Memorial Day in Detroit

We had originally planned to go camping over Memorial Day weekend. I even checked out a library book at one point on hikes in Adirondack State Park. Back in March though, I was seized with sudden inspiration. A couple emails to my brother, a heads up to Oliver and it was settled: road trip to Detroit. My brother would drive from Milwaukee, we would drive from New York. Simple. Perfect.

As the weekend approached and I told people where I was going, I got a lot of quizzical looks. Detroit? On purpose? Yes, Detroit. On purpose. I've heard so much about the hard times it's going through. You hear about abandoned buildings, rampant unemployment. I wanted to see it for myself. What is it really like? What's an inaccurate stereotype, and what's real?

I can't say that I've got Detroit nailed down (I imagine it takes a little more than 2 days to do that), but I can say that I really enjoyed it. It's got a Midwest industrial feel to it that feels more "at home" to me than New York often does. It's got killer chili dogs. It has an incredible art museum - after 10 years as an art history buff, I finally got to see a Diego Rivera mural (below). 

It has a lively downtown, and great architecture. And yes, it has abandoned buildings. Lots of them. Some of them are surrounded by vacant lots. One building in particular really caught our attention: Michigan Central Station.

 Michigan Central Station was once a major railroad terminal. Today it is 18 stories of nothing. Completely abandoned and going to seed. Every inch of the inside is covered in graffiti, and scavengers have spent the last 20 years pulling out copper tubing, stair railings, and anything else that might have value.

And how do I know that every inch of the inside is covered in graffiti? That's right, my friend. Oliver, my brother and I snuck into the building. We found a piece of loose fencing, crawled under it, and ran for it. A few pictures to help you understand what it was like in there (and I apologize for the blurry ones: we only had a camera phone):

 The entrance, walking into the main hall. Such an amazing space.

 My brother and I walking through one of the many hallways. We had actually joined a "black ops" tour at this point - I'm not sure where these people came from, but the leader was a local guy who comes to the station all the time. He has done painstaking research, and could tell us what just about every room was used for. He has also been cited by the police several times for entering the building.

 A view out a stairwell window - to the bridge to Canada. 15th floor perhaps? No glass in the windows, of course.

 Top floor. The whole floor was one room with these enormous windows running along both sides. I can only imagine what it looked like in its heyday.

The view from the roof.

All it took was a broken shoulder

My mother-in-law came to town this weekend. She arrived at our apartment, looked around for a couple minutes, then slipped on our floor and broke her shoulder. Good times!

As she lay on the floor, writhing in pain, Oliver and I sort of stood there and gaped at each other. What just happened? What are we supposed to do? I don't have any experience with unexpected injuries / illnesses; are we supposed to call an ambulance? 911? Do we need to call an emergency room in advance? Can we just walk in?

Her nine-day trip became a 2 1/2-day trip. Insanity. I brought her to the airport today, wincing every time our cab drove over a pothole. She walked slowly, careful not to bump her not-yet-fixed-in-any-way shoulder. She  apologized several times for inconveniencing me, for making me take the afternoon off work.

Day to day, I live a very selfish life. I come home from work and think, "what do I want to do tonight?" I wake up Saturdays and wonder, "what do I feel like doing this weekend?" I have heard that some people regularly factor in things like spending an afternoon with a grandparent, helping a parent with some sort of home improvement project, assisting a sibling in some way. I don't do any of these things. I fly home once a year and spend that time enjoying the company of my family, not helping them. Sometimes I wonder if I'm still a child - taking, taking, rarely giving in return.

It was really nice then, to adjust my schedule today. I talked with the ticket attendant at JFK and tried to get my mother-in-law a better seat. I carried her suitcase. I double checked that she had Oliver's phone number and told her to call us if any problems arose. I rode the subway home, hoping she would make it back in one piece. It felt wonderful to be the giver.

I should call my parents. Maybe mail them something useful.

... Just because I love this picture

I don't have too much to say tonight. I came across this photo though, and had to post it. It's Oliver, in case you couldn't tell. He's a cute little baby of course, but my favorite part of the picture is the older gentleman sitting next to him. The man smiling down at him with that "look at my sweet little offspring" look on his face. It's Oliver's grandfather and dangit all if he doesn't remind me so much of Oliver. The eyes, the nose... (such a nose!) I look at this picture and imagine that I can see the man I will be married to in 30 years. At the same time I see him as he was more than 30 years ago. Past and future getting all mixed up. The chain of family and descendants moving forwards and backwards.

Good stuff.

'Til it Hurts

It was the fall of... um, 1999. November, maybe. My friend Jason and I went up to New York City for the weekend. It was my first time in the city. More accurately, it was my first time in the city without my parents. But being 19 and traveling to a place like that without any supervision is such an adventure in itself... it was my first time in the city.

We met up with Jason's friend on Friday night. She was interning at one of the many companies located in the World Trade Center. Jason and I stood outside and waited for her. While we waited, a pigeon crapped on his coat.

The three of us made our way to Chinatown for dinner. Jason's friend (Kristen? Katherine? I only met her once and have unfortunately long since forgotten her name) was great, and the three of us cracked jokes left and right. Things came to a head at dinner, where a combination of sarcastic banter, aggressive waiters snatching away our plates and an obscene joke involving Santa Claus drove us over the edge. I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe. Tears streamed down Jason's cheeks. We were completely incapacitated for a good 5 minutes.

* * *

August 2002. I had just entered the world of work, and went out to Seattle for my first-ever business trip. It was a total thrill. Seattle had always fascinated me, and seeing it in person was even better than I had imagined. The work was great too - we were distributing 250,000 books to area nonprofits that worked with children from low-income families. The combination of working with my hands and doing this enormous "good deed" gave me a very wholesome buzz.

A coworker was along with me on this trip, as was her husband. He was a great guy, and his sense of humor matched up perfectly with mine. The three of us had a great few days, and in the car on the way to the airport the joke planets aligned perfectly. I don't remember exactly how the banter went, but I do remember holding my sides and wanting to die because if heaven was this funny, I needed to get there right away.

* * *

Late August 2008. We went up to Algonquin Provincial Park to meet up with friends from Canada. After canoeing to our campsite we promptly cracked open a few bottles of wine to celebrate. A glass here, a glass there and before anyone realized it the sun was beginning to set and we were done for.

The evening that followed might have been one of the greatest of my life. I laughed so hard, for so long, that I started to make this serpent-hissing sound. Someone else laughed until she fell off the log she was sitting on. Our alpha male got up at one point, stuck a 6-foot-long branch into the fire, then ran down to the lake where he beat his chest and doused the flame in the water. We all knew - at that precise moment - that nothing in the history of time had ever been, or would ever be, so hilarious.

* * *

Do I laugh every day? I don't keep track, but I hope so.

Forgot to Mention

After the wonderful three weeks of our vacation, we wound up in hell (not pictured). Did I forget to mention that? I've already told a lot of people about this via email, facebook, conversation, etc., so I won't go into incredible detail here. Very briefly:

Oliver forgot his green card at home...

And was unable to board the plane for our flight home.

He guilted me into staying in Lima with him.

We waited two days for the embassy to open...

And were slapped around by bureaucrats once we arrived. Seriously, those people do NOT mess around. With things like compassion, empathy, or friendliness. (Serenity now!)

We ended up calling our landlords and begging them to "break into" our apartment and mail the green card.

They sent it the fastest way possible - 48 hr. delivery via Fed Ex.

I went home to get things ready for our next trip (we were supposed to leave Thursday night)...

Oliver stayed in Lima and made friends with the people at the Fed Ex office. (Can you track it for me? Where is it now? Will it arrive today?)

The card arrived on Wednesday, and Oliver took the night flight home.

He got back to our apartment at 2pm Thursday...

And we caught our bus to Toronto 5 hours later.

Which is something else I haven't gotten around to mentioning yet: our second annual Labor Day Algonquin Provincial Park extravaganza. It was more or less the same group as last year, and it was a little more poignant this time. One couple was two weeks away from leaving Toronto for Frankfurt. Another couple, one that had moved from Toronto to Frankfurt last fall, was back for a brief visit. (Really, what is it with Frankfurt?) The whole weekend had this undercurrent of "enjoy this very second - time is slipping through your fingers" to it. Why does time always do that?

Lucky for us, we were able to enjoy each of those seconds.

Even if Oliver was a little tired and still a bit freaked out from his recent brush with the Department of Homeland Security.

A Good Way to Do It

I'm stressed. And the killer part of it is that intellectually, I know that I don't need to be. I wish I could get my brain to take over for whatever it is (soul? heart? nervous system?) that is currently running things.

A job. I graduate in December, and I need to get one. In an ideal world, I would have one lined up and all set to go for January. Our current economic world is hardly the ideal one though, and I have heard stories of long job searches. Months. A year. This is where my throat usually starts to constrict. Air... air...

My brain tells me that laying awake at night, worrying, is silly. I am intelligent and personable - I will get a job. My husband has a job; we will not starve if my job search takes a little while. Life is more than my resume - my resume in fact, has always taken a back seat to my life. I like it that way. Rather than tossing and turning, I should be sleeping. Blissfully. My life is a good one, and if I choose not to wring my hands over this job search, well, all the better for that.

Only my brain, as I mentioned earlier, is not in charge. And so I stress. There's so much I don't know about subject A and subject B... how will I ever find a job I am qualified for? And why aren't there more job postings?

I was sitting at my computer this morning, thinking these sorts of thoughts, when I came across two emails. One was from a cousin who had big news (engaged!), and the other was from a library school friend who had just found a job. I decided to take these two emails and let the happiness contained in each seep into me. If something good happens to someone I care about, well then it happens to me as well.

Do you have anything good going on in your life? I would love to leech off your happiness.

Past, Present (Future Perfect?)

When Oliver and I moved to this area last year, I more or less hung up my running shoes. Not that I’ve ever been a serious, dedicated runner, but I had been averaging two to three times a week at the office gym, and even did a nice 5K at one point. Leaving Toronto meant leaving my free gym, and no gym meant no treadmill. And that’s a deal breaker, ladies.

I really want to get back into running, though. Badly enough apparently, to break away from the comfort of the treadmill. I've started running through Liberty State Park, Jersey City's waterfront park right across from Lower Manhattan and next to Ellis Island.

It's a beautiful run, really. Manhattan skyline, Statue of Liberty in the distance, Ellis Island. My favorite part though, is the part that's least known. I run past the Central New Jersey Railroad Terminal, which is where all immigrants from Ellis Island came to catch the trains to wherever it was they were going. Some of my own great grandparents caught trains here to Michigan. The building itself has been preserved, but the tracks have long since been ripped out and there's this beautifully eerie effect of weeds and grass growing wild where train tracks once sat. You can really feel the past mixing with the present, and it always gives me a little tingle to contrast my own situation with my ancestors'. Would they be proud of their family today? Would they feel they had made the right decision in selling the reindeer herd and coming here? I like to think so.

Running past it the other night, I wished I could bump into my great grandfather. It would be neat to thank him, talk to him... something.


A: Great Grandpa! You don't know me, but I'm your great granddaughter. Allison. Listen, I just wanted to thank you. Thank you for coming here, for giving up everything and taking a chance on America. It'll take a little time, but your family will thrive here. We owe that to you.

GG: (in Finnish) Who the hell are you? What language are you speaking? Is that English?

A: (to crowd) Does anyone here speak both Finnish and English? I really need to speak with this man; I have something important to say to him.

GG: (pointing at my tank top and running shorts with disgust) And what are you, some sort of harlot? Put on some decent clothes! If you were my daughter, I'd horsewhip you.

A: Hey, are you criticizing my clothes? They're perfectly appropriate for the time I live in. I actually dress pretty conservatively.

GG: (Stands silently and looks away, hoping I will leave)

A: Listen, you're going to have a daughter named Ida. She's my grandmother. She'll have 5 sons and they'll have children... Great Grandpa, we make it. We all make it. We do really well, actually. A lot of us will go to college, have good, stable jobs. In fact, do you want to come see my apartment? (motion for him to follow) It's really nice. It has running water, electricity...

GG: Will someone get this prostitute away from me?

A: (being led away) You don't understand! I'm your descendant! I'm from the future!

Aaaaaand scene.

Some More Thoughts on Age(ing)

In this past Sunday's New York Times Book Review, there was a passage in a review of Diana Athill's memoir Somewhere Near the End that really struck me:

"In one of her extraordinary essays, "The Space Crone," Ursula Le Guin wrote that old women would make the best space explorers. Free from the daily tasks of rearing helpless children, free to see and comprehend without vanity, loving life because we know we may have to leave it soon, we would embark on our journey to the stars not for ego or planting flags but only for the information to transmit back to our grandchildren for their future explorations. We know by then that we are part of the flow of life."

I can't wait to be an old woman.

Really, I think I mean it. Maybe all the self doubt, the competition and vanity will fade away, leaving me this wise, calm, amazing version of myself. The perfect age for space exploration. And no one will know it! They'll think I'm just some old woman; never on to my secret power. I'll let my hair go white, will pull it back at the nape of my neck.

If you'll permit me to get a little more macabre, I've also been thinking about my funeral. At my own grandmother's funeral a few years ago, I looked around at one point and realized the mourners were all so much younger than her. Children, grandchildren, a great-grandchild. It was a sad day of course, but I also felt a strange little thrill for a moment. At my own funeral, lying with my tastefully arranged snow-white hair, the people crying (real tears! tears of heartbreak!) over me will be people who, as of 2009, I haven't met. Children and grandchildren - bonds that I have heard are some of the most powerful and rewarding you experience. All those people. All those great relationships. Still to come! Still in store for me.

Really. I can't wait to be an old woman.

Remembrance of Falls Past

My mom's dad passed away when I was seven, so my memories of him are fuzzy. I remember him napping on the dining room floor with a newspaper over his face, and him taking us out to the fields in his old green truck. I can remember the sound of his voice.

At this time of year about five years ago my mom, brother and I went to visit our relatives in North Dakota for a long weekend. In the course of whatever it is family does when it gets together, someone brought out Grandpa's old farming vest. It had been hanging in the basement of Grandma's house, just like the rest of his things, for almost 20 years. It was a big suede and wool monstrosity with a faint tinge of '60s hippie to it - a fitting vest for a man who had NOT A TRACE of hippie in him.

Someone ended up trying on the vest and discovered a handful of corn kernels in one of the pockets. Dried corn, years and years old, put there by Grandpa some fall in the late '80s when he was checking out the crop. Right there, in the pocket. Like a still-smoking pipe or a half-drunk cup of coffee.

Happy October.

Labo(u)r Day

Good lord, has a week gone by? Have I really made the transition from normal adult to student? I still feel like I don't completely have my wits about me, but that should change soon. I hope.

It was a hectic week. Definitely good, but hectic. It didn't help that I spent my last day of "summer vacation" driving home from a trip to Canada, got home at 3am, then got up at 7am the next day for class (the photo from my previous post: do my eyes look bleary? They should). It probably wasn't the most responsible way to start graduate school, but it was worth it! A hundred times over! Anyhow, I like the image of Oliver and I speeding through our summer in some sort of fast-moving vehicle then screeching to a halt at school, where he kicks me out of the car and I roll into my first class. Did I mention yet that I had the greatest Labor Day weekend in recorded history?

Oliver and I went back to Canada for the weekend. Together with some friends from Toronto, we went up to Algonquin Park, the same place we snowshoed last winter. Quick stats:

7 people

3 canoes

1 "man overboard"

4 tents

1 pesky-yet-endearing chipmunk

3 days of refreshing lake swims

2 leech victims

1 pit toilet located in Blair Witch Project-like woods

6 fart jokes

17 manhours of laughter (not all connected with fart jokes)

20 thousand bottles of wine

20 million stars

20 billion times over the best way to end the summer

Toillemazingful

My parents came and went, the weekend came and passed. The heat is still here. Go figure.

Sweaty backs and glazed eyes aside, it was a great weekend. We took in an amazing Broadway show, visited a fascinating museum, ate at an incredible deli, fanned ourselves on the benches of an extraordinary park, and so forth (I'd go into more detail, but I'm running out of over-the-top adjectives).

The most outlandish descriptives however, belong in the description of my parents. Fantasticful? Amazriffic? Not only did they walk for hours in beastly heat with (slightly pained?) smiles on their faces, not only did they assure me "the apartment feels fine" while they mopped sweat off their foreheads, but they went so far as to do a little manual labor with me.

See this pattern? I'm sure you've seen it before. It's called toille, and a few weeks ago I decided that it was the fabric I wanted to reupholster my dining room chairs with. Never mind that I don't have the tools or the proper know-how to refinish a chair; my parents have all that! My dad owns just about every tool known to (reasonable, middle class) man, and my mom just took a furniture reupholstering class last year. How could I have access to such riches and not take advantage of it? Did I mention that my mom even went out and found the fabric for me? Do you hear that little note of guilt in my voice?

Sunday morning we took an hour, a screwdriver, a staple gun, a couple yards of fabric, and about three liters of sweat, and made four of this:

My decorating style has a sort of elegantly mismatched thing to it, and these chairs fit in perfectly. I love the contrast between the old colonial-style fabric and the mid-century modern chair frame. And since my dad generously donated the staples and my mom found a great deal on the fabric, the whole project cost about $10. Or to be honest, it was free. She wouldn't let me pay for the toille. Again, do you hear the guilt in my voice?

Hot Times, Weekend Visit to the City

My parents are coming to visit this weekend. Hooray Mom and Dad! We've got a great relationship and I'm excited to see them...but DANGit! I KNEW it! There's a heat wave a'comin, and it should end just as they leave town on Monday. Have I mentioned that we don't have air conditioning?

No bother. Things always work out. Right? Right?

A Good Fourth

We all know that some friends come and go. Have you ever taken a few minutes to think about all the people who have passed through your life and lost touch with you? My own personal collection of long-lost acquaintances unfortunately grows every year, but it makes me grateful for the people I've kept up with.

I spent the 4th of July weekend with some of those people, my girls from DC. A few of us went up to Massachusetts to visit a friend who moved up that way about a year ago. For four days, we took in the sights of Fairhaven, New Bedford, Providence (RI) and Boston. We admired fishing boats, ran in vain to catch up with a small-town 4th of July parade, gorged ourselves at a barbeque, watched fireworks from a hurricane barrier, went to not one but two kickin' museums, bought overpriced food at Faneuil Hall, talked, and laughed. A lot. It was exactly what I had hoped it would be.

It was also fascinating to see how people had both changed and stayed the same. The sense of humor and all the other good qualities have remained (and always will, I suspect), but at the same time new things like (graceful and inspiring) motherhood, professional evolution and a strong sense of self have made my friends into newer versions of themselves, good versions. I'm not sure how much or in what ways I've changed these last years, but it would be nice to imagine that I can see in my friends my own reflected growth.

A few bits from the weekend:

Uncle Sam with tractor, boat shoes

Boston architecture

Fife and drum band (fifes not pictured), Boston


Fairhaven, MA

Coblog Two: All About Us

Over the holidays, Brianne and I got together to try something new: coblogging. We have a long history of writing together. Song parodies, journal entries, and even a series of books called Penpals. There were four books, and they centered around four girls who wrote letters back and forth. Hey Brianne, we should start a new series! We'll call it Blogpals.

I digress. Part One of our coblogging celebration can be found here on Brianne's blog. Part Two is below:

B: As promised, Allison and I are back for Part 2 of the Coblogstravaganza. Ar first I felt kind of like we were cheating with this one, since we're not actually sitting together in a room typing on the same computer. But then it occurred to me: how many bloggers actually get together in the same room to collaborate? We went above and beyond the call of duty, by gosh.

A: Ah yes, the call to blog. If I had lived during World War II, that's what I would have done on the homefront. I would have written about myself.

B: And a great comfort it would have been to all of the boys in uniform. Just like this will be. Anyway, we thought it might be interesting to go over the history of our friendship. Not to make it sound like some huge epic, but 21 years and counting ain't too shabby. Especially when you're currently 28.

A. No Brianne, this is epic. It started at Grewenow Elementary in 1986. First day of first grade. I don't remember how we met, although I have a vague memory of lockers being involved. Did we have lockers next to each other? God, what would have happened if my locker had been next to Dustin's (the class bad boy who would years later stab someone with a pencil)? What a different life I would have led.

B: Our lockers were definitely next to each other. One (yours?) was at the end of a row, just to the left of the classroom door, and the other was next to it. I can picture us standing there - craaaazy. My other first grade memories of us are a jumble of billy goat stew and billy goat spareribs (oh I'm sorry, were other people supposed to understand this?) and playing outside at recess. Then second grade was the only year we weren't in the same class.

A: Yeah, isn't it funny? The invisible forces in the teachers' lounge always put us in class together. My favorite examples of elementary shenanigans (good lord, did I really just say shenanigans?) are the lyrics we wrote to famous songs. Really great-for-a-10-year-old sarcastic stuff like Rudolph the Hunk of Rare Meat. "What do you have in the line of venison today?" We have Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen...

B: I'm still quite proud of those rewritings. Of course, they weren't all famous songs. "The floor was so deep I fell asleep, that's how deep it was! I hit my head so hard, I saw Santa Claus!" If the readers don't recognize the source material... well, it's probably for the best. We also wrote biting, satirical top 10 lists and short stories about teachers and "enemies." I'd try to find one and give an excerpt, but I think I'd be a little ashamed of their meanness now. Kids can be brutal. (And hilarious!) Speaking of enemies, the other things that stand out most from our elementary school career are the Great Fight of Fifth Grade, and our series of books, The Penpals.

A: The Penpals! The closest I will ever come to writing the Great American Novel. An epic tale of friendship, correspondence, moves to Alaska, the Witness Protection Program, movie star boyfriends, gargantuan homes (worth ONE MILLION DOLLARS), and Carribbean cruises. We finished writing the series on the last day of sixth grade, right? The final day of elementary school. Junior hight: we went our separate ways for awhile. Did we get together in ninth grade to write in the journal?

B: Yeah, we did get together in ninth grade. In high school we had a few more classes together, as I recall, at least towards the end. World History comes to mind. We didn't really do much outside of school, but we always had a good time snickering in class or chatting... in class... yeah, I guess we didn't pay too much attention in World History, did we? I remember reading a lot for it, though.

A: That world history class was great. It was the one time in my lame, rule-following life that I blew things off. I remember asking for a library pass to go study for a project, and using the pass to sneak out of the building and get snacks from PDQ. I was wild!! We did a project on the Crusades too - I remember unrealized plans to draw little dying crusaders and pipe in audio: "God wiiiiills it!" Since high school it's been emails, Christmas get-togethers in Kenosha, and the occasional visit somewhere else. You came to DC a couple times (I believe there were Wilco concerts involved), we hit up Baltimore together, and I spent an evening in Madison before I left for China.

B: Although it's not a bad supposition, only one of my visits to you in DC was related to a concert. And I'd almost forgotten our Greyhound journey to Baltimore! Travelin' in style. On one of those visits we also painted pottery - my bowl was broken in an unfortunate moving accident a couple years later, but I remember it fondly.

A: The footed bowl was broken? Damn. Anyhow, to close, what do you say we each share one more, random memory from our illustrious past. My pick: the last day of 4th(?) grade. You and I were walking out of the building at the end of the day, carrying home all the crap from our desks and lockers. Bryan was with us too. Bryan, dreamy Bryan. We'd both had crushes on him at some point in the year, and as the three of us walked out across the playground we felt giddy. Unfortunately for him, Nick crossed our paths just then. We all liked Nick - in fact, weren't he and Bryan best friends? - but for some reason we decided to rip the locker/desk crap out of his hands, tear the bags open, and destroy all his stuff. It was insane. We poured glue all over his gym clothes, tore up his notebooks, and scattered his papers across the playground. We were laughing like maniacs and he just kind of stood there, helplessly, whining "c'mon guys, don't..." When we were done, we each smiled at him and said something like "hey Nick, have a great summer! We'll see you in September." And then we walked off.

B: I had forgotten that! Reading about it now made me laugh and almost snort Bigelow Lemon Lift tea up my nose (I am drinking Bigelow Lemon lift tea at the moment. Otherwise that would just be weird.) Okay, here's my random memory. Melissa's slumber party for her tenth bithday. I remember it being a fun night in general - we all watched Hairspray (the original!) and played games and such. After the movie, when "official" bedtime came, everyone went upstairs to Melissa's room for more games of Skeletons in the Closet, Truth or Dare, hair braiding, makeup experimentation, etc. But eventually the other wimps wanted to go to sleep, and you and I actually moved our sleeping bags out into the hallway so we could stay up longer. There was a whole lot of giggling involved. Did we get shushed by her mom and Louie? It seems like we did. (Editor's note: yes, we did.)