Transitions

Tokyo Revisited

2010-03-06T02:14:00.001-08:00

This week I went to Tokyo for a couple of days on business. I was last in Japan in the fall of 2003, but only went to Hiroshima that time. It's probably been fifteen years at least since I've been in downtown Tokyo. I forgot less Japanese than I feared, probably because I watch some Japanese television in Shanghai. But much seemed unfamilar to me---in part because I've forgotten, but also because things have changed.

What struck me most, was not new buildings, subway lines and stops, or shops, or even the signs of decline---the merger of Sumitomo and Mitsui Banks, once proud houses in their own right, or the obvious decline of Japanese department stores, some of which have even gone out of business. It was the change of mood in the country. When I lived in Japan some 30 years ago, it was the era of "Japan as Number One", when troupes of American and European businessmen made pilgrimages to the country to learn about quality and inventory control, problem solving, and kaizen. This was before the rise of China, and Japan was the economic powerhouse that seemed to threaten all.

The Japanese themselves seem bewildered by how fast things have changed. For them, too, all eyes are now on China, and Japan seems to have been passed by. I have to say, even Tokyo did not seem crowded to me--as if half the population had retired and moved to the country. The subway at rush hour was not as packed as Shanghai's, and famous streets like Ginza seemed nearly empty. Seoul has a lot more bustle these days. My memory of Tokyo is of masses of people, rushing everywhere---with order, but haste. Now, the crush of the crowd seems less, and the pace decidely more desultory as well.

I only went to Japan a few times during the 1990s, which is now referred to as the "lost decade." I met up with some old colleagues (one from 25 years ago), and they said that younger generation in Japan that grew up during the 90s is both disillusioned and without the work ethic of days past. Though a lot of hope was put in the change of power a few months ago when the LDP was defeated after 50 years in power, that hope has pretty much dissipated (sounds familiar, doesn't it?) Just before I went to Japan, I saw a TV program on NHK that was about homeless people in Tokyo. There were homeless even when I was living there many years ago, but they were really on the fringe---now, due to job losses, it is a big problem. Changes in the labor laws in the country in the past few years have also created a much larger contingent workforce, with little to no job security (this is being cited in Japan as one cause of Toyota's recent troubles, since contingent workers are said to have less commitment to quality).

One person said to me that it has been difficult for Japanese to adjust to the fact that there is now truly poverty in the country, as in the days right after World War II. Then, Japan "rose from the ashes" to become an economic superpower, full of drive and ambition and with prosperity for the majority. Now, it seems to be in a fog, with no clear path and its young too disillusioned to lead the way, cowed by the great economic engine to the west, China. Demographics do not favor a second coming, either---by 2025 more than 25% of the population will be over 65.

Harbin

2010-01-18T05:40:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend, I took a tour to Harbin. Harbin is in what used to be Manchuria, in the north of China. In recent years it has become famous for a spectacular ice and snow festival with replicas and statues made of ice, but it has an equally fascinating place in history.

China was quite weak from the late 19th century, and the great powers essentially carved the country up into "special interest" zones. Manchuria was close to both Russia and Japan, and as a resource rich area, was fought over by all three powers in the late 1800s to early 1900s. When I was in graduate school, I wrote my master's thesis about the relations among Japan, the U.S. and China during the 1920's, a time when Japan was consolidating control over Manchuria and a lucrative railroad that ran through this area. Later, Japan annexed the area and formed a puppet state called Manchukuo, putting the last emperor of China, Puyi, as the titular head. Harbin was the site of some horrific Japanese war crimes reminiscent of Nazi Germany in their cruelty and dehumanization--we toured the secret "germ warfare" laboratory and compound masterminded by the Japanese equivalent of Mengele, Shiro Ishii. There, Chinese prisoners from around the country were transported for live human experiments including vivisection, and most perished. The Japanese bombed the site, called block 731, but did not destroy it completely. Local villagers came forward with artifacts from the site, and the Chinese government was able to piece together the story of this atrocity from their accounts and evidence.

During the period leading up to 1920 after the Bolshevik Revolution, many Russians including a large population of Jews fled their war torn country and settled in Harbin--in fact, in 1925 fully a third of the population of Harbin was Russian. The Russian influence can still be seen with restaurants and the famous St. Sophia's church (above). There are also synagogues, though none are supposedly functioning. Some German Jews also relocated to the city during the 1930s, and some further relocated to Kobe, Japan, where they received refuge during the war.

The ice festival is of more recent origin, and is really spectacular--especially the night show. Every year there is a different theme, and this year it is the 60th anniversary of the founding of the PRC, so there are replicas of famous Chinese buildings including a rendition of the Great Wall and the Great Hall of the People. Another park, called Sun Island, has sculptures made not only by Chinese, but international ice sculptors as well. Ice is brought from the frozen Songhua River in early December, and sculptors work around the clock until several thousand structures and statues are completed in late December. The ice festival officially opens in early January for local residents, and an onslaught of tourists ensues until late February, when the ice begins to thaw. The structures are then disassembled (the smaller ones are allowed to melt in place) and ice is returned to the river.

Harbin is also home to hundreds of Siberia tigers, a conservation effort designed to blunt China's poor image in harvesting these animals for their bones which are an important ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine. The TIger Park also houses Bengal tigers (also an endangered species), ligers (a cross between a female tiger and a male lion), jaguars, white or snow tigers, and a few lions.

Back in Shanghai

2010-01-05T14:48:00.001-08:00

After a restful but busy month traveling to the U.S., Panama, and Mexico, I'm back in Shanghai. I moved into a new place downtown, closer to subways and activity, and it also has central heating. Shanghai generally doesn't get that cold, but it has high humidity so it can feel a lot colder than the temperature indicates. I'll still be shuttling back and forth between China and Korea, with a trip to Japan also planned for the end of the month.

Tonight I went to a Chinese masseur to have a foot massage. I have something called a Morton's Neuroma, which is an inflammation--scar tissue actually--on the nerve between the 3rd and 4th toe. It's a fairly common injury, in my case probably from a broken toe several years ago. It doesn't bother me constantly, but on occasion, it can be annoying and painful, and when irritated burns and throbs even when I'm not standing or walking. I got some orthotics to lessen the irritation and I wear sensible shoes, but they don't completely do the job. In the U.S., the "cure" is to have surgery to have the nerve removed, but many people have complications from this surgery that can be worse than the original problem.

I've been reading a lot about Chinese traditional medicine, acupuncture and massage. Although I tried reflexology in the States, it really didn't work very well for me. Deep tissue massage is common here, and after talking to a colleague who had a similar problem, I had a 30 minute session tonight. It's quite painful, and likely I'll have to have more than one session, but I'm hoping that it at least lessens the frequency. Even if not, it won't break the bank---one session was about $9.

Korea

2009-11-21T06:55:00.000-08:00

I spent most of the past week in Korea, and part of almost every week since I returned to Asia in October. It's a beautiful country, though I haven't had a chance to do much sightseeing. I have picked up a little Korean, though not as much as Chinese. The Korean language is very similar grammatically to Japanese, and although there a few common words and the inflections/body language are practically identical, the vocabulary is quite different (it shares some roots with Chinese, however). The head of our operation there, who also speaks Japanese, thinks I could pick it up reasonably well if I studied intensively for three months or so. Unlike Japanese, Korean uses a syllabary rather than Chinese characters, so learning to read it is pretty simple, and I can already make out words (even though I don't know what they mean). Koreans also study Chinese characters in school, which helps them if they try to learn Chinese or Japanese, but one person told me that many students don't study the subject with very much focus.

It used to be that speaking Japanese in Korea was almost taboo. The history between the two countries is rocky--in the 20th century, Japan occupied Korea, and Koreans forcibly taken to Japan, as well as their children and succeeding generations-- were long treated as second class citizens. During the occupation of Korea from 1905 (Korea was annexed five years later) to the end of World War II, the Japanese ruled with an iron hand, and essentially tried to obliterate Korean culture (an ironic thing, since Korea has contributed richly to Japanese culture). Koreans were forced to learn Japanese, which certainly explains their later reluctance to use the language. There were many other atrocities, including the well known use of Korean "comfort women" during World War II. Tensions continue, in part because as with China, the Japanese have never really come clean on the atrocities they committed in the name of Imperialism--e.g., they continue to be glossed over in the textbooks studied by Japanese schoolchildren, and Japanese government officials continue to visit the Yasukuni Shrine, a symbol of Japanese military rule. But despite the official chilliness, on a personal level there are other stories that indicate that time has healed some of the wounds. An interpreter I met in Seoul told me that when she studied English in the United States, she roomed with a Japanese girl. They became good friends, and at one point, the Japanese girl broke down and apologized tearfully for all the things her country had done to Korea and its people. The interpreter told me "I could not accept such an apology--it is not mine to accept on behalf of all those who suffered", but that she was moved by the girl's feeling of remorse and her need to express it. They remain good friends and see each other from time to time.

Today many young people study Japanese freely and Japanese tourists in Korea (particularly housewives on shopping trips, since the exchange rate is very favorable) abound. At the airport, English, Korean and Japanese are prominent--it's Chinese that's missing. I interviewed one young man for a job who spoke extremely well. Despite studying for only a year, he was able to pass the Level 1 Proficiency exam offered by the Japanese government (I've passed Level 2, but not yet tackled Level 1). I was a little amused at how he did it, though--he confessed that he had fallen in love with the Japanese instructor, who was quite pretty, and was determined to pass the exam in order to impress her enough to go on a date with him. Sheepishly, he admitted that although he passed the exam, she ultimately rebuffed his advances.

Vignettes

2009-10-31T18:33:00.000-07:00

As in Chennai, I have about an hour drive into work in the morning from Shanghai, and usually an hour and 15 or 20 minutes back in the evening. Though I didn't have my camera with me, here is a word picture of the things that caught my attention recently:

Two cars stopped dead in the right hand lane on the service drive (no flashing lights on) with the drivers doing their business in nearby bushes.
An old woman of indeterminate age gathering used water bottles for sale--she must have had over 100--at a toll booth; she was collecting them in a hollowed out area of a cement barrier that divided one booth from another
Two men in a fishing boat, with nets, in a small pond next to the toll road

I was scheduled for a couple of field trips---one to Beijing and the other, this weekend, to Louyang, where there are some temples and the original home of Buddhism in China. Unfortunately, both of them got cancelled. Now I only have another couple of weeks here before returning to the U.S. until the beginning of next year, so will have to put off much more sightseeing until next year.

Lately, though, I've been missing India a lot. Perhaps it's because this past week I've met some old colleagues, heard from a couple of others, and had some issues to deal with there for work. Coincidentally, Outsourced (the movie) was on cable TV one night as well, bringing back all the images and sounds and people. So far, work has not taken me back there, but I hope it does in 2010.

Shanghai Museum Again

2009-10-24T04:29:00.001-07:00

I went back to the Shanghai Museum today. I'd only seen one floor--the one with ceramics--and wanted to check the rest of the museum out. You could easily spend a day here. As the picture at the left shows, each piece is exquisite, and full of detail.

There's a long line to get in, especially on the weekends. But well worth the wait.

Back in Shanghai

2009-10-14T15:27:00.000-07:00

Back in Shanghai, I'm done traveling for a while, other than back and forth to Korea. I'm thinking about going to Xi'an before leaving for the States again at the end of November, and have scheduled myself for a weekend retreat at a Buddhist monastery outside of Beijing in a couple of weeks. Other than that, this week's amusement is drivers.

Since I moved into Shanghai, I've had a car and driver service. Since I was gone for a couple of weeks, the driver I had--who I really liked--is now with someone else in the office. The guy who picked me up at the airport and drove me on the weekend was fine, too. As of yesterday I had a new driver who was supposed to be with me until the end of November. But after one day I decided this guy was just too creepy---plus his driving made me nervous---so now I have another one.

Why was he creepy? Well, for one thing he kept scratching himself--on his head, his arms, his stomach-- he even rolled up a pant leg to scratch his legs. Constantly, and while driving, which is the thing that made me nervous. I am not sure if he had a skin disorder, lice or what, but it was creepy and distracting. This morning he didn't do it as much, but it was one of those things where I kept watching him to see if he would start up again. Besides that, he zoned out and almost missed the exit a couple of times, and had to cross over four lanes to swerve onto the ramp, and he kept wandering over to the shoulder and driving there. So I asked for him to be replaced.

The new guy seems to be a bit better, but he too wound up annoying me. On the way home, he kept in the passing lane, but he doesn't drive that fast so everyone went around him. In my admittedly limited Chinese, I finally pointed out that he was going too slow to be in that lane. So what does he do? He speeds up, but switches lanes so he is now passing people who are in the passing lane. Back in Shanghai.

Around the World in 8 days

2009-10-03T07:27:00.001-07:00

After a hectic schedule in which I logged about 30,000 miles in 8 days, am relaxing at our place in New Hampshire for a week. It's raining here and fall has definitely set in, with cooler temperatures and the beautiful landscape that this time of year brings. Friday night we went to a Sukkah party with people from the synagogue we attend here. TIme to reflect and enjoy the fall harvest.

I spent a few days in Korea before coming to New York and then up to New Hampshire. I realize that I have written nothing of Korea, even though I've spent a fair amount of time there. In part this is because I've not done much besides work there, and have had no time to explore the countryside or even Seoul. I enjoy the food--more than Chinese, actually, since it's very fresh and features a lot of vegetables and interesting spices, and is very healthy. I've picked up a little of the language--at times I do a doubletake because the inflections and body language of Koreans are so similar to Japanese that I think I should be understanding. I find that the little I've learned "sticks" better than Chinese--not necessarily because the sounds are similar to Japanese, but the grammar is almost the same and I must be using the same part of my brain that stores Japanese.

But Koreans are not like Japanese or Chinese--it is a unique culture. There are similarities all across Asia, of course, ranging from obvious things like squat toilets and rice-based cuisine to a group based cultures that value face saving and hierarchy over individualism. But beyond this there are significant differences. I haven't really figured out the thought process, as I was eventually able to do in Japan. In fact, the other day I had an email exchange with someone in our Japan operation, and found myself immediately able to read between the lines in a way that turned out to be completely accurate---it kind of surprised me that my instincts were still that sharp despite being away from the country for years. But Korea is a different story. Mostly I have to keep peeling back the onion in various interactions to try to get at what is really going on. I'll be spending more time there over the next few months, so let's see what progress I make.

Thinking about blogging

2009-09-25T19:12:00.000-07:00

For whatever reason, I haven't had the dedication to keeping up this blog the way I did the one in India, where I posted every week. I was thinking over the past week that I should change this--it's really only a matter of discipline and observation, and there are certainly enough things to comment on here. I haven't written at all about Korea, for example. In part it may be because I spend a lot of time at work and I don't like to blog much about work for confidentiality reasons. However, as I have been out here for about six months I'm also feeling the need to take stock.

The last week I spent in Germany, near Heidelberg where the company I'm working with has its European headquarters. I really enjoyed this a lot, especially meeting colleagues from France, Poland, Italy and the UK in addition to Germany. The shot above--taken with my phone since I left my camera behind--- is Heidelberg Castle, during a more than 2 hour evening tour, which was quite interesting (though long). Heidelberg, partly for its cultural heritage, was spared bombing during World War II, and is really a beautiful city. One of my colleagues is French and we spent a long time talking about how the history of the war, especially the Vichy collaboration with the Nazis, still plays out in labor management relations today. All in all, a very rich week of learning and discussion.

Back in Shanghai now literally for a pit stop, then to Korea tomorrow for the balance of a short week, as beginning October 1 it is a major holiday festival in both China and Korea --Mid Autumn Festival in China and Chusuk (Bountiful Abundance) in Korea. I'll travel back to the US again to avoid racking up tax days in China so will miss this celebration.

Back in China

2009-09-08T05:30:00.000-07:00

I returned to China about three weeks ago and got the cast off this past weekend. My wrist is pretty stiff and doesn't have a lot of range of motion yet, but I'm seeing some progress since the weekend. The doctor did not even want to give me anything to wrap it with, but agreed to put on an Ace bandage, which I wear during the day. (It is a good thing I got him to do it, because I haven't seen wrist supports anywhere in Shanghai, even though I'm guessing most of them are made here). On Saturday I am supposed to have a physical therapy session, though I've mostly figured out what to do on my own. No lifting or strenuous activity with the wrist for at least two weeks, though I should be able to swim pretty soon when the stiffness goes down a bit more.

In the meantime, I moved to a service apartment in the Hongqiao area, which is where a lot of expats live. This place is convenient to the work locations I need to go to as well as to the domestic airport, which is only about 10 minutes away. It's been nice to have a kitchen and take advantage of some of the produce that China has to offer--last night I had several kinds of mushrooms sauteed in garlic, olive oil and wine, and tonight stir-fried some greens. There is a special washing solution you can get to rinse everything, but it all tasted quite good and very fresh.

Hillary, the Pope, and me

2009-08-16T17:53:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged since before I broke my wrist in Shanghai on July 25. I was walking in a semi-construction area (which actually describes half the city--there are cranes everywhere), and tripped and fell, putting my left hand out to brace the fall (the medical term for this is FOOSH--fall on outstretched hand). In doing so, I joined thousands of people of boomers (Hillary) and elderly (the Pope) who have broken a wrist or elbow in a similar fall. It was an unstable break, and, nearly three weeks later, I still don't know if I will need surgery. I have learned how to do a lot with only one hand---it's amazing the things you can do with a knee, elbow, or chin. I can type nearly as fast now with one hand as with two.

Meantime, I came back to Detroit to get it looked after, in case it displaced again and required surgery (plates and screws). The doctor in Shanghai did a pretty good job of setting it, but people were amazed to see an old-fashioned plaster cast. Last week the doctor here changed the cast to fiberglass, and it felt like a real load had been taken off---plaster is HEAVY.

I spent some time at the office here, and got to meet some of the people I had mainly known through email and phone conversations. Enjoyed seeing all the cars cruising around in anticipation of the dream cruise, which was this weekend. Tomorrow I see the doctor again, and hoping I will be cleared to travel back to China.

Coda to the Story--Quality Fade

2009-07-21T04:45:00.000-07:00

So quality fade is not only about products, but services, too. Gradually, over the last six weeks, the breakfast buffet at my hotel has undergone a slow but serious degradation: cheese reduced from a nice assortment including brie, Swiss, etc. to only plastic wrapped Cheez-whiz; no more wheat and multi-grain, only white bread, four kinds of cereal reduced to three, no butter unless you ask---then comes after toast finished, etc. Then, suddenly---it all goes back to the way it was....and throw in some lox to boot---suggesting that the quality inspectors from corporate have swooped in. I won't be here all that much longer to see the slide again, but it's probably inevitable....

Poorly Made in China

2009-07-19T05:44:00.000-07:00

I've been reading a very interesting book: Poorly Made in China, by Paul Midler. It reads almost like a novel, but sadly, it isn't. It's about the difficult relationship between importers--mostly Americans--and manufacturers in China, with all the ways that the Chinese manufacturers manipulate and control the relationship, not to mention the quality of products. Midler talks about "quality fade", a deliberate and incremental degradation of quality and manufacturing standards in order for the Chinese side to cut costs and increase their profits, as well as counterfeiting--making extra production runs to sell proprietary products in a gray market. The Mattel and milk scandals are only two more well known examples---Midler's cases and his research imply that the practices are widespread.

Midler is a fluent Chinese speaker with a Wharton MBA who has acted as a consultant to various importers, ranging from a personal care products importer to a diamond merchant. Like his clients, he often finds himself victim of the manufacturers' practices---at one point, insisting on a refilling of bottles of body wash that had been shorted the requisite 850 millileters, he found himself having to walk back to his hotel because the factory owner, "Sister", was angry with him for insisting on the re-do and wouldn't provide a ride. The importer, known only as "Bernie", constantly finds himself at a disadvantage as "Sister", who speaks very little English except "price go up!" manipulates both his temper and the business. "Sister" is also constantly engaging in "quality fade", with both the packaging and the formulas. At one point, some shampoo turns to jelly and she wants to ship it anyway, and in another, she gradually reduces the thickness of plastic containers to the point that they start to have leakage problems in shipping. Near the end, Bernie comes up with his own "gotcha" moment, but you have the sense that ultimately, Sister--despite little business training and no English--is going to cut him out of the middle one day and go direct to his customers. In fact, one of the main messages of this book is the way in which the importers are totally beholden to the manufacturers. Even when Bernie tries to go around Sister and find another supplier, she finds out about it almost immediately since the suppliers in this business all know each other and do not let foreigners play divide and conquer.

Midler himself, despite being a long time resident and Mandarin speaker, does not ever really seem to help his clients beat the Chinese manufacturers at their own games--he is taken advantage of almost as often as his clients. Even Bernie's "gotcha" moment is something that Bernie himself seems to have thought up. Or perhaps Midler is too clever to take the credit, since he wants to continue to be a bridge with Chinese companies? Hard to say. LIke him, though, I find myself thinking twice everytime I pick up a consumable product made here. You just don't know if "Sister" might be the factory owner....

Persistence

2009-06-27T21:31:00.000-07:00

I have been in China about two and a half months and starting to dig a little deeper into how things work---or don't. In terms of human resources, there are a number of similarities to India, but I have drawn the tentative conclusion that these are more due to the dynamic nature of these markets and the immaturity of the respective workforces, than to purely cultural similarities. Yesterday I had lunch with another HR person whose company has significant operations in Beijing, and she told me it is not uncommon for young people in the capital to suddenly quit a job even with no alternative lined up--similar to what you find in the BPO industry in India. Usually these employees live with Mom and Dad and work is more like a pastime than a necessity, so their attitude toward it is casual. Not to mention that they can easily go out and get another position--maybe one where the cafeteria food is better. If China and India are similar in this respect, it's probably more due to a shared problem of over-indulgent parenting.

One thing I have noticed that has a definite cultural backdrop is a striking lack of persistence. In China, people try things once (and sometimes not at all), and if it doesn't work the first time, they tend to give up rather than try again or use a different approach. For example, they will look for what is wrong in a piece of machinery (or a toilet), but rather than try to understand the root cause, they simply patch it over or respond "huai le" (it's broken). If logistics don't appear to be working out or someone says "no" , they take this as the end of the story, and it's "mei banfa" (there's no way, it can't be helped). Needless to say, this drives a lot of Westerners bonkers. We're all about "ownership" of problems even if we didn't create them, and "drive for results."

I have not been here long enough to get below the surface to understand the mentality that produces this behavior, but I suspect it is combination of education (emphasis on rote learning rather than problem solving) and differing assumptions about the value and/or risk of associating oneself with a problem or a solution.

Problem solving, when it does happen, can be eclectic, and not necessarily logical. This morning I was fascinated to watch an employee in the dining room of my hotel spend several minutes trying to adjust the milk dispenser so that it would let out the last cup of milk, rather than simply go back to the kitchen and get more. Which, of course, he had to do less than five minutes later when someone came along and drained the dispenser which did not contain even a full glass...... .

Juxtaposition

2009-06-22T04:03:00.000-07:00

"We take what's dished out." This is a phrase my dad started saying fairly late in life. He used it to describe what was happening to him, to my mother and to their health, and the slow but inexorable closing in of life as they both became less able to control the events swirling around them: his first surgery for an aortic aneurysm in his 80s, my mother's decline and admission to a nursing home, his own bodily and mental malfunctions. He didn't mean it to sound passive. Rather, he meant that we must find ways to cope with the things life throws at us.

Three things juxtaposed themselves oddly this weekend in a way that brought this phrase back to me. Father's Day, of course---my first without Dad, and Marty far away in America. A note back from an old colleague from years ago, who I'd written to congratulate on his 75th birthday, sharing the news that his wife was undergoing the final in a series of chemo treatments for ovarian cancer--- "and now we see." And finally, the discovery that a small jewelry box, containing some necklaces and a ring that I had given my mother for gifts including her own 75th birthday, has evidently been stolen sometime in the last couple of weeks. It might have happened in any of a number of places--from the airport or airlines to one of the hotels I've stayed in here or in Korea. Impossible to say.

Of course my first reaction was a sense of violation, anger at myself for being careless perhaps---and dismay. Some of the pieces were valuable, but more in the sentimental sense than what it would cost to replace them. The ring, in particular, I wore often and it gave me a sense of closeness to my mother. Then I thought of my old colleague, struggling with the life threatening illness of his spouse, and it put things in more perspective. After all, it was a ring, not a life.

In Vipassana, you hear over and over again---and try to absorb--that all things are impermanent. Over a few hours, I began to tell myself a story of the ring and the other jewelry--whether true or not, it really doesn't matter. These things had a value to me that was mostly sentimental, fending off the sense of impermanence that ultimately dooms us all. I don't know anything about the person or persons who took the box, or their motives. I can only hope they really needed the money that these pieces brought them. I hope that the jewelry paid a doctor for the care of an elderly parent, or tuition for a student, or rent for a down and out relative. In any event, I must face that they have now passed from my possession as surely as they did from my mother's when she died. It helps to think they are doing some worldly good. But even if not--there is the odd comfort of hearing my father's voice: "we take what's dished out."

Shanghai Museum

2009-06-09T05:22:00.000-07:00

Marty was here for about ten days. We didn't go far from Shanghai, but did take in Hangzhou and Suzhou, and while I was working during the day he did some Shanghai tours. Thanks to him, I now know some new places in this highly charged city.

One of Marty's tours included a short stop at the Shanghai Museum. There was no way he could do the place justice in 45 minutes, so last weekend we went back. The ceramics exhibit was astounding. I've seen Chinese ceramics before, but not this number and variety.

The Treo Unlocked--Caveat Emptor

2009-05-23T23:58:00.000-07:00

I don't usually write product reviews, but in the case of the Palm Treo Pro Cell phone (unlocked) I have to make an exception. This is a phone that was given to me in the States so that I could put a China (and India) SIM card in it and use the phone in Korea. It is also loaded with Windows apps, which I've yet to use other than to download an occasional attachment (and if the attachment has a password, you're out of luck). As I've twittered off and on, this is the lousiest cell phone I've ever had ---and I've had Nokia, Motorola, Blackberry, and probably a few others.

The worst thing about this phone is that it has a mind of its own. It does what it wants to do (sometimes on a whim) rather than what I want it to do. Let me count the ways:

The back of the case is very hard to get off. Once you figure it out, it's okay, but even now I occasionally have trouble getting it off to get the battery out.
The phone does not ring when you get an incoming international call. Have tried every setting possible on the sound selection, and all it does is make a notification sound. The only time it works is when I also set email to "ring" like a phone call. While there is probably a way around this, it sure shouldn't be this difficult.
The battery wears down very quickly. I have done all the energy saving things I can think of (such as turn off Wi Fi and Bluetooth), and it still doesn't hold a candle to the Nokia I had, which sometimes carried a charge for up to four days (and I was using it a lot), or even the Blackberry. Palm seems to recognize this shortcoming because they give you a second battery. But then the cover is hard to get off, so a pain.
The backlight function goes down to almost black. I made the mistake of turning it all the way down one time, and could only barely figure out how to get it back to a more reasonable setting.
It does not have a function to tell you missed or received calls that you can pull up separately. ( I know this is a phone function and not a SIM function because when I put the SIM card in my Nokia, it had these features. )
It is too easy to accidentally hit a number/contact and have the number dial on you---and impossible to stop in progress. Once I called Marty at 1:00 a.m. when this happened.
The phone is hard to turn off. You have to hit the button "just right" or it doesn't work.
You have to lock the phone in order to ensure that it doesn't dial numbers, send SMS, or do other mischievous things on its own.
The keyboard is not as user friendly as either Nokia (the best) or Blackberry.
When you enter a new contact's phone info, you have to use two thumbs to enter the number because the entry line does not default to numerical values, but to letters. This is a real pain when you are trying to enter a number on the go.
The clock sometimes (not always) changes to the time of your last meeting. Two or three times the clock has become "stuck" and I've had to reset it.

Almost every week, I discover something new that I don't like about this phone. Glad it isn't one I purchased myself.

A Walk in the Park

2009-05-12T06:58:00.000-07:00

When traveling I like to be up early in the morning and see what's what. You can learn a lot about a culture by what people do at the start of the day.

Across from my hotel there is a nice park. It's quite large, with a couple of good sized ponds and little bridges, and takes around twenty minutes to walk around. I'm usually up by 6 or 6:30, and sometimes on a nice day I'll go over and take a walk there. You'll see people doing Tai Chi like the woman between the trees in the picture above, people walking their little dogs (don't see too many big ones here), or older people, married couples or friends of the same sex, out for a morning stroll. Sometimes I'll see a lone young person, sitting on a rock or at a bridge, contemplating the day before work.

All of these were expected, especially the Tai Chi. What I did not expect was the morning bird outing. In the picture, you can see bird cages hanging from trees. This is just a sample. At least thirty or forty people show up, some in utility vehicles with several cages, others by themselves, and bring their pet chickadees for the birds to enjoy the outdoors, at least from the safety of their cages. There is one area of the park where these people gather, and it is alive with the sound of birds chirping as the owners gather to catch up on the news, have a smoke, or stretch.

Birds are more low maintenance pets, and also take up less room than dogs. But cats are more common here than I would have thought--also low maintenance. Just not in the same household with birds, I'd guess.

Goldilocks and the Three Spoons

2009-05-06T04:26:00.000-07:00

One of the things I have found in this part of the world is that the presentation and delivery of Western food can have some interesting twists. Years ago, I went into a restaurant in Tokyo and ordered French toast for breakfast, and it came with no honey, syrup, or even butter---but there was a nicely cut up tomato as garnish. In India I once had spaghetti with marinara sauce, and it was laced with pickle relish. In the past few days I have had an equally fascinating experience here in China with cereal.

The hotel I am at offers a breakfast buffet that is part of the room tab. It is really quite a lavish spread with a Chinese breakfast, Japanese foods such as sushi and sashimi, and more traditional Western fare such as eggs, meats, cheeses, fruit, bread and rolls, etc. There is also a small area with about half a dozen varieties of cereal. Yesterday I decided to have All Bran and I put some in one of the bowls that I found on a shelf under the cereal with a large serving spoon that was near the cereal area. For some reason the table settings here include forks and knives but no spoons, only a very tiny spoon that is served with coffee to stir in milk or sugar, so I looked near the cereal area for one to eat with. Nothing. I looked by the fruit, some of which is the type that is canned with syrup. No spoons. Finally, I asked a waitress and she disappeared and came back with a Chinese soup spoon (the kind with the big lip around the edge for eating soup, but definitely not appropriate for spearing All Bran, or canned fruit, for that matter). I held the spoon and pointed to the bowl---how was I going to eat cereal with this spoon? She looked flustered. I finally picked up the tiny coffee spoon and started eating the cereal with it---at the rate I was going, this was going to take a while. The waitress went off and got another waitress, who asked me what I needed. A regular spoon, please? So off went the second waitress. When she came back, she had a large serving spoon--no lip, which was good, but three good spoonfuls of cereal and I was able to finish the bowl.

This morning I seriously considered bringing my own spoon--I had one in the room that I had bought when I first came here. I forgot it. Resigned to eating my bowl of cereal with the small coffee spoon, I was surprised when the waitress came over to my table, again bearing the large serving one. But then when I went back to get a little more cereal, I couldn't find anything to dish it up with..... Maybe it's time to switch to an omelette?

Suzhou

2009-05-03T04:49:00.001-07:00

This was a holiday weekend in China, so I spent a couple of days in Suzhou, which is about 15 minutes from Kunshan by high speed train. The city is called in tourist brochures the “Venice of China.” I haven’t been to Venice, so can’t comment on the accuracy of this comparison, but it is an interesting city with lots to do, so I’ll definitely go back.

Although I usually like to explore on my own, this time I hired a guide and was glad I did. “Mr. Yu” was a local of indeterminate age (probably in his late 60s or early 70s) who had been an English teacher, and I gather that he has been a tour guide for many years, rising up to the highest, yellow level in the tour guide hierarchy. He ferried me around to a number of spots, very informative, that I likely would have found only with great difficulty on my own---and as it turned out, even more so because of transportation problems

The person who made my reservation with Mr. Yu asked me, by the way, did I want a car as well? Expecting that I would be spending the whole day with someone who had a car, and thinking that if I needed to go anywhere else, I could simply take a taxi, I said, no--I would take a taxi from the train station. The response: ok. Well, it turned out that because there are few taxis in Suzhou to begin with and it was also a holiday weekend, this was not a wise move. At the train station, I waited in a long line for more than a half hour for one---not a lot different from New York at one of the airports at times, so initially I was not that concerned. However, the next morning Mr Yu arrived; we left the hotel and he immediately tried to hail a cab, with some difficulty. I now realized the reason for the question about hiring a car. Unlike tour guides in other places I’ve been, he didn’t himself drive. Mr. Yu later told me that he had told the person who had booked his services for me that due to the holiday we definitely should have a hired car, but--likely because she did not speak English well, and my Chinese has not advanced to this level of understanding-- she did not pass this information on to me. Somehow, we did manage to flag cabs during the day, sometimes waiting up to ten minutes, until the very end of the day, when there simply were none to be found in the area of town we were in. We wound up returning to the hotel by pedi-cab (as autorickshaws are called here.) No big deal for me, having lived three years in India, but Mr. Yu was obviously quite chagrined.

Nonetheless, it was a worthwhile day. We toured two of Suzhou's over 70 gardens, both of which are UNESCO World Heritage sites. The first was the largest in the city, called the "Humble Administrator's Garden" , which was actually built up by a rather cheeky cultural minister during the Ming dynasty (14-17th centuries), who became "humble" only after a fall from grace. The garden was packed and there were probably over a hundred tour buses there with masses of people from various parts of China as well as foreign countries. The second garden, the Master of Nets (the nets refer to fishing nets) I liked much better. It was a lot quieter and more like a private estate. Plus, there was an art gallery on site with very reasonably priced silk paintings, woodblock prints, and water colors.

It started to rain in the afternoon, so we rented a boat and toured down the canals that traverse the city---down a main one called "the Grand Canal" and then off into some neighborhood canals, where people's back windows face the canal and their front door the street. Some of the stone bridges --some foot bridges and others that allow larger traffic--are hundreds of years old. Along the steps is a small groove that allows people to move bicycles up and down the bridges.

At one point we stopped and got off the boat to tour a small market area. China is famous for the unusual things that people eat, and you could see them in all their variety here---in addition to vegetables and fruits, there were live snakes, eels, pigeons, frogs (pretty good sized ones), turtles and the usual chickens and ducks, as well as pig's feet, intestines, etc. No monkeys though. Probably too low in this part of the country.

Shanghai Auto Show

2009-04-26T04:07:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, I and what seemed to be at least two million of my new Chinese 朋友 (friends) visited the Shanghai auto show. As I did last week, I took the high speed train from Kunshan into Shanghai, and then got the subway from Shanghai Station to Longyang, where the expo facilities are. I went in the morning, thinking it would be less crowded, and it was --but only by degrees. By the time I got to People's Square to change subway lines, the crowd getting on the line that went to Longyang was already a herd. And when I left, the crowd coming to the expo hall was at least half again as large as it had been when I arrived.

Arriving in Longyang, I basically followed the crowd, which proceeded about a quarter mile to the Expo Center. The Expo Center is huge, with two large phalanxes of exhibit halls and some tented ones in the center that were occupied by hundreds of Chinese auto suppliers.

My first stop was the VW and GM exhibits, which were in the same hall. I later visited the Ford and Volvo areas as well. They were all massively crowded, with people standing in front of the various models and having their pictures taken, getting in and out of the cars, and inspecting the paint jobs. You had to fight to get through from one exhibit to the other. Although it's hard to compare, the crowd at the GM exhibit seemed the largest, certainly more than at the Japanese ones --I even found some open space at the Toyota area. There were a myriad of Chinese producers, as well---and their area likewise did not seem as crowded to me.

If GM is able to convert even a fraction of their audience here into buyers, it may be the key to their survival. Still, I suspect that many of the people who visited this show are not in the market for a car, at least not today. When China was first opened to western trading, it used to be said in the textile industry that "if only the Chinese would wear their undershirts an inch longer" western textile mills would not run out of business for a century---yet that dream never materialized and China never became the source of much wealth.

The story is different today, of course---Chinese auto sales are exceeding those in the U.S., at least at the moment. When I first came to China more than 25 years ago, there were far more bicycles than cars, and that's likely still true today judging from the number I still see---but there are also millions of cars on the road that were only a dream then (to buy a bicycle in 1984 could have been a year's wages or more for the average person). Well before the young fellow below, pictured in front of the Buick exhibit, is ready to drive, it's likely that China will indeed be the #1 market in the world by a long shot.

No Paint, No Gain.....transition to Shanghai

2009-04-20T04:47:00.000-07:00

Well, things may have loosened up a bit here on the Internet front and with Witopia to mask my IP address for the occasional blockout, I didn't have to get rid of Blogger. So in order not to confuse things too much, I have decided to keep this blog going. After all, life is full of transitions, right? And this is not likely to be my last, so the title should still hold....

I arrived in Shanghai on the 11th, and started work on the 13th. I'm situated outside of the city, in a place called Kunshan. It is the home of a famous type of Chinese opera, and the birthplace of Madame Sun Yat-sen. There are some natural sites around, including some lakes, and it is on the way to Nanjing (better known in the west by its old name, Nanking), and the often visited cities of Suzhou and Hangzhou, both of which I plan to travel to soon.

I spent the weekend in Shanghai proper. From Kunshan, there is a fast train that takes only 18 minutes to Shanghai station, traveling at speeds up to 150 miles per hour. I was very impressed by the train stations. Everything is well organized and orderly, if massively crowded.

The trains are well marked, there are dedicated waiting rooms for blocks of trains, and everyone queues up, no pushing or shoving. The subways in Shanghai are packed, especially on the weekends, but equally intuitive to get around.

I was able to find a place to stay near the section of Shanghai called The Bund, which is a beautiful and at night, quite a magical place, the old buildings dating from concession days lit up and the boats that traverse the Yangtze River, which divides the older city from Pudong, brightly decorated with colored lights. There is a smallish classical Chinese garden called Yu Yuan nearby as well, which you can only get through by passing through a shopping mall, replete with a couple of Starbucks just so tourists don't feel too far from home.

English here can be amusing, more similar to Japan than India. I passed a girl on the way to Yu Yuan wearing a tee shirt that said, "No Paint, No Gain." The hotel swimming pool in a place I looked at today that I may move to had a sign warning that the pool was off limits to "people who don't swim" and "smashed people." (It took a few seconds for the second one to sink in.....) The Bund is busy with construction--looks like a new highway going through between the old buildings and the promenade. But just to be sure people know things are still open during construction, there is a sign to that effect.....

Last Post --I've been Shanghaied

2009-04-04T07:54:00.001-07:00

This will be the last post for Transitions. On Friday, I leave for Shanghai where I will be visiting for a few months on an extended business trip. From what I understand, Blogger (the application I have been using for this blog and the previous one, Chennai Journal) is blocked in China, so I am in the process of seeking out alternative arrangements for a new blog, yet to be named. Unfortunately, my first choice, Chabuduo, a quintessential Chinese word I learned years ago, was already taken. Chabuduo, as explained to me, means "almost" or "nearly", but often in a kind of puckish way---as in "the car almost runs." The characters (which I haven't figured out how to import to Blogger) are identical to the Japanese meaning, although this is not a word that I've seen in that language. Well, maybe using this as a name isn't such a good omen, after all, and a better one awaits--though Shanghai Journal was also not available.

My first trip to China was almost exactly 25 years ago, in 1984. I made two that year--one just about this time of year, to Beijing and Chengdu, deep in the Chinese interior in Sichuan Province (home of the famous panda bears), and the second a couple of months later. Neither airport was yet modernized, and in Beijing we stayed in a hotel that was under construction--in fact, as I recall, pretty much everything was under construction. I don't remember much about Beijing itself, other than going to Tiananmen Square (this was five years before the massacre) and then later to the Great Wall, but on the first trip we took a flight to Chengdu on an old Russian plane. It was packed, and none of the overhead compartment doors closed, mainly because they were overstuffed and/or broken from previous overstuffing. All kinds of baggage, clothing, and produce was hanging out of them, and went flying as the plane took off. The plane had not a single empty seat, so the stewardesses had to stand the whole time, including during takeoff. It was nervewracking but we got there, and back.

I have been back a few times since, most recently a few years ago when I visited Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing. The change was amazing, at least in the infrastructure, and from what I understand every month brings more. Yet, despite the surface change, many things about China hadn't seemed to alter---which isn't at all surprising given what a blip in time 20 years is in the course of Chinese history. It will be interesting to be on the ground for a little while and dig into things more, as well as to contrast China to my recent time in India. Marty is also looking forward to visiting--fortunately, he likes Chinese food a lot better than he did south Indian.

Burial

2009-03-25T17:32:00.000-07:00

We buried my dad today. The cemetery had been closed for the winter, and has recently reopened. As a kid, I never remember it closing--my grandmother died in February, and I recall other bitterly cold burials as well. This closing in the winter must be a recent thing. If you are on the receiving end of this (meaning you are a mourner) it is decidedly strange to have the funeral and the burial so far apart. Dad has been gone for more than two months now, and emotionally, the last thing I wanted at this point was another funeral. So we kept it private.

The main thing for me was the satisfaction of knowing that Dad finally returned to East Tawas. (This is a technicality, but the funeral home where the casket was stored until the burial is in the neighboring city of Tawas City, and the cemetery is in East Tawas, where Dad, and later I, was raised.) He definitely would have liked that part. In India he barely knew where he was, though sometimes in more lucid moments he would say that longed to go back. But he never said to "Tawas" which is always where I say I am from, which is the two towns combined. It was always "East Tawas." During his active years, I recall Dad supporting--or at least, not opposing-- the idea of a merger between the two cities, but in the end, his allegiance was still to the one that he had been raised in.

Other than returning him to his "native place", as it would be called in India, I wish I could say that the burial gave me any additional closure--but it really didn't. At times, it is still hard to believe that Dad is gone. Other times, it seems like a long time since he has died. Despite his now final resting place in the hometown he loved, buried between my mother and his mother, I can't help feel that Dad is out exploring some distant galaxy, or perhaps in a salon with Emily Dickinson. His feet were firmly planted in Northern Michigan, but his interest and imagination knew no boundaries.

Trip to India

2009-03-23T10:19:00.000-07:00

I went back to India. My sister-in-law has been there since January, her fourth year of teaching in Chennai during the winter months. This time I stayed with her in a very nice little apartment in Nungambakkam, instead of the other way around. She had taken a temporary membership at the Madras Club, so even got to swim in their gorgeous and chlorine free pool a few times! The mosquitoes were bothering her terribly, but they hardly touched me. Guess my blood was too thick from the cold weather... (in the picture you can see Roberta with her ubiquitous and trusty mosquito zapper!)

Very little in Chennai had changed in the 14 months since I had last been there, though I immediately noticed the lack of hoardings (except political ones, of course) that had resulted from a recent court ruling. The overpass near the airport and Guindy was finally complete. Other than this, during my 12 day stay, I often felt like I was in a time warp--as if I had never left.

The trip provided a welcome respite from Michigan winter, and it was great to see everyone again. Roberta and I took a trip over to Cochin and Munnar. I had been to Cochin a couple of times, but never to Munnar, a hill station about 3 hours from the airport. I have posted the photos from this trip on Flickr (above) and a selection on Facebook as well. It rained while we were there, and the lush greens of the tea plantations came out marvelously. Roberta was anxious to take photos of "ladies picking tea" and we were not disappointed. On the day we toured the area, we passed a group having a morning tea break, and then later on a group that was picking in the rain--complete with their rain garb.

I had been to Darjeeling before, and expected Munnar to be similar in terms of the tea estates. But there were important differences. Like Darjeelling, tea had been introduced to Munnar by the British. But we looked in vain for the high grade and "tender tip" tea that I had found in Darjeeling. Munnar is at a lower elevation--the highest plantation is about 7000 ft above sea level--and the really high grade tea grows at elevations above this. Still, the tea was very good. The plus about Munnar was the spice plantations. We toured one, and saw nutmeg trees, cardamom, cinnamon, and vanilla beans, all being grown and harvested. The vanilla plants were particularly interesting because vanilla is pollinated by the hummingbird, which isn't found in India. Therefore, pollination is done manually, and is quite an intricate and delicate process (as you might imagine from contemplating how small the beak of a hummingbird must be....) At a fraction of the price you would find in the U.S., I bought spices and brought them back (you need to declare them but Customs was quite accommodating).

The Evening Star

2009-02-28T16:45:00.000-08:00

Tonight I noticed the crescent moon with Venus glowing brightly below it--a beautiful sight in the western sky, just after sunset. I recalled that Venus can be called either the "evening star" or "morning star" depending on her orbit relative to the earth and sun, and that she exhibits phases just like the moon. Tonight she was spectacular, losing none of her glamour despite being close to the much bigger moon.

Growing up, astronomy was very much a part of my world and early education, because it was a great hobby and source of fascination for my dad. Thanks to him, I immediately recognized this conjunction, which we will not see again until the spring of 2010. Often, on clear nights, and sometimes early in the morning, we would go out in the yard and observe the many wonders of the sky--the different constellations, the Northern Lights--which we could sometimes see where I grew up in northern Michigan--the Milky Way, and important stars such as Arcturus , Sirius, and Vega. Dad subscribed to Sky and Telescope and for holidays and his birthdays a common present was some book he found recommended in his reading---usually quite technical and expensive! Dad called these his "heaven books" and poured over them often in the evenings after work. He enjoyed the change of seasons for the difference it brought in the night sky, and we often had "quizzes" where I would have to name a constellation, a star, or distinguish a star from a planet in the sky. In addition to astronomy, he enjoyed science fiction, especially anything about other galaxies and worlds.

A number of years ago, I had the opportunity to travel to the Southern Hemisphere for the first time, which unfortunately Dad never did during his lifetime. (The closest he came was when we were in Chennai, which is about 13 degrees north of the equator. ) Before I left, I got "educated" on what to look for--the famous "Southern Cross" of course, and some other constellations that Dad had read about and studied on his sky maps but never had the chance to see personally. I like to think that now he can see any star or constellation he wishes--and perhaps even a distant galaxy or two, far, far away...

Compassion

2009-02-19T06:15:00.000-08:00

There is a famous saying attributed to Mark Twain about how intelligent his father was becoming as he, Mark Twain, grew older: "When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years." While apochrophal, the saying illustrates a truism about a child's perception of his/her parents: it is a moving target. When we are growing up, our parents are usually larger than life, though they go through a major dumbing-down when we are teenagers and young adults. As we become adults ourselves, we see them more as they are, but often still with the color of our childhood experience. And all the while, our parents, too, are evolving, so our perceptions need to change not only with our aging but with theirs. And sometimes, too, we may begin to see things we had simply missed.

Growing up, and well into adulthood, I would not have used the word compassionate to describe my father. It was not that I thought he was unkind, but it was not a quality that stood out to me. Kind and compassionate seemed hallmarks of my grandfather's character, not my dad's. In contrast to my grandfather, who seemed to exude a kind of saintly wisdom, Dad was much more likely to pass judgment, at least in private if not in public. And there were simply other things about him that impressed me more as "Dad" qualities: his curiosity, love of learning, controlling nature, and willingness to engage in a discussion on nearly any topic that interested him, to name a few.

It is said that as we grow older, we become closer to our true values. Perhaps that is the case in part with Dad and the quality of kindness that emanated from him in the last years of his life. As our son Harry noted at the funeral, this aspect of Dad's character came into sharp relief as his dementia advanced, and in the end, his mental faculties gone, love and compassion were all that remained. A few years ago, before we went to India, Marty, Dad and I went out to dinner, and we were seated at the bar at our favorite restaurant. By then Dad had found it difficult to follow a conversation, and beyond talking about how he liked his food and early banter with the bartender when we arrived, he didn't say much during the meal. When we got up to leave, however, he went over to a woman who had been sitting alone opposite us, put his hand on her arm, and started talking to her. Both Marty and I had noticed the woman, who didn't talk to anyone while we were there, but we didn't pay enough attention to her for her emotional state to register with either of us. After a little while, she looked up at Dad, put her hand on his arm in return, and gave him the unmistakable look of one who has just heard some well-needed words of encouragement. One of us asked Dad about it, and he replied, "that woman is very sad. I could tell just by looking at her, and I wanted to say something to her to make her feel better."

While it became a more visible attribute in Dad's later years, a few days ago I came across something that made me realize that compassion, especially for another person's sorrow, had been part of Dad's character for a very long time. He was a great fan of Variety Magazine, the trade publication of the entertainment industry, and subscribed to it for as long as I can remember. Among his papers, I found this clipping, which he had kept all those years. It is not dated, but Variety was founded in 1905, so that would put this clipping at around 1944, when Dad was only 26.

Three Weeks Out

2009-02-08T15:32:00.000-08:00

It is a little more than three weeks since Dad died. Most of the thank-yous are written (still a few to go), the death certificates received, the immediate process stuff done. I attend services nearly every day, mostly in the morning, which gives an early start to the day. I write a lot, and sometimes, I become melancholy around four or five o'clock, when I often visited him before coming home to make dinner. But life is returning to the new normal. Right now I am in Keene, where Dad did not spend much time, so his death feels more remote to me in this place.

At Dad's funeral I saw an old neighbor that I had lost touch with since my mother's funeral five years ago. He put me in touch with two other neighbors. Those connections, with their memories of my dad in his prime, feel comforting. I have gone through some old papers, and found things that I didn't notice when we moved the stuff from my parent's house--including some letters from when Dad was in the Army during World War II, a couple of poems he wrote, and his Masonic apron--the last item one I will mail to his old lodge, as it is an honor for a fellow Masonic brother to inherit it. All of this put me back in touch with Dad as he was when I was growing up.

The weirdest thing right now is the feeling of being an orphan. This sounds a bit crazy for someone in their fifties. It is nothing like being left by your parents at a young age, I am sure. But beyond the relationship with the parent him or herself, there is a different feeling when the second parent dies that I did not recall with the first. When my mother passed away, my father was still very much alive, with the prospect of several more years, and he was also living with us. There was a kind of shock then at losing a parent for the first time. Now there is a different shock, that of being left without any parents at all. Some people who have experienced this have said that they feel a new sense of their own mortality, that they now realize that they are "first in line". I don't really feel that --perhaps because if I live as long as my parents and grandparents I have between 35-40 years to go and that is a very long time. After a while I know this, too, will settle in.

Memory Lane

2009-01-26T14:49:00.000-08:00

I have a lot of memories of my dad that need an outlet, so my posts will likely be more frequent for a while.

Today's date--Jan 26--kept sticking in my mind. It's Republic Day in India, but that wasn't what was flagging my memory. Then I remembered that it is two years ago today that Dad returned to the U.S. after his time with us there.

Afterwards, the apartment felt very empty for a long time, not only because he had left, but Ganesh, his nurse and friend, was gone as well. Though my sister-in-law was there until spring--and that softened the blow a lot-- it was still much lonelier at the dinner table, bereft of Dad's unique sense of humor and cheerful spirit. Sometimes I would go into his room--his clothes no longer there but books on the shelf awaiting my own move back to the U.S. at the end of that year--and feel as if someone had died. In reality, I think this was what psychologists call "anticipatory grieving"--a kind of precursor of death when a person you are close to is in a slow and inevitable decline. Of course, at the time I had no idea how long it would be--despite his dementia, Dad was still relatively healthy. But the feelings now remind me of what I experienced then.

Probably the hardest thing for me these past several days since his death has been not going to the nursing home. It was just something I did this past year--it was always at the back of my mind as a daily "to-do"-and on busy days I even wrote it in my planner. I varied the time of my visits, but the period between 3-6 in the afternoon tended to be the most usual for me. That time is now also the most difficult to get through. Sometimes I have caught myself thinking that I need to stop by--only to be taken up short by the reality of Dad's death, and experience that awful, sinking feeling that is so characteristic of a fresh grief.

Despite these feelings, I am much luckier than many who lose a parent. It is hard to begrudge death to someone who has lived a long and full life, and whose final years have seen steady decline in mental and physical function. Rather, grief is mixed with something almost akin to joy--although no longer seen, the person is recovered, and gone to a better place. My grief is also relatively simple, without the complication of tangled emotions, anger, disappointment, or having lost a parent without warning or at a young age. But I have realized that it is also less complicated because I find myself relatively free of regret--a terrible emotion to combine with feelings of loss. And I think that I have my dad to thank for this, albeit in a strange way. Without intending it, he taught me a great deal about the nature of grief.

Dad was only nine when his mother died suddenly after a short illness, and though he spoke of her--more than 70 years after her death, he said that he could still vividly see her face in his mind's eye---it was with a kind of philosophical distance. But his father--my grandfather--lived a very long life, dying a month short of his 96th birthday, and they were extremely close. My grandfather was a gentle and tender-hearted soul and after the death of my grandmother, my dad's stepmother, he lived with my parents for nearly ten years before his own death. When he passed away, my dad--then only a few years older than I am now-- was filled with remorse. No one who knew Dad would have doubted his love or dedication to my grandfather especially during his final years. But despite being told this by many people, including my mother and me, he was quite inconsolable.

People who knew my father only in his later years, his personality softened by dementia, saw a man very much like my memories of my granddad--sweet and gentle, and full of kindness. But in his prime, Dad could be short tempered and impatient, and he had a decidedly directive--some might say controlling--nature. I think it pained him immensely to see my grandfather losing his physical and mental abilities, and his and my mother's lives were also constrained by their duties as caregivers especially in my grandfather's last years. These pressures sometimes caused Dad to be sharp and overbearing, and when my grandfather passed away, he deeply regretted those occasions. "I was too hard on Pa," he would say to me; "he couldn't help what was happening. I should have been more patient with him." I know that this remorse added considerably to his grief.

I can't say that I thought of this consciously when Dad grew older and became less able to look after himself, but I think now that it must have worked on me in some invisible way. My grandfather never approached Dad's degree of dementia--two years before his death he was still using words like "loquacious" and "supple" in conversation--but both body and mind were in decline and the sad part was that he was both aware of it and cognizant of the stress he was causing my father. "Joe barks at me," he would say, "but I know he doesn't mean it." There was only one time that I can recall that I lost patience with Dad --he had messed up something in the kitchen a year or so before we went to India---and I felt terrible afterwards that I had "barked" at him in the same way he had done with his father so many years before. At that point I did recall his remorse after my grandfather passed, and resolved to try not to give myself the same punishment. Part of my determination to take him to India was my belief--shared by Marty-- that being with us, whatever the risks, would far outweigh any "danger" he might be in living in a developing country. As it turned out, he got better care than we could have hoped for even in the United States, and we had the pleasure of being with him and seeing him make new friends. My main regret after he left was that he might have stayed there a bit longer. But then Marty reminds me of the difficult journey back on the plane, and I know that we were close to the right time.

Of course, if I had these years to do over, I would surely have spent more time with him, talked to him more, and been less distracted, especially in India. On one level I know that his dementia became so advanced that he probably wouldn't have known the difference. But I would have. Still, I am thankful that I learned to anticipate the grief that I now feel--and somehow understood in time that it is hard enough without adding the sharp sting of remorse.

Dad's Final Journey

2009-01-22T11:11:00.000-08:00

As the country prepared for the long-awaited transition from the Bush years to the Obama years, I was experiencing a transition of a very different kind: my father's passage from this world to the next. Dad died peacefully and in no evident pain a week ago today.

Years ago when I read Little Women, the description of Beth's wish for her then imminent death stuck with me--she simply hoped that the tide would go out easily. So it was with Dad. Just before his 91st birthday last month, he told first the head nurse, and then me, that he was dying. "I can't put anything in my body anymore, " he replied, when the nurse asked him gently why he thought so. He lost even more weight after that, and in the last few days no longer sat up--clearly conserving all of his energy just to stay alive. The nursing home staff, who see this all the time, told me then that he probably had less than a couple of weeks to live. As it turned out, it was under a week.

Though he went quickly in the end and I did not quite reach the nursing home in time for his final breath, I spent a lot of time with him those last few days and nights. I tried to be a faithful visitor this past year, often biking the three mile distance to the nursing home in summer--as he would have done himself, for he never took the car when he could bike or walk somewhere-- and going almost every day I was in town. I confess that there were many times when I could not stay long--I found it too difficult to watch him struggling to eat, or he would be asleep, or just out of it. But during the year there were also longer visits, when we had time to share his favorite music, the poems of Emily Dickinson, or conversations where he would enthusiastically try to explain something to me--though often struggling to find the words. The miracle was that as advanced as his dementia had become, he always knew us, and never lost the ability to say "I love you"---many times with tears in his eyes. There were other things that got through to him--a few days after I had broken the news to him of his older sister's death, he was able to recall it, and thereafter sometimes called me by her name instead of my own.

At the funeral, I heard many wonderful stories about my dad, and the tributes paid to him were truly heartwarming. One of his only remaining high school classmates showed up--there are now only two left in the Class of '35-- and told of knowing my dad as a boy. A neighbor recalled my dad tutoring him in math. And a fellow Mason told me a wonderful and very funny story of my dad's early days working in the family dry goods store.

My ritual of visiting the nursing home now shifts to the ritual of saying Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, for the next 11 months. At 91, Dad lived a long and full life, and it was a special joy to have him with us after my mother died and in India. I am grateful we had him for so long.

Exultation is the going

Of an inland soul to sea-

Past the Houses-

Past the Headlands-

Into deep Eternity.

Bred as we, among the mountains,

Can the sailor understand

The divine intoxication

Of the first league out from Land?

---Emily Dickinson

RIng out the old, bring on the new....

2009-01-01T10:00:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! It's the beginning of a new year, and I realize I haven't written for over a month. Perhaps because there hasn't been much to write about, although I'm sure I could have found something: icestorms escaped (we were in Michigan when the one hit in New Hampshire, and vice versa), travels to New York and Las Vegas (where I attended a fantastic conference on executive coaching), looking for a job, etc.

Bottom line, as the year ends and a new one begins, I'm still feeling like I'm "in transition." Looking back, it's been a pretty strange year.

Other than a little consulting here and there, I haven't worked for the first time since I was 15 years old. Initially, I enjoyed the time off, but now I'm eager to get back and do something meaningful.

I haven't forgotten as much Japanese as I thought (as I studied intensively for a proficiency exam in December).

At times I still miss India. I may go back this winter since my sister-in-law will be teaching there.

Despite having more time to work out (which I did), I gained 12 pounds. Feel a bit like Oprah in that respect: how did this happen? Definitely want to reverse that and then some in 2009.

I attended Vipassana in the spring and discovered that meditation is a big key to my equilibrium. I will likely do this in one form or another the rest of my life.
Ditto yoga. Although I've been spotty at going to the yoga studio the last few months, I faithfully do several poses every morning, courtesy of the Wii Fit. Gets my circulation going and clears my mind for the day.

I'm no longer a vegetarian. I don't go wild over meat, but I do enjoy it a few times a week. (hope this isn't related to #4 above.....)

Have spent a lot more time at our place in Keene. Really love it here. Many times when we return to Detroit I feel a drain on my energy--no surprise given the dismal environment.

As the year begins, there is a lot to be grateful for: family, health, my dad still being with us, the bright future of a new and dynamic president.....I'm looking forward to 2009.

Prayers for Bombay

2008-11-29T07:07:00.000-08:00

This photo was taken a little over a year ago from the second floor of the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai, where I was attending a conference. Only a few steps away from the Gates of India, the waterfront is a popular place for morning prayers.....

The Beg Three?

2008-11-22T08:20:00.000-08:00

It sure was a sorry sight to watch the heads of the Big Three--not to mention the bone-headed academic, Peter Morici, who contradicted himself at least half dozen times during his counterpoint, before Congress this week. But subpar performance seemed to be the order of the day in Congress as well---any measure to save the domestic auto industry from collapse is pennies on the dollar versus the yet unseen impact of the financial services bailout. On balance, it was all so bad from so many points of view that after a while, seeing it almost as Sarah Palin redux, I had to stop watching.

A lot has been made of the fact that these guys hopped corporate jets to arrive in Washington. Personally, I think they were just at the wrong place at the wrong time--there's no way that the heads of Lehman Brothers or AIG took Amtrak the other week when they, too, were on the firing line--they just didn't get called on it. Used judicially and structured properly, a corporate jet may save both time and money--as the head of a company typically has security and staff that travel with him/her, and commercial flights are notably unreliable. Having said this I agree with the uproar, because it's clearly a perq that has become a symbol of corporate greed and privilege as well (e.g. why does a guy who makes $21 million a year need to have the company pay for his family to travel--other than ego)? The criticism could be leveled, however, at countless other companies, including some of the other ones asking for government money. So to me, this issue, while valid, is also something of a red herring.

No, the bigger problem was that these guys were, to a person (including Gettelfinger), poorly prepared and out of touch with public perception, and they came across like corporate suits, not heads of organizations that may be bigger than some countries. Don't get me wrong. I have a lot of respect for what Alan Mulally has done at Ford, and it's a credit to him that the company is in the best shape of the three. But, for none of these men to be able to answer how they would use the money--or give any assurance that they "got it" re: executive compensation (how it's possible that this question wasn't anticipated and well prepared for is beyond me) was stunning.

Their poor performance aside, the hostility of the questioning was also a testimony to the sentiment that still exists towards the domestic car industry in general, including some perceptions that are clearly outdated. I do find it ironic that members of Congress could not get past this emotion, when they agreed with very little debate to bail out the even more egregious financial services industry---if you want to see really lavish living on abysmal performance, go to the Hamptons and not metro Detroit. But, I really don't see how any of the Big Three heads earned even half their salaries this past week. In the parlance of Jack Welch, they all acted like "C" players.

An Amazing Time

2008-11-16T12:01:00.000-08:00

As we now wait for the inauguration of a new president, this is a time that many Americans, including me, will long remember. The day after the election, I put aside the front section of The New York Times--much as my dad did for the end of World War II and the first man on the moon. I found those editions, and several other headlines of momentous events, wrapped in plastic in the basement when I cleaned out the family homestead a few years ago. Now I have another to add to the collection, equally momentous. Like many Americans, I feel an enormous sense of relief that the long election campaign is over--but equally, pride at the outcome. The news media seems to be reeling as well--there just isn't as much to cover on the transition, and they have been struggling to fill the gap---with all the Sarah Palin interviews, I have to hope....isn't it moose season yet?

There are some events that you always remember where you were--for me, those include the assassination of President Kennedy, the first man on the moon, the blow up of the Challenger, and 9/11. Now I will always be able to see the news flashing across the screen, when shortly after the California polls closed, the election was called for Obama. Despite the terrible times we are in, this is a kind of sea change--a shift that had already started to happen before the election, and is being coalesced by it. I'm glad I was here in America for this. Although there is so much work ahead of this country and it doesn't appear we have hit bottom yet, there is also a feeling of hope and movement. The news channels have moved over to "the transition" and trying to second guess Presidential appointments and policies. In due course, we will know all of this for sure, just like the outcome of the election, but it's fun re-watching Saturday Night Live just being able to laugh, this time with no sense of stress at the outcome.

Within a couple of days of the election, fall went into its blustery stage. We had Indian summer days for the election and the days leading up to it, but for the past two weeks it has been windy, cold, and the trees are mostly bare. This is the first sign of winter. I am in Keene at the moment, which is at the eastern end of the time zone, and it is getting dark very early--around 4:30 p.m. That's another harbinger of winter. Seems impossible that it's already a year that I was getting ready to come back to the U.S.

Seward's Folly Revisited

2008-10-31T09:42:00.000-07:00

Only four more days until the U.S. presidential election. I know people are watching this around the world, and some are doing even more than that--I saw a newscast the other day about an Australian who felt so strongly about it that she came to the U.S. to volunteer on the Obama campaign, and I've gotten notes from people in other parts of the world, as well. The U.S. still casts an incredibly long shadow, and our choice here really matters.

So that I could volunteer on Election Day, I filed my absentee ballot a couple of weeks ago. I also helped my dad with his. Although he understands very little, I still went through the process of showing him, and trying to explain, the ballot. I got the shock of my life. This is a man who can say "I love you" , "I love everybody" and very little else--he certainly can't carry on a conversation (though at times he tries). But, when I showed him the ballot, pen in hand, and said, "Dad, are you still a Democrat?" he looked right at me and replied, his eyes flashing, "You're damn right I am!" Well, I guess we know his vote.....

This election has consumed most of America for the last couple of months, and a lot of the people I talk to will be relieved when it's over. The daily polls, campaign speeches (we went to see Joe Biden when he spoke here several weeks ago), the ad campaigns, exhaustive commentary and analysis, and the political satire--it's gotten old, and enough already (especially "Joe the Plumber"). There is one impact of the last few weeks, however, that I didn't expect, and it's a little odd--maybe it's something I will get over in the fullness of time. And that is my sudden and visceral aversion to Alaska.

The press and bloggers--not to mention Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show--have commented on Sarah Palin ad infinitum. Think of her what you will, you have to give her credit for providing endless fodder for comic relief in what has been a very high stakes, high tension election. But as a candidate for the second highest office in the land, she has also added noticeably to many people's stress level--as unimaginable as it seemed that anyone could top the hubris of George Bush, she has done so. A very scary lady indeed to have in a position of power.

I didn't realize quite how I had been impacted by this ongoing saga until the other day when I came across a beautiful 2009 calendar of scenic Alaska that I picked up when Marty and I went on our cruise earlier this year. I looked at it and found myself thinking, "nah, I really don't want to hang this anywhere--maybe I need to look for another one." Then, a day or so later, we got a promotional flyer from Princess Cruises on Alaska offerings next year. While we didn't plan to go back for another four or five years, I now found myself thinking, as I pitched the flyer onto the newspaper recycling pile, "I don't EVER want to go back." Of course, this is just unfair--Alaska boasts spectacular scenery and there were places we didn't get to see that we thought we might enjoy next time. But, at least for now, I'm completely soured on the place.

In American history, the acquisition of the Alaska territory was known for many years as "Seward's Folly" --for William Seward, Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln/Andrew Johnson, who negotiated the purchase from Russia of what was widely considered a frozen wasteland. That moniker got submarined when gold, and then later oil, were discovered. Sourpuss that I've become, I'm thinking maybe it's time to bring it back...

What I Thought I'd Never Be.....

2008-10-18T10:51:00.000-07:00

Effective this week, I'm working. I've signed on with a consulting company based in the East Coast whose clients need help with international HR matters. The work so far is by email and phone, although the company is growing rapidly so other projects requiring face to face contact could pop up. For now, this is fine with me and I'm happy to be easing back into the world of work.

The company's prinicipal offered several options for how to work with them, including full time employment, but I decided that I would rather start out as an independent contractor and see how that goes. I set myself up as a limited liability company, got an employee identification number, and opened a bank account. All of this took under two hours, and voila! I'm something I never thought I would be: a consultant.. Now that I'm on this path, I'm also toying around with the idea of trying to teach part time as well--something I had put on hold with the idea that I would be working fulltime and possibly having to commute from another part of the country. But working from home opens that back up as a possiblity.

In the meantime, the job market has all but dried up here in Detroit. Searches are still going on and I continue to get 1-2 calls or emails per week from search firms, but companies are dragging their feet and putting things on hold until the economy picks up--which could be a while.

The other thing that I'm doing is volunteering for the Obama campaign. Although Michigan appears to be solid for Obama--in fact many of the paid staffers are being transferred to the battleground states and ad coverage is being reduced here--the campaign is taking the wise strategy that "no lead is big enough." I'm happy that Obama is ahead in the polls, but the lead is by no means a comfortable one yet. It's very nervewracking as we head closer to election day.

Autumn Splendor

2008-10-05T17:52:00.000-07:00

Fellow India blogger Basia writes glowingly of fall ("There's something about September"), and I agree with her. Now October has arrived, and with it, noticeably shorter days, cool--even mildly cold--weather, and best of all, the glorious colors of the trees as they prepare to shed their leaves for winter. After celebrating the Jewish New Year with family in Detroit, Marty and I took a quick trip to our house in Keene to catch this, and you can see that Vermont and New Hampshire did not disappoint.....

There are more photos on top on Flickr (click on one and it will take you to the whole set).

In news on the job front, I have a couple of strong possibilities, one of which I hope pans out in the next couple of weeks. Of course, the state of the economy here is pretty dismal and everyone is nervous because of the crisis on Wall Street and the recent bailout, so nothing is certain. All the more reason to take time to appreciate this glorious scenery, a reminder that the best things in life are those that carry no price tag.

The Elephant in the Room

2008-09-23T05:55:00.000-07:00

It's time to comment on the state of the elections, especially for my non-American readers. People outside the U.S. must be shaking their heads in disbelief that the U.S. presidential race is so close. George Bush, in addition to being an unpopular president abroad, is wildly unpopular at home--71% disapprove of his performance in office, a record in U.S. history. The American economy and job losses are the worst since the Great Depression in the 1930's. The budget surplus of the Clinton years has long since disappeared--and the deficit will keep on ballooning with the latest bailout proposal, a byproduct of the un-fiscal policies of the last eight years. America is borrowing from China to wage a war in Iraq against a fictitious enemy, while the Iraqi government runs a $80 billion budget surplus. All but the wealthiest of Americans, asked the question "are you better off today than you were eight years ago" would have to answer no---even those who have avoided personal debt and invested wisely are only treading water because of the ballooning debt and eroded value of the dollar. In my life, I cannot remember a worse time--and I remember Richard Nixon.

Historically, such a scenario would have resulted in a Democratic landslide. Witness what happened to Herbert Hoover in 1932, to Gerald Ford in 1976, and to a lesser extent Clinton's victory over Bush I in 1992 (even with the added complication of Ross Perot running as an Independent). Yet, despite the sorry state of affairs we find ourselves in, many Americans who have felt the brunt of the Bush years in their personal and professional lives firsthand, and who stand to suffer even more in the future if things continue as is, are either still on the fence or siding with the Republican ticket. Are these Americans just crazy, or is something else going on here?

The rational person, including a person outside the U.S. who cannot vote but will be affected by our choice here, would look at the past eight years, review John McCain's voting record in Congress and his hot temper under pressure , look at his choice of a running mate (e.g. I can see Russia from my backyard, so that means I am qualified in foreign policy matters), and easily conclude that things under a new Republican administration will at best be the same, and possibly worse. Even a mediocre candidate from the Democratic party should be a shoo-in this year, shouldn't they? And with a smart, resourceful, inspiring, and hopeful guy like Obama, who maybe comes along once in a generation, who has pulled millions of people of all creeds and colors back into believing in the ability to effect positive change and who actually makes sense when he talks (in grammatical sentences no less)-- it should be a total blowout. Why isn't it?

It's not for one simple reason: common sense and rationality are not on center stage here. Unfortunately, a fair percentage of Americans, perhaps even more than in years past, make important decisions based on single or a few criteria divorced from the issues at hand. This is true of people who typically vote solely based on a candidate's stand on abortion, or gay rights, or gun control--all visceral issues. But it goes beyond that, and I think it's more pervasive this year. Example: a woman who went from being undecided to supporting McCain/Palin was quoted in the Detroit News the other day, saying that her decision was based on her belief that Palin "is a hockey mom like me." If this sounds like a crazy reason to pick a candidate for the highest office in the land. especially such a complicated and screwed-up land, you might ask if this woman would hire a doctor, a lawyer, or other professional on the same basis? The answer is, sad to say--quite likely she would. Because this is America, so even if her choice worked out badly, she could sue for malpractice and probably walk away with a few hundred thousand dollars or even more. Sadly, too many Americans have grown used to blaming others for their own decisions, so there is little incentive to be rational and think through even important life choices. We are simply seeing the effects of this mentality magnified in the presidential election.

But we also have something else going on that, like an elephant, is a huge but mostly silent presence in this election. In the last thirty or forty years, ethnic prejudice has gone underground in America-- but most people would agree that it has far from disappeared.

In fairness, as a country, America is a vastly different place from even 30 years ago--when it was still legal, for example, to try to disqualify me from a government job by stating openly that a woman could not be successful in a management position in Japan (I got the job, and was successful). As a testament to the fact that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama--not to mention Sarah Palin--got as far as they did, many people genuinely are more accepting of women, Jews, gays, and people who are non-Caucasian assuming leadership roles. But, for those who are still unable to trust anyone in a position of authority who is of another religion, sexual persuasian, or ethnicity--and this is no small number of my countrymen and women--the issue has merely gone below the surface, like the larger part of an iceberg. It is not politically correct to be "anti-diversity", so people remain silent, or even lie about where they stand--at least in public. When they talk to a pollster or even to a friend, they may or may not be honest--or they may encode their choice with the "values" pitch--so and so's "values" are like mine, so that's why I'm for them. . But when they go into a voting booth, with its complete privacy, they are far more likely to be true to their own beliefs.

That is why, despite all evidence that the country is on a dangerously wrong track and needs new leadership, Barack Obama's lineage is the silent elephant in this election. A few weeks ago, a union leader spoke frankly to his troops in a white, blue collar area near Detroit that in recent years has voted heavily Republican. "I know you don't like Obama because he's black, and you can't see yourself voting for a black man for president ," said the leader. "I have three words for you--get over it."

McCain's traditional Republican supporters aside, it remains to be seen if those who are undecided because of the Democratic contender's racial background, or those who have traditionally voted Democratic but are switching over because of it, "get over it" on or before Election Day. For love of country, I'm hoping--and praying- that if they can't, these people at least recognize themselves, and have the decency to sit out the election rather than cast a vote that would almost surely contribute to increasing the velocity of our present downward spiral--both at home and in the world.

The World We Can't See

2008-09-14T08:07:00.000-07:00

This is a post off topic, though perhaps a journey through the unknown territory of a major life change produces the need to be philosophical at times. During the digital photography class on Star Island, the instructor did a module on light. Light is, of course, a very important element of good photography, as in any art. But the slide he showed and the discussion took me off in a whole different direction.

Here is the light spectrum, more correctly, the electomagnetic spectrum. The part that is visible to the human eye is a fraction of the known spectrum (I say known because the known spectrum is scientifically proven, but there may be elements at either end that have not yet been discovered). Of course, this is basic science taught in middle school. We know that our microwave and radio operate on invisible (to us) waves---invisible light is all around us. The camera's digital eye sees an even more limited range of light than we do---hence the need to adjust for it to produce photographs that are balanced in a way that is pleasing to the human viewer.

If we extend the example of light to another sense, hearing, we know that animals are able to hear a different range of vibrations from humans---dogs and cats both hear better than we do which probably explains why cats can hear the can opener on a tin of tuna fish from three rooms away. The same is true of the remaining three senses-- there has been recent publicity about dogs' ability to "smell" cancer or illness, as well as a nursing home cat who routinely entered patient rooms and camped out nearby hours before the patient died. The other night Junior bounded up from the bed and focused her attention on the ceiling, her eyes following something around the room. It woke me up, but I didn't see--or hear--a thing.

This train of thought gave me a renewed appreciation for how little we actually take in through our five senses--in the scheme of things, pretty crude instruments with which to ascertain our world. Our brains may have the capacity of 3-10 terabytes, as some scientists have posited, but to the degree that we filter through our senses, it's no wonder that we use a fraction of the brain's capacity. When I contemplate the small and distorted perspective from which I'm seeing things, it brings renewed meaning to that great line from Hamlet: "there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Isles of Shoals

2008-09-06T06:14:00.000-07:00

Marty and I went to a digital photography workshop on the Isles of Shoals, off the coast of New Hampshire and Maine (half of the isles are in New Hampshire, and half in Maine). This is my last vacation for a while...with the coming of fall, I feel like a squirrel who has to gather my acorns for the long winter ahead--lots to do including, of course, the job search. But this past week was a glorious trip into late summer, with spectacular sunrises and sunsets every day we were there, and clear, unobstructed views of the constellations at night without the distraction of city lights.

I learned a lot in the course. Some of it was review, some was putting logic and reason to things that I was doing intuitively, and the rest was just great new information--like the loss of pixels that occurs every time you "save as" a jpg file, as well as some new tips with Adobe Photoshop Elements and some websites I hadn't heard about before. There was another learning about light that got me thinking on a whole new track beyond photography--more on that in another post.

We stayed at a century old hotel (pictured above) that was basic but lovely. Since water for the island comes from a small desalination plant and cisterns, showers were limited to twice a week. There were no electrical outlets in our room (though we had three overhead light bulbs), but fortunately we were next to the newsroom which had several. Food was decent but basic. You could get cell phone reception at the end of the porch facing the shore seven miles away, but no internet (in a way that was a relief--I realized that I spend altogether too much time on the computer lately....)

One day we went for a nature walk and I learned the fascinating history of Queen Anne's lace (right) which was brought to the island by colonists in the early 1600s. The lace was so named because the queen challenged her ladies in waiting to a crochet contest--who could create the most beautiful replica of the wild plant that grew all around them? The answer was obvious.....but what was news to me is that daucus carota, as it's known in Latin, is the forerunner of the cultivated carrot--the root of Queen Anne's lace being the wild version.

The hotel had a marvelous front porch and boardwalk to the adjacent cottages with a liberal number of cane rocking chairs. The chairs are maintained by volunteers from the shore (pictured left) who come in during the day to recane them--the salt air and wind is hard on them. One day early in our stay, I heard a woman sitting next to me proclaim with obvious satisfaction as she sat sipping a cup of tea and talking to her friend, "rocking chairs and porches are good for the soul." Amen.

Waterbury, VT

2008-08-28T06:12:00.000-07:00

Waterbury, Vermont is small, unassuming town about two hours from our home in Keene. Yesterday Marty and I took a drive up there, through the beautiful Green Mountains that are just beginning to show fall colors here and there. Despite its size, Waterbury is home to three similar and enterprising businesses that are favorites of the green and socially responsible set: Ben and Jerry's, Green Mountain Coffee, and Cabot Cheese. Ben and Jerry's is world famous, and Green Mountain is giving Starbucks a run for its money, especially in New England. And Cabot just makes the most divine cheese you can imagine--especially the 3 year old cheddar and horseradish varieties....

Ben and Jerry's got a lot of publicity several years ago for advertising for a new CEO. They made a marketing campaign out of it and got something like 20,000 applications--ranging from schoolchildren to even family pets sponsored by their owners. Now, the company is owned by Unilever, but the brand identity and involvement in the local community remains.

Amazing that a single small town could produce such giants as these, and still retain its character.

Tales from the Front

2008-08-18T19:06:00.001-07:00

I've met a lot of people in the past few weeks. Some of them, like me, are also looking for employment. Today, I heard a story for the third time in less than a couple of months--the job that vanishes. This is where someone is offered a position, may even have a contract or a start date, and then at the last minute the company decides not to proceed.

One person was asked to start work on specific day, told that the contract was "in the mail" and then got a call from the organization's headquarters that same afternoon that they would not be offering the job after all! Another person was told the day before he was to start work that the company had decided not to fill the opening. And a person I talked to today had two offers about the same time, and accepted the one he thought was the more stable, secure company. A few days before he was to begin work, the company asked to delay the start date by a month. Then, when that date came, he was told that the board had decided to delay again--it could be September. Meanwhile, the other position he had turned down was, of course, no longer available.

There are enough of these stories floating around that the common wisdom is not to stop networking, going on interviews, and talking to recruiters about your availability, until you have actually started at the new position and are officially on their rolls. It's kind of the reverse of the phenomena I wrote about in India ("No Shows")--where candidates may not turn up for work despite having a signed offer because something better has come along. Where executive recruiters are used, the company would still be on the hook to pay the recruiter, since a lot of work goes into identifying, vetting, and presenting candidates. But unless there's a sudden and serious downturn in the company's business that couldn't have been foreseen, it seems like especially bad behavior. And the worst part is that in none of the cases I've mentioned could the person have reasonably predicted that the rug would be pulled out from under them at the last minute--the organizations seemed solid and reputable--else the person wouldn't have been interested in joining in the first place.

Well, at least forewarned is forearmed....and meditation helps, too.....

Vignettes from the Big Apple

2008-08-09T08:07:00.000-07:00

My networking adventure took me to New York City this past week, where in addition to meeting some business contacts I caught up with a couple of old friends (one of whom I hadn't seen in 26 years....) Manhattan is not for everyone, though I think the city gets a bad rap for being unfriendly--people really are quite nice and helpful for the most part. A lot of the fun is just in watching the scene--as I walked from where my sister-in-law lives on the upper west side to midtown (roughly 4 miles), I probably heard close to ten different languages. Some vignettes:

New York is a city for walkers of all kinds, but especially for dog walkers. It is highly entertaining to see the improbable combinations of human and canine--ranging from fat old ladies walking tiny chihuahuas dressed in sequins and (yes) tiny booties to anorexically thin young women dressed to the nines in platform heels dragging along old and tired sheepdogs. And, of course, there are the paid dog walkers with pooches of various breeding and vintages--the logistics of picking up the poop alone worth the viewing.

I don't see how Starbucks makes any money in New York, despite having a cafe on every other corner. At each one I stopped at, there were several people camped in with latte and laptop--some of whom were clearly there for the duration. Apparently Starbucks now charges for wifi in some places, but one helpful counter attendant told me that if you sit by the window you can pick up a connection for free....

The day I left, I took the subway to Penn Station to catch the Amtrak train to Albany, where I'd left my car. On the platform where I got on the #2 train, an enterprising--though probably impoverished--violinist was playing classical music with his instrument case open for contributions. By the time I arrived, around 8:30 a.m., he already had several dollars. The thundering approach of the train sometimes drowned him out, but the strains of Madame Butterfly's "Un Bel Dia" were a peaceful contrast to the stress and bustle of the morning commute--people smiling and nodding, taking pictures or just listening with eyes closed to the beautiful music.

Networking --a Work in Progress

2008-07-30T16:02:00.000-07:00

So far I've been networking around getting a new position for about six weeks. I've joined a couple of formal networking groups, like Gray Hair Management (even though my hair is red, they let me in) and Execunet. I've had phone conversations, email notes, and meetings with people I'd never met before, and wouldn't have met otherwise, which is a lot of fun.

I'm starting to make some observations and see patterns about the process. It was good that I did Vipassana, which teaches you simply to observe--not to react or get emotional. People are generally very friendly and helpful. Those at the networking groups who have been around longer are full of suggestions and contacts. Technology plays a part, too. Sites like LinkedIn and Facebook are the best for organizing and adding to contacts. I also have developed an Excel spreadsheet where I keep track of people I've met or plan to meet, or to whom I've talked on the phone. I haven't gotten to all the people I've listed that I know, much less the referrals that have been given to me, though I'm making progress.

Early on I sent an email blast to about 200 recruiters, some from the big name houses and other boutique places. (One thing that is amazing to me is how many recruiters there are out there. I don't know how they all make a living--though I guess with the average commission at 1/3 of the first year's salary, it doesn't take too many hits.) Although I was told by the outplacement firm that this is more of a box to tick and not to expect too much, I was pleasantly surprised to hear from a few of them, some by phone and others by email. Three or four called me ---one of them talked at me for the entire time it took to drive from Detroit to Ann Arbor. When I tried to get a word in edgewise, he interrupted me. Another called with a good job, just not the kind of job I am looking for.

Since then, I've seen a few postings by recruiters of some jobs that sound interesting. Understanding that they send these listings to networking groups in the hope of attracting qualified candidates, there is a very interesting psychology at work. I've talked to fellow networkers about this and found a similar experience: if you respond directly to such a listing with your background or a resume, you never hear from them--it doesn't matter whether you are spot on for the job in terms of background/experience, or whether you call or email. But if you have someone else call and say they know of a good candidate--you--most times you do hear from the recruiter. Since statistically (as noted in my last blog) most jobs are not filled by headhunters, I'm not focusing much of my attention here. Plus, you have to figure that in this economy, there are a lot more resumes chasing publicized jobs than the other way around.

I've heard some fascinating networking tales of the strange connections that got people employment. Perhaps the most interesting was a person I talked to early on--he was the connection of a connection--who got a job one time through an audio-visual technician at a networking meeting he attended. The technician had a friend who was the assistant to an executive in this man's field at a nearby company, and offered to put him in touch. That company did not have a job, but the assistant's boss, who talked to the man, had a friend at another company which was hiring, and the man interviewed there and got the job. All because of a helpful audiovisual technician!

Reflections on being home

2008-06-30T17:37:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I wrote. I've now been home half a year. The time has gone very quickly, and sometimes I have so many things to do I wonder how I found time to work! The good news is that my health has improved--I am off blood pressure medicine. I'm exercising a lot more and eating more healthily.

Some days India feels far away to me, but at the same time I miss it. Though I was ready to return home, there were so many places I did not get to see, so many photographs I did not get to take, so many friends left unmet. Occasionally--as the other day--I will still wake with the distant sound of bells from the Hindu morning pooja ringing in my ear. Someday, I will return, I know.

I have taken time in this six months to see my own country, sometimes through fresh eyes. We traveled along the eastern seaboard to Florida, and to Alaska. I have enjoyed the beautiful scenery of New Hampshire and New England, in spring and in winter, as well as now in summer. Recently, I missed one experience that would have probably reminded me of India--the annual strolling of the heifers in Brattleboro, Vermont (I'll definitely catch this next year!) In early September, Marty and I will spend a week on an island off the coast of New Hampshire, and catch the fall colors.

But, there is more than reuniting with family and travel these days to occupy me. In the last couple of weeks, I have started networking to find a new position (or positions).

Most career experts will tell you that networking is THE way to get a job. Statistically, only about 5% of jobs are filled through job postings on the internet or in classifieds, and even fewer by sending unsolicited resumes to overworked and understaffed HR departments (or sending them to managers and having them referred, unopened, to the HR group). Between 10-15% are filled through recruiters or headhunters. But the vast majority of people get jobs through who they know, and by being at the right place at the right time.

Though only a sample of one, I have to say that my own career attests to this. I can think of only one position in my whole life that I got through an ad, and virtually every other job was through contacts. Even my first job outside of working for my dad--as a waitress in a local restaurant when I was 15--I found through a friend. For a couple of jobs, including the one I had at Mazda, I didn't even have a proper interview. I don't expect that now in this more rigorous age, but I do expect the unexpected--that some chance encounter may well lead to the next stage in my career.

I've thought a lot about what I'd like to do--and not do. For the moment, I'm concentrating on interim positions--assignments where someone is needed for a finite period of time to manage and/or find a successor, build an organization, set up a department or policies, etc. I'd definitely like to use my international experience. Probably an ideal scenario is a company that's going global or needs global/international processes and thinking. Eventually, I'd like to teach at a college--but probably in a few years.

So my job for the next few months at least is networking. Fortunately, this is not difficult for me and I enjoy meeting new people. I've already heard some fascinating stories from people about their networking experiences. As I get more of this under my belt, I'll share some of these stories here.

Alaska Adventure

2008-06-10T17:53:00.000-07:00

I am overdue in writing about our cruise/land tour to Alaska. I'll keep it short, and include a lot of pictures of the fabulous scenery. I really recommend Alaska as a must-see place if you haven't been there. This is our second trip and we will probably go back--though not with a cruise. It is difficult to avoid overeating on a cruise even if you're careful, and while I didn't actually gain any weight, I felt so overloaded I went on a 3 day detox diet when I got back. Plus, I don't think we need another series of stops at Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan. Twice is enough.

Marty and I are now official members of the "30% club"--the percentage of people who actually SEE Denali (the great one, also known by the name it carried for most of the 20th century, Mt. McKinley). Denali is the highest mountain in North America, and since it sits on a lower plane, it actually has a higher vertical rise than Everest, at just over 20,300 feet. After spending a week cruising the Inside Passage of Alaska, we arrived at Mt. McKinley Princess Lodge on Monday afternoon, and the mountain was out virtually the entire time until we left on Wednesday morning. We were able to get several shots of it at various times of the day, as well as simply enjoy its silent majesty.

Alaska is awesome for its sheer natural beauty and wilderness, not to mention pure and clean air. You can mostly ignore the tourist kitch in the three stops made by the cruise ships--Ketchikan, where it rains nearly every day, Juneau, the capital, and Skagway, another small town with not much except tourist places. Despite this, we found some bargains--heavy coats for $19.95, a beautiful handmade sweater imported from South America, and a few other finds. The William Spear gallery in Juneau, where you can buy enameled zipper pulls and other jewelry at very reasonable prices, was a nice one.

The real pleasure of the cruise ship, though, is the trip down the fjords to see massive glaciers up close. Some of the glaciers are retreating and others are advancing. The massive Mendenhall Glacier outside Juneau is in serious retreat---we were there 5 years ago and could see the 1500 feet or so that the glacier has retreated in that time.

Probably most impressive was College Fjord, an inlet north of Skagway where a large group of glaciers--all named for New England colleges--can be seen from every side.

While in Juneau we went on a digitial photo safari, which included Mendenhall Glacier (noted above) as well as a boat trip. We were fortunate to see humpback whales as well as the wonderful scene below. On the buoy at the right, the lone bald eagle patiently allowed our boat to circle completely around, hardly moving. The seals at the base of the buoy were too zonked out from a long day of play to care.

This time of year, it never really gets dark in Alaska, especially as you go further north (Fairbanks, a little north of the center of the state, was as far as we went). The sun set around 11 p.m., but there was a twilight kind of shadow, until the sun began to rise around 3:30 or so. We found this hard to get used to, as the normal rhythms (it's dark, so I must be tired) don't apply.

$4.00 a gallon for gas--a blessing in disguise?

2008-05-30T05:37:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I posted because Marty and I took a cruise/landtour to Alaska--more about that later. By the title of this post, I'm not meaning to offend anyone. There are many people in America who are experiencing real hardship because of the sudden rise in gas prices at the pump, not to mention the effect on the overall economy including my former employer (who I would really like to do well so my pension keeps coming....). There have also been numerous articles and blogcasts about the profit increases of the big oil companies even with the price of crude rising. But the more I observe how people's behavior, including my own, is changing, the more I think that longer term, this development is actually positive.

The first inkling I got personally was about two months back, when the price was "only" $3.60 or so a gallon. I was thinking to go out to Whole Foods Market, which is located more than 10 miles from my house. That is a round trip of 20 miles, and we only had one car then, a Taurus that gets less than 20 miles per gallon in the city. So I started to think--that's nearly $4 just to drive out there...maybe I'll find someplace closer to home. Since then, I've really gotten conscious of this, and so has Marty. I've seen this on the part of others as well--my Sunday night book club meeting out in one of the more distant suburbs has people in my part of town emailing about car pooling--when before everyone probably would have just driven alone. A recent article in The New York Times talks about the increase in bus ridership in cities that to date have been heavily car-dependent. Of course, gas prices have been at this level and much higher for a long time in Europe and other parts of the world, so we really don't have that much to complain about even with prices reaching their current levels.

What I'm hoping is that the change in behavior continues and also drives more sensible energy policies, an renewed emphasis on mass transit, alternative fuels, and--better automobiles. However, I think an unintended, positive consequence will also be to bring people closer together. When you carpool, you get to talk to your neighbors and really get to know them. When you ride mass transit, you can chill out, read a book (if it doesn't make you car-sick), listen to music or a podcast, or talk to your fellow passengers (and of course read your email, another scourge in my opinion). In addition to the obvious environmental impact, I'm sure there are other social impacts I haven't even thought of. Since so many people in America are so stressed and rushed all the time, maybe it will even have positive health effects.....

My Vipassana Experience

2008-05-08T18:51:00.000-07:00

The 10 day Vipassana meditation course, as taught by S.N. Goenka, is an extraordinary experience. I had first heard about Vipassana more than 20 years ago--probably more like 25 years--from my friend Laurie from Ottawa, who I'd met while we were both living in Japan. For years Laurie urged me to do the course. But I never had eleven or twelve days vacation (including travel time) that I wanted to spend sitting still, talking to no one, and cut off from the rest of the world. There are many Vipassana centers in India, where Goenka first began to revive the ancient technique back in the 1970s. But then, too, if I had that kind of time, I wanted to spend it seeing India--not sitting in a meditation hall. Also, since the course is virtually the same no matter where you take it in the world, it didn't seem particularly significant to do it in India.

But doing the course never quite left my mind. Finally, when I retired, I had no more excuses. Suddenly, my time was my own, to fill as I liked. Before leaving India, I signed up for a course near Toronto that began at the end of January. But the day before I was to leave, my dad had a small stroke, and I felt uneasy being out of touch that long. A few days after I cancelled, I came down with a virulent stomach flu--perhaps another confirmation from the universe that the time was not quite right.

Finally, things with my dad seemed to settle down, and more important, I reached some peace of mind about continuing to go on with life even as I knew my dad is on his final journey. So I found an opening in a course in Shelburne, Massachusetts, which is not far from our place in Keene, N.H. Two days after the second Passover seder, I drove east to Dhamma Dhara for the course that began on the evening of April 23.

Dhamma Dhara is in the countryside outside a small Massachusetts town. It is an old farmhouse that has been converted and added to many times and now houses two dormitories, dining rooms, a meditation hall, and a pagoda with individual meditation cells. The grounds contain walking trails, the perimeters gently marked with signs that say, "Course boundary--please do not cross this point."

When you go to a Vipassana course--which is run by donation only, and there is absolutely no pressure to give even a suggested amount-- you agree to abide by five precepts for the time you are there--not to harm any living creature (a small beetle promptly took up residence in my room, as if defying me to squash him--after a day or so, he disappeared into a register, not to be seen again), not to steal, lie, or have sexual relations, or use intoxicants. Old students--those who have completed a course before and who comprised about 25% of our class--also agree to a few other rules, the most important of which is not to eat after noon. Finally, all students accept a vow of "noble silence"--not to communicate verbally or non-verbally with other meditators. (You are free to talk to the teachers and management about any course-related or material issue, as the need arises.) Before starting the course, you also surrender your cell phone, PDA, car keys, any reading materials, and other electronic devices, which are securely locked away for the duration. You also agree not to engage in any religious or other spiritual practices during the ten days, including yoga, tai-chi, prayer or poojas, or alternate forms of meditation. Men and women are housed and dine separately, and although they share the same meditation hall--men on one side and women on the other--for the first nine days of the course there is effectively no contact or communication between the sexes, even married couples.

All of this creates a very quiet (obviously) environment free of distraction, and in retrospect I would say it is desirable and even necessary given the intensity and nature of the experience. On the morning of the tenth day, noble silence ends, and people are free to talk and share with each other their experience of the course--to process and debrief before entering the "real world" again.

The daily schedule begins with a wake-up gong at 4 a.m., and the day ends at 9 p.m. Approximately 10 hours per day are scheduled for meditation, though not all of them are mandatory. In the evening, there are video discourses by S.N. Goenka, a Burmese of Indian origin who brought the technique back to India about 40 years ago from Burma, the only location in Southeast Asia (according to him) where it had continuously been practiced and handed down in its pure form. These discourses are lively and entertaining and include a mix of philosophy and theory, practical application, and humor. Three times a day, everyone, including the kitchen staff and servers who volunteer their time, join in the meditation hall for a group meditation. From the fourth day, when the actual Vipassana technique begins to be taught, these periods are called "Adhitthana"--sittings of strong determination. During these periods, students sit for a continuous hour without moving their hands, legs, or opening their eyes. If this sounds difficult, it certainly is at first, but by the end of the course I found myself looking forward to these sittings the most. Now, I find this the preferred way to meditate--almost like putting myself in a trance.

There are two main meals during the day--breakfast at 6:30 a.m. and lunch at 11. New students have fruit and tea at 5 p.m.---as noted above, old students have only tea. The food is mostly vegan, with some dairy. Surprisingly, though I ate a lot less and had to forgo my usual tendency to "graze", I was never really hungry. Most of the women shared this experience, though a few of the men who had been used to heavy protein diets had some difficulty. The one night that I overdid it and ate two pieces of fruit, I regretted it--the fruit felt like a bomb on my stomach. After that, I cut back to no more than one piece--one evening, a half banana, sprinkled with honey and psyllium husks, lasted me 20 minutes.

Vipassana meditation (Vipassana means to see things as they are) is an ancient technique developed in India before the time of Gautama Siddhartha (otherwise known as the Buddha). It had fallen out of use, and he is credited with reviving the technique and teaching it to the masses as the Dhamma, or path to enlightenment. The theory is that all human suffering arises from craving, aversion, and ignorance--and that following the law of nature, all things are impermanent, continually rising and passing away. Craving and aversion both manifest themselves as actual sensations on the body, which the unconscious mind is constantly reacting to --and the conscious mind can be trained to observe. If one observes, but remains equanimous to these sensations understanding their true nature (their impermanence), gradually the whole mind is "rewired" to be more peaceful, calm, and equanimous. Craving and aversion are weakened or eliminated. In Buddhist philosophy, this purification of the mind is necessary to escape the need to continually reincarnate into a human body. But, as the Vipassana teaching makes clear, you are under absolutely no obligation to change your own religion or amend any existing beliefs or constructs about afterlife--this is merely explained to you as part of the philosophy. In fact, the attendees at the course were very diverse--from all walks of life, religion, and ages (though it seemed like a lot of young people of college age, especially on the women's side). This group was about 60:40 female to male; in the summer, the staff said the group is more evenly split between men and women.

To train the mind to observe sensation, for the first three days you are limited to a small area around the nose and upper lip, beginning with a whole day of merely observing your respiration. During these days the mind wanders a lot, and you are instructed that, when you notice this, to gently and calmly bring it back to observation of your breathing. By the fourth day, most people find their mind wandering significantly less.

On the first evening, everyone was assigned a place to sit for the duration of the course. A few people were allowed to sit in chairs, and some who had requested were assigned to the places against the wall. The rest of us sat in the main area, on the floor. Over the next couple of days, it was amusing to watch people trying to get comfortable--even those in chairs and against the wall. Outside the meditation hall there was a small anteroom with an array of cushions in several sizes, and some small stools. You could easily spot the "old students"--they were the ones who weren't constantly switching cushions and moving around during the meditation periods in the hall. By the second day, the anteroom was mostly bare--people hoarded an assortment of cushions to try out alternate positions (one rule seemed to be that the more elaborate the "construction" of cushions/supports, the more people moved and adjusted--simple was better). I had brought a small meditation chair that folded up and sat on the main cushion. After a day or so I abandoned it, realizing that it was much better to keep my back erect and in a strong position. After some experimentation I wound up with one of the small stools, under which I folded my legs, and used one cushion to support my knees as well as a smaller one under my ankles. As mysteriously as all the cushions disappeared from the anteroom, by the sixth or seventh day they started reappearing again as people finally got comfortable with their stations and began "releasing" their extra cushions.

Once you begin the actual Vipassana meditation from the fourth day, you are scanning your entire body for sensations. At some point before the course ends, most people have trained their mind to experience a "free flow"--where, when you scan your body, you feel sensation everywhere. Although sitting still for an hour is quite uncomfortable, especially at first, it is amazing to watch back or other pain change over a period of a few minutes. One night, I think it was the fifth, I had a particularly difficult time with the sitting of strong determination. I just didn't think I was going to make it--I had to talk myself into staying in the position a number of times. But when I did, I found that I had broken the back of something--some resistance in my mind. From then on, though I still had some sittings that were difficult, it grew easier to get through the hour. I definitely understand why some progressive physicians prescribe meditation for chronic pain--the mind contributes well more than 50% to most pain, and once you simply observe, rather than react to it, it is simply amazing how it subsides.

I found that there were certain times of day that were better than others, when I could concentrate. I was pretty much useless between 4:30 and 6:30 in the morning. Although I was generally up by the second gong at 4:20, when I showered and dressed, I usually could only meditate about 30 to 40 minutes before getting really drowsy. I would fall back asleep, but during this time I frequently had very vivid dreams, which often illuminated some of the meditation experiences I was having. The morning, from 8-11, I was usually best able to concentrate, followed by the evening meditation from 6-7 p.m. Early afternoon after lunch was neutral, but the period after the group meditation from 2:30 to 3:30 I found it virtually impossible to concentrate--by this point in the day I was definitely "overmeditated." Often, I would get up midway and just go take a walk--I usually got about an hour to an hour and half of exercise a day on the walking trail. But some people toughed out the whole schedule and meditated continuously. I also missed reading--I confess that I was not able to break the habit of reading on the toilet, though I was forced to be very creative--in addition to practically memorizing the one page room guide including cleaning instructions, I read the label on the Bon Ami cleanser container in the bathroom at least half a dozen times. I also learned that you really don't want to know what is in toothpaste...

Sometimes, especially after the first few days of Vipassana meditation, my mind would want to wander again. I grew bored with the constant scanning. I finally got to the point where I would schedule "mind breaks." I would pick an "assignment" for my mind, such as remembering my grandparents, parents, or other relative's houses, going from room to room and trying to recall as many details as possible. I found that the concentration of meditating had sharpened my memory considerably. As I went from room to room, I would see scenes in my mind's eye, such as the Thanksgiving dinner at my grandmother's house when I was about 7 or 8 when I got sick, or my aunt and uncle and my parents playing Euchre on New Year's Eve. People really came to life in these scenes--I could actually recall conversations. Though not part of the course, it was a kind of bonus--a virtual trip to the past.

As I grew more proficient in the technique, I could feel sensations all over, with particularly strong streams of energy at the so-called "chakra" points--top of the head, over the eyebrows, throat, etc. At points, it felt like layers and layers of "gunk" was being released. Most people I talked to reported a similar experience--that you leave the course much "lighter" and with more equanimity. A week or so later, I am still meditating daily--though not for the two hours a day recommended--and feel much calmer and more equanimous. Though Vipassana is not for everyone, it is a great technique- I do recommend it heartily.

Spring in full bloom

2008-04-22T03:43:00.001-07:00

The forsythia bloomed over the weekend, along with lots of daffodils. It was our wedding anniversary, and usually the daffodils bloom along with it.

I am on my way to Massachusetts for Vipassana. Will post when I return.....

Meanwhile, a happy spring.

Spring has sprung, sort of

2008-04-13T17:24:00.000-07:00

Spring is coming to Michigan in fits and starts. Last week it got up to 75 degrees F and now today it is around 40 and there were even a few snowflakes in the air. My aunt, my mother's only living sibling, will be 87 on Tuesday, which is tax day in the United States. The day she was born, in 1921, the snow was so deep that my mother, who was 5 at the time, remembered being carried on her father's shoulders as they went to tell the news of my aunt's birth. So....it could be worse!

I got the results of my tests back, and debriefed these last week. It is interesting to see how they work--despite some of the weird questions, mostly the results were not too surprising. Now I am finishing the rest of the "homework" I had and will start debriefing that this week. All of this is used to construct a resume and an action plan. It is moving slowly but that's okay.

I still see Dad almost every day. About half the time when I go he is asleep. On those days I just sit with him for a few minutes. When he is awake, on some days he is quite cheerful, but last week he had a couple of days where he was sad and teary. His only sister in New Orleans, who is 94, had to be hospitalized, and I told him about that. I am never sure how much he understands, but I have to think that at least on some level it got through. He has lost more weight, but they have him on some medication that seems to be stablizing the TIAs, and he hasn't had one for a while. Most days I do not stay long--maybe 15 or 20 minutes, sometimes less.

During the times when I'm not there, I think a lot about my memories of my father. Small things will come up, like the time when we moved him down to Detroit, and he wanted to go out to the garage just to sit in his car for the last time. Despite his dementia, he knew that he would never drive again, and he wanted those last private moments of sitting behind the wheel. Whenever I think of that, it makes me really sad.

I am torn between putting things on hold, and continuing to live life even though it may mean not seeing him for a few days. Mostly, I am leaning to the latter . Next week, I am planning to do the Vipassana course I cancelled when Dad had the TIA in February. This one is in Massachusetts so I will drive out and then spend a couple of days at our place in Keene. By then, spring will have come to New Hampshire as well.

Easing back into the saddle....

2008-04-03T16:12:00.001-07:00

This week I formally started the process of looking for another job, gig, or whatever it turns out to be....my former employer contracts with an outplacement firm, to assist people like me to figure out next steps---success in this program is called "landing." Feels a little bit like a trip to the moon, but I've strapped in my seatbelt for the ride.

The first step was just going through the process and getting a big binder full of exercises and "stuff." I have a lot of homework, including taking several assessment tests (you know, the ones with questions like, "I am fascinated by fire" or "I am afraid of deep water" or giving you a choice between being a fish and game warden or a clerk in an office--that kind of stuff). There are a lot of other questions about things I did in my career, as well as documenting accomplishments--these are used to help construct a resume and prepare for interviews. I finished the assessments and am now working on the harder stuff--it makes my brain hurt to think about what I did twenty years ago!

I am meeting with the consultant again next week to debrief all this homework. Until then, I'm also very busy preparing for Passover. Spring has finally come--it was almost 60 degrees F today--a regular warm spell!

Random Acts of Violence

2008-03-27T05:38:00.000-07:00

Marty and I went to New Hampshire, and then, probably against better judgment, drove rather than taking the train into Brooklyn, NY to see our son. We stayed at what seemed like a good location right on the ocean near Coney Island Avenue. But, the night before we left, our car was vandalized and the driver side window glass shattered and the door dented with a rock left by the vandals. Four other cars parked nearby were also vandalized. Fortunately, we had our valuables like cameras, laptop, etc. with us in the hotel room.

The vandals rifled through everything, and left some blood on the leather seat and in the glove box, probably from broken glass cuts. There is a change holder in the divider between the front seats. They took all the quarters (good for laundry machines, I guess), but left the dimes and nickels. They took an investment guide left by Marty in the back seat, but passed on his small iPod in the holder on the dash (too old a model. I'm guessing). A Lincoln Continental next to us, bearing a Lojack steering wheel lock and a perimeter alarm, fared no better---driver side glass was also shattered. The police who came to write up a report called it "criminal mischief"--I suppose that is a technical term.

We were lucky in some ways. A vehicle in the same vicinity had been stolen the day before, and we hadn't left anything of value in our car (except our passports, by accident, which were in a backpack in the trunk--but they didn't take those though for a scary few minutes we had trouble finding Marty's). Our ride back to Detroit was tiring and noisy from the wind, considering that we had to tape the window up with a clear garbage bag and duct tape. But we were lucky to find a very nice young guy at the nearby Ford dealership who helped by cleaning up the broken glass and taping up the garbage bag, and the weather on the way back mostly cooperated--it could have been a lot colder. Even luckier, we had just the week before leased a second car, so we aren't totally without wheels while this one is being fixed.

There is nothing else to say about this except that "s---t happens." And---it's stupid to take a car into New York City. Or maybe I mean foollish--stupid would be doing it twice.

Travels to New Mexico

2008-03-17T20:02:00.000-07:00

Since the dollar is tanking in world markets, it is a good thing that the United States is so diverse that traveling to another part of it can almost feel like a foreign country. So it was with our journey to Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico, for an Elderhostel (or hostel elders, as our friends' children call it) trip. It was a wonderful week--full of great learnings and photo opportunities.

New Mexico was originally part of the Spanish empire in North America, and did not officially become a state until 1912--the last territory on the mainland to join the union. The Spanish and Indian heritage are both very rich. We were there to participate in what turned out to be a fascinating study of conversos and crypto-Jews, with classroom study and discussion in Albuquerque and several field trips. I can't say enough good things about Elderhostel--everything was so well organized and the group we were with was very congenial and curious--lots of interesting discussion and dialogue.

I had never thought much about a Jewish presence in this area, other than the warm and dry climate attracting retirees from other parts of the country. But the history goes all the way back to the Spanish Inquisition, when many were forcibly converted to Christianity by the Catholic authorities in Spain and expelled from the country in 1492, the same year that Columbus discovered the West Indies (of course, he was looking for India itself--from which has come all the confusion about the name "Indians.") . Some of these forced converts found their way to the New World, first to Mexico and then to small and remote towns in the north, far from the prying eyes of the Inquisitors--they literally had to convert in order to be able to board the ships.

Although a significant number intermarried and forgot their former faith in the new world (this was more difficult in Spain and Portugal, where they were constantly reminded and discriminated against), others continued to practice Judaism in secret---while also outwardly adhering to the Catholic faith, which was the recognized religion in the Spanish New World. A town could not be formed, in fact, until 30 families got together and a church was built--so the church was an imposing and constant presence in any small town. Until recently, it was assumed that these "crypto Jews" no longer existed, but this is not the case---it is clear that the tradition of crypto Judaism has been passed down for hundreds of years. And it was this clearly curious phenomena--why people would practice two religions, one in secret--that we were there to learn about.

In addition to Albuquerque, we visited Santa Fe and Chimayo, where we traveled to a Pueblo Indian village. Many of the Indians in this area also practice a dual religion--their own native customs and beliefs, and the Catholic religion that they, too, were forcibly converted to.

Albuquerque here we come!

2008-03-06T14:10:00.000-08:00

Weather permitting, Marty and I are headed to Albuquerque, New Mexico with friends for a week. I say weather permitting, because another blizzard is forecast for Friday and Saturday. This week, we had a heavy snow on Wednesday, which caused most of the schools to close. In this world of change, it is refreshing to know that kids today do the same thing we used to do 50 years ago when snow forces a day off school: they build snowmen! Our neighbors built a whole family of them, and even strung Christmas lights at night to show off their work....

The Artist's Way List of Ten

2008-02-28T09:31:00.000-08:00

A few years ago I did an Artist's Way class. The Artist's Way is a book by Julia Cameron, a New York author and playwright who was once married to the film director Martin Scorsese. The outline of the book and program is fairly simple--you write three pages in a journal every morning (called "morning pages"), go for a weekly walk to stimulate creativity, and have a weekly "Artist's Date" where you do something to support your "inner artist"--such as a trip to a museum, sitting in nature, watching an old movie, or looking at your childhood pictures. The activity itself is totally up to you--the only "rule" is that you do it alone. Cameron's books, which include Vein of Gold and the one I'm reading now, Finding Water (all of these can be found on Amazon) contain other exercises and writings--each program is 12 weeks long. I enjoyed the class, but in the hurly-burly of moving to India, I had forgotten about the books and the process, which can easily be done by simply reading the books and following along. In the last few weeks since I've been home, I have re-discovered Cameron, and have resumed doing morning pages. It is a good way to record the changes I'm going through and feeling, as well as dreams and fragments of dreams, which probably pick up other aspects that are more submerged.

One of the Cameron exercises is listing simple pleasures, ten things you enjoy ("take pen in hand" she writes as a prelude to these exercises). I wish I could find what I wrote four or five years ago--buried in some box no doubt-- to see what has changed in my list of ten, but here they are, and more than a few undoubtedly reflect the effects of repatriation:

1. Sidewalks. What an amazing thing they seem to me after Chennai, where even when you did see them, they were a foot and a half off the ground, interrupted by trees and peeing dogs and men, and located along busy roads where it was impossible to escape the cacophony of horns. Here, despite the ice which makes them hazardous at times, it's a beautiful thing to go for a long walk down tree lined quiet streets.......

2. Podcasts. I could go on and on about what a difference an iPod has made in my life, even since I've returned to the U.S. In India I had a couple of hours a day to listen since I had the long commute, but when I first came back, I struggled to find an opportunity to use it. Now, I work out nearly every day and walk often, so have caught back up on my long list-- The Wall Street Journal, This American Life, Japanese, Hebrew, The Cook and the Chef (a great Australian videocast with lots of scenes of Australian wine and cheese country), and several others. The other day I even learned a new and easy way to polish silver (it's chemistry).

3. Snow. Yes, crazy though it may sound....I'm a true northerner and love the four seasons. Watching the snow come down in gentle flakes with a cup of coffee in hand, Junior purring behind me on her special little "fur trapping" pillow, is a great pleasure.

4. Living less than 2 miles from the zoo (close enough to walk, far enough away not to smell).

5. Driving myself (that is one I would not have written 3 years ago).

6. Cooking again. Last night's creation was a salmon pie with goat cheese, thyme, red onions, and red pepper. A bit too much dill, but otherwise not bad. (My mother and aunt would be spinning in their graves, though, since I use store-bought pie crusts rather than making my own--even without the excuse of time.)

7. Costco. What a great place. And to think I used to mock Marty for the "inventory" we carry at home by virtue of buying things in large quantities.

8. Fresh berries. Blueberries, raspberries and blackberries especially--I'm not such a fan of strawberries unless there is nothing else available. This is by no means a "green" or guilt-free choice---this time of year, the raspberries come from as far away as Chile, most of the others from Mexico. (Bought, of course, from Costco so at least the price doesn't make me feel too guilty, too.)

9. Netflix. Thanks to Harry for this one. Netflix, the online DVD rental store, was just getting started when I left and didn't have the country covered the way it has now. It's very slick, and much more convenient than the brick-and-mortar competitors. If you live in the U.S., check it out. If not--it's probably coming your way, like Starbucks, Amazon, and other American marketing icons.

10. The New York Cook Book. Full of stories--if you want to know about American immigrant history read this book-- and wonderful food. I haven't read or used it for over three years, and am rediscovering.

Maybe this list sounds like I don't miss India. On Sunday, my visa expires, and I've been thinking about that. Another list of 10 in the making......

Detroit Culture and Sunday nights

2008-02-18T06:29:00.000-08:00

Using Detroit and culture in the same sentence may seem like an oxymoron, but at least when it comes to the DIA (Detroit Institute of Arts), it 's not. Though probably a little known fact, the DIA is the fifth largest art institute in the country, and has a marvelous collection of Impressionist art as well as classics like the three story murals of the early auto industry painted by Diego Rivera (right). It has recently undergone a major facelift, and Sunday afternoon Marty, Sara and I ventured downtown--it's a nearly straight shot down the historic Woodward Avenue (which dates from 1805) from our house. We enjoyed it a lot.

Sunday, especially Sunday night, is kind of strange for me now. Even when I had jobs I really liked, which fortunately was most of them, I never liked Sunday night. There is something about gearing up for a workweek, like harnessing up (or for those of you old enough to remember, putting on a girdle), that was always a bit stressful --sometimes a lot stressful, depending on what I had on for the week. I never slept as well on Sunday night as other nights, though I can't say that I realized this at the time.

Now, I still get up very early on Monday for a 7 a.m. yoga class, though I didn't this morning because of the weather--very icy here and treacherous on the roads. But going to a yoga class is quite a different thing to look forward to than the start of another workweek. Sunday is pretty much like any other day, and Sunday night is actually enjoyable. Maybe when I get a new job, I'll get one that starts on Tuesday instead of Monday?

Cold, Colder, Coldest

2008-02-13T10:00:00.000-08:00

When I was in Chennai we used to say there were three seasons, hot, hotter and hottest. Towards the end of my stay there, the heat really didn't bother me too much--I think your body eventually adjusts and maybe your blood even gets thinner or thicker to compensate. Now I am experiencing the reverse--cold and snowy Michigan winter like I haven't seen since I was a child. Detroit just never gets much snow--but this year it seems like all it is doing is snowing, melting, freezing, and snowing again. On Monday the temperature got down to 4 degrees Fahrenheit--that's about -16 Celsius. Brrr.....I really don't mind the snow--in fact I like it--but don't like the extreme cold that makes it hard to even contemplate going outside.

Our sea shipment was delivered on Monday. Altogether, it took about 2 months from the day I saw it loaded and locked in Chennai on a beautiful sunny afternoon in December to its unloading and unpacking in these subzero temperatures. Everything except one dining room chair, which had a broken leg, arrived intact. It didn't appear that U.S. Customs did more than open the container--nothing was disturbed. So now I'm in the middle of boxes again, though not nearly as many as we had in storage, so it shouldn't take too long. That is the end of the great move. Junior is very happy to be reunited with her favorite chair, so much so that she slept the entire afternoon on it yesterday.

One thing I have noticed since coming back is that despite all the complaints and frustration I had in India about service, here in the U.S. it can also be abysmally poor. Here the issue doesn't seem to be as much about staff turnover--the economy means that people really can't job hop the way they do in India--but competence and attitude. For example, our Verizon account got screwed up on two counts---address and phone features--and it took as much time and psychic energy to get it fixed as it would have in India (and no, it didn't go to a call center there--everything happened right here in the U.S.) In the case of both mistakes, it was simple carelessness on the part of the Verizon staff. Often, I have noticed in service establishments that people seem distracted and inattentive--as if their mind is on something else (which it probably is). And, there is the ubiquitous use of cell phones--even more than when I left three years ago, though this is probably a worldwide phenomena. From our cleaning lady to the moving crew to drivers on the road, people cannot stay off the phone for even an hour. It interrupts everything they do.

The Hillary and Barack Show

2008-02-05T09:56:00.000-08:00

Today is "Super Tuesday, " and here in the U.S., election fever is high. Now that John Edwards has officially dropped out of the Democratic race, it really IS the Hillary and Barack show (I figure if you are going to call one of them by his/her first name, you should do it with the other). Although you can get the coverage anywhere in the world, it seems more immediate when it's in the same time zone (maybe just an effect of repatriating, though, since, other than the Food Network, I still don't watch television very often). Because I wanted to see the candidates more "in person", I watched the New Hampshire primary debate, though I missed the one in South Carolina, where both of them really showed their fangs. In the last debate in California, they mostly kept the gloves on, and successfully ducked the obvious question--what about a joint ticket?

For a while I have been sitting on the fence, and being thankful that I have the choice between two excellent candidates, either of whom has a high probability of winning. The two are fairly close on the issues--other than some differences on health care, not a lot to choose between them here as far as I am concerned. Hillary is clearly the more experienced and managerial of the two--I find her answers on Iraq withdrawal to be much deeper and realistic, for example, than Barack's-- but Barack is the more charismatic and persuasive, and I definitely suffer from the "yes-she's-qualified-but-I-just-don't-LIKE-her" syndrome. In the weeks since I've been home, with so many more opportunities to be exposed to these two candidates, I've remained conflicted. Two weeks ago, The New York Times endorsed Hillary, but the following weekend, there was an op-ed piece by Caroline Kennedy endorsing Barack that has me leaning a lot more his way than I was. I thought this article was very well written, and more than this, it speaks to what I have observed here since coming back: people feel that the country has lost its way, and desperately needs new and inspired leadership. Who can best deliver that? That's what I think it's going to come down to, in the end.

Cabinet Zucchini

2008-01-30T18:44:00.000-08:00

For at least another month or so, I have a number of projects around the house to keep me occupied. I have unpacked all but a couple of the boxes from storage, and finally found two of my favorite cookbooks: The New York Cookbook and Bert Greene's Greene on Greens.

Altogether, I am amazed at the sheer amount of stuff that we have accumulated. The other day I carted out and donated four boxes of books from our respective college days--mostly works of great literature since both of us were English majors. I have a lot of books coming from India, too, and need to get our collection here down to fit the number of shelves we have. We live only two blocks away from a good library, and I have resolved not to buy another book that I can borrow. (Right now, I'm reading two---Ha Jin's A Free Life and Susan Choi's An American Woman. It seems like an embarrassment of riches to have free time to read novels.)

But to the title of this post: Cabinet Zucchini. And what is that, you may ask? Well, it's all the china and stemware we seem to have accumulated from our parents and grandparents and keep schlepping around from place to place (and more is coming from India). Altogether, I have counted eight full sets of china and five sets of stemware and barware. If you have ever had a garden, you know that zucchini (courgette for my British readers), once planted, takes over--like Forrest Gump's friend Bubba and his shrimp, you will be forced to catalog the myriad ways that zucchini can be sliced, diced, sauteed, fried, baked and preserved--and yes, given away-- as you struggle to figure out what to do with it. So it is with the china. The picture shows a beautiful tea set of my grandmother's---displayed prominently but never used that I recall because she was afraid to break it. I've resolved not to move this stuff again. Most of the china can't be made kosher (at least not to Orthodox standards), and the stemware is outdated--wine glasses that flare out instead of in, and can't be washed in the dishwasher since the glass is so thin and delicate. Except for the monogramed stuff from Marty's parents and a set of dishes we use for Rosh Hashanah, we're cataloging it and will sell it or give it away either to one of the replacement houses that engages in this business, or to a charity that helps poor newlyweds.

Dad

2008-01-25T11:27:00.000-08:00

I was supposed to go to Ontario this week for Vipassana. But I canceled at the last minute, because my dad had another serious TIA (transient ischemic attack) on Monday. When they went to wake him for breakfast, he was unresponsive and having trouble breathing. The doctor was there and put him on oxygen. By that evening, he was awake but weak, and did not want anything to eat, though he took some fluids. By the next night he was much better but still in bed, and the next day they were able to get him up. I did not feel comfortable to go off and be out of communication for ten days, even though it's only about 5 or 6 hours away. Then, I got a 24 hour flu --so it looks like Vipassana is meant for another time.

Dad has lost a lot of weight in the last six weeks, and is down to under 130 lbs. He does not feed himself--though on a good day he can still pick up his coffee cup-- and is on pureed food. When he came back to more or less normal consciousness, it almost seemed that he had had some out of body or near death experience--he was quite agitated and kept saying that couldn't "get in" and "I had to come back." He was also very sad, and kept looking at Marty and me and wanting to say something that he couldn't quite articulate. Years ago, a few months before my grandfather passed away, he talked in a similar way--that he could "not turn the corner" and needed help. I don't know how long my dad has to live, but on some level I think he is making his peace with it.

It is often said that hearing is the last sense to go, and that it is important to keep talking even to those who are in a coma or otherwise unable to respond. Although my dad's mental faculty is probably down to 5 or 10%, he still reacts to things from long ago-- typical of the pattern of dementia where people lose near term but retain long term memory. Two things that still get through the immense fog in his brain are music and the poetry of Emily Dickinson. The music I play for him on my iPod includes selections from albums he used on a radio program the family store sponsored for several years for a local radio station---such as 101 Strings "The Soul of Spain." His hearing seems pretty unimpaired, as I don't have to turn it up even close to full volume for him to tap his feet to the castanets. The other night while he was still in bed I read him several of Emily's poems, and although he was unable to speak much, his facial expression and movements told me that the words were getting through--he even laughed at "I'm Nobody--Who are You?"

So transitions for me turn out to be more than leaving India, and leaving my job...these days are bittersweet, for although I long to keep my dad in this world, I also can't help but wish him free of all the limitations imposed by his dementia and age. He is in no apparent pain (not that he would tell us if he were--he has always been overly stoic that way) and that is a blessing...so I the best I can hope is that the tide will continue to go out gently.

Not Working

2008-01-15T17:19:00.000-08:00

This is my first half week of not working. I am not counting the week I came back or the week between Christmas and New Year's, nor am I counting the week we were in Florida because that was vacation. Now, we are back in Detroit, Marty is back doing office things, and I am still not working.

It feels weird, but one thing I have to say is that the time does seem to pass quickly. I have no trouble finding things to do---I shoveled the walk and the driveway this morning after a snowfall, and am really enjoying getting back to my yoga class. We voted in the Michigan primary, and the only people there at the hour we went were senior citizens. When people call me to do things, I can pretty much say "anytime" instead of having to make it on evenings or weekends. I spent two hours at Sara's apartment today with a helper from the agency that works with her, and I started to get a bit antsy after a while, but then I had to stop and think, "why?" There was really nothing so urgent that I had to do. I am unpacking a lot of boxes from the storage we had. I still haven't found my favorite roasting pan. This keeps me working at the storage.

I still don't have any interest in watching T.V., but Marty does and occasionally I catch part of a program here and there. American Idol is on right now and I have to say--it is incredibly bad; I don't know how Marty stands it. I am grossly offended and upset by the number of drug ads on T.V. and in print publications here--it is no wonder that prescriptions are so ridiculously expensive in the U.S. I guess this was true three years ago before I left but I notice it a lot more now. I have been checking out buying our prescriptions in Canada. I am really, really enjoying reading The New York Times every morning. I am enjoying NOT having a 3 hour commute every day.

We went shopping over the weekend and I have become as big a fan of Costco as Marty. It is incredibly a lot cheaper to buy things there, even if the volume is sometimes more than you think you need. We bought some cereal, for example. A large box of two 28 oz bags of our favorite brand cost a little more than $8. We had a 16 oz box at home that we had paid $4.79 for. I also like Costco's policies. They are a lot more socially responsible than Wal-Mart. They seem to have a good reputation with both employees and suppliers.

I am tired of traveling. Though I will be heading up to Canada for Vipassana next week, that's a short journey and not too onerous. After a while, I had had too much of Disney and the vacation experience, and I think it was just the build up from all the travel I did while in India. It is nice to settle in and just be. I am sure I will get wanderlust after a while, but right now I am just glad to be here and in our place in Keene. We are having friends over for dinners and I enjoy the time to prepare and just have conversation.

I see my dad pretty much every day. Today I took him some favorite songs on my iPod. He enjoyed that. It is tough to see him though. I find that I can spend 10 or 15 minutes and then I want to leave. He is not able to have a conversation. The last few TIAs (mini-strokes) have affected his speech and he cannot articulate even if he wants to say something. But still, I am glad that I am only 5 minutes away from him instead of halfway around the world.

I have discovered "LinkedIn" a business networking site. I figure it will be useful when I start getting back into the job market. I will think about that next month.

The Magic of Disney

2008-01-10T18:11:00.000-08:00

Disney World is an amazing place on many levels. First, it brings out the child in anyone old or young--magical exhibits, rides, and chances for photo ops with storybook characters, parades and trips back to the past. Marty and I did the famous "It's a small world", which has been updated to include more countries, twice, charmed by it thoroughly. Hopping from the Magic Kingdom to Epcot to Animal Kingdom and Hollywood (used to be MGM) studios, we took in new attractions since our last visit with Sara about twelve years ago. We remembered some things between us, but enough was new that we felt that we had a whole new experience.

You can just enjoy Disney on the entertainment level--there is more than enough variety and activity to satiate the senses. But, on another level, it is also a marvel in crowd control. We have been here at a relatively less crowded time of year--typically, the first couple of weeks of January after the holidays are slower. Still, there were lots of people--at some of the newer attractions, the wait was up to an hour. Since our last visit, Disney has added a feature called Fast Pass--you pick up a ticket for an hour "window" later in the day and there is a special line with little or no wait. You can only do one Fast Pass ticket at a time. At fast food places, the menu is limited and the orders are taken ala McDonald's style and prepared while you check out---but faster than any drive in place, so the wait even with a line of ten or more people is less than 5 minutes. Guides laugh and joke with the audience to move everyone closer together so more people can be accommodated at some of the larger attractions, like the Indiana Jones Stunt show, and people are herded very efficiently in and out. At every attraction, the approximate waiting time is posted on an electronic sign and updated continously. Marty, who is not a roller coaster fan, waited for me outside of Space Mountain, the traditional roller coaster at Epcot. When I went in, the wait was 5 minutes--which is nothing. He watched the sign go from 5 to 10 minutes, then jump to 30 minutes. The crowd eased off, and the sign went back to 20 minutes---all in the time it took me to take the ride and exit. I have to believe there is an incredible amount of technology and mathematics behind this crowd and line control. It's really pretty amazing.

Another impressive thing about Disney are the incredible lengths the parks and resorts go to make them friendly to people with disabilities. From captioning and sign language for the hearing impaired, to ready availability of scooters and wheelchairs, ramps and helpers for disabled folks to get on and off buses and experience the attractions--it clearly goes well beyond what is legally required. Consequently, you probably see more children as well as adults with disabilities than you might otherwise. But, I have to say, the other thing I noticed were an incredible number of fat people. A fair number of them were in scooters and chairs as well--not because they can't walk, but because they're out of shape. The parks are large, and you probably get in a few miles in a day walking around them. Although the crowd was pretty mixed, there were lots of foreigners--many from Latin and South America, and a fair number of Europeans and Asians as well. With the cheap dollar, it makes sense.

We stayed "on property" this time, at the Port Orleans resort. This is one of the mid-range resorts, and it is a bit older and getting tired---the shower head bushing needed to be replaced and some of the doors were scuffy. The advantage is ready transport to the parks, extended hours, and general convenience. But everything at Disney is expensive, and they charge for things they shouldn't---like internet service at $9.95 a day and $7 for a hot dog you could get at Costco for $1.50--beverage included. The prices are so inflated that it is publicly joked about in some of the entertainment. Yet people keep coming, and may grouse about the prices, but are willing to pay them. It does mean that for the most part, Disney is limited to a certain strata of the population, and is not accessible to everyone.

After four days, though, we had pretty well been parked out. We are in Tennessee now, on our way back to Detroit. Vacation is over and it's time to do some serious thinking about what's next.

Kitty Hawk

2008-01-05T18:49:00.001-08:00

On the way to Florida, Marty and I stopped in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina at the Wright Brothers Memorial and the site of the first flight in 1903. It was an amazing place. The scene at left is where Wilbur and Orville actually flew the first plane after three unsuccessful attempts, making the long trek from Dayton, Ohio where they ran a bicycle shop. It was cold in Kitty Hawk when we were there--I took the walk up to the top of the hill where the memorial is and just about froze--and we were told that this is typical weather for this time of year. In fact, there was a 27 mile an hour wind on the December day that the brothers made aviation history.

We stayed just south of Kitty Hawk on the Cape Hatteras highway in a lovely old place that had been moved from the shoreline, where it was about to fall into the sea. The coast here is lined with vacation homes making ocean access difficult, but we found a hotel that had closed for the season and were able to park in their lot and take some shots of the Atlantic Ocean at sunset. This one below is from Marty's camera:

New Beginnings

2008-01-02T07:24:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

This is the scene outside our bedroom window in New Hampshire. It snowed heavily on December 31 and again yesterday, but within a few hours the roads were dry and our driveway plowed. We didn't even realize it was snowing until we started hearing a strange noise overhead in the middle of the night--it was the snow falling off the steeply slanted roof to the ground below.

I haven't seen snow drifts like this since I was a kid, and I got a chance to shovel the walk for the first time in a number of years--only to find out that the city does it, because we are on a street near a school. Oh well, I needed the exercise, anyway.

Now it is January 2 and soon we will be on our way to Florida, stopping in North Carolina on the way. It's fun to reconnect with the U.S., a country I haven't really spent much time in for nearly three years.