Leesburg Essay 10

Alex

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.

Dad

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.

Felicie

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^th. 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 Jon and Kate Plus Eight, the regular viewing of which has the potential to make Felicie and Greg’s job seem far easier).

While visiting Felicie, I caught a glimpse of her copy of the ubiquitous pregnancy book What to Expect… (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 The Ultimate Breastfeeding Book of Answers. 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—Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child 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.

Baxter

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.

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?

Back at School

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.

And then there was this one: “Once upon a time a girl named Anabelle went to Hershey Park. 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 Hershey Park is chocolate even the rides. It is 82 miles long. It is so fun.” I guess so!

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.

I Have to Do My Om Work!!

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.

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.

Just for the fun of it, I tried four sessions at a “hot” yoga studio in the nearby town of Ashburn. 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. Bikram Yoga 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 Yoga Journal 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).

Princess Update

One of the women in yoga teacher training alerted me to a truly disturbing development—Disney princess wedding dresses. Do I need to say more?

Books

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 The Alienist by Caleb Carr). Aunt Marcia recommended a Charles Todd novel (featuring Inspector Rutledge) called A Test of Wills 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 England just following WWI. Maybe I’ll try another in the series.

I loved Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close 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 Dresden and Hiroshima. Wikipedia has a good description.

I read two novels by the British author Mark Haddon: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime and A Spot of Bother. 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.

I listened to the audiobook of Ruth Reichl’s memoir Garlic and Sapphires, which describes her life as the restaurant critic of The New York Times, 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 New York—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 Maine to write some presumably amusing piece about this traditional event. He, however, came back with a long article discussing the ethics of cooking lobsters. 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 Maine, try out a trip on a lobster boat with a captain who’s truly a showman; fun for the whole family.

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.

As for sources of recipes other than Gourmet and my collection of cookbooks, I love The New York Times and Cook’s Illustrated. I find that The Washington Post’s recipes are really hit or miss; I get the sense they don’t really go over them in the test kitchen.

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?

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.

New TV

As there’s nothing else on TV other than football, George and I have caught up with the AMC series Mad Men, 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?

Movies: Four Stars

Gone Baby Gone. 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.

Three Stars

We enjoyed George Clooney’s Michael Clayton, which is about a group of K Street lawyers who are busy screwing people over. More appealing than other George Clooney movies (except for Out of Sight).

The Bourne Ultimatum is the latest, very frenentic, episode in the Jason Bourne franchise. My favorite of these is still the first one, The Bourne Identity, which co-starred cute German actress Franka Potente (also of Run Lola Run). 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.

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.

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. Fanny and Alexander 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. Cries and Whispers was even more challenging, if that’s the word, and I think George would be quite happy if he never saw another Bergman film.

We really liked No Country for Old Men, 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.

Two Stars

An Inconvenient Truth—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.

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.

Two stars also to the The Great Global Warming Swindle, which is a documentary that appeared on the BBC (more information at Wikipedia). 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 Britain’s wine harvest (meanwhile, Spain has turned into a desert…). I do think the discussion of the politics of climate change was right on, however.

I was very disappointed in Pirates of the Carribbean. 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.

The End of the Endless Campaign

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 Pennsylvania Avenue. Maybe the guy (Rahm, that is) will anger even more people and have to go, but that remains to be seen.

One of my biggest regrets about the current political lineup in Washington 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.

On a similar subject, The Washington Post reports that Terry McAuliffe, former head of the DNC, is setting up an exploratory committee for a run for Virginia governor. If he actually makes it into the governor’s mansion I'll need to begin a movement for Loudoun County’s secession from the Old Dominion.

A couple of observations on the presidential debates, the negotiations for which were as complicated as bringing peace to the Mideast. 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 Hollywood 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.

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.

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.

Much has been made of Obama being “right” about the Iraq 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.

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?

The Defining Moment of Political Courage

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 “cable TV 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.

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.

European schadenfreude has become muted as it has become clear that their financial firms behaved the same way despite “superior” regulatory systems. Poor Iceland 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 Venezuela and Iran and Russia.

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.