Wednesday, February 29, 2012

MARITAL LAW DECLARED IN POLAND

When I was a little girl, I loved sitting at my father's elbow at the dining room table as he ate lunch. He worked just a few blocks away, so would come home for lunch, and while he ate, he would read the paper—the Chicago Tribune. I would, too. In between articles, I would watch as he ate his soup, transfixed by the little indentation in the side of his forehead that would appear and disappear as he chewed. Everyone has this indentation, but I didn't know that then, and to me, it was just one more amazing thing about my amazing father.

The Polish Solidarity movement was a big story—huge—in Chicago. The city had the largest population of Polish people anywhere in the world—more Polish people, even, than in any city in Poland. The pope was also Polish, and Ronald Reagan was President. You put these ingredients together and present them to a Catholic household and man were we hooked: it was the second greatest story ever told, practically! Every day, the latest developments in Poland splashed across the front page. My father always read that section first, and I would read "Tempo," the lifestyle section, until he was done.

It's hard to believe with today's fast-moving modes of communication, but when I was growing up, the newspaper usually had the very latest information about any developing news story. Even the radio news announcers got their information from the newspapers. I waited with anticipation for lunchtime to come and for my father to unfurl the newspaper, just so I could get a glimpse of the headlines and know what had happened in Poland.

One day, my father snapped the paper open after he had read the front page. Reading from the side, I saw a headline in all capital letters, "MARITAL LAW DECLARED IN POLAND." I could tell from the hugeness of the words that this was a big deal, but what did it mean? My mind worked on it. Given what had happened in Poland already, I figured it was some sort of new law that made it illegal for people to gather. Specifically, married people, since that's what "marital" meant. Since married people where no longer able to live together, because that would be a gathering, how did it work? Did the wife stay at home with the kids, and the husband went to his mom's house? What if his mom lived far away? What about mass? Would the husband and wife have to go to separate parishes? What about the kids? Wouldn't they miss their dads? It should be possible for the husband and wife to stay in the same house as long as they weren't in the same room, I thought, since that wouldn't be gathering, technically, but I figured those dastardly communists wouldn't allow it! So how would the Solidarity movement prevail if married people couldn't even be together? They were so bad, those communists!

Worried, I asked my dad, "What will the people in Poland do?" My dad answered that they'd have to meet in secret, and risk disobeying the law. My subsequent questions—about the logistics for moms and dads, and what would happen to couples who were engaged to be married—served only to utterly baffle him. Slowly, his face stopped looking engaged and started looking confused. My voice started faltering, so I started in about the kids, and how they'd miss their dads, and how the dads maybe didn't have a place to stay. Finally, my dad interrupted me and said, completely confused, "what are you talking about, hon?"

My eyes felt like they wanted to cry. "Well," I mumbled, "it says in the paper they declared marital law in Poland…" I snuck a peek at him and he looked even more confused. Slowly, his gaze left my face and started moving upwards, to the ceiling—almost as if he were sifting through all his brain parts to find the right tool to solve this conundrum. Suddenly, his face cleared, and he started laughing and laughing.

Now, my dad has many laughs, but this one was his big, booming one. It's his, "isn't life wonderful?" laugh. I knew when I heard it all would be well, but I also felt a rising panic. I looked at him with my own confused face. When he finally gained control of himself, he put his face right in front of mine and bellowed: "MARTIAL—MARTIAL LAW. Not—" and here he broke off, laughing again—"marital law."

"Ohhhh," I said, my own face clearing. I began to laugh.

Then I said, "but what does martial law mean?" After another fit of laughter, my dad put up his index finger and said, with a gleam in his eye: "pretty much what you thought it meant—but for everyone, not just for husbands and wives."


Monday, February 20, 2012

Peter Frampton Comes Alive!

Last night I went with Beloved to see Peter Frampton playing his "Peter Frampton Comes Alive!" I wasn't really looking forward to it (the tickets were a birthday gift for Beloved), but by the end of it, I really appreciated Frampton—he's a guitar god!! Oh, and he played the planecrash guitar, which was really cool.

It was a really good show. They played the whole album (which I really don't care for—more on that in a minute), took a short break, and then for their encore (which was almost as long as the first part), they played new stuff, including "Black Sun" (which I very much liked) and some instrumentals.

I am not really an electric guitar girl. I like it, I appreciate it, but I always thought it goes just so far. I've seen the error of my ways. For most of his new stuff, there were FOUR electric guitars going, and the drums. And it didn't seem as though anything was missing—very full, very cool sound.

Overall, this is what I would say about Frampton: he's thin on vocals/songs. This is not a diss on his voice, which sounds exactly the same (eerily so). But his strength is CLEARLY music. It's a bit of a shame that he didn't meet with a really great lyricist, because I bet that would have been a band of the century.

Side notes:

·        The fans were all Beloved's age or older (he is a few years older than me, and he was a "young" fan [14] at Frampton's height). Parked around the concert venue, there were all SUVs, mini-vans, and, as I put it, "old white-people cars." 

·        Everyone was so happy—we chatted with the people all around us about how big Frampton was for a period, how every girl had his poster on the wall…like Justin Beiber, someone said...and everyone paused for a moment.

·        During the song, "Show Me the Way" (I want you/to show me the way…I want you/day after day) a woman a few rows in front of us got up and went.to.town dancing. I realized in that moment what it must be like to sit behind me at a Bruce Springsteen concert.

·        There was a couple at the end of the row we were sitting in, and every time someone in our row had to go out or in, which was not often, the woman had a minor fit. I didn't get it—everyone was THRILLED to be there and it was such a happy atmosphere. And you can see where your bloody seating is when you buy the tickets. Crabby people like that piss me off.

Peter Frampton used to look like this, back in the day:


Now he looks like this:

Still handsome; just different without the hair. He has the same arms and legs he had back in the day—very skinny. But when he turned to the side, he had a nice ol' pot belly. I saw just about every woman in the audience turn to her partner and whisper, and I saw every man slightly incline his head. I just knew the women were saying something about Frampton's pot belly, and the men were thinking, "I finally got something on Frampton."

Background (why I didn't like Peter Frampton)
In my house, we had one big record player that was a piece of furniture. That was for my dad's records—no rock records allowed. And we had a portable record player that my older sisters used. They played Peter Frampton all the damn time. I got sick of him. This is also how I got sick of the Beatles and, later, Michael Jackson. But it's also how I fell in love with Fleetwood Mac, Joni Mitchell, and BRUCE.

Anyway, I grew up and eventually met Beloved. When we started shacking up, one day I heard some music coming out of our "office" room that was vaguely familiar and vaguely irritating to me. I could see he was rocking out to it, so I didn't say anything. I was going about my tidying business, ignoring the music, when I suddenly heard the words, "woke up this mornin', with a wine glass in my hand/whose wine?/what wine?/where the hell did I dine?"

I interrupted Beloved and asked that he confirm "the stupidest song lyrics of all time." He was aghast and asked me if I knew who Peter Frampton was. "Oh, God!," I said, "that's who that is. I hate that guy," which led to a long lecture about how Peter Frampton was the biggest thing ever and that he was in the top ten all-time greatest guitar players in the world. I just laughed.

Several months later, Beloved and I were training for a century bike ride. For our 75-mile training ride, it was hot, it was hilly as hell, and we were on hour five, I think. Chugging up yet another hill under the hot sun, we were miserable. I suddenly heard Beloved's voice, "woke up this mornin', with a wine glass in my hand…" and I laughed so hard. He kept singing, and as we crested the hill, he raised a fist and sang, "Do youoooo, YOU…feel like I do?!"

So when I saw that Frampton was going on tour, I had to buy tickets for Beloved's birthday. And it was sooooo worth it. Not only did I enjoy the concert, but Beloved's face was alight with joy and delight. He was so excited!

Usually, I only see him like that when he's looking at me.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Things That Probably Won't Happen

I've been wrestling with my ambition demons quite a bit lately. I shan't bore you with all the details even though I desperately want to, but instead I shall provide a short list of things that Probably Won't Happen for me.

1. Making a layer cake that looks good. I make a cake--and I make a good cake, if I do say so myself (IIDSSM). But my layer cakes look a disaster. Usually, when I make them, I leave them in the kitchen because sliced on a plate, you can't really tell that it's all fucked up. It looks good and it tastes good, so done and done. But one dinner party, Beloved came traipsing out with the cake on the plate and expected me to slice and serve at table (note the missing "the," because I am fancy). It was appalling. My guests did not care for the looks of the lopsided nightmare, and of course my serving technique is not good. No one ate much. Afterwards, I made Beloved promise not to do that again.

2. Learning how to speak Spanish, French, German, or Russian--at all, much less fluently, much less "reading and writing fluently."

3. Being "discovered"--period but also being discovered for some talent that comes totally naturally to me. "What? I have the voice of an angel?" or "What, you think I'm a talented and beautiful actress just by the way I'm telling my friend here this hilarious story?" Not going to happen.

I think that's enough for now...and I'm not sad about it. You can't do everything, after all.

 But before I go, I'd like to also set down something that I discovered awhile ago that will DEFINITELY NEVER HAPPEN FOR ME.

I will never look like Juliette Binoche. I know, it's sad.  When I first saw this beautiful actress (in "Blue," an excellent movie), I actually thought it might be possible that my facial features were not totally settled, and that maybe I would start to look like her.

I did not realize this was not going to happen until just a few years ago. I was walking down the street (what else?) when it suddenly hit me, like the voice of God (or reason): "I will never look like Juliette Binoche." I was honestly taken aback. It's as though somewhere, in the back of my mind, I thought it might be possible.

Modern Family

The older I get, the less time I have. Which is why I have to give a shout-out to "Modern Family." The show just makes me laugh and laugh. There really isn't anything I don't like about it, but my favorite character is Gloria, played by Sophia Vergara.

First of all, Gloria is hilarious. Second of all, I love looking at her. She is totally hot!

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Can't Decide

I can't decide if it would be more sad if Whitney Houston had died as a recovering, thriving artist.

As it is, knowing how lost she seemed for such a long time, well, that's sad enough.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Robbers in My Neighborhood

So I am very used to walking everywhere. I walked all over Chicago, all over London, and all over DC, and all over any city I have ever visited. I've always been very aware of my surroundings and very tuned-in to any threats.

In my current neighborhood, my walk from the metro to home is broken up by two parts: the busy and the quiet. The busy part is the first quarter of the walk—I walk along a busy street and there's a lot of hustle-bustle. Then I cross a main thoroughfare and get to my neighborhood, which is very quiet. At this point, I usually put on my iPod and listen to one of my podcasts ("StoryCorps," "Selected Shorts," "The Terry Gross Show," or "The Moth" are favorites).  By the time I arrive at my doorstep, I have shaken off the day, had a little storytime, and am ready for a nice evening.

Robbers are a part of life everywhere. And I've always kept an eagle-eye out for them. About a month ago, I read about some robbers who had targeted my neighborhood. That there are robbers about is nothing new—I have always read the police report column in the paper and always find something happening steps away from me (virtually) that is upsetting. But for some reason, these robbers scared me. It may have been because one of the reports was that a woman was robbed as she was walking up to her house. She resisted and she was beaten very badly. This really stuck in my brain, and it scared me.

Maybe it's because one of my happiest moments of any day is when I'm walking up to my house. Happy home! Place of refuge, place of rest, and most important: place where I find Beloved. Imagining being attacked just as you're taking off your mantle of protection is…ugh.

So I got scared. I (of course) stopped listening to my iPod. I walked down the middle of the street. I spied houses where I thought there were actual people in them (so I could run to them if the robbers showed up) versus where there were just lights on to fake robbers out. I stopped being vigilant, and was just scared. It made me mad, too. Stupid robbers!

But I guess my threshold for freaking out was met, and I stopped being scared. I just remained vigilant. They allegedly caught these robbers, but there will be more. I hope I don't ever get robbed (or worse), but even more, I hope I'm not scared between now and then, because what's the point?

I guess this is what you'd call a real "baked potato" kind of story.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Fare Thee Well

Today is the "last day" of a colleague I like and respect. He's leaving for another opportunity. He does an enormous amount of excellent work, and he's so personable that it makes everyone else turn up their cheeriness and affability.

It's sad. The whole department will miss him. But I have a feeling that in the coming weeks, the person who will miss him the most is my boss, who will be looking to the rest of us to pick up the pieces.

In the mornings, sometimes I take a bus to the metro station. If I take the earlier bus, a little boy and his mother get on two stops up. The little boy is about 3, I think. When he gets to his seat, he kneels on the seat,  faces the window, takes a deep breath, and then hollers "BYE!!!" at the top of his lungs out the window. I don't know who he's yelling to, but I know he feels the "goodbye" deeply. It's agonized but also cheery.

So, in honor of that little boy and of my colleague and friend:  BYE! Fare thee well! Keep in touch!

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Book Opinion: The Storm of War (Update)

So I recommended The Storm of War to my brother "Matt," who knows everything—and I mean everything—about World War II.

His thoughts, which I thought worth sharing:

"I am about 3/4 of the way through The Storm of War and, honestly, I am disappointed.  It is a pretty good narrative and, for someone who is unfamiliar with the subject, it is pretty good as a general history of the war.  But, there is very little new in it.  And, what little new stuff there is is all referenced from secondary sources (other books already written).  He takes quite a bit of information from guys like Richard Overy, Rick Atkinson, Ian Kershaw, Christopher Browning, and John Keegan. If you haven't read any of the books by those guys about the war, then it's worth it.  But, if you have the time and interest, I think you'd get a better picture by reading the six or seven books from which he synthesized his book.  If you're interested here's the list of books I would suggest as (if you read all of them) an alternative to reading this one.  I think it would give you a much better version of events.

Richard Overy:  Russia's War and Why the Allies Won.

Rick Atkinson: An Army at Dawn and The Day of Battle (He's writing another to complete the trilogy and they deal with, specifically, the American Army's experience of the war in Europe).

Ian Kershaw: Hitler:Hubris and Hitler: Nemesis.  Two of the best books about WWII that I've ever read.

Christopher Browning: Ordinary Men (About a German Special Police Battalion that participated in the extermination of Polish Jews)

John Keegan: The Second World War (a shorter, and better, one volume history of WWII) and Five Armies in Normandy.

John Dower: War Without Mercy (about race and brutality in the Pacific war).

Eugene Sledge: With the Old Breed (a first person account of Guadalcanal and Pelilu by a Marine who survived both)"

Matt is the father of this darling little girl.


The Political Season

Disclaimer: in the past I have voted for both Republicans and Democrats. In my recent past, my votes have been for Democrats.

I am loving this political season. When I was growing up, we always watched all the State of the Union addresses, debates, and, of course, the election returns (which were all you could watch, back in the day). We are an opinionated crew, and arguing over politics is something I remember my family doing as far back as I can remember.

Some of my fondest memories are attached to State of the Union (SOTU) addresses. I love them, because they're always positive and upbeat. No matter who is president, almost everything that's proposed, I agree with. Raise education standards? Ensure a better tomorrow for our children? Protect the environment while promoting jobs? It all sounds good to me.Where do I sign?

My sister "Chris" and I used to play a game when we watched the SOTU addresses. We would call out the names of politicians and Supreme Court justices for points. We weren't that good, and so we instituted a rule that every time the camera panned the gallery and then back to the President, we could reclaim the Speaker of the House and the Vice President—it was just a matter of speed. My dad, lounging in his recliner, would laugh and holler at us (good-naturedly) to "pipe down, some of us are trying to listen."

When Beloved and I sat down for our first SOTU together, I told him about the game I used to play with Chris, and asked if he wanted to play. I was absolutely certain I would beat him bloody—I'm far more schooled in who is who in the city I now live in. He agreed, and I licked my chops.

I knew it would be no blow-out for me when he started identifying the Joint Chiefs of Staff by name. I briefly gained the upper hand with the Supreme Court Justices, but quickly fell under the wheels of his superior knowledge. When I asked him how he knew so many congresspeople by name, he replied, dryly, "I read the paper."

As if I don't! <head shake, head shake>

During the last primary season, the Republican side was settled relatively early, but on the Democratic side, it was Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama battling it out for the nomination. As a Democrat, I was in agony—A-G-O-N-Y. I went back home to Chicago(land) to visit my family, and at one point a group of us went to Dairy Queen. In the parking lot, my brother "Andy" (same brother of the "obviously not, obviously not!" incident) and I got into a heated exchange on whether Hillary Clinton should drop out of the primary race and allow Barack Obama to take the nomination. I was a Hillary supporter and thought she should stay in; he was a Barack supporter. And when I write "heated," I mean yelling at the top of our lungs, lots of arm gestures, the works—right there, in the parking lot! The rest of the group went into the shop, leaving us to wrestle with our madness. When we eventually reached some sort of fragile détente, we went into DQ quite companionably. "Wow," the kid behind the counter said, "you guys were really going at it." We laughed and got our ice cream.

"That," my sister Chris announced when we got to the table, "was embarrassing." We laughed again—in embarrassment. When my niece asked why we got so mad, we waxed on about how we each thought we knew who would best serve our country's interests, etc., and how it was important to talk about the leaders of our country...and were able to get in a few shots such as, "and also, your father is crazy, we all know that, so his judgment is highly suspect." 

But that's what it comes down to, these high feelings about politics: you've considered, you've judged, and you wish desperately to persuade, because it's what's good for the country. You think.

Long story short: I feel keenly for my Republican family members and friends. It's an excruciating time, trying to find which candidate best reflects your values. For my part, it is a happy time. I watch, I consider. I make bets with Beloved on who will win, and we talk extensively about what's happening and why. I'm calm and relaxed. Easy-breezy, lemon-squeezy, my friends. 

But my time is coming: first, when the nomination is settled and he goes head-to-head against Obama. And next, in about three years from now, when the Democrats start their primary fight.

I wouldn't have it any other way, though.

****


Update: this is an email from one of my sisters. When I say we get into it about politics, I mean we mince no words. Strong language follows. Repeatedly. And while this is about the Republicans, the Republicans in my family are just as "colorful" when describing Democrats. And this particular sister has voted for both Repubs and Dems.

"I'm getting to despise Romney already. He's already claiming that Obama will be spiteful and will run the most vitriolic campaign in the history of the world. Give me a fucking break - like he can fucking talk after his shitstorm against Gingrich."