Where Have I Been??????

It's been 3 weeks! This neglect won't happen again! So, where have I been? Here, there, everywhere. A little east coast last month, and a little west coast this month. I went to San Diego to ring in my dad's 60th birthday with him and family. It was lovely! See...?

We went to the zoo, where we saw these flamingoes dancing...

We marvelled at an awesome aircraft carrier and a neat soldier statue on the harbor (and again were reminded of the HUGE military presence in the city-not the first thing you think of when you think SoCal).
And we went to the aquarium in La Jolla, from which you can see forever...
Most of all, I enjoyed just hanging out with my family. The memorable times often happen during downtime, whether surrounded by wise elephants or groovin' flamingoes, surly balloon artists or sad seahorses, freeway traffic or miles of sand and surf.

When I got back, I had one day to decompress, and it's been run, run, run ever since. I feel like I am wearing my own personal groove into the M-14, hustling back and forth between Wayne and Washtenaw Counties. I met with my clients (I need more!), attended a 2-day trade convention (learned that it is necessary to sink way more money in!), networked with a fellow tradesmen, got a fever and then got better, became more involved in my literacy volunteer organization (I'm a mentor now), got a different waitress job (did not put too much effort into that one), paid my bills, reorganized my office (was a disaster), reorganized basement (still a disaster, but a neater one), dog-sat, and slept a little. So, I hope that answers the question posed in this post's title.

As for the corn crop, I'm hoping that we don't get a frost for at least another month. I have some small ears and some big ears-the big ears are the ones that have received the most direct sunlight. When I walk in the cornfield now I can actually smell corn-it is really cool! Also, our tomato plants are still yielding, after 3 months! Either it's beginner's luck, or we really do live in suburbia's promised land. Here's the latest in corn-if you look closely you can see the cornsilks and follow their origin to the growing ears!

Ode to The Line, a Debriefing of The American, and a dash of Tomato Porn

Before I get to tonight's topics: today, my first paying client...paid me! And now, stuff that is not as exciting.

Tonight I stood with about five others in a slow-moving Line at the library, impatiently waiting my turn while reminding myself that I really hadn't been waiting that long. All of sudden a rogue stepped up to the counter just vacated by another patron. The problem with his sudden appearance at the counter: he skipped the Line! He had simply ignored the sign that read "Please form one line here" and blithely sallied up to the counter at the end farthest from the hanging directive. Others in Line grumbled a bit, while I pondered the lack of character, to be so unaware of one's surroundings, much like bad drivers on cellphones or those merely daydreaming. Or perhaps he was from Europe or some such place, where people congregate around a desired purpose in a frightening absence of longitudinal order. Well if so, he had been in the U.S. long enough to get a library card, and probably long enough to wait in Line at the DMV (ha! he could not have survived skipping that Line without some bite marks or bullet holes, right L.L.?). Regardless, we said nothing as the man readied his books and library card, though this faux pas is one of the few remaining that inspire patriotic ferver in fellow Lineholders....but wait! A man, clearly a regular geek/patron of the library (takes one to know one) said politely, with a slight tremor, "Sir, the line forms over here." Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! The man grabbed his things from the counter, turned, and made his way to the back of the line in an agreeable manner, no scowl to be detected! And the last semblance of American public civility lives to fight another day.

Speaking of American/European clashes (real or imagined), I finally finished Henry James' The American. I must say, I almost gave up about halfway through, when it appeared that absolutely nothing would happen. So our hero Newman travels to Paris to hunt down a bride after having accumulated massive wealth as a "commercial man" in the U.S. circa when steamership was the way to go. He makes some friends and proposes to Claire de Cintre, a titled young widow. Her family begrudgingly allows the engagement, and the story plods on with nary a hint of coming drama (okay, there were hints, just wanted to say nary, and the hints were few and far between). Newman is irritatingly happy and good-natured. I suppose he is the Everyman (the New-Man) American travelling abroad, risking language and etiquette gaffs along the way. Well, his Parisian acquaintances prove disloyal, snooty, and wrapped up in stupid things like gentry, which I think is the point James is trying to make. The good guys in the story get the short end of the stick, except for Newman, who ends up good-natured and relatively happy, until the very last line of the book (don't bother trying to impress your friends with your book knowledge by reading the first and last lines of the novel, it doesn't work with this one, you will have no idea what is going on). Was this review helpful? I think not. Did reading The American make me a better, more enlightened guest at cocktail parties? I think not. Do I wonder why there are people who devote their careers to studying Henry James? I think so, and I welcome their venom (maybe someday I will learn to appreciate James, possibly by reading another of his novels...but that day has not come, especially when my reading time is occupied by such fantastic modern work like The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie!).

Last but not least, some saucy Tomato Porn. Well, it is a fetish of all in-season vegetables, but Tomoto Porn is much more sonically enticing than Vegetable Porn, and tomatoes are far and away my favorite. Don't worry folks, what you are about to see is not obscenity, which we know is illegal, but simply some tasteful photos of recent footage from behind the garage and at the farmers market. Feast your eyes on this from the Ann Arbor Farmers Market:

And this behind my own garage:

Animal Attack Part II

*My artsy take on the Massachusetts State House*

I have been back home for almost two weeks and finally have a chance to sit down and write. I've been busy starting my own business while waiting tables (sob!) a few days a week to generate some income until I can generate my own income without schlepping food I could make better at home (the fiance and I have become quite uppity about our own food preparation skills). But I have my first client lined up, so things are moving right along!

Boston was lovely! I forget how vibrant some cities are. Detroit, not so much. I spend quite a bit of time in Ann Arbor, which is pretty lively, but Detroit itself can be a bit of a downer, and while my suburban home is no downer, it is pretty sedate. However, it was nice to come home and get working again.

We went to Boston to go to a wedding in a beachy area north of Boston. We road-tripped there, a good 12+ hours each direction, all through beautiful, green-lined highways practically free from traffic until the Boston burbs. We stayed in Essex, a cute town on a marshy river, at a hotel with loads of personality (I could tell by the website and the room prices that it was b.y.o.shampoo!). Can you see the Massachusetts-appropriate name of our room?

We were right across the two lane road from Woodman's, a popular seafood restaurant that had the best scallops I have ever had, and some darn good lobster too. I had lobster every day. I miss eating lobster every day. Here is a picture of a 3 pounder the fiance picked up for lunch one day, eaten at the picnic tables on our hotel's waterfront lawn.

The wedding was gorgeous. It was held at the Crane Estate, which has been featured in movies requiring a super-fancy giant house, like The Witches of Eastwick and Flowers in the Attic. The ceremony was beautiful, overlooking the ocean, and the reception was nice, until we were ATTACKED by swarms and swarms (and swarms and swarms) of mosquitoes. The wedding bartender gave me ice to bring down the swelling on seven or so bites on my back. I had more than 50 bites and looked like I had the chicken pox. So I tucked away some hard-won info for planning my own wedding: either it's going to be before/after mosquito season or it will happen in a land free from nature's most questionable creation. Here is the view of the lawn leading toward the ocean from the reception patio (not the best picture, but the others had flash malfunctions).

Other than a lovely but itchy wedding, we checked out downtown Boston's historical sites. I took this picture in the Granary Graveyard (Cemetery?). I took reams of photos at this and other cemeteries. The gravestones are so cool, very thin and most displaying a skull and/or bones.

The only mediocre part of the trip was Salem, a place I would not have chosen anyway had I been travelling alone (I'd much prefer seeing Concord, being the book-reader that I am--Alcott, Thoreau, Hawthorne, oh my!). Salem is not even the site of "Salem!" The witch trials apparently happened in Danvers, not Salem. But I did have a tasty lobster roll in Salem, so it was all good.

Last but not least, Niagara Falls. We debated back and forth about going or just skipping it, but the quintessential, road-trippy, American-ness of it won out, and we made the detour. Worth it!

Back in the D

We are back from our trip to Boston. It was great. We had some chowdah, lobstah, and a beah to go with the food. We saw some historical sites and beautiful scenery, all of which I will detail with pictures when I am not so tired!

A Post Before Heading to Boston

Well, I failed to post after we went to Eastern Market on Saturday. As usual, things did not go as planned. It poured rain (which is fine because the market is under several huge shelters) and the restaurant serving ribs did not look as inviting without the usual setup (people usually sit outside, eating and people-watching while listening to live music). Instead, Fiance and I walked through the market and found something even better! I have been wanting to try Good Girls go to Paris crepes for a few months, and the owner was set up at the market. I had a yummy spinach, boursin, and turkey crepe, and to my surprise, Fiance had the same and loved it (he ate his more like a burrito). Next time we will do his thing and eat ribs though. As it happens, my Seattle sister and her daughter C had crepes at the market (in Seattle) as well - great minds eat alike!

We had planned to go to John K. King's bookstore after leaving the market, but my google directions failed me, and we ended up doing our usual potholed tour of deserted downtown streets, ending up at one of our favorite turnaround points, a giant building that says United States of America, which I assume is a U.S. Customs building. My advice: Do not attempt to cruise the area of downtown near Joe Louis Arena and Cobo Center (and the customs office) - it is futile and you will be lost. Follow the signs to the freeway and just ride to whatever suburb the road takes you. Then try again next time, possibly bringing several maps and a satellite device. I will stand up for myself and say that it is not easy finding one's way in the pouring rain.

My latest headline on the corn crop: Animals Attack! After noticing suspicious scratch marks on a stalk of corn, I went back the next day to see an entire stalk chomped off and left for dead! I know this is the same animal that is eating halves of tomatoes and halves of some unfortunate neighbor's cucumbers, then leaving the rest near my cornfield. I am thinking of creating a scarecrow, but first I'll look into the efficacy of scarecrows before bothering.

My latest creation: I painted a picture for a friend's baby, though I worry about copyright stuff. Just a little paranoid. Not sure which side of the law I stand on here...

Finally, I just want to give tribute to John Hughes, who died a few days ago, at the age of 59. I loved his movies. There is nothing as good as them made anymore in that genre of feel-good teens comedy/dramas. He set the standard by which teen movies are made. I watched Some Kind of Wonderful on a VHS home recording (but without commercials!) a hundred times. And Ferris Bueller's Day Off (with commercials) another hundred times. I did not see one of my other top favorites, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, until I was older (like the characters in the movie), but it struck the same perfect cord between irony, sincerity, and laugh-out-loud situations that today's Hollywood output doesn't come close to.

That's all. The fiance and I are going to Boston this weekend for a wedding. It is rumored that Leonard Cohen and Wilco will be there-we shall see. Until next week, bonsoir (?).

Renewed Vigor

I have not posted for a while: I fell into a midsummer's inertia for the past two weeks--doing too much thinking and not enough doing--that I've finally been able to shake. Still looking for jobs, mining my resources, and getting closer to opening my own shop, which has great appeal anyway--the only reason not to be my own boss is for the security of a steady paycheck to shrink that pesky student loan. My area of work becomes more competitive every day (no different than any other I guess), so it seems I can forever deal with rejection and/or settling for less than favorable work circumstances, or I can take control. Instead of struggling with how things are, I can carve out my own niche and enjoy the process...in a home office with pink walls. This is me in a confident moment.

While I have been pondering my life's direction, my corn crop's direction has been decidedly up. It is now waist-high, save for one knee-high straggling stalk. Today I noticed scratch marks on two stalks. I think it is a squirrel looking for food and then realizing the stalks are not quite edible. My sister in Seattle thinks the night invader is a raccoon, which freaks me out--where do they go during the day? Are they watching me admire my cornfield and laughing, then coming out at night and trashing my garden, while mocking my efforts and gossiping a la The Great Outdoors (what was it with those '80s movies featuring pivotal animal roles-Caddyshack...Trading Places...)? I've also noticed half-eaten tomatoes in the dirt. At least eat the whole tomato, it's delicious!

Above is the flower paintings I did for my younger sister, who just had a baby girl (hooray!). It was fun. I used acrylics, which are the most user-friendly paints as far as I'm concerned. I think they came out well, but now I notice other acrylic paintings with perpective, light, and texture--doing my own painting and then seeing the more polished work of talented painters inspires me to learn how to add realistic depth to a canvas. In the meantime, until I can afford the paint supplies with which to experiment, I will happily paint my cutesy, one-dimensional pictures. The lovely gallery wall is my office floor (the one with the pink walls).

Tomorrow the fiance and I head to Eastern Market, the big farmers and wholesale market district downtown. It should really be going off this time of summer, so I am excited to see what they've got. After shopping for fresh fruit and veggies, Fiance plans to indulge in smoked ribs that we've passed up on several occasions-we will sit at a plastic table, eat some ribs and drink some sugary soda while watching a blues band play. Not a bad start to a Saturday. After that, we'll head to the big used bookstore downtown-John K. King Rare and Used Books. That is, assuming we can find it. Vegas spoiled me on logical, square street blocks. Detroit is a little more curved and slanted. When leaving the Eastern Market, we generally drive in potholed circles for 5-10 minutes until happening across a freeway launching point. The good news is that all big roads end downtown, a ground zero with the roads radiating outward to the distance suburbs and beyond. So we can always find a main road, and go from there. So what if you have to drive to the riverfront to find the highway entrance ramp in the opposite direction? Anyway, finding another downtown destination is a different story, one that I hope will end well.

Finally, and speaking of downtown, there are some interesting living spaces designed by Mies van der Rohe in the downtown area, and some interesting people living in them, one being the author of Sweet Juniper!, a great blog started by a person I consider Detroit's Hipster in Residence (I am guessing the guy would hate this reference-sorry!). The site has great pictures of and commentary on Detroit, showing many beautiful, interesting, and uplifting sides to the city (among other great things), a rarity in the face of a ton of one-dimensional bad press--hooray! See for yourself at http://www.sweet-juniper.com/.

I hope to post again tomorrow, what with my renewed vigor.

Debriefing A Slipping-Down Life

There is a film theory that no matter what is shown on the big screen, the very quality of projecting the images and the very fact that it is on the big screen add an element of glamour/legitimacy to the characters and actions onscreen. Applying this theory to the film version of Trainspotting, despite the pathetic lives and unfortunate deaths of some of the characters, and despite Renton's positive message to "Choose life" over heroin, the film is nevertheless befuddled because the characters all look kind of cool, relatively attractive, and just plain more appealing than the average heroin addict laying in a gutter or living with his parents.

I have a similar theory about fictional characters in books. They may be messed up, villanous, and miserable but I often romanticize them, though if I lived through the same predicaments I would feel anything but romantic. Well, Anne Tyler creates fictional characters that sidestep any notion of romanticism I had for them. And I love that. She is steering this ship. Her characters tend to make choices I generally would not agree with, but in addition to my romantic notions, they also sidestep my judgment. They are people working with what they've got, guided by their insticts and desires.

A Slipping-Down Life by Anne Tyler is by no means a new book. I chose the book off the library shelf because I liked the other books by Anne Tyler I have read (also because it is fairly short and would fit in nicely to the other 4 books I am still juggling). Evie, an overweight, unpopular teenager, falls for a singer/guitarist she hears on the radio one night and goes to see him perform at his weekly gig. Why Drumstrings Casey appeals to Evie is a mystery, to everyone including Drumstrings it seems. But the otherwise unattractive Evie forcefully draws his attention, and they form a strange connection that is quite begrudging and guilty on his part.

What motivates Evie to make repeated bad decisions and compromise her future for a marginally talented man with a less than sparkling personality? Her relationship with her father is our clue. He cares for Evie, but does not know how to be a mother too. Furthermore, Evie suspects he blames her for her mother's death (her mother "had been the last woman in Pulqua County to die of childbed fever"). But in the end, her father seems to help her grow up a little, to become an independent woman who can start the process of adulthood, which is nothing more than making painfully correct decisions all the time.

Finally, I love the hyphen in the title. Hooray for freedom of grammar! Sure, America will defend freedom of expression, but there seems to be a recently clamorous group of people who speak the English language and want to tell everyone else how horrifying it is that they are using it wrong. Some of these people come from England. To be fair, the clamoring is tempered by a concession to the evolving quality of the language. In my opinion, there is no longer a proper English in the United States, if there ever was. I believe it is important to get the "proper" basics of grammar in school, but then go from there, inventing and riffing on a language that, if strong and sensible enough, will not die.