That’s a pretty good day, as I look at it. We’re healthy, secure, happy, and we have time for each other and for the kids. On most days, Emily is home by dinner (she only teaches on Thursdays); on most days, I have rehearsal for the musical I wrote, then I make a quick dinner, or maybe Emily will pick up something on the way home. Some days are filled with meetings at the school. Not every day is an adventure you photograph. Not every weekend is a food tour of Chinatown or a trip to Canada. Not every anniversary is a weekend away at a resort.

But some anniversaries are. As the rain filled the gutters, I thought about our twentieth anniversary last year.

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We wanted to do something very special for our twentieth anniversary. We considered lots of things: the Orient Express; Argentina; Hawaii; Bali; Banff; Barcelona. Having a January anniversary in California means chasing the sun somewhere, or leaning into winter somewhere else. We couldn’t make up our minds. Then Lin-Manuel Miranda announced he would bring Hamilton to Puerto Rico, and he would step back into the lead role for that run. It would all support relief efforts in Puerto Rico through the Flamboyan Arts Fund. The choice was suddenly very easy.

So last year we left the kids with grandma (thanks grandma!) and spent an extra-long weekend in Puerto Rico.

We had a lovely anniversary dinner at 1919.

And by coincidence, Luis Miranda Jr. (Lin-Manuel’s father) was also there having dinner with the Flamboyan Arts Fund group that night.

The next day we saw Hamilton, and it was amazing. It couldn’t have been otherwise.

And by coincidence, Puerto Rico was celebrating the San Sebastian (“San Se”) street festival that weekend, so Old San Juan was the site of the biggest party I’ve ever seen. We walked all over Old San Juan with hundreds of thousands of other people, eating and drinking and dancing and listening to live music.

The next day we got a little dressed up and did a photoshoot in town. We used a service called Flytographer to connect us to a local photographer who knew her way around and where to shoot.

That night we went to a place called Lote 23, where Puerto Rican chefs and restaurant owners have permanent food trucks. There were lots of people inside, and music playing, but the front gate at the sidewalk entrance seemed to be locked. Our cab driver knew where the back entrance was, so he drove us around to the parking lot side. We got out and approached a check-in booth where some marketing company seemed to be collecting e-mail addresses and getting people to download their networking app. It wasn’t until we were all signed in and starting to walk through the entrance that we realized:

We had just crashed a private networking event connecting local startups and investors.

They didn’t care, but we didn’t overstay our (un)welcome. We bailed after a few minutes, vowing to return on a night it was actually open, and headed out to another part of town claiming to have restaurants or bars that were open.

We ended up at a restaurant in La Placita for dinner. It was the only place open, and it was fine. Emily met a cat.

But just across the street, at a walk-up bar called El Coco de Luis, we had the best, and cheapest, mojitos we had in San Juan.

We sat outside and drank out of plastic cups and be’d married.

The next day we did an actual tour of Old San Juan with a tour guide our hotel connected us with.

We had already spent a lot of time in that part of the city, but still didn’t know anything about it.

Our guide told us all about the old colony, the buildings, forts, and churches, but we also talked about current events in Puerto Rico, reactions to aid and banks and Hamilton, and different power structures on the island. She knew everybody, and took us to an art exhibit where we were able to see work by local artists, and to a bar where we did a rum tasting behind the bar with the bartender.

It was pretty warm in Puerto Rico, even in January. We made the right choice to chase the sun for our anniversary. We were also introduced to Señor Paleta.

Later that night we returned to Lote 23 and actually got to try all the different street foods the chefs were making.

We even went in through the front gate this time.

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I have to go take Adrian to his piano lesson now. He just gave me a PowerPoint presentation about why I should let him play Fortnite. Sometimes anniversaries are spent in Puerto Rico. Sometimes they are spent parenting. I love both. I’m lucky to be able to do both.

But maybe next year we can go back to Puerto Rico.

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Thanks for reading this far. As you may know, Puerto Rico has recently suffered major earthquakes while still recovering from the hurricane a couple of years ago. Chef José Andrés formed the World Central Kitchen, an organization that brings food to disaster-stricken areas, and is currently distributing food in Puerto Rico with the help of many local chefs. Please consider making a donation to support them.

At sunset, we went to the Golden Gate Bridge to catch the sun dipping below the hills.

Then, just after sunset, we went to the Palace of Fine Arts to catch “blue hour”, a time when the sky isn’t quite black. I had never noticed such a thing before, but there it is.

We went to Lombard Street to catch long exposures of tail lights against the backdrop of the city.

We went to a couple of other spots but I’ve been away from blogging long enough that I can’t get WordPress to accept the files and I don’t remember what tweaks to make to pictures to make the site like them again.

There is no other point to this post than to show off some pictures that I like. Blogs! They can be whatever you want them to be!

Poutine, for those who don’t know already (which, of course you do, since you are reading this; I doubt you came here because you did a Google search for “What is a poutine?” or something like that, because who would do that?), is a dish from Quebec that consists of some combination of potatoes, cheese, and gravy. There are countless variations on this theme. But in my mind, the standard poutine is fries, cheese curds, and beef gravy.

On my poutine vacation I stuck with traditional poutine as often as possible: potatoes, cheese, gravy. No add-ons. (Although Montreal smoked meat is an entry-level variation, I didn’t even go that far afield).

A note about poutine: it is not photogenic. A few years ago, Gordon Ramsay tried to take over an historic Montreal barbecue restaurant and class it up and he failed miserably. I like to think it’s because there’s no way to make this food look good on a plate and eventually he swore himself back to LA.

A note about this post: The text is almost entirely taken from what I wrote under the Instagram photos I put up. If you saw those already, you already know what I’m going to say.

Poutine #1

First poutine of the trip, from The Loose Caboose in Cornwall.

The first of many. #poutinevacation

I didn’t mention it at the time, but this one was sold out of a year-round chip wagon (they are usually summer-only venues) and it was a traditional curds and beef gravy poutine. It was a pretty good way to start the trip, and was overall in my Top 3.

Poutine #2

Poutine #2 on my #poutinevacation is from Bear’s Den in Akwesasne New York. Although using shredded mozzarella instead of cheese curds isn’t traditional, it’s a common variation and a way for restaurants to add poutine to the menu without shopping for a specialty ingredient.

Poutine #3

Doubling up today on my #poutinevacation (I didn’t have one the day/night we arrived). This one is from Upper Canada Village, and uses cheese curds, but turkey gravy.

I’m pretty sure they just used the gravy they had on hand for the Christmas menu they were serving. If you have gravy anyway, why not put it on a poutine? Very Canadian.

Poutine #4

Day 4 of my #poutinevacation features the regular, from Billy K’s, a highly recommended quick service place in Cornwall Ontario. Crispy fries, cheese curds, and a slightly spiced beef gravy, a la mode. Pretty good.

I think Billy K’s is also in my Top 3 of the trip. That’s two in Cornwall.

Poutine #5

I had to skip poutine yesterday because my sister cooked enough food to feed the whole city and I had to do my part. But today’s #poutinevacation stop is Cornwall BBQ, the kind of restaurant with pictures showing the owner with various hockey players and also Lou Diamond Phillips. I met Owen Nolan here when I was a kid after he played the OHL-QMJHL All Star Game. It has the chicken gravy you see at a lot of barbecue chicken restaurants in this region.

Poutine #6

Today’s #poutinevacation stop is the Côte St-Luc BBQ in Montreal. Along with St Hubert’s (a chain since I can remember) and Chalet BBQ (not to be confused with Toronto-based Swiss Chalet) Côte St-Luc BBQ is one of the original rotisserie chicken restaurants in town, still serving the same quarter chicken with fries, buns, and gravy it did when I was coming here as a kid, and probably as it did in the 50s when it opened.
The poutine uses enormous curds, and the same herbed chicken gravy they serve as a dipping sauce with the chicken. The flavour of the gravy falls into the background when it’s served on fries with salty curds like this though. It’s better as a dip.

Poutine #6

We’ve moved west of the Quebec border region, down the St. Lawrence River, to Kingston on Lake Ontario as I continue my #poutinevacation. We’re staying downtown, and it’s Saturday night, so the bars are crowded and Bubba’s Pizza is open to serve the discerning poutine aficionado even at midnight. Dark brown beef gravy, giant cheese curds, poured over packed down fries in a big styrofoam to go cup: this is a poutine built for winter. Emily and I usually go here at least once when we visit Kingston, mostly because we usually stay downtown. But it’s also very, very, poutine-y.

This is Emily’s favourite poutine, and the one she thinks of as archetypal. I think it rounds out my Top 3 of the trip.

Poutine #7

Tonight’s #poutinevacation stop is Jack Astor’s in downtown Kingston. Emily described it as a TGI Friday’s with Axe body spray (2 out of 3 songs playing just now were Nickelback), but it’s late, the sky is dropping freezing rain on us, and this place is across the street from where we’re staying.
The poutine is…fine. Curds and beef gravy are what I prefer, but the fries were too thin, the gravy was weak (so as to be inoffensive to most palates), and there was too much of the boring gravy (my sister complains of soupy poutines, and this is what she means).

Poutine #8

My high school friend Mohamed owns the Jiffy Grill restaurants in Kingston. He’s been seeing my #poutinevacation posts and invited me to come try his breakfast poutine. I haven’t been ordering any specialty poutines on this trip, but I made an exception for Mo. Eggs, bacon, onions, home fries, mozzarella, and hollandaise. Now I know I can start every day with a poutine! Thanks Mo!

This was the only non-traditional poutine on the trip. I may have to make it at home.

Poutine #9

I just want you to know that Canada serves poutine at McDonald’s. I don’t expect you to enjoy that information. #poutinevacation

Poutine #10

Today’s #poutinevacation stop is Swiss Chalet, a Toronto-based rotisserie chicken chain not to be confused with Chalet BBQ in Montreal, though its food is in that Montreal BBQ chicken style, like St. Hubert’s and Côte St-Luc BBQ.
Swiss Chalet has a Chalet sauce for dipping, and it’s herbed and peppered, but the poutine gravy is just a basic brown gravy, and they seem to use shredded mozzarella instead of cheese curds.
St. Hubert’s is probably the better of the two chains. Suck it, Toronto! Just kidding, I love you Toronto. But this poutine is boring.

Poutine #11

I know, I know! I didn’t have a #poutinevacation stop yesterday. Emily talked me out of ordering one at St. Hubert’s and trying to eat it while driving down the 401 at night in the snow. Blame her. I did have two the other day, though, so I’m not behind.
Today’s stop is a poutine chain (there’s at least one) called Smoke’s. Three things Smoke’s has going for it: Vegetarian poutine options, if you are inclined; U.S. locations (I went to the one in Berkeley before I’d ever seen one in Canada); and very squeaky cheese curds.
The poutine itself is otherwise unremarkable. The gravy is boring and isn’t really hot enough to melt the cheese curds. The price is pretty high compared to other places.
It’s lunchtime and I’m the only one here. That should be informative.

Poutine #12

Today’s late-night #poutinevacation stop is the Red House in downtown Kingston. My friend Thom, who lives here and has been following my poutine stops to some degree sent me an article on the best poutine spots in town. Bubba’s was on the list, of course, as were a number of places notable for adding gourmet ingredients.
I am not here for that.
The Red House just uses a brown beef gravy and cheese curds. Unlike most other places that use curds, they use fresh curds (I think made in-house), so instead of chewy, squeaky curds (when cold), that are soft and pillowy.
The gravy wasn’t particularly hot, so there were a lot of cold curds on top, but they did mix some curds in with the fries to add some melted goodness underneath. A lot of places will just put the curds on top and the whole thing sinks or swims depending on the temperature of the gravy and the time delay before eating. The gravy also leaned ever so slightly to the sour, vinegary side. I think if the curds or fries had been saltier this would have been a good balance.
I think if I were really into artisanal cheese curds, I would appreciate this one more. But I’m just not an artisanal cheese curd kind of guy.

Poutine #13

My #poutinevacation is over now. My sister ordered me a poutine from St. Hubert’s that I could have for lunch when I stopped at her place on the way from Kingston to Montreal to fly out. St. Hubert’s uses their peppered chicken gravy, unlike Swiss Chalet who uses some random brown gravy instead of their in house Chalet sauce. I still think that’s a mistake.
This is a poutine from my childhood, from the same restaurant we drove by every time we crossed the Seaway International Bridge to or from the rez. It’s not great (though I’ve had my standards raised pretty high on this trip). But! If you are in Berkeley (yes, Berkeley again), there is a Montreal food place called Augie’s Montreal Smoked Meat that makes a curd-based poutine with imported St. Hubert’s gravy. You’re welcome, NorCal.
I have to catch a flight now, with no time for dinner poutine at the airport. You’re welcome for all the poutine pictures. Emily thinks I missed an opportunity to become a #poutinfluencer with my #poutinstagram.
Next time, maybe.

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And that’s all! Thirteen poutines, two out of three great ones from Cornwall, but probably the best one from Kingston. All of my favourites used beef gravy and cheese curds.

Do you have any plans to take a poutine vacation? Please let me know where you go.

Here’s what I’ve been up to today: I woke up. Then I woke up the rest of the family. We’re in Kingston, Ontario for a bit visiting my dad. We were in Cornwall, Ontario last week visiting my sister and my mom. Today we’re going back to Cornwall for a big New Year’s Day family dinner with everyone on my mom’s side who lives on or near Akwesasne, the Mohawk reservation on the border.

Here’s a picture from last night!

I wrote all this on my phone. This is way different than blogging in the teens or aughts.

Goodbye!

Erin, you have spent your first ten years showing your family, and the world, that if you run headlong at life’s boundaries, sometimes the boundaries leap out of the way. Your daring is inspiring.

Erin, you have spent your first ten years showing your family, and the world, that if you hold your heart wide open, it fills all the others around it without emptying itself. Your kindness is inspiring.

Erin, you have spent your first ten years showing your family, and the world, that if you close your eyes and sing, sometimes the quiet world around you takes up the tune. Your spirit is inspiring.

We cannot wait to see you run, love, and sing your way through the next ten years. You are inspiring, and we want to run, love, and sing along with you.

Your loving father, mother, and brother.

Across the continent, The Tragically Hip played their final concert. Lead singer Gord Downie has terminal brain cancer. He announced this fact to the country, then went on a nationwide tour to say goodbye. The Hip returned to their hometown, Kingston, Ontario, and blew the roof off an arena on a street named The Tragically Hip Way. The street had another name once, and the arena wasn’t there when they were high school students at Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute in the 1980s. On Saturday night, all of Canada welcomed The Hip back home.

I am Canadian, so I watched as I could. I was in a car on Saturday when they took the stage, so I streamed a bit on my cell phone, and caught some of the CBC feed later in a hotel room. My high school self probably wouldn’t believe me if I told him I’d do that someday. My high school self was pretty skeptical. And he didn’t really like The Hip.

By the early 90s, The Hip were on the national stage, college radio darlings with real hits and fans who were certain they’d break into the U.S. market any day now. They were hometown heroes in Kingston, Ontario, and at Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute we were reminded by our teachers that they also used to teach The Hip. My high school self, attending Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute a few years after the last Hip left, resisted declaring his allegiance.

I didn’t know who The Hip were until I was at KCVI. A combination of youth and reservation living perhaps accounts for this blind spot. Or maybe Kingston-born kids my age didn’t know who they were either, not until they got to high school and the KCVI teachers let it be known who taught The Hip. Road Apples came out just as I started high school, and high school me never really noticed. He liked doo-wop, Led Zeppelin, and Green Day. Sometimes he liked Blue Rodeo. He watched the video for The Hip’s “Courage” and just got annoyed that it was on all the time. “Wheat Kings” didn’t even enter his consciousness. “Little Bones” was okay.

The Hip were KCVI kids, and that was too close. My high school self and his friends had a terrible basement band, but they weren’t trying to be The Hip. They were trying to be the Red Hot Chili Peppers, or maybe Moxy Fruvous.

My dad, a local lawyer, appeared before Hip guitarist Rob Baker’s dad, a judge, pretty often, and teased that Judge Baker would fall asleep in court, while claiming to only rest his eyes a little. The Hip were too familiar. Our fathers knew each other. You couldn’t aspire to the familiar, could you? I think similar reasoning kept me from going to Queen’s after graduation: it was across the street from KCVI, so it was too familiar. I’m the only one interested in something I didn’t do.

In 1996, after living in Toronto for a year, an American girl asked me to move in with her in California. She could see the future. She had a hundred-year plan, way ahead of me. The Hip had just released Trouble At The Henhouse, but I never heard it. At the same time they were turning directly toward Canada, winning a Juno for Album of the Year and becoming unofficial poet-laureates of the country they were singing about, I was facing the other way, breaking into the U.S. market.

I’ve been an ex-pat Canadian for twenty years. In the early ex-pat years, I began to care fiercely for Canadian things I had barely noticed while I lived there. I started going to minor league hockey games in San Diego California, though I hadn’t really followed hockey at all for most of my life. Knowing which actors were Canadian became a big deal. I formed very strong opinions about good poutine. And I clung to the Canadian music I brought with me.

I had some old tapes, The Arrogant Worms and Moxy Fruvous and Barenaked Ladies and Stan Rogers. The tapes were eventually replaced by CDs, in some cases, and later by MP3s. Blue Rodeo appeared in my collection, and so too did “Little Bones” and “Courage”, by the Tragically Hip. Just those two songs, though. I didn’t know their later stuff, and I didn’t remember their earlier stuff. “Little Bones” and “Courage” were my high school self’s Hip, and The Hip had become just another ornament for displaying my Canadian-ness here. For many years, I have been certain those were the only songs by The Tragically Hip I would recognize at all.

Leaving Canada shortly after high school means in my memory it is a fountain of youth. I was young in Canada, and remembering it makes me feel young. It heals. Being an ex-pat means always having Canadian-ness somewhere below the surface, ready to erupt. If it goes untreated it could explode into a painful, grotesque mockery of healthy cultural pride. Down through the years, music has been a salve. I can hear about Saskatchewan pirates and fields behind plows and things that haven’t yet hit me and things that didn’t come but didn’t matter, and reconnect a little bit not only to my homeland, but also to my youth. It is healing. But now that youth has brain cancer, and he is saying goodbye and on Saturday the salve wasn’t working anymore because it was the hurt.

I didn’t stay in Canada long enough to earn the grief I felt I ought to share in, as a patriotic Canadian, watching The Hip. I missed out on two decades (about five bucks’ worth) of growing together. My own emotional response was more about what I had traded, all those years ago.

You can’t go home again, right? My high school friends scattered all over the world when they graduated. My father is still in Kingston, and I go back to visit, but when I do it is not a trip back to my old house. It’s a new place, in a new community. You can’t go home again. Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute will close for good soon, after 225 years. It no longer exists, except in the memories of those who attended. Sir John A. Macdonald and The Tragically Hip don’t have a high school anymore. Neither do I.

Why did I leave? The girl. The American girl who asked me to join her, and I did. My high school self would not have minded, had I told him that someday he’d be missing that concert. He didn’t really like The Hip, and Canada was losing its grip on him anyway. He chose the girl.

Twenty years later, almost to the day, she was sleeping next to me in a Sacramento hotel room on Saturday night as I watched old videos of The Hip performing song after song. It turns out I did recognize a lot of them; more than just the two I’d always believed were the only ones I knew. Somehow, The Hip had been a sort of background soundtrack even for me before I left to move in with the girl I’d marry. I guess I could join in a little bit with the rest of Canada. But just a little. The Hip aren’t mine to welcome home or bid farewell.

Our kids were asleep in the other room. We had spent the day visiting apple orchards and watching a cousin perform in a play at the community theater. I was a long way from my house, but an arm’s reach from home. Sometimes you can’t go home again because you never leave it.

All of Canada welcomed The Tragically Hip home on Saturday night, and I watched it too. My lip cracked a little, and I tasted blood.

Adrian sat in the grass at the park, bawling and clutching his ankle. It was the fourth time he had fallen from his bike in fifteen minutes, and this time he had struck one of the pedals with his ankle on the way down. I could see there was no scrape or major injury, just a lot of frustration. He had not been successful at getting the bike moving. He would pedal once, then fall. Pedal once, then fall.

“I don’t like this. This bike is too big. I want to go home!”

He was exhausted, hot, defeated, and angry. I had let him pick out a new bike for his birthday a few months earlier, but at the time he had been a hair too short for it. Noticing how much he’d grown since the end of the school year, and being home from trips and camps for once, today, I decided, would be Big Bike Riding day at Camp Dad. I regretted my decision quite a bit as I looked at his reddening face.

The new bike, with its gears and hand brakes, was a significant leap not only in size, but in technology, and I wanted to give him some safe practice with it before the new school year began and we started riding bikes on neighborhood streets. I have either a healthy respect for or an unhealthy paranoia about my kids on bikes. I was hit by a van while riding on a country highway when I was six, and the memory of that, how quick and severe an event it had been, has always made me less than enthusiastic about my kids riding around these much busier streets. I admit I am the roadblock in their cycling careers, so every once in a while I will steel myself and try to teach them something.

Seeing Adrian on the ground, ready to give up, I wanted to let him. I hate the thought of him riding a bike. He’s still too short for this bike, maybe. He won’t be safe on it for months. Maybe a year. Maybe we’ll try again in the spring. But at odds with my desire to put the bike back in the garage is either a deep well of parental patience, or an inexhaustible mine of bullshit-proof ore: I don’t let my kids talk themselves out of trying, or talk me into letting them quit. I sit through tears and pleading, but if I am certain they can do something, I insist that they try. “Endeavor to persevere,” I think to myself, and then I laugh.

“When we finished he shook our hands and said, “endeavor to persevere!” They stood us in a line: John Jumper, Chili McIntosh, Buffalo Hump, Jim Buckmark, and me — I am Lone Watie. They took our pictures. And the newspapers said, “Indians vow to endeavor to persevere.” We thought about for a long time. “Endeavor to persevere.” And when we had thought about it long enough, we declared war on the Union.”

~Chief Dan George, “Lone Watie”, The Outlaw Josey Wales

Someday they might declare war on the Union, but today they are going to ride bikes.

Two women had entered the park just before Adrian fell the last time. They sat at the picnic table, and the scene they witnessed must have seemed bizarre: a child, evidently hurt and crying; his father standing some distance away, not moving toward him, not comforting, just watching; eventually the child stops crying and the father, still not comforting or sympathizing, insists, “Up on the bike again.” What kind of monster just stands there?

This is a common tactic I use with my kids: I wait out the frustration rather than trying to deflect attention or sweeten the deal. They’re allowed to be frustrated, and I encourage them to express their reasons for the feeling. If the frustration inspires arguments against an activity, I address those. “I’m too little. The bike is too big!” Maybe. “No, I’ve seen you pedal. You can do it. You just need some help to start.” But I don’t let the frustration itself move me to make promises or concessions.

Adrian picked up his bike, arranged the pedals to his satisfaction, then swung a leg over again, hoping this would be the last time his implacable father would insist on this torturous activity.

I held his seat while he starting pedaling. Of course I did.

He built up speed and I steadied him. He looked over at me, jogging next to him, and he started smiling. He pedaled faster.

He didn’t notice when I let go.

He flew for a time, then slowed in the grass, then toppled over, left foot reaching down to catch the ground and save himself from tumbling. He had learned from his earlier falls. That was the point.

This time, instead of being frustrated the he had fallen, he was excited that he had ridden. He bounded over to where I was standing, the same place I’d been standing when I insisted he get up and try again.

“Will you help me get started again, daddy?” he asked. And I did.

Of course I did. I’m not actually a monster.

“I didn’t surrender, but they took my horse and made him surrender. They have him pulling a wagon up in Kansas I bet.”

Chief Dan George, “Lone Watie”, The Outlaw Josey Wales

“Sunshine, daisies, butter, mellow…”

Sunshine

“Come to Greece,” my friends said, “we’re getting married.”

There are worse reasons to travel across the sea than to attend a wedding. The Greeks did it once because of a wedding too, though their reason was less celebratory than ours, and involved more horses. An even better reason was in the offing, however. “We’d like you to marry us.”

You don’t say no to this if it is at all possible to say yes, so I said yes.

“Kids, we’re going to Greece.” How do you sell the idea of Greece to children? Stories work wonders. Erin, through a friend and her Goddess Girls books, was well on her way to a more-than-passing interest in Greek mythology. She knew names like Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Athena. She was an easy sell. Adrian presented more of a challenge.

But yo, turns out we have a secret weapon. One of my favourite books, a book my own parents had read before I was born, and then I had read when I was old enough to tackle 375 pages on my own, was about a young boy growing up during the Trojan War: Whom The Gods Would Destroy, by Richard Powell. I took my copy down from my shelf and started reading it to Adrian, a few pages each night, for a couple of months. He learned about Achilles and Hector (and discovered why a family pet was named what he was named), Priam and Paris (and discovered why a French city was named what it was named), Helen and Hermione (and discovered why a young witch was named what she was named). He wondered about Bronze Age armor, and if any museums in Athens would have a set like the Dendra Panoply so he could see what Achilles might have been wearing. He learned about the Golden Apple, and Paris choosing Aphrodite over Athena and Hera. He learned that Poseidon was also called the Earth Shaker.

The story is the thing.

We spent a week in Sounio, a town south of Athens right on the Aegean, where Helen and Paris would have passed by on their way to Troy, leaving Helen’s daughter Hermione behind in Laconia. The Temple of Poseidon still stands on a hilltop overlooking the bay, and that was where my friends wanted to have their wedding. So that’s what we did.

Are you doing magic? Let’s see, then.

Daisies

From Greece and its Hermione we flew to England, where another waited.

We spent days wandering the city, and meeting up with friends (one of my oldest friends lives in the city; Erin’s oldest friend happened to be there at the same time). We were there for the start of Wimbledon, and the Brexit vote, a West End show and the crown jewels.

Both Erin and Adrian love Harry Potter, but Erin…Erin has been method-acting as Hermione for some time. Her accent is getting pretty good, and at the end of the school year I had, on more than one occasion, to remove excess books from her arms, props she wished to carry with her to feel more like Hermione Granger (“Grane-jah”). She is enraptured.

The story is the thing.

Erin fantasized about meeting J.K. Rowling, or scoring tickets to the (not-yet-performed) play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Such encounters were not meant to be.

But yo, turns out we have a secret weapon. The Warner Bros. studio where the films were, well, filmed is a short train ride outside of London.

We saw props from the movies, interviews and behind-the-scenes footage. The kids rode brooms, walked through Number 4 Privet Drive, boarded the Hogwart’s Express, and took Wand Combat lessons.

Are you doing magic? Let’s see, then.

Butter

From England and its Hermione we took a train to Paris, where another awaited.

We spent days eating croissants and crepes, butter and cheese flying everywhere. We saw the Mona Lisa and Disneyland Paris, the Eiffel Tower and an exhibit on furniture design. We were there for the Euro 2016, Canada Day, the Fourth of July, and my own birthday. That day coincided with another event, happening in New York: Lin-Manuel Miranda’s last performance in Hamilton, a show whose protagonist-antagonist meeting is deliberately modeled after Harry Potter meeting Draco Malfoy.

The story is the thing.

I mention this because at the same time the kids were discovering Greek mythology and the Wizarding World, we were all, as a family, growing obsessed with Hamilton and it just so happened that our trip involved Independence Day (the day, not the movie) and we were thinking a lot about Alexander Hamilton and the American Revolution and the kids’ favourite character from the show…

Yo, turns out we have a secret weapon.

An immigrant you know and love

Who’s unafraid to step in.

He’s constantly confusin’, confoundin’ the British henchmen.

Everyone give it up for America’s favorite fightin’ Frenchman!

Lafayette!

Lafayette, who sailed across the sea on his ship, the Hermione, to fight a war far from his home, is buried in Paris, in American soil from Bunker Hill. Every year, around the Fourth of July, in a private military ceremony at Picpus Cemetery, a new American flag is raised where Lafayette lies. It is the one day of the year the cemetery is closed to the public.

But yo, turns out we have a secret weapon. Did you know you can just email the U.S. State Department? That’s true! And they might even email you back. With their help, I contacted the Sons of the American Revolution, who host the flag ceremony, and asked if maybe a traveling American family might pay their respects to Lafayette on this day and…

Erin stood next to the Ambassador to France during the ceremony, with a better view than anyone.

Are you doing magic? Let’s see, then.

Mellow

From Paris and its Hermione we flew back home, where the events of the month would settle somehow, turning into memories, and then, if they were good enough, into stories.

The story is the thing.

I took this photo of an old projector in the Beat Generation exhibit at the Pompidou Centre in Paris last week. One of the projects of the Beat artists, so I am told, was to use the tools of modernity in the process of critiquing modernity.

I am not doing that. I just want to see if this version of Open Live Writer (an open source version of the long-dead-but-beloved-by-me Windows Live Writer) does what I want it to do. Shall I use this new-old tool to return to my old-new tool?

Let’s see if this worked.

Honk if you love blogs.

When I entered the room, she had sharp metal and suffocating pillows pressed into Erin’s mouth, and Erin choked, and coughed, and cried around them. Erin reached up to try to force her assailant’s hands away, to free herself. “It’s okay, it’ll be over soon,” the masked stranger whispered, forcing Erin to breathe more gas as she grabbed a syringe and plunged it into Erin’s mouth.

Erin cried more, and fought, and succeeded in forcing a gloved hand away from her face. Her enemy hesitated for the briefest moment, and Erin took advantage of the uncertainty. She wrested control of her mouth back, and used her tongue to free her airway, sitting up and reaching for me as I made my way through the door.

“I can’t breathe!” she protested, and reached for me.

I turned to the woman in the chair. “That’s enough. We’re done.”

“But she…” she started to say. I didn’t let her finish, “No. We’re done.”

And that’s how I saved Erin from the dental hygienist who was trying to apply sealant to her molars. That kid needs to learn how to breathe through her nose.