April 19 Snowstorm
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Two Evenings with John Denver
Two friends of ours are writing a show about John Denver. They asked me to jot down some memories of his visit to Beijing when I was living there as a kid. I sent this draft along to them and thought I’d share it here too.
We were living in Beijing, China around 1980 when John Denver came through (this was third or fourth grade for me). There were few Americans in Beijing at the time, so the visit was surprisingly intimate.
I remember having him over to dinner at our apartment. I don’t know how the invitation happened, exactly, but John Denver was a major rock star in our home—the family sound track. He accompanied our road trips, was my first choice to peck out on the piano after lessons, and “Leaving on a Jet Plane” was the anthem we sang whenever my father flew off on trips. We had a young woman named Annie living with us at the time, and she was so excited that I thought she was going to pass out when he came through the door.
Of the conversation that night I don’t remember much. From my perspective, it was typical adult banter, not very exciting. I recall snippets about his trip, his song-writing process, and life back home in the states. It was all very easy-going, and Denver was funny and personable. The only thing that sticks from the conversation is his explanation of how his vocal range improved over the course of a tour. At the beginning of a tour he couldn’t hit the highest notes but his voice would loosen up further after each show. By the end of the tour, he had access to his full range.
Annie and I scored the best seats at dinner, flanking him, and he remained gregarious and fun. He asked if we had any requests for the concert the following night, and I asked for “Grandma’s Feather Bed,” the best song EVER. Annie, of course, requested “Annie’s Song.”
The next evening was the concert at the embassy—a small gathering in the ambassador’s living room. Kids sat on the soft rug up front with parents on chairs and couches behind. This was probably my first real concert, or at least the first one that I enjoyed. I remember it being a glorious night with lots of spontaneous dancing and laughter. Denver took requests for most of the show. For some of his obscure songs he couldn’t remember all the lines, so he would make them up or ask the audience for help. The kids found this endlessly amusing. There were also a few songs that went too high, so he couldn’t pull them off. Most of them, though, were perfect. At some point I raised my hand and reminded him to play his best song, Grandma’s Feather Bed, prompting laughter from the grown-ups. He played it with verve as we leaped and laughed.
That’s all I remember from the concert. As I grew up and developed my own tastes, John Denver fell out of favor. He represented my parents’ music—not cool. Twenty-some years after the Beijing concert, however, and a few years after Denver’s death, I bought an iPod and visited the iTunes store; my first purchase was, “An Evening With John Denver.”
Whole30, Day 19
Second and third weeks have gone pretty well, overall. No epiphanies or wild bursts of energy, but I feel fairly stable and the cravings are less extreme. Still some funny food dreams now and then, like last night’s extended episode featuring Dr. Pepper and chocolate.
The biggest challenge for me has been the afternoons at school. I get the munchies big-time when I’m working at my desk. Not sure if its just something to ride out or if it means I’m missing some nutrient or something like that. Is there a “perfect snack” that would calm the cravings without exacerbating them? Or should the lunch mix be altered?
One thing I have been depending on is dates. We bought some tubs of Medjool dates from Costco and I used them to combat my cravings for other banned snacks. (If you’re a date-fan, these mongo dates are pretty spectacular.) Technically they are allowed on the Whole30 since they are a natural fruit, but they are sugar bombs—nature’s candy. This week I’ve been pulling back on them, culminating in a complete moratorium yesterday. My sense is that the dates were basically feeding the beast, maintaining a hunger for sugar. Possibly coincidentally, I felt deeply fatigued yesterday. By late afternoon I was wrecked, completely out of gas. Not sure if this was directly related to less sugar or if it was simply a result of a poor night’s sleep combined with a challenging day at school. We’ll see how today goes.
Whole30, Day 7
Sarah and I embarked this week (starting Monday, February 11) on a 30-day nutritional reset, the Whole30 program. It’s associated with the “paleo” movement which emphasizes meat, fruit and vegetables over grains, legumes, and dairy. Processed foods, sugar, etc. are frowned upon, but can be used in moderation. The Whole30 is more strict, banning dairy, grains, legumes, sugar and artificial ingredients altogether.
This is not normally my sort of thing. I dislike “diets” and I’m suspicious of nutritional fads. But Sarah’s been dabbling in paleo for a while, and it’s gone well for her. She decided recently, with one of our neighborhood friends, that she wanted to do the full reset. It’s a lot easier to do this sort of thing if your partner is on board (instead of filling the house with the smell of fresh biscuits every morning, as I often do). So she asked me if I would join in too. At first, I was resistant and bit cranky about the whole idea. But, why not? I’m not a paragon of healthy eating (as aforementioned biscuits attest), so I could do with a reset of my own. I’ve never tried anything like this before, and I have a certain amount of scientific curiosity about whether the program “works,” whatever that might mean, and whether or not I have the strength to stick with it.
First Week
Today is the seventh day, and so far things have been pretty good. The most challenging aspect has been quitting my soda addiction. I typically drink two or three cans of Diet Coke (or, my new favorite, Coke Zero) per day. I don’t do coffee or tea, but I am quite solidly addicted to my soda. It seems silly, but seriously, this is what I was most worried about. I considered starting to drink tea or some other “approved” source of caffeine, but decided that as long as I’m jumping in, I might as well go whole-hog: no caffeine either.
As it turns out, whatever physical addiction I may have had to caffeine was mild. No headaches or anything like that—the stuff I hear about from people who give up a major coffee habit. I have been a bit spacey and lethargic, especially in the morning, but it’s hard to know if this is related to caffeine or a radical realignment of my metabolism (no sugar or grains changes my fuel mix dramatically).
Sugar cravings have been present, but not as bad as expected. I definitely want chocolate after dinner, but it’s been manageable thus far. I worry that it will be harder once the “newness” of this thing wears off. I imagine the cravings won’t be as strong, but my level of commitment is likely to dwindle by the time day 30 rolls around.
The hardest thing has been the near constant onslaught of temptations outside of the house. At my ECFE (Early Childhood Family Education) “dads’ group” with the kids on Monday night, one of the other dads brought approximately one million gourmet doughnuts for our snack. (When you compare the snacks between the dads’ groups and the moms’ groups, it appears that men are willfully committing nutritional suicide.) Then I had two days of professional development at the end of the week. With the advent of Valentine’s day, candy was the theme. Our work tables were festooned with sweets and we actually had activities where we tossed candy at each other to validate especially good ideas. Luckily, I appreciated the comedic value of all of this.
Dreams
One of the support resources Sarah and I have used is an article about what to expect as we proceed through the 30 days, The Timeline: A Day-By-Day Guide To Your Whole30. Overall, things have been a bit less extreme for me than described in the article. In particular, I didn’t feel quite as “hungover” or cranky as expected during the first week. Last night, however, one of their predictions came through in spades. During days 8-15, one should expect dreams:
You’re dreaming. Not crazy nightmare or strange surrealist dreams, either. Incredibly normal and realistic dreams – about donuts. Or Twinkies. Or Snickers.
Last night, just a day ahead of schedule, I had the most insanely vivid dream I’ve ever had about a piece of candy. I was teaching a first grade class about why Snickers bars are not a healthy snack. In order to do so, obviously, I had to slowly eat a Snickers. Dream reality allowed me to narrate while eating, and so I calmly explained why each delicious layer of chocolate, caramel, peanuts, and nougat was actually terrible. I woke up with the flavor and texture still vividly imprinted in my mind. This cracked me up, especially considering that I haven’t eaten a Snickers bar in ages. Maybe I had one of the mini-ones around Halloween, but it’s not one of my favorite candies, and I usually stick to fancier dark chocolate anyway. But my subconscious remembers exactly the flavor and texture of the real thing, and somehow it symbolized the deprivation that my body has been feeling this week.
Seven days down. So far so good. We’ll see how the next twenty-three go.
Our Haphazard Garden
While some thought did go into planning our garden this summer, the result has been a splendidly haphazard garden. We planned what we were growing and started everything from seed in the spring, but by the time we were ready to plant in the ground, Maggie had been born and stuff just needed to go in. We borrowed our neighbor’s rototiller to incorporate our backyard compost and got our seedlings in the ground. By the time we had it all in, we realized we had more space than we had planned for and made a mental note that next year we could go bigger. As time went on, we got some surprises: lots of “volunteers” started sprouting up all over the place as many tomato plants and vines took over the unclaimed real estate! We’ve been delighted as we discover what’s coming up and have been watching all kinds of expected and unexpected plants grow. The produce has been delicious, and what’s even better is that Griffin is excited to be part of it all. I’d call that success!
Christmas Crafts
We put up our first family Christmas tree last night. It’s sparsely adorned with ornaments from Andrew’s past, a few we have collected together over the years, and ones I recently took from my grandmother’s collection. Today Griffin added his first handmade ornament, made from buttons my grandmother collected from her days working in a coat factory. It turned out super cute, and it was just the right level of coordination for his two and a half year old hands.
First Snow
The first snow of the season arrived today. Unlike last year’s opening blizzard (which dumped 8 inches overnight), this is a mellow snowfall, which should max out at 3 inches. Sarah and Griffin are missing it while they galavant around the Bay Area, but I suspect there will be plenty more white stuff to play in when they return.
Cordes sur Ciel
The luggage incident was, of course, only a small part of our time in France. This was the second part of our Fabulous European Wedding Tour, and it was my (Andrew’s) first time in France. We were staying just outside of a small town called Cordes sur Ciel (built in 1222, perched on a hill, cooler than cool) about an hour from Toulouse in southern France.
When we were planning the trip my good friend James, the groom, knew that we were on a very tight budget, so he kindly suggested that we could stay in the neighbor’s “pigeonier.” Â I looked up the word and discovered that a pigeonier is more commonly known, in English, as a “dovecote.” Â Those of us who don’t live on a rural manor might still need a bit of help; according to Merriam-Webster, a dovecote is
A small compartmented raised house or box for domestic pigeons.
Hmm. Â I took James up on the offer, but wasn’t quite sure what we were getting into.
It turned out that the neighbors in question were stone-masons and had built the pigeonier as a guest-house. It was a four story stone tower with a full kitchen, living room, bath, and gorgeous bedroom at the apex (where the pigeons would have lived had it been a real pigeonier). Pretty awesome.
Below are a few of our favorite pictures from this part of the trip. Â Click on any of them to see a more complete photo album.
Alitalia Loses Our Luggage
We arrived in Toulouse, France, on Thursday to discover we only had two of our three checked bags.
“But we have on file that you have only two checked suitcases. Where are your stubs?”
It was then that we realized we were in trouble. We had not received our luggage stubs from the ticket agent in Rome, and without them, there was no record of us having a third bag.
“We will do our best to find your suitcase. With no tag, it will be difficult, plus…you know…it’s Italy,” says the French agent.
She hands us three “sorry-we-lost-your-luggage” kits (which each include one white t-shirt and a meager toiletry kit) and sends us out the door with a case number and hopes that the suitcase will be found within two days. We are not optimistic.
Did I mention that every stitch of clothing Andrew and I packed for the trip, besides what we were wearing, was in that lost bag? Including the white clothing we had searched high and low for to wear to the wedding that would be taking place two days from that very day?
We counted our blessings: at least it wasn’t Griffin’s clothes and supplies; at least it wasn’t the camera we forgot to take out of the suitcase before checking it; at least we had our toiletry kits; at least we had our swimsuits; at least it included many articles of clothing we had receipts for so we could get reimbursed.
And like stereotypical Americans, we asked how to get to the nearest mall. Right. Now. Seriously, we didn’t even have a change of underwear.
The visit to the Toulouse mall was an adventure. Neither of us speak French, there were no familiar stores, the sizes are completely different, and we were treading on thin ice with our tired toddler. But we went about it with as much grace and humility as possible, found ourselves some Euro-fabulous clothes, and laughed about how we’d be wearing the same thing in all of our pictures for the next week and a half.
After many calls to the airline to check on the situation with little hope of recovery, we fortunately received a call on Friday night saying they had found our luggage and would be delivering it between 9am and 12 noon on Saturday, mere hours before the ceremony. We were cautiously optimistic. By noon on Saturday, we were called by the delivery person to say he couldn’t find where we were staying, so we hopped in the car and met him on the highway. It wasn’t until he opened the back of the van and I saw our suitcase that I actually believed that they had it. We were ridiculously excited.
And low and behold, it DID have a tag. We received our white clothing just in the knick of time for James and Eliza’s wedding AND we ended up with some oui-oui French clothing. Win-win, in my book.
Cinque Terre
We started the summer off with a bang this year and it all still feels a bit like a dream.
In a bizarre turn of events, we were invited to TWO weddings in Europe this summer that happened to be one week apart and relatively close to each other physically. The first was in the south of France, not far from Toulouse. The other was in Umbria in central Italy. As part of our policy of doing things that seem impossible (like the road trip to Minnesota with a one-year-old last summer), Sarah and I committed to going and have been working hard all year to make it happen. On June 11 (the day after my duties at school ended) we boarded a plane for Rome!
Our trip divided neatly into three sections:
- We spent our first four nights in Vernazza, part of the Cinque Terre in northwest Italy. Â We were on our own here, getting over jetlag and getting used to the rhythm of travel with a toddler.
- Then we flew to Cordes sur Ciel in southern France for James and Eliza’s wedding where we stayed in an ultra-cool pigeon coop.
- Finally we spent a week in Macerino, Umbria, for Tyler and Mieka’s wedding.
So as not to overwhelm everybody we’ve divided our photos into three sets to fit with these divisions. Â This blog entry highlights the first part of the trip, including a few of our favorite photos. Â Click on any of the photos to see the complete photo album with many more fabulous pictures.
Aside from the pictures, some favorite memories included:
- After 22 hours of travel we arrived in Vernazza with little to no sleep. Even with our exhaustion, we were amazed by the town: steep terraced hills, buildings piled on top of each other, vivid colors, staircase “streets”, and a cool breeze blowing in from the Ligurian Sea. Â We tossed our luggage into our tiny one-room apartment and walked to the waterfront for some pizza and a view of the sunset. Â Afterwards we all slept for twelve solid hours. (Griffin was great with sleep; we haven’t shared a room with him since co-sleeping as an infant so we were worried.)
- On our first day, Griffin awoke from his nap to say, loudly, “Go to the beach? Â Ok!” (He’s got this thing right now where he poses his favorite ideas as questions and then immediately says “Ok!” as if granting himself permission.) He loved the beach, laughing at the waves, covering himself with sand, and splashing in the water. His tiny little body would get SO cold, though, that we often had to take breaks so that he could return to a normal color.
- Vernazza is a town of amazing views. As mentioned above, the streets are all super-narrow, and usually steep. (No cars allowed, since they can’t fit.) Suddenly you will pop around a corner and find a breathtaking vista where you could see much of the town arrayed beneath you (and the terraced vineyards continuing to climb into the sky). We loved the pace of life where we could just wander around, enjoying the views, sampling the food, and splashing at the beach.
- We were all mesmerized by the trains. There are two tracks passing through town, but for the most part they are in tunnels in the mountains. Â The town’s platform is tiny with buildings all around it. Â Only two or three train cars actually fit on the outdoor platform, so most of the train is in the tunnel on either side when it stops. It’s a bit spooky having to walk through the dark to get on or off the front or rear cars. Â Many trains on these tracks don’t stop at the small town either, and so they come roaring through at full speed. Before you can hear or see them, a cold wind starts blowing from the tunnel. Everyone grabs their hats, and then the thing comes blazing past, vanishing into the next tunnel. Â Over the beach there is an expanse of track where the trains are visible again, high up on a masonry wall. Â Something about the combination of medieval architecture and the constant trains whipping by reminded me of Miyazaki films with their eclectic mix of technology and magic.
