Moloka'i by Alan Brennert

Yet another piece of historical fiction that has served to educate while entertaining.

Brennert provides a little bit of the history of Hawaii, a little bit of the history of leprosy or Hansen's disease and a little bit of the history of the settlement of Kalaupapa in the context of the story of Rachel Kalama, a fictional seven year old child who is banished to and grows up on Moloka'i.

Brennert does a better job conveying the pathos of the grown-up Rachel than of the adolescent Rachel. Once again, I found myself reading a book to which I had little emotional attachment until Rachel reached adulthood at which point Brennert's ability to touch the reader with Rachel's struggles dramatically improved.

This is a sad story told in a way that celebrates the ability to persevere, fashion a life and ultimately triumph.

If I visit Lahaina as expected this fall, I'll have to include a side trip to Moloka'i in my itinerary.

Late to the party

Caught the Sybarite String Quintet outside of Paradise Bakery on Wednesday night. They finished with a rousing rendition of Aaron Copland's Rodeo.

Picked up my new black 80 gb video iPod on Thursday morning.

Loaded 5000+ songs onto the new toy last night.

Got four Aaron Copland CDs today.

Just loaded 37 more songs onto the new toy.

Am now off to listen to more free live music.

My new favorite website

Overheard in New York

Along with Overheard Everywhere and Overheard in the Office.

The cynic in me says some of this stuff has to be made up but, coupled with the witty headlines, they do make me laugh.

DMV torture

Wednesday morning we picked up the car share car and the grandparents and headed to Glenwood Springs to take the learner's permit test.

We arrived at the DMV a few minutes after the 9 am opening time. They were serving number 8 and we got number 26.

Hmmmm.

There were two clerks but one kept leaving to administer scheduled driving tests. There was also an assistant whose job was to answer the phone so the clerks didn't have to but she kept disappearing on little, meaningless errands.

The numbers increased agonizingly slowly.

Our number was finally called at 11:30 am. But only after number 30 jumped the line.

I saw an elderly woman sitting near us and noticed that she was holding number 230. All of the ticket numbers were 3 digit numbers starting with a 2. The number being served display (directly above Rachel's head in the picture) was a 2 digit display.

Obviously, we were going by the last two numbers on our ticket.

Well, I guess this wasn't obvious to everyone.

The clerk called number 23. Two people got up and approached the counter, one being the woman I knew to be holding number 230. I then sat and watched for 20 plus minutes while the clerk helped first the gentleman holding ticket 23 and next the elderly woman who decided that since zero is null, she must have been holding ticket number 23.

I felt that the clerk should have explained to the elderly woman that she was jumping the line. Clearly, the clerk didn't agree. No skin off her nose who she helps next.

And I was probably the only person in the room who knew.

It was particularly tortuous for my parents who hail from Illinois. Illinois' DMV used to be as inefficient as Colorado's. That is until there were a series of well-publicized scandals revolving around fraud and graft in the Illinois DMV. Illinois' current Secretary of State, Jesse White, has done a terrific job of reforming his department and my mother just gushes about how efficient the Driver's License offices are now.

I guess Colorado needs a scandal.

But Rachel passed her test and is now the proud possessor of a learner's permit.

She has yet to drive a car on the street. We thought about having her drive to work on Thursday morning but decided it was not a stellar idea to have her first street driving experience occur on Main Street.

Porch music

This weekend is the Jazz Aspen Snowmass June Festival. While the Labor Day Festival takes place in the distant lands of Snowmass Village, the June Festival, for the past 4 years, has taken place at Rio Grande Park, a hop, skip and a jump from my front porch.

This is way cool.

In 2003, Steve was grooving to Joe Cocker live as he was taking out the trash.

Last night, I sat out on my front porch, watching the stars and grooving to the sounds of Earth, Wind and Fire live.

Sweet.

Food & Wine residual or Are you sick of me yet?

Food & Wine ended Sunday afternoon and by Monday, I had already had two opportunities to put my newly acquired knowledge to use.

Sunday night, for Father's Day, we went out to dinner at Gusto Ristorante, one of the Italian restaurants here in town. As a result of the Sparkling Substitutes seminar taught by Mark Oldman, I had a glass of the Prosecco which had been a complete unknown to me less than a week earlier.

On Monday, Steve and I were wandering through town at dinnertime and decided to eat at Takah Sushi, where I ordered a glass of the Reisling to complement the wasabi as suggested by Brian Duncan in the Perfect Wine and Food Pairings seminar.

I had Steve taste the Reisling by itself and, as I had anticipated, he found it a bit too sweet. I then had him taste it after eating some spicy Atomic Shrimp and he was amazed at the way the flavors combined.

Fun stuff.

A whole lot of scoring going on

Yet another fabulous day at Food and Wine.

Sunday seminars usually have fairly spotty attendance but not so with our session, Brian Duncan's reprise of his Perfect Wine and Food Pairings. We ran out of wine and had to short some of the latecomers.

Oh well, they do tell everyone to arrive at least 15 minutes early to insure their seats.

Instead to trying to get across town to another seminar, I sat in the prep tent and guzzled Vouvray, Reisling and Gewurztraminer.

Teardown went really quickly and I scored a bottle of Osborne Premium Pedro Ximenez Sweet Sherry during the volunteer raffle. One of the panelists in the Like Wine for Chocolate seminar suggested serving it with vanilla ice cream and dark chocolate shavings, so, later during the Grand Tasting, I went to the Hershey premium chocolate booth and scored some chocolate too.

I really was hoping to snag a bottle of the Gewurtztraminer that Brian Duncan was serving but the committee co-chairs had squirreled it away for themselves.

The perks of being in charge.

We had enough time between being released from our assignment and the start of the last Grand Tasting that I was able to get home to drop off my haul of sherry and Fiji water. I got over to the Tasting tent just in time to join the end of the line as it entered.

Perfect timing.

I drank more heavily than at any other tasting, trying a Martini Asti with strawberry puree, a Cointreau white sangria, a vodka/apple/sugar concoction, three or four Reislings, a couple of Pinot Noirs, a couple of Gewurztraminers and my favorite Sergio Prosecco and Mionetto Il Moscato.

I partook of the food too and perfected my trick of avoiding the line at the Academie Barilla booth with its exquisite cheeses and cured ham by waiting until the 10 minutes to go announcement to make my way over there.

I scored another pound of Starbucks coffee (my third) but did manage to lose my sunglasses.

I consoled myself with a big glass of the Mionetto Il Moscato and then shamelessly hung out at the Mionetto booth at the end until the wonderful Mionetto representative took pity on me and gifted me a bottle of the Moscato.

Yes! Life is sweet (as is the alcohol).

Oh, and I never did spit.

Moms behaving badly

Monica Emmerson is a big fat liar.

Now, listen, I've definitely been there.

Toting a toddler and luggage through an airport and dealing with stupid rules. I've even reacted and behaved in the heat of the moment in ways that were out of proportion to the situation at hand.

No, I've never intentionally dumped water on the floor out of spite but still, I've done things which have been fairly irrational.

However, I have not then gone on national TV and defended my piss-poor behavior. I've actually had the sense to feel a bit sheepish.

Monica claims she "accidentally" spilled the sippy cup. Maybe she didn't know when she did so that there was video. Video which clearly (at least to me) shows an irritated woman purposefully pouring water on the floor.

Monica should be apologizing. She should be saying that the rules which prevent her from taking her toddler's sippy cup through security suck but that is no excuse for her actions. She should be saying she was stressed, tired and in a hurry and completely over-reacted and acted inappropriately. And that she shouldn't have done so.

I absolutely love the fact that the TSA called, "Bullshit" and posted the videos and incident report on their website.

Come on, Monica. You can tell me. You didn't really "accidentally" spill that water, now, did you?

Still not spitting

It was really hard getting out of bed this morning. Really hard.

But I kinda forgot all about that when I started drinking at 9 am.

Yep, 9 am, there I was tasting six different Reislings with Andrea Immer Robinson.

Of course, by then I'd already been "at work" since 8 am, so that makes it ok.

I like Reislings. I like Gewurtztraminers. I had forgotten how much I like these.

I really like Mionetto Moscato and Sergio Prosecco. At $10 a bottle, I don't think I'll fall in the snob category any time soon.

I attended 3 out of 4 seminars today: Reislings Around the World, Green Grapes and Ham (a ham and wine pairing led by Danny Meyer of Union Square Hospitality Group and Dan Phillips of Grateful Palate) and the Perfect Wine and Food Pairings (Brian Duncan from Bin 36 in Chicago). I learned so much. I would have never thought to put together wasabi peas with Reisling or tomatoes with Gewurtztraminer. And ham, who knew that different hams paired so well with different wines.

And the Grand Tastings, so much good stuff. Once again, I didn't do much tasting at the early show since I had to continue to function for the rest of the afternoon but I ate, boy did I eat. There was lemon pepper ahi and some yummy fish with paprika sandwich (provided by Starbucks no less). There was caviar, rib eye, prime rib, aged cheese, proscuitto, cured Spanish ham, sushi, barbecue, and loads of things I could only describe, not name.

At the afternoon Grand Tasting, I did more tasting but even there the number of choices is just overwhelming. And a lot of the stuff is really high end. A friend's philosophy is that it's the only time she'll be able to taste most of this stuff. My thought is I don't want to know what I'm missing.

One more day . . .

It's been a long day

Got up at 4:45 AM in order to be at the Good Morning America taping. It ended up being a segment with Mario Batali and Emeril Lagasse, competing in GMA's Best Burger Challenge which aired live on the east coast at about 8:20 am.

It was fun, albeit chilly. Mario is quite loose and funny while Emeril is a bit more nervous and stiff.

Since we were done by 6:30 AM and I didn't have to be at my volunteer gig until 8 am, we drove up to the Maroon Bells and took a short walk before Steve dropped me off at Paepcke Park. I helped set up and sat in on three seminars which were all quite good. In between and afterwards, I went to the Grand Tastings which were full of fabulous food and drink.

Being that I'm a bit of a light weight and being that all of the seminars involved wine tastings, I only tasted one wine during the early Grand Tasting but ate every morsel of food I could find.

Imagine a boatload of tapas interspersed among buckets and buckets and more buckets of wine.

At the second and final Grand Tasting of the day, since I didn't have to work any more seminars, I tasted much more freely. I haven't quite worked up to spitting but I have managed to limit my tasting to just a couple of swallows of each wine (except for those I really, really like).

Today, I learned about seven great tasting wines under $15, six BSDs (or bubbly stunt doubles) and how six wines pair with six different chocolates. I managed to score a free bottle of my favorite BSD too.

I am so ready for bed . . .

Watch me?

Not sure how this works (ie, when it will air) but tomorrow morning I'm getting up at an obnoxiously early hour to attend a taping or live segment or something for Good Morning America from the Food & Wine Classic here in Aspen.

Maybe you'll see me on TV?

Classic

The Food & Wine Classic is celebrating its 25th year in Aspen.

I'm volunteering for the first time in my 8 years in Aspen.

Volunteering is a pretty cool gig. I do some work and I get a pass for which people pay $1000.

I've been to the Classic once in my years here. My girlfriend used to manage the lodge here in Aspen where Andrea Immer stays and they had two passes which we got to use for a couple of seminars (we saw Steve Raichlen and Jacques Pepin and his daughter, Claudine) and a Grand Tasting.

This year I get to go to all of the Grand Tastings. There are five. I will definitely have to pace myself since I also have to work before and after the Grand Tastings. In addition, once I'm done with set-up for each of the seminars at Paepcke Park, I get to go to any of the other seminars on a space available basis.

I'm not sure but I think I got pretty lucky with my assignment. I've heard that not everyone who wants to volunteer gets chosen. They give seniority to those who have volunteered previously and there are some pretty sucky assignments.

This summer, I've been trying to focus on vacationing here at home and since I have a ton of time off coming, when I applied to volunteer, I basically said that I was available whenever they needed me and that I was willing to work enough to qualify for a full pass. I was supposed to hear in the beginning of May but when that time frame came and went without a peep, I assumed that I hadn't made the cut, only to get a phone call a week or so ago, asking if I was still available.

Hell, yeah!!

The seminars I'm setting up for are all wine seminars: #105 The Price is Right; #205 Sparkling Substitutes; #305 Like Wine for Chocolate; #405 and 505 Reisling Around the World; #605 The Artisan's Hand and #705 Perfect Food and Wine Pairings.

There's a Volunteer Party next Tuesday that I was thinking I would blow off until the volunteer coordinator mentioned that, in an Oprah moment, she gave Tiffany champagne glasses as volunteer gifts last year. She said she couldn't promise the same this year but that it is the 25th anniversary. I just might have to show up to that party . . .

I'm pretty excited. Someday maybe I'll pop for a pass and be an actual paying customer but until then, this is a pretty cool way to go.

In addition to all of the above, I picked up two tickets to go to the taping of the Good Morning America segment Friday morning at 5:45 am. Considering that it's ten minutes from my house at a slow walk, I figured it'd be fun to do once even if it is obnoxiously early.

This week's favorite

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

The Historian is an excellent read, equal parts horror story, historical thriller and travelogue.

Built around the Dracula legend, the book follows a young girl as she struggles to solve the mystery of her father's disappearance and her mother's absence. While the story can be hard to follow as it jumps back and forth between narrators, after a slow start, the suspense intensifies as the unanswered questions grow. Kostova doles out her mysteries as a bread crumb trail drawing her readers deeper into her story.

While multiple aspects of the story held my interest, I found myself most attracted to the story as a travelogue. The author describes the characters' travels through Cold War Eastern Europe in a way that can only be described as enticing.

We read this book for book club and at least one member read Bram Stoker's Dracula as a result of having read this book. I love it when that happens.

This week's favorite

Tempest, revisited

On Sunday, May 27, I wrote a post regarding one of the current issues generating letters to the editor. One of those letters to the editor was mine in which I, more succinctly, repeated what I stated here on my blog.

The individual whose letter generated my response finally got around to replying in today's paper. Basically my question was why was he entitled to free parking and basically his response was because he's a hard-working parent.

Truth is, the permit is a very nice perk for parents; it takes away just a little stress that most hardworking parents have on a daily basis.

Hmmm. That's persuasive.

I really don't care who gets to use the carpool permits. It's not an issue in which I have anything invested. However, from an intellectual perspective, the parents' attempts to justify their gaming the system by claiming entitlement due to the fact that they are "hard working parents" begs a comeback.

Make me a well-reasoned, rational argument based on accomplishing the goals of the carpooling permit benefit, please.

The letter writer also did a little (too little) research and discovered that I live at the base of a mountain which is host to many junior high school sized second homes. In yet another example of stunning mental acuity, he jumped to the conclusion that I belong in the second home owners' tax bracket.

Well Bridget, I don't live at the base of Red Mountain like you do. I did hear rumors that at the confluence of Hunter Creek and the Roaring Fork there are trees that sprout dollar bills. If so, then my problems are solved. Otherwise, I'll just keep working hard to provide for my family.

The truth is that he lives downvalley, where housing is free market and appreciating at double digit rates, while I live in deed restricted housing where I'm limited to appreciation of 3% per year.

By his logic, I should be the one getting free parking in town.

Prudes

I was listening to NPR's Day to Day as I was logging into Blogger to write today's post when my interest was piqued by the mention of the Village of Glenview, Illinois.

I grew up in Glenview and my parents still live there so I turned my attention from Blogger to the radio only to shake my head in disbelief.

It seems that some prudish mothers in Glenview objected to this billboard which is located in an industrial/commercial area of the village. After an email/letter writing/petition campaign which generated a flurry of local and national news coverage with its concomitant free publicity, the billboard has been taken down.

The moms got together for a celebratory coffee.

I have a couple of thoughts on this.

First off, images like this are ubiquitous in today's America. Trying to combat their effects by attempting to ban the images is a losing proposition. It is much more productive to create an atmosphere and a dialogue with your children that explains and emphasizes the unrealistic aspects of these images.

Use the existence of these images to become the voice in your child's head.

Second, the owners of these businesses could not, in their wildest dreams, have anticipated how much free publicity their two week billboard investment would generate. I'd love to see their website visit statistics for the last couple of weeks.

The moms are having a coffee to celebrate while the business owners are most likely celebrating with something much more expensive.

Travel Plans

This is where I'll be visiting some time in the next year.

I've already ordered my Lonely Planet guide.

Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman

I found this book fascinating.

Ehrman presents a well argued, scholarly work dealing with how the books of the Bible and specifically, the New Testament have been altered through the ages, both purposefully and accidentally.

In a move that gives his work added weight, he lays out the methodologies of the scholarly field of textual criticism and then presents clear examples to support his arguments regarding changes made and motivations therefore.

What Jesus Meant by Garry Wills

Wills has an interesting perspective on who and what Jesus was. He believes, as his foreword states, that Christ was not a Christian.

. . . he is not just like us, he has higher rights and powers, he has an authority as arbitrary as God's in the Book of Job. He is a divine mystery walking among men. The only way we can directly imitate him is to act as if we were gods ourselves - yet that is the very thing he forbids. He tells us to act as the last, not the first, as the least, not the greatest. And this accords with the common sense of mankind. Christians cannot really be 'Christlike.' As Chesterton said, 'A great man knows he is not God and the greater he is the better he knows it.' The thing we have to realize is that Christ, whoever and whatever he was, was certainly not a Christian.

Wills offers some thought provoking analysis of what the Gospels really have to say about Jesus. His is an anti-establishment view. He claims that religion killed Jesus, that Jesus was opposed to religion as it existed in his day and that he "did not found a church."

Don't read this book if you don't want to question your preconceptions.

Life Stories

Browsing through Blogger's Next Blog feature, I happened upon Watch the Glass's May 22, 2007 post in which she discusses a New York Times article by Benedict Carey entitled This Is Your Life (and How You Tell It).

Carey reports that researchers have found interesting tendencies in how different types of people narrate their lives:

In analyzing the texts, the researchers found strong correlations between the content of people’s current lives and the stories they tell. Those with mood problems have many good memories, but these scenes are usually tainted by some dark detail. The pride of college graduation is spoiled when a friend makes a cutting remark. The wedding party was wonderful until the best man collapsed from drink. A note of disappointment seems to close each narrative phrase.

By contrast, so-called generative adults — those who score highly on tests measuring civic-mindedness, and who are likely to be energetic and involved — tend to see many of the events in their life in the reverse order, as linked by themes of redemption. They flunked sixth grade but met a wonderful counselor and made honor roll in seventh. They were laid low by divorce, only to meet a wonderful new partner. Often, too, they say they felt singled out from very early in life — protected, even as others nearby suffered.

Carey goes on to detail how someone can move forward more positively based upon how s/he narrates negative episodes from his/her life.

Elizabeth from Watch the Glass adds some smart and savvy analysis of her own:

It's a simple drag-and-drop: if I can drag the beginning of the next story to the end of the previous one and drop it there, suddenly the narrative hints at excellent fortune and good timing in my life.

She's only got four posts since April but I found them all quite edifying, albeit a bit on the wordy side.

Oh boy

This was the email from the NPS Grand Canyon River office which greeted me this morning:

Dear XXXX BRIDGET XXXXXXXXX,

Thank you for submitting an application in the Grand Canyon National Park noncommercial river trip lottery. We are pleased to inform you that your lottery application was successful and we have scheduled a Small trip for you to launch from Lees Ferry on July 25, 2008.

To keep this trip, you must login to the lottery website at https://npspermits.us and pay your River Trip deposit within two weeks of the drawing date. Failure to pay the trip deposit by this date will result in the automatic forfeiture of your July 25, 2008 and its subsequent re-release through a follow-up lottery.

Once your deposit has been paid, nothing further will be due from you until 90 days before your launch date. By that time you will need to have completed the online Noncommercial River Trip Permit application and paid for your trip participants.

If you have any questions or need further assitance, please ask. We are happy to help. Congratulations on winning a trip!

Sincerely,
Steve Sullivan