiction is the lack of accurate pictures. The portraits of the time are so static looking, it’s difficult to see them as representing real people and in the case of pivotal figures such as Anne Boleyn, who charmed the king so much that he absolutely had to have her, it would be useful to know what she looked like in real life. The book won the Man Booker prize in England; I like <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703746604574461110318457866.html">this review</a> in the Wall Street Journal.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Climate Change Update<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">The case for climate change is beginning to take on the flavor of the arguments for or against the existence of WMD in Iraq—the more people tell me I have to believe it the more resistant I become. I am extremely suspicious of the arguments made by many politicians and advocacy groups that we’re utterly destroying the future of the planet; there are too many unanswerable questions and ambiguous data. I am also suspicious of arguments made on the other side that the only fuel we can depend on is oil—I think that displays an amazing lack of confidence in scientists who are investing a lot of money and brainpower in energy research. Why would we want to remain so dependent on a dirty (in more ways than one; all we need do is peruse the state of the Gulf) and politically destabilizing fuel? Where is the progress in this? I for one am all for investing in solar panels and wind and working through the technical issues associated with them (or the political issues, as the Kennedy family, of all people, recently fought against the wind farm that they would be able to see from the Hyannis Port compound). George likes to read the magazine <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Scientific American</i> and often brings to my attention the incredibly innovative approaches that scientists are developing for agriculture, energy production, and the like. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Al Gore wrote <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28gore.html">an editorial</a> for the New York Times a few months ago that summed up for me the ugliness and utter lack of perspective of people on both sides. It was presumably meant to convince those on the fence to commit to action against climate change because really, why write an editorial that brings with it no new converts to your cause? The tone, however, drips with contempt for people who don’t buy the climate change arguments lock, stock, and barrel. He is either as dumb as I’d begun to think he is, or he has really bad PR people.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">On the subject of fuel, I have a vivid memory of the gas lines in the 1970s—when you had to buy gas on certain days based on whether you had odd or even numbers on your license plate. I think I can remember my mother packing a lunch for us and then us going to sit in the car on line at the gas station that was somewhere between Irvington and Parker avenues in Maplewood. I’m sure that was a real thrill for her. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Obama is seriously beginning to annoy me. It’s one thing to, I don’t know how else to put it, “rebalance” our alliances so that we take account of the rising powers and turn some of our focus from traditional allies in Europe. It’s another thing entirely to stand with the president of Mexico while he trashes Arizona’s immigration law. All the while, of course, the Mexican government isn’t so fond of illegal immigrants itself, which Calderon admitted to Wolf Blitzer in an interview on CNN. This is amusing because what in part made Arizona act is at least the impression that the federal government is not enforcing its immigration laws. I guess maybe the federal government in Mexico does at least give lip service to enforcing its laws. The same week in politics saw the absurdity of our diplomats in China who brought up the Arizona law in discussion with the Chinese to make a point that we have our own human rights problems to work through. What is thoroughly ridiculous about this is what is the administration’s ultimate aim? Obama is projecting weakness through these and other head-shaking approaches to foreign policy. Purely from a politician’s own point of view, he is working to erode his own power base! What kind of testosterone-fueled politician does this? When you’ve got control of the U.S. government, which has enormous economic, military, and persuasive power is the world, why would you want to undermine any of the pillars of your power? If foreign leaders (assuming it’s reasonable to compare them to dogs) perceive you as weak and likely to back away, then they will come right up, put their paws on your shoulders and start breathing in your face. Whatever it is that you want to do with your power as U.S. president, whether it’s launching military strikes on Iran’s purported nuclear facilities or passing a global climate-change treaty, you cannot be perceived as weak. Weakness does not equal fairness or respect for points of view, it just equals diminished possibilities. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Here are a few interesting articles I came across recently:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">First, <a href="http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=22912">one on the power of the left in Germany</a>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Next, <a href="http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/aseem_shukla/2010/04/nearly_twenty_million_people_in.html">one on Hinduism and yoga</a>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Also, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704025304575285000265955016.html">the best investment advice I’ve heard yet</a>, courtesy of the creator of “Dilbert.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u><br />
</u></div><div class="MsoNormal">And the final note, courtesy of George, is the following excerpt from the Drudge Report around April 15th:<br />
<br />
<tt><b><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Coincidence? You be the judge…..</span></b></tt><b><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
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</span></b><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100407/ap_on_bi_ge/us_no_taxes"><b><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">47% will pay no federal income taxes...</span></b></a></span><b><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
<br />
</span></b><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/127346/Americans-Split-Whether-Income-Taxes-High.aspx"><b><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">45% say amount of tax they pay 'about right'...</span></b></a></span></div><b></b><br />
<b><blockquote></blockquote></b><br />
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</div><br />
</div>Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05525598322822559576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33754664.post-79707085303025223382010-02-22T19:13:00.000-08:002010-02-23T18:15:28.337-08:00Leesburg Essay 14: The Snowmageddon Issue<div class="MsoNormal"><b>a.k.a. Tell Vancouver We Still Have Snow Available for Immediate Shipment</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-SsmPZFZ8YIcUGLcBl3dk4ASA2vl95L5vzGDAcmrrRnpTquj9QqunM074RCL2Zt6n8hfn7oFhyphenhyphensMG5SB9SCmLqI47W76csmqqQM8JgS6KFLpulK8gp9Ue7KduANvkSinwGBJa/s1600-h/February2010+002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-SsmPZFZ8YIcUGLcBl3dk4ASA2vl95L5vzGDAcmrrRnpTquj9QqunM074RCL2Zt6n8hfn7oFhyphenhyphensMG5SB9SCmLqI47W76csmqqQM8JgS6KFLpulK8gp9Ue7KduANvkSinwGBJa/s400/February2010+002.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #c0504d;">Annaliese, Nora, &Alexander; Christmas Eve 2009; Leesburg<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Yoga Update</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">Since October, I’ve been teaching quite a bit in gyms around the Leesburg area. I work my schedule around when the kids are in school or when George is home, but even with the time restrictions I have found numerous opportunities to teach. How true it was when our instructors warned us trainees that as a yoga teacher you are totally exposed up in front of the class (like any kind of teacher, I suppose). They also stressed how hard it is to teach mixed-level gym classes, tackling the dual problem of keeping the more advanced students from getting bored and the beginners from getting lost—the solution to which is to become skilled at giving people options. In a class with a lot of beginners, I have found that I must demonstrate the poses almost continually otherwise the students tend to freeze in place. I spend the whole class in front on my own mat or walking around and helping individuals. This makes it harder to focus on what the whole class is doing. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">One of the places in which I’ve been teaching is incredibly loud—the aerobics room is right over the racquetball courts and behind the weight machines—and the class typically has 15-plus students. I imagine that it’s hard for them to relax—and hard for them to hear me. I just ignore the noise and talk over it. Luckily, I can be very loud when I need to be. Most of the group class instructors (e.g., body pump, cardio step, zumba—a popular dance class) have the lights in the room on very bright, the fans on, and microphones on for shouting instructions. In contrast, the yoga instructors come in and turn off the lights, turn off the fans, and in some cases bring in their own heaters.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Many yoga teachers at gyms teach something called “power yoga,” which generally means that they go through poses very quickly to create a big cardiovascular effect. Even though a couple of my classes are labeled “power yoga,” I don’t really teach power yoga. I don’t think that power yoga really helps the students to understand and feel what’s happening in the poses. I asked the gym manager to relabel the classes to be “flow yoga” so it’s not false advertising.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Many of my jobs in the fall involved subbing for others. Currently, I have three regular jobs and one gym for which I’m on the list for a Saturday morning class rotation. There’s another facility desperate for yoga teachers out near Dulles that is willing to pay above normal rates to get teachers, so a friend and I may be splitting those Saturday morning sessions. It would be ideal to have a couple more regular classes. There’s also the option of marketing private instruction, but that begs the question of where the instruction would take place.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">One of my colleagues from the teacher training, and one who has drawn me into a number of teaching jobs, asked me to consider subbing for her “yogalates” class, which is a combination of yoga and pilates (which is an exercise program developed by some German guy and meant for strengthening your core). At first I said no because I’ve never even taken a pilates class and I expected I’d be utterly hopeless. In the end I said yes, and bought a book and video to study up. I then asked a yoga teacher who also teaches pilates what she would recommend I do, and she commented that she’s never understood the point of yogalates classes because the two approaches are actually quite different. Well, given this, I memorized the basic principles and a ten pose routine, and then managed to make it through the class. A group class instructor develops a number of things to say that become routine, phrases to fall back on during the class. I don’t have a feeling for how the teachers cue pilates poses, so I didn’t have anything to fall back on other than what I managed to memorize. I guess I would benefit from taking some pilates classes but they always seem to be at noon or some other time when it’s pretty much impossible for me to go. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It is hard to tell how you are doing as a teacher, unless you get direct feedback from your students. I guess if the students keep coming than I’m doing okay. The students who come up to me after class mainly like to talk with me about their injuries, or how lately they’ve let their yoga practice slip and they're trying to get back into it; sometimes how different my class is (usually they seem to be saying this as a good thing) than the other “power” yoga classes. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In my last job (at EPA—now almost eight years ago), I had a normal salary, so I rarely thought about the fact that my salary was listed on my paychecks as an hourly rate. Now I’m getting paid by the hour, so I really have the sense of what it’s like to work for an hour. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I have continued a lot of the reading that I was doing for my teacher training. What has occurred to me lately—probably not a remarkable insight, but I hadn’t thought about it before—is that yoga philosophy is definitely tied to place, which in this case means India, which means references to elephants and lotus flowers. (Yoga philosophy is also closely related to Hinduism). This is all well and good, but what if yoga had been born in the Arctic Circle? Would we then be speaking of elephant seals? How much does this matter? In the case of Ayurveda, the traditional health system closely related to yoga, it actually means a lot. Ayurveda demands ingredients and herbs that are most likely to familiar to Indians, but not to Westerners. Just once I’d like to hear a discussion of Ayurveda that suggested a Western equivalent for Indian holy basil (tulsi).</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/dining/27yoga.html?8dpc">recent article</a> in <i>The</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Times</i> discussed the relationship between yoga and food, eventually covering some of the arguments about the necessity of veganism to yoga. Some yogis are quite militant on the subject, citing the philosophical basis of yoga, one piece of which (a “yama” or abstention) stresses the broad concept of non-violence (the Sanskrit term is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ahimsa</i>), which is taken by many to extend to vegetarianism (or even further to veganism). This is fine, but I’d like to know if they also subscribe to the “yama” of <i>Bramacharya,</i> which basically says that you’re supposed to abstain from sex. Those in the yoga world are perennially reinterpreting this stricture, much like the second amendment of the Constitution. I think the focus on veganism is political more than anything else, something hip about which to be holier-than-thou. I suspect this is the case, but I’d have a more complete picture if I could find out how the militant vegans felt about abortion, given the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ahimsa</i> stricture. And, if yoga brings people away from various bad habits on its own, as the article notes, why the need to browbeat anyone? Finally—on the idea of eating and doing yoga—it’s not really a good idea to eat and then get yourself into, let’s say, a headstand. And I don’t need an ancient source to tell me that.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In case you’re curious, I’m <a href="http://www.yogaalliance.org/teacher_search.cfm">listed</a> on Yoga Alliance’s website, although my name is misspelled as "Kathrine".</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Media Update</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Books with Pages to Turn</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Outlander</i> by Diana Gabaldon. This is the first book in a series that was a favorite of George’s sister Alex. It is historical fiction combined with elements of Harlequin romances (I recently reconnected through Facebook with a friend from high school whose room at that time was covered in huge stacks of Harlequin romances). I liked the book, but I didn’t love it. I found the lead character too incurious and nonfrustrated by eighteenth century life. And she goes on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ad nauseam</i> about the beauty of her buxom young husband.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets</i> by J.K. Rowling. Nora and I have begun the Harry Potter series, making it through the first two books. I found them very funny and clever. The characters and situations are interesting, and the kids seem mostly to behave like real children, which is a plus. In addition, it’s nice to see Nora play that she’s the character “Hermione” from the Harry Potter series rather than, let’s say, Hannah Montana. It’s hard for Nora being the only one in the family who can’t read, although they are working on this at school. Don’t bother to ask her, though, as she never seems to be able to remember what she did in school.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Girl who Played with Fire</i> by Stieg Larsson. This book is the second in the Millennium series that I mentioned in my last essay. I thought it lived up to the promise of the first book, and now I must wait until the third book is translated from Swedish, which I believe is supposed to be by next summer. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I am currently making my way through <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">War and Peace</i>. I hope to provide a full account in my next essay, but I’m enjoying it so far. The biggest problem for me is less the tossing around of all those Russian names, but all the military terms that are a complete mystery to me, such as “Cossack,” “Hussar,” and “Junker.” And the whole battle scene early on that involves the taking or blowing up of this one silly bridge. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Audiobooks</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lovely Bones</i> by Alice Sebold. This book is beautiful and hopeful in a weird sort of way, but the reader on the audio version has a style that is too slow and deliberate. The story revolves around a teenager who is raped and murdered by a neighbor and she observes the fallout for her family from her perch in Heaven. Apparently the movie eliminates much of the ugliness and presents a lighter and younger-teenager friendly movie, but I imagine that this approach cuts the heart out of the story.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Forsyte Saga</i> by John Galsworthy. These books concern the slow disintegration of the traditional outlook and lifestyles of an upper middle class family in Victorian-era Britain. It moves slowly, as does the voice of the reader, but I found it weirdly fascinating. The motivations of the (numerous) characters are in many ways utterly incomprehensible to a twenty-first-century American, but there are things I found to recognize in them all. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Television</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Biggest Loser</i>. I am still a fan of this silly “reality” show. Every year they have to up the ante, so this season they have the heaviest person ever on the show: 526 pounds. After his first week on the ranch, however, he’d already lost about 40 pounds or so, which is quite astonishing. The end of last season featured the participants running a marathon. This brought back for me all my memories of walking the Marine Corps Marathon in 1997—and being out on Haynes Point in the 50 degree, rainy weather, with few people out that far to cheer on the participants, exposed to the elements, and thinking “wow—I really want to go home.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">24</i>. We’d nearly given up on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">24—</i>the hook of the ticking clock had long since lost any meaning, the plots were formulaic, the characters sort of annoying—then along came this season, which so far is promising. The addition of Katee Sackhoff from<i> Battlestar</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Galactica</i> is definitely a plus, as is the return of Jack’s partner from last season, the newly-deranged Renee.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Caprica. </i>I was completely suspicious of this show, which purports to cover the origins of the conflict that leads to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Battlestar Galactica</i> (50 years later). I should have had more confidence in the producers, because I liked the first couple of episodes a lot. A completely different show but compelling in its own way. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Lost. </i>We are still following this series, now in its last season—but in this case, “following” can be considered a very loose term.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Movies: Four Stars</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Milk</i>. My favorite part of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Milk</i>, a movie starring Sean Penn that tells the story of Harvey Milk, the gay activist from San Francisco who was eventually assassinated, is all these guys sitting around in a purported “camera shop” in the Castro district mocking one another day in and day out. It is unclear to me how they made any money in the “camera shop” because they seemed to have a wall with rolls of film and little else, but that doesn’t seem to concern anyone else in the movie. The end is touching. I thought Sean Penn was great. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Three Stars</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Burn After Reading</i>. Directed by the Coen brothers, this film is punctuated with weird, unexpected violence, but it’s very funny—and Brad Pitt is so ridiculous it’s refreshing.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rachel Getting Married</i>. I first thought that this might be a chick flick and George rolled his eyes, but then we started watching and realized that this was much darker than your typical wedding story. Rachel’s sister Kim gets out of rehab to attend Rachel’s wedding, and all sorts of revelations concerning their train wreck of a family ensue. The only problem was the ending, which was typically vague (the “I kinda like the way this movie feels but I really don’t know how to end it” syndrome). This leads us right into…</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>I've Loved You So Long. </i>Another uplifting story about sisters, one of whom has a challenging past. Kristin Scott Thomas is terrific. It only gets three stars because—despite the fact that it’s a quality film— it’s very French.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Two Stars</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Body of Lies</i>. I liked the Jordanians in this movie—and it has since come out that the Jordanians are in fact in close working contact with the CIA—though not much else. George hated pretty much everything about the movie, especially the way that the Agency is portrayed. Russell Crowe is not on screen enough to develop his character, and Leonardo DiCaprio sometimes sounds like he’s reading his lines. Not a best effort by writer, cast, or director. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Australia</i>. This movie is very pretty, but it has such a weird tone to it (Is it a comedy? A drama? Are we supposed to like Nicole Kidman?) that neither one of us could say that we really enjoyed watching it. That said, the ending is definitely better than the beginning and some parts are truly touching.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Theater</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cirque du Soleil—Wintuk</i>. We caught Cirque du Soleil at Madison Square Garden over the Christmas holiday. The production was striking and beautiful; the “story” is nonsensical and besides the point. Alexander was literally on the edge of his seat through most of it; Nora claims she liked it too. I’m absolutely certain she liked the part at the end where paper snow came pouring out of the ceiling onto the audience; she collected a big chunk of it and had me carry it home in my purse. (It’s still there, come to think of it.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Random Stuff</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Hunting season</u>. Driving back from D.C. one night last fall, a hormone-crazed deer launched itself into the side of George’s car on the highway and did about $5500 worth of damage. The auto body place said that at that point they were seeing an average of ten deer-damaged cars a day; Enterprise Rent-A-Car reported that six out of ten of their rentals were resulting from deer strikes. George got half the two-deer-per-season limit that Uncle Bill is allowed to bring home in New Jersey, and he didn’t even need to go crawling around the woods in the cold.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Kids and illness</u>. As I learned in history class at some point during my long school career, revolutions occur in the time of rising expectations. It’s like that with kids and illness. Both kids had the flu in the fall. (Alexander, at least, definitely had swine flu, although Nora was sicker.) When they’re really sick it’s almost easier to deal with them. The real trouble starts when they begin to feel better and are almost ready to go back to school or start playing with their friends again. Then there’s constant collapsing on the floor and whatnot as they chafe against their illness-related restrictions. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Our budding composer</u>. In New Jersey over the Christmas holiday, Alexander composed the following little song about Nora; he says he came up with it while lying in bed and had to jump up, turn on the lights, and write it down before he forgot: </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">‘Tis the season to check our passports</div><div class="MsoNormal">Fa la la la la la la la la </div><div class="MsoNormal">I think my sister’s name is “Nopa”</div><div class="MsoNormal">Fa la la la la la la la la </div><div class="MsoNormal">(Here’s where Nora chimes in: No no no no no no no no no)</div><div class="MsoNormal">My parents also think that’s true</div><div class="MsoNormal">Fa la la la la la la la al<br />
So I’m going to check her passport too</div><div class="MsoNormal">Fa la la la la la la la la</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Food</u>. I've had (lately) the feeling that I should learn to eat fish. At the very least it would be nice to have another option when we go to restaurants. So I chose a fish recipe from my most trustworthy source, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cook’s Illustrated</i>. They considered a classic French recipe for fish (in this case cod) baked in parchment and updated it to be baked in aluminum foil pockets with a compound lemon butter on the top and leeks and carrots underneath. As it baked, I sat with uneasy expectation—probably how my kids feel every night at dinner. Was it a failure, do you ask? Well, it was okay. Nothing to write home about (although I guess I am writing home about it). I didn’t say yum, nor did I say yuck. I may try it again someday soon, with a different fish. I still prefer tofu for an alternate source of protein. Alexander sort of liked it but not in large quantities.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I have, however, developed a strong liking for vegetarian sushi. This probably gives George hope, as he loves sushi and I’m sure he wishes we’d be willing to go to a sushi restaurant with him. Let’s see: if Alexander can eat simple cooked shrimp (which he loves) and I can eat the veggie sushi, this just leaves Nora. Plain rice, maybe?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Wedding dances</u>. George and I have been to two weddings in the past year. One was for a couple in their early 20s and one for a couple in their early 40s. Both featured Abba’s “Dancing Queen” during the dance portion of the reception and both times it got a big chunk of the guests on their feet. What is it about this song? At what point will this stop being a high point at weddings? Alexander loves this song, too, so maybe not too soon. <u><o:p></o:p></u></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Speaking of dancing, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vanity Fair </i>featured an article on the history of disco that consisted of quotes from people remembering bits and pieces of the times. One quote from the writer Fran Liebowitz describes going to the New York clubs in the wintertime and being perplexed at what to do what your winter coat. She says that at one club people kind of folded them and laid them on the side and kept an eye on them. She says thinking about this dilemma still has the power to make her feel anxious. I can relate to this—I remember going to the club Limelight in New York when it was horrifically cold out. I must have brought a coat. What did I do with it? Was there a coat check? Did I manage to get it back? There was probably a whole industry in New Jersey reselling the coats of people that managed to lose them at the clubs. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Canine intelligence</u>. I thought that along with tying shoes, reading, and adding two plus two, the kids would learn how to tell time in school. Alexander displays, however, a disturbing (perhaps deliberate) lack of awareness of what time it is. Actually, the dog tells time much better than my kids. He knows when breakfast and dinner are, what time we go to the bus in the morning and afternoon, and what time George comes home at night (this is when he primes himself by running around the house and barking at everything). </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>No Clear Place to Start on Current Politics</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Well, just where to start. Perhaps with the distribution of visas to those coming to visit the U.S. I thought the point of having a visa structure was so that the U.S. could control who was coming into the country. It amazes me that the Christmas Bomber could get a visa despite the warnings his father gave the government about him. I gather that the State Department requires a great weight of evidence before it denies a visa, but really. I guess a more strict regime could create complications for people trying to get into the country if one (perhaps false) comment from a friend or a family member or “source” to the U.S. government gets that person on a no-entry list, but it seems that the State Department just passes these things out willy nilly to some groups and then makes it very difficult for academics and scientists seeking visas to come to conferences to take up research at American universities. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m counting the months until President Obama talks about a single issue without making some reference—explicit or implicit—to some mess that he “inherited” from the previous (read “obviously incompetent”) administration. I would love to see him stand up and own something—anything. Between blaming the previous administration and pushing forward the pain of various pieces of legislation to beyond his current term, he’s going to take responsibility for nothing. No president is ever handed a blank slate. How lovely it would be if they were—oh were it that the outgoing president was simply able to sign off on the final piece of legislation, push through a couple of controversial pardons, erase the white board, and turn out the lights, leaving the new president a fresh blotter and an empty agenda for the first staff meeting.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">One presumably wants to be president because not only do you get a cool house and a cool ride and your own plane (!) but you get to make what you believe are much better decisions than the guy before you. Oh, unless you don’t like to or are too inexperienced at it. The president reportedly didn’t like his options on Afghanistan. Let me guess—he was looking for the option that was costless and was followed up by a chorus of Hallelujahs. News flash: whatever option you choose, Mr. President, people are going to die. Then he finally made a momentous move, stunning his critics: he decided to decide! Of course he supposedly decided a good six to seven months earlier.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I am beginning to see Obama morphing into Tiger woods. Not in the obvious ways, and no, I don’t believe that he’s got mistresses all over the world. Tiger Woods seems to be one of those people who became a receptacle for others’ hopes and dreams. No one seemed really to know him and he remained aloof and sheltered by all sorts of handlers—but now all the flaws are being teased out. At least with the Clintons it seemed to be all out there—all their flaws and whatnot—even their lack of allegiance to any particular set of ideas was out there. Obama reminds me of Tiger: a blank slate onto which others have pitched their assumptions. Even his reported eloquence seems to have crumbled into nothing. I find his speeches pretty boring. Even when Clinton was saying nothing or something infuriating he was interesting to listen to (well, except for those seeming four-hour long Chavez-style State of the Unions).</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Also, Scott Brown, the new senator from Massachusetts, may be the miracle boy, but he’s also a scandal in the making. Just look at him. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo8yDhyFOPpaHhDBGbmhqHttGF0p3kj60cGEfhZ0BbQ31H7_a_44X_bRmYWOfpWFNUY8QG1qsU-3Rcs3-s3PSIY-QZYVzEn8dF6YXYMRlCI4UrDb5OoD1qKUsYhYZl3mhapSrJ/s1600-h/February2010+050.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo8yDhyFOPpaHhDBGbmhqHttGF0p3kj60cGEfhZ0BbQ31H7_a_44X_bRmYWOfpWFNUY8QG1qsU-3Rcs3-s3PSIY-QZYVzEn8dF6YXYMRlCI4UrDb5OoD1qKUsYhYZl3mhapSrJ/s400/February2010+050.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #c0504d;">Nora and friend under dire threat from global warming, February 2010<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #c0504d;"><o:p><br />
</o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZJPjF0-jPymXLAx8Tjfz1-h1UWwRhluNcR5zI0TkxnSzuHL75giMpUUMN6yGcDl6WtLeVM3UlBjepLE56fwZElAH2wSvvyt-Ybj_kuoCNP3ToFeXQe0Ztt8krX8Oq_p8n3a5d/s1600-h/February2010b+026.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZJPjF0-jPymXLAx8Tjfz1-h1UWwRhluNcR5zI0TkxnSzuHL75giMpUUMN6yGcDl6WtLeVM3UlBjepLE56fwZElAH2wSvvyt-Ybj_kuoCNP3ToFeXQe0Ztt8krX8Oq_p8n3a5d/s400/February2010b+026.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #c0504d;"><o:p><br />
</o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="color: #c0504d;">Baxter and his friends bewildered by climate change, February 2010<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #c0504d;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPeD9TSVOmEKpzw-OqQ0KyWwfHrFbxYNNnwXOjxOr8KNHP3kxcBdpARjrczt8QGTOtsmIuK96m-h3w1glhr_2qha8Vc3h0dm5Doswlze9EMbC4rm5KfaxU-qTIn-SbtpfHYJ5I/s1600-h/February2010+055.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPeD9TSVOmEKpzw-OqQ0KyWwfHrFbxYNNnwXOjxOr8KNHP3kxcBdpARjrczt8QGTOtsmIuK96m-h3w1glhr_2qha8Vc3h0dm5Doswlze9EMbC4rm5KfaxU-qTIn-SbtpfHYJ5I/s400/February2010+055.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #c0504d;">Welcome to the sunny south, February 2010<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7pki5JqBleM5VqPuJMI5v4muiYZ_jZJg8_ekAxeR26Lp5xxrt3j0jnCY5Tvy6ob6X7teLjtiTkqgOYL6rvEgMzx8KObhrYOo4D9KxDRWr5h8GJCiEDqpbyllihQZHvN7-hpDn/s1600-h/scan0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7pki5JqBleM5VqPuJMI5v4muiYZ_jZJg8_ekAxeR26Lp5xxrt3j0jnCY5Tvy6ob6X7teLjtiTkqgOYL6rvEgMzx8KObhrYOo4D9KxDRWr5h8GJCiEDqpbyllihQZHvN7-hpDn/s400/scan0001.jpg" width="290" /></a></div><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #c0504d;">Nora's picture of George shoveling, February 2010</span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Given the global climate chaos in December and into February that saw us here in Virginia experiencing extremely cold temperatures and huge amounts of snow, the threat of global warming is a difficult sell (I personally believe this winter is a result of the wrath of God descending on D.C.). Obviously global warming needs a serious rebranding. Upon the president’s return to the U.S. from the Copenhagen climate conference, he was greeted by terrible cold and even frostier politics. (While at Copenhagen, I believe the president apologized for years of U.S. economic development. George thinks that when developing countries start demanding that industrialized countries fork over more cash to make up for years of pollution, the West should demand payment for the development of things like electricity, cell phones, computers, the Internet, vaccines,...you get the idea.) The climate crowd is gradually making its way toward the conclusion that mass suicide on the part of Americans, western Europeans, Canadians, Australians, and perhaps the Chinese is the only solution. If this is to be the case, then I humbly suggest that unlike the leadership of Al Qaeda, the first person to bring it up in public should be the first one to go.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Of course the recent scandals concerning climate data don’t help matters. The cynicism of many climate scientists is jawdropping. It seems that they believe that ordinary people are too stupid to grasp the nuances of climate data and its interpretation, and thus it’s not important to be careful about data management, never mind interpretation. What they’ve managed to do is make it more likely that people will believe that their agenda is really to reign in the biggest economies and punish us for wasteful lifestyles. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Economist</i> had a <a href="http://www.economist.com/science-technology/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14960149">really good take</a> on the climate data scandal. I also like <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/climate-lost-on-a-road-to-nowhere/story-e6frg6n6-1225807108234">this editorial</a> from Bjorn Lomborg in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Australian. </i>Finally, related to this subject, here is a link to a <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Green-Guilt/63447/">good article</a> about environmentalism as the new religion.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In Alexander’s third grade class, obviously in an effort to be inclusive in discussions of famous or important Americans, they had the kids learn about a series of clearly carefully-selected historic figures. I have no quibble with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, or Harriet Tubman, but included on that list is Cesar Chavez, who agitated for farm worker’s rights in California. I really don’t know how I feel about that. As the only Hispanic included on the list, it’s an interesting choice. And what is interesting is that the minorities included on the list are ones who were fighting the powers that be. Is there any minority who could be included who was not remembered mainly for struggling against white people for power? I’m not suggesting that these figures were not important, or noteworthy, but in terms of role models for today’s students, couldn’t the list include a supreme court justice? Or a successful military leader? Or perhaps even a religious or civic leader who worked to provide charity to people in their communities? These are not fully formed thoughts on my part, I agree, but I’d like to see a broader and ultimately more inclusive inclusive list. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>And FYI</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/04/AR2009110404526.html?hpid=artslot&sid=ST2009110404566">This link</a> discusses an interesting museum in Eisenhuttenstadt, in the former east Germany.<br />
<br />
And to close, here's the best news I’ve heard (yes, heard) in a long time for Generation Xers, from the Washington Post:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><br />
</span></span></b></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span></b></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><div id="entryhead"><h1 style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Is that Right? Loud music ruined baby boomers' hearing?</h1></div><div style="color: black; font: normal normal normal 14px/18px arial; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: auto;">After years of being told that the loud music we listened to in our youth would make us deaf, we baby boomers can take comfort in a <a href="http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/171/2/260" style="color: #0c4790; text-decoration: underline;">new study</a>that provides evidence that <a href="http://www.ledzeppelin.com/" style="color: #0c4790; text-decoration: underline;">Led Zeppelin</a> didn't permanently damage our eardrums after all.</div><div class="imgright" style="float: right; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 4px; width: 145px;"><a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkup/is_that_right/" style="color: #0c4790; text-decoration: underline;"><img align="bottom" border="0" height="100" src="http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2009/06/30/GR2009063002753.gif" width="145" /></a></div>Researchers at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health found that rates of hearing loss have actually been decreasing over the past decades. The authors suggest the improvement may lbe due largely to reductions in smoking (the cardiovascular effects of which can contribute to hearing loss) and better management of workplace noise. It's exposure to that kind of long-term, environmental noise that's most apt to harm hearing, the authors note.<div style="color: black; font: normal normal normal 14px/18px arial; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: auto;"><br />
The study analyzed data for 5,275 people born between 1902 and 1962, comparing the incidence of hearing loss in later years among those born earlier (the parent group) and a group of their offspring (a cohort roughly coinciding with the baby-boom generation). They found that as the younger folks advanced in age, they maintained good hearing far longer than their elders had as they aged.<br />
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From the news release announcing the January 15 publication of the research in the <em>American Journal of Epidemiology</em>:</div><blockquote style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal arial; line-height: 19px;">"Generally people think that our world is getting noisier and noisier, but we found that the prevalence of hearing loss is decreasing," says Dr. Weihai Zhan, who led the study. "These results suggest that hearing loss is not a normal part of aging and there are things we can do to delay hearing loss."</blockquote>In the news release, the authors note that short-term noise exposure such as may occur at a concert (or when listening to recorded music with the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbVKWCpNFhY" style="color: #0c4790; text-decoration: underline;">volume set to 11</a>) generally causes just temporary hearing loss. As they note in the study, though, it remains to be seen whether frequent use of earbuds among today's young people may cause<a href="http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2009/07/13/MTV-survey-Loud-music-causes-hearing-loss/UPI-61381247527074/" style="color: #0c4790; text-decoration: underline;">permanent loss of hearing</a>.<div style="color: black; font: normal normal normal 14px/18px arial; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: auto;">I'm <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkup/2009/12/hearing_loss_at_holiday_time.html" style="color: #0c4790; text-decoration: underline;">so happy to hear</a> this news, I'm going to go dance around the kitchen to some <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT3w6-cCn10" style="color: #0c4790; text-decoration: underline;">White Stripes</a> songs on my iPod. Really loud.</div><a href="" id="more" style="text-decoration: underline;"></a><div class="posted" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; clear: both; color: #555555; font: normal normal bold 11px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 17px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 19px; padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px; padding-top: 7px; text-align: left; width: auto;">By Jennifer LaRue Huget | January 29, 2010; 7:00 AM ET</div></span></b></span><br />
</div>Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05525598322822559576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33754664.post-72268604292772180642009-10-27T17:43:00.000-07:002009-10-27T18:46:57.324-07:00Leesburg Essay 13<div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">George’s cousins Christina and Nicole both had baby girls (the third child for each) this summer, Elisabeth and Julia respectively. Nicole and Christina were born the same year in the summertime, so it may be nice for their girls to be so close in age as well. The only hitch is that Nicole’s family is in California and Christina’s is in Vermont. Oh well, I guess that’s what Christmas and airplanes are <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">for.</span></span></span></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> <br />
<b>Fourth of July</b><br />
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The neighborhood upped the ante for the usual Fourth of July celebration; dressing the kids </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">in matching fireworks t-shirts (in the photo, note how many are wearing Crocs shoes). Once </span>again, we managed not to lose any of them in the chaos.</span></span></span><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvhRRagQJMcefUnZ1j7eqJ2j7XJt-akmZNbgi4nxpVw1iqlaLCaypf3zjTyG2Knq8WLmzK4RtDBGUxjdpIiiXtzsLZFq6OP0dKaoOao9Jh-fy7WfsYUmqub7FLmy-wmfX51m5S/s1600-h/4th+of+July.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvhRRagQJMcefUnZ1j7eqJ2j7XJt-akmZNbgi4nxpVw1iqlaLCaypf3zjTyG2Knq8WLmzK4RtDBGUxjdpIiiXtzsLZFq6OP0dKaoOao9Jh-fy7WfsYUmqub7FLmy-wmfX51m5S/s320/4th+of+July.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">This summer, all of a sudden (I always think there’s going to be a bigger build-up to these things), Nora learned to ride her bike without training wheels, aided by George and a neighbor girl Alex (13), who makes it her business to teach the kids to ditch the training wheels. In addition, although Nora started out the summer loving and at the same time pretty hesitant about the water, she taught herself to swim in my parents’ pool. Very determinedly, she began working her way around the shallow end. By mid-summer she had taught herself enough to skip an entire class in swimming lessons, which is nice for her and ultimately cheaper and less time-consuming, I guess, for us.</span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Given that summer has already come and gone and the kids spent a good portion of it out of our house and away from our direct supervision, <a href="http://www.stats.org/stories/2009/hey_parents_july17_09.html">this link</a> is an interesting review of a book on kids and freedom.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Both kids participated in a couple of camps. The favorites were dance camp for Nora and magic camp (weirdly enough through the local art school) for Alexander. Magic camp was a big hit, even though one of the parakeets the magician brought in for demonstration left its mark (from its hindquarters, not its beak) on Alexander’s arm. The camp culminated in a show for the parents, which led to a cascade of mini home-shows by Alexander for a variety of audiences.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Although Alexander has been into Lego for some time, this summer he began exploring the whole range of available Lego products for kids his age, including of course the Star Wars line, plus the Indiana Jones and Secret Agents lines. The item that he and George discovered that sent him into paroxysms of joy was the $400 model of the Death Star complete with 24 of the cute little action figures. <a href="http://starwars.lego.com/en-us/Products/exclusive/10188.aspx">See it for yourself</a>. We told him he could save up his allowance from now until the end of eternity or alternatively he could win the lottery.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Nora started kindergarten and I believe that the first day was a relief to everyone because she was filled with anxiety prior to it. We encouraged her to try to learn her lower case letters, as her preschool had suggested would be helpful to her (and we thought it might ease some of the anxiety). This task seemed to push her over the edge; the corners of her mouth tilted downward through the exercise. We joked with her that this expression was apparently necessary in order for her to activate her pencil.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Travel Update<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
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</div><span style="font-family: Georgia;">In August we took a trip to <st1:placename w:st="on">New York</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">State</st1:placetype> to the Finger Lakes, specifically to <st1:place w:st="on">Seneca Lake</st1:place> and Watkins Glen. When we arrived in Watkins Glen, we went immediately to our hotel, which upon inspection was definitely not what I had in mind when I planned the vacation. With me completely unhappy with the situation (when Mommy’s NOT HAPPY…), we had our first dinner in town and then took a walk on the rock jetty from the Watkins Glen harbor out into <st1:place w:st="on">Seneca Lake</st1:place>. That first and only night in this hotel, however awful, turned out to be a gift. The room was noisy and cramped and unpleasant, but at least the kids were asleep in their room when the “events” began to occur. At about 5:00 in the morning, the “guest” in the room next door to us began yelling at the woman in the room with him, in extremely pornographic and profane terms. We surmised from his ranting that they were having some sort of affair and that he wasn’t getting out of it what he expected to get out of it. The yelling went on for what must have been at least an hour. It was both outrageously funny and appalling at the same time and I don’t think I’ll ever forget the sound of his voice. We told the management in the morning, had an extremely disappointing breakfast at the hotel, and then took a walk in town.</span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">After our walk I went straight to the big hotel on the <span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt;">harbor—one that was clean and new and featured an indoor pool—and </span>asked for a room. With relief and some regret for the owners of the first hotel, clearly a family business, we moved into town with no charge from the first hotel (we explained that we couldn't take the chance that our kids would have to listen to another night of the neighbor’s dissatisfied ranting) and settled into <a href="http://www.watkinsglenharborhotel.com/">our lovely new place</a>. Things looked up from there. The next day we took a <a href="http://www.schoonerexcursions.com/trip-details.htm">sailing trip on a schooner</a>; it was a perfect day for sailing, not hot and with a strong breeze, so we got way out into the lake.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The lake reminded me a lot of <st1:placename w:st="on">Washington</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Lake</st1:placetype> in <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New Hampshire</st1:place></st1:state>, where Aunt Marcia and Jolie had a house in the 80s and 90s. We spent time there during a lot of summers, and some of my fondest memories are of waterskiing behind a boat that Uncle Dwight or my father was driving. I can still remember sitting in the water behind the boat trying to keep the skis from crossing in front of me or flipping underneath me while I waited for the boat to pull me up.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">We also managed visits to a couple of the wineries in the region, a hike through <a href="http://nyfalls.com/watkinsglensp.html">the gorges in the park in Watkins Glen</a> (definitely recommended), and a visit to cousins Marilyn and Tim in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Syracuse</st1:place></st1:city>.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><span style="font-family: Georgia;">On the way home from <st1:city w:st="on">Syracuse</st1:city> we stopped in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">State College</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">Pennsylvania</st1:state></st1:place> and saw my first cousin Mary (on my mothers’ side) and her kids William and Monica. Mary generously offered Alexander and Nora their pick of a huge selection of exotic stuffed animals that she was trying to get rid of. Below is a photo of the two of them with their new collection. Please note that some of Nora’s tiny purse dogs—and our real dog—are also in the photo. See if you can pick them out.</span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Yoga Update: But it’s Just a Small Thought</span><br />
</b></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In mid-July I went to “yoga camp” (this is how I described it to the kids) at the Kripalu Institute in </span><st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Massachusetts</st1:place></st1:state> to complete my hours for teacher training. I participated in a weekend-long workshop run by Shiva Rea, who is as different from Maria Garre, Shiva’s director of teacher training overall and the head teacher of my program, as could be imagined. Shiva Rea is all <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:state>: blond hair, skinny, talks a lot about walking her dogs on the beach. And she truly was named Shiva (a Hindu God) by her father.</span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Kripalu itself was great, although I didn’t sleep very well as our program would go to 9:30 to 10:00 at night and I couldn’t wind down afterwards (ironically, given this is yoga camp). The food is mostly vegetarian or full vegan, and it was kind of a paradise for me in that sense. The choices in the buffet often had several adjectives describing them: fair trade, organic, sustainable, gluten-free—you get the idea. Breakfast was terrific, and they had great salads and whatnot, but I have to say that I heard a lot about how good the food is before I went, and I didn’t really think the main courses were that much to scream about.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Vegetarian/vegan main courses are often billed as the meatless version of whatever they’re replacing (e.g., “mock” chicken salad with seiten protein). I think it would be better to just avoid mentioning the traditional version and give the dish its own name so that people are not expecting it to taste like the original. Also, it’s ironic that the vegetarian/vegan meals have to sell themselves as meatless versions of meat dishes as the whole idea in many cases is to reject the eating of meat for ethical reasons.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">My other favorite thing about Kripalu was the plethora of atypical male hair arrangements—dreadlocks piled on the head, or maybe long, long ponytails extending from nearly shaved heads—with much earnest conversation to go with them. (Contrast this with our experience in Watkins Glen, which was preparing for a big NASCAR race as we were leaving, and where we saw plenty of tiny little square goatees.) One snippet, overheard in the hallway as part of a conversation about some yogi’s flat feet, “…but you know, native people all have flat feet and they have no problems running long distances…”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">I’ve heard a number of yoga teachers say that becoming a teacher is the worse thing possible for your own practice. I’m trying to avoid this fate by actually practicing, and upping the ante by learning seriously to meditate. This is difficult at best in a house with two young kids, a husband, and a dog who enjoys twilight barking, but I persist. The meditation teacher at Kripalu described the mind as a fountain continually spouting thoughts into the air and emphasized that the art of meditation is simply bringing your mind back to your object of concentration over and over again. I can sit there for quite a while before I realize that I’m actually thinking rather than concentrating on the breath or whatever, and then I say to myself, “well, but that was just a Small Thought, really, so does it count?” One way to fool yourself into thinking you’ve achieved some sort of cosmic mindlessness.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Media Update<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Audiobooks<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Our library recently began carrying audiobooks in a format compatible with the iPod, so I have been able to listen to a number of them as I walk the dog, garden, do housework, and cook.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">On <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Chesil</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Beach</st1:placetype></st1:place></span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">, by Ian McEwan. I love Ian McEwan and this book was no exception. He writes so clearly and convincingly his characters seem real to me. The story here concerns the wedding night for a young English couple that goes terribly awry.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The God of Small Things</span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">, by Arundhati Roy. My favorite thing about this book was its setting. I didn’t feel particularly sympathetic toward any of the characters and so I didn’t feel drawn into their story. I see why it won the Booker Prize some years ago, as the language is beautiful. The author herself is part of the leftist lunatic fringe, which probably made me somewhat less disposed to the book before I even listened to it.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">In Defense of Food</span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">, by Michael Pollan. I’ve written before about Michael Pollan in reference to his book <i>The Omnivore’s Dilemma</i>. This book is a fascinating examination of the American diet and its lack of real food (which he would define as something your grandmother would recognize as food). He points out that people who follow “traditional” diets of all types all over the world—consisting sometimes of outrageous amounts of things now taboo for Americans, such as fat; and that are sometimes vegetarian, sometimes mostly meat-based—are much healthier than Americans’ diets. He makes the case that the American obsession with eliminating all fat in the diet as the key to good health has very little basis in medical fact. (One positive side for artificial ingredients, however: researchers have found bizarre healing powers in blue M&Ms, a fact about which I can’t say I’m surprised…apparently the dye in blue M&Ms, called “Brilliant Blue,” has been found to heal spinal cord injuries in rats.)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, </span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">by Stieg Larsson. This is the first book from the Swedish writer who wrote the three mysteries in his “Millenium” series and then died. My roommate at the Kripalu Institute recommended it and since then I’ve discovered that the Millenium series is a bit of a phenomenon. I had a hard time turning off the iPod for this one.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">My Antonia</span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">, by Willa Cather. I know that this book is a classic, but I always put off reading it because I was turned off by the name, of all things. I admit this is rather juvenile. In the audio version, the girl’s name is pronounced with the emphasis on the third syllable, not on the second as an English speaker would pronounce it. Once that was settled, I sighed with relief and was able to enjoy the book. I liked a lot of the descriptions of the recent European immigrants, especially as my Norwegian ancestors presumably had similar experiences. As I postscript, I looked up the entry on the book in Wikipedia, and it seems to suggest that the accent should be on the first syllable of the girl’s name, further confusing the issue and making me dislike the title once again.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Columbine</span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">, by Dave Curren. This is a fascinating and well-written account of the school massacre that addresses a lot of the myths (e.g., the myth of the trench coat mafia, the myth that jocks were targeted). I love columbine flowers, but now I can’t think about the flowers without thinking about the school <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span style="font-style: normal;">massacre.</span></i></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>The<span style="font-style: normal;"> </span>Best Game Ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL,</i> by Mark Bowden. My favorite thing about this book is what life was like, and how football was viewed, literally and figuratively, by the American people in the 1950s. It’s too bad the Giants lose, though. At least it’s not to the Redskin<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">s.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> <br />
<i>The Reader, </i>by Bernhard Schlink. Reading this book reminded me so much of living in Germany; no wonder it made such an impression on the Germans. George had suggested that I try reading this in the original language, but now that I’ve listened to it I’m glad I didn’t try, as it is peppered with long philosophical passages with no resolution. Some parts of it I liked, and the story itself is different enough to be intriguing, but really, in the end I was left with a feeling of “so what?”</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
<i>Running with Scissors, </i>by Augusten Burroughs. This memoir describes situations that are appallingly weird and apparently controversial with the actual people featured in the book. The author is my age, though, so a lot of the circumstances and atmospheric details he describes are very clear to me. Growing up the 70s really kind of was like that.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> <br />
<b>Books with pages to turn<br />
</b><br />
<i>Legacy of the Dead, </i>by Charles Todd. </span>This is the fourth book in the Inspector Rutledge series, and probably my favorite thus far. It’s unusual to get into a series and find that you like some of the later books better; most often it’s the first one or two that have the biggest impact.</span></span></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Bel Canto</span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">, by Ann Patchett. The book contains an unusual setup in which an American opera singer is brought in to sing at the birthday party for a Japanese executive in an unnamed South American country. The entire party is taken hostage by a group of “revolutionaries.” Weird circumstances ensue. Sounds strange, but it’s written beautifully.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">I mentioned in my last essay that Nora and I had started reading the “Little House” series. We have finished the first three books, and I find it fascinating to read them as an adult with an adult’s perspective on the events. For example, it seems that the Ingalls family moved out to “Indian Territory” in southeastern Kansas because Pa felt crowded in the “Big Woods” of Wisconsin (near Pepin, apparently). The government had reportedly made a statement committing to defending white settlers moving to Indian lands, but there seemed to be some confusion about this (I am wondering where they got their news—probably from their neighbors at the general store in town miles away). One fine day, after setting up house there for a year, Pa heard word that the government was going to come along and kick them off the land, so he said “we’re leaving tomorrow” and packed up everything, leaving their newly built house and newly planted garden behind them. Poor Caroline (Ma). I can just imagine how well that went over with her. Unfortunately for her, the expectation back then was most likely that women simply obeyed their husbands and went along with such nonsense.</span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Julia Child and the Death of Gourmet<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The movie <i>Julia and Julia</i> made a big splash this fall; the premise involves a young woman who takes it upon herself to cook every recipe from Julia Child’s ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” At one time I owned a copy of this book and over the years I probably cooked just one recipe from it. The recipes are too complicated and I suspect that excellent and updated versions of the classic recipes that she describes are available from sources such as <i>Cook’s Illustrated</i>. I am currently clinging to <i>Cook’s Illustrated</i> as my last remaining regular source of new recipes, as I am literally in mourning over the death of <i>Gourmet</i> magazine, to which I have subscribed since around 1994. Sometimes I cook a big meal and realize afterwards that every single thing I made was from <i>Gourmet</i>. Even <i>Cook’s Illustrated’s</i> editor, Christopher Kimball, feels the loss, as he noted in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/opinion/08kimball.html?scp=1&sq=Christopher%20Kimball&st=cse">an op-ed piece in the New York Times</a>.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Movies<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Four Stars<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Eastern Promises</span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">. This very violent film concerns Russian immigrants and mob members in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place></st1:city>. Starring Viggo Mortenson and Naomi Watts, it’s really interesting and well-acted in a <i>Sopranos</i> kind of way.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Into the Wild</span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">. I am a big fan of writer Jon Krakauer, who is the author of several bestselling books, including one on a doomed climb of <st1:place w:st="on">Mount Everest</st1:place> and another on fundamentalist Mormons. I have never gotten around to reading his first big book, however, upon which this movie is based. It concerns the life of a post-college guy who drops out of society to escape his ugly family. I now hope to pick up the book as well.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Three Stars<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Twilight: </span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The movie made from Stephenie Meyer’s first vampire book is a lot less sappy than it could have been. I had imagined that it would be like the movie version of the Nicholas Sparks’ book “The Notebook”: straightforward and overwrought. As it turns out, the movie of Twilight is quite funky and visually interesting. The actors are generally appealing, although the lead guy who plays the vampire does not strike me as particularly romantic. What disturbed me about the movie is that events were changed from the book, even though it didn’t seem important to the storyline to change them. Why annoy the books’ legions of fans?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The Dark Knight: </span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">George liked this latest installment of the Batman series more than I did. He thought it was different enough to be interesting, not settling for the usual type of Superhero story. I thought that Heath Ledger as the Joker was terrific, but half the time I had no idea what was going on and who was after whom. The bat cave was very cool, though, as was Michael Caine as Alfred, the butler.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Death at a Funeral: </span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">This is a sometimes outrageously funny British film about the events surrounding one man’s funeral. I give it only three stars because at times it is gratuitously icky.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Two Stars<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The Guru: </span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">I award two stars to this pleasantly silly movie about an Indian actor in <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:state> posing as a sex guru for unhappy rich women. Some parts are amusing, but it’s like a piece of cotton candy that dissolves quickly and is way too <span style="font-size: 16px;">sweet—it <span style="font-size: medium;">sounded like a good idea at the time.</span></span></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The death of actress Farrah Fawcett reminded me of how much I loved the show <i>Charlie’s Angels</i> as a child. I had all sorts of Charlie’s Angels trading cards, which I believe I posted up on my bedroom door, my favorite Angel being Kate Jackson. The show, alas, was no longer the same after Farrah left and was replaced by Cheryl Ladd—and then others after her. Post-<i>Angels, </i>Kate Jackson has seemed to have had a quiet career in made-for-TV movies <span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">and Jaclyn Smith has done pretty well for herself designing a c</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">lothing line for Kmart.<br />
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</span><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sports Update<br />
</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">“Hide your beagle, Vick’s an Eagle.” And with that it’s football season once again. The Giants are coasting through their season while the Redskins seize up and lose to the hapless Lions. It’s interesting that everyone was up in arms over Obama’s speech to schools, but frankly I’m more concerned about the propaganda from Leesburg’s assistant principal, who declared this <span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">the year of Dallas and put up Cowboys paraphernalia to celebrate.</span></span></span></span></span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Animal Planet</b></span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I don’t necessarily want to be the dog, but in some ways I am the dog. George and I actually </span>argue over which one of us is more like the dog. He claims that it’s him because he could sleep for 20 hours a day. I claim it’s me because I need to be walked—in fact, as George would point out, Baxter does walk me.</span><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Between walks, Baxter has taken up actively hunting the small animals that appear in our backyard. His recent kills include a baby bunny that George watched him catch and a squirrel that we found him eating. In both cases, George whisked the remains away, to Baxter’s consternation. Luckily for all of us, Baxter wasn’t the first one to discover the snake we had in our basement or the mouse tramping through our kitchen. In addition, George finally saw a bat in our backyard, but unfortunately it wasn’t residing in the actual bat house that George hung on the side of our house.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Politics as Usual<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">I have come to the conclusion that my main fear about Obama prior to the election was correct—being a senator with no executive experience to speak of, the man lacks the ability or interest to make tough decisions. George reminded me of my concern the other day, and it suddenly occurred to me that there’s been a big pattern here since inauguration day: big, inspiring speeches followed by dithering or avoidance of actual action. It’s the reason he decided (well, maybe!) not to put forward his own plan for health care. This strategy could be read as maybe just a way to avoid the fate of Hillarycare: don’t dump a 1300-plus page tome on Congress from on high (I had occasion to pick up a copy of Hillary’s bill and it could have been used at a footrest—and probably was).<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div></span><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Maybe it’s far less complex than Obama trying to avoid that particular failure: maybe he genuinely has no idea what to do. So he gives a nice speech. A commentator named Peter Wehner described the leaderless muddle thus: “As a general rule, it’s hard to succeed as a salesman when you don’t have anything in particular you’re selling.” I love it when a poll purports to show how Americans feel about the Obama health care plan: what plan could they possibly be reacting to?!? The same decision-making deficit also goes for the current mess about <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:place></st1:country-region>. As George points out, in the spring Obama dumped his general I Afghanistan and replaced him with another, in effect making a decision about what strategy he wished to follow. George also points out that the flap about McChrystal’s public lobbying is pretty interesting, given that during the Bush years plenty of Democrats were thrilled that the men in uniform were expressing public doubts about the president’s lack of a <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">strategy.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br />
</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">I </span>find it interesting that Obama did make a decision about the stimulus money and the economic crisis—I wonder what the difference was? Maybe simply that in a choice between spending or not spending money, spending definitely won out. Or maybe all his major a<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">dvisors were on the same page.</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In any case, the chief executive of Whole Foods markets, of all people, got himself into a lot of h</span>ot water with lefties for espousing free-market principles for health care reform; <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/18/AR2009081802849.html">here</a> is an editorial about it from <i>The Washington Post</i>.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">In the category of more amusing political news, at some point I caught a story about Brad Pitt considering a run for <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New Orleans</st1:place></st1:city> mayor. This is sort of laughable on its own, but his agenda was the real scream. I mean really, could pot smoking and gay marriage really under any scenario be the most pressing issues in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">NEW ORLEANS</st1:place></st1:city>? I don’t know, maybe the state of the levees, redevelopment, tourism, rebuilding—those are some of the things that occur to me, but who am I really?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Minor rant<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Occasionally our neighborhood attracts door-to-door sales persons to whom I try to be friendly yet discouraging. At least one, however, made me really irritated when he tried to sell me on some sort of unwanted product and referred to what my neighbors had bought from him, using their first names (seems to be a common tactic these days). Even I, quite informal most of the time, am offended by sales people referring to what “Bob and Edith” up the street are up to. This particular salesman went even further down this road when I told him I wasn’t interested in his product. He came out with something to the effect of: “Jakki over next door bought some—haven’t you been talking to the girls?” I almost puked. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard anything that offensive said directly to me. Needless to say I didn’t buy anything, even after he assured me that I’d be missing out—and he wouldn’t be back!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Postscript: <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Berlin</st1:place></st1:state> and Historical Preservation<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></span><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">In my essays from <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region>, I noted that pretty large chunks of <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Berlin</st1:place></st1:state>’s pretty large historical footprint had been destroyed and arguments continue to this day about preservation and memorialization. Along those lines, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/11/AR2009051103472.html">this story from </a><i><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/11/AR2009051103472.html">The Washington Post</a></i> discusses the fate of the Berlin Wall.</span></span><br />
</div>Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05525598322822559576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33754664.post-2521874615954401732009-07-14T17:43:00.000-07:002009-07-14T19:26:00.838-07:00Leesburg Essay 12<b><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: 800;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRFhTyWjqvW7cHRC4Y-_QlhsgaS-u3EOMr6Z0Pi8JUWXVP51DFJHI6AnIpgvMmeWKBQcdhib-yac9hsh1QqTibkAr7eCFEwyuHx624R9LY0tlF6_FBsahHljKY5s9hfOdL0OjV/s200/Alex+1.png" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 133px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358497051338027698" /><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Alex<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Alex died of lung cancer on April 25</span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">th</span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> at a </span><st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">New Hampshire</span></st1:state></st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> hospice. I have included her obituary.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Alexandra, 47, of </i></span><st1:city st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Farmington</i></span></st1:city><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>, </i></span><st1:state st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>NH</i></span></st1:state><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i> passed away on April 25, 2009 at Seacoast Hospice House in </i></span><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Dover</i></span></st1:city><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>, </i></span><st1:state st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>NH</i></span></st1:state></st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i> after a long battle with cancer.</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i> </i></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Born in </i></span><st1:city st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>New York City</i></span></st1:city><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i> on December 9, 1961, Alex graduated from </i></span><st1:placename st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Ridgewood</i></span></st1:placename><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i> </i></span><st1:placetype st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>High School</i></span></st1:placetype><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>, </i></span><st1:city st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Ridgewood</i></span></st1:city><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>, </i></span><st1:state st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>NJ</i></span></st1:state><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>, in 1979 and from the </i></span><st1:placetype st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>University</i></span></st1:placetype><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i> of </i></span><st1:placename st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>New Hampshire</i></span></st1:placename><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>, </i></span><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Durham</i></span></st1:city><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>, </i></span><st1:state st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>NH</i></span></st1:state></st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>, in 1983 where she studied pre-veterinary medicine. In 1986 she married Timothy Patrick, son of Perley & Sharlene of </i></span><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Dover</i></span></st1:city><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>, </i></span><st1:state st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>NH</i></span></st1:state></st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>. Together Tim & Alex pursued their dream of raising a family on a small farm. </i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i> </i></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Alex was a devoted mother to her two sons, Shane and Ian, and served as their den leader and pack treasurer in the Cub Scouts. She was also a lifelong animal lover, owning numerous pets, caring for horses and tending livestock on her farm. An avid gardener, she started her own nursery, growing a wide variety of vegetables, flowers, and other plants on her “Rocky Meadow Farm,” ran a roadside market stand and was a repeat grand-prize winner at the Rochester Fair’s “Market Garden Display” in Rochester, NH.</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i> </i></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>In July 2007 she was diagnosed with advanced stage lung cancer. Determined not to let the disease slow her down, she continued working in her gardens, remained active in the Cub Scouts and participated in “Relay For Life” while undergoing chemotherapy. She taught those around her the meaning of strength and courage. She enriched all of our lives. She achieved her dream.</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i> </i></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Alex is survived by her husband, Tim; her sons, Shane, 11, and Ian, 7; her parents, George and Eva of Ridgewood, NJ; her sisters, Felicie of Phoenix, MD and Gabrielle of Cream Ridge, NJ; her brother George of Leesburg, VA; and many nieces and nephews. A memorial service will be held on Saturday, May 9</i></span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>th</i></span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i> at 1:00pm at </i></span><st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Emmanuel</i></span></st1:placename><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i> </i></span><st1:placename st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Advent</i></span></st1:placename><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i> </i></span><st1:placename st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Christian</i></span></st1:placename><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i> </i></span><st1:placename st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Church</i></span></st1:placename><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i> </i></span><st1:placename st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Family</i></span></st1:placename><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i> </i></span><st1:placename st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Life</i></span></st1:placename><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i> </i></span><st1:placetype st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Center</i></span></st1:placetype></st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>, </i></span><st1:address st="on"><st1:street st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>34 Eastern Ave.</i></span></st1:street><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>, </i></span><st1:city st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Rochester</i></span></st1:city><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>, </i></span><st1:state st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>NH</i></span></st1:state></st1:address><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>. In lieu of flowers, donations in Alex’s memory may be made to </i></span><st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Meaderboro</i></span></st1:placename><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i> </i></span><st1:placename st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Community</i></span></st1:placename><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i> </i></span><st1:placetype st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Church</i></span></st1:placetype></st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>, </i></span><st1:address st="on"><st1:street st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>52 Evans Rd.</i></span></st1:street><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>, </i></span><st1:city st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Rochester</i></span></st1:city><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i> </i></span><st1:state st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>NH</i></span></st1:state><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>, </i></span><st1:postalcode st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>03867</i></span></st1:postalcode></st1:address><span style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i><o:p></o:p></i></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Life Events<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">When George and his family were drafting Alex’s obituary, attempting to tell something about her in addition to relating the basic facts of her life, I was reminded of the mini-obituaries—the “Portraits of Grief”—that </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">The New York Times</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> ran of all the people who died in the September 11 attacks. For each person, the writers captured something interesting and unique about them and it was very effective. I believe that they won a Pulitzer Prize for this, as well they should have.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I have heard about so many people recently who are either battling cancer or who have succumbed to it, I’m beginning to think that everyone is likely to get cancer, the only things that vary are at what age, what type, and when it’s diagnosed. This may sound outrageously pessimistic, but there are so many different types of cancer with so many different triggers that I almost think it’s a miracle to make it through life avoiding it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">In addition to Alex’s memorial service in the beginning of July, we’ve also attended a wedding (James and Ashleigh), First Communion (Alexander), and a three-fold Baptism (Mary, Eva, and Paula), managing to span a wide range of pivotal life events in a small amount of time. First Communion went well for Alexander. During the homily Father Mosimann gave before the ceremony, he spoke to the kids about the themes of love and responsibility. He then held up a picture of a man and a woman and told the kids that the “parents” in the picture would let them do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and asked how many kids would be interested in trading in their three-dimensional parents for the easy-going, flat parents. Sitting next to us in the audience, Nora—our little child with a lust for independence—stuck her hand right up.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s a Dog’s Life<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Fully half of my family would like a turn at being Baxter. Nora would like a chance to try it because, as she says, Baxter never gets sent to his room for misbehaving (she mentions this as though it happens to her all the time), and he doesn’t have to wash his paws before he eats. George wants to be the dog because then he could sleep whenever he wants.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">George is certain that Baxter has identified him as the pack leader (a.k.a. the Alpha Dog), which means the dog fears him but is very respectful of him. George has informed me that I am somewhere further down on Baxter’s totem pole: maybe not even Bravo, but Charlie. I had become convinced that Baxter is not a Jack Russell terrier mix, as we were told, as he has little resemblance to one, but a Miniature Pinscher, based on his coloring. But then I read on the web that the Miniature Pinscher, or “Min Pin” as I learned, is only 10 to 12 pounds, so unless 23-pound Baxter’s other parent was quite a bit bigger, I suppose I’m back to square one on the dog ID. Baxter’s favorite TV show is the<a href="http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/dog-whisperer"> </a><i><a href="http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/dog-whisperer">Dog Whisperer</a><b>, </b></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">on the National Geographic Channel, which he watches intently, putting his head back on his paws only during those rare moments when the dogs are off the screen.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I just finished reading Cesar Millan’s first book, <i><a href="http://www.cesarmillaninc.com/products/cesarsway.php">Cesar's Way</a></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">. He is the human star/host of the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Dog Whisperer, </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">and a big advocate of exercising your dog intensely to improve behavior, resorting to a treadmill if necessary. We don’t have a treadmill at present, but I wonder if Baxter could manage the stationary bike?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">A silly “What kind of dog are you?” quiz on Facebook identified me as a Maltese among a number of possible breeds. I would have thought maybe a beagle or some sort of respectable water dog, but a Maltese? An indoor, groomed, not-unlike-a-stuffed-animal breed? Me?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Years ago, when my Aunt Marilu was married to her first husband in Michigan, she became known in the social pages for serving canned dog food to her husband and his friends one evening after they had come back from partying demanding to be fed. They didn’t apparently notice the difference. This, then, from a recent issue of the magazine <i><a href="http://www.theweek.com/home">The Week</a></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">: “…researchers presented volunteers with five types of mashed-up food, including pate, duck liver mousse, and dog food, and found that only three out of 18 were able to correctly distinguish the dog food from the others.” So there we go. A potential source of snacks for unexpected and presumably annoying guests?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Spring Break</p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh12Mfu7b-j1shyz-vf6aXUJ1hsP9vsdxAaneuJlhQ3DcvgylfNJVQy7Q4VmLyMplZoNIHEn-lsFRBgCieiryuNOglKQ6_0qr57ncnD8wGh41CBaBz78BxaLwnpeUlfIt0Bs0B8/s200/Zip+1.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358497431349283474" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">We spent several days over spring break at Gabi’s house in the woods in </span><st1:state st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">New Jersey</span></st1:state><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">, taking day trips to </span><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Philadelphia</span></st1:city></st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">. Despite the frequent rain showers, we managed to see Independence Hall, the Betsy Ross house, the Liberty Bell, the Franklin Institute of Science, the Cezanne exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and a number of cheesesteak “restaurants.” The activity that impressed Nora the </span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; color: rgb(0, 0, 238); "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPMKXI0LQ6s3EbsXqWN9DWpEbGe9zOdV7PmkukIJExhAaYpZbgTvOluDYwFPTgKpsgxkfil4L5RQi1OyEQwxcJKKd-5EE1_pkcc9pGfXLiAiotLwzF3uU76XMeCAId6rl6pI4W/s200/Zip+2.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358497809812422114" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">most was “<a href="http://www.ridetheducks.com/">Ride the Ducks</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">”: a tour bus converted from an amphibious truck of the kind used in the D-Day landings (an attraction available in a number of different cities). In addition to the tour of the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">city, the ride featured a duck sound-maker distributed to each rider</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">; ensuring that the fun lasts long after the ride is complete. Alexander, in contrast, was probably most thrilled by firing his cousin William’s pellet guns into the forest (or alternatively at George). Or perhaps riding along the zipline Uncle Bill installed in the woods (see photos). Uncle Bill was an attraction in himself; like Uncle Hon or my father, he served as a constant source of entertainment.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">Speaking Truth to Power</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Just after school let out, we took our annual summer trip to </span><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Knoxville</span></st1:city></st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> to stay with my parents. Alexander can barely fit in all that he wants to do while he’s there, mainly endless games of pool, swimming (actually really diving and/or splashing), and watching cowboy movies or sporting events with my father. This year he reached the point in his pool game at which he can quite consistently beat all of us, including George. I would play against him and he would tell me before pretty much every shot, “Wrong angle.” I asked him at one point why he felt the need to tell me this on every shot, and he said “I speak the truth.” Nora can now reach the pool table, too, which has improved her game immensely, although she can manage a cue stick only when half of it is screwed off.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Media Update<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Books<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Gabi recommended that I read the four-volume series of teenage vampire books written by <a href="http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/twilight.html">Stephenie Meyer</a> from which the movie <i>Twighlight</i><i> </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">was made. At first my reaction was, “I don’t like horror, they were written for teenagers, blah blah blah,” but I then ended up almost finishing the first one by the time we left her house, and have since finished the remaining three. By number four I was certainly tired of the use of the word “agony” and certain other overwrought expressions (I tried to keep in mind that this is a book featuring an 18-year old girl). The thing about the series is that the characters are fascinating (although their appeal definitely declines by book four), the circumstances are clever, and the stories are real page turners, even though you could skip half the words on every page and not miss a thing</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">In between the vampire books, I coasted through </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">The Anglo Files</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">, a book George got for me after hearing an interview with its author, Sarah Lyall. It is a laugh-out-loud examination of many aspects of British life (including parliamentary decorum, cricket, and false modesty) and I have to say that my conclusion is that the British are even weirder than I thought.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">The book has definitely provided a broader context in which to watch English Premier League Soccer, which with some of the commentary (e.g., “that team that they’re playing is simply rubbish!”) is a little like watching that old TV series Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (MST3000). Actually, George and I find ourselves harkening back quite frequently to MST3000 on those occasions when we’d rather mock some TV show than actually watch it, as was the case during season seven of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">24</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> (although I read that Katee Sackhoff from </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Battlestar Galactica</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> is joining the cast of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">24</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> next year, which has the potential to take it up a notch from its current torpor).</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">The most disturbing chapter in </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">The Anglo Files</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> was that on dentistry, a topic which sets Americans apart from most other people on the planet. The British have perfectly awful teeth. The author’s point in this chapter was that the British have caught on to the fact that visibly rotting teeth makes one far less appealing, particularly for someone in the public eye, and are beginning to see the benefits of cosmetic—or even basic—dentistry. I don’t remember Germans having teeth quite as bad, but I do remember my visits to a dentist on a leafy boulevard in our leafy district of Berlin and how he spent literally about five minutes picking at a few of my front teeth and then told me to go on my way. He probably needed some extra time at the end of the day so that he could go wash his car.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Nora and I have begun reading “chapter books” together. We’ve gotten through quite a few in the last month or so, most of them books that were mine when I was little. We began with </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Little House in the Big Woods, </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">the first book in the Laura Ingalls Wilder series, which I thought might appeal to Nora because it concerns a little girl who’s just about her age. She had a lot of questions about why they did things in this or that way. George remembers being struck as a kid by the fact that Almanzo Wilder, the protagonist of the book </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Farmer Boy</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> and Laura Ingalls’s future husband, only took a bath once a week—in cold water. What strikes me now is how much of Laura Ingalls’s story concerns the consequences of children being naughty, so it’s quite amusing for a parent.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">We then moved on to </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Charlie and the Chocolate Factory</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> by Roald Dahl. My favorite chapter concerns the “square candies that look round.” This title is very funny once you get into the chapter and realize the pun; I didn’t know if Nora would get it, but she did. (George had the same question when he read the book with Alexander, who also caught on immediately.) It’s really subversive how Wonka giggles away at the children’s misfortunes, and the Oompa Loompas sing these ridiculous songs mocking them.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Next up was </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Charlotte’s Web</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> by E.B. White. Nora did not seem at all bothered by the fact that </span><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Charlotte</span></st1:city></st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> dies in the end. After this was </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Bambi</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> by Felix Salten, which is far more violent and nature-video-like than I remember it being. In addition, there is a very unusual and striking chapter featuring two autumn leaves talking with each other about what’s about to happen to them (i.e., fall off the tree). We are now well into the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Doctor Dolittle</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> series by Hugh Lofting, which were my books but which I can’t remember reading. I’m really looking forward to the rest of the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Little House</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> books and also one of my favorites as a little girl (ironically, given my opposition to princesses), </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">A Little Princess</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">The Wolves of Willoughby Chase</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">, by Joan Aiken, also sticks in my mind. Alexander is just waiting for me to read Nora the first Harry Potter book.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Early in high school, my friend Jocelyn and I formed our own reading group and had the freedom to determine what we wanted to read. One of our choices was a book I read countless times: </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Rebecca</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">, by Daphne DuMaurier. I should reread it as an adult. It has a very strange premise in that the lead character is portrayed as such a nobody, essentially, that she is not even given a name. Jocelyn and I christened her “Lois.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">In recent years I’ve met a number of people for whom John Irving’s </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">A Prayer for Owen Meaney</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> ranks as one of their all time favorites. I believe I mentioned this in a past essay as one of the books for which the movie was too much of a disappointment even for me to watch. It’s such a strange little book, but really endearing.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Movies: Three Stars<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Before the Devil Knows Your Dead</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> concerns the botched robbery of a family jewelry store. It was pretty good, but had an ending that left us shaking our heads with incomprehension. The movie features Marisa Tomei, adding to its appeal for George, for whom </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">My Cousin Vinny</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">, for which Ms. Tomei won an Oscar, is one of his favorite movies of all time.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> is as long as its title but worth watching nonetheless. Brad Pitt comes off as an actor rather than a tabloid headline. The movie is also really beautiful; I imagine the cinematographer and the art director had a good old time. I wish I knew more about Jesse James, though. I think that the extent of my knowledge was summed up in the episode of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">The Brady Bunch</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> (it’s very funny to sit around with a group of people who grew up in the seventies and try to think of every Brady Bunch episode you can) in which Peter dreams about being Jesse James and a descendent of someone who was killed by the James gang is brought in to disabuse him of his hero worship.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Nephews Shane and Ian recommended that we watch the movie remake of the TV series </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Get Smart</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">, starring Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway as Agents 86 and 99. They said this while implying that Steve Carell in the title role reminded them a lot of their Uncle George. George kept pretty quiet about any resemblances he noted in the movie; I would point out that Agent 86 is at first an analyst churning out long, detailed, and boring reports and presenting them to his snoring colleagues. Maybe after Shane visited George’s office last year that’s the impression he was left with?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">We went to the theater in </span><st1:city st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Knoxville</span></st1:city><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> to see </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">State of </span><st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Play</span></st1:state></st1:place></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">, starring Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, and Helen Mirren. The actors were all very good (Crowe quite chunky and with long hair, but I’m not complaining); the problem with the movie is that the plot was kind of murky in the end.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">In Bruges</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">, whose stars include Colin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes, is a very funny blackish comedy about hit men who are sent to </span><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Bruges</span></st1:city><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">, </span><st1:country-region st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Belgium</span></st1:country-region></st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> to await a call from their boss. It’s very violent, but the dialogue and situations are quite clever, and I was really impressed with Colin Farrell as one of the hit men. Also, the city itself looked lovely.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Movies: Two Stars<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">We half-heartedly watched half of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Killer of Sheep</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">, a black and white, 1970s examination of inner city </span><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Los Angeles</span></st1:city></st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">. The 10,000 dollar budget was painfully obvious. I can see why critics regard it as noteworthy, but watching it is more like being in film class than sitting back and catching an enjoyable flick (Citizen Kane is another example of this phenomenon).</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">TV and Other<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Battlestar Galactica</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> completed its final season with an ending that couldn’t be anything but a little disappointing, although I liked it as it was completely unexpected. Now the Sci Fi Channel is touting its new show for the fall, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.scifi.com/caprica/">Caprica</a></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">, which goes back to the creation of the Cylons before the destruction of the home worlds. Someone loaned us the DVD of the pilot, and it was more interesting that I thought possible given that I had already rejected the idea of any kind of spinoff</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">We eagerly watched the HBO series </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">John Adams</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> starring Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney. I am a fan of Paul Giamatti (he almost—I repeat, almost—managed to upstage Russell Crowe as Jim Braddock’s manager in </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Cinderella Man</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">). George was utterly mystified, though, with the portrayal of </span><st1:place st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Adams</span></st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> as a generally cranky old man who manages to alienate pretty much everyone, Jefferson as a man who goes around mumbling and rarely ever smiles, and George Washington as still and diffident. As neither of us has read the David McCullough book on which the miniseries is based, maybe this view is a well-documented portrayal of the founding fathers, but it’s vastly different from the way they usually are presented in history textbooks and other books I have read.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Most afternoons this spring, as soon as Alexander had finished his schoolwork, he would rush down to the basement to get in some time on the Wii video game, specifically this really clever little Star Wars game in which the figures that you manipulate all look like they’re made from LEGO pieces. He and his friend Andrew, who would show up at the door carrying his own Wii remote, would sit down there arguing and collecting points, which they used to buy new characters with other battle powers. His conversations became peppered with references to the new guys he bought or would buy once he racked up enough points.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I wanted to brighten your day with some more gems from the country music world. My latest favorites include the following: “</span><a href="http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/currington-billy/people-are-crazy-26124.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">God is great beer is good people are crazy</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">,” “</span><a href="http://www.mylyricarchive.com/montgomery_gentry_lyrics/one_in_every_crowd_lyrics.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">There’s one in every crowd and it’s usually me</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">,” and “</span><a href="http://www.mylyricarchive.com/kenny_chesney_lyrics/out_last_night_lyrics.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Yeah, we went out last night, one thing started leading to another, out last night, getting to know everybody and their mother</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">Nine Months That Went By Much Faster Than Pregnancy and Now I Need a Job</p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Yoga teacher training wrapped up in May, although I missed the final weekend and thus have some hours to complete before I can get my certification from Yoga Alliance as RYT 200 (Registered Yoga Teacher at the 200-hour training level). I plan on completing my hours at the <a href="http://www.kripalu.org/">Kripalu Center</a> i</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">n the Berkshires in mid-July</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">. I am taking a workshop on teaching flow yoga with Shiva Rea, who is the founder of the particular style of yoga (Prana Flow is what she calls it) in which I received my instruction. The idea of spending a weekend with her is a little like a graduate student in political science, having been taught by a really capable teaching assistant or assistant professor, who then launches into a seminar with Henry Kissinger—well maybe not exactly like that, but you get the idea.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJjCJuABTfa-IPuK7GVFQe8xDlxmkhbuoi18_RrMXfz1TVHgXDuuiF0D13dxWLvvIYw1g7vLBZMFyB3y7_VfKR3sBJ8Ofo-L_jo8iug5_HcWVE_1rZp7CVIFidUfggS_1AwJyS/s200/Yoga+1.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358500156400878706" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 112px; height: 112px; " /></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">One of the categories of yoga poses (asanas) is that of arm balances, which are really fun. There are countless such poses, from the quite simple to the extremely advanced. For whatever reason, though, many teachers gravitate toward Bakasana, for which the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">English translation is roughly “Crow Pose.” I can’t stand it. Every time I get into it I feel literally as though I’m going to fall on my face and crush my nose. I love other arm </span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDx3tdyibSuKgW352zS3svIUC4C-CeywsAh3kLFn3Sa1AMyy6Ed1nX_BWw4Af_0EhECRwI8M4CJ-P0dhK7Bo5RDvssot_GJF5j5XKBIeOvkJtx72pFNtBhh8W5QkP2988pdqgI/s1600-h/Yoga+2.png"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDx3tdyibSuKgW352zS3svIUC4C-CeywsAh3kLFn3Sa1AMyy6Ed1nX_BWw4Af_0EhECRwI8M4CJ-P0dhK7Bo5RDvssot_GJF5j5XKBIeOvkJtx72pFNtBhh8W5QkP2988pdqgI/s200/Yoga+2.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358500472678100850" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 131px; height: 93px; " /></a></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">balances; even more complicated ones. But those don’t involve launching yourself forward, leaning your entire crouched body on the shelf created by your knees jammed close to your armpits, and dangling your face worryingly above the earth. And in order to go deeper, the practitioner is urged to “jump into it” (and then naturally to jump out of it). I would rather have an intravenous drip put in, I believe, which is just about number one on my list of least favorite things. I prefer Eka Pada Koundinyasana (“Pose Dedicated to the Sage Koundinya”), for example, in which your entirely body is sprawled out over the shelf created by two bent elbows. Your nose is again worryingly close the earth, but your extended body makes it unlikely that you’re going to fall forward; more likely that your elbows will collapse underneath you and you’ll hit the ground in a less painful and disfiguring manner.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Dance Update</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">We survived another dance recital at the Dance Academy of Loudoun. This year there were at least two groups of young dancers (neither of which was Nora’s group) in which some of the girls just sat down on the stage, started to cry, and wouldn’t get up to dance with the other group members. In the case of one of them, another of the dancers went to her crying classmate and convinced her to come and join the group for a minute or two. In the case of the other group, the girls’ teenage minder had to come and carry the dancer off the stage at the end of the performance. Nora did fine, although she told George that she was trembling during the dress rehearsal. During the actual recital she was apparently okay because, as she explained later, the lights were off and she couldn’t see the audience. Alexander pointed out to us that she forgot some parts of her dance; we told him that this wasn’t information she needed to hear.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Politics as Usual<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I thought that there was hope a month or so ago that my most-hated figure in Washington, Nancy Pelosi, was going DOWN. After her ridiculous dissembling on whether she knew about waterboarding, the only thing I could think is, Doesn’t anyone in </span><st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Washington</span></st1:place></st1:state><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> have a backbone? (Okay, okay George—you would say Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld do, but I digress…) Wouldn’t it be refreshing for someone just to tell the truth? Do her constituents believe this nonsense?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Many people seem to believe that the Obamites are drinking their own Kool-Aid (as an aside, when did this become perceived as a racist term rather than a reference to Jim Jones?)—that they are so devoted to the liberal line that they believe that torture, as they define it, is worse for the </span><st1:country-region st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">U.S.</span></st1:country-region><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> than an attack on the </span><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">U.S.</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> or its interests. I actually believe that they understand perfectly well the trade-off and they are just praying that intelligence services (now demoralized) and the military (overstretched) will do a good preventive job, and Obama’s diplomatic overtures will help to lower the temperature in the Muslim World. Obama certainly doesn’t want to be in the position of having a massive strike on </span><st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">U.S.</span></st1:country-region></st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> interests during his presidency, and having it come back that he left our national security apparatus without some major tools. He would then have to make the argument forcefully that the “corruption of </span><st1:country-region st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">U.S.</span></st1:country-region><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> values” is in the longer-term more of a risk to the </span><st1:country-region st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">U.S.</span></st1:country-region><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> (by, for example, bringing forward more people willing to fight against the </span><st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">U.S.</span></st1:country-region></st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">) than the immediate loss of life (i.e., his voters) and/or property in the case of a terrorist strike. It would be similar to Bush having to stand up before the families of those who died in </span><st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Iraq</span></st1:country-region></st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> and explain why it was important to be there. Obama would need to be pretty eloquent and persuasive to make that argument; or prepared simply to blame everything on the previous administration. Either way, I’m sure he’s doing a lot of praying.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Random Thoughts on Food<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">My mother gave me a copy of an old Fanny Farmer baking book a couple of years ago, and I have found many very unusual recipes, like those for breakfast pies, one in particular which features a custard made of milk, eggs, and cream of wheat. Not at all trendy, which leads me to the category of things that come full circle; it might interest you to see <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2219314/">this reassessment of the healthiness of lard</a>.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Financial Update<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">George recently received a call from an alumni fundraiser from the </span><st1:place st="on"><st1:placetype st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">University</span></st1:placetype><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> of </span><st1:placename st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Rochester</span></st1:placename></st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> inviting him to lunch. George, a trained diplomat, decided to take the offer of lunch even though it was clear that the guy was going to hit us up for a bunch of money. He first went through a list of ways in which George could “get involved” as an alum, including helping with networking, but the bottom line was that he wanted to issue us an invitation to join the “George Eastman Circle,” which is the designation for people who hand over big wads of cash to the school. George is not entirely sure that he heard the guy correctly, but he believes that he said that the school is trying to raise ONE BILLION DOLLARS through a Capital Campaign. They have a very nice brochure printed with all sorts of flowery phrases meant to make you feel good about being part of The Circle (naturally capitalized) and supporting the next generation of students. Well, really—if a Capital Campaign can raise that kind of money for a well-regarded but unfortunately-situated school like the </span><st1:place st="on"><st1:placetype st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">U.</span></st1:placetype><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> of </span><st1:placename st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">R.</span></st1:placename></st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">, then I’m going to print up a glossy brochure and launch one to buy George a Mercedes.</span></p></b>Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05525598322822559576noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33754664.post-83912533878381318252009-04-12T15:20:00.000-07:002009-04-12T16:20:09.199-07:00Leesburg Essay 11<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">The Triplets</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">As of this writing, Paula has finally been sent home. The medical staff at the rehab facility weaned her gradually off the morphine she needed following surgery for reflux in November, but she still requires a feeding tube. Felicie reports a series of “tests” the medical staff has put her and Greg through to make sure that they were responsible enough to take her home. One test was to give Paula a bath. When Felicie pointed out that she’s been giving Eva and Mary baths for months, the staff’s reply was that they couldn’t be sure that she was doing it right.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Eva and Mary, while waiting for their sister to arrive home, kept busy displaying definite personality differences. Eva is generally more awake and fussy and Mary is more calm and sleepy. Mary is also a couple of pounds heavier than Eva; I wouldn’t be surprised if this was partly a result of the fact that Eva is up and fussing! Big brother James, who is currently stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina and is nearing the end of his Special Forces training, got engaged to long-time girlfriend Ashleigh in Paris over Christmas. They are planning a wedding on <st1:state st="on">Maryland</st1:state>’s <st1:place st="on">Eastern shore</st1:place> over Memorial Day weekend.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Alex<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alex has started yet another chemo regimen this month. George visited her a few weeks ago and reports that she’s fairly tired and generally weak from her treatments and her lack of activity, but is otherwise her usual self. Among the usual things she’s dealing with: Ian broke his collarbone in February fooling around with Shane.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Media Update<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I recently finished <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Gang Leader for a Day</i> by Sudhir Venkatesh, a non-fiction book about a “rogue sociologist” who embarks on a standard sociological survey of the attitudes of poor urban residents of <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Chicago</st1:place></st1:city> (e.g., “How does it feel to be poor and black?”). Instead of carrying out his survey, he ends up being sort of adopted by the members of a drug gang at the <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Robert</st1:placename> <st1:placename st="on">Taylor</st1:placename> <st1:placename st="on">Homes</st1:placename></st1:place> and spends years simply observing their lives. I found it hilarious how he just walked into the projects and hung out with these guys without any clear idea what he was getting himself into. He has some fascinating insights, including a hint of the utter corruption in <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Chicago</st1:city></st1:place> politics at the most basic levels. In addition, reading this book has helped me with the more problematic vocabulary sprinkled throughout the HBO series <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Wire</i>. <br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Aunt Marcia lent me the first two books in Vince Flynn’s “Mitch Rapp” series. Rapp is an ueber-Jack Bauer (the TV show <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">24</i>’s lead guy) roaming around the world eliminating terrorist threats to the <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region></st1:place> These are great stories, especially when you only have time to read a few pages and can’t afford to have to keep going back and rereading to follow a complicated plot. In addition, I don’t know if I’ve ever read a book in which Leesburg features so prominently. There’s only one major complaint I have: Vince Flynn has either a really bad editor or publisher because the books are littered with annoying little errors in spelling and whatnot, which is sort of inexcusable in the days of Spell Check.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Last fall I began a recent book by Jane Smiley: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The All True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton.</i> I am normally a big fan of Jane Smiley, but I found this book lacked an emotional center, at least for the first 100 pages, after which I got so bored that it became more of a chore than a pleasure to read. It would have helped if the author had spent more time discussing the lead character’s marriage to a man she hardly knew. The marriage provides the catalyst for her to leave one life and start another, but the focus is on the activities of abolitionists in <st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">Kansas</st1:state></st1:place>. I think Mitch Rapp provides more of an emotional punch.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">George and I took a deep breath and cancelled our subscription to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Washington Post</i>. Although the paper occasionally carries noteworthy stories (I think back to the long series detailing the problems at the <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Walter</st1:placename> <st1:placename st="on">Reed</st1:placename> <st1:placename st="on">Army</st1:placename> <st1:placename st="on">Medical</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Center</st1:placetype></st1:place>), the quality of the journalism is awful. Quite often the reader must get to paragraph 20 on the second page of the story before encountering some of the basic facts (who, what, when, where, and why?). I think the idea is to “grab” the reader, but when basic information is lacking upfront I get frustrated; hardly grabbed. Maybe the journalists don’t actually understand the story they’re writing. Maybe they have terrible editors. Whatever the reason for the problems in basic journalism, we were also annoyed by the outrageously biased coverage of the election. Even though we’re not rabid partisans it’s hard to take the paper seriously anymore. I glance at the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Washington </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Post</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The New York Times</i> headlines online and all I really miss from the print version is the weather page. I’ve found that I’m actually better informed about international topics from perusing the website <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><a href="http://www.realclearworld.com/">RealClearWorld</a></i>. We also still get <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Economist</i> and have begun a subscription to a magazine called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><a href="http://www.theweek.com/home">The Week</a></i>, of which I am quite fond.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Through Netflix we caught a few episodes from the first season of the American series <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Office</i>, with Steve Carrell. Like the Dilbert cartoon, it highlights the fundamental absurdity of the office environment. We saw the British version and thought it was hilarious. Happily, the American version is as well and I’m just thankful that I don’t have an office job anymore (no endless staff meetings, no struggling to stay awake after lunch). It’s sort of like Tolstoy: happy offices all resemble each other; unhappy offices are all unhappy in their own, tragic ways.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We slogged our way through the much ballyhooed film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">There Will be Blood</i> starring Daniel Day Lewis. All I can say about this film is that much of it might take place in <st1:state st="on">California</st1:state>, but the overall impression it leaves is of <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Texas</st1:place></st1:state>, where the movie begins—vast and filled with incomprehensible things.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In contrast, the film version of the wonderful book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Atonement</i> by Ian McEwan is really well done and I didn’t get that sinking feeling that my experience of the book was ruined by a poor film adaptation.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">When George’s alarm goes off at 5:30 a.m., it is set to WMZQ, the local country music station. As neither one of us likes country music, this is a strategy meant to get him out of bed and across the room to turn off the alarm and put an end to the music. Even so, during the colder months (when he doesn’t want to get out from under the warm covers) we get about five to ten minutes of music before he manages this and we’ve found the lyrics really amusing. I’ve always been opposed to country music because of the twang, although some of the singers really do have great voices (like Faith Hill). Some of the lyrics are classic, though, especially when they get into the absurdly mundane. An example off the top of my head: “I walked across the kitchen, made some coffee, the cat was on the counter eating cereal, you were already gone.” Or an actual song by Toby Keith: “She’s a rebel child, and a preacher’s daughter, she was baptized in dirty water, her mama cried the first time, they caught her with me, they knew they couldn’t stop her.” One that really speaks to me is by Kid Rock, really a crossover hit, borrowing from the Lynyrd Skynyrd classic “<st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Sweet Home</st1:city> <st1:state st="on">Alabama</st1:state></st1:place>” and from “Werewolves of London.” The best line: “It was 1987, my thoughts were short my hair was long.”<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Now that football season is over, my favorite source of football news, ESPN’s Football Today podcast, has moved on to discussion of the musical chairs of various coaches and players. The multitude of coaches in the NFL is beyond silly—even in the TV series <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Friday Night Lights</i> the coach of the Dillon High School Panthers has about five assistant coaches. I won’t be surprised if the Giants announce that they’ve hired one coach for the right side of Eli Manning’s body and one for the left.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Update on Nora<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Now that Nora has really gotten into the swing of things with the other kids in the neighborhood and at school, she has discovered that parental restrictions are quite annoying and projects this into her play. She has explained to me many times, for example, that Baba (her blanket) can do whatever it wants. If it wants to go out in the 30-degree weather in shorts and a t-shirt, that’s all right with Nora! Happy day for Baba! This is probably because Baba is pretending that it lives in <st1:state st="on">Hawaii</st1:state>, not <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Virginia</st1:place></st1:state>.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">She also has become extremely attached to her stuffed dogs, which is exactly how I was as a child. She even talks about having a dog club, which is what my friend Ginanne and I had. I think that the only members were Ginanne, me, my dog Tish and her dog Rufus. Ginanne’s little sister Becky was probably not allowed to join. Ginanne’s mom composed our club song:<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">Doggy Clubs of <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place>, DCOA<br />Doggy Clubs of <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>, DCOA<br />We love you best of all the rest<br />Doggy Clubs of <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place>, DCOA</p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Update on Alexander<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Just before Christmas break, Alexander’s teacher asked his students to write an essay describing something that the students thought they deserved to do in class when they returned in January. A sort of Christmas present from their teacher. Alexander’s submission was the following:<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>I think that I deserve to have math time test for the whole first week of January. I think I deserve that because I like doing math time tests and that I like math. I also think so because math time tests are very fun. Math time tests are fun because they help me learn my facts and learn math. I also want to because I’m on multiplication and it’s hard to pass so if I do more math tests then I’ll be able to pass because I’ll learn my facts. I like math because I get to learn addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.</blockquote><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">It’s hard to argue with this logic, although he clearly doesn’t take after me. His teacher wrote: “Your wish has been granted.” In contrast to his desire for more math, Alexander seriously considered how to get his teacher to let him give up word study homework for Lent.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The second graders at <st1:place st="on">St.</st1:place> John the Apostle are approaching their First Communion in May, which means they had their First Penance in preparation. Apparently, First Penance is a logistically difficult occasion for the priest, a question of not scaring the kids or making them incredibly nervous, so the priest's body language is important. Along these lines, Father Mosimann, the head pastor at <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">St. John’s</st1:place></st1:city>, related a story in which he used to avoid direct eye contact with the kids during confession—much as he often avoids direct eye contact with adults during confession, because doing so makes them feel more comfortable confessing their sins. Kids, however, apparently don’t have the same inhibitions, and some thought he hadn’t listened to a word of their confession. He also occasionally closed his eyes (again, to avoid eye contact), which some kids interpreted as him falling asleep. A friend of mine who teaches religious education at <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">St. John’s</st1:place></st1:city> said she had one kid in her class that wouldn’t speak at all. I guess Alexander spoke, but we have no clue what he said.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Update on Kate<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">One thing that my yoga-teacher training program stresses is integrating yoga into daily life. There are a number of principles that yoga philosophy stresses for its devotees and one of them is leading a clean life. This includes the obvious things like taking showers, but also includes the kinds of food you eat, and how you manage your household. For the past year I’ve been chucking all my harsh cleaning chemicals (hmmm: my hands did not have the terrible itching and cracking problems that I had last year—maybe these two things are related?). I don’t use antibacterial soap, I use “green” laundry detergent, and as you all probably know I’m a devotee of organic foods. It took me a while to hunt down a dishwashing powder without phosphates in it that actually works: I’m happy to report that I’ve had the same results with <a href="http://biokleenhome.com/home">Biokleen</a> that I always got with Cascade. I’m only sorry that we won’t be able to retrofit our home with solar panels or windmills any time soon. And I would have drawn the line at those “green” disposable diapers that you're supposed to be able to flush. Ha! I’d like to see that.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Baxter enjoys my home yoga-practice sessions. Sometimes he gets a little bit too excited about them and jumps up on me or generally tries to take over the yoga mat. Once he jumped up on my back when I was (coincidentally) in “downward facing dog” pose and his dew claw got caught in my sweatpants. He couldn’t get down. I had to slowly lower myself to the ground and extract him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>I attended a workshop at a studio in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Falls Church</st1:place></st1:city> for Yoga Nidra, which is yogic sleep. This practice requires you to lie completely still for an hour-plus in the resting pose savasana (usually placed at the end of class) while the instructor leads you through deep relaxation. At one point the instructor was going through a series of images he wanted us to picture in our minds, such as a Greek temple, a grave—things of this nature. For some reason I had the hardest time imagining a pyramid. All I could get to was a corner of stone blocks surrounded by sand. I’m still trying. Alexander’s school project depicting the <st1:place st="on">Nile</st1:place> and a Sphinx or two in clay helped, but only a little.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Update on George<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">George had a big “Larry David moment” (you may recall I previously mentioned his frightening resemblance to the lead character in C<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">urb Your Enthusiasm</i>) when volunteering for the day at Leesburg Elementary. The assistant principal was interviewing him during the morning announcements, which are broadcast via video to all the classrooms. After answering a question about where he worked, he proceeded to tell the entire school that his organization’s purpose is to steal secrets from other countries. The assistant principal hastily interjected that at the school they work hard to teach the children that stealing is wrong. They probably won’t be asking him back anytime soon, even though the rest of his day was apparently incident-free.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Travel</span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In late January we took a trip to <a href="http://www.greatwolf.com/williamsburg/activities/waterpark">Great Wolf Lodge</a>, which is an indoor water park/family oriented hotel in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Williamsburg</st1:place></st1:city> (there are other locations as well). The water park features a huge climbing structure complete with slides, sprinklers, pails, and water guns; a wave pool; a “river”; giant water slides; a surf simulator; and more. This was a great hit with the kids. Entirely consistent with their personalities, after a certain point Alexander stopped going down the slides and instead began to use all the gadgets to dump on water on other (unsuspecting) guests, while Nora, once she got over her fear of the water slides, didn’t want to get off them.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In addition to the water extravaganza, the hotel featured an interactive game called “MagiQuest.” This was ingenious, because it locked parents into buying interactive magic wands (and perhaps paying to get them decorated) which the kids then used to follow “quests” throughout the halls and gain various powers. Alexander was as happy with this whole setup as with the water park itself. The only problem is that kids were playing this game, running throughout the halls, until close to midnight—thump, thump, thump like a herd of rampaging water buffaloes. Don’t go there to catch up on your sleep. People we know who had been there complained about the food, but it's food meant to appeal to a broad swath, lots of kids included, so nothing threatening. They even had Goldfish crackers, that ubiquitous childhood snack food, at the dinner buffet.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Over Christmas we got a chance to go sledding in Aunt Marcia’s backyard in <st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">New Hampshire</st1:state></st1:place>. This was a huge hit and everyone had lots of fun. True to form, Alexander after a certain point stopped sledding and started building a snow wall at the bottom of the hill into which the other sledders could crash, while Nora, after getting over her initial fear, didn’t want to stop sledding. The best part was that most of the adults were involved. Even my Dad, knee replacement and all, took a turn down the hill. At one point the adults were at the top of the hill calling down to the kids who had all the sleds. Hey you kids get up here with the sleds!! It’s our turn!!<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">As we typically try to do, we also spent a bit of time in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">New York City</st1:place></st1:city>. We met a couple of George’s high school friends one night and ended up after dinner at a dessert place in the Village called <a href="http://www.maxbrenner.com/home.aspx">Max Brenner</a>. There was on that particular night, horrifyingly, an hour-and-a-half wait for a table and we didn’t get seated until some time just before 10:00. This place is a marketing extravaganza, but I was actually quite disappointed with my dessert. It was a cup of thick hot chocolate, but it was lacking salt or something because it tasted completely flat. The major thing I noticed this time about <st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">New York</st1:state></st1:place> is that pretty much every fourth person, male or female, was wearing a black parka made by The North Face. This appeared to be the uniform, this winter’s fashion shorthand. I’m sure that if any in our party had been wearing one, we could have shaved at least a half an hour off our wait time at Max Brenner.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s not really travel, I guess, but George and I “traveled” to <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Alexandria</st1:city>, <st1:state st="on">Virginia</st1:state></st1:place> one night in December to check out <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Restaurant Eve</i>, which seems to be the newest “destination” restaurant in D.C. The place appeals to me in part because they have elaborate local food supplier networks and have some sort of special worm composting thing going in their backyard. They have nice napkin holders. Oh, and the food is excellent too.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">George took a business trip out to <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Denver</st1:place></st1:city> recently and went skiing—for the first time—with a colleague of his. It turns out that he loves skiing. This means I’ll have to go too! I love cold and snow! Yippee! It all balances out, though, as he feels pretty much the same way about going to the beach.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Politics and Current Affairs<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We survived the Inauguration. I had originally thought that it might be nice to take Alexander down to the Mall and see the goings-on, but the organizers sent out not-too-subtle messages that kids were not welcome (e.g., “Don’t bring kids.”). Never mind the kids, it seems that the organizers were not interested in anyone from <st1:state st="on">Virginia</st1:state> (traditionally a Red state, but this time gone Blue) attending the event, as they closed all bridges connecting <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Virginia</st1:place></st1:state> to the District. Did they mine the harbors as well?<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It seems that this historic event has had little immediate positive effect on our finances, as the stock market has dropped even lower since Obama took office. I’m wondering what’s going to happen to our taxes when it comes time to pay off the stimulus. Speaking of taxes, what kind of incompetent tax attorneys do the Administration officials and nominees have? Maybe they should stop paying all those expensive accountants and try Turbo Tax Deluxe (one state return included!). What was Tom Daschle thinking when he waited a month or so after “catching the error” to inform the Obama team? These people are all a bunch of hypocrites.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We, in contrast, did pay our taxes this year, and we also managed to take advantage of the brief really-low-rate window to refinance our mortgage. We now have a 15-year at 4.5 percent, which I really can’t imagine we’ll beat at any time. Then we started hearing that Obama was going to put forward a financial plan for distressed homeowners, and I thought, “Oh great, so we refinance and then the government is going to come in and help everyone.” Luckily, the likely categories are not going to encompass us and, really, for that I am grateful. It’s wonderful to be getting some “free” cash from the feds but who really wants to be in a position to need it?<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>And as for Rob Blagojevich—it occurs to me that he’s not even quite as smart as the drug dealers in the HBO series <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">The Wire</i> because they stopped talking on their phones when they realized that they might be in trouble. He just kept gabbing away. A sign of a truly serious personality disorder.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Bonus Gratuitous Comparison<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Why the environment movement is a religion. To see why, it’s instructive to compare it directly with Christianity.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="">Christianity/</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="">Environmental Movement</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Deity: </span>Holy Trinity/Mother Earth<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Demon:</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Satan/Exxon Mobil<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Sacrament:</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Communion/Recycling<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Place of worship:</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Church/Farmers market<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Progeny:</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>The future/Wasteful self-indulgence<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Sins:</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Murder, lust/Disposable plastic water bottles, driving<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Prayer:</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Hail Mary, Our Father/Om shanti shanti<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Sacred Text:</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Bible/Silent Spring, The Omnivore’s Dilemma<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Fringe Violence:</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Crusades/Torching Mercedes and BMWs; spiking trees<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">View of Humans:</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Originally sinful/Originally sinful (and dirty)</p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"></p>Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05525598322822559576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33754664.post-78246028083126784032008-12-01T07:26:00.001-08:002008-12-01T08:06:22.530-08:00Leesburg Essay 10<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq0mJD95mQoaXS2x7RF1XnaLhxlZMpfXCtVqdJIf5_vg1DGmSjkZ83JWWdrxnK8hk_ACAKXRmu4xwomm70iNluo6KxxFfrzsuu_G-0AqaEToDcolTr052cXaq6rcWypf3BsJth/s1600-h/Baxter.jpg"></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Alex</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In late September, we learned that Alex’s cancer had spread to her brain. At the time, she wasn’t yet suffering any symptoms (e.g., no headaches)—it’s fortunate that her doctors discovered the tumors during a scan. She’s subsequently undergone a series of radiation treatments and is back to weekly chemo sessions, and her doctors are monitoring her to see whether the cancer is advancing or retreating—or merely standing still. Depending on the outcome, they’ll adjust her treatment accordingly. We look forward to seeing her again over the holidays, and continue to pray that this latest round of treatment will finally turn the tide.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Dad</span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">George’s father had a scare earlier this month. After feeling completely exhausted from the most minor physical activity, he went to the hospital. The doctors found a torn heart valve, which they repaired during open-heart surgery a few days later. He’s now in physical therapy and should be back home in about a week. We expect that his physical recovery will be slow but steady—he won’t be permitted to do any driving for weeks or heavy lifting for a year while his chest muscles heal—but we fear his inability to shovel snow may drive him insane as he is forced to watch passively while the white stuff piles up on his driveway and paths.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Felicie</span><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Felicie had her triplets at the end of August, several weeks earlier than hoped, but still okay. Two babies (Mary and Eva) are now home from the NICU. The third (Paula) is still confined to the hospital to address a problem with reflux; she had surgery on November 20<sup>th</sup>. Unfortunately, the doctors moved her a while ago to a hospital in Baltimore with different facilities, meaning a longer and more complicated trip for them to go see her. Felicie and Greg are in the meantime learning to juggle the needs of the two at home, which is actually probably a good adjustment before they have three (of course, what do I know, although now I’m somewhat devoted to the TLC series <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><a href="http://tlc.discovery.com/tv/jon-and-kate/jon-and-kate.html">Jon and Kate Plus Eight</a>, </i>the regular viewing of which has the potential to make Felicie and Greg’s job seem far easier).<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">While visiting Felicie, I caught a glimpse of her copy of the ubiquitous pregnancy book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">What to Expect…</i> (fill in the blank: “…When You’re Expecting,” “…The First Year,” etc.) and it brought back memories of the countless times I referred to it when pregnant. I’ve read only two parenting books since then and both saved my sanity. The first was a book on breastfeeding by Dr. Jack Newman called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">The Ultimate Breastfeeding Book of Answers</i>. It was recommended to me by the lactation consultant who, although very pleasant, couldn’t really help me. Although Dr. Newman covers many topics, his advice basically boils down to getting the latch right and not worrying about the rest of it. So I didn’t worry about the rest of it and managed to nurse both kids. The second—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child</i> by Dr. Marc Weissbluth—was recommended to me by my friend Michelle when Alexander was about a year and a half. If I had known about this book when Alexander was a newborn, things would have been much different for all of us in our one-room apartment, but so be it. If I met either of these men I think I’d have to bow down and kiss their feet.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Baxter</span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq0mJD95mQoaXS2x7RF1XnaLhxlZMpfXCtVqdJIf5_vg1DGmSjkZ83JWWdrxnK8hk_ACAKXRmu4xwomm70iNluo6KxxFfrzsuu_G-0AqaEToDcolTr052cXaq6rcWypf3BsJth/s200/Baxter.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274846870097521810" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span><p class="MsoNormal">Imagine a spider cricket with fur and a tail: that pretty much describes our new dog, Baxter. Part Jack Russell terrier, maybe some dachshund, possibly some goat, and definitely some insect, he can literally levitate from the floor onto the bed. He’s convinced he can climb trees in order to catch the squirrels he chases. Another favorite pastime is hunting the spider crickets in our basement. George and Alexander took him to dog school, from which he graduated having caught on to some but not all of the material. He’s not big on “stay” or “heel” when there’s some reason for him not to stay or heel, such as a squirrel heading up the nearest tree. Our neighbors, also the brand new owners of a rescue dog, got theirs a Redskins collar, so I immediately got a Giants collar for Baxter (the blue of which I think matches his black fur well). Our neighbor then upped the ante with a Redskins leash, which makes me wonder whether Baxter needs a #10 Manning jersey and a miniature NFL licensed helmet.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>In a weird flashback to last May with Muki, I was walking Baxter around our cul-de-sac when with lightning speed he grabbed a large something off one of our neighbor’s lawns and began desperately chewing. I didn’t know what it was at first, but my initial tactic was to yell at him to get him to drop it. When that had no effect whatsoever, I next forced my fingers into his mouth to try to dislodge the thing while he was still trying to bite down. It turns out that he had a chicken bone stuck in the roof of his mouth and was trying to use his tongue to loosen it so he could continue to chew on it. I managed to get some of it out, but he ate a big chunk of it. I couldn’t believe it. Why are there so many disgusting chicken bones lying around the neighborhood? Don’t people actually throw things away in the trash receptacles in their homes? Don’t people know that’s what those big plastic containers are for?</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Back at School</span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>Alexander is now in the second grade and has real homework. He brings home a lot of short essays that he has written in class, some of which are very entertaining. My favorite so far was the following, apparently inspired by a photograph of his teacher (Mr. Davila) with his wife at the zoo (I didn’t preserve the original, more creative, spelling): “Once upon a time there was somebody called Mr. Davila and his fantastic wife. Mr. Davila and his wife had a date at the zoo. And sat by an ape. The ape broke out of the cage and ate Mr. Davila. Soon the ape got so fat it blew up.” Mr. Davila gave him a smiley face for that one.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And then there was this one: “Once upon a time a girl named Anabelle went to <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Hershey</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Park</st1:placetype></st1:place>. They stayed there for ten days. Their hotel was made out of chocolate so for dinner, lunch, breakfast, dessert, and snack all they did was eat the hotel. So by the time they left the hotel was halfway gone. The chocolate is very healthy but not for dessert. Everything at <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Hershey</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Park</st1:placetype></st1:place> is chocolate even the rides. It is 82 miles long. It is so fun.” I guess so!<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Over the summer, in addition to his usual activities running around the neighborhood, Alexander took up chess, playing with George, his babysitter Alex from a couple of houses over, and occasionally me. One recent night he reached a milestone of beating George. George knew that this day would come, but I have to say that he looked sort of disgruntled when it did.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">I Have to Do My </span><st1:place st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Om</span></st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> Work!!</span><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’ve now been through three yoga training weekends (six more to go), which last from late Friday afternoon through to late afternoon on Sunday. Each day we have a class (the public classes at the studio) and then review and discuss our extensive training materials and practice teaching, using each other as guinea pigs. Never before have I been to training (and there was always some kind of required training at EPA) where everyone is barefoot and sweaty, and where we get to lie down for ten minutes after lunch. None of you will be surprised by the snacks people bring: nuts, fruit, organic cereal bars, and soy milk with their lattes.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Just one quibble about the reading homework for class: more than one thing I’ve read states unequivocally that our environment is rapidly degrading and that this is putting more stress on people’s physical and mental health. This is an issue that gets my attention as I spent 10 years at EPA and two years before that at an environmental consulting firm. I find it ridiculous to say that the environment is actually degrading; particularly in this country. The environment has actually become a mainstream concern, and we as a country have cleaned up countless habitats that contributed to a truly alarming environment in the Seventies (e.g., trash tossed routinely out car windows, rivers catching on fire). If I read this one more time I’m going to scream.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Just for the fun of it, I tried four sessions at a “hot” yoga studio in the nearby town of <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Ashburn</st1:place></st1:city>. In this case the “hot” does not refer to popular, but to the actual temperature of the studio. An unforgettable experience, but not really what I think of when I think of yoga. <a href="http://www.bikramyoga.com/">Bikram Yoga</a> consists of 26 postures done always in the same order with the studio heated to above 100 degrees. There is one instructor-designated water break while the sweat pours down your body (which you’re not supposed to expend energy wiping away). The rest of the time the instructor basically yells at you to keep pushing yourself. The theory underlying Bikram is that these 26 postures are the best and safest way to transform your health and mental outlook. The environment is disquieting, to say the least. At one point the instructor was encouraging us by saying “Good listening!” as though we were a group of elementary school kids. I visited the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Yoga Journal</i> website and found an interview with Mr. Choudury, in which he dismisses any other form of yoga and any other teacher of yoga other than those that have been certified by him. As in any industry, I’m sure there is quite a bit of competition in the yoga world, but I don’t think his statements are in line with the generally charitable language that yoga teachers try to use when discussing one another (at least in public).<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Princess Update</span><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>One of the women in yoga teacher training alerted me to a truly disturbing development<span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';">—<span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Georgia;"><a href="http://www.disneybridal.com/index.html">Disney princess wedding dresses</a>. Do I need to say more?</span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Books</span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>When I was a kid I used to read a lot of mystery novels; Agatha Christie was my favorite. Just as there may be a formula for writing mystery novels, there’s probably a standard approach to reading them. I’m definitely out of practice (in the past 20 years or so I can remember one or two that I read and really enjoyed including <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">The Alienist</i> by Caleb Carr). Aunt Marcia recommended a Charles Todd novel (featuring Inspector Rutledge) called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">A Test of Wills</i> that I found to be a page turner, in part because I prefer my mysteries to take place either in other places or other times, and this one takes place in <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">England</st1:country-region></st1:place> just following WWI. Maybe I’ll try another in <a href="http://charlestodd.com/homepage/">the series</a>.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>I loved <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close</i> by Jonathan Safran Foer. It is an adult novel with pictures that takes place in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The protagonist is a young boy whose father died in the towers. I found very realistic the boy’s leaps of imagination, such as his invention of a skyscraper that could swap the floors around so someone trapped at the top could get out. The only thing I found bothersome were gratuitous references to <st1:city st="on">Dresden</st1:city> and <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Hiroshima</st1:city></st1:place>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_Loud_and_Incredibly_Close">Wikipedia has a good description</a>.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>I read two novels by the British author <a href="http://www.markhaddon.com/">Mark Haddon</a>: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">A Spot of Bother.</i> The former is an engaging story told mostly from the point of view of an autistic boy who’s trying to solve the murder of a dog in the neighborhood as his parents’ messy lives swirl around him. The latter concerns a British family and their individual struggles. The only character I really found likable was the brother with boyfriend problems, although overall the book was entertaining.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I listened to the audiobook of Ruth Reichl’s memoir <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Garlic and Sapphires</i>, which describes her life as the restaurant critic of <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">The</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">New York Times,</span> particularly the elaborate disguises she would wear in order to go unrecognized in the restaurants she was reviewing. She was often treated quite shabbily by many of the restaurants—considered some of the best in <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:state>—when she would show up as Jane Schmo and not Ruth Reichl. In any case, she is long gone from her days at the Times and is now the editor of Gourmet magazine, which I have been reading since about 1993. I have cooked countless recipes from the magazine, saved a notebook full of them, and read a number of fascinating articles. One of the most memorable was from several years ago, written by recently deceased writer David Foster Wallace. Gourmet had sent him to the lobster festival in <st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">Maine</st1:state></st1:place> to write some presumably amusing piece about this traditional event. He, however, came back with a <a href="http://www.lobsterlib.com/feat/davidwallace/index.asp">long article discussing the ethics of cooking lobsters</a>. I don’t eat lobster, but I remember this article well. By the way, if you’re interested in crustaceans and happen to be in <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Maine</st1:place></st1:state><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">, </b>try out a trip on a<a href="http://www.lululobsterboat.com/"> lobster boat with a captain who’s truly a showman</a>; fun for the whole family.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I also think a lot about Reichl’s editor’s note from sometime last year in which she came out against giving kids different foods from what the grown-ups are eating at a meal. I agree—to a point. Sometimes George and I eat terribly spicy food and it’s actually painful for the kids. Also, if they absolutely hated it the first time, I don’t make them eat it as leftovers (yes, we’re big on leftovers here). On a related topic, sometime in the last couple of years Jerry Seinfeld’s wife came out with a book discussing how to get kids to eat vegetables by hiding them in other foods. I can’t imagine anything more ridiculous in terms of setting kids up for long-term eating. Presumably part of your job as a parent is to set up reasonable habits in your kids. Pretending the vegetables aren’t there may get some vitamins in them now, but all they’re going to think in the long term is that vegetables are horrible and need to be hidden away.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>As for sources of recipes other than <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Gourmet</i> and my collection of cookbooks, I love <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">The New York Times</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Cook’s Illustrated</i>. I find that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Washington Post</i>’s recipes are really hit or miss; I get the sense they don’t really go over them in the test kitchen.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>I mentioned in a past essay my intent to read a book about the OJ Simpson case. Now, twelve years after it was published, I have finally read Christopher Darden’s account of the trial. He does a good job of portraying the utter frustration and despair of the prosecutorial team. I then Googled “Judge Lance Ito” and found that he is still on the Los Angeles Superior Court. I can’t imagine having any respect for him as a prosecutor; I wonder how the DA’s office, which used to think highly of him, views him now?</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>Nora came up with an idea for a book. Nora’s book has a very simple plot; it goes something like this: Hummy (she often calls me this now) goes to the bank and gets a Hummy bobblehead!! (Nora loves to go the bank because they always have these little BB&T wrapped lollipops, but I don’t think we’ve ever gotten a bobblehead. I wonder which bank she’s going to.) This cracks me up because I keep imagining my head floating over one of those silly little bodies.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">New TV</span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>As there’s nothing else on TV other than football, George and I have caught up with the AMC series <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Mad Men</i>, which concerns the antics of a bunch of Madison Avenue ad guys (and one gal) in the early 1960s and their wives/girlfriends/secretaries. My favorite part is the incessant smoking, drinking and secretary-chasing. I guess it may have been like this in many offices in 1960, but it’s hard to imagine now—which is obviously why the series plays it up. On the subject of marketing, I always wonder about the marketing, product development, or legal teams that come up with some of the familiar phrases we see on consumer goods, like the dire warning on your take-out coffee cup: “Caution—the Beverage You’re About to Enjoy is Extremely Hot.” How long did it take the creative team to go from something like, “look out you idiot, that’s really hot coffee!” to this nicely phrased line that evokes refined living?</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Movies: Four Stars</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Gone Baby Gone</i>. George and I agreed that this movie is pretty near great. Here the golden retriever-like Ben Affleck turns to directing and puts his brother Casey in front of the camera. This turns out to be a good move. The movie is atmospheric, not predictable, and contains a true moral dilemma.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Three Stars</span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>We enjoyed George Clooney’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Michael Clayton</i>, which is about a group of <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">K Street</st1:address></st1:street> lawyers who are busy screwing people over. More appealing than other George Clooney movies (except for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Out of Sight</i>).</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Bourne Ultimatum</i> is the latest, very frenentic, episode in the Jason Bourne franchise. My favorite of these is still the first one, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Bourne Identity</i>, which co-starred cute German actress Franka Potente (also of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Run Lola Run</i>). Just one question—what was the composer (John Powell) thinking when he wrote the soundtrack? It sounds like something from the Eighties tacked on at the last moment.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>On the subject of music, I was wondering if the concept of “listening to music” has gone by the wayside. Do people ever sit around “listening to music” anymore, or are they mostly doing something else at the same time like fooling around on Facebook or doing homework? I distinctly remember countless hours sitting in my room just listening to Bruce Springsteen or Billy Joel or whatever, and I was reminded of this when I was out walking the dog with my iPod and was listening to Prince’s “Purple Rain” and thinking, yes, this is still worth a good undistracted listen.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>George had never seen any films by director Ingmar Bergman, who died recently. I warned him that Bergman films are generally concerned with a bunch of really depressed Swedes, but I don’t think he realized how deeply depressed a bunch of Scandinavians can get. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Fanny and Alexander</i> spends a long, slow time up front developing its milieu but then it gets more interesting, with a very gothic element. In the end we had a hard time deciding what had happened, but the children were very compelling. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Cries and Whispers</i> was even more challenging, if that’s the word, and I think George would be quite happy if he never saw another Bergman film.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>We really liked <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">No Country for Old Men</i>, starring, among others, Tommy Lee Jones and Woody Harrelson. I leave it at three stars, however, because the ending was utterly incomprehensible. Even I could write a movie with no ending.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Two Stars</span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">An Inconvenient Truth</i>—I thought this movie was supposed to be about global warming, but it’s Al Gore’s film all about me, Me, ME!!! The world would have been fine, the seas would have parted, the ice caps would have rebuilt themselves if Al had just managed to take office in January 2001. Politicians are such a bunch of narcissists, really.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>As I write this, gas prices have gone from a peak of $4.15 a gallon for the gas my car takes to about $2.00, which is an amazing drop. Despite the fact that it was really hard on people who needed their cars to get to their jobs so that they could continue to pay their bills, in terms of the environment and traffic congestion, $4.00 a gallon gas was a wonderful thing. I could feel my own vigilance about how much driving I did around town deflate as soon as I saw that number drop below $3.00. I remember when I first graduated from college and used my car to commute to work. I could fill my tank for maybe around $15.00. I didn’t even think about it, even though at work I would spend my day immersed in the regulation of underground petroleum storage tanks.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>Two stars also to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Great Global Warming Swindle</i>, which is a documentary that appeared on the BBC (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle">more information at Wikipedia</a>). It brings up some familiar questions about climate data which I am in no position to evaluate. I love the part when the narrator breezily points out that warming in a past age was very good for <st1:country-region st="on">Britain</st1:country-region>’s wine harvest (meanwhile, <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Spain</st1:place></st1:country-region> has turned into a desert…). I do think the discussion of the politics of climate change was right on, however.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>I was very disappointed in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Pirates of the Carribbean</i>. It had a very curious, disconcerting tone. I gave it two stars for the sets and costumes, but we actually stopped watching because life is too short for marginal movies.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">The End of the Endless Campaign</span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>In the end I am hopeful about the Obama administration. I am crossing my fingers that he will not allow his White House to become the mess that the Clinton White House became in the first months as the kids took over. Obama seems to have surrounded himself with adults so far, so with luck they won’t get too arrogant and cocky. A lot of Republicans have criticized his choice of the volatile Rahm Emmanuel as Chief of Staff, but Obama’s smart to choose someone who knows both ends of <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">Pennsylvania Avenue</st1:address></st1:street>. Maybe the guy (Rahm, that is) will anger even more people and have to go, but that remains to be seen.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>One of my biggest regrets about the current political lineup in <st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">Washington</st1:state></st1:place> is Nancy Pelosi. I really wonder how she has gotten to where she is. She is one of the most partisan and uninspiring Speakers (or speakers, really)…she displays no characteristics of a statesman, no ability to bring around her own troops, no calming demeanor—just blame and attacks. Not what we need under any circumstances, but certainly not during the current crisis. It’s too bad that she’ll be around for a while.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>On a similar subject, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">The Washington Post</span> reports that Terry McAuliffe, former head of the DNC, is setting up an exploratory committee for a run for <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Virginia</st1:place></st1:state> governor. If he actually makes it into the governor’s mansion I'll need to begin a movement for <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Loudoun</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">County</st1:placetype></st1:place>’s secession from the Old Dominion.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>A couple of observations on the presidential debates, the negotiations for which were as complicated as bringing peace to the <st1:place st="on">Mideast</st1:place>. The second debate was so boring I fell asleep and woke up to hear yet another question about the candidates' plans to shore up the questioner’s finances. As for the first debate, Jim Lehrer sounded not unlike a preschool teacher exhorting the kids to play together as he attempted to get them to speak to one another (then Tom Brokaw spent the second debate trying to get them to stop talking). McCain told all these folksy stories of things that happened long ago, and Obama tried to pad his meager resume. The weird thing was that, although Obama has many <st1:place st="on">Hollywood</st1:place> connections, they are clearly not with the makeup people because he actually appeared green, which was not good from the standpoint of him trying to look more experienced than he actually is. In any case, Gwen Ifil was a better moderator than either Lehrer or Brokaw, and Bob Schieffer better than any of them.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>The strange thing about the third debate was the number of commentators who came out saying that Obama had “won.” I was pretty neutral about the others, but in the third McCain clearly had Obama kind of stumbling to keep up—until he worked in his red-meat references to Ayers and ACORN, at which point he moved from provocative to just silly. The fact that Obama stayed “cool” just made him seem more unapproachable and uninvolved.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>This campaign went on for what seems like two years—no, wait, it was two years!—and I still do not have an answer to this question: What is a community organizer? Who employs the community organizer? What is the measure of success for a community organizer? The media used this term as though it should be obvious to all readers; not knowing what this is probably immediately outs you as a backward red-stater.</o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>Much has been made of Obama being “right” about the <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region></st1:place> war and “wrong” about the surge and McCain just the opposite. The discussion makes it sound as though one or the other was being prescient in being “right,” but it’s a matter more of veering toward their philosophical and ideological instincts than being prescient. Both were consistent in their views and votes and this shouldn’t be surprising to anyone.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>And with regard to Palin and her ability to be a mother to her five children in addition to an elected official, it seems to me that Obama wrote at least one book that in part lamented the absence of his father in his life, and yet is he there at all for his kids? How can you be there for your kids if your profession is that all-consuming?</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">The Defining Moment of Political Courage</span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>I remember the above phrase from, I believe, the Bush 41 years when it appeared in some commercial in favor of the passage of the then cable bill. I remember thinking “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">cable TV</i> is the most important issue facing the country?!?” Whatever the circumstances then, I was reminded of this phrase as I watched the chairman of Lehman Brothers sitting before Congress and telling us that he was taking responsibility, or however he put it, for the failure of his firm. He can easily say this and then go home to his terrace overlooking the ocean and sip a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. Still in possession of—dare I say it?—obscene amounts of money. I don’t mind people making vast amounts of money; I mind people making vast amounts of money who then destroy the small amounts of money that other people have, in addition to putting all sorts of people out of work. Better than “taking responsibility,” he could drive himself down to the bank (if it’s still solvent), or fly to the Cayman Islands, and pull out his money in chunks of $10K to $20K and hand it out on the street to those people who have lost 40 percent or more of their modest retirement savings. “Take responsibility,” right. He should be prosecuted for something.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>On a personal level, when Money magazine had yet another article recommending a switch to mostly cash or debit, I made the switch and it’s actually been sort of liberating. I had been trying to maximize the money-back rewards on our credit card, but frankly I’d gotten tired of subsidizing these guys and decided to have a cash revolution.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>European schadenfreude has become muted as it has become clear that their financial firms behaved the same way despite “superior” regulatory systems. Poor <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Iceland</st1:country-region></st1:place> has utterly collapsed into the arms of Vladimir Putin, which should worry everyone. If this collapse has a bright side it has to be that the drastic decline in oil prices is going to put a serious crimp in style of the governments of <st1:country-region st="on">Venezuela</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region st="on">Iran</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Russia</st1:place></st1:country-region>.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>Recently I was wondering what the next huge news story would be, since we hadn’t really had a doozy since 9/11, but I guess the financial collapse of the world certainly fits.</o:p></p>Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05525598322822559576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33754664.post-65370186833482844412008-07-20T18:50:00.000-07:002008-07-21T05:24:37.080-07:00Leesburg Essay 9<strong>Alex<br /></strong><br />Alex, Shane, and Ian came to visit for a couple of days this month and a good time was had by all. The biggest hit was the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, which revived a cast of small characters who were wilting in the late afternoon heat on the National Mall only a few short minutes before. Alex reports that she’s feeling pretty good at the moment, and only has real troubles for about two days following shortly after her chemo treatments. We will see them again in a week or so on our way to Maine.<br /><br /><strong>Catastrophic Dog Failure</strong><br /><br />Poor Muki had become quite comfortable with the whole scheme of things in our neighborhood. I guess he got too comfortable, because he wandered a front yard or two away one Saturday afternoon in May when we were all outside and that was it for the little guy. He tried swallowing a bone so big that it is difficult to picture what he was thinking. The emergency animal hospital could not dislodge it from his esophagus without it splintering. We were quite broken up about it.<br /><br /><strong>The Test Beagle</strong><br /><br />We’re going to get a new dog, but not until the end of summer at the earliest after we have returned from our trip to Maine. The dog we’re looking for should be calm and housetrained, and should be small enough not to necessitate the purchase of a new—and significantly bigger—car. Our initial look was at beagles. My childhood dog, Tish, was part beagle. The thing I didn’t expect was that many people have a really bad impression of beagles. In fact, I heard on the radio a list of the top ten “thug” dogs: the beagle came in around number seven (dachshunds occupied the top spot). The rescue organization at which (<a href="http://www.brewbeagles.org/">B.R.E.W.</a>) I inquired has a list of if/then statements designed to elicit potential owners’ true desire to own one.<br /><br />The adoption procedures required the visit of a very nice woman from Purcellville with a “test dog.” This (very large) beagle was meant to see what our reactions would be to the dog, but also to size up the physical environment in which the dog would be kept, particularly the ability of our fence to contain a beagle that has found a scent worth chasing. The dog was very patient—Nora gave him a huge hug, all 45 pounds of him—but had one terrible flaw: his name was “Bob.” In our neighborhood there are already way too many Bobs—there’s Cathryn’s dad Bob, there’s “sheriff Bob” (a new arrival), and there are “retired Bob” and “hotel Bob” (who owns a hotel) across the street from each other on the corner. In any case, we passed on Beagle Bob and now are free to adopt our own howling, escaping, shedding dog—named anything but Bob.<br /><br /><strong>Nicole’s Babies<br /></strong><br />George’s cousin Nicole had her twin boys, William and Declan, in April. We suspect that she and Dave are very, very busy.<br /><br /><strong>Felicie Too</strong><br /><br />Not to be outdone, George’s sister Felicie and her husband Greg are expecting triplets in September and they are no doubt resting up in anticipation. Now Nora won’t be the youngest cousin. If they have boys, George can continue his campaign for a child named George, as if there weren’t enough Georges in the extended family already (see my thoughts on Beagle Bob above). When I was pregnant I put in a big push for “Georgia” if the baby turned out to be a girl, but George is a purist. He also made clear that he didn’t want his child named after a state. He was, however, quite eager to name the poor girl “Cheney.”<br /><br /><strong>Update on the Girl Who Could Have Been “Cheney”<br /></strong><br />For some reason (well, maybe this is easy to understand) Nora wants desperately to go to Hawaii and wear “Hawaii clothes.” She has trouble understanding when she asks “When can we go to Hawaii?” and I answer “It’s too far and expensive; probably not for a long time.” Sometimes she asks if she can go later this afternoon as if we would be popping over to the neighborhood pool. If it’s not “when can we go to Hawaii?” then it’s “when we can get a convertible?”<br /><br />The upcoming election has me questioning again whether Nora could ever run for president given that she was born in a German hospital. George believes this issue is settled and the “Consular Report of Birth Abroad” is enough to guarantee smooth sailing should she have such ambitions, but it seems to me that many are still questioning McCain’s eligibility (born in the Panama Canal zone, I believe) and many would react with suspicion to a document not called simply “Certificate of Live Birth.”<br /><br />One of my pet peeves is strangers’ reactions to Nora based on her short hair (she does not like having her hair combed, even with detangling spray, so we went with a short hairstyle for now). Even dressed entirely in pink with “Dora the Explorer” sneakers, people still assume she’s a boy. And people actually refer to Nora as “he” mere seconds after I speak directly to her, calling her by name. A cashier at Target actually asked me why I was buying my little boy pink sneakers, which is offensive on many levels. In an era in which little girls seem routinely to be dressed like Britney Spears, I guess a child must have long hair to be taken seriously. Forty years of feminism and this is what we’re reduced to: long hair, pink clothes, and high-heeled flip flops (good for the playground). On the subject of shoes, Nora definitely has a shoe fetish. I can’t wait to see what she’s like as a teenager.<br /><br />During the school year, Nora was enrolled in a tap/ballet/tumbling combination class at a Leesburg dance studio—which required both tap and ballet shoes—and in June had her first recital. We didn’t know whether she would cry or participate; in the end she participated and didn’t appear in the slightest bit concerned about the mass of people or the stage. She was more interested in whether I would take her and Alexander to the pool later that afternoon. Alexander was complaining that he had to go to the recital, but then really enjoyed it—especially when he realized that he knew some of the other dancers from school. The older girls were quite good, but I think a group of kids smaller than Nora stole the show. One little girl in a huge pink tutu would not move at all. She stood there the whole time the others attempted to do their dance and continued to stand there when the other girls filed off the stage. One of the older girls had to come out and get her. Her parents were probably thinking “an entire year of dance, grandparents in for the recital, and this is the result.”<br /><br /><strong>Update on Alexander<br /></strong><br />Alexander took a brief dip into the peanut butter pool when he discovered that he liked peanut butter and honey (he doesn’t like jam)—but only on crackers, not bread. On bread it’s apparently too sticky. This is absolutely bizarre to me because peanut butter is a big thing in my family. I still like to eat a good peanut butter and honey sandwich, and Nora asks for this particular combination almost every day. It’s much easier to make lunch for your kid to take to school when you have peanut butter as an option, although I’m sure the schools will soon ban it to prevent harm to kids with food allergies. The traditional peanut butter sandwich in a Ziplock bag will go the way of dodgeball and correct answers in math.<br /><br />As Alexander has become proficient in reading he has taken up perusing the newspaper at breakfast. I leave him the “Kids Post” (a page in the Washington Post just for kids), the Sports section, and the Metro weather section with the extended forecast. He is particularly interested in the latter because the neighborhood rumor is that the Good Humor man comes on days when it’s above a certain temperature (I think his arrival is actually far more random). In addition, Nora needs Alexander to tell her when there are storms anticipated because she needs to prepare her anxiety well in advance.<br /><br />And we had quite a stormy start to summer. Alexander completed his spring baseball season and enjoyed it thoroughly, but quite a number of games were called because of rain. The league would reschedule the cancelled games and the make-ups would be cancelled as well. George took the plunge and bought himself a baseball glove so that Alexander could have someone constantly on hand to throw with him (I will play catch or pitch for him but I’m not well-versed in the use of a glove).<br /><br />Alexander has also managed to finish first grade. His report cards were good, although he frequently got in trouble for talking. Having met some of his friends I can imagine with whom he was getting into trouble.<br /><br />It seemed as though every birthday party this spring took place at “<a href="http://www.pumpitupparty.com/">Pump it Up</a>” in Leesburg. Pump it Up is a huge play space that features giant inflatable slides, moon bounces, and an enthusiastic teenaged staff. It’s especially good when an outdoor party is unlikely to be a go because of unpredictable weather. Luckily for us, Alexander and Nora are still at an age when we can manage a joint party. The opportunity for exhausting play is important to us given that our attendees include a bunch of overactive young boys; this year when the kids were settled in eating pizza and cake, the girls were completely sedate and well-mannered while the boys were still all over the place. If I were the teacher of young boys I would give them a half hour of instruction and then make them get up and do 50 jumping jacks or run around the room a few times.<br /><br /><strong>Other Family Members<br /></strong><br />On the subject of instruction, I have decided to enter yoga teacher training at <a href="http://www.gowithityoga.com/">Flow Yoga in Leesburg</a> starting in September. The training consists of one full weekend of instruction every month, plus quite a number of books and papers. The head teacher, Maria Garre, is connected with a well-known instructor named <a href="http://www.shivarea.com/">Shiva Rea</a>. It will be easier for me to manage the training than it will be for the students who must commute an hour or more from such places as West Virginia. Out here in the boonies it’s not simple to find teacher-training programs. I swore I’d never do anything where I had to write term papers again, but here I am.<br /><br />On the subject of Indian cultural exports, George and I are thrilled that an Indian restaurant (<a href="http://www.angeethiva.com/">Angeethi</a>) has opened in Leesburg. Now we are in the process of training the kids to like Indian food so we can go often without complaints.<br /><br />When we were in Tennessee visiting my parents (where the kids made great progress in the pool, Alexander even attempting some dives from the diving board), we visited Dolly Parton’s theme park in Pigeon Forge: “<a href="http://www.dollywood.com/">Dollywood</a>.” George was particularly interested because of an article in The Economist (of all places) last year that described a slice of pie provided to the correspondent that was the size of his head. We didn’t find any human-head-sized slices of pie, but we did see some very odd sights. Probably the oddest was at the little kiddy track with 60s-style cars. In front of us in line for this ride were three middle-aged men with beer bellies, each of whom got into their own car alone and rode off for a turn around the track, not even doing the steering. We could not for the life of us figure this out. They most likely have drivers’ licenses, they probably drove to the park, and for all we know they actually own vintage Mustangs (or maybe Edsels). Yet they stood for ever in a line for the “thrill” of a five-minute ride around the kiddy track.<br /><br />Despite the questionable antics of its visitors, Dollywood overall is a very nice park in the foothills of the Smokies, and it maintains encouraging standards of dress and behavior that would be unimaginable at Great Adventure in New Jersey.<br /><br />I noted in my last essay that I was visiting and playing Scrabble with a 97-year old hospice patient at a nursing home. In late May I received a call from the hospice volunteer coordinator to tell me that my patient had been found in her room unresponsive and had subsequently died. This was surprising to me until I remembered that this is the point of hospice – the patients accepted into the program are dying! She never seemed like she was seriously sick, just very old.<br /><br /><br />George has been rebuilding our rapidly crumbling porch and, as usual, in the process has run into a number of unexpected annoyances, with the compensation that he’s been able to purchase a bunch of cool new tools. A job that he expected could conceivably take a weekend has stretched into a number of weekends, but there is a marked improvement in the look of the house. In addition, he has generated a lot of sawdust and wood shavings that I have been able to recycle as fine untreated mulch for my fruit and vegetable plants.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Books</strong><br /><br />I read a great “food memoir” called “Climbing the Mango Trees” by Madhur Jaffrey, who is a well-known writer of Indian cookbooks. This reminded me of another excellent food-related book that I read a couple of years ago: “Cooking for Mr. Latte” by Amanda Hesser, a food writer for the New York Times. Michael Pollan’s “<a href="http://www.michaelpollan.com/omnivore.php">The Omnivore’s Dilemma</a>” provides a disturbing description of food production in the U.S. and in the process confirmed my fears about the source of most of our protein. The really startling aspect is his discussion of corn as the basis for most U.S. agriculture. Essentially, we are drowning in a huge sea of industrial corn (try to find a loaf of bread without high fructose corn syrup as its sweetener).<br /><br />The book reaffirmed my devotion to organic food and/or farmer’s markets, as well as to my own fruits and vegetables from the garden. The most amusing section in the book was the description of the animal rights activists who are so devoted to non-killing that they actually try to make their dogs and cats into vegetarians (the cats, apparently, need supplements to survive). I cannot imagine how George would react if I tried to stop our dog from eating meat as some sort of political protest. He tends to preface most sentences about some restriction on pets with the phrase “but it’s a DOG.”<br /><br />I myself would have no problem going vegetarian, though not vegan. I have a protein problem—my relationship to meat is tenuous at best and I have no interest in trying out new sources of it (e.g., buffalo or ostrich). I do have a wide appreciation for the spices and for plant based foods, as well as for cheeses, used in pretty much any cuisines I have tried, so I could survive pretty well, I think. Without Brussels sprouts. Beets are also pretty bad; I remember in Australia that they tended to include them as toppings on hamburgers. I was thrilled this year to grow my own lettuce and have taken particular satisfaction in harvesting new red potatoes, which are actually white and creamy looking and thus superior to the supermarket ones which are often ruined by poor storage.<br /><br />My cousin lent me “<a href="http://www.lisasee.com/snowflower.htm">Snow Flower and the Secret Fan</a>” (Lisa See) about Chinese women in the 19th century. It was an engrossing story, in part because it provided great detail about their daily lives—particularly the process of foot binding. I was bothered by the absence of much discussion of the protagonist’s husband, the catching of whom would have been the point of the foot binding exercise.<br /><br />A few years ago a friend recommended that I try James Joyce’s “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” I finally got around to it, and I finished it, but half the time I admit I had no idea what was going on. I thought some of the passages were beautiful, but with the teenage angst, religious confusion, and conflicts concerning Irish Nationalism, I was left feeling that I had only the dimmest comprehension of the story. I think I’ll seek out a critical discussion of the book and then maybe try to read it again. Maybe there’s an online Joyceian community that could help me out.<br /><br /><strong>Audiobooks<br /></strong><br />I was unable to “put down” (turn off?) an audiobook presentation of Michael Lewis’ “<a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A04EFDC103FF931A25752C1A9609C8B63&n=Top%2FFeatures%2FBooks%2FBook%20Reviews">The Blind Side – The Evolution of a Game</a>.” The book is partly a history of the evolution, from an afterthought to a highly-paid player, of the left tackle (the guy on the offensive line who protects a right-handed quarterback’s blind side from pass rushers). The author weaves this history in with the personal story of a poor, neglected kid from Memphis who through the intervention of a rich white family becomes a football powerhouse at left tackle (the kid, Michael Oher, is now entering his senior year at Ole Miss and is expected to be high in next year’s draft). The reader ends up pulling for the kid, hoping that he does not turn into the kind of complete jerk that so many pro athletes seem to be once the fame and money hit.<br /><br />I have moved on to an audio presentation of <a href="http://www.antoniafraser.com/antoinette.aspx">Antonia Fraser’s biography of Marie Antoinette</a>, which works hard to dispel the myths about the queen, such as the “let them eat cake” business. This particular phrase or variant thereof, claims the author, can be attributed to other royalty before the queen and should not have been attached to this one woman. Sofia Coppola directed a movie based on this book but once I read in the reviews that she had the queen prancing around in high-top sneakers as some sort of statement (I guess) of her contemporary high-spiritedness, I lost any interest I might otherwise have had.<br /><br /><strong>Movies/Television</strong><br /><br />The director Sydney Pollack died in May and I wanted to take the opportunity to state my devotion to the movie “Tootsie,” in which he directed Dustin Hoffman as an unemployed actor who dresses as a woman to take a role in a soap opera. This movie is truly funny and sophisticated and I loved it even as a kid.<br /><br />We finished the second season of “Rome” on DVD. Unfortunately, they only made two seasons (reportedly it was very expensive to produce). When I watch a show like this or “Battlestar Galactica” (also in its final—terrific—season) or even “Lost” (which has regained some of its punch), I wonder how George and I managed to become hooked on a show like the “The Biggest Loser” (which finished its most recent season in April). We would even have voted online for the finalists if we could have figured out how. We felt strongly that the guy whose crying jags increased in frequency in proportion with his decreasing weight needed to go; he was just too annoying. The sensitive-guy thing was okay for maybe fifteen minutes one episode, but after that it tipped over into total wimpiness, with George and I yelling things like “get some backbone” at the TV.<br /><br /><strong>Four Stars<br /></strong><br />“WALL-E” was one of the best films I’ve seen in awhile, and the kids liked it too. Nora now walks around imitating the voices of the little robots and has asserted she wants to be one (or all) of them for Halloween.<br /><br />Unlike French films, I’ve found that the German movies that make it big in the international market are usually quite good (think “Run Lola Run,” “The Downfall,” and “Goodbye, Lenin”). “The Lives of Others,” which concerns the activities of a Stasi agent and the people he was assigned to observe, continues this excellent trend.<br /><br />“Ratatouille” is a great film, but it was marketed as though studio executives decided an animated movie must be for children. I watched it with my mother and my kids and my kids had no idea what was going on, despite Alexander’s protests to the contrary.<br /><br /><strong>Three Stars<br /></strong><br />“Letters from Iwo Jima” was directed by Clint Eastwood as the companion movie to “Flags of our Fathers” (which I have not seen). I like the premise of portraying the same event from two points of view. This film is told from the perspective of the doomed Japanese soldiers at Iwo Jima, entirely in Japanese with English subtitles. I know very little about the Pacific campaign; mostly I guess because the activities of the Nazis added an interest to the fight against the Germans that was not part of the fight of the Japanese. I have no idea whether the two campaigns were viewed at the time as equally important by Americans. One thing that gets me, however, is the Japanese and all their annoying, pointless suicides. And they are still at it: an article recently in one of the major papers noted an increase in suicides among Japanese teenagers using some method, I forget what, that was carefully designed not to endanger others.<br /><br />Another war film is “Rescue Dawn,” directed by Werner Herzog and starring Christian Bale, which tells the story of Dieter Dengler, a pilot shot down over Vietnam and held captive by the Vietcong in Laos. There are some very Herzog touches, such as the dreamy soundtrack, but Christian Bale is the real attraction.<br /><br /><strong>Two Stars<br /></strong><br />Although we were very impressed by the movie about Germans made by Germans, we<br />were not impressed with the movie about Germans made by Americans: “The Good German” starring George Clooney. The look and feel is interesting, but otherwise the film has much drama without being dramatic, kind of the anti-Casablanca. In addition, Cate Blanchett is not usually this annoying.<br /><br />“No End in Sight” is a documentary film made by a Brookings Institute analyst that tells the story of the Iraq war. It wasn’t inflammatory but was definitely one-sided, especially with regard to the early days of the occupation and how decisions were made regarding de-Baathification. For example, it might have added some balance to explain why de-Baathification was the Administration’s policy. I also laughed out loud when one interviewee from the State Department, discussing the lack of prewar planning for the postwar occupation, pointed out that analysts from State had prepared a set of briefing books (40-volumes, I believe he said—we get a brief glimpse of them onscreen as if to bolster their credibility) with recommendations on a range of topics to prepare for the occupation. The interviewee’s complaint was that no one from the Pentagon even read them. Bureaucrats always behave like bureaucrats (e.g., preparing long, dense texts for busy people) and then expect other bureaucrats not to act like bureaucrats (e.g., to actually read the texts in question).<br /><br />Because George has lately been on an American history kick, I had him watch “Glory,” which stars Matthew Broderick as a Civil War officer leading a group of African-American soldiers—including Denzel Washington—on an ultimately doomed mission. It’s a good story, but the movie is very stilted (think “Gettysburg”). Whenever I watch a war movie made before “Saving Private Ryan” or “Black Hawk Down” I wonder if I am far too jaded to watch a less than over-the-top production.<br /><br />I also recommended he watch “City Slickers,” which I remember finding amusing when it came out. This time I found that while it was often funny, the dramatic moments seemed very fake.<br /><br />I had high comedic hopes for “Knocked Up” starring Katherine Heigl, but it was very disappointing. It was so unnecessarily crude and not at all clever. It got better as it went along, but it is far less engaging that other romantic comedies in which the side characters often make the film (such as “Notting Hill” or “Out of Sight”).<br /><br />“Romper Stomper,” starring Russell Crowe, concerns the worldview and activities of a group of neo-Nazis in Melbourne, Australia. I found it at least interesting, and can see why it got some buzz when it was released, but George’s reactions consisted simply of “It’s not really a movie, is it?” and “I hate neo-Nazis.”<br /><br />On the subject of Nazis, we went to see the latest (final?) installment of Indiana Jones at the theatre. It was very disappointing. The script contained many references to other Spielberg/Lucas movies and thus felt derivative rather than new and fresh, and the new young male sidekick, Shia LaBeouf, was less than inspiring despite the buzz about him.<br /><br /><strong>Political Update<br /></strong><br />One note on the whole controversy regarding Obama and his less-than-savory associations. These particular relationships are not the be all and end all of the guy, but he has handled them by telling us what he doesn’t believe (e.g., “I don’t believe what Reverend Wright says about the U.S.”) while neglecting to tell us what he does believe (i.e., what he does love about the U.S.—yes, I know, this is very uncool). This is different from “questioning his patriotism,” which is scoffed at by the left. Isn’t it reasonable to expect that the person we might hire to lead our country is actually devoted to the country he will lead rather than the country he may want (to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld of all people)?Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05525598322822559576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33754664.post-43586528582589184842008-04-01T17:27:00.000-07:002008-04-01T17:35:21.760-07:00Leesburg Essay 8<strong>Alex<br /></strong><br />Felicie recently e-mailed an update on Alex’s condition, which I will generally reproduce here. Alex has had several more sessions of the chemo she started before Christmas. She has continued to feel better and has been able to start doing more. New Hampshire has had lots of snow this winter, and she's been cross-country skiing on the road through their woods. She bought snowshoes and has gone snowshoeing as well. She has stopped taking pain medication and says she feels great.<br /><br />She had a CAT scan on March 10th. The results showed that the cancer remains stable (no spreading; no shrinkage). The chemo program she is on now has almost no side effects (just a little tiredness for a couple of days). She will continue on this chemo program for the time being, as long as she continues to feel good and the cancer is stable.<br /><br /><strong>Campaign Notes<br /></strong><br />The press recently called out Hillary Clinton for comments during a speech in Ohio that appeared indirectly to disparage daughter Chelsea’s job at a hedge fund. The upshot of her comment was that under the current tax code, investment bankers can end up paying a lower percentage of their income in taxes than someone in a lower income bracket, which is discouraging to people who don’t make a lot of money. (Michelle Obama delivered a similar message, also in a speech in Ohio, advising young people not to go into corporate America but to become teachers and the like). I don’t have anything against investment bankers, and certainly even liberals can be investment bankers, but an interesting comparison is Chelsea’s career vs. those of Jenna and Barbara Bush, given the worship (maybe at last fading) of the Clintons by many Democrats. Jenna and Barbara are the ones who have chosen careers that are low paid and altruistic, while the presumably liberal Chelsea Clinton has gone into money.<br /><br />Up to this point in the campaign I have been in the ABH (Anyone But Hillary) camp, although who could root against the woman who brought peace to Northern Ireland? I realize that ABH is dangerous, given my concerns about Obama’s economic populism, especially with regard to trade, his stated goal to pull out of Iraq as fast as possible (will he be sending a rep to Iraq’s government to assure them quietly that it’s just campaign rhetoric?), and the latest flap over his ties to the radical preacher. I will vote for John McCain (as George points out I’ve done this before), but my main goal is not to have the Clintons back in the White House (well, I voted for them—once—as well). Hillary fired some staff a couple of months back but it’s too bad the staff can’t fire the candidate. At least Obama said the right things during the Duke Lacrosse scandal (see below).<br /><br /><strong>Economic Populism Reconsidered<br /></strong><br />After noting my concerns about economic populism, I’ll indulge in some of my own. I think it’s ridiculous when politicians pander to consumers who have spent their way into massive consumer debt, and when credit card companies get the blame for people unable to control themselves. Credit card companies, however, are shameless when it comes to working you over with fees and hidden costs. One month I sent in our credit card payment as usual, and, as far as I’m aware, for the first time ever, the check literally got lost in the mail. Concerned that it might have gone astray, I called the credit card company (Bank of America, BOA), sent out another payment, and put a stop payment on the AWOL check. Well, as it happens, a couple of weeks later my errant check arrived at BOA and they tried to cash it. Because there was a stop payment the check bounced and BOA charged me a $40 fee. At the time they received this errant check we owed them no money and the check was in a greater amount than the amount currently on the card.<br /><br />At that time we used the card for everything, including groceries, because we got one percent cash back on all purchases, and so we probably generated all sorts of merchant fees for them. When I called and explained the circumstances (including the fact that their own rep told me to make sure to put a stop payment on the check), reminded them how much we use their card, and asked them to waive the fee, they refused, and not nicely either. I was, to put it mildly, annoyed. As a result I stopped using the card for our normal purchases and plan to cancel it in the near future.<br /><br />I had a similar experience when I called BOA to obtain copies of back statements on our account as an aid in calculating foreign transactions over the course of a number of years. A class action lawsuit against credit card companies covers the period when we were in Berlin and had a lot of “foreign” transactions on our card; card holders can receive a small percentage refund for the total of all such transactions. BOA quoted me some ridiculous fee per statement (like $10 each per statement for 24 statements) for the copies and neglected to mention that the fee would be waived if my request was related to the legal settlement. The rep only volunteered this information reluctantly after I gasped and laughed and said that it was utterly ridiculous given that I was supporting my claim in a lawsuit against them. Our other credit card company—Citibank—had no such issues or fees and was very friendly.<br /><br />On to the wine industry. I think the business about wine not being able to hold over for a day or so is propaganda designed to get you to drink more wine. I think some reds in particular actually improve after a day or so of being open (maybe the quite young and cheap ones), although there is clearly a point at which the quality declines markedly (maybe after around day two). I just finished a book called “Judgment of Paris” (George M. Taber) about the 1976 wine tasting at which California wines beat out comparable French wines and caused an international uproar. Although I’m more fond of the French than I was a couple of years ago, I’m still not unhappy to read about the French judges looking disconcerted when they confidently identified California wines as homegrown.<br /><br />George and I caught a documentary recommended by a leftist colleague of his called “Who killed the Electric Car.” It is a mildly engaging tale about smog and politics in California, but glosses over a lot of the limitations of electric cars for consumers, such as their low mileage per charge (not so useful in long commutes from the suburbs to the city). In addition, the film includes no mention of the fact that mass use of electric cars will presumably shift emissions from areas with lots of cars to the areas around the power plants (still run on dirty fossil fuels until this issue is tackled as well); this seems a glaring omission to me. Electric cars may aid in fighting smog in cities but I’m not sure if they lower overall emissions. In contrast, George has been reading in Scientific American magazine about really innovative approaches to cutting emissions, such as collecting and using the heat absorbed by the blacktop on streets.<br /><br />For more research on wine and electric cars (in addition to much use of the aforementioned credit cards), I would like to take a family vacation to California—to Monterey, in particular—to see the sea otters, but it’s just much too expensive to fly us all out there (don’t get me started on the subject of the airline industry). Instead we took a trip to New York City—staying each night in Ridgewood—for several days over spring break. Some of the highlights from the trip were the ferry trip to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, our long romp through Central Park culminating in a horse-drawn carriage ride, and a trip to the <a href="http://www.cmom.org/">Children’s Museum of Manhattan</a>, which currently features a floor of play areas related to Dora the Explorer to which Nora referred back longingly throughout the remainder of the trip.<br /><br />A restaurant note from New York: George and I spent an afternoon in the city over Christmas and had lunch at this great place in Chinatown that serves vegetarian dim sum called (you guessed it) <a href="http://www.vegetariandshouse.com/">Vegetarian Dim Sum House</a>. The website has a printable coupon for your convenience. Cheap, filling, fast, and very, very tasty.<br /><br />At the end of July we are going to take a trip to Bar Harbor, Maine. I am really hoping that we will see some whales, unlike on our trip to Chincoteague when we saw not a single scrawny pony. If anyone has any pull with the whales, you could make a four-year old girl very happy and her mother very relieved.<br /><br /><strong>Reviews<br /></strong><br /><strong>Four Stars<br /></strong><br />Probably the best movie we saw in the last couple of months was “The Queen,” starring Helen Mirren, who is almost indistinguishable from the real item in terms of appearance. I don’t know how accurate the script is—it concerns the royals in the aftermath of Princess Diana’s death—but to us it was well-presented insight into a baffling family (although George has always had this inexplicable affection for Charles).<br /><br /><strong>Three Stars<br /></strong><br />“A History of Violence” stars Viggo Mortensen as a family man ostensibly protecting his home against mysterious attackers. It had a catchy premise and was well-acted, but we couldn’t work out anyone’s motives and found it ultimately hollow.<br />“Little Children,” starring Kate Winslet and Jennifer Connelly, received lots of good press, but unlike the movie “Crash,” which we both loved, there was a definite lack of connection among the various story threads.<br /><br />Another movie that received a lot of laudatory press was “Pan’s Labyrinth,” which explores a young girl’s fantasy world in Franco’s Spain. George and I found it inventive but not brilliant. George figures that there are probably many parallels to life in Franco’s Spain, and many allusions to fables, but that only helps if you’re well-versed in life in Franco’s Spain or the symbolism of fables.<br /><br />I suggested that George watch “A Cry in the Dark” with Meryl Streep, which is an ‘80s movie about Australian Seventh Day Adventists whose baby has disappeared and possibly been eaten by a dingo. The line from that movie that was mocked endlessly when it was in the theaters was “A dingo ate my baby!” For some reason the cadence seems wrong to me, however, and I find myself thinking “a baby ate my dingo!”<br /><br />“Notes on a Scandal,” starring Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench, concerns the twisted relationship between two British school teachers. It’s worth watching for the lead actresses, who are unsurprisingly great.<br /><br /><strong>Two Stars<br /></strong><br />“Last King of Scotland,” for which Forrest Whittaker received an Oscar (well deserved), tells the story of Idi Amin through the eyes of a Scottish doctor who becomes his physician. We were bothered throughout by the question of whether this doctor really could have been as naïve about Amin and his motives as he appeared to be while people dropped like flies around him.<br /><br />“Hustle and Flow” concerns the ambitions of a pimp to move into the world of rap. The best thing about this movie is the theme song, which I believe created a stir at the Oscars that year when the singers came on stage dressed as hookers and pimps. All I know is, I went to bed that night singing the catchy “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp.”<br /><br /><strong>Less than Stellar<br /></strong><br />“Music and Lyrics,” starring Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore, was so flat (ironically, given its subject matter) we stopped watching, packed it up in its envelope, and sent it back to Netflix.<br />George and I saw “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” in the theater, but he found it really boring and so we never saw the subsequent ones. This time I watched it on DVD for about twenty minutes, then decided that he was right and gave up. The most intriguing thing about it was that one of my favorite actors from the series “Lost” turns out to be a cast member (Dominic Managhan). This was not enough to sustain me for several hours. Maybe I’ll just try the books.<br /><br /><strong>A Category All Its Own Because It’s French<br /></strong><br />“Cache” stars Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil. It concerns a couple who are receiving bizarre and frightening notes and videotapes from an unknown source. The movie explores some incidents and persons from the husband’s past. There are references to injustices against Algerians and hints of some horrible childhood trauma. The problem is that, typical of an art film, everything is left very vague. There’s a point at which mundane and mumbling dialogue, lingering camera shots, and lack of human emotion or a satisfactory resolution become just those things, not a sophisticated approach to filmmaking.<br /><br /><strong>And More<br /></strong><br />I read the book “Atonement” by Ian McEwan last Christmas and thought it was fabulous. I have been hesitant to see the movie because you never know what’s going to happen in the transition from book to movie. Three of my all-time favorite books, “The Bonfire of the Vanities” (Tom Wolfe), “A Prayer for Owen Meaney” (John Irving), and, to some extent, “A Thousand Acres” (Jane Smiley), were trashed in the film versions. Edith Wharton fared a little better: “Ethan Frome” was made into a 1992 TV movie with Liam Neeson and Patricia Arquette that was quite good, although another Wharton book, “The House of Mirth” with Gillian Anderson, which the critics seemed to like, didn’t do a lot for me. “An American Tragedy” (Theodore Dreiser) was made into a movie starring Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Cliff called “A Place in the Sun,” which I liked pretty well. Luckily, I read “The English Patient” (Michael Ondaatje) after I saw the movie; frankly, I wouldn’t have understood the convoluted flow of the book without having seen the film. (Sad note: The director of “The English Patient,” Anthony Minghella, died last month at a young age. In addition to this masterpiece, he also directed another favorite of mine, “The Talented Mr. Ripley.” It’s depressing to think of what else he might have had in the works.)<br /><br />A book that I found to be a page-turner was “Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case” (Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson). Most books about legal cases are mind-numbing to me, so its readability was a pleasant surprise. (Note to self: I still need to read a good, balanced book about the OJ Simpson case. Anyone have a recommendation?) It worries me that someday we may have to send our kids to college with these despicable race-, gender-, and class-obsessed faculty members. (I had a coffee cup recently from Starbuck’s that included a quote from Princeton professor Cornel West—not a very provocative quote in itself, but the name on the cup made me visibly recoil as though I’d touched something vile). George’s boss was recently researching the faculty and course offerings at the University of Hawaii only to find that the political science department—no, not the humanities department—was full of courses like “Feminist Theory,” “American Environmental Politics,” and “Gender, Justice, and Law.” Why would I spend upwards of $40,000 a year to send my kid to school to get a useless and hate-filled education? It especially worries me in the case of Alexander, who through no fault of his own was born a white male and thus is inherently a deeply flawed person.<br /><br />I recently finished the book “A Beautiful Mind” (Sylvia Nasar) which explores the life of Nobel Prize-winning, schizophrenic mathematician John Nash. The book is just great and he must be a fascinating man to talk to if you speak his particular language (that would be math, I believe). The film version turns it into a love story, but the relationship between Nash and his wife seems to have been far less settled in reality.<br /><br />Over Christmas I read “The Bird Artist” (Howard Norman), which I would describe as evocative unreality. It concerns the affairs of a small town and the murder of a lighthouse keeper early last century in Newfoundland. The book has stuck with me, although I was distracted by the silly names of the characters, like Botho and August. I would have been able to focus on the story much more had they been simply John and Mary. A lot of authors seem to try to add interest or a sense of cleverness to their stories by giving people bizarre names, but I think it’s a pretty annoying device, especially when the story holds its own.<br /><br />My mother passed along to me a copy of a book by Joan Didion called “The Year of Magical Thinking,” which deals with the death of her husband as well as the serious illness of her only daughter. I had meant to read this when it came out, but it really hits home given the events of the past few years. I recommend it highly.<br /><br />Alexander occasionally expresses interest in the Star Wars movies again; a couple of years ago he was obsessed with the newer movies (I, II, and III) and spent many hours drawing Darth Vader and Yoda and Anakin and playing with his lightsaber. When he spends time with boys from school he seems to go back to it a bit. In my own life, I’ve found that “Star Wars” is always applicable. For example, when things between the Giants and Patriots were down to the wire in Superbowl 42, I was bouncing around in our basement, almost unable to watch, (Muki thought I was a lunatic) and it came to me: “Use the Force, Luke” Another example: sometimes, just before I hear Nora call me through the monitor at night I think to myself: “I sense a great disturbance in the Force.” And then perhaps there’s Nora concerning Muki: “Can somebody get this big walking carpet out of my way?”<br /><br />Cheryl was recently looking into the series of Indian stories written by my great grandmother, Ellen Miller Donaldson (you can find one <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moons-Long-Ago-Indian-Tales/dp/1432514857/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206374112&sr=8-3">here</a>). We have a Native American ancestor, although I’ve forgotten who and when. When I first moved down to DC (twenty years ago this summer—is that possible?) I went to the archives/research library at the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) building downtime to do some research on an ancestor who fought in the Revolutionary War. I found Ellen Miller Donaldson’s supporting research from when she joined the DAR and I understand that this poor guy died of some disease like dysentery. Impossible to say how much fighting he did. My problem was that the DAR library was as depressing a place as any research library could be (and I love libraries)—full of dusty, barely functional microfiche readers. I had to abandon further research on the family because I couldn’t cope with the atmosphere. The DAR genealogy files have gone digital now and I can do research sitting quietly in my own home, but I first have to dig through my (dusty) papers and look up the soldier’s name. When I did the research at the library I could start with Ellen Miller Donaldson herself and work back.<br /><br /><strong>It’s all about me, Me, ME!!!<br /></strong><br />I have finally gone back to a yoga studio, choosing one in Leesburg that focuses on “flow” or ashtanga yoga which is a much more athletic practice than I was used to in Arlington. The idea is to move more quickly from one pose to another. The room is heated to 90 degrees or so, which I found at first to be disturbing, but then realized that it helps to make it easier to get into the poses as your muscles warm up. I’ve never before been in a yoga class where they suggest you try to get into a handstand (“If handstand is in your practice, you could take it now”). Headstand is one thing, but handstand is in a completely different realm, and I am left sitting on the floor and laughing rather than relaxing in my inversion.<br /><br />I have been visiting a 97-year-old hospice patient in a Leesburg nursing home. She has congestive heart failure and she worries about her short-term memory loss, but she plays a great game of Scrabble (we’re about even in terms of wins and losses). The weird thing is, the first time that I went to see her we got to talking about where we had lived before, and it turns out that she had been in Maplewood for years. It’s hard for me to grasp that she was about 55 and her sons had already graduated from Columbia High School by the time I was born—and I’m middle-aged. Yikes.<br /><br />I have discovered a great way to keep up with sports this year. When I got my iPod last fall I subscribed to a number of podcasts that are supported by Apple’s iTunes. I really have enjoyed listening to ESPN’s Jeremy Green (son of former coach Dennis Green) commenting on pro football. I have also been listening to an ESPN series on men’s college basketball which has a slightly less engaging host but is still worth catching. I have been half-heartedly trying to follow the Georgetown men’s basketball team, as I did for a number of years back in the late ‘80s. The problem with college basketball is that it’s tough to get a handle on the universe given the countless teams and conferences, in contrast to football where there are only two conferences and 32 teams.<br /><br /><strong>Child World<br /></strong><br />Nora has settled into school a bit and has even asked to invite a couple of kids from class to her and Alexander’s birthday party in early April. She’s now looking ahead to her long-term future and has informed us that when she grows up she wants to be a squid. Alexander, being the charming and ever-so-helpful older brother, feels the need to tell her that it’s not possible for her to grow up and become a squid. She believes that she can make this transformation merely by being encased in orange fabric.<br /><br />Childen’s drawings tend to be as surrealistic as their future plans. Cheryl’s daughter Anneliese sent a really cute picture for my birthday of George holding a balloon. At least this drawing contained a balloon, which clearly links it to its subject (a birthday). My children often draw something completely unrelated to the occasion, like an army tank or a portrait of Mommy, and given the random subject matter the drawings might as well include a watch, melting, and a piece of bacon, crisp. If Alexander had his way, this is the way his new furniture would probably be painted. George is in the process of building and painting bookcases and cubbies for the kids’ rooms. Alexander naturally has elaborate plans for his. Nora is only interested in the addition of a chocolate fountain, like the one we visited at Georgia Brown’s restaurant on Thanksgiving.<br /><br />We recently started giving Alexander an allowance of a dollar a week to get him used to handling money. The first week he wanted to use his money to buy something from a vending machine when I said I wouldn’t buy it. It took almost all his allowance and he didn’t do it again after that. He reacted similarly when he said he wanted to get a yearbook (which sounds to both me and George as a ridiculous item for a first grader) and we said that he’d have to use his money. Once George laid out for him how long it would take him to save up the twenty dollars, all of a sudden it wasn’t so important after all. I guess he’s getting the idea.<br /><br /><strong>Final Note: Goodbye to Eliot Spitzer<br /></strong><br />How could anyone have self-destructed so quickly? It’s almost like a cry for help. I think Spitzer wanted to get caught, because he cannot possibly be so stupid to think that he couldn’t get caught. (George thinks it may have been a far more basic motivation.) I think Spitzer’s kind of like Giuliani, who seemed to morph a bit into the mob bosses and the like that he pursued with such determination. Perhaps he admired the chutzpah of the kinds of people he went after. I read a fascinating article in Vanity Fair about how quickly Spitzer managed to alienate almost everyone in Albany, so I guess he didn’t have much political capital left to spend.<br /><br />I, like many other married women in America, informed George that under no circumstances would I stand up there next to him if he ever found himself giving a post-prostitute press conference, and that he would have to get the prostitute to do it. George hates this kind of all-men-are-potentially-guilty comment: he shot back that if it were to come out that I had become a high-priced call girl (well, at least he threw in “high-priced”) he wouldn’t stand up there next to me.Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05525598322822559576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33754664.post-9084220999051433792007-12-12T18:17:00.000-08:002007-12-12T18:49:10.440-08:00Leesburg Essay 7<strong>Update on Alex and the Question of Talcum Powder<br /></strong><br />Because Alex’s tumor did not appear to be responding to chemotherapy (its growth had been arrested but it hadn’t shrunk), her doctors placed her on a cou<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkladqr5bTb8BcaaLZ94iHR1sM3YI9MDDtTr_jrxM65br2-x78CHG93n2pB7ja77w7Z4SWht5SDNdY062GtEysvzumhV2UUuUBAodLSGb4SGh049qAVLs9nLgWpg9aq6F38Mt5/s1600-h/scan0004.jpg"></a>rse of an anti-cancer drug called Tarceva. Unfortunately, that approach ended up being ineffective as well, so this month she’s starting on a different chemo regimine. We all continue to pray that this time it will be successful, and look forward to seeing her again over the holidays. I know she appreciates everyone’s support, and ask that you continue to keep her in your thoughts and prayers as she begins this round of treatment.<br /><br />I do have a nagging question, though, about one of the procedures she underwent (and which Aunt Marilu underwent last year as well): after draining fluid from her lungs, doctors put in some talcum powder to help the lungs adhere to the chest wall to prevent them from refilling with fluid. What doctor or researcher first thought of using talcum powder to dry up fluid in someone’s lung cavity? Can you imagine someone standing over a patient and thinking, “Well, maybe I’ll just pour some of this in here and see what happens”??<br /><br /><strong>Nicole and Dave and Twins<br /></strong><br />We just found out that George’s cousin Nicole and her husband Dave are expecting twins in the spring. Congratulations and more power to them! Although they didn’t ask us for name suggestions, I will observe that the name “George” hasn’t been bestowed upon anyone in the family for a few years now, so it might be time to dust it off again.<br /><br /><strong>Ten Years—Yikes<br /></strong><br />For our tenth wedding anniversary, George and I stayed a night at a lovely inn in northern Maryland not that far from Gettysburg called <a href="http://www.antrim1844.com/">Antrim 1844</a> (we gleefully dropped the kids at Felicie and Greg’s; they gleefully returned them the following day). We first took a Gettysburg bus tour, which brought back vivid childhood memories of standing on various battlefields (mostly empty) while my father puffed on a cigar and presumably imagined the battle unfolding around him. My mother and I, in contrast, stood around uncertainly wondering when it would be time for lunch.<br /><br />Despite these memories, I bravely scheduled a two-hour bus tour of Gettysburg battlefield highlights, including Little Round Top (quite a view), the field where Pickett had his last charge (the land here was not as flat as it first appeared), and the spot where General Reynolds realized he had gotten out in front of his men and was shot in the neck. Now, I admit that my knowledge of history is spotty at best, but—even though I knew this was this biggest battle in North American history—I had no idea how big and sprawling the battlefield was. I sort of imagined it as a big field with a hill off to one side.<br /><br />Our tour czar had an amazingly detailed knowledge of his subject. (He kept making references to “original sources.” I believe that the last time I went back and consulted an “original source” was in my utterly useless 10th grade AP history class.) He had a definite bias against a general named Sickles, whom he described as an FOA (Friend Of Abe’s) who disobeyed his orders and nearly lost the battle for the Union.<br /><br />After the tour George and I took a walk through the quaint town of Gettysburg. At one point a gentleman in full Civil War-era battle dress passed by, tipped his hat to me, and gave me a pleasant “ma’am.” This struck us friendly and dangerously delusional at the same time.<br /><br />The food at the inn was really, really good and the room was nice (although the broader neighborhood detracted somewhat from the “country” feeling). There was an element of the absurd, though: our inn experience included a procession of young male guides/porters that stood at all the doors, escorted guests from their rooms to the meals, and helped with luggage. Oddly enough, they all seemed disgruntled and hunched over, as if they’d been drafted into service.<br /><br />At the end of the weekend, Alexander left a note on Felicie’s refrigerator and asked her not to read it until after he and Nora had left: “Dear ant Felice and uncl greg thank you for leting us visit you can you tack us and my mom and my dad hicking agan love, Alexander Nora Mommy and daddy P.S. It was fun.”<br /><br />Felicie reported that Nora kept her and Greg coming back to her room after bedtime by calling for one thing or another (delay is her thing these days). Felicie provided us a sample of some of Nora’s final tactics: “I'm a little bit hungry. Can I have a snack?” “No, you can’t have a snack.” “How about some juice?” “No, no juice. You already brushed your teeth. You can have water.” “Just a little bit of juice?” “No, no juice. Just water. Here, drink some water.” Nora apparently decided to give up after that.<br /><br /><strong>George Update<br /></strong><br />We now have a bat dwelling clinging to the side of our house, but we have no evidence that any bats have moved in as of yet. Why the bat dwelling, you may ask? Well, last summer, when I was searching online for a reasonably priced metal bird bath, I came upon a website that also sold bat houses. George, who was reading over my shoulder, got very excited about the idea of “getting” some bats, especially as a way to control the insects in our yard. This horrified the neighbors, who were worried about potentially rabid bats flying around. At first, George was concerned that he’d have to choose between good neighborly relations and a bat house. But, it so happened that when our neighbors were on vacation on Cape Cod, the Boston Globe ran an article about towns in Massachusetts that were trying to attract bats as a method of insect (especially mosquito) control. This convinced them that George was not completely crazy. This is just a small example of how things tend to work out for George.<br /><br />Tree trimming, one of George’s continual endeavors, seems to be going well, so well that he wishes he could go around the neighborhood and do everyone else’s trees. He’s trimmed our dogwood tree so that it has taken on the look of a new species, perhaps best dubbed the Kousa Acacia—his own little slice of Africa in Leesburg. He should perhaps ease up a bit on the shrubs, however, as he’s managed to beat our burning bushes back so far that they are now afraid to grow again.<br /><br />At work George has become part of a (very) niche community loosely linked by an interest in the use of an analytic technique called argument mapping. The community consists mostly of a few people at the Agency and some Australians. From my limited perspective, these appear to be people with very esoteric personal interests. George described a scene in the office during which one of his argument-mapping colleagues came up to him and quite seriously said “I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what impact widespread acceptance over the past fifty years of the existence of parallel universes will have on literature.” George, not realizing at first that his colleague was serious, responded by saying “I’ve been wondering the same thing myself.” I try to help George return to earth when he gets home by discussing such things as football (the Bill Belichick cheating controversy was worth a good five minutes).<br /><br /><strong>Child World<br /></strong><br />Our trip to Chincoteague in August was fun, but really, really hot—around 100 degrees every day. We went to the beach in the mornings and played mini golf or video games in the afternoons. We didn’t see any ponies, unfortunately. Maybe they were busy suffocating. It was a little less hot—but not by much—when we went to Ocean City with Felicie, Greg, and Joe over Columbus Day. We spent much of the day on the beach, going swimming and looking for sand crabs. At the beach, Alexander remained locked in battle with the waves, completely in his own universe.<br /><br />Alexander lost his first couple of teeth but, consistent with his utter lack of predictability, he was reluctant to put them under his pillow for the Tooth Fairy (he eventually did). Nora immediately began pretending that her “guys”—her stuffed animals and plastic figures—were also loosing their teeth. Speaking of teeth, Nora had her first real visit to the dentist in August, a complete fiasco. She wouldn’t let the hygienist near her. This is another example of the stark difference between our kids. Alexander never cared about going to the dentist. He never seemed particularly concerned about going to school, either, but in October Nora developed a complete hysteria about going to preschool, which normally dissipates after I leave her there. Alexander, meanwhile, has developed this bizarre fear of the house and follows us around all the time.<br /><br />Alexander played coach-pitch baseball in the early fall, which went pretty well. Now that it’s dark and cold and he spends a lot more time indoors, I enrolled him in an art class that will allow him to experiment with different media. The clay is fun, but he began especially to enjoy the class after he discovered the fourth-grade girl sitting next to him.<br /><br />At George’s parent-teacher conference with Alexander’s teacher, we were reminded how Alexander remains unusually impervious to ridicule by his peers. When Alexander wore his pink tie-dye shirt to school one day, some of the boys thought this was too “girly” and were laughing at him. The teacher told George that she went through a discussion with the class of why boys and girls can wear each other’s colors, after which Alexander, in a completely self-confident, matter of fact tone, announced to his classmates “But that’s my favorite shirt!” He’s also adjusted well to the whole lunch-at-school thing, and likes being able to buy his own ice cream on occasion. Early on, he left me a list of foods he thought he’d like me to pack for lunch:<br /><div><div><div><br /><div></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ3fWj3ukEGKboky5rMyVsSTftkEcWbbUjN2DM2aQske0sm0xrbeCFjW0R-oHAci2oDk6zq82ioxfvb60Y1pUpS6T9TD0J0kOV7CkgRzKCriq2TSbYuQhsQYloVKjas8Ak_35A/s1600-h/scan0004.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5143279697210185266" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ3fWj3ukEGKboky5rMyVsSTftkEcWbbUjN2DM2aQske0sm0xrbeCFjW0R-oHAci2oDk6zq82ioxfvb60Y1pUpS6T9TD0J0kOV7CkgRzKCriq2TSbYuQhsQYloVKjas8Ak_35A/s200/scan0004.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><div></div><div>Now that Alexander is in first grade, we figured he should be able to get up on his own the morning, so we got him an alarm clock. He soon asked to have music on before he goes to sleep at night. I have to censor my radio shows from my kids, both because of what the DJs are discussing, and because the music is often beyond raunchy, but “Delilah” on 97.1 WASH FM seemed like a safe choice: she has a quiet, letters-from-the-lovelorn format and music that’s more in the G or PG range. Alexander now has some sort of crush on Delilah (he’s even visited her <a href="http://www.delilah.com/">website</a>) and has trouble understanding why she isn’t on all day. (He also has taken to singing the WASH FM jingle and asking questions about Mattress Discounters and Mervis Diamonds.)<br /><br />Nora first appeared to be settling in well at preschool, but it seems now to be just another forum for rebellion. At one point early on in her tenure, she was playing with some trucks at home and she told George and me that Baby Truck did not like school. When we asked why not, she said that Baby Truck did not like the books they were reading. Nora forced Baby Truck to go to school anyway. When we ask her, however, if she had a good time at school, she says “Yes” and can’t name anything she does there that she doesn’t like. (I served as substitute teacher a couple of times in the first few weeks, and when George reminded Nora that I wasn’t going to be there every day, she told him “but I still like Mommy.”) She does seem to be happy in her tap/ballet/tumbling class, though, which she was enrolled in after she spent weeks at home dancing to the “Happy Feet” soundtrack.<br /><br />George brought home an article the other day that detailed the experiences of the FBI officer that had the job of interrogating Saddam Hussein (I found at least <a href="http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gThJ0BlzQj6YakgOJ_9eQ4FaXRLA">one short discussion of this online</a>, in case you’re interested). My favorite part was when the guy figured out that Saddam was extremely attached to baby wipes, which he would use to clean his hands or his food before eating it. The interrogator found he could use the withholding of wipes as an incentive for Saddam to reveal information. I thought, “hmmm, this is exactly what I do with my kids: find their weakness and exploit it.” (This is easier with Nora than with Alexander, for whom it is difficult to find incentives that will stop him from misbehaving or coax him into doing what he should.)<br /><br /><strong>Media Update<br /></strong><br />We’ve worked our way through a good chunk of our Netflix queue. In “Hollywoodland,” which is the story of the star of the old Superman television series, we kind of enjoyed the period sets and actor Adrian Brody. The movie was said to show that Ben Affleck, who plays Reeves, can really act. Maybe he can, but this was one of those films which left us wondering what actually happened plot-wise. “Blood Diamond” was a very good movie, although I have to say that Leonardo DiCaprio looks better without a beard. Djimon Hounsou, who played one of the slaves in “Gladiator,” is a great part of the cast.<br /><br />George loves the movie “Patton”—he’s probably seen it 600 times—so we watched it yet again. My favorite line comes pretty early when Patton defeats Rommel’s troops in north Africa, then says: “Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I read your book!!” Unfortunately, not every movie can be “Patton,” and George also has to watch films that tip over into the category of “chick flicks.” The latest version of “Pride and Prejudice,” starring Keira Knightley, for example. It turned out to be very engaging for both of us—how did they remake so well a story that’s been done so many times already? We were particularly impressed with a sweaty scene at a dance where the heroine meets Mr. Darcy. This came across as very authentic, as opposed to the dance scenes in many movies which are very sterile and in which people often don’t seem like they’re breathing or working hard. I had a nagging feeling throughout the film, though, that our lead actress’ bangs were eventually going to grow over her eyes.<br /><br />For purposes of marital harmony, I try to balance out chick flicks with meatier offerings. “Babel” with Brad Pitt (yuck) and Cate Blanchett got lots of good press embellished with much pondering about failures of cross-cultural communication, but George and I were left thinking that the focus on language was big gimmick with very little to back it up in the film. George had never seen “Gettysburg,” so we slogged through all three-plus hours of it. It’s mildly interesting and helps in understanding some of the strategy and tactics of the battle, but collapses under the weight of long, ponderous speeches (perhaps, you may think, like these essays). We could not understand what all the fuss was about with regard to “The Good Shepherd,” which purports to tell the story of the CIA. The history is shaky; Matt Damon’s character is insufferable. Not even Angelina Jolie could move him.<br /><br />We went to an actual movie theater twice this fall. The first trip was for “3:10 to Yuma,” which is a really entertaining western—finally a movie for Russell Crowe fans. We also saw “American Gangster.” This is really a showcase for Denzel Washington, but frankly I thought his best scene is where he and Crowe are finally together near the end of the movie—he seemed to loosen up and show some personality at last. The question I have is whether anyone in New Jersey actually talks like Crowe’s character does. I grew up in Essex County where the story partly takes place and I never knew anyone who had this particular accent. Well, maybe the characters in “The Sopranos” did, but Absolutely No One Else.<br /><br />If you’re a fan of science fiction, “Children of Men,” based on a book by the British mystery writer P.D. James, is terrific, and completely different from much of what you see at the movies. And as George pointed out, the premise itself is terrifying (humanity has become infertile and is dying off in a world of chaos). And for a fabulous, genuinely touching movie, try “The Pursuit of Happyness” with Will Smith and his real-life son.<br /><br />We caught the first season of the HBO series “Rome” and are looking forward to season two, although we had the same argument before every episode. The opening credits include scenes around the city with graffiti on the walls, which then becomes animated as the camera focuses on it. George hates it. I love it. I imagine we’ll still be having the same conversation when season two arrives in the mailbox.<br /><br />I read a book on Stalin that my father had long recommended: “Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar” by Simon Sebag Montefiore. What stuck with me most from this fascinating book were the descriptions of Stalin and his henchman staying up all night drinking and eating, never sleeping. People were continually trying to get out of it, mostly unsuccessfully. They would stagger back home, drunk and exhausted, and sleep a few hours before returning to the work of executing political enemies and carrying forth the great revolution.<br /><br />I am a fan of the writer Christopher Hitchens, who has a monthly column in “Vanity Fair,” although I realize that his enthusiasm sometimes outweighs his command of the facts. I like him because he uses words very precisely and takes on subjects head on. Recent columns have included recommendations for the book “Brick Lane,” by Monica Ali, about Bangaladeshi immigrants in London and “The Untouchable,” a novel about a British spy for the Soviets by John Banfield. The former was quite engaging, although as is often the case, I was left unsatisfied by the ending, but the latter struck me as the kind of book only a fellow British communist could truly appreciate, although written very well. If I had in a past life been a member of a communist cell emerging from Oxford in the period surrounding World War II, I probably would have been very fond of the book.<br /><br />Our digital video recorder (DVR) has truly improved my ability to enjoy football. Not only are the Giants doing reasonably well, but I can easily record games for playback at a later time (I realize that we still have a VCR, but I abandoned this technology long ago in frustration). This is important, as I cannot stay awake long enough to watch the night games to conclusion. Well, full disclosure, I often can’t stay awake past the first five minutes, and George has to come in and turn off the TV. I can’t possibly watch football in the afternoon with things going on or with kids in the room—the games themselves may be child-friendly, but the commercials, especially those for evening sitcoms, are often not G (or even PG) rated. Plus, the ability to fast forward through the commercials and other downtime shortens the commitment to actual game time alone. I am reminded of George Will’s comment that “Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated by committee meetings.”<br /><br /><strong>Halloween—The Giant Hurdle<br /></strong><br />In general, people feel overwhelmed by the coming of the holiday season from Thanksgiving through Christmas. Our big hurdle this year, however, was Halloween. We’d been thinking for a while that we ought to pay back the neighborhood for past Fourth of July parties and whatnot, so we chose Halloween as our venue. Until this year, there was a house in our extended neighborhood that was transformed into a full-scale haunted house that held tours and charged admission, requiring weeks of frenzied construction. In the future we’d like to be able to put together some sort of haunted porch thing, but we were not ready this year. So, we hosted a basic Halloween party for some of the neighborhood kids and their parents. This still required, however, food for both adults and children, decorations, and activities. George’s favorite part was his dry ice cauldron (have you ever examined the warnings on a package of dry ice?) in which the kids “made their dinner” using unidentified creepy ingredients. I painted faces (small Halloween figures on their cheeks), they played Halloween bingo, and George read them a Dr. Seuss story called “What Was I Scared Of?”<br /><br />I put out a separate buffet for the parents, and for the kids I made spooky/creepy things that were constructed from simple ingredients such as Jello, hardboiled eggs, and celery. Despite these presumably familiar items, no kids really ate anything except for Alexander and one other little boy. Why are kids so weird about food? I thought I was a picky eater as a kid but I ate plenty of these kinds of foods. If we do this in the future I’ll stick to chicken nuggets, ketchup, carrots, and milk, and leave the fun food for a cake (this year I made the Bride of Frankenstein with tall, green hair).<br /><br /><strong>Muki Settles In<br /></strong><br />Muki has become fond of the outdoors as the weather has gotten cooler. Most times I can let him out without a leash and he just trots around sniffing and peeing and then eventually follows me back in. The other day, though, he decided that freedom was too tempting, and he glanced backwards at me and bolted off down the street as fast as his hairy little legs could carry him. At the same time that he’s becoming quite the outdoors guy, he’s developing an absolute terror of the stairs from the second story to the main floor. A couple times on his way down he slipped on the landing, which is hard wood, and slid into the wall. After each such incident, he refuses to come down at all unless we put him on a step further down and let him do the rest. If he thinks George or I are going to make him come down the stairs, he runs away, turns his back, and hunches over, almost as though he thinks we can’t see him that way.<br /><br /><strong>Household Pest Update<br /></strong><br />With the advent of cooler weather the spider crickets (at least that’s what we thought they were called, although we’ve seen them referred to as “camel crickets” as well) have invaded the basement again. They don’t really do anything—they mostly stand still, then leap one or two feet through the air to escape if you approach them—but it’s kind of startling and icky to have one jump on you by accident. The problem is that this year they—in small numbers at least—seem to have discovered the upstairs as well. One threw Nora into hysteria with a glancing leap into her hand (after all, this is the child who’s disturbed by a small piece of fuzz in her bathtub).<br /><br /><strong>Campaign Paragraph<br /></strong><br />Just one short word on the upcoming election. I wondered if anyone else had noticed how much Hillary Clinton resembles Dick Cheney—secrecy and obfuscation being her first response in times of trouble. Maybe the Clinton II White House would not be that different from the Bush II White House, when it comes down to it. And I wonder if anyone else has noticed how much Rudy Guiliani resembles the mobsters he used to chase down: running things through the use of threats, intimidation, and promotion of loyalists? </div></div></div></div>Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05525598322822559576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33754664.post-13761216874080859792007-08-04T11:37:00.000-07:002007-08-04T13:17:28.554-07:00Leesburg Essay 6<strong>Alex</strong><br /><br />I meant to publish this essay before we took our trip to New Jersey at the end of July, but everything ground to a halt when we received George’s sister Alex’s jaw-dropping news that she has lung cancer. (She was and is a non-smoker. They don’t call New Hampshire the Granite State for nothing, however, which makes my EPA-molded mind think of radon gas. They are having their water tested, although their air is apparently negative.) She is now receiving chemotherapy treatment and we all continue to pray for her recovery.<br /><br /><strong>Summer</strong><br /><br />The 4th of July is a big event in our neighborhood because you can see the Leesburg fireworks show from the field behind our house and from many of the backyards. In addition, a couple of families set off their own fireworks in our cul-de-sac. This year two of our neighbors had parties preceding the show, and as usual Alexander and his friends moved like a pack of wild beasts from one to the other and then back to the field to watch the fireworks, although I suspect there was a lot more playing with the colored glow sticks and running around than actual viewing. Nora went to sleep for a while and then woke up screaming when the first big BOOM hit at about 9:30. It was akin to when we were in Florida at Cheryl’s house and Nora fell out of Annaliese’s bed and actually rolled underneath, leaving her trapped and screaming in the dark.<br /><br />Unfortunately, it was storming for a good part of the 4th, and the storms were big enough, with threatened tornadoes, that the U.S. Park Police evacuated the Capitol mall a couple of hours before D.C.’s big fireworks show started. I can’t imagine evacuating all those people (they reportedly put some of them in the Smithsonian museums). Getting in and out of D.C. on the 4th is an event in itself. The Metro trains become so jammed that you’re packed in the cars with hundreds of people and panicking because you can’t get out at your stop unless you’re right near the doors. Or, you’re standing on the platforms watching train after train go by. Forget driving. Many people try to watch from the Arlington side. Other lucky people have access to rooftops in downtown D.C. I remember for a couple of years just deciding to forget the whole transportation thing altogether and walk back to Virginia.<br /><br />We had a good trip to my parents’ house in Tennessee at the end of June. Alexander invented a game with an elaborate set up of chairs and pillows which at its core involved rolling a ball into a flower pot turned on its side. This he and my father played for hours, although the rules kept changing every round as Alexander served not only as player but ref as well. He also improved his pool game, although it is tough to play against someone who is too short to reach all the shots and has a rule applying only to him whereby he can move the cue ball around at will whenever he “can’t reach it.”<br /><br />The car ride to Tennessee takes about nine hours when you factor in stops. We entertained ourselves for hours listening to children’s music that has become popular in our house—some of the best children’s music I’ve heard. The children’s author Sandra Boynton, who specializes in drawing stylized cows, pigs, and other cuddly animals, has teamed with a number of singers, songwriters, and even famous actors to create three CDs (titled “Philadelphia Chickens,” “Rhinoceros Tap,” and “Dog Train”) that are just a riot—really well orchestrated with amusing lyrics directed at both children and adults. I take great delight in songs like “I Need a Nap” (sung by Kate Winslet and Weird Al Yankovich), “Tantrum,” and “Faraway Cookies.” If you’re interested, check out <a href="http://www.sandraboynton.com/">Sandra Boynton’s website</a>.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir9F4LQeBeuBlPgJOJy7tfQE93zD6hyphenhyphenwLZPHF3lun3QafA_doRRIqGQxKRRmwH8rJRZgMAC8Sl2OYX85MVJgfucz-eq7yc8SZAPflqjKwnMgyYcK25K8Acwhw1j47hE6PjSDRN/s1600-h/May2007+049.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5094931837048011874" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir9F4LQeBeuBlPgJOJy7tfQE93zD6hyphenhyphenwLZPHF3lun3QafA_doRRIqGQxKRRmwH8rJRZgMAC8Sl2OYX85MVJgfucz-eq7yc8SZAPflqjKwnMgyYcK25K8Acwhw1j47hE6PjSDRN/s320/May2007+049.jpg" border="0" /></a>We returned from Florida in April with a new family member. Some of you may recall that my Aunt Marilu had a Maltese dog named Muki. Cheryl, who is a cat person and whose cat Max was not necessarily Muki’s best friend, asked if we were interested in taking Muki back with us and giving him a home where he would get more personalized attention. So, after some consideration, we stuffed him in a little carrier under my seat and flew back to Leesburg with him.<br /><br />George was horrified at the prospect of owning a toy dog, more akin to a stuffed animal than an actual dog, maybe, and there has been no end to the harassment he receives at work. For a while his coworkers reminded him every morning that he was now the proud owner of said stuffed animal. To make matters worse, Muki was immediately attached to me, much like my childhood dog Tish (a rather neurotic beagle mix) was immediately attached to my mother. It was clear, however, that when we went to Tennessee with Muki, and George came back after five days at home alone, Muki had actually missed him. (We speculated that maybe Muki thought “hmmm, if that guy can be abandoned, maybe I’m next…?”)<br /><br />The kids have taken to Muki and regularly fight over who’s going to feed and walk him. Muki is slowly adjusting to life with two kids, lots of neighbors, and outdoor activities (my aunt didn’t let him out by himself because she was worried that he would be eaten by coyotes). The fenced-in yard helps; it’s his own territory where he’s not bothered by kids or other annoying creatures. I’m convinced that the reason the bunnies haven’t come and eaten my pumpkin plant (which is out there right now moving hugely and menacingly toward my slow-growing witch hazel shrub) or my tiny spinach and tomato plants is that the dog has been marking his territory. I’m sure he’s not nearly as clean as he was when he lived with Aunt Marilu. In addition, clay soil + white dog = pinkish dog.<br /><br />The kids keep asking if we can get a bird or a fish as well. I told them I have no interest in a bird, and we’ll have to wait until everybody’s older and can help clean the fish tank before I’ll be willing to get one (although I love them). But Nora really upped the ante when she asked if I could move out of the house so that she, Alexander, and Daddy could get a cat.<br /><br />We are also to receive another life-altering inheritance from my family in the form of a piano. Jolie’s mother recently downsized from her house and can no longer keep the piano. It was originally my grandmother’s; Jolie’s mother took it when my grandmother moved from her house. It is a baby grand, which means that it needs to stand away from the wall. If you have seen our house, you’ll understand why we couldn’t accept the piano without thinking hard about where to put it. We continue to weigh our options (i.e., high humidity upstairs vs. very cold and dry in the basement).<br /><br />I’m hoping at least one of our children is interested in taking piano lessons. I took lessons for a number of years and can still pick out a tune if pressed (at least with the right hand). In addition, I love to listen to keyboard music—especially Bach. I get no credit for this from my parents who don’t really enjoy baroque music, but are big opera fans. My father says with regard to harpsichord music: “There’s a reason they invented the piano.” In addition, they seem to believe that I remain trapped in my teenage years and listen only to Bruce Springsteen, the Police, and U2 (see below). As for a piece of trivia that won’t likely help you on any game shows, Alexander was born to the sound of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. In contrast, when Nora was born there was no music playing, just the sound of the Russian-German nurse yelling at me. That’s probably why Nora has a slightly hysterical side even today.<br /><br />Alexander managed to graduate from kindergarten and will start in first grade, presumably, after Labor Day. This means a full day of school for him, which disturbs him because he says that he wants to eat lunch at home with me and Nora. My mother reminded me that I ate lunch at home until I started junior high in seventh grade. Nora starts preschool two mornings in the middle of September. She may like St. John’s a lot, particularly because she’ll be going to school like Alexander does (although there’s no bus, just Mommy). She also likes the preschool’s signature purple t-shirt. Currently, however, she’s in a MOM MOM MOM stage, which shows no sign of abating, making it difficult to picture dropping her off at school.<br /><br />For Mother’s Day this year Alexander told George that he wanted to cook for me and I shouldn’t do any cooking all day; his plan was to get ice-cream cake from our local ice-cream shop and then, for the main meal, “cook some tomatoes” (he’s well aware of my aversion to raw tomatoes). George and I managed to convince him that it would be better to wait until we had our own tomatoes fresh from the garden. Mother’s Day, of course, is not a big holiday for Alexander. Not like Easter, which he associates with being able to eat dessert (i.e., Easter candy) after breakfast. In June he had a big night out with Felicie and Greg when they took him camping in Shenandoah National Park. He was very excited about sleeping in the tent and toasting marshmallows over the fire, but then he discovered he didn’t really like them toasted and consumed about ten of them unadorned for dessert. Seems to me he’s ripe for the raw food movement.<br /><br />Alexander played t-ball this spring for the Leesburg “River Dogs” and wants to play coach-pitch in the fall. When I signed him up I thought I was doomed to hours of dusty practices with crying five year olds—I’m not a fan of baseball—but thankfully George stepped up to the plate and went to most of the games and practices. He found solace from boredom analyzing the coach’s approach. One practice that I attended late one Friday afternoon was my worst nightmare. It was 90-plus degrees, I was terribly allergic to the field, and my eyes were running all over the place. I had to borrow another mom’s eye drops (don’t try this at home) so that I could see to drive home.<br /><br />Recently I spoke with a friend of George’s and mine from grad school and he was shocked literally speechless to hear that George had been going to games. This mutual friend (sports obsessed, particularly with regard to ice hockey) immediately suggested that he had some books that might be of interest to George, including one on the economics of baseball. I think it’s pushing it just a bit to think that George is going to start reading books about baseball, especially those one step removed from the actual sport.<br /><br />I was struck recently by Alexander’s resemblance to the kind of modern performance artist that constructs installations in outdoor spaces or museums. Often, when I walk around my home I must navigate furniture and toys, rearranged into patterns and constructions, clubhouses, or sometimes obstacle courses for his friends—and now Nora’s beginning to do the same. Some remain in place for weeks, and I just get used to walking around them. Then something changes, I sense a subtle shift in the air, and I’m thrown completely off balance.<br /><br /><strong>Band-Aid Update</strong><br /><br />What is it with kids and band-aids? Why are they such a source of terror? Both my kids become completely unhinged if they have a band-aid on and someone talks casually about taking if off, or brushes against it, or puts soap on it in the bath. As soon as the band-aid is off, all is well, but until then it’s as though they have some giant blood-sucking leech attached to them that they’re afraid to disturb. Anyone know the Greek word for fear of band-aids?<br /><br /><strong>Praise Update</strong><br /><br />George has noted that a lot of the new (young, just-out-of-grad-school) hires at work seemed to require constant praise and feedback in order to function and he wonders where this is coming from. I’ve noticed that kids’ toys and books, unlike the ones that were around when we were kids, are constantly telling them that they’ve done a good job at this or that, even at the most mundane things. (“Yeah!, you got up off the floor!! Good job!!”) Even Dora the Explorer provides continuous feedback to the reader/viewer. (“Great Job! You’ve helped us stop Swiper!!”) I imagine that this is partly the result of the movement to ensure that kids have high “self-esteem,” but how is it creating self-esteem if people constantly need someone else to tell them that they’ve done a good job?<br /><br /><strong>Media Update</strong><br /><br />In my last essay I wrote about actors that I like; as a corollary I thought I’d note the ones whose popularity leaves me mystified. On the male side the primary culprit is Matthew McConaughey, who seems to exist only in the gym, on the beach with his shirt off, and surfing through a few silly movies. On the female side I have to go with Cameron Diaz, with the exception of her role in “In Her Shoes” alongside Toni Collette, which was better than it had any right to be. I discovered a “new” actress, however, when I saw Naomi Watts in “21 Grams,” paired with a mystifyingly hairless (although he had all sorts of hair on his actual head) Sean Penn. We also caught her in the highly stylized latest version of “King Kong,” which is so over the top that it requires an additional suspension of disbelief above and beyond the normal suspension of disbelief required to watch a movie about a giant rampaging ape.<br /><br />We both liked “Little Miss Sunshine” and I was glad to see Greg Kinnear again, who was a big asset to the fabulous “As Good As it Gets.” We both loved “Casino Royale”—unlike typical Bond flicks, the Bond girl, played by Eva Green, was no hyper-glandular bikini-clad airhead, which appealed to me. (As a result, she may have appealed less to George.) We actually walked out of the previous Bond movie, which we saw in Germany, because it was so bad. George reluctantly watched “Walk the Line” with me, which is the story of Johnny and June Carter Cash. The movie was pretty good, but I sat there the whole time thinking “I hate this music.”<br /><br />George had unique George-like reactions to several movies we saw. I liked “Brokeback Mountain” a lot and I thought the two leads were really impressive. What George got out of it were some reflections regarding alternative careers: maybe he could be a rodeo clown, or maybe a shepherd? The movie “Kinsey” led George, who does statistics for a living (as opposed to what he’d be doing in his alternative careers, as noted above), to rant and rave about the shoddy methods employed by Kinsey, whose questionable statistics are still cited today at though they are legitimate. He found that he could really relate to “The Devil Wears Prada,” as the boss portrayed in the movie reminded him quite frighteningly of his boss in Berlin, who employed similar sadistic methods to “encourage” performance from his staff.<br /><br />We watched the first season of the HBO show called “The Wire,” which is the story of a group of cops investigating a group of drug dealers in Baltimore. At first, we, even as veterans of "The Sopranos" (the last episode of which left George enraged and me convinced that Tony had been whacked), couldn’t believe how gratuitously raw the dialogue was. Once we got used to it (or maybe it was toned down?) we actually enjoyed the show.<br /><br />HBO aired a special recently that featured a comedy award to Jerry Seinfeld. Several other comedians were on hand to provide the requisite insults and banter and at the conclusion he gave a brief speech that was very funny. It’s been years since I really watched a comedian do stand up. There are (or were) several comedy clubs in D.C. that I went to with friends years ago, and they were a lot of fun—although expensive because they had a cover charge and two-drink minimum. The quality of the comedians, however, seemed to decline as the evening wore on (or maybe the quality of the audience as they downed their two-plus drinks). What I’ve noticed about many comedians is that, unless you agree with their politics, they’re not that funny. They seem angry or just really obvious. It seems to me that a good comedian should be able to entertain even if the audience members don’t agree with him or her. Chris Rock, for example, always makes me laugh.<br /><br />We managed to catch all but one episode of that great series “Planet Earth” from the Discovery Channel. Well, great except that I could have done without Sigourney Weaver constantly reminding us how innovative the technology was. I took away two main messages from this program. (1) I have filed many things I used to know away somewhere in the upper reaches of my brain, to be removed and have the dust blown off them at some future date. For example, until I had children, there were many years in which the word “tadpole” did not cross my mind. (2) There are a lot of flora and fauna out in the world that are clearly freaks of nature, displaying clear impediments to existence and serious design flaws. Not just those fish featured in “Planet Earth” that spend their entire lives attached to rocks underneath flowing water, either. The list of the questionable includes such familiar things as panda bears, peonies, Muki, and elephants, which have skin so dry it hurts to look at them (a bit like contemplating the universe, which has always made my head hurt). And who was the first person to decide to use the nest of a cave-dwelling bird to make soup? The best part of the series, however, was the mating dance of the bird of paradise, which has to be one of the more over-the-top displays in the animal kingdom (and never before captured on film, as Sigourney so helpfully reminded us), and the poor bird-guy (WARNING: SPOILER FOLLOWS) got rejected by his would-be mate in the end. Nature can be so cruel.<br /><br /><strong>Print Media Update</strong><br /><br />The June issue of Vanity Fair magazine—a publication with which I have a definite love-hate relationship—features a bunch of different cover photographs arranged by Bono (of U2 fame) to highlight his interest in African development. I’ve always admired Bono, in large part because he always seems to be able to leave aside ideological tirades and try to work with everyone from all sides. (Didn’t he at one point take Jesses Helms to Africa?) He apparently decided to include a photo of Bush and Condi Rice on one of the Vanity Fair covers, despite the hatred that Graydon Carter (Vanity Fair’s blowhard editor) has for Bush, because Bono says that Bush has actually been very good on African issues. Bono is one celebrity that I admire for his statements on social issues. Plus, I’ve loved U2’s music ever since their first album was released when I was in high school. A little on the weirder side, there’s a church in Ireland or somewhere in the U.K. that has decided to hold services featuring U2’s music. Check out the website if you're interested in how Bono’s <a href="http://www.joinred.com/">“Project Red” for Africa</a> initiative works.<br /><br />The Economist magazine has come out with a great enhancement to its subscription service—a downloadable audio version. It was introduced not without a couple of glitches, however, as there were all sorts of initial problems with the downloading. George was happy to hear that the reporters doing the reading were actually British, which adds an illusion of seriousness. The problem, though, is that the readers don’t seem to get that much guidance or time to practice between the final editing of the magazine and the recording of the audio version and, as a result, they mangle almost every non-Anglo name. This may be understandable when wrestling with a difficult language like Hungarian, or one seeming to include only consonants, such as Polish, but less so when dealing with such commonly heard names as “Jorge.”<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-obsdrlK-HOsU-ksHNYqNcGyfL8sqafKhwjgGmiGJ_dvq4rUAOuQsHNJfJ_PLBVw8zq3Fp5cg1-gL_ID-pPk073AESjBPmkG4En5K86f0zkES0-LjU4Ju1rn9E17NwE3yqWJu/s1600-h/Letter.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5094940744810183794" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 104px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 121px" height="209" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-obsdrlK-HOsU-ksHNYqNcGyfL8sqafKhwjgGmiGJ_dvq4rUAOuQsHNJfJ_PLBVw8zq3Fp5cg1-gL_ID-pPk073AESjBPmkG4En5K86f0zkES0-LjU4Ju1rn9E17NwE3yqWJu/s320/Letter.jpg" width="174" border="0" /></a>Recently we gave some money to the “Grant Monument Association,” which seeks to preserve the memorial to President Ulysses S. Grant in upper Manhattan (a member of George’s extended family is a descendent of Grant). In return, we received a thank-you note from the association that we decided had to be the best letter George had ever received.<br /><br /><strong>DailyKos Update</strong><br /><br />Finally, inspired by the <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/">DailyKos</a> website, my favorite liberal blog, a question to ponder: at what point do actual people become caricatures, or when do people who take themselves seriously begin to sound like something out of “The Onion”? Take, for example, the following write-up introducing a presumably activist theologian:<br /><br /><em>“Eco-justice theologian Karen Baker-Fletcher interprets the Bible from an environmental, African-American, and womanist perspective. In her book Sisters of Dust, Sisters of Spirit: Womanist Wordings on God and Creation, she celebrates both traditional nature and urban nature as part of God's creation. ‘We are responsible for giving life back to that which has given us life—God and the elements of our planet,’ she writes.”</em>Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05525598322822559576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33754664.post-70891800456071240902007-03-29T11:37:00.000-07:002007-03-29T17:44:33.225-07:00Leesburg Essay 5<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN6BoSyIBAQ3VhWZgsR45WEb-n7SA0JuLNg7QwFMi1rO-G4sxIMsEQqt2afCJ9NvjlMfQDKBfz-elsTi2eeg2YSX7CTnG-MPG1RxccE39yrnSrKsOs8AFgfAVD24aRw0_QzXv4/s1600-h/Indiana8.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 156px; height: 235px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN6BoSyIBAQ3VhWZgsR45WEb-n7SA0JuLNg7QwFMi1rO-G4sxIMsEQqt2afCJ9NvjlMfQDKBfz-elsTi2eeg2YSX7CTnG-MPG1RxccE39yrnSrKsOs8AFgfAVD24aRw0_QzXv4/s320/Indiana8.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5047419373383761282" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSVLzFZLWRhAQWOcK8HRjAy01U4MgSpAKMglFjrMR7IykUGFkDuKOMR3rARav2yi6dNJZpxAyFozCgDaLLhBsY8_ACcBFvqImiTWOpAY_mV6u_YbWfG8lGrWkK48DnaSVvSWiE/s1600-h/Indiana7.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 349px; height: 234px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSVLzFZLWRhAQWOcK8HRjAy01U4MgSpAKMglFjrMR7IykUGFkDuKOMR3rARav2yi6dNJZpxAyFozCgDaLLhBsY8_ACcBFvqImiTWOpAY_mV6u_YbWfG8lGrWkK48DnaSVvSWiE/s320/Indiana7.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5047419008311541106" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Passings</span><br /><br />We lost several family members in the last few months: my Aunt Marilu (wife of my father's brother, Dwight, and mother of my cousin,Cheryl); my Aunt Pat (my mother's sister); and George's Aunt Ilona (George's father's sister).<br /><br />Aunt Marilu's death came only three and a half years after Uncle Dwight's and was a particular shock. She was only diagnosed with cancer in early November and Cheryl moved her to Florida to care for her and obtain treatment for her at a big cancer center in Tampa. In the end she never made it to treatment because the disease was so advanced. She died in a hospice facility in Florida, not too long after her 70th birthday in January.<br /><br />In some ways Aunt Marilu did not have a very easy life. She was married very young to a kind of a playboy and then got divorced. I always chuckle when I remember the story (covered in the local society pages) of her serving dog food to her husband and guests when they came home one night, probably from drinking, demanding food. She took her son Tom with her to Indiana where she married my uncle. My uncle really struggled to establish his business and I imagine their first years together must have been tough financially. In 1973, Tom, then a teenager, died in a terrible accident. In later years Aunt Marilu's arthritis was so bad that she had lots of trouble getting around, but she helped care for her mother (now 95) and her sister, who has had numerous health problems.<br /><br />One thing that I will always remember is her succession of dogs (Uncle Dwight was, and Cheryl is, a cat person). There was Bonnie the bulldog. There was, if I remember correctly, a large Rottweiler called Ebony Mist who had to go away because she didn't like anyone other than Aunt Marilu. There was a golden retriever that Hon and Cheryl drove out from New Jersey to her, although that particular dog didn't work out. Her last dog was Mookie (now with Cheryl in Florida), a white fluff ball (Maltese) that Hon got for her at the time of his wedding to Cheryl.<br /><br />In the last couple of years Aunt Marilu became interested in quilting, although at the Open House that Cheryl held at Aunt Marilu's house in Indiana (see the pictures above featuring the local weather that weekend), a friend suggested that Aunt Marilu preferred the going-to-the-fabric-store part to the actual quilting. She loved mystery stories and gory novels. She loved football. She liked the cold. She spent a lot of time on her computer. One of my last memories of her is from Christmas 2005, when she and Jolie were doing Soduku puzzles together.<br /><br />The summer of 2004, just before we returned from Berlin, Aunt Marilu took an Alaskan cruise with Aunt Marcia and Jolie, Cheryl and her family, and some friends of theirs. Apparently it was a great trip for everyone and I'm glad she got to do that. Last September she was down in Florida with Cheryl and her family on a trip to Marco Island, eating crabs and talking of moving to Florida to be nearer to them and her grandchild.<br /><br />My Aunt Pat had a different kind of life from my mother, who I would describe as an urbanite. Except for some time in Bedford, New York, Aunt Pat and her family (four children) lived in the west. They took many camping trips, although my mother pointed out that this wasn't much of a vacation for Aunt Pat as she had to do all the cooking and whatnot! It seems to me that they moved a lot: Boulder Colorado, California (San Jose?), St. George, Utah and finally Tucson, Arizona.<br /><br />I didn't see them that much growing up, but three visits stand out in my mind (although with hazy timeframes). When I was in elementary school we visited a “dude ranch” and I had a terrific time hanging out with my cousins and trying horseback riding. This may have been at the same time as my mother's family reunion up in northern Wisconsin (a huge affair, as my grandmother was the youngest of something like nine children), where I got to go swimming in the big lake. I also remember visiting them in Boulder when I was maybe 12 and going up into the Rocky Mountains. And then the year after George and I were married I went to Tucson with my mother. I took a really long hike with my uncle Mac and we all went on a stroll through an arts festival with my cousin Judy, an artist herself. Aunt Pat and Uncle Mac didn't come to Knoxville anymore; the trip itself was hard on her, but in addition her allergies were so severe that Knoxville (not a place to go to escape from pollen) was just too much for her. All her surviving children were home at Christmas, and my mother said that she enjoyed that. She and Uncle Mac were married for about 50 years.<br /><br />I met Ilona (Ilynéni, the Hungarian way of saying “Aunt Ily”) only a few times, including on a trip George and I took to Montreal where she and her husband lived in an assisted living facility; there she enjoyed gardening and taking walks. She also came to our wedding, although her husband, ill with Parkinson's, could not come with her. She had an interesting life, which she documented in an essay for her family. One of the more arresting stories was about her and her husband drugging her son so he'd sleep while they smuggled him out of Communist-controlled Hungary. George says that he and his sisters always had fun with her when they were children.<br /><br />In addition to those who passed away, other members of George's extended family/friends have been ill with cancer, although luckily they are recovering. As a result of all these recent events, I've decided to volunteer with Capital Hospice, which is the non-profit hospice association that covers the Leesburg area. I completed the initial training this month. It was pretty intense at times because some of my classmates had some very wrenching stories about the events that led them to volunteer for hospice. It will be a while before I can do much for them because I have to find a way to be available during the day.<br /><br />Filling out the hospice application led me to recall my other experiences as a volunteer. When I first moved to D.C., I volunteered at a battered women's shelter in Alexandria. The location was ostensibly secret, but I was still concerned about some violent boyfriend or husband showing up, especially when I did an overnight shift “sleeping” at the house (I recall in particular watching an old and somewhat bad movie called “The Emerald Forest” in the middle of the night). I was bored most of the time because I never actually had an admit in two years or so of working there, but I was amazed and horrified at the size of some of the files; i.e., women kept coming back to the shelter and then going back to their abusers, and so on.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What Christmas Looks Like In Florida</span><br /><br />Two days before New Year's, I received a call from Cheryl in Tampa telling me that her mother was failing and had to be moved to a continuous care facility. She was told that if friends or family wanted to see Aunt Marilu they had better come right away, so I flew from Newark to Tampa the next day (which was also Cheryl's daughter Annaliese's 4th birthday). New Year's Eve in Tampa was very weird. Houses were still draped in Christmas decorations and Santa and his reindeer were dressed in scarves and standing next to palm trees, but as there were so many lights and fireworks going off all over the place, I took a very atmospheric walk around the neighborhood at about 10:30 that night.<br /><br />This year, even more than in years past, Christmas decorations really outdid themselves with the proliferation of the giant blow-up Santas, Grinches, and Christmas snow globes complete with carousels. These may be cute for the kids at night, but they take up quite a bit of electricity and thus are left deflated and lying ever so attractively on lawns during the day, an effect that leads one to think, as George put it, that there had been a vast drive-by holiday shooting.<br /><br />In early February the nation was treated to the Marilu Memorial Super Bowl (otherwise known as Superbowl 41), in which her team finally won the big one and Peyton Manning showed that he could deliver. I was very concerned about the whole match up of the Bears and the Colts, being a Colts fan myself and having vivid memories of Aunt Marilu rooting for the Bears. Cheryl, however, put my mind at ease about rooting for the Colts against the Bears, as it turns out that Aunt Marilu had become a Colts fan in later years. Even though he rarely actually sees any football, Alexander has inexplicably decided that he's a Patriots fan—inexplicably because we don't live in New England, he's too young to look up to Tom Brady for dating (and impregnating) supermodels, and I don't watch the Patriots.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Nora Discovers Herself, And Becomes Just As Much Of A Pain As Her Brother...</span><br /><br />Just as Alexander did when he was her age, Nora has reached the Character Assertion Phase (remember that Alexander actually referred to the whole family using character names from “Bob the Builder” for five whole months). Nora regularly informs us that she is some character from a book or children's television show, but she doesn't behave any differently. Occasionally there might be an associated activity, but most of the time she just says something like “I'm Roo” or “I'm Eyeore” or “I'm Bob the Builder”—and keeps insisting on different names throughout the day. In addition, her Baba (blanket) now has a personality and a body and sometimes plays board games with us.<br /><br />I was listening to Nora tell herself stories in her bed as she was falling asleep and it occurred to me that it's only really kids that do this. I then began to wonder what people would think if I started doing that when I was falling asleep. Maybe I could talk loudly about current events or sing my favorite songs at the top of my lungs. That poor woman has Tourette's, they would say, which makes me wonder why this is considered normal behavior in children.<br /><br />Nora has been admitted to St. John the Apostle Preschool for September (which is where Alexander went), which means that potty training needs to be fully accomplished by that time. She showed a bit of interest last fall, but then lost interest after Christmas (“I've stopped peeing”). I decided that I just needed to set a date to take her out of her diapers, and that day turned out to be February 23rd, although I didn't get up that morning thinking I was going to be taking her out of her wet clothes over and over again. She had basically gotten the hang of it two days later and maybe we can finally ditch the diaper pail. I don't really remember much about Alexander's potty training because at the time I was deranged from having a newborn. George says we just put him in underwear and let him go at it. As far as self-care is concerned, however, Alexander would be quite happy even now to have us dress him and put him in diapers.<br /><br />Like Nora with her potty training, all of a sudden one day we discovered that Alexander had a new skill: he was reading—really reading—well into Dr. Seuss's “If I Ran the Zoo.” We hear only bits and pieces from him about what he does in school, so now we know he must be learning to read. He insists on reading to Nora, and sometimes she's willing and sometimes she'd rather just have him go away. I was surprised at how quickly he went from 0 to 60. He still, however, hasn't been taught to tie his shoes.<br /><br />Alexander has had some classic lines through the years, such as the one that still amuses George's boss: “You're not in charge here, Mommy is...” One of my personal favorites came a couple of months ago as we were all sitting down to lunch together and Alexander (for once) liked something that I had made. He looked at George thoughtfully, told him “Mommy's a good cook,” then looked at me and said “Mommy, you're very good at cooking.” He then looked back at George and said “and you're...” That was it. Dead silence. Try as he might, he couldn't think of anything positive to say about George at that moment.<br /><br />George was also witness to the following gem when we were trying to correct some unacceptable behavior of Alexander's. In an effort to incentivize him, George warned him that he might not be able to use his scooter for a few days if he continued doing whatever it was he was doing. Alexander, honestly trying to be helpful, and flush with new art supplies from Christmas, countered with a suggestion of his own: “How about you take away my old markers?”<br /><br />Some of Alexander's lines actually reveal how much concern he has about Nora's well being. When we were in New Hampshire this past Christmas, my uncle Tim—who was playing Santa Claus and distributing the presents to the kids—snuck up to Alexander while Nora was occupied with a gift of her own and gave him an extra present. Tim quietly explained that Santa brought him more than he brought Nora, and suggested that he open it without making much noise so as not to upset his sister. Alexander went over to George and told him he was sad that Nora hadn't gotten as many gifts as he had, then suggested he share his new present with her so she wouldn't be unhappy. Likewise, after we returned to Leesburg, Alexander remembered that he hadn't made Nora a present (he had made George and I pictures with captions before we headed north). He suddenly insisted on making a gift for Nora. Despite these touching moments, he still torments Nora much of the time, but at least we know that he sincerely likes her.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Leesburg Update</span><br /><br />In the fall I read an article about how our region of the country has been reassigned from (USDA) cold zone 6 to 7. This seemed reasonable to me as December was so warm that the crocuses started to come out not long after I put in all my tulip bulbs. Perhaps winter had just slept through itself? But then it woke up, shook itself, and then it snowed and Snowed and SNOWED until school was closed for three days in a row one week in February. By the end of last summer I was tired of gardening, particularly because I had to keep watering and watering through July and August. Now I'm ready to get out there again and start clearing out the vegetable and perennial beds. Alexander finally stopped saying that he didn't want the snow to melt and started saying that he was looking forward to going to Florida. It got so bad that on March 7th—a slightly overcast but otherwise uneventful day—Loudoun County Public Schools closed because of the weather forecast. Not a flake of snow fell.<br /><br />Some of you may remember the problems I had with grocery stores in Berlin: the hours (although these have apparently improved since we left), the lack of ethnic foods, the unhelpful personnel. I was thrilled to come back to my stores here with wide selections, endless hours, and (sometimes) friendly check-out clerks.<br /><br />When we lived in Arlington before Alexander was born and we had double incomes and little time, I used to do most of my shopping at Whole Foods just a couple of blocks away, a store that still makes me sigh when I see it. Here in Leesburg there's no Whole Foods; instead, we are served by such stores as Target, Costco, Giant, Safeway, Shoppers Food Warehouse, and the new entrant, Bloom, which features a little self-checkout device for those really in a hurry.<br /><br />The bottom of the barrel (including in terms of price) is Shoppers Food Warehouse (SFW), but this is a store (in addition to Costco and Target) to which I have become very attached. The thing is, no matter how much the more-upscale stores try to draw me in with fluffy produce with a special sprinkler system, store-brand organics, eggs from ecstatic chickens run wild, antibacterial wipes at the door, and all the other trendy items, the fact remains that SFW, although kind of grungy and depressing, often is the only store that consistently stocks the items that I'm looking for and where the checkout clerks are uniformly friendly. Even jalapenos, ubiquitous and uncontroversial chili peppers, are often missing from the shelves of Bloom and other places with large marketing budgets, and forget the more obscure ethnic spices and whatnot. Often the most mysterious absence is Dannon coffee yogurt, which George consumes in abundance.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Media Update</span><br /><br />Given that I began this essay during Oscar season, I thought I would write about actors. For years, as probably everyone knows, I was a huge Harrison Ford fan. His movies are now both extremely rare and extremely repetitive (I think the last good one was “Air Force One,” and that was about 10 years ago) and worse yet he dumped his wife a few years ago and hooked up with actress Calista Flockhart, who last time I checked is a year older than I (that would make her 42) to his 64 or so. Now he's set to make Indiana Jones 4, and the actress reportedly set to play against him is Cate Blanchett, all of 37.<br /><br />My favorite remains Russell Crowe and is likely to remain so until he actually kills someone—with or without a piece of telecommunications equipment. The only movie I didn't like of his was “A Beautiful Mind,” which I found more weird and disturbing than anything else. The other actors I consistently enjoy are Hugh Grant, Kiefer Sutherland. Ralph Fiennes (although recently there was a strange airborne incident with a Quantas flight attendant), and John Cusack. Kyle Chandler, who plays the lead in the TV show “Friday Night Lights,” is also great. The question is, why are actresses so uninspiring? Except for Kate Winslet, I can't think of a single actress that I would go out of my way to watch, although as I write this I think I should include Renee Zellweger, who's good in just about everything she does, and on TV I have enjoyed Katee Sackhoff from “Battlestar Galactica.”<br /><br />I watched the Oscars this year, although George and I came to the conclusion that we should really TiVo them until next February, at which point we'll have gotten the chance to actually see the films first. We've managed to catch some recent movies through Netflix. “Poseidon” was lackluster despite the direction of Wolfgang Peterson (“A Perfect Storm,” “Air Force One”) and the presence of Kurt Russell. It didn't seem to really have a script, but then I guess it's tough to do boat movies after “Titanic.” (Director James Cameron is working on his first new movie since “Titanic,” which was released in the last century.)<br /><br />We caught an Australian western called “The Proposition” (amazing how similar the landscapes are to the American west), starring Guy Pearce of “Momento” and “L.A. Confidential” fame, which was interesting but very violent. “United 93” and “Black Hawk Down” are both excellent movies, but as they're based on actual, gut-wrenching events, they are kind of tough to take. The pet Warren Beatty project “Reds” from the 1980s was released recently on DVD, and it warmed our hearts to see the unrepentent left in action. “The White Countess” (Merchant/Ivory's last film) was very atmospheric and Ralph Fiennes and Natasha Richardson were great. The really curious one was “Good Night and Good Luck,” which seems like more of a vanity piece for George Clooney and his pals than an actual movie aimed at a live audience, since many of us were not around in the 1950s and don't know who Fred Friendly was.<br /><br />As for TV,“24” has gone downhill quite a bit in season six. I'm not necessarily bothered by the constant torturing of one character after another (much commented on in the press), but the lack of an emotional center is a problem. Jack has lost a general humanness, and, because the characters keep shifting each season, the viewer repeatedly needs to become familiar with a whole new set of people, and this season they seem to be lackluster at best. “Lost” has a similar struggle as it moves away from its familiar and fun characters and introduces a whole new set of island dwellers. “Battlestar Galactica” remains by far our favorite show (we are thankful that the SciFi channel has renewed it for a fourth season) and continues to keep us genuinely riveted. Another terrific show that only about five people in America are watching is “Friday Night Lights” (which confusingly airs on Wednesday nights). It's about high school football in Texas, but it has such a great cast and characters that even George is now hooked (I guess that means that six people are watching). If you want to check it out, you can view past episodes <a href="http://www.nbc.com/Friday_Night_Lights/">on-line</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Upcoming Events</span><br /><br />As we moved past New Year's and into the late winter, I realized that before I know it, it's going to be summer and if we want to go anywhere, I'd better get planning. So, we are going to Cheryl's in Tampa over spring break, which is also the week of the kids' birthdays, and then when we get back there is Easter, and then the weekend after that is probably going to be the kids' birthday party, so April is not likely to be a boring month.<br /><br />This summer we are going to try a short trip to Chincoteague in August, although we're not going at the time of the pony swim (which is in late July) because it sounds a bit like a literal zoo. George and I were really impressed with Chincoteague when we went on a kayaking trip around the island back in the day when we were able to do such things. Alexander's concerned about swimming in the ocean because he is worried that he's going to “run into things.” Or alternatively that things are going to “run into him.” Of course, he won't have to do what I did when I was a kid, which was to start swimming as soon as possible after leaving the safety of the beach so that I didn't have to put my feet on the bottom. The advent of water shoes has changed all that.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Politics Rears Its Ugly Head</span><br /><br />I have been reading the left-wing blog called the <a href="http://www.dailykos.com">Dailykos</a> (he has a link to “DraftGore.com” prominently displayed) because I think the intra-Democrat fight (e.g., Hillary vs. Obama, via David Geffen; Blue Dogs vs. Murtha left wingers) is more interesting than anything happening on the Republican side at the moment. It's frighteningly early for the presidential race (consider that Alexander will be in SECOND GRADE by the time that this election takes place!), so I may sicken of this before November 2008. One constant thread in the blog is the need to “bring the troops home” and that “supporting the troops” (which the contributors disparage as a meaningless phrase that conservatives use to trump liberals) really equates to “bringing them home.” But just like in the conservative press, things are just taken for granted, and in this case the undiscussed subject is whether the troops are actually interested in being “brought home.” It seems that many of them are interested in fighting (and winning) over there, so if they were to ask the troops what they wanted, as it is they whom we are ostensibly “supporting,” what would the majority say?<br /><br />As for Al Gore himself, he begins to look more and more weird, almost like he's morphing into the Dalai Lama. I liked him with Leonardo DiCaprio at the Oscars, as Leo was clearly very nervous with his hero next to him at the podium, and joked a couple of times about whether Gore was going to make an Announcement. Oh—the horror! At least John Kerry has disappeared safely into the vortex of failed candidates.<br /><br />In late February the Washington Post ran a couple of front page articles from reporters investigating conditions at Walter Reed Army Hospital (“The Other Walter Reed” beginning February 18). Although the articles were written in the typical Post style, which is maximum impact/low explanation up front (and thus confusing if you're trying to actually understand what's happening, rather than just “feel” the story), I was happy to see what we so rarely see: journalists performing a true service. If you didn't see the articles we could e-mail them to you, although you probably know the gory details already and I know many blogs have linked to the articles. George and I find editorial standards to be pretty low at the Post, and we are consistently surprised at how poor the political reporting is for the nation's supposedly preeminent newspaper for politics, but I have to hand it to the journalists on this one.<br /><br />You may have the impression that the CIA is populated by a bunch of red-state, tree-cutting, SUV-driving, gun-toting conservatives, but if you thought this you'd be wrong. The CIA, at least the Directorate of Intelligence where George works (as opposed to the Dark Side, or the Directorate of Operations), has plenty of really left-wing types sprinkled about. And, being George, he loves to argue with them. In fact, I believe that liberal baiting is one of the primary reasons he loves going to work. One woman in his office is even opposed in principle to marriage—so George of course refers to her live-in boyfriend as her common-law husband, or, alternatively, as the “DP,” for “Domestic Philosopher”, since he's a philosophy PhD. One day recently they were arguing about the public policy issues surrounding global warming and it made her so annoyed that she apparently got up early the next morning to go on line and further develop her counterarguments. So now George annoys her by going around the office referring to lots of little “Inconvenient Truths.” She also told him that he's one of about three people remaining in America that really likes Dick Cheney. And she's right: one morning when I got up and logged on to the laptop, I found some new wallpaper George had installed the night before—a photo of some Australians holding up a giant sign that says “The World Needs Great Men Like Dick Cheney. We Love America.” I almost screamed.<br /><br />Finally, here are nine reasons our kids will think that we were weird when we were kids:<br /><ul><li>We watched TV shows when they were “on.”</li><li>We had to look for pay phones when we were out and about and needed to call someone (it would have been really cool to have a cell phone in high school so I could order pizza while on the beach).</li><li>We read newspapers, watched the “evening news,” and went to the library to “look stuff up.”</li><li>Schools closed when there was an actual blizzard.</li><li>We never sat in car seats and never thought about bike helmets.</li><li>People dried their laundry on clotheslines, clipped on with associated clothespins.</li><li>We didn't buy things when we didn't “have any money with us.”</li><li>You had to buy the whole album if you wanted just one song, unless that song was released as a 45 “single.”</li><li>We had posters of Shaun and David Cassidy (with associated blow-dried hair) and Charlie's Angels (the original ones) on our walls.</li></ul>Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05525598322822559576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33754664.post-36372144307480526862006-12-06T18:06:00.000-08:002006-12-06T18:23:39.820-08:00Leesburg Essay 4<span style="font-weight: bold;">No Time For Shoes...</span> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Alexander's kindergarten experience has been quite positive so far. Leesburg Elementary employs an intensive reading program called “Steps to Literacy”and the kids have been working hard since the first week of school. As for math, George had a short discussion with the principal during which he satisfied himself that the school is not in the grip of the notorious there's- no- right- answer- all- that- matters- is- problem- solving- and- teamwork approach, which horrifies him as a former math major. We suspect they are talking about science as one day Alexander came home and asked George to teach him how to be a scientist over the weekend. Alexander likes the teachers and the bus has been OK, although inconsistent in terms of when it shows up. Some of the drivers appear to be more than reckless when they're trying to turn around in our neighborhood's numerous cul-de-sacs. One letdown: the teachers have no time to teach shoe-tying anymore, so we're on our own.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">There was briefly a possibility that Alexander would be redistricted next year to the school I was interested in having him attend in the first place—the one that is right behind our street (Frances Hazel Reid Elementary). Leesburg (the seat of Loudoun County) is growing so fast that building schools is a constant activity. Loudoun has been one of the top growing counties in the country in the past few years, it has one of the highest median incomes, and some pretty big families. Each time a new school opens they rearrange the enrollment at the existing schools and there's a big bureaucratic process for making the decisions. Many of the parents at Leesburg Elementary were up in arms about our little section of the school district getting sent to Hazel Reid, so it looks like we'll remain where we are.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In some ways it would have been nice to have him redistricted back to our neighborhood, but at Hazel Reid our kids would probably count as low-income undesirables, as the kids that currently go to that school are bused from wealthier neighborhoods further afield. Plus, Leesburg Elementary is a “Blue Ribbon” school under No Child Left Behind, so it's actually very well regarded. Maybe we should have been fighting hard to stay there, but I'm optimistic that Alexander and Nora will do fine so long as their school is within reasonable bounds of competence.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I know that when kids start attending school every day they come home with all sorts of illnesses, but this fall has been ridiculous. After a couple of weeks of seemingly unrelated sicknesses (hives, ear infections, vomiting, fevers, hacking coughs, and most recently conjunctivitis), followed by a chest x-ray and a blood test, the doctor told us that Alexander had probably contracted mononucleosis. Okay, we all know that he spends a lot of time with girls, but he's a little young for something I used to relegate to the “kissing disease,” to be caught mainly by overactive teenagers.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Except perhaps I shouldn't be so hasty. This summer on our car trips we introduced the kids to the soundtrack to ”The Sound of Music,“ which quickly climbed to the top of the charts for them. As it turns out, Alexander's friend Cathryn down the street is a big fan, and Alexander has been known to go down to Cathryn's house to watch the movie. Cathryn's mom told me that she has seen the two of them dancing around very formally in the family room while watching the movie, so perhaps they've been playing the Baron and the Governess?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Because Alexander managed to contract a virus most often associated with college kids, we had to put off for several weekends a hiking trip with Aunt Felicie and Uncle Greg. When we were finally about to make it, we took the same waterfall hike in the Catoctin Mountains that Nora liked last time. Nora is finally clear on who Aunt Felicie and Uncle Greg are, although a little shaky on James (her godfather, currently attending basic training in Fort Benning in Georgia) and Joe (at college at Shippensburg in Pennsylvania). We see Felicie and Greg quite often, though. For other relatives viewed less often, the jury is still out, which is reasonable given the sheer number of relatives that the kids have, a volume that has even Alexander—who of course has a three-year head start on Nora—fishing for names. Nora has trouble remembering who Aunt Gabrielle is, and so, grasping a straws, she has been heard to refer to her as “the other Aunt Felicie.”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">We had an unusually cold start to the fall and thus the kids were inside more than I expected them to be, but—I'm sure this warms my mother's librarian heart—they discovered the library, both the one in the town and the one at Alexander's school. Nora briefly enjoyed going to the mercifully short story hour for little kids, but then there was an incident that reminded me of taking Alexander to classes or story hours when he was her age. One day Nora and I were at the story hour with a sizable contingent of nannies and their charges, and the nannies would not control the kids, so they were standing up, walking around and generally making it difficult for other kids to hear or participate. Nora was clearly disturbed by this and has refused to go back ever since. Alexander never wanted to go anywhere with other kids when he was her age, but he's completely different now, so it's hard to say whether this objection to other children on Nora's part is temporary or not. I can't imagine, however, hiring a nanny (or a “manny,” although this particular group seemed to be young Slavic girls) and not requiring her to teach my kid how to behave. Hearkening back to Mary Poppins, this would seem to be part of the job description.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">At the library I picked up a copy of Dr. Seuss's “The Lorax,” which is a pro-environment anti-unrestrained-capitalism treatise. I have a vague recollection of filing into the auditorium in elementary school and watching the movie version for more than one year in a row, so perhaps my indoctrination started early and my ten years at EPA really weren't a fluke. The kids loved this book, Nora especially enjoying the gloppity glopp and gluppity glupp mucking up the pond of the Swomee Swans. I'm not sure that the kids got the main point of the book, however, as after reading it they began to run around and pretend to, as Alexander puts it, “axe” down some trees. I suspect that Alexander has some definite vegetarian traits, however, as he prefers to eat cheese, doesn't like hamburgers, and told me he didn't want any turkey for Thanksgiving because he didn't want any turkeys to die (although he ended up eating quite a bit of turkey, and doesn't seem to care one iota about the death of chickens). I'm not sure about Nora, although she is iffy on cheese, loves peanut butter, and pasta has sometimes made her cry.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I've noticed an interesting theme in a lot of children's books, although the denouement is not always the same: a bunch of animals of varying sizes and temperaments and without invitation pile one at a time into some container (a canoe, a mitten, an umbrella, a moose's antlers), leading to an undesirable outcome when one finally tips the balance. Sometimes it's one of the littler ones that manages to bring on the end (e.g., hummingbird); sometimes one of the biggest (e.g., moose). Somewhat differently, in “Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose” (Dr. Seuss), there is no tipping point except in the moose's own mind; the moose, reaching the end of his rope, rids himself of the whole bunch of visitors sheltering in his antlers when he realizes that it's the time of year for him to shed the antlers (all the guests end up stuffed on some hunter's wall, adding an element of vengeance that the other, more gentle, stories don't include). One of the books (“The Mitten” by Jan Brett, in which all the animals pile into a little boy's mitten) claims that it is a Ukrainian folk story. What is this basic, recurring storyline meant to signify?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Alexander has been spending a lot of time on arts and crafts and drawing, with which he occupied himself a lot last winter when he wasn't spending much time outside or with his friends. The walls of our house have recently been covered with taped-up drawings of pumpkins, ghosts, and Frankenstein monsters for Halloween, and now turkeys and cornucopias, morphing quickly into stockings and Santas.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Nora has been drawing a lot as well and her blobs are beginning to actually resemble people. Watching her draw, it dawned on me that she uses her left hand. Not only that, but she has developed on her own that upside-down writing style used by lefties that gets marker all over the hand. Both my father and his sister, Aunt Marcia, are lefties, so if it's an inherited trait I guess it wouldn't be surprising, but despite having these close relatives that are lefties, I regard it as a strange affliction that in some cases requires special accommodations. My father points out that Aunt Marcia learned to write with her hand in a normal position and her handwriting is quite nice (much better than mine!), so I guess there's hope on this front. Although what about scissors: if Nora is a lefty, am I supposed to buy her special scissors, or is this some sort of marketing ploy?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Halloween is taken very seriously in this neighborhood, so it's good that it was a beautiful evening for trick-or-treating. George, Alexander and Nora went out with a bunch of other kids and parents. Alexander was dressed as an ice cream man (Good Humor man) and Nora as an ice cream sandwich. It was Nora's first real Halloween as last year she refused to wear a costume (the original idea last year was for Nora to be Yoda to Alexander's Darth Vader). George said Nora handled the trick-or-treating like a trooper and was very excited to tell everyone that she was an ice cream “Sammich,” and then she abruptly told George she was tired and wanted to go home.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: bold;">There But For The Grace Of God Go I...Back To Best Buy and Other Random Events </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">One night George and I were in the basement catching up on the second season of something or other on DVD, when he heard an ominous “drip drip drip” coming from the ceiling just above the 62-inch Toshiba HDTV. I can only imagine what we would have faced had this dripping started in the middle of the night and remained undiscovered for a day or more. George, who had hoped to devote some time this fall to rebuilding the unpleasant deck floor and ridding ourselves of an unwanted shed (it's pretty new and we can't even give it away), instead started cutting into the basement ceiling and upstairs wall in an ultimately hopeless search for the source of the leak. Said source remained elusive until the second visit by the plumber, who discovered after much head scratching and a visit from his boss that the line to the ice maker in the refrigerator was the culprit. We don't even use our ice maker because George hates the taste of the ice, so who would have thought?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">We hear a lot about poker these days, but little about the game of bunco that dominates the suburbs. This silly dice game is a popular way for women (mainly, it seems) to get together, gossip, eat, and drink. I managed to avoid playing in Berlin but here I've been sucked into the neighborhood group. A number of the women are around my age and thus were teenagers and young adults in the 80s. A recent bunco session had me marveling over the ability of my college roommate Julie to smoke while spraying vast amounts of Aquanet to hold her Big Hair in place during a humid fraternity party; how is it that she managed not to light herself and the whole dorm on fire?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Last summer when we were at George's parents' house in Ridgewood, New Jersey, George befriended a rather large spider building a web around the back porch light. When we went out for a walk at night he would stand and observe this spider patiently rebuilding his web and doing it pretty much the same way every night. George was clearly sad to leave the spider behind when we left New Jersey. Late this summer, however, a similar spider appeared in our front yard and proceeded every evening (at 19:00, give or take five minutes) to rebuild its web between the dogwood and blue spruce in the front yard. George not only observed it at work, he actually began to play with the spider by throwing bugs at the web to see if they would stick and then he would watch the spider roll up its prey in silk at an amazing speed. He then began musing about the technical requirements for filming the spider at work, and even tried doing so using the night-vision setting on our camcorder. Realizing that he would need a National Geographic-level setup, rather than just a simple Nikon SLR with a tripod, he abandoned the idea. I can tell that he's still bothered by his inability to translate his vision into reality. (By the way, his vision included putting his resulting video clip on this blog, so consider yourselves spared from the amateur version of the Discovery Channel.)</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The most unexpected street food has appeared in Leesburg; a neighbor who lived in Stuttgart for a couple of years alerted us to its existence. I think I noted in one of my Berlin essays that the fast food worth eating in Berlin (other than American fast food) was Turkish Doener Kebaps, a sort of flatbread sandwich that usually features shaved lamb, salad, and some kind of tangy (yogurt-based, I believe) sauce. Some random guy from Hamburg in northern Germany has opened up a cart in a parking lot in Leesburg that features Doeners made from shaved beef with a choice of sauces. He even has the makings for a traditional German children's drink called Apfelschorle, which is a mixture of apple juice and sparkling mineral water. He's now added Milka chocolate bars, traditional German coffee and cake (Kaffee und Kuchen), and the notorious Berliner currywurst. This is just about the only food that I miss from Germany (other than the full-fat yogurt), so I still can't believe it showed up here, some 40 or so miles outside of D.C.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: bold;">Couch Potato Update</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">We've seen a few good movies lately through Netflix: “The Squid and the Whale” with Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney, “Match Point,” which is a recent Woody Allen film, and “Capote,” for which Philip Seymour Hoffman won an Oscar last year. The latter was particularly interesting as I reread “In Cold Blood” last year and it was pretty chilling. The gallows humor in the movie comes as Truman waits for his doomed interviewee to be hanged—through endless stays and appeals—so that he can finally finish his book.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">We also caught“The Passenger,” which is a 1970s movie starring Jack Nicholson in his skinny years. It had to be one of the slowest and most inexplicable movies we've watched in a long time, to be surpassed only by ”The New World,” directed by Terrence Malick. This last film purports to be the story of John Smith and Pocahontas, although the director couldn't bring himself to let anyone say her name—until the colonists apparently renamed her “Rebecca.” Like other Terrence Malick movies (“The Thin Red Line” or “Days of Heaven”), “The New World” includes little dialog but lots of shots of nature and people standing around in contemplation of such. Before we had viewed the movie, George made the mistake of popping it into the DVD player to check whether the subtitles functioned on our TV (after he reassembled the home theater post-leak): he slowly went mad as he realized that there was no dialog to subtitle.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Two of our favorite TV shows—“Lost” and “Battlestar Galactica”—are now in their third seasons and in serious danger of “jumping the shark,” so we continue to hold our collective breath. (For those of you unfamiliar with the term, it refers to the point in the evolution of the show “Happy Days” when Fonzie jumped an actual shark on water skis, sending the series into terminal decline. There's actually a <a href="http://jumptheshark.com">website</a> devoted entirely to debating the point at which various television series jumped the shark and became unwatchable.) We weren't sure where Battlestar Galactica was headed this season (for your own look, check out <a href="http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/">their website</a>), but it luckily took a turn in the third episode—a turn back to the fleet, rather than the cold, marginally habitable planet where they'd been hanging for a few episodes, shivering, setting off bombs and waiting for the Galactica to return.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The previous season of “Lost” (season 2) included this bizarre feature of a supposed doomsday button that had to be pressed every 108 minutes or Something Undefined But Awful Would Happen. It wasn't clear whether this was just some vast psychological experiment for our favorite castaways, but it's easy for us to see how one might get caught up in such a bind because Nora briefly exhibited such behavior when sitting near the computer and listening to a set of children's music that I put together. Every once in awhile the computer's screen saver would come on even though the music was still playing. Nora was convinced that this meant that everything had turned off, and she would rush over anxiously and jiggle a key or two to make the screen saver go away.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Although I didn't watch it, there was a blast from my past on the daytime soap opera“General Hospital” this month as characters Luke and Laura Spencer got remarried. You may remember the hoopla back in 1981 or so when Luke Spencer and Laura Baldwin got married. I was a big GH fan at the time but I find it incredible that people still could find them intriguing. At least Tony Geary, the actor who plays Luke, has much better hair than the afro he had back in the 80s, but the weird thing is that as far as I can tell, Genie Francis (now probably in her mid-40s), the actress who played Laura, has not changed at all—exactly like a soap opera character! I haven't watched a soap opera since about 1981, but I suspect that my grandmother, who liked to watch her “story” (I believe it was “The Young and the Restless”), would be horrified by the subjects covered regularly nowadays on daytime TV.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Being a life long radio fan, my Grundig World Band transistor short-wave radio remains one of the best purchases I've ever made. It's about 11 years old and still going strong although the dial is broken so I'm no longer sure what station it is on and the cover for the battery compartment is gone and thus the batteries occasionally come tumbling out. I've used the shortwave function sporadically, such as traveling overseas, where it also functioned as a travel alarm. I used the regular FM radio all the time at work (before MP3s were common!) and then had it set constantly to the BBC World broadcast when we were in Germany, so I could get some occasional news in my language of fluency. I don't know what I'll do when the thing finally coughs and dies. It's probably been made obsolete and thus is no longer available, although I see advertisements for a lot of emergency crank-turned radios.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">George has acquired an IPod Nano, and has begun loading music onto it. I have the perfect playlist in mind for him. Although George is an unrepentant neocon, he happens to love anti-war music. My playlist starts out perhaps with Nena's “99 Red Balloons” (in German, if I can get it), “Ohio” from Crosby Stills Nash and Young, “For What it's Worth” from Buffalo Springfield, “War” from Edwin Starr, and maybe a smattering of “Bullet the Blue Sky” from U2 or “Born in the USA” from Bruce. Enough such tunes would allow him hours of soothing memories of protests past. Suggestions welcome.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: bold;">Try A Little Diplomacy</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Diplomacy is a tricky concept. The word itself carries with it an aura of civility, maturity and forward motion, although it rarely reaches this exalted level in practice. Because it is sometimes implied that only trigger-happy America does not practice diplomacy, I thought I would note for my readers some of the more subtle, non-obvious uses of diplomatic (i.e., non-war) solutions to problems around the world. So as you Americans head out today, try out some of these approaches as perfected by current foreign leaders:</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <ul><li><b>Publicly rule out one whole category of non-violent tools for encouraging behavior change. </b>Back in September, <span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="">France's President Jacques Chirac ever-so-helpfully eased the international pressure on Iran regarding its suspected nuclear program i</span>n an interview before a UN General Assembly session in New York, saying: "I am never in favor of sanctions." That's right, make sure your opponent knows that true sticks will not be employed, leaving only carrots in your arsenal.</span></li></ul><span style="font-size:100%;"></span><ul><li><b>Retaliate for perceived offenses by throwing out your opponents and cutting commercial ties. </b><span style="">D</span>uring their current dispute, reminiscent of Cold War “diplomacy,” Georgia and Russia have arrested each other's “spies” and tossed them out, cut transportation and postal links, embargoed wine imports, and upped the rhetoric. On October 3 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated: “One must not feed off Russia and insult it. The Georgian leadership must understand this.” A related approach is the following:</li></ul><ul><li><b>Make small, weird incidents even worse by overreaction on both sides. </b>On October 17th, the Polish Coast Guard fired warning shots at a German tourist ship after it tried to evade inspection in the Polish port of Swinoujscle and made a run for the German border with three Polish customs officers on board. Polish officials accused the vessel, the Adler Dania, of concealing tax-free cigarettes and booze; the Germans accused the Poles of overreacting, “Are Our Neighbors Insane?” mused Bild, German's largest newspaper.</li></ul><ul><li>S<b>how off your stuff in defiance of the community. </b>As tension and concern over North Korea's nuclear intentions continued to grow this fall, North Korea upped the ante by scheduling a nuclear test. North Korea's Foreign Ministry had the following to say: “...nuclear weapons will serve as a reliable war deterrent for protecting the supreme interests of the state and the security of the Korean nation from the U.S. threat of aggression.” When the powers that be speak sternly, up the ante.</li></ul><ul><li><b>Leave the hard things to others, especially those who can be continually opposed and vilified</b>. In October, a number of Arab states with close ties to the U.S. let the Secretary of State know that they don't feel comfortable taking a stand against militancy in the Middle East because they don't want to set themselves up in direct opposition to other Arab states or movements. These nations then informed the U.S. that the solution to the Middle East problem is American leadership to solve the Arab-Israeli crisis.</li></ul><ul><li><b>Pass laws addressing events in other peoples' pasts. </b>France's National Assembly this fall passed a law making it a crime to deny Turkish genocide against the Armenians. It's much easier than addressing your own pressing issues.</li></ul><ul><li><b>Agree to joint action and then refuse to carry it out.</b> South Korea and China are only the latest example of such behavior, as they spent the fall hemming and hawing about the proper response to bad behavior by North Korea. Talk is cheap, and temporarily soothing for everyone.</li></ul><ul><li><b>Bribe and undercut your neighbors in order to gain coveted jobs.</b> Venezuela's tactic for gaining a seat on the U.N. Security Council, although ultimately unsuccessful.</li></ul><ul><li><b>Claim you've been dissed. </b>Like the Sudan, which kicked out U.N. observers because of statements made on U.N. officials' personal websites that appear ed to insult the morale and capability of the Sudanese army.</li></ul><ul><li><b>Kill off those you can't shut up. </b><span style="">Take a page from Syria's playbook...or for that matter Russia's, whose “enemies” seem to find themselves victims of “mysterious” poisonings. This is an extreme approach, but there seem to be very few repercussions in the international arena. I suggest you check with your local police.</span></li></ul><ul><li><b>Make public statements about the personal odor and religious affiliations of your opponents.</b> There was a stench at the United Nations in September, according to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and President Bush was responsible for it. Chavez stated that the smell of the devil tainted the lectern where Bush stood the day before and that it continued to smell of sulfur the next day.</li></ul><ul><li><b>If all else fails, invent a new grammatical category</b><span style="">. If you</span> need to cover up your lack of progress in problem-solving, try a tactic perfected by the U.N. This massive bureaucracy has invented an entire new category of verb; one that implies action where none exists, exemplified by the word “rehatting.” In the context of the conflict in Sudan, this non-action verb means replacing African Union troops without a mandate to do anything with blue-hatted United Nations troops without a mandate to do anything.</li></ul> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Alternatively, if you're interested in checking out the opinions of someone who displays sense concerning foreign affairs, I suggest that you try out Anne Applebaum, whose column is carried in the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com">Washington Post</a> (she also has <a href="http://www.anneapplebaum.com">her own web page</a>). She wrote a great book about the Soviet Union called “Gulag,” and stands out as a genuine adult amongst all the blowhards on both sides.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: bold;">Regression?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Alexander has developed this bad habit of lunging across the table to get things or point out something in a book (I sometimes read to the kids during meals) and has recently spilled his milk more times than I can count, so I occasionally make him go back to using a sippy cup, a circumstance for which I wrote the following little ditty, sung to the tune of BINGO:</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">There was a boy who had a cup</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">His Mommy made him use it</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">S – I – P – P – Y</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">S – I – P – P – Y</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">S – I – P – P – Y</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">His Mommy made him use it</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">He spilled his milk oh everywhere</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">His Mommy made him use it</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">S – I – P – P – Y</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">S – I – P – P – Y</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">S – I – P – P – Y</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">His Mommy made him use it</p>Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05525598322822559576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33754664.post-1157411477403624012006-09-04T16:07:00.000-07:002006-09-04T16:23:56.123-07:00Leesburg Essay 3<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>The Dog Days</b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><br /></b></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">We took a family trip at the end of July that I've come to think of as the 2006 Farm Animal Tour. Stopping in New Jersey (in both directions in order to visit grandparents and the Korosecs), we drove to New Hampshire to visit with Aunt Marcia and Aunt Jolie and the O'Rourkes. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the visits, but the highlight for the kids—in addition to lots of attention from relatives that they don't see very often—was access to a variety of domesticated animals they don't see very often. We visited Aunt Marcia's new horse Nike (a Dutch warm blood, for the cognoscenti) at their new horse farm (<a href="http://www.tenbroeckfarm.net">Ten Broeck Farm</a>) just over the border in Massachusetts. Whenever I see horses I'm struck by the fact that they are <i>Really Big.</i> Their heads are the size of Nora's whole body. We got to see a very accomplished rider from Florida (she was boarding her horses at the farm) going through some <i>dressage </i>practice. The kids got to pet and sit on Nike.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Back at Aunt Marcia's house, Alexander and Nora both made friends with Annie the dog. Alexander has always been quite unsure of dogs, in part I think because the dogs in Berlin were never on leashes and occasionally would tackle him when we walked back to the dog beach in the woods behind the house. Lately, though, he's been bugging me to get a dog. My response is that having a dog is like having a baby, and so he and Nora are going to have to be older and able to do more things for themselves. Luckily, we already have a fenced-in yard so it's sort of perfect for a (smallish) dog—so long as everyone remembers to close the three gates.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Alexander was thrilled to run around for two days with Shane and Ian and both he and Nora loved seeing the chickens, guinea hens, and pigs that Aunt Alex keeps. Nora was especially interested in the pigs, which both fascinated and repelled her. We took a walk across the street to the dairy farm, where the three boys got a kick (naturally) out of watching the cows pee. We even took a fairly good hike with all the kids, and George got his “Maine” lobster dinner prepared outside in the lobster pot by Uncle Tim, thus eliminating the need for a special side trip to the actual State of Maine.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Back in New Jersey we managed to catch up with Cheryl, Hon, and Annaliese, who were up from Florida to close on their house in Ringwood. We met them at a public beach on a lake in Ringwood, where Uncle Hon lead the kids in a bunch of silly games. Alexander and Annaliese bonded in that little kid kind of way—lot of activity, little speech. I find it amusing that Annaliese apparently refers to Alexander as “alligator.”</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Aunt Marcia's horse made a big impression on Nora. For a week of so following the trip, she wouldn't respond to any name other than “Nike.” Sensing her new-found interest in equine matters, a neighbor brought out her daughters' collections of My Little Pony toys for Nora, and I was struck once again by the Bizzarro world of children' playthings. My Little Ponies comes with brushes that look more like my hair brush than curry combs, along with, as would be expected, a plastic wedding cake.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">On our various drives this summer we've had to contend with the problem of Alexander's car sickness. As there aren't motion sickness medicines for kids under the age of six, I came up with the solution of ginger. On the trip in which I fed him regular doses of straight candied ginger, he didn't throw up. He complained that he hated the ginger, however, and so for the next trip I made him a batch of candied ginger cookies. He hated these as well (the look of horror on his face was something), although again he didn't throw up when he ate them. On our way back from New Hampshire, he finally refused to eat any more and I threw the remainder of a cookie out the window in frustration. Nora has since managed to make us both look like fools by, on random occasions, telling him “Alle-ander eat a ginger cookie or you're going to throw up.” When he says “no,” she says “then throw it out the window.” With or without the ginger, he hasn't thrown up on our last couple of small trips (our next big one is likely to be to the beach with Aunt Felicie and Uncle Greg in September). Maybe the whole ginger thing has terrified him so much his inner ear is trying desperately to correct itself.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Before our trip in June to my parents in Tennessee, I bought Nora a little inflatable travel bed featuring Dora the Explorer. From the minute I brought it home she feared it. Not because of the bed itself, but because it requires inflation with a pump. George said he made the mistake of showing Nora the pump by blowing air unexpectedly in her face, and this made her so agitated that she could no longer be near him when he blew up the bed, and in fact she wanted nothing to do with the bed at all. We had to leave the bed out in the play area for a couple of weeks so that she could crawl around in it and put her toys to bed in it before she would even consider trying to sleep in it herself. In the end, she was fine in the bed and this was quite a relief as she's at an age where it's difficult to find somewhere for her to sleep when we're on the road. At Aunt Marcia's, Alexander managed not to repeat his Christmastime performance, when he fell off his full-sized inflatable bed and rolled under our bed (without waking up), but the second night in the room with Ian and Shane, he came downstairs looking for us, absolutely terrified because the room was pitch black (no streetlights certainly in that neighborhood). He was not comforted by the fact that Shane was sleeping right next to him, and we finally had to plug in his night light.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">As the summer ends, Nora is very busy being two: “no” is a good word only if she is the one saying it. She insists on doing everything for herself, and takes great joy in doing the things the her brother is no longer interested in doing for himself, such as washing hands. She frequently goes running into the bathroom and puts soap on her hands, but she can't turn on the water so she comes running out again for me to rinse them off. One thing that makes me kind of sad is that she has given up saying “oss” instead of “off.” It was very endearing to hear her say “I can take it oss!!” At least we still eat “brea-sass” in the morning and her brother is still “Alle-ander” or “Ander” and she still goes down into the “base-ump” to play, but it's just not the same without “oss.”</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Because Alexander and Nora have been spending a lot of time together, some particular forms of sibling rivalry have developed. The most ridiculous is when Alexander hits on something that annoys her (such as saying to her “I'm going to change your diaper!!”) and then does it over and over until she gets very upset and lets us know that he' s doing something objectionable. Occasionally they reach a point when she's clearly sure that he's bugging her, but she's not entirely clear on why, and then, with a rising note of hysteria, we get the wonderfully vague “Ander's doing sumping!”</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">When Alexander was Nora's age he used to refer to music as “mugis.” I'm not sure whether he still says this; I'll have to check. Maybe this is something to try and correct before he goes to school, along with his occasional habit of writing letters upside down and backwards, which reminds me of some horror movie message of doom.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">This summer Alexander learned to ride his bike without training wheels, which has been a big thrill for him. But a bigger advance was for him to get over his extreme fear of water. In my parents' pool I was able to spend a chunk of time with him working on the inflated swimming rings and a kick board I discovered by chance at the mall; I wanted him to see that water can be fun. A mere six weeks later, when we started going to our neighborhood pool, he taught himself how to swim underwater a bit. (Now if we can just teach him to say “music” instead of “mugis,” maybe he'll have a future.) Nora, on the other hand, has always been attracted to water. Every once in a while she appears in our house, having managed to put on her plastic swim diaper and her bathing suit over her clothing. Sometimes she accessorizes this outfit, most recently with hiking boots and a necklace or two, telling me she's going hiking and then swimming in the waterfall.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">On the subject of photo-worthy ensembles, we took Nora to the emergency room one Saturday morning because we thought she might possibly have a urinary tract infection (she didn't). The nurse put a baggie on where her diaper would normally be to catch some pee and check for infection. I wish I had a picture of her, standing in the examination room in shirt, sneakers, sunglasses (she wore these the entire three hours we were there), hospital bracelets (which she still wears), and baggie.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">One thing I've always wondered, and it appears to be universal, is what it is with kids and plastic water bottles. I could be eating an ice cream sundae and it's a toss up whether the kids would notice, but if I surreptitiously try to take a drink from a plastic bottle of Aquafina, they're on me like swarm of gnats. Then they'll proceed to argue over who gets to carry what used to be my drink. The same fascination extends to vending machines. Like George joining clubs in high school because there was a chance of free pizza, I think Alexander would drive halfway across the state, risking death by ginger, to get something from a vending machine. Since he never seems to think twice about the snacks he's gotten out of the vending machine, and I get tired of seeing little ¾ full bags of snacks with rubber bands around them in the cabinet, I told him that from now on he could pretend to insert money and I would in turn drop his dessert onto the table in front of him (yes, we've actually done this).</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>Education Update</b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><br /></b></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Alexander will be starting kindergarten (mornings) the day after Labor Day. He says that he's interested in learning to read, but really just wants to learn to tie his shoes.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">George and I have had more than enough school ourselves, although George would love it if I would support him going back for even more. We have both been fans for a number of years of courses offered through <a href="http://www.teach12.com">The Teaching Company</a>. The courses are available on CD, DVD, download to an MP3—pretty much anything you want—and they cover a wide variety of subjects. I'm currently listening to a course on poetry and George and I together are watching a course on the history of European art. The art course is taught by this generally mild-mannered guy from the Smithsonian, who will occasionally launch into bizarre mini-tirades on one subject of art world controversy or another. My personal favorite was when he pointed out—without using any actual titles—that anything calling itself “DaVinci this” or “DaVinci that” is meaningless given that Vinci is just the Italian hometown of the artist who those in the know would refer to as “Leonardo.” DaVinci, for all you simpletons out there, simply means “from Vinci.”</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>Sports Update</b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><br /></b></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I caught a good number of the World Cup matches earlier in the summer. My personal favorite was the match between Portugal and I-don't-remember-the-team that descended into an all out brawl. The commentary after the match was that the Russian referee had lost control of the game and was throwing down yellow cards left and right. They tacked several minutes (stoppage time) on the end of the game and each side was down to about nine players because a couple had accumulated enough cards to be tossed out altogether. The next day, the New York Times columnist George Vecsey wrote of the many players who do an elaborate “dance of the stricken” to get the refs to pay attention to the various slights, insults, and assaults that are thrown around on the field like so much confetti. I thought American football was violent and foul-ridden, and I didn't even see the match where Zenidine Zidane head-butted an opponent for dissing his Mommy.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Meanwhile, American football, apparently the less violent of the two, is about to start up again, which means the return of the football commentary of the <a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/060829">Tuesday Morning Quarterback</a>, Gregg Easterbrook. NFL.com carried the column last year, but this year it appears to be on ESPN's website. It's a riot. He's a scientist of some kind and can spout all sorts of statistics about all aspects of the game, with asides about developments in the science world and pop culture. The detailed statistical analysis reminds me a bit of being in graduate school again, minus all those pesky tests and grades.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>Media Update</b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><br /></b></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I am currently reading a very long saga called “Kristin Lavransdatter” by Sigrid Undset. My mother recommended it because she said I could learn something about my Norwegian heritage (it's about Norway in the 1300s). I first thought it was going to be kind of like a Harlequin romance novel, but as it turns out, the characters are far more complex and interesting than that. The descriptions of the landscape particularly make clear that Norway is a dark, cold place. When George and I were discussing where we wanted to live overseas, I mentioned maybe Oslo. George immediately started mocking me because I've never been one for cold and dark. Who knows, maybe the Norwegian landscape is infused in my blood and I'm just resisting my true destiny?</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I can't say that I actually enjoyed reading “A Woman in Berlin,” which is an anonymous memoir by a woman living in Berlin at the end of WWII, but I'm glad I read it. Much of the story concerns German women fraternizing with the Russians, in hopes that a relationship with one Russian would forestall all sorts of nastiness from others. What got me, however, was her descriptions of walking across the city—which had been reduced to absolute rubble—from her apartment building in the east all the way over to the western section and our old neighborhood. And this in bad shoes and on an empty stomach. By the end of the book, in hopes of rejoining the world of journalism, she was walking every day—again, always hungry—from her apartment in the east to the Charlottenburg district, which is in the northwest. And most Americans can't seem to walk from the parking lot into the mall.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Earlier this summer George and I caught the first season of the TV program “Lost.” The premise is that a group of people are stranded on an island somewhere in the Pacific (they assume) after their plane goes down. It's not quite a “non-reality” version of Survivor, though, as some supernatural things are going on. It's made me wonder what good I would be if we were somehow stranded on an island, and I'm thinking I should develop some sort of actual useful skill other than walking long distances, as useful as that particular skill is for those on the island. A Korean woman in the series established a small garden and can identify and use medicinal herbs. Maybe this could be my angle, although I'd need to start with a book called something like “Survival in the Jungle for Dummies.” (As an aside, my own garden was almost ruined by torrential June rains. While I was in Tennessee with the kids, George reported to me that our backyard actually had a river with its own delta surrounding my new hydrangea and bee balm and seeping into my perennial garden. I started thinking of it as the Windy River, after Nora's imaginary friend called “the Windy,” and then decided that when I began bottling my own wine I might have to call it “Windy River Red”—because of course it would be a red.)</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The movie front has not been very inspiring lately. We caught last year's (?) big hits “The 40-Year Old Virgin” and “The Wedding Crashers”; mildly amusing but no “Meet the Parents.” One of the notable movies we saw was “Chinatown” with Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, which we had both seen before. The movie, for those who have not seen it, concerns water rights in Los Angeles. In addition to my weird affinity for Norwegian landscapes, I also believe that I lived in Los Angeles in a past life, which makes me wonder what I might have done in a past past life to deserve that. We enjoyed “The Constant Gardener” with Ralph Fiennes, although, like “Chinatown,” it's one of those movies where it seems that we're supposed to enjoy the atmosphere and not really worry too much about who actually did what to whom and why. We also caught a very interesting Italian movie called “I'm Not Afraid,” which is about a little boy who discovers something terrible going on in his small Sicilian town, and a German film called “Bella Martha.” These are well worth seeing, especially to cleanse your palate if you've recently seen “Barbershop 6.”</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">As many of you may know, I've been practicing yoga on a fairly regular basis for a number of years. When we lived in Arlington I attended class at a great studio called “Sun and Moon” that had a wide range of classes from beginner to teacher training. In Berlin, I did not go to class because I feared the extent of my German was not going to allow me to get the finer points of the class or understand any teacher correction coming my way. Instead I used general yoga references and a home practice notebook I'd gotten at the Arlington studio. In Leesburg I haven't yet found a studio in close proximity that offers advanced classes. TiVo, however, has allowed me to explore the world of yoga television.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I've been recording two classes a day: “Namaste” on one of the HD channels and “Wai Lana Yoga” on public television. The difference between them is like night and day. Wai Lana dresses in these elaborate colorful costumes and feathers and such and then does some pretty challenging stuff with a Hawaiian (read: soothing) landscape as a backdrop. “Namaste” employs three fetching young women in bicycle shorts and sports bras backed by a come-hither voiced narrator, switching from one location to another. I prefer the former. George, however, who does not actually do yoga, prefers the latter. Whenever he wants to demonstrate the HD capability of the TV, he “randomly” picks “Namaste.” Grown men pretend nonchalance and comment on the clarity of the picture as they stare at the girls going through their routines.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>Social Commentary</b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><br /></b></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In the past few years we have seen much press about the problem of obesity in children (driving in part the emergence of such groups as the ban-junk-food-in-schools group or the recess-revival group). My guess is that this problem will be difficult if not impossible to solve through the normal means of diet and exercise, unless there is a fundamental shift back to more home-cooked meals, people walking places instead of driving, and less time in front of computers or TVs (although it seems to me that MP3s and cell phones represent the perfect opportunity to get kids out and walking). What I wonder is how obesity is changing the nature of childhood. This may be like the chicken and egg in that childhood obesity may be a result of the different nature of children's lives compared to the 1970s, let's say. But it seems to me to be mutually reinforcing. Children, like adults, may be spending much more time in very un-interactive pursuits such as video games or watching television as they get heavier and less capable of (or interested in) moving around. At the time in their lives when they have the greatest natural store of energy, many may be unable to truly take advantage of it. Leaving out the detrimental health aspects and development of a lifetime of bad habits, what does this mean for social and physical development in children?</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The press' take on the Hezbollah-Israel conflict has been quite revealing. The most blatant example of bias I saw was when Israel made an incursion into Lebanon after the ceasefire had gone into effect. Of course the UN and Lebanon and the EU and everyone else on the feckless side made some outraged comments about Israel's violation of the ceasefire. The Post ran a quite long article about the subject, relating everyone's statements on the matter and the reaction from Hezbollah, etc. Only one or two lines even noted the fact that the reason Israel had made this incursion was that Syria and Iran were in the process of rearming Hezbollah. The Post seemed unable to acknowledge that this might be a minor security concern to Israel—or a violation of the ceasefire, for that matter. In addition, everyone seems remarkably lacking in outrage about the fact that no one plans to disarm Hezbollah any longer. I'm concerned all this has managed to shift the language to a point where Hezbollah will be considered a legitimate pseudo-state actor with its own legitimate security needs.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And, at last, the “outer” of Valerie Plane has been revealed, but you would hardly know it because—oops—it wasn't Karl Rove. The story that revealed that the actual source was Dick Armitage was buried well into the Post, a take-a-sip-of-coffee-and-you-might-miss-it kind of thing. The downplaying is so blatant that it's worth a laugh. Scrolling along the bottom of the screen on one of the news channels I did see something about Valerie Plame not dropping her lawsuit. I guess she's going to attempt to keep up the outrage, otherwise she might not be on the invite list for this year's Vanity Fair Oscar party.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>Ode to a Wellie</b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><br /></b></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Wellie Wellie<br />Hunter Green (well, really purple)<br />Keep me dry<br />when the weather's mean</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">People mock me;<br />they're so high<br />until it rains;<br />by and by</p>Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05525598322822559576noreply@blogger.com0