HASAY: Perilous times for patriots

Great news! Casey, fearless leader of Club HASAY (Half As Small As You, a blogger fitness group) has announced members can reduce their post frequency to once a month instead of every Monday. Given the pace of my next 40 days, traveling all over the USA, I appreciate the change.

Now to the moment I've been dreading - public confession that I am not yet ready for the Ironwoman competition. Not even the Aluminum Foilwoman competition. We'll see how I fare tomorrow when we begin hiking in Glacier National Park. Suffice it to say that we won't be doing more than a couple of hours. And there will be no massive elevation gain.

I blame the fourth of July. It is all the fault of Independence Day eating. Never mind the years prior to yesterday which contributed to my fitness level. First I took Super Son to the incredible Vancouver Farmers Market, where he met up with friends and I succumbed to the temptation of the tiny doughnut booth. These little gems can fit in the palm of your hand, hot off the handmade batter-filled fryer. Warm, greasy ectasy. You can keep your Krispy Kremes. It'd be really super easy to forget that they are a kajillion calories - FAT CALORIES - apiece, and eat, say, an entire dozen while talking to a friend at the market.

Yeah, it would be real easy.... it was, in fact. Bad me.

Then it's back to the 'hood, for a fun-filled barbecue with all the families. This could be a terrible weight gaining event, except the other mothers are all really smart about limiting what people bring. I was assigned watermelon. That's a good, healthy choice, right? Yay, me! One neighbor made this amazing homemade potato salad, though...and I had a large buffalo burger. Still, we were pretty restrained. Just one plate of brownies with ice cream, and the portions were really really small to keep everyone from getting too sugared up. So what could have been a pound-packing extravaganza was kept to a very moderate meal level, thanks to the smarts of my fellow citizens.

Now the challenge will be eating light while we sit on our butts several days during this road trip. I'm determined to keep it down as much as possible while still enjoying regional specialities. We stopped in The Dalles, Oregon on the way to Idaho today. A billboard for the The Dalles Burgerville is a warning sign to drivers that it is the "last Burgerville for 24337 miles."

We had to stop.

The fam just listened to an audio book version of Fast Food Nation, and we've all vowed to try to stay away from fast food places. But Burgerville is different. It's got lots of locally sourced food, really good quality stuff, and engages in sustainable business practices, including treating their employees a bit better than the average burger place. Even the kids' meal toys are better than other places' - Daring Daughter got a little pot no, not that kind! and tomato seeds.

And they have Walla Walla onion rings!

I will have to hike a LOT the next two days to make up for these tastes of goodness, but it's well worth it.

My name is Fantastic Forrest, and I am a foodie.

But hopefully, I'll be a more fit foodie after this summer.

Putzing vs. Packing: Gaslighting by Offspring and the Joy of the Interweb

Luggage Art Sculpture, Santiago Airport / Aeropuerto de Santiago, Chile (Dec. 2005)

We're now down to hours (admittedly, a few days' worth) before the departure for our epic adventure.

I should be packing.

I am not.

I am putzing.

In my defense, I am doing useful things whilst putzing.

Washing loads of laundry, some of which I strongly suspect are completely unnecessary because Daring Daughter has a nasty habit of taking the clean clothes I give her to put away in drawers and hang in her closet and putting them directly into the laundry hamper.

When they are clean. Unworn. Unsullied.

I know, it sounds crazy. But it's the truth. Because she has ADMITTED it. She takes laziness to a whole new level.

To maintain my equilibrium, I have been reading these things:

1. Humorous analysis of the religious underpinnings of the Mark Sanford story.
I couldn't stop giggling. In fact, I laughed so hard I cried. But not for four days. Or in Argentina.

2. The news that, at long last, Al Franken will be seated as Minnesota's senator. It's about f*#@'n time!

3. The Courage Campaign efforts to support Lt. Dan Choi in his fight to continue to serve our country although he is - gasp! - a gay man. Pretty bold, eh? I say he should be thanked for all he's done and allowed to remain in the military. "Don't ask, don't tell" is dumb. It's time to acknowledge the reality that not all men and women are heterosexual and that it's okay. They should not be treated as second class citizens. I encourage you to sign the petition supporting him.

And listening to these:

1. RT and son Teddy performing Persuasion. It is beautiful. I've played it about 10 times in the past two days. It never gets old.

2. Johnny's Far Away from the Sweet Warrior album. I can't find a full rendition online - there's a tiny sample at the Amazon site. You should buy it. It's great. The music sounds like a rollicking old sea shanty. Professor X and Super Son really liked it, but they hadn't paid attention to the lyrics, and they were shocked at how racy and cynical the song is when we heard RT sing it in Santa Cruz. I'd known, because I'd previously listened carefully and found the words amusing in a raise-your-eyebrow kind of way. Remember, I told you RT was like really good bitter dark chocolate. Occasionally, he's surprisingly spicy, infused with chili pepper.


Things which tempt my tongue:










and












The song begins

Johnny’s joined a ceilidh band, They’re known quite well throughout the land, The Drones The Drones are signed up on a cruise

Then we learn a bit about his faithless wife, and tap our toes to the chorus:

While Johnny’s Far away on the Rolling, Rolling
Johnny’s Far Away On The Rolling Sea

And learn more about what shenanigans he's up to:

Johnny’s cruising out to sea And he believes in chastity - for some The wealthy widows bill and coo He fends off one or two, and then succumbs As they’re turning hard-a-port in the Bahamas He’s turning her right out of her pyjamas He’s turned her every which way to the rhythm of the sea He says, I can’t express myself with my old lady

Poor guy. Sounds like he and Mark Sanford had a lot in common.

3. Professor X on the phone trying to buy a collapsible car top carrier to hold all of our extra junk that won't fit in the back of the vehicle. Four sleeping bags, four pillows, four towels. We are traveling lean and mean, but luggage space is tight. And speaking of luggage....

I guess I need to start packing.

I'd better make sure all my RT CD's make it into the Forrestmobile.

Driving 972 extra miles to see the God of Guitar

I worship this guy. The undisputed God of Guitar. Songwriter Extraordinaire. And the world's hottest 60 year old. Rawr.

Take that guitar out of your lap so I can sit there, please.

Richard Thompson is exactly my type - a self-deprecating, extraordinarily talented Englishman whose mischievous grin makes me weak in the knees. We drove from Ashland to Santa Cruz, CA to listen to him play a two hour show. It was worth every penny, every minute.

Professor X introduced me to his music when we lived in upstate New York 15 years ago. I became a very enthusiastic disciple. During our year in Ireland, we flew to England to catch several of his shows and the kids loved him. When I saw that RT wasn't playing anyplace remotely near Portland, but he was in northern California, I decided to piggyback the trip on to our Ashland adventure. And we presented the tickets to Prof. X as his Father's Day gift.

Because I am selflessly thoughtful like that.

His music is unlike anyone else's. His songs are brilliant. Some, like Dad's Gonna Kill Me, about a soldier in Baghdad, are overtly political. Others, like The Sights and Sounds of London Town, are awesome commentaries on the human condition. The melodies are deceptively cheerful; the lyrics have a very dark side, a bitterness. He's like the best chocolate mousse ever. Sweet but complex. His skill with a guitar is unparalleled. I hope he lives forever.

Unequivocally Awesome

I've spent the last couple of days in one of my favorite places on earth, Ashland, Oregon. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is home to some of the best theatre in the universe.

On Tuesday, we saw Don Quixote. It was great. They had some of the most creative art direction I've ever seen. We loved DQ's noble steed, the sheep and geese, and Sancho Panza's ass.



Wednesday night, we enjoyed The Music Man. Again, it was a given that the acting would be superb. But the set design was brilliant and really enhanced the production. It began with everything - and I do mean everything - in grey, black and white. As traveling salesman Harold Hill began to stir things up in River City, little bits of color were gradually added to costumes and set. The play's conclusion was vibrant and full of life. I'd known the lead, Michael Elich, would be fantastic, because I've seen him many times before. But I was really surprised by the beauty of the singing voice of the actress who played Marion the Librarian, Gwendolyn Mulamba. Let's face it, the movie version with Robert Preston and Shirley Jones is a tough act to follow. They were terrific. But this was really lovely too.

Today was a play I've been looking forward to for months, ever since I first read about the season's plays and bought our tickets; a world premiere of a new play about Shakespeare. Equivocation by Bill Cain explores some fascinating territory:

Truth-telling in dangerous times. What if the government commissioned you to write the definitive history (make that a self-serving lie) of a national crisis? What story would you tell? Welcome to London, 1605, and the world of King James, the Gunpowder Plot, and the Tower dungeons, as William Shakespeare and his theatre company struggle to create a play to please the king and not lose their hearts, souls, or heads in the process. In a world premiere, Bill Rauch directs Bill Cain’s high-stakes political thriller with ties to both Macbeth and Henry VIII.

This is one of those plays that only comes around every so often, where the script is so rich and thought-provoking, where the audience is rewarded handsomely for their cultural literacy, where the content is timeless, extraordinarily relevant to our current life despite the subject matter being 500 years old, where there are frequent bursts of humour that keep the corners of your mouth up and deep belly laughs emerge from your lips.

We four loved this play. Every smidgen. Up to now, I'd thought no one understood how to write about Shakespeare like Tom Stoppard. Bill Cain does.

After the play was over, and the cast was greeted by roars of approval and a standing ovation, I hustled the fam out of the theatre. We walked across the bricks to the Elizabethan Theatre, where Richard Elmore, one of the very fine actors, was to give a brief talk and engage in Q & A. It's one of my favorite parts of the Festival. We always learn something interesting and it enhances our experience so much. Elmore explained that the script for Equivocation changed over time as the small group of actors workshopped the piece (the cast of 5 men and 1 woman play an incredibly large number of characters) made suggestions to writer Cain, many of which he included in the final version. Elmore plays Father Henry Garnet, accused of being a conspirator in the Gunpowder Plot, who explains his Treatise of Equivocation to Anthony Heald's Shagspeare (Shakespeare). Garnet tells the playwright, "Equivocation. Don't answer the question they're asking. If a dishonest man has formed the question, there will be honest answer." I could see the wheels turning in both kids' heads as they pondered this. Elmore also plays Shagspeare's friend and fellow theatre owner, Richard Burbage, a very different character. When asked by the post-play discussion audience if shifting from one role to the other in rapid succession was a challenge, Elmore's face lit up. "That's what acting is all about! That's why I love it so!" Okay, that's a paraphrase; I wasn't taking notes. But it captures the essence of this man's joy in his profession.

OSF also offers "Prefaces," short 30-40 minute talks before the plays which illuminate aspects of what we're going to see. We've heard from directors, costume designers, dramaturgs, composers and actors over the years. It's especially helpful when they explain some of the historical events in the plays, although I have to confess Professor X usually knows that aspect quite thoroughly. We did one for Quixote and one for Henry VIII, which we saw later this evening.

There is something so magical about live theatre. My kids really love going to plays, and this visit was no exception. Equivocation will be in Seattle later this fall/winter with the same cast. I think we'll go up and see it there again. And I heard that theatre companies in southern California and New York are going to be staging it as well. If you have a chance, get thee hence. It kicketh ass.

Got Yer Culture Right Here

Picture from Maryhill Museum website - the parking lot was chock-full on Sat.

The awesome thing about living here is that there is always something awesome happening. Two nights ago, we went into the Columbia River Gorge to Stonehenge near Maryhill, Washington. Portland Actors Ensemble performed King Lear out there last night. Spoiler alert: When Goneril and Regan kicked him out into the stormy heath, we could totally relate. Although the skies were blue and sunny, the wind was really strong, and it was darned chilly. What a fun setting, especially as the sun set.


The whole place was jam packed with people sitting in little chairs or standing. Some intrepid boys even climbed up on those shorter stone pillars and sat - great view, but I'll bet their butts were pretty cold.

Lear teaches an important lesson in parenting. Never trust your children, no matter how much they say they love you, and don't give them all your stuff before you're dead because you'll wind up wandering in the wilderness.




On Sunday, poor Professor X had tons of grading left to do, so Super Son and I went to the Portland Art Museum for the Escher exhibition. Escher is one of his favorite artists, and the curator was giving a lecture.

Last summer, as we'd traveled to the east coast, we'd been frustrated that there were virtually no Escher prints on exhibition in at the art museums in Chicago, Philadelphia or DC. I'd mentioned our disappointment to one of the information desk people at the National Gallery of Art. She explained the works were very delicate, and kept in archival storage.

She then told me that we could just schedule an appointment to see them!!

Which we did.

Much goodness in here!

Super Son and I visited the archivist, where he was instructed how to handle the prints, and we spent a few very fun hours looking at dozens of them. He wore white cotton gloves, and carefully lifted each piece of art out of the storage boxes. Most of the art either depicted impossible realities or morphing creatures. It was heavily influenced by symmetry and geometric patterns. We learned an important lesson: it pays off to whine complain communicate. We'd never have had this opportunity if I hadn't spoken to the nice info desk lady.

The Portland Art Museum exhibition included some very different types of pieces. To be sure, it had plenty of the iconic works like Night and Day, Ascending and Descending and Metamorphosis III. And we saw the wood blocks created to produce several of the prints on display. The exhibition gave us a better understanding of Escher’s printmaking process, but it also exposed us to some more realistic images.

This was probably my favorite:

Puddle, 1952.

Can you believe this was created from a woodcut? That blows me away.

Although we're about to embark upon a long road trip around the country, I feel really blessed to live where I do. There's always something beautiful here.

Choice morsels

Time to share my progress or lack thereof in the battle of the bulge. This is part of my involvement in HASAY, a blogger's support group dedicated to good eating and fitness. I've not accomplished nearly as much as I'd hoped this past week in terms of eating less fattening food and getting more physical activity. But at least I'm not gaining. And I've introduced more whole grains into the house. And I did spend Wednesday evening at the swimming pool in an exercise class with Daring Daughter. Instead of a bunch of donuts or pastries, I bought some whole grain bagels, cream cheese and lox for us all. Healthy, right?

Part of my motivation comes from some clothes shopping I did with Daring Daughter. How depressing. I resemble the women in Dave King's Beach Scene. Except my calves and arms aren't nearly that skinny. Yeah....yuck. So one of my key purchases was a pair of really good walking shoes to replace the ones I've totally worn out. I'm determined to walk my butt off.

I have a long way to go, but it's all about making good choices, one at a time.

Blithe Spirits

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Vivacious summoner: Angela Lansbury, seated, with, from left, Jayne Atkinson, Christine Ebersole and Rupert Everett in Noël Coward’s “Blithe Spirit."

I'm really excited! I just booked tickets for the four of us to see Blithe Spirit starring Angela Lansbury.

On Broadway.

I have loved her forever, since I was a girl, watching Bedknobs and Broomsticks. As a young woman, I enjoyed Murder, She Wrote very much. My late father-in-law loved to point out that the people of Cabot Cove, the town where Lansbury's character Jessica Fletcher lived, had a higher murder rate than Detroit, Chicago, NYC and LA combined. I loved her anyway.

I've seen her very first movie, Gaslight and own a copy of the 1948 classic State of the Union, in which she tempts Spencer Tracy's industrialist/presidential candidate character to temporarily stray from Katherine Hepburn's faithful wife character.

If I had to choose one role of hers which is most beloved to me, it would be this one:



Isn't she marvelous? Her acting and singing moves me so much; it's genuine and loving. I think her mothering in real life has been a whole lot more like Mrs. Potts rather than the scary Mrs. Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate. When her son and daughter were starting to get into drugs in the early '70's, she moved the family to County Cork, Ireland, separating them from that culture. I don't know if that would work these days, but it did then.

By all accounts, she had a wonderful marriage; it began in 1949 and lasted until her husband died in 2003. She's quoted as saying

I've had an incredible relationship with my husband, with my family. I know they've had problems of their own, but we have never wavered in our closeness as a family. I've had a hell of a life.

Those sentiments sound like things my own mother says, and I hope I can say the same some day. Meanwhile, I'm tickled pink at this opportunity to see her. She's 83, so it's hard to say how much longer she'll be performing. But if you read the review, it sounds like she has the energy of a 33 year old, and I believe it. I remember watching Mick Jagger strut on stage a few years ago when he was in Tacoma. At 59, he bounced around like a 19 year old. I'm not joking. Check out this reviewer's account.

I might not have booked these tickets if it weren't for the suggestion of CockleCove, a contributor to TripAdvisor. That is truly an awesome site. People are incredibly generous with ideas and answers for travelers. CockleCove encouraged me to include the play's closing performance in my itinerary. Others chimed in, including many who've recently enjoyed the play and Lansbury. Originally, I'd just planned to get discount day of tickets for whatever was available while we were there. But this is a unique, wonderful opportunity.

I can't wait!