It is the night of the NCAA national championship. It's opening day for Major League Baseball. The regular seasons for the NBA and NHL are drawing to a close, with their respective playoff races heating up. In times like these, I need to do what any red-blooded adult American male would. I'm going to write about grocery shopping.
For those of us who grew up going to Meijer, a visit to the Benton Harbor Meijer can be like a trip back in time. Every other Meijer in the world seems to have been updated and outfitted to modernity, with the accouterments to make grocery shopping feel like an event: Low lights, exotic fruits, rustic-looking muffin carts. For me, grocery shopping is an event, but not because of the rustic-looking muffin carts. I think it has to do with having an excuse to spend a bunch of money on food. I don't need accouterments. Which suits the BH Meijer fairly well, because it has no accouterments. It might not know what accouterments are. I'm not sure I do.
A few months ago, I was going to buy a TV. But I couldn't find them at the BH Meijer. I assumed they didn't have them, because they were nowhere near the CDs. A few weeks later, I found them. They were by the jewelry and houseplants. They still cram all their TVs into one narrow aisle, so you can't spot them from across the store and wander zombielike toward their warm, motherly glow. You have to take in the grandeur of a 50" Plasma screen from three feet away with a hook of coaxial cables digging into your spine.
The BH Meijer has the layout that every Meijer had before focus groups told them not to put the milk by the shoes. It's not pretty, but you can still buy a whole lot of stuff there. I would like to recommend that they conduct a focus group about the music they play. It's really terrible. Honestly, I know they haven't updated their floor plan, and that's fine, because I can still get great deals, but they can update their music.
Today, I started at one end with the frozen foods and meats. I realized as I began my cart-fillery that, depending on the direction I went at the beginning, I was choosing the people I would either be consistently stuck behind or crossing paths with once an aisle. In the end, this really doesn't make much difference because I inevitably skip whole aisles - mostly the ones with household cleaners and healthy stuff - and spend a long, long time debating which cheese I want, or whether or not the tomato sauce will make an acceptable pizza sauce.
The ice cream aisle tonight could best be described as a clusterphooey. Someone had been charged with rearranging the novelties - probably at the urging of a focus group - to a more modern arrangement. The Skinny Cows should not be with the Dippin' Dots. I thought, as I maneuvered my cart between tall stacks of hurriedly melting pints, that this was the sort of thing they should do when there aren't people around, like how they do road construction at 3:00 am. They should not be doing this at 8:00 on a monday, prime bachelor ice-cream buying time.
On the tea aisle, there were two women speaking with English accents. Whenever I hear someone speaking in an English accent, I get the feeling I am somewhere significant, where people from all over the world need to go for some reason. And I desperately wanted to ask these foreign women where they were from and what they were doing in the BH Meijer. I was genuinely curious. I also wanted to try to talk to them in my English accent and maybe get some pointers on how to improve it. But this is exactly the cliche kind of American thing to do, especially if you get it wrong. "Scuse me, gov-nah, ah you from Australia?" They would inevitably dismiss me as a stupid American. Of course, these two women were having the most cliche English conversation they possibly could be, berating American tea habits. "They drink it cold here," one said. "I don't like it cold," the other replied. I moved on.
The rest of my grocery shopping experience is pretty uneventful. I bought a mango. I saw the English chicks again, and there were a couple other foreign dudes buying a whole lot of booze.
There's one thing that the BH Meijer has that needs not be improved: The parking lot slopes gently down, away from the entrances. This makes it prime cart sailing territory, and with a good shove, you can easily coast right up next to your Honda Civic.
April 5, 2010
March 17, 2010
Just an average piece of fish
I don't eat much fish. But amidst a flurry of motivation to include more healthy stuff in my diet, while eliminating unhealthy stuff from my lifestyle), and in keeping with recent attempts to learn how to cook, I found a frozen tilapia filet at Martin's for $1.00 and decided to cook it.
The internet is full of useful and useless recipes. Not having much of a natural gauge (as yet) on what cooking tips are practical and impractical, I googled "Easy Tilapia Recipes" and did my best to condense them into one average method of cooking a piece of fish in a hot oven. This may not work with all things. Apparently, as you will see, it works alright with fish. Other things - like, say, how to cook a pastry, might not work so well. I wouldn't debate the tastiness of a hodgepodge average pastry, but it probably wouldn't be easy or marketable. Apparently, though, you can average the sum of all tilapia recipes into a passable fish-dish.
The internet seems to agree that if you're going to bake a piece of fish, you'd better do it above 350 degrees. And you had better do it for several minutes. In my limited experience with baking chicken (three attempts, all of which produced edible but rubbery results) you have to cook it for 30-40 minutes. For a single chicken breast. In those 30-40 minutes, you have plenty of time to debate just how worthwhile it is to devote so much time to a mediocre piece of chicken, decide against it, and drive to a place that will fry it and put it on a bun for you relatively cheaply. This is a debate I am prone to lose. This is where fish has an edge. A narrow tilapia filet - again, the internet agrees with this - can be baked in 10-15 minutes. This does not leave a lot of time for second guessing and debate.
Fish does not, however, have an edge in the category of fishiness. Tilapia, fortunately, is not a particularly fishy fish. No, wait... by that I mean to say that it doesn't have a terribly strong fish flavor. In my cursory tilapia research, it seems consensus that tilapia is a blank canvas of a fish, one with which a chef can show off a complementary sauce. I, however, am not a chef, and thusly am not into sauces that do not come in cans that say PREGO on the side. So I'm not about to flex my anemic culinary muscles.
So I went to Meijer and bought some lemon-pepper seasoning. This made the situation disappointingly easy, and therefore difficult to exaggerate into a witty blog post. To prep the fish, all I did was put down a piece of foil, rinsed the fish (and patted it dry because the internet said to), seasoned it and threw a few lemon slices and a pat of butter on it. I put it in the oven for 12 minutes - again, the law of averages. When it was done, I put it on a plate with some steamed rice and veggies, the kind that comes in a bag that you never have to open, just put in the microwave for five minutes. I think this is how the pioneers did it.
And the finished product (picture way down below): A surprisingly attractive, average piece of fish.
It actually tasted pretty good. This is somewhat of a disappointment because the whole point of me blogging about cooking is to be self-deprecating. And when something like this happens - I produce a plate of well-seasoned, juicy, healthy fish - it's not the car-accident that makes for good blogging. So, my apologies, but the fish was pretty durn good.
Scouring the interwebs for fish-cooking advice.
My extensive spice rack. That's right, Kosher salt. You may recognize the Drake's from my chicken-frying disaster. It has not been used since.
375 degrees. Also, that's a Whirlpool.
The setup.
Healthy stuff. For a buck.
I find that the healthier the food is, the more difficult it is to open.
Sushi.
Slightly less sushi-like.
Not sushi. Sorry for the obstructing oven rack. No, actually, I'm not sorry.
Finished product.
The internet is full of useful and useless recipes. Not having much of a natural gauge (as yet) on what cooking tips are practical and impractical, I googled "Easy Tilapia Recipes" and did my best to condense them into one average method of cooking a piece of fish in a hot oven. This may not work with all things. Apparently, as you will see, it works alright with fish. Other things - like, say, how to cook a pastry, might not work so well. I wouldn't debate the tastiness of a hodgepodge average pastry, but it probably wouldn't be easy or marketable. Apparently, though, you can average the sum of all tilapia recipes into a passable fish-dish.
The internet seems to agree that if you're going to bake a piece of fish, you'd better do it above 350 degrees. And you had better do it for several minutes. In my limited experience with baking chicken (three attempts, all of which produced edible but rubbery results) you have to cook it for 30-40 minutes. For a single chicken breast. In those 30-40 minutes, you have plenty of time to debate just how worthwhile it is to devote so much time to a mediocre piece of chicken, decide against it, and drive to a place that will fry it and put it on a bun for you relatively cheaply. This is a debate I am prone to lose. This is where fish has an edge. A narrow tilapia filet - again, the internet agrees with this - can be baked in 10-15 minutes. This does not leave a lot of time for second guessing and debate.
Fish does not, however, have an edge in the category of fishiness. Tilapia, fortunately, is not a particularly fishy fish. No, wait... by that I mean to say that it doesn't have a terribly strong fish flavor. In my cursory tilapia research, it seems consensus that tilapia is a blank canvas of a fish, one with which a chef can show off a complementary sauce. I, however, am not a chef, and thusly am not into sauces that do not come in cans that say PREGO on the side. So I'm not about to flex my anemic culinary muscles.
So I went to Meijer and bought some lemon-pepper seasoning. This made the situation disappointingly easy, and therefore difficult to exaggerate into a witty blog post. To prep the fish, all I did was put down a piece of foil, rinsed the fish (and patted it dry because the internet said to), seasoned it and threw a few lemon slices and a pat of butter on it. I put it in the oven for 12 minutes - again, the law of averages. When it was done, I put it on a plate with some steamed rice and veggies, the kind that comes in a bag that you never have to open, just put in the microwave for five minutes. I think this is how the pioneers did it.
And the finished product (picture way down below): A surprisingly attractive, average piece of fish.
It actually tasted pretty good. This is somewhat of a disappointment because the whole point of me blogging about cooking is to be self-deprecating. And when something like this happens - I produce a plate of well-seasoned, juicy, healthy fish - it's not the car-accident that makes for good blogging. So, my apologies, but the fish was pretty durn good.
Scouring the interwebs for fish-cooking advice.
My extensive spice rack. That's right, Kosher salt. You may recognize the Drake's from my chicken-frying disaster. It has not been used since.
375 degrees. Also, that's a Whirlpool.
The setup.
Healthy stuff. For a buck.
I find that the healthier the food is, the more difficult it is to open.
Sushi.
Slightly less sushi-like.
Not sushi. Sorry for the obstructing oven rack. No, actually, I'm not sorry.
Finished product.
February 11, 2010
Me: Emerging cook, non-scientist… Hero?
Sometimes, new experiences can reveal your ignorance in delightful, tasty ways.
Lesson learned: If you let chicken get hot enough, for long enough, it will inevitably reach an edible state. It’s science. And science is proven.
For the record, the last science course I took was biology, and I got a B-minus.
I’m sure there’s a science out there that helps you get chicken to a tasty, edible and aesthetically pleasing state. This makes Rachel Ray and Martha Stewart scientists. Of that science. And I would fail in that science. Case in point:
I told you it did not go well. But how did I get here? Ooh, storytime:
Now, I hesitate to put all these pictures up because you’ll just look at the pictures and skim over all of my carefully chosen, meticulously crafted words. Oh, what the crap, you’ve already stopped reading and looked at all the pictures below. I don’t know why I even bother to write.
This is how it starts. Virgin chicken breast: Blank canvas, just begging the artist to craft it into a masterpiece. Except, I’m no Picasso. I’m more like a four year-old with a couple half-crayons, which will end up in couch cushions or up my nose, and a vague idea of what my final product might look like. No, as you already know, this poor chicken breast isn’t destined for a masterpiece. It’s most certainly doomed.
I would use flour. But the goose is so familiar and comforting. Besides, I didn’t have any flour. The box told me to put the chicken in milk.
Something about this doesn’t look right to me. But the box has ordained it. Also ordained by the box: repeated dipping in milk and Drake’s crispy fry mix. For the record, that is a very fat chicken breast, and this comes into play later. I’ll skip ahead to the frying pan. You’re just looking at pictures anyway.
Immediately, the chicken turned a pretty golden color. I swelled with pride. This whole cooking thing is pretty easy. I don’t know what I was so worried about.
I think 30 seconds went by between that first picture and this last one. After lots of probing and stabbing, I determined that the chicken had acquired a delicious cindery shell and maintained a raw pink center. I had chosen a poor method for cooking a very fat chicken breast.
At this rate, the inside would probably never cook. I decided that this was a failure, turned the burner off, and plopped the charred chicken on a plate.
I walked away with my head hung in shame. I reached for my cell phone and began to search for some pizza coupons, but something inside me whispered to me.
“Don’t give up,” it said. “This thing you’ve started: It’s bigger than you. This is a crossroads in your life. You’ve got a choice, Jim. You can whimper and retreat to a corner with a pizza box, and for the rest of your life approach a raw chicken breast as a mystery meat, leaving its mastery to others all the while growing increasingly dependent and subservient to those more culinarily inclined. You can let the chicken win. Or… Or you can overcome it. You can go back and… you can be a hero, Jim.”
Not being one to ignore inner voices that urge me to heroism, I set my cell phone down. I went back to the chicken and turned the burner on again. Breading be damned, I would get this chicken to an edible state.
And so I did. It took a long, long time. But as I flaked the charred coating of failure off the chicken, and each successive layer of burned shell thereafter, the meat did indeed reach an edible, thoroughly cooked state. Actually, that was kind of inevitable. It’s science after all.
Not pretty…
But edible.
Lesson learned: If you let chicken get hot enough, for long enough, it will inevitably reach an edible state. It’s science. And science is proven.
For the record, the last science course I took was biology, and I got a B-minus.
I’m sure there’s a science out there that helps you get chicken to a tasty, edible and aesthetically pleasing state. This makes Rachel Ray and Martha Stewart scientists. Of that science. And I would fail in that science. Case in point:
I told you it did not go well. But how did I get here? Ooh, storytime:
Now, I hesitate to put all these pictures up because you’ll just look at the pictures and skim over all of my carefully chosen, meticulously crafted words. Oh, what the crap, you’ve already stopped reading and looked at all the pictures below. I don’t know why I even bother to write.
This is how it starts. Virgin chicken breast: Blank canvas, just begging the artist to craft it into a masterpiece. Except, I’m no Picasso. I’m more like a four year-old with a couple half-crayons, which will end up in couch cushions or up my nose, and a vague idea of what my final product might look like. No, as you already know, this poor chicken breast isn’t destined for a masterpiece. It’s most certainly doomed.
I would use flour. But the goose is so familiar and comforting. Besides, I didn’t have any flour. The box told me to put the chicken in milk.
Something about this doesn’t look right to me. But the box has ordained it. Also ordained by the box: repeated dipping in milk and Drake’s crispy fry mix. For the record, that is a very fat chicken breast, and this comes into play later. I’ll skip ahead to the frying pan. You’re just looking at pictures anyway.
Immediately, the chicken turned a pretty golden color. I swelled with pride. This whole cooking thing is pretty easy. I don’t know what I was so worried about.
I think 30 seconds went by between that first picture and this last one. After lots of probing and stabbing, I determined that the chicken had acquired a delicious cindery shell and maintained a raw pink center. I had chosen a poor method for cooking a very fat chicken breast.
At this rate, the inside would probably never cook. I decided that this was a failure, turned the burner off, and plopped the charred chicken on a plate.
I walked away with my head hung in shame. I reached for my cell phone and began to search for some pizza coupons, but something inside me whispered to me.
“Don’t give up,” it said. “This thing you’ve started: It’s bigger than you. This is a crossroads in your life. You’ve got a choice, Jim. You can whimper and retreat to a corner with a pizza box, and for the rest of your life approach a raw chicken breast as a mystery meat, leaving its mastery to others all the while growing increasingly dependent and subservient to those more culinarily inclined. You can let the chicken win. Or… Or you can overcome it. You can go back and… you can be a hero, Jim.”
Not being one to ignore inner voices that urge me to heroism, I set my cell phone down. I went back to the chicken and turned the burner on again. Breading be damned, I would get this chicken to an edible state.
And so I did. It took a long, long time. But as I flaked the charred coating of failure off the chicken, and each successive layer of burned shell thereafter, the meat did indeed reach an edible, thoroughly cooked state. Actually, that was kind of inevitable. It’s science after all.
Not pretty…
But edible.
January 27, 2010
Cooking for one.
Whoa. It's not often that I get a brilliant idea that begs to be shared with others, but every now and then my brain does me a solid and presents me with something useful.
I am living on my own and, for the first time in my life, I'm entirely responsible for every meal I eat. Actually, I spent a summer in Orlando and sort of cooked for myself, but I also had a job at Papa John's out of which I creatively effected 10+ meals a week. (See? Effect can be a verb. Sup.) The remaining meals were spread across toast, cereal, and various burrito places.
There are a few people I go to for cooking advice. My family has given me a few pointers. My friend Phill has seen, I think, every episode of Good Eats with Alton Brown and has a compendium of odd food-related knowledge. I would watch the Food Network more, but every time I do they bring out some cooking utensil I've never seen before, or a yucca plant, or something else that used to swim in the ocean. I get to feeling I am far more likely to fly a space shuttle than do whatever it is they're doing. I just want to make some tacos.
My tastes have changed since college. I am not content with a can of soup, or ramen, or microwaved - microwaved anything, really. So I've been trying to expand my repertoire. I intend to escape this period of my life with at least a few decent culinary assets on my resume. This experimentation has generally produced subpar meals and lots of dirty dishes. The buffalo chicken quesadillas were undercooked and floppy. Generally, omelets become "skillets" of burnt veggies and unevenly cooked egg.
It's all very funny and embarrassing.
Which brings me to my idea: I want to blog about it and share it with you. I'll take pictures. You'll like it. So in the weeks to come, look for me to expose my culinary ignorance to the world.
I am living on my own and, for the first time in my life, I'm entirely responsible for every meal I eat. Actually, I spent a summer in Orlando and sort of cooked for myself, but I also had a job at Papa John's out of which I creatively effected 10+ meals a week. (See? Effect can be a verb. Sup.) The remaining meals were spread across toast, cereal, and various burrito places.
There are a few people I go to for cooking advice. My family has given me a few pointers. My friend Phill has seen, I think, every episode of Good Eats with Alton Brown and has a compendium of odd food-related knowledge. I would watch the Food Network more, but every time I do they bring out some cooking utensil I've never seen before, or a yucca plant, or something else that used to swim in the ocean. I get to feeling I am far more likely to fly a space shuttle than do whatever it is they're doing. I just want to make some tacos.
My tastes have changed since college. I am not content with a can of soup, or ramen, or microwaved - microwaved anything, really. So I've been trying to expand my repertoire. I intend to escape this period of my life with at least a few decent culinary assets on my resume. This experimentation has generally produced subpar meals and lots of dirty dishes. The buffalo chicken quesadillas were undercooked and floppy. Generally, omelets become "skillets" of burnt veggies and unevenly cooked egg.
It's all very funny and embarrassing.
Which brings me to my idea: I want to blog about it and share it with you. I'll take pictures. You'll like it. So in the weeks to come, look for me to expose my culinary ignorance to the world.
January 12, 2010
Conan, Jay
Far be it from me to say anything about late night television. In the past few months, I've found myself going to bed at an increasingly early hour. I demand to get my allotted eight hours of nothingness, and since I gotta work a 9-5, scratch that, 8:30 to 5, I have to retire before 11:30 to allow myself a proper morning primping. Which means, I haven't been watching Conan on the Tonight Show. I also haven't been watching David Letterman.
But Jay is on at ten now. So the whole going-to-bed early excuse goes out a very large, very early window. So forget that whole first paragraph. Except the part about ensuring myself a proper primping, that's key. Actually, forget that part too. Yeah, forget the whole first paragraph.
What I'm lining up here is the premise that you should not listen to me when it comes to matters pertaining to late night funnymen. So don't read any further. Go watch the new OK-GO video.
For those of you ill-suited to follow instructions, I'll embark on my late night rant.
Conan is great. Or at least, when I was watching late night television, he was great. He's comforting in a way, because he's a natural. Ever watched an open-mic comedy night? Then you know just how awkward and uncomfortable it is to watch an amateur on stage. I could never, ever tell jokes in front of people. But Conan is funny. He's an expert salesman, especially when the material is lackluster. He was born to be funny on TV. He belongs on the tonight show.
This is where you might expect me to paint Jay Leno as a foil, an anti-Conan. But he's good too. He's not quite as good a salesman as Conan, but he's miles beyond passable. He's a pro. He's good. I read an interview with him that won my respect a while ago. Leno strikes me as an honest guy. He's not nearly as unfunny as Conan fanboys might want to paint him. Conan's getting screwed, yes, but it's not Leno's fault. I don't know whose fault it is. I know it's not my fault.
Conan wrote the world a letter. Really, he did, he addressed it to the "People of Earth." This immediately hooked me. Because I am a people of earth. Person of earth. Anyway. It was eloquent, it was probably the right thing to do. And when you have to clear things up, you write letters. He's standing his ground. And apologizing for his hair. Godspeed, Conan. I'll watch you, wherever you go.
But really, this is the best thing to happen to NBC's latenight lineup since they, uh, messed with their latenight lineup. People are going to watch now. Controversy is great advertising. People are talking about it. Bloggers are posting about it on their lame blogs. NBC is kicking themselves for looking like a bunch of screw-ups, sure, but people are interested now. They're going to tune in. Just watch the ratings go up.
If I can add just one more thing, it's that Craig Ferguson is the best thing in latenight right now. Unfortunately, he's buried behind Letterman, next to Jimmy Fallon. He gives the same odd comforting feeling that Conan does, but with a hint of Scotch.
But what do I know? I go to bed at 11:30.
Conan's take on how The Simpsons should end:
But Jay is on at ten now. So the whole going-to-bed early excuse goes out a very large, very early window. So forget that whole first paragraph. Except the part about ensuring myself a proper primping, that's key. Actually, forget that part too. Yeah, forget the whole first paragraph.
What I'm lining up here is the premise that you should not listen to me when it comes to matters pertaining to late night funnymen. So don't read any further. Go watch the new OK-GO video.
For those of you ill-suited to follow instructions, I'll embark on my late night rant.
Conan is great. Or at least, when I was watching late night television, he was great. He's comforting in a way, because he's a natural. Ever watched an open-mic comedy night? Then you know just how awkward and uncomfortable it is to watch an amateur on stage. I could never, ever tell jokes in front of people. But Conan is funny. He's an expert salesman, especially when the material is lackluster. He was born to be funny on TV. He belongs on the tonight show.
This is where you might expect me to paint Jay Leno as a foil, an anti-Conan. But he's good too. He's not quite as good a salesman as Conan, but he's miles beyond passable. He's a pro. He's good. I read an interview with him that won my respect a while ago. Leno strikes me as an honest guy. He's not nearly as unfunny as Conan fanboys might want to paint him. Conan's getting screwed, yes, but it's not Leno's fault. I don't know whose fault it is. I know it's not my fault.
Conan wrote the world a letter. Really, he did, he addressed it to the "People of Earth." This immediately hooked me. Because I am a people of earth. Person of earth. Anyway. It was eloquent, it was probably the right thing to do. And when you have to clear things up, you write letters. He's standing his ground. And apologizing for his hair. Godspeed, Conan. I'll watch you, wherever you go.
But really, this is the best thing to happen to NBC's latenight lineup since they, uh, messed with their latenight lineup. People are going to watch now. Controversy is great advertising. People are talking about it. Bloggers are posting about it on their lame blogs. NBC is kicking themselves for looking like a bunch of screw-ups, sure, but people are interested now. They're going to tune in. Just watch the ratings go up.
If I can add just one more thing, it's that Craig Ferguson is the best thing in latenight right now. Unfortunately, he's buried behind Letterman, next to Jimmy Fallon. He gives the same odd comforting feeling that Conan does, but with a hint of Scotch.
But what do I know? I go to bed at 11:30.
Conan's take on how The Simpsons should end:
December 29, 2009
On Paper
It came to my attention in a loud and unmistakable way that I have not been blogging. For the few of you who have been on hunger strikes, you may dig out your forks and knives and abstain from nourishment no more. My sincerest apologies to everyone, and not just the seven people who read this, everyone. In the world. Why not apologize to the world?
I used to blog a lot. Somehow, I mustered weekly inspiration to scrape out some bit of truth from my everyday life. Lately, that's been tough. I'm still writing. Usually about how hard it is to write, and everything else pertains to what I ate for dinner/how tough work is/what free cable is like, and it usually gets placed in my journal. C.S. Lewis, so I read or heard, never liked journaling, he didn't see the value in it. I kind of like looking back at my thoughts from, say, sophomore year of college. I like having a few books squirreled away that chronicle my life from 2003 on in a naked, vulnerable way. Which reminds me, I need to destroy them before I die. But I like having them. Anyway, I'm writing, mind you.
It’s tough, though. It’s not that I don’t have much to write about. It just turns out there’s less I know about. And that’s not as postmodern as it sounds. I bet most people find that the older they grow, the more stuff they don’t know about.
Consider this: I went out and got myself a job and I can’t for the life of me figure out what I’m doing here. A few people have asked me how it’s going (which is a frustratingly general question). And I have to tell them that, no this isn’t my dream job, but it’s going fine, and it’s far too early to conclude anything about it. It’s far too large a life move to tuck my tail and head back to Grand Rapids to comfort and familiarity. (And to think, I’m just an hour or so down the road. Do come visit.)
I like budgeting. When I got a job I thought, I’ll be making more money than ever before. I’ll get to buy junk I’ve always wanted. When I delivered pizzas, I never knew how much money I’d have. But with a set income, things always seem to work out on paper. And I’m learning: Things do not always work out on paper. I’m still behind, financially. I have no idea where my money goes. I know I’m not spending it. There’s no way I’m going to pay for cable. I am, however, considering a YMCA membership.
But forget the stuff I want. I have a list of things I “need.” Every time I go to the store and hold one in my hand, I tell myself I can go without it. I have on three different, nonconsecutive occasions stood in the aisles at Meijer holding the very same letter file, thinking about how disheveled my desk looks with all the bills and papers and letters in a rumpled pile of chaos. And then I think, this rumpled pile of chaos may not look nice, but it is free. And the letter file is not free. I usually put the letter file back until I go grocery shopping again. This, I think, describes me better than I ever could with my own words. Next time someone asks me to tell them about myself, I’m going to tell them about this, and they’ll really think I’m crazy.
The truth is, I would rather go places. I don’t want things. Forty hours a week makes it hard to go places, that’s my biggest gripe. I went to the bank in Dowagiac after a snow storm the other day, I’d never been there before.
I told God while I was driving there that I didn’t get it. I never asked for this job, never aspired for a life on the lakeshore in Saint Joseph. I like to think that this has been a life move put upon me outside of myself. I have always asked Him to make the moves, while I would watch or follow. So as I drove on slippery white roads stained with gravel for traction, I told him that I didn’t get it, but I would give it a year.
I used to blog a lot. Somehow, I mustered weekly inspiration to scrape out some bit of truth from my everyday life. Lately, that's been tough. I'm still writing. Usually about how hard it is to write, and everything else pertains to what I ate for dinner/how tough work is/what free cable is like, and it usually gets placed in my journal. C.S. Lewis, so I read or heard, never liked journaling, he didn't see the value in it. I kind of like looking back at my thoughts from, say, sophomore year of college. I like having a few books squirreled away that chronicle my life from 2003 on in a naked, vulnerable way. Which reminds me, I need to destroy them before I die. But I like having them. Anyway, I'm writing, mind you.
It’s tough, though. It’s not that I don’t have much to write about. It just turns out there’s less I know about. And that’s not as postmodern as it sounds. I bet most people find that the older they grow, the more stuff they don’t know about.
Consider this: I went out and got myself a job and I can’t for the life of me figure out what I’m doing here. A few people have asked me how it’s going (which is a frustratingly general question). And I have to tell them that, no this isn’t my dream job, but it’s going fine, and it’s far too early to conclude anything about it. It’s far too large a life move to tuck my tail and head back to Grand Rapids to comfort and familiarity. (And to think, I’m just an hour or so down the road. Do come visit.)
I like budgeting. When I got a job I thought, I’ll be making more money than ever before. I’ll get to buy junk I’ve always wanted. When I delivered pizzas, I never knew how much money I’d have. But with a set income, things always seem to work out on paper. And I’m learning: Things do not always work out on paper. I’m still behind, financially. I have no idea where my money goes. I know I’m not spending it. There’s no way I’m going to pay for cable. I am, however, considering a YMCA membership.
But forget the stuff I want. I have a list of things I “need.” Every time I go to the store and hold one in my hand, I tell myself I can go without it. I have on three different, nonconsecutive occasions stood in the aisles at Meijer holding the very same letter file, thinking about how disheveled my desk looks with all the bills and papers and letters in a rumpled pile of chaos. And then I think, this rumpled pile of chaos may not look nice, but it is free. And the letter file is not free. I usually put the letter file back until I go grocery shopping again. This, I think, describes me better than I ever could with my own words. Next time someone asks me to tell them about myself, I’m going to tell them about this, and they’ll really think I’m crazy.
The truth is, I would rather go places. I don’t want things. Forty hours a week makes it hard to go places, that’s my biggest gripe. I went to the bank in Dowagiac after a snow storm the other day, I’d never been there before.
I told God while I was driving there that I didn’t get it. I never asked for this job, never aspired for a life on the lakeshore in Saint Joseph. I like to think that this has been a life move put upon me outside of myself. I have always asked Him to make the moves, while I would watch or follow. So as I drove on slippery white roads stained with gravel for traction, I told him that I didn’t get it, but I would give it a year.
December 9, 2009
2700 words about 1/2 of Kilimanjaro that I dug out of an old journal
It is five a.m. and the workers are up, and the kitchen is clattering with pots and pans and dishes. I don’t need to be up for another two hours, don’t need to start the biggest of days in a long, long time, so I stay under the blanket and mosquito net and try to forget the noises, just outside my door. As the kitchen comes to life across the hall, I fade in and out of consciousness, dreaming short and forgettable dreams. On the other side of my room, beyond the wall, is the dining room. Hungry hostel patrons arrive when it opens at six, eager to start a day in the Serengeti, or Ngorongoro, or Lake Manyara, or – like me – Kilimanjaro.
I roll out of bed at seven, with butterflies in my stomach. At least, I hope they’re butterflies. When your stomach feels upset for any reason in Africa, it is cause for some concern. Last night, we ate at Arusha’s finest fast food, McMoody’s, named and decorated to imitate McDonald’s. What better than greasy, suspicious fast food before six days ascending and descending the highest peak in Africa.
I shower – no flip flops, even in a dirty hostel. I decide, as I dry, that I have the worst room in the place, situated between the workers quarters – where they rise and fall at all hours of the night – and the kitchen – where the day begins long before I want it to – and the dining room – where patrons stay and talk right outside my window long beyond my bed time. The walls are thin, they keep out the noise no better than my mosquito net would. This is the kind of hotel/hostel/stopping place you are eager to leave to go climb a mountain.
I eat a good breakfast in a lamentable dining room, food prepared in a lamentable kitchen. The butterflies begin to feel like sickness. My stomach is, for one reason or another, upset. Amanda’s is, too. Elizabeth, Amanda’s sister and the third member of our trekking trio, feels fine. We eat. We pack. We wait for our bus ride to Kili.
It comes expectably late. Our guide, August, is riding shotgun. We toss in our bags and leave the hostel with excitement and butterflies and bags full of warm clothes.
We roll through Arusha, a nice city with a few big buildings and lots of vendors. It sits in the shadow of Mt Meru, an hour down the road from Moshi at the base of Kilimanjaro. Before we are out of town, we stop and an unassuming little duka (shop) to rent gaiters. It does not fit my prior notions of a mountain-gear outfitter. There are shelves with tea and toiletries, and a clothesline with peanuts and candy and condoms, and crates of soda in the back. A man comes and buys two individual cigarettes while we wait for the woman behind the counter to find us some gaiters.
Then, we drive. The rains fall, and I think of how I have not seen rain in two months in Mumba. The landscape, if it weren’t for the Maasai and the meager shacks, looks a little like the Midwest where I live. It is flat and neatly apportioned for farmers, strips of trees to segregate their land.
It’s cloudy, and though we’re near the base of the mountain, we see nothing but a vast slope upward and out of sight. The road is straight until it bears left up toward Marangu, the starting point. Then it winds and weaves and steers blindly into switchbacks up the mountainside. There are lush green trees, banana trees, bushes, all wet with fresh rain. The base of Kilimanjaro is a rainforest though all the surrounds it is dry thirsty savannah. I tell the girls this is what I think Congo must look like, and I beam as they agree. They lived there.
While we wait at the gate, peddlers offer us hats and cigarettes, and we decline thoughtlessly. By the time we pass though the gate, my butterflies – or whatever they were – have faded. Still, I beeline for the restrooms. Our guide, August in his broad-rimmed Aussie sunhat, distributes lunches. Porters divide our things. We climb only with backpacks, small ones.
We sign in at the gate, and there are prospective climbers all around us. My first inclination is to evaluate them, to thin the ranks and find people who make me look svelte by comparison. There aren’t any. Some are old, some young, all in reasonable shape. There’s a flock of Japanese people decked out in extensive gear and taking pictures. In the sign-in book, under “Address,” where everyone else has simply written their country of origin, I want to write my extensive contact info. But the line is long and the mountain is waiting, so I write only “USA, Mich.” I miss Michigan. We turn past the headquarters, beyond the gift shop with expensive candy and t-shirts and “I did it” certificates, and walk up a short path to an archway. As best I can tell, it serves simply to be the official official starting point, the spot at which people can really say, “Now I’m climbing the mountain,” even though it’s at an altitude of almost 2000 m.
August waits at the gate and sends us on with the assistant guide. He tells us there are six porters and himself and the assistant guide and, I think, a pit crew, doctor, firefighter, basketweaver, and phrenologist, all of whom we’ll have to tip when we finish. August stays behind to sign paper or some other official business. We climb for an hour before he catches up.
The first day of the climb is short and breathtakingly beautiful. It’s a gentle walk up through a vibrant jungle with few mosquitoes and abundant plant life. Not a square inch of anything is without an abundance of biodiversity. It’s a biology teacher’s dream. We go up for two hours, and it doesn’t seem so bad. It’s damp and I sweat, a lot. It’s hot today, but the rain is done for now. We stop for a bit, where our road nearly crosses that of our porters. They climb a steeper, shorter way, where trucks can go if need be. At our stop, I get my picture taken with a great big slug. So far, so good. We go again.
There are waterfalls and the forest canopy is thick and the path is well-trodden. A few people pass us going down. Some are successful (I ask them) and I’m in awe, like they’re celebrities. I I can’t yet include myself among their ranks, as I am unsure of why my body can and will do. A group of people with various handicaps passes us, too. One is pushing himself, determinedly, in a wheelchair. I think he made it. Then, a man rolls by on a stretched with an oxygen mask. I don’t ask him if he made it.
Soon, the forest begins to change. Green broad leaves fade away, the waterfalls are gone, and gnarly trees with yellowish/tan lichen beards come to dominate. We hear monkeys, I see a colobus. They’re big and white with bushy tails.
My sweat continues to pour, off two months worth of beard, down onto my shirt. I am sore, I am tired. I ask August for a break, and we stop next to a trio of Belgians. I size them up and decide they’re no more motley a crew than we are. A woman introduces herself, her husband, and her father. He is an old man. They are friendly and we are happy to meet new people. August tells us we are 20-25 minutes away from camp. We press on and finish the first day’s hike in 3 and ½ hours. No record, but much faster than we expected and faster than the 4-6 hours advertised by a sign at the trailhead.
The camp here is called the Mandara camp. There are huts and a dining hall and indoor bathrooms with flush toilets. This is camping, I tell myself. Soon after we stop, we feel the chill. We’re at 9,000 feet, and I reapply the layers I discarded on the last 20 minutes of the trail. We make our home in a small hut, hang up our damp clothes,, and have popcorn and tea in the dining hall.
August takes us on a short day hike, just fifteen minutes up the hill to Maundi crater. It’s a bed of grass surrounded by a rim of trees and is, to me, unremarkable. But from the rim, you can see the floor of Tanzania far below. The clouds hover abover our heads, and the sun breaks into beams to shine like flashlights on parcels of land below. We hike back to camp, and dinner is ready. The Belgians are next to us again, and a Spanish couple with a tag-on American sits on the other side of us. We converse with both. When dinner is over, there is nothing left to do. We return to our huts to rest, which turns into an early sleep.
Half-way through the night, I awake to Elizabeth and Amanda leaving the cabin. They don’t return for an hour and I know something must be wrong. Still, I pretend to sleep through it and will find out what I need to in the morning, if they want to share.
It is Tuesday morning. I rise, dress, brush my teeth. Elizabeth taps my should and says she needs to talk outside. Amanda lays in bed, unmoving.
“Amanda has giardia.”
This, I have heard of, and in no uncertain ways that would lead me to believe it isn’t an awful awful stomach bug I don’t ever want to experience. Elizabeth tells me she doesn’t want to sacrifice her sister for a lifelong dream, and I hear the panic and despair in her voice. She tells me, “She might need to go down, and I’ll go with her. You can carry on alone.” This all sounds a little hasty to me, and I ask if we’re sure it’s giardia, if maybe it’s just something she ate. She has already checked with herm mom, and they’ree sure it’s giardia. Still, I think of them making a heavy decision and her feeling fine in another few hours at the bottom of the mountain. I tell her we can wait a few hours, see how she feels, and go from there.
Elizabeth agrees, but seems solemnly and stubbornly committed to getting her sister off the mountain. I go to breakfast. There, the female half of the Spanish couple reveals herself to be a doctor. I share my heavy heart – a day into this and one is sick and our trip is in jeopardy. She offers her assistance. Elizabeth doesn’t show for breakfast. I bring our remaining fruit for her, and the Spanish doctor lady stops me on the way back. I tell her I’m bringing the fruit for “the older one with black hair,” but the language barrier between us has her convinced I’m going to disobey her orders that the sick one drinks a lot and eats a little. Elizabeth comes and I give her the fruit.
Within an hour, Amanda is convinced she can go on. Whether it's naivete, hopefulness, or healthiness, I can’t say. But she’s ready to go, so we pack and take to the trail behind August.
This section of the trail seems flatter. We pass a few more successful summiters, and lots of porters. Here, we share the trail. Some of them run with sacks of pots and pans balanced on their heads, resting on top of the 50 lb packs strapped to their backs. I could never do this job.
I ask August how many times he has climbed the mountain, and I do it with careful, special English. He speaks quickly and his English is good except that the words run fluidly together, like Swahili. I have to think about what he says. He tells me he has been a guide for 14 years, and has climbed the mountain hundreds of times. We are lucky to have such an experienced guide, and I tell him this.
He tells me he’s climbed with people from all over the world, and has climbed in France and will go to Colorado and the Himalayas soon, too. I ask which people come out here the most, and with no hesitation he tells me that Americans do. He says he’s climbed with old and young people. Two years ago, he took two 97 year-old women from Madrid all the way to the summit. The summit day took them 19 hours and it was really difficult for him because usually that part takes 6-8 hours. I marvel at the story of the old women. When I’m 97 – if I’m ever 97 – I will not be climbing stairs anymore, let along mountains.
August volunteers that Austrians make the best climbers and Japanese make the worst. He told me that if ten Japanese climbers start, one will make it. Later that day, a group of Japanese climbers pass us going down. He greets them in Japanese. After an exchange in Swahili with their guide, he tells me they didn’t make it.
After three hours, I am exhausted. Lots of ups and downs. I curse every downhill, because to me, I might as well be walking backwards down the mountain. I learned on the first day that one doesn’t look more than ten feet in front of them, it will only cause disappointment. The uphills will not end. You don’t stop noticing the incline and you don’t stop caring. You can, however, keep yourself from thinking about it.
My pack is heavier with every step. Water, food, layers of clothes, medicine, and books all weigh it down. I brought my big Bible. And I have never resented a concordance so much.
We reach the crest of the hill, and though it’s cool, I am near collapse. There are a few picnic tables. Long ago on the trail, the gnarly trees ended, and here there are only shrubs and flowers. The clouds roll around us; we’re in them. The Belgians are eating at a table, and they invite us to join them. I am tired. Amanda has a violent stomach bug and she broke her toe two months ago and is only 17. She seems to be doing fine. Soon, with my layers again missing and sweat seeping through my shirt and cooling in the breeze, I am shivering. The younger Belgian, his name is Birger, tells me we’re at the halfway point. Only the halfway point? I want to curse. The good nws, however, is that we only have 200 more meters to go upward.
We eat a lunch of dry muffins and oranges, and hit the trail again. Rest is an amazing thing, because by doing nothing you can do so much. I am refreshed, and when I tire, we catch convenient glimpses of the summit between breaks in the clouds. We sweat through, and by three o’clock, we arrive at Horombo hut, the most beautiful sight of our journey, save for a few brief glimpses of the iconic snowy flat-topped summit. A cloud envelops the camp and we begin to freeze. More popcorn and tea, and we are warm. Soon after, a dinner of spaghetti. We wish we’d had a lunch of spaghetti. Again, we retire for an early night.
I have never been this high before, at 3,720 meters or 12,300 feet. The altitude, it seems, forbids me sleep and I catch occasional glimpses of dreams that are trying to start. A mouse visits, eats some of our food. I would kill it, but I am too warm. Elizabeth catches me shining my light on it. I tell her that a mouse is eating her food. She gets up, it scampers away. I lay in bed until the sun comes up. Though the night held none, today is a day of rest. Acclimitization. We three and our new Belgian friends welcome it. I tell myself, “I think I can do this.”
I roll out of bed at seven, with butterflies in my stomach. At least, I hope they’re butterflies. When your stomach feels upset for any reason in Africa, it is cause for some concern. Last night, we ate at Arusha’s finest fast food, McMoody’s, named and decorated to imitate McDonald’s. What better than greasy, suspicious fast food before six days ascending and descending the highest peak in Africa.
I shower – no flip flops, even in a dirty hostel. I decide, as I dry, that I have the worst room in the place, situated between the workers quarters – where they rise and fall at all hours of the night – and the kitchen – where the day begins long before I want it to – and the dining room – where patrons stay and talk right outside my window long beyond my bed time. The walls are thin, they keep out the noise no better than my mosquito net would. This is the kind of hotel/hostel/stopping place you are eager to leave to go climb a mountain.
I eat a good breakfast in a lamentable dining room, food prepared in a lamentable kitchen. The butterflies begin to feel like sickness. My stomach is, for one reason or another, upset. Amanda’s is, too. Elizabeth, Amanda’s sister and the third member of our trekking trio, feels fine. We eat. We pack. We wait for our bus ride to Kili.
It comes expectably late. Our guide, August, is riding shotgun. We toss in our bags and leave the hostel with excitement and butterflies and bags full of warm clothes.
We roll through Arusha, a nice city with a few big buildings and lots of vendors. It sits in the shadow of Mt Meru, an hour down the road from Moshi at the base of Kilimanjaro. Before we are out of town, we stop and an unassuming little duka (shop) to rent gaiters. It does not fit my prior notions of a mountain-gear outfitter. There are shelves with tea and toiletries, and a clothesline with peanuts and candy and condoms, and crates of soda in the back. A man comes and buys two individual cigarettes while we wait for the woman behind the counter to find us some gaiters.
Then, we drive. The rains fall, and I think of how I have not seen rain in two months in Mumba. The landscape, if it weren’t for the Maasai and the meager shacks, looks a little like the Midwest where I live. It is flat and neatly apportioned for farmers, strips of trees to segregate their land.
It’s cloudy, and though we’re near the base of the mountain, we see nothing but a vast slope upward and out of sight. The road is straight until it bears left up toward Marangu, the starting point. Then it winds and weaves and steers blindly into switchbacks up the mountainside. There are lush green trees, banana trees, bushes, all wet with fresh rain. The base of Kilimanjaro is a rainforest though all the surrounds it is dry thirsty savannah. I tell the girls this is what I think Congo must look like, and I beam as they agree. They lived there.
While we wait at the gate, peddlers offer us hats and cigarettes, and we decline thoughtlessly. By the time we pass though the gate, my butterflies – or whatever they were – have faded. Still, I beeline for the restrooms. Our guide, August in his broad-rimmed Aussie sunhat, distributes lunches. Porters divide our things. We climb only with backpacks, small ones.
We sign in at the gate, and there are prospective climbers all around us. My first inclination is to evaluate them, to thin the ranks and find people who make me look svelte by comparison. There aren’t any. Some are old, some young, all in reasonable shape. There’s a flock of Japanese people decked out in extensive gear and taking pictures. In the sign-in book, under “Address,” where everyone else has simply written their country of origin, I want to write my extensive contact info. But the line is long and the mountain is waiting, so I write only “USA, Mich.” I miss Michigan. We turn past the headquarters, beyond the gift shop with expensive candy and t-shirts and “I did it” certificates, and walk up a short path to an archway. As best I can tell, it serves simply to be the official official starting point, the spot at which people can really say, “Now I’m climbing the mountain,” even though it’s at an altitude of almost 2000 m.
August waits at the gate and sends us on with the assistant guide. He tells us there are six porters and himself and the assistant guide and, I think, a pit crew, doctor, firefighter, basketweaver, and phrenologist, all of whom we’ll have to tip when we finish. August stays behind to sign paper or some other official business. We climb for an hour before he catches up.
The first day of the climb is short and breathtakingly beautiful. It’s a gentle walk up through a vibrant jungle with few mosquitoes and abundant plant life. Not a square inch of anything is without an abundance of biodiversity. It’s a biology teacher’s dream. We go up for two hours, and it doesn’t seem so bad. It’s damp and I sweat, a lot. It’s hot today, but the rain is done for now. We stop for a bit, where our road nearly crosses that of our porters. They climb a steeper, shorter way, where trucks can go if need be. At our stop, I get my picture taken with a great big slug. So far, so good. We go again.
There are waterfalls and the forest canopy is thick and the path is well-trodden. A few people pass us going down. Some are successful (I ask them) and I’m in awe, like they’re celebrities. I I can’t yet include myself among their ranks, as I am unsure of why my body can and will do. A group of people with various handicaps passes us, too. One is pushing himself, determinedly, in a wheelchair. I think he made it. Then, a man rolls by on a stretched with an oxygen mask. I don’t ask him if he made it.
Soon, the forest begins to change. Green broad leaves fade away, the waterfalls are gone, and gnarly trees with yellowish/tan lichen beards come to dominate. We hear monkeys, I see a colobus. They’re big and white with bushy tails.
My sweat continues to pour, off two months worth of beard, down onto my shirt. I am sore, I am tired. I ask August for a break, and we stop next to a trio of Belgians. I size them up and decide they’re no more motley a crew than we are. A woman introduces herself, her husband, and her father. He is an old man. They are friendly and we are happy to meet new people. August tells us we are 20-25 minutes away from camp. We press on and finish the first day’s hike in 3 and ½ hours. No record, but much faster than we expected and faster than the 4-6 hours advertised by a sign at the trailhead.
The camp here is called the Mandara camp. There are huts and a dining hall and indoor bathrooms with flush toilets. This is camping, I tell myself. Soon after we stop, we feel the chill. We’re at 9,000 feet, and I reapply the layers I discarded on the last 20 minutes of the trail. We make our home in a small hut, hang up our damp clothes,, and have popcorn and tea in the dining hall.
August takes us on a short day hike, just fifteen minutes up the hill to Maundi crater. It’s a bed of grass surrounded by a rim of trees and is, to me, unremarkable. But from the rim, you can see the floor of Tanzania far below. The clouds hover abover our heads, and the sun breaks into beams to shine like flashlights on parcels of land below. We hike back to camp, and dinner is ready. The Belgians are next to us again, and a Spanish couple with a tag-on American sits on the other side of us. We converse with both. When dinner is over, there is nothing left to do. We return to our huts to rest, which turns into an early sleep.
Half-way through the night, I awake to Elizabeth and Amanda leaving the cabin. They don’t return for an hour and I know something must be wrong. Still, I pretend to sleep through it and will find out what I need to in the morning, if they want to share.
It is Tuesday morning. I rise, dress, brush my teeth. Elizabeth taps my should and says she needs to talk outside. Amanda lays in bed, unmoving.
“Amanda has giardia.”
This, I have heard of, and in no uncertain ways that would lead me to believe it isn’t an awful awful stomach bug I don’t ever want to experience. Elizabeth tells me she doesn’t want to sacrifice her sister for a lifelong dream, and I hear the panic and despair in her voice. She tells me, “She might need to go down, and I’ll go with her. You can carry on alone.” This all sounds a little hasty to me, and I ask if we’re sure it’s giardia, if maybe it’s just something she ate. She has already checked with herm mom, and they’ree sure it’s giardia. Still, I think of them making a heavy decision and her feeling fine in another few hours at the bottom of the mountain. I tell her we can wait a few hours, see how she feels, and go from there.
Elizabeth agrees, but seems solemnly and stubbornly committed to getting her sister off the mountain. I go to breakfast. There, the female half of the Spanish couple reveals herself to be a doctor. I share my heavy heart – a day into this and one is sick and our trip is in jeopardy. She offers her assistance. Elizabeth doesn’t show for breakfast. I bring our remaining fruit for her, and the Spanish doctor lady stops me on the way back. I tell her I’m bringing the fruit for “the older one with black hair,” but the language barrier between us has her convinced I’m going to disobey her orders that the sick one drinks a lot and eats a little. Elizabeth comes and I give her the fruit.
Within an hour, Amanda is convinced she can go on. Whether it's naivete, hopefulness, or healthiness, I can’t say. But she’s ready to go, so we pack and take to the trail behind August.
This section of the trail seems flatter. We pass a few more successful summiters, and lots of porters. Here, we share the trail. Some of them run with sacks of pots and pans balanced on their heads, resting on top of the 50 lb packs strapped to their backs. I could never do this job.
I ask August how many times he has climbed the mountain, and I do it with careful, special English. He speaks quickly and his English is good except that the words run fluidly together, like Swahili. I have to think about what he says. He tells me he has been a guide for 14 years, and has climbed the mountain hundreds of times. We are lucky to have such an experienced guide, and I tell him this.
He tells me he’s climbed with people from all over the world, and has climbed in France and will go to Colorado and the Himalayas soon, too. I ask which people come out here the most, and with no hesitation he tells me that Americans do. He says he’s climbed with old and young people. Two years ago, he took two 97 year-old women from Madrid all the way to the summit. The summit day took them 19 hours and it was really difficult for him because usually that part takes 6-8 hours. I marvel at the story of the old women. When I’m 97 – if I’m ever 97 – I will not be climbing stairs anymore, let along mountains.
August volunteers that Austrians make the best climbers and Japanese make the worst. He told me that if ten Japanese climbers start, one will make it. Later that day, a group of Japanese climbers pass us going down. He greets them in Japanese. After an exchange in Swahili with their guide, he tells me they didn’t make it.
After three hours, I am exhausted. Lots of ups and downs. I curse every downhill, because to me, I might as well be walking backwards down the mountain. I learned on the first day that one doesn’t look more than ten feet in front of them, it will only cause disappointment. The uphills will not end. You don’t stop noticing the incline and you don’t stop caring. You can, however, keep yourself from thinking about it.
My pack is heavier with every step. Water, food, layers of clothes, medicine, and books all weigh it down. I brought my big Bible. And I have never resented a concordance so much.
We reach the crest of the hill, and though it’s cool, I am near collapse. There are a few picnic tables. Long ago on the trail, the gnarly trees ended, and here there are only shrubs and flowers. The clouds roll around us; we’re in them. The Belgians are eating at a table, and they invite us to join them. I am tired. Amanda has a violent stomach bug and she broke her toe two months ago and is only 17. She seems to be doing fine. Soon, with my layers again missing and sweat seeping through my shirt and cooling in the breeze, I am shivering. The younger Belgian, his name is Birger, tells me we’re at the halfway point. Only the halfway point? I want to curse. The good nws, however, is that we only have 200 more meters to go upward.
We eat a lunch of dry muffins and oranges, and hit the trail again. Rest is an amazing thing, because by doing nothing you can do so much. I am refreshed, and when I tire, we catch convenient glimpses of the summit between breaks in the clouds. We sweat through, and by three o’clock, we arrive at Horombo hut, the most beautiful sight of our journey, save for a few brief glimpses of the iconic snowy flat-topped summit. A cloud envelops the camp and we begin to freeze. More popcorn and tea, and we are warm. Soon after, a dinner of spaghetti. We wish we’d had a lunch of spaghetti. Again, we retire for an early night.
I have never been this high before, at 3,720 meters or 12,300 feet. The altitude, it seems, forbids me sleep and I catch occasional glimpses of dreams that are trying to start. A mouse visits, eats some of our food. I would kill it, but I am too warm. Elizabeth catches me shining my light on it. I tell her that a mouse is eating her food. She gets up, it scampers away. I lay in bed until the sun comes up. Though the night held none, today is a day of rest. Acclimitization. We three and our new Belgian friends welcome it. I tell myself, “I think I can do this.”
November 14, 2009
Heroes
I was in an antiques store today. Actually, an antiques mall. It's just a few miles from where I live, and I drive by it every day on the way to work. I knew eventually I'd have to stop in and look at all their old garbage. So today I did. It's a giant warehouse, and out front is a sign that says, "Invest in your future with the past. Buy Antiques." Whether or not antiques, specifically their antiques, are a sound investment, I can't tell you. But they are neat.
When there is nothing else on TV (and sometimes when there is something else on TV) I will watch Antiques Roadshow and sit in awe as some expert with a bowtie gives a detailed history of Grandma's shampoo bottle. Seriously, I don't know how they know these things. And I'm not sure I want to. I just find it all really really interesting when an object has been passed down by so many people, and outlived them, and accumulated bits and pieces of their life in every scratch, stain, and repair. I have always loved stuff that survived the past, miraculously escaping the permanent, mysterious history of the world, not to die on some scrap heap or landfill but instead to continue serving its purpose long beyond the intention or awareness of its creator.
Which brings me to the RC Cola cans. There was no shortage of cool stuff to stare at and not buy - books better than a century old, coins, glassware, political pins, world war two posters - and RC Cola cans from the 70s. (How do you like that, Mom and Dad? Stuff from the 70s is now antique.) There was a shelf full of them, and each one had the picture and stats of a pro Football or Baseball player. They were basically sportscards that were once filled with soda pop. One had Rollie Fingers on it. And I had never seen anything like that before, so I thought: What an incredible idea! They should do this today! They'd be a hit; collectors would buy 'em up.
Except. Except. I don't think people would be all that interested.
As I imagined a Pepsi can emblazened with the athletic accomplishments of Ledanian Tomlinson and Derek Jeter, I realized that most people probably wouldn't really care. I guess I have this notion that athletes were once heroes, untouchable celebrities from afar who people encountered only occasionally through televised games and nightly newspaper articles and, for the very lucky, once and a while from the stands at a stadium. But people today, I guess, don't see athletes that way anymore.
And there's a paradox in that. Because they get more press than ever and make unbelievable amounts of money, and sports marketing is as big as ever. If anything, they should be far more significant today than ever before. But I can't convince myself that that's the case. I don't think the majority of the population really cares about them at all. Certainly not enough to warrant some marketing company donating an entire line of soda cans to them. People who really want to can go out and get their jersey or an 8x10 glossy or just about anything with their likeness on it. For the diehard sports fan, they're still heroes.
But for everybody else, they aren't. Professional athletes are just people who've devoted their life to getting really really good at a game. They spent their time in the classroom figuring out how to run routes and hit knuckleballs. Maybe they don't really need to be heroes. Maybe they never were. Maybe it's the internet, or too many athlete scandals, or celebrity culture as a whole.
So I guess my question/point is this: It worked to put them on soda cans in the 70s, and it probably wouldn't today. Have professional athletes slipped in public standing from where (I think) they once were, or were they ever really there in the first place?
This is what I do know: Tomorrow, I'm going to spend the day watching football because I still really like it. And next summer, I'm going to spend too much money on baseball tickets, and I'll listen to every game on the radio that I can. So, though the athletes themselves might not be terribly important, I sure enjoy watching them.
When there is nothing else on TV (and sometimes when there is something else on TV) I will watch Antiques Roadshow and sit in awe as some expert with a bowtie gives a detailed history of Grandma's shampoo bottle. Seriously, I don't know how they know these things. And I'm not sure I want to. I just find it all really really interesting when an object has been passed down by so many people, and outlived them, and accumulated bits and pieces of their life in every scratch, stain, and repair. I have always loved stuff that survived the past, miraculously escaping the permanent, mysterious history of the world, not to die on some scrap heap or landfill but instead to continue serving its purpose long beyond the intention or awareness of its creator.
Which brings me to the RC Cola cans. There was no shortage of cool stuff to stare at and not buy - books better than a century old, coins, glassware, political pins, world war two posters - and RC Cola cans from the 70s. (How do you like that, Mom and Dad? Stuff from the 70s is now antique.) There was a shelf full of them, and each one had the picture and stats of a pro Football or Baseball player. They were basically sportscards that were once filled with soda pop. One had Rollie Fingers on it. And I had never seen anything like that before, so I thought: What an incredible idea! They should do this today! They'd be a hit; collectors would buy 'em up.
Except. Except. I don't think people would be all that interested.
As I imagined a Pepsi can emblazened with the athletic accomplishments of Ledanian Tomlinson and Derek Jeter, I realized that most people probably wouldn't really care. I guess I have this notion that athletes were once heroes, untouchable celebrities from afar who people encountered only occasionally through televised games and nightly newspaper articles and, for the very lucky, once and a while from the stands at a stadium. But people today, I guess, don't see athletes that way anymore.
And there's a paradox in that. Because they get more press than ever and make unbelievable amounts of money, and sports marketing is as big as ever. If anything, they should be far more significant today than ever before. But I can't convince myself that that's the case. I don't think the majority of the population really cares about them at all. Certainly not enough to warrant some marketing company donating an entire line of soda cans to them. People who really want to can go out and get their jersey or an 8x10 glossy or just about anything with their likeness on it. For the diehard sports fan, they're still heroes.
But for everybody else, they aren't. Professional athletes are just people who've devoted their life to getting really really good at a game. They spent their time in the classroom figuring out how to run routes and hit knuckleballs. Maybe they don't really need to be heroes. Maybe they never were. Maybe it's the internet, or too many athlete scandals, or celebrity culture as a whole.
So I guess my question/point is this: It worked to put them on soda cans in the 70s, and it probably wouldn't today. Have professional athletes slipped in public standing from where (I think) they once were, or were they ever really there in the first place?
This is what I do know: Tomorrow, I'm going to spend the day watching football because I still really like it. And next summer, I'm going to spend too much money on baseball tickets, and I'll listen to every game on the radio that I can. So, though the athletes themselves might not be terribly important, I sure enjoy watching them.
October 19, 2009
Things I wish they told me after graduation
Sometimes, life moves at a crawl, and sometimes it moves really quickly. For the last few weeks, it has moved quickly.
For the last few years, my defining struggle has been to find my first full time job. 40 hours. Big paychecks. Rent due. Grocery shopping. Health insurance. It was the big hurdle, which when cleared would finally let me see some purpose, some direction, with clarity.
In the last few months, I came to appreciate that time. In the years after college, I obsessed over getting health insurance and income, seeking the definition and direction in a career. Life crawled.
But simultaneously, I lived a few pretty incredible memories. I spent a summer working in Orlando and got my work into a nationally-distributed publication. Later, I would see my name in a magazine on the rack in a bookstore in Grand Rapids. I went to Africa, slept in a tent with shreds of nylon between me and some hungry, loud hyenas. I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. I learned phrases in Swahili, fought a wildfire, showed films to burgeoning crowds in the waning daylight before the skies glittered impossibly with the Milky Way. I saw that life in ministry, though unspeakably difficult, was full of joy, meaning, purpose. I came home, got really good at delivering pizzas, answered the call to go back to summer camp and be the old guy on staff. And I loved it.
I didn't notice this at the time, but: I lived. While I was waiting for a career, I found ways to fill the cracks in my life, and they became life, became memories. I wouldn't trade them for a cubicle.
But life sped up. A few weeks ago, I got a call for a job. Come down for an interview, they said. I did. And suddenly, a job offer. I took it. Years of struggle, at times painful and exhausting, shaking my fist at a God whose patience dwarfed my own, met with solution.
I liked wondering, waiting. I became accustomed to it; it became a familiar, comfortable foe. And now it's... gone. I miss it.
Can you tell that I'm sliding into cubicle life with a touch of restlessness? If this is the thing you're looking forward to, for meaning, for life, I can tell you that this is not where you will find it.
Lest you worry that I'm miserable, be assured, I am not: Restlessness is not misery. The last few years of my life, I was restless at times, but I was never miserable. I am not worried about where I am. Man has had to till the fields since the first guy screwed it all up for us and I'm eager to put in my work. And to be honest, today was only day one and it was good. This will be a good place to work and I'll probably enjoy it.
If finding a career, or a beginning to one, was a hurdle, I've cleared it. But there are a bunch more hurdles. There's a lot to figure out about where to go from here. That familiar, comfortable foe isn't totally gone.
(In the meantime, I'll just bang on me drum)
For the last few years, my defining struggle has been to find my first full time job. 40 hours. Big paychecks. Rent due. Grocery shopping. Health insurance. It was the big hurdle, which when cleared would finally let me see some purpose, some direction, with clarity.
In the last few months, I came to appreciate that time. In the years after college, I obsessed over getting health insurance and income, seeking the definition and direction in a career. Life crawled.
But simultaneously, I lived a few pretty incredible memories. I spent a summer working in Orlando and got my work into a nationally-distributed publication. Later, I would see my name in a magazine on the rack in a bookstore in Grand Rapids. I went to Africa, slept in a tent with shreds of nylon between me and some hungry, loud hyenas. I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. I learned phrases in Swahili, fought a wildfire, showed films to burgeoning crowds in the waning daylight before the skies glittered impossibly with the Milky Way. I saw that life in ministry, though unspeakably difficult, was full of joy, meaning, purpose. I came home, got really good at delivering pizzas, answered the call to go back to summer camp and be the old guy on staff. And I loved it.
I didn't notice this at the time, but: I lived. While I was waiting for a career, I found ways to fill the cracks in my life, and they became life, became memories. I wouldn't trade them for a cubicle.
But life sped up. A few weeks ago, I got a call for a job. Come down for an interview, they said. I did. And suddenly, a job offer. I took it. Years of struggle, at times painful and exhausting, shaking my fist at a God whose patience dwarfed my own, met with solution.
I liked wondering, waiting. I became accustomed to it; it became a familiar, comfortable foe. And now it's... gone. I miss it.
Can you tell that I'm sliding into cubicle life with a touch of restlessness? If this is the thing you're looking forward to, for meaning, for life, I can tell you that this is not where you will find it.
Lest you worry that I'm miserable, be assured, I am not: Restlessness is not misery. The last few years of my life, I was restless at times, but I was never miserable. I am not worried about where I am. Man has had to till the fields since the first guy screwed it all up for us and I'm eager to put in my work. And to be honest, today was only day one and it was good. This will be a good place to work and I'll probably enjoy it.
If finding a career, or a beginning to one, was a hurdle, I've cleared it. But there are a bunch more hurdles. There's a lot to figure out about where to go from here. That familiar, comfortable foe isn't totally gone.
(In the meantime, I'll just bang on me drum)
October 6, 2009
Game 163
I can’t fault anyone for not caring about baseball. It probably has the least action of any team sport, especially out of the ones that are nationally televised. No other sport has stretches barren of action like baseball. Ground out. Fly ball. Foul. Foul. Foul. Foul. Pickoff move. Pickoff move. Pickoff move. Foul. This is not the hard-hitting, breakaway touchdown-running game of football. It’s not the fast-paced head-to-head contest of basketball, hockey, or soccer. It’s a bunch of guys who spend the majority of three hours standing in the grass between opportunities to wave a piece of wood at a little piece of hurtling cowhide.
To be sure, my attachment to baseball is purely sentimental. I couldn’t pick this game up now. But I’ve been with it for years. I fell asleep to Ernie Harwell’s voice as he called games when I was a kid. All I knew was that the Tigers were the good guys, and if they won, I won. I didn’t know anything about pennant races or playoff rotations or magic numbers then. They were awful for years, but loyal fans stayed with them, assured that winning seasons would return, and they did. So I’ve got emotional stake in them, my team.
Today, I consider myself as big a baseball fan as I have ever been. Never have I cared, thought, or known more about baseball than now. Last week I went to a game when the Tigers had a chance to clinch the division, to ensure a playoff spot, and I literally dreamt of baseball the night before.
Tonight is their biggest game of the season. And unfortunately, it’s drenched in disappointment. If I would have written about the Tigers last week when I wanted to, this blog would have been a lot different. But much has changed since they were up three games with four to play. The reality is: they shouldn’t have had to play today. They shouldn't have needed game #163. They should have clinched long ago. You can count on one hand the teams that have dropped a seven game lead in the last month of the season, and none has ever blown a three game lead with four to play. No team has ever failed to make the playoffs leading their division since May 10.
Tonight, they have to win to get in, and they have to do it at the Metrodome, potentially the last Major League Baseball game ever to be played there. And they’ll have to play with the off-field drama of Miguel Cabrera, the MVP candidate who went drinking with the opposing team over the weekend, during the most important series of the season. Not only did he go drinking, he went heavy-drinking. Like, blow a .26 on the breathalyzer heavy drinking. (If I remember my Responsible Decisions classes from middle school, that means something like 26 beers.) He went home and got into a fight with his wife. She called the cops, and the general manager had to pick him up at the police station in the morning. That night, with scratches on his face from his scuffle, presumably still drunk or hungover, he went 0-for-4, just like he did the day before, and the next day he went 0-for-3, effectively ending any MVP talk. He’ll play tonight, and he’ll get booed. He’d get booed at home, too. I’d boo him. I don’t know why he even played on Saturday. He should have been benched. Hungover, scratched – the guy shouldn’t have been batting cleanup.
But all of that aside, they still have to play the game. They’ve still got a chance. And I’m still going to watch, because it’s my team. While they were fading away over the weekend, epic-failing to end the season, Tigers fans everywhere gave up on them, groaning, mourning the end of a season filled with, apparently, false hopes. But if they win tonight, it’s all forgotten, the season will be a near-miss but a success nonetheless.
I don’t know what’s going to happen, but if they can win, there’s a great story in there. If Rick Porcello, the 20 year old rookie, can win the most crucial game of the MLB season so far – not just for the Tigers, but for any team – it all wraps up nicely. The Rookie comes through, the story continues, and that knucklehead Cabrera gets off the hook for nearly killing our season. We’ll begin to think about the Yankees, who clinched weeks ago and haven’t really played a meaningful game since. We’ll talk up our pitching staff, we’ll look ahead to the ALCS, the World Series, and we’ll dread a rematch with the Cardinals.
So, the game starts in less than an hour. Maybe you’ll be into it, maybe not. I assume that by the time you read this, it will be long over and we’ll be looking at the Yankees or we’ll be looking at firing and trading a few select staff and players.
To be sure, my attachment to baseball is purely sentimental. I couldn’t pick this game up now. But I’ve been with it for years. I fell asleep to Ernie Harwell’s voice as he called games when I was a kid. All I knew was that the Tigers were the good guys, and if they won, I won. I didn’t know anything about pennant races or playoff rotations or magic numbers then. They were awful for years, but loyal fans stayed with them, assured that winning seasons would return, and they did. So I’ve got emotional stake in them, my team.
Today, I consider myself as big a baseball fan as I have ever been. Never have I cared, thought, or known more about baseball than now. Last week I went to a game when the Tigers had a chance to clinch the division, to ensure a playoff spot, and I literally dreamt of baseball the night before.
Tonight is their biggest game of the season. And unfortunately, it’s drenched in disappointment. If I would have written about the Tigers last week when I wanted to, this blog would have been a lot different. But much has changed since they were up three games with four to play. The reality is: they shouldn’t have had to play today. They shouldn't have needed game #163. They should have clinched long ago. You can count on one hand the teams that have dropped a seven game lead in the last month of the season, and none has ever blown a three game lead with four to play. No team has ever failed to make the playoffs leading their division since May 10.
Tonight, they have to win to get in, and they have to do it at the Metrodome, potentially the last Major League Baseball game ever to be played there. And they’ll have to play with the off-field drama of Miguel Cabrera, the MVP candidate who went drinking with the opposing team over the weekend, during the most important series of the season. Not only did he go drinking, he went heavy-drinking. Like, blow a .26 on the breathalyzer heavy drinking. (If I remember my Responsible Decisions classes from middle school, that means something like 26 beers.) He went home and got into a fight with his wife. She called the cops, and the general manager had to pick him up at the police station in the morning. That night, with scratches on his face from his scuffle, presumably still drunk or hungover, he went 0-for-4, just like he did the day before, and the next day he went 0-for-3, effectively ending any MVP talk. He’ll play tonight, and he’ll get booed. He’d get booed at home, too. I’d boo him. I don’t know why he even played on Saturday. He should have been benched. Hungover, scratched – the guy shouldn’t have been batting cleanup.
But all of that aside, they still have to play the game. They’ve still got a chance. And I’m still going to watch, because it’s my team. While they were fading away over the weekend, epic-failing to end the season, Tigers fans everywhere gave up on them, groaning, mourning the end of a season filled with, apparently, false hopes. But if they win tonight, it’s all forgotten, the season will be a near-miss but a success nonetheless.
I don’t know what’s going to happen, but if they can win, there’s a great story in there. If Rick Porcello, the 20 year old rookie, can win the most crucial game of the MLB season so far – not just for the Tigers, but for any team – it all wraps up nicely. The Rookie comes through, the story continues, and that knucklehead Cabrera gets off the hook for nearly killing our season. We’ll begin to think about the Yankees, who clinched weeks ago and haven’t really played a meaningful game since. We’ll talk up our pitching staff, we’ll look ahead to the ALCS, the World Series, and we’ll dread a rematch with the Cardinals.
So, the game starts in less than an hour. Maybe you’ll be into it, maybe not. I assume that by the time you read this, it will be long over and we’ll be looking at the Yankees or we’ll be looking at firing and trading a few select staff and players.
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