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Some time ago, I wrote a bit on what I think is an effective and relatively painless way to speed up dinner when the kids are lagging woefully behind. The trick is to sit at the table and read aloud from any book that the kids might likely find unbearably boring until such time as they have sufficiently cleaned their plates. I received a lot of comments from friends and family over my original post in which I first described what I think of as an innovative parenting tactic. Well, tonight's marathon session at the dinner table presented yet another opportunity to give it a shot.
Angela Davis
While browsing at HPB over the weekend, I picked up a cheap copy of the Beacon Press edition ofOne-Dimensional Man by Herbert Marcuse. Marcuse has been an intriguing figure to me ever since I learned that he was a mentor of sorts to Angela Davis. I have read pieces of the book online at marxists.org and I have always intended to tackle the entire volume at some point in time. And so, tonight -- as K. plodded through her keftedes and potatoes -- I figured it was high time to introduce her to Marcuse's 1964 critique of capitalist society.
K. pretty much knew what was going on when I left the table and came back carrying a book. Now, the initial phase of my dinnertime "intellectual aversion therapy" always features a short period of time in which all eating completely stops and we go through a bit of groaning and whining. It's only when the kids realize that I'm both willing and able to read aloud for an indefinite period of time that the complaining subsides and gives way to focused and orderly dining. (Of course, my "analytical" tone here is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but believe me when I say that there are nights when drastic measures are needed to reign in the dinnertime chaos.)
Z. had already finished her dinner and was playing in the other room, leaving Thomai, K. and me at the table. I showed Thomai the book (I had already shared it with her at least once or twice since Saturday night) and she was kind enough to endure yet another of my digressions on why I was so intrigued with this particular work. Using the notes on the back cover, I explained that Marcuse effectively "argues that members of Western societies, both capitalist and communist, must reassert their individuality and personal freedom against the oppression of the technologized status quo." I also explained that the questions in my mind at this point did not so much have to do with whether or not Marcuse was was fundamentally correct when the book was published in 1964 (I have no doubt that he was) but instead I wondered:
1) Have advances in technology such as cellular phones, personal computers, and the Internet (including the advent of 'net-based alternative media outlets, user-generated content and social networking forums) negated the concept of "oppression of the technologized status quo"?
...and...
2) If the answer to the above question is "yes," than is this because of incremental social-revolutionary change or is it because of simple evolution (with the absence of a class-conscious mass movement)? Maybe my questions were a bit verbose, but I think most folks might still get the gist of what I'm pondering. At any rate, Thomai was relatively attentive, yet silent. But the panic in K.'s voice was evident as she came to the realization that any book which gave rise to these questions must be truly boring. She looked at Thomai and said, "Mama...?" And Thomai quickly replied, "You're on your own!" as she promptly got up and left the room. Well played, my dear.
I started reading from the book and, as expected, there was considerable wailing and gnashing of teeth from K. Unfazed by the familiar and predicable results, I continued and after a bit, K. settled back into eating, doing so with some new vigor and a slight sense of urgency. She voiced a few minor protests now and again, interjecting comments like, "This is really boring" and so on. At one point, she exclaimed, "Just what is this book about, anyway?!" I replied, "Let me tell you what this book is about!" and I read her one of the most notably significant passages from chapter one:
Contemporary industrial civilization demonstrates that it has reached the stage at which "the free society" can no longer be adequately defined in the traditional terms of economic, political, and intellectual liberties, not because these liberties have become insignificant, but because they are too significant to be confined within the traditional forms. New modes of realization are needed, corresponding to the new capabilities of society.
She was quiet...still eating, but not complaining either as I broke down a little about what the sentences actually meant. Even though she's still really young, K. is a lot like I was at her age in that she watches the news and has some level of what's going on in the world. Of course, I am realistic about things; I know she can't grasp the intricacies of the important philosophical concepts in Marcuse, but I'd like to think that a basic awareness of the idea that ideas can be discussed, debated and redefined is preferable to raising a child to simply accept conditions as they are so that he or she can settle for life as nothing more than a small cog in someone else's machine.
I stopped reading for a bit and we had a short chat about the ideas of freedom and change. I enjoyed it and K. was a really good sport about it until she finished her last bite and jumped up from the table. I had to call her back to clean up her spot and put her dishes in the sink and I took advantage of the time to read yet a few more passages out loud while she tidied up.
When I posted my original "parenting tips" article years ago, my friend Anthony joked: "You'll only get an award if you achieve the twin ends of both making her finish eating AND take an interest in the subject." I can't promise that K. is going to go out and set the world on fire with her radical ideas starting tomorrow, but maybe someday she'll remember nights like this and make some good use of the concepts that we have discussed. But at the very least, I hope she'll just appreciate spending a few moments at the dinner table with her silly, silly daddy.
Never underestimate the importance of exposing your children to professional wrestling at a young age. Any doubts that I had were dispelled last night. Over dinner, Thomai and I were discussing our mutual disdain for Sarah Palin when our older daughter chimed in to say that Palin reminds her of Smackdown's Vickie Guerrero. I told her that this was an excellent comparison with the exception being that Vickie merely plays the part of an evil character, for the sake of entertainment while Palin is downright awful in real life. My daughter appreciated this important distinction.
It was a couple of years ago that I wrote of a late-night run-in with a guy at a gas station who was a bit perturbed with the "I'd rather be smashing imperialism" bumper sticker on my car. Not too long ago, I finally gave up my old Grand Am in favor of a used minivan. It's really something of a "hooptie" if I do say so myself. Laugh if you must, but it is one hell of a practical vehicle. An added bonus is that it feels like I'm piloting the Space Shuttle when I'm driving it. Of course, the day I brought the van home I immediately started the search for some good punk rock and lefty bumper stickers so I could alter the whole "soccer mom" vibe of my sweet ride and it was without question that I particularly needed a new "imperialism" sticker to grace my vehicle's posterior. I found one at Donnelly/Colt's great Progressive Resources Catalog. As soon as I got the new sticker in the mail, I slapped it on the van, right smack in the middle of the backside so that it would be clearly visible to anyone who is behind me in traffic. Over the years, whether it's been displayed on my car or the "new" van, I've noticed people smiling and laughing at the sticker, which is just fine. It is pretty tongue-in-cheek, after all. Sometimes I see folks looking at it and they look mad or confused and, well, that's just fine with me too. But I haven't really had a face-to-face chat with anyone about the sticker in a while. Then, over the weekend, I had another encounter not entirely unlike my chat in the gas station back in 2006.
On Saturday, we were driving to Fort Wayne to visit some family. When I say "we," I mean Thomai, the kids, my mother-in-law & father-in-law and me. We were passing through a decent-sized rural town not too far from the Ohio/Indiana border and we stopped for lunch at a crowded restaurant right at the peak of the lunch rush. As we were all piling out of the van and stretching a bit, I heard a woman's voice saying, "Excuse me....excuse me." I looked behind me and I saw a lady who had just parked approaching the van quickly. I kind of anticipated that she was going to ask us for directions and I started to tell her we were from out-of-town when she said, "I know I'm not the smartest person in the world, but I have a question about something on your van." At first, I thought she was going to ask about my "Cynthia McKinney for President" sticker, but she quickly zeroed in on the "I'd rather be smashing imperialism" sticker, underlining the word "imperialism" again and again with her index finger. "What does this word mean?" she said, passing over it again.
I was not sure where this was going. I always assume it's going to be a fight, I guess. I started to open my mouth to speak and then I realized I really didn't exactly know where to go with all this. I was standing in a crowded parking lot in a relatively strange place (trust me, it's strange up there) and my kids and in-laws were all right there in the thick of it with me. How could I go into Lenin or Zinoviev? Do I talk about Iraq? Maybe neocolonialism could be briefly discussed... Then I looked at the lady and I realized she wasn't talking to me...She was talking to my father-in-law. I thought to myself, "Well, this situation is officially no good." I said to the woman, "It's mine...Just a minute" and I went to the driver's side and closed my door so we could get on with the chat.
I walked back and closed the van door and returned to the back of the van where I was surprised to see the lady leaning in to listen intently to my father-in-law as he spoke quietly, yet sternly to her. He had her full attention. He said, "It means, 'Smash the ones who do all the smashing.' The bad people."
I wasn't sure what to expect. The lady paused and thought for a second and I worried that she might unleash some kind of jingoistic tirade. Then her face lit up and she said, "Oh! Okay! I just wanted to know what it meant for sure in case my kids asked me." She was perfectly happy and went on her way.
My father-in-law had clearly shown me that being straightforward and succinct is much better than over-thinking things and overreacting. It was an answer that was brilliant in its simplicity and true the spirit of the original message.
The Horseshoe Falls at dusk, as seen from the observation deck of Skylon Tower
On our list of favorite vacation spots and travel destinations, Ontario, Canada is surely in the top three, right along with Greece and San Francisco. For this year's summer vacation, we went to Niagara Falls, Canada. This visit was our third trip to Niagara Falls and our fourth trip overall to Ontario (we visited Toronto in 2005). Thomai and I first visited Niagara Falls as newlyweds back in 1998 and we had an absolutely great time. We returned in 2001 when K. was about 2 ½ years old and it was another memorable experience. Of course, our trip to Toronto was exceptional, but it was a pretty expensive junket and it wasn't in the cards (or in the budget) for us to go back this year, although we would have liked to do so. Because Z. had never visited the Falls, we thought this would be a good time share the experience as a family of four.
We were ready for a huge road trip, having compiled a massive mix CD that included some of our road trip favorites like "The Road I Must Travel" by The Nightwatchman, "Vacation" by the Go-Go's and "Holiday Road" by Lindsey Buckingham. We also added some new songs to the mix, like "No One" by Alicia Keys, which is a new favorite for Thomai and K.
It is probably worth noting that it was pretty sunny on the drive up to Canada and I had to break down and buy a pair of sunglasses at a Pennsylvania K-mart. And -- get this -- they were those huge "over glasses" shades that I joked about last year in my rant about Wal-Mart. Once we were back on the road, it finally hit me that I was 35 years old, wearing gigantic "over-glasses" sunglasses, and driving a mini-van with my 2 kids in tow. So I guess it is official that I am an old guy.
The one and only Santino Marella
We were a little worried about Stupsi on our first night there, as she had helped herself to a bag of the kids' candy a day or two earlier. But we did manage to get settled and walk down to Clifton Hill, which is one of our favorite spots in Niagara Falls. It is probably one of my greatest contradictions that I love such a kitschy, touristy place like Clifton Hill. The girls were pretty excited to eat at The Rainforest Café and I must say it was pretty decent for a chain restaurant. I was pretty stoked to find the WWE Retail Store right next to the Rainforest Café and we stopped there after dinner. I ended up buying a Santino Marella t-shirt which I will probably wear several times a week for many, many years to come. I had wanted one of these shirts pretty badly for about a month, but I hadn't got around to getting one online. Now, Thomai will tell you that she doesn't like wrestling at all, but I am more than happy to point out that Santino always gets a laugh out of her. I am pretty sure it's because his in-your-face "Italian" character reminds her of some of her more "boisterous" relatives in Greece.
Our first big stop during our stay was the Niagara Parks Butterfly Conservatory. We had never been there before, and it was a tremendously interesting place to see. Thomai took some wonderful pictures there.
Yes, I gave this man $4.
Later in the week, we visited some of our favorite spots on Clifton Hill, including the Movieland Wax Museum and the Rock and Roll Wax Museum. Baby Z. has a bizarre fascination with Elvis these days, and we snapped an hilarious picture of her posing in front of a wax figure of "The King." Later that day, we came across a street performer who was working the Clifton Hill area with his very bizarre "Golden Elvis" routine. Both of the girls were really taken by his act and I ended up giving the guy $4 CDN (or two "Toonies") so that he would give the each of girls a set of gold beads. K. wore her beads for the rest of the trip.
Skylon Tower was a high point (pun intended) for us all and we took some great pictures of the Horseshoe Falls below. I was also pleasantly surprised to find a nice-looking spider spinning an impressive web on the outside of the observation deck screen, a full 775 feet from the ground. The pictures I took of that spider (with the distant landscape below as a backdrop) are some of my favorite pictures from the trip.
Spider web at 775 feet.
As usual, I wanted to visit a locally-owned used and rare bookshop as part of our trip and after looking a bit on the web and in the phone book, I thought Hannelore Headley Old & Fine Books in St. Catherine's looked like a good spot. This place was totally packed with rows upon rows of books, stacked as high as the ceiling in some places. I landed a couple of good finds, including Love and Struggle in Mao's Thought by Raymond Whitehead and a 1968 Progress Publishers book on the Ulyanov Family.
Our last day in Niagara was the busiest of them all, as we didn't want to leave without hitting all of the best "tourist" attractions. We have hit the Double Deck Sightseeing Tour, Journey Behind the Falls and Maid of the Mist on all three of our Niagara trips now and each attraction is a special and unique experience.
For our last big meal of the trip, we went to a ritzy Chinese restaurant called Golden Lotus, located in the über-posh Fallsview Casino Resort. Budgetary constraints prevented us splurging on $100-plus dishes like shark fin soup and abalone, but I did go with the waiter's recommendation, which was the tender pork neck in X.O. sauce. I had never tasted X.O. sauce before and I was a little worried that I wouldn't like it, but it was just spicy enough without completely overpowering the dish. The consistency of the pork neck was unusual, but very intriguing -- somewhere between a piece of ham and a pork chop. The dish was pretty fantastic, overall, as was the entire trip.
Niagara Falls has never let us down and Thomai and I were so happy to enjoy all of our favorite spots with the girls.
You can view pictures of our trip here. (username & password required)
I used to have a motorcycle. Back in the summer of '99, I used a little bit of spare cash to buy a 1972 Honda 350. I had no experience riding and I had never learned to drive a stick shift, so I had a bit of a learning curve ahead of me. After I got my temporary permit, I enrolled in a "beginner's" class in motorcycle operation and safety at a nearby Honda plant. Turns out I was the only "beginner" in the class though, as pretty much everyone else in attendance had been riding ever since their childhoods. They were just taking the class looking for some "tips" or whatever. I completed the classroom course, but I quit the driving portion of the course halfway through the day after getting really frustrated with my classmates and instructors. The last straw for the day was when an instructor reached over and killed my bike's ignition after I had completed a lap around the course. I guess in his opinion, I had taken too long to turn the bike off (it was a Honda 150 and I wasn't really familiar with the controls), but as I was trying to remember the process to cut the engine, the guy just did it for me and the bike lurched, almost knocking me over with the bike. That was just enough for me.
I spent some time that summer learning the feel of the bike for myself. When K. was born that September, I took several weeks of paternity leave and I had some fun riding around our neighborhood during K.'s nap times. Truth be told, I never went more than a few miles from home on the bike, but it was a really fun time. I stored the bike that winter and I knew it would need some work come spring. Sure enough, when the weather broke, the bike would not start and it was in need of some significant repair. I took it to a local mechanic who was happy to take a $150 deposit for his promise to fix the bike. Instead, he tore it apart and then let it sit for a few weeks before deciding that he either couldn't or wouldn't fix it. When I asked him if I could have my deposit back, he said that he would give me the $150 back, but that the bike would come back to me in pieces. So I had to give up my deposit if I wanted the bike to be reassembled. When I finally got it back, it was even in worse shape. The electrical system was shot and other things didn't fit or work properly at all. That was it. We didn't have the time or money to do much more. I ended up selling the bike (at a net loss) to a guy who stripped old bikes to make new, "cannibalized" bikes. It was unfortunate. Some years later, I was watching the local news one night and I saw that the same mechanic who had destroyed my bike had been indicted for racketeering. That was a good day.
Every year around this time, I pine for that bike and think about the few good months I had with it. Maybe someday I'll get another chance to run the road.
A friend of mine recently sent me a link to a very funny blog called "Say What?!" The great signs on that site reminded me of one of my favorite pictures from our family trip to Clearwater Florida back in 2000. I snapped the picture below as we passed by the Marlin Motel one afternoon:
I'm guessing their "vacancy" might have something to do with all that warm "poo" they have in the motel, eh?
If
it's the first weekend after Labor Day and the heat index is in the
mid-nineties, then it must be time for the annual Greek Festival.
Despite the heat, we had a good time visiting with friends, eating and
watching the dancers. I am kind of surprised at how much Greek
memorabilia bears the label "Made in China" these days. Did Greece
grant China "Most Favored Nation" trade status or do the Chinese just love Greece?
It
was nice to see that in lieu of tip jars, festival workers were
collecting donations for relief funds to benefit victims of the
wildfires in Greece. Assuming that the cash ultimately gets where it
is needed, this seems like a great idea. As we have some good friends
from Pelopónnisos, we have heard some firsthand tales of how horrible the situation has been in recent weeks. My understanding is that the Red Cross of Greece
is still one of the best places to donate money for relief right now.
The bureaucracy of the Red Cross is often criticized, but the
organization remains one of the best centralized points for the
collection and disbursement of aid for major disasters worldwide. At
any rate, I have already received at least one chain letter for an
allegedly "genuine" ad hoc relief effort that is almost assuredly fake
and I am sure there are more to come. I would rather give to the Red
Cross and know that at least some of the money is getting through as
opposed to having a fly-by-night scam keep my cash for themselves.
On
a completely unrelated note, I have to mention the most interesting
t-shirt that I saw at the festival today. To be clear, the shirt in
question was worn by a female festival attendee and not a festival
worker or anyone affiliated with the church (as far as I could tell). The message on the shirt
read, "Hustle for Jesus." Nice.
Anyway, we have uploaded some photos of the Evzonakia Dancers in a new, off-site photo gallery. (username & password required)
Earlier in the month, we embarked on what was to be this summer's epic family vacation: A trip to Treasure Island, Florida…by car. While Thomai had made the trip by car before, such a long car ride was a first for the kids and me. I had been suffering from bronchitis in the days leading up to the trip and the ride down was a bit unpleasant for me. It would actually be a few days into the trip before I really started feeling better. The girls did well on the two 11+ hour shifts down to Florida and I am happy to say that we went against the advice of many of our fellow young parents who had urged us to buy a DVD player to make the time in the car easier. In lieu of the DVD, we stocked the car with plenty of paper & markers, stuffed animals and the like. We also burned a 3 CD set of "road trip music" for the trip. The "road trip" CDs are becoming something of a family tradition for us and on this trip we had a huge mix that spanned the genres, including cuts by Tom Morello, Bruce Springsteen, Sly and the Family Stone, Kiss, T. Rex, etc. The "kickoff" track for the trip was the title theme to the legendary East German musical "Heisser Sommer (Hot Summer)" and we also had obligatory American vacation songs like "Vacation" by the Go-Go's and "Holiday Road" by Lindsey Buckingham as part of our road trip repertoire. Music definitely made the trip a little easier.
We spent the night at an awful Holiday Inn Express in Smyrna, Georgia. A couple of times during our brief stay there, we encountered a sickly, scantily-clad fellow who spent a fair amount of his time telling the hotel staff about the raccoons that he raised in his apartment. We ultimately concluded that he actually lived behind the hotel and he was just coming in to get food from the hotel's breakfast bar, but we never really figured out if the food was for him or for the raccoons.
While we were driving through Georgia, I caught a news story on the Macon, Georgia NPR affiliate about Macon's outgoing mayor, C. Jack Ellis. Apparently, Ellis has recently angered his constituents by sending an open letter of support to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Hilarious!
The second leg of our drive down to Florida was not so bad, with the exception of a huge tractor-trailer accident (and the ensuing traffic jam) just south of the Florida border. We ended up reaching St. Petersburg/Treasure Island very late in the evening and we stayed at a nice hotel/condo suite on the beach. The furnishings were pretty good – generally better than a hotel's furnishings would be – plus we had the benefit of staying right on the beach, which was a huge plus.
The next morning, we went out to the beach. It was the first time we had been to a beach since Gerakina in 2004. Prior to that, we had visited the St. Petersburg area back in 2001. The girls all had a really nice time playing in the water and on the sand. As for me, I actually spent a fair amount of time thinking about quantum mechanics and the probabilistic/deterministic controversy (so hotly debated by Einstein and Bohr, among others) while I watched the tide move about scores and scores of tiny grains of sand each time water rolled in and out. I'm sure this sounds strange to people, but this is the kind of think I think about when I am at the beach.
One of the things I like to do when visiting a new city is to visit a bookstore or two while I'm in town. On this trip, we went to Lighthouse Books in St. Petersburg. It was a pretty cool place and it was just packed to the ceiling with books. In places where the shelves were overcrowded, the overflow was stacked in piles in front of the shelves. This is the kind of place where I could spend hours browsing. I scored a couple of interesting items there, including some volumes of the journal "Chinese Literature" for my collection (someday, I might be fortunate enough have the full run in my home library). I also came upon a 1937 copy of the booklet "China: The March Toward Unity" that seems to have something of an interesting history behind it. I'll write some more on that in another article. Wednesday, we made it to Disney World to visit The Magic Kingdom. It made for a long day as Orlando is about a 2-hour drive from St. Petersburg. It was also an expensive day, especially when you consider we spent about $300 just to get into the park itself. And it was pretty hot too...I think the heat index for each day we were in Florida was over 100 degrees. But, I have to admit, Disney World was a good time, especially for the kids who were thrilled to meet characters and to go on the rides there. It was really something to stand in front of the Cinderella Castle. You know, I hate to make the comparison, but I'm going to do it anyway…It felt a lot like visiting the Parthenon in Greece because I had seen pictures of both of these places all my life but I had never really considered that I might see them in person one day. So that aspect of it is really pretty cool, I must say. Most people we talked with in the days leading up to the trip insisted that we stay for the fireworks show that happens each night at closing and, although it made for a long day, we saw it through and we took in the show at 9 PM that night. I had one of those clichéd moments as a parent when I glanced over at the girls as the show started. The looks on their faces made the long day worth it.
On our last day, we visited the beach in the early evening, but the tide had washed in so much debris and dead sea creatures that the whole area smelled bad. The girls couldn't handle the stench, so the adjourned to the hotel pool, but I stayed behind to look at the stuff that had washed up. I saw a lot of interesting stuff and I picked up some especially nice shells, including a really interesting half of a large conch shell that had a lot of barnacles and odd cracks and crevices from what looked like a long, harsh existence. The drive back home was another two-day affair. We spent some time looking for peaches at several exits in southern Georgia. After striking out at a number of stops, we finally found a old fellow at a fruit and dairy stand a ways off from one of the exits. He seemed like an interesting character and I noticed some pictures on his wall of some professional wrestlers. When I asked him who was in the pictures, he told me in a very matter of fact manner that the pictures were of him with his brother back when they were a tag team called "Alaskan Hunters." I asked if they had wrestled for Georgia Championship Wrestling and he said that not only had they been in GCW, but in WCW and WWF as well. When I mentioned that I was a fan of Jerry Lawler's old Memphis Championship Wrestling show, he shared that the Alaskan Hunters had worked for Lawler back in the mid 1980's. I think that Alaskan Hunters actually held some championship gold for a while back in their heyday. So that was something of a brush with greatness, I guess. I got a batch of boiled peanuts from the guy in addition to the peaches, but I had never had boiled peanuts and I wasn't too crazy about them. Yuck.
The rest of the drive to Atlanta was considerably unpleasant. Around Macon, we hit a decent thunderstorm, and we could see lightning flash all over the sky for miles in several directions. By the time we made it through downtown Atlanta to Marietta, we found that the storm had knocked out the power at the hotel where we had made reservations for the night. They had auxiliary power, so the air and lights were running at about half power for the whole night. Those shortcomings, along with a less than stellar late-night dinner at Chick-fil- a made for an uncomfortable night. Luckily, I had the foresight to buy some wrestling action figures at a Georgia toy store earlier that day, so the girls and I played out a number of grudge matches between Super Crazy and Psicosis before turning in for the night.
The drive home through Tennessee and Kentucky went smoothly, but it was long and we were happy to get home. It all went well enough and the kids were really good to us on the long car rides throughout the course of the trip. We had some good times together and I'm sure we'd all gladly do it over again.
But the next time we go to Florida, I am pretty sure we'll fly there. A two-hour flight really beats the heck out of a 2-day trip by car.
You can view pictures of our trip here. (username & password required)
