Back from the Hills

Drove out west over the weekend to pick up Natalie from camp. Spent the night in Shelby, NC, where I was able to get a room at the Hampton Inn for only 7500 Hilton Honors miles, which is very cheap. The place was just fine. Best of all, it was right across the street from Bridges Barbeque, a fine old very homey purveyor of pig. Only thing is, being out west, they serve that wierd red slaw there, which doesn't offer any sort of dialectical interplay with your pork. Still worth going.

On the way along NC 74 towards Hendersonville, where one cuts over the ridge to Brevard, I saw some interesting stuff. A Jackson/Hewitt shop (tax-preparer targeting lower-middle folks) seemingly sharing space with a tattoo parlor. An insurance brokerage clearly colocated with a photo lab. Financial services firms are muddling through the post-crisis world where they no longer are perceived as workers of magic.

A bag of pennies

After hearing of how someone from the school's 2001 Camry had been broken into (maybe the door was unlocked) and the change in the thing between the seats was taken, I decided to try out a little experiment. On our somewhat lower income street, I left maybe 30 pennies in a somewhat if not perfectly translucent bag. At first it was over towards a corner where a brick wall meets lower brick wall (waste height) which holds a flower bed. 3 feet away from a sidewalk. No takers after a week or so.

So I moved it closer to the sidewalk, about a foot away from it. Still no takers after a day or two.

Today I upped the ante and put a quarter and a dime in there, my change from coffee at Weaver St. Let's see how long that sticks around.

Even more pix from Gwynn Valley

On the couch with Graham

Graham has gotten quite long of leg, and of late has taken to stretching out on our one sofa and reading Harry Potter. When I try to lie or sit at the other end of the couch he claims that it is "annoying," and refuses to really bend his knees much or do the cozy leg interlacing thing. Instead, he likes to extend his legs out fully and push his feet into my penis, in an often successful attempt to make me sit up. Clearly he is growing up.

More pix from GV

At Camp

Say no more.

Drop off at camp

Today was the first day of the three week session at Gwynn Valley.  Natalie was bouncing off walls silly, it was getting annoying.  For the last couple of days I kept saying "we gotta get you to camp."

Turned out, and we were fools not to have perceived it or otherwise discovered it, she was nervous.  Last summer at camp was -- as dedicated readers will recall -- really a transformative experience for her.  She was nervous at first, but she loved it loved it loved it.  She was so excited when I came to pick her up, really glowing in a super-positive way that I hadn't seen for a long time.  The horseback riding, doing a musical, making friends, singing songs, a whole range of pure childlike activities that are somehow less prevalent down in the lowlands, though school's really not that bad.

And when I suggested to her that she go for 3 weeks this summer, she was all over it, no hesitation.  And she is all about whatever bits of independence we grant her at home:  stay at home alone, walk to the library alone, walk to the drug store alone, she loves it all.  She generally revels in increasing independence.

But, 10 days and 3 weeks are, in fact, different, and she's never been away from us for that long before, and she finally brought it up herself on the way there today and Mary and I were like, of course she's nervous.  3 weeks is a long time.  So when she was all settled in and it was time to say goodbye, she leaned down from her bunk and gave us extra big, extra long hugs.  Which is not really her normal way of being.  And then we left.

But in 3 weeks, when I go to pick her up, I'm certain it will be all good.  And then we'll move on to 4 or 5 weeks.

Natalie prepares for camp

In case you have forgotten, Natalie loves going to Gwynn Valley.  This year she's going to a long session, almost three weeks.  Already last week in the hills of Virginia, when she was bored, she began planning, writing a day by day list of who she was going to write to during the afternoon quiet time.  She's been collecting the envelopes in which she will send letters, perhaps has even addressed them.  Last night she was packing her T-shirts in large ziplock bags and then (just like Granny taught her) sitting on them to expel the air from them so they'll take up less room in her bag.  After doing so, she noted that they might get wrinkled and put a finger to her lips and said."don't tell mom."

I forget who it is who has written on the virtues of boredom for kids. Certainly Freud's work on daydreaming points in that direction. Having nothing to do can surely focus them on the things they want to do.

In the hills

In the mountains of Virginia. It looks a lot like Vermont in many regards, except that fresh mozzarella and the like is less readily available, and confederate flags are more frequently seen.

I took my road bike thinking, "well maybe it won't be too hilly for me." It was.

There was an awesome stream down the hill behind the cabin. At first glance, it looked muddy, but in fact it was as pure and cold as most mountain creeks, it just had a sandy bottom. Natalie for some reason could not be drawn in, but Graham and I adventured up it at length, and found many "rapidlings."

For much of the time we just hung out in the cabin and read. I read a Donald Westlake novel called The Hook that had fallen out of a box of books my dad had given me to dispose of a month or so ago and had been lingering in my car trunk.  I knew from years of intensive mystery/suspense reading passed that Westlake was an author that I respected, but I can't really remember any of his books.  This one was intense, Hitchcockian, shades of Strangers on a Train, if more disturbing even in the end.

Back from San Francisco

Out there for the first time in over a decade. A great city, to be sure, but in some ways it feels like New York in the 80s: lots of homeless people and dog shit everywhere.

Admittedly, I was kind of hemmed in by work and didn't really exit the Tenderloin/Nob Hill/downtown region till the last night, when we went down to the ferry building, which was pretty much closed down at night except for fancy restaurants. We walked from there to Fisherman's Wharf, which definitely sucks, although they did have Squirt in the 7-11. They also had a most impressive selection of hot dog and taquito varietals on the hot rollers. Really pretty disgusting.

On the way back, I enjoyed some bonus hospitality at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, thanks to a late plane from New York. I continue to believe that place has reasonably priced food, for an airport.

One thing, though. It was over a hundred outside, and inside the airport it wasn't cooled very well. A woman who lives there told me that it used to be kept cooler. They've no doubt adjusted the temp as a cost-savings measure. What's odd is that, former Texas governor and US President George Bush used to tout air-conditioning as the best approach for dealing with global warming. Where's the strong cooling, oh mighty W? I guess that plan kind of depended on the notion that the US could just buy its way out of anything. Whoops!

Disneyland and guilt - I remember Ensenada

At times I feel guilty about not taking my kids to one of the Disney places.  Natalie just turned 11, she may be passed the prime time.

Then again, I went to Disneyland when I was 10.  We had driven across the country in our Winnebago, and were convinced that we were so superior to everybody else because we didn't have to check into hotels and such like.  In retrospect, that doesn't seem liek such a big deal.

In any case, we went to Disneyland, and I hardly remember anything.  I think we went on Magic Mountain.  I vaguely remember some automatons singing "It's a Small World, After All."  Hooray.  I think I got sick.

A few days later, we drove down the Baja to Ensenada.  We wanted to get tacos, just like the ones we got at Tijuana Fats back in Chapel Hill, only authentic. Actually, I think we just wanted tacos. So we drive into Ensenada and there's some kid selling tacos in a cart.  We get one. Disgusting. No lettuce, no shredded cheddar cheese, the shell wasn't even crispy and fried.  So we head off to a restaurant where we sit at the bar and my dad holds up 3 fingers and maybe says "tres."  So they bring us three orders of three tacos, also not good.  My dad gets pissed off.

So we go down to some restaurant in a boat in the harbor and my parents get some kind of seafood stuff. Most importantly, there are seals swimming outside the windows, right down near us.  Or so I recall. It was totally cool.

The point is, I don't really remember Disneyland, but I remember Ensenada.

Meanwhile, I'm watching a little Dirty Harryathon here on AMC and just enjoyed a 1988 cameo by Jim Carrey as a junkey rock star. He just got whacked.

Western Pennsylvania, 1953

I happened across a web site for model railroad enthusiasts. It turns out these guys are pretty precise and granular in their recreations. The one below depicts a railroad in Western Pennsylvania, 1953.

Home decoration magazines are pornography for women

They oppress men with the unrealistic ideals they depict. The big difference is that women can leave them out all over the house, often with the centerfolds spread open for all to see.

Update on kids

Tonight was milder, went in the yard and played baseball with Graham.  For the first time with his new, actual baseball-sized ball.  After a while he started to hit it, and then took to running some imaginary bases, carrying his bat with him.  As he ran the bases, he sang a little song that sounded a like a pixieish version of the shark music from Jaws.

For her part, Natalie went on a school trip to Jamestown/Yorktown/Williamsburg today.  Kids were supposed to get to the school at 5:45.  She insisted on setting her alarm at 5:20 so as to get to the school a minute early.  She is clearly inheriting traits from her father and grannie.

Around the World in 80 Days

Graham and I just finished reading this Jules Verne classic.  Awesomely good fun. Excellent surprise ending.

There were difficulties, to be sure, when our heroes Phileas Fogg and Passepartout pass through India and have to interrupt a suttee, the ritual burning of the wife on the funereal pyre of the husband.  I didn't really feel like spelling that one out for Graham, had to finesse my way around it and improvise filler.

Aside from suttee, I learned one new word:  "resounce".  Unfortunately, I have no idea what it means.  I just looked it up, and it only seems to appear on the internet as a misspelling of "resource" (as in "Human Resounces).  But there are 12,300 instances of it in that way.  The publicly available Oxford English Dictionary has no record of it.  But it was in there, I swear. 

Big readers

Tonight, some 11 minutes after her bedtime, Natalie had about 20 pages left in her chapter. Now, she usually doesn't let me kiss her, preferring to squirm and screech and push me away till I give up. Tonight, as I leaned in to try, she says "I'll let you kiss me if I can finish my chapter."

Earlier, Mary had been trying to get Graham to put away some books. Graham, from his prostrate position on the clinch, responds, "as you know, my career is in reading."

Back from the West

Flew through Dallas, which had been inundated with hail yesterday, causing massive damage to lots of planes and really screwing up American Airlines flights pretty good.

My flight was cancelled but I got on one a couple of hours later, so I had time for some brisket at Dickey's. While it's not pulled pork done properly as in you-know-where, it was pretty decent nonetheless, and the slaw and roll were quite good.  Surprisingly, or perhaps not all that surprisingly, when you stop to think about it, there seemed to be some meat -- most likely a pork varietal -- in my mashed potato casserole, which also had a little cheddar on top. That didn't need to be there. Should've had the mac n cheese.

Basically, I got there at a pretty good time, as the planes were getting rolling. Rumor had it that AA had pulled in excess planes that had been out to pasture in the desert during low volume season.  But people had been stuck in that airport overnight and were cranky and bitchy, so I was glad to see them go, frankly.

Downtown San Diego

On the one hand, people live down here, there's a grocery store, a gym with young people exercising, microbreweries, a Nordstrom's, etc.  In many ways an improvement over what I'm sure it was like 20, 30, 40 years ago.  Greener, sure.

Palm trees.

But there's precious little texture or flavor to be had down here.  All told, it's representative of little more than the malling of urban America.

The biggest surprise about San Diego is how mild it is, temperature wise.  Late May, highs in the mid to high sixties. Cloudy in the mornings.  Not what I would have expected.

J-O-B and more

Nothing puts a damper on a nice blog worse than working does.  All day long, into the night, working on that do-re-mi.

On Saturday I was finally able to get Graham out to Target to snap up a baseball bat to replace the one that has suspiciously vanished. And he picks out a nice, ultra-light metal one, entirely suitable for a boy of his lean profile. The idea was that he could whack the ball off of the most excellent T I purchased for him at the army-navy surplus/junk store on Main St in Carrboro.

But no, Graham wants me to pitch the ball to him, and so I do, and, lo and behold, he sets to thumping the thing pretty good, over my head any number of times.  And then he decides it's time to run an imaginary set of bases, bringing the bat with him.  I couldn't hardly tag him out at all, so quick was he round the bases.

And then, later, I took him back out to Tae Kwon Do where they were having nerf dart gun battle night. When Graham got there, Mary reported, a mighty arsenal of flourescent nerf dart guns was spread out on all the Zen-spare wooden benches, while a bunch of mostly 10-12 year olds sat in a circle out in the middle of the mats, presumably receiving instruction from the dojo. Graham was awestruck, but had a good time.

Meanwhile, Natalie had headed off to an evening of contra-dancing for tweens at some church.  She put on a nice skirt and a little tank top number. 11 is just around the corner, and I think the opposed genders are beginning to take note of each other. She pronounced the evening to be "Awesome!", and then the next morning presented me with a neatly written and categorized birthday list.  When I suggested she type it into the Macbook lest the only copy of it be lost, she said "OK.  I love typing!"

Despite the working thing, times are good.

Back from Gotham

Made a one-night, one-day trip to New York for a conference over the last couple.  Arrived in the fair burg to perfect springy weather.  When I got to LGA, I found out that the guy who I was supposed to be having dinner with had forgotten about it, which turned out to be a great blessing in disguise.  With time to kill, I hopped aboard a bus into Queens to catch the 7 train.  I got off at Roosevelt Ave, got a couple of little empanadas -- ostensibly chicken and beef, but really pretty indistinguishable, as both were mixed with a lot of potatoes, but tasty nonetheless with some green salsa.

I started looking through my phone for someone to have a drink with. Ended up in the west village with a former colleague who has just written a novel about management consulting. Sounds exciting.

Then I walked south to Beth's place in Tribeca, past the haunts of my early courtship with Mary:  Sheridan Square, esp. Patisserie Claude, which was 5 stories below our window.  Lupe's, where we had our first date (after seeing the flick Heavenly Creatures at the Angelica, in which two Aussie tweeners get psycho and whack their mom, if memory serves correctly). Good times all.

And then, yesterday, when I had some time to kill between my conference and drinks with the guy who had blown me off the day before, I called up my friend Corinna who works there on 42nd St and we hung out on the street and chatted, just like we would've 20 years ago, only without the cigarettes.

Good livin.