Springfield - St Louis - Springfield

I'd imagined our road trip involving alot of knitting while Ivo drove, but have been mistaken so far. This trip is work after all. We need to keep informed about the route and experience of our cycling predecessor and I can't read in the car, so the trip thus far has involved a lot of Ivo reading aloud from Dres' manuscript and me driving (quite slowly - mostly 35 mph) along the gorgeous flat lands of Illinois.
On our first day we stopped in Joliet and visited their museum. (This turned out to be quite helpful, as we realized afterwards that Dres had made the same choice.) The museum appears to be well funded and we enjoyed their wax-works, short film and displays about all of the many accomplishments of Joliet residents.
Although I'm not proud, the Joliet patriotism reminded me of the characters in "Waiting For Guffman" and I discovered that the film song "Stools!" was in my head as I slowly made my way to the exit.  I then had to stifle laughter as I spied a massive display honoring Dairy Queen "Someday I'd like to invent a low-fat - a non-fat Blizzard...." Parker Posie in Waiting for Guffman popped back in my mind and I asked the enthusiastic woman at the desk "What's with all the DQ stuff?"
"The first-ever Dairy Queen is from Joliet!"
Of course it is.
When we were getting into the car, I asked Ivo "You know how you thought that it was strange, that Lizzie-" ( a girl I nannied in Philadelphia) "-thought that George Washington invented colors and the alphabet?" Ivo laughed. "I bet kids in Joliet think that the alphabet and colors were invented in Joliet."

There is an incredible pride in all of the towns we've visited so far and I feel a bit guilty that I'm hearing the towns' names for the first time. I'm personally feeling a certain sense of patriotic pride as we drive through amazing landscapes and encounter incredibly kind people. (When we took a wrong turn and were set on the right course by a jogger, we hadn't turned off our hazard lights before a 13 year old boy on a bike stopped to ask if we needed any help.)

The road from Bloomington to Springfield Il was driven when it was too dark to read, so Ivo took the wheel and we popped Assassination Vacation into the CD player. The timing was ideal. We woke in Springfield with a Vowell inspired hunger for all things Lincoln. We set to the rainy Sprinfield streets and found the Lincoln Totem Pole replica that our research had never mentioned but that our audiobook had described.
We then went to the Lincoln museum and presidential Library. It is another well-funded museum and we watched their movie "Lincoln's Eyes" and quoted the line "sockdolagizing man-trap" along with the Ford's Theater actor. Remembering Vowell's inquiry of what sort of "manipulative" the old word "sockdolagizing" describes.
The rain let up and we made tracks for Lincoln's tomb, where we rubbed his nose for luck, chatted at length with a volunteer at the tomb, and shivered in the cold marble that houses Lincoln's final resting place.
The next piece of 66 was speckled with beautiful silos, many wind-farms and less road-kill than the first. We had lunch at an old "famous" cafe (with crazy sweet pies) and then left the "mother road" in Mt Olive to find the grave of Mother Jones. (It was incredible and I'll post pics later)
We arrived in St Louis in the afternoon, driving over the Mississippi, narrowly avoiding an accident on the highway (finally allowed to go more than 35 mph and we nearly hit some drivers making silly mistakes) and gaping at the awesome sight of a massive Croquet Wickett.
We met our friend Landon and he took us for a drive (in case we'd not spent enough time in a car). We drove through two of the many large parks the city boasts. We then drove through the dilapidated North portion of the city. We drove past the train station/shopping mall that was featured in Escape From New York, past the court house where the Dredd-Scott decision was made and on to the park that surrounds the Jefferson Gateway Arch.
We mustered our courage and rode the tram to the arch's observation deck. Incredible! After taking the quicker trip down the arch, the doors opened to reveal what I thought was part of the Lewis and Clark exhibit, but turned out to be vacationing Menonite families. We took a gander at the actual Lewis and Clark exhibition and then drove back to the south side for dinner with Landon's girlfriend Alison.
Today we're headed to a unique museum and then on to Springfield, MO. NPR is currently reporting a smoggy day in St Louis and a flooding Missouri river in Lincoln County. We'll use care as we travel, listening for storms and watching out for the communities that Alison (a local gal) finds unique to central Missouri.

free car? no, free whisky!

This morning began with calls and emails to PR reps to get free stuff and ended with free whisky care of the hotel. In between there was breakfast in a cafe, lunch in an Indian restaurant and dinner at a mexican place.
I'll admit, I was sceptical about visiting the Tribune building today, but my dad had made a vague but convincing case for the "stones from all over" that are meant to adorn that building, so we went.
If we ever doubted that our friend Leksi was a fantastic tour guide, we shall doubt no more. We went to a used bookstore first thing. I got a book written by a man who drove a taxi after months and months spent in an ashram about dharma on the road. (Road trip reading!) Ivo got a travel book by a cyclist. Well done Leksi.
That afternoon, we approached the Chicago River and our tour guide pointed across, saying "There's that Wilco cover art from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot." Ivo and my gasps at the two towers were probably even more enthusiastic than Leksi had anticipated. A jaunt up the road revealed the Tribune building and we showed native Chicagoan Leksi, the very bricks my father had described. They were pretty darned cool and we looked at them all and read their plaques allowed to one another.
We raced a storm to the Chicago Art Institute and even had time to see the bean at Millenium park! Just after entering the museum, the skies opened up and we officially began our tour of Rout 66.
We three saw American Gothic, the Nighthawks and a number of other modern American pieces. It was truly amazing and the mood of the pieces and what they stirred in us has created an incredible start to our trip across America (the whisky and tamales/burritos didn't hurt either).
Tomorrow we will officially begin our tour at Grant park on the coast of Lake Michigan. (Hopefully in a car that was specially chosen by the rental company's PR people, but beggars can't be choosers.)

From Logan Airport to Logan Square

We've made our first official stop on RT 66!
We are happily arrived in Chicago,  Il and everything that I've ever heard about the city is running through my head. Wind does blow garbage through the air ("What state's Chicago in? I'd say Il!") and grit painfully against my legs. Our hosts say that "Chicago-style pizza is disgusting and nothing but butter and cheese" ("....A toddlin' town") etc.
Our hotel is lovely. Chosen for it's proximity to our friend here, we're totally charmed by it. We had a wonderful lunch in the nasty heat, after a skinny hostess swayed away, burdened with our back-packs and saying "...it's no problem..." to put them aside until their 3 pm check-in.
A walking tour with Ivo's old college buddies led us through a veritable globe of segregated communities. A neighborhood resided in by Orthodox jewish and Iraqi communities led to a Korean neighborhood. (There was a deli that offered Korean-Mexican food.) We stopped in Little India for delicious milk-based refreshment and then continued down back down the road for Ivo's first experience with Korean Barbeque. (I had a buckwheat vegetable pancake.)
We're back at the hotel early, due to "jet-lag" and "meat coma" and will forgo using our "whisky tokens" that we've been given, to be used at the bar downstairs. For now, we can choose from provided reading material that includes "9 Stories" by Salinger or "The Missing Piece Meets the Big O" by Silverstein; in this hotel room that very much resembles that of a teenager in a by-gone decade (there is an old cassette player with pre-made mixed-tapes; a comforter that I swear could be an exact copy of my brother's from years ago and one accent papered-wall that a 16 year old would find intensely creative.)

Tomorrow, the Trib building and a Great Lake swim.

cultural nouse

When Ivo was in Russia, I got him a book: Unsung Cultural Icons of the Soviet Union. I saw it in the book store, opened it, flipped through and instantly saw a "Beveled Glass." This is just a normal, bog-standard juice glass, but Ivo had shown me one in one of our video chats and the coincidence made me chuckle.
Turns out, he loves the book. He's been reading it in bed and sometimes reads it aloud. This doesn't totally work, because he'll say "See?" just as I'm drifting off, trying to show me a photo from the book. A couple nights ago, closing my eyes to the proffered book, Ivo read about a popular toy that tips and teeters but doesn't fall over. "Like Weeble Wobbles?" I sleepily asked. "Huh?" "You know, 'Weeble Wobbles wobble but they won't fall down?" Ivo doesn't know this toy and it's now added to the list of things that are different about our childhoods. It's the small less obvious cultural norms that we forget about but that are so important. I think thats what makes this book so much fun and always gives us something to chit-chat about.
One cultural difference here is the chat in the street. In Zürich, I can't be in a rush, because I'll have to stop and chat to anyone I know if I run into them. Strangely, if I have friends with me when I run into someone, there is no obligation to introduce the different friends. If I'm with a group of friends and run into a friend with their own group of friends, the two groups will remain their own entities, while my friend and I do the obligatory stop-and-chat.
Last week I was rushing down the road in San Francisco and saw a friend approaching in her own rush, with bags on each shoulder and buds in her ears. I removed my own earbuds and we waved at each other and, without slpwing our paces, waved and said, "You good? - Yeah!  - Later!" and continued on our ways. I don't know which is better, but the differences strike me as comical.

new life philosophy.

Today I had what has become a typical occurrence: While walking on a new route I encountered a massively steep hill in my way. (I mean, practically vertical.)
When we first moved here, every hill was incredible. There always came this "this can't be serious!" moment. Now that I've been here a while, I find a massive hill in my path and readjust my bag, (possibly remove my jacket) and forge on, one foot in front of the other.
Today, as I leaned forward and looked at my feet (instead of the path ahead), I thought, this could be a metaphor for life and this is how I'd like to tackle them. A hill pops up in my way, I adjust, stay present and forge ahead.
Here's hoping!

Abara Kadabara

I've been writing 2 blogs at once the past 6 months. While this blog was helpful to me in Zürich for feeling connected to the states, http://deutlish.wordpress.com/ is a blog that I write with Ivo to connect to folks in Switzerland and I write an anonymous blog to connect with my emotions surrounding adoption and hopefully other people on that path. The private blog was alsp meant to prevent this blog from filling up with adoption stuff but I can't help myself and thus write this entry:


I believe in Magic; all kinds of magic. I believe in the good kind of magic like science and sports teams-induced superstitiousness. I believe in bad magic, like the stuff that fuels addictions. I believe in a magic that gets me through the day as well. I believe that little sparks of hope are like magic.


I'm currently experiencing a sense of magic that I acn't categorize. I fear that it may be in the center of a venn-diagram with addiction-magic and hope-magic (with a slight hue of sport superstition). No, it feels like betting magic, like sport/addict magic. Not sure. What I'm seeing are signs. They are fake signs that I make myself but knowing that doesn't stop them. I'll give an example of a sign-seeing internal monologue:

Will and Kate are getting married -= a royal wedding + I was born right after a royal wedding = my baby will come end of April


Another:


Jonas and Oli are coming in July + it'd be terribly inconvenient if the baby came in July = The baby will come in July


And another:
I last saw David Sedaris live when I was almost homeless + There, I met a guy who introduced me to my future housemates = I will get the call from the agency when I go see David Sedaris this April


and last of all
Our agency said that people often get chosen when they're out of the country + Ivo is in Russia = this'll take no time at all!


I think the last one is most dangerous. The others seem to fit the pattern of religious zealots who can be certain that the world will end on a certain date and then quickly rebound when that date comes and goes. The last one seems to set me up for disappointment. Luckily 3/4 of those above scenarios end with Ivo coming home, sane, lovely, supportive rationality-sharing Ivo.
I'm hoping that writing these down here will put them in a different place and might change my magical thinking. We shall see. Until then..... I'm off to bed on a unicorn's back. Ba-dum-ba-dum-ba-dum.

Asking and Telling

I have given my fingerprints and my academic history. I have listed every person with whom I have ever lived and in which cities we resided. I have described myself, given photos of myself, filled out questionnaires about the mental faculties and medical histrories of myself and my family. I have had two physicals, a TB test and discussed what an inability to reproduce means to me. So why is it, then, that our social workers blush, clear their throats and ask our pardon when they ask the question "So how would you describe your sex life?"
Our lives our open books and rightly so. We are adopting a child and the people responsible for attesting to our soundness want to know everything about us. Issues in our bed may well become issues in our home, so questions about our sex-life makes sense. When I apply for Swiss citizenship, bureaucrats will not only question myself and my husband, but also my references, friends and co-workers about my sex-life. This too makes sense. The natuaralizers need to know if my relationship is on the up-and-up and that I did not simply marry for the red passport.
I have never and cannot anticipate ever being in a situation in which my employer asks after my sexuality or sex life. When working with Planned Parenthood, the most intimate question was "do you feel safe in your home?". When working on a project for a domestic violence shelter for same sex couples, I was not asked about my sex-life or sexuality. So why do the government and the military feel that they have the right to make their employees sex-life their business. Why are they illegally ferreting out details in order to remove their soldiers from their posts?
Our California social worker has worked for the city for 30 years. In her daily attempts to help children live happier lives, I am sure that she has seen things that I would never let myself imagine. In removing children from homes and placing them in others, she has seen much that would typically be kept "behind closed doors". Nevertheless, she sat at our dining table and blushed from embarrassment, when asking about our sex life.
She needn't be ashamed. She is our social worker. I do, however, say shame on any government or military official, who would believe that the sex-lives of their employees is any business of theirs. Shame on asking, shame on telling, shame on the discrimination and bigotry that would stop Americans from serving their country.