On deception

This is Deception Pass, a channel at the north end of Whidbey Island that connects the Puget Sound to the Strait of Juan de Fuca (the body of water that ultimately connects the sound to the Pacific Ocean). We stopped there to snap a few photos toward the end of our afternoon on Whidbey, just as the sun was setting.

I thought the name of the pass was interesting, but there wasn't an immediately available explanation for its origins. Newly Graduated Sis and I guessed that the currents, perhaps, were what was deceptive -- the water looked calm, but the boat heading into the sound just as we arrived was working extremely hard to make any headway. Of course, it turns out there's another reason for the name, which you can find here. (Ours wasn't too far off the mark, but for the sake of accuracy ... )

Deception -- the more abstract idea -- has been on my mind for a while, so coming across the word here felt oddly coincidental. Before our impromptu trip, I spent about a week trying to get through Hilary Mantel's Giving Up the Ghost, which was definitely not my favorite of the books I've been reading for my thesis. My beef was with the narrative voice -- I couldn't connect with the narrator for most of the work because of its distance, which made it difficult to identify what the memoir was really about. The subject matter isn't hard to grasp: the writer's loss of her father under uncomfortable family circumstances, physical symptoms that elude a diagnosis for years, and the aftermath of treatment for her ailments. But that list of topics still doesn't quite pinpoint what the story is meant to show. Except for the parts where the narrator talks about writing and its ability to mislead. Says Mantel:

I hardly know how to write about myself. Any style you pick seems to unpick itself before a paragraph is done. I will just go for it, I think to myself, I’ll hold out my hands and say, c’est moi, get used to it. I’ll trust the reader. This is what I recommend to people who ask me how to get published. Trust your reader, stop spoon-feeding your reader, stop patronizing your reader, give your reader credit for being as smart as you at least, and stop being so bloody beguiling: you in the back row, will you turn off that charm! Plain words on plain paper. Remember what Orwell says, that good prose is like a windowpane. Concentrate on sharpening your memory and peeling your sensibility. Cut every page you write by at least one third. Stop constructing those piffling little similes of yours. Work out what it is you want to say. Then say it in the most direct and vigorous way you can. Eat meat. Drink blood. Give up your social life and don’t think you can have friends. Rise in the quiet hours of the night and prick your fingertips and use the blood for ink; that will cure you of persiflage!

But do I take my own advice? Not a bit. Persiflage is my nom de guerre. (Don’t use foreign expressions; it’s elitist.) I stray away from the beaten path of plain words into the meadows of extravagant simile: angels, ogres, doughnut-shaped holes. And as for transparency -- windowpanes undressed are a sign of poverty, aren’t they? How about some nice net curtains, so I can look out but you can’t see in? How about shutters, or a chaste Roman blind? Besides, windowpane prose is no guarantee of truthfulness. Some deceptive sights are seen through glass, and the best liars tell lies in plain words.

So now that I come to write a memoir, I argue with myself over every word. Is my writing clear: or is it deceptively clear? (4)

When I came across this passage, it was as if someone had finally put into words the problem I frequently have with my own work. Don't get me wrong; I know what I write will never be objective. But have I illuminated my slant on things well enough? Or has some other story, the alter ego of what I think I'm writing, emerged? Words are tricky things, projecting one image to one reader while presenting something different to another -- obviously, this is impossible to control. But what about that image I see? In the transfer of energy between seeing and telling, have I done my utmost to conserve the essence of the experience, or have I let things escape? And if so, why?

I'm not even sure that makes sense anymore, I've read it over so many times trying to practice what I mean to say. But that's the way it is with writing about writing, no?

Treading new ground

Last weekend, D and I decided to clear out a good portion of the little garden at the side of our house to make room for some new plants. We originally had only the four iris bulbs we'd been keeping in pots, but an impromptu trip to a nursery with Troubadour Mom and Newly Graduated Sis on the Sunday before that convinced us to get more residents for our flower beds.

We went out to Whidbey Island on a whim -- NG Sis hadn't been on any of the Seattle ferries yet and we hadn't explored Whidbey, so it seemed like the perfect way to spend an afternoon. The nursery was a quick pick from a Washington guidebook (we knew it happened to be open on Sunday but didn't have a lot of other information), and it turned out to be an excellent stop.

Chocolate Flower Farm is a little niche nursery toward the south end of the island, specializing in flowers and other plants in deep maroon hues, from chocolate dahlias and chocolate sunflowers to chocolate cherry tomatoes and chocolate corn (in color only, not flavor!). We wandered through the display garden, which intersperses flowers of other warm shades among the main attractions.



Top and center photos by Newly Graduated Sis

We were very tempted to get some lavender to create a border along the walk leading to our front door. There were at least three varieties, all of which smelled delicious. In the end, though, D picked out a salpiglossis flower (didn't get a shot of it in the garden itself, but the link offers a good image from the nursery website). We figured we'd try our luck with a less expensive plant before committing to a dozen or more seedlings, especially given our recent wild weather.

Our plan this past weekend was just to decide where to put the salpiglossis -- it's supposedly self-sowing, so we wanted to give it a home where it could have space to spread. But once we started looking around, we got distracted by the raggedy shrubs, overgrown ground cover, and dead ornamental grasses crowding the flower beds, which had probably been neglected by the previous owner for a few seasons. Out came the spade and pruning shears, and several hours later, we'd transplanted two bushes (I think they're yews?) and uprooted four others deemed too unattractive to keep (the species looks moribund, but their yellowed, drooping leaves are normal, from what we've seen on well-maintained public grounds). I also tried my hand at giving a laceleaf Japanese maple a much-needed trim -- it was beginning to look like Sweetums (of Muppet fame) -- while D ripped out masses of unidentified creeping vines. The salpiglossis eventually found a home near the front walk.

Of course, with all the newly bared earth at our disposal, we couldn't help wanting to fill it with beautiful things, so our one new acquisition will be joined by an order of tulips and lilies in the fall, which we bought here. The irises will go into the beds this weekend and we'll remove the last of the dead bushes (there are six remaining), weather permitting. Now if we can just find the valve that feeds the sprinkler system, we'll be in good shape ...

After growing up in hot climates, I never thought I would enjoy gardening, but this new project (in normal Seattle summer temperatures) is undeniably fun.

Let's face it

Having to maintain anonymity on this blog means it's unlikely I'll ever post a photo here with my face in it, or that of anyone who can be unquestionably linked to me. It's just too risky.

As I'm sure you've noticed, this forces me to limit the shots I do post to those showing only the backs of people's heads. Until now, that is: enter the Mad Men avatar maker.

No, it's not a replacement for real photos (and no, I don't watch the show; I just saw this on another blog), but being able to put a face to a name is nice. Even when the name is merely an initial or a very obvious pseudonym. I played with the different features you can give each avatar -- face shape, eyes and eyebrows, nose, mouth, hair, skin color, etc. -- and was able to get interesting likenesses for D, Almost Dr. Sis, and Newly Graduated Sis.

So where are they? Well, I was going to post them. But then I decided it would be much more fun to have each person design his or her own for me to put up instead! Hopefully they'll be willing, and if not, then I'll share what I've created. In the meantime, here's mine:


In addition, I shall reveal the last nominee for the One Lovely Blog award, something I've been saving for an appropriate moment. I'm giving these accolades to iHeartFaces, written by Angie Arthur and Amy Locurto. Even though I can't post real pictures of my favorite people, here's a place where others can post shots of theirs. Enjoy!

Brushes and palates

I think next time I go to Vancouver, it will have to be without Troubadour Dad.

Seeing the city with him right after we moved up here in 2007 was a lot of fun -- I'd never explored Richmond (the suburb with all the amazing Asian seafood restaurants offering live catch in tanks for you to order) and I hadn't seen the public market on Granville Island. There was also Stanley Park to check out and the Chinese herbal shops in the downtown area to experience.

Since that first trip, we've gone back to Vancouver with my parents two more times (one visit for each subsequent summer we've lived in the Pacific Northwest). And each time, we've done the same itinerary, even down to the same restaurant (yes, singular) for lunch and dinner multiple days running. The only difference, perhaps, has been less time in the park and more time at the table or in search of things to put on it.

Now, I do enjoy a good gastronomic tour, but in a city that contains so much more than food, you'd think it would be nice to explore some of those other cultural offerings, wouldn't you? Unfortunately, Troubadour Dad is not very adventurous, and as it has been for the rest of us in the family since I was very little, it's his way or the highway. I've been trying to figure out how to change this dynamic without catastrophic fallout (aiming for a few falling rocks rather than an entire landslide), but at this point, my muscles are giving out. What that means for the future, I'm not sure. At the moment, it just means taking a breather from Dad-controlled vacations before my head explodes. We've had four this summer (vacations, not explosions, in San Jose, Boston, Newfoundland, and Vancouver) so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I feel this way. Still, the situation makes me sad.

We did get two hours' reprieve from food on this most recent trip, which I was grateful for. Troubadour Dad wanted to commission a Chinese painting for a friend of his, and one of Troubadour Mom's former schoolmates, who does wonderful work and has had it exhibited, is now living in Vancouver. So we got to visit her in-home studio, where she showed us samples of her watercolors and calligraphy. Newly Graduated Sis and I had fun taking pictures of her tools, still out after a private lesson earlier in the morning:



Troubadour Mom also took classes in calligraphy and watercolor before leaving Hong Kong, and when we were kids, she let us use her brushes and her special ceramic dish (similar to the one above with multiple compartments) to paint. I had forgotten all about that until I saw those tools again.

Supposedly, Troubadour Mom has many old friends who have settled in the Vancouver area, so if we can get her up here on her own, we might have a chance of reconnecting her with a few more of them. That was the best part of this trip, of course -- getting to witness the reunion between her and her schoolmate, whom she hadn't seen in thirty years.

More on non-gastronomic sightseeing soon, as well as thesis reading updates and a final blog award nominee (I know, I'm getting to it!). More frequent posting in general too -- it's a relief to be in one place again.

Photo by Newly Graduated Sis

Roll modeling

That's what Newly Graduated Sis is about to begin at left. Yep, we painted the garage.

It took nine hours, three snack breaks, two paint rollers, one very useful ladder, three cans of self-priming paint, and some super-energizing music. By the time we were done, we were splattered and spent, but the results were well worth it.

NG Sis had insisted before her arrival that she wanted to help us with some kind of home improvement project, and painting was high on our wish list in several of the rooms as it would then allow us to put up much-needed shelving. Since neither of us had ever painted before, the garage seemed like the safest place to learn as we went. We pulled the cars out and parked them on the street, taped up the wall plates on all the electrical outlets, moved all the random stuff in storage to the center of the floor and then got to work with the rollers. Here's the obligatory before shot:


It was pretty quick work until we had to start using the ladder -- only one person can be on it at a time. But that gave us breaks to work the kinks out of our arms and shoulders, which was necessary by the time we got to that point. The garage is 12' by 12' by 13', so it's not a small space by any means.

The project wouldn't have gotten done so soon had NG Sis not come out a few days ahead of Troubadour Mom and Dad (they were less inclined to join in the DIY fun). D was away at a conference as well, so he and I would have had to put off the job until at least today. Instead, we're now ready for the next step: mounting shelves and -- more importantly -- moving as much as we can from the house into storage here. It will be so nice to have closet space again!

Here's the after shot -- wish I'd had a fish-eye lens to get a picture of the entire room. In any case, it may not look like much, but we're very proud of it.

Why I'm in Vancouver:

(Not really, but the Air Canada ad was funny so I thought I'd post it.)

I'm kind of in need of something funny at the moment as I think I'm coming to the unhappy realization that Troubadour Mom and Dad stress me out in ways that I wish they didn't. By which I mean two things -- (1) that I wish they wouldn't do the things that stress me out and (2) that I wish I were able to accept their foibles and just be glad to spend time with them.

They flew into Seattle on Tuesday evening, and within about thirty minutes of picking them up from the airport, I was feeling the anxiety that always accompanies being around them, no matter how hard I try to subvert or suppress it. It's probably quicker to surface these days because the relationship problems in their not quite three decades of marriage have been coming to a nasty head in the last twelve months, and as much as I'd like not to be involved in that situation, I am, just because I'm part of the family. Trying to establish boundaries and asking my parents to respect them has always been difficult for me for cultural and personal reasons, which I won't get into right now (that's enough material for oh, say, a thesis?). So on a trip where we're constantly together and the little arguments between them pop off every so often or sub-arguments threaten to become full-fledged ones, I get particularly stressed.

I've resisted writing about this explicitly here for a while because I don't want this blog to become nothing but a venting space for my frustration with this situation, but I think said situation is becoming a major feature of my current life landscape. And since this blog is about trying to put down roots in the terra not-so-firma many of us live on, I think it's time I stopped trying to write around said feature.

We're in Vancouver till late tonight, so I'll say more when I get back home. I also promise a fun post on a project Newly Graduated Sis and I worked on before Troubadour Mom and Dad arrived. There are before-and-after photos ...

Yow!

This thermometer was left behind on the porch by the previous owner of our house. We've been using it this week to determine when to open the windows -- it's silly to let air in while the outside temps are higher than what the thermostat reads indoors. But I wondered if the thermometer was working, especially given what it was reporting in the shade this afternoon (see photo).

Well, it apparently isn't off by much. At my last check, weather.com was reporting a current temperature of 104 degrees with a heat index of 109.

We're managing -- lots of caprese salads, cucumbers and hummus, fresh berries, and of course, water. The air conditioner in our bedroom is keeping us comfortable at night, and we try to do as much work around the house as possible during the cooler parts of the day. And that works quite well for two people in our space.

The forecast is not inspiring confidence for next week, however, when Troubadour Mom and Dad are slated to arrive. This heat wave was supposed to crest somewhere in the vicinity of yesterday and ease its way out of the area, leaving behind temperatures in the low 80s. At this moment, I'm seeing reports of much less comfortable highs all the way into Monday. Troubadour Mom and Dad land on Tuesday.

We'll take a few days in Vancouver in an air-conditioned hotel (Troubadour Dad needs his authentic Chinese-style seafood fix), probably returning Thursday night. May the weather gods be merciful by then -- I have no idea how I'm going to magically procure climate-controlled sleeping quarters for everyone.

Unpacking

This weekend, D and I tackled the piles of boxes we'd stuck in the room that will eventually become D's office. Since our arrival, the space has essentially been an extra-large walk-in closet for us, but now that my parents and Newly Graduated Sis are coming to visit in a week, we're inclined to get it somewhat tidied -- so it can fit the boxes that have spilled over into the guest bedroom.

We got through the majority of D's stuff by Sunday night, which leaves the rest of this week for me to figure out what I want to do with mine. Much of it is memorabilia from school that needs to be organized so it can be sifted through more easily should I ever need to access anything from a specific time, and being on the point of starting to write this thesis has made me reluctant to toss things that provide potentially useful information about my past. Not the best mindset to be in when you're trying to make space!

It doesn't help that the texts I've been looking at as possible models for my work all incorporate the use of personal documents and other such things to really interesting effect. In the last few weeks, I've managed to steal enough time (mostly on planes) to finish three books that do this.

The first is Five Thousand Days Like This One by Jane Brox. Her memoir is one part a collection of family stories passed down to her by her father and the other part a history of New England farm life. Both portions of the work use old records to reanimate scenes from the past in Brox's poetic style. I don't think it's a style I would follow -- sometimes the way the records are quoted into the larger narrative feels a bit choppy against the original language of the writer; the two just don't blend -- but it's striking how much those records help Brox situate her father's apple farm in the culture of American commerce when industry arrives. Context is everything.

The second book that makes great use of personal documents is Honor Moore's The Bishop's Daughter. In a way, the work relies almost too heavily on these -- primarily letters between Moore's parents in their dating years as well as letters between father and daughter and mother and daughter. The goal of incorporating all of this correspondence is to aid in creating a portrait of the family's private life while its members navigate a very public existence (Paul Moore was the 13th Episcopal Bishop of New York). I love how much access the narrator has to all of these rich primary sources -- I certainly don't have that volume to work with! On occasion, though, the specificity of each piece of evidence meant to illustrate some detail makes it difficult to see the big picture that the narrator is painting. It overwhelms, to a degree.

The most recent book I've finished is Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex. This one isn't actually a memoir, but it reads very much like one and situates its narrative over three generations of a Greek family adapting to life in America between the 1920s and 1970s (which includes Prohibition, the Great Depression, World War II, the Civil Rights Movement ...). It is extremely clear that the author has researched the influences of these six decades on Detroit -- the city where most of the narrative takes place -- and he weaves that information into the background of the story in a way that doesn't detract from the focus on the protagonist, a girl coming of age in that third generation of her family. Her coming of age is complicated by biological factors that have their own story, and this narrative thread's ability to hold its own as a driving force in the novel against such a tumultuous historical backdrop is what really amazes me. The two elements work in sync with each other to even greater effect.

All right, enough pseudo-book-reviewing from me. I know I've been behind on updating my reading list for the summer, so there you go (see the full list in the sidebar). Also, for those of you keeping track, I've got six more nominations left for the One Lovely Blog award, so if you like reading about what other people are reading, here are some blogs I've discovered recently:

• Books and Cooks, written by Tara
• Breaking the Fourth Wall, written by Lisa
• Tripping Toward Lucidity: Estella's Revenge, written by Andi
• Incurable Logophilia (author unnamed)
• Writing Under a Pseudonym, written by Jade Park.

And yes, the final nominee will be forthcoming soon.

A lot of hot air

... is coming our way.

It's been creeping toward us all week and promises to descend into the Pacific Northwest by Sunday. I'm more than a little freaked out -- five straight days of 90-degree highs (as weather.com says).

Now I'm decently hardy; I used to play tennis in this kind of heat for my high school team (typical temps for the start of the school year in the Midwest) and I spent two years in Texas, where it was still this hot in November (try getting in the mood to do your holiday shopping when people are wearing clothes more appropriate for beach barbecues than winter wonderlands). In both locations, though, you are pretty much guaranteed an air conditioner in your house if it was built after 1990 -- no builder would design something without one. Our place, on the other hand, does not have this luxury; most homes in Seattle don't, and in the recent near 90-degree days we've had, getting work done at home has been feasible but miserable.

So yesterday, I headed to Home Depot right after the store opened to pick up a portable air conditioner (we would have gone with a cheaper window unit except that the homeowners' association for our neighborhood forbids them and will fine us more than the cost of said appliance if they catch us with one). When I called beforehand to make sure Home Depot actually had the model I wanted in stock, the person who answered the phone told me that there were 96 of them on the premises at the beginning of the previous day, and that more than half had gone out the door by closing time. So I'm glad I went when I did; today's chances of getting anything look grim.

At the same time, we really didn't want to have to buy a single-room unit as we already have central heating and could have a full-sized air conditioner hooked up to the system, which over time is a better investment. But that would require around $2,000 up front, summer is halfway over, and we'll probably have only one more heat wave before it cools down for good. Plus the likelihood of getting the job done in time for the imminent broiling is very low.

So I guess all this is to say that I'm feeling rather ambivalent about our purchase -- it was certainly justifiable and it was the best solution after D and I did the cost-benefit analysis (a fine on the cheaper window unit would end up putting us over the cost of the portable one), but I still wish it felt less like we were having unnecessary money wrung from our sweaty hands. Whoever prices portable air conditioners must be in cahoots with our homeowners' association.

Would you tough it out sans climate control? Apparently these folks have tried it. They have my admiration, but I just can't bring myself to follow in their footsteps.

Change is good

Especially when it adds up to $30.50! D and I had been putting off rolling our coin stash for quite some time, but the giant cocoa container we'd been throwing pennies into in the car kept tipping over and spilling the contents everywhere when we were driving (the snap-on lid was nothing against the force of all that metal battering it from underneath). So we emptied the piggy bank over the weekend and went to work.

When we were doing the long-distance thing in college, D and I used to save our pennies to pool when we saw each other. Once we'd saved enough, we'd go, like eager children, to the nearest Ben & Jerry's for ice cream cones. It was something to look forward to, and it gave us a sense of progress toward a goal smaller than reaching the end of commuting (it was also unclear at what point that would happen). I don't think we'll be spending all of this windfall in the same way, but maybe we'll hit a Ben & Jerry's for a (sugar-free) treat as a little reminder of that time. Haven't really thought about how else to use the money yet.

Speaking of change, I've been thinking a lot about the week in Canada with the family Troubadour (both sides of it), and I'm really struck by how my relationship with different members of the family has shifted. When I was very little, we used to go to Toronto at least once each summer, so my aunts and uncles got to know me as a kid reasonably well. Then we stopped going up as regularly for several years -- Dad's job, summer sports, etc., got in the way. By the time I reached high school, we were only visiting for weddings and funerals, which were highly focused events where everyone was busy with the ceremonial tasks at hand (obviously) and no one had time to visit, per se. As a result, I lost touch with my aunts and uncles, and their primary knowledge about me became fairly dated, somewhere in the range of the awkward early teens.

Now fast-forward more than a decade. In the last few summers, I've managed to make it to Toronto to spend time with my grandmother (my only remaining grandparent), so I've been able to catch up with my mom's family somewhat. While we were in town this month, Troubadour Mom, her older sister, and I stayed up into the wee hours talking and talking, which was nice. When I was in that awkward stage, I would still opt to listen to the adults chattering away instead of running around with my cousins -- they were quite a bit older and Troubadour Dad wasn't inclined to have me out of easy retrieval range. This time, though, I was actually included in the conversation. Heavy conversation. Discussions about money (trying to make ends meet), marriage (its challenges), long-standing friction between some of my mother's siblings (the fallout), and the decisions some of those siblings made regarding the health care of their aging parents (possibly dubious). I didn't have anything to say regarding the last two topics, of course, as it wasn't my place, but the fact that my aunt felt comfortable talking about such sensitive things in my presence marked the difference in how she looked at me. Perhaps it was because I'm married (that seems to carry a certain weight with most relatives when it comes to their regard); perhaps it was because I've seen my aunt at least once a year in the last three years and she's had the chance to reacquaint herself with who I am. Whatever it was, I appreciated the change.

Then there are those relatives who, regardless of my marital status or how often they see me, will consider me a child to the day they join their ancestors. One of these people is actually Troubadour Dad, and that bothers me -- not so much because of how he acts toward me when he's on his own, but because of how he acts toward me in front of his family. For some reason, when they're around, Troubadour Dad gets especially sensitive about his image, and if any one of his children does or says anything that threatens to make him lose face (at least, in his own mind), he swiftly invokes the use of public humiliation.

I never thought it was an effective tool when I was a kid, and I really don't think it's appropriate to use on adults. Imagine being told, for reasons unclear, that "you'd better behave" -- while your aunts, uncles, and their grown children are standing right next to you. I won't even try to describe the circumstances under which this occurred while I was in Newfoundland as that will only mire this post in further discussion of convoluted family politics and a debate on whether any wrongs had actually been committed (suffice it to say, for the purpose of scene painting, that we were waiting for a table at a restaurant). My point here: wouldn't you be far more likely to get a desirable response from a grown man or woman by taking the person aside and raising your concerns privately rather than chastising that person as you would a small child, especially given the sizable audience? I'm not sure if the language or the wagging index finger (I kid you not) was more degrading.

But enough about that. Sigh -- I think the trip to Ben & Jerry's is definite. At least the experience there will allow me to feel like a kid again in a good way.

47° 31' 17" N, 52° 37' 24" W

That is where the easternmost point in North America is located.

I knew before I arrived in Newfoundland that if there was anything I wanted to do, it was to go there since it was no more than a 20-minute drive from our hotel in St. John's. Why travel almost all the way across the continent and then stop a few degrees short of the entire distance? (Okay, I guess I'd have to be coming from the westernmost point in Alaska in order to say that I'd really covered the requisite mileage, but I think you understand what I'm getting at here.)

We had one day for sightseeing, so getting to this destination, formally known as Cape Spear, was at the top of the list for a lot of the family members who attended my cousin's wedding. So we went caravan-style in various rental cars, obligatory cameras at our sides. If the locals hadn't already gotten to see a stereotypical Asian tourist group, we definitely provided the proper visual ...

Actually, we sort of dispersed a bit once we got there, which I appreciated. Reunions with all of the extended family are fun, but it also means resurrecting certain tensions born of complicated family politics, and since this was the day after the wedding, there had been enough time for some of that to surface. That'll keep for another post, though.

Before going to the cape, we stopped at Signal Hill, which was also a lovely place to take pictures. The hiking paths were steep at certain points along the way, but they gave us beautiful views of St. John's. Signal Hill was apparently a defensive stronghold from the 18th century to World War II, and there are cannons still guarding the narrows leading into the city's harbor. Newly Graduated Sis and I had fun climbing around on them to get interesting shots. Here's one of hers:


And here are some different perspectives on the narrows as they open toward the Atlantic. Cannon-view:


NG Sis-view (rather, the narrows with NG Sis):


And Troubadour-view:


Cape Spear offered even more to see, I thought. We happened to be there at the time of year when wild irises are in bloom, so I took several pictures for D (they're his favorite flower).













Clover also covers the grassy slopes leading out to the ocean.


NG Sis and I were so absorbed in our own explorations that we got quite a bit behind the main group, as you can see:


We caught up with them just as one of our uncles ventured off the path (despite several warning signs against it!) to check out the boulders at the ocean's edge.


Apparently a good number of people have been swept off these rocks by the giant waves that can surge up quite suddenly. Fortunately, none appeared while our uncle was poking around.


The obligatory picture of the sign marking our location, latitude and longitude included (click on the photo for a closer look):


And then a leisurely climb to the lighthouse.



It's definitely worth going back -- I'd want to take D as it's the kind of place he would love. When we'll have time for an extended trip together, though, is uncertain. Perhaps when he gets more vacation time (not until he's been with his employer for five years). But by then we'll likely have little Troubadours to take with us ...

Hmm, maybe this'll have to wait till they can handle 15 hours of cross-country travel. Yes.

Only connect ...

Even though I was gone for only a week and a day, this most recent trip felt much longer because so much happened during that time.

From Tuesday through Friday, I was in Toronto with Troubadour Mom and Newly Graduated Sis, staying with my aunt (the same one who put me up last August). The primary goal of the visit was to spend time with my grandmother, who has been in a nursing home since 2004 for Alzheimer’s.

Last time we saw her, Nga Po was still fairly responsive and could speak, albeit in short, repetitive phrases. She was fuzzier in the morning from the antidepressants she was put on, apparently because she would hit the caregivers when she didn’t want to do what they asked (take other medications, allow them to move her, etc.). But by her noon meal, she was reasonably alert, and just after her afternoon nap, she was most present. She would even laugh occasionally and could recognize some of her children.

This time, she seemed to have lost a great deal of her ability to speak, and the effort of trying to communicate in even nonverbal ways was exhausting for her. Every few minutes, her head would drop down and she would close her eyes like someone trying not to succumb to sleep. Feeding her was more challenging as well, as she seemed to be more prone to choking, and she often forgot she had something in her mouth (especially when she nodded off between bites) and then didn’t swallow. She is mostly on puréed foods, but she can still eat one of her favorite desserts, egg custard tart (see photo above), which we picked up specially at a bakery to see if we could whet her appetite. She seemed to like that. I have no idea what the plan is once she loses the ability to eat and requires tube feeding -- I don’t believe she has any kind of living will, but I also don’t know how the health care and legal systems in Canada govern her end-of-life care.

We didn’t expect her to recognize any of us this time, given her deterioration, but we came armed with things to help her reconnect with us. One of those things was stories she used to tell Troubadour Mom. NG Sis and I have heard them many times -- the ones about Nga Po running from the Japanese when Hong Kong was invaded during World War II, her husband spending their last $500 on fireworks when the news of the Japanese defeat came, running the family upholstery business and sewing curtains for the entire Peninsula Hotel, and on and on and on. Troubadour Mom did the retelling this time to jog Nga Po’s memory, and whenever she got stuck thinking of what to talk about next, NG Sis and I prompted her with other things we remembered Troubadour Mom telling us. Nga Po didn’t respond very much, but she did nod occasionally and let us massage her neck and back and hold her hands. When Troubadour Mom touched Nga Po’s face with her palm, Nga Po would lean into Mom’s hand and close her eyes like a kitten nuzzling into a soft blanket. It was so hard not to just enfold her in all of our arms as she seemed so starved for physical contact, but she probably wouldn’t have liked that, given that we weren’t familiar to her.

On the second afternoon we spent with her, she seemed to remember us from the previous day’s visit, but we were still pretty sure she didn’t know who we were. Since she seemed more responsive, we decided to show her some photos of Troubadour Mom and her siblings when they were children, using my laptop screen to enlarge them for easier viewing. She looked quite intently at the images while Troubadour Mom named each of the people pictured, which seemed to pierce through some of the fog in Nga Po’s memory. But then she pushed the laptop away. We figured she was tired or bored.

As soon as we put the laptop away, though, she reached for Troubadour Mom’s hand and began to massage it with her fingers -- just as we had been doing to her neck and back the day before. We could tell that she wanted to say something, but she couldn’t access the words, which was heartbreaking. I sort of lost it at that point and started to tear up, which set us all off. There we were, NG Sis and I with a hand stroking Nga Po’s arm or leg and the other scrabbling for tissues in our purses. What a mess.

Then, Nga Po very deliberately took my hand from her shoulder and placed it on top of NG Sis’s hand. Next, she took Troubadour Mom’s hand and placed it on top of mine. And then she went to work on my hand with her fingers, rubbing and kneading, all the while looking from one face to another very intently. It was as if she was trying to comfort us, telling us to comfort one another too and that it was going to be okay. I think we were so stunned that we forgot about crying and just gazed back at her, letting her understand that we were listening to what she couldn’t say.

We didn’t know what to hope for on the next day, our last with her, given the unpredictability of her mood, so we started off again just talking to her. Troubadour Mom fed her dinner, and then we took her back to the sitting area where we had shown her photos before.

She seemed less engaged with us, but we thought we’d try a different set of pictures on the laptop -- a collection NG Sis and Troubadour Mom had put together from a web search for images of the Hong Kong neighborhood where Troubadour Mom grew up. Somehow, they were even able to locate a picture of the apartment building she and her siblings had spent most of Troubadour Mom’s childhood in (the oldest was seventeen when she was born, so he wasn’t really a kid anymore).

Instead of telling Nga Po’s stories, Troubadour Mom gave a sort of running commentary on what the photos reminded her of: her secondary school, being picked up by Nga Po there, buying school supplies at the shop on the first floor of the apartment building, going for tea every afternoon. Nga Po began nodding with each photo, clearly remembering.

She was also nodding off between photos, worn out from the effort of looking, it seemed, even though she very obviously wanted to stay awake, so we put the laptop away again. When it seemed that we should take her back to her room so she could rest, though, she suddenly looked at me and remarked that I had gotten so tall -- the same words she’d used on my previous visit when she first spoke to me then. Again, we were completely stunned.

Then Nga Po began talking in earnest -- she seemed to know who we were -- and called my mother by her childhood nickname. It was as if a different person had been reawakened. Luckily, NG Sis had her camera, which takes great video, so we filled her memory card three times with footage of Nga Po and Troubadour Mom’s conversation (downloading the clips to my laptop each time it ran out of space). The content wouldn’t seem to have much significance to anyone outside the family, I imagine, but the person my grandmother was before she became more or less mute came back for a good hour, and that’s what we were all so thrilled to have in the recording. The connection to Nga Po, too, was more than we could have ever hoped to achieve in our brief visit.

We were not going to be able to see Nga Po the next day as we had to get ready to fly to Newfoundland for the next part of our trip -- had to run various errands and do a wrap-up day with Troubadour Mom’s family (we wouldn’t be seeing them again). So it was especially hard, after such a breakthrough, to tell Nga Po that we had to leave. It seems to be this way each time we visit: we get just enough time to reconnect with her and then we’re yanked away. I know that if we were there on a regular basis, she would be able to hang on to her words and her memories so much more, though of course, further mental deterioration would still occur with the progression of the disease. We can’t ask others to do what we did -- visit for hours and help her perform what are essentially exercises in memory -- as the other family members in Toronto have their own lives to take care of, with some people working multiple jobs. It just seems horrifically sad, though, that this is the reality of the situation: unavoidable absence.

There’s much more from this trip to write about, but I think this seems to be a good stopping place. Some additional recommended reading if you're interested: an article that appeared in The New York Times last week on end-of-life considerations. Quite relevant, I thought.

En route encore

I'm writing from Halifax, Nova Scotia, during one of my layovers on the journey home -- I have one more in Toronto, where I'll go through customs. It's hard to believe that I left St. John's, Newfoundland, on the 9:30 a.m. flight and will be back in Seattle just before 8 p.m., which is really 12:30 a.m. in the time zone I've been in since Saturday. (Newfoundland is an extra half-hour ahead of its immediate western neighbors, hence the weird conversion.)

It's been a really wild week -- amazing ups and really frustrating downs involving some family circumstances, which I will get into in a future post (or two). For now, let me finish what I was in the process of writing about in my last entry: some timely discoveries for our third wedding anniversary celebration.

If there's one thing that D and I have missed enormously since both of us went on the low-carb diet, it's pasta (he has reactive hypoglycemia, which means we have similar dietary restrictions). So imagine our excitement when we found low-carb noodles at the grocery store while we were shopping for our anniversary weekend!

D has especially missed pad thai, and these turned out to be perfect in flavor and texture for it. The noodles themselves are made from tofu and yam flour, with only one gram of net carbohydrates per serving.


We also found that our grocery store carries an Italian-style dried pasta by a company called Dreamfields, which we will try when I get back home. It is also low in carbohydrates, though not quite as low as the Shirataki noodles.

I think these finds have probably been the most diet broadening ones in a while, so even if this seems like minor news, we're happy about it. And of course, it was a special treat for us to have these goodies to celebrate with. Noodles symbolize long life in Chinese culture -- hopefully this culinary discovery is not only a good addition to the list of foods we can eat, but a good omen too.

My flight's about to board. More news after I get home -- I have a huge backlog of things to post about! (I promise they're not all food-related.)

Three years

Next week, D and I will mark our third wedding anniversary -- but from opposite coasts of North America. He's going to be here working while I'm in Newfoundland for my cousin's wedding. How are we going to remedy missing this day together?

By celebrating during this entire holiday weekend, of course.

D got yesterday off, so we started the festivities by having a lunch date in the darling neighborhood called Queen Anne just north of downtown Seattle. D had been up there once or twice before but I hadn't had the chance to explore it.

First stop: The 5 Spot, a little diner off the main drag. The place was well recommended on various websites I'd peeked at. The interior looked quite busy when we arrived and was kind of noisy, but the menu promised tasty rewards. Imagine our delight when we got shown to a separate room at the rear of the restaurant away from the crowds with a view of a private patio garden!

The entire patio was surrounded by a brick wall, mounted with metal lamps at the top edge and a small birdbath below. The primary showpiece in the garden was a gorgeous Japanese maple, and the sunlight streaming through its leaves cast an especially soft light through the picture window next to our table -- a lovely filter for what's usually pretty strong sun at noon:



We took our time ordering, ultimately deciding on a steak sandwich with shoestring fries and a hearty stout for D and a smoked salmon and field greens salad with avocado, caramelized onions, lime vinaigrette, and herbed crostini for me. Everything was so good that we're going to try to reproduce both dishes in the near future (minus the beer -- we haven't tried out home-brewing yet).

After the last bites were gone, we wandered the neighborhood, checking out the boutiques and the local market. The latter had lots of starter plants to give us ideas for our own patio garden. Perhaps some succulents or some herbs? Maybe even a strawberry patch for next summer? That will probably require a corner of the yard itself. We've been sampling the local produce, and there's no substitute for fresh-picked fruit -- the berries shipped from other places tend to be picked prematurely and gas-ripened, so they lack flavor. I have a feeling we're going to be spoiled by all the goodies in season during these warm months! We already have plans to go to the farmers' market in a different area today. Have to take advantage of it while it lasts ...

We also stopped at a store that had beautifully glazed pottery on display. I fell in love with a set of six salad bowls -- they were celadon green at the center, fading to ecru at the rim -- but we decided to wait to buy them; D pointed out that the color was only inside and would be prettier outside too. We have plans to go pottery painting as it is on Sunday (which we discovered during our first winter here), so now that we have some inspiration, we might try to do something similar in design.

Time to head out -- but stay tuned! We have more neat discoveries to share.

Number crunching

That's what today has been about.

I've actually been preparing for today for about six weeks (ever since my endocrinologist started me on that low-oxalate diet -- bleh -- at the end of May). I saw the doctor this morning and got the results of my latest lab tests. The good news: the numbers are coming down as we've hoped they would. The oxalate levels are now in the 60s, which is much closer to normal (under 30; my last reading was over 270) and the phosphorus levels are completely normal in the high 800s (previously over 2100). So cutting out spinach and (some) nuts and tea has worked enormously in my favor, which hopefully means no more kidney stones in the future. This also means I have to stay on this diet, but so far, I'm managing.

Of course, though, there's a new wrinkle: I have exocrine problems.

Because I was experiencing some GI unpleasantness in early May (I'll spare you the details) and inexplicable weight gain, I got a referral to another specialist who ordered some tests of his own. It's not definitive yet, but the early results indicate that I don't digest fats properly. The culprit behind this problem is most likely the pancreas (again!) -- but this time it's the part of the organ belonging to the exocrine system, i.e., the part responsible for getting fat-digesting enzymes where they need to go.

So I'm now taking these.


This is Pancrecarb, which basically delivers the enzymes I need in capsule form. I take one capsule with each meal, and the tiny pellets inside get released as their container breaks down. So far, this seems to be alleviating the GI symptoms extremely well. Unfortunately, the weight gain hasn't leveled off yet. (Granted, I've only been on the meds for a week, but ... ) While the upward creep of the numbers on the scale has been slow, it has been frustrating, especially since I've been increasing my workout time -- and all that's done is give me sugar lows more often.

The nurse at the GI doctor's office who gave me my test results said that my body may have been hanging on to extra weight because it wasn't getting enough dietary fat (a bit counterintuitive, but certainly possible, I guess) so my metabolism may need to readjust. If that's the case, I'm hoping that happens sooner rather than later. I'm fine with what I weigh now, but about seven years ago I was nearly 30 pounds heavier (out of the healthy range for my height and build) and I really don't want to go back to that. I've worked too hard to get fit only to have a pancreas on the fritz undo it all!

In the spirit of staying motivated, here are a few blogs I've been reading recently that I'd like to add to my list of nominees for the One Lovely Blog award:

• Cranky Fitness, written by Crabby McSlacker and Merry Sunshine
• Refuse to Regain, written by Barbara Berkeley and Lynn Haraldson-Bering
• Back in Skinny Jeans, written by Stephanie Quilao
• PastaQueen, written by Jennette Fulda
  

So there's some inspiration to fight the good fight without losing total perspective on why we do it. I am not just a bunch of numbers, I know, even if my doctors tend to rely on them to keep me well. Maybe remind me of that the next time I have to step on the scale ...

Nesting?

Why, yes, we are.

Having family around didn't deter us from working on our place last week -- in fact, it was all we could do to keep D's dad from making yet another run to the hardware store (it's one of his favorite places, it seems) as we thought of various tasks we wanted to tackle while the weather was good and the manpower willing. As a result, the gutters are now cleaned, the wasp nests are gone from beneath the eaves, the trees and bushes are pruned, and only one carload of our belongings remains in our apartment.

While D worked on tidying the outside of the house and moving as much as possible from our other address, I worked on putting things away. I think my biggest accomplishment was getting the closet in our room organized. Until three days ago, it was a chaotic catch-all with clothes flung in piles on the shelves and floor, mostly because we'd been focusing our attention on the rooms the family would be occupying while they were in town.

The nice thing was that even with four extra people in the house, there was plenty of space for everyone, both public and private -- unlike the time when D's parents, aunt, and three brothers came to visit us two weeks after we got back from our honeymoon. I believe we even had guests camped out on the floor of our bedroom that time. Talk about having to get comfortable with your new in-laws right away ...

Our visitors have gone now, and I have exactly one week before I'm traveling again, this time for a visit to my grandmother and a cousin's wedding. I wish I could have a few more days at home as I still don't feel like I have a routine here yet. The structure of each day has been drastically different, given the continuing move process, and that's made it difficult to establish regular work hours for my thesis. More on that front soon -- I've finished another book on the reading list, just haven't gotten to reflect on it properly yet.

One thing D and I have been able to keep routine is breakfast, thank goodness. And now that we're no longer limited by a shortage of cabinet space in the kitchen, we've been able to use the dishes we'd previously had to keep in storage, like the adorable egg cups from Almost Dr. Sis in the photo above. I love them -- the only challenge is bopping the eggs they hold. How can you whack something on its pate (much less scoop out its innards) when it's made to look as if its cute little feet are sticking out at you?

Well, D seemed to have no trouble.


We're looking forward to giving you a virtual tour once we've gotten our place completely in order. In the meantime, here's another nominee for the One Lovely Blog award, in keeping with the rest of this post: decor8, written by Holly Becker. So many ideas to consider ...

It's good to be (coo)king

Yep, the in-laws are here.

They (D's parents and youngest brother) arrived Friday afternoon in my car, which they kindly drove from Little U., saving us enormous shipping costs and eliminating their need for a rental on their tour of national parks en route. D's aunt flew in from Chicago yesterday morning as well. The plan for the next week: day excursions with possible overnights around the Olympic peninsula. D and I won't be going, but we'll spend evenings with the family in the new house.

Cooking for six instead of just two has worked out well so far -- we had soy-ginger barbecued chicken with a field greens salad the first night and broiled halibut steaks with stir-fried zucchini, summer squash, and broccoli yesterday. Tonight, we'll have a pork loin roast with red pepper gravy. That calls for a little more prep, but it is Father's Day. So while the crew is out enjoying the Fremont Fair, I'm going to get that ready along with individual meringues to go with the fresh berries we picked up at Pike Place Market. This works out well, as there are only five seats in the car, and I'm frankly in need of some alone time. Being the primary cook is a lovely excuse not to venture with everyone else into the throngs that will surely await them.

I haven't had a moment to write about the thesis reading I've done so far in the last month, but the ideas are in notes form somewhere with my partially unpacked Boston luggage. I'm hoping to have some more extensive thinking time Monday and Tuesday while also figuring out where to get my driver's license changed and what gift to get for my cousin's wedding, which is the next big trip on the horizon. Why does summer somehow feel less restful than the regular academic year? It must be the constant interruption of routines. I do like the occasional break from the usual grind, but everything gets accomplished in fits and starts with so many special summer activities stacked back to back. I think I'm becoming thoroughly convinced that everything in moderation really is my preferred way of living.

On a completely unrelated note before I head off to the kitchen, a big thank-you to Sherlock of Sherlock's Stuff for the One Lovely Blog award. Such a nice surprise to come home to -- and even after such sparse posting from me in recent weeks!

The rules for accepting this are as follows: (1) Accept the award and post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award as well as his or her blog link. (2) Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you have newly discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

There's no way I can nominate 15 blogs in one round, so I'm going to do a few with every post till I hit the mark. So at this time, I'd like to share this award with Mrs. Whatsit of I Love Science, Really. She's just been reunited with her husband after doing the long-distance thing for what, I imagine, felt like an age. Props for all the effort that went into that experience as well as the decision to move back while still working on a Ph.D. She writes with a candor I love.

To the ovens ...

Down time at DFW and a diet-tribe

You know you’ve been doing too much traveling when, upon arriving at an airport for your layover, you can direct other people to the nearest watering hole.

Okay, I admit, I happened to be looking for a place to buy dinner and was standing in front of an airport directory, but the guy who wanted beer was asking which vendors on the list would sell him one, not where to find any restaurant in particular. Being fairly familiar with the various establishments at DFW after getting stranded there back in March -- not because I visited them but because I walked past them so many times while roaming from terminal to terminal -- I pointed him toward the most likely options, and we went our separate ways.

I will be very happy to sleep in my own bed tonight! Seven nights on the floor of a dorm and then two more on a stick-to-your-skin leather couch are a little rough on the body. But it was all in the name of research and some long overdue catching up with friends I haven’t spent time with in at least six years. I think I achieved both of those primary goals, and that’s what matters.

Eating as a prediabetic for such a long period away from home was a pretty challenging but informative learning experience too. I was really lucky I was staying for the majority of the trip with someone who understood my needs so well -- whether we were staying in or going out, I didn’t need to feel like a nuisance for having to request menus that would give me enough to eat (heavy on the vegetables and lean protein, light on the carbs). I also didn’t need to feel deprived because we kept regular meal times and we didn’t have a lot of forbidden foods on the table for me to lust after. On top of that, I packed my own breakfast (low-carb cereal) to keep things cheaper and to prevent anyone from having to stock it for me -- the friend I stayed with for most of last week tends not to eat breakfast as it is, so I expected I’d be on my own for that anyway.

These last two days were quite a bit harder as I changed hosts for the weekend, and the other person I stayed with seemed to think that as long as I had salad, it was perfectly fine for her and her boyfriend to eat pasta and pancakes and chocolate chip cookies (the first was for dinner, the second lunch, and the third dessert after another dinner). I’m not saying other people should have to forgo all those goodies when I’m eating with them, but it did feel a little cruel to be given no substitutes or variety in alternatives. I love salad – I’ve been eating Cobbs, Caesars, and other kinds every single day for lunch and sometimes dinner in the last week without feeling deprived when that’s what I’ve decided to have -- but when you’ve invited me into your home and your meal has absolutely nothing in common with mine when we sit down at the table and mine is in fact a repeat of what I’ve eaten at every other meal you’ve served me, it feels like my food was an afterthought. If you get dessert, shouldn’t I? There are lots of sugar-free options out there.

I think the freshly baked chocolate chip cookies were the clincher last night. I felt like I needed to leave the room while they noshed on them, three or four at a time. Dinner was light, so I was still hungry but I didn’t feel comfortable asking my host for more food. Moral of the story: when staying with strangers who might not understand your dietary needs, pack your own treats (I tried to go lighter on the baggage since it was already so stuffed, but perhaps it would have been worth the extra few ounces for some sugar-free chocolate). And if you’re someone who might be hosting a guest for a meal where dietary restrictions come into play, at least try to make sure your guest has as many courses as you do so s/he doesn’t have to sit there pretending not to notice that you’re eating while his/her plate is awkwardly bare.

Okay, I’m off my little soapbox now -- time to find a good carry-on meal option! This won’t be posted until after I get home (no free internet till then), but for now, the dinner hour approaches.

In which I become an undergrad again

Well, not really, but it sort of feels that way for two reasons. The first is that I spent most of last week wandering the grounds of my alma mater and (re)experiencing the university's commencement ceremonies. Almost Dr. Sis and I had a terrific time -- both of us felt we could actually enjoy the hoopla properly since neither of us were preoccupied with the uncertainties of the next day: how to get completely packed and moved out of the dorms by 5 p.m. as well as how to make the transition to that thing called the Real World after four years in the protective bubble of those dorms. They provided hot meals and an instant community when we arrived. How were we supposed to find those things again on the outside?

Actually, I think our younger sister will have no trouble. She's amazing in the kitchen (having worked for a catering service helps in that area) and she's incredibly comfortable meeting new people (even in early childhood, she was never panicked by the presence of strangers as we were). Wish I were as outgoing -- I'm not quite so shy anymore, but I am apprehensive about finding ways to make new friends once I get properly settled in Seattle. Perhaps I should start looking for special-interest groups in the area, or maybe sign up to volunteer somewhere once or twice a week? Otherwise, I'll end up too easily content to stay at home, nesting.

But yes, back to graduation. Almost Dr. Sis and I tried to chase down the parade of seniors from our younger sister's dorm to get a picture of her marching (each dorm's residents process to the ceremony through the city streets after breakfast, escorted by bagpipers). Unfortunately, we couldn't locate anyone from her dorm and kept running into folks from others. In the end, after sprinting around madly in heels with cameras in tow, we made it to the university church in time to see the last of the seniors filing in for some final words of wisdom from the reverend:


Still not the group we were looking for, but at least it's representative ...

We finally caught up with Newly Graduated Sis in the afternoon -- and from then on, time moved in leaps: a celebration at a lovely restaurant, a few hours of sleep, and then speed-packing NG Sis's belongings. D, who flew in for the graduation dinner, schlepped ALL of the boxes over crazy cobblestone sidewalks to the nearest Staples for shipping the following day. No question, he's the best. Wish I'd had that kind of assistance when I was moving out!

Now, the second reason I'm feeling like an undergrad again (sorry, I got carried away talking about the previous one): I've been staying this week with a former college roommate, who is pursuing a Ph.D. at another university nearby -- and I have to say, it's been an adjustment returning to dorm life. At Little U., there were no graduate dorms, so everyone rented apartments. Here in Boston, the rent is much less budget-friendly, so the university has to provide other options. My friend has a single room in a group of three that share a bathroom and standard-size refrigerator (no common space, just a corridor connecting everything). A kitchen for the entire floor of residents is available down the hall (not sure exactly how many people use it, but there are about 500 students housed on five floors, some living in suites with private kitchens, if they can afford it, and some without).

I think the obstacles to cooking a proper meal are what have really stood out to me in the last few days. We've been making use of the kitchen as best we can, but because of the limited fridge space and storage for cooking utensils in the tiny rooms, it's not easy to eat cheaply without eating poorly (i.e., prepackaged stuff meant for the microwave rather than meals using fresh produce and actual pots and pans). We've found that stir-fries are a fairly economical, single-pan way to go without sacrificing our health -- my friend's diabetic so agreeing on a menu has been pretty easy. I have to admire her creativity in finding space for her cooking supplies:


The shelf is actually a shoe rack, and the drawers are empty clementine crates. Genius.

When we were true undergrads, we had access to a kitchen during our sophomore year but not a lot of funds to invest in cookware. So we bought an all-metal pot that doubled as a skillet and baking pan for many recipes. We remembered that this week while we were jury-rigging a lid for her current pot so we could boil water (a large plate works well). It's been useful to my research, unearthing such memories here, as my thesis will examine a part of my life in those first years away from home. I never expected this trip to provide this sort of "data" though -- I only intended to conduct interviews with some Boston-based contacts when I arranged to stay the week. The magic of serendipity, I guess.

Notes to transcribe, groceries to pick up. More news as soon as I can sort out more of my whirling thoughts.

Déjà blues

What a crazy week.

I'm in Boston, getting in fifteen minutes of decompression time at a Starbucks in a hotel I just checked out of. I arrived Tuesday evening, spent the next three days celebrating my sister's college graduation (more on that when I have time to write at greater length), and then had a day with D before he had to leave for Seattle again. Now, I'm officially on my own once more in the city where I spent my college years.

D visited infrequently during that time since airline tickets were especially difficult to pay for on a student budget -- we worked various jobs to make the cash for a visit every few months -- and I had a jarring moment of involuntary recall when I put him on the train to the airport just now. Can't help feeling some of the same sadness that used to haunt me after his departures so many years ago.

I know I'm going to see him again in a week, so this goodbye was much, much easier. I'm also about to meet up with some old college friends I haven't spent time with since graduation -- and move in with them while I'm doing my thesis research -- so I'll be perked up shortly. Amazing, though, how history catches up with you even when you think you've laid the not so great memories to rest.

One thing D and I never did get to do while we were in school was eat lobster. To commemorate our return to Boston, we decided to do just that last night. I'll leave you with a picture of the fantastic one-pounder I got to enjoy. I'm proud to say I got all the meat out of the shell.


More as soon as I find another free internet connection ...