Good reading

I thought this op-ed, by the New York Times' Thomas Friedman, was pretty inspirational.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/opinion/04friedman.html?em&ex=1210132800&en=86fe06a3444ab3f2&ei=5070

New favorite beer

Yesterday, we made a family trip to Rhode Island. We biked a little (had to stop when son, Ethan, 3, kept elbowing Alison, 7 months, in our new bike trailer until she couldn't take it), went to Narragansett Beach, where everyone enjoyed themselves, and then headed to the Mews Tavern. Even though the girl who brought our food out dropped my son's pizza and half of my calzone on the floor and on Alison's stroller, we still had a good time. Main reason: I found a new favorite beer.

Flying Dog Doggy Style Pale Ale

It is described this way on the menu:

"Brilliant amber in color and dry hopped with buckets full of Cascades for an unrivaled hop flavor and aroma... this is a true representation of an American-style pale ale, using the finest ingredients. Flying Dog classic pale ale is a multi-award winning product, and is consistently ranked as one of the best pale ales in the U.S. This is what craft beer is all about."

The stuff is very good. As many know, I love Sam Adams, because it is consistently good and has good flavor. But Flying Dog is more complex, more flavorful. I don't know if I can afford to make it my regular beer - it only comes in 6-packs - but it will definitely have a place reserved in the beer drawer in my fridge.


Sad note: While driving through Wickford yesterday, we noticed that Wickford Gourmet, an EXCELLENT little place to grab a sandwich, chowder and chocolate chip cookie or brownie (in fact, its brownie was featured on Rachel Ray's show) has closed. The reason seems to be a mystery, as the Providence Journal could not get ahold of the new owner. The place had a great back porch which sometimes had entertainment, they had a huge case of cheeses and olives, tasty baked goods, and other cool foods. It was a great place to relax and have a beer and tuna melt. I'm pissed. Hopefully, someone will reopen the place and continue making the same high quality food. The place is a landmark. It needs to be saved.

Reflections of Keeping Old T-shirts

Going to shake things up here a bit, and switch genres... My wife's comment about needing new clothes today made me think of this piece, which was written last year and is one poem in a collection I have tentatively titled Beer at the Ballpark (and Other Poems for Guys). I think it has potential to actually sell - at least that's what some people in my writer's group said - if I could manufacture the energy to write more of them. (Right now, I have about 15.)

My wife said she needed some new tshirts - that last year, she threw out a lot of her old ones. It's not that the old ones didn't fit anyone, they were just old, she said. I believe she called them "ratty" and "yellowing."

It takes a lot for me to throw out an old shirt, especially if at one time it had significant value. I wore a tshirt today, for instance, that has at least three small holes in it. It is probably 10 years old. I am not ready to retire it.

I happen to like gray t-shirts. I may have 15 of them. This is a poem about a hypothetical situation in which a woman starts questioning whether a guy's shirt should be trashed.


“His Gray T-Shirt”

Don’t tell a guy that his favorite
gray t-shirt is getting old and has holes
and should be the rag he uses
to check the oil in his car with because he’s
not stupid, he knows this already,
and is seeking therapy about this one
thing right now. Some shrink is making
$80 an hour just listening to the stories
associated with this shirt – how,
for instance, the Red Sox won their
first World Series in 86 years while he wore it
and other sports superstitions –
and counseling the guy to cope with the fact that
the shirt has no collar, and that dime-
sized holes are becoming quarter-sized holes,
and no sober man wants to show off his nipples.

The man is keeping the shirt because he needs to.

If you want to know how to truly help him, you say
nothing, and just permit the ghastly sight until the shirt
disintegrates in the washing machine, which it will, or
suspiciously becomes lost after months of searching,
which you will help him do. He will recover
after a Ceremony of Loss and a new
gray t-shirt to break in.

Numerous times, you will want to express your
disapproval about it and the others
like it. But the trick is to be passive,
accept his attire, because it’s your guy’s
connection to his past, and if there’s one thing
you shouldn’t do, it’s damage that. There’s a larger
purpose for old, torn tshirts than you can realize - even he
doesn’t completely understand it, so don’t
engage him in a conversation about it.
You wouldn’t want him questioning you
about your purses, now,
would you?

The allegedly useful Mosquito Magnet

Today was an unofficial spring cleaning day around here. It was sunny, for one, and the temperature was almost 50. When you're stuck inside for four months, a day like today seems like summer.

Some raking got done. We put out the new patio set.

And then my wife said something that I have long feared. "We need to take out the Mosquito Magnet."

The first thing I should say about the mosquito magnet, which allegedly baits mosquitos and disintegrates them into a fine dust, is that it is not a "we" thing. It's a "me" thing. It is one of the responsibilities I have inherited, because I know how to operate it. My wife loves the thing, and she claims that it rids our yard of mosquitos, but she does not know how to turn the machine on, or attach the propane tank to the hose, where to put the smelly, poisonous bait (WARNING: IF YOU TOUCH THIS WITH YOUR BARE HANDS, YOU WILL DIE.) or any of the few things you need to know how to do to get the thing to work.

I'm sure every spouse out there has acquired some responsibility that they wouldn't have chosen to take on themselves. But because the other person finds value in it, we must continue, year after year after year. The only solace is finding something for your spouse to do that you don't want to do.

This describes what has happened with the mosquito magnet.

The machine is powered by electricity, so you need to run an extension cord from your nearest outlet to a inconspicous place in your yard. I do that.

It runs out of propane about once a month, so I'll be going to ACE Hardware soon to start that tradition. You have to buy overpriced bait at Home Depot a few times a summer.

Maintenance gets pricey. Last year, I ran over the cord with the lawn mower even though I tried to bury the wire. A replacement cost $40, and so we were without the MM for a month or so. To be honest, I didn't see the mosquitos come back.

Caring for this thing makes me want to screen in the entire backyard. It's not necessarily that it takes that much time - the biggest thing is moving it when I mow the grass - it's that it's not my thing. I didn't choose it. I didn't want it. And now I'm taking care of it - like the dog my dad didn't want when I was a kid that he ended up walking every morning for 13 years.

I am NOT bringing out the machine when I see my first mosquito. I will wait until I see a considerable group of them. I may even wait until I find the mosquitos' carefully written plans to take over my backyard, at which time I will know that there is a sincere attempt on the part of these bugs to start bothering us. When this conspiracy is revealed, I might just try to reason with them, sit them down, offer them some drinks, and talk about this rationally, rather than lug out the big machine. We might try a little bargaining - like they can bite certain people who visit us, but not the family that lives here.

I don't know if it's realistic, anyway, to eliminate mosquitos from the yard, in the first place. I think if they want to come here, they will, regardless of how much propane, poison and extension cords are hooked up to my machine.

To help persuade my wife of my ideas, I need to make up some theory, or say I read something online about mosquito behavior. I can say something like mosquitos are like hornets, wasps and bees - you don't want to provoke them - which is what the mosquito magnet does. They'll just bite you harder. They'll go after our kids. They'll steal our cable.

I just need a good citation.

The "Disappearing Field Trip"

It ain't the New York Times, but this piece about the demise of school field trips was published today in Education Week, the newspaper of record in the education world. Perhaps you've never heard of it.

Enjoy,

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/03/26/29polochanin.h27.html

To save the birch or the cable wire?

This piece was shopped around to a few places, and was ultimately rejected - by NPR as a commentary, The New York Times, Boston Globe. It followed a recent storm that dropped heavy snow - the kind that clogs the snowblower - across Connecticut, but, per usual, especially heavy here, in my driveway.


As anyone experienced in snow removal can attest, it’s important to prioritize the cleanup process before beginning it. Clearing off the deck first, for instance, is usually a poor plan. Focusing on the front walk leading to the driveway, meanwhile, is smart, since it’s the pathway with the greatest foot traffic.

However, when I stepped outside after a significant snow storm, one that dropped eight inches of some of the heaviest snow in recent memory, I wrestled with a different scenario.

Which was I going to save first: the prized white birch in my front yard, or the wire providing us cable, Internet and phone service? Both were clearly suffering under the weight of snow.

The 50-foot-tall birch resembled a still frame of a snow-covered tree in a hurricane. An Ansel Adams photograph it was not. Branches were cracked, some had fallen. The top of the frail tree drooped hopelessly over the driveway.

The cable wire, which runs about 100 feet from a pole on the other side of our street to our house, sagged beneath the row of hemlocks it passes under, like a giant jump rope. In some places, it was only a few feet off the ground; it’s supposed to be 12 to 15 feet high.

The dilemma struck me almost instantly. Should I save nature or technology? The dichotomy could not be more obvious.

Before I could get to either one, I needed to make a path down the front steps. My son, who is two-and-a-half, helped. But even he struggled with his little red snow shovel. He soon lost interest in moving the snow. Instead, he lay on the driveway making snow angels.

I decided I would see what I could do with the tree first, since it’s the centerpiece of the front yard and we still had cable. Yes, a bit of guilt hit me, too. The environment is not exactly for-profit, while my combined phone, cable and Internet bill is nearly $200 a month.

I grabbed two rakes from the garage. With my son beside me, I tapped the bottom branches of the birch. Snow showered down onto our heads and jackets. The tree bounced back up with life. I was pleased. I continued to hit its lower branches, and a few more broke. I organized them in a small pile on the snowy driveway.

Once the tree looked like it wouldn’t be a total loss, I walked over to the cable wire. I followed it toward the road, tapping the hemlock branches above it. The wire popped up a little, rising as high as the net on a basketball rim. When I finished, the cable didn’t appear in jeopardy.

The birch, though, still needed attention. Since there was no easy way to reach the top branches, I tore off the tiny twigs of an already fallen limb, about 8 feet long, and used it like a spear, throwing it, javelin-style, at the treetop. My plan worked.

Later, while unclogging slush from my snow blower, I pondered my earlier dilemma. Had the tree succumbed to the weight of snow, it would have left a gaping hole in my front yard. If the downed cable wire had disrupted our cable, phone, or Internet, we would have gotten it fixed and spent the day reading a book or trying a new recipe instead of sitting in front of a computer or TV screen.

In the end, I was happy to have saved both. More so with the birch tree, though, to be honest. I hope it recovers fully. I will be grateful this year to see its leaves bud come spring

Only One Way to Go at Stew Leonard's

Stew Leonard's, the Fairfield County-based amusement park of supermarkets, is a funny place.

You go there with the understanding that this is not your typical grocery store. It features large displays of singing barnyard animals, mooing cows, and hanging monkeys. I believe there is a parrot, or a cockatoo, or a toucan, as well. These are all amusing, for adults and children alike. The store also has many very good free sample stations. Yesterday, I sampled some Cabot cheese, chicken sausage (awesome), pan seared green beans with onions, olive oil and garlic (which we are having for dinner tonight). There is usually free ice cream (sherbet yesterday), milk (strawberry and chocolate), OJ (which people form a line for), pomegranate juice (awesome) and sometimes steak or deli meat.

It reminds me a little of a market in Florida called Publix.

But Stew Leonard's has figured out the psychology of a shopper. They know your shopping behavior far better than you know them. Not only are there fresh fruits on tables the second you walk into the store. Not only are there free samples of up to three soups. Not only is there music and eye catching displays.

You can only go in one direction at Stew Leonard's. There is one aisle.

Unless you have been there before and know about the two or three shortcuts, you must follow the maze from the beginning of the store until the end. The shoppers go, then, in one direction. On a Saturday, when you forgot to get an onion and need to travel in the opposite direction, this is a bad thing.

My wife, having gone to college and lived for a few years after college in Fairfield County, loves the place. She, admittedly, is sucked into the sights and sounds of the place. She has convinced me to go, now three times, and I have to say, the place is fun. The food is great. The fruits and vegetables are high quality.

But the experience, when you are done, is exhausting. Because of the one-way route, you cannot travel at your own pace very easily. Your time in the store is determined by lots of other people. It's sort of like driving in New York City. There is no time to stop and look at things. You have to move, or the people around you will thrash you. At Stew Leonard's, a similar thing happens. You feel like you're "going slow" if you stop and actually look at what you are buying. There are people maneuvering carriages around you, invading your space. You end up buying much more than you need just to keep moving. It's a supermarket traffic jam.

We spent $88 yesterday and we were supposed to only go there to buy fruit.

This is impossible. You cannot go to Stew Leonard's to buy one thing. If someone can, there is something wrong with them. They have too much self-control. Also, if you spend $100, you get a free ice cream. The last time we went, my wife threw in batteries - which cost like $7 - at the register in order to get the ice cream, which is soft serve and comes in a variety of flavors. This is how Stew Leonard's brainwashes their customers. They plant an ice cream stand right next to the exit. You can pay $1.50 for an ice cream or if you spend $100, you get a free one.

So, and this would qualify to be an only-in-Connecticut thing, you see people walking out to their cars in the middle of January, when it is 25 degrees, eating ice cream.

This is ludicrous, but so is Stew Leonard's, and you have to know this going in. You have to know that you will be entertained there. You will sample good food. You will buy more than you need. If you go on a Saturday, you will endure a little stress - in the parking lot, in the check-out line, in the one-way aisles.

You will literally "stew" while you are there.

But, if only for the experience, I recommend going once, just to see the place. Eat as much as you can. Especially the meatballs. You MUST try the meatballs. The samples have little pretzels sticking out of them, like tooth picks.

IN fact, I might eat them just for the pretzels.

They figure me out, too.