Thank God It's Monday

Our weekend started early. On Thursday afternoon Jo took the kids for shaved ice to celebrate Vivian working hard on her reading for the last month with Ms. Gloria. While out they noticed that there was a breeze. Which prompted Evan to ask if he could fly the kite. When we had taken his airplane to the park that morning I had mentioned that kites need windy conditions. It wasn't a great wind, but I couldn't bring myself to tell Evan no - he was just too excited.

So we walked down to the park with kite in hand and tried to launch about a dozen times. We took turns. He got some good practice at both ends. The breeze was gusty and unpredictable - at one point we got the kite stuck on a 12 foot high chain link fence - but I hoisted Evan and he climbed up the rest of the way and rescued it. And then suddenly conditions were right and we launched the kite and it shot up into the sky and before long we had let every last bit of string out and Evan just had a blast managing the kite.

On the walk back home he said "Daddy - that was the best day of my life". I was happy that the simple joy of half an hour in the park with a kite could make him say that. Even as I realized that Evan has a tendency to live in the moment. When he was littler, every song that played on the radio was his most favorite song.

Back at home Jo announced that we were all going to learn Bollywood dancing at the Long Center. So we did - and I think Jo and I had more fun than the kids. The moves were difficult, the floor was full - I'd say a few hundred people, and the instructors were fun. By time time we finished and got out on the huge terrace in front of the Long Center it was eight thirty in the evening and there was still enough light outside for a quick photo of the kids looking goofy.

We got back home and the kids got to bed a bit later than usual. On Friday morning they car pooled with Ava and Karen to Matilda Camp and after camp Jo and I picked them up and headed to Schlitterbahn. We met Morgan and Lisa and their children and Nicolle and all the cousins there and the kids spent most of the afternoon in the lazy river - going round and round in anything but a lazy manner.

 

We spent Friday night at Nicolle's. The kids stayed up late and watched a movie upstairs. I fell asleep during something Nicolle and Jo were watching downstairs and Nicolle recorded my snore - and played it back later at a much louder volume that I would think possible.

On Saturday we woke up not too early and not too late and ate a large amount of breakfast tacos and loaded up three cousins and the kids and headed over to Lariat Ridge. Since Carol has been away and the place is locked up, there was been a wasp infestation. So we decided to avoid the front walkway which is a problem spot and headeded straight back to the pool and realized that Jo didn't have a key to the house in her new car key chain. We managed to open a window and lift Evan up to it and he walked around and unlocked a door for us.

Nicolle joined us for lunch. The kids stayed close to the pool. I did some work around the outside and napped a bit. Late afternoon we packed up and headed back to Austin.

On Sunday morning we woke up at a more leisurely pace and headed to Lake Travis. There was a great 15-18 knot wind but I don't want to reintroduce Jo to monohull sailing in a rush. So we motored across to a cove and anchored and jumped in the water.

We unhurriedly got back to the marina and ate lunch at a restaurant there and headed back home. Jo and I napped. The kids read and played. Then they ate enormous amounts of pizza for dinner (Evan is like a camel - he goes without food for days and then he eats past the point of stuffing himself). And finally Harry Potter books 3 and 5 before bed.

Thank god it's Monday tomorrow.

Bye Kirby

Kirby - Carol's oldest dog died peacefully in Nebraska yesterday. When Vivian heard the news, she said "Everyone is dying suddenly".

Kirby was a miniature dachshund. She was playful, affectionate, and sometimes aloof. She hated the cold and snuggled under blankets even on the warmest days. She loved the kids and nosed up to them. Even in her old age sometimes she broke into a fast full gallop, and though she didn't place, Carol took her down to the wiener dog races in Buda one year and we had so much fun.

In the first photo, Vivian is holding Kirby and is surrounded by Carol's other two dogs on her sixth birthday (Vivian's, not Kirby's). Vivian asked her friends to bring something to donate to Pets Alive instead of a birthday gift, and the dogs are sitting surrounded by doggy gifts.

And here, we have stopped for a quick break in Waco on our way to Nebraska last summer. Kirby was well traveled.

In her younger days, Kirby used to be quite a wild thing. I remember her leaping several feet up into the air to snap her jaws tightly around a rubber toy - and then she could dangle and hang on to the toy for ever till you put her down. This was before there were kids, but Kirby wasn't kid friendly. Carol decided to enroll herself and Kirby in a doggie obedience class, and after a couple of sessions, they were asked not to return :-)

But Kirby had mellowed. She was loved by everyone and will be hugely missed. Why is everyone dying?

Six Years Ago

While Jo was traveling last week, she tagged me in this Facebook memory post. It's from six years ago and marks the day Evan and my dad first met.

I showed the photograph to Evan over dinner that same evening. He said "I had a very good day today. I knew it. It is a special day". Evan - I love that you can just say the nicest things without even thinking them up.

My dad died about three years after this photo. And Evan doesn't look like this anymore :-)

Flex

In the photo below, I'm doing something unusual. There's a tiny woman in a red t-shirt with her hands on her hips emerging from my bottom. But that's not it. I'm trying to be flexible. Now, that's crazy.

Over the years I have tried to guilt myself into doing something about my inflexible self. I paid for months of yoga classes up front. I joined a "stretchy" gym on a 12 month contract. In both cases I didn't return. And surprisingly I didn't limber up. Now Jen has taken up the challenge.

The funniest thing is when I sit on the mat with my legs in a V and have to reach as far forward as I can. Jen leans comfortably with her elbows on the floor somewhere between her knees. I can barely touch the floor in front of me with my fingers tips. Some room for improvement.

So, kids - you are both like jelly. Evan even more so than Vivian. I used to be like that. My dad, in his middle and old age was a legend in how inflexible he was. And unfortunately I'm headed that way. So keep doing what you are doing and stay flexible, my friends.

Under The Teacher's Desk

Under the Teacher’s Desk

– after George Ella Lyon’s “Where I’m From”

I am from the dark
place under the teacher’s
desk. It smells of paper, glue,
and old scissors. It tastes of
dusty floors and worn wood.
It feels like cold concrete
slabs and finely cut cylinders
of branches and, last
of all, it sounds forgotten,
but come under the
teacher’s desk.

- by Vivian Chatterjee

Logos

This Fall (October 10-15) I'm helping put together Archer's Challenge - a wheelchair challenge by Archer Hadley. We got the second iteration of logos from GSD&M yesterday (they are doing our identity for free). We are leaning towards the first, but they are all very nice. What do you think?

Tooth Stories

Evan lost two teeth in the course of a few days after having them be "wiggly" for half his life (our kids' teeth refuse to fall). When he speaks, you can hear the air whistling out of the huge gap in front. Meanwhile, Vivian is in the home stretch and will get her braces off in a week! Here you see Ava and them at the first day of Matilda camp showing all their teeth.

ps. Evan hasn't put his tooth under his pillow for the Tooth Fairy. "I want to keep my tooth" he says. 

Desi Weekend

Jo went to Boston to hang out with Nicolle who was finishing up a course at Harvard. The kids and I went to happy hour at the Grove downtown, had breakfasts at the Taco Shack, lunch at Tarka, dinner at Swad with the Shahs, and in general hardly cooked at home. The Shahs took Vivian to see Birju Maharaj's kathak performance - for which Vivian picked out a dress that the Khanna's that sent for her this spring. At almost 80 Pandit Birju is apparently still looking good - I saw him in Delhi in 1984 I think. And that capped off a desi-ish cultural weekend.

Lake

Last Sunday the kids and I went sailing. After a break of more than Evan's whole lifetime, we'll be back on the boat more frequently now.

I got Vivian some helm time but she'll need to get a lot more before I'm comfortable with her managing the helm and motor while I anchor or vice versa. So we just sailed and drank lemonade and fizzy water and wine. Because we hadn't been able to anchor in a cove and swim, I let them get into the water at the boat ramp back at the marina. Good times.

At the Park

People are killing each other all over the world and a woman has become the presidential nominee of a major party in the US for the first time. But the real news was that it rained - twice - this week in Austin. Which got the temperatures from a balmy 105 on Monday down to a frigid 75 this morning. Which meant that instead of running from the air-conditioned house to the air-conditioned car, we ventured out for a stroll down to Taco Shack and then the park.

Yesterday Evan pulled out a huge kite that the Shahs and Gunaraj had given one of the kids for their birthday several years ago. Then he discovered an airplane he got from a friend when he truned six earlier this year.

"Can we fly these now, Daddy?"
"We'll have to wait for a windy day for the kite and a not windy day for the plane."
"OK - it's not windy now."
"Sarah is going to be here in a few minutes, so lets try tomorrow. If you wake up early enough we'll go to Ramsey Park in the morning."

So Sarah came and sat the kids while Jo and I went for a drink, a movie, and dinner. The kids were asleep by the time we returned. This morning a sleepy Evan stumbled into bed a little before seven.

"Mommy - Daddy said we'd fly the kite this morning."

Jo said "Hmmm - I thought you wanted to cuddle with me."

I added "And look outside - there's no wind."

"Which means we can fly the plane" Evan concluded triumphantly. So we did.

Full Force

Vivian has been under the weather since the weekend. Hopefully nothing serious - a light fever, a huge cough, and feeling blah. She's been spending a lot of time in bed or reading.

Which means Evan has turned the full force of his personality on Jo and me. I had no idea how much of this is normally directed at and absorbed by Vivian, but now that she's no longer the buffer, it's us. Jo tried unsuccessfully to get Sarah to sit them today but it's her brother's birthday so she's busy. It's probably safe to say we are a bit worn down by Evan's intensity and his ability to go go go every minute from when his eyelids flutter open in the morning till he falls asleep exhausted mid sentence at night. (Thanks, Karen, for taking him to the Thinkery this morning).

Here are two views: the usual Evan - after a swim in Ramsey pool with his hair all over the place and with a bit of face painting by Eleanor, and then him as Malfoy with his hair slicked back. Yes - he isn't pale or blond, but otherwise he does make a pretty believable Malfoy.

Both Vivian and Evan finished their camps this week - Girlstart for Vivian, and hydro explorers at the Thinkery for Evan. Evan didn't learn much about hydro exploring. "Nature walks are boring", he explained, and the pool was being cleaned the day they went to Barton Springs (they went there to look at the springs and study aquifers). But he did learn everything about Pokemon Go from a camp councillor.

Girlstart is an organization where girls are encouraged to engage in STEM (that's science, technology and engineering and math). Vivian got to hang out with about half her Magellan class, so it was all a lot of fun. Girlstart, according to a t-shirt displayed in the lobby, "...puts the glitter in Science". The lack of pink and glitter is all that is keeping American girls from engaging in science. Phew. 

The Princess

The Princess

One day a little girl got separated from her parents in a storm. She trudged up Park Avenue till she could not walk any longer and stopped at the entrance to a building. A kindly man was just walking in and noticed how cold and lost she looked and he took her up to his condo. 

His little son immediately fell in love with the girl. His wife, with her keen nose for social status, suspected that the girl was a princess. But what if she was just middle class poseur? She made the visitor a nice hot bath and then prepared the guest bedroom. She put a tiny drop of pee on the mattress and then added another mattress on top. The poor tired child dropped off to sleep.

[credit to http://www.advocate-art.com/ for the image]

In the morning over a cup of Triple Venti Half Sweet Non-Fat Caramel Macchiato the wife asked how the guest had slept. "Very badly. I know I should have slept well but there was this smell of pee." And they knew right away that this was a true princess and they took her to her parent's castle. Later, after college, the two children were married and then spent a few happy years together.

ps. We made up a version of this story over lunch today and laughed till keema almost came out of our noses. Evan was balking at the peas in the keema, which provided the inspiration.

A Dark Night

Dear V & E - things are not going well.

There's the Syrian war, which has made life almost impossible for millions. People fleeing the war are drowning by the thousands in the Mediterranean on flimsy rafts trying to reach Europe - tricked by traffickers of their last bits of money and then their lives. Car bombs in Baghdad killed over 200 people on a single day. The shooter in Orlando. The truck in Nice today. Police killings blacks and then the killing of police by a black man in Dallas.

Are things unraveling - and we don't know - like the frog in the science experiment? Or are we overreacting - with a myopic lack of a sense of history? There have surely been far worse times before, even in my lifetime. We hear that this current age is the most peaceful in the entire history of human existence. True - but is that changing?

Elie Wiesel who died a few days ago famously said: We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

But do we have the wisdom to know which side we must take? Is it a complete cop-out to say something like "I take the side of humanity". Will more guns make us safer? More wars? More racism? 


Should we stop living our normal lives? Stop dropping you off at camps for privileged children. Don't go to the gym. Eschew unsustainable overpriced organic produce at Whole Foods. Turn down a nice glass of wine. Not read you a good book at night.

So I wrote the first part of this post a couple of evenings ago. Then I slept on things - uneasily. Yesterday Evan and I spent the evening together. We started at the Hawaiian shaved ice place at the corner. I said "Pick three flavors". He hesitated and then said:

"Lemon"
"Lemonade"
"Lime"

And he happily slurped on it while we walked to Ramsey pool. We spent almost two hours in the pool. Then we walked back home and drove to my favorite hole-in-the-wall pho joint. We shared a large bowl of pho with brisket, eye round steak, and tendons and slurped every last bit of noodle and broth down. The evening recharged my batteries. Evan was in full swing the whole time - being funny and engaging and positive (his turdy cynical double never made an appearance).

Last evening our friends went to the Black Lives Matter protest here in Austin. We talked a bit about it this morning. Which got me to think again - what can I do? I realized that I don't have many black men friends or even acquaintances (actually only three - two people I play soccer with, and one a dad of Evan's classmate). And in Austin I have a very limited number of muslim friends. How do I change that? Should I?

Along different lines, how about a version of the Gandhian civil disobedience movement. What if a large number of people from various races and ethnicities drove around with a broken taillight (a BLM sticker that covers one taillight)? Would that result in better broken taillight stops for all?

This morning I ran to the gym, worked out with Jen, and then ran back. It's only about a mile away, but I was surprised by the number of very cheerful hello's. An APD cruiser even slowed down and the cop and I exchanged minimal waves. Then I realized that with my really short haircut people are being nice to the black man running through a predominantly non-black neighborhood. I have helped improve race relations in this little corner of the world without meaning to.

Dwarf Tossing

...but not meant in any derogatory way. Over the Fourth of July, the rest of us sipped spirits, grilled, laid out, killed wasps, and engaged in various other poolside activities, but we mostly watched Travis repeatedly (term not used lightly here) toss the kids into the deep end.

Between the wine, the Texas summer heat and the red eye from Seattle I fell asleep some time during the proceedings. Later I woke up and Jo and Evan and Vivian and I set off a box of fireworks in the driveway. Felt more like Diwali in Hyderabad than watching a grand show of fireworks downtown - loads of fun.

Oh - and sometime between Nebraska and now Evan ditched his floatie and decided to just swim. The last time he did this was in the summer of 2014 before he changed his mind and attached himself to his floatie for another two years. Will it stick this time? 

O Canada

My last trip on this traveling mess was to Canada - to "hike" with Guy and George. We mostly shot the shit and drank but some walking was done amongst the finest scenes of nature in Vancouver Island.

Today I learned (TIL for you reddit people) that the largest man-made non-nuclear explosion was at 9:31am on April 5, 1958 when the Canadians exploded one and a quarter million kilos of high explosives in a tunnel down under and then up to Ripple Rock in the Seymour Narrows. Old Rip sat a few feet under water and had laid low over a hundred ships and killed 114 seamen and passengers in the preceding decades and was considered the most notorious nautical hazard in North America. In this photo you can see Quadra Island across the Seymour Narrows. Ripple Rock was approximately where the small fishing vessel is headed to the left. Now mega cruise ships pass through here.

Campbell River is a small fishing and lumber town on the northeast coast of Vancouver Island and was our base. If you ever want to see chainsaw sculpting done right, head there around Canada Day. I had to ask our waiter when Canada Day was, and she politely said "American, eh?"

On the way back home, at the airport I got caught up on all the news in America worth knowing.

A Day in Austin

We woke up at the white wooden house on Sunday morning. It was nice but I slept badly - waking up with every night time sound - thinking it was Crazy and then realizing that it wasn't. We stayed home and ate breakfast tacos and went out for an afternoon of fun with Jen's LIFT clients to the Austin Bouldering Project. Evan showed a lot more confidence this time and Vivian climbed like she does this sort of thing everyday.

This is a family portrait. Jo took the photo and that's her foot sticking in beside my elbow. We are on the floor at ABP taking a break from climbing. Tomorrow (with respect to this day in Austin, not the day I'm finally posting this blog) at the crack of dawn I head out again.

The Good Life

We got back from Alu's, did laundry, I accidentally gave myself a serious trim (Jo thought the timing was too coincidental and that I did it to look bad while visiting her family), and then we drove off to the Good Life. We fortified ourselves with enough audio books to make it all the way through in one go and passed into Nebraska while the sun was still in the sky - just barely.

The Big Event was Amy's wedding reception. Jo did her cousin's hair, put her's in a nice braid, and put a fishtail on Vivian while I straightened and then curled my hair. The party was in a big beautifully decorated shed (I called it a barn but Jo corrected me) with lights and a live band and a baby pool full of ice and beer and food from Six Mile Cafe. The kids ran around outside and Jo and I danced away inside. And with guests from Omaha, suddenly Nicolle's kids and I weren't the only non-white people in the county!

Eventually the evening cooled off nicely and Evan fell asleep on a couple of chairs. Vivian borrowed a flashlight and read her book while people partied on. I think we called it a night sometime before midnight and headed back to Dawson.

Over the next few days we did the usual things - drive around in the country, eat crunch cones, take the kids to the swimming pool (I hid out in the library - it was too hot to even swim :-), and engage in home improvement tasks. The old dining room floor was peeled off, a new one laid down, the side porch was jacked up and straightened, Michelle made shelves, and Jo and I disassembled a pool table. Then one morning Nicolle and Michelle showed up towing a lift. Michelle hoisted herself up in the bucket and mopped the side of the house down with bleach. Soon Jo's cousin Ralphie showed up and spent the next six hours chainsawing limbs from trees deemed dangerously close to the house, and fixing portions of the house that were too high up to get to easily. Uncle Ralph came over and took the little kids for a ride. The bigger kids and everyone else were pressed into service to load up the cut limbs into Uncle Tom's trailer. He made six trips to the burn pile at the other end of town in his tractor. Hard work and good clean country livin'.

Over the last half a century, small towns in places like Nebraska have shrunk. Back when, every small community had it's own school. When the students dried up, the schools in the county were consolidated in a few bigger towns like at Falls City (pop. 4200 - which itself has lost 10% of it's population since the year 2000). The school that Carol attended, and Nicolle's school in Salem, and the school in Dawson that their cousins went to and many others are boarded up and for sale. Ralphie has bought one - Honey Creek School, built in 1921. We drove by to take a look. It was off the highway about a couple of miles. The road leading to it was once paved but is slowly decomposing into gravel. Someone at some point put up an interesting mailbox with the post made from camshafts. But the building was in disrepair. Windows were boarded or smashed. The once beautiful barrel vaulted wooden roof of the stone gymnasium building next door is caving in and the gym floor, now dirt, is littered with old discarded motors and other auto parts. Ralphie has his work cut out for him if he's going to change this into a home. 

During a drive around the farms with Uncle Tom I learned that the biggest change since Jo's grandfather started farming is probably coming in this and the next decade. The people who farm anymore are people my age and up to a couple of decades older. Their kids aren't going to farm. Uncle Tom thinks that instead of a farmer farming a few hundred acres today, in the near future one person with the help of automation will manage a few thousand acres. The same technology that is putting self driving cars on the streets is being used to build the next generation of farm machinery. And like with self driving cars, a lot of it is already out there and being used today.

We spent a day in Omaha, shopping for a bed (30 mins) at America's biggest furniture store - the Nebraska Furniture Mart - it's like the Disney World of furniture shopping), and waiting for Carol's flight from Dallas to land (10 hours). The kids liked the children's museum. We ate lunch with Omaha hipsters at a very cool place downtown. Then we watched a movie where we were the only people in a huge multiplex. Carol's flight kept getting delayed in what seemed like a comedy of airline errors. Finally we ran out of ideas and went to play at a nice big park surrounding Zorinsky Lake. On the way to the park Evan asked:

"What kind of a pohk is it?"

He's always pronounced "park" like a Bostonian: pohk. Then he answered himself by posing four more questions:

"Is it a pohk with a playground?"
"Or is it a pohk where you can walk?"
"Or is it where you can pohk your cah?"
"Or is it a pohk like a piece of pig meat?"

This kept us going till poor Carol finally landed. We drove back to Dawson and got home at midnight.

The next afternoon we drove out of town again - through Falls City for one last crunch cone and onward to Texas, stopping in Ardmore for the night and arriving in Austin the next afternoon. I opened the fridge and had to take a photo. Jo had cleaned it out while the kids and I were at Alu's. First stop - Central Market. The Shaw-Holleys came for dinner and we ran out of wine and Travis and I walked over to Rosedale Mart for more. It felt like we were really back at the White Wooden House.