The art of reading Alain de Botton

Look at me with incredulity if you wish, but I have to admit, I am a big fan of the books of Alain de Bottom. I foisted his “How Proust can change your life” on many people (who now never ask me for book recommendations, feeling that I failed them profoundly the first time around). And I adored his “The Art of Travel” (thankfully that had a slightly larger following among my associates and book groups readers). AdeB is inordinately creative and clever, so that I forgive the little lapses here and there. No, actually I don’t even spot the lapses. And I refuse to be bothered by the labels that have quite unfortunately placed his books sometimes on shelves having the questionable “self-help” designation. (Borders knows to stick him in the Literature section where he belongs). You don’t read AdeB to improve anything – you read him because he is funny and perceptive and uses words masterfully to convey original, oftentimes quirky ideas.

So naturally I was happy beyond happy to see his newest book, Status Anxiety, on the Borders must-read table. I worried a tad about the title (I don’t think much about status anxiety in general and the topic struck me as dated), but I picked it up with enthusiasm nonetheless. AdeB can overcome even poor subject matter. He is THAT good.

I leafed through it and my one phrase summary is that it is better than it sounds, but not as good as it should be.

I did find one page slightly disconcerting. From what I could tell (I was “reading” the book standing by the table at Borders), AdeB was attempting to portray us as a consumerist society. Okay, so maybe he’s a little dry in the “original ideas” department. We all have slow phases. There was a day when I was forced to write a post about pink flamingos because nothing else came to mind.

But even more troubling were his examples of our rising expectations with respect to personal gratification. They misrepresent what, to me, is a more complicated reality.

Here, take a look at his little chart where he lists what we regard as necessities these days (30 years ago they were obscure goods and services, belonging, for the most part, only to the privileged):


a so-what table 

Yes, okay, more of us can’t live without the AC. But think how much we have let go of, how lesser our expectations are with respect to other items! I can create a list too, flooding the reader with examples of what we have lost:

1970: 76% expected doctors to make housecalls when kids got sick
2000: You’re joking, right? 0%

1970: 82% of the faculty at a state universities expected to get salary increases that not only kept up with inflation but also paid for such things as family car trips to the Grand Canyon.
2000: 1% expect increases, the rest expect nothing and are happy if their departments aren’t eliminated during budget trimming exercises.

1970: 64% of school aged kids expected a twinkie every once in a while in their lunch sack.
2000: 2% of delusional dreamers still look for that twinkie. The rest have suffered a 50s-like indoctrination about the evils of these and other Hostess treats. We once feared communism, we now fear twinkies.

1970: 99.4% of travelers expected their intact suitcases to travel with them on airplanes.
2000: 17% expect to see their unscathed black upright on the conveyor belt after a flight (in Madison, that statistic goes down to 11%). For the rest – it’s time for a conversation with the voice-activated robot who will do nothing, absolutely nothing to assist in the search for missing and inevitably damaged luggage. [Those perverse Samsonite lifetime warranties! Does anyone keep the original sales receipt and then dutifully MAIL the damaged suitcase to the manufacturer for a refund?]

And so on.

But I forgive this table, I forgive all. AdeB is like the best of the best bloggers. You read him for the cleverness of the presentation, for the way he looks at the bland and spins it into the sublime (a word which figures prominently in his Art of Travel book). In fact, you could take his cited Nietzsche quote from the Art of Travel and throw it right back at him. Nietzsche writes “…we are in the end tempted to divide mankind into a minority (a minimality) of those who know how to make much of little, and a majority of those who know how to make little of much.” In my mind, AdeB is at the epicenter of that minimality.

Where did you get those raspberries? Uh, sorry, I took the last ones…

Very early in the day, you could go to the Morren’s Fruit Farm stand today at the Market and buy these:


first raspberries of the season 

My L’Etoile wagon was the foe of the people today as I moved around with it and wiped out many a supply: of the raspberries, of these carrots, too:


rainbow carrots 

Though I passed on these exquisitely toned beets – not on the menu yet.


rainbow beets 

It was a humid day and the Square was packed with out-of-towners (here for the holiday week-end). You can always tell – they dress differently and they buy things that don’t need refrigeration. And they always comment on the L’Etoile wagon. “Oh that’s from that French restaurant.” (French?) Or “What are you serving tonight?” (Me personally – nothing. In fact I’m not even cooking tonight, at the restaurant or at home, but I feel compelled to rattle off some menu items and give some general ideas on how shell peas or snap peas may appear on the dinner plate.)

I noticed that we are now fully into the July market. That means more yellow blooms:


pure gold 


a yellow thistle? 

Though I still favor the buckets of flowers, like for instance these:


nice! 

During my rounds, I had a number of visits with Anne Topham, the Fantome Farm cheesemaker (see site here). Taking over a croissant from the bakery (she loves these treats), I stuck around for a while and listened to her talk about her newest experiments in cheesemaking. I am so in awe of a person who doesn’t rest on her successes but continues to play around with new ideas.


Anne of Fantome 

She showed me the brand new labels they were using on the cheeses – each has a picture of one of the kid goats. Adorable!


note the kids 

If I may give a face to another big cheese person, here’s Felix, the goat feta guy who is now fiddling around with the goat milk ice cream. Felix talks with such gusto that you truly believe he is onto a spectacular new product that will revolutionize the food industry.


Felix of Capri Feta 

In the middle of the morning, an anti-war demonstration passed through the Square. Not surprisingly, this guy caught my eye:


justice takes to the streets 

In the end, I spent close to six hours at the Market. The last one was for myself. I picked up, among other things, several jeweled jars from this stand. One, of currant jelly, I will put to good use tomorrow. Check in then to see how indispensable a jar of jelly can be.


gems  

A summary of a walk

It was, weather-wise, a near-perfect day. It took 50 minutes to walk from my home to Greenway (Madison’s newest shopping place, where I had a quick errand to do). It took another 1 hour and 40 minutes to walk from Greenway to Borders. During this extensive afternoon of walking (and head-clearing) I saw the following:

• 3 other pedestrians (yes, that’s right, in close to a three hour period of pedestrian biways, I encountered only three other walkers; they were in it for the exercise -- frankly, I was in it for the walk);
• 1 mailman;
• 1 woman jogging and pushing a baby stroller at the same time;
• more than 50 American flags gracing private residences (I have to admit, I am not much of a flag person unless we’re talking about the flags of all nations, strung out in front of the UN);
• a man stirring something ominous in a cauldron in his driveway. I asked what it might be. He told me he was making beer. Interesting.

I think we need build no more sidewalks in this town. No one uses them.

I should be in Poland right now...

...I have an invitation to deliver lectures at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow; I have a sister and father who would welcome me; and I long to take a walk through the Lazienki Park in Warsaw on a summer day. I must say, completely objectively now (yes, really, it is not my bias speaking here), that it is the most beautiful city park in the world.

Just two “photos of photos” I took in the park last time I was there during this season, 4 years ago (no digital camera then):


Chestnust shade 


Lazienki Summer Palace and buttercups 

However, yet again, I am stalling. I find it hard to fit in a Poland trip now. My family here, my extensive Asia travel that took a large chunk of time, my summer teaching, all these factors weigh against trips to Warsaw and Krakow during the spring and summer, thus for the last three years I have indeed been taking walks through Lazineki Park, but during times when it looked like this (in January):


a winter stroll, Lazienki, 2001 


Lazienki in the winter, 2001 

One of the biggest regrets (in switching to winter travel) is that I have been missing out on visits to these old highlanders (their names are Anna and Stanislaw):


Anna, in her Sunday best 


Stanislaw and his flock, 2000 

…who live here:


the valley of Rynias, Poland, 2000 

I could go in the winter, but it’s a hard hike in the snow (their house is about a two hour walk from the nearest paved road) and I’ve grown more reluctant to use a wash basin and an outhouse (they have no indoor plumbing) in the dead of winter. Did I say hardy peasant stock? Maybe not so much…

I first met Anna and Stanislaw some 30 years ago during a trip to the Polish highlands. I have stayed in their place numerous times since, but I noticed that my last hike there was now four years ago. These days I just send them a card once a year (they always eagerly look for a few dollars in it – they have no steady source of income; they live off the land and tend to their sheep and they are getting very very old), but I have great regrets that I don’t visit more often. The cluster of houses (which includes theirs) in the middle of the Alpine valley is possibly the most peaceful spot I know of. You can think great thoughts and scheme ambitious plans in the early morning hours while sitting at the edge of the forest, watching the three families who live there go about their morning chores. The smells are as important as the view: the pines, the pasture, the smoke from the chimneys and the brilliantly crisp mountain air – it is always a heady moment when you take it all in and exhale. It defines peace.

I am telling myself that my next trip to Poland (at some yet to be determined time this year) will include a hike to see Anna and Stas no matter what the season. I’ll come away with a sack of dried mushrooms that she will have picked. More importantly, I’ll fill my head with all those ambitious plans and great thoughts. I need a dose of both.

NO NO NO, I am not a Martha Stewart wannabe (especially these days), even if she and I share Polish roots

However, I do want to give just ONE more plug to a cake recipe. This is the easiest, the best the most unusual, the most impressive little piece of chocolate indulgence you’re ever likely to come across. I mentioned it before: it is a flourless chocolate extravaganza with a great deal of currant liqueur in it. The recipe calls for covering it with a chocolate glaze and preparing a crème anglaise to pour on the bottom of the plate. I do neither. I serve it naked, with just a few currants (available at the Harmony Valley market stand this month) sprinkled on top. But you don’t even have to include those.

When my friends in Poland asked a couple of years ago if I could bake them something I was especially fond of, I baked this. Anyone with a passion for chocolate will love it. Promise. The entire deal takes very little time and it is terrific.

Tonight’s finished product:


bittersweet chocolate and currants 

Recipe (from Bon Appetit Magazine, 1994):

Flourless Chocolate-Cassis Cake

10 oz bittersweet or semisweet chocolate (Ghirardelli is great for this)
1 ½ sticks of unsalted butter
½ c unsweetened cocoa liqueur
5 large eggs
1 c sugar

Preheat oven to 350. Butter 9 inch springform pan (with high 2 inch sides), line bottom with parchment (wax will be okay too) paper, butter that as well, dust the whole inside of the pan with flour.

Melt butter with chocolate in medium pan on low heat, stirring until smooth.
Whisk in cocoa and cassis.

With electric mixer, beat eggs with sugar in large bowl until it almost triples in volume (about 6 minutes). Add chocolate-butter stuff and fold together.

THAT’S IT!!

Pour batter into pan, bake 40 minutes, take out, let stand for 5 minutes, run knife along sides then release springform, turn upside down onto rack and peel off paper. It may look gloppy and floopy – no matter! Kind of push together any crumbs that have fallen apart, or let them be, it’s all cool!

I love this cake warm, so I eat it right away. You probably should refrigerate (covered) whatever you don’t eat. But do take it out before the next eating session and bring it around for a couple of hours to room temperature. Oh, what the heck, it’s good in all ways. One guest likes to dribble heavy cream around the bottom. Another likes to take the currants off the stem and eat them together with the cake. It is so good, you will certainly find your way to enjoy it.

To the reader who asked about my sister:

When time permits, my sister checks in here and reads these oddball posts. Why are they odd? Because her life in Warsaw could not be more different than mine here in Madison. I must appear nothing short of eccentric, writing about Ligurian cakes and blogger dinners. But she skims over this voluminous material nonetheless, because she is a kind person and because she cares, even though there is this great distance between us, a whole ocean and half a continent on each side.

She is a year older and a few inches shorter. From early in my childhood, I have regarded her as stunning to look at. She has the olive complexion, the chestnut hair, the delicate frame that catches your eye. I keep telling my mother that we must have gypsy blood running through because how else do you explain these very un-Slavic features? My mom used to agree, but for some time now she pretends she doesn’t know what I am talking about. I guess gypsy blood is no longer something that she wants to flaunt to the Public Out There.

When I felt inspired as a child to dance wildly around the house, I would make everyone tear-up with laughter (I didn’t intend to be funny, it was my best imitation of ballet). But Eliza* had grace. There were times when femininity was a desirable label for girls. Eliza oozed femininity. I ran (I still often run if I am in a hurry), she floated. I rode bikes through puddles and dug holes on the river beach; she sat back and watched with her beautiful big brown eyes. I filled pages and pages of numerous notebooks with rambling journal-like notes. She painted sunsets and birch groves and buttercups with delicate stems.

A reader asked me just yesterday if it’s hard living so far away. Most definitely. When I visit once a year, she gives me her room and always puts small bunches of flowers on the night table – great fistfuls of lilies of the valley in spring, pots of primroses in winter. We often drive to the village where my grandparents once lived (and we did as well, during our pre-preschool years) and where she is now trying to restore, with the help of her son, Chris, the house that my grandfather built. It’s slow going. But she is patient. I’m not. She is.

This photo of the river (with the terrific sandy bottom and waist-deep waters) that runs past my grandparents' house in the village of "Gniazdowo" was taken by me in 1973; obviously it was not a crowded landscape then or during my childhood. It still isn't.


River Liwiec, north-east Poland, 1973 

Here’s a photo of the two of us (possibly the last one taken where she is still taller than me; soon after I shot up while she stayed petite). We are at the Baltic Sea. I am 5, she is 6. I am cold (according to me, it is always cold by the Baltic Sea), she is not. Gypsy blood, I tell you.


Eliza & Nina, 1958 

*Her name is Eliza, and anyone who pronounces it E-lie-zah will have to withstand a glare from me, because this is NOT how she appears to me. She is E-lee-zah.

Posterity

Sometimes you come back from giving a lecture and you think to myself -- wow! It worked today. The class was listening attentively (or so it appeared), your energy level was high, the topic was both complicated and fascinating, the questions were excellent. You begin to dream: maybe it can always be thus… Maybe, over the years, your lectures will have long waiting lists as students trip over themselves to sign up. And their children will want to attend law school just so they, too, can share in that great lecture experience… Maybe publishers will start calling, jostling for rights to your notes… Maybe.

But am I spinning too much here? Course evaluations provide just one tiny piece of information. What are people saying on the sidelines? How are students reacting to my teaching in general?

I had a rare chance to hear some behind the scenes comments. Because I am an honest sort, I’ll link to these very private observations. Straight from the mouths of recent grads. Are they nearly tripping over to attend my classes? To listen? To watch? Well, in a manner of speaking… (link here)

Bloggers are people

…who like to eat. Take tonight. The monthly blogger symposium (whereby A, B, C, & F get together over dinner and compare horror stories from a month’s worth of bloggerlife) took place at GT. ABC&F live in fear of calling ANYTHING by its real name (a blogger trait I’m told) and so when they schedule a dinner, they dare not say more than GT – leaving it to the ingenuity of the others to figure out exactly WHERE they will be eating, which perhaps explains why B was late – she may have been thinking the rest of the bloggers were at Ginza of Tokyo, whereas they were, in fact, at Griglia Tuscany.

Example of topics addressed: is there a “Wisconsin Idea” lurking in these blogs and should it be capitalized upon, publicized, ignored? [No answers were given to any of the posited questions; perhpas the bloggers were so tired of expositing that they liked positing but avoided giving answers to pretty much anything.] And, more importantly, can we improve on the integrity of Russ Feingold? If not, is he someone one would want to marry (F stayed out of this round of the discussion)? And, is Woody Allen an acceptable alternative?

Because the symposium reached a stalemate on these and other issues, another date will have to be set in order to really address the crucial blogger questions before us. In the meantime, I do want to reiterate that bloggers are people… who like to eat. One photo of just one blogger attacking dessert (after a sumptuous tortelloni dish preceded by a monstrous fried calamari plate) says it all (I’ll leave it to the reader to guess whether we are dealing with blogger A, B, C or F; first correct answer wins honorable mention on this post, identity concealed with an initial, of course):


a blogger contemplates another challenge: dessert 

What would I do without the holly and the email?

My friend, let's just call her Holly, is one of the best sources of forwarded off-beat stories around. Occasionally, I think that there is the desire on her part to educate as well. (Why else forward pieces about punishments that befell those who did not treat their animals in a manner befitting royalty?)

Today, in keeping with the educational motif, she sent me a piece that truly highlights the interesting and intricate ways you can say things in English. Language puns are fantastic for people whose first language is not English (i.e. me) because they make us roll with laughter about the often befuddling inconsistencies between the English written and spoken word. Here's her e-mail:

1. Two vultures board an airplane, each carrying two dead raccoons. The flight attendant looks at them and says,"I'm sorry, gentlemen, only one carrion allowed per passenger."

2. Two boll weevils grew up in South Carolina. One went to Hollywood and became a famous actor. The other stayed behind in the cotton fields and never amounted to much - he became known as the lesser of two weevils.

3. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.

4. A three-legged dog walks into a saloon in the Old West. He slides
up to the bar and announces: "I'm looking for the man who shot my paw."

5. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? He wanted to transcend dental medication.

6. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. "But why?" they asked, as they moved off. "Because," he said, "I can't stand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer."

7. A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named "Ahmal." The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him "Juan." Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds,"They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."

8. The friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to "persuade" them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that ...(are you ready)......Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent florist friars.

9. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him .... a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

10. And finally, there was the person who sent ten different puns to friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did.

A light ‘n airy summer blog gets political.

I have been avoiding writing about politics for write a while now, but today I feel compelled to stand up to the accusations that are flying around the blogosphere (here), denegrading Chirac for stating that GWB’s comments on how EU should proceed with Turkey are inappropriate.

To repeat (from CNN and the well-intentioned but way-too-summarily-dismissive-of-Chirac blogger who cited it), Bush said this:

U.S. President George W. Bush has repeated a call for the European Union to admit Turkey, despite criticism by France's President Jacques Chirac that he was meddling in EU affairs.

...And Chirac responded thus:

Chirac took Bush to task Monday over his call for Turkey's admission to the European Union.
"If President Bush really said that in the way that I read, then not only did he go too far, but he went into territory that isn't his," Chirac said of a remark Bush made over the weekend.
"It is is not his purpose and his goal to give any advice to the EU, and in this area it was a bit as if I were to tell Americans how they should handle their relationship with Mexico."

Let me just note the following:

1. Bush has demonstrated repeatedly that he will pay attention to the EU only if it responds in the way that he would like it to with respect to American interests in Iraq and elsewhere. [Therefore, this newest statement may well be viewed as yet another American muscle flexing ploy. No one doubts that Bush is courting Turkey since the country is a crucial political link to his vision of foreign policy in the region. To the EU: start talkin’ Turkey, or else we will continue to treat you with the scorn that we’ve had toward you in recent years.]

2. Bush has also shown a singular lack of depth or breadth in his understanding of European history and, more importantly, of the current crisis facing the EU. This is disconcerting to say the least, because a stronger EU is not, as some say, a threat to the economic interests of the US. Quite the contrary (a point that has been argued elsewhere now for some time, one which is ignored by the current administration).

3. That lack of understanding has meant that the EU, in the midst of its current political crisis, has had little support from this side of the ocean. Indeed, many of the rifts between Great Britain and France and Germany – the three strongest member nations – may be directly attributable to our political machinations on the European continent. And, much has been written (in Europe) about the persistent cold American shoulder accorded to the EU even when the great leap toward the current 25 occurred on May 1st of this year. [Under these conditions, while GWB may have a RIGHT to expound on how the EU should now proceed, he certainly hasn’t earned the trust of the organization; greater diplomacy is definitely a prerequisite if he wishes to have his words count for more than just a suck-up lick toward the Turkish government.]

4. The problem of a Turkey membership is extraordinarily complicated, all the more so because the current group of economically-faltering, if not altogether weak, ten new member states has yet to be fully integrated into the EU. No one is blind to the fact that among the newest members, the unemployment rate stands at double digits and the countries are well on the way to being regarded as second class citizens within the EU – a fact that has lead to the current half-year impasse on the Constitution, with Poland leading the battle against French-German dominance in the Union. (A battle that is, perhaps ill-founded, given that Poland cannot afford to be viewed as the difficult one at a time when it needs the help and support of other member states.) Bush ought not be glib about pushing for yet another complicated accession – it only makes the US appear even more disengaged from the epicenter of the current EU crisis.

5. There are other states that should, perhaps, receive consideration even before the question of Turkey is discussed. I have blogged before about the forgotten Bulgaria. GWB seems to have turned his back on the plight of other Eastern European nations YET AGAIN.

Oh, enough. I’m sorry, I’m with Chirac on this one. I doubt that GWB has even a fleeting interest in the future strength of Europe. His focus this week has been NATO's role in Iraq and on throwing out American lollipops to the Turkish government. In so doing, he has plodded into political territory with his hefty Texan boots where soft slippers may have been more appropriate.

In friendship

In the last 24 hours I have heard the following two sentiments, both expressed by women: “this guy is such a good friend” and “men are the pits when it comes to friendship.” Now, I am sure that there is a great deal of material out there on the topic of gender and friendship and I don’t have any nuggets of wisdom to offer here, but I do have one observation: in my experience, friendships between members of the opposite gender on this side of the ocean are rare*. Maybe we can blame the inevitable TV culprit** for infusing tension into these relationships (so that only Will and Grace can be buddies, because we, the public, KNOW that nothing can happen between the two of THEM). But from my perspective, it is a shame.

I do not stand in opposition to same-gender friendship circles. I belong to two book groups, both have only women and both work well that way. Though I dare say, a mixed-gender book group of carefully chosen friends would also be kinda fun.

In Poland, both in high school and especially at the university, most (not all, Agnieszka!, but certainly most – like the next five in line) of my closest friends were men. The long walks, the deep, talk-all-night conversations one tends to have at that age happened with these guys; we exchanged dozens of letters in the years after I left; and we still treat each other now, 30 years later, as the greatest of friends, even though all have married, some have divorced, and the spouses have variously now been included in at least some (but not all) of the exchanges.

Come to think of it, in my earlier time in Poland, in first grade, my best buddy was Janek, the boy I have alluded to in earlier posts.

So is it me, or is it that in post-war Poland, girls and boys and later men and women regarded each other with greater camaraderie than I have found to be the case here, in the States?

I know I have gone over the top in posting pictures from my girlhood, but I can’t resist this one***, taken in 1957 (I was just 4), with my then best buddy ‘Johnny’– the rubber doll that would remain my favorite for its lifetime, which was not too long because within a few years the rubber surface sort of crumbled with age and decay, so that Johnny suffered an untimely death and I was forced to transfer my affections to some poor substitute made of plastic.


a walk with a friend, back in 1957 

*I have heard men say that they remain close in friendship to women – at least until they themselves enter into monogamous relationships. So is it that women place barriers, reserving intimacy for exchanges with each other, feeling uneasy if men demonstrate that same capacity to feel close in friendship to others? (There certainly is a dearth of precedent here that would demonstrate how, indeed, such friendships can continue to thrive and not pose threats to existing relationships.) Or is it that men are satisfied with just one good friend (presumably their partner) and women are not?

**Of course I know very little about what goes on in the land of television since I have the inclination but not the time to watch it and in any event I only have basic cable, to improve reception, so I don’t even KNOW what’s out there, but still, if something must receive an undue share of the blame, let it be the old TV.

***No, I was not pigeon-toed. And yes, these were my favorite shoes. So “Poland in the 50s!”

Blog links

The pressure is on: everyone who is anyone has a blog link list. Moreover, some of my favorite bloggers have added Ocean to their lists – an honor that is humbly appreciated by me. [Readers will have noted that one of them, JeremyF, has, in my estimation, carried the banner of blogger stardom for some time, while still another, Dorotha – oh, I was bound to like her, given that she uses a name which, if you removed the h, would be identical to my Polish middle name – has a terrific blog as well, with posts that ALWAYS surprise.]

I know linking in this way spreads readership and allows others to taste a number of weblogs they would not otherwise be able to find. I know that revealing your blog reading material is a form of sharing, of participating in the Blog Community. I know all that.

However, ask me to announce publicly what my ten favorite movies are and I clam up. Similarly, ask me what my ten or even twenty favorite blogs are and I grow silent. I can talk about parents, work, neighbors, childhood fears and adolescent crushes, of bad days, good days, iffy days and in-between days. But a list of links? I wouldn’t know where or how to begin my public disclosure.

But, I move with the rapidly developing blog world out there and so who knows, perhaps one summer day I will sequester myself in my un-solarium and develop a list. One summer day. That means soon. Really.

Family business

UPDATE: I have done something I never do on the blog: I edited the post below. Let me explain. After writing and posting the first draft, I called my dad (whose birthday it is today) in Warsaw and had the following exchange:

him: Can you hang on, I want to get a pencil. Your nephew said the other day that you write things on the Net daily? What's that called? You know, where you comment on things?
me: (gulp)

him: So, hang on, I want to write down how to find it [my father isn't very computer literate].
me: Dad, let me send you instructions, or I'm sure my nephew [Chris, take your time, okay?] will pass them on. It's hard to dictate over the phone.

him: okay, I'll look forward to seeing this.
me: okay, well, you know, it's not much..

And so the magic eraser is up and running. One thing that is absolutely necessary to maintain in familial relations in the "Old Country" is a great deal of respect for one's elders. Words of respect, absent by unintentional omission, not by design, will now magically appear in the post below.

Today is my father’s birthday. Having neglected to send him a card, I can only retreat to the procrastinator's friend: the telephone.

Our phone conversations are a poor substitute for face-to-face encounters. For any number of reasons, I say so little about what my days here are all about. Occasionally, I have been known to tell either one of my parents something provocative, like “did you know that I represent parents who allegedly abuse and neglect their children?” or “in my spare time I work the ovens in a restaurant.” Shock value, that’s all.

Am I one of those adult children that has still to reconcile herself to her parents' multifarious eccentricities? I don't think so. I am more amused than troubled by them. I love them both, in the way that you love family members even though they so freely parade all their weirdnesses in front of you. And I don’t much mind switching the focus to them in our dealings with each other. Both my parents have led very interesting lives and both enjoy an audience. All you have to do is say “huh” every few minutes and you can fill an hour without any problem. Though they basically never visit, I do like visiting Warsaw (dad-land) and Berkeley (mom-land) has great potential as well for future years.

Would it be devilish on my part to post, on my dad’s birthday, a photo from the last time that my parents were together (taken on a visit to New York, 25 years ago)? He he!


mom and dad, January 1979