Yesterday while I was driving to pick my son from track practice, my wife called me. I'm not very good on the phone when I'm not operating a motor vehicle, and I'm even worse when I am. I shouldn't talk and drive.
She told me about a house fire in Edison, right by where she teaches. A five-year-old girl and her grandmother both died in the blaze. It turns out that in 2006 my wife taught the mom, who was at work when the fire occurred. My wife was pretty shaken up about that.
And then, while my wife was mid-story, my son walked up. And I had just pulled up to a busy intersection. The light turned green, and he was still throwing his bags in the back of the van and I got overwhelmed. Apparently, I was very rude to my wife. Apparently, I am a "jerk" . . . and the worst kind of a jerk, a jerk without phone manners. Because I said something in the manner of "I GOTTA GO!" right in the middle of my wife's tragic story. And then I hung up.
My defense is that I was driving and things got hectic. My wife has decided that it is her fault. She knows the deal. She has promised never to call me again.
I did send her a nice text today, thanking her for my salad and giving her some encouraging words about a parent meeting. I even included an emoji. But I struggle in real-time, and I certainly can't multi-task. So If you want to communicate with me, send me a text (or even an email).
Yesterday, I learned that Google Drive has a "scan" feature, and that you can scan a document and convert it to editable text in a Google doc. This is extremely useful to me as both a teacher and a blogger. And no one else in the department knew how to do it! Even the millennials . . .
You open the PDF with Google docs (on my phone, I make the PDF a docx) and you get an editable text. Initially, the fonts are often a little crazy, so you need to remove the text formatting. At first the converted piece of the John le Carre novel I'm reading looked like this:
But I hit the little t with the slash through it, and then selected the portion I wanted. It's from le Carre's novel Our Kind of Traitor, which I am thoroughly enjoying. Here it is:
‘Unfortunately, I do not believe in God, but this is irrelevant in life it is frequently necessary to simulate religious conviction. I like best art. Max also is very artistic. Maybe we shall both study art together at St Petersburg or Cambridge. It will be decided.'
'Is he Catholic?
'In his practices Max is compliant with his family religion. This is because he is dutiful. But in his soul he believes in all gods.'
And in bed? Gail wonders, but does not ask: is he still compliant with his family religion?
I tried this with a fifty-page PDF and froze my computer, so I'm not sure just how long a document you can convert. But it's free OCR technology and it's easy and fast.
OCR stands for "optical character recognition." I learned that yesterday as well.
I'd like to humbly recommend a few podcasts. I understand-- because of the first podcast that I am recommending-- that there is an opportunity cost to listening to these. You could be listening to the radio. Or some banging tunes on Spotify. Or some other podcast. Or you might choose to meditate in silence, repeating some mantra in your head at an extremely high internal volume (which no one else can hear . . . which strikes me as crazy).
LUMEN DE LUMINE! OM!
So if you don't listen, that's your choice. You might have something better to do.
The folks from Planet Money visit the American Economic Association's annual conference and ask one question: "What's the most useful idea in economics?"
Here's what international economic advisor Lisa Cook has to say:
GOLDSTEIN: What is the most useful idea in economics?
COOK: It is, I think, opportunity cost.
GOLDSTEIN: What is opportunity cost?
COOK: It is what you give up in order to engage in some activity.
GOLDSTEIN: What you give up in order to do something.
COOK: Right.
GOLDSTEIN: Opportunity cost tells us the cost of doing any one thing is giving up doing anything else. So the cost of going to college is not just the tuition you have to pay. It's all the wages you give up by not working or by working less because you're in college. Businesses also think, or should think, about opportunity cost. You know, the cost of, say, building a new factory is not just the money the business has to pay for the factory. It's also whatever other thing the business doesn't do with that same money, right? It's, say, giving up on that new R&D plant that might've yielded the billion-dollar idea.
FOUNTAIN: And in a more personal sense - you know, day-to-day life - opportunity cost means the cost of doing something at any given moment is not doing something else at that exact same moment. And literally at this moment, Lisa Cook is giving up the opportunity to do so many things.
GOLDSTEIN: Can you just, like, rattle off a few of them?
COOK: I could be at the session on the economics profession's race problem.
GOLDSTEIN: OK.
COOK: And I could be running. I have my running shoes with me. I have lunch in my bag. I could be finishing lunch.
GOLDSTEIN: So sorry.
COOK: Oh, there's one other thing that I really want to be doing, and I am binge-watching "Chernobyl."
GOLDSTEIN: That is not even to mention, like, all of the just meeting, talking with a thousand other economists, every happy hour, every talk, every poster. All of those things you are not doing right now...
COOK: That's right.
GOLDSTEIN: ...Because you're standing here talking to me.
COOK: That's right.
GOLDSTEIN: The opportunity cost of this interview is incalculable.
Just started this series. Three episodes in. Compelling, gritty, and already lots of twists and turns. But don't trust me.The Atlantic ranked this as the #2 podcast of 2019 . . . runner up to a series about Mr. Rogers. Mr Rogers? Weird.
You might think you know what to expect from The Ballad of Billy Balls. It opens in 1970s New York City and describes the death of the titular musician, before launching into an audio montage of conspiracy theories about what really happened. The host iO Tillett Wright tells you the goal is to find out the truth, 37 years later. You might think you recognize this story’s shape: a narrative of sex, drugs, rock and roll, and murder, kicked off by love at first sight. But there’s no way to explain why this first impression is wrong without ruining the joy of listening to the show unfold. Dumb luck made this podcast possible on so many levels—the magnetic attraction that brought a young couple together, the fact that they recorded themselves for us to hear, the senselessness of Billy’s death, the way he was interned in a mass grave. But luck isn’t the reason to listen. The show was made by storytellers who not only found the good stuff when they went digging, but also knew exactly how to use it.
I love this short (usually) breezy podcast on economic indicators. But this one will make you angry. Capitalism at its worst. The Trump administration at its worst. The small businessman being punished for being small. Lobbyists, lawyers and corruption at every turn. All in 9 minutes.
There was a time when my wife and I would NEVER bring the kids shopping. We were always flabbergasted when we'd see a family of five in the grocery store, on a convivial and chaotic outing, leaving a wake of overturned merchandise.
Why? Why bring EVERYONE to the store? Why not divide and conquer? Send one person to the store and let the other person bring the kids to the park or the trampoline village or the go-cart track.
Then our kids got a bit older, and while we'd never bring them into a grocery store, once in a while-- once in a long while-- we would take them sneaker shopping. They were both into sports. Alex has wide feet, like me. Ian has weird skinny feet, like my wife. So they needed to try stuff on. It would be awful. Kids can't do shopping. I can't do shopping.
But now the tables have turned. I've been putting off buying running shoes and low top indoor soccer/tennis trainers for over a year. I hate shopping. And I have to try stuff on. And I hate paying full price. So there's only one place to go: the Jackson Premium Outlets. Nike, Adidas, Reebok and Asics. But there's never a good time to go. It's always a zoo.
Today seemed to be the right day. It was cold and it was supposed to snow. I asked Ian if he wanted to come with me, because he needed running shoes and indoor soccer shoes. He said yes. I told him I needed to go to three different stores. THREE. I asked him if he was up for it. It was going to be crazy. The most stores I had been in for the past two years in a single day was one. The most stores I had brought Ian into was one. But we were going to do three.
Ian is 14 now. I'm 49. We could handle it.
It turns out the tables have turned. Ian has zoomed from being a detriment in stores to being essential. He buzzed right by neutral.
On our way there, we listened to podcasts. No traffic at all.
In the Asics store, the clearance rack was buy one, get a pair free. I tried on shoes while he tried on shoes. We ended up both buying the same pair of GT-2000s. No line. In fact, no people in the store. Awesome. In and out.
Then we went to the Adidas store. Ian quickly found some indoor shoes that fit his weird feet. I struck out.
So we had to go to Nike. I was really looking for low cut trainers that I could wear both for indoor soccer and outdoor tennis. Ian found a great pair of indoor soccer shoes on the clearance rack-- he has great eyes-- but they didn't have much support and would be useless for tennis. Then he found exactly what I was looking for. The Nike Lunar Prime Iron II. They were so cheap that I grabbed a black pair and a gray pair.
I would have never found them. I can't find the ketchup in the fridge.
At the register, just as I was about to pay, Ian noticed that one pair was less expensive than the other. The black pair was marked down to $27.97. The gray pair was $39.99. A great catch.
He ran back into the store and grabbed the other black pair and saved me a few bucks.
On our way home, it started snowing. Hard. It was nice to have company, driving in that. It was nice to have the company for the entire trip, and quite frankly, if he wasn't there, I might not have bought anything.
The other night I fell fast asleep before 9 PM. I woke to the sound of fisticuffs in the hall bathroom. Apparently, Alex was trimming his toenails and would not let his younger brother enter to get his toothbrush.
I'm not sure why Alex took this position-- in my book, brushing your teeth trumps cutting your toenails-- but Ian forced his way in and they went at it. This woke me up from my slumber, but I didn't have to intervene. My wife heard the commotion from downstairs, where she was watching TV, and summoned them.
As I was falling back to sleep, I saw Alex come into the room and grab a full laundry basket. I learned the next morning that my wife had immediately assigned them some chores; reparations for the fight and waking me up. I really admire this about my wife: she can immediately think of an appropriate consequence for bad behavior and execute the punishment quickly and justly. Plus, she's got my back when I'm sleeping.
When I'm left in charge of discipline, I tend to lecture the kids for a while, as I process what they did wrong. In doing this-- the long lecture on expectations and behavior-- I work myself into a greater and greater frenzy. This furious lather doesn't help anyone, and the punishment I eventually mete out in no way reflects the crime committed (or even correlates with sane behavior). I'm either too angry or too empathetic or too flabbergasted to think straight.
My wife is feeling even more confident and powerful than normal because she has joined a kickboxing gym. She comes back from these sessions energized and amped-up. Yesterday she was practicing her roundhouse kicks on my legs, pretending to kick me over and over. Lola, our dog, came to my rescue. She inserted herself between my wife and me.
This made me happy. I've got two tough bitches in the house.
I thought Douglas Preston's The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story was going to be the usual archaeological/adventure/travel story-- in the vein of The Lost City of Zand the works of William Dalrymple-- and the first half of the book lives up to that promise.
There's some history of pre-Columbian Honduras-- which is at best obscure-- and then some embarrassing colonialism-- United Fruit and worker exploitation and outside government manipulation and all that-- and then an excellent tale of Theodore Morde. In 1940, Morde declared that he found the fabled White City of the aptly named Mosquitia region of the country, but this was actually a deception. He was prospecting gold and didn't want anyone to jump on his claim.
Then in 2012, surveyors in planes used LIDAR and located several sites in the jungle that looked very promising. In 2015, Preston accompanied a rugged archaeological expedition-- by helicopter-- int the valley where La Ciudad Blanca is located.
And they found stuff!
Preston's descriptions of the hardships of the jungle are just as entertaining as the archaeology: sink holes and dense foliage, brutal biting insects and the greasy flow of cockroaches on the jungle floor.
And snakes . . .
The fer-de-lance is a main character in the book, and Preston's descriptions of this large poisonous serpent really resonated with me (you'll see why in a moment). Apparently these snakes are truly dangerous. Preston calls them the "ultimate viper" and they reputedly kill more people in Central and South America than any other snake.
At one point in the book, a British commando enlisted to help the archaeologists, filmmakers, journalists, and organizers survive in the inhospitable jungle has to deal with an irate fer-de-lance that has crept into camp. He uses a forked stick, but the viper sprays poison onto his skin-- causing it to bubble-- and so he has to decapitate the creature and rush off to wash the away the venom before it drips into an open wound on his hand.
Fer-de-lances inject a tremendous amount of venom with razor sharp fangs that can penetrate leather boots. People often wear "snake gators" in areas where they are prevalent. At the very least, in the jungle, you should never step all the way over a log. Step on top first.
When my family went to Costa Rica in the summer, I knew that the fer-de-lance was a poisonous snake native to the area. I had seen them hanging from trees years ago when my wife and I traveled to Ecuador. But I didn't think they were actually dangerous. In my experience, snakes want nothing to do with people. But apparently the fer-de-lance is much more aggressive than your typical snake.
When we were hiking in the Tirimbina Rainforest Wildlife Refuge-- an astounding network of jungle trails and suspended bridges along the Sarapiqui River-- we encountered a couple of snakes. We would have never seen them if it wasn't for my son Ian's sharp eyes. One of the reasons we were at the reserve was because you can hike without a guide. Guides are great, but expensive-- and also, sometimes I like to walk fast. And it's fun to just explore and look for things without someone pointing them out. You can always identify them later with your phone.
Unless you're dead.
One of the snakes was right on the path, camouflaged in the mud. It was either a baby fer-de-lance or a small hog-nosed viper. Both venomous. I was smart enough to be wearing pants but my wife was in shorts. Here's a video of my moving the snake off the trail with a stick.
Just below the trail, in the brush, Ian spied a big fat snake. It did not seem bothered by us at all. It just lay there, coiled and ready to strike, staring at us. I clambered down a little bit and got a lousy photo. Judging by the size and coloration, this was most definitely a fer-de-lance. We did not actually know how dangerous this critter was. In retrospect, I would have made everyone wear pants. And I would have walked slower and watched my step.
My fer-de-lance photo!
This stuff all occurs in the first half of the book. Preston does the prerequisite history lesson. Then the city is discovered-- using cool technology-- the jungle is (sort of conquered) and artifacts are unearthed. I should warn you that spoilers (and devastation) lie ahead.
Next, there's some archaeological beef-- some folks think that this crew was another branch of the colonial white conquerors (even though they were working hand-in-hand with the Honduran government) and some other archaeologists and native tribes lay claim to the sites. But none of this holds any water. It turns out that some academics "would rather discuss ‘hot’ issues
such as those of colonialism, white supremacy, hyper-masculinity, fantasy
and imagination, [and] indigenous rights" rather than give credit to a serious academic expedition to a place that hasn't been inhabited for 500 years. These are the times.
Then the book really picks up steam again. Preston starts having some weird symptoms and gets a big sore on his arm. The same happens about half of the other folks that went on the trip. After much study (and visits to the NIH) they are all diagnosed with Leishmaniasis, a leading NTD (neglected tropical disease).
Leishmaniasis is the second deadliest parasitic disease in the world, behind only malaria. It is spread by infected sandflies. Twelve million people have it. 60,000 a year die from it. Even if you can get medicine for it, it's terrible stuff. In fact, many doctors actually call amphotericin B "ampho-terrible "
because it often makes patients feel terribly sick and can damage the
kidneys.
Leishmaniasis is so awful because the the parasites don't devastate the body for a while before being summarily killed by the immune system. Instead, they “try to have tea with your immune system,” which is so much weirder and grosser. And they live on and on, doing awful things all the while.
At this point, the book has transformed into a combination of clinical medical descriptions of the author and his colleagues trying to combat this awful disease and Guns, Germs, and Steel . . . with an emphasis on the germs. Europeans and Asians had been living in cities in close proximity to livestock for thousands of years before they went to the New World. And so they had strong immune systems and were full of wacky diseases. This a 15,000 year pathogenic time bomb ready to explode, as soon as contact is made.
Once in a while, an animal pathogen will change in such a way that it suddenly infects a person. When people in the Near East first domesticated cattle from a type of wild ox called an aurochs, a mutation in the cowpox virus allowed it to jump into humans— and smallpox was born. Rinderpest in cattle migrated to people and became measles. Tuberculosis probably originated in cattle, influenza in birds and pigs, whooping cough in pigs or dogs, and malaria in chickens and ducks. The same process goes on today: Ebola probably jumped to humans from bats, while HIV crashed into our species from monkeys and chimpanzees.
THIS is what mainly killed the natives of Honduras. There were other atrocities, of course, but nothing was as devastating as disease. Once the Europeans came,the New World became apocalyptic.
The nineteen people closest to you: All but one will die. (This of course counts you also as a survivor.) Think what it would be like for you, as it was for the author of the Cakchiquel manuscript, to watch all these people die —your children, parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, your friends. Imagine the breakdown of every pillar of your society; imagine the wasteland left behind, the towns and cities abandoned, the fields overgrown, the houses and streets strewn with the unburied dead; imagine the wealth rendered worthless, the stench, the flies, the scavenging animals, the loneliness and silence.
The book turns from jungle adventure to cautionary tale. Why did the people of Mosquitia disappear? Old World diseases. This is "what destroyed T1, the City of the Jaguar, and the ancient people of Mosquitia."
And while there is some irony in a New World disease attacking a bunch of mainly white people with Old World heritage, that is not really the situation. It is really a "Third World disease attacking First World people. The world is now divided into Third and First, not Old and New. Pathogens once confined to the Third World are now making deadly in roads into the First."
God forbid you get a combination of leish-- this is the affectionate diminutive for leishmaniasis-- and HIV.
HIV and leishmania become locked in a vicious cycle of mutual reinforcement. If a person with leishmaniasis gets HIV, the leish accelerates the onset of full-blown AIDS while blocking the effectiveness of anti-HIV drugs.
As of now, leish is still a Third World Disease, and thus neglected.
Leishmaniasis is a disease that thrives among the detritus of human misery and neglect: ramshackle housing, rats, overcrowded slums, garbage dumps, open sewers, feral dogs, malnutrition, addiction, lack of health care, poverty, and war.
But maybe not for long . . .
Leish continues to spread as predicted in the United States, by the end
of the century it may no longer be confined to the “bottom billion” in
faraway lands. It will be in our own backyards. Global warming has
opened the southern door of the United States not just to leish but to
many other diseases.
It's seriously scary stuff, made more so by an author that is suffering from leish. And the leish is inspiring him to morbidly prophetic heights of prose. I expected more jungle excavation, not the end of civilization, but that's what he is portending. It's heavy and wild.
And it made me realize that we were awful lucky on our Costa Rica trip. The snakes are the tip of the iceberg. And you can SEE a snake (if you're Ian). We did a lot of jungle hikes, wearing shorts and not enough bug spray, and we were lucky not to get bitten by an infected sand-fly. It seems a lot of folks in Costa Rica were not so lucky. Mainly folks doing yoga in the jungle. There are loads of stories like this one and this one. Yikes.
This probably won't stop me from returning to Costa Rica. I loved it there. But i will slather on the DEET and wear long sleeves and pants, even when it's hot. And if it's my time to get leish, then leish it is. It's been like this for people for a long long time.
I don't keep up with new music, nor do I want to. I don't need another chore. I can barely remember if something is new, old, or medium old anyway. It's all a jumble.
But I do love when I "discover" some artist that's already well established and has a catalog of stuff to listen to. This happened to me two days ago while I was driving. I used my phone to identify a funky instrumental guitar song playing on WBGO, the jazz station.
The track was "A Shade of Jade" from Steve Khan's album Patchwork.
The album is pretty mellow, but up my alley. It turns out Khan is an accomplished veteran jazz guitarist, and he also made this awesome funky 70's album "The Blue Man."
It sounds like super-funky Satriani. Very fun. Listen to the whole album.
Anyway, I was talking about Steve Khan with my musical friend Bob, and he recommended that I listen to Vulfpeck, which I thought was odd. I don't really like German hair-metal.
But it turns out that Bob had me pegged. Vulfpeck is not German hair-metal. The band is a bunch of music theory guys from Michigan who formed a rhythm-section which they imagine to be the fictitious German version of backing bands like Muscle Shoals and the Funk Brothers. Weird. But really good.
I don't like their songs with lyrics, but their instrumental stuff is fantastic. Whacky keyboards, wild solos, and amazing bass and rhythm. "Vollmilch" is my favorite album by Vulfpeck. Give it a shot. They've got a whole catalog of stuff, dating all the way back to 2012. Which is new to me.
Once upon a time in America, horror and war movies often implemented the Black Dude Dies First trope. But times have changed, for the better. Audiences won't stand for that racist bullshit. You can't go killing off Denzel Washington or Morgan Freeman or Will Smith just because they're black. While this is absolutely a good thing, someone has to pick up the slack in these kinds of movies. Someone has to die in these movies.
So who suffers?
My family doesn't watch many scary movies because my older son Alex is a sniveling coward. Catherine, Ian and I like them, so it's always a treat when we get to hunker down and put one on. I'm definitely not a horror movie aficionado though. Usually when I mention a horror movie I've seen to someone who really likes horror movies-- usually one of my students-- she'll be like: "That's not scary!"
I get scared by pretty much anything (especially Blair Witch and Paranormal Activities).
The other night, Alex elected to go upstairs and pirate some Star Wars spin-off series called The Mandalorian (which sounds like a citrus fruit) so Catherine, Ian and I watched The Babadook.
It's really scary!
Terrifying.
It's the story of a mom who is possessed by the physical disembodiment of her tragic grief. And her super-creepy kid. And an even creepier children's book. There are some mean Australian moms, too-- a macabre Liane Moriarty milieu. It's well acted and vivid, and-- in the end-- profound about death and loss. A good scare and a good film.
My only complaint is the use of the dog.
There's all kinds of creepy shit happening around this house. Doors opening and closing, odd figures lurking in the shadows, sleepless nights, etc. Most of the time, the dog is nowhere to be found. That's not how dogs are. They are investigative. They take up a lot of space. They are always underfoot. And whenever there's something weird happening, your dog is there. Loyal, curious, and wanting to be involved. But not this dog. Not Bugsy. Bugsy is rarely in the scene, and never when the shit is going down. And the boy and the mom aren't actively bringing the dog into the room when things get scary.
One of the main reasons to have a dog is to ward off ghosts and demons. There's no better feeling than going to sleep on the same floor as a trusty canine. If a burglar, or -- far worse-- a shadowy death-creature arisen from repressed bereavement, comes a-knocking, your dog is going to get after it. Or at least bark and run around in circles.
Not only does Bugsy not act like a dog, there's also no accurate portrayal of dog ownership. No walking and feeding the dog, no picking up its poop and all that.
Soon enough, you realize why the dog is in the movie.
To die.
It's not that sad, because the dog hasn't been a main character. It's not like what happens in I Am Legend. That's tragic.
The death of the dog in The Babadook is more perfunctory. And inevitable. The dog is the new black dude. I guess that's progress, but instead of being racist, the movie is speciesist.
Ian and I also had this complaint about another horror movie we loved, The Conjuring. Early in the movie, Sadie the family dog refuses to enter the new house . . . because she knows the house is haunted. At this point, the family should up and leave. Trust your dog! But instead, they leash her outside the house and enter.
When they check on her in the next morning, she's dead.
As if this isn't awful enough, they barely mention her death the rest of the movie. I actually think they wrote the dog into the script after the movie was finished and then added the scene in post-production, just so they could have an early death.
If this were my family, and we spent a night in a spooky new house-- a house that our dog refused to enter-- and then the next morning our dog was dead, that's all we'd be talking about. We'd be broken up and upset and angry and investigative. Every time something weird happened in the house, we'd be bringing up Sadie and how she died and how she wasn't around the protect us. That would be THE topic of conversation.
I know it's tough to use children and animals in movies. Horror movies often employ both. The kids are great in both The Conjuring and The Babadook. And neither movie kills off any black dudes. That's great. But now it's time to show respect for our four-legged friends. They require a lot of work. They take up a lot of space. They investigate everything. And they will protect you from the supernatural like nobody's business.
At Midori-- the sushi place in town-- they give you green tea in a squat, thick-walled cup.
When I picked it up to take a sip, I burned the palm of my hand. It hurt so much that all I could blurt out (to the amusement of my family) was, "Rock-bowl hot!"
My son Alex said that the pain turned me into caveman.
The rest of our trip to Staunton was a bit more relaxing than the first two days. The day after our epic hike up Elliots Knob it rained, so we headed east past Waynesboro to hit some of the many breweries and ciders that litter this area.
First, we went across the Blue Ridge Parkway to Route 151 to visit the Blue Mountain brewery. The fog was epic. No visibility. Pea soup. We made it, but it was scary. The Blue Mountain set up is impressive: great beer, huge restaurant, several bars, indoor and outdoor seating, etc. The place was packed! Great atmosphere.
I only had exactly one beer though because I wanted to get back to Waynesboro in exactly one piece. The bartender was helpful-- he had comprehensive knowledge about every bar and brewery in Staunton and Waynesboro and beyond.
We took his advice and we headed back through the fog to Basic City Beer. This place is in a metalworks warehouse on the outskirts of Waynesboro. The beer is excellent, I especially liked the 6th Lord IPA. The warehouse is huge and has shuffleboard, corn hole, giant TVs, ping-pong, pinball machines, video games, etc. Great place to bring the family.
And they have a kitchen cooperative, a place that was once a food truck and had now moved into the warehouse. Hops Kitchen.
I broke my New Year's Resolution (even though it was before 2020) and had some pork, on these pulled pork nachos, which were ridiculous.
I also beat my wife at Bananagrams, which is not easy.
We then walked across the parking lot to Blue Toad Cider House. Good stuff. We bought some to bring back. Jersey hasn't started making good cider yet (that I know of).
Then back to Staunton. We ate at The Mill Street Grill. A low-ceilinged wood paneled place that feels quite high end, attentive service, great menu, and all that, but the prices are reasonable. Highly recommended.
The next day the weather was ridiculous. It was drizzling, but over 60 degrees. The weather report said the rain was going to stop, so we packed up the dog and headed to Crabtree Falls. We were a little worried about the state of the trail because so much rain had come down, and apparently people die on this hike all the time. All the time! Over thirty people! And pets die too.
We took the scenic route, which may have been 30 seconds fast on Waze, but was also 30 times more dangerous. Incredible windy road.
The rain stopped as we started hiking. I was in shorts and a t-shirt. While you can see how people die on this trail-- as there are a lot of really dangerous spots to take selfies-- if you follow the advice on the signs then you most definitely will not die. The trail is well marked and there are overlooks with sturdy railing intermittently. People must really do some sill stuff on a regular basis to keep up the death toll.
I was able to let Lola off the leash for a good portion of the trail, and just reeled her in and leashed her at the spots that looked like certain death. Catherine proclaimed that Crabtree Falls is her Number #1 Waterfall hike in the world. It is impressive. A lot of viewpoints and the falls are endless. It is billed as the longest waterfall east of the Mississippi.
After hiking the falls, we headed to Devil's Backbone Brewery Basecamp on 151. This is an amazing location: restaurant, meadows, outdoor seating, cafes, etc. The weather had become spring-break-like. The staff was NOT prepared. The outdoor bar wasn't open and the place was utterly packed. The poor bartender was in the weeds! We were able to grab a beer and sit outside with the dog. Beer was great, this would be a great place to return when it's fully staffed and ready.
Next stop was Bold Rock Cider. This was our favorite place. We returned the next day-- it was colder as you can see by my wife's attire-- and sat and tasted ciders.
We eventually sat by the fire and talked to a pretty older mom--a Southern belle-- and her firebrand of a daughter. People in the south are so chatty. The mom had a nursing story about a quadrapelgic who was put into that tragic state by . . . you guessed it: Crabtree Falls!
We also visited Wild Wolf Brewery, which had great beer and food. You could make a whole vacation of hiking and visiting breweries and cider houses on 151. The places are all spacious, and kid and dog friendly.
This was the only sad part of our vacation.
Here's a shot of Staunton from above the train station. Really a great town to wander, with so many historic sites and buildings.
On our way to the breweries on 151, we did some driving on Skyline Drive through Shenandoah National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway.
It was windy.
Lots of scenic overlooks.
A great winter break trip with my lovely wife . . .
And our silly dog . . .
We made great time driving back to Jersey (because we left at 6:30 AM on New Year's Day . . . that's the way to do it). We walked into the house and it smelled weird. My parents had picked the kids up after we left for Virginia. They closed up the house. Ian left a bowl full of noodles on the counter, which had gone rotten. It smelled upstairs as well. One of them had urinated and did not bother to flush. That stuff fermented, yuck. Back to reality.
We picked the kids up that evening. My wife, myself, and the dog were happy to see them (and smell them). But the break was nice.
You've probably heard about Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan's piece "The Comedian." If you haven't, here's the skinny on it: it's a post-modern absurdity consisting of a ripe banana duct-taped to a gallery wall. It sold for $ 120,000.
Very silly.
Last night, my son Ian also artistically expressed himself in a playfully post-modern way. He painted an octopus on his shoe.
Perhaps if he duct-tapes an apricot to the other shoe, the pair will be worth some dough.
Another year, another book list . . . I read forty books in 2019-- a number which seems about average-- and for the most part, I kept it eclectic: fiction, non-fiction, genre stuff, graphic novels, economics, history, and even some self-help. My friend and fellow English teacher Kevin pointed out that I don't read enough books by women. While I definitely consume some chick-lit every year, he is right. Only six of the forty books were by women authors (but several of the books by men are about women, so that should count for something). I might remedy this in 2020 . . . but I might not. Books are one of the few things in life that you have control over. If books by women appeal to me, I'll read them. If not, Kevin can fuck off. I did go down a couple of rabbit holes. I read the entire Remembrance of Earth's Pasttrilogy by Cixin Liu . . . and it wasn't easy. I'm quite proud of this and highly recommend these books to diehard sci-fi fans. I also read four mystery novels set in Wyoming. I don't know how this happened, but I really enjoyed the Longmire stuff by Craig Johnson.
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe.
This selection may be a result of the serial positioning effect, but the best book I read in 2019 is the last book I read in 2019.
The book is about the Troubles in Northern Ireland, mainly during the 1970s and 1980s, but there is a frame story that is completely topical. The story is scary and compelling and violent and incredibly researched. It will dispel any romanticized notions you have about the IRA. The British are portrayed as no better.
These books provided a lot of material for me to write about. If it wasn't for books, my dog, my wife, and my absurd children, this blog would have died long ago.
Thank you books! 1) The Fifth Riskby Michael Lewis 2) An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green 3) The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu 4) God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State by Lawrence Wright 5) Marching Powder: A True Story of Friendship, Cocaine, and South America's Strangest Jail by Rusty Young (and Thomas McFadden) 6) The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu 7) The Tears of Autumn by Charles McCarry 8) The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester 9) Death's End by Cixin Liu 10) Atomic Habits by James Clear 11) Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and The Drug Company That Addicted Americaby Beth Macy
I'll do all my normal New Year's blog stuff soon enough: my 2019 book list, perhaps a resolution or two, but I'm too tired for that today. We drove all the way back from Staunton this morning, and while there wasn't any traffic (unlike the way there) it was still a five and a half hour haul, and I don't do very well in enclosed spaces.
Anyway, the house was still intact and there was a good omen for the New Year in the backyard: what seems to be an exploded/spontaneously combusted bird. No carcass, just feathers.
If you know how to read pattern, you can predict the 2020 presidential election. It's certainly obvious to me, but I don't want to ruin it for anyone.
Saturday morning, I walked Lola to Gypsy Hill Park. Like everything in Staunton, the park is very well maintained. But that doesn't mean they can get away with a pun like this:
In case you can't tell, on the swimming club grounds, there are hundreds of decorative deer. And a banner that reads:
Field of Deer . . . in Honor or in Memory of Our Dear Ones
Puns are not appropriate for sentiments like that.
The weather was crazy warm, so we headed out to hike Elliots Knob. At over 2400 feet, this mountain is one of the highest in Virginia. We didn't figure on doing all 8.5 miles-- the description said that would take at least five and a half hours-- but we wanted to at least see the waterfalls and a couple of good views of the valley.
Then we talked to an old guy with a couple of hunting dogs in a truck at the trailhead. He said we'd have no problem making it to the top. I told Catherine I would consider going all the way, but if after two hours we were still walking uphill, I was heading down. That seemed reasonable.
Soon enough, we saw some waterfalls. This was when we were on the Falls Hollow Trail.
On and on we hiked, higher up the mountain and deeper into the woods. An animal poked its head onto the trail and Lola ran it off. I thought it looked like a small wild German Shepherd. Cat thought it might have been a large gray fox.
Later on the hike, with the help of some locals, we learned that the animal was actually a coyote. In the Blue Ridge Mountains, coyotes look like this:
Lovely Blue Ridge Coyote
This coyote behaved like a proper wild animal and ran away when it saw humans and a dog. That's why we had trouble identifying it. We are used to Jersey coyotes, and they don't behave at all. They bite people and dogs alike, and they will stand their ground until the police shoot them.
They also look mangier . . .
Dirty Jersey Coyote
As we went up, the weather kept getting hotter and hotter. The trail widened and there were many views. Our mood was optimistic about making it to the top. I even took an artistic selfie of Cat and me.
Artistic selfie by Dave
Then we left the woods and hit the final stretch to the top: a gravel fire road which some folks we met described as "very steep." They advised us to take frequent breaks. The Falls Hollow trail through the woods was no longer navigable, so if we wanted to get to the fire tower at the top, we had to head up this road. We had only been hiking for an hour and twenty minutes, and though we were tired, I figured we would make it to the top in my two-hour window. So off we went.
Walking up the gravel fire road was brutal, but the top seemed so close. We just kept trudging away. Lola was fine. Four legs are better than two. We passed the two-hour mark, but we were so close that we kept going. It took us 2.5 hours to get to the tippy top. My legs hurt and I felt old.
Then I saw some actual old people at the base of the fire tower. They were making soup. It was inspirational. They said they came up in all kinds of weather. They were decked out in serious gear and had a lot of cooking equipment. They were having a grand time. We chatted with them for a while-- they had seen the production of Midsummer Nights Dream we were going to see-- and they taught us how to pronounce Staunton properly (don't say the "u"). They also convinced me to climb the fire tower-- I was done climbing but they said the view was worth it. Cat and I both did it and they were correct.
Whew
Going down the fire road was painful . . . way too steep, but once we got into the woods we flew down the rest of the way. We passed the young couple that started ahead of us, the girl was holding the small of her back as she walked and she said she was really feeling it.
We drove back to Staunton and stopped at Queen City Brewing, a brewpub with outdoor seating right by our place. We sat outside and had some delicious celebratory beers and talked to some locals. We learned that it's near impossible to buy any houses in central Staunton-- no one is selling-- and that if you do own one of those houses, you can't breathe on it the wrong way. Everything has to be historically accurate and such. We learned this from some retirees. They loved the town and the vibe.
Then we talked with a couple of Harley guys. They were youngish, wearing black leather, sported beards, and appeared to be tough motherfuckers. But one of them was quite chatty. He said he didn't know our politics and wouldn't hazard a guess-- which we found hysterical-- a couple hiking with a dog from New Jersey, excited to see a Shakespeare play should sound off some liberal alarms, but he forged ahead and started talking about how he didn't like the direction the town was going.
He was worried Staunton was going to enact some gun control laws that wouldn't allow AR-15s and handguns that could hold more than ten bullets. The surrounding counties had become "Second Amendment Sanctuaries,"-- an interesting play on that word-- but he was worried Staunton was going to become like Charlottesville. Liberal! We told him we didn't have much of a gun culture up in central New Jersey and we didn't really know the ins and outs of these laws. Sometimes it's best not to express your opinion.
Then we talked about the terrible state of I-81-- he was a truck driver-- and how he had lived in Baltimore for a while and it wasn't to his liking. His answer for most things-- crime in the cities, the deer population in New Jersey, coyotes, etc-- was more guns. But he was real nice about it. Through this entire discussion, his large bearded buddy said nothing. I think he mumbled something one time about what middle school he attended, but that was it. He just sat there and looked intimidating.
When we got in the car and started driving up the hill to our house, Cat and I parsed the whole weird interaction. Then we both said at once: "His friend was Silent Bob!"
Cat checked her phone and got a sad message. The play was canceled! The old couple on top of the mountain told us some of the cast was sick, and they were using understudies, so the sickness must have spread. We were disappointed, but also insanely tired and hungry. We hadn't eaten since breakfast. We went to Baja Bean Company for delicious and cheap Mexican food and then came home and watched a movie. While we missed watching with the kids, it was nice to select something without having a forty-five-minute debate, which is de rigueur for our house.
We watched Good Time, the movie by the same writers as Uncut Gems.Both highly recommended, if you can tolerate incredibly fast-paced bad decision making-- to the point where you want to bury your head in your hands and stop watching.
Everyone slept well-- including the dog-- after an epic day two in Staunton. Catherine actually got some sun on her chest it was so warm.
