Tag: interesting facts

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A year with the Firecracker

Being in it

Her: Are things like anniversaries important to you?
Me: (thinking) Hmmm, not particularly. You?
Her: Very. But I get it if it’s not to you.
Me: If it matters to you, it matters to me.

The thing with dating in NYC is that there are (a) so many options that it’s easy to think that there’s something better out there for you and (b) that fact also means that you’re always questioning if you’re being too picky.

Close to two years ago, my therapist told me that I wasn’t giving people enough of a chance, mainly because I go on a single date and then bail.

So, I tried dating several people for longer than I normally wouda.

Everyone was quite nice and each had her definite strong points but I couldn’t shake the feeling that they weren’t right for me.

Enter the Firecracker.

From the moment I met her, I felt like I knew her.

Fast forward a year and we went out the other day to celebrate our one-year anniversary of when we met.

It was sweet that it mattered to her, so I took her out to eat the other night at a Thai restaurant that we’ve both wanted to check out for a while now.

For me, one of the signs that a relationship is struggling is when you spend more time discussing the relationship versus just being in the relationship.

It’s been a long time since I was just in a relationship versus arguing about it.

Of course, she and I aren’t perfect, we do bicker at times.

But, more than anything, we see the world very similarly.

Her: Can we stop talking about the relationship and just be in the relationship?
Me: That’d be great, actually.
Her: I’m not perfect. I’m gonna make mistakes.
Me: No, you’re not perfect. (thinking) But you might be perfect for me.
Her: (sighs, smiles)

Location: yesterday, a snowy slope with four boys, three sleds, and one Firecracker
Mood: so full
Music: I was making jokes and you politely laughed (I appreciated that) (Spotify)
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Happy New Year, 2024!

Wrestling with Angels

Was planning on writing this whole entry about my trip to Vienna but I thought I’d take a little sidetrack to wish you all a Happy New Year.

The Firecracker and I went to the Albertina Museum and saw the Michelangelo and Beyond exhibit and saw a whole buncha things that I could tell you about.

But the thing that stuck with me was the sculpture called The Wrestlers, which is actually not by Michelangelo but by an unknown Roman sculptor.

This is actually a copy but still…

The interesting thing about this sculpture is that it’s a pretty common move even today called the “cross-body ride,” and the top wrestler would probably move to a position called a twister or a guillotine.

You can see a ton of modern examples of this on YouTube.

Now, a decade ago, I wrote about Jacob wrestling the angel and, just like that wrestling move, a lotta what I wrote there is still applicable now.

I find wrestling such an interesting activity because – like the dumpling – every nation has its own version.

Because it’s such a human thing to do; it’s a hallmark of our very species.

Not just literally but figuratively as well. I think I’ve spent the last several years wrestling with my demons and still do.

Woulda been a lot more impressed with this sculpture if the artist put in cauliflower ears like the Greek Boxer of the Quirinal.

Still, we all wrestle with our fate and hope to overcome. One day we’ll be overcome ourselves.

I’m 50 now and I’ll be 51 in 2024.

Dunno how much longer I can actually wassle. But I hope that I’ma scuffle and struggle until I’m breathless and weak – both literally and figuratively.

Hope you do as well.

Here’s to the new year, everyone!

Location: yesterday, at a Viennese cafe with the Firecracker
Mood: missing the boy
Music: In the locust wind comes a rattle and hum; Jacob wrestled the angel and the angel was overcome (Spotify)
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NYC’s Holiday Nostalgia Ride

NYC Rocks

The next morning, I was getting the kid ready to go to his guitar lesson when I realized that I didn’t have my iPad…or even my bag.

Me: Shoot, I think I left it at one of the bars last night. I’ve gotta bring the kid to his guitar practice, can you ring up the bars and see if they found it?
Her: Oh no! OK, I’ll call them.

Actually managed to stop by the first bar to see if they had it but they didn’t. And the Firecracker said that the bartender for the second bar wouldn’t be in until after 6PM, so there wasn’t much to do but wait and hope.

So, after I dropped him off, I walked back with another parent when we saw these people queuing for a movie giveaway.

Me: Let’s check that out?
Him: Sure!

With that, I got the Firecracker both a tote and a hot chocolate, courtesy of the film, Poor Things.

Now, the thing about dating the Firecracker is that she’s all-in when it comes to holiday family activities. She has these annual traditions with her and her kid that she invites my kid and me to join.

Her: You should come, Lo. It’ll be like the trains you rode when you were a kid.
Me: (grumble)

Invariably, they’re something that I thought about bringing the kid to myself but never got around to doing.

Like The Holiday Train Show in the Bronx.

Well, turns out that there’s another holiday train thingy – her kid’s really into trains – that they would go on together, and that’s the Holiday Nostalgia Ride, where really archaic trains are taken outta storage and put back into service for a blast from the past.

So, after I picked up the kid from his guitar lesson, we dashed off to 145th Street to board the nostalgia train.

We arrived at the station with less than two minutes to spare and just made the train.

Gotta say, it was pretty cool.

The maps were the original old subway maps…

…as well as the old ads and old signs…

…even the old fans…

…and old wicker seats.

Now, while I found the whole thing pretty cool, one of the kids did not and had a meltdown during the trip.

The thing with dealing with her kid and my kid is that they both trade meltdowns – sometimes it’s my kid melting down, sometimes it’s hers.

Most of the time, it has something to do with the fact that they’ve both grown up as only kids and aren’t used to having to deal with another kid. Her kid is two years older than mine, so he’s had two additional years of not dealing with another kid to boot.

In any case, one of them had a meltdown this day so the rest of the night was less than ideal.

But then the next day, things were pretty much back to normal.

I suppose any relationship – adult or child – has to deal with some growing pains.

Here’s hoping we all work it out ok.

Oh, speaking of working out ok, I found my iPad!

The bartender at one of the bars I went to put it away for me.

Him: I looked inside and figured you’d come back for it.
Me: You figured right, thanks man! NYC rocks.
Him: (laughs)

Location: home, cleaning and avoiding the rain
Mood: year-end busy
Music: I want to get off and go home again (Spotify)
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Just wear a hat

That doesn’t make any real sense

The mayor office announced congestion pricing the other day.

There were more cops than protestors but I suppose that’s a good thing.

At least everyone was dressed warmly – it’s been brick around here, lately.

If I told you that I opened up a can of coke and was shocked that no soda came out anywhere but the hole on top, you would think I was just being strange.

Obviously, if I opened a can of soda, the only place any soda would come out of would be the hole I created when I opened the can, yeah?

Conversely, if I didn’t open the can of soda, no soda would come out.

All this seems elementary, no?

But what if I said to you something like, “You should wear a hat because most of your body heat comes from your head?”

To me, it sounds precisely the same as if I said, “Most soda comes outta the can from the hole you made.”

Do you know why most of your body heat comes off your head when your head’s not covered?

Because: Your head’s not covered and the rest of your body is.

Like, if you go out into a wintery day, fully dressed, including gloves and boots – guess where most of your body heat would escape?

That’s right: Your head. Because it’s not covered and the rest of your body is.

So, it’s technically true that, “Most of your body heat comes from your head.”

But that’s super misleading.

It has the air of truth but only a little bit of actual truth to it.

It’s more accurate to say, “Heat’s gonna escape from your head because that’s the part of your body that’s not covered up.”

This has driven me mad for decades.

DECADES!

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Location: next door, having my third plate of shrimp and checking out heavy machinery
Mood: warm
Music: Baby, you can steal my sheets (Spotify)
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A Hidden Find

The Irish Hunger Memorial

Me: (hobbling home after a workout and groaning the whole time)
Her: You’re really selling this, “Look at me, I’m so young for 50” thing.
Me: I need a nap.

The Firecracker and I were trying to figure what we could do to entertain both kids when we decided to take a long bike/scooter ride down the West Side Greenway to Battery Park City.

We ended up at the Rockefeller Park Playground for a few hours where the kids had fun…

Me: (watching him start playing with some new kids) Man, this kid can be friends with anyone.
Her: That is impressive.

…and the Firecracker and I continued with some stupid human tricks.

Her: I want a cuppa coffee. Do you want some?
Me: It’s getting late. Can I just get some of yours?
Her: Fiiine.

Afterward, I ended up going to the coffee shop myself to use their restroom when I passed the Irish Hunger Memorial.

I’d read about it in Times a little while back and saw a quick little video on CBS Sunday Morning on it.

This isn’t it but you get the point.

I thought about Alison, who was fiercely proud of being both Irish and Italian, as well as the time I went to Boston and saw the Irish famine artwork there.

It was a quiet and peaceful place and, weirdly, it really does make you feel like you’re somewhere else. Now, I’ve never been to Ireland before but I can picture it looking similar.

Took this with my phone and it’s way overexposed. Sorry.

Sometimes, I wonder how Chinese and how American this kid will be. And will he have any interest in the Irish and Italian sides of himself?

I’d love for him to be able to speak Chinese, though. Unfortunately, my Chinese is so crappy, I avoid speaking Chinese to him but maybe I should just do it.

Although, at the end of the day, he’ll be whomever he’s supposed to be, I suppose.

Me: Are you listening to the Backstreet Boys?
Him: (stops singing) Yeah, I like this song.
Me: Where on earth do you find these songs?
Him: (shrugging) I dunno. (starts singing again)
Me: (shrugging also and join him)

 

Location: Two different supermarkets, trying to bake some pumpkin pies
Mood: fat
Music: Looking back on the things I’ve done, I was trying to be someone (Spotify)
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Purple (Potato) Eater

Unlimited food and Listerine

Me: 10 mins to next train!
Her: Boo!

Been on a different quest lately, this time to find purple sweet potatoes – that is to say, purple fleshed sweet potatoes, versus just purple skinned sweet potatoes.

I’d been searching for it for a while now, including at various green markets throughout the city, but it’s almost always the purple skinned but white fleshed variety.

With that said, after leaving the gym this past Saturday, it was a 10-minute wait until the next train, so I decided to look around for paw-paws.

No paw-paws were to be found BUT I came across this tiny little sign on a small table with purple potatoes and grabbed a few pounds of it.

With that in hand, I decided to continue looking for the paw-paws when I came across some Adirondak Blue potatoes from Cornell University.

Me: Are these sweet potatoes or just regular potatoes?
Him: Just regular ones. (long pause) Except they’re purple.
Me: Noted.

These I’d never heard of, so I picked up some of these as well.

Him: I dunno. One out of ten?
Me: (shaking head) No, man. It’s one outta three.
Him: GTFOH.
Me: (shaking head) For real, man.

Alison’s sickness has had a profound effect on me as a parent.

The reason why I’ve been searching for things like purple sweet potatoes is their amazing health benefits – particularly because those that eat it as a staple carbohydrate often life to 100.

I cannot tell you how many times during a week that I meet people that think that I live a particularly rigorous life, when it comes to diet and exercise but what is now normal for most Americans.

But the normal American diet and lifestyle means that one outta three people will get cancer in their lifetime.

That’s just insane. That means, outta a group of a dozen friends FOUR will get cancer in their life.

So, I do what I can so that the kid’s lifestyle is as anti-cancer as I can make it.

Nuthin’s guaranteed in life but I’m trying to do whatever I can to make this kid’s life better.

He’s my treasure, after all.

Hopefully, his seeing me drink predominately green tea and eat things like purple sweet potatoes and head to the gym four times a week will have a lasting effect on his own choices.

That is, of course, if they actually like it.

Me: What do you think?
Him: (makes a face) I don’t like it.
Me: (to Firecracker) What about you? What do you think?
Her: I dunno. It has an aftertaste of…Listerine?
Me: Wha?! I don’t taste that all. You’re crazy. (much later) OK, I taste it now.
Her: See! I told you! Listerine!
Me: (grumble) Lemme think about this…

The kid(s) have been talking about going on another cruise non-stop.

Honestly, I kinda wanna retire completely just so I can go on cruises indefinitely.

Great views, unlimited food, exotic locales, unlimited food, instant vacations, unlimited food…

Really, what more could one ask for?

Location: this evening, sitting on at playground, hearing a teacher at a French school talk about the wild horses in Chincoteague, Virginia
Mood: sore
Music: It’s a hunger that never ends, it’s an urge you can’t comprehend (Spotify)
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In Search of PawPaws

I cannot oversell them

Her: Wait, you wrote two entries but didn’t write what you were searching for? Man, you know how to draw out the suspense.
Me: (laughing) It’s not that, I just felt it deserved its own entry.

So, I never told you what the goal of my quest the other day was.

The asimina triloba plant is related to the sweetsop or cherimoya fruit plants, which are pretty popular in Australia and Asia and are essentially tropical fruit.

But the asimina triloba – or paw-paw/pawpaw/paw paw (there’s no official spelling) – is super unique in that it’s essentially a tropical fruit that can only grow in cold climates, including in New York.

AND it’s the largest the largest edible fruit indigenous to the United States.

My quest was to get my hands on some paw-paw fruit.

For years decades, I’ve been dreaming about having some – evidently, they grow wild all over the joint BUT they’re (a) extremely hard to cultivate for mass market and (b) extremely hard to transport.

And the reason for both is that they don’t ripen very well off the tree, so you have to get them while they’re ripe but once they’re ripe, they’re super soft and easy to bruise/destroy.

Found this out myself the hard way but first, lemme back up a bit.

See, I was randomly doomscrolling on IG the other day when I came across this post from a fella in New Paltz:

Decided that it was worth the trip, and the day, to finally try some out.

When I got there, it was a decidedly underwhelming experience in that it was just a lone – but very nice – fella just standing in front of an empty lot with a plastic table and boxes of fruit.

Me: Can I get these four?
Him: Sure, just put them on the scale…3.5 pounds, at $12 a pound, that’s $42, please?
Me: OK!

These were the biggest, nicest ones I could find.

I’ve never spent $42 on four pieces of fruit in my life, but I figured that I’d been waiting to try these for decades, so it was worth it.

Now, I resisted the urge to eat them right then and there – a group of young men did not and happily chomped down right then and there – and brought them home in my bag, along with everything else, to try them there.

I was gutted when I opened my bag and found one completely smashed opened.

Like I said, that’s why you almost never find them for sale; they’re super difficult to transport without destroying them.

Since they were like $10 each, I salvaged what I could and ate that one first.

It was…amazeballs.

This was the smashed one that I cleaned up the best I could and ate as soon as I got home.

Alla the talk about them being creamy and custardy and a combo of banana and mango with more banana-like texture was spot on.

Her: Wow, that’s really good.
Me: Yeah, I’m gonna have to find a way to get more.

For the rest of the week, I ate the rest, about half at a time.

The kid – thankfully – thought they were good but preferred strawberries.

Me: More for me then!

And since they were all fulla seeds, I’m gonna see if I can grow some trees from them and maybe get them to my sister or mom to grow in their yard in Queens.

These were just amazing. I cannot oversell them.

If you manage to get your hands on some – ideally for less than $12 a pound – you totally should.

I’ll let you know how the tree-growing goes.

Location: another quest for $5 beer and a shot of whiskey with the Firecracker in Hell’s Kitchen
Mood: super beat or still coming down with something
Music: I’m holding on to this hope that I have (Spotify)

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Bone Spurs up the Wazoo

5 Columbus Circle

After I saw the musical with the Firecracker, we had this talk.

Her: Do you ever want to start new somewhere, Lo? Like sell this apartment and move someplace completely new.
Me: (thinking) Sometimes. But I can’t because of the kid.
Her: But you’re always running into old ghosts.
Me: I am. But sometimes – most times, really – it’s nice. Visiting my possible pasts.


Almost exactly 11 years ago, I went to an office at 5 Columbus Circle, where I met a doctor and asked him if he was a betting man.

It wasn’t my first time in that building.

But it also wasn’t my last because when I met that doc, he and I weren’t sure if I tore my ACL. During my second visit, he confirmed I did.

Went there a few more times for the ACL and then didn’t go for years.

That is, until about 2013 – I’d stopped writing the blog then because Alison and I kept losing pregnancies – when I’d gone there with Alison to see another doc for fertility issues.

That was harder than for the ACL.

And then I went there again for another specialist when Alison got sick, a couple of years after that.

Those days were the hardest of my life. Still are.

This time around, the Firecracker was concerned because my fingers have been so messed up – I can barely type some days – that she insisted that I get them checked out.

Didn’t realize where I was going until I arrived.

So, I stood outside for a few minutes, just to regain my composure and went up.

This time, not only was I in the same building again, I was in the same office – but with a different doc.

Long story short, the new doc came out, took one look at my x-rays, and whistled.

Me: So, what’s the prognosis, doc?
Him: Well, you’ve got bone spurs up the wazoo!
Me: (amused) Is that the medical term?
Him: (laughing) Not exactly…but, yeah.

He pulled up a normal looking hand and then my hand and pointed out all the differences.

Him: Now, this is what a normal hand looks like. (switches screens) This is yours. You see that there’s essentially no gap here, here, here, here…actually, just let me show you where there is a gap…
Me: OK, what am I looking at?
Him: Well, those gaps are cartilige. You’re supposed to have them between your joints. And you…don’t. And these things here (pointing at mini-horns on my fingers) these are what bone spurs are. You’ve got them everywhere. Do you know how this all happened?
Me: (sighing) Yeah, I do. A lifetime of poor life choices.

Left the doctor’s office with my head swirling.

He said that there was nuthin to do and it would only get worse as the years went on.

Him: When the pain becomes too much, we can talk about surgery. But until then, just try to wrap it often and take it easy.

What’s promised me is a future of mild-to-worsening pain.

But I suppose that’s better than the alternative.

In any case, I still think that – most times – visiting my possible pasts is a good thing.

Not always, though. Not always.

Location: early today, waking up with a hangover from a night out with the NFL Player
Mood: hard to say
Music: Acting out our old parts, let’s perform our favourite little scene (Spotify)

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Critical thinking isn’t the most important thing

It’s issue spotting

Me: Hello, hot blonde.
Her: Hello, handsome old Chinese man.
Me: The “old” was really not necessary.
Her: But accurate!

I’ve said repeatedly that my major goal for the boy is teaching him critical thinking.

Unfortunately, the recent (massive) hurricanes and flooding happening here in the US – and abroad – around has made me reassess the contours of that.

I recently decided that critical thinking is secondary to a more basic skill: Issue spotting – which is determining if there’s even a problem in the first place.

Came to this realization seeing how many people I know in life that deny climate change.

As an aside, all self-identify as Republicans and many have a religious bent, which makes me feel all the more foolish for ever voting republican and ever being religious at all.

In any case, back in law school, I remember that everyone is taught two basic skills:

      1. Issue spotting, and then
      2. issue solving.

It’s always in that order because all law school exams – especially the bar exam – essentially tests on both whereby, if you’re unable to spot the issue in the first place, your chance of correctly answering the question is nil.

This is where I’m finding we are as a society; half of the people are concerned about answering the issue, whereas the other half denies that an issue even exists, often pointing to one lone dissenter and ending the argument there for them.

There’s no ability to critically think about a solution because people can’t even see that there’s a problem that needs solving.

This is terrifying, on so many levels.

And it’s happening everywhere and all at once.

Me: You don’t think it’s an issue that you’re 35 years old and have nothing saved for retirement?
Him: (puzzled) Retirement is like 30 years away; I have plenty of time.
Me: JFC…sit down. I need to explain a lotta things to you.

Location: my stoop, chatting with a friend that stopped by to check up on me
Mood: beyond busy
Music: don’t overthink it – like all my problems, I don’t have one (Spotify)
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Lions don’t have the keys

A ruthless capitalist with a sentimental streak.

I went to college in Cornell, which has some of the most Asians of any school, about 1 outta 5.

Anywho, my college girlfriend was Korean but went to a different college entirely.

One day, I was walking home when I saw a young woman that had her very distinct gait and I swore it was her.

As I got closer, it turns out it was her – she’d left school early to come up to my college to surprise me.

There’s a software company I’ve been following for the past year because it has a rather unique business model; its software aggregates data and then makes predictions based on the data it’s gathered.

Since the Ukraine war has happened, Palantir has been offering its services to Ukraine and I believe it’s Palantir and the western armaments – versus just the weaponry itself – which is why Ukraine has been punching above its weight so consistently.

This is not at all to take away from the sheer bravery and discipline of the Ukrainians.

But it tracks with what I’ve always believed: The most dangerous people/things are not always the strongest but the ones with the most intelligence.

If that were not the case, it’d be people in zoo cages and lions walking free with the keys instead of the other way around.

In any case, the software has access to 306 commercial satellites that can see as close as 11 feet from the ground.

With this data, Palantir can figure out which are enemy movements – to such specificity as which platoon and commander – and can predict what these enemy troops are most likely to do and offer the Ukrainians the most likely scenario that will happen.

The Ukrainians can then act accordingly.

In that way, Palantir can recognize enemy troop movements similar to how I could tell from a vast distance that it was my then girlfriend and not some other person.

The data I collected – the visual recognition of her particular gait – allowed me to realize that my then-girlfriend was visiting me, without her telling me she was there.

Similarly, Palantir takes what it knows about people/troops and figures out who they are by their unique traits – like a gait.

With that, they make warfare akin to a deadly recipe except that if you do steps 1-16 correctly you’ll end up with mass enemy casualties instead of a soufflé.

I’m conflicted on this point.

Obviously, the Russians are the aggressors here and for everyone not a Republican, clearly the bad guys here.

But we are teaching an AI program how to perform warfare at its most brutally efficient way.

As a child of the original Terminator films and the rebooted Battlestar Galactica, it makes me uneasy how very good Palantir is at what it does.

On the flip side, it’s trading at $16.42 today, off its three-year high of $35.18.

I’m nothing if not a ruthless capitalist – with a sentimental streak.

On a much lighter note, with both of our kids away, the Firecracker and I are doing basic couple things like grabbing drinks around the way and watching reality TV and cooking shows.

Although I suspect that, while we’re both watching the same program, we’re experiencing them differently.

Her: (watching TV) Serves you right, lady! Your hubris went…pluberis.
Me: (shakes head)
Her: (turning to me, apologetically) I tried to abort halfway through but I was already committed to it.
Me: This has got to go into the blog. You brought this onto yourself.

Location: my basement, trying to figure out why the lights won’t turn on. The circuit breaker tripped
Mood: recovering
Music: This world can be so cold (Spotify)
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