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Riding with the top down
My Hometown I love where I live. (The Minneapolis/St. Paul area). I'm a four season girl who's not afraid of snow. I love the lakes and ponds that wink out at you everywhere you look, the lavish and appreciated green spaces. I love how there's lots of big-city entertainment, music and pro sports and tons of theater, in a place that still often feels like a smaller community. I love the maniacal enthusiasm with which we embrace every nice day (and nice is a pretty flexible term) because we're not sure when we're getting another. But I don't often look at it much like a tourist. We've got guests this weekend, a huge batch of them, from China and Brooklyn and Toronto, and it's our job to entertain them and show them the city. Last night we were out with my husband's sort-of boss, who lives in Chicago, and his wife, and they asked us "what's the one thing we should make sure to do/see in Minneapolis?" I was completely stumped. Since they're active sorts, I ended up recommending that they get a canoe and go through the chain of lakes in south Minneapolis. I doubt there are too many cities blessed with such lovely, linked bodies of water within their city limits. But it got me thinking . . . in your hometown, what would you recommend? I'd love to hear from my fellow Twin Citians (I still have a weekend to fill up, after all) but I'd also love to hear from other places . . . if I were going there, and could only do one thing, what would you recommend? Susie
Top of the World One of the reasons I didn't go to national is we just returned from a huge trip. 2 1/2 weeks, in China, with my whole family. It was intensely special to us: it was son #2's choice, to celebrate the end of his cancer treatment last year. My husband was born in China, and the first two boys and I have been there, but we've all only seen a tiny bit, around his hometown in southern China. So we saw China. Xi'an and Beijing and Guilan. But the sharpest memories for me are of Lhasa, Tibet. I was worried about going there. The altitude (12000 feet for the city itself), the food, the flight over the mountains on a Chinese airline. It wasn't at all what I expected, but it was everything I'd hoped and then some. The flight was fine. A lovely new A330, with a camera somewhere under the plane that feeds to the video screens. I had little trouble with the altitude. The food's not great, but it's okay. The yak's pretty good, though I drew the line at sheep's lung. What I did have trouble with was 1) beds so hard I'd have been better off on the floor and 2) the fact that I found exactly 1 can of Diet Coke in the whole city. Serious caffiene withdrawel. I'm used to mountains that are blue and green and snow-capped. These are none of that. There is some snow on the ones we flew over, but even that is going fast (the Himalayas are losing 7% of their glaciers every year.) The ones around the city of Lhasa are unrelenting beige, like piles of gravel. The city itself is about 400,000 people (small, in China terms; they call a city of 8 million a "medium-sized city), the buildings mostly off-white, in concrete blocks or something resembling adobe. But there the colorlessness ends. The sky is the color that the term "sky blue" was invented for, the sun strong enough to remind you there's not much between you and it. The roofs are often red; the doors almost always are, decorated with black and gold. The door jams are intricately painted, blue and green and yellow. Nearly everything is decorated wildly; decorative painting, wall murals, extraordinarily detailed thangka paintings, multi-colored silk trangles hanging from the ceilings, golden statues. The people, too; the locals wear western dress, but the pilgrims (Tibetan buddhists are expected to make one pilgrimage to Lhasa in their lives) wear traditional dress, layers and layers of colored fabrics, with three-part aprons in bright colored stripes on the women, meditation beads in their left hands, ever-spinning prayer wheels in their right. Colored prayer flags everywhere, flapping in the wind. There are outdoor pool tables all over the place. And lots of dogs; the ones that aren't friendly are often kept on the flat roofs! We went to the Potala Palace, which looms massively over the town, red and white, the winter palace of the Dalai Lamas, built in the sixteen hundreds. I wandered around with my mouth open. The living quarters are quite simple. Not so for the burial stupas. A couple are nearing 50 feet tall, coated in as much as 8200 pounds of gold, studded with gems that number in the hundreds of thousands. Our youngest son (9) was a huge hit in Tibet. I don't know if they rarely get non-Tibetan children there, or if it was the fact that, with his round face and Asian eyes and summer buzz-cut, he looks like a junior monk. There are offerings in front of statues all over the building, and in one room, the guardian monk reached into an offering of candy and simply gave him a handful! He got asked routinely if he wanted to stay and become a monk. That was only the beginning for him. A monk stopped to bless him at the monastery, placing a smudge of black on his nose. We went to the Jokhang Temple, the most sacred place for Tibetan Buddhists. It is a mad crush of tourists and pilgrims. In the courtyard outside, they are prostrating; a quick squat, hands flat on the floor and then slide forward until your forhead touches the ground. Repeat. Getting into the main temple is insane; there's only one doorway, with two lines of people trying to get in (pilgrims carrying offerings on the left, tourists in the middle) and one going out, guards and monks trying to keep everyone from getting crushed. Inside, it is dark and smoky, so much detail and color everywhere your eyes can't take it all in. An old man sitting on the floor stopped my young son as he passed; our guide translated. He had a brass circle in his lap, and as he sat, he poured barley on top, then swept it off with circles of the side of his hand, three in one direction, three in the other. (A mandala, a meditation aid.) He showed us the raw, golf-ball sized lump on his forehead. He is a pilgrim, come from Eastern Tibet. He walked here, for 3 1/2 months, prostrating the entire way, a million prostrations; the lump is the result of his head hitting the earth so many times. Now, he said, he will do a million mandalas. The intersection of modern and the past is jarring. The Jokhang was built in the 600s. (On the heart of a she-demon, legend says). In a side room we saw a monk in his crimson robes, pads strapped to his feet, washing the floor like he was skating, with his iPod buds in his ears. In the Inner Sanctum, where the monks chant several times a day, it was quiet. Only three monks were there, studying quietly. One, again, stopped us to ask my son where we were from. He speaks some English, and as we turned to leave, he called my son back to give him a necklace. It is carved stone, about 2 1/2 inches long, with the image of a crane on top of a snow leopard. As he placed it aorund his neck, his cell phone went off, his ring an American pop tune. Our guide said that the gift meant that my son has some predestined connection to Tibet, either in a previous life or that he was destined to go there. I don't know about that. All I know is I still think of the place daily, the sounds of chanting and the smell of burning incense and lamps, the wild and vibrant color against a dull background, and wonder when I'll be able to go there again. Do you have a indelible image from a trip? Where was it? Susie
Help for Susie This is one of the things I like about blogging. All of you helpful people out there on your computers. So I'm going to use you. We've got major travel scheduled for this next year. Cool places, like Asia and Africa. But here's the deal: I HATE flying. Which means not only do I need help with things like getting through a flight, and managing jet leg on the other side, but the trip has to be great when I get there. So I need all your best travel tips. Things I should absolutely not forget to bring? And - this is major - what are the best walking shoes you've ever found? Also, since I'm in a traveling mood . . . what's the favorite trip you've ever taken? Susie
The Unexpected I am a bit of a control freak. (gasp!) I'm sure that's a huge surprise to you all. Not about everything. In fact, it's pretty limited, but the things I hold tight I hold REALLY tight. But interestingly, most of the really exciting things, good and bad, that happen to be are complete surprises. All the things I worry about almost never happen. (There's a part of me that's convinced I'm warding them off by worrying so much.) The big whacks of life have always come at me blind. But the good stuff works that way, too. And a really good surprise is something you all can go find on your newstand right now.
Small excerpts are being printed in each issue this summer. It's up on their website, and I'll be doing website columns for them through June. It's weird to have your book excerpted and condensed. I got to read and (technically) approve it in advance, and it was very strange. Vaguely familiar - there's a line I wrote! - but a lot of it doesn't sound like anything I'd ever write. But still, it's got my name on it, and a lot of people who were never impressed that I wrote books ARE impressed that something I wrote is in Redbook. I guess there's too much variety in book publishing, and most people don't know what's a major publisher or not. But Redbook - they've all heard of Redbook. What's the best, completely unexpected surprise you ever had? Susie
A Book Report, by Susie The book I just finished is called COMEBACK. I don't know what about it called to me . . . it's not the usual type of thing I read at all, a non-fiction memoir. It's written by a mother and daughter (Claire and Mia Fontaine). They each write part of the story, in their own voice, and it starts with Mia running away (to her mother's complete surprise) and Claire's attempts to save her daughter, who falls very, very far. I wouldn't say I enjoyed reading it. Much of it is too dark for that. But I'm extremely glad that I did. First off, they both write beautifully. (Claire is a screenwriter; her daughter now works in publishing.) And it's, hands-down, the best description of that powerful, all-consuming Mother love I've ever read. It blind-sided me when I had my first child - that absolute and sudden conviction that, yes, I'd step in front of a train for this person, no questions asked - and she writes of that love in a way that is both heart-breaking and beautiful. And it does end with joy, so you don't have to worry about that. Now I'm reading THE HINDI-BINDI CLUB, by the lovely and wonderful Monica Pradhan. (You've been in Canada long enough, girl. Time to come home to us!) What are you all reading? Anything good? Susie
Old Friends, by Susie I have a huge collection of books. I am sure I'm not alone here. What I find interesting is the ones from my childhood I choose to keep. Even more, the kids' books I pull out and reread every once in a while. I certainly read a lot of Trixie Beldon and Nancy Drew in my day and, while I still am fond of mysteries, I have no compulsion to keep those books around, and even less to reread them. But there's a stash. It includes A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN, SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON, MY SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN, and the MAIDA and MARY JANE books. (Anybody familiar with the last ones? They're very old; I have a MARY JANE printed in 1918, and MAIDA books from the early 20's. The MARY JANE books are basically travelogues for kids; she lives in/traipses through most of Europe. The MAIDA books are about a poor, sickly little rich girl whose powerful father basically arranges all kinds of cool adventures for her.) I'm not sure what that list of books says about me. That I have a wanderlust, I suppose, though I don't indulge it as much as I like. Do I have a secret adventurous side? Perhaps I only like to read about adventures. But maybe I have it hidden inside of me, locked up because I'm too scared to run with it. Hmm. Do you have books from your youth that you hang on to/reread? And is there a common thread there? Susie
Why I didn't write today, by Susie Warning: there is a certain ick factor in the following post. You've been warned. In general "why I didn't write today" excuses are pretty much like "my dog ate my homework." Which is not to say I don't have tons of them. But there are days when, I swear, the universe conspires against me getting any work done. First, you have to know that I am not a handy woman. Hanging wallpaper was as close to divorce and the dh and I ever got; an attempt to put up vertical blinds left a broken power drill and permanent holes in my wall. My skills in that regard are pretty much limited to 1) calling my daddy 2) calling Scottie, my cute young handyman, who has offered to move in because he's here so much. And my husband has a knack for being out of town at crucial moments. So last week, I had a whole day cleared out for writing, not one single thing I had to do. Except I woke up to a clogged toilet. Now, this is usually not a big deal. I can plunge. But I couldn't plunge this one. I decided it was equipment failure - my plunger was old and inadequate, and this was - sparing you the gross details - a particularly nasty clog. So I took the kid to school, stopped off at the hardware store, and bought a new one. Except this one didn't work either. Hmm. Another trip to the store. This time I bought a fancy one, with what looked like an accordian in the middle of it, for extra force. Still no luck. And at this point I realize that we have a public health disaster in the making, and so I toss around some bleach, hoping to sanitize things before it is too late. And splash some on, and ruin, my favorite pair of chocolate brown, fits-me-perfectly, they-don't-make-them-anymore, cords. I decided to let things sit for a while. Soften up, as it were. At this point, I tried to write, I really did. But as soon as I called up my book, my computer took it upon itself to shut itself off. Really, it did. This, I decided was a sign. The battle was on. Another trip to the store. I read every bottle of drain de-clogger there, only to discover that none of them are to be used in toilets. But ah . . . there's this fancy-dancy plunger, with an air canister attached, guaranteed to work. Modern technology. Power assists. Must work. At this point, I've gotten smarter, and also bought some industrial-strength rubber gloves that come to my shoulders. I should have gotten some hip waders while I was there. I used up the entire canister of air to no effect. So I turn to my last ditch resource for all things - google. There's this nice article about how to declog a toilet, with precise instructions for using a snake. One more trip to the hardware store. Are you counting? This is four. The plumber would have been cheaper, but by now I'm ticked, and I'm getting this thing unclogged. I dug out a hospital mask that my kid used to play with and strapped it on. Got down on my knees and started cranking. I swear that snake went halfway down the street. It had to work. Because the next line of defense in that article was instructions about how to pull the entire toilet, and that just didn't sound good. But I triumphed! Ten minutes before my kid came home from school. And I was left with an empty wallet, no pages written, a pile of really gross equipment to clean up, and - the bonus here - a story guaranteed to make my husband really, really guilty for not being here when I truly needed him, which is always a good thing. I'm supposed to write all day today. I'm worried. Are you all as hopeless at this as I am? Susie
What Susie Knows About Men I know a lot about men. Oh, not in the femme fatale, hey-big-guy, get them to do what I want by making them want me way. In fact, I'm quite hopeless at that. But I've always been surrounded. A brother, no sisters. Many male cousins. Three sons, no daughters, and a house that is the hangout for crowds of their friends. One aunt, but three uncles. You get the idea. And here are a couple of things I've learned: 1) Televisions exert a strange and powerful hold over the males of the species. It's really quite wierd. I can have the tv on - and often do - while I'm doing other things. Reading, cooking, paying the bills, whatever. But my males . . . they can walk by a set that I have on, to a program they have absolutely no interest in whatsoever. Paula Deen, or A Wedding Story, or ice skating. And still, I'll look up and find them stopped dead, standing three feet in front of it, staring, glaze-eyed, having completely forgotten what they were on their way to do. 2) That "through his stomach" saw is mostly true. Oh, I know there are a few strange men out there that aren't ruled by their appetite. I just don't know any personally. It works best on the young adults of the species. Now, I like to bake, but rarely do, because our family is small enough that they don't eat it all and save me from myself. But I cook when the boys' friends are there, and it's like magic. All I have to do is throw a pan of brownies in their direction and I am suddenly transformed into The Best Mother Ever. 3) Naked boobs are good. Naked boobs they are not supposed to see are somehow much better. It is very strange. I mean, most of the men in my life are - at least technically - adults. If they wanted to, they could go buy a Playboy. They could even go to a strip joint. Several could even go to the women in their lives and see actual, live breasts anytime they want. But still, the ones they are not supposed to see hold an extreme fascination. Remember when cable channels used to scramble their signals? And you could just catch a bit of what was going on? I used to find my husband - who is in many ways a very mature and accomplished adult - standing in front of the TV, with it turned to HBO, which we did not at the time get, and going "Do you think that was a boob? I'm pretty sure that was a boob." Though I suppose point #1 feeds into this as well. 4) They have one-track minds. Which is sometimes very good, in particular when that mind is focused on you. But it is quite detrimental when they are supposed to be doing two things at once. Particularly if one of them is child care. (Mine are excellent at child care if that is their only task, btw. But if they are supposed to be working and doing child care at the same time, look out!) I once left my husband in charge while I went on a business trip. Now I leave long daily instructions, with nearly hour-by-hour schedules of what he's supposed to do and check. But on Friday afternoon, he was working at home, waiting for the boys to get off the bus. At about 5:30, he calls me in Texas. "What time is son #2 supposed to get home?" "Umm," I say in rising panic. "That would be two hours ago." "Oh," he says. Calm, distracted. "Don't you think you should go FIND him?" I say. "I suppose so. Just let me finish this memo . . . " One of my uncles oversees an amount of money that runs to 10 figures (Yes, 10) and receives regular and flattering mentions in the Wall Street Journal. When his kids were teenagers, and pretty self-sufficient, my aunt went on a trip. My uncle's only task was to, before he went to work in the morning, make sure one of them was actually up, because he was prone to sleeping through his alarm. You guessed it. First morning gone, she gets a phone call from the school. She calls my uncle at the office, persuades him to go home, and finds the kid still curled up asleep. My neighbor is head of an emergency room, and has a law degree to boot. Obviously an accomplished and brilliant man, one who saves lives on a daily basis. One day I met his wife in the street, shaking her head and laughing. Her husband happened to be home one morning, reading the paper. She had to take one of their children to preschool, and so got EVERYTHING ready for the other two. Dressed them, fed them, packed their backpacks, left them playing. Told her husband that he just had to make sure they went down to the bus on time. When she returned a half an hour later, where was everybody? The girls were still playing, her husband was still sitting at the kitchen table in his underwear reading the paper, and the bus was long gone. Speaking of which . . . what is it with guys and their need to wander around their home in their underwear? It was the thing my husband hated when the older boys started bringing home girls; it was no long safe to lay around in his boxers. So . . . what have you all learned about guys?
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