Writing And Mothering

About Rabbits

2010-04-04T10:06:00.001-04:00

What is it About Rabbits?

It's March and those cottontails have already been at it for a month. I'd always wondered if all those sayings about rabbits' reproductive lives were the rural equivalent of an urban myth, but no, there is some truth to many of those expressions. Assuming no mortality, two rabbits could produce 5 million offspring in just five years. It makes sense then that the rabbit was chosen as one of the symbols for Easter. Although it's a Christian holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, many Easter customs are based on earlier pagan traditions related to the celebration of the spring equinox, a time of fertility and new life. But then there is also the story of Eostre, from German folklore, who discovered a bird with frozen wings that she saved by turning it into a hare which laid colored eggs. So, the Easter bunny is really a hare. Not much of a difference, except that the rabbit is born hairless and completely dependent, while the hare is born with fur and can move around right after birth.

Years ago, as an exercise in a nature writing class, I was given a photograph of two rabbits taken during mating season. The photographer was obviously aware that rabbits frolic, flirt, and cavort with animated jumping leading up to the act. What was captured is pure delight: desire on the part of one animal, fear and excitement in another. Droplets of dew that frame the couple add to the sense of motion and the thought that something biological is occurring.

We had rabbits that lived in our yard in Ghent. I never saw them mating but one day I found a nest of babies in my garden. The fur-lined nest, dug in the ground of my garden, had five or six hairless babies in it. The mother must have pulled her own fur out to line the nest and then covered it with more fur. When I first saw it, it looked like a fluffy brown cotton ball lying in the garden. But then I poked it with a twig and heard the babies squeaking. They squirmed around each other, eraser pink with wrinkles around their thick necks and legs. I had an automatic maternal reaction to save them, to bring them in, to nurse them. But my partner at the time talked sense into me, and I left them alone.

When spring arrives in the Northeast, there's a tendency for some people, especially those that have seasonal affective disorder, to feel a little manic. Isn't that what the rabbits are feeling too? Mania has as one of its symptoms sexual promiscuity. Perhaps the rabbits are just acting out on what many humans have inhibited for various reasons—a spring fling.

Imagine waking up as a male rabbit in mating season.

The sun is shining on the warm dew, as I run toward her my feet get wet.

She smells like spring, damp and warm.

I nuzzle her cheek with my nose.

She wakes blinking her eyes and then runs off.

All day I chase her, as the grass dries off it gets hot.

I feel hot.

Couldn't she stop running and leaping?

I grab her with my front paws and look at her face.

She's terrorized.

I don't feel bad. She's making me tired.

I have to chase her until she's too tired to run anymore.

It has to be today.

A famous mathematical puzzle called the rabbit problem, solved in the 12^th century, asks if you were to put two rabbits in a room, how many pairs of rabbits can be produced from that pair in a year, if you allow that every month each pair produces a new pair, which from the second month on becomes productive? The answer, known as the Fibonacci sequence, is 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, ... This sequence, in which each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers, plays an important role in describing designs throughout nature, and has been used extensively in Greek art and architecture. For example, the Golden Ratio, or Phi and the Golden Rectangle are derived from the Fibonacci sequence. The Golden Ratio is an irrational number, like Pi, that is, it goes on forever without repeating, and is equal to 1.6180... It can also be described as one plus the square root of five divided by two. A Golden Rectangle is a rectangle in which the ratio of the length to the width is the Golden Ratio. Interestingly, if you have a Golden Rectangle and you cut a square off of it, what you are left with is another Golden Rectangle. Greek architecture like the Parthenon is based on the Golden Ratio too, as are many famous paintings (Mona Lisa’s face).

The spiral of a nautilus shell connects through angles that are a Fibonacci sequence as it moves outward. The number of petals of a pine cone as it spirals outward are Fibonacci numbers. This is true for pineapples and sunflowers too. Why do seeds, petals and leaves all turn at an angle equal to the Golden Ratio? It turns out that this irrational number allows for the most efficient packing of seeds, and for leaves, the least obstruction of leaves below. Any rational number would in the end have leaves lining up on top of one another. It takes an irrational number, one of the least likely to converge, to make some of the best fits in nature.

When it comes to irrationality, mathematics does not have a monopoly. I think her name was Addie, I'm not sure, but when I was in high school I cared for a woman in a nursing home. She was one of many patients whom I was responsible for as an untrained nurse's aide. Addie was certainly one of my favorites, because she could carry on a conversation and could do a lot for herself. But she had one issue that was particularly challenging and at the same time endearing. When Addie received her meals, she would insist on feeding her stuffed bunny first. This bunny was about the size of a real rabbit, and it had a pink satin ribbon tied around its neck, Her habit resulted in dried crusted food sticking to the fake fur, all around its face and neck. Since Addie was so determined to feed the bunny first, she herself was suffering from malnutrition. The story on the floor was that Addie thought the bunny was her infant son. Everyone played along with this conceit, but also tried to get Addie to eat too. One day, without Addie’s knowledge, a new nurse decided that the stuffed rabbit was disgusting and sent it down to the laundry to be cleaned. I saw Addie that afternoon at the nurses' station using the phone. When I walked by, she told me that she was talking to her lawyer, because they had taken her baby away from her. Then Addie disappeared. She left the building to get on a bus to go to her lawyer's office. When the staff finally found her and brought her back, she had to be sedated and was therefore asleep when her stuffed rabbit came back from the laundry--fluffy and sweet smelling.

To Addie, a stuffed rabbit symbolized a much-loved child, an innocent remnant of a past she desperately clung to because her present had unraveled. To many others, rabbits symbolize fertility, spring, and an abundance of nature. When my son was seven he loved rabbit fur. He bought pieces when he saw them at the county fair and then kept the hide in his pocket to rub for comfort. A woman at the annual Sheep and Wool festival in Rhinebeck spins angora yarn from a rabbit that she keeps on her lap. My friend keeps rabbits as pets and travels over a hundred miles to Cornell to get good veterinary care. They are a part of our lives, these adorable, furry, and frisky animals. So it's hard to think of them as sexual creatures. Even harder to think that young females can conceive after only five months, so that two generations can actually be born within one breeding season. Perhaps the fear in the eyes of the female rabbit that I saw in the photograph, represents the fear that we all have when trying to reconcile the dichotomy inherent in nature: the ubiquitous violence even among the seemingly most gentle creatures and the childhood book illustrations of backyard pets.

On Easter, undoubtedly my mind will wander briefly to the Easter Bunny, and the thought of him will bring up an image of a man-sized, costumed, mall-ready mascot posing with small children for their Easter portraits. This evocation of the Easter Bunny is far more terrifying than any Santa Claus, as Jake Gyllenhaal illustrated so well in Donnie Darko. Size in this case is the single variable leading us from adorable to grotesque.

Fecundity in all its beauty and horror is the true theme of Spring and really as interesting a problem to wrestle with this season as the idea of resurrection. As Annie Dillard asks in her wonderful piece title “Fecundity” in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, “I don’t know what it is about fecundity that so appalls. I suppose it is the teeming evidence that birth and growth, which we value, are ubiquitous and blind, that life itself is so astonishingly cheap, that nature is as careless as it is bountiful, and that with extravagance goes a crushing waste that will one day include our own cheap lives.”

We eat eggs on Easter and we play with stuffed rabbits—both symbols of fecundity. All around us outside plants are pushing through the warmed soil. Life is organized, defying entropy, and worthy of a nod for its resilience and forcefulness. It is the sustenance of the season, and the meat amid all the candy.

Your Brain on Music

2007-06-13T08:36:00.000-04:00

David Byrne and Daniel Levitin discuss how music differs from language. How it brings us closer to each other through emotions and movement. How it's good for us (see my older article Rock on Baby for more on that) and how it was used to develop community (but so much for that nowadays with iPods, hunh).

Losing Things

2007-05-03T20:36:00.000-04:00

A lover, a breast, a dog, a roommate, your hair, your teeth, your figure, a connection with your children, a season, a species, your wit, the name of that actor, a pen, a sandal, your luggage, your mother, your marriage, your mind.

I’m losing it certainly. Losing my family as I know it. Losing the innocence of my children as the consequences of the divorce begin to affect them, and as they act out on it. Losing the security of financial dependence. Losing my identity as I think about how to create a new one.

Julie, my yoga instructor, (one of the special people in the world) focused this past March on a metaphor, of life being like sailing. She explained that you need to have a destination or a goal of something larger than yourself, and you sail toward that. Anchors can hold you back and you need to understand what they are and lose them. Lose them. That’s right. Let these things go. I thought about this and for the first time in my life thought about how it could be a good thing to lose something. That if I did, I would be OK. I might sail faster toward my goal. I really believe this. I believe that I’ll be OK. I can let go.

This past March, I was riding a pony called Marcus. He has a bit called a kimberwick and it is by its nature a severe bit, meaning that it hurts like hell when you pull back and the bit hits the roof of his mouth. He needs this type of bit because he can be wild sometimes. He’ll buck and kick out. So, I was trying to learn how to jump him over a cross-rail. Nothing that I haven’t done hundreds of times before on other horses, just not with Marcus. And, I had to learn something new. I had to let go of the reins. Seriously, I had to loosen the reins just as I was about to go up in the air on this pony’s back, with my butt out of the saddle and only the balls of my feet to balance on. If I held onto the reins, which I did the first few times to try to keep my balance, he resisted and bucked in the air as we jumped. When I later let go of the reins, I had another problem, I couldn’t steer. After we cleared the jump, we started to head into the jump in front of us.

Letting go.

My instructor Susie (another one of the special people in the world), told me I had to release the reins, not something intuitive, not something I wanted to do, something I was in fact, terrified to do, but it was the only way to progress. The only way that Marcus and I could jump together. She seemed to know that this task was something I had to do, that this was also a metaphor for what was going on in my life and that if I faced this fear, here with her in the ring that I would be expanding the comfort zone in all areas of my life. That maybe I could learn to stop clinging and make some progress in other ways too.

I went rock climbing for the first time in March. All of these things came together this March, which is why I felt compelled to write about this. I was in Joshua Tree, camping with a dozen women I’d never met and we all had to introduce ourselves and say why we were there and what we hoped to get out of our visit. I said that I had only decided at the last minute to come. That I had some momentous changes going on in my life and camping with a bunch of strangers in the desert seemed like just the thing to do.

Later that night, our climbing guide, Kathy Cosley (another one of the special people in this world) sat down next to me and said so you’re going through a big change? And I said yes, that my husband had filed for divorce at the end of February and that I was just beginning to understand what that meant. I assured her that I was OK though and then I repeated what I’d learned from Julie about sailing and the anchors. That it was OK to lose things. She liked that. I liked it too. I liked that I was OK and could convince people of that. Kathy asked me if I knew the Elizabeth Bishop poem on losing things. I said I wasn’t familiar with it. She tried to recite it, but couldn’t remember more than a few lines.

On our last day of climbing, Kathy led me and two other women on a three-pitch climb. Meaning, that we went up the height of three ropes, resetting our anchors as we went. Each rope is 50 feet, so we climbed to a height of 150 feet that afternoon. I was the first person to climb each pitch after Kathy, and when I made it to the anchor, where she was waiting for me, I would go to the spot she told me to wait, out of the way of the others. Kathy was belaying us from above, and yet somehow managed to find in her mind the rest of the poem to recite to me, as I sat on the ledge and waited for Sarah to join us. The title I discovered when I returned home and found the poem on the Internet, is One Art. It’s a villanelle and one of the most famous examples of that form. Bishop builds up the seriousness of loss with each stanza, until she loses someone of obvious importance.

Loss can be about images. Losing things can be like shedding layers of clothes on a hot day. So much of what we feel can be imparted by how we think about it. But, sometimes we have no resilience. I’ve been criticized for saying that I can’t believe how strong I feel and how well I’m doing. Some have said that’s the case, because you weren’t in love anymore anyway. Maybe that’s true. Maybe my sailing images and lessons from Marcus about letting go are simple frames that aren’t containing anything sensitive anyway. Or maybe not. I’m sure it’s somewhere in-between. I think it’s unfair for anyone to think that I’m not going to be troubled about my family being on vacation in Vermont without me. And that when I call my kids from my cell phone on the one day when we go into town and have reception, and they don’t want to talk to me that I’m not going to be in a funk the rest of the afternoon. But, there may also be some truth in the idea that I’m gliding and not crashing because I’m not heartbroken on top of everything else.

Letting go is not always that easy, I know. An image of a sailboat losing anchors, when those anchors are things like your spouse, or kids, or house is not a simple hammock daydream. Not the kind of thing you stay in bed on a Saturday morning to continue to muse about. But, I do believe in the power of thought, and the possibility that images--like anchors, or bits, and letting go--can help someone through an unbelievably tough time, is not so hard for me to accept. Sometimes the littlest thing can be something to hold onto. I learned this in climbing too. A rough spot, barely an eighth of an inch can be enough to grab onto with the tips of your fingernails and from there, you can push yourself the rest of the way. Images and poems and yoga are like that too. You never know what little thing will rescue you when you’re suffering a loss. Is it an art? Losing things? Can we get better at it? Should we? And will we really sail faster? I wonder about this. I know what my goal is: writing. Finishing my projects, and then writing some more. Will my divorce help me do that? Maybe it will. Maybe because as a married woman, I’ve become complacent and dependent. I’ve lost the hunger for success, gotten flabby and lazy. Maybe soon, I’ll be desperate and work harder. Too bad that’s what it takes. Too bad there’s so much pain with this. Is this a strange way of looking at it? Too self-centered? What’s the benefit for everyone else? I’m not the only one who matters here.

Is it possible that we only lose things that hold us back? Is everything we lose an anchor? Should we think of it that way? Is letting go always the right thing to do? Or is there some way to discern the correctness of loss? Maybe because it’s the right time, or because working through the loss is the next part of our journey. It’s all about attachments really. The anchors, the loss, letting go. If life is a journey and we are all sailing toward the end—our death--losing things is simply a preparation for that. Part of the course.

I do know that I wouldn't have anything to write about and little to hold on to if it weren't for these amazing women: Julie, Susie, and Kathy, who through the focus of what they know and do best, offer insights that transcend the sport to life. From the specific to the representative. From their mind to mine. So when something like this comes together, in a sort of cosmic ordering, I feel obliged to do something with it. I can only repay them by writing about it and offering it now to you. Namaste.

Even When You Wilt

2007-04-18T14:45:00.000-04:00

The Chronogram published a poem of mine this month. Scroll down, it's not the first one. First poem I've ever had published. It has inspired me to write even more poetry, some of which I'll be sharing here.

Omega-3s, Boys and Some Sanity

2007-02-20T18:58:00.000-05:00

My son Conor and I both regularly take fish oil, rich with omega-3s. Conor had behavioral and mood issues when he was younger, that had me very concerned. He was often defiant, refusing to do his work, and aggressive. He spent quite a bit of time in the principle's office when he was in kindergarden and pre-first.

A local psychiatrist suggested that I try Conor on fish oil. I had success with it myself, and if he had an inherited mood disorder, perhaps the fish oil would work for him too.

Administering fish oil to children can be a challenge. The capsules are large and one needs to take somewhere between 500-1000 mg of EPA a day for success. This can mean multiple, large capsules. Dr. Yonker suggested we try Coromega, an emulsified form of omega-3s, which comes in foil packages and can be either orange or lime flavored. Conor likes his fish oil. He takes two packages a day, which is 700 mg of EPA.

For children, who don't like the way Coromega tastes, there's another option (if they can swallow smaller capsules). Omega-Brite is a highly concentrated form of omega-3s. This brand was developed by Dr. Andrew Stoll, the researcher at Harvard Medical School, who did a lot of the initial research into the use of omega-3s for mood disorders.

Within the last couple of weeks I've had two friends ask me about fish oil for their boys' behavioral and mood issues. Both have found immediate benefits. I've never been big on anecdotal evidence, but this is encouraging. Here's a report from a study done in the UK at a school for boys with special needs:

Results from a UK study

These results support the use of omega-3s for boys who may be having difficulty in school.

I have a lot more to write about fish oil. This is just the beginning. I just had to share this information, because I know how troubled I was with Conor's issues, and I've seen how relieved my friends are with their sons' behavior now that they're taking fish oil.

We most certainly evolved with a diet that was much richer in omega-3s, than the one most of us have now. I believe that supplementing one's diet with fish oil, is simply a way to achieve a more natural biochemical state. There are no side effects and many other beneficial effects of fish oil. It's good for your heart, skin and immune system. I'll be writing next about omega-3 supplements for adults.

All That's Natural and Smells Nice

2007-01-31T18:08:00.000-05:00

Today, I read about a report in the New England Journal of Medicine that showed that Lavender and Tea Tree Oil when used in shampoos and the like, can cause breast growth in adolescent boys. This suggests that these essential oils have estrogenic compounds in them. Although the article does not sound an alarm, I would not want my son using a product containing these oils. More importantly, I would caution all women who have estrogen-dependent tumors to avoid these oils just as they would soy.

Lavender and tea tree oils found in some shampoos, soaps and lotions can temporarily leave boys with enlarged breasts in rare cases, apparently by disrupting their hormonal balance, a preliminary study suggests.
While advising parents to consider the possible risk, several hormone experts emphasized that the problem appears to happen infrequently and clears up when the oils are no longer used. None of those interviewed called for a ban on sales.

The study reported on the condition, gynecomastia, in three boys ages 4, 7 and 10. They all went back to normal when they stopped using skin lotions, hair gel, shampoo or soap with the natural oils.
More

For Inspiration

2007-01-30T13:21:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to write about the amazing accomplishments of three of my friends for a while. Sorry about the delay, but I had to get my graduate school application out by February 1st. That's done now and I hope to be here more regularly.

First of all, Lisa Erdman, who was a good friend and colleague of mine at Harte Hanks has found her own way of gaining good karma after working for big Pharma. Lisa is a multimedia artist, whose poetry and graphic work never failed to impress me. She has now done something beyond what I could have imagined, a large-scale exhibit with print and TV ads mocking pharmaceutical companies. Here's a link: Annual Checkup: Pharmaceuticals for the 21st Century

As Lisa describes it:

It consists of a series of fictitious, satirical pharmaceutical ads that serve as a political and social commentary. Any feedback/comments are welcome!

The project has traveled across the country over the past year, including the Corcoran Gallery in D.C., Houston International Film Festival, and SIGGRAPH International Computer Graphics Conference in Boston.

I hope to see it in person.

Melanie Hall, a friend from my writing group is also a talented artist. She has been an illustrator for many years and recently published a book called "Winter's Song." It's a poem by Shakespeare at the end of his play "Love's Labor Lost." Melanie's illustrations in this book are beautiful. She was surprised and honored that the New York Times gave her book a favorable review.

Look for a compelling essay by my friend and writing group member Kathy Rebeillot in the Spring issue of the Threepenny Review. This is Kathy's first creative publication and she hit the jackpot with this journal.

All of these accomplishments by friends inspires me to keep working, because I've learned from these women that inspiration, great ideas, and hard work are what lead to success. There is hope for all of us.

Grounding

2007-01-06T10:05:00.000-05:00

I've neglected this poor blog over the holidays. I see it's been a few weeks since I've reached out to cyberspace and not because I've had nothing to say. We had a house full of family here for Christmas and even though I wasn't in the spirit this year at all, we still managed to pull everything together and have a lovely Christmas Day. That holiday was followed by a quick trip up to Maine, where we closed on our new summer house. And then, back home to prepare for New Year's Eve and Chloe's birthday party.

It was a lot to accomplish, and because I'm a perfectionist I do tend to put excessive effort into the preparations. That may be part of the reason why I've been stuck at home the past week with a horrible cold. Each day, I think I'll feel better, but this nasty bug just digs in deeper and makes me feel even worse. Today it's my throat and no amount of hot tea seems to soothe the raw burn at the top of my palate.

I've missed riding and yoga and running this week, but I have regained a sense of what it takes to be a writer. My lifestyle has for the last six months or so, been one of hyperactivity. Each day starts out with an activity, a good thing of course to have a routine and to get exercise, but I've gone a little overboard and tried to do too much. Not content to just ride in the morning, I've gone from the barn to the yoga studio, or to a trail to walk with a friend. The weather this fall was enticing and drew me outdoors and away from my desk and projects. I did manage to keep up with my journal, in fact this has been one of the most productive journaling times of my life. I've filled over 400 pages since I returned from our cross country trip in September. That material will be put to some creative use, once I finish my memoir.

But even my journal suffered over the holidays. I just caught up this week--from 12 days behind. I'm lucky that I can remember things well enough to record details and points from conversations, with a little prompting from my calendar or emails from that day. I also finished the three essays I had to write for my graduate school application and read the autobiography to my writing group on Thursday (they loved it, phew!).

This week of illness has really been a blessing for me, because it reminded me how much I love to write and how much pleasure I can get from writing and being alone. When our days are full with activities and friends, we can't ground enough to get back into the groove. It takes the freedom of uninterrupted time to open up the channels that allow the thoughts and words to flow. I'm seeing that I'll need to be more protective of that time when I enter back into my routine next week (I hope I'm feeling better by then).

Finding balance is the hardest thing for me to do. When I'm out in the world living, I can almost feel myself converting to an extrovert. I can easily be lured into endless socializing, because the alternative is sitting alone at home at my desk with hard work to do. When I do have the will to sit there and I get started on the projects, I remember who I really am and who I want to be. Not a dilettante, but an observer, recorder, and interpreter of the world. Yes, it often feels like a sacrifice to say no, I can't do that, I have to work, and with no real deadlines or structure it's hard to do that sometimes, especially since it's such an isolating occupation to begin with. But, that's the difference between the work that gets done and the work that doesn't. Thank you nasty virus for reminding me of that and for giving me the downtime to start writing again.

Wearing on me Eragon

2006-12-15T23:26:00.000-05:00

I took Conor, Chloe and a couple of their friends to see Eragon tonight. Conor has been waiting for this movie for a long time. Eragon was the first really long book that he read and it made a big impression on him at the time. So we had to go on opening night. I was looking forward to it too. I didn't read the book and I like to be able to share references with my kids.

But this was, well totally derivative. If you've seen the three Lord of the Rings movies I don't know what more you'll get out of this. The Urgals look and act like Orcs, the King's castle is akin to Mordor and the battle scenes, yes you've seen them before. The only thing that kept me interested was Jeremy Irons, who has aged quite a bit since Dead Ringers, but is still breathtaking. I just kept staring at his face wondering at what point I had lost interest in the young leads and became drawn to the old guys. I think it's his eyes. John Malkovich, as the king, sounded like he was reading his lines off a prompter--just deadening.

A Good Mood Guide

2006-12-10T18:55:00.000-05:00

If you told me four years ago that I would be writing a book on alternative therapies for mood disorders, I would have found the idea highly amusing. As the senior vice president of medical affairs for an Internet marketing agency, I was not only writing copy for antidepressant web sites, but I was taking two antidepressants everyday. The pharmaceutical industry was my means of support as well as my savior from insanity. Deadline pressures, business travel, and the stress of managing a busy team of writers, editors, and proofreaders made it seem impossible to me that I would ever be able to stop taking those pills.

As is increasingly the case these days, one of the two pills I was taking had come under investigation by the FDA. My psychiatrist told me that the drug caused an increased risk of liver failure and that I would have to have blood tests done every month, to ensure that my liver enzymes were not elevated. The artificial defense that I had constructed for myself was starting to crumble, and I would need to make life-changing decisions as a result. Now, I look back at that discovery as a catalyst for all the positive, renewing changes I’ve made in my life, but at the time, I was terrified.

What do you do, when you have to stop taking the antidepressant medications that you’ve come to rely on? Many people turn to alternative medicine as a solution for their specific problems. In study after study, these therapies are proving to be as effective as medications, without the side effects. Doctors may even recommend that their patients with mood disorders consider alternative therapies during pregnancy or lactation, an important matter for the many bipolar women who choose not to have children at all, rather than risk going off their medications. For women who are having mood issues during menopause, now that estrogen replacement therapy is no longer recommended, alternative therapies are also an attractive option.

I'm going to offer suggestions in this space for lifestyle changes that can help to ensure a stable good mood throughout your lifetime. I will discuss the most effective therapies based on their proven effectiveness in clinical trials including:

Talk therapy--cognitive-behavioral
Biological therapies--e.g., omega-3 fatty acids, SAM-e and 5HTP
Lifestyle changes--good sleep hygiene, nutrition, and social networks
Mind-body therapies--exercise, yoga, and meditation

The best way to begin being accountable for your mood is to make one small change at a time and to record your moods on a calendar or in a journal over the course of a month. If you're still menstruating, know first how that affects your moods. I've drawn simple up or down arrows on the calendar in my kitchen. Predictably, my mood is worse a week before I get my period. That's a law of physics. Nothing I do has changed that. But the rest of the month is malleable and amenable to some of the above therapies.

I haven't found one simple thing that's improved my mood. I look at the supplements, social support, exercise and many other changes that I've made in my life as a finely woven net that holds me up. Each strand adds strength to the structure, but if one breaks, I'll still be OK. Each of us has to construct her own net. I'll share what I know from my personal experience and the research that I've been doing on this subject over the past ten years.

Projects and Thoughts

2006-12-08T07:34:00.000-05:00

It's time for me to switch gears and recover this blog from its dalliance in adventure and travel chronology. It's dark and cold here and that means it's time to focus inward and get back to some serious writing.

As it says in my profile, I'm working on a memoir about my search for my birth parents. That's the project I was working on in the Prague Summer Program, and the one I plan to continue and finish the next couple years while I'm in graduate school.

The other big project I'm working on is a book on alternative therapies for women with mood disorders. This book is the natural output of my career as a pharmacologist, medical writer, and instructor of biopsychology. My research, pharmaceutical contract work, and teaching led me to find solutions for my own mental well-being and I hope to be able to share that knowledge with others.

I think I'm going to use this space to help me develop the concepts of the second project. It seems to be the one that would benefit the most from public exposure and I can begin to sketch out chapters in this format. I'll start with my personal journey and struggles with mood disorders and since the theme of this blog is writing and mothering I don't think there's too much of a discrepancy there. Writers and mothers are notorious for being moody.

Please consider sharing your own concerns, questions or knowledge about mood problems or alternative therapies. Women do have more than their fair share of this burden and our cycles, both monthly and over our lifetimes add difficulties to successful treatment.

Thanks Hotel Chelsea

2006-11-20T16:53:00.000-05:00

Be afraid for your children is the title of an article on the Hotel Chelsea's blog. They picked up on my story of our last visit. I assure you, Conor will be back before he's an adult. In fact, I think I'll make reservations for the last week of December. Love them.

Salon on the Leibovitz Show

2006-11-19T23:06:00.000-05:00

I don't think two people could have walked away from the same show with opinions that are as far apart as mine and Sarah Karnasiewicz's, as expressed in a review in Salon this weekend.

Where I saw courage, Karnasiewicz saw reckless candor and that is a telling testament to the risk of misinterpretation. I have a tendency to applaud candor in all of its forms. I think we get so little honesty in our lives. Certainly people are exploiting their family secrets all the time, I realize that's happening, but we don't often get the pus-filled peek at feelings that I got from the Leibovitz show.

I walk away from so many exhibits without feeling anything at all, nevermind thinking anything at all. I want to connect to something outside of myself to know that I'm not alone in my mental wanderings. So Karnasiewicz didn't connect and I did. She was looking for an aesthetic continuity between Leibovitz's professional work and her personal work. I saw a forms that fit the content.

Art for Love

2006-11-14T06:57:00.000-05:00

The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others
-Vincent Van Gogh

We spent our second day in NYC at the Brooklyn Museum. I had heard that was where the Annie Leibovitz exhibit--A Photographer's Life--was being shown. We must have spent a good hour and a half in the exhibit. The final room had two large beds in the middle of the floor and Chloe and Conor crashed on those with their books leaving me all the time I wanted to study the pictures.

The exhibit merged together Annie's two outputs, her professional and personal photographs, in forms that suited the material. Celebrity shots are slick, large format, flattering pieces, work that Annie is famous for. Her personal snapshots are shown en masse, much smaller individually, but as a collection powerful in scope. This is where you can see the pictures of Susan Sontag in her hospital bed, Annie's children, and the Leibovitz family portraits taken over several Thanksgivings down the road from here at her country house in Rhinebeck.

I had a crush on Susan Sontag for years. Her combination of piercing brilliance and courage, and her dark, soulful eyes was alluring. It's no wonder that Leibovitz fell in love with her, when you also consider the attention she paid to the art of photography. What moved me the most though in the show was the demonstration of that love throughout the course of illness and eventual death. I think it was more poignant for me against the beauty and vitality that Leibovitz herself had during this time and the beauty she was surrounded with in her work. What I wondered did she hold onto in Susan that kept her love alive all this time? Was she responding to her memories, or does Leibovitz have the muscle (and I think she must) to conjure up an active love, giving it away and creating a lasting beauty in her work. Descriptions of several of the photos (family portraits and the Cash family photos for instance), which quoted the subjects, say that Annie could be seen crying behind the lens while composing a shot.

This is an emotional exhibit, but not because you see a strong beautiful woman decline in health and looks. It's because you can see evidence of a love that few of us will ever feel and not having it, maybe we've convinced ourselves that it doesn't exist. The shock of discovering that it does can create an immeasurable sense of loss. We often think of art as coming out of unrequited love. As I read today in Nina's blog, The Lazy Geisha, her husband Jeff says that

“Desire is born in the gap between what we have and what we want, and it is in this gap where all art is made.”

I had believed that myself. I thought that love sickness was good for my poetry and that so much wonderful art has been born of this pain. But now, I wonder if this this isn't an adolescent idea and one that can be treacherous too. Think Oscar Wilde. Looking at Leibovitz's work, I now believe that true art, mature, lasting work can come from deep long-lasting love. The kind that produces individual growth, the kind that forces you to the point of enlightenment, because you stick with it until you're transformed. There's no flitting around here. This is hard work, heart-wrenching in its immoveable devotion to connections between people and their meaning to our lives and work.

Too Much in NYC

2006-11-12T21:44:00.002-05:00

The kids and I saw Death Cab for Cutie Thursday night at the Theater in Madison Square Garden. Ben Gibbard the lead guitarist and singer couldn't contain his joy over the election results. He made a couple of remarks about living in rosier days and predicted that in a couple of years the troops would be home and Barak Obama would be president.

I was blown away by Ben's drumming in the middle of We Looked Like Giants. He put down his guitar and walked over to a second drum set that they brought out for him. Bright white lights filled the stage and he let go, shining as if that were his one moment to be totally on.

I missed Transatlanticism--I need you so much closer. Maybe they played it for the encore, but I couldn't stay for that. Conor had fallen asleep and I knew I had to get them back to the hotel.

The Hotel Chelsea...when we checked in before the concert, we had to wait in the lobby for the bellman to show us to our room. Conor sat on one side, playing his Game-boy and Chloe and I on the opposite side. An older man sat down next to Conor. He had a carved, wooden monkey head in his hands, and he was putting things into the hollow bottom of it. Conor looked over at me with a question of concern. I assured him that he was OK with a hand gesture and he settled into his curious observation mode just in time to catch the story of the head. The man in possession of the monkey head told another resident of the lobby that this head had belonged to him at one time. He had owned it about 15 years ago and then someone stole it from him. He said he found it today in a store and stole it back. The head was from East Africa and was quite attractive, I could see how someone would become attached to something like this.

When we got back to the hotel after the concert and arrived on the 7th floor where our room was, we could see bright lights beyond the door in the direction of our room. We tried going the other way, because we weren't sure exactly which way to go, but then realized we did have to go toward what we then realized was a photo shoot of...a woman wearing a corset. It was about 11 PM. We opened the door and the photographer apologized to us. No, we said, we're sorry to interrupt. Conor claims he didn't see anything other then the leopard print chair that was turned over on its side on the floor.

Our trip the next day to the Brooklyn Museum included a scene with the NYPD. When we sat down in the car, a man lay across from us spread out over 5 or 6 seats. He was passed out and no one paid much attention to him. A man a couple of seats down from me asked us where we were headed, I guess because he saw me looking at the list of stops. I told him the Museum and he said that we should get off the stop after him. We had a long ride ahead of us and I settled back in my seat to relax. At one of the stops, a uniformed policeman got on the car and walked right over to the guy who was passed out. He told him to sit up and nothing happened. Then he grabbed the guy's belt and started shaking his body to wake him up. The guy looked up at the cop and the cop said sit up, you can't lay down on the train like that. The guy said I was looking for something, and the cop said no you weren't, you were passed out. Right, the guy said, I was sleeping, but after you woke me up, I started to look for something.

He sat up and the cop stood there, a big guy with his gun and stick. He put his hat on, down over his eyes the way they do that to look tougher. Then something happened at another stop. The cop yelled something, got off the train, and then back on again. At the next stop, he told the guy who had been passed out, to get off the train. The cop seemed really angry, as if whatever had happened at the last stop now had to discharge and this guy was going to have to pay. He did get off and we saw the cop put handcuffs on him.

The rest of us on the train shook our collective head at the abuse of power. And our friend who was going to get off at the stop ahead of us, grabbed a bottle of whiskey out of his duffel bag, filled his Sprite bottle and then shared it with another guy across the aisle from him.

Paying Attention

2006-11-06T15:39:00.000-05:00

I hurt myself a few times in the last couple of months. I fell riding a horse--actually a pony--for the first time in September. I got lucky and didn't do any lasting damage, just a sore shoulder for a couple of days. What was I thinking about? What was distracting me?

I burned my hand making tea. I poured boiling water all over the back of my left hand. I held back tears as I drove my daughter to her dance class soon after the incident. For three weeks I covered it with my other hand when I stood talking to someone. It turned dark brown and peeled. Underneath the raw, red skin looked unready for exposure.

I fell riding again on Friday. This time I did get hurt. My neck and shoulder are sore and I have appointments set up with my physical therapist, massage therapist, and a new chiropractor that a friend strongly recommends. This is probably overkill, but since I've been feeling so great physically, maybe better than ever, I can't accept this setback easily.

One thing I know from riding is that your eye is everything. Where you're looking and what you're thinking about is critical to staying in the saddle. It's not easy to be a daydreamer and ride horses. Until now, I've been lucky, but it looks like I've tempted fate and my daydreaming is beginning to cost me.

Clarity and focus are things that I've learned about in yoga and meditation. I can try to apply some of those skills to the rest of my life. I think I better, before I really get hurt. My new mantra should be "focus on what you are doing now." That would keep me out of a lot of trouble, because so much of what spins me is not paying attention to what I'm doing in the moment. I assume many writers have the habit of living in their heads. It's how we get a lot of our work done, and since we bring our heads with us wherever we go, we often forget that we're doing something other than work and get lost somewhere in between the two activities.

I can't possibly stop thinking, except when I'm sitting at my computer, but I do need to be more aware of how I allocate time for this work and time for the rest of my life. I need to notice if I'm paying attention when I'm cooking, or spending time with my kids, or driving, so that I don't get hurt anymore. But also so that I can live more fully. If I leave this thinking process on all of the time, I think it gets diluted and less effective. It becomes something in the background, too familiar and less engaging. And the activities that I fill my life with become nothing more than unnoticed landmarks whizzed by at 75 mps.

Blue Arabesque--NY Times Review

2006-10-25T16:45:00.000-04:00

Patricia Hampl's new memoir "Blue Arabesque"--justifiably called so, since she defines memoir as the story of a mind, not a life--received a grand review in the October 29 Book Review section (available now to online subscribers).

Kathryn Harrison compares Hampl's analysis of her aesthetic experiences to those of John Berger in "Ways of Seeing," and Susan Sontag in "On Photography."

Patricia Hampl’s determination to occupy the space between the eye and its object and her success at articulating the mysterious transactions therein grants her authority among writers like Berger and Sontag, who not only sit and stare but see. Read “Blue Arabesque” and you too might mistake — or exchange — art museums for churches.

I'm eager to read this after having the honor this summer of studying with Patricia at the Prague Summer Program. The other two books of hers that I've read, "A Romantic Education" and "I Could Tell You Stories," are now two of my best-loved reads. If her exploration of Matisse is anywhere near as exalted as what she accomplished with Czeslaw Milosz in "I Could Tell You Stories," then I am sure to be taken beyond the walls of my minor-league mind.

Here's an example of her thinking on why Milosz's memoir "A Native Realm" differs so much from American work:

The American assumption is almost always psychological, and therefore personal. There is a throb toward (personal) salvation beating within American autobiography. Milosz's assumption is superficially cooler, harder. Put another way, it is more elemental. For him, the awareness of a rich and complex "origin" necessarily dilutes some of the paralyzing power of the present: something else is always tugging at consciousness, something neither wholly familiar nor wholly abstract. This presence which lies at the heart of the experience of memory is both personal and impersonal. This double nature of his memory, which Milosz says caused his post-War experience in the West to be "robbed" of some of its "reality," is, from an American middle-class perspective, an enriching and intensifying of reality. (from "Czeslaw Milosz and Memory" from "I Could Tell You Stories")

Be kind to yourself and allow this brilliant memoirist to push your thinking, seeing, and feeling into the realm of the divine.

First Dance

2006-10-23T23:46:00.000-04:00

My daughter had her second school dance last Friday and it reminded me that I had taken some pictures of her and her friends as they were leaving our house for the first school dance. Jim walked them across the street to the middle school.

She had asked me if three of her friends could come over after school that day to get ready. I said sure, and went shopping that afternoon for snacks and pizza and drinks.

Instead of three friends, four ending up walking over here after school, although Chloe forgot to mention this additional girl's presence. Fortunately, I saw her walking through the kitchen and asked her who she was, a few minutes before her father called to see if she'd made it over here OK. That's right, I'd never met her.

She's only eleven and yet our biggest argument lately is about dating. She insists that she should be able to go to the movies with a mixed-gender group with no chaperones. Last year, I was the only parent who did stay for the movie when they went as a group. Even though I sat in the back and said nothing the whole time, I'm ruining her life. Sigh...

Rock on Baby

2006-10-23T17:10:00.000-04:00

Is it easier to be in a good mood when you listen to a lot of music? I wondered about that. I figured that it could at least help as a distraction for the annoying and sometimes damaging thoughts we can allow to make residence in our minds.

A quick search on Medline showed that music is being used as therapy and that it has been shown in a variety of studies to improve mood. Using "music and mood" as my keywords, I pulled up 271 articles. Here are a just a few of them:

Kemper KJ and Danhauer SC published Music as Therapy in South Med J. 2005 Mar;98(3):282-8.

Their study shows that:

"Music is widely used to enhance well-being, reduce stress, and distract patients from unpleasant symptoms. Although there are wide variations in individual preferences, music appears to exert direct physiologic effects through the autonomic nervous system...Music effectively reduces anxiety and improves mood for medical and surgical patients, for patients in intensive care units and patients undergoing procedures, and for children as well as adults. Music is a low-cost intervention that often reduces surgical, procedural, acute, and chronic pain. Music also improves the quality of life for patients receiving palliative care, enhancing a sense of comfort and relaxation..."

Stratton, V.N. Psychology and Education: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2003; vol 40: pp 1-11. News Release, Penn State University.

Shows that:

"No matter what kind of music you listen to, it makes your mood better...Not only did our sample of students report more positive emotions after listening to music, but their already positive emotions were intensified by listening to music," Stratton says in a news release.
It didn't matter whether the students listened to rock/pop, soft rock/easy listening, oldies, classical, or new-age music. It also didn't seem to matter whether the music was played during an activity -- such as dressing or driving -- or or whether it was played while socializing.

After listening, the psychology students were more optimistic, joyful, friendly, relaxed, and calm. They also were less pessimistic and sad. Music, however, did not entirely soothe the frightened beast in student breasts. After listening, they did not report being less fearful."

And...music therapy, massage, and hypnosis may have a positive effect on anxiety in cancer patients (Mansky PJ and Wallerstedt DB Cancer J. 2006 Sep-Oct:12(5):425-31).

So, why not turn on the tunes? We have so many more ways to enjoy music in our lives these days, from our iPods (check out the love song to this device on Salon today) to Pandora--a free customizable Internet radio service, which I'm listening to now as I write this, that we really have no excuse to sit in silence.

I've gone back and forth with music. I know I wouldn't have survived our cross country trip without the thousands of songs I had downloaded, and my feet move with extra buoyancy when I listen to my workout playlist while running. I also love to listen to music when I cook.

I do sometimes choose to sit in silence when I write though. I guess I've always thought that music would distract me. I've read that some writers use music to set the mood for what they're working on and I've toyed with that idea myself. I do know that if I'm going to get depressed, irritable, or crave carbohydrates it's usually going to happen when I'm writing. I mean sitting still in front of a computer all day and spitting out slop isn't a mood-enhancing activity for me. Maybe if I play some music I'll get more done and make fewer trips to the refrigerator. It's worth a try.

Aironic Hudson Valley Living

2006-10-19T16:53:00.001-04:00

I've never read the Kingston Times. Although it's published by Ulster Publishing, whose work I admire--especially anything written or edited by my friend Sigrid Heath--I rarely see this newspaper around town. But, the other day when I was at Adams in Kingston, I couldn't manage to walk by this headline:

Killing us softly?: Scientists suspect PCBs jack up stroke, heart attack risks in riverside towns

I happen to know Dr. David Carpenter the researcher who is responsible for this study. He's renowned for his public health work, was the Dean of the School of Public Health and is employed by the New York State Department of Health Research Labs, where I worked for five years before and after grad school.

What I found so disturbing about this research is that they are suggesting that the 40% increased risk of heart disease that they saw, in towns that border the river, is do to volatile PCBs, meaning that they're airborne.

In other words, we're breathing these in every day and they're acting on our livers to increase production of cholesterol which then builds up in our blood streams and blocks our arteries.

This finding is remarkable considering that towns that border the Hudson River have generally speaking a more affluent population which should have reasonable access to health care and knowledge of healthy lifestyle choices.

GE, thanks for that and the microwave thing too.

Taking One's Life

2006-10-18T08:08:00.000-04:00

Pay attention to things that come up more than once in a short period of time. It's not always a coincidence. Suicide is a theme for me to struggle with it seems. Please be assured that I'm not suicidal myself, but that I'm finding myself engaged in the topic with several people.

I have a pen pal named Beverly who is a prisoner in California. Her last letter was short and painful for me to read.

My dear Sista and friend,

This will be short--I just am upset today because a young woman here about age 26, hung herself. Yes, Kim she died right in her cell--the room mates were not around, I had last spoken to her during work but never was there any clue that she was having problems!

As I have mentioned before Kim, I have seen too much illness and death among my peers--these years have not been easy to do, yet I press on no matter what I endure because I'm leaving here Kim and no matter how tough being here is--taking your life is not an option, ever!

Well, I just felt too overwhelmed Kim and I thank God I can express my fears to you...

It's taking me longer to write back to Beverly this time. I've had to think of how someone in my situation can possibly identify with what she's feeling. My automatic response regarding suicide--that it's the end result of a potentially fatal illness, not unlike a heart attack--doesn't resonate with people. Most people that I've spoken to about this, still see suicide as a choice and not the result of what happens when a powerful organ like the brain is sick.

Maybe I am too much of a reductionist. It's just that despite how difficult it might be for people to understand that the mind is in the brain and no where else, it seems like too elusive a concept for most people to grasp.

Lately, people have come to accept the idea that sexual orientation isn't a choice. Before this awareness, homosexuality was viewed as a criminal deviancy, a crime against society. But now, most people seem to understand that a conscious choice is not what homosexuality is about. That people are born with their orientations and that their lives can be a struggle for acceptance.

Our brains are affected by stress. Depression is considered by neuroscientists to result from chronic stress. Certainly being in a woman's prison at age 26 is depressing. When we're suffering from chronic stress, our brains are bathed with high levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. This compound can actually kill neurons in some brain regions and can affect the way the brain works.

Of course suicide can be prevented in many cases, but I think the more we consider this event to be a medical crisis, rather than a selfish, criminal act, the farther along we will be to finding compassion for the dead, their families and friends. No one stands around at a wake for an obese, middle-aged man snickering about how selfish he was to leave his family. If he had only exercised and dieted...or do they?

Untreated depression can be fatal. It's hard for me to see this any other way, just as it's hard for many of the people I've spoken with about this to see it this way. Our consciousness is a wonderfully complicated phenomenon constructed from the cells inside our skull and when we try to understand this we falter as humans have throughout history.

To Beverly and other survivors, the aftermath of a suicide seem more tormenting than a death by other means. We always struggle with questions of "why" or "if only," but we can say that for all deaths. Understanding the role of the sick brain in suicide can give survivors a break. They are no more responsible for the way a neuron is firing in someone else, than they are the way a loved one's heart is pumping. Think about accepting this as another natural, but no less tragic death and see if your heart opens up a little more.

I haven't begun to address the issue of health care for these prisoners. I wouldn't dare to absolve anyone who works there for this woman's death, if she wasn't receiving adequate care. From what I've been learning, the conditions there are abhorrent and medical negligence could possibly be a question in this case. But that's a different question to answer and a different state of mind to live in, than one where the survivors are looking at each other and the departed in a futile effort to make sense of a choice.

Lonely in a Hot World

2006-10-13T18:22:00.000-04:00

Two things that I read yesterday resonated in the most poignant way and I had to share them with you. In Parabola, an article by Thomas Berry quotes Chief Seattle as having said

"when the last animals will have perished, humans would die of loneliness."

Berry goes on to illustrate the importance of the natural world to humans by reflecting on the needs of our children, especially toddlers and pre-schoolers. How else can we communicate with them in any meaningful way, without the use of pictures and stories of humans and animals?

These present to the child a world of wonder and beauty and intimacy, a world sufficiently enticing to enable the child to overcome the sorrows that necessarily they experience from their earliest years....We consider ourselves blessed, healed in some manner, forgiven and for the moment transported into some other world, when we catch a passing glimpse of an animal in the wild: a deer in some woodland, a fox crossing a field, a butterfly in its dancing flight southward to its wintering region...

How lonely will we and our children be when this is no more? The connection is with an article published in Nature in 2004, which predicts that, worst case scenario, 60% of all species will be extinct by the year 2050. Chloe will be 55 and Conor 53. What kind of world are we leaving them? Will they see a fox and her baby along the side of the road when they drive home from a night out, like I did the other night? Will they be able to take their children to Glacier Park to see mountain goats? Will hawks and turkey vultures soar over the valley?

More from Berry:

The animals can do for us, in both the physical and in the spiritual orders, what we cannot do for ourselves or for each other. These more precious gifts they provide through their presence and their responsiveness to our inner needs.

Wait--tell the chimps it's unnatural

2006-10-12T23:12:00.000-04:00

A new, first of its kind exhibit at the Oslo Museum of Natural History courageously portrays the truth about sexuality among the animal kingdom. While the religious right seethes at the sight of bees sucking pollen together, the exhibit illustrates a complexity of relations among creatures. Not all interactions are performed for the sake of reproduction.

The birds and the bees may be gay, according to the world's first museum exhibition about homosexuality among animals.

With documentation of gay or lesbian behavior among giraffes, penguins, parrots, beetles, whales and dozens of other creatures, the Oslo Natural History Museum concludes human homosexuality cannot be viewed as "unnatural."

"We may have opinions on a lot of things, but one thing is clear -- homosexuality is found throughout the animal kingdom, it is not against nature," an exhibit statement said.

Geir Soeli, the project leader of the exhibition entitled "Against Nature," told Reuters: "Homosexuality has been observed for more than 1,500 animal species, and is well documented for 500 of them."

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1012-01.htm

Laptop Lunchboxes

2006-10-06T07:52:00.000-04:00

It's not often that a new product comes into my life and changes the way I think and behave. As a mom of two school-age children, I'm faced with concerns of offering healthy, organic lunches, and the issue of packaging. How do we provide lots of cut up veggies and fruits and yet not increase the volume of the already overflowing garbage pails with more ziplocks?

Laptop Lunchboxes are one of those cool things that the kids like and I love. It even offers a creative outlet and a book with ideas of how to fill all of the containers with yummy, vitamin and fiber packed goodies.

The Mind is the Universe

2006-10-06T07:38:00.000-04:00

and the universe is the mind.

I always wondered how--if there was any chance of consciousness after death--it would be contained. Gamma rays? I do believe in a collective unconscious, but knowing that the mind is in the brain makes it hard to imagine anyway of it remaining after the cells, which make it up, decompose.

Anyone out there who doesn't understand what I mean by that should read Oliver Sacks' book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. He shows how brain lesions can fundamentally change who we are, yes our consciousness. That slim little book, more than anything else, shook my metaphysical understanding.

But today, I Stumbled upon (literally) two images. One of a neuron and one of a model of the universe. See for yourself. It's the same thing. It's all one and I like that.

Is Bush Really the Devil?

2006-09-27T08:39:00.000-04:00

Mark Morford doesn't think he quite pulls it off.

Satan has better taste in shoes. Is far sexier. Can actually spell 'Venezuela.' I mean, come on

Energy Star Pledge

2006-09-14T21:20:00.000-04:00

This weekend the new organization that I helped to form is manning a table at Red Hook's annual Hardscrabble day. Neighborhood Earth Watch will be selling compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), handing out free reusable shopping bags, courtesy of Hannaford's, and asking people to sign a pledge change one light bulb in their home to an Energy Star light bulb.

You can sign the pledge yourself here.

Microwave Fire--GE

2006-09-14T16:46:00.001-04:00

Yesterday morning we had a very close call. Conor was making his oatmeal in the microwave and I was in my office reading e-mail. He called me from the kitchen to say that there was a very big problem. I ran in, and he told me that our microwave was on fire. I assumed that he meant that the food was on fire, but when I opened it up, I saw flames burning on the inside of the microwave itself. The food was fine, aside from strings of melted plastic on top of it.

We closed the door, unplugged the appliance and thought of getting water. Conor filled up a cup from the fridge, while I grabbed a dish towel and wet it under the faucet. I opened the door again and placed the dish towel on top of the flames, where it sizzled and put out the fire.

We carried the microwave outside to the patio, where it still sits. My initial reaction was to call GE to tell them about this problem, so that they could warn other consumers, but when I googled around, I found out that GE knows full well about these fires, although they won't say so to their customers.

Please be careful with your microwave. Even if you don't have a GE model, know that most of these are manufactured outside of the US and have the branding put on afterward. Think twice about letting your kids use the microwave when you're not home.

The Last Day

2006-09-07T14:58:00.000-04:00

On our last day, Chloe was on the phone with her friend:
“Don’t get sick and miss school,” her friend said to her.
“It’s the first day. I would go if I had pneumonia.”
“Well, I heard that hay fever was going around Pennsylvania.”

Thanks to all of you for sharing our journey with us. It meant a lot to us that you were there to offer advice, feedback, and concern as well as the occasional hello.

We’re home and the kids are back to school. I’m starting to slide into a routine again, but I hope to break a few of my old habits and begin a few new ones. I still plan to write at least one more blog post about our trip. Something to do with my general impressions of camping, the rest of the country, and being with my children. After that, I may continue to be a blogger, but I don’t think I’ll be sending out e-mails every time I post an article. It feels too forced to me. You can stop by the site—I made the URL easier to type—it’s now www.writingandmothering.com, but the old URL works too. I think I might write more about writing and politics and anything else I feel like thinking about. I don’t want to bore anyone.

They make newsfeed readers that let you know when content on a Web site has been updated. I have a couple of feeds that run on my Yahoo home page, but there are many other readers designed specifically for this purpose. If you want to do this, the atom feed is:

http://writingandmothering.blogspot.com/atom.xml

I think Bloglines is a good service to use for newsfeeds. It’s easy to set up and free. You can see it for yourself at: www.bloglines.com

If you all of this sounds like too much trouble and you truly want to continue receiving e-mails from me, than send a message to me and I’ll make sure to keep you subscribed by e-mail.

Madison, WI to Elkhart, IN

2006-09-07T12:14:00.000-04:00

It's our anniversary today. I think it's the first time we've ever been apart, but then since Labor Day is such a great time to travel, I may have been in Maine or somewhere else at another time.

I didn't think I'd have anything to write about at this point. Our sightseeing is over and the absence of National Parks and Monuments on our way home left me thinking it was just a matter of miles and doing the time.

But I'm surprised again here in Elkhart, IN. About 30 miles east of South Bend, we found not only the home of 70% of all RV manufacturing in the world, but also the second largest Amish population in the country. These two things did not happen by coincidence. The RV manufacturers chose to be here to make use of the Amish's exceptional craftmanship.

I would imagine that this would be a great place to shop for a camper or to get repairs.

We'd seen Mennonites on our way out to Seattle. They camped in huge bus-size RVs with several families together. I would always see the men walking around with the children, while I assumed the women were inside preparing meals or doing other things. The Amish, would not be found in RVs, because they won't even drive cars, but they are building these things apparently.

With the impending oil crisis and global warming to face are the Amish going to be miles ahead of the rest of us? We may be impatient when we're driving behind their horse and buggy, but it may not be long before we're asking them to help us learn how to live more simply ourselves.

Jackson, MN to Madison, WI

2006-09-07T11:48:00.000-04:00

We stopped a couple of times today; something we can easily afford with a goal of only 5.5 hours. Our first stop was the SPAM Museum. This was not in my plan, but with free admission and restrooms it was a great opportunity to stretch our legs and study top-notch PR in action.

Once inside the door, you are immediately directed to a movie that "just started, hurry." The film cleverly uses irony to increase your comfort level with SPAM. In one scene we met a college student who has only worn SPAM tee-shirts every day for the last 5 years. He has 20 of them in all varieties.

While I was able to find a small display of factory worker uniforms and tools, including some butchering knives, I didn't see any films or photos of the pig butchering process. These cute pink pigs just shrink down into cubed cans.

Chloe wanted to try some, so we bought a can of low-sodium on the way out. Ugghh...On the way to the museum, you drive by the flagship Hormel factory. The smell is strong enough to enter the car even with the windows closed. I admire the marketing job that the SPAM team is doing--what a challenge. Too bad they can't convince Hormel to change its logo. It reeks of bad institutional food.

The same storm that soaked us at Mt. Rushmore hit us last night too and then we had to drive through it. I think this is going to be a repeating pattern now that we're traveling east. No escaping the weather.

South Dakota to MN

2006-09-04T11:16:00.000-04:00

We wanted to stop at Wall Drug on the way home, since we didn’t have time to do that the day before. We had a tough night, heavy rain and strong winds and thunder kept all of us up much of the night. The kids were too scared to leave the tent and I was glad for that since the chances that they’d get hit by lightening would have been greater.

In the morning, we had to make a plan on how to pack up the wet tent despite the fact that it was still raining hard. I told the kids to hold the fly up above the tent as a sort of umbrella, but that didn’t work too well. Everything was soaked. We just left it all in a pile on the floor of the TAB on top of some towels. If I’d thought ahead, we might have been able to place it all in the laundromat’s dryer and then we could have packed it up dry. Our new tent did keep everything inside dry though. The sleeping bags, blankets, and pillows were all fine.

When we got to Jackson, MN, our next stop, I did use the dryers in the laundromat at a low temperature. The owner’s wife came out at one point because the plastic clips were rattling in the machine. I asked her if it was bothering her and she said no, she just wondered what the noise was. Then her husband came out when I was taking the tent out of the dryer. He said, I can smell something burning. I couldn’t smell anything and said so. God knows I have a sensitive nose. Besides, I had it on delicate and stood there watching over it, worried that I might damage the new tent. He said, I hope the next person who uses that dryer doesn’t end up having their clothes smell. It was late and I let it get to me. I asked him if he wanted me to buy him a new dryer. Then he gave me a look, turned around and left. I was the one to use the dryer next, since I decided to wash all of our dirty clothes while I was there, and there was no problem. Just a creepy place. I ran into the owners every time I turned around. It felt like they were watching every move we made.

Agate Allotment

2006-09-04T11:10:00.000-04:00

I had a feeling that South Dakota might be a good place for rockhounding and an Internet search that I did the night before confirmed this. While no one is obviously allowed to collect rocks from the Badlands National Park, or any other National Park as far as I know, The National Grasslands has what they refer to as the Agate Allotment, where they allow rockhounding for personal use.

We found the visitor center for the National Grasslands and asked the ranger if she would tell us where we could go for rocks. She pointed out a location on 44 past the south east exit of the park near Interior. She said that we should look for a sign that said Agate Allotment near a gated road.

When we reached the spot we saw all around us, lying on top of parched earth, small agates, jaspers and quartz. We’d seen the varieties of agates that we might find in the visitor’s center before we left. Bubble-gum agates, jaspers and black agates were the most interesting to us, although Chloe found quite a bit of rose quartz. We got close enough to a prairie dog village that they started to call out warnings, so we decided to turn back.

We kept our eyes on the ground for rattle snakes and on the horizon for buffalo, but no threats were visible aside from the very small cactus hid among the low grass. I think we’ll look into purchasing a rock tumbler when we get home.

Sitting Bull Crystal Cave

2006-09-03T22:59:00.000-04:00

We didn’t know anything about this cave, except that the woman at our campground told us that it was on the way to the Badlands. Although small, it was a good choice for us. We learned that it’s one of only five in the world that have dog-spire crystals, and it has the largest crystal of its kind in the world.

Unlike other caves we’ve been to, this cave doesn’t have stalagmites or stalactites to speak of. Instead it’s like being inside of a giant geode crystal. We walked down three flights of steep metal stairs. The hand rails felt like metal does in the winter, but they were necessary, as was watching every step.

I didn’t feel very cold until the end of the tour, about 45 minutes after we started, and at that point, I would have loved to just climb back up the steps to get warm, but our guide wanted to show us a water feature named Diamond Lake. We were only allowed to go three at a time, and when she showed it to us at first, she didn’t shine the light directly on the water, but covered the light up with her hand and shined it around the room, which caused the ceiling of the cave to reflect on the water and made the 6-inch deep “lake” look like it was 100-200 feet deep.

Mt. Rushmore

2006-09-03T15:06:00.000-04:00

I had originally planned to go to the Wind Cave National Park in the morning and Mt. Rushmore later, and then see the Badlands on the way to MN the next day.But, we decided that trying to see the Bandlands and driving 8-hours was too much for one day. Our new plan was to see Mt. Rushmore, and then stop at a smaller cave on the way to the Badlands.

The Black Hills were the biggest surprise for me. I had imagined them being bare and black, but they were rugged and covered with Ponderosa Pines. The area is like an oasis between the dry range lands of eastern Wyoming and the Badlands.

Mt. Rushmore was also much nicer than I had pictured. They’ve built a promenade and a Presidential Trail, which offers a variety of closer views. The kids both said that this was something they had wanted to do all of their lives…Hunh, me too I guess. What I thought was most interesting was how the mountain it was carved out of was brown, unlike the white faces underneath. The ranger said that the sculpture was pressure-washed last year.

This visit was more meaningful to us after we’d been listening to the “Don’t Know Much About History,” book on tape about American history. We’re were up to the part about Vietnam when we reached Mt. Rushmore, so we’ve been refreshed on these biggies.

Across Wyoming

2006-09-03T15:02:00.000-04:00

This was the day I dreaded before ever leaving home. There’s no straight route across the middle of Wyoming, so I had to zig and zag my way over to South Dakota. The Nav system predicted a 14-hour day. At around eight hours and 6 PM, we were somewhere between Douglass and Lusk on Route 20 at a truck stop called the Three Sisters. We had dinner and a peek at very small town Wyoming.

My dashboard is telling me that my oil needs to be changed and that something is wrong with my tire pressure. On the way here, I tired to make a repair to the orange casing of our TAB’s propane tank cover. It’s broken in a few places and a screw is missing from one of the brackets. I tried replacing the screw, but after driving on roads that were under construction for a good part of the day, the jiggling beat me in the game.

The drive even more demanding than I thought it would be. After dinner we drove for another 2.5 hours in the dark and near the Black Hills where hundreds of deer stood near the road. I wanted to make up time, but couldn’t risk driving over 50 mph. At one point, a huge buck stood in my lane and I had to swerve onto the shoulder.

We came to the Jewel Cave National Monument and had a crazy drive over step winding roads. The Nav system got confused then, and I was trying to look at a map in the dark and at the same time, avoid the deer.

Once we got onto 244, we found the seconded largest KOA in the country with no trouble. The new two story office and store felt more like a hotel lobby than a campground. Since it is so big, you’d think that they’d offer to escort us to our site, especially in the dark, but unlike many of the other, smaller KOAs where this courtesy was offered, Mt. Rushmore hands you a map and sends you on your way. I had some trouble finding it, because the campground is about the size of the Village of Red Hook, but once we found it, we were happy. It was on an end and right across from the bathrooms. With 25-35 mph winds, we had some difficulty setting up the tent. I doubt that the older one would have stood up to this test, but this new one was great. I made sure to use the guys on the corners for extra protection.

Jackson Hole and the Grand Tetons

2006-09-03T14:57:00.000-04:00

We had one day to explore Jackson Hole and the Grand Teton National Park. We decided to take it easy, since Chloe and I both still had colds, and white water rafting in the cold water didn’t sound too appealing to us. Our first stop was the ski area for the tram ride up Rendezvous Mt.

Chloe was nervous about the height, over 10,000 feet and a 4000 foot climb, but our operator was informative and kept us entertained on the way up. After the 10-minute ride to the top, we walked around and enjoyed the great views of the Grand Tetons, the valley and town of Jackson. We didn’t stay long, because the temperature was about 40 degrees and hiking at over 10,000 when you’re not feeling well is too much. At the bottom of the mountain, the kids each took a turn at the bungee-trampoline combo, each accomplishing some backflips.

Our plan for the park was to drive up the road from Teton Village to Jenny Lake. We stopped at Taggert Lake to look at the renewal of growth following the 1985 fire. Most of the foothills there are green, covered with evergreens, grass and shrubs and yet there are still obvious signs of the fires among the charred logs on the ground. It was encouraging to see after the sadness we all felt seeing the fire in Glacier a couple of weeks ago.

We got out of the car at Jenny Lake to take some pictures and then continued down to the south visitor’s center for our boat ride across the lake. Our boat operator had New York listed as his home and we found out he was from Albany.

We crossed the lake and climbed to Hidden Falls. More beautiful than the falls, were the mountains on our right. Closer than before and rough-faced, climbing them seemed unimaginable, perhaps because I could hardly make the 0.5 mile climb to the falls with this cold sapping my energy. I thought about Hensley being out here doing technical climbing and how she didn’t want to come back. I picked up a Real Estate guide to go over with Jim when I get back.

Bruneau Sand Dunes

2006-09-03T14:54:00.000-04:00

We stopped in Boise to get gas and the Nav system led us through the entire city, past Boise State University on the way to 84. What I saw was not impressive, but unimaginative and full of chain restaurants and gas stations. Maybe we missed the downtown, but from what I saw, I couldn’t tell why this city is always listed in the top ten places to live.

We were headed to the Bruneau Sand Dunes, based on the suggestion of Siri, Katti’s friend. Although all the park rangers we met on this trip were kind and helpful the ones at the Sand Dunes top them all. They let us borrow a sled to ride down the dunes.

We were the only people there and when we got out of the car, I was still feeling awful. Cold? Allergies? The 97 degree temperature felt like 120 in the sun and the air was so dry it was hard to breathe. I found a little shade under a tree where I could watch the kids, but felt like I might pass out any minute. I shared the shade with dragon flies and something else that kept biting my shins.

The dune sledding was not successful. As hard as the kids tried, they couldn’t get any momemtum. They might have had more luck on the bigger dune, but it was a hike from the parking lot. Maybe if we’d gotten there earlier in the day when it was still cool, they may have had more interest. But as it was, they just wanted to get into the car to cool off in the air conditioning.

We decided to skip Craters of the Moon, even though we really wanted to see it, because we didn’t want to repeat the delays and late arrival of the day before. We pushed ahead at max speed, getting terrible mileage. It seemed like we filled up the tank every couple of hours. By 7 or 8 PM we were close to Teton Pass. If I had known what it was like, I wouldn’t have gone that way. With 10% grades it seemed like we would blow a valve going up and then on the way down each time I hit the brakes a tire rattled and the steering wheel moved and vibrated. This must have something to do with the way the brakes work on the TAB. Since then, I haven’t had problems braking and nothing seems to be wrong with the tires.

Cascade Locks to Idaho

2006-09-03T14:49:00.000-04:00

We had plans to drive all the way across Oregon and into Idaho in one day. Most of the trip was along the north of the state following the Interstate and the Columbia River. The first thing we did in the morning was check out the Bridge of the Gods. I had to see what that was about. It cost $1.50 each way with the trailer. One side is Oregon and the other Washington. We missed all the other sites in that area: trails and waterfalls to see on the next visit.

Although we started out on 84, part way through the trip we decided to make a detour and headed south for the John Jay Fossil Beds National Monument. This detour required meandering through some back roads, climbing over some mountain passes and traveling through National Forests. If I had really known what was ahead I would not have done this, but in making the decision, it seemed to fit in with our secondary theme of rocks and geology that we’d started in North Dakota.

When we got to the National Monument at around 5 PM, the visitor’s center was already closed. It was about 100 degrees there and it seemed that my allergies were starting to act up again. I was beginning to think that I was allergic to deserts, but maybe I had picked up a cold along he way. The green color of the fossil beds was impressive, but we didn’t stay too long in the heat.

After that, the drive seemed interminable and following our dinner in a small town at around 7 PM, I just didn’t know if we could make it to Mountain Home. We called telling them that we were going to be late, the time change not working in our favor and they told us that they lock up the bathrooms at 10 PM. Hunh? For that I was killing myself?

At about 11 PM, I gave up and pulled off the highway at an exit that had a camping sign. The Oasis, a small campground seemingly in the middle of nowhere and still about 2 hours away from Mt. Home, we stopped. The office was closed and I was about to fill and the form and leave my $20, when the manager came out to help me. This was the second night that we all slept together in the TAB. The night before coming back from Portland it was too late to set up the tent too. I found that it really wasn’t that bad and saved us a lot of time. We sleep head to toe to make more room for our pillows.

When we woke up the next morning, we saw the Snake River only about 20 feet from our camper. What a gorgeous spot they have there in eastern Oregon. Don’t hesitate to stop if you’re headed through. For $20 it’s the best deal we’ve gotten, and they have the cleanest rest rooms we’ve seen.

Face Forward

2006-09-03T14:44:00.000-04:00

My friend Jackie Dooley is looking for sponsors for her walk on September 17 in NYC. She's raising funds for Face Forward, an organization that helps children who are born with cleft lips and palates. Jackie's own daughter was helped by Face Forward. For more information see:

http://www.firstgiving.com/jackiedooley

Portland, OR

2006-09-03T11:51:00.000-04:00

We left Vashon just in time to make the 10:35 AM ferry to Tacoma. Jim stayed behind, because Andy offered to drop him off at the ferry station later in the day. He had hotel reservations near the airport and an early flight the next morning. We had people to meet in Portland, and were eager to get there around lunch time.

Parked right in front of us on the ferry, was a Bard student who lives on Vashon Island. She talked to us, well mostly Chloe, throughout the trip. We promised to get in touch with her this fall.

Our first stop in Portland, was the home of Goudarz. A friend of Majid’s from Tehran, Goudarz is the person who helped me find Majid in the first place. When he was helping me 12 years ago, he said that if I was ever in Portland, I should stop by to meet him. Goudarz and his partner Gabby gave us a grand tour of their beautiful city. Our first stop was the famous Portland Rose Garden, which is unlike anything else I’ve ever seen in scale and variety. Portland is certainly a garden city, as my friend Allison has tried to explain to me.

After seeing the downtown, they drove us past Powell’s Books, which Goudarz said was the #2 icon in Portland. I asked him what the #1 icon was, and he said the Rose Garden…

I was impressed by the four-car tram that they have running through the city. Gabby relies solely on public transportation. The biking is great here too, with numerous trails and paths, and bike racks on the buses.

One thing that truly surprised me was an electric car charger on the street. A single person vehicle was plugged into it. It looked like a covered motorcycle with three wheels; it’s made by Corbin Motors (www.corbinmotors.com). The charging was provided for free by the local electric company: Portland General Electric.

Everything about Portland seemed good. The politics are progressive, they have good public transportation, and they even have a Persian Festival every year. Some 11,000 Iranian-Americans live in the area. I may have to return one year for that.

We left Goudarz and Gabby after too short a visit, but so glad to have had the opportunity to meet them. We were headed to my friend Sue’s house for dinner. Sue and I met this summer in Prague, where she was taking the playwrighting course. When she found out that we would be driving through Portland this summer she suggested that we stop by, so that we could see each other again and meet her daughter and husband.

Sue gave me an amazing Pinot Noir to drink—what was that? please tell me again--and a wonderful dinner with salad from their garden. It was great to see her and meet her family. I hope we can see each other again this fall when her instructor’s play is staged in Chicago. Another visit that was too short, but we had to drive to Cascade Locks to spend the night. Bruce and Deanna told me to look for their old house out there, but I ended up driving out of Portland in the dark and missed it. Next time, because Portland is one place I know I’ll return to.

Vashon

2006-09-03T11:44:00.000-04:00

There’s no bridge from Seattle to Vashon Island, and as my friend Andy said, “the surest way to get thrown off the ferry is to suggest that there should be one. Just look at the development on Bainbridge Island to see why those on Vashon like things just the way they are.” We ended up sitting on line for the ferry during rush hour, exactly the thing that Jim had wanted to avoid. But our list of errands including our REI stop delayed our departure from the Seattle KOA. After 40 minutes of sitting parked on line, we were at the ticket booth, where the officials measured our rig’s length. If you’re under 30 feet it’s $30 for the round-trip ride, but if you’re over, it’s $70. Our official length according to the ferryman was 31.5 feet. We cried foul, but what’s there to do?

Andy and Naomi have a great house on the eastern shore of the island. They have a view of the water from their front patio, and they’re only a short walk down a steep hill, from a beachfront. Andy had driven into Seattle that afternoon for Dungess crabs and oysters and we had a delicious dinner of them that evening.

We set the TAB up in their driveway and the kids’ tent in the yard. Andy had a wireless network that I was able to use to get my course ready for the fall semester. He also answered my questions about setting one up at home.

We spent the next day at the KVI beach down the road from their house. The beach is named after the local radio station that owns it, and lets the locals use it for free. The beach is covered with huge driftwood logs, and there are tidal pools with hermit crabs that the kids played with. Down the beach, large rocks were covered with blue starfish and barnacles.

We ate sandwiches that Naomi and I had made that morning with the Applegate turkey we bought in their grocery store. Based on the grocery store alone, I could live here. I offered to cook dinner that night and made crab cakes using the leftover crab meat.. Andy also cooked some salmon for us, just to make sure that we didn’t leave without trying the best that Seattle had to offer.

Rainier

2006-09-01T01:48:00.000-04:00

We entered Mt Rainier Park at the southwest entrance and stopped for lunch at Longmire. Our first hike was called the Trail of the Shadows. It was around a pond and passed by springs that were once part of a resort for assorted maladies. Now signs say not to drink the iron-saturated water.

From there, we went to Paradise and did a short hike around wild flower meadows. We had gone up into the fog and from the overlooks it looked like we were in heaven, with nothing to see past the split rail fence but whiteness.

Jim was eager to try to see Mt. Rainier up close, and despite the fog and clouds in Paradise, the rangers assured us that the sky was clear on the other side of the park. On our way over, we stopped to take one more walk through the Trail of the Patriarchs. This section of the park has old growth forest. No redwoods, but cedars, firs and hemlocks that are between 500 and 1000 years old. To me it felt like Redwood Park and I was glad the kids go to see it.

We lucked out and saw the majesty of the peak before sunset.

Problems Solved

2006-09-01T01:35:00.000-04:00

It seemed like after the long trip here, everything was starting to fall apart. Our car had a weird propane-like smell; part of the tent where you would stake it down had ripped; the air mattress wouldn’t stay inflated; the coffee tasted terrible yesterday and I don’t know why; the garbage leaked on the floor and the yogurt leaked in the fridge. I wondered what kind of impression we were giving Jim. I asked Chloe to validate that we had good systems in place until that point and she did and then Jim said that we were just trying to make him feel needed. This was my first honest glimpse into something I had suspected for a long time. Men like to feel needed. To me, problems feel like nothing but stress.

To solve these matters, Jim offered to bring the Highlander to a dealer in the morning to have the smell checked out. While he was gone, Chloe helped me with the laundry. The Highlander’s problem was that its altimeter was confused and it wasn’t mixing the fuel properly. Wow, I didn’t even know it had an altimeter. The mechanic at the dealer said not to worry about it; it was just a result of riding up and down all those mountains.

The tent and air mattress problems were handled at REI. Jim bought a new tent and Thermarest-type mattresses for the kids. This new tent shouldn’t leak at all, because the fly covers the whole tent and even with high winds and rain they should stay dry. The new air mattresses are a lot easier to set up and store. Thanks Jim!

Old Friends

2006-09-01T01:20:00.000-04:00

We met Andy and Naomi, for the first time in six years, at a restaurant not far from our campsite. They didn’t want us to try to come over to the island at rush hour, because the lines at the ferry would be too long. We talked about our plans for the remaining time we had in Seattle and decided that we would make a trip to Mt. Rainier the next day, and then bring our camper over to Vashon the day after that. It didn’t seem to make sense for us to drive all the way to the Olympic Peninsula with only three days left in our stay.

At the campground the next morning, we met owners of the second T@B that we’d seen on the whole trip. They were a family of three from Texas who were on their way back from Alaska. They had chosen the clamshell design, with the kitchen in the back, so that their little girl could sleep on a bench inside. If you’re interested to hear more about their adventures, they also have a blog: scottandkaren.com. They also told me about a Yahoo group for T@B owners: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tabtrailers. I’ve just checked it out and it seems like it will be a good resource for the future, especially for tips on making modifications. They’ve also scheduled rallies for T@B owners all over the US.

The Right's View of Western Parks

2006-08-31T23:57:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago when I was worried about the fires at Glacier, I signed up for a Google alert. I shut it off today, but not before catching this interesting view of the same parks I'd seen written in the National Review. Funny, I'd thought about moving out to Missoula too.

The Scheme

2006-08-31T02:17:00.000-04:00

We met two friends of Katti and Adam's who were also staying with them, while their house was being worked on. Jim and Dave hit it off, because Dave showed Jim how the Beatles really played Dear Prudence on the guitar. When Dave and his wife Diane sang together in harmony, everyone stopped what they were doing to listen.

Dave gave Jim a CD that his band put together recently. The Scheme now plays out in Seattle, but you can check out some of their songs on their MySpace site. Great tunes.

Persian Cooking Lesson

2006-08-31T02:16:00.000-04:00

My Aunt Maryam cooked a second feast for us at Katti and Adam’s house and we returned from Snoqualmie Falls in time for me to watch and help her prepare a variety of dishes. She was making three different main courses, actually four, because one of them was a vegetarian variation of Persian macaroni. I was most interested in the Koresh-e Fesenjan, the chicken stew made with a walnut and pomegranate sauce. I had tried to make it at home with peanut butter (I know…) because Jim is allergic to nuts, but here was a chance to see how it’s really made, with all of the authentic ingredients. Aunt Maryam was reluctant to make it at first, when she heard about Jim’s allergy, because she didn’t know if even having the walnuts in the kitchen when she was preparing other things would be a problem. I assured her that his allergy is not that severe, and she thought of another stew with celery and beef that she would make for him.

To start, we ground walnuts in a grater, such as the kind that some use to grate parmesan cheese. We did what must have been a pound or two. Then we cooked onions in oil and added pieces of skinned chicken to brown. I believe we added water and then the ground walnuts, which made a thick gravy. Later, after the meat simmered we removed the bones. We added a full bottle of pomegranate syrup for flavor. Aunt Maryam gave me two bottles to bring home. Adam gave me a bottle of olive oil flavored with Persian limes and Nahid gave me saffron. I expect to cook with all of this gifts and my new knowledge sometime this fall. Let me know if you want to join in the experiment.

The other dishes we had that night included the ultimate Chelo Koresh, or rice with a crusty top. I learned a few tricks about this, but I’m not confident that I can pull it off yet. Making rice like that is the hallmark of a good Persian cook, and it probably takes years of practice. We also had Persian macaroni, which involved taking the cooked pasta and homemade meat sauce, flavored with cinnamon, and layering it over cut pieces of yam and crushed rose petals. Katti also made a green salad with red currants and avocados and a salad dressing of lime, garlic and live oil. We sat out on their patio and watched the sunset over the Olympic Peninsula. Everyone had seconds, thirds? Even Chloe and Conor ate more than just rice and bread.

Persian ways

2006-08-30T01:36:00.000-04:00

Every minute we were there, our hosts were eager to see that we were entertained. Shirin and Siamak arrived each morning to take us somewhere new. We explored the Pike Place Market and downtown one day, ending at the Elliot Bay Bookstore. Majid met us there and magically, somehow everyone else had left to do other things, leaving the two of us time alone to talk.

It’s so refreshing to know that there is a whole other group of people now in my life who are mature and kind and generous, brilliant and passionate. I only wish that I could have done more. It’s true the saying that it’s better to give than to receive. After being the recipient of so much affection and generosity for four days, I only wanted to give back to these amazing people. They promised to let me return the love when they come to visit us in NY.

I learned about a Persian custom called Tarof. It has to do with manners and the requisite courtesy that one pays to family or friends. It’s very complicated and I doubt that I’ll ever completely understand it, but I think that it has something to do with the way that we were treated. No matter that we weren’t close, since we were visiting in their city it was their obligation to treat us as their special guests. I hope that we weren’t too much of a burden and that somehow, despite all the work involved in entertaining us, they managed to have a good time too.

Luxury and Feasts

2006-08-30T01:00:00.000-04:00

We spent four nights at my cousin’s house and we were treated like royalty. A bed never felt as comfortable as the one in the guestroom at their house. My cousin’s husband is an uber cook and we were never without a cappuccino, or a mineral water, or a platter of cherries, figs, peaches, and nectarines.

My half-brother and sister picked us up and brought us to Ivar’s, a seafood restaurant overlooking a lake, to meet my birth father and his wife. I had never met his wife, so this was a momentous occasion. She was gracious and kind in conversation, and I thought the evening went well. I had the most delicious salmon. It doesn’t taste anything like the fish we get back east. Conor impressed me by ordering the salmon from the children’s menu.

When we got back to my cousin’s house, my aunt was still there and we played Blokus and talked about what to do the next day. I asked them if someone might recommend a place to get a pedicure and then the idea of all of us going out together to get one, while Conor did something with the guys became the plan for the next day. After two weeks of camping and limping along on the socialist realism pedicure I got in Prague, my feet were eager to go along.

We picked Jim up at the airport and went to my birth father’s house for dinner. I was also to meet another cousin that night, the son of one of Majid’s brothers and his wife. We were presented with a Persian feast. Three main courses two different kinds of chicken, one like a shish kabob and the other in a stew and then shrimp, along with rice, salad, sautéed vegetables, and cucumbers in yogurt. We had strawberry juice to drink.

One feast followed by another, the next morning Adam cooked brunch for us. Homemade Belgian waffles made with a yeast batter, omelets, fruit, and the makings for a Persian breakfast, as Katti explained to me, cucumber, feta and nan bread with fresh mint.

We left for an outing to Snoqualmie Falls and planned to go back to Katti's for yet another Persian feast, this time cooked by my Aunt Maryam. I hoped to get home early enough to help, and perhaps learn a little about this magical cuisine.

Seattle Campground Take One

2006-08-30T00:28:00.000-04:00

For those of you who don’t know, this trip was planned in part for me to spend some time with my birth father and his family. I had spoken to him a few times before we left, because he was concerned about where we were going to stay. He had originally wanted to put us up in a hotel, but I had said that wasn’t necessary—we were going to have the T@B after all—but when I spoke to my aunt, she insisted that we stay at her daughter’s new house, because they had plenty of room and they wouldn’t hear of us staying at a campground when we had family in the area.

I was glad we were going to arrive in Seattle a day early. I wanted time to do laundry, relax and repack our things before arriving at Katti’s house. I was nervous. I had only met this cousin once before over a year ago, when her sister Marjan had asked me to come down to the city for lunch. We were ragged and tired and I wanted to be fresh and clean when we showed up.

It was late when we got to the campground, sometime after 9 PM and right away I felt disappointed. It seemed more like a parking lot than a campground. The site they sent us to was too narrow for our tent, because the RV next to us had its sewer line hooked up in the only clear spot where we could have put it.

I went back to the office and asked them to move us and the woman I spoke to was unsympathetic. She said, “You have a trailer and a tent?” as if that was an offense. All the way across the country we stayed at KOAs and had no problems. “All of our sites are 16 feet, what do you want me to do?” I was tired and beginning to feel desperate and asked if there were any other campgrounds in the area. Then the young man who also worked there and who had checked us in when we arrived stepped in to help. He offered to put us in a wider site, even though it was deluxe (having cable access, not that we could use it with no TV) and said he would do it for the same price. We were staying there for 9 nights. I was glad for his help and yet when he showed us the site, right up front and two rows from the highway, where we were staring at a street light and listening to trucks roar by, I cried. It was after he left, and in the dark, but the kids saw me and comforted me. I don’t know if it was from exhaustion or nerves, I don’t know. I just cried and together we set up the tent and then I climbed in with them and we cuddled like we used to when they were little. It seemed like too long since we did that and in fact it precipitated a number of conversations on their part of-- remember when…we used to play spoons in the drawer or when you spent more time in Conor’s room then mine?

Coeur d'Alene to Seattle

2006-08-26T01:35:00.000-04:00

We’ve been in Seattle for a week now, and I haven’t had a chance to write about our short time in Coeur d’Alene, or our trip into Seattle, so I’ll catch up with that before describing our time here.

We left Glacier a day early, because we woke up to a rainstorm the day we were to travel to West Glacier. The forecast was for more rain the next day and I thought that maybe we could escape the rain by traveling farther west. The kids agreed and together we packed up the wet tent and air mattress in plastic bags and changed our reservations to arrive in Coeur d’Alene a day early.

It was a long drive, about 8 and a half hours, a lot of it on secondary roads. Idaho impressed us, especially the LOLO National Forest with its ragged mountains and evergreens.

Our site in Coeur d’Alene was a back-in and when the person who checked me in saw the look on my face, she offered some assistance. I was met at the site by a young man who took over the wheel and backed the T@B into the narrow, terraced spot with ease. The tent dried out easily and we put the air mattress in the T@B with the heat blasting to dry it out.

We spent the morning exploring Coeur d’Alene a popular resort in Idaho. It has one of the longest floating boardwalks on a fresh water lake.

Every corner in the downtown had a different, unique fountain. We found a nice café with WiFi and had lunch. Five and a half hours later we were in Seattle.

Hidden Lake Overlook

2006-08-17T15:31:00.000-04:00

We started our hike from behind Logan’s Pass visitor’s center. Don’t go in the late morning like we did, because the parking lot fills up and then you have to drive around until someone pulls out.

The first part of the trail is along a board walk to help protect the fragile alpine plants. Some of the steps were high and Conor began to complain. This was after he had bragged about climbing Chimney Mountain when he was in camp this summer. But he said that this was different, it wasn’t deep in shady woods and we weren’t climbing on rugged dirt and rocks like he was used to.

On the way we say a marmot, crossed a couple of streams, and passed through fields of wild flowers—yellow, red and purple. Close to the overlook we saw a mountain goat. He stood only about 10 feet from the trail. Our tour boat guide had told us that mountain goats eat lichen. Their tongues are like sand paper and they lick if off rocks. That’s how they’re able to survive through the winter in the high elevations where the wind sweeps the snow off rocks.

St. Mary's Lake

2006-08-17T15:28:00.000-04:00

We arrived at the boat dock for the tour of St. Mary’s lake at 8:45 AM. Both the pilot and the on-board ranger were young women. I was impressed that the boat, an old wooden tour boat, runs on bio-diesel. It was so nice to ride in a power boat and not have to smell the exhaust. Makes me rethink my stink-pot hatred.

We learned that the reason the water in the lake is such a beautiful green color is that the glaciers cause erosion of the limestone and small particles enter the lake from the mountain streams. These limestone particles reflect back light and are responsible for the color. That’s why parts of the lake are greener than others; they’re closer to the source of glacial water.

Happy Campers

2006-08-17T15:25:00.000-04:00

At 11 PM last night, the three of us walked back to the camper from the laundry. It was dark everywhere in the campground, except for our site, because our outside light was on. We stopped about 30 yards away, because we heard noises and worried that it might be a bear. Then we saw a horse walk between the T@B and the car. Two others followed. They walked to the campsite next to ours. The kids were alternating between feelings of fascination and fear. Wanting to catch one of the horses to take home and worried that they might be trampled on in the tent.

When I woke up this morning at 6 AM, they were still here eating the campground’s green grass. We asked a ranger about them when we entered the park this morning and she said that there aren’t any wild horses around here, but that they might have gotten lose as fences burned in the Indian Reservation.

IRAN, IRAN

2006-08-17T15:13:00.000-04:00


I received an e-mail from my birth father today. It had a link to this video. Sights of Iran for those who have little idea of Iran’s diverse beauty. This video captures parts of Tehran, Fasham, Khamneh, Azarbaijan, and Caspian.

Glacier on Fire

2006-08-17T15:12:00.000-04:00

Our drive was short today and soon after passing Browning, a town in the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, we could see smoke coming up from the mountains. At first it looked like it was coming right toward us, and then it looked like it was heading north, in the same direction that we were heading to get to St. Mary’s. I wondered if the ranger I had spoken to was wrong. There was no way we would stay if our campground was filled with smoke.

I decided that, if needed, we would just continue straight through the park to West Glacier, where there wouldn’t be any smoke, and hope that they had space for us there.

We drove right through the thickest part of the plume and past large stands of burnt forest on the reservation. St. Mary’s was clear, as it sits to the north and slightly to the west of Red Eagle Mountain. We could still easily see the smoke out the window of the camper.

It’s a good thing that we were safe at St. Mary’s, because I learned from a fellow camper that no vehicles with a total length of over 21 feet are allowed to cross through the park on Going-to-the-Sun Road. We will have to return to Browning and travel to the south of the park on Wednesday to get to West Glacier.

Great Falls to Glacier

2006-08-17T15:11:00.000-04:00

We took secondary roads again and stopped at a rock shop in Bynum, MT. We asked the owner, John Brandvold, if he would help to identify some of the rocks that we had found in North Dakota. He said two were agates, some were different types of oxidized iron ore (including the one I thought was an arrowhead), one of Chloe’s was petrified wood and another possibly dinosaur dung.

The owner’s wife Marion Brandvold was the first person to discover a baby dinosaur skeleton. A cast of it is in the shop. She’s 94 years old and hard of hearing, so we weren’t able to talk to her, but John answered many of the kids’ questions. I bought Conor a small pick-axe for rock hunting there. I figured we could also use it to hammer in tent stakes. The kid loves to dig and maybe this will save his fingers.

Chloe in Glacier

2006-08-15T01:06:00.000-04:00

Hey everybody this is a post from Chloe.

So, you’ve probably heard a lot about our trip so far but not from my point of view. Well here I am in Glacier National Park. Amazing! Is how to explain it in one word. Oh and Judy if you happen to read this it did make the hairs on my arms stand up. I saw maybe five or six glaciers today. I love it here, but, I also can’t wait to get home to see all you guys back home. Yeah, middle school. Well it’s 11:00 and I’m tired so Goodnight.

Great Falls

2006-08-13T19:36:00.000-04:00

As we got closer to Great Falls, we started to see pines on the hills and mountains on the horizon. We past the Judith Range and the Big Snowy Mountains.

The KOA here is the nicest we’ve ever seen, so we’re so pleased with our decision to come here a day early. The temperatures are in the low 80s, refreshing after the 100 degrees weather we had in North Dakota. There’s a water park in the campground and the kids just want to play in it all day. There’s not much to see here beside the falls, and we can do that tomorrow on the way out, so a day spent relaxing at a pool sounds ideal. I let them have ice cream for lunch and I packed just nuts and cherries for myself. We’re not that hungry after having a big breakfast at the camp kitchen. Chloe and Conor had pancakes with homemade chokecherry syrup. We have a choke cherry tree on our campsite, right above the water spicket.

Tomorrow we’re off to St. Mary, the eastern entrance to Glacier Park. We’re going despite the ongoing forest fire. The local paper here today says that it’s 75% contained. I called the ranger station and the ranger I spoke to said that the air quality should be OK, depending on the winds and that they generally blow in an easterly direction—away from St. Mary’s. He also assured me that we should have no trouble seeing most of the things that we want to see.

Conor just walked over with a little girl and said, this day is the most fun I’ve ever had. Then he introduced me to the girl and quickly left to finish his game of tag.

Medora to Great Falls

2006-08-13T19:32:00.000-04:00

We made a decision Saturday morning, after we got in the car, to change our route. We were originally headed to Big Timber Montana, which would take us south on the Interstate past Billings, about 353 miles. Then the next day we would arrive in Great Falls, north of Big Timber and on the way to Glacier National Park. When I looked at the map, I realized that Great Falls was a straight shot from Medora on Route 200—a two-lane road right across the middle of eastern Montana. I asked the kids if they would rather spend some extra time in the car today and then have the day off tomorrow, and they were thrilled with the idea. So we changed our reservations, Chloe impersonating me on the cell phone while I drove.

Our first stop was Prairie Fire Pottery, one mile form the Montana border. We were hunting for gifts and hoped to find something interesting. The potter and her husband were interested in the T@B and told us that we should be fine on 200, just to make sure we got gas in Jordan, because there was a long distance to the next town from there. I bought a blue platter and she bubble-wrapped it for me.

For over 400 miles we saw nothing but ranch land. At first the landscape was like th North Dakota Badlands, but then it became hills of pasture with mostly Black Angus cattle. The towns consisted of a gas station, a grocery store and a bar.

One interesting and different thing we noticed were handmade, original anti-meth signs. I took pictures of some of the ones I saw in towns when we stopped to get gas, but the more interesting ones were on the side of Route 200, like a noose hanging from a big pole and a smashed up car, both painted and lettered with the message. It would be an interesting project for someone to document these signs.

In Winnett, MT the first stop after Jordan and a place really in the middle of nowhere, two attractive women walked out of a bar and looked at us and our orange trailer and said “New York to Winnett, that’s just weird.” And then they continued walking to their car.

Medora Musical

2006-08-13T19:29:00.000-04:00

Friday night and we’re at the Medora Musical. We had tickets for the steak fondue first (fondue?), which was really just a cookout. The food was OK, drinks extra and not really worth the price. But the setting was incredible. We were up on a plateau looking out over a 360 degree view of the Badlands. A breeze was blowing and a band was playing country music.

The ampitheater sits in a valley below the parking lot and entrance. Outdoor escalators are built into the hill and you have to take two of them to get down to the mezzanine level. The set for the show is a main street Medora—train station, church, post office, saloon, hotel, and general store-all different colored buildings. There’s no curtain, no backdrop, just the stage, the buildings and the sky.

We were front row center, since I bought the tickets back in April when I planned this whole trip.This show is a big deal for North Dakotans, probably something like the Radio City Music Hall’s Holiday show is for New Yorkers. On the escalators, we overheard a few people say that they’d been there a few times and that it’s different every year. I think most of the people who visit Medora are either from North Dakota or Minnesota. At least it looks that way from the license plates and the pins stuck in the map in the office of the horseback riding concession.

The three hour show was mostly cheesy and nationalistic country music and dancing, but a few things amazed us. They have the Rough Riders, who ride horses on and off the stage at a gallop. They have trails from the canyon and part of the stage between the buildings and the dance stage is dirt. And then they had acrobats from South Africa who did unbelievable things with their bodies. By the time we left the temperatures had dropped down to the 70s and it felt cold. We all fell asleep immediately.

Medora Storm

2006-08-13T19:27:00.000-04:00

I got back from doing laundry and the kids were playing with the new National Parks version of Monopoly we had just gotten at the visitor’s center. They were sitting in the T@B with the AC on to escape the severe Badlands afternoon heat. I was about to take a shower to get ready for the show we were going to that night, when I saw a black cloud coming over the hills from the west. I had the kids help me close the windows on the tent room we had set up for the first time the night before, and we brought all the chairs, shoes, towels and other things we had lying around the campsite. When the storm started, quarter-sized hail came down with heavy rain. I waited for it to stop before going out to take my shower, because I would have gotten hurt. It cleared up soon--the whole storm consisted of one large cloud—and as I went to go take my shower, I discovered that the tent room had leaked. Not just through the windows, but through the roof. The air mattress, sleeping bags and blankets were all damp and the tarp underneath them. I had the kids help pick everything up. I set up the tent, because if it rained that night we would need it. We deflated the air mattress and put it in the tent. Winds had picked up, so for the first time on the trip we made sure to put in the tent stakes.

I’m disappointed in the design of the T@B tent room. What’s the point of having a tent if it leaks? In the morning we had to pack up both the tent room and the regular tent. I cannot believe how mature and helpful the kids have become. It must be from their month at camp.

Little Missouri River Bank

2006-08-13T19:24:00.000-04:00

We spent the afternoon on the sandy banks of the Little Missouri River. Our campground sat on the opposite side of the river from the National Park. Conor and I came down here first to hunt for agates, which we found in abundance. I also found my first arrowhead, made of reddish stone, to add to the collection.

After seeing our prizes, Chloe wanted to go to the river. We returned this time with a chair and water bottles. It was a hundred degrees with little shade, but very dry. I felt like I had to apply Blistex every 20 minutes. I sat staring at cliffs in the Park, which had to be 300-500 feet high. Across some of them you could see coal veins. It was burning coal that baked the clay in the hills, creating the red-colored stripes. I could have sat there all afternoon writing in my journal, except that red ants were crawling up from the sand and biting me on the legs.

Chloe and Conor crossed the river and ended up in knee-high grey clay on the other bank. Neil had told us about this clay when we were horseback riding, but I can’t remember the name. It’s used in all sorts of manufacturing processes like cosmetics and some milkshakes. I had no ideas of possible dangers there, so I was more relaxed than I might have been at home. Were there any poisonous snakes in the river? I asked a park ranger afterward, not mentioning that I had let my children play in the river before inquiring about dangers, but she assured me that there were no water snakes in North Dakota. Besides, she said with this heat you won’t see any land snakes either.

Riding in Theodore Roosevelt National Park

2006-08-13T19:13:00.000-04:00

Woke up a couple of times last night to a train whistle, then alarm at 6 AM, so that we could be on time for our horseback riding lesson. I think I’m fighting off a cold, or I’m allergic to something here. I wake up having sneezing fits and feel drained.

Our reservations were for the 2.5 hour advanced ride. I hoped that they wouldn’t question us too much. We had our cheap boots, jeans and sweatshirts and asked for the optional helmets. We were the only three along with the guide to leave the ranch at 7:30. Conor and I were both on quarter horses and Chloe on a mule named Molly. For most of the beginning of our outing, Chloe was begging Conor to pick up speed. We were asked to keep one horse length between us, and Conor’s horse (by choice of the concession I’m certain) was pokey and liked to eat grass along the way. Our guide started to get after him, and told him to kick Elbert until he told him to stop. Conor obeyed and eventually it only took him 3 or 4 kicks and not much more for Elbert to stop eating.

We rode through a prairie dog town. Of the 46,000 acres in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, the prairie dogs have about 1,300 acres claimed. Neil, our guide told us that one of the low-lying weeds near the holes, was wormwood. I knew from reading about absinthe, which is legal in the Czech Republic, that the active ingredient, thuyon, comes from wormwood. Neil said that the prairie dogs eat it, so they’re tripping down there in those holes.

We saw numerous cottontails, two eagles, wild horses and three lone bison bulls. Male bison who are away from the herds are younger or weaker and pushed away by the more dominant males. Neil called them Lonesome Georges.

The destination of the trip was a limestone formation called the Eye of the Needle. We rode through it, ducking our heads, and came out on a high field with the best view of the canyon. Ahead of us, directly on the trail and about 50 yards away, was a Lonesome George. Neil led us to the left, toward some trees and the buffalo followed us, getting even closer, now about only 30 yards away and staring straight at us. I thought if it charges at us now we’re screwed. I had faith in Neil, but doubted that Conor would be able to handle an escape at a gallop, besides we were on top of a mountain now and heading to quickly in any direction could lead us right over a cliff. Neil then decided to take us back to the right, toward the trail and the buffalo continued down through the trees.

Neil’s horse spooked once as we were about to head downhill. He was riding a three-year old who didn’t have a lot of trail experience and the turkey family below us startled him. Our three were good old souls and barely lifted their heads during the commotion.

When we returned to the ranch, we saw more wild horses munching on hay. Neil said that he would have to chase them away later in the day. (Pictured--we could not bring a camera on the ride).

Fargo to Medora

2006-08-12T13:11:00.000-04:00

The Healthy Highways Guide has proved its worth. We Found Touchi's Products in Fargo. Wow! Best selection in a health food store I've ever seen. Rooms of international products. Not just typical Japanese or Indian, but Eastern European, even Croatian. Nice people too. The kids told them all about our trip, and the owner went into the back to find gifts for us. He gave us their anniversary jar opener and plate scraper.

We drove on Interstate 94 all day. Seems that big sculptures are popular here. On the way we saw the biggest bison in the world and then the biggest Holstein cow. We figured it must be a way to try to draw travelers into town, off the Interstate, to spend their money.

We stopped at two small museums, the National Buffalo Museum, which had Native American artifacts as well as buffalo facts and animal pelts--hands on, which Conor couldn't get enough of.

The Dakota Dinosaur Museum has a skull of a Triceratops that was found nearby in Eastern Montana in 1992. The kids loved both of these museums and we were through each of them in under an hour.

The eastern side of N.D. is lush rolling farmland. Just west of Bismarck the landscape starts to get more interesting. Little hills and buttes start to appear in the middle of fields, and just at the border of Montana, in Medora at the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, sits the Painted Canyon, a stunning, colorful piece of Badland heaven.

Fargo

2006-08-10T10:39:00.000-04:00

Made it to Fargo KOA at around 5:30 PM. Stopped at a store in Moorehead, ND to get cheap boots with heels, since we all forgot to pack something for horseback riding and we’re going at 7 AM on Friday.

Back in Minnesota, near Duluth, we had stopped at a general store and bought wild rice bratwurst (a local specialty) and fresh sour cherries, which together made a fine dinner. The kids also made Annie’s Mac and Cheese in the microwave for themselves.

The T@B is a big conversation starter everywhere we go. Don’t buy one if you don’t like to talk to people. A guy at a gas station on the way here (a place called New York Mills, funny enough) told us that it had been a hundred degrees up here this summer. Kind of spoils the point of living up north if you have extreme winters and extreme summers. He said it always used to be beautiful up here in the summer. Hmm…

Plan to look for a health food store in Fargo.Our Green Highways book lists two. We need to pick up a few things before heading to Medora tonight. We’ll be at the Theodore Roosevelt National Park tonight. Conor is so excited to see the North Dakota Badlands that he packed up the tent and air mattress himself this morning. Chloe was too tired to help him.

Duluth

2006-08-09T10:51:00.000-04:00

Duluth is a beautiful city. Somewhere I would choose to live for the outlook it seems to have. It sits on a hill, which overlooks the western edge of Lake Superior. Yes, there’s a lot of industry spoiling the shoreline, but the downtown has brick lined streets with cool shops, restaurants and views unlike anywhere else.

When we arrived at the campsite last night we saw the same little camper in a spot next to us that had been next to us the night before in St. Ignace. This morning, on my way to the bathroom, I stopped to talk to them. Their names are Leroy and Carol, they’re bikers on a Harley pulling a tiny BF Specialties trailer behind them that pops up and forms a tent and a bed.

They’re taking Route 2 all the way across to Washington State. I told them I would have done the same thing, except that we wanted to see Theodore Roosevelt National Park on the way, so we have to head south for a while. Leroy said he gets much better gas mileage when going on secondary roads at 60 mph than he does on the highway. I’ve noticed the same thing; I get almost 30% better mileage at 55-60 mph than I do at 70 mph.

Carol and Leroy are also headed to Glacier and they told me that St. Mary’s, the entrance on the eastern edge, where we are staying for two nights, was reopened. I had no idea it was closed, but they told me that forest fires have been a big problem up there this summer and they were about to evacuate the entire town. I guess I better pay more attention to the news. They also said that bears problems are worse than usual because it’s so dry (they’re looking for water?).

We had our first incident this morning. The kids were screwing around in the tent, taking 2 hours to pack everything up. Wrestling, fighting, laughing, then daughter comes out with a bloody nose said brother hit her with a pillow. Sigh…

Next Fargo—can’t wait.

Upper Penisula and Route 2

2006-08-09T10:29:00.001-04:00

We left St. Ignace Tuesday morning with expectations of a 12 hour drive, according to the navigation system. It actually only took 9 hours, thank God. Our morning drive started out nicely. We drive by gorgeous sand dunes on the northern shore of Lake Michigan. Route 2 was smooth, quiet and vastly underdeveloped. Kept wondering where all the people and businesses were.

At our first stop, a BP station—seems they have a monopoly on gas up here—called the “Party Store,” they sell smoked fish, smoked meat, cherry salsa (bought some to bring to Seattle) and fireworks. I overheard the owner saying that gas would be up to around $4 a gallon by Monday, because of what happened in Alaska. When I asked him what he was talking about, he said that 20 miles of pipeline up there had corroded. No one knew? Bad timing for our road trip. We saw the news on TV in the restaurant where we had dinner and it confirmed this news, announcing that CA for instance gets 20% of its oil from Alaska. Too late now.

We saw our first T@B, a sliver one, in a little town in Wisconsin, about 30 miles from Duluth. We had pulled into a lot for dinner and they pulled in beside us to say hello. They were on their way back from a cross country trip from Pennsylvania to Seattle and back. They said that, for the most part, everything went well, but that they had a few problems. I didn’t ask them what the problems were, because they seemed to be in a hurry.

Only once so far have I had fleeting feelings of self-pity. It happened the night we arrived in St. Ignace and I thought I had 12 hours of driving ahead of me the next day. My neck was sore and it was starting to feel like we were in the Army. Get up. Pack up. Move out. Over and over. It was the fourth day and we hadn’t been anywhere for more than one night. Once we’re on the road though, I’m so glad we’re doing this. I’ve wanted to see this part of the country for as long as I can remember. I realized that part of the reason I wanted to do this, is because I was always a map geek and staring at maps and planning this trip was the ultimate game for me.

Mackinac Island

2006-08-09T10:00:00.001-04:00

On the way from Port Huron to St. Ignace, we stopped in Flint, MI—home of Michael Moore-to hit the Target store for some microwave-safe, plastic bowls. I wondered if Flint would be as desolate as Moore portrays it in his films, but it seemed solidly middle-class inside Target. Lots of tanned, thin, blonde women shoppers. Flint?

We arrived at the Makinac Bridge around 5:30. It takes a lot to terrify me, but driving on this bridge in high winds, with the T@B, and construction forcing me onto a steel deck was enough to do it. I looked out over the water to stay calm and was fascinated by the rich blue and turquoise color of Lake Michigan. I was expecting dark grey and blue like Lake Champlain, not a Caribbean palette. With colors like this, why are there so few people around St. Ignace?

We checked into the campsite at 5:45 and I knew that if we were going to get to Mackinac Island that we would have to do it that night. The staffer told us that the next ferry was at 6:30 and if we wanted to catch the shuttle we would have to be back at the office at 6:00. I made a decision to give it a try, since the ferry after that wasn’t until 7:30 and it had been a long day. We drove to the campsite, plugged in the T@B, grabbed my camera, sweatshirts and pocketbook and made it back in time for the shuttle. The kids were asking a lot of questions, where are we going, what’s the rush, why do we have to do this? I should have explained our plans ahead of time, but they were caught up in the DVDs that we got at the Blockbuster in Flint, 4 for $20 and they didn’t say a word to me the whole day.

The ferry moves fast. We were at the island in 15 minutes. The Harbor was lit up by the setting sun and the white church and buildings were gleaming. We had a great dinner with fast service at Goodfellows and made it back for the 8 PM ferry. Mackinac Island will not suffer from rising gasoline prices, since no cars or trucks are allowed on the island. The bicycles and horses are not an anachronism as I see it, but the way of the future. Now, just how to deal with the smell of horse piss everywhere?

Niagara Falls to Michigan

2006-08-07T10:39:00.001-04:00

We’ve been on the road for two days. Day one from home to Niagara Falls and day two from Niagara Falls to just west of Port Huron, MI. Our plan was to actually be in the Upper Peninsula by now, but we spent the entire morning today taking a professional tour of the falls and then got stuck for two hours at the border, reentering the US from Ontario. We decided to just take it easy and call it a day at 7:30 PM after being in the car for six hours today.

Niagara Falls was so much more beautiful than I had imagined. I had this grainy, black and white honeymooners-from- the-1950s-image in my head. I thought of tacky Americana, but the water and the setting were National Park stunning. I didn’t know that the US side was forever wild and the Canadian side, while built up, is shiny and full of enthusiasm. Right before us were two gleaming examples of environmentalism, one even involved an international agreement (with Canada to cut back flow of the Niagara River at night to help prevent erosion of the escarpment, without which there would be no falls).

I looked up at this mass of plummeting water from the Maid of the Mist boat and thought that this alone is worth fighting for. I know as we travel further into the wild that more of these examples will become evident. And yes to many people this would all seem obvious, but I’ve been discouraged for so long that I need reminders about my country. Reminders that I do have things to be proud of, many, many things.

After the Cave of the Winds tour, where you get to stand on what’s known as the Hurricane Deck, just at the bottom of the Bride Veil Falls, Son told me that it was the most awesome thing he’d ever done.

For those skeptics out there, yes I’m still holding it together. The children are rising to the occasion. Daughter packed up the air mattress and the tent this morning, because we were in a rush to leave the campsite by 8 AM in order to the make the tour. I’m finding it easiest to leave the camper attached to the car hitch, because getting it on and off intimidates me. My only gripe, and it’s nothing I can’t learn to live with, is that they play country music in the bathrooms of the KOAs. It’s loud and at 6 in the morning, not what I want to here. Can’t wait to see the U.P.

Packing for a Cross Country Trip

2006-08-04T08:56:00.000-04:00

I've already cited Onebag.com as an excellent resource for packing advice. But what about a camping trip across country, one that includes children and cooking and hiking, and extremes of temperature? Well, for that I found the Universal Packing List site to be invaluable. It has drop down menus for you to choose the length of your trip, the temperature ranges, and activities. For me, having a packing list frees up much of my mental energy for the fun of making choices about which shirt to bring rather than agonizing about forgetting a crucial item. I can also hand one to my children and have them do their own packing.

Last Day in Prague--Memorials

2006-08-01T22:50:00.000-04:00

I have one more thing to tell you about Prague, before we start reporting on our cross country trip. I spent my last day in there visiting memorials for the communist resisters.

Jan Palach is remembered all over the city. The large square in front of Charles University--where we had our classes--was named for him and a replica of his death mask hangs from a wall near the front door. His friend Olbram Zoubeck a sculpter cast his face for the resulting sculpture and then hid it for over 20 years.

If you don't know the story of Jan Palach, he set himself on fire in front of the National Museum at Wesceslas Square in 1968, to protest the Soviet invasion of his country. Another memorial, which I found to be so moving, sits on the ground at the spot where he committed this act. All the memorials that I visited in Prague had fresh flowers placed on them. Each day, someone is placing them there. Who I wonder?

Zoubeck's other sculpture related to Communism is the Victims of Communism Memorial, found at the foot of Petrin Hill. I had heard about this sculpture of the disappearing men, but missed it the first time we climbed the hill. I returned at night, to see it lit up and once more on my last day, to take some pictures.

These heroes seem so big in this little country, and they leave me with a new realization about power. I thought my Big Idea from this trip was going to be that there's hope for the US, because the Czechs went through two terrible occupations by totalitarian governments and look at them now. Doesn't this offer hope to us here? But Hana, once again gave me a new way to think. She thinks that the Czechs' suffering was to some degree self-inflicted. Why didn't they fight back? Who else, she asks, was invaded by the Swedes (Thirty-day war). I'm left with that uneasy feeling that I often get that I'm constantly over-simplifying everything, but no, we aren't talking about self-defense in the case of the US really, are we?

Air Conditioning and Climate Change

2006-08-01T22:22:00.000-04:00

Did I mention that they had no air conditioning in Prague? Well, at least not in any of the places that I spent time: my dorm room, Charles University, the Ypsilon Theater, pubs, restaurants, stores, and tour busses (although the bus drivers and tour guides assured us that it was on as we sat red-faced, fanning ourselves). Apparently, last summer it was cool and rainy, so maybe they are simply unaccustomed to the 90 degree weather that they had the entire month of July.

Regardless of what type of weather they've come to expect in July, the Czechs handled this heat wave with grace. People stripped down to essential clothing--tank tops, skirts on women, short shorts. After a while, I did get used to being hot and sweaty. It just meant changing my clothes more often and maybe adding a second shower to my daily routine. I only really missed the air conditioning at night, when despite having a fan in my room, I would wake up sometimes with my face against a sweaty pillowcase. I know, it's disgusting.

Today, to help prevent a city-wide blackout, Mayor Bloomberg required all New York City-owned buildings to raise the temperature of their air conditioning units to 78 degrees. You know, that's a lovely temperature, not a sacrifice really. I mean who wants to carry a sweater around with them in the summer time anyway?

Last year the New York Times, in its Style section, carried an article on the relationship between the chicness of a store and its degree of chilliness. As you might expect, the more chichi a store, the lower its temperature was kept.

What's up with this? Can we get real already and stop this ridiculous charade? It's summer and it's hot. Consider turning your own air conditioning up to 78. Trust me it's better than nothing. Ask the restaurants, theaters, and stores that you visit to do the same. Tell them that they'll be doing their part for the planet and keeping you more comfortable at the same time.

Kutna Hora

2006-07-27T16:29:00.000-04:00

I went on another adventure with our tour guide Milos. Why? Because he says things like this: "this is a very beautiful area of Bohemia where many rich Czechs have their second homes. Oscar our bus driver has inherited not a regular house, but a cottage and many famous artists that you wouldn't know like the Czech equivalent of Elvis Presley, unfortunately, he's not very talented."

We started our tour of Kutna Hora at St. Barbara's cathedral (photos of this and more). This unique building has a roof like a sultan's tent, and was built by the same architect who built the Powder Tower in Prague, which according to Milos was built to face Kutna Hora. We weren't allowed to take photographs inside the cathedral, but I'll say that there is an interesting mixture of the sacred and the secular in the frescoes, which combine both working miners and crucifixes. Kutna Hora is a mining town, and the cathedral was designed with these workers in mind. There's also a statute of a miner in a prominent place.

It was inside this cathedral, that Milos told us the most interesting fact that I've learned on this trip. We were standing in front of the confessionals and he said that during the Communist Era (error) secret police would impersonate priests and allow parishioners to confess their sins to them. Then a few days later the police would come to arrest them. Milos claims that this is the reason that the Czech Republic has the highest rate of atheists in all of Europe, about 90%. This claim deserves more research and I will see if I can dig up anything else on this topic.

We walked from the cathedral to a palace, where weddings take place on the weekends. I was a disgusting tourist and snapped a shot of the groom after the ceremony, because I thought the Czech custom of the groom wearing a yoke like an oxen was priceless.

The Sedlec Ossuary with its 40,000 human bones was what I was waiting for and it did not disappoint. The bones were found when the chapel was built in the 14th century. I understand that most of these people died from the plague and the Hussite wars and that a monk built these pyramids in the 15th century.

Terezin

2006-07-18T17:03:00.000-04:00

On Saturday last week, we were given the opportunity to take a bus trip to Terezin, a concentration camp and ghetto north of Prague. Terezin is unique among the concentration camps of WWII, in that an entire town was evacuated to create a ghetto for Jews from all over Europe. Some Jews remained in the walled-in town; others were transported out to the extermination concentration camps like Auschwitz. The Town also contains a prison, which was built 200 years ago as a fort. It housed political prisoners, or resistors to the Nazi movement, as well as Jews who did not obey the laws of the ghetto. Forty thousand Jews died in the prison, of starvation or disease. There were never any gas chambers in the Terezin prison.

Many of the photos that I took on Saturday are available here.

Our tour guide told us that 100 people were put into each bunk room, giving them only 45 cm each on the wooden beds. Originally the beds had mattresses, but they were quickly infected with fleas and were removed. The bunk rooms had no blankets and no heat with only one toilet and icy cold water. Each prisoner was given only one prison uniform. Dysentery, typhoid and TB were easily transmitted under these conditions.

Some of the smaller cells were used for Jews. In each of these rooms, 60 men stood upright, even when sleeping. If they lived more than 10 days, they were sent to Auschwitz anyway. The death rate for Jews was by far the highest among all of the prison population.

As an aside, cell one at Terezin housed Gavrilo Princip, the man who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo and started WWI. He survived here four years and then died of TB.

Each prisoner had a five minute cold shower once a week, and then they had to walk back to their cells through the cold air in the winter. Their uniforms were disinfected with steam only, no detergent.

Terezin was used as a model camp for Red Cross demonstrations to show them hygiene conditions. When the Red Cross left Terezin, they were satisfied by the updates the Nazis made to the prison, such as the shaving room, things that the prisoners never got to use. The Nazis also filmed a propaganda film in Terezin called “A Spa Town, a Gift From Hitler to the Jews.”

The whole town of Terezin is surrounded by walls, and there are 70 Km of tunnels underground. We walked though one of them, which was reopened in 1971, from the cells to the execution wall. The tunnels were not part of the concentration camp. The last execution in Terezin took place on May 2, 1945, when 52 young people were shot.

I was stunned that people live in Terezin now where it seems that the karma is so contaminated. In 1942, the civil population of the town was evacuated and the whole town was turned into a concentration and transit camp for Jews first from Bohemia and then other parts of Central Europe. Altogether, 155,000 people passed through the camp.

The building that houses the museum was a boy’s home, where secret lessons were held by leading figures in academia, art and politics.

10,500 children were sent to Terezin, 400 died there and 7,500 were killed in extermination camps. The children’s memorial lists all the names that they have for the children who passed through Terezin. Drawings by children, who lived in the ghetto, are one of the most poignant exhibits in the museum.

Havel and Lustig

2006-07-16T15:28:00.000-04:00

Western Michigan University, sponsors of the Prague Summer Program, presented former Czech Republic President Vaclev Havel and writer and Holocaust survivor Arnost Lustig with honorary doctorates the second night of our program. My friend Sue Mach has shared with me a few of the shots that she took the night of the ceremony. On the left, Havel and his translator shown during his acceptance speech. Havel joked that he has received over 48 honorary doctorates, so people must think that he is more interesting then he really is. He will be visiting Columbia University this fall and Untitled Theater Company #61 has organized a Havel Festival with 17 fully-staged productions in NYC to coincide with Havel's 70th birthday.

Lustig, shown below, did not use a translator, and instead spoke first in English and then in Czech. We wondered a few times whether he was saying the same things in Czech that he said in English, because we could hear laughing when he spoke in Czech. My Czech teacher Hana confirmed my suspicions when she told me that he said a few things to his native audience that he didn't share with the rest of us, such as "if you're not a Communist when you're 20 you have no heart, and if you're still a Communist when you're 30, you have no brain." Lustig was supposed to be one of the program's fiction instructors, but he had to back out, because he is fighting a serious illness.

An Ascetic's Struggle in Prague

2006-07-13T09:17:00.000-04:00

I’m not ashamed that, somehow over the last twenty years, I’ve become a secular ascetic of sorts. It happened gradually, I first gave up smoking my senior year of college, then saturated fat for the sake of Jim’s heart. Most recently, I said bye-bye to alcohol, but I still cling caffeine, only reluctantly doing without that drug when I was pregnant. I exercise as much as I can, cook with olive oil, take vitamins, ok many vitamins and follow good sleep hygiene. Since I live on the East Coast and hang out in yoga classes, I haven’t felt like that much of a freak, or struggled with temptations.

I was too smug to think that just by bringing bottles of fish oil, a yoga mat and a list of vegetarian restaurants, that I could seamlessly integrate my lifestyle with the Prague Summer Program.

The first hint of trouble came when I e-mailed my next door neighbor’s son James, who has been living here for over ten years. Which, I asked him was the best vegetarian restaurant, and who was the best yoga teacher? James graciously reminded me that maybe I might think that Prague was a little more like home than it really was. It’s only been 17 years since the Communists left. I knew that, but realized that I probably did come off as an ass. Why were those things so important to me and why were they the very first things that I asked James when I got here?

Two people in my writing class read essays about living big, or not worrying about living forever. Die young and leave a beautiful corpse. I thought about this a lot the last time I was in Europe. It’s hard not to, when so many people smoke and seem to eat many more pastries than we do in the States. Plus, I’m married to a fatalist, so I’ve heard all this before, no need to quit smoking, I’ll die when I’m sixty anyway. Love them while they last these heathens.

I don’t live like this, because I want to live forever, God no. I just feel better, less muscle ache from yoga, clearer head with no hangovers, steady blood sugar from whole grains. So, why am I sliding? How is it that 20-year olds can convince me to hang out in the bar after our readings and drink beer until the bar closes? Why am I eating chocolate croissants with lattes made from real milk (no soy!). Will I still fit through the door into yoga class when I get home?

I’m not that much of a pushover, so here’s the thing, it’s fun to talk to other writers, and when I do I get filled up with ideas that last long into the next day, make it into my journal and keep me from feeling hungry all day long like I do at home. I may have to rethink my boring resolve and dump the judgments that I’ve had of others wasting their time talking in bars. Maybe when I get home I’ll go out more and have more fun.

I'd love to hear what you think about this too. Send in a comment. You can use the link below.

Nuclear Power

2006-07-10T14:31:00.000-04:00

I had to share this, after just writing about the nuclear power plant here in CZ:

Documents Show Cracks in UK Reactors as Blair Prepares to Push Nuclear Power

Cesky Krumlov

2006-07-10T14:12:00.000-04:00

This past weekend, the program offered a trip to southern Bohemia and the town of Cesky Krumlov. Photos from the stops that we made on the way there and the city itself are posted here.

The highlight of the weekend tour was a concert in the Masquerade Hall of the Castle, where we heard Musica Bohemica performing Czech folk music. Everyone there was entranced by the joy the musicians were having, and we wouldn’t let them leave without three encores. Check them out. They remind me a little of Helicon, but their voices are as rich as any opera singers.

Along the way from Prague to Cesky Krumlov we passed countryside that looked a lot like the Hudson Valley, at least the rolling hayfields did. What’s different, are the stands of pine. Our tour guide said that 1/3 of the country is forested.

There are no shacks, strip malls, or anything else ugly, except for the largest nuclear power plant in the world. Right now it’s only running on two towers. Even though nuclear power terrifies me, it’s keeping the air quality here much cleaner than it used to be when the country relied much more on coal.

On the way back we stopped to see the National Museum of Photography, in Jindrichuv Hradec, where they were having an exhibit of the Czech tradition of nude photography. This was a great way to end the trip, because not only had I been spending the whole weekend taking photographs-no nudes unfortunately, but I did manage to catch a shot of a guy putting his pants back on after swimming in the river in Pisek—but, all of the photography students in the program were along on the trip, as was their instructor. I watched them when we made stops to see what they photographed. It was never the same thing as everyone else. They saw things that I would have easily passed right by and it made me realize that we’re all here trying to do the same things. Trying to see or say things in a way that isn’t ordinary even when the content is.

Prague-- First Impressions

2006-07-06T17:49:00.000-04:00

I arrived early Saturday morning to my dorm, Masarykova kolej. It's rumored by the students that the building once housed the secret police during the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia. I believe this, since I can easily find my room when I take the stairs up five flights to the fifth floor, but I get lost for 20 minutes when I take the elevator. The hallways form a terror-inducing maze when one is in a hurry to use the bathroom after being out to dinner. I now take the stairs exclusively. When I arrived, I felt fortunate that I had followed many of the suggestions from the "One Bag" Web site. Not that I only brought one bag, but that I did pack light. Much lighter than I ever have for a one week vacation and I'm here for a month.

Now that we've been here for six days, things have settled down. We were all panicked during the first two days, when we found out that a fellow student's laptop was stolen, and then two more were stolen later in the week. Imagine coming here to write for a month and having your laptop stolen in the first few days. Each time I leave the room now, I lock my computer up in a drawer. We were even told to make sure we lock our rooms from the inside when we go to sleep, even though our suites have locks on the outside, because in past years thieves have stolen computers from people's rooms while they were sleeping.

My room is above a courtyard, which sits near the dorm pub. The first few days I had problems with noise coming up from below. Drunken laughter would erupt every five minutes or so and the anticipation of it kept me awake the first few nights, although I suspect the excitement and time change also contributed to my insomnia. I've been sleeping fine, since I made my way to Tesco, the department store to buy a small fan.

Our classes are in Charles University, which sits on one side of Jan Palach Square.

We meet for writing class M, W, and F mornings and Czech language class on T, Th. Everyone I've met is enthusiastic about the workshops and the language class. Our Czech instructor Hana is animated and adorable. We eat out three meals a day together and we always seem to have so much to talk about. It's thrilling to speak with people who have common frames of reference. Everyone has read Kafka and Kundera and together we share our amazement at how much of our experience seems to come right from a Kafka novel. He wasn't using his imagination as much as I thought he was. Certain things that we attempt to do seem to have absurd obstacles, for example, today we were at St. Vitus and I wanted to take pictures inside. When I walked in with my camera, the guard told me that I had to purchase a license (ticket) in order to take photographs. So, I walked back into the lobby to the ticket window and no one was there. I motioned to the guard and he looked inside the window and said. They'll be there in a few minutes. By this time a queue had formed behind me and no one behind me seemed to be concerned that we were waiting at an empty window.

I've posted photos that I've taken the last few days on a separate site. You can view them here.

Power Shift

2006-06-23T19:00:00.000-04:00

Are you interested in doing something significant for the global climate problem? Ask your power utility to switch your energy supplier to a green energy provider. Visit Green-e to find out what your regional electric choices are.

“Most electricity in New York comes from power plants that use coal, gas, nuclear energy and large hydropower. This kind of traditional electricity production takes a severe toll on our environment. In fact, electricity production is the leading cause of industrial air pollution in the United States. By choosing power produced from renewable resources, you will be taking a step towards a cleaner environment.”

From Green-e.org

“According to the World Watch Institute in Washington, DC, electricity generation worldwide produces more pollution than any other single activity. In the US, electric power generation accounts for more than a third of the carbon dioxide emitted.”

From Green-e.org FAQ

If you’re one of my neighbors, I’ve already done all of the research for you. We have the ability now through the Energy Choice program to purchase 100% clean energy. See below for Green Energy Options for Central Hudson Customers

If you can’t purchase clean energy in your region, look into Tradable Renewable Certificates, also known as Renewable Energy Certificates

TRADABLE RENEWABLE CERTIFICATE OPTIONS
These companies provide residential Green-e certified Tradable Renewable Certificates (TRCs), or Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) in New York:

Power Score Card rates these:

a. Community Energy

b. NativeEnergy

c. Renewable Choice Energy American Wind

d. Sterling Planet Green America

Green Energy Options for Central Hudson Customers

What can local families do?

Purchase Green Energy Electricity

1. Currently, for Central Hudson customers the only option is Energetix. You can purchase 50%, or 100% clean energy.

2. Another option may be coming soon. Econnergy says that a program for Central Hudson customers is on the table with the Public Service Commission and they have to wait for review, before they can make it available to consumers.

3. For the choices we have, what do the Environmental Disclosure Statements show? See: http://www.powerscorecard.org/

How to switch energy providers:

Because NYS deregulated the power utilities, the Energy Choice program allows customers to choose their electricity supplier. Central Hudson will still deliver the electricity and is still responsible for making repairs and you will still receive a bill from Central Hudson for your electricity.

Steps:

1. Call Central Hudson at Customer Choice and EnergySwitch programs Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. (866) 763-8593. Ask to switch to Energetix. You will then receive a packet from Energetix, which will have forms for you to fill out and you can specify whether you wish to purchase 50% clean energy or 100% clean energy.

They are currently offering a promotion of 7% savings over the 1st two months. They charge $0.12 per KW for regular energy with an additional charge of $0.007/KW for 50% clean and $0.015 for 100% clean.

Central Hudson’s current rates are comparable.

Phone numbers:

Energetix—585-463-3600

NYS Public Service Commission—1800-342-3377

Central Hudson—1-877-444-2443

Climate Neutral Travel

2006-06-15T22:10:00.000-04:00

Or how to relieve the guilt your jetting across the ocean or driving across the country generates.

I don't think it's a coincidence that I've been active with a small group of moms in my area who want to do what they can about global warming, just as I'm about to contribute several tons of CO2 to the problem myself.

We're all worried about how our children are going to fare as adults in a world that will have changed in ways we struggle to imagine.

NativeEnergy offers a program called Climate Neutral Travel. You can use their energy calculator to determine how you can offset your trip through the purchase of Green Tags.

I've calculated that my trip to Prague will contribute about a ton of CO2. A one-ton block of "Earth Cooler Credits" costs about $12.

The money that I give to NativeEnergy then goes into the development of a wind farm in South Dakota and a methane project in Pennsylvania.

I know this doesn't solve the problem, and that it's really just a panacea, but at least it brings something good out of the waste, and does indirectly keep some CO2 out of the air.

NativeEnergy also offers programs for offsetting the gas you burn each year in your car--Cool Drivers--and the electricity your home or business uses--Cool Home and Cool Business.

I've signed up for the Cool Driver program, in addition to offsetting the fuel we'll burn on our cross country trip. We'll get a bumper sticker that advertises the program and we'll talk it up at all the campgrounds we visit this summer.

Thompson Pond Essay

2006-06-14T14:01:00.000-04:00

My first creative essay was published by the kind editors at Ducts.org and I thought I'd share a little of the process involved in creating that piece.

The essay began as an exercise in a course on nature writing that I was taking with Teresa Vilardi at Bard College. This was part of a continuing education program, which they unfortunately no longer offer.

In the beginning of the course, we wrote a lot of shorter pieces from prompts such as "write about a landscape that you have a particular affinity for." I wrote about the coast of Maine. But, the longer piece which we were to write about for the second half of the course had to be about a place in the Hudson Valley.

The essay had its birth as a free-write at the beginning of one of our classes. I often found the writing that came out of those free-writes magical, as if channeled from a spirit who writes much better than I do.

After the free-write, I took a trip to the Bard Library to research Thompson Pond. I had e-mailed Professor Kiviat who had done a great deal of scientific research on the pond and he suggested that I look up an article he had written in 1976 titled "The Wetland Flora of Thompson Pond, NY." In that article, I found answers to most of my questions about which category of wetland Thompson Pond fell into.

The rest of the piece came from a couple more walks around the pond and two other prompts--1) What's the spiritual journey that you are on in deciding to write from or into this landscape? and 2) Method acting of plants in your landscape. "Be" a floating mat or bog raft.

I did over 12 revisions of this essay. Linda Mussmann gave me a great deal of help with the final version. I can easily see myself continuing to work in this form, because the outside world offers so many different stories and symbols for us to connect with and lose ourselves in.

Brand Spanking New

2006-05-31T11:27:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the first ever posting on Writing and Mothering (WAM). I hope to pique your interest with plans for two big adventures that I have planned for this summer. Moms can have adventures too.

Starting July 1st, I'm enrolled in the Prague Summer Program for Creative Nonfiction. I'll have the opportunity to work with Philip Lopate and Patricia Hampl. My plan is to workshop the first two chapters of my memoir about searching for my birth parents and to write as many other chapters as time allows. I promise to offer my impressions of the city, the country and the program, as well as include you on the journey that I take with my work. While I'm in Prague, Chloe and Conor will be enjoying a month-long stay at a summer camp in the Adirondacks. Their dad is excited, because it's the same camp where he spent summers growing up.

Beginning August 5th, the kids and I take off on a cross-country adventure from NY to Seattle and back. We've purchased a T@B travel trailer for the trip and plan to stay at various KOA campgrounds along the way. After being apart for a month some together time with the kids will be a treat. They're interested in sharing their impressions of the National Parks and cities that we visit too.

Trial run

2006-05-31T10:17:00.000-04:00

Over Memorial Day weekend our family took a trip to Watkins Glen. We stayed at a KOA campsite and found out what camping with a T@B is really like. Jim made sure that I knew how to hook the camper up to the hitch on my car.

We're still working out some of the kinks. We ordered a screen room, but when we went to set it up we discovered that they had given us a camper cover rather than a tent. We do have the poles, so the dealer just has to send us a new package and we'll send back the cover.

As you can see we set up a regular tent alongside the camper. With an air mattress inside it was quite comfortable, but the T@B with its heat pump was toasty warm in the morning.