Ah, well. In a true fit of exurbitude, our cellar flooded, killing the water heater, and, we think, the oil burner. It was two feet deep when we left last night, kids, cat and passports (why? we don't know) in hand. The electric panel seems to've escaped harm, since our answering machine still picks up.
The fire department was kind enough to bring a pump, but it couldn't keep up with the creek. We have to name the cellar, soon.
Oh, hey -- anyone want to buy a house?
•
Monday, April 16, 2007
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Perhaps I Haven’t Explained This Properly
Exurbitude refers to my state of mind: with my family, I’ve purposely moved outside the city, out beyond the suburbs, to the exurban fringes. From here, only the mad commute. And all of us, though we came from Brooklyn, or Queens, the Bronx, Yonkers — even Manhattan — no longer feel quite like city folk. And we’re not quite suburbanites.
In my case, it was a love for the green stuff (trees) that brought me this way. A love for North. I’ve traced my way back and forth up and down the Hudson Valley more than any other trip I’ve taken — I schooled up there in Albany, I’ve gone to a little resort in the Adirondacks on and off for more than thirty years, I’ve hiked to the river’s source and I have friends and family up and down its reaches. Those happy accidents of geology that gave us this valley, and the climactic changes that gave us this river, have shaped my life. How could I stay in the concrete lands with a family, given that fact?
And so we moved – first to Tarrytown, then to Monroe, and now here. Each time placing distance between us and New York City…mental, physical, cultural distance. The unbroken tie remains the economic. So I go to New York five days a week or so, and I work in the office, and I am among the city people, and they are attuned to different cycles than I am.
I come to work in my boots and down vest like some kind of idiot hiker lost in town, with stories of turkeys gobbling off in the woods that very morning while I was out for a run. They look at me doubtfully when I tell them about the bear. They think I’m talking about coming back from a business trip when I mention that I watched the sun come up over the mountains that morning while I rode the ferry. We get the organic farm, they get the organic farmstand. They get rain, we get snow. They get heat, we get tomatoes. They get rats, we get deer.
But here’s me (writing from the train, in fact), suspended between those worlds. I’m us and them. The clown and the slicker. Sometimes I feel like a messenger, a mailman, a bridge between two mindsets. I want to tell the human vibe and the hum of the city about the natural flow of the water through my cellar, or explain the waft of skunk that arises at evening while you’re out looking up at the stars for a moment after taking out the garbage. In town there’s the powerful thrill of money and art — I was immersed in it just two hours ago! — that’s hard to map onto the lone convenience store spilling its flourescence onto the sidewalk.
Tonight a friend and I went driving around town, looking for the right combination of elements to spot eastern Tiger salamanders (Ambystoma tigrinum) coming downhill to breed in vernal pools.* We didn’t find any, and I’m almost thankful. I’m not sure I’d know what to do with the information.
* Interestingly, that link says they don’t occur further north than Long Island, but my friend has seen them not far from here in past years. And he’s a scientist.
•
In my case, it was a love for the green stuff (trees) that brought me this way. A love for North. I’ve traced my way back and forth up and down the Hudson Valley more than any other trip I’ve taken — I schooled up there in Albany, I’ve gone to a little resort in the Adirondacks on and off for more than thirty years, I’ve hiked to the river’s source and I have friends and family up and down its reaches. Those happy accidents of geology that gave us this valley, and the climactic changes that gave us this river, have shaped my life. How could I stay in the concrete lands with a family, given that fact?
And so we moved – first to Tarrytown, then to Monroe, and now here. Each time placing distance between us and New York City…mental, physical, cultural distance. The unbroken tie remains the economic. So I go to New York five days a week or so, and I work in the office, and I am among the city people, and they are attuned to different cycles than I am.
I come to work in my boots and down vest like some kind of idiot hiker lost in town, with stories of turkeys gobbling off in the woods that very morning while I was out for a run. They look at me doubtfully when I tell them about the bear. They think I’m talking about coming back from a business trip when I mention that I watched the sun come up over the mountains that morning while I rode the ferry. We get the organic farm, they get the organic farmstand. They get rain, we get snow. They get heat, we get tomatoes. They get rats, we get deer.
But here’s me (writing from the train, in fact), suspended between those worlds. I’m us and them. The clown and the slicker. Sometimes I feel like a messenger, a mailman, a bridge between two mindsets. I want to tell the human vibe and the hum of the city about the natural flow of the water through my cellar, or explain the waft of skunk that arises at evening while you’re out looking up at the stars for a moment after taking out the garbage. In town there’s the powerful thrill of money and art — I was immersed in it just two hours ago! — that’s hard to map onto the lone convenience store spilling its flourescence onto the sidewalk.
Tonight a friend and I went driving around town, looking for the right combination of elements to spot eastern Tiger salamanders (Ambystoma tigrinum) coming downhill to breed in vernal pools.* We didn’t find any, and I’m almost thankful. I’m not sure I’d know what to do with the information.
* Interestingly, that link says they don’t occur further north than Long Island, but my friend has seen them not far from here in past years. And he’s a scientist.
•
PaintBomb™
I'm going to invent a Paint Bomb; sort of like one of those Raid fogger deals. You put plastic on everything you don't want painted, set the Paint Bomb, and leave. It's that easy. Set PaintBomb™ after breakfast and have dinner in your BRAND-NEW KITCHEN! PaintBomb™ does the work FOR you.
"My husband and I each bowled 240 -- and when we got home we celebrated in our BRAND-NEW DINING ROOM! Thank you, PaintBomb™!"
•
"My husband and I each bowled 240 -- and when we got home we celebrated in our BRAND-NEW DINING ROOM! Thank you, PaintBomb™!"
•
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
When All Else Fails
Winter’s fat lady hasn’t sung yet where I live. In the hollows of Storm King’s eastern base, ice lurks. Our forecast calls for something frozen and slushy tomorrow. Nothing is snapping – this winter is melting away with great reluctance, highs in the 40s prolonging the freeze, keeping the bite in the wind, just as long as they can.
That’s okay. Because the light is different, and the light is what tells the plants and animals what to do. When I get out of the car in my driveway with the western sky still aglow, I hear a couple of spring peepers* making their song down in the hollow where the garter snakes live, and it feels a little warmer.
*Pseudacris crucifer. I just didn't want to break flow.
•
That’s okay. Because the light is different, and the light is what tells the plants and animals what to do. When I get out of the car in my driveway with the western sky still aglow, I hear a couple of spring peepers* making their song down in the hollow where the garter snakes live, and it feels a little warmer.
*Pseudacris crucifer. I just didn't want to break flow.
•
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Cult-Like Programs I’ve Embraced, Part I: Weight Watchers
The transformative event for me came about halfway through my first meeting. Surrounded by puffy women applauding one another for losing eight ounces, addressed by a relatively slim, excited older woman in extremely tight pants, I was about to lose my shit and leave. Like I’d left French class sophomore year, after six years of study: just up and left and never went back. This was not for me.
In 2001 I had taken stock and realized that I was at least 60 pounds overweight, pale, flabby, and tired easily. My digestive system was a nightmare; I ate nothing healthy, no matter how often I resolved to do so. My feet hurt. My knees hurt. I had had to go to physical therapy for weak ankles. My lower back was giving out alarming twinges. And I was only 32.
A confluence of events led me to Weight Watchers in January 2002. I woke up especially hung over and bloated one morning after a late night. My wife and I had started talking about having a baby. Murderers had attacked my city, and it occurred to me that life was too short to stay fat. A colleague was attending a nearby meeting and encouraged me to come with her. Another coworker, a man, had lost a lot of weight through the program the previous year. I went.
It was horrifying. Clapping, I thought, is not what I need. Little star stickers were not going to help me. And they talked incessantly about dessert – my problem was cheese and ribs and beer and General Tso’s chicken, not chocolate. Cake and cookies were for the weak. Even the way chocolate was talked about, with this faux reverence — an ironclad excuse masquerading as an object of worship in whose presence my bovine companions were powerless. When they mentioned it, I could hear the glutinous melted gunk blurring the consonants in the word itself…schawglit.
My cousin once tricked me — bait: job opportunity/switch: Amway meeting. They sat the new recruits in the front row and proceeded to attempt to break us down by asking if we wanted to get rich. That had been like this. Later, when I emerged with my psyche intact, he’d said “don’t think about it, just do it.” That was anathema to me.
I was fat, but I was no joiner. I was a dinosaur explainer, and I wore black clothing and lived in New York City. I’d traveled the country by car for six months. I’d read Atlas Shrugged AND A Fool’s Progress. I had a hip, hot wife in the record industry and we went to extremely cool shows. I was a cynical and proud atheist who hated sports and swore never to go to Disneyland. And above all I was young! What the hell was I doing in the room with the fat women salivating about doughnuts?
And then the transformative event: I let go. For one second. I shut off my brain and clapped, with a big smile on my face.
Why? Because nothing else had worked. I’d been gaining weight for ten years. I was miserable. If I thought I was too young to be in that room, I was certainly too young to keel over and die on a subway platform. And everyone said that Weight Watchers worked. So somewhere I found a switch and shut off the part of my brain that was saying “no.”
It was just enough for them to get their hooks into me.
That year, I transformed. I journaled, I counted my points, I drank water, I measured portions, I tried recipes received at meetings, I read the Getting Started book religiously and I attended my weekly meeting. I realized that I’d been reverentially saying General Tso’s schickun. I sat up front. I raised my hand a lot. And it worked. I immediately began losing weight.
Suddenly, running seemed possible. A natural complement to Weight Watchers. I started slowly during Week Five. After fifteen minutes on the treadmill, I knew one thing for certain: I was going to die. But I didn’t die that particular day, and I went back two days later. I started counting activity points.
By October I lost 68 pounds. Five years later, I go every week to keep it off.
The women — and some men — in that room are some of the bravest and dearest people I know, struggling against unimaginably deep-seated personal and cultural roadblocks, trying to find out if they’re real beneath the weight. They are, they are, they are. My leader from that first day has been one of the most – and you can imagine how using this word hurts a deeply independent and cynical thinker – inspiring people I’ve ever met. I mean, she helps people get well. How cool is that?
So I’m a convert, an acolyte, a Weight Watchers zombie who for a long time could only talk about POINTS and the POINTS system. Letting go that day was one of the hardest — and best — things I’ve ever done.
But I still don’t buy their products.
•
In 2001 I had taken stock and realized that I was at least 60 pounds overweight, pale, flabby, and tired easily. My digestive system was a nightmare; I ate nothing healthy, no matter how often I resolved to do so. My feet hurt. My knees hurt. I had had to go to physical therapy for weak ankles. My lower back was giving out alarming twinges. And I was only 32.
A confluence of events led me to Weight Watchers in January 2002. I woke up especially hung over and bloated one morning after a late night. My wife and I had started talking about having a baby. Murderers had attacked my city, and it occurred to me that life was too short to stay fat. A colleague was attending a nearby meeting and encouraged me to come with her. Another coworker, a man, had lost a lot of weight through the program the previous year. I went.
It was horrifying. Clapping, I thought, is not what I need. Little star stickers were not going to help me. And they talked incessantly about dessert – my problem was cheese and ribs and beer and General Tso’s chicken, not chocolate. Cake and cookies were for the weak. Even the way chocolate was talked about, with this faux reverence — an ironclad excuse masquerading as an object of worship in whose presence my bovine companions were powerless. When they mentioned it, I could hear the glutinous melted gunk blurring the consonants in the word itself…schawglit.
My cousin once tricked me — bait: job opportunity/switch: Amway meeting. They sat the new recruits in the front row and proceeded to attempt to break us down by asking if we wanted to get rich. That had been like this. Later, when I emerged with my psyche intact, he’d said “don’t think about it, just do it.” That was anathema to me.
I was fat, but I was no joiner. I was a dinosaur explainer, and I wore black clothing and lived in New York City. I’d traveled the country by car for six months. I’d read Atlas Shrugged AND A Fool’s Progress. I had a hip, hot wife in the record industry and we went to extremely cool shows. I was a cynical and proud atheist who hated sports and swore never to go to Disneyland. And above all I was young! What the hell was I doing in the room with the fat women salivating about doughnuts?
And then the transformative event: I let go. For one second. I shut off my brain and clapped, with a big smile on my face.
Why? Because nothing else had worked. I’d been gaining weight for ten years. I was miserable. If I thought I was too young to be in that room, I was certainly too young to keel over and die on a subway platform. And everyone said that Weight Watchers worked. So somewhere I found a switch and shut off the part of my brain that was saying “no.”
It was just enough for them to get their hooks into me.
That year, I transformed. I journaled, I counted my points, I drank water, I measured portions, I tried recipes received at meetings, I read the Getting Started book religiously and I attended my weekly meeting. I realized that I’d been reverentially saying General Tso’s schickun. I sat up front. I raised my hand a lot. And it worked. I immediately began losing weight.
Suddenly, running seemed possible. A natural complement to Weight Watchers. I started slowly during Week Five. After fifteen minutes on the treadmill, I knew one thing for certain: I was going to die. But I didn’t die that particular day, and I went back two days later. I started counting activity points.
By October I lost 68 pounds. Five years later, I go every week to keep it off.
The women — and some men — in that room are some of the bravest and dearest people I know, struggling against unimaginably deep-seated personal and cultural roadblocks, trying to find out if they’re real beneath the weight. They are, they are, they are. My leader from that first day has been one of the most – and you can imagine how using this word hurts a deeply independent and cynical thinker – inspiring people I’ve ever met. I mean, she helps people get well. How cool is that?
So I’m a convert, an acolyte, a Weight Watchers zombie who for a long time could only talk about POINTS and the POINTS system. Letting go that day was one of the hardest — and best — things I’ve ever done.
But I still don’t buy their products.
•
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Shad!
Okay, this one you can eat. Alosa sapidissima (“the tastiest herring”) begin their spawning run up the rivers of the east coast when the water hits 40 degrees or so, which means that early spring becomes shad time. Shad!
Subject of John McPhee’s Founding Fish, storied savior of the revolutionaries at Valley Forge, mascot of the Hudson River revival, society dish on Park Avenue and at countless riverfront parties, Thoreauvian metaphor, favorite of sport and commercial fishermen alike, the long-suffering and noble shad is, first and foremost, really really yummy. It’s like no other fish I’ve ever had; baked, its flesh rises and opens up, revealing incredibly rich flavors (no doubt the result of a high fat content in the skin, and hey a little butter never hurt anyone) that work exceptionally well with lemon juice and a few capers. Its roe, well — “whug,” as a wise person once said. I’ve only cooked shad roe twice, both times dredged in a little seasoned cornmeal and pan-fried, and again with the butter and capers and lemon juice, which, you know, hlurm. You have some — and you don’t need much, just two ounces maybe — and you’ve done everything your tastebuds might reasonably have requested of you, and then some. You can pray to this mighty fish, but don’t forget to eat it, too.
The catches declined for long years and then recovered vigorously in, I think, the late 90s and early 00s. Apparently they were on the downswing again around 03; not sure of current status, although my fish guys seemed to have no problem getting it the last two years. If you’re on the east coast (and in some areas of the west coast, where introduced populations have taken hold in some Pacific-draining rivers), hie thee to your fishmonger and ask for it by name. To my Loire Valley readers, I think you can get it too, but I don’t know its name there. Here? Shad!
Note: get bones removed professionally.
I mention this because early today I glanced out the window of the train to see a solitary fisherman at one end of a long string of floats stretched perpendicular to the tide. There was mist on the glassy river and there were low clouds above the valley. The brume over the western hills was pink-tinged in its upper reaches. And somewhere downstream perhaps, the silver-sided legions of intrepid oceangoers were heading home.
To my home, anyway. Yum.
Recipies.
•
Subject of John McPhee’s Founding Fish, storied savior of the revolutionaries at Valley Forge, mascot of the Hudson River revival, society dish on Park Avenue and at countless riverfront parties, Thoreauvian metaphor, favorite of sport and commercial fishermen alike, the long-suffering and noble shad is, first and foremost, really really yummy. It’s like no other fish I’ve ever had; baked, its flesh rises and opens up, revealing incredibly rich flavors (no doubt the result of a high fat content in the skin, and hey a little butter never hurt anyone) that work exceptionally well with lemon juice and a few capers. Its roe, well — “whug,” as a wise person once said. I’ve only cooked shad roe twice, both times dredged in a little seasoned cornmeal and pan-fried, and again with the butter and capers and lemon juice, which, you know, hlurm. You have some — and you don’t need much, just two ounces maybe — and you’ve done everything your tastebuds might reasonably have requested of you, and then some. You can pray to this mighty fish, but don’t forget to eat it, too.
The catches declined for long years and then recovered vigorously in, I think, the late 90s and early 00s. Apparently they were on the downswing again around 03; not sure of current status, although my fish guys seemed to have no problem getting it the last two years. If you’re on the east coast (and in some areas of the west coast, where introduced populations have taken hold in some Pacific-draining rivers), hie thee to your fishmonger and ask for it by name. To my Loire Valley readers, I think you can get it too, but I don’t know its name there. Here? Shad!
Note: get bones removed professionally.
I mention this because early today I glanced out the window of the train to see a solitary fisherman at one end of a long string of floats stretched perpendicular to the tide. There was mist on the glassy river and there were low clouds above the valley. The brume over the western hills was pink-tinged in its upper reaches. And somewhere downstream perhaps, the silver-sided legions of intrepid oceangoers were heading home.
To my home, anyway. Yum.
Recipies.
•
Monday, April 2, 2007
Double Quarter-Marathon
Next up, the Lehigh Valley Half Marathon on April 29th. Formerly the Runner’s World Half Marathon, this one is supposed to be a lot of fun. I figured that having gotten to that distance this year despite the winter, I’d better keep it going. This weekend I ran a leisurely 11 miler, beneath vultures (Cathartes aura, if you must know).
I don’t follow the science of the half marathon, and I’ve only run a couple…now that I think of it, I’ve only run the same one twice. In any case, if the Running Authorities ever want this distance to come into its own, they’re going to have to think of a better name. How can a race be taken seriously if it’s always held up as half of something else?
I therefore propose that we call the 13.2 mile race the Rafina. That’s a small town about halfway between Marathon and Athens. The Classic Marathon passes through it. It seems like a nice enough place.
And I’ll tell you what, I bet Phidippides wished he’d done a Rafina instead.
•
I don’t follow the science of the half marathon, and I’ve only run a couple…now that I think of it, I’ve only run the same one twice. In any case, if the Running Authorities ever want this distance to come into its own, they’re going to have to think of a better name. How can a race be taken seriously if it’s always held up as half of something else?
I therefore propose that we call the 13.2 mile race the Rafina. That’s a small town about halfway between Marathon and Athens. The Classic Marathon passes through it. It seems like a nice enough place.
And I’ll tell you what, I bet Phidippides wished he’d done a Rafina instead.
•
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