With the empty weeks stretching out ahead of me, I thought it would be a good idea to take a trip. As my friend Clive and I discussed where to go while Michele was away, one wonderful, hazy, almost illicit name floated before us: Amsterdam.
Unfortunately, we had this discussion in Michele's presence, before she left, so no sooner had the word escaped my lips than the idea was squashed like so much fox poo on the sidewalk. After Michele threatened to take my passport with her when she left, we settled on a more, ahem, tame approach - hiking in Scotland.
At first, this seemed a most pleasant idea. "Just a walk up the mountain", Clive told me, "with a little scramble over a small lip at the top. No more than 4 meters." No problem. I could handle this. After all, I'd had an orienteering class in college, no more than, what, 15 years ago? I was looking forward to the trip, and even bought a new pair of hiking shoes in an area called Southampton Street, supposedly THE place to buy outdoor gear in London.
As the date of our departure drew closer, I began wearing my new boots to and from work to, you know, break them in. This was when the trouble started. "That brand's rubber's too soft," one colleague told me. "The soles shouldn't flex like that," intoned another, ominously. Convinced that I'd die of exposure, or at least end up with a serious blister, I began to worry about my fitness for this trip. After all, I get out of breath stepping up onto the curb, what was I thinking I could climb a mountain.
I'd also decided that as long as I was doing one thing I wasn't really prepared for, I might as well do two, and volunteered to drive. You may recall that they drive on the wrong side of the road here. The Brits will hasten to tell you that it's the "right" side, but in fact, it's the left side, so there's really nothing "right" about it. This was actually not as bad as having to shift with my left hand, which took quite some getting used to, especially as I haven't driven a car with a manual transmission since about 1994. Predictably, I stalled, over-revved the engine and generally made a menace of myself for the 2 hours it took to get from Glasgow up to Glencoe, the site of my expected demise.
I learned a number of things about Clive that weekend. We had remarkably similar backgrounds, we both enjoy a good whiskey. He has no compunction about raiding the breakfast bar at the Holiday Inn Express to prepare a lunch. And he lies. Not in a malicious way, but in a "gee, that's not how I remember it," way. The "walk" was variously steep, rocky, long and wet. And the "4 meter scramble" at the top was, in fact, about 200 feet of gravel scree which somehow clung to the side of the mountain at a 40 degree angle. Clung, that is, until breathed upon, at which it went coursing in sheets down the mountainside to clonk some unfortunate goat below. It was there, clinging to blades of grass and bits of rock with my eyelids, that I was convinced that I would die.
Of course, I did not die, as evidenced by this post. I did, however, make it to the top, enjoyed a nice cheese sandwich, courtesy of the fine folks at Holiday Inn Express, and marvelled at both the stupendous view and at the fact that I was still alive to enjoy it.
The descent was a bit trickier. Where going up was largely a matter of finding my way forward, going down was a matter of scrambling down on my belly while trying not to bash my head on the rocks or lose my face by dredging it through the gravel for 100 yards. After about 30 feet, I was once again convinced that my life was drawing to an unfortunate and untimely conclusion. It was at this point that we discovered The Path.
Apparently, some unknown but most generous person had cut steps into the mountain to assist just such novice climbers as myself. These, naturally, made the rest of the descent much easier, and I have still not stopped giving Clive a hard time about sending us up through the scree. But secretly, I'm grateful. Anybody can climb up steps. But clawing your way up the side of a mountain, now that deserves a cheese sandwich. And a haggis. And some black pudding. Both really tasty despite their off-putting ingredients. My recommendation: have a cheese sandwich and see how you go from there.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Home Alone 2
Ah, summer.
Summer has arrived in all its glorious greyness, and with it, the annual westward migration of beloved family. Yes, I'm knocking around in London by myself for a few weeks, free to stay out late, sleep without interruption, leave the toilet seat up. The instant the door shut behind Michele and the kids, I switched to bachelor mode. The house now looks like a clothes bomb went off.
But I haven't just been spending the last few weeks dissipating. Oh, no. I've been extremely busy notching up visits to a wide variety of sites, both in and out of London.
I'd gone out with some friends on the Friday after the family left, so got a bit of a late start on the Saturday. Actually, it was about 2:00 before I could summon the strength to venture out of the house. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to take the boat out to Canary Wharf and take some photos. I'd get some nice shots of Parliament and the London Eye from the back of the boat as we headed downriver, and make up for all of those boat journeys I've taken to and from the office and said, 'damn, I wish I had the camera'.
Unfortunately, there were about a million tourists waiting for the boat, and I just didn't have the patience to stand in the queue. The tube is just as crowded and disgusting on Saturday as it is the rest of the week, the difference is, instead of being rammed with commuters who basically know what they're doing and keep to themselves, on Saturday, it's mobbed with tourists who talk a lot and sweat. Finally arrived at Canary Wharf, drenched and irritated, only to get a number of pictures of rain.
The journey back was better. I got a spot on the boat without much trouble, and stopped off at the Tate Modern. This is a museum of modern art housed in a defunct power station. There's something serene about the cavernous turbine hall that appeals to me. Without children, I spent a few hours nosing around the galleries. My favorite work was called "Ishi's Light". This is an egg shaped object, open at the front, top and bottom, and with a dark polished interior. This produces the effect of a column of light that seems to float as you move across the front of the object.
I had much more energy on Sunday, which was bright and hot, so I decided to venture a bit further afield, to the town of Winchester. Winchester is famous for its Norman cathedral, which, for reasons unknown, was built on a bog, with a foundation of beech logs. The Normans may have been excellent warriors, but sometimes you gotta wonder. Predictably, the logs rotted away, and in the early 1900's, the cathedral was in danger of collapse. A diver spent 5 years digging trenches under the walls and filling them with cement, and is memorialized by a statue in the crypt.
Despite a few bright spots, Winchester is a monstrously disappointing town. The high street, while absolutely lousy with 16th century buildings, lacks even a single independent retailer. The overall feel is of a deep and abiding seediness. I felt like I needed a shower.
In fact, I did need a shower, since it was about 30 degrees (that's 85 for the Centigrade-challenged) and humid as only a country where it rains 150 days a year can be. The cathedral looked lovely. It being Sunday, however, they were quite inconveniently conducting a service when I arrived, so I couldn't go in.
This was fortunate, though, else I never would have found a hidden gem around the back in the Deanery. There, in the midst of piles of used books on sale to benefit the choir school, was a real Roman mosaic floor. Just, well, on the floor. I didn't even realize I was standing on it until one of the workers pointed it out. This of course led to a discussion of the history, and opened the door for me to ask what was up the back staircase.
I've always been intrigued by the routes in museums that the public is not supposed to use. I check doors to see whether they're locked, crane my neck to see into roped off spaces, peer through cracks in the walls. So the stone staircase winding up the back of the Deanery really got my James Bond up. David (he of the mosaic floor) kindly indulged my curiosity, and led me up the stairs.
On the other side of a massive wooden door at the top was an enormous ballroom, probably 40 or 50 feet long, and maybe half as wide, with a 15 foot ceiling. As I stood gaping around at the space, which appeared to be used for little apart from storing old chairs and spare artwork of questionable interest, I spotted a large, obviously ancient mirror on the far wall, with the letters "CR" in gilt at the top. David saw me looking at the mirror and told me that it was made for King Charles II, who, in the late 17th century, was a frequent visitor to the area, and would have been entertained in that very room.
After a visit to the ruins of the bishops palace, I headed about a mile through some fields to visit St Cross Hospital. Despite the name, this is not a place where sick people go to be cured (though one could argue that very few of the NHS-run hospitals are), but rather an almshouse, and a very old one at that. It was founded in 1130 to accommodate 13 old poor men, and to feed 100 at the gates daily. By this tradition, you can still ask at the gate for "the dole", and the porter will give you a (very) small cup of beer and a tiny bit of bread. These were not enough to sustain a hearty guy like me, so I had lunch in a pub nearby, as you do.
On the way back, I did get into the cathedral to have a look around, though sadly, the crypt was closed, so I couldn't see the statue of the diver. I did, however, attend an Evensong service, which was sung by the Thames Philharmonic Choir, complete with candles, a big, rumbly pipe organ and a vicar. It was magical, if you're into ecclesiastical aesthetics, as I am.
So having written this, I have to conclude that, despite the depressing town center, the ugly concrete buildings along the railroad tracks and the omnipresent chavs, Winchester was a good day out after all.
So there's the first weekend. Plenty more to come...
Summer has arrived in all its glorious greyness, and with it, the annual westward migration of beloved family. Yes, I'm knocking around in London by myself for a few weeks, free to stay out late, sleep without interruption, leave the toilet seat up. The instant the door shut behind Michele and the kids, I switched to bachelor mode. The house now looks like a clothes bomb went off.
But I haven't just been spending the last few weeks dissipating. Oh, no. I've been extremely busy notching up visits to a wide variety of sites, both in and out of London.
I'd gone out with some friends on the Friday after the family left, so got a bit of a late start on the Saturday. Actually, it was about 2:00 before I could summon the strength to venture out of the house. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to take the boat out to Canary Wharf and take some photos. I'd get some nice shots of Parliament and the London Eye from the back of the boat as we headed downriver, and make up for all of those boat journeys I've taken to and from the office and said, 'damn, I wish I had the camera'.
Unfortunately, there were about a million tourists waiting for the boat, and I just didn't have the patience to stand in the queue. The tube is just as crowded and disgusting on Saturday as it is the rest of the week, the difference is, instead of being rammed with commuters who basically know what they're doing and keep to themselves, on Saturday, it's mobbed with tourists who talk a lot and sweat. Finally arrived at Canary Wharf, drenched and irritated, only to get a number of pictures of rain.
The journey back was better. I got a spot on the boat without much trouble, and stopped off at the Tate Modern. This is a museum of modern art housed in a defunct power station. There's something serene about the cavernous turbine hall that appeals to me. Without children, I spent a few hours nosing around the galleries. My favorite work was called "Ishi's Light". This is an egg shaped object, open at the front, top and bottom, and with a dark polished interior. This produces the effect of a column of light that seems to float as you move across the front of the object.
I had much more energy on Sunday, which was bright and hot, so I decided to venture a bit further afield, to the town of Winchester. Winchester is famous for its Norman cathedral, which, for reasons unknown, was built on a bog, with a foundation of beech logs. The Normans may have been excellent warriors, but sometimes you gotta wonder. Predictably, the logs rotted away, and in the early 1900's, the cathedral was in danger of collapse. A diver spent 5 years digging trenches under the walls and filling them with cement, and is memorialized by a statue in the crypt.
Despite a few bright spots, Winchester is a monstrously disappointing town. The high street, while absolutely lousy with 16th century buildings, lacks even a single independent retailer. The overall feel is of a deep and abiding seediness. I felt like I needed a shower.
In fact, I did need a shower, since it was about 30 degrees (that's 85 for the Centigrade-challenged) and humid as only a country where it rains 150 days a year can be. The cathedral looked lovely. It being Sunday, however, they were quite inconveniently conducting a service when I arrived, so I couldn't go in.
This was fortunate, though, else I never would have found a hidden gem around the back in the Deanery. There, in the midst of piles of used books on sale to benefit the choir school, was a real Roman mosaic floor. Just, well, on the floor. I didn't even realize I was standing on it until one of the workers pointed it out. This of course led to a discussion of the history, and opened the door for me to ask what was up the back staircase.
I've always been intrigued by the routes in museums that the public is not supposed to use. I check doors to see whether they're locked, crane my neck to see into roped off spaces, peer through cracks in the walls. So the stone staircase winding up the back of the Deanery really got my James Bond up. David (he of the mosaic floor) kindly indulged my curiosity, and led me up the stairs.
On the other side of a massive wooden door at the top was an enormous ballroom, probably 40 or 50 feet long, and maybe half as wide, with a 15 foot ceiling. As I stood gaping around at the space, which appeared to be used for little apart from storing old chairs and spare artwork of questionable interest, I spotted a large, obviously ancient mirror on the far wall, with the letters "CR" in gilt at the top. David saw me looking at the mirror and told me that it was made for King Charles II, who, in the late 17th century, was a frequent visitor to the area, and would have been entertained in that very room.
After a visit to the ruins of the bishops palace, I headed about a mile through some fields to visit St Cross Hospital. Despite the name, this is not a place where sick people go to be cured (though one could argue that very few of the NHS-run hospitals are), but rather an almshouse, and a very old one at that. It was founded in 1130 to accommodate 13 old poor men, and to feed 100 at the gates daily. By this tradition, you can still ask at the gate for "the dole", and the porter will give you a (very) small cup of beer and a tiny bit of bread. These were not enough to sustain a hearty guy like me, so I had lunch in a pub nearby, as you do.
On the way back, I did get into the cathedral to have a look around, though sadly, the crypt was closed, so I couldn't see the statue of the diver. I did, however, attend an Evensong service, which was sung by the Thames Philharmonic Choir, complete with candles, a big, rumbly pipe organ and a vicar. It was magical, if you're into ecclesiastical aesthetics, as I am.
So having written this, I have to conclude that, despite the depressing town center, the ugly concrete buildings along the railroad tracks and the omnipresent chavs, Winchester was a good day out after all.
So there's the first weekend. Plenty more to come...
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Neighbour
Our neighbo(u)r died last week. Gladys was a sweet old lady, who'd lived in the house next door 'all me life'. She wasn't much for long conversations, but by degrees, I learned that her husband died a long time ago, she had a son named Paul, and she hated the weather here as much as anyone else. She showed me how to lift the fence panel to get into our back garden when I'd locked myself out of the house. She put a nice card through our mail slot at Christmas.
She also had a hacking cough and was nearly deaf. We'd hear her in the morning, her TV on full volume, coughing like my Aunt Thelma did when she fell into the mashed potatoes. We were convinced that Gladys was permanently on the edge, so to speak.
I called the ambulance for her one day when, shortly after we moved in, I heard a crash, a few "bloody hell's" and then silence; when she didn't answer the bell, I panicked. She was fine, of course, but by the time I'd called back to cancel the ambulance, the police had arrived and I had to explain to them why I'd filed a false report. They shrugged it off and promised to cancel the ambulance.
It was on this day that I learned the value of double checking. Coincidentally, it was also on this day that I learned that no one in England ever does what they say they're going to do, so I also had to explain the situation to the ambulance men when they turned up.
Gladys fell one morning on the way to church. We got the story from her son. She broke her elbow, and then had a stroke in the hospital. She died a few days later.
Her garden chairs are stacked neatly.
Goodbye Gladys. I wish we'd had you around for tea.
She also had a hacking cough and was nearly deaf. We'd hear her in the morning, her TV on full volume, coughing like my Aunt Thelma did when she fell into the mashed potatoes. We were convinced that Gladys was permanently on the edge, so to speak.
I called the ambulance for her one day when, shortly after we moved in, I heard a crash, a few "bloody hell's" and then silence; when she didn't answer the bell, I panicked. She was fine, of course, but by the time I'd called back to cancel the ambulance, the police had arrived and I had to explain to them why I'd filed a false report. They shrugged it off and promised to cancel the ambulance.
It was on this day that I learned the value of double checking. Coincidentally, it was also on this day that I learned that no one in England ever does what they say they're going to do, so I also had to explain the situation to the ambulance men when they turned up.
Gladys fell one morning on the way to church. We got the story from her son. She broke her elbow, and then had a stroke in the hospital. She died a few days later.
Her garden chairs are stacked neatly.
Goodbye Gladys. I wish we'd had you around for tea.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Dear Tooth Fairy...
My daughter has been carrying on a running correspondence with the Tooth Fairy. It started innocently enough - a note under the pillow to express her undying love and gratitude, but quickly progressed to more labor intensive missives, like:
Dear Tooth Fairy, I am leaving you a present, will you leave me one?
and
Dear Tooth Fairy, what is your real name? _________ How old are you? __________ What is your favorite color? __________
The above questionnaire was left on the night of a recent small party, so fortunately, our friends obliged with cleverly ambiguous answers:
1) TF
2) as old as time
3) the rainbow
Tonight, accompanying her first front tooth:
Dear Tooth Fiary, please will you poke me in the nose with your magic wand so I can see you? Leave your answer on this line ____________.
Uh, oh. An IRL meeting? Simply out of the question, but what to do...
Dear Caroline, as much as I would love to meet you, the rules are very clear - no one can ever see me or my magic will be lost. That's why I only come around after you've gone to sleep. I hope you understand.
Your Friend,
TF
Hopefully, this will not render her paralyzed with fear of waking up and accidentally seeing the Tooth Fairy. Christ, the stuff I worry about...
Dear Tooth Fairy, I am leaving you a present, will you leave me one?
and
Dear Tooth Fairy, what is your real name? _________ How old are you? __________ What is your favorite color? __________
The above questionnaire was left on the night of a recent small party, so fortunately, our friends obliged with cleverly ambiguous answers:
1) TF
2) as old as time
3) the rainbow
Tonight, accompanying her first front tooth:
Dear Tooth Fiary, please will you poke me in the nose with your magic wand so I can see you? Leave your answer on this line ____________.
Uh, oh. An IRL meeting? Simply out of the question, but what to do...
Dear Caroline, as much as I would love to meet you, the rules are very clear - no one can ever see me or my magic will be lost. That's why I only come around after you've gone to sleep. I hope you understand.
Your Friend,
TF
Hopefully, this will not render her paralyzed with fear of waking up and accidentally seeing the Tooth Fairy. Christ, the stuff I worry about...
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Personality theft
When I was a kid, I thought it would be sooo cool to be a twin. My twin and I could take turns going to classes, astonish our friends by walking out one door and back in through another, keep our parents in a perpetual state of confusion over who was who. Of course, there are some obvious problems with this fantasy, the most obvious being the fact that I don't actually have a twin.
I still wonder, though, whether twins could swap not only identities, but personalities as well. If one is vivacious and outgoing, and the other quiet and cerebral, could the quiet one become an extrovert simply by pretending to be the other? For that matter, would this work with anyone, not just twins?
A while ago, I read a book by Ruth Reichl, who was the New York Times food critic for a number of years. Rather than saunter into a restaurant and receive the grand tratement afforded someone in such an obviously influential position, she would dress up as a nobody (actually one of a wide array of nobodies) and see how the restaurant in question treated ordinary people.
The funny thing about this change of character was that her change in appearance produced an equivalent change in her personality. When she dressed as a grand dame, she became fussy and demanding. When she wore her slinky black dress, she became flirtatious, and when she wore a crazy clownish outfit, she became the life of the party and everybody wanted to be her friend.
I've always thought that personalities are immutable. Our attitudes may change - we may harden on some things and soften on others - but I believed that the core of who we are, introvert or extrovert, active or passive, doesn't change. I wonder now whether this is true. As a very young child, I was friendly and outgoing. There was a big sports camp behind my grandparents' house and when I was 3 or 4, I invited one of the camp counsellors in for tea. (35 years later, Bob still spends a few weeks every summer at a running camp in the Poconos, and still visits my grandparents).
But then something happened and I became, not an introvert as such, but certainly much less outgoing. This was not entirely without benefit - inviting strangers in for tea isn't always a sound approach - but I spent a lot of years feeling socially inept. This is probably not a unique experience, I think most teens go through that stage, but even today, I don't really feel entirely at ease going into situations where I have to meet new people.
The turning point came in the summer of my sophomore year in college, when I had a job as a social director at a small resort. My work consisted largely of shooting clay pigeons and skimming the bets on the horse races. It was a good summer. But as a social director, one has little choice but to be, well, sociable, and so I learned how. I faked it.
Completely by chance, I read an article this morning on how to be bold. The first bit of advice it provided to those who aren't was, basically, fake it. Interesting.
So even if I had a twin, I guess I couldn't swap classes with him, but maybe I could swap identities. Come to think of it, maybe I do have a twin after all.
I still wonder, though, whether twins could swap not only identities, but personalities as well. If one is vivacious and outgoing, and the other quiet and cerebral, could the quiet one become an extrovert simply by pretending to be the other? For that matter, would this work with anyone, not just twins?
A while ago, I read a book by Ruth Reichl, who was the New York Times food critic for a number of years. Rather than saunter into a restaurant and receive the grand tratement afforded someone in such an obviously influential position, she would dress up as a nobody (actually one of a wide array of nobodies) and see how the restaurant in question treated ordinary people.
The funny thing about this change of character was that her change in appearance produced an equivalent change in her personality. When she dressed as a grand dame, she became fussy and demanding. When she wore her slinky black dress, she became flirtatious, and when she wore a crazy clownish outfit, she became the life of the party and everybody wanted to be her friend.
I've always thought that personalities are immutable. Our attitudes may change - we may harden on some things and soften on others - but I believed that the core of who we are, introvert or extrovert, active or passive, doesn't change. I wonder now whether this is true. As a very young child, I was friendly and outgoing. There was a big sports camp behind my grandparents' house and when I was 3 or 4, I invited one of the camp counsellors in for tea. (35 years later, Bob still spends a few weeks every summer at a running camp in the Poconos, and still visits my grandparents).
But then something happened and I became, not an introvert as such, but certainly much less outgoing. This was not entirely without benefit - inviting strangers in for tea isn't always a sound approach - but I spent a lot of years feeling socially inept. This is probably not a unique experience, I think most teens go through that stage, but even today, I don't really feel entirely at ease going into situations where I have to meet new people.
The turning point came in the summer of my sophomore year in college, when I had a job as a social director at a small resort. My work consisted largely of shooting clay pigeons and skimming the bets on the horse races. It was a good summer. But as a social director, one has little choice but to be, well, sociable, and so I learned how. I faked it.
Completely by chance, I read an article this morning on how to be bold. The first bit of advice it provided to those who aren't was, basically, fake it. Interesting.
So even if I had a twin, I guess I couldn't swap classes with him, but maybe I could swap identities. Come to think of it, maybe I do have a twin after all.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Pride cometh before the fall
If you haven't read my 'where do they go' post (the next one), please do so before reading this one. Not that anything bad will happen if you don't - you won't have 10 years of bad luck, you won't lose your job or your house and gas prices are already on the upswing anyway. But really, go ahead. I'll wait...
OK, so having written that in a fit of overweaning pride at the start of my trip last week, I was taken down a peg or two when, on the last leg of my journey, I myself became...That Guy Who Didn't Show Up For The Flight.
After spending the better part of the afternoon and early evening waiting in the Halifax airport (I met some very interesting people during my 5 hour bender) for a much-delayed flight to Newark, and after arriving in Newark and taking the train to the parking lot instead of to the next terminal, I was, shall we say, more than fashionably late for my flight back to London.
This little karmic episode should probably give me pause next time I decide to wax curmudgeonly about someone else's behavior. But it won't, of course...
OK, so having written that in a fit of overweaning pride at the start of my trip last week, I was taken down a peg or two when, on the last leg of my journey, I myself became...That Guy Who Didn't Show Up For The Flight.
After spending the better part of the afternoon and early evening waiting in the Halifax airport (I met some very interesting people during my 5 hour bender) for a much-delayed flight to Newark, and after arriving in Newark and taking the train to the parking lot instead of to the next terminal, I was, shall we say, more than fashionably late for my flight back to London.
This little karmic episode should probably give me pause next time I decide to wax curmudgeonly about someone else's behavior. But it won't, of course...
Where do they go?
We've all heard them - announcements at airports calling for 'passenger Smith travelling on flight 827 to kalamazoo, your flight is ready for departure. Please go to gate 27 immediately!'
Where did he go?
After packing carefully and rising early to make the trek to the airport, after enduring considerable inconvenience at the checkin desk and after being de-belted and de-shoed by the TSA, they just, what, forgot that they were travelling? Got absorbed in a magazine? Fell down drunk in a bar?
It just seems terribly odd that people simply disappear from the airport. Maybe passenger Smith was a spy and has killed someone silently in a bathroom stall, taken his passport, changed his appearance and slipped undetected on a flight to Beijing. Or maybe Smith is an international criminal who was apprehended, quietly so as to not cause a stir among the other travellers, as he waited, shifting uncomfortably on the hard plastic chairs. For him, the loving arms of the American penal system might just be welcome relief after the rigors of air travel.
Or maybe, just maybe, passenger smith is simply one of those unfathomably stupid people which exist everywhere, but seem to be especially plentiful in the airports of America. They all come from the same mould, these sloppy-dressing, Nintendo-playing, ringtone-flaunting, loud-farting, cellphone-talking representatives of the United States. With emissaries like these, it's little wonder that much of the world dislikes Americans. I would too if they were the only ones I'd met.
So long, passenger Smith, your flight has departed without you. And the world is slightly better off for your staying.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Bank Holiday
It is raining. The confinement and the stuffiness inside have made me tired and short-tempered. I want sleep, but the inexorable natter of petulent children, teasing and arguing and crying, grinds away the soft drowsy edge. A door slams. They are short-tempered, too.
Wind-driven rain shears flakes of grey white paint from the window frames; they spiral downwards and then cling, sullenly inert, to the greasy pavement. The tree outside the window shivers and stretches sideways, its overturned leaves the same drained color as the ragged sky.
To break the monotony, we go out, a trip to the mall. In a place where it rains so much, it's surprising that there's so little for young children to do indoors. Television makes me hot and itchy. It makes my eyes hurt. It makes the children want things that they do not need. It steals our time.
The rain has slowed, it is now merely a wet dust. The drops dance in the wind and cling to my face and lashes like tears. This is not a falling rain, it is a settling one. A steel drum band plays grimly under a black canopy in the center of town. The children drop coins in the cases and dance until we are out of earshot. No one stops to listen.
The children splash in puddles with their boots, but even this is tedious to them. They want to go home. They want to be warm and dry. They want to watch television. So do I.
It is still raining.
Wind-driven rain shears flakes of grey white paint from the window frames; they spiral downwards and then cling, sullenly inert, to the greasy pavement. The tree outside the window shivers and stretches sideways, its overturned leaves the same drained color as the ragged sky.
To break the monotony, we go out, a trip to the mall. In a place where it rains so much, it's surprising that there's so little for young children to do indoors. Television makes me hot and itchy. It makes my eyes hurt. It makes the children want things that they do not need. It steals our time.
The rain has slowed, it is now merely a wet dust. The drops dance in the wind and cling to my face and lashes like tears. This is not a falling rain, it is a settling one. A steel drum band plays grimly under a black canopy in the center of town. The children drop coins in the cases and dance until we are out of earshot. No one stops to listen.
The children splash in puddles with their boots, but even this is tedious to them. They want to go home. They want to be warm and dry. They want to watch television. So do I.
It is still raining.
Monday, May 19, 2008
That's No Way to Run an Airline
Geez, has it been a month since the last post? I'm sorry...
I'd intended to tell you all about the Italy trip, but I couldn't find a way to write it so that it reflected the true beauty and warmth of the places we visited, or in a way that didn't come across as travelogue or worse, as self-serving. Suffice to say that if you haven't been to Italy, go now if you can. You'll not regret it.
Parenting is hard. This should come as no surprise to anyone with children. We all like to think of ourselves as good parents, but what does that mean, really? Does it mean never disappointing our kids? I certainly hope not, since I really disappointed Caroline today.
Last night, in a fit of annoyance at all things messy, I threw something of hers away. It was a trifling little thing - a shoe box lid that converts into a doll house, along with whatever doll stuff was in it at the time - because it happened to be on the living room floor, and I happened to be tired of picking up the kid's crap.
When I threw it away, I suppose I knew that she'd be upset, but it wasn't until this morning when, my face just lathered for a shave, the dreaded question came.
"Daddy," she asked sweetly, "where is my doll house lid?"
"What's a doll house lid?" I knew, of course, exactly what she was after, but I stalled as best I could, hoping she'd get distracted by a bit of lint or something.
"That I got with my new shoes."
"New shoes?" I repeated, feigning ignorance; the lather squeaking its accusation across my chin and cheeks.
When I had finally run out of questions, I had no choice but to admit that I'd thrown it away. At first she didn't react, and I thought maybe she hadn't heard, or didn't care. It seemed to take a minute for her face to bloom into full expression of anguish, an unpleasant mix of disappointment, betrayal and anger. I don't wish to see it again.
To add insult to injury, I tried to make it her fault. "Don't leave your toys laying around - I'm sick of picking them up!" This is true enough, but in actual fact, what drove me to it was the cumulative effect of the toys and of the generally apalling state of the kitchen floor, the children having recently completed a project involving something called 'glitter glue'. Curse the twisted mind which spawned this hellish combination of microscopic bits of shiny colored plastic in a thick sticky substance. The residue of this project will be with us for some time to come.
Caroline refused to say goodbye to me this morning. She who usually elbows Michael out of the way for the best position to blow kisses from the front window refused to even look at me as I left.
I've always had a deeply morbid streak, so it's a rare day that I leave the house without at least a fleeting recognition that, life being short and relatively fragile, mine might end at any moment; and that the final mental image the children would have of me after my untimely death would be through that pane of glass, streaked with paint and dust. What a horrible thought, then, was the one that occurred to me today: that my daughter's last memory of me would be of me as asshole.
Off and on, this thought haunted me through the day, and so I was grateful that Caroline was awake when I came home tonight. My reception was chilly at first, but after telling her that it was stupid of me and that I was sorry, she softened. It seems we're on the mend now, since I got her to smile, and even let her scam me into telling her another story.
I used to know a guy who insisted that parents should be never be seen to be wrong by their children. This seems to me an impossible standard to live up to, and, even if one could twist the facts in such a way as to appear to be right all the time (and this is relatively easy to accomplish with kids), the offspring would surely develop a warped view of the world. I'm human. I'm going to be wrong sometimes. I'm going to do stupid shit. I'm going to be an asshole now and again. It's the way life is, best to learn to deal with it young.
This doesn't excuse me being an asshole of course. I'll do my best not to be, but I think it's important for kids to realize that everyone, even their parents, can be wrong sometimes, and even more important for them to see their parents admit when they're wrong and try to make amends.
When British Airways recently began full-scale operations in the new state of the art Terminal 5 at Heathrow airport, there were, predictably, many problems. Baggage handling systems malfunctioned, causing massive delays and cancellations, escalators abruptly converted themselves into steps, employees were late because they hadn't been told where to park. Days of public outrage ensued, during which time, the president of BA more or less buried his head and denied that there was a problem.
By the time he finally fessed up and tried to rectify the problems, it was too late. BA's reputation was damaged, and the airline will have a hard time recovering. I avoid it for business travel when I can (Virgin's sooo much better...). I recall an editorial on the subject, which with profound wisdom pointed out that customers are remarkably forgiving of you making a complete cockup of things, provided you react appropriately, acknowledge the problem, and be seen trying to fix it. The object lesson here is that if you're the president of an airline, a few hours spent helping to sort your customer's bags will do more than any amount of well-placed PR material. And the object lesson for me is that this forgiveness principle applies equally to many things beyond running airlines.
I just hope it applies to parenting.
I'd intended to tell you all about the Italy trip, but I couldn't find a way to write it so that it reflected the true beauty and warmth of the places we visited, or in a way that didn't come across as travelogue or worse, as self-serving. Suffice to say that if you haven't been to Italy, go now if you can. You'll not regret it.
Parenting is hard. This should come as no surprise to anyone with children. We all like to think of ourselves as good parents, but what does that mean, really? Does it mean never disappointing our kids? I certainly hope not, since I really disappointed Caroline today.
Last night, in a fit of annoyance at all things messy, I threw something of hers away. It was a trifling little thing - a shoe box lid that converts into a doll house, along with whatever doll stuff was in it at the time - because it happened to be on the living room floor, and I happened to be tired of picking up the kid's crap.
When I threw it away, I suppose I knew that she'd be upset, but it wasn't until this morning when, my face just lathered for a shave, the dreaded question came.
"Daddy," she asked sweetly, "where is my doll house lid?"
"What's a doll house lid?" I knew, of course, exactly what she was after, but I stalled as best I could, hoping she'd get distracted by a bit of lint or something.
"That I got with my new shoes."
"New shoes?" I repeated, feigning ignorance; the lather squeaking its accusation across my chin and cheeks.
When I had finally run out of questions, I had no choice but to admit that I'd thrown it away. At first she didn't react, and I thought maybe she hadn't heard, or didn't care. It seemed to take a minute for her face to bloom into full expression of anguish, an unpleasant mix of disappointment, betrayal and anger. I don't wish to see it again.
To add insult to injury, I tried to make it her fault. "Don't leave your toys laying around - I'm sick of picking them up!" This is true enough, but in actual fact, what drove me to it was the cumulative effect of the toys and of the generally apalling state of the kitchen floor, the children having recently completed a project involving something called 'glitter glue'. Curse the twisted mind which spawned this hellish combination of microscopic bits of shiny colored plastic in a thick sticky substance. The residue of this project will be with us for some time to come.
Caroline refused to say goodbye to me this morning. She who usually elbows Michael out of the way for the best position to blow kisses from the front window refused to even look at me as I left.
I've always had a deeply morbid streak, so it's a rare day that I leave the house without at least a fleeting recognition that, life being short and relatively fragile, mine might end at any moment; and that the final mental image the children would have of me after my untimely death would be through that pane of glass, streaked with paint and dust. What a horrible thought, then, was the one that occurred to me today: that my daughter's last memory of me would be of me as asshole.
Off and on, this thought haunted me through the day, and so I was grateful that Caroline was awake when I came home tonight. My reception was chilly at first, but after telling her that it was stupid of me and that I was sorry, she softened. It seems we're on the mend now, since I got her to smile, and even let her scam me into telling her another story.
I used to know a guy who insisted that parents should be never be seen to be wrong by their children. This seems to me an impossible standard to live up to, and, even if one could twist the facts in such a way as to appear to be right all the time (and this is relatively easy to accomplish with kids), the offspring would surely develop a warped view of the world. I'm human. I'm going to be wrong sometimes. I'm going to do stupid shit. I'm going to be an asshole now and again. It's the way life is, best to learn to deal with it young.
This doesn't excuse me being an asshole of course. I'll do my best not to be, but I think it's important for kids to realize that everyone, even their parents, can be wrong sometimes, and even more important for them to see their parents admit when they're wrong and try to make amends.
When British Airways recently began full-scale operations in the new state of the art Terminal 5 at Heathrow airport, there were, predictably, many problems. Baggage handling systems malfunctioned, causing massive delays and cancellations, escalators abruptly converted themselves into steps, employees were late because they hadn't been told where to park. Days of public outrage ensued, during which time, the president of BA more or less buried his head and denied that there was a problem.
By the time he finally fessed up and tried to rectify the problems, it was too late. BA's reputation was damaged, and the airline will have a hard time recovering. I avoid it for business travel when I can (Virgin's sooo much better...). I recall an editorial on the subject, which with profound wisdom pointed out that customers are remarkably forgiving of you making a complete cockup of things, provided you react appropriately, acknowledge the problem, and be seen trying to fix it. The object lesson here is that if you're the president of an airline, a few hours spent helping to sort your customer's bags will do more than any amount of well-placed PR material. And the object lesson for me is that this forgiveness principle applies equally to many things beyond running airlines.
I just hope it applies to parenting.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Plot Synopsis and trailer
So we've returned from eating our way through the countryside of northeastern Italy, and are none too happy about being back in grey rainy London. But, on the upside, I no longer have to use my thumbs to blog from my Blackberry, so I will resume the verbosity to which you have surely become accustomed, and describe in glowing detail all that we saw, heard, felt, and most importantly, ate. But not all at once. That would be too overwhelming. For me, anyway.
The seed for this trip was a Fodor's guide to Italy which Michele bought a few years ago. That seed germinated one day some months back when we were racking our brains to find something to do with the kids for Easter break.
A note about the school system here - although the school year runs through mid-July, there are a number of weeklong breaks, called half-terms, which occur at apparently random intervals during the school year. There must be some consistency, though, as all of the airlines and hotels know exactly when to raise their rates so as to coincide with these breaks. I suspect collusion between the local educational authorities and the travel industry.
The Easter break, which is two weeks long, started April 7. Those among you who are either Christians or who study the complexities of the lunar cycles which determine the actual date on which Easter occurs (if you fall into the latter category, I suggest you find a more interesting hobby; perhaps lint collecting would be the way forward), will note that the start of the Easter break date bears no discernable relationship to the actual date of its namesake, which occurred at the end of March. I don't know why it's called the Easter break, and I suspect no one else does, either.
Regardless, the Fodor's guide suggested an itinerary for foodies, a group of which I am most decidedly a member, and this got our attention. The rest seemed straightforward. We decided to stay in four places for three nights each and booked our flights accordingly. From the staggeringly aggressive whirlwind tour suggested by the Fodor's guide (apparently written for those with private helicopters, since you'd need about two weeks just to do the driving), we chose four towns. We started about 40km north of Venice in Treviso, then headed into the mountains to Trento, so far north that it's practically Austria (and was, once), then back south to fair Verona (fictional home of the Capulets and the Montagues) and finally into Venice.
Finding accommodation turned out to be a little tricky. While the first three towns are not exactly off the beaten path, most visitors to northern Italy stay in Milan or Venice, and day trip to the smaller areas like Treviso. And, as we'd be travelling with the kids (this trip was, after all, intended to keep them occupied during the school break), we needed to find places that were child friendly, with room for the kids to stretch their legs and for us to get away from them when needed. Plus, as we were going for 12 nights, cost was a factor. Hotels simply wouldn't work - we've stayed in hotels with the kids and besides being pricey, there's just not enough room in the room.
Once again, Google came to the rescue. "Bed and breakfast, children and Treviso" turned up a bunch of useful and interesting places, and so, our first nights booked and our general approach to finding accommodation solidified, our trip was on.
For the Treviso leg, we stayed in the village of Codogné, about 30 minutes drive from Treviso. I already described the villa and its owner, and our first night's dinner, which was tasty but testy as the children (and us) were well knackered from the journey. Note to self, cheap and easy is the way to go for the first night.
We were pleasantly surprised by how well the kids took to eating late. We ate at 8:00 the second night, and by the third night we were pushing Italians aside to get a table at 9:00. For kids who are accustomed to eating at 5 and being in bed at 7, their adaptation was remarkable, and you may well wonder how we accomplished this transformation. We took a three-pronged approach:
1. Feed them ice cream at 4:00.
2. Make them nap from 5:30-7:30.
3. Find something to occupy them for the duration of the meal.
As you might imagine, item 1 was easily accomplished in the country that invented (or at least perfected) ice cream. The naps came naturally enough, as we simply structured our day so that we'd be in the car for about an hour around naptime, allowing them to fall asleep. Transferring them into the house without waking them was tricky but we managed.
Finding something to keep them busy enough to allow us to enjoy a 2 hour dinner proved somewhat troublesome at first. The initial shine of paper and colored pencils faded quickly until, purely by chance, we found a mealtime entertainment that occupied them for the rest of the trip. On the second or third night, Caroline had drawn an American flag in her notebook. I asked whether they'd learned how to draw the UK flag in school. They hadn't, so I showed her. From then on, both Caroline's and Michael's net output of world flags would have made a Taiwanese factory manager's tiny little stone heart swell with admiration. Their hunger for flag designs was so acute that our own paltry flag knowledge was rapidly depleted.
It seemed that our budding distractionary measure would die an early death until I remembered the lifesaving device I always keep in my pocket - my Blackberry. In 30 seconds, a search for 'world flags' yielded tiny little images of all 170+ flags of the world, and from then on, the kids happily made flags morning, noon and night. You know, I really think this Internet thingy is more than a passing fad.
The children thus occupied, Michele and I turned our attention to more pressing matters - namely, what and where to eat. And wow, did we have some fantastic meals. In fact, every meal we had was memorable in some way. But my fingers are tired, so consider this a starter(a primo piatto, if you will) and I'll describe some of them next time. In the meantime, you can find some of my favorite photos and informative and entertaining commentary here.
The seed for this trip was a Fodor's guide to Italy which Michele bought a few years ago. That seed germinated one day some months back when we were racking our brains to find something to do with the kids for Easter break.
A note about the school system here - although the school year runs through mid-July, there are a number of weeklong breaks, called half-terms, which occur at apparently random intervals during the school year. There must be some consistency, though, as all of the airlines and hotels know exactly when to raise their rates so as to coincide with these breaks. I suspect collusion between the local educational authorities and the travel industry.
The Easter break, which is two weeks long, started April 7. Those among you who are either Christians or who study the complexities of the lunar cycles which determine the actual date on which Easter occurs (if you fall into the latter category, I suggest you find a more interesting hobby; perhaps lint collecting would be the way forward), will note that the start of the Easter break date bears no discernable relationship to the actual date of its namesake, which occurred at the end of March. I don't know why it's called the Easter break, and I suspect no one else does, either.
Regardless, the Fodor's guide suggested an itinerary for foodies, a group of which I am most decidedly a member, and this got our attention. The rest seemed straightforward. We decided to stay in four places for three nights each and booked our flights accordingly. From the staggeringly aggressive whirlwind tour suggested by the Fodor's guide (apparently written for those with private helicopters, since you'd need about two weeks just to do the driving), we chose four towns. We started about 40km north of Venice in Treviso, then headed into the mountains to Trento, so far north that it's practically Austria (and was, once), then back south to fair Verona (fictional home of the Capulets and the Montagues) and finally into Venice.
Finding accommodation turned out to be a little tricky. While the first three towns are not exactly off the beaten path, most visitors to northern Italy stay in Milan or Venice, and day trip to the smaller areas like Treviso. And, as we'd be travelling with the kids (this trip was, after all, intended to keep them occupied during the school break), we needed to find places that were child friendly, with room for the kids to stretch their legs and for us to get away from them when needed. Plus, as we were going for 12 nights, cost was a factor. Hotels simply wouldn't work - we've stayed in hotels with the kids and besides being pricey, there's just not enough room in the room.
Once again, Google came to the rescue. "Bed and breakfast, children and Treviso" turned up a bunch of useful and interesting places, and so, our first nights booked and our general approach to finding accommodation solidified, our trip was on.
For the Treviso leg, we stayed in the village of Codogné, about 30 minutes drive from Treviso. I already described the villa and its owner, and our first night's dinner, which was tasty but testy as the children (and us) were well knackered from the journey. Note to self, cheap and easy is the way to go for the first night.
We were pleasantly surprised by how well the kids took to eating late. We ate at 8:00 the second night, and by the third night we were pushing Italians aside to get a table at 9:00. For kids who are accustomed to eating at 5 and being in bed at 7, their adaptation was remarkable, and you may well wonder how we accomplished this transformation. We took a three-pronged approach:
1. Feed them ice cream at 4:00.
2. Make them nap from 5:30-7:30.
3. Find something to occupy them for the duration of the meal.
As you might imagine, item 1 was easily accomplished in the country that invented (or at least perfected) ice cream. The naps came naturally enough, as we simply structured our day so that we'd be in the car for about an hour around naptime, allowing them to fall asleep. Transferring them into the house without waking them was tricky but we managed.
Finding something to keep them busy enough to allow us to enjoy a 2 hour dinner proved somewhat troublesome at first. The initial shine of paper and colored pencils faded quickly until, purely by chance, we found a mealtime entertainment that occupied them for the rest of the trip. On the second or third night, Caroline had drawn an American flag in her notebook. I asked whether they'd learned how to draw the UK flag in school. They hadn't, so I showed her. From then on, both Caroline's and Michael's net output of world flags would have made a Taiwanese factory manager's tiny little stone heart swell with admiration. Their hunger for flag designs was so acute that our own paltry flag knowledge was rapidly depleted.
It seemed that our budding distractionary measure would die an early death until I remembered the lifesaving device I always keep in my pocket - my Blackberry. In 30 seconds, a search for 'world flags' yielded tiny little images of all 170+ flags of the world, and from then on, the kids happily made flags morning, noon and night. You know, I really think this Internet thingy is more than a passing fad.
The children thus occupied, Michele and I turned our attention to more pressing matters - namely, what and where to eat. And wow, did we have some fantastic meals. In fact, every meal we had was memorable in some way. But my fingers are tired, so consider this a starter(a primo piatto, if you will) and I'll describe some of them next time. In the meantime, you can find some of my favorite photos and informative and entertaining commentary here.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Italy, Day 1
For all its woes, the journey to, the transit through, and the flight from Heathrow couldn't have been better. We were having bloody marys in the lounge less than 90 minutes after leaving home. Well, at least I was. Michele needed to buy some good walking shoes. And a good thing she did, too, as we'll see later.
After the hustle and bustle of the world's busiest airport, Venice's Marco Polo seemed about as busy as the Scranton airport on a Sunday night in February. I had collected the bags before the kids were done with their post-arrival toilet. No trouble at the car rental, didn't even need those International Drivers Permits we agonized over getting (you can only get them in the US if you have a US license, which presents an obvious geographic challenge for us, since it's not like we can just pop over there).
Our first B+B, Villa Ariella in Codogne, north of Treviso, is lovely. It's a 18th century villa, and Patricia, the owner, was helpful and gracious. But as you might expect in a 300 year old house, it's pretty damn cold. The floor is marble tile, which is even damn colder. I think I have frostbite from it.
Last night's dinner was exceptionally tasty, but the kids were miserable. Well, mostly Caroline. She and I went to the grocery store instead of making her nap, which would have been a much better plan. We all ate apples and potato chips and parma ham from the store for a snack, thinking this would hold us until we could have a proper dinner. It didn't. We went to dinner at 7, which is about 2 hours too early by Italian standards, and were the only ones in the place.
Though the food was fantastic (I had venison stew with a sauce that included, I found out later, juniper berries), the constant whinging from the direction of our children made me a little testy. Ok, more than a little.
The water pitchers seemed specifically designed to pour water everywhere but in the glass, so both Michele and I managed to drench the tablecoth on more than one occasion. As if this weren't embarassing enough, Michael insisted on saying 'poop' every third word, and Caroline nearly fell asleep in her chicken.
They slept well.
This morning, after breakfast, the kids did some exploring in the back garden. Had we not insisted that we go sample at least some of what this generous land has to offer, I think they'd still be out there crushing snail shells.
we piled into our rented Mercedes (actually more like a Ford Focus, but comfortable enough) and set the GPS for a town called Asolo. What a lovely little town and well worth all the whining we had to listen to on the way.
One downside of Asolo is that it's pretty much straight uphill from the car park. And not just any hill, mind you, a great, huge, chest pain-inducing medieval hill. No wonder life expectancies then were about 15 years.
And once you reach the pretty little town and have a great big lunch, it's another few hundred feet up to the castle on top of the hill above town. Totally worth it, though, as the view of the mountains and surrounding countryside from up there was just amazing. Or maybe it seemed so cool because of the hallucinations brought on by lack of oxygen to the brain. Can't be certain.
Michael had a good nap this afternoon, and Caroline had a little snooze in the car, so we're all set for a late dinner. My Italian is somewhat limited, so I may or may not have made reservations, possibly for 4 people woth 2 children, and maybe for 8 o'clock tonight. Or I may have insulted the mother of the man who answered the phone. Again, can't be certain.
Now, off to dinner. Ciao!
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Saturday, March 29, 2008
Fish Tale
This morning dawned bright and glorious. Today is the last day of standard time, so it'll be dark again in the morning for a while (at least until the summer solstice, when the sun rises at like 4:30am).
Sunny mornings like today's make we want to jump out of bed and do something productive. The fact that the kids were in our room by 6:00 helped, too. So today, I went on an excursion to Borough Market by myself. I've written about the market before, and we went every Saturday religiously last summer. Visiting the Market makes me to think creatively about food. The rich palate of colors, sights and smells splashed boldly against a backdrop of ancient brick and Victorian iron make it nearly impossible not to be inspired to reach for a new culinary experience.
Today, though, was even better. I rarely get to go to the market without the kids, and never before about 10:00. Today I found myself climbing up from the London Bridge tube station at about 8:15. The streets around the market were empty, so much so that I was thinking that maybe it was closed for the winter right up until I turned into the alley that runs along the side of the market and saw the familiar reds, greens and yellows of the produce stall. Today, I could get as close as I wanted to the stalls. Today, I could browse at a leisurely pace. Today, I actually got to talk to some of the vendors.
Today, I am making sea bass.
Fish is good for us. We should eat more of it. As a kid, I never really liked fish. It was too, well, fishy. I liked fish sticks, though, which back in the 70's actually contained some fish. Ah, the good old days. But I digress.
I had gone with the intention of buying sea bass filets, since I know there are several fishmongers there. I figured I'd make the rest up based on what looked good. Trouble is, everything looked good. It was a difficult decision, but I finally settled on pan-fried sea bass with red chillies and fennel, asparagus and baby carrots and boiled new potatoes. Hm, but wait, that rocket looks good. Maybe a rocket salad to start. With fennel, stilton and a light vinaigrette. Wait, I can't put fennel in the fish, too. Oh, damn.
My first challenge was the fish. As one accustomed to buying his fish in filet form, the prospect of fileting my very expensive sea bass was somewhat daunting. In hindsight, I should have bought a few trout or something to practice on. The web is a great source of information, as I've alluded to previously, but it's difficult to learn from photos how to deal with fish on the hoof, as it were.
I managed to mangle the first attempt, eventually producing two thin strips of pinkish almost boneless flesh. The second turned out much better, though I nearly destroyed that one trying to remove the skin. We'll just have to eat them with the skin on. And watch out for bones.
The carnage over, fish parts sprayed around the kitchen, a sensible person would have taken pity on the poor creature gazing sadly up at me, covered in its own offal. A sensible person would have tossed away the carcass, happy to quit while he's ahead. A sensible person would have poured a glass of wine and read a book. Not me, though. What do you do with a perfectly good fish carcass? You make fish stock, of course! This required another heretofore unattempted feat of knifework, that of removing the gills.
Outside of high school biology, in which I paid very little attention, I haven't dealt with fish gills. Ever. Fortunately, Google came to my rescue yet again, finding for me a helpful diagram of how to remove the gills from a fish. It's a messy process, at least the way I do it.
I'm still cooking, so the menu might change, but here's what I have so far:
- Rocket salad with fennel and stilton, vinaigrette dressing
- Pan fried sea bass with thyme, chillies, leeks and lemon, sauce veloute
- Baby carrots and asparagus
- Boiled new potatoes
- Pear and dark chocolate tartelets
- A 2006 Viognier, highly recommended by my friends at Wimbledon Wine Cellar.
We'll see how this all turns out.
Sunny mornings like today's make we want to jump out of bed and do something productive. The fact that the kids were in our room by 6:00 helped, too. So today, I went on an excursion to Borough Market by myself. I've written about the market before, and we went every Saturday religiously last summer. Visiting the Market makes me to think creatively about food. The rich palate of colors, sights and smells splashed boldly against a backdrop of ancient brick and Victorian iron make it nearly impossible not to be inspired to reach for a new culinary experience.
Today, though, was even better. I rarely get to go to the market without the kids, and never before about 10:00. Today I found myself climbing up from the London Bridge tube station at about 8:15. The streets around the market were empty, so much so that I was thinking that maybe it was closed for the winter right up until I turned into the alley that runs along the side of the market and saw the familiar reds, greens and yellows of the produce stall. Today, I could get as close as I wanted to the stalls. Today, I could browse at a leisurely pace. Today, I actually got to talk to some of the vendors.
Today, I am making sea bass.
Fish is good for us. We should eat more of it. As a kid, I never really liked fish. It was too, well, fishy. I liked fish sticks, though, which back in the 70's actually contained some fish. Ah, the good old days. But I digress.
I had gone with the intention of buying sea bass filets, since I know there are several fishmongers there. I figured I'd make the rest up based on what looked good. Trouble is, everything looked good. It was a difficult decision, but I finally settled on pan-fried sea bass with red chillies and fennel, asparagus and baby carrots and boiled new potatoes. Hm, but wait, that rocket looks good. Maybe a rocket salad to start. With fennel, stilton and a light vinaigrette. Wait, I can't put fennel in the fish, too. Oh, damn.
My first challenge was the fish. As one accustomed to buying his fish in filet form, the prospect of fileting my very expensive sea bass was somewhat daunting. In hindsight, I should have bought a few trout or something to practice on. The web is a great source of information, as I've alluded to previously, but it's difficult to learn from photos how to deal with fish on the hoof, as it were.
I managed to mangle the first attempt, eventually producing two thin strips of pinkish almost boneless flesh. The second turned out much better, though I nearly destroyed that one trying to remove the skin. We'll just have to eat them with the skin on. And watch out for bones.
The carnage over, fish parts sprayed around the kitchen, a sensible person would have taken pity on the poor creature gazing sadly up at me, covered in its own offal. A sensible person would have tossed away the carcass, happy to quit while he's ahead. A sensible person would have poured a glass of wine and read a book. Not me, though. What do you do with a perfectly good fish carcass? You make fish stock, of course! This required another heretofore unattempted feat of knifework, that of removing the gills.
Outside of high school biology, in which I paid very little attention, I haven't dealt with fish gills. Ever. Fortunately, Google came to my rescue yet again, finding for me a helpful diagram of how to remove the gills from a fish. It's a messy process, at least the way I do it.
I'm still cooking, so the menu might change, but here's what I have so far:
- Rocket salad with fennel and stilton, vinaigrette dressing
- Pan fried sea bass with thyme, chillies, leeks and lemon, sauce veloute
- Baby carrots and asparagus
- Boiled new potatoes
- Pear and dark chocolate tartelets
- A 2006 Viognier, highly recommended by my friends at Wimbledon Wine Cellar.
We'll see how this all turns out.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Happy Easter
Geez, sorry I've been away so long. No excuse really, just haven't had the energy or time to write much lately. Seems I was pretty drained by taking care of the children while Michele went' back to the US for a week. It was a lot of fun, actually, getting to observe the children in their natural habitat and all, but I barely sat down from 6:15 in the morning until about 8:30 at night.
I did get a bit of time to myself later in the week - even spent a few hours in a suny park reading a book. Don't think I've done that since college, and back then I only went outside when I couldn't take the smell of whatver it was that had died under my pile of 6 weeks' worth of laundry.
So glad that Michele was back, I went back to work just in time to pack all of my stuff for the move to a new building. I say "new" only in the sense that it's not the building I've been in since moving here. In fact, it's about 20 years old, and shows it. The wallpaper is vaguely reminiscent of a set of kitchen chairs I had in the early 1990's, with colorful spongue painting effects on them. Very leg warmers and big hair.
The view is no great shakes, either. In the first building we were on the top floor, with panoramic views upriver to the City, and all of iconic London spread out below us - Tower Bridge, St. Paul's, the Gherkin, the Eye and, with a bit of a squint and a favorable wind, Big Ben. We shared the clouds with the gods.
Now, from my new 5th floor vantage, I can see the roof of my building and the tube station. Yeah, it's still London, and so by definition, even the new view is more interesting than the view from my office in Conshohocken, which was of the hotel next door, but still...
Caroline lost her first tooth the other day. Most kids would be happy to just stick the tooth under their pillow and get a dime in return for their trouble. Not my daughter. She had to leave a note for the tooth fairy, expressing her undying affection, and requesting a self-portrait. Fortunately, Michele took care of this, as she is, as has been previously noted, the artist in the family.
Having realized on Saturday that not only was I completely unprepared for any sort of Easter dinner on Sunday (except maybe ordering a curry), but also that everything was likely to be closed on Easter, I called a local butcher, who not only had a beautiful 2kilo pork loin in stock, but also delivered it within about 15 minutes! Who says service in England is bad?
What I hadn't really thought about, since I was fully expecting the butcher to be closed on Saturday, was just how much pork is 2kilos. A kilo is 2.2 pounds, for the metrically challenged among you. In short, it's a lotta pork. What to do with this gigantic slab of pig? So, pork loin in hand (er, fridge), I set out to find an interesting recipie.
One of the most wonderful things about the Internet is its ability to find things. Life would really be perfect if I could Google for, say, "where's my remote"? (In fact, I just tried this, and received this list of helpful suggestions). The fact that one can search by a bunch of arbitrary key words is incredibly useful. Finding recipies this way is a breeze. For example, I wanted to do something involving pork, mustard and rosemary (we have a rosemary bush). Rather than needing to know the name of a dish involving each of these ingredients, I just searched for "'pork loin' rosemary mustard".
One of the other downsides about the searching on the Internet is that search engines are generally kind of dumb. While a human of even modest intelligence would realize from those keywords that I was after one recipie containing all three ingredients, Google isn't that smart, at least not yet (the notion of intelligence in searching is part of what's loosely called Web 2.0). So while the results contained mostly recipies with the three ingredients, all three weren't necessarily all in the same dish. This actually turned out to be a good thing, else I'd never have found this: Roasted Pork Loin with Apples and Rosemary. I won't bother repeating the recipie here, but will note that I did this with just the two halves of the pork loin, butterflied, and that I added 3-4 large shallots, finely chopped, to the stuffing. It was delicious. If I did it again, I might lower the oven temp to 350 and plan to let it roast for about 1.75 hours.
In addition, I made a really good batch of Brussels Sprouts. Now, I realize that most of you are turning up your noses, but these are unlike any Brussels Sprouts you're likely to have had. I made a similar dish for Thanksgiving, but I think this one is much improved. The beauty of this is that you can get everything cooked ahead of time, and then at the last minute just heat it all up just before serving. The key to successful Brussels Sprouts is to not cook them too long - overcooked, they become most unpleasant, but done just right, they are crunchy, sweet and a little bit sharp. These went really well with the pork.
Totally Edible Bacon Brussels Sprouts
1 lb fresh Brussels Sprouts
1/2 lb bacon, diced
2 large shallots, finely diced
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp white sugar (might be good with brown sugar, come to think of it)
Tabasco sauce
1/4c cider vinegar
Salt
Fresh ground pepper
Prep (You can do all of this on the day well in advance of serving): wash sprouts and trim off the stems and outer leaves. In a large pan (I use a wok, but that's just my style...), heat olive oil over medium heat, and when hot, drop all of the bacon in and stir it to break it up. Reduce heat to low and let the bacon simmer until it starts to brown. Add the shallots, salt and pepper to taste, a few drops of Tobasco, stir well and continue to cook over low heat until the bacon is dark brown and crisp. Remove from heat and set the whole pan aside.
In the meantime, cook the sprouts by bringing a pot of salted water to the boil and dropping the sprouts in. Cook for 5 minutes (the water will eventually start to boil again, but start counting the 5 minutes as soon as you drop the sprouts in. I happen to like mine pretty crisp; if you prefer them a little less al dente, you can cook them slightly longer, but in any case, no more than 7 minutes or you might as well just throw them away). Drain and put them back into the pot, filling it with cold water. Run cold water over them continuously for about 3 minutes, or until they no longer feel warm. Drain again and set aside.
Finish (just before serving): Heat the bacon mixture over medium-high heat until it starts to sizzle. Add the cider vinegar and stir for a few minutes to deglaze the pan. Then add the sprouts, turn them to coat with the sauce, and heat until hot (1-2 minutes) stirring occasionally. Adjust seasoning if needed.
I hope you all had a happy Easter...
I did get a bit of time to myself later in the week - even spent a few hours in a suny park reading a book. Don't think I've done that since college, and back then I only went outside when I couldn't take the smell of whatver it was that had died under my pile of 6 weeks' worth of laundry.
So glad that Michele was back, I went back to work just in time to pack all of my stuff for the move to a new building. I say "new" only in the sense that it's not the building I've been in since moving here. In fact, it's about 20 years old, and shows it. The wallpaper is vaguely reminiscent of a set of kitchen chairs I had in the early 1990's, with colorful spongue painting effects on them. Very leg warmers and big hair.
The view is no great shakes, either. In the first building we were on the top floor, with panoramic views upriver to the City, and all of iconic London spread out below us - Tower Bridge, St. Paul's, the Gherkin, the Eye and, with a bit of a squint and a favorable wind, Big Ben. We shared the clouds with the gods.
Now, from my new 5th floor vantage, I can see the roof of my building and the tube station. Yeah, it's still London, and so by definition, even the new view is more interesting than the view from my office in Conshohocken, which was of the hotel next door, but still...
Caroline lost her first tooth the other day. Most kids would be happy to just stick the tooth under their pillow and get a dime in return for their trouble. Not my daughter. She had to leave a note for the tooth fairy, expressing her undying affection, and requesting a self-portrait. Fortunately, Michele took care of this, as she is, as has been previously noted, the artist in the family.
Having realized on Saturday that not only was I completely unprepared for any sort of Easter dinner on Sunday (except maybe ordering a curry), but also that everything was likely to be closed on Easter, I called a local butcher, who not only had a beautiful 2kilo pork loin in stock, but also delivered it within about 15 minutes! Who says service in England is bad?
What I hadn't really thought about, since I was fully expecting the butcher to be closed on Saturday, was just how much pork is 2kilos. A kilo is 2.2 pounds, for the metrically challenged among you. In short, it's a lotta pork. What to do with this gigantic slab of pig? So, pork loin in hand (er, fridge), I set out to find an interesting recipie.
One of the most wonderful things about the Internet is its ability to find things. Life would really be perfect if I could Google for, say, "where's my remote"? (In fact, I just tried this, and received this list of helpful suggestions). The fact that one can search by a bunch of arbitrary key words is incredibly useful. Finding recipies this way is a breeze. For example, I wanted to do something involving pork, mustard and rosemary (we have a rosemary bush). Rather than needing to know the name of a dish involving each of these ingredients, I just searched for "'pork loin' rosemary mustard".
One of the other downsides about the searching on the Internet is that search engines are generally kind of dumb. While a human of even modest intelligence would realize from those keywords that I was after one recipie containing all three ingredients, Google isn't that smart, at least not yet (the notion of intelligence in searching is part of what's loosely called Web 2.0). So while the results contained mostly recipies with the three ingredients, all three weren't necessarily all in the same dish. This actually turned out to be a good thing, else I'd never have found this: Roasted Pork Loin with Apples and Rosemary. I won't bother repeating the recipie here, but will note that I did this with just the two halves of the pork loin, butterflied, and that I added 3-4 large shallots, finely chopped, to the stuffing. It was delicious. If I did it again, I might lower the oven temp to 350 and plan to let it roast for about 1.75 hours.
In addition, I made a really good batch of Brussels Sprouts. Now, I realize that most of you are turning up your noses, but these are unlike any Brussels Sprouts you're likely to have had. I made a similar dish for Thanksgiving, but I think this one is much improved. The beauty of this is that you can get everything cooked ahead of time, and then at the last minute just heat it all up just before serving. The key to successful Brussels Sprouts is to not cook them too long - overcooked, they become most unpleasant, but done just right, they are crunchy, sweet and a little bit sharp. These went really well with the pork.
Totally Edible Bacon Brussels Sprouts
1 lb fresh Brussels Sprouts
1/2 lb bacon, diced
2 large shallots, finely diced
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp white sugar (might be good with brown sugar, come to think of it)
Tabasco sauce
1/4c cider vinegar
Salt
Fresh ground pepper
Prep (You can do all of this on the day well in advance of serving): wash sprouts and trim off the stems and outer leaves. In a large pan (I use a wok, but that's just my style...), heat olive oil over medium heat, and when hot, drop all of the bacon in and stir it to break it up. Reduce heat to low and let the bacon simmer until it starts to brown. Add the shallots, salt and pepper to taste, a few drops of Tobasco, stir well and continue to cook over low heat until the bacon is dark brown and crisp. Remove from heat and set the whole pan aside.
In the meantime, cook the sprouts by bringing a pot of salted water to the boil and dropping the sprouts in. Cook for 5 minutes (the water will eventually start to boil again, but start counting the 5 minutes as soon as you drop the sprouts in. I happen to like mine pretty crisp; if you prefer them a little less al dente, you can cook them slightly longer, but in any case, no more than 7 minutes or you might as well just throw them away). Drain and put them back into the pot, filling it with cold water. Run cold water over them continuously for about 3 minutes, or until they no longer feel warm. Drain again and set aside.
Finish (just before serving): Heat the bacon mixture over medium-high heat until it starts to sizzle. Add the cider vinegar and stir for a few minutes to deglaze the pan. Then add the sprouts, turn them to coat with the sauce, and heat until hot (1-2 minutes) stirring occasionally. Adjust seasoning if needed.
I hope you all had a happy Easter...
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Research project
Some time ago, Michele started a fun little family tradition - enclosing a hand drawn picture in Caroline's lunch box. This was cute when she was in preschool and only had lunch at school maybe once a month, but it got old pretty quickly once we had to start sending her lunch with her every day.
Still, never one to willfully disappoint our darling little girl, Michele continued to supply a daily artistic reminder of her undying affection. Continued, that is, until Caroline decided she wanted to have school dinners instead of a packed lunch. There was much rejoicing in our household on the occasion of this pronouncement. School dinners meant that Michele could get back the 20 minutes a day she spent drawing and packing lunch. And at £1.85 a day, it's actually cheaper to buy lunch than to pack it.
Everything was fine until suddenly, for no obvious reason, Caroline decided to switch back to packed lunch. This week. The week Michele's away. The week I'm doing the childcare. Figures.
Any artistic inclination I may have had at birth was mercilessly stamped out of me in the fourth grade by that jackbooted thug otherwise known as Mrs. Sauter, our school principal's secretary. I'm not really sure what jackboots are, but as the word itself sounds fascist and repressive, I can only assume that she wore them. I'll spare you the details, but suffice to say that as the crayon-work of my construction paper snake evidently wasn't up to her exacting standards, she felt compelled to publicly critique my creation, much to the delight of my tittering classmates. Her constructive criticism, like "you went all different ways with your crayon," was just the sort of brutal honesty I needed at that age to quash any notion I may have had either at that time or in future of pursuing anything even loosely affiliated with the world of art.
Many years and many thousands of dollars worth of psychotherapy later, I still vividly recall that painful little incident from my formative years, which is why Caroline could not possibly have chosen a less inconvenient week to revert to packed lunches. I suppose I could have just packed the sandwich and left out the note, but backing down just is not my style.
Scrambling for some acceptable replacement for Michele's quotidien sketch, I hit upon a seemingly simple and foolproof (even for me) plan: a daily joke. What little kid doesn't love a joke? OK, so their sense of comedic timing is a little underdeveloped, but surely someone who thinks the 'orange you glad I didn't say banana' knock-knock joke just gets funnier with each retelling can't be that hard to please.
Or can she? There is a distinct lack of acceptable jokes for first graders. A google search for "first grade joke" turns up any number of jokes about first graders (a priest, a rabbi and a first grader walk into a bar...), but few which are actually for first graders.
A few websites seemed promising on the surface, but their categorization of jokes was utterly useless. Rather than grouping jokes by age range or by type of joke (e.g. knock-knock/what do you get when you cross x with y/dirty limerick/whatever), they choose to classify the jokes by their subject matter. Why on earth would anyone need to find jokes which are exclusively about elephants? Does anyone have that specific a sense of humor? Would they find other pachyderms equally humorous, or is it just the elephant that tickles their fancy? Talk about a fetish.
Anyway, I made do with a few old chestnuts on Monday and Tuesday: 'why did the banana go to the doctor' (extracted from the jokes about fruit section of the aforementioned website) and 'what time is is when an elephant sits on your fence', but I was a little panicky about finding material for the rest of the week.
So today I was browsing for books in the local thrift shops (absolute goldmines those places, by the way, Grandma seems to be on to something with her Nearly New addiction. Oh, and happy 21st birthday, Grandma (Feb 29th). I hope you weren't too hung over the next day...) when I came across the serendipitously titled "1,001 Cool Schoolyard Jokes". It was in new condition, and only 75p. It was bathed in a heavenly light. There were choirs of angels. It was manna in the desert.
But, as so often happens, the euphoria of a seemingly perfect purchase quickly dissipates under the harsh light of a closer examination (closer, anyway, than a glance at the title). Many of the jokes are too complicated or abstract, or just plain stupid to make their way onto that carefully crafted scrap of love in Caroline's lunch pack.
The book is also British (no surprise there, considering where I live), and I encountered, with a surprisingly high frequency, jokes which make absolutely no sense to me. One would think that any random string of words would be uproariously funny so long as at least one of the words is 'elephant', but sadly, I must either lack sufficient cultural context or possess a too high a degree of education to understand such knee-slappers as:
Why do elephants have Big Ears?
Because Noddy refused to pay the ransom.
Still, there are a few chuckles in the book, though almost none of them are going to help me out of the little jam I've gotten myself into.
At least there are only 3 more days. Hey, heard any good jokes lately?
Still, never one to willfully disappoint our darling little girl, Michele continued to supply a daily artistic reminder of her undying affection. Continued, that is, until Caroline decided she wanted to have school dinners instead of a packed lunch. There was much rejoicing in our household on the occasion of this pronouncement. School dinners meant that Michele could get back the 20 minutes a day she spent drawing and packing lunch. And at £1.85 a day, it's actually cheaper to buy lunch than to pack it.
Everything was fine until suddenly, for no obvious reason, Caroline decided to switch back to packed lunch. This week. The week Michele's away. The week I'm doing the childcare. Figures.
Any artistic inclination I may have had at birth was mercilessly stamped out of me in the fourth grade by that jackbooted thug otherwise known as Mrs. Sauter, our school principal's secretary. I'm not really sure what jackboots are, but as the word itself sounds fascist and repressive, I can only assume that she wore them. I'll spare you the details, but suffice to say that as the crayon-work of my construction paper snake evidently wasn't up to her exacting standards, she felt compelled to publicly critique my creation, much to the delight of my tittering classmates. Her constructive criticism, like "you went all different ways with your crayon," was just the sort of brutal honesty I needed at that age to quash any notion I may have had either at that time or in future of pursuing anything even loosely affiliated with the world of art.
Many years and many thousands of dollars worth of psychotherapy later, I still vividly recall that painful little incident from my formative years, which is why Caroline could not possibly have chosen a less inconvenient week to revert to packed lunches. I suppose I could have just packed the sandwich and left out the note, but backing down just is not my style.
Scrambling for some acceptable replacement for Michele's quotidien sketch, I hit upon a seemingly simple and foolproof (even for me) plan: a daily joke. What little kid doesn't love a joke? OK, so their sense of comedic timing is a little underdeveloped, but surely someone who thinks the 'orange you glad I didn't say banana' knock-knock joke just gets funnier with each retelling can't be that hard to please.
Or can she? There is a distinct lack of acceptable jokes for first graders. A google search for "first grade joke" turns up any number of jokes about first graders (a priest, a rabbi and a first grader walk into a bar...), but few which are actually for first graders.
A few websites seemed promising on the surface, but their categorization of jokes was utterly useless. Rather than grouping jokes by age range or by type of joke (e.g. knock-knock/what do you get when you cross x with y/dirty limerick/whatever), they choose to classify the jokes by their subject matter. Why on earth would anyone need to find jokes which are exclusively about elephants? Does anyone have that specific a sense of humor? Would they find other pachyderms equally humorous, or is it just the elephant that tickles their fancy? Talk about a fetish.
Anyway, I made do with a few old chestnuts on Monday and Tuesday: 'why did the banana go to the doctor' (extracted from the jokes about fruit section of the aforementioned website) and 'what time is is when an elephant sits on your fence', but I was a little panicky about finding material for the rest of the week.
So today I was browsing for books in the local thrift shops (absolute goldmines those places, by the way, Grandma seems to be on to something with her Nearly New addiction. Oh, and happy 21st birthday, Grandma (Feb 29th). I hope you weren't too hung over the next day...) when I came across the serendipitously titled "1,001 Cool Schoolyard Jokes". It was in new condition, and only 75p. It was bathed in a heavenly light. There were choirs of angels. It was manna in the desert.
But, as so often happens, the euphoria of a seemingly perfect purchase quickly dissipates under the harsh light of a closer examination (closer, anyway, than a glance at the title). Many of the jokes are too complicated or abstract, or just plain stupid to make their way onto that carefully crafted scrap of love in Caroline's lunch pack.
The book is also British (no surprise there, considering where I live), and I encountered, with a surprisingly high frequency, jokes which make absolutely no sense to me. One would think that any random string of words would be uproariously funny so long as at least one of the words is 'elephant', but sadly, I must either lack sufficient cultural context or possess a too high a degree of education to understand such knee-slappers as:
Why do elephants have Big Ears?
Because Noddy refused to pay the ransom.
Still, there are a few chuckles in the book, though almost none of them are going to help me out of the little jam I've gotten myself into.
At least there are only 3 more days. Hey, heard any good jokes lately?
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Self-service
We had a breakthrough this morning. Now, bear with me, because this probably seems insignificant, but Caroline got her own breakfast. Ok, maybe it IS insignificant, but I think it represents an important step for her in her progression towards adulthood.
It's not that I was worried that we'd have to get her cereal for her when she's 18, but I think it's important that she learn to do things on her own. 'I can't do it' seems to be one of her favorite phrases, especially when she's tired. I think the knowledge that she can, in fact, do things for herself, like get her own food, will help her see that she is actually quite capable.
Also, if she gets her own breakfast, it means that I don't have to, which is an important consideration for next week, when Michele's away and I have the kiddos all on my own. Maybe I can get her to walk to school on her own, too...
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Sunday, February 24, 2008
A new approach
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how the kids were driving me nuts. For some reason, every time they opened their mouths that weekend, it was like nails on a chalkboard. I blame this on the full moon. My jangled nerves have now recovered, and the kids have actually been pretty good at playing together and entertaining each other.
Occasionally they do fight. Today they were mad at each other for whatever reason, and they had a fight about who was madder.
"I'm so cross at you!"
"Well I'm crosser than you!"
"No you're not, I am!"
"No, I am!"
And so on and so forth.
Just a few weeks ago, I would have been beside myself that they were arguing over something so patently riduculous as who was angrier at whom. But not today. Today I am a new man. No, I haven't gotten a Valium prescription, I've discovered the concept of Idle Parenting. OK, it's not exactly an approach endorsed by the American Academy of Pedriatics, but it does mirror my own sentiments pretty well: leave the kids alone and let them sort out their own problems.
I'll step in if someone's getting hurt or they're straying too far from acceptable norms (this morning, they were kissing each other's butts. No idea where they got that, but I had to draw the line on that one), but otherwise, I leave them to just have fun by themselves. At the moment, they're playing moles. I'm the daddy mole. Not sure what a real daddy mole is supposed to do, but this daddy mole is gonna just keep blogging. Oh, I'll still play with them, but I refuse to feel guilty about doing my own thing most of the time.
This approach has benefits for both me and the kids. I get to do my own thing now and again, and because I don't feel so obligated to forgo my own pastimes in favor of theirs, I have more patience and energy for them. This morning, Michael broke a plate because he was doing something I've told him a zillion times not to do. I was actually surprised by how not angry I was. Sure, I told him off a bit because the situation would have been avoided had he simply not done what I told him not to do, but he wasn't being malicious, he was clearly upset about it, and he told me exactly what had happened without being evasive, so I didn't give him too much grief about it.
I think it also benefits them by letting them figure out how to get along. By not stepping in every time one of them starts whinging at the other, they have no choice but to find a way to get along, even if it's by separating themselves. And I've discovered something completely unexpected: almost without fail, if left to their own devices, their fights end in fits of laughter.
We'll see how it goes. If nothing else, this gives me more time for blogging.
Occasionally they do fight. Today they were mad at each other for whatever reason, and they had a fight about who was madder.
"I'm so cross at you!"
"Well I'm crosser than you!"
"No you're not, I am!"
"No, I am!"
And so on and so forth.
Just a few weeks ago, I would have been beside myself that they were arguing over something so patently riduculous as who was angrier at whom. But not today. Today I am a new man. No, I haven't gotten a Valium prescription, I've discovered the concept of Idle Parenting. OK, it's not exactly an approach endorsed by the American Academy of Pedriatics, but it does mirror my own sentiments pretty well: leave the kids alone and let them sort out their own problems.
I'll step in if someone's getting hurt or they're straying too far from acceptable norms (this morning, they were kissing each other's butts. No idea where they got that, but I had to draw the line on that one), but otherwise, I leave them to just have fun by themselves. At the moment, they're playing moles. I'm the daddy mole. Not sure what a real daddy mole is supposed to do, but this daddy mole is gonna just keep blogging. Oh, I'll still play with them, but I refuse to feel guilty about doing my own thing most of the time.
This approach has benefits for both me and the kids. I get to do my own thing now and again, and because I don't feel so obligated to forgo my own pastimes in favor of theirs, I have more patience and energy for them. This morning, Michael broke a plate because he was doing something I've told him a zillion times not to do. I was actually surprised by how not angry I was. Sure, I told him off a bit because the situation would have been avoided had he simply not done what I told him not to do, but he wasn't being malicious, he was clearly upset about it, and he told me exactly what had happened without being evasive, so I didn't give him too much grief about it.
I think it also benefits them by letting them figure out how to get along. By not stepping in every time one of them starts whinging at the other, they have no choice but to find a way to get along, even if it's by separating themselves. And I've discovered something completely unexpected: almost without fail, if left to their own devices, their fights end in fits of laughter.
We'll see how it goes. If nothing else, this gives me more time for blogging.
A case of bacon
One of my colleagues recently resigned to go travelling for a year. He and his girlfriend will be visiting pretty much everywhere but Antarctica over the next 12 months. At one of his myriad leaving dos, the subject of food and the availability, or lack thereof, of familiar food products in various parts of the world inevitably made its way into the conversation.
Now. I'm not one of these people who travels but eats at McDonald's. I have made a genuine and modestly successful attempt to enjoy all that the local cuisine has to offer no matter where I am. I've eaten jellyfish and chicken feet in Hong Kong, pigeon and snails in France, Wiener schnitzel and bratwurst in Vienna. I've eaten curry at a gas station. And I like most of the food here, too. Sausage and mash and a pint of bitter (warm nd flat, thank you very much) is one of my favorite meals.
But while I believe that a certain flexibility and adventurousness of palate is a vital attribute for successful travelling, I do confess a longing for certain American-style items. Bacon is one of the biggies. The bacon here is thick and fatty and salty, more a fried slab of ham than anything else. So it was with a good deal of surprise when Steve, the aspiring world traveller, said that among the things he'd miss were being able to get a decent cup of tea and a rasher of bacon. This wasn't a case of Steve never having had American bacon - he had - he simply preferred British bacon. I was shocked, partly at the realization that there are people who actually like the bacon here, but largely because it hadn't occurred to me that anyone would like the bacon here.
It's obvious that our tastes are predicated at least in part by what we're accustomed to, but I think I really thought that once someone tried American bacon, they'd just realize what they were missing all these years and become an immediate convert. Clearly this isn't the case. There's nothing inherently superior about American bacon, just as there's nothing inherently superior about cold beer, or French wine. The percieved superiority of any one thing over any other rough equivalent is entirely subjective.
There's some evidence to suggest that people's appreciation of wine is directly proportional to its price; a more expensive bottle is judged to taste better. Clearly there's more to our tastes than just, well, how it tastes. I'll try to bear this in mind next time I'm feeling that sense of culinary superiority. In the meantime, though, I'm glad to know that our local Morrison's supermarket sells Oscar Mayer American bacon. Yum.
Now. I'm not one of these people who travels but eats at McDonald's. I have made a genuine and modestly successful attempt to enjoy all that the local cuisine has to offer no matter where I am. I've eaten jellyfish and chicken feet in Hong Kong, pigeon and snails in France, Wiener schnitzel and bratwurst in Vienna. I've eaten curry at a gas station. And I like most of the food here, too. Sausage and mash and a pint of bitter (warm nd flat, thank you very much) is one of my favorite meals.
But while I believe that a certain flexibility and adventurousness of palate is a vital attribute for successful travelling, I do confess a longing for certain American-style items. Bacon is one of the biggies. The bacon here is thick and fatty and salty, more a fried slab of ham than anything else. So it was with a good deal of surprise when Steve, the aspiring world traveller, said that among the things he'd miss were being able to get a decent cup of tea and a rasher of bacon. This wasn't a case of Steve never having had American bacon - he had - he simply preferred British bacon. I was shocked, partly at the realization that there are people who actually like the bacon here, but largely because it hadn't occurred to me that anyone would like the bacon here.
It's obvious that our tastes are predicated at least in part by what we're accustomed to, but I think I really thought that once someone tried American bacon, they'd just realize what they were missing all these years and become an immediate convert. Clearly this isn't the case. There's nothing inherently superior about American bacon, just as there's nothing inherently superior about cold beer, or French wine. The percieved superiority of any one thing over any other rough equivalent is entirely subjective.
There's some evidence to suggest that people's appreciation of wine is directly proportional to its price; a more expensive bottle is judged to taste better. Clearly there's more to our tastes than just, well, how it tastes. I'll try to bear this in mind next time I'm feeling that sense of culinary superiority. In the meantime, though, I'm glad to know that our local Morrison's supermarket sells Oscar Mayer American bacon. Yum.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Well, thats lousy
One of the differences between the US and the UK is the school system, specifically, the expectations of the school around attendance. In a country where parents are summarily arrested for keeping their kids out of school, one develops a somewhat different outlook when considering whether to send the kids to school on a given morning.
When I grew up, if you were sick, you didn't go to school. If you had a fever, you stayed home for 24 hours afterwards. This simple system obviously left itself open to abuse (a radiator was always a useful device for skipping a much-feared test), but the net effect was that kids didn't repeatedly spread their various illnesses through the class.
Here, though, kids are sent to school regardless of their ailment. Fevers, stomach viruses, run of the mill colds. Head lice. Yes, kids are sent to school even if they have lice. I'm sure most of you remember those days when lice was found on some poor kid (usually the least popular kid in the school), and then everyone was called down to the nurse's office for a hair inspection, and the unlucky few who had the little critters in their hair were quietly sent home. Well, they don't do that here. Instead, the kids just go to school every day. And, naturally, this leads to epidemics - of lice and of many other things.
Caroline had lice yesterday. One of her friends had it a few weeks ago (her nanny told us) and naturally we've been checking her hair every day since. It's not a big deal, there's a treatment for it which seems to be reasonably effective, but I still find it odd that people don't feel compelled to take even the slightest precautions to avoid spreading diseases and, ick, bugs. Contrast this attitude with that of the Japanese, where sick people wear surgical masks to avoid spreading their germs, and the cultural difference becomes even more obvious.
Yuck. I'm all itchy now.
When I grew up, if you were sick, you didn't go to school. If you had a fever, you stayed home for 24 hours afterwards. This simple system obviously left itself open to abuse (a radiator was always a useful device for skipping a much-feared test), but the net effect was that kids didn't repeatedly spread their various illnesses through the class.
Here, though, kids are sent to school regardless of their ailment. Fevers, stomach viruses, run of the mill colds. Head lice. Yes, kids are sent to school even if they have lice. I'm sure most of you remember those days when lice was found on some poor kid (usually the least popular kid in the school), and then everyone was called down to the nurse's office for a hair inspection, and the unlucky few who had the little critters in their hair were quietly sent home. Well, they don't do that here. Instead, the kids just go to school every day. And, naturally, this leads to epidemics - of lice and of many other things.
Caroline had lice yesterday. One of her friends had it a few weeks ago (her nanny told us) and naturally we've been checking her hair every day since. It's not a big deal, there's a treatment for it which seems to be reasonably effective, but I still find it odd that people don't feel compelled to take even the slightest precautions to avoid spreading diseases and, ick, bugs. Contrast this attitude with that of the Japanese, where sick people wear surgical masks to avoid spreading their germs, and the cultural difference becomes even more obvious.
Yuck. I'm all itchy now.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Reduction Redux
On Wednesday our department had its reduction in force exercise (I wrote about the prospect of this in a previous post, in which I participated, though not, thankfully, as a victim.
Having been through several of these in the past, I know the drill. The calls start at 9:00, and by about 9:00:01 absolutely everybody in the firm knows exactly what's going on. By 11:00, it's all over, the managers have a meeting to tell everyone it's done, then we all heave a collective sigh of relief and go back to work, albeit much subdued.
This one was different.
For starters, it went on for a looong time. Our group lost a relatively small number of people compared to some others, but the calls didn't start on our floor until about 1:45. And the meeting meant to provide reassurance that it was all over wasn't terribly reassuring; where the message is normally 'that's it', the message on Wednesday was basically 'that's it - for now'.
But the biggest difference this time was my involvement in the process. The senior managers were all occupied with HR doing the layoffs, so as the only senior-ish guy left on the floor, I had to make sure that the people being let go took their things quietly and left without a fuss. This was most unpleasant for me, though I feel bad about feeling bad, because at least at the end of the day I still had a job. Many of my colleagues didn't.
As they don't publish a list of people let go, it's only through osmosis that I've begun to see the extent of Wednesday's activities - a bounced email here, a summarily cancelled meeting there. In the past week, I've also received a flood of LinkedIn (a social networking site which allows people who worked together to contact each other) requests from former colleagues. It seems that lots of people I know, many of whom I've worked with for years, are no longer gainfully employed. And these aren't people that you'd generally say were part of the fat; we're cutting into the muscle now.
But this is how it is in the financial services industry. The press makes much of the size of the pay packets of people working in this industry, but the reason for this, which has only just sunk in for me, is that careers in this industry are often short. Banks are pretty much just buildings, the real assets are its people. The only way banks can scale up or down is by adding or removing staff. Trouble is, very few of us, myself included, take this reality into consideration in our lifestyle. Our spending tends to be in line with our current earnings, we don't discount for the possibility that the earnings river can easily dry up.
The other difference this time around is that all of the firms in our industry are cutting staff. Normally, when people are let go from one firm, then pop up shortly thereafter at another. Eventually, they come back when things get better, and the cycle continues. We're an incestuous little bunch. This time, though, because everyone's downsizing at the same time, there's not a lot of room at the other firms either. People are saying that you need 12 months of reserves if you get laid off today. Let's see, we've got, um, not nearly that many.
After this week, I feel really fortunate to have a job. I hope it stays that way for a while.
Having been through several of these in the past, I know the drill. The calls start at 9:00, and by about 9:00:01 absolutely everybody in the firm knows exactly what's going on. By 11:00, it's all over, the managers have a meeting to tell everyone it's done, then we all heave a collective sigh of relief and go back to work, albeit much subdued.
This one was different.
For starters, it went on for a looong time. Our group lost a relatively small number of people compared to some others, but the calls didn't start on our floor until about 1:45. And the meeting meant to provide reassurance that it was all over wasn't terribly reassuring; where the message is normally 'that's it', the message on Wednesday was basically 'that's it - for now'.
But the biggest difference this time was my involvement in the process. The senior managers were all occupied with HR doing the layoffs, so as the only senior-ish guy left on the floor, I had to make sure that the people being let go took their things quietly and left without a fuss. This was most unpleasant for me, though I feel bad about feeling bad, because at least at the end of the day I still had a job. Many of my colleagues didn't.
As they don't publish a list of people let go, it's only through osmosis that I've begun to see the extent of Wednesday's activities - a bounced email here, a summarily cancelled meeting there. In the past week, I've also received a flood of LinkedIn (a social networking site which allows people who worked together to contact each other) requests from former colleagues. It seems that lots of people I know, many of whom I've worked with for years, are no longer gainfully employed. And these aren't people that you'd generally say were part of the fat; we're cutting into the muscle now.
But this is how it is in the financial services industry. The press makes much of the size of the pay packets of people working in this industry, but the reason for this, which has only just sunk in for me, is that careers in this industry are often short. Banks are pretty much just buildings, the real assets are its people. The only way banks can scale up or down is by adding or removing staff. Trouble is, very few of us, myself included, take this reality into consideration in our lifestyle. Our spending tends to be in line with our current earnings, we don't discount for the possibility that the earnings river can easily dry up.
The other difference this time around is that all of the firms in our industry are cutting staff. Normally, when people are let go from one firm, then pop up shortly thereafter at another. Eventually, they come back when things get better, and the cycle continues. We're an incestuous little bunch. This time, though, because everyone's downsizing at the same time, there's not a lot of room at the other firms either. People are saying that you need 12 months of reserves if you get laid off today. Let's see, we've got, um, not nearly that many.
After this week, I feel really fortunate to have a job. I hope it stays that way for a while.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Bully Update
So here's what we've done so far.
- I had a talk with Caroline to let her know that we're on her side and that we're going to help her stop this sort of thing happening. I also let her know that Olive has no right to push her, or anyone else around. This conversation was a little difficult because I had to explain the concept of a 'right', which is pretty abstract for a 6 year old.
- Michele made an appointment for us to discuss the situation with Caroline's teacher.
- I practiced 'Hey, don't push me!' with Caroline until she could say it loudly and firmly.
I realized tonight that maybe my initial reluctance to deal with this situation myself was because it sort of forces me to relive the memory of being picked on. I wouldn't be much of a parent, though, if I let that stand in my way.
There were no more incidents today. We'll see how it goes.
- I had a talk with Caroline to let her know that we're on her side and that we're going to help her stop this sort of thing happening. I also let her know that Olive has no right to push her, or anyone else around. This conversation was a little difficult because I had to explain the concept of a 'right', which is pretty abstract for a 6 year old.
- Michele made an appointment for us to discuss the situation with Caroline's teacher.
- I practiced 'Hey, don't push me!' with Caroline until she could say it loudly and firmly.
I realized tonight that maybe my initial reluctance to deal with this situation myself was because it sort of forces me to relive the memory of being picked on. I wouldn't be much of a parent, though, if I let that stand in my way.
There were no more incidents today. We'll see how it goes.
Super Tuesday
Today is Super Tuesday. It is also Pancake Day. These two things have nothing to do with each other, but they certainly do make it a special day. Let me explain.
Pancake Day is the name by which Mardi Gras is known here. You see, the weather is generally much too iffy here in February for drunken mobs to revel in the streets. That sort of thing is much more suited to summer, so the Notting Hill Carnival is conveniently scheduled for the August bank holiday. So today, instead of parades and string bands and public intoxication and the inevitable nudity that attends it, they have pancakes. Hence Pancake Day. It's much more civilized, though not nearly as much fun.
Super Tuesday, on the other hand, is wholly American. It's the day on which both the Republican and Democratic parties hold nearly half of the state primaries. Some of the more civic-minded of you will be shocked to learn that, among all of the considerations surrounding moving here (where to live, how to get to work, will I ever see my stuff again), we never once considered how we might vote whilst living abroad. This may be because we seldom voted whilst living in the US.
However, today, I was seized with a sudden and inexplicable need to cast my ballot for the next Democratic interviewee for the job of Most Powerful Person In The World. OK, so voting in a primary isn't exactly the same as voting in the actual election, but I think it's ironic that my sense of civic duty seems to have been heightened dramatically by living outside the cosy confines of the good old U.S. of A.
And so it was with high spirits that Michele set out from Wimbledon, children in tow, to meet me in deepest, darkest, poshest London, where Democrats Abroad was holding a primary election, just for us ex pats. How, you might ask, does that work? Apparently, and the Democratic Convention, there are 51 delegations - one from each state, and one from the DA. There are 22 DA delegates, which isn't all that many, really, but hey, every little bit helps.
At first, all was well. We arrived at the venue without incident, though there was a substantial queue, the event having just begun. Inside, though, was mayhem. Last election, the Democrats Abroad organization hired a hall for 400. This time, there were probably 400 people in line with us 5 minutes after the doors opened. Had we registered? No. OK, go stand in that line. 40 minutes later, the children and me both needing a drink, we had the precious ballots in our hands and were ready to cast our vote for party and country. But where to deposit the ballots? Ah, therin lies the rub. Up several flights of stairs we were told. This was not the best arrangement for people with two small children and a stroller. Bright idea - I'll take both ballots and Michele can take the kids outside to consort with the news crews and hopefully get a little airtime.
Of course, as you might imagine, one person submitting two ballots caused something of a stir amongst the hair-and-voice-made-for-politics election monitors. Incredibly, in the First World, one person is only allowed to submit one ballot. This despite my having asked the competent-sounding vounteers manning the registration station downstairs, and having received enthusiastic permission from said staffers. There may also have been a certain amount of reluctance to allow me to vote twice because there were camera crews everywhere around me as I turned in my ballot. In the end, I ended up just dropping Michele's into a box marked 'Ballots' on my way out.
Back home, children in bed, Michele and I tucked into our very English curry and decided that yes, it had indeed been a super Tuesday. Even without the pancakes. Let's hope our guy wins.
Pancake Day is the name by which Mardi Gras is known here. You see, the weather is generally much too iffy here in February for drunken mobs to revel in the streets. That sort of thing is much more suited to summer, so the Notting Hill Carnival is conveniently scheduled for the August bank holiday. So today, instead of parades and string bands and public intoxication and the inevitable nudity that attends it, they have pancakes. Hence Pancake Day. It's much more civilized, though not nearly as much fun.
Super Tuesday, on the other hand, is wholly American. It's the day on which both the Republican and Democratic parties hold nearly half of the state primaries. Some of the more civic-minded of you will be shocked to learn that, among all of the considerations surrounding moving here (where to live, how to get to work, will I ever see my stuff again), we never once considered how we might vote whilst living abroad. This may be because we seldom voted whilst living in the US.
However, today, I was seized with a sudden and inexplicable need to cast my ballot for the next Democratic interviewee for the job of Most Powerful Person In The World. OK, so voting in a primary isn't exactly the same as voting in the actual election, but I think it's ironic that my sense of civic duty seems to have been heightened dramatically by living outside the cosy confines of the good old U.S. of A.
And so it was with high spirits that Michele set out from Wimbledon, children in tow, to meet me in deepest, darkest, poshest London, where Democrats Abroad was holding a primary election, just for us ex pats. How, you might ask, does that work? Apparently, and the Democratic Convention, there are 51 delegations - one from each state, and one from the DA. There are 22 DA delegates, which isn't all that many, really, but hey, every little bit helps.
At first, all was well. We arrived at the venue without incident, though there was a substantial queue, the event having just begun. Inside, though, was mayhem. Last election, the Democrats Abroad organization hired a hall for 400. This time, there were probably 400 people in line with us 5 minutes after the doors opened. Had we registered? No. OK, go stand in that line. 40 minutes later, the children and me both needing a drink, we had the precious ballots in our hands and were ready to cast our vote for party and country. But where to deposit the ballots? Ah, therin lies the rub. Up several flights of stairs we were told. This was not the best arrangement for people with two small children and a stroller. Bright idea - I'll take both ballots and Michele can take the kids outside to consort with the news crews and hopefully get a little airtime.
Of course, as you might imagine, one person submitting two ballots caused something of a stir amongst the hair-and-voice-made-for-politics election monitors. Incredibly, in the First World, one person is only allowed to submit one ballot. This despite my having asked the competent-sounding vounteers manning the registration station downstairs, and having received enthusiastic permission from said staffers. There may also have been a certain amount of reluctance to allow me to vote twice because there were camera crews everywhere around me as I turned in my ballot. In the end, I ended up just dropping Michele's into a box marked 'Ballots' on my way out.
Back home, children in bed, Michele and I tucked into our very English curry and decided that yes, it had indeed been a super Tuesday. Even without the pancakes. Let's hope our guy wins.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Bully
Here's something you might not know about me. As a child, I was teased. A lot. I was fat, and uncoordinated and bad at sports and not terribly sharp-witted when it came to retorts. "I know you are, but what am I?"
And so it is really terribly painful on many levels to see Caroline, who has never been anything but gentle and kind-hearted and loving, being targeted by a bully at school. We'd like to think that our daughters, at least at this age, would be immune from the sort of behavior that is generally exhibited by 12 year old boys, but sadly, they are not. Caroline's an easy mark; she cries at some of the most insignificant things. And I think it is because of this hypersensitivity that one of the girls in her class has decided to work out her aggression on Caroline.
Today, this girl, we'll call her Olive, told some of the other girls at lunch that she was going to "do something" to Caroline. And she did. Olive pushed her. Hard enough, evidently, that Caroline fell down. Caroline told us about this incident tonight.
I never had the nerve to tell my mother when I'd been given a hard time. I remember Billy Rinehart giving me a face full of dust and small rocks on the playground in kindergarten for no obvious reason other than because I happened to be there and he'd decided he didn't care for me all that much. I don't think I've ever told anyone about that. I've saved that particular painful memory to share with all of you. Feel free to squirm uncomfortably. Go on. I'll wait.
But this isn't about me. It's about my little girl. My flesh and blood. One of a very small number of people for whom I'd gladly give my own life to save hers. So what to do? The first instinct, of course, is to encourage Caroline to fight back. Hit Olive. Hard. But of course, this is like telling a man who's dying of thirst in a desert that he just needs some water. If Caroline had the means to fight back, she would have done so already. I think we need to find a more useful approach, or at least a more practical one.
We could talk to the teacher, I suppose, but I wonder what this would lead to. Anger management discussions with Olive, added stress for the separated parents, more bullying in retribution. Trouble is, I know Olive's father. We've met a few times at school functions. We're in the same line of work, so we trade shop stories and share our dreams of doing something more. He's a decent guy trying to raise his kid under trying circumstances, and not the sort of person you would feel unremorseful, maybe even privately gleeful, to bring down a peg or two.
Still, I can't stand by and let my daughter be victimized by his kid. Other strategies that Caroline might use, like walking away or telling the teacher, seem weak and ineffective, the sort of thing a parent might advise his child to do when he can't come up with anything better. Or doesn't care enough to.
The more I think about this, the more I think we need to step in here. I'm conscious of setting the precedent of fighting Caroline's battles for her, but there's a qualitative difference between the sorts of things she's complained about Olive having done in the past and this. Olive has no right to push Caroline or anyone else around, and Caroline needs to know that we're on her side. The last thing I want is for her to feel like she deserves bad treatment at the hands of anyone, because I think that attitude will do more damage than any amount of parental protectionism.
I'll let you know how it goes.
And so it is really terribly painful on many levels to see Caroline, who has never been anything but gentle and kind-hearted and loving, being targeted by a bully at school. We'd like to think that our daughters, at least at this age, would be immune from the sort of behavior that is generally exhibited by 12 year old boys, but sadly, they are not. Caroline's an easy mark; she cries at some of the most insignificant things. And I think it is because of this hypersensitivity that one of the girls in her class has decided to work out her aggression on Caroline.
Today, this girl, we'll call her Olive, told some of the other girls at lunch that she was going to "do something" to Caroline. And she did. Olive pushed her. Hard enough, evidently, that Caroline fell down. Caroline told us about this incident tonight.
I never had the nerve to tell my mother when I'd been given a hard time. I remember Billy Rinehart giving me a face full of dust and small rocks on the playground in kindergarten for no obvious reason other than because I happened to be there and he'd decided he didn't care for me all that much. I don't think I've ever told anyone about that. I've saved that particular painful memory to share with all of you. Feel free to squirm uncomfortably. Go on. I'll wait.
But this isn't about me. It's about my little girl. My flesh and blood. One of a very small number of people for whom I'd gladly give my own life to save hers. So what to do? The first instinct, of course, is to encourage Caroline to fight back. Hit Olive. Hard. But of course, this is like telling a man who's dying of thirst in a desert that he just needs some water. If Caroline had the means to fight back, she would have done so already. I think we need to find a more useful approach, or at least a more practical one.
We could talk to the teacher, I suppose, but I wonder what this would lead to. Anger management discussions with Olive, added stress for the separated parents, more bullying in retribution. Trouble is, I know Olive's father. We've met a few times at school functions. We're in the same line of work, so we trade shop stories and share our dreams of doing something more. He's a decent guy trying to raise his kid under trying circumstances, and not the sort of person you would feel unremorseful, maybe even privately gleeful, to bring down a peg or two.
Still, I can't stand by and let my daughter be victimized by his kid. Other strategies that Caroline might use, like walking away or telling the teacher, seem weak and ineffective, the sort of thing a parent might advise his child to do when he can't come up with anything better. Or doesn't care enough to.
The more I think about this, the more I think we need to step in here. I'm conscious of setting the precedent of fighting Caroline's battles for her, but there's a qualitative difference between the sorts of things she's complained about Olive having done in the past and this. Olive has no right to push Caroline or anyone else around, and Caroline needs to know that we're on her side. The last thing I want is for her to feel like she deserves bad treatment at the hands of anyone, because I think that attitude will do more damage than any amount of parental protectionism.
I'll let you know how it goes.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Whipitupitude
One of my favorite pastimes (apart from beers down the pub) is cooking. I especially like cooking because it allows me to indulge several of my favorite pastimes all at once: shopping, cooking and drinking wine.
One of the problems anyone who cooks with any regularity faces, however, is leftovers. I hate leftovers. Despise 'em. But of course, you can't just throw them out because you paid good money for them, and it's wasteful. So they sit in the fridge, eating up space (and in our fridge, space is at a premium - I've bought shoes that come in larger boxes) until they're hairy and unidentifiable, and then they get thrown away.
But I've developed a new way to deal with leftovers: turn them into something completely new and different. This is what I call 'whipitupitude' - neither art nor science (or maybe a bit of both), but the act of combining otherwise unappealing leftovers in new and interesting ways.
Tonight, for instance, we had some leftover gammon steak (a salty, somewhat fatty ham), some leftover Dad's Famous Butter Chicken (see below), some asparagus, part of a week old leek, a few sorry cloves of garlic. These I turned into a really quite good meal by combining them in a cream sauce and serving them over pasta.
There's no point putting the recipie here, since it's unlikely that you'd have this particular combination of ingredients just lying around, and the whole point of this is to make use of the stuff you have in your own fridge, so it's probably not a commercially viable idea (though maybe we could make a game show where people bring in the contents of their refrigerators and we make something out of them).
I will, however, share with you a recepie that's one of our children's favorites - the aforementioned Dad's Famous Butter Chicken. When I make this, they eat it all without complaint and often ask for more. It has its roots in a desperate night back in Pennsylvania when all we had was chicken and I had to feed the kids. I've modified the recipie a bit over the years, but the basic principle remains the same.
One thing I'll point out here is that there are two things I always make sure I have in the house: unsalted butter and a bottle of vermouth. The butter is good for cooking, and, well, you never know when you'll need to make a martini at short notice.
Dad's Famous Butter Chicken
Chicken breast, washed and trimmed (use as many as you like)
Unsalted butter (it's OK to use salted if you don't have unsalted)
Dry Vermouth (Noilly Prat's the best. It's like 8 bucks a bottle. Just buy it.)
Salt and Pepper
Place the chicken breasts skin side down on a baking dish. Lay 1-2 tablespoons of butter on top of each. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste (the kids don't like pepper, so I leave that out). Splash on a little vermouth and bake at 350 for about 25 minutes.
Some fresh sage laid on top of the breasts gives the chicken a nice flavor, but the kids wouldn't eat that, so I only put it on the ones I'm making for Michele and me.
There you have it. Couldn't be easier. Enjoy. Let me know what you have in your fridge and I'll see if I can come up with an interesting dish for it...
One of the problems anyone who cooks with any regularity faces, however, is leftovers. I hate leftovers. Despise 'em. But of course, you can't just throw them out because you paid good money for them, and it's wasteful. So they sit in the fridge, eating up space (and in our fridge, space is at a premium - I've bought shoes that come in larger boxes) until they're hairy and unidentifiable, and then they get thrown away.
But I've developed a new way to deal with leftovers: turn them into something completely new and different. This is what I call 'whipitupitude' - neither art nor science (or maybe a bit of both), but the act of combining otherwise unappealing leftovers in new and interesting ways.
Tonight, for instance, we had some leftover gammon steak (a salty, somewhat fatty ham), some leftover Dad's Famous Butter Chicken (see below), some asparagus, part of a week old leek, a few sorry cloves of garlic. These I turned into a really quite good meal by combining them in a cream sauce and serving them over pasta.
There's no point putting the recipie here, since it's unlikely that you'd have this particular combination of ingredients just lying around, and the whole point of this is to make use of the stuff you have in your own fridge, so it's probably not a commercially viable idea (though maybe we could make a game show where people bring in the contents of their refrigerators and we make something out of them).
I will, however, share with you a recepie that's one of our children's favorites - the aforementioned Dad's Famous Butter Chicken. When I make this, they eat it all without complaint and often ask for more. It has its roots in a desperate night back in Pennsylvania when all we had was chicken and I had to feed the kids. I've modified the recipie a bit over the years, but the basic principle remains the same.
One thing I'll point out here is that there are two things I always make sure I have in the house: unsalted butter and a bottle of vermouth. The butter is good for cooking, and, well, you never know when you'll need to make a martini at short notice.
Dad's Famous Butter Chicken
Chicken breast, washed and trimmed (use as many as you like)
Unsalted butter (it's OK to use salted if you don't have unsalted)
Dry Vermouth (Noilly Prat's the best. It's like 8 bucks a bottle. Just buy it.)
Salt and Pepper
Place the chicken breasts skin side down on a baking dish. Lay 1-2 tablespoons of butter on top of each. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste (the kids don't like pepper, so I leave that out). Splash on a little vermouth and bake at 350 for about 25 minutes.
Some fresh sage laid on top of the breasts gives the chicken a nice flavor, but the kids wouldn't eat that, so I only put it on the ones I'm making for Michele and me.
There you have it. Couldn't be easier. Enjoy. Let me know what you have in your fridge and I'll see if I can come up with an interesting dish for it...
Wildlife
How educational is this living abroad. In America, we had deer, but they mostly stayed in the woods. In London, we have foxes. They live in our back garden. This morning, Caroline excitedly summoned me to the bathroom, where there's a window that looks out the back. There, on the roof of a neighbor's garden shed, were two foxes, their tails bushy, their fur gleaming a ruddy gold in the morning light. They circled and nipped at each other playfully. Wow.
Then, as we watched, fascinated, the larger of the two mounted the smaller one.
"What are they doing daddy?"
Uh, oh. Think quick. How to adequately explain foxes copulating on a roof to a six year old without giving too much away. "Um, they're playing, sweetie."
"What are they playing?"
"Uhhhhh...."
"Leapfrog?"
"Right, leapfrog. That's it. They're playing leapfrog."
"Oh."
At this point, Michael, never one to be left out, sidled in.
"Michael, look! The foxes are playing leapfrog!" exclaimed Caroline.
"Oh, wow!"
So we watched as the foxes played leapfrog. Repeatedly. Poor Mrs. Fox must've been exhausted from all the, er, leapfrogging. Next, we'll have to explain where all the baby foxes came from which will soon be living in the back garden.
Travel is so broading, don't you think?
Then, as we watched, fascinated, the larger of the two mounted the smaller one.
"What are they doing daddy?"
Uh, oh. Think quick. How to adequately explain foxes copulating on a roof to a six year old without giving too much away. "Um, they're playing, sweetie."
"What are they playing?"
"Uhhhhh...."
"Leapfrog?"
"Right, leapfrog. That's it. They're playing leapfrog."
"Oh."
At this point, Michael, never one to be left out, sidled in.
"Michael, look! The foxes are playing leapfrog!" exclaimed Caroline.
"Oh, wow!"
So we watched as the foxes played leapfrog. Repeatedly. Poor Mrs. Fox must've been exhausted from all the, er, leapfrogging. Next, we'll have to explain where all the baby foxes came from which will soon be living in the back garden.
Travel is so broading, don't you think?
Saturday, January 26, 2008
RIF
Reduction In Force. Downsizing. Rightsizing. Restructuring.
Layoffs.
Words that strike fear into the heart of any corporate worker, American or otherwise.
Here, they call it 'redundancy', which strikes me as a particularly offensive and dehumanizing term. 'Bob was made redundant' seems to imply that Bob, as a human, has no value.
By now, you may have seen some of the news stories about impending RIFs at the various big banks. Even Goldman Sachs, which emerged relatively unscathed from the subprime debacle (there's an official who-knew-what-and-when investigation into why that is, by the way...), is expected to be axeing something like 5% of its staff. My own company is anticipated to reduce its staff by about 2%, which, frankly, strikes me as somewhat lower than I'd have expected. I hope it's true, but something tells me it isn't.
Let me hasten to say that, while anyone who thinks there's no risk to their job is a fool, I'm not especially concerned about losing mine at this point. But it's hard not to think about what would happen if I did.
I had a conversation with some single friends last night about what they'd do if they were made redundant. Some would take it easy, some would travel, some would use the opportunity to start over. I'd like to think I'd write that book I've had kicking around in my head for a couple of months. But realistically, the difference between me and these friends is that they're mostly single and I'm, well, mostly not. Not that being laid off is any better or easier or less of a blow to the ego when single, but it's a qualitatively different thing when you've got a family to support.
So, while I might like to write that book, or travel, or just relax in the park and feed the ducks for a while, I'd probably have to pull my socks up and get on with the search for a new job.
One of my friends thinks everyone should be laid off at least once. He's never been laid off, by the way. But he thinks it would be a good character building exercise. While this might be true, I think I've got enough character, thanks very much, and I like my security.
Thinking about it, I've spent a great deal of time and energy over my life trying to obtian security. I suppose that could be said of almost anyone, so I don't think it's that unusual. But at times like this, when there's a whiff of insecurity in the air, you're forced to admit that there isn't any real security to be had, because nothing's certain in life - there are simply too many variables.
This is especially true of the financial services industry, where most of our gains and losses are a function of nothing more than the confidence level of very large numbers of people. If you shift people's confidence enough in any direction, sums of money so large as to be incomprehensible shift along with it. Were all of the losses in the markets and the associated decline in the value of real estate directly attributable to defaults by sub-prime borrowers? I doubt it. Although there were certainly some real losses, I think a majority of the losses were because financial services types lost confidence and started selling off. And of course, this is natural. No one wants to be the last guy holding an instrument derived from a bunch of subprime loans because this will almost certainly be unsellable by the time everyone else has sold theirs.
I'm no economic theorist, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but my view is that you can pass the bottle around only so many times before it's empty, and someone gets stuck holding the bag. The obvious key there is to get out just before the last guy takes a drink, but of course that's more difficult to predict when you're talking about money.
So if there's no real security to be had, why are we all so intent on trying to obtain it? I don't know, but maybe this calls for a little more enjoyment of the now, and a little less worry about the later.
Layoffs.
Words that strike fear into the heart of any corporate worker, American or otherwise.
Here, they call it 'redundancy', which strikes me as a particularly offensive and dehumanizing term. 'Bob was made redundant' seems to imply that Bob, as a human, has no value.
By now, you may have seen some of the news stories about impending RIFs at the various big banks. Even Goldman Sachs, which emerged relatively unscathed from the subprime debacle (there's an official who-knew-what-and-when investigation into why that is, by the way...), is expected to be axeing something like 5% of its staff. My own company is anticipated to reduce its staff by about 2%, which, frankly, strikes me as somewhat lower than I'd have expected. I hope it's true, but something tells me it isn't.
Let me hasten to say that, while anyone who thinks there's no risk to their job is a fool, I'm not especially concerned about losing mine at this point. But it's hard not to think about what would happen if I did.
I had a conversation with some single friends last night about what they'd do if they were made redundant. Some would take it easy, some would travel, some would use the opportunity to start over. I'd like to think I'd write that book I've had kicking around in my head for a couple of months. But realistically, the difference between me and these friends is that they're mostly single and I'm, well, mostly not. Not that being laid off is any better or easier or less of a blow to the ego when single, but it's a qualitatively different thing when you've got a family to support.
So, while I might like to write that book, or travel, or just relax in the park and feed the ducks for a while, I'd probably have to pull my socks up and get on with the search for a new job.
One of my friends thinks everyone should be laid off at least once. He's never been laid off, by the way. But he thinks it would be a good character building exercise. While this might be true, I think I've got enough character, thanks very much, and I like my security.
Thinking about it, I've spent a great deal of time and energy over my life trying to obtian security. I suppose that could be said of almost anyone, so I don't think it's that unusual. But at times like this, when there's a whiff of insecurity in the air, you're forced to admit that there isn't any real security to be had, because nothing's certain in life - there are simply too many variables.
This is especially true of the financial services industry, where most of our gains and losses are a function of nothing more than the confidence level of very large numbers of people. If you shift people's confidence enough in any direction, sums of money so large as to be incomprehensible shift along with it. Were all of the losses in the markets and the associated decline in the value of real estate directly attributable to defaults by sub-prime borrowers? I doubt it. Although there were certainly some real losses, I think a majority of the losses were because financial services types lost confidence and started selling off. And of course, this is natural. No one wants to be the last guy holding an instrument derived from a bunch of subprime loans because this will almost certainly be unsellable by the time everyone else has sold theirs.
I'm no economic theorist, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but my view is that you can pass the bottle around only so many times before it's empty, and someone gets stuck holding the bag. The obvious key there is to get out just before the last guy takes a drink, but of course that's more difficult to predict when you're talking about money.
So if there's no real security to be had, why are we all so intent on trying to obtain it? I don't know, but maybe this calls for a little more enjoyment of the now, and a little less worry about the later.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Rant
The kids are driving me nuts today. And it's only 7:30. Between Michael's constantly wanting things he can't have or, perhaps more frustratingly, things we can't find ("Waaaah! I want Mr. Green Duck!!" What the hell is Mr. Green Duck?!?), and Caroline's newly acquired obstinate negativity on just about everything except, perhaps, watching television, I might just have to put them out on the street.
Really, I guess, my irritation with them stems from just a few things.
1. The are early risers. 6:00 on a weekend is just too goddamn early, I don't care what anyone says. But do they get up at 6:00 during the week? No, of course not. We're waking them up at 7:15 during the week. That discrepancy is a secondary source of annoyance. It would be better, I think, if they were consistent with the kickoff of the bickerfest.
2. They are loud. Whether they're playing or arguing, they always seem to be yelling, banging or thumping most of the time. This is especially galling at early hours (see point #1 above).
3. They are messy. Now I'm not the world's neatest person, but pound for pound, these children produce produce more little bits of paper than the Hammermill Paper company. Most of these end up on the floor or on the kitchen counters. And of course, since these represent the formative artistic endeavours of our cherished offspring, we can't simply throw them out. No matter how insignificant, these must be saved, framed or laminated, and put on diplay for all to admire. (Don't tell the kids, but I usually just toss them after a few days, unless they are really, really good. Those I toss after a few weeks.)
4. They are helpless. Yes, all children are dependent, but it's irksome when they come to me to solve problems that they could easily solve themselves. "I don't want to watch Johnny and the Sprites!" (do something else!) "I can't find bear!" (in your hand!) "I can't reach the box of napkins" (walk around the table!) "I can't find any black crayons!" (there must be 500 crayons in that box, odds are at least one of them is black, LOOK IN THERE!).
5. They are antagonistic. They've both developed a killer instinct for finding the one thing that will most annoy the other at any given time. The trouble is, the anoyee inevitably comes to me to resolve the issue and frankly, I don't really care that Michael's copying everything or that Caroline is teasing. You each give as good as you get, so go somewhere else and let me drink my coffee.
On the other hand, they do make me laugh sometimes. For example, yesterday, as we were leaving to go to the pantomime (more on this in another post), Michael began taking off his shoes, saying that he didn't want to take Caroline's marble with him; whereupon he produced a marble, two doll's purses and a seashell from his shoe.
OK, so maybe I won't turn them out just yet.
Really, I guess, my irritation with them stems from just a few things.
1. The are early risers. 6:00 on a weekend is just too goddamn early, I don't care what anyone says. But do they get up at 6:00 during the week? No, of course not. We're waking them up at 7:15 during the week. That discrepancy is a secondary source of annoyance. It would be better, I think, if they were consistent with the kickoff of the bickerfest.
2. They are loud. Whether they're playing or arguing, they always seem to be yelling, banging or thumping most of the time. This is especially galling at early hours (see point #1 above).
3. They are messy. Now I'm not the world's neatest person, but pound for pound, these children produce produce more little bits of paper than the Hammermill Paper company. Most of these end up on the floor or on the kitchen counters. And of course, since these represent the formative artistic endeavours of our cherished offspring, we can't simply throw them out. No matter how insignificant, these must be saved, framed or laminated, and put on diplay for all to admire. (Don't tell the kids, but I usually just toss them after a few days, unless they are really, really good. Those I toss after a few weeks.)
4. They are helpless. Yes, all children are dependent, but it's irksome when they come to me to solve problems that they could easily solve themselves. "I don't want to watch Johnny and the Sprites!" (do something else!) "I can't find bear!" (in your hand!) "I can't reach the box of napkins" (walk around the table!) "I can't find any black crayons!" (there must be 500 crayons in that box, odds are at least one of them is black, LOOK IN THERE!).
5. They are antagonistic. They've both developed a killer instinct for finding the one thing that will most annoy the other at any given time. The trouble is, the anoyee inevitably comes to me to resolve the issue and frankly, I don't really care that Michael's copying everything or that Caroline is teasing. You each give as good as you get, so go somewhere else and let me drink my coffee.
On the other hand, they do make me laugh sometimes. For example, yesterday, as we were leaving to go to the pantomime (more on this in another post), Michael began taking off his shoes, saying that he didn't want to take Caroline's marble with him; whereupon he produced a marble, two doll's purses and a seashell from his shoe.
OK, so maybe I won't turn them out just yet.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Nothing in Particular
I should probably write something meaningful about something important, but anh, what the hell.
Tesco's raised the price of their chocolate chip cookies by 4p. This may not sound like all that much, but when you plow thru a sleeve of 'em a night, it really adds up. Although some of the food here takes some getting used to, the Tesco brand chocolate cookies are hands down the best thing about living in London. Well, them and the proximity to the Continent. With a nice cup of tea, they are a great way to end the day. Bleah. Now I feel sick.
So it's back to work, and no rest for the wicked here. December is like Friday. You get a bit of work done in the morning, go out for a long lunch, have a nice chat with your friends in the afternoon and then head down the pub for a nice finish while the sun's still out. January, on the other hand, is the Monday of the year. Everyone's back from vacation, energized and ready for work, so you have no choice but to pull your socks up and get on with it. It's been a busy two weeks here, which is actually good, since being busy does make the days go faster.
My grandmother sent me a clipping the other day from Time magazine about Boris Johnson, one of the candidates for London mayor. If I could vote, I just might vote for this guy. He's sharp, eccentric and endearing. Speaking of elections, what's going on in the US? I have to say, I kind of like this Obama guy. He seems real. Or maybe that's just what the media over here want me to think. It's hard to tell.
The US elections seem to be viewed with the sort of amused wonderment one might bestow on a group of teenagers, hats turned sideways and trousers down to their ankles falling off their skateboards repeatedly. The attitude here is 'we don't understand it, but it's fun to watch anyway'. That's exactly how I feel about cricket. Except for the 'fun to watch' part.
I'm now the resident expert on the US political system. Don't tell anybody, but explaining the US primaries is about the limit of my knowledge of said political system. Fortunately, no one here knows much more about their own system, so we all just merrily roll along, making up whatever sounds good.
People here don't seem to mind giving their bank details to just about anyone. We've had a remarkably persistent campaigner for some save the children organization knocking on our door about twice a week. Michele did some research, it appears that the organization is legit, so she wrote a cheque. But they don't want cheques, they want to direct debit our account. Let me think about that for a minute. Umm. No. I'm already uncomfortable with the phone company being able to just whack out whatever amount they feel like every quarter. Why they can't just take out the amount of the actual bill is beyond me, but they take out what they think is reasonable. Last month they took out twice what I owed. I got it back of course, but it's still deeply disturbing. I certainly don't want some random charity to be able to pull out some arbitrary amount, but this seems to be standard practice here. On the other hand, the bank did send a guy to our hotel to set up our accounts, so I guess there are advantages to the British banking system, too.
Well, sorry this post is completely random and without point. There's 5 minutes of your life you'll never get back. But you can't say I didn't warn you, what with the title and all. Oh, you thought that was something with a clever, well thought-out hidden meaning? Sorry.
I've finished the cookies and now there's nothing left to do but go to bed and wish I hadn't eaten them all. Bleah.
Oh, I saw a guy riding a bike today wearing a velvet and gold crown. Really.
Tesco's raised the price of their chocolate chip cookies by 4p. This may not sound like all that much, but when you plow thru a sleeve of 'em a night, it really adds up. Although some of the food here takes some getting used to, the Tesco brand chocolate cookies are hands down the best thing about living in London. Well, them and the proximity to the Continent. With a nice cup of tea, they are a great way to end the day. Bleah. Now I feel sick.
So it's back to work, and no rest for the wicked here. December is like Friday. You get a bit of work done in the morning, go out for a long lunch, have a nice chat with your friends in the afternoon and then head down the pub for a nice finish while the sun's still out. January, on the other hand, is the Monday of the year. Everyone's back from vacation, energized and ready for work, so you have no choice but to pull your socks up and get on with it. It's been a busy two weeks here, which is actually good, since being busy does make the days go faster.
My grandmother sent me a clipping the other day from Time magazine about Boris Johnson, one of the candidates for London mayor. If I could vote, I just might vote for this guy. He's sharp, eccentric and endearing. Speaking of elections, what's going on in the US? I have to say, I kind of like this Obama guy. He seems real. Or maybe that's just what the media over here want me to think. It's hard to tell.
The US elections seem to be viewed with the sort of amused wonderment one might bestow on a group of teenagers, hats turned sideways and trousers down to their ankles falling off their skateboards repeatedly. The attitude here is 'we don't understand it, but it's fun to watch anyway'. That's exactly how I feel about cricket. Except for the 'fun to watch' part.
I'm now the resident expert on the US political system. Don't tell anybody, but explaining the US primaries is about the limit of my knowledge of said political system. Fortunately, no one here knows much more about their own system, so we all just merrily roll along, making up whatever sounds good.
People here don't seem to mind giving their bank details to just about anyone. We've had a remarkably persistent campaigner for some save the children organization knocking on our door about twice a week. Michele did some research, it appears that the organization is legit, so she wrote a cheque. But they don't want cheques, they want to direct debit our account. Let me think about that for a minute. Umm. No. I'm already uncomfortable with the phone company being able to just whack out whatever amount they feel like every quarter. Why they can't just take out the amount of the actual bill is beyond me, but they take out what they think is reasonable. Last month they took out twice what I owed. I got it back of course, but it's still deeply disturbing. I certainly don't want some random charity to be able to pull out some arbitrary amount, but this seems to be standard practice here. On the other hand, the bank did send a guy to our hotel to set up our accounts, so I guess there are advantages to the British banking system, too.
Well, sorry this post is completely random and without point. There's 5 minutes of your life you'll never get back. But you can't say I didn't warn you, what with the title and all. Oh, you thought that was something with a clever, well thought-out hidden meaning? Sorry.
I've finished the cookies and now there's nothing left to do but go to bed and wish I hadn't eaten them all. Bleah.
Oh, I saw a guy riding a bike today wearing a velvet and gold crown. Really.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Towards a New Holiday
Michael likes to give us presents. Today he wrapped his bear, three rubber balls and a matchbox car in a box and gave it to me.
"Thanks, Michael. What's this present for?"
"I Love You Day."
Hey, what a great holiday!
January's a crappy month. January is cold and dark and grey. January is the Monday of months. It needs a decent holiday. Oh, sure, you US residents have your Martin Luther King Day and all, but how do you celebrate that? Do you go to the library to read up on the late Dr. King's tireless efforts to help America's blacks better their status without resorting to violence? Do you spend time in quiet contemplation of your great good fortune? Hell, do you even have a barbeque?
Yes, I think we'll celebrate I Love You Day every year from now on. I hope you'll join us. Here's the tradition: you give something you already own to someone you love. You'll wrap it in something informal, like a newspaper or a blanket. Under no circumstances will you give a card. Hopefully this will keep those parasites at Hallmark from exploiting this holiday like they've done to so many others. If you need proof of this exploitation, consider Halloween cards. Give me a break.
Happy I Love You Day. I didn't get you anything, but I do love you.
"Thanks, Michael. What's this present for?"
"I Love You Day."
Hey, what a great holiday!
January's a crappy month. January is cold and dark and grey. January is the Monday of months. It needs a decent holiday. Oh, sure, you US residents have your Martin Luther King Day and all, but how do you celebrate that? Do you go to the library to read up on the late Dr. King's tireless efforts to help America's blacks better their status without resorting to violence? Do you spend time in quiet contemplation of your great good fortune? Hell, do you even have a barbeque?
Yes, I think we'll celebrate I Love You Day every year from now on. I hope you'll join us. Here's the tradition: you give something you already own to someone you love. You'll wrap it in something informal, like a newspaper or a blanket. Under no circumstances will you give a card. Hopefully this will keep those parasites at Hallmark from exploiting this holiday like they've done to so many others. If you need proof of this exploitation, consider Halloween cards. Give me a break.
Happy I Love You Day. I didn't get you anything, but I do love you.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Why I Hate the King of Prussia Mall
I suppose I should start the New Year with something upbeat - maybe wishes for peace on earth, good will towards men. All that crap. But I'm not in the right frame of mind for upbeat. I'm jet-lagged, I have a headache and the kids have far too many small toys with even smaller parts. I'm boycotting the family room while the rest of the family sorts out the mess. If I try to help, I'll just end up being snippy and that can't be good for anyone.
I'll spare you the travelogue of our trip to the states (we didn't stay anywhere more than two nights in a row, so it was a blur of packing, driving, lugging and laundering). But on our last day, we felt the need to exploit the favorable exchange rate before the US plunges into recession and the dollar starts to climb against the pound again. The King of Prussia Mall seemed the best place to empty our wallets, as it bills itself as the Largest Mall On The East Coast. This strikes me as somewhat weak and contrived epithet - it's like saying your restaurant has The Best Food On The Southwest Corner Of 7th and 50th. In other words, success is easy when you define your own criteria.
Anyway (oh, and incidentally, the Majestic Deli on the southwest corner of 7th and 50th actually does have pretty good food...), as we roamed the 400+ stores, I quickly remembered why I stayed away from the KofP mall when we lived there - because it sucks. Yes, the stores have a wide variety of bright, shiny merchandise, and yes, the mall is smartly decorated and nicely laid out. But add sales staff, and the place is a disaster. Take, for instance, the exchange I overheard between another customer and a member of staff:
"Do you have this in a 37?"
"Um, I'm not sure. You want me to check?"
"Uh, yes, please."
"Just a minute."
(the clerk disappears into the back room and time passes...)
"We've got it in a 35."
"Well, that won't do, I'm afraid."
"SIGH."
Mind you, the above conversation wasn't in Target, it was in Brooks Brothers, a store which sells six-friggin-hundred-dollar sport coats. Hey, Brooks Brothers, here's a tip. If you're selling high-end clothes, you really ought to staff the place with salespeople, not layabouts from South Philly with bad attitudes. I wasn't even acknowledged by any of the 5 other salespeople lolling around the place. Too busy texting their friends, I should imagine.
Here's another conversation, this one between me and the barrista at Starbucks pouring 2% milk into my cafe latte (yes, I like full fat milk in my $3.00 coffee - you got a problem with that?):
"Do you not have any whole milk?"
"We do, but you have to ask for it."
"Um, since when?"
"Since, like, October."
"OK, then, I'd like mine with whole milk, please."
"SIGH."
I didn't have to visit many stores in the mall to rack up a list of experiences like these. The guy in the Thomas Pink store (home of $180 shirts) who showed not the slightest inclination to help me until I practically pushed him into the back room to find my size. The salesman in Nordstrom's who waved his paw vaguely when I told him what I was looking for.
Napoleon disparagingly called the English a nation of shopkeepers. That may be true, but while salespeople here may not be the most knowledgeable, at least they're generally courteous, even in the least expensive shop. Is that too much to ask from America's shopkeepers?
I'll spare you the travelogue of our trip to the states (we didn't stay anywhere more than two nights in a row, so it was a blur of packing, driving, lugging and laundering). But on our last day, we felt the need to exploit the favorable exchange rate before the US plunges into recession and the dollar starts to climb against the pound again. The King of Prussia Mall seemed the best place to empty our wallets, as it bills itself as the Largest Mall On The East Coast. This strikes me as somewhat weak and contrived epithet - it's like saying your restaurant has The Best Food On The Southwest Corner Of 7th and 50th. In other words, success is easy when you define your own criteria.
Anyway (oh, and incidentally, the Majestic Deli on the southwest corner of 7th and 50th actually does have pretty good food...), as we roamed the 400+ stores, I quickly remembered why I stayed away from the KofP mall when we lived there - because it sucks. Yes, the stores have a wide variety of bright, shiny merchandise, and yes, the mall is smartly decorated and nicely laid out. But add sales staff, and the place is a disaster. Take, for instance, the exchange I overheard between another customer and a member of staff:
"Do you have this in a 37?"
"Um, I'm not sure. You want me to check?"
"Uh, yes, please."
"Just a minute."
(the clerk disappears into the back room and time passes...)
"We've got it in a 35."
"Well, that won't do, I'm afraid."
"SIGH."
Mind you, the above conversation wasn't in Target, it was in Brooks Brothers, a store which sells six-friggin-hundred-dollar sport coats. Hey, Brooks Brothers, here's a tip. If you're selling high-end clothes, you really ought to staff the place with salespeople, not layabouts from South Philly with bad attitudes. I wasn't even acknowledged by any of the 5 other salespeople lolling around the place. Too busy texting their friends, I should imagine.
Here's another conversation, this one between me and the barrista at Starbucks pouring 2% milk into my cafe latte (yes, I like full fat milk in my $3.00 coffee - you got a problem with that?):
"Do you not have any whole milk?"
"We do, but you have to ask for it."
"Um, since when?"
"Since, like, October."
"OK, then, I'd like mine with whole milk, please."
"SIGH."
I didn't have to visit many stores in the mall to rack up a list of experiences like these. The guy in the Thomas Pink store (home of $180 shirts) who showed not the slightest inclination to help me until I practically pushed him into the back room to find my size. The salesman in Nordstrom's who waved his paw vaguely when I told him what I was looking for.
Napoleon disparagingly called the English a nation of shopkeepers. That may be true, but while salespeople here may not be the most knowledgeable, at least they're generally courteous, even in the least expensive shop. Is that too much to ask from America's shopkeepers?
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