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Friday, June 30, 2006

Wakeup call

Traveling with Jamie is like nothing else in the world.  He loves everything about traveling—the packing, the driving, the airport, the rental car, the hotel, the actual destination (wherever it may be), and the pool (for there must be a pool).  So even though we had to drive three hours to Pittsburgh in pouring rain, fly to Seattle, then drive another three hours to the border, then drive to the Vancouver Aquarium the next day, he loved all of it—and when we got back to our hotel Monday evening, he accompanied me to the gym, where we did a light 20 minutes on bikes, ran around the track, tried out the leg press, played racquetball (he’s gotten much better at this!  despite using a racquet much smaller than the ones he’s used to!), went swimming, and played ping pong.  The next day, he sat quietly at the back of a large room for 90 minutes, accompanied (as good luck would have it) by my department head, Robert Caserio, and played Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on my laptop (with the sound off) while I did my bit as a member of the MLA Task Force on the Evaluation of Scholarship for Tenure and Promotion.  (The Inside Higher Ed story on the task force, from last year’s MLA, is here.) Then we grabbed some lunch and headed off to the golf course, which turned out to be extremely challenging, though I would’ve broken 90 if I hadn’t taken a nine on 14, or a 14 on nine, I forget which.  It was a “greed is weird” kind of course, with “exclusive” houses that rested maybe twenty or thirty yards from every fairway.  I mean, I realize that “developers” have to do this kind of thing, but would you want to own a house with a tiny backyard that sat right next to the fairway bunker of a hole on which prudent golfers would take an iron off the tee?  Then it was back in the pool for an evening swim, off Wednesday to Vancouver’s Capilano Suspension Bridge and the Grouse Mountain skyride, then back to Seattle for a midnight flight to Pittsburgh and the three-hour drive back to State College.  Jamie was exceptionally good about getting ready for bed at the airport, even though this initially made no sense to him.  He asked only for a glass of chocolate milk before he had to brush his teeth, and when I explained to him that most of the shops and stores in the Seattle-Tacoma airport were closed, he said “we should ask,” and promptly stopped a person at random: “do you know where there is chocolate milk?” (I explained to Jamie that this somewhat nice man—he merely half-smiled at the question—did not work at the airport.) We found a Starbucks shortly thereafter, and Jamie decided he would wait on a bench near security while I got some water for me and some chocolate milk for him.  I was being served just as they began to close up shop at 10 pm: I knew it would cause Jamie some distress to see his father being trapped in Starbucks behind the metal grate (aha! that’s how they “recruit” their employees!), so I looked back, and sure enough, there he was on his bench with his hands to his cheeks and his mouth open in the “Home Alone” position.  I gave him the thumbs-up to let him know I could get out again, though, and came back in a minute or two with his freshly-mixed chocolate milk.

Sometimes Jamie can be . . . well, something of a challenge.  On our way up to Vancouver on Wednesday, he announced that we were “running out of film.” I assured him that he was quite wrong about this, because I knew that there were twelve exposures left on the disposable camera we’d bought at the aquarium.  Janet took Jamie’s digital camera with her to Ireland three weeks ago.  And why did we splurge and buy Jamie his own digital camera in the first place?  Funny you asked!  When we sat down to lunch al fresco at a little restaurant across from the Capilano Bridge, I watched him drinking his soda and said, “you look so cool like that—hold on and I’ll take your picture,” whereupon I discovered that there was, in fact, no film left in the camera.

“We’re running out,” Jamie said, just as he had noted an hour or two earlier.

“Ah, I see,” I replied.  “You mean that when we got into Canada and I left you in the car while I went to get Canadian dollars, you took all the pictures in the camera?  And then you told me we were running out of film?”

“Yes,” Jamie said, with a wry smile. “Are you gonna sigh?”

“No,” I sighed, “we’ll just get another camera, you ignatz.”

“Say, ‘oh, what am I gonna do with you,’” Jamie demanded.  This is a line from Curious George, but Jamie finds it appropriate at such moments.

“Yes, Jamie, that was a very Curious George thing to do, to use up all the film and take all the pictures in the car.  What am I gonna do with you?” He merely grinned and rubbed his hands together.

At the end of lunch, I told him we both had to go to the men’s room before we went to the bridge.  But he didn’t want me to go with him.  He insisted, instead, that he would go into the restaurant alone and find the bathroom all by himself.  I approved, reminding him to ask a server if he couldn’t find it right away, and I told him I would wait for the check.  He came back in a few minutes, hands washed and everything, all set to go.  But the check still hadn’t arrived, even though we were now one of only two parties in the place.  “Let’s go,” Jamie insisted.  “We’re still waiting for the check,” I replied.  “Why?” he asked.  “I don’t know why,” I said.  Finally, our server arrived, and I had the credit card ready for her, and soon we were all paid up.  I told Jamie to wait at the table while I went to the men’s room.  When I returned, Jamie was waiting very patiently . . . but my spider sense told me to check the check, and sure enough, on the $23.51 bill, Jamie had written, just under my “$30.00,” the figure “$90.51.” I gave him a sidelong look.

“Say, ‘I wish you wouldn’t,’” Jamie said.

“I wish you wouldn’t,” I dutifully replied.  “You cannot leave ninety dollars on this check.  It is too much money.” Jamie grinned again.  “No, really.  Don’t do that, please.  It will make our server very confused, and besides, thirty dollars is really enough.” Jamie understands tipping.  He’s just not clear on the details.

On the other hand, Jamie is (as I’ve mentioned before on this blog) an exceptionally thoughtful creature, so much so that when we got home yesterday I taught him a brand new word for describing what he’s like: conscientious.  After we’d dropped off the rental car Wednesday night, and I informed him that I would change out of my shorts and into jeans for our late-night flight, Jamie objected: “Michael,” he advised me, “you should not be naked in public.” “No, sweetie,” I assured him.  “We’ll change in the men’s room at the airport, and you’ll brush your teeth and take out your retainers.  Do you want to wear long pants on the plane?”

“No,” he said after some deliberation.  “I’m OK in shorts.” And he was.  Then when we learned that our plane would be an hour late, thanks to all the foul weather in the northeast, I told Jamie that we would have to wait until after midnight before we could board.  We set up shop on a little couch-like structure right by our gate, and Jamie played Harry Potter on the laptop for a bit.  At eleven I asked him if he wanted to stretch out with his pillow on the couch.  “Are you sleepy?”

“Um, a little bit,” he said, “not that sleepy.”

“You’re not that sleepy?  I am very sleepy,” I admitted.

“You sleep,” Jamie suggested, “I will play Harry Potter right here.”

“Oh, thank you, Jamie.  That’s very sweet.  But I don’t want to fall asleep and miss our plane.” I knew there was no chance of him wandering off, but still, sleeping on the job is sleeping on the job.

“Michael!  You will not miss the plane!” Jamie said.  “I will tell you when it comes.”

I looked at him with genuine surprise.  “You will tell me when the plane comes?”

“Uh huh,” he said.  “Now you sleep right here.”

Well, one of the side benefits of all this travel is that Jamie learns new ways of being independent, like finding restaurant bathrooms by himself.  But this seemed a bit much.  On the other hand, what could possibly happen?  I would be right next to him, and I certainly wouldn’t sleep so heavily as to be unable to snap to attention if a passing lunatic tried to mess with him in some way.  And I would just close my eyes for a second. . . .  But . . . how would he know when the plane arrived. . . .

Twenty minutes later, Jamie jostled my elbow.  “Wake up, Michael,” he said gently. “Our plane is here.” And sure enough, the passengers had just begun to disembark.  Jamie had been watching carefully the whole time, even while dodging dementors and imps and skeleton men in the dungeons of Hogwarts.  Because, you see, he is very conscientious.  Also observant and mature and independent.  Also great.

So what am I going to do with him?  I will thank him for being such a great traveler and a great kid.  Thank you, Jamie.

***

I have two end-of-month announcements.  One is that I have decided to take Joe Lieberman seriously.  You’ll probably recall that earlier this month, he described himself as a lonely, principled individual fighting to keep the Democratic Party alive:

”I know I’m taking a position that is not popular within the party,” Lieberman told Broder, “but that is a challenge for the party—whether it will accept diversity of opinion or is on a kind of crusade or jihad of its own to have everybody toe the line.  No successful political party has ever done that.”

Most sane people have found this to be an outrageous remark, one that perfectly encapsulates the reasons why Lieberman should go down to defeat.  “It’s called a primary challenge, you ass,” these people say, “not a ‘crusade’ or a ‘jihad.’” And on the subject of Iraq, inquiring minds want to know:  exactly when did the Democrats get themselves a party line?

But I say, never mind these quibbles!  embrace the jihad! This blog hereby calls for a democratic jihad.  The demands of democratic jihad are not negotiable!  We insist that there be “elections” in which “voters” choose among “candidates” for “office.” We further insist that these “elections” be held on an “election day” and that there be reliable mechanisms for tabulating and reporting the “votes” cast by the “voters.” Lastly, we insist that the “candidate” who gets the most “votes” in the “election” should hold the “office” for which he or she was “running.”

We know we are taking a position that is not popular within the party.  Many people considered it too divisive and partisan a stance in 2000, and most professional politicians and their advisors consider it similarly unwise today.  But democratic jihad will not be satisfied with half-measures!  We hold aloft the flaming sword of primary-challenge extremism, and we shall not be moved!

We will call our primary-challenge jihad/crusade “Operation Infinite Justice.” Because it has a kinda nice ring to it, don’t you think?

The second announcement is that I am taking another two-weeks-or-so blogging break, this time to join Janet in some remote corner of the world.  Jamie’s coming along, and I hope he’ll wake me up when our plane arrives.  Nick will be in charge of homestead security.

In the meantime, I will leave you in the extremely capable hands of two of the sharpest, most versatile writers in all of left blogistan.  Please welcome the magnificent Lindsay Beyerstein of Majikthise (check out her new blog photo, too!) and the magnanimous Chris Clarke of the Creek That Runneth North (check out his blog . . . er . . . portrait!) Thanks, Lindsay!  Thanks, Chris!  This humble blog considers it an honor to have you as distinguished guests.

I’ll be back on July 17.

UPDATE:  About that Chris Clarke.  If you’re not familiar with his work—and if not, why not?—check out his Eliotic parody of Jeff Goldstein (he of Protein Wisdom), available on a blog near you.  This is why we call him the wittiest fellow on the Internets everything that’s beautiful about humanity (see Josh in comment 16).

Posted by Michael on 06/30 at 11:32 AM
Jamie • (20) Comments • (5) Trackbacks • Permalink
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