Dusting off this old thing

Catching up by revising a half-completed entry I started a month ago:

Some things happened since I last wrote. Obama won. That was awesome. Paloma was born. That was awesomer. Okay, both were really really awesome.

So, the birth was pretty crazy, as these things tend to be. It was really really painful, and then Isa got the epidural and it wasn’t  painful at all. She napped  and ate ice chips, and I did work and watched a 12-inning Red Sox game. We were quite calm about the whole C-section thing, but  being in there was pretty nuts. You put on your hair net and mask and walk in, and there she is, drugged up, a sheet blocking most of her body from view. And there are all these monitor beeping and doctors running around, and things being injected and blood everywhere, and I’m trying to come up with something mundane to tell her to get her mind off things. When the baby was born, I couldn’t help but glance over the other side of the sheet, which wasn’t a good idea. By the time the brought her over for me to hold, all the breathing into the mask and watching Isa’s heart monitor and trying to interpret the doctors’ moves was a bit much, added on top a 10-minute old baby I didn’t feel confident holding. I got lightheaded and had to leave the room. Meanwhile Isa was busy drifting off and losing most of her blood, and the doctors had to get a little creative.

But in the end we had our baby, and she was a beaut. We got to stay at the hospital awhile to recover and learn a few tricks. It turns out that babies are pretty easy, you just feed them, burp them, and change their diapers. Maybe try to play with them a little, but it doesn’t have much effect for the first few weeks. Giving a bath is probably the hardest  thing.

They all say how it turns your life upside down, and I guess it did, but it’s not so earth-shattering when you’re expecting it. I got in plenty of carousing, world-traveling and dining out. Now I’m into the phase of staying in with baby and changing diapers. So what? She’s really cute. She has fat cheeks and blue eyes and a lot of hair. She likes to look up at lights and make grunting noises at night. She has an extensive wardrobe.

Almost three months in, she’s progressing well, lifting her head when she’s on her stomach, smiling, grasping at things. Soon, maybe tonight, we’ll move her to her own room to sleep, the first time we’ve slept without her for nearly a year. But she’s getting to big for her cradle, sticking her arm and leg into it.  The first of a million letting-go phases, to be sure.

This whole child-rearing thing is an exercise in letting go. Watching each early phase whiz by, enjoying it, and then letting it go. Letting go of your fear that you’ll do the wrong thing, let her get sick, raise her incorrectly. You get handed something so perfect and pristine, you want to hold onto it and keep it the same forever, but you can’t. That’s the beauty of it.

 

Why he really needs to suspend the campaign

In the words of the woman who could be our next president:

 

The meltdown

This economic crisis seems complicated, but the big picture’s really not. It’s really just America maxing out its credit and going bankrupt, isn’t it?

I don’t think there’s any way out of this. I imagine it stems from the fact that 90 percent of people (or so) haven’t seen their incomes rise in the last 10 years, but we’ve been pushed to spend as usual, to prop up the economy.  So we kept spending and spending until the bills started coming due, and then it was, whoops, we can’t pay it. Because we haven’t gotten a raise in 10 years.

So now we’ve basically spent all our future earnings for the next 10 years, and we’re going to have to relearn how to live without credit, because I don’t think it’s coming back. It’s going to be a long, slow climb back into solvency, and by the time we get there America might not be the most powerful country in the world anymore.

As far as the bailout plan goes, it doesn’t sound like a great idea. I mean, how is buying up all the bad debt, and letting those companies going with business as usual while taxpayers drown, how is that any better than taking over the failing banks and selling off their assets? People keep talking about how the alternative is “apocalyptic.” Maybe so, but I need to have what this apocalypse could look like. In what way would it be an apocalypse  for people outside of Wall Street?  Would it be anarchy, blood in the streets? Or just blood on Wall Street and a long recession? I don’t see us getting out of the long recession part of the deal.

I wonder what would have happened if Al Gore had won those 537 votes. Would we still be staring at the next Great Depression? Maybe there would have  been a problem with the mortgage industry. But we might have acted sooner to regulate the market, we might have gotten better wages for the middle class so they wouldn’t have to use their houses as their ATMs, and we might not have piled on massive debt on top of whatever we’ll take on as a result of this disaster.

It’s amazing how quickly you can run a country into the ground if you really set your mind to it.

 

The convention

I spent last week watching the Democratic convention. I was nervous the first two days, when one lame speaker after another took the podium, people who have no idea how to give a good speech. But hearing from the military people who have lost faith in Bush on the third day was great. And all the prime speeches were very good. Dennis Kucinich riled them up like a righteous lunatic. And if you didn’t hear John Kerry’s surprisingly good speech, here it is:

One thing that always bugs me is that people always say that Obama hasn’t explained what “change” he’s promising and that it’s all been vague promises. What they really mean is that he hasn’t gotten it on TV. He’s had very detailed plans on all the issues for months. I don’t know what people are expecting–a half-hour infomercial for people too lazy to go to his site? He could have spent all his speeches explaining his policies, but I am sure not a word would have made it into the nightly newscasts, because that’s not “news.”

I’ve been trying to understand the details of Obama’s plan, and I like it.
Here’s a great summary of his economic plan.

While they killed several trees trying to sum up Obama’s plan (perhaps a reason why people don’t exactly understand what he’s proposing, McCain’s plan can be summed in five words: “Cut taxes for the rich.”

 

Obama

So how about Obama?

He clearly doesn’t have much experience in Washington. But how much experience do you need? Is there really a great benefit to having experienced the ways of Washington over the last 20 years? Maybe you’d be naive, maybe you’d try to get too much done or trust people too much. But he’d basically have the same amount of Washington experience that Clinton, Reagan, Bush, Carter, and whatever other governors had. Do I think Obama’s missed out on some skill set that they gained from being governor? Not really. Running a presidential campaign is just as challenging. It takes just as much leadership and planning, as the recently leaked memos from Clinton’s campaign show. Obama’s managed to build an amazing network, put all the right people in place, make the choices that need to be made, and put himself in good position to win, all without selling out on his commitment to “a different kind of politics.”

No, he’s not blowing McCain away. But who would really expect that from a candidate who is so unknown to the country, who is black, and who is facing the one candidate that can elicit sympathies from both sides of the aisle? Combined with going up against a much more cutthroat party that will do whatever it takes to win, –abandon any principle, destroy any lives–with an entrenched echo chamber of media outlets that are either in the right wing’s pocket or too afraid to speak the truth to their lies…I think he’s doing fine to be where he is.

And he is offering a new type of politics. As new as you can get, anyway, and still have a chance to win. He’s staying positive while fighting back. He gives thoughtful answers, not just soundbites. And as anyone that goes to his website knows, he does have an actual plan to solve or alleviate some of the problems that the current administration has gotten us into. He’s an incrementalist, which is probably what he would need to be to get anything done–nobody’s going to walk in and get health care done in week one.

What’s most important is that he listens. He listens to various points of view and stakes out a position based on his best judgment and the information available. He doesn’t focus on only what’s going to score points or how he can stay in office; he seems to genuinely want to make the country better.

Of course, I’m drawn to him because he’s a Democrat and not a Republican. It can be hard to avoid that Pavlovian response of supporting your party no matter who the candidate is. But there is good reason to support the Democratic candidate. The Republican machine has proven over the past several years to be utterly without principle, unconcerned with the effect of policy on the country, willing to break laws and corrupt itself in the interest of holding onto power, nothing more. The Democrats have been certainly hapless, but at least it looks like they have things they want to accomplish. Yes, there are hypocrisies and crass political calculations, but at least there’s something behind it, some goal. You can see this echoed in the ads that McCain and Obama put out. McCain tries to persuade you that Obama’s not ready to lead because he’s a “celebrity”, without giving any explanation why. Obama criticizes McCain’s actual policies and tells you about what he plans to do. McCain’s promises are complete something-for-nothing fantasies in the tradition of W. He says he’ll pay for everything from the savings we make by someday getting out of Iraq! In 100 years or so, of course. Obama’s plans don’t completely add up, but they are at least in the sphere of reality.

So, that’s why I’m in favor of Obama, without really getting into why McCain is a total sham, an unhinged warmonger who will accelerate the U.S.’s descent from world leadership into oblivion. Obama gives us a fighting chance to reverse course.

 

McCain

First he was just a jackass, running ads telling people how life “must be nice” for Obama the “celebrity”, who was raised by a single mother and had to work for his success, unlike the admiral’s son who threw away his education, and dumped his wife when she was badly injured for a new multimillionaire trophy  wife.

Now he’s just getting scary. Sounds like he wants to push us  to war any chance he can get. If he’s leading us into war with Russia, in defense of a country his top advisor was paid to represent, what can we possibly look forward to when he becomes president? I thought anyone would pale in comparison to Bush, but these days he’s not looking any better…

 

UK photos

Okay, you asked for it…

In front of Bath Abbey

At Avebury, another stone circle.

Pondering the stones

Sipping cocoa in Bath

The Crescent in Bath.

Face to face

Just before I went for a swim

Crazy gargoyles along a university building

In downtown Oxford.

My coworkers dressed like cowboys and Indians on the last night.

In Lacock, where Harry Potter was filmed

 

UK trip

I turned 32 in jolly old England. Last time I was there I was 20, drinking hard cider in the northern lands with a crew or rowdy Manchester-ites. This time, Isabel and I stuck to Bath and Oxford.

Bath was great fun. It’s a good walking town, filled with remains from both Roman and Victorian times. The highlight was the Roman Baths museum—a relatively intact hot-spring bath from 2000 or so years ago. Part of the complex was a temple; the Romans apparently liked to combine the holy with the sensual. I wish I could have witnessed life back then. It’s interesting the way the whole museum was set up. Even in areas where most of a wall has been destroyed, they created a new wall and just stuck in the pieces where they would have been, so you can imagine how the whole thing would have looked.

Other highlights of Bath: wandering around the streets at night and checking out the lighted Bath Abbey, having clotted cream tea at tea time, and great Moroccan food, visiting this crazy cuckoo clock shop with a strudel shop downstairs. And Meatloaf, who performed outdoors not far from our hotel the first night.

One day we took a tour around the countryside. We saw Stonehenge, which contrary to warnings we heard, was pretty cool. You could get up much closer than we expected. The latest thinking is that it was either a forum-type meeting place, or a monument to the dead, with the monument to the living having been at Woodhenge not far away (but rotted away, of course). But this is probably all wrong. But I do know they druids had nothing to do with it, and the stones were dragged all the way from Wales. Then we saw Avebury, another mysterious stone circle, and the villages of Lacock and Castle Combe, where films such as Harry Potter and Dr. Doolittle (old version) were filmed. Good stuff.

Things regressed a bit from there, as the scattered rains grew more persistent, and the Brits grew more ornery. We were drenched as we headed for the train for Oxford, and we nearly came to blows with a chap on the train.

Oxford was nice, though I was generally off to work. I met a whole crew of people who I’d been emailing, calling, or conference calling for months but never met. They were most gracious. Then, surprise, I was asked to join in on a  meeting with the executives who are thinking of buying our company. Fortunately I wasn’t thrown too many difficult questions, and they appear still interested.

Meanwhile, Isa wandered the streets, and ventured to London one day, which proved quite the ordeal. One evening I reserved a punt, a boat that you push along with a pole, like a gondola. I struggled to get it out of the dock, and when we were a little ways out, another punt slammed into the side of our boat, knocking me into the water. Isabel was not happy, and my clothes were fairly ruined. But we recovered.

We also caught a little British TV. Ricky Gervais is just as awesome in stand-up. They also have their own reality TV. We saw a cooking reality show, but missed what is surely can’t miss TV—Last Choir Standing.

The last night we went to the company summer party. Everyone dressed as cowboys and Indians; our crew won first prize in the costume contest with an elaborate covered wagon. Isa and I went with a simple sheriff’s badge and bandanna, in addition to our authentic westerner’s garb.

Oh yes, and England is damn expensive! Fortunately my company was covering me for the time in Oxford, or else we would have needed a few more credit cards, and jobs. But all in all, jolly good fun.

 

the rest of my life up until now

I meant to tell you the rest of what happened during the move, but time got away, or at least it proceeded at its usual pace while I dallied. Here’s the gist:

I got back out to Chicago, leaving my pregnant wife behind, only to have her call me the next morning at work and tell me that her car had been stolen from our driveway. And, of course, I, retaining a bit of that free-spirited devil-may-care attitude, hadn’t gotten any theft insurance on it. The police came and took our information, but didn’t look for it, because what are they going to do, comb the streets for a Honda CR-V? They did find another stolen car across the street from us, in a condemned house where a few squatters were living, the same house in front of which another car had been found not long before. But that was certainly a coincidence.

A few weeks later, settled into our new apartment, we received a police report of the incident along with a photo of our beloved car, stripped bare, upside down, in a forest in Pennsylvania. We had to pay to have it removed.

We had to rent a car to complete our original plan, of driving across to Chicago with our most precious things. We stopped at Penn State along the way, the first time since 1999 or so. The place was rather different, as expected. The HUB was looking good, and on the lawn a band was playing to a large crowd as rain threatened. We wandered over to Atherton Hall, where the bad things (hallways) had been left intact and the good things (TV lounges) removed to make for more claustrophobic quarters, at least at first glance. We wandered down College Ave. and took shelter from a downpour in a clothing store, where we bought our baby a shirt. In City Lights record store I saw the owner Ken Kubala, looking much pudgier, who certainly wouldn’t remember me after our brief acquaintance a decade ago. The rest of the downtown was rather different, more national chains, fewer bagel places, no Daily Grind, though my old Uni-Mart was still there. The apartment on Nittany Ave. was charming as ever; not much had changed there. We had dinner at the Corner Room.

All in all it was good to visit. Going back to a place like that is a good barometer on the progress of your life. If you’re displeased with your life, returning to the place that held all the promise of the future will leave a bad taste in your mouth. If you’re happy with how things turned out, you’ll be thankful for the opportunities and enjoy seeing the new crowds experiencing their own first taste of freedom. 

Being back here gave us another kind of freedom, a strange interlude between the past and future, between a past that was once our future (Providence) and a future that we had thought was past (Chicago). We happy to turn away from the old life in Rhode Island, a life of enjoyment and promise only partially fulfilled, a slate we were happy to wipe clean with a return to the Midwest.

It’s been over a month, and we like it here. We got new furniture. Mike and Cynthi sold us an old car for a song. Andy and Laura cameout from D.C., and Cindy and Sergio came down from Madison, and had a great time together while showing off all our new servingware. (Yes!) (Speaking of which, Good luck in Italy, Cindy and Sergio! Update your blog often, and I promise to read it!) It’s a comfortable place, a place where I can sit on the back porch and write in my blog (though this is the first time I’ve done that) as my wife attends her knitting class.

It will be a good place to have a baby, once we have the baby room set up, maybe paint the walls, get a crib, changing table, some other furniture. Of course I’ll be looking back at these days as B.B., before baby, I’m sure, having trouble remembering what life was like before we had a baby, when we could sleep, go out, do what we wanted, without this infernal bundle of joy weighing us down, right, knowing parents?

By the way, we’re having a girl. Should be an adventure.

 

 

Here I am

We made it back to Chicago. Feels like it’s been about, oh, six months. Sometimes I still look up from my computer at work and think about some place in Providence, and it takes me a few seconds to remember that I don’t live there anymore, won’t be back there. For a while I was waking up not sure where I was, but that’s about over now.

Now we’re settled into our new apartment in suburban Wheaton, with a new couch, newly assembled table and media stand, and a dwindling number of boxes. Mike and I painted the walls over a couple of days, though we’ll need some brighter lights in here if you really want to be able to tell the difference. We’re soaking in the warm embrace of suburbia, with wide freeways and shopping and restaurants as far as the eye can see. Back in New England you really had to plan out your trips to the store, and be sure to bring a map. Here you can just get onto the main road and keep driving until you find what you want.

Getting out of Rhode Island was an adventure. I drove out here after several days of packing, staying over in my old haunt of Sharon, Pennsylvania along the way. That was back in the summer of 1997, fresh home from Manchester, England, when I drove down Route 80 with my Dad in my new Hyundai Excel, and took up residence in the home of Jean Kooser, 70 something, of Hann Hill Road, Hermitage. And a hermitage it truly was, with little to do but wander the depressed streets of Sharon, seek out the old covered briges and winding rivers of Mercer County, and wander through the firefly-lighted abandoned air strip in back of Jean’s property, to the tune of the Beatles.

I drove up the steep Hann Hill to Jean’s old house, from which Jean passed to the next world several years ago, to see what bells it would ring. It took a minute to figure out which one it was–it now has a trampoline in the back, sign of a new family in the space where Mrs. Kooser once smoked her Virginia Slims as she watched “Quincy” on her little kitchen TV, and muttered, “Pancakes!” as I made my weekend breakfast. Out back, where I considered my place in the world on my walks through the overgrown thicket, the land has been turned into a true walking path, and beyond it, a growing technology park, a proper use of a once-neglected patch.

Downtown in Sharon, there wasn’t much to see. There was the Herald, and Lenny’s Auto Repair, where my Dad and I limped in with my already-self-destructing car as soon as we arrived, and the river that I stared down at to glean yet more existential meaning. I decided to eat over at the Quaker Steak and Lube, a gas station that had been converted into a restaurant, where I had visited for the Wednesday bike night and wrote up an article about the colorful locals.

I tried to see what I could remember of it as I walked in and surveyed the scene. At the door, a gas pump refashioned as a doorknob. Then, just inside the door, a yellowed, framed newspaper article, a bit crinkled and hard to read after a decade of aging: “At home in hog heaven. By David Andrews, Herald News Intern.”

There I was, 11 years later, my name on their wall. I had actually left a mark on this forgotten place, a place that I was sure could not have remembered me. Suddenly the whole place seemed different–it was not a dusty old place that meant nothing now; it was the launching of my (brief) journalistic career, one that yielded a work that the purveyors of this restaurant saw fit to keep hanging on their wall for 11 years, yellowing though it may have been. This article was hardly a masterpiece, but it was written by me. More importantly, it seemed, it bore my name.

I ordered up some ribs and watched the Red Sox game for a while. I told the waiter of my discovery, and he told me there was more. This is the original Quaker Steak and Lube, he said, but there are new ones being franchised all the time. And every article that’s posted on these walls (mine wasn’t the only one) is reproduced at every “Lube.”

I had to see if he was right, so I stopped at the Lube closest to Chicago, in Portage, Indiana, on my way in. I found my article (in much better shape) among the many pieces of publicity and Americana on their walls. Isabel and I found another elsewhere in Pennsylvania, and there it was again. It looks like my journalistic works will live on, in a mediocre story about bikers, in a chain of restaurants derived from a converted gas station, across a great swath of rural America.

That’s enough for now; the saga shall continue…