Serravalle, Republic of San Marino
For celebration lunch today we have Greektown of Detroit, Barbuto of New York, and Howdy Richards of Freeland to thank.
What are we celebrating? Being alive. Being together. Continue reading
I’ve been using “shazam” as a verb for a while now.
Not to be confused with the interjection that expresses amazement Gomer-Pyle-style. It’s when I use the Shazam app on my phone. It’ll name that tune.
Open the app and touch its signature S to begin Shazamming. The app “listens.” You see concentric circles radiating outward the way submarine sonar looked in old black and white movies. Shazam decodes the music’s digital signal, searches databases, and, Shazam! You’re listening to Vashti Bunyon’s “Train Song” or Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in C Minor. Continue reading
She’s been reading in bed, beside me. When I wake up, my wife turns toward me and whispers, “We’re so screwed.”
Good morning.
It’s probably politics she’s reading about. Possibly the environment. I pull myself out of bed, tell her okay, but let’s have coffee first. Continue reading
From The Enjoy Agenda at Home and Abroad:
Yakgurt.
There is such a thing, tasting more of gurt than of yak. We came to Yunnan province and the city of Lijiang hoping to see, among other things, yak in the flesh, the great furry, horned beast. We did not close to, but it felt like we did.
This was a trip that began with something of a fool’s errand, which led us to serendipitous yak. Having checked into our hotel, our kids did what they usually do; did, it could be said, what they learned from us to do: look for a good place to eat. Continue reading
The bar is called Speak Low, on Fuxing Middle Road in Shanghai.
My daughter and I have come here on a Saturday night for a few cocktails. This is the third F & B joint (Food and Bar) I’ve been to. All three with ground level entrance, little more than an anteroom with space for a desk and two greeters, and a door that leads to a stairway that leads to second, third, and fourth floor rooms with bar, tables, low light, and a lot of noise. The room we’re in is full of youngish people–tables and chairs for 30 or so–maybe seventy-five people total seated and standing. They have shiny new shoes, important hair, and serious glasses. Shanghai chic. This might as well be Brooklyn. Continue reading
“I’m the coffee man,” I say to my wife.
We’re sitting in the kitchen, enjoying our view of the snow. It’s mid morning, a single digit above zero out there, which is bad; but also bright sun on new snow, a brilliant cloudless blue sky, which is good. We’re well into SAD season, long stretches of short gray days, then dark. Sun is the best antidote to seasonal affective disorder. When I mentioned that to a friend the other day, I said sun or red wine. He smiled and said Florida is the best antidote.
Later today we’re flying to Shanghai, to visit our kids. We’re both a little off balance (cranky), nervous about the long flight (about 14 hours), the time change (12 hours), and the bad air in Shanghai. It will be cold there, damp, gray Chinese cold. China will be almost as SAD as Michigan. Maybe SADDER. Continue reading
I’ve got wellness on my mind.
“Canducci Tiziana.” That’s how they call my wife when it’s her turn. Last name first. We’re at the Repubblica di San Marino Instituto di Sicurezza Sociale (aka the hospital), where she’s here to see an orthopedic doc. A few weeks ago at the Bargello museum in Florence, while I was in the gallery at the top of the stairs, the one with Donatello’s David and Giambologna‘s Mercury, two fleet-footed guys, looking with new-found interest at theirs and other sculpted feet, while she was climbing the stairs to join me, something happened and she tumbled down six or eight steps, injuring a few of her appendages. To wit: a knee and a wrist. Continue reading
These days, when I make reservations in Italy I give my wife’s maiden name. A table for four at 7:30, for Canducci. Same thing when I call the heating repair man (it’s cold in the apartment or there’s no hot water). I say, “This is Canducci on Via Olivella in Serravalle. Can you come and check out our boiler?”
Always last name, Canducci.
I never say Bailey. Ever.
Names are essential. And they can be complicated. How hard do we want to work at them? Continue reading
Is there a more guilty pleasure than a fritto misto (frittura, as they say here)? You can see what you’re eating, sort of–rings of sliced calamari, curled shrimps, spongy scallops, a stray chunk of fish, and, if you’re lucky, some thinly sliced or shredded zucchini–all lightly covered in a crispy brown batter, lightly salted. Continue reading
“Rojo,” my wife says to me one morning.
We’re in the car on the way to the gym. We work out in the basement of the township senior center. Treadmills, ellipticals, exercise bicycles, a couple rowing machines—there’s always a few of these not in use. There are also number of pneumatic weight machines, for maintaining a senior citizen’s various muscle groups. You sit at these machines. They’re good for gentle sedentary social exercise.
“What about it?” I say.
“Why can’t anyone say it?” She says it again, “Rojo.”
“Rojo,” I say.
“Nope. That’s not it.”
Rojo is a Mexican restaurant in the area. When our niece comes home from Italy, we have a family gathering at Rojo. Twenty or so of us get together to eat and drink. We try to organize these get-togethers on the Tuesday dollar-a-taco night. Rojo serves acceptable tacos and cheesey beany burritos and sizzling fajitas. Also popular is the house margarita, a greenish slurry of cheap tequila and an industrial-grade margarita mix that gives the drink a long distinctly chemical finish. The cocktail is served in an over-sized chalice; sort of like a small glass bucket. I don’t think it comes with an umbrella. (It should come with an aspirin.) Continue reading
“It smells like worms out here,” my wife says.
It’s the beginning of October. We’re coming out of a small grocery store in a light rain one morning. We are not loaded with bags. We’ve bought just one item. Reaching the car, we pull open the doors. She’s on her side, I’m on mine. The doors swing open and we turn, balancing ourselves on one leg, then bend, lean, fold and carefully lower our bodies onto our respective seats. As we do this, both of us emit very audible, slightly embarrassing, simultaneous groans. Continue reading
I’ll never forget. A guy walked up behind me, then moved right next to me. Excuse me, he said. Do you know where there is a bathroom nearby? I knew the campus. I pointed. Inside that building, I said, at the bottom of the stairs. He was big. He looked me up and down, he nodded and said, Do you think that would be a good place for a blowjob?
This had never happened to me before. You don’t forget.
It was a Sunday afternoon, late spring, in 1975. It was Cross Street in Ypsilanti, between Boone Hall and Sherzer Observatory. He was wearing tan pants, brown shoes, a blue jacket. He was in his late 20’s or early 30’s. He had short brown hair parted on the side. You don’t forget.
Years later, when we talked about sexual assault in classes I taught, a guy in the back row (it was always a smiling guy, a guy who liked a good joke) would raise his hand and say, Why don’t you just try to enjoy it? He meant rape.
A guy twice your size holds you down, pulls off your clothes, forces his fingers or his dick inside you. Inside YOU, buddy, inside YOUR body. Would you enjoy that?
What’s to enjoy? The shock, the fear, the violation; the violence (and always the potential for additional, terrible, unfathomable hurt).
That day I kept I walking. A little faster. At the end of the block I turned away from Cross Street, in toward the campus. It was then that I allowed myself to look. No, he was gone.
I have not experienced what women feel, but I have an intimation. I know that you do not forget.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” my wife says.
It’s a sunny Saturday morning, early September. I’m climbing a ladder leaned up against the house. It’s that time of year. The air has begun to change; it’s both crisp and faintly rotten-smelling. Where we live we are rich in cottonwoods, proving that riches can also be a curse. Trees with big leaves, cottonwoods start unleaving early in the fall. Our trees are mature, tall beasts. The eaves and gutters on the house are already full. Up on the ladder, I’m on clog patrol. Continue reading
At dinner last night I had a piece of Lake Superior trout with oxtail on top of it. Five green beans and a fried polenta ball with roasted corn inside. Nifty.
To my knowledge I’ve only had oxtail once, in Rome, when my daughter was having a semester abroad in college. She and I ate lunch one day in Trastevere. A chef buddy back home named Franco had spoken appreciatively of Trastevere. Ballanno, cantanno. Non lavora nessuno. They sing, they dance. Nobody works. Continue reading
