"Let Me The HELL In"

Jake needs cold and snow about as much as a guy in a wool sweater needs itching powder.

Secrets?

What do girls really talk about?

Zach, Still Gloriously Undefined

Epilepsy is a very scary word to hear. But not half as scary as it is to see. We got that chance this weekend when Zach had his first seizure. I won't go into the details, because I'd rather not re-live it - suffice it to say it was not fun for anyone. The good news is, he's been fully diagnosed and as these things go, he is lucky. If the luck holds he will outgrow this and never have to worry about it again. But still it was a big surprise and big surprises take time to sink in. He's not an epileptic, he's a great little boy just like he was last week, one who happens to have epilepsy.

"All They Got Inside Is Vacancy"

Like many locals, we had to go see what the Hotel Yorba was all about. We have all driven past it on I-75 many times, but it's really something interesting at low speed, and up close.

First off, it fairly reeks of pimps and other various unsavories, and it seems they are all quite sick of White Stripes fans snooping into their private world. We got the finger more than once in the two minutes we were there. We stayed in the car, of course, and for the most part kept the windows rolled up, snapping pictures like crazed paparazzi.

Secondly, it's old, ugly, decrepit and without a single redeeming feature as far as I can tell. It resembles a bad housing project more than a hotel, and the perpetual bums at the entrance would surely give pause to the brashest western gunslinger.

I guess I can see why the place merited a song. I couldn't help but wonder how many road-weary tourists have pulled off I-75 late at night for their first taste of a Detroit hotel and found themselves involved in this freak show.

All I could think of while we were sitting there idling and clicking was "I got movin' on my mind".

The Bilirubin Blues

Shortly after Maddie was born she developed jaundice, and we spent a full day and night in the hospital as she baked under the blue glow of the Bilirubin lights. It was a strange type of hell. She cried just about 26 hours straight, with some screaming breaks thrown in for good measure courtesy of blood draws.

In a strange twist of reality, they put some crazy pseudo-sunglasses on her during this spectacle that made her look like Joe Satriani. We watched helplessly as she cried and twisted in a strange pantomime of air guitar madness.

It's all a vague memory now, fading like an old nightmare. Although Maddie will not remember, we'll never forget the day she played the Bilirubin Blues.

The Ice Mountains Of Little Traverse Bay

We ventured into an alien landscape that few have experienced. The solid world that exists for a few months when the bay freezes, and then disappears into the waves like Atlantis. Most every year it comes back, always completely different in form and attitude. This year there were ice mountains, huge sandy caves, and round balls that look like ice cream scoops. Some areas looked like giant pieces of peanut brittle. "Rivers" of clear ice wound though the landscape.

They say that the Earth has all been explored, but clearly there are often new frontiers like this, keeping things fresh. So it was not without reason that we felt like explorers discovering new lands.

A Chicken Carcass That Looks Like a Pterodactyl

My son has the imagination of a seven-year-old, which is fitting since he is a seven-year-old. He made me photograph this beast, a chicken "part" that looks like its distant ancestor from the Cretaceous.

Emma Wild

So, Zach has a crush. He's seven. This is the first crush that he has admitted to, in public. Emma Watson is the lucky girl. She's The girl in the Harry Potter movies. She doesn't know it yet, but she'll soon fall under Zach's spell. Zach loves her because, as he says, "she looks exactly like Hermione".

Magic is in the air.

"We'll Leave A Light On"

It was late, way past midnight. We had descended upon Orbey, a quiet little town in Alsace France, near the German border. We were loud, that's for sure, there on business and taking full advantage of the brilliant local rieslings and great food. We arrived at our small exclusive hotel after a staggeringly raucous stroll through the cobblestone streets. Chet, an ex-baseball player, had been forming various martial arts poses at points along our way, and we were all juiced up about that. We walked up to the glass-encased lobby. A foursome of locals were playing cards at a table inside. They must have heard us coming for blocks. Chet belched loudly and grabbed the doorknob. It was locked. We had apparently missed the hotel's curfew.

The people at the table didn't move, or seem to notice us. Chet, never subtle, started banging on the window. Still nothing.

After a while, the light in the lobby turned off. It was on a motion sensor and these four card players weren't moving much. One old man at the table got up and walked towards the door. This was our chance, he would finally let us in. Perhaps they were deaf.

But instead of opening the door, now just inches from him, he just stopped and waved his arm to get the light back on. Back he went to his seat without so much as a smirk in our direction, and the card game resumed.

This infuriated Chet beyond all reason. Just as he was about to break the window with his fist, the manager showed up and let us in with an evil glare.

Rolling On The Dark Sea, Drunk

The next time a friend asks you to go on a big game fishing trip for free, ask a few questions before committing. One very important such question would be "What time of day will we be fishing?". This simple question can save you alot of agony later on. Trust me.

So, why do Tarpon have to feed in the MIDDLE OF THE FREAKING NIGHT? Some crap about the tides, I know. I don't buy it. I think they just like messing with drunk people. I saw them down there, laughing their shiny silver tails off at us. We must have looked ridiculous. Cigars hanging from seasick mouths, chugging beers we could hardly hold onto in the surging tidal currents of Boca Grande, we stared through the dark water wondering what our little bait crabs were doing down there, and if they were scared.

We would occasionally hook a tarpon, or so I vaguely remember, and one of us would fight with it in some kind of surreal midnight tug-of-war until it gave up or broke the wire. My hundred-pound silver devil went down below the boat, adding scientific credence to my drunk-people theory. When he came up, there was just enough time for him to stare me in the face and smile (I swear, he smiled) before the captain cut the wire and he drifted slowly down into the inky black again. Off to mess with more drunks, no doubt.

Human Beans

If you ever wondered where all those thousands of vehicles we made for WWII ended up, I can at least fill you in on the fate of two of them. These 2-1/2 ton trucks, once used to haul soldiers around in France and Germany, are now hauling coffee around in Antigua, Guatemala. I'll bet they have stories to tell...

Hairy Mess

Tarantula. Not a good bed partner.

The Power Of An Authentic Mai-Tai

Maddie is our honeymoon baby, our favorite souvenir from Hawaii. A product of love and Mai-Tais, in equal measure. She's our little happy bundle. We can tell already that she will have a great personality. She laughs and giggles all the time, like a little furless Elmo doll (but way cuter and without the plastic eyes that can come off and choke ya). She's already starting to get mommy's red hair, and her once dark-blue eyes are passing through hazel, perhaps on their way to brown. She lives to smile, and hers is captivating. I often wonder what she will be like when she grows up. I think all parents do that. I think she'll be happy, like she is now. And she'll be tall like mommy. Perhaps she'll be a doctor or scientist, or maybe a therapist or sailing champion. Whatever she does, I know she'll do it well.

Poker Face

When he was two years old, I gave Zach a new food to try. I don't remember what it was, but I think it was dosed with lots of lemon juice. He took a bite and gave me a crinkled up face that was so cute, all puckery and squinty. Looking up at me, he said:

"I like it?"

Willie

We lost Willie a year ago today. I didn't know him for long, but he was everything a dog should be. A vibrant and furry red mix of Beagle and Lab, he loved snow and barking, treats and tennis balls. He had a great spirit that did not dim until near the end. He had a tumor, and it grew until he could bear it no longer. One day he refused to eat, and sat on his bed facing away from us. We knew the end was getting near.

When Willie died it was very hard on everyone, but especially Heather. She had know him since he was a puppy, and had a special connection to him. We still miss him, of course. I think perhaps this spring it will be time to have a celebration for his life.

I think we can all learn from dogs like Willie. He lived every day as best he could, and to the fullest extent possible. He gave everything he had for his family, and in the end, I think, he tried to hide his pain from us. And that's just more giving.

We miss you, Willie.


With you I remain in spirit
to calm your heart
and fill your mind
with the memories of a lifetime of love

The Tale Of The Tent-Squashing Bear

There is no place quite as oppressively isolating as the deep woods. When you get far enough in, miles away from the traffic and sounds of the city, fully into the grasp of the dead-air and anechoic trees, you enter another world. A strange new quiet embrace, where sounds just fall limp to the ground, dead. And the feeling of disorientation is absolute. Without good route-finding skills, the odds you will find your way out of a huge woods again are slim, and get slimmer by the minute.

But that shouldn't sound scary, because the woods are a wonderful place for those very reasons. You feel connected to nature in the most fundamental way, because you simply cannot ignore it. There are no distractions that can compete. Nothing gets between you and the forest. You become a part of it. You take on it's mood. You feel it's pulse. It's breath. It is with you every minute and in every way.

In the summer of 2003, somewhere near Vail, Colorado, four of us entered the woods at Lower Cataract Lake. In the mosquito-friendly air, humid from melting winter ice, we donned our gear and headed up the steep rocky path. We did not see many other people on the trail, a father with his nervously chatty daughters coming down from a few days in the woods, a weathered mountain man with three pack llamas carrying his 700 pounds of gear (what the gear was for, I have no idea). We found a fresh black bear print and some other animal signs on the trail. As we rose in elevation through the dense woods, contact with the outside world faded away like finger writing on a beach.

Then we were alone with the woods.

Your mind can really play tricks on you in the woods. The heaviness of the air and the array of tiny new sounds that squeak through all around you really put your brain on edge. And then there are the bear stories to fuel the fire. There's never a shortage of tales of horrifying encounters between hapless hikers and wild bears, and our trek was no exception. My brother Kevin had announced right before our departure that he had read an article about a bear that was terrorizing hikers in the Rockies. This bear it seems, would sneak into camps in the middle of the night. According to the article, he would poke around for a bit, and then proceed to rear up over a tent and collapse it on top of its sleeping occupants.

Great. A tent-stomping bear is on the loose somewhere out there. I can't begin to describe to you how hard it is to fall asleep when you are lying in your bag in the dark, looking up at the ceiling of the tent and wondering when it will come down on you with the full force of a 600 pound black bear. Needless to say I didn't sleep very well. Rock slides in our valley, sounding like fourth-of-July fireworks during the night, didn't do much to alleviate my sleeplessness either.

When morning came at last, I quickly checked outside to make sure the other tent was still standing. No flattened tents. No mangled hikers strewn about, limbs bent at odd angles. Everything was fine.

At least until it's time to get in that tent again.

Curves

Fender Stratocasters, 2006

Heaven

I have probably always loved to cook. I'm not really sure where it came from (do I have the "sauté gene"?), but I've got it pretty bad. Cooking is relaxing for me, an escape that never gets old.

My cooking has changed alot over the years, I have dabbled in just about everything. My great love is food from the countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea: the simply prepared meals with incredibly fresh ingredients that make up the healthiest cuisines on Earth. The luxurious seafood and herb-roasted vegetables of Italy and southern France, the tagines of Morocco, the infinite mezze of Greece and North Africa, the tapas and paellas of Spain...the list is endless and delicious.

Blend that with influences from other cuisines as diverse as Indian and Cajun, and that's the basis of my diet. I cook almost every day, and from scratch. It's fun, it's fast, and it's good stuff.

Eat this food outdoors on a lazy afternoon with a simple wine and good friends, and you have my heaven.

Start The Shelling

Ingrid loves turtles. They cheer her up. They're so green and happy. You never see a turtle being sad, do you? It's just not possible. They love life too much. And swimming. And being green and happy.

Not-So-Happy Feet

If you think it's cold outside, consider this: It's going to be -83 degrees F tonight just outside the heated windows of Vostok Station in Antarctica. How would you like to be the guy who has to take the garbage out there?

Ponderings

"I wonder what that guy with the camera would taste like?"

The Big Ones

Redwoods, Muir Woods, California

"Did you just say 'Viola'?"

We had one of those funny family moments the other night, the kind that you laugh whenever you think about for a few weeks or years later. This one may be one of those special memes that integrates itself into our lexicon. I was reading something aloud to Heather and came upon the word "Voila", which I read without pausing as "Viola". Heather waited patiently until I was all done and, rather than commenting on content, paused for a second and remarked "Did you just say 'Viola'?"

I Think

I do my best thinking alone. It's important to be alone for a few hours every once in a while. Good stuff happens in the brain.

Hippo-Hop

My lovely wife loves Hippos. She has a thing for them, for sure, and there ain't no cure. We have many representations of the big toothy mammals around our house - stuffed, molded in concrete, cast in resin, just about every kind but the real ones. For that I am glad. When we go to the Toledo Zoo, it's required that we visit the Hippoquarium. It's like a temple to Hippodom, and we are the ever-faithful monks.

Name Tag

Bull near Belding, Michigan

Nobody's Home

Deserted hacienda near Bahia Kino, Sonora Mexico.

Inside Looking Out

Today will be writ large in the annals of Zach's life. He went underwater all by himself at the YMCA pool! In fact, he did it many times. After years of fear, probably induced by the "Family Reunion Lake Michigan Bodysurfing Wipeout Incident of 2002", his nerve built to a peak and he just did it. He is living the dream.

Six Years On Our Own

Today is the 14th of February, which is the day my mother died, 6 years ago. You may have noticed that it is also Valentine's Day. I think it's fitting that my mom died on this day, because she had a very big heart. We miss you, mom.

Not Wine Yet

Chardonnay Grapes, Napa, California

"We're all ears"

African Elephants, Cleveland Zoo.

Love, Mud, and Pneumonia

In my opinion, the best part of wedding planning is honeymoon planning. I think it's great how you get to skip town right after your wedding party, leaving the enormous mess for everyone else to clean up. So you want to go somewhere far away.

We wanted ours to be in some warm place that could combine our love of the outdoors and hiking with relaxing times on the beach sucking down Mai Tai's. Our first choice was Bora Bora. That idea was killed by its exorbitant price and utter remoteness. So we "settled" on something about 40 degrees straight north of there: Hawai'i.

I won't go into the virtues of Hawai'i, the weather and waves, lush greenery and Jurassic Park scenery. That has been done ad nauseum previously by others. Suffice it to say it was well worth the jet lag.

We wanted to see the North Shore of O'ahu, the great surf beaches that lie beyond Makaha: Sunset Beach, Banzai Pipeline, and of course the mighty Waimea Bay. Pretty much every stretch mentioned in "Surfin' USA". They were awesome, although we were a couple months off peak season. I want to go back in winter and see the really big rollers.

Our hiking was done on the north shore of Kaua'i, on the Kalalau Trail. It was pretty hot, and to say the trail was just muddy would be an injustice, because the trail WAS mud. We were up to our ankles the whole way. Slurp. Slurp.

The trail was beautiful as it climbed the rocky shoreline, higher and higher, through breadfruit and guava trees. The entire area smelled like Hawaiian Punch, it was like walking through a big brown fruit smoothie.

From our starting point at Ke'e Beach, we hiked the two hours to a wicked little alcove called Hanakapi'ai. There were ample warning signs preceding this dangerous place, warning of the near-certain drowning of anyone who dares enter the water there. And it was pretty scary. White water gushing in every direction, I decided to stay out and give myself the opportunity to experience my new marriage.

After a brief rest, it was up, up again, to a falls about two more hours into the jungle. It was worth it, the falls were spectacular, just like the guide books promised. But now we had four more hours back out through the muddiness.

We were hot and made several wrong turns on the unmaintained trail, so it really wasn't much of a surprise when I was pelted on the head twice in rapid succession by guavas. I just figured my new lovely wife was getting tired of my routefinding skills. But no, according to her, these fruits both fell from the trees on me. Both of them. At almost the same instant. Coincidence?

I didn't feel so good during the hike that day, something I attributed to the heat. Turns out I had pneumonia. It was a pretty hard 8 hours. But we did it.

And, bonus: I'm transported back to that place every time I smell a guava now. And the bumps on my head have gone down.

"How dare you tell my mother she needs to wax her beak!"

Vulltures conversing tentatively at the Cleveland Zoo.

Breaking Water

This is a picture of the breakwater in Petoskey Michigan, shortly before a 50 foot section was washed out by high winds in 2006.

One Good Salad

Start with the Lemon Vinaigrette:

1/2 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon minced shallot
1 1/2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1/2 teaspoon sugar

Whisk all ingredients in bowl to blend. Season with salt and pepper. Toss with field greens and top with fresh goat cheese rounds.

The Buena Vista Coffee Club

Today is a great day for an Irish Coffee. Here's the home of Irish Coffee, The Buena Vista, in San Francisco.

The Truck From Hell

This scary metal beast was sitting in a field in Hermosillo Mexico. It seemed almost alive, as if it knew I was there, and wasn't too happy about it. Adding to my interest was the fact that the driver's window is completely covered with a metal plate. Oh, and there is a Mustang emblem on the front grille. The more I look at this picture, the more I wonder what this evil thing is all about. So I think I'll stop looking now...

Nice Tomatoes!

I'm not really a winter person. I used to be a good skier, but have not done that in years. I miss summer, warm weather, and garden veggies. My wife's parents have the best garden. I've not been able to figure out what their secret is, other than "coffee grounds". We keep joking that they'll discover a radioactive dump under it. Their veggies grow huge, and they get them in enormous quantities. My favorites are the tomatoes.

They grow the most amazing tomatoes, in several varieties. They're possibly the best things I've ever tasted. My garden, by comparison, is a wasteland of shriveled sage and dried out seeds. But this year I'll do better. Perhaps I'll start saving coffee grounds...

"Big Eighty left Savannah, Lord and did not stop..."

Son House. Robert Johnson. Blind Willie McTell. Charlie Patton. Mississippi John Hurt. Lemon Jefferson. Leadbelly. Skip James. Blind Willie Johnson.

These are magical names to me. Most everyone who loves music loves one kind above all others. For me it's Delta Blues. It's been preserved precariously on a few old recordings, laid down in terrible conditions at haste and for little or no compensation. Aluminum masters were melted down for scrap long ago. All that survives are a handful of records, time worn and all but forgotten. It's a minor miracle that this music survived at all.

But what we have of it is wonderful. It rises above the scratches and haze of those old acetate 78's, fragile and fleeting, like a ghost or a dream. But it carries with it powerful imagery from another time, another culture, another world.

There is something very true about this music. You can tell it comes from the heart, from very real pain and desperation. It's honest, perhaps the most honest kind of music we have access to. This is a sound designed, not by some focus group or record producer, but by life itself. By necessity. It had to come out. And it refuses to die.

Gastrotaxonomy

If we go to a restaurant and look for lobster (lets say Homarus americanus, or Maine Lobster, my favorite kind), we will find it in the same section as the fish. This fascinates me because the lobster could more accurately put us in the fish section, for we are much more closely related to fish than lobsters are.

I Wonder

Don't you love a child's sense of wonder? It envelops them like rain. They drip with it. It starts as soon as their eyes open, and doesn't quit until it's dried up by the big towel of adulthood. A lucky few people get to keep wonder for their entire lives. I like those people. I count myself among them, and it's an honor.

Swimming with Sharks

"You can drink while driving here. Nobody cares. This isn't like other places". Those words should have been a big red warning flag flapping in my face. I was not prepared for how different things are in Key West. Not in a bad way, mind you. But shocking if you are not ready for it's legions of bums, Margaritaville atmosphere and early morning drinking binges. I guess pretty much anything goes there, or at least that's the image they like to project. The Conch Republic, cessation from The States, and all that. They even have their own flag, like a lost pirate colony. Once acclimated to the different pace of life and apparently legal looped-driving, we all had a great time.

The occasion was my niece's wedding, which was wonderful, complete with mojitos, lobster, and hand rolled cigars. We also took the opportunity to explore this crazy place, from it's six-toed cats to its old forts and pirate past. Chickens are everywhere. Wild chickens, whatever that means. Wild or not, they don't look very dangerous, unless maybe you trip over one. We rented a golf-cart and saw the place in style.

We also went SNUBA diving. SNUBA is like SCUBA, but instead of wearing a tank you are fed air from a floating tank on the surface. The main advantage of this is that it gives you more freedom of movement in exchange for adding at least ten new potential failure modes to the diving experience. We had a famous time with the exception of a brief fit of terror upon seeing a black-tipped reef shark slowly swim by, eyeing us. A shudder went down my spine, but when I realized the dive master wasn't scared, I relaxed. I even got up the nerve to snap a couple pictures of the deadly fish.

The Jake Walk Blues

"I can't eat, I can't talk. Been drinkin' mean Jake, Lord. Now I can't walk." - The Jake Walk Blues, 1930

Jake is our Rat Terrier. Like Coco, he was a rescue. In this case, he had been abused, ran off and was hit by a car, and was found by a friend of a friend who works at a vet. They were looking desperately for a new home for him but would soon be faced with putting him down. I liked Jake as soon as I met him. He's got those upright ears that seem to express more than any eyes can, and a great disposition. His leg was banged up badly from the car. His hip was shattered, and he had a terrible limp. He needed surgery.

Back in grandpa's day, during prohibition, there were many ways for obtaining alcohol illicitly. People tried everything: bathtub gin, Sterno, shoe polish. One favorite was a concoction called "Jamaican Ginger Extract". Nicknamed "Jake", this stuff was very high in alcohol, and sold legally as a tonic. When the government started cracking down on tonics and medicines that were high in alcohol, Jake was reformulated to get by the new rules.

Only problem was, the new secret ingredient was a plasticizer called triorthocresylphosphate, or TOCP. This was pretty bad stuff, a potent neurotoxin that left many, many people crippled. It affected mostly the legs, and often it's victims would develop a lopsided gait that pegged them as Jake drinkers. This special walk became known as the "Jake Walk", and the victims were said to have the "Jake Leg". Many blues songs were written about this condition. Since it was mostly lower-income people affected, this situation was largely ignored at the time.

After considering my new dog's potential candidates for a name (Lucky?), I finally settled on the one that seemed to fit both his condition and my love for old blues. So he became Jake.

Another World

I found this fish at the Toledo Zoo. He seemed at least as interested in me as I was in him. I still wonder what he was thinking.

Salsa Joe

I have a recipe. The recipe. It's really simple. I don't usually use recipes when I cook. Or if I do, I modify them beyond recognition. But this one I use. You just throw a bunch of things together in the food processor and pulse it into pureed heaven. It's a salsa. Salsa Joe. I named it after the guy who gave me the recipe, some 15 years ago in Phoenix, Arizona. He was a kind old Mexican man I worked with. He sold burros off a cart on the weekends for extra money. I have that recipe too. Joe wasn't too worried about competition. He served Salsa Joe with his burros, on the side. I have given this recipe to more than 50 people. That is not an exaggeration. Everyone who tries Salsa Joe asks me for the recipe. I just smile, because by now, I expect it.

Thanks, Joe. I often wonder what you are up to now, if you are still with us on this crazy, burro-scarfing world.


Salsa Joe

1 28-1/2 oz can whole tomatoes (not with herbs), drained of half the liquid.
1 large handful of cilantro
1 bunch scallions (green onions), roughly chopped (use the white AND GREEN parts)
1 whole clove garlic, peeled
6-10 small yellow hot chilies (small, smooth peppers that come in a jar - NOT pepperoncini)

Put all ingredients in food processor and blend in pulses until well chopped but not too smooth. Add salt if necessary to taste.

Coco Loco

I spent a good portion of this past summer in Hermosillo, Mexico for business reasons. It was quite an adventure. I had my own house and car down there, and so lived a semi-normal life, doing grocery shopping and laundry, driving to work and gassing up the car. This afforded me a more thorough education of Mexican culture than my business contacts received, coming in for the weekend and spending the whole time in their compound-like hotels sipping margaritas by the pool. I got to experience the real Mexico. The driving-derby sprints to work through traffic filled with old smoking trucks and children selling newspapers. Purchasing unmarked food in open air markets with a less-than-adequate grasp of the local language, much less customs. And of course, the dogs.

Dogs are everywhere in Mexico. All shapes and sizes. Huge, bear-like white dogs, with humps on their backs. Little raspy mean things with an eye missing but a mountain of attitude to make up for it. Chihuahuas. Pit Bulls. And everything in between. Not a one of them has a collar or a permanent home. Most look healthy, some dangerous. They all look capable of anything, it may be that the ones who weren't didn't last long. But they are everywhere. I counted 54 on the way to work one day.

So it was no surprise when a co-worker came in to the office one morning and announced she had found three abandoned puppies at the side of the road nearby. It interested me enough to go see for myself. You see, we had lost Willie earlier that year and had decided to eventually get another dog. So I went to see if that other dog was lying on the hot road.

Two of the puppies were healthy, and had obviously abandoned their little runt littermate, who did not look good. The mother was dead on the road a few yards away. I decided I had to take this puppy in and try to save it. It was obviously hours away from death, crawling with bugs and limp in the hot sun.

After bringing her (my investigations revealed that it was a she) to my house and feeding and bathing her, she looked a little better, but was still pretty bad. I called Heather and said something like:

"Hi honey. Have I told you how nice you look today? Remember when I said I might bring Zach a souvenir from Mexico? You do? Well, what would you think if it was a puppy?!?!?"

Long silence.

Heather agreed, eventually and reluctantly. I think she was a little concerned that I might be bringing a wild dingo home. And with the new baby, it wasn't the best time for a new puppy. But what to do? There are no dog shelters in Hermosillo that I know of, so it was certain death for the cute little Coco. Yes, I had done the one thing that pretty much guaranteed that we would take her in: I had named her. In the end, we decided to bring Coco back.

After several trips to the vet in Hermosillo, and much research on the legalities of importing dogs to the USA, she was back with us. It hasn't been easy. She has chewed a bookshelf. Peed everywhere. Ravaged curtains. Eaten a razor. But we love our little Coco Loco.

Jam Lunch at The Spoon

Of the many cool things we like to pack into each busy year, one of the coolest is a visit to my sister's place in Harbor Springs. It's relaxing, energizing, and reinvigorating, all at once. And if that weren't enough, my sister is a great hostess and one heck of a fun person. There are so many great diversions up there, we never get to do half of what we want, but that's ok, because we always feel like we did enough to get us by until next time.

Depending on the season, there's hiking, swimming, snowshoeing, wandering around the Gaslight District of Petoskey, having a beer in "Ernest Hemingway's seat" at the City Park Grill, and much more. Of all the possible activities, one of our favorites is the inevitable visit we pay to American Spoon Foods.

You see, "The Spoon", as we affectionately refer to this northern Michigan company, makes the best jams I've ever tasted. They are wonderful and you can get them all over the states now. But that in itself is not enough to get us to spend valuable up-north time visiting their Petoskey store. After all, I could just buy them in Royal Oak when I go to the grocery store. No, the real reason we give this such a high priority is because they have a Jam Bar. It's the only store I know of that has such a thing.

What's a Jam Bar? Well, The basic premise of this form of marketing is to let customers sample all of the great jams, marinades, and salsas that The Spoon offers. There is a table in the center of the store upon which is placed one open jar of every type of jam they sell at The Spoon, plus a big heap of crackers to aid in the sampling. It's a real courtesy to the customers, it helps them figure out what their favorites are. But my family, being the kind of people we are, have decided to push this thing to the limit. When we descend on poor unsuspecting Spoon, we make a meal of the Jam Bar. We'll walk in, slowly, and fan out. Look around for a bit, and pretend to read the back of a jar or two as we casually glance at the Jam Bar, mentally planning our attack.

Then we strike.

We all have different strategies, of course, but I will usually start my meal with an appetizer. Something light and fruity, like a spoonful of blueberry butter on a white cracker. Then it's off to the savory side of the table for my main course. I'll always go for one sample of each jar to start...Thai-Peanut Marinade, Mango Salsa, Southwestern BBQ Sauce...then hone in on my favorites, at which point I really go to town. Crumbs and tiny spoons fly amid gasps from horrified customers as I tear into all the savory flavors. I glance up every now and then to see what the others are doing, usually a somewhat toned-down version of the same thing I am. After I've had my fill of the salsas and marinades, it's back to the sweet side for some various jams and butters, followed up for dessert with a volley of lemon and passion fruit curd-piled wafers. This is the way to eat, if you ask me. And the price: free!

Ok, not free, for two reasons. Firstly, it costs a fair amount of pride. We must surely look like a big scary clan of the worst kind of cavemen in there, grunting, jostling over the best eating positions, scarfing twenty, thirty samples in a row with hardly a breath.

Secondly, we always buy something. This way, our guilt is assuaged. After all, now we're Customers. That nicely relieves us of our caveman status. And we get to re-live part of the experience when we get home with our "take out" jam.

But it's not the same as the real thing at The Spoon.

Little Feet

In between the challenges of kids, work, hobbies, colds, and cold weather, we are planning our great spring Utah hiking adventure. It's really quite like planning a moon mission, in many ways.

We'll be flying to our destination on a giant, noisy machine, very high up. We'll be taking everything we need for the whole week with us, because we will have no contact with our home base. When we get to our destination, we'll put everything we have on our backs and head out, on foot, for days of grueling work far from and without the comforts of, home. During that time we'll be isolated, without the chance of ready help should we get into trouble.

We'll gather rocks, take lots (lots!) of pictures with cameras that were not designed for our environment, and we'll spend our nights in cramped, cold shelters, quivering in the wild of the unknown. We'll even have Tang.

Ok, so it's possible to stretch the analogy too thin. Afterall, we're not doing this to beat the Soviets. We're doing it so we can tell our friends about it :) But you get the picture.

And oh, the gear! I sometimes wonder if my real hobby is the acquisition and cataloging of "gear", the hikes being just an excuse to pursue that hobby. But no, that's not true. I really do love the outdoors. For so many reasons. The "gear" is fun too, but as a means to the end.

Heather and I (and family) hiked the Grand Canyon in 2005, and it was fun helping her get into the sport. That's when I first realized they make hiking gear specially for women now. No longer does the better-smelling sex have to use oversized, malfitting packs and boots. Now those things come in shapes. And this year, with Z and M going, I am realizing how much cool kids hiking stuff there is out there. Anything you can get for an adult, you can find cuter and (slightly) cheaper for kids. So, we are knee-deep in buying Z's gear. Little boots for little feet. And don't forget a hat for Maddie! It's all fun.

A New Dawn

Hello out there! This is the first entry in my new blog, The World of Wild. Why am I jumping on the blog bandwagen? It's documantary for me, actually. A great many things happen each day in our lives. Some of them are big and scary and life-altering, yes. But most are tiny, and often seem trivial in comparison. But as the weeks and months and years pile up, it's these little things, these bits that fall through the cracks, that add up to our life. I hope, therefore, to document the goings-on of one particular family (mine) for posterity. And if the posts turn out to have entertainment value for family and friends, then all the better. Climb aboard for adventure...