Ch-ch-check it out

I watch a lot of films. Usually several a week. So, here's a Top 5 of some recent ones I've seen on DVD. Feel free to comment with your own recommendations!

5. An Inconvenient Truth: I know I'm late on this one, but I finally saw Al Gore's piece on climate change. I hope everyone sees it, because our planet is rapidly changing and it's going to have severe effects - even in the next 50 years - but there are actions we can take to help combat the problem. Climate change is not theory; it is fact.

4. Gone Baby Gone: I watched this for a second time and still enjoyed it greatly. It takes place in Boston and is about a child who goes missing. The ending poses a moral question about how children are raised. Plus, the Boston accents are fun.

3. The Business of Being Born: A very interesting documentary about the birthing industry and the decline of midwifery in the United States. The film raises questions about if today's birthing practices are really what's best for mothers (and babies). Warning: there are some intense birth scenes.

2. Paris, je T'aime: This is a collection of 20 five-minute shorts, each by a different director and starring different actors. It takes place in Paris and I found it to be quite enjoyable.

1. Vitus: A German film about a child prodigy at the piano. It's very heartwarming - I felt warm and fuzzy for hours afterwards.

Salem, Salem, Salem

Yesterday, Jessica and I took the commuter train to Salem, Massachusetts. It's only 16 miles away from Boston and about a 30 minute train ride. She has a second cousin that lives there, so he picked us up at the train station, took us out for lunch, and then showed us around Salem and Marblehead (adjacent town).

Salem is very cute, really old and kinda weird. The town's economy seems to be built on tourism related to the witch trials of 1692. Everywhere you go, there are witch-related museums and shops, and New Age or Wiccan boutiques. It must be crazy at Halloween time.

The above photo is of the oldest burial site in Salem.

We went to the Salem Witch Museum which wasn't so much a museum; it was mostly just a room with mannequins that told the story of the witch trials. But I've always been interested in the witch trials (I even studied women and perceived "madness" in college), so it was strange to be at the site where 16 women were hanged for their supposed witchery.

We saw a couple sites where movies and t.v. shows were filmed - like a cemetery and house in "Hocus Pocus" and a few spots from "Bewitched" (the t.v. show).

It's all very pretty - right on the coast. I could imagine the Salem houses and town hall as they were in the 18th century. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of them, but I'm sure we'll be back again.

We took a drive around these narrow, winding roads in Marblehead, which is also right on the coast. It reminded me of the crowded areas on Gull Lake, where it's just big house crammed next to big house. Except these were really old big houses. We definitely saw multi-million dollar homes, a lot of "old money" type of places that have been owned by the same families for decades, even centuries.

It was a nice Sunday afternoon out of the city.

Yes We Can Can

Hello again. I've had a cold the last few days so I've been snifflin', coughin' and hackin' a lot. On Friday night, a group of us had a late picnic by Jamaica Pond (in JP) and then played wiffle ball but it was getting too dark and let's just say it wasn't a very productive game. It still felt good to run around and get some fresh air (it was about 75 degrees that day).

Last night, I went and saw "Young@Heart." I recommend it highly. It really shows that age is just a number, as well as the power of music. Watch the trailer here:

It Might be Spring

I’m due for some updating. I had a busy last few weekends. My parents came the first weekend in April and it was their first real exploration into Boston. I enjoyed showing them around and letting them get a glimpse into my life here. It was the first time I welcomed my parents into my home. Well, I guess I did that in college but those homes were always so transitory. And this time they spent the night.

Some highlights of the visit included going to see Ray Davies (formerly of The Kinks) at the Orpheum Theater downtown, eating expensive seafood, and going on the Sam Adams Brewery tour (free beer!). I also showed them around the Equal Exchange offices/warehouse, so they got to see where I work.

We saw quite a bit of the city in five days, so you can imagine it was quite exhausting. Being over 21 definitely has its perks, as it was nice to be able to just sit in a pub and have a beer when we needed to rest from all the walking. They left Tuesday morning, but we said goodbye knowing we’d most likely see each other soon, when I’m working in Chicago next month.




On April 10, I went to my first Red Sox baseball game. It was opening week at Fenway and it was the final game in the series against none other than… the Detroit Tigers!! I ended up cheering for the Red Sox, because, well, they were winning and it was more fun to cheer along w/ the rest of the stadium. I ate two hot dogs, a pretzel and popcorn. (A few beers, too). And sometimes I even remembered to watch the game.

This past weekend, my friend Stephanie from MSU visited. She is the reason I live with Vanessa, because she and Vanessa are friends from working at a camp together a couple summers ago. Steph came to Boston for Vanessa’s first post-graduation solo art show – Hard Pressed. We all went out for a drink after the show at an Irish pub; it was a good time.

So, Saturday we did touristy stuff. I finally got a cannoli for the first time at legendary Mike’s Pastry in the North End. It was very creamy. Definitely have to share it. We also got a lobster tail. Also very creamy.

I am looking forward to relaxing this weekend.

The Christmas Bucket

I've been thinking about the purpose of this blog now that I'm more settled into my new life. I will continue to add 'updates' but will also start to integrate more stories, prose, and other things I've written. I wrote this first story over a year ago for my creative non-fiction class. Some of you will be familiar with its characters.
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Why is it you can always find a Kentucky Fried Chicken until you actually need one? On this particular Christmas day, my traveling family was asking that very question.

"I told them we'd bring fried chicken," my dad says as we exit the highway into suburban Detroit. He drives for a few miles, passing every chain in the fast food universe except a KFC. He mumbles something and then turns the car in the opposite direction.

I can tell my mother is starting to get annoyed. After driving two-and-a-half hours from the west side of the state, we're now driving in circles. But she remains the peacekeeper and just takes a deep breath. My 17-year-old sister is next to me in the backseat, tuned out to the iPod in her ears.

My dad decides to drive toward the church -- our ultimate destination -- and instructs us passengers to keep watch out our windows. A few more miles and I spot a red, black and white sign with the beneficent colonel smiling down on us.

"There!" I shout, and my dad quickly switches lanes to make the turn.

Ten minutes later, loaded down with fifty dollars worth of fried chicken breasts, wings, thighs and drumsticks, we continue to my grandmother's church. The aroma of the three large buckets fills the car and I fight back the urge to sneak a piece from the nearest bucket.

We finally pull into the church parking lot, and as I walk through the back doors of the building, I realize I've never been in a Lutheran church before - and I've certainly never entered one with buckets of fried chicken in my arms.

I walk into the church’s community room and see familiar faces right away; the tiniest one lunges at me full force. She's my five-year-old cousin Lilly, and although we've only seen each other four or five times in her lifetime, she always manages to become my shadow.

Since the four of us traveled the farthest, we're the last to arrive. I look around at my father's extended family. A strange bunch to say the least.

My dad's parents divorced when he and his two siblings were young. Both of them remarried and had more children with their new spouses, enlarging my dad's brood to a sister, brother, two half-brothers, and two more half-sisters.

Ever since I can remember, his parents have remained on good terms despite the divorce. To attend my birthday parties, they would even share a single van for the drive from Detroit to our house in Kalamazoo. At gas stations and rest areas along the way, my grandfather loved to tell strangers, "These are my two wives," with one of his mischievous winks.

But we had always kept Christmas gatherings separate: one at my grandmother's and another at my grandfather's, which makes for a lot of Christmas. I never complained; I liked that our family Christmas festivities extended over several days.

Then it gets even more complicated. (Try to follow this – sometimes a diagram is necessary.) My Aunt Sheryl married Jim, who already had a grown son, Doug, from a previous marriage. Doug married Jeanne, Sheryl's half-sister and another one of my aunts. So, Sheryl is Jeanne's stepmother and her half-sister.

Doug and Jeanne now have two kids, so Sheryl is simultaneously their aunt and grandmother -- what they've cleverly termed "Auntie-Grandma" -- and my grandparents are the children's grandparents and their great-grandparents. (I still haven't figured out what exactly that makes me to the two children.) Outsiders usually think this situation is weird, but it's all relation through marriage, so everything's legal.

As I walk through the room, I greet the overwhelming number of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, going through the annual routine of hugs and hellos, the how-are-yous, and my familiar refrain, "School is good."

One person stands out from all the rest. He looks so thin, frail, and aged. The last time I saw him, about a year before, he had been cancer-free, plump, and jovial. His form takes me by surprise and I purposely avoid giving him a hug.

As the newest member of our family, Dan is Lilly's father and my aunt Suzanne's husband. They've been married for three years, and I've only met him a few times.

Although he's been receiving chemotherapy, the doctors have already given him his prognosis of less than a year. This is most likely his last Christmas, and although none of us say it, we all know and feel it.

When all the food is finally laid out on red-clothed tables, we form a circle and hold hands, extending from one side of the room to the other. I look around the large circle, at this rag-tag family under one roof for its first Christmas together. It all seems so normal it’s strange we ever did Christmas any other way.

As the eldest child and with the reputation of being the most poetic speaker, my dad is elected the prayer-giver. He waits for everyone to quiet down and clears his throat.

"I think..." he begins, but is clearly choked up. "I think we have a pretty special family." Whenever my dad gets emotional, it creates an instant reaction in me and my eyes swell up with tears, just as they are now. I look around the room at my grandfather and his two wives; at their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

A series of squeezes go around the clenched hands.

"Amen."

It’s the shortest family prayer I can remember, and yet the strongest I've ever heard.

We laugh off the heavy emotions and get in line for the ridiculous amount of food spread out on the table, including the three buckets of KFC -- which now seem out of place next to my grandmother’s annual honeyed ham and my other grandmother’s annual lasagna.

As I sit down to eat, I look over at Dan, who has three pieces of fried chicken on his plate. The chemo is making it difficult for him to keep food in his stomach, but for right now, he is enjoying the taste of the greasy chicken. I should have hugged him.