Happy New Year 2016

Typically, there is a lot of reflection around January 1. This is no exception, but I am a bit to low on the creative energy to go too deep.

Since being laid-off in late October, I have been in some kind of period of reflection of my work life. I feel surprisingly optimistic about my work prospects for the future. I have a lot of hope that I can build a work life that works for me. I have a lot of positive thoughts there.
Amy and I have continued our transition to an empty nest. As you might guess with college age kids, it isn’t really empty 100% of the time. That suits us. But, as time has passed, I am also beginning to see the need for us to adjust the exhibits in the museum. We are moving stuff around in the house and trying new experiments with what works for us. More change to come. I feel good about.
Last year, I lost weight. My cholesterol improved. I look forward to continuing that so that I can transition from being a “loser” to a “maintainer.” I feel good about that too.
There were some tough times last year as Amy’s parents both shuffled off this mortal coil, if I might put it in the words of Shakespeare. That provided challenges in many complex ways. But through a lot of hard work and time on Amy’s part, she has been able to move forward and regather her strength. I hope she feels good about that.
More than anything else, I feel that we are both moving in the same direction in our broad lives. That feels good too.
In the areas that are challenging, I am making changes. This isn’t easy but progress is being made. I have no doubt that some efforts will fail and some will succeed. As we get the results, we will continue to refine and try again. Perseverance is really our only tool here. I don’t feel great about this but that is ok. I feel like I have the will to keep at it.

No big pronouncements this year. I did one thing on my last years list out of three. I lost weight. I did not run a 5K per se but I feel very close to being able to actually run (as opposed to walk/run). No progress on swimming an IM. Still on my list of things I want to do.

Good luck in 2016.

Thanksgiving

It has been too many years to count since I had Thanksgiving with my siblings and extended family. My kids, who live on the East Coast presently, have created an incentive for us to travel to them during this holiday.

For me, this has been my personal favorite holiday over the years. I love the theme despite the changing attitudes in society about the relations between the early colonial Americans, i.e. the Pilgrims, and the first people who were living here. At the heart of the celebration, after the back story, is an opportunity to have a meal with your family, appreciating them for who they are and for taking the time to prepare a feast.

Making a feast for somebody is an act of celebration that seems to cross cultures. Whether it is to impress, thank, or share abundance, the idea of a feast is similar. I’m not professional sociologist but that’s my take.

Right now, I can see that I am in the hive. I have nothing great to contribute to the preparation but a lot is going-on around me. Cooking has never been my main talent. But I do appreciate all the effort. More than anything, I’m just happy to be hanging around. It feels good.

In the intervening years since my last visit during the holidays, our nuclear family has created its own traditions in the absence of our big family. I miss those people and those times a bit today. I miss the various “strays” that we have invited. I miss the warmth of my brother-in-law and nephew who have consistently been our local family and proximate stand-ins for my own family.

Our kids have known our traditions, and they are wonderful and enjoyable too. It is inevitable and part of the natural order of generations. This year, as I see my brother and sister-in-law ably step into the role of hosts. I can see that they have their own systems and process for getting this done today. It is different but similar to what I remember from my youth.

My mother was the one who got up early and cooked the turkey. She had a calm demeanor but still a little anxiety of having the job of cooking the turkey. As the family grew so did the size of the turkey. With a bigger turkey, you need a longer cooking time which meant earlier start time. Obvious to cooks but not to kids. I remember her drinking coffee and basting the bird as we prepared to go to the football game. That was a big deal. It was the final marching band performance and that seemed like a big deal to us.

I remember smelling turkey for hours or so it seemed. I remember being involved in some table setting, putting a leaf in the table, but little more. Perhaps my mother enjoyed her time alone with her turkey. Looking back on that, I think of the effort, but then I see the wisdom. Probably some of the most calm moments in her life as Mom were when she cooked that turkey. No kids and a little time alone to prepare the feast. I will never know but I can imagine that she felt good about it because she was taking care of us and for once it was quiet in the house.

Our team played its rival and the outcome was important. Despite that, I don’t remember the record so I guess it was a more ephemeral importance. But after the game, where it was often cold and crappy weather, we would head home to have turkey dinner. We always ate in the middle of the day, just as we are now. Grandma and Grandpa would come. My grandmother brought a dish that my sister will try and replicate today – more for the nostalgia and memory than the taste itself.

We finished a grand meal and before moving straight to dessert, I have a recollection of some kind of pause. The NFL would be on and the whole Thanksgiving theme would resonate with us. We would go outside and play for a bit or maybe watch the game. Then we would eventually have a pie fest. Seveal types of pies for those that didn’t like one or another. Before it was too dark, the day would be winding down. The dishes were washed in the pause and that’s probably the main reason for it.

This whole sequence was the foundation for my understanding of the holiday. However, over time, that did morph and the new sequence, in the new place, with the new people, has come to be the new norm. The games are over earlier. The sun is in a different place when sit down to eat and the grocery is open and often visited the day of Thanksgiving. The group is a bit more modest and the dishes are a bit different.

I love it all.

Sometimes it hits hard

Amy’s father died this week. The phone call came at night from her sister, Karen. Sunday morning Carl had some kind of event that caused his body to stop working. It appears to be heart related.

He had none of the typical cholesterol/heart diseases issues throughout his life. For the most part, while his health was far from perfect for an 80 something old man, medically speaking, everyone including his primary care physician was surprised by this sudden end.

Since then, Amy has been depressed, withdrawn, and sad. It is all understandable. And this is signficicant because of how different this type of behavior is. Even when her mother died, this did not happen with the same intensity.

That is also understandable. Amy’s mom had dementia for a long time and the end of her life was not pleasant for anyone. It was a constant battle with demons in Ginny’s brain.

Amy had high hopes for her father after the funeral for Ginny was completed. You could see a weight lift off Carl. He was devastated by Ginny’s passing but by the end of the memorial service, he had a new light in his eyes. He got some of his game back.

I’m sure that is what is hitting Amy the hardest. Carl was a complex man. He was not all rainbows and sunshine. But he was also very engaged. For Amy there were so many things yet to do with Carl. There were going to be more chances to see him just be himself.

But now that is not possible. The memories are great. Amy has found so many great photos of Carl in among his family. Eventually that will be a wonderful way to remember him but it is also a pain that continues to chafe as she digs into the past.

This is not about me but my own feelings are a bit confused because I don’t know what anyone wants other than myself. And I am dreading the memorial service. I don’t know why either.

I don’t think Carl would care how it is conducted. I don’t think he thought of legacy and tributes. He never dwelled on the past around me. He lived his life and now it is over.

The Fourth of July Cook-out

Throughout my life, we had a family reunion at one of my paternal aunts. In my family, aunts are called Matante. Uncles are simply Uncle. And our grandparents were Memere and Pepere. Neither the pronunciation nor spelling is pure from a modern French perspective, but our family devotion to these words represents a connection to the French heritage in my family.

This heritage, I have learned, has much in common with Franco-Canadiens, including the lack of a clear origin story. Perhaps that explains in part why the reinforcement of the broader family understanding is important. But that’s too heady for this post. This post is about the effects of family and a family’s tradition.

Our family simply called the cookout “The Fourth” as if the holiday were reserved expressly for us. With 40 cousins, it is not easy to get together in one place. And as people age and have their own families, the base of the party is eventually spread too thin. This year one of my cousins presented the news that it was no longer possible to have the cook-out remain a fixture on our calendar. The Fourth was essentially cancelled.

I live 3,000 miles from this event. I have not attended in years. Yet, the end of an era is big deal, and this reverberated to me all the way across the US. I felt guilt and sadness. Guilt because I could not help sustain this institution and sadness for the loss of opportunity to see my cousins, even though this was really just the memory of seeing them in the past. The ongoing “Fourth” represented a possibility of reconnecting even when the actual connection was not possible or taken advantage of.

I prefer, through much retraining of my brain, to think of this as beautiful opportunity to remember the joy and goodness of the event. And I also think of this moment as an opportunity to recall some of those memories and the impact they had on me.

I do not ever remember saying thank you to the hosts of the party. I don’t think this is a bad thing. It was such a part of my life from such an early age that you just take it for granted. Saying thank you would, in some way, betray it as some kind of out-of-the-ordinary event. And while it was all that, saying good-bye seemed adequate and at the same time difficult enough. You just didn’t want the day to end.

I’m sure the yard where all this took place is smaller than I remember. Isn’t that how the memory of something grand works? But the place it resides in my heart is big. And I don’t want to diminish that.

I am fifty years old and I attended this cook-outs throughout my childhood, on through college, and into my 20s. My Memere and Pepere have passed away along with cousins, uncles and aunts. The matriarch of the Hamel family, Matante Connie, is still alive but suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. I can only guess at her age, but she is my father’s older sister and he is 74. I mention this to reinforce that we are not talking about some mere decade of tradition, but rather more than 5 decades that I, myself, know about. I have no idea what the genesis of event was. Or, what is true versus the failings of my own memory. I don’t want this to represent the “historical” record of the event but instead offer it as my personal memory.

With that disclaimer, I submit some of the memories for “the fourth” and also some of the broader and loving memories I have for the childhood time I spent in Otter River, MA.

Dear Janice and other Hamel family members,

It is clear from the tone of your letter that this was not an easy decision, and that speaks only a little to the impact that the cook-out had on our lives. I understand all the points you made about how it has become difficult. I live in WA and getting together with my family is not easy either. But what a run this cook-out has had! I say celebrate that fact. Perhaps the Hamel cook-out was modeled after another cook-out but the Connie and Alec cook-out is the standard bearer for success in my life and probably my siblings (though I am not sure they like it when I speak for them).

I’m sorry to hear that Matante Connie is suffering from Alzheimer’s. And it is sobering to think how far our big family is spread across the globe, including cousins who are in harm’s way through their own commitment to service for their country or community.

But guess where that comes from? It comes in part from the values that were communicated to us at events like the cookout.

For me, personally, the Otter River house was like a resort. I have no idea how much real time we spent there, but it was as close to summer camp as I ever got. My father’s camper and tent were our housing. And my cousins were counselors. And probably my second cousins down the street. and was it the King family too? I remember exploring wrecks of cars, throwing stones in the river and pond, volleyball, badminton, makeshift tennis and basketball. I remember the little church down the street. I remember Cote’s store.

I also remember a lot of reassurance for my family when the boat my father was on sank while he was fishing. I remember being angry with him because he lost my sleeping bag when the boat sank.

I remember all my nervousness on my first proposal to a girl. Linda let me down easy.

I remember seeing my cousin Brian absolutely killing it as he tried to capture a greased up watermelon at the town “pool”. Why it was called a pool? That I don’t know. But Brian was a competitor. He was nothing but wiry energy who just got after it. But so did a dozen other kids just like him. I don’t know if he won, but the watermelon put up a good fight.

I remember pining for the day when I would be able to swim out to the raft.

I remember all the kibitzing that happened as new girlfriends and boyfriends showed up. Or husbands and wives. I remember before Sharon and after Sharon. I remember the pain a family feels when it hears news from afar that it can’t explain to a little kid but is clearly serious.

I remember greased up baseball gloves, singing along to records with headphones, and a player piano (A FREAKIN PLAYER PIANO!). I remember Uncle George and a guitar. And rousing choruses of the groove to Sunshine of your Love.

I remember various cars with new features and the inspection that followed. I remember the older boys having beers with my dad and bustin’ his chops about this and that, hunting, Stock Cars. I remember the food gauntlet. Who brought what? I remember new dishes, old dishes, macaroni with this and macaroni without that. Coolers, soda, marshmallows and the inevitable point in the evening for “Off.”

I remember dignity, too. I remember Memere and Pepere and then new Memeres and Peperes. I remember them taking positions in folding chairs and then having audiences with anyone who chose to sit down near them.

I remember sitting in the back of my dad’s pick-up always at the tail the Rutland parade that I would later march in as a member of local band. A junker of a truck, it was the transportation for our family. We fit everyone in the cab at times. It was literally hot-wired. I learned to drive that truck later and it had standard on the column. What a nightmare. I also learned how to open the hood and bang the linkage when you got stuck in reverse.

I remember fireworks. Not pleasantly but that’s my problem.

I remember makeshift games of baseball that cut across age groups, using a bat and an oversized vinyl department store ball; the well was second base, and my cousin Christopher sliding home but forgetting he had marbles in his pocket.

I just remember it as the highlight of my summer – a never disappointing event that allowed me to interact with my family. I had no idea how odd it was for an in-law to be so comfortable in the other family. My mother was welcome there and as comfortable as a Langlois. She stayed with us at the Hamel resort during our summer vacation, when my father was working. That seemed normal to me.

To see the breadth of reach of this family summer institution, to see the influence of my elders, to see the varied places people have gone, it was simply awesome. I think it is fair to say that it was a success, time after time. And it is also okay to stop.

Thanks for all that.

Love,
Fran

Three of my most happy times

For some reason, I was in a nostalgic mood today. I was thinking back to when in my life I experienced a kind of pure happiness. There were many times when I was happy but there are a couple that rise to the top of the list.

Month in France with families
Italy trip with family
And last summers Otis West 2012

I’m not saying these were the only times I was happy. Or that other experiences weren’t their equals.
What am I saying? I’m saying that they were times where I was proud of myself for what I did. Things were just flowing. I wasn’t second guessing myself for the most part. There were extended stretches of time where I could just be myself.
It’s so rare for me. I think it must be for everyone but I don’t know.
Otis West is not in first place for only one reason – it was just a week of everyone. It wasn’t quite long enough to edge out those other ones. The overlap time with John, Michelle, Christine, Doug, and Tricia – and of course the kids – did add to it for me.
One thing that I’m learning is duration does matter. Maybe it’s like Al Franken says, “when I was kid, there was no quality time. Just quantity.”
I have been to France before. And those were good times too. However, the time with Dad was the best.
I’m sure someone will say to me, “what about …” and they might be right.
Thanks everyone for helping me make that happen.

Commencement

Occasionally, you have moments of reflection that come from unexpected places. This is not one of them. It is Father’s day and the week after my daughter’s graduation from high school. This moment is pretty much designed for reflection.
The graduation was a wonderful event seeing all the kids dressed up in gowns, hearing all the chatter of the parents, the pictures, the speeches, the formality. It was held in Safeco field, where our local pro baseball team plays. The day was beautiful. You could not have asked for a prettier setting. And the kids delivered too.
They said evocative things in their speeches. All the speakers were good and some were excellent. The gravitas of the moment was conveyed and perceived as well as one might hope. But there was a moment where I said, um, this is all bullshit.
I realize that I have attended more graduations than most. I was in band so we always attended graduation. That means I attended at least 5 in high school because it included 8^th grade. I attended probably another 5 in college. As a musician, we could actually get paid to play one of the graduation ceremonies as a quintet. So we would play at the college of nursing or engineering. I think I played at my cousins in the college of engineering.
I became intimately familiar with the pomp and the circumstance. I knew that the colors, the tassels, robes would be explained in the program. I knew the sashes and the medallions would be made clear at some point. The speeches would follow a pattern and the appreciation for parents and staff would be a point to hit along the way to optimism and hope for brighter tomorrow.
I don’t mean that graduation is meaningless. I’m not saying that it doesn’t represent some sort of capstone in one’s life. But all the pageantry is invented. It’s not a bad thing, but it isn’t like there is some overseer who provides the program and enforces the structure. Each school pretty much makes up some bullshit to give the event some color and rhythm.
This didn’t make it seem any different to me. It was like one of the moments when you are watching a movie and rather than thinking about the storyline, you think, “how did they get that shot?” You are no longer suspending your disbelief.
Throughout much of my early life, I was an observer and follower of “the rules”, I attributed a lot of meaning to everything. Commencement didn’t escape my notions of perfection. This was manifested in the tassel. Does it goes on the left or the right before you have graduated. I remember the murmurs before the graduation as it was passed on to us that it goes on the left. Well, thanks to Wikipedia, I now know that it doesn’t matter. There is no standard for this, no historical meaning attributed to Aristotle. The symbolism is in the unity choosing one side and the group gesture of moving it.
As the graduation progressed, sitting next to my brother-in-law, he leaned in and said to me, “I don’t remember any of this.”
“Really?” Because I remembered all of it. “What do you remember?”
“I remember screwing around the whole time thinking, when is this going to be over?”
That made sense to me, too. When the kids threw their hats in the air, Paul said, “I love this part.” And he let out a good laugh. I remember thinking that I didn’t do that because I was afraid to lose my hat. And then I thought, what was wrong with me. Why the hell would I ever need a mortar board hat. And actually, right then, I decided to love that part too. It was genuine and happy and kinda cool to see.
Funny enough, Nathalie said later, “I can’t believe those kids threw there hats up way in the air. I was afraid to lose mine so I only threw it a little bit.” That’s my girl!
One thing I regret now is skipping my own college graduation. Telling my father that I wasn’t going was a symbolic rejection. Fundamentally, it was a jack ass move. I was perfecting these at that time in my life. I know now that I was at the height of confusion about my life and I forgive myself for expecting to be perfect. I had no idea what to do with myself, then. I didn’t know who I was. I hadn’t figured it all out, yet I was ejaculated into the real world with no great understanding of what is next nor where I fit into it.
In way, rejecting the graduation gave me a break from meeting expectations. Maybe I had to do it. Now, I know that attending the graduation knowing that it wasn’t about me living up to some perceived expectation would have been okay. It might have provided a moment for my mother or father to take a snapshot and reflect on 21 years of putting up with this jack ass. Or a moment to say, we are proud of you.
I have been able to make peace with that. I attended grad school later and I did attend the graduation exercise. I was surrounded by my family and loved ones. It was fittingly held in the back of the dorms where I attended undergrad. The commencement was a fitting capstone to my previous life storyline. I felt good that day too. I was able to feel genuine accomplishment. I didn’t know all the ways that I had changed, but I was pleased with myself.
Now, I am a parent. I enjoyed the opportunity to wish Nathalie and other graduates well. Good luck trying to figure out life. But I also feel genuine pride. Maybe not pride at all as I don’t see that I had anything to do with Nathalie’s accomplishment. I am impressed by the poise that the kids have and their ability to project some kind of future that includes them in it. I don’t think I was capable of doing that.
I also commiserate with the parents, including my parents. Mom and Dad, you did a helluva job.
And I will share this with my father this weekend: as I approach 50, I value in myself that I have demonstrated that I have a commitment to taking care of my family. And, I’ve always known that about my father too. He took responsibility and he still does.
Forget all the parenting stuff. Are you a good father or not? I don’t know. I still don’t feel secure there.
I think I share this with my own dad. I know that I give it my best. I’m not like other dad’s. I don’t always do it gracefully. I don’t always know what to do. Sometimes I’m not leading the gang, I’m just stumbling through the role. I don’t “own” it.
But I have consistently done what is necessary to make them safe and have options. To be a provider. That’s a helluva thing. Thanks for doing that all those years, too, Dad.

Kids

I’m glad we had kids. That was a good decision.

The trip–a week later

I feel a lot better about our recent trip. We saw some cool stuff. And we spent some nice time together. The latter part of it was exhausting, but that was also expected.

After a week of reflection, I realize that the trip was something of a closing, not opening activity. Which means, I’m in the opening of something right now.

We openly embraced this trip as something of a “last chance” to all go on a vacation as a family. Knowing people with older kids, that isn’t exactly true. We still vacation with Amy’s parents and my dad so I guess it can last your whole life. But, Nathalie will be making her trip to her college next summer, barring some radical shift in her life plan. This time next year, I’ll be trying to talk myself into driving across country or whatever. If she goes to school in Boston, then she and her stuff will need to get there, as opposed to what monument to see in Rome. Nathalie really enjoyed the trip, and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear her plan her junior year abroad in Rome, Milan, Turin, or wherever. Seriously, she could learn Italian in 6 months of serious study, knowing that she would be immersed for a school year following.

A thought on my own Italian study. I knew a lot more Italian than I needed to know for a trip. I think I might continue to take courses because I enjoy it. It’s a great exercise for my particular brain. And judging from Nicole, Mike and Christine, our familial brain has a “knack” for it. I’m not saying we are idiot savants but clearly there is something in the wiring that allows us to not be intimidated by the prospect of stumbling along with the language. As well, there seems to be a higher than average ability to internalize vocabulary and phrases in the short term. And, while it might be easier for me than, say, Amy, it is still exhausting at times.

I didn’t get many opportunities to speak Italian, which surprised me. My neighbor is a Columbian woman and she asked me about this yesterday, as we exchanged pleasantries. I told her that I was surprised that in one place, I walked to the counter and the server said, “What can I get you?” Never even a pause before completely flipping the bit to English. My neighbor said, “Really. You don’t even look like a gringo,” which, oddly, made me feel better. Apart from hello, good-bye, thank you – you can feel pretty good that English will be okay. I could not say what it might be like outside of the tourism industry because we were squarely in the middle of that.

So closing this chapter is a theme for me. I realized some of this as I spent the week back at work. My team has been dysfunctional for a long time. That’s harder and harder to take. I just don’t want to be there. That’s not as simple a conclusion as it sounds as the Catholic guilt (you’ ought be thankful you even have a job) and the Puritan work ethic (work harder at it) combine with the more visceral conclusion that this is not a sustainable position.

At the risk of going to deep here, I hardly ever think about my heart. It works fine. Apart from a yearly check up, I go about my life like everyone else. But there is a part of my sub-conscious brain that is aware that my time could be limited. Orthat my normally functional time might be limited. I know people who literally cannot fly because of the risk of blood clots, for example. And lots of people get through life with bigger, more difficult handicaps. For me, I am literally unaffected. However, I know that I have 8 years of 15-20 year ticket punched before I have to become medically unconscious and wake up, intubated, with an incision on my chest.

I think that weighs into my thinking about things like “toughing out” another year in a bad job.

I also think that we are living in a time where there is no concept of “retirement”. I’m not talking politically here. I’m saying that we, or I , do not have a good mental picture of what it’s like to be 60 or 70 years old in the future.

What does this sea change mean for me? I don’t know yet. I know that my job, even apart from my present team, is in jeopardy. Software development is not bound by political borders. There is nothing to say that American-made software is even distinguishable from Chinese or Indian software. Who makes the software you are using right now? If it is IE then I guarantee you that it is in part Indian-made.

In the middle of writing this, I spoke to my homeboy, Mark. He shed some light on my predicament by asking a simple question. What do you want to change the most? Or something like that. And the answer, after a little bit of thought, was clear. I want more control. It’s not that my job is bad. I’ve liked similar jobs. The difference was that I had more control. I had bosses that said things like, “you just do your thing and you let me worry about reporting it to management.” The uncertainty in the industry is less about predicting the next twist and turn in the software development road. It is more personal to me to know that I am not some kind of flotsam in water being affected by the changing current and crazy, unpredictable weather, later washing up on some beach as little more than debris, unwelcome pollution.

In the past, lack of control lead to two things, often, simultaneously: Consolidation and research. I can live with both those things. In particular, I love consolidation. I love having less stuff. That’s a bit harder to envision as a father of nearly grown up kids and a husband, but not impossible. And research is what I do. At the close of this week, that is not a bad place to be.

Indulgent reflections on a vacation (1,700 words)

I usually spend a good deal of my vacations in a somewhat reflective state. I sometimes know that it will be introspective and other times it is more of a surprise. For me, a vacation is a way to escape the grind of daily life so that my mind can go places that it doesn’t normally go. I don’t expect a vacation to be an educational experience or a physical challenge to make a contrast. I expect it to be a more introspective experience.

This vacation to Italy did not deliver that. It was not completely without reflection but instead provided something other than reflective moments in the main.

I don’t own a camera. I never have owned a camera and really never wanted a camera. I consider site seeing to be a strange experience. I realize now that this is a bit odd. I remember my first trip to Europe. I was 18 and just finished high school. I brought a camera because it was expected that I take pictures to share with my family and as a remembrance of the trip. I’m sure I have at least some of the photos but I don’t know where they are. And I took all the photos in one day of a 10 day trip. I remember thinking well I better uses this camera so I walked around and took a bunch of pictures. One was the price of gas in litres, which I found fascinating.

In short, I really suck at being a tourist.

In some ways, I was trying to push my internal limits by not writing in a journal on this trip. For one, I wanted to try and be more externally focused and less internally focused. This was a good experiment for a couple reasons but before I spell those out, some basics. The main purpose of this trip was to do a fun “last” vacation with our kids before they move out of our house.

Nathalie will finish high school next year and, if our neighbors are any guide, next spring and summer will be all about her graduation and future college plans. We know that Nathalie is highly independent minded so it could (though probably will not) be her last summer at home. Amy likes to “take vacations” too and we have gone on big trips in the past. Going on a trip was never a big part of my life experience prior to meeting Amy. Marc is good compliant company on our trips, too, so it is not hard to imagine him tagging along in Italy. This proved to be true, too. Marc, in contrast with Nathalie, has always been the tagging-along kid, flexible and compliant with the any of the big ideas of any trip. If someone on the trip says, “I was thinking of bungee jumping and then eating some poisonous blowfish,”Marc, who previously had never spent a minute of time thinking about either thing, will say, “Can I come?”

I appreciate that because I’m not like that at all. My reaction would be (and Nathalie’s too), “WTF? Why?” Or, “Isn’t it like 95F outside?” Or, “I didn’t bring the right underwear for that.”

Amy, as some of you know, is a planner. This vacation was well planned and went off without a hitch. She will have an itinerary that includes research. Research will be absent from my planning, and to be completely honest, my planning will and did amount to scheduling the vacation so that I am not at work.

I performed this task spectacularly by delivering a 20 minute presentation to 50-75 customers visiting from around the world on Monday, two days before we left. I spent Tuesday fixing everything else that I had been neglecting to sustain itself of 20 days and then spent Wednesday, the morning of our departure, packing my suitcase and washing any clothes that I was supposed to take with me. I’m not one for chaos so this is exactly what I expected to happen and it was fine. But, and this is the point, I had no idea what Florence or Tuscany had to offer other than broadest of outlines: beautiful countryside, and religious art. I can read more about it on the trip, right?

Amy had a very good itinerary planned. We went to a bunch of cities and had tours, which I have learned to love on trips. Tours are great because, a) they are in English; b) are opportunities to let someone else figure stuff out; and c) a great way to compress some of the backstory for a place into a short amount of time. Sure you can get stuff on Ipods or whatever, and you can use self-guided stuff for less money. But both suffer on several levels: Hard to do with more than one person; cannot change on the fly which a good tour guide can do (oh you play the tuba, let me tell you about the Venetian Tuba quartet – which is not a real thing); and go at your pace not the pace of the recording.

The tours on this trip were good-to-excellent. Amy also knows that I like tours so as she has honed her planning skills to the point of planning to address our multiple quirks as a people. This proved to be another solid win.

Cell phone side-bar

One responsibility of mine before the trip was to figure out the cell phone thing. Amy really wanted us to be able to have 2 working phones. Her thought was that whenever we split up our party, we should be able to contact each other. I did the research and even bought a special phone and SD cards for the trip from National Geographic. This is the short version of the story.

In short, don’t waste any time with this. You should just use your existing phone (infrequently) and know that it will be fairly expensive. Just ask your provider how to minimize the expense and do what they say. They know better. My buddy, John Kennedy, had said this to me before the trip and I tried this other thing. He was right and I owe him an I-told-you-so bagel. He only does this every six weeks or so, moving from the UK to USA, what could he possibly know that I can’t figure out? Well, plenty. Let me make this perfectly clear: every penny and second I spent on this other than going to ATT (which actually Amy did) was a waste. We ended up turning on that World Phone option on Amy’s Iphone because the experience of our National Geographic phone plan was complete shit.

Mike and Nicole both had much better experiences with their phones and providers.

Time spent in our apartment in Tuscany was very relaxing: Beautiful scenery, laid-back attitude. We spent a week doing this after our arrival in Rome (where we spent the first two nights). Rome was very hot when we arrived, and the first couple days of 9 hour jet lag are tough.

From Thursday to Friday the following week (8 days) was with Mike, Charlene, and Nicole. It was great. I don’t know what I expected, but it was really cool to see my little brother and his wife completely throw themselves into the experience. Mike had a real knack for it, not shy about throwing Italian words around where he could.

Nicole and I have done this before. She (and Derek, Doug and Christine) were with us in France so I had the pleasure of seeing her navigate similar waters before. I don’t really know why I find that so fascinating, but I do. And it was very cool to see everyone stumble through some initial obstacles and quickly see them master the experience to a point of bending it and themselves to a point of enjoyment.

Perhaps, as the big brother figure of this crew, I have always taken a more avuncular (means like an uncle – I looked it up) view of my siblings. This is the source of some pain at times, but far more joy. I realize now that familial pride that I felt seeing my younger siblings succeed in various endeavors was a pre-cursor for the same feeling I have had as parent. Indeed, it has often surprised me that the emotion was so similar.

Let me try to be specific about this. There have been few times in my life when I knew exactly what I would do in an uncertain situation but there have a lot more ambiguous ones. I was not a “tough guy” growing up, but when I met any prospective boyfriend of any of my sisters, I knew that were any of these guys to do the “wrong” thing, I would fix that situation with very little concern for life or limb. This kind of clarity of purpose to an emotional stimulus is rare – for me. I feel this same way when I meet any of Nathalie’s friends too. It’s exactly the same thing.

To see Mike and Nicole completely owning the experience of making their respective ways in this uncertain environment, I get a familiar positive emotional charge. You might say this, it makes me happy. Which of course, confuses me at first but on the whole, I enjoy.

And, in Tuscany, we had a great place to spend some quantity time together. Going to the pool, going to the market, going to the beach, going site-seeing. I know that everyone does not have the desire to cast the scene in such broad relief. Saying good-bye at the end of the week was tough, but I think we all can look back on the week as a fun time.

Traveling around on trains to the big cities was the objective in the second week. We managed that well. I’m not going to lie to everyone and say I loved this. It had its moments. In the spirit of trying to be flexible and not torpedo anyone’s experience retro-actively, I can say that I liked the first week more. Seeing the sites in the big cities was interesting. In the long run, I will appreciate it more than I do right now.

I guess the trip is more introspective in hindsight (I could say retrospectively introspective but that’s too much word play, right?) I’ll be thinking about it for long time.

My recollection of the triathlon

by Nicole

I woke up Sunday morning at about 3:45, hoping to get 15 more minutes in before my alarm went off. But I had to pee so badly I couldn’t fall back asleep. I lay in bed arguing with myself about whether I should get up and pee and try to fall back asleep, or just get up. And that’s when I saw the first flash of lightning and heard the rain start hitting the windows.

I’d heard the rain wasn’t supposed to start until 2:00 that afternoon so I was pretty irritated that it came early. I had no faith that the weather would clear up. I thought all the training and preparations were going to be washed away by lightning strikes changing the course distances or canceling parts of the race. At very least, I thought we were going to have to wait to start the race until noon. Since I was already awake at 3:45, and I cannot nap, this did not bode well for my performance.

So I got up, made myself a little coffee, grabbed a breakfast bar that I had made the night before and tried to relax a little (after I dug out all the rain gear Derek and I had put away after the Boston Marathon in April 07). Tina showed up at the agreed upon 4:30, we loaded up my bike, and jumped in the car. The ride to Webster was short, but we had plenty of opportunity to watch the lightning fork across the sky and listen to the menacing rumbles of thunder. I indulged my fears of a turbulent swim, sucking in lots of lakewater, skidding on wet roads and running in blisteringly wet shoes.

We parked in the closest lot and decided to stay in the car for a while, no rush since we knew we’d be in the last heat. I kept in constant contact with Derek via text messages both for weather reports and moral support. I text messaged my ironman and ironwoman friends who reminded me (nicely) to get over it.

Dawn started to break, so did the weather. Daylight increased, thunderclaps and lightning strikes decreased. We put up our hoods and made our escape. As we walked our bikes the half mile to the start area, the rain got lighter and lighter, and by the time we were in the race area it had stopped completely.

The word was that at 7:00 (when the first wave should have started) we’d find out if they were canceling the swim or simply postponing it. By 7:15, it was clear that the day would go on as planned.

Tina and I set up our transition stations next to one another and made friends with the people around us. We found our other teammates and started watching the elite swimmers start their race. It was amazing to watch someone swim one half of a mile in about 7 and a half minutes. Even more amazing were the crowds. Almost 2500 timing chips were recorded, but there were many more people there.

Somehow among all the action we even met up with many of our cheering section: Derek, Doug, Louie, and my ironman friend and swim coach Tony and his lovely girlfriend Jess. My perfomance anxiety was helped by the same homeopathic remedy that I had used during my board exams to calm “exam nerves”: Gelsenium. It was also helped by a phone call from my ironwoman friend Melissa who reminded me to go slow during the swim and gave me some sage advice: You only get one first time at this, so enjoy the journey, enjoy the day. You’ll have lots of time in the future to work on being fast. Today, pay attention and don’t miss it.

We got in line for our swim heat. They had us get about ankle deep in the water and we instantly felt the current dragging us into the lake. I thought it was a myth, but when you are in the last wave, there is a current created by 2,300 women swimming in the same direction for the last hour and a half. When the bell went off I immediately rolled into “sweet spot,” a swimming drill that I used frequently to remind myself to go slow and take the swim as a relaxing exercise rather than a panicked “churn and burn.” After a few seconds of that I started swimming.

The whole swim felt as relaxed as if I was just doing my swim drills. I thought about Tony’s advice to swim 3 freestyle strokes and then 3 breast strokes. I focused on some advice my brother Fran gave me – was I rotating enough in my freestyle? Do i feel the water squeeze through my legs during my breast stroke? Sure I got kicked and elbowed and grabbed, but it was very polite. People were actually apologizing to one another. I tried to draft but I kept swimming over the people I was drafting. If you think about it, I was actually drafting all 2,300 before me with that current.

As we rounded the first buoy I cheered to the women I was with “We made the first turn!” As we approached the second buoy I cheered us on again. As I swam the last leg I thanked the swim angels who were waiting in the water to help us out and cheer us on. I slowed down as I approached the shore and out we came. I had done it. I didn’t suck wind or water, I didn’t feel
wasted, I didn’t finish last. And, Fran, I didn’t wear a noseclip.

We emerged to cheers and encouragement. I jogged along the path to Derek who traded me my prescription sunglasses for my prescription goggles, and off I went to the first transition.

My sister Michelle had swum the first leg of the relay and came over to help out. She aided me in the removal of my wetsuit and powdered my feet. I choked down a nutrition gel and got ready to bike. While I walked my bike to the bike start and I cheered on some women who were finishing their swim, I nearly dropped my bike.

I jumped on the bike and noticed my seat was way too low, so I jumped off of it and adjusted, unfortunately it wasn’t enough, but I wasn’t getting off again. I hit the first hill and noticed how much my quadriceps were burning (a side effect of the seat being too low, wasn’t getting enough extension), and thought about getting off the bike and walking the hill, but when I went to get my foot out of the pedal I couldn’t. So I figured it was a sign from the gods. I remembered Doug the Bicycle Repairman’s advice and stood the heck up.

At the top of the hill I saw some more friends there to cheer us on. They let me know that I was catching up with Tina who had crushed me on the swim.

I tried not to wimp out on the down hills, used what my momma gave me and pumped those little piston legs. I felt very strong on the ride, I caught up with Tina and made some friends. I said thank you to all of the volunteers and police officers. I cheered on people who were struggling, and those who were kicking my ass. I teased spectators, shook my fanny at Tina and generally had a great time.

As I entered the end of the bike I rode by both of my sisters who had started the run portion and yelled to them getting the best cheer ever from Chrisso which made quite a few people laugh. I jumped off the bike for an easy transition to run and grabbed a Vanilla Cliff Shot, and promptly spit it out gagging. It was so disgusting. Grabbed a raspberry one which was only slightly less disgusting, at least it did not make me gag. And I took off, at a very slow jog.

My cheering section was the best, and hollered for me. I was so happy to have people yelling my name and teasing me. I knew the run was not going to be great for me so I just took it slow and started high-fiving everyone who would do it. I passed my sisters again and hugged one, high-fived the other. My knee started to hurt, an old injury rearing its ugly head, and I had to alternate jogging with walking. I stopped at every water station and let the little kids throw water at me. I probably wasted a lot of time goofing around. 🙂

On my way back into the race area, I heard my name again and when I looked it was my brother Mike and sister-in-law Charlene who were an excellent surprise. I smiled for the camera and finished up my race amid more cheers and photo ops.

I was treated to flowers from my dear friend Nicole and snuggles from her new baby Nolan. I gave sweaty wet hugs to all our cheering section. And then I went to Michelle and Tom’s house and gorged myself on fresh salsa, grilled fish and delicious salads. And, of course, a beer.

As I mentioned earlier I’m not much of a napper. After we got home Derek napped while I just looked at the internet and thought about my blisters on my toes, a side effect of wet feet. At the appointed hour I decided I felt up to doing a little bowling, so we went to our last bowling match of the season and I bowled a good 20-30 points over my average on all 3 games. I decided the bowling made for a quadrathlon.

I don’t feel any different, I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished anything special. I really do believe that anyone could do that triathlon. But I’m proud that I learned how to swim so much better, I’m proud of how well I did on the bike, and I will likely do more of these sprint triathlons.