We’re off Balboa, Panama, unable to get off the ship. For reasons that I don’t quite understand, the ship is not pulling up alongside the dock here. Instead, we’re anchored offshore, and have to get to the port by means of “tenders.” A “tender” is basically a lifeboat used as a sort of shuttle that takes people back and forth between the ship and the dock. We’re supposed to be tendering throughout our stay in Panama, making this a logistically complicated port. Right now, the sea is too rough to get people from the ship to the tenders safely, so everyone is sitting around waiting for the swells to calm down and the tendering process to begin.
In a way, it’s a blessing. We all have much-needed downtime after four intense days at sea. I could not be more pleased with my classes. My students are doing the reading, are engaging with it, are bringing up good questions for discussion. They’re doing a lot less reading than I would have assigned back home (there’s simply not enough time in the day for my usual reading loads), but the payoff is that we’re spending more class time on each individual text that we read. Now, though, no one is working, because we’re all waiting. Some are watching movies. Some are chatting. Some are napping.
Zoë, the Kid and I have several things planned for our stay in Panama. This afternoon, we’re supposed to be going hiking through the nearby Gamboa rainforest. Tomorrow we’re going to visit the “Casco Antiguo,” the old colonial part of Panama City, in the company of a Panamanian student and some of the students from one of my classes. Sunday is free, and Monday we have an all day excursion to visit the Spanish forts on the Caribbean side, and the nearby Canal locks. We’ll be coming back by means of the recently restored Panama Railroad. I can’t wait.
Other people are going to musical events, meeting with Panamanian politicians, going to indigenous villages. Many are getting hotel rooms in Panama City to avoid the tendering hassle, and, I believe, to facilitate late-night partying. We’ll probably spend a night or two in town ourselves, but not partying.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Damnit, Zoë, we forgot to pack the time machine!
Our last dinner in Acapulco was spent at the restaurant of the Hotel Flamingos, a storied establishment on one of the big bluffs on the east end of the city. It was once owned by Johnny Weismuller, of Tarzan fame, and was frequented by Hollywood stars who came down from Los Angeles by boat in the company of Weismuller and John Wayne. We ate fish and shrimp on a terrace overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and watching the sun set. The only problem was with the year: it was 2007, not 1967.
You see, Acapulco’s glory days are long over. The spectacular setting of the Bahía Santa Lucía is now marred by an overabundance of hotels and condos, many of them long past their prime. International tourism now goes to the Carribean resorts, like Cancún, and the domestic tourism that still favors Acapulco is not enough to keep the place shiny and vibrant. The tour guides, somewhat pathetically, still try to milk the old Hollywood cow, pointing out the places where Elizabeth Taylor got married and the like. As you can imagine, this makes little impression on our students, who have to have explained to them who these people were.
Now, you might ask why I would know about tour guides. Well, S@S organizes tours for the voyagers to take, some of them frankly recreational, and others supposedly educational. We’ve been on two. One was a fun thing, a tour of the Acapulco Botanical Gardens, along with a bird-watching trip on a little boat. The other was one of my FDP’s (Faculty-Directed Practicum), an excursion organized specifically to complement one of my classes. Zoë already wrote about it, the trip to the little villages outside of Acapulco. There’s not doubt that the students benefited from it. None had ever been to Latin America (except for Cancún, which doesn’t count), and so this was their first time seeing the rural and village life of a Latin American country. But the trip had been billed as “The Historical Route of the Nation.” The “historical” part consisted of a constant dribble of factoids issuing from the mouth of an ever-chattering tour guide. I found out later that, because this was my FDP, I could have arranged things to do the historical talk myself. I wish I had!
At least the guide was honest. He sugar-coated nothing, talking about governmental corruption, the drug trade, poverty, the flight of rural people to the city, unemployment, labor politics. Clearly relieved to get out of the touristy circuit, he seemed eager to tell us everything he knew and opined about his country, but that he normally doesn’t get to share with tourists. Back in the city, however, the schtick came back like a bad rash. Eva Gardner this, Frank Sinatra that. At least I’d heard the names … I don’t think they were any more familiar to the students than the names of Aztec gods.
Back at the Hotel Flamingo, the rooms seemed empty and the paint was peeling. We are the only diners in a restaurant that has clearly seen better days. As I write this on board the ship, somewhere off the coast of Central America, a lingering stomach ache leads me to revisit my meal there, wondering what it was that made me sick. I wonder if Johnny Weismuller’s piña coladas were made from purified water? I don’t think mine was. Next time I’m in Acapulco, I’m bringing my time machine so that he can make it for me himself.
You see, Acapulco’s glory days are long over. The spectacular setting of the Bahía Santa Lucía is now marred by an overabundance of hotels and condos, many of them long past their prime. International tourism now goes to the Carribean resorts, like Cancún, and the domestic tourism that still favors Acapulco is not enough to keep the place shiny and vibrant. The tour guides, somewhat pathetically, still try to milk the old Hollywood cow, pointing out the places where Elizabeth Taylor got married and the like. As you can imagine, this makes little impression on our students, who have to have explained to them who these people were.
Now, you might ask why I would know about tour guides. Well, S@S organizes tours for the voyagers to take, some of them frankly recreational, and others supposedly educational. We’ve been on two. One was a fun thing, a tour of the Acapulco Botanical Gardens, along with a bird-watching trip on a little boat. The other was one of my FDP’s (Faculty-Directed Practicum), an excursion organized specifically to complement one of my classes. Zoë already wrote about it, the trip to the little villages outside of Acapulco. There’s not doubt that the students benefited from it. None had ever been to Latin America (except for Cancún, which doesn’t count), and so this was their first time seeing the rural and village life of a Latin American country. But the trip had been billed as “The Historical Route of the Nation.” The “historical” part consisted of a constant dribble of factoids issuing from the mouth of an ever-chattering tour guide. I found out later that, because this was my FDP, I could have arranged things to do the historical talk myself. I wish I had!
At least the guide was honest. He sugar-coated nothing, talking about governmental corruption, the drug trade, poverty, the flight of rural people to the city, unemployment, labor politics. Clearly relieved to get out of the touristy circuit, he seemed eager to tell us everything he knew and opined about his country, but that he normally doesn’t get to share with tourists. Back in the city, however, the schtick came back like a bad rash. Eva Gardner this, Frank Sinatra that. At least I’d heard the names … I don’t think they were any more familiar to the students than the names of Aztec gods.
Back at the Hotel Flamingo, the rooms seemed empty and the paint was peeling. We are the only diners in a restaurant that has clearly seen better days. As I write this on board the ship, somewhere off the coast of Central America, a lingering stomach ache leads me to revisit my meal there, wondering what it was that made me sick. I wonder if Johnny Weismuller’s piña coladas were made from purified water? I don’t think mine was. Next time I’m in Acapulco, I’m bringing my time machine so that he can make it for me himself.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Arriving in Acapulco
Zoë has already beaten me to the punch, giving you the blow-by-blow on our first couple of days here in Acapulco. So, I’ll just touch on some personal highlights.
My personal Acapulco adventure began at 4:30am on the morning of our arrival. The ship was stopped out in the Pacific, killing time so that we wouldn’t pull into port before our dock time. There was a storm to the north producing big swells, so the ship was rolling much more than usual. I was awoken by a phone call, from a rather worried Kid who thought we were going down. We should never have taken him to that museum exhibit about the Titanic! I went to his room, and found that what had woken him was not the motion, but the banging of the door of his little safe, which was unsecured. We locked it, I tucked him back in, and tried to go back to sleep.
No luck. What do you do on a ship at 4:30am? Why, email, of course! But there was no internet access . . . Perhaps the faculty lounge? It turned out that the faculty lounge, with is on the top deck and forward, was the perfect place from which to watch our arrival into port. It was still dark, although occasionally the distant lightning would illuminate the sea around us. I went out onto the deck, onto the closest thing I had encountered to a scene from Melville. The ship was moving now, and it was leaning to starboard (notice my increasing competence with nautical terms – look for a future post entirely in pirate language), with a strong wind cutting across the deck. A ribbon of lights across our horizon gave away our destination. A few groggy RA’s were there, taking pictures and drinking the ship’s regrettable coffee. None of us spoke. The wind, the darkness, the lightning, the waves, the distant port became for each of us a private sea adventure.
I thought about the Manila Galleon, about which I’d lectured the day before. This was the solitary ship that connected Acapulco with Manila, bringing Chinese luxury wares to colonial New Spain. The trip took three months or more, and death rates were as high as 50%. Thirst, starvation, and scurvy took their toll. I guess their buffet wasn’t as good as ours.
As the day dawned and the port approached, more people turned up on deck. A student came up to me, and told me she had been thinking of the Manila Galleon as well. Cameras flashed, and Acapulco slowly took shape. Lights became buildings. Dark shapes became mountains. We pulled into port just as the sun began to peek over the mountains that ring the port of Acapulco.
The ship docked, we went straight to the fort, and found out just
how hot Acapulco really was. After days in the chill of the ship’s air-conditioning, none of us were ready for 90+ humid degrees. The museum at the fort (built 1615) was fascinating, and the ice cream at Sanborn’s shortly afterwards equally so. The Kid, I’m sure, would rave most about the waterpark later that day, though he might have a good word or two for Restaurant La Chilupeña, where we feasted on exquisite tacos, enchiladas, and pozole.
OK. That’s all for now. Next time I’ll write more about the S@S trips we’re taking here in town. One yesterday, the other tomorrow.
My personal Acapulco adventure began at 4:30am on the morning of our arrival. The ship was stopped out in the Pacific, killing time so that we wouldn’t pull into port before our dock time. There was a storm to the north producing big swells, so the ship was rolling much more than usual. I was awoken by a phone call, from a rather worried Kid who thought we were going down. We should never have taken him to that museum exhibit about the Titanic! I went to his room, and found that what had woken him was not the motion, but the banging of the door of his little safe, which was unsecured. We locked it, I tucked him back in, and tried to go back to sleep.
No luck. What do you do on a ship at 4:30am? Why, email, of course! But there was no internet access . . . Perhaps the faculty lounge? It turned out that the faculty lounge, with is on the top deck and forward, was the perfect place from which to watch our arrival into port. It was still dark, although occasionally the distant lightning would illuminate the sea around us. I went out onto the deck, onto the closest thing I had encountered to a scene from Melville. The ship was moving now, and it was leaning to starboard (notice my increasing competence with nautical terms – look for a future post entirely in pirate language), with a strong wind cutting across the deck. A ribbon of lights across our horizon gave away our destination. A few groggy RA’s were there, taking pictures and drinking the ship’s regrettable coffee. None of us spoke. The wind, the darkness, the lightning, the waves, the distant port became for each of us a private sea adventure.
I thought about the Manila Galleon, about which I’d lectured the day before. This was the solitary ship that connected Acapulco with Manila, bringing Chinese luxury wares to colonial New Spain. The trip took three months or more, and death rates were as high as 50%. Thirst, starvation, and scurvy took their toll. I guess their buffet wasn’t as good as ours.
As the day dawned and the port approached, more people turned up on deck. A student came up to me, and told me she had been thinking of the Manila Galleon as well. Cameras flashed, and Acapulco slowly took shape. Lights became buildings. Dark shapes became mountains. We pulled into port just as the sun began to peek over the mountains that ring the port of Acapulco.
The ship docked, we went straight to the fort, and found out just
how hot Acapulco really was. After days in the chill of the ship’s air-conditioning, none of us were ready for 90+ humid degrees. The museum at the fort (built 1615) was fascinating, and the ice cream at Sanborn’s shortly afterwards equally so. The Kid, I’m sure, would rave most about the waterpark later that day, though he might have a good word or two for Restaurant La Chilupeña, where we feasted on exquisite tacos, enchiladas, and pozole.OK. That’s all for now. Next time I’ll write more about the S@S trips we’re taking here in town. One yesterday, the other tomorrow.
When the Whip Comes Down
[I wrote this post a few days ago, just before internet access from the ship went down. We're on our third day in Acapulco now. I'll try to post about all that soon.]
Finally, a chance to write a post. It turns out that life is quite intense here on the Explorer. Happily, my schedule is no longer crowded with pointless meetings (although I have one this afternoon that has potential), but with conversation and classes. Brian, our friendly neighborhood Latin American historian, is in charge of a course called “Latin America Today,” which is required of everyone on the voyage, not just the students, but the faculty too. Brian has done an admirable job of designing an intensive introduction to Latin American studies which is supposed to pull together everyone’s experiences in individual courses and in shore visits. His first lecture set the tone: inquiry, engagement, and intellectual seriousness were to be the order of the day. Today, he modeled it for everyone when he displaced the planned lecture with a debate between him and Ray, our colonial art historian. Ray had disagreed with the treatment Brian had given of the United States and its hegemonic culture in his opening lecture, and Brian suggested that instead of talking it out privately, they do so in public.
What emerged, in effect, was a discussion of the continued viability of the nation-state as a category of understanding (Not in so many words: this is my interpretation of the conversation). Ray emphasized the internal differences of American, and of Mexican, society, their multicultural character, and the porosity of their borders. He contended that Brian had said things about American hegemony that failed to give due consideration to these important aspects of American life in his lecture, that he had presented the United States as a culturally monolithic entity. Brian defended the usefulness of the nation-state as a category of understanding, and the reality of its impact in our lives, by pointing out the ways in which marginalized groups within the US conceived of themselves and their objectives in specifically American ways. US Latinos, for example, advocate for themselves without necessarily conceiving their advocacy as a facet of a larger, global picture. For them, as for Anglos, the US is an island: the outside world is not taken into account.
The students were listening, and they responded. All around the room, faces looked attentive, and hands shot up when the official colloquy was over. The whip has come down, and it seems that a considerable number of students have responded by engaging, by participating, by reading, and by thinking. Today at the pool, everyone I saw was reading a book assigned for a class. Sure, there are boneheads out there who are here for the party, but, for now, they don’t seem to be all that much in evidence . . . We’ll see what happens in Acapulco tomorrow.
I’m delighted with my classes. I’ve pared down the novel course, and reorganized the 1492 course. Both have small enrollments by S@S standards (11 and 17, respectively), which means, I think, that I have students who are interested, and willing to do the work. Today, most if not all students arrived prepared, with books full of underlining and marginal remarks. In the novel course, we ended up fastening on the gender dynamics in the portrayal of 2 male characters in Los de abajo (Gustavo, you have been very much on my mind!), and in the 1492 course, we talked about the cultural and ideological dimensions of “discovery.” I also popped into Ray’s art history course and learned about Asian-Novohispanic transculturation in colonial art. Not a bad day, huh?
Tonight is our “logistical preport,” the big meeting where they give us all the nitty gritty we need to know for our arrival in Acapulco tomorrow. Until then, there’s time to unwind, and have some dinner. Zoë is very relaxed, having spent almost the entire afternoon at the pool with the Kid, and the Kid is tanning nicely. She’s at Spanish class now, and he’s playing with Leggo’s in a friend’s cabin. Life is good.
Finally, a chance to write a post. It turns out that life is quite intense here on the Explorer. Happily, my schedule is no longer crowded with pointless meetings (although I have one this afternoon that has potential), but with conversation and classes. Brian, our friendly neighborhood Latin American historian, is in charge of a course called “Latin America Today,” which is required of everyone on the voyage, not just the students, but the faculty too. Brian has done an admirable job of designing an intensive introduction to Latin American studies which is supposed to pull together everyone’s experiences in individual courses and in shore visits. His first lecture set the tone: inquiry, engagement, and intellectual seriousness were to be the order of the day. Today, he modeled it for everyone when he displaced the planned lecture with a debate between him and Ray, our colonial art historian. Ray had disagreed with the treatment Brian had given of the United States and its hegemonic culture in his opening lecture, and Brian suggested that instead of talking it out privately, they do so in public.
What emerged, in effect, was a discussion of the continued viability of the nation-state as a category of understanding (Not in so many words: this is my interpretation of the conversation). Ray emphasized the internal differences of American, and of Mexican, society, their multicultural character, and the porosity of their borders. He contended that Brian had said things about American hegemony that failed to give due consideration to these important aspects of American life in his lecture, that he had presented the United States as a culturally monolithic entity. Brian defended the usefulness of the nation-state as a category of understanding, and the reality of its impact in our lives, by pointing out the ways in which marginalized groups within the US conceived of themselves and their objectives in specifically American ways. US Latinos, for example, advocate for themselves without necessarily conceiving their advocacy as a facet of a larger, global picture. For them, as for Anglos, the US is an island: the outside world is not taken into account.
The students were listening, and they responded. All around the room, faces looked attentive, and hands shot up when the official colloquy was over. The whip has come down, and it seems that a considerable number of students have responded by engaging, by participating, by reading, and by thinking. Today at the pool, everyone I saw was reading a book assigned for a class. Sure, there are boneheads out there who are here for the party, but, for now, they don’t seem to be all that much in evidence . . . We’ll see what happens in Acapulco tomorrow.
I’m delighted with my classes. I’ve pared down the novel course, and reorganized the 1492 course. Both have small enrollments by S@S standards (11 and 17, respectively), which means, I think, that I have students who are interested, and willing to do the work. Today, most if not all students arrived prepared, with books full of underlining and marginal remarks. In the novel course, we ended up fastening on the gender dynamics in the portrayal of 2 male characters in Los de abajo (Gustavo, you have been very much on my mind!), and in the 1492 course, we talked about the cultural and ideological dimensions of “discovery.” I also popped into Ray’s art history course and learned about Asian-Novohispanic transculturation in colonial art. Not a bad day, huh?
Tonight is our “logistical preport,” the big meeting where they give us all the nitty gritty we need to know for our arrival in Acapulco tomorrow. Until then, there’s time to unwind, and have some dinner. Zoë is very relaxed, having spent almost the entire afternoon at the pool with the Kid, and the Kid is tanning nicely. She’s at Spanish class now, and he’s playing with Leggo’s in a friend’s cabin. Life is good.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Treasure among the Tat
An announcement yesterday over the ship’s PA:“The good news is that we will be pulling into port at 1700. The bad news is that it’s Ensenada”
Insensitive? Tasteless? Pejorative of our neighbor south of the Border? No! Frighteningly accurate. Ensenada is not as bad as Tijuana, but it’s close. Tijuana-by-the-Sea, one might call it. It’s economy is centered around tequila. Not it’s production, but it’s consumption, and in large quantities. It’s soul has found embodiment in a vehicle christened by one of the Kid’s young friends as “The Hootchie-Mama Bus.” This is a vehicle that was parading up and down the main drag of Ensenada, featuring of a group of young women in tube tops and wedge heels dancing to very loud music blaring from large speakers.
Last night, Zoë, the Kid and I ventured out into Ensenada. It was not our first sojourn, since the night before we had dined there on seafood that was almost as over-cooked as it was over-priced. Something drew us out though. Maybe it was the seductive glow of the neon tequila signs, or the enchanting melodies belched by the discotheque speakers, or the signs advertising Viagra with clever drawings that we hoped the Kid would not ask about. Or maybe it was the chance to get of the damn ship one more time before it sailed, even if it did mean taking a family stroll down Main Street, Sodom and Gamorrah. In any case, off we went, never imagining what we would find.
On the main drag, among the Corona signs and the shop windows featuring a lovely tshirt with the words “I f#&k on the first date” was an artsy coffee shop owned and operated by a man clearly obsessed with Remedios Varo. For those of you who a little rusty on your mid-twentieth-century Latin American surrealist painting, Varo was a Spaniard who lived and worked in Mexico after her exile from Spain following the Civil War. This guy had a friend who made reproductions of Varo’s paintings, and he had one whole wall of the shop covered with them. We were all drawn in, and the owner soon started telling us about her and her work. The Kid was fascinating, asking questions about different paintings, hearing about the stories they told and the visual jokes they were built upon. Zoë and I bought two of the repros for the house, and the Kid, after some doubt and debate, bought one of his own.
For the first time, a work of art had spoken to him, for reasons all his own, that had nothing to do with his parent’s tastes and preferences, and, for the first time, he had bought it so that he could enjoy it himself. It’s propped up on the desk in his cabin, where he can see it from his bed. The very first thing he’s ever purchased that he is not likely to outgrow. That's it up there.
Who would have thought . . . In Ensenada?!?!? As for me, I bought a bottle of Cuban rum.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Early morning ramblings
6:40am, Saturday. But the day of the week hardly matters, since the schedule here has nothing to do with weekdays/weekends. We’ve had two days on the Explorer, and so far, so good. Zoë and the Kid have had fun. She’s been reading, when she’s not engaged in full-contact parenting, and he’s been cavorting with the cabal of children who are slowly converting the ship into their own personal playground. There have been losses. Two soccer balls have gone overboard, despite the nets designed to keep them on. More will be bought: all are doomed. Thanks to the wonders of globalization, Chinese-manufactured soccer balls will be available in Wal-Marts here in Mexico. Perhaps the currents of the Pacific will carry them back to the land of their manufacture?
In the meantime, I have been attending meetings, followed by more meetings, interspersed with meetings, and culminating in yet more meetings. Some of these meetings have been informative, while others have wasted time in magnificent fashion. My favorite was the meeting where someone talked for 30 minutes, and the only thing we learned was that there would be another meeting the next day to handle the issues that were supposed to be addressed at that meeting. A meta-meeting of sorts. A Borgesian meeting.
One thing has emerged with clear and utter clarity from these meetings. I need to redesign my syllabus for the novels course. (Erin Nicole, take note!) What in the world was I thinking?? I’ve told some of you, I believe, that every professor is really 2 professors, summer (i.e. planning) guy, and semester guy. Summer guy designs syllabi full of books he hasn’t read. He sends away abstracts to conferences he’d like to attend. He agrees to committee assignments and accepts invitations to review books. Summer guy doesn’t care about how much work is being taken on, because it will all be done by someone else, semester guy. Semester guy has to do all the things that summer guy plans, and spends most of his days cursing his name.
Now, I’m up for reading 8 novels this summer. In fact, I had designed the course with the hope of reading 8 novels, but I realize now that there will be no time! As it turns out, these students will have other obligations and interests besides doing work for me. Imagine that!! They’ll have 2 other courses, not to mention a series of lectures meant to prepare them for the ports. And I think they may want to do other things as well, which I will leave unmentioned for now on this very public venue. There’s a very competent-seeming residence staff on board to keep them from doing some of those things.
Some nitty gritty: The cabins are nice. I’m writing next to a huge window overlooking the Pacific and the coast of Mexico. We have a comfy bed, and a sofa. The ship is equally nice throughout. Food is quite adequate. Good enough to eat without complaining, but not so good that you want to have seconds. Lots of fruits and vegetables. The coffee is appalling. Zoë got some instant coffee in town, and we are now having café con leche instead of the stuff they serve.
More to come soon. Thanks to all of you who have posted! I’ll invite everyone to do so, particularly now that the blog is configured so that you don’t have to sign up to post. Post! Fame awaits!!
In the meantime, I have been attending meetings, followed by more meetings, interspersed with meetings, and culminating in yet more meetings. Some of these meetings have been informative, while others have wasted time in magnificent fashion. My favorite was the meeting where someone talked for 30 minutes, and the only thing we learned was that there would be another meeting the next day to handle the issues that were supposed to be addressed at that meeting. A meta-meeting of sorts. A Borgesian meeting.
One thing has emerged with clear and utter clarity from these meetings. I need to redesign my syllabus for the novels course. (Erin Nicole, take note!) What in the world was I thinking?? I’ve told some of you, I believe, that every professor is really 2 professors, summer (i.e. planning) guy, and semester guy. Summer guy designs syllabi full of books he hasn’t read. He sends away abstracts to conferences he’d like to attend. He agrees to committee assignments and accepts invitations to review books. Summer guy doesn’t care about how much work is being taken on, because it will all be done by someone else, semester guy. Semester guy has to do all the things that summer guy plans, and spends most of his days cursing his name.
Now, I’m up for reading 8 novels this summer. In fact, I had designed the course with the hope of reading 8 novels, but I realize now that there will be no time! As it turns out, these students will have other obligations and interests besides doing work for me. Imagine that!! They’ll have 2 other courses, not to mention a series of lectures meant to prepare them for the ports. And I think they may want to do other things as well, which I will leave unmentioned for now on this very public venue. There’s a very competent-seeming residence staff on board to keep them from doing some of those things.
Some nitty gritty: The cabins are nice. I’m writing next to a huge window overlooking the Pacific and the coast of Mexico. We have a comfy bed, and a sofa. The ship is equally nice throughout. Food is quite adequate. Good enough to eat without complaining, but not so good that you want to have seconds. Lots of fruits and vegetables. The coffee is appalling. Zoë got some instant coffee in town, and we are now having café con leche instead of the stuff they serve.
More to come soon. Thanks to all of you who have posted! I’ll invite everyone to do so, particularly now that the blog is configured so that you don’t have to sign up to post. Post! Fame awaits!!
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Boxfans and Boats
Years ago, when a friend of ours was moving from Boston to Florida (you know who you are!), she became obsessed with cleaning her box fans. Instead of packing, arranging for a mover, seeing friends, she spent a day disassembling these fans and cleaning the dust of their blades and grills. You see, a big move is a life-altering event which often feels out of our control. We leave what we know, and take a dive into the unfamiliar and the uncertain. Why face the challenges brought up by such a frightening prospect? It's much more rewarding to take on a discrete problem, one that can be solved in an afternoon with some diligence and elbow grease. It's much more satisfying to clean the box fans than to face the unknown.
Going on S@S is something akin to this, it seems. The last few days, Zoë and I have been waking up with a distinct "Oh my God! What have we gotten ourselves into?!" panic. We'd never seen the ship, nor did we have any real idea what this would be like. The Kid and I are box fan cleaners. My "To Do" list below could in fact be thought of precisely as the list of box fans I have been cleaning for the past six weeks. The Kid, too, has had his share of figurative box fan cleaning. Today, after my mother dropped us off at the airport, he became obsessed with the fact that he did not know the proper order in which to view his new DVD's of superhero cartoons. There we were, at the gate, waiting for a plane that would take us away for a summer-long trip, and he was almost in tears from the fear that the various episodes of X-Men cartoons he had watched in the car had been viewed out of sequence. Luckily, Uncle Fred, comic book enthusiast, was answering his cell phone, and was sitting in front of his computer. He looked it up online, and quickly settled the matter. The Kid was immediately transformed, back to his smiley, cheerful self.
You see, cleaning box fans works. As soon as they are cleaned, order is restored, a sense of authority and control is regained.
Or, that scary unknown can become real in exciting ways. For example, you can arrive in San Diego and realize that the hotel you're staying in is right across the street from the ship you will be boarding the next day. I saw it from the air, in fact, as the plane descended into airport, giving us a clear view of San Diego's harbor area. Or, rather, I thought I'd seen it from the plane. The ship I saw looked like the one in the picture, but it was too big, too fancy looking . . . .that couldn't be it. That same ship began to loom large as the hotel shuttle approached the place where we were staying. "No, that can't be it," Zoë said, "that's some big fancy cruise ship." Well, it was it. I am typing this not more than a few hundred yards from the MV Explorer, docked right across the street from us. The picture above is from tonight.
There is no anxiety in the room, no panic. After a thrilling visit to the ship (as close as we could get to it), the Kid is sound asleep, and Zoë and I are ready to turn in. No one is obsessing about box fans anymore.
Monday, June 11, 2007
It all got done!
Incredibly, everything on my To Do list below actually got done. I finished reading that dissertation chapter at 12:30am this morning!
I'm at my mother's house now, outside of Washington, DC, and I'm updating largely because Zoë just scolded me for neglecting my blog. We're having dinner with my mom, sister-in-law and soon-to-be-brother-in-law tonight, then heading off to San Diego tomorrow. The Kid is at a comic book store with his grandmother, and Zoë and I are sitting here as still as possible, because it seems that my mother has not realized that many people like to turn the heat off during the summer. Perhaps she's training us for Panama?
I'm at my mother's house now, outside of Washington, DC, and I'm updating largely because Zoë just scolded me for neglecting my blog. We're having dinner with my mom, sister-in-law and soon-to-be-brother-in-law tonight, then heading off to San Diego tomorrow. The Kid is at a comic book store with his grandmother, and Zoë and I are sitting here as still as possible, because it seems that my mother has not realized that many people like to turn the heat off during the summer. Perhaps she's training us for Panama?
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