Anger

There are 5 stages of grief, but I’m quite content to hold onto Anger. My friend Matt died last weekend. I’m angry that the universe has revealed itself to be a non-democratic system of the living and the dead. I’m angry that someone who was acting to make positive changes in the world, an entire team of people actually, is now dead. Mostly though, I’m angry for purely selfish reasons. I don’t want to live in a world where he doesn’t exist. I know I have to do it, but I don’t have to be happy about it. It’s like walking through life knowing that things are wrong. The urge is to correct it, but frustrated by the impossibility of it.

Sunday night I recieved a message from Craig, AKA “the Pilot”, that our mutual friend Matt was in a helicopter that disappeared in the Himalayas. A search party from the government of Nepal was looking for the aircraft. Monday morning I read the news that the wreckage had been found, no survivors.

Monday afternoon, I met Craig for the first time. I’d heard stories of him for nearly 4 years, but for reasons of geography and skepticism, we hadn’t met. Craig was the closest thing to “the love of his life” for Matt. Their own relationship was complicated by the traveling that Matt did for his contract jobs in the Galapagos, Virgin Islands, India, etc. But wherever Matt was, the Pilot made a trip to see him. And whenever Matt was back in the States, he spent time at the Pilot’s home in Cincinnati.

I’m in NYC before heading back to France in a few days and Craig moved to Long Island only two weeks ago. I went down to Penn Station to meet Craig’s train. I recognized him instantly from pictures Matt had shared, and from the pain in his face. We cried on 7th Avenue for a few minutes and then wandered aimlessly, awkwardly for a time. Laughing, then crying, then laughing some more. Eating, coffee, drinking. We ended the day having dinner with my friends Luswin, Mark, and Michael. Surreal zombies at the table.


Matt was a Mormon, and as such he rarely drank. Which made our friendship convoluted. I was dubbed his “drinking buddy”, ridiculous that I’d have a beer while he’d be sipping Sprite, we stuck with milkshakes. But when he did have a drink, typically to be social or polite, he’d order an amaretto sour and hold onto it all night. So, Monday night, we went into a bar and ordered a round of them. I’d never had one before. I’ll never have one again. They’re horrible. “Matt’s getting the last laugh,” Craig said.

Matt was in Nepal for his job with the World Wildlife Fund. Authority over a national park had been given to local organizations and he was returning from the exchange ceremony. Six other WWF staff members were passengers on the helicopter, in addition to Nepali goverment ministers, foreign diplomats, members of the press, and the flight crew. In total, 24 died. He’d been in Nepal for 6 weeks, scheduled to return to the US today.

When I moved to my sister’s in Columbus for the summer Matt joked that we’d switched lives. His job at WWF was only 3 months old, and it was the first time he had his own apartment. His work experience up to then involved a few months on a beach in the Caribbean counting sea turtles, some time in the Galapagos Islands teaching school children, a 9 month internship with a conservation agency in India, not to mention his 2 year missionary stint in Chile. His life had been divided between the guest room in his sister’s home in suburban Boston and intermittent assignments overseas.

I spent the last month this summer in the US waiting for him to get back so we could talk and laugh about living with relatives. I had stories to tell him about the surrogate friends I’d made in Columbus. And now, I want to tell him about finally meeting the Pilot. But those are phone calls and emails that won’t be made. And I’m angry about that too.

Flash Quiz - Coffee

Coffee was first cultivated in Ethiopia, introduced to
Vienna via retreating Turkish armies, and
institutionalized in the US by a mermaid from Seattle.
We describe it with terms like rich, robust, aromatic,
and instant. The smell of the grounds in the can is
comforting. The swirling loops and color changes
caused by adding cream are transfixing.

My first coffee experiments were with my mother’s jar
of instant crystals. As a teenager I drank it at a
coffeehouse in Cleveland Heights. In Boston I had a
tall cup every morning from a chain near my office, in
New York I bought it from a man in a trailer outside
Penn Station, and in France I drank it in smoke filled
cafes. My first cup back in the States this summer was
purchased at a gas station outside Bucyrus. Burning
my tongue with the first sip, then running to the
bathroom 30 minutes after finishing the cup, I love
coffee.

And so, this FlashQuiz asks: What is your
relationship with coffee? How old were you when you
had your first cup? Is it a part of your daily life?
What do you add to it? Where do you drink it?

All responses will be treated with confidentiality.


Click here to
re-read previous FlashQuizes.

A Tale of Two Barbecues

My first week in Columbus I contacted a friend from college – Chris Hughes. He’s one of those people who requires two names. In school Chris Hughes was quiet but not shy, wore button-down shirts, and smiled with half his mouth and forehead. Today he works at the Columbus AIDS Task Force and has developed the catalog of morbid humor needed to get through a day. He invited me to a cookout one recent Saturday. I said yes, took some beer, and went. I met his partner Jeremy and their two shelter rescued dogs – Lucy and Susie. “Why not Lucy and Ethel?” I asked. “We didn’t want to confuse them,” they replied. I’m a cat person, so it didn’t make much sense to me either.

The cookout was at the home of their friends David and Daniel, so we packed up the beer and some more beer, and headed over. There I met a dozen or so interesting people, including Tim and Lyndsey, who Chris met in 2004 while waiting 2-3 hours in line to vote. Their voting precinct, and its majority Democrat voter registry, only had one Diebold voting machine. Long lines lasted all day. So they made the best of a Slavic situation and chatted each other up, discussed home ownerÂ’s insurance, exchanged phone numbers, and became friends.

As the night wore on and the beer flowed, I grew hungry. I panned the back yard for a grill. I saw one, but it wasn’t heating. There wasn’t a tank of propane, no bag of charcoal, no bowl of marinating chicken breasts, no bag of hot dog buns. What the hell kind of cookout was this? As soon as the question entered my mind someone said “lets order pizza!” I love drinking beer outdoors and I love pizza. It was a great night.

A week later I contacted another friend from college, Sweet Melissa. Sweet Melissa was three years behind me at Western, when we both had long curly hair. She wore heavy wool Himalayan sweaters then. Maybe she still does, but in the current heat wave she was sticking with short sleeved cotton. We met up for coffee, discussed brick buildings, relationships, and trash talked old friends.

That night I discovered that Sweet Melissa and sister Tanya play on the same softball team. Small world. Apparently my sister and I have the same propensity for meeting everyone. And our mother’s propensity for being memorable.

Tickled by the connection, Melissa invited us to a barbeque at her friend Tex’s home. We arrived to find trays of olives and cheeses and roasted peppers waiting for us. Tex poured a bag of charcoal in the grill, doused it with kerosene, and singed the branches on a maple tree. We ate salmon and Vietnamese salad and drank white wine. Tex told us about khat and growing up in Corpus Christi.

Besides reconnecting with old friends, staying with my sister and brother-in-law this summer has been a truly amazing thing. It's great to witness the warmth and health in their home. Being far away, it's easy to forget and worry about family members. But seeing the supporting network of friends that Tanya and Chad have created makes it easy to know that everything outside the reaches of my possibility to control go well. It's a gift.

With half the summer gone, I can already say that it's been the best of times. With more to come.



What is khat ?
Columbus AIDS Task Force

Les Dutrucs - part one

On Easter Lionel invited me for dinner at his parent’s home. I was happy to accept as Douglas was in Germany for work and it had been a long time since I’d had a holiday meal that didn’t involve a Chinese restaurant.

Easter morning I went with Vincent to church. We chose one that used the Latin mass. Why should I be the only one to not understand anything? After church we walked back to Cours Berriat where Lionel and his father were waiting with the car.

The Dutrucs live in Seyssins, a village next to Grenoble, sandwiched between the Drac River and the Vercors range. The new tram line that opened this summer goes there. It’s a community of bedrooms and garages on streets lined with blooming bushes.

At dinner were Lionel’s parents, his brother and sister-in-law, Lionel and Vincent, and me. I brought a banana bread.

Mr. Dutruc handed me a martini shortly after arriving. A martini in France isn’t the dry combination of gin or vodka, an olive or onion, and vermouth in an easily spilled glass that can be seen on M*A*S*H, Sex and the City, or in front of Viv Ladd. The French martini is either red or white and poured from a bottle with a label reminiscent of the London Underground logo. Mr. Dutruc gave me a red martini, which tastes something like Pepsi and something like Heineman’s ice wine. It’s easy to drink.

I’ve found that in some settings alcohol makes my French flow more easily. I speak it as poorly as when sober, but less self-conscious. If the people I’m speaking with also have a drink in hand they seem more at ease with my struggling too. Alcohol makes it easier to be laughed at.

Being the curious foreigner in the house my friend was raised in I decided to ask some questions. Why should I be the only one feeling awkward? “Did you ever break any windows?” I asked Lionel. I hit the nail on the head with my first try.

Lionel told us about a time in high school when his parents were out of town and he and his brother were arguing on the way home from school. (I was on my second martini, so I might have some of the details wrong) When Lionel reached the house, he slammed the door so hard that one of the panes of glass broke. Or maybe someone was locked outside and a fist was involved. Maybe a rock. I can’t remember, but I do recall that Madame Dutruc said, “that’s how the window broke? You told us it was stormy weather.”

Awkward foreigner no longer in the hot seat, I held out my glass and said “yes, I’ll have another.”

Dinner was great. There was probably some lamb with rice and carrots and a salad and a green vegetable. Maybe broccoli. Some excellent bread. Dessert was yogurt with honey and fruit spreads. And the banana bread.

“What are the little black things?” the sister-in-law asked.

“Little bits of cooked banana,” I said. I wanted to say ‘the meal worm exoskeletons’ but it’s hard to be funny in a foreign language. No matter how many martinis.

Did you know ... ?

My first week back home I shared a bedroom with my nephew Kaveh, the five year old prodigy. I'd stay up late at the Round House Bar, drinking with cousins and high school friends. He'd stay up late reading a geometry book he found at the library. I'd sneak into my old bedroom around 1am. He'd be up reading and would say to me "Did you know pi is an irrational number?"

"What's that?" I'd ask. "You and Gramma made a cherry pie?"

Nonplussed he' d continue. "Did you know that the square root of 2 is also an irrational number?"

"What's an irrational number?" I'd ask, my toothbrush in my mouth. It was like coming back to the dorm room in college and finding your roommate studying for a calculus exam.

What tickled me most though was that less than a year ago I'd been given a child's introductory book to Hindu gods. Each page included a small box with the headline "Did you know ... ?" and would then go on to say something like "that Ganesh is one of the most beloved Hindu gods?" and then tell a story about Ganesh, or Vishnu or Shiva, etc.

Like the seasons cycling, here I was with the reincarnation of Marie Curie quizzing me on numbers in the same manner. "And did you know," he'd go on, "that if you added up all the angles of a triangle it equals 180 degrees?"

"And I bet they could dance on the head of a pin," I'd say. "Do you want the air conditioner on, or the windows open?"

Kaveh would shrivel up his nose and look at me. "I don't care."

Windows open and fan on, I'd crawl into my old bed, and he'd be in his across the room, light on the night stand illuminated, his small legs disturbing the blankets only slightly, the length of unused mattress spreading out in front of him like a workshop table with books and pens.

Half of the days on the island Kaveh made a To Do List for the next day. He'd list the games he was planning to play (Sorry and Monopoly and Old Maid), the relatives he was planning to visit, the meals he intended to eat. And at least one entry for his math book. Sometimes two. The next day he'd dutifully check each item as it was accomplished.

On the trip down to Columbus we stopped at the Thomas Edison Birthplace and Museum in Milan, Ohio. He wasn't too interested in the old furniture and clothes in the cottage along the canal. In each room on the tour he'd sit on the floor with his math book and read. He was a little interested in the old phonographs and the ticker tape machines on display, but mostly he was trying to tackle how to calculate a cube root.

I watched him pay no attention to the tour guide as she informed us that Thomas Edison was home schooled by his mother because he was deemed "unruly" by his teachers. And that as an adult he was never far from his laboratory. Couldn't even be bothered to come down to the sidewalk for a photo with his staff in Menlo Park, New Jersey. He just stuck his head out the third floor window.

Kaveh was happy to have his photo taken with his Ohio and Michigan cousins the week he was on the island. Big cheesy 5-year-old smile. Front row.

Coming Home

Family has always played a big part of my summers growing up. Heat and cousins were synonymous. Since that time, I'm closer and more comfortable with cousins than friends. Or rather, my closest friends are in my family tree. Even if it's a grafted branch. Who better to commiserate about the absurdities of parents, but the people who probably experience the exact same idiosyncracies?

Within hours of being back in Ohio I was hugging both sisters, my mom, an aunt and uncle, and my two nephews. I don't think my younger nephew Nema recognized me. His older bother Kaveh gave me a big hug and smile. Such a great feeling. But Nema held back behind his mother's legs and gave a cautious smile.

He warmed up to me in a short time. Now he frequently jumps into my lap. My favorite is the first moment he's awake each morning. I'll be up eating breakfast or watching the news and he comes down stairs, all smiles and giggles. He's very social.

When I was about 4 years old, my family took a trip to Toledo to visit Aunt Verna. I remember my sisters being very happy about the trip, and I caught some of their enthusiasm. But, after the 90 minute drive I grew cautious. Verna was my grandfather's sister. In my young mind though, I had confused her with my grandmother's sister Vera.

At 4, I knew and loved Vera. She had dark hair, wore Keds and glasses, drank wine and laughed. She was born on the island, but lived in Cincinnati. She said she didn't like to be touched, but looked in your eyes when she spoke. Where my grandmother was crazy scary, Vera was crazy fun. I can't remember a time when I didn't know Aunt Vera. She came up to the island multiple times every summer. She told stories about the islands and knew the histories of every home and family.

When we pulled up to the home in Toledo my sisters ran to a strange woman. She had thick red hair and wore a pant suit with a matching purse. She smelled of perfume and hugged us tightly. I didn't know who she was. I was expecting Vera. I didn't want to get out of the car.

Eventually my sisters and parents convinced me to meet this woman. She won me over with multiple hugs and ice cream. But the initial feelings of confusion and shyness I haven't forgotten. For better, her hugs became more familair as the visits became annual.

And so, it's been two years since Nema last saw me. I don't know if he'll remember re-meeting me in Columbus, but I hope he'll recall later the smiles he gave me each morning this week.

Like my own childhood, this week has been a juggernaut of family. In addition to the large group retrieving me from the airport, I've been lucky to reconnect with two more aunts, three more uncles, and 22 cousins (1st through 2nd-once removed), not to mention visits to two cemeteries. Like my own childhood we've caught lightening bugs, watched fireworks, played board games, gone on bike rides, boat rides, car rides. This time around though I'm one of the adults. Sort of.

I'm still at times that kid sitting in the car hoping there's been a mistake and that the universe will follow expectations., but trying to muster the courage to accept that things might be better.

Home is Where the Mayflies Are

Two seconds after walking the first load of luggage into my mom's house I noticed I had a mayfly on my chest. Silent and harmless, they cover everything at home. Right now I count seven clinging to the screens in the windows. One merely needs to exist to attract them.

I'm home for the summer, reacquainting myself with relatives and insects I haven't seen in two years. And birds. Red winged black birds in particular are welcoming. They're smaller than I remembered, but the red stripe on their shoulders is brighter. Sort of a ketchup red. But with a hint of orange.

Speaking of orange, last night I took a ride around the island with my dad and his dog in the dog hair mobile. With the harbor behind us, we rounded the curve towards East Point and I looked at the sun setting between Middle Bass and Gibraltar islands. Pink and orange filled the sky, and the sun melted into the flat lake. It was nice. I didn't even mind the dog smell.

In Grenoble sunsets are impossible. The mountains block the colors. Sunbeams shoot over their crests until simply extinguishing. Beautiful in its own way, it's not a Lake Erie sunset.

On the morning of day two, I woke up at 6:30. The house was quiet, but the birds outside were loud. I had a bowl of cereal in the kitchen. Watching me through the screen door was Mr. Jones, a stray cat my mother feeds. He was sitting patiently and blinked his eyes politely, waiting for something. I saw a bag of catfood and opened the door to the porch. He took a step back and watched as I filled a dish for him.

Mr. Jones is one of dozens of stray cats on the island. Living behind garages or in caves in the woods, eating at backdoors. There used to be a handful of cats behind my mom's house that she passively cared for. All of them were caught, fixed by the vet, and taken to a barn on the West Shore to live. The process was the brainstorm of an island woman. Within 6 months though Mr. Jones came back. He must not have liked life on the kibbutz.

He finished the bowl I set for him, then silently indicated he'd like another. He purred while I poured. His fur was thick, full of burrs and nettles.

When I was a kid we had pet cats. Thomas, Harvey, and Henry were the first. Then Elizabeth. Then came kittens. Rapidly. Every cat we had for thirty years was descended from these first four. Mom would try to get them spayed or neutered before their first heat, but frequently misjudged the passing of time. One cat would get fixed and another would get pregnant. "Yay! Kittens!" we'd scream.

Sometimes though we'd come home from school to discover the kittens were gone. "Where're the kittens?" we'd ask. "Drowned," Mom would say, her voice cruel and dark, as if she'd follow with "now eat your gruel!"

When she was finally better able to get control of the kitten boom, the cats we kept (read: hadn't pawned off on strangers or inhumanely euthenized) were finally fixed, guarenteeing no surprise generations.

Our last cat was Samantha. We named her Sam, until she got pregnant, then it was changed to Samantha. This misdiagnosis of gender was typical and played a major role in our situation. Samantha lived a long time, outliving her kittens and grandkittens. I attribute her longevity for a proclivity to the back yard. Most of our cats died after being hit by cars. Samantha lived long enough to see me enter kindergarten, graduate from high school, finish college, and start my first job in Cleveland.

In the cat's waning years, Mom would curse her. 'I can't replace the carpet until that cat dies,' she'd say. 'As soon as that cat's gone I can replace the scratched wallpaper by the back door.' Frail and blind Samantha ceased to have a name, she merely represented a major roadblock to decorating achievements.

Eventually she died from cat leukemia and Mom got to update the house. The porch and back door Mr. Jones sits at wouldn't be recognized by any of the cats who proceded him. But, in Mr. Jones my mom found a comfortable middle ground. She gets the joy of having a clean, fresh scented home and the daily company of a cat waiting patiently at her back door. Along with the mayflies.

Renaissance Cafe

Place aux Herbes

The day before leaving France I met Nadine, my first French teacher, to say goodbye. Also invited was one of her newer students, Monica, from Argentina via Italy. We discussed the variety of students at the Alliance Francaise and Monica's experiences in Nice. Before moving to Grenoble, Monica lived in Nice for a short time. I'm not certain on the details, but I think she was living with an elderly couple and keeping house. Within three months they both died and she was left without employment. And not speaking much French.

This story was told with a lot of humor. Dark humor. Nadine found it extra humorous because after a spring trip to Nice I emailed her several pictures of a cemetery there. I think it's normal to visit cemeteries and take pictures. Nadine disagreed.

Nadine had a demi, Monica drank a Schweppes, and I had a citron a l'eau.

Cafe de la Table Ronde

Place St. Andre

I met Jean on his lunch break for a drink. We discussed his recent return to the movie round table radio show The Steve Mac Couine Show. He recently quit after an on air argument with another host and life long friend. They disagreed on the quality of Almodavar's recent film Volver. Since then at least 10 people have approached Jean on the street to tell him how riveting the argument was. Jean was excited that at least 10 people listen to the show.

We also discussed Jean's adolescent crush on Kirk Cameron.

He drank a cafe and un verre d'eau, I drank a citron a l'eau.

Le Cafe Marais

rue Belgrade

Before heading to Papatzul for burritos, I sat outside and watched a bit of the World Cup match between the Netherlands and Cote d'Ivoire with Leena, Cho and her boyfriend Adrien. In a bit of Francophonic solidarity Cote d'Ivoire was the crowd's favorite, but the Dutch team prevailed. Cho and Adrien each drank a demi-peche and Leena and I each had a citron a l'eau.