My learning curve

When I was 17, I left Hawaii and went to University of Washington for school. I had come from a very good, albeit small, all girl Catholic school in Kaimuki, HI. I had graduated 4th in my class and felt like I was a brainiac. That all changed when I was faced with attending classes with 300+ other braniacs and trying hard to be on the good side of the curve. I was quite simply *gasp* average amongst the rest of them.

I hadn't preregistered for my classes before I got to school so I was faced with trying to register on the first day of class. It was a crazy system, way before registration by computers or even by phone. Phone registration came the following year for me. I think about it now, and realize that it was the dark ages. So, I had to go to a class that I was interested in, hope the professor would be accepting students, and rush him/her at the end of class like some crazed fan hoping for an autograph.

That first day of classes, I decided to try to get into anything, but hoped that it would be after 9am. I kind of hoped that I would be able to sleep in every day. That would have been nice. But to give myself the best possible chance, I decided to start auditioning classes at 8, just in case.

I had walked into Philosophy 100 with very low expectations. I didn't really want to take the class, but maybe the prof would sign my card and hopefully the classes after this ludicrously early class would let me in and I could just tear up the first autograph collected. That was my plan, Stan. But I didn't consider the possibility of being swept off my feet. Weird to think of it that way, now.

I strategically sat near the front of the class so I could run up right after it ended. Dr. Ronald Moore walked in looking like the quintessential philosophy professor. He had a stack of papers and journals under one arm, wore a sports coat and tie, and a full beard. He was heavyset but tall and had this effusive energy about him. He started talking and I was mesmerized.

You know, it has been 20 years since that first class and I've had dozens of professors ever since. I cannot remember the names of any of them except for Dr. Moore. He made such a lasting impression on me.

For the first time, I was learning about philosophy without the veil of religion. 13 years of parochial school will do that for you. But aside from that, he made it all very reachable -- these concepts and theories, all so very within my grasp. His classes were kinetic, the air palpably energized, they were thrilling. I enjoyed them so much that I signed my little freshman butt up for the only other class he was teaching to undergraduates, a 400 level class on the Philosophy of Art.

What you need to know is that I don't know jack about art. Seriously. Sure, I listened to music and even went to the Honolulu Academy of Art when I was in high school. But aside from that, I never gave it much thought. Really, I had that poster up on my dorm room wall of Le Baiser de l'Hotel de Ville, Paris, 1950 just like every other freshman girl. And if I remember correctly, I cut up pictures out of the Fall 1987 Esprit catalog and pasted them up on the walls. That was art to me back then. I'm a little more than embarrassed to admit all of that. But I signed up for that class because I loved going to his lectures.

So I suppose you're wondering why I'm writing about this at all.

A couple of evenings ago, Dr. Moore delivered a lecture at my local library. He spoke about Art & Aesthetics on trial in America. Pretty cerebral stuff, huh? But I went. And I still don't know jack about art. I did manage to go to the Seattle Art Museum a couple of times since high school -- seriously, only twice. But I did it of my own accord and not as part of a school group. I even got to see the Van Gogh exhibit.

The trouble with not knowing anything about the subject being discussed is that you're always playing catch up, and true to form, Dr. Moore was speaking a mile a minute, punctuated with little observations and asides. I did remember to look up a website he talked about. That was cool. We've got a lot more in common than I had previously thought.

But before the lecture even started, my dear friend Sharon insisted that I talk to him. And I don't know where it comes from, the nervousness that I feel around him. It was like that when I was 17 and the same now that I'm 38. I recognized him immediately. He had aged, but heck, I sure don't look 17 any more. He's got a few more gray hair, but he's still got that same booming voice, that same energy, and that same rapid fire wit. Anyway, when I refused to get my nerve up to talk to him, Sharon spoke up instead and asked, "Do you recognize her?" He looked up and I could tell he couldn't pick me out of a crowd of 2. It has been 20 years, after all. And I was one of 300 in my class in the first place. Please, it would have been a miracle if he recognized me. And I was far more timid then than I am now, and I still didn't have the nerve to talk to him.

I did manage to squeak out who I was and that I had taken his classes a couple of decades ago. I even shook his hand. You'd have been proud of me. And like I had done all those years ago, when he started talking, I rode it like a surfer rides a wave. I just tried to keep my feet under me and not fall off. It was awesome. I shook his hand again after it was all done. I told him that he was just as I remembered and thanked him for the lecture. I think that made him smile.

Afterwards, I was flying high. And I couldn't figure out why. Freshman year, after I left the last class, turned in my final exam for Philosopy of Art, I remember just feeling very sad. I would never have him as my teacher again. But thanks to my local library I got to hear him speak again. That was great.

I kept asking Sharon & my mom what they thought of the lecture. They both said they enjoyed it. They both said that Dr. Moore was impressive and knowledgeable. But I could tell they weren't star struck like I was. Mom thinks that maybe he made such an impression because his was the first college lecture I attended. That my feelings about him were wrapped up in the excitement of the first day of college life. Maybe she's right. But I remember rejoicing when he won the Distinguished Professor award while I was still a student there. I knew he deserved it so I'm sure there is more to it. Maybe it is just that great teachers are always remembered and always ignite something in their students. I still don't have a handle on it. But I'm glad that I got to see him again. I'm glad that he gave me a few more things to think about before the next time.

I can't wait until then. Maybe I'll even manage to work myself up to a conversation. I'd better take a class in art appreciation.

Our new names

This 2 year old age is such a fun part of growing up. My youngest is learning new words at such a quick pace, it is hard to catch up. She's renamed a few people in the family. Uncle Nofre is named, "Nana." Those of you who know any Ilocano are aware that nana = auntie, but tata is uncle. I think he's just tickled that he's got a name. My mother, who should be referred to as, "Lola," is now, "Mom." That hurt a little, but I'm over it. My other daughter has been renamed with a 'd' as her first initial instead of a 'c'. But my son is known as, "That."

My son was feeling a little bad because he's not being called by his name, but I figure it is okay. Think of the possibilities. Every time somebody says, "That's cool," they would be referring to him. How about, "That's awesome! That's amazing! That's my boy!" See, it's not all bad.

So when he starts grousing about how the baby won't say his name, I commiserate and say, "That's a bummer."

A private funny

My brother and his wife invited us over for a pumpkin carving party. It was a blast. My sister-in-law has an awesome green thumb and her pumpkin harvest this year was amazing. She set up a vinyl tablecloth on the patio and put the pumpkins along with tons of tools and patterns out there for the pumpkin fun.

I really liked the pig/dog her sister Colleen made. I asked her boyfriend to mention that I'd like to take that one home with me, but I guess it was already spoken for.
My son worked all day on his, and as soon as it is finished, I'll take a picture of it. My 6-year-old didn't fare as well because she lost interest after the guts were pulled out of the pumpkin. But today's post isn't really about any of that. It is about a little funny that nobody but one person noticed.

One of my brother's guests was wearing a pair of pants that rides a little low on the derrière. It is very fashionable now, and this guest looked perfectly smokin' in these pants, so it wasn't a muffin top situation. Problem is that when you're carving pumpkins on the floor, you kind of bend over a bit. My sweet toddler was walking around, observing all the great carving, when she spotted this little bit of plumber crack. So she walked behind this person, pointed at (and maybe even touched) the crack, and with her little barely intelligible 2-year-old speak said, "Tinky butt." (translated = stinky butt)

What is priceless about this moment is that it was only witnessed by one person and that witness related that story to me. But when the incident happened, the owner of the low rise pants didn't even notice. So a private funny was kept private until just now, when the whole world can read it.

Right now, I'm wondering if this is only funny to me. Ah well. Happy Halloween!

Cookies, anyone?

We had our first Girl Scouts meeting this evening. What a blast! It was a parents with kids meeting. Most of the time we spent speaking with the parents while one of my co-leaders worked on some Halloween crafts with the girls.

But what was most fun was talking about cookies. See, here's the thing. I don't think people know how big a deal the cookies thing is. As an organization, Girl Scouts doesn't turn any girl away because they can't afford to pay. And where exactly does that money come from? That's right, you clever cookie, it comes from those Thin Mints you ate last year. But aside from that, the girls get to keep about half of the money they earn from the cookies to pay for whatever they want to pay for. One of the high school troops last year took a trip to a foreign country. I thought that was pretty cool. But you should have seen how enthusiastic some of our moms got at the mention of maybe TRAVEL from selling cookies. They were on fire. I think we'll have a great year and I think also we're going to have some moms who will sell cookies until they're sunbathing in Tahiti! (We did consider Tahiti. There's a lot the girls can learn about by visiting Tahiti. Like the health of coral reefs and how to speak French. Not to mention the importance of sun screens and how to cook out on the beach. These are all important life skills that can be achieved by cookie sales.)

So since you've read this post, how many boxes can I set aside for you?

Short attention span readers

Okay, I've heard enough whining about how long my blog posts are. Here's what I've done. I've gone through all the vacation posts and put in little headings. This way, if you are overwhelmed and cannot finish reading one of the vacation posts, you can just go back to the heading where you left off last time. See. Don't say I never did anything for you.

The truth about television

Today the local national public radio station was doing a show on television. They do this every now and then. Must be a slow news day. Anyway, as a preemptive strike I sent in a quick email to them and it got read on the air! Pretty sweet.

See, when public radio listeners start talking about television, there always is a snooty air of, "How plebeian to watch television. That is only for the uneducated masses. Why would my public radio station ever discuss television here?" (If you read the previous line in a fake British accent, it's even better.)

So I got the hugest kick from my email being read on the air. The host started with an email from one listener who grieved the television season ending last year. That she felt like her friends had gone away for the summer. The next 3 or 4 emails were along the vein that I referred to in the previous paragraph. And then he read mine, which went like this:

It always strikes me as funny when NPR talks about television. There are always dozens of self congratulatory people out there professing that they've kicked the t.v. habit. That it is a boob tube. That they never let their kids watch t.v. and if they do, they never change the channel from PBS, Discovery, Animal Planet, etc. You would think that there is no one watching TV at all.

I don't watch network news. I don't just watch PBS, and because I don't have cable or satellite, I don't watch any other educational programming. That isn't what my *relationship* with TV is. I watch to escape. I watch to distract myself from the other constant noise of life. For that 30 minutes or maybe 60 minutes, I don't think about my own stuff. And I love it. It is helpful and I appreciate the entertainment. I like watching pretty people. I like not thinking about what I have to do tomorrow and I really don't care to learn anything from TV. I'm there purely for entertainment.

I watch TV. And I'm not ashamed. Shocking, isn't it?

And I know I probably came across as somebody who watches all the time, all day long. I don't. I have a full life -- always busy. But every now and then, it is nice not to have to work too hard and let the television do all the heavy lifting.

Summer Vacation 2007, pt. 6 -- last one

JASPER

Gerry came home early on our last day there. We were able to plot out a course home that would shave a whole day on our journey. Instead of going back through Banff and through Idaho, he suggested we head due west through Jasper. I'm so glad we did so. It was an amazing ride.

Jasper was such a great drive. We're definitely going to camp there next time instead of Banff. It was there that we saw moose chowing down on some vegetation not 3 yards away from our car (what is that, about 2.7 meters?) and we saw a bear come up to the guard rail, consider crossing traffic, and decide to turn back and swim a little more in the lake. I don't even have to tell you how beautiful it was. I have no good words to express how much awe we experienced going through there.

THE QUEST FOR A BED

Gerry gave us a list of hotels for us to consider on our journey. He suggested we telephone along the way so we could arrange for accommodation the one night we'd have to sleep over. We made amazing time so when we got to the town Gerry had suggested we get a hotel in, it was only 7pm. My husband decided to keep driving a little bit longer.

We realized our error at around 10 pm and the cities were scarce and the hotels few and far between. We stopped at one little lodge that said that they had a room for about $140, but they only had 1 full sized bed in it and a couch. And by the way, it is a smoking room but the upside is that there was a jacuzzi. I didn't think I wanted to sleep in a jacuzzi while breathing in stale cigarette smoke. 5 people on a full sized bed didn't seem like it would be remotely restful. Might be better to stay in the car. I just wanted to sleep.

So we were on to the next town, Avola. When we stopped in front of the hotel, we didn't think that it was open for business because of the utter lack of cars out front. But there was a cheery neon "open" sign in an upstairs window, so my husband got out to check. While he was in the office, I soaked in the ambiance. Right next door was the Rednecks Roadhouse. I didn't know that Canadians had rednecks. I thought that was a purely United States American kind of phenomenon popularized by Jeff Foxworthy. Who knew? But that establishment too had only 2 cars out front of it. I was getting a little worried, but when my husband was taking more than a few minutes in that office, I knew we would be spending the night.

He got a suite.

In the suite, there were 2 double beds and 1 queen bed. There was a kitchenette and full sized refrigerator for our use. The kitchenette was fully equipped with china, pots, pans and utensils. There was no satellite television, but we were welcome to check out DVD's at the front office for no extra charge. There was room service which was provided by the Rednecks Roadhouse. How convenient! Out back, there was a kids' wading pool and also a hot tub. How great is that!

Imagining a 4 star hotel right now? Thinking there were satin sheets and mints on the pillows?

You would be wrong.

It was kind of like the Bates Motel because they were both built in the 1960's. The stairs were very rickety and I thought that I might break though a floor board because I was carrying the 30# baby with me. My husband walked on tiptoes so the extra vibration of his footfalls wouldn't shake the foundation and cause the whole structure to implode. We did wake the kids and ate a dinner of hotdog buns and canned chili which had been heated in the kitchenette. Nice not to use a camp stove.

The beds were as promised, but they also seemed to have been the original beds and bedding purchased to furnish the hotel back in the 1960's. I was thankful that each child would have their own sleeping area. Hubby and the toddler got the big bed, I got one of the doubles which I later ended up sharing with the middle kid, and our eldest got the other double bed to himself.

BACK TO THE USA

We awoke early because hubby wanted to get back to the US as soon as possible. We had hoped to grab breakfast before we left Avola but we were out of luck. Hubby announced that after a quick look at the surrounding eateries, "Rednecks Roadhouse is closed.
Gas Food Store Gas is closed. And sadly, Restaurant is closed." We'd have to get our food elsewhere.

Now I would be remiss not to add that it was really beautiful there. There should be a better tourist economy for little Avola, because check this out.
Plus, the Avola Mountain Motel a.k.a. Bayside Pacific Inn has this great promotion. As we were the only people who stayed there that we could see, we're probably shoe ins for this prize.


3 hours on the road later, the kids completely hepped up on candy, we finally stopped and asked some guy who was trimming the hedges next to the Tim Hortons where a good place to eat was. He suggested a Waffle Haus that served these amazing Belgian Waffles. It was a nice place to eat and we were glad for it. Hubby was not handling the lack of food and caffeine very well.

We stopped in Chilliwack and bought some corn at a stand at a gas station. My sister-in-law laughed at me when I pronouced Chilliwack like this -- Chilly-whack. How else are you supposed to pronounce that? She said it should be more like -- chill-lou-whack. But if it is chill-lou-whack, I say change it to be spelled Chillouwhack, right? Anyway, Chilliwack is known for its corn. It was pretty tasty when we cooked it up at home.

We had more fun at the border crossing -- again brought to us courtesy of my husband whose brain had been completely fried after driving for 2 days straight. The border agent asked my husband where he was born.

And my husband stumbled.

He said, "Oh, I was born in... uh, where was that again? Oh, ummm..."

I gave him, "Thousand Oaks, remember?"

Then he said, "Oh, right, Ventura County. Man, I just couldn't remember that!"

I was again thinking that I would be holding my husband while he cried crouched in the corner of the shower about how the cavity search had been so rough. "Couldn't they have used lubricant?"

But the crossing agent was super cool. He laughed and said that somebody who was trying to sneak into the country would *NEVER* forget which county they had been born in. They'd have memorized that. He figured, rightly, that my husband belonged in the USA.

I was glad that I didn't raid Cindy & Gerry's freezer for some moose sausage and moose roast. I had considered it, but the crossing agent did ask if we had raw meat in the cooler and I wonder if he'd have confiscated it. That would have made me cry like a baby.

We made it to Alderwood mall in Lynnwood, WA early enough to return our broken Yakima Skybox. It was pretty nice to get that $500 back in our pockets, even though they pretty much said screw you on the sleeping bag that we lost. Supposedly they forwarded our request for payment for our lost sleeping bag to Yakima, but I doubt that we'll be getting that back.

Anyway, since we're back in the states, I figure I'll stop regaling you with stories about our Canadian/Idahoan vacation. Thanks for reading.

Peace out.