Paris, ensemble

Everybody thinks they have the best Mom.

Well, no, of course not. A lot of people have trauma around their upbringing, or were raised by a dad or two dads or grandparents, or were never lucky (or unlucky, I suppose) enough to know their mother. But everybody who's as lucky as me, to have been raised by my parents of birth in a loving and supportive household, thinks they have the best Mom and Dad. They're wrong, though, because I do.

When I was fifteen and 50/52nds, (got that?) my parents, younger brother and I moved away from Maine, from all four of my grandparents AND my older brother, who elected to stay behind with family and finish high school there. We left the house I grew up in that my great- great-grandfather built, the schools my parents had graduated from that I was attending with mostly the same kids I'd met in kindergarten. The four of us lived in Key Largo, Florida for two and a half years after that, ending (for me) when I left for college in fall of 2000 - and that was the last time I lived within driving distance of my parents for twelve years. From 2012 until this summer, we lived 30 minutes away, and it was an odd week if I didn't see them at least once. So I knew from my teenage years how hard it would be to move my kids away from their grandparents, and I knew from experience how hard it would be on me, no longer having their daily support after five years of relying on it. To say nothing of how cruel it was to take their oldest grandchildren away from Mom and Dad after so many years of filling their house with mischief and giggles!

And yet, because I have the best parents, they were 100% supportive of this adventure for our family, running errands and watching the kids while we prepared to move, storing precious things that we didn't trust with the moving company, and in my mom's case, talking me through more than one embarrassing emotional meltdown when it all got to be too much. They are saints. So you can imagine how thrilled I was when Mom found an impossibly good deal on flights to Paris before we had even arrived ourselves, and the excitement with which we all counted down to their arrival! Sunday, October 15 we loaded up the car and drove 5 hours to Paris, more or less copying the route I'd taken to Costco the weekend before.

A car ride that long with two small kids is always a challenge, and unfortunately Josh was still suffering form the allergies that had attacked just a couple days before. Still, it was an uneventful ride and we checked in to our superhero Airbnb in the first arrondissement before dinner, after an exciting moment trying to park in the garage - turns out our little Citroen C4 can't really reverse up a ramp, in case you were wondering. Then we had Thai food out - I know, it's not exactly classic Parisian fare, but big city = better foreign food! - and went to bed early.

Also, big city means the food might actually have some heat!

Cheers from the airport in Atlanta!

It's a good thing we went to bed early, too, because I set an alarm for 4:30 the next morning, so as to make sure to arrive at Charles de Gaulle airport in plenty of time to meet their 6:30 plane. I'd never seen such deserted streets! It was eerie, and beautiful.

 I was absurdly early for the flight, so I did some exploring and got directions on where to go to collect our dog, who was flying in by cargo 48 hours later. Finally Mom and Dad emerged from a looooong wait at customs, and I have never been happier.

Well, until this happened.

 We got back to the apartment and hugged forever, and by the time we were ready to set out on the metro its was mid-morning.

Mom and Dad had never been to Paris before, and the kids had only passed through. So, as you can see above, we headed straight for the Eiffel Tower but opted to skip the hours-long lines for the top. We enjoyed the view though, tossed leaves into the Seine as we walked over a bridge, then headed to a brasserie for lunch.

 Nana fit right in with the French culture - always have a glass of wine at lunch! I was happy to join in. It's vacation, after all.

 Pappy was a rebel, though. We thought they might kick us out when he ordered coffee BEFORE the meal! The waiter raised both eyebrows and reconfirmed that he actually wanted it. Twice. But jet lag is a doozy, and I think Mr. Meixell made up for his transgression by having the escargot.

After lunch we walked to Les Invalides to see the beautiful gold dome and walk off some of our lunch. On the way we passed two WWII memorials, one with dried flowers hanging beneath.

This is my own translation - forgive me if it's clunky or inaccurate.
"December 12, 1941
The German military police, assisted by the French police, arrested 743 Jewish professionals, mostly veterans and liberal professionals, and regrouped them at the "Commandant Bossus" carousel at the military college.
The 743 were interned in the German camp at Royallieu a Compiegne, where some died of hunger and cold.
March 27 1942, most of the 743 were deported in the first convoy leaving France for Auschwitz, where they were murdered.
Do not forget these victims of racial hatred.
-The sons and daughters of Jews deported from France
Josette et Jean-Jacques FRAENKEL in memory of their Father"

This one breaks my heart - it's so personal.
"In memory of Pierre LASSALLA, Corporal of the LECLERC division
Fell August 25, 1944 for the liberation of Paris, at the age of 21."

These memorials are everywhere in France, and it really drives home the horrible personal losses WWII delivered to Europe. Our American experience of the war was of sending our sons and daughters overseas, not knowing if they were dead or alive, believing in the cause. Imagine what it was like seeing your homes and churches and schools occupied by the enemy, not knowing who around you was in the resistance or reporting back to the enemy. People being enslaved or disappeared every day, food is scarce, peril is everywhere - and still your sons and daughters are gone and fighting. The rise of white nationalism in the U.S. and worldwide right now is especially frightening to me as I'm reminded of the horrors wrought by Nazism in Europe. One thing they do very well here - they never let you forget.

But we were on vacation, so I tried not to dwell on it! The kids got tired of the Paris walking fairly fast, but luckily Josh and Pappy were willing pack mules. Even for the nearly-70 pound six year old!

After Les Invalides we headed back to the tiny Airbnb for a rest and some French cartoons. Josh walked to L'As du Falafel, our favorite hole in the wall restaurant in Paris for a takeout dinner, where he was mistaken for an ASM champion rugby player, haha! Dad and I ran down to the little Italian place on the corner for some supplementary charcuterie, cheese, and salad, and we all feasted with a couple more bottles of wine. It was an awesome first day in France for Mom and Dad, and such a welcome relief for the four of us. Nothing comforts like family!

Edible Foodlike Substances

I know I'm a little late to the Michael Pollan party, as his latest book has already come out in paperback. I picked up In Defense of Food at Camp Zama this weekend, and now I can't put it down.

His message is pretty simple: the Western diet of highly processed, scientifically refined and then fortified foods has made Americans obsessed with nutrition as well as sick, and fat. The answer he offers is three rules: eat food, not too much, mostly plants. Seems simple, right? And I think it is. Josh and I already endeavor to do those three things (although "not too much" often gets overlooked), but after reading 3/4 of this book, I am going after healthy, whole-food eating with renewed vigor.

Edible Foodlike Substances is my new favorite term. It refers to much of the food in the commissary, or American supermarket: Pop-tarts, Go-gurt, cereal bars with milk-like non-dairy frosting strips. Colorfully packaged edible items engineered to trick our senses into thinking they are food, with long, unintelligible ingredient lists and health claims splashed across the front and side panels. Pollan states that avoiding foods which make health claims can, on its own, improve one's health. Eek!

I'm ready for a paradigm shift. It's not a big one for me or Josh, since his weight struggles and my crunchy tendencies (plus unemployment) have already led us to a mostly whole-grain, homemade, vegetarian lifestyle. I'm not giving up white rice in my sushi when we eat out, nor will I start bringing my own food to dinner parties or preaching in other peoples' pantries. I'm going to start cooking more leaves than seeds, though, and eating ice cream rather than "slow-churned low-fat dairy dessert*." I cooked our veggie burgers with a little butter instead of olive oil last night, and made a big colorful bowl of slaw alongside.

Unfortunately, it may be expensive. It should be, apparently: Americans spend ten percent of our income on food, according to this book, while the French spend 14.9%. Avoiding meat saves us some money, accidentally, but I'm through choosing my fruit by cheapness instead of diversity, season, and plain old-fashioned craving. Instead of taking the train to Kurihama Flower World (a garden/amusement park not far from our house) yesterday, Josh and I** bought some potting soil and improved on the little container garden growing on our balcony. Hoo, I'm excited! Who wants to borrow the book when I'm done?***

*I seriously didn't know Edy's (or Dreyer's) wasn't ice cream until I looked the other day. What the hell?
**That is, I repotted and improved the little garden. Josh carried the soil up the stairs.
***I'd borrow The Omnivore's Dilemma if anyone has it laying around.

Love and marriage

are beautiful!
"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

Two dreams

Two nightmares really, but I wanted you to keep reading.

#1 woke me up in the middle of the night. It was one of those really vivid, detailed dreams that comes out of nowhere: I was working in an office where everyone logs onto the computers via jump drive. I had to borrow three of them from other workers so I could get them rights to a project or something, and while I had them our office was attacked by terrorists. Who wanted the jump drives and stole them out of my pocket while I was distracted by the terrorism. (I know).

So I decided to tell the people whose identities were on those drives, and one of them freaked out and started screaming in my face and her eyes were all pupil and she tried to strangle me and throw us both out a window. Jeezus. I woke up with my heart racing, freaking out, and then realized that it was two a.m. and went back to sleep, only to face this nightmare:

I was a member of George W. Bush's personal staff.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

It was true in the dream though. I really like being on a person's staff: a campaign, or, I imagine, a politician's office in D.C., or working for the head of an organization I support. I like traveling, event management, and managing the head honcho at public gatherings. That's for people I SUPPORT and LIKE, not certain torture-approving, women's-health-denigrating ex-Presidents.

But there you have it. I was on his staff and we were closing up shop before heading back to Texas, and the NSA had decided he could have a Blackberry like President Obama's. But of course Bush couldn't work it, so they gave it to me to learn its functions and input the staff's contact information. They'd already uploaded and bookmarked a couple things they knew the ex-President couldn't live without:

I Can Has Cheezburger and I Has a Hotdog.

Y'all, I woke up laughing. Literally: I managed to crack myself up while unconscious.

E Pluribus Unum

I am so excited on this inauguration eve. It's 8:18pm here, 6:18am in Washington D.C., and beginning very soon, this man will be our President.
We coach Little League in the blue states and we've got gay friends in the red states, amen.

In my enthusiasm I'm in the minority on this military base, I think. I wore a shirt today with a map of Japan and a big red star on the village of Obama, whose name is in big letters across the shirt, and I got a couple 'atta girls but mostly blank stares or irritation. There are no inauguration-watching parties on base, no one staying up late in a gymnasium to watch President-Elect Obama swear his oath. But as of this time tomorrow, his face and not W's will be posted on every quarterdeck.

That will be a good day.

VICTORY playlist!

1. Shed A Little Light - James Taylor
2. Song for the Dumped - Ben Folds Five
3. Long Time Gone - The Dixie Chicks
4. Everyday - Dave Matthews Band
5. The Pusher - Blind Melon
6. Cool, Clear Water - Bonnie Raitt
7. Lie in Our Graves - Dave Matthews Band
8. The Boy in the Bubble - Paul Simon
9. All American Girl - Melissa Etheridge
10. Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours - Stevie Wonder

BONUS: The Star Spangled Banner - Princeton Nassoons

I can't stop listening to these songs! The bonus track is on a promo CD called "A Capella Party: The Best of the Ivy League A Capella Choirs. I bought it secondhand in Homestead, FL in high school and that song in particular is amazing. It's four or five men singing, and there are snippets of "America, the Beautiful" in a couple places.

I am so happy for our country now. Maybe happy enough that I'll delete "Song for the Dumped" and "The Pusher," which are only in there to remind me that BUCK FUSH.

Yes, We Did!

That's a quote from Mel - I am over the moon.

It's time to be proud of our government again. PARTY AT MY PLACE on January 20!

UPDATE: And my very own aunt, Debbie Atwood, has been elected to the town council of Brunswick, Maine!! GO DEBBIE!

Election Day Breakfast: Huevos Rancheros

It's 9:30am and I've been up since 6, drinking espresso and listening to NPR's 24 hour program stream. Poor Josh has a cold and has to work today anyway, and I needed to do something about those idle hands. I want to bake - but superstition prevents me from making anything that could be perceived as a victory treat.

So instead I spent an hour making myself a fancy breakfast. It's a quick homemade salsa with chipotle in adobo, tomato sauce, and Mexican seasonings on top of panfried corn tortillas, eggs, and some shredded cheese. The fruit on the little plate is fresh persimmon, a delicious in-season treat from my neighbor.

I'm going to eat now, biting the food instead of my beleaguered fingernails. GOBAMA.

Idle hands

aren't really that common around here - idle brain is another story. But while I don't have a whole heck of a lot to occupy the old cerebral cortex, my hands are usually busy knitting something or other.

Today is a different story. I am SO. NERVOUS. about the election which starts in about twelve hours, that I can't bring myself to knit for fear of knitting OHSHITGOBAMAOMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD into my Moderne Log Cabin Blanket. Irish is coming over for a lesson in an hour, so I've got to beat this impulse before then.

SO. What do you do the day before a major election? I was in college and therefore 100% self-absorbed in 2000, and in 2004, or the Dark Days of Democratic Demolition as I like to call it, I spent Super Monday working hard to elect Inez Tenenbaum to the U.S. Senate.

Yeah, that didn't work out.

But today I've already cast my ballot, made my last donations, and talked to all my friends and family about voting. It's 7:20pm on the East Coast now, and 9:20am here - I have a whole day of worrying and pacing before the polls even open! ARGH!

The flip side of all this is that, if I can go to sleep tonight, I'll wake up around 6pm on the East Coast and the final results should come in during daylight hours over here, so I can glue myself to cnn.com, npr.org, and www.atwoodatlarge.com for the results in real time (GO DEBBIE!). But until then, I'm at a loss. Leave me some suggestions in comments, would you?

And GO VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA. It's time.

The fight of our lives

It's really late here, about midnight, and I wasn't going to post today. I'm suffering from major election fatigue, and I'm thousands of miles away! Like most people, I am ready for this to be over.

But then I saw this video.

I posted earlier this month about my two miscarriages, two much wanted pregnancies that ended just as they were beginning. My desire to be a mother, and the difficulties I've faced along the way, have influenced my intention to vote for candidates who support universal healthcare and reproductive choice. These particular stories about mothers whose desire to give birth safely, only to find themselves up against so-called "pro-life" laws, shocked me to the core.

Laws that give personhood to a fetus could have sent me to trial for murder. Any woman who has a glass of wine during pregnancy, or a cup of coffee, or who misses a prenatal vitamin or goes jogging, for heaven's sake - and then has a miscarriage - is at risk of criminal charges under these laws. Who knows? Maybe not eating a diet sanctioned by the Health Department counts, or getting pregnant later in life and delivering a baby with a disability. Once a fetus has "personhood" in the eyes of the law, its mother ceases to.

Oppose fetal personhood laws. Don't criminalize miscarriage.

Vote for Barack Obama.

Love

My wedding day was the happiest day of my life. I wouldn't deny that joy to anyone. Donate now:
www.noonprop8.com
www.letcaliforniaring.org

Hello, goodbye, hello...

Yesterday didn't feel like October.


The sun was shining on the Miura peninsula and the roses are still blooming in Verny Park. I walked into the warm air around noon and took a train to Kamakura, to visit the Daibutsu again and to pray at Hasedera.


I wasn't going to write about this. I like to keep this space honest, but light and not too personal, especially since it's public and permanent. Today, this morning, honesty is winning the tug-of-war. I went to Hasedera to pray for the pregnancies Josh and I have lost.

Hasedera is a big temple in Kamakura which dates back to the eighth century CE. Its main building contains a 9m (30 ft) gilded statue of Kannon, the eight-headed deity of compassion known as Guanyin in the Chinese tradition. She is beautiful and impressive, and imposing. Next to the main hall is a series of caves which feature ancient carvings of Benzaiten, the goddess of music and wisdom. There are countless outdoor carvings and beautiful gardens, a fish pond, and a view of the ocean.




The temple also features Sentai Jizo, or 1,000 Jizo. Jizo is the guardian deity of all children, particularly those who die before their parents. I won't pretend to know much about Japanese reproductive politics, but their attitude about abortion differs from the U.S. point of view greatly - the Jizo statuettes are said to look after the souls of fetuses who are aborted (either by miscarriage or medical abortion) and parents can visit the Jizo to pray, offer gifts, and ask protection for the children they have lost.



I read about this yesterday and knew I had to go, and alone. I can't describe why I didn't want Josh there with me at Hasedera. He has felt these losses with me, has held me and taken care of me during the pain, sat for hours at the doctor's office and stayed in the room for blood tests, ultrasounds, and difficult conversations. I want to go back to the temple with him, but I didn't feel capable of sharing that experience for the first time.

Really, I didn't know what I was going to do. Cry? Fall to my knees? Pray to gods I had never heard of before that day, gods whose language I do not speak? I don't even pray in English. Thankfully, the Buddhist tradition offers some options.

I climbed the stairs from the garden and saw the Sentai Jizo right away. There were flowers, candles, and incense everywhere. A brook runs in front of the statues, some of which have baby clothes on them, brought by parents to encourage special care for the children they have lost. I bought three candles and two sticks of incense and lit the incense first - one stick for each miscarriage. Our first child would have been born in August if the pregnancy had been healthy. Our second was conceived around the same time the first was due - I would be two months pregnant if, well, if I had stayed pregnant. I lit the incense, put the sticks in the sand in front of the Jizo, and cried.

Having a miscarriage at three weeks is a strange thing. It's so physically painful, and so shocking to learn that you are pregnant and miscarrying in the same breath. There is no baby at this stage, not even a fetus - just an embryonic sac smaller than a kidney bean. This is a blessing in many ways, and completely different than suffering a miscarriage later in pregnancy. I didn't have time to get bigger, buy special clothes, or talk to the baby in my belly. I hadn't seen a positive result on a home test, hadn't made joyful announcements or started knitting impossibly tiny clothes.

But it was still so real. We want a baby - I want a baby in my arms. That was the plan: the decision to move here, where I can't work in my field, was so that we could grow our family in a safe place, with me able to stay home when the babies are little. We had both been so vigilant, all our lives, to avoid pregnancy with every method necessary. We had bought the insurance policy of careful planning and were ready to cash it in for a tiny reflection of one another. Here we are, months later, still waiting.

Making offerings to the Thousand Jizo gave me comfort yesterday. I did light the candles - candles of love and hope, shining their light for the three (count 'em!) friends of mine who are expecting babies next year. (Two of those three conceived around the time when Josh and I did. Interesting...) I don't know if that was the proper Buddhist thing to do, but the gesture felt right and I don't think the gods will hold my ignorance against me.

So yesterday was a good day. There was a butterfly on the flower offerings to the Great Buddha, and I met some new friends (sorry this post is so heavy, Carol & Tony & Andrea) who bought me sweet potato ice cream on our way to see the Buddha together.


Many of the people who read this blog have sent us the love and support that allowed us to get through the darkness, and we are both grateful. Josh and I will be parents some day, and we'll be honorary aunt and uncle even sooner than that. In the meantime, we can draw comfort in knowing that Kannon and the Jizo are standing guard, not far away.

Surprise from the Veep

I listened to the Vice Presidential debate on NPR this morning while I worked on a lasagna* for a band party later in the day. The lasagna was tastier, but the debate had more meat.

ZING!

The candidates both did well, I thought, though Biden was the clear winner. I was a little turned off by Gov. Palin's gosh-golley fersher also purely political attacks on Obama also - the times when she also acted SHOCKED at the way he'd voted, when in fact McCain had voted the same way also - but in general I thought they were good.

Surprising to me, though, were the candidates' answers about same-sex partner benefits. Senator Biden said that in an Obiden administration (can't help it, love Obiden) there would be no difference between hetero- and homosexual couples in terms of civil benefits. When he asked Governor Palin if she agreed, she said yes! Is it me, or is that a huge departure from the previous Republican platforms? I am incredibly heartened by this progress, though disappointed that both oppose equal marriage rights.

I believe civil marriage is a civil right, one that should be available to all consenting adults, and that any 'separate but equal' distinction involving civil unions or some such thing are unfair and ultimately unsustainable. Josh and I lived in Massachusetts when we got married, and all those big gay marriages all around us didn't affect our lives one whit.

So check out www.noonprop8.com, and make a donation, why don't you. Let's give all Americans equal rights and protections, and make sure our leaders stand up for the same.

*My in-laws, who would rather hear about our lives than my political leanings, are always on my mind when I make lasagna. Hello and love to Grammy and Papa!

Damon on Palin

Got 12 minutes?

Watch this. You can skip to the five minute mark without missing too much substance.


That's leadership I can believe in.

Sarah Palin

There is a lot to be said about McCain's VP pick, and a lot yet to be revealed about this relative unknown.

But I ask you: do we really want our second-in-line for the Presidency to be a person who has named their children Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and, I kid you not, Trig Paxson Van Palin. This is taken from the official campaign website, by the way.

I have a problem with the decision making abilities of the mother of Track and Trig. Who's with me?