A Sidetrip to Halifax

Halifax is a cool little city and a major port. I really dig cities with water all around and through and in between, so I knew I'd like this one.

Things we did in Halifax:

1. Shopped at the Farmer's Market, the oldest in North America. I bought local honey, tea from a local tea maker, and an awesome ring (to continue my tradition of a piece of locally-made jewelry wherever I travel).



2. Visited our farm-family hosts at their farmer's market booth. It was huge and really great!







3. Drove to Peggy's Cove, about 40 minutes south of Halifax. It's a tiny little town, population 60. It's the only post office run from a lighthouse in North America. And, they stamped our passports for us! (We didn't get stamped into Canada when we crossed the border.)



4. Ate fish sandwiches in Peggy's Cove and then walked around the little town and visited the two shops.

5. Stopped at the Swiss Air 111 Crash memorial just outside Peggy's Cove.

6. Checked into the very nice hostel.



7. Drank beers at The Maxwell Plum. Had Pump House, brewed in Moncton, N.B.; McAuslan from Quebec; and Propeller, from Halifax.

8. Ate a delicious dinner of mussels and seafood stew at The Economy Shoe Shop.





9. Drank more McAuslan Apricot (so good!) at The Henry House.



10. Dealt with the lunatic who came into the hostel dorm at 12:30 a.m. and turned on all the lights and then left.

11. Visited the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. Became enlightened to the fact that the Titanic sunk off the coast of Nova Scotia and Haligonians went out to find and pick up all the dead bodies they could. (Who knew?) Saw an amazing Halifax Explosion exhibit to round out my full obsessive-education of this disaster. Also learned all about Sable Island and the thousands of shipwrecks around this 24 mile long sandbar off of Nova Scotia. Very cool.

12. Walked all along the water boardwalk past George's Island (was used as a prison while they were deporting all the Acadians in 1755).

13. Shopped and ate a quick snack at the Hydrostone Market way up on Young Street. It was reconstructed after the Explosion because even that far up from the harbor was destroyed.

14. Had a lovely drive to and from Halifax.

Me in the Buttercup Squash Field

and the result:

Tofu Packing 101

When we got downstairs today around 9 (we've been sleeping in a bit), we found a note saying that two of us were meant to pick veggies and the third could be used in the tofu packing process. I got to go to tofu-land.

I joined Heather (the daughter of the family we are staying with) after washing my arms up to my elbows and getting a clean apron, hairnet, and sanitizing myself. The steps were as follows:

Heather takes the pre-cut tofu blocks from their freezing cold water buckets and puts each one-pound or half-pound piece in a bag.



Then, I would take the bag and put them 4-up in the vacuum sealer machine.



Then I'd hold down the top till it sealed shut. The motor would start and it would take about a minute to seal up the 4 bags.



The top would pop open and I'd take out the four bags and put them on a towel in front of the scale with another towel placed on top to start the drying-off-each-bag process while I set 4 more bags in the vacuum machine and started them going. After a quick dry-off, each packet had to be checked for weight. Anything between 450 and 550 grams is a pound, and anything between 250 and 350 is okay as a half-pound. Over that, and they went in a separate container. Under that, I had to write the actual weight on the label and put them in a separate container too.



Once weighed, they each get a pre-printed, very nice label with the name of the company, the type of tofu, the ingredients and the "best if used by" date on them. We packaged plain, herb, thai, California herb, and extra firm all in half-pounds and pounds. Each gets a nutritional information sticker on the back, too.



Together, Heather and I packaged 300 pound packs and 70 half-pound packs. They will fill orders at stores and be sold at the Halifax Farmer's Market on Saturday in Halifax, which is the oldest farmer's market in North America. We are going to go when we are there Saturday (we're going for the weekend) and I can't wait. I love Farmer's Markets, especially big, huge, proper ones!

They also made today and will make tomorrow to sell: muffins of 6 different varieties some with wheat flour and some with spelt flour all with tofu; garlic tofu spread; other flavor tofu spreads; tofu kabobs; okaranola (granola using the by-product meat of the soy bean); okaranola bars; tofu brownies; tofu date bars; and tofu spring rolls. They often sell out of all of this between 7a and 1p. They also sell veggies. This week will be yellow and green beans that Christy and Paul picked today, pattipan squash, zucchini, maybe some tomatoes, potatoes, and more. I'm going to buy a bunch of this stuff to bring home with me. We had smoked tofu as one of the ingredients in the make-your-own-sushi dinner we had tonight and it was so good!

All this happens with a farmer who works a full-time job as an electrician in town and a woman who has serious back problems related to a ten-year old injury and their daughter. It's pretty awesome.

We also went to the Grand Pre historical site today. This town is on the short list to be a UNESCO site and is the exact place where the Acadians were driven out by the British in 1755 and sent back to France and to the U.S. after having lived here for 100 years. Longfellow wrote a poem about it in the 1800s which brought it to the forefront. It was pretty awful.

We took a quick drive down to the waterfront too, to see the cross that marks the exact spot where the people were forced into boats to be taken the ships in the Bay to be brought to wherever they would be deported to. They spent months on the ships in the holds and many died of disease, drowning and other fates. There was a declaration in the museum from England acknowledging this had happened, but also clearly stating they weren't going to take responsibility. Okay. The cross was quite beautiful.

The Top 5 Things I Didn't Know About Pumpkins

5. There are a shit-ton of different kinds.

4. They require three cuts to sever them from their vines.

3. They turn orange in the shade/dark/deep in the weeds rather than in the sun.

2. There are a million of them in one little field.

1. Three people can pick about 800 pumpkins in 3 hours.

Am sore as hell. Am out of shape. Am a little embarrassed, but am getting over it. Am a city person, not a country person. Love organic veggies, to be delivered to me in a box rather than picking them from a field. Am very glad to be helping Anna and George with their harvest, though. Will power through.

The farm smells of compost and freshly cut hay. There is a dog, Roxy, who just had major surgery and walks like she's older than her 8 years. There are 5 cats, one of whom is lying next to me as I type. There are a bunch o' chickens and a couple of strutty roosters who keep their cock-a-doodles to a minimum, which is nice. They've been attacked by a raccoon or two recently, but then a baby monitor was put in the hen house so they know if something's going down. (Great idea, that.)

The house is the one where George grew up and his dad grew up here. His grandparents bought this house after the Halifax Explosion (a piece of the ship landed in their yard and scared the crap out of them, so they moved away -- George still has the piece of ship -- the kids used to take it to school for show and tell!) It is full of stuff and feels very homey. Our room has widewale hardwood floors that somehow don't creak when you walk on them. There are 4 bedrooms upstairs and one downstairs. All the windows are new.

From the window of our bedroom you can see the Bay of Fundy. There are farms across the street, up the hill, down the hill, and around the bend. The milk truck pulled into the farm across the street today and loaded up, I presume. Then he honked at us on his way back by our farm as we were toiling in the lower patch, Christy tramping around in the weeds, discovering pumpkins left and right, hiding in the brush. My Obama '08 t-shirt has been christened with the red mud of Nova Scotia.

We are headed to a garden shop place which apparently sells jams and jellies and chutneys and oils of a million varieties. Anna, George and Heather have been in making 11 batches of tofu since 4 a.m. and aren't quite done yet at almost 3 p.m. People work hard. Harder than I.

They could probably pick pumpkins without crippling themselves, too.

A Haiku for You

Pumpkins in Grand Pre
Three hundred picked in one day
My back is broken

O-Canada!

Here we are in Canada! The drive was super simple, even with the torrential rain that followed us from Boston all the way to Northern Maine. We're getting about 38 miles to the gallon -- go Scion!

We arrived in Moncton, New Brunswick around 5 p.m. (we lost an hour to the time change -- Atlantic Canada is 1 hour ahead of the East Coast) and checked into the really great hostel. It was a big old house with two living rooms and a great kitchen. Found out it only opened in 2006, so it was really new and clean, too. We walked around Moncton a bit. It's a small little city and we hit up the yummy vegetarian place that Lonely Planet recommended for dinner.

I was exhausted, having stupidly stayed awake on Saturday night until 1 a.m. reading. We read for a couple hours in the living room and then went to bed.

I have no idea how I did it, but I thought the drive from Moncton to Grand Pre (where the farm is) was going to be 6 hours. It wasn't. It was 3. So we got up at 7 and after hitting the Tim Hortons (yay, Tim Hortons!) drove out of Moncton around 8. We could've slept till 10, considering we planned on hitting the farm by 2 and ended up here by 11. So we drove past the farm another few miles to Wolfville, the closest town, and had lunch.

Wolfville is the home of Acadia University, with about 3500 students (the town itself only has about 7000 including them). It's a gorgeous campus on a hill. The town is super cute too. Coffee shops and little stores. And we finally hit a bank. 24 hours after crossing into Canada, I finally have some Canadian money. (Luckily, everyone takes U.S. dollars -- as well they should, since miraculously, the USD is at $1.07 to the Canadian dollar.) So after overpaying at the hostel and at the Tim Hortons, I now have the right money.

Anna is great. She's the wife of the farm couple. We haven't met George yet. He's got another full time job as an electrician, so he'll be home later tonight. We did find out that we are going to be harvesting pumpkins the whole time we're here, pretty much. So cool! We will use wheel barrows to begin with, but they are hoping to have the trailer soon for us to be able to use the ATV instead! (Everyone hope for that!)

The house looks small from the outside, but has a ton of bedrooms. Heather, one of Anna and George's three kids, is living here now and working for the farm/tofu business, so she'll be around. And Paul, a British wwoofer is here. He'll be here till next Wednesday and Jasmine, a woman from Halifax is coming Sunday for a few days. So we're not the only peeps working the farm these weeks.

I'm not sure I told everyone before I left, but this is a produce farm and also a tofu making business. Anna told us a lot about tofu already, in only the first 30 minutes or so we talked. We are looking forward to learning more. For those of you who don't know, tofu is made from soy beans. When I lived in Paraguay, we made soy milk and then used the "meat" that's known as "carne" in Paraguay and another name in Japan (Anna uses the Japanese term -- I can't remember it right now) to make other stuff. Tofu is made from only the milk. She's been selling it to a bunch of stores in Halifax and Wolfville and a large grocery chain in the province too. She's had to make some changes, recently, though, due to new food regulations since 9/11. Most of our tofu in the U.S. is vacuum packed and then boiled in the package in order to kill any bacteria. This is why our tofu doesn't have much taste. Canada is putting in similar regulations and it's killing the little guys. Anna's deciding not to do the boiling process, as it ruins the taste and texture of her product. So she's having to rethink where she'll be able to sell.

That's a lot that we already know, considering we arrived here less than 2 hours ago. I'm sure we'll learn more.

I'll be sure to take some photos. I've been lazy so far.

More as we go!

Sufficient Non-Genital Hair Needed

Real world memo: "This is a reminder that you will be obligated to present yourself with sufficient hair for a drug test as early as thirty days prior to your next birthday...To have adequate hair for this collection, you will need three samples. Therefore, you should start timing your hair trimming so that sufficient hair may be collected. Do not cut your hair too short. Also, avoid shaving your body hair as collectors may collect from non-genital areas of the body if there is insufficient head hair when you appear. FAILURE TO PRESENT YOURSELF WITH A SATISFACTORY AMOUNT OF HAIR MAY LEAD TO A CHARGE OF EVADING THE HAIR TESTING PROCESS."

Let's break this down, shall we?

1. Enough notice. All the peeps know the drill - testing near your birthday. According to the chart (scroll to the bottom) you need about a 90 day window to be safe. Then cut it out and show up clean for the test. The Union is apparently responsible for this convenient nuance.

2. Completely unclear. Don't cut your hair too short. Okay. How long must the sample be? Start timing your hair trimming now. Timing? Meaning so I don't look scruffy if I have to go an extra week before my regular hair cut when you call my ass in for the test? Are you taking all three samples that day? Am I coming in three times? Do I trim the hair and bring it with me (that'd be great, since my Great Aunt Martha sleeps soundly and I can steal some of hers as a stand-in)?

3. Body hair may need to be surrendered. Ha! Okay ladies, stop with the pits right now. I know that I for one couldn't grow leg hair long enough in even 6 weeks, I don't think, and my arm hair isn't all that astounding, so I guess my pits are my back up. Bald men, no waxing. Keep that back hair growing for a while!

4. Genital hair is safe. I'm pretty sure the Union had something to do with this one as well.

5. Satisfactory amount of hair. So if I have alopecia universalis (which, granted, is rare) I'm screwed. I'm going down for evading. There's no other way to drug test. The good ole urine gig is too old fashioned.

Croc-a-shoe-licious!

I own two pairs of Crocs. One is real -- I paid 30 bucks for them online. The other pair is fake -- got 'em for a tenner at the Kmart in Miami right before leaving for Paraguay. I don't wear either pair often, finding I feel rather ridiculous in them, after all. And mine are black and brown -- not orange or pink or some stupid yellow color.

They were useful in Paraguay, a country of red-mud-roads that flow like rivers in the rain, which is often. The ability to take off your shoes, rinse them out and have them dry and ready to go in only a few minutes is fantab. They were useful as waitress shoes, with black socks and with black pants nobody knew I had on rubber shoes.

Now, I have to say, I am amazed by how many people walk around the world in these shoes, in hideous colors like it is perfectly normal. What are they thinking? Is it the call of the easy clean-up? That is a perfectly legit argument for the parents of any aged child. I have often pointed out entire parades of children this summer in their Crocs and have said to whoever I'm with "What did parents do without Crocs?" I mean, think of it. Kid runs around all day, gets dirty, jumps in puddles, crawls through wood chips, whatever else kids do, and all you have to do is put them in the sink with the dinner dishes and Viola! clean shoes for the next day. And kids can choose whatever color they want. They are kids. They are most likely wearing their cape from last Halloween's costume or some pink tutu thing they won't take off even to sleep, so who cares what color their shoes are?

But I draw the line at grown men and women. I find the men are worse offenders than the women. We girls like to look cute. So we have the white ones or the brown Mary-Jane's or whatever. It's the beer-slugging, t-shirt wearing, I-only-bathe-during-the-week men who are in the orange ones. How did that conversation go at the store?

Man: I think I might get a pair of these. What do you think?
Wife/Girlfriend/Partner/Friend: Sure. Easy on, easy off, comfy, you don't think the boys'll make fun of you?
Man: Nah. Eff 'em. I always bring the beer to poker. They don't like it, they can buy the beer.
Her: Okay. Whatever. I'm going over here to look at the cute little ballet flat ones.
Man: Meet me at the register.
5 MINUTES LATER
Her: Um, orange? You're getting the orange ones?
Man: Yeah, why? Not cool?
Her: Um, no, they're fine, I guess.
Man: You getting any?
Her: Nah, I've got better things to spend $30 on.
Man: I can't wait to wear these. To the sales person: Will you put my other shoes in the bag so I can wear these out of the store?
Her (to herself in her head): Oh jeez. Orange? I have to walk down the street with him now like this?

Apparently, W and Nicholson have been seen in them.



I have to say, Jack, fine. Whatever. You're old, you don't give a shit. (Not sure why you are also standing pigeon-toed like you are three, but fine. Blue Crocs. Go on with your bad self.) But W? How did this happen? And why the socks? Did Laura or Jenna or someone come back to Kennebunkport from Kittery with these and say, "Hey Dad or Honey or Dumbshit or whatever they call him, we think you should wear these. Aren't they cool?" Or did someone in the Cabinet do it as a joke? Who authorized him putting them on? He doesn't just pick his clothes and head out, does he? At least they are black.

I brought both pairs of mine recently to the soup kitchen where I volunteer because my mom and I were both arriving from elsewhere and needed closed-toe shoes. I made her wear one pair and I wore the other. She put them on (on the street in Boston where I parked), looked down at her feet, and said, "These are so ugly! I can't believe you wear these shoes."

Malcolm Gladwell explains how these things take over the Universe in The Tipping Point. Critical mass, enough people doing something that it seems normal, this is how this happened. But W has no excuse. None. Then again, he doesn't have an excuse for most of what he does.

**Thanks to the post-suggester for this post idea and special note: this is my 125th post since I began this blog in May of 2006.

Loving stuff now as much as I did then

My dad and I went on a tour of Boston Light in July. It's the last remaining staffed lighthouse in the U.S. (It was also the first lighthouse in the U.S.) It sits on Little Brewster Island in Boston Harbor, a tiny little rock of nothing practically, with the lighthouse, the keeper's house and a boat dock.

We were allowed to climb up the lighthouse and check out the lamp from the very top. When I wrote my review of the tour after receiving a prompting email from the company where I had purchased the tour tickets, I had a flashback to a movie I couldn't recall the name of involving a dragon, a kid, and a lighthouse. I wrongly referenced "Puff the Magic Dragon" in the review and then did a search to find the right movie, which I quickly found was "Pete's Dragon".

I went straight to my netflix queue and added the film. I just received it on Friday and I watched it yesterday. It was every bit as good as I remember from when I was a kid. I even remembered the songs. Seriously. We must have watched the movie a number of times, as I remember it being shown on Channel 38 often (along with The Incredible Mr. Limpet, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and The Apple Dumpling Gang).

I remembered that Mickey Rooney was in it, but not that Red Buttons was or Helen Reddy. This film was actually Helen Reddy's first foray into film after achieving major success as a recording star in the 1970s. Apparently, "Candle on the Water", one of the songs from Pete's Dragon is one of her best known songs. I'm pretty sure that's I am Woman, but whatever. She left the U.S. after the 2004 election debacle and returned to her native Australia where's she's now a licensed practicing hypnotherapist. (Facinating.)

Anyway, for those of you who don't remember or are too young or too old to remember, Pete's Dragon was about a little orphan boy who is befriended by a dragon after being bought by a bunch of hillbillies to be a slave on their farm. He escapes them (the woman being played by Shelly Winters) and finds the little seaside town of Passamaquoddy, where he befriends Nora the daughter of the lighthousekeeper Lampie. She offers to keep him and make him a home, and together, with the help of Elliot the Dragon, fight off the hillbillies (who want Pete back) and the evil Dr. Terminus and his bumbling assistant Hoagy (who want the Dragon for parts in medicines). Meanwhile, the magical Elliot finds Nora's long-lost-at-sea love Paul and brings him home. Everyone is happily singing and dancing at the end as Elliot departs to help some other needy little child elsewhere in the world.

Here's a clip: (I had no idea you could watch whole movies in pieces on youtube!)



There are a few things in it that are unbelievably 1970s and could never possibly appear in a contemporary movie today. Child slavery and the very clear and seemingly acceptable alcoholism of Lampie are two. I couldn't tell in the film what year it was meant to be. There aren't any cars, and the Dr. Terminus show travels by cart powered by a sail because they had to sell their horses. Are we in the 1800s? Also, not sure where in the world we are, except my New England knowledge of words like Passamaquoddy, until there's mention of Bar Harbor and Cape Hatteras, which leads me to Maine. A quick check of Wikepedia just now tells me I was right on one count (Maine) and slightly off on the other (early 20th century).

Anyway, it's a touching, funny story of a boy looking for love and finding an unlikely friend to help him find it. Elliot has the ability to be invisible and visible at will, and some adults see him and others don't, depending on the situation. It's not a Snuffleupagus situation (wherein no adult can see Elliot and everyone doubts his existence) but those who have seen him up to a certain point have done so under questionable circumstances (ie. being completely blotto drunk). In the end, he's visible and helpful at just the right moment, saving the day. Just what we all expect from Disney.

I know I'm a dork. I can't help it. But I loved this movie yesterday as much as I loved it when I was 12. I wonder what other ones I can watch again?

Summer 2008

Me and Boston Cares staff in front of the George's Island fort in June



What I did this summer (a reprise of 2007's post, updated for this year)

- travelled to Atlanta, Houston and Ohio/Kentucky all in one month - made $95 as a First Thursdays artist - hosted a Summer Solstice Supper Soiree Potluck with my neighborhood peeps - took Mom kayaking in Maine - celebrated Todd & Kate's wedding - had a CSA share through Stillman's Farm - slept in my great-grandparents' cabin at Cobbett's Pond for the last time before my aunt and uncle tear it down to build a year-round house - visited George's Island in Boston Harbor for a day of celebration with my outgoing AmeriCorps staff members - partied like a kid on the 4th of July - welcomed a new baby into the world, Finley Grace Clinton - said goodbye to great friends who moved to St. Louis, Todd and Kate - went to the theatre festival in Williamstown - saw the world premiere of Broke-ology, an amazing play - attended the Forest Hills Cemetery Lantern Festival - tried to go to a film at the Hatchshell before it got rained out - attended a family reunion - went on a whole bunch of largely unsuccessful dates - travelled to NYC via Megabus for only $2.50 round trip - hung out in NYC with my friend Christy - ran 7 workshops for 500 Boston Summer Scholars through Boston Cares in conjunction with The Boston Globe and John Hancock - attended my almost-sister-in-law's bachelorette party in Portland - passed a cholesterol check with flying colors - went to Neighborhood Night at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum - did a Boston Lighthouse tour on Little Brewster Island with Dad - brought my mom to volunteer at Friday Night Supper Program - became the Chair of the Board for FNSP - hired, trained, and oriented 4 new staff members and assisted two others with transitions into new positions - picked up my niece at the airport - saw my brother married - career counseled a random Boston Cares member who is thinking of switching careers and found my bio on the website - drew on the sidewalk for Chalk One Up for the Arts, run by ArtStreet/Sidewalk Sam downtown - tried two new places during Restaurant Week - stabbed myself in the finger making guacamole in June and am still dealing with doctors and hand-therapy in the aftermath - tried on a friend's 2007 Red Sox Championship ring - scored Neil Diamond at Fenway tickets for Mom and Dad - packed my entire apartment in only 2.5 hours with help from my sister and then unpacked in only 2 hours on the other end after the move, which only took 3 hours - got an amazing new roommate - celebrated Andrew & Jillian's wedding (they are 25 and have been together 9 years!) - crashed my old street's Labor Day Block Party - got free Sox tickets for a Tampa Bay game - got a photo in the JP Artist Ball's silent auction - spent Labor Day weekend chillin' with my niece who is amazing

Oompa Loompa Beds

The house I grew up in is still my parents' house. It's the one I go visit and the one I sleep in the night before Christmas, an odd weekend here and there, and when my sister, her husband and baby Sonia are visiting. I only live 40 minutes from them, so it's rare I sleep there rather than just drive home, but it happens probably 10 times a year, at least.

Since we all moved out, my Mom now proudly has two guest rooms and an office. One guest room has a queen sized bed and the other has two twins. This is a pretty smart configuration. She can host people who want to sleep together (such as my sister and brother-in-law) or people who want to sleep separately (such as my aunt and a cousin from Buffalo). It is also a configuration that mostly just screws me out of a good night sleep.

When I sleep at their house and my sister is not in town, I can happily climb into the queen bed and have a relatively good night sleep even though the bed is not my own. Whenever I sleep at their house and my sister is also in town, I get a bed in the twin room. My sister and my brother-in-law are particular about sleeping in a bed someone else has slept in, so each time I sleep in the queen, my mother or I have to change it completely. One time, I was sleeping there and my sister was due home in a few weeks and my mother actually suggested I sleep in a twin bed instead to save having to change the bed. Insane.

Let's be clear about twin beds. They suck. And the ones in my mother's guest room suck in particular. They were in my sister's room while she was growing up. We've tried to get her to replace them. They are super-mini twins or something weird. I do not fit in them if I am completely stretched out. They are also super narrow or something weird too, because I can hardly turn over in the bed without falling out.

Know something about me here: I slept in a twin bed until I was 30. I was poor and cheap and single all through my twenties, so I took my childhood twin bed with me to Maryland and then LA. I borrowed a twin when I moved to Colorado in 2002 for the ski season. I only bought a queen when I re-entered real life in 2003. So I'm no stranger to twin beds. And I am not any bigger than I was then, so I'm not sure what is wrong with these twins.

I sleep terribly every time I sleep at my mother's and am regulated to one of these beds. I was complaining about it to a friend and he said, "Oh, yeah, Oompa Loompa beds suck." Ha! He and his brothers have been calling twin beds after those little creepy slave-men in Charlie & The Chocolate Factory for years. How great! I would like to invite an Oompa Loompa over to my parents' house, put him in one of those twin beds, and show my mother once and for all that it is just not reasonable to ask me to sleep in one.

Last week, my dad's cousin John slept in one of the beds after a night of imbibing. The poor man, even though he's in his mid-60s, was not allowed to sleep in the queen bed, because my sister was arriving the next day and my mom, having returned to school/work did not have time to change that bed before she got home. He left the bed unmade when he made his escape the next morning, after probably sleeping a grand total of 22 minutes all night (or perhaps the key to a good night sleep in one of those bed is alcohol). I arrived Friday and just climbed right in behind him. "But John slept in that bed!" my sister cried. "So?" I asked. "For one night. What could he have possibly done that would require me to change the sheets?" She just looked at me doubtfully. When I got into bed and placed my always-with-me glass of water on the bedside table, I noticed something weird on the small little book set there by my mother for guests. Ah! John's gum! Hilarious!

Apparently, John is planning on sleeping over again next Saturday after a big wedding we are all attending together. I can share the room with him, both of us uncomfortable in our Oompa Loompa beds and wondering about the fact that we're sharing a room. Or, I could make my way 3 miles to my brother and sister-in-law's house and sleep in their spare room, which civilly, has a queen bed.

Knowing John, who in many ways, I am built after, he'll just crawl into the same unmade bed, because damn, "She only slept there one night, right? What could she have possibly done that would require anyone to change the sheets?"

And if an Oompa Loompa happens to stop by, he can have the other bed, because I'll be at my brother's.

Of Weddings and Such

I haven't posted about my brother's wedding yet. Right afterwards, I was still trying to settle it all in my head and figure out what to write. I knew what I thought without question, but how to do it justice in writing was what I was unclear about. I still am, really, but it's been 10 days, so here goes.

It was hands-down the best wedding I've ever been to. (I don't want to hurt my sister's feelings, and she knows that her wedding was the most interesting that I've ever been to, so everyone gets a superlative!)

It was nice without being pretentious, fun without being forced, it had moments of hilarity, moments of mouth-hanging-open shock, and lots and lots of love.

In a nutshell, the schedule was Friday night rehearsal dinner followed by a slide show of my brother and sister-in-law from childhood on put together by two of her friends. Saturday I spent 6 hours in the bridal suite, getting hair done, hanging out, running errands for the bride, eating pizza and yelling at family/friend passers-by from the balcony. Church was at 4, cocktail hour at 5, and reception from 6-11. Post-party in the bar till 1:30 and post-post-party in one of my brother's friend's hotel room till 3:15 when I finally went to bed. Good times.

Highlights include my sister-in-law crying so badly during her vows that she had to stop for a minute, used a tissue, and then stuck it in my brother's tux pocket sticking out like a hanky. The entire church burst into laughter that lasted about 30 seconds. Other highlights: a cousin who thought bringing a huge dog to the outdoor cocktail hour was a good idea, another cousin who thought doing the breakdancing move the worm in her dress was a good idea (until she ended up bare-assed to the world), my family friends telling my sister-in-law at the party "Your last name isn't just Boss now, it's Boss-Marsden-Arsenault-Notini", and me negotiating with my sister-in-law that maybe the only person who should go back to the bridal suite is her husband and how about 3:30 as a good time for that?

Another obvious highlight was the presence of my niece, who is so unbelievably cute I could hardly believe it. Seriously. She's amazing. Click here to see her at the rehearsal.

I was not looking forward to this wedding. I was annoyed I didn't have a date, I was starting to think there it was too big and too much planning. I'd been worried about my brother and sister-in-law as they tried to finish last minute projects and buy shoes at the last minute. I was completely and totally surprised by it and I loved every minute.

My brother and my sister-in-law love each other very much. That was clear. They have made a choice that is good for both of them and I think they will be together for a very long time -- forever. Their wedding made me realize anew how important the ritual of marriage is. I don't want a "real" wedding. I don't want all the stuff - all the accoutrements. It's a very personal decision and I think it's over the top and it stresses everyone out. I applaud my friend Katie who is currently planning her own wedding, which will have only 30 guests. But that doesn't change that I want a wedding. I want friends and family to gather with me and watch me and a partner tell the universe that we love each other and that we plan on doing so for the rest of our lives. I want to look pretty and to have his family welcome me to their family and he be welcomed to mine as a matter of ritual. I don't believe in "maids of honor" but I sure believe in "best women."

I am pleased for my brother and sister-in-law, who not only enjoyed their own wedding (standing in the center of the dance floor screaming "Don't Stop Believing" at the top of their lungs with the rest of us) but threw one hell of a party that was enjoyable for all. I am pleased for myself to have had these revelations. Nice when happiness and learning and awareness all converge.

Planet of the Dogs

After I posted my Children's Lit post, I got a comment from Robert McCarty, who wrote Planet of the Dogs and Castle in the Mist. They are two in a series of three, the third of which comes out this October.

He offered to send me copies of the first two books with the understanding that I would review them here on my blog and post comments to his website as well.

I received them in the middle of a crazy week which included my brother's wedding, so it took me longer than usual to read them both. Yesterday, I finished Castle in the Mist and thus, below is my review.

These are soft-cover chapter books meant for kids aged 8 and up. They are set in "olden times" of an undefined year. Folks ride horses, and they live in villages and there aren't roads, but paths. There are castles and warriors and no guns. There are peaceful, farmer villagers and "city" dwelling meaner people as well. In the first book, there's an impending war brewing.

The dogs on the Planet of the Dogs are aware of the no-good happenings on Earth and bring Daisy and Bean, siblings, through their dreams to their planet to introduce the children to dogs, of which they know nothing. They bring dogs back with them to help bring love, understanding, and peace to Earth.

The fantasy involved in the books is appealing. It involves dream sequences, travel through space and time between planets, dogs who can talk to children and healer-women through thoughts and barking, and seeing information through dreams. The reality involved is also appealing. It involves the universal love of dogs by humans and vice versa, human condition of fighting and war and capacity for love and peace.

The second book, Castle in the Mist, picks up where the second left off in regards to character development and introduces a whole new land and cast of characters (a la Harry Potter). In this one, the past-violent-cum-peaceful Bik of Stone City has his two young children kidnapped by a Prince who doesn't understand peace or dogs or anything really and the dogs, along with the humans, work out a plan to save the children.

While reading these, I kept wishing I was reading them out loud to a couple of kids instead. I could imagine each night reading another chapter and the kids waiting with bated breath for what would happen next. I could imagine the kids greeting their own dogs in the kitchen without talking, just squinting up their eyes real tight and sending "thought messages" to the dog much to the wonder of their parents.

The illustrations are lovely as well, done by Stella McCarty, Robert's wife. They are black and white and are done in pencil (I think) so they aren't super eye-catching the way we seem to think everything has to be these days for kids. But I think the softness and care in them will appeal to even the youngest children.

All in all, I would recommend these books, which are available on Amazon, B & N and at Barking Planet to any kid who loves to read and to any parent looking for a good book to read to younger kids.

Much thanks to Robert and Stella for sharing the books with me!

Kiddie Lit: A Saga of Love

I have had a place in my heart for children's literature for a long time. I think it probably began when I was a child, since I read an inordinate amount. I distinctly remember one time when we were planning to be away from home for two weeks at a cabin somewhere when I was about 12, we had to make sure I got at least 15 books from the library. I remember being worried I wouldn't be able to take enough out.

I have maintained that love throughout my adulthood. I mostly keep up with what's new out there for kids. (Not in an academic way; in a pop culture kind of way.) I took a Children's Lit class one semester at Glendale Community College when I lived in LA. That was great, because we studied some of my favorites, including Harriet the Spy, my all time favorite book of any type and some new ones I'd not read before, such as Hatchet. I used to go to this amazing children's book store in LA called Storyopolis when I lived there. I bought a few picture books that came out around that time, too. One called No David! by David Shannon (I actually went to a book signing for that one.) I also began reading all the Series of Unfortunate Events -- Lemony Snicket books as well. One of my aunts bought me each book and sent them along as they came out. I love hanging out with friends' kids because it means I get to read to them. I went to the Eric Carle (of the Very Hungry Caterpillar fame) Museum in Western Mass. I know about Olivia, Maisy, Walter the Farting Dog, Eleanor, and others. I remember Ping and Mike Mulligan and Richard Scarry. I read Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants when it first came out and I was up on the Harry Potter way before most people. I love YA lit as much as picture books.

I have scared the ex (who, remember, has a two-year old) with my knowledge of children's books. It began the first week I met his daughter, when I sat on the floor and read to her, saying "Oooh, look! Sandra Boynton!" or "Yay, Eric Carle!" like a dork. He was amazed and a little scared. He is still a little scared. Just yesterday, he read me the list of books he'd just bought her, and I recognized one or two. He's one of the reasons this post is up, because he's switched from disturbed that I know this stuff to intrigued and convinced it's a message I should listen to.

I have kept some of my original copies of some books from when I was a child, including Harriet, which is a godsend because they have changed all the covers from the 60s, 70s and 80s and updated them. I guess that is a good idea, if we want kids today to be drawn to them, but it still makes me sad.

I love E.B. White, Judy Blume, Maurice Sendak (Little Bear was the first book I remember really being able to read myself), Louise Fitzhugh, Roald Dahl (oh Dahl!), Beverly Cleary, The Chocolate War, the Heidi books, Shel Silverstein, Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day (which I've been known to give to students when they are having a sucky time and has managed to maintain the cover I remember) and Oliver Butterworth. What? You've never heard of Butterworth?

This is worth a digression. I read The Enormous Egg in about the 5th grade. It was about this kid who finds and egg and hatches it and it's a dinosaur. I loved it. Loved it! I found out this author had written another book called The Trouble With Jenny's Ear, but the library didn't have it. Neither did the bookstore. (This was about 1985, so there wasn't an enormous bookstore on every corner and there was no Amazon and such.) I found out it was out of print. Somehow, my aunt and my mom managed to get me a copy. It was amazing. Jenny ends up with damage to her ear which leads to her ability to hear others' thoughts. (A quick search just found that it is available again in reprint from Amazon. I have my original hardcover copy (like the top photo) sans dust jacket (also like the top photo).

**UPDATE NOTE: 8/7/08 I just re-read Jenny's Ear this week. I still love it. And I forgot it's set in Massachusetts and they take a big trip into Boston and there's mention of all kinds of landmarks. As a Boston-area kid, I must have loved that! That's also one of the reasons I loved The Trumpet of the Swan.

Okay, back to the story. This obsession. Or passion. Or interest. Or whatever you want to call it.

I recently received info from Simmons, my alma mater, about a new dual degree program -- a combo master's program where you end up with a M.A. in Children's Literature and a M.S. in Library and Information Science. Simmons has the oldest Children's Lit master's program in the U.S. It also has the US News and World Report number 13 ranked Library and Info Science program in the country. This program was so intriguing to me when I read about it, I called for more info. Then I attended an information session in June about it. Then I set the whole notion aside since it's a 58 credit program with a price tag of $48,000.

Now I'm back to obsessed again. I talked to admissions today, and I could do up to 2 Children's Lit classes and 2 GSLIS classes before matriculating. They are called nondegree. They don't guarantee admission to the program after taking them, but they allow me to try it out and have time to do the application for fall 2009. No financial aid for these nondegree classes ($3500 each). I have a call into GSLIS to get all the info on their end.

I spoke directly with the director of the Children's Lit program as well (who is also an Associate Dean of the college and who totally took my call and spent 10 minutes with me only 2 days before she's leaving for 2 weeks on vacation). I gave her a 30 second summary of my story and asked which class I should take this fall as a first one. She asked if I had ever taken a survey course before. I didn't know what that meant. She asked if I'd taken Children's Lit before. I said I had, but only at a community college in Cali. She said, "When I say 'Where's Papa going with that ax?' does it mean anything to you?" And I quickly said "Sure, Charlotte's Web." And she said, "Okay. You're fine." She told me what class to take. Then she told me that if I take my vacation to Nova Scotia as planned in September for 2 weeks, I will probably fail the class by missing two sessions. She said to check with the professor teaching the course to confirm this. I thanked her and hung up. (I am awaiting response back from the professor teaching the course.)

So. Here I am. A list, if you will allow it.

- I think I would really like to pursue this degree.
- I think $48,000 for a grad degree is crazy.
- I am not entirely sure what I would do with this degree. I would love to run a children's library. I would love to be the children's buyer for an entire library system. I would love to do anything with school libraries, curriculum and teacher support for literature. I wouldn't mind working in children's publishing. The list goes on.
- I would love to be a student again.
- I am scared to work full time and go to school even part time.
- I do not have $3500 budgeted for this fall for a grad class, even with the ability to pay in 3 installments.
- When I think about learning deeply about children's literature, I get all excited.

So. I'm waiting to hear back from GSLIS Admissions. I'll talk with them about options, think about this some more, and perhaps enroll in CHL 414 with a thirty five hundred dollar price tag this fall. I'll forget about Nova Scotia and plan two shorter trips instead - to god knows where. I'll embark on a new adventure. I'll get two more master's degrees in 3 years. I'll combine my master's in education with its focus on counseling and development with these two new degrees, mix in my experience with events planning, organizational development, department management, resource management, human resource management, supervision, and perhaps come up with some amazing new career I haven't even figured out yet.

Holy crap. Am I as beserk as the hippos?

Veg-tastic!

This summer, I have a CSA share in Stillman's Farm. They are located in Lunenburg and New Braintree, MA. They participate in a bunch of the farmer's markets in Boston and they are the farmer's market in JP.

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and by people buying a share, it means the farm has money for the season to help supplement what else they'll harvest and sell. To shareholders, it means we get a box of veggies every week.

I bought a 1/2 share with my neighbor-friends, Katie and Chris. So they get 2/3 of each week's take and I get 1/3. I paid $100 for my section. We started on June 26 and it runs through September sometime.

This week, I picked up the box, which I hadn't done before, because Katie and Chris are in Vermont. This is what we got today:

-- 4 red potatoes
-- 4 ears of corn
-- one bunch of arugula
-- a big handful of peas in the pod of some sort
-- 4 cucumbers
-- 2 tomatoes
-- about a 1/2 pound of green beans
-- a 1/2 pint of blueberries (but she filled it to the brim for me)
-- 5 very small apples
-- one gorgeous green pepper

It was a pretty good take. Early on, we got lots of greens. Red lettuce, romaine, kale in three colors. This was the first week for tomatoes and potatoes. Very exciting. My 1/3 of this gig is worth far more than $100. It's pretty amazing.

I've been eating almost no meat during the week, because I just make piles of veggies and throw in some black beans for protein. There's nothing like a local cucumber. It reminds me how rubbery the grocery store cucumbers are, especially in January. Eating in season can be tough in the winter, but right now, it's just a treat!

The Wedding Date

The Wedding Date was a movie with Debra Messing (Grace, from Will & Grace) that came out in 2005 and was generally sucky. Of course, I saw it. That was the year that I was writing down every movie I saw in the theatre. (NB: I just pulled out that list and can't find the first two pages containing January - May, and since The Wedding Date was released in February, I can't confirm I saw it in the theatre, but I bet I did. I'm lame like that.)

Anyway, the premise is that this woman has to go to her sister's wedding and hires a dude to pose as her boyfriend and go with her. Of course, in the film, hilarity ensues, everyone's best intentions are effed up, and while I can't remember for sure, I'm certain that she falls in love with him, and he with her, all in the course of 48 hours. That's Hollywood for you.

I have 4 weddings this year. Four. That is the most I've had in one year, ever. How I got to be 35 without having a heavier year of weddings is a marvel, really. Perhaps it's a commentary on the fact that I don't have enough friends. Or perhaps I just don't have enough friends who manage to get married. Whatever. Facts are, there are 4.

I have few issues going alone, as usual. I've never actually been to a wedding with a date. Ever. (That's weird, actually, and probably another comment about me, but I digress.)

The rundown:

1. (This one is over and is therefore out of the mix, more or less, for the purposes of this post.) Was in Ohio and required a lot of expensive travel, so I wouldn't have really asked someone to do that with me anyway, even if I was dating someone. It was fine. I was seated at the "student-affairs-and-ex-student-affairs" table and we had a great time.

The three remaining are up-coming weddings, and are presented below in the order they will happen:
2. My brother's wedding at a swanky resort in N.H. for a whole weekend with every family member and friend of our family invited.

3. Old family friends (like siblings really) Andrew and Jillian's wedding. Party van hired by Butch, whole family riding together, no overnight stay required.

4. Cousin Micaela in N.Y. Have to drive to Buffalo, my whole family invited, won't know anyone else there.

Which of these three are the problem? Easy. My brother's. It is paining me severely that I may have to attend this shindig alone. My brother's friends and my almost-sister-in-law's friends are all 7 or more years younger than I and more than half of them are married or partnered. This is my only remaining sibling to get married and both of them are younger than I. I have a big, fancy, paid-for-by-someone-else hotel room for two nights that will only host me. I will have nobody to dish with after the wedding because my sister has a baby now and will need to go to bed and let's face it, doing that with my parents is just sad at this point. I want someone to dance with at that wedding who isn't my dad. The list goes on. Need I?

I have exhausted the possibilities. I am not dating anyone. Those who I've been on dates with recently don't make sense to bring with me to this event. I've asked my ex to come with me and while he's still considering it and trying to figure out if his crazy schedule will allow him to make the trip to NH, I am 90% sure it isn't going to happen. I considered, for half a second, to take a friend with me, but then decided that was just so imposing on the two friends that would even be possible (and one just had a baby, so she's really impossible) that I couldn't do it.

So, here I am. Choices at this point? Buy a date? Become Debra Messing? Post an ad on CL and offer someone sexual favors for coming with me? Or, hold off on the sexual favors and assume that, as in Hollywood, if I'm cute and awkward enough, he'll fall in love with me by Sunday? Jesus.

My brother and almost-sister-in-law are being champs. They have put me at a table with 8 other people with the ability to add a chair at any point. They have to give an number to the hotel peeps on Tuesday, so by Monday, I have to either have a date, not have a date, or not know and pay them $46 to hold the spot for me (this is because I'm obviously not asking my almost-sister-in-law's father to pay for a 10% chance that I might have a date). I am one of the cheapest people on earth. Am I really going to pay $46 for something that there's a 10% chance of? Or is it time to just let go?

I don't know the answer yet, and since it's Thursday, and I have 4 days to figure it out, I'm going to take all 96 hours of that time. I'll let you know.

A bite of a Vegemite sandwich

Everyone knows the song Down Under by Men at Work, but apparently not everyone knows the words or what they mean. Who knew?

I'm at the Fourth of July party that I've been to for the past 20 years or so. This year, though, the usual couple who throws it is in Alaska on a cruise, so their kids are in charge. These are people I've grown up with my whole life who are like siblings to me. They are much younger (I'm the oldest of this second generation by far) but are being responsible and good hosts. There's lots of differences in this party, such as the fact that drinking games abound and until everyone gets a little drunk, it's sort of boring.

My brother and his fiance get a hold of the beerpong table (called Beirut by the kiddies, but I'm rolling old school) and proceed to trounce everyone who challenges them. They have been the reigning champs for about 2 hours when Jillian insists that I become her partner. I try to tell her that's a bad idea - that I suck at beer pong - that I don't even know the rules. She's having none of it. So we go. We go and we kick some serious ass.

In the middle of the game, Down Under by Men at Work comes on. We are all sort of singing along and then my brother, who is known to sing at the top of his lungs in social settings occasionally, begins to sing loudly. This verse is on:

Buying bread from a man in brussels
He was six foot four and full of muscles
I said, do you speak-a my language?
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
And he said,

I come from a land down under
Where beer does flow and men chunder
Cant you hear, cant you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.

Instead of "...and gave me a vegemite sandwich" he sings "...and gave me a bite of his sandwich" at the top of his lungs. He's just gotten done mocking me for missing a shot, so I said, "No! Vegemite sandwich!" He looked at me in confusion and said, "What? Vegemite? No! Bite of his sandwich!" Those on the sidelines start chiming in "I'm with you, S!" "What the hell is vegemite?"

I, of course, say, "Vegemite is this gross shit they eat in Australia" since at that moment, I can't remember what it is made of. No wonder I can't remember, since it's the leftover yeast after they make beer. Vegemite has added veggies to it, while marmite is the straight up yeast. It's disgusting. All my peeps in Thailand ate it. Their parents and friends would mail them jars of the stuff so they wouldn't have to go without. For some reason, the Brits like marmite and the Aussies like vegemite. (I've heard from a good source that Salacious B. Crumb is not picky and likes both equally.)

In this moment, though, nobody's buying it. My brother, at this point, stops listening to me and begins to sing, to the tune of Down Under, "I got a turkey, lettuce sandwich with no mayo." He hates mayo. Jillian turns to me at the other end of the table and says, "He hates mayo?" and I explain that my sister and brother both have, but my sister eats it now, he never would. "Weird," she says.

We finish the game, which was close, with him threatening us and getting increasingly play-annoyed that we are going to oust them. When we win, Jillian turns her back on the table, shakes her booty in his face and yells "Eat my mayo! Have some mayo!" That was pretty hilarious.

The next day, I dutifully look up the lyrics, paste them into an email, find the Wikipedia entry for vegemite, and send it all along to my brother, his fiance, Jillian, and one or two of those sitting on the sidelines. Everyone responds back that they'd been singing it his way for years, and he just emails "Vegemite is made up." Which is his way of admitting he had no clue.

Wonder if any of them know what "chunder" means. Don't think I'll ask.

And Trip Three is Over

To round out the most flights I've ever taken in one month, I travelled to Ohio/Kentucky for Todd and Kate's wedding. It was an easy trip (much easier than I thought it would be) and the wedding was lovely.

I flew from Boston to Columbus ($200 cheaper than flying to Cincinnati)then rented a car and drove the 2 hours down. Crossed the river, and thus the border, into Kentucky, and checked into the hotel with 2 hours to spare before the wedding shuttle would take me to the church. The reception was at the Taft Art Museum back in Ohio. The museum is akin to the ISGM here in Boston. Very cool.

After brunch the next morning, I headed back to Columbus after a quick visit with my maternal grandfather, who happened to be in the hospital in Cincinnati (he lives about 40 minutes outside the city). Thirty-five bucks for the rental car (beat that!) and 40 minutes of circling Boston later, and I was happily at home in JP. Exactly 37.5 hours gone from my house. Crazy. This must be what business travel is like, flying to LA for a meeting, and back in time for breakfast the next morning.

I went straight to a BBQ at my neighbor-friends' house, in order to celebrate their engagement, which I'd been alerted to earlier in the day via phone call, somewhere on Route 71 between cities in Ohio. They are doing it soon, doing it small, and are very happy about it. I'm excited for them, considering they are an amazing couple who I think will be very happy for a long time.

Thus ends my month of domestic trips. Whew. And imagine, all that travel, all that time, all that money (in some cases) and none of the three are cities I even have a shred of appreciation for. Oh sure, Houston is home to my niece, and Cincinnati was pretty enough (I'm partial to cities with huge rivers in them.), but given my choice of major U.S. cities to visit, Atlanta, Houston or Cincinnati would rank somewhere below number 100...

Now is time to breathe and enjoy my favorite holiday and then gear up for two more trips (Western Mass and NYC) in July followed by wedding craziness in August. I love summer (except the heat, of course).

Houston

This is my month of U.S. travel. I've not been this many places in this short a time in a long time. Atlanta, Houston, and Ohio all in one month.

Houston is where my sister, her husband, and my new niece live now. I've been there twice now. I'm not a fan. But I don't hate it either. It reminds me of any other U.S. city. Lots of highway, lots of buildings, lots of strip malls, and a park here and there. But I like a city with a little more character.

I was there for the 4 days that it was 97 degrees here in Boston. I missed that awful heat wave completely. And, being in Houston, you'd think I would've still suffered, since there, it was 88 by 7:30 a.m. on a cool day. The major difference is two-fold. One, everything and everywhere in Houston is air conditioned. Everyone's house, the schools, every shop, restaurant, everything. Second, nobody walks anywhere. In going from the car to the house or whatever building you are going to, you barely notice it's hot, because you're only outside for 45 seconds.

While I definitely appreciated that, and was able to wear my jeans in the 90 degree heat, I would hate to live like that. I love to walk. I love that Bostonians don't need cars and even those of us who have them are able to stretch a tank of gas out over three weeks or more if we work it right. My car allows me to be lazy if I want to be, but mostly it just sits there.

I also love the outdoors. I can't imagine 5 months of the year where I can't go outside. Now, I realize that those in the South think that we up here can't go outdoors 5 months of the year because it's too cold, but we just don't think like that. We spend as much time outside in the winter as we do in the summer.

The real fact is that I want to live somewhere where it never gets over 65 and when it does people complain of the heat. Northern Scandinavia? Not sure. It's not going to happen, of course, but one can dream. I wouldn't even mind 8 months of winter as long as it was sunny most of the time. Like Denver, only perpetually. (Denver gets mofo hot in the summer.)

Dreams. I know.

Atlanta

Here I am in Atlanta. I'm here for a conference. I wasn't looking forward to coming down here because I hate the heat and feel like 4 amazing spring Boston days have been stolen from me. (I'm a little crazy, I know.) The last time I was here was in August last year for a training when it was so hot I thought I would melt. I am also finding that when I travel in the U.S., I am increasingly snobby. I actually think to myself, "Why would anyone live here?" Am I serious? Am I that in love with Boston? It was only 4 years ago that I was still bouncing all around the U.S. living anywhere but Boston. Age changes us, I think.

First night here, two of my young colleagues and I went out to get food. We walked about 15 minutes through downtown Atlanta to get to Varsity, a place that was recommended to me. The walk was interesting. I don't think it was all that safe. First of all, it was dark. Secondly, it was through some sort of dodgy-looking areas. Third, my college roommate, who just moved here for work and who I had dinner with the next night said white women should not be walking alone downtown at night. Okay.

We were approached by a significant number of homeless men on the street. They were all friendly. They all said hello first. Some were leering, others were just saying hello. I never felt unsafe, but I was sure annoyed. I am such a Bostonian. I want my homeless people to be as rude as regular Bostonians, and not try to make friends with me while asking me for a dollar. These folks didn't even ask for money. They just chatted with us. Is it because we're in the South and people are just friendly here? I don't really get it.

Shirley Franklin, the mayor here, is working on ending homelessness in Atlanta in the next 10 years. They are apparently tearing down the housing developments and building significant section 8 housing to re-place folks in homes. She is also personally meeting with every graduating senior from the Atlanta public school system. Personally. To discuss their future plans and where they are headed. Wow. She spoke to us yesterday and I was impressed. (And she could actually articulate her words, which is a trait you don't get in a mayor in Boston, at least in the last decade and a half.)

So back to the Varsity. It was established in 1928 and when you walk in, you wonder how the hell to get to the food. It's enormous. We had a debate about how many people could fit inside it. I just looked it up and it can have over 800 people inside and over 600 cars pulled up at any time. (It's a drive-in diner, too.) Holy crap.

We were barraged by the staff at the registers yelling "What'll ya have?" over and over again. It's their tag line. Finally, after wondering what a heavy dog was, I asked. It's a hot dog with extra chili on it. Extra chili? Jeez. I ended up with two cheese dogs (regular hot dogs with cheese sauce on them), fries and a peach pie that I shared with my colleagues. One of them had a burger and the other had chili fries, which were conveniently served with the chili and cheese sauce in separate little dipping cups. The food was fine. Diner food.

Apparently, two miles of hot dogs, a ton of onions, 2500 pounds of potatoes, 5000 fried pies and 300 gallons of chili are made from scratch daily, according to their website. Gross? Delicious? You decide.

It's on the edge of the Georgia Tech campus, and they have 5 other locations. I got a Varsity hat, you know those paper ones that the old-time diner-workers wore? They still wear them and you can take one home.

Not sure there'll be anything else of note to write about Atlanta, but if there is, I'll update.

Disaster!

I am obsessed with books about disasters. This began in college when I first read Holocaust! The shocking story of the Boston Cocoanut Grove fire. It's out of print now, but one can get it at the library. Here's a nice summary of the fire.

Here is where I give my very good friend Robin the credit for my love of disaster narratives. She introed me to the Cocoanut Grove book in 1993 or thereabouts. She just recently loaned me her copy of Holocaust so I could re-read it. It was great the second time too. There are fire codes and laws that were changed nation-wide because of that fire.

Then there's Dark Tide, which I became obsessed with when it came out in paperback in 2004. I read it in only a couple of days. I had heard my whole life about the great molasses flood in Boston, believing the rumors when I was small that on hot days, you could still smell molasses on the streets in the North End. The book read like a novel and again, building and engineering codes and laws changed nation-wide because of this disaster.

I met the author of Dark Tide, Stephen Puleo at a book signing and then convinced my workplace to use it as the text for an ethics class. I have passed it on to more people than perhaps any other book I've ever read.

When I was travelling in Belize last September, I read Anita Shreve's A Wedding in December, which has a story-within-a-story set during the Halifax Explosion. I was fascinated, but didn't really take the time to look up info about that disaster. Then, I visited Robin a couple weeks ago, and told her I was headed to Nova Scotia for vacation this fall. She had been recently, and of course, has a Halifax Explosion book. This one is called Too Many to Mourn, and uses one family to tell the story of the explosion. There were 66 members of the Jackson family living in the Richmond area of Halifax at the time of the explosion, and 46 of them were killed. The son of one of the surviving women wrote the book. It was excellent. This disaster is the reason that Halifax has such a great relationship with Boston and Massachusetts since we sent so many doctors, nurses and supplies to their rescue. That giant Christmas tree we get every year for the Pru comes from the people of Halifax to the people of Boston. Pretty cool tradition, considering we're coming up on almost 100 years.

All of these disasters took place in the first half of the 20th century. The impact they had on history is clear. The books were written in a narrative form that takes the reader back to meet those who were there during the disaster, which I love.

I also read Boston on Fire not too long ago, which is a compilation of most of the major Boston fires, each getting a shorter writing. Boston has had more major fires than any other U.S. city (probably because we've been around longer). Stephanie Schorow does a nice job with this book too.

Of course, I've read the requisite Into Thin Air, Alive, and Into the Wild. But those aren't really disasters. They are human endeavors gone wrong. Well, okay, Alive was just a plane crash, but it's more of a survival story.

I have to be really careful after I read one of these books to not go on and on about the details of the event to friends, family and strangers, even. I'm a massive dork, and I have to try to remember to keep it in check. Mostly, I fail, thinking, "Who wouldn't want to know about this? It's amazing!" The answer is: most people. Most people just don't care about this kind of stuff.

I'm sad for them, actually.

UPDATE: How could I forget Endurance, the story of Shackleford and Antartica? A bunch of explorer dudes all got stuck in the ice floes on a ship. The ship ends up torn to pieces and they have to walk out of there. Amazing book. And Ship of Gold? How could I forget that? I passed that book out to all my diver friends in Thailand. One copy ended up more ratty and dogeared than any book I've ever owned. A ship full of gold was sailing from San Fran around the bottom of South America (pre-Panama Canal) to NYC and sank off the coast of North Carolina in the 1850s during the gold rush. They found her in the 1980s. More here. Anyway, thanks again to Robin who remembered that I passed these both to her.

Oh, yeah

Saw this today on the bumper of the car in front of me. Practically got killed taking the photo.

The Great Pedometer Challenge

Last year sometime, I picked up a freebie pedometer as part of the JP Walks program in my 'hood. (Yet another reason to love where I live.) I used it for a few weeks, just to see if I was really walking as much as I think I do or claim I do. No such luck. Even with a 8-minute walk to the T on each end and with the regular trips for lunch and an added walk to my next appointment rather than using the T, I was still usually below the recommended 10,000 steps a day. (Which, by the way, is about 5 miles.) I can't even begin to imagine how few steps the average car-driving, desk-sitting commuter takes each day.

Anyway, using it motivated me for a bit and I had a little competition going with myself for a while. This wore off rather quickly.

Just last week, neighbor-friend Katie said, "I've been using my pedometer. I love it." She's a teacher, so she does quite well in the steps department. And, she's a teacher without a regular classroom, so she moves even more than the average teacher does. I found my pedometer that night and challenged her to a three day cumulative total competition.

It was a stupid week for me to do such a thing, considering I had to drive to work twice in those three days due to needing the car for work events. When all was said and done, I had somewhere between 22,000 and 23,000 and she righteously kicked my ass with somewhere around the 32,500 mark. I was amazed.

So, when I saw her Sunday night, after she and her partner Chris fed me an amazing black bean veggie burger, I asked for a rematch. Five days, Monday - Friday this week. She accepted. I was determined to win this time.

I got up at 6:15 on Monday morning and walked from my house to the JP Pond, around the Pond once and back to my house. Total trip? About 7500 steps, almost 4 miles. I repeated this Wednesday and Thursday morning, with different routes each day to keep things fresh. Not only did it score me a total of 22,500 steps or so, but can I just say how amazing JP is at 6:15 in the morning in May? It's quiet and fresh and everything smells delicious. The houses look shiny and the noise of the T doesn't even get annoying.

I've been making sure to walk at lunch. I went to Fanueil Hall for lunch one day and Tuesday I had an event down by Copley and I walked there from work. Extra 5000 steps!

I got an email from Katie on Wednesday lamenting the fact that she had left her pedometer at home that day. For a split second, I considered saying that we could just forget Wednesday, but then I realized I didn't want to give up my hard work. Instead I replied and said that maybe I'd actually beat her this time!

Right now it's Thursday night and I have a total of 56,443 with another whole day to go. Tomorrow, I'll definitely drag myself out of bed at 6:15 a.m. again because believe it or not, I'm looking at an apartment down the street at 6:30. That's when the dude was available and since I figured I'd be walking by anyway, why the hell not?

My original goal for myself for the 5 days was 50,000. I revised that this morning to 65,000. That means only 8600 to go tomorrow. I think I'll break that. Perhaps I'll even hit 70,000. That'd be cool. Maybe I don't even need Katie. Maybe I just need to keep up with myself this summer.

Side note: on Wednesday morning when I got up at 6:15 to leave, my roommate was already in the shower. Early for him, I think. I decided to just leave and figure out some way to pee along the way. I quickly figured out there wasn't anywhere open till 7 and that I was uncomfortable as hell. So I copped a squat behind a bush on the Southwest Corridor Park alongside the T and hoped a cop or a dog didn't come by at just that moment. They didn't, and I went along my merry way much happier afterwards. Some things never change. You can take the girl 13 years out of college, but you can't take the college pee-where-you-need-to out of the girl.

Get out and walk! Get to know your neighborhood. Look into people's back yards while they aren't looking. Smile at the cute guy who's leaving early for work in a suit. Tie your house key to your sneaker, stick your license in your pocket (or your bra) and jam to "Gin and Juice". I dare ya.

UPDATE: The final tally on Friday night was 70,545. WOO HOO!

What a difference a day makes.

Sometimes, things really do turn around. On their asses. 180 degrees. In only a moment.

I had one of those on Wednesday night, of the painful and horrifying variety. When I woke up Thursday morning, I realized the significance of it. In order to let it really sink in, and make sure I didn't miss the importance, I took the day off from work on Thursday and spent it as a day of wisdom and reflection. I let it wash over me, really felt it, and made sure I recognized its meaning. I came out the other side of Thursday's self-imposed retreat a better woman, a stronger person, and clear about where I'm standing in the world.

If I ever question the space I'm in now, I only need to remember where I was and what I was feeling and saying at noon in Salem. But I'm pretty sure I'm not going to question it. Some things just aren't in doubt.