Category: Homefront

Travelogue – Day 2

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Once again, I am sitting and writing due to my displacement-borne insomnia.  I will likely fully adjust to the time zone shift by the time I am leaving to go home.  In the meantime, I will persevere with the aid of caffeine and sunlight as my guides.

Yesterday after reading my way to a respectable hour of the morning, I decided to start planning my day.  It was the only day in this trip that I really had mostly to myself – the rest to follow will be heavily scheduled with classes and sessions and the various other activities that are common to conferences.  I opted to start with breakfast on my way to visit my company’s local office.  After some very good French toast at the counter of a bustlingly busy Mel’s Diner, I ventured on to the office (actually I ventured to where Google Maps told me the office was only to find it was no longer there – after a couple phone calls I got my bearings).  It was an odd juxtaposition to the office I’m used to – I’m not sure what the current count is, but I know that our PA office houses more than 100 people and is often noisy in multiple ways (conference calls, industry climate control, and regular chatter), whereas the SF office only boasted a headcount under a dozen (I’m sure there were people out, but not a lot) and was a lot quieter than I’m accustomed to.  But the people there are great and in the times where it wasn’t silent, the spirit that I’m used to was there.

After spending the day catching up on emails and issues (there are always issues) – a day that seemed much longer than it should have been (me and my chrono-displacement) – I opted to ignore my fatigue and be a tourist for the evening.  I figured it might be my only chance to do so.  I started by catching the F line up to Fisherman’s Wharf.  I walked Pier 39, took in the sight of dozens of sea lions basking on floating docks nearby, and enjoyed a nice seafood dinner with a view of Alcatraz.  After doing some gift shopping for the kids, I decided on 2 additional stops before calling it a night – a bookstore (I’m nearly finished the book I’m reading and need to be prepared for the long flight home) and Ghirardelli Square.  I hoofed it to both destination and considered keeping an eye open for a shoe store as I went to get a good pair of sneakers.  After watching the sky progress through the various phases of sunset over the bay, I found a cable car to carry me back to my temporary home.  Funny – of all the walking I did, I seemed to have missed all of the hills that are so telltale of the area … that is until the cable car ride.  It seemed that the route I was on aimed to hit every slope in town.  It was pretty impressive that the old, bumpy, and noisy box that was our carriage could navigate such grades simply on the electric power provided through the lines above.

I still haven’t made it to the Pacific and I’ve only seen the Golden Gate from a distance, so I don’t consider my adventures complete.  Hopefully time will permit me some additional travels during my stay.  And hopefully I can manage to adjust my sleep schedule before I simply have to let it slide back to normal.  In the meantime, I must get myself some coffee and prepare for the day ahead of me.

First Stop – Achiness and Lack of Sleep

SilentBen2 Comments

It’s 5:30 AM as I sit in a quiet, dark hotel room, an expanse of street and headlights that make up downtown San Francisco are just outside the nearby window. I’m tired and blearily studying the In-Room amenities list to see if the coffee provided is as overpriced as everything else (it seems the coffee and tea are complimentary – surprising since a bottle of orange juice is priced at $5). I’m up only because I’m accustomed to being up at this hour – at least the east coast equivalent to this hour. If it weren’t so hazy outside, I might be able to enjoy the sunrise over the bay.  I guess I’ll have to settle with watching the hazy gradually become a brighter shade of blue-gray.

Yesterday was a long arduous day of alternately sitting and walking.  I realize that most days consist of much of the same, but typically the seating is more comfortable and the walking is more leisurely and involves less baggage.  It started with the usual sitting on the couch with the kids eating breakfast while the watched a show while my brain and my wife’s body slowly came to grips with being awake.  But rather than the usual sitting in the car and driving to work, the next part of my day was the inception of a 12-hour travel marathon.  It started with a short drive to the train station (I could have walked, but the kids wanted to see me off) that carried me downtown to the Philadelphia Airport.  Next was walking through the airport to Terminal E for my Southwest flight – I don’t know when the finished the construction, but the new security setup is pretty nice.  Then some sitting in the terminal (I was pretty early) followed by a short walk into the plane and then a long sit in a somewhat narrow seat (if only my company would spring for first class).  I had a layover in Chicago – given the current tensions with the Stanley Cup, I’m glad I didn’t have to disembark.  Though I should have stood for more of the wait and maybe freshed my deodorant for the longer leg to follow.  Given that my flight left at 2 and was scheduled to land at quarter to 7 – even though I knew there were really 3 more hours hidden in there – it didn’t seem like the flight should have felt as long as it did.  Luckily I kept myself entertained with music, books, an episode of Doctor Who on my laptop, and occasionally snapping pictures of the landscape below on my iPhone (I may post some later if any of them turned out).

Finally we land and I am happy to walk with my luggage to the AirTrain and then stand and wait for the BART line to come and carry me on the final leg of my journey.  I arrive in the downtown around 8 PM and have a short walk of about 4 blocks to the hotel.  I am solicited once along the way by an upbeat guy looking for a quarter to make his fare – I oblige him and he is very grateful.  But ultimately I arrive at my destination.

After a very pleasant check-in process and a very fast elevator ride, I find myself in a room that is the antithesis of how I feel.  While I am rough, disheveled, and feeling grungy and weary from my travels, this room is pristine and elegant and seems like it should belong to someone much better dressed than I.  After unpacking my small suitcase of its semi-wrinkled berth into the dresser that seems more fashionable than anything I brought to wear and enjoying various means of winding down (a little HDTV, a little catching up on web browsing, and then a stretch of reading while listening to my tunes on the iHome station next to the bed), I finally decide to call it a night and melt into the luxurious sheets and pillows included with the king-sized bed in my suite.

It is now 6 AM and the dark blue haze has given way to a bright gray haze outside my window.  As I sit here on the top floor of this hotel for which I’m glad my company will be footing the bill, the enjoyment of my surroundings and situation are somewhat muted by the fatigue of the previous day’s travels and a shorter night of sleep than I would have preferred.  But I’m optimistic that between the complimentary coffee and a stint in the very fancy-looking shower, much of this fatigue will wash away.

The Pitter-Patter of Tiny Feet …

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… is not nearly as innocent as it sounds.  I find lately that it is the sound to which I am awaken – often followed with cries for help that are disproportionate to the need behind them.  Often it is Grasshopper, usually between 6 and 7 AM (sometimes earlier), always much louder than is necessary or appropriate at such an hour, and typically related to something minor or for which our assistance shouldn’t be needed (e.g., he can’t find his toy that he fell asleep with that he is likely sitting on, or he has to go potty – which he cries as he is dancing 8 inches from the toilet).  Though I often find the small footsteps that are followed by no other sounds much more anxiety-raising – you would think it would be a positive sign, but it rarely is.

This morning I was awoken by such a sound at the surprisingly late hour of 7:30AM.  As I braced myself for the possibilities as I walked down to the second floor, I find my children both sitting on my son’s bed (wearing matching nightshirts – would be cute if not for the mischief that seemed to be brewing between them).  I decide to avoid asking what they are up to in favor of diffusing their plans with the enticement of television and breakfast.  As we walk downstairs – Cricket zooming in front of me, Grasshopper bounding behind me – I suddenly feel a small projectile strike the back of my head and bound over the railing to the floor below.  I turn to my son and calmly but firmly express that we don’t throw things at people, to which he responds with a tone of innocence “but it was only a weapon”.  Clearly the implication of this word has not been fully grasped by his 3 1/5 year-old brain.

To be fair though, even their mischief is innocent at the core of it.  The kids are typically good and mean well.  And all of the growling and pelting by projectiles melts away when I see your son hugging my anxiety-ridden wife and telling her everything will be okay (long story) or when my daughter decides to commission me to help her make Mommy breakfast in bed “just because we love her.”

So yes, those little feet can have many implications – joy as they dart to welcome me home from work, jubilant mischief as they scurry to hide on to jump out and tackle me when I come near, or devilish mayhem as they cross the threshold of a department store.  I’ll take them all, though I wouldn’t mind if my morning alarm clock had some sort of snooze button – occasionally I wouldn’t mind sleeping in.

Have Funds, Will Travel

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I’ve noticed that I’ve gotten into a habit of writing nothing but book reviews lately.  That is mostly because I’ve been doing little else but reading in my spare time.  I’m sure there may have been other things to write about in the meantime, but a lot of that writing time I’ve been, well, reading.  So today I will break that trend (and then tomorrow I’ll likely write another book review).

It seems that June is going to be a stressful month in many ways – some positive, some negative, and most of it stemming from a confluence of just a couple of events.  My company is sending me to two conferences that take me in opposite parts of the country.  Also my wife will be managing a farmers’ market launch and juggling a few photo shoots including a wedding.

I’m both excited and nervous about the conferences.  While they will be fun and positive experiences and allow me to see some new sites (one is in SF, the other in NYC), and it is great that the company is willing to pay my way (it seems the worst of the effects of the recent economic downturn have passed – at least for us), but it is a long time to be away from my family and it is a lot of money to spend in a short amount of time between food and lodging.  I don’t envy my wife’s role in this – a 3-year-old and 6 year-old all day every day for 2 weeks without reprieve is a test of anyone’s patience.

Additionally, the second conference will bring the added pleasure of traveling, rooming, and spending most of my time with a colleague who has a rare talent of pushing my buttons (he knows it too).  Professionally, I can respect his talent and appreciate his contributions.  But personally, he can drive me crazy sometimes.  I’d be remiss to say that his affect on me hasn’t had an upside – his insistence on challenging my ideas has drawn me to rethink some and become more confident in others.  And I’d like to think that I’ve helped steer him towards being an improved version of himself (you can never be sure how much is your influence and how much will stick).  But while we’d learned to worked well together, lately we’ve been pushing each other’s buttons more than we intend to and I worry that this conference could bring the straw that breaks one of our backs.  Most likely he will push my buttons, but I’ll roll with it, stew over some of it for a few days after, and then flow back into our regular routine.

Anyway, two weeks of conferences with travel should be fun.  But I know that tensions from my absence from family and/or work will build up.  I’ll likely have to work on both while I’m away.  Still looking forward to it, though.  I just have to remember to pick up some books to read on the planes.

Food Horizons

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I was always a finicky eater.  As a kid I probably disliked more foods than I liked.  I would eat spaghetti with butter and grated cheese rather than sauce.  I wouldn’t eat anything that contained onions, peppers, mushrooms, or beans.  I’ve gotten better over time both through some forceful nudging by my parents and my own expanded spirit of food exploration.  And at this point there are very few things I won’t eat (though I’m still not a huge fan of peppers or onions – mostly a texture thing, though – I don’t mind the flavors).

But now I have kids of my own, and the last thing I want to do is to pass my own food aversions on to them.  So I’ve made a point of exposing them gradually to a variety of foods in these formative years and trying not let my own food preferences influence their own.  I’m currently working on gradually breaking down Cricket’s spice aversion (she is learning that spices aren’t always spicy, and can make foods tastier), and exposing them to some vegetable options my own parent never pushed on us (e.g., brussel sprouts).  I also recently fooled her (and myself) into eating mushrooms by finely chopping some and replacing a 3rd of the meat in a lasagna with them (I also added a good amount of spinach – it was quite good and I didn’t tell her until after she was finishing a second helping).

Grasshopper is a bit of a different nut t o crack, though.  He will actually eat a number of veggies without a problem.  And whereas Cricket I need to force to drink milk every day, Grasshopper will chug it day and night.  But he is not a big fan of meat.  This is not truly a bad thing – there is nothing wrong with a diet of mostly produce as long as the proteins get in there somewhere.  He is only 3, so I figure it is a phase he will eventually (at least partially) outgrow.  I can now add another non-meat protein source to the list of things he likes, though.  My mom came to visit for the weekend, and due to her own digestive health she came with groceries.  Upon departure, we were left with two cartons of Silk soy milk (one chocolate, one vanilla).  I’m not really a fan and neither is my wife, but I’d hate to just toss it.  So as an experiment, I gave some to Grasshopper the next time he asked for ‘choca-milk’ – he guzzled it down as if it were no different.  And both last night and this morning, he asked for a cup of ‘soil milk’.

I’m sure my kids will develop their own tastes and food aversions – we all have them (I know I still do).  I’ll continue to fight the important food fights (e.g., wanting a treat every time the ice cream man drives down the street).  But luckily so far neither of them are too finicky (at least not as finicky as I was).