Longer Than the Average Two-Week Vacation

by Catherine Arnold

Beijing. Sprawl and shouts and always, the jack-hammers of change, pounding out the construction projects everywhere in the city. Ni hao!" and "Hello," "Hey, Ladee," and DVD, I give you good price!"

The vendors who miss nothing, always pressing forward with postcards of Tian'anmen or The Great Wall, not to be put off by pretenses of only speaking German.

Back alleys called hutongs, where men slap and smack noodles, then give them a final, snapping twist on a floured surface in preparation for soup.

The street to our hostel is such an alley, without the shops but with the jackhammers that start each morning at 6:30 and continue until 10:30 p.m., sometimes later.

All of this has been my world for a month. It is a short time in Beijing, but long in the life of the typical two weeks-off-per-year American. Some think it's quite a while to stay in a hostel but at only $5 per day, it's a good deal.

I've seen all the typical tourist destinations: the Summer Palace, Forbidden City, hiked 10 km of the Great Wall. Gasped at the exquisite professionalism of the Chinese acrobats in pretty pink, blue and white costumes, clambering from thirty bicycles onto one in the blink of an eye.

Ate too many jioazi, or dumplings, at the Donghuamen Night Market, and avoided the sparrow-on-a-stick. Received wrong change twice at the same market, and saw a friend receive incorrect change again the next night. In both cases, the change given was the half-yuan bill, not the five-yuan bill required; both read "5" but the half-yuan is visibly smaller in size.

Thought to self, Beijing is so wonderfully safe, but heard about people who noticed the sound of zips and apprehended thieves, and others who didn't hear in time. Had friends whose cellphones were stolen on the subway or coming from the airport, possibly contributing to the healthy supply of 250 yuan ($30) mobiles available on the local market. Wore my knapsack on my front.

Once, in a regrettable incident, shouted at a vendor selling fried banana cake balls at the Night Market, when she tried to charge me 20 yuan ($2.50), which I knew was far above the local price.

However, paid more than the going rate for an embarrassingly cheesy T-shirt reading, "I Climbed the Great Wall," partly because I felt that the Mongolian seller (a rosy-cheeked farmer woman hiking the broken bricks of the Wall in flat-soled Keds-type sneakers) genuinely needed the money, but mainly because the Italian tourist next to me had bought a shirt already and the vendor pressured me to buy "like my friend," and, for that moment, I couldn't see putting up a fight over an exchange rate that was hopelessly in my favor.

Marveled at the differences in prices. Twenty yuan is: half of my night's rent at the hostel; four yuan more than a regular small coffee at (gasp) Starbucks -- where I sometimes go here, contrary to any routine I had in the States, because Chinese culture specializes in tea but not coffee, and I'd rather get full-fuel at Starbucks than watery KFC or McDonald's coffee -- ten 550-milliliter Yangling beers from the hostel refrigerator (arguably better than Budweiser, for what that's worth); two, three or even six meals at certain noodle places in the hutongs; Kungpao chicken, rice and a yuan in change at a moderate-level restaurant; ten yuan short of a one-way soft seat train ride to Tianjin, a thriving city an hour and a half south of Beijing; four Chinese bread pastries with mystery fillings that include sausages, super-sweet almond paste and Indian curry, at a chain called Bread Talk; four bowls of noodles or eight triangles of sticky rice with vegetables and MSG, wrapped in green leaves, at none other than 7-Eleven, which seems popular with the Chinese middle class and has nary a Slurpee in sight.

I tried to speak words from my Rough Guide phrasebook, but had more success in showing people the Chinese characters. Was excited when people read them and stated the word approvingly and emphatically. "JAH-gurr" was "price," for instance. Tried to get the four tones right, the pronunciations that make a single word have four meanings.

One friend who had four months' worth of Chinese language gained so much entry at noodle shops and other back-street gatherings; people talked delightedly to him, offering better prices, questions about his country and suggestions of sweet pastries.

When I was out and about, people often peered over my shoulder at what I was doing, or looked into my face scrutinizingly. Other times I watched people shout at each other, then burst into laughter.

As smiling people laughed, called to me, and hung about to question and tease in a language I did not understand, I felt that being included in a group here might be easier than anywhere else. (It's true, though, that some places, such as certain hotels, still don't allow foreigners.)

On a shuttle bus, I clicked through photos on my digital camera while the middle-aged business man beside me leaned into my shoulder to see pals from my Hainan Island hostel, then flipped open his mobile phone to display pictures of a very pretty woman, much younger than he, playing with a toddler.

So much to know, and so much to want to know, here in China.

##

Up Close in China (2005)

By Catherine Arnold

In all my dreams of world travel, driving a rental Volkswagen on the busy streets of southeast Asia wasn't something I'd envisioned doing.

I was having a grand time -- and if you can get hold of an international driver's license, or someone who'll let you drive their car, I highly recommend it.

It's typical of China that an activity such as driving, which in other places can seem insular and aggressive, is here more of a wordless interaction among the denizens of the road. Ultimately, all this seeming chaos works.

Here on China's only tropical island, everything's interactive: from bargaining for the new crop of mangoes, pineapple on a stick, longan or any of the numerous other local tropical fruits; walking the streets and meeting the gazes of vendors in straw hats and girls riding demurely side-saddle in skirts on the backs of their boyfriends's motorcycles; or passing evenings on the beach, which can be even busier than the days. As soft tropical dusk settles over the mountains along Dadonghai Bay, families and groups hang out or venture into the crashing green waves, while a pavilion band plays lulling Asian pop ballads. Every night, independent fireworks flame across the sky, culminating in great cracks and booms at midnight.

Back to the Volkswagen: I was driving with C. Lu, a Hainan-based travel agent on her day off, her husband Mr. Li, and their nine-year-old, pony-tailed twin daughters, Miao-Miao and Do-Do. We were off to see eastern Hainan , driving past pointed green mountains that run down to the sea. It's a landscape that resembles Jamaica's, except for the deep-green rice fields and workers in cone hats, bearing yokes for carrying baskets of that crop's long leaves.

Our first stop was the botanical garden at Xinglong, which conducts agricultural research for China, and has collected more than 57 species of coffee, along with examples of both green and red (called black in the U.S.) tea bushes, vanilla, cacao, and other tropical plants.

In the deep foliage of the botanical garden, Miao-Miao, C. and I peered at rows of pepper plants: verdant vines climbing tall poles; and Buddha's Belly bamboo, whose sections are amusingly rotund. We also discovered, to our surprise, that coconuts root in their own shells if left alone, as evidenced by fresh leaves bursting from the tops of green coconuts' wood-like shells.

Settling into cheery red plastic chairs in the tea garden that offers samples of crops grown on the premises, we sipped three teas: two green, one red. The first, Shang Dao Lan, tasted pleasantly of vanilla. Xiao Cao Kan , the second, tasted of vanilla too, as well as other spices. The third was a fruit tea.

Last, we had two types of coffee: one with coconut, the other with coconut and cacao, which tasted like Mexican hot chocolate. Miao-Miao, who had wrinkled her nose at the first coffee, quickly drank the cacao version and asked for more.

Rejoining Mr. Li and Do-Do at the car, we headed into the town of Xinglong for lunch. At Hainu Wenchang, a restaurant with doors and windows open to the breeze, a group of employees was gathered at a front table, clacking dominoes busily.

Inside, sitting over cups of Zhe gu, a local teasan made from large tree leaves, we had our first course. It was a very fresh, clear-tasting soup of small clams taken from a tank out front, along with mushrooms and thin slices of a white root vegetable called Dong hua.

Next we had a large platter of succulent, fatty pork in a dark rich sauce, a separate dish of beef in soy and mushrooms, and a garlicky platter of young asparagus, with rice.

Everyone served themselves with chopsticks from the communal platters. Although I'd always felt my skills with the wooden sticks were perfectly adequate for shoveling food from my plate to mouth, I suddenly recalled having read in a Chinese novel about a Westerner being critiqued for holding her fingers too high on her chopsticks. Also -- and there was no paranoia involved here: I was suddenly aware that all eyes were on me and the sticks in my right hand.

In the U.S., I tended to rely on spooning food from the serving dish onto my rice, but here I had no spoon, only chopsticks. I was also used to thinner, more manageable chopsticks than I was using -- so I was a bit slow in getting food from platter to rice here, although I felt that I was making out okay.

However, in a flurry, Mr. Li called over the waitress, who returned with a serving spoon. C. encouraged me to use the spoon, and in Chinese, she explained to the twins what was happening. Miao-Miao burst into giggles at the idea of someone who couldn't use the proper eating utensils, then stopped, guiltily.

After we'd dipped the tureen into the last dregs of the large communal bowl of clam soup, Mr.Li disappeared. Moments later, he returned with pineapple on a stick for each of us. Each dark yellow mound had been attractively cross-hatched with a knife by the elderly vendor who sat in the building's shade. We ate the sweet ripe fruit, drippily.

Heading back to Sanya, we took the old eastern road, less-used since the super-highway was installed in 1996. The two-lane road passed small towns, farms, and farm workers -- in the same way that many rural routes in the U.S. do -- although more individuals, carts and motorbikes occupied the road here.

As we headed along, keeping up the constant forward motion that is a hallmark of any Asian road, a boy of about eight years suddenly burst from the woods to our right, his body caught mid-run, poised to hurtle into our path. His face as he saw us was beautiful, and animated. His surprised expression was more like joy than fear. I slowed abruptly, and we all gasped. At the last minute, he veered to the right, turning to lope along the sandy roadside.

It was another close encounter with Asia and Hainan.

##

Art that stands for a day

by Catherine Arnold (2003-ish)

Working as a professional sandcastle artist, or sand
sculptor, is a lot like life, says John Gowdy, who
lives in the coastal New Jersey town of Galloway, and
gets paid to fly around the world creating sand
sculptures that are sometimes 30 feet tall.

"Occasionally it collapses, and when that happens, we
make something else from the pile -- occasionally,
something even better," he says.

Gowdy didn’t always work in sand. He retires at
theend of next year from a 20-year firefighting
career,and looks forward to going full-time on the
world’s beaches.

Once, in Italy, he was finishing the papal collar
on a 15' likeness of the Pope when the structure
returned to the beach, dust to dust. As he considered
how to resurrect the heap, the nervous event
supervisor told him that the Cardinal and other
priests would arrive within an hour to bless the
figure.

"I felt like Edward Scissorhands," he said,
imitating the speedy hand-work of that Johnny Depp
character. "In cases like that, you have to make it
happen quickly."

He got started in the late 1980s, making
castles for his kids with sand and popsicle sticks on
the Jersey Shore. In 1987 he took third place in his
first professional competition, in Fort Myers, Fla.
"Until then, I hadn't known sand sculpting could be an
occupation: I met interesting people, talked to them,
and was amazed that they made a living at this."

After training in the early 1990s with San
Diego-area professional sand sculptor Dave Henderson,
Gowdy began getting work at competitions around the
world, as well as creating sculptures for beach
weddings and other events closer to home. Today his
weekends are full of work.

“I never would have thought I could get paid for this
and travel the world doing it!” he says, spade in
hand.

##

Banana-seat Bike Enthusiast

By Catherine Arnold (2003)

I’ve always liked lists of highly divergent items and collections of curious things. That’s why A Nearly New Shop’s front window, with its display of red, green and yellow vintage Schwinn bicycles and a cluttered room dotted with such items as a plastic radio and an album of Hair, caught my eye on a drippy, chill March day in Chicago .

That this was no ordinary junk shop became clear when I met the proprietor, Ron Ashley, vintage bicycle enthusiast. Though a bit cluttered, this is an emporium to bicycles. Ashley, who is tall, slim, has medium coffee-colored skin, and looks like a dancer, usually sits in one of the shop’s easy chairs chatting with customers, or leans into the gears of one of the many bikes, crescent wrench in hand.

He’s been wielding a crescent wrench since the early 1970s, soon after his family relocated from a Louisiana farm to a Chicago housing project. In Chicago , Ashley’ father presented him with what he describes as “an old, sort of beat-up bike.”

Ashley recalls, “I was thinking, man, I want a new bike! I don’t want this old thing!”

But his father showed him how to replace the chain, hammer bent parts into shape, clean and polish the bike. By the time they finished, Ashley was an old-bike convert. “I haven’t wanted a new one since then. There’s no challenge in it.”

In 1999, Ashley opened A Nearly New Shop, which offers bikes more than 15 years old, along with a few other thrift shop items. “The Schwinns are the best of the old ones,” he notes. “When it was still a family-owned business, I think that around the dinner table, one of them might have said, ‘Man, what is it about the cranks that isn’t working right?’ But now that it’s a corporation, they’re like, ‘We need to crank more of these out!’”

Indeed, the older Schwinns are grand in the details. The basic model has a red/white seat topped by a script “S”, backed by a small metal plate that reads, “Schwinn Approved.” The gear cover names inspire thoughts of wind in one’s hair: “Typhoon,” “American,” “Spitfire 5,” and even “Corvette.”

The shop’s crowning glory are the Stingrays, banana-seat bikes that lounge insouciantly behind racks of used clothing. These can go for more than $200. At the front, and sometimes locked outside, basic Schwinns look like sturdy old cars with their fenders, gear covers and handle-bar tassels.

Ashley is a rider as well as a seller. “For cruising around the neighborhood or to the lake, I take a Stingray,” he says, moving his arms to illustrate relaxed steering on a low-slung bike. “If I need speed, I’ll take a road bike. Going to the store, I’ll grab a one-speed," he indicates a standard Schwinn.

If happiness is a shop full of bikes, Ashley has it. “I’m not one of those guys who can afford a garage full of expensive cars,” he says. “But I can fit about 50 bikes in my basement, and that pleases me!”

A Nearly New Shop, 3826 N. Broadway St . , Chicago . (773)525-0692.

From Dim Sum to the Daily Show: Cheap NYC

By Catherine Arnold

Once you have a place to stay, you can have the apple--the big one, that is--for spare change. In New York, walking or subway fare will get you all over town: taking you straight into the pay-what-you-will realm of museums, free wooded green spaces, and fabulous street life.

Instead of shelling out $8-15 for a Circle Line cruise of Lower Manhattan , get a sense of Manhattan as an island by paddling on the Hudson River for 20 minutes on free kayaks available at three locations: Pier 26 between Chambers Street and Canal Street ; at 26^th St. ; or 72^nd Street . You’re given a life preserver. At Pier 26, hours 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekends and holidays; other locations, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekends and holidays. To find out weekday availability, call daily status line, 646-613-0740. For general information, call 646-613-0375 or see www.downtownboathouse.org. Open May 15-Oct. 15

Have the jaw-dropping (and entirely free) experience of seeing the East River, Brooklyn, the buildings of Lower Manhattan, and the mythically silhouetted Chrysler Building and Empire State Building, by strolling across the Brooklyn Bridge’s high, romantic, pedestrian walkway. The bridge is one mile from tip to tip. From Manhattan , enter the walkway at Park Row and Centre Street , across from City Hall Park. See http://www.transalt.org/bridges/brooklyn.html.Hear free music concerts into September, at Central Park Summerstage (New York World Festival Sept. 12-19 will include performers such as Mariachi Real de Mexico and Jamaica ’s Burning Spear). Certain shows suggest a $10 donation. To reach Summerstage, enter Central Park at 69^th Street and 5^th Avenue . See http://www.summerstage.org/. Bands also play, no charge, at Chelsea Piers till the end of September. Chelsea Piers is off the West Side Highway between 23^rd and 24^th Streets. Go to http://www.chelseapiers.com/musicPiers.htm.

Sure, you can get discounted tickets to Broadway shows at TKTS locations on 47th Street and Broadway, or Front and John Streets in South Street Seaport, http://www.tdf.org/tkts/. However, tickets to smaller, and often edgier shows in New York go for much less. If you want to watch improv performers who could make next year’s cast of Saturday Night Live, drop by Upright Citizens’ Brigade Theater and see shows for $5-8, and sometimes free, seven nights a week. 307 W. 26^th Street , 212-366-9176. Reservations are recommended. http://www.ucbtheatre.com/

Eat your fill of savory Chinese dumplings filled with vegetables, shrimp, pork and other small bits at dim sum in Chinatown , often for less than $25 for four people. For a big banquet hall with lots of selection, try Jing Fong, 20 Elizabeth Street , 212-964-5256. Alternatively, the smaller, more retro Hop Shing serves dim sum every morning from a single cart, at 9 Chatham Square , 212-267-0220.

At Chinatown ’s Pho Bang, get a banh mi, or Vietnamese sandwich, for about $2.75. It’s a combination of barbecued pork, ham and other cold cuts, laid out on a crisp French baguette spread with homemade mayonnaise, cilantro and carrot slivers. A sandwich with one type of meat is $2.50. Beef pho (soup) is $4.25, or $5.25 for an extra-large bowl. 157 Mott Street , 212-966-3797.

Stroll spacious greens, explore woods, hear African drums and watch informal skate board competitions. Parks to roam include Prospect ( Brooklyn ), Van Cortlandt ( Bronx ) and, of course, Central Park . See http://www.prospectpark.org/; http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/vt_van_cortlandt_park/vt_van_cort_park.html; and http://www.centralpark.org/.

Park your towel at free beaches such as Russian-flavored Brighton Beach and the revived Coney Island . See http://www.nycvisit.com/content/index.cfm?pagePkey=361. At the latter, watch minor-league baseball team the Brooklyn Cyclones from a bleacher seat for $5 – in view of the Atlantic Ocean and Astroland amusement park’s famous Cyclone roller coaster, http://www.astroland.com/. Also, check out the Coney Island Circus Sideshow, which has performed for the Museum of the City of NY and the NY Historical Society. A show is $5 adults, $3 kids; see http://www.coneyisland.com/sideshow.shtml. For NYC subway and bus info, see www.mta.nyc.ny.us.

Chortle at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’s turn on the day’s political and other events, free, by requesting tickets for the show’s live taping. Call 212-586-2477, at least four months in advance of when you want to go. The show tapes every Monday through Thursday at The Daily Show studios, located at 513 West 54th Street. Doors open at 5:45 pm. You must be 18 or over to attend. ##

Trading Names Like Snacks: A Work Day

Beauty finds its way before our eyes, even as we are occupied in the dullest of work.

Sometimes we crunch numbers, we type, we answer phones. It is not always fascinating. But we talk to coworkers about apartments found or not gotten, colors we paint houses, relationships and passions, and sometimes Japanese cookies with frills on the outside; on our break, we espy a Steller Jay, its plumage a bright New World kind of blue, like a robe from Montezuma's court.

Then it is back to work.

Lifting each page of documents that enumerate tetanus and rubella vaccines and date the last-received training in patient privacy, our eye is caught by the perfection of a photocopied benefits card with its sharp edges and its names: Kresskill, Schuylkill, other places in Pennsylvania probably known for flinty rocks, and possibly for the availability of shoo-fly pie at their organic farmers' markets. Kill, which in the Dutch origins of those names is muted to mean "creek."

The mind meanders along its lovely rippling streams of image and brightness. When applicants are from my home state, the mind seeks out that memory of taste: the bursting juice of a large, velvet peach like those grown near my grandparents' farm; sees the halls of the the Isabella Court art deco apartment building where a friend lived when we were in college, and where one of the names on these documents lives now; thinks of the bougainvillea that will fill the court-yards only walking distance from a mentioned medical center.

Names bring lush images, too--the chunky, interlinking syllables, a mouth-full of vowels and consonants that are a Nigerian name: Okchekwu, maybe. We see Nigeria, overgrown by tropical plants, people walking in colorful, striped, and draped clothing to a market. Perhaps we recall that just after college, we worked for a Nigerian organization. Despite oil juntas, and later email-spam jokes, and heat and humidity that at least duplicated where we lived then--which was significant, we thought we'd enjoy spending time in this country, in this all of Africa. We would talk to people who were frequently kind and sociable, aware of the world, sometimes opinionated, sometimes loud, sometimes late, often delightful and very often laughing. Like so many other people. We wanted to be in their midst, on the streets they came from. We wonder if this Nigerian person grew up in America, went to an American high school.

All of this thinking, and still we turn the pages, make marks, type into the computer spreadsheet. We get the work done. We make photocopies. A break comes and we go outside. We return from sun and open a new sheaf of applicant papers.

Other names roll from the tongue as well; we and the coworker trade them like shared snacks. Alcala, Ocala, the Spanish names of the Southwest. These too are names from my childhood, and we think of a woman walking swingingly in a long, colorful skirt; of dark-leaved, low trees near cool, thick walls; of rolling a corn tortilla between my hands, and the nose-prickling smell of onions and tomatillos in salsa.

We hear Japanese names: Okoshimo, perhaps. This person may have grown up in Denver, may never have eaten the pink spongy pastry we once had in a hotel outside of Narita airport in Tokyo. Still we think of large fish sliced open to show their pink insides, and of the sea beside an island.

These things combine to create beauty in fragments, in bursts--but we wish for more beauty, for creating it all day long. For finding it in research, painting it, clicking photos of it, riding on a bike with it flipping back our hair, this beauty.There are times, lately, when we feel that we are past the time for such work, these jobs with less beauty, less prickling of the mind and more photocopying.

True, we are making money and experiencing coworkers (rather than working at home by myself, looking for a different coffee house a couple of times each week) during a nation's glacial slow period, and I am already investing my time in finding more sustainable work for myself.

And we are happy that the beauty pushes itself forward, like tomatoes from the garden, both as the coworkers who stop to offer cookies bought on sale at Uwajimaya or talk about their night job at the Showbox nightclub, or just in the names from Halifax and Palo Alto.

It is beauty, all the time.

Copyright 2010 Catherine Arnold

Coming up in January--Chicago suburb Evanston, Ill.:

“B” as in Bleary-eyed (copyright Catherine Arnold 2009)

As flimsy metallic “flying saucers” move jerkily across the screen in Ed Wood’s infamously low-budget 1959 movie Plan 9 From Outer Space, paper plates--tossed by audience members--rain through the theater.

It is a cold January day in Evanston, Ill., and the temperature outside has dipped to 10 degrees with the wind chill factored in. But inside this Northwestern University auditorium, 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, 250 people have been watching B-movies for the past 24 hours.

That’s B-movies as in definitely not “A-list;” B as in bad. And sometimes, B as in: Bela Lugosi was in the first half of the movie, but later his character was played by director Ed Wood’s wife’s chiropractor.

This is “B-Fest,” which has screened Godzilla pictures, 1930’s sexual safety film strips, and cinematic wonders such as Nicholas Meyers’ 1973 Invasion of the Bee Girls (centered around the hunt for women who are killing men by having incredibly intense sex with them) every year since 1981, on the Northwestern campus.

The Chicago-area festival is one of several U.S. festivals celebrating bad movies, which include Portland, Ore.’s H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in October, and Syracuse, N.Y.'s B-Movie Festival in November.

“My favorite films in previous B-Fest years--The Lonely Lady, Alice in Wonderland, and Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness--were all psychedelic, disturbing and sometimes just plain stupid,” says Christopher Holland, co-host of the B-movie review Web site StompTokyo.com and author, with Scott Hamilton, of Reel Shame: Bad Movies and the Hollywood Stars Who Made Them (Stomp Tokyo, 2002). “There’s a real pleasure in watching another human’s jaw drop at what they see on screen.”

“B-Fest” returns in January, and though the final schedule won’t be released until the week before, two films that often return to the screen include Plan 9 From Outer Space at midnight and Mike Jitlov’s 1989 short The Wizard of Speed and Time.

Known for its stop-motion effects, the Wizard features a creepy wizard running around the world at incredible speeds, while the second half is a music video that employs stop motion.

"B-Fest" serves as a gathering place not only for Northwestern students who crave cheap screen effects, but for 50 or so B-movie aficionados who host review sites (such as Jbootu.com) or write reviews and commentary on the bulletin boards of such sites, says Hamilton, who made the trip in 2000, 2002 and 2004.

Often, those die-hards are among the 100 or so audience members who stay all night.

“The first time, it really kind of fried my brain, trying to sit through 24 hours of these things,” says Hamilton. “For me, it was more about meeting all these people from our bulletin board, whom I’d only exchanged e-mails with before.”

Still, for the full experience, bring a blanket and a cooler so you can stay awake in the auditorium as long as possible, thinks Ken Begg, host of Jabootu.com. “Retaining at least a groggy awareness of the iguanas with glued-on fins in the 3:35 a.m. showing of One Million B.C. is what B-Fest is all about.”

For more information, go to www.b-fest.com.

"Tequila" and Honey crisp apples


Am fresh from the Ballard farmers' market, which is starting to burst with fresh Jonagold and Honey crisp apples, cider, smoked salmon, kombucha, and many other things.

My friend Beth lives nearby on a boat, with her partner and her 1-1/2-year-old son. We are about to go biking. Right now we are counting red apples from the fridge: "Two ap-les. Big ap-les!"

Kalen has recently graduated to two-word sentences. "Play ball," is another one, so I figure he's ready to lead the pitches.

Later we sit on the boat, singing "Tequila."

"I'm having fun," says Beth, "I don't know, maybe it's psychologists' material 20 years from now, but I'm enjoying it."

A Cheer for Populist Food Writers

Fresh; foraged; and lots of seafood. What they say about food in Seattle, it is true.

The city's a superb combination of tiny, beautiful eateries opened as labors of love in most neighborhoods; the high-end Tom Douglas and other chef-driven creations; and an international array of cheap that includes taco trucks whose stewed meat and sobbingly flavorful salsas are a real buy; Eastern-European bakeries and sausage spots; Middle Eastern and Indian foods; and a huge range from places with bright and sometimes melancholy foods.

That said, I've never lived in a city that didn't have its own rich offerings in food, whether it was known for them or not.

In Houston, a city defamed mainly for sprawl and Republicans, my parents' neighborhood is a hive of Salvadoran pupuserias, taquerias, Nigerian eateries, one large Cuban coffee shop, and many other small eateries that have edged out the Baskin-Robbins. Not only that, but the range of sophisticated Italian, Mexican, Asian, and New American chef-driven restaurants is significant as well as interesting--and has been covered extensively by national food publications like Saveur and writers including John Mariani. Local food writers Allison Cook and Robb Walsh have influenced my own ideas about food writing that creates a story, and made me picky about food columnists in the weekly newspapers of the cities where I've lived.

Granted, atmosphere can suffer a bit in newer cities based on car transport. Doubtless, I'd rather eat in a small restaurant than in a strip mall, and in Houston many of the most interesting places--though not all--are still in strip malls. That's unfortunate, but it doesn't lessen the city's food offerings.

I remember being amused but frustrated when a New Yorker told me that he figured any Southern or Southwest city was a joke in terms of food variety. Thirty years ago, probably so, but not now. If you have an unlimited budget, New York is fantastic, but if you're really watching your money, as I was when I lived on the edge of New York, the range of good food for low prices isn't as wide, or as easy to find, as what's available in Houston or Atlanta.

Also, every region has its particular food skill. As we all know, New York does pizza and Italian food better than anywhere else in America. New Jersey is known for diners, and is often touted for this in diner-less regions like the Northwest. New York and New Jersey also have an extensive range of sophisticated offerings, of course.

Fortunately, common-food writers like Jane and Michael Stern have discovered the regional strengths of American places, and are busy rounding up the nation's great peach stands, sausage spots, and burger palaces.

Populist food writers they are, and hurray for them.

##

A friend and I are working on publishing ideas lately, and Indie Thrift is just one part of that.

Indie Thrift (TM) Tips: 10 Money Savers

1. Music CDs from the library. This is a great way for the short-attention-spanned music lover such as myself to find out whether they just liked that one song, or if the album is a real, solid hankering. Hard to say from a quick online listen, but it’s easy to solidify your thoughts when borrowing for two weeks. Currently in my player: Blonde Redhead, Grizzly Bear, Sparklehorse, Of Montreal, and Rough Guide to Paris Cafe Music. Two of them I returned within two days, but the rest I’ve kept around.

2. Cook with dried beans. Soak them overnight--then, oh, the wondrous soups, stews, and other dishes you can make. These include Tuscan soups floating with vegetables, like something served at a sunlit table in Italy, surrounded by dozens of dancing family members; Morroccan stews in bright desert hues of burnt orange and yellow, wonderfully blended spices; and good old chili, vegetarian or meat. Look up recipes online.

3. Walk, run, or bicycle at every opportunity. Do this at lunch, part or all of the way to work, and in the morning or evening. You’ll smell the changing seasons, see trees' buds or turning leaves, hear birds. Ideas will come. Just as fresh notions pop into your head in the shower, walking will untangle all those ideas.

4. Take a small, inexpensive notebook for writing down thoughts, wherever you go. These might be about your family, doing your job better, another career or hobby you’d like to try. Pay attention.

5. Go to book readings at the library, bookstores, and other venues. These are usually free or inexpensive, and it’s a great chance to get ideas, hang out with other people, and hear about things that might not otherwise cross your path. At readings within a few blocks of my apartment, I’ve heard about the French philosopher Descartes’ bones having been kept in a box after his death then marched through the streets for his supporters to see; a man who voices several prime-time cartoon characters but is also a political folk song writer with a repertoire of surfer songs about George Bush; and the college-age Tibet period of a New Yorker writer who went there because it interested her and was so cheap.

6. Watch DVDs from the library--many have terrific, very current selection; you can reserve online, or go by and see what they have left on the shelves. At my library, finding out what is left over is half the fun. Without fail, there are one or two films that I wouldn’t otherwise have seen, whether they’re Korean, anime, or Russian, from 1981.

7. Go to outdoor festivals and walk around, see the booths that exhibit crafts or the cultures of other countries, play games.

8. Go to parks. Watch people with their dogs, throw a Frisbee, lie in the heady smell of the grass, play basketball, write down ideas or draw, have conversations.

9. If you’re going to be out walking or in a park for several hours, take some water and a sandwich. That way, you can eat outside and won’t end up buying an impulse meal or break down under chocolate and junk food fantasies.

10. In a garden or window boxes, grow herbs and basics that can be used in soups and stews. These include lovely carrots, green onions and chives, garlic if your climate is sufficiently sunny, tomatoes, fingerling potatoes, and others. If you have no room, consider getting on a waiting list for a community garden plot; this is also a great way to meet other gardeners and get some fresh air.

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Copyright 2009 Catherine Arnold for Indie Thrift.

FICTION: (Continued: Cecile, the Whittled Wood, and the Hawaiian Islands--Installment 3)

Cecile slid into a seat, nodded and smiled at her table mate. Her mind was already on recording the plants she had seen, and she pulled from her bag a small notebook and stub of pencil.

Scratching busily, she rendered the large, morning glory-like flower, then began sketching what she recalled from the busy streets: leaning palms, brightly painted shop fronts, women and children on bicycles.

“Not bad,” prompted her table mate, and Cecile looked up.

“Thank you." She was pleased. Everyone in her family drew and painted routinely, pulling out drawing pads after supper, and she was not used to receiving recognition.

“New sights to you?” asked the girl, turning her head so that the hair pins sparkled, “If I may ask.”

“Yes--they're the most beautiful--maybe of any I've seen,” Cecile said, taking a deep breath so that her hands would not shake with her enthusiasm. “This is a lovely place.”

“You should see it from the air, then,” said the girl, smiling. “It is even better.”

Something about the girl’s mischievous but confident look stopped Cecile. “Are you an aviator?”

“I am,” the girl answered, “And I am Louise. It is good to meet you.”

“Wonderful to meet you too,” Cecile said, marveling. What other wonders were on this chain of islands? Coconut palms, the hula--and women flyers, soaring over the green and flowered land.

After all, sitting across from her was a person who flew aeroplanes.
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